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| Archbishop Viganò: Easter 2023 |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-08-2023, 05:29 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò: REGNAVIT A LIGNO DEUS: God reigns from the Cross
![[Image: 4d48445cf701469812740b1814080890_L.jpg]](https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/media/k2/items/cache/4d48445cf701469812740b1814080890_L.jpg)
gloria.tv | April 7, 2023
Vexilla regis prodeunt, fulget crucis mysterium: The insignia of the King advance, the Mystery of the Cross shines forth. These are the words of the hymn which we have sung during the moving liturgical celebration of Good Friday, when the Blessed Sacrament is carried from the Sepulcher to the altar for the Communion of the priest. And these same solemn words were adopted in 1793 as the hymn of the Vendéean Army during the heroic Catholic uprising against the French Revolution.
At that time too, in the face of the antichristic fury that raged against Catholic Kingdoms and against the Church, the faithful people rose up to oppose the destruction of the Christian Civilization. And at that time too – as later happened in Mexico with the Cristeros against the liberal Masons or in Spain against the Communist atheists – only a few rose up, and among them were many who fell as martyrs. It is the destiny of the pusillus grex, of the little flock, of the remainder, the remnant. The destiny of the Holy Maccabees. But what a fate, to fight under the insignia of Christ!
Those who fight the good fight today – and you are among these – find themselves facing a no-less tremendous enemy: rebel governments, institutions devoted to evil, conniving judges, hordes of fanatics who hate Christ, just as has always happened throughout the course of History. The enmity between the offspring of the Woman and the offspring of the serpent invariably recurs, and every attempt to impose a forced coexistence between Good and Evil is destined to fail. Our Lord has said this: Whoever is not with Me is against Me (Lk 11:23). Because even the choice not to do good is some way a help to those who do evil. One cannot be neutral in the war between God and Satan.
In America – but also in many other Western Nations whose governments are in the hands of emissaries of the subversive elite of NATO, the UN, and the World Economic Forum – a war is underway against Christ and against Christians: not only against the Catholic Church, but also against any Christian denomination that still preserves the principles of the Gospel and the Natural Law. A war that wants to cancel – just as in the Vendée, Mexico, Spain, Communist Russia, or Pol Pot’s Cambodia – any trace whatsoever of the Good, even to the point of affecting life itself with abortion, gender mutilation, euthanasia, and genetic manipulation. The present is cancelled for those who want to live honestly following the Commandments; the past is cancelled in order to tear people away from their Christian roots and history; and the future is cancelled by indoctrinating our children in perverse and corrupting ideologies. And what is most painful is that in this infernal work of establishing the Kingdom of the Antichrist there is even a part of the Catholic hierarchy actively cooperating, betraying the mandate received from Christ and abandoning souls to damnation.
We feel powerless, just as Our Lord’s disciples felt helpless during the terrible days of the Passion; just as the Martyrs massacred before the pagan crowd in the circus felt powerless; just as the Cristeros or the Spanish Catholics shot by the Masonic army felt, or the Orthodox believers who were exterminated by Stalin.
And yet, look at what remains of Herod, Nero, Diocletian, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Robespierre, and Pol Pot: nothing. They are all dead, and along with them their ideologies and their armies. While the followers of Christ are still here, and with them the Church that Christ has founded on earth as the one Ark of Salvation. They continue suffering, enduring, dying: seeing their churches burned, their Creed derided, their pastors persecuted. But they are always there, as the Mystical Body of Christ, completing in their flesh what is lacking in Christ’s sufferings for the good of His Body which is the Church (Col 1:24).
At the foot of the Cross, which we have adored in the silence of Good Friday, we lift up our eyes to the Lord who offers His life to the Father for us. We do not listen to the shouts of the crowd, the cries of his enemies, the offenses of the Sanhedrin: that God who seems defeated, in the darkness of the Ninth hour, as he breathes his last breath; He who precisely because He is the Son of God does not descend from the Cross, because he wants to fulfill the Father’s will even unto death, resurrect from the dead three days later, triumph over Satan who believed that he had defeated Him on Calvary, ut qui in ligno vincebat, in ligno quoque vinceretur, that he who seemed to conquer by the Tree would by the Tree be defeated.
Let us therefore celebrate, dear Friends, this Holy Easter of the Resurrection with the certainty of the victory of Christ. A victory that the more impossible it seems – and it certainly is impossible to resurrect someone who is dead – will be all the more dazzling and total. Because that victory is accomplished on the Cross: regnavit a ligno Deus, God reigns from the wood of the Cross, which is His throne of glory, the same throne that we will see shine forth on the Day of Judgment, as Saint John describes in the Apocalypse.
George Soros will also die, as will Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and all those who today seem to be powerful and invincible, but who cannot add a single moment to their lives. And when their corpses are resurrected on the Day of Judgment, they will find themselves before the terrible and tremendous Face of Christ the Judge, and the abyss of unquenchable fire prepared for them will open before them, if they remain obstinate in their sins.
Let us ensure that the radiant Face, the same one that illuminated the Dawn of the Third Day, will find us worthy of the Glory of Heaven after following the Divine Master along the Way of Golgotha. And let us remember that the first person to whom the Risen Lord wanted to reveal Himself was the Magdalene: a great consolation for those who, like us, are sinners and seek the Lord in order to anoint His Body with the balsam of penance and the spices of repentance.
