The question often arises about the celebration of Halloween by Catholics. Is it, for instance, "pagan" to dress up and go about as ghosts and goblins? The question often comes up because many modern Christians (mostly non-Catholic ones) believe that Halloween has something to do with worshipping the devil and participating in witchcraft. The truth is that the origins of Halloween are rooted deeply in the theology and popular customs of Catholics.
It is a revision of actual history to say that our modern celebration of Halloween has origins in Druid customs. It is true that the ancient Celts celebrated a major feast (the Celtic New Year) on October 31st, but the fact is that they celebrated a festival on the last day of almost every month.
Halloween, a contraction of "All Hollows Eve," falls on October 31st because the Feast of All Saints or "All Hallows" falls on November 1st. The feast in honor of all the Saints used to be celebrated on May 13th, but Pope Gregory III, in 731, moved it to November 1st, the dedication day of All Saints Chapel in St. Peter's in Rome. This feast spread throughout the world. In 998, St. Odilo, the abbot of the powerful monastery of Cluny in France, added a celebration on November 2nd. This was a day of prayer for the souls of all the faithful departed. Therefore, the Church had a feast of the Saints and those in Purgatory.
It was the Irish Catholics who came up with the idea to remember somehow those souls who did not live by the Faith in this life. It became customary for these Irish to bang on pots and pans on All Hallow's Eve to let the damned know that they were not forgotten. In Ireland, then, all the dead came to be remembered. This, however, is still not exactly like our celebration of Halloween. On Halloween we also dress up in costumes.
This practice arose in France during the 14th and 15th centuries. During the horrible bubonic plague, the Black Death, Europe lost half of her population. Artists depicted this on walls to remind us of our own mortality. These pictures and representations are known as the "Dance of Death" or "Dance Macabre." These figures were commonly painted on cemetery walls and showed the devil leading a daisy chain of people into the tomb. Sometimes the dance was re-enacted on All Soul's Day as a living tableau, with people dressed up as the dead. But the French dressed up on All Souls, not Halloween, and the Irish, who celebrated Halloween, did not dress up.
The two were brought together in the colonies of North America during the 18th century, when Irish and French Catholics began to intermarry. Thus the two celebrations became mingled, and we began dressing up on Halloween. It is, as we can see, a very "American" holiday, but Catholic as well.
"Trick-or-Treating" is a very odd addition to Halloween. It is the most American aspect of the holiday, and is the (unwilling) contribution of English Catholics.
Guy Fawkes Day became a great celebration against Catholics in England. It celebrated the day the plot to blow up Parliament and King James I was discovered. This was on November 5, 1605. Guy Fawkes was the rather reckless man guarding the gunpowder. He was arrested and hanged. During these times of persecution of the Catholic Church, bands of revelers would wear masks and visit Catholics in the night demanding they be given cakes and beer.
Guy Fawkes Day arrived in the American colonies with the first English settlers. Old King James had long been forgotten, but "Trick-or- Treating" was too much fun to give up. Eventually, it moved to the Irish/French Catholic masquerade. This practice of "Trick-or-Treating" was simply moved to coincide with the Catholic celebration involving dressing up. The ancient Druids did contribute the candy, which was used to welcome the good spirits, and masks (jack o'lanterns), which were used to scare away the evil spirits.
Halloween can still serve the purpose of reminding us about Hell and how to avoid it. Halloween is also a day to prepare us to remember those who have gone before us in Faith, those already in Heaven and those still suffering in Purgatory. Halloween is a time to let people know about our Catholic roots and significance. (Fr. Scott Archer)
Catholic parents who are not comfortable with the worst secular aspects of Halloween, which are admittedly increasing, can avail themselves of alternative activities on that day: family prayer and fasting for the Vigil of All Saints Day, visitations of houses in the garments of non-devilish personae, the reading aloud of stories of the Saints or of seasonal literature such as Edgar Allen Poe's The Masque of the Red Death and Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and the playing of seasonal music such as Saint-Saens Danse Macabre, Modest Moussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain, and Sergei Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead.
A word of caution, however. The Church has always condemned as sins against the First Commandment, and thus cautioned her children to stay far away from, astrology, charms, divination, fortune-telling, magic, ouija boards, sorcery, spells, witchcraft, and other occult activities, even if they are treated in a trivial or jesting fashion.
St. Thomas Aquinas says that it is not permitted to Christians even to dabble in such things: "Man has not been entrusted with power over the demons to employ them to whatsoever purpose he will. On the contrary, it is appointed that he should wage war against the demons. Hence, in no way is it lawful for man to make use of the demons' help by compacts -- either tacit or express" (II-II, Q96, Art. 3).
We remember too the the Prayer to St. Michael against Satanam aliosque spiritus malignos qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo [Satan and the other evil spirits who roam in the world for the ruin of souls]. As in all things, parents must be sure to teach their children the proper balance in such matters, erring neither on the side of defect or excess.
Just the day after a Lexington, Kentucky, Novus Ordo Presbyter Prabell "blessed" two homosexual "parents" who had "conceived" a child by in-vitro fertilization, word comes from Portland, Oregon, of another perverted incident.
Portland, Oregon, October 28, 2002 (THE OREGONIAN, Excerpted - Archbishop John Vlazny has reassigned a Catholic priest who resigned as pastor of his Forest Grove parish after blessing the relationship between a married couple and a single woman who were later convicted of sex crimes.
The three adults whose relationship the Rev. Elwin Schwab blessed in January 2001 -- Kimberly Ann Tasa-Ralph, Howell William Marsh and Bonny Marie Marsh -- pleaded guilty in July to sex crimes involving two teenage girls and were sentenced to prison terms ranging from five to 20 years.
The Rev. Elwin Schwab will be assistant pastor at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Roseburg, said Bud Bunce, a spokesman for Vlazny and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland. Bunce said the move was not a demotion, simply a change of assignment.
Schwab said in June that he resigned from St. Anthony Catholic Church to avoid dividing the parish between his backers and opponents. "He's a well-respected priest where he's been in the past," Bunce said. The change has been announced at St. Joseph's. "I've gotten nothing but positive responses," said the Rev. Juniper Schneider, the pastor at St. Joseph. "He'll bring a lot of gifts to our community."
Yeah, gifts like perversion, immorality, and, at the least, bad judgment. Is this archbishop and these presbyters bereft of their senses. In what way can "blessing" a menage a trois be justified as Catholic, or even moral? Any sensible person would realize that this situation would blow up, as it certainly has.
As the days go by, it appears clearer and clearer that, for our testing, Our Lord has seen fit to give us morons as bishops. Perhaps He is trying to incite us to pray for a return of the great bishops of the past: the Ambroses, the Augustines, and the Gregories. It is revealing that these are just the bishops that the New Order disparages.
It seems that the New Order and its bishops have learned nothing from the recent scandals. It has a policy of simply shifting its problems from one place to another. Moreover, it is clear that one way or another the New Order is bound and determined to accept not only "gay marriage" but now even more perverted (if that were possible) menages a trois.
How can the situation be any more clear? No Catholic can have anything to do with such perversity as now exists in the New Order: in its services (which are not Masses), in its Sacraments (which have been so essentially changed as to lead them to invalidity), and in its New Theology (which has split from Catholic and Apostolic teaching).
There is no way that such perversion of the Catholic Faith can be excused or justified. Its error is so obvious that no one with eyes to see and ears to hear can fail to recognize it. Those who participate in it are at least material cooperators in the Great Facade, the Counterfeit Church, as one recent author has put it.
The following story is pretty graphic, so I warn you in advance.
Fremont, California, October 26, 2002 (SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, Excerpted) - Eddie "Gwen" Araujo was the victim of hate, but his death must bring tolerance, mourners said Friday at memorial services from the East Bay to San Francisco for a boy police say was killed for living as a girl.
"Angels don't have a gender, and he's my angel now," Araujo's mother, Sylvia Guerrero, told 750 people who packed ST. EDWARD'S CATHOLIC CHURCH in Newark, Araujo's hometown and where he was killed three weeks ago. "He's safe somewhere where no one can hurt him."
At a wake earlier in Fremont, teary-eyed mourners viewed an open casket, with Araujo as the girl he knew himself to be -- long black hair, butterfly necklace, black blouse, fingerless black lace gloves and metallic nails.
Speakers at the vigil said schools must create a tolerant environment for transgender youth, and urged reporters to refer to Araujo as "she." Three women wore white shirts with Araujo's picture. On the back was emblazoned, "We really love you beneath it all." Other friends held signs reading, "God loves Gwen" and "Love me for who I am, not what I am."
A small group of transgendered activists was welcomed at the funeral, their presence greeted with wild applause a few minutes before the service ended. It was rare, they said, for the transgender community to get this kind of support, and they asked the group not to forget Gwen or other biological men who identified as women.
The Mass was laced with sadness and humor.
This is not a "Roman Catholic Church," and this was not a "Mass." This was a perversion. I'm not condoning murder, but this church in the Diocese of Oakland, California, is murdering souls by allowing immorality and perversion to exist within its walls.
Here was an individual, troubled as all individuals are with one sin or another, for that is the state of humanity. But this individual did not seek refuge in the advice and solace of the Sacrament of Penance, but flaunted his perversion to the extent of even being displayed in his perversion in his coffin. So he will be going into eternity in that garb. The true Requiem Mass sings: In Paradisum deducant te Angeli; suscipiant te Martyres [May the Angels lead thee into Paradise; may the Martyrs take the up]. Can you image the Angels and the Martyrs greeting such a thing?
Certainly no one condones murder, nor can we judge the internal state of soul of the individual. But we can certainly judge the external actions of the individual as immoral. Civil law cannot supersede Divine Law. Violation of Divine Law has its consequences. When this individual chose to flaunt his perversion at a high-school dance, one can only imagine the righteous indignation of the other students at having their dance "crashed" by such as this, and, sadly, such indignation sometimes spills over into violence.
We know that there is much perversion in the world that is now being publicly flaunted. What is even worse is that the Church of the New Order should allow such a thing and desecrate its own walls and its own service with a pandering to perversion.
I say it again. How can the situation be any more clear? No Catholic can have anything to do with such perversity as now exists in the New Order: in its services (which are not Masses), in its Sacraments (which have been so essentially changed as to lead them to invalidity), and in its New Theology (which has split from Catholic and Apostolic teaching).
There is no way that such perversion of the Catholic Faith can be excused or justified. Its error is so obvious that no one with eyes to see and ears to hear can fail to recognize it. Those who participate in it are at least material cooperators in the Great Facade, the Counterfeit Church, as one recent author has put it.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Last night I heard a news broadcast on the radio reporting that the "children" of a homosexual couple (two men) had been baptized by a Catholic priest somewhere in Kentucky. Apparently, the infants were the product of an in-vitro fertilization. Personally, I do not see how a Catholic priest could agree to do this.
Fr. Moderator Replies:
First of all, a "Catholic priest" didn't do it. Nor has this anything to do with the Roman Catholic Church, no matter what the sign on the door says. We must deal with reality, not propaganda. This scandal was committed a presbyter of the Church of the New Order.
LEXINGTON, Ky., October 27, 2002 (AP) - A gay couple who became parents of quadruplets after enlisting the help of a surrogate mother had their 3-month-old children baptized Saturday in a Roman Catholic Church. Father Paul Prabell blessed the men, Thomas Dysarz and Michael Meehan, and baptized their daughter and three sons at Lexington's Cathedral of Christ the King. "This is what Christ would do," said Meehan, the quadruplets' biological father. The babies "are God's children. That's how the church should view it." Prabell said no one had objected to the christening, although he expects that "some people would feel that the christening would be an endorsement of homosexuality and surrogate parenting."
Of course, this is an endorsement of homosexuality and surrogate parenting, the practice of which are both perversions contrary not just to the Roman Catholic Faith but to the Natural Law. This presbyter should not have baptized a child whose parents (?) will not raise it in the true Faith. These man are obviously committing this action as an in-your-face tactic of the gay lobby; otherwise, why was the press attending a simple baptism? Moreover, no "blessing" is given to anyone at a Baptism, let alone those living in public sin. This presbyter is over the edge of any form of the Catholic faith, even for the Novus Ordo.
This New Order presbyter did a lousy job of catechizing these people. This is most definitely not what Christ would do. No only does He, through the mouth of His Apostle, damn homosexual acts as pagan and death-dealing to the soul, but also He Himself in confronting a woman caught in a perverse sexual act tells her to: "Go, and now sin no more" (John 8:11/DRV).
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I have an unpleasant situation. Right now I live in Lisbon, Portugal, and there is only one traditional chapel here. The chapel is located in a bad neighborhood where there are some people throwing big stones at the worshippers who attempt to approach the chapel. The police are not that efficient here.
Fr. Moderator Replies:
All traditional Catholics who complain about minor inconveniences in attending Holy Mass: a little longer drive, a little less convenience, etc., should pay attention to this man's plight. He has to endure physical risk to assist at Holy Mass.
In the end, if you have a traditional Mass site and a priest who preaches the traditional Roman Catholic Faith to you, celebrates the Traditional Latin Mass for you, and administers the traditional Sacraments to you, support that site, help the site, be loyal to that site, pray for that site. You have a very special gift for which hundreds of thousands of traditional Catholics around the world are praying ceaselessly. You won't know what you had until you lose it.
