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| April 28th - Sts. Louis de Monfort, Paul of the Cross & Vitalis of Ravenna & Blessed Luchesio |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 03-24-2021, 12:01 PM - Forum: April
- Replies (3)
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Saint Louis Mary de Montfort
Missionary in France and Founder
(1673-1716)
One of the great Saints whose mission appears verified and on the increase as the years pass and as we find ourselves amid the latter times, Saint Louis Mary de Montfort can now be recognized as a prophet and an oracle of God for the sanctification of the Church which must resist the foretold evils of this period. Author of a Prophetic Prayer Requesting the Apostles of the Latter Times, he is also the ardent apostle of True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin and the Saint of love for the Cross of the Lord, as we see from his Letter to the Friends of the Cross and his entire life of missionary activity.
Born at Montfort-la-Cane near Saint-Malo in 1673, he was the oldest of eight children. He studied with the Jesuits and at the age of nineteen went to Paris to enter the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice. His poverty was aided by the charity of benefactors, and after five years, during which he edified the Seminary, he was ordained a priest in 1700.
Destined to be the target of a siege of crosses, he began to experience the first ones when he went to Nantes to aid a good priest of that diocese and found a serious infestation of Jansenism there. He returned to Paris afterwards to assist one of his sisters to enter religion there, then went to Poitiers, where he became chaplain of a hospital for the poor. His zeal transformed the sick of that hospital into a community of saints; and there he established the kernel of his future Congregation of the Daughters of Wisdom. He found many other channels also open to his fervor.
Saint Louis Mary at a given moment desired to go as a missionary to New France, but the Holy Father Clement XI committed to him the vast mission of preaching in his own homeland under the bishops of France. He was commissioned to teach Christian doctrine to the children and the people, and reawaken the spirit of Christianity through the renewal of their baptismal vows. At Dinan he joined a group of missionaries and taught catechism, for which mission he had a special attraction. He could not neglect the poor, and organized a group of virtuous ladies there to take care of them.
He continued preaching in the west of France, placing before the eyes of all listeners the very source of our Redemption through the erection of large crucifixes and Calvaries. He became the target of calumny for the angry Jansenists against whose erroneous notions he preached; certain young libertines also grew irritated against him. He was poisoned; though this did not kill him, his health was seriously undermined. His enemies succeeded in influencing the bishop of Nantes to cancel the benediction of a large Calvary which had been under construction by the people for a year. The bishop required the demolition of the man-made hill which they had labored to prepare for it, transporting stones and dirt in wheelbarrows. Saint Louis Mary's enemies had told him it contained secret chambers for conspirators and evil-doers.
With patience Father de Montfort bore all his trials: Blessed be God; I have not sought my glory but only that of God; I hope to receive the same reward as I would had I succeeded. He was a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic and taught the Holy Rosary everywhere, converting many heretics. Before he died at the age of forty-three in April of 1716, he had organized his Company of Mary at Saint-Laurent-sur-Sevre, where he was buried and where his remains are still in profound veneration.
Saint Paul of the Cross
Founder
(1694-1775)
The eighty-one years of this Saint's life were modeled on the Passion of Jesus Christ. In his childhood, when praying in church, a heavy bench fell on his foot, but the boy paid no attention to the bleeding wound, and spoke of it as a rose sent from God. As a young man, he wished to be a religious, but his confessor, who had determined to humiliate him, commanded him to go to a dance. As he stepped out onto the floor out of obedience, the strings of the musicians' instruments broke, and the event ended.
About this time, the vision of a scourge with love written on its lashes made him understand that God wanted to scourge my soul, but out of love. His thirst for penance would indeed be satisfied. In the hope of dying for the Faith, he enlisted in a crusade against the Turks; but a voice from the Tabernacle told him to return home, because another war, a spiritual one, was awaiting him there.
At the command of his bishop, he began while a layman to preach the Passion, and a series of crosses tested the reality of his vocation. He made a retreat of forty days in a damp outbuilding near the church of Castellazzo, and there he wrote in five days the Rule for a Congregation which he knew he had to found. A penitential trip across the Apennines in winter, without coat, hat or sandals, and with virtually no food, made under obedience to consult a bishop, was only the first of his long journeys. The bishop could not give approbation to his intentions. Having been jeered at on the road, he said, These scoffings were of great benefit to my soul.
In the hermitage where he dwelt on his return to Castellazzo, several companions came to join him, but all of them save his faithful younger brother, John Baptist, deserted him. He taught catechism to the children, and when he preached before adults he held them spellbound for two hours. The Passion's full sanctifying power was bearing fruit through him. Nonetheless, when he went to Rome the Sovereign Pontiff refused him an audience; it was only after a delay of seventeen years that papal approbation was obtained and the first house of the Passionists opened on Monte Argentaro, which was the site Our Lady had pointed out.
Saint Paul of the Cross established for his Order, on the breast of their black habit, a badge he had seen in a vision, having on it the Holy Name of Jesus and a cross surmounting a heart with three nails, in memory of the sufferings of Jesus. But he invented another more secret and durable sign for himself. Moved by the same holy impulse as Blessed Henry Suso, Saint Jane Frances de Chantal and other Saints, he branded on his chest the Holy Name; it was still found there after his death. His heart beat with a supernatural palpitation which was especially vehement on Fridays, and the heat at times was so intense as to scorch his shirt in the region of his heart.
Saint Paul of the Cross suffered for forty-five years from spiritual desolation, an expiatory suffering which he bore with perfect patience. Despite fifty years of incessant bodily pain and all his trials, he read the love of Jesus in all things, though demons were tormenting him constantly. At one time his sciatica prevented him from sleeping for forty days; he prayed for the grace of an hour's sleep, but to this Passionist's prayer, heaven saw fit to remain deaf. Such was the life of one of the greatest disciples of Christ's Passion. He died while the Passion was being read to him, and so passed like his Lord from the cross to eternal glory.
The eighty-one years of this Saint's life were modeled on the Passion of Jesus Christ. In his childhood, when praying in church, a heavy bench fell on his foot, but the boy paid no attention to the bleeding wound, and spoke of it as a rose sent from God. As a young man, he wished to be a religious, but his confessor, who had determined to humiliate him, commanded him to go to a dance. As he stepped out onto the floor out of obedience, the strings of the musicians' instruments broke, and the event ended.
About this time, the vision of a scourge with love written on its lashes made him understand that God wanted to scourge my soul, but out of love. His thirst for penance would indeed be satisfied. In the hope of dying for the Faith, he enlisted in a crusade against the Turks; but a voice from the Tabernacle told him to return home, because another war, a spiritual one, was awaiting him there.
At the command of his bishop, he began while a layman to preach the Passion, and a series of crosses tested the reality of his vocation. He made a retreat of forty days in a damp outbuilding near the church of Castellazzo, and there he wrote in five days the Rule for a Congregation which he knew he had to found. A penitential trip across the Apennines in winter, without coat, hat or sandals, and with virtually no food, made under obedience to consult a bishop, was only the first of his long journeys. The bishop could not give approbation to his intentions. Having been jeered at on the road, he said, These scoffings were of great benefit to my soul.
In the hermitage where he dwelt on his return to Castellazzo, several companions came to join him, but all of them save his faithful younger brother, John Baptist, deserted him. He taught catechism to the children, and when he preached before adults he held them spellbound for two hours. The Passion's full sanctifying power was bearing fruit through him. Nonetheless, when he went to Rome the Sovereign Pontiff refused him an audience; it was only after a delay of seventeen years that papal approbation was obtained and the first house of the Passionists opened on Monte Argentaro, which was the site Our Lady had pointed out.
Saint Paul of the Cross established for his Order, on the breast of their black habit, a badge he had seen in a vision, having on it the Holy Name of Jesus and a cross surmounting a heart with three nails, in memory of the sufferings of Jesus. But he invented another more secret and durable sign for himself. Moved by the same holy impulse as Blessed Henry Suso, Saint Jane Frances de Chantal and other Saints, he branded on his chest the Holy Name; it was still found there after his death. His heart beat with a supernatural palpitation which was especially vehement on Fridays, and the heat at times was so intense as to scorch his shirt in the region of his heart.
Saint Paul of the Cross suffered for forty-five years from spiritual desolation, an expiatory suffering which he bore with perfect patience. Despite fifty years of incessant bodily pain and all his trials, he read the love of Jesus in all things, though demons were tormenting him constantly. At one time his sciatica prevented him from sleeping for forty days; he prayed for the grace of an hour's sleep, but to this Passionist's prayer, heaven saw fit to remain deaf. Such was the life of one of the greatest disciples of Christ's Passion. He died while the Passion was being read to him, and so passed like his Lord from the cross to eternal glory.
Saint Vitalis of Ravenna
Martyr
(† 171)
Saint Vitalis was a first century Christian citizen of Milan and the father of the twin brothers and future martyrs, Saints Gervasius and Protasius. He is the principal patron of Ravenna, where he was martyred.
Divine providence had conducted him to that city, where he saw come before the tribunal there a Christian physician named Ursicinus, who had been tortured and who then was condemned to lose his head for his faith. Suddenly the captive grew terrified at the thought of death, and seemed ready to yield. Vitalis was extremely moved by this spectacle. He knew his double obligation to prefer the glory of God and the eternal salvation of his neighbor to his own corporal life; he therefore boldly and successfully encouraged Ursicinus to triumph over death, saying, Ursicinus, you who cured others would want to drive into your soul the dagger of eternal death? Do not lose the crown the Lord has prepared for you! Ursicinus was touched; he knelt down and asked the executioner to strike him. After his martyrdom Saint Vitalis carried away his body and respectfully interred it.
Saint Vitalis now resigned his post as judiciary assistant to Paulinus, who had been absent on the occasion of the sentence of Ursinius. Paulinus had his former assistant apprehended, and after having him tortured, commanded that if he refused to sacrifice to the gods, he be buried alive, which sentence was carried out. Afterwards, his wife Valeria, as she was on her way from Ravenna to Milan, was beaten by peasants because she refused to join them in an idolatrous festival and riot. She died two days later in Milan, and is also honored as a martyr and Saint. Gervasius and Protasius, their sons, sold their heritage and for ten years before their own martyrdom, lived a penitential life of prayer.
Blessed Luchesio
Confesseur, First Franciscan Tertiary
(† 1241)
Luchesio was a merchant of Poggibonzi, a city not far from Siena, Italy, who found politics and commerce more interesting than the service of God and the salvation of his soul. This man had a very dear wife by the name of Bona Dona, and he possessed a prosperous business. But neither the joys of his home life nor the success of his commerce had satisfied his ambition, since he felt destined for a brilliant public life, and desired to enter into the society of the rich. To attain that goal, he was striving to increase his receipts by unjust practices and rash speculations. To make matters worse, he joined the fratricidal combats between the city-states which were wreaking havoc and ruin on the Italian peninsula. Saint Francis of Assisi was traveling about in Toscany, however, announcing the Word of God and calling souls to penance. Sometime around 1221 he came to Poggibonzi, and the whole population turned out to hear him, including the merchant Luchesio. The gift to touch his heart was given Saint Francis, with the grace of God. How fail to be touched, indeed, hearing the Saint preach on "that Being without beginning or end, immutable and inexpressible, ineffable, incomprehensible, beyond the grasp of creatures, Who is blessed, praised, glorious, exalted, sublime, most-high, lovable, delectable, and forever worthy above all else, of being sought and desired! And after his sermon Francis saw Luchesio come to introduce himself, asking what he should do to gain Heaven.
Saint Francis at that moment had a revelation from on High. By it he understood that Luchesio was to be the one who first of all would adopt the Rule of the third Order, which for some time he had been intending to initiate. And he went to visit Luchesio at his home and made known his plans to him and his wife: "For quite some time I have been thinking of establishing a Third Order, by means of which people living in the world, and in particular those who are married ,will be enabled to serve God more perfectly. I think you could do no better work than to inaugurate it. Immediately Luchesio and Bona Dona accepted the proposition. Soon afterward, the Saint received them with joy and gave them habits made of a plain cloth, with a cord for cincture. He also gave them the rules which later were approved by Pope Nicolas IV, and of which it has been said that justice and democracy in Italy had their source in the little notebook where the Saint wrote down the Rule of the Third Order. The happy new tertiaries resolved to give all their fortune to the poor, reserving for themselves only their house and a garden which they could maintain without hired help.
After this, Luchesio completely abandoned politics and business to concern himself only with his salvation and the works of mercy. This speculator well-known as such to his co-citizens, this man formerly so harsh towards others and avid for profit, became the just and charitable Christian of that city, and his house, which was the place of reunion for the first Fraternity, also became known as"The Inn for the Poor. He not only received the poor into his house, he went out to search for the sick in swampy regions infected with malaria, and became their Providence also in their abandonment. He would go out with a little donkey to procure, or beg if necessary, what was needed for their convalescence. In this Bona Dona seconded him with all her strength.
He was a great penitent, and had the gift of mental prayer extending even to ecstasy; yet it was charity which remains his most memorable quality. He and his beloved spouse fell ill on the same day; declining rapidly, Luchesio sent for their Franciscan chaplain. Having received from the priest the Last Sacraments, he heard that Bona Dona was in agony. He found the strength to go to her and take her hands in his, encouraging her to her very last breath. Carried back to his bed, he gave up his blessed soul to God, without further delay.
The only glory that Luchesio could not evade was that of having been the first member of the Third Order of Saint Francis which has saved so many souls: he stands at the head of the providential offshoot planted at Poggiabonsi. In the 13th century already, fourteen beatified or canonized tertiaries are counted. In 1694 the Friars Minor obtained from Pope Innocent XII permission to celebrate a feast day in honor of Blessed Luchesio, on the 28th of April. He was chosen by his native city as its patron, and his feast day is one of obligation there.
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| Msgr. Bernard Tissier de Mallerais: Faith Imperiled by Reason - Benedict XVI’s Hermeneutics |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-24-2021, 11:41 AM - Forum: The Architects of Vatican II
- Replies (14)
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Faith Imperiled by Reason: Benedict XVI’s Hermeneutics
by Msgr. Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, SSPX
[Slightly reformatted from here. It can also be downloaded from this website.]
[A reminder that the word 'hermeneutics,' by definition, is the 'science of interpretation.' So anywhere we see the word 'hermeneutics', we could substitute the word 'interpretation'. Therefore, the title of this work could easily read: 'Faith Imperiled by Reason: Benedict XVI's Interpretations' - The Catacombs]
Quote:PREFACE
by Dr. Peter Chojnowski
Those who remain attached to the Catholic Faith as articulated by all the great dogmatic Councils of the Church are greatly indebted to His Excellency Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais for this article, published just last summer in the French Dominican publication Le Sel de la Terre and just translated into English.
