Dear Fr. Moderator:
The Novus Ordo is in real trouble here in England, but the pope is adamant that everything is just fine. Vittorio Messori, the ghost-writer of Crossing the Threshold of Hope and of the Ratzinger Report tried to elicit from the pope an admission that there was something wrong with Vatican II and its aftermath. He was not able to get such an admission from the pope, who struck his fist on the table and said, "No, everything is fine." Indeed, everything is fine -- if your intention as pope is to destroy the Roman Catholic Church.
In England and Wales there is currently a 98% apostasy rate in the case of children who attend "Catholic schools," by the time they leave those schools. It is a wipe-out of the Roman Catholic Faith in a single generation. The bishops and priests know this, but they do not give a hoot and enthusiastically continue with the policies which have been used to produce this situation. In fact, it is hard to believe that a 98% apostasy rate could be achieved unless it was deliberate and very carefully planned.
Here are the official figures from the Novus Ordo Church in England and Wales.
YEAR POPULATION ATTENDANCE NOTES 1954 2,939,900 64.2% 1964 3,827,000 55.2% Mass attendance peaks. Vatican II sits. 1974 4,162,942 42.1% 1984 4,220,262 35.8% 1990 4,248,346 30.4% 1992 4,526,873 28.2% Novus Ordo population peaks. 1998 4,189,550 25.2% Attendance half of 1966. 2000 4,121,004 24.4% Corresponding figure in U.S. is 18%.
In other words, the Church was growing here before Vatican II. As soon as that Council ended, the decline set in. At the present rate of decline, there will be only 100,000 Novus Ordinarians attending the service by 2030. By 2035, it will all be gone.
But the Traditional Catholic Counter-Revolution goes on. We traditional Catholics here in England must salvage what we can of the Roman Catholic Church. We support traditional groups that keep to the true Mass. We always avoid the Novus Ordo service, which is one of the main instruments producing the ecclesial collapse. We never give a penny to the local parishes or the diocese because they only spend it on furthering the destruction of the Church and on blasphemous and sacrilegious "inter-faith initiatives." We have taken our children out of "Catholic" schools," which teach a non-Catholic Faith.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Several Novus Ordo seminarians in my locality have been taking part in the local "indult" Mass. Although the "indult" is far from the proper course of action, I am glad that at least they will not be totally ignorant of some form of the Traditional Latin Mass, even if the "modernized" one of 1962, as other seminarians and new Novus Ordo presbyters are.
My concern is whether these seminarians should be allowed to distribute Holy Communion. Does the privilege of distributing Holy Communion come only with Priestly Orders or can it be done by a deacon? I am especially concerned because there has also been distribution by laypeople, and I have no way of knowing at what stage a seminarian is.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The ordinary minister of Holy Communion is the priest. The extraordinary minister is the deacon. At a Sunday Mass such as you describe, there would be no justification for anyone other than a priest to distribute Communion. Extraordinary permission might be given to a deacon in the case of bringing Communion to an invalid in a remote location, or to patients in a remote hospital, when the number of priests is scarce. It should not be an "ordinary" practice.
The Novus Ordo fell into that trap, or rather exploited it, when lay "eucharistic ministers" started popping up all over the place. Actually, even for the Novus Ordo, the correct title is "extraordinary minister." Yet the presbyter sits in his big caricature of a chair while laymen -- or rather (usually) laywomen -- run around the altar in their pedal-pushers and hand out the cookies and grape juice, with far less devotion than the Protestants do!
Here again I think that we see the insidiousness of the "indult" situation. Novus Ordo sacrileges like the distribution of Communion by those not in major Holy Orders are running rampant in these contexts. Moreover, the congregation at an "indult" Mass often doesn't know whether the Hosts have been consecrated at a Traditional Latin Mass, even of 1962, or whether they are leftover cookies from the Novus Ordo service.
Now wonder the New Vatican and its agents like Cards. Ratzinger and Hoyos want to insinuate the "indult" into traditional situations. The "indult" is used as a Trojan horse by the Novus Ordo to destroy truly traditional situations, like that of Campos, Brazil, under its late independent bishop. Now that it is under a Novus Ordo bishop of "Apostolic Administration," the Novus Ordo service is already being participated in by that bishop. It only took a few months for the Novus Ordo sword to rip the side of that once staunchly traditional organization of priests. Our Brazilian correspondents indicate that a schism is already forming within that organization between the indultarians and the traditional priests.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I was just "bounced" from a "conservative" site, which seems to think that Catholicism is left and right with the pope at the center, but I believe that, as Archbishop Lefevre said, the center has become the left. So traditional Catholics are the ones in the center.
This "conservative" site says that TRADITIO is on the extreme right (or perhaps in the right!), but I say that one must take extreme measures for extreme times. Look at what the conservatives have gotten for playing around with the Novus Ordo gang the last 40 years: a few bones thrown to them in the form of an "indult," or even pseudo-indult, mass, while the Novus Ordo proceeds on its course to destroy the Church at breakneck speed.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The flaw with the site in question is that it looks at the Church as if it were a completely secular political institution. That is obviously the wrong model. Moreover, the site in question is a political one; I don't see where its "lay theologian" pontifications on ecclesiastical matters bears any relevancy, let alone knowledge.
You are correct in saying that what has for 2000 years been recognized as Catholic is now called "traditionalist," "rightist," and "extreme." That is, of course, ridiculous. It is the Modernist Novus Ordinarians, "conservative" or "liberal," who have departed from the center of essential Roman Catholic teaching. How can I say this? TRADITIO speaks from the perspective of 2000 years of the Roman Catholic Faith. These people, on the contrary, have a perspective, and a distorted one at that, of only 40 years, which is nonsensical, and hardly Catholic.
These politicos treading into unknown religious waters are, in the words of Scripture, the blind leading the blind. TRADITIO always makes an effort to support positions from the 2000-year traditional magisterium, of teaching, of the Church. For example, when I say that the "New Mass" is putatively invalid, I can point to the criteria of Pope St. Pius V, Pope Leo XIII, Pope Pius XII, and even Pope John XXIII to support such a statement. There is no real doubt that these popes would have rejected the "New Mass" as unCatholic.
TRADITIO Commentaries are often expressed in a highly satirical way, even ridiculing the ridiculous. The Novus Ordinarians love to refer to "Rome," so what is more Roman than satire bordering on ridicule, which was, after all, the invention of the Romans? These are perilous times, and satire and other means are necessary to jolt lazy Novus Ordinarians out of their complacency to "go along" thoughtlessly with the most asinine directions of the New Order.
Like the Pharisees, the Novus Ordinarians have become "brain dead" hearing the same Novus Ordo platitudes, which they never reflect upon to determine their folly, even when that folly has been proven beyond any doubt by other Novus Ordinarians! TRADITIO excites these people and forces them to question what they are really doing: going to a Protestant service instead of a Mass; receiving cookies instead of the Body and Blood of Christ; kowtowing slavishly to a pope who has done more to overthrow the Roman Catholic Faith than Martin Luther!
Luther brought only half the Catholic world over to Protestantism. John Paul II has brought virtually all of it over, from the inside, to the Protestant New Order -- except for the growing millions of traditional Catholics who stand staunchly by their Roman Catholic Faith, whatever aberrations New Rome comes up with -- and it comes up with more every day, it seems.
