| Welcome, Guest |
You have to register before you can post on our site.
|
| Forum Statistics |
» Members: 268
» Latest member: Sarah
» Forum threads: 6,379
» Forum posts: 11,927
Full Statistics
|
| Online Users |
There are currently 335 online users.
» 0 Member(s) | 332 Guest(s)
Applebot, Bing, Google
|
| Latest Threads |
Why Beauty Matters
Forum: General Commentary
Last Post: Stone
11 hours ago
» Replies: 0
» Views: 55
|
Introducing the Newest Ju...
Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
Last Post: Stone
Today, 08:03 AM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 75
|
October 31st - Vigil of A...
Forum: October
Last Post: Stone
Today, 01:44 AM
» Replies: 1
» Views: 4,037
|
Oratory Conference: "Auc...
Forum: Conferences
Last Post: Deus Vult
Yesterday, 09:52 AM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 78
|
House committee finds Bid...
Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
Last Post: Stone
Yesterday, 05:58 AM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 86
|
Vatican unveils Jubilee Y...
Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
Last Post: Stone
Yesterday, 05:53 AM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 86
|
SAINT GERTRUDE
Forum: The Saints
Last Post: Stone
10-29-2024, 03:57 PM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 87
|
The Titulus Project
Forum: Great Reset
Last Post: Stone
10-29-2024, 01:44 PM
» Replies: 10
» Views: 1,323
|
Transcription: Sermon for...
Forum: Rev. Father David Hewko
Last Post: Stone
10-29-2024, 11:16 AM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 105
|
The Catholic Trumpet: ✝PR...
Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
Last Post: Stone
10-29-2024, 11:09 AM
» Replies: 3
» Views: 898
|
|
|
| Transcript of the First Sermon at the Oratory of the Most Sorrowful Heart of Mary |
|
Posted by: Stone - 10-17-2023, 06:32 AM - Forum: Rev. Father David Hewko
- Replies (1)
|
 |
The following transcript is taken from Fr. Hewko's First Sermon at the newly acquired Oratory of the Sorrowful Heart of Mary
October 15, 2023
Fr. David Hewko:
Welcome to The Oratory of The Sorrowful Heart of Mary. This is our first Mass public, solemn, higher Mass. I've said three Masses already here during this week, and today after the Mass, we will have the blessing of the whole Oratory and the incensations, including the barn, and ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to take this as Her home. This statue of Our Lady of Sorrows, the Blessed Mother of Sorrows, She was the first to land at the house when we made the move. She was the first to land here and claim it as Her own. It's all Hers, and She can do with it what she wants, and She can use whoever She wants, and this is Her place. So I want to claim it as Her territory, the Sorrowful Heart of Mary, who stood at the foot of the cross, which is where traditional Catholics belong today.
We don't belong in the palaces, in the luxurious Babylonian, pagan dances in Rome that are going on. Poor, poor Rome, darkened. We belong with Mary at the foot of the Cross. That's our place in this crisis of the Church. How well Archbishop Lefebvre understood this. And he chose, he chose, he often even spoke that we have to stand with the Virgin Mary at the foot of the Cross at this time of Calvary, at the crucifixion of our Holy Catholic Church. Where else would we want to be? Where else would we want to be? In the despair of Judas? No. In the denials of St. Peter? No. In the connivings of the Holy Temple, like modernist Rome always conniving the next move to dismantle the Catholic Church, destroy it, and get rid of the old traditional Mass, get rid of the Catholic theology, get rid of the ancient and great encyclicals of the Popes condemning liberalism, modernism, socialism, communism, and all the modern errors, evolution included? And all these errors condemned by the encyclicals we adhere to, down to Pope Pius XII.
So where is our place? Where do we belong in this chaos, in this hurricane? It's with the Virgin Mary at the foot of the Cross, the Virgin Mary at Calvary. So this is Her home, and I welcome you to her Home. And let's look at the Epistle of today's Mass, the 20th Sunday after Pentecost, which is taken from St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians chapter five. "Brethren: See to it that you walk with care: not as unwise but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not become foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, for in that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual canticles, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father. Be subject to one another in the fear of Christ."
The Holy Gospel taken from St. John, Chapter Four. "At that time, there was a certain royal official whose son was lying sick at Capharnaum. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and besought Him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Jesus therefore said to him, 'Unless you see signs and wonders, you do not believe.' The royal official said to Him, 'Sir, come down before my child dies.' Jesus said to him, 'Go your way, your son liveth.' The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and departed. But even as he was now going down, his servants met him and brought word saying that his son liveth. He asked of them therefore the hour in which he had got better. And they told him, yesterday, at the seventh hour, the fever left him. The father knew then that it was at that very hour in which Jesus had said to him, 'Your son liveth.' And he himself believed, and his whole household." Those are the words of the Holy Gospel.
And by way of announcement, all of you are aware, I'm sure, by now of Bishop Tissier de Mallerais holding a Mass and Confirmations at a Novus Ordo functioning parish. It's not as if it was no longer used. And [as if] it's a beautiful old church with the Tridentine altar and still the statues are there, and they're thinking of selling it. It's not that situation. It's a full blast Novus Ordo parish. The morning before Bishop Tissier's Mass and Father Vernoy, who's really responsible, the new SSPX prior down there in Sanford, Florida, he is the one that arranged this who had to be on very good terms with the local diocesan bishop and had to be on very good terms with the local pastor. I mean, maybe golfing together terms, meals, wine and cheese together terms with Novus Ordo priests.
Now it's true, in the old days, we would invite Novus Ordo priests to our priory to come and talk about the traditional faith and bring them to tradition and the Novus Ordo abandoned the Vatican II church. That was always the goal. Now it's dialogue. Now it's friendly association with the diocesan bishops and priests, which Archbishop Lefebvre warned, he said, "This is extremely dangerous, extremely dangerous to put ourselves first under these modernist bishops because they will use their authority to silence the preaching of the truth." And that's what's happened. May I ask? I didn't hear the sermon. I did not hear Bishop Tissier's sermon yet. I hope it will be available.
But I really wonder, did he condemn the Novus Ordo at a Novus Ordo parish? Did he condemn the Novus Ordo Mass when there was a Novus Ordo Mass that morning and then following his Mass there was another Novus Ordo Mass? Do you think he condemned the scandals of that diocesan bishop of Sanford, Florida? Do you think he condemned Vatican II in all its errors like he used to? I highly doubt it because the pressure is there. Once you have all these favors from modernist Rome, and apparently Pope Francis approved this, you feel indebted to gratitude, and you don't want to bite the hand that fed you. So they're going to start being more and more silent about what we're bound to preach against, as priests, as bishops, and the Pope himself, we're bound to preach against everything that attacks Jesus Christ the King everything that attacks His doctrine, His Sacred Church, the Catholic church of all time. And that will lead souls to hell.
If we are silent shepherds, we're salt that has lost its flavor, worth[y] to be thrown out to the street, to be stepped on. And that's what's become of the modernist bishops and clergy, and with great sadness, we see this even with the Pope himself. He's reduced himself to a cooperator with the globalists to push their environmental nonsense and program of genocide and death in the name of green awareness and green peace. It's very lamentable, extremely lamentable that the Pope has reduced himself, his authority to a joke. And that's his plan. He's working right with them in the Freemasons. They got the man they want. They've had the last five popes they wanted. So dear faithful, I don't... Again, to give Bishop Tissier the benefit of the doubt, maybe he didn't realize because he's just flying in from outside. Maybe he didn't realize where it was going to be, but I find that surprising.
But I would say a lot of the blame goes on the leaders of the SSPX and on Father Vernoy, the prior down there. And very dangerous for the Faith and very dangerous for the Faithful. What does that tell the Faithful, that they have a Mass at the Novus Ordo Parish? What does that tell the faithful? 'Well, it must not be so bad.' The children think, "Well, the pews are far more comfortable, the air conditioning is better, and the Novus Ordo..." Well, what's so bad about it if they're having Mass at it in Confirmations? It's a very bad message, and that's not where we want to be. And if Archbishop Lefebvre was alive, that would never have happened. And if it did, Father Vernoy would be sent back to the seminary to scrub toilets and Bishop Tissier would be corrected and told never to hold a service like that again on Confirmations and Mass at a Novus Ordo parish.
But if they've fallen this far, it's because, in doctrine, they have compromised very far as well by accepting the New Mass as legitimately promulgated. That's signed and declared by Bishop Fellay and all the superiors of the SSPX. "We accept the new mass as valid without question and as legitimately promulgated." Let me put it in a different light so you see how bad that really is. Imagine a priest or a bishop saying abortion, Planned Parenthood is a valid existence. They should be able to have their buildings in your city, and it's legitimately promulgated. Can you imagine Planned Parenthood being called legitimate when it's just open murder? So it's the same application with the murder of souls. In fact, it's far more serious, the New Mass murders souls. And to declare that it's legitimately promulgated is a very serious crime against our Lord, against the Faith. It is not just, as I always hear from my fellow priests in the new SSPX, they often say it's not a matter of Faith, it's a matter of prudence. Bishop Fellay was being prudent, the superiors were being prudent.
But no, when you take all the virtues, what's higher than prudence is still the Faith. The Faith is the highest. So it is a matter of Faith whether you accept the New Mass and the New Sacraments, which they openly and publicly do. Let alone the compromise with the errors of Vatican II, which is declared in the Doctrinal Declaration, never to be abrogated in the last 11 years. And the acceptance of the new Code of Canon Law, which allows Communion to Protestants, which encourages active participation in the Mass and the Liturgy and the Sacraments with all the faithful and the attack on the sacredness of marriage and the ends of marriage. This is just a few of the errors of the new Code of Canon Law. And they signed on it with no distinctions, which is extremely dangerous and deadly. So this is what brings us here. This is what brings us to a place way up in New Hampshire.
People are saying, "Why in the world, Father, did you choose a place out in the middle of nowhere?" And quite honestly, it might've been easier to be more centrally located in the US. It might've been more accessible for people. And if I wanted to have a big, huge parish just to take care of all the flock and they could come in this time of survival, come to Mass at driving distance, that would be helpful. And it probably would've been better if I was starting just a normal parish. But this is to be a place to train priests and brothers and maybe down the road, hopefully nuns. And to form young men, Archbishop Lefebvre, he found a diamond of a place called Écône, Switzerland. It is out in the middle of nowhere, it is in the mountains. And those seminarians had to work, they had to work with the land, they had to help with the vineyards, harvesting the grapes because it was all surrounded by vineyards and for recreation.
Many of those seminarians would hike the Swiss peaks all around there, the mountains all around there. And Father Tim Pfeiffer used to tell me of some of the dangerous episodes they almost had, how he almost slipped off one of the mountains and had to grab a branch that saved his life. So these young men had a lot of challenges and good things to be active with. So in the midst of their studies, they're not in the city. They can focus, they can have the fresh air of God's countryside and some challenging mountain hikes, which is very healthy and farm work which this place will have with animals. I hope to get pigs, and chickens, and some cattle, eventually. And the brothers will have a full life using all their gifts and talents for the glory of God.
And the priests' formation, it's healthy for priests to shovel manure. It's healthy for priests to have calloused hands. It's healthy for priests to get dirty and shovel dirt and mud and cow manure. It's very healthy for priests. And Archbishop Lefebvre himself, he didn't grow up on a farm, but as a missionary priest in Africa, I'm sure he was fixing the electricity. He was digging trenches to help some of these natives. He traveled far and he ran a couple of seminaries down in Gabon, and it was very primitive. I mean, we're kind of spoiled here. We have actually a house, a farmhouse that's pretty well-built and pretty well held together. Thank God. And there's no huge major renovations, but I'm sure in Africa, Archbishop Lefebvre, they probably didn't have a wall, or a floor, or a roof in some of their houses. So it's very good for priests in their formation, young men to be formed in some of the rigors of life that all our Faithful go through.
The men who wake up early to go to work, the men who are tired at the end of the week, priests can get dangerously soft. And this is what's always been the plague for the Catholic Church is when priests get soft and they no longer take care of souls and sweat and self-sacrifice to labor for souls, but they get complacent in their rectories. And of course, the generosity and charity of the faithful has always been outstanding in the history of the church. We just have to look at our own country in the United States. Just here in New Hampshire, some beautiful churches, stunning churches built before Vatican II. The Polish churches, the Italian churches, the Ukrainian Catholic churches too, incredible edifices for the glory of God, but who paid for it? It wasn't Rome and it wasn't the diocesan bishop because most of them were struggling too, to keep the schools going and to support the nuns and the hospitals.
But who built those churches was the labor and sweat of the average working man, the father of a family. There's no doubt. Many of them had simpler meals with beans and hot dogs instead of a good steak that they sacrificed for building the church and the place for the priests and monks and nuns. So priests of old, this is what the Archbishop was himself. He was a missionary priest himself and a missionary bishop. And that's why he had the common sense to realize we're in a terrible crisis. The Pope is going modernist, we have to survive. And he looked after all the faithful throughout the whole world who called on him, come and bring us confirmation because the new confirmations are doubtful and probably invalid because they changed the oils.
"Please come and send us priests. Send us priests that you ordained in Écône. Send us priests." And the Archbishop understood this, and this is partly why people were very upset in England. They were hoping that Broadstairs was going to be the place for formation of priests and a rescue place for priests leaving the society, leaving the new liberal direction that they would find a home with a bishop in Broadstairs in England. But when the faithful found out it wasn't going to be that and priests were turned away and it was not meant to be a fortress for the Catholic resistance, but who knows what it's become. But it's certainly not a fortress of resistance, that's for sure. It's a fortress of confusion now and compromise. And one of the most recent confusing letters coming from Broadstairs you need to be aware of is the approval of the Thuc line, the Archbishop Thuc.