The fight we are in for Catholic Tradition is not a fight over ceremonies and rituals, which some happen to like and others happen not to like. The Sacred Rites of the Church are “sacred” precisely because they express and apply to the concrete lives of the Faithful, the truths and grace which even God the Son did not “make up,” but were, rather, revealed to Him by His Father in Heaven.
This article, which compares the theology of Josef Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) to that of the traditional theology of the Church as articulated by the Popes, the Fathers, and the Doctors, is truly a comprehensive study for all those interested in the doctrinal issues now being discussed behind closed doors.
Since the Conciliar Church has decided to accept the personal theology of each new pope as its current interpretation of the fundamentals of the Faith, it is absolutely essential for real Catholics to understand the Modernist Revolution in its current stage.
Please spread this article far and wide. The text is long, however, the reader should make it to the end in order to understand how the New Theology attempts to transform the most fundamental doctrines of the faith.
After reading this fascinating essay, anyone who thought that “reconciliation” between Catholic Tradition and Vatican II theology is right around the corner will have to think again!
January 2010
✠ ✠ ✠
Faith Imperiled by Reason: Benedict XVI’s Hermeneutics
Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais
From La Sel de Terre, Issue 69, Summer 2009
Translated by C. Wilson
Translator’s Note: I have decided rather to preserve the Bishop’s slightly familiar writing style than to convert the tone of the article to something purely academic.
✠ ✠ ✠
FOREWARD
Introduction
Chapter I. The Hermeneutic of Continuity
1. The Christian Faith of Yesterday and Today: the ‘why’ of hermeneutics
2. Faith at risk from philosophy
3. Hermeneutics in the Patristic School
4. The Homogenous progress of dogmas
5. Return to the objectivity of the Fathers and the councils
6. A new refl ection by a new vital connection?
7. The Method: Dilthey’s historicist hermeneutics
8. Benedict XVI reclaims the purification of the Church’s past
9. When hermeneutics begins to distort history
10. A new Thomas Aquinas
Chapter II. Joseph Ratzinger’s Philisophical Itinerary
1. From Kant to Heidegger: a seminarian’s intellectual itinerary
2. Kantian agnosticism, father of modernism
3. The autonomy of practical reason, mother of the Rights of Man-without-God
4. Reconciling the Enlightenment with Christianity
5. In search of a new realist philosophy
6. Relapse into idealism: Husserl
7. Heidegger’s existentialism
8. Max Scheler’s philosophy of values
9. Personalism and communion of persons
10. The dialogue of ‘I and Thou’ according to Martin Buber
11. ‘Going Out of Self’ according to Karl Jaspers
Chapter III. Joseph Ratzinger’s Theological Itinerary
1. Living Tradition, continuous Revelation, according to the school of Tübingen
2. Revelation, living Tradition and evolution of dogma
3. Tradition, a living interpretation of the Bible
4. The doctrine of faith as experience of God
5. The power of assimilation, driving force of doctrinal progress, according to Newman
6. Far from pledging allegiance to our concepts, Revelation judges and uses them
Chapter IV. An Existentialist Exegesis of the Gospel
1. ‘He Descended into Hell’
2. ‘He rose again from the dead’
3. ‘He ascended into heaven
4. The reality of Evangelical facts put between parentheses
5. Existentialist exegesis, a divinatory art
6. A Historicist Hermeneutic
Chapter V. Hermeneutic of Three Great Christian Dogmas
1. The dogma of the Trinity reviewed by personalism
2. The equivocation of the perpetual search for truth
3. The dogma of the incarnation, revised by Heidegger’s existentialism
4. The dogma of the redemption reviewed by Christian existentialism
5. Satisfaction, the tact of divine mercy
6. A denial worse than Luther’s
7. Existentialist sin
8. The priesthood reduced to the power of teaching
Chapter VI. Personalism and Ecclesiology
1. The Church, communion in charity
2. The Church of Christ ‘subsists’ in the Catholic Church
Chapter VII. Political and Social Personalism
1. Personalism and political society
2. Personalism applied to marriage and chastity
Chapter VIII. Christ the King Re-envisioned by Personalism
1. Political implications of man’s ultimate end
2. Religious liberty purified by the help of Emmanuel Mounier
3. Jacques Maritain’s vitally Christian lay civilization
4. Sophistic refutations
Chapter IX. Benedict XVI’s Personalist Faith
1. Faith, encounter, presence and love
2. Philosophical experimentation and mystical experience
3. Divine authority replaced by human authority
Chapter X. Skeptical Supermodernism
1. An inaugural anti-program
2. A resigned and demoralized skepticism
3. Faced with skepticism, the remedy is found in Saint Thomas Aquinas
Epilogue: Hermeneutic of the last ends
1. Retractions
2. Limbo reinterpreted by hermeneutics
3. Death, a remedy
4. Eternal life, immersion in love
5. Collective salvation according to Henri de Lubac
6. Purgatory diminished
7. A humanistic particular judgment
8. The fundamental option, economy of mortal sin
9. Hell, a state of soul
Afterword: Christianity and Lumieres
1. A fragile equilibrium
2. Mutual regeneration and polyphonic correlation
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| Fake Resistance: "We will crush you!" |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-24-2021, 10:29 AM - Forum: True vs. False Resistance
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Taken from The Recusant - Issue 43 [September/October 2017]
We can only apologise for a curious set of circumstances which prevented us from bringing this extraordinary account to the attention of a wider audience sooner. Not a great deal has changed since, except perhaps the episcopal consecration of Fr. Zendejas.
“We Will Crush You!”
Fr. Rafael vs. The Fake Resistance
1. Extract from a Conference given by Fr. Rafael, 27th April, 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXM8dWCeu_0)
“So we ended up in Columbia from June 2013, where a property to was offered to me, halfbuilt. And for three years we were working on this property. At one point we were nine monks. The turning point came in 2016, after having built the second floor which was almost finished. And the turning point was when Bishop Tomas Aquinas stopped supporting me. The only reason was [my] attacking the New Mass and the new SSPX, and this went against the line of Bishop Williamson, because he still thinks there’s something good in the New Mass and in the SSPX, that we have to consider them as Catholic still. So I ended up being stripped of monks and of support, and being interfered with in my internal affairs. They even called the Police to chase me away and keep me away from my property. So I decided to go to Ecuador and was there for eight months. […]
I would summarise them [the Fake Resistance] as being tolerant in doctrine and intolerant in charity, as opposed to what Cardinal Pie said, that we have to be intolerant in doctrine and tolerant in charity [i.e. tolerant of persons]. […]
First Dom Tomas Aquinas said that there is something good in the New Mass. And when I contested it, he said ‘You have to understand it according to the circumstances.’ So he was being evasive. And when we spoke about the SSPX, and that we have to avoid it completely, he told me ‘You are right. But we cannot follow you, because I follow the line of Bishop Williamson.’
Concerning Fr. Zendejas, when I went to visit him in New York, las July [2016], I asked him two main things. First I asked him what advice I should give to my own brother who is a Society of St. Pius X priest, in order to help him leave the liberal new SSPX. And Fr. Zendejas answered me, ‘Just leave him where he is. He should stay inside the SSPX. I think that this is the best he can do.’ And also, speaking about the topic of whether the New Mass give grace or not, he said the following: ‘Of course there is grace at the Novus Ordo Mass. I don’t understand how the Catholic Candle thinks otherwise!’ So he said to me: ‘You should leave the Pfeiffers [sic] alone. Don’t stay with them. And then we can organise a collection
for your monastery in South America. If you do otherwise, we can easily crush you.’ In fact they told me, if I remained with the Fake Resistance they would give me back my monastery after having a retreat for three months. […]
I was shocked by that. But as I told you, I have seen lack of charity and lack of doctrine in this attitude of the Fake Resistance. ‘Fr. Pfeiffer is going down, we’re going up! And we will crush whatever is left!’ basically. I was shocked by that. And he told me: ‘If I had known that you were so rigid, I would not have invited you to visit me here in New York!’ […]
The closer something false is to the truth in appearance, we have to avoid it completely. So I would have to say we have to avoid now completely the Fake Resistance with Bishop Williamson and the other three bishops, and take from them the flag of Christ the King. And that includes also the SSPX and those who are silent about so many errors. Our Lord says ‘He who confesses me before men, I will confess him before my Father.’ ”
2. Extract from a sermon by Fr. David Hewko, 30th April, 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kITzYhrMf08)
“We also learned from Fr. Rafael, he had visited, he was invited to visit Fr. Zendejas last year (2016), and Fr. Zendejas told him, ‘Look we will give you money, we’ll give you buildings, we’ll give you support, just side with Bishop Williamson. Just recant your condemnation of the New Mass and saying that it doesn't give grace.’ Fr. Rafael said, ‘What are you talking about? The New Mass is deadly! How can we possibly compromise on the New Mass?’ So Fr. Zendejas told him ‘If you don't come with us’ - meaning the Fake Resistance, which is like FSSP of 1988, but now in 2015, 2016, 2017 - Fr. Zendejas threatened him and said, ‘If you do not come with us, we will CRUSH you! And we are going to CRUSH Fr. Pfeiffer and Our Lady of Mount Carmel. We will CRUSH them!’ And he means aggressively. So, this is what we are up against. So Fr. Zendejas is going to be made a bishop next month. Pray for him.
This shows you what battles we are in. The lines are drawn. If you are for the New Mass you are on the side you’re on the side of the light. We can never compromise with the New Mass and Vatican II. We should rather die a thousands deaths than compromise on any of these questions of the Faith.”
3. Our Comment - Notice Fr. Zendejas’s use of the word “we”. Who exactly is this “we”? On whose behalf does he speak? Is it not indicative of a group mentality, that there actually is a “we”..? The bishop who continually denounces structure as being so passé, so “yesterday,” and says that what he wants to see is small independent groups who are free to contact each other but not work together, this same Bishop Williamson nevertheless allows himself to be surrounded by acolytes who see themselves precisely as being a “we”, as belonging to a “structure” or “hierarchy” of which he is the head and against which no one is permitted to rebel, to disobey, or to publicly disagree. Bishop Williamson has gone soft on the New Mass?
Very well, then so must we! What’s more, “we will crush” (!) anyone who persists in denouncing the New Mass. Bishop Williamson believes in the Novus Ordo miracles? Then “we” must believe in them too. And woe betide anyone who dares say that they aren’t real! Bishop Williamson promotes the apostolate of a priest suspended for serious immorality? Very well, so must “we,” or at the very least, “we” must keep quiet about it. And so on. Lest anyone should be tempted to think that this is a case of Fr. Zendejas getting carried away and saying things on behalf of his confreres and co-workers which he has no right to say, things with which they would not agree, let us note two very interesting facts. First, that no one has
come forward to contradict him.
Second, that when Dom Tomas Aquinas in effect excommunicated (in all but name) Fr. Cardozo last year, it was for withstanding Bishop Williamson’s hierarchy (his expression, not ours!). Notice the carrot and stick method. Come with us, and all will be well: you’ll find support, money, a relatively quiet life. But if you turn me down, watch out! Trouble is heading your way! “We will crush you!” A sentiment worthy of every Hollywood mafia mob boss, but hardly the way one Catholic addresses another. What do we stand for, what are we against? We seek to crush modernism, but we pray for the modernist. We wish to crush the abortion industry, but we pray for the abortionist. Of course, it could be said that we wish to “crush”
the power of our enemies, but that isn’t quite the same, is it? Perhaps Fr. Zendejas meant to say that… let us be generous and say that his command of the English language let him down.
While we are on the subject, a little thought on Fr. Zendejas’s specific choice of the verb “to crush”. Originally the episcopal motto of Bishop de Castro Mayer and latterly adopted by Bishop Faure in 2015 as his own episcopal motto, “Ipsa Conteret” was also the choice of name for a very short-lived (one issue only) Fake Resistance newsletter. It is a quote from Genesis, specifically God’s words to the serpent following the Fall. “She will crush [your head]” As we said at the time, the unfortunately short-lived Fake Resistance newsletter ought perhaps better to have been called “Ipsi Conteremus” in view of Fr. Zendejas’s threats...
Finally, ask yourself this. This exchange happened in private. The threats and the promises were made in secret. We only know about them because the man who was their object was brave enough to reject them, and braver still to come forward and make them publicly known. Had he not done so, had he given-in to those threats and promises, what would it have looked like? To us on the outside, not privy to what had been said in secret, it would have looked like just one more disappointment, one more priest who had originally joined the Resistance, who had stood strong for a while, and who had ended up going quiet on certain controversial issues (is the New Mass really such a controversial issue now, can that really be?), and who appeared somehow to have managed to keep himself in the good books of Bishop Williamson and the Fake Resistance. We would have wondered, we might even
have suspected or surmised. But we would not have known. That being so, ask yourself this. How many other times might this have taken in place already and we do not know about it? How many times will it happen in future without ever coming to light? The curtain, albeit momentarily, has been lifted; we have been allowed a glimpse of what is going on behind the scene.
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| Fr. Ruiz [2017]: Necessary Precisions to Those who Resist the Conciliar Fury and It's Errors |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-24-2021, 08:43 AM - Forum: Rev. Father Hugo Ruiz Vallejo
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Taken from The Recusant - Issue 41 [May/June 2017]: Some minor adjustments to he English were necessary, but as far as possible we have tried to keep the original ‘flavor’. God bless Fr. Ruiz…
NECESSARY PRECISIONS TO THOSE WHO RESIST THE CONCILIAR FURY AND ITS ERRORS
By Rev. Fr. HUGO RUIZ VALLEJO
February 4th 2017
Catholic Priests - who do their best in order to preserve the authentic inheritance of the Roman Apostolic Catholic Church, that is, the bi-millennial Catholic Tradition - try to remain faithful to the teachings and directives that Mons. Lefebvre gave us with this precise objective. That is why every day we need to make new alerts and precisions, where required.
We are living times of demonic disorientation, of deep crisis in the Catholic Church, as well as in her members. It is not enough just knowing about this. We should not forget that evil is also seductive and is capable of adopting new appearances to better achieve its goals.
That is the reason why true Catholics need to be cautious. (“Watch and pray so that you do not fall into temptation”. St. Mc., XIV, 38). Through the increasing disorientation, due to the crisis of authority in the Church, (“I will hurt the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered”. St. Mc. XIV, 27) It happens that even in those who have the sincere intention to save the Holy Tradition in the Catholic Church, there are gaps towards the attitude to be taken on certain matters and particularly in regard to certain situations.
The modern world of liberal nature has no qualms about mixing; furthermore, it loves mixtures. On the contrary, our Holy Religion asks us to flee away from evil, as well as the occasions of sin, which may be more than varied. As far as I am concerned, as I said before, I try to conform myself to the directives that our Catholic and Saintly Bishop Mgr. Marcel Lefebvre gave us, also the directives of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (F.S.S.P.X.), which he founded, as well as his Teachings and authentic Catholic attitude of the F.S.S.P.X. until the new-fraternity gradually started to separate himself from the spirit of its founder.
