Dear Fr. Moderator:
I know that it is obligatory for Catholics to follow the traditional practices concerning fast and abstinence. But is the pope ever capable of changing these practices?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
In their essence, no. So many Catholics talk about such important practices as "rules," as if some rule-maker could change them willy-nilly. However, like many things in the Church, fast and abstinence come partly from Divine Positive Law, only partly from ecclesiastical law. These two practices are certainly embedded in Apostolic Tradition, as part of correct Catholic practice, orthopraxis. There is no question that they were observed from Apostolic times.
The difficulty is that since the New Order and the pope as its unfortunate mouthpiece have basically turned their back on Catholic and Apostolic practice, one cannot accede to such attempted changes, rather obliterations, of Catholic and Apostolic practice. One has no authority unless the end of that authority is being exercised. The end of papal authority, as defined by dogmatic Vatican I, is the guarding and preservation of Apostolic Tradition, not its obliteration. Otherwise, it is like taking the gun designed to shoot the turkey and turning it upon oneself instead. Illogical, right?
Perhaps an analogy will be of help here. Every year, as I understand, the game rules of baseball are changed, in minor ways so that the changes are hardly noticeable. Rarely does anyone object. But what would happen if the rule-maker of baseball decided that there should be five bases and that the ball should be the size of a basketball?
What would be the reaction? Would people say, "He's the rule-maker, so if he wants five bases and a basketball, we must obey without question"? Or would people say: "He has no right. Throw the bum out. This isn't baseball anymore." Just so, the "rule changes" that the New Order attempts to impose are not Catholicism any more, and the rule-maker's actions are null and void because they are outside the purview of the subject.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
In a recent article, a musician began with a discussion of lack of belief in the Real Presence among Catholics. Then she discussed post-Conciliar hymns where the words sacrifice, Real Presence, and even Body and Blood of Christ are strangely absent. She quotes and discusses individual hymns and shows how their concepts of the Holy Eucharist are confused, inaccurate, incomplete, unCatholic, all of the above, or some of the above.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
There is nothing "strange" about this. Traditional voices were already speaking up in the late 1960s and 1970s about this matter. The New Order songs are not defective by happenstance; they are a deliberate effort by the New Order revolutionaries to introduce Newthink into the local parishes and to drive out the traditional Catholic understanding. The bishops, far from objecting to this deceit, are in league with it.
Moreover, the web site to which you refer is a "conservative" New Order site. Sure, they might pick at a translation here or there, but they are 100% behind Vatican II and the Modernists temporarily in control of the Vatican, which is the origin of the difficulties discussed in the article.
As I have pointed out on many occasions in the past, the confusing and objectionable actions of the Church of the New Order go far deeper than even the surface repulsiveness of a "Clown Mass" or "Dignity" activity supported by the local bishop. If the Novus Ordinarians really thought about what is behind the surface symptoms, they could not, in conscience, have anything to do with the Church of the New Order.
And here is an example. Now we see the true stripes of such as Bernard Cardinal Law, who, if the pope had true concern about the Roman Catholic priesthood, would have been stripped of his red and consigned to a monastery to do penance the rest of his life for corrupting minors, suborning deceit, and displaying malfeasance in his high office.
Law, he tells us by his own actions, is an apostate from the Roman Catholic Faith. He prays publicly to Allah, the God of the Mohammedans. And here we are not talking about a civic ceremony in which an Our Father is said with Protestants or God Bless America sung with them.
We are talking about a supposedly Roman Catholic cardinal, in the public vestments of his office, doing obeisance to a foreign god. Law might as well worship the golden calf with the Old Testament Hebrews.
Law says that he feels right at home among heretics. In the false Church of the New Order, which falsely speaks about liberalistic sensitivity, I wonder how this man justifies trampling on the sensitivity of thousands who lost family and friends to a sneak attack by worshippers of this foreign god.
I have received many copies of letters, faxes, and books from Novus Ordinarians displaying shock about what is going on in the institutions of the Church of the New Order. While the writers' intentions are probably good, they are deluded if they think that the pope, the Vatican, or the bishops care about their outrage. No doubt the pope will praise Law for his "gesture" rather than excommunicate him, as canon law provides.
How can Novus Ordinarians with any credibility continue to support such perversity with their money and their presence? It is becoming much harder to plead "invincible ignorance." The truth is just too obvious. Recently it has been announced that Law is going to be called to the Vatican to be given some plum job in June, from which position he can more effectively introduce his apostate ideas into the bureaucracy of the Church of the New Order.
There is an old saw in politics that the people get the government that they deserve. It can certainly be said that the Novus Ordinarians have no room for complaint. They get exactly what they deserve: a gutted papacy, a gutted episcopate, a gutted priesthood, a gutted Mass, a gutted Catholicism. Until they stand up to the Novus Ordo apparatus, that is what they will continue to get -- and worse.
WAYLAND, Massachusetts. November 25, 2002 (Excerpted from the Boston Globe) - It was Sunday, and Cardinal Bernard F. Law had come to pray. So, wearing a gold crucifix and a flowing black robe with red trim, Law removed his shoes. Then, as the imam chanted the sunset prayers, the bishop knelt with his forehead just inches from the carpet and offered praise to Allah.
No doubt, Law looked out of place at the Islamic Center of Boston last night - but he didn't feel that way. Law, who participated in the Wayland mosque's Ramadan observance, said he felt right at home among the Muslim worshipers. During a brief speech after the meal, Law suggested that religious Catholics and Muslims have more in common with each other. "I feel very much at home with my fellow fundamentalists here," Law said.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Is it correct for the general congregation to recite the Divine Praises at Benediction along with the priest, or should they be repeated after he recites each praise?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The Laudes Divinae are not strictly part of Benediction, which properly extends from the Tantum Ergo Sacramentum through the blessing with the Most Blessed Sacrament in the ostensorium. By local custom the Praises are sometimes said afterward. When so done, the usual practice is for the priest to chant (or recite) each phrase and for the congregation to respond in kind.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Is the practice of lighting Advent Candles a Catholic one?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The Advent wreath is a simple evergreen wreath hung with three violet candles and one rose candle to represent each Sunday of Advent, the rose candle representing the Third Sunday of Advent, called Gaudete Sunday from the first word of its Introit and being celebrated a little more joyously in rose vestments.
The question of Advent Candles always stirs some controversy. Some see it as hailing from the Protestant tradition:
The Advent Wreath came from Germany during the time of Martin Luther. The practice of the wreath and lighting candles was spread by the German Mennonites, so this did come from Protestants. The Book of Blessings even has a ritual for the blessing of an Advent wreath, whereas the traditional Roman Ritual does not.
On the other hand, even some Catholic areas of Germany seem to have had the practice:
Our family used the Advent wreath in the mid-1950's. Each evening, prior to dinner, one to four candles was lit (depending on the week of Advent), and the Antiphon for that Sunday was recited (e.g., Rorate Caeli), followed by one Pater, Ave, and Gloria. It seemed a fitting prayer to remind us of the Advent season. This was done, of course, well before the Novus Ordo.
The practice may have been inspired by the Swedish Crown of Lights worn by young Swedish girls on St. Lucia's Day, with the evergreen symbolizing the blessing of eternal life. In ancient Rome the people used to decorate wreaths as a sign of victory and celebrating, the strength of life overcoming the forces of winter. There is also controversy about when this practice came generally into churches in the United States. Some remember it from the 1950s; others remember it coming after the Novus Ordo.
Whatever the conclusion one reaches about the history of this practice, it would be fair to say that it has become markedly more prominent since the Novus Ordo.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
The Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (national prohibition) prohibited the importation, exportation, transportation, manufacture, and sale of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes, thus exempting wine to be consecrated at Mass. You are correct in stating that the First Amendment would have provided additional protection to Catholics.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Several days ago you repeated your view that the many of the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church have departed from the authentic Apostolic tradition. It appears that now the Pope is officially asking them to "update" their liturgy and beliefs. Barely a month ago, John Paul II "updated" the Holy Rosary, and now he is pushing for another update?! When will all this destruction stop? When will Catholics start saying, "We have had enough!"?
