..... this missal is hereafter to be followed absolutely, without any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment or censure, and may freely and lawfully be used ..... Nor are superiors, administrators, canons, chaplains, and other secular priests, or religious, of whatever title designated, obliged to celebrate the Mass otherwise than as enjoined by Us. ..... Accordingly, no one whatsoever is permitted to infringe or rashly contravene this notice of Our permission, statute, ordinance, command, precept, grant, direction, will, decree and prohibition. Should any person venture to do so, let him understand he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.

Pope St. Pius V, Papal Bull, QUO PRIMUM,

Tridentine Codification of the traditional Roman Rite of the Mass.

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

St. Louis, King of France, Confessor

August 25, 2019

In today’s liturgy the Church teaches us that almighty God gives divine aid to those who ask for it with confidence.

It was owing to his prayer that Ezechias recovered from a mortal disease and that his people were delivered from their enemies, and it was through His prayer on the cross that Jesus rose from the dead (Epistle), and that He raises His people to a new life by Baptism of which the cure of the deaf-mute, due also to our Lord’s prayer (Gospel) was a type.

Since it as by the power of the Holy Ghost that our Lord drove out the evil spirit from the deaf-mute and that priests in Christ’s name expel the devil from the soul of the baptized, we can understand how the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost is connected with the Paschal Mystery, in which we celebrate, after the resurrection of Christ, the descent of the Holy Ghost on the Church, and when catechumens are baptized with water and the Holy Ghost, so that as St. Paul teaches, being buried with Christ they may also rise with Him.

The Kingdom of the ten tribes (Israel) lasted about two hundred years (938-726) and had nineteen kings, almost all of whom did evil in the sight of the Lord.

Then God, to punish them, delivered their country into the hands of their enemies. In 722 B.C., Salmanasar besieged Samaria and led Israel captive into Assyria, their place being taken by heathen who themselves became half converted to Israel’s God. These were called Samaritans, from Samaria itself.

The kingdom of Juda lasted about three hundred and fifty years (938-586), and had twenty kings. Once only was the royal house on the point of extinction, when it was saved by the priests who hid Joas in the temple in the time of Athalia. Many of these kings were wicked, others, like Solomon ended badly, but four of them, namely Josaphat, Joathan, Ezechias, and Josias, were, up to the very end, great servants of God.

In the divine office for this week we read of Ezechias, the thirteenth king of Juda. “He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign: and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem.” It was in the sixteenth year of his reign that faithless Israel was led into captivity. “King Ezechias,” Says Holy Scripture, “trusted in the Lord God of Israel: so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Juda, not any of them that were before him…wherefore the Lord also was with him: and in all things to which he went forth he behaved himself wisely.”

When Sennacherib, king of Assyria, wished to take Jerusalem, Ezechias went up to the temple, and there addressed a prayer to God as pure as any prayer of David or Solomon. Thereupon the prophet, Isias told Ezechias to fear nothing for God would protect his kingdom; and the angel of the Lord struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp, so that Sennacherib, terrified, returned by forced marches to Nineveh, where he perished by the sword. When He had annihilated the kingdom of the impenitent Israel, God granted more than a hundred years more of national survival to repentant Juda.

However, Ezechias fell seriously ill and Isaias told him that he was going to die; whereupon, addressing almighty God, the King said: “I beseech thee, O Lord, remember how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is pleasing before thee” (Magnificat antiphon). Then Isaias was sent by almighty God to the King with this message: “I have heard thy prayer and I have seen thy tears: and behold I have healed thee. On the third day thou shalt go up to the temple of the Lord.”

As a matter of fact Ezechias was cured and reigned for another fifteen years. This cure of the king, who escaped from the kingdom of death on the third day, is a type of the resurrection of our Lord. For the Epistle today the Church has chosen a passage where St. Paul reminds us that “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day,” and that it is by our faith in this doctrine that we shall be saved, like the apostle himself.

For the same reason the Introit is from Psalm 67, in which the same apostle sees a prophecy of the ascension (Ephesians, 4, 8), which is the complement of our Lord’s resurrection, as we say in the Credo: “He ascended into heaven.” The Offertory is from Psalm 29 which is also applied by the Church to our Lord’s ascension, and in which the psalmist actually says: “Thou hast healed me.” In its turn the Gradual, speaks of Him whose flesh has “flourished again.”

It was owing to the prayers which Ezechias poured forth to God, and to the tears which he shed on his deathbed, that he was restored to life. “Ezechias was visited by sickness,” says St. Jerome, “and was told that he was going to die, so that, turning to the Lord, he might ward off His decree. Therefore the king shed many tears” (2^nd Nocturn).

In the same way it was by His prayer “offered with a strong cry and tears” on the cross (Gradual), that Christ obtained His resurrection. Further, as it was due to the prayers of Ezechias, that the people of Juda were delivered from the attacks of Sennacherib, so it was through our Lord’s prayers that the true people of God were delivered, for, in the words of the Easter Preface, He “be dying hath taken away the sins of the world, and be rising again hath restored our life.” Since it is by Baptism that we are buried with Christ and that we rise again with Him to a new life, today’s Gospel is that of the cure of the deaf-mute, which, while reminding us of the cure of Ezechias, puts before our eyes a rite used by the Church herself in Holy Baptism. Jesus puts his fingers into the ears of the deaf-mute to show that it is by the Holy Ghost “the finger of God” that He drives out the evil spirit; He touches the tongue of the man with saliva to show that He is going to loose his tongue that it may utter words of wisdom; and He raises His eyes to heaven and groans to make it clear that it is from God that He expects the cure of the afflicted man, as the answer to His prayer.

“He raised His eyes to heaven” says St. Gregory in effect, “and groaned, not because He thought it necessary to groan, He who Himself gave what He asked, but to teach us to groan to heaven to Him who reigns in heaven, that He may open our ears by the gift of the Holy Ghost, and be saliva from His mouth, that is, by the knowledge of His divine word, may loose our tongue that it may be able to preach the truth” (3^rd Nocturn).

Therefore, speaking by the power of God, our Lord says: “Ephpheta, which is, be thou opened: and immediately the ears of the deaf-mute were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed.” So, in Baptism, the priest, having put a little salt, representing wisdom, into the child’s mouth, in Christ’s name and by the power of the Holy Ghost, commands the unclean spirit to withdraw from the baptized person. Then he takes a little saliva and touches the ears and the nostrils of the child with it. Saying, like our Lord: Ephpheta,” open your heart to the things of faith. And the soul passes shortly after from the death of sin in which it lay buried, and which makes it deaf and dumb in the supernatural world, and rises to a new life.

By restoring to us the divine life, Baptism unites us with our Lord’s resurrection of which the cure of Ezechias was a type. Therefore
all rejoice, in God their helper, and sing aloud to the God of Jacob” (Alleluia) who, “out of the abundance of” His “loving kindness”, is wont to go beyond the hopes and desires of the suppliant, and to pour forth His mercy upon them (Collect), by distributing to us in abundance the fruits of the Holy Ghost (Communion).

The Church is pleased to honour during the octave of the Assumption St. Bernard, the honey-mouthed Doctor, Doctor Mellifuus, whose principal title of glory is to have celebrated with ineffable tenderness and ardent piety, in his prayers, his books and sermons, the varied greatness of Mary.

INTROIT:

Ps. 67. God in His Holy place; God who maketh men of one mind to dwell in His house: He shall give power and strength to His people.

Ps. Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered; and let them flee from before His face. Glory be, etc.

COLLECT:

Almighty, everlasting God, who, in the abundance of Thy loving kindness, dost exceed both the merits and the desires of those who pray unto Thee, pour down upon us Thy mercy: forgiving us those things which our conscience fears, and granting us those good things which our prayer does not presume to ask. Through our Lord, etc.

O God, who didst take blessed Louis, Thy Confessor, from an earthly throne to the glory of Thy heavenly kingdom; grant, we pray, through his merits and prayers, that Thou make us to share with the King of Kings, Jesus Christ Thy Son. Who liveth and reigneth, etc.

From all perils of soul and body defend us, O Lord, we beseech Thee, and by the intercession of the blessed and glorious Virgin Mary, Mother of God, of blessed Joseph, of Thy blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and all the Saints, graciously grant us safety and peace, that all adversities and errors being overcome, Thy Church may serve Thee in security and freedom. Through our Lord, etc.

EPISTLE: 1 Cor. 15, 1-10.

Brethren, I make known unto you the Gospel which I preached to you, which also you have received and wherein you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast after what manner I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all, which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures; and that He was seen by Cephas, and after that by the eleven. Then was He seen by more than five hundred brethren at once; of whom many remain until this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the Apostles. And last of all He was seen by me, as by one born out of due time. For I am the least of the Apostles, who am not worthy to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am; and His grace in me hath not been void.

INSTRUCTION

I. St. Paul warns the Corinthians against those who denied the Resurrection of Christ and exhorts them to persevere in the faith which they have received, and to live in accordance with the same. Learn from this to persevere firmly in the one, only saving Catholic faith, which is the same that Paul preached.

II. In this epistle to the Corinthians St. Paul gives us a beautiful example of humility. Because of the sins he had committed before his conversion, he calls himself one born out of due time, the least of the apostles, and not worthy of being called an apostle, although he had labored much in the service of Christ. He ascribes it to God’s grace that he was what he was. Thus speaks the truly humble man: he sees in himself nothing but weakness, sin, and evil, and therefore despises himself and is therefore willing to be despised by others. The good which he professes or practices, he ascribes to God, to whom he refers all the honor. Endeavor, too, O Christian soul, to attain such humility. You have far more reason to do so than had St. Paul, because of the sins which you have committed since your baptism, the graces which you have abused, and the inactive, useless life you have led.

ASPIRATION

Banish from me, O most loving Saviour, the spirit of pride, and grant me the necessary grace of humility. Let me realize that of myself I can do nothing, and that all my power to effect any good, comes from Thee alone who alone workest in us to will and to accomplish.

GRADUAL:

Ps. 27. In God hath my heart confided, and I have been helped; and my flesh hath flourished again; and with my will I will give praise to Him. Unto thee will I cry, O Lord: O my God, be not Thou silent; depart not from me. Alleluia, alleluia.

Ps. 80. Rejoice to God our helper; sing aloud to the God of Jacob; take a pleasant psalm with the harp. Alleluia.

GOSPEL: Mark 7, 31-37.

At that time, Jesus going out to the coasts of Tyre, came by Sidon to the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis. And they bring to Him one deaf and dumb, and they besought Him that He would lay His hand upon him. And taking him from the multitude apart, He put His fingers into his ears, and spitting, He touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, He groaned and said to him: Ephpheta, that is, Be thou opened: and immediately his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke right. And He charged them that they should tell no man: but the more He charged them so much the more a great deal did they publish it; and so much the more did they wonder, saying: He hath done all things well; He hath made both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.

Whom may we understand by the deaf and dumb man?

Those who desire neither to hear nor to speak of things concerning salvation.

Why did Christ take the deaf and dumb man aside?

To teach us that he who wishes to live piously and be comforted, must avoid the noisy world and dangerous society, and love solitude, for there God speaks to the heart (Osee 2, 14).

Why did Christ forbid them to mention this miracle?

That we might learn to fly from the praise of vain and fickle men.

What do we learn from those who brought the deaf and dumb man to Jesus, and notwithstanding the prohibition, made known the miracle?

That in want and sickness we should kindly assist our neighbor, and not neglect to announce and praise the works of God, for God works His miracles that His goodness and omnipotence may be known and honored.

SUPPLICATION O Lord Jesus, who during Thy life on earth, didst cure the sick and the infirm, open my ears that they may listen to Thy will, and loosen my tongue that I may honor and announce Thy works. Take away from me, O most bountiful Jesus, the desire for human praise, that I may not be led to reveal my good works, and thus lose the reward of my Heavenly Father (Matt. 6, 1).

OFFERTORY:

Ps. 29. I will extol Thee, O Lord, for Thou hast upheld me; and hast not made mine enemies to rejoice over me; O Lord, I have cried to Thee, and Thou hast healed me.

SECRET:

Look down graciously, O Lord, we pray, upon our service, that what we present may be an acceptable offering to Thee, and be an aid in our frailty. Through our Lord, etc.

Grant, we pray, almighty God, that even as blessed Louis, Thy Confessor, despised the allurements of this world and aimed solely to please Christ his King, so his prayers may make us well-pleasing to Thee. Through the same Lord, etc.

Hear us, O God, our salvation, that through the power of this sacrament Thou mayest defend us from all enemies of soul and body and bestow upon us grace here and glory hereafter. Through our Lord, etc.

COMMUNION:

Prov. 3. Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first of all thy fruits: and thy barns shall be filled with abundance, and thy presses shall run over with wine.

POSTCOMMUNION:

We ask, O Lord, that in the reception of Thy sacrament we may experience help both for mind and body, that saved in both we may glory in the fullness of this heavenly remedy. Through our Lord, etc.

O God, Who didst make Thy blessed Confessor Louis wondrous upon earth and glorious in heaven, do Thou, we pray, appoint him a defender of Thy Church. Through our Lord, etc.

May the offering of this divine sacrament cleanse and protect us, O Lord, we beseech Thee; and by the intercession of the blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, of blessed Joseph, of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and all the saints, may it purify us from all sin and free us from all adversity. Through our Lord, etc.

PROPER OF THE SAINTS FOR THE WEEK OF AUGUST 25^th:

25	Sun	11th Sunday after Pentecost St. Louis IX, King of France	sd	G		Mass 9:00 AM, Confessions 8:00 AM, Rosary of Reparation 8:30 AM
26	Mon	St. Zephyrinus, PM	sp	R		Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
27	Tue	St. Joseph Calasanctius, C	d	W		Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
28	Wed	St. Augustine, BpCD *St. Hermes, M*	d	W		Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
29	Thu	Beheading of St. John the Baptist *St. Sabina, M*	dm	R		Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
30	Fri	St. Rose of Lima, V *Ss. Felix & Adauctus, Mm*	d	W	A	Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
31	Sat	St. Raymund Nonnatus, C *BVM Health of the Sick* *BVM of Consolation*	d	W		Mass 9:00 AM; Confessions 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
1	Sun	12th Sunday after Pentecost St. Giles, Ab Twelve Holy Brothers, Mm	sd	G		Mass 9:00 AM, Confessions 8:00 AM, Rosary of Reparation 8:30 AM

“He hath done all things well; He hath made both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.”

“Faithfully do what God expects of you each moment, and leave the rest up to Him.

I assure you that living in this manner will bring you great peace.”

St. Jane Francis de Chantal

It “covereth” first the sins of others, and then consequently, our own.

But before all things have a constant mutual charity among yourselves: for charity covereth a multitude of sins.

1 Peter 4, 8

That they might know that by what things a man sinneth, by the same also he is tormented.

Wisdom 11:17

“I will send forth famine into the land, not a famine of bread . . . but of hearing the word of the Lord, . . . they shall go about seeking the word of the Lord and shall not find it.”

Amos 8:11

“Invincible ignorance is a punishment for sin.”

St. Thomas Aquinas (De Infid. q. x., art. 1.)

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

“Want a mess... great disorder... trouble in the dioceses,” Take a Look Around!

I want to tell you something. What is it that I expect as a consequence of World Youth Day? I want a mess. We knew that in Rio there would be great disorder, but I want trouble in the dioceses! I want to see the church get closer to the people. I want to get rid of clericalism, the mundane, this closing ourselves off within ourselves, in our parishes, schools or structures. Because these need to get out!

Pope Francis at World Youth Day, Brazil

“We must remember that if all the manifestly good men were on one side and all the manifestly bad men were on the other, there would be no danger of anyone, least of all the elect, being deceived by lying wonders. It is the good men, good once, we must hope good still, who are to do the work of Anti-Christ and so sadly to crucify the Lord afresh.... Bear in mind this feature of the last days, that this deceitfulness arises from good men being on the wrong side.”

Fr. Frederick Faber quoted by Fr. Denis Fahey, The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World

“In the evening of life, we shall be judged on love.”

St. John of the Cross

“Unity of Faith..... the first of those bonds which unite man to God.”
Agreement and union of minds is the necessary foundation of this perfect concord among men, from which concurrence of wills and similarity of action are the natural results. Wherefore, in His divine wisdom, He ordained in His Church Unity of Faith; a virtue which is the first of those bonds which unite man to God, and whence we receive the name of the faithful...

Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum

ON RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES

What are ceremonies?

Religious ceremonies are certain forms and usages, prescribed for divine service, for the increase of devotion, and the edification of our fellow-men; they represent externally and visibly the interior feelings of man.

Why do we make use of ceremonies in our service?

That we may serve God not only inwardly with the soul, but outwardly with the body by external devotion; that we may keep our attention fixed, increase our devotion, and edify others; that by these external things we may be raised to the contemplation of divine, inward things (Trid. Sess. 22).

Are ceremonies founded on Scripture?

They are; for besides those which Christ used, as related in this day’s gospel, in regard to the deaf and dumb man, He has also made use of other and different ceremonies: as, when He blessed bread and fishes (Matt. 15, 36); when He spread clay upon the eyes of a blind man (John 9, 6); when He prayed on bended knees (Luke 22: 41); when He fell upon His face to pray (Matt. 26: 39), when He breathed upon His disciples, imparting to them the Holy Ghost (John 20: 22); and finally, when He blessed them with uplifted hands before ascending into heaven (Luke 24: 30). Likewise in the Old Law various ceremonies were prescribed for the Jews, of which indeed in the New Law the greater number have been abolished; others, however, have been retained, and new ones added. If, therefore, the enemies of the Church contend that ceremonies are superfluous, since Christ Himself reproached the Jews for their ceremonial observances, and said: God must be adored in spirit and in truth, we may, without mentioning that Christ Himself made use of certain ceremonies, answer, that He did not find fault with their use, but only with the intention of the Jews. They observed every ceremony most scrupulously, without at the same time entertaining pious sentiments in the heart, and whilst they dared not under any circumstances omit even the least ceremony, they scrupled not to oppress and defraud their neighbor. Therefore Christ says: God must be adored in spirit and in truth, that is, in the innermost heart, and not in external appearances only. Do not, therefore, let the objections, nor the scoffs and sneers of the enemies of our Church confound you, but seek to know the spirit and meaning of each ceremony, and impress them on your heart, and then make use of them to inflame your piety, to glorify God, and to edify your neighbor.

INSTRUCTION CONCERNING THE ABUSE OF THE TONGUE

There is no member of the body more dangerous and pernicious than the tongue. The tongue, says the Apostle St. James, is indeed a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold how small a fire kindleth a great wood. And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is placed among our members, which defileth the whole body, and inflameth the wheel of our nativity, being set on fire by hell (James 3: 5-6). The tongue no man can tame: an unquiet evil, full of deadly poison. By it we bless God and the Father; and by it we curse men, who are made after the likeness of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing (ibid. 3: 8-10). There is no country, no city, scarcely a house, in which evil tongues do not cause quarrel and strife, discord and enmity, jealousy and slander, seduction and debauchery. An impious tongue reviles God and His saints, corrupts the divine word, causes heresy and schism, makes one intemperate, unchaste, envious, and malevolent; in a word, it is according to the apostle a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue of the serpent seduced our first parents, and brought misery and death into the world (Gen. 3). The tongue of Judas betrayed Jesus (Matt. 26: 49). And what is the chief cause of war among princes, revolts among nations, if it is not the tongue of ambitious, restless men, who seek their fortune in war and revolution? How many, in fine, have plunged themselves into the greatest misery by means of their unguarded tongue? How can we secure ourselves against this dangerous, domestic enemy? Only by being slow to speak according to the advice of St. James (1:19), to speak very few, sensible, and well-considered words. In this way we will not offend, but will become perfect (James 3:2). As this cannot happen without a special grace of God, we must according to the advice of St. Augustine beg divine assistance.

The devil’s worst and most fatal preparation for the coming of Antichrist is the weakening of men’s belief in eternal punishment. Were they the last words I might ever say to you, nothing should I wish to say to you with more emphasis than this, that next to the thought of the Precious Blood, there is no thought in all your faith more precious or more needful for you than the thought of eternal punishment.

Fr. Fredrick Faber, Lenten Sermon, delivered a few months before his death

They (the modernists) exercise all their ingenuity in an effort to weaken the force and falsify the character of Tradition, so as to rob it of all its weight and authority. But for Catholics nothing will remove the authority of the Second Council of Nicea, where it condemns those `who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind.... or endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church’; nor that of the declaration of the Fourth Council of Constantinople: `We therefore profess to preserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, by the Holy and most illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both general and local, and by every one of those divine interpreters, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: “I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church.”

St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominid Gregis

“Discipline is selfless self-reservation. Indiscipline is self-destruction through selfish debasement of powers intended for self-preservation.”

Josef Pieper, A Brief Reader on the Virtues of the Human Heart

Your divine Providence, O God, takes care of all Your creatures as though they were but one, and it takes care of each one as though all others were contained in it. Oh! If Your Providence were only understood, everyone would forget the things of this world to be united to it.

St. Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi

BAPTISMAL GRACE ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Presence of God ‑ Grant, O Lord; that the grace of holy Baptism may reach its full development in me.

MEDITATION:

I. The healing of the deaf‑mute, as narrated in today’s Gospel (Mk 7: 31‑37), is a figure of baptismal grace. We, too, were once taken before Jesus in a condition similar to that of the poor man in Galilee. We were deaf and dumb in the life of the spirit, and Jesus, in the person of the priest, welcomed us lovingly at the baptismal font. The priest made the same gesture over us and said the same word as did the divine Master in the Gospel: “Ephpheta,” “Be thou opened!” From that moment the hearing of our soul was opened to faith and our tongue was loosed to give praise to God. We were enabled to listen to the voice of faith‑ to the exterior voice of the teaching Church and to the interior voice of the Holy Spirit, urging us to do good; from that moment, we could open our lips in prayer: in praise, adoration, and petition. But later the noise of the world deafened and distracted us; likewise, the tumult of our passions deadened our capacity to listen to the voice of God. Then, too, idle conversations about worldly things and great anxiety over various events in our life have left us unable to pray sincerely and earnestly. But Jesus wishes to renew the grace of our Baptism today and to repeat the all‑powerful word “Ephpheta.” How greatly we need Him to reopen our ears to His voice and to make us more attentive and sensitive to His call! “In the morning He wakeneth my ear that I may hear Him as a master; I do not resist, I have not gone back,” says Isaias (50: 4‑5). This is the grace we must ask of Our Lord today, that we may not only hear His voice, but may follow it, without resistance. The more faithfully we follow it, the more sensitive we shall become to its slightest whisper. At the same time let us ask for the grace of always being ready to give praise to the Lord, to call upon His mercy, to ask His pardon humbly, accusing ourselves of our faults sincerely and with sorrow.

2. Those who were present when Jesus performed this miracle wondered at it, saying, “He hath done all things well; He hath made both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak.” Certainly, Jesus has done all things well; He has arranged everything in the best way possible for our sanctification. He has prepared for us all the graces we need, and not only in sufficient measure, but even superabundantly. Unfortunately, however, we do not always cooperate with His grace; many times pride, egoism, and all our other uncontrolled passions turn to evil what God has planned for our good. If we had accepted lovingly and with resignation that difficulty, that trial, or disappointment which God had permitted for the sole purpose of providing us with an opportunity to practice virtue, we should have made great progress; but by giving way to impatience, by protesting and complaining, we rather added to our failures and infidelities. We should cooperate with grace more readily and strive to maintain our soul in an attitude of open docility to all the invitations to virtue which God is continually sending us by means of the different circumstances of life.

Today’s Mass, and especially the Epistle (1 Cor 15: 1-10), offers us a splendid model of cooperation with grace. It is St. Paul, the Apostle, who in his humility calls himself “the least of the Apostles,” who says most sincerely: “By the grace of God, I am what I am, and His grace in me hath not been void.” St. Paul realizes that, if he became an Apostle, instead of the persecutor which he had been, it was not because of his own merits, but solely by the grace of God; he attributes nothing to himself, but all to God. At the same time, he is conscious of his personal correspondence, the correspondence which is always the fruit of grace, but which also includes, as an indispensable element, our free adherence to it. Consequently, we must have an attitude of profound humility as the basis of our correspondence to grace; that is, we must clearly realize that whatever good is in us is due only to God. This attitude of humility must be accompanied by a voluntary, continual assent of our will to God’s invitations. We cannot give this assent without the help of grace, and yet it depends on us; it is entirely in our hands. Therefore, like St. Paul, we can attribute nothing to our own merits, but should say with him, “By the grace of God, I am what I am.” Our willing adhesion to grace, however, will give us the right to add, “and His grace in me hath not been void.” But only steady, faithful, generous adhesion will give us that right.

COLLOQUY:

“Henceforth, O Lord, it is You alone whom I love, follow, seek, and serve; You alone have the right to command, and to You alone do I wish to be subject. Command, I beg You, and demand of me anything You wish; heal and open my ears, that I may hear Your commands; cure and open my eyes, that I may see the signs of Your will; take away my dullness that I may be able to contemplate You, and thus, I hope, accomplish faithfully whatever You ask of me.

“O God and most merciful Father, receive this Your fugitive child. All that I have had in the past has been sufficient for me; I have had enough of being the plaything of vain, deceitful things. Now I am running away from this tyranny; receive me as Your servant, as they received me when I ran away from You to them. I know I need to return to Your house; behold me knocking at the door; open to me; show me how to reach You. I have nothing but my will: I know only one thing‑that I must despise the ephemeral and trivial and seek the immutable and eternal.

