Dear Fr. Moderator:
I was wondering whether there is a dispensation from the regular Friday abstinence on U.S. Independence Day.
Fr. Moderator Replies:
There is no general dispensation. In principle, this is a secular day, not a religious one. In fact, July 4 this year is a Double Major, the Octave Day of the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.
St. Paul counsels us: "Now, we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God: that we may know the things that are given us from God (1 Corinthians 2:12/DRV). There is all too much confusion these days between the secular and the religious. One only has to look at the Novus Ordinarians, whose real religion is secularism. Our Lord certainly didn't say: "It's the Passover. I want a dispensation from carrying this heavy cross and shedding my blood for you."
Our human weakness always wants to avoid penance. But isn't it more meritorious for our eternal salvation when the penance tests us, at least a little? When we can really show our love of God first, instead of always looking for the easy way out? That, after all, is why these the truly minimal penance of Friday abstinence is imposed under pain of mortal sin. The only general dispensation is when a Friday falls on a Holyday of Obligation, which is a high religious feastday, a day of joy.
Otherwise, our human nature would hold the such penances as of little import. Look at the Novus Ordinarians. They couldn't wait to blow off all penance -- and as a result they have lost their Catholic Faith, Mass, and Sacraments. "God is not mocked" (Galatians 6:7/DRV).
If only we could do more penance! When people ask why God is testing His Church so much in these days, the fact that so few Catholics are doing any penance may well be the answer. Should we not even more assiduously do penance and pray for the liberty and exaltation of the Holy Mother Church in these times? Many Catholics are becoming no different from the pagans in the society around them.
We should be brimming over with thanksgiving to Almighty God for allowing such plenty in this country in the wide variety of delicious and healthful foods with which we are blessed, while so many around the world are deprived. We have so many wonderful salads, potatoes, macaroni, beans, cheeses, flavorful drinks, seafood, fruits, candies, milk, and other bounties that it seems little enough to give Our Lord a little extra on that day of the week when He died for us.
Even from the secular point of view, aren't we missing the bigger picture? Has our Independence Day become just an occasion for pigging out? Aren't we supposed to be reflecting at least somewhat on the principles of the founding of our government, which was based upon God's Natural Law? What about taking some time to reread the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution? (I hardly dare to say: read for the first time.)
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Our local suburban newspaper has a "religion" section. In yesterday's paper, there was an article about a local parish that has come up with a new name for altar servers: "liturgical engineers."
Engineers? What is this, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass or a production plant? Of course, this is just another ingredient to the big Mess known as Novus Ordo NewChurch. But it never ceases to amaze me how the insanity never ends! For the longest time, I never really "got it." But with each passing day, as the heresy, schism, and liturgical chaos continues and grows and becomes more clear, I have realized that we must cling to Tradition and the True Faith. We really do have a New Religion on our hands, which is not Catholicism.
Fr. Moderator Replies:
Let's list just a few of the things that the Novus Ordo has shoveled over the last forty years:
Yes, I'd say that there has been quite a lot of "engineering" going on here to substitute a Counterfeit Church for the Roman Catholic Church. It is becoming clearer and clearer that the Novus Ordo Church arose out of what more than one author has termed the Roman Schism of 1964. Traditional Catholics must not compromise and negotiate with schismatics. Traditional Catholics must not look for "recognition" or "approval" or "indults" from schismatics. Traditional Catholics must stand fast by the true Faith, the true Mass, and the true Sacraments, whole and uncorrupted.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I was christened into the Traditional Latin Rite and was about 12 years old when the change in Mass to the Novus Ordo occurred. Ever since that time, I strongly suspected that the Novus Ordo service was just not right and longed for the return of the Traditional Latin Mass. Time has proven the Novus Ordo service to be a laughing-stock. This site not only has made me aware of just how wrong the Novus Ordo service really is but also has pointed out that the errors go far beyond the Novus Ordo service to include the New Faith, New Theology, New Sacraments, New Education, etc.
There has been (apparently unfounded) speculation that the pope may introduce a so-called "universal indult" for those Catholics would "prefer" the Traditional Latin Mass to the Novus Ordo service. My question is: Does this mean that once there is a "universal indult," the Traditional Latin Mass will be said hand in hand with the Novus Ordo service in Novus Ordo churches, as in the case of the current "indult"? If this is the case, there is something wrong with the Traditional Latin Mass being conducted in a sect that will still carry on with the New Faith, New Sacraments, etc. Could you please elaborate on the consequences of a so-called "universal indult"?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Indeed there is something wrong with it. The "universal indult" is a ploy. The current "indult" Mass (which is already a "modernized" form of the Traditional Latin Mass) is a ruse used the context of the New Order. What about the lack of the Traditional Latin Sacraments? What about the New Theology, in which the Jews don't have to accept Christ because He is not their Redeemer?!
What's to say that the "indult" Mass will even stay at 1962? It already accepts the modernizations of 1956 and 1960. Parts of the "indult" groups have gone over to the pre-Novus Ordo 1964 version. What's next: the 1967 version, with the "for all" "Eucharistic prayer"? Then the next step is the full-blown 1969 Novus Ordo. See where all this is leading?
The "indult" requires that by participating, the individual accept the "New Mass" as the "normative" Mass. That is an untenable position. The "indult" Mass is being used as the cheese to lure the unfortunate mouse into the trap, which is then snapped shut to kill him --in this case, kill his Roman Catholic Faith. You can't compromise with evil, and the New Order is patently evil. Its evil consequences are splashed across the newspapers and television every day now.
Even the pope's own services show the thorough-going New Order corruption up to the highest position in the Church. Several correspondents have sent a copy of a recent interview of Bp. Piero Marini, the Papal Master of Ceremonies since 1987. Marini has impeccable Novus Ordo credentials. He served as personal secretary to the Arch-architect of the Novus Ordo service, Abp. Annibale Bugnini, who, with his six Protestant ministers, turned the Traditional Latin Mass into a vernacularized, Protestantized counterfeit service. Marini was also involved in fabricating the Novus Ordo at the Vatican.
He was involved in the scandal in 2002 of John Paul II participating in the pagan limpia, or purification, ceremony, in which an Indian blessing is believed to cure spiritual and physical ailments by driving off evil spirits. Indian women bearing smoking pots of incense brushed herbs on the pontiff, Mexico City Norberto Cardinal Rivera-Carrera, and other prelates. Even some Vatican officials had to agreed that the pope's involvement amounted to an endorsement of pagan worship. Other Vatican officials complain that Marini's services look more like secular Broadway production numbers than anything religious.
Nor do I expect to see a "universal indult" happen. All the vapid press speculation has turned out to be nothing. The bishops literally hate it, the French and German bishops have already threatened the pope to go into schism if he should take the step. Even if it were to be issued, the Novus Ordo bishops will still control whether it is used. Those bishops who want to allow an "indult" Mass sporadically already do so. Any presbyter who uses it against his bishop's desire will be out, whatever the New Vatican says, which never goes against a diocesan bishop's dictatorial power.
And what's all this about an "indult" anyway? Who needs an indult -- a privilege that can be taken away -- for the Traditional Latin Mass of the Roman Catholic Church? Apostolic Tradition canonizes its universal use, and the dogmatic Council of Trent and Pope St. Pius V confirmed that Apostolic Tradition explicitly. The solemn Papal Bull Quo Primum canonized that Apostolic Tradition in perpetuity, and this is no mere "indult," but an absolute right and obligation of every Roman Catholic. It is not a mere "preference" that any Catholic can opt out of.
Furthermore, by these presents and by virtue of Our Apostolic authority We give and grant in perpetuity that for the singing or reading of Mass in any church whatsoever, this Missal may be followed absolutely, without any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment or censure, and may be freely and lawfully used. (Quo Primum)
Among other things, the Novus Ordo Church has destroyed the Catholic education system. Around 1967, Bishop Fulton Sheen, the Catholic educator and author, was already warning:
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.
One Novus Ordo school principal reports the situation common today. A large percentage of the student body is non-Catholic. Few even of the Catholic students are regular church-goers. They do not go to Mass and don't know anything about their religion.
Enrollment has dramatically plummeted at Catholic schools since Vatican II. For example, between 1965 and 2002 the number of diocesan high schools fell from 1,566 to 786, and the number of students dropped from almost 700,000 to 386,000. At the grade school level, there were 10,503 parochial schools in 1965 and 6,623 in 2002. The number of students went from 4.5 million to 1.9 million.
On the other hand, Mohammedan students are leading the flight into private religious education as parents seek value-based education in a school that enforces a strong disciplinary code, and teaches the Arabic language and Mohammedan cultural traditions. Mohammedan schools are "bursting at the seams." In one such school, there are no spare classrooms for teacher support, no gym or school hall, and the administration works out of a house next door. One school's waiting list extends to the 2007 school year and includes newborns.
Just think what would happen if Novus Ordo schools once more became Catholic and taught Latin and Catholic cultural traditions! Mohammedan services, remember, are not conducted in modern Arabic, but in an ancient form of the language, much like Old English, which is today like a foreign language to English-speakers.
Why is it that the Mohammedans (and the Jews for that matter) can run schools that teach their liturgical languages and their culture, but Novus Ordinarian teachers and children are too dumb to deal with their own? The Mohammedans and the Jews (and the Hindus and Buddhists, for that matter, who all use ancient liturgical languages) put the lie to Vatican II and its "vernacularization." It is Vatican II that is out of step -- like a hula-hoop to be abandoned in a corner. It is the traditional Faith that remains current.
Let's face it. Vatican II unleashed a disaster in Catholic education, in which the entire Novus Ordo Church has become dumb and dumber. The pope promotes rock music instead of Gregorian chant, Novus Ordo presbyters don't know a word of Latin, and even Novus Ordo bishops can't tell the difference between running over a man and running over a dog!
No wonder more and more truly Catholic parents are opting for home-schooling, in which they and their children learn Latin, mathematics, science, history, biology, and the other "hard" subjects that constitute the basis of a classical education.
What many still do not realize about the New Vatican is how duplicitous it is. It often makes undercuts one action by doing a contradictory action. For example, the conservative (and even traditional) periodicals will undoubtedly blow up Card. Hoyos's ployful "Indult" Mass at Santa Maria Maggiore on May 24. But now let's see what's going on on the other side of Rome.
Walter Card. Kasper, the pope's president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, known as Kasper "the Friendly Ghost," because he hasn't met a Protestant yet that he wouldn't "share a liturgy" with, is going to become a Methodist for a day (June 22) at Rome's Ponte Sant'Angelo Methodist Church, to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Arch-Heretic John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist sect.
Rome's Methodist pastor knows exactly what this act means. "It will make clear to the people in the pews that things have changed. A cardinal coming here would not have been possible 40 years ago." You're darn tootin'. Even Pope John XXIII would not have permitted it in 1963!
Kasper will preach the sermon and deliver the final benediction to the heretical assembly. Moreover, he will not be wearing just his everyday cardinal's garb: he will be vested in liturgical vestments, as if the phony service were actually legitimate.
There won't be any problem in the service, since the Novus Ordinarians, like Kasper, have abandoned the Catholic lectionary in the English-speaking world and are now using the same one as the Methodists do. The scripture readings for the June 22 service will be the same as those used that day in the Novus Ordo service at St. Peter's and throughout Rome.
All you Novus Ordo apologists out there, do you see now what the purpose of the New Order is and always has been: to make Catholics into Protestants? No secret about that. The Freemason Bugnini and his six Protestant ministers were quite public about that, and Paul VI went along with it, so far had he departed from his sworn responsibility to guard Roman Catholicism.
