From: Tim
Dear Fr. Moderator:
We still puzzle over loyalty and obedience to the pope. We hear from some sources that devotion and loyalty are still owed to the pope. We ourselves cannot agree with the oecumeniacal nonsense that the pope endorses. Since John Paul II has stated recently that he is "irrevocably" committed to oecumenism and religious freedom, it seems to put an unbearable strain on any remaining loyalty or devotion that we might owe him. In other words, for all intents and purposes, the pope lost any obedience owed on account of his own acts.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
It would be better to conceive of your loyalty and obedience as being to the office of the papacy. After all, Our Lord warns us not to be a respecter of persons, in other words, not to pay undue attention to "personalities" as opposed to their just offices.
The pope too must be loyal and obedient to the magisterium of the Church and to Christ. If he is not, we still must be. According to dogmatic council Vatican I, the office of the papacy is actually quite limited in its scope, as it must not innovate beyond the Deposit of Faith. If it does, we are not only permitted, but are obliged to disobey.
Says St. Robert Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church:
In order to resist and defend oneself no authority is required.... Therefore, as it is lawful to resist the pope if he assaulted a man's person, so it is lawful to resist him if he assaulted souls or troubled the state, and much more if he strove to destroy the Church. It is lawful, I say, to resist the pope by not doing what he commands, and hindering the execution of his will. (De Romano Pontifice, Liber II, Caput 29)
John Cardinal Turrecramata summarizes the situation as follows:
By disobedience the pope can separate himself from Christ, despite the fact that he is head of the Church, for above all, the unity of the Church is dependent upon its relationship with Christ. The pope can separate himself from Christ either by disobeying the law of Christ, or by commanding something that is against the divine or natural law. By doing so, the pope separates himself from the body of the Church because this body is itself linked to Christ by obedience. In this way, the pope would, without doubt, fall into schism....
He would do that if he did not observe that which the Universal Church observes in basing herself on the Tradition of the Apostles, or if he did not observe that which has been ordained for the whole world by the universal councils or by the authority of the Apostolic See. Especially is this true with regard to the Divine Liturgy, as, for example, if he did not wish personally to follow the universal customs and rites of the Church.
By thus separating himself apart, and with obstinacy, from the observance of the universal customs and rites of the Church, the pope could fall into schism. The conclusion is sound, and the premises are not in doubt, since just as the pope can fall into heresy, so also he can disobey and transgress with obstinacy that which has been established for the common order of the Church. Thus it is that Pope Innocent III states in De Consuetudine that it is necessary to obey a pope in all things, as long as he does not himself go against the universal customs of the Church, but should the pope go against the universal customs of the church, he ought not to be obeyed.... (Summa de Ecclesia [1489])
From: Fr. Moderator:
The new bishop went from parish to parish attempting to convert each to the New Order religion, first with veiled threats, then with open threats and public challenges, and finally with official legal action. But neither priest nor parishioner would have anything to do with the new "mass." No priest would say it even if ordered. If the bishop himself came and started to say it in any church, the parishioners there would all quietly get up and file out of the church. The priest and parishioners would meet in some odd places, such as movie theaters and school classrooms, even Protestant churches, for the Protestants were far more charitable to these courageous Catholics than the New Order. The one thing that they would not do is compromise in any way with the New Order, which was and is not Catholic.
The above is a true story. This is how faithful Catholics reacted in 1981, when their Brazilian diocese, headed by a traditional bishop since 1948, were forced to accept a New Order bishop. If only Catholics in the United States and elsewhere had done exactly the same thing, there would not now be a "new mass," at which the bread and wine have become cookies and juice, fit for a mere memorial, served over a nondescript table, in a bastard rite of doubtful validity. The New Vatican would have had to capitulate because without congregations and without money, the Church of the New Order could not have survived. Its lifeblood would have been cut off, and it would have shriveled away.
The scandal is that even now, when the lethal poison to the Catholic Faith introduced by Vatican II and its aftermath are so obvious, there are still "Catholics" who not only obey the vile New Order but try to browbeat traditional Catholics from attending the true Mass (out of the Novus Ordinarians' own guilt, no doubt). There are still "Catholics" who try to justify communion in the hand, standing to receive their Lord (if It is even valid any longer), and "masses" in the vulgar tongues complete with hip-hop music.
When we feel disposed to be impatient about the state of the situation today and blame others, in most cases it is ourselves that we should blame, for giving any quarter to the New Order, ever. We could have stopped the building of the Counterfeit Church in 1965. But we didn't, and now we are suffering the horrible consequences of our cowardice.
From: Fr. Moderator:
As TRADITIO warned from the outset, once the traditional priests in Campos, Brazil, formerly under the late Bishop de Castro Meyer, went "indult," they would soon be moved into the Novus Ordo. While indultarians were trying to convince traditional Catholics in the United States to accept an "indult"-based Apostolic Administration and sending out fancy magazines pumping up the Campos arrangement, it appears that now, just a few months after the Campos sellout, the organization of "indult" priests there, called the Society of St. John Marie Vianney, is facing a schism in its own organization. The following information comes from a communique recently received.
Six priests belonging to the Apostolic Administration of Campos, Brazil, expressed their disagreement after Bishop Rifan [the new "indult" bishop, who took over after Bishop de Meyer died and the Society went "indult"], together with several other priests of Campos, attended a "New Mass" celebrated at the Cathedral Church of Campos. They are: Frs. Elcio, Jose Onofre (who had previously objected to conversations between Rome and Campos), Moacir Pessanha, Jose Gualandi, Geraldo Gualandi, and Alfredo Gualandi.
For some of these priests this is not just a disagreement, but an expression of true uneasiness and annoyance in such a degree that they are seriously considering leaving the Administration. Several of the above-mentioned priests are members of the Board of Priests of San Juan Maria Vianney Administration, headed by Bishop Rifan, and they are among the oldest traditional priests in Campos.
Traditional Catholics must always realize that the "indult" was never intended to give them a right to the Traditional Latin Mass, let alone the traditional Sacraments, but only as a wedge to integrate traditional Catholics into the Novus Ordo by throwing them the crumb of a few traditional Masses here and there, many of which are already tainted with aspects of the Novus Ordo.
The idea of a Vatican-controlled "Apostolic Adminstration" for traditional Catholics is a pipedream. First of all, the Novus Ordo would go on in full force in the diocesan parishes. Bishops are not going to put up with having a division in their dioceses, with "indult" Catholics telling them that they answer only to the Vatican. After all, since Vatican II, the Vatican answers primarily to the bishops! Many bishops would be quite hostile and shut down traditional sites, whatever the Vatican said. And the Vatican would do nothing about it, any more than the vaunted Ecclesia Dei Commission has ever forced a bishop to permit a Traditional Latin Mass.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Anybody in the Novus Ordo who does not have children in Novus Ordo schools would probably be shocked at this, but it's been going on for some time now. This is true not only in the schools, but in Catholic hospitals as well. A priest "consecrates" a bunch of "hosts" and laymen (actually almost always laywomen) take them to patients. The notable thing is that the female "lay ministers" doing this work are typically women older than 60, who should know better!
I know of one instance in a hospital where an elderly male patient threw one of these ministers out of his room and demanded to see a priest. He, of course, was denied this. Note well that these lay ministers are now routinely performing "confessions" as well. All one has to do is read copies of Eucharistic Minister magazine to see that the Novus Ordo is a hair away from lay consecrations.
The Innovators, I believe, operated knowing that it would take 30 years or so for all their timebombs to go off. They pretty much left the older generations alone once they discovered that most of them were brain-dead and went along with the changes, so long as the changes were introduced very slowly. The Innovators, though, made sure that the next generation would know nothing of the real Catholic Faith and began introducing these "eucharistic liturgies" in high schools many years ago. These "liturgies", typically offered during school lunch periods, are about 15 minutes long and "give the students the opportunity to receive communion more often." They are typically "presided over" by a lone female.
The effect has been successful. Catholic youth don't see a need to go to Mass, and they become used to anybody presiding over a service, particularly women. Thus, it's not surprising that the majority of Catholic high school girls are strongly agitating for "priestesses." After all, anybody or anything can touch and "consecrate" these "hosts" anyway. It goes without saying that high school chapels were the first to loose communion rails and kneelers.