“My desire is to return to You, and I ask You for the means to obtain my desire. If You abandon us, we perish, but You do not abandon us; for You are the Sovereign Good, and no one has ever truly sought You and not found You .... O Lord, You know that I have the will but not the power, and I cannot even will what is good without You, nor can I do what I will to do if Your power does not help me; and what I can do, I often do not wish to do, unless You make Your will triumph on earth as in heaven. I implore but one thing of Your sovereign mercy: that You convert me entirely to You and keep me from resisting the grace which leads me to You” (St. Augustine).

We could not be redeemed, even by the one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, if He were not also God.

St. Augustine

“O My Jesus, it is for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners and in reparation for sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary and for the Holy Father, I offer this sacrifice to Thee.”

Prayer of Blessed Virgin Mary taught to St. Jacinta of Fatima

Concerning New Opinions

The underlying principle of these new opinions is that, in order to more easily attract those who differ from her, the Church should shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions. Many think that these concessions should be made not only in regard to ways of living, but even in regard to doctrines which belong to the deposit of the faith. They contend that it would be opportune, in order to gain those who differ from us, to omit certain points of her teaching which are of lesser importance, and to tone down the meaning which the Church has always attached to them. It does not need many words, beloved son, to prove the falsity of these ideas if the nature and origin of the doctrine which the Church proposes are recalled to mind. The Vatican Council says concerning this point: “For the doctrine of faith which God has revealed has not been proposed, like a philosophical invention to be perfected by human ingenuity, but has been delivered as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully kept and infallibly declared. Hence that meaning of the sacred dogmas is perpetually to be retained which our Holy Mother, the Church, has once declared, nor is that meaning ever to be departed from under the pretense or pretext of a deeper comprehension of them.” (Vatican I, Constitutio de Fide Catholica, Chapter iv) Let it be far from anyone’s mind to suppress for any reason any doctrine that has been handed down. Such a policy would tend rather to separate Catholics from the Church than to bring in those who differ. There is nothing closer to our heart than to have those who are separated from the fold of Christ return to it, but in no other way than the way pointed out by Christ.

Pope Leo XIII, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, January 22, 1899.

They have introduced a new, different Christ, in whom the Antichrist could seek refuge. They do not concede that their fabricated Christ is divine; it is enough that he is a finer being than others… The Christian religion is proclaimed as the most perfect without comparison, the holiest of religions, but pains are taken not to proclaim it as the only true religion. In contrast the proclaimers glory in communion with all the great philosophies and religions in the world… Theirs is a psychological Christ, conceived in the mind of man, born of man’s intelligence. The Christ my faith revealed to me was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary. Their Christ came from a lowly plane, from the bowels of humanity. My Christ descended from above, from the heart of the eternal Father. Their Christ is consubstantial to man, mine is consubstantial to God.

St. Hilary of Poitiers

If I knew for certain that I had to die within a year, I imagine that I should grow more humble from day to day at the thought that each day was bringing me nearer to my death. But who can assure me that I have one year to live ----- I, who am not certain to live to the end of the day?

O my God, true light of my soul, keep alive within me the remembrance of my death. Tell me often with Thine own voice in my heart that I must die, perhaps within a year, perhaps within a month, perhaps within a week; and thus I shall remain humble. In order that the thought of death may not be unfruitful to me, excite within my soul now that knowledge and those feelings which I shall have at that last hour of my life when the blessed taper is placed in my hands “in the day of trial” (Wisd. 3, 18). Make me know now as I shall know then what vanity is, and then how can I ever be arrogant again in the face of that most certain truth? “Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity” (Eccles. 1, 2). Job was always humble even in the days of his prosperity: “My days shall be shortened and only the grave remaineth for me” (Job 27, 1).

Fr. Cajetan Mary da Bergamo, Humility of Heart

The Kingship of Christ Is Not Dependent on the Sin of Adam-

Would the Incarnation Have Occurred Without the Fall?

Perhaps the weightiest argument adduced for the Scotist position (that the Incarnation was not dependent upon the Fall) is the one developed by Suarez: The end cannot be inferior to the means devised for its attainment. This would be the case if the Incarnation merely served the purpose of the Redemption. No sensible hunter would shoot a cannon to bring down a sparrow. Christ is not only the crown of the created universe, He is also the climax of divine glorification. Without Him the universe would be meaningless. He who is highest and most perfect in the order of being, must also be first in the plan of creation, and the fullness of divine glory cannot have been dependent on the accident of the Fall. The Scotist theory recommends itself by its sublimity. It groups angels and men around the God-man as the center of the universe, the highest and final revelation, the beginning and end of all things.

Rev. Msgr. Joseph Pohle, Ph.D, D.D., Soteriology, Dogmatic treatise on the Redemption

“One day St. Columbkill, while on a journey through the country of the Picts, was requested to baptize a child. Unfortunately there was no water in the place. The saint grieved by the thought that the child should die without the grace of Baptism, has recourse to prayer and obtains a supple of water from a neighboring rock.” Whether this fact be true or false, it is, at least, certain that St. Adamnan, who related it, and who was a distinguished member of the Irish Church, considered water as the essential matter of baptism.

Fr. Michael J. O’Farrell, Bishop of Trenton, Life of St. Patrick

God is the motive for loving the neighbor which proves that the act by which we love God is the same as that by which we love the neighbor. Hence the virtue of charity does not stop at the love of God, but it also includes love of neighbor…. Love of neighbor is not meritorious if the neighbor is not loved because of God.

St. Thomas Aquinas

What about “subsit in”?

“About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they’re just one thing, and we shouldn’t complicate the matter.”

Saint Joan of Arc, as recorded at her trial

It is a ridiculous and abominable disgrace that… we suffer the traditions we have received from the fathers of ancient times to be infringed at will.

Pope Nicholas I

A devil’s advocate has no case against a martyr. Such a man is certainly a man of virtue. He has stood firm in truth and justice, which is the very essence of virtue. He has held to the good of reason in its proper object, which is truth, and in its proper effects in the appetite of man, that is, justice or sanctity. He is a brave man, for he has stood against the great evil of death in a private war for the divine good of virtue. He is a man of faith, for he has witnessed to that faith even at the cost of his life; and he is a man of charity, for the norm of friendship is sacrifice and he has made the supreme sacrifice. The lukewarm religious who, in an attack of self-pity, sighs resignedly of the “living martyrdom” of religious life is babbling nonsense. Living martyrdom is as hopeless a contradiction as a self-pitying religious. A man must die to be a martyr; death is of the very essence of martyrdom, for martyrdom consists precisely in spurning all corporal goods to testify to the faith. After all, a man might give up his goods, his friends, suffer pain, all as a means to securing his life; or he might sincerely think himself willing to make the supreme sacrifice until he hears the whizz of the headsman’s swinging axe. Indeed, a man might actually be willing to make that sacrifice; but the fact is that he has not passed the supreme test until he has actually died. He cannot be a witness because his surrender of all for the truth of the faith is not evident to the world. The virgin who dies in defense of her purity is a martyr; so also is the priest who loses his life by administering the sacraments during a plague. For while it is true that most of the canonized martyrs have died in persecutions of the faith, and so in defense of the faith strictly so called, many others have died for the faith in the sense of the Christian life. It is not merely the refusal to deny the faith in words, but also the refusal to deny it in acts that is the cause of martyrdom. The work of any virtue can be the cause of martyrdom if, as is always the case of a man in the state of grace, the work of that virtue is referred to God by charity.

Fr. Walter Farrell, O.P., S.T.D., S.T.M., A Companion to the Summa

Why Democratic Societies Necessarily Work to Destroy the Family

In countries which are aristocratically constituted the government never makes a direct appeal to the mass of the governed; as men are united together, it is enough to lead the foremost; the rest will follow. This is applicable to the family as well as to all aristocracies that have a head. Among aristocratic nations social institutions recognize, in truth, no one in the family but the father; children are received by society at his hands; society governs him, he governs them. Thus the parent not only has a natural right but acquires a political right to command them; he is the author and support of his family, but he is also its constituted ruler. In democracies… no such intermediate person is required; a father is there, in the eye of the law, only as a member of a community, older and richer than his sons.

Alexis de Tocqueville, The Influence of Democracy on the Family

We are not so much called to the “imitation of Jesus Christ, as to the “identification” with Jesus Christ

By baptism, conferring sanctifying grace, we Christians were made participators in the divine life of God by being made children of God, for in baptism, we “have been clothed with Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:27) and “We have been grafted on Christ” (1 Cor. 12:27). The doctrine of God’s life within us and our incorporation with Christ is all too frequently forgotten by those whose duty it is to lead others to perfection and by those who are themselves called to perfection. Our incorporation into the Mystical Body is a wondrous thing, for you see, the thirty-three years of Christ’s life on this earth could not satisfy His desire to glorify His Father, nor is He content to love His Father infinitely in heaven, and in our tabernacles. Hence, He deigned to make unto Himself a Mystical Body in which He continues to live, to love, and to glorify His Father. In a word, in order to love the more, Christ has united Himself to new individual natures, to millions of individual persons, so that the complete Christ is Christ united to the faithful who will love in Him and with Him to the end of time. From each of us, Christ asks for another humanity, He asks for the entire possession of our being – our body and soul with all their powers to make them His own and live through them His life of devotion to His beloved Father. According to Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, Christ says to each one of us: “My son, give me your heart that in you and through you, in a life of union, I may love, or rather we may love the Father ardently: give me your mind, your eyes, your hands, your whole being. I wish, in you and by you, to live as it were a second life wholly of love, which will be the complement and continuation of My earthly life at Nazareth and in Palestine.”….. ponder well this thought… In every prayer we say, in every action we perform, in every suffering we endure, in our every act of love, we must come to realize that we are a member of Christ and that Christ wishes still to pray, act, love and suffer in us…. “Put ye on Jesus Christ” (Gal. 3:27). Paul had put on Christ, and did so so thoroughly that he could say: “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21).

Fr. Charles H. Doyle, Guidance in Spiritual Direction

Now Is the Time of Merit

Venial sins are remitted after this life, even with regard to guilt, in the same way in which they are remitted in this life, namely, by an act of charity towards God, expressing repugnance for the venial sins committed in this life. However, since it is no longer possible to acquire merits in the world beyond, such an act of love, while it removes the impediment of venial guilt, does not deserve absolution or a decrease of punishment.

St. Thomas

“The human race is ruled by two things, namely, Natural Law and long-standing custom.” Gatian

“It is obvious that when the will of the prince deviates from equity, justice or reason it is not law.” Lucas of Penna

“When you break the big laws, you do not get freedom; you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.”

G.K. Chesterton

We let ourselves be overcome by human respect, and cease to show ourselves true followers of Our Lord before the world… We see truth trodden underfoot, and we remain silent. Why? Because we are cowards. Oh, how we need to renew our faith, to rekindle our hearts in the sublime principles of our holy religion.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini

“Would to God that this had always been done with the proper vigilance and constancy.”

Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, who wrote: A lamentable spectacle is that presented by the aberrations of human reason when it yields to the spirit of novelty, when against the warning of the Apostle it seeks to know beyond what it is meant to know, and when relying too much on itself it thinks it can find the fruit outside the Church wherein truth is found without the slightest shadow of error ( Singulari nos, 7 Kal. Jul. 1834).

But it is pride which exercises an incomparably greater sway over the soul to blind it and plunge it into error, and pride sits in Modernism as in its own house, finding sustenance everywhere in its doctrines and an occasion to flaunt itself in all its aspects. It is pride which fills Modernists with that confidence in themselves and leads them to hold themselves up as the rule for all, pride which puffs them up with that vainglory which allows them to regard themselves as the sole possessors of knowledge, and makes them say, inflated with presumption, We are not as the rest of men, and which, to make them really not as other men, leads them to embrace all kinds of the most absurd novelties; it is pride which rouses in them the spirit of disobedience and causes them to demand a compromise between authority and liberty; it is pride that makes of them the reformers of others, while they forget to reform themselves, and which begets their absolute want of respect for authority, not excepting the supreme authority. No, truly, there is no road which leads so directly and so quickly to Modernism as pride. When a Catholic laymen or a priest forgets that precept of the Christian life which obliges us to renounce ourselves if we would follow Jesus Christ and neglects to tear pride from his heart, ah! but he is a fully ripe subject for the errors of Modernism. Hence, Venerable Brethren, it will be your first duty to thwart such proud men, to employ them only in the lowest and obscurest offices; the higher they try to rise, the lower let them be placed, so that their lowly position may deprive them of the power of causing damage. Sound your young clerics, too, most carefully, by yourselves and by the directors of your seminaries, and when you find the spirit of pride among any of them reject them without compunction from the priesthood. Would to God that this had always been done with the proper vigilance and constancy.

St. Pius X, Pascendi

The apostasy of the city of Rome from the vicar of Christ and its destruction by Antichrist may be thought very new to many Catholics, that I think it well to recite the text of theologians of greatest repute. First Malvenda, who writes expressly on the subject, states as the opinion of Ribera, Gaspar Melus, Biegas, Suarrez, Bellarmine and Bosius that Rome shall apostatize from the Faith, drive away the Vicar of Christ and return to its ancient paganism. Then the Church shall be scattered, driven into the wilderness, and shall be for a time, as it was in the beginning, invisible; hidden in catacombs, in dens, in mountains, in lurking places; for a time it shall be swept, as it were from the face of the earth. Such is the universal testimony of the Fathers of the early Church.

Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, The Present Crisis of the Holy See, 1861

A Catholic View on Religious Liberty

Among the slogans of “politically correct” language there is the term “religious liberty”, which is used incorrectly at times by Catholics as a synonym for freedom for the Church or freedom for Christians. In reality the terms and concepts are different and it is necessary to clarify them. The ambiguity present in the Conciliar declaration Dignitatis humanae (1965) arose from the lack of distinction between the internal forum, which is in the sphere of personal conscience, and the public space, which is in the sphere of the community, or rather the profession and propagation of one’s personal religious convictions.

The Church, with Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos (1836), with Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus and in Quanta Cura (1864), but also with Pope Leo XIII in Immortale Dei (1885) and in Libertas (1888) teaches that:

· 1. No one can be constricted to believe in the private forum, because faith is a personal choice formed in the conscience of man.

· 2. Man has no right to religious freedom in the public space, or rather freedom to profess whatever religion, because only the true and the good have rights and not what is error and is evil.

· 3. Public worship of false religions may be, in cases, tolerated by the civil authorities, with the view of obtaining a greater good or avoiding a greater evil, but, in essence, it may be repressed even by force if necessary. But the right to tolerance is a contradiction, because, as is evident even from the term, whatever is tolerated is never a good thing, rather, it is always a purely bad thing. In the social life of nations, error may be tolerated as a reality, but never allowed as a right. Error “has no right to exist objectively nor to propaganda, nor action” (Pius XII Speech Ci Riesce 1953)

Further, the right of being immune to coercion, or rather the fact that the Church does not impose the Catholic Faith on anyone, but requires the freedom of the act of faith, does not arise from a presumed natural right to religious freedom or a presumed natural right to believe in any religion whatever, but it is founded on the fact that the Catholic Religion, the only true one, must be embraced in complete freedom without any constraints. The liberty of the believer is based on the truth believed and not on the self-determination of the individual. The Catholic and only the Catholic has the natural right to profess and practice his religion and he has it because his religion is the true one. Which means that no other believer apart from the Catholic has the natural right to profess his religion. The verification of this is in the fact that rights do not exist without responsibilities and duties and vice versa. The natural law, summed up in the ten commandments, is expressed in a prescriptive manner, that is, it imposes duties and responsibilities from which rights arise. For example, in the Commandment “Do not kill the innocent” the right of the innocent to life arises. The rejection of abortion is a prescription of natural rights which is separated from religion and whoever conforms to it. And this is the same for the seven Commandments of the Second Table. Comparing the right to religious liberty to the right to life, considering them both as natural rights, is however, nonsense.

The first three commandments of the Decalogue in fact do not refer to all and sundry divinities, but only to the God of the Old and the New Testaments. From the First Commandment, which imposes adoration of the Only True God, arises the right and the duty to profess not any religion but the only true one. This counts for both the individual and the State. The State, like each individual, has the duty to profess the true religion, also because the aims of the State are no different from those of the individual.

The reason the State cannot constrain anyone to believe does not arise from the religious neutrality of the State, but from the fact that adhering to the truth must be completely free. If the individual had the right to preach and profess publically any religion whatever, the State would have the obligation of religious neutrality. This has been repeatedly condemned by the Church.

For this reason we say that man has the right to profess, not any religion, but to profess the only true one. Only if religious liberty is intended as Christian liberty, will it be possible to speak of the right to it.

There are those who sustain that we live actually in a pluralistic and secularized society, that the Catholic States have disappeared and that Europe is a continent that has turned its back on Christianity. Therefore, the real problem is that of Christians persecuted in the world, and not that of a Catholic State. Nobody denies this, but the verification of a reality is not equivalent to the affirmation of a principle. The Catholic must desire a Catholic society and State with all his heart, where Christ reigns, as Pope Pius XI in the encyclical Quas Primas (1925) explains.

The distinction between the “thesis” (the principle) and the “hypothesis” (the concrete situation) is noted. The more that we are obliged to suffer under the hypothesis, the more we have to try to make the thesis known. Hence, we do not renounce the doctrine of the Social Kingship of Christ: let us speak of the rights of Jesus Christ to reign over entire societies as the only solution to modern evils. So, instead of fighting for religious liberty, which is the equalizing of the true religion with the false ones, let us fight in defense of liberty for Christians, today persecuted by Islam in the East and by the dictatorship of relativism in the West.

Roberto de Mattei, Roman Catholic Historian

As the greatest glory which we can render to God is obedience to his commandments, to offer Him the sacrifice of ourselves, to offer all our actions to his glory; charity obliges us to observe strictly all the commandments of God, to avoid the least sin, to devote and to consecrate ourselves entirely to the service of his divine Majesty, and to be careful to have no other intention than to please Him in all our actions; in fine, to suffer, with submission and resignation to his holy will, poverty, contempt, injustice, and all the other crosses which we may meet with in this life. When, through charity, we offer to God our actions, all that we do must be meritorious. It is not, therefore, merely by our prayers, our fastings, and our alms, that we merit eternal glory. Works of the most humble kind, even to drink and to eat, inasmuch as we do it for the subsistence of the body, is meritorious, when we offer it to God through a motive of charity. Happy the soul which comprehends well this great virtue, and which studies to practice it!

St. John Eudes, Man’s Contract With God in Baptism

I’ll never return to Japan. After years of study, after years of meditation I have understood that life under the tainted atmosphere of Buddha is an embittered historical testimony of blatant paganism. I converted to Catholicism. I made this decision after the explosion of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. I was in Hiroshima for historical research. I was in the library when the bomb exploded. I was busy consulting a Portuguese book and my eye happened to catch an image of Our Lady of Fatima. I had the impression that this image moved, as if to say something. All of a sudden there was a blinding light, hurting my eyes intensely. I was terrified. The cataclysm had come about. The sky had darkened and a cloud of brown dust had covered the city. The library was burning. Men were burning. Children were burning. The air itself was burning. I didn’t even have the slightest scratch on me. The sign of the miracle was evident. Yet I wasn’t able to explain what had happened.

Can a miracle be explained? I wasn’t even able to think. Only the image of Our Lady of Fatima shone for me above all the flames, above all the fires, above all man’s acts of barbarism. There is no question that I was saved to bring the Virgin’s testimony to the entire world. Doctor Keia Mujnuri, a friend I went to visit fifteen days later, verified through X-Rays that my body had not been subjected to any burns. The barrier of mystery was shattered. I began to believe in the beauty of love. I learned the Catechism but in my heart I kept Her image, the sweet song of Fatima. I wanted to confess to the Lord, but I wanted this through His Most Holy Mother.

Professor Hikoka Vanamuri, Professor of Philosophy, University of Tokyo, who miraculously survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, August 6, 1945, while on pilgrimage to Fatima (nel cuore di maria)

Father Pellegrino Funicelli, who assisted Padre Pio for many years, once confronted the saint on the sin of abortion:

Father Pellegrino Funicelli: Today you denied absolution to a woman because she had voluntarily undergone an abortion. Why have you been so rigorous with this poor unfortunate? (Padre Pio would sometimes refuse to give absolution to a penitent if they showed insufficient contrition; often they would return and he’d give absolution if they were sincere).

Padre Pio: The day that people lose their horror for abortion will be the most terrible day for humanity. Abortion is not only a homicide but also a suicide. Shouldn’t we have the courage to manifest our faith before those who commit two crimes within one act?

Father Pellegrino Funicelli: Suicide?

Padre Pio: The suicide of the human race will be understood by those who will see the earth populated by the elderly and depopulated of children: burnt as a desert.

“Confidence is a hope fortified by solid conviction.”

St. Thomas Aquinas

“The great civilizations do not express from within the great religions as a species of cultural by-product; the great religions are the base upon which the great civilizations rest. A society that has lost its religion is destined sooner or later to lose its culture.”

Christopher Dawson

But that humility of heart practiced by Jesus Christ in every hour of His life on earth is given to all of us as an example which we are compelled to follow, and to this imitation God has united our eternal salvation: "Unless you be converted and become as a little child" (Matt. 18, 3).

Fr. Cajetan Mary daBergamo, Humility of Heart

“I will that forthwith thou give me in a dish the head of John the Baptist.”….Thus died the greatest of ‘them that are born of women:’ without witnesses, the prisoner of a petty tyrant, the victim of the vilest of passions, the wages of a dancing girl!…. “It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife.”

Decollation of Saint John the Baptist from Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical Year

Pope Clement X relates in the Bull of canonization, how one day when Rose was very ill, the Infant Jesus appeared and deigned to play with her; teaching her in a manner suitable to her tender age, the value and the advantages of suffering. He then left her full of joy, and endowed with a life-long love of the cross….“It has been juridically proved,” said Pope Clement, “that, since the discovery of Peru, no missionary has been known to obtain so universal a movement of repentance.”

(Note: St. Rose died only seven years after the death of St. Francis Solano, the Thaumaturgus of the New World, who once brought about the conversion of 9,000 natives with one sermon.)

Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, St. Rose of Lima, Dominican Tertiary, Patroness of Peru

St. Raymond Nonnatus, so named from being untimely delivered after the death of his mother, begged God’s holy Mother to adopt him for her son and deign to teach him the way of salvation and the science of the saints. The Blessed Virgin directed him to join the new Order of Ransom, or Order of Mercy for the Redemption of Captives…He was sent to Africa to redeem them, and freed many from slavery. But when he had exhausted his money, rather than abandon others who were in danger of losing their faith, he gave himself up to the barbarians as a pledge for their ransom. For his preaching he was cruelly imprisoned and his lips fastened together with an iron padlock which he endured for a long time. St. Raymond Nonnatus, The Liturgical Year

We could not be redeemed, even by the one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, if He were not also God.

St. Augustine

Honour to you. Honour to the man whom the raging winds have not been able to overthrow! Continue to be of good courage. The whole world venerates your praises; the Catholics venerate and admire you as the restorer of the ancient faith. But what is a mark of still greater glory, all the heretics hate you. They honour me, too, with their hatred. Not being able to strike us with the sword, they kill us in desire.

St. Jerome writing from Bethlehem to St. Augustine

The Heaviest Crosses Our Always From Your "Friends"

Through the calumnies of false brethren St. Joseph Calasanctius was deposed, and the Order of the Poor Regular Clerks of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools, which had in a short time spread throughout many of the kingdoms of Europe, was reduced to the condition of a secular congregation. It was not until after his death that it was re-established, first by Alexander VII, and then by Clement IX, as a Regular Order with solemn vows..... He died at 92 years if age on the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, September 8, 1648 and one-hundred years later his tongue and heart were found to be whole and completely incorrupt.

Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, St. Joseph Calasanctius

Humility, Patience and Charity - necessary qualities for teaching Truth

Let those be hard upon you who do not know what labour it is to reach the truth and turn away from error. Let those be a hard upon you, who know not how rare a thing it is, and how much it costs, to overcome the false images of the senses and to dwell in peace of soul. Let those be hard upon you, who know not with what difficulty man's mental eye is healed so as to be able to gaze upon the Sun of Justice; who know not through what sighs and groans one attains to some little knowledge of God. Let those, finally, be hard upon you, who have never known seduction like that whereby you are deceived.... As for me, who have been tossed about by the vain imaginations of which my mind was in search, and who have shared your misery and so long deplored it, I could not by any means be harsh to you.

St. Augustine, to Manichean (Gnostic dualism) heretics, who had followed for nine years

Do you wish to know what foundation our confidence must have? It must be based on the infinite goodness of God and the merits of the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ, with this condition on our part: a firm and total resolution to belong wholly to God and to abandon ourselves entirely and without reservation to His Providence.

St. Francis de Sales

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

Blessed Virgin Mary to the children at Fatima

Two loves have made two different cities: self-love hath made a terrestrial city, which rises in contempt of God; and Divine Love hath made a celestial one, which rises in contempt of self. The former glories in itself ----- the latter in God.

St. Augustine

The "DOGS" and the "SWINE" are Wearing Clerical Collars

“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.” Matt 7:6

Let us see now what is the holy thing, what are the dogs, what the pearls, what the swine? The holy thing is all that it were impiety to corrupt; a sin which may be committed by the will, though the thing itself be undone. The pearls are all spiritual things that are to be highly esteemed. Thus though one and the same thing may be called both the holy thing and a pearl, yet it is called holy because it is not to be corrupted; and called a pearl because it is not be contemned.

The dogs are those that assault the truth; the swine we may not unsuitably take for those that despise the truth. Therefore because dogs leap forth to rend in pieces, and what they rend, suffer not to continue whole, He said, “Give not that which is holy to the dogs;” because they strive to the utmost of their power to destroy the truth. The swine though they do not assault by biting as dogs, yet do they defile by trampling upon, and therefore He said, “Cast not your pearls before swine.”

That which is despised is said to be trodden under foot: hence it is said, “Lest perchance they tread them under foot.”