Rome's Methodist minister too knows exactly what's going on here: "The more we worship together, the more it stimulates theology to catch up." Remember the old maxim, Legem credendi, lex statuit supplicandi? Well, this is the application of that principle from the Protestant side. By getting Catholics (only too willingly!) to change their law of praying, the Protestants know that they can get Catholics to change their way of believing, to Protestantism. And Kasper's there already. (Based in part on a June 20 National Catholic Reporter report.)
The U.S. Novus Ordo Bishops Conference has backed off criticizing Mel Gibson's as-yet non-existent film after the Conference's corporate counsel issued a strongly-worded statement to the bishops. But it appears the Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) still has a burr up its back. They want a special "preview" of the movie before it is released (which is not projected until Easter 2004).
Perhaps Gibson should insist on a pre-shooting preview of the script for the next holocaust movie to ensure that it doesn't exaggerate and embellish to the point of falsity. My, the screams of "prior restraint," interference in the "creative process," abridgement of "First-Amendment" rights that would issue!
Apparently, the ADL exists to prevent what it considers defamation against Jews, but is itself perfectly willing to defame non-Jews. (In all fairness, one rabbi did stand up for Gibson, calling on his colleagues to lay off.) Of course, we all know the bigotry of liberals: if you're a Catholic, particularly a traditional Catholic, the U.S. Constitution doesn't apply to you. That certainly appears to be the raison d'etre of the ADL.
And what is Gibson's "sin"? Why, he wants The Passion "to conform to the narratives of Christ's passion and death found in the four Gospels of the New Testament." That is not acceptable in these post-modern times. Even the U.S. Novus Ordo Bishops criticized Gibson for following the Gospels, as the bishops "are currently 'rewriting' the New Testament." It appears that Novus Ordinarians should get ready for yet another counterfeiting of the Catholic Faith -- as if the Novus Ordo New American Bible weren't bad enough! (Based on a June 21 NewsMax report.)
With regard to the press these days, one cannot help but think of the title of the new film that has just been released, Dumb and Dumber II. I have yet to see any article from the secular press (or the religious press for that matter), which comes anywhere close to reporting accurately the state of the Traditional Roman Catholic Movement. Recently, a March 18 report from the Associated Press was brought to my attention. One paragraph read:
Gibson and his son, the star of blockbuster films like Braveheart and Lethal Weapon, are practitioners of an ultraconservative Catholic movement known as traditionalism. The small splinter group seeks to revive orthodox practices that were abandoned several centuries ago by mainstream Catholicism.
How many errors can these benighted reporters cram into two sentences!
Since Mel Gibson is so "squeaky clean," the press avoids saying anything bad about him, but tries to damn him by proxy, through the alleged opinions of his father, Hutton Gibson, which the press grossly exaggerates. Yet Hutton, as the BBC's Michael Parkinson, a thirty-year veteran journalist, has brought out, is a highly educated man, a publisher who is fluent in both Latin and Classical Greek. Is it really "bizarre" that he believes, with the majority of the American public as the polls would indicate, that John Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy and that the federal government manipulates the value of the U.S. dollar?
Come on now, you phony journalists; you've got to come up with something a lot better than that! You'd better go back to school and study Latin and Classical Greek. Then, when you have the kind of analytical background that Hutton Gibson has, you might be able to write something correct. Until them, you will just get dumb and dumber III!
The late Malachi Martin was a Jesuit priest who requested that Pope Paul VI secularize him from the Jesuits to independent status in the 1960s. He wanted to have nothing to do with the Modernist Jesuits, who took up Liberation Theology and machine guns to kill Latin American officials whom they didn't like. Eventually, the Jesuits, who used to be known for their loyalty to the papacy, were declared personae non gratae by Pope Paul VI. He did everything but suppress them, as his predecessor Pope Clement XIV had done in the 18th century.
Martin reported ten years ago on what he called the "diabolical" state of affairs within the ranks of the U.S. Novus Ordo bishops. At the time many disbelieved Martin's report, but in light of what has been exposed in the last several years -- bishops who are murderers, bishops who are embezzlers of Church monies, bishops who are rapists and fornicators, and more -- it is an opportune time to review Martin's allegations, as he was almost universally acknowledged to have unusually close contacts at the Vatican.
Martin, well known as an exorcist, reported that several bishops contacted him asking him to exorcise them. However, he was unable to do so because, as they themselves acknowledged, they had "already sold their souls to Satan." He reported that over 80% of the U.S. bishops were Luciferians. Martin cited in particular his information about a former cardinal of Chicago, who was at the time one of the most modernist and wackiest bishops in the United States.
Martin reported that this cardinal was in charge of eight witches' covens throughout the United States and performed a Black Mass in St. Paul's Chapel in Rome, where he "consecrated" the Novus Ordo "mass" to Lucifer. He then returned to Chicago, where he allegedly "completed the blood sacrifice" by killing a puppy.
Now, Martin's reports would seem to be pretty "far out." And yet, as time goes along, the reality of the corrupt Novus Ordo underbelly is becoming more and more exposed. Several priests, who stood up to their bishops against the corruption, have been murdered. Novus Ordo bishops have had orthodox priests and nuns committed to insane asylums. Bishops have been exposed, as even the Vatican admits, for embezzling money from the Church. Bishops have been fanatical in imposing the sauvage (wild) Novus Ordo service on parishes across the country.
TRADITIO often receives messages about how things could have gotten so bad in the Novus Ordo Church. Has God abandoned His Church? Of course, not. He will never abandon the Roman Catholic Church, but it is certainly arguable that He may allow the errors of the New Order Church, which is man-made, after all, not God-made, to fall to the principalities and powers whose demented goal is to destroy God's true Church. The Bible records many instances where God vehemently chastised false man-made religions and those who practiced them.
The Bible teaches that the principal opponent of these principalities and powers is St. Michael the Archangel. Pope Leo XIII, having purportedly received a vision, ordered the St. Michael Prayer, which he himself composed, to be said after Mass. This order was "rescinded" by the Novus Ordo Church, and the serious problems began, to the point were even the Modernist Pope Paul VI had to admit that he smelled, as he said, "the smoke of Satan around the altar."
TRADITIO has from its inception prompted the Confraternity of St. Michael and urged the regular praying of Pope Leo's powerful prayer to the Prince of the Heavenly Host, to overcome the forces against the Church "by the power of God." We urgently draw it to your attention. For further information, click on the Confraternity of St. Michael department.
Four years ago, to prepare for the third millennium, Pope John Paul II led the Roman Catholic Church in a year of repentance for the sins of Catholics through the ages. The efforts at contrition were, inevitably, limited, and flawed; but the image of the white-clad pope asking for forgiveness was indelible, and it seemed possible that the process would give rise to a spirit of metanoia, or conversion of heart, in the church worldwide. It hasn't turned out that way. (From a June 23 New York Times report.)
Nor can the New Order Church ever turn out that way. And that fact is now becoming clear even to the secular press. True virtue -- those activities like courage (fortitudo), good judgment (prudentia), chastity (continentia), and restraint (temperantia) -- is dependent upon true religion. It suffocates and dies when it must operate in an environment of false religion, such as the New Order, Protestantism, Mohammedanism, Hinduism, or Witchcraft.
That is exactly why these Novus Ordo bishops will fail in everything they do, although it has taken some time for the failure to become obvious. They are -- every single one of them -- addicted to the New Order, the Great Facade, the Counterfeit Church. There is no need to have endless debates, as some of the periodicals do, about whether the New Order is just evil, or "essentially" evil, or just flawed in the behavior of some individuals. The New Order is not Catholic, it is not Apostolic. It is false, sacrilegious, blasphemous, and scandalous. Everyone knows this; it is patent to all.
Whether they admit it publicly or not, the Novus Ordo bishops are clearly tied to "malice and snares." It is the false religion of the unCatholic New Order that it stirs deceit, lies, rape, fornication, theft, covetousness, and all the rest. So extreme has the Novus Ordo become that last week, by one of its own officials, it was publicly described as: the model of a criminal organization, not my Church.
So, the time is long past for anyone to make excuses for the Novus Ordo. It is just too obvious what the reality is. The time is long past saying that Vatican II was fine; it was just misinterpreted. The time is long past for saying that the "New Mass" is fine; it just needs to be translated better. It is long past saying that the New Morality is fine; that scandals are merely the result of a bad bureaucracy.
No, the New Order is like a drug. It can be very pleasant (so they say). It can make you euphoric; it can make you feel as though you could do anything. But at the same time it takes away your reason. It can make you do things that you know are wrong. Finally, you become a slave to the drug, and it becomes very, very painful to get away from its control. You writhe in searing pain and may die in the attempt.
This is what the Novus Ordo has done to the Church. The Novus Ordo bishops are addicts to the Novus Ordo. They're still irrationally euphoric (although that euphoria is quickly wearing off as the effects of the drug have taken hold). They become more desperate to justify their habit, to praise the New Order to the skies, even as it is falling down around them. Even the pope is addicted to this drug and talks about a New Advent and a New Pentecost, even as the New Order Church comes tumbling down around him to such a degree that he can no longer raise his voice against it. He is it!
The sad fact is that the Novus Ordinarians will never be able to free themselves from the wickedness and snares until they kick the New Order cold turkey, go through the pain of what the New York Times calls metanoia, and return to the Catholic and Apostolic Traditional Roman Catholic Latin Mass, Sacraments, and Faith.
That is what the New York Times cannot say, but TRADITIO, and all of you, can.
Gov. Keating last week charged the U.S. Novus Ordo bishops with being a "criminal organization." As if to make that statement true, the same day the now ex-bishop of Phoenix was arrested for killing a man with his car. After these bishops have totally defaulted on their episcopal oaths to guard and transmit true faith and morals, instead of taking the just criticism like men, they are whining like babies because they are "not getting enough credit for the progress they have made over the last year in responding to the clergy sexual abuse crisis." Well, let's take a look at that recrimination.
Just a year ago, on June 13, 2002, U.S. Novus Ordo Bishops' President, Wilton Gregory, made the following statement at the Bishops meeting in Dallas:
I promise you this: Following the example of the Lord Jesus, today we bishops recommit ourselves to placing the protection of your children first. And I am confident that the work we will do together over the next few days here in Dallas and every day thereafter will confirm that promise with solid action to provide for the safety of your children in the church.
A year later, the Novus Ordo bishops have egregiously failed in their promise. In fact, the situation has gotten worse: even bishops are now being charged with criminal activity, as they should be. Federal prosecutors ought to investigate these bishops for conspiracy in illegal activities across state lines. There is no question that bishops have worked together to obstruct justice and act like accessories after the fact "to resist grand jury subpoenas, to suppress the names of offending clerics, to deny, to obfuscate, to explain away," like a "criminal organization." (From Boston Globe, Associated Press, and Catholic News Service reports.)
And these "bishops" have the gall to whine that they are not being praised for their villany? Yes, folks, that's what the New Mess, the New Sacruments, and the New Theologie do to one's mind. If you're smart, you'll hightail it away from the Novus Ordo Church as far as you can get!
Could these bishops remind us any more closely of the malefactors whom St. Paul condemned in his Epistle to the Romans (1:21-32/DRV):
For, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.... And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient [unseemly]. Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness: full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity: whisperers, detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, foolish, dissolute: without affection, without fidelity, without mercy. Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death: and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.
As usual, St. Paul minces no words. While the Novus Ordo bishops clothe their malefactions in vaguely Christian vocabulary, there is nothing Christian, and certainly nothing Catholic, about what they have done to destroy Roman Catholic faith and morals. And what should Catholics do in regard to these Novus Ordo bishops: obey them? follow them? praise them? No, rather, I commend to you the words of Our Lord: "going forth from thence, shake off the dust from your feet for a testimony to them" (Mark 6:11/DRV).