Mors et vita duello conflixere mirando, we will sing during the eight days of Easter: death and life have contended in a terrible duel. Dux vitæ mortuus regnat vivus: the Lord of Life, who died, reigns alive. And so may it be.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
9 April 2023
Dominica Resurrectionis
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| Abp. Viganò: Good Friday 2023 |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-08-2023, 05:20 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Abp. Viganò: We have been created to love, let us prostrate ourselves in adoration before the Cross
This is the mystery of God: the ardent charity that envelops and inflames everything.
![[Image: shutterstock_1780880084-810x500.jpeg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shutterstock_1780880084-810x500.jpeg)
The crucifixion by Giotto in Scrovegni Chapel
spatuletail/Shutterstock
Apr 8, 2023
(LifeSiteNews) —
Popule meus, quid feci tibi?
My People what have I done for you? In what have I offended you? As we prepare to adore the blessed wood of the Cross, the words of the Improperia or Reproaches echo in our hearts. They are words of disconsolate reproach, of the excruciating suffering of the Lord, who addresses His people and each one of us. The words of a God who became man in order to save each one of us, dying by the most infamous of tortures, and who in Gethsemane looks with horror on the multitude of sins of all times, of all men.
Άγιος ο Θεός, άγιος ισχυρός, άγιος αθάνατος ελέησον ημάς. Sanctus Deus, Sanctus Fortis, Sanctus Immortalis, miserere nobis. So cries out the Humanity of Christ to His Father, imploring forgiveness in our name, as the Lord of the human race and as Head of the Mystical Body. As the Lamb of God who has taken upon Himself the sins of the world. And in that disconsolate cry is contained all the infinite love that is so often unrequited, the ardent charity outraged by selfishness, and the awareness of our ingratitude in the face of the boundless magnificence of the gifts we have received.
A single drop of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord would have been enough to redeem the entire world: cujus una stilla . . . But the charity of God – the charity who is God Himself – knows no measure, and reaches the point of giving the life of His Incarnate Son in order to redeem us, the children of wrath. We who have spat a thousand times upon that Blessed Face, struck that Sacred Head crowned with thorns with the reed, lacerated that Most Sacred Flesh with scourges, and driven nails into those Venerable Hands.
Let us gaze upon the lifeless Redeemer, opprobrium hominum et abjectio plebis (Ps 21, 6). The King of kings raised up on the scaffold reserved for slaves. The most beautiful of the sons of men rendered unrecognizable, stripped of his garments, exposed to derision and insults. And for whose sake? On behalf of arid souls, petrified hearts, and rebellious minds.
And yet, in this sacred representation that involves nature, darkens the sky, and shakes the depths of the earth in witnessing the Death of the Man-God, we are just able to glimpse the abyss of Divine Love of which only a God is capable. The Adversary does not understand Mercy, because he does not understand Love, he is not capable of loving or of choosing to love. He does not understand that the only reason why the Divine Majesty tolerates the presence of sin is that it is an occasion for repentance and conversion, and that it is precisely in the mercy of a God who reaches the point of offering Himself to redeem sinful humanity that the perfect coherence of truth and charity, of justice and mercy, manifests himself.
In the delirious illusion of defeating God by killing him on the Cross, Satan has signed his own condemnation. O mors, ero mors tua. Morsus tuus ero, inferne (1 Cor 15:55; Hos 13:14). O death, I will be your death; I will be your ruin, O hell! Ut unde mors oriebatur, inde vita quoque resurgeret; et qui in ligno vincebat, in ligno quoque vinceretur: so that whence death came, there life could be born; and he who conquered by the Cross would also be conquered by the Cross. That instrument of torture and death has become the throne of the Lord of life, on which He reigns. Regnavit a ligno Deus. What an unfathomable Mystery! And what an abyss of deaf selfishness, the abyss of Satan, of blind pride, of mute rancor that devours the lost soul of the most luminous angel. The same wretched ὕβρις, the same delirium of omnipotence that moves the wicked of the earth, the enemies of Christ and His Church, who believe they can overthrow the Lord of hosts and can snatch from Him the souls that His Son has redeemed from them by dying.
Satan’s hatred is not infinite, nor is his power infinite, nor is the kingdom of the Prince of this world eternal. But the charity of God is infinite, His Omnipotence is infinite, and His Kingdom is infinitely eternal. His Mercy is infinite, which burns and consumes every sin and every shortcoming in the fire of love for us, poor creatures that we are, if only we surrender, recognizing that we are sinners in need of forgiveness and help, so that we may then participate in His eternal beatitude, in His glory. We have been created to love and to be loved. To reciprocate with our nothingness all that we have received without merit. To allow ourselves to be loved by God just as we allow ourselves to be warmed and illuminated by the Sun, just as a child allows himself to be embraced and held in his father’s strong arms without any fear of being crushed.
Misericordiam volo, et non sacrificium (Mt 9:13), the Lord says to us. Because the Divine Mercy is manifested in the Sacrifice of the Eternal Son of the Father, which we perpetuate in an unbloody form in the Mass; and we ought to correspond to this miracle of divine charity by offering what costs us the most – our self-love, our ego, our claim to have merited something when in fact we are indebted for all that we have – showing mercy to our brothers and sisters and doing so in the knowledge that no one has greater love than he who lays down his life for his friends (Jn 15:13).
