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| Federal Reserve Declares CBDC a “Key Duty” to Congress |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-20-2024, 06:55 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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Federal Reserve Declares CBDC a “Key Duty” to Congress, Despite Public Statements Attempting To Downplay Its Focus
"If you don’t think the Fed is pursuing a CBDC, think again."
Didi Rankovic | March 18, 2024
The Fed (US Federal Reserve, the central bank) does not appear to be one of those institutions whose word you could, so to speak – take to the bank.
Just as it is reassuring the public that it is not focusing on introducing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the country, the Fed has only recently been telling Congress that steps leading to a digital dollar are among its “7 key duties.”
This is according to Congressman Tom Emmer, who posted a document on X on March 14, explaining that his office received it as the Fed representatives were in Congress for a presentation.
What caused the alarm is the mention of Automated Clearinghouse and FedNow among the “key duties,” as these payment systems are seen as a way to move towards a CBDC.
It’s been two years since the US Central Bank first came out with a paper looking into this possibility, and is also linked with the Digital Dollar Project, so this should not be seen as controversial per se.
However, just one week before the presentation document Congressman Emmer was referring to when he posted, “If you don’t think the Fed is pursuing a CBDC, think again” – the Fed was in the Senate, where Chairman Jerome Powell told the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee that adopting or even recommending a US CBDC was a something that was “nowhere near (…) in any form.”
“People don’t need to worry about it,” Powell also said.
But people do, and that was true even before this latest development commented on by Emmer. The ability of the state to impose financial surveillance over the population – in the vein of what is already happening in China in earnest – is the main reason for this.
The most vocal opponents in Congress are Republicans, while former President Donald Trump, who is likely to run for office again later this year, has vowed to stop a US CBDC, describing it as “a dangerous threat to freedom.”
However, the Fed – despite its chair appearing to be convincing America that this “danger” is in no way imminent, has had highly positioned officials like Vice Chairman Lael Brainard push for it.
Putting aside the implications on the financial freedom of Americans, Brainard is reported as saying a CBDC would “reinforce global dollar dominance” and be “a safe central bank liability in the digital financial ecosystem.”
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| Pope Francis denounces ‘anti-vaxxers’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-20-2024, 06:45 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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Pope Francis denounces ‘anti-vaxxers,’ calls COVID jab refusal an ‘almost suicidal act of denial’
Pope Francis has once again touted the abortion-tainted COVID vaccines, reissuing his condemnation of those who refused to take the shot.
![[Image: pope-march-2024.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/pope-march-2024.jpg)
Pope Francis, during general audience March 2024.
L'Osservatore Romano/Facebook
Mar 19, 2024
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews [slightly adapted, not all hyperlinks included]) — Pope Francis has issued fresh condemnation of critics of the abortion-tainted COVID-19 injections, saying that opposition to the shots “distressed” him since “being against the antidote is an almost suicidal act of denial.”
Speaking as part of his newly released memoirs, in a series of interviews conducted by journalist Fabio Marchese Ragona, Pope Francis highlighted his thoughts and responses to the COVID-19 era, including the abortion-tainted COVID jabs and his warm welcome of them.
The pontiff rebuked those who did not receive an injection, or who voiced opposition to them publicly, saying:
Quote:Deciding whether to get vaccinated is always an ethical choice, but I know that many people signed up to movements opposed to the administration of the medication. This distressed me because in my view, being against the antidote is an almost suicidal act of denial.
Francis also made a thinly-veiled condemnation of Cardinal Raymond Burke, who voiced strong opposition to the injections and who was also hospitalized with COVID-19 and serious health issues.
“There were even a few anti-vaxxers among the bishops: some came close to death,” stated Francis, echoing a veiled dig he made at the American cardinal in 2021.
Referring to the COVID-related lockdowns as a “grim scenario,” Francis stated that “[t]his grim scenario began to change with the arrival of the first vaccines,” failing to mention the multitude of side effects linked to the rollout of the experimental jabs, including upticks in heart, brain and blood diseases, among others issues.
The pontiff, who has remained an outspoken promoter of the injections from the start, opined that “a generalized fear was created when superficial explanations of how the vaccines worked spoke of injections of the virus into the body. There were also claims there was nothing but water in the vials; some people even stated publicly that microchips were being implanted in people.”
“All this,” he said, “created confusion and panic.”
Particularly during the height of COVID-19 related restrictions, Francis regularly pushed the “moral obligation” of taking an abortion-tainted jab as being an “act of love.” As early as late summer 2020, he suggested that “everyone” must take the COVID-19 vaccine. “I believe that, ethically, everyone should take the vaccine,” he said. The pope added “it must be done.”
READ: Moderna trial injects first UK patients with experimental mRNA cancer ‘vaccine’
In January 2021, Francis and Pope Benedict XVI were among the first to receive the abortion-tainted injections, with Pfizer supplying the Holy See with its injections. Both men subsequently received boosters of the injection in the months following.
Commenting on this, Francis told Ragona: “When the first supplies arrived at the Vatican, I scheduled my vaccination immediately; later I got the boosters as well, and, thanks be to God, I lave not caught the virus.”
The pope noted with pleasure the initiative which he undertook with papal almoner, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, to invite the financially needy along with “transgender” individuals to receive their injections at the Vatican.
Pfizer’s production of abortion pills, along with its production of a COVID-19 injection involving tests using the HEK 293 cell line, is derived from kidney tissue taken from a healthy baby who was aborted in the Netherlands in the 1970s. Seemingly undeterred by the ethical question, Francis secretly met twice with Pfizer CEO Francis Bourla during 2021, with Bourla also speaking at a Vatican-hosted health conference.
The Vatican also mandated COVID jabs for Vatican employees and visitors, removing the option to test “negative” for the virus, and allowing only proof of recovery from the virus as an alternative to the injection. An additional mandate resulted in three Swiss Guards losing their jobs in 2021 after refusing to take the abortion-tainted injection.
COVID injections mandates finally ended in June 2022, though it was extended for the Swiss Guards. As late as January 2023, COVID shots were still required for reporters wishing to join the Pope on papal journeys – a mandate which expired by that April.
READ: Vatican still mandating abortion-tainted COVID jabs for journalists who wish to join papal trips
Highlighting the intimate link to abortion which the injections have, Cardinal Burke stated in May 2020 that “[i]t is never morally justified to develop a vaccine through the use of cell lines of aborted fetuses” and that the thought of it being injected into one’s body is “rightly abhorrent.” He noted also that vaccination may not be imposed “in a totalitarian manner” on citizens.
Similar vocal criticism of the injections has also been repeatedly issued by prelates such as Bishop Athanasius Schneider. Indeed, in a seminal intervention of December 12, 2020, Bishop Athanasius Schneider – along with co-signers Cardinal Janis Pujats, Bishop Joseph Strickland, and Archbishops Tomash Peta and Jan Pawel Lenga – expressed their strong conviction that any use of a vaccine tainted with the “unspeakable crime” of abortion, under any circumstances, “cannot be acceptable for Catholics.”
Since that time, many thousands of studies, scientists, leading health professionals and medics have testified to the unprecedented level of injuries and deaths, following and resulting from the COVID injections. The latest estimate is that over 17 million worldwide died from receiving the injections making this the worst man-caused medical catastrophe in history.
As of February 23, 2024, the U.S. Federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports 37,231 deaths, 214,906 hospitalizations, 21,524 heart attacks, and 28,214 myocarditis and pericarditis case, among other ailments. An April 2022 study out of Israel indicates that COVID infection itself cannot fully account for the myocarditis numbers, despite common insistence to the contrary.
VAERS reports are technically unconfirmed, as anyone can submit one, but U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers have recognized a “high verification rate of reports of myocarditis to VAERS after mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination,” leading to the conclusion that “under-reporting is more likely” than overreporting. A 2010 report submitted to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS’s) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) warned that VAERS caught “fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events.”
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| Fr. Hewko: Latin Masses Everywhere But Which One to Drink? |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-19-2024, 07:56 AM - Forum: Fr. Hewko's Sermons, Catechisms, & Conferences
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Transcript of the above sermon [any inadvertent errors in transcription are mine]:
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Today is March 16th here in Post Falls area in Idaho. And tomorrow will be Passion Sunday. Normally the statues are veiled. No flowers on the altar. The organ doesn't play. The prayers at the foot of the altar at the beginning of Mass are shortened. The Psalm is dropped, the Gloria Patri is dropped, and the whole focus is the passion of Our Divine Lord. So here we are the night before its March 16th. Let's look at one of the saints today that we don't hear much of, but whose St. John Chrysostom gave a panegyric in praise of, and his name is St. Julian of Cilicia. Here's his story. It's always refreshing to go back to the early saints and their martyrdoms and their strength and their courage.
Listen to this, this saint, he was Cilician of a Sanatorium family in Anazarbus and a minister of the Gospel. During the persecution of the emperor, Diocletian, he fell into the hands of a judge, who by his brutal behavior, resembled more a wild beast than a man. The president seen his constancy proof against the sharpest torments hoped to overcome him by the long continuance of his martyrdom. So everything was dragged out. He caused him to be brought before his tribunal every day.
Sometimes he caressed him, patted him on the back and so forth. At other times, threatened him with 1000 tortures. For a whole year together he caused St. Julian to be dragged as a malefactor through all the towns of Cilicia. Imagining that this shame and confusion might vanquish him, but it served only to increase the martyr's glory and gave him an opportunity of encouraging in the faith all the Catholic people of Cilicia by his example and exhortations. He suffered every kind of torture. The bloody executioners had torn his flesh, furrowed, dug his sides with iron spikes, laid his bones bare and exposed his very bowels to view. Scourges, fire, and the sword were employed various ways to torment him with the utmost cruelty. The judge saw that to torment him longer was laboring to shake a rock.
And was forced at length to own himself, conquered, by condemning him to death, in which however, he studied to surpass his former cruelty. He was then at Aegea, a town on the sea-coast, and he caused the martyr to be sewed up in a sack with scorpions, serpents, and vipers and so thrown into the sea.
This was the Roman punishment for paracides, the worst of malefactors, yet seldom executed on them. Eusebius mentions that St. Ulpian of Tyre suffered a like martyrdom being thrown into the sea in a leather sack together with a dog, a rabid dog, and a poisonous snake. The sea gave back the body of our holy martyr, St. Julian, which the faithful conveyed to Alexandria of Cilicia and afterwards to Antioch where St. John Chrysostom pronounced his panegyric before his shrine. He eloquently sets forth how much these sacred relics were honored and affirms that no devil could stand the presence of his relics. And that men, by them, found a remedy for then bodily distempers in the cure of the evils of the soul.
And then here's words from Father Alban Butler, "The martyrs lost with joy their worldly honors, dignity, estates, friends, liberty, and their very lives, rather than forfeit for one moment their fidelity to God. They courageously bade defiance to pleasures and torments to prosperity and adversity, to life and death saying with the Apostle, 'Who shall separate us from the love of Jesus Christ? Crowns, scepters, worldly riches and pleasures. You have no charms which shall ever tempt me to depart in the least from the allegiance which I owe to God. Alarming fears of the most dreadful evils, prisons, racks fire and death itself in every shape of cruelty, you shall never shake my constancy. Nothing shall ever separate me from the love of Christ.' This must be the sincere disposition of every Catholic."
"Lying protestations of fidelity to God cost us nothing, but he sounds the heart. Is our constancy, is our fidelity such as to bear evidence to our sincerity that rather than to fail in the least duty to God, we are ready to resist to blood. And there we are always upon our guard to keep our ears shut to the voices of those sirens, which never cease to lay snares to our senses." So we look back and we say, "Yeah, it would be a lot easier if it was just Catholics and pagans." Pagans are bad, Catholics are good, the lines are drawn and it's nice and clear. But here we are. I'm in Post Falls area. In Post Falls like some other places in the world, you got every form of Catholicism. You got the whole banquet set with all sorts of platters and flavors and sauces and from soup to nuts as well.
What do I mean by that? Here you've got every form of, they're all saying the Latin Mass. You've got Sedevacantist, up on the Mount, you've got CMRI. Some of them are Sedevacantist, some are not. Most of the CMRI are consecrated and ordained. Unless I misunderstand, but as far as I know, and I could stand to be corrected on this, but I understand most of the CMRI are from the Thuc line. And of course, yeah, you got Father Pfeiffer coming in with Episcopal robes and he got himself consecrated in the Thuc line. Who else do we have up here? We've got, of course the long-standing, Society of St. Pius X, which since 2012 has gone more Conciliar and has compromised with the New Mass, Vatican II. After all, Bishop Fellay said, "I accept 95% of it." They accept the New Code with no distinctions anymore and the new fidelity, the new Profession of Faith under Cardinal Ratzinger. And then all the jurisdictions they've received from Pope Francis.
And then who else we got here? Oh, of course you got the Resistance coming through. So Resistance priests coming through, not so luxuriously, only once every five, six months if you're lucky, or three or four months if you're lucky. So that's not too appealing, because you don't get mass every week. So who else we have around here? Of course, yeah, St. Joan of Arc and Fraternity of St. Peter who hate the Society, because the Society is schismatic and their sacraments they say are invalid, because they're not under a bishop. But honestly, that's just bad Canon Law. That's bad Canon Law, because even an honest Novus Ordo canon lawyer like such as Father Murray, he says, "I don't agree with Archbishop Lefebvre. I don't follow Archbishop Lefebvre, but he does not incur excommunication and his sacraments and all his priests are all valid." There's no question of validity. And their marriages are valid and their sacraments of confession are valid, because of the crisis of the church. So I think we covered most of them. And if I forgot any, well what's a few more dishes or a few missing?
And we could look at it and if we took all the priests of each group together, sat them down together at a nice meal and sat together and talked and you put questions to them and you asked, "Do you believe in the Apostles Creed?" Every one of them would probably die to shed their blood for the Apostles Creed. They would all accept the teachings of the Church, the Magisterium. They would all accept the condemnations of liberalism and modernism. They would all accept the Council of Trent. They would all accept the Novus Ordo is at least bad.
But then when you get down to the details of Vatican II and the New Mass and the new Code of Canon Law, that's where the battles begin, because the devil has arranged things such that Catholicism has been attacked at every level. And with the embodiment of the New Mass and Vatican II, it's a whole new fresh attack on the Catholic religion in a way only the devil could invent.