At traditional churches and chapels today, after Holy Mass and before the Most Blessed Sacrament Exposed, the faithful will be obedient to the pope in reciting the Act of the Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in its unadulterated form, ordered by Pope Pius XI in his Encyclical Letter Quas primas of December 11, 1925. To this prayer before the Most Blessed Sacrament Exposed is to be added the Litany of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Iesu dulcissime, Redemptor humani generis, respice nos ad altare tuum humillime provolutos. Tui sumus, tui esse volumus; quo autem tibi coniuncti firmius esse possimus, en hodie sacratissimo Cordi tuo se quisque nostrum sponte dedicat. Te quidem multi novere nunquam; te, spretis mandatis tuis, multi repudiarunt. Miserere utrorumque, benignissime Iesu, atque ad sanctum Cor tuum rape universos. Rex esto, Domine, nec fidelium tantum qui nullo tempore discessere a te, sed etiam prodignorum filiorum qui te reliquerunt: fac hos, ut domum paternam cito repetant, ne miseria et fame pereant. Rex esto eorum, quos aut opinionum error deceptos habet, aut discordia separatos, eosque ad protum veritatis atque ad unitatem fidei revoca, ut brevi fiat unum ovile et unus pastor. Rex esto eorum omnium, qui in tenebris idolatriae aut islamismi adhuc versantur, eosque in lumen regnumque tuum vindicare ne renuas. Respice denique misericordiae oculis illius gentis filios, quae tamdiu populus electus fuit: et Sanguis, qui olim super eos invocatus est, nunc in illos quoque redemptionis vitaeque lavacrum descendat. Largire, Domine, Ecclesiae tuae securam cum incolumitate libertatem; largire cunctis gentibus tranquillitatem ordinis; perfice, ut ab utroque terrae vertice una resonet vox: Sit laus divino Cordi, per quod nobis parta salus: ipsi gloria et honor in saecula. Amen.
Most sweet Jesus, Redeemer of the human race, look down upon us humbly prostrate in Thy presence. We are Thine, and Thine we wish to be; but to be more surely united with Thee, behold, each one of us freely consecrates himself today to Thy most Sacred Heart. Many indeed have never known Thee; many too, despising Thy precepts, have rejected Thee. Have mercy on them all, most merciful Jesus, and draw them to Thy Sacred Heart. Be Thou King, O Lord, not only of the faithful who have never forsaken Thee, but also of the prodigal children who have abandoned Thee; grant that they may quickly return to their Father's house lest they die of wretchedness and hunger. Be Thou King of those who are deceived by erroneous opinion, or whom discord keeps aloof, and call them back to the harbor of truth and the unity of faith, so that soon there may be but one flock and one Shepherd. Be Thou King of all those who are still involved in the darkness of idolatry or of Islamism, and refuse not to draw them all into the light and kingdom of God. Turn Thine eyes of mercy towards the children of that race, once Thy chosen people. Of old, they called down upon themselves the Blood of the Savior; may It now descend upon them as a laver of redemption and of life. Grant, O Lord, to Thy Church assurance of freedom and immunity from harm; give peace and order to all nations, and make the earth resound from pole to pole with one cry: Praise be to the Divine Heart that wrought our salvation; to It be glory and honor forever. Amen.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I am a former Protestant pastor who converted to [Novus Ordo] Catholicism about six years ago. I am married with children. Recently I have felt the Lord calling me to pursue the priesthood. I have already spoken with my bishop, and he has given his permission for me to do this.
Fr. Moderator Replies:
Yesterday priestesses and now married presbyters! Does the Novus Ordo apparatus strike you as a ship out of control? Its bishops deliberately misleading poor souls into believing that they can be married priests? Considering all of the other deceptions that the New Order has perpetrated, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised, but where is that vaunted "love of Vatican II"? Well, I guess, if the "spirit" moves.... But what Pope Paul VI said about Vatican II is becoming more and more obvious: the spirit that moves the New Order is not the one above the earth, but the one under it.
It is interesting too that the "conservative" Novus Ordinarians are finding themselves more and more caught in a bind of error and are lashing out more and more against traditional Catholics than they are against the New Order that is the cause of their problems. Well, what choice do they have if they have put the person of the pope up on a pedastal like God to be worshipped (papolatry)?
We are gradually moving to what will be, I think, an explosive resolution of the test the Church has been experiencing these last forty years. More and more Catholics, including "conservative" ones who formerly were content to put up with the Novus Ordo, are jumping ship. Now that the Counterfeit Service that is not a Mass has not stabilized, but gotten far worse. Now that Ratzinger and the American bishops say that Jews don't need Christ, so the Pharisees were right all along. Now that the American bishops prohibit obedience to the Sacred Scripture since Novus Ordinarians can't kneel to receive their purported Sacrament. Now that even the pope dares to take on the Most Holy Rosary of Our Lady.
Novus Ordinarians really can't plead ignorance or "obedience" any longer. The situation is just too clear to be honestly denied. Traditional Catholics must tell the unadulterated truth about the Great Facade. We're well beyond petitions and faxes and "indults" and compromises with corrupt prelates in the Church of the New Order. We must stand with Our Lord, Who told the truth -- and let the chips fall where they might.
We warned of it here, and it has happened, not the first time to be sure. Two Novus Ordo bishops "ordained" seven priestesses.
CLEVELAND, October 23, 2002 (Associated Press). A former Ohio first lady revealed Tuesday that she was secretly ordained as a [purported] Roman Catholic priest earlier this year and then excommunicated by the Church. Dagmar Braun Celeste, ex-wife of former Gov. Richard Celeste, said she was the only American among seven women who were ordained as priests by Bishops Romolo Braschi of Argentina and Rafael Regelsberger of Austria on June 29 in a ceremony on a boat on the Danube River between Germany and Austria. The church excommunicated the women August 5 after warning them that they must renounce their posts by July 22.
The rest of the AP article gave an incorrect impression of the situation. These women were never ordained, and whether they were formally "excommunicated" or not makes no difference. They were excommunicated for the sacrilege of being party to the simulation of a sacrament.
Women can never validly be priests -- period. That is a matter of Divine Positive Law, which not even a pope can change. In fact, John Paul II specifically confirmed this matter of the Faith, some say infallibly, because he was simply confirming Divine Positive Law on the matter. Even if, for some strange reason, the excommunications were to be lifted, these women still aren't priests.
The more interesting question is: why were the two bishops not excommunicated? Is invalidly and sacrilegiously consecrating seven priestesses less "excommunicable" with the Modern Vatican than validly consecrating four bishops (as Abp. Lefebvre did)? Moreover, "priestess Dagmar" is a divorcee to boot, although the article did not mention whether she is an adulteress as well (if she remarried).
Now it will be all too easy for the Conservative Novus Ordinarians to poo-poo all of this and say, "Weren't they excommunicated? All is in order in the Vatican." Don't you believe it! The fact that the Modern Vatican didn't excommunicate the two bishops is highly significant. It can illegally "excommunicate" a traditional bishop, but it can't legally excommunicate a Modernist bishop.
This is just the beginning of the injection of invalid priestesses into the Church of the New Order, which already has highly dubious presbyters. There is even an organization to promote "Roman Catholic priestess ordinations" called the Women's Ordination Conference. Undoubtedly, there will soon be Novus Ordo presbyteresses, in just the same was as the Church of the New Order accepted "communion" in the hand and altar "girls."
None of this is Catholic, of course. See how Cardinal Newman describes the Blessed Virgin Mary's role, which is so adverse to these New Order attitudes:
You know, when first He went out to preach, she kept apart from Him, she interfered not with His work; and even when He was gone up on high, yet she, a woman, went not out to preach or teach, she seated not herself in the Apostolic chair, she took no part in the priests' office; she did but humbly seek her Son in the daily Mass of those, who, though her ministers in heaven, were her superiors in the Church on earth.
Pretty soon the Novus Ordinarians won't even be Christian any more, but initiates into some New Age religion (as if they already aren't).
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I was recently informed by a friend, who travels extensively in Asia, that a traditional Roman Catholic priest in China was undergoing severe torture by the Chinese government. The following information may sicken some of your readers, but the truth must be told.
A certain traditional priest, of Chinese ancestry, was being tortured within in millimetre of his life. He pleaded with the soldiers to kill him. They refused and tried to force him to [excised here is an act of such vile sacrilege that I decline to reproduce it here].
The traditional priests in China and other Communist countries have the character and integrity that is so lacking in this country, as the West has become soft and complacent. I would gladly send the Novus Ordo pretenders over to Peking for a taste of their own medicine. Let them see what kind of diabolical creatures the Vatican has decided to play footsy with for the last 45 years.
Fr. Moderator Replies:
It was after the death of Pope Pius XII that the Vatican started playing Ostpolitik with the Communists. Pope John XXIII supposedly promised the Soviet Dictatorship that the immorality of Communism would not be mentioned at Vatican II -- and it wasn't.
Valiant Pope Pius XII is now criticized for allegedly remaining silent on National Socialism. Yet, the current pope in his time doesn't raise his voice against Chinese Communists who brutalize and murder priests and nuns in the public square in front of the international press. Yet this is the same pope who raises his voice in support of murderous Mohammedans against the United States, which is the only government in the world trying to do anything about them.
The worm has turned -- that's for sure.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
The discovery of an ossuary inscribed "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus," brings up the old question about Jesus' brothers. What are the facts here?
Fr. Moderator Replies:
Some try to allege, erroneously, that Christ had natural brothers, in an attempt to contradict the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This error on their part arises from their ignorance about the vocabulary used in the New Testament.
The word used in St. Mark 6:3 for "brethren" is adelphoi (Latin Vulgate: fratres). There is no question that in Greek, both classical Greek and Koine (biblical) Greek, adelphos (plural: adelphoi) can mean either a natural brother, or a relative but not a natural brother, or even a spiritual brother (as Christians among themselves).
It is known from St. John's Gospel (19:25) that James and Joseph, mentioned in the quoted passage from St. Mark as adelphoi of Christ, were not natural brothers of Christ, but rather cousins. That is just one proof that adelphos cannot be taken invariably as meaning "natural brother" -- and certainly not in this context.
In Hebrew, cousins of the first and second order were called ab (brother) and aboth (sister), so that Christ was said to have many brothers and sisters, although in the strict sense, he had none.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I take TaeKwon Do and am starting to go to competitions. Some of these competitions allow hitting in the face without any boxing gloves on. This seems a little brutal to me, and I am wondering whether God would not be displeased if I took part in the ones that allow hits to the face. If we wore boxing gloves, it would seem okay, but without them I do not know. What do you think?
Fr. Moderator Replies:
It depends upon what the purpose is. If the hitting is not intended to do harm, but is merely a little slap, just part of the physical exercise of the sport, that is one thing. Activities like prize-fighting, with or without gloves, are another matter, and have been condemned by popes, as the purpose of the hitting is to hurt the other opponent, to knock him senseless, or to hurt him to the point that he cannot fight on. That is sinful against the Fifth Commandment of God.
One could make the same argument about certain other sports today, particularly football in the United States and soccer in European countries, ice hockey, etc. It can hardly be denied that in more recent decades that the deliberate violence of these sports in the "professional" (that is, for money) setting has increased markedly, so that no player escapes after a short career without major injury, surgical operations, etc. Frankly, these activities are no better than modern gladiatorial combat and by supporting them and watching them, we are accessories to the violence and injury.
In fact, one of the aspects of the godlessness in modern society, as of our Roman predecessors, is the violence of our "sports," which the spectators encourage explicitly and implicitly, and the degree to which we place the God of Sport ahead of the Lord God Himself. I personally know of "Catholics" who stop worshipping God when Sunday football starts. I certainly hope that Satan will provide them with televisions in Hell, because God will not acknowledge them.
In driving to Holy Mass before 8:00 on a Sunday morning, I see the stadium parking lots already full, when the "game" doesn't even start until 1 p.m. How many of these people will blithely exempt themselves from their obligation to God that Sunday? This country has no right to sing God Bless America when we don't put God first, but only for a short time after buildings are divebombed, and we need Him all of a sudden, then forget Him once again. Is it possible that the Infidel has been unleashed upon us as a trial of our faith because we in the United States and Europe have turned our back on Him?
Next time we do an examination of conscience before Confession, let us pause at the First Commandment: "I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not have strange Gods before Me." Have we placed the God of Sport, particularly the God of Violent Sport before the Lord God, particularly on His day, when we could rather have spent the time in assisting at Holy Mass, engaging in forms of spiritual and intellectual enrichment, and in participating in suitable recreational activities?
We have received the encouraging news that the Society of St. Pius X has replaced the individual who has served as U.S. director for last 12 years, returned him to the land from which he came, and designated a new director.
TRADITIO sincerely hopes that this changing of the guard signifies a positive turn of events within the SSPX in the United States. It is certainly no secret that the previous directorate had turned into mini-dictatorship, which had become at best an embarrassment and at worst a trial for many fine SSPXers and their local priests, as well as the more discerning of the SSPX bishops, who had little or no power over the directorate.