Amongst some so-called “resistance”, they begin to give advice to the parishioners, which no longer corresponds to those of our Bishop Mgr. Lefebvre, our faithful Bishop. This is the main reason, why I want to point out various matters, which are of main importance, although nowadays, they seem to be less clear to some. At the end, I have added a commentary in relation to the recent announcement given by Mgr. Fellay about the imminence of an official agreement of the (new)-FSSPX with the conciliar Rome:
1st Point: About the morality of the new mass and attendance at it.
As we know, Pope Paul VI ordered the elaboration of the new mass (novus ordo) with such an ecumenical criteria, thus worst of all, to six protestant pastors(1), who participated in creating it. For this and other reasons, Paul VI artificially produced a new mass, copied from the protestant mass. However, it was ambiguous enough so as to be neither formally heretical, nor formally Catholic. An ambiguous rite was created, but one which was no less unavoidably poisoned by a protestant spirit.
The conclusion is that the new mass, due to its ambiguity, is not formally heretical; nevertheless because of his errors, it is indeed favourable to heresy. This is the reason why it can not
be called either a Catholic Rite, nor good in itself, because those are intrinsic characteristics.
From all this we can deduce that:
►Assistance at the new mass is not permissible. It is not licit. (Those who are aware of what the new mass is, morally we can no longer attend it).
►No one can ever be advised directly to go to the new mass. Although for serious reasons of prudence, one can simply leave someone in his ignorance or good will.
►Holy Communion is the most perfect Way to participate in the Holy Mass. This is the reason why one must not receive communion from consecrated hosts in the new mass.
This is in short the thought and the attitude that Mons. Lefebvre taught us to have towards the new mass.
2nd Point: On attendance at the masses of the “indult”.
Conciliar Rome has always tried to recuperate those Catholics who, defending their Faith, have set themselves apart (without intention of schism) from the ecclesiastical environments,
which are infected by modernism and by the mistakes of Vatican II. Nevertheless, conciliar Rome in her eagerness to put them under their control has proposed to them new “solutions” and “pardons”, which would give an apparent opportunity to continue preserving their convictions, but within the official structure of the conciliar church. Those who have fallen into these nests have been cruelly disillusioned by the pressures and even because of the drastic measures, which are always focused on limiting Catholic Tradition and its practice more and more. It is indeed a terrible contradiction the fact of putting the Sacred Tradition under the guardianship and “protection” of those, who are exactly the same enemies of the Sacred Tradition…
Mgr. Lefebvre, in his time, has made us understand that the Traditional Mass is not the whole Tradition, but there also exists the Teaching of Faith and its practice. It is not enough to have the Traditional Holy Mass, when next to it, the preaching and the practice of the Faith are not consistent. Particularly, when next to the Holy Mass, the whole Faith is not taught anymore, whether directly nor indirectly. It is about forcing the parishioners to accept Vatican II. (For instance, by omitting the clear and firm denunciation of the mistakes of Vatican II in order to weaken and exterminate our defense and fight for the true Catholic Faith and Sacred Tradition). In such a case, the souls of those parishioners are already in greatest danger. Therefore, it is better to renounce those masses because of the danger of infection, which is more or less camouflaged around them. The Holy Priest of Ars in his youth, preferred to stay without the Holy Mass, rather than to assist to those masses said by priests who were sworn to the liberal government of his time.
The attitude, which was before requested of parishioners of the F.S.S.P.X. towards the “indult” masses was:
►Never to assist to those masses of “indult”. (It is better to pray the Holy Rosary at home, and when it is possible, to go to the Holy Mass celebrated by priests who are not committed to the conciliar church.)
►Do not attend any pastoral service of the mass of “indult” (whether conferences, nor pilgrims, etc.) It is indeed better to stay without Mass than be exposed to that danger of being gradually influenced by that committed mentality of the conciliar church.
3rd point: On attendance nowadays at the Masses of the new F.S.S.P.X.
The present day superiors of the new F.S.S.P.X. in their eagerness to come closer to conciliar Rome, have already placed the new-F.S.S.P.X. in a similar situation or even the same one, which we previously reproached to the agreement-groups as the Fraternity Saint Peter, haven’t they? And in this case, do not the old instructions that were given to us regarding the agreement-people already apply to the (new) F.S.S.P.X, as well?
The spirit that nowadays rules within the new-F.S.S.P.X. is that of coming closer and having an agreement with the conciliar Rome, which is undeniable. Mgr. Fellay already affirms it openly and publicly. Besides, it is not always necessary for an agreement to be written and official in order to be a true one; because tacit agreements may also exist based on “friendly chats” and significant “facts”.
Pope Francis had recently given the jurisdiction to confess to the priests of the new F.S.S.P.X., isn’t this a real fact? In fact, in the Catholic Church one can not have jurisdiction, if one is not first incardinated (even if it were directly by the Pope). It is true, as Mgr. Fellay shamelessly said in an agreed interview on the 29th of January 2017, “...only the seal is missing”.
All the pressures and persecutions which have been being made for a long time, not only on the priests but also the parishioners, in order to fold them into this surrendered policy. Are they not arguments to confirm that the new-F.S.S.P.X. is in a frankly agreement attitude? And each time the increasingly notorious false shyness in not being willing to denounce openly the mistakes of Vatican II and specifically the noisy scandals from Pope Francis, are they not a worrying sign?
It is obvious that all this dangerous environment, which we denounced in the “Ecclesia Dei” societies. (Before, our same superiors we were constantly putting us on guard against this danger.) Nowadays this dangerous environment is already present inside the new-F.S.S.P.X. It is a fact for all these reasons that the present day environments of the new-F.S.S.P.X. have become dangerous. This constant insistence on blind obedience, even when there are more than legitimate reasons to be worried about. So, Faith has passed to a second level in respect to blind obedience; when it should be the opposite.
According to my personal experience, all the priests as well as the parishioners who have not wanted to disconnect themselves from the new-F.S.S.P.X., as a result, they have been folding hands one after another. Not only have they abandoned the fight against modernism, but due to those intolerable moral pressures they are suffering from, they have been changing and watering-down their thoughts.
►For all these reasons, I advise the Priests as well as the parishioners, DEFINITELY, to walk away from all the environments of the new-F.S.S.P.X. This is in accordance with the spirit of prudential attitude that Mgr. Marcel Lefebvre had previously advised us in relation to the “Ecclesia Dei” societies, which nowadays all already applies perfectly to the new-F.S.S.P.X.
4th point: On attendance to the “Vacancy of Peter’s Seat” Masses (‘Sedevacantist’ Masses).
As for those who affirm today the “vacancy of the Apostolic Seat,” I do not doubt that many of them have a sincere attachment and great veneration for the person of Mgr. Lefebvre. However, they are not always willing to accept all the recommendations and directives that he gave us.
In fact, Mgr. Lefebvre himself spoke very clearly about the possibility of this question. Nevertheless, what he always and emphatically refused to do, was definitively to define this issue. You can not make a doctrine, out of a historical fact, a strictly doctrinal point. The Truths of the Faith are necessary for our Salvation, whereas a historical fact may be controversial. The danger is that if one day God wants to raise a true Catholic Pope, then one no longer wants to recognize the legitimacy of the Apostolic Succession.
Mons. Lefebvre wrote an article in the traditional magazine “Roma” (number 67, from the year 1981):
Quote:“Our Fraternity absolutely rejects sharing these reasonings. We want to remain attached to Rome, to Saint Peter’s Successor; even though we reject his liberalism because of the Fidelity to their Predecessors. We are not afraid today to say it respectfully but firmly, as Saint Paul did in front of Saint Peter.
That is why, far from rejecting the prayers for the Pope, the more we increase our prayers and we plead the Holy Spirit to illuminate him and strengthen him in the support and defense of the Faith.
In consequence, it cannot be tolerated that the members, priests, brothers, sisters, oblates of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (F.S.S.P.X.) reject praying for the Pope and assert that all the masses of the Novus Ordo are invalid”.
On another occasion, commenting on this article, he added:
Quote: “I wanted to write this article so that everybody knows, including the parishioners, what is the position of the Fraternity. So the parishioners know that if one of our priests preaches that there is no Pope, he does not preach in accordance to what the Fraternity thinks”.
Mons. Lefebvre said in the “Fideliter” magazine (number 79, January-February 1991):
Quote:“I have always put on guard the parishioners about the vacancy of the Seat of Peter, for instance. Then they say, if the Mass is good, then we can go to Mass. Of course there is the Mass. This is a good thing; although one has to consider that there is also the preaching, there is also the environment, the conversations, before and after, the contacts. All of which makes one gently and gradually changes ones thought. All this is then a real danger and that is why in a general way, I estimate that all this forms one whole. One does not only go to Mass, in fact, one attends the whole environment”.
A well known blog of the [Fake] Resistance (“Non Possumus”), on the 12th of January 2017, published an article which says:
Quote:“It is licit to the parishioners to go to all traditional Masses (also celebrated “non una cum”) because it is the Minister who answers to God about his decisions, meanwhile the parishioners must only answer if they have observed the Third Commandment: “Sanctify the Feasts”.”
(The expression “Non una cum” means that in that Mass the legitimacy of the actual Pope is not recognized.) According to this principle it would then be justified to attend not only the Sedevacantist Masses, but also those of the Indult and with no doubt those of the new-F.S.S.P.X. !
5th point: The “suicide operation” or the “agreements” of the new F.S.S.P.X.
Plenty of times Mgr. Fellay vehemently declared even not long ago, that he did not want to make any agreements. And now this past 29th January 2017 in a TV interview, Mgr. Fellay commented in such an “unworried” way, that: “only the seal is missing” in order to have consummated the agreement with Rome. Mgr. Fellay then recognizes the existence of all this work of preparation and flirtation with Rome (for which he is responsible), which was in fact a practical agreement already, to which only this one “small” formality was missing: “the seal.”
Mgr. Fellay, with such an ambiguous language full of unverified and unverifiable suggestions has been weaving his web around the unsuspecting. Has been preparing for years the spirits of the priests and parishioners towards this agreement. Mgr. Fellay has always suggested in his “conferences” and preaches about “beautiful horizons” and the “serious probability” that Rome is “already” converting. In fact, Mgr. Fellay is dragging the flock that had been entrusted to him by Mgr. Marcel Lefebvre. (Priests, parishioners, seminaries, priories, schools, etc.) into the conciliar pot! Yes, all of Monsignor Lefebvre's great work of rescue of Tradition is now falling down into the conciliar (Vatican II) pot!
All of Pope Francis’ indecent statements and gestures are not a statement of his intention, are they? Mgr. Fellay putting himself under his jurisdiction, does not imply obeying him, does it? “Francis,” as he nowadays likes to be called, does he not try to govern the church according to the intention which he himself has previously expressed, does he? And if that is his intention, those who now direct the F.S.S.P.X are not falling down into a colossal trap, that they themselves have sought, are they? The far-fetched, falsely educated and above all ambiguous language of Mons. Fellay matters little, in fact he is trying to justify not only a great imposture, but also an error of historical dimensions.
His Excellence Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre stated in his sermon of Episcopal Consecrations in 1988, that if he had continued the agreements with Rome it would have been a “suicide operation.” Even worse, the facts ended up convincing the faithful Archbishop Lefebvre that these agreements were a great chimera, due to the lack of honesty of the conciliars (from Vatican II). It is for this reason that Archbishop Lefebvre himself, after the failed approach with Rome, made clear the new profile of what would be in the future the position of the Fraternity (F.S.S.P.X.) in regard to Rome occupied by modernists:
Quote:“If I went to discuss to Rome, it was because I wanted to prove, if we could make an agreement with the ecclesiastical authorities, while at the same time, looking forward to sheltering ourselves from its liberalism and protecting Holy Tradition. But the strength of the facts has forced me to confirm that no agreement could be made at all, which could give us both, all the guarantee, and at the same time the conviction that Rome would sincerely attend to the preservation of the Holy Tradition.” Monsignor Lefebvre “Fideliter” magazine No. 68, 1988.
Quote:“Our true parishioners, those who have truly understood the problem and who have helped us to continue the straight and steady line of Holy Tradition and the Faith, feared beforehand the meetings for possible agreement that I had in Rome. They told me it was indeed dangerous and that I wasted my time on it. Of course, I had waited until the last moment to see if Rome could show a little honesty. I can not be blamed for not having done everything I could. But now, however, to those who come to tell me: ‘You come to an understanding with Rome,’ I think I can tell them with certainty that I went farther than what I should have gone.” ‘Fideliter’ magazine No. 79, 1991.
And referring to the Romans, Mgr. Lefebvre told them on another occasion:
Quote:“If you do not accept the Doctrine of your Predecessors, it is useless to talk. As long as you do not accept to reform the Council taking into account the Doctrine of the Popes, who have preceded you, there is no possible dialogue, it is useless.” (‘Fideliter’ No. 66 Nov. 1988).
And on the same occasion, talking about the “traditionalists” who had already made agreements with Rome, Mgr. Lefebvre said:
Quote:“When they affirm that they have not given up anything, it is false. They have given up the possibility of contradicting Rome. They cannot say anything now. They must remain silent because of the favors they have received, and it is now impossible for them to denounce the errors of the conciliar church. Very slowly they accept, even if it were only the profession of faith that Cardinal Ratzinger has imposed on them ... From the point of view of ideas. They turn very gently and end up admitting the false ideas of the Council Vatican II. This is because Rome has granted them some favors for Tradition. This is a very dangerous situation.”
In his Book “Spiritual Journey,” which he considered as being his spiritual Testament addressed to his own priests, Mgr. Lefebvre says:
Quote:“It is then a strict duty for every Priest who wishes to remain a Catholic one, to separate himself from this conciliar church, as long as it has not returned to the Holy Tradition of the Magisterium of the Church and of the Catholic Faith.”
There is a supine “forgotten” in the new F.S.S.P.X. of the last teachings of Monsignor Lefebvre on the issue of the agreements ...
The “apostolate of penetration,” which means the tactic of trying to convert the wrong environments “from the inside,” is an activist mistake that has always led to many disasters (It is a bad tactic to enter the communist party to convert the communist party, as well as to enter the cave of Alibabá and the 40 thieves to convert Alibabá and the 40 thieves, etc.).
What the conciliar catholics really need is, above all, the example that Holy Tradition gives them. All mixtures violate the nature of things. The process of silencing (any criticism of Rome, the Council and its errors, the attitudes and scandalous words of Pope Francis, etc.) began long ago inside the F.S.S.P.X. Since it began to please conciliar Rome, it was an inevitable consequence. Can the destroyers of the Catholic Church be pleased in any other better way?