The barbarians have conquered Rome again, just as Attila the Barbarian once did. Isn't this the pope that publicly praises gutter rock music over the sacred music of the Church? Isn't this the pope that actively sponsors Catholic Woodstocks (otherwise known as "Youth Conferences"), at which sacrilege, blasphemy, and irreverence are rampant, not to speak of drugs, liquor, and licentiousness? We traditional Catholics, the King's honor guard, must stand by His side to defend Him in His own castle. For sure, his "vicar" and "prelates" have abandoned him for a "new order," since Our Lord's own order wasn't good enough for them.
At this time of year I always get questions about the "Divine Mercy" devotion, which certain Novus Ordo sectarians try to substitute for the Octave Sunday of Easter, otherwise known as Dominica in Albis or Low Sunday. This devotion has a very troubled existence, encircled as it is with elements of the New Ordo and a New Order saint, and touted as a replacement for a very traditional devotion, that to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which was spread by St. John Eudes and St. Margaret Mary, with continuous and full papal support.
A local devotion under the title of "Divine Mercy" was approved by the Ordinary of Vilnius in 1936 and from there spread rapidly, especially after World War II in the United States. It appears that Sr. Faustina could not write, save a few lines phonetically. Most of her "diary" was concocted by her sisters after her death. Because of the incongruities of the dairy (different handwriting, different use of terms), the devotion was suppressed, and the book of her diary was placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum [Index of Forbidden Books]. This decision was upheld by Pope John XXIII in 1958/59. In early 1978, a Polish cardinal petitioned the Vatican to remove the suppression of the devotion, which was being practiced without sanction in his diocese, and the Vatican replied in the negative, confirming the suppression.
The version of the devotion that people know of today is not even the original one of 1936, but an oecumenized version corrupted by the Novus Ordo -- with substantially changed prayers to promote non-Catholic beliefs and the heresy of universal salvation. Is it any wonder that elements of the Novus Ordo push this bowderlized devotion over the traditional devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus? To these Modernists, anything new is preferable to anything established, whereas Scripture teaches us just the opposite: Vetus melius est [The old is better] (Luke 6:39/DRV).
Moreover, the devotion in post-conciliar times seems to be increasing in its association with unCatholic Charismaticism. This Charismatic Movement is far from true Catholicism, but is a derivative of the Protestant heresy, 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. Perhaps the devotion's association with New Age ideas is why it has become lionized in recent years, whereas popes up to the current one have condemned it.
The devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is a much more ancient devotion, having grown in the Middle Ages through the efforts of St. Bernard and St. Gertrude. However, it was in the latter half of the seventeenth century that news of three private revelations to St. Margaret Mary Alocoque concerning the Sacred Heart swept the Catholic world and shortly led to the establishment of a feast on the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi (the Friday after the Second Sunday after Pentecost).
The Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, which was extended to the Universal Church by Pope Pius IX in 1856, became a feast of atonement for human ingratitude toward God in spite of the supreme sacrifice of Calvary. The theme for the new Mass and the Divine Office was taken from the words of Our Lord to St. Margaret Mary: "Behold the Heart which has loved men so greatly, but which has been given so little love in return."
Devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus has been richly indulgenced by the Church, and a Litany of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is one of the five approved for public recitation. Given the apparent Novus Ordo bowdlerization of the original devotion to the Divine Mercy and the pushing of this novelty of much more recent vintage, traditional Catholics are safe standing firm with the more ancient and universally-approved devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I've read your commentaries that the Novus Ordo uses invalid "cookies" for "communion," but I never realized that you were speaking literally! Well, I should have listened to you. I could not believe my eyes when I saw the photograph above on the U.S. bishops' own news site. The photograph shows invalid matter in the form of a couple of small silver-colored urns with real brown patterned, serrated-edged cookies! It's a photograph that all conservative (not traditional) Catholics who cling to the Novus Ordo bureaucracy should ponder so that they will leave the unCatholic, unsacramental Novus Ordo sect.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Novus Ordo services are putatively invalid, by defect of form, defect of matter, and/or defect of intention. Even the New Vatican had to admit the truth of this statement as far back as 1979, when the current pope's commission wrote the President of the U.S. Bishops Conference to say that services conducted in the United States were invalid through defect of matter and had to be re-celebrated with correct matter and stipends returned.
Communion breads must be made of only wheaten flour and water. No salt, no sugar, no baking powder, no oil, no cinnamon, no vanilla -- one or more of which are typically included in the United States. Even the pope has told the U.S. bishops so, but they pay him no attention. The U.S. bishops greeted the pope's order with utter silence. The situation is now far worse twenty years later. Thus, the bishops are guilty of knowing simulation, that is, the grave sin of falsely "confecting" a "sacrament."
How many hapless Novus Ordinarians have been attending what they think are "masses," which are actually no more than Protestant services? How many hapless Novus Ordinarians have been receiving what they think is "communion," which is a mere cookie?
The Novus Ordo is an absolute and utter scandal and sacrilege. If this wasn't clear in 1969 (and it should have been), it is certainly clear now, after forty years of seeing this nonsense grow worse and worse. There is no longer any excuse for attending a Novus Ordo service. Anyone who continues to do so is mocking the true God and His true Church.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Is a Papal Bull infallible (ex cathedra)? I was told that Quo Primum was only disciplinary and that it was not binding on the faithful or the upcoming popes.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The form of a document, strictly speaking, does not determine its authority; it is the origin of the subject matter that determines its authority. Quo Primum is not perpetually authoritative because it is a Bull, but because it carries out the work of a dogmatic council (the Council of Trent) and confirms Catholic and Apostolic Tradition in an essential matter.
The Holy Mass is not merely "disciplinary." If it were, there would be nothing stopping a pope from imposing a Black Mass on the Church. The Holy Mass, that is, the Catholic and Apostolic Mass that we call the Traditional Latin Mass, is intimately wedded to the Deposit of Faith. As a matter of fact, it is the Mass that essentially teaches us the Faith from Apostolic times. There are a few Eastern rites that are Catholic and Apostolic as well, in their original Apostolic forms.
Martin Luther put it very succinctly: "Tolle missam, tolle ecclesiam" [Destroy the Mass, and you destroy the Church]. The New Order has essentially destroyed the Mass, and in the wake of that, not unexpectedly, the Church has been significantly weakened, so that all too many of the Novus Ordo clergy are engaged in crime, heresy, and sacrilege, and many former Catholics have apostatized from the true Faith. Catholic and Apostolic doctrine has become so confused that a high-ranking cardinal (Ratzinger) has recently taught the startling heresy that Our Lord Jesus Christ is not the Messias.
No, the idea that the Holy Mass is merely "disciplinary" was condemned in its essence as the heresy of Modernism by Pope Pius IX and Pope St. Pius X, as well as their successors through John XXIII. What you were told is the heresy of Modernism, pure and simple.
It appears that, as is so often the case, our analysis from forty years of experience in the Traditional Catholic Movement, was dead on. Now one of the SSPX bishops (de Mallerais) who was claimed in the story to be one of the capitulating bishops has denied the story categorically. He says: "This is a rumor thrown by Rome in an attempt to divide us. We four bishops are all together and not divided. We do not seek 'reconciliation' with Rome unless Rome converts back to Catholic Tradition, back to the traditional Catholic Profession of Faith."
