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| The Recusant: Open Letter to Fr. Juan Carlos Ortiz [2018] |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-16-2021, 08:03 PM - Forum: True vs. False Resistance
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Taken from The Recusant - Issue 45 [January/February 2018]
[NB: This letter was written before the extremely doubtful situation of Ambrose Moran was completely understood, see here. But the point of this particular 'Open Letter' is to highlight the hypocrisy in how Bp. Williamson's is treated with respect to his problematic treatment of the Orthodox or rather, how it is passed over in silence by the priests under him/in the Fake Resistance.]
OPEN LETTER TO FR. JUAN CARLOS ORTIZ
London
4th January 2018
Dear Father Ortiz,
It is the memory of your 27-page long Ambrose Moran document dealing with questions of the schismatic Orthodox, and the time I spent reading through it, which spurs me to write to you first and foremost. In some people’s eyes, you are the Church’s champion leading a crusade against the peril of schismatic Orthodoxy. For this reason, I feel sure that the following will interest you a great deal. I wish to begin by drawing your attention to some fairly recent statements made by Bishop Williamson which appear to favour the Russian Orthodox. His words appeared in Eleison Comments #525 August 2017 and #535, October 2017 and can be read here: stmarcelinitiative.com/fatima-consecration-ii/ and here: stmarcelinitiative.com/putin-speaks. The first talks about the consecration of Russia requested by Our Lady of Fatima and uses the name “Holy Russia” to describe contemporary Russia before its consecration has happened. The second one begins by defending the use of the phrase “Holy Russia” and then goes on to call Vladimir Putin “a follower of Christ”, even though he is a man whom the whole world knows to be a Russian Orthodox schismatic.
1. Holy Russia
Bishop Williamson begins Eleison Comments #535 by telling his readers that:
Quote:“One reader of these ‘Comments’ was surprised to see them (August 5) referring to ‘Holy Russia’ when since 1917 it is Russia that has been spreading its errors throughout the world.”
Whether Bishop Williamson has misrepresented the grounds for his reader’s objections (knowingly or otherwise) is unclear. Regardless, the fact remains that the main objection to calling Russia “Holy” is not merely that it was a Communist country after 1917, for this would be to suggest or give the impression that Russia perhaps was “holy” before 1917 and that it was only the Bolshevik revolution which took away that “holiness”. You and I know otherwise, Father, as does Bishop Williamson.
Bishop Williamson then goes on to justify calling Russia “Holy Russia” by saying:
Quote:“But ‘Holy Russia’ is an expression that goes much further back than the 20th century. It refers to the Russian people’s natural inclination to religion. If from 1917 to 1989 they were the spring-bed of international Communism, that is only because they served it with a religious fervour…”
The question which he begs is: their inclination to what religion? You and I both know the answer, Father. The religion of Russia is not the Catholic religion. It is a false religion calling itself Russian Orthodoxy and has been since the year 1054. And whilst the phrase “Holy Russia” may go back earlier than the 20th century, it is not that much earlier, and nowhere near as old as the schism of 1054. The phrase is a comparatively recent invention of the Orthodox. It therefore does not refer to anything Catholic but is a reference to Russian Orthodoxy supposedly being the true religion, since it recalls the false teaching of the Russian Orthodox according to which Russia (and not Rome) has a sort of spiritual primacy over the world, the true religion being the schismatic, man-made national religion of that country.
The contrast which the bishop draws between Russia pre- and post- 1917 is also misleading since, as mentioned above, it risks leaving the impression that things were bad in Russia after 1917, but not before. An uninformed person reading Bishop Williamson’s words might be forgiven for thinking that before 1917 Russia was a truly “holy” country, where all or most people were “fervently” practicing the true religion. But you and I know that that is not the case, quite the contrary. The truth is that the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 only replaced one form of darkness with an even more brutal and unpleasant form of darkness. Even so, prior to 1917 Russia was a country in need of conversion, a country practicing a false religion, a country which, in the name of that false religion, persecuted and oppressed the Catholic Church, even officially in her government and laws, sometimes with bloody violence. The Catholic Encyclopedia tells us that in the mid-19th century, a mere two generations before the Bolshevik revolution, Czar Nicholas I was busy persecuting the Church in Russia and also in Poland which at that time fell under his sway:
Quote:“The reign of Nicholas I was a long period of persecution and suffering for Catholics in Russia. …
Catholics were prohibited from restoring their churches and from building new ones; from preaching sermons that had not previously been approved by the government, and from refuting the calumnies of the Press against Catholicism. It is not necessary for us to recur to the authority of Catholic writers, like Lescœur, to prove how odious this violence was; we may be satisfied with a mere glance at the immense collection of laws and governmental measures concerning the Catholic Church, from the times of Peter and of Ivan Alexeievitch to 1867. …
It is not without reason that a Catholic writer has said that the laws of Nicholas I against Catholicism constitute a Neronian code.” (www.newadvent.org/cathen/13253a.htm)
His successor, Czar Alexander II, was little better.
