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| Pope Francis says deliberately opposing migration ‘is a grave sin’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 08-29-2024, 10:00 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
- No Replies
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Pope Francis says deliberately opposing migration ‘is a grave sin’
Opposing migration of any kind 'when done with awareness and responsibility, is a grave sin,' Pope Francis said.
![[Image: MicrosoftTeams-image-13.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/MicrosoftTeams-image-13.jpg)
Wiki commons/Unsplash
Aug 28, 2024
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis condemned efforts to regulate immigration, stating that those who “systemically” work to “repel migrants” are committing a “grave sin.”
Leaving aside his series of catechetical addresses, Pope Francis today used his Wednesday audience to address the topic of immigration. “I would like to pause with you to think about the people who – even at this moment – are crossing seas and deserts to reach a land where they can live in peace and safety,” he opened.
‘A grave sin’
Using the themes of “seas and deserts,” Francis stated that both seas and deserts are becoming “cemeteries of migrants.” He added that “the tragedy is that many, the majority of these deaths, could have been prevented.”
Francis has often highlighted the topic of migration from the very earliest days of his pontificate.
Today’s general audience saw him amplify his already strong rhetoric as he condemned anyone who took steps to oppose migration:
Quote:It must be said clearly: There are those who work systematically and with every means possible to repel migrants – to repel migrants. And this, when done with awareness and responsibility, is a grave sin.
Elaborating on his description of opposing migration as being a “sin,” Francis drew on Sacred Scripture: “Let us not forget what the Bible tells us: ‘You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him’ (Ex 22:21). The orphan, the widow and the stranger are the quintessential poor whom God always defends and asks to be defended.”
READ: Jailed pro-lifer slams Biden administration for aiding illegal immigrants but killing American babies
The Pontiff also pointed to a disparity between the wealth of different societies, commenting that “in the time of satellites and drones, there are migrant men, women and children that no one must see: they are hidden. Only God sees them and hears their cry. And this is a cruelty of our civilization.”
Turning to Scripture once again, Francis compared current immigration – a phenomena particularly focused into Europe from Africa and into the U.S. from the southern border – to the “great migration” of the Jewish people who were led by Moses out of slavery in Egypt.
“It will be good for us today: the Lord is with our migrants in the mare nostrum, the Lord is with them, not with those who repel them,” Francis commented.
The Pope did not distinguish between legal and illegal immigration during his audience address, or on the manner in which immigrants should be welcomed and acclimatize to the local culture – an aspect on which the Church has clear teaching. His words appeared to be a general invitation for increased immigration of any kind.
Open borders and Catholic social teaching
Italy has been facing a spiraling migrant crisis for many years due to the mass influx of individuals into the country, chiefly from African Muslim nations. The harbor town of Lampedusa is a popular destination for such migrant boats due to its position in the far south of Italy, and it is increasingly being overrun by Muslim immigrants. It was here that Pope Francis made his first trip outside of Rome in July 2013.
With much of Europe now seeing a marked increase in violence linked to illegal immigration, often by Muslims, Francis has nevertheless continued to issue a call for more immigration rather than less.
Addressing the audience in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday, Francis said that to prevent migrants from suffering in “those lethal deserts” there should be more open borders:
Quote:But it is not through more restrictive laws, it is not with the militarization of borders, it is not with rejection that we will obtain this result. Instead, we will obtain it by extending safe and legal access routes for migrants, providing refuge for those who flee from war, violence, persecution and various disasters; we will obtain it by promoting in every way a global governance of migration based on justice, fraternity and solidarity. And by joining forces to combat human trafficking, to stop the criminal traffickers who mercilessly exploit the misery of others.
The Catholic Church’s teaching regarding immigration is a careful mix of charity to the citizens of a nation and those seeking entrance to that nation for just reasons. The Catechism notes that “political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption.”
Furthermore, the Catechism outlines that “immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.”
Such a teaching was expounded upon in 2011 by Pope Benedict XVI in his message for the 97th World Day of Migrants and Refugees. While quoting from Pope John Paul II to defend the “possibility” for people “to enter another country to look for better conditions of life,” Benedict also defended the rights of the home nations to restrict such entries:
Quote:At the same time, States have the right to regulate migration flows and to defend their own frontiers, always guaranteeing the respect due to the dignity of each and every human person. Immigrants, moreover, have the duty to integrate into the host Country, respecting its laws and its national identity.
Indeed, prior to this, John Paul II wrote for the same occasion in 2001 that the exercise of the “right to emigrate … is to be regulated, because practicing it indiscriminately may do harm and be detrimental to the common good of the community that receives the migrant.”
Papal praise for Mediterranean project
Concluding his Wednesday audience, Pope Francis praised the “courageous men and women” who “do their utmost to rescue and save injured and abandoned migrants on the routes of desperate hope, in the five continents.”
He included the organization Mediterranea Saving Humans (MSH) among those he described as being “on the front line” in the “fight for civilization.” In recent days, the scandal-encircled organization embarked on another trip to bring illegal immigrants to Italy, and for the first time did so in conjunction with the Italian Catholic bishops’ conference.
Pope Francis sent a handwritten note praising the endeavor.
