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St. Alphonsus Liguori: Daily Meditations for Thirteenth Week after Pentecost |
Posted by: Stone - 08-27-2023, 06:06 AM - Forum: Pentecost
- Replies (6)
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We err in calling the place where we now dwell our home. After a little while the grave will be the home of our body until the Day of Judgment, and the home of our soul will be the House of Eternity, in Heaven or Hell for ever!
I.
We err in calling the place where we now dwell our home. After a little while the grave will be the home of our body until the Day of Judgment, and the home of our soul will be the House of Eternity, in Heaven or Hell for ever, because man shall go into the house of his eternity (Eccles. xii. 5). At our burial our corpses do not go to the grave of themselves; they are carried there by others; but the soul goes to the place which awaits it, either of eternal joy or eternal woe. A man shall go to the house of his eternity. According as a man lives well or ill, so he goes to the home prepared, in Paradise or in Hell, which he shall never change.
Those who live on this earth often change their home, either to please themselves or because they are compelled. In eternity the habitation is never changed; where we enter the first time, there we abide forever. If the tree fall to the south or to the north, in whatever place it shall fall, there shall it be (Eccles. xi. 3). He that enters into the South, which is Heaven, will be ever happy; he that enters the North, which is Hell, will be ever miserable.
He, then, who enters Heaven, will be always united with God, always in company with the Saints, always in the profoundest peace, always abundantly contented; because every blessed soul is filled and satisfied with joy, nor will he ever know the fear of losing it. If fear of losing their happiness could enter among the Blessed, they would be no longer happy; for the mere thought of losing the joy they possess would disturb the peace they enjoy.
On the other hand, whoever enters into Hell will be forever far from God. He will ever suffer in the fire of the damned. Let us not think that the pains of Hell will be like those of earth, where, through the force of habit, a trouble continually grows less; for, as in Paradise, delights never cause weariness, but seem ever new, as though they were for the first time enjoyed, which is implied by the expression of "the new canticle" which the Blessed are ever singing; so, in Hell, the pains never grow less through all eternity. Long custom will never diminish their torment. The miserable beings who are damned will feel the same anguish through eternity that they feel the first moment they experience its pangs.
II.
St. Augustine says that he who believes in eternity and is not converted to God has either lost his senses or his Faith. Woe, cries St. Cesarius, woe to sinners who enter eternity without knowing it, through having neglected to think upon it! And then he adds: "But, oh, double woe! They enter it and they never come forth!" It is a double woe, the first will be to fall into that abyss of fire; the second, that he who falls into it will never come forth: the gates of hell open only to those who enter, not to those who would depart.
No; the Saints did not do too much when they went to hide themselves in caves and deserts, to eat herbs, and to sleep on the ground, in order to save their souls. "They did not do too much," says St. Bernard, "because, where eternity is in question, no security can be too great." When, then, God visits us with any cross of infirmity, poverty, or any evil, let us think of the hell we have deserved, and thus every sorrow will appear light. Let us say, with Job: I have sinned, and indeed I have offended, and I have not received what I have deserved (Job, xxxiii. 27). O Lord, I have offended Thee, and many times betrayed Thee, and I have not been punished as I deserved; how, then, can I lament if Thou sendest me tribulation -- I, who have so often deserved hell?
O my Jesus, send me not to Hell, to the Hell in which I could no longer love Thee, but should hate Thee forever. Deprive me of everything -- of property, health, life; but deprive me not of Thyself. Grant that I may love Thee and praise Thee forever; and then chastise me, and do with me what Thou wilt. O Mother of God, pray to Jesus for me.
Spiritual Reading
2. -- "WHEN I WAS A LITTLE ONE I PLEASED THE MOST HIGH."
St. Thomas says that Mary was called full of grace, not on the part of grace itself, for she had it not in the highest possible degree, since even the habitual grace of Jesus Christ (according to the same holy Doctor) was not such that the absolute power of God could not have made it greater, although it was a grace sufficient for the end for which His humanity was ordained by Divine Wisdom, that is, for its union with the Person of the Eternal Word. Although Divine power could make something greater and better than the habitual grace of Christ, it could not fit it for anything greater than the personal union with the only-begotten Son of the Father, and to which union that measure of grace sufficiently corresponds, according to the limit placed by Divine Wisdom. For the same angelic Doctor teaches that the Divine power is so great that, however much it gives, it can always give more; and although the natural capacity of creatures is in itself limited as to receiving, so that it can be entirely filled, nevertheless its power to obey the Divine will is unlimited, and God can always fill it more by increasing its capacity to receive. "As far as its natural capacity goes, it can be filled; but it cannot be filled as far as its power of obeying goes." But now to return to our proposition: St. Thomas says that the Blessed Virgin was not filled with grace, as to grace itself, nevertheless she is called full of grace as to herself, for she had an immense grace, one which was sufficient, and corresponded to her immense dignity, so much so that it fitted her to be the Mother of God: "The Blessed Virgin is full of grace, not with the fulness of grace itself, for she had not grace in the highest degree of excellence in which it can be had, nor had she it as to all its effects; but she was said to be full of grace as to herself, because she had sufficient grace for that state to which she was chosen by God, that is, to be the Mother of His only-begotten Son." Hence Benedict Fernandez says that "the measure whereby we may know the greatness of the grace communicated to Mary is her dignity of Mother of God."
Evening Meditation
CONSIDERATIONS ON THE PASSION OF JESUS CHRIST
"Behold thy Son! ... Behold thy Mother!"
I.
All antiquity asserts that St. John was ever a virgin, and especially on this account was he given as a son to Mary, and honoured in being made to occupy the place of Jesus Christ; on which account the holy Church sings: "To John, a virgin, He commended His Virgin Mother." And from the moment of the Lord's death, as it is written, St. John received Mary into his own house, and assisted and obeyed her throughout her life, as if she had been his own mother. Jesus Christ willed that this beloved disciple should be an eye-witness of His death, in order that he might more confidently bear witness to it in his Gospel, and might be able to say: He that saw it hath given testimony (Jo. xix. 35). And on this account the Lord, at the time when the other disciples abandoned Him, gave St. John strength to be present until His death in the midst of so many enemies.
But let us examine more deeply the reason why Jesus called Mary woman, and not mother. By this expression He desired to show that she was the woman foretold in the Book of Genesis, who would crush the serpent's head: I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel (Gen. iii. 15). It is doubted by none that this woman was the Blessed Virgin Mary, who, by means of her Son, would crush the head of Satan -- if it be not more correct to say that her Son, by means of her who would bear Him, would do this. Naturally Mary was the enemy of the serpent, because Lucifer was haughty, ungrateful, disobedient, while she was humble, grateful, and obedient. It is said, She shall crush thy head, because Mary, by means of her Son, beat down the pride of Lucifer, who lay in wait for the heel of Jesus Christ, which means His holy humanity, which was the part of Him which was nearest to the earth; while the Saviour by His death had the glory of conquering him, and of depriving him of that empire which, through sin, he had obtained over the human race.
O suffering Mother, thou knowest that I have deserved hell; I have no hope of being saved, except by the merits of the death of Jesus Christ. Thou must pray for me, that I may obtain this grace; and I pray thee to obtain it for me by the love of that Son Whom thou sawest bow His head and expire on Calvary before thine eyes. O Queen of Martyrs, O advocate of sinners, help me always, and especially in the hour of my death!
II.
God said to the serpent: I will put enmities ... . between thy seed and her seed. This shows that after the fall of man, through sin, notwithstanding all that would be done by the Redemption of Jesus Christ, there would be two families and two posterities in the world, the children of Satan signifying the family of sinners, his children corrupted by him; and the children of Mary, signifying the holy family, which includes all the just, with their Head Jesus Christ. Hence Mary was destined to be the Mother both of the Head and of the members, namely, the faithful. The Apostle writes: Ye are all one in Christ Jesus; and if ye are Christ's, then ye are the seed of Abraham (Gal. iii. 28, 29). Thus Jesus Christ and the faithful are one single body, because the Head cannot be divided from the members, and these members are all spiritual children of Mary, as they have the same spirit of her Son according to nature, who was Jesus Christ. Therefore, St. John was not called John but the disciple beloved by the Lord, that we might understand that Mary is the Mother of every good Christian who is beloved by Jesus Christ, and in whom Jesus Christ lives by His Spirit. This was expressed by Origen: "Jesus said to Mary: Behold thy son! as if He had said: This is Jesus, whom thou hast borne, for he who is perfect lives no more himself, but Christ lives in him."
Denis the Carthusian writes that in the Passion of Jesus Christ the breast of Mary was filled with the blood which flowed from His Wounds, in order that with it she might nourish her children. And he adds that this divine Mother by her prayers and merits, which she especially acquired by sharing in the death of Jesus Christ, obtained for us a participation in the merits of the Passion of the Redeemer.
O my advocate, Mary, even now I seem to see the devils, who, in my last agony, will strive to make me despair at the sight of my sins. Oh! abandon me not then, when thou seest me thus assaulted; help me with thy prayers, and obtain for me confidence and holy perseverance. And because then, when my speech will be gone, and perhaps my senses, I shall not be able to invoke thy name and that of thy Son, I now call upon thee -- Jesus and Mary, I recommend my soul unto you!
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Archbishop Viganò praises Bishop Strickland’s pastoral letter on the Synod |
Posted by: Stone - 08-26-2023, 06:30 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Archbishop Viganò praises Bishop Strickland’s pastoral letter on the Synod
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò praised Bishop Joseph Strickland's pastoral letter criticizing the Synod on Synodality, with Viganò saying Strickland's words truly reflect his role as a 'successor of the apostles.'
Abp. Viganò & Bp. Strickland
Screenshot/Diocese of Tyler
Aug 25, 2023
TYLER, Texas (LifeSiteNews) — The former Papal Nuncio to the U.S. has given his backing to Bishop Joseph Strickland’s recent pastoral message in which Strickland warned of the dangers to the Catholic faith stemming from the “Synod on Synodality.”
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò gave public praise to Strickland, stating that “that is the way a Successor of the Apostles speaks.”
The archbishop’s comment came in light of Strickland’s recent pastoral message, released August 22 to his Diocese of Tyler, Texas.
READ: Bishop Strickland: Catholics are not ‘schismatic’ for rejecting changes that contradict Church teaching
As quoted and highlighted by Viganò, Strickland warned that Catholic desirous of adhering to Tradition may find themselves accused of being “schismatic.”
“Regrettably,” wrote Strickland, “it may be that some will label as schismatics those who disagree with the changes being proposed. Be assured, however, that no one who remains firmly upon the plumb line of our Catholic faith is a schismatic.”
“We must be aware also that it is not leaving the Church to stand firm against these proposed changes,” Strickland added. “As St. Peter said, ‘Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.’ (Jn 6:68)”
He also encouraged Catholics to remain firmly attached to the truths of the faith, stating how “standing firm does not mean we are seeking to leave the Church.”
Instead, Strickland described proponents of change and innovation as the true “schismatics,” stating that “those who would propose changes to that which cannot be changed seek to commandeer Christ’s Church, and they are indeed the true schismatics.”
Strickland outlined seven truths taught by the Catholic Church adding that “many of these truths will be examined as part of the Synod on Synodality.” They consisted of:
- The nature of the Catholic Church as the only true Church.
- The necessity to be in a state of grace to receive the Eucharist.
- The divine nature of the sacrament of Marriage, which man cannot alter or “redefine.”
- Man is created in the image and likeness of God, which does not permit for a rejection of biological reality.
- The complete immorality of sexual activity outside of marriage, which cannot be blessed or condoned by the Church at all.
- The “belief that all men and women will be saved regardless of how they live their lives” is “false and dangerous.”
- The necessity to bear sufferings in order to follow Christ and unite suffering to His redemptive death.
Notably, proponents of the Synod hit back at Strickland after he published his letter, with one of the lay Synod non-voting members Austen Ivereigh writing: “I have followed the synod docs from its launch in 2021 to the working doc for the assembly this October. *Not one* of these [seven truths] has *ever* been discussed.”
Despite Ivereigh’s claims, a number of Strickland’s list of truths have appeared in the Synod process under various forms. The first – on the nature of the Church – has been called into question by the Synod from the very start.
READ: Vatican’s Synod on Synodality will consult non-Catholics, lapsed Catholics
Pope Francis’ texts which have guided the Synod since its 2021 inception note that the Synod’s “act of discerning” entails listening to “people who have left the practice of the faith, people of other faith traditions, people of no religious belief, etc.” [sic] They also highlight the “temptation not to look beyond the visible confines of the Church” as a problem to be avoided.
The second on Strickland’s list – receiving the Holy Eucharist in a state of grace – has also been called into question by the Synod. The latest working document for the October meeting of the Synod appears to present the widely accepted, and papally approved, interpretation of Amoris Laetitiae allowing the divorced and “re-married” to receive Holy Communion as an already finalized issue.
READ: Major Synod on Synodality document highlights need to ‘welcome’ polygamists, ‘LGBTQ+ people’
The document states:
Quote:Some of the questions that emerged from the consultation of the People of God concern issues on which there is already magisterial and theological teaching to be considered. To give just two examples, we can note the acceptance of remarried divorcees, dealt with in the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia, or the inculturation of the liturgy, the subject of the Instruction Varietates legitimae (1994) of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
Furthermore, Strickland’s list identifies the dangers of accepting or tolerating gender ideology or sexual relations outside of marriage, both of which are aspects promoted by the Synod. The question of LGBT issues has been repeatedly identified in the Synod, with the current working document stating that those in need of receiving a “genuine welcome” include a number of groups such as “the divorced and remarried, people in polygamous marriages, or LGBTQ+ Catholics.”
While Strickland’s pastoral letter may not have won him support from proponents of the Synod, its reception amongst faithful Catholics continues to be a favorable one.
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YouTube to Silence Abortion Dissent in New “Misinformation” Policy |
Posted by: Stone - 08-25-2023, 07:41 AM - Forum: Abortion
- No Replies
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YouTube to Silence Abortion Dissent in New “Misinformation” Policy
C-FAM | August 24, 2023
NEW YORK, August 25 (C-Fam) YouTube’s new medical misinformation policy will censor any video that runs against the guidelines of the World Health Organization on abortion.
The policy specifically cites information about abortion among the examples of content it is targeting for censorship. According to the policy, the kinds of statements YouTube plans to censor include “claims that abortion commonly results in or carries a high risk of infertility or future miscarriage” and “claims that abortion causes breast cancer.”
Given that the examples provided in the policy are not exhaustive, many other claims discussing or raising questions about the harmful effects of abortion can be expected to be labeled as misinformation and removed by YouTube.
Dr. Garth Graham, Director of Healthcare and Public Health Partnerships at YouTube, said the policy contributes to their long-term vision to improve their “community guidelines.”
“Community guidelines” are often opaque and largely unknown to users but are widely recognized as used to eliminate conservative opinions. Despite their previous commitments to balance censoring content with allowing for public dialogue, this policy clarifies that medical debate and open discussion will only be allowed on YouTube as long as it conforms with the WHO.
WHO has a clear position on abortion, namely that it is generally a safe procedure if WHO guidelines are followed and that “lack of access to safe, timely, affordable and respectful abortion care is a critical public health and human rights issue.” By declaring that abortion is a human right, WHO makes a normative statement that YouTube could use to flag or remove content that rejects this view.
YouTube does not specify what would happen if WHO and local health authorities diverge in their interpretation or recommendation of disease prevention or treatments.
It is also not clear how the policy might affect the many personal testimonies of women who have undergone abortion and experienced complications and negative side-effects to their physical and mental health. The YouTube policy allows users to upload their personal experiences of medical conditions or treatments through the Personal Stories Shelf feature of the platform, but only so long as they do not stray from personal to more general factual statements or advocacy.
The only other exception where information contrary to WHO guidelines might be tolerated is if it is deemed to be in the “public interest”, but this is not likely to apply to personal stories as much as statements by public figures that may be politically relevant.
YouTube’s new framework represents a continuation of the same kind of content control social media platforms, including YouTube, Meta and Twitter, carried out relating to COVID-19. Meta and Twitter removed posts based on the same principle in the YouTube policy, namely, when they shared information contradicting the Center for Disease and Control (CDC) or WHO guidelines and is judged capable of “producing harm.” and, if disseminated, were thought to produce harm.
Over the past three years, many “dangerous” posts that were taken down or flagged by social media companies under these content moderation policies proved to be true or at least presented valid public concerns or scientific questions.