The U.S. Novus Ordo Bishops, meeting June 19-22 in St. Louis, mostly in secret, tried desperately to "spin" the events of the last week to deny the reality: Novus Ordo Church officials from the pope on down are still denying the thorough-going corruption in the Novus Ordo hierarchy. The poster boy for that hierarchy last week was the now former Phoenix bishop who admitted to pimping for sex offenders in his diocese and later killed a man with his car without even stopping to give Last Rites or reporting the incident to police. He is now under felony indictment.
During the whole incident the pope remained as silent as a tomb. He didn't even wring his hands as he has been more than ready to do for the cause of historical and oecumenical matters. Where is he? Oh, he's in Bosnia, having just been to Croatia. Does anyone else get the idea that the pope escapes from Rome as frequently as possible to avoid dealing with the real problems that he is responsible for. He would rather go to foreign countries where he can be hailed as a god and forget his own responsibilities.
The one voice that made sense this week came from a former FBI agent and Associate U.S. Attorney General, who had been appointed by the bishops to supervise the clean-up of the corruption within the dioceses. Many of the bishops refused to cooperate, indicating that they were more interested in a P.R. clean-up than a real clean-up of their personal and subordinates' morality.
There was an element in what Gov. Keating said that his been totally missed by both the religious and secular press. Here again is what he said:
To resist grand jury subpoenas, to suppress the names of offending clerics, to deny, to obfuscate, to explain away; that is the model of a criminal organization, not my Church.
Gov. Keating has said exactly what traditional Catholics have been saying from the beginning. The Novus Ordo Church is not the Roman Catholic Church. The Novus Ordo Church, in effect, went into schism in 1964, when the first documents of Vatican II were promulgated and the Newchurch went into effect.
And who was the Honorable Gov. Keating's principal critic? The corrupt Mahony, the head of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, who has been involved in doctrinal scandals, sex scandals, and monetary scandals. The latter were reported as long ago as 1998, when U.S. News & World Report exposed his protection scheme with funeral parlors so that he could wrest $50,000,000 to build his Taj Mahoney, the ghastly pagan temple that now is the Novus Ordo cathedral. Is there any doubt why Mahony wants to shut down the corruption investigation?
Instead of admitting honestly, as they should if they were truly Catholic bishops, that the U.S. bishops have become a "criminal organization," have grievously sinned in their conduct, and have allowed innocent people to be corrupted, they unabashedly maintain that the "reform plan remains on track" and that they had a "very cordial discussion." Do these Novus Ordo bishops just not get it? The Church doesn't require a "cordial discussion." It needs the flame of a St. Paul or a St. Augustine or a St. Catherine or a St. Gertrude, condemning these prelates to the eternal fires if they do not repent of the scandal they have caused to the Church!
After all, what is a bishop? The Biblical Greek term is epískopos, overseer. Yet these Novus Ordo bishops have overseen nothing: not their clergy, not their people, not their Faith, not their Sacraments. When confronted with an episcopate that had substantially sold out to the Arian heretics, St. Athanasius was charged with "disobedience" to the corrupt bishops because he would have nothing to do with them (nor would St. Basil the Great, St. Martin of Tours, and a handful of other orthodox bishops). One of the heretics objected to the Saint, "You have the bishops against you." The great Defender of the Faith answered: "That proves that they are all against the Church."
And that is the traditional Catholics argument against phony "obedience" to corrupt, scandalous, and heretical bishops of the 21st century. Not to play footsie with them, not to negotiate with them, not to have "cordial discussions" with them. Rather, following the example of St. Athanasius, St. Basil the Great, St. Martin, and other great Saints, we should have nothing to do with them, as long as they are "all against the Church."
Remember all that hullabaloo about an ossuary inscribed "James, Son of Joseph, Brother of Jesus"? Oh, my, all the speculation about how the Church was wrong about its dogma that Mary remained a virgin! Now, it all turns out to be a fake.
At a press conference held on June 18, officials from the Israeli Antiquities Authority announced that an ancient stone box with the inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" is a fake. Details proving the ossuary a fake were produced as early as last November. The inscriptions on both items were made "in the modern era," the Antiquities Authority announced.
The stone burial box, known as an ossuary, attracted international attention when the Biblical Archaeological Review announced its discovery, and it was thought to be one of the oldest archaeological links to the biblical figures. But doubts as to the ossuary's authenticity arose soon after the announcement. Experts determined that the inscription linking the ossuary to James was actually written by two different people, and the Jesus reference was apparently added later.
An expert on scripts and an historian of writing systems, wrote that the limestone burial box was "genuine," but the second half of the inscription, with its reference to Jesus, "bears the hallmarks of a fraudulent later addition, probably around the 3rd or 4th centuries, and is questionable to say the least." (From Israel Insider reports.)
So, Mary is back to being a virgin, and Christ is back to being an only child. It just goes to show that one must be very skeptical about all these modern reports that upset the Catholic Faith, which has had 2000 years to be checked, and double-checked, and triple-checked.
Some TRADITIO participants have asked for an example of "Fatimism," a term used for an erroneous excess of the virtue of religion, in which alleged visions, apparitions, or miracles are elevated above the Catholic and Apostolic Deposit of Faith (Public Revelation) and in which the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is subordinated to private devotions. This error seems to be a species of the genus of Protestant Fundamentalist Charismaticism.
Whenever the pillars of society -- church, state, and family -- are threatened, we see, historically, a move away from sound doctrine and traditional practice to the excessive, the cultish, even the occult. The unstable world of third-century Rome sought relief in the excesses of blind seers like Apollonius of Tyana, in mystery religions like that of the Egyptian goddess Isis or the Persian Mithra, in astrology and other occult arts. The unstable world of the 21st-century seeks its relief in New Ageism, Environmentalism, Satanism, astrology, and other occult arts.
It appears that to a Milton, Massachusetts, hospital, some 25,000 gawkers over five years have come to see a dirty window that some say seems to have an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. You wonder how many of these 25,000 are attending the Traditional Latin Mass and getting the graces of Our Lord therefrom, or whether they spend their religious time looking for images on dirty windows, knot-holes in trees, and oil-spills in subway stations.
The Church is very careful not to support "miracles" that can be explained as natural phenomena, because ultimately they are very damaging to the Catholic Faith and cause scandal. Only after a long time passes do some elements come to be considered piously by some as private revelation (e.g., Lourdes), but never as part of the Catholic and Apostolic Deposit of Faith.
In the Milton case, experts have found that the phenomenon is simply the product of a spreading chemical deposit previously trapped within the window pane before the seal became broken. "The phenomenon is basically the human ability to see pictures out of randomness. There are trillions of these, and they just wait for someone to notice them," said Joe Nickell, a senior research fellow at the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. "This one's pretty good, as things go, but there's nothing miraculous about it. It's almost anti-miraculous, because its cause is so mundane." (From ABC News reports.)
People forget that false "miracles" can be used by Satan to deceive. Our Lord warned us very clearly about this:
For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets and shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect (Matthew 24:24/DRV).
St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), perhaps the Church's greatest mystic, warned:
The desire for private revelations deprives faith of its purity, develops a dangerous curiosity that becomes a source of illusions, fills the mind with vain fancies, and often proves the want of humility, and of submission to Our Lord, Who, through His public revelation, has given all that is needed for salvation. We must suspect those apparitions that lack dignity or proper reserve, and above all, those that are ridiculous. This last characteristic is a mark of human or diabolical machination. Stay away from visions, apparitions, and miracles as much as you can. Be careful of visions, even when they are authentic.
On June 18, Novus Ordo Bishop Thomas O'Brien, of Phoenix, resigned. It was initially reported that the pope refused to accept his resignation, but eventually he was forced to. It's hard to fathom the depths to which this pope has sunk, that he cannot even call a spade a spade when it comes to corruption in his Novus Ordo clergy. The pope has remained as mute as the proverbial monkey about the likes of O'Brien, Weakland, Egan, and all the rest. Even in the case of a self-admitted pimp and now an alleged murderer, who never even stopped to see whether Extreme Unction should be given to the man whom he killed. (From AP reports.)
One of our correspondents has described the O'Brien scandal as a metaphor for the entire course of the Novus Ordo apparatus since 1964:
The Bishops just speed along with Vatican II, leaving a wake of dead souls in their path, stopping neither to care nor to show remorse. Then they top it all off with lies proclaiming their innocence.
I would say that this incident, as well as the circumstances surrounding the resignation on principle by Gov. Keating this week from the U.S. Novus Ordo Bishops Conference National Review Board on the sex scandals, provides all the more proof of the evident fact that the Novus Ordo is a Church of Hate, not the Church of Love that it tiresomely proclaims it is. It may mouth love, but when the chips are down, it pimps and murders -- whether individual human beings or, more grievously, Catholic souls and the Catholic Faith. The real scandal here is that the Novus Ordinarians still populate the parishes that are affiliated to this corruption, still put their thirty pieces of silver into the collection plate, and even try to excuse the inexcusable.
Perhaps as the putrefaction of the Novus Ordo bubbles to the top more and more, they will get the picture, but I'm afraid many of them will still debate whether to kneel or stand for the Novus Ordo Eucharistic Prayer, without realizing that the iceberg hit long ago, and they are in the process of sinking.
Can it get any worse for the Novus Ordo bishops? Bishop Thomas O'Brien first admitted to being a pimp and surrendered part of his episcopal responsibilities. Then, on June 16, O'Brien was arrested for his alleged participation in a deadly hit-and-run accident after police traced a license-plate number to his car and found the windshield caved in. He claimed he had hit a dog. I guess it must have been truly Great Dane!
In the unprecedented agreement with prosecutors earlier this month, O'Brien admitted that he allowed priests to work with minors after he knew of sexual misconduct allegations against them and that he transferred them to ministries without telling their new supervisors. It was announced that he relinquished some of his authority in an unprecedented agreement with prosecutors that let he get off from indictment on obstruction charges for protecting child-molesting priests. Under the deal, O'Brien agreed among other things to appoint the church equivalent of a chief of staff to supervise the enforcement of the church's sexual misconduct policies. Why he was allowed to get off prosecution and whether he was given improper specially-favored treatment is a serious question.
But O'Brien couldn't hold off the grim-reaping hand of the law for his crimes for very long. Police discovered that O'Brien's car had been involved in a hit-and-run homicide. O'Brien admitted that he was driving the vehicle in the area at the time. But would you believe O'Brien's excuse? Phoenix Police Sergeant Laurie Williams said O'Brien had told police that he "was returning home after a Mass on Saturday night." Is this the first time the Novus Ordo service has been used as an alibi for a homicide? (From AP reports.)
As one of our correspondents pointed out, if he ran away, he did not even check to see whether the person he killed was one of his congregation and should be given Extreme Unction. So, there is possibly a religious crime involved here as well.
O'Brien is not being singled out here personally, but only as a not untypical representative of the Novus Ordo hierarchy. He has been an entrenched opponent of the Traditional Latin Mass in his diocese. Perhaps if he had been the beneficiary of the valid, Catholic Mass instead of the Novus Bogus Mess, he might have actually received some divine grace. As it is....
Well, Gov. Frank Keating should know about criminals, as a former FBI agent and third highest-ranking official in the U.S. Justice Department!
Finally, the Novus Ordo Church of Hate, which has virtually destroyed the Roman Catholic Faith, Mass, and Sacraments (if it hadn't been for the courageous resistance of traditional Roman Catholics) is getting its comeuppance. Its corruption is too patent to deny: parish churches taken over by pagans, phony "cookies" given out as communion, destruction of Catholic seminaries, pimping and prostitution on the part of the hierarchy, protection schemes and kickbacks, even murder -- all of the corruption that TRADITIO and other sources have been talking about for years is now confirmed before the eyes of all.
