We have all been deluged in the last week or two by an increased disinformation campaign being conducted by the media against Mel Gibson and his biblical film. I have read dozens of press articles from around the world during this period, and I can say without a doubt that they are unadulterated trash.
Since the early 1960s, there really are no fully informed religious writers. I have seen so many errors of fact, distortions, and deliberate calumny in these articles that I don't really read them any more. They show no analysis or checking of facts, only the author's personal (usually malicious) uninformed opinion. One correspondent has summed up these articles as follows:
Ultimately, what they despise isn't necessarily Mel Gibson or his film. They hate his religion, the Bible, the story it relates, and they especially hate the Catholic Church because it's founded on intrinsic right and wrong, good and evil.
And yet, the more these people spew their calumnies against Gibson, traditional Catholics, and the Bible itself, the more Gibson's popularity increases, and the more his film sells. This is going to be a blockbuster. The number of theaters has been increased from 2000 to 4000, which is larger than any blockbuster of recent years. Whole theaters are sold out for weeks.
Is it possible that the more the extremist Talmudists calumniate Gibson, Catholicism, and the Bible, the more the common man begins to understand exactly what happened in A.D. 33? Do they see the allegory of a crucified Gibson being put upon by Talmudist leaders, who have malicious and financial motives against Gibson, just as Caiphas had against Christ? The similarity of biblical to modern times is just too uncanny.
I note that in the final title of Mel Gibson's film, he uses The Passion of the Christ, with the definite article in front of Christ. Could you explain this usage?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The title The Christ (with the definite article, as it is in the Greek) is a traditional name for the Messias, The Anointed One, which is the meaning of Ho Christós in Greek. The Latin Christus (the Latinized form of the Greek title) is also used in the Latin Vulgate to denote the Messias and is rendered in the Douay-Rheims version as The Christ. (Latin itself has no definite article.)
You are apparently thinking of the usage without the definite article, usually in combination with the Most Holy Name. So, one finds Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus. I suspect that many people, even some traditional Catholics, think that Our Lord's "first name" is Jesus and His "last name" is Christ. This is not the case. The Holy Name, Jesus, is his given name, meaning Savior, imposed at the time of His Circumcision. Christos is an eponym, The Christ, The Anointed One, which can either precede or follow the given name.
Gibson is dead accurate with this usage to refer to the Messias. From what I have heard, the film as a whole is meticulous in its accuracy.
Take this quiz. What country does the following describe?
The New Order Church in this country faces the worst crisis in its history. The scandal of clerical sexual abuse has compounded the catastrophic decline in vocations to the New Order presbyterate. All but one of the diocesan seminaries have closed, and a generation of religious illiterates is being produced by the current catechetical program. The pews are emptying more rapidly than ever before. In some parishes Sunday Mess attendance has fallen to well below 10 per cent. The New Order archbishop has an answer to this accelerating trend: priestesses. At his cathedral almost all the liturgical tasks are carried out by women: lectoresses, cantoresses, servettes, offertoresses. There is no place for men in this archbishop's church, except for him, so that he can control the whole charade.
Are you ready for the answer? It may shock you to learn that this nadir of the Catholic Faith describes what used to be one of the most identifiably Catholic countries: IRELAND!
This New Order Counterfeit archbishop is just as clueless as his New Order colleagues. The Anglicans found that the truth of the matter. After they accepted priestesses, there was a little bump in "ordinations," but because the women were radicals, in it only for making a political point, they dropped out, and now the Anglican Church is expected to be disestablished and virtually disappear within a generation.
The bishops of the New Order just don't get it. Or -- what is becoming increasingly obvious -- they get it and deliberately want to destroy the Roman Catholic Church as 2000 years of Roman Catholics have known it. These New Order bishops are certainly not Roman Catholic, if they are even Catholic at all. Just because they give lip service to a pope whose own Catholicism has been brought into serious questions does not make them Catholic. The sign on their church door does not make them Catholic.
What makes one Catholic is belief and practice: belief in the Deposit of Faith, not the Counterfeit Faith of the New Order; and practice of the true Roman Mass and Sacraments of the Church, not the phony Mess and Secraments of the New Order.
Consider this. If, despite its blatant departure from the traditions of the Church, the Novus Ordo and the new theology which that service supports can be justified and approved of, then all the Saints were superstitious simpletons, all the theologians were liars, and all of our Catholic forefathers were duped idiots, including some of the greatest minds in human history: St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Thomas More, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Benedict, St. Louis de Montfort.
These and all previous Catholics were traditional Catholics. They all believed exactly the same as traditional Catholics today do. It is not a mere matter of opinion, but a matter of irrefutable fact that the traditional Faith, the traditional Mass, and the traditional Sacraments are Roman Catholic, not the novel teachings of Vatican II, not false oecumenism, and certainly not the New Order/Protestant/Pagan service.
No one who calls himself a Roman Catholic can have anything to do with a putatively invalid rite, defined as not a Mass, flaunting condemned heresy, perverting Christ's own most solemn Consecratory Prayer in both word and form, contradicting Christ's and His Church's identical sacrificial intention, fraudulently introduced as an experiment in flagrant violation of laws made to protect our Holy Mass and in deliberate fracture of two most solemn oaths required of and sworn by every true priest at ordination and every bishop at consecration. (Source: Sunday Business Post.)
We are what you once were.
We believe what you once believed.
We worship as you once worshipped.
If you were right then, we are right now.
If we are wrong now, you were wrong then.
SEEK OUT EXCLUSIVELY THE TRADITIONAL ROMAN CATHOLIC LATIN MASS, SACRAMENTS, AND FAITH IN YOUR AREA.
Since 1957 Communist China allowed the Patriotic Catholic Church to operate, as long as it had no formal contact with the pope. Since that time, of course, Vatican II and the New Order intervened. A windfall of the government-imposed separation was that the PCC was able to retain the Traditional Latin Mass and the traditional Sacraments that were being denied all over the world to those in the New Order.
I recall not too many years ago seeing on television a broadcast from China of the Midnight Mass of Christmas and the administration of the Sacrament of Confirmation, both in the traditional Latin rite. Yet in Rome it had been more than thirty years since that Mass had been seen. In that period, there has also been an "Underground Church," which tried to maintain the papal connection, but lost the true Mass and Sacraments.
Unfortunately, it seems that now the true Mass and Sacraments have been lost to the PCC as well. Since 1992 the Communist government ordered that the liturgy no longer be in Latin, but in the vulgar tongue. The government did so expressly because, as it said, it had observed that in the West the vulgarization of the Mass had been "the best means to move the faithful away from the Church and the Faith." Then, last year, the other shoe was dropped. The government ordered radio, television, and newspapers to "promote athiesm."
Now, however, it appears that Providentially a third organization has arisen. The "Church of the Catacombs," as it is called, practices -- clandestinely -- the true Latin Mass and Sacraments in the traditional Latin rite. And would it surprise you to find out that the greater enemy of the Church of the Catacombs is the New Vatican rather than the Chinese government!
The New Vatican, always eager to suppress the unadulterated Roman Catholic Faith, is now overtly supporting the Patriotic Catholic Church, which does not recognize the pope and is the tool of the Communist government. Figure that one out! When the formally schismatic PCC consecrated bishops recently without the Vatican's approval, you would have expected excommunications to fly, wouldn't you?, just as the New Vatican purported to hold that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was "excommunicated," to the objection of almost a dozen leading Roman canonists. (Just another reason to believe that Abp. Lefebvre was one of the few regular bishops left, while the others should, on the contrary, have been excommunicated for Modernism, as Pope St. Pius X did.)
The Church of the Catacombs, as a consequence, is in total consternation, disappointment, and feeling betrayed by "Rome." Yet these courageous Catholics, perhaps the only Roman Catholics left in Communist China, still maintain, and suffer for, the true Mass and Sacraments of the traditional Roman rite. [RU News]
I happen to be reading a scholarly history of the hierarchy of the Church as it existed in the tenth century -- a story replete of political and moral corruption, fornication, payoffs, hush-money, murder, and mayhem. Just like today, I thought!