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Fr. Joseph Clifford Fenton: Sacrorum Antistitum and the Background of the Oath Against Modernism |
Posted by: Stone - 08-25-2023, 07:03 AM - Forum: In Defense of Tradition
- No Replies
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Sacrorum Antistitum and the Background of the Oath Against Modernism
DESCRIPTION
This document provides a translation and explanation of the introduction and conclusion of the Motu Proprio Sacrorum Antistitum, one of the main anti-Modernist pronouncements issued by the Holy See during the reign of Pius X.
LARGER WORK
The American Ecclesiastical Review
PAGES
239-260
PUBLISHER & DATE
The Catholic University of America Press, October 1960
September 1 of this year marked the fiftieth anniversary of the last, and in some ways the most important, of the three main anti-Modernist pronouncements issued by the Holy See during the brilliant reign of St. Pius X. This document was the Motu proprio Sacrorum antistitum. The other two basic anti-Modernist documents are, of course, the Holy Office decree Lamentabili sane exitu, dated July 3, 1907, and the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis, issued September 8 of that same year.
The Sacrorum antistitum is best known because it contains the text of the famous anti-Modernist oath and the rules prescribing when and by whom this oath is to be taken. Because of the tremendous intrinsic importance of the oath itself and by reason of its function in the doctrinal life of the Catholic Church, the papal document containing this oath definitely deserves serious study by the present generation of theologians. The Sacrorum antistitum brings out the basic objectives, which the saintly Pius X hoped to attain through the taking of the oath. These objectives, which are also the ends St. Pius X worked to achieve through the writing of the Motu proprio itself, are expressed very clearly in the introduction and in the conclusion to this document.
Since the entire text of the Sacrorum antistitum is not very generally available here and now, it will be helpful to see a translation of its most important parts, including the introduction and conclusion. The following is a translation of the introduction to this Motu proprio.
The Introduction
We believe that no bishop is ignorant of the fact that the wily Modernists have not abandoned their plans for disturbing the peace of the Church since they were unmasked by the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis. For they have not ceased to seek out new recruits and to gather them into a secret alliance. Nor have they ceased, along with their new associates, to inject the poison of their own teachings into the veins of the Christian body-politic by turning out anonymous or pseudonymous books and articles. If, after a re-reading of the above-mentioned encyclical Pascendi, this audacity, which has caused Us so much grief, be considered very carefully, it will become quite apparent that these men are just as the encyclical describes them: enemies who are all the more to be feared by reason of their very nearness to us. They are men who pervert their ministry in such a way as to bait their hooks with poisoned meat in order to catch the unwary. They carry with them a form of doctrine in which the summary of all errors is contained.
While this plague is spreading abroad over that very part of the Lord's field from which the best fruits might be expected, it is the duty of all Bishops to exert themselves in defence of the Catholic faith and most diligently to see to it that the integrity of the divine deposit suffers no loss. Likewise it is most definitely Our duty to obey the commands of Christ the Saviour, who gave to Peter, to whose position of authority We, though unworthy, have succeeded, the order: "Confirm thy brethren." Thus, so that the souls of the good may be strengthened in the present struggle, We have considered it opportune to repeat the following statements and commands of the encyclical Pascendi. 1
The last words of this introduction to the Sacrorum antistitum show that the first section of the body of this Motu proprio is a long citation from the disciplinary part of the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis. To this citation is attached an appendix, having to do with legislation concerning seminaries. The second part of the body of the text of the Sacrorum antistitum contains the text of the anti-Modernist oath, together with the rules prescribing when and by whom his oath is to be taken, and the other directives, which accompanied the command to take the oath. The third section is merely a statement in Latin of a text on preaching, originally issued in Italian, on the orders of Pope Leo XIII, by the Congregation of Bishops and of Regulars, on July 31, 1894.
The introduction to the Sacrorum antistitum contains some badly needed lessons for the priests of our own time. Incidentally it contains some reminders of truths in the theological and in the historical orders, which are far too seldom insisted upon today. It will, in my judgment, be definitely helpful to take cognizance of some of these truths at this time.
(1) Basically the Sacrorum antistitum and the anti-Modernist oath it contains were intended by St. Pius X as works he was required to perform in order to carry out his own divinely imposed responsibility to confirm the faith of his fellow members of the Catholic Church and to strengthen the efforts of the Bishops to see to it that their flocks received the divinely revealed message in all its integrity and purity.
For the sake of both fidelity to revealed teaching and of historical veracity, it is absolutely imperative that our contemporary Catholic scholars take cognizance of the truth of St. Pius X's claim about his intention. Actually the responsibility, which St. Pius X had assumed when he accepted the burden of the papacy, demanded that he take the most effective means at his disposal to protect the faith of Catholics. Quite obviously the greatest danger to the faith of the members of the true Church of Jesus Christ exists when some members of this Church actually teach or even show sympathy for doctrine contradictory to or incompatible with the body of Catholic dogma without receiving any reproof from those whom God has commissioned and obligated to protect the purity and the integrity of the Catholic faith.
St. Pius X was acutely conscious of the fact that many influential Catholics were teaching or encouraging erroneous doctrines opposed to the divinely revealed Catholic message long after those erroneous doctrines had been pointed out and condemned by the highest teaching authority within the Church. And the saintly Pope was brilliant enough to realize that, unless he took some sort of drastic action, a great number of Catholics might be persuaded to imagine that de facto the Church at least tacitly tolerated the doctrinal deviations of the Modernists and their sympathizers. Thus he directed the severe commands of the Sacrorum antistitum towards the protection of the Catholic faith that was his most important responsibility as the Vicar of Christ on earth.
It was and it still is the contention of the Modernists, together with their sympathizers and their dupes, that St. Pius X in some way or another went beyond the bounds imposed by prudence and charity in the war he waged against the heresy of Modernism. As a matter of fact, even after the regular investigations involved in the process of his beatification had been completed, the Sacred Congregation of Rites considered it best to commission its historical section to conduct a special investigation into the validity of this particular contention. This strict investigation, which made use of all available testimony and of the very abundant documentary material pertinent to the question, brought out very clearly the fact that St. Pius X, in issuing the Sacrorum antistitum and in taking the other steps against the Modernists and their supporters during the latter days of his pontificate, had been doing only what the demands of his high office demanded of him. 2
One of the most striking indications of this is to be found in a well-known statement attributed to Pope Benedict XV. The Disquisitio of the Historical Section of the Sacred Congregation of Rites reprints this statement in a part of the testimony offered by Msgr. Hoenning-O'Carroll in the course of the inquiry into the virtues of Pius X held in Venice.
Quote:Particularly his [Pius X's] political dealings with France and the steps he took against Modernism were attacked as imprudent and exaggerated . . . When Father Mauro Serafini was having an audience with Pope Benedict XV, the Pope said to him: "Now that I am sitting on this Chair, I see very well how right Pius X was. While I was the Sostituto in the Secretariate of State, and even while I was Archbishop of Bologna, I did not always share the thought of Pius X, but now I have to realize how right he was." 3
Monsignor Hoenning-O'Carroll testified that he learned of this statement of Pope Benedict XV from Monsignor Pescini. Despite the fact that this particular witness knew the story only through hearsay, the statement itself seems very well attested. It seems to reflect the mind of Pope Benedict XV.
In any event there is ample and compelling evidence that the Sacrorum antistitum and the other anti-Modernistic documents issued by St. Pius X were actually called for and really required by reason of the danger to the Catholic faith which had been caused by the activity of the Modernists, their sympathizers, and their dupes, within the true Church of Jesus Christ.
(2) At the time the Sacrorum antistitum was being written, the integrity of the Catholic faith itself was being seriously threatened. Within the Catholic Church itself a definite and formidable effort was being made to persuade members of the true Church to reject as antiquated and outdated certain teachings, which were actually presented by the Church's magisterium as belonging to the deposit of divine public revelation. This effort was being made by the Modernists, most of whom were members of the Catholic Church. The teachings, which these men had attempted to impose upon the Church had been specifically and authoritatively condemned by the Holy See three years before the Sacrorum antistitum was issued.
Thus it is immensely important to realize that the teachings against which the Sacrorum antistitum was directed were being put forward by an obdurate group of men whose heresies had been indicated, denounced, and condemned three years before this Motu proprio was written. This, incidentally, is quite at variance with the unhistorical statements of some contemporary sympathizers with Modernism and the Modernists. Writers of this sort have tried to delude their fellow Catholics into imagining that, upon the appearance of the Lamentabili sane exitu and the Pascendi dominici gregis, most of the men who had been teaching and defending the doctrines condemned in these two documents quickly and humbly submitted to the teaching authority of the Holy See. The text of the Sacrorum antistitum, and also, be it noted, the text of the Ad beatissimi, the inaugural encyclical of Pope Benedict XV, show that no such reaction took place. 4 The well defined group which had been proposing and favoring the propositions condemned in the Lamentabili and in the Pascendi insolently continued to work for acceptance of their errors within the Church even after St. Pius X had denounced and condemned them.
(3) In the Sacrorum antistitum St. Pius X speaks out very clearly of the existence of a secret alliance or a foedus clandestinum among the Modernists of his day. For one reason or another, this truth, observed and stated by St. Pius X, and clearly evident to any person who takes the trouble to study the history of the Modernist movement, has always been singularly distasteful to sympathizers with Modernism and with the Modernists. It seems to have been precisely in order to cause confusion on this particular point that the men who have been partial to the Modernists have gone to such extreme lengths to delude people into imagining that the opposition to Loisy, Von Hugel, and their ilk within the Catholic Church was fundamentally the work of a secret alliance of sinister and reactionary Catholics. It would certainly appear that the ridiculous and mendacious propaganda directed against the Sodalitium Pianum and against Monsignor Umberto Benigni, even over the course of the past few years, 5 can best be explained as an attempt to cover up the fact that there was a foedus clandestinum connected with and inherent in the Modernist movement.
(4) The introduction to the Sacrorum antistitum takes cognizance of the fact that most of the genuinely dangerous supporters of the Modernist movement, the men against whose efforts the Sacrorum antistitum and its commands were particularly directed, were priests active within the Catholic Church itself. St. Pius X took cognizance of the fact that such priests were actually perverting their own ministry. They were guilty of using their priestly power and their priestly position to counter, rather than to advance, the work of Jesus Christ Our Lord.
Basically the work of the priesthood is directed towards the glory of God, which is to be achieved and obtained in the salvation of souls. This objective is to be obtained only by those who pass from this life living the life of sanctifying grace. And the life of sanctifying grace cannot exist apart from the truth faith, until such time as the faith itself is replaced by the Beatific Vision. Thus the priestly ministry in the true Church of Jesus Christ necessarily seeks to induce men to accept God's supernatural teaching with the certain assent of divine faith and works to increase the perfection and the intensity of the faith in those who already possess this virtue. Hence any effort on the part of a Catholic priest to influence people to reject or to pass over a truth revealed by God and proposed as such by the Church's magisterium definitely constitutes a perversion of the sacerdotal ministry.
(5)St. Pius X describes the Modernists as men "who are all the more to be feared by reason of their very nearness to us." It would be difficult indeed to appreciate the position of the Church in the twentieth century without realizing the objectivity and the shrewdness of this observation.
A man is to be feared by the Church, or by the members of the Church, in the measure that this man intends and is genuinely able to harm the Church, or to counteract and negate the salvific mission of Our Lord's Mystical Body in this world. And this happens especially when non-members of the Church are influenced not to accept its divine message and not to seek entrance into this society, and when members of the Church are pressured to reject Our Lord, or His love, or His divine teaching. It is most important to remember that the only real and serious damage to the cause of Christ is done when effective efforts are made to nullify and to counteract the work the Church does as the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ Our Lord.
With its insistence that the Modernists and their sympathizers were "enemies who are all the more to be feared by reason of their very nearness to us," the introduction to the Sacrorum antistitum takes cognizance of the fact that, during our own times at least, non-members of the Church have, generally speaking, not been able to damage the Church to any very considerable extent. Quite obviously, despite their manifest and intense ill will, people like those who used to be associated with the old Menace and the Ku Klux Klan, and those who are now associated with groups like P. . . U, are not particularly formidable adversaries of Our Lord, His Church, or His message. They have certainly helped to stir up and further to envenom antipathy towards the Catholic Church on the part of ignorant non-Catholics who were previously ill disposed towards the Church. But it would hardly seem likely that any Catholic has ever been turned against Christ or against the Church's divinely revealed message as a result of anything that has ever been said or written by these rabble-rousers. And it seems highly unlikely that any individual has been excluded from the Beatific Vision by reason of anything he has said or done by reason of their influence.
On the other hand, no one has ever been as well placed to harm the true Church and to counteract its essential work as a Catholic priest in good standing. If such a man, by his preaching, his teaching, or his writing, actually sets forth the kind of teaching condemned in the Lamentabili sane exitu and in the Pascendi dominici gregis, or if he works to discredit the loyal defenders of Catholic dogma without receiving any repudiation or reproof from those to whom the apostolic deposit of divine revelation has been entrusted, the Catholic people are in grave danger of being deceived.
The Modernists and their most influential sympathizers were, in great part, drawn from the ranks of the Catholic clergy. Thus they were, in the words of the introduction to the Sacrorum antistitum, the "enemies who are all the more to be feared by reason of their very nearness to us." These Catholics who taught or favored Modernism were the men whose influence within the true Church of Jesus Christ St. Pius X sought to counter by the teaching and the directives contained in the Sacrorum antistitum.
(6) Finally, in the introduction to this famous Motu proprio, St. Pius X makes it very clear indeed that the Bishops of the Catholic Church were bound in conscience by the obligations of their office to act energetically against this teaching that contradicted the divinely revealed truth proposed as such by the true Church. The "defence of the Catholic faith" and strenuous efforts "to see to it that the integrity of the divine deposit suffers no loss" are definitely not works of supererogation. These are the duties prescribed by Our Lord Himself for the leaders of the Church, which He has purchased by His blood.
The Conclusion To The Sacrorum Antistitum
The conclusion to this document, the last of the three great anti-Modernist declarations issued by the Holy See during the reign of St. Pius X, is even more enlightening than the introduction. In this we see how St. Pius X enunciated, more clearly than in any other document, the most fundamental position of the Modernists. The text of this conclusion follows:
Quote:Moved by the seriousness of the evil that is increasing every day, an evil, which We cannot put off confronting without the most grave danger, We have decided to issue and to repeat these commands. For it is no longer a case, as it was in the beginning, of dealing with disputants who come forward in the clothing of sheep. Now we are faced with open and bitter enemies from within our own household, who, in agreement with the outstanding" opponents of the Church, are working for the overthrow of the faith. They are men whose audacity against the wisdom that has come down from heaven increases daily. They arrogate to themselves the right to correct this revealed wisdom as if it were something corrupt, to renew it as if it were something that had become obsolete, to improve it and to adapt it to the dictates, the progress, and the comfort of the age as if it had been opposed to the good of society and not merely opposed to the levity of a few men.
To counter such attempts against the evangelical doctrine and the ecclesiastical tradition, there will never be sufficient vigilance or too much severity on the part of those to whom the faithful care of the sacred deposit has been entrusted. 6
In this conclusion to the Sacrorum antistitum, St. Pius X expressly recognizes the fact that the Modernists and their sympathizers, the anti-anti-Modernists, were actually working, in agreement with the most-bitter enemies of the Catholic Church, for the destruction of the Catholic faith. It is interesting and highly important to note exactly what St. Pius X said. He definitely did not claim that these men were working directly to destroy the Church as a society. It is quite obvious that, given the intimate connection between the Church and the faith, a connection so close and perfect that the Church itself may be defined as the congregatio fidelium, the repudiation of the Catholic faith would inevitably lead to the dissolution of the Church. Yet, for the Modernists and for those who co-operated in their work, the immediate object of attack was always the faith itself. These individuals were perfectly willing that the Catholic Church should continue to exist as a religious society, as long as it did not insist upon the acceptance of that message which, all during the course of the previous centuries of its existence, it had proposed as a message supernaturally revealed by the Lord and Creator of heaven and earth. They were willing and even anxious to retain their membership in the Catholic Church, as long as they were not obliged to accept on the authority of divine faith such unfashionable dogmas as, for example, the truth that there is truly no salvation outside of the Church.
What these men were really working for was the transformation of the Catholic Church into an essentially non-doctrinal religious body. They considered that their era would be willing to accept the Church as a kind of humanitarian institution, vaguely religious, tastefully patriotic, and eminently cultural. And they definitely intended to tailor the Church to fit the needs and the tastes of their own era.