Bishop out of Broadstairs comes a stamp of approval. You can go to the Thuc line now. That means with Father Pfeiffer and Neil Webster and all these groups from the Thuc line. Now, "Who's Thuc?" Thuc was one of the archbishops that was at the Second Vatican Council. He was with the liberal wing. He supported feminism in the Church. He was all for the changes in the Church. Archbishop Lefebvre was not. He was with the traditional side of bishops. So he probably saw Bishop Thuc on the liberal side, sitting with them. And that's where he stood at Vatican II. And then his brother, who was a Catholic president in Vietnam, I think it was North Vietnam, I could be corrected. It may be the South Vietnam, but he was shot by the communists. So his brother died a holy and noble death, really a martyr's death.
But ever since that happened, and then some say maybe it if so affected him that his mind lost its clarity, he started consecrating anything that asked for Consecration and Ordination. He basically ordained anything that walked and had a cassock, and it was extremely dangerous. He actually went and consecrated Jean Laborie, who was not even a Catholic and made him a bishop, which is a sacrilege and illegitimate probably and most likely invalid and incurs a huge punishment from the Church. And then he consecrated other bishops at Palmar de Troya in Spain, [a group] who elected their own popes, their own series of popes. And they had 15-year-old boys walking around in cardinals' robes with cardinal titles and bishop titles, just wacky as ever.
And Archbishop Lefebvre in the sermon of the Consecration of the Four Bishops in June 30th, 1988, I was there to hear it. He said, "Well, what I'm doing is public. Everyone knows, it's televised. There's the radio and there's the rotten media right there in their cage. And tomorrow," Archbishop Lefebvre said, "they're going to be smearing all over the papers, schism, excommunication." And he says, "Had I gone through with the agreements with Rome, tradition would've been destroyed, tradition would've come to nothing. So that's why I am bound before Jesus Christ the King to do something as a bishop and ensure the survival of the sacraments and the faith. I can't give the four bishops jurisdiction," he said, "only the Pope can give that, but I give them the power of orders." And that's what Archbishop Lefebvre did. And he mentioned in that sermon, this has nothing to do with a parallel church like Palmar de Troya in Spain, the Thuc line bishops. It has nothing to do with that. "I am not setting up a parallel church," he said, "with its own fake Pope and hierarchy and a fake jurisdiction."
"No," he says, "I'm a Catholic bishop, but it's operation survival. It's survival of the church. And I stay faithful to the Catholic church of all time." So out of Broadstairs, when you have the approval of the Thuc line, that just adds terrible confusion, absolute confusion. Broadstairs has become the masterpiece of confusion, allowing and permitting and approving the New Mass nourishes your faith, New Mass miracles being constantly pushed, the Feeneyite approval by having confirmations in a Feeneyite church some years ago, and the confusion of private revelations that are not approved by the church and some of them with very doubtful sources.
And in our family, Garabandal helped our family in some way, the message. But when I realized, how did the first apparition happen in Garabandal? It was when the children stole apples from their neighbor's yard, and then apparently St. Michael appeared to them. In the act of stealing. So it all began with the sin. And it's quite interesting that it began with stealing an apple and eating it. Isn't that how the human race was plunged into darkness? So Garabandal, the local bishop condemned it. So these things need to be taken into account and we shouldn't just blindly follow any apparitions, especially Medjugorje. So all these things have been promoted out of Broadstairs, and it is a scandal, a terrible scandal and nothing what Archbishop Lefebvre stood for are approved.
So dear flock, this is what brings us here. It's Operation Survival at the 10th power. We're really just struggling to survive. And we put all this in Our Lady's hands that She provide and send the young man she wants to be formed and that God will give us good bishops to ordain and give them the tonsure and minor orders in ordinations, in God's time and in his will.
I did have a good conversation with Bishop Faure about two months ago now, where he encouraged me, "Go forward. We need a seminary of Archbishop Lefebvre in the United States of tradition and of the counter-revolution." But I said, we're going to need a bishop to take care of these boys and ordained them.
And you can certainly test them. You can see their exams, no problem. And his message was, "I'll talk to Bishop Zendejas." Well, I don't know how that's going to go. But at least Bishop Faure is willing to do something. And he told me this, and I say it happily, maybe he's already said it publicly in French and Spanish, which is where he usually speaks because he lives in France. But he did tell me, "I don't agree with the New Mass miracles [as promoted by Bishop Williamson]. I don't agree with the promoting of the New Mass miracles. And I was wrong," he said, "to go along with that. And I was just going along because to go along," but he said, "I was wrong too." And he was. He was wrong to go along with that. So pray for him that... That's a good sign. And then it's also a good sign that there are prelates preaching the truth.
And Archbishop Viganò is one of them. And some of these Novus Ordo bishops, they're getting persecuted by Pope Francis. But we also have to be careful. Cardinal Müller is coming out against the Synod, which is good. Bishop Schneider, Bishop Strickland of Texas. But we have to be careful. They are Novus Ordo modernists. They say the New Mass. They accept Vatican II. So we rejoice when they say Truth because Truth belongs to the Catholic church and Our Lord. But we must be careful not to fall into that conservative camp, that dangerous conservative camp of, "Well, they're great, they're another Archbishop Lefebvre," which they're not far from it. So Bishop Viganò should be reconsecrated as a bishop because he was done in the Novus Ordo, he should be done in the traditional right. And I'm sure he knows that. And maybe he's done it already in secret, I don't know. But he needs to do that.
And then with Bishop Strickland and bishop... All these ones with the Novus Ordo ordinations and Novus Ordo consecrations, they need to be conditionally redone because there's a huge objective doubt on these Novus Ordo ordinations and consecrations as Archbishop Lefebvre himself said. So this brings us to the survival of the Catholic Faith, which is we all have to do what we can. And this is why this Oratory of The Sorrowful Heart of Mary exists. It's for Her to form good priests and brothers and down the road, sisters, to continue the work of Catholic tradition to sanctify souls.
And it will be the pre-'55 liturgy because I want nothing to do with Bugnini's paws. We know that Archbishop Bugnini came out after Archbishop Lefebvre died. His book was published of his autobiography. And in his autobiography, he says that all the changes, not just '65, '67, but all of them from '55 on were merely steps, '62, '65, '67, '69, all were stages towards the new mass.
He admits it and he rejoices over it. And that's why we're going to just stay on solid ground, which is the pre-'55 liturgy of Saint Pius X and of all the Popes, and it's beautiful. As a priest coming back to the pre-55, being formed in the '62 liturgy and the '62 Holy week and doing it all my priesthood, just about. And now going towards the pre-'55, you can see so clearly the poisonous seeds and time bombs planted by Bugnini, even in Holy Week. For just a small example, when the priest carries the Blessed Sacrament on Good Friday from the altar reservation to the main Altar, the altar boys incense the Blessed Sacrament. That doesn't exist in the post-'55. In the pre-'55, there's incense because you're escorting His Divine Majesty, Christ the King. And then what is the schola singing at that time?
The hymn to Christ the King, Vexilla Regis, a magnificent, beautiful hymn that I always have sung on the boys' camps. The hymn to Christ the King, Vexilla Regis. The King goes forth carrying His standard, His Banner, which is the Cross. And He who is life itself, Christ, the Life who gave all life, created all life, having been put to death, gives us life. Life having been put to death, gives us life. Life of the soul. That's the first stanza. And that is all sung at the procession to the altar on Good Friday. Then you might say, "Well, what's the big deal with that?" Well, it's a huge, huge point that's made in the traditional liturgy, the pre-'55, that Christ is God, He is King, and on Good Friday was His victory over sin and death and Satan. And it's publicly sung and proclaimed by the Catholic church, at least before the '55 liturgy all over the world.
And the hymn was also changed by Bugnini. He changed it to Adoramus te Christe, which is still beautiful, but it's not the same emphasis. And remember as Archbishop Lefebvre said, the fight between Écône, the fight between the tradition and modernist Rome is all centered on the Kingship of Jesus Christ. They don't want Him to reign... Well, we want Christ to reign, and we want priests formed to preach the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ. And even to stand up to politicians, kings, governments, supreme courts, if they dare to trample on the rights of Christ the King. Now they're all silent. They will not speak against these rotten politicians and even the rotten clergy in Rome. They're silent now, the new SSPX, they are silent. And that's silence is a crime.
It is a crime. It's like the police force seeing criminals taking off ladies to rape them, busting into people's homes and stealing their stuff and stealing stuff from the stores and sitting back and watching it happen and being silent and inactive when the police are funded precisely to protect the common good. And you expect that from your police force. That's why here in the US, we support our police force as long as they do what's right and punish the real criminals and not to punish the good. So it is with the clergy. And Our Lady of Quito warned that the prelates, the bishops, will be silent, and many souls will be lost because of it. So I ask your prayers and we invite of course, vocations to come. It's open now, we have a place for young men to try to be brothers in, sanctify their soul and young men to begin their studies for the priesthood. And let it be clear, if you belong to the sodomite parades, stay away. Don't come. Don't even think of coming.
If you're hooked on drugs and you can't get out of it, just don't even come. You need a rehabilitation. Don't come. Because hooked on drugs, that's all we need is priests, hooked on drugs. And if you're married, obviously you can't come. Many married men would probably love to come to be brothers. And perhaps if their wives are dead, maybe so, maybe so. And then there's a whole list of impediments to the priesthood. I won't give them all here, but those are some of them. And then if people have huge debts, if you've got huge college debts, you got to pay them off first and we could talk about what can be done, but huge debts, that's also forms an impediment to the seminary. They should be paid off or at least mostly paid off before coming. So anyway, just a few ideas there. So I ask your prayers, you're faithful, you especially, and many all throughout the United States and in England and in Australia have been so generous.
There's no way, four years ago, I couldn't even look for a house or a place because we didn't have any money to find anything. And I don't know how this happened, but miraculously, we have enough money now to buy a decent place to begin. And I thank you faithful, and if the live-stream is still working, I do extend the gratitude to all the everyone who has contributed in any way. And some people give $5, some give $500, but they all give. And especially your prayers, this is what we really need now is a lot of prayers for the good priests and good brothers. And so, I thank you and ask the Virgin Mary to look after this place and that She brings the men she wants to be formed. And I ask your prayers, and of course this is where we're going to a Mass. And I still will of course be doing the missions if I can get a priest once in a while to fill in here for me.
And if it's a small group at first, we can still manage something. And the idea is, I'm not abandoning the missions, far from it, but they might not have Mass as often, and we have to trust in the good God that hopefully he will send priests and maybe by a miracle some of the new SSPX priests. Where's Father Ken Novak? He should be here. Where's Father Stanich? He should be here. Father Mike McMahon and Father Soos and Father... Well, Father Cooper, God bless and rest his soul. He's a good priest. He died, but maybe he would wake up too. A lot of these priests should know better than going along with compromise. And they should be helping the real Catholic Resistance, the real position of Archbishop Lefebvre. So maybe by a miracle, one of these priests will wake up and come and realize they were wrong to go along with compromise and just come back to the fight of Catholic Tradition as Archbishop Lefebvre spearheaded it.
Let's go now to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass here in The Oratory of The Sorrowful Heart of Mary. Let us kneel at Calvary. That's where we belong today. At the foot of the Cross, that's where we belong. And stand with Our Lady, kneel with Her, adore Her Son and beg to become saints. And as the world seems to be sliding more into lies, more and more into economic instability and all this, we must be also ready for persecution. We must be ready for whatever tribulations come upon us and God will not abandon us. Today is the Feast of St. Teresa of Avila. Let me just close with one of a couple of her sayings.
Prize losing... I have to read my writing. Prize being able to help God carry the cross and don't be clinging to delights for it is the trade of mercenary soldiers to want their daily pay at once. Serve without charge as the grandes do their king. The King of Heaven will be with you. And she would say to her nuns, "Courage, courage, my daughters, remember that God does not give anyone more trials than can be suffered. And that His Majesty is with the afflicted. For this is certain, there is no reason to fear but to hope in His Mercy. He will reveal the whole truth in some machinations, which the devil kept hidden so as to create a disturbance will be made known."
And then lastly, "God knows how to draw good from evil. And the good is all the greater in the measure that we diligently strive that he not be offended in anything." So for those who love God, everything works together for good. So all through the trials of these days, God wants to draw good from it, that he wants us to become saints, he wants us to get to heaven and get many souls there with him. Pray that this place be one of the oasis and training camps for such priests and brothers. Oh Mary, conceived without sin.
Audience:
Pray for us who have recourse to Thee.
Fr. David Hewko:
Oh, Mary conceived without sin.
Audience:
Pray for us who have recourse to Thee.
Fr. David Hewko:
Oh, Mary conceived without sin.
Audience:
Pray for us who have recourse to Thee.
Fr. David Hewko:
And for those who do not ever close 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, of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
|
|
|
| St. Alphonsus Liguori: Daily Meditations for Twentieth Week after Pentecost |
|
Posted by: Stone - 10-15-2023, 05:39 AM - Forum: Pentecost
- Replies (6)
|
|
Death is an object of the greatest terror to souls attached to this world. Those who love God especially desire it. St. Teresa in thinking of the danger she ran as long as life lasted, of offending God and losing Him, used to say that a single day, even a single hour was too long to have to live. "Alas! Lord, as long as we remain in this miserable life, life eternal is in jeopardy."
I.
If the worldly-minded have a fear of losing their goods, fleeting and miserable as they are, much greater is the fear the Saints have of losing God, Who is a Good infinite and eternal, and Who promises to bestow Himself in Heaven as a recompense upon him who has loved Him on earth, admitting him to the enjoyment of His beauty and of His own happiness. Hence as their whole fear during life has been simply the fear of sinning, and thus losing the friendship of that Lord Whom they have loved so well, so their whole desire has been to die in the grace of God, and by death to gain the assurance of loving and possessing Him forever.