Now, what would really be the solution to all these traditional Latin Mass groups coming together? How would you ever get them together? Well, we have to always judge the way the Church judges. The only way to pull any groups of Catholics together is on the Catholic Truth. We must profess the same Faith. Partake of the same traditional sacraments and we must be under one Shepherd. Christ is the invisible head of the Church and the reining Pontiff is the visible head.
And that's where we get the confusion. I would say maybe the second layer for the confusion, the heart of the confusion is doctrine. The doctrine is not confusing, truth is not confusing. It's us men who make it confusing by our trying to water it down or trying to mix truth like liberal Catholics. Mix Catholicism with the modern ideas, which is perfectly embodied in the Vatican Council II, which was, as Pope Benedict XVI said, "Vatican II is nothing more than taking two centuries of Liberalism and Freemasonry and bringing it into the Church, liberal culture and bringing it into the church." So he admitted that. That Vatican II is the epitome of liberal Catholicism, which was condemned under Pope Pius IX.
So I think if we had all these priests in a room, I think everyone would agree that if we had a good pope on the throne of Peter who would condemn Vatican II and all its heresies and errors, condemn the New Mass, condemn and basically chuck the new Code of Canon Law and restore the old Code, which was not ecumenical and not giving communion to Protestants, for example, which is promoted in the New Code. Nor encouraging the use of other oils, putting the sacraments in doubt, because the new code permits oils that the Catholic Church has never considered valid. The only one that considered valid for the sacraments is olive oil. Why? Because when Christ, just as when he stood in the waters of the Jordan and St. John the Baptist baptized him, St. Thomas Aquinas says, "Christ sanctified all the waters of the earth. So any water anywhere on the earth can be used for baptism. So when Christ also entered the Garden of Olives, which was full of olive trees from where you get olive oil, Christ sanctified all the olive oil of the world that ever will be used for the sacraments if it's properly consecrated, exercised and blessed," which is done by the bishop on the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday.
So I think all the priests would agree that if we had a good pope, the Sedevacantist would say, "All right, we have a good pope. The see is no longer empty." And then all the poor lost Novus Ordo's, they're probably the only ones that would probably form a system and rebel, because they're quite comfortable in the new religion of Vatican II, which allows divorce, which allows all kinds of immorality, which allows contraception, which permits every form of liberalism. So I think if we ever get a good pope, which we will and is promised by Our Lady, the real schismatics then will be the Novus Ordo's who reject the Pope's traditionalism. I'm sure that will happen when it comes, because liberals are quite contradictory and they're quite sectarian. As Pius X said, and Leo XIII, "There's no one more sectarian than a liberal."
And then with a good pope, of course Society of St. Pius X, bishops and priests would be very happy, because the good pope would condemn Vatican II and the New Mass, make things clear and restore the sacred liturgy of the Tridentine Mass.
If Archbishop Viganò , I don't know, none of us know, but if that's in God's plan that in the future he becomes pope, he would certainly restore the liturgy to the pre '55 without any question. He already said publicly the Society St. Pius X should go back to the pre '55 liturgy. But that's another debate and that's another question. And then if it was Archbishop Viganò as pope, he would certainly consecrate Russia, that would be one of his first acts. So God alone knows. But so I think we could say that under a good pope, just as strike the shepherd and the sheep scatter as Christ said, our shepherd has been struck since Vatican II, 59 years since 1965 the shepherd has been struck. The Pope has been the cause of error, confusion, heresy, scandal. So the sheep have scattered to all different groups.
As I said before, you got them all here in Post Falls, you got all of them. The only ones missing in Post Falls, I think, are bishops and priests from the da Costa line. I forgot about them. Da Costa was excommunicated under Pius XII. He was from Brazil and he wanted women priests. He wanted vernacular. He was pretty radical and his orders are quite doubtful while he was certainly excommunicated under Pius XII for legitimate reasons. So otherwise you got everybody here in Post Falls. So it makes it quite interesting for traditional Catholics. And of course they are fighting each other on questions of how much Vatican II do you accept? How much liberalism do you accept? And I think that's the dividing line among the traditional groups is how much mingling of liberal Catholicism do you swallow? And that's the dividing line.
With the Sedevacantists, most of them are not liberals. Most of them will not accept any liberalism. For most of them the question is just the papacy. But they will never accept evolution. They will never accept the compromise with modernism and they will never accept, for example, the new Code of Canon Law, ever. So when we get a good pope, the Sedevacantists will pretty much be very strong on the Faith, except on the papacy, which would be no more an issue.
For the Society St. Pius X, they'd be happy. Some of them might have to correct their wrong ideas, such as Father Paul Robinson, who's been promoting evolution in his book, heavily promoted. Promoting that the 13.5 billion year old earth, which is complete fiction and completely against Scripture and Tradition. So that's just one example. And then Bishop Fellay dreams of being back with, as he calls, the 'Official Church.'
But Archbishop Lefebvre was very clear, we want nothing to do... He never called it the 'Official Church.' He called it what it was, the Conciliar Church, a schismatic church with a bastard Mass, with its bastard rights, with its bastard priesthood. Bastard, because you don't know if they're valid or not. And under a good pope, he would declare whether those Novus Ordo ordinations and Masses were valid or not. And that's where [the Fraternity of] St. Peter's are in a pickle as well. St. Peter's Society, because most of their priests are ordained by bishops consecrated in the Novus Ordo rite.
And quite honestly, that's objectively doubtful and you can have some hot debates and snowball wars over these questions, but let me just say this, because of if you compare the changes for the Novus Ordo Mass and Ordinations and Consecration of bishops with what was done by the Anglicans in the 1500s, you would see a striking similarity. And as certain that Mother Church under Pope Leo XIII, who called together all the best theologians to settle the question, are the Anglican orders valid? They came to the conclusion they're not valid.
My point is, and not just mine, but many other traditional priests, is if the church declared the Anglican changes and rites and sacraments invalid and the Novus Ordo changes sacraments and rites and ordinations and consecration of bishops are very similar to those changes, it's very possible some day the church will declare them absolutely invalid. It's very possible. We must just wait for the proper authority to draw the proper conclusion. And only one authority has the authority from God and the guidance of the Holy Ghost to settle the question, and that's the Roman Catholic Church. This is the beauty of our Catholic faith. We can debate, we can throw snowballs at each other, but really the questions will be settled when the Rome has returned to tradition and that will be a happy day.
And then all these phony canonizations of so-called St. Paul VI, so-called St. John Paul II and St. Joseph Escriva. They are probably not saints if they even made it to heaven at all. But some of them are saints, Pope Francis of all Popes canonized Jacinta and Francisco of Fatima. So we know they're saints because Our Lady said they're going to go to Heaven, "You will be with me in Heaven." And Lucia was so upset and sad, "You mean I got to stay on this earth, I got to live longer here?" But Our Lady said, "You will come to Heaven also, but you must suffer much."
So these canonization questions will be all settled by a good pope and all these groups who we must suppose are of goodwill, all these priests and scattered bishops will come under a good pope and that's a happy day when you think of that. That's the true unity, isn't it? It's the true unity of Faith. We all profess the same Faith under the one head, the Pope visible, and Our Lord the invisible Head, united at the same Sacraments, but not the Novus Ordo Sacraments, but the real traditional Sacraments.
I say St. Peter's will be in a pickle, because if those ordinations and those changes of the consecration of the bishops are doubtful and they're declared to be invalid, all those priests will have to be conditionally reordained. And I think they would gladly do it. So if you had all these priests together, they would all agree on the doctrines of the Faith. That's for sure. I guess the only thing that we fight about is really how much liberalism do you want to swallow?
And by liberalism I mean the mixing of the ideas of Freemasonry, the ideas of the enlightenment, the ideas condemned by the Church, by the Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX and all the great magisterial, papal encyclicals condemning the modern errors, evolution, modernism, separation of Church and State, freedom of the press, freedom of the video we would add today, freedom of speech, freedom of education, freedom of conscience. All these false freedoms which have been condemned would all be clarified.
And one of the great ones, as Archbishop Lefebvre said, "The real heart of the fight is the Kingship of Christ. The devil wants Him uncrowned, the liberals want Him uncrowned, they can't tolerate the Kingship of Christ." And that's where the heart of the fight really is. And that's where we, in this confusion, we gather around the tradition of the Church, we gather around the one who taught and defended the papal encyclicals. And that's Archbishop Lefebvre. Who warned his own priests and bishops, "Don't make any agreements with Rome until Rome comes back to tradition. Don't call the New Mass legitimate, because it's not," but they did. But Bishop Fellay did and they have to all accept that now with the Doctrinal Declaration of 2012.
And the Archbishop warned, "Be careful, don't make any... shaking hands with modernists. Don't seek any deals, any agreements, because Rome has the authority and they will crush tradition and they will try to put you in a position of silence." If you make any deals, you sign any deals with modernist Rome, you will be put in a position of silence. And that's exactly the trap Bishop Fellay led the new SSPX into. They are in a position of silence. They cannot preach publicly and boldly against the teachings of Pope Francis, his heresies and his bad example, his scandals and Vatican II in the New Mass. They can attack some points of these still, but overall it's a position of silence and compromise. And this is why the Catholic Resistance, we want to hold the line of Archbishop Lefebvre, because we can't put the light under a bushel.
As far as Father Pfeiffer and the Thuc line, Archbishop Lefebvre warned, "Stay away from the Thuc line, because it's riddled with dubiousness and strange behavior." Because Bishop Thuc consecrated five bishops in Palmer de Troya in Spain, and they later elected their own Pope. And many strange things going on there with apparitions. "And Bishop Thuc," Archbishop Lefebvre said, "judging by his actions, he didn't seem to be in his right mind, because he consecrated a non-Catholic as a bishop. That's one of the heaviest punishments the Church could give and he would probably be reduced to the lay state." But then Bishop Thuc was known to apologize to Pope Paul XI saying, "I'm sorry."
And he told Pope John-Paul II, "I withheld my intentions of these consecrations in ordinations." So he puts himself into a bag of confusion. Did he withhold his intentions? If he did, then they're invalid. And that's what he told the Pope. So that's why Archbishop Lefebvre so wisely said, "Stay away from the Thuc line." Father Pfeiffer knew this and he should have listened and he should have trusted more in God and Our Lady who will give a solution to a good bishop. He will. And sometimes He just wants us to fight longer and in the trenches longer, but God will always give a solution in Our Lady. But we must not throw ourselves into dubious lines when the Thuc line is really dubious. And of course the Sedevacantist say, you've got two Thuc lines, you've got the more reliable one from Bishop des Lauriers, and then you got the quacky ones under Bishop Tessarone and Henenberry.
So if you want to study the question, there's a good study done by Father Clarence Kelly at the time, who is Bishop Kelly now, who is Sedevacantist. But aside from that question of Sedevacantist, he does treat well the question of the Thuc line and he just shows its absurd events of that history.
So we don't say there's no pope. We do pray for the Pope. And again, that's another question that a future pope will settle. Were these popes, popes? Pope Francis, John Paul II, were they popes at all? The Pope may declare, "No, they were not popes, the seat was vacant for that time." That's possible. It's possible. Or the Pope may say, which I think is more likely, "They were popes, they were validly elected, but they are condemned. All their teaching are condemned, because they went openly and publicly against Catholic tradition."
That's probably what will be the case, because we have examples of that from history. Pope Honorius III, Pope John XXII, and Pope Liberius, who either signed heretical documents or were weak in correcting heresy and error. But all of them were condemned by their success in popes, but they never said they were not popes. So our position is with Archbishop Lefebvre who says, "As far as we know, they're popes. We pray for them as popes, but we resist them. We resist them to the face." And that's based on Scripture. St. Paul standing up to the first Pope St. Peter. Cephas is Peter.
And you have one group who don't say Mass here, because they don't have priests, but one group says that Cephas wasn't St. Peter, which is also ridiculous. Cephas is Peter.
Basically it's how much liberalism do you want to swallow or that's on the left, errors with the left and on the right you've got Sedevacantism. That he's just not a pope, which is easy to conclude with this bad pope, and he's so scandalous.
And they might be proven right, God knows. But as far we stand on the sound, theological position of Archbishop Lefebvre, which was and most Catholics I think stand on this. And my question would be, if Pope Francis was not really Pope, could he do so much damage as he's doing now? If Pope Francis wasn't really the Pope, could he do the damage? He couldn't do the damage he's doing. So another angle on this is also how heavily the popes will be judged. And we know there are popes in hell, Dante painted some popes in hell and he put some popes in hell in the Inferno. And I think Michelangelo and some other artists painted some popes in hell, because they were so scandalous. So there are popes in hell.
So dear flock here in Post Falls area, yes, the confusion is great. The devil is having a heyday. On the positive side of the state of affairs now, on the positive side, every one of these traditional Catholic groups would agree, we profess the Faith, we agree on the Creed, we profess all that the Church has taught. I think most would say that. The fighting only comes from whether you go to the right saying there's no pope or onto the left, how much liberalism are you willing to swallow? The Novus Ordo's have swallowed it, hook, line and sinker. The St. Peter's have swallowed it, hook and line, but not the sinker. The SSPX has swallowed it, the hook, but not the sinker and the line. And then the Catholic resistance priests will not swallow the hook line or sinker at all.
And I think we got to go back to Pius IX. We got to go back to Archbishop Lefebvre and St. Pius X to be our guides. And Pius IX said, "There's no enemy more harmful to the church than the liberal Catholics." And what is liberal Catholicism today at the doctrinal level, because at the practical level there's a lot of liberal Catholicism. But at the doctrinal level it's any compromise with Vatican II and the New Mass and the New Code. Any degree of compromise, how much you compromise with that determines how much liberal Catholicism you swallowed. And that's the barometer. So we want to stand with Archbishop Lefebvre and Cardinal Pie of Poitier, of the great popes and St. Pius X, and all the good popes. And Pius IX and Pope Pius VI do not accept any liberal Catholicism, because the liberalism is the destruction of the Catholic faith, the destruction of the church.
And so we must refuse all compromise with Vatican II and the New Mass. And that's where the new SSPX slid in 2012, because now they have a public documents and signed and the ongoing jurisdictions for marriages, confessions, and Holy Orders. They did everything that our Archbishop Lefebvre, our founder, warned not to do. The only thing they're not doing now is saying the New Mass, but they agreed that it's legitimately promulgated, which is one step from saying it. And they will not accept Vatican II 100%, but they accept 95% of it, which that's swallowing 95% poison.