Quote:“The first years of the reign of Alexander II were not marked by anti-Catholic violence. … Soon however there was a return to the methods of Nicholas I, notwithstanding the fact that Pius IX wrote to the tsar, imploring liberty for Catholics of both rites in Russia. In another letter, addressed in 1861 to Mgr. Fialkowski, Archbishop of Warsaw, Pius IX referred to the continual efforts of the Holy See to safeguard the existence of Catholicism in Russia, and to the difficulties that were opposed to all measures of his and of his predecessors in that connection. Encouraged by the words of the pope, the Polish bishops presented a memorandum to the representative of the emperor at Warsaw, asking for the abrogation of the laws that oppressed Catholics and destroyed their liberty. A similar memorandum was presented to the tsar by the Archbishop of Mohileff and the bishops of Russia. Upon the basis of these memoranda, the government accused the Catholic clergy of promoting the spirit of revolution and of plotting revolts against the tsar. Most painful occurrences ensued; the soldiery was not restrained from profaning the churches and the Holy Eucharist, from wounding defenceless women, or from treating Warsaw as a city taken by storm. One hundred and sixty priests, and among them the vicar capitular Bialobrzeski, were taken prisoners, and several of them were exiled to Siberia. Mgr. Deckert, coadjutor of the Archbishop Fialkowski, died of the sufferings that these events caused him. The condition of the Poles were becoming intolerable, and Catholicism suffered proportionately. Amid the general indifference of Europe, one voice, that of Pius IX, was raised, firm and energetic, in favour of an oppressed people and of a persecuted faith. (Ibid.)
Would it be worth noting that the persecution of the Church by the Russian government and national “church” did not end with the death of Alexander II but carried on into the 20th century?
Quote:“It should not be forgotten that, during the entire reign of Alexander II, the religious policy of Russia was inspired by Konstantin Pobiedonostseff, Procurator General of the [Russian Orthodox] Holy Synod, who, for political rather than religious motives, was a fierce adversary of Catholicism. The Catholic clergy continued to endure the severest oppression, abandoned to the caprices of the police, greatly reduced in numbers, and trammelled by a thousand obstacles in the exercise of its apostolic ministry. This condition of things was prolonged into the reign of Nicholas II, during which Pobiedonostseff exercised his dictatorship until 1905.” (Ibid.)
1905 is a mere twelve years before the Bolshevik revolution and the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima. But which Russia is it that we see here, is this the “Holy Russia” of which Bishop Williamson speaks? Was it “Holy Russia” which persecuted the Church? Was it “Holy Russia” which made the condition of Polish Catholics intolerable? Was it “Holy Russia” which sent soldiers into Catholic Churches to smash them up and profane the Blessed Sacrament? Was it “Holy Russia” which arrested priests and sent them to die in Siberia? Which Russia was this Russia which officially passed so many laws designed to suppress the Catholic Church and against which Pius IX energetically protested?
2. A Follower of Christ
That would be bad enough, but it gets worse. In the same Eleison Comments #535, Bishop Williamson tells us that Vladimir Putin is “a follower of Christ.”
Quote:“Some experts in the perfidy of the New World Order are still distrustful of Vladimir Putin, which is understandable, but as Americans say, if he talks, walks and quacks like a follower of Christ, then common sense says that he is a follower of Christ.”
Father, can a Russian Orthodox schismatic truly be called “a follower of Christ”? Can, in this particular case, possibly the best known Russian Orthodox schismatic in the whole world, a man who promotes the false religion of Russian Orthodoxy on television by his words and deeds and bad example, nevertheless be called “a follower of Christ”? Does Vladimir Putin need to convert and become a Catholic or does he not? If, say, you had managed somehow to become his best friend and closest, most trusted confidant, and he were to ask you one day: “What do you think, Father, should I become a Catholic? What would you advise me to do?” - would you urge him to do so as soon as possible, or would you tell him that there really is no need? I ask again: can a Russian Orthodox schismatic truly be called a follower of Christ? This is a yes or no question, Father. Bishop Williamson is either right or wrong. There are huge implications either way.