In questions of Faith for those who have a public function as pastors, a public profession is necessary. It is not enough to over-understand (in fact, not all understand them ...) in a public society such as the Catholic Church, what is not publicly said, generally it does not have practical validity. After silence follows pusillanimity, fear, commitment. But commitment in things of Faith is a sin.
Conclusion:
This year, 2017, we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Apparitions of Our Lady in Fatima. The crisis of the Faith, which was spoken of in the Third Secret given by Our Lady, has not been taken into account by the men of Church.
Furthermore, considering this corruption of Faith each time deeper, we can only entrust ourselves to and implore the faithful protection of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to preserve us and to remain always faithful in the Faith of the True Holy Church of Christ our Lord and God.
A.M.D.G.
Footnote
1. The new mass was written as a protestant and not sacred at all:, it means a desacralized one. It was elaborated by one mason and 6 protestants. The mason was: card. Annibale
Bugnini; as well as by 6 protestants, such as Rev. Ronald CD Jasper (anglican), Rev. Dr. H. Massey Pastor Jr. (methodist), A. Raymond George (methodist), Pastor Friedrich-Wilhelm
Künneth, (calvinist), Rev. Eugene L. Brand, (methodist) and Pastor Max Thurian, (Thaizé Comunity).
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| Fr. Cardozo Sermon [2016]: On the Errors of Bishop Williamson |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-24-2021, 07:42 AM - Forum: True vs. False Resistance
- Replies (1)
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“He Who Gathers not with Me…”
A Sermon by Fr. Ernesto Cardozo
Ipatinga, Brazil, February 28, 2016
The words of today's gospel are really very wonderful. They are quite relevant to the topic we will talk about today. The gospel says, “He who is not with Me is against Me.” “He who gathers not with Me, scatters.” I repeat, “He who is not with Me is against Me.”
How do we know? How do we know whether we are with Christ and not against Christ? For it is possible that we are deceiving ourselves. Luther, I suppose, would say that he was with Christ. The heretics, I suppose, claimed that they were with Christ. “He who is not with me is against Me!” What do we do to know this? How do we know whether we are with Christ? Let us analyse some words. Christ says, “He who loves Me keeps My word.” He who loves Me, will keep My word. He also says, “He who loves father or son more than Me, is not worthy of Me.” Is that not so? Am I lying? Is this in the Gospel?
But do you know what the problem is, dear faithful? Deus veritas est. God is truth. That magnificent dialogue with Pilate, when Christ tells Pilate, “He who is of the truth hears My voice.” - Qui est ex veritate audit vocem meam. “He hears Me.” He hears Him [pointing to the crucifix]!
But, there's a problem that deep inside we would not like to see. We get used to it. We like to make mistakes. We accommodate ourselves to error. This magnificent last gospel that I never get tired of praising and asking you to meditate on it! The liturgy does not offer us these little pictures just for us to look at them. They are to be read and meditated. Just listen to what it says. It says that the Word came unto His own, and His own received Him not. His own did not receive Him! He was the light of the world, but the world preferred darkness. And Truth Itself ended there [on the cross]!
Defending the truth, dear faithful, is not easy. For it means defending God, defending God in a hostile place. Jesus Christ Himself tells us, “I send you amongst wolves, like lambs amidst wolves.” True or false? We like lies. We get used to lies, because the truth is uncomfortable. The truth leads to a reaction, don’t you see? There is the case of Saint John the Baptist. What happened to St. John the Baptist? He enunciated truth! He denounced an adultery! And what happened to him? He ended up with his head cut off! Watch out! Humanly speaking, we would say, how stupid! Since it was only about adultery, why didn’t he keep quiet? But, St. John the Baptist told Herod, “No, Herod, this is not good! She does not belong to you!”
Let's look at another example, an example that we have analysed in a sermon before, here in Ipatinga. The example of Thomas More! Thomas More is a great saint! He and Bishop John Fisher were opposed to the adultery of the King, Henry VIII. Do you recall this story? I don't want to tire you by repeating the same sermon on Thomas More, but was Thomas More wrong? Was Bishop Fisher wrong? Bishop Fisher went against at least 80 bishops in his country. Thomas More was practically the only layman against a whole nation that wanted to apostatise. And which did apostatise. Do you remember the story, or do you want me to tell it to you again? The case of Thomas More will never tire us, my dear faithful, because it is a case of a man going against the flow. And going against the flow is very hard. Here in this world it is hard. But up there, God rewards it.
But let us take a step back. A conflict has arisen in the Resistance, a very serious conflict. It's not just a small problem where one person says this and another writes that. Here we have a problem about the Faith, a problem of the Faith through which we run the risk of damning ourselves eternally! Watch out! I lament the superficiality with which sometimes I have seen it treated. No, this is not a problem about someone writing this and another person saying that and still another saying something else. No! And we never go back to the cause.
Let’s take another example. Let's suppose I turn the lights off and I shout, “Fire, fire!” People will start running away, running into each other and falling over. And, of course, they’ll start quarrelling. “Why did you step on me?” “Why did you push me?” And they go on with such things without realising that I am the guilty one because I turned off the lights. In the same way, suppose that there is a fire outside, and they enter here yelling, “Fire, fire!” And someone says, “What a way to enter the room, running like that! Can you speak a little bit quieter?” That is, they criticise the effects, but not the cause. So if someone yells “Fire,” before we criticise the person running who yelled “Fire,” let's go out and see if there really is a fire.
Let’s go to the cause. This is the problem. This is what hasn't been studied. This is the sad reality. They look at it sideways. What is the cause? I ask you, my dear faithful, let's see. Until September at least, if I remember correctly, did we have any serious problem here? I do not believe so. Maybe there could have been some human dislike, foolishness that exists in every society. But did we have a problem about the Faith here? Tell me if there was a problem about the Faith. And when did the problem start? Please do not be scandalized when - please!- when I start talking, wait for me. The problem started when Bishop Williamson started writing three Eleison Comments in favour of the miracles in the new mass. Yes, do you remember? Three Eleison Comments!
When Bishop Williamson wrote these three Eleison Comments, we, the priests that are in the firing line, come to a certain place, and they asked us: “Father Cardozo, what is this?” And I confess to you that it had been some time since I had read the Eleison Comments. Why? Because, among other things, they’d cause spiritual disquiet in me. And I had to sit down and read the Eleison Comments.
And when I did this, the first thing I did was to get in contact with a priest in Mexico who publishes Bishop Williamson’s Eleison Comments. You know who he is. And I told this priest, “Please Father, do not publish this. There are errors.” This priest told me, “Father, you are completely right, but we will publish it so that our enemies do not believe we are divided.” Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Have you read the gospel, when Our Lord tells us: “Let thy speech be yes yes, no no, whatever is over and above this comes from the devil.”? Be careful! “It comes from the devil!” This dear Father, recognizing that this paper contained errors, said, “You're completely right, but…” And this is when the problem began. This is when it started.
I am a priest. People ask me, “Father, is this true or false?” I have to follow Our Lord’s word, I have to say yes or no. Anything beyond this is done by the devil. It is my duty, and I told him, “No, this is not right.” Meanwhile, I started seeing atrocities. Please do not be scandalised. The monks who read it, said, “I don't see any error in these things.” Great Thomistic people, who say they don't see any error! Do you remember? Do you want me to mention names? It is not necessary. Specifically, Bishop Williamson says and maintains, and insists that there are miracles outside the Catholic Church.
I finally dared to write an article on December 9th saying that there is a fuss concerning this. And I started by simply stating a fact of common sense. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Do you remember? That's the gospel. I'm not making it up. These are Christ’s words, the Infinite Wisdom. This would have been enough to put an end to this problem. But, I don’t know if you know what a sophist is. A sophist is a person who tries, through deceit, to make a lie pass for the truth. It's as if I would say this ceiling is black, and I would use words and mix them up to make you believe that the ceiling is black. But the ceiling is white. And the priest from Mexico, we have to recognise it, is an excellent sophist, an excellent sophist. I do not know what good it will do him, but he is an excellent sophist.
And starting with this article in which I intended to defend the fact that there can be no miracles and so on and so forth, I was called everything, not in a very nice way. It's ugly to open your email, to click here and click there, and see that they are telling you that you are an imbecile, that you are so proud, you are going against St. Thomas, who do you think you are...? It’s not nice. I have a back, and I don't like to be talked about behind my back.
But let us continue. I'm up to here with these lies. Bishop Williamson said there are miracles outside the Catholic Church and he insisted on this. And it occurred to me to explain it to them, at the end of the year, to go back to the same matter, this time jokingly—joking so as not to cry. I started talking about the cherry on the cake and all of those things. I explained that God is omnipotent and He can do whatever He pleases and wherever He pleases. BUT GOD IS ORDERLY. God cannot make a round triangle. God cannot make the sun rise in the north tomorrow, or in the south, but not in the east. God is orderly. But after this it seems like there was no argument that they liked.
Do you know what this is? [He holds up a book.] The title says, “Catechism of St Pius X.” Question: “Is this catechism trustworthy?” Modernists would say, “Throw it in the garbage.” But I think I am among Catholics. Is this trustworthy? [The people say yes.] Are you sure? Be careful, watch out what you say, look to what you have said. I read this Catechism of St. Pius X soon after I met Archbishop Lefebvre. I felt the need to reinforce the catechism I had learned as a child so I bought the catechism and read it. Of course, there are things, little details that we don't remember.
When this problem about the little miracles in the modern mass arose, one of you called me and asked me, “Father Cardozo, what do you think?” I told him, it’s very easy to deal with this. These little miracles go against the sanctity of the Church. But of course, there are so many things—we read so many things—that it is impossible to know precisely where we read certain things. And one is also busy trying to make arrangements for trips, missions, etc., thinking that the people read the catechism, thinking that the clergy read their catechism. Please repeat to me whether this is a Catholic catechism. A catechism is, in principle, a compendium of all Catholic dogma. True or false? Have you all said true? Then take the consequences! Read it! Maybe some of you have the same edition. Look at the last two pages. It's easy—turn the first and the second last two pages. Be careful, I did not write this, this is not an edition for dear Fr. Cardozo. Sit tight! Bear with what you are going to read. And remember, the truth hurts, and it hurts a lot. And sometimes it is hard to say “I was wrong.” And I know there are many who are waiting to say, “But Fr. Cardozo, how can you say these things against Bishop Williamson?” Just listen to what St Pius X has to say. The saint talks about the marks of the Catholic Church. And I repeat: he talks about the marks of the Catholic Church, not of the marks of Cardozo’s Church, not of Williamson’s church, but the marks of the Catholic Church.
Referring to the mark of Holiness, it says:
Quote: “The faithful that reads the history of the church with a sincere heart, will see the holiness of the Church shine, not only in the essential sanctity of its invisible head, Jesus Christ, the sanctity of the sacraments, of the doctrine, of religious institutions, of a great number of its members, but also of an abundance of celestial gifts, of sacred charisms, of prophesies, and”–pay attention here—“and miracles that Our Lord, denying them to other religions, makes shine on the face of the earth, this gift of holiness endowed exclusively on His one and only Church.”
I repeat, “…and miracles that Our Lord, denying them to other religions, makes shine on the face of the earth, this gift of holiness endowed exclusively on His one and only Church.” So, did I teach anything in opposition to this? I ask, did I teach this? Did I attack the sanctity of the Church? Did I attack it by saying that there are little miracles in the new church?
The great sophist of Mexico tells me, because he begins to receive - because, of course, I'm not the only fool that realizes the problem. There are a lot of fools! - he has started receiving letters saying, “Watch out, we are defending error!” A dear Father from Colombia wrote to all the priests and both bishops and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, if we are going to defend error, if we are going to fight error with error, we are doing wrong!” Then the great sophist from Mexico answered me and said, “Father Cardozo, what you said about there being no miracles outside the Catholic Church is beside the point.” What? It’s beside the point? How is it beside the point?
I ask, is the new mass part of the Catholic Church? And how do we know that it is not of the Catholic Church? Because of its errors, because the goal of the new mass is ecumenism, because our BIG LIONS for the Faith, Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop de Castro Mayer, did not cease saying that this new mass is the mass of a new church, which is not the Catholic Church. Of course, when one listens to this, coming from a fellow priest, supposedly a traditional priest, supposedly from the Resistance, who tells you besides that the new mass is good, and that the new mass is of the Catholic Church, I'm sorry, but I thought there was going to be a short circuit.
Why? Because we are in contradiction! We enter into contradiction. Then I told him: “Father, I thought that the new mass was a mass from another church!” But Father insists, “No, no, no! It’s of the Catholic Church.” Of course, what’s going on here? What are we doing here? For, if the new mass is good, if the new mass is of the Catholic Church, please tell me what we are doing here. Why don't we go to our parishes? Maybe there we will have air conditioning. Tell me, what are we resisting? Please, because I repeat, if the new mass is good, if the new mass is of the Catholic Church, I don't really see any sense in our being here. And I think many of us would not have to be here.
But, let's finally put the movie on pause here. In mathematics, and in everything, not only in mathematics, when you start something, for instance to say 1+1=3, that is to say, you start with an error, if you do not correct the error, this error will influence the course of the analysis, and will increase exponentially [St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that: Parvus error in principio est magnus in fine - A small error in principle becomes great in its end results. The Catacombs]. Something that began as a small error will become a very big error. When I told you here on December 30th to be careful because we are looking at the tip of the iceberg, I think you did not assess the harm that this 1+1=3 has done. Why? Because to justify that 1+1=3, they start saying that the mass, the new mass is good, that it is of the Catholic Church.
Even Bishop Faure, trying to justify and support Bishop Williamson, gave a sermon, I believe on December 12th. Yes, on December 12th in Mexico. For those who understand a little bit of Spanish, I suggest that you read it. When I listened to Bishop Faure’s sermon, favouring the little miracles in the new mass, I started feeling afraid, because I was hoping that Bishop Faure would have said, “Williamson, forget about this subject; talk about Beethoven instead.” When you listen to it - you can hear it on the ‘Non Possumus’ website - it's so obvious, if you are honest, and want to do a little penance for Lent, listen to this sermon, and you will see that it is even WORSE than the three Eleison Comments by Bishop Williamson. I was so terrified! Be careful! This does not amuse me, ladies and gentlemen! It doesn't amuse me! I told Bishop Faure, “Please, Monsignor, I beg you to study your sermon, and count the number of times that you contradict yourself!”
Remember, yes, yes, or no, no; when you go beyond that, the devil comes. Then I received an email from Bishop Faure. This email says: “Cardozo, there are miracles outside of the Church!” just like that, as if to say, “Oh, stop being a bother!” And it was put in bold letters. Furthermore, “Where did you see Archbishop Lefebvre say that the new mass is not a mass of the Catholic Church?” I'm sorry! I almost had a heart attack. That is to say, Bishop Faure defends the fact that the new mass is a mass of the Catholic Church.