Meanwhile, older Novus Ordo parents have no clue what is going one or don't care, if they do. Those who are shocked are told to "move up with the times," but the bottom line is that the majority of Novus Ordinarians have been asleep for 30 years.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
I have received the same message from parents who actually care about their children's education and who have taken the trouble to check things over before fobbing their children off to heretics. The "Catholic" school system, once the envy of the nation, has now become a cesspool for the most ridiculous New Age ideas, taught by Modernist laypeople, not longer Catholic brothers and sisters.
These parents, as you say, are brain-dead. They surely have seen how the New Order has destroyed the Catholic Mass, the Sacraments, and the Faith in the last 30 years. Do they think that the "Catholic" schools have been immune from the same forces all these years?
I wonder how many of these parents would buy a car over the telephone, sight unseen. The intelligent buyer will look at the car physically, kick the tires, do a test drive. Yet, they hand over their precious children to the clutches of heretics without a thought. How many of these parents have investigated these "Catholic" schools, sat in a class, or talked to other parents and students?
What is even more sad are the messages I receive from the students. Many of them -- God knows how! -- are still Catholic enough to know that they are being taught phoniness and filth, not Catholicism. They know that the diocesan bishops promote "gay" masses and that the pope promotes demonic music, which they are fighting against. Some of them have even been courageous enough to stand up to teachers and principals for the true Faith. But when they seek support from their parents, the parents don't care.
Pompeii, the Roman city that was buried in a volcanic eruption in A.D. 79, has been a fertile source of information about the early Catholic Faith. For example, older scholarship maintains that Greek was the language of the Sacred Liturgy in the first three centuries after Christ, even in Rome and Italy. You still see that contention in older books and even recent articles by "lay theologians."
More recent scholarship, however, arising from excavations at "House of the Christian Inscription" at Pompeii, points to the fact that in Rome and Italy Latin was already the language of the Roman Catholic liturgy as early as St. Paul's journey to the area of Pompeii (Acts 28:13-14) around the year 60, some thirty years after Christ's death on the cross. Of the 1800 inscriptions cataloged in that city, all appear in Latin, none in Greek. There is extant as well a body of Latin correspondence between St. Paul and the Roman Stoic philosopher and advisor to the emperor Nero, Seneca.
On the basis of a scholarly analysis of this evidence, it has been demonstrated that the language of the Christian ritual at Rome, from the groundline of its existence, was Latin and not Greek.... The language that mattered in the Apostolic Age was not Greek, but Latin" (Prof. Paul Berry).
Now the exciting news has come that the Villa of the Papyri at Pompeii contains another, as yet unexcavated, library. Scholars are drooling over the lost works that might be contained beneath the volcanic debris. Missing plays of the Greek tragedians Sophocles and Euripides. Works of Aristotle, upon whom St. Thomas Aquinas relied for his Catholic theology. More Vergil, upon whom Dante Alighieri relied in part for his descriptions of Hell. The missing books of the Roman historian Livy, who wrote a comprehensive history of Rome from the beginning to the period of Caesar Augustus, most of whose books are lost to the modern day. As one archaeologist puts it: "A treasure of greater cultural importance can scarcely be imaged." It would force the world to go back to its Latin grammar to read these priceless works of our Classical and Christian Roman culture.
Our knowledge of Classical and Christian antiquity hang on a very slender thread. If it had not been for those Benedictine monks who copied the knowledge of the Roman republic and empire during those years of barbarian invasions, we would have nothing. Not the Bible, not the philosophy of Cicero, not the epic of Vergil, not the history of Julius Caesar, not the poetry of Horace, not the Christian philosopher and poet Boethius.
The only other major source of these works was, of course, the Great Library at Alexandria, where every known work was meticulously copied and cataloged. Every ship that put into the busy port of Alexandria had to surrender all books on board to be copied for the library and returned. Part of the library was destroyed by a fire that occurred while Julius Caesar was engaged there in the Alexandrian war to resolve the dynastic struggle between Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy. But the Great Library was entirely destroyed by the Mohammedans, who claimed that "if it isn't in the Koran, it's not worth knowing."
What if the Catholic monks had had such an attitude? Today we would have no science, no medicine, no astronomy, no mathematics, no history, no philosophy, no architecture, no music. For that matter, we wouldn't even have the amatory poetry of Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid. We might well have been totally overcome by barbarians. Thank God for those Catholic monks! Without them, most of the world would be a wasteland worshipping a fanatical general who thought he was a prophet.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
If a future Vatican were to remove the Novus Ordo and return exclusively to the traditional Mass, but in various vernaculars, would that be a valid Mass?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
It is not happenstance that when the Church of the New Order effectively abandoned the Roman Catholic language, it began disintegrating. You see, language is not just some accident, like the particular glint of a gemstone. Rather, it is at the essence of the gemstone. If you try to split it, you risk fracturing the entire stone. Anyone who has seriously studied language is well aware that thought (semantics) and its expression (language) are inseparable. When the Church of the New Order began to abandon its Latinitas, its Romanitas, that is when it abandoned the Roman Catholic Faith.
Our predecessors in the Faith clearly understood this. They read in Sacred Scripture that there are three divinely-appointed languages: Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. Our Lord did not use the vernacular in His sacred work. In the temple in his time (as today, except for the modernistic "Reform" Jews), the language of instruction was Hebrew, and Hebrew had not been a vernacular for the Jews since they returned from the Babylonian Captivity in the sixth century B.C. (Remember the root meaning of the word vernacular: "of or pertaining to slavery.")
Moreover, looking at the history of the Church, one can hardly claim that the adoption of the Latin language by the Roman Catholic Church was an accident. You may as well say that Rome is an accident, or that the Roman See is an accident. As a matter of fact, that is exactly what the Modernists are claiming! They would do away with not just with the Roman language but also the Roman papacy and the Roman Catholic Faith as well.
The Traditional Latin Mass canonized precedential Mass of the Roman Catholic Church. The Mass was canonized irreformably and irreversably for all time in Latin -- that was not happenstance. Therefore, to be so bold as to attempt to "translate" it into some other language would be anathema. The dogmatic council of Trent specifically declared so, and that dogma cannot be changed, any more than the Church or any pope can change the dogmatic decree on the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The popes have declared this dogma over and over again; even the current pope has felt constrained to repeat it. Latin is forever the gatekeeper of the Roman Catholic Faith.
Dom Prosper Gueranger, the great liturgist of the 19th century, demonstrated that it was "the sympathy of heretics for the vernacular in the divine service" that had brought the Council of Trent to "pronounce a dogmatic definition in this matter which at first seemed only to affect discipline." Instead, the Council Fathers had not taken a disciplinary measure, but had given a "dogmatic definition" establishing Latin as a sacred language and ipso facto excluding vernaculars from the liturgy of the Mass.
The Anglican schismatics did what you are speaking of. They translated the Roman Mass into a fine Elizabethan English, very reverently. Within thirty years -- the same amount of time by which our time is separated from Vatican II -- their schism had become heresy, their Mass had become invalid, and their Sacraments had become invalid. Let us learn from the past. There is no compromising with Apostolic Tradition and Catholic doctrine. Start pulling a little thread from the fabric, and pretty soon you have a jumbled pile of yarn, no longer a sweater.
The validity of a "vernacular" Mass would always be in doubt because it is not the Apostolic form, not the canonized dogmatic form. And validity in any case is not the ultimate question. The Eastern Orthodox liturgies (those that are genuine) are unquestionably valid. The Old Catholic Masses (those that are genuine) are unquestionably valid. Yet should they be attended by traditional Catholics when the true Mass is not available? Of course not.
It seems common in some circles these days to underestimate the importance of the Roman Catholic's Church's integral language. Of course, all traditional Catholics understand that the Latin language must be retained in the Divine Office, the Holy Mass, and the Sacraments. One can never underestimate the importance of Latin in retaining the unadulterated liturgy and doctrine of the Church. The introduction of the vulgar (vernacular) languages into the Church was the single action that allowed the New Order religion to be created. It opened the Pandora's box to an unCatholic worship service, unCatholic sacraments, unCatholic morality, and unCatholic doctrine. This would have been impossible in Latin -- steeped as it is in clarity, objectivity, and Roman Catholic Tradition.