We had New Order Archbishop Rembert Weakland, of Milwaukee, a virulently anti-traditional Catholic, who was caught in sodomy with a much younger man, who then proceeded to blackmail the archbishop. To pay the hush-money, the archbishop embezzled nearly half a million dollars from the parishioners of his diocese. He is now the ex bishop of Milwaukee.
Then we have New Order Bishop Thomas O'Brien, of Phoenix. He's on trial now for hitting and running down a man with his car and trying to conceal the crime. He is now the ex bishop of Phoenix.
Now it's New Order Bishop Thomas Dupre, of Springfield, who was confronted "with accusations that he had sexually abused two minor boys three decades ago when he was a priest." He is now the ex bishop of Springfield.
The New Order is not having a presbyter scandal as much as it is having a bishop scandal. These are the same bishops who lied, cheated, stole our Roman Catholic Mass, Sacraments, and Faith from us. Now it turns out that they have lied, cheated, and stole under the covers as well. No wonder Governor Frank Keating, the U.S. Bishops' chief investigator, called the U.S. bishops "a criminal organization."
Add these three to the roster of New Order bishops who have resigned following allegations of moral turpitude. And don't forget the embezzlements of the Novus Ordo bishops, which are even more scandalous. Novus Ordo bishops previously ex'd include:
And these seven are just the tip of the iceberg. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely," it is said. These New Order bishops have arrogated to themselves the power of God. They have destroyed the Roman Catholic Faith of their parishioners and redirected charitable funds to their own personal "entertainments." They have abused the innocent to serve their personal perversions. That I condemn, but I understand it within the context of Church history and Original Sin.
What I do not comprehend is that the Novus Ordinarians in the pews contribute more money than every to these corrupt bishops. It's as if the Novus Ordinarians were supporting the expansion of brothels in their cities. Have these Novus Ordinarians lost their senses? Perhaps so. When one takes a New God and fabricates a New Order Worship service, St. Paul's analysis holds true:
Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified him as God or given thanks: but became vain in their thoughts. And their foolish heart was darkened (Romans 1:21/DRV).
The jig is up for Vatican II. So much evidence has accumulated in the last forty years that it was an unmitigated disaster for the Church that some New Order ecclesiocrats are trying "historical revisionism" to get out from under the stigma. The Adoremus crowd already tried this, unsuccessfully, with the Protestant-Masonic-Pagan Novus Ordo service. The service isn't "intrinsically evil"; it was just badly "translated" or "interpreted" or "performed" or some such excuse, they said. Not at all: if the apple is rotten at the core, it doesn't matter how much wax you put on the skin to make it shine!
One of these "revisionists" is a Jesuit, hailing from an order that has gone so far off the dime in the past as to be suppressed by the pope and so wacko that its adherents after Vatican II took up arms and fought with the Communists in Latin America. Now it seems that Avery Cardinal Dulles says that Vatican II "was no revolution in Catholic thought or doctrine. The widespread misinterpretation of the council, in my judgment, is due to [the fact that] the thinking and feeling of our age is dominated by subjectivism, individualism, relativism, and historicism -- things that are as prevalent today as ever in the past."
Is this man believable?! Subjectivism, individualism, relativism, and historicism were the erroneous hallmarks of Vatican II itself, as exposed by numerous theologians. Vatican II is riddled with errors deriving from these Modernist philosophies. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the interpretation, but in the Council itself!
Some claim that the following is an "urban legend." Others confirm its reliability. What is undeniable is that the ACLU and other Liberalist factions are proven to be doing everything they can to prohibit the constitutional free exercise of religion in this country. If you don't think that this incident has actually occurred, read the story as an allegory for what may likely happen. After all, it has already gone farther than this in Canada and other countries.
If you look closely at the picture above, you will note that all the Marines pictured are bowing their heads. That's because they're praying. The incident supposedly took place at a recent ceremony honoring the birthday of the corps, and it has the American Civil Liberties Union (the most inaptly named organization ever) up in arms. "These are federal employees," a spokesman for the ACLU is alleged to have said, "on federal property and on federal time. For them to pray is clearly an establishment of religion, and we must nip this in the bud immediately." When asked about the ACLU's charges, one officer supposedly responded (edited a bit), "@#!%& the ACLU."
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Exactly the right response to such a situation. (It is the same response that should be given to New Order officials who try to impose their phony One World religion on Catholics.)
Somewhere along the line, the ACLU has failed to read the U.S. Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Apparently, the Founding Fathers had more sense than the ACLU. They saw that government must maintain a balance in this matter. It is not our constitutional history that every element of religion, no matter how voluntary or how brief, is to be expunged from the public forum. Even the U.S. Supreme Court has had sense enough to see this reality.
During Lent those in the Church of the New Order are not supposed to eat meat on Fridays, but I understand that the Roman Catholic practice is to abstain from meat every Friday. What is the history of this practice?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Explicit mention is made of the practice of abstaining from fleshmeat on Fridays in a document from the end of the first century A.D., the Didache of the Apostles, revered as an Apostolic document, as well as by St. Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian in the third century. The perpetual tradition of the Church is clear beyond possibility of mistake on this matter, and from the earliest times the Christians at certain seasons denied themselves fleshmeat and wine, or even restricted themselves to bread and water (Concilium Laodicinum Canon 50).
The Friday abstinence was the universal custom from the very beginning, as Friday was dedicated to the memory of the Passion of Our Lord, as a day on which we should make a special effort to practice penance. It is in recognition of the fact that Christ suffered and died, and gave up his human flesh and life for our sins on a Friday that Catholics do not eat fleshmeat on Fridays.
By our abstinence on Friday, we recall, and participate in some small way, in the great sacrifice of Our Lord for us on that Good Friday. Moreover, by abstaining from fleshmeat, we give up what is, on the whole, the most pleasant, as well as the most nourishing food, and so we make satisfaction for the temporal punishment due to sin even when its guilt has been forgiven.
The law of abstinence now forbids only fleshmeat and gravies and soup made from fleshmeat. All other kinds of food are allowed. All persons over seven years of age must abstain. This means that they may not take fleshmeat, meat gravy, or meat soup at all on days of complete abstinence, which are all Fridays (except on holydays of obligation), Ash Wednesday, Holy Saturday (until noon), and the Vigils of the Immaculate Conception and Christmas. They may take meat, but only at the principal meal, on days of partial abstinence, which are Ember Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the Vigils of Pentecost and of All Saints' Day.
The abstinence from fleshmeat is an ecclesiastical law with associations to Divine Positive Law, as expressed, for example, in St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians (9:25) and Second Epistle to the Corinthians (6:5). It has long obliged under pain of mortal sin, since Pope Nicholas I in the ninth century. Pope Innocent III at the beginning of the 13th century confirmed this teaching, and Pope Alexander VII anathematized those who would minimize the character of a breach as only venially sinful. Traditional Catholics know full well that they have a grave obligation of maintaining this immemorial practice since the Apostles. They can and should confess a knowing and willful breach without excuse as a mortal sin against the Second Precept of the Church.
The Church does not forbid certain kinds of food on the ground that they are impure (that is the Jewish belief, disputed by St. Paul in 1 Timothy 4:4). The abstinence required is a reasonable one and is not exacted from those who it would injure in health or incapacitate for their ordinary duties. Abstinence is a means, not an end, and is meritorious only insofar as it proceeds from faith and love of God (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa IIae, q. 146, a. 1). Abstinence promotes our spiritual health by enabling us to subdue our flesh (1 Corinthians 9:27).