I went to Argentina to look for two little books. There's a book by Archbishop Lefebvre titled “The New Church.” It’s not that the Archbishop wrote a quote about the new church. No! “The New Church”! There's another book that Archbishop Lefebvre wrote called “The New Mass.” I know that I had it, but I see that somebody borrowed it, and it was never returned. Well that's the way it goes. How can Bishop Faure ask me where I saw that Archbishop Lefebvre says that the new mass is a mass that’s outside the Catholic Church? But it doesn't stop here. The error is exponential.
Let's see, what do we have here? Do you know the Dominican monks of Avrillé? You do? You know who they are. In all truth, I had a very high opinion of them. When one says “Dominican monk” you know that you’re referring to someone whose life is secluded in the cloister and who spends his time, his life, studying theology. That is to say, they are persons who know a little bit more than just the catechism, supposedly. Then, the Dominicans entered the discussion. They got involved in the fuss. Ok, and I read this [He holds up a paper.], which is titled “The Neo-modernist Sect that Occupies the Catholic Church, by the Dominicans of Avrillé.” I did not count all the contradictions, but if you have this document, count them! There is more than one.
This document was repeated by the future bishop, Dom Tomas Aquinas. In the first part, this document tries to explain the relationship between the conciliar church and the Catholic Church. Read it, pay attention please, because I notice that nobody reads, that many people say they read, but in reality they don't. It says, “The conciliar, neo-modernist church is therefore neither substantially different from the Catholic Church (beep, beep, beep), nor absolutely identical to it.” Wow! That is, it is neither equal nor different. Excuse me! What do you call this? CONTRADICTION!
Sorry, in Spanish this is a contradiction. But wait; there are still prettier things to come. “She, the conciliar church, mysteriously has something from one, and something from the other.” That is to say, the Lutheran church mysteriously has something Catholic, you see, like baptism. They make the comparison. Here they say something that is very true, and I share it with you. It is a foreign body that occupies the Catholic Church. That is, the conciliar church is a foreign body that occupies the Catholic Church, but… (I'm glad you are sitting down. Will the ones who are standing, please hold on to the wall?) “…but, it is necessary for us to differentiate between them, without separating them.”
Let's see whether I can explain it myself. The conciliar church is a foreign body, the Dominicans say. Let's imagine a tick on my hand. It is necessary to differentiate between them, the tick and my hand, but not separate them. Pardon me! Do you realize that you have separated yourselves from your parish? Why did you separate yourselves from your parish? Because you didn't want to become infected with modernism? If I have this filth of a bug that's biting me here [on Father's hand], it’s modernism. And this [Father's hand] is the Catholic Church, I differentiate between them. I can separate them.
Ladies and gentlemen, didn't Archbishop Lefebvre tell us there shouldn't be any agreements with these people [the modernists], that when they convert to the faith, they will find us Catholics? Archbishop Lefebvre said that, didn’t he? Did Archbishop Lefebvre tell us, “You have to differentiate between the bug of modernism, but do not separate it from the Church?” Did Archbishop Lefebvre say that? No, ladies and gentlemen! I cannot coexist with error. What's more, the defence of the truth, love for the truth, implies a fight against error. I cannot permit the tick to continue sucking my blood, because that's going to kill me. It’s that simple. So, if I see Our Holy Mother, the Catholic Church, infected with modernism, what do I have to say? “Oh yes, I can differentiate between them: this priest is a showman, and that priest is good. But I cannot separate them.” I don't know if you realise where this [idea] is taking us? I don't know whether I am too discerning. Don't you realize that it is leading to an identification of the Catholic Church with the conciliar church, just as Bishop Fellay is doing? Because Bishop Fellay says, “This visible church [the church of Vatican II], is the Catholic Church.” That means we are going in the same direction. We have left the neo-fraternity to remain Catholic, and now we find that we are steering the ship's bow toward the neo-fraternity, toward the neo-fraternity's position. Please open your eyes; don’t be imbeciles! Forgive me, but use a little bit of sense. No one works without having a purpose. Why are they saying these things; why are they saying 1+1=3? And why are they saying, “The new mass is good”? And why are they saying: “The new mass is a mass of the Catholic Church”? BECAUSE THEY ARE TAKING US TO THE SAME PLACE [as Bishop Fellay]!
OK. But let us now go on to another detail. In January, I left to go to another mission. I thought that the people were at peace, that they understood, but I think I was mistaken. And when I arrived, I got the news that the future bishop, Dom Tomas Aquinas, is blocking me from the apostolate in São Paulo. The sacristan is here; he is my witness. I wasn't in agreement with Dom Tomas Aquinas, because he was defending Bishop Williamson with all his strength. Dom Tomas Aquinas was saying in letters that I had to correct myself—that I had to submit to the hierarchy [of Bp. Williamson - The Catacombs].
But how embarrassing it is to have to say words that the bishop is not going to support! And when I left, I told the sacristan, and he is a witness, that our dear Cecilia’s baptism was to take place. And I told him, look out! If Cecilia wants the baptism done, there’s no problem. No problem! It is a valid, licit baptism. Well, I did not receive the same courtesy. I was received as if I were a heretic. It is funny, because they asked him, “Dom Tomas, why can't Fr. Cardozo say Mass in São Paolo?” “It's because he is against the hierarchy. Can you imagine? If he goes to the monastery and gives a sermon that he doesn't believe in the miracles, it would create a conflict between the hierarchy and Fr. Cardozo.”
Specifically, who is in agreement with St Pius X about this infamous point of the miracles? Am I or is Bishop Williamson? Did I deny the magisterium of the church? Did I deny the sanctity of the church? I'm asking! I didn't; he did! And he insisted and insisted stubbornly. I even went as far as to write: “Monsignor, please stop this fuss. To save myself I don't need miracles outside the church. Stop the division that you are about to cause in the Resistance.” And his answer, which my friend reproduced [in an article answering Bishop Williamson’s errors], was: “Dear Fr. Cardozo, have patience. This chaos is just starting. Patience! I give you my blessing. Good bye.”
A chaos that he started [Bishop Williamson]! Which he is causing! I'm sorry. “And the chaos is barely starting.” So you’d better hold on. Hold tight! But I tell you again, don't come and tell me that I'm causing a division in the Resistance, that I'm causing scandal, that I'm against the hierarchy and so many other things. Do you know who ordained me? Someone who went against the hierarchy! Because the hierarchy, as long as it remains Catholic, is great. But when it opposes Catholic doctrine… Excuse me!
Didn’t Archbishop Lefebvre go against the Pope, the hierarchy? Watch out! I have the honour of having been ordained by him. I cannot betray this man, and much less, betray Him [Our Lord]. Just because I like Bishop Williamson, I cannot swallow this tale, and tell all of you, “Ladies and gentlemen, there are little miracles.” What foolishness! I’d be attacking the sanctity of the Church, and this error is leading us to attack the unity of the church.” Why? Because of what I just told you about the Dominicans, the Dominicans who say the conciliar church is mysteriously united to the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is the immaculate spouse of Jesus Christ, and the immaculate spouse of Christ has as her head, Christ Himself. And the same Christ, that is, the head, and His body, the immaculate spouse of Christ, cannot mysteriously embrace a prostitute. Let’s see if you understand it. Or is the catechism that hard? We are talking about the catechism. We are not talking about the Summa Theologica.
We are talking about the catechism, ladies and gentlemen; and I've noticed that we need to learn much more of our catechism. Remember that Jesus Christ also said, “He that loves his father, his mother, his son, more than Me, is not worthy of Me.” It seems that we have to love Williamson above all things. I’m sorry; I continue to try to follow the first commandment. Is that a sin? Is that heresy? Is that a scandal? Just as I have read in an email: “What a scandal!” Who's creating the scandal? The one who denies doctrine, the one who attacks Catholic doctrine, or the one who is simply asking, “Please defend the Catholic catechism.”? Souls are at stake! And they are scandalised and say that Fr. Cardozo has a group of people who put things into his head, implying that I am subnormal, that I cannot think!
What are we to do? People ask me, “Father, what are you going to do? Are you going to the consecration of Bishop Tomas Aquinas? What do you think about the consecration? Is it okay to have a consecration?” Yes, for me, it would be excellent for a consecration to take place, and for there to be a bishop in each state of Brazil, or at least one bishop in each country. That would be excellent. But let that bishop be Catholic. Otherwise he would be useless. If the future bishop Tomas Aquinas is going to continue in this attitude of attacking the sanctity of the Church, the unity of the Church, pardon me, I will not walk down that road.
“But Father, you will be left without a bishop, what are you going to do?” What? How's that? You do not understand anything. How am I going to be left without a bishop? When I hear these things, when they tell me these things, I think we are on a different planet. To whom have I been talking and preaching? How am I going to be left without a bishop? Is it perhaps that I'm going to be left without St. Augustine, without St. Ambrose, without St. Anthony Mary Claret, without St. John Fisher? Because all of those thousands and thousands of bishops, and many of them saints, have supported and defended the sanctity of the Church and the unity of the Church. They have not attacked it, and have not cast doubts on it. Because, trying to save the situation, some people say, “They are only saying that it might be possible.”
Ladies and gentlemen, if I deny a dogma of the faith or put it into doubt, I sin gravely against the faith. Read your catechism. If I tell you I think it’s possible that there's no hell, I am committing a grave sin against the Faith, as grave as if I had told you that there is no hell. Why? Because I cannot cast doubt on something that has already been defined by the Church. Let's see if we understand. Let's see if we are realistic and if we really love the Truth. Because it’s beautiful to say that we love God, and "Long live Christ the King" and I don't know what else! But when the situation arises, in which we have to take a risk for the Truth, “Oh dear! Oh no! We will be left without a bishop!” I was listening to an audio in which someone said, “I need a bishop.” Do you know what? I NEED THE FAITH. If there’s a Catholic bishop, blessed be God! If there's no Catholic bishop, I regret it. God, The Divine Providence, will see how to fix this problem. But in order to have a bishop, I will not give up a single ounce of my Faith. I don't know whether I have made myself clear. Don't come and tell me, “You are a rebel; you are here to divide.”
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe I have never taught any error against the faith here. And let whoever says the opposite come to me and prove it. I'm not denying the hierarchy of Bishop Williamson, of Faure or any other bishop. I am saying that those gentlemen are in a grave error against the faith, and they are persevering in their error.
Let us continue with the catechism. And this really scares me, because we are talking about clergymen. Do you know what one of the sins against the Holy Ghost is? I'm going to refresh your memory. “How many sins are there against the Holy Ghost?” says the catechism. There are six sins against the Holy Ghost: to despair of our own salvation, to presume of being saved without any merits, to fight against the known truth… I repeat: to fight against the known truth. Are you going to tell me that these three bishops—we will include Dom Tomas as a bishop—haven't read the Credo? Don't they pray it every Sunday? It says, “I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.” What is this? Didn’t they know this truth? And now they are crushing those who defend it? They have no sense of shame!
Let them do whatever they want to me, but I will not go along with this. I want to die a Catholic. Why don't I use the title of The Resistance anymore? Because, when they say resistance, they immediately associate it with Williamson. Excuse me, as long as Williamson doesn't retract, refer to me personally as Catholic. Nothing else! Do not come to me with adjectives that get subverted. I'm Catholic, period! Prove to me that I am not! Be careful! Prove to me that I am not! Whoever comes to try to prove that I am not Catholic, before doing so, must partake of this catechism. Completely! All of it!
Ladies and gentlemen, a few years ago you asked me to come and take care of Ipatinga, and I did so gladly. You know it! I haven't lied to you; I haven't taught bad doctrine. But attention, please. There's a sign outside that reads: “CATHOLIC MISSIONS” and I hope that that sign continues to say, “CATHOLIC MISSIONS”. I don't want the sign to change to “Williamson’s Mission” or whatever name you want to use. No, I am not here for that. If it’s going to be like that, excuse me; I have a lot of work, too much work. If because of this I am now told, “Go away, because we want to be one of Williamson's sect” or whomever else's, okay, good luck, my friends! I will continue on my way. I’m not afraid to leave. St. Paul has a beautiful verse: “I know in Whom I have believed.” And just this past Saturday we read a verse in the Epistle that I would suggest many of you read and re-read, and meditate on it. It is the verse, “Cursed be the man who puts his trust in another man.” I ask: is Williamson God? Is Bishop Faure God? Is the future Bishop Dom Tomas Aquinas God? Are all of the Dominican monks—even though there are two, whom I know of, who are firm, trying to fight error—are they God? Do I have to yield my intelligence and say, okay gentlemen, “So be it,” as Dom Tomas Aquinas is asking me to do?
I would like Dom Tomas Aquinas to be like the other Dom Tomas Aquinas when Bishop Williamson came. [See: https://youtu.be/hk1jj4KnZnM]. When Bishop Williamson started to praise Benedict XVI, Dom Tomas interrupted him saying, “Be careful; watch out! Don't continue!” A perfect intervention! Perfect! How sad he hasn't repeated this act of faith now. How very sad! I'm so sorry! I am so sorry because Dom Tomas Aquinas, as you know, I have told you—I will be grateful to Dom Tomas until the day of my death because he received me when I left São Paulo [and the SSPX]. My eternal gratitude! But not because of that gratitude am I going to accept the errors that they are now upholding.
But going back, I repeat, if there's any question and you think that I'm a heretic, that I'm here to divide the Resistance, that is, that I'm a stupid person who doesn't know how to think, that all my friends are filling my head with ideas, making me go astray, I think you are underestimating me a little bit.
If you want to continue being Catholic, I will come here. If you do not want to continue being Catholic, excuse me, I'll pack my bags and leave. No problem. Thank God, my dear friend Eric will receive me in his home. We can move the chapel to a different place, no problem. But please tell me. BECAUSE I DO NOT WANT TO WORK WITH HERETICS! I DO NOT WANT TO WORK WITH SECTARIANS! I WANT TO WORK WITH CATHOLICS! OTHERWISE, I’M WASTING MY TIME, WHICH I CAN USE FOR MUCH MORE PRACTICAL THINGS THAN WASTING MY TIME WITH SECTARIANS. IS THAT CLEAR? Is it clear that I intend to follow the commandment to love God above all things? And how do I prove that I love God above all things? Because I keep His word! “He who loves me will keep my word.” Okay. This is what I will ask you, whether you are Catholics, do you keep His word without trying to distort it by saying “more or less,” or “it may be.” No, no, ladies and gentlemen.
There's a letter going around now, a little letter from dear Fr. Trincado, the great sophist, with a lot of issues about this and that. I read it some time ago. He sent it to me a long time ago. I'm sorry; I'm not going to discuss even one period or one comma with a sophist. Not a period, not a comma. And I'm going to ask a favour of whoever wants to come and discuss this problem, a favour of intellectual honesty. Bring me a little note that says, “I adhere totally and absolutely to the Catholic doctrine which among other things is contained in this catechism. [He holds up the catechism of St Pius X.] For, if you come to me with sophisms, I don't want to waste my time.