TRADITIO has received literally hundreds of messages and letters from SSPX laymen and priests decrying in hundreds of documented cases the directorate's use of subversion against the movement, lack of Catholic charity to those within and without the Society, efforts at suzerainty over the movement, and bitter hostility toward fellow traditional Catholics not under its control.
Perhaps the youth of the directorate is an excusing factor, but then one must question the judgment of the international leadership of the SSPX, which appointed an individual to a position for which he was unqualified by temperament and experience and allowed him to remain in that position for an imprudent 12 years.
Such unconscionable behavior besmirched the good reputation of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the SSPX, who, in addition to his qualities of courage and fidelity in the faith, has been described by all who knew him as a gentleman in dealing with everyone with whom he came in contact, even those attempting to help him. The previous directorate seemed more interested in having a barroom brawl with everyone outside the SSPX, as well as many within the SSPX, both priests and laymen.
With the help of our correspondents within the SSPX, TRADITIO will monitor the new directorate and report to you in updates. We pray that the new directorate will conduct itself in a more moral and Christian fashion than the previous regime. Quod Deus effecit.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Card. Ratzinger was recently interviewed by a German journalist in conjunction with his new book God and the World. I have listed the Cardinal's responses on two questions posed by the journalist below. I would like your comments on them.
Question: Should the Masses be said again in Latin?
"That is no longer going to be possible as a general practice, and perhaps is not desirable as such," the Cardinal is quoted as saying. Further, "At least it is clear, I would say, that the Liturgy of the Word should be in the people's mother tongue. But otherwise I would be in favor of a new openness toward the use of Latin."
Question: Communion in the hand, or directly in the mouth?
"I wouldn't want to be fussy about it," responded Cardinal Ratzinger. "It was done in the early Church [in gloved hands, but was already condemned by Popes and Councils since the 3rd century because of intrinsic irreverence]. A reverent manner of receiving Communion in the hand is in itself a perfectly reasonable way to receive Communion."
So I guess the good Cardinal believes that Latin is no longer the official language of the Church (or should I say Newchurch), and it is really only a matter of fussiness to demand respect and adoration of the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Thanks for being such a good devoted priest and for the true Faith you exhibit.
Fr. Moderator Replies:
My comment is that Card. Ratzinger was long ago, as now, clearly exposed for the Modernist he is. Far from being the traditional cardinal that the Fraternity of St. Peter has tried to characterize him as, it becomes clearer and clearer that this man is, and always has been, a virulent Modernist, most recently positing the heretical position that Christ did not come as the Savior for the Jews, only the Gentiles.
At Vatican II then Fr. Ratzinger originated, in conjunction with a Protestant minister, the ambiguous statement included in the Constitution on the Church, which took a major step away from the dogma that the Catholic Church is the one, true Church. Now he wants to use the vulgar tongues in sacred worship and defile the Blessed Sacrament in filthy hands. (Remember that at the recent U.S. Bishops Conference, the cameras caught several bishops picking their noses and scratching their glutei maximi just before receiving "the bread.")
Frankly, I think that the man says these things to sell his books. In fact, he is writing so many books lately that there is no secret why the Doctrine of the Faith Congregation that he heads has fallen on very sad times. In fact, the only time he speaks at all traditionally is when he has a book to sell.
His Modernistic comments are usually reserved for the European press, where the more conservative Americans are not as likely to see them. Either that, or he is trying to play both ends against the middle in a personal bid for the papacy. My own opinion is that there's not a snowball's chance in Hell of that. Inside the Vatican, they know that he can't be trusted.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I go to a Traditional Latin Mass, and sometimes the priest and some of the congregation will say "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," and others "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" when they begin and end a prayer. I've been told they mean the same. I thought that traditionally you would use Holy Ghost. Do they mean the same when beginning and ending a prayer?
Fr. Moderator Replies:
In English, Holy Ghost is the more traditional term, as it refers exclusively to the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity. Holy Spirit, though correct in itself, has led to Spirit, then spirit, then the spirit of Vatican II (which Pope Paul VI called the Devil). Better to stick to the traditional Holy Ghost, which derives from the German geist (spirit). Frankly, I'm surprised that they are not all using In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. That avoids the translation problem entirely!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Who is Fr. Gommar DePauw?
Fr. Moderator Replies:
Fr. DePauw was the first pioneer of the Traditional Catholic Movement. He was a professor of canon law at Mount Saint Mary's Seminary, the seminary of the United States' premier see, that of Baltimore. In 1963 he was scandalized by the promulgation of Vatican II's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy and saw, before practically anyone else, clergy or lay, the devastation that this document would reek upon the Church.
Setting an example for us all, Fr. DePauw did not excuse himself by "obedience" to a bishop, but immediately stood with St. Peter and St. Paul in obeying God first. He actually locked himself in his room and would not leave, ignoring even the Cardinal Archbishop of Baltimore, Lawrence Shehen, who pounded on the locked door and demanded that he come out. Fr. DePauw refused to accommodate the changes and said his daily Mass per usuale at a side altar in the back of the chapel.
In 1964 he left his professorship and began saying a public Traditional Latin Mass in the Pan American Building in New York, when the first group of changes to the Traditional Latin Mass were imposed by the Novus Ordo. Eventually, he purchased a beautiful Gothic-style chapel in Westbury, Long Island, where since the 1970s he has continued to offer the Traditional Latin Mass exclusively and has continued to be an outspoken critic of the Novus Ordo.
I remember attending in the mid 1970s a packed traditional Good Friday liturgy in that chapel. There were so many people attending that televisions had to be placed outside for the overflow crowds. During the traditional Holy Saturday liturgy, Fr. DePauw himself chanted the Easter Proclamation, the Exsultet, one of the most difficult and beautiful pieces of Gregorian chant in the Church's treasury.
It was due to him originally that the theological information about the Solemn Papal Bull Quo Primum was brought out, in a series of publications entitled Sounds of Truth and Tradition, the only traditional periodical in print at that time. In those dark initial days of the New Order, Fr. DePauw was an inspiration for courage in the Faith, perhaps the only well-known one.
While other priests and laymen pandered to the New Order, Fr. DePauw called the Innovators publicly exactly what they were: LITURGIACS! and OECUMENIACS!, a word that he himself coined. For many years the Traditional Latin Mass was broadcast on many radio stations around the United States from a tape he once recorded of a Marian Mass at his chapel.
Fr. DePauw is getting up in years: he is 86 now, and I understand that he has suffered several heart attacks, but still continues to say the Traditional Latin Mass that he has preserved and protected these forty years, true to St. Peter's command: "We ought to obey God rather than man" (Acts of the Apostles, 5:29/DRV).
I heard from a usually reliable source that Pope John Paul I had summoned Fr. DePauw to Rome in 1978 to work on a Vatican Commission to restore the Traditional Latin Mass to the Church. Unfortunately, that pope died (or was assassinated) before the Commission could be assembled. If this report is true, the Church might be in a quite different situation today. It might actually be Roman Catholic, with popes and bishops who are worthy of their office. Surely, no bishop or cardinal, or even pope, would have intimidated Fr. DePauw where the truth of the Mass, the Sacraments, and the Roman Catholic Faith were concerned!
What I do know is that the ingratitude to such pioneers of the Traditional Catholic Movement as Fr. DePauw is shameful. This priest of God courageously stood up for traditional Catholics long before Abp. Lefebvre and the Society of St. Pius X, even longer before the "indult" societies such as that of St. Peter and Christ the King. Without Fr. DePauw, these groups would not exist today, I have no doubt.
And yet I have never read one word from the SSPX or the FSSP or any other such group in recognition and gratitude for what Fr. DePauw did for all of us in those dark days. Perhaps it is ignorance, but I suspect that it is discrimination because Fr. DePauw courageously decided to work independently of the Modernist bishop of the place. What else could he do and remain true to his priestly oath? And to Fr. DePauw, as to Abp. Lefebvre, his oath to God came before everything, even popes and bishops.
I will publicly thank Fr. DePauw for all of us traditional Catholics, who lived through those dark days of confusion starring the Bugninis and the Paul VIs. For many, many years there was only one loud, uncompromising, independent voice for Traditional Roman Catholicism -- and that was Fr. Gommar A. DePauw. God bless him and keep him. Ad multos annos.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I was wondering if you knew the meaning of St. Paul's Epistle to the Colossians (4:6): "let your speech be always in all grace seasoned with salt." I am not sure what the "seasoned with salt" means. Does it have something to do with the sting of truth? Could you shed some light on this?
Fr. Moderator Replies:
Salt is symbolic of wisdom (its savor) and preservation from corruption (as for meat or mummies). It is used in the former sense in the Sacrament of Baptism, when salt is placed on the tongue of the baptizand, and in the latter sense in the blessing of Holy Water before Mass, when the salt is exorcised and blessed.
John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), an Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism, was created a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII, and was highly praised by Pope St. Pius X, was probably the most brilliant Catholic writer of the 19th century. His defense of his conversion, Apologia pro Vita Sua, is a classic, and his Idea of a University proposes a broad-minded view of education based on the classical model in opposition to some narrow-minded ecclesiastics. God willing, one day he will be recognized as a Doctor of the Church.
Newman came into direct confrontation with Modernism, which was known as Liberalism in his time. His writings against this "sum of all heresies," as Pope St. Pius X put it, condemned in Pope Pius IX's Syllabus of Errors, are clear and prescient. He saw in the middle of the 19th century that the Church would be submerged in this heresy, as indeed she is in this Vatican II period.
Here is Newman's description of the errors of Liberalism (Modernism), delivered in his bigletto speech of 1879, when he received the cardinal's hat. As you read it, reflect upon how his words describe exactly the environment that has taken over the world today, 125 years later:
To one great mischief I have from the first opposed myself. For thirty, forty, fifty years, I have resisted to the best of my power the spirit of liberalism in religion. Never did Holy Church need champions against it more sorely than now, when, alas, it is an error overspreading as a snare the whole earth.
Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another, and this is the teaching which is gaining substance and force daily. It is inconsistent with any recognition of religion as true. It teaches that all are to be tolerated, for all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not miraculous; and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy. Devotion is not necessarily founded on faith.
Men may go to Protestant Churches and to Catholic, may get good from both and belong to neither. They may fraternise together in spiritual thoughts and feelings, without having any views at all of doctrines in common, or seeing the need of them. Since, then religion is so personal a peculiarity and so private a possession, we must of necessity ignore it in the intercourse of man with man. If a man puts on a new religion every morning, what is that to you? It is as impertinent to think about a man's religion as about his sources of income or his management of his family. Religion is in no sense the bond of society.
And what did Newman foresee as the antidote to Modernism in the Church? Could it be that, 125 years ago, he foresaw the Traditional Catholic Movement in the following statement:
I have all that time thought that a time of widespread infidelity was coming, and through all those [50] years the waters have in fact been rising as a deluge. I look for the time, after my life, when only the tops of the mountains will be seen like islands in the waste of waters.
Could the "tops of the mountains" that Cardinal Newman saw be the saving outposts of Traditional Roman Catholicism around the world, and could the "waste of waters" be the soul-destroying flood of the New Order?
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Our traditional site is served by a traditional priestly organization. Over the years we have seen priests stationed here defect from this particular "indult" organization. We are facing losing our current priests and may soon be without the traditional Mass and Sacraments. What can we laymen do?
Fr. Moderator Replies:
It sounds like the local congregation needs to be very supportive of your priest, praying for him (and letting him know that you are doing so), helping him, and befriending him. Priests need support and friends too! Even if he leaves the "indult" organization (as more and more will after the Novus-Ordoizing Protocol 1411 of 1999), he may then stay on independently to serve you, as the congregation and he have established a strong spiritual connection.
It is surprising how many congregations take their priests for granted and act very standoffish, not offering to help, not responding positively when asked for assistance. Perhaps this priest isn't particularly convinced that your congregation cares very much about your traditional Mass, Sacraments, and Faith and that serving another congregation would bear more fruit. Prove him wrong!
In the end, if you have a priest who preaches the traditional Roman Catholic Faith, celebrates the Traditional Latin Mass, and administers the traditional Sacraments, support him, help him, be loyal to him, pray for him. You have a very special gift for which hundreds of thousands of traditional Catholics around the world are praying ceaselessly. You won't know what you had until you lose him.
The Vatican has to be castigated so often for its imprudent and erroneous actions that every once in a while it is only fair to praise a correct decision.
Catholic World News reports that on October 18, the Vatican will reject the sex-abuse policy adopted by the U.S. bishops at their June meeting in Dallas. Roman canonists viewed the American bishops' policy as defective because the proposed norms did not provide due-process safeguards for priests who are accused of sexual misconduct and because the Dallas policy used a vague and imprecise definition of sexual abuse. Numerous American priests have complained that they have been falsely accused or denied an adequate opportunity to prove their innocence after being hit with sex-abuse charges.
Let's face it. The incompetent U.S. bishops were caught with their pants down (some of them literally so). Having sharpened their teeth by forcing a counterfeit New Order on large parts of the United States by lies and trickery, they proceeded to lie to conceal their malfeasance in handling internal disciplinary matters. Instead of acting like men with some guts, when exposed (some of them literally), they refused to take responsibility, but tried to shift it onto their brother presbyters, even when innocent.