Isn't this just like "Rome"? That is why we don't call it "Rome" here, but the New Vatican, as it is not 100% associated with the traditional Roman Catholic Church and Magisterium of 2000 years, but rather adheres to a "New Order" that is not Catholic. Time and again, the New Vatican has used lies and deceit to divide traditional Catholics. The "indult" societies played the New Vatican's game, and now look at them: they're forced to say the New Order service. The Campos priests, who had been so courageous under their late traditional bishop, caved in to some "Apostolic Administration," and now their new bishop, consecrated with all kinds of pomp and circumstance by Card. Hoyos, is participating in Novus Ordo services at the Campos cathedral.
When will people learn? They'd better wise up fast and see the pointed tail protruding from the back of those scarlet and purple costumes.
The General Secretary of the SSPX has stated that the story spread in the press that the SSPX will capitulate to the New Order "is all wrong." The General Secretary also stated publicly at Easter Sunday Mass that "the Society of Saint Pius X will have no official representation at the Traditional Latin Mass [the modernized 1962 version] to be celebrated by Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos at St. Mary Major in Rome on May 24th." That is the venue at which the capitulation was supposed to be announced.
The SSPX has publicly made it known that it will not negotiate with the New Vatican unless "every priest in the world," not just SSPX priests, may celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass without any restriction. In response, although Card. Hoyos has admitted that the Traditional Latin Mass "has never been abrogated," nevertheless, he has stated that priests "cannot say it publicly because there will be too much rebellion and difficulties with the bishops."
Typical Novus Ordo nonsense. What is right and just the New Order sublimates to what is popular amongst a craven Novus Ordo hierarchy. "Thus, the Vatican is aware that there are no restrictions on priests to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass, but does not make this truth publicly known. Instead, it maintains the falsehood that special permission for that Mass must be obtained from the New Vatican or the local Novus Ordo bishop."
One source in the SSPX, when asked how this story got started, replied: "I don't know. Perhaps it was an over-zealous journalist who thought he had a scoop."
Or, as TRADITIO thinks more likely, it was a Hoyos plant to destabilize the SSPX. My, my, don't these cardinals just love to campaign for Pope, when the current one hasn't even passed to his eternal judgment?
From our correspondents around the world, it seems that another story of part of the Society of St. Pius X capitulating to the New Order is afloat again. These rumors come up from time to time, and in the past they have been found to be false. But -- from the beginning TRADITIO has said that the leadership of the SSPX is untrustworthy and could sell out at any time. The only SSPX bishop that has been outspokenly four-square against capitulation to the New Order any form has been Williamson. Fellay, the current chief bishop, has been unpredictable in the past and has trouble getting along with large elements of the Traditional Catholic Movement. The other two bishops are pretty quiet most of the time.
If some of the SSPX bishops do sell their souls to Mephistopheles, TRADITIO has said in the past that we must thank God that the SSPX represents only about one-third of the Traditional Catholic Movement. There are fortunately many independent, Society of St. Pius V, Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen, Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Priestly Society of Christ the King, and other traditional priests who will not sell out to the New Order for any "deal." Moreover, TRADITIO has predicted that if there is a sell-out among some of the SSPX leadership, there will be a schism in the SSPX in this country, much as occurred in the mid 1980s, when the more traditional SSPV left because of modernizing tendencies in the SSPX at that time.
Frankly, if such a thing happened, both the Vatican and the SSPX (or at least the Novus Ordoizing part of it) would be in a state of turmoil for many years. The "deal" would fall apart. The experience of Campos shows that. And God only knows whether the imminent new pope wouldn't rescind the whole mess. These SSPX bishops should learn more from their founder, the venerable Abp. Lefebvre. He knew better than they these foxes of the Novus Ordo, and that is why in the end he would have nothing to do with their wiles.
What bishop or priest or layperson in his right mind would associate, to any degree whatever, with the invalid Novus Ordo "mess," "unsacraments," and "faith" that doesn't even accept Our Lord Jesus Christ as the Messias? What bishop or priest or layperson can have anything to do with a pope who is utterly incompetent even to stop his Novus Ordo presbyters from fornicating their way around the country and the world, with the tacit approval, or even active involvement, of all the hierarchy?
The pope's own inaction in this regard is reprehensible. The documentary evidence indicates that the pope himself, at least through his direct reports at the New Vatican, was involved in the Novus Ordo "paederasty shuffle." Isn't this the kind of situation in which Our Lord said that such people should be dropped to the bottom of the sea with a millstone around their neck? Isn't this the kind of situation that caused St. John Chrysostom to say that the floor of Hell is littered with the skulls of bishops?
Whatever some loose cannons in the SSPX might do, you can be sure that the Traditional Catholic Movement will continue, perhaps even stronger than in the past when the Novus Ordo sympathizers are removed. This is truly the last gasp of the New Order, which, as Pope Paul VI said, is auto-destructing. That auto-destruction is clearly evident around us, as we see Novus Ordo bishops and presbyters fornicating their way to perdition, and a do-nothing pope sitting back and having tea in his library with these criminals, instead of disrobing them and submitting them to the strictest penalties.
No, Traditional Catholics just need to remain firm in the Faith and not sell out to the Novus Ordo goats.
Then, again, all this may be a story planted to destablize the SSPX. The New Vatican has been known to engage in just such deceptions to further its plans for a Oecumenicalized, Bastardized, Popeless, One-World Church that stoops to kiss the damnable Koran as its "Holy Book." The handwriting on the wall is much clearer even than that given to King Nebucodonosor!
The last three days of Holy Week -- Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday -- are the most sacred in the entire liturgical year. For this 72-hour period, the Church, and we, meditate upon the truths most central to our Roman Catholic Faith: the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Our Lord. The drama of these days is transfixing as we hear the various evangelists' versions of the treachery of the Church establishment (Annas, Caiphas, the Sanhedrin), the abandonment of Christ by the first pope (the three denials of Peter) and the Apostles, who fled from Christ, the Faith beginning to touch the Gentiles (Pontius Pilate, the centurion Longinus), and the small number who stood by Christ in the end (the Marys and St. John).
The liturgy of these days is the most ancient in the Church. Much is preserved from the very time of the Apostles, including the use of Greek in the Good Friday service. Up until a few hundred years ago, these were Holydays of Obligation, and no Catholic would think to miss them. Traditional Catholics should make even heroic efforts to be present at these sacred services, in the traditional form, particularly the ancient form that existed before 1956.
Those who do not have access to the traditional rites should take ample time during this period to read the sacred services in their missals, listen to the marvelous chant appointed for these days available on recordings, perform the Via Crucis, read the Passions in Scripture, review the Imitation of Christ, and engage in other such practices.
In recognition of these most sacred days, as it has done for the last nine years, TRADITIO will not be posting Commentaries from the Mailbox during the Triduum Sacrum and encourages participants to turn their attention toward prayer and meditation during these days.
On Maundy Thursday, April 17, the pope issued an encyclical entitled Ecclesia de Eucharistia [Church of the Eucharist]. However, at this time it appears only that an English "translation" is available. Contrary to the immemorial practice of the Church, the official Latin text has not yet been made available.