How is it possible, that after 40 years in the fight, there are traditionalist priests who come and tell me that the new mass is good? My God! And that the conciliar church cannot be separated from the Catholic Church? My God! My time is gold. And I do not want to waste it on stupidities.
Today is a very important day for this mission, because, depending on what you decide, either we save ourselves, or we condemn ourselves. Either we continue being Catholic, or we enter into a sect. You choose! And I ask you to tell me at least by Saturday because I have to get my things in order. I have to see where I'm going to go, what I'm going to do—just a simple thing. But I repeat, before answering me, read this. For, maybe this catechism is prepared by dear Cardozo, to lie to you. No! No, there are a lot of them [catechisms]. Read it! Because a lot has been said, and a lot of stupidities have been said because we do not know the catechism.
And let us end with that phrase from the gospel: “He who is not with me is against me.” And as far as I know, I have not denied any dogma or article of the creed. The others have!
VIVA CRISTO REY! [LONG LIVE CHRIST THE KING!]
[Emphasis - The Catacombs.]
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| Irish priest fined for offering Mass during lockdown, not turning people away |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-24-2021, 06:08 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Spiritual]
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Irish priest fined for offering Mass during lockdown, not turning people away
‘We are committing a grave mistake by rejecting our Lord and God Jesus Christ by staying away because government officials say we must,’ the priest said.
![[Image: shutterstock_1699079287_810_500_75_s_c1.jpg]](https://assets.lifesitenews.com/images/made/images/remote/https_www.lifesitenews.com/images/local/Shutterstock/shutterstock_1699079287_810_500_75_s_c1.jpg)
CAVAN, Ireland, March 23, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Irish Catholic priest Father P.J. Hughes has once again been confronted by police. Hughes was fined €500 fine for not turning people away from Mass during the current COVID-19 lockdown.
Fr. Hughes, of Mullahoran parish in Co. Cavan, was reportedly approached by Gardai (Irish police) and presented with a €500 fine. His perceived offense was refusing to turn away members of his congregation who turned up in the church for Mass, since he refuses to lock the church doors.
Under the current lockdown, the Irish government has taken measures to prohibit public worship under the pretense of preventing the spread of COVID-19 infections. As a result, there have been no public Masses since December 26, 2020, communal worship is forbidden, and places of worship are only allowed to open for private prayer. Funerals are currently allowed to occur, but with just “10 mourners.” Weddings are similarly limited to 6 people. Worship will only be permitted once the country goes back down to “level 2” in its restrictions, which could be months away.
The Irish Catholic stated that sources close to Hughes had confirmed that he would refuse to pay the fine, and was ready to face jail if necessary.
LifeSiteNews contacted the Gardai for confirmation and comment, but was told that it was not their policy to comment on named persons in particular cases.
In his parish newsletter this weekend, Fr. Hughes addressed the issue, re-iterating his commitment to administering the sacraments. “I do not accept the negative message of our leaders who are telling us to stay away from Jesus,” he wrote.
“Despite the size of the church and the holy place that it is because of the presence of Jesus in the Holy Tabernacle, the church has been deemed a hot spot for the spread of the virus by the gardai,” said Hughes. “The majority of people are healthy and able to go shopping, bring their children to school and many of them are working in enclosed environments. We are committing a grave mistake by rejecting our Lord and God Jesus Christ by staying away because government officials say we must.”
“I do not accept and will not accept this demand by people who do not realize the wrong they are doing. It is our constitutional right to protest so long as it is peaceful; it is our constitutional right to practice our faith and assemble to pray together.”
He explained his stance against the restrictions on worship: “For those who are afraid of catching the virus in the church then they can have the free choice to stay at home and live their lives as they think it best to do. I have been reported again and the gardai have issued a fine because I celebrated Mass with people present.”
The Irish Constitution itself actually protects the right to worship in Article 44: “The State acknowledges that the homage of public worship is due to Almighty God. It shall hold His Name in reverence, and shall respect and honour religion. Freedom of conscience and the free profession and practice of religion are, subject to public order and morality, guaranteed to every citizen.”
It further states: “The State shall not impose any disabilities or make any discrimination on the ground of religious profession, belief or status.”
This recent fine comes as the latest in a series of increasingly heavy-handed measures taken by the Gardai against Fr. Hughes. Back in November 2020, he was threatened with prosecution by the police for his refusal to turn people away when they arrived into church for Mass. Four officers approached Hughes after Sunday Mass, warning that he might be “prosecuted for breaching the Covid rules introduced during the last lockdown period.” Following that, he was warned that he had “one more chance” to adhere to the restrictions.
Hughes revealed that “somebody reported me,” which led to his discovery by the civil authorities. He was then rebuked by his ordinary, Bishop Francis Duffy of the Diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise, who reportedly told Fr. Hughes that he was in “dangerous territory.” Despite this, Hughes remains committed to offering the sacraments to people, as he demonstrated in his recent newsletter: “I will exercise my constitutional right even though people are complaining, even though I am not obeying the bishop when I go against his advice. We can’t just reject Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.”
Notwithstanding the state and the Church enforcing closure of churches, one law professor has stated that under the current restrictions, religious worship is not in fact prohibited. Professor Oran Doyle of Trinity College Dublin explained that while “relevant events” are forbidden, “[i]t is beyond argument that ‘relevant event’ does not include events held for religious reasons; religious events are therefore not prohibited by Regulation 8.”
“Rather than clearly distinguish between what citizens are required to do and what they are requested or advised to do, Government statements frequently encourage people to believe that their legal obligations are more restrictive than is in fact the case,” Doyle wrote.
In fact, referring to Hughes’s encounter with the police in November, and media reports that Hughes was warned about future prosecution, should he be found saying Mass again, Doyle said that “this statement of the legal position was categorically incorrect.
[Emphasis mine.]
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| April 27th -St. Peter Canisius and St. Zita |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 03-23-2021, 08:55 PM - Forum: April
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Saint Peter Canisius
Doctor of the Church
(1521-1597)
Born in 1521 of a distinguished family of Holland, Saint Peter Canisius studied in Cologne and received his license as doctor of civil law; he then went to Louvain (Belgium) to learn canon law. These studies followed close upon the days when Luther had burnt the papal bulls at Wittenberg, Germany. Soon Saint Peter, become a Jesuit, was teaching at the University of Cologne; he was there when the unfortunate archbishop of that city fell into the new heresy. The Catholics who desired to depose him needed a deputy to the emperor to present their request, and Saint Peter was chosen.
His mission, seconded by the Holy Spirit, succeeded; and the deputy was remarked by a Cardinal, who desired to send him to the Council of Trent as his representative and theologian. Saint Peter's superior, Saint Ignatius of Loyola himself, approved this choice, and the young Jesuit took his place among the Fathers of the Council. He was commissioned to draft a memoir on the exact nature of the errors being propagated in the lands of the reform, in consort with the Pope's theologian, another Jesuit named Jacques Laynez. Their work was admired; the Council was dissolved soon afterwards, however, and Saint Peter was recalled to Rome by Saint Ignatius, to consult with him concerning the formation of the religious and the future of their Order.
Afterwards Saint Peter and two other Jesuits founded a college at Ingolstadt, going there with only two books in their baggage, the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius and the famous Ratio Studiorum, or Plan of Studies of their Order. Saint Peter was named Rector of the University by that institution.
He was in demand everywhere; King Ferdinand of Rome obtained his presence for Vienna. A pestilence broke out there, and he was most often found at the bedside of the dying, caring for the bodies and regenerating the souls of the unfortunate citizens. He opened a boarding school for boys, and Vienna soon found itself reborn in the faith: the famous Catechism of Saint Peter Canisius had much to do with the renovation. During his lifetime it appeared in more than 200 editions, in at least twelve languages. It remains a monument of the triumph of the Church over error in the time of Luther.
Its author had tried to keep his name a secret but did not succeed, and then several nations disputed the honor of his presence. But Saint Peter was Provincial of Germany, named by Saint Ignatius, and he concerned himself above all with the colleges at Prague, Ingolstadt and Munich. Until his death in 1597 the Apostle of Germany continued the valiant and perpetual combat of the Church against error. For a long time forgotten, Saint Peter was canonized and declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XI in 1927.
Saint Zita
Virgin
(† 1278)
Saint Zita for forty-eight years was employed in the service of a citizen of Lucca, Italy. During this time she rose each morning to hear Mass while all in the household were asleep, and then toiled incessantly until night came, doing the work of others as well as her own.
Once Zita, absorbed in prayer, remained in church past the usual hour of her bread-making. She hastened home, reproaching herself with neglect of duty, but found the bread made and ready for the oven. She did not doubt that her mistress or one of her servants had kneaded it, and going to them, thanked them. They were astonished, for no human being had made the bread; Angels had made it during her prayer.
For years her master and mistress treated her as a mere drudge, while her fellow-servants, resenting her diligence as a reproach to themselves, insulted and struck her. Saint Zita offered these sufferings with those of Christ her Lord, never changing the sweet tone of her voice or forgetting her gentle and quiet ways. At length her employer, seeing the success which attended her undertakings, gave her charge of his children and the household. She dreaded this dignity more than the worst humiliation, but scrupulously fulfilled her trust.
By her holy economy her master's goods were multiplied, while the poor were fed at his door. Gradually her unfailing patience conquered the jealousy of her fellow-servants, and she became their advocate with their hot-tempered master, who dared not give way to his anger before Zita. In the end her prayer and toil sanctified the entire house, and drew down upon it the blessings of Heaven. She died in 1278, and at the moment of her death, a bright star appearing above the attic where she slept showed that she had gained eternal rest.
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| Ratzinger and Hegel |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-23-2021, 11:49 AM - Forum: The Architects of Vatican II
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Reposted here from The Catacombs archives:
Dear friends,
I am always loathe to reference sedevacantist sources. However, it has long been the custom here on The Catacombs that if an article exposes or speaks the truth, it shouldn't be ignored just because of who the author is/was [e.g. St. Thomas Aquinas referencing Aristotle]. With this in mind, we repost the following article, adapted to filter out the sedevacantist references. Please keep in mind that Bishop Tissier de Mallerais' study on the 'Hermeneutics' of Joseph Ratzinger highlight many of the points made below though not [to my memory] this particular example.
Ratzinger, Hegel, and “Summorum Pontificum”
Thesis – Antithesis – Synthesis
Novus Ordo Watch [All emphasis mine.]| June 6, 2017
As we quickly approach the tenth anniversary of Summorum Pontificum, Benedict XVI’s unjustly celebrated motu proprio that supposedly “freed” the Traditional Latin Mass by permitting every presbyter of the Vatican II Sect to use the 1962 Missal for the celebration of at least private Masses, we are starting to see a number of articles in the Novus Ordo press about what has been accomplished ten years after Benedict XVI’s landmark decision.
About three months after the release of Summorum Pontificum on July 7, 2007, we published our own critical analysis of the “papal” document we have justly termed a “motu inapproprio“: “One and the Same Rite”? How Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum Aims to Destroy the Traditional Latin Mass.
While many of Benedict’s recognize-and-resist cheerleaders were hailing Summorum Pontificum as a gift from above and were acting as though Pope Ratzinger had just overturned Vatican II, Novus Ordo Watch was among the unpopular few who pointed out that, contrary to the impression a superficial reading of the document might give, Summorum Pontificum was but the latest dangerous ploy [by one ...] who has been undermining Faith and Liturgy pretty much from the beginning of his priesthood (ordained in 1951, the young Fr. Ratzinger was suspected of heresy by the Holy Office during the very same decade).
One of the most obvious blasphemies Benedict XVI’s document contains is the bold, gratuitous, and easily-disproven claim that the traditional Roman rite of Pope St. Pius V and the Modernist Novus Ordo rite of Pope Paul VI are but “two usages of the one Roman rite”. Not only does our response to Summorum Pontificum, linked above, refute this absurd position, it also points out that the celebrated motu proprio appears to contain one of Ratzinger’s favorite tools: Hegelian philosophy.
In a nutshell: The German idealist philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) held the idea that all reality is Absolute Spirit, which manifests itself in world history. History consists of and advances by means of a constant interplay of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. According to Hegel, contradictions (in his terms, a “thesis” being opposed by an “anti-thesis”) are necessary to arrive at a “higher level of truth” (the so-called “synthesis”). This triad is called the Hegelian dialectic, and it repeats itself continuously (with each synthesis becoming a new thesis, which is then opposed by its corresponding antithesis, both of which in turn generate another synthesis, etc.) until it culminates in the Absolute at the end of history. Needless to say, Hegelianism is radically incompatible with Catholicism.
In our 2007 critique of Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum, we pointed out that the distinction between “ordinary form” and “extraordinary form” of the “one Roman rite” was just Ratzinger shrewdly utilizing the Hegelian dialectic to diffuse the controversy over the liturgical “reform” of Paul VI. In fact, we believe that Benedict XVI applied Hegel twice to facilitate the imposition of Summorum Pontificum: In the motu proprio itself he used Hegel to advance the “synthesis” of two forms of the one Roman rite to overcome the “thesis” that there are two Roman rites (traditional and Novus Ordo), which is contradicted by the “antithesis” that obviously there is, and can be, only one Roman rite at a time. By saying that both the Novus Ordo liturgy and the traditional liturgy are the Roman rite, just expressed in a different “form” (whatever that means), Ratzinger was able to concede to the traditionalists that the two liturgies are quite different, while at the same time not having to admit that Paul VI created an essentially new rite. The only drawback to this clever synthesis is that it isn’t true, but we will leave that aside for the purposes of this post.
Having thus “resolved” the contradiction between the Traditional Catholic Mass and the Modernist worship service, Benedict then proceeded to the next level, that is, to a new triad: The “ordinary form” of the Roman rite (Novus Ordo) opposes the “extaordinary form” of the Roman rite (traditional), giving rise to a new synthesis, that of a de facto hybrid rite. Benedict did not complete this last step, but he strongly hinted at its validity and laid all the necessary groundwork for it, not in the motu proprio itself but in the accompanying explanatory letter he sent to all the bishops of the Vatican II Sect, in which he maintained that “the two Forms of the usage of the Roman Rite can be mutually enriching: new Saints and some of the new Prefaces can and should be inserted in the old Missal.”
Here the door is opened to allowing the 1962 Missal to become Novus Ordoized to whatever degree “pastoral prudence may suggest”, as Modernist parlance would have it. Modifications to the traditional Roman rite have thus been permitted in principle. Whether this ends up meaning that the indult Mass will soon have proper prayers for the feast of “St. John Paul II”, or whether there will be bidding prayers coming soon, “Communion” in the hand, or altar girls — it’s anyone’s guess, but the point is that nothing can be excluded in principle. Via Hegel, Benedict XVI made sure of that.