Gov. Keating has got it exactly right:
To resist grand jury subpoenas, to suppress the names of offending clerics, to deny, to obfuscate, to explain away; that is the model of a criminal organization. [My remarks] were deadly accurate. I make no apology.
Isn't that the essence of what TRADITIO has been warning against for over eight years now? What more recently has come to be called the Great Facade and the Counterfeit Church TRADITIO exposed long before anyone would admit it. Now they can't deny it. What would you expect? The Novus Ordo apparatus, replacing the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with a Protestant service, substituting a "cookie" for the Body of Christ, performing "initiation" ceremonies instead of the Holy Sacrament of Baptism, and all the rest -- there is no grace left in the Novus Ordo. The Novus Ordo hierarchy has stopped at nothing to substitute the evil and the diabolical for the good and holy.
Good on you, Frank Keating! Would that there were more like you with the guts to speak out against Novus Ordo corruption in the highest places, yes even to the papal seat itself, saying that this is "not my Church." It isn't ours either. Ours is the traditional Roman Catholic Church, not the bogus New Order.
Yet there are still a number of Novus Ordinarians who are so bemused by the infernal powers that if the Novus Ordo presbyters and nuns conjugated on top of the "table," the Novus Ordinarians would still "obey" and go to the parish "mess" on Sunday, thinking that they are fulfilling some "obligation." Seriously, what "obligation" could compel a real Catholic to go to a phony service and eat a phony "cookie." The Roman martyrs would be horrified!
Just think how easy it is to play historical games and condemn the German people for not standing up to the Nazis! The Nazis killed only the body, but the Novus Ordo hierarchy is killing souls. Our Lord spoke very pointedly on this matter, Himself warning us:
And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28/DRV)
Isn't that the description of the Novus Ordo hierarchy, to whom St. John Chrysostom words must surely be apropos: The floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of rotten bishops. So much too for John Paul II "the Great," the man ultimately responsible for these bishops and cardinal, his own appointees, who are fornicating, stealing, and lying their way to that very floor.
We hear a lot of talk from the "conservatives" that the pope is all powerful, that the pope is all correct (so that one might think him God, which is the error of papolatry, or pope-worship). Well, if we are to accept this premise (which is wrong, of course), we have to hold this pope responsible for the greatest liturgical, doctrinal, and moral corruption in the history of the Church, since it has rested in his hands to do something for the last 25 years, and he has, by his own admission, done -- NOTHING. After seeing all the sacrilege and corruption around him, he still remains an uncompromising advocate of the New Advent, the New Easter, the New Pentecost: the New Order.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
It is necessary to counteract the false notion of papal infallibility held by many Catholics who claim that the pope can pretty much do or say anything he wants simply because he is Pope. This is not what the Roman Catholic Church teaches.
In a sermon on the subject, the eminent 19th-century British theologian, Cardinal John Henry Newman, quoted a Pastoral Letter from the Bishops of Switzerland that received the approval of Pope Pius IX. The letter was on the subject of papal infallibility, and what a pope may or may not teach. The Swiss Bishops stated:
It in no way depends upon the caprice of the pope, or upon his good pleasure, to make such and such a doctrine the object of a dogmatic definition. He is tied up and limited to the Divine revelation and to the truths which that revelation contains. He is tied up and limited by the creeds, already in existence, and by the preceding definitions of the Church. He is tied up and limited by the Divine law, and by the constitution of the Church....
The pope himself, then, is bound to teach what has always been taught by the uninterrupted teaching of his predecessors throughout the centuries. We likewise learn from the Coronation Oath that the Pope is also bound to not deviate from Tradition.
Throughout the ages the popes, Saints, and Holy Doctors have taught that the first duty of all Catholics, including the hierarchy in Rome, is to maintain Tradition; that is, to maintain the purity of the Faith in doctrine and practice. We are also commanded to abhor novelty. Pope St. Pius X wrote in his Encyclical Pascendi [Against Modernism, 1980, para. 42]:
But for Catholics nothing will remove the authority of the second Council of Nicaea, where it condemns those "who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind ... or endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church.... Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: "I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church."
Fr. Moderator Replies:
The only ones who can't see that the Novus Ordo is not Catholic are the Novus Ordinarians themselves. The New "Mass" isn't Catholic; it is a Protestant service that worships a "cookie." The New "Sacraments" aren't Catholic; they are Protestantized. The New Theology isn't Catholic; it's Modernism, pure and simple. Vernacularization, Protestantization, Secularization, Modernization -- all of these watchwords of the New Order are simply not Catholic. And a multibillion-dollar P.R. campaign by the Novus Ordo bishops cannot change that fact. If anything, it is becoming clearer and clearer that the Novus Ordo is the Great Phony, the Great Facade, the Great Counterfeit.
Gov. Frank Keating, head of the U.S. [Novus Ordo] Bishops National Review Board to clean up the "sex scandal" and the U.S. bishops' own complicity in it, has resigned in protest, claiming that the bishops are not interested in cleaning up the scandal. He likened the Novus Ordo church leadership to La Cosa Nostra, the Mafia. Keating should know. He was an FBI agent and associate U.S. Attorney General, the third highest official in the U.S. Justice Department. Rev. Thomas Reese of America magazine, a New York-based Jesuit weekly, said Keating's departure is "a setback for the bishops" and "another stumble on the way to cleaning up the bishops' reputation."
I would go farther. These U.S. Novus Ordo bishops are so corrupt that their reputation will never be cleaned up. They don't want to change the vileness of what they have been doing, conspiring with one another to transfer miscreant-presbyters from one diocese to another. Even the pope twiddles his thumbs in the his library while his Novus Ordo presbyters bishops flaunt their sins and crimes. One is reminded of the old saying about a corrupt fish "stinking from the head." John Paul the Great? Hardly. How about John Paul the Bad?
Can it be denied any longer that the Novus Ordo apparatus is thoroughly corrupt? First, it was the imposition of unCatholic services, "sacraments," and theology. Now, we find out that there is more moral corruption going on among the U.S. bishops than one would find in one's local red-light district. These bishops are unrepentant, notorious sinners. That the Novus Ordo's absolute power has corrupted these bishops absolutely is no surprise.
What is something of a surprise is the extent to which the Novus-Ordinarian pew Catholics put up with the stink in their local Novus Ordo churches. If they had any thought for the good of their souls, they would hightail it out of those cesspools and get themselves off to the Traditional Latin Mass, the traditional Sacraments, and the traditional Roman Catholic theology.
It appears that Mel Gibson's courageous action in standing up to the U.S. Conference of [Novus Ordo] Catholic Bishops League is bearing fruit.
This apology comes at the same time that Gov. Frank Keating, head of the Bishops' own National Review Board, called the U.S. bishops a "Cosa Nostra" (i.e., a Maffia). Clearly, the U.S. Bishops are being publicly exposed more and more as the hypocrites and criminals they are, as this week the Bishop of Phoenix, Arizona, had his wings clipped for his complicity in the sexual-abuse scandals. Previously, the Archbishop of St. Paul, Minnesota, afraid of being exposed, turned himself in as a sexual miscreant and even misappropriator of alleged Church funds.
According to Gibson's account, persons allegedly acting for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops stole an obsolete script. The General Counsel for the USCCB, in view of Gibson's threatened lawsuit against this corrupt bunch, who would allegedly suborn thievery to attain their corrupt ends, was forced to issue the following apology:
We regret that this situation has occurred and offer our apologies. I have further advised the scholars group that this draft screenplay is not considered to be representative of the film and should not be the subject of further public comment. When the film is released, the USCCB will review it at that time.
We recall that the Good Thief, who suffered capital punishment for his crimes, at least had the virtue to admit his corruption. When the Bad Thief continued to deride Our Lord on the Cross, St. Dismas rebuked him, saying:
Dost not even thou fear God, seeing that thou art under the same sentence [of death]? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving what our deeds deserved, but this man [Christ] has done nothing wrong (Luke 23:40-41/DRV).
One can only await the day when the U.S. Novus Ordo Bishops will pay the price for their crimes against humanity: against the Roman Catholic Church, against the Catholic people, and against innocent victims. They should be worrying a lot less about the "holocaust" of fifty years ago and concentrate upon correcting the holocaust of the Roman Catholic Faith that they have engineered since Vatican II. In a spiritual sense, they may as well be sticking once good Catholic souls into the brick ovens and turning on the gas. For that is what they are perpetrating, religious murder, as St. Gertrude said of the pope of her time.
And Mel Gibson and Gov. Keating are just the gutsy guys who aren't going to let these Novus Ordo bishops get away with their crimes.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I just wanted to pass along a good quotation I found from Pope Pius VII:
Obversari enim tibi debuisset ante oculos, quod constanter et praedecessores Nostri monuerunt, nimirum, si sacra Biblia vulgari lingua passim sine discrimine permittantur, plus inde detrimenti quam utilitatis oriri.... Sane cum in vernaculo sermone creberrimas animadvertamus vicissitudines, varietates, commutationesque, profecto ex immoderata biblicarum versionum licentia immutabilitas illa convelleretur, quae divina decet testimonia, et fides ipsa nutaret, cum praesertim ex unius syllabae ratione quandoque de dogmatis veritate dignoscatur.
For you should have kept before your eyes the warnings which Our predecessors have constantly given, namely, that, if the sacred books are permitted everywhere without discrimination in the vulgar tongue, more damage will arise from this than advantage.... Since in vernacular speech we notice very frequent interchanges, varieties, and changes, surely by an unrestrained license of Biblical versions that changelessness which is proper to the divine testimony would be utterly destroyed, and faith itself would waver, when, especially, from the meaning of one syllable sometimes an understanding about the truth of a dogma is formed. (From the Epistle Magno et acerbo to the Archbishop of Mohileff, September 3, 1816, Denz. 1603-1604)
I thought it was notable that the pope said "from the meaning of one syllable, sometimes an understanding about the truth of a dogma is formed." This is something, of course, that traditional Catholics have been saying -- almost verbatim -- for decades. The quotation is also a good argument for not replacing even the Latin of the Epistle and Gospel during the Mass with the vernacular. It should be obvious after so many years of the crisis that even a slight change like that is a "slippery slope." As a matter of fact, it is exactly the same change that started the invalid Anglican rite!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Two suspects were caught, and another is yet to be found in the desecration of St. Michael the Archangel Chapel in Farmingville, New York, reported previously on TRADITIO. The police are not giving any further information on their motive yet.
An Episcopalian church had offered to help restore the damage and people have been offering support and sympathy. I have not heard that there was any communication from the diocese of Rockeville Center or Bishop William Murphy.
Two letters were written to William Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. As you recall, this person and organization blew off our request for help by falsely calling us traditional Catholics "excommunicated" when a New York radio talk-show host was going to feature the desecration. We requested that Donahue provide the documentation or issue an apology for his hateful statement. Mr. Donohue was threatened with a national boycott and a demand for the refund of donations, since the League erroneously purports to defend all Catholics. Mr. Donohue has not given us the courtesy of a response. Either he is still searching for the document or is merely ignoring us. Rest assured, we will not stop until we receive a retraction and an apology from the Catholic League.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Isn't it typical that the Novus Ordo "Church of Love" will not lift a finger, while Protestants come to the rescue? Whatever I have said about heresy of Protestantism, I have always acknowledged that human decency seems to reside in Protestants far more than the hateful and hypocritical Novus Ordo apparatus. They will receive their reward!