The Church has understood this. The popes have understood this. Traditional Catholics have understood this. It is only the Modernists who deny it, and we know their fruits.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I have read many arguments about whether or not the Novus Ordo worship service is valid. I have seen the most minute hairs split over such issues as to whether it is intrinsically valid or merely invalid. Not to speak of invalidating matter and sacerdotal intention, it appears that the vernacular version of the service is invalid, but what about the same in its Latin version?
Whatever language is used, doesn't the Novus Ordo service represent, as the chief theologian of the Church at the time, Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani maintained, "a serious departure from the theology of the Mass"? In fact, the first edition of the Novus Ordo Missae published by the New Vatican was so theologically flawed that even Pope Paul VI had to recall it and reissue a corrected version the following year. Certainly, then, one can in no way hold even the Latin Novus Ordo service to be "infallible"! (The Traditional Latin Mass is, of course, infallible as an expression of the Church's faith and morals, as it has been canonized for all time by the Dogmatic Council of Trent.)
Pope Leo XIII considered a similar question when he determined the invalidity of the Anglican service in his Apostolicae Curae, in which he found that the Anglican service represented a different, invalidating, theology. Isn't the fact that the Novus Ordo service, even in its Latin edition, is representative of a different theology than the Catholic Mass, a fact that makes it presumptively invalid?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The Apostolicae Curae argument is powerful, particularly when one realizes that many prelates in the Catholic Church at the time thought that the Anglican service was valid, as are the Eastern Orthodox liturgies and the Old Catholic Masses. In many ways, the Anglican service that Pope Leo was analyzing was far more "Catholic," far more reverent, and far better "translated" than the Novus Ordo service. Yet the pope declared it invalid. A fortiori, according to the pope's criteria, one would have to hold the Novus Ordo service presumptively invalid.
What cannot be contested is that the Novus Ordo service, composed as it was in contravention of Catholic and Apostolic Tradition by a Freemason and six Protestant ministers, is by that very fact sacrilegious and blasphemous, and even if it were merely valid, it could not be rightly attended by any Catholic, any more than a Lutheran or a Jewish service could be. Even if the Latin Novus Ordo were merely valid, in the very few places where one can find it, I am not aware of any case where it has not been mixed with one or another feature of the Novus Ordo ("new" readings; use of the new, hardly-existent Eucharistic fast; Saturday for Sunday "golf" masses; or sermons tainted by "new" theology; etc.).
Dear Fr. Moderator:
An acquaintance made a comment that I could not believe. He stated that his Novus Ordo church allows the people to hold their own "liturgies." According to this person the Novus Ordo presbyter "consecrates" the "hosts" and places them in the tabernacle. Extraordinary ministers then handle the distribution of these "hosts" without a service or presbyter within the context of their own made-up "liturgy." How would you respond to this misguided soul?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
He's not misguided. He's right on the money in his report to you on what is going on in the Church of the New Order. That is a process that is being used increasingly in the Novus Ordo. Novus Ordo cookies are spread around at will. (I call them cookies because even the New Vatican admits that many Novus Ordo services use invalid matter.) What's to stop these cookies from being used in improvised "gay masses" or "womyn masses" complete with priestesses? Nothing. The Novus Ordo bishops pay it no heed.
In fact, for all the Novus Ordo bishops know or care, their cookies are already being used in Black (Satanic) Masses. Is there any question why St. John Chrysostom says that "the floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of rotten bishops"? On the other hand, other reports have reached me that even the Satanists know that the Novus Ordo cookies are fakes. For their Black Masses, I am told, core Satanists try to use only those Hosts consecrated by traditional priests -- and those are very hard to get because they are protected.
Traditionally, priests are supposed to preserve the consecrated Hosts from sacrilege, even at risk of their own lives. A cinematic depiction of this principle is given in the film The Cardinal, based on the Henry Morton Robinson novel of the 1950s (which I recommend). When the Nazi stormtroopers invade the Cathedral of Vienna and force their way into the archbishop's chapel, the first thing that the Cardinal Archbishop and the Vatican Nuncio do is to consume the Blessed Sacrament from the tabernacle, so that it will not fall prey to the invaders. A cleric loses his life in this effort.
That is the Catholic attitude toward the sanctity of the Blessed Sacrament. These Novus Ordo bishops don't care. They let anybody and his brother (or sister) manhandle the Novus Ordo cookie with very few, if any, safeguards. That sloth and sacrilege would have been unheard of before the New Order.
That is why I have said it before, and I'll say it again. It is not necessary to argue the invalidity of the Novus Ordo with incessant quotations from dry documents. Just look at how the Novus Ordo bishops and presbyters view the matter. They tell you by their actions what they believe. If they really believed that the Novus Ordo host was the Body and Blood of Christ, they would hardly act with the disregard and sacrilege they do.
But don't worry. If it looks like a cookie and is treated like a cookie, you can have confidence that it is merely a cookie. Just another reason not to believe in the Novus Ordo religion or to have anything to do with it. Not even the Novus Ordo clergy show that they believe it by their actions. They allow filthy hands touch what is supposed to be the Blessed Sacrament, Particles to fall on the floor and be trampled underfoot, communicants to stand to receive what is supposed to be the Lord of Lords. If they themselves don't show belief in their cookie by their actions, why should we?
From: Fr. Moderator
Messages and telephone calls have been coming in from around the country that agents of certain organizations are attempting to convince independent churches and chapels to give up their independent status and turn their sites (and often a good deal of money and property) over to some group, whether it be Novus Ordo, "indult," SSPX, or whatever.
Although this situation is not new, it is deplorable. It smacks more of imperialism than Catholicism, involving predation of money and property from independent churches and chapels. Usually the first ploy is to try to cause a division in the congregation: the original group wishes to remain independent, whereas the infiltrating group pushes to sell out to some other group.
What is the moral here? Independent churches and chapels should be very careful not to lose their independent status and to keep a close eye out for "shills" who try to join the board. They should be careful not to listen to pie-in-the-sky promises, which much experience has shown are a sales trick and a money/property grab. Invariably, these Mass sites have ended up losing their fully traditional form of the Faith and instead become yet another pawn in some organizational power-play. Beware!
Verbum (Issue 88, Winter 2003) reports that a Novus Ordo presbyter, Fr. X, who later joined the "indult" Fraternity of St. Peter, has left the FSSP after having become disaffected with its Novus Ordo-leaning policies and operations from his inside perspective as an FSSP pastor for six years.
Fr. X states that the FSSP is "very much connected to the Novus Ordo" and tied to the new sacraments and the Second Vatican Council, all of which must be accepted by the Fraternity's priests. He notes that Fraternity priests must celebrate the Novus Ordo service and other New Sacraments whenever they are operating outside their own houses and that their semi-traditional apostolate cannot be advertised locally by so much as an outdoor Mass schedule sign on the property.
Furthermore, states Fr. X, the Fraternity is mute concerning the abuses, scandals, and sacrileges of its more liberal peers, while they have plenty of "negative things" to say about traditional priests and organizations. Fr. X decided to leave the FSSP because he finds them not really traditional, but merely pawns in Rome's game of "playing cat 'n mouse with traditional Catholics."
TRADITIO has frequently pointed to the truth that became obvious in 1999 when Protocol 1411 was issued by the Ecclesia Dei Commission, decreeing that "indult" priests had to say the Novus Ordo service when so requested by a diocesan bishop. There was no surprise in this; the New Vatican had always maintained that the Novus Ordo was the normative service of Newchurch. However, FSSP leadership tried to paint the situation as much more traditional than it really was, presumably to entice large donations from unsuspecting traditional Catholics. (FSSP before 1999 used to do a large number of expensive solicitation mailings to purchased mailing lists; since 1999 that has stopped.)