TRADITIO supported these innocent presbyters when they fought against their corrupt bishops and stood against the media witch-hunt. And where were their bishops -- taking responsibility and defending their presbyters? No, they were having a tea-party with the pope in the Vatican library! When these bishops were caught with their pants down, they very quickly forgot their attachment to "due process" for their own presbyters.
TRADITIO predicted at the beginning of the "scandal" that between the victims and innocent presbyters, the financial basis of the dioceses in the U.S. would evaporate. Perhaps this is how the New Order will fall -- not with a doctrinal bang, but with a financial whimper. Stay tuned: God will not be mocked.
Under today's date, the present pope has, as previously predicted here, proceeded with the issuance of an Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae that purports to modify the traditional Rosary by adding another 50 Aves and another 5 "Mysteries of Light."
One thing that is curious perhaps, but which has many times been warned of here on TRADITIO, is that the vernacular English version of the official Latin text does not accurately reflect the original. In one case, Wednesday is confused with Thursday. In other places, the Latin original is worse than the English version. For example:
So, the Modern Vatican wants to tamper with the Most Holy Rosary which saved western civilization against the incursion of the Infidels at the Battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571, and on account of which Pope St. Pius V established the Feast of the Most Holy Rosary for the Universal Church on October 7 each year following. It has already been pointed out that the "Mysteries of Light" has an ambiguous meaning, reminding one in the Modernist context of the Illuminati, or core Freemasons, whose image of "Enlightenment" provided the term for the anti-Catholic period following the Renaissance, leading at last to the anti-clerical, fanatical French Revolution.
The Novus Ordo apparatus just can't seem to leave anything of the traditional Faith alone. It shows a very confused and misdirected pope who would, in the middle of the most confused period in the Church, attempt to change yet another traditional practice. Let this be a warning to all you Novus Ordinarians that the Church of the New Order will never stop changing and reinventing the Catholic Faith. You'd better jump ship now and get to a traditional Mass site before you're drowned in the confusion of the Counterfeit Church.
As for you traditional Catholics, as one correspondent pointed out here, the Novus Ordinarians are becoming less and less familiar with the Holy Rosary, so it is up to traditional Catholics to retain the Roman Catholic Church's traditional Rosary with 15 mysteries and 150 Aves, not 20 and 200!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I am sad to report that a vindictive presbyter has removed the Latin Mass of Paul VI from [name of church]. I am a member of a world-renowned choir that sings plainsong and sacred polyphony around the world, but calls this church home.
The presbyter, without consultation of the choir director and against the wishes of the parish council and the congregation, has ordered the 7:30 p.m. Saturday "Vigil Mass," traditionally in Latin with plainsong and sacred polyphony, to become an English service, with the (at least) horrible and (at worst) heretical music of Catholic Press to be sung. This situation was announced at the service, without the knowledge of the choir or anyone else, and caused great shock and dismay.
Fr. Moderator Replies:
Although I know of your fine work in the Sacred Chant and Polyphony -- a Catholic treasury of which the New Order has made sure to deprive diocesan churches --, you are playing with fire when you attempt to work within the Novus Ordo structure. The sudden shutdown is totally characteristic of the fanatical Counterfeit Church of the New Order and has occurred many times all over the United States. You will never have any stability under that arrangement.
You probably think that if you do a good work with the traditional music of the Church, that will lead to stability and recognition. Just the opposite is true: the New Order doesn't want you to succeed. Appeals to the hierarchs are fruitless. If they should happen to give in because of temporary pressure, you will shortly face the same thing again very soon, and then you'll be out on your ear for good because you presumed to challenge the Almighty Diocesan Bishop! Just look at recent events in the Novus Ordo apparatus. Have the diocesan bishops reflected fairness, moral behavior, and Catholicity. Not!
You mention concern about an heretical Novus Ordo hymnal, but you overlook the heretical atmosphere of the Novus Ordo service. Even in Latin, it is still the Novus Ordo service, not the Holy Mass of the Roman Catholic Church. Sometimes Latin is used in the Novus Ordo (as on the EWTN cable channel) to confuse the faithful, who are led to believe that it is the Roman Catholic Mass. It is not. Whether in Latin or one of the vulgar tongues, it is still the Protestantized worship service fabricated by a Freemason archbishop and six Protestant ministers. In the Novus Ordo Missal, it was not even defined as a Mass, but as a "Prayer Meeting."
Furthermore, I notice from your message that you were singing for one of those conciliar Saturday "Vigil" services, so from the beginning you were not even allowed to sing for the Lord's Day, but forced into a unCatholic corruption of the day of Our Lord's Resurrection (Sunday) back into the Hebrew Sabbath (Saturday).
I truly hope that you find another location where you can sing for the true Traditional Latin Mass. I notice in the Official Catholic Directory of Traditional Latin Masses for the United States and Canada and Resource Book, 7th Edition (2002) that there is an independent site in your area. I suspect that those traditional Catholics will welcome your musical contributions, which are so despised by the diocesan personnel of the Counterfeit Church of the New Order.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
My daughter is going to be in a Irish Dance on stage this weekend. One of the Protestant ladies in the group has said that before they go on stage they will all hold hands and say a prayer. My daughter said that she would make the Sign of the Cross, but feels uncomfortable if she didn't hold hands. As a Roman Catholic, I don't think she should hold hands and pray with the Protestants. Isn't that showing approval of the way they believe? How could we handle this situation charitably?
Fr. Moderator Replies:
So now the Catholic Irish are reduced to Protestantism, or perhaps this is a Northern Irish dance group? Aren't we supposed to have freedom of religion in this country? You need to teach your daughter how important it is to stand up for her religion and her American rights instead of being concerned about some wrong-headed notion of "charity." After all, isn't New Order Charity now supposed to include acceptance of other religions, other gods? Well, they can jolly well accept her God -- the God.
My suggestion is that when the prayer begins, your daughter stop holding hands and make the Sign of the Cross or just fold her hands in prayer until the prayer ends. If the purpose of this exercise is prayer, then how could she be faulted -- in charity -- for doing that?
Protestants must have sung as low as Novus Ordinarians. The hand-holding thing is pretty silly. It is more reminiscent of playing ring-around-the-rosy like a child than worshipping the Lord God of Heaven and Earth like an adult.
Let us not think that it is only a few traditional voices in the United States that have spoken out against the unCatholic actions of the current pope. More and more voices in Europe are being raised to call a spade a spade.
The current pope's "apology" for the Holy Crusades was recently attacked by the Italian author Oriana Fallaci in a stinging public rebuke. It seems that this pope cannot stop casting aspersions on his predecessor popes and apologizing for the history of Holy Mother Church, which created western civilization as the successor to the Romans. Without her we would not have the wisdom of antiquity, nor science, nor technology, nor music, nor art, nor architecture, nor literature.
The Holy Crusades did much good in beating back the numerous incursions of the Infidel into the Holy Land and then into all of Europe for that matter. Without the Church we would indeed all be speaking Arabic now and worshipping Allah. For further information on the facts on the Holy Crusades, see the TRADITIO Library of Files for the article "Crusades" in How Do You Explain These Traditional Catholic Beliefs?
RU reports that we are currently seeing another such incursion, this time being engineered by a "migration of peoples." This situation is already producing hostilities in the United Kingdom, France, and elsewhere, which are frequently covered up by the mass media for "political correctness." If the present 6.5% per annum migration of the Mohammedans into Europe continues, by the year 2014 Mohammedanism will become the second-largest religion in Europe, after nominal Catholicism of the New Order, but before Protestantism, Judaism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. Mohammedanism is already becoming the largest religion in the world, outstripping Catholicism.
Is this pope, who personally approved the building of the first Mosque in the Eternal City and stooped to kiss the blasphemous Koran, ignorant of Church history, or does he care only what happens in Poland? God give us a Roman Catholic pope again!
PARIS, October 14, 2002 (RU Press Agency, Excerpted) -- The following public letter of the Italian writer Oriana Fallaci to the Holy Father just arrived at the Vatican. Here are excerpts from the text.
"Your Holiness, please permit me a question: is it true that some time ago, You would have asked to Allah's sons to forgive you the Crusades, which were launched by your predecessors to recover the Holy Sepulcher? Yes, it is true.
"But did Allah's sons ask You pardon for having taken the Holy Sepulcher? Did they ask you pardon for having put under their yoke and during nearly eight centuries the very Catholic Iberian peninsula, that is, all of Portugal and three-quarters of Spain, so that if in 1490 Isabella of Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon had not chased them out of the country, today in Spain and Portugal one would speak Arabic?
"This issue triggers my curiosity, because to me they never asked for pardon for crimes committed until the dawn of the 19th century all along our Tuscan coasts and in the Tyrrhenian Sea, where they removed my forefathers. They put chains to their feet, arms and necks, took them to Algeria, Tunisia or Turkey as slaves, sold them in bazaars and slaughtered those that attempted to run away...."
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Novus Ordinarians do not even know what the Rosary is any longer.
Fr. Moderator Replies:
Some of the conservatives clug to the Rosary instead of fighting for the true Mass. That was, in the end, the wrong thing to do, as now they have lost both the true Mass and the Rosary. Catholics must learn to stand up and fight for their Roman Catholic Faith, Mass, and Sacraments as their forebears of twenty centuries did. Selling out to a Counterfeit Church of the New Order on the grounds of "obedience to the bishop" or any other specious notion cannot but associate them with the evil fruits of a false faith.
Really, what more evidence does the reasonable man need to show him that the Novus Ordo must be rejected wholesale? It is not Catholic. St. Peter would reject it, St. Paul would reject it, St. Augustine would reject it, St. Thomas Aquinas would reject it, Pope St. Pius V would reject it, Pope St. Pius X would reject it, even Pope John XXIII would reject it.
What fruits has the New Order brought?
And yet there are still Catholics who, knowing that they have doubts, continue to subsidize and even defend the New Order, seeing full well the destruction that it has wrought upon the Catholic Faith, which has now become a joke in the eyes of many. In the past, the Faith may have been detested by some, but it was respected.
Those Catholics who continue to suborn the New Order must begin to realize that they are a large part of the problem, because without their complicity, the New Order could not happen. They have been duped into the Great Facade of the Counterfeit Church. May God open their eyes before it is too late for them, and for us.
As in so many things, what the Novus Ordo tries to suppress finds fertile ground elsewhere. Gregorian chant, which is practically banned from the Church of the New Order is experiencing a great boom on compact discs. The subject of the Holy Angels, which is ignored in the New Order, is represented by many objects in popular culture. Now, the Church's own language, which is frequently suppressed by local dioceses, is bounding in the schools.
FREDERICKSBURG, VA, October 14, 2002, 14:19 UT (Associated Press, Excerpted) -- A funny thing happened on the way to higher standards: schools remembered Latin. As educators work to improve student performance in basic subjects such as reading, math, history and science, they are finding that Latin can help.
Classes in Latin, which once attracted only college-bound students, are drawing youngsters from all backgrounds. Sales of Latin textbooks and materials are up, and even elementary schools are starting programs. The number of students taking Advanced Placement exams in Latin is nearly double what it was a decade ago.
"I think Latin always traditionally comes to the fore when people think about raising standards because it's a bedrock subject," said Marion Polsky, a Latin teacher in Scarsdale, New York, and author of a popular series of basic Latin textbooks. Science uses Latin for everything from medical terminology to genus and species classification. Latin spread with the Roman empire across Europe, Asia, and northern Africa and is the root of modern Romance languages such as Spanish, Italian and French, and even English.
The love affair with Latin is especially hot in Virginia, Texas and Massachusetts, three states pushing heavily for higher standards. At Chancellor, Mark Keith teaches five Latin classes daily. Early one recent morning he greeted students with a chipper, Salvete, discipuli! They responded, a bit sleepily, Salve, magister. Quomodo sentitis hodie? Responses varied.
In 1895, about 44 percent of American students took Latin. The College Board, which administers Advanced Placement exams, said the number of high school students taking Latin tests for college credit has risen 95 percent since 1993. Sales of Latin materials, including Polsky's books, have risen steadily since the mid-1990s, said Cathy Wilson of Pearson Prentice Hall. Younger students get a mouthful of Latin when they read the popular Harry Potter books.
TRADITIO participants will remember my question: what would you do if the pope declared a fourth person to be added to the Most Blessed Trinity. Reports out of the Vatican indicate that my seemingly outlandish hypothetical is now much closer to becoming reality.
Somehow it seems deviously appropriate that the month of Our Lady, October, the month of her victory over the Mohammedans at the Battle of Lepanto, from which Pope St. Pius V established the Feast of the Most Holy Rosary to be celebrated on October 7, would be the month when the Rosary would be attacked by the Counterfeit Church of the New Order. Now that the New Order has done everything in its power to destroy the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, it turns to the destruction of Most Holy Rosary by innovation and inference.
Pope to Add New Mysteries to the Rosary VATICAN, October 16, 2002 (Catholic World News, Excerpted) -- Pope John Paul II will release an apostolic letter on devotion to the Virgin Mary on October 16 -- the anniversary of his election to the pontificate -- according to informed Vatican sources.