Here is how we alluded to Benedict XVI’s Hegelianism in our critique ten years ago:
Quote:Nor does Paul VI here offer to introduce an “ordinary” form of Mass, which has its complement in the “extraordinary” form of the St. Pius V Missal — that’s a distinction that Benedict XVI simply made up in order to “synthesize”, in somewhat Hegelian fashion, the two contradictory ideas that the New Mass replaced the Missal of St. Pius V and that there can be only one Roman rite of Mass at a time.
…It is no stretch to predict that what will come out of this “co-existence” of the “two forms” of “one and the same rite” will, at the end of the day, result in a total butchering of the 1962 Missal, so that, eventually, Benedict XVI can stop the nonsense of “two forms” of “one rite” and simply synthesize them together (here comes Hegel again), and the result will probably be a New Mass with a bit of Latin and a little more incense, or some sort of a hybrid missal like the one that was already in use in 1965. (“‘One and the Same Rite’?”, Novus Ordo Watch, Oct. 12, 2007)
Whoever thought at the time that our allusions to Hegel were irrelevant or uncalled-for, surely but the result of a deluded sedevacantist mind that should not be taken seriously anyway, will now be disappointed. Our analysis has just recently been vindicated by — drumroll! — a Novus Ordo source: the German writer Martin Mosebach, author of the book The Heresy of Formlessness: The Roman Liturgy and Its Enemy, a work popular among non-sedevacantist traditionalists. Published in English by Ignatius Press in 2010, it has been sold by the indult Roman Catholic Books as well as the SSPX’s publishing house, Angelus Press.
On June 2, in view of the upcoming 10-year anniversary, the German Die Tagespost published a lengthy interview with Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Muller and Mr. Martin Mosebach on Summorum Pontificum and the problem of the “liturgical reform” after Vatican II. Mosebach’s response to the question of whether Benedict XVI’s motu proprio fulfilled people’s expectations, confirms that our analysis ten years ago was spot-on:
Quote:Pope Benedict saw his role as that of a reconciler. The adherents of Tradition and the adherents of the progressivist wing [of the Church] both equally hold the view that the Second Vatican Council and the reform of the Mass constitute a genuine rupture with Tradition. It is true that in terms of doctrine the notion of [the Mass as] sacrifice was still being upheld, but in many cases this was no longer true in practice: We now celebrate a meal. Pope Benedict tried to transcend any such confrontation by opting for a hermeneutic of continuity, saying: The old and the new Ordo [=order of Mass] are two different forms of the same rite. That was a bold thesis for anyone who uses his eyes and ears. I view it as a diplomatic formula [which Benedict advanced] to help heal the obvious rupture. Based on this, Pope Benedict then expressed his hope that the old and the new Ordo would be able to influence each other, perhaps in order to arrive at a synthesis of old and new Ordo in accordance with the Hegelian model of dialectics. However, this would require the old Ordo to be celebrated in a great many places — otherwise there could hardly be a fruitful exchange concerning it. Moreover, one would have to accept that the old [rite of] worship cannot change — it would surely then have to be the Novus [=new] Ordo which gradually moves towards the sacredness of tradition so that the commonality of both forms can be recognized. (“‘Liturgie heißt: Gott agiert'”, Die Tagespost, June 2, 2017. Translation by Novus Ordo Watch.)
So there we go: Mosebach has also come to the conclusion that all this talk about two forms of the same rite is just so much Ratzingerian bunk that will ultimately result in a “a synthesis of old and new Ordo in accordance with the Hegelian model of dialectics”.
Alas, Hegel is still alive and well even almost 200 years after his death. The Modernist Nouvelle Theologie (“New Theology”) that emerged in the 1930s and prevailed at Vatican II, of which virtually all Novus Ordo theologians are loyal disciples, especially Joseph Ratzinger, is heavily influenced by Hegel. This is perhaps most evident in its emphasis on history as a proper locus of Sacred Theology, and in what they call “historical theology”. Or think of ecumenism, for example. Its unattainable goal is the “synthesis” of a supposed and as-yet-undefined “Christian unity” that transcends the old “all must convert to Catholicism” theology (thesis) as well as its opposite, the indifferentist “it doesn’t matter what you believe, we’re all Christians” theology (antithesis).
Utilizing the Hegelian dialectic allows Modernists to make themselves appear as mature, sophisticated thinkers who “transcend” the “simplistic” and “outdated” notions of traditional Catholic theology, which they have the intellectual wherewithal to overcome in an “advanced” and “higher” theology. Sound familiar? Once you understand how Hegel works, you will discover that his false philosophy is omnipresent in the Vatican II Church. This is why, by the way, you always hear [Pope]Francis talk about “moving forward.”
As Summorum Pontificum turns 10 years old on July 7, countless “traditional Catholics” will be celebrating. [...] Too comfortable are the traditional externals to which they can attach themselves so easily while remaining under the auspices of the Vatican II Church, thanks in large part to their hero, Benedict XVI — and thanks to his hero, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
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| Archbishop Lefebvre: 1976 Feast of the Immaculate Conception - On Obedience |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-23-2021, 08:07 AM - Forum: Sermons and Conferences
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Taken from The Recusant - Issue 39 January 2016
Archbishop Lefebvre: Sermon on the occasion of Engagements in the Society of St Pius X
Écône, 8th December, 1976
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
My dear brethren,
This dogma of the Immaculate Conception, solemnly proclaimed by Pope Pius IX in 1854, was later confirmed by the Blessed Virgin herself in 1858, to Bernadette at Lourdes. Without any doubt, this feast of the Immaculate Conception is much older than its definition. The definition of these dogmas by the Sovereign Pontiffs always happens after the Church, in her Tradition and in her Faith, has manifested in a permanent way that she believes these truths revealed by Our Lord Jesus Christ through His apostles. Thus the truth, which we celebrate today concerning the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, is a truth contained in Revelation and therefore taught by Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
This feast teaches us a great lesson, and particularly to you, my dear friends who, in a few moments, are going to pronounce your engagement for the first time or renew it, I think that I must draw your attention to the fact that this engagement requires you to practice in a particular way, truly and wholeheartedly with full adhesion, the holy virtue of obedience.
And if there is one virtue which stands out in this feast of the Immaculate Conception, it is precisely this virtue of obedience. Why? Because what made us lose sanctifying grace, what made us lose the friendship of God, was the sin of Eve, the mother of mankind. By her sin, by her disobedience, she drew after her all the souls who followed her. Since that sin of our first parents occurred in the history of mankind, all those who are born henceforth are born with original sin, except the Most Blessed Virgin Mary.
Thus it is, therefore, that Our Lord Jesus Christ has willed, God has willed, that in this history of mankind, wounded by the sin of disobedience of the mother of mankind, this sin be repaired by a similar creature - our heavenly Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Thus, if it was by disobedience that sin began in mankind, it was by the obedience of the Blessed Virgin Mary that this sin was repaired.
Here is an admirable antithesis, willed, or at least permitted, by the Good Lord. Of course, the Good Lord did not will the sin but He permitted this fault of mankind, as the liturgy of Holy Saturday says: “felix culpa - happy fault” in a certain way, because it merited for us so many graces, it obtained for us to have in our midst the Son of God; it obtained for us to have the Blessed Virgin Mary.
All the more ought we to profit from this lesson offered to us by the Blessed Virgin Mary. A lesson of obedience, of sanctifying grace, from she who is called “full of grace.” Why is she full of grace? Because she obeyed, because she submitted to God. And that is precisely what we ought to have as the first desire of our life. The virtue of obedience is at the very heart of our sanctification. It is in the centre of our life, of our natural life, of our supernatural life. There cannot be a real natural life without obedience; there can be no true supernatural life without obedience.
What, then, is obedience? In what does it consist? It seems to me that we could define it as the virtue of God. “Vitrus Dei omnipotentis,” the virtue of Almighty God, infusing itself into our soul, our existence, our will, our intelligence, our body, this virtue of Almighty God. A Virtue which is the power of the Almighty God written into our lives, into our daily life, into our existence, because we are nothing without this power of the Almighty God. This virtue of the Almighty God is written in the Law, in the Commandments of God, in the Commandments of life: Love your God, love your neighbour - this is what we ought to do. And it is on this condition that we shall live both in the natural order and in the supernatural order.
We must therefore firstly have the desire to see this Virtue of God, this natural and supernatural power of God, being infused into our souls and taking over our whole self, all that we are. Not letting anything escape from this supreme power of God in us, to submit ourselves totally to the grace of the Good Lord, to His power, to His life. That is obedience, and that is the fruit of obedience: natural life, supernatural life, and thereby eternal life in the life of the beatific vision. All this is inscribed in the virtue of obedience.
Therefore, my dear friends, this should be the profound disposition of your souls while you pronounce your engagement: I want to be obedient, obedient for my whole life, obedient to God. I submit myself to the Will of God in order that He may communicate to me His Life, by communicating to me His Truth, truth in our intellect by the natural light of reason, but also and above all by the light of faith. Indeed faith is nothing else: it is the obedience of our intelligence to the revelation of Our Lord Jesus Christ who gives us His Truth, who transmits to us His Truth, and this Truth is a source of life. It will be a source of life for you, a source of grace.
Thus, submit your intelligence and your will fully to Our Lord Jesus Christ. Ask this through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Ask her to give you this grace, that she give you the humility to submit yourself entirely to the holy Will of Our Lord. She showed you the example in her “fiat” in her humility. “Quia respexit humilitatem meam; quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae,” we sing in the Magnificat. And her cousin Elizabeth says to her “Et Beata quae credidisti”: blessed art thou because thou hast believed! Because you had faith! Faith is nothing less than the obedience of our intelligence, the submission of our intelligence to the Truth revealed by the authority of God. This is what your obedience ought to be like. By this grace of obedience you shall transform your lives, and your lives shall become fully conformed to the Will of God.
But obviously in the circumstances in which we live, in the confusion in which the Church finds herself today, we can wonder: “But where is this obedience today? How is obedience practiced in holy Church today?”
Well, we must not forget that our first obedience, our obedience which is fundamental and radical, the foundation and root, must be to Our Lord Jesus Christ, to God! For it is He who demands our obedience; it is He who demands our submission. And the Good Lord has done everything for us to be enlightened in our obedience. For two thousand years of the existence of the Church, the light was given by Revelation, by the Apostles, by the successors of the Apostles, by Peter and by the successors of Peter. And if ever it happened that an error was made or that the transmission of the truth was incorrect, the Church corrected it. The Church took care to transmit to us the truth conformed to the will of God.
And now, by an unfathomable mystery of Divine Providence, Providence is allowing our time to be perhaps a unique time in the history of the Church, in that these truths are no longer being transmitted with the fidelity with which the Church has transmitted them for two thousand years. Even without looking into the cause, in one sense, or who is responsible for these facts, these facts are still there, in front of us. The truth which was taught to the children, to the poor - “pauperes evangelizantur: the poor have the Gospel preached unto them,” said Our Lord to the envoys of St. John the Baptist - well, now, the poor are no longer evangelized. They are no longer given the bread, the true bread which children want, the true Bread, the Bread of Life.
They have transformed our sacrifices, our sacraments, our catechisms and so we are dumbfounded; we are painfully surprised. What are we to do when confronted with this agonising, tearing, crushing reality? Keep the Faith. Obey Our Lord Jesus Christ. Obey what Our Lord Jesus Christ has given us for two thousand years.
In a moment of terror, in a moment of confusion, in a moment of destruction of the Church, what should we do but hold fast to what Jesus has taught us and what His Church has taught us as being Truth forever, defined forever? One cannot change what has been defined once and for all by the Sovereign Pontiffs with their infallibility. It is not changeable. We cannot change the truth written forever in our holy books. Because this immutability of Truth corresponds to the Immutability of God. It is a communication of the Immutability of God to the immutability of our truths. To change our truths would be tantamount to changing the Immutability of God. We say it every day in the Office of None: “Immotus in Se permanens - God remaining immutable in Himself” forever. So we must attach ourselves to this truth, which has been taught in a permanent way, and not let ourselves be troubled by the disorder we witness today.
Consequently we must know, at some point, not to obey, in order to obey. This is it. Indeed, this Virtue of Almighty God of which I was speaking not long ago, the Good Lord has willed that it be transmitted to us somehow by men who participate in His authority. But to the extent that these creatures are not faithful to the transmission of this life, to this virtue of God, to that extent also we can no longer accept their orders and the obligations they impose on us. Because to obey men, unfaithful in transmitting the message given to them, would be to disobey God, it would be to disobey the message of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, when we have to choose either to obey the message of Our Lord Jesus Christ or to obey the message of men, transmitted to us by men; insofar as the message transmitted by men corresponds to the message of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we have no right not to obey them to the last iota. But insofar as these orders, these obligations given to us, do not correspond to those which Our Lord Jesus Christ gives us, we must obey God rather than men. In such cases, these men are not fulfilling the function for which they received the authority that God gave them.
That is why St. Paul himself says: “If an angel from heaven or I myself" - remember it is the great St. Paul himself who is speaking – “If an angel from heaven or I myself were to teach you a truth contrary to what has been taught to you originally, do not listen to us!” That is it. Today we are faced with this reality. I tell you myself, very willingly, my dear friends, I repeat these words very willingly: If it were to happen that I teach you something contrary to what the whole Tradition of the Church has taught, do not listen to me! At that moment you have the right not to obey me, and you have the duty not to obey me! Because I would not be faithful to the mission given to me by the Good Lord.
This is what our obedience ought to be: to obey God before all else. That is the only way for us to reach Eternal Life. For it is this obedience which commands the way to Eternal Life. And in this, we follow the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She was obedience itself. She is the most perfect, the most beautiful, the most sublime example of obedience, contrary to the disobedience of the mother of mankind.
And so let us ask her today, my dear friends, to teach us this obedience, to make us keep it until our death. And to make these promises you are going to make in a few moments truly the expression of what you have in the depth of your soul. And in these prayers, I thought it good to put the beautiful prayer taught to us by the Roman Missal shortly before the consecration of the Holy Eucharist: “Hanc igitur oblationem servitutis nostrae - receive, O my God, the oblation of our obedience, of our slavery! - hanc igitur oblationem servitutis nostrae!” This is what you are going to say. If the Good Lord gives you the grace to become priests, every day when you say this prayer, and already now when you recite it with the
priest, renew your profession of obedience and of slavery towards God and towards the Blessed Virgin Mary. May this be the grace the Good Lord grants you today.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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| Abp. Viganò reflects on Easter 2021 in light of Coronavirus |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-23-2021, 07:42 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Abp. Viganò reflects on Easter 2021 in light of coronavirus tyranny
If we allow the hateful tyranny of sin and rebellion against Christ to be established, the folly of Covid will be only the beginning of hell on earth.
Si iniquitates observaveris, Domine: Domine, quis sustinebit? Ps 129 : 3
Mors et vita duello conflixere mirando.