Death, then -- that object of the greatest terror to souls attached to this world -- is what those that love God especially desire: for, says St. Bernard, it is for these happy souls both the termination of their labours and the gate of life. Hence we see that among the Saints, one would call this life a prison and pray the Lord to deliver him out of it: Deliver my soul from this prison (Ps. cxli. 8). Another, like St. Paul, would call it a real death: Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Rom. vii. 24).
But how are we to express the grief and the extreme anguish that our Saint experienced through her desire for death, more especially after the time when the Lord called her to His perfect love? She protests, in her Life, written in obedience to her confessor, that the desire that she had of dying, in order to see God, was so great, that it did not even afford her the leisure to think of her sins. This humble spouse of Jesus crucified spoke in this manner because she was continually bewailing those imperfections in her love of her Spouse into which she had formerly fallen -- imperfections she pronounced to be monstrous and deserving of hell, but in reality, as her biographers declare, her failings never amounted to a mortal sin.
The Saint, in thinking, moreover, of the danger she was in, as long as life should last, of offending God and losing Him, used to say that a single day, and even a single hour, seemed to her too long to have to live. Hence she would exclaim: "Alas! Lord, as long as we remain in this miserable life, life eternal is ever in jeopardy. O life! enemy of my welfare, who will be able to bring thee to an end? I endure thee, because God endures thee. I preserve thee, because thou dost appertain to Him; may I never prove treacherous or ungrateful. Oh! when will that day of benediction arrive on which I shall behold thee, O life, swallowed up in the boundless ocean of the sovereign truth, when thou wilt no longer possess the liberty to sin?"
O beautiful fatherland! O blessed fatherland of God-loving souls! where they love Him without fear of losing Him; without tepidity, and for ever! I greet thee from afar, from this valley of tears, and I sigh for thee, because I hope that in thee I shall love my God with all my powers for evermore.
II.
To our Saint's fear of the possibility of offending God in this life was joined the great desire that this loving soul entertained of seeing face to face the only object of her love, that she might thus gain the power of loving Him more perfectly, and of altogether uniting herself to Him. For this reason she could not endure to see herself at such a distance from the country of the Blessed; with abundance of tears, she would thus utter her complaint before her Spouse: "Alas! alas! Lord, this banishment is long indeed! What shall a soul confined in this prison do? Oh! Jesus, the life of man is long indeed! It is short, when considered as a means of gaining the life that is the true one; but it is long for that soul that desires to behold herself in the presence of her God." At other times, blending with her loving pains her distrust in her own merits and her hope in God, she would occupy herself in the composition of the following beautiful harmony of ejaculations so pleasing to her Beloved: "O life!" she would say, "O life! how canst thou keep thyself apart from thy Life? O death! O death! I know not who can fear thee, because in thee is life! Yet who shall not fear thee after having spent a part of this life without the love of his God? O my soul! serve thy God, and hope that in His mercy He will heal thy miseries."
But in order to understand the extent of the burning desire our Saint had for death, it is necessary that we should have a knowledge of the pain she experienced in continuing in life. She related to her confessor that this was such that it seemed already to destroy and bring her life to an end. Under its influence, too, she would even fall into an ecstasy. To give vent to her affections, she drew up on this subject those burning words of which that celebrated hymn of hers is composed, which thus begins:
"I live, from myself am far away:
And hope to reach a life so high,
That I'm for ever dying because I do not die!"
Elsewhere she says: "When will it be, O my God, that I shall at last see my whole soul perfectly united to Thee, so that all its faculties may have complete fruition of Thee?"
In a word, the only relief and consolation she found in this life was in thinking of her death. So she used to comfort herself, while on earth, with words like these: "Then, then, O my soul, you will have entered into your rest, when you shall be holding converse with that sovereign Good and shall know what He knows; when you shall love what He loves, and enjoy all that constitutes His blessedness; for then you will be rid of your own wretched will." Thus, it may be said, that the life of our Saint was sustained by the hope of that life eternal, for which she had sacrificed all the goods of this world; "I had rather live and die," she tells us, "hoping for the life eternal, than have all the goods of the earth in my possession. Do not Thou abandon me, O Lord, for I hope in Thee. If only I may serve Thee without intermission, do with me whatsoever Thou pleasest."
O my holy advocate, Teresa, I rejoice with thee that thou hast reached the haven, the termination of thy sighs! Now Thou dost no longer believe, thou beholdest the beauty of God! Thou no longer hopest, thou art possessed of the Sovereign Good! Thou art now rejoicing in the clear vision of that God Whom thou hast so long desired and loved! Thy love is now satiated! There is nothing for thy loving heart to long for more! O my Saint, have compassion on me who am still in the midst of the storm. Pray for me that I may obtain salvation and go to join thee in loving that God Whom thou so greatly desirest to see loved.
Spiritual Reading
"PARADISE! PARADISE!"
When the dignity of Cardinal was offered to St. Philip Neri, he cast his biretta into the air, and, looking up to Heaven, replied: "Paradise! Paradise!" The Blessed Giles would fall into an ecstasy, when the children, out of frolic, said to him: "Brother Giles, Paradise! Paradise!"
It is an opinion among theologians, that in Purgatory there is a peculiar pain called the pain of languor, which is inflicted upon those who had but little desire for Paradise during life on earth, and reasonably so, for we have but little love for God if we desire but little to enjoy His infinite beauty unveiled before our eyes, and the more so as it is impossible for us here in life not to be continually offending Him, at least in venial matters. Even if we do love Him here below, our love is, nevertheless, so imperfect, that we scarcely know that we love Him at all.
Let us, then, yearn for Paradise, where we shall offend God no more, and where we shall ever love Him with all our powers. When the troubles of this life press heavily upon us, let us animate ourselves by the hope of Paradise in order to bear them with tranquillity. When the world or the devil presents for our acceptance fruits that are forbidden, let us with good courage turn our back upon them, and lift up our eyes to Paradise. If the dread of God's judgments alarms us, let us nerve ourselves by hoping in the goodness of our God, Who to make us understand how ardently He desires to give Paradise to us, has commanded us, under pain of damnation, to hope for it through His mercy. He even willed to purchase it at the cost of His Blood, and His Death, that so He might obtain that great blessedness for us; and to assure us of it the more, He has been pleased to give us a pledge of it in the gift of Himself to us in the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar.
If our weakness terrifies us, let us fortify our hope by the same goodness of our Lord, Who, after having given us His merits to entitle us to Paradise, will likewise give us the strength to persevere in His grace even to our life's end, if we have recourse to His mercy, and pray to Him for that strength and perseverance.
The holy Mother Teresa used to say:
"Let your desire be to see God; your fear, to lose Him; your joy, whatever can bring you to Him."
Burning with the desire of seeing God, the Saint composed her famous "Canticle," "I die because I cannot die!" and on this text she wrote many beautiful stanzas, of which the following are two:
Ah, Lord, my Light, and living Breath!
Take me, Oh, take me from this death,
And burst the bars that sever me
From my true Life above:
Think how I die, Thy face to see,
And cannot live away from Thee,
O my eternal Love!
And ever, ever weep and sigh,
Dying because I cannot die.I weary of this endless strife;
I weary of this dying life--
This living death -- this heavy chain;
This torment of delay,
In which her sins my soul detain;
Ah, when shall it be mine? Ah, when,
With my last breath to say--
"No more I weep -- no more I sigh!
I'm dying of desire to die."
HYMN IN HONOUR OF ST. TERESA
Ye angels most inflamed
With fires of heavenly love,
Bright Seraphim, descend
From your high thrones above;
To this most chosen soul
Your loving succor bring --
To her, the spouse belov'd
Of Christ your God and King.Jesus, your Love, your Life,
Who loves the pure of heart,
Has pierced Teresa's soul
With love's own flaming dart;
And lo! she pines away,
She languishes, she sighs;
For Him Who gave the wound,
Of very love she dies.
To see her loving Spouse
So fierce is her desire
That evermore she burns,
Consuming in its fire,
That sweet and longing wish
Into His arms to fly,
Is but a living death,
Because she cannot die.No angels come to aid;
Come Thou, Who in this breast
Hast kindled flames so dear,
Come Thou, and give her rest;
Sick is her soul with love,
And wounded is her heart;
Thou didst inflict the wound,
Then, Jesus, cure its smart.Thy spouse was ever true,
To please Thy Heart Divine,
All earth could give she left,
All she could give is Thine;
And now, she loves Thee well,
And sighs to come to Thee;
She longs to take her flight,
Ah! set her spirit free.
- ST. ALPHONSUS
Evening Meditation
CONFORMITY TO THE WILL OF GOD
VI. GOD WISHES ONLY OUR GOOD.
I.
Oh, how great indeed is the folly of those who resist the Divine Will! They will have to endure sufferings, for no one can ever prevent the accomplishment of the Divine decrees. Who resisteth his will? (Rom. ix. 19). And, besides, they will have to bear the burden of their sorrows without deriving benefit from them; nay, they will draw down upon themselves even greater chastisements in the next life, as well as greater disquietude in this: Who hath resisted him, and hath had peace? (Job ix. 4). Let the sick man make as great an outcry as he will about his pains; let him who is in poverty murmur and rage and blaspheme against God as much as he pleases -- what will he gain by it all, but the doubling of his afflictions? "What are you in search of, O foolish man," says St. Augustine, "when seeking good things? Seek that one Good in Whom are all things that are good." What are you going in search of, poor foolish man, outside your God? Find God, unite yourself to His holy will, bind yourself up with it; and you will be ever happy, both in this life and in the next.
In short, what does God will but our good? Whom can we ever find to love us more than He? It is His will, not merely that no one should perish, but that all should save and sanctify their souls: Not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance (2 Peter iii. 9). This is the will of God, your sanctification (1 Thess. iv. 3). It is in our good that God has placed His own glory, being, as St. Leo says, of His own nature, goodness infinite. And as it is of the nature of goodness to desire to spread itself abroad, God has a supreme desire to make the souls of men partakers of His own bliss and glory. And if, in this life, He sends us tribulations, they are all for our own good: All things work together unto good (Rom. viii. 28). Even chastisements, as was observed by the holy Judith, do not come to us from God for our destruction, but in order to secure our amendment and salvation: Let us believe that they have happened for our amendment, and not for our destruction (Judith, viii. 27).
II.
In order to save us from evils that are eternal, the Lord throws the shield of His good will around us: O Lord, thou hast crowned us as with a shield of thy good will (Ps. v. 13). He not only desires, but is eager for our salvation: The Lord is careful for me (Ps. xxxix. 18). -- For what is there that God will ever refuse us, says St. Paul, after having given us His own Son? He that spared not even his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how hath he not also with him given us all things? (Rom. viii. 32). This, then, is the confidence in which we ought to abandon ourselves to the Divine dispensations, all of which have our good for their object. Let us therefore repeat, whatever circumstances may happen to befall us: In peace, in the self-same, I will sleep and I will rest; for thou, O Lord, singularly hast settled me in hope (Ps. iv. 10). Let us also place ourselves entirely in God's hands, for He will certainly take care of us: Casting all your care upon him, for he hath care of you (1 Peter v. 7). Then, let our thoughts be fixed on God, and on the fulfilment of His will, that He may think of us and of our good. "Daughter," said the Lord to St. Catharine of Sienna, "do thou think of Me, and I will ever think of thee." Let us frequently repeat with the sacred spouse, My Beloved to me, and I to him (Cant. ii. 16). The thoughts of my Beloved are for my welfare; I will think of nothing but of pleasing Him, and bringing myself into perfect conformity with His holy will. The holy Abbot Nilus used to say that we ought never to pray to God to make our will succeed, but to accomplish His will in us. And whenever things befall us that are not according to our wishes, let us accept them all, as from God's hands, not merely with patience, but with joy, as did the Apostles when they went from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus (Acts, v. 41).
|
|
|
|
| Chief Exorcist Father Amorth: Padre Pio Knew The Third Secret |
|
Posted by: Stone - 10-14-2023, 05:53 AM - Forum: General Commentary
- Replies (2)
|
|
Chief Exorcist Father Amorth: Padre Pio Knew The Third Secret
1P5 Maike Hickson | May 23, 2017
In a recent article on the Secret of Fatima, Steve Skojec, the founder and editor of OnePeterFive, published, to my knowledge, for the first time in the English language words from Rome’s chief exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth (d. 2016), about Padre Pio and his knowledge of the Third Secret of Fatima. They come from a newly published book written by José María Zavala, entitled The Best Kept Secret of Fatima (El Sécreto Mejor Guardado de Fátima). OnePeterFive‘s contributor, Mr. Andrew Guernsey, was very helpful in finding these quotes. Since Mr. Skojec’s own article is somewhat lengthy, many readers may not have realized the importance of this interview with Father Amorth, which was only to be published after the priest’s death. In the following, I shall quote extensively from Steve’s own post which first speaks about Father Amorth’s own conviction that the specific Consecration of Russia has not yet taken place, and then enters into the larger discussion about Fatima:
Quote:"It [a piece of the Fatima puzzle] came in the form of an interview with the very famous (and now deceased) Roman exorcist, Fr. Gabriel Amorth, also conducted by José María Zavala. Fr. Amorth personally knew Saint (Padre) Pio for 26 years, and it is from this towering figure of 20th century Catholic sanctity that he claims to have learned the contents of the Third Secret of Fatima.
Fr. Amorth was interviewed by Zavala in 2011, who kept the interview secret until after the exorcist’s death, publishing it for the first time in his book about Fatima. In the interview, Fr. Amorth relates — as he has done elsewhere — that he does not believe the consecration of the world by Pope John Paul II in 1984 was sufficient to satisfy the requirements set forth by Our Lady.
“There was no such consecration then,” he [Father Amorth] says. “I witnessed the act. I was in St. Peter’s Square that Sunday afternoon, very close to the Pope; so close, I could almost touch him.”
Pressed by Zavala as to why he so forcefully believes that the consecration was not done, Fr. Amorth replied: “Very simple: John Paul II wanted to mention Russia expressly, but in the end he did not.”