TRADITIO has pointed to the fact that since 1999 the Traditional Catholic Movement has entered a new stage, as it is becoming increasingly recognized that any compromise with the "New Mass, New Sacraments, New Morality, and New Theology" is untenable and that traditional Catholics should not seek scraps (such as the "indult" or an "Apostolic Administration") from a New Vatican that has no intention of making the Traditional Latin Mass freely, let alone exclusively, available.
Fr. X is only one of many Novus Ordo and "indult" priests who, having the scales of their eyes removed because of the modern-day situation of the Church of the New Order, are now coming over to fully traditional Catholicism.
From the Novus Ordo in Italy we have the following ridiculous news. Italian Catholics can allegedly become unbaptized. The Novus Ordo Italian Bishops Conference (CEI), bowing to pressure from lobby groups who call the act unchristening, the Italian Bishops Conference decided that their presbyters must note alongside baptism information the will of adults to leave the Church.
This is heretical theology, of course. One cannot become unbaptized. The Sacrament of Baptism imposes upon the soul a permanent character. If a person apostatizes form the Faith after Baptism, that does not change the fact of his Baptism. Apostasy is one of the most grievous sins one can commit. When one has already been instructed as a Catholic, it is much more difficult to claim "invincible ignorance" of the True Faith or perfect contrition. Damnation then becomes a much more probable conclusion.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I recently came across an advertisement for the New Oxford Review. The publication claims to be "orthodox Catholic" in its writings and is a monthly magazine run by laymen. Have you ever heard of this publication before? I have a feeling that it is just another "conservative Catholic" publication and not traditional in the true sense. Also what about this new "Catholic" college in Michigan?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Yes, I've heard of the publication. As you say, it's another one of those "conservative" Novus Ordo periodicals that criticizes the Novus Ordo at times, but doesn't have the editorial guts to stand up for rejecting the Church of the New Order, and its hierarchy, when they illegally and immorally attempt to impose on the Roman Catholic Church a "New Mass," a "New Morality," and a "New Faith."
As to the new "Catholic" college, which has been spending many thousands of dollars on junk mailings to entice Catholics for donations to a pig-in-a-poke, is an arm of the New Order. Its administration is associated with the Fessio conglomerate, which is a New Order organ blatantly associated with the New Order bishops and the New Vatican.
Abp. Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979), while teaching at the Catholic University of America for nearly 25 years and dealing with students, noted with deep concern what was happening in Catholic education and the fact that many young people were losing the faith since Vatican II (1962-1965). His advice on higher education, given around 1967, was as prophetic as it was startling:
You are better off going to a state school where you will have the chance to fight for your faith, than going to a modern Catholic university where you will have the new watered-down, modernist version of the faith spoon-fed to your unsuspecting minds, so that you will be apt to lose your faith.
From: Fr. Moderator
It is often difficult for those who wish to use the Church's proper chant or to accompany the chant on the organ to find suitable music books for this purpose. Fortunately, important traditional chant books are now being reprinted. Neumann Press previously republished the St. Gregory Hymnal in the Complete Edition, which includes words, music, and organ accompaniment for 450 hymns, most of them in Latin. St. Bonaventure Press has republished the Liber Usualis, which contains the chant for most of the Divine Office.
Now Neumann Press has republished the Proper of the Mass by Padre Carlo Rossini in its traditional version of 1933. Most chant choirs are hesitant to essay the full chant out of the Liber Usualis for all of the Mass, perhaps chanting only the Ordinary of Mass. Then there is the problem of finding an organ accompaniment, if desired.
Rossini's book gives a perfectly acceptable option for chanting the Propers, that is, to use a psalmtone instead of the full chant. This book covers all the Propers, including the Proprium de Tempore (Sundays and ferial seasonal Masses), the Proprium Sanctorum (Masses proper to particular Saints), and the Commune Sanctorum (Common of the Saints). Words, music, and organ accompaniment are given for all chants. Responses are also given from the Ordinary for High Mass.
The book is available in both spiral bound ($29) and hardcover ($34). For contact information, consult the current year's edition of the Official Catholic Directory of Traditional Latin Masses and Resource Book for the U.S. and Canada, "The Traditional Catholic Yellow Pages".
Traditional Catholics should make every effort to support the use of the chant in their churches and chapels, if possible, arranging to sing in a choir for Holy Mass. Not only are we preserving the Catholic Church's own proper music, but we are raising the dignity of our Masses and praying better according to the principle: Qui cantat, bis orat [He who chants well, prays twice.
From: Mark
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Is it wrong to give a wedding present to a couple who are entering a union that is invalid according to the teaching of the Church, particularly the attempted marriage of a Catholic before a non-Catholic clergyman or a civil official?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Here is the answer of Fr. Connell, a traditional Catholic moral theologian, published before the confusion of Vatican II. "Catholics should be told that ordinarily, at least, they should refrain from presenting gifts to couples entering a union that is invalid according to Catholic principles, particularly if one of the participants is a lapsed Catholic. A wedding gift is an expression of joy and congratulations to the two who are entering the holy state of matrimony.
"But how can a Catholic consistently manifest joy and congratulations to a couple who are entering a union that is not a true marriage, but only a sinful concubinage? Such a gift has the appearance of approval of acceptance by these two of the deplorable state, a sad parody of the conjugal union."
From: John (India)
Dear Fr. Moderator:
By now it should be well known that the Ecclesia Dei Commission's Protocol 1411 of 1999 is applicable to all "indult" groups, forcing indult priests to concelebrate the Novus Ordo service with the diocesan bishop on Maundy Thursday and whenever else required by him. That makes all "indult" priests actual, or at least potential, minions of the New Order.
But that isn't the worst of it. From observation of "indult" Masses in Canada (once) and Bombay (many times), the distribution of Novus Ordo sacrileged wafers is mandatory at all services. Even at Eastern rite Masses celebrated in Novus Ordo churches in Bombay, the distribution of the Novus Ordo cookies became mandatory from around 1982, when the archbishop of Bombay issued an order to both Eastern rites of India offering Masses in this city to the effect that they should not consecrate their own hosts, but should dispense the Novus Ordo cookies from the tabernacles of the Novus Ordo churches used by them.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Doesn't this put to shame the New Vatican's hypocritical attempts to draw traditional Catholics into the same "deal" as the Campos deserters? At the same time that the New Vatican tries to snare us into the "indult," promising a fabled "Apostolic Administration," that same New Vatican is gradually dismantling the very same "indult" and forcing the "indult" priests into the Novus Ordo gradually, just as worldwide Catholics were gradually forced into the Protestantized Novus Ordo service of 1969. How much clearer could the handwriting on the wall be?
What is even more unconscionable are the propagandists of this scheme in the United States and elsewhere who are trying to bamboozle traditional Catholics into the snare of the "indult," which will then be pulled out from under them to leave them floundering in the Novus Ordo. Anyone with half a brain realizes that the New Vatican cannot possibly allow an independent Apostolic Administration. Can you imagine the battles that would go on with the local bishops?
The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre between the Feds and the Mob would look like a picnic in comparison! Whatever the New Vatican says, these bishops will not permit unfettered traditional churches in their dioceses. The New Vatican is beholden to these bishops for its authority. The recent scandal of the pope caving into the U.S. cardinals and even participating in the cover-up and the subjugation of children shows just how far the New Vatican will go in its post-conciliar sycophancy to its bishops.
That is why Protocol 1411 came about. One "indult" organization told a local bishop that it answered only to the pope, not to the local bishop. So what did the pope do? He delivered a speech to the convention of this organization in which he hold them that the New Order service was the proper rite of the Church and that they had to obey the local bishop if he wanted them to go Novus Ordo! Then the pope had his commission issue Protocol 1411 to seal the matter. Since then, you hardly hear a peep from the Fraternity of St. Peter, the Society of St. John of Scranton, the Institute of Christ the King, etc.
From TRADITIO's extensive, worldwide network of correspondents, there is no doubt that in the United States and elsewhere, traditional Catholics attending "indult" Masses are being forced in many places to eat the Novus Ordo cookie from the Novus Ordo tabernacles in the churches that they are forced to use.