This is the mystery of God: the ardent charity that envelops and inflames everything. And the mysterium iniquitatis consists in the inability to bow down to this love, in the stubbornness of fighting a lost battle, in deluding oneself that Evil can conquer the Good, that lies can obscure the Truth, that darkness can overpower the Light, that the creature can overcome the Creator.
Let us prostrate ourselves in adoration before the Cross and repeat those words which we already know, but whose significance we will never fully comprehend: Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi: quia per sanctam Crucem tuam redemisti mundum.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
April 7, 2023, Feria VI in Parasceve
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| Rumors: Pope Francis Will Force Indult Seminaries to Conform to VII? |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-05-2023, 05:59 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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New Francis Document Attempts to Corrupt Roman Rite Seminarians
gloria.tv | April 4, 2023
A document that will further crack down on the Catholic Faith is expected this month, writes Summorum-Pontificum.de (April 4).
Voices have been circulating about this since January. However, it will not be an apostolic constitution as was previously rumoured, but a decree of the Congregation for Religious focussing on the seminaries of the Roman Rite [Indult/Latin Mass] communities.
They will be obliged to conform to "Vatican II" in their doctrine and discipline. However, Vatican II assumes that the seminaries are like the present Pius X seminaries.
The benchmark for the imposed changes are the empty Novus Ordo seminaries. The text requires the liturgical formation of the Roman Rite seminarians according to the clown Novus Ordo.
The bulk of their studies must take place in outside theological faculties with an anti-Catholic bias. [...]
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| Chinese Communists blindside Vatican by appointing new bishop without its involvement |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-05-2023, 05:54 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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Chinese Communists blindside Vatican by appointing new bishop without its involvement
The Vatican was told of the new bishop's installation only ‘a few days’ prior to the event and was left out of the decision.
![[Image: Bishop-Shen-Bin-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Bishop-Shen-Bin-810x500.jpg)
Bishop Shen Bin
Screenshot
Apr 4, 2023
SHANGHAI (LifeSiteNews) — The Chinese Communist Party authorities have appointed another Catholic diocesan bishop in disregard for the Sino-Vatican deal and the Vatican itself, with the Holy See not being involved in the decision.
On April 4, Bishop Shen Bin was installed as the new bishop of the Diocese of Shanghai, an event predicted by AsiaNews the day before. His appointment as head of the diocese came only from the state-controlled Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Group, part of the official Chinese state-approved Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA).
The CPA reported that the ceremony was led by “Father Wu Jianlin, Director of the Catholic Academic Committee of Shanghai and Deputy Director of the Catholic Patriotic Congress of Shanghai.”
Bishop Shen’s appointment letter came from the Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Group — of which he is head — and was read aloud by Father Yang Yu, the group’s secretary general. The Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Group does not recognize the authority of the Holy See with regard to appointing new bishops. Meanwhile, Chinese Catholic Patriotic Congress chairman and bishop of the Beijing diocese Li Shan gave a speech.
According to AsiaNews, Shen promised to continue “patriotism and love” for the Church in Shanghai. He reportedly highlighted “the principle of independence and self-administration,” and committed to attempts to “sinicize” Chinese Catholicism.
Vatican not involved in decision
The appointing of Shen as bishop of Shanghai marks yet another instance of Beijing authorities disregarding the Vatican’s involvement in the nomination of bishops.
The Vatican-recognized bishop of Shanghai is actually Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin. He had been appointed to the see as its auxiliary in 2012, with the CCP believing him to be loyal to them. However, after his consecration he denounced and left the CPA and was subsequently sequestered to house arrest in a nearby seminary.
Bishop Shen had been the bishop of Haimen, in China’s Jiangsu province — a position he had held since 2010, and one that had been approved of by the Vatican. The CCP moving him to Shanghai means that two Vatican-recognized diocesan bishops have been thus rejected by the CCP — Ma of Shanghai and Shen of Haimen.
In a statement issued after AsiaNews reported on the ceremony, the Holy See Press Office director Matteo Bruni highlighted how the Vatican was not involved in the decision, but merely “informed.”
“The Holy See had been informed a few days ago of the decision of the Chinese authorities” to move Shen to Shanghai. The Vatican only “learned from the media of the settlement this morning,” said Bruni.
“For the moment, I have nothing to say about the Holy See’s assessment of the matter,” he added.
Yet this is not the first time that Beijing has openly reneged on the Vatican’s deal. In November 2022 the CCP appointed Bishop John Peng Weizhao as auxiliary Bishop of Jiangxi. The diocese is not recognized by the Holy See, and in a subsequent statement the Vatican declared that it learnt of the ceremony with “surprise and regret.”
The installation ceremony “did not take place in accordance with the spirit of dialogue that exists between the Vatican and Chinese sides and what was stipulated in the Provisional Agreement on the Appointment of Bishops, Sept. 22, 2018,” wrote the Vatican. The Holy See continued by issuing an appearance of subjugation to the CCP authorities, expressing a wish “that similar episodes will not be repeated,” and adding the Vatican “remains awaiting appropriate communications on the matter from the Authorities, and reaffirms its full readiness to continue respectful dialogue concerning all matters of common interest.”