Zavala pressed the issue with Fr. Amorth, saying that Sister Lucia herself (as mentioned above) had said that Heaven had accepted the consecration. He describes an incredulous reaction from Fr. Amorth. “Lucia said that…?” He asked. Zavala continues:
“Well, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said it, in the year 2000, hiding behind a letter [escudándose en una carta] from Lucia dated November 1989, in which she stated that Heaven had admitted consecration in spite of one of the most important conditions.
“Have you seen that letter?” He asks, as if conducting a police interrogation in search of evidence.
“Never,” I say flatly.
“I do not think you’ll ever see it, because I’m convinced that Lucia did not write it.”
“How are you so sure of that?”
“Why didn’t Bertone show it when he should have, when he announced the Third Secret of Fatima? A simple photocopy of the manuscript, included in the official dossier of the Vatican, would have been sufficient to dispel any doubt. If the Vatican has always been scrupulous in providing the documentary proof that authenticated the information by Lucia on minor matters, what reason would they have to skimp on the only documentary evidence that, according to Bertone, validated a fact that without doubt was of as much importance as the consecration performed by John Paul II?
“Yes, it’s weird,” I admit.
“You really think Lucia took five years to write that the consecration had been truly accepted? And that Bertone waited no less than sixteen years to announce the validity of something so crucial as the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary?” Father Amorth’s voice sounds like dry leaves.
“It’s all very strange, in truth.” I [Zavala] nod again.
“Moreover,” he adds, “if the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary made by Pius XII in 1942 was only partially accepted [because he did not specifically mention Russia – ed], for Jesus said that in view of it the war would only be shortened rather than finished immediately, why would He now change his mind with John Paul II, if Russia was not mentioned on this occasion?”
“It would be an incongruity, yes.”
“Rather.”
“So…?”
“I have no doubt that the consecration did not occur on the terms required by the Virgin. But we must not lose sight of what she herself wanted to tell us through Lucia: ‘In the end My Heart Immaculate will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me and it will become [come to be], [thereby] granting itself to the world a time of peace’…”
The interview digresses here from the topic of Fatima, but Zavala returns to it again later:
“Forgive me for insisting on the Third Secret of Fatima: Did Padre Pio relate it, then, to the loss of faith within the Church?”
Fr. Gabriele furrows his brow and sticks out his chin. He seems very affected.
“Indeed,” he states, “One day Padre Pio said to me very sorrowfully: ‘You know, Gabriele? It is Satan who has been introduced into the bosom of the Church and within a very short time will come to rule a false Church.’”
“Oh my God! Some kind of Antichrist! When did he prophesy this to you?” I [Zavala] ask.
“It must have been about 1960, since I was already a priest then.”
“Was that why John XXIII had such a panic about publishing the Third Secret of Fatima, so that the people wouldn’t think that he was the anti-pope or whatever it was …?”
A slight but knowing smile curls the lips of Father Amorth.
“Did Padre Pio say anything else to you about future catastrophes: earthquakes, floods, wars, epidemics, hunger …? Did he allude to the same plagues prophesied in the Holy Scriptures?” [asks Mr. Zavala]
“Nothing of the sort mattered to him, however terrifying they proved to be, except for the great apostasy within the Church. This was the issue that really tormented him and for which he prayed and offered a great part of his suffering, crucified out of love.” [says Fr. Amorth]
“The Third Secret of Fatima?”
“Exactly.”
“Is there any way to avoid something so terrible, Fr. Gabriele?”
“There is hope, but it’s useless if it’s not accompanied by works. Let us begin by consecrating Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, let us recite the Holy Rosary, let us all do prayer and penance …” [emphasis added]
Thus ends Steve Skojec’s own presentation of certain passages of the new Zavala book on Fatima.
Father Amorth is a witness here to what Padre Pio – whom he first met when he himself was a seventeen-year-old young man – told him directly and personally. Father Amorth states in that same interview that Padre Pio even let him sometimes read his own spiritual diary.
As we reported earlier, Father Amorth had also already stated during his lifetime that he did not believe that the Consecration of Russia has taken place (a statement which was just confirmed by Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes). In December of 2015, Father Amorth had said:
Quote:The Consecration has not yet been made. I was there on March 25 [1984] in St. Peter’s Square, I was in the front row, practically within touching distance of the Holy Father. [Pope] John Paul II wanted to consecrate Russia, but his entourage did not, fearing that the Orthodox would be antagonized, and they almost thwarted him. Therefore, when His Holiness consecrated the world on his knees, he added a sentence not included in the distributed version that instead said to consecrate “especially those nations of which you yourself have asked for their consecration.” So, indirectly, this included Russia. However, a specific consecration has not yet been made. You can always do it. Indeed, it will certainly be done…
|
|
|
|
| Synod on Synodality now discussing female deacons, married priests, and lay governance |
|
Posted by: Stone - 10-14-2023, 05:42 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
- No Replies
|
|
Synod on Synodality now discussing female deacons, married priests, and lay governance
Synod participants will now spend the next few days discussing controversial topics, after officials refused to commit that members had to uphold Church teaching in discussions.
![[Image: P1120543-scaled-e1697211468718.jpeg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/P1120543-scaled-e1697211468718.jpeg)
Pope Francis and Synod on Synodality leaders, October 13, 2023.
Michael Haynes/LifeSiteNews
Oct 13, 2023
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Participants of the Synod on Synodality are currently discussing topics of married priests, female deacons, and increased lay ministry as part of the third of five modules held during the event.
Opening the proceedings on Friday morning, relator general Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich gave an address highlighting the chief themes that will form the subject of discussion at the synod until Wednesday.
The central question for the discussion is “Co-responsibility in Mission: How can we better share gifts and tasks in the service of the Gospel?” However, the 35 small circle groups will be dealing with the five different subsections of the module, with only one of the subsections assigned to each group for the duration of the module.
Participants of #synod2023 arrive for start of 3rd module (B2) focussing on topics of lay ministry esp. role of women, female deacons, married priests. @cardinal_jch says these = “some of key points” of synod, so “let us not give hasty answers that do not consider all aspects.” pic.twitter.com/04ZD0O5DOE
— Michael Haynes ?? (@MLJHaynes) October 13, 2023
Within the worksheets provided to synod participants are questions dealing with
- Lay leadership
- Lay ministry
- Clericalism
- Role of women in governance
- Possibility of female deacons
- Possibility of married priests
- Seminary formation to promote synodality
- Role of bishops in a synodal church
Hollerich paid particular attention to highlighting the theme of women in the Church during his opening speech.
READ: Synod official refuses to answer whether members must follow Church teaching in discussions
“Most of us are men. But men and women receive the same baptism and the same Spirit. The baptism of women is not inferior to the baptism of men,” he said, in what appeared to be an allusion to arguing for female ministry of some kind.
Quote:How can we ensure that women feel they are an integral part of this missionary Church? Do we, the men, perceive the diversity and the richness of the charisms the Holy Spirit has given to women? Or the way that how we act often depends on our past education, our family upbringing and experience, or the prejudices and stereotypes of our culture?
Do we feel enriched or threatened when we share our common mission and when women are co-responsible in the mission of the Church, on the basis of the grace of our common Baptism?
He posited the male priesthood alongside the “other baptismal ministries,” asking if the clergy were “ready to accept that all parts of the body are important.”
Quote:Besides being men, most of us are also ordained ministers. In the People of God there are also other components, other charisms, other vocations, and other ministries. What is the relation between ordained ministry and other baptismal ministries? We all know the image of the body Saint Paul uses. Are we ready to accept that all parts of the body are important? Are we ready to accept that Christ is the head of the body, and that the body can only function if each part relates to the head and to the other parts? Can the body of our Church act in harmony or are the parts twisting in all directions?
Synodal worksheets: Female governance and ministry
With the various small circles working through the provided worksheets during the coming days, it is the themes and questions raised in those texts that provide clues as to the direction of the synod.
Worksheet B2.2 states that the synod process has recognized “a clear call to overcome a vision that reserves any active function in the Church to ordained Ministers alone (Bishops, Priests, Deacons), reducing the participation of the Baptised to a subordinated collaboration.”
Consequently, the groups studying this section will have to look at the question, “How can we renew an understanding of ministry not limited to ordained Ministry alone?” among other questions.
READ: Synod on Synodality discusses ‘pastoral’ approach to ‘love among gay couples’
Section B2.3 highlights that all the continental synod groups had issued a “call for the issue of women’s participation in governance, decision-making, mission and ministries at all levels of the Church, to be addressed, and for this participation to be given the support of appropriate structures so that this does not remain just a general aspiration.”
As such, the question is then raised regarding the possibility of new “ministries” for women to answer that call: “What new ministries could be created to provide the means and opportunities for women’s effective participation in discernment and decision-making bodies?”
Such new ministries even include a call for female deacons, with section B2.3 concluding with this direct petition:
Quote:Most of the Continental Assemblies and the syntheses of several Episcopal Conferences call for the question of women’s inclusion in the diaconate to be considered. Is it possible to envisage this, and in what way?
![[Image: P1120460-scaled.jpeg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/P1120460-scaled.jpeg)
Fr. Timothy Radcliffe and Sr. Nathalie Becquart arrive to the synod, October 12, 2023.
Married clergy and lay authority
Alongside the role of women in particular is the slightly more general topic of the laity in the governance of the Church, a general undercurrent of moving away from a clerical Church hierarchy towards an increasingly lay-led Church.
Questions are presented calling on participants to examine if the laity can “perform the role of community leaders, particularly in places where the number of ordained Ministers is very low? What implications does this have for the understanding of ordained Ministry?”
The role of permanent deacons is also highlighted – a topic of growing interest at the Vatican as officials attempt to answer the vocations crisis that is endemic in many parts of the world. “How is the ministry of the permanent diaconate to be understood within a missionary synodal Church?”
But additionally, and in language that resembles the call of the Amazon Synod for viri probati, the text raises the question of married priests:
Quote:As some continents propose, could a reflection be opened concerning the discipline on access to the Priesthood for married men, at least in some areas?
Opening the module on Friday, Hollerich warned synod participants not to “give hasty answers that do not consider all the aspects of these difficult questions,” since they are “some of the key points of our Synod.”
Quote:Let us not give hasty answers that do not consider all the aspects of these difficult questions. We have theologians we can consult, and we have time to pray and deepen the questions we identify now in order to come to a conclusion in the second session of October 2024.
The results of the small table discussions over the next few days will be submitted to officials from the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops and used in compiling the October 2023 synod’s final report.
|
|
|
|
| WEF: Somebody Has To Be In Charge Of Rationing Freedom |
|
Posted by: Stone - 10-09-2023, 06:10 AM - Forum: Great Reset
- No Replies
|
|
WEF: Somebody Has To Be In Charge Of Rationing Freedom
![[Image: 2023-10-08_08-05-13.jpg?itok=4ae8nqs-]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/2023-10-08_08-05-13.jpg?itok=4ae8nqs-)
ZH | OCT 08, 2023
Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,
That’s why only Central Banks can create digital currencies
The Fed recently put out a white paper, Data Privacy for Digital Asset Systems, which contends that the expectation of privacy in digital currencies (read: CBDCs) stems from misunderstanding how digital systems work.
“Concepts such as the desire for ‘cash-like anonymity’ are based on false underlying assumptions.”, is the crux of it (quick, somebody tell the Monero team, and everybody else already deploying anonymizing protocols and applications for digital assets).
The subtext is that there can be some privacy and confidentiality safeguards built into CBDCs, but at the end of the day those would still be subject to being overridden or dispensed with. The paper doesn’t come out and say that, but it does make oblique references:
Quote:“confidentiality implies that collected and stored data is protected from view in some manner, such as obfuscation or access restriction, and available only to authorized actors.”
Which of course makes you wonder who exactly will be authorized and what will their capabilities be? It truly is the trillion dollar question.
WEF: “Hold my beer”
If we keep this paper in mind while we consider the World Economic Forum’s recent article on digital currencies, privacy and freedom, which put a finer point on it, while paying lip service to the desire for privacy in those characteristic WEF-speak euphemisms:
Quote:“A digital cash replacement should not enable criminality, but there should be some freedom to transact with complete privacy.”
“Some freedom” implies that any freedom will be subject to approval, because either you have complete freedom, or you don’t.
“Some freedom” coming from the WEF especially, sounds a lot like their “Life in 2030” vision, which is mostly known for point #1: “You’ll own nothing and be happy”.
Point #4 is “You’ll eat much less meat. An occasional treat, not a staple. For the environment, and for your health”.
In other words, according to the WEF, digital currencies will afford some privacy and some freedom. Just like how in 2030 you’ll be able to eat some meat. (As long as you behave.)
Throughout the piece the impetus toward digital currencies is ascribed to consumer preferences for convenience – that nation states and NGOs (including the WEF) are relentlessly pushing us there, along with digital IDs and health passports, is never mentioned.
Quote:Through their preference for the convenience of electronic payments, we will inadvertently lose the historic freedom that only cash provides: to spend our money on what we want, with whom we choose.
It’s always amusing to watch the Davos-darlings pretend to grapple with thorny ethical issues:
Quote:As governments and central banks consider introducing retail central bank digital currencies (CBDC), they must therefore answer the following: Once the last cash payment is made, does this mean our historic right to make payments that are not observable or censorable by the state will end on the same day? Is that what we want?
The answer, of course, is a resounding “yes” if we’re to remember some of the more breathless pronouncements from their conclaves:
Quote:“We are developing, through technology, an ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint. What does that mean? That’s where are they travelling, how are they traveling? What are they eating? What are they consuming on the platform? So, individual – carbon – footprint – tracker. Stay tuned, we don’t have it operational yet, but it’s something we’re working on”.
The WEF article tackles the conundrum:
Quote:any system that allows people to make payments that cannot be traced or blocked is bound to attract criminals as well as facilitate personal liberty… A digital currency system should not mimic the “wild west”, but there should be some freedom to transact with complete privacy.