So this is where again, where's our compass in this confusion? St. Vincent Ferrer said, "Look to what the Church is always taught." There's your compass, there's your guideline. And what did the martyrs do? They went to death rather than compromise an inch with the faith, they would not burn one half a grain before the goddesses and gods of Rome and they could have gotten away with it.
And then the great Eleazar in the book of Maccabees Book Two, and he was 80-something year old, and they said, "Look, you're an old man, don't make your life difficult. Retire in peace. All the Jews are looking at you." This is before Christ, of course. "All the Jews are looking at you, just look like you're eating pork. But when we serve your plate, we won't serve pork. But everybody will think you're eating pork. But don't worry, you're not compromising, because you're not really eating it." And Eleazar, the old wise man said, "Wait a minute, if they think that I'm eating pork, even though I'm not, that already is a terrible scandal." And he says, "I haven't lived this long to throw my soul to hell. I will not eat pork and I will not be seen to eat pork." In our case today, I will not accept the New Mass nor say that it's legitimately promulgated nor accept Vatican II nor accept the new Code of Canon Law with its heresies and errors. That's the position of Archbishop Lefebvre. We will not mix Catholicism with error.
So what did the old man Eleazar do? He accepted to be tortured and [was] put to death. And that's true Catholicism. That's the Catholics our Lord wants from us, to be non-compromising. And of course you get the normal snowballs thrown at you and tomatoes and eggs, you're bigoted, you're stuck in the past, you're disobedient, you're a rebel, you're a renegade. And the list goes on and on. Those are all badges of honor. That's why Archbishop Lefebvre said, "It's a badge of honor to be excommunicated from this Vatican II Church of Assisi, of ecumenism, of collegiality, of the New Mass, of evolution. It's a badge of honor.
And that's why it was a shame for the four bishops of the Society St. Pius X to ask Pope Benedict XVI, "Please, Holy Father, we know we were bad boys, can you lift our excommunication?" That was in fact, objectively speaking, and I know that maybe they had the best of good wills, but objectively speaking, it was a real betrayal to Our Lord, to Archbishop Lefebvre our founder, and to all the faithful who depended on them to take the heat, to be crucified with Our Lord, but they wanted to come down from the cross and they burnt the incense to come down from the cross.
So let's not imitate that, but pray for them. Pray for all the bishops of the society. Pray for all the Novus Ordo bishops, pray for these modernist Popes. Pray for them, because they all have souls to save. But you and I, we must beg the Virgin Mary, "Don't let me compromise the Faith." And so we got to study liberalism. We got to study the writings of Archbishop Lefebvre, of Cardinal Pie of Poitier, of the great popes.
If I could close this sermon with one study, which I encourage for all of you, and Archbishop Lefebvre spoke about this one quite often, it's called the papal bull, the papal bull called Auctorem Fidei, A-U-C-T-O-R-E-M, fidei, F-I-D-E-I. A papal bull of Pope Pius VI in 1794. And it is a beautiful document, because it condemns Vatican II long before Vatican II. It condemns all compromise with the errors of Vatican II long before Vatican II. [See here and here.]
And he exposes the snakes, how they want to use double tongued phrases to weave in their errors into the minds of Catholics. And that's what happened in Vatican II. And that was Bishop Fellay himself admitted that the Doctrinal Declaration of April 15th, 2012 was a double tongued document. Do you remember when he said that? He said, "If you read it with black sunglasses, you'll read it traditionally. But if you look at it with pink sunglasses," he said, "you'll read it in a liberal way." So why would he sign a double tongued document when he knows as well as I and all of you, how God says, "I have detested, I have hated the double tongued." And when St. Pius X said, "Modernism is perfect. On one page they'll say, 'Traditional Catholicism,' on the next page is pure heresy or error or compromise or modernism." That's what a modernist is. He tries to combine oil and water and they can't mix. Tries to combine uncombinables, reconcile light and darkness, reconcile truth and error, reconcile Christ and Satan to sit at the same table and enjoy a dinner together. It just can't happen.
And that's where we must love Christ. We must love truth to death and hate compromise. We must hate it and be allergic to it. And that's why when Catholics hear language like, "The New Mass isn't so, so bad, you can go to it to nourish your faith if there's nothing else." And when you hear about New Mass Eucharistic miracles being heavily promoted and pushed, the Catholic reaction is, "No, this is wrong." And that's the right reaction, because a Catholic, he's allergic to liberalism. And if you are, and if we have that grace, pray to the Mother of God never to lose that grace, because the modern world swims in the soup of compromise and the devil loves it.
So yes. So if you get all these priests together and sat down together and you come down to the nitty-gritty, the nuts and bolts of Vatican II, New Mass, New Code, then the fights and the punches and the punching gloves come out. Why? Because truth does matter after all. And so let's pray to the Mother of God that she grants us a good pope, a very good pope.
As I repeated thousands of times, blessed Anna Maria Taigi, she said, "It'll get so bad, the state of the church, that God will send St. Peter and Paul from Heaven onto earth and point out the next pope." Are we at that point when Pope Francis dies? I would say definitely Heaven has to step in, because he's already set up the cardinals to be all modernist and rotten. They're all rotten. The only one I can see papabul, from my 2 cent angle, is Archbishop Viganò or one of the bishops of the line of Archbishop Lefebvre. But even they are not strong like Bishop Viganò, they've all become cushy and wooshy. I hear rumblings that a few of the ones Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated, some of them, one or two of them is starting to shine. Let's hope that's true. Let's hope that at least one of them or two of them rise up like Archbishop Lefebvre.
So here's the state of affairs, but it always comes down to we must not be liberal Catholics. And when you get all those priests together and they're all fighting over Vatican II and the new mass, the question is how much liberalism do you swallow? How much do you want to compromise the Catholic faith? That's where the crunch is. And as I said, St. Peter's will accept Vatican II, they'll accept the New Mass. At least [they] don't condemn it in the pulpit, but 'we got to work with the local bishop.' Well, there's your compromise. "Well, why? They're legitimate authority. Why don't you work with them?" Because that same bishop of Coeur d'Alene here, he has the Latin Mass and St. Peter's approved at St. Joan of Arcs. But down in another church of his diocese, he's got the rock and roll mass and another church of his diocese, he's got of course the 'Dignity Mass' with rainbow flags. And he is got the friendly Mass with Buddhists coming to pray together with the Catholic priest on the altar and Jews and Protestants.
That's the perfect Vatican II religion. It's called pluralism. It's the church with many altars to many gods. And when it comes to that, the Catholic says, "I'm out of here. It's Christ the King or nothing." "Oh, you're bigoted. You're being snobbish. You're being proudful, conceited, renegade, disobedient." "Yes, you're right. For Christ the King? Yes, you're right." And that's what Archbishop Lefebvre said to Pope Paul VI, "You call me disobedient, renegade, rebellious, and disobedient." He said, "Yes, I am. If it means disobedience and renegade to tradition, I'm not a renegade nor disobedient. But if it means disobedient to you, Holy Father, and your new Vatican II and your new doctrines and New Mass, yes, I am disobedient and rebellious and renegade, because I will not make peace with the uncrowning of Christ the King, and what will take souls to hell." And that's really the bottom line, isn't it?
If we believe like liberals, we will lose the faith like liberals and end up in hell. And that's the bottom line. We don't want to lose the faith, because without the faith, we can't save our soul. And how many are in hell who have compromised and played with the faith? So little flock here in Post Falls area, you have a whole bunch of drive-thru, traditional masses you can pull up to and order your platter or make your order, but stay with the truth. And I know some people say, "Well, how can you be right? The priests of the Resistance, you're just a few idiots and you're just this and you're that." I know, I'll be the first to admit that.
But if I compromise tomorrow and accept Vatican II and accept the New Mass or accept that it's legitimate, then I am salt that's also lost its flavor, to be stepped on. And God will raise some other priests. He'll raise a good SSPX priest who finally sees the light and makes a stand. That could happen, or better yet more, a whole bunch of them come together and make a stand. That would be wonderful.
So it doesn't depend on Father X, Y, Z. It depends on our Lord Jesus Christ and what priests and what bishops are in line with the Catholic tradition, with the magisterium of tradition, with the line of the great defenders of tradition and the Christ the King, Archbishop Lefebvre, Cardinal Pie of Poitier and all the popes. There's your litmus test. And a priest [that] departs from that, stay away from them. If they stay with that, then stay faithful with them. It's the crisis of the Church. But what's wonderful about these events of our times, we know it's going to have a happy ending, which will be, in the end, 'My Immaculate Heart will triumph.' The Pope will consecrate Russia. Our Lady did say that. And there will be peace. And there's the peace, not a Cold War peace, but the real reign of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary. That's the peace that She speaks of.
So it has a happy ending. And all these scattered groups that say the Latin Mass, they will be brought together under a good Pope. And those that are liberal will straighten out and become Catholic again in their thinking, hopefully. And those who say there's no Pope, well, they won't need to say that anymore, because there'll be a good pope. And then the Catholic Resistance, will we just continue like we've always been fighting. That's all. Like Archbishop Lefebvre said, "When Rome comes back to tradition, it'll be not us coming back to the Church, but they coming back to where we always stood and fought and held the position." So little flock here, hold strong.
And the last point, Our Lord had many for lunch at His table, 5,000 in one crowd, 4,000 in another crowd, and He fed them delicious, probably the best bread ever made, and the best-tasting fresh fish. And they all ate to be satisfied and well-filled. So that's quite a crowd, 5,000, 4,000.
But when it came to Calvary, when it came to the crunch, who stood at the foot of the Cross? What is it for? Our Blessed Mother, St. John, St. Mary Magdalene, Mary of Salome, and Mary of Cleopas stood at the foot of the cross. That's it. That's it. Where's the thousands? So that's our honor today, and we want to pray for that grace to stay at the foot of the Cross. Come what may, stay at the foot of the Cross with Our Lady. And with Her you're going to stay faithful to death and persevere.
Oh, Mary conceived without sin.
Oh, Mary conceived without sin.
Oh, Mary conceived without sin.
And for those who do not every course to Thee, especially all communists and Freemasons and other enemies of Holy Mother Church. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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| St. Alphonsus Liguori: The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-17-2024, 02:58 AM - Forum: Doctors of the Church
- Replies (14)
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The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ
by Saint Alphonsus Liguori
Taken from here.
CHAPTER I: CHARITY IS PATIENT
(Charitas patiens est.--1 Cor 13:4)
He that loves Jesus Christ loves sufferings.
THIS earth is the place for meriting, and therefore it is a place for suffering. Our true country, where God has prepared for us repose in everlasting joy, is Paradise. We have but a short time to stay in this world; but in this short time we have many labors to undergo: “Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries.” 1 We must suffer, and all must suffer; be they just, or be they sinners, each one must carry his cross. He that carries it with patience is saved; he that carries it with impatience is lost.
St. Augustine says, the same miseries send some to Paradise and some to Hell: "One and the same blow lifts the good to glory, and reduces the bad to ashes." 2 The same Saint observes, that by the test of suffering the chaff in the Church of God is distinguished from the wheat: he that humbles himself under tribulation, and is resigned to the will of God, is wheat for Paradise; he that grows haughty and is enraged, and so forsakes God, is chaff for Hell.
On the day when the cause of our salvation shall be decided, our life must be found conformable to the life of Jesus Christ, if we would enjoy the happy sentence of the predestined: “For whom He foreknew He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son.” 3 This was the end for which the Eternal Word descended upon earth, to teach us, by His example, to carry with patience the cross which God sends us: “Christ suffered for us (wrote St. Peter), leaving you an example, that you should follow His steps.” 4 So that Jesus Christ suffered on purpose to encourage us to suffer. O God! what a life was that of Jesus Christ! A life of ignominy and pain. The Prophet calls our Redeemer despised, and the most abject of men, a titan of sorrows. 5 A man held in contempt, and treated as the lowest, the vilest among men, a man of sorrows; yes, for the life of Jesus Christ was made up of hardships and afflictions.
Now, in the same manner as God has treated His beloved Son, so does He treat everyone whom He loves, and whom He receives for His Son: “For whom the Lord loveth He chastiseth . . . and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.” 6 For this reason He one day said to St. Teresa: "Know that the souls dearest to My Father are those who are afflicted with the greatest sufferings." 7 Hence the Saint said of all her troubles, that she would not exchange them for all the treasures in the world. She appeared after her death to a soul, and revealed to her that she enjoyed an immense reward in Heaven, not so much for her good works, as for the sufferings which she cheerfully bore in this life for the love of God; and that if she could possibly entertain a wish to return upon earth, the only reason would be in order that she might suffer more for God.
He that loves God in suffering earns a double reward in Paradise. St. Vincent of Paul 8 said that it was a great misfortune to be free from suffering in this life. And he added, that a congregation or an individual that does not suffer, and is applauded by all the world, is not far from a fall. It was on this account that St. Francis of Assisi, on the day that he had suffered nothing for God, became afraid lest God had forgotten him. St. John Chrysostom 9 says, that when God endows a man with the grace of suffering, He gives him a greater grace than that of raising the dead to life; because in performing miracles man remains God's debtor; whereas in suffering. God makes Himself the debtor of man. And he adds, 10 that whoever endures something for God, even had he no other gift than the strength to suffer for the God Whom he loves, this would procure for him an immense reward. Wherefore he affirmed, that he considered St. Paul to have received a greater grace in being bound in chains for Jesus Christ, than in being rapt to the third heaven in ecstasy.