As to the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, it has in this incident been exposed as a Novus Ordo tool. I have personally returned my membership notated as below. I urge all of you to click on the organization's feedback page. I would suggest leaving all the contact information blank; you don't want this organization bombarding you with junk mail to join! Just put the following in the Comments box and click Submit:
If we traditional Catholics can't unite when one of our churches is desecrated, and stand firm against such bigoted Novus Ordo organizations who won't speak out against desecration of traditional Roman Catholic churches and chapels, we may as well fold up the tent of the Traditional Roman Catholic Movement.
One of Hollywood's great dramatic actors, Gregory Peck, passed away on June 12. In his little-known, but wonderful film version of A.J. Cronin's novel, Peck starred as a missionary priest in China. It is a practical instruction about how to work with Protestants and even atheists, while still remaining Catholic. Vincent Price is excellent as the puffed-up monsignor whose Catholicism pales in comparison to the humility of the Scottish priest.
Peck played a priest in another film, The Scarlet and the Black of 1983. He stars in the story of a priest matching wits with the German colonel (Christopher Plummer) in control of occupied Rome during the Second World War. Sir John Gielgud plays Pope Pius XII. This is a fair portrayal of the rescue work done by the Vatican during the war, while allowing room for debate about what is the best thing to do, morally and prudently, under very difficult circumstances.
Both films are available on videotape and/or DVD and are well worth viewing and reflecting upon.
For TRADITIO's other film recommendations, see FAQ12: What Films Do You Recommend for Traditional Catholics?.
Although the Traditional Roman Catholic Movement has produced a wealth of excellent books and monographs, the pickings of periodicals is unfortunately rather slim. Interestingly, it was much better in the earlier days of the movement, the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The June issue of the most traditional of the periodicals available, The Catholic Voice, has just been released. This periodical does not get involved in Church politics (we have TRADITIO for that!), but gives sound treatment of traditional Catholic principles as they apply directly to the faithful Catholic.
This periodical contains some of the clearest explanations, not lengthy and involved, but crisp and clear, of the Traditional Latin Mass and what it means, the invalidating defects of the Novus Ordo service and sacraments, and the Saints, in particular. It provides information that is most apt for traditional apologetics. For example, the June issue contains the following articles, each clearly written in a page or two:
Here is an example of a Catholic Voice synthesis of the scholarly evidence about the Novus Ordo service:
What we understand, as traditional Roman Catholics, as abuses, and what modern liturgists describe as abuses are, in fact, two different things. If there is a true desire to end abuses in what most Catholics think is the Mass, then it must start with the abolition of the Novus Ordo Missae.
The Traditional Latin Mass is not a piece of nostalgic history to be celebrated because a priest, or some lay people, prefer it to the vernacular. It is the only Catholic form of worship that is acceptable to Almighty God in the Latin Rite. Even if priests are allowed to say the Traditional Latin Mass on their own choosing, they will be doing so attached to a Church that promotes false oecumenism and other errors. Just having the Traditional Latin Mass [and at that, the "modernized" version of 1962] is not enough.
And subscriptions are provided free of charge! However, if you do subscribe, I suggest that you include a five- or ten-dollar bill in the envelope to help support the fine work that this periodical does. And in your subscription request, don't forget to say that Fr. Moderator of the TRADITIO Internet Site sent you. These are good people doing good work for the traditional Roman Catholic Faith. Full contact information will be found in the Traditional Directory.
Remember the Novus Ordo "sex scandal"? Well, the U.S. bishops are hoping you won't. They had no desire to correct the situation. To them, it was merely a matter of some P.R. "spinning." They even contrived to have the pope join their antics when he failed to take any no punitive action against self-admitted bishop-miscreants like Weakland of Milwaukee, but instead arranged for the U.S. cardinals to participate in a nice little sit-down tea in the papal library billed as a "photo op."
Instead, those cardinals and the pope himself should have been stripped of their garments and forced to prostrate themselves flat on their faces before the high altar of St. Peter's, doing penance for the irreparable scandal they caused, and continue to cause, the Church.
But these Novus Ordo bishops are nothing if not cunning like foxes. They are well aware that if you appoint a blue-ribbon committee to solve the problem, everyone will cheer and then forget the problem as the years pass. Well, when the bishops appointed former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating, a former FBI agent and associate U.S. Attorney General, as the chairman of bishops' own National Review Board to investigate and clean up the scandal, they apparently got a tiger by the tail. The Honorable Frank Keating is actually doing in good faith the job he was appointed to do, and the bishops are doing everything in their power to stop him.
It started with New York's Edward Cardinal Egan, himself implicated in perversion scandals from his former diocese, telling the Board that he was not going to cooperate with them and prohibiting his clergy from helping in any way. The Board has apparently faced nothing but resistance from these corrupt Novus Ordo bishops.
But today The Honorable Frank Keating did the unthinkable. He publicly criticized the U.S. bishops in scathing terms. (And this from a Novus Ordinarian!) He told the Los Angeles Times:
I certainly have concluded that a number of serious officials in my [Novus Ordo] faith have very clay feet. To act like La Cosa Nostra and hide and suppress, I think, is very unhealthy. Eventually it will all come out.
Wow! Didn't the fat hit the pan then? One of the most corrupt cardinals in the United States, who shovels out to the largest diocese in the United States a faith that is nowhere Roman Catholic, The Dishonorable Roger Mahony, of Los Angeles, Arch-architect of the new Taj Mahony Cathedral, a $50,000,000 pagan blight on the City of Our Lady of the Angeles, took great exception to being called a Mafioso.
Yet, it was the same Mahony who was exposed in a U.S. News & World Report magazine article ("The Deathcare Business," March 23, 1998, pp. 50-58) for "cutting a deal with a funeral chain" that give Mahony and his minions a kickback in the form of "an undisclosed percentage of the proceeds from each funeral [performed] at the cemeteries, money that will help Cardinal Roger Mahony realize his dream of building a $100 million cathedral downtown.... The cardinal figured we better get in the game and provide the same one-stop shopping offered by the competition." In other words, the corrupt Mahony took money from bereaved families at their moment of grief so that he could build his pagan temple. Just another example of your Novus Ordo Church of Hate at work.
On the other hand, Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley applauded Gov. Keating's remarks. Cooley has been investigating Mahoney and his Novus Ordo minions. Already the District Attorney has charged eight current or former Novus Ordo presbyters with sexually abusing children. More charges are expected. For more than a year, District Attorney Cooley said, the archdiocese has been "aggressively resisting" turning over subpoenaed church documents relating to investigations. "Gov. Keating apparently has been as frustrated as we have been in our efforts to secure information," he said.
And the Novus Ordinarians claim that we are supposed to "obey" the religious (and other!) perversions of these Novus Ordo bishops, and fawn on their vaunted "approval" for eking out the slightest crumb of Catholicism? I think not. These are the kind of people no responsible parent would even allow his kids to play with! (Based on AP reports.)
When TRADITIO publishes information and even photographs on the wierdo Novus Ordo messes that are going on, sometimes the Novus Ordinarians try to escape the condemnation by saying, "the bishop didn't approve of it." Well, hold onto your hats, folks. The bishops are now in the process of approving the Novus Ordo Dance Mess.
A little-known item on the agenda of the U.S. Conference of [Novus Ordo] Catholic Bishops for their June 14-15 meeting in Dallas is a position paper on liturgical dance. The position paper was written by Kathryn Mihelick, a former dance instructor at Kent State University, who runs the Leaven Dance Company and is a 41-year member of Holy Family [Novus Ordo] Catholic Church in Stow, Ohio, where she and her small company "act out choreographed movements to express prayers in church services such as ... Masses."
The Leaven Dance Company is in residence at the Kent State University Newman Center. Newman Centers, once traditional centers of religious education and study for college students, named after the great British scholar John Henry Cardinal Newman have, since Vatican II, been converted into the most debased centers of condemned "charistmaticism" and "liturgical experimentation."
The position paper was forwarded to the Novus Ordo Liturgy Commission for the agenda by none other than -- Cleveland's Archbishop Anthony M. Pilla.
So, you Novus Ordinarians who dare to "obey" mindlessly these fraudulent bishops, not of the Roman Catholic Church, but of the New Order, in their most debased efforts to destroy your Roman Catholic Faith, stay tuned for the Dance Mess, coming soon to your local parish.
Chiesa reports that at Rome's mosque, the largest in Europe, which was personally approved for building by John Paul II, whose papal predecessors all condemned the idea, Abdel-Samie Mahmoud Ibrahim Moussa, the Roman imam, in his khutba (sermon) on June 6 called for a Jihad (Holy War) "against Jews, Christians, and the West."
And what is the New Vatican's response? Why, they are doing everything they can to downplay it. "In the end, these are only the things being said in one Italian mosque. And giving too much importance to a local occurrence would risk compromising dialogue [with the Mohammedan Infidels]," said Archbishop Michael L. Fitzgerald, the President of the Pontifical Commission concerned with Islamic relations. As always, the New Vatican's God of False Oecumenism trumps the truth. One wonders what the radical Mohammedans would have to do to get the New Vatican's attention. Maybe send a plane to crash into St. Peter's?
You know, it is sad to say, but that probably wouldn't be enough. Pope Pius XII courageously stood against both the Axis and the Allied powers and wouldn't take no for an answer: Rome was to be an immune city. And he almost entirely succeeded in saving Rome. This pope? Sometimes one wonders whether he would even care that much, or would just move the papal court to Warsaw, just as the French popes moved it to Avignon and thereby precipitated the Great Western Schism.
Apparently, this pope has not learned the lessons of history. It was in 1095 that his predecessor, Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade, which was preached by St. Bernard of Clairvaux in 1095, to deliver the Holy Places from Mohammedan tyranny. The rise of the Seljukian Turks had compromised the safety of pilgrims and even threatened the independence of the Byzantine Empire and of all Christendom. In 1070 Jerusalem was taken, and in 1091 Diogenes, the Greek emperor, was defeated and made captive at Mantzikert. Asia Minor and all of Syria became the prey of the Mohammedan Turks. Antioch succumbed in 1084, and by 1092 not one of the great metropolitan sees of Asia remained in the possession of the Christians. Although separated from the communion of Rome since the schism of Michael Cærularius (1054), even the emperors of Constantinople implored the assistance of the popes; in 1073 letters were exchanged on the subject between Michael VII and Gregory VII.
According to the U.S. [Novus Ordo] Catholic Conference of Bishops, Christ never intended Christianity for Jews, but rather for Gentiles, and there is no need for Jews to accept Christ. Now isn't that about the most heretical statement you can image? It denies the Bible, denies Tradition, denies Christianity, denies Christ. Yet this is what your New Order is bringing you: the essential destruction of the Roman Catholic Faith.
Under the auspices of the Association of Hebrew Catholics, the USCCB Bishops' Committee for Interreligious and Ecumenical affairs invited four "Hebrew-Catholics" down to Washington, D.C., in late May for a day of discussions on last summer's unfortunate release of the Reflections on Covenant and Mission document by a subcommittee of the USCCB, which suggested the heresy described in the previous paragraph. And Cardinal Keeler, already discredited with all the other cardinals in the sex scandals, was there to put his scarlet "imprimatur" on the heresy.
These Novus Ordo bishops just don't give up, do they? Well, we know that they are not "of this fold." The question is: how do the Novus Ordinarian sheep justify populating the pews for the Novus Ordo's Wild Theology, which goes hand in hand with its Wild Messes?
Right in line with the New Order Church's de-facto policy that every one is saved -- bigamists, murderers, public perverts -- the New Order wants to make every pope a saint! In the last 700 years, only two popes have been acknowledged as Saints: Pope St. Pius V, who promoted the Traditional Latin Mass, Sacraments, Divine Office, and Faith in the face of the heresy of Protestantism; and Pope St. Pius X, who did the same in the face of the heresy of Modernism.