Revealing too is the information that even the Uniate (New Rome-affiliated) Eastern rites are being forced to do the same. Whenever I write about the fact that the situation with liturgical corruption is just as bad, if not worse, in the Eastern rites, I get messages from Easterners who deny this fact. Well, here is evidence from a country in which Eastern rites abound, and the Unitates by the dictate of the archbishop are being forced to use the Novus Ordo cookies as well. (Yes, yes, I know that there are a handful of Eastern-rite sites around that maintain one unadulterated Apostolic Eastern rite or another.)
We traditional Catholics must be blunt realists. Our Lord didn't succumb to the wiles of the Pharisees that tried to entrap Him. Neither should we succumb to deals, snares, and schmoozing from the New Vatican, which is not concerned with the Roman Catholic liturgy, but with organizational "peace." Having tens of millions of traditional Catholics around the world saying to the New Vatican: "You're not Catholic" is quite an embarrassment, you see. The emperor may have no clothes, but he certainly doesn't want the world to acknowledge that fact.
It is only by standing up against the "New" Vatican, the "New" Mass, the "New" Sacraments, and the "New" Faith as unCatholic and intolerable that we shall ever get the Church back on the right track again.
Like St. Michael the Archangel, when confronted with deals, snares, and schmoozing, we need to answer Quis ut Deus? [Who is like God?].
Like Peter, when confronted with a hierarchy gone mad, we need to answer Oboedire oportet Deo magis quam hominibus [We ought to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29/DRV)].
From: Fr. Moderator
In the Traditional Latin Mass, particularly when using the fully traditional rubrics before 1956, one or two commemorations of Saints' feastdays occur on most Sundays. Frequently these are of early Christian martyrs of all walks of life, young and old, clergy and laity, men and women, married and virgins, who suffered under the Roman persecutions before Constantine's Edict of Toleration in 313. It is my practice to preface my sermons with a mini-martyrology of the Saints whose feastday is being commemorated that Sunday so that the faithful can be instructed by the example of our predecessors in the Faith.
Such lessons are particularly apt in our times. One of the saddest consequences of the Church of the New Order is that, racked by dissension, schism, and heresy, it is in no position to fight the anti-Christian persecution that is already quite evident and will become even more evident as the years go on. Do not count on the First Amendment to protect your rights of religion and religious speech. Already those rights have been abridged in the United States, and here is a report of a chilling abrogation of religious rights in Canada, whose hatred of religion is even greater than in the United States.
COURT AGREES WITH HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL THAT BIBLE = HATE LITERATURE
Christian Leader Warns Ruling Shows Danger of Proposed Changes to Hate Laws
REGINA, February 10, 2003 (LSN, Excerpted) - In a ruling given virtually no media coverage, the Court of Queen's Bench in Saskatchewan ruled that a man who placed references to Bible verses on homosexuality into a newspaper ad was guilty of inciting hatred. The December 11, 2002, decision was in response to an appeal of a 2001 Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission (HRC) ruling which ordered both the Saskatoon Star Phoenix newspaper and Hugh Owens of Regina to pay $1,500 to three homosexual activists for publishing an ad in the Saskatoon newspaper quoting bible verses regarding homosexuality.
The purpose of the ad was to indicate that the Bible says no to homosexual behavior. The advertisement displayed references to four Bible passages: Romans 1, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. Justice J. Barclay rejected the appeal ruling: "In my view, the Board was correct in concluding that the advertisement can objectively be seen as exposing homosexuals to hatred or ridicule.
From: Fr. Moderator
The Chicago madness about the pro-abortion heretic Al Sharpton seems to be spreading. Now the peripatetic crackpot "Fr." Richard Sparks is due for an appearance in the diocese of Oakland, California, to spread his filth to a "lay ministers" meeting there.
Will Novus Ordo Bishop Cummins, one of the country's most liberal bishops, who personally celebrates "Gay Masses" (whatever those are -- and it couldn't be anything good) and "authorizes" a pseudo-indult service to attract some unsuspecting Catholics away from the Traditional Latin Mass, be disposed to cancel the appearance of this presbyter who preaches that:
It is clear that Sparks is demented, but how much more demented are those who cling to a bishop and a parish that approve by their silence, if not by their outright advocacy, the craziness of the New Order? Bishop Fulton Sheen once said: "If you don't behave as you believe, you will end by believing as you behave." The Novus Ordinarians better leave now before they themselves actually believe the New Order's teachings.
From: Fr. Moderator
TRADITIO has been warned by one of its East-Coast priest correspondents that there is a move afoot to impose a so-called Apostolic Administration upon traditional Catholicism in the United States (and perhaps elsewhere). Certain fund-raising schemes have been initiated to extract money from U.S. Catholics to support a foreign Novus Ordo diocese in Brazil. In addition, a fund-raising magazine entitled Campos has been circulated, in which the names of "supporters" have been used who actually do not approve of the propaganda.
This sounds like another one of those phony schemes, like a certain East Coast "indult" society that is being investigated for, among other things, embezzlement of funds. Expensive color publicity materials were mailed to purchased conservative and traditional Catholic mailing lists to solicit funds for projects that were never completed, or even initiated.
TRADITIO's consistent advice on this point is not to send monies to any allegedly traditional organization as a result of an unsolicited junk mailing. Your donations should go in justice first to the church or chapel that provides you with the Traditional Latin Mass and Sacraments. Any additional donations should go to charitable organizations whose activities you can monitor, at least to some extent. All too many Catholics have been deluded into donating to wonderful-sounding projects that never get off the ground. This is pure bunko. Don't be duped into such things.
From: Fr. Moderator
This follow-up from one of TRADITIO's correspondents demonstrates what drives people crazy about the Church of the New Order. George lays down a rule -- only clergy is to give sermons (which is probably the official, but ignored, rule of the New Order) --, then ignores his own directive: "The Cardinal believes, however, that making a case of this invitation [to the pro-abortion heretic Al Sharpton] at this time would be a futile gesture and a waste of effort."
Why? No explanation is given. A futile gesture? A waste of effort? To put down scandal and confusion of the Faith? When segments of the faithful are already outraged?
If George doesn't even respect his own rules, why should anyone respect any rules of the New Order? That is why the Traditional Catholic Movement doesn't pay attention to these New Order bishops in their errors. Why should we pay attention to them, when they don't even pay any attention to themselves! Why should we "obey" them when they don't obey the Church?
The "sex scandal" is only the tip of the iceberg, as I have said before. Already there is a racketeering suit against several Novus Ordo bishops for conspiracy in defamation against conservative Catholics, for protection schemes involving mortuaries, and for embezzlement of Church funds.
Moreover, now the pope has been personally implicated in the scandals, which may explain what he has not exacted the appropriate public punishment from the errant cardinals a bishops, one of whom, an archbishop, publicly admitted that he had a paramour on the side and stole from the Church to pay him hush money. MSNBC News on December 11, 2002) reported that in the files that were subpoenaed in Boston was a letter written by Pope John Paul II himself on May 25, 1999, which appears to approve the cover-up of presbyteral immorality by moving the guilty parties to where they were not known.
Therefore, it could be argued that these cardinal and bishops were simply (but immorally) following the dictates of "Rome," in fact, the pope himself. Here is another case where not to obey the pope is the moral course of action, just as it is in the case of not obeying the "New" Mass, "New" Sacraments, and "New" Theology of the Church of the New Order.
As the fruits of the Novus Ordo come to maturity, the root rot that will be increasingly exposed will kill the tree. Maybe then we can all return to the Roman Catholic Faith when the experiment of Vatican II is over, and the test tube has exploded into oblivion.
From: Fr. Moderator
"Conservative" Catholics hang on to the Church of the New Order, not liking the "New Mass" and the "New Faith," but gritting their teeth. They say to themselves: "I don't like the Novus Ordo, but I must obey, obey, obey. At least the bishops stand against abortion."
Well, not any more.
House Bill 1242, authored by Representative Sally Sandvig (D-Fargo) and co-sponsored by Senator Russell Thane (R-Wahpeton) would create a new section of the North Dakota criminal code: "A person is guilty of a class AA felony if the person intentionally destroys or terminates the life of a preborn child." Rep. Sandvig introduced the Preborn Child Protection Act at the request of Fargo pro-life attorney Peter B. Crary, who resides in her district.