“But patience has a perfect work.” 11 The meaning of this is, that nothing is more pleasing to God than to see a soul suffering with patience all the crosses sent her by him. The effect of love is to liken the lover to the person loved. St. Francis de Sales said, "All the wounds of Christ are so many mouths, which preach to us that we must suffer for Him. The science of the Saints is to suffer constantly for Jesus; and in this way we shall soon become Saints." A person that loves Jesus Christ is anxious to be treated like Jesus Christ,-----poor, persecuted, and despised. St. John beheld all the Saints clothed in white, and with palms in their hands: “Clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.” 12 The palm is the symbol of Martyrs, and yet all the Saints did not suffer Martyrdom;-----why, then, do all the Saints bear palms in their hands? St. Gregory replies, that all the Saints have been Martyrs either of the sword or of patience; so that, he adds, "we can be martyrs without the sword, if we keep patience."13
The merit of a soul that loves Jesus Christ consists in loving and in suffering. Hear what our Lord said to St. Teresa: "Think you, my child, that merit consists in enjoyment? No, it consists in suffering and in loving. Look at My life, wholly embittered with afflictions. Be assured, my child, that the more My Father loves any one, the more sufferings He sends him; they are the standard of his love. Look at My wounds; your torments will never reach so far. It is absurd to suppose that My Father favors with His friendship those who are strangers to suffering." 14 And for our consolation St. Teresa makes this remark: "God never sends a trial, but he forthwith rewards it with some favor." 15 One day Jesus Christ appeared to the Blessed Baptista Varani, 16 and told her of three special favors which he is wont to bestow on cherished souls: the first is, not to sin; the second, which is greater, to perform good works; the third, and the greatest of all, to suffer for His love. So that St. Teresa 17 used to say, whenever anyone does something for God, the Almighty repays him with some trial. And therefore the Saints, on receiving tribulations, thanked God for them.
St. Louis of France, referring to his captivity in Turkey, said: "I rejoice, and thank God more for the patience which he accorded me in the time of my imprisonment, than if he had made me master of the universe." And when St. Elizabeth, princess of Thuringia, after her husband's death, was banished with-----her son from the kingdom, and found herself homeless and abandoned by all, she went to a convent of the Franciscans, and there had the Te Deum sung in thanksgiving to God for the signal favor of being allowed to suffer for his love. St. Joseph Calasanctius used to say, "All suffering is slight to gain Heaven." And the Apostle had already said the same: “The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us.”18
It would be a great gain for us to endure all the torments of all the Martyrs during our whole lives, in order to enjoy one single moment of the bliss of Paradise; with what readiness, then, should we embrace our crosses, when we know that the sufferings of this transitory life will gain for us an everlasting beatitude! “That which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.” 19 St. Agapitus, while still a mere boy in years, was threatened by the tyrant to have his head covered with a red-hot helmet; on which he replied, "And what better fortune could possibly befall me, than to lose my head here, to have it crowned hereafter in Heaven?"
This made St. Francis exclaim: "I look for such a meed of bliss, That all my pains seem happiness." But whoever desires the crown of Paradise must needs combat and suffer: “If we suffer, we shall also reign.” 20 We cannot get a reward without merit; and no merit is to be had without patience: “He is not crowned, except he strive lawfully.” 21 And the person that strives with the greatest patience shall have the greatest reward. Wonderful indeed! When the temporal goods of this world are in question, worldlings endeavor to procure as much as they can; but when it is a question of the goods of eternal life, they say, "It is enough if we get a little corner in Heaven!" Such is not the language of the Saints: they are satisfied with anything whatever in this life, nay more, they strip themselves of all earthly goods; but concerning eternal goods, they strive to obtain them in as large a measure as possible. I would ask which of the two act with more wisdom and prudence?
But even with regard to the present life, it is certain that he who suffers with most patience enjoys the greatest peace. It was a saying of St. Philip Neri, 22 that in this world there is no Purgatory; it is either all Paradise or all Hell: he that patiently supports tribulations enjoys a Paradise; he that does not do so, suffers a Hell. Yes, for (as St. Teresa writes) he that embraces the crosses sent him by God feels them not. St. Francis de Sales, finding himself on one occasion beset on every side with tribulations, said, "For some time back the severe oppositions and secret contrarieties which have befallen me afford me so sweet a peace, that nothing can equal it; and they give me such an assurance that my soul will ere long be firmly united with God, that I can say with all truth that they are the sole ambition, the sole desire of my heart."23
And indeed peace can never be found by one who leads an irregular life, but only by him who lives in union with God and with His blessed will, A certain missionary of a religious Order, while in the Indies, was one day standing to witness the execution of a person under sentence of death, and already on the scaffold: the criminal called the missionary to him, and said, "You must know, Father, that I was once a member of your Order; whilst I observed the rules I led a very happy life; but when, afterwards, I began to relax in the strict observance of them, I immediately experienced pain in everything; so much so, that I abandoned the religious life, and gave myself up to vice, which has finally reduced me to the melancholy pass in which you at present behold me." And in conclusion he said, "I tell you this, that my example may be a warning to others." The Venerable Father Louis da Ponte said, "Take the sweet things of this life for
bitter, and the bitter for sweet; and so you will be in the constant enjoyment of peace. Yes, for though the sweet are pleasant to sense, they invariably leave behind them the bitterness of remorse of conscience, on account of the imperfect satisfaction which, for the most part, they afford; but the bitter, when taken with patience from the hand of God, become sweet, and dear to the souls who love Him."
Let us be convinced that in this valley of tears true peace of heart cannot be found, except by him who endures and lovingly embraces sufferings to please Almighty God: this is the consequence of that corruption in which all are placed through the infection of sin. The condition of the Saints on earth is to suffer and to love; the condition of the Saints in Heaven is to enjoy and to love. Father Paul Segneri the younger, in a letter which he wrote one of his penitents to encourage her to suffer, gave her the counsel to keep these words inscribed at the foot of her crucifix: "'Tis thus one loves." It is not simply by suffering, but by desiring to suffer for the love of Jesus Christ, that a soul gives the surest signs of really loving Him. And what greater acquisition (said St. Teresa) can we possibly make than to have some token of gratifying Almighty God? 24 Alas, how ready are the greatest part of men to take alarm at the bare mention of crosses, of humiliations, and of afflictions! Nevertheless, there are many souls who find all their delight in suffering, and who would be quite disconsolate did they pass their time on this earth without suffering. The sight of Jesus crucified (said a devout person) renders the cross so lovely to me, that it seems to me I could never be happy without suffering; the love of Jesus Christ is sufficient for me for all. Listen how Jesus advises every one who would follow Him to take up and carry his cross: “Let him take up his cross, and follow Me.” 25 But we must take it up and carry it, not by constraint and against our will, but with humility, patience, and love.
Oh, how acceptable to God is he that humbly and patiently embraces the crosses which he sends him! St. Ignatius of Loyola said, "There is no wood so apt to enkindle and maintain love towards God as the wood of the cross;" that is, to love Him in the midst of sufferings. One day St. Gertrude asked our Lord what she could offer Him most acceptable, and He replied, "My child, thou canst do nothing more gratifying to Me than to submit patiently to all the tribulations that befall thee." Wherefore the great servant of God, Sister Victoria Angelini, affirmed that one day of crucifixion was worth a hundred years of all other spiritual exercises. And the Venerable Father John of Avila said, "One 'blessed be God' in contrarieties is worth more than a thousand thanksgivings in prosperity." Alas, how little men know of the inestimable value of afflictions endured for God!
The Blessed Angela of Foligno said, "that if we knew the just value of suffering for God, it would become an object of plunder;" which is as much as to say, that each one would seek an opportunity of robbing his neighbor of the occasions of suffering. For this reason St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi, well aware as she was of the merit of sufferings, sighed to have her life prolonged rather than to die and go to Heaven, "because," said she, "in Heaven one can suffer no more."
A soul that loves God has no other end in view but to be wholly united with Him; but let us learn from St. Catherine of Genoa what is necessary to be done to arrive at this perfect union: "To attain union with God, adversities are indispensable; because by them God aims at destroying all our corrupt propensities within and without. And hence all injuries, contempts, infirmities, abandonment of relatives and friends, confusions, temptations, and other mortifications, all are in the highest degree necessary for us, in order that we may carry on the fight, until by repeated victories we come to extinguish within us all vicious movements, so that they are no longer felt; and we shall never arrive at Divine union until adversities, instead of seeming bitter to us, become all sweet for God's sake."
It follows, then, that a soul that sincerely desires to belong to God must be resolved, as St. John of the Cross 26 writes, not to seek enjoyments in this life, but to suffer in all things; she must embrace with eagerness all voluntary mortifications, and with still greater eagerness those which are involuntary, since they are the more welcome to Almighty God.
“The patient man is better than the valiant.” 27 God is pleased with a person who practices mortification by fasting, hair-cloths, and disciplines, on account of the courage displayed in such mortifications; but he is much more pleased with those who have the courage to bear patiently and gladly such crosses as come from His Own Divine hand. St. Francis de Sales said, "Such mortifications as come to us from the hand of God, or from men by His permission, are always more precious than those which are the offspring of our own will; for it is a general rule, that wherever there is less of our own choice, God is better pleased, and we ourselves derive greater profit." 28 St. Teresa taught the same thing: "We gain more in one day by the oppositions which come to us from God or our neighbor than by ten years of mortifications of self-infliction." 29 Wherefore St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi made the generous declaration, that there could not be found in the whole world an affliction so severe, but what she would gladly bear with the thought that it came from God; and, in fact, during the five years of severe trial which the Saint underwent, it was enough to restore peace to her soul to remember that it was by the will of God that she so suffered. Ah, God, that infinite treasure is cheaply purchased at any cost! Father Hippolytus Durazzo used to say, "Purchase God at what cost you will, He can never be dear." Let us then beseech God to make us worthy of His love; for if we did but once perfectly love Him, all the goods of this earth would seem to us but as smoke and dirt, and we should relish ignominies and afflictions as delights.
Let us hear what St. John Chrysostom says of a soul wholly given up to Almighty God: "He who has attained the perfect love of God seems to be alone on the earth,-----he no longer cares either for glory or ignominy,-----he scorns temptations and afflictions,-----he loses all relish and appetite for created things. And as nothing in this world brings him any support or repose, he goes incessantly in search of his beloved without ever feeling wearied; so that when he toils, when he eats, when he is watching, or when sleeping, in every action and word, all his thoughts and desires are fixed upon finding his beloved; because his heart is where his treasure is." *
Affections and Prayers
My dear and beloved Jesus, my treasure, I have deserved by my offenses never more to be allowed to love Thee; but by Thy merits, I entreat Thee, make me worthy of Thy pure love. I love Thee above all things; and I repent with my whole heart of having ever despised Thee, and driven Thee from my soul; but now I love Thee more than myself; I love Thee with all my heart, O infinite good! I love Thee, I love Thee, I love Thee, and I have not a wish besides that of loving Thee perfectly; nor have I a fear besides that of ever seeing myself deprived of Thy love. O my most loving Redeemer, enable me to know how great a good Thou art, and how great is the love Thou hast borne me in order to oblige me to love Thee! Ah, my God, suffer me not to live any longer unmindful of so much goodness! Enough have I offended Thee. I will never leave Thee again; I wish to employ all the remainder of my days in loving Thee, and in pleasing Thee. My Jesus, my Love, lend me Thine aid; help a sinner who wishes to love Thee and to be wholly Thine own.
O Mary my hope, thy Son hears thee; pray to Him in my behalf, and obtain for me the grace of loving Him perfectly!
*In this chapter we have spoken of patience in general; in Chapter X we shall treat more particularly of occasions in which we have especially to practice patience.
1. “Homo natus de muliere, brevi vivens tempore, repletur multis miseries.” Job 14:1
2. “Una eademque tunsio bonos producit ad gloriam, malos redigit in favillam.” Serm. 52, E. B. app.
3. “Nam quos passivity, et praedestinavit conformes fieri imagines Filii sui.” Romans 8:29
4. “Christius passus est prognosis, vobis relinquens exemplum, ut sequamini vestigial ejus.” 1 Peter 2:21
5. “Despectum et novissimum virorum.” Isaiah 53:3
6. “Quem enim diligit Dominus, castigat; flagellat autem omnem filium quem recipit.” Hebrews 12:6
7. Life, addit.
8. Abelly, 1. 3. c. 43.
9. In Phil. homs. 4.
10. In Eph. hom. 8.
11. “Patientia autem opus perfectum habet.” James 1:4
12. “Amicti stolis albis, et palmate in minibus eorum.” Apoc 7:9
13. “Nos sine ferro esse possumus martyres, si patientiam veracities in animo custodimus.” In Evang. hom. 35
14. Life, addit. 15. Life, en. 30.
16. Boll. 31 Maii, Vit. c. 7.
17. Found. Ch. 31
18. “Non sunt condignae Passiones hujus temporis ad futuram gloriam quae revelabitur in nobis.” Romans 8:18
19. “Momentaneum et leve tribulationis nostrae supra modum in sublimitate aeternum gloriae pondus operatur in nobis.” 2 Cor 4:17
20. “Si sustinebimus, et conregnabimus.” 2 Timothy 2:12
21. “Qui certat in agone, non coronatur, nisi legitime certaverit.” 2 Timothy 2:5
22. Bacci, 1. 2, ch. 20
23. Spirit, ch. 19.
24. Life, ch. 10.
25. “Tollat crucem suam quotidian, et sequatur me.” Luke 9:23
26. Mont. du C. 1. 2, ch. 7
27. “Melior est patiens viro forti.” Proverbs 16:32
28. Spirit, ch. 4.
29. Way of Perfection. ch. 37
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| Sacred Triduum Schedule 2024 |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-14-2024, 06:41 PM - Forum: Event Schedule
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Holy Week - Sacred Triduum
March 28 - 30, 2024
![[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3...%3DApi&f=1]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.9mFRaOEIQ6TlZ4LUsabw5QHaDi%26pid%3DApi&f=1)
✠ ✠ ✠ Holy Thursday ✠ ✠ ✠
![[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginal...f=1&nofb=1]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2Feb%2F1a%2F23%2Feb1a23d243379e93cfc53c1254dfe2c3.jpg&f=1&nofb=1)
Confessions / Rosary - 2:15 PM
High Mass / Procession - 3:00 PM
Conference on the Passion - 6:00 PM
Holy Hour Reparation - 6:45 PM - 7:45 PM
Adoration till Midnight
✠ ✠ ✠ Good Friday ✠ ✠ ✠
Confessions / Rosary - 9:45 AM
Mass of the Pre-Sanctified - 10:30 AM
Stations of the Cross - 1:00 PM
Conference on the Passion - 1:45 PM
Sorrowful Mother Devotions - 2:30 PM
✠ ✠ ✠ Holy Saturday ✠ ✠ ✠
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Easter Vigil Ceremonies / Mass - 10:00 AM
Blessing of Easter Baskets - Immediately Following
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| Archbishop Lefebvre: The Mass of All Times versus the Mass of Our Time |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-13-2024, 04:33 AM - Forum: In Defense of Tradition
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The following is taken from Archbishop Lefebvre's Open Letter to Confused Catholics:
Chapter 4. The Mass of All Times versus the Mass of Our Time.