VATICAN CITY, November 21, 2002 (Excerpted from Zenit) - Given this difficult situation, John Paul II exhorted Eastern Catholics not to be imprisoned by "formulas of the past," but to "open themselves to a healthy updating" -- "aggiornamento," he said in Italian, the word used by John XXIII to express the renewal that the Second Vatican Council would promote.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Even Pope John XXIII lived to regret "aggiornamento," as he saw that concept being used to justify every unCatholic abomination, as he lay on his deathbed saying, "Stop the Council! Stop the Council!" That this pope would try to connive the Eastern Rites to depart farther than they already have from Apostolic Tradition is just another result of the terminal sickness of Vatican II.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Wouldn't praying in Latin give more spiritual benefit? The Novus Ordinarians choke on that concept.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The language of the Church, by divine Providence, is Latin. That is how its theology, liturgy, law, literature, and so forth have been expressed, and that is the language through which it was carried to the whole world.
It cannot be denied that the Roman Catholic Faith is best and most accurately conveyed in this language. The great culture of Rome was carried in this language, and the Roman Catholic Church took it over as its own. As Fr. Foster has put it: "Real thinking is in Latin."
The Church of the New Order, being unCatholic, of course rejects Catholic Tradition. It has introduced vulgar tongues so that the Roman Catholic Faith can be changed and corrupted. They call it "modernized," but we know that Modernism is a heresy, as Pope St. Pius X, called it, "the sum total of all heresies."
Those who have begun to pray in Latin have reported the most wonderful improvement in their prayer life. Once again they know that they are connected to the 2000-year Church. They are forced to contemplate the meaning of their words, rather than, for example, rattling off a Rosary with little thought in the vernacular. The Rosary and the Angelus are excellent ways to introduce this practice into your prayer life, as you can hardly say that you don't understand them.
Meanwhile, the Novus Ordo children are so poorly grounded in the Catholic Faith that many of them cannot recite an Ave -- in any language!
MATERA, Italy, November 11, 2002 (Extracts from SASSI) - The Passion tells the story of the last 12 hours in the life of Christ on the day of his crucifixion in Jerusalem, based upon the diaries of Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824), an Augustian nun who lived in Germany. During her life, it is said that God gave her extensive visions of the past, the present, and the future. Many theologians believe that she received from God more visions than any other Saint. The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ contains the visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich concerning the Last Supper, the Agony in the Garden, the Arrest, the Scourging, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. They are highly detailed and highly descriptive, revealing more purported information about the Life of Jesus Christ that is contained in Sacred Scripture alone.
In the film Christ speaks Latin and Syriac (sometimes called Aramaic), and probably subtitles will not be used because Producer, Director & Co-Screenwriter Mel Gibson, a staunchly public traditional Catholic, who makes no bones about his rejection of the Church of the New Order, believes that the history is well-enough known that subtitles are not necessary.
It is interesting that Gibson has come down on the side of Christ speaking Latin rather than Greek, but there is good circumstantial evidence that He was in fact acquainted with the Latin language and used it in his dialogues with Pontius Pilate and the gentiles with whom He came in contact. The screenplay was translated into Latin and Syriac by a Jesuit linguistics professor.
Production started on November 4th in Matera and Craco in Southern Italy, and after two months it will move to Rome, in Cinecitta. Gibson has a good knowledge of the Bible text and of the historical documents, which he quotes in Latin. Gibson respects the tradition of the Church and wants to shoot everything exactly as it happened 2000 years ago. The Passion is currently scheduled for release around December 2003 or Easter of 2004.
While on location, Gibson has asked a priest to celebrate a daily Traditional Latin Mass. As an indication of the attention that this traditional Catholic film is getting, journalists from New York Times are now in Matera to write about the movie. Fr. Moderator was interviewed this last week for an hour and a half by a reporter from the Times concerning Gibson and Traditional Catholicism in general.
James Caveziel, who plays the role of Christ, every day assists at the Traditional Latin Mass. Even during the pauses of the shooting, he looks always sad, silent and pensive, completely involved in his role as Christ. During the pauses there is always a priest together with him, and they often talk. Many times Caveziel, far from everyone, says the rosary.
Claudia Gerini, who plays Pilate's wife, said that she was happy to take her screen-test in Latin and to play her part in Latin, which she has previously studied. One never knows when a knowledge of this sacred and classical language will come in handy!
Gibson's concept here is ingenious. The idea of shooting a film in Latin without subtitles is sheer genius. It has already got the press buzzing more in advance of release than any film since Cleopatra in the 1960s. Gibson didn't become a superstar for no reason. He knows Hollywood better than it knows itself, and he can use its very weaknesses to publicize a traditional Catholic film.
The experience of being plopped down into such a historical event, with the authentic languages of the time being used, would probably only compound the mystique and intrigue. Creating such an experience for modern audiences is apparently Mel Gibson's intent with this film, which he hopes to release without the aid of English subtitles. This is a daring strategy.
You'd be surprised how many people know Latin. School enrollments are skyrocketing once again. Even the pope has started to reimpose Latin for the Novus Ordo service and for studies for the priesthood. All that nonsense about being a "dead" language is just that: nonsense. Otherwise, why did Winnie Ille Pooh [Winnie the Pooh] (1984) and Quomodo Invidiosulus Nomine Grinchus Christi Natalem Abrogaverit [How the Grinch Stole Christmas] (1998) become bestsellers for weeks on the New York Times booklist? Later this year, or early next year, another blockbuster will hit the distributors: the Latin version of the first Harry Potter book, to be accompanied by a version in classical Greek.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
As an Englishman I have often wondered what the Church did when alcohol was prohibited in the United States. Did the Church have a special dispensation from the government to use wine for the Holy Mass? None of my American acquaintances would appear to know the answer to this question.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
This is a question that has interested me too. It appears that there was some exception made for altar wines, perhaps in virtue of our First Amendment against prohibiting the free exercise of religion. I have heard that the vintners still made altar wines, at least here in California. Moreover, it is hard to imagine that beer and wine production would just be shut down entirely, but I have never been able to track this down. Perhaps one of our readers has the pertinent information.
Some priests taking a little altar wine is one thing. But if the government had to deal with all of the congregation taking "the cup," I can well imagine more difficulties. As far as I know, all (or most) Protestant churches having a "communion service," use grape juice. That, of course, would be invalid at a Catholic Mass.
Is the Vatican finally coming to its senses? Is it finally beginning to realize the use of the vulgar tongues are not finally appropriate to religion and is leading to an erosion of our Roman Catholic Faith and even our western civilization? It was just last February that the pope pushed for a wider use of Latin, following in the footsteps of his predecessor Pope John XXIII.
VATICAN, February 21, 2002 (CWN). POPE PUSHES FOR WIDER USE OF LATIN. -- Pope John Paul II has recommended the use of Latin in the Roman liturgy and in seminary training. On February 16, in a message to a conference being held at the Salesian University in Rome, the Holy Father "encourages those who work zealously For the application of Veterum Sapientia and hopes that Latin and its study, once again, will take a pre-eminent place in the Church. He emphasized that Latin remains the official language of the Catholic Church, and expressed his desire that "the love of that language would grow ever strong among candidates for the priesthood." The Pope's message itself was written in Latin, and read by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican Secretary of State.
The conference to which the Pope addressed this message was commemorating the 40th anniversary of Veterum Sapientia, the apostolic constitution in which Pope John XXIII wrote of the importance of Latin as an important part of "the patrimony of human civilization." Pope John Paul underlined the same message, pointing out that the use of Latin "is an indispensable condition for a proper relationship between modernity and antiquity, for dialogue among different cultures, and for reaffirming the identity of the Catholic priesthood."