In response to a letter from Attorney Crary requesting support for the bill, Christopher Dodson, Executive Director of the North Dakota Catholic Conference, stated that the bill was unacceptable to the North Dakota (Novus Ordo) Bishops Paul A. Zipfel (Bismarck) and Samuel J. Aquila (Fargo), who have flatly refused to endorse a bill criminalizing abortion because it "servers no legitimate purpose." So, to Novus Ordo bishops saving a life now serves no purpose.
Moreover, even if the proposed legislation were to grant the mother legal immunity for killing her own child, it still would not pass muster with the Novus Ordo Bishops of North Dakota because it lacks "realistic possibility of withstanding constitutional scrutiny."
Well, isn't that just what the Novus Ordo Catholic politicians say? "I have to uphold the civil law because I am a government representative first and a Catholic second." How, then, can the Novus Ordo bishop of Sacramento say anything against the California governor who takes this same position? The Novus Ordo is hoist by its own petard -- again!
"As a Catholic I am ashamed," Mr. Crary said. The North Dakota Bishops do give lip service to the protection of innocent life. However, by refusing to challenge in any manner the Supreme Court mandate set forth in Roe v. Wade, my own [Novus Ordo] Bishops have acquiesced to the Culture of Death."
Well, Mr. Crary and you Catholic "conservatives" out there, you'd better bail out of the Novus Ordo now before it sinks to the bottom and get yourselves to the islands of traditional Catholicism all around. As the Introit from last Sunday indicated: Laetentur insulae multae [The many islands shall rejoice.] Surely, the ship of the New Order isn't rejoicing any these days!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I am troubled by what appears to me a lack of unity in the Traditional Catholic Movement. It's been brought to my attention that the different traditional groups not agreeing with each other resembles the division of the Protestant sects. Please help me with this issue, for it greatly bothers me.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
I'll bet that it was Novus Ordinarians who "brought this to your attention." This is in fact a red-herring that is spread principally by Novus Ordinarians, who do not merely resemble Protestants, but in essence have become Protestants, since their service was written by six Protestants, their sacraments follow Protestant lines, and their doctrines have become Protestantized.
Traditional Catholicism is unified on all the important things. We are united on the Traditional Latin Mass. We are united on the traditional Sacraments. We are united on the Roman Catholic Faith. That is 99% of everything. Internecine organizational differences are nothing new. You see them already among the original Apostles, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. Popes come and go; bishops come and go. But the Catholic and Apostolic Deposit of Faith remains. Roman Catholicism remains.
On the other hand, every New Order service is different. All the New Order sacraments are different. And certainly Novus Ordinarians can't agree with each other on what the doctrines and practices of the Catholic Faith are: priestesses or not, abortion or not, capital punishment or not, sexual perversion or not, celibacy or not.
Moreover, the Protestants deny Sacred Tradition outright. The Novus Ordinarians deny it de facto. Traditional Catholics affirm it as part of the Deposit of Faith, according to the immemorial Catholic teaching, as confirmed in Sacred Scripture.
Look at it like the sand on the seashore. Every grain of sand is individual, but together they make up the seashore. That seashore is united like traditional Roman Catholicism, even though each of the individuals making it up may be different in small ways. The New Order, on the other hand, can't even agree on what sand is!
From: Fr. Moderator
Some religious news outlets are predicting the issuance of an encyclical on the Holy Eucharist in the next few months. According to Catholic World News, New Vatican officials are concerned about abuses of the Eucharistic liturgy, about a general desacralization of the Eucharist, and widespread abuses such as routine use of extraordinary Eucharistic ministers, the disappearance of the penitential rite from the Mass, and modification of the very words of consecration.
Wake up, New Vatican. The cow is out of the barn. You did this. You did this by introducing a counterfeit Novus Ordo service in place of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. You have lost control. No "theological reflection" in the form of an encyclical is going to do anything. Only the complete termination of the Novus Ordo service will correct the situation. It is typical of the New Vatican to blame local parishes for not "following the rules," when it is the New Vatican itself that introduced the "rule-breaking."
Who introduced the changes that led to the desacralization? The New Vatican. Who introduced extraordinary Eucharistic ministers? The New Vatican. Who allowed the penitential rite to be omitted? The New Vatican. Who invented new words of consecration and approved vernacular versions that were invalid? The New Vatican. Who introduced the sacrilege of communion in the hand? Why, the New Vatican.
No, this would be much too little and much too late. What we need is a Hercules to clean out the Augean cesspool that the New Vatican has become. Only a return to the Roman Catholic faith and practice will suffice.
From: John
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Why has the Church condemned Freemasonry so strongly? Is it still a problem, or has it now turned into some kind of social club?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Here is how Jesuit Father Cahill answers that question in Freemasonry and the Anti-Christian Movement (1930):
The papal condemnations of Freemasonry are so severe and sweeping in their tenor as to be quite unique in the history of Church legislation. During the last two centuries Freemasonry has been expressly anathematized by at least ten different popes and condemned directly or indirectly by almost every pontiff that sat on the Chair of St. Peter.
The popes charge the Freemasons with occult criminal activities, with "shameful deeds," with worshipping Satan himself (a charge which is hinted at in some papal documents), with infamy, blasphemy, sacrilege, and the most abominable heresies against the State, with anarchical and revolutionary principles, and with favoring and promoting what is now called Bolshevism; with corrupting and perverting the minds of youth; with shameful hypocrisy and lying, by means of which Freemasons strive to hide their wickedness under a cloak of probity and respectability, while in reality they are the very "synagogue of Satan," whose direct aim and object is the complete destruction of Christianity.
Mrs. Bella Dodd, a Communist agent who converted to the Catholic Faith, laid out before the United States Congress in the 1950s the plan of the Communist Freemasons for the subversion of the Church that one decade later became realized in the Church of the New Order:
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.
Has a more accurate picture of the Novus Ordo ever been painted? And yet here it was, point by point, a little more than a decade before the launching of the New Order. And who was its immediate architect? Archbishop Hannibal Bugnini, whose Masonism had become so obvious even to Pope Paul VI that he was banished to Iran. This architect of the New Order and of the New Order worship service with six Protestants received a letter from the Worshipful Masonic Grandmaster in Rome, warmly congratulating him on his work. Surely Masonism lives today in the Church of the New Order. Surely the popes have been wise to condemn it.
From: Fr. Moderator
So does the Chicago Sun Times (February 5, 2003) describe "Fr." Michael Pfleger. Well, the Sun Times is half right. This individual is neither "Catholic" nor a "priest," but he is certainly a "different kind." This Pfleger, who apparently is the pastor at the New Order's St. Sabina Church, has invited to the pulpit Al Sharpton, a heretic and pro-abortion Pentecostal minister, and Cornel West, a Marxist.
Wierdos like Pfleger, Sharpton, and West can perhaps be clucked over. Perhaps they are just mental defectives. But let's look at who is really to blame: the New Order Archbishop of the Chicago Archdiocese, Francis Cardinal George, whom some have had the temerity to call "conservative." Well, I suppose in the Church of the New Order heresy, abortionism, and Marxism are now considered conservative. Although Pfleger's pulpit has been used before by pro-abortionist Harry Bellafonte and even the Mohammedan Louis Farrakhan, George has apparently not lifted a finger to can Pfleger and put a stop to this sacrilege and scandal.
You see, what we have all been painfully subjected to recently is not what the newspapers try to make us believe is a "sex scandal." No, the rot of the Church of the New Order goes far beyond some sexual failings. It lies right at the feet of these New Order cardinals and bishops and, yes, even popes, who have diabolically deprived the people of the true Mass, Sacraments, and Faith, and substituted a "New Mass" by the likes of Pfleger, "New Sacraments" by the likes of Sharpton, and "New Theology" by the likes of Farrakhan -- all proclaimed from the "altars" and pulpits of the New Order.
The truth, which the Church of the New Order tried to keep hidden, has now exploded from the pressure of deception and concealment. We now see the corruption for what it is: coming right from the top. It is a perversion of the Catholic Faith. Even though these people still presume to wear their miters, they have no Catholic belief in the Deposit of Faith that the miters represent. And they have the gall to talk about the Middle Ages with derision!