It is a common misbelief that popes are Saints. Very few of them are, in the traditional understanding of the Church. As they have been given the greatest power, they are held to a much higher standard: for the "freedom and exaltation of Holy Mother Church." As Our Lord said: "And unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required" (Luke 12:48/DRV). If the Great Eastern Doctor of the Church, St. John Chrysostom, could say: The floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of rotten bishops, just think what must be true of most popes!
So, now we hear that the process has been started for Albino Luciani, later Pope John Paul I. My goodness, the man was pope for only a month and did basically nothing. Perhaps that is the qualification now for sainthood: doing nothing? Who knows? He might have been a saintly man, but hardly the subject of a canonization. Pius XII might have a case, as this pope stood with heroic virtue against Nazis, Communists, and Modernists.
Is this an effort to "put a good face" on the post Vatican II Church? Is this another act of desperation like the process for John XXIII? Now, John may have been a "nice guy," but did he fight for the Faith like Sts. Pius V and X, that is, did he have "heroic virtue"? Not by a long shot! It is generally agreed that he sold out to the evil of Communism so that the Soviets would let a few representatives go to John's Vatican II council.
Sainthood for the New Order Church is merely a P.R. and P.C. affair now. It is thoroughly scandalous what the current pope has done to discredit the entire process by churning out hundreds of "saints" like tuna salad. Beati have been churned out in the thousands. Thank God, beatifications are not infallible, and neither are canonizations, so some future traditional pope will be able to sort all of this out.
The Sunday Mail of June 8 reports that Mel Gibson has "declared war" on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Jewish Anti-Defamation League and threatened a lawsuit over their attempts to interfere with the filming of The Passion, the traditional film about the Passion of Christ told in Latin and other ancient languages without subtitles. The $37,960,000 film was completed last month in Rome. It now goes into post-production for projected release at Easter of 2004.
Good on you, Mel! The Novus Ordo bishops of the U.S. or American Jewish organization would never have tried such a thing with a liberalist film, such as Dogma or Priest, screaming violation of the free speech or creative expression. But because you are a traditional Catholic and want to tell the story in the traditional way, according to Sts. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you are persecuted. Your courage is an example for all of us traditional Catholics to stand up against the corrupt Novus Ordo, its bishops and other hangers-on. No "negotiation" or "compromise" with evil is just.
We have previously questioned the position of the SSPX's Chief Bishop, who, according to our inside reports, is not the uncompromising traditional Catholic bishop that, for example, U.S. bishop is, or the two European bishops. Why does he keep up these pointless "negotiations" with the New Vatican? It is clear that the New Vatican and the SSPX are on entirely different wavelengths as far as true Catholicism is concerned. The continuation of "negotiations" by the chief bishop alone is highly suspicious.
Well, now we have further evidence of what this bishops believes, out of his own mouth. Among TRADITIO's resources is access to European foreign-language reports that rarely cross the Atlantic. The chief bishop gave an interview to an Italian interviewer (UV-Venezia), in which he took no exception to the essential validity of the Novus Ordo service. Nor did he take any notice of the intervention of Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci and their associated Roman theologians. Nor did he take notice of the fact that Paul VI himself admitted the defects of the Novus Ordo service and once recalled it.
Question. Voi avete continuato a seguire il rito preconciliare. Considerate invalida la nuova Messa? [You have continued to follow the pre-conciliar rite. Do you consider the New Mass invalid?]
Answer by Chief Bishop. No. Noi abbiamo sempre detto che la Messa de Paolo VI e valida se si rispettano le regole previste nel messale. Purtroppo dobbiamo constatare che in non poche occasioni queste regole non vengono rispettate e in quei casi si può arrivare fino all'invalidità. Le faccio un esempio: se per la consacrazione un sacerdote, invece dell'ostia di frumento, usa un'ostia fatta di riso oppure un biscotto, questo rende invalida la Messa. Ci sono tanti abusi in giro per il mondo. Noi comunque non abbiamo mai detto che la Messa di Paolo VI sia invalida né tantomeno l'abbiamo mai definita "eretica." La riteniamo però dannosa e pericolosa per la fede perché non esprime chiaramente tutto ciò che dovrebbe essere detto nella Messa. [No. We have always said that the Mass of Paul VI is valid if the established regulations of the missal are respected. Unfortunately, we must admit that on not a few occasions these rules are not respected and in some cases it can come to the point of invalidity. I offer an example: if for the Consecration a priest, in place of a host made of wheat, uses a host made of rice or a cookie, this renders the Mass invalid. There are so many abuses going around in the world. We, however, have never said that the Mass of Paul VI is invalid nor have we ever so much as defined it "heretical". We hold it, however, to be damaging and dangerous to the Faith because it does not express clearly all that must be said in the Mass.]
The only example the chief bishop comes up with for invalidity concerns the matter, not the form. Interestingly, chief bishop uses the very word that TRADITIO was the first to insert into the debate, cookie (Italian: biscotto) and has been consistently using since them, although others have since picked it up. It appears that chief bishop is an avid reader of TRADITIO! Good: we'll work to keep him uncompromisingly on the traditional Catholic path.
To have no essential doubt about the form of the Novus Ordo service in the context of Pope Leo XIII's Apostolicae Curae? To have no essential doubt about a "mass," two-thirds of which has been changed from the Catholic and Apostolic form, including the Sacred Canon and the very words of consecration? To have no essential doubt about this high-schoolish fabrication by a Freemason and six Protestant ministers, one of whom has since recanted? To have no essential doubt about the Novus Ordo service, which yields the "Naked" Mess, the "Picnic" Mess, the "Seance" Mess, the "Cookie" Mess, and all the Messes around the world that have been so generously "approved" by Novus Ordo bishops? To have no essential doubt in light of the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Robert Bellarmine? To have no essential doubt after the analyses of P.H. Omlor and Fr. James Wathen? I daresay that every traditional Catholic has to have at least some essential doubt.
No, he claims -- more like a representative of the New Vatican than as an independent traditional bishop -- that he has "never said that the Mass of Paul VI is invalid." Moreover, he won't even define it as "heretical," even though it violates the Catholic and Apostolic form, even though the Canon was changed, which no pope dared to do after it was set (except John XXIII), even though it is far worse than the Anglican service that Pope Leo XIII considered invalid. No, he holds it only to be "damaging and dangerous to the Faith because it does not express clearly all that must be said in the Mass." Where has the chief bishop been for the last forty years? Is it possible that he is soft-pedaling the essential invalidity of the Novus Ordo because he wants to keep playing footsie with the scarlets and the purples at the New Vatican, and they'll cut him off if he doesn't swear the Oath to the New Order?Perhaps it is long overdue for the chief bishop to review his Anti-Modernist Oath and recall himself from his position of schmoozing with the New Order that has destroyed the Roman Catholic Faith for all too many since Vatican II and, if I may use the picturesque words of Homer [Iliad I:3] in this context: "pollas d'iphthímous psychàs Áïdi proíapsen" [hurled down to Hell many goodly souls].
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I am in the process of leaving the Novus Ordo and going traditional. In North Carolina I attended a Novus Ordo service one weekend on the Feast of Corpus Christi. During a "homily" about the Body of Christ and the participation in it via the Eucharist, the presbyter then stepped over to a table where one of the "hosts" was picked up to reveal that on this special feast day he had arranged for all of the thick-baked homemade bread objects to be shaped like gingerbread men, "thus facilitating our understanding that the Eucharist was the Body of Christ." These dough-cake objects were about 20 x 10 cm in order to function as large visual props to be discerned from even the back of the church.
"Communicants" received "communion" in a tear-off-the-piece sharing fashion, in which they would go up and tear a piece from Mr. Gingerbread. The presbyter was the only distributor of the gingerbread man so that he could be the main focus of attention and could watch to be sure that no one would accidentally take too much of the cookie loaf. As each "communicant" came up, breaking away his share, the breaking action would elicit a loud "ouch" from the presbyter, who had earlier explained that it hurts when we share, and little pieces of our bodies are thus broken off by others.
I left the Novus Ordo service, sickened by what was being allowed to continue there and in so much of the US. From what I could tell, most of the Novus Ordinarians left there found this sort of thing normal, par for the course, and probably thought that they were lucky to have such a "creative" presbyter. The Novus Ordo does seem to get a lot of its pedagogy from Sesame Street, which itself underestimates and insults the intelligence of its intended audience. They both share one thing in common: they do not believe that each person present has a soul -- active, alert, and far more perspicacious than mere human mental consciousness.
"Messes" previously covered:
One of the abominations of the post-Vatican II papacy are the gigantic Woodstock-like Novus Ordo services, held not in the great cathedrals of the world, but in profane places like sports stadia, baseball parks, and horse-racing tracks. Fr. McLucas reports on a tape recording that has been widely circulated that when Paul VI celebrated a Novus Ordo service in New York, the presbyters distributing communion (among them him) were instructed to return the extra "hosts" to the dugout, where there were tossed into burlap bags and disposed of.
Some readers don't like the fact that I call the Novus Ordo material "cookies," even though they come from an invalid service, with invalid ingredients as admitted by the Vatican itself, and increasingly questionable intention. But I say no more than the Novus Ordo and even the post-Vatican II popes say by their actions. It is they who treat this material as if it were inconsequential, to be tossed out into the trash or dropped all over the floor and stepped on. I think that Catholics are much more at ease of mind realizing that this material is not the Blessed Sacrament. Otherwise, the sacrilege would be too horrible to contemplate.
In any case, it seems that the pope has held another one of his extravaganzas, in Osijek, Croatia, this time on an airfield, of all places, in which he was indirectly responsible for the deaths of two people who died of heart attacks. Dozens of others suffered syncope and other maladies as a direct result of the outdoor Woodstock, at which temperatures reached as high as 40 degrees Celsius.
There is no need for these extravaganzas. Now people are dying because of their unnecessary theatricality. Perhaps we need to define a new type of Martyr: one who dies, or even suffers persecution, in holding fast against the sacrilegious, scandalous, and blasphemous Novus Ordo service, sacraments, and doctrine. There are already many names that could be put on such a list.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I read that the Pope purported to canonize a Croatian nun this week. And what was the "miracle" used for her canonization? A Peruvian junior officer, whose submarine was struck by a Japanese fishing boat; it began to sink; he prayed to the nun and then by his personal efforts succeeded in saving the submarine and rescuing his trapped shipmates.
If this is true, this pope, who has already undermined the careful and accurate canonization process established by his predecessor Urban VIII (1640) and used successfully for 400 years, has developed a new kind of miracle, not found in any textbook: the "humanisitic miracle," where the proof of divine intervention is the success of the one who is praying.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The formerly strict process of examination of candidates been so loosened under the current pope that canonization has lost, together with its solemnity, any confidence in its accuracy. Thus, this or that Saint "canonized" by John Paul II may in fact be in heaven -- only God knows -- but it is certainly not his "canonization" by this pope that can make us sure of the fact. Nor need we then feel obliged to venerate any of the post-Vatican II "Saints."
In 1983 Pope John Paul II gutted the long-standing tradition of the Church with respect to a rigorous process for scrutinizing canonizations used since his predecessor Pope Urban VIII in 1640. Instead, he instituted a new system of canonization that has been challenged as leading to treatment of candidates not so much for their individual spiritual merit (in the past proven by an often centuries-long process of investigation, miracles, and cultus) as for their "political correctness" for modern times.
The role of the Advocatus Diaboli (Devil's Advocate) was eliminated, and the number of meticulously substantiated miracles to practically nothing. The new norms eliminated any way that objections could be freely and fairly raised and allow the postulator (who is appointed by the petitioner for the cause) to present the case both for and against the candidate. In other words, one man may act as both lawyer for the plaintiff and defendant, but is in fact appointed by the plaintiff.