And while the article acknowledges that,
Quote:“if a CBDC doesn’t have some element of this capability, my prediction is it will fail in some major developed economies.”,
the entire framing is that Central Banks are the only game in town, and they need to get it right:
Quote:If the private sector could deliver a truly cash-like product itself, then we wouldn’t need this debate, but even a limited degree of cash-like behaviour would be incompatible with electronic payments laws. The reality is that only a central bank could deliver this type of product, thanks to the precedent set by their monopoly on the issuance of cash.
This paragraph would be the so-called “money-shot”. There is no mention of Bitcoin, or that crypto-currencies and stablecoins are already becoming ceded territory within the regulatory frameworks of nation states. There is no acknowledgement that many holders of wealth and capital will simply end-run CBDCs for the very reasons they articulate.
One of the WEF’s core tenets is that nation states are losing their position as the sole arbiters of power in this Fourth Industrial Revolution. That means they will have to coexist within a rubric of “Stakeholder Capitalism”, but what the WEF sending mixed messages:
On the one hand, governments are losing their primacy (and thus, monopoly on money issuance and supra-national initiatives like digital id’s and health passports), while on the other, only they have the authority to bless ascendent monetary systems. Which is it?
And how could you possibly publish an article like this without observing the elephant in the room: Bitcoin (and crypto-currencies, including stablecoins) have already entered the monetary landscape and have changed it in irreversible ways.
As expected when it comes to the World Economic Forum, it’s a display of truly breathtaking hubris and nescience.
|
|
|
|
| German priest compares Synod to Communist revolution, links it to Fatima message of ‘great apostasy’ |
|
Posted by: Stone - 10-08-2023, 07:31 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
- No Replies
|
|
NB: What we have been seeing unfold during this Pontificate is the steady and systematic use of the Vatican II 'time bombs' the SSPX used to warn about, found throughout the V-II documents. There are many progressive, quasi-heretical statements in the Vatican II documents that attack the perennial teaching of the Catholic Faith. These statements have been there these many decades but previously not always acted upon and it seems that it is only during this pontificate that they are being rolled out and implemented to their full potential. Pope Francis, without fail, cites these Vatican II passages as the foundation of his encyclicals and actions. Archbishop Lefebvre, in his wisdom, recognized that this Conciliar Church (as they themselves called it) is in a schism. It can be no surprise that a schismatic church falls further and further into the darkest of errors.
Quote:“What could be clearer? We must henceforth obey and be faithful to the Conciliar Church, no longer to the Catholic Church. Right there is our whole problem: we are suspended a divinis by the Conciliar Church, the Conciliar Church, to which we have no wish to belong! That Conciliar Church is a schismatic church because it breaks with the Catholic Church that has always been. It has its new dogmas, its new priesthood, its new institutions, its new worship… The Church that affirms such errors is at once schismatic and heretical. This Conciliar Church is, therefore, not Catholic. To whatever extent Pope, Bishops, priests, or the faithful adhere to this new church, they separate themselves from the Catholic Church.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, Reflections on his suspension a divinis, July 29, 1976)
It is a breath of fresh air to see and read of more cardinals, bishops, and priests awakening as if from a slumber and realizing the downward spiral the Conciliar Church is in and many are returning to Tradition. The 'conservative' pontificate of Benedict XVI lulled many, including traditionalists, to sleep. It appears that many are awakening and to this Bergoglian nightmare, wherein the explosions of these 'time bombs' are turning the Conciliar church into a globalist version of a religion, a One World Religion. And so, the advice of Archbishop Lefebvre rings ever more true with each passing year, “It is, therefore, a strict duty for every priest wanting to remain Catholic to separate himself from this Conciliar Church for as long as it does not rediscover the tradition of the Church and of the Catholic Faith.” (Abp. Lefebvre, Spiritual Journey, p. 13).
Let us continue to cling to our Faith, to our Rosaries, and pray much for the continued conversion we have longed hoped for for the Conciliar clergy and the promised Victory of Our Lady, which will happen when all seems lost...
✠ ✠ ✠
German priest compares Synod to Communist revolution, links it to Fatima message of ‘great apostasy’
In the face of this ecclesiastical October Revolution, how could one forget that Mario Luigi Cardinal Ciappi confessed, 'In the Third Secret, among other things, it is predicted that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.'
![[Image: New-Planet-by-Konstantin-Yuon-1917.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/New-Planet-by-Konstantin-Yuon-1917.jpg)
New Planet by Konstantin Yuon
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow/DACS 2017
Fr. Frank Unterhalt
Sat Oct 7, 2023
(LifeSiteNews) — Editor’s note: This essay by Fr. Frank Unterhalt was originally published in German on October 4, 2023, on the website of the clerical group “Communio veritatis.” It was translated and reprinted by LifeSiteNews with the permission of Fr. Unterhalt.
The Fraud of the World Synod
“Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the ‘mystery of iniquity’ in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.” [1]
With these words, the Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to the great apostasy clearly foretold by Sacred Scripture, especially in St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Thessalonians (cf. 2 Thess 2:3-12).
Shortly before his death in 2017, Carlo Cardinal Caffarra, the founding president of the John Paul II Pontifical Institute for Marriage and the Family, referred to a letter from Sister Lucia of Fatima in which she had written the following: “Father, a time will come when the decisive battle between the Kingdom of Christ and Satan will be fought over marriage and the family. And those who will work for the good of the family will experience persecution and tribulation. But fear not, for Our Lady has already crushed his head.”[2]
Carlo Cardinal Caffarra exercised his responsibility before God and for the salvation of souls by standing with the dubia in 2016 against the heresy of the pamphlet Amoris Laetitia.
At present, however, an even greater dimension of the controversy is opening up. In the same place where the pagan “goddess” Pachamama was venerated in the presence of Bergoglio, as he calls himself in the Vatican Yearbook,[3] in sacrilegious and blasphemous acts,[4] the first session of the World Synod begins exactly four years later, on today’s October 4, 2023. Scripture’s judgment on the idolatry of 2019 echoes, “Omnes dii gentium dæmonia (All the gods of the peoples are demons).”[5]
St. Francis of Assisi, whose name and day of commemoration were misused for this neopagan activity, calls with his heroic life the true servants of the Lord to witness that they “stand firm in the Catholic faith, […] observing the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, which we have firmly promised.”[6] Accordingly, five cardinals have published new dubia in view of the current grave events.
Obviously, a “Synodal Church” is now being implemented, which has already been unmistakably described by the Argentine: “Synodality expresses the essence of the Church, its form, its style, its mission.”[7] Thus, it is a “constitutive dimension of the Church.”[8]
The Catechism, however, teaches the opposite: “Christ instituted an ecclesiastical hierarchy with the mission of feeding the people of God in his name and for this purpose gave it authority. The hierarchy is formed of sacred ministers, bishops, priests, and deacons. Thanks to the sacrament of Orders, bishops and priests act in the exercise of their ministry in the name and person of Christ the Head.” [9] As Cardinal Grech, the secretary of the Synod, tellingly admitted, Bergoglio “provided a vivid and inspiring model of the image of hierarchical authority as an ‘inverted pyramid’.”[10]
In this blatant ecclesiological distortion, the implicit direction of movement is expressed. Up for negotiation is a fundamental constitutional change and a complete paradigm shift. The very structure of the Church and her whole being are up for debate. The synodal preparatory document formulates as its goal: “The path of synodality is directed toward making pastoral decisions based on the living voice of God’s people that best correspond to God’s will.”[11] Behind this euphemism lies nothing less than the intention to comprehensively turn the ecclesial constitution, and with it the Faith, on its head. “Cardinal Grech says that the bishop’s discernment does not consist in checking whether what the people of God say is in accord with what divine revelation teaches, but just the opposite: it consists in taking up what the people say and seeing in it the word of the Holy Spirit.”[12]
The betrayal involved has been emphatically exposed by Gerhard Ludwig Cardinal Müller, former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: “They want to abuse this process in order to shift the Catholic Church – and not only in another direction but to the point of destroying the Catholic Church.”[13] In such a procedure, the revealed faith is ultimately replaced by a pseudo-religious ideology that has detached itself from the truth in order to commit itself to the new creed of an endless horizontal “listening” and to create its own doctrine.
Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, twice a signatory of dubia, has aptly classified that process: “We are told that the Church to which we profess to belong, in communion with our predecessors in the faith since the time of the Apostles, as One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, is now to be defined by synodality, a term which has no history in Church teaching and for which there is no meaningful, reasoned definition. ‘Synodality’ and the associated adjective ‘synodal’ have become slogans behind which a revolution is underway to radically change the Church’s self-understanding in accord with a contemporary ideology that denies much of what the Church has always taught and practiced.”[14]
Of course, the synodal process is not really about popular opinion. Just a glance at the numbers proves that. The popular vote is de facto unrepresented in the survey on “Reflection on Synod 2023 on Synodality.” Only tiny minorities took part, whose share in the individual countries is in the vanishingly small range in relation to the respective totality of the Catholics there. In Italy, for example, the figure is less than one percent – in other regions of the world, the proportions were similar.[15]
The preparatory document gives a special touch to the synodal guidance by explicitly wanting to listen to people of other faiths and even [those] without religion.[16]
[The late] George Cardinal Pell, who – innocently accused – had bravely endured the persecution and imprisonment unleashed against him, firmly rejected the working document for the continental stage, which the General Secretariat of the Synod published in October 2022. [He said at that time that] it was “significantly hostile to apostolic tradition and nowhere recognizes the New Testament as the Word of God, a normative for any teaching on faith and morals.” Pell denounced the Synod on Synodality as a “toxic nightmare.”[17]
In fact, the synodal preparatory document, with its inflationary mention of “listening,” aims at a “process” until a “unanimous consensus”[18] is reached. Applying Hegel’s dialectic, “it seems to be proposed that the hierarchy should not use its magisterial authority to decide in a controversy but should allow the tension between thesis and antithesis to grow until finally a unanimously decided synthesis is reached.”[19] Moreover, this approach is influenced by the fact that about 25% of the synod participants are non-bishops – in addition to priests, deacons, and religious, also laywomen and laymen with equal voting rights.[20]
As an ideological empty formula, the synodal agitators use the term “inclusion” for their dazzling work, which is not further defined. In a complete distortion of Christ’s missionary mandate, they push the demand that the Church must welcome all people unconditionally without bringing them the true faith or even calling them to conversion. The working document for the continental stage invoked the vision of the Church as an open space of communion, participation, and mission. “Listening,” it said, must be understood as “being open to accepting, starting from the desire for radical inclusion. No one is excluded!”[21]
A disastrous example of this vision was provided in July 2023 by the coordinator of World Youth Day, then-Auxiliary Bishop Aguiar of Lisbon. He ranted that the intention was “not to convert young people to Christ or to the Catholic Church or anything like that.”[22]
In this way, he obviously fulfills an essential requirement of the new Synodal Church, for three days after this statement, he was appointed Cardinal. His statement is entirely in line with the Abu Dhabi document, which Bergoglio sealed with his signature after an intense embrace with the Grand Imam from Cairo. It contains the sum of heresies with the perfidious assertion that the pluralistic diversity of religions is in accordance with the will of God.[23]
In view of the World Synod, a “radical inclusion” is now postulated in all areas of the Church. The offended groups and those who feel excluded are to be included. With suggestive and tendentious “questions” of the Instrumentum laboris, the synodal process is steered in the intended direction. As was to be expected, an important theme here is the de facto abolition of all sexual morality. “Remarried divorcees, people in polygamous marriages, LGBTQ+”[24] must feel accepted and free, it says. The corresponding “question” asks with which concrete steps one wishes to approach them in light of Amoris Laetitia.
With reference to the plea of the Continental Assemblies, one underlines the call to “tackle the issue of women’s participation in leadership, decision-making, mission, and ministries at all levels of the Church with the support of appropriate structures.” The approach asks explicitly how “women could be involved in each of these areas in greater numbers and in new ways.” Hardly surpassable in repugnant insincerity is the promised result of using women to “promote a greater sense of responsibility and transparency and to consolidate trust in the Church.”[25]
In light of this proposed doctrine, the Synodal Church will be concerned with the installation of laymen as leaders of the congregation and with the eradication of celibacy. The evil of an alleged “clericalism” is to be overcome. As a smokescreen for the corresponding process, one once again uses the model of supposed individual cases, which then, of course, opens the door to the factual general situation: “Is it possible, as suggested by some continents, to open a reflection on whether the rules for access to the priesthood for married men can be revised, at least in some areas?”[26]
The renowned American canon lawyer Fr. Gerald E. Murray pulled the mask off the “radical inclusion” described above with an unequivocal analysis. There will be “serious discussion about the abolition of doctrines that conflict with the beliefs and desires of the following: those who live in adulterous second ‘marriages’; men who have two or three or more wives; homosexuals and bisexuals; people who believe they do not have the sex they were born with; women who want to be ordained deacons and priests; lay people who want to have the authority given by God to bishops and priests. […] There is clearly an open revolution taking place in the Church today, an attempt to convince us that accepting heresy and immorality is not sinful, but rather a response to the voice of the Holy Spirit.”[27]
Naturally, Bergoglio has long since shown which answers he wants … to the “questions” of the Instrumentum laboris. He himself had already spoken in favor of promoting civil unions of homosexual partners.[28] The nominations of system-conforming functionaries at the interfaces of the World Synod are clear, marking the agenda and virtually anticipating the outcome. For example, Cardinal Grech, installed as secretary general, “suggested that the Synod could initiate radical changes in Catholic teaching on marriage and sexuality, saying that ‘complicated issues’ such as Communion for the divorced and remarried and the ‘blessing’ of homosexual relationships ‘cannot be understood simply in terms of doctrine.'”[29]
Cardinal Hollerich, commissioned as general rector, replied in an interview when asked how he dealt with the Church’s teaching on the sinfulness of homosexuality, “I think it’s wrong. But I also believe that we are thinking ahead in doctrine here.”[30] Regarding the ordination of women, he was asked if Bergoglio could decide something that contradicted the infallible teaching of St. Pope John Paul II in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. Again, the response was brash: “In the course of time, yes.”[31]
Fr. James Martin, an activist for homosexuality and a Vatican counselor, “said he intends to use his appointment as representative to the upcoming Synod on Synodality in Rome as an opportunity to bring more attention to LGBTQ experiences.”[32] Moreover, his statement that Bergoglio has done “everything possible to appoint ‘gay-friendly’ bishops and cardinals in the Catholic Church is revealing.”[33]
The appointment of Archbishop Fernández of La Plata as the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has attracted particular attention. Now elevated to cardinal, this Argentinean had come to prominence as a priest in the mid-1990s with his book Heal Me with Your Mouth: The Art of Kissing, which he said he had written as a “catechesis for young people.”[34] The writing is characterized by disgusting perversity and can hardly be quoted in numerous places. For example, it says: “So do not ask what happens to my mouth. Kill me on the spot with the next kiss, let me bleed to death completely, she-wolf, give me back peace, without mercy (tucho).”[35]
Fernández has been Bergoglio’s ghostwriter for many years, [and Francis] has always promoted his “foster son.” In 2016, he made him a consultant to the Vatican’s Congregation for Education.[36]
Deeply revealing is the open secret that the kissing expert and new guardian of the faith of the Synodal Church is also the shadow author of the pamphlet Amoris laetitia.[37] Unmasking was his admission at the time that Bergoglio had thereby “changed the discipline of the Church, and irreversibly so.”[38] The pamphlet was published in the Vatican. As a result, Fernández recently described the goal of his current mission: “There is a mission, and it is that I have to make sure (!) that the things that are said are consistent with what Francis taught us. He gave us an insight, a fuller understanding.”[39] One could hardly express the hard rupture more drastically. Accordingly, the standard for the synodal system is no longer the truth revealed in Jesus Christ and entrusted to the constant Magisterium of the Catholic Church but Bergoglio’s teaching.