In preparation for the 1981 Eucharistic Congress, a questionnaire was distributed, the first question of which was: “Of these two definitions: ‘The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass’ and ‘Eucharistic Meal’, which one do you adopt spontaneously?” There is a great deal that could be said about this way of questioning Catholics, giving them to some extent the choice and appealing to their private judgment on a subject where spontaneity has no place. The definition of the Mass is not chosen in the same way that one chooses a political party.
Alas! The insinuation does not result from a blunder on the part of the person who drew up the questionnaire. One has to accept that the liturgical reform tends to replace the idea and the reality of the Sacrifice by the reality of a meal. That is how one comes to speak of eucharistic celebration, or of a “Supper”; but the expression “Sacrifice” is much less used. It has almost totally disappeared from catechism handbooks just as it has from sermons. It is absent from Canon II, attributed to St. Hippolytus.
This tendency is connected with what we have discovered concerning the Real Presence: if there is no longer a sacrifice, there is no longer any need for a victim. The victim is present in view of the sacrifice. To make of the Mass a memorial or fraternal meal is the Protestant error. What happened in the sixteenth century? Precisely what is taking place today. Right from the start they replaced the altar by a table, removed the crucifix from it, and made the “president of the assembly” turn around to face the congregation. The setting of the Protestant Lord's Supper is found in Pierres Vivantes, the prayer book prepared by the bishops in France which all children attending catechism are obliged to use:
Quote:“Christians meet together to celebrate the Eucharist. It is the Mass... They proclaim the faith of the Church, they pray for the whole world, they offer the bread and the wine. The priest who presides at the assembly says the great prayer of thanksgiving.”
Now in the Catholic religion it is the priest who celebrates Mass; it is he who offers the bread and wine. The notion of president has been borrowed directly from Protestantism. The vocabulary follows the change of ideas. Formerly, we would say, “Cardinal Lustiger will celebrate a Pontifical Mass.” I am told that at Radio Notre Dame, the phrase used at present is, “Jean-Marie Lustiger will preside at a concelebration.” Here is how they speak about Mass in a brochure issued by the Conference of Swiss Bishops:
Quote:“The Lord's Supper achieves firstly communion with Christ. It is the same communion that Jesus brought about during His life on earth when He sat at table with sinners, and has been continued in the Eucharistic meal since the day of the Resurrection. The Lord invites His friends to come together and He will be present among them.”
To that every Catholic is obliged to reply in a categoric manner, “NO! the Mass is not that!” It is not the continuation of a meal similar to that which Our Lord invited Saint Peter and a few of his disciples one morning on the lakeside, after His Resurrection. “When they came to land they saw a charcoal fire there and a fish laid thereon and bread. Jesus said to them, come and dine. And none of them durst ask Him, ‘Who art thou?,’ knowing that it was the Lord. And Jesus cometh and taketh the bread and giveth them, and fish in like manner” (John 21: 9-13).
The communion of the priest and the faithful is a communion to the Victim Who has offered Himself up on the altar of sacrifice. This is of solid stone; if not it contains at least the altar stone which is a stone of sacrifice. Within are laid relics of the martyrs because they have offered their blood for their Master. This communion of the Blood of Our Lord with the blood of the martyrs encourages us also to offer up our lives.
If the Mass is a meal, I understand the priest turning towards the congregation. One does not preside at a meal with one's back to the guests. But a sacrifice is offered to God, not to the congregation. This is the reason why the priest as the head of the faithful turns toward God and the crucifix over the altar.
At every opportunity emphasis is laid on what the New Sunday Missal calls the “Narrative of the Institution.” The Jean-Bart Centre, the official centre for the Archdiocese of Paris, states, “At the center of the Mass, there is a narrative.” Again, no! The Mass is not a narrative, it is an action.
Three indispensable conditions are needed for it to be the continuation of the Sacrifice of the Cross: the oblation of the victim, the transubstantiation which renders the victim present effectively and not symbolically, and the celebration by a priest, consecrated by his priesthood, in place of the High Priest Who is Our Lord.
Likewise the Mass can obtain the remission of sins. A simple memorial, a narrative of the institution accompanied by a meal, would be far from sufficient for this. All the supernatural virtue of the Mass comes from its relationship to the Sacrifice of the Cross. If we no longer believe that, then we no longer believe anything about Holy Church, the Church would no longer have any reason for existing, we would no longer claim to be Catholics. Luther understood very clearly that the Mass is the heart and soul of the Church. He said: “Let us destroy the Mass and we shall destroy the Church.”
Now we can see that the Novus Ordo Missae, that is to say, the New Order adopted after the Council, has been drawn up on Protestant lines, or at any rate dangerously close to them. For Luther, the Mass was a sacrifice of praise, that is to say, an act of praise, an act of thanksgiving, but certainly not an expiatory sacrifice which renews and applies the Sacrifice of the Cross. For him, the Sacrifice of the Cross took place at a given moment of history, it is the prisoner of that history; we can only apply to ourselves Christ's merits by our faith in His death and resurrection. Contrarily, the Church maintains that this Sacrifice is realized mystically upon our altars at each Mass, in an unbloody manner by the separation of the Body and the Blood under the species of bread and wine. This renewal allows the merits of the Cross to be applied to the faithful there present, perpetuating this source of grace in time and in space. The Gospel of St. Matthew ends with these words: “And behold, I am with you all days, even until the end of the world.”
The difference in conception is not slender. Efforts are being made to reduce it, however, by the alteration of Catholic doctrine of which we can see numerous signs in the liturgy.
Luther said, “Worship used to be addressed to God as a homage. Henceforth it will be addressed to man to console and enlighten him. The sacrifice used to have pride of place but the sermon will supplant it.” That signified the introduction of the Cult of Man, and, in the Church, the importance accorded to the “Liturgy of the Word.” If we open the new missals, this revolution has been accomplished in them too. A reading has been added to the two which existed, together with a “universal prayer” often utilized for propagating political or social ideas; taking the homily into account, we often end up with a shift of balance towards the “word.” Once the sermon is ended, the Mass is very close to its end.
Within the Church, the priest is marked with an indelible character which makes of him an alter Christus: he alone can offer the Holy Sacrifice. Luther considered the distinction between clergy and laity to the “first wall raised up by the Romanists”; all Christians are priests, the pastor is only exercising a function in presiding at the Evangelical Mass. In the Novus Ordo, the “I” of the celebrant has been replaced by “we”; it is written everywhere that the faithful “celebrate,” they are associated with the acts of worship, they read the epistle and occasionally the Gospel, give out Communion, sometimes preach the homily, which may be replaced by “a dialogue by small groups upon the Word of God,” meeting together beforehand to “construct” the Sunday celebration. But this is only a first step; for several years we have heard of those responsible for diocesan organizations who have been putting forward propositions of this nature: “It is not the ministers but the assembly who celebrate” (handouts by the National Center for Pastoral Liturgy), or “The assembly is the prime subject of the liturgy”; what matters is not the “functioning of the rites but the image the assembly gives to itself and the relationship the co-celebrants create between themselves” (P. Gelineau, architect of the liturgical reform and professor at the Paris Catholic Institute).
If it is the assembly which matters then it is understandable that private Masses should be discredited, which means that priests no longer say them because it is less and less easy to find an assembly, above all during the week. It is a breach with the unchanging doctrine: that the Church needs a multiplicity of Sacrifices of the Mass, both for the application of the Sacrifice of the Cross and for all the objects assigned to it, adoration, thanksgiving, propitiation,[5] and impetration.[6]
As if that were not enough, the objective of some is to eliminate the priest entirely, which has given rise to the notorious SAAP (Sunday Assemblies in the Absence of the Priest). We can imagine the faithful gathering to pray together in order to honor the Lord's Day; but these SAAP are in reality a sort of “dry Mass,” lacking only the consecration; and the lack, as one can read in a document of the Regional Center for Social and Religious Studies at Lille, is only because “until further instructions lay people do not have the power to carry out this act.” The absence of the priest may even be intentional “so that the faithful can learn to manage for themselves.” Father Gelineau in Demain la Liturgie writes that the SAAP are only an “educational transition until such time as mentalities have changed,” and he concludes with disconcerting logic that there are still too many priests in the Church, “too many doubtless for things to evolve quickly.”
Luther suppressed the Offertory; Why offer the pure and Immaculate Host if there is no more sacrifice? In the French Novus Ordo the Offertory is practically non-existent; besides which it no longer has this name. The New Sunday Missal speaks of the “prayers of presentation.” The formula used reminds one more of a thanksgiving, a thank-you, for the fruits of the earth. To realize this fully, it is sufficient to compare it with the formulas traditionally used by the Church in which clearly appears the propitiatory and expiatory nature of the Sacrifice “which I offer Thee for my innumerable sins, offenses and negligences, for all those here present and for all Christians living and dead, that it may avail for my salvation and theirs for eternal life.” Raising the chalice, the priest then says, “We offer Thee, Lord, the chalice of Thy redemption, imploring Thy goodness to accept it like a sweet perfume into the presence of Thy divine Majesty for our salvation and that of the whole world.”
What remains of that in the New Mass? This: “Blessed are You, Lord, God of the universe, You who give us this bread, fruit of the earth and work of human hands. We offer it to You; it will become the bread of life,” and the same for the wine which will become “our spiritual drink.” What purpose is served by adding, a little further on: “Wash me of my faults, Lord. Purify me of my sin,” and “may our sacrifice today find grace before You”? Which sin? Which sacrifice? What connection can the faithful make between this vague presentation of the offerings and the redemption that he is looking forward to? I will ask another question: Why substitute for a text that is clear and whose meaning is complete, a series of enigmatic and loosely bound phrases? If a need is found for change, it should be for something better. These incidental phrases which seem to make up for the insufficiency of the “prayers of presentation” remind us of Luther, who was at pains to arrange the changes with caution. He retained as much as possible of the old ceremonies, limiting himself to changing their meaning. The Mass, to a great extent, kept its external appearance, the people found in the churches nearly the same setting, nearly the same rites, with slight changes made to please them, because from then on people were consulted much more than before; they were much more aware of their importance in matters of worship, taking a more active part by means of chant and praying aloud. Little by little Latin gave way to German.
Doesn't all this remind you of something? Luther was also anxious to create new hymns to replace “all the mumblings of popery”. Reforms always adopt the appearance of a cultural revolution.
In the Novus Ordo the most ancient parts of the Roman Canon which goes back to apostolic times has been reshaped to bring it closer to the Lutheran formula of consecration, with both an addition and a suppression. The translation in French has gone even further by altering the meaning of the words pro multis. Instead of “My blood which shall be shed for you and for many,” we read “which shall be shed for you and for the multitude.” This does not mean the same thing and theologically is not without significance.
You may have noticed that most priests nowadays recite as one continuous passage the principal part of the Canon which begins, “the night before the Passion He took bread in His holy hands,” without observing the pause implied by the rubric of the Roman Missal: “Holding with both hands the host between the index finger and the thumb, he pronounces the words of the Consecration in a low but distinct voice and attentively over the host.” The tone changes, becomes intimatory, the five words “Hoc est enim Corpus Meum,” operate the miracle of transubstantiation, as do those that are said for the consecration of the wine. The new Missal asks the celebrant to keep to the narrative tone of voice as if he were indeed proceeding with a memorial. Creativity being now the rule, we see some celebrants who recite the text while showing the Host all around or even breaking it in an ostentatious manner so as to add the gesture to their words and better illustrate their text. The two genuflections out of the four having been suppressed, those which remain being sometimes omitted, we have to ask ourselves if the priest in fact has the feeling of consecrating, even supposing that he really does have the intention to do so.
Then, from being puzzled Catholics you become worried Catholics: is the Mass at which you have assisted valid? Is the Host you have received truly the Body of Christ?
It is a grave problem. How can the ordinary faithful decide? For the validity of a Mass there exists essential conditions: matter, form, intention and the validly ordained priest. If these conditions are filled one cannot see how to conclude invalidity. The prayers of the Offertory, the Canon and the Priest's Communion are necessary for the integrity of the Sacrifice and the Sacrament, but no, for its validity. Cardinal Mindzenty pronouncing in secret in his prison the words of Consecration over a little bread and wine, so as to nourish himself with the Body and Blood of Our Lord without being seen by his guards, was certainly accomplishing the Sacrifice and the Sacrament.
A Mass celebrated with the American bishop's honeycakes of which I have spoken is certainly, invalid, like those where the words of the Consecration are seriously altered or even omitted. I am not inventing anything, a case has been recorded where a celebrant went to such an extent of creativity that he quite simply forgot the Consecration! But how can we assess the intention of the priest? It is obvious that there are fewer and fewer valid Masses as the faith of priests becomes corrupted and they no longer have the intention to do what the Church--which cannot change her intention--has always done. The present-day training of those who are called seminarians does not prepare them to accomplish valid Masses. They are no longer taught to consider the Holy Sacrifice as the essential action of their priestly life.
Furthermore it can be said without any exaggeration whatsoever, that the majority of Masses celebrated without altar stones, with common vessels, leavened bread, with the introduction of profane words into the very body of the Canon, etc., are sacrilegious, and they prevent faith by diminishing it. The desacralization is such that these Masses can come to lose their supernatural character, “the mystery of faith,” and become no more than acts of natural religion.
Your perplexity takes perhaps the following form: may I assist at a sacrilegious Mass which is nevertheless valid, in the absence of any other, in order to satisfy my Sunday obligation? The answer is simple: these Masses cannot be the object of an obligation; we must moreover apply to them the rules of moral theology and canon law as regards the participation or the attendance at an action which endangers the faith or may be sacrilegious.
The New Mass, even when said with piety and respect for the liturgical rules, is subject to the same reservations since it is impregnated with the spirit of Protestantism. It bears within it a poison harmful to the faith. That being the case the French Catholic[7] of today finds himself in the conditions of religious practice which prevail in missionary countries. There, the inhabitants in some regions are able to attend Mass only three or four times a year. The faithful of our country should make the effort to attend once each month at the Mass of All Time, the true source of grace and sanctification, in one of those places where it continues to be held in honor.