It must be understood, of course, that the Modernists and the men who aided their efforts did not expect the Catholic Church to repudiate its age-old formulas of belief. They did not want the Church to reject or to abandon the ancient creeds, or even any of those formularies in which the necessity of the faith and the necessity of the Church are so firmly and decisively stated. What they sought was a declaration on the part of the Church's magisterium to the effect that these old formulas did not, during the first decade of the twentieth century, carry the same meaning for the believing Catholic that they had carried when these formulas had first been drawn up. Or, in other words, they sought to force or to delude the teaching authority of Christ's Church into coming out with the fatally erroneous proposition that what is accepted by divine faith in this century is objectively something different from what was believed in the Catholic Church on the authority of God revealing in previous times.
Thus the basic objective of Modernism was to reject the fact that, when he sets forth Catholic dogma, the Catholic teacher is acting precisely as an ambassador of Christ. The Modernists were men who were never quite able to grasp or to accept the truth that the teaching of the Catholic Church is, as the First Vatican Council designated the content of the Constitution Dei Films, actually "the salutary doctrine of Christ," and not merely some kind of doctrine, which has developed out of that teaching. And, in the final analysis, the position of the Modernists constituted the ultimate repudiation of the Catholic faith. If the teaching proposed by the Church as dogma is not actually and really the doctrine supernaturally revealed by God through Jesus Christ Our Lord, through the Prophets of the Old Testament who were His heralds, or through the Apostles who were His witnesses, then there could be nothing more pitifully inane than the work of the Catholic magisterium.
It is interesting to note the parallel between what St. Pius X says about the intentions of the Modernists and what his great predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, had to say about the basic premise of the errors he pointed out and condemned in his famed letter, the Testem benevolentiae. St. Pius X declares that the Modernists "arrogate to themselves the right to correct this revealed wisdom as if it were something corrupt, to renew it as if it were something that had become obsolete, to improve it and to adapt it to the dictates, the progress, and the comfort of the age as if it had been opposed to the good of society and not merely opposed to the levity of a few men." And Pope Leo XIII states:
Quote:The principles on which the new opinions We have mentioned are based may be reduced to this: that in order the more easily to bring over to Catholic doctrine those who dissent from it, the Church ought to adapt herself somewhat to our advanced civilization, and, relaxing her ancient rigor, show some indulgence to modern theories and methods. Many think that this is to be understood not only with regard to the rule of life, but also to the doctrines in which the deposit of faith is contained. For they contend that it is opportune, in order to work in a more attractive way upon the wills of those who are not in accord with us, to pass over certain heads of doctrines, as if of lesser moment, or so to soften them that they may not have the same meaning which the Church has invariably held. 7
Thus, when we examine the actual texts of the Testimonium benevolentiae and of the Sacrorum antistitum, it becomes quite apparent that Pope Leo XIII and St. Pius X were engaged in combating doctrinal deviations that actually sprang from an identical principle, the fantastically erroneous assumption that the supernatural communication of the Triune God could and should be brought up to date and given a certain respectability before modern society. The men who sustained the weird teachings condemned by Pope Leo XIII, a document, which, incidentally, did not denounce any mere phantom body of doctrine, and the men who taught and protected the doctrinal monstrosities stigmatized in the Lamentabili sane exitu and in the Pascendi dominici gregis, based their errors on a common foundation. The false Americanism and the heresy of Modernism were both offshoots of doctrinal liberal Catholicism.
This belief that the meaning of the Church's dogmatic message was in some way subject to change and capable of being improved and brought up to date was definitely not an explicit part of the original or the more naive stage of the liberal Catholic movement. The first components of liberal Catholicism, during the earlier days of the unfortunate Felicite De Lamenais, were religious indifferentism, some false concepts of human freedom, and the advocacy of a separation of Church and state as the ideal situation in a nation made up of members of the true Church. But, after these teachings had been forcefully repudiated by Pope Gregory XVI in his encyclical Mirari vos arbitramur, a new set of factors entered into this system. These were inserted into the fabric of liberal Catholicism because the leaders of this movement persisted in defending as legitimate Catholic doctrine this teaching, which had been clearly and vigorously condemned by the supreme power of the Catholic magisterium. Most prominent among these newer components of liberal Catholicism were minimism, doctrinal subjectivism, and an insistence that there had been and that there had to be at least some sort of change in the objective meaning of the Church's dogmatic message over the course of the centuries. 8
The liberal Catholic since the time of Montalembert has been well aware of the fact that the basic theses he proposes as acceptable Catholic doctrine have been specifically and vehemently repudiated by the doctrinal authority of the Roman Church. If he is to continue to propose these teachings as a member of the Church, he is obliged by the very force of self-consistency to claim that the declarations of the magisterium, which condemned his favorite theses do not at this moment mean objectively what they meant at the time they were issued. And, if such a claim is advanced about the Mirari vos arbitramur, there is very little to prevent its being put forward on the subject of the Athanasian Creed. Pope Leo XIII and St. Pius X were well aware of the fact that the advocates of the false Americanism and the teachers and the protectors of the Modernist heresy were employing this same discredited tactic.
This common basis of the false doctrinal Americanism and of the Modernist heresy is, like doctrinal indifferentism itself, ultimately a rejection of Catholic dogma as a genuine supernatural message or communication from the living God Himself. It would seem impossible for anyone to be blasphemous or silly enough to be convinced, on the one hand, that the dogmatic message of the Catholic Church is actually a locutio Dei ad homines, and to imagine, on the other hand, that he, a mere creature, could in some way improve that teaching or make it more respectable. The very fact that a man would be so rash as to attempt to bring the dogma of the Church up to date, or to make it more acceptable to those who are not privileged to be members of the true Church, indicates that this individual is not actually and profoundly convinced that this dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church is a supernatural communication from the living and Triune God, the Lord and Creator of heaven and earth. It would be the height of blasphemy knowingly to set out to improve or to bring up to date what one would seriously consider a genuine message from the First Cause of the universe.
The conclusion to the Sacrorum antistitum brings out more clearly than any other statement of the Holy See the fact that Modernism sprang from the same basic principle, as did the false Americanism pointed out and proscribed in the Testem benevolentiae of Pope Leo XIII.
The Immediate Context Of The Oath In The Sacrorum Antistitum
The main body of the first section of the Sacrorum antistitum is substantially a repetition of the legislative or disciplinary portion of the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis. To this, however, in the text of the Sacrorum antistitum, is added an expression of the saintly Pontiff's concern for seminaries, ending with the vigorous command that henceforth the reading of "diaria quaevis aut commentaria, quantumvis optima" was strictly forbidden to seminarians "onerata moderatorum conscientia qui ne id accidat religiose non caverint." 9
The second section of the Sacrorum antistitum, the one which contains and which deals with the Oath against Modernism, follows immediately after the statement of the prohibition of the reading of newspapers by seminarians. The first part of this section is of particular importance in that it shows very clearly the effect, which St. Pius X wished to produce through the taking of the oath. The section begins as follows:
Quote:But in order to do away with all suspicion that Modernism may secretly enter in [to the seminaries], not only do We will that the commands listed under n. 2 above be obeyed absolutely, but We also order that all teachers, before their first lectures at the beginning of the scholastic year, must show to their Bishop the text which each shall decide to use in teaching, or the questions or theses that are to be treated, and that furthermore throughout the year itself the kind of teaching of each course be examined, and that if such teaching be found to run counter to sound doctrine, that this will result in the immediate dismissal of the teacher. Finally [We will] that over and above the profession of faith [the teacher] should take an oath before his Bishop, according to the formula that follows, and that he should sign his name. 10
The Sacrorum antistitum goes on to say that the profession of faith shall be that prescribed by Pope Pius IV, together with the additions, relative to the First Vatican Council, prescribed by the Decree of Jan. 20, 1877. And it likewise indicates the Church officials other than professors in seminaries who are bound by law to take the Oath.
Actually, then, in the immediate context of the Sacrorum antistitum, the command that seminary professors take Oath against Modernism stands out as one of four orders directed towards the prevention of the entrance of Modernism into ecclesiastical seminaries. These four directives are:
(1) the strict carrying out of the legislation set down under n. 2 of the first section of the Sacrorum antistitum,
(2) the submission by individual seminary professors to their Bishops at the beginning of the scholastic year of the textbooks they are going to use and of the theses they are going to propound,
(3) the investigation (obviously by the competent and proper ecclesiastical authority), of the teaching offered in the various courses being given to the seminarians, and finally
(4) the making of the Tridentine-Vatican profession of faith and the taking of the Oath against Modernism. The teacher is to sign his name to the Oath he has taken. The context would seem to indicate that it was the mind of St. Pius X that this Oath should be taken every year at the beginning of the academic term.
All of the other operations, including the taking of the Oath against Modernism, are subordinated to a certain extent to the legislation set down in the second sub-section of the first part of the Sacrorum antistitum. This sub-section, it must be remembered, is part of the text of the Sacrorum antistitum, which is simply reproduced from the disciplinary portion of the Pascendi dominici gregis. The pertinent sub-section follows:
Quote:All these prescriptions, both Our own and those of Our predecessor, are to be kept in view whenever there is a question of choosing directors and teachers for seminaries and for Catholic universities. Anyone who in any way is found to be tainted with Modernism is to be excluded without compunction from these offices, whether of administration or of teaching, and those who already occupy such offices are to be removed. The same policy is to be followed with regard to those who openly or secretly lend support to Modernism, either by praising the Modernists and excusing their culpable conduct, or by carping at scholasticism, and the Fathers, and the magisterium of the Church, or by refusing obedience to ecclesiastical authority in any of its depositaries; and with regard to those who manifest a love of novelty in history, archeology, and biblical exegesis; and finally with regard to those who neglect the sacred sciences or appear to prefer the secular [sciences] to them. On this entire subject, Venerable Brethren, and especially with regard to the choice of teachers, you cannot be too watchful or too careful, for as a rule the students are modeled according to the pattern of their teachers. Strong in the consciousness of your duty, act always in this matter with prudence and with vigor.
Equal diligence and severity are to be used in examining and selecting candidates for Holy Orders. Far, far from the clergy be the love of novelty! God hates the proud and the obstinate mind. In the future the doctorate in theology or in canon law must never be conferred on anyone who has not first of all made the regular course in scholastic philosophy. If such a doctorate be conferred, it is to be held as null and void. The rules laid down in 1896 by the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars for the clerics of Italy, both secular and regular, about the frequenting of universities, We now decree to be extended to all nations. Clerics and priests inscribed in a Catholic institute or university must not in the future follow in civil universities those courses for which there are chairs in the Catholic institutes to which they belong. If this has been permitted anywhere in the past, We order that it shall not be allowed in the future. Let the Bishops who form the governing boards of such institutes or universities see to it with all care that these Our commands be constantly observed. 11
There can be no doubt whatsoever about the severity of the directives which are, in the text of the Sacrorum antistitum, immediately associated with the command that teachers in seminaries and in the ecclesiastical schools of Catholic universities take the Oath against Modernism, which appeared for the first time in that document. St. Pius X ordered that those who taught the errors condemned in the Lamentabili sane exitu and in the Pascendi dominici gregis should be dropped from any position on the administrative or on the teaching staff of any seminary or Catholic university, and that men who held such views must not, under any conditions whatsoever, be considered as prospects for membership in the administrations or in the professional corps of such institutions. Furthermore he ordered that the sympathizers with Modernism should be treated in exactly the same fashion. It is quite obvious that, in speaking of lovers of "novelties," the saintly Pontiff meant people who favored these propositions condemned by the Church and designated as Modernism.
Then there were other directives. It was decreed that the doctorate in sacred theology and in canon law must never, in the future, be conferred on any person who had not taken a regular course in scholastic philosophy. Furthermore, St. Pius X ordered that priests connected with Catholic institutions of higher learning must not, in the future, take in non-Catholic institutions of higher studies courses, which were being given in the schools with which they themselves were connected.
All of these directives went against the liberal Catholic spirit, of which Modernism was the outstanding expression. All of them were likewise unpopular, as calculated to arouse the antagonism of the enemies who attacked the Church from the outside. All of them were duly denounced and regretted as obscurantist. Catholics of mediocre intellectual attainments attracted praise to themselves for their disloyalty to Our Lord's cause and to His Church, which was manifested in their disdainful reactions against these commands of Christ's Vicar on earth. Yet certainly and incontrovertibly the cause of Christ, the cause of truth, the cause of the Catholic faith, benefited to the extent that these rigorous directives were carried out.
It must definitely be understood that the most rigorous and the most important of these directives set forth in the disciplinary part of the Pascendi dominici gregis, and afterwards in the Sacrorum antistitum, are expressions of what we may call the natural law of the supernatural order. In other words, the obligation of the individual Bishop to exclude Modernists and sympathizers with Modernism from the administrations and from the professorial staffs of seminaries and of Catholic universities definitely did not begin with the first promulgation of this law by St. Pius X. Given the position and the obligation of the Bishop within the true Church of Jesus Christ, and given the nature and the necessity of the Catholic faith, it is always the clear duty of the Bishop to exclude from the dignity of teaching in the Church in any position under his control any individual who will teach or favor the contradiction of the divinely revealed message. Modernism was and is such a contradiction. Thus it was and always will necessarily remain the duty of the Bishop to see to it that any individual who teaches or who supports Modernism in any way be excluded from any co-operation in the apostolic task of teaching the divine message of Jesus Christ within His Church.
In issuing this decree, St. Pius X was taking cognizance of the basic truth about the teaching work in the Church, which was afterwards brought out so clearly by Pope Pius XII in his allocution Si diligis. This document brings out more clearly than any other in recent years the tremendous responsibility of the Bishop in the field of teaching the divine message.
Quote:Christ Our Lord entrusted the truth, which He had brought from heaven to the Apostles, and through them to their successors. He sent His Apostles, as He had been sent by the Father, (John, 20:21), to teach all nations everything they had heard from Him (cf. Matt., 28:19 f.). The Apostles are, therefore by divine right the true doctors and teachers in the Church. Besides the lawful successors of the Apostles, namely the Roman Pontiff for the universal Church and the Bishops for the faithful entrusted to their care (cf. can. 1326), there are no other teachers divinely constituted in the Church of Christ. But both the Bishops and, first of all, the Supreme Teacher and Vicar of Christ on earth, may associate others with themselves in their work as teacher, and may use their advice. They delegate to them the faculty to teach, either by special grant, or by conferring an office to which this faculty is attached (cf. can. 1328). Those who are so called teach, not in their own name, nor by reason of their theological knowledge, but by reason of the mandate they have received from the lawful Teaching Authority. Their faculty always remains subject to that Authority, nor is it ever exercised in its own right or independently. Bishops, for their part, by conferring this faculty, are not deprived of the right to teach. They retain the very grave obligation of supervising the doctrine, which others propose, in order to help them and of seeing to its integrity and security. Therefore the legitimate Teaching Authority of the Church is guilty of no injury or no offence to any of those to whom it has given a canonical mission, if it desires to ascertain what they, to whom it has entrusted the mission of teaching, are proposing and defending in their lectures, in books, notes, and reviews intended for the use of their students, as well as in books and other publications intended for the general public. 12
In the Si diligis, Pope Pius XII explains the directives issued by St. Pius X in the Pascendi and in the Sacrorum antistitum. The members of the apostolic hierarchy of jurisdiction, the Pope and the residential Bishops throughout the world are responsible before God Himself for the teaching in the Catholic Church. All the legitimate teaching in the Church is issued by them or under their direction. They have full responsibility and full competence to see to it that the faithful of Christ receive His message in all of its purity and integrity. Naturally if they themselves contradict, or transform, or withhold any portion of the revealed truth, which has been entrusted to them, they will have been recreant to the commission they have received from Our Lord Himself. And, in precisely the same way, they are being disloyal to Our Lord if they allow those whom they use as helpers in the teaching work within the Church to deny or to adulterate any of the divinely revealed doctrines.
The power and the dignity of the apostolic Catholic hierarchy in the field of dogmatic teaching are beyond comparison. But with that dignity and with that authority goes the gravest responsibility which human beings are called upon to assume. The directives, which, in the Sacrorum antistitum, form the immediate context of the command to take the Oath against Modernism, simply take cognizance of these basic and most important facts.
In the final analysis, they are founded upon an awareness of the tremendous and vital necessity of the divine faith itself. St. Pius X directed that all professors or directors of seminaries and of Catholic universities, who taught or showed sympathy with the doctrines condemned as Modernism, should be removed from their positions, and commanded that such individuals should not be brought into such positions in the future. This order, as is quite obvious, is simply a statement of what is actually required by the constitution of the Catholic Church itself. The same obligation would have been incumbent on the Bishops of the Catholic Church even if St. Pius X had not spoken out and issued these directives.