That which follows, “Turn again and rend you,” He means not the pearls themselves, for these they tread under foot, and when they turn again that they may hear something further, then they rend him by whom the pearls on which they had trode had been cast. For you will not easily find what will please him who has despised things got by great toil. Whoever then undertake to teach such, I see not how they shall not be trode upon and rent by those they teach.

We must be careful therefore not to explain ought to him who does not receive it; for men they rather seek that which is hidden than that which is opened. He either attacks from ferocity as a dog, or overlooks from stupidity as swine.

But it does not follow that if the truth be kept hid, falsehood is uttered. The Lord Himself who never spoke falsely, yet sometimes concealed the truth, as in that, “I have yet many things to say unto you, the which ye are not now able to bear” [John 16:12]. But if any is unable to receive these things because of his filthiness, we must first cleanse him as far as lays in our power either by word or deed.

St. Augustine, Serm. in Mont., ii, 20

Saint Raymund Nonnatus was born in Catalonia, Spain, in the year 1204. Motherless from infancy, in his childhood he seemed to find pleasure only in his devotions and serious duties. He chose the Blessed Virgin for his mother, almost as soon as the light of reason made this choice available to him. His father, perceiving in him an inclination to the religious state and unwilling to give up his son, took him from school and sent him to take care of a farm which he owned in the country. Raymund readily obeyed, and, in order to enjoy holy solitude, kept the sheep himself and spent his time in the mountains and forests in holy meditation and prayer. He found there an ancient hermitage containing a portrait of his Blessed Mother, and made this his asylum. There the devil found him and, assuming the disguise of a shepherd, attempted to turn him away from his devotions; but Raymund turned his back on his visitor and called Mary to his assistance. The sole name of the Mother of God caused the demon to disappear, and the hermit prostrated himself and blessed Her for Her assistance.

Some time afterward, he joined the new Order of Our Lady of Mercy for the redemption of captives, and was admitted to profession at Barcelona by the holy founder, Saint Peter Nolasco. Within two or three years after his profession, he was sent into Barbary with a considerable sum of money; in Algiers he purchased the liberty of a great number of slaves. When all his treasure was exhausted, he gave himself up as a hostage for the ransom of others, according to the Rule of his Order. This magnanimous sacrifice served only to exasperate the Moslems, who treated him with uncommon barbarity, until they began to fear that if he died in their hands, they would lose the ransom which had been asked for his deliverance. A crier announced in the streets that anyone who mistreated him would answer for it, if he died.

Therefore he was permitted to go abroad in the streets, which liberty he utilized to comfort and encourage the Christians in chains, and to convert and baptize certain Moslems. Learning of this, their pasha, furious, condemned him to be impaled, but his barbarous sentence was commuted at the insistence of those who had an interest in the ransom payments for the slaves he was replacing. He underwent instead a cruel bastinade, but that torment did not daunt his courage. So long as he saw souls in danger of perishing eternally, he thought he had yet done nothing.

Saint Raymund had no more money to employ in releasing poor captives; and to converse with those of the local beliefs on the subject of religion meant death. He enjoyed sufficient liberty nonetheless to continue the same endeavors, and he did so, hoping either for success or martyrdom. The governor, enraged, ordered our Saint to have his lips pierced and padlocked, then to be imprisoned until his ransom would be brought by members of his Order. He remained in jail for eight months before his brethren arrived with the required sum, sent by Saint Peter Nolasco. Upon his return to Spain, he was nominated Cardinal by Pope Gregory IX, and the Pope called him to Rome. The Saint was on his way, but had gone no farther than Cardona when he was seized with a violent fever. He died on August 31, 1240, in his thirty-seventh year. His face in death became beautiful and radiant like that of Moses when he descended from the mountaintop, where he had spoken with God. A heavenly fragrance surrounded his body, and cures were effected on behalf of those who came and touched him.

Opinions opposed to reason inevitably produce actions opposed to nature.

Louis de Bonald, (1754-1840) French counter-revolutionary, statesman, philosopher

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 punishment of hell.

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

Abortion and infanticide common pagan practice even among the most civilized before Jesus Christ.

Those Jews believe that souls are immortal. They rejoice in becoming fathers, and do not believe it lawful to take away the life of any of the children which were given to them.

Tacitus, 56-120 AD, Roman senator and historian

Vatican Backs Court Decision to Deny Cardinal Pell’s Appeal against Child Abuse Charges

Eponymous Flower | David Martin | August 21, 2019

Catholics the world over were aghast to learn today that the appeal by George Cardinal Pell against his conviction of child sexual abuse was denied by the Australian court. Worse yet, the Vatican endorsed the court decision to deny Pell.

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2019-08/vatican-statement-on-cardinal-pell-verdict.html

This unfortunate news about the innocent and commendable Cardinal Pell immediately calls to mind Christ's words: "Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you." (Matthew 5: 11, 12)

Here the best Catholics of the Church, including the exemplary Archbishop Viganò, have respectfully attempted to elicit a response from Rome concerning its ongoing cover-up of sexual abuse and they continue to circumvent the issue, refusing to offer even a squeak of a reply.

Worse yet, Pope Francis goes out of his way to install notorious sex-offenders like Archbishops Paglia and Maradiaga to the highest positions of the Church, thus aggravating the sexual abuse problem, but when Cardinal Pell is maliciously slammed and jailed for charges of "sexual abuse," the Vatican is right there thumping against sexual abuse, saying "Pell is guilty."

Yea, they orchestrated this whole frame job against Pell, since it covers their own sex-abuse problem while limiting any chance that Pell will expose their crimes. Today's blurb from the Vatican Press Office is typical of their Pharisaic covering of "dead men's bones" (Mt. 23; 27), which shouldn't surprise us. Let us not forget that the Vatican News Service is run by the homosexual marketing firm, Accenture, known the world over for its LGBT political agenda, which means anything they say should never be taken seriously.

Remember in your charity the following pray requests:

Please remember our expectant mothers: Victoria Dimmel, Erika Zepeda, and Carmen Carrol,

Luis Rafael Zelaya, the brother of Claudia Drew, who is seriously ill,

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 grace of a holy death, Nancy Marie Claycomb,

The health and spiritual welfare of Tom Grow, Amanda Gardner, and Alex Estrada,

Conversion of Annette Murowski, and her son Jimmy,

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

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

The spiritual welfare Robert Holmes Family,

For the spiritual and temporal welfare of Irwin Kwiat,

Fr. Waters asks our prayers for Elvira 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,

Jason Green, a father of ten children who has been seriously injured,

For the health and welfare of Kolinsky and Sorace families,

Fr. Waters asks our prayers for the health and spiritual welfare of Brian Abramowitz,

Janine Mullen, for her health and help for her family,

Thomas Schiltz family, in grateful appreciation for their contribution to the beauty of our chapel,

Carlo A. De Porto, who is in failing health,

Welfare of Bishop Richard Williamson, for strength and courage in the greater battles to come,

John Rhoad, for his health and spiritual welfare,

Angelina Montesano family & Helen Snyder, for their health and spiritual welfare,

Kathy Boyle, requests our prayers for her welfare,

Michael J. Brigg & his family, who have helped with the needs of the Mission,

Nancy Deegan, her welfare and conversion to the Catholic Church,

Francis Paul Diaz, who was baptized at Ss. Peter & Paul, asks our prayers for his spiritual welfare,

The conversion of David Keithley and the welfare of the Nathaniel Miller family, are the petitions of Gene Peters,

The Drews ask your intercession for the welfare of Brendan McGuire, a young father of three, who has been diagnosed with cancer,

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,

Rose Cuono, who is in failing health,

For the health and welfare of Kathryn Lederhos, the aunt of David Drew,

Fr. Peterson asks our prayers for Charles Valenti, and his wife, Julia,

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,

Mel Gibson and his family, please remember in our prayers,

Rev. Timothy A. Hopkins, prayers for his mother, the Mission of St. Philomena in Miami, and the welfare of Fr Jean-Luc Lafitte,

Ebert’s request our prayers for the Andreas & Jenna Ortner Family,

Joyce Paglia has asked prayers for George Richard Moore Sr. & his children, and her brother, George Panell,

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:

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,

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

Cecelia Thees, died February 24,

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

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

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

Louis Fragale, who died December 25,

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

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

"Only take heed to yourself and guard your soul diligently." Deut 4:9

Let nothing disturb thee, Nothing affright thee;

All things are passing; God never changeth;

Patient endurance attaineth to all things;

Who God possesseth in nothing is wanting;

Alone God sufficeth.

Bookmark of St. Teresa of Jesus

How beauteous is the courage which we find, with childlike confidence in God combined!

Who fears his God shall know no other fear - He heeds not pitying smile, nor unkind sneer.

The virtue of fortitude protects a person from loving his life so much that he loses it.

Josef Pieper, A Brief Reader on the Virtues of the Human Heart

Prayer draws its merits from charity; but its imperative efficacy comes from faith and confidence.

St. Thomas

“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:

And just what do they think Infallibility IS?

Let the reader accept the reasonable fact that the Pontiffs who pronounced these decrees (on No Salvation Outside the Church) were perfectly literate and fully cognizant of what they were saying. If there were any need to soften or qualify their meanings, they were quite capable of doing so..... Dogmas of the faith, like Outside the Church There is No Salvation, are truths fallen from heaven. The very point of a dogmatic definition is to DEFINE PRECISELY and EXACTLY what the Church means by the very words of the formula. If it does not do this by those very words in the formula then it has failed in its primary purpose – to define – and was pointless and worthless. ANYONE who says that we must interpret or understand the meaning of a dogmatic definition, in a way which contradicts its actual wording, is denying the whole point of Papal Infallibility and dogmatic definitions. They who insist that infallible DEFINITIONS must be interpreted by non-infallible statements (e.g., from theologians, catechisms, etc.) are denying the whole purpose of these infallible truths fallen from heaven. They are subordinating the dogmatic teaching of the Holy Ghost to the re-evaluation of fallible human documents,thereby inverting their authority, perverting their integrity and denying their purpose".

Fr. James Wathen, Who Shall Ascend?

“OFFICIAL & PREVAILING” CONSPIRACY THEORY

The FBI has published a document that concludes that “conspiracy theories” can motivate believers to commit crimes. [.....]

The FBI document says that conspiracy theories “are usually at odds with official or prevailing explanations of events.” Note the use of “official” and “prevailing.” Official explanations are explanations provided by governments. Prevailing explanations are the explanations that the media repeats. Examples of official and prevailing explanations are: Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Assad’s use of chemical weapons, Iranian nukes, Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the official explanation by the US government for the destruction of Libya. If a person doubts official explanations such as these, that person is a “conspiracy theorist.”

Official and prevailing explanations do not have to be consistent with facts. It is enough that they are official and prevailing. Whether or not they are true is irrelevant. Therefore, a person who stands up for the truth can be labeled a conspiracy theorist, monitored, and perhaps pre-emptively arrested. [.....] Consider Russiagate. Here we have an alleged conspiracy between Trump and Russia that was the official prevailing explanation. Yet, to believe in the Russiagate conspiracy did not make one a conspiracy theorist as this conspiracy was the official prevailing explanation. But to doubt the Russiagate conspiracy did make one a conspiracy theorist.

What the FBI report does, intentionally or unintentionally, is to define a conspiracist as a person who doubts official explanations. In other words, it is a way of preventing any accountability of government. Whatever the government says, no matter how obvious a lie, will have to be accepted as fact or we will be put on a list to be monitored for preemptive arrest.

Paul Craig Roberts, former Undersecretary of the Treasury, An Open Invitation to Tyranny, 8-8-19

A sure sign of progress: Silence is replaced by Calumny!

The conservative Catholic Pied Piper of Jew hatred and racism

Dexter Van Zile talks about E Michael Jones. He says that Jones' racist views appeal to people looking for scapegoats for society’s decline.

Anti-Semitism | Zionist Federation | Israel News Talk Radio | 09/08/19

Anti-Semitism Rod Reuven Dovid Bryant and Jerry Gordon bring back Dexter Van Zile of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) to discuss a conservative Catholic E. Michael Jones extolling Jew hatred and racism via the internet misleading young millennials.

Jones has been promoting his dangerous views since the 1980s. The problem is that millennials are biting into Jones' views in droves. Van Zile first encountered Jones and his Jew hatred views in a YouTube interview with another notorious anti-Semite, Owen Benjamin.

Jones has been writing books since the 1970’s, however, his rise to prominence in podcasts, increasingly viewed by millennials, has occurred within the past decade.

He blames Jews for abortion and pornography in the US. The millennials in the US have latched on to Jones who promotes their salvation by becoming Catholics and fighting Jewish influence in America.

Van Zile says that Jones' anti-Semitic and racist views appeal to unhappy people looking for scapegoats for society’s decline.

So we are supposed to rejoice because a 'married clergy' will be tabled if we accept the Gaia cult of Earth Worship!

Pope insists Amazon Synod will focus on environment, not married priests

LifeSiteNews | VATICAN CITY | August 14, 2019 — Pope Francis has downplayed the subject of the married priesthood as a priority at an upcoming synod.

In an August 6 interwiew with Italian newspaper La Stampa, published August 9, the pontiff said the Synod on the Amazon is the “child of Laudato Si’.”

“Those who have not read it will never understand the Synod on the Amazon,” he told his interviewer Domenico Gasso, Jr.

“Laudato Si’ is not a green encyclical. It is a social encyclical, which is based on a ‘green’ reality, the stewardship of Creation,” the pontiff continued.

Gasso asked Pope Francis if the possibility of ordaining “viri probati, elderly and married men” is a main theme of the Amazon Synod. Francis replied firmly in the negative.

“Absolutely not,” he said.

“It is simply a number of the Instrumentum Laboris. The important thing will be the ministries of evangelization and the different ways of evangelizing.”

The pontiff did not expand on the subject of evangelization, however. Instead, he focused on environmental issues like pollution, melting glaciers, and deforestation.

“A few months ago seven fisherman told me: ‘In recent months we have collected 6 tons of plastic,’” he said.

“The other day, I read about a huge glacier in Iceland that melted almost completely: they built a funeral monument. With the fire in Siberia, some glaciers in Greenland lost tons through melting,” he continued.

“The people of a Pacific country are moving because in twenty years the island on which they live will no longer be there.”

The pontiff painted his sober environmental picture with impressionist strokes. As a matter of fact, the vanished Icelandic glacier has so far been cmmemorated with a plaque, the Greenland glaciers have been affected by both a seasonal heatwave and wildfires from across the entire Arctic region, and the devoutly Christian people of Kiribati are still hopeful that they will not have to move.

“We don’t believe that Kiribati will sink like the Titanic ship,” said the nation’s president, Taneti Mamau, on a promotional video. “Our country, our beautiful lands, are created by the hands of God.”

Francis said he was even more shocked by “Earth Overshoot Day,” the day on which some people believe that human societies have used up all their proper allotment of natural materials for the year, after which point the planet Earth is not able to regenerate these resources.

“On July 29th, we used up all the regenerative resources of 2019,” the pontiff declared.

“Since July 30, we have been consuming more resources than the planet can regenerate in a year. It's very serious. It's a global emergency. And ours will be an urgent Synod,” he continued.

The pontiff stressed that a synod is based in the Christian faith. “A Synod is not a meeting of scientists or politicians,” he explained. “It is not a Parliament: it is something else. It was born of the Church and will have a mission and evangelizing dimension. It will be a work of communion guided by the Holy Spirit.”

Francis told Grasso he was focussing on the Amazon region because it is both diverse and crucial for the health of the globe.

“It is a representative and decisive place,” he said.

“Together with the oceans, it contributes decisively to the survival of the planet. Much of the oxygen we breathe comes from there. That's why deforestation means killing humanity,” he continued.

“And then the Amazon involves nine states, so it doesn’t concern a single nation. And I’m thinking of the Amazonian richness, vegetable and animal biodiversity: it's wonderful.”

The pontiff said economic and political interests threaten this richness and the people of the Amazon and that politicians must stop their conniving and corruption and take responsibility for such ecologically dangerous activities as, for example, open-pit mining.

Asked his worst fear for the planet, Pope Francis listed a number of concerns:

“The disappearance of biodiversity. New lethal diseases. A decline and devastation of Nature that could lead to the death of the human race.”

The pontiff mentioned the activities of such “young ecologists” as Greta Thunberg and said he was struck by a placard held by young environmentalists reading, “We are the future.” He also said he believed that personal activities like household recycling are helpful because they are “concrete actions” and foster a culture of not dirtying the Earth.

During the interview, Pope Francis expressed support for the European Union and the vision of its “Founding Fathers.” He said he was concerned by a focus in Europe on sovereignty, which he called “an attitude of isolation.”

“I am concerned because one hears speeches that resemble those of Hitler in 1934,” he said.

Open Letter from Don Nicola Bux to Vatican reporter, Marco Tosatti
Dear Director,

In the context of recent developments at the Pontifical Institute for Marriage and Family Studies, it is important to note the backwardness of the Church compared to the Middle Ages, when the theological disputes and conflicts between Franciscans and Dominicans took place on the basis that of whoever had the best arguments. Meanwhile, we arrived at Stalinist methods with kid gloves. There is no argument and no more dispute in the Church. If one does not think as the boss, one is identified, cataloged and excluded. This is the damaging effect of the ideology of dialogue, which fits as long as one thinks the same as the one who preaches it.

To confirm pluralism and synodality, we now have the dismissal of ordinary professors, for ideological reasons have deprived them of their chairs.

What would happen at any other university if that happened?

What academic prestige will remain at the Institute of John Paul II? The question is not only whether it will continue to be a university institution inspired by John Paul II, but whether it will even be a university institution at all.

All this weighs heavily on the Rector as a man of the Academy, since he is in charge of this operation. He certainly did not act on it but on higher orders.

In a brutal way, or with baseless reasons, it happens in seminaries, faculties, and Roman congregations and dicasteries.

The paradox is that ecumenical and interreligious dialogue spreads outward, while the dictatorship of unified thought prevails internally.

Many ask themselves - always in the name of synodality and pluralism - should not the confrontation of all baptized be promoted, especially among all categories of theologians? A confrontation that Catholic thought has as a point of reference, according to the maxim of St. Vincent de Lerins: "Always, everywhere, and believed by all"?
Maybe the time will come when we have to get up and make our way against the whole world to St. Peter to denounce the new "Latrocinium Ephesinum". I want to explain that. The Second Council of Ephesus of 449, which became known among Catholic and Orthodox theologians as Latrocinium Ephesi or Robber's Synod of Ephesus (in Greek Ληστρική της Εφέσου), was a Christological Church meeting. Because of the resulting conflicts over the person of Jesus Christ and especially as a result of the conflicts after the Council of Chalcedon (451), the Christian churches were divided into Chalcedonian and pre-Chalcedonian churches.

It seems that after the next synod, Jesus Christ will be outdated, because the Amazon and some other "European regions" no longer seem to need it for their salvation because it fits as it is. In the meantime, the "moral theology" of marriage and family, which John Paul II defended and propagated, and paid for it in person, is outdated. So we are in the harbingers of the Ephesian betrayal.

So let us follow Benedict XVI, who expressed his solidarity with the deposed rector, and imagine Pope Francis, how annoyed he is, despite all his calls for pluralism, parrhesia and synodality.

So let's take cover, especially teachers and students of the John Paul II Institute, before it's too late. All According to Saint Peter!

Best regards
in Domino Iesu
Don Nicola Bux

COMMENT: Don Bux is no traditionalist and he does not understand that Dogma must necessarily be every faithful Catholic's proximate rule of faith. The truth of the matter is this: John Paul II and Benedict XVI were, in the essentials, indistinguishable from Francis the Destroyer. These conciliar popes are united in first principles. They are without exception Neo-modernists. Neither JPII nor Benedict could ever offer any principled objection to Francis' ways and means of destroying Catholic doctrine and upending Catholic morals. Benedict has stated this publically repeatedly yet people like Bux do not believe him. It was Benedict who said on his abdication that this marks the beginning of the "true council." However, Bux does make an important and valid point. While the Neo-modernists have one attitude to the OTHERS and preach ecumenism, plurality, receptiveness to other's traditions, non-judgmental attitude towards heterodox doctrines, the new evangelization that denies proselytism, etc., etc., to their OWN they behave like Stalinists. Bux thinks this is something new only with Francis! It is the mark of the Neo-modernists and has always been since Vatican II. When they give the appearance of a conciliatory approach to Traditional Catholics, it is for the purpose to control. Those who believe that this "control" is ultimately aimed at the beneficial welfare of the Church are willfully naive.

Benedict XVI announcing that the "virtual Council" of the "media" is over and now, with Pope Francis, we get the "real Council, " the "true Council," that will now establish "true reform, true renewal"!

We know that this Council of the media was accessible to everyone. Therefore, this was the dominant one, the more effective one, and it created so many disasters, so many problems, so much suffering: seminaries closed, convents closed, banal liturgy … and the real Council had difficulty establishing itself and taking shape; the virtual Council was stronger than the real Council. But the real force of the Council was present and, slowly but surely, established itself more and more and became the true force which is also the true reform, the true renewal of the Church. It seems to me that, 50 years after the Council, we see that this virtual Council is broken, is lost, and there now appears the true Council with all its spiritual force. And it is our task, especially in this Year of Faith, on the basis of this Year of Faith, to work so that the true Council, with its power of the Holy Spirit, be accomplished and the Church be truly renewed. Let us hope that that the Lord will assist us. I myself, secluded in prayer, will always be with you and together let us go forward with the Lord in the certainty that the Lord will conquer. Thank you!

Benedict XVI, to the clergy in Rome on his abdication, Feb 14, 2013

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

No Salvation Outside the Catholic Church is a DOGMA of Faith!

However ignorant you may be, you have the true faith if you believe, without exception, all the holy Catholic Church believes and teaches; on the other hand, however learned you may be, you lose the gift and the virtue of faith if you reject any doctrine which she teaches; for her faith is your rule. “As there is but one faith,” says St. Paul, “to wish to divide it, is to destroy it.” Heretics not only differ from the Church in faith, but they also differ amongst themselves, a proof that they have not the true faith, which is one. The holy Catholic Church never has suffered, and never will suffer, a difference of faith in regard to any article. Her faith is the same in all times, in all places, and in all her true children. Thus her faith is one and the only true faith. You should be most desirous to preserve the faith in all its purity, since without it, it is impossible to do anything which merits Heaven. “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” Those who do not possess it may practice all the moral virtues, justice, sobriety, chastity, alms-deeds, prayers, mortification; and not only is this the case with heretics, but it is a truth which should be borne in mind, that these good actions, unless they have faith for their principle, will never merit Heaven for them. The law of Moses, all holy as it was, could save only those who observed it through faith.
When, therefore, you observe that those who believe not in the Church, practice some good works, offer many prayers, and lead an austere life, do not believe that they are on this account in the way of salvation, unless they have true faith; you commit an enormous sin if you believe that they can be saved outside of the Church; that they can have faith without believing in her, or that they can be saved without faith.

St. John Eudes, Man’s Contract with God in Baptism

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.

The Vatican Walls were not built for decoration. Columbus sailed West because the Muslim had complete control of the Mediterranean and Vatican Walls.jpg land routes to the East.

The background of the Islamic state occupying large areas of Europe began when Muslim crusaders, called "Moors," invaded Spain in 711 AD.

The Muslim commander was named Ṭāriq ibn Ziyad. He landed, with his 80,000-man Umayyad army, at a place where there was a large mount, for which the Arabic word is "jabal."

The place took his name "Jabal Ṭāriq," or as it was later pronounced "Gibraltar."

Moorish cavalry, wielding curved scimitar swords, "went through all places like a desolating storm."

The Mozarabic Chronicle, 754 AD, recorded that thousands of churches were burned and: "God alone knows the number of the slain."

The Moors advanced into central France until they were defeated at the Battle of Tours by Charles Martel (Hammer), the grandfather of Charlemagne in 732 AD.

In 846 AD, just 46 years after Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome's old St. Peter's Basilica, 11,000 Muslims on 73 ships invaded Rome and sacked the Basilica.

They looted the historic basilica and desecrated the grave of St. Peter.

Invaders then trashed the remains of St. Paul, which were in the historic church, San Paolo fuori le Mura (St Paul's outside the Walls.)

As a result of this invasion, Pope Leo IV built a massive wall, 39-feet high, to protect the Vatican from future Muslims raids.

A miracle saved Rome from being sacked again at the Battle of Ostia in 849 AD.

The battle was memorialized in a famous fresco by the painter Raphael.

Muslim Saracen pirates set sail from Sardina with a fleet to invade Rome.

Pope Leo rallied the cities of Amalfi, Gaeta and Naples to send ships to block the mouth of the Tiber River near Ostia.

Muslims fiercely attacked and were winning when suddenly a violent storm arose, dividing the Christians fleet from the Muslim attackers.

Christian ships made it back to port, but Muslim ship were decimated by the storm, and afterwards easily captured.

The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church Biographical Dictionary (1998, Salvador Miranda) described the Battle of Ostia:

"Danger from the Saracens was always imminent ...

In 849 the Pope appealed to the maritime cities of Naples, Amalfi and Gaeta and asked them to join their fleets in a league not only in defense of Rome, but of their own trade affected by the raids of the Arab pirates ...

Command was given to Cesare, son of the duke of Naples, who arranged for the fleets to meet at the entrance of the port of Ostia. Pope Leo IV imparted a solemn blessing ...

The Christian fleet was victorious helped by a terrible and sudden storm that destroyed much of the Saracen fleet, of which many of the crews were taken prisoners.

Pope Leo IV communicated to the emperor that this was necessary to raise a new wall in Rome to protect ... the Vatican ... completely enclosing the neighborhood ... Fortification was also extended to ... all the areas affected by the Saracen raids."