What does it say when the Novus Ordo apparatus turns its back on such an Apostolic practice of the Church for no reason whatsoever? Can we not do such a little self-mortification for our spiritual health by abstaining from fleshmeat on that one day of the week, which so many nonCatholics do anyway for reasons of mere bodily health -- or to save the whales?
Ex Phoenix New Order Bishop Thomas O'Brien on February 17 became the first bishop in U.S. history to be convicted of a felony, viz., felony hit-and-run. He ran down a 250-pound man crossing the street, then sped off without even seeing whether the man needed Last Rites. In the most pathetic "shaggy dog" story ever heard, this New Order "bishop" claimed that he thought he had run over a 250-pound dog! (I guess the bishop couldn't stop to tend to an injured animal either.) After the killing, the bishop tried to conceal his involvement, getting his windshield fixed before the police could see it.
This poster boy for the Church of the New Order, who once claimed that he would "approve" the celebration of the true Mass in his diocese only over his dead body, has displayed to the world the perversion that is the New Order Church. The "bishop" never once expressed any remorse for killing the man. I hope that the remaining Novus Ordinarians take a good look at this bishop of theirs and once and for all eschew the fable of the self-proclaimed Church of Love.
O'Brien could get up to four years in prison for his crime. One hopes that his judge is more hard-headed than some in the past and view the criminal's clerical state as being the reason for the imposing the harshest sentence, not an excuse for giving a lenient sentence. After all, this "bishop" not only killed the man, not only fled away, but failed to stop and help, physically or spiritually, and attempted to conceal his crime. Moreover, he had already been given a "deal" by the prosecutors to let him off charges of obstruction of justice for suborning child molestation by his presbyters.
Even when exposed, this man fought his removal as bishop. It was reported that the pope himself started to back down until powerful representatives of Phoenix said, "Either you get rid of this "bishop," or there will be no 'Catholic' Church left in Phoenix." The New Vatican capitulated in a New York second! (People, you still don't realize what power you have. You can make popes and bishops bend to do what is right. That is the history of our Church when popes and bishops go off the deep end.)
One of the bishop's shills, a Monsignor Dale Fushek, the diocese's co-vicar general and a friend of O'Brien, said: "It's the kind of situation where nobody wins." I beg to differ, monsignor. The grieving family won. The people of Phoenix won. They are rid of an unrepentant thug who did not merit the post. They acted just like the Romans of our Church who, when facing a corrupt pope or bishop, ran him out of town. One they threw into the Tiber River.
And what did the O'Brien's New Order successor, Thomas Olmsted? "I feel a great deal of empathy for Bishop O'Brien," he said. He had empathy for an unrepentant hit-and-run criminal. But he expressed not one word of empathy for the family of an innocent man, a relatively young man of 43, a father of two, killed, an American Indian. Some members of the family wept after the verdict. O'Brien continued to show no remorse whatsoever.
Some years ago a man phoned me. "I'm the chairman of our church's liturgy committee," he said. "We're proud of our beautiful traditional church here by the ocean, but our new pastor wants to 'renovate' it to New Order specifications. When I said that in conscience I would have to fight him on this, he fired me and threatened my life. What should I do?" I told the man, "That's not a priest; that's a thug. Have him arrested." And that's just what the man did.
Almost immediately the New Order bishop phoned. This was the same bishop who couldn't be bothered to talk to the man about saving the church. Now the bishop wanted to "dialogue" so the presbyter could be released. The man once again phoned me. "How should I reply to the bishop?," he asked. My advice was to say the following. "Tell you what, bishop. Next Sunday you get up into the pulpit of our church, and you apologize for the actions of your thug-presbyter. After all, you are his superior, and the law holds you responsible too. Once you have apologized to me and to our congregation, I'll start talking with you about the future plans for this church. Then, and only then, we may get around to talking about the future of your presbyter."
As far as I know, the bishop stayed away, the presbyter was charged, and the beautiful traditional church still stands today, unharmed, as a monument to that man's courage in standing up for the Faith against a bullying bishop and a threatening presbyter. St. Paul couldn't have been prouder of this man.
During the trial O'Brien testified, "I would have stopped because that's the human thing to do. I couldn't imagine not stopping." I don't believe that, nor did the jury. Even if he had hit a dog, wouldn't the charitable thing be to get out and see whether the poor animal could be tended to?
Prosecutors argued that O'Brien knew, or should have known, that he had hit a person. They pointed to the fact that O'Brien did not call police even after a official in the diocese told him that the car may have been involved in a deadly accident. He tried to conceal his killing, just as he had tried to conceal the child molestation. See the pattern here?
Prosecutors also noted that he had tried to get the windshield repaired, even knowing police were looking for the car. Detectives tracked O'Brien down at his home two days after the accident. "He goes ostrich. His head goes in the sand. Blinders are on. He just wants it to go away," prosecutor Anthony Novitsky said during closing arguments.
Now, the Christian faith teaches forgiveness: but only on two conditions. The sinner must repent, and the sinner must have a firm purpose not to sin again. Neither condition has been fulfilled in this case. A public sin requires public penitence. That is what the parable of the Prodigal Son teaches us. That is what the Good Thief teaches us: "Dost not even thou fear God, seeing that thou art under the same sentence? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving what our deeds deserved" (Luke 23:40-41).
This "bishop" has expressed no repentance whatsoever, let alone any indication that he will try to reform himself. "Judge, throw the book at him, as you would at a common criminal!"
Perhaps the ex-bishop's spiritual epitaph can best be summed up by a local man who knew the bishop personally and wrote TRADITIO immediately after the verdict: "It is amazing to me how many people feel sorry for this man after all the atrocities he has allowed and for his hatred for the True Faith we believe in, the Faith which he was originally ordained to defend." (Source: Associated Press, supplemented by local reports.)
The New Order Bishops of the United States have all, without exception, been implicated in the scandals of perversion and embezzlement that have come to light over the last years, either as participants themselves or as suborning the same by commission or omission. The U.S. Conference of "Catholic" Bishops have been called, by their own Chief Investigator, a Department of Justice and F.B.I. man, a "Mafia."
They lie, cheat, and steal -- we know that --, but do they murder as well? There is the unsetting case of Fr. Alfred Kunz, a conservative/traditional priest who stood up to his diocesan's bishop's corruption and was found murdered in his rectory. Several years have passed, and the case is still unsolved. There have been similar reports from in other locations in the last several years.
Now we have a report from The Guardian that in Albany, New York, a presbyter was found dead two days after meeting with the New Order bishop of Albany, whom he alleged was part of a "ring" of perversion. Apparently, he had written the late Cardinal-Archbishop John O'Connor about this matter. A copy of the letter surfaced following a press conference and a television news report. The accused bishop claims that the presbyter met with him to disclaim authorship of the letter, and -- surprise, surprise -- the letter cannot be found in the files of the archdiocese.
It is unfortunate that the prurient minds of the press and all too many others are fixated on the "sex" aspects of this scandal. It has consistently been my opinion that those aspects are only the tip of the iceberg. What is far more troubling than the "sex" aspects are the embezzlements of parishioners' money for perverse purposes and the obstruction of justice that has gone on -- even perhaps to the extent of murder. The Bishops' Chief Investigator, who knew only too well the techniques of the Mafia, certainly did not use that term loosely when he applied it to the U.S. Bishops organization.
But what is more shocking than any of this is the degree to which Novus Ordinarians continue to attend the Counterfeit Mess, "approved" by these very same bishops and continue to plunk their hard earned money in the New Order collection plates so that these bishops can continue to lie, cheat, and steal. The bishops, of course, want to sweep the whole mess under the carpet ("it's over; it's fixed"), but the bishops' own latest investigative report indicated that the problem continues, and in some ways is even worse.