3. Implications
If what Bishop Williamson says is right, and a non-Catholic who publicly professes the Russian Orthodox religion can truly be called “a follower of Christ,” then it is not necessary to be a Catholic in order to follow Christ. And since it is by following Christ that we save our souls and gain the eternal reward of heaven, this in turn must surely mean that it is not necessary to become a Catholic in order to save one’s soul.
If what Bishop Williamson says is right, and Russia as it is today, in its present unconsecrated state, can be called “Holy Russia” due to the “the Russian people’s natural inclination towards religion” of any sort, be it the false religion of Russian Orthodoxy which persecuted the Church or the false religion of Communism which persecuted the Church and many others indiscriminately, then the word “holy” has undergone a radical change of meaning. According to this new meaning, the more inclined a person is towards joining and supporting whatever the fashionable false religion du jour is and “serving it with a religious fervour,” even if that service involves persecuting the Church, the more they can be said to be “holy.”
If what Bishop Williamson says is right, and Russia, a country with hardly any Catholics (all Catholics, including liberal and non-practicing Catholics, total barely 1% of the population) and where the Church is not represented in the state at any level can be called “holy”, then holiness can be found outside the Church, which in turn must surely mean that the Church is not necessary for sanctification since it is now possible to be “holy” without being in any way Catholic.
If what Bishop Williamson says is right, and a known, publicly-professing Orthodox schismatic can be “a follower of Christ,” then the charges which you levelled against Fr. Pfeiffer and Fr. Hewko of “association in sacris” (if there were such a thing) and of being “suspect of schism” (ditto) do not make a lot of sense because if, for argument’s sake Ambrose Moran really were a Ukrainian Orthodox and not a Ukrainian Catholic, he could still nevertheless be regarded as a “follower of Christ,” could he not?
On the other hand…
If what Bishop Williamson says is not true, then he has publicly propagated some ideas which are, at the very least, highly misleading and will lead to confusion among the faithful and even priests.
If what Bishop Williamson says is not true, then he would appear to have contradicted Church teaching on a number of points (‘Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus’ for example), whether implicitly or explicitly, knowingly or unwittingly.
If what Bishop Williamson says is not true, then such moral authority as he still enjoys due to his status as one of the four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988 will unfortunately only serve in this instance to help lead souls astray.
If what Bishop Williamson says is not true, and you can see that it is not true, then you surely have a very grave moral obligation to point that out to him, for his benefit at least, if no one else’s.
If what Bishop Williamson says is not true, and you can see that it is not true, then the unfortunate fact that he made these misleading statements in public means that they must be put right in public in order to repair the damage and clear up any confusion caused, and that any correction made to him, by you or by anyone else, must also be made in public.
If what Bishop Williamson says is not true, then as a sober man who takes such things seriously, you must surely ask yourself how this could have happened and whether perhaps it might have happened before on an occasion which you did not notice and whether it will happen again.
4. Justice
It is, as always, very disappointing to witness a supposedly “Traditional” Catholic bishop saying such things. What is perhaps even more disappointing is the lack of response from those calling themselves Traditional. It has now been nearly three months since Bishop Williamson made these statements, and I and many others have been waiting to see what your response would be, Father. So far, we have been disappointed.
Father Ortiz, you are regarded around the world as being a priest associated with, cooperating with and in some way joined to Bishop Williamson. That is true whether you like it or not, whether you intend it or not. You have in the past referred to Bishops Williamson and Faure as “our bishops,” you assisted at the most recent episcopal consecration which Bishop Williamson performed, an event which took place at your church where you are resident, St. Athanasius, in Vienna, Virginia. And to this day, nobody has ever seen a public word from you which so much as hints at a difference between Bishop Williamson and yourself. I find this not a little perplexing.
The reason I find it perplexing is that not so very long ago you publically accused Fr. Joseph Pfeiffer and Fr. David Hewko (and indirectly all those who assist at their Masses) of being in some way tainted with schism and Orthodoxy due to their “association with” a man whom you regard as an Orthodox schismatic, despite the fact that he made a public profession of the Catholic Faith in 2015 and that his baptism as a Catholic in the late 1940s was proven beyond all doubt by the unearthing of his baptismal certificate from the parish in New York where he was born. I remember well the pages and pages of talk about “communicatio in sacris,” and the quotations concerning those “suspect of heresy” to which you had added the word “schism” in square brackets, as though there could ever be such a thing as one “suspect of schism”. Only last year you wrote a letter to the Australian faithful accusing Fr. Pfeiffer and Fr. Hewko of “association in sacris” – a thing which does not exist! – and telling them that they could not go to their Masses. I thought then, as I do now, that you greatly overreached yourself and overstated your case. Had you confined yourself to saying that you were concerned over the question of Ambrose Moran’s past or that you found Fr. Pfeiffer and Fr. Hewko to have exercised not enough caution for your liking then, I suspect, people might have taken you a little more seriously. I myself would still not necessarily agree, but it need not have been a point of public contention. Since, however, you chose to make this into such a big, public cause celebre, unfortunately you must bear the consequences of that decision, which is why people are now waiting to see what your response will be to Bishop Williamson.