Muslims warriors continued to raid.

When Pope John VIII (872-882) failed in rallying a defense, he was forced to pay the Muslim pirates an annual extortion tribute payment of 25,000 mancusi of silver.

Muslims increased their plundering of the coasts of Italy.

In 883 AD, they destroyed the renown monastery of Monte Cassino, dragging its abbot, St. Bercharius, to the altar where they killed him.

They destroyed the abbey of San Vincezo in 884, and the abbies of Farfa and Subiaco in 890 AD.

Pope John X rallied Byzantines, Lombards, Gaeta, Capua, Salerno, Beneventum, and others Italian states and personally led the troops into the field to stop the Muslims at the Battle of Garigliano River in 916 AD.

Muslim warriors captured Reggio and Calabria, selling inhabitants into North African slavery.

In 1011, Muslims killed 2,000 in Cordoba, Spain.

In 1054, the Great Schism split the Byzantine Eastern Orthodox Church from the Roman Catholic Church, further weakening resistance to Islamic advances.

Beginning in 1045, Christianized Vikings, called Normans, sailed into the Mediterranean.

Norman Richard I of Capua took control of Calabria in the "toe of Italy," and pushed back Muslims raiders.

In 1061, Normans Robert and Roger Guiscard recaptured Sicily from Muslim Saracens.

In 1066, the same year that William the Norman conquered Britain, Muslims massacred every one of the 5,000 Jews in Granada, Spain.

In 1189, Muslims raided Libson, Portugal, and enslaved 3,000 women and children.

In 1191, Muslims attacked Silves, Portugal, enslaving another 3,000.

The Catholic Orders of Montjoie, and Calatrava, were organized to ransom back Christian slaves.

The Spanish effort to drive liberate Spain from Islamic control was called the "reconquista" or re-conquest.

In 1085, the Kingdom of Castile freed Toledo from Muslim control.

The Spanish knight Rodrigo Diaz, known as "El Cid," drove Muslims out of Valencia in 1094.

In 1119, the Kingdom of Aragon fought and freed the city of Zaragoza from Islamic control.

Finally, after 700 years, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella drove Islamic occupiers out in 1492.

Columbus wrote in his El Libro de la Primera Navegacion, as recounted by Bartolome' de Las Casas':

"After Your Highnesses had made an end to the war with the Moors who ruled in Europe, and had concluded the war in the very great City of Granada, where in the present year, on the 2nd day of the month of January, I saw the Royal Standards of Your Highnesses placed by force of arms on the towers of the Alhambra (which is the citadel of the said city), and I saw the Moorish King come forth to the gates of the city and kiss the Royal Hands of Your Highnesses."

Columbus referenced how 40 years earlier, in 1453, Muslim Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople, effectively cutting off the land trade routes to travel from Europe east to India and China.

This gave rise to Columbus and other European explorers searching for a sea route.

Columbus continued in his El Libro de la Primera Navegacion:

"And soon after in that same month, through information I had given to your Highnesses concerning the lands of India, and of a Prince who is called Gran Can (Khan), which is to say in our vernacular 'King of Kings,' how many times he and his predecessors had sent to Rome to seek doctors in our Holy Faith to instruct him therein, and that never had the Holy Father provided them, and thus so many people were lost through lapsing into idolatries and receiving doctrines of perdition; and Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians and Princes devoted to the Holy Christian Faith and the propagators thereof, and enemies of the sect of Mahomet and of all idolatries and heresies, resolved to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the said regions of India, to see the said princes and peoples and lands and the dispositions of them and of all, and the manner in which may be undertaken their conversion to our Holy Faith ..."

Columbus concluded his address to the King and Queen of Spain:

"... And ordained that I should not go by land (the usual way) to the Orient (East), but by the route of the Occident (West), by which no one to this day knows for sure that anyone has gone."

Modern-day detractors who are critical of Columbus should instead be critical of the expansionist Islamic State, for it was only after the Turks cut off Europe's use of the land routes to India and China did Columbus seek a sea route.

Columbus gave the reason for his persistence in Libro de Las Profecias, written between his third and fourth voyages:

"I spent seven years in your royal Court arguing the case with so many persons of such authority and learned in all the arts, and in the end they concluded that all was idle nonsense ... yet the outcome will be the fulfillment of what our Redeemer Jesus Christ said ... that ... all that was written by him and by the prophets to be fulfilled."

He concluded:

"The Holy Scriptures testify ... that this world will come to an end ... St. Augustine says that the end of this world will occur in the seventh millennium following the Creation ... I have already said that for the execution of the enterprise of the Indies, neither reason, nor mathematics, nor world maps were profitable to me; rather the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled.

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

The “Living” Magisterium

First of all they lay down the general principle that in a living religion everything is subject to change, and must in fact be changed. In this way they pass to what is practically their principal doctrine, namely evolution.

Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis

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.” […..]

Catholic Feasts in Thanksgiving for Deliverance from our Enemies

On July 22, 1496, the Christian forces under the command of the great Hungarian John Hunyadi crushed the Turkish Moslem forces of Sultan Mehmet II at the Battle of Belgrade. The news of this great victory reached Rome on August 6th and in gratitude, Pope Callistus III elevated the ancient Feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord to the universal Church. The feast of the Holy Name of Mary on September 12 commemorates the victory of the Christian forces at the Battle of Vienna. September 12 is also the anniversary of the Battle of Muret where Simon de Montfort assisted by St. Dominic with a force of 870 Crusaders crushed the 40,000 man Albigensian army of Raymond VI. The Feast of the Holy Rosary, October 7th, commemorates the Catholic victory at the battle of Lepanto.

The "received and approved" Roman rite of Mass 'customarily used in the solemn administration of the sacraments."

Who does not know that what has been handed down by Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, to the Roman Church is still observed unto this day, and must be observed by all?

Pope Innocent I (402-417)

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

It is the precise enunciation of a divine truth or of a divine reality; for instance, the nature and the personality of God, the Incarnation, the coming of the Holy Ghost, and suchlike truths and realities of the mind of God, precisely known, intellectually conceived, as God has revealed or accomplished them. Every divine truth or reality, so far as God has been pleased to reveal it to us, casts its perfect outline and image upon the human intelligence. His own mind, in which dwells all truth in all fulness and in all perfection, so far as He has revealed of His truth, is cast upon the surface of our mind, in the same way as the sun casts its own image upon the surface of the water, and the disc of the sun is perfectly reflected from its surface. So, in the intelligence of the Apostles, when, by the illumination of the Holy Ghost on the Day of Pentecost, the revelation of God was cast upon the surface of their intellect, every divine truth had its perfect outline and image, not confused, nor in a fragmentary shape, but with a perfect and complete impression. For instance, that God is One in nature; that in God there are Three Persons, and one only Person in Jesus Christ. Next, it is not enough that a truth should be definitely conceived; for if a teacher know the truth, and is not able to communicate it with accuracy, the learner will be but little the wiser. And therefore God, who gave His truth, has given also a perpetual assistance, whereby the Apostles first, and His Church from that day to this, precisely and without erring declare to mankind the truth which was revealed in the beginning; and in declaring that truth the Church clothes it in words, in what we call a terminology: and in the choice of those terms the Church is also guided. There is an assistance, by which the Church does not err in selecting the very language in which to express divine truth. For who does not see that, if the Church 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

Gee, a “60-year-old plan”? Wasn't that about the time leading up to Vatican II?

And yet, now, as the October Amazon Synod draws near, and Catholic theologians increasingly find its working document a text based not on Christo-centric Christian revelation, but on observation of and respect for nature without any direct mention of Christ and his saving mission of incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, this same Vigano is deeply troubled.

“Where is the Christian message here?” Vigano asks me, fixing me with his intense gaze under bushy eyebrows.

And he gives his own answer: “In fact, the figure of Christ is absent. The Synod working document testifies to the emergence of a post-Christian Catholic theology, now, in this moment. And this is very troubling. It is against everything I have worked for and believed for all my life.

“Let’s consider the history of the Jesuits,” Vigano continues. “That is something I am studying now with great care. In fact, if you would like to know the synthesis of my thought, it is this: What we are now seeing is the triumph of a 60-year-old plan, the successful execution of a well-thought out plan to bring a new sort of thinking into the heart of the Church, a thinking rooted in elements of Liberation Theology containing strands of Marxism, little interested in traditional Catholic liturgy or morality or theology, but rather focused on ‘praxis’ in the field of social justice. And now this plan has achieved one of its supreme goals, with a Jesuit on the See of Peter…”

Robert Moynihan, Inside the Vatican, after recent conversation with Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, July 30, 2019

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

Ø “I cannot say anything of what I learned at Fatima concerning the third Secret, but I can say that it has two parts: one concerns the Pope. The other, logically – although I must say nothing – would have to be the continuation of the words: In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved.” [3] [emphasis added] – Joseph Schweigel, S.J., d. 1964 (interrogated Sister Lucia about the Third Secret on behalf of Pope Pius XII on Sept. 2, 1952)[4]

Ø “In the period preceding the great triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, terrible things are to happen. These form the content of the third part of the Secret. What are they?

Ø If ‘in Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved,’ … it can be clearly deduced from this that in other parts of the Church these dogmas are going to become obscure or even lost altogether.Thus it is quite possible that in this intermediate period which is in question (after 1960 and before the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary), the text makes concrete references to the crisis of the Faith of the Church and to the negligence of the pastors themselves.” [5] [emphasis added] – Fr. Joaquin Alonso, C.M.F., d. 1981 (Cleratian priest and official Fatima archivist for over sixteen years; had unparalleled access to Sister Lucia)

Ø “The Secret of Fatima speaks neither of atomic bombs, nor nuclear warheads, nor Pershing missiles, nor SS-20’s. Its content concerns only our faith. To identify the Secret with catastrophic announcements or with a nuclear holocaust is to deform the meaning of the message. The loss of faith of a continent is worse than the annihilation of a nation; and it is true that faith is continually diminishing in Europe.” [6] [emphasis added] – Bishop Alberto Cosme do Amaral, d. 2005 (former bishop of Fatima-Leiria; remarks made in Vienna, Austria on Sept. 10, 1984)

Ø “It [the Third Secret] has nothing to do with Gorbachev. The Blessed Virgin was alerting us against apostasy in the Church.” [emphasis added] – Cardinal Silvio Oddi, d. 2001 (Vatican diplomat and personal friend of Pope John XXIII, from whom he knew certain details concerning the Third Secret) [7]

Ø “In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.” [emphasis added] – Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi, O.P., d. 1996 (personal theologian to Popes John XXIII-John Paul II) [8]

Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité, The Whole Truth about Fatima, [2], Volume 3.

Posted by OnePeterFive

‘A Fish Rots From the Head’

I’m not interested in converting Evangelicals to Catholicism. I want people (excepting traditional Catholics) to find Jesus in their own community. There are so many doctrines we will never agree on. Let’s not spend our time on those. Rather, let’s be about showing the love of Jesus.

Pope Francis, Ecumenical Dinner Meeting with garden variety of Protestant ministers, June 23, 2014

The Voters have “become so corrupt” as to “entrust the government to scoundrels and criminals.”

If the people have a sense of moderation and responsibility, and are most careful guardians of the common weal, it is right to enact a law allowing such a people to choose their own magistrates for the government of the commonwealth. But if, as time goes on, the same people become so corrupt as to sell their votes, and entrust the government to scoundrels and criminals; then the right of appointing their public officials is rightly forfeit to such a people, and the choice devolves to a few good men.

St. Augustine, De Lib. Arb. i, 6

Not long after becoming Pope, Bergoglio privately got in touch with one of the liberation theologians most reviled by Rome – the former Franciscan priest Leonardo Boff, who was condemned to ‘obsequious silence’ and suspended from his religions duties by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for his theology (i.e.: liberation theology and neo-pagan Gaia earth worship ecology). Pope Francis asked Boff to send him his writings on eco-theology in preparation for a major encyclical Francis is considering on environmental matters.

Paul Valley, from his book, Pope Francis: Untying the Knot, 2013

Today, however, we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.

Pope Francis, Laudato Si, quoting, without attribution, the liberation theologian, pantheist, earth-worshiping, neo-pagan, ex-priest, Leonardo Boff’s book, “Cry of the earth, Cry of the Poor.”

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

Just insider confirmation to what is common knowledge: Pope Francis, the CEO of the HomoLobby

Francis is the first ever pope to use the word "gay." He has LGBTQ friends, and he has appointed many LGBTQ friendly and supportive cardinals, archbishops and bishops.... Catholics who reject LGBTQ are "homophobic."

Fr. James Martin, S.J., Homosexual Jesuit priest sermon at a LGBTQ Novus Ordo celebration

US bishops claim $750K grant to pro-LGBT org does not violate Catholic teaching

LifeSiteNews | Lepanto Institute | July 5, 2019— A week and a half ago, the Lepanto Institute published an article illustrating the rampant promotion of homosexuality and transgenderism by an organization called the Ignatian Solidarity Network (ISN). The US Conference of Catholic Bishops' anti-poverty program, Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) is providing a strategic grant of $750,000 to ISN over the next three years.

A supporter of the Lepanto Institute contacted the USCCB to ask why the CCHD is providing three-quarters of a million dollars to an organization so steeped in the promotion of grave sin and depravity. Alexandra Carroll, the USCCB's Communications Manager for Social Mission, responded by claiming that ISN had not violated Catholic teaching, and in fact asserted that ISN's pro-LGBT conferences to high school children and young adults conformed with the Catechism's admonition that "every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided" [Catechism 2358].

Carroll's response, which is provided in full at the end of this article, begins with an attempt to provide credentials that would indicate the merits of the organization itself. For instance, Carroll says:

ISN has been working … in partnership with the Society of Jesus as well as the larger Church — including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops through their core membership with the Justice for Immigrants Campaign, as well as Church leaders like Bishop Gorge Murry, SJ.

At the outset, this would seem like more of an indictment of the organization than an acquittal. But it is interesting to note that in mentioning Bp. Murry, Carroll fails to mention that another prominent Jesuit has worked very closely with ISN, and that is the notorious Fr. James Martin, SJ. The agenda in this grant is already quite evident.

But in the second paragraph of Carroll's response, she explains very clearly how the $750,000 grant will help expand ISN's push for homosexual and transsexual inclusion in the Church. She says:

Through their Strategic National Grant, ISN will be enabled to significantly expand their advocacy capacity — forming leaders, networking and animating Jesuit institutions, and building on the success of existing ISN programs such as the Campaign for Hospitality and the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice.

As we explained in our initial article on this grant, ISN's Ignatian Family Teach-In is the program through which ISN has been promoting homosexuality and transgender ideologies to young people. For instance, in 2018, ISN's Teach-In workshop titled, "Transgender Voices in the Church," which was convened by the Vatican-condemned New Ways Ministry, specifically states its intention to send participants away with resources for conducting transgender activism. The description for this workshop says:

Catholics increasingly face questions of transgender inclusion, intersecting with issues like race and sexual orientation that compound marginalization. This interactive session will examine how trans voices are both present and silent in our communities. Participants will leave with resources for building trans justice in their communities.

So, as it stands, CCHD fully acknowledges and admits that the $750k collected from pew-sitting Catholics is going directly to conference workshops just like this one.

And appallingly, the CCHD claims that workshops such as this are NOT contrary to Catholic teaching. [.....]

The typical bishop today has more in common with Judas than with Jesus Christ!

With the insufficient data given us by the Gospels, it is difficult to analyze the character and motives of Judas Iscariot. He is, and will remain to the end of time, a mystery of evil. It is frightening to compare the pinnacle of greatness to which he was called with the abyss of wickedness to which he plunged. What could have led him to such depths of evil?

As we have seen, Judas was a thief, as well as an opportunist who joined Christ because he believed that he was the Messias and that, as one of his earliest followers, he would assure himself an important place in his kingdom. On the one hand, Judas must have been deeply impressed by Christ’s miracles, but, on the other hand, repelled by his refusal to accept honors, by his teaching of humility, charity, and self-sacrifice, by his poverty and complete indifference to worldly goods and comforts, his revelation of a Messianic kingdom completely devoid of all that Judas imagined it should be, and, above all, his adoption of the role of a suffering and dying Messias.

In any case, the day finally arrived when Judas no longer believed in Christ or loved him. The latter period of Judas’ life is a frightening illustration of the power of the human will to resist grace. Judas looked upon Christ day after day; he talked with him and supped with him; he slept alongside him under the stars at night; he listened to him teach the lessons of his Kingdom; he watched him work miracles of compassion; he heard him denounce the hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees; he trudged wearily alongside him as he climbed the steep hills of Judea to the holy city for the great feasts of the religious year; he enjoyed all the intimacies of a friend and confidant of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

And yet, after more than two years of this, he refuses to open the doors of his soul to the rays of Christ’s divine grace. The evil that Judas did was compounded a thousandfold by the fact that it was conceived and born in the very presence of Jesus Christ.

Rev. Ralph Gorman, C.P., The Last Hours of Jesus

COMMENT: This article is good for a laugh if anyone is interested in reading about Archbishop Charles Caput being "convicted" as a "schismmatic." This historian is probably about as competent as Chaput in making the determination of schism. Obviously, Villanova hires incompetent historians just like the Novus Ordo church appoints incompetent bishops. Schism has canonical, doctrinal and moral implications. This historian demonstrates incompetency in all three fields, but then again, so did Chaput as demonstrated in his exchanges with Fr. Samuel Waters. This historian does not even know the theological definition of "devotion," he thinks the pope is the proximate rule of faith and therefore, whatever he says or does is what every other Catholic must say and do.

Villanova historian says Chaput, Cordileone, and Strickland are ‘devout schismatics’

CatholicNewsAgency | Denver, Colo. | Jul 18, 2019 - A Church historian at Philadelphia’s Villanova University

has said three U.S. bishops are “devout schismatics” who try to diminish the authority of Pope Francis.

“They are devout in the sense that they publicly display their preference for a traditionalist Church and its devotions, such as the rosary. They are schismatics because they openly promote the undermining of the bishop of Rome among the Catholic faithful,” Massimo Faggioli wrote in a July 16 essay for La Croix magazine.

Faggioli made specific mention of three U.S. bishops among those he called “devout schismatics”: Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, and Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas.

The historian said the “schismatic instincts” of those bishops were manifested in August 2018, when they “sided with Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former papal nuncio to Washington who called on Francis to resign.”

Viganò released on Aug. 25, 2018 a “testimony,” which, among other things, accused Pope Francis of ignoring warnings about former cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s sexual deviancy, and then raising McCarrick’s status within the Vatican.

After the testimony was released, Strickland issued a statement calling Viganò’s allegations “credible,” and Cordileone said he could confirm that some of Viganò’s statements were true.

Contrary to Faggioli’s claim, however, Chaput did not endorse Viganò’s allegations. A spokesman told reporters in August that Chaput “enjoyed working with Archbishop Viganò during his tenure as Apostolic Nuncio,” adding that Chaput found Viganò's time at the nunciature “to be marked by integrity to the Church.”

However, the spokesman said that Chaput could not comment “on Archbishop Viganò’s recent testimonial as it is beyond his personal experience.”

In July 19 comments to CNA, Faggioli said that he “did not state that the Archbishop called on Francis to resign or that he created a schism, only that he vouched for Viganò’s integrity. That seems like siding with Archbishop Viganò especially in the context of his continued silence about Viganò’s request for the resignation of the pope.”

Faggioli added that “Viganò put pressure on the pope to resign. One would expect a bishop - and especially an archbishop metropolitan who has twice received the pallium, a sign of special unity with Christ and of communion with the Successor of Peter - to defend the pope’s integrity and to say that no one has the right to ask the pope to resign.”

Shortly after Pope Francis was elected in 2013, Chaput told radio personality Hugh Hewitt that the election had made him “extraordinarily happy, because quite honestly, he is the man I was hoping would be Pope eight years ago.”

Two years later, Chaput hosted Pope Francis in Philadelphia for the 2015 World Meeting of Families. Reflecting in 2018 on that meeting, Chaput wrote that the pope’s “time with us was filled with powerful public moments and deeply grace filled intimate gatherings hallmarked by an overarching spirit of mercy, compassion, and charity.”

“[Pope Francis] has repeatedly challenged us to bear witness to Christ through concrete action—by serving the poor, by helping immigrants, by preserving families, and by protecting the sanctity of life. It’s the kind of challenge we can and should answer with a hearty yes each day,” Chaput added.

In his essay criticizing “devout schismatics,” Faggioli wrote that “dissent against this pope has become radicalized with schismatic instincts because this kind of political devotion is more about a partisan ideology than about the Church. Catholicism was exposed to ideological manipulation by those who do not really care for the Gospel, but who are more interested in a particular conservative political culture.”

Chaput, among those identified as a “devout schismatic,” has frequently emphasized his unwillingness to align with a political party, and criticized partisanship within the Church.

In 2016 he criticized Catholics, especially politicians, who accept “the transfer of our real loyalties and convictions from the old Church of our baptism to the new ‘Church’ of our ambitions and appetites,’ in order to achieve political or personal goals. he group of those who do so “cuts across...both major political parties,” Chaput said.

The Church's canon law defines schism, the charge Faggioli makes against the three bishops, as “the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.”

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

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.

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

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

It is the precise enunciation of a divine truth or of a divine reality; for instance, the nature and the personality of God, the Incarnation, the coming of the Holy Ghost, and suchlike truths and realities of the mind of God, precisely known, intellectually conceived, as God has revealed or accomplished them. Every divine truth or reality, so far as God has been pleased to reveal it to us, casts its perfect outline and image upon the human intelligence. His own mind, in which dwells all truth in all fullness and in all perfection, so far as He has revealed of His truth, is cast upon the surface of our mind, in the same way as the sun casts its own image upon the surface of the water, and the disc of the sun is perfectly reflected from its surface. So, in the intelligence of the Apostles, when, by the illumination of the Holy Ghost on the Day of Pentecost, the revelation of God was cast upon the surface of their intellect, every divine truth had its perfect outline and image, not confused, nor in a fragmentary shape, but with a perfect and complete impression. For instance, that God is One in nature; that in God there are Three Persons, and one only Person in Jesus Christ. Next, it is not enough that a truth should be definitely conceived; for if a teacher know the truth, and is not able to communicate it with accuracy, the learner will be but little the wiser. And therefore God, who gave His truth, has given also a perpetual assistance, whereby the Apostles first, and His Church from that day to this, precisely and without erring declare to mankind the truth which was revealed in the beginning; and in declaring that truth the Church clothes it in words, in what we call a terminology: and in the choice of those terms the Church is also guided. There is an assistance, by which the Church does not err in selecting the very language in which to express divine truth. For who does not see that, if the Church were to err in the selection of the words, the declaration of truth must be obscured? We are conscious every day that we know with perfect certainty what we desire to say, but, from the difficulty of finding or choosing our words, we cannot convey our meaning to another. The Church is not a stammerer as we are. The Church of God has a divine assistance perpetually guiding it, to clothe in language, that is, in adequate expression, the divine truth which God has committed to her trust. Therefore a dogma signifies a correct verbal expression of the truth correctly conceived and known. But, lastly, it is not sufficient that it be clearly understood in the intellect and accurately expressed in words, unless the authority by which it is declared shall be divine; because without a divine authority we cannot have a divine certainty; without a divine authority we can have no such assurance that the doctrine which we hear may not be erroneous. The Apostles were such a divine authority, for they spoke in the Name of their Master. Their successor to this day is the Church, which, taken as a whole, has been, by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, promised by our Divine Lord and never absent from it, perpetually sustained in the path of truth, and preserved from all error in the declaration of that truth. Therefore ‘He that heareth you heareth Me’ is true to this day. He that hears the voice of the Church hears the voice of its Divine Head, and its authority is therefore divine. This, then, is a dogma: a divine truth clearly understood in the intellect, precisely expressed in words and by a divine authority. There are many things which follow from this. First, it proves that the Church of God must be dogmatic: and that any body which is not dogmatic is not the Church of God. Any body or communion that disclaims a divine, and therefore infallible, authority cannot be dogmatic, because it is conscious that it may err. And therefore the- Catholic Church alone, the Church which is one and undivided throughout the world, united with its centre in the Holy See,—this, and this alone, is a dogmatic Church (as the world reproachfully reminds us), and on that I build my proof that it alone is the Church of God. A teaching authority which is dogmatic and not infallible is a tyranny and a nuisance: a tyranny, because it binds the consciences of men by human authority, liable to err; and a nuisance, because as it may err, in the long-run it certainly will, and ‘if the blind lead the blind, shall they not both fall into the ditch?’ We see, then, what dogma means. The Holy Catholic Church always has been and always must be dogmatic. In this, and in no other sense, is it dogmatic; for it delivers nothing to us to be believed except upon divine authority, and that which it so delivers was revealed by God.

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, Glories of the Sacred Heart

The apostasy of the city of Rome from the vicar of Christ and its destruction by Antichrist may be thoughts very new to many Catholics, that I think it well to recite the text of theologians of greatest repute. First Malvenda, who writes expressly on the subject, states as the opinion of Ribera, Gaspar Melus, Biegas, Suarrez, Bellarmine and Bosius that Rome shall apostatize from the Faith, drive away the Vicar of Christ and return to its ancient paganism. Then the Church shall be scattered, driven into the wilderness, and shall be for a time, as it was in the beginning, invisible; hidden in catacombs, in dens, in mountains, in lurking places; for a time it shall be swept, as it were from the face of the earth. Such is the universal testimony of the Fathers of the early Church.

Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, The Present Crisis of the Holy See, 1861

St. Francis of Assisi, Prophecy on the "destroyer" pope.