With Tenebrae beginning the Sacred Triduum about upon us, only a cursory review was possible. However, there are no surprises here. The encyclical is a totally predicable rehash of the very principles that the post-Vatican II sect has been pushing, unsuccessfully, for the last forty years. Only in one section (#10) does the pope recognize the sad reality of the devastation wrought by Vatican II and his own papacy:
In some places the practice of Eucharistic adoration has been almost completely abandoned. In various parts of the Church abuses have occurred, leading to confusion with regard to sound faith and Catholic doctrine concerning this wonderful sacrament. At times one encounters an extremely reductive understanding of the Eucharistic mystery. Stripped of its sacrificial meaning, it is celebrated as if it were simply a fraternal banquet. Furthermore, the necessity of the ministerial priesthood, grounded in apostolic succession, is at times obscured and the sacramental nature of the Eucharist is reduced to its mere effectiveness as a form of proclamation. This has led here and there to ecumenical initiatives which, albeit well-intentioned, indulge in Eucharistic practices contrary to the discipline by which the Church expresses her faith.
Like kissing the Koran, perhaps?
And what is the pope's plan for correction? Like Pope St. Pius X, to root out the heretical doctrines and practices? No. John Paul II proposes no action. He is just "grieved," as Cardinal Law was "embarrassed" over the corruption in the American dioceses. More empty words; more inaction. Essentially, he has voluntarily abandoned the "universal jurisdiction" that the papacy is supposed to have. He simply lets the Church drown in the destructive Charybdis of Vatican II and the New Order.
It is truly incredible the degree to which the goats have been blinded. There is absolutely no recognition (at least officially) that all such problems are the direct result of Vatican II and the Protestantized New Order service. The New Vatican (not to speak of the New Order bishops) are like the tobacco companies who knew full well that their product was actually killing people, but nevertheless kept pushing the advertising and solidly refused to admit to the truth to the public. There was too much prestige and money at stake.
Except for one quotation from the Council of Trent, strategically placed near the beginning of the encyclical, the 62 sections contain no other reference to the Council of Trent, but 26 direct references to Vatican II documents. I didn't even count the even more numerous references to post Vatican II commissions and committees. One would think that the Catholic Church was founded in 1965!
It is sadly clear. This encyclical is much too little and much too late. This pope has become so co-opted by the New Order that he can't see the handwriting on the wall. He's right about the effects, but not the cause. As long as he continues to adhere to the New Order, the ship of the Church of the New Order will continue to sink, until in due time Our Lord re-establishes His Church, His pope, His clergy, and His people. Until that time traditional Catholics, like the early Christians will continue to maintain the Roman Catholic Church, just as in the fourth century the orthodox Catholics in the minority maintained the Church for us against the Arian heretics in the majority in the Church.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
My Novus Ordo relatives seem to have lost their faith. One told me that sometimes she attends Protestant services, but that this is OK, "because they're also worshipping God like we do." Another said, "We all just need to believe in the one, true God and worship Him in our own way." I seriously believe that these relatives have been lead astray by the New Order sect.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
I hear this story quite frequently these days. Once the New Order sect turned its back on the Catholic and Apostolic Mass, introducing such condemned novelties as vulgar tongues at mass, communion in the hand, and altar servettes, already condemned by the Church in Apostolic times.
Now the New Order has gone beyond being just a Protestant sect, but has become a cult. As demonstrated here, even with photographs from the Vatican News Service and secular papers, it has become little more than a pagan cult, at which witches, priestesses, and even pagan worship are common. What has been going on in the New Order institutions, even the depravity of Caligula's Rome could not top. These paganistic lusts gone wild are ignored by -- or personally participated in -- by the Novus Ordo cardinals, bishops, and even the pope, who has failed to take any disciplinary action against the debauched cardinals and bishops involved.
To the New Order, it's all the same god: whether that god be the One God in Three Divine Persons, whether it be the hundred-armed shiva, whether it be the fat-stomached buddha, or whether it be any of thousands of pagan gods. It seems that these people have been driven mad. The only thing we can do is pray for them and stay away from their heresy like the SARS!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
For years we Catholics fed collection plates, sent money for missions, prayer cards, and any number of causes in the perpetuation of the Faith of our Fathers. We now see the Novus Ordo removing the proceeds of these donations from their churches. We see the Novus Ordo paying large sums for civil attorneys to defend and initiate court cases. We see the Novus Ordo tearing down historical churches or selling them to defend immorality.
Wouldn't it not be wise for traditional Catholics, currently buying and building churches to specify that all churches remain the property of the parishioners in perpetuity, and not of the Novus Ordo diocese? That monies collected be spent in the parish for church upkeep and charitable works of the parish only? Would this not assure that in future renegade bishops would not have the authority to deprive a Catholic of his place of worship?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
This is one of many problems one experiences when trying to work within the Novus Ordo sect. Such a thing as you suggest would not be legally possible or would not be permitted by the bishop. You see, in most dioceses, the bishop is a Corporation Sole and possesses all properties and monies under his sole authority. This was an arrangement that the U.S. state governments once engineered for Catholic dioceses. Most states don't permit it any longer.
When you are donating all that money to the Novus Ordo diocese, you are donating it to the bishop as Corporation Sole. It wasn't always that way. In the early decades of this Republic, the parishes were operated by Trustees, much as the Episcopalian parishes operate today. Both arrangements -- corporations sole and trusteeships -- have serious problems. The method you recommend is being used, but it is being used outside the diocesan Corporations Sole. It is being used by independent traditional Catholic sites, which have the legal freedom to do so.
At this point, no traditional Catholic should be donating any money to the diocesan Corporation Sole. These donations only end up in the coffers of the New Order sect, sponsoring phony services, priestess conventions, homosexuality, abortion, and all the rest that the Novus Ordo increasingly stands for. If you don't cut off your funding of the Novus Ordo, morally your hands are just as dirty as if you yourself were destroying the true Mass, Sacraments, and Faith.
I have received an unusual number of announcements of a traditional Latin Mass to be celebrated by Card. Hoyos at a major basilica in Rome. Whenever I get a P.R. blitz like this, forty years of experience teaches me to wonder what's going on behind it.
Given all the inside and public information that TRADITIO has received in recent months, I think that some elements in the New Vatican are panicking. The pope's reputation is sinking because of his inaction against criminal prelates, and the evidence is even beginning to mount that he was personally involved in the subterfuge. His recent attempted foray into the Iraqi conflict bordered on the laughable, when he already compromised any credibility he might have had by his involvement in the infamous "Koran Kissing" episode.
The New Vatican has lost control over the Novus Ordo "liturgy," as messes sauvages [wild masses] abound: witches masses, coffee masses, pontoon masses, nightclub masses, camouflage masses, and all the rest. Catholic doctrine is being rejected right and left with impunity, not only by Nouvs Ordo presbyters who openly mock the Church with their witches and priestesses, but even the Novus Ordo bishops, who seem to think that they are petty potentates who can do and teach anything they please, the pope and God be damned, as the saying goes.
First, Card. Ratzinger tried to cash in on the groundswell of Catholics trying to get back to the traditional Faith. Ratzinger was able to sell some of his otherwise dull books by including nostalgic tidbits about the return of the traditional Faith. But eventually he was exposed as a fraud, when he admitted to the Italian press that he, the third most powerful man at the New Vatican (the second being the Secretary of State, Card. Sodano), intended to do absolutely nothing to achieve any of the traditional notions he discussed in his books. Then, to top it off, it turns out that he tried to play both ends against the middle by teaching the heretical doctrine, in a preface to a book published by the Pontifical Biblical Institute, that the Jews did not have to accept Christ as their Messias. They could wait for another! Ratzinger seems to have pretensions to papacy.