You accused Fr. Pfeiffer and Fr. Hewko of being too closely “associated” with someone whom you suspected was Orthodox. You accused them of temporising with schismatic Orthodoxy and of being “suspect of schism” and said that no one may go to them for the sacraments lest they too become somehow tainted with Orthodoxy and schism. And yet now, today, when the whole world has witnessed Bishop Williamson speaking of the Orthodox schismatic Putin as a “follower of Christ” and of the Orthodox Russia which persecuted the Church as “Holy Russia” your response is total silence. A less generous man might be tempted to accuse you of the very worst kind of hypocrisy and self-interest. You have unjustly attacked two priests who are innocent of the crimes with which you charge them and who would never knowingly have anything to do with schismatic or heretical false religions, except to convert them. And yet when one of your own friends a year or two later does the very thing of which you accused those two priests, you look the other way and pretend you didn’t notice.
If it was, as you said, “necessary to warn the faithful” about the non-existent “association” of Fr. Pfeiffer and Fr. Hewko with schismatic Orthodoxy, why is it not now necessary to warn the faithful of the very real and undeniable temporising with and favouring of schismatic Orthodoxy on the part of Bishop Williamson? Father Ortiz, to avoid anyone mistaking your silence for rank hypocrisy, you must now choose. Either you must denounce the recent statements of Bishop Williamson and warn the faithful against what he is currently encouraging them to think. Or you must apologise to Frs. Pfeiffer and Hewko and let it be known publicly that you were mistaken, that you overstated your case, that they were and are innocent of the charges which you levelled against them and that, in any case, even if they had been guilty, it would not matter because, as Bishop Williamson has now made clear, the Orthodox can be “followers of Christ” too. One or the other, Father.
On behalf of many others who, like myself, eagerly await your reply,
God bless,
Greg Taylor
PS – If my memory serves, Fr. Pfeiffer and Fr. Hewko asked you, in charity, to point out to them what “calumnies” they had committed against Bishop Williamson (or “our bishops,” as you put it), an entirely reasonable request. It has now been a whole year. Perhaps you would like to consider fulfilling their request and showing them where they went wrong?
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| The Recusant: Bishop Williamson Believes in the Conciliar Church |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-16-2021, 05:22 PM - Forum: True vs. False Resistance
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Taken from The Recusant [emphasis in the original]:
What a ‘Novus Ordo Mess’ : Bishop Williamson believes in the conciliar church!
A Closer Look at ‘Eleison Comments’ #447 (“Host and Parasite II”), 7th Feb. 2016
"Two weeks ago these “Comments” stepped back onto a minefield, and defended the position that there is still something Catholic in what has become of the Catholic Church since Vatican II."
Stepping onto a minefield is not an apt metaphor because what it implies is so far removed from what it represents in reality. Bishop Williamson is not putting himself in the firing line to defend Our Lord and His teaching, nor taking a personal risk for the greater good, despite his own peculiar conceit to the contrary. What he is in fact doing is indulging his own whim and fancy without regard for the devastation which his scandalous words, spoken and written have on souls who have already suffered so much. Worse, when he implies that he is somehow taking a risk, this is tantamount to lying since, in reality, anyone who disagrees with him is “dealt with”, though in secret (so you may not often hear about it). His words are a standing scandal and are causing souls to fall away. “Woe to him by whom the scandal cometh” would be more accurate than talk about ‘minefields’. How tragic to witness a man, a bishop no less, who has so little self knowledge that he can apparently view himself as some sort of hero-martyr, all the while behaving so selfishly. But I digress. Tragic and pitiable though it is, this is not what is important.
‘Still something Catholic’ in… ...what?