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 will obey the true Sovereign Pontiff and the Roman Church with loyal hearts 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. Then our Rule and manner of life will be violently opposed by some, and terrible trials will come upon us. Those who are found faithful will receive the crown of life; but woe to those who, trusting solely in their Order, shall fall into tepidity, for they will not be able to support the temptations permitted for the proving of the elect. Those who preserve their fervour 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. But the Lord will be the refuge of the afflicted, and will save all who trust in Him. And in order to be like their Head, these, the elect, will act with confidence, and by their death will purchase for themselves eternal life; choosing to obey God rather than man, they will fear nothing, and they will prefer to perish rather than consent to falsehood and perfidy. Some preachers will keep silence 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.

Works of the Seraphic Father St. Francis Of Assisi, (R. Washbourne, Paternoster Row, London, 1882) pg. 248-250

“My brethren, let us be ever on the watch to drive away temptations, throwing them off from our heart as we would throw off a piece of red-hot iron from our flesh. Fly even the slightest occasions of such thoughts, and at the same time strengthen yourselves by thinking on death and on hell; but above all, on the passion of Jesus Christ, and say to Him in the depth of your heart: ‘Pierce Thou my flesh with Thy fear’.”

St. Camillus de Lellis

Health experts: ‘Transgender’ men will bear children within next decade

LifeSiteNews — Health experts in the UK predict that men, and those who are born as males but who identify as females, will be able to receive womb transplants and bear children within a decade.

Doctors in Europe have already successfully transplanted wombs into wombless women who have gone on to bear healthy children.

Now ‘male-to-female transgenders’ are demanding that they be able to receive womb transplants too, at the government health service’s expense.

Dr. Francoise Shelfield, an infertility specialist and lecturer in obstetrics and gynaecology at University College London pointed out that transgenders’ right to such medical services is “enshrined in legislation.” [....]

Just insider confirmation to what is already common knowledge: Pope Francis, the CEO of the HomoLobby

Fr. James Martin, S.J., Homosexual Jesuit priest sermon at a LGBTQ Novus Ordo celebration

Now to the Homophilic USCCB

US bishops claim $750K grant to pro-LGBT org does not violate Catholic teaching

But in the second paragraph of Carroll's response, she explains very clearly how the $750,000 grant will help expand ISN's push for homosexual and transsexual inclusion in the Church. She says:

So, as it stands, CCHD fully acknowledges and admits that the $750k collected from pew-sitting Catholics is going directly to conference workshops just like this one.

And appallingly, the CCHD claims that workshops such as this are NOT contrary to Catholic teaching. [.....]

Eleison Comments # 626

Further Undermining

Catholics! Cut the electronics out!
All real reality they put to rout.

These “Comments” have more than once recommended the Internet site of the American commentator on worldwide political and economic developments, Dr Paul Craig Roberts, because he may lack the fullness of perspective provided by the one true religion, but he sees a great deal of worldly truth, and he tells it on his site – paulcraigroberts.org – to the point that one asks oneself, when is he going to be assassinated? But murder is always messy, and the murder of a messenger always risks giving credit to his message. Be that as it may, Dr Roberts’ articles are widely read all over the world, and a recent article reinforces on a very practical level the starting of Fr Calderón’s dissection of the “new man” of Vatican II (see these “Comments” of June 22) by modern man’s being cut off from objective truth by subjectivism. Read Dr Roberts’ article, slightly resumed below, for a typical advance today of that cutting off—

Dr Roberts begins by quoting a truth-telling site, Zero Hedge, which reports that “the ability to falsify reality is growing by leaps and bounds. Thoughtless geeks have now developed technology that makes fake reality indistinguishable from real reality. “I don’t think we’re well prepared at all. And I don’t think the public is aware of what’s coming,” said the Chairman of the U.S.A. House Intelligence Committee. He was discussing the rapid advance of synthesis technology. This new artificial intelligence capability allows competent programmers to create audio and video of anyone, saying absolutely anything. The creations are called “deepfakes” and however outrageous they may be, they’re virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. No sooner had we adjusted to a world where our reality seemed fake, than things that are fake became our reality.

“We’re outgunned,” said a UC Berkeley digital-forensics expert, “The number of people now working on video-synthesis outnumber those working on detecting deepfakes by 100–1.” . . . . Already two-thirds of Americans say altered images and videos have become a major problem for understanding the basic facts of current events. Misinformation researchers warn of growing “reality apathy” whereby it takes so much effort to distinguish between what is real and what is fake that we simply give up and rely on our base instincts, tribal biases, impulses. Immersed in our leaders’ deceits, we come to believe in nothing.

For instance, two oil tankers burst into flames, billowing smoke. On cue, a suspicious Iranian Revolutionary Guard boat appeared on grainy video. Viral images flooded earth’s nine billion screens. Each side told a different story. No one quite knew who to trust. Conspiracy theories filled the void, as we each clung to what we most want to believe. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-16/hedge-fund-cio-i-dont-think-public-aware-whats-coming Dr Roberts goes on, Why is it that tech geeks take pride in developing technology that makes truth even harder to find? What is wrong with their character as humans that they create methods of destroying the ability to know truth? How is this different from releasing an undetectable substance into the air that wipes out life? The only use of this technology is to allow the police state complete control. It is now possible to put words and deeds into the mouths and actions of anyone, and to use the faked evidence to convict them of the simulated crime. Without truth, there is no liberty, no freedom, no independent thought, and no awareness. There is only The Matrix. How has America so lost its way that corporations, investors, and scientists are motivated to develop truth-destroying technology? Aren’t these mindless idiots our real enemies? The most difficult thing in the world today is to ascertain the truth. And Dr Roberts’ article ends with a plea for support, which he surely deserves.

Readers, hold on to truth for dear life, because it is being undermined fast, as the world is putting liberty in front of truth, and fantasy in front of reality. The consequences will be humanly disastrous for us all.

Kyrie eleison

Bishop Richard Williamson

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.

A Lesson in Mercy, Purity, Defense of Truth and the Reward of those who trust in God

St. John Gualbert, a Florentine soldier of nobility, forgave the murderer of his brother who had pleaded for mercy in the name of Jesus Christ. John then went to the church of San Miniato which was near at hand, and as he was adoring the image of Christ crucified, the head of Christ turned toward him. He immediately laid aside his military clothing and embraced the monastic life to become a soldier for Christ. St. John would eventually become the great reformer of monastic life when he laid the foundations of his Order under the Rule of St. Benedict at Vallombrosa as directed by St. Romuald of Camaldoli under divine inspiration.

St. John, having denounced the simoniac bishop of Florence, Peter of Pavia, led the people of Florence in refusing to have communion with him. Peter responded by killing all his opponents including every one of the monks at San Salvi during their Night Office. During the next four years the case was appealed to Rome and St. Peter Damien conducted the investigation with full authority of the Sovereign Pontiff, Alexander II. St. Peter Damien, invoking the principle that no inferior has the right to depose their superiors sided with the cause of Peter of Pavia.

Taking the defense of the monks was none other than Hildebrand, later to become Pope St. Gregory VII. Since the majority of bishops sided with Peter of Pavia, Pope Alexander would not depose him, but took the monks under his personal protection. Still the matter was unresolved because the Florentines refused to accept Peter of Pavia.

In Lent 1067 under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, St. John gave his consent to a trial of fire as a means to provide testimony of the truth of the accusation brought by him against the Bishop of Florence. One of St. John’s monks, Peter by name, and since then known as Peter Igneus, walked slowly before the eyes of the multitude through an immense fire without receiving the smallest injury. Heaven having spoken, the bishop was deposed by Rome and ended his days a happy penitent in the very monastery of St. John at Settimo where the trial of fire took place.

Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Feast of St. John Gualbert

The attack against the Catholic Faith through the corruption of architecture has been going on for a long time!

“There is no higher act in the Christian religion,” says Father Le Brun, “than the Sacrifice of the Mass; the greater portion of the other sacraments, and nearly all the offices and ceremonies of the church, are only the means or the preparation to celebrate or participate in it worthily.” Such being the case, it is but natural that the place where this most holy sacrifice is to he offered up, should be set apart and railed off from less sacred portions of the church, and we find this to have been the case in all ages, in all styles, and in all countries professing the Catholic faith down to a comparatively very recent period, when in many places all feelings of sanctity, tradition, and reverence, seemed to have been superseded by ignorant innovation and love of change.

It will be shown in this work that the idea of room-worship, and the all-seeing principles, is a perfect novelty. Those indeed who would make the mass a sight, are only to be compared to the innovators of the l6th century, who made it essential to be heard; those who compiled the Book of Common Prayer converted the mass into all-hearing service ; this was the great object of the vernacular change, that people might hear the priest; they were to be edified by what he said, more than what he did; the sacrificial act was merged into the audible recitation of prayers and exhortations; for this reason the altars, in the reign of Edward the Sixth, were to be moved down from their eastern position to the entrance of the chancel, to enable the people to hear ; this led to the demolition of stone altars and the substitution of tables. For this reason the whole congregation crowd into the choirs of the cathedrals, leaving the rest of the church deserted. For this reason, in large parochial churches, the chancel has been often entirely cut off, and a portion of the nave glazed in and reduced to such a size that the people could hear the clergyman; these were all natural consequences of the change of principle consequent on the translation of the mass, and the altered nature of its celebration. That churches are now built after the old tradition for the service of the separated portion of the English Church, is purely owing to an internal revival of Catholic feelings and traditions in that body: the cause is a return to Catholic truth and reverence; the effect is the erection of churches in accordance with those feelings, it has been a charge and reproach made by Catholics against their separated countrymen, that the old fabrics were unsuited to their service, and unquestionably, on the principle that it was essential for every one to hear, they were so. But I will ask these new-fashioned men if it is indispensable for every one to see, how much better are they adapted for modern Catholic rites? They become as unfit for one as the other, for it is unquestionable, that comparatively very few persons in these cruciform churches could obtain a view of the altar, and this independent of any screen-work, the disposition of the pillars intersecting and shutting out all those who are stationed in the aisles and transepts.

I have always imagined that one great distinction between the Protestant and Catholic services was this, that the former was essentially a hearing service, at which only a comparatively few persons could assist, while at the latter many thousands, or, indeed, hundreds of thousands could unite in one great act of adoration and praise, concentrating their thoughts and intentions with the priest who is offering at God’s altar, although he is far shut off from their vision. [……]

Christians of the present time have but little idea of the solemnity of the ancient worship of the Catholic church; ordained ministers were alone permitted to fill the humblest offices about the sanctuary, every object connected with the sacred rites were considered deserving of the most loving care; even in the very early ages, the vessels of the altar were usually of precious metals, and studded with jewels. The books of the holy gospels were written in golden text on purple vellum, bound in plates of silver encasing ivory diptychs, and deposited in portable shrines, like relics. Though all this should fill us with admiration, there is nothing to excite surprise, when we reflect on the very sacred nature of the Christian mysteries—no sign typical and prophetic, as under the Mosaic law, but our blessed Lord truly present and abiding in the temple in the holy sacrament of the altar, - it is by no means wonderful that the Christian worship should assume a form of solemnity formerly unknown, and we are only astounded that with the perpetuation of the doctrine the practice of external solemnity should have so lamentably become decayed in the latter times; indeed, so sacred, so awful, so mysterious is the sacrifice of the mass, that if men were seriously to reflect on what it really consists, so far from advocating mere rooms for its celebration, they would hasten to restore the reverential arrangements of Catholic antiquity, and instead of striving for front seats and first places, they would hardly feel worthy to occupy the remotest corner of the temple. The form and arrangement of the ancient churches originated from the deepest feelings of reverence; the altar, or place of sacrifice, was accessible only to those who ministered, it was enclosed by pillars and veils; the sanctuary was veiled, the choir was enclosed, and the faithful adored at a respectful distance. All this, and the custom of every succeeding century, is in utter opposition to the modern all-seeing principle, and which, if it is carried out, ends in an absurd conclusion; for if it be essential for every worshipper to see, even a level room would not answer the purpose, and the floor must be raised like an amphitheatre to elevate the receding spectators, for unless the people be thus raised, they form a far greater barrier than any screen-work; and even at St. Peter’s itself, when the Pope celebrates, there is a living screen of Swiss troops and noble guards that effectually shuts out the sight of what is going on, except to those taking part in the functions, or a favoured few, who by means of gold or interest are seated in raised loggia. If religious ceremonies are to be regarded as spectacles they should be celebrated in regular theatres, which have been expressly invented for the purpose of accommodating great assemblages of persons to hear and see well. It has been most justly said, that there is no legitimate halting-place between Catholic doctrine and positive infidelity, and I am quite certain that there is none between a church built on Christian tradition and symbolism and Covent Garden Theatre with its pit, boxes, and gallery. It is only by putting the question in this forcible contrast that persons can really understand the danger of these new notions, or the lengths to which they may eventually lead; and I trust it may be the means of raising a feeling of the greatest repugnance to them in the hearts of every true Catholic.

Augustus Welby Pugin, famous neo-gothic restoration architect, A Treatise on Chancel Screens and Rood Lofts: Their Antiquity, Use, and Symbolic Signification, 1851

Pope Francis ignored ‘terrifying dossier’ on top Vatican official’s sex abuse: Abp. Viganò

LifeSiteNews | July 4, 2019 – Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a former papal ambassador who has accused Pope Francis of covering up sex abuse, has stated that the Vatican’s third most powerful prelate, Archbishop Peña Parra, was never given an “open and thorough investigation” for troubling accusations of sex abuse that date back decades. Archbishop Viganò said the high-ranking prelate was not investigated despite the existence of what he calls a “terrifying dossier” sent to Pope Francis that gives names and dates regarding his alleged misbehavior.

Archbishop Viganò told the Washington Post in an unpublished section of an interview that was recently obtained and published by LifeSiteNews that Pope Francis "essentially ignored" the dossier on Archbishop Peña Parra while appointing the Venezuelan to a top position in the Vatican.

Parra_Archbishop_Edgar_Peña_Parra_and_Francis.jpg Viganò states that one accusation, involving Peña Parra seducing two candidates for the seminary in 1990, was reported by the alleged victims’ parents to the police, and the veracity of the accusations were confirmed in writing to the Secretariat of State by both the rector of the major seminary and by seminary’s spiritual director. Viganò told the Post that “I have seen these documents with my own eyes,” and the documentation as well as that of other accusations should still be on file in the Holy See, “if it has not been destroyed.”

Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, who was installed in October of last year as the Substitute of the Secretariat of State, the second in charge of the most influential Vatican dicastery, has been under a cloud of suspicion following reports in the Italian media in 2018 of an investigation made by his bishop in the 1980s regarding accusations of homosexuality made against him anonymously. However, the accusations mentioned by Archbishop Viganò are far more serious, including sexual predation against seminarians, adultery, and even a deadly sex game.

“This might even be a scandal surpassing that of McCarrick, and it must not be allowed to be covered by silence,” says Viganò.

LifeSiteNews reached out to Archbishop Peña Parra for comment but did not receive a reply.

'Terrifying dossier' on Archbishop Peña Parra

According to reports in the Italian media, in 1985 a letter was sent from Peña Parra’s then-bishop mentioning anonymous accusations of homosexuality against him as a seminarian, and calling him a “sexually sick person.” The letter was sent by Domingo Roa Pérez, Archbishop of Maracaibo, to Pío León Cárdenas, Rector of the Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Palmira, Venezuela, where Peña Parra had been a student. Roa Pérez expresses concern about the accusations and asks if León Cárdenas can confirm or deny them. No further correspondence has emerged to indicate the outcome of the investigation. LifeSiteNews has obtained copies of the anonymous letter containing the accusations as well the letter of inquiry written by the archbishop in response.

However, according to Archbishop Viganò, the Vatican for decades has been in possession of much more damning accusations against Peña Parra, information which has never been revealed publicly. Viganò mentions a “terrifying dossier” sent to Francis by a group of faithful Catholics from Peña Parra’s home diocese of Maracaibo in Venezuela, led by one “Dr. Enrique W. Lagunillas Machado.” The document was titled: “Who really is Msgr. Edgar Robinson Peña Parra, the New Substitute of the Secretariat of State of the Vatican?”

Viganò says that the accusations made in the letter have been known by the Vatican’s Secretariat of State since 2002, and that Viganò himself learned of them while he served as a Delegate for Pontifical Representations. LifeSiteNews has obtained a copy of the dossier from a trusted source and can verify that its contents match Archbishop Viganò’s descriptions.

In addition, Viganò claims that a journalist from Maracaibo, Gastón Guisandes López, made “serious accusations” implicating Peña Parra and other priests of the diocese in the sex abuse of minors and other “possibly criminal” acts, in 2000. He says that the following year, Guisandes López went to the apostolic nuncio in Venezuela, Archbishop André Dupuy, and although the nuncio refused to receive the journalist, he reported to Rome that he had made hair-raising accusations against Peña Parra, accusations that were partially confirmed by a diocesan official.

The nuncio reported that Peña Parra was accused of seducing two students from the minor seminary (a high school that prepares students to study for the priesthood), in September of 1990. The accusation included the specific location of the sexual abuse, which was a parish church led by a friend of Peña Parra’s, Fr. José Severeyn. Viganò says that the abuse was reported to the police and confirmed by the seminary rector, Enrique Pérez, to the Secretariat of State, adding “I have seen these documents with my own eyes.”

Even more horrifying was a second accusation reported by the apostolic nuncio, who says that Peña Parra and Severeyn were vacationing on an island together in Lake Maracaibo when they were involved in the death of two people, both presumably males, who were killed by electrical shock. The Maracaibo dossier also mentions this accusation, and adds that “the two corpses were found naked, with evidence of macabre homosexual lewd encounters,” in the words of Viganò.

Although the accusations were “grave,” writes Viganò, “not only was Peña Parra not required to face them, he was allowed to continue in the diplomatic service of the Holy See” – an accusation that would apply to the curia of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict. Viganò considers the case of Peña Parra to be so bad that it “might even be a scandal surpassing that of McCarrick,” and notes that the archbishop is a close associate of the scandal-ridden Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, and the cardinal’s now-disgraced former auxiliary bishop, Juan José Pineda Fasquelle, having formed a strong friendship with the latter while serving in the apostolic nunciature in Honduras from 2003 to 2007.

Viganò writes that these accusations were reported to the Secretariat of State in 2002 by the then apostolic nuncio in Venezuela, Archbishop André Dupuy, and they have remained on file both in Venezuela and in the Vatican ever since, accessible to high officials of the Holy See. Viganò names “the Cardinals Secretaries of State Sodano, Bertone, and Parolin and the Substitutes Sandri, Filoni, and Becciu,” among those with access to the information, “if it has not been destroyed.”

Viganò regards Cardinal Parolin as particularly culpable in the matter, given his earlier assignment as Apostolic Nuncio to Venezuela.

“Particularly egregious is the behavior of cardinal Parolin who, as Secretary of State, did not oppose the recent appointment of Peña Parra as Substitute, making him his closest collaborator,” he writes. “Even more: years earlier, in January 2011, as apostolic nuncio in Caracas, Parolin did not oppose the appointment of Peña Parra as archbishop and apostolic nuncio to Pakistan. Before such important appointments, a rigorous informative process is made to verify the suitability of the candidate, so these accusations were surely brought to the attention of cardinal Parolin.”

Viganò adds that “cardinal Parolin knows the names of a number of priests in the Curia who are sexually unchaste, violating the laws of God that they solemnly committed themselves to teach and practice, and he continues to look the other way.” He regards Pope Francis’ as having even more “grave” responsibility, for “having chosen for an extremely important position in the Church a man accused of such serious crimes, without first insisting on an open and thorough investigation.”

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

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

Francis attributes evil to God!

The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings..... An insincere stance of openness to the other, as well as a corporatist attitude, which reserves salvation exclusively to one’s own creed, is destructive of the same creed. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus explained this to the inquiring lawyer. Love lived in any religion pleases God. “Through an exchange of gifts, the Spirit can lead us ever more fully into truth and goodness.”

Pope Francis' approved Abu Dhabi document

COMMENT: “For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils” (Ps. 96:5). Pope Francis is affirming that the worship of idols is “willed by God in His wisdom.” This is blasphemy but not a surprising blasphemy from Francis the Blasphemer. What Pope Francis calls a “corporatist attitude, which reserves salvation exclusively to one's own creed” is the denial of a revealed truth of God that has been dogmatically defined by the Catholic Church on three separate occasions. It is a dogma that there is “no salvation outside the Catholic Church.” The denial of this dogma is heresy by definition and anyone holding this heresy cannot be saved. Furthermore, membership in the Catholic Church also dogmatically requires profession of the true faith and reception of the sacrament of Baptism.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus may very well have had in mind a specific Samaritan man who received him as the Messiah through the calling by the Samaritan Woman at the Well. Be that as it may, are good works alone sufficient for salvation? Those that affirm this are Pelagian heretics which is a favorite calumny that Francis mindlessly smears Catholics faithful to tradition. But unlike Francis, who accuses traditional Catholics of Pelagianism without a shred of evidence, our accusations are supported with the bile that flows routinely from Francis' mouth. The recognition of Logos, “which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world” (John 1:9), leads to the regulation of life according to the natural law and is an essential prerequisite to receiving the truth of the Gospel and the sacrament of Baptism, but of itself, it with all the good works in the world, insufficient for salvation. Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan Woman itself destroys this heretical claim of Francis. According to Francis, the Samaritan Woman could have been saved in her idolatrous and adulterous state.

What every faithful Catholic must know is that the faith is the necessary and sufficient cause of and the sign of unity in the Catholic Church. The pope is only secondarily and accidentally the cause and sign of unity in the Catholic Church. When the pope falls from the faith he is to be opposed to his face as St. Paul did to St. Peter (Galatians 2:11). Those who make the pope their proximate rule of faith will follow Francis in his heresy and eventual apostasy. Those who keep dogma as their proximate rule of faith will save their souls.

“And you shall be hated by all men for my name's sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved” (Matt. 10:22).

Pope Francis thinks the miracle of Transubstantiation is a “Magic trick”!

Surprisingly, the account of the multiplication of the loaves does not mention the multiplication itself. On the contrary, the words that stand out are: “break”, “give” and “distribute” (cf. Lk 9:16). In effect, the emphasis is not on the multiplication but the act of sharing. This is important. Jesus does not perform a magic trick; he does not change five loaves into five thousand and then to announce: “There! Distribute them!” No. Jesus first prays, then blesses the five loaves and begins to break them, trusting in the Father. And those five loaves never run out. This is no magic trick; it is an act of trust in God and his providence.

Pope Francis the Destroyer, Homily on Corpus Christi, 6-23-2019

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

It is the precise enunciation of a divine truth or of a divine reality; for instance, the nature and the personality of God, the Incarnation, the coming of the Holy Ghost, and suchlike truths and realities of the mind of God, precisely known, intellectually conceived, as God has revealed or accomplished them. Every divine truth or reality, so far as God has been pleased to reveal it to us, casts its perfect outline and image upon the human intelligence. His own mind, in which dwells all truth in all fulness and in all perfection, so far as He has revealed of His truth, is cast upon the surface of our mind, in the same way as the sun casts its own image upon the surface of the water, and the disc of the sun is perfectly reflected from its surface. So, in the intelligence of the Apostles, when, by the illumination of the Holy Ghost on the Day of Pentecost, the revelation of God was cast upon the surface of their intellect, every divine truth had its perfect outline and image, not confused, nor in a fragmentary shape, but with a perfect and complete impression. For instance, that God is One in nature; that in God there are Three Persons, and one only Person in Jesus Christ. Next, it is not enough that a truth should be definitely conceived; for if a teacher know the truth, and is not able to communicate it with accuracy, the learner will be but little the wiser. And therefore God, who gave His truth, has given also a perpetual assistance, whereby the Apostles first, and His Church from that day to this, precisely and without erring declare to mankind the truth which was revealed in the beginning; and in declaring that truth the Church clothes it in words, in what we call a terminology: and in the choice of those terms the Church is also guided. There is an assistance, by which the Church does not err in selecting the very language in which to express divine truth. For who does not see that, if the Church were to err in the selection of the words, the declaration of truth must be obscured? We are conscious every day that we know with perfect certainty what we desire to say, but, from the difficulty of finding or choosing our words, we cannot convey our meaning to another. The Church is not a stammerer as we are. The Church of God has a divine assistance perpetually guiding it, to clothe in language, that is, in adequate expression, the divine truth which God has committed to her trust. Therefore a dogma signifies a correct verbal expression of the truth correctly conceived and known. But, lastly, it is not sufficient that it be clearly understood in the intellect and accurately expressed in words, unless the authority by which it is declared shall be divine; because without a divine authority we cannot have a divine certainty; without a divine authority we can have no such assurance that the doctrine which we hear may not be erroneous. The Apostles were such a divine authority, for they spoke in the Name of their Master. Their successor to this day is the Church, which, taken as a whole, has been, by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, promised by our Divine Lord and never absent from it, perpetually sustained in the path of truth, and preserved from all error in the declaration of that truth. Therefore ‘He that heareth you heareth Me’ is true to this day. He that hears the voice of the Church hears the voice of its Divine Head, and its authority is therefore divine. This, then, is a dogma: a divine truth clearly understood in the intellect, precisely expressed in words and by a divine authority. There are many things which follow from this. First, it proves that the Church of God must be dogmatic: and that any body which is not dogmatic is not the Church of God. Any body or communion that disclaims a divine, and therefore infallible, authority cannot be dogmatic, because it is conscious that it may err. And therefore the- Catholic Church alone, the Church which is one and undivided throughout the world, united with its centre in the Holy See,—this, and this alone, is a dogmatic Church (as the world reproachfully reminds us), and on that I build my proof that it alone is the Church of God. A teaching authority which is dogmatic and not infallible is a tyranny and a nuisance: a tyranny, because it binds the consciences of men by human authority, liable to err; and a nuisance, because as it may err, in the long-run it certainly will, and ‘if the blind lead the blind, shall they not both fall into the ditch?’ We see, then, what dogma means. The Holy Catholic Church always has been and always must be dogmatic. In this, and in no other sense, is it dogmatic; for it delivers nothing to us to be believed except upon divine authority, and that which it so delivers was revealed by God.