The course of action is clear. Novus Ordinarians in the pews must leave. If they voluntarily support the New Order institutional perversion and corruption by continuing by funding it and sponsoring it financially, they can hardly hold themselves sinless. They can hardly pose like the three proverbial monkeys: "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." That is not Catholic by any stretch of the imagination. Catholic moral theology, any moral theology, as everyone knows, teaches that if you voluntarily fund evil and you voluntarily support evil, you bear the sin of that evil upon you. [Source: Guardian UK]
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I wanted to give your participants an update on the situation with St. Ann's in New York City. Having learned on TRADITIO that St. Ann's would be closed for good at the end of the month, although I am a long-standing member of a traditional chapel in the area, I decided that I would like to attend the last 2 p.m. "Indult" Mass there. I'm not a fan of "indult" Masses, but I was impressed by the church's great beauty and the fact that at least one time that I was there, a Solemn Mass was celebrated there, the only one I had ever attended.
Yesterday, as usual, the church was unlocked at about 1:30 p.m., and I went in to meditate, along with a larger group of people than I had ever seen there before. I took a seat up in front. As seems customary there, laypeople began preparing the altar for Mass (credenzas, candles, missal, etc., being put in place, etc.). At St. Ann's the pulpit is outside of the sanctuary, among the first rows of pews. To give the sermon, the priest must open the gates in the communion rail, walk out of the sanctuary to the body of the church, and climb a little stair to the pulpit, which is somewhat like a ship's crow's nest.
At about 1:50 p.m. a well dressed layman, who I assumed to be an usher, climbed into the pulpit and put on the desk lamp. I had assumed he was putting a copy of the priest's sermon up there, which is also normal. I would guess there were perhaps 100 people in the church. Instead, this man began giving a speech. While I can't agree with what he did, I can understand why he did it. In his speech, which used respectful language, he denounced the local Cardinal-Archbishop for the impending sale and demolition of the church building. He used some terms that you would probably use to describe him, as would our own independent traditional priest.
He pointed out the altar -- which is perhaps the most beautiful I've ever seen and unmodified by the Novus Ordo -- and repeatedly noted that within a few weeks contractors would come in and use pick axes to smash it to bits, as they had done in his former parish in Queens, and that the stained glass, etc., would also all be smashed and destroyed. Everything he said I was full agreement with, ideologically. He denounced the destruction as vandalism, anti-Catholic bigotry, and terrorism.He also said that the issue was about destroying a church where the Traditional Latin Mass was said, and not about money. Then he said he was motivated to do what he was doing because the priest chosen to say Mass that day (I had seen him there saying Mass once before) was in full agreement with and "the enabler" of the Cardinal regarding the destruction of church to make the property into a post office. He was extremely critical of these two men in the strongest possible terms. Since the presbyter was in the sacristy, I believe that he heard it all but did not come out.
The speaker said that the parishioners had gone to the presbyter to complain about destruction of the privileged altar, and the presbyter had told them that "anyone who cares about that altar is an idolater." The speaker urged the people to walk out, saying that a presbyter with that opinion was not worthy to offer the Mass. That was enough for me: I was not about to hear Mass said by a modernist, so I respectfully left.
About a third of the other people also did. The speaker also said that the previous day, he had arranged for ABC to come in and photograph the stained glass windows to use as a background for a televised interview with Mel Gibson tomorrow night, in order to help publicize what was to be destroyed. He urged people to take action against the destruction.
When this man, who I believe was a regular parishioner there, came outside with others, we congregated in front of the church for a while. Another man came out, who apparently also knew the speaker and the others, and begged us all to come back in side and go to the Mass, saying essentially, "Yes, we know the presbyter is bad, but this is still the miracle of the Eucharist and the Mass, and that's what's most important." The first man said, "Absolutely not; this is a votive Mass, and I don't have to be here. We've had forty years of 'do whatever Father says' while Father undertook liturgical destruction, and I've had enough."
I told the first man before I left that I was sorry they were tearing the church down and that he needed to find an independent traditional priest willing to ignore the archdiocese, as ours had done decades ago. I had always wondered about the intent of the "indult" priests as related to saying Mass and therefore generally stayed away. Now I wonder even more and will absolutely stay away. Any person who can support destroying that historic church is unCatholic, not to mention having no respect, even from a secular standpoint, for art, culture, civilization, or American history, and supports diminishing the heritage of all New Yorkers. The Catholic Church and our city will be diminished by the loss of this (and other) Catholic churches, as well as the great art and architecture they embody.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I saw an article in the English newspaper stating: "Yet the most severe criticism of Gibson has come from liberal, oecumenical Christians. Gibson belongs to a small sect, the Old Catholics, who left the Church more than a century ago over the issue of papal infallibility. Hence Gibson is not bound by the constantly changing Catholic doctrine of Judaism and the "Holocaust." The writer states that he, of course, is a "Roman Catholic" and that John Paul II is the greatest pope of modern times. Is there any truth to his story?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
None whatsoever. That Gibson is an Old Catholic, no. That the newswriter is Roman Catholic, no. That JPII is the greatest pope of modern times, no. Three strikes, and this ignoramus is out!
Remember that this is the same newspaper that proclaimed the New Vatican was going to give a "universal indult" for the Traditional Latin Mass last May. That turned out to be totally false, and based on no substantive information at all. Similarly, those ignorant of the Catholic Faith sometimes confuse Old Catholicism with traditional Catholicism. These are two entirely different things. Old Catholics do not accept the Vatican I-defined doctrine on the papacy; traditional Catholics do. In Catholic theology, Old Catholics have always been recognized as valid, just as are the Eastern Orthodox. Those who formally profess Old Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy are, however, traditionally considered to be schismatic (the New Vatican, however, does not consider them to be schismatic exactly, but just not fully in line with the New Vatican organization).
The Gibson contretemps has revealed just how ignorant, misinformed, and even disinformed "the press" is about religion. That's why TRADITIO is here, to counter that ignorance.
Like so many things, this ignorance in the press started developing in the 1960s, when there was no longer an expert assigned to the Religion Beat. Instead, they get liberalistic political-affairs writers to handle the topic. These people haven't the knowledge to distinguish between what is truth and what is error, what is fact and what is opinion, what is immemorial teaching and what is propaganda. To them, religion is just as much a political plaything as politics itself, and what they write never gets it right.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
As a local resident here in Phoenix, I can report that ex Novus Ordo Bishop Thomas O'Brien once remarked: "A Traditional Latin Mass will be said in this diocese over my dead body!"
What he meant, it turned out to be, was over Jim Reed's dead body. Jim Reed was the American Indian man who was run down and left to die by the New Order prelate. Reed had a bit too much to drink that summer evening while attempting to cross a busy street in the darkness of night. We will never know how much alcohol the bishop consumed because he didn't stick around to offer a blood sample. Nor did he answer the phone or doorbell for two days following his hit and run.
This bishop of the New Order Church of Love couldn't care less about his killing of a man. According to a Los Angeles Times report:
During the trial -- which included more than a month of testimony -- prosecutor Anthony Novitsky focused on O'Brien's police interrogation. The former bishop, he said, expressed little if any remorse over the death of Reed, an American Indian and father of two; at one point during the police interview, O'Brien asked, "This is going to be all day?"
Deliberations are now proceeding, and O'Brien could be socked away for three and a half years. Good riddance! Bishop O'Brien is an excellent example of the New Order Catholic Mafia Bishops, as their own Chief Investigator called them. Totally bereft of traditional Catholic morality, which was lost after Vatican II, they fornicate, obfuscate, embezzle, and apparently even kill without compunction. I only wish that we had a pope who would purge the Church of all these pretenders so that we could get back to the real Catholic Faith.
"If it rains, it pours," so the old saying goes. Again, we bring you the latest Novus Ordo travesty from the benighted diocese of Oakland, where its new "conservative" bishop seems to have introduced more Mess shenanigans even than his liberal predecessor!