![[Image: cq5dam.thumbnail.cropped.750.422.jpeg]](https://www.vaticannews.va/content/dam/vaticannews/multimedia/2024/agosto/24/Messaggio-Papa-Mediterranea.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/cq5dam.thumbnail.cropped.750.422.jpeg)
Pope Francis’ letter. Credit: Vatican Media
READ: Italy’s bishops giving millions to papal confidant’s illegal immigration scheme: report
MSH’s ship “Mare Jonio” has previously been confiscated and fined over disputes with the local authorities regarding their bringing illegal refugees to Italian ports.
Scandal erupted last December when it was reported that controversial activist Luca Casarini – personally invited to the Synod on Synodality by Francis – has had his activity supporting illegal immigration heavily bankrolled by the Italian bishops.
Casarini works with MSH, and the group’s chaplain has been identified as a key link between Italian bishops’ conference president Cardinal Matteo Zuppi and a recent increase in funding from the Italian episcopate.
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| Tomb of Saint Teresa of Avila Opened, Relics Found “Incorrupt” |
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Posted by: Stone - 08-29-2024, 07:31 AM - Forum: The Saints
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Tomb of Saint Teresa of Avila Opened, Relics Found “Incorrupt”
![[Image: vsmpyq71mg0c6wwsuxg5km1zij412kufidyzd64....10&webp=on]](https://seedus6826.gloriatv.net/storage1/vsmpyq71mg0c6wwsuxg5km1zij412kufidyzd64.webp?secure=GAR5DnJzRMoDxiyE9evA8Q&expires=1725081910&webp=on)
gloria.tv | August 29, 2024
For the first time since 1914, the tomb of the Spanish Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) was opened on August 28. DiocesisDeAvila.com announced that the body remains "incorrupt".
The medical and scientific team in charge of studying the relics found the body in the same condition as it was 110 years ago, according to photographs taken at the time.
The tomb is located in the town where Teresa died, in northwestern Spain, Alba de Tormes. To open the coffin containing the relics, 10 different keys are needed, three of which are normally kept in Rome.
The research team will spend the next four days studying the relics.
They hope to learn more about the saint's life, including the types of illnesses she suffered.
It has already been found that she suffered from calcium spurs in her foot, which made it impossible for her to walk without pain, but she still walked anyway and reached Alba de Tormes.
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| This author may have discovered the original painting of Our Lady by St. Luke |
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Posted by: Stone - 08-29-2024, 07:25 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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This author may have discovered the original painting of Our Lady by St. Luke
LifeSiteNews is pleased to present the latest great discovery of author Paul Badde, who has been able to locate the painting that,
most probably, Saint Luke himself painted of Our Lady.
![[Image: Screenshot-2024-08-28-at-2.33.24-PM.png]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Screenshot-2024-08-28-at-2.33.24-PM.png)
Author and journalist Paul Badde with the painting of Our Lady potential created by St. Luke
Maike Hickson / LifeSiteNews
Aug 28, 2024
(LifeSiteNews) — Paul Badde is a journalist and author who has been specially blessed with some stunning discoveries. For some reason, it has come to him to help Christianity recover amazing images and items of our beloved Catholic faith. He also played a historic role in helping to thwart the papal election of Jorge Bergoglio in 2005.
LifeSiteNews has mentioned in the past Badde’s report on the discovery of the Holy Face of Manoppello, a veil that contains an imprint of the face of Jesus Christ and stems most probably from the moment of His Resurrection. It is a silken veil that is kept in a church in the Abruzzo mountains of Italy and that contains no traces of paint on it. That is to say, it is not man-made. Due to Badde’s discoveries, it was none other than Pope Benedict XVI who, in 2006, made a pilgrimage to this true face of Our Lord.
But not only that. Among other things, Badde was able to locate in Jerusalem the very judgement stone upon which Jesus Christ Himself might have been judged by Pontius Pilate on Good Friday. It is an exciting story, and LifeSite recommends that our readers listen to it here.
![[Image: Screenshot-2024-08-28-at-4.06.00-PM.png]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Screenshot-2024-08-28-at-4.06.00-PM.png)
The ‘ Advocata’ painting of Our Lady
In his latest great discovery, Paul Badde has been able to locate the painting that, most probably, Saint Luke himself painted of Our Lady. The painting is the mother painting and icon of many other paintings in the West and in the East that have the reputation of being related to St. Luke.
Paul Badde even goes so far as to say that this was the beginning of the Christian West’s abandonment of the Jewish ban on images of God and human beings. This original painting is called “Advocata,” and it is to be found in a hidden monastery on Monte Mario in Rome. Since the 11th century, it has had the reputation of being been painted by St. Luke.
Similar to his discovery of the Holy Face of Manoppello, Paul Badde met people along the way who helped him find the original icon of Our Lady. His quest took some twenty years, which he now describes in a spell-binding manner in Die Lukas-Ikone (a new book in German).
![[Image: Screenshot-2024-08-27-at-12.42.15-PM.png]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Screenshot-2024-08-27-at-12.42.15-PM.png)
Author Paul Badde with his new book (Credit: Maike Hickson)
During his work as a journalist in Jerusalem at the beginning of the second millennium, Badde met on Mount Zion the icon painter Father Bernhard Maria Alter, OSB a priest who assured him that there existed in Rome on Monte Mario one special painting of Our Lady – the “true original icon” related to the other paintings. Many other paintings are said to have been painted by St. Luke but clearly date to periods after the life of Our Lady here on earth. Yet, as Badde is able to show, this one painting is datable by way of technique (wax technique) and style (similar to Egyptian paintings from Fayum that date back to the first centuries AD), and is thus traceable to the lifetime of Our Lady and St. Luke themselves. In addition, there is a text which mentions a special painting of Our Lady that was carried through water, and the icon of St. Luke does have clear signs of water damage.