First signed in 2018 and later renewed in both 2020 and 2022, the Sino-Vatican deal’s specific details remain undisclosed with a peculiar air of mystery surrounding them. China expert Stephen Mosher described the deal as an action which was “perhaps the most controversial of a papacy dogged by controversy.”
It is believed to recognize the state-approved version of the Catholic Church and allows the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to appoint bishops. The Pope apparently maintains a veto power although in practice it is the CCP that has control. It also allegedly allows for the removal and replacement of legitimate bishops by CCP-approved bishops.
While Both Francis and Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin have continually defended the deal, emeritus bishop of Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen has repeatedly criticized it strongly. He described the agreement as an “incredible betrayal” of China’s Catholics, and accused the Vatican of “selling out” Chinese Catholics.
It has led to a heightened increase in religious persecution since the deal was signed, which the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China described as a direct consequence of the deal. In its 2020 report, the Commission wrote that the persecution witnessed is “of an intensity not seen since the Cultural Revolution.”
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| Abp. Carlo Maria Viagnó: Palm Sunday 2023 |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-04-2023, 06:21 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Abp. Viganò: Just as Jesus was betrayed by His disciples, so the Church is betrayed by Her ministers
May the contemplation of the Passion of Christ and of His Mystical Body rouse us from our torpor, snatch us from the slavery of sin,
and spur us on the heroism of holiness; that the Blood poured out for us does not fall upon us as a condemnation
but as a salutary font that confers grace.
![[Image: Photo-2-scaled-e1680515757649.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Photo-2-scaled-e1680515757649.jpg)
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganó
Apr 3, 2023
Improperium exspectavit cor meum, et miseriam: et sustinui qui simul mecum contristaretur, et non fuit: consolántem me quæsivi, et non inveni: et dederunt in escam meam fel, et in siti mea potaverunt me aceto.
My heart hath expected reproach and misery: And I looked for one who would grieve together with me, but there was none: And I searched for one who would comfort me, and I found none: And they gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink – Ps 68:21-22
(LifeSiteNews) — “Israël es tu Rex, Davidis et inclyta proles: You are the King of Israel, the noble lineage of David.” In these solemn words of the ancient hymn to Christ the King, we find the Holy Church identified with Israel, the people of God with the chosen people. “Plebs Hebræa tibi cum palmis obvia venit: cum prece, voto, hymnis, adsumus ecce tibi: the Hebrew people came to meet you with palms: behold we too stand before you with prayers, vows, and songs.”
It should arouse dismay that the triumph of Christ, who was welcomed into Jerusalem as the Son of David and greeted as He who comes in the name of the Lord, could have changed in just a few hours into the violent uproar of the crowd standing outside the Praetorium, into shouts and insults, into the torments of the Passion, and finally into the death of the King of the Jews on the wood of the Cross.
A dismay that comes from the consideration of how changeable the crowd is in its propensity to allow itself to be manipulated by the Sanhedrin and by the elders of the people, in its ease in forgetting – as if it never happened – the tribute of honors, the olive and palm branches, and the garments spread out along the road for the passage of the Lord.
We do not know if among the pueri Hebræorum there were also those who later mocked the Savior as he was dying on the Cross. But we know that they were Jews, just as the high priests, scribes, and temple guards were Jews, as well as those who cried out, “Crucify him!” as Jesus stood before them scourged and crowned with thorns.
And the apostles who fled were Jews, just as Simon Peter who denied Christ three times was a Jew, the pious women who wept for Him were Jews, Simon of Cyrene was a Jew, and Joseph of Arimathea was a Jew.
But if part of the Jewish people, despite the prophecies and God’s interventions under the old law, came to put the promised Messiah to death, we should ask ourselves if this betrayal could not be repeated in a part of the new Israel, the Church, when we see Catholic faithful and even members of the hierarchy who, like the Pharisees and the leaders of the Sanhedrin in Christ’s time, still today cry out their Crucifige, or repeat St. Peter’s quia non novi hominem (I do not know the man – Mt 26:72).
The people, not in the Latin sense of populus – a society that gives itself laws and observes them – but rather in the sense of vulgus – that is, a people without identity, who have no awareness of rights and duties, who are maneuverable, unaware of what their heritage and destiny is, profanum, insensible to the sacred.
If we look at what is happening in the Church, at the crisis that afflicts Her, at the apostasy that corrupts the hierarchy and the faithful, the events of Palm Sunday seem forgotten, while living right before our eyes we see the horrors of the Passion and the Crucifixion. The Church, which in the past celebrated the triumphs of Christ and preached his Gospel, today seems to have been eclipsed by the Sanhedrin which accuses the Son of God of blasphemy and by the high priests who call for His death.
The society which once was Christian now shouts out its “Take him away; take him away,” spits on the face of the Savior, mocks His tormentors, and calls for His cancellation. Today’s scribes and Pharisees seem determined to place guards to watch over the sepulcher in which the Church lies, as if to avert Her resurrection, which would expose them as liars.