At least the pope has got this right. Naturally, the Philistines of bishops we have here in the United States and elsewhere will do nothing to follow his dicta. And they have the gall to call us disobedient?! Now the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic education has demanded a minimum of three years of Latin for canon-law study.
ROME, November 19, 2002 (Excerpts from ANSA) - Fed up with having to spoon-feed postgraduate students who are supposed to be capable of deciphering sources, the Vatican is forcing priests to shape up in Latin. "This is going to hit everybody," Father Foster told ANSA today, referring to the Vatican decree making the language of Cicero, Vergil, and the Church Fathers compulsory for three years in Canon Law studies.
"They come to the Gregorian University knowing nothing, nothing. These are people who are supposed to be postgraduates, for crying out loud. You get lovely people, nuns from Nigeria and other African nations, for instance, speaking perfect English, with zero Latin. Then they're faced with St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and presumed to be able to handle it. Of course they can't."
Asked why Latin was essential if the texts were available in modern languages, Foster replied, emphatically: "You can't get inside St. Augustine's mind in English. Real thinking is in Latin, period. It's all about getting back to the sources, analysing the sources. This really could light a fire."
For the moment the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education has laid down the study of more Latin only in its Canon Law departments. But Foster hopes more will follow, in what could be a domino effect. "Latin is essential for the texts in Canon Law, but what about Church History, Moral Theology, Dogmatic Theology, Liturgical Studies, Patristics, and all the rest? This has started the ball rolling. We'll see what happens."
So, next time that Novus Ordinarian gives you some line about the "language of the people" and goes off to his next Polka "Mass" or Gay "Mass" or Cookie "Mass," you can tell him: "You might want to settle for that, but I'm with the pope: I want it in Latin!"
Once again we find again how historical revisionism is made easy by people's ignorance of Latin and reliance upon "translations." Do you think that this was mere happenstance after Vatican II? Don't you believe it! A Catholic people that is kept ignorant of any element of its true faith is a Catholic people who can be manipulated into a phony and unCatholic "New Order."
CALGARY, November 20, 2002 (National Post excerpts) - In the movie Black Robe, 17th-century Jesuit missionaries are portrayed as viewing Canadian Indians as superstitious, pagan savages with no redeeming culture who can be saved only by baptism. New academic research, however, suggests that the early Jesuits are simply victims of bad press. According to a fresh analysis of their Latin dispatches to Rome, the Jesuits regarded native people with admiration and respect.
"In Black Robe you get the stereotype of the almost rabid religious fanatic. There is the good savage and the rest are sort of cruel and horrifying and there is no middle ground," says Haijo Westra, a professor of Greek and Roman studies at the University of Calgary. After studying the Latin dispatches sent from Canada by French Jesuit missionaries, Dr. Westra concludes that the image of the "black robes" has been unfairly distorted by the English translations of their field reports, which he says missed sympathetic nuances derived from classic Latin texts the Jesuits studied.
Dr. Westra notes Jesuit missionaries such as Jean de Brebeuf and Paul Ragueneau drew up codes of respect to be used by missionaries when encountering native people. In what are considered to be among the most hideous tortures in the history of Christian martyrdom, Brebeuf and his associate, Jesuit missionary Gabriel Lalement, were fastened to stakes in 1649 by Iroquois near present-day Midland, Ontario, where they were tormented with burning coals and subjected to mutilation, mock baptism with boiling water and scalping.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Do the Eastern Rites of the Church offer any safe harbor in place of the Novus Ordo?
First of all, note that the Eastern rites are practiced both by the Eastern Orthodox, who are schismatic from the Roman Catholic Church, and by the Eastern Unitates, who are part of the Roman Catholic Church.
The liturgical scholar Fr. Adrian Fortescue once wrote: "The ruthless destruction of the ancient rites in favor of uniformity has been the work not of Rome but of the schismatical patriarchs of Constantinople. Since the thirteenth Century Constantinople in its attempt to make itself the one center of the Orthodox Church has driven out the far more venerable and ancient liturgies of Antioch and Alexandria and has compelled all the Orthodox to use its own late derived rite."
It is true now that the Eastern Rites are in worse shape than the Western. At one time the Easterns had apostolic rites, but many have now fallen away from these, because of the constant wars and conquests of invasion in the East (from which the Western Church has thankfully been spared).
Many of these churches have given up their Apostolic rites and liturgical languages to substitute a vernacularized, even concocted, worship (as with the "Western Orthodox," a sham to lure Roman Catholics to cross the fence into the Orthodox schism). This is particularly true of the Eastern rites in the United States. The Uniates have the additional problem of corruptions by Neo-Modernism introduced into their rites after Vatican II.
There is the occasional church with an Eastern-rite liturgy that has not been corrupted by history or Vatican II, but such a church is more by far like the proverbial needle in the haystack than the Traditional Latin Mass is!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
We know that labyrinths date back to early Greek times, as evinced in some myths. Has the Catholic Church, in mediaeval times, used labyrinths as a mini-pilgrimage to the Holy Land when it was difficult for pilgrims to make the trip? I ask because this was stated in a Novus Ordo parish bulletin. That parish is having a one day labyrinth journey together with a local Methodist church. We know that labyrinths are becoming popular nowadays for "spiritual progress". Had they ever been used by the Catholic Church?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
There is evidence of some labyrinths in mediaeval times, particularly at Chartres Cathedral, although nowadays the labyrinth is associated with New Wave thinking, enneagrams, the Earth Goddess Gaia, and the like. The fact that it is being used in a local Novus Ordo parish with Methodists in a false oecumenical activity just confirms that point.
It is a feature of the New Order that things good or at least innocuous in traditional thought are turned to a Modernistic way. For example, the form of the Traditional Latin Mass is modified to become the vulgarized Novus Ordo "service," no longer even defined as a Mass by Pope Paul VI.
RU News Service on November 17 reports some astonishing statistics about the Islamization and De-Christianization of France, formerly called the "Daughter of the Church."
1970: 100 mosques
1999: 1536 mosques
2001: 1700 mosques
1994: 27% of the Moslems living in France affirm their Moslem identity
2001: 36%
1989: 38% of Moslems consider themselves believers
2001: 42%
1994: 16% generally go to the mosque
2001: 20%
1994: 55% of Moslems have the intention to accomplish the pilgrimage to Mecca
2001: 58%
During this time, on the Catholic side (reportedly 80% of Frenchmen), seminaries are closed, and thousands of churches are empty (in the department Val-d'Oise near Paris, for example, 115 churches enjoy the peace of the cemeteries except for 2 or 3 Sundays per year). At St. Gratien in the Val-d'Oise, for example, with 20,000 inhabitants, only 3% of the Catholics are still going to church on Sundays.
The above-mentioned numbers concerning the Islamization of France fly in the face of the argument of the Novus Ordo bishops of France, who try to justify the desertification of the churches by a general reduction of the religious feeling in modern times "since the 1960s", according to the very words of cardinal Lustiger of Paris. The 1960s are precisely the years of the Vatican II, which established the basis for the radical changes in the Church, notably in the liturgy, moving millions of French Catholics from the practice of their divine religion.
Little by little, the bishops, representing only the facade of a building of which the nave already has collapsed, are taking cognizance of this catastrophe, weeping about our modern times instead of having the courage to lay the fatal orientation at the feet of the Council. On the contrary, some of them are already whispering about a new council, a kind of Vatican III, not to abolish Vatican II and to come back to the solid sources of Catholic doctrine and liturgy, but to go yet farther into Modernism. Maybe in order to push out of the Church the last 3% of the practicing faithful? The final (dis)solution?