What concept does he say he is defending? “That there is still something Catholic in what has become the Church since Vatican II.” Which begs the question - what has become the Church since Vatican II? The common understanding would be that what we are talking about is the conciliar church. That is what has become, since Vatican II, of what is generally considered “the Catholic Church.” So is he saying that there is still something Catholic in the conciliar church? Why not come clean and say it? If he means something else, why put it in a way which is so unclear? Lack of clarity when it comes to the “Catholic Church vs. conciliar church” distinction is something which we are accustomed to expect from Bishop Fellay and Menzingen. Alas, it seems the disease has now spread to Bishop Williamson too!
How Catholic is Catholic?
Further reflection ought to remind us of the following. Just how Catholic is “something Catholic”? Here’s a hint. If it isn’t 100% Catholic, it’s not Catholic. There is undeniably “still something Catholic” in the Anglicans, for example. They still have the sign of the cross, the Our Father, stained-glass windows, candles, crucifixes, the Nicene Creed… are the Anglicans Catholic? No. But it most definitely has “something Catholic in it.” Does it matter whether there is “still something Catholic” in it, as far as our support or acceptance goes? No. The same goes for the conciliar church: of course there is “still something Catholic” in the conciliar church - some of the modernist architects of the conciliar church themselves have admitted that the “still Catholic” bits are useful to help get the new bits accepted. So, insofar as it is different in any way from the Catholic Church, the conciliar church is a false religion which we must avoid and resist, and the fact that there is “still something Catholic” in it does not change that. Near the end of the Eleison Comments, the same straw-man fallacy is advanced once again:
“...to say that there is nothing at all of these [‘Catholic decency and devotion’] left in the Newchurch seems to me to be a gross exaggeration.”
Again, that there is “something” (not “nothing”) left is beside the point. There is something of Catholic decency and devotion left in the Anglicans. This is mere sophistry. But it is very important to spot it and understand it, given what follows.
For example on the one side the present leaders of the Society of St Pius X act as though the official Church in Rome is still so Catholic(*) that the SSPX cannot do without its official recognition. On the other side many souls that really have the Catholic faith utterly repudiate the idea that there is still anything Catholic whatsoever left in the “Church” now being led by “Pope” Francis.(**) What follows is just one attempt to discern what truth may be on both sides.
Did you spot the sleight of hand, the two fake alternatives which are not really alternatives at all, the one exaggeration verses the other parody? According to Bishop Williamson, the two alternatives are:
1. “We cannot do without official recognition from the official Church in Rome!”
This is the voice of the neo-SSPX.
2. “We utterly repudiate the idea that there is anything Catholic left in Rome!”
This, presumably, is us.
He then goes on to present his thesis as a “solution” to the “problem” presented in these two positions. The fact is, however, these two extremes are in reality just caricatures. As mentioned above, there is “still something Catholic” in the Anglicans, so of course there is still something Catholic in the conciliar church. But, as discussed above, “something Catholic” is as good as useless. “Something Catholic” is not Catholic; only 100% Catholic is Catholic. bonum ex integra causa. malum ex quocumque defectu.
Incidentally, if the conciliar church really is the Catholic Church - sorry, the “official Church” - then why exactly are Bishop Fellay and the neo-SSPX wrong to seek its approval? If they are wrong to do so, is that not because the conciliar church is something different to, other than, or distinct from the Catholic Church?
“And since they [modernists] have had nearly 50 years to conform the Church to their insanity, from top to bottom, then there has emerged a Church so different from the pre-conciliar Church that it is a reality deserving the name of Newchurch.”
As mentioned above, talk of “...a Church so different...”, just like “...the official Church in Rome is still so Catholic…” and “...still anything Catholic whatsoever [in it]” is all highly misleading, implying as it does something quantitative. But the question “Catholic or not?” is a binary choice. The only answers possible are “Yes” or “No”. It is not something quantitative. There is no such thing as “less Catholic” or “more Catholic” or “so Catholic” or “not anything Catholic”. We also note with dismay that there seems to be a suggestion of an equivalence between the Church and the conciliar church, both being described in similar terms (“the pre-conciliar Church” and “a Church [sic] so different...”). And need one add: “the Church” is the Bride of Christ: what was “made to conform” was the people and not, properly speaking, the Church herself.
So, Bishop Williamson’s thesis seems to be as follows.
1. The Church is so different now to how it was before the Council, “that it is deserving [of] the name ‘Newchurch’. ”
2 . But this “Newchurch” still has the faith, even though lots of people in it don’t, so you can’t reject it altogether.
“But if one respects reality, one is bound to admit that there is still faith in the Newchurch.”