Now we have Hoyos stepping up to the plate. Is it happenstance that traditional Catholics in the United States have in the last weeks been receiving a deluge of publicity about the Campos (Brazil) arrangement, the so-called Apostolic Administration, in which the once-traditional Campos priests have turned their back on their principles and accepted the New Order, as long as they get their traditional tidbit? Already, just months after the consecration shivaree over which Hoyos presided there, the Society of St. John Vianney of Campos is in internal schism over the issue of complicity with the New Order.
Where is all the money coming from to produce expensive, four-color advertising periodicals, whose intent is to push the Apostolic Administration notion, and the New Order with it? Are traditional Catholics merely being softened up to sell their integrity to Mephistopheles for title to a little patch of land on the moon? It seems so. All the signs are there.
Remember a similar big push for a certain "indult" society in the Mid Atlantic area? Now that Society is under criminal investigation for misappropriation of donors' funds. Although millions of dollars were allegedly collected through expensive mailings to fund a "Tower of Babel," virtually none of the money had been spent on the purposes advertised. Similar promises, without fulfillment, were made by another "indult" organization in Mid America.
Traditional Catholics have to steel themselves against this type of deception. We have learned a lot over the last forty years, and one of the things we have learned is that an "indult" Mass here or there, even under the guise of an "Apostolic Administration," is not the answer -- not by a long shot. We have to stand four-square for the whole package: the true Mass (and the indult "Mass of 1962" barely meets even that requirement), the true Sacraments (nobody even talks about these, although the form and matter of virtually all of the seven Sacraments have been bastardized by the New Order), and the true Faith (no priestesses, no special Messias for the Jews, no oecumenical schmoozing with heretics and heretical doctrines, etc.)
Some are perplexed why the pope played peacenik in the current Iraqi conflict. How quickly we forget! This is the man who committed the unbelievably grave public sin of kissing the Koran, the book venerated by the Mohammedans, which contains the most blatant blasphemies against Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Most Holy Trinity, and the Blessed Virgin Mary.
It is hard to describe forcefully enough what a blasphemy this act was by a pope. It is as if Moses came down from speaking to the Lord God on the mountain, saw the golden calf of paganism that the Jews were worshipping, and knelt down himself in adoration of that image. Our Lord's words come readily to mind about such a pope: "But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 10:33/DRV).
In 1970 a photograph was published by the Vatican Press Office showing Paul VI posing with Protestant ministers who, with Hannibal Bugnini, head of the Consilium ad Exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia [Council to Carry out the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy], wrote the Novus Ordo worship service to make it acceptable to Protestants.
Not only were these six individuals heretics personally, but they were there acting in their official capacity as such. The six were Dr. George, Canon Jasper, Dr. Shepherd, Dr. Kunneth, Dr. Smith, and Brother Max Thurian, representing the World Council of Churches, the Anglican and Lutheran communions, and the French Protestant Taize community.
After the Consilium had met and finished its work of virtually suppressing the Traditional Latin Mass and replacing it with the New Order worship service, Dr. Smith, the Lutheran representative, publicly boasted: "We have finished the work that Martin Luther began."
Brother Thurian had been the subprior at Taize from its foundation in the late 1940s. In 1969 he expressed his satisfaction with the Novus Ordo Missae [New Order of Mass] by stating that Protestants could now celebrate the "Lord's Supper" with the same prayers as Catholics. On May 12, 1988, the French daily Le Monde announced that Max Thurian had not only become a Catholic, but had been ordained to the Catholic priesthood by Cardinal Ursi of Naples, without being received into the Church, without the Profession of Faith, etc., a known scandal in Rome at the time.
On July 24, 1996, Fr. Thurian, now a member of the International Theological Commission, published in L'Osservatore Romano an article highly critical of the Novus Ordo, including the statement that "the great problem of contemporary liturgical life (apathy towards worship, boredom, lack of vitality and participation) stems from the fact that the celebration has sometimes lost its character as mystery, which fosters the spirit of adoration."
Hannibal Bugnini, the architect of the Novus Ordo, was Secretary of the Consilium (1964-1970). Bugnini stated publicly that his aim in designing the "New Mass" was "to create a worship service that any Hindu, Buddhist, or Protestant could attend and feel perfectly at home with."
Fr. Malachi B. Martin worked inside the Vatican near Bugnini and publicly stated that Bugnini was definitely a Mason. Rome's Grand Mason wrote a public letter praising Bugnini's work. At a meeting on June 19, 1975, Cardinal Seper and eighteen other cardinals called for Bugnini's dismissal, which occurred on July 9, 1975, on the grounds that he had been responsible for the proliferation of messes sauvages [wild masses], that is, of unauthorized "Eucharistic Prayers." By 1971, only one year after the Novus Ordo became mandatory, there were two hundred of these published and in use. Because of the scandal, Bugnini was banished from Rome by Paul VI in January 1976 to be pro-Nuncio in Iran, where in 1980 he betrayed American hostage secrets to the Iranian ayatollahs. Bugnini died at the age of 70 in 1982.
Jean Guitton, a distinguished French writer, as well as a great friend and confidant of Paul VI, described Paul's "intention with regard to the liturgy..., which was to reform the Catholic liturgy in such a way that it should almost coincide with the Protestant liturgy ... beyond the Council of Trent, and closer to the Protestant Lord's Supper ... making less room for all that some would call 'magic,' ... [that is,] transubstantial consecration, and for all that is of the Catholic Faith; ... there was with Paul VI an oecumenical intention to remove ... what was too Catholic, in the traditional sense, in the Mass, and to get the Catholic Mass closer to the Calvinist mass" (Broadcast December 19, 1993, on Radio-Courtoisie, Paris).
With a history like that, how can anyone conceive of the "New Mass" as Catholic, let alone valid?
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Do you think that the Church will ever return to the Traditional Latin Mass. If so, how soon?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The Church never left it! It's all in how you define "Church," which cannot include the Novus Ordo sect, as that is not Catholic and Apostolic according to the Historical and Universal Magisterium. As more and more works are demonstrating, it is merely a Great Facade.
I expect that eventually the Modernists will fly off into their own sector like the Protestant heresy, much as they have already. The Novus Ordo sect will have priestesses, a married clergy, approve of homosexuality, abortion, etc. It will not have a mass, but a home-style New Age service, which will vary from home to home, served on a table. There will be no missal; the service will be made up as it goes along. The signs are indisputable. The bishops are already laying the groundwork for all of this, and many diocses have it already. I suspect that this spin-off might occur in as early as a decade.
The Roman Catholic Church, wherever it may exist, may be in the catacombs, as Pope Pius XII said, or out in the open. It will continue to preserve the traditional Roman Catholic Mass, Sacraments, and Faith. The episcopacy and priesthood will continue, not be replaced by Protestant-like lay ministers. Eventually, it will become dominant, since the Novus Ordo sect will auto-destruct, as Pope Paul VI predicted.
There are clear signs now that indicate that the Novus Ordo is finally cracking up and will continue to metamorphose into something that is clearly not Catholic. More and more Novus Ordinarians will drop out or revert to traditional Catholicism, as Novus Ordo bishops are caught in more and more criminality and deceit, Novus Ordo seminaries become greater cesspools than they are now, and the Novus Ordo service becomes a joke, as we have seen here in the "Nightclub Mass," the "Witches Mass," etc.