What a way to end the Millennial Jubilee, which is supposed to be one of the most sacred times on earth! The photograph indicates that far from just "attending" the service, the clowns actually led the service, as is the case in what has come to be known as a "Clown Mass," complete with "Holy Laughter." 263 popes must be turning in their graves at this point.
ROME, Italy, November 17 (photo and text extracted from the BBC News) - Pope John Paul II has presided over the last special event of the Catholic Church's Jubilee celebrations, with a mass devoted to the world of entertainment. Actors, film directors, fun-fair workers, jugglers and circus and mime artists were among thousands of people attending the mass in St. Peter's Square.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Do you think, despite Card. Ratzinger's other flaws, that the following sentiment bodes hope for the future?
For fostering a true consciousness in liturgical matters, it is also important that the proscription against the form of liturgy in valid use up to 1970 should be lifted. Anyone who nowadays advocates the continuing existence of this liturgy or takes part in it is treated as a leper; all tolerance ends here. There has never been anything like this in all of history; in doing this we are despising and proscribing the Church's whole past. How can one trust her present if things are that way? I must say, quite openly, that I don't understand why so many of my episcopal brethren have to a great extent submitted to this rule of intolerance, which for no apparent reason is opposed to making the necessary inner reconciliations within the Church." (God and the World, p. 416)
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Empty words, I'm afraid. If by suppressing the Traditional Latin Mass, the Church of the New Order is "despising and proscribing its whole past," what does that say about the Novus Ordo service itself? Doesn't it prove it to be an unCatholic innovation? You see, there's the nub of the problem.
This is Ratzinger's standard line, to add a little salt on top of the rotten meat of the Novus Ordo service. The Traditional Latin Mass is not some salt occasionally sprinkled, but must be the "meat and potatoes" of the Church.
Notice in his statement that he talks about the "liturgy in use up to 1970." That isn't the Traditional Latin Mass. The last rubrical change that might be considered traditional (and many dispute this) is that of 1962. Certainly, the versions of 1964, 1965, and 1967 (in which the very words of Consecration were changed) have to be considered Novus Ordo. Is it happenstance that the "indult" societies, which swore that they would adhere to the 1962 rubrics, are not talking about, and using, later rubrics that are clearly Novus Ordo?
Ratzinger is a sly fox. You don't get to be the third most powerful person in the Vatican otherwise. He's trying to play both sides off against the middle. Some say that this trying to be all things to all people is his salvo to become pope at the next conclave. If he wanted to see the Traditional Latin Mass return with the Novus Ordo (which, in any case, is not the solution to the problem of the Novus Ordo), he has the power to make it happen. Instead, he seems intent upon redefining the teachings of Scripture and Tradition to his own whims, such as his recent statement that Christ is not the Messias for the Jews, only the Gentiles!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Do you think that the U.S. bishops went too far in their guidelines regarding sex allegations?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
It is obvious that the U.S. bishops have been caught with their pants down. They have trampled the very Faith that they were supposed to protect with their lives. They were supposed to emulate the likes of Bishop Augustine and Bishop Ambrose. Instead, they have lied, cheated, fornicated, and mismanaged like Rodrigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI).
To cover their own shame and guilt, they have turned against their own spiritual sons, their presbyters, and played fast and loose with their innocence and rights. If these were true bishops, the problem would never have gotten to this point. It is just another example of the evil outcome of Vatican II and their own enforcement of New Order principles in their dioceses. It shows how far the Novus Ordinarians have fallen that instead of calling, as the early Christians at Rome did in the case of corrupt bishops, for the expulsion of these bishop-wolves, they support them and justify them, in large part, and invite them to pounce on more chickens.
Like Our Lord in the Temple, the pope, if he were exercising his office properly, would have lashed the U.S. cardinals and many bishops out of God's house and appointed in their stead true shepherds of the Roman Catholic Faith. However, the Church of the New Order has become so unCatholic that all these prelates can do, like corrupt business leaders, is feather their own nests and cover for one another.
That is why true Catholics must abandon the New Order Counterfeit Church and return to the Roman Catholic Faith, the immemorial Catholic Faith of 2000 years, not the sham New Order devised by Freemasons, Oecumaniacs, Liturgiacs, and One-World Government panderers.
More good news about the new film that Mel Gibson is producing in Latin and Syriac titled The Passion. Apparently, Gibson has chosen to play the part of "Christ" 35-year-old actor James Caviezel, who is a traditional Catholic.
Caviezel was born on September 26, 1968, in Mount Vernon, Washington, as one of five children into a family that is Catholic and deeply religious. His background is mostly Irish, but the family name is Romansch, a Latin-based language that is spoken in some areas of Switzerland.
In 1993 he was accepted at the Juilliard School for the Performing Arts, but instead decided to take a small part in the movie Wyatt Earp (1994). His break came with his performance in The Thin Red Line (1999), for which is was nominated for an award. His most recent performance was in Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Christo (2002), in which he played the role of Edmond Dante.
Caviezel is very dedicated to his family and follows his religious morals even during movies shoots. He believes that he should set a good example for children and refuses to do love scenes that are too revealing.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I was born in 1970 into a Catholic home with a large family. I have been questioning my Novus Ordo faith for many years because of the changes in the Church, such as altar girls, communion in the hand, eucharistic ministers, face-to-face counselling sessions instead of confession, and annulments. The immodesty and irreverence is mind-blowing. The Church has become a business, where money is the basis for everything. For the sermon we get a recap of the world news and jokes rather than teaching about obedience and reverence toward God.
It has become clear to me that what I knew as Catholic is merely a circus with a different ring leader every three years, as our Novus Ordo bishop rotates the priests in the diocese every 3-4 years. My younger brother struggled the same way, and he and his family are now attending a Traditional Latin Mass 1-1/2 hours away from home. His journey from Novus Ordo to Traditional took two years. My journey is occurring at a more accelerated rate; I read for 2-3 hours almost every night about traditional Catholic teaching as opposed to Vatican II teaching. The more I read (and notice everything around me), the more I hunger for the truth!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
The Novus Ordinarians, who obey nobody (!), say that traditional Catholics have no justification, as the pope and bishops must be obeyed in order to be part of the true Catholic Church.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Would you disobey St. Peter and obey man rather than God? This is the well-known fallacious argument of "false obedience." In Catholic theology, obedience must be directed to a good end; otherwise, it is a vice. If the pope asked you to kill someone, should you obey? Of course not. If the bishop demanded that you hold a belief contrary to the Catholic Faith, should you obey? Of course not.
Obedience, as St. Thomas Aquinas explains, is a secondary virtue subordinate to charity, or love of God. Obviously, the necessity of obedience depends upon the person and thing to be obeyed. Obedience to evil is a vice, not a virtue. Catholic moral theology has always taught that even if the pope were to command something that is against the divine or natural law, then it would certainly be sinful for anyone to obey him, since the virtue of obedience is opposed not only by disobedience, but is also violated by excessive or indiscreet obedience, which is the sin of servility.
In the secular realm we understand this principle clearly. No Catholic, for example, would argue for the Nazistic principle befehl ist befehl [an order is an order], e.g., that obedience to the lawfully-elected German Chancellor would be necessary if he or his representatives commanded one to kill an innocent man in a gas chamber. Yet many Germans justified their gassing innocent people by relying on the fallacious argument of false obedience. When they were tried, they were condemned to the noose, as obedience cannot be used as an argument to justify obeying evil.
It is a stark analogy, but to Catholics the Faith, the Mass, and the Sacraments are as dear as life itself. This is the clear example that was set for us by our predecessors, the Christian martyrs of every age, and that has been set before us by the Church through the ages by its veneration of martyrs for the faith as the greatest class of saints.
The Church is subordinate to Christ, and the popes' and bishops' authority is similarly subordinate to Christ. Their powers are limited to functioning within the Deposit of Faith. Dogmatic Council Vatican I clearly defined in the decree Pastor Aeternus that the pope (and the bishops) have no authority whatsoever to innovate upon the Faith. They have authority only to guard and hand on to the next generation what has been handed down to them in the Faith.