The Sacrorum antistitum, however, goes even further. It demands that the individual teachers in seminaries and in Catholic universities submit to their Bishops the name of the textbook they intend to follow or the list of theses they intend to teach and defend in their academic lectures. Furthermore it insists that the Bishops themselves take care, during the course of the academic year, to find out exactly what is being taught in the various classes in the Catholic institutes of higher learning under their direction. And then, in order to bring out this obligation for doctrinal orthodoxy in the clearest possible way, the Sacrorum antistitum orders these teachers to make the Profession of Faith of the Council of Trent and of the First Vatican Council, and to take and sign their names to the special Oath composed by St. Pius X precisely to repudiate and to condemn the central teachings of the Modernist movement.
With this salutary severity with reference to the teachers and directors of ecclesiastical seminaries and of Catholic universities, the Sacrorum antistitum likewise contains strict directives about the candidates for Holy Orders. Men who hold Modernistic teachings or who are sympathetic towards the Modernists are not to be ordained. With his intense awareness of the pastoral mission of the Catholic priesthood, St. Pius X was all too cognizant of the harm that could and inevitably would come to the Catholic Church from a priest who would be willing to pervert his position by working against the divinely revealed teaching of Jesus Christ.
The Oath Itself
Against the background of the Sacrorum antistitum, then, the Oath against Modernism appears as something intended primarily for teachers in and directors of ecclesiastical seminaries and Catholic universities. Other dignitaries of the Catholic Church are ordered to take this Oath, along with the Tridentine Profession of the Faith. But it is something intended primarily and immediately for those who are called upon to teach or to direct candidates for Holy Orders.
Thus the Oath itself is constituted as a Profession of the Catholic belief. The man who takes this Oath makes his solemn declaration in the sight of God Himself that he firmly accepts and receives all the teachings and each individual one of the teachings "that have been defined, asserted, and declared by the infallible magisterium of the Church, especially those points of doctrine which are directly opposed to the errors of this time." 13 The most important and influential of these "errors of this time" are clearly pointed out in the formula, and the man who takes the Oath calls upon God as His Witness that he rejects these false judgments and firmly accepts the statements of Catholic doctrine opposed to them. St. Pius X ordered that the professors and administrators in seminaries and in Catholic universities sign their names to the formula of the Oath after they had taken it. Thus it would be difficult to find or even to conceive of a more effective measure for the protection of candidates for Holy Orders from the infection of Modernism than that constituted by St. Pius X in his legislation about the Oath in the Sacrorum antistitum. The man who taught or in any way aided in the dissemination or the protection of Modernistic teachings in a seminary or in a Catholic university after the issuance of the Sacrorum antistitum would mark himself, not only as a sinner against the Catholic faith, but also as a common perjurer.
Incidentally, the Oath against Modernism contained in the Sacrorum antistitum is something, which demands a certain amount of knowledge in the man who takes it seriously and religiously. We must not allow ourselves to forget that essentially an oath is an act of religion, an act in which we worship almighty God or manifest our acknowledgement of His supreme excellence and of our own complete and absolute dependence upon Him. 14 Thus an oath is definitely not something that can be taken lightly. And the man who takes the Oath against Modernism calls upon God to witness that he reverently submits and whole-heartedly assents "to all the condemnations, the declarations, and the commands which are contained in the encyclical Pascendi and in the decree Lamentabili, especially to those that relate to what they call the history of dogmas." 15 It would seem to be irreverent indeed for any seminary or university professor to take this oath without knowing exactly what is condemned, what is taught, and what is commanded in these two tremendously important documents. It is quite obvious that some of the doctrines and directives contained in the Pascendi and in the Lamentabili are also brought out in the Oath against Modernism. But it is equally clear that not all of these teachings and precepts of the two 1907 documents are set forth in the Oath, and that the man who wishes to take the Oath as a religious act, to take it worthily, must exert himself to find out exactly and in detail what he is promising to accept and to believe. And it is patent that the man who does not take the time and the trouble to find out what is taught and what is commanded in the Pascendi and in the Lamentabili is being somewhat careless in calling upon the living God to witness that he will whole-heartedly abide by the doctrines and the directives contained in these two statements.
Recapitulation
The Oath against Modernism is undoubtedly, up until now, the most important and the most influential document issued by the Holy See during the course of the twentieth century.[/color] It is a magnificent statement of Catholic truth, in the face of the errors, which were being disseminated within the Church by the cleverest enemies the Mystical Body of Christ has encountered in the course of its history. It was a profession of Catholic belief intended primarily for those engaged in the spiritual and intellectual formation of candidates for Holy Orders. According to the strict command of the Sacrorum antistitum, the men for whom the Oath against Modernism was primarily intended were also obliged to show their Bishops, at the beginning of each academic year, the textbooks they were employing in class, and the theses they intended to teach and to defend. The Bishops themselves were not only reminded of their obligation, but were strictly commanded to watch over the teaching being given in the institutions of higher learning under their direction and control.
The Bishops were also commanded to see to it that no man tainted with Modernism, either as a teacher of the errors condemned in the Lamentabili and the Pascendi, or as one who supported these errors by working to discredit the teachers of Catholic truth who opposed and unmasked Modernism, was to be admitted to or permitted to remain in the professorial corps or the administration of an ecclesiastical seminary or a Catholic university. And no young man who was infected by Modernism errors was to be allowed to become or to remain a candidate for Holy Orders.
This was the rigorous and powerful direction of the Sacrorum antistitum. Quite obviously it was not and it still is not in accord with the tastes of liberal Catholics. But it was and it remains the great expression of St. Pius X's desire to accomplish his mission as Christ's Vicar on earth. It was and it remains a tremendously effective factor for the protection of the little ones of Jesus Christ against the virus of Modernism.
Endnotes
1 The Latin text of the Sacrorum antistitum is to be found in the Codicis iuris canonici fontes, cura Petri Cardinalis Gasparri editi (Typis polyglottis Vaticanis, 1933), III, 774-90. This particular section is on p. 774.
2 The documentation and the results of this investigation are contained in the Disquisitio circa quasdam obiectiones modum agendi Servi Dei [Pii Papae X] respicientes in Modernismi debellatione, una cum summario additionali ex officio compilato, which is n. 77 of the printed documents of the Sectio historica of the Sacra Rituum Congregatio. The work was edited by Father Antonelli, O.F.M. It is mentioned and used rather well by Pierre Fernessole, in his Pie X: Essai historique (Paris: Lethielleux, 1953), II, 237-51. It is employed brilliantly by Fr. Raymond Dulac in his two famous articles, "Les devoirs du journaliste catholique selon le Bienheureux Pie X," and "Simple note sur le Sodalitium Pianum," in La pensee catholique, n. 23 (1952), 68-87; 88-93.
3 Disquisitio, p. 127. Cited by Fernessole, op. cit., II, 249.
4 It is quite evident that Pope Benedict XV considered the Modernism condemned by St. Pius X as an influential movement in the Church four years after the Sacrorum antistitum was written. Thus we read in the Ad beatissimi: "And so there came into being the monstrous errors of Modernism, which Our predecessor rightly designated as the gathering together of all the heresies, and which he solemnly condemned. To the fullest extent possible, Venerable Brethren, We here renew that condemnation. And, because this pestiferous contagion has not yet been overcome, but even now creeps in here and there, even though in a hidden manner. We exhort all most diligently against any infection of this evil, to which you might rightly apply the words that Job said on another subject: 'It is a fire that devoureth even to destruction, and rooteth up all things that spring.' And We will that Catholic men should turn away in disgust, not only from the errors, but from the very mentality, or, as they call it, the spirit of the Modernists" (Cf. Codicis iuris canonici fontes. III, 842).
It must also be remembered that the errors denounced by the late Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Humani generis definitely were Modernistic.
5 Perhaps the most insolent and naive of these attacks is that contained in the article " 'La Sapiniere,' ou breve histoire de l'organisation integriste," written by someone who used the pseudonym "Louis Davallon," in the May 15, 1955, number of Folliet's Chronique sociale de France, pp. 241-62. A brief discussion of this unfortunate and thoroughly untrustworthy article will be found in Fenton, "Some Recent Writings in the Field of Fundamental Dogmatic Theology," Part II, in The American Ecclesiastical Review, CXXXIV, 5 (May, 1956), 340-45. It is tragic that an otherwise respectable book, The Life of Benedict XV, by Walter H. Peters (Milwaukee: Bruce 1959), incorporates some of this nonsensical propaganda against Monsignor Benigni into its chapter "Modernists and Integralists" (pp. 42-53).
6 The text is in Codicis iuris canonici fontes. III, 789 f.
7 The text is in Denz., n. 1967. This passage is translated in Father Wynne's edition of The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1903), p. 442.
8 Cf. Fenton, "The Components of Liberal Catholicism," in The American Ecclesiastical Review, CXXXIX, 1 (July, 1958), 36-53.
9 Codicis iuris canonici fontes. III, 782.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., III, 776.
12 The text and translation of the Si diligis are in The American Ecclesiastical Review, CXXX, 2 (Aug., 1954), 127-37. This passage is found on pp. 133 f.
13 Denz., n. 2145.
14 Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, q. 89, a. 4.
15 Denz., n. 2146.
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United Nations Countering 'Deadly Disinformation' Through Creation Of 'Digital Army' |
Posted by: Stone - 08-24-2023, 05:54 AM - Forum: Global News
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United Nations Countering 'Deadly Disinformation' Through Creation Of 'Digital Army'
United Nations Office Geneva, on July 20, 2019. (saiko3p/shutterstock)
ZH | AUG 24, 2023
Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
The United Nations (U.N.) says it is battling mis- and disinformation on social media and beyond through what it calls a "digital army" located across the globe.
In an Aug. 19 press release, U.N. officials said peacekeepers throughout the world are building the "digital army" through smartphones, editing apps, and "innovative approaches" as part of efforts to "fight back against falsehoods that can trigger tensions, violence, or even death."
The intergovernmental organization has also been monitoring how mis- and disinformation and hate speech can "attack health, security, stability" as well as progress towards its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), officials said.
"Digital platforms are crucial tools that have transformed social, cultural, and political interactions everywhere. Across the world, they connect concerned global citizens on issues that matter," U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a policy brief (pdf) published in June on information integrity on digital platforms.
Such platforms have "given people hope in times of crisis and struggle, amplified voices that were previously unheard, and breathed life into global movements," Mr. Guterres wrote.
However, they have also "exposed a darker side of the digital ecosystem," the U.N. secretary-general noted.
"They have enabled the rapid spread of lies and hate, causing real harm on a global scale," he wrote in the brief. "Optimism over the potential of social media to connect and engage people has been dampened as mis- and disinformation and hate speech have surged from the margins of digital space into the mainstream. The danger cannot be overstated."
The U.N. policy brief acknowledges that there are "no universally accepted definitions" of the term "disinformation" but says the U.N.'s own working definition of the term refers to "false informatio
'Digital Army Capable of Detecting False Information'
Disinformation is described by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as "false or misleading content that can cause specific harm, irrespective of motivations, awareness or behaviors."
The term "misinformation" is described in the U.N. policy brief as "the unintentional spread of inaccurate information shared in good faith by those unaware that they are passing on falsehoods."
"Misinformation can be rooted in disinformation as deliberate lies and misleading narratives are weaponized over time, fed into the public discourse, and passed on unwittingly," the U.N. brief reads. "In practice, the distinction between mis- and disinformation can be difficult to determine," it adds.
According to the U.N., peacekeepers have been working across the globe to put "new tools into the hands of civilians of all ages" aimed at combatting mis- and disinformation, including launching workshops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Peacekeepers at the workshops are training young people to become "a digital army capable of detecting false information" by "producing content with the help of a smartphone and editing software and simultaneously spreading objective, credible information" through what they call "relay clubs" that disseminate these messages through their networks.
Misinformation 'Festival'
The U.N. is also launching similar efforts in Mali, where it recently held a "festival" to combat misinformation which drew crowds of nearly 400 people, officials said.
Earlier this month, in Abyei—which is located on the border between South Sudan and Sudan and is a disputed region—the U.N. mission there, the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei UNISFA, also launched its own radio station called "Voice of Peace" aimed at countering hate speech and fake news, according to the latest press release.
"The ability to disseminate large-scale disinformation to undermine scientifically established facts poses an existential risk to humanity and endangers democratic institutions and fundamental human rights," Mr. Guterres concluded in the June policy brief.
The announcement regarding the U.N.'s "digital army" comes shortly after the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) quietly rolled out its automated fact-checking and anti-disinformation tool, iVerify, this spring.
The tool, which is supported by the UNDP Chief Digital Office and the UNDP Brussels-based Task Force on Electoral Assistance and developed in concert with media organizations and the private sector, uses Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, and human-supported fact-checking to "identify false information and prevent and mitigate its spread," according to the U.N.
On its official website, the U.N. says the new tool will be provided to "national actors," who can then use it to review content and establish whether it is "fact-checkable and/or constitutes hate speech, as opposed to the expression of an opinion."
The new tool was originally piloted in Zambia, ahead of the August 2021 general elections, and was used in the general election in Honduras in November 2021, according to the U.N., which noted the tool helped combat "the spread of false narratives during election periods."
According to Breitbart, iVerify was developed in partnership with Meta and "left-wing nonprofit groups," including the International Fact-Checking Network, which is funded by billionaire George Soros.
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Secret Letter To CDC: Top Epidemiologist Suggests Agency Misrepresented Scientific Data |
Posted by: Stone - 08-24-2023, 05:45 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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Secret Letter To CDC: Top Epidemiologist Suggests Agency Misrepresented Scientific Data
To Support Mask Narrative
ZH | AUG 23, 2023
Authored by Megan Redshaw via The Epoch Times(emphasis ours),
Documents recently obtained from the National Institutes of Health suggest public health officials used inaccurate information and misrepresented medical research to advance their policy objective that masks prevent severe COVID-19 and virus transmission—despite opposing scientific evidence received from experts.
In a recently obtained letter (pdf) sent in November 2021 to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), top epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, and seven colleagues informed the agency it was promoting flawed data and excluding data that did not reinforce their narrative.
The letter warned the agency that misrepresenting data on trusted websites such as the CDC and the COVID-19 Real-Time Learning Network—jointly created by the CDC and Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA)—would “damage the credibility of science,” endanger public trust by “misrepresenting the evidence,” and give the public “false expectations” masking would protect them from the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.
“We believe the information and recommendations as provided may actually put an individual at increased risk of becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2 and for them to experience a serious or even life-threatening infection,” Mr. Osterhom wrote.
The authors urged the IDSA to remove the suggestion that masking prevents severe disease from its website and asked the CDC to reconsider its statements about the “efficacy of masks and face coverings for preventing transmission of SARS-CoV-2.”
Osterholm also noted a pattern of selectively choosing data that supported the desired narrative that masks prevent severe COVID-19 disease and transmission—claims he said are unsupported by the scientific evidence provided by the CDC and IDSA on their websites.
The IDSA “Masks and Face Coverings for the Public” webpage appears to “focus on the strengths of studies that support its conclusions while ignoring their shortcomings of study design,” Mr. Osterholm wrote. “Studies that do not support its perspective are similarly downplayed.”
The COVID-19 Real-Time Learning Network was created in 2020 to share “accurate, timely information about COVID-19.” According to its website, the IDSA’s editorial team of infectious disease and public health experts synthesize clinical guidance, identify emerging scientific consensus and areas of ongoing uncertainty, and tackle “misconceptions and disinformation.”
Although partly funded by the CDC, the IDSA collaborates with numerous medical professional organizations that publish medical journals and make recommendations based on agency guidance, including the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Physicians, the Society of Critical Care Medicine, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, and the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists.
The letter was sent to CDC officials, the associate medical and associate digital editors of the COVID-19 Real-Time Learning Network, and IDSA board members, which included Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the former director of the CDC during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Experts Ask CDC and IDSA to Address ‘Serious Errors’ on Website
In his letter to the CDC, Mr. Osterholm asked the CDC and IDSA to address the “serious errors” published on its website regarding the efficacy of masks as soon as possible and strongly urged the IDSA to remove the suggestion that masking prevents severe COVID-19 from its website and a podcast where such “irresponsible claims were made.”
Furthermore, Mr. Osterholm recommended the IDSA reconsider statements about the efficacy of masks and coverings for preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission, noting the IDSA’s website falsely suggests evidence of mask efficacy has strengthened throughout the pandemic.