If one respects reality, one is bound to admit that Bishop Williamson is talking nonsense, and that he has fallen away from Tradition every bit as much as has Bishop Fellay. That there may be an old babushka somewhere in Siberia who has the Faith and knows nothing about “Orthodox vs. Catholic” and who thus may save her soul, does not mean we can say that the Russian Orthodox church has the Faith and people can be saved in it! That there may well be souls in the conciliar church who still have the Faith in spite of it, does not prove that the conciliar church as the conciliar church has the Faith. It does not. This is not just an abstract idea: for a look at how serious it is, consider the inter-religious meetings at Assisi which deny Our Lord publicly before the world and place him on a par with Buddha, Mohammed and so many other false gods and demons (cf. Psalm 95 “omnes dii gentium daemonia”). That is not the Catholic Church acting, organising these Assisi meetings. It is the conciliar church.
“A layman tells me that his father has faithfully attended the Novus Ordo Mass for the last 45 years, and still has the faith. A priest tells me that he can remember a laywoman presenting to Archbishop Lefebvre himself her reasons for needing to attend the NOM, and he merely shrugged his shoulders.”
...and as proof of this idea (“that there is still faith in the Newchurch”), Bishop Williamson advances the spurious claim of a story about a layman who has attended the New Mass for 45 years and it didn’t do him any harm! I say “spurious” because there are so many things wrong with this. You can’t prove a point as important as this with just one example, and a subjective personal example at that. And even a whole list of personal examples would each have the same limitations as that one example, each would remain personal and subjective, subject in the same way to circumstance, interpretation, etc. Our own personal experience, mine and yours, surely shows beyond any doubt that over the past 40-odd years, those who stopped practising in the early days of the Novus Ordo are far more likely to have kept the Faith than those who carried on going. Finally, as chance would have it, the layman in question was recently located. Suffice it to say that his particular case in point has been here rather misrepresented by Bishop Williamson. He is a liberal, a fan of Pope Francis, a follower of modern bogus apparitions. And he himself says that if he has kept the Faith it is only despite the Novus Ordo and he would never recommend anyone else to go to it!
[Don’t take my word for this: see for yourself in the article “A Message from Gabrielle”]
As for the latest example of taking Archbishop Lefebvre’s name in vain (you might call it the “x+1” example), please note that it is third-hand, (a priest tells Bishop Williamson who tells us that he witnessed something), which given Bishop Williamson’s record in recounting the example of the layman above, does not inspire confidence; and that it does not involve any actual words spoken by the Archbishop. Where and when was the question put? Was it even a question (and thus requiring of a reply?) What did the shrug denote? Could it be that, for example, that the person in question, having listened to an entire conference from the Archbishop about why one cannot go to the New Mass, but seeking to justify her own guilty conscience, asked an infuriatingly stupid question immediately afterwards, showing that she had taken in nothing of what had been said, at which point the Archbishop did not bother to repeat what he had just spent an hour or more saying? Was it in a crowd of people, or ‘buttonholing’ him on his way out, so that he had no time to give a verbal reply? I am just speculating. We have no way of knowing. Either way, for Bishop Williamson to have to resort to such “evidence” speaks volumes and is surely a sign of desperation.
“The reason for these testimonies being real should be obvious. As an essential part of the subjective and ambiguous religion, the NOM can be what you make of it.”
So the Novus Ordo is not itself bad, then. It is only bad when liberal priests say it badly. It can be what you make of it. Are there really people in the Resistance who are going to swallow this poison?
“A priest can celebrate it “decently,” a Catholic can attend it “devoutly.” The inverted commas are to placate the hard-liners who will insist that with the NOM there can be neither true decency nor true devotion, but when they say such things, I think that they are flying in the face of reality.”
Notice the dishonest way in which Bishop Williamson moves the goalposts: not only Archbishop Lefebvre but, until a mere four or five years ago, the whole SSPX and all the priests, religious and faithful of Tradition would have said that the Novus Ordo is simply not reconcilable with real devotion and reverence. But now such a position has suddenly become the exclusive domain of “hard liners”. When did that happen? How many other things, commonly accepted now, will magically become something which only “hard liners” think or do or say? As with the leftward drift of secular politics and social custom, if we wake up one day to find that what was once normal and widespread is now ‘right wing’ or ‘hard line’, it is because the so-called ‘centre’ or ‘mainstream’ has been moved, leaving behind those who have not moved with it. But we are not talking about Freemasonic politicians or their corrupt media lackeys, here. This is Bishop Williamson doing this. Ask yourself why.