The whole dimension of the manipulated play on the stage of the past decade is abundantly clear.
In the epilogue of the drama of the usurpatory decade, the top of the Vatican structure now ostentatiously manifests the agenda of destruction with the staging of the extended World Synod. A separate pseudo-ecclesial structure is installed, which is put in the place of the true Church of God and presents us as a “new gospel,” a religious delusion of lies, against whose pernicious deception the Catechism has urgently warned in the passage quoted at the beginning.
In the face of this ecclesiastical October Revolution, how could one forget the famous word that Mario Luigi Cardinal Ciappi, the theologian of the papal household for decades and a proven expert on the Message of Fatima, left behind in 1995? In a letter, he confessed, “In the Third Secret, among other things, it is predicted that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.”[40]
October 4, 2023
St. Francis of Assisi
- Fr. Frank Unterhalt
NOTES
[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 675.
[2] Diane Montagna, “Timeline of events reveals plot to destroy legacy of JPII Institute,” in LifeSiteNews, August 20, 2019.
[3] Cf. Guido Horst, “Es war einmal ein ‚Stellvertreter Christi‘,'” in Die Tagespost, April 2, 2020; cf. Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, “‘Du sagst es,'” in Katholisches.info, April 4, 2020.
[4] Cf. Contra Recentia Sacrilegia, November 9, 2019, in Rorate Cæli, https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2019/1...legia.html.
[5] Vulgate, Psalm 95(96),5.
[6] Francis of Assisi, Bullierte Regel, 12th chap., 4, in: Franziskus-Quellen, Kevelaer 2009, p. 102.
[7] Address to the faithful of the Diocese of Rome, September 18, 2021.
[8] Address for the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Synod of Bishops, October 17, 2015.
[9] Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 179.
[10] Cardinal Grech, Address to the Bishops of Ireland on Synodality, February 3, 2021, in Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, “Address of Cardinal Mario Grech to the Bishops of Ireland on Synodality,” March 4, 2021.
[11] Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops (ed.), For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission. Vademecum for the Synod on Synodality, September 2021, p. 8.
[12] Julio Loredo, José Antonio Ureta, Eine Büchse der Pandora, Frankfurt 2023, p. 33.
[13] Raymond Arroyo, “Cardinal Müller on Synod on Synodality: ‘A Hostile Takeover of the Church of Jesus Christ … We Must Resist,'” in National Catholic Register, October 7, 2022.
[14] Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, Preface, June 16, 2023, in Julio Loredo, José Antonio Ureta, op. cit. p. 7.
[15] Cf. Benedikt Heider, “Weltsynode: So sortiert das Synodenteam die Rückmeldungen,” in katholisch.de, August 29, 2022; cf. Luke Coppen, “How Many People Took Part in the Synod’s Diocesan Phase?” in The Pillar, July 29, 2022.
[16] Cf. Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, op. cit. p. 12-13.
[17] Damian Thompson, “The Catholic Church must free itself from this ‘toxic nightmare,'” in The Spectator, January 11, 2023.
[18] Cf. Preparatory Document For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission, p. 11, n. 14.
[19] Julio Loredo, José Antonio Ureta, p. 61.
[20] See Christine Seuss, “Synode zur Synodalität: Erstmals Frauenquote im Vatikan,” in Vatican News, April 26, 2023.
[21] Secretaria Generalis Synodi, working document for the continental stage “‘Make wide the room of your tent’ (Is 54:2),” 24 October 2022, p. 6, n. 11.
[22] Jonathan Liedl, “A First for World Youth Day: Interreligious Dialogue a Focal Point in Lisbon,” in National Catholic Register, July 17, 2023.
[23] See Dr. Maike Hickson, “Pope asks universities to disseminate his claim ‘diversity of religions’ is ‘willed by God,'” in LifeSiteNews, March 25, 2019.
[24] XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Instrumentum laboris for the First Session, B 1.2, pp. 32-33.
[25] Ibid, B 2.3, p. 49.
[26] Ibid, B 2.4, p. 53.
[27] Fr. Gerald E. Murray, “A Self-Destructive Synod,” in The Catholic Thing, October 31, 2022.
[28] Cf. Giuseppe Nardi, “Papst-Vertrauter Fernández: ‚Homo-Ehe? Papst Franziskus hatte immer diese Meinung‘” in Katholisches.info, October 24, 2020.
[29] Raymond Wolfe, “Cardinal Müller says Pope Francis’ Synod is a ‘hostile takeover of the Church’ in explosive interview,” in LifeSiteNews, October 7, 2022.
[30] Ludwig Ring-Eifel, “Kardinal Hollerich spricht über Reformen und Woelki,” in Domradio.de, February 2, 2022.
[31] Luka Tripalo, “Generalni Relator Biskupske Sinode Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich Duh Sveti ponekad uzrokuje veliku pomutnju kako bi donio nov sklad,” in Glas Koncila, March 27, 2023.
[32] Claire Giangravé, “Father James Martin hopes to bring LGBTQ voices to the synod,” in America. The Jesuit Review, July 11, 2023.
[33] Dorothy Cummings McLean, “Fr. James Martin: Pope appoints ‘gay-friendly’ bishops, cardinals to change Church on LGBT,” in LifeSiteNews, November 7, 2018.
[34] Hannah Brockhaus, “Erzbischof Fernández verteidigt umstrittenes Buch über das Küssen als Jugendkatechese,” in CNA Deutsch, July 5, 2023.
[35] Víctor Manuel Fernández, “Sáname con tu boca. El arte de besar,” Buenos Aires 1995, p. 44: “Por eso, no preguntes qué le pasa a mi boca. Matáe de una vez con el próximo beso, desangráme del todo, loba, devolvéme la paz sin piedad (Tucho).”
[36] Cf. Giuseppe Nardi, op. cit.
[37] Cf. Settimo Cielo/Giuseppe Nardi, “‚Amoris laetitia‘ und sein Schattenautor Victor Manuel Fernández,” in Katholisches.info, May 25, 2016.
[38] Giuseppe Nardi, “Papst-Vertrauter Fernández: ‚Homo-Ehe? Papst Franziskus hatte immer diese Meinung‘” op. cit.
[39] Hubert Hecker, “Msgr. Fernández im Widerspruch zur Wahrheit und Lehrtradition der Kirche,” in Katholisches.info, August 31, 2023.
[40] Fr. Brian W. Harrison, “Alice von Hildebrand Sheds New Light on Fatima,” Introductory commentary, in OnePeterFive, May 12, 2016.
|
|
|
|
| St. Alphonsus Liguori: Daily Meditations for Nineteenth Week after Pentecost |
|
Posted by: Stone - 10-08-2023, 06:45 AM - Forum: Pentecost
- Replies (6)
|
|
St. Teresa received from God the gift of Faith in so full a measure that she has written in her Life: "The devil never had power to tempt me in any way against the Faith. It even seemed to me that the more impossible, naturally speaking, a truth of Faith was, the more firmly did I believe it, and the more difficult of belief, the more did it inspire me with devotion."
I.
St. Teresa received from God the gift of Faith in so full of measure that she has written in her Life: "The devil never had power to tempt me in any way against the Faith. It even seemed to me that the more impossible, naturally speaking, a truth of Faith was, the more firmly did I believe it, and the more difficult of belief, the more did it inspire me with devotion."
One day she was told she might be denounced to the Holy Office as a heretic. "This made me smile," she writes, "knowing so well that for the things of holy Faith, or for the least of the ceremonies of the Church, I would give my life a thousand times."
This love for the Faith gave her the fortitude, when but seven years of age, to set out from her father's house with her little brother, to go amongst the Moors, in order that she might sacrifice her life for the Faith. Later on in life, such was her conviction of the truth of our Faith, that she felt as if she could convince all the Lutherans and bring them to an acknowledgment of their errors.
In a word, the satisfaction she experienced at seeing herself among the number of the children of the Church was such, that at the hour of her death she could not often enough repeat to herself these words: "After all, I am a child of the Holy Church! After all, I am a child of the Holy Church!"
Let the fruit of this consideration be that of continual thanksgiving, in union with the Saint, to the Lord, for having bestowed upon us the great gift of the Faith, in making us children of the Holy Church, from which so many millions of souls, perhaps less guilty than ourselves, in the sight of Divine justice, remain separated.
My most loving Jesus, Who, although thou didst foresee my ingratitude, hast never ceased to bestow upon me an abundance of graces, above all, the grace of the Faith -- ah, of Thy mercy enkindle such a flame within my heart, that my daily life may be always conformable to my Faith. O Divine, true and only Lover of my soul, when will the day at length arrive on which I shall begin to love Thee with my whole heart? Oh, would to God that today were this day of happiness for me, the day on which I have, in the present Novena, begun to honour Thy dear spouse and my tender advocate, Teresa! Ah! my Redeemer, by the merits of Thy Blood; by the merits of Mary, Thy most holy Mother and by those of Thy beloved Teresa, grant me, I pray Thee, so burning a love for Thee as may make me continually deplore the sins I have committed, and may urge me, henceforth, to study nothing but Thy good pleasure, in order that I may please Thee only, as Thou dost deserve. Amen.
II.
From the wonderful gift of Faith which the Saint possessed arose the great love she bore towards the Most Holy Sacrament, which is preeminently the Mystery of Faith. She used to say that God has conferred upon us a greater grace in giving us the Holy Eucharist than in becoming man; and so, one of the principal virtues the Saint possessed was her special affection towards Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, as she herself revealed after her death. When the Saint heard someone say he wished he lived at the time Jesus was upon earth, she would smile and say: "And what more do we want, having Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament? Surely, if it was enough, while He was upon earth, to touch His raiment, in order to be healed of infirmities, what will He not do for us now when He is within us in Holy Communion?" "Oh, how sweet it is," she wrote, "to see the Shepherd become a Lamb. He is a Shepherd, because He gives food. He is a Lamb, because He is Himself the food. He is a Shepherd, because He nourishes. He is a Lamb, because He is the nourishment. When, therefore, we pray to Him for our daily bread, we are asking that He, the Shepherd, may be our food and sustenance."
The Divine Lover responded to the love with which this cherished spouse of His desired Him, and with which she disposed herself to receive Him under the sacramental species. As darkness disappears before the sun, so at the moment of Communion the obscurities and troubles of the Saint used to vanish. It then seemed to her that her soul lost all its affections and all its desires, being perfectly united with God and absorbed in Him. Although she was usually pale in consequence of her penances and infirmities, her biographer says, that no sooner had she communicated than her countenance became shining as crystal, ruddy, extremely beautiful, and with such an air of majesty about it, that it was easy to recognize what a Divine Guest she had received into her heart. At those times her virginal body seemed ready to quit the earth, raising itself in the air in the presence of the Sisters.
O Seraphic Saint, who by thy purity and ardent love, were upon earth the delight of thy God -- thou whom He loved so much as one day to tell thee that as Magdalen was His beloved one when He was on earth, so thou wert in the same degree His beloved one now that He is in Heaven -- oh thou dear Saint, whom He treated with such tenderness whether He admonished thee as a Father, or conversed with thee as a Spouse communicating Himself to thee so frequently in Holy Communion and with such abundant outpourings of grace-O Teresa, plead with thy God for me who, alas! am not the object of His delights but the cause of His sufferings by my evil life. Pray to Jesus to pardon me and to give me a new heart, a heart pure and full of Divine love like unto thine own. Amen.
Spiritual Reading
TERESA'S LOVE FOR JESUS IN THE EUCHARIST
The holy mother Teresa never ceased to deplore the injurious treatment that Jesus received in the Sacrament of His love at the hands of heretics. She would complain to God: "Now how, O my Creator, can such tender love as Thine endure that what was instituted with such ardent affection by Thy Son, and the more to please Thee, should be so undervalued that at this day these heretics despise the Most Holy Sacrament? For they rob it of its home by demolishing the Churches. Was it not enough, O my Father, that whilst Jesus lived on earth He had no place to lay His head, without now taking from Him the holy places where He deigns to abide, and whereunto He invites His friends, knowing, as He does, their need of such food for their comfort?"