In his new book, Paul Badde takes us back to the time when he started his quest and how it progressed. It is a striking and exciting story. Multiple times, for example, he and his wife Ellen visited the Monte Mario hill in Rome where the painting was located, finally finding it by accident more than anything!
On All Souls’ Day last year, Paul Badde was so kind as to lead me to that very monastery and to the “Advocata,” in front of which he gave an explanation of the ordeal.
At the time, he was still writing his book, and it has just now been released in the German language by Christiana Verlag. Translated from German, the book is aptly titled, The Icon of St. Luke: Rome’s Hidden Wonder of the World.
The painting that Paul Badde discovered a few years ago in Rome is called “Advocata,” or “Advocata Nostra,” and it is kept in Santa Madonna del Rosario, a Dominican monastery where the sisters preserve and venerate this icon, along with some major relics of great Dominican saints, including relics of St. Dominic himself, St. Catherine of Siena, and St. Thomas Aquinas. Over the altar of the church is a painting of Our Lady handing St. Dominic the rosary. Could one imagine St. Dominic seeing Our Lady in a vision, that same face that is on this icon?
The painting of the “Advocata” is stunning. Our Lady is beautiful, and to look at her touches the heart. Our Lady serenely looks out of the picture and into the eyes of the onlooker. She is a mature woman who has seen suffering. But she is serene and pure. And she does not hold a baby in her arm, which makes sense if one were to consider that St. Luke would have painted her after the Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of her Son. Instead, her hands are lifted upward, in parallel fashion, as if she were holding something. Badde is able to show that there exist many copies of that depiction of Our Lady with the same gesture and appearance in different places in Italy and elsewhere (such as, for example, in Freising, Germany), not at least in the grottos under St. Peter’s. That Advocata painting must have been considered to be special to be copied so many times – another hint it is truly the “original icon.”
Moreover, since the Advocata icon must have traveled, most probably together with the Shroud of Turin and the Holy Veil of Manoppello, to Constantinople, there are numerous icons in the East that very closely resemble that of the Advocata. A further sign of the importance of this icon. Given the widespread nature of the image, it follows that people must have known that it was one of the key icons of early Christianity. Here is an example of a newly discovered Fresco from before the 8th century from the Greek isle of Naxos, that has a stunning resemblance to the Advocata. Another copy of the Advocata can be discovered in the 11th century painting by a Byzantine painter, here. Looking at these images, one could easily posit that much of the iconography of Our Lady in the East has been influenced by this original icon of St. Luke.
![[Image: Screenshot-2024-08-27-at-12.53.58-PM.png]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Screenshot-2024-08-27-at-12.53.58-PM.png)
The Madonna as Advocate (Haghiosoritissa) (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
In Badde’s view, this original Advocata icon that influenced so many other paintings and icons must have been created by Saint Luke at the time of the First Council of the Apostles in the year 48, when the Apostles came together in Jerusalem in order to settle questions of the Faith. It was most probably here that St. Luke met Our Lady for the first time. She had lived, since the death of Her Son, in Ephesus, together with St. John the Evangelist. Though there are no historical documents to prove it, Badde’s reconstruction would make sense. There is, however, another key element that convinced me as a reader.
Badde tells us that St. Dominic, when his first Dominican sisters refused to move into a new building, the San Sisto Vecchio monastery in Rome, without that very painting of Our Lady, carried it in the 13th century by foot to the new monastery. That is to say, even then the painting was already held in the highest esteem. I wonder whether St. Dominic recognized, when carrying that painting, the Blessed Mother on it.
But that is not the key of the story. During their research, Badde and his wife had learned that the painting had been restored in 1960, and in the historical records of that restoration, they were able to learn that Our Lady earlier on held some sort of white linen or cloth in her extended, outstretched hand. This discovery led him to think that perhaps there would be other paintings from the time of St. Dominic with hints of that original image of the hand that is now covered up with gold.
So Paul Badde and his wife went to see a painted crucifix in the Basilica of San Domenico in Arezzo that was painted only some 40 years after St. Dominic had carried the Advocata himself. On that crucifix is painted a small copy of the Advocata, in a different gesture, but with a white veil in her hands.
That white veil is important. It could show that Our Lady had been painted by St. Luke as the “Advocata” with the cloth of Jesus’s Face on it, that very cloth that Badde was blessed to discover, with the help of others of course, in Manoppello.
It would make perfectly sense to think that Our Lady would only want to be painted as the “Christbearer”, that is, as the woman who bore Christ. In her humility, she would not have wanted a portrait of herself, for the sake of herself. She only would have wanted to be the one who holds a depiction of Her Son in her hands or arms. That is at least how the author of this article could picture it.
There exist very old texts in the East that speak about Our Lady having in her possession after the death of her Son a cloth in front of which she would kneel and pray. In our pious imagination, that would have been the Face of Manoppello. After offering up Her Son at the First Mass, on Calvary, she would certainly would have wanted to keep that image of Him that was found in the tomb on the day of His Resurrection. We recall how St. John describes the scene when he entered the tomb: he “saw (the linens and the sudarium, the head cloth) and believed” (John 20:8).