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, Glories of the Sacred Heart

The Absolute Necessity of “Prayer And Penance”

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

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

And what object could be more worthy of our prayer, and more in keeping with the adorable person of Him who is the only “mediator of God and men, the Man Jesus Christ” [I Tim. 2, 5], than to beseech Him to preserve on earth faith in one God living and true? Such prayer bears already in itself a part of its answer; for in the very act of prayer a man unites himself with God and, so to speak, keeps alive on earth the idea of God. The man who prays, merely by his humble posture, professes before the world his faith in the Creator and Lord of all things; joined with others in prayer, he recognizes, that not only the individual, but human society as a whole has over it a supreme and absolute Lord. …..The Divine Heart of Jesus cannot but be moved at the prayers and sacrifices of His Church, and He will finally say to His Spouse, weeping at His feet under the weight of so many griefs and woes: “Great is thy faith; be it done to thee as thou wilt” [Matth. 15, 28.].

Pope Pius XI, Charitate Christi Compulsi, On the Sacred Heart

Prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

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

St. Gertrude the Great

“Remember my word that I said to you: The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you: if they have kept my word, they will keep yours also.”

Jesus Christ, (John 15:20)

Ecclesia Dei Communities – Faithful Geldings

I myself saw, in the years after 1988, how the return of communities which had been separated from Rome changed their interior attitudes; I saw how returning to the bigger and broader (Modernist) Church enabled them to move beyond one-sided positions and broke down rigidity so that positive energies could emerge for the whole.

Pope Benedict XVI, Papal Letter to bishops regarding the lifting of the SSPX excommunications, March 10, 2009

St. Paul says that Antichrist “sitteth in the temple of God” . . . This is not the ancient Temple of Jerusalem, nor a temple like it built by Antichrist, as some have thought, for then it would be his own temple . . . this temple is shown to be a Catholic Church, possibly one of the churches in Jerusalem or St. Peter’s in Rome, which is the largest church in the world and is in the full sense “The Temple of God.” [.....] This false prophet possibly at the behest of Antichrist usurps the papal supremacy… His assumed spiritual authority and supremacy over the Church would make him resemble the Bishop of Rome… He would be Pontifex Maximus, a title of pagan emperors, having spiritual and temporal authority. Assuming authority without having it makes him the False Prophet… Though he poses as a lamb, his doctrines betray him.

Fr. Herman B. Kramer, The Book of Destiny, interpretation of Apocalypse

Baptism alone unites the individual Faithful to Christ

The death of Christ is the universal cause of man’s salvation: but a universal cause has to be applied to particular effects. Thus it was found necessary for certain remedies to be administered to men by way of bringing Christ’s death into proximate connexion with them. Such remedies are the Sacraments of the Church. And these remedies had to be administered with certain visible signs: -- first, because God provides for man, as for other beings, according to his condition; and it is the condition of man’s nature to be led through sensible things to things spiritual and intelligible: secondly, because instruments must be proportioned to the prime cause; and the prime and universal cause of man’s salvation is the Word Incarnate: it was convenient therefore that the remedies, through which that universal cause reaches men, should resemble the cause in this, that divine power works invisibly through visible signs.

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, Book IV, Chap. 56.

Psychologist gives searing critique of Vatican’s new gender doc: a compromise with ‘neo-paganism’

LifeSiteNews | ROME, June 14, 2019 — A Catholic psychologist has denounced the latest Vatican document on gender theory as containing “not one sentence of sound advice for parents who try to educate their children towards the virtues necessary for a Christian life.”

In a searing critique, Dr. Gerard J.M. van den Aarweg, a Dutch psychologist and psychoanalyst specializing in the treatment of persons with homosexual tendencies, condemned the recent Vatican document on gender theory, saying “the aggressive neo-pagan sexual ideology of the world has no wisdom we might share. The task of the Church is not dialoguing but teaching and correcting, there is a relentless spiritual war going on in the field of sexuality, marriage, and the family.”

The (non-magisterial) document, titled “‘Male and Female He Created Them’: Towards a path of dialogue on the question of gender theory in education,” was published by the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education on June 10.

Addressed to Catholic schools and those involved in the formation of children and young people, the document has provoked admiration and consternation and drawn considerable attention in the Catholic and secular media.

Catholic media on the whole have shown a favorable response. The New York Times focused on the document’s rejection of the idea of gender fluidity. And “LGBT” activists criticized the text for its clear affirmation that human persons are either “male” or “female,” saying it keeps the Vatican “in the dark ages, promoting a false teaching that relies on myth, rumor, and falsehoods.”

In the midst of these conflicting opinions, LifeSite spoke with Dr. van den Aarweg — author of “The Battle for Normality” (Ignatius press) and “Science says NO: The gay ‘marriage’ deception” — about his view on the document.

The Dutch psychologist did not mince his words.

Here below is our interview with Dr. Gerard van den Aardweg.

LifeSite: Dr. van den Aardweg, what are your general impressions of the Vatican’s new document on gender theory?

Dr. van den Aardweg: Basically, it is an ideological document. It is not specifically Catholic, in spite of some lip service. It essentially makes a plea for a kind of atheist-humanist/socialist sex education, presented as more or less Catholic. It gushes over the boons of a social model of sexual education monitored by “professional experts” on the basis of naively supposed ever-deepening insights into sexuality in the current human sciences. It represents the kind of illusionary and sentimental talk about education and “affectivity” characteristic of the immature and superficial humanistic psychology of the 1960s, but now proclaimed as ‘higher wisdom’ by a Vatican Congregation whose members run half a century behind the times. It is ‘dialogue’ and ‘listening’ and ‘openness’ all over again. But no listening to the divine teachings of the Catholic Church on sexuality, marriage and the family (for these seem in need of ‘restructuring’). Teaching and preaching them to a pagan world is not, it seems, the way forward. The great dream is an “alliance” with the neo-paganism of the sexual, marriage, and family ideology of the UN and the anti-Christian EU countries.

“Listening.” Well, listening attentively to the document’s vague and ambiguous formulations and suggestions in order to discern what it drives at, one can discern its lead motive: revolutionary change.

LifeSite: What is your view on its analysis of gender theory?

Dr. van den Aardweg: The observations on gender theory are ambiguous and unclear, and that makes them suspect. At face value, some phrases seem correct and “orthodox,” such as the denials that sexual “identity is not a choice of the individual,” and platitudes such as “sexuality [a person’s sex] is a fundamental component of personhood” or “every cell in the body is male or female.” However, they are simultaneously undermined by statements such as (I abbreviate): “The approach to gender theory [is] the path of dialogue.” Why would that be so? No answer, because we are in the domain of ideology. What is there to dialogue about? We know the effects of dialoguing from the experiences with the Communists. The enemies of Christianity will dialogue with you in their way, on their terms. The outcome is none other than dialoguing with the devil. The aggressive neo-pagan sexual ideology of the world has no wisdom we might share. The task of the Church is not dialoguing but teaching and correcting, there is a relentless spiritual war going on in the field of sexuality, marriage, and the family.

Another example: “Human sciences … [present] other work … which tries a deeper understanding.” There follows a vague reference to works about the “sexual difference between men and women in a variety of cultures.” Here as everywhere in this document, only suggestions or insinuations are given, without a shadow of proof. So, which allegedly better “work” is meant here? I surmise the authors refer to the once-popular writings of Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, the lesbian feminists who attempted to show the relativity of sex roles and functions in non-Western societies. But their contentions have long been refuted as being based on false, partly even fraudulent, evidence.

The relativization of the unpopular Biblical view of man-woman relationships and social “roles,” in apparent support of feminist (and gay?) indignation, also appears in the glib contention about “unjust discrimination,” which is “a sad fact of history” also “within the Church.” The Church would have violated the “equal dignity of men and women” in consequence of a “masculinist [sic] mentality veiled by religious motives.” If this is not a sneer at the Catholic teaching about man as the head and woman as the heart of the family, and the woman’s duty to obey her husband etc., what else is being suggested? Or, looked at from a different angle, who can believe the authors of this text are still capable of transmitting the unchangeable divine teachings of the Apostles, St. Augustine, and the Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI? Probably, these authors, blinded by the spirit of the times (Zeitgeist), do not even understand them anymore, nor do they seem to know and understand the correct anthropological and psychological insight of St. Edith Stein that “woman is by nature mother and the companion of the man.” For any Catholic who knows and understands this truth would have made it the cornerstone of a discourse on the equal value of man and woman.

Equally disquieting is the authors’ dubious appreciation of the natural family: “To qualify it [the family] with ideological concepts which are compelling at only one moment in history, and then decline … is a betrayal of its true significance.” Do the aforementioned apostolic teachings belong to the category of temporary historical “ideologies” about male and female? If not, why didn’t they recommend them at all; and what false ideological concepts have been attached to the family that are not essential? For example, has the traditional concept of the Christian family in the light of the present enlightened insights been narrowed by our cultural prejudices? In sum, give a clear, unambiguous definition of the natural and God-willed family and unambiguously reject the political definition of, among others, the Christian Democrats.

LifeSite: The document frequently cites Pope John Paul II. What do you think of its use of his writings?

Dr. van den Aardweg: Pope John Paul II is quoted but fairly hypocritically. His prestige is abused to create the impression of orthodoxy, a characteristic the writing as a whole has no right to claim. The authors have even the evil courage to recall the name of Don Bosco, whose teachings and efforts were diametrically opposed to theirs and were therefore truly exemplary.

LifeSite: Does the document presume that sex-education should always be made available in schools? Is the position the document takes in this regard consistent with the constant teaching of the Church?

Dr. van den Aardweg: Parental rights in education are professed with words, but the whole, and in essence, socialistic-bureaucratic organization to educate the “sexuality and affectivity” of children and youngsters about which these utopians are dreaming will no doubt soon squeeze the parents’ rights into extinction. The proposed educational “professionals” within and outside the school, with their “permanent education” coming from “universities” etc., with their close association with the secular organizations (“local, national and international”!), with their new “programmes, instruction materials, and reference books,” and paid by who else but the State, will guarantee politically-correct sex ed. It proposes an idealistic “educational alliancebetween family, school, and society”: come to Holland, Germany, or Great Britain and see how smoothly it functions… No one who objects, no school, no collective of Catholic parents, only a rare Catholic teacher, a loner, a few exceptional Catholic parents, who refuse to cooperate with these cheerful “programmes” that violate their pupils’ and children’s innocence. Indeed, as this Vatican document remarks, “the family is not left to face the challenges of educating the young on its own.” And the “authorization” of the parents is a good principle, but “to a certain degree.”

LifeSite: Do you have any other comments?

Dr. van den Aardweg: The conclusion of the document, though still evading honestly straightforward and unambiguous language, helps in grasping its real meaning and purposes. Consider these high-falutin’ declarations: “The (educational formators) have the mission to teach them [young people] sensitivity to different expressions of love, mutual concern and care, loving respect (sic) and a deeply meaningful communication”; “Train young people to be open and interested in the reality that surrounds them, capable of care and tenderness.” This has been precisely the sales pitch of the neo-pagan Sexual Reform Movement for at least a century. All kinds of sexual or “love” relationships fit into this ideal, unmarried as well as gay ones. There is nothing in the Vatican text about sexual sin, the fight for chastity, masturbation, unfaithfulness in marriage, unmarried cohabitation, chastity in marriage; not one sentence of sound advice for parents who try to educate their children towards the virtues necessary for a Christian life and against the pressure of the neo-pagan environment, school, and even church; nothing about contraception, sterilization, and abortion.

Finally, the style of the piece is terrible: it is permeated by pompous and sentimental language, hypocritical unctuousness. The intellectual level is substandard. No concept that is used is defined, no statement proved or even supported by some argumentation; the references and remarks relative to anthropology and psychology (“the human sciences”) are misplaced or outright nonsensical, and yet they are solemnly presented as ‘superior wisdom.’

A Vatican congregation which dares to produce and issue such a document should seriously consider closing up shop.

Pope Francis the Destroyer resurrects the myth of the 'Noble Savage'!

The Amazonian Church of Pope Francis

Roberto de Mattei | Aldo Maria Valli blogspot | June 20, 2019

"Will the bishops, successors of the Apostles be silent? Will the cardinals, the Pope’s advisors in the governing of the Church be silent, in the face of this political-religious manifesto which perverts the doctrine and praxis of the Mystical Body of Christ ? "

The first reactions in response to the Instrumentum Laboris for the Amazon Synod were focused on its opening to married priests and the insertion of women into the sacramental orders of the Church. But the Instrumentum Laboris is something more: it’s a manifesto for liberation eco-theology which proposes a pantheist, egalitarian “cosmo-vision” , unacceptable for a Catholic. The gates of the Magisterim, as José Antonio Ureta, rightly highlighted, are being thrown wide open “to Indian Theology and Ecotheology, two Latin American derivatives of Liberation Theology. After the collapse of the USSR and the failure of “real socialism”, the advocates of Liberation Theology (LT), on the Marxist style, attributed the historic role of revolutionary force to indigenous peoples and to nature”.*

In the document, published by the Holy See on June 17, the Amazon “bursts” into the life of the Church like a “new entity” (n.2). But what is the Amazon? It is not only a physical place and a “complex biosphere” (n.10) but also “a reality full of life and wisdom” (n.5), which ascends to a conceptual paradigm and calls us to a “pastoral, ecological and synodal” conversion (n.5). In order to carry out its prophetic role, the Church must heed “the Amazon peoples” (n.7). These people are able to live in “intercommunication” with the entire cosmos (n.12), but their rights are threatened by the economic interests of the multinationals, which, as the natives of Guaviare (Colombia) say “have slashed the veins of our Mother Earth” (n.17).

The Church listens to the “cry, of both the people and the earth (n.18), because in the Amazon “the land is a theological place by which the faith is lived. It is also a unique source of God’s revelation” (n.19). So then, a third source of Revelation has been added to Holy Scripture and Tradition: the Amazon, the land where “everything is connected” (n.20), everything is “constitutively related, forming a vital whole” (n.21). In the Amazon, the ideal of Communism is fulfilled, given that, in tribal collectivism, “everything is shared and private spaces – typical of modernity – are minimal.”

The native peoples have been liberated from monotheism and have restored animism and polytheism. Indeed, as is written in no. 25: “the life of the Amazonian community has not yet been influenced by Western civilization. This is reflected in the beliefs and rites regarding the action of spirits and the divinity – named in many different ways – with and in the territory, with and in relation to nature. This cosmo-vision is picked up in Francis’s ‘mantra’: “everything is connected” (LS 16, 91, 117, 138, 240)».

The document insists on asserting that the Amazonian “cosmo-vision” encompasses an “ancestral wisdom, a living reservoir of spirituality and native culture (n. 26). So, “the native people of the Amazon have much to teach us(…). The new paths of evangelization must be constructed in dialogue with these ancestral wisdoms in which the seeds of the Word are manifested” (n.29).

The wealth of the Amazon [then] is in not being monoculture, but of being “a multiethnic, multicultural and multi-religious world” (n.36) with which we need to dialogue. The peoples of the Amazon, “remind us of the past and the wounds inflicted during long periods of colonization. For this Pope Francis has asked ‘humbly for forgiveness, not only for the offences of his own Church, but for the crimes against the native populations during the so-called conquest of America’. In the past the Church has at times been an accomplice of the colonizers and this has suffocated the prophetic voice of the Gospel” (n.38).

“Integral ecology” includes “the transmission of the ancestral experience of cosmologies, of spiritualities and theologies of the indigenous peoples, in the care of our Common Home” (n.50). “In their ancestral wisdom – these peoples- have cultivated the conviction that all creation is connected, that it deserves our respect and our responsibility. The Amazonian culture, which integrates human beings with nature, becomes a point of reference for the construction of a new paradigm of integral ecology” (n.56).

The Church must divest itself of its Roman identity and adopt “an Amazonian face”. “The Amazonian face of the Church finds its expression in the plurality of its peoples, cultures and ecosystems. This diversity requires an option for an outward-bound and missionary Church, incarnated in all its activities, expressions and languages” (n.107). “A Church with an Amazonian face in its multiple nuances, seeks to be an “outward-bound” Church (cf. EG 20-23), which leaves behind a colonial mono-cultural, clerical and domineering tradition and knows how to discern and adopt without fear, the diverse cultural expressions of the peoples” (n.110).

The pantheist spirit animating Amazonian nature is a leitmotif of the document. “The Creator Spirit which fills the universe (cf. Wisdom 1,7) is the Spirit that for centuries has nurtured the spirituality of these peoples even before the proclaiming of the Gospel and spurs them onto accepting it, from the base of their [own] cultures and traditions”(n.120). Hence, “we need to grasp what the Spirit of the Lord has taught these peoples over the course of the centuries: faith in God, Father-Mother-Creator; the sense of communion and harmony with the earth; the sense of solidarity with their fellow-man; the project of “living well”; the wisdom of a thousand-year old civilization the elders possess and which has effects on the health, cohabitation, education and cultivation of the land; the relationship with nature and Mother Earth; the capacity of resistance and resilience of the women in particular; the religious rites expressed; the relations with their forbearers; their contemplative stance and sense of gratuity; the celebration and festivity and the sacred sense of the land” (121).

Again, in the light of a “healthy decentralization” of the Church, “the communities ask that the Episcopal Conferences adapt the Eucharistic Rite to their culture”. “The Church needs to be incarnated in the Amazonian cultures which possess a great sense of community, equality and solidarity, thus clericalism is not accepted in its various forms of manifestation. The indigenous peoples possess a rich tradition of social organization, where authority is in rotation and has a profound sense of service. On the basis of this experience in organization, it would be opportune to reconsider the idea that the exercise in jurisdiction (power of government) must be connected in all spheres (sacramental, judiciary, administrative) and in a permanent way to the Sacrament of Holy Orders” (n.127).

On the basis of the premise that “celibacy is a gift for the Church” a request is being made that “for the most remote zones in the region, a study be made about the possibility of priestly ordination for elderly people, preferably natives, respected and accepted in their communities - even if they may have already a constituted and stable family - as a means of guaranteeing the Sacraments which accompany and sustain Christian life” (n.129). Furthermore, we need “to guarantee leadership to the women, along with more extensive and relevant spaces in the field of formation: theology, catechesis, liturgy and schools of faith and politics” and “identify the type of official ministry that can be conferred on women, keeping in mind the central role they play today in the Amazonian Church.”

What more can be added? Will the bishops, successors of the Apostles be silent? Will the cardinals, the Pope’s advisors in the governing of the Church be silent, in the face of this political-religious manifesto which perverts the doctrine and praxis of the Mystical Body of Christ ?

Vatican all but wipes out conservative order of nuns for ‘too much prayer’

LifeSiteNews | June 7, 2019 — All but five of the 39 Little Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Redeemer, a conservative French religious order, have

been relieved of their vows by the Vatican after refusing to submit to a group of Vatican-appointed commissioners led by a habitless liberal nun who wanted to impose “modern orientations” on the group, in the sister’s words.

The 34 nuns, who dress in traditional habits and care for the disabled and elderly in four different nursing homes, have been asked to relinquish their facilities and their religious dress now that they are no longer considered members of their institute. The fate of the nursing homes and their residents is now in question.

The ruling comes from the Holy See’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, which oversees religious orders and institutes, led by Cardinal João Braz de Aviz. Previous attempts by the sisters to overturn the congregation’s rulings against them by appealing to the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura have failed, with the court reportedly dismissing their case without allowing them to fully present their arguments.

“Having looked to remaining faithful, as much to the Church as to the charism granted by Our Lord to Mother Marie de la Croix, having tried to find, many many times, a path of dialogue with Rome, having offered peaceful solutions, no agreement having been found, the authorities in Rome in charge of the Consecrated Life have now decided to choose to release us from our religious vows,” the sisters announced on June 3, following the issuance of the decision on May 23.

“Whilst it is true that in the context of the moral pressure and the impasse that we found ourselves in, we were driven, last October, against our profound wishes, to ask to be released from our vows, since no other solution had ever been offered to enable us to remain in communion with the Church: we are profoundly wounded by this and remain sadly surprised that Rome has preferred to accept that request rather than accepting the peaceful solutions which we had put forward and which were possible,” the sisters added.

The lay-led Association in Support of the Little Sisters denounced the decision as a “grievous injustice” and blamed the bishop of the Diocese of Laval, Thierry Scherrer, for a personal vendetta against the group’s conservative mother superior that has now led to the destruction of the order.

“Mgr Scherrer wanted the head of the Superior General on a platter,” wrote the association. “An entire Congregation has been destroyed!”

“This unjust and violent decision gives rise to grave damage both moral and material to the Little Sisters of Mary who have given their lives in the service of the Church, in perfect fidelity to their religious vocation,” they add.

According to their lay supporters, the sisters were accused of a variety of offenses against modern sensibilities, including engaging in “too much prayer,” the use of the traditional habits, “deviant authoritarianism,” being “too classical” in their thinking, and being “unmoving” in their adherence to the charism of their institute. They also say the commissioners tried to turn the sisters against each other, offering prestigious positions in the order if they would conform to the commissioner’s authority, but their tactics failed. When the nuns refused to admit the commissioners, they were threatened with excommunication and requested to be relieved of their vows to avoid that outcome.

The support association says the decision to relieve the sisters of their vows instead of working out a solution with them came at the behest of Sr. Geneviève Médevielle, the principal apostolic commissioner named by the Vatican. Médevielle is a religious sister who dresses in lay clothing and wears a short haircut without a head covering. She is a professor of ethics at the Catholic Institute of Paris and the author of the recently published book Migrants, Francis, and us. Médevielle writes in defense of Amoris Laetitia against “conservatives and traditionalists” who criticize it.

The nuns were also reportedly under attack by the archbishop of Toulouse, Robert Le Gall, who prohibited one of the nuns’ houses from attending their more traditional form of Mass in their community chapel, apparently following their refusal to participate in Le Gall’s mass at the nursing home chapel due to their rejection of his liturgical practices.

Click here to read LifeSite’s November article detailing the conflict.

“Authoritarianism” and “moral harassment” from Church authorites led to destruction

The sisters’ support association is threatening to undertake legal measures against those who have brought about the destruction of the institute as an act of “moral harassment,” which is actionable under French law. The association promised that “as a matter of justice legitimate actions will be undertaken against those responsible, whatever their involvement, to obtain redress and to reveal the entire truth about this affair.”

The French Catholic newspaper La Croix further reported yesterday that the sisters “today are threatening Sister Geneviève Medevielle with a lawsuit for moral harassment.”

“It was with an authoritarianism and in a context of moral harassment, initiated by the Bishop of Laval, Mgr Scherrer, that the ecclesiastical authorities preferred to reduce the Little Sisters of Mary the Redeemer to the lay state, on 23rd May 2019, rather than opting for a peaceful solution, repeatedly proposed by the Little Sisters, but never really considered by the Congregation in Rome!” the support association declares on its website.

Our suffering enables us to live our vocation more fully, say sisters

The sisters, for their part, say they will continue to live their life of prayer and see their suffering as enabling them to live their vocation even more deeply.

“Certainly, we have not lived through these two sorrowful years in order to lose the treasure which is for us the charism received from Mother Marie de la Croix. We want to continue to live together, in a life of prayer and service. Ecce!” the sisters write.

“Paradoxically and mysteriously, we live perhaps more than ever perhaps what is at the heart of our vocation: following in the way of Our Lady, to take our part of suffering in the fulfilment of the plan of our Redemption, in reparation, for the saving of souls, for the sanctification of priests, for the Church so damaged by all sorts of scandals, for the world. If Christ, our souls’ spouse, judges us worthy of carrying such a Cross, we must render thanks to him, in all things.”

Requests for comment from the Holy See were not answered by publication time.

[Catholic] “fundamentalists, have a nostalgia for returning to the ashes.... Tradition is the guarantee of the future and not the container of the ashes,.... Tradition is like roots [of a tree], which give us nutrition to grow,... You will not become like the roots. You will flower, grow, give fruit. And the seeds become roots for other people..... The tradition of the church is always in movement.... The tradition does not safeguard the ashes”

Pope Francis the Destroyer, another high altitude, hypoxic babble on a flight to Rome

COMMENT: Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, the grand-daughter of the French National Front founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, recently applied a quotation of Gustav Mahler in a new context, “Tradition is not the worship of ashes but the preservation of fire.” Tradition is not the “root” of the tree, it is the tree itself, and trees are not “always in movement.” They are in fact ‘rooted’ and stable.

Tradition is firstly as a noun refers to content of divine revelation. This content is incarnate in our immemorial Catholic traditions which are the perfect images of the Catholic faith. These images are the means by which the faith is known and communicated to others. The Neo-iconoclasts destroy these images as the means to destroy the faith itself. For Francis, Tradition is obstacle that must be overcome if he is to overthrow the Catholic faith. He therefore considers how tradition has always been understood by the Church as “ashes.”

The verb form of tradition refers to the actual handing-on of the content of divine revelation to the next generation of Catholics. As St. Paul said, “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread” (I Cor. 11:23). What St. Paul “delivered” is exactly the same as what he first “received,” and this is Catholic Tradition.

“Have in mind therefore in what manner thou hast received and heard: and observe, and do penance. If then thou shalt not watch, I will come to thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know at what hour I will come to thee” (Apoc. 3:3). This is the warning to the Church in Sardis. What was their sin? They had not kept the traditions they received and therefore St. John continues, “And to the angel of the church of Sardis, write: These things saith he, that hath the seven spirits of God, and the seven stars: I know thy works, that thou hast the name of being alive: and thou art dead. Be watchful and strengthen the things that remain, which are ready to die. For I find not thy works full before my God” (Apoc. 3:1-2). The Catholics of Sardis were not faithful to what they had “received.” When the faith is corrupted by corrupting its images, the corruption of morals necessarily follows, therefore, their “works” were “dead,” that is, they had fallen from the grace of God.