For twenty-three years she communicated every day, and every time with such fervour and desire, that in order to receive Communion, she would, as she said, willingly have made her way against the spears of a whole army.
One Palm Sunday as she was considering that among all those who at Jerusalem had proclaimed Jesus Christ as the Messias, there was not one to receive Him into his house, she invited Him to come and enter her poor heart, and with this pious thought she went to receive Communion. The affectionate invitation of His beloved was so agreeable to the Divine Spouse, that when she received the Sacred Host it seemed to her that her mouth was filled with warm blood, accompanied with a heavenly sweetness. Then she heard the voice of Jesus saying: "My daughter, it is My will that My Blood should be for your profit: I have shed it in great suffering, and you enjoy it, as you see, with great delights."
With regard, therefore, to this greatest of all gifts that Jesus has bequeathed to us in the Sacrament of the Altar, in leaving Himself, whole and entire, to be our Food, our Companion and our Shepherd, let us practise the excellent instruction that the holy mother once revealed from Heaven to a certain soul: "The inhabitants of Heaven and those of earth should be one and the same in purity and in love: we, in a state of joy; you, in that of suffering. And, what we do in Heaven with the Divine Essence, you ought to do on earth with the Most Holy Sacrament. You will mention this to all my children." Treating of the love and tender devotion that are due to Jesus in the Holy Sacrament, she has again left us in her works the following directions: "Let us act so as not to be at a distance from our Shepherd, nor lose sight of him, because the sheep that keep near their shepherd are always more caressed and better taken care of than others, and because he is always giving them some morsels of his own food. If it happens that the shepherd sleeps, the faithful sheep keeps close beside him, until he awakes, or it will arouse him, and then he lavishes upon it his caresses anew."
St. Philip Neri, that other seraph of love, on seeing Jesus entering his room to be his Viaticum, could not refrain from crying out in a holy transport: "Behold my Love! Behold my Love!" So let us, when we see the King and Spouse of our souls coming to meet us in Holy Communion, cry out and say: Behold my Love! Behold my Love! And we know that God wishes us to give Him this appellation. God is love (1 John iv. 16). He does not wish to be merely called a Lover, but to be Love itself, to make us understand that, as there is no love that does not love, so He, the Divine Goodness, is of His own nature so loving, that He cannot live without loving His creatures.
Evening Meditation
CONFORMITY TO THE WILL OF GOD*
I. EXCELLENCE OF THIS VIRTUE
Our whole perfection consists in loving God Who is in Himself most lovely: Charity is the bond of perfection (Col. iii. 14). But, then, all perfection in the love of God consists in the union of our own with His most holy will. This, indeed, is the principal effect of love, as St. Dionysius the Areopagite observes, "such a union of the wills of those who love as makes them one and the same will." And, therefore, the more united a person is with the Divine will, so much greater will be his love. It is quite true that mortifications, meditations, Communions, and works of charity towards others are pleasing to God. But when is this the case? When they are done in conformity to God's will; for otherwise, not only does He not approve them, but He abominates and punishes them. Take the case of two servants, one of whom labours hard and incessantly all day long, but does everything after his own fashion; while the other may not work as hard, but acts always in obedience to orders. Is it not certain that it is the latter, and not the former, who pleases his master? In what respect can any works of ours tend to the glory of God, where they are not done according to His good pleasure? It is not sacrifices that the Lord desires, says the Prophet to Saul, but obedience to His will: Doth the Lord desire holocausts and victims, and not rather that the voice of the Lord should be obeyed (1 Kings, xv. 22). To refuse to obey is like the crime of idolatry. He who will act according to his own will, and independently of God's, commits a kind of idolatry; since instead of worshipping the Divine will, he, in a certain sense, worships his own.
II.
The greatest glory, then, that we can give to God is the fulfilment of His holy will in everything. This is what our Redeemer, Whose purpose in coming upon earth was the establishment of the glory of God, principally came to teach by His example. See how Jesus addresses His Eternal Father: Sacrifice and oblation, thou wouldst not; but a body thou hast fitted to me ... then said I: Behold, I come -- that I should do thy will, O God (Heb. x. 5). Thou hast refused to accept the victims which mankind have offered Thee. It is Thy will that I should sacrifice to Thee the body which Thou hast given Me; lo, I am ready to perform Thy will! And hence it is that Jesus so often declares He had come upon earth not to fulfil His own, but His Father's will only: I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me (Jo. vi. 38). And on this account Jesus wished that the world might know the love He bore His Father, from the obedience to His will which He manifested in sacrificing Himself upon the Cross for the salvation of mankind; just as He said Himself in the Garden when going forth to meet His enemies who had come to take Him and lead Him away to death: That the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father hath given me commandment, so do I; Arise, let ye go hence! (Jo. xiv. 31). And for this reason, too, He said He would recognize as His very own brother him who acted according to the Divine will: Whosoever shall do the will of my Father, he is my brother (Matt. xii. 50).
*This is a golden treatise that seems rather to have been inspired from Heaven than to have emanated from the human mind. The holy author himself, St. Alphonsus, used often to read it. He constantly practised the wise maxims it contains and always endeavoured to inculcate its practice on others. He was accustomed to say: "The Saints became Saints because they always remained united to the will of God." When the Saint's eyesight began to fail, him, he took care to have this little treatise read to him. -- ED.
|
|
|
|
| Israel declares war on Hamas after surprise assault from Gaza |
|
Posted by: Stone - 10-07-2023, 08:38 AM - Forum: Global News
- Replies (1)
|
|
‘We are at war,’ Netanyahu declares after surprise attack on Israel by Hamas
Israel responded by striking Hamas targets in Gaza following the massive assault early Saturday.
Politico.eu [adapted] | October 7, 2023
Israel was struck by a surprise attack by Hamas early Saturday morning in one of the most serious escalations in years between Israel and the Islamist militant group. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the country was “at war.”
Israel launched retaliatory air strikes on targets in Gaza.
The massive assault by Hamas combined a barrage of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel and dozens of heavily armed gunmen attacking the country’s south from Gaza. At least 22 Israelis have been killed in the attack with more than 250 wounded, Israel’s ambulance service said, according to media reports. The toll was expected to rise.
“We are at war, and we will win,” Netanyahu said in a message to Israelis. “The enemy will pay an unprecedented price.”
The Israel Defense Forces carried out retaliatory strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza. “The IDF is initiating a large-scale operation to defend Israeli civilians against the combined attack launched against Israel by Hamas this morning,” the IDF said in a statement.
IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters that more than 2,200 rockets have been fired into Israel Saturday morning, the Times of Israel reported. Hagari said the Hamas militants infiltrated from land, sea and air.
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that Hamas “made a grave mistake,” the Associated Press reported. He spoke following a security cabinet meeting at the Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv Saturday.
Pictures and videos on social media suggest that several civilians may have been injured or killed in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, at the border with the Gaza Strip. Those images appear to show uniformed Palestinian gunmen opening fire on civilians and civilian vehicles on the streets.
“Hamas … which is behind this attack, will bear the results and responsibility for the events,” the armed forces said in a statement.
Amid reports of widespread infiltration of Hamas fighters, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced he had given the green light for army reservists to be called up for active service. The country’s defense forces are heavily reliant on 465,000 eligible part-time soldiers, and the number called up will depend on how the situation unfolds, Gallant said.
Mohammed Deif, the de facto leader of the Gaza headquartered Hamas group, issued a recorded message prior to the attacks, declaring the start of “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” — a reference to the symbolic mosque that stands on Temple Mount in East Jerusalem.
“Enough is enough,” he said, calling on Palestinians to take up arms against Israel.
Seth Franzman, a regional political analyst in Jerusalem, told POLITICO that he and his family had been “woken up by sirens and rocket fire at around 8 in the morning.” He added: “We could see the explosions from our balcony. My family’s in the shelter now because, even though Israel has advanced air defenses, things can fall out of the sky when they’re intercepted.”
“This is a pretty major surprise attack,” said Franzman, who also works as an editor for The Jerusalem Post, “because there wasn’t the usual back and forth drumbeat between Israel and Hamas that takes place before escalations. This is totally different.”
Saudi Arabia called for an “immediate halt to the escalation of conflict between Palestinians and Israel.” Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry said it “is closely following developments in the unprecedented situation between a number of Palestinian factions and the Israeli occupation forces.”
“We recall our repeated warnings of the dangers of the situation exploding as a result of the continued occupation,” the ministry said in a statement. Saudi Arabia reiterated its call for a credible peace process that would lead to a two-state solution.
The EU condemned the attacks. “I unequivocally condemn the attack carried out by Hamas terrorists against Israel,” European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen said in a statement. “It is terrorism in its most despicable form.”
“Israel has the right to defend itself against such heinous attacks,” she said.
“This horrific violence must stop immediately. Terrorism and violence solve nothing,” Josep Borrell, the bloc’s top diplomat, said in a statement. “The EU expresses its solidarity with Israel in these difficult moments.”
|
|
|
|
| Bishop Schneider: Nobody has the power to judge Francis’ status as pope |
|
Posted by: Stone - 10-07-2023, 08:03 AM - Forum: Sedevacantism
- Replies (1)
|
|
Bishop Schneider: Nobody has the power to judge Francis’ status as pope
'No one in the Church has the authority to consider or declare an elected and generally accepted pope an invalid pope.'
![[Image: Bishop-Athanasius-Schneider-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Bishop-Athanasius-Schneider-810x500.jpg)
Bishop Athanasius Schneider
Michael Hogan/LifeSiteNews
Oct 3, 2023
(LifeSiteNews - emphasis The Catacombs) –– Bishop Athanasius Schneider has issued the following statement clarifying his position on whether or not he believes Pope Francis is the Pope. His remarks come after Father James Altman announced in a recent video that he believes Francis is not the pope. Altman argues that Francis is not a Catholic, and that a non-Catholic cannot be the Pope of the Catholic Church.
Bishop Schneider argues that even in the case of a “heretical pope,” there is “no-one within the Church to declare him deposed on account of heresy.” His Excellency states that all the teachings of churchmen who have previously written about this subject, including St. Robert Bellarmine, rise only to the level of “an opinion,” as “the perennial papal Magisterium has never taught this as a doctrine.”
The “surer Catholic tradition,” His Excellency continues, is that “in the case of a heretical pope, the members of the Church can avoid him, resist him, refuse to obey him, all of which can be done without requiring a theory or opinion, that says that a heretical pope automatically loses his office or can be deposed consequently.” [Also the opinion and reaction of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in the face of the carnage that occurred under the pontificates of Popes Paul VI and John Paul II. - The Catacombs]
In a statement released just days ago, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò argues that resisting Francis, while laudable, is not enough, and that there is a great need to “get to the root of the question” of what the Church should do in the face of “a pope who presents himself with ostentatious arrogance as inimicus Ecclesiæ.”
On the Power to Judge the Validity of a Pontificate
No one in the Church has the authority to consider or declare an elected and generally accepted pope an invalid pope. It is clear from the constant practice of the Church that even were a papal election invalid, it would de facto be healed through the general acceptance of the newly elected by the overwhelming majority of cardinals and bishops [in the case of the Bergoglian papacy, he has been accepted for the past ten years - The Catacombs].
Even were a pope heretical, he would not automatically lose his office, and there is no one within the Church to declare him deposed on account of heresy. Such actions would approach a kind of a heresy of conciliarism or episcopalism. According to these heresies, there is a body within the Church (ecumenical council, synod, college of cardinals, college of bishops), which can issue a legally binding judgment on the Roman Pontiff.
The theory of the automatic loss of the papacy due to heresy is only an opinion; even St. Robert Bellarmine noted this and did not present it as a teaching of the Magisterium. The perennial papal Magisterium has never taught this as a doctrine. In 1917, when the Code of Canon Law (Codex Iuris Canonici) came into force, the Church’s Magisterium eliminated from the new legislation a remark of the Decretum Gratiani contained in the old Corpus Iuris Canonici, which stated that a pope who deviates from right doctrine can be deposed. Never in the history of the Church has the Magisterium provided canonical procedures for the deposition of a heretical pope. The Church has no power over the pope formally or juridically. According to surer Catholic tradition, in the case of a heretical pope the members of the Church can avoid him, resist him, and refuse to obey him. All of this can be done without any need for a theory or opinion that a heretical pope automatically loses his office or can be deposed.
Therefore, we must follow the surer way (via tutior) and abstain from defending the mere opinion of theologians, even those of saints like Robert Bellarmine.
The pope cannot commit heresy when he speaks ex cathedra; this is a dogma of faith. In his teaching outside of ex cathedra statements, however, he can make erroneous, ambiguous, or even heretical doctrinal statements. And since the pope is not identical with the entire Church, the Church is stronger than a singular erring or heretical pope. In such a case one should respectfully correct him (avoiding purely human anger and disrespectful language) and resist him as one would resist a bad father of a family. Yet the members of the family could never declare that he has automatically forfeited his fatherhood or been deposed as father. They can correct him, refuse to obey him, separate themselves from him, but they cannot declare him deposed.
Good Catholics know the truth and must proclaim it and offer reparation for the errors of an erring pope. Since the case of a heretical pope is humanly irresolvable, we must, with supernatural faith, implore God’s intervention. For an individual erring pope is not eternal, and the Church is not in our hands but in the hands of Almighty God.
We must hold on to supernatural faith, trust, humility, and a love of the Cross in order to endure such a tremendous and extraordinary trial. These situations are relatively brief in comparison to the Church’s 2000-year history. Therefore, we must not yield to overly human reactions and seemingly easy solutions by declaring the invalidity of a pontificate, but instead be sober and alert, keep a truly supernatural outlook, and trust in divine intervention and the indestructibility of the Catholic Church.