Remember that it is the "New Order" which is not the true Catholic Church. Its very name tells you that. It is a dumbed-down, Protestantized and Hebraicized counterfeit, a "Great Facade," as some have called it. To the degree that the pope and the bishop do not follow Christ, do not follow the Deposit of Faith, do not follow Catholic and Apostolic practice, to that degree they cannot claim obedience, since any Catholic obeying what is false in religion would be committing a grave sin against the First Commandment of God Himself: "I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no strange gods before me."
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I recently wrote to you about the validity or believability of private revelations. I know that we are not required to believe in them as a condition of salvation. How does the Rosary fit into this category? Was it given to us by private revelation also?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The Rosary is not a matter of private revelation. It was devised deliberately as a layman's substitute for the 150 Psalms of the Psalter, which are said by the clergy and religious at Divine Office in the course of a week. That is why the Rosary has 150 Aves. It is interesting that originally the laity participated fully in the Divine Office of the Church, many knowing the 150 Psalms by heart. Apparently, that ability (or degree of devotion) lessened over time, and the Rosary came to replace the Divine Office in the case of many laymen.
The Divine Office is preferable as the original and full expression of the Church's Tradition from the earliest times through the current day, and was specifically commended by Pope St. Pius X when its use had fallen among the laity, and even some clergy. Some people who are unable to say the full Divine Office say the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary instead, such as those who wear the Brown Scapular of Mount Carmel, who are required to say the Little Office as part of their automatic association with the lay Confraternity of the Carmelite Order.
The Little Office too, as basically an extract of the Divine Office, is a fuller expression of the Church's Tradition and much richer in its depth of mediations than the Rosary, but less so than the depth of the Divine Office itself. The Rosary is a handy prayer for the convenience of not having to hold a book, but it is ultimately a substitute. Before the traditional Faith was persecuted after Vatican II, many laymen would meet on their lunch-break to say the Divine Office, which is always acceptable in place of the Rosary, as being a fuller expression of it.
>ATERA, Italy, November 5 (photo and text extracted from the New York Times) - The gates of old Jerusalem rise high and pale yellow above the millennia-old dwellings here, and the door to the room of the Last Supper is almost as easily spotted, thanks to a padlock that keeps the curious at bay.
Mel Gibson is here now, using the craggy landscape and rudimentary stone dwellings, known as sassi, as sets for The Passion, a movie he is directing about the last 12 hours in Jesus' life. But Mr. Gibson is not the first to divine something biblical in Matera. In the early 1960's, the Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini shot The Gospel According to St. Matthew here. In the mid-1980s, the American actor Richard Gere came to Matera to play the title role in King David. So when Mr. Gibson swooped down early this month with a crew of hundreds, no one here was the least bit surprised.
For Mr. Gibson, who is strongly Catholic, verisimilitude was important. He is shooting The Passion, which stars the actor James Caviezel as Jesus, in Latin and ancient Aramaic, and has said he hopes the visual and visceral power of the story will mean that he will not have to add subtitles.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I came across a news release today, in which the pope praises the heretical activities of the Pentecostal movement in the New Order. Your comments?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Charismaticism is a particularly virulent modern-day mania infecting the Church of the New Order, which has its roots deep in heresy. In the late 17th century, the beginnings of Charismaticism can already be seen as a derivative of the Protestant heresy. Philip Jakob Spener and his disciple, August Hermann Francke, from his vantage point at the new University of Halle, through over 6,000 graduates in Protestant theology, spread the ideas of "Pietism" throughout Germany.
The Pietists specially emphasized emotional feeling rather than reason and cultivated "enthusiasm" in worship. They encouraged Herzensreligion, a religion of the heart founded on an "individual, personal experience" of Christ, much like the modern Protestant Evangelicals, who talk about a "personal experience of Christ," by which they refer to an over-emotionalized, highly personalized attitude that overrides true belief.
The roots of modern-day Charismaticism (Pentecostalism) go back to 1901 when a group of Methodists at a Topeka, Kansas, prayer meeting began "experiencing the spirit." The emotional prayer style soon spread throughout the Assemblies of God, as well as other small Protestant denominations. A typical charismatic prayer meeting includes music, singing or praying in tongues, healing sessions, prophesying, and body prayer.
The phenomenon caught on nationwide among Novus Ordinarians who were searching for new ways of praying during the first flurry of Vatican II changes. The movement names Vatican II as the starting point, crediting a prayer by Pope John XXIII to the Holy Ghost to "renew Thy wonders in our day as by a new Pentecost." The Charismatic Movement in the American Catholic Church traces its beginnings to a "spirit-filled" graduate student and faculty retreat at Duquesne University in 1967. Protestant Pentecostal prayer forms such as speaking in tongues (glossalalia) and being "baptized in the Holy Ghost" took hold.
Known initially as "Catholic Pentecostalism," the movement was renamed to reflect the various spiritual "gifts" (charismata), purportedly given by the Holy Ghost to individuals. The movement is closely associated with the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD, which was perfectly traditional before Vatican II, but afterwards was corrupted), Taize, "oecumenism," Marriage Encounter, the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA), Renew, Focolare, and Cursillo.
This Charismatic Movement is far from true Catholicism. It represents an almost complete abandonment of even nominally Catholic practices, beliefs, and modes of discourse. Charismaticism is based on the erroneous notion that emotional experience always accompanies the conferral of grace, whereas the Catholic doctrine is that the only sensible indication of the conferral of grace is the Sacramental sign itself.
Charismatics see no reason to exclude non-Catholics or even non-Christians from the chance to experience the charismata, the extraordinary manifestations of the Holy Ghost, which helped to spread the Faith during the early Church, but disappeared after the Apostolic Age, when the Church had established itself and had no further use or need of the charismata. Such manifestations had specific purposes, such as to spread the Gospel to hearers of different languages, or to prove the credibility or holiness of an apostolic speaker. In fact, one of the aims of the Charismatic Movement is to unite various Protestant movements with New Order Catholics under the banner of "signs and wonders."
Charismaticism is intimately connected with the error of "Fatimism," which finds a new basis of faith in private revelations, prophecies, visions, "signs and wonders." So far does this sometimes go that there are "Charismatic Catholics" who still continue to practice witchcraft and idol worship. All this is, of course, heretical and of Satan, as St. Paul tells us:
And then that wicked one shall be revealed: whom the Lord Jesus shall kill with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: him Whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power and signs and lying wonders: And in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish: because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying (2 Thessalonians 2:8-11/DRV).
Charismaticism bears a frightening relation to several heresies condemned by the Church: Gnosticism, Messalianism, Montanism, and Nominalism.
Regardless of the fact that certain New Order Church officials have made personally favorable statements or that the post-conciliar popes have addressed groups of Charismatics, no official pronouncement has been made or official approbation given. Even the U.S. bishops in a Statement on the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (1975) had to point to the dangers of the movement: Gnosticism, biblical fundamentalism, exaggeration of the importance of emotionalism, reckless oecumenism, and "small faith communities."
Archbishop Dwyer, of Portland, Oregon, in a scathing criticism of the charismatic movement, warned in 1974:
We regard it bluntly as one of the most dangerous trends in the Church in our time, closely allied in spirit with other disruptive and divisive movements threatening grave harm to unity and damage to countless souls.
One author sums up the error and danger of the Charismatic Movement as:
a blighted tree bearing poisonous fruit, sown by the Devil among Protestants and transplanted into the Catholic Church after Vatican II.... This fruit is truly a seed of destruction. Make no mistake. More than just a fad, the charismatic "renewal" is a dangerous and heretical movement that is installing itself in the Catholic milieu. First, it attacks the Church's character of exclusive mediator between Our Lord and men, which she possesses by divine mandate. Second, this kind of oecumenical gathering denies the exclusive nature of that mediation by encouraging intercommunion with other confessions. Charismatics should be called what they really are: chari- schismatics.