Here we have the "Tet" Mess (that's not my appellation; that's how the Novus Ordo diocese named it), based in paganism. The danceuses perform a dance (even the New Order Vatican said that dance was prohibited in western countries), obscuring the altar -- pardon me -- table. And that table, as you see, is decorated after the fashion of one of those pagan shrines, much like what you see when you walk into an oriental restaurant. The only thing missing is the fat Buddha. For that, you'll have to go to Grand Rapids (see our January 15 Commentary).
But don't worry. This travesty is fully "approved" by the new Novus Ordo bishop of the diocese. Good grief, isn't that him performing the Mess himself?! I guess he didn't get enough of the "species" at the "Tea Mess."
On February 11, a group of Buddhist monks from India were given the run of the Grand Rapids, Michigan, basilica. They were there to raise international awareness about human rights; to help free the Tenth Reincarnation of the Panchen Lama", a 6-year-old boy; to share the Buddhist culture with other cultures; and to raise money for the building of a new monastery.
The front area of the sanctuary was decorated mostly in signs and pictures. A large black and white photo of the Panchen Lama nearly covered the entire front of the main altar. On either side of the altar were signs that read, "Free Tibet," "Release the Panchen Lama," and similar things.
A protest group of 150-200 traditional Catholics quietly filed into the basilica and were in their places, in the front 15 rows or so, by 8 p.m. The traditional priest leading the protest group, being mistakenly identified as the rector of the basilica, was invited by the coordinator to the microphone to introduce the service.
To the shock of the coordinator and the Buddhists, he proclaimed: "Shame on the Catholic men who have allowed this thing to happen here tonight. I apologize if this is not what you came to hear tonight, but we are going to do here what this basilica was made for," and then proceeded to kneel before the altar and intone Gregorian Credo III. The coordinator and the Buddhists stood dumbfounded while 200 Catholics chanted Credo in unum Deum..., the ancient creed of their Faith, in the Sacred Language of their Faith, echoing in the ancient chant throughout the basilica.
As the Credo continued, two men began to remove the Buddhists' display, which was covering the altar. The large picture of the Panchen Lama was removed first, followed by the several signs. The altar was visible again, and the emptiness of the tabernacle was exposed. After the Credo was finished, and the decorations removed, the Rosary was begun.
"When oecumenism fails, call the cops!" The rector of the basilica was scouted out, informed of the goings-on, and proceeded to call the police on his colleague. But to no avail; the protesters were not doing anything illegal. In fact, the police were confused by the whole situation. Why was a Catholic priest calling in law enforcement to have another Catholic priest, who was leading Catholic prayer, being removed from a Catholic church?
Eventually, the Buddhists were escorted out of the sanctuary. At last, the altar and sanctuary were once again clear and undefiled. The sound of 200 voices filled the vault of the basilica: Sancta Maria, mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.
The moral of this story is that the forces of the New Order were beaten back by a group of traditional Catholics with hardly a whimper of protest. Shame on all those Novus Ordinarians who remain morally culpable for staying in the pews, lending their scandalous presence to a Protestant-Masonic service without a word of protest. What little would be needed for them, even now, to take back their church from the forces of the Church of the New Order or the New Pentecost or the New Advent or whatever they call it today. This is not 1964; this is 2004. There is no longer the excuse of confusion or ambiguity left about the corrupt nature of the New Order in all its guises.
And how did the local papers spin the episode? "An evening of peaceful prayer soon got out of hand when a group of angry Catholics disrupted the service.... Police were called in to remove the protesters.... No one was injured." The Buddhists are called "peaceful," and the true Catholics are the "angry disrupters," who "accosted" these "quiet" Buddhists with the "weapon" of prayer.
After all, the basilica's rector had no problem with the Buddhists taking over. The other New Order churches around the nation that have hosted these Buddhists certainly had no problem with it. Bishop Kevin Britt didn't seem to have a problem because, as he said, "The pope himself is a good friend of the Dalai Lama." So much damage has John Paul II done to the Roman Catholic Church that his name is invoked to bless sacrilege and error.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
There will be 34 Catholic colleges that will be presenting the V***** Monologues, a play that amounts to pornography. The play is opposed to just about everything the Church teaches, whether it be about sexuality, abortion, contraception, holy matrimony, modesty, chastity, vulgarity, humility, reverence, you name it. I wrote to the Provost of Notre Dame University, Nathan Hatch, as this is one of the 34 sites at which the play is being presented. His reply was:
The University of Notre Dame values open and self-critical discussion of ideas and issues within the context of its educational mission. Differences of opinion on complex social and intellectual questions are to be expected within a diverse community and views will sometimes be expressed that are not endorsed by the University.
I would like to know why "Catholic" universities and colleges would allow a "porn play" in their schools when this violates the Sixth Commandment of God.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The answer is that these are not "Catholic" schools any longer, and haven't been for decades. They are schools of the New Order. Archbishop Fulton Sheen pointed that out in 1967.
But I think that you have a great opportunity here. The provost has given you your opening with his statement. You should waste no time getting a traditional priest and a cadre of traditional Catholics in to give a fire-breathing lecture on the phoniness of the New Order Counterfeit Church, the errors of the post-conciliar popes, and the sham of Vatican II. Then you'll know whether Hatch really believes in "self-critical discussion of ideas and issues" or not!
Pity the poor people of Oakland. They just lost one of the most extreme New Order bishops in the country, John Cummins, who was famous for his "Gay" Messes. As covered here with photographs before, he used the pretext of earthquake damage to destroy the diocese's traditional St. Francis de Sales Cathedral, over the protestations of Protestants, no less, so that he could turn the area into a mini-mall. Then he said that one of the larger existing churches in the diocese could serve as a cathedral, but just before his recent retirement imposed a $100,000,000+ Modernistic monstrosity on the diocese, not to be outdone by the "Taj Mahony" in Los Angeles.
Undoubtedly, many Novus Ordo Oaklanders breathed a sigh of relief when Cummins finally had to retire. Many were probably hoping for better from the new Novus Ordo bishop, Allen Vigneron, who was described as "conservative." But TRADITIO participants were forewarned: the "conservatives" are even worse than the flaming liberalists.
Here we see the new bishop performing the "Chinese Tea" Mess at Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Union City. He offers a cup of tea on a side altar that looks like a pagan shrine, complete with food for the dead. Such altars are intimately connected with Chinese ancestor worship, which was condemned by the Vatican long ago.
This was a by-product of the infamous Vatican II "inculturation," on the pretext of Chinese New Year, not a Roman Catholic liturgical feast, as far as I can tell. This same "inculturation" has been used to justify the drinking of chicken blood in African Messes.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Yesterday on a news program there was a man who really persecuted The Passion of the Christ and Catholic-bashed us. He claims that the Gospels contradict themselves. It says that the Jews crucified Jesus when in fact even the Catholic Church doesn't even teach that any more, that it is a known fact that it was the Romans. This man was totally against Catholic teaching, doctrine, dogma, etc. What I would like to know is why they don't have a traditional Catholic priest on to debate with such people? They use the TV to get their persecutions out to people. Why can't we refute them?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
These people certainly are ignorant of history. Why should that surprise anyone? Television is certainly now a medium in which "the blind lead the blind." Even setting aside the biblical accounts, we have other historians and evidence (archaeological, numismatic, etc.) from the time that clearly confirms the basic outlines of the Gospels independently.
Historically, it is clear that the instigators of the crucifixion were the Jewish leaders, particularly Caiphas and Annas, his father-in-law. Remember, these leaders had a personal pecuniary interest in the matter. Flavius Josephus, the first-century historian, writing in Greek, tells us that Annas, his sons, and his son-in-law, got kick-backs from the concessions in the forecourt of the Temple, the very ones that the Christ overturned. Outside of a couple of members of the Sanhedrin, it seems that the High Priest Caiphas had the power to engineer the whole affair.