+ Athanasius Schneider
|
|
|
|
| Archbishop Viganò: "The metastasis of this “pontificate” originates from the Conciliar Cancer ..." |
|
Posted by: Stone - 10-07-2023, 05:26 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
- No Replies
|
|
Archbishop Viganò says what has been repeated many times on this forum - everything Pope Francis does is grounded in the teaching of Vatican II:
Quote:We must take note that the metastasis of this “pontificate” originates from the conciliar cancer, from that Vatican II which created the ideological, doctrinal, and disciplinary bases that inevitably had to lead to this point.
But how many of my confreres, who also recognize the gravity of the current crisis, have the ability to recognize this causal link between the conciliar revolution and its extreme consequences with Bergoglio?
|
|
|
|
| Hungary PM Orbán: Brussels Is Creating An Orwellian World In Front Of Our Eyes |
|
Posted by: Stone - 10-06-2023, 05:59 AM - Forum: Socialism & Communism
- No Replies
|
|
Hungary PM Orbán: Brussels Is Creating An Orwellian World In Front Of Our Eyes
![[Image: AP23058434072374_jpg1.jpg?itok=QUMTLQYf]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/AP23058434072374_jpg1.jpg?itok=QUMTLQYf)
(AP Photo/Denes Erdos, File)
ZH | OCT 06, 2023
Authored by John Cody via ReMix News,
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán took to platform X to point out what he says is the “Orwellian world” the European Union is creating, including promoting war via a facility meant for peace and attempting to curtail media as a form of freedom.
“Brussels is creating an Orwellian world in front of our eyes. They buy and supply weapons through the #EuropeanPeaceFacility. They want to control the media through the #MediaFreedomAct. We didn’t fight the communists to end up in 1984!” wrote Orban.
Orbán is referring to the European Peace Facility, which is responsible for transferring billions in weapons to Ukrainian forces, a move that Orbán argues has only prolonged the war and cost thousands of Ukrainian lives.
According to the European Peace Facility’s own website (bold text added by original authors),
“On 26 June 2023, the Council adopted a decision to increase the overall financial ceiling of the European Peace Facility (EPF) by €4.061 billion (in current prices, or €3.5 billion in 2018 prices). The overall financial ceiling now totals more than €12 billion (in current prices).
On 20 March 2023, in a joint session gathering EU foreign affairs and defense ministers, the Council agreed on the three-track proposal put forward by the High Representative and Commissioner Breton. This proposal outlines how to urgently provide Ukraine with artillery ammunition, either coming from existing stocks or jointly procured.“
Orbán is referring to specific terms developed by Orwell in his most famous novel, “1984,” which describes how a fictional dystopian regime uses words to mislead the people into accepting the power of the party.
Rumble video: PM Orbán: Sending Tanks To Ukraine Is A Horrible Idea
Orwell wrote in 1984: “The Ministry of Truth… was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, 300 meters into the air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party: War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
A few lines further, Orwell described the different ministries, writing: “The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. The Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order. And the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for economic affairs.”
Orwell described these terms as “doublethink,” explaining the power of the concept to maintain influence and control:
“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself — that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word —doublethink — involved the use of doublethink.”
Regarding Orbán’s reference to the Media Freedom Act, which was just passed this week in Brussels, the law is expected to directly take on Hungary and Poland’s media markets. Orbán wrote on X that the act is “another anti-freedom proposal from Brussels: establishing total control over the media. We Central Europeans have seen such things in the past. They called it the Kominform and the Reichspressekammer.”
|
|
|
|
| Pope Francis’ remarks on faith in ‘Laudate Deum’ are even more alarming than his climate activism |
|
Posted by: Stone - 10-06-2023, 05:48 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
- Replies (1)
|
|
Pope Francis’ remarks on faith in ‘Laudate Deum’ are even more alarming than his climate activism
Laudate Deum cannot be approached as just another text in which Pope Francis rehashes the clichés of climate alarmism. His strange statements that touch on faith itself are a far more serious problem.
![[Image: pope-francis-ap-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/pope-francis-ap-810x500.jpg)
Pope Francis in conversation with the AP, Jan 24, 2022.
Screenshot
Oct 5, 2023
(LifeSiteNews) — Comments on the Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum will no doubt focus on Pope Francis’ recommendations for safeguarding the “common home”– an expression coined by Gorbachev at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union – in his follow-up to the “ecological” encyclical Laudato si’.
But irrespective of what one might think of the Pope’s interference in an area that does not fall within his duty to strengthen his brothers in the faith, it contains a far more serious problem, precisely on the subject of faith. It is this issue which should be the object of our concern and our supplication to God to put an end to a crisis which seems, at the moment, to be reaching a climactic point in the Church.
READ: Pope Francis calls for obligatory global ‘climate change’ policies in new document ‘Laudate Deum’
Following his many considerations on the “climate crisis,” Pope Francis includes a short chapter on the “spiritual motivations” of his commitment to the planet, writing in paragraph 61:
Quote:I cannot fail in this regard to remind the Catholic faithful of the motivations born of their faith. I encourage my brothers and sisters of other religions to do the same, since we know that authentic faith not only gives strength to the human heart, but also transforms life, transfigures our goals and sheds light on our relationship to others and with creation as a whole.
“Authentic faith,” no less! Let us carefully consider the Pope’s words: He specifically attributes to “brothers and sisters of other religions” an “authentic faith.” But this is absurd. Faith can only be authentic and true if its object is true. Logically, there can only be one “authentic” faith, because it is not just a vague human feeling, but an adequation between the intellect, the soul, what one believes, and reality, divine reality.
READ: Pope Francis advocates for powerful global government not subject to ‘changing political conditions’
Laudate Deum travesties the faith, which is a supernatural virtue
The Pope’s remarks reveal an abysmal ignorance, perhaps even a deliberate misrepresentation, of what faith actually is.
There is a confusion here between the natural and the supernatural. Faith, authentic faith, true faith, is a theological virtue, a supernatural virtue given to us, along with hope and charity, through baptism. It consists in believing the revelation given by God and God alone, in all those truths that man cannot know by the power of reason alone.
Faith is not to be confused with religion, the natural virtue by which man, thanks to reason, can and even is obliged to recognize the existence of a God who transcends him, and to whom he owes adoration and gratitude. Religion can be true or false, depending on its object: the being it worships.
By referring to the “authentic faith” of “brothers and sisters of other religions” – when our spiritual brotherhood derives precisely and solely from the grace received at Baptism, which makes us children of God and therefore brothers in faith – Pope Francis distorts and devalues our Catholic faith. He subjectifies it.
What do we receive in baptism? The grace of being washed of original sin – and for adults receiving baptism, of all personal sin –, divine filiation through incorporation into the Mystical Body of Christ and the ability to become co-heirs with the Son of God, as well as the infusion of the supernatural virtues of faith, hope and charity, and the indwelling of the Holy Trinity in our souls, which remains as long as we retain sanctifying grace. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God,” St. Paul teaches.
Such is the greatness, the immensity of the gift of faith, such is the specificity of the unfathomable grace received through baptism.
To claim that any believer in just about anything – worshipers of Allah, the Sun or the Great Spaghetti Monster – possesses that living, “authentic” faith that only God freely gives, transcending the limits of our poor wounded nature, is (God help us!) to deny the Catholic faith in its very roots.
With this in mind, Laudate Deum cannot be approached as just another text in which Pope Francis rehashes the clichés of climate alarmism and submits to the preconceived ideas and conclusions of those who preach it.
Preconceptions: There is a climate crisis; man is responsible for it; it is “global.”
Conclusions: Because it is global, it is present everywhere, and it therefore must be combated in every detail of life. This totalitarianism – for it is indeed a totalitarianism – is what justifies all the measures that are being advocated today, from the so-called “moral duty” to ride one’s bike rather than one’s car, or to turn off the lights when leaving the room, on an individual level, to the global taxation of “carbon” and the compliance by all nations with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in order to reduce man’s “ecological footprint” on Mother Earth.
Having stated that to combat the “climate crisis,” “preference should be given to multilateral agreements between States,” the Pope once again makes his the language of the current globalists in paragraph 35 of Laudate Deum:
Quote:It is not helpful to confuse multilateralism with a world authority concentrated in one person or in an elite with excessive power: ‘When we talk about the possibility of some form of world authority regulated by law, we need not necessarily think of a personal authority.’ We are speaking above all of ‘more effective world organizations, equipped with the power to provide for the global common good, the elimination of hunger and poverty and the sure [defense] of fundamental human rights.’ The issue is that they must be endowed with real authority, in such a way as to ‘provide for’ the attainment of certain essential goals. In this way, there could come about a multilateralism that is not dependent on changing political conditions or the interests of a certain few, and possesses a stable efficacy.
The aim is to endow global, supranational organizations with “authority,” i.e. binding powers. This is a political program that does not consist in teaching all nations and making them disciples, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” the divine and spiritual mission entrusted to His Church by Our Lord at the moment of His Ascension, but in giving an earth-bound roadmap aimed at the submission of nations to a seemingly natural objective. Here we must keep in mind Chesterton’s warning: “Take away the supernatural, and what remains is the unnatural.”
Laudate Deum personifies the earth
All this is done in the name of the earth: a personified earth, an almost god-like earth. Adopting the language of the ecological religion installed in the climate discourse, Pope Francis speaks of the “cries of protest of the earth” (paragraph 5), the “cry of the earth” theorized by liberation theologian Leonardo Boff in his 1995 book, Ecology and Poverty, Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor.
The entirety of Laudate Deum focuses on this purely natural horizon, seeking to save the planet rather than souls. Jesus warns us: “What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” If we fail to focus first on Jesus Christ, there is no point in worrying about (alleged) global warming. People will all die anyway, with or without global warming, and what matters is that they attain eternal salvation.
This also we know: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.” This phrase from Our Lord underpins the whole of the Church’s “social doctrine”: it is the key. We must first respect divine law, we must embrace the kingdom of God through the life of grace, we must seek it in all things, and then will the harmony of life on earth, peace (including social peace), which is the tranquility of order, be given to us. It is by seeking God that the Benedictine monks transformed Europe into a garden of Christendom.
Towards pantheism
Sadly, Laudate Deum goes even further, by devaluing the kingdom of God which, as we know, is not of this world. The Apostolic Exhortation – in line with the climate religion which, at rock bottom, is designed to establish a global spirituality to which everyone is supposed to be able to adhere – uses the language of pantheism.
Here are a few examples, with many quotes from Laudato si’:
Quote:§ 25: Contrary to this technocratic paradigm, we say that the world that surrounds us is not an object of exploitation, unbridled use and unlimited ambition. Nor can we claim that nature is a mere ‘setting’ in which we develop our lives and our projects. For ‘we are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it’, and thus ‘we [do] not look at the world from without but from within’…
§ 64: Jesus ‘was able to invite others to be attentive to the beauty that there is in the world because he himself was in constant touch with nature, lending it an attraction full of fondness and wonder.’
Just read the New Testament, and you will find nothing of the sort. Jesus teaches – as He does in chapter 6 of St. Matthew’s Gospel and chapter 12 of St. Luke’s Gospel – that we are worth far more than the wondrous goods of nature, and that our eye must be fixed on that which is supernatural. Our treasure is in heaven, and in that sanctifying grace which places the Holy Trinity itself in the depths of our soul.
Quote:§ 65: Hence, ‘the creatures of this world no longer appear to us under merely natural guise, because the risen One is mysteriously holding them to himself and directing them towards fullness as their end. The very flowers of the field and the birds which his human eyes contemplated and admired are now imbued with his radiant presence’. If ‘the universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely… there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face’…
§ 67: The Judaeo-Christian vision of the cosmos defends the unique and central value of the human being amid the marvelous concert of all God’s creatures, but today we see ourselves forced to realize that it is only possible to sustain a ‘situated anthropocentrism.’ To recognize, in other words, that human life is incomprehensible and unsustainable without other creatures. For ‘as part of the universe… all of us are linked by unseen bonds and together form a kind of universal family, a sublime communion which fills us with a sacred, affectionate and humble respect.’
So, is the Judaeo-Christian vision obsolete? Should it be overturned if not turned upside down? And how can we fail to see here the confusion between nature and grace that lies at the root of the errors conveyed by Laudate Deum?
These are far more serious than the Pope’s declarations on climate and the globalist solution to the “climate crisis,” which – is it necessary to point this out? – have no guarantee of infallibility and are not binding on Catholics.
While on this point it’s possible for us to remain relaxed, Pope Francis’ strange statements that touch on faith itself are shattering. How can a pope say such things?
As a man, he can. As we all are, and only too often, even the Pope can be unfaithful to the mission God has given him. But the Church, as we also know, benefits from God’s promise: The gates of hell shall not prevail (which of course means that they have been striving to bring Her down ever since Christ instituted Her), and Our Lord will remain with Her until the end of time.
Are we shaken? We certainly are. But then the time has come for prayer as never before: prayer for the Pope and for the Church. We can also cry out: “Lord, save us! We are perishing!”, but already we are sure of the answer: “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?”
He is here with His Church, until the end of time.
|
|
|
|
|
![[Image: 23.jpg]](https://sensusfidelium.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/23.jpg)
![[Image: Screenshot-2023-10-07-at-7.29.46%E2%80%A...k=PfzdWNqm]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/Screenshot-2023-10-07-at-7.29.46%E2%80%AFPM-e1696721416453.png?itok=PfzdWNqm)
![[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2F4.bp.blogspot.com%2F-Qx...ipo=images]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F4.bp.blogspot.com%2F-QxKLYnAN76s%2FUpwjHo4tZtI%2FAAAAAAAAAzk%2F7xE9rzxVEro%2Fs1600%2F3.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=3e35d94fd13983137ff13612f82cd74b9a5dd8fef6f3c728a769880e9f306484&ipo=images)