St. Vincent Ferrer rightly condemns such an attitude as unCatholic and spiritually deadly:
The soul that attaches itself to these false consolations falls into very dangerous errors, for God justly permits the devil to have power to augment in it these kinds of spiritual tastes, to repeat them frequently, and to inspire it with sentiments that are false, dangerous, and full of illusions, but which the misguided soul imagines to be true. Alas! How many souls have been seduced by these deceitful consolations? The majority of raptures and ecstasies, or, to call them by their proper name, frenzies of these forerunners of Antichrist spring from this cause.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I was wondering what you know about Pilate. It is mentioned that in some of the Eastern Churches, he is thought to have had a conversion and then later was a martyred for his belief in Christ.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Actually, we know quite a lot about Pontius Pilate from Roman historical sources. Last year an academic tome was released that summarized and analyzed all the evidence. From it, we get a pretty clear picture of what made the man tick. And, yes, there is a tradition in the Eastern Church that Pilate was later converted and martyred.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
In one Commentary from the Mailbox, you responded: "And, by the way, since people ask from time to time, there isn't some big Church book that has all formally defined doctrines contained within it." I recently bought a book that purports to contain "all formally defined doctrines." I thought that if I read this, I would know everything the Church teaches. Am I incorrect in this assertion?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Yes, the assertion is incorrect, and must too simplistic to reflect the depth and richness of Catholic theology. There is no "one book" that has everything in it, any more than the Bible itself has everything in it.
It's a little like thinking that someone's a synopsis of Hamlet will sufficient instead of reading the play itself, background in Elizabethan poetry, in Shakespeare's works, the relevant history, etc. Moreover, it's worse than that in Catholic theology, since Hamlet is at least written in English, though Elizabethan English at that. The Church's doctrine, on the other hand, is written in Greek and Latin, and no "translation" of this material is ever adequate. All of the detail and nuance of the original is lost in someone's purported "translation." That is why, until the Novus Ordo, "translations" of theology were very rare, often prohibited, on the basis that if the person couldn't take the trouble to read the original texts, he wasn't going to understand the content.
That is why various catechisms are made available to serve the basic doctrinal needs of laymen. After Vatican II, when the vulgar tongues become more prevalent, we saw the growth of "lay theologians," laymen who pontificate on details of doctrine that they really know nothing about. I have yet to meet one of these people who has ever studied, let along read, the original documents that they purport to quote.
In a recent speech, a high-ranking Vatican official enunciated what appears to be heresy in stating: "This does not mean that Jews in order to be saved have to become Christians." Yes, they do, at least implicitly. Kasper's personal notions contradict the Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church. And this is a man who thinks that he is qualified to be pope of the Roman Catholic Church?!
Walter Cardinal Kasper is a known Radical Modernist. The current pope knew that when he elevated him to the cardinalate (so much for the pope's "conservatism"). He is one of those Liberalist Germans, in the mold of Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, another Modernist, who was responsible for Vatican II's withdrawal from the dogma that the Catholic Church is the one true Church and has himself said that Jews do not have to be converted to Christianity.
Thank the Lord that you are a traditional Catholic. Your friends in the Church of the New Order are being duped into a Newchurch, a One-World Church, a non-Catholic Church.
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - November 6, 2002. Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, said November 6 that Christians take a different missionary approach toward Jews than toward followers of other non-Christian religions.
That's because Christians and Jews share a long biblical and religious tradition, a belief in the same God and a conviction that God will complete human history, he said. The main difference between the two faiths -- the salvific role of Jesus Christ -- must also be acknowledged, he said. "The universality of Christ's redemption for Jews and gentiles is so fundamental throughout the entire New Testament ... that it cannot be ignored or passed over in silence," Cardinal Kasper said.
"This does not mean that Jews in order to be saved have to become Christians; if they follow their own conscience and believe in God's promises as they understand them in their religious tradition, they are in line with God's plan, which for us comes to historical completion in Jesus Christ," he said. Cardinal Kasper spoke at the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Some years ago, Pope Paul VI instituted a new set of Stations of the Cross: 14 completely new stations and a 15th station for the Resurrection. The announced idea was to make the Stations "completely agree with Scripture," in other words, to take away the tradition behind the true Stations of the Cross. No one ever used the new Stations, and they fell away. In fact, I'd almost guarantee that few TRADITIO readers have ever heard of them. My guess is that since the early 1970s, the Novus Ordo has been trying to make traditional Catholic practices palatable for Protestants, getting us all happily(!) ready for the One World Church, and the New World Order.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Now that we have the benefit of 40 years of hindsight since Vatican II, it seems impossible to deny that all these unCatholic innovations were just the real Protestant Revolution 400 years delayed (the "New" Theology, "New" Mass, "New" Sacraments, "New" Bible), with a dollop of One-World Politics and One-World "Oecumenism."
To the degree that the Modern Vatican and the bishops have lost the Catholic Faith, they have replaced it with the God of Politics. How many statements have come from the Modern Vatican about the Most Holy Trinity, the Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Thomistic philosophy as the Catholic basis for understanding God and the Universe, for example, as opposed to political statements on capital punishment, "peace," "liberty," elections, and the rest of it?
I'll get my politics from the Washington Times, thank you. Episcopal consecration does not impart political infallibility. We don't need politicians wearing mitres to give us their self-styled political "word from on high."
Dear Fr. Moderator:
No wonder the Church of the New Order is suffering scandal after scandal, which, far from being a surprise to any of the bishops, has actively been promoted by those very bishops!
Invading the Novus Ordo church building near you is NACDLGM, the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries. NACDLGM is an organization devoted to forcing the Catholic Church to accept both gays and lesbians (which it does as sinful souls who must struggle to seek Christian virtue and salvation like all of us sinners) and their lifestyle (which the Church never can, unless it rejects Our Lord Jesus Christ, St. Paul, and Sacred Scripture, and then, of course, it is no longer the Catholic Church). Nevertheless, those corrupt bishops who feign ignorance of any problem are the same ones who, this fall, will allow NACGLGM to promote their impurities through a series of diocesan "conferences."
I am particularly amused by NACDLGM's version of the moral teaching of Sodom and Gomorrah. NACDLGM has "modernized" this moral episode as portraying those desiring to violate the Angels sexually as perishing because of "a lack of hospitality." The desire to rape and sodomize the Angels does seem to imply a certain "lack of hospitality" at the least, but, of course, much, much more!
Fr. Moderator Replies.
How many of these bishops attempt to reach these poor souls in their preaching and their work? Would such a sermon now be so "politically incorrect" as to make the bishops fear for their very safety? Would that have been the attitude of Bishop Augustine? Of Bishop Ambrose? Of Bishop Gregory? Of bishop Leo?
How many of these souls are going to perdition because no one extended to them, upon contrition and a purpose of amendment, the Sacraments of the Church to help them fight their sins? Remember St. John Chrysostom's warning: "The floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of rotten bishops."
Dear Fr. Moderator:
There is something queer about the "new" Rosary (with twenty Mysteries instead of fifteen) that the Modern Vatican is trying to sell. Ever since the early sixties, the Novus Ordo apparatus had consistently advised against reciting the Rosary as being an almost medieval and superstitious practice, hence something opposed to the Council's "New Deal" with the world.
In so doing, the same establishment had carelessly encouraged lots of people to turn their backs to this "New Deal" and continue praying as they had always done, which amounted to leaving traditional Catholics with a virtual monopoly on reciting the Rosary. Well, this was something that could not be tolerated, so the Vatican came out with five "new Mysteries," so-called "Luminous" (anything to do with the Masonic "Illuminati"?).