The very disciples of the Lord flee, hide, and deny ever having known Him in order not to be excluded and marginalized, in order not to appear to go against the stream, in order not to contradict the powerful. And, at the same time, many pious women, many Cyreneans, many Josephs of Arimathea, mocked and insulted, help the Church to carry Her Cross, remain at Her feet with the Virgin Mary and St. John, seeking a place in which to lay that mystical body, awaiting its resurrection.
Today’s betrayal is no less serious than what our Lord had to suffer; the passio Ecclesiæ is not less sorrowful than that of Her Head; the desolation and discouragement of those who contemplate the Domina Gentium exposed to dishonor from Her very own ministers is no less harrowing than the suffering of the Mater Dolorosa; the hatred that moved the executioners then is the same hatred that moves today’s executioners, and the love of the good Jews who recognized the Messiah then is the same as the love of good Christians who see His agony still perpetuated today.
“I freed you from slavery in Egypt, and you have repaid your Savior by crucifying Him,” we sing in the Reproaches. I gave you the Mass, and you have replaced it with a rite that dishonors Me and drives away the faithful. I gave you the priesthood, and you profane it with heretical and fornicating ministers. I made you steadfast against your enemies, and you throw open the doors of the citadel, run towards your enemies, and honor them while they prepare to destroy you. I taught you the truths of the faith, and you adulterate them or keep silent about them in order to please the world. I showed you the royal road of Calvary, and you follow the path of perdition, of pleasures, and of perversion.
“Popule meus, quid feci tibi? aut in quo contristavi te? responde mihi!: My people, what have I done to you? Or how have I offended you? Answer me!” Are not these words applicable to so many Catholics, to so many prelates, to so many souls to whom the Lord, as He did to the Hebrew people, has shown His ardent love thousands and thousands of times?
Should we not tremble at the mere thought of being able to be accomplices in the betrayal of Christ and His Church, which perpetuates Christ’s unbloody Sacrifice on our altars? She who is the ministress and dispensatrix of His infinite merits until the end of the world? She who is the witness of His miracles, the preacheress of His Word, and the guardian of His Truth?
Let us meditate, dear friends, on where our immortal soul is placed in this ferocious battle that shakes the world even to its foundations. Whether we are among the scoundrels, torturing the most sacred flesh of the Redeemer, or if we instead make our hearts available to welcome that adorable Body. Whether we tear our garments at the proclamation of His Divinity, or instead bow down like the Centurion before the Savior who dies for us. Whether we are among those who incite the mob against the Son of God, or are instead among those who bear witness to His Glorious Resurrection.
Because this soul of ours, for which Our Lord has shed His Blood and given His Life, shall remain immortal, either in the eternal bliss of paradise or in the eternal torment of hell.
May the contemplation of the Passion of Christ and of His Mystical Body rouse us from our torpor, snatch us from the slavery of sin, and spur us on the heroism of holiness; that the Blood poured out for us does not fall upon us as a condemnation but as a salutary font that confers grace. And so may it be.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
2 April 2023
Dominica II Passionis seu in Palmis
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| “What if all these brilliant innovators were nothing more than a bunch of atrocious imbeciles?” |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-04-2023, 06:14 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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“What if all these brilliant innovators were nothing more than a bunch of atrocious imbeciles?”: Msgr. Celada on the 1960s
PETER KWASNIEWSKI/NLM | April 3, 2023
Last October 24, I published here a translation of a remarkable open letter written by Msgr. Domenico Celada in 1969. What follows is an article he published late in February 1969 in the periodical Il Tempo. Enjoy the clarity of this distinguished musicologist and — we must surely say looking back — prophet of the Lord. —PAK
![[Image: Beat%20Mass%20from%20Celada.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjomrOJGCtqcDHLx5xI3DzfXwWUrKgobpBURiK5Z6VRk96536iIL75PfXt1ixJxxExZfjgBlv15VMoQbwalcMu9CBw2OU4yau-6-FHqBslJ8dAonDzmz0o4N1RMb6gpNg1_qK--9bWazcfg1Su5dkEI3Niaz7iE2zy9wGJjymIaCB5MD_w-3w/w363-h509/Beat%20Mass%20from%20Celada.jpg)
A “beat” Mass in Italy, from a book by Msgr. Celada
I remember having written, in the April-June 1966 issue of a music magazine, a note on the liturgy after the Second Vatican Council. Those were the months in which the destructive plan of certain “liturgists” was taking shape, in all its tragic significance, and they had come to propose those so-called “youth masses,” accompanied by dance-hall orchestras, which represent—even leaving aside any consideration of a religious nature—the triumph of ignorance and stupidity.
I wrote at the time: “The sacred liturgy is going through a period of great crisis, perhaps the most painful in its history. Never has there been so much decadence and confusion: it was truly reaching rock bottom.”
On that occasion I received messages of consent and praise, I can well say, from every part of the Catholic world: letters from simple faithful, from many priests and parish priests, even from bishops and cardinals. However, to be honest, I must say that I also received a strong “reprimand” from the ecclesiastical office in charge of the so-called liturgical reform, an office known by the name of “Consilium,” about which there is already a vast literature that is certainly not benevolent.