“We do not agree that the evidence for their efficacy has strengthened throughout the pandemic, as the website suggests,” Mr. Osterholm said. “In fact, contrary to the conclusion on this website, the November 2020 Cochrane Review cited states this: ‘Compared with wearing no mask, wearing a mask may make little to no difference in how many people caught a flu-like illness (9 studies; 3,507 people); and probably makes no difference in how many people have flu confirmed by a laboratory test (6 studies; 3,005 people).'”
Read more here...
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14 US Cities Initiate New Globalist Climate Plan In Partnership With Soros & The Clintons |
Posted by: Stone - 08-23-2023, 05:51 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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14 US Cities Initiate New Globalist Climate Plan In Partnership With Soros & The Clintons
ZH [adapted, slightly edited] | AUG 22, 2023
Authored by Jack Hellner via AmericanThinker.com,
The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group is a globalist enterprise with at least 14 partners right here in the U.S., and, they have set an "ambitious target" to convince the masses to give up meat, dairy, and private car ownership, as well as almost all flights, to supposedly save the planet and control temperatures forever around the current level.
From RedState yesterday [emphasis mine]:
Quote:Fourteen major American cities are part of a globalist climate organization known as the 'C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group,' which has an 'ambitious target' by the year 2030 of '0 kg [of] meat consumption,' '0 kg [of] dairy consumption,' '3 new clothing items per person per year,' '0 private vehicles' owned, and '1 short-haul return flight (less than 1500 km) every 3 years per person.' ...
The organization is headed and largely funded by Democrat billionaire Michael Bloomberg. Nearly 100 cities across the world make up the organization, and its American members include Austin, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Seattle.
So 14 leftist cities in the U.S. have signed on to this commitment to take away freedom of choice from their citizens, while people suffer under rampant crime and children perform poorly in schools, but their priority is to take away milk, meat, and gas-powered cars.
Got it.
Major funders and partners of the organization include George Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Clinton Foundation, and The World Bank.
Michael Bloomberg, the president of the group, is himself transported via gas-guzzling private jets and limousines, to his many mansions around the world. From Fox News:
Quote:Flight records show that Bloomberg's private jets took more than 1,700 trips and emitted at least 10,000 metric tons of CO2 from August 2016 to August 2020, a Business Insider analysis found. A typical car emits about 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide in one year.
Bloomberg has access to multiple private jets, but he wants to limit us to one short-haul flight every three years.
He probably pretends he cares about his carbon footprint by buying worthless pieces of paper called carbon credits. His real estate portfolio consists of "at least 11 homes," and he owns a fleet of luxury personal vehicles:
Quote:To suit his luxurious fortune, he owns a Mercedes-Benz Maybach sedan. His Audi R8 is the one that shows athletic personification. Like a mandated SUV in the home of every celeb, Cadillac Escalade is tuned in black color. After not getting satisfied with one, he owns another fullsize SUV from Chevrolet.
Bloomberg and other green pushers tell people their gas-powered cars are destroying the planet, yet he has a massive car collection of gas-guzzlers.
They want to outlaw milk; does that include breastfeeding? Pretty sure that's a dairy product, and women and babies breathe out that vicious CO2, a non-pollutant, clear gas that makes plants thrive.
These billionaires generate massive pollution and pollute people's minds with talking points to indoctrinate the people to fall for pure propaganda.
What you will never see in these articles or in these policies is scientific data that show a direct correlation between milk and temperature, cars and temperature, meat and temperature, the population and temperature, crude oil consumption and temperature, or CO2 and temperature. The temperature fluctuates no matter what the other variables do.
You will also not see any correlation between any of these variables and storm activity or sea levels.
When there is no correlation, you can't assume causation. It is all a scam.
The sole purpose of these big government policies by leftists is to control our lives.
These billionaires and other leftists pretend they care about the poor and middle classes and small business, but every day, they show that is a blatant lie. They are extremely dangerous to our survival as a great and prosperous country, as are all the journalists who regurgitate the talking points without asking questions or doing any research.
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Prayers in Honor of Our Lady's Immaculate Heart |
Posted by: Stone - 08-22-2023, 06:30 AM - Forum: In Honor of Our Lady
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Devotion to the Heart of Mary is but the consequence of the devotion due to the Heart of Jesus. It is a consequence of that boundless love of Jesus for his most holy Mother, which leads him to share with her all the riches and honors, so far as they can be communicated to a creature. The Church never disassociates the Mother with her Divine Son in the festivals which she celebrates in his honor. If she celebrates the mysteries of the Savior, from his Incarnation to his Ascension, she celebrates likewise all the mysteries of Mary, from her Conceptions to her Assumption. The feast of the Sacred Heart of Mary (Immaculate Heart of Mary) is, therefore, but the natural consequence of the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Let us love and honor these two Hearts, so intimately united; let us go to the Father through the Heart of Jesus; let us go to the Savior through the Heart of Mary. Let us render to God the Father, through the Heart of Jesus what we owe to his infinite justice and goodness, and let us render to God, the Son, through the Heart of Mary what we owe to his mercy, and all his benefits to us. We shall obtain everything from the Father and the Holy Ghost through the Heart of Jesus, and we shall obtain everything through the Heart of Mary.
It is customary with many pious persons to dedicate the first Saturdays of the month to the particular honor of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, as the first Friday is devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Prayers to Our Lady for All Saturdays
Ant. O glorious Mother of God, Mary, ever virgin, who alone wast found worthy to bear the Lord of all, and though a virgin, to nurse the King of angels; be graciously mindful of us, we beseech thee, and pray to Christ for us, that we, being upheld by thy care, may deserve to attain to the heavenly kingdom.
V. Holy Mary, Mother of Christ.
R. Hear thy humble servants who implore thee.
Let us Pray.
Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord God, that we, Thy servants, may enjoy continual health of mind and body; and that through the glorious intercession of blessed Mary, ever Virgin, we may be delivered from present sorrow, and herafter enjoy eternal happiness. Through Christ our Lord. Amen
INVIOLATA
Thou art inviolate, undefiled and chaste, O Mary.
Thou has been made the resplendent gate of heaven,
O loving and dearest Mother of Christ,
Accept our devout acclamations in praise of thee.
That our minds and bodies may be pure,
Devoted hearts and lips now implore thee.
Through thy sweet sounding prayers,
Gain us pardon forever.
O kind one, who alone didst remain inviolate.
MEMORARE
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession, was left unaided, Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother! To thee I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy, hear and answer me. Amen.
Act of Reparation to be recited on the First Saturdays
Most holy Virgin and our Mother, we listen with grief to the complaints of thy Immaculate Heart surrounded with the thorns which ungrateful men place therein at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. Moved by the ardent desire of loving thee as our Mother and of promoting a true devotion to thy Immaculate Heart, we prostrate ourselves at thy feet to prove the sorrow we feel for the grievances that men cause thee, and to atone, by means of our prayers and sacrifices, for the offenses with which men return thy tender love.
Obtain for them and for us the pardon of so many sins. A word from thee will obtain grace and amendment for us all.
Hasten, O Lady, the conversion of sinners, that they may love Jesus and cease to offend the Lord, already so much offended, and will not fall into hell.
Turn thine eyes of mercy towards us, that henceforth we may love God with all our heart while on earth and enjoy Him forever in heaven. Amen
Litany of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.
God the Father of heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.
Heart of Mary, pray for us *
Heart of Mary, according to the Heart of God,*
Heart of Mary, united to the Heart of Jesus,*
Heart of Mary, organ of the Holy Ghost,*
Heart of Mary, sanctuary of the Divine Trinity,*
Heart of Mary, tabernacle of God incarnate,*
Heart of Mary immaculate from thy creation,*
Heart of Mary, full of grace,*
Heart of Mary, blessed among all hearts,*
Heart of Mary, throne of glory,*
Heart of Mary, abyss of humility,*
Heart of Mary, holocaust of divine love,*
Heart of Mary, fastened to the cross with Jesus crucified,*
Heart of Mary, comfort of the afflicted,*
Heart of Mary, refuge of sinners,*
Heart of Mary, hope of the agonizing,*
Heart of Mary, seat of mercy,*
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Spare us, O Lord,
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Have mercy on us.
Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.
V. Immaculate Mary, meek and humble of heart.
R. Make our heart according to the Heart of Jesus.
Let us pray:
O most merciful God, Who, for the salvation of sinners and the refuge of the miserable, wast pleased that the Immaculate Heart of the blessed Virgin Mary should be most like in charity and pity to the Divine Heart of Thy Son Jesus Christ; grant that we, who commemorate this most sweet and loving Heart, may, by the merits and intercession of the same blessed Virgin, merit to be found according to the Heart of Jesus. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen
Heart of Mary, refuge of sinners, pray for us.
(Indulgence 300 days)
O Heart most pure of the Blessed Virgin Mary, obtain for me from Jesus a pure and humble heart.
(1943 Raccolta--Indulgence 300 days)
Sweet Heart of Mary, be my salvation.
(1943 Raccolta--Indulgence 300 days)
Chaplet of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
V. O GOD, come to our assistance.
R. O LORD, make haste to help us.
V. Glory be to the FATHER, etc.
I.
IMMACULATE Virgin, who, conceived without sin, didst direct every movement of thy pure heart to GOD, ever the object of thy love, and who wast ever most submissive to His will, obtain for me the grace to hate sin with my whole heart, and to learn of thee to live in perfect resignation to the will of GOD. PATER once, Ave seven times. Heart of Mary, pierced with grief, set my heart on fire with the love of GOD.
II.
Mary, I wonder at thy deep humility when thy blessed heart was troubled at the gracious message brought thee by Gabriel the Archangel how that thou wast chosen to be Mother of the SON of GOD Most High and didst still proclaim thyself his humble handmaid; in great confusion at my pride, I ask thee for the grace of a contrite and humble heart, that, knowing my own misery, I may obtain that crown of glory promised to those who are truly humble of heart. PATER once, Ave seven times; Heart of Mary, etc.
III.
Sweetest Heart or Mary, precious treasury, wherein the Blessed Virgin kept the words of JESUS whilst she thought on the high mysteries which she had heard from the lips of her Son, and whereby she learned to live for GOD alone; how does the coldness of my heart confound me! Dearest Mother, obtain for me grace so to meditate within my heart upon the holy law of GOD, that I may strive to follow thee in the fervent practice of every Christian virtue. PATER once, Ave seven times; Heart of Mary, etc.
IV.
Glorious Queen of Martyrs, whose sacred heart was cruelly transfixed in the bitter Passion of thy Son by the sword foretold by the holy old man, Simeon, obtain for my heart true courage and a holy patience to bear well the troubles and adversities of this miserable life, and, by crucifying my flesh with its desires in following the mortification of the Cross, to show myself truly thy son. PATER once, Ave seven times; Heart of Mary, etc.
V.
O Mary, Mystic Rose, whose loving heart, burning with the living fire of charity, accepted us for thy children at the foot of the Cross, whereby thou didst become our most tender Mother; make me feel the sweetness of thy maternal heart, and thy power with JESUS in all the perils of this mortal life, and especially in the terrible hour of death, that so my heart, united with thine own, may love JESUS now and throughout all ages. Amen. PATER once, Ave seven times; Heart of Mary, etc. Let us entreat the Most Sacred Heart of JESUS to inflame us with His holy love.
O DIVINE Heart of JESUS, I consecrate myself to Thee, full of deep gratitude for the many blessings I have received, and daily receive, from Thy infinite charity. I thank Thee with my whole heart for having also vouchsafed to give me thine own Mother to be my Mother, consigning me to her in the person of the beloved Disciple. Grant unto me that my heart may ever burn with this love of Thee, and so may find in Thee its peace, its refuge and its happiness.
(1943 Raccolta--Indulgence of 3 years)
Prayer to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
O Immaculate heart of Mary, I have nothing in myself to offer thee that is worthy of thee; but what thanks ought I not to pay thee for all the favors which thou hast obtained for me from the Heart of Jesus! What reparation ought I not to make thee for all my tepidity in thy service! I desire to return thee love for love; the only good that I possess is the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which thou thyself hast given me. I offer thee this treasure of infinite price; I cannot do more, and thou dost not deserve less at my hands; but, receiving from me this gift most precious in thy sight, be pleased, I beseech thee, to accept my heart, which I here offer to thee, and I shall be forever blessed. Amen.
Morning Offering
O Lord Jesus Christ, in union with that divine intention with which Thou, whilst on earth didst give praise to God through Thy most sacred Heart, and still dost continue to give praise to Him in the Sacrament of the Eucharist everywhere, even unto the consummation of the world, I, wishing to imitate the most sacred Heart of the ever Immaculate Virgin Mary, most willingly offer to Thee during this whole day, not excepting the smallest part therefrom, all my intentions and thoughts, all my affections and desires, all my words and actions. Amen
Novena to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
O Heart of Mary, Mother of God and our Mother; Heart most worthy of love, in which the adorable Trinity is ever well-pleased, worthy of the veneration and love of all the Angels and of all men; Heart most like to the Heart of Jesus, of which thou art the perfect image; Heart, full of goodness, ever compassionate toward our miseries; deign to melt our icy hearts and grant that they may be wholly changed into the likeness of the Heart of Jesus, our divine Saviour. Pour into them the love of thy virtues, enkindle in them that divine fire with which thou thyself dost ever burn. In thee let holy Church find a safe shelter; protect her and be her dearest refuge, her tower of strength, impregnable against every assault of her enemies.
Be thou the way which leads to Jesus, and the channel, through which we receive all the graces needful for our salvation. Be our refuge in time of trouble, our solace in the midst of trial, our strength against temptation, our haven in persecution, our present help in every danger, and especially at the hour of death, when all hell shall let loose against us its legions to snatch away our souls, at that dread moment, that hour so full of fear, whereon our eternity depends. Ah, then, most tender Virgin, make us to feel the sweetness of thy motherly heart, and the might of thine intercession with Jesus, and open to us a safe refuge in that very fountain of mercy, whence we may come to praise Him with thee in paradise, world without end. Amen.
(An indulgence of 500 days--1807)
Prayers of St. Alphonsus Liguori to the Blessed Mother
Prayer to Beg Graces through the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary
I humbly salute and praise thee, holy Mary, most merciful, pure, holy, and blessed Lady, powerful Queen of Angels, Patriarchs and Prophets, most glorious of Apostles, most courageous of Martyrs, wisest and most faithful of Confessors, purest of Virgins, true Mother of our God. Thou knowest my misery, my wounds, my weakness, poverty and nakedness; behold my desires and my groans are before thee, look on me and pity me. Thy servant Richard of St. Victor, says that as, according to the Scripture, Wheresoever the body shall be there shall the eagles also be gathered together, so wherever misery is found, thy mercy hastens to give help, nor canst thou know of wretchedness and not assist. Behold I, kneeling before thee, humbly call upon thee, O Refuge of the miserable, and implore of thy maternal heart, by the love which thou bearest to thy Divine Son, and by the charity with which thou didst accept us for thy clients and unworthy children, to obtain for me full forgiveness of all my sins and a true hatred of them, and worthy fruits of penance in this life, together with a generous mortification of all my senses and affections, and a complete victory over all temptation.
Obtain for me an increase of faith, a more trusting hope, a more perfect charity, an entire resignation to the Will of God, complete purity of intention, and an affectionate devotion to my crucified Jesus, to the most holy Sacrament, and to thee, my ever-blessed Mother: obtain also for me obedience to my superiors, affability and meekness to all, profound humility, patience in adversity, and finally the gift of perseverance, and of a happy and holy death. I beseech thee, most blessed Lady, to be with me at the hour of my death, and shelter me from the terrors of God's Justice, for thou art my beloved Mother and Queen, and I resolve, with thy help, to promote devotion to thee by every means in my power. Amen.
An Act of Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Holy and spotless Virgin, Daughter of the Heavenly Father, Mother of the Word Incarnate, Spouse of the Holy Ghost, Queen of Angels and of Saints, I acknowledge thee and choose thee for my Sovereign, my Mother, my Advocate with Jesus Christ, thy beloved Son: be thou honoured in Heaven, revered on earth, and feared in Hell. Most holy heart of Mary, inseparably united to that of Jesus, I offer thee my heart, and I consecrate it to thee, wishing that thy place in it may be next to that of Jesus, my God; thou shalt ever be the object of my veneration, love, and trust; I will daily offer thee my sincere homage, and will joyfully celebrate thy festivals; I will publish thy greatness and thy blessings, and will spare no pains to obtain for thee the homage which is so justly due to thee; I will endeavour to conform my sentiments to thine, and I will constantly study how I may imitate thy virtues, especially thy humility and purity.