Leaks from the Vatican, in anticipation of the document's release, suggest that the Pope will introduce five new mysteries to the Rosary. The five new mysteries, the "luminous mysteries," will focus on the public life of Jesus Christ, Vatican sources say. They will be: the Baptism in the Jordan, the temptation in the desert, the proclamation of the Kingdom, the Transfigurations, and the entry into Jerusalem.
The Rosary is a traditional Marian devotion, popularized at first by St. Bernard, later by the Dominican order, and still later by St. Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort. The five new mysteries would reportedly be used on Saturdays.
Once again the Vatican seems to have lost track of the Roman Catholic Faith. The Rosary is a simplified Divine Office for laymen. The only essential part of it are the 150 Aves, modeled after the 150 Psalms of the Divine Office. If the report is true, apparently the pope can't count. 4 times 50 made 200 when I went to school. Will the pope now come up with 50 "new" psalms, perhaps conveniently "discovered" in the caves of Qumran?
It strikes me that this report, if true, is a desperate act to deny Catholics any continuity whatsoever with the traditional Roman Catholic Faith. Already Catholics are confused about going to the "New" Mass (really not a mass at all, but a Protestantized service) or the "Old" Mass. Now they will have to choose between the "New" Rosary and the "Old" Rosary.
Oh, you Novus Ordinarians, when will you wake up? Do you not see that in the name of counterfeit "authority," the wolves in sheeps' clothing are wresting from you your Catholic Faith in a manner worse than Luther, Henry VIII, Cranmer, Elizabeth, Calvin, and the rest? The only Catholic alternative at this point is to wipe the Novus Ordo dust off your shoes and get yourselves to a traditional Catholic church or chapel, because only there will you be able to practice the true Faith that can save your souls. The Counterfeit Church of the New Order will only destroy your Catholic Faith and open the way to perdition.
If you want to obey the pope and can't see your way clear to obeying 260 pre-conciliar popes, then obey Pope Paul VI, the Pope of the Council, who only a few years afterward repented of Vatican II and presumably his part in implementing it when he realized that he had admitted the "smoke of Satan around the altar." What an admission from the pope, for he knows that where Satan's altar is, there is the Black Mass, of which no Catholic can be a part -- unless he wishes to worship with Devils the Prince of Devils.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
If takes another 60 years for the Modernist heresy to run its course in the Church of the New Order and for the Roman Catholic Faith is once more proclaimed fully and traditionally by the Vatican, what do traditional Catholic priests do in the interim with the New Order hierarchy?
Fr. Moderator Replies:
What do you do with a hierarchy that has abandoned the Catholic Faith? I can't imagine that any of 260 popes or thousands of Saints or scores of Doctors of the Church would recognize the authority of the current hierarchy, which, in flagrant violation of the dogmatic principles of the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council, is trying to impose a Counterfeit Church of the New Order upon Catholics.
How do we know what to do? We know because it has all happened before, and we have the examples of the Saints. The best analogue to the current situation in the Church is the Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ and ran rampant in the Church just after it came out of the catacombs. St. Jerome tells us that most of the hierarchy, including probably the pope, fell into the heresy.
And what was the reaction of the Saints to this situation? They violated the letter of the law right and left to maintain the spirit of the law, thus remaining faithful to Our Lord and the Roman Catholic Faith. They were also being obedient to St. Peter, who told them, when the hierarchy of the existential Church was corrupt: "We ought to obey God rather than man" (Acts 5:29/DRV) and obedient to St. Paul, who taught: "For the letter killeth: but the spirit quickeneth [gives life]" (2 Corinthians 3:6/DRV).
Providence always provides at least the minimum to maintain the priesthood, which is the most important part, after all, to continue the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Scripture indicates that the true Mass will not always be available everywhere and to everyone, but wherever it is, there it makes propitiation to Almighty God for the Church. All else pales in comparison. Is it any wonder that since the widespread substitution of the true Mass by a Protestantized Novus Ordo service (not a Mass), the Church in thirty years has been racked by false doctrine, false worship, and false morality?
Fortunately, traditional Catholics do not have to worry. We have 2000 years of Catholic theology, Catholic liturgy, and Catholic canon law to rely upon. We know that nothing in the Faith can be innovated upon, so what has always been true is still true. The traditional priest has no difficulty whatsoever in following the path of the Roman Catholic Church. It is the New Order that constantly has to make up novelties as it goes along.
The great Saints of that heretical period suffered much under the hands of the corrupt hierarchy. St. Athanasius was "excommunicated" six times, yet prevailed in the end. The pope of the time was considered tainted by heresy and dishonored in subsequent history. St. Basil the Great wrote virulent letters against the heretics and the actions of the pope. St. Martin of Tours stood courageously against the heretics and would not budge against the heretical bishops, no matter what threats were hurled against him by the corrupt hierarchs.
When the Church is sinking, you don't worry about environmental laws on the size of buckets. You grab whatever bucket you can and start bailing! We all know this principle of law instinctively. If you are driving your brother, who is having a heart attack, to the hospital at 2:00 in the morning, are you going to wait patiently at every stop light, or are you going to go through when there is no traffic?
Necessitas non habet legem, wrote St. Thomas Aquinas, repeating an ancient principle of the law. Catholic theology and canon law has taken up this principle, known in Greek as epieikeia, but in Latin syncopated to epikeia. That is what St. Athanasius used, that is what St. Basil the Great used, that is what St. Martin used, that is what St. Augustine used, as well as other courageous souls at the time of the Arian heresy and at other times of schism, heresy, and apostasy in the Church. Any traditional priest would be proud to put himself in the theological company of these truly Catholic hierarchs.
So, don't be concerned about what is not important, like the Pharisees Our Lord condemned. They were so concerned about the jots and tittles of their own legal creations that they forgot what the ultimate purpose of the law was: to believe as God had commanded, to worship God in the way God had prescribed, and to save the souls of the people.
In the end, if you have a priest who professes the traditional Roman Catholic Faith, celebrates the Traditional Latin Mass, and administers the traditional Sacraments, support him, help him, be loyal to him, pray for him. You have a very special gift for which hundreds of thousands of traditional Catholics around the world are praying ceaselessly.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Could you explain the Minor Orders to me: Porter, Exorcist, Lector, and Acolyte? Are they all stepping stones toward the Major Orders (Subdeacon, Deacon, Priest), or are they separate unto themselves (aren't all Exorcists also Priests?). Why were the Minor Orders done away with by the Church of the New Order?
After First Tonsure, by which a man's status is changed from that of layman to that of a cleric -- if qualified after the appropriate space of time, the Minor Orders are conferred in order: Porter, Exorcist, Lector, and Acolyte. These Orders existed from the ancient Church. In earlier times, they were separate unto themselves; e.g., a man might remain a Porter and perform that function without being ordained further.
Later, however, all seven Holy Orders were usually, in order, although some stopped at the Minor Orders (as St. Thomas More) and others at one of the Major Orders (as St. Francis, who was a Deacon, but never ordained a Priest). Since they are received in the stated order, a Priest would already have received the Minor Orders, as well as the Subdiaconate and Diaconate.
As in so many things, the Church of the New Order abolished anything that was traditionally Catholic and Apostolic.. In this case, it attempted to transfer, as the Protestants did, what is appropriate to the clergy to the laity, thus undermining rejecting the dogma on Holy Orders, the Priesthood, the Seven Sacraments. A consequence of this rejection of Catholic Tradition is that presbyters of the New Order have never been ordained with the power of exorcising.
Remember the policy of the U.S. Bishops to prohibit reverence to the Blessed Sacrament (although it is hard to believe that the Novus Ordo really has that) by banning kneeling to receive communion? Well, here is the first casualty -- a prominent case that indicates that the Novus Ordo has become soft on abortion as well.
How anyone can any longer make excuses for this cockeyed New Order with its counterfeit "Mass" is beyond me. The Novus Ordinarians should long ago have gotten out and found the true Mass, Sacraments, and Faith. Certainly they'd better get out now before the deluge sweeps them overboard!
Moreover, the claim of the Great Facade of the Novus Ordo to be the "Church of Love" is once again exposed. All too many Novus Ordinarians are disturbed by some sexual scandals in the Novus Ordo seminaries. A more important question would be: what kind of seminary produces a priest (really a presbyter, or presider) who, like a charwoman, would scream insults at a member of the congregation from the steps of the cathedral?
If Bishop Loverde of Arlington, a well-known anti-traditional Catholic, doesn't publicly censure his presbyter, the bishop should be stripped of his office, personally flagellated by the pope, and banished to a monastery, just as should have been the eleven cardinals for their scandalous behavior against the Catholic faithful that they swore on oath to protect. All this just goes to show that there really isn't an episcopacy worthy of the name left in the New Order.
Priest Refuses Communion to Kneeling Pro-Life Politician
Calls Pro-Life Delegate a "Conservative Idiot"
ARLINGTON, VA, October 10, 2002 (LSN of Canada) - Honorable Richard Black, member of the Virginia House of Delegates and a heroic defender of life and family in the state legislature, was refused Holy Communion at Arlington's St. Thomas More Cathedral. On September 22, the Cathedral Rector, Fr. Dominic Irace, refused to give Communion to Delegate Black since Black was kneeling to receive. Fr. Irace told him he must stand to receive, but Black chose to rather to genuflect and withdraw.
In a letter of concern to Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde, Catholic pro-life activist Dr. Joseph Strada, wrote: "This affront to Delegate Black, and his family, is doubly shameful because Delegate Black is, without question, the most courageous defender of the innocent unborn on the floor of the House of Delegates in Richmond. One has to wonder if Fr. Irace would have been so bold as to refuse Holy Communion to Senator Ted Kennedy or other militantly pro-abortion 'Catholic' politicians who regularly attend Mass in Arlington churches."
After Mass, and in the presence of Black's wife and daughter as well as other faithful, Fr. Irace shouted insults to Delegate Black as he exited the Cathedral. When Delegate Black tried to avoid Fr. Irace, pointing out that he had refused him Holy Communion, Fr. Irace shouted "you liar!" several times. As Delegate Black left the Cathedral, Fr. Irace loudly called him a "conservative idiot."
In an interview with LifeSite, Delegate Black said that while he has been under tense situations in combat for his country and in the war-like political realm, he was concerned for other faithful Catholics who may be intimidated by Fr. Irace.
I have been quite surprised and a bit perturbed in the new SSPX chapel I attend on the East Coast at the amount of noise that is made mostly from young children and infants during Sunday Mass. I was even more disturbed to read in a recent issue of a "traditional" Catholic magazine of an article concerning an "indult" site where children making noise was described with approval.
I find such behavior not only discourteous to those who attend the true Mass, but, more importantly, an affront to Almighty God. Remember, each Holy Mass is "equal" in value to the Sacrifice of Calvary. There, thus, should be the silence of prayerfulness and contemplation of this wondrous event. This, of course, is not meant as a criticism of the children, who don't know any better, but of parents who bring to Mass children that are incapable of remaining silent.
I certainly wouldn't bring my young children for that reason, as I want to show respect for Our Lord in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and want to show respect for my fellow Catholics in the pews by not disturbing their prayer and mediation. I know of one couple who attends two different Masses at on Sunday, one spouse alternating with the other staying with their child outside of Church. It is certainly an inconvenience, but they would rather be inconvenienced than cause scandal to others.
What is a reasonable practice with regard to infants and young children attending Mass? Congratulations again to TRADITIO for eight wonderful years of espousing true Roman Catholicism.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
I can't disagree with your logic, particularly as no child under the age of reason has any obligation whatever to assist at Holy Mass. If there is no special room shut off for such cases, and if the child is not able at least to sit quietly during Holy Mass without distracting others, the child is not yet ready to be brought to church, and the parents should make alternate arrangements.
You are correct in stating that the focus of Holy Mass should be on the altar, not upon distractions that are going on in the pews. For many Catholics, that hour on Sunday is the only sustained period of prayer and meditation on the Most Blessed Sacrament that they have all week.
Compare, for example, a symphony concert or an opera. The focus of those in attendance is upon the stage. If anyone in attendance were providing a persistent distraction, even incessant coughing, they would receive the condemnatory glances of the others and be asked to remove themselves by the ushers. Of how much more significance is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass than a secular concert?
Dear Fr. Moderator:
One argument I keep hearing made about the Novus Ordo service is: "if the whole Church has come to worship in this fashion, doesn't it have to be correct because otherwise the Church would in effect have defected -- not lasted as Christ promised?"
Fr. Moderator Replies.
This is a point commonly misunderstood by "lay theologians." The dogma on the indefectibility of the Church states only that the Church founded by Christ will last until the end of time. It doesn't say in what form that Church will exist at the end of time. In fact, the words of Our Lord seem to indicate that it will be very small indeed: "But yet the Son of Man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?" (Luke 18:8/DRV).
Here his how Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman answered this argument:
The answer to this argument is that when our Lord promised to be with His Church always, He guaranteed only that when He comes again to judge the living and the dead, His Church will exist somewhere upon earth.