Certainly Caiphas and his supporters would have put the Christ to death right then and there, if they had had the power. Classical scholarship up to the present day has confirmed that the only glitch in their plan was that the Jews couldn't exact capital punishment. For that, legally, they had to apply to the Roman procurator.
Think of it. Caiphas and the Jewish leaders could have banished, imprisoned, or otherwise punished the Christ short of death without the procurator's permission. But they chose not to do that. They would settle for nothing less than the capital penalty.
And what was the Romans' role here? The picture we get from the Gospels is that Pilate was quite reluctant to get involved. This picture, particularly as portrayed by St. John the Apostle (who was a Jew, of course) is confirmed by the secular historians of the time. The Romans were, in general, just rulers. They gave the Jews the only period of peace that they had really had in recent years from their own in-fighting.
The Roman emperor wanted basically only two things from the provinces: peace and taxes. So that was what the Roman procurator wanted too. Local religions were not a concern to the Romans. They were quite generous to the Jews, letting them have all their worship and their Temple. They even refrained from putting up the image of the Roman emperor on the columns of the Temple in deference to the Jews, who did not want "graven images" there. And why did the Roman procurator acquiesce in all of this? To keep the peace, as the emperor wanted.
Pilate over and over tries to convince the Jewish leaders to leave the affair alone. Pilate says several times that he cannot find any legal cause of action against the Christ (here again you see the Roman penchant for justice, even toward subject peoples; after all, Christ was not even a Roman citizen, as Paul was).
In the end, Pilate capitulates only because the Jews finally threaten his job and had life. "Non es amicus Caesaris" (John 19:12), they say. Now, those who are not classical or biblical scholars not likely to know that the Latin phrase amicus Caesaris is a legal term. It does not mean just "a friend of Caesar" in the vernacular. It means someone who has the special protection and favor of the emperor. It is a little like a British knighthood, only more.
In other words, the Jewish leaders and the Jewish crowd that followed them were threatening to calumniate Pilate before Tiberius, for which Pilate would probably lose his procuratorial position and might face severe punishment, even death. Faced with such stiff-necked opposition on the part of the Jewish leaders and the Jewish Council, Pilate finally gave in.
Even then he avoided any personal involvement. He publicly and literally washed his hands of the affair -- a rather significant thing for the representative of the Roman might to do. Moreover, he says: "Take him you, and crucify him: for I find no cause [of legal action] in him." (John 19:6/DRV).
When writers use the term "the Jews," they use the word in a generic sense, just as one might say, "the American people are a Christian people." Now, we know that there a large numbers of Americans who are not Christian, and even Americans who might consider themselves Christian loosely, but really are not. Is this taken as some kind of calumny against non-Christian Americans? Of course not. We all understand that the statement is being made in a generic sense.
What one indisputable fact do we know about the Jews -- of biblical times and of all subsequent times? As a whole, the Chosen People have consistently rejected the Christ. Yes, there are some numbers of Jews that have accepted Him, but the great majority over the last 2000 years have not. That is undeniably the salient point to Christians. Of course, it doesn't make any difference to most Jews.
Pope Pius XI expressed the charitable hope of the Catholic faith in the matter of the Jews quite beautifully in his Act of the Consecration of the Human Race, which is recited publicly every year by Roman Catholics at the Feast of Christ the King. The pope contrasts the situation "of old" and the present need for all, Jew and Gentile alike, to turn to belief in the Christ. This is the Catholic position of all time: in charity to hope for the conversion of the Jews. There is nothing new in Vatican II.
Respice denique misericordiae oculis illius gentis filios, quae tamdiu populus electus fuit: et Sanguis, qui olim super eos invocatus est, nunc in illos quoque redemptionis vitaeque lavacrum descendat.
Turn Thine eyes of mercy towards the children of that race, once Thy chosen people. Of old, they called down upon themselves the Blood of the Savior; may It now descend upon them as a laver of redemption and of life.
The "laver of redemption" and the "life" to which the pope is referring is, of course, the Sacrament of Baptism and the eternal life of salvation.
NewsMax gave an interesting summary of the New Vatican falling all over itself about what the pope said about Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Now, the pope's personal opinion on a movie seems hardly significant, but the secular press has hyped this issue into virtual theology! Here's the sequence of events:
On December 17, 2003, Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal reported that Pope John Paul II had seen Gibson's movie and said, "It is as it was." Noonan had been given a written confirmation for the quote from the pope's official spokesman via E-mail. The same day, National Catholic Reporter's main man at the Vatican, John Allen, reported the identical quote and attributed it to the pontiff. An unnamed senior Vatican official confirmed the quote. The following day, Reuters joined in on reporting the pope's quote and cited an unnamed Vatican source. The Los Angeles Times received its own independent corroboration for the story on December 19.
But then, on December 24, Catholic News Service's Cindy Wooden claimed to have talked to "a senior Vatican official close to the pope" [presumably the rabid oecumenist Walter Cardinal Kaspar] who said that the pontiff never said those words. On January 18, Frank Rich accused Gibson of using the pope to make money. The next day Catholic News Service reported that the pope's secretary said that "the Holy Father made no declaration" about the film. Two days later, L.A. Times columnist Tim Rutten wrote: "A good Hollywood publicity campaign does not stumble over technicalities -- like the truth. Still, it takes a particular sort of chutzpah to put a phony quote in the mouth of Pope John Paul II."
Yet on December 19, when asked whether the quote was reliable, Vatican Press Secretary Joaquin Navarro-Valls told the Times: "I think you can consider that quote as accurate." The truth is that, from the beginning, Gibson's Icon Productions has had written authorization to go public with the pope's statement on The Passion of the Christ. After stories began to emerge that questioned whether the quote was for real, Icon immediately E-mailed the official Vatican press secretary and offered to discourage use of the quote. Navarro-Valls responded with an e-mail, which not only reaffirmed that use of the quote was fine, but advised Icon to use the phrase "again and again and again."
So what we have here are four respected news organizations getting independent verification, and Icon Productions getting confirmation, authorization, and encouragement to use the pope's "it is as it was" statement. The Newsmax writer concludes:
The way I see it, the Icon team has held fast to the truth and suffered the stripes with amazing grace.... Because The Passion of the Christ and its people have managed to survive insults, stolen scripts, threats of demonstration, pirated prints, and dire predictions, the continuous triumphs are no mere coincidence. The more appropriate term to use would be providential.
As more time after Vatican II goes by, it becomes clearer and clear to all that the New Vatican has become an agent in the "Big Lie" of the New Order. And this growing realization has started to permeate the press, particularly as a result of the spotlight turned on it in connection with Mel Gibson's pending film, The Passion of the Christ.
Sure, the generally uninformed press can violate journalistic objectivity by calling Gibson an "ultra-conservative" or even a "schismatic" (notice that the press used none of these terms in the recent U.S. Episcopalian controversy), but it can't paper over the fact that large numbers of Catholics reject Vatican II, reject the New Order propaganda of the post-Vatican II popes, and are sick and tired of the pornocrat and barbarian U.S. bishops. More and more, the New Order and the New Vatican are being exposed for their daily lies and deceits to Catholics, and to the world at large.
Now, even the Catholic press has had to admit this obvious fact. A recent article from a noted Italian Catholic publication included this statement, which would once be shocking for a Catholic publication to print about the Vatican:
One thing is certain: in public, the big lies have taken the stage.
Indeed. Traditional Catholics have seen these lies since Vatican II. The lie about for all in the Consecration being valid when it is dogmatically rejected by the Roman Catechism. The lie about "Mass facing the people" being the Apostolic norm when even Novus Ordo liturgists cannot deny the archaeological evidence proving the contrary. The lie about the True Mass being "suppressed," when a Special Commission of nine Roman cardinals found unanimously to the contrary.