It appears, then, that the Modernists who still hold the existential Church apparatus definitely cannot help "innovating," since even when they pretend to reinstitute a long-honoured Catholic practice, they make sure to change it surreptitiously in order to cut the Novus Ordinarians away from their truly Catholic roots. "Once a Modernist, always a Modernist."
Fr. Moderator Replies.
This whole nonsense about a "New Rosary" is just part of the "change and destroy" policy that the Church of the New Order has been utilizing since Vatican II. By using it, the Novus Ordo apparatus destroyed the Mass, destroyed the Sacraments, and destroyed Catholic doctrine for themselves. Now they wish to destroy the Rosary. Apparently, the previous efforts to discount it didn't work, so now they attempt to destroy it by changing it. I suspect that the Novus Ordo apparatus will be just as successful at destroying the Rosary as the Mass. Not!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I have heard before that the doctrines on Mary, e.g., her Immaculate Conception and her bodily Assumption, were all concepts "unknown to the Early Christian Church" (say, around A.D. 50-150). Is this true? Did the Marian doctrines indeed develop long after the death of Christ? If this is indeed the case, doesn't it seem strange that the Church would add this teaching which was unknown to the Apostles and early Church Fathers?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
You have that backwards. These doctrines were known to the early Christian Church. Most particularly this was the case in the Eastern Church, which was, after all, the area in which the Blessed Virgin Mary lived. We know from Scripture that she joined the household of St. John the Apostle after the Crucifixion. We know that St. Luke the Evangelist made a famous painting of her from life, so he must have known her personally.
The Dormition, or Assumption, comes to us from the very early Eastern Church. The Immaculate Conception was known in the early Church as well, in one form or another, and it can easily be inferred from Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.
One must contrast the belief and reality of the doctrine from when it later happens to be "formally defined." Most doctrines are not formally defined, as we have the authority of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition for them. Only when there is a particular need are doctrines formally defined, as when erroneous sects arise and deny them. Such was the case, for instance, with the Seven Sacraments, which go back to Scripture, but when the Protestant heresy arose, the dogmatic Council of Trent carefully defined what was already in Scripture and Tradition.
And, by the way, since people ask from time to time, there isn't some big Church book that has all formally defined doctrines contained within it. That is not how the Church operates, which is according to the principles of Roman law, something like Anglo-Saxon case law. The doctrines of the Church are gradually expounded (not created!) through dogmatic councils, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and the popes, and it is only through understanding this continuum that one can begin to understand the doctrines on a more subtle and detailed level.
Yes, there are some partial and personal compilations. The best known of these, however, was edited by Modernist and is a "translation" of certain chosen extracts of documents. Needless to say, in theology, no really usable translation is possible in a field such as theology, using its own technical vocabulary. If one wants to understanding the subtleties of doctrine at the technical level, one must follow the historical continuum of doctrine in the original sources, which are in Greek and Latin.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I just wanted to give you an update on our conversion to Traditional Roman Catholicism. It has now been six weeks since we started attending a traditional chapel, and I must say we love it. I used to sit in the "new mass" and yearn for something more reverent, and now I've found it.
The missal was hard for us to understand at first, but now that we're understanding it better and are able to read the prayers that are said during the Mass. I must say they are so beautiful. I can't understand how Catholics can't see the difference and the unique worthiness of the Tradition Latin Mass. My guess is many of them don't want to see it. Millions of others have seen it, and now so do we!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Could you explain the term Coredemptrix? I've seen it translated "with the Redeemer," but if Redemptrix is feminine, how could it refer to Christ?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Co-redemptrix is indeed feminine in Latin, like several other words brought directly into English from Latin (executrix, administratrix, etc.) and refers to the Blessed Virgin Mary in her role of cooperating with Our Savior in the redemption of the human race. Co in this sense does not mean equal to, but associated with (from the Latin preposition cum). Some claim that this is a doctrine implicit in Scripture and Tradition and wish it to be defined as dogma.
That may well be premature. After all, it took 1821 years to define the dogma of the Immaculate Conception and 1917 years to define the dogma of the Assumption. It cannot be denied, however, that Our Lady was chosen to have a unique and special role in salvation. That role was not to be a priestess, but to be a mother, the Mother of God (Dei genetrix) and the Mother of Our Savior, and to support her Son throughout His earthly life, even to the foot of the Cross.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I have a special charity towards the Holy Souls in Purgatory, which has been inculcated in me by my dear late father. I have an insatiable desire to get a decent choir together to sing at the Holy Sacrifice of the Traditional Latin Mass. In my eagerness, I admit to be lacking in knowledge about the days on which singing is not permitted at Holy Mass. My understanding that no hymns are sung at Holy Mass on All Souls Day. Can you please clear my doubts so that I may lead the choir appropriately?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
You are correct. Strictly speaking, the only music to be sung at a Requiem Mass or on All Souls Day is the Gregorian chant setting, at a Missa Cantata, High Mass, or Solemn Mass. The organ is not to be played at Mass on these days (except to accompany the Sacred Chant), as the music of the organ intrinsically associated with joy and celebration, which is inappropriate for a Requiem.
The chant for the Requiem contains some of the most beautiful music in the Church's treasury: from the Introit Requiem aeternam, through the powerful sequence Dies Irae, and at the end the sublime In Paradisum. A choir will find the Requiem Mass well worth learning and having in its repertoire.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
God help me, I attended a Novus Ordo funeral service today. At one point the presbyter almost apologized for the appearance of a corpus on the crucifix. He went on to explain that a corpus appears because without Christ's death, there would have been no Resurrection. But isn't it true that Christ's death was the act which saved us, and not the Resurrection? Is this presbyter reciting a new tenet of the Church of the New Order, or am I incorrect in my understanding of the import of Christ's death?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
You are correct. The Resurrection is the fruit of the Passion and Death of Our Lord. The sacrificial, redemptive act was the shedding of blood upon the Cross. Yes, the Novus Ordo does try to push away anything having to do with Christ's Passion and Death, including the use of crosses instead of crucifixes, or the use of a "Resurrected Christ" on the Cross instead of the Suffering Christ.
Yes, this is all part of the Church of the New Order and is not a Catholic perspective. Pope Pius XII condemned in 1947 as unCatholic this very error of removing the Crucified from the Cross. The rubrics of the Traditional Latin Mass require that an imagine of the Crucified Christ be present upon the altar, as many times during the Mass the rubrics instruct the priest to raise his eyes to that Cross, "on which hung the salvation of the world," as the Good Friday liturgy puts it, when the crucifix is venerated. Now, wouldn't it be pretty silly to have a cross on which nothing hangs?
It is often alleged by Conservo-Catholics that one cannot utter any criticism of the pope when he personally departs from Catholic teaching on faith and morals. This is, of course, an untenable position, refuted by the Prince of Theologians, St. Thomas Aquinas, as well as many other Doctors of the Church and Saints, like St. Catherine of Siena, St. Gertrude, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux.
Everyone should be familiar with the Divina Commedia of the greatest Italian poet Dante Alighieri. His Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso are thoroughly Catholic and have been praised as an "Aquinas in verse" by several popes. Dante himself was a Third Order Franciscan.
In Canto XXVII of the Paradiso Dante meets St. Peter and puts into his mouth the following vitriolic words against the currently reigning pope, Boniface VIII (1294-1303):
Quelli ch' usurpa in terra il luogo mio,
il luogo mio, il luogo mio, che vaca
nella presenza del Figliuol di Dio,
fatt' ha del cimiterio mio cloaca
del sangue e della puzza; onde 'l perverso
che cadde di qua su, là giù si placa.
He that usurps on earth my place,
my place, my place, which is vacant
in the sight of the Son of God,
Has made of my tomb
a sewer of blood and filth, so that the apostate
who fell from here above takes comfort there below.