What is worse, and even more damaging to the cause of truth, the postulator, using a clause that allows him to eliminate "unsuitable" witnesses, is able effectively and selectively to bar the most damaging eye-witness testimony negating the candidate. This vague "unsuitability" clause was not a part of the traditional norms.
Apparently, Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI themselves did not consider canonization infallible. Otherwise, they would not have opened the Pandora's box by "de-canonizing" St. Philomena, who had been publicly venerated by several Saints and popes, and "de-canonizing" the 14 Auxiliary Saints, who had been venerated by millions of Catholic since the early Church, including St. Christopher and St. Barbara. If the Church of the New Order wishes to decanonize traditional Saints, turnabout is fair play: traditional Catholics can reserve judgment on the New Order's unproven candidates.
Has the Modern Vatican crossed the line in this question and in effect overruled the ordinance of God as expressed in that divine positive law? It would seem so if for no other reason than that significant parts of the Church are now, as never before, questioning the very sanctity of those who are supposed to be Saints of the New Order.
There is the very real possibility that factual errors are being made in some of these post-conciliar cases and that a future traditional pope will have to sort the cases out at some point in the future, when the Church is returned to Tradition. In the meantime, there are many thousands of traditional Saints, whose cultus are well established and whose intercession with our Lord Jesus Christ may be prayed for by the Roman Catholic faithful with full confidence and faith.
This "Barefoot" Mess is associated with "Lifeteen," a program to indoctrinate teenagers into Charismaticism, a particularly virulent modern-day mania infecting the Church of the New Order, which has its roots deep in the Protestant heresy. It is not surprising that many of the hosts on Mother Angelica's Charismatic cable channel are leading proponents of this heresy, including Scott Hahn, Ralph Martin and others associated with the University of Steubenville, Ohio, which is a center of the condemned Charismaticism.
Known initially as "Pentecostalism," the movement was renamed to reflect the various spiritual "gifts" (charismata), purportedly given by the Holy Ghost to individuals. The movement is closely associated with the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD, which was perfectly traditional before Vatican II, but afterwards was corrupted), Taize, "oecumenism," Marriage Encounter, the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA), Renew, Focolare, Cursillo, and Fatimism (extremism in association with Fatima).
Traditional Catholics should be careful to avoid these modern-day spiritual plagues and those who promote them.
I kid you not! A feature by Nick Wyke, Rome correspondent of the London Times (October 2, 2002), claims that Reginald Foster, one of the presbyters attached to the Vatican's Secretary of State, who has an office in the Vatican's Apostolic palace near the pope's offices, "each morning [he] says Mass here naked, 'as God intended him to be.'"
With the release on June 9 of Hillary Clinton's memoirs, reminding us that corruption in the United States involved the highest officer of the government, the evidence is becoming undeniable that the corruption in the Church is attached to the pope personally. One cannot claim that he "knows nothing," like the proverbial monkeys covering their eyes, ears, and mouth.
Even he admits in his latest encyclical that has completely failed to provide the Church with a reverent, valid Mass, that the abomination is just as bad in 2003 as it was in 1979, when he first wrote of it. He is the one who by inaction personally condoned the sexual escapades of his cardinals and bishops, as pictorially demonstrated by the Vatican-released photograph of his friendly tea in the library with the errant U.S. cardinals. Now one of his own staff officers violates his liturgical decrees and apparently says regularly a "Naked" Mass, which is reported in one of the world's leading newspapers, and there is only silence from this pope.
What further comment is necessary about this pope and his "New Advent," his "New Order"? To expect that this pope will do anything for the traditional Roman Catholic Faith, other than a few ploys to delude some indultarians into continuing to plunk money into Novus Ordo coffers in return for a pseudo-"indult" Mass, is absurd.
This has got to be one of the most bizarre of the Novus Ordo progeny! Remember that the principal reason for the involvement of the six Protestant ministers with Freemason Hannibal Bugnini in the fabrication of the "New Mass" was to change the true Mass so much that it could be used by Protestants. Bugnini and the ministers accomplished that. Even though this service happens to be Episcopalian, one can't tell any longer whether the "mess" is wacko Novus Ordo or wacko Protestant! For all intents and purposes, they are the same now, and no true Catholic can countenance or participate at either one.
The presbyter, "vested" in beach bum clothing, celebrates a Novus Ordo-based service using a surfboard as an altar, elevating the cookie, which, in this case, appears to be peanut butter -- yum, yum! A female assistant, "vested" in halter top and sunglasses, holds the text (God only knows what it is!) and looks up adoringly at the cookie. Perhaps she has a hankering for peanut-butter cookies too. The "crucifix" used for the service is a second surfboard, anchored in the sand, with a Greek cross (not a crucifix) inscribed in conjunction with the surfing moniker on the board. The "gifts" are presented in Hallmark gift bags, which are left on the altar.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Can new "Eucharistic prayers" be made up by liturgists or bishops or just anyone as they choose? A Novus Ordo magazine in Australia recently reported without comment on a new "Eucharistic Prayer of Healing" used in the Diocese of Rockhampton, Queensland. The principal celebrant was the Novus Ordo bishop, and the subject was the drought. I am mainly wondering whether a new "Eucharistic Prayer" can just be concocted and used at will. Is this one of the "wild masses" you have mentioned previously? My traditional handmissal contains some beautiful and dignified collects for rain in a time of drought, to be prayed in the context of the traditional Roman Catholic Mass.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The term "Eucharistic prayer" became common only after the Freemason Bugnini and his six Protestant minister-colleagues invented three new ones in 1967. Prior to that time, the terminology was that the Roman Mass had only a Canon (the Greek word meaning standard or rule), indicating an invariable form.
Here, again, we see how the vernacularization of the New Order has been a (the) fundamental factor in the undermining of the Roman Catholic Faith. Once Latin was undermined in the New Order, the Mass, the Sacraments, and the Faith could all be changed willy-nilly. That was not possible when Latin was the guardian of the Roman Catholic Faith. The popes warned of this many times, but all too many Catholics were ignorant of their Faith and were bamboozled into the false belief that the Latin language was not fundamentally important to the Faith. They are now suffering the consequences of that ignorance with wilder and wilder Novus Ordo services that are now far worse than most Protestant services!
It seems that the principal reason why Bugnini was dismissed and exiled by Pope Paul VI had to do with the proliferation of these "Eucharistic prayers," in what were called messes sauvages, that is, wild masses, because they were out of control. Nevertheless, the legacy of the Novus Ordo is a wild mess, and what you report about invented "Eucharistic prayers" is true world wide. I understand now that the New Vatican countenances some one hundred of them.
Of course, anything other than the original Canon in the Roman Rite (leaving aside the issue of Eastern rites; we are talking here about the precedential Roman Rite), which came to us from the Apostles, is not catholic, not apostolic, and invalid. No one, not even the pope, has the power to "invent" a Mass, as it would not be Apostolic. These made-up "Eucharistic prayers" are just another nail in the coffin to prove the invalidity of the Novus Ordo service.
I can hear some Novus Ordinarians out there countering: "But it's not that bad in my parish." The response to which is: "It is already bad enough to make the service invalid, sacrilegious, scandalous, and blasphemous." First of all, the service is being offered in the vulgar tongue instead of the sacred Latin. This was specifically condemned by the dogmatic Council of Trent, and anyone advocating it was condemned. When you change the language, you automatically change the meaning. It is not the same Mass, no matter how good the "translation" is supposed to be. Secondly, even the original Roman Canon, when brought into the Novus Ordo, was changed. Parts were omitted, and the very words of Consecration, which are Apostolic in origin, were changed.
It is quite clear now, if it wasn't before, that the Novus Ordo is a counterfeit, not a Mass, and nothing that any Catholic should have anything to do with. That is what Pope Pius V told Catholics to do about the Anglican service of the 16th century, which was far closer to Roman Mass than the Novus Ordo today. The fact that there are still too many Catholics who sit coma-like in the pews, studiously avoiding any judgment that what they are seeing is not Catholic and not Apostolic and would be condemned by some 260 popes, 20 oecumenical councils, and thousands of Saints, is a testament to how far the average Catholic sense has fallen in the last 40 years.
Those who attend a Novus Ordo service might just as well attend the Methodist service down the street. Neither are Masses, but perhaps the Methodist service has more decorum and is more reverent. Of course, neither the Novus Ordo nor the Methodist service should be attended by Catholics, as it would be sacrilegious, scandalous, and blasphemous.
Now, as more of the details of that "indult" Love-in Mass at Santa Maria Maggiore on May 24 in Rome, presided over by Card. Hoyos of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, become available, we realize just what a ruse it was -- all show and no substance. TRADITIO pointed out in a previous Commentary how all the hype about a "universal indult," a "re-incommunication" of the SSPX, a "de-excommunication" of SSPX bishops, and all the rest that was supposed to take place then completely failed to materialize. The text of Hoyos's sermon has now become available, which included the following statement:
It is to John Paul II, our beloved Pope, that our thoughts, our prayers, and our profound and affectionate sense of ecclesial communion goes out. In these twenty-five years, his life and his supreme apostolic ministry have been characterized by an unwearying defense of the truth, by a total dedication to the cause of the unity of the Church, and by a prophetic and courageous pastoral work for the promotion of a true and just peace among people and among all men.
Has Hoyos lost his mind?! John Paul II has been one of the most disastrous popes in the history of the Church. Paul VI did a lot of damage, to be sure, in his 15 years. But the current pope has now had 25 years to complete the destruction. And this is not just TRADITIO saying this. The pope admits in his latest encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistica, that he has totally failed in his pontificate over the last 25 years to correct the destruction of the Mass that he had described in his two 1979 encyclicals.
Defending the truth? On the contrary, it is hard to think of a pope who has caused more confusion about the true Roman Catholic Faith. Do Catholics know better the basic doctrines of the Faith are, or do they hold now to heresies like Indifferentism ("all religions are equal") and extremism like Charismaticism? Does anybody know the Apostles Creed any longer?
Unifying the Church? On the contrary, this pope has completed the division of a schismatic Novus Ordo Church from the true Roman Catholic Church. Historically, he appears to rank with the likes of the heretic pope Liberius and the excommunicated pope Honorius.
It is clear that Hoyos is no sincere advocate of the traditional Roman Catholic Faith. He is simply a sycophantic mouthpiece for a New Order papacy, with a little Latin around the edges to confuse the indultarians.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
The official Latin text of the pope's latest encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia uses pro omnibus (i.e., "for all") instead of the biblical pro multis ("for many") in references to the words of consecration of the Holy Eucharist. Part of the text in section 2 reads:
Deinde calicem in manus vini sustulit eisque dixit: "Accipite et bibite omnes: hic calix novum aeternumque testamentum est in sanguine meo, qui pro vobis funditur et pro omnibus in remissionem peccatorum" (cfr Mc 14, 24; Lc 22, 20; 1 Cor 11, 25). (emphasis added)
Whereas this section is not quoting directly the words of consecration, it is, for the first time I know of, introducing the heretical words of Universal Salvation into an official Latin text (previously, it was only the translation into the vulgar tongues that was affected).
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The situation seems even more devious than that. If you check the three passages cited to confer, you will find that only one, Mark 14:24, has the corresponding phrase, and St. Mark uses pro multis: "et ait illis hic est sanguis meus novi testamenti qui pro multis effunditur." The passages cited from St. Luke and St. Paul have neither phrase. Therefore, the three biblical passages cited actually contradict the pope's statement. It pays to read the footnotes!