Big lies have taken the stage at the Vatican. No doubt. As the late Malachi Martin put it, the post-conciliar Vatican is the "Great Facade." And now that people are starting to inspect the foundations of the Church of the New Order, they are discovering that it is built on sand. [Chiesa]
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I am very troubled by popes like Paul VI and John Paul II, who can demean the office of the papacy by doing such things as sponsoring "Clown" Messes, commending devilish "rock" music, and even supporting "pornocrat" bishops, who are mired deep in the muck of fornication, sodomy, and corruption of the young. How can anyone reconcile such behavior with the papacy?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
As I have said many times before, the only way one can really understand the corruption of the post-conciliar papacy is through ecclesiastical history. It has to be by some kind of divine Providence that the Church has survived for 2000 years with so many corrupt popes. To name just a few:
One historian has eloquently phrased the issue this way, distinguishing between the flawed men in the office and the office's divine institution:
Popes have led armies, made love and war, conspired and betrayed power, and armed themselves with the techniques of assassination and seduction while clothed with the authority of the Church.
According to the Church's teaching, the spiritual capacity of each pope remains unaffected by the his temporal activities, the waters of divine grace continuing to pass through him unaffected by the possible foulness of his conduct. This, a mystery of religious faith, is outside argument, but reflects the abiding dilemma of the historian: the assessment of personal motives.
No one may can say what was in the innermost hearts of bad popes. There is no possible way of knowing whether they committed sacrilege each time they celebrated Mass or whether at those moments they were utterly and humbly absorbed. They can be judged only as other historical figures are judged, on their actions as observed and recorded.
No other structure could have resisted such an onslaught from within. (E.R. Chamberlain)
Therefore, we should not expect miracles in the persons of the popes. That has not been the history of the Church. That is not the teaching of the Church's most eminent theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the other eminent Fathers and Doctors of the Church. There have easily been as many bad popes as good popes. And yet the Church has survived in spite of them, as the Church is not theirs, but Christ's.
The miracle is rather that, because the Church is divinely founded, it has been able to survive the worst of popes. As the Psalms wisely advise us: "It is good to confide in the Lord, rather than to have confidence in man. It is good to trust in the Lord, rather than to trust in princes." (Psalms 117:8/DRV).
To follow up on your Commentary of February 1 concerning the permanent closure of the historic St. Ann Church by the New Order Archbishop of New York, a Solemn High Mass will be celebrated at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 6th, the Feastday of Sts. Perpetua and Felicitas, as a testimony of the traditional faith, in front of the church, which is located at 110 East 12th Street, New York City. Three traditional church groups not affiliated with the Novus Ordo diocese, representing local independent and SSPX groups from across the spectrum of the Traditional Catholic Movement, have joined forces to be present.
If other traditional Catholics wish to join the former St. Ann's parishioners and others from the other local groups, they will show the New Order Archbishop (Edward Egan) their backs as they leave the New Order apparatus. The event will demonstrate that there are still Catholics who are willing to defend, outside of the New Order apparatus, the Roman Catholic Faith and stand against the barbaric destruction not only of our historic Catholic churches but also of our Catholic Faith by the novocrats of Church of the New Order.
Is it in? Is it out? Only the final cut will tell us for sure. There has certainly been a contretemps on whether the line from St. Matthew's Gospel, Sanguis eius super nos et super filios nostros (27:25), will be included in The Passion of the Christ or not.
Some months ago, Gibson told The New Yorker that, in spite of the criticism of his brother, who called him a coward for it, he had removed the line because otherwise the extremists would kill him (superficially, the statement seemed to be made in jest, but it had an undertone of seriousness).
More recently, a week or so ago, when a later-edited cut was shown to a "focus group" in Washington, D.C., the line was included. Now a report published in the New York Times on February 3 indicates that it is out again, supposedly because it "didn't work in the focus groups." (What is all this with "focus groups"? Just make the film, and let the chips fall where they may.)
So, what is going on here? Is it possible that Gibson has subtlely tricked his critics? Months ago he indicated in print that he was going to take the line out. Did he put it back in for the Washington, D.C., focus group just to pull the goats of his extremist critics and let them hang themselves further before the public in their extremism?
Mel Gibson has got to be the shrewdest product-director-actor who has appeared on the scene in a long time. My bet is that he is at this point laughing himself silly while extremist Foxman & Co. dig their graves deeper, and deeper, and deeper. Behind-the-scenes reports indicate that donations have dropped off significantly since Foxman and his "Anti-Defamation League" has falsely tried to make Mel Gibson into an "anti-Semite" (which to Foxman is apparently a political, not a religious, term). Well, Foxman can shovel it out, but the public isn't buying it. They trust Gibson.
This is a good one! "Fr. Doug" of St. Joseph's in Shreveport, Louisiana, uses "Charlie," a dummy, whom he animates with ventriloquism during Mess. He started out with hand puppets and has now graduated to a full dummy. The diocese's own official report indicates that "there was so much laughter at church." I don't wonder.
And "they" say that the Novus Ordo Mess is valid? Give me a break!
Remember the announcement some time ago that the New Vatican was going to come up with a "new" translation of the Novus Ordo Mess that was "more faithful to the original," in opposition to the work of the International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), which used the opportunity of a translation into the vulgar tongue to rewrite doctrine?
Now, what would you say the worst "translation error" was? It's got to be the translation of pro multis in the traditional Catholic and Apostolic consecration form to for all, which every schoolboy who knows his Latin knows is wrong. Not only is it wrong, it was specifically condemned doctrinally by St. Charles Borromeo in the Roman Catechism. This false translation is the doctrinal error of Universal Salvation that the New Order panders. You've heard it: "we all worship the same God"; everybody goes to heaven, including public, unrepentant sinners.
This "translation error" wasn't just a mistake. It wasn't just a slip. It was a deliberate effort to drill into the heads of Novus Ordinarians every Sunday the error of False Oecumenism and Indifferentism universally condemned by popes, councils, Fathers, and Doctors of the Church for 1950 years. Not only is it wrong, but the specious explanations that the New Order apparatus used to justify the error were devastatingly countered for all time by one of the New Order's own, Monsignor Klaus Gamber in his Reform of the Roman Liturgy.
Well, the same invalidating form (not to speak of the invaliding matter and intention that often join with it) is not going to be touched in the "new, improved translation." According to NCR, "one much-anticipated choice is likely to leave the most ardent traditional Catholics disheartened. In the new translation, just as in current one, the presbyter says that Christ's blood will be shed for all rather than the doctrinally-correct for many. Rendering the Latin phrase pro multis as for all has long been Exhibit A in the traditional Catholics' case for the invalidity of the English translation of the Novus Ordo service following the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Not only is it a loose translation, these critics insist, it flirts with heresy by suggesting that all human beings will be saved regardless of their moral choices or religious affiliation."
"At one stage, a draft of the new translation from the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) appeared to endorse this criticism, translating Christ's words as for the many. When the bishops who govern ICEL met in mid January, however, they opted to maintain for all instead." Ah, there we go. It's the New Order bishops, the same ones who have, to a man, fallen short of Roman Catholic moral theology, who are at the same time pandering the doctrine of the new Religion of the New Order.
And what was the reason given for the invalidating translation? "The decisive issue was a desire to avoid changes in the Eucharistic Prayers wherever possible." Isn't this typical New Order doublespeak?! The commission is supposed to "correct the translation," but can't correct it because the commission wants to avoid "changes" (after they've already changed the form to invalidity)! Try to follow the logic of that, and you'll understand why the New Order fails the test of Catholicity and Apostolicity.
Information has just come down on February 2 that there was a letter dated January 6, 2004, signed by all the SSPX bishops, in connection with the Octave of Church Unity, which addressed the false oecumenism of Vatican II. This letter, together with an article entitled From Oecumenism to Silent Apostasy was sent to all the cardinals. The same day there was a press conference on the matter given by SSPX Chief Bishop Fellay.