So here, in 1300, Dante Alighieri describes the reigning pope as bloody and filthy, who has made a sewer of the papacy, so that Satan himself, takes comfort in the papacy. Furthermore, he puts into the mouth of St. Peter a statement that the situation is so bad that the See of Peter is vacant. (It appears that the theological concept of sede-vacantism was already well known in the 14th century.)
This wording is remarkably similar to Pope Paul VI's 1972 description of our own post-Vatican II period:
We have the impression that through some cracks in the wall the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God: it is doubt, uncertainty, questioning, dissatisfaction, confrontation.... We thought that after the Council a day of sunshine would have dawned for the history of the Church. What dawned, instead, was a day of clouds and storms, of darkness, of searching and uncertainties.
One of the most despicable organs of post-Vatican II period is the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL). Constituted in 1964, it provides Novus Ordo liturgical translations from Latin into the vulgar tongues for eleven member nations in which English is the major language: the United States, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, India, and South Africa. Fifteen associate member nations where English is widely spoken also rely in ICEL translations.
One of the two living members of the original commission, Fr. Stephen Somerville, on September 7, 2002, renounced his service on the ICEL admitting that the commission had included "certainly thousands of mistranslations in the accumulated work of the ICEL." He further admits: "The Second Vatican Council was early commandeered and manipulated and infected by modernist, liberalist, and protestantizing persons and ideas." Of the Novus Ordo service he wrote: "Such a litany of defects suggests that many modern Masses are sacrilegious and some could well be invalid."
So, here is a dyed-in-the-wool Novus Ordinarian who has seen the right. Who admits that the vulgar Novus Ordo translations are erroneous. Who admists the Vatican II was hijacked by Modernist forces. Who admits that the Novus Ordo service is at best sacrilegious and at worst invalid.
This admission simply proves what I have been saying all along. Given enough time, the brighter Novus Ordinarians will come around, admit what they have done, and publicly repent. At least Fr. Somerville shows honesty.
One of the manias of our time, as it is of all confused times, is the overweaning importance placed on visions and apparitions. The way some people talk about these, you'd think that the Catholic Church was founded upon these rather than on Our Lord Jesus Christ and His teachings, as handed down to us in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition!
I recently came upon a statement of Pope St. Pius X that for me epitomizes the Catholic approach. This sainted pope pointed out that he was incredulous at the extraordinary, but that when he found Catholic virtue, there is where he found holiness.
When anyone tells me about the extraordinary, I am the most incredulous man in the world..., but when holiness results from the practice of virtue..., I believe in it. Just this morning ... I was saying that long ago the devil manifested himself openly in the possessed whom he caused to suffer, and from whom he could be driven out only by exorcism. Now he has changed his method; he takes the appearance of sanctity and makes people believe in visions. He even gives to certain persons the knowledge of hidden things, so that they may appear to prophesy; sometimes he even simulates stigmata! But as for holiness expressed in the simple practice of virtue..., I believe in that. That is indeed holiness.... The way to sanctity is not difficult. It is a thorny road, but easy.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Is there some good reason why the penitent in Confession should recite an Act of Contrition at the same time the priest says the words of absolution? It seems improper to talk on top of the priest, particularly when imparting the form of the Sacrament, and so one should be observing an attentive silence at that time. Furthermore, the words themselves are quite comforting, and I'd like to listen to them rather than concentrate on speaking my own prayer.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
This is apparently a local custom in some places. The Rituale Romanum does not call for an Act of Contrition to be said at all, and the appearance of the penitent is itself the indication of contrition. Moreover, the Confiteor, or part of it, that the Ritual provides to be said at the beginning of the Confession, includes the essence of contrition.
I agree with you that it does not seem appropriate for an Act of Contrition to be said while the priest is imparting the Absolution, notwithstanding the fact that this may be the local custom in some places, any more than it is appropriate for a vernacular translation of the Epistle and Gospel to be read while the priest is reading the Latin at the altar. What the priest is doing is the official act; everything else is accidental at that point.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
When someone sends a stipend for a Mass intention for the living or for the dead, must the person or persons for whom the intention is offered be Catholic?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Mass cannot be said for a non-Catholic except privately. That condition is interpreted to mean that the intention may be known to one or two people, but cannot be published or announced. The prayer for a living non-Catholic should be for his conversion.
Today is the day on which the Church commemorates all the Faithful Departed. It is, in a way, paired with the Feast of All Saints, since eventually these souls will become Saints and see God in heaven. The Church has taught from Apostolic times that we here on earth no only are able but also have a responsibility to help these souls to hasten their admission to heaven by our prayers and good works.
There is no more effective way to assist the faithful departed among your family, friends, and benefactors than by your personal participation at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, as every altar becomes a privileged altar through the month of November for the benefit of the Holy Souls in Purgatory.
The faithful are also reminded that in her generosity toward the Holy Souls in Purgatory, Holy Mother Church opens wide the possibility for indulgences to be gained for these souls during this day and its octave, that is, through November 9. You may apply a plenary indulgence applicable to the Holy Souls under the usual conditions -- Confession and Communion, and the recitation of six Paters, Aves, and Glorias. This plenary indulgence is applicable toties quoties, that is, it may be performed on that day as often as desired for the Holy Souls.
Also, the faithful who during the period of eight days from All Souls Day visit a cemetery in a spirit of piety and devotion, and pray, even mentally, for the dead, may gain a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions, on each day of the Octave, applicable only to the dead.
The Feast of All Saints has its origin in the dedication of the Pantheon in Rome. After his great victory at sea over Marc Anthony and Cleopatra, at Actium in 27 B.C., Marcus Agrippa built this temple in gratitude to all the pagan gods. This marvel of Roman architecture is the greatest domed building in the world and rises higher even than the dome of St. Peter's Basilica.
When Rome was conquered by the Cross and ceased to worship the pagan gods, she became the center of God's spiritual empire on earth. She purified some of the magnificent temples of antiquity and converted them to churches to worship the true God.
Rome also strove now to honor the very martyrs that she had slain in her great persecutions. The victory of the martyrs was that they kept the Faith intact in the face of all persecution and died forgiving and praying for those responsible for their suffering.
After various recognitions in the intervening centuries, in 835 Pope Gregory IV decreed that the Feast of All Saints, the Church Triumphant, should be celebrated on the same day throughout the Universal Church, and thus the date of November 1 was placed equal to that of the greatest solemnities.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I have recently come across some literature decrying the celebration of Christmas (via the playing of Christmas music, the decoration of one's house with Christmas ornamentations and Christmas trees, etc.) during Advent as inappropriate. According to this literature, the liturgical seasons must be respected. Thus, Christmas should not be celebrated during the season of Advent. What should the traditional Catholic do?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The basic principle is correct. Advent, starting December 1 this year, should be respected as a season of penitence with a note of expectation of the coming of Emmanuel. Modern commercialism has it quite wrong: the twelve days of Christmas begin on December 25 and end on Epiphany, January 6.
This year the big commercial push began earlier than ever, well before Halloween. This is ridiculous. For many weeks, we are still in Pentecost, let alone Advent. The traditional Catholic should make every effort to shut out the irreligious commercialism starting earlier and earlier and should maintain Advent as the wonderfully beautiful season it is to prepare for the coming of the Lord. There may be a few things that have to be prepared for Christmas, but these should be kept incidental and postponed, if possible, to after Gaudete Sunday, December 15. Alternatively, one could try to get everything out of the way before the First Sunday of Advent.
Traditional Catholics should also stay very close to the daily Sacred Liturgy in their missals, since Advent is one of the most beautiful seasons of the liturgical year, with its mixed penitence and expectancy. As to music, the music of Advent surpasses even that of Christmas. Who can forget the haunting Veni, Veni, Emmanuel or the glorious chant of the O Antiphons of the week preceding Christimas. Why allow a pagan commercialism to rob you of a proper Advent?
Return to Commentaries from the Mailbox.