The emitter of the “reprimand,” written on official letterhead, with a coat of arms and a protocol number, began by expressing his shock at my diagnosis of a “crisis” in the liturgy, and maintained, on the contrary, that “the liturgy is going through one of its most flourishing and promising periods”; after which he declared that my remarks were of a “supine falsity,” and that the entire text represented an “offensive insinuation” and a “subjective and erroneous evaluation.” My prose was, moreover, “disconcerting, brazen, offensive, and audacious.”
I barely emerged, though completely unharmed, from that landslide of adjectives, grouped in foursomes, under which I could have been suffocated. Not even three years have passed since then.
About twenty days ago, I opened L’Osservatore Romano and found a seven-column article (an entire page of the daily newspaper of the Holy See!) entitled “History of the Church and Crisis of the Church.” [1] In it, the distinguished historiographer Hubert Jedin writes verbatim: “There is first of all, visible to all, the liturgical crisis, not to speak of chaos. When today, on a Sunday morning, one goes around the parish churches of a city, one finds in each one a divine service differently ‘organized’; one encounters omissions; one sometimes hears readings different from those provided for by the liturgical ordo; if one then comes to another country whose language one happens not to know, one feels quite a stranger.”
It seems important to note that Hubert Jedin, in his clear diagnosis of the current situation of the Church, mentions “first and foremost”—even before the crisis of faith—precisely the liturgical crisis, now “visible to all.” Considering the authority of the writer and that of the Vatican newspaper, which never hosts an article except after the most rigorous control, one must conclude that today the crisis of the liturgy is an indisputable fact, and that it is licit to speak and write about it without fear of receiving missives full of unflattering adjectives. [2]
On the other hand, many things have happened in three years. The Congregation of Rites was forced to intervene against the many arbitrary experiments with a “declaration” of December 29, 1966 (which, moreover, remained a dead letter), and the pope himself, in the famous allocution of April 19, 1967, expressed his pain and apprehension about what is happening in the liturgical field, emphasizing the “disturbance of the faithful” and denouncing a certain mentality aimed at the “demolition of authentic Catholic worship,” also implying “doctrinal and disciplinary subversions.”
But of particular interest is the comparison that the scholar makes between the crisis experienced by the Church in the sixteenth century and that of the present time. How did the Church overcome this earlier crisis? Jedin answers: “Not by renouncing her authority, nor by accepting equivocal formulas of compromise, nor by welcoming the liturgical chaos created [at that time] by arbitrary innovations in the divine service.”
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Trent: a model of what to do in a time of crisis
This is very true. If the Tridentine decrees re-established the security of faith, the Missal and Breviary issued by St. Pius V further unified the liturgy. In fact, we must not forget that the “lex orandi,” according to the ancient saying, is also the “lex credendi”: the law of faith. It therefore seems logical that today’s “licentia orandi” corresponds to a “licentia credendi.”
Hubert Jedin writes: “I fear that before long, in some places, one will no longer find a Latin missal...” And yet (the scholar recalls), “the Liturgical Constitution itself (art. 36) maintains the Latin liturgy as a rule, the same way as it was before. Would it not be nonsense for the Catholic Church in our century—in the century of the unification of the world—to completely renounce such a precious bond of unity, as is the Latin liturgical language? Would this not amount to a very belated slide into a nationalism already considered outdated?”
These are purely rhetorical questions, since the inexplicable renunciation of Latin has already practically taken place “in fraudem legis”: against the obligatory nature of a conciliar law that clearly prescribes the preservation of the use of Latin, and against the right of the Catholic faithful to the enjoyment of a common good.
Now, having broken the unity of the language and destroyed the identity of the rites, the chaos has extended from the liturgical field to the doctrinal one. Already in April 1967, Paul VI began to lament “something very strange and painful,” the “alteration of the sense of the one and only genuine faith.” But this was the consequence, with a perfect and inexorable logic, of tampering with the grandiose edifice of the Liturgy—that is, of having translated, mutilated, and replaced texts and formulas that in themselves represented a “summa” of piety and doctrine. One understands today more than ever the truth of Pius XII’s teaching in the encyclical Mediator Dei: “The use of the Latin language is a clear and noble sign of unity, and an effective antidote to any corruption of pure doctrine.”
The crisis of the liturgy is now indeed “visible to all.” Many deceptions have been discovered. In spite of this, the innovators continue to work with the zeal of those who are not quite sure of themselves, they continue to tamper with, distort, and demolish what little remains. A recent conference of liturgists was held to discuss “new Eucharistic prayers” and a new “ordo Missae”... [3]
With regard to these obstinate reformers who are disrupting the liturgy, the famous Catholic novelist François Mauriac wrote not long ago: “I ask myself, in a sudden panic: what if all these brilliant innovators were nothing more than a bunch of atrocious imbeciles? Then there would be no more escape: for it has happened that the deaf regain their hearing, that the blind see again; it has even happened that the dead are resurrected; but there is no proof, no document, about an idiot who has ceased to be an idiot.”
It seems to me that the French academician is a bit too pessimistic. He seems to have forgotten that any idiot, even if he cannot cease to be an idiot, can simply be put in a condition not to do harm.