He might not have necessarily believed had there been just the linen cloths lying in the empty tomb. Remember even the linen that we call today the Shroud of Turin became only more clearly visible at the end of the 19th century. But he might have seen the face of Our Lord on that one cloth, “sudarium,” that convinced him of the fact that Our Lord had risen.
It can then also be assumed that, should St. Luke have met Our Lady first at the First Council of the Church in Jerusalem, he would have also seen, for the first time, the image of Our Lord on that cloth. The very fact that Our Lord chose to leave an image of His behind, surely convinced St. Luke that the old Jewish law that forbids any images of God or even of any human being was being rescinded herewith by God Himself. And Our Lady would have known that from that first Easter on.
Heinz Liechti, a Catholic who admires Paul Badde’s work on these holy images and has done his own research in this field, shared with LifeSite the following insight: “The epochal insight of Paul Badde’s Advocata book is that he can prove [the images of] Manoppello and Advocata in such a way that it is clear that this sequence, M+A, led to the overthrow of the Jewish prohibition of images.” That is to say, the two true faces of God and His Mother left behind on earth did away with the Jewish ban on images of God and man and opened up the path to Christian paintings as we know them.
Also important is another aspect that came from correspondence with Mr. Liechtl: when one compares both images of the Advocata and of Manoppello, one sees a clear resemblance between God and His Mother, especially the eyes: they have the same color, and their pupils are even in nearly the same position on both images! Next to it, one sees in both set of eyes the white under the black pupils, which is also a striking resemblance. Both faces have beautifully formed eyebrows, as well.
![[Image: Screenshot-2024-08-28-at-11.18.39-AM.png]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Screenshot-2024-08-28-at-11.18.39-AM.png)
Credit: Heinz Liechti
Thus, the white veil in the hands of the Advocata – the remnants of which have been again covered up by some golden plates after its restoration – gives us a strong hint that it truly could have been that that painting was created by St. Luke during Our Lady’s lifetime. She was holding her Son’s face in her hands.
![[Image: Screenshot-2024-08-28-at-11.27.22-AM.png]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Screenshot-2024-08-28-at-11.27.22-AM.png)
An Eastern depiction of Our Lady holding a veil
To return to Paul Badde’s book on the Advocata. He points out that it is St. Luke, of all Evangelists, who reveals the most about Our Lady in the entire New Testament. Speaking of all the five Joyful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, Badde explains that “all these stories and their contemplation we owe to St. Luke.” Also the more detailed story of Christmas, as we contemplate it every year anew, stems from St. Luke who himself was not blessed with the meeting of Our Lord. This fact could be used as an argument that St. Luke met Our Lady during her lifetime and learned elements of her life from her directly.
Admittedly, many aspects in this story are yet to be proven. For example, while we can say that the painting method stems from the first centuries, the wood panel of the painting has not yet been dated. Further research into many of these aspects should be done. Thanks to Paul Badde’s hard work that took place over the course of some twenty years, this research can now be done.
In the meantime, I highly recommend an English-speaking publisher to translate this book into English so that our readers can read it for themselves. And I highly recommend that our readers, next time they are in Rome, visit the small Dominican church Madonna del Rosario on Monte Mario, and pay their respects to the most stunning painting of Our Lady, the Advocata.
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| Archbishop Lefebvre and Conciliar Sacraments – Did he doubt them? |
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Posted by: Stone - 08-28-2024, 09:13 AM - Forum: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
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Archbishop Lefebvre and Conciliar Sacraments – Did he doubt them?
The Church cannot approve rites which are harmful or out of harmony with the faith.
This is precisely what Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre said of the conciliar rites. So how did he resolve the question?
![[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...0x675.jpeg]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F97d04550-a209-4b05-a3c9-b2720f01ca5b_1200x675.jpeg)
Image: The Tomb of Pope Leo XIII (Fr Lawrence Lew OP) with superimposed image of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (Wiki Commons) both under CC 2.0.
WM Review | Aug 27, 2024
Introduction
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre stated on several occasions that both the Novus Ordo and the accompanying reforms to the other sacramental rites are essentially harmful in themselves, incentives to impiety, and fail to serve as a profession of the Catholic faith. In one classic text, he said:
Quote:“All these reforms, indeed, have contributed and are still contributing to the destruction of the Church, to the ruin of the priesthood, to the abolition of the Sacrifice of the Mass and of the sacraments…
“It is impossible to modify profoundly the lex orandi without modifying the lex credendi. To the Novus Ordo Missae correspond a new catechism, a new priesthood, new seminaries, a charismatic Pentecostal Church—all things opposed to orthodoxy and the perennial teaching of the Church.
“This Reformation, born of Liberalism and Modernism, is poisoned through and through; it derives from heresy and ends in heresy, even if all its acts are not formally heretical. It is therefore impossible for any conscientious and faithful Catholic to espouse this Reformation or to submit to it in any way whatsoever.
“The only attitude of faithfulness to the Church and Catholic doctrine, in view of our salvation, is a categorical refusal to accept this Reformation.”1
However, Catholic teaching and theology tells us that this is impossible for the Church’s approved sacramental rites, which are examples of universal disciplinary laws and thus fall under “the secondary object of infallibility.”
The only route out of this dilemma is to exonerate the Church of responsibility for these reforms. We must, in other words, say that these reforms do not come to us from the Church or with her approval or sanction.
This conclusion – that the reformed rites do not come from the Church and not enjoy her approval or sanction – was expressed and implied by the Archbishop and other SSPX figures on several occasions.