Deign, O most holy Virgin, to open thy heart to me, and receive me into it, among thy children and faithful servants: obtain for me grace to imitate thee, as thou didst imitate Jesus; help me in all my necessities; assist me in every danger; console me in affliction, and teach me to make a good use of the pleasures and sorrows of this life, but above all help me, most blessed Lady, in the hour of my death. Amen.
Another Short Act of Consecration
Holy Mary, Mother of God, and my Mother, I commend myself, body and soul, into thy holy keeping, this day, and every day of my life, and especially at the hour of my death: to thee I commit all my hopes and consolations, all my trials and sorrows, my life and my death, that, through thy holy merits and intercession, all my actions may be directed and disposed according to the most holy Will of thy Divine Son. Amen.
Prayer to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
To which an indulgence of 60 days, to be gained once in a day, has been attached.
Heart of Mary, Mother of God, and our Mother, heart deserving of all love, and most pleasing to the blessed Trinity, worthy of the affection and veneration of Angels and of men, heart most resembling the Heart of Jesus, of Which thou art the most perfect image, heart full of goodness and compassion for our wretchedness, we beseech thee to soften our icy hearts, and help us to turn completely to our Divine Saviour. Inspire us with a love of thy virtues, and inflame us with the holy fire with which thou burnest; embrace and guard the holy Church, and be ever her sweet asylum, and her impregnable fortress against the attacks of her enemies; be thou our guide to Jesus, and the channel by which we may receive all the graces necessary for our salvation; be our help in our necessities, our comfort in affliction, our support in temptation, our refuge in persecution, our aid in every danger, but especially in the struggles of our last moments, when Hell will be let loose against us, to snatch our souls. In that fearful moment on which our Eternity depends, then, O most blessed Virgin, let us experience the goodness of thy maternal heart, and the greatness of thy power with the Heart of Jesus, by opening to us a secure refuge in that Source of all mercy, that so we may bless Him with thee in Heaven for ever and ever. Amen.
An Act of Atonement to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
O Mary, Mother of my Saviour, chosen before all ages to crush the head of the infernal serpent, how can there have been men capable of insulting thy name, thy images, and thy glorious privileges, and even of abolishing all devotion to thee! How can there ever have been hearts so unnatural as to despise and hate thee, who so fully deservest the utmost respect, and the most tender affection of angels and of men! Prostrate at thy feet my august Queen, I grieve for such insults, which have afflicted thy heart; and to this heart therefore I offer my atonement. Accept, O Mary, this act of reparation; I wish to feel for thee all the respect, love, and gratitude, which are so justly due to thee; I offer thee my homage, my praise, and my grief, regretting that I cannot by these sentiments make reparation for the contempt, hatred, and blasphemies of thy enemies. Amen
Prayer of Reparation to the Blessed Virgin Mary
How do I grieve, O holy and spotless Virgin, when I reflect on the insults thou hast received, and still receivest every day from the malice and ingratitude of men! Thou hast been outraged by heretics, and insulted by bad Catholics: how could any heart have been so hard and impious? Alas! even some Catholics are cold and indifferent towards thee, and do not in the least endeavour to show thee their love and gratitude, neglecting to honour or invoke thee, or to deserve thy protection. I myself have many times afflicted thee, most holy Virgin, by offending thy Divine Son, Whom thou lovest a thousand times more than thyself: my sins have pierced thy heart with a two-edged sword! What return have I made, what gratitude have I shown for all thy goodness to me, my beloved Mother? How have I tried to imitate thee, or what zeal have I felt for thy service?
Mother of mercy, I should not dare to lift up my eyes to thee, if thou wert not the Refuge of sinners: oppressed by the weight of my crimes I cast myself at thy feet, to implore thy pardon for my ingratitude, and for that of all mankind, Mother of sorrows, who wert appointed our Mother on Mount Calvary, I implore thee to forget our past conduct, which I most earnestly wish to atone for, as far as possible. I offer thee my homage and praise, and I profess aloud my conviction that thy glory exceeds that of all creatures; with the Church I revere thy immaculate conception and thy glorious assumption; I believe that thy power and thy perfection are such as suit thy dignity of Mother of God; I joyfully acknowledge thee for my mother, my Advocate, and my Refuge; and as long as I live I will be among the most devoted of thy children, and will endeavour to win souls to thy love. Most holy Mother be pleased to accept my desires; bless and protect them, that so, by copying thy virtues, I may deserve to see thee in Heaven for all Eternity. Amen.
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Gates: 1 billion will have global IDs in a decade and it will bring equity and 'maximize inclusivity |
Posted by: Stone - 08-22-2023, 06:13 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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From the Gates Foundation [adapted]:
Digital IDs are an effective tool against poverty.
A global solution is making them available to millions.
PART ONE: Our global identity problem
If a person cannot prove who they are, can they take advantage of all of the opportunities society has to offer?
For the 850 million people around the world who lack any acceptable form of legal identity, the answer is no. Proof of identity enables people to fully participate in the economy. It eases access to employment and education as well as services such as banking, government programs, and health care.
People living in low- and middle-income countries are more likely to go without ID. More than half of those without proof of identity are children whose births were not registered. One in two women in low-income countries do not have ID. And even among those whose identity can be verified, many lack documentation that is suited to the digital age.
This means many of the resources that could help them improve their quality of life are out of reach.
Fortunately, a formidable solution has emerged: an open-source, customizable digital ID system called Modular Open Source Identity Platform (MOSIP) that is available to all countries for free.
A small but mighty team in India developed this technology for creating national digital ID systems, with funding from our foundation. Since 2018, 11 countries, nine of them in Africa and two in Asia, have signed memoranda of understanding with MOSIP to pilot the system. More than 90 million people have been registered for MOSIP-based IDs in the Philippines, Ethiopia, and Morocco as part of national deployments. MOSIP is a powerful example of how low- and middle-income countries can harness open-source technology to improve lives and accelerate development.
Digital ID is a critical piece of digital public infrastructure
Digital ID systems are one of the three pillars of what’s known as digital public infrastructure (DPI); the others are digital payment systems and data exchange systems. By connecting people and making it easier to move money and share information, DPI is in many ways the modern-day equivalent of the roads and bridges that helped reshape economies in the 19th century. Researchers say that DPI can help low- and middle-income countries leapfrog traditional stages of development, lift millions out of poverty, and spur economic growth.
Explainer: What is digital public infrastructure?
Digital public infrastructure (DPI) is a powerful tool for reducing poverty. Our expert explains what it is and how it’s transforming economies worldwide.
A digital ID system is critical because people need a verified identity in order to tap into DPI’s other benefits, from digital bank accounts and instant payments to mobile phone accounts and personal data management.
The original inspiration for MOSIP was India’s national digital ID system, Aadhaar, which launched in 2009. This ambitious effort would eventually enroll over 99% of all Indian adults.
S Rajagopalan, a professor at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-Bangalore), was sure that Aadhaar would be transformational. In the early 1990s, he had worked on technology for people living in poverty in rural areas of India. He saw that access to services was a recurring problem because the villagers didn’t have IDs. They needed an intermediary to vouch for them when they went to a hospital, for example, or when they wanted to access subsidized rations like wheat, pulses, or sugar. This issue especially affected women living in poverty.
“Accessing what is rightfully due to people became a problem because they were not able to prove whom they are.” - S Rajagopalan, Co-founder MOSIP
True to Rajagopalan’s prediction, Aadhaar transformed life for people across India. Access to an inclusive digital ID system meant that people no longer had to rely on intermediaries. The system also made life easier in other important ways. Within a decade, bank account ownership in India more than doubled, to 78% in 2021, and brought millions of Indians, especially women, into the formal economy. This achievement would otherwise have taken 45 years. The system has broadened the reach of social safety net programs, reduced waste, and made the government more responsive during times of crisis.
Rajagopalan and a team of programmers at IIIT-Bangalore wanted the benefits of a system like Aadhaar to reach a global audience. So they set out to build MOSIP—a flexible, inclusive, and trusted digital ID system that any country could customize to meet its specific needs.
PART TWO: An open-source solution
MOSIP offers a digital ID solution that any country can adapt and use
The success of Aadhaar in India triggered a surge of interest in digital ID technologies around the world. By 2018, more than 60 countries were trying to develop such a system, including every country in sub-Saharan Africa.
But countries could not simply copy and use Aadhaar—or other national digital ID systems like those in Estonia and Singapore—because those systems were owned by the governments that developed them. They instead turned to commercial vendors, making costly investments that yielded frustrating results because the systems suffered from “vendor lock-in.” Commercial vendor software was proprietary, which meant governments could not customize it without tying themselves—financially and functionally—to a given vendor. Countries ran the risk of having to start from scratch when their needs evolved beyond a vendor’s capabilities—such as when they needed to reach specific populations or connect to a different government system to disburse welfare payments.
When MOSIP launched in 2018, it offered governments an alternative. MOSIP is a digital public good, which means that everything about the technology is open. All of the code and documentation is publicly available. Anyone is free to use the software and build on top of it. The use of open standards means that other systems can easily plug into MOSIP.
Quote:Resham Chugani: Now once you have the ID, how is it actually important? Why is it important? Because once I have the ID, I can avail services. Now in a country, let's say for example, you go to any African country or you go to Philippines or you go to Morocco. Today, if you want to deliver services, it's easier to identify an individual uniquely with his or her identity, authenticate them since we are capturing their biometrics. So you're sure that this person is who he claims to be, and then you provide the service. And in this case, you're also avoiding double-dipping. So you don't render the same service twice to the same person because you're validating against the biometrics of the ID system that the ID system holds and you're actually delivering services to individuals.
MOSIP alone does not do it all – for the system to be fully functional, governments also need biometric device vendors, deduplication software providers, card or credential printing machines, and system integrators, all of which require additional investment. If a digital ID system is a car, MOSIP is the engine, and these ancillary items are the wheels, seats, steering, and lights.
So the MOSIP team made it easier for governments to build the car. MOSIP developed a thriving ecosystem of more than 80 commercial vendors to provide those ancillary services so that adopting governments had choices. More competition helps keep prices low, so MOSIP provides free training to commercial partners, local and international alike, and created a marketplace where partners could showcase products and services to governments. MOSIP also oversees an independent certification process for commercial partners, ensuring small and large players could compete.
By 2021, six countries had adopted the MOSIP system, three times more than the team had expected. Success stories flooded into MOSIP’s offices at IIIT-Bangalore. In one African country, 550,000 students started receiving government benefits after the MOSIP team wrote a tool that imported their existing biometric data from the education department into the ID system. In one Asian nation, the government issued bank account numbers when people registered for the country’s ID system, resulting in 8 million bank account applications.
PART THREE: Inclusion for adaptation
MOSIP’s keys to success: security and inclusion
Success was not inevitable. MOSIP’s biggest challenge was meeting demand. Morocco signed up before the MOSIP programmers had written a single line of code, and others eagerly lined up. Many nations wanted to expedite their adoption after the COVID-19 pandemic exposed huge systemic vulnerabilities, including governments’ inability to identify who needed help and how to quickly send them aid.
Then there was the anxiety the team felt, on a deeper existential level, about what it would mean for the future of digital ID systems if MOSIP failed. They worried that it would stymie future development. “It was a situation that gave us a lot of pause,” said Arun Gurumurthy, MOSIP’s head of strategy and resourcing.
There was good reason for their nerves. No one had ever attempted to build a system like MOSIP, which sought to register the entire population of a country regardless of its size, geography, or cultural characteristics. The system had to be flexible enough to accommodate a country as small as 5 million people and as large as 100 million or more people. It had to be able to enroll a population spread across 7,500 islands, as in the Philippines, or across mountains and deserts, as in Morocco. With every country adoption, the team encountered new challenges. And it had to be secure, as it managed peoples’ sensitive data.
But the MOSIP team had one big advantage: Because they were based at a university, their decisions weren’t driven by business objectives. This allowed them to make inclusivity, safety, and user feedback high priorities. They engaged in research collaborations with global institutes like the Alan Turing Institute and Carnegie Mellon University, with the aim of co-creating state-of-the-art technologies incorporating security and privacy as key design principles. They built an international advisory group of experts in identity that brought a global perspective to how the technology is designed, developed and disseminated.
Together, they anticipated challenges, sought feedback from the field, and modified the software in response.
The Philippines was MOSIP’s first large-scale deployment. The country had spotty internet connectivity in remote places, so MOSIP worked with vendors to engineer special field kits that let enrollment officers travel door-to-door to collect people’s information and then upload the data into the system in batches later, when they had connectivity. MOSIP also made the ID credential a digitally signed QR code so it could be verified offline—a feature that is now standard in the system.
In Africa, where almost two-thirds of people still use feature phones, the MOSIP engineers had to figure out how to enable authentication despite the limited functionality of the devices. They also sped up pilot testing, which initially took so long that governments would sometimes change before they finished. The team retooled the model to shrink the pilot period from 18 months to three months. To make the pilot implementation more affordable for countries, MOSIP supplied biometric devices and other elements of the pilot so countries only had to spend a few thousand dollars. Within four months of a successful trial in Togo, four other countries signed up to run pilots.
To maximize inclusivity, the team gave people several options for sharing their biometric data, including scans of their fingerprints, iris, or face. This was helpful in places like Ethiopia, where few people had ever had their fingerprints scanned. One day, an elderly man at a registration center talked excitedly about how his new ID would enable him to access services without having to give a cut to a middleman. But as he placed his fingers on the scanner, his hands shook so much that the machine was unable to get a clear scan. The man worried that he would not be able to get his ID. The dozens of other people in line—mothers holding children, other elderly people—looked on, wondering if they, too, would encounter the same problem.
The operators switched to an iris scanner, which worked. “The gentleman was very happy,” said Krishnan Rajagopalan, MOSIP’s head of country implementation, who was visiting the registration site that day.
PART FOUR: Reaching the rest of the world
The next step for MOSIP
MOSIP illustrates how technology that can be harnessed for good on a massive scale. The MOSIP team hopes that the system will register 1 billion people over the next decade, while they work on ways to integrate it with other systems to make life easier for people.
Every year on February 14, which the team has dubbed “MOSIP Open Source Day,” they celebrate their latest accomplishments and, above all, the millions more people who are benefiting from the system.
The team feels “a sense of satisfaction on the one hand, but it also shows us that we have billions more to cover out there,” says Ramesh Narayanan, MOSIP’s chief technology officer. “And that drives us.”
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Opinion: What Does the Asch Conformity Experiment Tell Us? |
Posted by: Stone - 08-22-2023, 06:01 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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What Does the Asch Conformity Experiment Tell Us about Francis, the 2020 Election, and the Covid-19 Atrocities?
The Remnant Newspaper | August 18, 2023
While it has always been the case that fallen human beings are prone to both lying and believing lies, many of us have observed a remarkable increase in the propensity of seemingly intelligent people to believe preposterous lies in recent years. In many instances, those of us who have refused to believe those lies have been ostracized by family members, colleagues, and those we had considered friends. How, we must ask, do these otherwise normal people not only believe these preposterous lies but also defend them as though their lives depended upon it?
Undoubtedly there are many contributing factors to this increase in preposterous lies, but one significant factor has been the ability of today’s powerful coalition of liars — including Francis and those responsible for the Great Reset — to exploit human weaknesses related to conformity. Once we view today’s preposterous lies from that vantage point, we can better understand how we arrived at our current perilous situation, and perhaps we can also see the way out of it.
On the topic of conformity, we can look to a psychological study described by Professor Cass Sunstein, a legal scholar who has held positions in the administrations of Presidents Obama and Biden — most of us would not agree with his political views, but we need to understand his insights because those reshaping our world understand them. In his 2019 book entitled Conformity, Professor Sunstein described the famous “Asch Conformity Experiment” which took place in the 1950s:
Quote:“Some famous experiments, conducted by Solomon Asch, explored whether people would be willing to overlook the apparently unambiguous evidence of their own senses. In those experiments, the subject was placed into a group of seven to nine people who seemed to be other subjects in the experiment but who were actually Asch’s confederates. The simple task was to ‘match’ a particular line, shown on a large white card, to one of the three “comparison lines” that was identical to it in length. The two nonmatching lines were substantially different, with the differential varying from an inch and three quarters to three quarters of an inch. In the first two rounds of the Asch experiments, everyone agrees about the right answer. ‘The discriminations are simple; each individual monotonously calls out the same judgment.’ But ‘suddenly this harmony is disturbed at the third round.’ All other group members make what is obviously, to the subject and to any reasonable person, a clear error, matching the line at issue to one that is conspicuously longer or shorter. In these circumstances, the subject, in almost all cases showing initial confusion and disbelief at the apparent mistakes of others, has a choice: he can maintain independent judgment or instead accept the view of the unanimous majority. What would you do? As it turns out, a large number of people end up yielding at least once in a series of trials. They defy the evidence of their own senses and agree with everyone else. When asked to decide on their own, subjects erred less than 1 percent of the time. But in rounds in which group pressure supported the wrong answer, subjects erred no less than 36.8 percent of the time. Indeed, in a series of twelve questions, no less than 70 percent of subjects went along with the group and defied the evidence of their own senses, at least once.”