And by the way, if the inverted commas are only there to placate people with whom you disagree, (and who are “out of touch with reality”) then one must remove those inverted commas in order to get the true sense. So, according to Bishop Williamson:
“A priest can celebrate the Novus Ordo Mass decently, a Catholic can attend it devoutly.” Again I ask: who in the Resistance is going to swallow this poison? And if they do, what exactly are they “resisting”?
What does all this mean? It means that Bishop Williamson believes in the conciliar church. Whether one sees it as a mistake, an error of judgement, a deviation from the path of truth, it is the same mistake, the same misjudgement, the same deviation which Bishop Fellay has fallen into. Like Bishop Fellay, Bishop Williamson sees the conciliar church (“the official Church in Rome”) as being something which we cannot reject. Worse, he not only believes it himself, but stubbornly promotes it to anyone who will listen. His own words witness it, even the bad rhyming couplet with which this unfortunate ‘Eleison Comments’ begins:
A leprous Mother some sons will desert.
Others will get too close, not being alert.
I wonder how many of his poor readers have thought carefully about what that means: it is a curious choice of metaphor and bares careful thinking about. What are the characteristics of a leprous mother? She has leprosy, through no fault of her own, but she is still your mother. She is still in essence good, though in appearance bad; she is still the same, though in appearance, superficially, different. You still love her, honour her, treat her as a mother (with obedience and respect), and wish to nurse her back to health. If in nursing her back to health, you have to keep a physical distance for some time, then that is only a temporary measure, and it is only physical - you are still united in heart and mind all the while. You still serve her and carry out her wishes, and wish to embrace her as soon as you are able. Is this really how Bishop Williamson sees the conciliar church? It seems so. Kyrie Eleison.
Since I must finish somewhere, and since the Muse of Bad Taste has been provoking me for some time now and I feel the urge to write a very bad rhyming couplet, let me leave you with this to chew on:
For the Bishop ‘conciliar’ and ‘Catholic’ church is one!
Then why from the Resistance (and to Rome) is he not gone?
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| Two more Catholic Churches in Boston - Vandalized |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 03-16-2021, 01:47 PM - Forum: Anti-Catholic Violence
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BOSTON MA. MARCH 14: Doors at Saint Teresa of Calcutta was vandalized on March 14, 2021 in Boston, MA. (Staff Photo By Nancy Lane/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald)
Two more Catholic churches in Boston have been vandalized yet again, an “unsettling” pattern of incidents that police are investigating.
Both Dorchester’s St. Teresa of Calcutta Church and Southie’s St. Monica-Saint Augustine Church recently had their locks damaged on the same night, and a statue of the Virgin Mary was toppled at Saint Monica’s.
“It’s a sacred house, and it shouldn’t be damaged,” said Rich Gribaudo of Saint Teresa’s, adding, “It’s unsettling.”
Boston Police officers on Friday at 6:30 a.m. responded to St.Teresa’s and St. John Paul II Catholic Academy in the area of 800 Columbia Road. An unknown substance — some sort of sealant or putty — had been found on several door locks, preventing people from using keys to unlock the church and school building.
Then 90 minutes later, officers responded to another vandalism call at St. Monica’s. The same unknown substance had been found on all four door locks of the church, and a statue of the Virgin Mary had been knocked over. The same statue had also been toppled a week earlier, but that the incident had not been reported.
A church volunteer was helping repair the statue at St. Monica’s on Sunday.
Police are now looking for help in identifying a male suspect, whose image was captured on security cameras at the churches.
“We’re guessing it might be the same guy,” said Gribaudo, the business manager at St. Teresa’s. “It looked like he knew exactly where he was going, which leads you to believe he might be the same guy.
“We’re praying for him, and hope he gets the help he needs,” Gribaudo said. “It’s sad.”
This is the sixth time that St. Teresa’s has been targeted by vandals since July.
On three occasions in January, trash and eggs were thrown against the doors of St. Teresa’s. This was the second time in a week that a statue was knocked over at St. Monica’s.
The Catholic Action League called the incidents “appalling, senseless and malevolent crimes, which will continue as long as no one is apprehended and punished.”
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| Vatican Bars Gay-Union Blessings |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 03-16-2021, 01:42 PM - Forum: Global News
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Vatican Bars Gay-Union Blessings
March 15, 2021 by sd
From Associated Press:
The Vatican decreed Monday that the Catholic Church cannot bless same-sex unions since God “cannot bless sin.” The Vatican’s orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a formal response Monday to a question about whether Catholic clergy can bless gay unions.