I owe it to truth to say and affirm without fear of error that the Mass codified by St. Pius V--and not invented by him, as some often say--express clearly these three realities: sacrifice, Real Presence, and the priesthood of the clergy. It takes into account also, as the Council of Trent has pointed out, the nature of mankind which needs outside help to raise itself to meditation upon divine things. The established customs have not been made at random, they cannot be overthrown or abruptly abolished with impunity. How many of the faithful, how many young priests, how many bishops, have lost the faith since the introduction of these reforms! One cannot thwart nature and faith without their taking their revenge.
But as it happens, we are told, man is no longer what he was a century ago; his nature has been changed by the technical civilization in which he is immersed. How absurd! The innovators take good care not to reveal to the faithful their desire to fall into line with Protestantism. They invoke another argument: change. Here is how they explain it at the theological evening school in Strasbourg: “We must recognize that today we are confronted with a veritable cultural mutation. One particular manner of celebrating the memorial of the Lord was bound up with a religious universe which is no longer ours.” It is quickly said, and everything disappears. We must start again from scratch. Such are the sophisms they use to make us change our faith. What is a “religious universe?” It would be better to be frank and say: “a religion which is no longer ours.”
Notes
5 The action of rendering God propitious.
6 The action of obtaining divine graces and blessings.
7 Any Catholic, in fact.--ed.
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| The “Any Valid Mass!” Canard |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-13-2024, 04:24 AM - Forum: In Defense of Tradition
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The following is taken from The Recusant #50 - January 2020.
This seems to be a constantly recurring theme. How did so many Traditional Catholics end up thinking like this? How did we end up here? Perhaps it is time to take another look at:
The “Any Valid Mass!” Canard
A gentleman who, one suspects, is not on the side of the Resistance, and who could not, I think, be called “a reader,” recently wrote in to The Recusant to castigate the Resistance in general, this newsletter and its editor in particular. After saying that we have “lost the plot” and are on the road “to ruin damnation and failure,” he continues thus:
“I would like to make some more serious points after having read the recent issue of the ‘Recusant’:
• There is absolutely no way to ever justify remaining at home on Sunday when there is a Tridentine mass available in your area.
• If there are concerns about being ‘contaminated’ by the views of a priest who doesn’t fit your definition of a ‘true son of Archbishop Lefebvre’, why not sit outside during the sermon and leave straight after mass?
• As shocking as this may sound, there are graces to be earned at each and every Latin mass celebrated by a validly ordained priest.
• I couldn’t disagree more with the conclusions you make with regards to the SSPX, however, if ever I found myself in a situation where the only Latin mass available in my area was offered by a priest associated with the so-called ‘Resistance’ movement, I certainly wouldn’t deprive myself of attending such a mass.
• Going to mass is not the same as attending a political rally where our presence signifies support for the priest - the only reason we go to mass is to receive the necessary nourishment for our souls.
• Our Lord said by their fruits ye shall know them. The number of faithful supporting the Society worldwide continues to increase as does the number of overall priests. These are indisputable facts which you choose to conveniently ignore.”
Although he is wrong, I admire the fact that the author goes straight to the point and does not waste time. Let us try to answer in a similar way, point by point.
1. There is absolutely no justification for remaining at home when there is a valid Tridentine Mass in your area.
Not true.
If this were true, what are we to make of the Catholics behind the Iron Curtain, in Poland, Hungary and elsewhere, who refused to attend the Mass of a “pax priest” (one who had gained the approval of the Communist authorities)? Those “pax priests” were certainly validly ordained and they offered a valid Tridentine Mass. How then could so many Catholics refuse to attend their Masses, even when they had no alternative on a given Sunday?
Let us take another example closer to our own era. In recent decades, we have seen the Church driven underground in China and replaced with a phoney counterfeit controlled by the Communist government (called the “Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association” or CPCA).
Clearly the ministrations of an underground priest cannot be relied upon to be all that regular, and being part of an underground Church will necessarily mean uncertainty and irregularity when it comes to the sacraments. What’s more, due to the unusual circumstances, both the CPCA and the underground Church continued to use the Tridentine Missal all the way down to the 1990s in many places. From Wikipedia:
“Due to CPCA pressure, Mass continued for some years after Pope Paul VI's 1969 revision of the Roman Missal to be celebrated in mainland China in the Tridentine Mass form, and for lack of the revised text in Latin or Chinese, even priests who refused any connection with the CPCA kept the older form. As the effects of the Cultural Revolution faded in the 1980s, the Mass of Paul VI began to be used, and at the beginning of the next decade the CPCA officially permitted the publication even locally of texts […]”
So: were the faithful (non-Communist, non-“patriotic”) Catholics wrong to flee underground? Nobody once disputed that the CPCA had valid orders or that their Masses were valid Masses. Valid Tridentine Masses, as it happens. If, as we are told, “there is absolutely no way ever to justify remaining at home on Sunday when there is a Tridentine Mass available in your area,” what ought those underground Catholics to have done? Suppose the priest who had been due to offer Mass for them in secret had been arrested on Saturday? Suppose there were no faithful underground priest nearby to begin with? What ought they to have done? Attend a CPCA Mass? Or is there more to being a Catholic than valid sacraments?
What about the old SSPX? I can remember the days when an SSPX priest would tell you that you were better off not going to an indult Mass, even if there was no SSPX Mass to go to. Take a look at the list of SSPX Mass centres in Great Britain in 2001, which we reproduced in a previous issue (Recusant 47, p.44). See how many of those Mass centres were bi-weekly or monthly? Regular weekly Masses were in the minority. In 2001, the majority of SSPX chapels did not have Mass every week. And yet was there ever an occasion where the faithful were warned about making a holy hour at home? Did the SSPX used officially to tell people to go to the Indult Mass? No? Why not?
The truth is that there are any number of reasons or circumstances which not only “justify” staying home and avoiding a “valid Tridentine Mass” but make it a positive duty. Anyone who says otherwise needs some remedial catechism.
Take another look at the baptism ritual. When the child is presented at the door of the Church on the day of his baptism, and the priest asks: “What do you ask of the Church?” What is the answer to this question? Is it “baptism”? Is it: “The sacraments”? How about: “Valid tridentine sacraments”..? Think about it. What is it which “gives life everlasting”..?
2. If there are concerns about being ‘contaminated’ by the views of a priest who doesn't fit your definition of a ‘true son of Archbishop Lefebvre’, why not sit outside during the sermon and leave straight after mass?
Because that is not our main concern. This so-called “risk of contamination” is not, and never has been, our justification. You will not find that sentiment expressed anywhere in these pages going back fifty issues or seven years.
This does not mean that there are no negative effects which one would expect to see (and have been seen) as a result from regularly attending Mass at the SSPX, particularly those who know better but who, often through weakness, did not make the break. The gradual process of becoming slowly more liberal without realising it, being boiled alive like the frog in the proverbial boiling pot is a very real danger. But that is something which comes more as a result of making our public confession of Christ secondary, and making own selfish desire to “get more sacraments” primary; it is not something which comes from “contamination” by the priest. And it is not the reason why we do not attend. The main reason why we do not attend the SSPX is because our presence there would offend Almighty God. This offence given to Almighty God which, I think, also brings in its train the weakening, the gradual loss of zeal, the diminution of Faith.
Again, let me emphasise this point. What you seem to present as our reason for not attending SSPX Mass is the opposite of the truth. We are not concerned with the individual priest.
There may well be some very fine examples of priests still in the SSPX, but that doesn’t matter, it is beside the point. What matters is the official, public stance of the organisation. If you knew a “validly ordained” Orthodox priest and you happened to know him well enough to have heard him admit, in private, that the Catholic Church was the true Church, that he accepted papal primacy, etc. you still could not attend his Mass. The same goes for a priest who says the both New Mass and the Tridentine Mass: even if he told you that he hates the New Mass and thinks it is un-Catholic. What he thinks or says privately doesn’t matter, it doesn’t change a thing. What a priest admits in private does not count. I would attend the Mass of a priest whom, personally, I could not stand, provided he publicly stands for the truth; the converse is equally true, no matter how much you like a particular priest or agree with what he says, you ought not to support him as long as he is a member of something which publicly stands for compromise and denial of Catholic Tradition.
Anyone who thought and acted the way you describe would find himself faced with a truly impossible task. How can the average layman possibly be expected to vet every single priest? Especially in some SSPX chapels where different priests are rotated through from one week to the next, how could anyone be expected to know whether or to what extent this or that priest is a “true son of Archbishop Lefebvre”..? It’s ludicrous.
3. As shocking as this may sound, there are graces to be earned at each and every Latin mass celebrated by a validly ordained priest.
Again, I ask: What on earth were the faithful Chinese Catholics thinking? What madness overcame the Catholics behind the Iron Curtain? How could they have been so wrong?
The answer is that they were not wrong. Here is where I think the problem arises. The Council of Trent teaches that the sacraments actually contain the graces they represent. This is a contradiction of the Protestant teaching that they are only symbolic or that it is the ‘faith’ of the believer which somehow makes them work. But the fact that the sacraments are not merely symbolic and actually do contain the grace they represent, does not mean that one will always and everywhere and in all circumstances receive grace from a sacrament provided it is valid. That is not, never has been and never could be Catholic teaching. If that were so, then the majority of Catholics in Russia ought to be attending Mass at the Russian Orthodox and the 4th century Catholic faithful were wrong to steer clear of Arian priest and bishops.
What many Catholics today, your good self included, seem to believe is that the sacraments are some sort of magic talisman. They are like the ‘one ring’ of Sauron, whoever has it can use it, no matter how honestly or dishonestly he came by it. In reality, of course, you cannot “steal” a sacrament any more than you can cheat Almighty God. If you obtain a sacrament by doing something which displeases Him, then you would have been better off not having it.
Let us take another hypothetical example. Suppose there is a Tridentine Mass in your area. Suppose, too, that it is “celebrated by a validly ordained priest.” But suppose that priest had been suspended or even defrocked because he was a homosexual pederast who abused boys.
Suppose that priest, according to the law of the Church, ought not to be celebrating that Tridentine Mass and you ought not to be attending it. Is it still true to say that “there is absolutely no way ever to justify” not going to that Mass? And what about the graces? Will you be getting those graces by attending the illegal Mass of a suspended homo-pederast?
We may never do evil that good may come of it. That being the case, may we attend a Mass which we know we ought not to attend, simply because it is valid and we want to steal, sorry I mean “earn” graces from it? If it as simple as saying that one can gain graces from attending “each and every Latin mass celebrated by a validly ordained priest,” does that mean that if the only Tridentine Mass is the one said by the suspended pederast, you have to go? You it seems, would say, “Yes, go”. We, on the other hand, would say, “No, don’t go”.
Very well, let’s forget for one moment what you or I would say. What does the Church say about attending such a Mass offered by such a priest? Do I need to spell it out, or can you guess?
4. I couldn’t disagree more with the conclusions you make with regards to the SSPX, however, if ever I found myself in a situation where the only Latin mass available in my area was offered by a priest associated with the so-called ‘Resistance’ movement, I certainly wouldn’t deprive myself of attending such a mass.
Good. Though the real reason for attending is of course far more serious. You attend it because, once you are no longer in ignorance of what is really going on, you are morally obliged not only to attend but wholeheartedly to support the Resistance.
This does bring up an interesting point, though. The SSPX priests and superiors would not agree with you. They tell people not to attend the Resistance. They even sometimes punish people for attending. If you have your children in a SSPX school, just see what happens when you start regularly to attend the Resistance. The SSPX of yore told people not to go to the Indult Mass. The SSPX of today is fine with the Indult Mass (our own District Superior of Great Britain positively tells people to go to it!). But they used to recommend not to go. In neither case did or do the SSPX appear to agree with your mistaken notion that, “there are graces to be earned at each and every Latin mass celebrated by a validly ordained priest”, or that “there is absolutely no justification” for staying away from any Tridentine Mass ever.
Staying home when it is the wrong Mass is the Catholic thing to do. It is what the Catholics did during the Arian crisis; it is what the Catholics did and do in China; it is what Catholics did during the upheavals of 16th century England; it is what Catholics did behind the Iron Curtain. It is what many Catholics do today in vast swathes of Russia, despite the ecumenism of the past fifty years.
5. Going to mass is not the same as attending a political rally where our presence signifies support for the priest - the only reason we go to mass is to receive the necessary nourishment for our souls.
Again, that is not true. The reason you go to Mass is to give glory to God, to assist in His worship, to give Him that which is His right. We don’t give glory to God in secret; we don’t worship Him in secret. Your idea that “the only reason we go to Mass is to receive the necessary nourishment for our souls” is in essence selfish. If you were talking about confession, I might agree with you: you need to take good care, but in the end which priest you confess to or how often to is really nobody’s business. But Mass is not the same as confession, it is the official public worship given to Almighty God by His Church. And we are not talking about a Mass said in private, on a weekday, by an elderly priest on one of the innumerable dusty and disused side altars of an old abbey church. We are, I think, talking about a publicly advertised Sunday Mass: a parish Mass or the equivalent. Again, if what you say were true, what reason would there be not to attend the Mass of a “validly ordained” Arian priest if you were living in the Arian crisis 1,500 -odd years ago?
What reason would there be for not going to the Mass of a “validly ordained” ‘pax priest’ behind the Iron Curtain? What reason for Catholics in China not to assist at the Mass of a “validly ordained” CPCA priest? None.
I really think you must snap out of this idea that your duty is somehow to “get grace” out of the sacraments by hook or by crook, and that how you get it does not matter. It is not only our interior actions which matter, but our exterior actions too. Our Lord tells us that we must confess Him “before men” if we wish Him to confess us before God the Father. When we die, when we go before the Judgement Seat of Almighty God, we will be judged not just on our interior thoughts and desires, but on our exterior actions. Remember that not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of the Father.
Note, he who does. It is what we do, our actions, which matter most.
6. Our Lord said by their fruits ye shall know them. The number of faithful supporting the Society worldwide continues to increase as does the number of overall priests. These are indisputable facts which you choose to conveniently ignore.
“Indisputable”..? I hope you will forgive me then, if I dispute some of your “facts.”