The evidence accumulated in just the last year is much too compelling for any but the brain-dead to ignore. These things do not happen in the Roman Catholic Church; they happen in the counterfeit Church of the New Order, the Great Facade, whose prelates must be subjected to the most vehement censure.
No longer is it possible, under any pretext, to participate in the perverted and sacrilegious Novus Ordo worship service with its advocating minions. Like the true Catholics of the Arian period or the Elizabethan period or other times and locations where the true Mass was not available, the Catholic faithful, if they cannot find a Traditional Latin Mass, will just have to pray as best they can at home and take Spiritual Communion. That is what Pope St. Pius V told the English Recusants to do. There can be no compromise with evil for convenience' sake, that great pope told them.
How can anyone any longer in good conscience maintain that St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and 260 some-odd popes would have recognized this charade as "Catholic" or any of these prelates as "Catholic." No, they would have condemned them in no uncertain terms for their faithlessness and for their perversion of the faith of others.
From: Fr. Moderator
While the Church falls down around its ears, what is the New Vatican doing? Drawing Catholics back to the traditional Faith? Drawing the world to the highest standards of Roman civilization in music, art, architecture?
Oh, no! Now we have to listen to some ecclesiocrat's literary opinions on pop culture. We could forgive this if it were on the Latin style of St. Charles Borromeo or even the Catholic significance of Dante Aligheri's La Divina Commedia. But Harry Potter?!
It seems that the New Vatican, which is awash with New Age philosophy, in its usual duplicitous way, recently issued a document against New Ageism. Next scene: The New Vatican gets caught in its own contradictions. Some critics of the Potter series have said that it glorifies the occult and the New Age.
So, the Vatican has some low-ranking ecclesiocrat, one Rev. Don Peter Fleetwood, of the so-called Pontifical Council for Culture, issued praises of the Potter series that the popular press is interpreting as "Vatican approval." Whatever the moral quality of Potter, I doubt than anyone would call it true culture, any more than the Wizard of Oz.
Interestingly, it was just last December that the Diocese of Rome's own official exorcist, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, warned parents against the Harry Potter book series (CWNews, January 3, 2003). Is the New Vatican losing its grip? Can't it get its story straight? The priest said that Satan is behind the works. In an interview with the Italian ANSA news agency, Fr. Amorth said, "Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil."
The exorcist, with his decades of experience in directly combating evil, explained that J.K. Rowling's books contain innumerable positive references to magic, "the satanic art." He noted that the books attempt to make a false distinction between black and white magic, when in fact, the distinction "does not exist, because magic is always a turn to the devil." In the interview, which was published in papers across Europe, Fr. Amorth also criticized the disordered morality presented in Rowling's works, noting that they suggest that rules can be contravened and lying is justified when they work to one's benefit.
Very often one finds a more direct and accurate coverage of Vatican events in the European press. In fact, the New Vatican has frequently dropped bombshells in selected European outlets, so that the information doesn't make it across the Atlantic. Americans are notoriously inept not only in Latin and Greek, but even in modern languages. For example, the truth about the creeping Novus Ordoism of the Fraternity of St. Peter was exposed in European sources long before most Americans had any inkling.
In the case of Fr. Amorth's remarks, American outlets misrepresented the coverage. The New York Times, the United States' leading liberalist newspaper, left out most of the information in the European coverage, even misquoting Fr. Amorth as saying: "If children can see the movie with their parents, it's not all bad." The Times report also fails to mention that the movie version has significantly cleaned up Harry's image, making it less troublesome than the books.
Well, at least if parents want to reach their own conclusions about the series, they can also exercise their Latin skills at the same time. Author J.K. Rowling, who studied classics and uses many Latin phrase in the Potter series, has arranged for a Latin version (and a classical Greek version) of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone called Harrius Figulus et Lapis Philosophi, to be issued in 2003 by Bloomsbury, the series publisher. Rowling said that she wants to arrange these translations to encourage interest in these immortal languages and to delight those who study them (which seems a lot more than the New Vatican is doing these days).
Peter Needham, an Eton classics professor for thirty years, will do the translations. He is translating the 77,000 words of the book at a rate of a page a day. Like Latin versions of other modern works: Winnie the Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, you can be sure that this one too will hit the top of the bestseller lists. Brush up on your Latin (and Greek) and get out your Cassell's!
From: Tom
Can you please clarify what the "Church of the New Order" is and what the authority of the Roman papacy is?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The Church of the New Order is the Church based on the so-called "New Order," which rejects Catholicism and instead substitutes -- sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly -- new, non-Catholic doctrines for the Catholic Faith as it has been understood for 2000 years. No one, not even popes, have the authority to modify the Deposit of Faith, which comes from Our Lord. That has always been Catholic dogma and was explicitly stated when Vatican I defined the dogma of papal infallibility in the dogmatic decree Pastor Aeternus.
The pope has only the authority that Our Lord gave to the papacy, which is limited by the Deposit of Faith and the magisterium of the Church. If he acts outside the authority given him (as Vatican I found that about 40-50 popes had in the history of the Church), such acts are null and void. For example, the pope could not overrule his predecessor Pius IX and declare that the Blessed Virgin Mary was not immaculately conceived, or his predecessor Pope Pius XII and declare that the Blessed Virgin Mary was not assumed body and soul into heaven.
From: Fr. Moderator
From all the Vatican propaganda, you'd think that everything is love-fest between the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox. After all, the pope treats the Oecumenical Patriarch (Byzantine Orthodox) like a Roman Catholic and tells Orthodox bishops who want to convert to Roman Catholicism not to bother.
The reality of Greek-Roman relationships is quite different. Large segments of the Eastern Orthodox disparage Roman Catholics even more than the Fundamentalist Protestants. The most virulent anti-Catholic diatribe I ever read came from an Eastern Orthodox magazine, not a Protestant one.
Every time the Oecumenical Patriarch goes back home after a schooze with the pope, more of his people desert him. Here are some excerpts from a recent news release in which a group of Greek monks refuses to be "oecumenical," so the Oecumenical Patriarch wants to call them "schismatics" and forceably remove them from their monastery. Sounds like just the same trick the New Vatican and its bishops tried to pull against traditional Catholics, doesn't it? Perhaps the Romans and the Greek ecclesiocrats aren't that far apart after all!
OURANOUPOLIS, Greece (Associated Press World News, Adapted) - February 1, 2003. Hundreds of people chanting "Orthodoxy or death" protested against a decision to evict forcibly the inhabitants of a so-called rebel monastery on Mount Athos. "Forces of evil have surrounded the monastery. They have taken decisions to defrock the monks, but we will not allow it," said Dionissios Avramides, a member of the Friends of Esphigmenou Society, which organized the demonstration.
In a dispute spanning three decades, the rebel monks staunchly oppose efforts to improve relations between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew -- spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians -- last year declared the Esphigmenou monks as being "schismatic." His decision allowed Mount Athos' Greek civil administrator to order the monks evicted.
But police have refrained from carrying out the order. The monks have appealed the eviction order to Greece's highest administrative court, and a preliminary decision on their request could be issued next week. In a rare public appeal, monks from the other 19 monasteries on Friday urged Greeks to condemn the inhabitants of Esphigmenou.
Some Orthodox theologians have compared the monks to the followers of the late French traditional Roman Catholic Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who stood up to John Paul II against the imposition of Modernist changes after Vatican II.
From: Fr. Moderator
Gibson's The Passion, an epic of the last two days in the earthly life of Christ, continues to get a degree of publicity far beyond what one would expect for a serious, religious film. Perhaps Gibson was right when he decided to shoot the film entirely in the Sacred Languages (Latin, Greek, Hebrew) without subtitles, in addition to an ancient vernacular, Aramean.
Every traditional Catholic should be grateful that through this means the world is being taught about the true Roman Catholic Faith that is in opposition to the New Order religion. Hollywood's biggest star is identified as a traditional Catholic, and I've yet to see any of numerous articles tag him with the usual rot about "schism"! Nevertheless, he scrupulously and publicly avoids any communion with the "New Rome."