According to figures from U.S. News & World Report in 1997, the Traditional Catholic Movement estimates an audience of up to 15 million Catholics who are traditionally oriented in their faith. Since there are only 60 million "Catholics" in the United States, even at this late date after Vatican II has had almost forty years to do its work of Modernism, one out of every four "Catholics" remain traditional. Even that is far from a remnant!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I received an E-mail from a friend who, for some ungodly reason, still goes to the Novus Ordo service. I asked his permission to send it to you:
At "Mass" yesterday, the presbyter summoned all of the children to the altar as this presbyter usually does. Our kids do not go to the altar because I particularly dislike this presbyter's antics. His normal routine is to do a kind of "Art Linkletter" thing and somehow try to get a message through to the children. Since he has been doing this over the past two months, his stint has become more and more distasteful to me, but yesterday was the worst.
He told the children, and the rest of the congregation, a story of the "pumpkin prayer" where each step of the act of carving the gourd should be interpreted as having a certain meaning, such as cutting the top of the head off and removing all of the "bad" from the inside, etc. He then asked some of the children to draw certain symbols on the face of the pumpkin, the eyes a cross, the mouth a fish, the ears a book, and so on.
I was almost able to understand and accept this message, until he actually placed each of these jack-o'-lanterns on the altar, even moving the side candles to do so. I became so enraged that I had to walk out leaving my wife and the kids alone. I went into the chapel and prayed trying to understand what is going on with the "Catholic Church," but could only conclude that this was an outrageous deed done by this presbyter. I thought: "How dare you!" And he would then purport to consecrate Our Lord on the same altar?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
To the Polka "Mass," the Cookie "Mass," the Gay "Mass," the Elvis "Mass," the Clown "Mass," the Candy "Mass," we can now add the "Pumpkin" Mass -- all of which are no longer exceptions to the rule, but commonly "staged" in dioceses all over the country.
This one appears to be a subtle case (one of many in the United States) of introducing white witchcraft (Wicca) into the Church of the New Order, presumably under the guise of the abominable notion of "inculturation" introduced at Vatican II.
This is the same notion that would let certain African dioceses sacrifice chickens and use the chickens' blood as the blood at the Novus Ordo service. This very thing has been proposed by a Novus Ordo archbishop of Africa, because "his people" understand chicken blood better than wine. Of course, there is nothing Catholic about this notion. St. Paul in the New Testament makes it quite clear that the Jewish practice of animal sacrifice came to an end with the New Covenant of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
In previous reports here in the TRADITIO Commentaries from the Mailbox, correspondents have pointed to the use of the omphalos, or pagan navel-stone, in front of the altar. Other reports indicate the rampant use of unChristianized pagan symbols in the "worship space." The Church of the New Order embraces Gnostic enneagrams and other "New Age" symbols, as well as Buddhistic and Hinduistic symbols (even the pope had his forehead painted with Hindu cow-dung) symbols. For myself, I'm waiting for the introduction of the black cat around the altar, the symbol of the witch's familiar!
No rational person could accept this New Order as a serious religion, unless your friend accepts pagan and even satanic rituals as religion. Even Pope Paul VI, having witnessed the devastation of seven years of Vatican II and three years of the Novus Ordo, had to admit, on two separate occasions, that the altars of the Church had been besooted with the smoke of Satan.
I pray that your friend is finally moved to see the menace to the Catholic and Apostolic Faith that the New Order represents and leaves that place with his family and friends to find the canonized and true Mass of the Roman Catholic Church, the Traditional Latin Mass.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Just about everybody knows that promoting Modernism was the whole point of Vatican II. What makes it surprising is that back in 1910, Pope St. Pius X mandated that every Catholic priest, prior to ordination, take the Oath Against Modernism, binding each of them to uphold the condemnations in the Syllabi of Pope Pius IX and Pope Saint Pius X. That mandate was not rescinded until 1968, three years after the close of Vatican II.
The point here is that every bishop and every peritus who was also a priest had taken the Oath Against Modernism. How could the participants in Vatican II set up a "counter-syllabus" to that which they were oath-bound to uphold? Can anyone rationally conclude that God the Holy Ghost would benignly suborn perjury? Doesn't the logic here cast extreme doubt on, if not prove the case against, the legitimacy of Vatican II?The 11th of October 2002 marks a most significant anniversary in terms of both historical and symbolic significance: the fortieth anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Council. If sound and realistic minds can acknowledge that this Council marked the beginning of a period of Church history which, in its incredible sense of disorientation, is comparable to the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert under Moses, and that today's disorientation, if permitted to take its natural course, would result leaving the impression that the purpose and doctrine of the Church had been irreversibly altered - something that simply cannot happen on account of the dogma of Indefectibility - then would it be unreasonable to suggest that, sometime between today and the end of 2005 (the fortieth anniversary of the Council's end is on December 8 that year), the wanderings of the New Israel in the desert of Vatican dereliction in the face of grave doctrinal and moral disorder among ecclesiastics may come to an end in a radical way? Watch the developments these next three years....
What is the world's religion now? It has taken the brighter side of the Gospel -- its tidings of comfort, its precepts of love; all darker, deeper views of man's condition and prospects being comparatively forgotten. This is the religion natural to a civilized age, and well has Satan dressed and completed it into an idol of the Truth.... Our manners are courteous; we avoid giving pain or offense.... Religion is pleasant and easy; benevolence is the chief virtue, intolerance, bigotry, excess of zeal are the first of sins.... It includes no true fear of God, no fervent zeal for His honor, no deep hatred of sin, no horror at the sight of sinners, no indignation and compassion at the blasphemies of heretics, no jealous adherence to doctrinal truth ... and therefore it is neither hot nor cold, but (in Scripture language) lukewarm.... I will not shrink from uttering my first conviction that it would be a gain to this country, were it vastly more superstitious, more bigoted, more gloomy, more fierce in its religion, than at present it shows itself to be.
Who wrote this? A traditional author? A conservative Novus Ordinarian? They certainly describe the present day flawlessly.
No, these words were written by the Venerable John Henry Newman in 1832, later to become the famous convert from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism. Newman was eschewing, from the Anglican point of view, the error of Liberalism, which later came to be known as Modernism, condemned by several popes.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I have read that Pope Urban VIII (r. 1623-1644) set the norms for canonization and stated that a devil's advocate (with very specified duties as antagonist) must be present in order for there to be a valid canonization. Do you think that this may be an unerring utterance, as these norms, which were first set down by Pope Urban VIII, were essentially a codification of how the process was handled in fact before he formalized them in the norms? Urban VIII only formalized what was already in place, and what clearly must be in place to discourage human error, just as Pope St. Pius V formalized and infallibly canonized "in perpetuity" what was already in place in terms of the Roman Mass.
The new norms eliminated not only the office of devil's advocate, but any way that objections could be freely and fairly raised. The process in existence now allows the postulator (who is appointed by the Petitioner for the cause) to present the case for and against the candidate. In other words, one man may act as both lawyer for the plaintiff and defendant, but is in fact appointed by the plaintiff. Is there no conflict of interest here?
For example, in the case of Escriva, the postulator for the cause was appointed by a member of Opus Dei (the Petitioner), and there is no explicit bar in the norms from the postulator being a member of Opus Dei. The postulator's duties, which now contravene the traditional norms, are to present the case both for and against the candidate. He sets the agenda; he makes the witness list out both for and against; he decides what documents are to be gathered and looked at. There is no one to insist on hearing any objections or any witnesses negating the cause, nor is there anyone to gather evidence against the candidate.
What is worse, and even more damaging to the cause of truth, the postulator, using a clause that allows him to eliminate "unsuitable" witnesses (which is not contained in the traditional norms), is able effectively and selectively to bar the most damaging eye-witness testimony negating the candidate. This vague "unsuitability" clause was not a part of the traditional norms.
Was Pope Urban VIII, who stated that there is no valid canonization without a devil's advocate, speaking unerringly because it was very much a part of the process even before this particular pope set down more formalistic norms? Without these revisions, there is no possible way that Escriva would be canonized, and John XXIII would not have the smallest chance of being elevated.
Certainly, it would be more difficult to demote "uncanonize" Saints before Vatican II because there was a devil's advocate present during those processes allowing far less room for error, because there was no vague "unsuitability" clause, because there was no person wearing two hats both for and against the candidate, and because the postulator was not appointed by the Petitioner. Even before Urban VIII undertook to formalize the process with norms, all objections, unlike today, were allowed to be heard.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
There is an element of divine positive law in this, just as there is in the question of the Mass. Has the Modern Vatican crossed the line in this question and in effect overruled the ordinance of God as expressed in that divine positive law? It would seem so if for no other reason than that significant parts of the Church are now, as never before, questioning the very sanctity of those who are supposed to be Saints of the New Order.
Another significant flaw you failed to mention in the new process is the "rush to canonization." Traditionally, most Saints are not canonized until several centuries after their death, when long analysis and the objectivity of centuries can come into play. Only in the exceptional case, such as that of St. Therese (cf. the case of St. Joan of Arc), was the period shortened, and then to something in the nature of 50 years. The Post-conciliar Church seems hell-bent on creating Saints of the New Order before their bodies are even cold in the grave. Such actions are bereft of prudence and, at the least, cause scandal and perversity.
I can only repeat that there is the very strong possibility that factual errors may have been made in some of these post-conciliar cases and that a future traditional pope will have to sort the cases out at some point in the future, when the Church is returned to Tradition. In the meantime, there are many thousands of traditional Saints, whose cultus are well established and whose intercession with our Lord Jesus Christ may be prayed for by the Roman Catholic faithful with full confidence and faith.
Volume V of the collection Eli, Eli, Lamma Sabacthani?, authored by Atila Sinke Guimaraes and translated/edited by Marian Therese Horvath, has just been released by Tradition in Action, P.O. Box 23135, Los Angeles, CA 90023, for $20.00 + $4.00 shipping (softcover, 384 pages). The series analyzes the destruction of the Church wrought by the New Order in careful and minute detail. This series has gained the reputation of being the most detailed and careful examination of the philosophy of Vatican II and its tragic consequences upon the Church.
"Animus Delendi II addresses Secularization and Oecumenism, the two main initiatives of Vatican Council II. Atila Guimaraes exposes how Progressivism, through Secularization, is destroying the foundations of the State and replacing it with a trans-Socialist structure, with experimental communities set up here and there. Through Oecumenism, Progressivism is meticulously destroying the unity of the Catholic Faith, the uniqueness of the Holy Church, her militancy, and her missionary character. Certainly these initiatives reveal an animus delendi -- a desire to destroy never before seen in history.
"Notwithstanding, these same maneuvers were first presented as manifestations of love for the world and charity toward the false religions -- the much trumpeted spirit of the Council. By the fruits, Guimaraes shows the tree. Reading this volume, one sees that Secularization and Oecumenism constitute two colossal ruses to fool the unsuspecting Catholic faithful and lead them to a slaughter of their souls. A repetition of the killing of the innocents ordered by Herod."
Volume I, The Murky Waters of Vatican II, showed how it was impossible to make a precise judgment on the letter of the conciliar documents because of their deliberate and conscious ambiguity. Volumes II and III were dedicated to the analysis of the animus injuriandi [the desire to injure] of Progressivism against the Church, the Faith, and Catholic Morals. Volume IV, Animus Delendi I, exposed the overall plan of the destruction of the institution of Holy Church and its execution. (These volumes are available at the same price.)
Dear Fr. Moderator:
As you know, the duty of the Promotor Fidei (informally called the Devil's Advocate) is to investigate and bring any evidence, however slight, against a candidate for sanctity, as well as to "insist" that any witness found negating sanctity be heard before the commission. In the traditional Codex Iuris Canonici, there is also a section which deals with the duty of "all the faithful" who have reason to negate the sanctity of the candidate, to come forward (whether they have been found or called by the commission or not) and give such information to the Church. The interest and honor of the Church are very much at stake in preventing anyone from receiving the apparent honors of sainthood, whose death is not juridically proven to have been "precious in the sight of God."
It should be noted that there were changes in the canonization process made under Paul VI, and there was a complete overhauling of the canonization process in 1982-83 by John Paul II, expunging those sections which concerned not only the Devil's Advocate, but the duties of the Devil's Advocate, as well as the duties of the faithful. These omissions are not an abrogation of law, but simply a failure to acknowledge laws which already exist, laws which flow from the natural law and cannot be abrogated. These omissions call the entire canonization process into serious question and disrepute.
For example, in the case of Msgr. Josemaria Escriva, of Opus Dei notariety, who was scheduled to be "canonized" on October 6, 2002, many of the eye-witnesses who had a long-standing relationship with the candidate, and direct and personal knowledge of his lack of virtue (e.g., Carmen del Tapia, Miguel Fisac, et al.) were either barred or not called during the commission's investigation. The reason given by Opus Dei is that they were "unsuitable". Yet, direct eye-witness testimony is the most suitable of witnesses in the law, and so the conclusion that these witnesses were "unsuitable" is ipso facto completely inconsistent with the rules of evidence that flow from the natural law.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
It has been frequently bandied by those ignorant of theology that canonizations are unquestionably "infallible." Such a position is not consistent with the teachings of the Doctors of the Church, including the Supreme Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas.