Vatican II is well known for having planted seemingly innocuous "bombshells" in documents, so that they pass by unnoticed at first, only to be exploded later. This may well be such a bombshell.
In Bishop Fulton Sheen's old diocese of Rochester, New York, St. Monica Church featured the latest Novus Ordo Mess: the "Tango" Mess, as danceuses of the Borinquen Dance Theatre cavorted in God's supposed house to the beat of a steel drum band to accompany the Mess.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
On March 10, 2000, at the Saint Anthony Daniel Church, Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, my wife and I were witnesses to a Novus Ordo Mess in which young girls dressed for a ballet and danced up each aisle of the church towards the altar. One was carrying a large container of wine. Novus Ordo Bishop Colin Campbell watched as sweet grass was lit and offered up. This was an obvious nod to paganism there were several American Indian children being confirmed.
We would also like to mention that in 1989 the now Novus Ordo Bishop of Ottawa, Canada, asked my wife to make liners for the wicker communions baskets. She refused. (We have since smartened up and have nothing to do with the New Order.)
Fr. Moderator Replies.
So, claims of the Novus Ordinarians that these abominations never happen, or only rarely, are indeed false, if not outright lies. These abominations are happening all over the world, in all Novus Ordo dioceses, and in all Novus Ordo parishes, which, at the very least, have the invalid, blasphemous, and sacrilegious Protestant New Order service in the vulgar tongues.
I recently came upon an issue of The Remnant, at that time a handy-sized twice-a-month photo-offset publication, edited by Walter Matt. The convenient size of the periodical, together with the brevity and tightly focused writing, is, in many ways, superior to the publication's current newspaper size and long, involved articles.
In any case, here is the prediction of the editor on January 1, 1972, two years after the Novus Ordo Missae was imposed:
The conclusion to be drawn from all this is that, not merely is the Tridentine rite [a misnomer: it is the traditional Roman Rite] saved, but the new rite is fated to die. The fact that the new rite has more followers than the Tridentine is nothing to go by. The Church cannot be said to have accepted it until she settles down to it and uses it in peace. She cannot use it in peace while it is causing the scandal and travail of souls that it is causing. The numbers that are unhappy about it range from those who, in desperation, are inventing all sorts of dangerous theories, on to the rank-and-file, and again on to theologians and philosophers who can hold their own against any of the intelligentsia among the reformers. This cross-section of the Church is too powerful to be ignored; it is on the increase. In one word, the new rite is a foreign body which the Church cannot digest, and must therefore sooner or later eject. Fear not, little flock! You weep now, but you shall laugh and your joy no man shall take from you!
What Walter Matt predicted at that time has certainly become truer and true in the passing decades. Even the New Vatican, which is committed to the New Order, has had to admit that things are bad and falling apart. It is trying desperately to make a rapprochement with traditional Catholics, but is failing because it itself is too thoroughly corrupted by the New Order. In fact, it is no longer Catholic, and that has become clear with the passage of time. More and more the faithful are spitting up the New Order and reverting to the Roman Catholic Faith of Tradition.
I recently came upon an issue of St. Michael's News, a publication of St. Michael's Legion for the Promotion of Christianity, dated June 1970 (Volume 4, Number 2), published in Zarephath, New Jersey. It was a window into memories of the past. TRADITIO's denunciations of the invalidity of the Protestant Novus Ordo service and its invalid cookie are far from new. The same things were being pointed out in 1970, when the Novus Ordo service went into effect.
Unfortunately, there were few then who spoke out, and fewer who listened. Now, after thirty-some years, more Catholics have learned their lesson in pain and tears. There are far more now who see the reality of the Novus Ordo service as intrinsically invalid, sacrilegious, blasphemous, and unCatholic and who regard the Novus Ordo matter as a "cookie," full of invalidating "ingredients."
Here are a few of the salient observations made by Fr. Marian Palandrano at the time, who edited and published that monthly periodical. It only goes to show the truth of the biblical maxim, nihil sub sole novum:
So, there you have it. The Novus Ordo was shoveling the same offal in 1970 when the "New Mass" was originally rolled out, as it does now. It was bamboozling good Catholics already back then with the unCatholic principle "obedience to my pope, right or wrong, even if I disobey Christ." Will they ever learn?
Thank the Lord for sending us at that time his "prophets": Fr. Gommar DePauw, Mr. Patrick Omlor, Fr. James Wathen, and Fr. Marian Palandrano. Most Catholics failed to listen to them, so God in justice imposed a severe penalty upon those Catholics. Like Job, their rich possessions of the Holy Mass, Sacraments, and Faith were taken away from them, and they were stricken with a hideous disease. Those Catholics who remained faithful to the Roman Catholic Mass, Sacraments, and Faith were blessed by God with a great light in the darkness around them.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
It doesn't take long for the truth to come out. Card. Ratzinger has let the cat out of the bag, confirming what TRADITIO has said all along, that to the New Vatican the whole "Latin Mass" push is a ploy. Nor is it the Traditional Latin Mass, even the modernized one of 1962, that is the ultimate form intended for this. Indultarians will be pushed from 1962, to 1965 (when radical changes began to be made), to 1967 (when the Apostolic words of the Consecration were changed to invalidity), to 1969 (when the full-blown Novus Ordo Missae was foisted upon people). Here are Ratzinger's words:
When asked if the Mass should be said in Latin again, Ratzinger responded: "That is no longer going to be possible as a general practice, and perhaps it is not desirable as such. At least it is clear, I would say that the Liturgy of the Word should be in people's mother tongue. But otherwise I would be in favor of a new openness toward the use of Latin.
It seems to me that the Vatican is in a state of panic because Novus Ordinarians appear to be deserting the new "Mess" in droves. Maybe what they are really attempting to revive is attendance and collection plates on Sundays, which is currently below 17% in the United States and worse in Europe.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Ratzinger is telling the truth. The New Vatican has no interest in the traditional Roman Catholic Faith of two millennia, together with its Mass and Sacraments, but only to the New Order. Oh, sure, they might permit a "Latin Mass" every now and again as a publicity piece, but that "Latin Mass" is full of the New Order; it is not the Traditional Latin Mass.
The New Vatican is quite willing to violate Sacred Tradition, the dogmatic Council of Trent, and previous popes, all of whom condemned the use of the vulgar tongues in sacred worship. Remember how the Anglican Protestant rite began: with the reading of the Epistle and Gospel in the vulgar tongue at the altar. From that, everything went downhill fast. Any traditional Catholic who has any tolerance for this type of thing is abysmally ignorant of Church history.
Have you ever wondered why the Novus Ordo Church has rescinded virtually every Catholic practice except the Sunday "obligation"? It's simple. If Novus Ordinarians didn't have to go (and five out of six of them don't now), the churches would be empty, and the presbyters couldn't shovel their Modernism and Political Correctness in the name of religion to a captive audience. Moreover, the collections would be non-existent. I am told that in the Novus Ordo churches today, the average contribution is a dollar bill. Well, you get what you pay for, and apparently the Novus Ordinarians don't believe that they are getting any more from their "Mess" than the value ofRoman as.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
My girlfriend is a vegetarian. She claims that it is wrong to kill animals for food when we have other ways of getting sufficient food. When she argues that modern agriculture has no respect for God's creation, I agree with her. But when she says it is morally wrong to kill an animal to eat it, it makes me very uncomfortable. I disagree strongly, and oppose it based on secular argumentation. However, that is not enough. What are the true teachings of the Church on this subject?
She is Catholic, very devoted and very faithful. But I have these fears that there is pantheism somewhere deep down in that mix of arguments. On the basis of what you know now, do you think it is unreasonable of me to have these fears?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Not at all. You may be quite right about pantheism being at the base of this notion for some people. The Catholic teaching is that Almighty God gave to man dominion over the earth. Naturally, that dominion should be exercised with prudence, but the eating of animals for food generally involves no moral concerns. The Jews certain ate animals, as did the Christians from the beginning. If one chooses to not to eat meat, that is his choice, but there is nothing against religion in eating meat.
Animals do not have a rational soul, any more than a plant does, although animals are above plants in the Aristotelico-Thomistic scale of living things, as they have locomotion. There are some extreme vegetarians who will not even eat a plant that they have to pick. For example, they will eat fruit only after it has naturally fallen to the ground. There is an element of illogical scrupulosity in that extreme, and perhaps the germ of the "New Age," pantheistic mentality, which would, for example, give animals "rights" that they do not have while denying humans beings the rights that they do have.
In post Vatican II times, when theology has been "vernacularized," all too many Catholics are lazy about the correct use of theological terms. Plants have life too, so it is not the "respect for life" that motivates the vegetarian. It is critical, particularly in these immoral times, to distinguish between rational life and non-rational life. To confuse the two leads us to mourn a rat squashed crossing the highway, but accept with equanimity the practice of aborting of a human being. The loss of the exactitude of the 2000-year Latin theology, engineered by the Modernists of Vatican II, can be pointed to directly as the cause of much of the erroneous moral thinking that vexes the postmodern world.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
What is the proper understanding of the saying Roma dixit; causa finita est [Rome has spoken; the case is closed]? I've heard it used in reference to the Novus Ordo Mess. I'm 100% sure the saying is being abused, but I'd like to understand it for what it is.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
It's one of those catch-phrases that doesn't really mean anything unless you understand the context. Suppose "Rome" says: "Christ had three natures, divine, human and angelic." Is the "case closed"? Of course not. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that no person or institution has the authority to contradict Our Lord Jesus Christ's Deposit of Faith, Sacred Scripture, or Sacred Tradition. No, not even the pope, who is his servant and subordinate.
The other question, of course, is what is "Rome" in this saying, to the degree that the saying even represents Catholic doctrine? Is it the city founded by Romulus and Remus on the banks of the Tiber river? Is it the Church bureaucracy? Is it the pope? No, it can be none of these things. In the context, it must be the Rome of the Roman Catholic Faith, founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, and handed down to us in the Deposit of Faith, through Catholic and Apostolic Tradition.
According to dogmatic council Vatican I, even the pope has to submit to that. He is merely the "guardian" of the Deposit of Faith. If he adds to or changes that Faith, the Church teaches that his actions are null and void.
For the Holy Ghost was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by His revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by His assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or Deposit of Faith transmitted by the Apostles. --First Vatican Council, Constitutio Dogmatica Prima de Ecclesia Christi (Pastor Aeternus), capitulum 4, De Romani Pontificis Infallibili Magisterio
So, it would be an error even to take the saying as absolute doctrine, and even to the degree that it represents any Catholic doctrine, it is not a universal principle. It can certainly not be used to justify the Novus Ordo service, the Novus Ordo Sacraments, and the Novus Ordo Faith which has neither valid form, matter, and/or intention and which contradicts the Catholic and Apostolic teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.
A comment received from Tom indicates that St. Augustine uttered this saying (or something close to it), in Sermon CXXXI of September 417. Pope Zosimus was waffling on his precedessor's, Pope St. Innocent I's, anathema against the heretic Pelagius. St. Augustine meant by his statement that since Rome had already spoken on the matter (a reference to Pope St. Innocent I's anathema against Pelagius), the case ought not to be reopened, even by Pope Zosimus, who ought to give his assent to the solemn judgment of his predecessor.
St. Augustine made his statement, then, at a time when a pope was in the process of lending aid and comfort to heretics, when he should have been holding fast to what his predecessor had decreed. The great Saint was not saying that every decision of Rome must be blindly obeyed; otherwise, he would have supported the reigning pope. He was warning people, the Pope included, that Rome had already spoken on this matter and that it would be gravely wrong for anyone (even, presumably, a pope) to attempt to reverse a solid and sound judgment on a matter of Catholic doctrine.
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