A laudatory article appearing in the New York Daily News of January 26 says of Gibson:
He was raised in the Catholic faith and considers himself a traditionalist who loves the Latin Mass. He has a priest on the set who offers a [Traditional] Latin Mass and hears confessions from whomever [sic] wishes to take part.
From: William
I just finished reading An Open Letter to Confused Catholics by Archbishop Lefebvre. How could the Vatican excommunicate such a saintly man and not do anything about the many dissident and even heretical presbyters, bishops, and even cardinals that are roaming around?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
First of all, Abp. Lefebvre, even according to the New Vatican, was never "excommunicated." This is a common misconception that is particularly spread around by the press and those who do not know the canon law. On July 1, 1988, the Vatican simply issued a "Declaration" that contended that the Archbishop had not been excommunicated, but had excommunicated himself. That is a very important distinction.
A mini-lesson in canon law would be appropriate here. There are two forms of excommunication: ferendae sententiae, the form that applies to the verdict of an ecclesiastical tribunal; and latae sententiae, the situation that applies to a particular overt act.
Now the problem with the latae sententiae situation is that people can easily argue over whether it applies or not, since an overt act in and of itself does not always indicate the volition of the one who commits the act, and the volition is a critical factor in determining whether the act is one to which the penalty applies.
For example, solicitation of abortion is an act that can carry with it such a latae sententiae excommunication. But what if the girl is 11 years old and thinks that she has to obey her parents when they take her in for a forced abortion? Does the latae sententiae excommunication apply? In that case, no, since the volition is absent.
In Abp. Lefebvre's case, the overt act was the consecration of four bishops allegedly without the consent of the Apostolic See (although there is even some dispute about the details of that). However, the act alone, as in the abortion case, is not enough; there must be the proper volition. The archbishop had made it clear on many occasions (and no one has ever disputed this point) that he was acting in obedience to his episcopal oath to guard the Faith and that he was consecrating these bishops to ensure the continuance of the true Roman Catholic Faith.
The act per se -- which by the way is defined even in this pope's own Code of Canon Law (Can. 1832) as not an act of schism, but as an act of usurpation of ecclesiastical functions -- is not subject to latae sententiae excommunication if certain excusing conditions obtain. And in fact such an excusing condition did obtain: grave fear, to preserve the continuance of the true Roman Catholic Faith in view of his impending death. As a result, eight prominent Roman canonists have gone on record that the Archbishop was not in fact excommunicated:
Why, then, hasn't the New Vatican admitted the fact of its error (it even mistakenly cited the wrong section of the canon law). Well, you have to understand the Vatican: it never admits error. It operates by innuendo. That is why people who always want to cite post-conciliar documents are dead wrong. The documents utilize deliberate innuendo. If they meant anything, we would still have the Latin Mass. Remember Vatican II: "Latin shall remain the language of the Roman rite"?
The most pertinent question, which is rarely asked, is: why didn't Abp. Lefebvre get the ecclesiastical trial, which this pope's own Canon Law (Can. 1314) prescribed as the ordinary course of action? Certainly his office as Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, the largest missionary congregation in the Church, and his docility in trying to work with the Vatican to preserve the Faith showed his good will. He was involved in no heresy, nor even in any schism. Even the alleged heretics at the time of the Inquisition got their full judicial rights and meticulously-recorded proceedings. If the New Vatican had given the Archbishop a trial, there would be no question about the sentence, whether he was excommunicated or not.
I think that the answer to the question is clear. The New Vatican could not give a public forum to the position of the Archbishop; otherwise, the New Order would be exposed as a fraud in front of the eyes of the world. Remember, the nine-member Cardinalatial Commission of 1986, specifically established by the current pope, to study the question of the Traditional Latin Mass. The Commission concluded unanimously that (1) the Traditional Latin Mass has never been abrogated and (2) all priests have the right to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass and "the bishops cannot forbid or place restrictions on the celebration of the traditional rite of Mass, whether in public or in private." This decision was in full conformity with Apostolic Tradition and Pope St. Pius V's Bull Quo Primum.
The decision of that Commission of eight cardinals was, in the end suppressed because the liberalist Northern European bishops got wind of the decision in advance and threatened the pope in no uncertain terms that if the decision were published, Northern Europe would go into schism. True to his cowardice in such matters, the pope backed down to the bullying threat of the Novus Ordo bishops.
You see, the New Vatican plays a very risky game. It claims to be Roman Catholic, but isn't, but because it holds the seats of power, most people don't look any further. Yet in the 4th century, the Arian heretics held the seats of power; nevertheless, the great Saints (Augustine, Basil, Martin, etc.) publicly branded them as heretics for teaching a false Faith that was not Catholic. In the 15th century, when there were three claimants to the papal throne, the one who actually was resident in Rome was the one who turned out to be a pretender! So, seeing is not always believing.
Once again the New Vatican is exposed for the Counterfeit Church that it is. It is afraid to raise the issue of the traditional Faith, Mass, and Sacraments because it knows that in a direct confrontation, it cannot support the legitimacy of the New Order within Catholic and Apostolic Tradition. That is why, starting with Vatican II, the documents emanating from the New Vatican are ambiguous. Thereby they cannot ever be shown to be clearly on one side or the other, and proponents of both sides can cite passages that concur with them. But, in a perverse sort of way, that may be the saving grace to allow a future pope in accordance with Tradition to apply the correct sense.
Abp. Lefebvre must be praised for demonstrating the moral virtue that is so lacking in our time: fortitude, or courage. As in the 4th century and at other times in the Church, prelates, even popes, became venal, deceitful, fornicating, power-grabbing, and even heretical and schismatic. Abp. Lefebvre is one of the few prelates after Vatican II that could hold his head up when he reached the Judgment.
The motto that appears on his tombstone could not be more apt. He quotes the Apostle of the Gentiles, the converter of many thousands in the ancient world, St. Paul, when he said: Tradidi quod accepi [I handed down what I received]. This is the essence of the office of a prelate. The Archbishop's example could well teach the post-Vatican II popes, if they would only listen. Abp. Lefebvre is one of the very few prelates who could look the Lord in the face and say: "I have fought the good fight. I handed down to the Catholic faithful exactly what I received from Thee, my Lord." That is the Catholic Apostolic Tradition.
From: Fr. Moderator
We often hear today that we should compromise with the Novus Ordo, be "charitable," be "oecumenical," be "obedient." Well, that's not what the pope says! When Pope St. Pius X confronted the heresy of Modernism at the turn of the century, what he called the "synthesis of all heresies," he looked it as an enemy and would tolerate no compromise. The Novus Ordoism that took over in the Church after Vatican II is really just Neo-Modernism, a more virulent form of the Modernism that Pope St. Pius X fought and defeated -- temporarily.
In response to the Archbishop of Cremona, who apparently argued that the measures being taken by the pope against the Modernists were excessive, the pope replied in no uncertain terms:
I am astonished that you should find excessive the measures taken to confine the flood that threatens to swamp us, when the [Modernist] error they are striving to spread is much more deadly than that of Luther, because it aims directly at the destruction not only of the Church but of Christianity.
To someone who begged the pope to show pity toward a Modernist, he replied:
They want them [the Modernists] to be treated with oil, soap, and caresses. But they should be beaten with fists. In a duel, you don't count or measure the blows, you strike as you can. War is not made with charity: it is a struggle, a duel. If Our Lord were not to be feared, He would not have given an example in this too. See how he treated the Philistines, the sowers of error, the wolves in sheep's clothing, the traders: He scourged them with whips!
So, the Novus Ordo "Church of Love," which is now exposed to have committed the most uncharitable acts of all, should be opposed with the strongest measures. It has recently been announced that several Novus Ordo bishops in the U.S. are being prosecuted as racketeers for conspiracy to defame and to defraud the faithful. This goes far beyond a mere "sex scandal." It involves embezzlement of church funds, a web of "protection payments" collected from mortuaries, and bishops conspiring with each other across the country to deprive traditional, even conservative, Catholics of their reputations, jobs, and property.
Believe me, this exposure of the rotting of the counterfeit Church of the New Order is just beginning.
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