Catholic theologians through the centuries have provided a bailout for such a situation. Canonization is not invariably held to be an act of papal infallibility, and is certainly not a primary exercise thereof. St. Thomas Aquinas (Quodlibet 9.c.16) holds that the pope may err in this, as in other matters where his decision depends on the truth of human testimony. St. Robert Bellarmine holds that it is quite possible for the pope "to err in particular controversies of fact which depend chiefly on human information and testimony."
Apparently, Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI themselves did not consider canonization infallible. Otherwise, they would not have opened the Pandora's box by tampering with the Catalogus Sanctorum in the cases of St. Philomena, who had been publicly venerated by several Saints and popes, and the 14 Auxiliary Saints, including St. Christopher and St. Barbara, who had been venerated by millions of Catholic since the early Church. If the Church of the New Order wishes to decanonize traditional Saints, turnabout is fair play: traditional Catholics can reserve judgment on the New Order's unproven candidates.
There is the very strong possibility that factual errors may have been made in some of these post-conciliar cases and that a future traditional pope will have to sort the cases out at some point in the future, when the Church is returned to Tradition. In the meantime, there are many thousands of traditional Saints, whose cultus are well established and whose intercession with our Lord Jesus Christ may be prayed for by the Roman Catholic faithful with full confidence and faith.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I could not believe my ears. At the "indult" Mass I have attended for the past four years, one of the priests raised the specter that we might have to be "obedient" to the recent directives of the U.S. Bishops and stand for Holy Communion.
Of course, when altar girls and Communion in the hand, etc., were illegal, were the indultarians obedient to that directive? No! But now, when it comes to kneeling, they will enforce the law to the letter. Tell me, who in their right mind cannot see through this sham?!
One has to wonder whether this recent statement was not, in fact, really aimed at the "indult." I mean, why else would the Bishops issue such a statement? There hasn't been kneeling at the Novus Ordo services for years. This will be the end if the "indult" as we know it. The greater percentage will leave for SSPX and independent Masses.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Actually, the "indult" Mass has been drawing to its end for some time now. It has become clear over time, as TRADITIO warned from the outset, that the "indult" was merely a ploy to draw in traditional Catholics by throwing them a few crumbs and then slamming shut the trap door so that they could be Novus-Ordoized by force. One is reminded of the words of Scripture: "for the whelps also eat under the table of the crumbs" (Mark 7:28/DRV).
I think that you may have hit the nail on the head. This recent "no kneeling for communion" directive of the U.S. Bishops certainly couldn't apply to the Novus Ordo, which has not permitted kneeling for years. Those who try to kneel are rudely jerked to their feet or refused communion entirely. Your hypothesis that the directive was really leveled at the "indult" Mass makes sense. The question is: how many indultarians will just accept this, together with everything else, instead of, as you say, finding a true traditional Mass site?
TRADITIO has frequently pointed out that traditional Catholics must be very cautious about attending "indult" Masses. Such Masses must be evaluated carefully on a case-by-case basis to determine whether they are in fact Traditional Latin Masses at all.
In a few places the Novus Ordo worship service is offered in Latin instead of the vulgar tongue and called a Latin Mass, but it is not a Traditional Latin Mass. Needless to say, the Novus Ordo (New Order) service, even clothed in Latin, is still the Novus Ordo service, not the Traditional Latin Mass of the Roman Rite.
Moreover, since Protocol 1411 of July 3, 1999, issued by the Vatican Congregatio pro Divino Cultu, "indult" organizations have been forced into a collaboration with the Novus Ordo service. More and more "Indult Masses" are becoming a hybrid mixture of the post-Vatican II Novus Ordo worship service and the Traditional Latin Mass, and deviate from the traditional practices in force even in 1962.
Such pseudo-traditional services use the vulgar tongues, the new calendar, the new lectionary, the 1964 or later rubrics, or communion in the hand; enforce standing rather than kneeling; eliminate the Leonine prayers after Low Mass; transfer or eliminate Holydays; hold Saturday "Vigil" Masses; radically limit the traditional Eucharistic fast and traditional days of fast and abstinence; or engage in other non-traditional deviations not in force in 1962. Such sites are obviously not traditional and should be scrupulously avoided.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I am trying to teach my children the Latin prayers, especially the prayers before meals and after meals. Could tell me where to go to find them?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
An excellent practice. Even Vatican II said that all Catholics should be familiar with the Latin prayers. By using the Church's sacred language, there is no risk of false translations, and one prays with all the Saints and Catholics of the ages. See the TRADITIO Library of Files for Useful Latin Prayers.
Even the present pope chided Catholics for an ignorance of the Church's language and quoted Cicero: Non tam praeclarum est scire Latine, quam turpe nescire (Brutus, xxxvii.140) It is not so much excellent to know Latin, as it is a shame not to know it. He also, on February 22, 2002, called upon Novus Ordo presbyters to resume saying Mass in Latin. Naturally, traditional Catholics will obey the pope, and Novus Ordinarian bishops, presbyters, and dioceses will ignore and defy him. Now who's disobeying the pope!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
TRADITIO doesn't claim to received "visions," but we certainly have been proven to be astute observers of the Catholic scene. Virtually every prediction we have made over the last eight years about the actions of the Church of the New Order have come true. On October 1 TRADITIO predicted that the Vatican would try to foist off a phony notion of "deaconnesses" as a prelude to the ordination of priestesses. And voila! On October 5 the word came down:
ROME. October 5, 2002. (Compiled from News Wires) The Vatican's top theological consultants have made the ordination of women as deacons more likely, possibly paving the way for women priests. The Catholic Church's international theological commission met in the Vatican this week, under the presidency of the church's doctrinal watchdog, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. It discussed a female diaconate.Note who is behind this: the "traditional" Card. Ratzinger, upon whom the indultarians and Novus Ordinarians drool, but whom TRADITIO has said from the beginning was commissioned to play the role of a Trojan Horse to destroy the Traditional Catholic Movement. And now here he is, associated with the eventual destruction of the priesthood, having already spouted the heretical notion in his preface that Christ did not come to redeem the Jews.
Whether deaconesses existed in the Western Church is a controversial issue among Catholic scholars. Deaconesses. Jose Cardinal Savaira Martins, the Secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education, in October 2002 observed: "'Deaconnesses' ... were not ordained in the same way that priests were; they simply received a blessing, which was not a sacrament." Liberal members of the commission were agreeably surprised to find other members supported a document recognizing there had been female deacons in the Western Church until the sixth century.Typical Novus Ordo deceit. Not even the historical record justifies deaconesses, but the so-called experts will ignore the evidence, create a myth, and then vote aye! The Novus Ordo already created the now discounted Aramaic scam, the backwards-altar scam, and now the deaconess (and eventually priestess and bishopess) scam.
Those opposed to the revival of a female diaconate categorize the issue as the thin end of the wedge. They warn that the Catholic Church is in danger of repeating the evolution of Anglicans, who moved from recognition of female deacons to ordination of women priests. The international theological commission study will now go to the Doctrinal Congregation, which is also headed by Cardinal Ratzinger.The Anglicans now have not only priestesses, which have no historical foundation, but even bishopesses And if an Anglican bishop refuses to consecrate a bishopess, he is disciplined with no options. In the Church of the New Order, extraordinary eucharistic ministresses were sneaked in, to be followed thereafter by altar-servettes, now deaconesses are on the horizon. See the pattern?
The snowball that is the Church of the New Order is hurtling faster and faster down the mountain, and it is only a matter of time when it will go splat! Press all your Novus Ordo friends to get out while they have any vestige of the Catholic Faith left.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I read that the Campos, Brazil, group couldn't be happier since they've returned to "Rome," as they call it. What do you think is behind this statement?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Be very careful to separate propaganda from reality. Use your intellect to analyze a situation from what is likely, not from what propaganda says. Honeymoons tend to be blissful, but then cold reality sets in.
Remember the old saying, "Don't bite the hand the feeds you"? Do you really think that the Campos priests are going to badmouth the Novus Ordo, to which they are now beholden? But what will happen when their Novus Ordo masters pull their leash? If they try to escape, they will be choked to death.
The "indult" societies learned the bitter truth of that reality, as their collars are very tight indeed. The Vatican deftly deceived and lied to them in 1988, then, ten years after the "indult," reeled them in hook, line, and sinker with Protocol 1411 of 1999, forcing them into the Novus Ordo. Where do they have to go now? They've sold their souls to their Novus Ordo masters, and now there is no convenient escape route. They're hooked on the line as their masters tug them more and more tightly, while they can only flop around on the line, helpless, as more and more New Order theology and practice are forced upon them.
Many Catholics are just now waking up to what has happened in the last 40 years as the New Order has deceptively taken over what was once Catholic. The late Malachi Martin called it the Great Facade. Canon Gregory Hesse called it the Counterfeit Church. There is no denying any longer that the Modernists in taking over large parts of the organization of the Church used the same technique that Cranmer used for the Church of Henry VIII and Luther used for the Lutheran Church: gradualism. Introduce changes not all at once, because then they would be seen for what they were, but gradually, almost imperceptibly, so that resistance would be minimized, and the people could be bamboozled.
The New Order bored into the Church like termites. It has worked away now for forty years after Vatican II, mostly in secret, to disintegrate the internal structure of the Roman Catholic Faith. Finally, the internal structure has become so damaged that a gentle breeze could blow the whole structure over. That is why the Church is subject to so many scandals today: the disintegration of the Faith is no longer concealed behind the walls, but the work of the New Order termites has done so much internal damage that the external structure is now openly crumbling.
New Order seminaries are cesspools. Priests have metamorphosed into mere presbyters or presiders. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has become a non-Catholic service more bereft than a Protestant service. The validity of the Sacraments has been undermined. Doctrine is made up as it suits modern political needs. Religious vocations have dried up (except on the traditional side). Bishops have become so corrupt that they are being arrested for moral depravity. The pope is willing to change the dogmatic basis of papacy (if he could) so that it is no longer Catholic.
And the termites will continue to do their work until the Great Facade crumbles and the traditional Faith remains to pick up the pieces, as it always has, because that is where Christ resides, as He always has.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I just can't believe to what extent the Church of the New Order goes to forget, deny, or turn its back on Catholic Tradition. I have heard of several basic requests made to various Novus Ordo presbyters by the faithful for such things as a Latin hymn at a wedding, a traditional Catholic prayer at a funeral Mass, or requests for the Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. All requests fall on deaf ears with no recourse to the bishop since the Novus Ordo bishops are just their slaves.
It is quite clear that the Novus Ordo presbyters want nothing to do with almost 2000 years of Catholicism. Instead, they prefer to carry on with services that resemble a three-ring circus instead of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. And some of this ilk dare to call traditional Catholics "schismatics"! Undoubtedly to turn the focus away from themselves, as they haven't a Catholic leg to stand on.
I was also a Catholic attending the Church of the New Order for years out of fear of being considered a "schismatic," or worse, "excommunicated". Your commentaries, as well as those from many other traditional Catholics on this web site have helped me to realize that the Novus Ordo regime will resort to anything and everything to badmouth traditional Catholics while embracing Mohammedans, Jews, Protestants, and all the rest for having as true a faith as Catholicism.
I attend a traditional church exclusively now, and I regret only that I suffered in silence for all the years I did in the Novus Ordo church.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Thanks to this wonderful site, I recently discovered that the famous actor Mel Gibson, is a traditional Catholic. I understand that a fellow Canadian, Alex Trebek, host of television quiz shows, including Jeopardy, and newscaster for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, is also an outspoken traditional Catholic. I would be curious to know if any other celebrities or well known politicians in the USA or Canada attend the Traditional Latin Mass exclusively. Since today's society tends to idolize and imitate celebrities, these celebrities who are traditional Catholics may be very useful in promoting the Traditional Latin Mass and the traditional Faith. There are certainly a number of unhappy Catholics who are currently attending Novus Ordo churches, unaware that there are traditional Masses out there.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
If Mr. Trebek is a traditional Catholic, I am glad of that. I have heard that he studied in Canada at the University of Ottawa, where the courses at the time were taught in the traditional manner, in Latin. Others that are reportedly traditional Catholics are listed below. If there are others, I would be happy to add them to the list.
Be aware there is often contradictory information circulating about people in the public eye and that the internet is a notoriously unreliable source of information on such things. If you have confirmed information about anyone on the list (as opposed to rumor or speculation), I would be glad to hear it.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I know that the large Host the priest uses at Mass is consecrated, what about the small hosts that are stored in the ciborium and given to the faithful at Holy Communion? When and how are these hosts consecrated?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
When Holy Communion is to be given to the faithful within Mass (this is not an essential part of the Mass and is not even alluded to in the Missal), the celebrant consecrates enough small Hosts to satisfy the immediate need, and sometimes several weeks in advance. These Hosts are consecrated at the same time the large Mass host is consecrated, and the Hosts are kept in a Sacred Vessel called a ciborium, or pyx, which is kept locked in the tabernacle.
The problem at some Mass sites, where the Novus Ordo service is also done (as at many "indult" sites), is that the Hosts distributed from the ciborium at the "indult" Mass are from the Novus Ordo service. This is an intolerable situation for traditional Catholics because it can hardly be doubted any longer that such hosts are not really consecrated because of defects of form, matter, and/or intention in the New Order. Even the Modern Vatican has admitted prevalent defect of matter.