However, this solution comes at a price.
Once we have acknowledged that, because of their harmful, evil or non-Catholic nature, these reformed rites cannot have come to us from the Church or with her approval or sanction, we must also recognise that these rites do not come with the Church’s guarantees of validity either.
In this piece, we will see what Archbishop Lefebvre had to say about the validity of the reformed sacramental rites, and how he more or less recognised the practical effects of the conclusion mentioned above.
The harmfulness of the reformed rites and prima facie guarantees of validity
As noted elsewhere – and as is obvious – only rites which come to us from the Church enjoy her guarantees of validity. There is no theological principle which allows us to say that the Church’s liturgical rites are infallibly valid but not infallibly safe and Catholic.
Therefore, as mentioned, if we do hold these rites to be unsafe and uncatholic, then we must also acknowledge that by that fact, they also lack the Church’s sanction – and therefore we have no prima facie grounds for asserting that they are valid.
This is the same thing as saying that they are subject to prima facie doubt.
In his 1956 book on a related topic, Anglican Orders and Defect of Intention, Fr Francis Clark writes:
Quote:“The only formulae that infallibly and necessarily contain the essential significance of a sacrament are those which have been canonised by being instituted by Christ and His Church for that purpose.”2
In his bull on Anglican orders and liturgical changes, Pope Leo XIII himself wrote:
Quote:“… f the rite be changed, with the manifest intention of introducing another rite not approved by the Church and of rejecting what the Church does, and what, by the institution of Christ, belongs to the nature of the Sacrament, then it is clear that not only is the necessary intention wanting to the Sacrament, but that the intention is adverse to and destructive of the Sacrament.”3
The English bishops explained this further in 1898, in defence of the same bull:
Quote:“… in adhering rigidly to the rite handed down to us we can always feel secure; whereas, if we omit or change anything, we may perhaps be abandoning just that element which is essential.”4
What would these nineteenth century bishops have made of our situation, in which [i]all the sacramental rites were radically reformed, and in which four were changed in their essentials?
Regarding changes of sacramental form, Clark writes:
Quote:“Where, however, a new liturgical form is introduced and no such canonised formula [“instituted by Christ and His Church”] is employed, there cannot be certainty of its validity until its credentials have been established, and it has been acknowledged, expressly or implicitly, by the universal Church.”5
In a footnote appended to this text, Clark continues:
Quote:“Only the Church as a whole, the Mystical Body of Christ and the guardian of His sacraments, has the power to decide that with final certainty.”6
We cannot evade the force of this point by claiming that the Church has already decided the matter by her promulgation and customary usage of these rites: this evasion is cut off to us, if we are also claiming that these rites are harmful, non-Catholic, and to be rejected.
In any case, this would give rise to another problem, as the promulgation of a sacramental rite by the Roman Pontiff is itself a definitive judgment of the goodness, safety and validity of the rites.
If they had been promulgated or sanctioned by the Roman Pontiff, then they would have had the approval of the Church – and it would therefore be impossible to say that they are harmful or fail to express the Catholic faith.
Nonetheless, without presuming to solve this problem, the negative qualities of the reformed rites require us to hold back from having recourse to a resolution based around authoritative promulgation of these rites.
Archbishop Lefebvre’s own concerns about validity
As discussed previously, doubts about the validity of these reformed sacramental rites are apparent in Archbishop Lefebvre’s words and actions.
Even if he himself did not always personally embrace such doubt, his pastoral practice demonstrated that he clearly understood the situation, and wished to accommodate the faithful by providing them with certainty and peace.
Speaking of Confirmation, he said:
Quote:“It is at the request of the faithful, attached to Tradition, that I use the old sacramental formula, and also for safety's sake, keeping to formulas which have communicated grace for centuries with certainty.”7 (Emphasis added)
[ ... The remainder of this article is behind a paywall.]
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| Fr. Coleridge [1887]: The Church's debt to the Immaculate Heart of Mary |
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Posted by: Stone - 08-25-2024, 07:08 AM - Forum: Our Lady
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The Church's debt to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Although the Blessed Virgin Mary sometimes seems to be in the background in the New Testament narrative,
Her influence quietly pervades the events – including the events following the Ascension.
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Pope Pius XII’s consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary – Fr Lawrence Lew OP.
WM Review | Aug 22, 2024
From: Mother of the Church – Mary in the First Apostolic Age
Fr Henry James Coleridge, 1887, pp 312-5.
It is in the last Gospel, written by the disciple whom our Lord loved, and to whom He commended His Mother from the Cross, that we find, not so much fresh details which no one but our Blessed Lady could have communicated, as, in the first place, the breathing of a spirit of closeness with our Lord all through which is characteristic of her.
And in the second place, [we find] the two great mysteries, as they ought to be called, which especially reveal her power in the Kingdom of her Son, namely, the beginning of “signs” at her prayer at the marriage at Cana, and her presence by the side of the Cross while our Lord hung upon it till His Death.
It is on the second of these especially that our Lady’s great position as the Mother of the Church is founded.
She had long passed away from earth when St. John wrote his Gospel, and he had then seen the Apocalyptic vision of the woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.1
Mary is not mentioned in this Gospel except on these two occasions, the two mysteries which as it were connect the opening of the history with the end, while the sublime words and deeds with which the interval is filled up are just those connected with the great sacramental truths on which her heart loved to dwell.