If the subjects made their decision based simply on their own powers of observation, they almost always arrived at the obvious answer; but when their decision-making process was skewed by the interactions with seemingly honest people who gave the wrong answers, they frequently yielded to the erroneous majority.
Given this understanding of human nature, how would a bad actor exploit the human weaknesses associated with conformity to lead otherwise rational people to adhere to clearly fallacious positions? Tragically, we have numerous devastating case studies from which to draw lessons, but we can limit the analysis to three: the Covid-19 atrocities, the 2020 United States Presidential election, and Francis and his anti-Catholic initiatives. After briefly highlighting some obvious (red flag) problems associated with each of these three situations, we can evaluate the ways that bad actors have exploited the lessons from the Asch Conformity Experiment.
Covid-19 Atrocities. As we now know, both Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine have been effective in treating some cases of Covid-19. Many of us knew that in 2020, but policy makers and the medical establishment worked hard to prevent Covid-19 patients from having access to those potentially life-saving treatments. At the same time, these leaders approved and mandated the deployment of the Covid-19 vaccines, largely based on the false assumption that there were no effective treatments for Covid-19. Even after those vaccines were proven to be ineffective and dangerous, they were still mandated for many people. Now that the experts have been proven wrong about almost everything connected with Covid-19, why are they still the experts? And why are they not being held accountable for their apparently criminal behavior?
2020 Presidential Election. Leading up to the election, both Trump and Biden warned their supporters about the potential for wide-spread election fraud. Even though President Trump’s supporters were suspicious that Biden’s supporters would steal the election, many went to bed on election night elated to see that Trump had developed an overwhelming lead in voting tallies. We awoke on the following morning to learn that the voting had been inexplicably stopped in the middle of the night in certain key jurisdictions in which Trump had a comfortable lead; when voting resumed in those jurisdictions, the tide had turned, and Biden would ultimately be declared the winner. Biden himself had warned about widespread election fraud, so why is it forbidden to ask questions about the many anomalies?
Francis and His Anti-Catholic Initiatives. In recent years, a relatively small but growing number of Catholics have realized that the man reputed to be pope is actively trying to destroy the Catholic Church. He has called into question almost all of the Church’s moral teachings, praised the merits of various non-Catholic religions, unhesitatingly supported the anti-Catholic initiatives of the Great Reset, and repeatedly denounced Catholics for trying to adhere to what the Church has always taught. If Francis is correct in denouncing the Church’s theological traditions, then there is no logical basis whatsoever to believe that the Church teaches a true Faith; and yet his supporters still insist that no Catholic can criticize the man without abandoning the Faith. [Note, this is yet another example of focusing solely on the errors of Pope Francis while white-washing the many, many errors of the previous Conciliar popes. A little critical thinking and a decent memory shows that this is not realistic or factual. - The Catacombs]
Those with eyes to see ought to be able to recognize the glaring problems associated with these three situations or, at the very least, comprehend why reasonable people might doubt the “official” explanations. But that is not the case to a large extent. Instead of seeing the preposterous lies for what they evidently are, far too many people act like the duped subjects in Asch’s Conformity Experiment.
Even worse, these situations and many others all contribute to the so-called Great Reset, which threatens to fundamentally reshape the way of life for the world’s entire population. In each case, we see that the following five aggravating factors make it much more likely that those with eyes to see will blind themselves — through some combination of self-doubt, cowardice, and the desire to avoid conflict — and conform with the clearly false beliefs of their neighbors.
Faux-Expert Opinions. With Covid-19 and the 2020 election, we saw “experts” on both sides of the political spectrum insist that we accept the official narratives. With Francis, we see a growing number of critics, but there remains an overwhelming majority of bishops and priests who defend all of his anti-Catholic initiatives. In each case, those who might otherwise see the truth have been pressured by faux experts to abandon common sense to conform with the official opinions.
Amplifying the Messages of the Conforming Leaders. Thanks to their ability to completely dominate the media, those who have promoted the preposterous lies associated with the Great Reset have been able to not only showcase their chosen “experts” but also amplify the voices of the conforming majority. In Asch’s experiment, the test subjects were persuaded by the wrong answers of a handful of those who were part of the test, but in real life we are inundated with messages telling us that everyone (other than extremists) supports the official narrative.
Censoring the Testimony of Non-Conforming Experts. In each of these situations, those wielding the most power have worked to censor the expert opinions of those who have questioned the official narratives. The censorship of those who question the Covid-19 and 2020 election narratives is most evident, but even with Francis we see heavy-handed censorship in the form of penalties for those bishops and priests who raise questions.
Consequences for Non-Conformity. In the case of Francis, those who fail to conform are threatened with “schism,” as well as the loss of certain rights to practice the Faith without harassment from Rome. In the secular sphere, those who do not conform are threatened much more broadly by a wide array of punishments, ranging from those imposed by “cancel culture” to expanded definitions of what might constitute domestic terrorism. The message is clear: if you like your bread and circuses, and want to avoid landing on an FBI watch list, you must not question the official narratives.
The Magnitude of the Lies. The enormity of the lies can cut both ways: while they may eventually become so preposterous that people open their eyes, the process of accepting gradually bigger lies makes it impossible for some people to turn back to reality. With Covid-19 and the 2020 election, many people are reluctant to even consider that the skeptics are right because the consequences are simply too grim — how could we ever recover from such treachery? Similarly, Catholics may think that the Church’s promises of indefectibility would be void if Francis truly is as bad as he seems. It is easier for many people to deny reality altogether and hope for the best.
These five aggravating factors help the bad actors gaslight and intimidate otherwise reasonable people into abandoning their accurate assessments of what is truly happening in the world today. This, in turn, makes it much more likely that others will conform by accepting the preposterous lies. How do we escape this disastrous situation?
We ought to trust our intuitions more than the chorus of fools who accept and defend the official narratives. If ever we are inclined to doubt this, it should suffice to recall that those who promote these lies about the Great Reset are the same people who tell us we are bigots if we do not believe that men can become pregnant.
First of all, Catholics must realize that the immutable Catholic Faith cannot be abandoned without having catastrophic effects not only for the Church but all of society. As the architects of the Great Reset know, a strong Catholic Church is their most formidable opposition because faithful Catholics adhere to objective moral standards and would rather die than cooperate with the anti-Catholic initiatives of the New World Order. If, as has been the case since Vatican II, there is some corruption that causes an apparent divide between Faith and authority, we must always fight for the unadulterated Catholic Faith. Otherwise, we contribute to dimming the light of God’s holy truth, with which He wants to illuminate the world.
Second, we must have the courage and conviction to stand up for the truth, especially when the bad actors in society tell us to accept their lies. This obviously does not mean we need to loudly proclaim every conspiracy theory we encounter, but we ought to trust our intuitions more than the chorus of fools who accept and defend the official narratives. If ever we are inclined to doubt this, it should suffice to recall that those who promote these lies about the Great Reset are the same people who tell us we are bigots if we do not believe that men can become pregnant.
Finally, because this is a spiritual battle, we must turn to God and trust that He will shelter and reward us if we earnestly seek to do His will. This does not mean we will not suffer (we will), but fighting for the truth is assuredly the best path for our own salvation and the good of our neighbors. We may have doubted this a few years ago, but today we see the tragic consequences of capitulating to their lies. We have all suffered because the liars have grown powerful through peddling their lies without effective opposition. We can no longer hope to escape this problem by hiding, we have to fight.
God has permitted this great crisis in the Church and world for a reason. And He has also created us to live in these times for a reason. If He is permitting this crisis to continue, surely He wants those who see His truth to help others do the same. We need to be the ones who break the chain of conforming with those who promote the preposterous lies of the Great Reset. But, first things first: we must overcome the lies in the Church that threaten to send souls to hell before we can hope to overcome the lies that threaten our material well-being. If we are ready to die for God’s holy truth, we can become worthy of His intercession. If not, we deserve what the Great Reset liars have planned for us.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
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St. Patrick Wins the Right to Judge Ireland |
Posted by: Stone - 08-22-2023, 05:49 AM - Forum: The Saints
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St. Patrick Wins the Right to Judge Ireland
Adapted from William B. Morris, The Life of St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland, London: Burns and Oates, 1878, Appendix, pp. 208-212
TIA | March 22, 2014
Leaving Roscommon, St. Patrick went up northwards to Sligo, baptizing many on his way, and founding churches for his converts; then descending, he passed to the West, through Mayo, until he reached that high mountain, now bearing his name, which looks to the North on Clew Bay, and to the West over the Atlantic.
A statue of St. Patrick sets at the base of Croagh Patrick, where the Saint fasted and prayed for 40 days
Among the many monuments built by God and now named after St. Patrick, Cruachan Aigle, now Croagh Patrick, is the most eloquent.
There we read the Saint’s history in the pathways worn on its rugged sides by those pilgrims who, for 14 centuries, have climbed Ireland’s “holiest mountain” – praying and fasting, some in their bare feet – to honor the great St. Patrick. This pilgrimage takes place each year on the last Sunday of July, called Reek Sunday or Garland Sunday.
It is hard to tell how much of the details of what passed between God and His servant on this occasion are authentic history, for no one supposes that there was any human witness present at the time. It is certain that for 40 days and nights he was alone upon the mountain wrestling in prayer with God that his pleas for Ireland might be granted.
No food or drink passed his lips, and his heart was wrung out before the throne of God while he prayed for the salvation of the Irish people. The living fire of his words, now so familiar to us, tells us what was the character of that prayer.
It is said that, while an Angel acted as his messenger, St. Patrick prayed and wept until his tears drenched his monastic cowl, and that, among other petitions, he prayed that the barbarian - by which is understood the unbeliever - should never, by consent or force, hold Erin while he was in Heaven.
Also, it is said that he made a demand, which faith alone can appreciate, to the effect that seven years before the day of doom, the waters should cover the Island that he loved. Our Lord’s words explain the meaning of this prayer when He tells us that, Unless these days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened (Mt 24: 22).
Each year 15,000-20,000 pilgrims climb Croagh Patrick on Reek Sunday to honor the Apostle of Ireland
Then, says the writer of the Tripartite, he called on God to grant this demand: that on the day that “the twelve royal seats shall be on the Mount, and when the four rivers of fire shall be about the Mount, and when the three peoples shall be there - that is, the people of Heaven, the people of Earth, and the people of Hell - I myself shall be judge over the men of Erin on that day.”
The Angel told him that this thing could not be obtained from the Lord.
Then Patrick said: “Unless this is obtained from Him, I will not consent to leave this Cruachan (mountain) from this day forever; and even after my death there shall be a guardian for me there.”
Then the Angel left him and Patrick went to say the Mass. The Angel came again in the evening.
“How now?” asked Patrick.
“Thus,” answered the Angel, “all creatures, visible and invisible, including the twelve Apostles, entreated, and they have obtained what you have requested.”
“Strike thy bell,” the Angel continued, “you are commanded from Heaven to fall on your knees, that it may be a blessing to the people of all Erin, both living and dead.”
“A blessing on the bountiful King that gave,” said Patrick; “the Cruachan shall be left.”
It was on Holy Thursday in the year 411 AD, according to Jocelyn, that the Saint came forth from his solitude and returned to his people.
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A Medieval Hymn of St Bernard |
Posted by: Stone - 08-20-2023, 09:49 AM - Forum: The Saints
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A Medieval Hymn of St Bernard
NLM | August 20, 2023
Here is a very nice medieval hymn for the feast of St Bernard of Clairvaux, which is used in the Cistercian Divine Office at both Vespers of his feast. According to the Analecta hymnica, the great catalog of medieval liturgical hymns, both the author and the date of composition are unknown, but it appears in several Cistercian sources in the 13th century, and has been in continual use within the order ever since. (It does not seem that any of the great translators like Neale or Caswell ever put their pens to this, so we must be content with my poor English prose translation.) This recording from the abbey of Marienstatt in Germany also includes the versicle that follows the hymn, “Ora pro nobis, sancte Bernarde”, in a more solemn tone which is different from the Roman one.
Bernardus Doctor inclytus,
Caelos conscendit hodie,
Quem attraxit divinitus
Splendor paternae gloriae.
Bernard, the renowned doctor
ascends the heavens today
Whom the splendor of the Father’s
glory drew from on high.
Exsultet caelum laudibus
De Bernardi consortio,
Quem conjungis caelestibus,
Jesu, nostra redemptio.
Let heaven exult in praises
for Bernard’s company,
Whom You join to the citizens
of heaven, Jesus, our redemption.
Rufum dorso per catulum
Praefigurasti puerum
Fore Doctorem sedulum,
Conditor alme siderum.
By the figure of a dog with a red
back, you showed that the boy
would be a zealous teacher,
O maker of the stars.
Nascentis ei claruit
Clara Christi nativitas,
Hoc a te donum habuit,
O lux, beata Trinitas.
For him shined most brightly
The glorious birth of Christ;
This gift he had from you,
o light, o blessed Trinity.
Arcana sacrae paginae
Declarat, et mysterium
Quod effecit in Virgine
Deus, creator omnium.
He set forth the mysteries
of the holy book, which God, the
creator of all things, wrought
in the Virgin.
Rore perfusum gratiae
Monstrat dulcor eloquii;
Per te fons sapientiae,
Summi largitor praemii.
The sweetness of his speech
showed him to be filled with grace,
though Thee, o font of wisdom,
giver of the highest reward.
Detentos a daemonibus
Sanat, morbos languentium
Curat, confert doloribus
Magnum salutis gaudium.
He heals those held by devils,
he cures the ailments of the sick,
and gives the great joy of salvation
to their griefs.
Vita vivit feliciter
Cum Maria Christifera
Cum qua degustat dulciter
Aeterna Christi munera.
Happily he lives (eternal) life
with Mary, the bearer of Christ,
with whom he sweetly tastes
the eternal gifts of Christ.
Summae Deus potentiae,
Tibi sit laus et gloria:
Da post cursum miseriae
Beata nobis gaudia. Amen.
God of highest power,
to thee be praise and glory:
after the way of wretchedness
give us blessed joys. Amen.
There are some interesting things to note. The hymn is an acrostic, the first letters of each stanza spelling his name BERNARDVS. The meter is the iambic dimeter, that of the original hymns of St Ambrose and other early Christian poets, short and long syllables alternating four times for a total of eight. (Substitutions are very common, especially since vowel quantities were already weakened in the 5th century, and hardly perceived as such in the High Middle Ages.) As such, it could in theory be sung in any one of a great many melodies, and other common hymns in this meter were often sung with different music from one church to another. However, it was an essential characteristic of the medieval Cistercians to keep a strict uniformity of observance in all their houses, and it is almost certain that they would have all used the same music.
The words of the third stanza “By the figure of a dog with a red back” refer to an episode recorded in the life of St Bernard. When his mother Aleth was pregnant with him (the third of her seven children, of whom four others are Blesseds), she dreamt that she was carrying a barking white dog with some red hair on its back. A religious man whom she consulted explained this dream to mean that the child she bore would be like the dogs mentioned in Psalm 67, “The tongues of your dogs lick the blood of their enemies”, guarding the house of God against its enemies, a preacher, and a healer of souls. This latter idea derives from St Gregory the Great’s symbolic interpretation of the dogs that licked the sores of Lazarus (hom. 40 in Evang.), in a passage which is read in the Roman Breviary on Thursday of the second week of Lent. “A dog’s tongue heals the sore which it licks; and so do holy teachers, when they instruct is in the confession of our sins, touch the sores of our souls by their tongues (i.e. their speech).” The following stanza refers to a vision of the Child Jesus which Bernard himself had when he was a boy, and fell asleep while waiting with his family to go out to Matins and the Midnight Mass of Christmas.
Christ Embracing St Bernard, ca. 1625, by Francisco Riablta (1565-1628). Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.