Such a practice is often used at "indult" sites to force traditional Catholics to accept the New Order by their act of receiving the bread of the New Order. This scheme is ingeniously deceptive. If that is the situation you are talking about, you should abstain from anything deriving from the unCatholic New Order (probably there are serious defects in the "indult" Mass there other than the use of the Novus Ordo material; see the Official Catholic Directory of Traditional Latin Masses and Resource Book for the United States and Canada for a list of such defects), and find a traditional Mass site that maintains the fully traditional Roman Catholic Mass and Sacraments.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
In defence of the changes made in the arrangement of sanctuaries following Vatican II, some of the arguments we most often hear go something like this:
The Roman Rite is the rite of the Diocese of Rome; it was written and intended for the great basilicas there. Outside of Rome, the rite should be performed in imitation of the manner it is performed in Rome. In its proper intended setting, the altar is arranged so that the celebrant faces the people, lecterns for the Gospel and Epistle are located on the north and east sides facing the people, and there is no fixed tabernacle. Before Vatican II, the cruciform church design had become prevalent, but in it much of how the rite "should" function was lost. The architectural "reforms" following Vatican II sought to put and end to this, placing the rite back in its proper setting. Thus, (a) the tabernacle was placed in a quiet side chapel for private devotion, making the main church once again the place of public worship; (b) the altar was returned to its freestanding form facing the people; (c) and lecterns were put on both sides of the altar so as the readings would be read to the people.
How should we answer these arguments?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
First of all, the statement is presumptuous. How did these Liturgiacs (as Fr. DePauw called them already in 1963) arrogate to themselves the power to change the Sacred Liturgy either backward or forward? Such an attitude was condemned by Pope Pius XII in his great liturgical encyclical Mediator Dei (1947), calling the error archaeoligism. It is worthy of note that if these Liturgiacs want to return to Apostolic times, they should be in the forefront of promoting Latin in the Sacred Liturgy! The Traditional Latin Mass is far closer to the early Apostolic liturgy than the Novus Ordo service, which is based upon 17th-century Lutheran models.
Secondly, even the presumptions upon which such contentions rest have been proven to be false, sometimes even deliberately falsified. The fact that they are repeated over and over does not make them correct. Now that the "heyday" of Vatican II is over, more and more scholarly books and papers are coming out to refute the Liturgiacs' contentions and confirm the correctness of the traditional position all along.
The orientation of the altar is a case in point. I won't repeat the information here, since the case is ably and conveniently presented by Monsignor Klaus Gamber Gamber in The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background, which is still in print. Msgr. Gamber was a chaplain to Pope Paul VI and was a noted liturgical scholar of the time. He knew the score.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
TRADITIO has done a great service to the Catholic people by exposing the nonsense that passes for a "mass" in the Church of the New Order. I have laughed (or cried) at the Polka "Mass," the Cookie "Mass," the Gay "Mass," the Elvis "Mass," the Clown "Mass," the Candy "Mass," etc. -- all of which are no longer exceptions to the rule, but commonly "staged" in dioceses all over the country.
I just had to add my own contribution to your list: the "Coffee Mass." This is brought to us by the Louisville, Kentucky, St. William's (so-called) Catholic Church. The dark liquid is poured from a coffee carafe and served in a ceramic coffee mug. The other "species" is served in a ceramic cereal bowl, whose contents look like Wheaties.
I draw your attention to the fact that the "altar" is a mere table with a tablecloth on it, no crucifix or candles. I further draw your attention to the girl on the right in the picture, who apparently thinks nothing of putting her elbow on (?) the altar of sacrifice. If she were a Jewess in Old Testament Times, the Hebrew priests would execute her for an offense like that! Just shows how far the New Order has sunk from regarding anything as sacrosanct.
St. William's describes its mission with the following words: "We strive to live out the highest ideals of the Gospel of Jesus and of the Second Vatican Council." Notice that there is no mention of Rome, of Catholicism, of the Catholic Faith, of Catholic practice. Notice the use of the Holy Name without Christ, which could easily be interpreted in the present context as a denial of the doctrine that Christ is the Messias, the Anointed. Notice the deification of the Second Vatican Council. Why not say: the Council of Trent or the Council of Nicaea?
My conclusion is that there is nothing Catholic about this Novus Ordo church, regardless of what the sign on the door says. It is becoming clearer and clearer that anyone who attends the New Order, on whatever excuse, is associating with heresy, schism, and idolatry. That may not have been as clear in thirty years ago, but only a blind and deaf man could be ignorant of the fact now.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
In light of the current confusion and moral scandal in the Church, it would be well to consider a neglected bit of recent Church history: the public testimony of Bella Dodd, who served as legal counsel to the Communist Party in the United States until her conversion to Catholicism, after which she spent the rest of her life atoning for her role in the Communist infiltration of the Catholic Church.
An article in Christian Order magazine (November 2000) recounts how Dodd and her associate, Douglas Hyde, revealed the plan for Communist subversion of the Church. Ex-Communist and celebrated convert Douglas Hyde revealed long ago that in the 1930s the Communist leadership issued a worldwide directive about infiltrating the Catholic Church, while in the early 1950s, Mrs. Bella Dodd was also providing detailed explanations of the Communist subversion of the Church. Speaking as a former high-ranking official of the American Communist Party, Mrs. Dodd said: "In the 1930s we put eleven hundred men into the priesthood in order to destroy the Church from within."
The idea was for these men to be ordained and progress to positions of influence and authority as Monsignors and Bishops. A dozen years before Vatican II she stated: "Right now they are in the highest places in the Church," where they were working to bring about change in order to weaken the Church's effectiveness against Communism. She also said that these changes would be so drastic that "you will not recognise the Catholic Church."
Dodd gave voluminous testimony on Communist infiltration of Church and State before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in the 1950s. In a lecture at Fordham University during that time, Dodd unveiled what would seem to be an uncanny prophecy of future chaos in the Church. The lecture was attended by a monk whose account of the talk is presented in Christian Order:
I listened to that woman for four hours and she had my hair standing on end. Everything she said has been fulfilled to the letter. You would think she was the world's greatest prophet, but she was no prophet. She was merely exposing the step-by-step battle plan of Communist subversion of the Catholic Church. She explained that of all the world's religions, the Catholic Church was the only one feared by the Communists, for it was its only effective opponent.
The whole idea was to destroy, not the institution of the Church, but rather the Faith of the people, and even use the institution of the Church, if possible, to destroy the Faith through the promotion of a pseudo-religion: something that resembled Catholicism but was not the real thing. Once the Faith was destroyed, she explained that there would be a guilt complex introduced into the Church ... to label the "Church of the past" as being oppressive, authoritarian, full of prejudices, arrogant in claiming to be the sole possessor of truth, and responsible for the divisions of religious bodies throughout the centuries. This would be necessary in order to shame Church leaders into an "openness to the world," and to a more flexible attitude toward all religions and philosophies. The Communists would then exploit this openness in order to undermine the Church.
Does any of this sound familiar? Unless you have been comatose since Vatican II, you would be aware that Bella Dodd was describing the state of the Church of the New Order today. Today, post-conciliar churchmen wallow in guilt over the Church's "intolerant" past rather than glory in the fact that the Church made our vaunted western civilization, make public apologies for the alleged sins of dead Catholics but fail to recognize their own greater sins against the living faithful, and extol the virtues of other religions while ignoring the lethal aims of Reformation Protestants, Communist Russian Orthodox, and Muslim radicals.
Bella Dodd was no prophet. She merely told us what the infiltrators of the Church were planning to do. And, lo, they have done it, in the process making fools and patsies even of popes, cardinals, and bishops and turning them to serve "the dark side," whether wittingly or unwittingly.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
How should a traditional Catholic view Vatican II?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
What do we know about Vatican II, particularly after forty years of perspective?
First, and most important, it was not a dogmatic council. Both popes involved, as well as the Theologian of the Council, made this point very clear. Therefore, one is to give it no doctrinal significance whatever unless it is quoting previous dogma, such as that of the Council of Trent.
Second, the documents are highly ambiguous. The periti (supposed experts upon whom the bishops relied, many of them Modernists) deliberately introduced ambiguous language so that, after the Council, doctrine could be changed by committee below the papal and curial level. The well-known and deprecated statement about the "Church of Christ subsisting in the Catholic Church" is just one example of such ambiguous language, which was afterwards used to change doctrine (invalidly, of course).
Some bishops now have even started to teach, relying partially upon what they claim to be in a Vatican II document, the undermining of the entire Catholic, and even Christian, Faith on the basis that Christ is not the Messias for everyone, that He is the Redeemer not of all mankind but only certain groups, that therefore everyone is not called to embrace the Catholic Faith. This statement is so heretical, so completely against Catholic and Apostolic doctrine, so completely against Scripture and the Saints, that it is hard to image anything more outrageous -- and dangerous.
Third, in forty years the outcome of Vatican II has produced little, if any fruit, and has effectively destroyed the Catholic Church more effectively than Martin Luther ever did. The great flowering of sanctity, knowledge, and Catholic culture that flowed from the great Council of Trent has not been seen after Vatican II. Ignorance of the Catholic Faith is rampant. Ignorance of the Saints is rampant. Corruption of the Catholic faith and practice is rampant.
Fourth, we have the assessment of Pope Paul VI less than ten years afterwards, that the Council had introduced the "smoke of Satan" into the altars of the Church. No traditional Catholic could have found a more vivid phrase to describe the devastation that Vatican II ended up working on the Roman Catholic Mass, Sacraments, and Faith.
Now we see why Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI (or more likely the forces that Providentially were working upon them) refused to give dogmatic status to Vatican II. Like not a few pastoral councils of the past 2000 years, Vatican II has failed and can easily be wiped away with no doctrinal significance whatever by a future pope in communion with Catholic Faith and Tradition. For further information, see the TRADITIO Library of Files for FAQ8: What Is the Authority of Vatican II?
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Catholic Evangelical Ministries is sponsoring a conference from the knowledge and experience of Kimberley Hahn, Fr. Joseph Fessio, and other top American speakers on various issues regarding authentic Catholic spirituality, morality, and family life....
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Stop! I've heard enough. "Evangelical Ministries" is certainly the right name for it (but not "Catholic"). Two of the names mentioned are supposedly ex-Protestant Evangelicals still teaching Evangelical Protestantism under the guise of condemned "Catholic Charismaticism." The third is an adherent of the New Order, who thinks that the New Order is just fine, except that he and his committee could do a better job implementing it that Bugnini and his committee. What hybis!
This conference happened to be an out-and-out Protestant/Modernist presentation. Usually, these conferences are held under the auspices of "conservative" Catholics, who constantly talk about problems with the New Order, but still preach subservience to it. Thus, they have no answer, but simply send people back into the same environment which corrupted their Catholic faith and morals in the first place.
If you're in an area where plague-infected rats are scurrying all over, what do you reasonably do? Yes, that's right: you isolate yourself from the plague and run for your life!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I recently received a solicitation to become a subscriber to conservative Novus Ordo periodical. At once I was wary because of its claim that "Catholic doctrine is pastoral," which was echoed in a typically ambiguous and misleading quote from the present pope that "what is doctrinal is not opposed to what is pastoral."
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't doctrine unalterable while pastoral matters are more discretionary in nature? Isn't the phrase, "Catholic doctrine is pastoral" basically the mantra of the Liberalist/Modernists who, "in the spirit of Vatican II," have made such a mockery of most -- if not all -- of the rites of the Holy Catholic Church through their "pastoral discretion?"
Fr. Moderator Replies.
You've got that right! By soft-pedaling, or even rejecting, Catholic and Apostolic doctrine, the Church of the New Order is able to avoid both Christ's truth and Christian morality. "It's all pastoral." That's why the New Order doesn't have a Mass or real doctrine: just a hootenanny and a "non-judgmental" mish-mosh that no Apostle would recognize as anything Catholic. That is why the New Order rejects both Scripture and Tradition; otherwise, it would be held to an objective Catholic and Apostolic standard, which is anathema to a Novus Ordinarian!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
The Vatican revealed on September 27 that one of its agencies called the "International Theological Commission" (doesn't that send chills up your spine, like the International Committee on English in the Liturgy?!) is now analyzing the final draft of a document that addresses the issue of the "ordination" of "deaconesses," to be voted on next week.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
It is probably the next jumping-off place for the Church of the New Order to abandon yet another Dogma and Tradition. First "deaconnesses," then "priestesses," then "bishopesses." That is how it happened in the Episcopalian sect, which will probably serve as the model for the New Order "clergy," just as it was for the New Order "Mass."
In fact, "deaconnesses" were not clergy in the early Church and were thus never "ordained." They corresponded to what in more recent times we would call nuns. But that fact will almost certainly not stop the New Order from telling yet another lie, just as it did about "for all" meaning the same as "for many," about the turned-backwards altar, and about the new "canons."
My bet is that after the vote (since when did these things become a matter of voting instead of truth?), the Church of the New Order will start with the deaconesses. Perhaps the deaconesses will get into a brawl with the extraordinary ministresses, and then at least there will be some entertainment value in New Order "sanctuaries," since there certainly isn't any sacramental value there!
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