The Passion and the Immaculate Heart
There is another subject, filling a very large space in each of the four Gospels, as to which it is quite certain that our Blessed Lady was the highest authority, and in the prominence of which in the narratives we may trace her guiding hand.
This subject is, of course, the Passion.
The only Apostle, besides St. Peter, who witnessed anything of what passed in the houses of Annas and Caiphas, must have been St. John. It is doubtful whether he witnessed what passed before Pilate and Herod, or the scourging and crowning with thorns, and all that followed.
But it is certain that our Blessed Lady was more familiar with the details of the Passion than anyone, that she either witnessed them herself or was aware of them by that special gift which enabled her to keep the Sacred Heart of our Lord company in all its sufferings, that she ever afterwards made them the continual subject of meditation and prayer, honouring each word and act and wound and insult of our Lord with a particular devotion, that in truth, the Passion was her constant and engrossing occupation, save that her remembrance of it did not prevent her from attending to the many calls which were made on her charity and her prudence.
We may therefore assume that, although we may not be able to trace her influence in particular points, still our debt to her in the history of the Passion is enormous.
And it may be added that it is likely that we owe to her faithful memory and habit of tender devotion the traditions concerning the Holy Places, the Way of the Captivity, the Way of the Cross, and others, as well as the beginning of the veneration of the relics of the Passion.
Our debt to Our Lady
In these and in a thousand other ways, the children of the Church of our Lord may see what is some part of their debt to His Blessed Mother, during the years when she was left on earth an exile from Heaven, for the sake of that Church which He loved so well.
She was the first to practise that life of retirement and prayer for the needs of the world, which is the great earthly support of the Kingdom of God, and which is now carried on in hundreds of cloister homes, the inmates of which delight above all things in counting themselves as her children.
She lighted up in the world’s worst days the glorious beacon of the Virgin life, the rays of which illuminate the whole of Christendom, and which has raised marriage to a higher level than it could have attained, if it had not had by its side this witness of something higher and more heavenly.
Her prayers and her counsels were of incalculable help to St. Peter, and the others of the Twelve, and they helped to bring to their side as a more fruitful labourer than any, the great Apostle of the Gentile world, the great trophy of the prayer of St. Stephen, who also was her beloved child.
Her motherly heart took in the whole flock of the converted heathen, as she had sung in her Magnificat of the promises to Abraham, that in his seed all the nations of the earth were to be blessed.
Wherever in the Old World or in the New there are children of the Church, there are the fruits of the motherly prayers of Mary for the application of the merits of her Son. The centuries which were yet to be, while she remained on earth, were in her heart, as the generations yet unborn are in her heart now.
She has had a share in securing to us, who live so long after her time, and many of whom have been born outside the pale of the Church, the blessings of the Apostolical teaching, and of the Catholic Unity, in which our souls have been kept or into which they have been guided. When we contemplate the Sacred Passion, when we read the words and actions of our Divine Lord, she has been before us in our devotion and our study, and the very words in which the incidents have come down to us may come almost immediately from her.
She was the first devout worshipper of the Crucifix, the first loving and reverential communicant, the first to assist piously at the offering of the Adorable Sacrifice, the first Adorer of the Blessed Sacrament.
And in that particular and special privilege which consists in bearing the cross of sorrow after our Lord, she kept Him company most faithfully while His life lasted, and, as we have seen, she had her own unique cross to bear for the sake of His children, which she took up with courage and self-renouncement so marvellous for the fifteen years about which our thoughts have been now engaged.
May she win us the grace to know the gift which God has given us in her, and to use this inestimable treasure as He would have us use it!
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| Vatican II and the Deformation of Catholic Consciences |
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Posted by: Stone - 08-25-2024, 06:13 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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Vatican II and the Deformation of Catholic Consciences
![[Image: fa4c80ae29d2cb399cab4dc49d434971_L.jpg]](https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/media/k2/items/cache/fa4c80ae29d2cb399cab4dc49d434971_L.jpg)
Robert Morrison/Remnant Columnist | August 22, 2024
“It is impossible to speak with veracity of liberty, of conscience, of the dignity of the human person except by reference to divine law.” (Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, from his September 1965 intervention read at the Second Vatican Council)
In the eyes of those who want to impose their wicked agendas on society, the problem posed by Catholicism has always been about how to overcome properly formed consciences. If a Catholic has a properly formed conscience, and a firm determination to follow it, he or she would rather die than accept evils forbidden by the Catholic Church. Throughout the centuries, our enemies have ventured to solve this problem in two general ways: by coercing or manipulating us into abandoning our determination to follow our consciences, and by trying to deform our consciences. To a large extent, the Vatican II revolution has achieved both of these objectives for our enemies.
Many Catholics today no longer understand that we must properly form our consciences, so it is worthwhile to review what the Church has always taught on the topic. As with so many other questions, the three volume Radio Replies series — which presents the answers to thousands of questions addressed by Fr. Leslie Rumble and Fr. Charles Carty on their 1930s radio program — provides solidly a Catholic answer to the question of whether a person’s conscience is supposed to be infallible:
Quote:“No. A man’s conscience is not always necessarily a true conscience. A man can warp his conscience. And just as he can form a wrong judgment in literature, science, economics, business, or sport, so he can form a wrong judgment as to what is correct moral conduct or evil moral conduct. A conscience is right when it is in harmony with God’s law. If it is not in harmony with God’s law, then it is an erroneous conscience. And we know by experience that men have often done evil under the impression that they were right. When conscience is in error, however, so that a man does wrong in good faith, we have to ask whether that man is responsible for his lack of knowledge or not. If he is responsible, because ignorant of things he ought to know or was obliged to know, he cannot be excused from sin.” (Volume 3, question 994)
So our consciences are right only when they are in conformity with God’s law; and acting in conformity with an erroneous conscience is sinful if we ought to have known, or were obliged to have known, the truth. For most Catholics who have reached the age of reason, then, it is difficult to escape blame for acting in accordance with an erroneous conscience because we are generally obliged to know (or seek) the truth about faith and morals.