The SSPX bishops seem to be taking a much harder line against the New Order apparatus and, for all practical purposes, now discount "negotiations" with it. They are now admitting the truth about the Novus Ordo approaches to SSPX: they are purely "practical," that is, in New Order-speak, superficial, not addressing any significant doctrinal issues.
As TRADITIO reported before, the Chief Bishop was some months ago taking it upon himself to "negotiate" with the New Order. Because of the scandal his actions caused, strong elements of the SSPX, including the other bishops and powerful SSPX abbots in France, pushed back and brought the SSPX back in line with speaking the evident truth about the New Order apparatus: one cannot "negotiate" on its errors. It is good to see that the SSPX, including the "Swiss Compromiser" (as he is called within the Society), has finally made a public statement to this effect.
Free speech, thought to be the hallmark of modern Western civilization, is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Already Canada has passed laws abridging the right of free speech when it comes to religious matters or homosexuality. Now it appears that France, once honored with the title "Eldest Daughter of the Church," has also gone the way of the Dark Side.
It was reported by Al Jazeera on January 19, 2003, that a French priest has been fined $1000 for describing the Koran as a "handbook for the devil." Fr. Philippe Sulmont, 82, was found guilty of "provoking discrimination, hatred or violence" for comments he made in a letter to his parishioners in the northern town of Domqueur at the end of 2002. Fr. Sulmont was also ordered to give a symbolic one dollar in damages to the League of Human Rights, which brought the case, and to pay for the judgment, to be published in two local newspapers.
"The Asiatics proliferate and invade our land, bringing with them an ideology that threatens the whole world," he wrote. "Indeed I would add there is no such thing as 'moderate' Islam. All the populations infected by the Muslim religion are indoctrinated by the Koran -- a holy book that is the manual for the extension of the kingdom of the devil at the expense of the kingdom of Christ," he said.
And don't think that the radical elements in the United States, home of the First Amendment, aren't trying to move in the same direction. Do you think that the extremist Abraham Foxman, National Director of the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League (defamation of Talmudic Jews, that is, not defamation of Catholics), would hesitate in the least to charge Mel Gibson of a crime, if he in any way legally could, simply for producing his bible-based The Passion of the Christ?
Yet the same Foxman is mute when it comes to the rampant anti-Catholic slanders of the media and entertainment industries. Anything anti-Catholic is perfectly acceptable, but the least "anti-Semitic" statement (a term that because of abuse has lost any real significance today) is condemned with the fanaticism of a Caiphas.
Here we have the scene from Plainfield, Illinois' St. Mary Immaculate Youth Ministry's Summer Retreat 2002. Take a rickety old collapsible picnic table, throw a round doily over it, stick a scrawny crucifix on it, and voilá!: you've got a Novus Ordo Mess.
Now, one can never deride true charity. The young man in the photograph was too poor to afford a shirt, so he just came in an undergarment. The young lady passing out the drinks also seems to be destitute of clothing. Her shirt is so parsimonious that it looks like an undergarment, and her pants seem to be missing their legs.
But the Novus Ordo presbyter is quite charitable. He smiles at the destitute young man and gives him a bus token so that he can get home.
Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? But he was silent. Then the king said to the waiters: Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness. There, shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen. (Matthew 22:12-14/DRV)
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Could you explain why you do not recommend use of the term Tridentine for the true Mass?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
There is much evidence from Roman-rite missals well before the Council of Trent that relatively little differed after the council. The work of the Trent commission was not to change, but to canonize, that is, to standardize, the Mass to the practice of the Roman See, as minor differences had crept in over the centuries according to local customs. Accordingly, the Mass after Trent was substantially the same as that before Trent, what we now call the Traditional Latin Mass to distinguish it from the New Order service.
This is the Mass that in all its essentials was passed on by St. Peter, the first pope, to the Church. The Apostles themselves, according to St. Ambrose, worked at its elaboration. It reached its complete perfection with Popes St. Damasus (fourth century) and St. Gregory the Great (sixth century). As the great liturgical scholar, Fr. Adrian Fortescue, wrote, this Mass is:
the most venerable in all Christendom, with a history of unbroken use far longer than that of any Eastern rite, there being no doubt that the essential parts of the Mass are of Apostolic origin.
But aside from the history, the point is a rhetorical one. Not until after Vatican II had anyone used a phrase like "the Mass of Paul VI" or "the Mass of Pius V." This is New Order terminology, implying that a pope can fabricate his own Mass according to his own whim. Why not the Mass of Pope Adrian or the Mass of Pope Sixtus? Ridiculous!
This is utterly unCatholic rubbish and propagates the false notion that the Sacred Liturgy is not a matter of Catholic and Apostolic Tradition, but some kind of sophomoric compositional exercise on the part of latter-day hacks like Bugnini. Traditional Catholics should be careful not to fall into the false terminology of the New Order and not to use such terms as "Tridentine," "Mass of Pius V," etc.
The best term to use -- unfortunately, since now there is the bogus New Order "Mess" -- is Traditional Latin Mass. This is the term that has consistently been favored by Fr. Gommar DePauw, the founder of the Catholic Traditional Movement (CTM) in 1964, and is preferred by traditional priests.
Note. One of our Novus Ordinarian participants (in their hearts they know they're wrong, which is why so many of them seem to be drawn to TRADITIO like the fly to the flame!) wrote me citing the "Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom," the "Liturgy of St. James," and the "Liturgy of St. Basil the Great," to which, of course, I replied: "You need to reread the Commentary more carefully. Unless I'm totally mistaken, neither St. James nor St. John Chrysostom nor St. Basil were popes, much less of the Roman Rite!
I must report to TRADITIO's participants this bad news. The Archdiocese of New York and Edward Cardinal Egan sold St. Ann Church out from under the "indult" community. Apparently, Cardinal Egan was able to take enough time out of the sex scandal in which he has been implicated to destroy not only St. Ann's, but some twenty churches in the New York Archdiocese to be closed and sold off to secular interests.
This cathedral was once the National Shrine to St. Ann. It has a privileged altar. It is the church where the playwright Eugene O'Neill's parents were married. The church is being sold to the U.S. Post Office. It will be torn down. It will be closed forever at the end of February. A Traditional Latin Mass or a Rosary will be held in front as a protest to the New Order that is destroying our Catholic churches.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The destruction of traditional, historic churches by the New Order barbarian bishops continues. However, there has been one good result of this action by the New Order Church of Love: the "indult" congregation, as a result of this sacrilege, has turned its back on the New Order archbishop, has gone traditional, and hopes to save one of the twenty condemned churches for the celebration of the real Traditional Latin Mass (not the "Indult" Mass).
One simply cannot trust the "indult," as it is in the pocket of the Barbarian Bishops of the Church of the New Order. These bishops are not Roman Catholics. They are worse than Attila the Hun. At least Attila heeded Pope Leo the Great and turned back from sacking the Eternal City. These Novus Ordo bishops wear their fancy duds and demand obedience to their every whim, while they pervert this false obedience into the destruction of Roman Catholicism. Our hat is off to the now traditional Catholics of St. Ann's community, who have turned their backs on the Church of the New Order and are fighting against the New Order to preserve their Roman Catholic Faith.
Here is the history of this gem. The edifice which now houses St. Ann Church and Shrine was built circa 1847 as the 12th Street Baptist Church. In 1856 the Congregation of Temple Emanu-El acquired the building and refurbished it as a synagogue. The congregation remained there until 1868 when it moved to a new synagogue at Fifth Avenue and 43rd Street, at which time the edifice became a Catholic church.
Decorated in the 13th century Gothic style, the French stained-glass windows were installed in the 1920s. The historic organ was originally built by Henry Erben in 1864. At some unknown time the organ was electrified and now has an Austin console. Because of the New Order archdiocese's action, the future of this historical and beautiful Catholic edifice and its beautiful pipe organ will be gutted to serve the U.S. government.
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