By the light of Francis, tradition received is not what is passed on. What is passed on is different and no longer shares an identity between father and son with every generation. Francis is a Neo-modernist Neo-iconoclast. Those that follow him will lose their souls because “without faith, it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6). And without the images of the faith it is impossible to have the faith. Therefore, faithful Catholics today, unlike those of Sardis, must “watch” lest their traditions be trampled into ashes by Francis the Destroyer.

Catholic prelates call upon the Faithful to do what we have been doing at Ss. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission for the last 19 years!

Our time is characterized by an acute spiritual hunger of the Catholic faithful all over the world for a reaffirmation of those truths that are obfuscated, undermined, and denied by some of the most dangerous errors of our time. The faithful who are suffering this spiritual hunger feel themselves abandoned and thus find themselves in a kind of existential periphery. Such a situation urgently demands a concrete remedy. …

We are aware of our grave responsibility as Catholic bishops according to the admonition of Saint Paul, who teaches that God gave to His Church “shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Eph. 4:12–16).

In the spirit of fraternal charity, we publish this Declaration of truths as a concrete spiritual help so that bishops, priests, parishes, religious convents, lay faithful associations, and private persons as well might have the opportunity to confess either privately or publicly those truths that in our days are mostly denied or disfigured. The following exhortation of the Apostle Paul should be understood as addressed also to each bishop and lay faithful of our time, “Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Tim. 6:12– 14).

Before the eyes of the Divine Judge and in his own conscience, each bishop, priest, and lay faithful has the moral duty to give witness unambiguously to those truths that in our days are obfuscated, undermined, and denied. Private and public acts of a declaration of these truths could initiate a movement of a confession of the truth, of its defense, and of reparation for the widespread sins against the Faith, for the sins of hidden and open apostasy from Catholic Faith of a not small number both of the clergy and of the lay people. One has to bear in mind, however, that such a movement will not judge itself according to numbers, but according to the truth, as Saint Gregory of Nazianzus said, amidst the general doctrinal confusion of the Arian crisis, that “God does not delight in numbers” (Or. 42:7).

Excerpt from the introduction to the “Declaration of the Truths relating to some of the most common errors in the life of the Church of our time” published by:

Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, Patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta

Cardinal Janis Pujats, Archbishop Emeritus of Riga

Tomash Peta, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana

Jan Pawel Lenga, Archbishop-Bishop emeritus of Karaganda

Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana

Archbishop Viganò speaks up: Washington Post interview – “This archbishop called on the pope to resign. Now he’s in an undisclosed location.”

For the record of events of the current pontificate, we post the main excerpts of the article published this Monday by the Washington Post:Rorate Caeli

TheWashingtonPost | Chico Harlan and Stefano Pitrelli | June 10, 2019

ROME — In the instant he became one of the most controversial figures in modern Catholic Church history, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò went dark.

The retired Vatican ambassador to Washington wrote a bombshell letter last summer calling on Pope Francis to resign on the grounds that he had tolerated a known sexual abuser. As that letter was published, Viganò turned off his phone, told friends he was disappearing, and let the church sort through the fallout.

Nine months later, in his first extended interview since that moment, Viganò refused to disclose his location or say much about his self-imposed exile. But his comments indicate that, even in hiding, he is maintaining his role as the fiercest critic of the Francis era, acting either as an honorable rebel or, as his critics see it, as an ideological warrior attacking a pope he doesn’t like....

The Vatican has had little official response to Viganò. A communications official declined to comment for this story. But Francis last month responded for the first time to Viganò’s summer letter. The pope said he knew “nothing, obviously nothing” about the misconduct of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick and could not remember if he had been personally warned about McCarrick by Viganò in 2013. Viganò claimed to have told Francis that McCarrick had “corrupted generations of seminarians and priests.”

“How could anybody, especially a pope, forget this?” Viganò wrote to The Post....

Viganò wrote that he has become “more careful about whom I meet and what I say.” He said questions about him were “irrelevant to the serious problems facing the Church.”

“My life is quite normal, thank you for asking,” he wrote.

Viganò wrote “n/a” in response to questions about where he was living, whether he believes his safety is under threat, and how his actions last August have otherwise altered his life.

Viganò wrote that he has not been contacted by the Catholic Church since his accusations were initially published by several conservative church news outlets. He described himself as an “old man” who “will be appearing in front of the Good Judge before too long.”...

“My silence would make me complicit with the abusers, and lead to yet more victims,” he said....

Viganò wrote last year that both Benedict XVI and Francis had known about McCarrick’s misconduct. But he portrayed Benedict as attempting to take quiet disciplinary action against the then-cardinal and Francis as patently ignoring those sanctions.

Last month, private letters disclosed by a former McCarrick aide supported Viganò’s claim that McCarrick was told by the Vatican to retreat from public life during Benedict’s papacy. But it is also clear that McCarrick swiftly ignored his orders from Rome, even while Benedict remained pope. No documents have surfaced showing whether Francis knew of the sanctions against McCarrick by the time he became pope in 2013.

Viganò said the “truth will eventually come out” for Francis, as it had for Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the former archbishop of Washington who portrayed himself last summer as being unaware about complaints against McCarrick — a claim that documents subsequently proved false. Viganò suggested to The Post that Francis is covering up other cases, “as he did for McCarrick.”...

Viganò, in his responses to The Post, made it clear he is watching even smaller moments inside the Vatican. He cited an exchange from a Vatican press conference in February in which a journalist asked Archbishop Charles Scicluna, a church abuse czar, about a case in Argentina. Scicluna began to answer, and the Vatican spokesman cut in, saying the press conference — held during a landmark abuse summit — was not a time to “focus on individual cases.” Results of an investigation into the case would later be released, the spokesman assured.

“One may be forgiven for wondering whether the results of an honest and thorough investigation really will be released, and in a timely fashion,” Viganò wrote. “There is a certain irony here: This exchange happened while [the summit organizers] were discussing what they themselves called transparency.”

“The results of an honest investigation would be disastrous for the current papacy,” Viganò wrote to The Post. He also acknowledged that such an investigation may harm the reputations of more traditionalist pontiffs, Benedict and John Paul II, who presided over McCarrick’s rise.

“But that is not a good reason for not seeking the truth,” Viganò said. “Benedict XVI and John Paul II are human beings, and may well have made mistakes. If they did, we want to know about them. Why should they remain hidden? We can all learn from our mistakes.”

Viganò did not respond directly to a question about whether he has documents to back up his claims.

“The time has not yet come for me to release anything,” Viganò said, instead calling on the pope and other Vatican officials to release documentation, “assuming they have not yet destroyed it.”

Viganò also spoke in detail about one of his most contentious beliefs: that the sexual abuse crisis would be “far less severe” if the “problem of homosexuality in the priesthood were honestly acknowledged and properly addressed.”

“Given the overwhelming evidence, it is mind-boggling that the word ‘homosexuality’ has not appeared once, in any of the recent official documents of the Holy See” on events dealing with abuse and youth, Viganò wrote.

He said a “gay mafia” among bishops, intent on protecting themselves, was “sabotaging all efforts at reform.”

Viganò referenced only two regrets about his letter last summer. He said he wished he had spoken out sooner. He also said, “in retrospect,” he would have softened the call for Pope Francis to resign — a demand even Viganò’s supporters said was far-fetched and distracting.

Viganò now leaves open the possibility that Francis could repent, and says the pope should step down “if he refuses to admit his mistakes and ask for forgiveness.”

This is why the key phrase for responding is one which the Church constantly uses, as I do: it is ‘responsible parenthood’. How does this work? With dialogue. Each person with his or her pastor has to try to exercise this responsible parenthood. The example I mentioned just now, about the woman who was expecting her eight child and already had seven caesarean births: this is a form of irresponsibility.
[Some might say:] ‘No, I trust in God’. ‘But, look, God gives you the means, be responsible.’ Some people believe that -- pardon my language – in order to be good Catholics, we should be like rabbits. No. Responsible parenthood.
Pope Francis the Homosexual Lobby CEO

Archbishop Viganò to Washington Post: “Pope Francis is Deliberately Concealing the McCarrick Evidence”

OnePeterFive | Steve Skojec | June 10, 2019

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is in the news again today after the release of a new, 8,000 word interview with the Washington Post. According to the post, the interview was conducted via email over a period of two months, with the former US papal nuncio providing answers to some 40 questions.

Those who have read previous Viganò testimonies will find much that is familiar in the interview, but in greater depth. Archbishop Viganò declined to answer questions about his own personal status, which, he says, he considers “irrelevant to the serious problems facing the Church.”

He begins with an assessment of the sex abuse summit in Rome in February 2019, which echoes closely the concerns he shared with the National Catholic Register before the summit opened.

“Unfortunately,” Viganò tells the Post about the summit, “that initiative turned out to be pure ostentation, for we saw no sign of a genuine willingness to attend to the real causes of the present crisis.” He highlighted the lack of credibility of Cardinal Cupich, who was picked to be a leader at the summit after referring to Viganò’s accusations about abuse coverup as a “rabbit hole.” He also lamented the lack of transparency with journalists who sought information about specific cases:

To cite just one example, Archbishop [Charles] Scicluna, caught by surprise with a question about the pope covering up in the scandalous case of Argentine Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta — “How can we believe that this is in fact the last time we’re going to hear ‘no more cover-ups’ when at the end of the day, Pope Francis covered up for someone in Argentina who had gay porn involving minors?” — uttered these embarrassing words: “About the case, I’m not, I’m not, you know, I’m not authorized…” Scicluna’s inept response gave the impression that he needed to be authorized — you may wonder by whom — to tell the truth! Vatican interim press office director Alessandro Gisotti quickly intervened to assure the reporters that an investigation had been launched, and that once it was completed they would be informed of the results. One may be forgiven for wondering whether the results of an honest and thorough investigation really will be released, and in a timely fashion.

Viganò observs that one of the key problems of the summit was the way in which it “focused exclusively on the abuse of minors.”

“These crimes are indeed the most horrific,” he adds, “but the recent crises in the United States, in Chile, in Argentina, in Honduras, and elsewhere have to do mostly with abuses committed against young adults, including seminarians, not only, nor mostly, against minors. Indeed, if the problem of homosexuality in the priesthood were honestly acknowledged and properly addressed, the problem of sexual abuse would be far less severe.”

Viganò strikes out at Pope Francis, whom he says is not only “doing close to nothing to punish those who have committed abuse” but also “doing absolutely nothing to expose and bring to justice those who have, for decades, facilitated and covered up the abusers.” He cites the example of Cardinal Wuerl, who despite lies and coverups of the abuses of “McCarrick and others for decades” about which he has offered “repeated and blatant lies” and who was forced to resign in disgrace was nevertheless praised by the pope for his “nobility.”

“What credibility has the pope left after this kind of statement?” Viganò asks.

On the matter of McCarrick’s laicization, Viganò questions why it happened five years after he gave the information to Pope Francis about McCarrick, and why it was done, “after more than seven months of total silence,” through an administrative rather than judicial procedure.

Viganò notes that because of the nature of the procedure, McCarrick was “deprived of any opportunity to appeal the sentence,” and was deprived of due process. “Having made the sentence definitive,” Viganò adds, “the pope has made it impossible to conduct any further investigation, which could have revealed who in the Curia and elsewhere knew of McCarrick’s abuses, when they knew it, and who helped him to be named archbishop of Washington and eventually a cardinal. Note, by the way, that the documents of this case, whose publication had been promised, have never been produced.”

“The bottom line,” Viganò says, “is this: Pope Francis is deliberately concealing the McCarrick evidence.”

On the question of the unusual intervention by the Holy See into the US Catholic Bishops Conference meeting last November, in which the pope ordered the assembled bishops not to vote on two sex abuse measures they had prepared, Viganò says that Holy See was trying to prevent an examination of “the problems of episcopal corruption, episcopal cover-ups and mendacity, episcopal sexual misdeeds, both with minors and adults — any of which would intolerably implicate and embarrass the Holy See.”

Asked about the “notable lack of denials” on the matter of his original testimony — the question was asked before Francis finally came out and denied that he knew anything, which Vigano has said previously was “a lie” — the archbishop argues that the accusations can’t be denied because they are true. “The cardinals and archbishops I named do not want to be caught lying, and they apparently think they are so powerful as to be untouchable if only they stay quiet and lie low,” he said.

In an addendum to the interview after the long-delayed denial made by the pope last month was released, Viganò says that the pope’s statements cannot be reconciled with one another. “He first says that he has already replied many times; second, that he knew nothing, absolutely nothing about McCarrick, and third, that he forgot about my conversation with him. How may these claims be affirmed and sustained together at the same time? All these three are blatant lies,” he says.

Of the most obviously false claim made by the pope — that he had replied to the testimony “many times,” — Viganò asks, “for nine long months he did not say a word about my testimony, and even bragged and continues to do so about his silence, comparing himself to Jesus. So, either he spoke or he kept silent. Which is it?”

“We are in a truly dark moment for the universal Church,” Viganò laments. “The Supreme Pontiff is now blatantly lying to the whole world to cover up his wicked deeds! But the truth will eventually come out, about McCarrick and all the other cover-ups, as it already has in the case of cardinal Wuerl, who also ‘knew nothing’ and had ‘a lapse of memory.'” Here the archbishop refers to the revelation that Wuerl knew about the illicit sexual activities of his predecessor, McCarrick, even after many denials.

Other than his sadness over the dishonesty of the pope, Viganò seems most concerned with the failure of journalists to dig into the story he has laid before them. “I cannot imagine that they [the media] would have been so timid had the pope in question been John Paul II or Benedict XVI,” he says, adding, “It is difficult to avoid concluding that these media are reluctant to do so because they appreciate Pope Francis’ more liberal approach to matters of Church doctrine and discipline, and do not want to jeopardize his agenda.”

On the issue of homosexuality in the priesthood, Viganò signals his disbelief that the connection is being ignored. “Heterosexual men obviously do not choose boys and young men as sexual partners of preference, and approximately 80 percent of the victims are males, the vast majority of which are post-pubescent males.”

“It is not pedophiles but gay priests preying on post-pubertal boys who have bankrupted the U.S. dioceses,” he later adds.

“Given the overwhelming evidence, it is mind-boggling that the word ‘homosexuality’ has not appeared once, in any of the recent official documents of the Holy See, including the two Synods on the Family, the one on Youth, and the recent Summit last February.”

Viganò goes on to claim that the so-called “gay mafia” in the Church are “bound together not by shared sexual intimacy but by a shared interest in protecting and advancing one another professionally and sabotaging all efforts at reform.” He says that though Pope Benedict XVI initiated an investigation of the seminaries, nothing new was discovered, “apparently because various powers had joined forces to conceal the true situation.”

“Is there a single active bishop in the U.S. who admits he is actively homosexual? Of course not. Their work is constitutionally clandestine.”

On the question of whether he could ever reconcile with Pope Francis, Viganò replies:

The premise of your question is incorrect. I am not fighting against Pope Francis, nor have I offended him. I have simply spoken the truth. Pope Francis needs to reconcile himself with God, and the entire Church, since he covered up for McCarrick, refuses to admit it, and is now covering up for several other people. I am grateful to the Lord because He has protected me from having any sentiments of anger or resentment against Pope Francis, or any desire for revenge. I pray for his conversion every day. Nothing would make me happier than for Pope Francis to acknowledge and end the cover-ups, and to confirm his brothers in the faith.

There’s a great deal more to the interview with Archbishop Viganò that I have not touched on here. Read the whole thing at The Washington Post.

“Dimensions of Dialogue”:

The Spirit of Vatican II

A Repudiation of Bergoglianism

What is at stake after the European elections of May 26

Roberto de Mattei | Corrispondenza Romana | May 29, 2019

The elections of May 26th were an important episode in a conflict that goes way beyond the destiny of the European Parliament or any national government. In fact, a lobby exists that has as its aim, the destruction of Christian identity and the construction of cosmopolitan organisms that are assuming sovereign power of life and death over its European citizens. An example of this plan is what has just happened in France, where the Paris Court of Appeals handed over to the United Nations Organization, the ultimate decision on the life of Vincent Lambert, the French paraplegic condemned to death by his wife and the doctors at Rheims Hospital, where he is a patient.

It is clear that power of legislation on the life of Lambert does not pertain to the French judges, nor those of Europe or the United Nations. Positive laws, both national and international, do not have their source in the entities that emanate or apply them, but in a divine law that is preexistent to the laws of men and by the laws of men cannot be changed. Now, the natural and divine law prohibits the killing of the innocent and any human law claiming to establish the contrary must be considered a non-law, invalid and iniquitous. Further, inasmuch as the only guardian of the divine and natural law is the Catholic Church, it is first of all up to the men of the Church to proclaim the inalienable right to life. But today the voice of the men of the Church is gone. The only problem the leaders of the Church seem to be interested in is that of hospitality to migrants from outside of Europe. An absolute, unconditional, total hospitality. We are not dealing here with the ancient virtue, whether Christian or secular, of hospitality, but of an ideological choice, wherein the philosophy of hospitality is presented, in reality, as a theory of renouncing European identity, or rather, its replacement.

The concept of “the great replacement” introduced by Renaud Camus (Le Grand Remplacement, David Reinharc, Neuilly-sur-Seine 2011) was developed by Professor Renato Cristin in his book I padroni del caos [The Lords of Chaos] (Liberlibri, Macerata 2017). By way of a rigorous analysis, the author, who teaches philosophy at the University of Trieste, explains how this theory aims at substituting European populations with other populations (Africans, Arabians, Asians, for the most part Muslim) [thus] producing chaos as a concrete historical prospect. Cristin refers to the existence of a 2001 United Nations project in which “replacement migration” is explicitly addressed, in order to deal with the European demographic decline.

The flows of populations are not only an ethnic transplanting, but a toppling of civilization, a “counter-colonization”, in which migrants are seen as bringers of a hybrid civilization or mixed race, opposed to the Christian one which built Europe. The destruction of the national States passes thereby through a policy of replacement, whether it be ethnic or cultural. The cultural replacement consists in the negation of any identity rooted in European Christian tradition; the ethnic replacement occurs with the entry of a human mass of immigrants that substitute the European population, decimated by abortion and contraception. The anti-birth mentality is the biological expression of the cultural and moral suicide of the West.

The results of the European Elections rewarded the political parties that most openly invoke national identities. Of particular importance is the sweeping victory of Matteo Salvini’s Lega, which attained 34.3% of the votes in Italy. But Italy, however, has been the country where the push for immigration has been the strongest, with not only the Episcopal Conference entering the field, but even Pope Francis who has been presenting himself as the leader of the leftwing political spectrum. The front-cover of the weekly L’Espresso, May 26th, portrays Pope Francis with the mask of Zorro, the vigilante, and defines him as the voice of “the people’s protest” against Salvini. On May 27th,in his Message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees”, Pope Francis affirmed that “the motto of the true Christian is ‘the last’ first’, reiterating: “ this is not only about migrants: it is about putting the ‘last’ first”. That same morning, the Pope met with the Chief of the Kayapo Indios of the Amazon, Raoni Metukire, to re-launch revolutionary indigenism, in view of the Synod on the Amazon in October.

The Bergoglian theology of the “last” represents open encouragement for the “replacement migration” strategy. It is not clear who ‘the last’ are, but it is clear who those that must be replaced are, in the new “preferential option.” The Gospel exhorts us to love our neighbor as ourselves: “there is no greater commandment than this” (Mark 12, 29-31). St Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica (question 26, part II-II), explains however, that love for our neighbor is not a generic and indiscriminate sentiment, but has a precise gradation, which he calls the ‘order of charity’, whereby love must progressively extend itself from those closest to those farthest away. God must be loved more than our neighbor (a.2) and more than ourselves (a.3). Man must love himself more than his neighbor (a.4) and among our neighbors, some are to be loved more than others (a.6). The closest to us are those who gave us life and those we gave it to: our parents and our children. It is from them that love for our neighbor begins.

It would make no sense, for example, to throw our parents out in the street in order to bring a couple of immigrants into their room. Further, the love that we owe our neighbor is primarily of a spiritual nature. What we must desire more than anything else, is the salvation of those we love. And loving means desiring their salvation. In the case of immigrants this consists in desiring their conversion to the true faith. But today there is no pastoral care of evangelization for immigrants underway, in Italy or in Europe. Multiculturalism is presented as a much higher value than the monocultural Christian identity.

The dogma of hospitality is being proclaimed furthermore, by a society that takes the life of innocent human beings, unborn babies and old people; the former condemned to death by abortion, the latter, by euthanasia, without any real opposition to these crimes by the men of the Church. In reality, those who are scandalized by the display of a crucifix in schools or by a rosary kissed by a political leader, not only want to extirpate every public expression of Christianity, but also expect to snuff out the light of the divine and natural law still existent in our consciences, compelling us to defend innocent human life. And those who still have a Christian conscience, cannot but reclaim the vivid presence of the Crucifix, not only in private life, but also in public life and in the collective identity of European nations.

Hence, we call upon the political parties in Italy, Hungary, France and many other countries that won the elections, thereby defeating “immigrationism”, not to limit themselves to a generic or superficial call to Christian roots, but to express this identity concretely in the institutions and laws of Europe, starting with the uncompromising defense of life and the family. The “Lambert case”, after that of Eluana Englaro and Alfie Evans, is the example of a battle that must be conducted in the upcoming months. This will perhaps raise the level of the conflict, but today we are battling for the life or death of our civilization. This battle, prior to being in parliament, is to be conducted in [our] culture and mentality. Yet, the electoral results have the function of revealing the deep tendencies of public opinion and in the case of May 26th, the electoral test demonstrates a European population that is not about to capitulate.

Originally posted on Rorate Caeli

“Every one therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven.”

Jesus Christ, Matt. 10:32-33

“The Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and have persecuted us, and please not God, and are adversaries to all men.”

St. Paul, I Thessalonians 2:15

“The Jews are enemies of God and foes of our holy religion.”

St. Pio of Pietrelicina

[American Jewish Committee’s interfaith affairs director Rabbi David] Rosen said. “Those who said Benedict was the last pope who would be a pope that lived through the Shoah, or that said there would not be another pope who had a personal connection to the Jewish people, they were wrong,” Rosen said.... Israel Singer, the former head of the World Jewish Congress, said he spent time working with Bergoglio when the two were distributing aid to the poor in Buenos Aires in the early 2000s, part of a joint Jewish-Catholic program called Tzedaka.... Bergoglio also wrote the foreward of a book by Rabbi Sergio Bergman, a Buenos Aires legislator, and referred to him as “one of my teachers.”.... Bergoglio attended Rosh Hashanah services at the Benei Tikva Slijot synagogue in September 2007.... Last November, Bergoglio hosted a Kristallnacht memorial event at the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral with Rabbi Alejandro Avruj from the NCI-Emanuel World Masorti congregation. He also has worked with the Latin American Jewish Congress and held meetings with Jewish youth who participate in its New Generations program.... In his visit to the Buenos Aires synagogue, according to the Catholic Zenit news agency, Bergoglio told the congregation that he was there to examine his heart “like a pilgrim, together with you, my elder brothers.”....

Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 13, 2015

From Adam to this day, divine worship that is acceptable to God has always been, without exception, the creation of God.

Christ chose the Cenacle In which to celebrate the Passover, because there lived, died, and were buried Melchisedech, David, Solomon and all the kings of David’s family till the Babylonian Captivity.

Melchisedech comes into history under this name in the account of the four Mesopotamian kings, who went into Palestine, captured Lot, Abraham’s nephew, and started for home. Abraham roused his servants, fell on them at night, rescued Lot, took their spoils, and returning passed by Salem, as Jerusalem then was named.

“But Melchisedech, the king of Salem, bringing forth bread and wine, for he was a priest of the most high God, blessed him and said: ‘Blessed be the most high God by whose protection thy enemies are in thy band.’ And be gave him tithes of all.”

Here for the first time in Holy Writ we find a priest “of the most high God” offering the “bread and wine” of the Passover and Mass. Eight centuries of silence pass, and 1,100 years before Christ, David wrote of Christ’s priesthood: “Thou are a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech.” Then this great pontiff-king appears no more, in Holy Writ, till St. Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews mentions him eight times as a type of Christ. [.....]

But here for the first time in history, comes forth another order of priests, this mysterious Melchisedech offering bread and wine of the Last Supper and Mass. To him Abraham offered tithes—the tenth part of the fruits of his victory. Therefore Melchisedech’s priesthood was higher than that of Abraham; it was to be eternal; it pointed to Christ’s priesthood of the Last Supper and of the Catholic Church. The whole prophetic scene in that vale beside the sacred city was emblematic of the future.

[.....] Who was Melchisedech? St. Paul says: “Without father, without mother without genealogy, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life, but likened unto the Son of God, continueth a priest forever.” [.....] Melchisedech was the patriarch Sem, sole survivor of the flood, eldest son and heir of Noe, king and high priest of the world. Noe established the right of primogeniture, that the eldest son should succeed the father in his property, kingship and priesthood, a custom coming down to our day.

Fr. James L. Meagher, D.D., How Christ Said the First Mass

Iconoclasm Revisited: The Great Neo-Modernist Heresy – The belief that there exists a merely accidental relationship between the “revealed truths” and the dogmatic “manner of stating those truths and theological doctrines.”