The "indult" idea -- FSSP, Campos, and the rest -- is already moribund. These have been forced to leave or go into the Novus Ordo. It will get even worse for these than it is now. No, it has become clear over the last forty years that it is not a matter of unification, but of distinction. The Roman Catholic Church is now where it has has been, in Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Historical and Universal Magisterium. Those who stand with the Church are Catholic. Those who hold different doctrines and worship in unCatholic ways are not. To compromise the traditional Roman Catholic Faith by bureaucratic "compromises" and "indults" will never work. Those who attempt to do so will become Novus Ordo. This has been the history.
It may be that like St. Francis, who was told by God, "rebuild my Church," traditional Catholics are already rebuilding the true Church of God. Remember that however bad the Protestant Revolt was, the Roman Catholic Church benefited from the reaction to it -- the Council of Trent, Pope St. Pius V, and the outpouring of Saints greater than at any period since the Roman persecutions of the early Church, and millions and millions of new Catholics. Before the Council many of Fathers were pessimistic and dispirited. After the Council they were optimistic and activated.
This is truly an exciting time in which to live. Things are not easy. We have to fight for our faith rather than have it handed to us on a silver platter. But isn't this how we show our commitment to the true God and the true Faith? Isn't this how we shake ourselves out of religious sloth to fight the good fight with St. Paul?
Dear Fr. Moderator:
My wife and I attended your most sublime celebration of the Divine Office and Mass on Passion Sunday. We noticed the term schola used in place of choir during the announcements. What is the difference between a schola and a choir?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Schola, or schola cantorum, tends to be the term used when referring to a group of men singing the chant for Divine Office and Mass. The term comes from the school attached to cathedrals to provide the chant (cathedral school).
Choir comes from chorus, which has two meanings. Originally, a choir referred to the clergy of a cathedral or major church, composed of the clergy of that church (clerical choir). Because that choir would participate in the chanting of the Divine Office and Mass, the term choir eventually became generalized to refer to the group that sang for Mass in the organ loft, not composed of clergy.
The Jerusalem and Garden of Gethsemani sets were dismantled at Rome's Cinecitta Film Studios in late March, the filming of Mel Gibson's upcoming film, The Passion, having been completed. The film focuses on the last 12 hours of Christ's life. Shot in southern Italy and in Rome, the movie had no direct Vatican input. Gibson arranged for a Traditional Latin Mass to be celebrated early every morning. Unveiling his plans for the film, including his intention to use only Latin and other languages of the time with no subtitles, Gibson said his aim was historical accuracy. (From CNS and other sources)
Just how ridiculous the notion is of an "Apostolic Administration" to eke out the Traditional Latin Mass under a so-called "indult" has been proven again and again over just the last few months. We can study the concept in microcosm, as the Campos, Brazil, priests of the Society of St. Marie Vianney, once staunchly traditional under Bishop de Meyer outside the Novus Ordo apparatus, but now as an "Apostolic Administration," veer sharply toward the Novus Ordo.
The new administrator-bishop Rifan, consecrated with all hoopla by Card. Hoyos, has already been implicated in Novus Ordo services at the local cathedral. So much for exclusive traditional Catholicism! That association has provoked priests of the Society to rethink publicly their capitulation to the Novus Ordo apparatus, so a schism in the Society is already brewing in just months.
The Campos virus wants to spread beyond that diocese, just like the deadly new SARS virus, otherwise known as the New Asian influenza. But the same Card. Hoyos, by public letter, responded to the notion of spreading with the standard post-Vatican II line: you have to have the approval of the local bishops. The New Vatican is powerless to enforce anything over their will.
Not only that, but non-Camposians who are foolish enough to want a similar arrangement, must swear the Vatican II Oath:
I formally declare my support and obedience to the Holy Father John Paul II, and recognize the validity of Vatican Council II and the legitimacy of the liturgical rite approved by the Sovereign Pontiff Paul VI in 1970.
In other words, the New Vatican is yet again crippling its own concocted "indult" so that these hapless indultarians must:
In other words, in order to get the crumb of a bastardized 1962 Mass, the indultarians will have to swear allegiance to the very thing that destroyed that Mass in the first place! Surely they don't win the prize for logic.
The priests of the Society of St. John Marie Vianney in Campos have learned to their horror the Novus Ordo abomination that they have let themselves in for. Anyone else who does not learn the clear lesson from that is entitled to the Counterfeit Church of the New Order.
Even now Campos is engineering some money-making scheme that is highly suspicious. While claiming to be impoverished, it finds enough money to publish full-color magazines and brochures. It paints a false picture of traditional Catholicism, while its new bishop kowtows to the Novus Ordo at N.O. services at the N.O. Campos cathedral. Traditional Catholics would be smart to respond to these money-making schemes in the same way:
As Pope Paul VI himself had to admit, the New Order will "auto-destruct" (his "infallible" words). Just look at the recent TRADITIO Commentaries about what is going on in Novus Ordo parishes and with Novus Ordo bishops. The aberrancies used to be whether to kneel or stand receiving communion; whether to kneel or stand at the Canon -- excuse me -- Eucharistic prayer. The Novus Ordo has gone far beyond that now to the realm of madness. These people have lost their Catholicism (that is clear), but is the Devil leading them to lose their minds as well?
What's the latest? Monsignor James Reynolds runs a 300-seat nightclub on his Pompano Beach, Florida, parish grounds, and he himself entertains there as Lord of the Lounge Lizards (sounds blasphemous to me). This 78-year-old nut is the opening act for its professional Vegas-style floor shows, modeled after the Copacabana in New York. At the laborate, mirror-backed bar, two bartenders dispense beer, wine, martinis and other drinks.
I know what the conservative members of the Novus Ordo sect will say. "Where is the archbishop? He must not know anything about this." Oh really? As a matter of fact it was Miami Archbishop Edward McCarthy who originated the idea!
And this is the perverted, unCatholic "hierarchy" to which the indultarians think they have to kowtow for "approval" of Traditional Latin Masses? Well, the indultarians are barking up the wrong tree. They should be asking for "approval" for a nightclub mass! The answer from the Novus Ordo archbishop will be a resounding Yes!
The monsignor admits: "We got 500 letters. About half approved; the other half thought we were going to hell on horseback." Well, monsignor, the day of reckoning will come for you very shortly, and your saddle is ready.
Oh, you poor Novus Ordinarians. Get out while you still can! Oh, you Wanderers and Catholic Answerers, your house is falling down around you! The picture tells your future better than any crystal ball.
The Milwaukee "Catholic" Herald of April 3, 2003, reports that a self-proclaimed priestess, Ginny Kiernan Dahlbert, was allowed to "preside" at a prayer service at St. Matthias "Catholic" parish in Milwaukee on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, one of the most sacred days in the ecclesiastical calendar.
Everything was like a Novus Ordo service. Two candles flanked the Novus Ordo "table," which contained a basket for the Novus Ordo cookies and a chalice for the grape juice. The priestess was vested in alb and green stole. By this act the priestess declared her ignorance of things Catholic, as the color for the Feast of the Annunciation is white, representing the purity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a virtue that Ms. Dahlberg apparently is lacking. For this was the World Day of Prayer for Women's Ordination, as designated by the national Women's Ordination Conference.
Walking to the altar, Dahlberg held up the bread basket and chalice and said, "This is my body, this is my blood, Jesus said, do this and when you do this, you do it to remember me." Well, it seems that not only is Dahlberg ignorant of Catholic vestments, she doesn't even know the words of consecration! Thank God again.