First, I hate to break this to you, but the number of faithful has been noticeably in decline for a few years already. There are noticeably fewer chapels in Great Britain than there were even ten years ago. In the 1970s there were perhaps 2,000 faithful at the SSPX in this country. By the year 2000 it was more like 1,500; by 2012 more like 1,000. Who knows what it is now. Second, does that argument not strike you as rather facile? What are the “fruits” that we should be looking for? Is it simply a numbers game? If that were so, then the SSPX is not and never was the answer. The Novus Ordo has far more priests, even today. In my country there
are 15 SSPX priests compared to some 3,500 Novus Ordo priests, or 233 for every one SSPX priest. I have heard it said that there may be as many as 200 or more SSPX priests in France.
But even if there were 250, that is still less than 2% when compared with an estimated 13,000 conciliar priests. The US District website says that there are 89 SSPX priests in that country; but there are around 35,000 Novus Ordo priests, or 393 for every one SSPX priests. We could go on. You get the idea, I think.
That is just priests. You in fact mentioned the number of faithful supporting the Society. Unfortunately, there again it’s the same story. Around 1,000 faithful (perhaps less) in Great Britain compared to somewhere in the region of 700,000 or 800,000 Catholics who attend the Novus Ordo on Sundays. In the USA, around 25,000 faithful attend the SSPX, according to the SSPX themselves (sspx.org/en/general-statistics-about-sspx) versus roughly 2.75 million souls at the Novus Ordo on a given Sunday (39% of 70.4million total, according to a 2018 Gallup survey). Significantly less than 1%, in other words.
‘Ah, but that doesn’t count!’ - I can hear the cry - ‘Those are Novus Ordo Catholics, they’re not Traditional! They don’t have the same spirit! They’re lukewarm! They believe all sorts of heresies! You’re not comparing like with like! They don’t count!’ Very well. But that’s my point - it isn’t really a question of numbers then, is it? We need to dig a little deeper than the skin-deep analysis found in raw figures. If we agree that it has more to do with the spirit, the ardour and zeal or whatever else, perhaps it would be more fruitful to look at those qualities as they are found at the SSPX and compare it to the old SSPX and the Resistance of today.
In the old SSPX, it was normal for a priest to say three Masses on Sunday in three different locations and to spend the rest of the day on the road, travelling hundreds of miles between each one. That is still the case in the Resistance today, except that the priest will have to travel even greater distances between Mass centres than was the case before. The SSPX priest in the old days used to do anointings at all hours of the day and night, as does the Resistance priest of today.
In the days of the old SSPX, the typical SSPX Mass centre in Great Britain was a rented hall with Mass once or twice a month. Whenever there was Mass there, the faithful supported it even if they had to travel some distance themselves. On the Sunday when there wasn’t Mass, many of them sanctified the day without Mass, rather than involving themselves in the compromise of the Indult Mass. The typical SSPX faithful knew why he was there, what the fight was about and why it was necessary to support the work of Archbishop Lefebvre.
For the typical faithful at an SSPX chapel today, alas, that is increasingly less the case. The typical SSPX priest of today travels far less, grumbles when he does have to travel, expects to have everything laid on for him and would as soon close the Mass centre down as carry on saying Mass in a rented hall. The old SSPX was not afraid to carry Christ into the public forum, processions, for instance, used to go out of the Church and down the street; the new SSPX are often too scared to leave the property. The faithful of the old SSPX, the died-in-the-wool Lefebvrists might sometimes have been eccentric, they might have been offensive, they might
have been many things, but one can also imagine them being martyrs. Somehow, try as I might, I just cannot picture the typical modern-day SSPX faithful defying princes and rulers and laying down his life for Christ. Which of the two have “the fruits”, where do we see more zeal, greater ardour, more devotion? The old SSPX or the new SSPX? Which one does the Resistance today more closely resemble?
One could dig even deeper and have a look at the signs of worldliness: standards of modesty in dress; the size of families; whether one would overhear “right-wing conspiracy theory” -type conversations versus “mainstream normie” conversations after Mass; the old SSPX, where families were urged not even to have a TV in the home, versus the modern equivalent homes where electronic gadgets and screens abound. We could go on. The presence or absence of Catholic Action and other lay initiatives, of Catholic Social teaching, including controversial topics such as true Catholic social order, the evils of usury, etc. The fact alone that in 2013 the
SSPX purged all the Fr. Denis Fahey articles from the US District website speaks volumes.
Finally, let me say a word about your boast that “the number of overall priests” in the SSPX “continues to rise.” It is true that there are more SSPX priests than ever before, but this is a double-edged sword, and I wouldn’t shout it too loudly about it if I were you. Firstly, if things had continued as they were, one ought to see an exponential rise, not the more-or-less straightline increase which we see over the past forty-something years. Vocations are supposed to come from SSPX chapels run by SSPX priests, aren’t they? How then do you explain that there are more SSPX priests than there were in earlier times, but more or less the same number of vocations and ordinations? The number of vocations-per-priest must surely be less..?
Secondly, what are those priests doing? In the USA there are 89 priests looking after 103 chapels. In the 1990s there were roughly one-third the number of priests looking after the same number of chapels. How is that possible? It is only possible due to a diminution of apostolic zeal. The number of priests, as we saw earlier by comparing it to the Novus Ordo, is not the only thing that matters. If what matters is the quality of those priests, the zeal of those priests, then you need to start worrying.
The current model SSPX priest is greatly inferior to his 1980s counterpart, in his actions, his spirit and even his loyalty to Catholic Tradition. No SSPX priest from a couple of decades ago would ever have been found dead publishing the kind of modernist nonsense about evolution which Fr. Paul Robinson’s book contains. Is it not an insult to St. Pius X that the Society which bears his name should be publishing and promoting some of the very same ideas which gave rise, towards the end of the 19th century, to the modernism which he had to condemn?
Conclusion
As to the whole of what you have said, in case you hadn’t gathered I think you are wrong. I am sure that it is not entirely your fault, however. And I am equally certain that there are others out there who think along the same lines. All I will conclude for now is that the clergy seem to have done a very poor job in instructing the faithful. Many Catholics, for instance, are under the mistaken impression that Sunday Mass attendance is one of the ten commandments. It is not. Sunday Mass attendance is a commandment of the Church. What the ten commandments require is that we sanctify the day. One of the main ways in which we do this is by attending Mass, if you can (abstaining from servile work being another). In normal times, that would simply mean that you attend your nearest Mass. These are not normal times. Since attending Mass is a commandment of the Church, it is for the Church to provide you with a Mass which you can attend. Any Mass which would involve offending Almighty God, is clearly not a Mass which you can attend. If there is a Mass nearby which you can in conscience attend and where your presence would not involve a compromise on the level of the Faith and would not, therefore, offend Almighty God, then you must attend it on Sundays and holy days. You must also try to make an extra effort to travel further to such a Mass, and if the effort seems too great, the circumstances too inconvenient, you must try not to resent it; rather, you must ask yourself why it is that Almighty God planned from all eternity for you to be living through this, why He wishes for you to find yourself facing such a choice. Then you must respond with generosity, urging yourself and summoning as much love and devotion towards Him as possible, and telling Him that you will prove your love and devotion for Him through your actions.
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| Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre: The New Rite Condemned by the Tradition of the Church |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-13-2024, 04:03 AM - Forum: In Defense of Tradition
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The following is taken from The Recusant #59 - Advent 2022:
Source: https://fsspx.news/en/content/32569 see also: thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=4382
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre: The New Rite Condemned by the Tradition of the Church
Extracts from “The Mass of All Time”
1. The judgement of Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci
We are not judging the intention but the facts and the consequences of these facts, similar incidentally, to those of past centuries where these reforms had been introduced oblige us to acknowledge, along with Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci (Short Critical Study of the New Order of Mass, sent to the Holy Father on September 3, 1969) that the “Novus Ordo Missae … represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated at the Council of Trent.1”
2. A new rite already condemned by several Popes and Councils
It is a conception more Protestant than Catholic which expresses everything which has been unduly exalted and everything which has been diminished. Contrary to the teachings of the 22nd session of the Council of Trent, contrary to the encyclical Mediator Dei of Pius XII, the role of the faithful in the participation of the Mass has been exaggerated, and the role of the priest has been belittled to that of a mere president.
It has exaggerated the place given to the liturgy of the Word and lessened the place given to the propitiatory Sacrifice. It has exalted the communal meal and secularized it, at the expense of respect for and faith in the Real Presence effected by transubstantiation.
In suppressing the sacred language, it has pluralized the rites ad infinitum, profaning them by incorporating worldly or pagan elements, and it has spread false translations at the expense of the true faith and genuine piety of the faithful.
And yet the Councils of Florence2 and Trent3 had both declared anathemas against all of these changes, while affirming that our Mass in its Canon dated back to Apostolic times.
The popes St. Pius V and Clement VIII insisted on the necessity of avoiding changes and transformation and of preserving perpetually this Roman Rite hallowed by Tradition.
The desacralisation of the Mass and its secularisation lead to the laicisation of the priesthood, in the Protestant manner.4
How can this reform of the Mass be reconciled with the canons of the Council of Trent and the condemnations in the Bull Auctorem Fidei of Pius VI?
3. “It is Tradition which condemns them, not me”
I do not set myself up as a judge; I am nothing, I am merely an echo of a Magisterium which is clear, which is evident, which is in all of the books, the papal encyclicals, council documents, basically in all of the theological books prior to the Council. What is being said now does not at all conform with the Magisterium which has been professed for two thousand years. Therefore it is the Tradition of the Church, her Magisterium which condemns them. Not me!
4. The traditional judgments of the Church on the Eucharist are definitive
As for our attitude vis-à-vis the liturgical reform and the breviary, we must hold fast to the affirmations of the Council of Trent. It is hard to see how to reconcile it with the liturgical reform. Yet the Council of Trent is a dogmatic, definitive Council and once the Church has made a definitive pronouncement on certain matters, another council may not change these definitions. Without this no more truth is possible!
Faith is something which is unchangeable. When the Church has presented it with all of her authority, there is an obligation to believe it to be immutable. Now, if the Council of Trent went to the trouble of adding anathemas to all of the verities concerning the sacraments and the liturgy, it was not for nothing. How can they behave so casually, as if the Council of Trent no longer exists and say that Vatican II has the same authority and consequently can change everything? We might just as well change our Credo which dates from the Council of Nicea, which is much more ancient, because Vatican II has the same authority and is more important than the Council of Nicea…
It is our duty to be firm about these things, and this is the strongest response we can make to the liturgical reform: it goes against the absolutely definitive and dogmatic definitions of the Council of Trent.
5. An avowal by Paul VI
Here is an interesting little fact which illustrates what Paul VI thought of the changes in the Mass. (…) Jean Guitton asked him: “Why would you not accept that the priests at Écône continue to celebrate the Mass of St. Pius V? It was what was said before. I do not see why the seminary is refused the ancient Mass. Why not allow them to celebrate it?” The response given by Paul VI is very significant. He replied: “No, if we grant the Mass of St. Pius V to the Society of St. Pius X, all that we have gained through Vatican II will be lost.” (…) It is extraordinary that the pope could see the ruin of Vatican II in the return of the ancient Mass. It was an incredible revelation! This is why the liberals wanted so much for us to say this Mass which represents for them a totally different concept of the Church. The Mass of St. Pius V is not liberal, it is anti-liberal and anti-ecumenical. Therefore it cannot conform to the spirit of Vatican II.
1 - Archbishop Lefebvre, letter to Cardinal Seper, 26th February 1978
2 - cf. DS 1320
3 - cf. DS 1751, 1753, 1756, 1759
4 - ‘Open Letter to the Pope’ 21st November 1983
* * * * *
What did Archbishop Lefebvre say about Attending the New Mass?
1974:
“Is the New Mass really intrinsically bad? If the Mass were intrinsically bad, I would say, well, I would say you can’t do an intrinsically bad act, that’s always forbidden; but if the Mass is not intrinsically bad, but only bad due to the circumstances which surround it … well since circumstances can change, can be changed…if there are seminarians who don’t have any other Mass, can they go to a Mass like that? I think so, what can you do! … However, I also told you, I think at least twice, that it is possible that our attitude, our position regarding this problem might become firmer or somehow harder, so to speak...” (Écône, 1974)
1975-1981:
“Little by little the Archbishop’s position hardened … In 1975 he admitted that one could ‘assist occasionally at the New Mass when one feared going without Communion for a long time.’ [...] Soon, Archbishop Lefebvre would no longer tolerate participation at Masses celebrated in the new rite except passively, for example at funerals. … He considered that it was bad in itself and not only because of the circumstances in which the rite was performed.” ( “Biography of Marcel Lefebvre,” p465 ff)
1976:
“The [new] rite of the Mass is a bastard rite, the sacraments are bastard sacraments – we no longer know if they are sacraments which give grace or which do not give grace.” (Lille, 1976)
1978:
“What should be our attitude in general towards these New Masses, even if it would be difficult to be able to assist at a Mass of Saint Pius V? I believe that we must be more and more severe. little by little … one no longer sees, one becomes blind. This is why I think we must avoid going to these Masses.” (Écône, 1978)
1979:
“It must be understood immediately that we do not hold to the absurd idea that if the New Mass is valid, we are free to assist at it. The Church has always forbidden the faithful to assist at the Masses of heretics and schismatics even when they are valid. It is clear that no one can assist at sacrilegious Masses or at Masses which endanger our faith. All these innovations are authorized. One can fairly say without exaggeration that most of these [new] Masses are sacrilegious acts which pervert the Faith by diminishing it.” (November 1979)
1981:
“This Mass is not bad in a merely accidental or extrinsic way. There is something in it that is truly bad. … Really, in conscience, I cannot advise anyone to attend this Mass, it is not possible.” (Abp. Lefebvre, 1981 - cf. David Allen White, ‘The Horn of the Unicorn’, p.224 ff.)
1985:
“Your perplexity takes perhaps the following form: may I assist at a sacrilegious mass which is nevertheless valid, in the absence of any other, in order to satisfy my Sunday obligation? The answer is simple: these masses cannot be the object of an obligation; we must moreover apply to them the rules of moral theology and canon law as regards the participation or the attendance at an action which endangers the faith or may be sacrilegious.