Last year, with a decision as incomprehensible as it was wretched, for the first time in the Christian era, the Catholic hierarchy placed limitations on the celebration of Easter, following the mainstream narration of the pandemic. Many of the faithful, constrained by measures of confinement that were as demonstrably useless as they were counter-productive, were able to unite themselves spiritually to the Holy Sacrifice, assisting at the liturgical functions via computer. One year later, nothing has changed with respect to then, and we hear it repeated once again that we ought to prepare ourselves for a further lockdown in order to allow the population to be subjected to an experimental genetic serum, imposed by the pharmaceutical lobby despite their not knowing what long-term side effects there may be. In many nations they are beginning to ban their use, due to the suspicious deaths that are following inoculation; and yet, despite the pounding campaign of media terrorism, basic treatments show themselves to be effective and capable of drastically reducing the number of hospitalizations and, consequently, also the number of deaths.
As Catholics, we are called to understand the scope of how much, for more than a year, all of humanity has been forced to undergo in the name of an emergency that – according to the official data in hand – has caused a number of deaths that is no different from that of preceding years. We are called to understand, even before believing: because if the Lord has endowed us with an intelligence, he has done so in order for us to use it to recognize and judge the reality which surrounds us. In the act of Faith the baptized person does not renounce his own rationality in an acritical fideism, but rather accepts what the Lord reveals to him, bowing before the authority of God, who does not deceive us and who is the Truth itself.
Our capacity to intus legere events preserves us, in the light of Grace, from going down the path of that sort of reckless irrationality which viceversa those display who up until yesterday were celebrating science as the necessary antidote to “religious superstition,” and who today celebrate the self-styled “experts” as new priests of the pandemic, denying the most elementary principles of modern medicine. And if for the Christian a true plague is a salutary call to conversion and penance for the faults of individuals and of nations, for the initiates of the health religion a treatable flu syndrome is said to be the cry of Mother Earth violated by humanity – a step-mother Nature, to which many turn with the words of Leopardi: Why do you not later return that which you promised then? Do you deceive your children so much? We realize that the tribal cruelty, the primitive force like a planetary virus which would like to exterminate us, does not reside in Nature, of which the Creator is the admirable architect, but rather in an elite that is subservient to globalist ideology, which on the one hand wants to impose the tyranny of the New World Order, and on the other, in order to maintain power, generously rewards those who put themselves at its service. The rebels, those who resist, are conversely annihilated in their possessions, deprived of freedom, forced to undergo unreliable testings and ineffective vaccines in the name of a superior good which they must accept without any possibility of dissent or criticism.
A few days ago, a woman, believing that she would appear endowed with common sense, said that it is necessary to submit to the use of the mask and social distancing not only because of their effectiveness, but also to support our political leaders, in hope of a relaxation of the measures adopted so far: “If we put on the mask and get vaccinated, maybe they will stop it and let us live again,” she commented. In response to this observation, an elderly man responded that a Jewish person in Germany in the 1930’s might have thought that wearing the Star of David sewn on his jacket would somehow satisfy Hitler’s delusions, avoiding far worse violations and saving himself from deportation. Faced with this calm objection, the woman who was speaking with him was shaken, understanding the disturbing similarity between the Nazi dictatorship and the pandemic madness of our own time; between the way in which tyranny could be imposed on millions of citizens by leveraging their fear, then as now. The citizens of Germany allowed themselves to be persuaded to obey, to not react against the violation of the rights of the German citizens whose only crime was that they were Jews, and themselves became informants about the “criminals” to the civil authority. And I ask myself: what difference is there between the denunciation of a neighbor who is hiding a Jewish family and the zealous reporting of those who have friends over to their house in violation of an unconstitutional provision that limits the freedom of citizens? In both instances, are the denouncers not respecting the law and observing the norms, while these same norms violate the rights of a part of the population that has been criminalized, yesterday on a racial basis and today on a health basis? Have we learned nothing from the horrors of the past?
The voice of the Church calls upon the Divine Majesty to remove “flagella tuae iracundiae, quae pro peccatis nostris meremur [the scourge of your wrath, which we merit for our sins].” These scourges have been manifested in the course of History by wars, plagues, and famines; today they are manifested by the tyranny of globalism, capable of creating more victims than a world war and destroying national economies more than any earthquake could. We must understand that if the Lord should allow the creators of the Covid emergency to succeed, it will certainly be for our greater good. Because today the little that remains in our society that is still inspired by Christian civilization, and which up until yesterday we considered normal and taken for granted, is now forbidden: exercising our fundamental freedoms, going to church to pray, going out with our friends, having dinner with our loved ones, being able to open a shop or a restaurant and earn our living honestly, going to school or taking a trip.
If this pseudo-pandemic is a scourge, it is not difficult to understand what the sins are for which Heaven is punishing us: crimes, abortions, murders, homicides, divorces, violence, perversions, vices, thefts, deceptions, betrayals, lies, profanations, and cruelty. Both public sins as well as the sins of individuals. The sins of God’s enemies as well as the sins of His friends. The sins of lay people and the sins of clergy, of the lowly as well as the leaders, of the governed as well as those who govern, of the young as well as the old, of men as well as women.
They are mistaken who believe that the violation of our natural rights that we are undergoing has no supernatural significance, and that our share of responsibility in making ourselves complicit in what is happening is irrelevant. Jesus Christ is the Lord of History, and whoever would like to banish the Prince of Peace from the world that He created and redeemed with His Most Precious Blood does not want to accept the inexorable defeat of Satan, the eternal loser. And so, in a delirium that has all the features of hybris, his servants are moving as if the victory of evil was now certain, while in reality it is necessarily ephemeral and momentary. The nemesis that is being prepared for them will remind us of the people of Israel after the crossing of the Red Sea, and that Pharaoh could not have done anything if it were not permitted by God.
Christian Easter, the true Passover of which the Old Testament Passover was only a figure, is accomplished on Golgotha, on the blessed wood of the Cross. Jesus Christ is the perfect Altar, Priest and Victim of that Sacrifice. The Agnus Dei, pointed out by the Forerunner on the banks of the Jordan, took upon himself the sins of the world in order to offer himself as a human and divine victim to the Father, restoring in His Blood the order violated by our first Parent. It is there, on Calvary, that the true Great Reset took place, thanks to which the inextinguishable debt of the children of Adam was cancelled by the infinite merits of the Passion of the Redeemer, ransoming us from the slavery of sin and death.
Without repenting of our sins, without the intention of amending our life and conforming it to the will of God, we cannot hope that the consequences of our sins, which offend the Divine Majesty and can be appeased only by penance, will disappear. Our Lord has shown us the royal way of the Cross: “Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, so you may follow in his footsteps” (1 Pt 2:21). Let us each take up our cross, denying ourselves and following the Divine Master. Let us draw near to Holy Easter with the knowledge that we are always beneath the gaze of the Lord: “You had gone astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls” (1 Pt 2:25). And let us remember that on the dies irae we will all certainly have Him as our Judge, but thanks to Baptism we have merited the right to recognize Him as Brother and Friend.
We ask the Supreme Judge, using the words of Sacred Scripture: “Discerne causam meam de gente non sancta, ab homine iniquo et doloso erue me [Distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy, deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man].” To the Merciful Father who in His Divine Son has made us heirs of eternal glory, we address with humility the words of David: “Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea, et a peccato meo munda me [Wash me more and more from my iniquity, and cleanse me of my sin].” We ask the Consoler Spirit: “Da virtutis meritum, da salutis exitum, da perenne gaudium [Grant the reward of virtue, grant the deliverance of salvation, grant eternal joy].”
If we really want this so-called pandemic to collapse like a house of cards – as has always happened for far worse scourges, when the Lord decreed their end – let us remember to acknowledge to Him, and Him alone, that universal Lordship which we usurp each time we sin, refusing to obey His holy Law and thus making ourselves slaves of Satan. If we desire the peace of Christ, it is Christ who must reign, and it is His kingdom we must desire, beginning with ourselves, our family, our circle of friends and acquaintances, our religious community. Adveniat regnum tuum. If instead we allow the hateful tyranny of sin and rebellion against Christ to be established, the folly of Covid will be only the beginning of hell on earth.
Let us therefore prepare for Confession and Easter Communion with this spirit of reparation and expiation for our own sins as well as for those of our brothers, of the men of the Church and of those who govern us. The true and holy “new Renaissance” to which we ought to aspire should be the life of Grace, friendship with God, and constancy with His Most Holy Mother and the Saints. The true “nothing will be as it was before” must be the one we say when we rise from the confessional with the resolve to sin no more, offering our heart to the Eucharistic King as a throne where he delights to dwell, consecrating our every action, thought, and breath to Him.
May these be our wishes for the coming Easter of the Resurrection, beneath the kindly gaze of Our Queen and Lady, Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of all Graces.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
March 9, 2021
[Emphasis mine.]
Source
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| April 26th - Our Lady of Good Counsel |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 03-22-2021, 10:24 PM - Forum: April
- Replies (1)
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Our Lady of Good Counsel
(1467)
The apparition of Our Lady of Good Counsel is so celebrated, Her picture so well known and so honored in the Church, that it is very fitting to allot a place to this devotion. The little city of Gennazano, situated on the mountains of the former Sabina province, about ten leagues from Rome, for a thousand years already had honored the Blessed Virgin as Our Lady of Good Counsel. In the 15th century, the church of that city was dilapidated and about to collapse. A pious woman of advanced age named Petruccia desired to provide for its reconstruction, but the gift of her entire fortune, which she made for this purpose, proved insufficient. Petruccia foretold that the Blessed Virgin would Herself finish the work.
Then on April 25, 1467, at the hour of Vespers, a celestial harmony was heard in the air, and the crowd saw a brilliant cloud coming down through the air, which came to rest over the altar in the Chapel of Saint Blaise in the Gennazano Church, where the restoration had begun. At the same time, all the church bells began to ring joyously. The cloud disappeared, and the marveling crowd saw a picture of Mary holding the Child Jesus, painted on a prepared surface, suspended in the air over the altar near the wall, without any natural support. It was duly verified that this picture had been miraculously transported from a church of Scutari, a city of Albania. Providence, wishing to preserve it from profanation by the Turks who were controlling that land, sent it as a reward for the faith of Petruccia and her fellow citizens of Gennazano.
A history of the marvels of all kinds which have been wrought since that time near this miraculous picture, suspended in the air, would require volumes. Often the picture has been seen to change its expression, the eyes of the Blessed Virgin taking on an appearance of joy or sorrow. How many illnesses and infirmities have been cured! How many spiritual graces have been obtained! Gennazano in Italy is still a venerated pilgrimage site, much frequented by the people of that land, and many pious pilgrims from other nations, when time permits it for them, arrange to visit this blessed sanctuary. The Sovereign Pontiffs have granted many indulgences to devotion to Our Lady of Good Counsel, and the title Mother of Good Counsel was included in the Litany of the Blessed Virgin by Pope Leo XIII.
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| April 26th - Our Lady of Good Counsel |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 03-22-2021, 10:24 PM - Forum: Our Lady
- Replies (3)
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Our Lady of Good Counsel
(1467)
The apparition of Our Lady of Good Counsel is so celebrated, Her picture so well known and so honored in the Church, that it is very fitting to allot a place to this devotion. The little city of Gennazano, situated on the mountains of the former Sabina province, about ten leagues from Rome, for a thousand years already had honored the Blessed Virgin as Our Lady of Good Counsel. In the 15th century, the church of that city was dilapidated and about to collapse. A pious woman of advanced age named Petruccia desired to provide for its reconstruction, but the gift of her entire fortune, which she made for this purpose, proved insufficient. Petruccia foretold that the Blessed Virgin would Herself finish the work.
Then on April 25, 1467, at the hour of Vespers, a celestial harmony was heard in the air, and the crowd saw a brilliant cloud coming down through the air, which came to rest over the altar in the Chapel of Saint Blaise in the Gennazano Church, where the restoration had begun. At the same time, all the church bells began to ring joyously. The cloud disappeared, and the marveling crowd saw a picture of Mary holding the Child Jesus, painted on a prepared surface, suspended in the air over the altar near the wall, without any natural support. It was duly verified that this picture had been miraculously transported from a church of Scutari, a city of Albania. Providence, wishing to preserve it from profanation by the Turks who were controlling that land, sent it as a reward for the faith of Petruccia and her fellow citizens of Gennazano.
A history of the marvels of all kinds which have been wrought since that time near this miraculous picture, suspended in the air, would require volumes. Often the picture has been seen to change its expression, the eyes of the Blessed Virgin taking on an appearance of joy or sorrow. How many illnesses and infirmities have been cured! How many spiritual graces have been obtained! Gennazano in Italy is still a venerated pilgrimage site, much frequented by the people of that land, and many pious pilgrims from other nations, when time permits it for them, arrange to visit this blessed sanctuary. The Sovereign Pontiffs have granted many indulgences to devotion to Our Lady of Good Counsel, and the title Mother of Good Counsel was included in the Litany of the Blessed Virgin by Pope Leo XIII.
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| April 25th - St. Mark |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 03-22-2021, 10:23 PM - Forum: April
- Replies (2)
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Saint Mark
Evangelist
(† 63)
Saint Mark was converted to the Faith by the Prince of the Apostles, whom he later accompanied to Rome, acting there as his secretary or interpreter. When Saint Peter wrote his First Epistle to the churches of Asia, he affectionately joined to his own salutation that of his faithful companion, whom he calls my son Mark. The Roman people entreated Saint Mark to put in writing for them the substance of Saint Peter's frequent discourses on Our Lord's life. This the Evangelist did under the eye and with the express sanction of the Apostle, and every page of his brief but graphic Gospel so bore the impress of Saint Peter's character, that the Fathers used to name it Peter's Gospel.
Saint Mark was then sent to Egypt to found the Church of Alexandria. There his disciples became the wonder of the world for their piety and asceticism; Saint Jerome speaks of Saint Mark as the father of the anchorites who at a later time thronged the Egyptian deserts. There, too, he set up the first Christian school, the fruitful mother of many illustrious doctors and bishops.
After governing his see for many years, Saint Mark was seized one day by the heathen, dragged by ropes over stones, and thrown into prison. On the morrow the torture was repeated, and after receiving the consolation of the sight of Angels and the voice of Jesus, Saint Mark went to his reward.
It is to Saint Mark that we owe the many pictorial touches which often give such vivid color to the Gospel scenes, and help us to visualize the very gestures and appearance of our Blessed Lord. It is he alone who notes that in the temptation Jesus was with the beasts; that He slept in the boat on a pillow; that He embraced the little children. He alone preserves for us the command, Peace, be still! by which the storm was quelled, and even the very Aramaic words He spoke, the Ephpheta and the Talitha, cumi! by which the dumb were made to speak and the dead to rise.
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