How, then, has the Vatican II revolution deformed consciences? For an initial candid insight into the question, we can look to Frank Sheed’s 1968 book about the aftermath of Vatican II, Is It the Same Church?, in which he describes the impact of disagreements among bishops at the Council:
Quote:“It was for great numbers of Catholics a shattering experience to learn that the bishops were divided — indeed, if the journalists were to be believed, bitterly divided. It was one thing to accept decisions issuing from the successors of the Apostles in all the majesty of their oneness. It was not at all the same thing when the decisions were arrived at by a majority, after — if the journalists were to be believed — lobbying and recriminations not unlike those of politicians anywhere.” (p. 63)
With this subtle but vital insight, Sheed evoked the reality that Catholics trust the Catholic Church to form their consciences because we rightly see the Church as safeguarding the truths Our Lord wants all of us to believe and abide by. But if we see the bishops opposing each other, or their predecessors, on fundamental matters of faith and morals, Catholics may doubt whether the Church is actually the most important truth-teller in the world. Sheed continued by layering on two other factors: the contemporaneous debate over contraception and the Council’s ecumenical treatment of non-Catholics:
Quote:“The effect of all this is to make the old unquestioning acceptance a great deal harder, especially in a matter like Contraception which can affect people continually, immediately, sometimes agonizingly, as doctrinal teachings do not. Any who are not convinced by the Pope’s utterance on it may feel that their personal decision is for their own conscience to make. And while the Second Vatican Council speaks most lucidly upon the rights of men outside the Church to follow their conscience, I have not found that it discusses the relation of the Catholic conscience to her own teachings or commands if it feels them contrary to it.” (pp. 63-64)
Before the Council, Catholics generally knew that there is no salvation outside the Church (absent the ordinary exceptions) and that they were bound to follow all of the Church’s immutable teachings. For countless Catholics, the Council completely undermined these basic truths. And so we see Sheed — whose books are still found in Traditional Catholic bookstores — pondering whether a Catholic needs to follow Church teaching when it conflicts with his or her conscience.
Beyond Sheed’s assessment of how the Council discussions shaped overall Catholic sentiment about the human conscience, we can look at Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis Humanae, which states:
Quote:“On his part, man perceives and acknowledges the imperatives of the divine law through the mediation of conscience. In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience in order that he may come to God, the end and purpose of life. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience. Nor, on the other hand, is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience, especially in matters religious.”
Although the document elsewhere encouraged Christians to “attend to the sacred and certain doctrine of the Church” in the formation of their consciences, the passage above is the one that was both the focal point of battles between bishops and the innovation that set the tone for post-Conciliar teaching. And in this passage there is no hint whatsoever that a soul could go astray by following an erroneous conscience.
In various interventions during Vatican II, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre sought to persuade his fellow Council Fathers to rectify this erroneous conception of conscience:
November 1963. Archbishop Lefebvre commented on the following passage from the draft of the Declaration on Religious Liberty: “The Catholic Church claims, as a right of the human person, that no one be prevented from carrying out and proclaiming his public and private duties towards God and man . . . according to the light of his conscience even if it is in error.” Here is the archbishop’s reply:
Quote:“The universal order created by God, whether natural or supernatural, is, in fact, in essential opposition to this statement. God founded the family, civil society, and above all the Church, in order that all men might recognize the truth, be forewarned against error, attain to good, be preserved from scandals and thus reach temporal and eternal happiness.” (Lefebvre, I Accuse the Council, pp. 19-20)
December 1963. In remarks sent to the Secretariat of the Council on the draft schema for the Declaration on Religious Liberty, Archbishop Lefebvre wrote the following:
Quote:“This conception of religious liberty derives its origins and form from an opinion which is nowadays widespread among the public, an opinion founded on the primacy of conscience and freedom from all restraint. . . . Conscience cannot be defined without relation to Truth, ordained as it is essentially to that quality. . . . Conscience, liberty, human dignity, only possess rights to the extent to which they are in essential relation with the truth.” (Lefebvre, I Accuse the Council, pp. 24-26)
October 1964. Archbishop Lefebvre’s sixth intervention at the Council also dealt with the Declaration on Religious Liberty:
Quote:“This declaration on religious liberty should be shortened, as several Fathers have already said, in order to avoid the controversial questions and their dangerous consequences. . . . Among the various acts of conscience, the interior acts of religion must be distinguished from the exterior acts, for the external acts can either edify or cause scandal. . . . Attention must be paid to the very grave consequences of this declaration on the right to follow the voice of one’s conscience and act outwardly according to that voice. And, in fact, a religious doctrine logically influences the whole morality. Who can fail to see the innumerable consequences of this order of things? Who will be able to determine the dividing line between good and evil when the criterion of morals in accordance with the Catholic truth revealed by Christ has been set aside?” (Lefebvre, I Accuse the Council, pp. 47-48)
September 1965. Archbishop Lefebvre’s eleventh intervention at the Council also dealt with the Declaration on Religious Liberty:
Quote:“Liberty is given to us for the spontaneous observance of divine law. Conscience is natural divine law inscribed in the heart and, after the grace of baptism, is supernatural divine law. . . . It is impossible to speak with veracity of liberty, of conscience, of the dignity of the human person except by reference to divine law. . . . As the Church of Christ alone possesses the fullness and perfection of divine law, natural and supernatural; as she alone has received the mission to teach this law and the means to observe it, it is in her that Jesus Christ, who is our law, is found in reality and truth.” (Lefebvre, I Accuse the Council, p. 64)
We can see very clearly that Archbishop Lefebvre saw the dangers presented by Dignitatis Humanae’s treatment of the human conscience. As Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais indicated in his biography of Archbishop Lefebvre, the December 3, 1965 commentary of Bishop di Meglio testified to the fact that many other Council Fathers also objected to Dignitatis Humanae:
Quote:“For a notable number of Council Fathers the teaching and practical applications of the schema are not acceptable in conscience. In fact, the fundamental principle of the schema has remained unchanged despite amendments that have been introduced: that is, the right of error . . . Since the declaration on religious freedom has no dogmatic value, the negative votes of the Council Fathers will constitute a factor of great importance for the future studies of the declaration itself, and particularly for the interpretation to be placed upon it.” (pp. 310-311)
Unfortunately, the fact that the declaration had “no dogmatic value” in the eyes of the Council Fathers who opposed it did not stop it from being a justification for monumental changes in what the Conciliar Church teaches about religious liberty and the primacy of even an erroneous conscience.
Some may object that the Council’s innovations related to conscience applied primarily to non-Catholics — this was part of Sheed’s inquiry above. But Dignitatis Humanae’s innovations on religious liberty and conscience were just one part of an overall barrage against how Catholics understood the Faith:
- As we can see from the interventions on the Declaration on Religious Liberty, bishops clashed over how the Council could contradict what the Church had always taught, throwing into question the reality that the Church is the divinely appointed truth-teller.
- The Council’s ecumenical push also confused Catholics with its undermining of the reality that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church — if that was no longer the case, why do Catholics have to follow difficult commandments that Protestants neglect?
- The debates over contraception added an emotionally-charged component to all of this, and effectively normalized the rejection of Catholic moral teaching. Once one could choose to follow an erroneous conscience over Church teaching in one matter, there was no real barrier to doing similarly on any other matter.
- Shortly after the Council, everything about the Church seemed to change: priests got married, nuns left religious practice, the Mass changed, and previously settled teachings were open to discussion. All of this undermined the belief that the Church is the guardian of the immutable truth that God requires us to follow.
- Over time, seminaries became increasingly corrupted, leading to poorly formed priests who became the heretical bishops we see today. Once we have openly heretical bishops, then many Catholics find it difficult to believe that they are required to obey the Church’s apparent hierarchy.
Archbishop Lefebvre predicted that there would be “very grave consequences of this declaration on the right to follow the voice of one’s conscience and act outwardly according to that voice.” As is evident today, he was correct. This, however, is no reason to despair: the immutable truths that Archbishop Lefebvre believed then are still true today and always will be. Those who follow those truths will honor God — in fact, one honors God even more when he or she must adhere to immutable truth in opposition to enemies who try to persuade us to abandon it. We also have the mixed blessing of seeing more clearly now than ever that the pre-Vatican II popes were correct: they told us these catastrophes would occur if Catholics abandoned the truth, so each harm of the Vatican II revolution confirms that what they said is still true.
On a more immediate practical level, it is apparent that there is a grave danger in trying to form our consciences without respect to what the Church actually teaches. When we have the openly heretical Cardinal Blase Cupich delivering the invocation at the Democratic National Convention, we have good reason to suspect that demons have more power than ever to distort what the Church teaches. For many of us, though, the real risk is not that we would form our consciences based on the anti-Catholic antics of Francis and Cupich, but that we would conclude that we can no longer turn to Catholic clergy for guidance on moral questions.
It is this latter danger — that we would decide that we could no longer seek counsel from the Church, as represented by good clergy — that seems to pose a real threat today for sincere Catholics who truly want to do God’s will. We face this temptation in many different areas, ranging from our thoughts on Francis to whether we can vote. We know that we cannot seek guidance from heterodox priests, but should also recall one of the evils of Protestantism is that it makes each man his own ultimate judge of religious truth. If it is literally impossible to find a Catholic priest to guide us, then it seems we should not despair because God does not ask us to do the impossible. However, as Archbishop Lefebvre insisted in his September 1965 intervention, we should always try to turn to the Church (represented by the clergy) when questions of faith and morals arise:
Quote:“As the Church of Christ alone possesses the fullness and perfection of divine law, natural and supernatural; as she alone has received the mission to teach this law and the means to observe it, it is in her that Jesus Christ, who is our law, is found in reality and truth.”
Ordinarily we learn what the Church teaches through its shepherds so it seems that we must at least seek to find clergy who can guide us, particularly when trying to apply the Church’s teaching to matters that arise through the challenging circumstances in which we find ourselves today. If this is truly impossible, then we can trust that God will provide. If, however, we neglect to seek advice from the clergy because we want to guide ourselves, it may be the enemy of our salvation (rather than God) who provides.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
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