![[Image: Italian_(Venetian)_School_-_Fra_Paolo_Sa..._Trust.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY7bVyLrZ5P9NB14OMCfgbgaE3TAZgNOEi7CbUvMQBdPYTJ2iyBUlhSLTWR6_jxIrHlLIq6woQvkz9rhmQV4JhwCx0PgKC3Is4GiMh6agEevRGM-ag6LeF6-gVv2W2NGlhy_IOdYewrztBeGRQ8BrPQIAP6677mK-YY0UAjXSrf-6J3sRyoQ/w416-h546/Italian_(Venetian)_School_-_Fra_Paolo_Sarpi_(1552%E2%80%931623),_Eviscerator_of_the_Council_of_Trent_-_1139719_-_National_Trust.jpg)
Fra Paolo Sarpi (1552–1623), “Eviscerator of the Council of Trent”: a nickname better suited to Annibale Bugnini?
NOTES
[1] This article appeared in the January 15, 1969 issue of L’Osservatore Romano.
[2] Angered by this article of Hubert Jedin, Annibale Bugnini wrote a private letter of protest to the author—and was later careful to quote it at length in his tome The Reform of the Liturgy (p. 283). This impassioned attack on the Church’s liturgical practice for most of her history must surely be one of the most remarkable passages ever written by a Catholic (if its author may be considered such):
As a good historian who knows how to weigh both sides and reach a balanced judgment, why did you not mention the millions and hundreds of millions of the faithful who have at last achieved worship in spirit and in truth? Who can at last pray to God in their own languages and not in meaningless sounds, and are happy that henceforth they know what they are saying? Are they not “the Church”? As for [Latin as] the “bond of unity”: Do you believe the Church has no other ways of securing unity? Do you believe there is a deep and heartfelt unity amid lack of understanding, ignorance, and the “dark of night” of a worship that lacks a face and light, at least for those out in the nave? Do you not think that a priestly pastor must seek and foster the unity of his flock—and thereby of the universal flock—through a living faith that is fed by the rites and finds expression in song, in communion of minds, in love that animates the Eucharist, in conscious participation, and in entrance into the mystery? Unity of language is superficial and fictitious; the other kind of unity is vital and profound… Here in the Consilium we are not working for museums and archives, but for the spiritual life of the people of God.
[3] This article was published in late February 1969, only about six weeks before Paul VI issued his apostolic constitution Missale Romanum promulgating the Novus Ordo Missae.
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| Bugnini on the Reform of Palm Sunday |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-02-2023, 07:04 AM - Forum: In Defense of Tradition
- Replies (1)
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Bugnini on the Reform of Palm Sunday
(Part 1)
NLM [slightly adapted] | April 29, 2020
In 1956, Fathers Annibale Bugnini and Carlo Braga published in the Ephemerides Liturgicae a commentary on the Holy Week reform which Pope Pius XII had promulgated late in the previous year. This commentary makes for an incredibly frustrating read. It is supposed to explain changes which were by far the most significant made to the Tridentine Missal since its first publication in 1570, and the harbinger of greater changes soon to come. And yet for the most part, it concerns itself with fairly minor issues, and gives far less space than one would wish to the more substantive ones.
A full account of what it says about the changes to Palm Sunday would be tedious, since much of the material is dedicated to historical matters that have little to do with the then-recent reform. Therefore, I will consider it here by order of topic, following the liturgical texts in the Missal of St Pius V.
The commentary reports that the first example of the blessing of the palms arranged in imitation of the Order of Mass is found in an ancient Roman Ordo also called the “10th century Pontificale Romano-Germanicum,” and notes the presence therein of all of the traditional elements, the Introit, Collect, Epistle etc. Immediately, we are presented with an equivocation: the Collect of the blessing, which is abolished by the 1955 reform, is present on Palm Sunday in the Gelasian Sacramentary, the oldest copy of which (Vat. Reg. 316) is from the beginning of the 8th century. It is true that the Gelasian Sacramentary does not give a rubric to explain its use, and that the blessing of the palms is not mentioned. Nevertheless, in suppressing it, the reformers removed an element that was present in the Roman Rite from as far back as we have records.
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Folio 46r of the Gellone Sacramentary, ca. 780-800, with the prayer “Deus quem diligere”, the Collect for the blessing of Palms in the Missal of St Pius V, at the bottom of the page. (Bibliothèque National de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 12048; image cropped.)
The commentary also points out that evidence for the blessing of the palms in Rome itself before the adoption of this Pontificale at the very end of the 10th century is scant, and largely conjectural, and that the Mass is focused on the Passion. This is quite true. And yet, in the manuscript cited above, we also find the title “Dominica in Palmas de Passione Domini”, and in the Gellone Sacramentary, from the end of the 8th century, “Dominica in Palmas.” (shown above)
There follows the Epistle, Exodus 15, 27 – 16, 7; in the first article in this series, I explained in detail what this reading signifies in the context of the blessing of the palms. About it, the commentary has this to say: “The reading taken from the book of Exodus was chosen for this reason only, that at the beginning, it mentions seventy palm trees, while in the remaining verses, it has no relation to the day’s celebration.”
Here we are confronted with a series of embarrassments. The authors have completely failed to notice that, just as the day itself is occupied with more than one event (the triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the Passion), and just as the very form of the blessing alludes to the principal event of another day (the Institution of the Mass on Holy Thursday, which is also read in the Passion Gospel), likewise, the reading is not concerned to speak only about the event celebrated on this day, but also to connect that event to the rest of Holy Week and Easter. And here, I confess my own embarrassment at reporting that the authors have borrowed this “observation” (without citation) from none other than the Blessed Ildephonse Schuster, who says the same thing in his commentary on Palm Sunday in The Sacramentary.