"All this is a mistake," you say. "Surely the pastor couldn't have known about it. Surely the archbishop couldn't have known about it." No, it's no mistake. The pastor, one David Cooper, involved staff members and parishioners in the decision to allow the blasphemy and sacrilege to occur. Moreover, he was personally present for part of the service.
Caught with his cassock down, Cooper offered this lame excuse: "St. Matthias Parish was only a host for the prayer service. The parish has no official or unofficial position on the question of the ordination of women." Cooper himself does have a position: pro.
Apparently, Presbyter Cooper is ignorant of the fact that his pope has declared -- in perhaps the only infallible decree of his pontificate, Ordinatio sacerdotalis, based on Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition -- that it is impossible for the Roman Catholic Church ever to have priestesses. Moreover, he decreed that priests should not discuss this issue further as if it were possible. But don't wait for the craven Novus Ordo Vatican to do anything. The pope and his curia are like Lewis Carroll's Cheshire cat: big smile and no substance.
Moreover, it looks as if Cooper's own theological training is defective. He tried to equate the issue of the pope's statement on the Iraq Conflict (which is the pope's private opinion, binding on no one) and the pope's decree against priestesses (a dogma, not only of this pope, but the entire Catholic and Apostolic Tradition from Christ Himself). But, then, what do you expect from a Novus Ordo seminary? Sexual peccadilloes are not the main problem. The main problem is that Novus Ordo seminaries aren't even Catholic!
And what did Novus Ordo Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan say? He feigned ignorance of what is going on in his own archdiocese. He claims that he "did not learn of the service until hours before it occurred when his office received a number of calls after it was reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel." Thank God for the secular papers after all. Apparently, Dolan is so "out of it" that priests in his diocese can play Caiphas and slap God across the face with impunity. He said that he was "disappointed" by what he heard occurred. Disappointed? He should have been enraged!
What says it all, however, is that the Novus Ordo archbishop declined to stop the sacrilege and declined to discipline Cooper. So what difference did it make whether he knew about it in advance or not? He would have allowed it, had he known.
As one of our correspondents put it:
I propose an experiment. Call the Archbishop and tell him that a Traditional Latin Mass is about to be said in one of his parishes without his "approval." Tell him that it will start in five minutes. I predict that a band of armed Sanhedrin, complete with torches and spears, will show up in five minutes flat to stop it! This Novus Ordo sect is not Catholic. It does not know Christ. It has rejected and spurned him. The Novus Ordo heresiarchs are now allowing this heresy on purpose to get the Novus Ordinarian sectarians used to the idea gradually and then mainstream it. Just like communion standing, just like communion in the hand, just like altar girls, etc.
Remember when the pope schmoozed with the American cardinals over the sex scandal, and they all promised that things would change? Well, if you believed that, you must live in Wonderland, believing in Cheshire cats as well. The last Novus Ordo Archbishop of Milwaukee was Rembert Weakland, an outspoken, radical Modernist. He carried his liberal theology into liberal morality as well, because not only did he keep a catamite, but paid him off with Church funds to keep quiet. And what did the pope do? Nothing. Weakland simply retired; he was 75.
As TRADITIO predicted when the scandals began, the Novus Ordo sect, after forty years of Vatican II, is finally about to be pushed into the abyss. After forty years of evidence, it is not reasonable to consider the Novus Ordo as Catholic. It is not reasonable to consider its service as Catholic or valid. It is not reasonable to consider its bastardized sacraments as valid. It is not reasonable to consider its New Doctrine as Catholic. The only reasonable thing to do at this point with the Novus Ordo is to do what Our Lord told His Apostles to do: "going forth out of that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet" (Matthew 10:14/DRV).
It may or may not shock you to learn that the True Mass of the Roman Catholic Church has been banned at St. Peter's for many years. Just think of it: the Mass of our Roman Catholic Faith, which for 500 years was said in the current basilica and some 1200 years preceding that in the basilica constructed under the first Christian Roman emperor Constantine, banned!
For a while after the New Order came out in 1969, priests could still say the Traditional Latin Mass in St. Peter's. But then a petty ecclesiocrat named Vergilio Noe, placed in charge of the cathedral and made a cardinal by John Paul II (so the latter is not exempt from criticism in this affaire de la Messe traditionelle), publicly banned the True Mass from being said in the basilica. (Noe was a well known Modernist, with apparently Masonic connections.) Priests had to be virtually searched as they entered the altars of St. Peter's to ensure that they had -- no, not a bomb -- but a Missale Romanum!
It appears that the new archpriest of the basilica (Noe having retired on April 24, 2002, as over eighty) is trying to ameliorate the outright ban, supposedly with papal support, but the low-level ecclesiocrats in the basilica don't want it, so it's not happening! (Don't bother sending your correspondence to the pope to correct things. He's merely a powerless puppet, it seems. If you really want to get something done, write the low-level ecclesiocrats!).
Now, it seems, something like that crazy "indult" of 1984 is being imposed, whereby if you wanted to get the occasional 1962 Mass from a Novus Ordo bishop, you practically had to take a public oath to Vatican II with your own blood! Now, for a priest to say a Traditional Latin Mass at St. Peter's, these are the hoops he has to go through:
Folks, are you getting the picture how the "indult" works? Waste your time going through all the "legalistic" hoops, and you still don't get what you seek. Those who have gone through the hoops to get an "indult" Mass from a Novus Ordo bishop know well this Novus Ordo "trail of deceit."
Information has just come to me through a clergyman who had a private audience with the pope on March 24 that John Paul II was "incoherent." Although yesterday's Commentary from the Mailbox was intended as satire, one of the marks of satire (which was a literary invention of the Romans after all) is that its irony is founded in truth.
In light of such reports, the question arises: what if a pope becomes non compos mentis? We hear speculation about sede-vacantism, that is, the theory that the Apostolic See may be vacant because of heresy and/or schism, but we never hear speculation about mental incompetence. Maybe we should take the latter possibility more seriously?
Is it possible that at some point the acts of John Paul II were void because of mental incompetence? After all, Parkinson's disease is a debilitating, systemic disease, which does affect the mind in its later stages. Also, it is treated with very potent systemic drugs. Just think how your mental state is affect when you have imbibed just one too many drinks, and multiply that effect tenfold.
Is it possible that the acts of Paul VI are void because he exhibited putative symptoms of manic depression? His friends, now writing their memoirs, give indications of this condition. His own pronouncements -- like Vatican II being a "day of sunshine" one day and "the smoke of Satan" the next day, lauding the vernacular one day and lauding the Latin language the next day -- clearly demonstrated a schizophrenia of mind that is characteristic of manic depression.
There is no theology I know of that says the pope can't get sick, or become mentally unbalanced. Without a competent mind, no man can perform a moral act, so says Catholic moral theology -- and that includes popes as well as peasants. Was Caligula's horse really a senator because that Roman emperor said so, or were Caligula's acts null and void because he was mentally unbalanced (most historians seem to think that he had a debilitating cranial haemorrhage, having symptoms similar to Parkinson's)?