The answer, contained in a two-page explanation published in seven languages and approved by Pope Francis, was “negative.” The decree distinguished between the Church’s welcoming and blessing of gay people, which it upheld, but not their unions.
![[Image: 800.jpeg]](https://storage.googleapis.com/afs-prod/media/8f546272e1a64e429374de24136d668a/800.jpeg)
From the Vatican:
The Church does not have the power to bless same-sex unions. Such blessings, therefore cannot “be considered licit”, according to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) which issued on Monday a Response to a dubium that had been presented. Therefore, it is not licit for priests to bless homosexual couples who ask for some type of religious recognition of their union. The CDF says Pope Francis was informed and “gave his assent” to the publication of the Response and an accompanying Explanatory Note signed by the Prefect, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, and the Secretary, Archbishop Giacomo Morandi. The Holy See Press Office also published an Article of Commentary on the Responsum ad dubium.
The statement is based on specific assertions and some actual practices. The document situates its Response into the context of the “sincere desire to welcome and accompany homosexual persons, to whom are proposed paths of growth in faith”, as expressed also in the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia, which speaks of “the assistance they [those who manifest a homosexual orientation] need to understand and fully carry out God’s will in their lives.” Therefore, pastoral plans and proposals in this regard are to be evaluated, including those concerning the blessings of such unions.
Fundamental to the CDF’s Response is the distinction that must be made between ‘persons’ and ‘union’. The negative response given to the blessing of a union does not, in fact, imply a judgement regarding the individuals involved, who must be welcomed “with respect, compassion, and sensitivity” avoiding “every sign of unjust discrimination” as already written in Magisterial documents.
These are the motivations at the basis of the negative response. The first regards the truth and value of blessings, which are ‘sacramentals’, liturgical actions of the Church which require that what is being blessed be “objectively and positively ordered to receive and express grace, according to the designs of God inscribed in creation”. Relationships, even if stable, “that involve sexual activity outside of marriage” – meaning, outside “the indissoluble union of a man and a woman”, open to the transmission of life – do not respond to the “designs of God”, even if “positive elements” are present in those relationships. This consideration not only concerns same-sex couples, but also unions that involve the sexual activity outside of matrimony. Another reason for the negative response is the risk that the blessing of same-sex unions may be mistakenly associated with that of the Sacrament of Matrimony.
The CDF concludes by noting that the Response to the dubium does not preclude “the blessings given to individual persons with homosexual inclinations, who manifest the will to live in fidelity to the revealed plans of God”, while it declares impermissible “any form of blessing that tends to acknowledge their unions as such”.
From the Vatican Press Office:
The answer to the proposed dubium does not preclude the blessings given to individual persons with homosexual inclinations[10], who manifest the will to live in fidelity to the revealed plans of God as proposed by Church teaching. Rather, it declares illicit any form of blessing that tends to acknowledge their unions as such. In this case, in fact, the blessing would manifest not the intention to entrust such individual persons to the protection and help of God, in the sense mentioned above, but to approve and encourage a choice and a way of life that cannot be recognized as objectively ordered to the revealed plans of God[11].
At the same time, the Church recalls that God Himself never ceases to bless each of His pilgrim children in this world, because for Him “we are more important to God than all of the sins that we can commit”[12]. But he does not and cannot bless sin: he blesses sinful man, so that he may recognize that he is part of his plan of love and allow himself to be changed by him. He in fact “takes us as we are, but never leaves us as we are”[13].
For the above mentioned reasons, the Church does not have, and cannot have, the power to bless unions of persons of the same sex in the sense intended above.
The Sovereign Pontiff Francis, at the Audience granted to the undersigned Secretary of this Congregation, was informed and gave his assent to the publication of the above-mentioned Responsum ad dubium, with the annexed Explanatory Note.
Rome, from the Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the 22nd of February 2021, Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, Apostle.
https://press.vatican.va/content/salasta...0315b.html
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| Hymn for Holy Thursday: Pange Lingua |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-16-2021, 11:33 AM - Forum: Lent
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Pange Lingua Gloriosi Corporis Mysterium is a hymn written by St Thomas Aquinas (1225--1274) for the Feast of Corpus Christi. It is also sung on Maundy Thursday
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| Hymns for Palm Sunday |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-16-2021, 11:30 AM - Forum: Lent
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Taken from The Catacombs archived site:
Generously assembled by Fr. Ruiz.
Thank you, Father!
Hosanna Filio David
Pueri Hebraeorum:
Pueri continued-
Gloria, laus et honor
Lauda Jerusalem:
Gradual Proper for Palm Sunday-Christus factus est
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