In and of itself, this may seem like no more than a peculiar lack of literary sensibilities, (although that it no small flaw in the study of the liturgy, which is, after all, to a large degree the study of various bodies of literature.) I am inclined to think this is the case with Schuster, who says that the reading “does not appear (my emphasis) to be in keeping with today’s mystery”, but nevertheless draws his own connection between it and the Passion, while missing five allusions to the rest of Holy Week.
The underlying attitude of Bugnini and Braga is something worse, and more damaging. They ask us to believe that in the process of creating a blessing of tremendous solemnity, the opening rite of the most important week of the liturgical year, the medieval Church marred it by adding something for a purely superficial, almost accidental reason. Moreover, this element was accepted almost universally within the Roman Rite, and persisted in use for roughly a millennium. This notion that a rite of such importance could really be no more than a collection of accidents and mistakes, “a wholly artificial composition”, as they call it (again, copying Schuster), begs for an invitation to scour through the rest of the Missal for similar mistakes. Such an invitation would be issued shortly after Sacrosanctum Concilium.
Likewise, à propos of the two options for the gradual that follows it, they write that “they were certainly chosen only out of the necessity of putting a chant between the two readings.” No space is given to the notion that the rite’s creators might have been men of greater literary skill than themselves, or that their choice might have been made for good and deliberate reasons.
The same attitude permeates their explanation of the blessing of the palms. The Preface, they tell us, was created for a different purpose, and probably chosen only for this rite because of the words “Thy creatures” and “Thy creation”: another superficial, accidental choice, as if the rite’s creators could not possibly have selected or written a more suitable text. The prayers were originally not intended to be all said, but chosen, depending on the type of branch; then “little by little, they acquired the force of an obligation; either because of a false idea of increasing the strength of the blessing through the multiplication of the prayers by which it is given, or because of a desire to make the rite more solemn by increasing its elements.” It seems not to have occurred to them, even though they were both Italians, that more than one type of branch may have been blessed at the same ceremony, as is still commonly done in Italy to this very day.
Here again, we are presented with an equivocation. Earlier on, the commentary does give a brief summary (less than 90 words) of the blessing of palms from the Pontificale Romano-Germanicum, the ancestor of the blessing found in the Missal of St Pius V. What it does not say is that this earlier form of the blessing is vastly longer, and the ceremony accompanying the procession is vastly more complex. This brings us to a section of the commentary which makes it difficult to maintain a lively belief in the authors’ honesty, and which will be discussed in the second part of this article.
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| CDC team falls sick probing Ohio train derailment |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-01-2023, 04:00 PM - Forum: Health
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CDC team falls sick probing Ohio train derailment
![[Image: _129238084_gettyimages-1246796087.jpg.webp]](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/BBD3/production/_129238084_gettyimages-1246796087.jpg.webp)
The train that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, on 3 February was carrying vinyl chloride and other potentially hazardous substances.
BBC | March 31, 2023
Authorities say seven US health investigators fell ill while probing the impact of the 3 February train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the investigator's symptoms included nausea and headaches.
Locals in East Palestine have reported similar illnesses.
The train was carrying vinyl chloride and other potentially hazardous substances.
The CDC investigators formed part of a team that was conducting house-to-house interviews in the area of the derailment last month, according to authorities. They immediately reported their symptoms to federal authorities after they fell ill.
"Symptoms resolved for most team members later the same afternoon," the CDC said in a statement. "Everyone resumed work on survey data collection within 24 hours. Impacted team members have not reported ongoing health effects."
In the wake of the derailment, state and federal officials repeatedly sought to reassure East Palestine residents that local air and water supplies were safe. Residents, however, reported headaches, nausea, burning eyes and sore throats, sparking fears that their long-term health could be impacted.
Environmental officials have said that nearly 45,000 animals died as a result of the toxic train crash, although all were aquatic species.
One of the chemicals that the train was carrying, vinyl chloride, is a colourless, hazardous gas that is primarily used to make PVC plastic. It is also a known carcinogen and acute exposure is linked to dizziness, drowsiness and headaches. Prolonged exposure can cause liver damage and a rare form of liver cancer.
On Thursday, the US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the company that operated the train - Norfolk Southern - over environmental damage caused by the derailment.
The justice department said it plans to hold the company responsible for "unlawfully polluting the nation's waterways and to ensure it pays the full cost of the environmental cleanup," the lawsuit states.
Additionally, the lawsuit is seeking fines and a judgement that will hold the firm accountable for future costs associated with the environmental response to the derailment.
A separate lawsuit, filed by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost last month, is seeking to recoup the state's costs and ensure that Norfolk Southern carries out long-term environmental monitoring.
Norfolk Southern has repeatedly apologised for the crash and has so far pledged $27.9m (£22.6m) to the community.
"I am deeply sorry for the impact this derailment has had on the people of East Palestine and surrounding communities," CEO Alan Shaw told a Senate committee earlier this month. "I am determined to make this right."
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