The whole post-Vatican II era has had a kind of unbalanced, illogical, sick character about it all along. Is it possible that this impression is based in medical fact? Is it possible that the post-Vatican II popes were medically, certifiably sick? And, if so, that it never existed, from a legal point of view. Now there's a hole big enough for a future traditional pope to drive a truck through. Enough for, as author Susan Claire Potts portrays it in her novel Glory of the Olive, a future traditional pope to stand on the balcony of St. Peter's and proclaim to the world:
Didn't TRADITIO tell you that the Novus Ordo would be imploding with accelerated speed after more and more of the disease rotting it from within became exposed? Now, it appears, one diocese is suing another, as another diocese is being pushed to the brink of bankruptcy.
The Los Angeles Times of April 2 reports that the Diocese of San Bernardino is suing the Diocese of Boston for "misrepresentations and suppression of information," as well as "active misconduct and negligence," concerning the criminal history of a presbyter when he transferred to California. It seems that not only did dioceses hide criminal activity from the police; they withheld it from each other as well! From records subpoenaed by civil authorities in Boston, it is reported that John Paul II himself encouraged concealment and guilty "transfers."
Well, why should that surprise anyone? Under gravely suspicious circumstances, this pope failed utterly to extract any public penance from these corrupt Novus Ordo bishops, instead choosing to schmooze with them at an afternoon tea-party in his library. Perhaps this is the Novus Ordo's version of the Mad Hatter's Tea-Party? What is in store for the Novus Ordo sect next after the "Gay Mass," "Cookie Mass," "Candy Mass," "Elvis Mass," "Witches Mass," etc.: the "Tea Mass"?
There is an old saw that ruminates about whether the world will end in fire or in ice. Traditional Catholics have been wondering for forty years now how the Novus Ordo is going to end. Perhaps this is the answer, in the dissension among the thieves that have robbed Catholics of their Mass, Sacraments, and Faith.
According to the Times report, "The case shows that internal fractures among the nation's bishops, which have until now been confined to closed-door meetings, increasingly are becoming public." The lawsuit shows how deeply the Church has been affected by the Counterfeit New Order. It may be this and similar developments in the last few years that are finally tolling the eventual death-knell of the Great Facade of the New Order.
As TRADITIO has consistently warned, no true Catholic can any longer justify playing footsie with the New Order and its corrupt bishops. No true Catholic can justify attending its phony service, partaking of its phony "sacraments," or associating with its false faith. Those who have any remaining connections need to sever them now, before they are buried in the mire of the great crash.
For those who are so fond of looking to visions to point the way, let me give you a vision that is apropos to this situation:
The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon, which now shone vividly through that once barely-discernible fissure, of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building in a zigzag direction to the base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened; there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind; the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight; my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder; there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters, and the deep and dark tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silent over the fragments of the "New Order."
Dear Fr. Moderator:
This is the letter I wrote to my pastor when I left the Novus Ordo for good.
Dear Fr. X:
As a 62 year old former Novus Ordinarian who came to Tradition five years ago (with my dear wife pushing me), I must take the time to tell you that you and your description of the New "Mass" are the precise reason I left the zoo you operate in. I sincerely believe that the Novus Ordo hierarchy has been taken over by a combination of Liberals, Modernists, Marxists, Freemasons, and Call to Action nutcases. Unless and until it crashes and burns, it will not have the bright future you seem to think it has. For as Pope Paul VI said "it seems like the smoke of Satan has entered the Church; the Church is in a sort of auto-demolition." I could not have said it better myself.
My wife and I are at peace, enthralled with the Traditional Latin Liturgy, and so glad to be away from the craziness of the "Church of the New Advent," whatever that is. As for me and my wife, we belong to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Roman Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ himself. There are many traditional web sites I could recommend you to but I will tell you of only one: www.traditio.com. It seems to have it all in one place. I close with one of my favorite sayings:We are what you once were.
We believe what you once believed.
We worship as you once worshipped.
If you were right then, we are right now.
If we are wrong now, you were wrong then.
London, March 16, 2003, News Telegraph (Excerpts)
Hot Cross Buns Banned - Could Be "Offensive" to Non-Christians
Schools across Britain have been ordered by local authorities to abandon the ancient tradition of serving hot cross buns at Easter so as not to offend children of non-Christian faiths. Some councils are refusing to hand out the traditional treats because they fear that the symbol of the cross will spark complaints from Jewish, Hindu and Muslim pupils or their families.
Officials in the London borough of Tower Hamlets decided to remove the buns from menus this year after criticism over its decision to serve pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. A spokesman for the Labour-run council claimed that there had been "a lot" of complaints but did not have a figure. The spokesman added: "We are moving away from a religious theme for Easter and will not be doing hot cross buns. We can't risk a similar outcry over Easter like the kind we had on Pancake Day."
In the past, individual schools have taken the decision to not serve hot cross buns, but this is the first time local authorities across the country have imposed blanket bans. Liverpool council, which is controlled by the Liberal Democrats, also told The Telegraph that the symbol of the cross had the "potential to offend" and buns will no longer be served to children.
Ann Widdecombe, the Conservative MP and former shadow home secretary who is a Roman Catholic convert, described the ban as "appalling and absurd". "These people are silly asses," she said. "It would appear that we should know about everyone else's culture apart from our Christian tradition. It seems that anything that comes from an ethnic minority is fine, while anything Christian is wrong. "What can be more innocent than a hot cross bun?"
The Muslim Council of Britain called the decision "very, very bizarre". A spokesman said: "This is absolutely amazing. At the moment, British Muslims are very concerned about the upcoming war with Iraq and are hardly going to be taken aback by a hot cross bun. "Unfortunately actions like this can only create a backlash and it is not very thoughtful. I wish they would leave us alone. We are quite capable of articulating our own concerns and if we find something offensive, we will say so. We do not need to rely on other people to do it for us. "British Muslims have been quite happily eating and digesting hot cross buns for many years and I don't think they are suddenly going to be offended."
Although the buns and their distinctive symbols have been a feature of English life for nearly 2,000 years, they have not always been associated with Christianity. The tradition dates back to pagan times when the cross represented the moon and its four quarters. It was claimed for the Christian church in 1361 when Father Thomas Rockcliffe distributed the buns to the poor of St Albans. It became traditional to eat the buns on Good Friday after Elizabeth I passed a law limiting their consumption to religious festivals. Some local authorities such as Manchester have decided that they can keep hot cross buns on the menu while catering for other faiths.
England is supposed to have a state religion: the Church of England (Anglicanism). Yet, even when Christianity (of a sort) is constitutionally recognized as the state religion, it is still persecuted. I wonder whether the modern state of Israel stops selling Passover bread because it would offend the Christians. I wonder whether Arab countries allow the crucifix to be prominently displayed to please Christians. It seems these days that only Christians are willing to give up their faith in some misguided notion of false oecumenism. Better yet, like the council below, they see quite ready to give up religion altogether! Is it any wonder why it is predicted that the Church of England will virtually disappear by the end of this generation?
Is it so hard to hold fast to the idea that if someone immigrates to a country, he ought to accept that country's religion (for civil purposes), language, and customs? Even the Mohammedan spokesman is opposed to this nonsense. So whom do these councillors think they're pleasing? (I have yet to figure out what's wrong with pancakes!)
There are a lot of things that offend me. I am offended when I hear the Lord's name taken in vain. I am offended when I see the crucifix used as jewelry or a gang moniker dangling from someone's ear (usually a man). I am offended when I see a sacred image tattooed on some pagan's arm. But what can you do? This is a godless "free" country, where devil worship is recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court as a religion, but you can't have a Traditional Latin Mass at the U.S. Naval Academy.
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