The new Mass, even when said with piety and respect for the liturgical rules, is subject to the same reservations since it is impregnated with the spirit of Protestantism. It bears within it a poison harmful to the faith. That being the case, the French Catholic of today finds himself in the conditions of religious practice which prevail in missionary countries. There, the inhabitants in some regions are only able to attend Mass three or four times a year. The faithful of our country should make the effort to attend one each month at the Mass of all time, the true source of grace and sanctification, in one of those places where it continues to be held in honour.” (Open Letter to Confused Catholics, 1985)
1990:
“And that’s why I will never celebrate the Mass according to the new rite, even under threat of ecclesiastical penalties and I will never advise anyone positively to participate actively in such a Mass. Because people are still asking us those questions: ‘I have not the Mass of St. Pius V on Sunday, and there is a mass said by a priest that I know well, a holy man, so, wouldn’t it be better to go to the mass of this priest, even if it is the new mass but said with piety, instead of abstaining?’ No! This is not true! This is not true, because this rite is bad! Is bad, is bad! And the reason why this rite is bad in itself, is because it is poisoned. It is a poisoned rite! Mr. Salleron says it very well, here: ‘It is not a choice between two rites that could be good. It is a choice between a Catholic Rite and a rite that is practically bordering on Protestantism,’ and thus, which attacks our faith, the Catholic Faith! So, it is out of question to encourage people to go to Mass in the new rite. […]
I’m a little surprised, you know. Sometimes, I receive a lot of requests for consultations from our priests who are in the priories and some are asking me: ‘What should one reply to a person who says he cannot have the Mass of St. Pius V and who believes that he is under the obligation to go to a mass of the new rite, said by a good priest, a serious priest who offers all the guarantees almost of holiness? etc.’ But, I do not understand how they cannot answer this by themselves! They don’t find the conclusion by themselves and they feel obliged to ask me such a thing. It's incredible! So you see, there are still some who hesitate. This is unbelievable!” (Fideliter, April 1990)
* * * * *
Archbishop Lefebvre on the Indult / Ecclesia Dei Priests
“And we must not waver for one moment either in not being with those who are in the process of betraying us. Some people [say] ‘After all, we must be charitable, we must be kind, we must not be divisive, after all, they are celebrating the Tridentine Mass, they are not as bad as everyone says’ - but they are betraying us - betraying us! They are shaking hands with the Church's destroyers. They are shaking hands with people holding modernist and liberal ideas condemned by the Church. So they are doing the devil’s work. Thus those who were with us and were working with us for the rights of Our Lord, for the salvation of souls, are now saying, ‘So long as they grant us the old Mass, we can shake hands with Rome, no problem.’ ” (Two Years After the Consecrations, Fideliter, 1990)
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| Report Exposes Massive Government Surveillance Of Americans’ Financial Data |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-08-2024, 08:03 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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House Judiciary Panel Report Exposes Massive Government Surveillance Of Americans’ Financial Data
![[Image: image_80%28275%29.jpg?itok=9_8t2ZfX]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/image_80%28275%29.jpg?itok=9_8t2ZfX)
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan in Washington on Nov. 7, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)
ZH [slightly adapted, not all hyperlinks included below]| MAR 07, 2024
Authored by Stephen Katte via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)
The Biden administration has been accused by the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government of conducting unlawful “broad” surveillance of citizens’ private financial data without a warrant and with no evidence of any crimes being committed by the individuals.
In a new interim report released on March 6, and an accompanying press release, the committee claims to have uncovered “startling evidence,” proving the federal government pried into the private transactions of American consumers without specific evidence of any criminal conduct.
According to the report, federal law enforcement, including the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the FBI, colluded with large financial institutions in the United States, such as Barclays, U.S. Bank, Charles Schwab, HSBC, Bank of America, PayPal, and many others in what boiled down to a “fishing expedition for Americans’ financial data.”
“Tactics included keyword filtering of transactions, targeting terms like MAGA and TRUMP, as well as purchases of books, religious texts, firearms-related items, and recreational stores, like Cabela’s, Bass Pro Shop, and Dick’s Sporting Goods,” the report said.
“This surveillance extended beyond criminal suspicion, likely encompassing millions of Americans with conservative viewpoints or Second Amendment interests.”
Led by Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the committee said FinCEN characterized these Americans as potential threats and subject to surveillance despite these transactions having no criminal nexus.
Surveillance Targets Identified Using General Terms
The interim report also detailed the existence of a web portal run by the Domestic Security Alliance Council (DSAC), a public-private partnership led by the FBI’s Office of Private Sector and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis.
“This portal appears to have shared intelligence products with financial institutions that were used to identify individuals who fit the profile of criminal and domestic violent extremists, often because of their conservative political views or other constitutionally protected activity,” the committee said.
“Federal law enforcement used these reports and other materials they shared with financial institutions to commandeer their databases and conduct sweeping searches of individuals not suspected of committing any crimes, without a warrant, in order to identify individuals making certain suspicious transactions.”
Other surveillance targets were identified using other terms and specific transactions that concerned core political and religious expression.
According to the report, law enforcement “derisively viewed American citizens,” who expressed opposition to firearm regulations, open borders, COVID-19 lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and the “deep state” as potential domestic terrorists.
“In other words, according to the FBI, an American citizen’s opposition to firearm regulations, open borders, or COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates, all of which are viewpoints protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, feed into an existing narrative many Domestic Violent Extremism (DVE) actors subscribe to regarding the U.S. government’s exercise of power,” the report said.
“Put another way, expressing a belief in the existence of the deep state, support for typical conservative policies with respect to firearms or immigration, or doubt about the conventional narrative may result in an individual being labeled by the FBI as a DVE Actor and Likely to Pose an Increasing Threat.”
The committee labeled it “disturbing” that the country’s most powerful law enforcement agency would consider views widely held by millions of Americans to be signs of DVE.
Helping Law Enforcement Find Jan 6 Protestors
Earlier this year, the Treasury Department admitted to helping law enforcement identify and arrest people involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach. It urged banks to comb through customers’ private transactions using terms like “MAGA” and “Trump.”
In January, allegations were also leveled at FinCEN, claiming the agency engaged in “pervasive financial surveillance” by circulating materials to banks that listed keywords that could be used to flag private financial transactions of potential Jan. 6 suspects. The materials also allegedly included instructions for banks to use indicators, including “the purchase of books” and subscriptions to media containing “extremist views.”
“Federal law enforcement agencies, including FinCEN and the FBI, treated lawful transactions as suspicious and shared information with financial institutions through backdoor channels, often circulating materials exhibiting a clear animus towards conservative viewpoints,” the committee report said.
“In addition, FinCEN and the FBI relied on Zoom discussions, private and online government-run portals, as well as sweeping searches of financial institutions’ records to conduct its investigation. Given the important civil liberties at stake, federal law enforcement’s overreach and political bias is alarming.”
Further revelations from the report reveal that FinCEN relied heavily on the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for guidance on what “relevant terms” and symbols could relate to racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism (REMVE), which they say may “have application to the capitol riots and related activity.”
The report calls the ADL a “notorious anti-conservative activist group” and says hate symbols” that ADL recommended monitoring included the “Celtic Cross,” the “Okay Hand Gesture,” “Pepe the Frog,” and “White Lives Matter.”
The committee said it “should alarm Americans that FinCEN approved of and distributed a link to a database that considers symbols of faith such as the Christian Celtic Cross and other images opposing Antifa, a violent left-wing anarchist group, as hate symbols.”
“This practice is reminiscent of the FBI’s disdain for ‘Radical Traditionalist Catholics,’ and the FBI’s reliance on the Southern Poverty Law Center another far-left activist group as an authoritative source on the Catholic Church,” the report said.[Emphasis - The Catacombs]
The Epoch Times has contacted the FBI, Treasury Department, and the White House for comment.
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| The Redesigned Notre Dame Cathedral: Symbol of the Revolution |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-07-2024, 09:56 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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The Redesigned Notre Dame Cathedral: Symbol of the Revolution
by Rita A. Stewart
![[Image: C053_Fir.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_b-f/C053_Fir.jpg)
Onlookers watch with grief Notre Dame burning
March 6, 2024
Since its completion in the 13th century, the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris has stood as a testament to the glorious Middle Ages. Built to embody the solemn, hierarchical and sacral aspects of the Catholic Church, this monumental Cathedral has helped to combat heresy, (1) and perhaps even to retard the Revolution.
Therefore, when much of the building was destroyed by fire in 2019, it was cause for grief and consternation, not just in France but around the world. Its iconic steeple and roof, ablaze in fiery flames and billowing smoke, seemed to symbolize our calamitous days.
Now that plans for the redesigned cathedral have been released, this symbolism has taken on added and tragic meaning. If Notre Dame were rebuilt according to plans, it would have been transformed into an icon of the Revolution. No longer pointing to God and Our Lady, it will do the opposite, reflecting our miserablist, secular and ecumenical society.
Upon first examining the plans for the cathedral, some may be relieved. As opposed to the more outrageous proposals put forth in 2019 (such as the swimming pool roof and the greenhouse roof plan), this version leaves the building’s structure largely unchanged. Notwithstanding, its spirit has changed and the newly designed interior has become almost unrecognizable.
![[Image: C053_Swi.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_b-f/C053_Swi.jpg)
Proposals for a swimming pool on the roof &, below, strange new spires,
were rejected but the interior was completely changed
![[Image: C053_New.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_b-f/C053_New.jpg)
The stone columns, once majestic and solemn, now appear cold. Likewise, the high ceilings, instead of inspiring contemplation of God’s grandeur, make the church seem hollow. There is also a conspicuous absence of crucifixes and statues of Saints.
Whereas the magnificent Notre Dame of old reflected perennial Catholic doctrines, the redesigned interior of the cathedral will be based upon the principles of Vatican II. Designer Guillame Bardet, famous for his “minimalist” style, seems to adhere to the progressivist vision of a “poor and sinner Church.”
![[Image: C053_Cat.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_b-f/C053_Cat.jpg)
The disconcerting design for the new Notre Dame interior
Bardet notes in an interview that his intention is to “remove everything that is not necessary, and to arrive at the essential, and so the essential is that it is poor.” In the same interview, the rector of the cathedral admits that this idea is based on the Council document Sacrosanctum Concilium [of Vatican II], which states: “The rites should be distinguished by a noble simplicity; they should be short, clear, and unencumbered by useless repetitions.”
Bardet’s design is also influenced by Vatican II ecumenism. He boldly states that, “With this work, I am addressing Catholics first, but I also seek to speak to others. To make it clear that we are talking here about religion and, more broadly, spirituality.”
All of this calls to mind the declaration from Lumen gentium that the “plan of salvation” includes Jews and Muslims, as well as the notion that the Church of Christ merely “subsists” in the Catholic Church. Based on this line of thinking, Bardet appears to be implying that religious truths are broader than what the Church can encompass and we must open ourselves to the ideas held by other religions.
With this framework in mind, it becomes easier to understand the redesigned interior. These Vatican II principles are present in its overall ambiance, as well as in the individual pieces designed by Bardet. They are ugly and common, and do not appear distinctly Catholic. With a few slight modifications – or none at all – they would fit in a Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, or Masonic temple.
First, there are the pulpit and the cathedra. Traditionally, these objects were ornate and made of fine materials in order to symbolize the authority of the Church through her visible representatives. By contrast, Bardet’s designs are made with simple undecorated wood, and both have a note of austerity rather than one of grandeur. They strongly impose the impression of equality between laypeople and the clergy, reinforcing the Protestant idea that a “minister” serves as little more than a worship leader.
![[Image: C053_Pul_.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_b-f/C053_Pul_.jpg)
The minimalist pulpit compared with the traditional gothic; below, the ugly modern chairs
![[Image: C053_Cha.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_b-f/C053_Cha.jpg)
Next is the baptistry, which looks just as wretched as the first two objects. Bardet claims it is meant to give the impression of “ritual circularity,” a phrase that sounds more New Age than Catholic. It looks similar to the ancient “point within a circle” symbol, used by Freemasons to represent an individual’s journey toward Masonic “virtues.” Could this be an attempt to rid baptism of its sacramental significance?
Below, the baptistery, mimicking the Masonic 'point within a circle' symbol?
![[Image: C053_Bap.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_b-f/C053_Bap.jpg)
The fourth piece, the altar, is particularly distressing. As the altar is the place where Our Lord comes down from Heaven, it should be the richest and most beautiful part of the church. Instead, this one is stark, with a curved, unsettling shape.
Bardet writes that “the evocation of the Last Supper meal naturally imposes horizontality, the altar of sharing.” In other words, he is deliberately de-emphasizing the Church’s doctrine on the Real Presence, giving the impression that the Holy Eucharist is merely a meal. For this reason, the altar looks like a table (or worse than that), with no sacrality at all.
The bare plain altar, below, is unsettling
![[Image: C053_Alt.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_b-f/C053_Alt.jpg)
Bardet’s final object, the tabernacle, is equally unfit for Our Lord. Bare and marked only with a thin cross, one would hardly expect it to contain the King of Kings, Jesus Christ. Bardet defends himself by saying, “I chose simplicity by returning to the etymology of the word tabernacle, ‘the tent.’”
This not only obscures the reality of the Real Presence, but also hearkens back to the Old Covenant, in which the Holy of Holies was contained in a tent, the Tabernacle of Moses. Bardet’s work could be seen as an ecumenical gesture, a way to pretend that the Holy Eucharist is of no more importance than what came before in the Old Testament.
The tabernacle: a triangle box with no sense of a palace for the Real Presence
![[Image: C053_Obe.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_b-f/C053_Obe.jpg)
The redesigned interior of the Cathedral of Notre Dame is far from the only church to have been hijacked by progressivists. Still, given its great importance in Christendom, this “remodel” will mark a new stage in the Revolution. It will show that the crisis in the Church has reached her very core, aiming to eradicate the last vestiges of the Catholic spirit.
This should remind us, as counter-revolutionaries, of our grave obligation to defend Christ and His Holy Mother and execrate loudly desecrations like this one. As the chastisements approach, let us refuse to retreat from the battle.
![[Image: C053_Tho.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_b-f/C053_Tho.jpg)
The reliquary to hold the Crown of Thorns looks like a target practice at a shooting range
1. The cathedral was designed to oppose the Cathar heresy. The Cathars denied Christ’s divinity, so the façade of the cathedral is divided into three parts in order to represent the Holy Trinity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5nODJ3Sum4
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