Medieval hymnographers loved the trick performed by the author of this hymn, in which the last line of each stanza is the title (i.e. first line) of another hymn. (A similarly constructed piece is sung in the proper Office of St Anthony the Abbot.)
Splendor paternae gloriae – an original hymn of St Ambrose himself, which the
Cistercians sing at Sunday Lauds, the Roman Office at Monday Lauds.
Jesu, nostra redemptio – from the feast of the Ascension, pre-Urban VIII
Conditor alme siderum – from Vespers of Advent, pre-Urban VIII
O lux, beata Trinitas – Saturday Vespers, pre-Urban VIII
Deus, creator omnium – the Ambrosian hymn for Sunday Vespers
Summi largitor praemii – a hymn for Lent sung by the Cistercians at Matins;
also used at Sarum, but not in the Roman Office.
Magnum salutis gaudium – processional hymn for Palm Sunday
Aeterna Christi munera – Matins hymn of the Apostles.
Beata nobis gaudia – Lauds hymn of Pentecost.
In addition, the first line of the second stanza, “Exsultet caelum laudibus”, is the title of the pre-Urban VIII version of the Vespers hymn of the Apostles. (Like all the religious orders that retained their own Uses of the Divine Office, the Cistercians never adopted Pope Urban VIII’s reform of the hymns.)
The difficulty of this trick is to integrate the titles into the words of a new composition in a new sense. Some of the expressions in the vocative case, such as “Jesu, nostra redemptio,” could be interchanged with any of the others, (I do not say this as a critique of the author; medievals valued originality far less than we do,) but the last three are particularly well chosen.
The Cistercians were founded at the very end of the 11th century as “strict constructionalists” of the original Rule of St Benedict, which they felt had been unhappily compromised by later developments and customs that emerged within the Cluniac monastic empire. The term which St Benedict uses for “hymn” in the Rule (capp. 9, 12, 13 and 17) is “ambrosianum”, since it was St Ambrose who first introduced the use of hymns into the West. This led the Cistercians to the believe that St Benedict’s original intention was not merely that monks should sing “a hymn” at certain Hours, but that they should use the specific corpus of hymns used by Ambrose himself. This corpus would be found, as they thought, in the Ambrosian Divine Office; they therefore sent people to Milan to copy out the Ambrosian hymnal then in use, and bring it back to Citeaux. It was incorporated into their Office to the despite of many hymns which at that point had long been in general use within the broad liturgical family of the Roman Rite. This was very controversial, even for an age in which there was a great deal of liturgical variation, and the Order was eventually pressured into adopting the traditional corpus of hymns, with some variations. This is why some of the original Ambrosian hymns such as “Splendor paternae gloriae” are given a more prominent place within the Cistercian Office than they were elsewhere.
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Prayer to the Most Holy Mary to Obtain the Pardon of Sins |
Posted by: Stone - 08-20-2023, 08:30 AM - Forum: In Honor of Our Lady
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Taken from The Glories Of Mary by St. Alphonsus Liguori
Prayer to the Most Holy Mary to Obtain the Pardon of Sins
BEHOLD, oh mother of God, at thy feet a miserable sinner, the slave of hell, who has recourse to thee, and trusts in thee. I do not even merit that thou shouldst look upon me, but I know that having seen thy Son die to save sinners, thou hast the greatest desire to aid them.
Oh mother of mercy, look on my miseries, and have pity on me. I hear thee called by all: The refuge of sinners, the hope of the desperate, the help of the abandoned. Then thou art my refuge, my hope, my help. Thou must save me by thy intercession. Succor me for the love of Jesus Christ. Give thy hand to a poor fallen sinner who recommends himself to thee. I know that thou dost find consolation in helping the sinner when thou canst; help me then, for thou canst help me. I, by my sins have lost the grace of God and my own soul, now I place myself in thy hands; tell me what I must do to return to the favor of my Lord, for I will do it, without delay. He sends me to thee, that thou mayest succor me, and he wishes me to have recourse to thy mercy, that not only the merits of thy Son, but also thy prayers may aid in my salvation.
To thee then I have recourse; thou who dost pray for so many others, pray also to Jesus for me. Ask him to pardon me, and he will pardon me; tell him that thon dost desire my salvation, and he will save me. Make known the good that thou canst do to those who confide in thee. Amen; thus I hope, thus may it be.
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St. Alphonsus Liguori: Daily Meditations for Twelfth Week after Pentecost |
Posted by: Stone - 08-20-2023, 07:39 AM - Forum: Pentecost
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It would seem that, on the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin into Heaven, the holy Church should invite us to mourn rather than rejoice, since our dear Mother has quitted this world and left us deprived of her sweet presence. But no: the holy Church rightly invites us to rejoice, for Mary is going to possess a kingdom and to be crowned Queen of Heaven. Let us therefore rejoice in the glorious triumph of our Mother.
I.
It would seem that on the day of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven the holy Church should rather invite us to mourn than to rejoice, since our sweet Mother has quitted this world and left us deprived of her sweet presence. St. Bernard says "It seems that we should rather weep than rejoice." But no; the holy Church invites us to rejoice: "Let us all rejoice in the Lord, celebrating a Festival in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary." And justly so; for, if we love our Mother, we ought to congratulate ourselves more upon her glory than on our own personal happiness. What son does not rejoice, though on account of it he has to be separated from his mother, if he knows that she is going to take possession of a kingdom? Mary is to be crowned Queen of Heaven; and shall we not keep it a festival and rejoice if we truly love her? Let us rejoice, then; let us all rejoice! And that we may rejoice, and be consoled the more by her exaltation, let us consider how glorious was the triumph of Mary when she ascended to Heaven.
After Jesus Christ our Saviour had completed, by His death, the work of Redemption, the Angels ardently desired to possess Him in their heavenly country; hence they were continually supplicating Him in the words of David: Arise, O Lord, into thy resting-place, thou and the ark which thou hast sanctified (Ps. cxxxi. 8). Come, O Lord, come quickly, now that Thou hast redeemed men; come to Thy kingdom and dwell with us, and bring with Thee the living ark of Thy sanctification, Thy Mother, who was the ark Thou didst sanctify by dwelling in her womb. Precisely thus does St. Bernardine make the Angels say: "Let Mary, Thy most holy Mother, sanctified by Thy conception, also ascend." Our Lord was at last pleased to satisfy the desire of these heavenly citizens by calling Mary to Paradise. But if it was His will that the ark of the old dispensation should be brought with great pomp into the city of David -- And David and all the house of Israel brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord with joyful shouting, and with sound of trumpet (2 Kings vi. 15) -- with how much greater and more glorious pomp did He ordain that His Mother should enter Heaven!
II.
The Prophet Elias was carried to Heaven in a fiery chariot, which, according to interpreters, was no other than a group of Angels who bore him off from the earth. "But to conduct thee to Heaven, O Mother of God," says the Abbot Rupert, "a fiery chariot was not enough; the whole court of Heaven, headed by its King thy Son, went forth to meet and accompany thee."
St. Bernardine of Sienna says, that "Jesus," to honour the triumph of His most sweet Mother, "went forth in His glory to meet and accompany her." St. Anselm also says, that "it was precisely for this purpose that the Redeemer was pleased to ascend to Heaven before His Mother; that is, He did so, not only to prepare a throne for her in that kingdom, but also that He might Himself accompany her with all the blessed Spirits, and thus render her entry into Heaven more glorious, and such as became one who was His Mother." St. Peter Damian, contemplating the splendour of this Assumption of Mary into Heaven, says that "we shall find it more glorious than the Ascension of Jesus Christ; for to meet the Redeemer, Angels only went forth; but when the Blessed Virgin was assumed to glory, she was met and accompanied by the Lord of glory Himself, and by the whole blessed company of Saints and Angels." For this reason the Abbot Guerric supposes the Divine Word thus speaking: "To honour the Father, I descended from Heaven; to honour My Mother, I reascended there": that thus I might be enabled to go forth to meet her, and myself accompany her to Paradise.
Spiritual Reading
TO THEE DO WE SIGH, MOURNING AND WEEPING, IN THIS VALLEY OF TEARS!
1.-THE NECESSITY OF MARY'S INTERCESSION FOR OUR SALVATION.
That it is not only lawful but useful to invoke and pray to the Saints, and more especially to the Queen of Saints, the most holy and ever blessed Virgin Mary, in order that they may obtain us Divine grace, is an Article of Faith, and has been defined by General Councils, against heretics who condemned it as injurious to Jesus Christ, Who is our only Mediator. But if a Jeremias after his death prayed for Jerusalem (2 Mach. xv. 14); if the Ancients of the Apocalypse presented the prayers of the Saints to God (Apoc. v. 8); if a St. Peter promises his disciples that after his death He will be mindful of them (2 Pet. i. 15); if a holy Stephen prays for his persecutors (Acts vii. 59); if a St. Paul prays for his companions (Acts xxvii. 24; Eph. ii. 16; Phil. i. 4; Col. i. 3); if, in fine, the Saints can pray for us, why cannot we beseech the Saints to intercede for us? St. Paul recommends himself to the prayers of his disciples: Brethren, pray for us (1 Thess. v. 25). St. James exhorts us to pray one for another: Pray one for another, that you may be saved (James v. 16). Then we can do the same.
No one denies that Jesus Christ is our only Mediator of justice, and that He by His merits has obtained our reconciliation with God. But, on the other hand, it is impious to assert that God is not pleased to grant graces at the intercession of His Saints, and more especially of Mary, His Mother, whom Jesus desires so much to see loved and honoured by all. Who can pretend that the honour bestowed on a mother does not redound to the honour of the son? The glory of children are their fathers (Prov. xvii. 6). Whence St. Bernard says: "Let us not imagine that we obscure the glory of the Son by the great praise we lavish on the Mother; for the more she is honoured, the greater is the glory of her Son." "There can be no doubt," says the Saint, "that whatever we say in praise of the Mother is equally in praise of the Son." And St. Ildephonsus also says: "That which is given to the Mother redounds to the Son; the honour given to the Queen is honour bestowed on the King." There can be no doubt that by the merits of Jesus, Mary was made the mediatress of our salvation; not indeed a mediatress of justice, but of grace and intercession; as St. Bonaventure expressly calls her, "Mary, the most faithful mediatress of our salvation." And St. Laurence Justinian asks -- "How can she be otherwise than full of grace, who has been made the ladder to Paradise, the gate of Heaven, the most true mediatress between God and man?"
Hence the learned Suarez justly remarks that if we implore our Blessed Lady to obtain us a favour, it is not because we distrust the Divine mercy, but rather that we fear our own unworthiness and the absence of proper dispositions; and we recommend ourselves to Mary, that her dignity may supply for our lowliness. He says that we apply to Mary "in order that the dignity of the intercessor may supply for our misery. Hence, to invoke the aid of the most Blessed Virgin is not diffidence in the Divine mercy, but dread of our own unworthiness."
That it is most useful and holy to have recourse to the intercession of Mary can only be doubted by those who have not the Faith. But that which we intend to prove here is that the intercession of Mary is even necessary to salvation; we say necessary -- not absolutely, but morally. This necessity proceeds from the will itself of God, that all the graces He dispenses should pass through the hands of Mary, according to the opinion of St. Bernard, and which we may now with safety call the general opinion of Theologians and learned men. The author of the Reign of Mary positively asserts that such is the case. It is maintained by Vega, Mendoza, Paciucchelli, Segneri, Poire, Crasset, and by innumerable other learned authors. Even Father Natalis Alexander, who always uses so much reserve in his propositions, even he says that it is the will of God that we should expect all graces through the intercession of Mary. I will give his own words: "God wills that we should obtain all good things that we hope for from Him through the powerful intercession of the Virgin Mother, and we shall obtain them whenever (as we are in duty bound) we invoke her." In confirmation of this, he quotes the following celebrated passage of St. Bernard: "Such is God's will, that we should have all through Mary." Father Contenson is also of the same opinion; for, explaining the words addressed by our Lord on the Cross to St. John: Behold thy Mother! (Jo. xix. 27) he says: It is the same thing as if Jesus had said: As no one can be saved except through the merits of My sufferings and death, so no one will be a partaker of the Blood then shed otherwise than through the prayer of My Mother. He alone is a son of My sorrows who has Mary for his Mother. My Wounds are ever-flowing fountains of grace; but their streams will reach no one but by the channel of Mary. In vain will he invoke Me as a Father who has not venerated Mary as a Mother. And thou, My disciple John, if thou lovest Me, love her; for thou wilt be beloved by Me in proportion to thy love for her.
Evening Meditation
CONSIDERATIONS ON THE PASSION OF JESUS CHRIST
I.
Jesus upon the Cross was a spectacle which filled Heaven and earth with amazement -- the sight of an Almighty God, the Lord of all, dying upon an infamous gibbet, condemned as a malefactor between two thieves. It was a spectacle of justice -- the Eternal Father, in order that His justice might be satisfied, punishing the sins of men in the person of His only-begotten Son Who was loved by Him as Himself. It was a spectacle of mercy, when His innocent Son died a death so shameful and so bitter, in order to save His creatures from the punishment that was due to them. Especially was it a display of love, in a God offering His life to redeem from death His slaves and enemies!
It is this spectacle which ever was, and ever will be, the dearest object of the contemplation of the Saints, who have counted it little to strip themselves of all earthly pleasures and goods, and to embrace with desire and joy both pain and death, in order to make some return of gratitude to a God Who died for love of them.
Comforted by the sight of Jesus derided upon the Cross, the Saints have loved contempt more than worldly people have loved the honours of the world. At the sight of Jesus naked and dying upon the Cross, they have sought to abandon all the good things of this earth. At the sight of Him all wounded upon the Cross, while the blood flowed forth from all His limbs, they have learnt to abhor sensual pleasures, and have sought to afflict their flesh as much as they could, in order to accompany with their own sufferings the sufferings of the Crucified. At the sight of the obedience and conformity of will practised by Jesus Christ to the will of His Father, they laboured to conquer all those appetites which were not conformed to the Divine pleasure; while many, though occupied in works of piety, yet, knowing that to be deprived of their own will was their most welcome sacrifice to the Heart of God, entered into some Religious Order, to lead a life of obedience, and subject their own will to that of others. At the sight of the patience of Jesus Christ, in being willing to suffer so many pains and insults for the love of us, they received with satisfaction and joy injuries, infirmities, persecutions, and the torments of tyrants. At the sight of the love Jesus Christ has shown to us in sacrificing to God His life upon the Cross for us, they sacrificed to Jesus Christ all they possessed, -- their property, their pleasures, their honours, and their life.
II.
How is it that so many Christians, although they know by Faith that Jesus Christ died for love of them, instead of devoting themselves wholly to love and serve Him, give themselves up to offending and despising Him for the sake of brief and miserable pleasures? Whence comes this ingratitude? It comes from forgetfulness of the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ. And, O my God, what will be their remorse and shame at the Day of Judgment, when the Lord shall reproach them with all that He has done and suffered for them?
Let us, then, never cease, O devout souls, to keep before our eyes Jesus crucified, and dying in the midst of torments and insults through love of us. From the Passion of Jesus Christ all the Saints have drawn those flames of love which made them forget all the good things of this world, and even their own selves, to give themselves up wholly to love and please this Divine Saviour, Who has so loved men that it seems as if He could not have done more in order to be loved by them. In a word, the Cross, that is, the Passion of Jesus Christ, is that which will gain for us the victory over all our passions, and over all the temptations that hell will hold out to us, in order to separate us from God. The Cross is the road and ladder by which we mount to Heaven. Happy he who embraces it during his life, and does not put it off till the hour of death. He that dies embracing the Cross has that sure pledge of eternal life which is promised to all those who follow Jesus Christ.
O my crucified Jesus, to make Thyself loved by men Thou hast spared nothing; Thou hast even given Thy life in a most painful death; how, then, can men who love their kindred, their friends, and even animals from whom they receive any token of affection, be so ungrateful to Thee as to despise Thy grace and Thy love, for the sake of miserable and vain delights! Oh, wretched me, I am one of those ungrateful beings who, for things of no worth, have renounced Thy friendship, and have turned my back upon Thee. I have deserved that Thou shouldst drive me from Thy face, as I have often banished Thee from my heart. But I know that Thou dost not cease to ask my heart of me: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God (Deut. vi. 5). Yea, O my Jesus, as Thou desirest that I should love Thee and offerest me pardon, I renounce all creatures, and henceforth I desire to love Thee alone, my Creator and my Redeemer. Thou dost deserve to be the only object of my soul's love.
O Mary, Mother of God, refuge of sinners, pray for me; obtain for me the grace to love God, and I ask for nothing more.
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