Students must learn to distinguish between on the one hand revealed truths, which all require the same assent of faith, and on the other hand the manner of stating those truths and theological doctrines. As far as the formulation of revealed truths is concerned, account will be taken of what is said by, among others, the declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Mysterium Ecclesiae, n. 5: “The truths which the Church intends actually to teach through its dogmatic formularies are, without doubt, distinct from the changing conceptions proper to a given age and can be expressed without them, but it can nonetheless happen that they will be expressed by the magisterium, in terms that bear traces of those conceptions. Account having been taken of these considerations, it must also be said that from the beginning the dogmatic formularies of the magisterium have always been appropriate for communicating revealed truth and that, remaining unchanged, they will always communicate it to those who interpret them properly”. Students should therefore learn to make the distinction between the “deposit of faith itself or the truths which are contained in our venerable doctrine”, and the way in which these truths are formulated; between the truths to be proclaimed and the various ways of perceiving them and shedding light upon them; between the apostolic Tradition and strictly ecclesiastical traditions, and at the same time they should learn to recognize and respect the permanent value of dogmatic formulations. From the time of their philosophical formation, students should be prepared to appreciate the legitimate diversity in theology which derives from the different methods and language theologians use in penetrating the divine mysteries. From which it follows that different theological formulations are often more complementary than contradictory.

The Ecumenical Directory

“It is beyond question that the Pope can err even in matters touching the faith.... Many pontiffs were heretics... The last of them was Pope John XXII (1522-1523).”

Pope Adrian VI, quoted by Fr. Paul Trinchard, One, Holy Catholic, Apostolic

To live together as brother and sister? Of course I have high respect for those who are doing this. But it’s a heroic act, and heroism is not for the average Christian. I would say that people must do what is possible in their situation. We cannot as human beings always do the ideal, the best. We must do the best possible in a given situation.

Cardinal Kasper, interview with Commonweal, May 7, 2016

If a divorced and remarried person is truly sorry that he or she failed in the first marriage, if the commitments from the first marriage are clarified and a return is definitively out of the question, if he or she cannot undo the commitments that were assumed in the second civil marriage without new guilt, if he or she strives to the best of his or her abilities to live out the second civil marriage on the basis of faith and to raise their children in the faith, if he or she longs for the sacraments as a source of strength in his or her situation, do we then have to refuse or can we refuse him or her the sacrament of penance and communion, after a period of reorientation? [.....]

Cardinal Walter Kasper, The Gospel of the Family

Pope Francis makes the error of Kasper his own!

49. In such difficult situations of need, the Church must be particularly concerned to offer understanding, comfort and acceptance, rather than imposing straightaway a set of rules that only lead people to feel judged and abandoned by the very Mother called to show them God’s mercy. Rather than offering the healing power of grace and the light of the Gospel message, some would “indoctrinate” that message, turning it into “dead stones to be hurled at others.”

122. We should not however confuse different levels: there is no need to lay upon two limited persons the tremendous burden of having to reproduce perfectly the union existing between Christ and his Church, for marriage as a sign entails “a dynamic process…, one which advances gradually with the progressive integration of the gifts of God.”

Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia

As already said: Francis will end Conservative Catholicism; they are forced to choose sides!

Priest: Pope’s ambiguity a ‘true blessing’ because it draws false Church out of shadows

LifeSiteNews | ROME, May 24, 2017 -- Pope Francis’ influence in the Catholic Church has been a “great and true blessing” since his ambiguous teachings have drawn the “anti-Church” out of the shadows into clear view for all the faithful to see, a priest told a gathering of pro-life and pro-family leaders in Rome last week.

“The advent of Pope Francis has, in the divine order of things, proved a great and true blessing,” Fr. Linus Clovis of Family Life International said in his talk at the Rome Life Forum on May 18.

“A hidden conflict has been raging in the Church for over one hundred years…Under Francis, the first Jesuit pope, the first pope from the Americas and the first pope whose priestly ordination was in the New Rite, it is now full blown, with the potential of rendering the Church smaller but more faithful,” he added. [……]

Council of Trent, Session VI, decrees on Justification

· CANON XVIII -If any one saith, that the commandments of God are, even for one that is justified and constituted in grace, impossible to keep; let him be anathema.

· CANON XIX -If any one saith, that nothing besides faith is commanded in the Gospel; that other things are indifferent, neither commanded nor prohibited, but free; or, that the ten commandments nowise appertain to Christians; let him be anathema.

· CANON XX -If any one saith, that the man who is justified and how perfect soever, is not bound to observe the commandments of God and of the Church, but only to believe; as if indeed the Gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life, without the condition of observing the commandments ; let him be anathema.

· CANON XXI -If any one saith, that Christ Jesus was given of God to men, as a redeemer in whom to trust, and not also as a legislator whom to obey; let him be anathema.

· CANON XXII -If any one saith, that the justified, either is able to persevere, without the special help of God, in the justice received; or that, with that help, he is not able; let him be anathema.

COMMENT: Conservative Catholics recognize the heresy of Pope Francis/Bergoglio and his lapdog, Cardinal Walter Kasper, only in the practical moral application of their doctrinal errors. They apparently never recognized that Kasper was just as much a heretic during his curial days with John Paul II and Benedict XVI. He has been promoting situation ethics in an effort to overturn Catholic doctrinal and moral truths for a long, long time. How is it that they now find the moral relativism of Francis/Bergoglio so offensive while never complaining about the doctrinal relativism of the Assisi Prayer Meetings and the interfaith events in Jewish synagogues invoking their “common god”? Now they muse about the good-old-days under less radical conciliar popes as if that offers a safe-harbor. To invoke the concilarist popes, John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio and Benedict XVI’s Sacramentum Caritatis against Francis/Bergoglio’s corrupting the sacrament of Marriage is not just futile, but stupid, for all of them, without exception, embraced the heresy as a first principle of their Modernist faith that Catholic dogma does and must necessarily evolve. Francis/Bergoglio has done nothing that could possible offend John Paul/Wojtyla or Benedict/Ratzinger. Are we expected to employ the same Novus Ordo salami techniques that were used by concilarists to corrupt the Catholic faith in order to help conservative Catholics recover it? It does not work that way. Either conservative Catholics will repent and conform themselves to the “rule of faith” which is Catholic dogma or they will continue to do what they have done over the last fifty years – that is, nothing beyond attacking those whose acts condemn their effeminacy. They, along with Francis/Bergoglio and Kasper need to understand that when God abandons anyone to their “reprobate sense” they will no longer be able to recognize Truth.

Pope lashes back against faithful Catholics who defend DOGMA

So we are faced with two groups of people. The group of the apostles who want to discuss the problem, and the others who go and create problems. They divide, they divide the Church, they say that what the Apostles preached is not what Jesus said, that it is not the truth.

There were many [councils], up until Vatican II, which clarified doctrine: for example, when we recite the Creed, it is the result of councils that have defined doctrine… It is a duty of the Church to clarify doctrine so that what Jesus said in the Gospels is better understood, what is the Spirit of the Gospels….

But there were always those people who, without any commission, go about disturbing the Christian community with speeches that upset souls: ‘Eh, no, someone who says that is a heretic, you can’t say this, or that; this is the doctrine of the Church.’ And they are fanatics about things that are not clear, such as these fanatics who go about there, sowing discord in order to divide the Christian community. And this is the problem: when the doctrine of the Church, that which comes from the Gospel, that which the Holy Spirit inspires – because Jesus said, ‘He will teach us and remind you of all that I have taught’ – that doctrine becomes an ideology. And this is the great error of these people.

Pope Francis the Fanatic, open confession of his ideological driven obfuscation of doctrine, May 19, 2017

Reprint from 2008: Thoughts on the recent papal visit... by John Vennari

The Kingdom of God vs. the Civilization of Love

Post-conciliar Church leaders have succeeded in creating new categories that eclipse true categories established by 2000 years of Catholic teaching. One such instance is a new dichotomy that distinguishes between the “Civilization of Love” (the good guys) vs. the “Culture of Death” (the bad guys). This terminology, and the interreligious ideology that shapes it, is foreign to our Catholic patrimony. It is a rupture with the past, not continuity. The true Catholic teaching on this matter is found in the perennial Catholic doctrine of the two Kingdoms: the Kingdom of God vs. the kingdom of Satan
According to the magisterial teaching of Pope Leo XIII, who reiterates the doctrine of Saint Augustine:

1. The world is divided into two opposing camps: the kingdom of God vs. the kingdom of Satan;

2. Every human being belongs to either one or the other of these two camps;

3. Since the fall of Adam, these two kingdoms have been in conflict with one another, and will continue to be in conflict with one another until the end of time.

The eminent theologian Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton explains that the Kingdom of God is the Catholic Church; for this is what the term “church” actually means. It is the Kingdom of God on earth, the people of the Divine Covenant, the one and only social unit outside of which salvation cannot be found. The word ‘church’ has a distinct definition not applicable to any other religious body.
The Kingdom of God, Fenton elaborates, is the Church Triumphant in Heaven; the Church suffering in Purgatory; and the Church Militant on earth. This “supernatural kingdom of God” is the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ.
Opposed to this Kingdom, Fenton explains, is another kingdom, a kingdom of evil. “We must not lose sight of the fact”, writes Fenton, “that people in the condition of aversion from God, in the state of original or mortal sin, belong in some way to the kingdom or an eccleisa [church] under the leadership of satan, the moving spirit among the enemies of God.”
It is the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church that those who are not part of the true Church of Christ: heretics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and all other pagan religions, are not part of the Kingdom of God. Jews and members of pagan religions, speaking in the objective order, are still in the state of original sin. Heretics (Protestants, etc.), in the objective order, are outside the Church of Jesus Christ, as defined infallibly by the Council of Florence. It must be reiterated that everything said here is stated in the objective order.
All those outside the Kingdom of God stand in need of being saved. The Catholic concept of salvation, explains Msgr. Fenton, “involves necessarily the transfer of an individual from the one social unit to another, from the kingdom of satan to the true and supernatural Kingdom of God.”
But along comes Vatican II and its new policy of ecumenism and interreligious dialogue. The 2000-year-old Catholic categories of “Kingdom of God” vs. the “kingdom of satan” will no longer do, as they stand in the way of the new social order based on religious pluralism.
So new categories are invented: the “Civilization of Love” vs. the “Culture of Death”. The Civilization of Love may contain members of all religions provided that each member of this new civilization strives to incorporate moral virtues in themselves and in society. The “Culture of Death” is the work of the baddies, the anti-life forces of abortion and eugenics, the homosexual collective, the purveyors of pornography, and those who advance social injustice and physical evil.
Yet the “Civilization of Love” is a utopian dream born from the modernist revolution of Vatican II. It eclipses the true dichotomy between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of satan. It wants members of the Kingdom of God and kingdom of satan to downplay the primacy of salvation, of baptism, of sanctifying grace, in order to work together to enhance mutual understanding and to serve society at large.
The new pan-religious civilization of love stands condemned by the perennial magisterium of the Church. In 1910, Pope St. Pius X condemned the notion of “an inter-denominational association that is to work for the reform of civilization, an undertaking which is above all religious in character; for there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion [the Catholic Faith]: it is a proven truth, a historical fact.”
By “moral civilization”, Pius does not mean simply the Catholic religion as a dynamic contributor to a secular state, but the establishment of “Christian civilization”, of the “Catholic city”; in other words, the Social Kingship of Christ.
According to all appearances, Pope Benedict XVI came to the United States primarily as an emissary for the Civilization of Love.
Benedict’s April 17 Address to non-Christian religious leaders encouraged interreligious activity. He also called upon Jews, Muslims, Jains, Hindus, Buddhists and others to join with Catholics to “bear witness to those moral truths which they hold in common with all men and women of good will” so that “religious groups will exert a positive influence on the wider culture, and inspire neighbors, co-workers and fellow citizens to join in the task of strengthening the ties of solidarity.”
Pope Benedict then said, “In the words of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: ‘no greater thing could come to our land than a revival of the spirit of Faith’.”
This is a rallying cry for the pan-religious civilization of love, not the Kingdom of God. Yet the theme of interreligious solidarity was repeated time and time again in his recent US trip, including the Papal Address to interreligious Leaders, the Address to the United Nations, the Address at the Ecumenical Prayer Service, and the visit to the Synagogue.
Nowhere in any of these speeches did Pope Benedict indicate that members of false religious are in danger of damnation by clinging to their false sects. Nowhere in his speech to the collection of non-Christian religious leader did he quote Jesus Christ. Instead, he chose to quote the Freemason Franklin D. Roosevelt whose definition of the “spirit of Faith” comes straight from the Masonic lodge – a generic spirit of religion allegedly common to practitioners of every opposing creed. In all this, as in most other areas, Benedict XVI showed himself to be first and foremost a man of Vatican II.
Granted, it is not easy to preach the Social Kingship of Christ. It is not easy to tell non-Catholics they can only save their souls by abandoning their present position and joining Christ’s one and only true Church. Yet how can a faithful Vicar of Christ do anything else but preach these truths, which flow not from changeable law, but from the very essence of God and of the Faith itself?
The more our Church leaders promote a pan-religious “healthy secularity”, the more difficult it will be for a future Pope to stand up for Our Lord’s Kingly rights in the social order. Thanks to modern Papal trips and statements that constantly endorse ecumenism and interreligious collaboration, present and future generations will regard the true doctrine of the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ as alien to their understanding of Catholicism; as something “un-Catholic”.
Despite the thousands who cheered and wept during the latest Papal visit, there can be no lasting hope except in a return to the perennial magisterium of the centuries. Heaven cannot bless a religious camaraderie between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of satan. The new spirit of ecumenism and interreligious dialogue is foreign to the spirit of Catholicism and to the consistent teaching of the Church. It will only bring about more chaos and ruin.
Let us pray for Pope Benedict XVI. Let us also pray fervently that God will soon grant us a Pope who will resurrect the true teaching of the Kingdom of God vs. the kingdom of satan, and discard the counterfeit “Civilization of Love vs. Culture of Death” dichotomy.

Note:

Pope Leo XIII explains in his magnificent encyclical against Freemasonry, Humanum Genus: “The race of man after its miserable fall from God, the Creator and the Giver of Heavenly gifts, ‘through the envy of the devil,’ separated into two diverse parts, of which the one steadfastly contends for truth and virtue, the other for those things which are contrary to virtue and to truth. The one is the Kingdom of God on earth, the true Church of Jesus Christ; and those who desire from their heart to be united with it so as to gain salvation must of necessity serve God and His only-begotten Son with their whole mind and with an entire will. The other is the kingdom of satan, in whose possession and control are all whosoever follow the fatal example of their leader and of our first parents, those who refuse to obey the divine and eternal law, and who have many aims of their own in contempt of God, and many aims also against God. This twofold kingdom St. Augustine keenly discerned and described after the manner of two cities, contrary in their laws because striving for contrary objects; and with subtle brevity he expressed the efficient cause of each in these words: ‘Two loves formed two cities: the love of self, reaching even to contempt of God, an earthly city; and the love of God, reaching even to contempt of self, a Heavenly one.’ At every period of time each has been in conflict with the other…” [emphasis added]. Even if post-Conciliar Church leaders use the term “Kingdom of God”, they never define it as did Pope Leo XIII; and they simultaneously advance the new pan-religious “Civilization of Love”. http://www.cfnews.org/cfn.htm

Rene Descartes, the Catholic, and Immanuel Kant, the Protestant, are the twin pillars of modern philosophical atheism!

I cannot forgive Descartes; in all his philosophy he did his best to dispense with God. But he could not avoid making Him set the world in motion with a flip of His thumb; after that he had no more use for God.

Blaise Pascal, Pensees

Since the Year of Mercy is long gone.... No more Mr. Nice Guy!

The Cardinal who sustains this, is a disillusioned man, inasmuch as he wanted power and lost it. He thought he was the highest authority in the United States.... He is not the Magisterium: the Holy Father is the Magisterium, and it is he who teaches the entire Church. The other just states his own ideas, and they deserve no further comment. These are the words of a poor man..... The Catholic right-wing wants power and not truth. If they say they find some “heresy” in Francis’ words, they are greatly mistaken, since they think like men and not as the Lord wills.

Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga’s petty insults against Cardinal Raymond Burke, Only the Gospel is Revolutionary

“Not to resist an error is to approve of it – not to defend a truth is to reject it.”

St. Augustine’s dictum, codified in the Decretum Gratiani

Prophecy and our times!

An unhappy time is coming of revolt and dissension in the Church. Oh my children, do not let yourselves be led astray by innovations. Rally and hold fast. Stay on the same road, the same footpaths as your pious fathers trod. Preserve and maintain what they have taught you. It will be enough if you resist the attacks, the tempests, the hurricanes that will arise with such violence.

The Church will be punished because the majority of her members, high and low, will become so perverted. The Church will sink deeper and deeper until she will at last seem to be extinguished, and the succession of Peter and the Apostles to have expired. But, after this, she will be victoriously exalted in the sight of all doubters.

St. Nicholas of Flu, 15th Century

During the fifth period, we saw only calamities and devastation; oppression of Catholics by tyrants and heretics; execution of Kings, and conspiracies to set up republics . . . Are we not to fear, during this period, that the Mohammedans will come again, working out their sinister schemes against the Latin Church? . . . During this period men will abuse the freedom of conscience conceded to them . . . there will be laxity in divine and human precepts. Discipline will suffer. The holy canons will be completely disregarded, and the clergy will not respect the laws of the Church. Everyone will be carried away and led to believe and to do what he fancies, according to the manner of the flesh. . . But, by the hand of God Almighty, there occurs so wondrous a change during the sixth period that no one can humanly visualize it.

The sixth period of the Church will begin with the powerful Monarch and the holy Pontiff . . . and it will last until the revelation of Antichrist. In this period, God will console His Holy Church for the affliction and great tribulation she has endured during the fifth period. All nations will become Catholic. Vocations will be abundant as never before, and all men will seek only the Kingdom of God and His justice. Men will live in peace, and this will be granted because people will make their peace with God. They will live under the protection of the Great Monarch and his successors.

All nations will come to worship God in the true Catholic and Roman faith. There will be many Saints and Doctors on earth. Peace will reign over the whole earth because God will bind Satan for a number of years until the days of the Son of Perdition. No one will be able to pervert the Word of God since, during the sixth period, there will be an Ecumenical Council which will be the greatest of all councils. By the grace of God, by the power of the Great Monarch, by the authority of the Holy Pontiff, and by the union of all the most devout princes, atheism and every heresy will be banished from the earth. The Council will define the true sense of Holy Scripture, and this will be believed and accepted by everyone.

Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser, holy priest of the seventeenth century

In the twentieth century there will be a time of great corruption of customs, and this devotion will be the safeguard of this land during the times to come when it will no longer be a colony, but a free and libertine republic. Let us weep, pray, and do penance so that this time will not be of long duration.

The secular clergy will leave much to be desired because priests will become careless in their sacred duties. Lacking the divine compass, they will stray from the road traced by God for the priestly ministry, and they will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain. How the Church will suffer during this dark night! Lacking a Prelate and Father to guide them with paternal love, gentleness, strength, wisdom and prudence, many priests will lose their spirit, placing their souls in great danger. This will mark the arrival of My hour.

Therefore, clamor insistently without tiring and weep with bitter tears in the privacy of your heart, imploring the Celestial Father that, for love of the Eucharistic Heart of my Most Holy Son and His Precious Blood shed with such generosity and the profound bitterness and sufferings of His cruel Passion and Death, He might take pity on His ministers and bring to an end those Ominous times, sending to this Church the Prelate who will restore the spirit of its priests. . . [When all seems lost, it will be] the happy beginning of the complete restoration. This will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss.

Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Good Success, to Venerable Marianne de Jesus Torres (1563-1635)

It was revealed to me that through the intercession of the Mother of God all heresies will disappear. The victory over heresies has been reserved by Christ for his Blessed Mother… The power of Mary in the latter days will be very conspicuous. Mary will extend the reign of Christ over the heathens and the Mohammedans, and it will be a time of great joy when Mary is enthroned as Mistress and Queen of hearts.

Venerable Maria of Agreda, seventeenth century

Hermeneutics of Continuity/Discontinuity

Catholic Church Teaches:

“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.”

Pius XII, Humani Generis

(Modernism teaches that) “the formulas which we call dogma must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion.”

Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi, 1907

With truly lamentable results, our age, casting aside all restraint in its search for the ultimate causes of things, frequently pursues novelties so ardently that it rejects the legacy of the human race. Thus it falls into very serious errors, which are even more serious when they concern sacred authority, the interpretation of Sacred Scripture, and the principal mysteries of Faith. The fact that many Catholic writers also go beyond the limits determined by the Fathers and the Church herself is extremely regrettable. In the name of higher knowledge and historical research (they say), they are looking for that progress of dogmas which is, in reality, nothing but the corruption of dogmas.

Pope St. Pius X, Lamentabili Sane, 1907

The Vatiacan II Church Teaches:

“Church of Christ… subsits in the Catholic Church.”

Lumen Gentium, Vatican II

NOTE: The author of this term, “subsist in,” was Pastor Wilhelm Schmidt, a Protestant minister who made the suggestion to Cardinal Augustin Bea, the ecumenist, modernist biblical scholar, patron of Fr. Annibale Bugnini, and confessor to Pope Pius XII, who in turn recruited the support of Fr. Joseph Ratzinger who then convinced Cardinal Josef Frings of Cologne to bring the matter to the Council. This story was personally verified by Fr. Franz Schmidberger, First Assistant to the Superior General of the SSPX, by directly contacting Pastor Schmidt.

The problem remains if Lumen Gentium strictly and exclusively identifies the Mystical Body of Christ with the Catholic Church, as did Pius XII in Mystici Corporis. Can we not call it into doubt when we observe that not only is the attribute "Roman" missing, but also that one avoids saying that only Catholics are members of the Mystical Body. Thus they are telling us that the Church of Christ and of the Apostles subsistit in, is found in the Catholic Church. There is consequently no strict identification, that is exclusive, between the Church of Christ and the "Roman" Church. Vatican II admits, fundamentally, that non-Catholic Christians are members of the Mystical Body and not merely ordered to it.

Yves Cardinal Congar

Church of Christ is not exclusively identical to the Roman Catholic Church. It does indeed subsist in Roman Catholicism but it is also present in varying modes and degrees in other Christian communities. (Bold face in original).

Avery Cardinal Dulles, a member of the International Theological Commission

It is difficult to say that the Catholic Church is still one, Catholic, apostolic, when one says that the others (other Christian communities) are equally one, Catholic and apostolic, albeit to a lesser degree. ---- at Vatican Council II, the Roman Catholic Church officially abandoned its monopoly over the Christian religion.

Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx

Concretely and actually the Church of Christ may be realized less, equally, or even more in a Church separated from Rome than in a Church in communion with Rome. This conclusion is inescapable on the basis of the understanding of Church that emerges from the teaching of Vatican Council II.

Fr. Gregory Baum

And we now ask: What does it mean to restore the unity of all Christians?... This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (Unitatis Redintegratio) the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world. On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history. Absolutely not!

Pope Benedict XVI, addressing Protestants at World Youth Day, August 19, 2005

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Offers Clarification (?):
QUESTION: What is the meaning of the affirmation that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church?
RESPONSE:
Christ “established here on earth” only one Church and instituted it as a “visible and spiritual community”, that from its beginning and throughout the centuries has always existed and will always exist, and in which alone are found all the elements that Christ himself instituted. “This one Church of Christ, which we confess in the Creed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic […]. This Church, constituted and organized in this world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him”.
In number 8 of the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium ‘subsistence’ means this perduring, historical continuity and the permanence of all the elements instituted by Christ in the Catholic Church, in which the Church of Christ is concretely found on this earth.

REPLY:

Lutherans, Methodists, Anglicans, and many other Protestant groups recite the Nicene Creed professing a belief in the “one, holy, catholic, apostolic Church.” They clearly do not define the word “catholic” in the same sense as Roman Catholics do. Is the CDF giving a Catholic or Protestant meaning to the word “catholic” when it explains the word “subsist”? Is the comment of Cardinal Congar explaining the significance of the failure to use the word “Roman” important to our understanding of the CDF’s response? Is this a cleaver corruption of dogmatic truth through corruption of language? Should we be grateful to Cardinal Congar for his open and honest comments? Since the “ecumenism of return” is rejected then, do Protestants that do not have to “return” to the Roman Catholic Church already belong to the “Church of Christ”? Is there salvation in the “Church of Christ” separated from the Roman Catholic Church?

Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration.

James 1:17
For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled.

Matt 5:18

Paradoxically precisely because one remains [in the Church], precisely if one is faithful, one changes. One does not remain faithful, like the traditionalists or the fundamentalists, to the letter. Fidelity is always a change, a blossoming, a growth. The Lord brings about a change in those who are faithful to Him.

Cardinal Bergoglio, interview with Stefani Falasca, 2007

More distantly, this view comes from the German transcendental philosophies that value becoming more than being and therefore value perennial doubt more than certainty and seeking more than finding..... The mistake in this position lies in regarding as humble an attitude that is really an intense form of pride. What is someone really preferring when he prefers searching for the truth to truth itself? He is preferring his own subjective movement and the activity of the Ego more than the good that his powers of acting are given him to attain. In short the Object is being valued less than the subject and an anthropocentric view is being adopted that is irreconcilable with religion, which seeks the creature's subjection to the Creator and teaches that in being thus subjected the creature finds its own satisfaction and perfection. The false view that values searching more than the truth is really a form of indifferentism.
Romano Amerio, Iota Unum, The Virtue of Faith

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But before all things have a constant mutual charity among yourselves: for charity covereth a multitude of sins.

1 Peter 4, 8

ON RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES

BAPTISMAL GRACE ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

PREVIOUS BULLETIN POSTS BELOW THAT REMAIN TIMELY:

Pope Benedict XVI, Papal Letter to bishops regarding the lifting of the SSPX excommunications, March 10, 2009

Note:

REPLY: