Even a broken clock gets it right twice a day. It seems that a person or persons unknown have determined that the Church of the New Order needs exorcism. It certainly does. Too bad the late Malachi Martin isn't around to do it right.
It seems that some persons attempted an "exorcism" at the Cathedral of St. Paul. They sprinkled blessed oil and salt around the church and in donation boxes. The Newchurch cathedral was so bereft of worshippers that the police cannot determine when the damage occurred, from Saturday afternoon to after the Sunday noon service!
The rector of the cathedral talked about the three days it would take "crews" to remove the oil and salt. He did not mention anything about the involvement of priests to recover the consecrated Sacred Oils. Newchurch, we guess, doesn't consecrate them or consider them sacred, or have priests for that matter (only powerless presbyters). Traditionally, the Sacred Oils, used in the administration of the Sacraments, are kept under lock and key in the sacristy. Newchurch puts them out in public, where any Tom, Dick, or Harry can abuse them.
Nor did the rector mention the word "sacrilege," schedule a public "reconciliation service," or speak of any necessity to reconsecrate the church. No, all he said was that this was a "very disruptive act." The vandals were apparently more religious than that. In their own perverted way, they were at least trying to exorcise the church, apparently from its deviations into the New Order. [Star Tribune]
The Newchurch Archbishop of Brisbane, John Bathersby, has publicly admitted that baptism performed during the past few years at St. Mary's Church in South Brisbane are invalid. Instead of baptizing in the name of the "Father, Son and Holy Spirit", the pastor and his assistant, on their own whim, substituted the words "Creator, Liberator, and Sustainer." The invalid baptisms are numbered at several hundreds.
In the United States of late, there have been some cases reported of Novus Ordo presbyters using the words "in the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier." Similar problems have been reported in Canada.
Axiom #1. You can't trust the Novus Ordo for anything: not Mass, not Communion, not the Sacraments, not doctrine. The only thing you can do is stay away from the Novus Ordo entirely. There is no excuse for ever going to the Protestant-Masonic-Pagan service at a Novus Ordo temple. No excuse. Ever.
The pastor-presbyter is so far from the true Catholic Faith that he won't even admit that what he did wrong. He has no intention of performing the baptisms again validly, so hundreds of children and adults will be without the graces of the most essential Sacrament and will be, perhaps unbeknownst to them, non-Catholic poseurs.
Axiom #2. Stay away from Novus Ordo presbyters. All of them. They are all committed to the unCatholic New Order. All of them. If they weren't, they'd get out.
Once again TRADITIO has been proven right. A personal letter to me from Fr. Gaspar Pelegrini, spokesman for the puppet "indult" Bishop Rifan of Campos, Brazil, admits that the instance TRADITIO recently reported on was certainly not the only case of Rifan concelebrating the Novus Ordo Mess. Not only Rifan but also his "indult" priests do perform the Novus Ordo Mess from time to time. Moreover, they do not perform this Protestant-Masonic-Pagan rite under protest. Not at all. They presume to justify their sacrilege on the grounds that the Novus Ordo "is the official liturgy of the Latin Church."
I might add that here in India, the Eastern-rite bishops are compelled to concelebrate the Novus Ordo at episcopal conferences. In the Archdiocese of Bombay, there are strict instructions that in case an Eastern-rite Mass is celebrated in a "Latin" church, the bogus Novus Ordo cookie must necessarily be drawn from the tabernacle and given to the people at communion. At the "Indult" Mass allowed once a month in Bombay, the Novus Ordo cookie is in fact given to the people at communion.
In yet another example of statistical pseudo-science, a study claims that eight hours of inhaling burning candles might have one "potentially" (this is science?) inhaling "particles." Note that the "experiment" was conducted in a large basilica with numerous large candles going all day and filling the space with, as the Psalmist put it (not the pseudo-scientists), odorem suavitatis [the odor of sweetness].
Now, this is certainly an infrequent case. Most churches and chapels burn only two small candles for hardly an hour. Moreover, we are not familiar with anyone who prays eight hours straight in such a place!
Even the pseudo-scientists had to admit that the exposures are "not worrisome for the occasional church-goer," but they are concerned about "priests, choirs, and other people working in churches." Yet, even in the case of these people, the pseudo-scientists were unable to adduce even one attributable case of emphysema or bronchitis due to candles. Yet study after study has shown that the solace of religion is often more healing than pharmaceuticals. [Reuters]
In reality, the real "toxicity" is in the Novus Ordo and its pollutants of new sacraments, new theology, new catechism, etc., which truly is lethal to the spiritual health of all those involved.
This pseudo-science comes from the same people who brought you the environmentalist scare of "global warming." There is, however, credible evidence that prolonged exposure of the human skin to the sun results in numerous instances of melanoma (a skin cancer). Yet, we don't see the pseudo-scientists who want to clear the churches demanding that every beach in the world be closed for public safety!
Wait a minute. Here is a new bulletin just coming in. Dutch researchers have announced a new finding. Those whose brains are engaged in pseudo-science are found to have million of dying brain cells. The European Union has, therefore, recommended that all science activity be stopped immediately. Hundreds of Dutch scientists are reported to be rushing into the Amsterdam basilica and lighting candles for divine protection.
We wish we had a dollar for every time we have heard that Newchurch is going to "fix" the Novus Ordo service or correct purported "abuses." Newvatican gave up its attempts several months ago. Now the Newchurch U.S. bishops have clearly signaled their intention to make the invalid, unCatholic Novus Ordo service even more wacko by electing Donald Trautman head of its Liturgy Committee. It was even more significant that his chairmanship came from a floor nomination by the bishops, not from the USCCB leadership.
You may remember Trautman from his chairmanship of the committee in 1992-1995. Then he championed inclusive language and liturgical "reform in the spirit of Vatican II," when even Newvatican was trying to back off from a spurious reform gone mad.
Do these Newchurch bishops ever learn? Is there even one of them who is sane? Apparently not. Now that they have all been exposed in the moral sphere as colluding or participating in crimes from embezzlement to conspiracy to racketeering to concealment of evidence to obstruction of justice to prostitution, they are repeating the worst scandals in the liturgical sphere by putting on a "Broadway Mess" to open their recent conference, which degenerated to a silly spectacle with "Gimme that Old Time Religion" and some bishops clapping and swaying to the closing hymn before processing down the aisle like drunkards.
You wanderers who think that you can find a "reverent" Novus Ordo Mess or you Adoremus types that think a "better translation" will correct the problem, think again. It is hard to deny any longer that the Novus Ordo service, in any version, is unCatholic, sacrilegious, irreverent, scandalous, blasphemous, idolatrous, and conclusively invalid, as yet another book recently published by a Roman canonist has demonstrated.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
On November 7 at an SSPX retreat in Ridgefield, Connecticut, Bishop Fellay, Chief Bishop of the SSPX, was quoted as saying that "some of his priests might succumb to the pressure" of accepting the Novus Ordo. Can Fellay and the SSPX be trusted to stay away from Newvatican?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The record indicates significant doubt about Fellay. A couple of years ago, as was extensively covered on TRADITIO, Fellay seemed to be on the verge of yielding to the blandishments of Newvatican. So far did he go that many SSPXers were shocked, including some of the Society's most generous donors in France. The French SSPX abbots threatened Fellay (who is not technically French, but Swiss) that if he were to commit that action, they would cut themselves and their monasteries off from him.
That threat was apparently enough for the other, more traditional, SSPX bishops to tell Fellay in no uncertain terms that he had no authority to negotiate on his own with Newvatican without consulting them. Thus, the fear of God was injected into Fellay, and he backed down, fearing that he would be left dangling, going alone to Newvatican, with the rest of the bishops and laypeople staying behind in the Society. At that point Fellay tried to do "damage control." He denied doing what he was obviously doing and started going around the world, giving talks trying to construct a cover story that was opposite to the facts. Some SSPXers bought the cover story, while others knew full well the reality.
Fellay's statement about "some of his priests" going over to the New Order is certainly true. Some of them have done so already, and many of these have thereafter dropped out of religion altogether. It takes a courageous man to resist the raw power of the New Order, sometimes exhibited in a hard-sell, sometimes in a soft-sell. Archbishop Lefebvre, remember, a man most experienced in the wiles of Newvatican, almost succumbed. If Fellay himself had difficulty resisting the Newvatican's blandishments, his priests would naturally have even more difficulty.
Take another case in point. Remember the pictorial evidence published on TRADITIO that puppet "indult" bishop Fernando Rifan, whom Newvatican put in to take over Bishop de Castro Mayer's traditional diocese in Campos, Brazil, had publicly concelebrated the Novus Ordo Protestant-Masonic-Pagan service? Well, it appears that Rifan got caught with his cassock down. He had promised the traditional Campos priests and laypeople that he would not celebrate the Novus Ordo. Apparently, he made other promises to Card. Hoyos and Newvatican, as there he was, caught in his big lie in living color.
The exposed Rifan had to come up with some explanation, so he followed the lead of ex U.S. President Bill Clinton, who was caught in perjury, by trying to say that he didn't perjure himself because he didn't know "what the meaning of is is." Specifically, Rifan claimed that he had "extended his hands, but did not actually mouth the words" at the moment that the other bishops recited aloud the words of consecration!
With that admission, Rifan is now in even more trouble because he has admitted to the grave sin of dissimulatio Sacramenti, i.e., knowingly simulating a Sacrament. A priest is prohibited ever, even to save his life, from simulating a Sacrament, that is, performing the sacramental action without the intention of conferring a Sacrament. And now by admitting his sin publicly in a vain attempt to exculpate himself, he has committed another grave sin, that of scandal. Moreover, laywomen sacrilegiously handed out "communion" in the presence of Rifan, and he raised no objection.
Rifan is perilously situated between Scylla and Charybdis. In order to get the "approval" of Newvatican, Rifan had to affirm that the Novus Ordo Protestant-Masonic-Pagan Mess is valid and accept the Modernist Vatican II Council. On the other hand, if he affirms these errors, the traditional Catholics of Campos will disown him. Fellay is similarly between the Devil and the deep blue sea with respect to Newvatican and SSPX. Fellay even wrote warmly about the Society of St. John Vianney at the beginning, only to see that now exposed as a fraud. We have to question what kind of judgment is being exhibited here.
History books have long portrayed images of the US's first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts, with Pilgrims, dressed in black and white, sharing turkey with American Indians. (It should be noted that the Pilgrims, who came to America to escape religious persecution from the Anglicans, were themselves the perpetrators of religious persecution. When they had been in power, they had gone around the English countryside destroying Anglican altars and liturgical accoutrements because the Anglican Church was too "papish" for them. No wonder they were "persecuted.")
To the contrary, the research of Michael Gannon, an expert on Florida colonial history and professor of history at the University of Florida, over twenty years ago revealed that St. Augustine, the US's oldest city, was the site of the first Thanksgiving. This first Thanksgiving took place in 1565, 55 years before the Pilgrims landed, when the Spanish founder of St. Augustine, Pedro Menindez de Avilis, and 800 Spanish settlers shared in a Mass of Thanksgiving. Get that? A Mass, a Traditional Latin Mass.
Following the Mass, Menindez ordered a communal meal to be shared by the Spaniards and the Seloy Indians who occupied the landing site. Prof. Gannon, in his book, The Cross in the Sand, states that the nation's first Thanksgiving menu would most likely have consisted of what the Spanish settlers had with them during their voyage: cocido, a stew made from salted pork and garbanzo beans laced with garlic seasoning, hard sea biscuits, and red wine. If the Seloy natives contributed to the meal, the table would have seen wild turkey, venison, gopher-tortoise, mullet, corn, beans, and squash. [PRNewswire]
So, you traditional Catholic families, when you gather around your Thanksgiving table this year, tell your children the real story of the first Thanksgiving: that it was hosted not by the Pilgrims, but by traditional Roman Catholics, and that its centerpiece was not a turkey, but the Traditional Latin Mass.
If you thought that the New Order would stop after its Vatican II Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1992 (well, that was the year of its first version at least), were you wrong!
Although the Novus Ordinarians quote that travesty as if it were Holy Writ, the Vatican II catechism is so full of mistakes and "nuancing" of true Catholic doctrine that it should be thrown into the fireplace, where it will have some use. And why wouldn't it be defective? The bishops and cardinals on the writing committee admitted that they were incompetent to read the seminal documents of the Faith in their original languages. How can any book pretend to be a catechism when the Newchurch officials can't even read the text of St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory the Great, St. Anselm, St. Albertus Magnus, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, St. Alphonus, and so many others?
Theologians have pointed to numerous errors in the Vatican II catechism, some committed from ignorance, some obviously deliberate to be "politically correct." The common teaching of the Fathers on limbo is entirely omitted. The section on capital punishment underwent several revisions until it could satisfy the liberalist types and contradict the constant teaching of the Catholic and Apostolic Church. The section on marriage contracts previous teaching. And on and on it goes. (If you, in ignorance at the time, bought a copy, it is not too late to ditch it and get the Roman Catechism written by St. Charles Borromeo after the Council of Trent, a brilliant and eminently readable work that expounds Scripture, Tradition, doctrine, and practice for all of the Church's essential teachings.)
After the first "version" of the catechism was floated, Newvatican gauged its popular reception and then issued a second "version" with several significant changes in the doctrine. Apparently, Newchurch doctrine can be changed by popular demand! This situation is reminiscent of what happened with the "New Mass," which, when first issued in 1969, contained an explicitly heretical definition of the Mass. When this egregious error was pointed out, a red-faced Paul VI recalled the original text and had it patched up a little. Nevertheless, it still remains heretical.
Now it seems that the Newchurch bishops of the United States have fabricated a "national adult catechism in the hope of reaching young adults who have left" Newchurch. Don't hold your breath, you Newchurch bishops. Another phony catechism isn't going to bring them back. Only the authentic Roman Catholic Mass, Sacraments, doctrine, and morality will do that, and you are light-years distant from that!
And guess who was chairman of the Amchurch editorial board. Why, it was the same Donald Wuerl, of Pittsburgh, who was found so ignorant of canon law that Newvatican issued a stern reprimand against him and directed that he return to school!
Nor is this Amcatechism a serious work. Unlike the Roman Catechism, the Baltimore Catechism, or even the Vatican II catechism, it doesn't lay out and explain the teachings of the Church in a serious exposition. No, each of its 36 chapters opens with a story, purportedly of model Novus Ordinarians, including:
These choices were too much even for ten of the Ambishops, who voted nay! on the catechism and got Merton pulled out of the final text.
The Newchurch bishops recognized that American Novus Ordinarians are now so ignorant of their cult these days that they cannot hand real doctrine. So a dumbed-down, "Americanized" version had to be concocted. And, of course, the Amcatechism had to be politically correct. Against the dictates of even the Newvatican, the Amerbishops insisted upon using "gender-inclusive language." Is the New Order she-god far away?
Dear Fr. Moderator:
The locks on all doors, except Fr. Clifford's basement, have been changed for the second time since Fr. Wickens' death. Fr. Clifford, the elderly independent priest who has, with Fr. Murphy, been serving the Chapel so generously during Fr. Wickens' illness, has no access to the Chapel, even though in the process of moving. He was, as you know, kicked out of his residence in the Chapel by the diocesan Philistines of the Newchurch of Love.
The janitor was kind enough to let him into the Chapel to make his final visit to adore the Most Blessed Sacrament, which he then removed, and put out the sanctuary lamp. From now the Chapel will be devoid of the Real Presence, as the New Order will undoubtedly bring in its phony "cookie." Now completely entangled in the diocesan cabal, not one Judas Board member has had the decency to contact the good Fr. Clifford to assist with his move.
I am informed that a man who donated antique books to the Chapel is demanding them back. The response he received was: "We don't give back to Indian givers." A Chapel family had donated to the Chapel a beautiful Franciscan missionary altar cloth that contained relics of the Saints. This was given to the Chapel by a very holy Franciscan missionary priest, who was a family friend. It is not to be found anywhere. Relics given to Fr. Wickens during his illness are also missing.
Our Chapel was built practically pro bono by parishioners. Every item: chalices, patens, pews, carpeting, solid gold altar, statues, etc., has a family story. These families should now start to demand their property back, since it is being immorally converted to New Order use.
Well, everything is now falling into place as the diocese and its willing agent, the Judas Board, had planned. I realize that the local Novus Ordo parishes knew of the whole takeover, while the Board was reassuring us that St. Anthony's would never go to the Newchurch archdiocese. Only TRADITIO kept informing of us about what was really going on, and the Judases hated that exposé.
The previous St. Anthony's will at best have that knockoff "indult" service, if not the full-blown Novus Ordo Protestant-Masonic-Pagan service. It just floors me that four fine independent priests who assisted Fr. Wickens while he was alive were rejected and that this Newchurch presbyter is being warmly welcomed by the small percentage of Judases left at the old site.
It sickens me to think that Fr. Wickens' work is being treacherously handed over to the Pharisees, just as Judas sold out Our Lord for thirty pieces of silver. They should weep bitterly, like Peter, who betrayed Our Lord, so that the marks of the tear were forever etched onto his face for all to see. At least the relocated St. Anthony's will have the truly Traditional Latin Mass, said by a priest independent of all these "organizations."
Relocated St. Anthony Independent Traditional Catholic Community (Fr. Wickens+)
Sundays starting November 21, 2004
Time: 9:00 a.m.
Interim Location: Ramada Inn Ballroom, 130 Route 10 West, East Hanover, New Jersey
Telephone: 973-954-2130
Celebrant: Fr. John Murphy (ind.)
The room will open at 8:00 a.m., and Confessions will be heard before Mass. After Mass, we will discuss meeting location options for upcoming Sundays, and coffee will be served. A collection will be taken for the room fee and our priest's stipend. All those who wish to continue the tradition of Fr. Wickens with the Traditional Latin Mass and Sacrament independent of other organizations are invited and encouraged to attend.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
This has all happened before. St. Basil the Great, one of the few bishops remaining orthodox during the Great Arian Heresy of the fourth century, which bears so many similarities to the New Order Heresy of our own day, left us a detailed record of the impact of the heresy upon the faithful, and how the faithful courageously responded to the challenge. They refused to stay in the church buildings that had been taken over by the heretical bishops and presbyters. St. Basil describes the situation as follows in one of his Epistles (242 of A.D. 376):
Matters have come to this pass: the people have left their houses of prayer and assembled in the deserts -- a pitiable sight. Women and children, old men, and men otherwise infirm, wretchedly faring in the open air, amid most profuse rains and snow-storms and winds and frosts of winter; and again in summer under a scorching sun. To this they submit because they will have no part of the wicked leaven.
How can we, of the present age, do any less that our courageous Catholicforebears were willing to do? We can have no truck with Novus Ordo temples and corrupt officials, who would deprive the Catholic faithful of the true Faith and substitute for it a phony New Order counterfeit. If we cast our lot with them, we wouldn't be Catholic.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Thank you for your continuing coverage on our chapel. I'd like to point out that all the people that have contributed pro bono to the chapel should go knocking on the doors of the Board members to collect. One particular company that should lead the way is the construction company (owned by a Portuguese gentlemen) who made the foundation. He did about $50,000 to $70,000 worth of work and walked away without taking a penny from Fr. Wickens. He told Father, "I did it for St. Anthony." Someone should tell him of the takeover and convince him to collect his work, which has now been converted to the use of the New Order. The same should go for all the other families and businesses that have donated their work and time. Send the chapel your demand bills!
I'd also like back all the money that my parents and I have donated for the past eight or nine years. We gave that money on the condition of maintaining an independent traditional chapel that was not associated with the New Order. I know several families that have given thousands of dollars. They want their money back too.
Board members have been consistently lying to us. One denied that the Novus Ordo presbyter was coming, when even the janitor knew more than a week ago! Not to mention the fact that the presbyter had announced the fact to his own Novus Ordo parishioners the week before. If only Fr. Wickens would miraculously show up and put them all to shame. The Board members and their cronies would shrivel up and die on the spot out of shame. I can just hear the words of the Judgment: "I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity (Matthew 7:23/DRV).
Fr. Moderator Replies.
A similar case occurred in a major western city, when the archdiocese, in a sleezy scheme for payoffs to conceal crimes, closed a church that had been used principally by Catholic Croatians. The parishioners were outraged. They demanded back all of the donations that they, their parents, their grandparents, and their great grandparents had made to that church: candlesticks, marble altars, statuary, stained-glass windows, and so forth.
At first the archdiocese refused, claiming that the donations had been made to the archdiocese to do with them whatever it wished. The parishioners took exception to that defense, claiming that the donations had been given to adorn that particular church for the traditional worship. Eventually, the Catholic Croatians got their donations back.
St. Anthony's Chapel is being converted to a substantially different purpose from its foundation. It is being converted from its consistent use as an independent traditional chapel to a New Order site. Those who donated property for its use as an independent traditional chapel have a moral right to have their donations returned to them. If the Judas Board wants to sell out the chapel to the New Order, let the New Order, its archbishop, and its presbyter finance the treachery.
This is an avenue that the Novus Ordinarians in Boston, New York, and elsewhere around the country should consider. If they can't have their church buildings, at least they can get back what they donated to them. After all, the bishops are selling off the churches to pay off lawsuits for their criminal activities. The parishioners, and their forebears, should be entitled to get back their property before it is ransomed off to pay for the sins of the New Order bishops and their presbyters.
As previously reported on TRADITIO, Fr. Gommar DePauw, the Founder of the Catholic Traditionalist Movement in 1964, has been hospitalized these past seven weeks for "total exhaustion." We are happy to report that Father has now been discharged from the hospital in what his doctors described as an "almost miraculous recovery."
Fr. DePauw attributes his recovery to the Supreme Physician, "who never abandons the remaining small remnant of His true Church, to His Blessed Mother, and that unequaled St. Michael." TRADITIO finds it particularly significant that Father invokes St. Michael, Protector of the True Church, who has been the patron Saint of TRADITIO's own apostolate from the beginning. It is he, Scripture tells us, who will put down Satan at the end of time and who, as a result of a private revelation to Pope Leo XIII, we pray to at the end of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to defend us in the battle for the true Faith.
The so-called Church of the New Order ceased long ago to be a Church. Today it is indeed a secular organization, one that is now in utter chaos. Marxist liberationists, the secular humanistic Jesuits, feminists, the European liberal theologians, New Age charismatics, Wiccan nuns, "gay" priests, lesbian nuns, and other nuns that desire to be priests, and others too numerous to mention here. The laity consists of a wide range of nominal believers in various states of rebellion against the Faith.
The so-called Church of the New Order today is not the one that existed in 1054. Even Western Christians of 1054 would not recognize their desacralized and adulterated church today. The Roman liturgical tradition has disintegrated aesthetically, and as the beauty of worship disappears, so does awe. Prayer is a teacher, and minimized, trivialized, and modernized prayer fails to teach very much. Come to the U.S. and drop in on your local heresy-driven New Order parish and witness hand-waving "praise" masses, cookies for children, interpretive dancers fluttering down the aisles, lame "Peter, Paul, and Mary"-style folk music. Watch women, children, and even passers-by distribute "communion." These are all the trappings of post-Vatican II desacralized and trivialized worship.
Don't Newchurch and its bishops provide just the best entertainment? They are not a religion. They are no better than the clowns that the pope invites now to perform at his audiences.
Case in point. Whom do you think that the U.S. Conference of [Newchurch] "Catholic" Bishops has picked as its new President? Why, Vice President William Skylstad, Newchurch bishop of Spokane, who just declared bankruptcy because his diocese is so embroiled in sex scandals and payoffs that he was incompetent to handle the matter. Really shows that these Newchurch bishops want to clean up their act, doesn't it?
Two of the bishops' own Investigating Committee Chairman -- Governor Frank Keating and Justice Anne Burke -- have called the USCCB investigation a P.R. ruse to cover up rampant crime in the dioceses, which is still going on.
TRADITIO keeps getting messages from participants about how to defend their traditional Catholicism to Novus Ordinarians. Here's a thought. Laugh them to scorn and say, "Do you honestly expect me to believe that those clowns are bishops?"
Dear Fr. Moderator:
My sister dropped by at St. Anthony's around 7:30 p.m. tonight (November 14) for about 15 minutes. She had to doublepark in the unpaved rear parking area, as the paved parking lot was packed. There were some police outside, presumably for parking control and safety and.... She went into the darkened chapel to say a few final prayers and spoke subsequently to a few people outside the chapel, who also did not care to attend and witness the videotaped bull c--p. They were of the same mind that what is going on is an atrocity.
My sister works in a hospital environment and stated that anyone in Fr. Wickens weakened and medicated condition would agree to anything. Also, it is quite easy to splice and have answers inserted into the tape that were not exactly replies to the original questions asked. As TRADITIO predicted, it was a floor show plain and simple for local consumption of the simple minded and easily led.
I know it is not our way to demand vengeance but, if asked, I would not mind offering some strong recommendations not just for one Judas, but for all three and also their cohorts in this heinous injustice, as their brainwashing must have started some time previously, and the seasonal turkeys were lined up.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
We walked out of the meeting when we could no longer take the lies and deception being spurted out by the "defensive" St. Anthony's Board et al. Shame on them all!
One good thing resulted from all the evil. There are now more people who have been made aware of the devious Opus Dei, true wolves in sheep's clothing, whose minions sometimes pose as "traditional" in an attempt to reconcile sell the Traditional Catholic Movement out to the Counterfeit Church of the New Order.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Our family's horrific experience with Opus Dei during the mid 80's acquainted us only too well with their deceptive, secretive, and coercive practices, intolerance, and aggressive tactics. They cloak themselves with bells and incense (and now a quasi "Latin" Novus Ordo service). They infiltrate organizations just as they did St. Anthony's, always targeting influential prospects, as they lust after property and financial prospects.
The intentions of FSSP/EWTN/Opus Dei are to eliminate any opposition to the "Ecumenical Church." They will influence St. Anthony's homeschool association with future plans for establishing an Opus Dei school, recruiting young families and those who are not aware of their treacheries.
Maybe this is all for the best to expose Opus Dei's history of thuggery and deception. Their hidden agenda is to neutralize traditional Catholics and any opposition to the Novus Ordo.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
You make a salient point. We have noticed lately that the Church of the New Order, realizing that its service attendance is plummeting, is deceptively introducing more of the quasi "Latin" services, as you call them. They are Novus Ordo through and through, but throw in a little Latin here or there, or wear more traditional vestments, or throw a little incense around, or sing a little chant -- all to deceive "if possible, even the elect."
All too many "conservative" Novus Ordinarians, or neo-cons, as they're sometimes called, are now so compromised in their Faith by all this malarky that they don't know the difference and fall for the sugar-coated arsenic. It may taste good going down, but when it hits the gut, it's just as fatal!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
It appears that Fr. Wickens may have been taken advantage of on his deathbed while he was medicated via morphine drip. [Morphine, while a potent pain-killer, is also an abused drug that is well known to "space out" recipients.] A very small group of liberal, Novus Ordo counterfeit "Latin Mass" groupies, who are actually responsible for this highjacking, clapped at the meeting.
Strangely, a certain presbyter was said to have traveled to Rome to finalize this whole deal. Was he taking instruction from Opus Dei headquarters in Rome? It is very convenient that Opus Dei has a mansion set up in South Orange right around corner from St. Anthony's Chapel.
And now we know another reason why the archdiocese wants to take over Fr. Wickens' church. St. Venantius' Korean Novus Ordo parish has outgrown its church and will be moved to OLMC in Orange. OLMC parishioners will accordingly be moved with their presbyter to St. Anthony's. The Board will continue to hold the two million dollar property and collection money. No questions were taken at the meeting. A typical Novus Ordo Church of Hate performance.
A minority may feel comfortable thinking that the archdiocese doesn't own the property (yet). In the main, we are dealing here with provincial, frightened senior citizens. They're like innocent lambs being led to their slaughter. The politicians play the same game each election when they claim that the other side is going to cut social security.
Within the two to three year tenure of the Board, a new Board will most likely be elected from the new Novus Ordo group coming in, and the final takeover will occur.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Thank you for keeping your participants abreast of what is happening to us poor folks at St. Anthony's in New Jersey. We are shocked, but not surprised, that the New Order "Church of Love" would deal with a faithful flock and an elderly priest in such a cruel way. The actions of the New Order are reminiscent of the Chinese Communists, who will go to any length in their attempts to suppress those they see as a threat. To them, nothing is so threatening as the Truth.
Please let the faithful there know that, although we are thousands of miles away here in Montana, they are in our prayers. We would appreciate your continued updates.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I always follow your TRADITIO, and I do not understand why Fr. Wickens, who knew so much about the Novus Ordo hierarchy from experience, would not provide properly for his faithful congregation. It does not make sense to me.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
That is a good question. Various reports to us indicate that Fr. Wickens, in a weakened state, assumed that his agents would do what his life and work indicated, but instead they became part of a coup to benefit the New Order.
Don't forget that Our Lord was betrayed by all his disciples, whom he would purportedly have trusted. Even the first pope betrayed him under oath. In some ways, what Peter did to Our Lord was more reprehensible than what Judas did.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I was at the St. Anthony's meeting last night (November 14). I am not going to speak about the meeting itself. I am sure that you will have numerous reports about what happened for your participants. I do want to concentrate on something that happened after the meeting that bears on the mentality of the Board.
I went into the church after the meeting to pray. Some women and a little girl were reciting the Rosary for the repose of the soul of Fr. Wickens. One of the Board members came into the church with a cop and tried to stop them from praying the Rosary, saying they had to close the church. The meeting had just ended, and it was around 9:00 p.m. or earlier, and there were plenty of people around the church grounds still. Cops were all over during the meeting.
The women and child were beginning the Third Mystery. They'd be done in about ten minutes or less. Fr. Wickens would have let them finish. When I saw the Board member bring a cop into the church to throw these women and child out, I went up and joined in with the Rosary. If cops were going to throw women and a child, who were praying for Fr. Wickens, whom we all loved, out of the church, they would have to throw me out too! Well, after some harassment from the cops and Board member we were able to finish the Rosary. We ended with the St. Michael prayer and left, never to return.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I'll be brief. I was at the meeting tonight (November 14, 7 p.m., at St. Anthony's Chapel Hall). Everything TRADITIO said came down exactly as you predicted. No question and answer period, just sugar-coated psychobabble.
Mark my words, there will be full Novus Ordo in there within six months. I hope they become bankrupt to the ground. I'm heartsick. I left this now Novus Ordo chapel to join the true-blue folks at the new temporary site at the Ramada Inn.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
At the 9:00 a.m. Traditional Latin Mass this morning (November 14), the mood was rather somber. Internally, I said, "This is the second part of Fr. Wickens' funeral." Before Mass began, I went around to some of the "true-blue" parishioners, and admonished them: "Smiles, not tears." I wanted everyone not to curse the darkness, but to thank Our Lord for having given us such a beautiful home for the past eight years.
There was a great deal of whispering and huddled conversations outside before Mass. The Mass itself was wonderfully offered by an independent traditional Catholic priest, Fr. John Murphy. At the end of the sermon, Father made a brief mention that he would not be at St. Anthony's any more after today. Fr. Wickens' independent traditional community will be meeting starting next Sunday, November 21, at the Ramada Inn in East Hanover, about 15 minutes away.
Relocated St. Anthony Independent Traditional Catholic Community (Fr. Wickens+)
Sundays starting November 21, 2004
Time: 9:00 a.m.
Interim Location: Ramada Inn Ballroom, 130 Route 10 West, East Hanover, New Jersey
Telephone: 973-954-2130
Celebrant: Fr. John Murphy (ind.)
The room will open at 8:00 a.m., and Confessions will be heard before Mass. After Mass, we will discuss meeting location options for upcoming Sundays, and coffee will be served. A collection will be taken for the room fee and our priest's stipend. All those who wish to continue the tradition of Fr. Wickens with the Traditional Latin Mass and Sacrament independent of other organizations are invited and encouraged to attend.
The choir sang magnificently during the Mass. For all (or most) of them, this was their last Mass at St. Anthony's. After Mass concluded, Fr. Murphy came back out to the lectern and announced that the New Order archdiocese would be taking over the "masses" St. Anthony's the following week. There was an audible gasp from the congregation, many of whom had heard only rumors until now, but no confirmation [except for the full coverage on TRADITIO, which turned out to have predicted the exact outcome].
After this, the shouting began. People began shouting in the back of the church, and it spilled out into the vestibule and the parking lot. I walked straight out of the chapel door and headed toward Fr. Wickens' grave, to offer prayers for his soul as I do every week. I thanked Fr. Wickens for all the hardships he suffered to bring this chapel building to fruition. And I remembered the lessons Fr. Wickens instilled in me over the course of 12 years: never to trust the New Order Archdiocese of Newark, a through-and-through corrupt organization; to let my conscience be my guide (a favorite quote of his); always to defend the truth; always do the right thing, no matter what the cost; and to remember that the salvation of souls is the highest law.
As I walked back to my car, someone shouted at me, "Don't believe the lies." I felt sad for her, as the "lies" which I am believing came directly from one of the Board members. When I got home from church, the first "hate mail" was already waiting in my inbox.
Also, the elderly traditional Catholic priest in residence at St. Anthony's, Fr. Francis Clifford, has been ordered to leave by the diocese. [So much for the New Order "love" that will be shown to St. Anthony's. And this is just the beginning.] Fr. Clifford offered Mass at St. Anthony's and continues to offer Mass at his own independent Christ the King Chapel, 57 Wickapecko Dr., Ocean Township, NJ 07712, Sundays, Holydays, and First Fridays and First Saturdays at 8:00 a.m.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Join the club! TRADITIO got a lot of heat from the Board partisans, who kept claiming we were "lying," even though our information came directly from a number local sources of various persuasions, including a Board member. Well, it turns out that TRADITIO was right all along and that the Board partisans are the l---s! This is the same vile technique that the New Order has consistently used against good traditional Catholics.
And it seems that the Board partisans are continuing the propaganda campaign to badmouth everyone who doesn't welcome the New Order archdiocese with open arms. This is exactly the result that no one who was loyal to Fr. Wickens wanted.
As Pope Pius XII indicated, the true Church is in the catacombs. We wish the "true-blue" parishioners, as you call them, of St. Anthony's the best in finding, with the independent traditional priest, a new location, free from machinations by any organization. If you have to start from scratch to build the the independent community of Fr. Wickens back up, so be it. You know that Fr. Wickens would bless your good work. And always remember the sage advice of the Psalms:
Bonum est sperare in Domino quam sperare in principibus. Bonum est confidere in Dominum, quam confidere in homine. [It is good to trust in the Lord, rather than to trust in princes. It is good to confide in the Lord, rather than to have confidence in man.] (Psalms 117:8/DRV)
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I am grieved and heartsick to have learned today (November 14) of the betrayal of Fr. Wickens' St. Anthony of Padua Chapel. I've attended Mass there often over the years. In fact, I was there for the opening day, the Feast of St. Anthony in 1996, and I can still remember Fr. Wickens breaking down in tears of joy and gratitude for what the faithful Catholic laity, under the patronage of his beloved St. Anthony, had accomplished. This chapel was built by donations of money, materials, and labor by the hundreds of Catholics who had been assisting at Father's Masses at rented halls, hotels, etc., over the years from the time he first shook the dust of the Novus Ordo Church off his feet and left that false religion behind.
I was at the final Mass today and heard the good Fr. Murphy break the terrible news to the congregation and also to let them know that he will be offering Mass starting next Sunday, November 21, at 9:00 a.m. at the Ramada Inn East Hanover (about 15 minutes away). He told the congregation to remember that with the chapel in control of the Novus Ordo establishment, it will be their philosophy, false ecumenism, and immorality that will be the rule. He warned them of the corruption of their children.
As TRADITIO has pointed out, in the words of Saint Athanasius, "what is more important, the buildings or the faith?" We can thank God for the nearly nine years of this lovely Catholic Church, but I hope (and I believe) that the vast majority of the parishioners will indeed leave now, as the enemy has taken possession of the building, and will assist at Fr. Murphy's Masses, wherever they may be, or attend other chapels, even if it means an extra half hour travel time. For now, sad to say, the building must be avoided the same as any other Novus Ordo-tainted "indult" Mass.
Before I left, I said a prayer to St. Anthony that some good will come out of this evil, and I asked our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament to forgive the betrayers of Father Wickens, as I cannot.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
As the St. Anthony's disaster continues to unfold, things are becoming clearer. I believe wholeheartedly that the two board members who have been friends with Fr. Wickens have not technically betrayed him. The third, who is the one rumored to be a part of the secretive and devious Opus Dei, could very well be the one that orchestrated this Novus Ordo takeover and overpowered the weaker, naive two. At least two of the board members are simply dupes who do not really know their faith. Clearly, this takeover was decided long ago. Board Member #3 is the one that videotaped Father in the hospital, purportedly "anointing" the Novus Ordo presbyter as his successor.
That is the "proof" that the board members intend to present at the November 14, 7 p.m., meeting. The diabolical thing is that, although this is contrary to everything that Father has ever stood for or taught us, those in attendance will see and hear Father himself "appointing" a certain presbyter, regardless of the fact that on other occasions at the end of his life Father said entirely different things. Someone "got" to Father in his weakened state (and everyone knows who). You're correct about Father's laicized once-presbyter brother and former nun sister-in-law being influential in this -- they've always wanted Father "regularized." Their lifestyle depends on Vatican II.
I will not attend the meeting. Absolutely no questions or comments are being permitted, and what amounts to mind control that the board has had months to prepare will be served up to all. Parishioners are all planning to attend to see with their own eyes what the board has to say. It can only weaken resolve. I also don't want to subject myself to "police presence." I pray that parishioners will not stick around out of curiosity or false loyalty to Fr. Wickens.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Yours is only one of many reports received concerning the put-up job that will take place at the Judas Board's November 14, 7:00 p.m., "stage-show" that is intended to deceive "if, possible, even the elect." The Board has undoubtedly planned quite a comedy, and the people there will hear many words and stories and allegations about all and sundry. It is easy to imagine how someone, overcome by a fatal disease and the powerful drugs used to treat it, could be found telling different people different things. The same ploy was pulled by Newchurch on that doctrinal critic of the "New Mass," Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, when he was sick and blind.
Those members who attend that meeting should all be from Missouri, whose motto is "Show me!" Close your ears to all the honey-coated propaganda words and look only at actions. What did Fr. Wickens do for the last decades? His past life is his words, as he can no longer speak for himself. The words of the St. Anthony's Board could very well be scripted by the Archdiocese of Newark, which has much to gain by taking over control of this traditional community, if there is anything that will be left of it after this.
The diocese, against whose counterfeit church the good Father fought for most of his priestly life, will have won in death what it could not win while Fr. Wickens was alive. And we don't know any honest person who can possibly think that turning over St. Anthony's Chapel to the wiles of the Newchurch Archdiocese of Newark, Incorporated, is what Fr. Wickens fought his whole life to achieve. Anyone who stays to participate in such a betrayal of justice is as morally corrupt as the St. Anthony's board and the Archdiocese of Newark.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I have been an active member of St. Anthony's Chapel in West Orange, New Jersey, since it opened in 1996. Even before that, I used to go to Mass where our beloved Fr. Wickens used to say it for ten years prior. I have read the TRADITIO Commentaries concerning the traitor Board.
Thank you so much! It is so exact. In fact, the Board has not only conveniently kept their decision a secret from us. They have mistreated and lied to every parishioner here. When their secrets leaked out, they turned around and accused us as being the liars!
How can they do this to our dear Ft. Wickens?! Everyone knew that Father had sacrificed his life and reputation to keep this chapel traditional. The Board knowingly and deceitfully spat on his grave and pushed most of us long-time parishioners out of the chapel by lies and intimidation (if anyone spoke up, they were served with lawsuits).
And that is only the half of it. Some of us parishioners know everything about the true, shocking story of this unfortunate end. Some knew everything right from the beginning. We can even name names. And this can be proven. I myself was nearly assaulted by one of the puppets of the Board in the beginning after Father died, and we were handing out flyers to the parishioners in the church trying to warn them of what the Board was secretly doing!
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Every time we have heard something from the Board, it is a challenge against what someone else has said, or some pettyfogging about words, or calling someone else a liar, but the Board studiously avoids making any clear statement about what it is doing. We have received many criticisms about the Board from chapel members such as yourself, as well as outside observers, to this same effect, so we are far from the only ones seeing this technique being used. Newchurch Archbishop Myers tried to use it on Fr. Wickens!
We have stated that if the Board circulates a simple statement to the chapel members that it will never allow the archdiocese to have any association with Fr. Wickens' independent chapel, we will be happy to publish that here. Many of the chapel members would be happy to have that unequivocal statement from the Board.
We do not expect that the Board will ever issue such a statement.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I was one of the previous correspondents who asked you not to print rumors. At the same time I said that if I were proved wrong, I'd admit it. I have since been proven wrong, and had confirmation (from a Board member) that they are, indeed, in league with the Newchurch Diocese of Newark. I, and many dozens of others, are completely sick at heart.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
That's honest. Very often we find that people, some perhaps in good faith, refuse to listen to the voice of experience, and come to regret it later. The worst are those who never admit reality, but like ostriches stick their heads in the sand and refuse to see things as they are. As more and more wake up to the reality of the New Order, perhaps the Church can, with God's help, start to right itself.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I apologize for thinking that TRADITIO was being manipulated and fed false information by trouble-makers at our Chapel. It is clear that it was we, the parishioners, who were lied to and manipulated by the back-stabbing traitors on the Board.
I think, though, that TRADITIO was much too charitable in attributing the Board's actions to inexperience and incompetence. Such deliberate scheming has to come from somewhere, and I am still inclined to think that there has been a Satanic influence in this entire tragic affair.
Like many others, I shall be leaving the chapel to join Fr. Murphy's relocated St. Anthony's Independent Traditional Community in East Hanover.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
This whole Wickens' affair is sickening. I can't believe that he has been betrayed in this way. I despise the Novus Ordo more (if that is possible) than I ever have!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Not long before Father Wickens was diagnosed, I spoke to him by phone about the homosexual problem in Newchurch. He told me that the Newark chancery office is completely in the hands of homosexuals and what he thought Archbishop Myers.
In one of Father's "From the desk of" letters addressed to his "Dear Fellow Priests" and printed on his own letterhead stationery, he says that "the moral and doctrinal corruption in our Archdiocese has increased. Faith and Morals have shrunken to an all-time low!"
In another of his "From the desk of" letters, Father says that he tried for two years to reason with Archbishop Myers, who never even had the common courtesy to respond and refused to dialogue "with even a modicum of Christian charity." Father commented that "Bishop Myers is obviously hiding some dark secrets." Father continued, "However, since the bishops and most priests have been sending my way so many 'slings and arrows,' perhaps it is time to fight fire with fire. Henceforth, by God's Grace, we will no longer remain silent. We shall inform the faithful and point fingers at the real enemies of Christ. Having received several threats, we have put law enforcement on the alert."
In view of that recently expressed opinion of Fr. Wickens, how, in the name of God, sanity, and common sense, can the St. Anthony's Board possibly think that it has done Father's will by turning over our Chapel to that den of [archdiocesan] perverts? Isn't it obvious that Father finally saw the futility of trying to deal reasonably with the archdiocese and simply threw in the towel? And doesn't it seem strange that the chancery office is suddenly willing to discuss reconciliation only now that Fr. Wickens is no longer with us and able to guard against the machinations of Myers and his fellows?
The Board has been cleverly manipulated by the unholy forces at the chancery office. If the Board seriously thinks that Myers is going to leave the Chapel people alone to continue as in the past, they are living in a dream world. They should try reading TRADITIO's recent article about the gullible priests of Campos, Brazil, who were also led down the primrose path with cynical promises, only to find that the Novus Ordo has been imposed upon that diocese. The Board's action in turning St. Anthony's over to the Archdiocese of Newark is a colossal blunder that will end up exactly like Campos.
I apologize for thinking that TRADITIO was being manipulated and fed false information by trouble-makers at our Chapel. It is clear that it was we, the parishioners, who were lied to and manipulated by the back-stabbing traitors on the Board. In fact, TRADITIO was being much too charitable in attributing their actions to inexperience and incompetence.
It's the same old story. If the Novus Ordinarians think that the Newchurch scandal in the U.S. is going to go away, they're mistaken. For all the posturing the Newchurch bishops do, for all the phony "apology" Messes they perform, they're still as corrupt as ever. They have learned nothing. And a big cause for the continuing corruption is that the pope has not laid a hand on any of his creatures (remember, all of these bishops were appointed by him personally) while they have embezzled, lied, fornicated, and racketeered against the Holy Faith.
Two chairman of the U.S. Catholic Conference of [Newchurch] Bishops have exposed these bishops. The founding chairman, a former state governor, federal attorney, and FBI agent, even called the national bishops' conference a "Mafia" because the bishops were conspiring together to obstruct justice and conceal crimes, if they weren't participating in the crimes themselves. And this was an FBI agent whose specialty was investigating the Mafia.
Now we have the Newchurch Archbishop of San Francisco who has been caught with his cassock down, according to a report in the Chronicle. The chairman of the board appointed by the archbishop to investigate these crimes in the archdiocese has now publicly resigned from the board and accused the archbishop and the other U.S. bishops of "deception, manipulation, and control." Jenkins pointed to "the culture of silence that gave the church hierarchy permission to be complicit in the criminal [acts]."
In his resignation letter to Levada, James Jenkins, a clinical psychologist and board chairman for more than two years, said that the investigating board was being reduced to "an elaborate public relations scheme." The same accusations had been made against the USCCB's national board by two of its chairman. The Newchurch bishops do not want to find the criminals in their midst because they are the criminals and want to sweep the whole matter under the carpet with an elaborate P.R. front.
Criticism of the Newchurch bishops is becoming more and more public as their criminal patterns are being exposed daily. Not one of them is exempt. They are all involved to one degree or another in the conspiracy of concealment, or even active participation. Chairman Jenkins concluded that Newchurch could probably never restore public trust "given its present leadership and the state of its corruption."
And yet all too many of the Novus Ordinarians still troop into their Protestant-Masonic-Pagan Novus Ordo temples run by criminals, pony up their money to be embezzled and converted to prostitution and racketeering. Are they daft? And yet they dare to criticize the traditional Catholicism of 2000 years.
TRADITIO has received a number of messages recently about what to say to family and friends to defend traditional Catholicism. This is backwards. Tell unrepentant Novus Ordinarians just this: "I have nothing to defend. I am doing exactly what 2000 years of popes and Saints have been doing. It is you who have to defend your unCatholic, graceless, criminal Newchurch, which is daily being exposed for the counterfeit that it is. No sane person could call it the Catholic Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ."
Well, well, well. Peel the onion down far enough, and the associations get more and more dark. It now appears that not only is the St. Anthony's Board selling out Fr. Wickens' independent chapel to the New Order but also has an association with that organization of intrigue, Opus Dei. A report to TRADITIO indicates that one of the Board members has association with Opus Dei, and the presbyter that is supposedly assigned to take over the chapel is also associated with Opus Dei.
There is substantial evidence that the Newchurch Opus Dei organization, which -- beware! -- sometimes poses as "traditional," which it certainly is not, operates as a cult. The Newchurch beatification of its founder, Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, has been steeped in controversy. Among others, Kenneth Woodward, religion editor of Newsweek, pointed out irregularities in Escrivá's beatification in a 1992 article. One of Mr. Woodward's more serious charges was that Opus Dei prevented critics of Escrivá from testifying at the church tribunals deliberating on his life. In a recent interview, Mr. Woodward said: "It seemed as if the whole thing was rigged."
Opus Dei is widely criticized, by those who were once its members, as operating in a cult fashion. Among the criticisms are its reliance on corporal mortification, predatory and deceptive recruitment, secrecy about its operations and practices, and the alienation of members from their families.
It is looking more and more as if St. Anthony's Chapel were going to be turned over to the New Order diocese to be fabricated into a caricature of Fr. Wickens' original institution. And it won't just become wacko Novus Ordo; it will become wackissimo Opus Dei, so they say! Perhaps it's time for the sounder independent heads at the chapel, the ones most in sympathy with the heart and soul of Fr. Wickens, to think about getting away from all these "Boards" and "organizations," whether diocese, Opus Dei, SSPX, St. Anthony's, or whatever, which are, in the end, all out for their own private agendas.
Instead, these sounder heads might set up, in another location, a balanced, friendly, independent chapel, one devoted to Our Lord and the Most Blessed Virgin, one that reflects the best of the Roman Catholic Faith -- its Thomistic theology, its fine art, its sublime music, and the "most beautiful thing this side of heaven," the Traditional Latin Mass.
It looks like the false "obedience" argument against traditional Catholics is blowing up in the face of Newchurch bishops.
A study conducted by Catholic University of America and Purdue University showed that three-quarters of the Novus Ordinarians considered the failure of Newchurch bishops to stop "abuse" (which includes embezzlement, physical abuse, racketeering, etc.) is a bigger problem than the "abuse" itself.
Anger in the pews toward Newchurch leaders has resulted in a decline in Mess attendance (which has been serious enough to force the closing of numerous Novus Ordo temples in dioceses throughout the country). The study showed that the vast majority of Novus Ordinarians are paying little heed to the "authority" of bishops, as "it was a shocker" for Catholics to learn that the people they trusted to take care of the "abuse" crisis were the ones covering it up and even perpetrating the "abuses" themselves.
Well, duh! How long does it take for these Novus Ordinarians wake up and smell the coffee? These Newchurch bishops have deprived them of the true Mass and Sacraments for forty years. The Novus Ordinarians have therefore been cut off from these most important sources of grace. No wonder the Church of the New Order is stinking from public corruption, and its adherents in the pews are ignorant and confused.
Why didn't these Novus Ordiniarians get their backs up before to save their traditional Catholic Faith? The things of God, after all, are more important than human frailties. People magazine exists for the other, if they are so inclined.
Only in the Church of the New Order. Isn't it interesting that the pope who is supposed to be anti-abortion is supporting the United Nations, which is compelling nations to rescind anti-abortion laws? Isn't it interesting that the pope's own homeland is being singled out for its anti-abortion laws? Will the pope's words shake to its foundations that institution pandering to Modernism and Liberalism across the world, not to speak of totalitarianism?
It seems that the United Nations Human Rights Committee concluded a review on Poland's compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and, in a November 4 statement, was blunt in demanding that Poland legalize abortion. "The State Party should liberalize its legislation and practice on abortion," it said.
The Committee reiterated its "deep concern about restrictive abortion laws in Poland" and also pushed contraception and sex-education. "The State party should assure the availability of contraceptives and free access to family planning services and methods. The Ministry of Education should ensure that schools include accurate and objective sexual education in their curricula," said the report.
Not content to pander abortion, contraception, and sex education, the UN Committee went on to push for "gay marriage." "The Committee is concerned that the right of sexual minorities not to be discriminated against is not fully recognized and that discriminatory acts and attitudes against persons on the ground of sexual orientation are not adequately investigated and punished."
Remember that in 2001 the United States, the world's greatest democracy and leading force for human rights, was excluded from the United Nations Human Rights Committee. As Congressman Lantos put it at the time: "It is absurd that rogue states and chronic human rights abusers such as Libya, Sudan, and Cuba remain on the Committee and sit in judgement on the human rights practices of others, while the U.S. now stands on the sidelines."
One spokesman said that the report was a "UN attack on the sovereignty of Poland." We agree -- and more. It's an attack upon humanity. This United Nations has outlived its usefulness, just as Wilson's League of Nations did. Let's take back its land and build a memorial the Victims of Terrorism, which that United Nations has done nothing effective to stop.
But don't wait for JPII to do anything. He's in bed politically with the One-World New Order Regime and won't bite the hand that feeds his philosophy.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Remember when the formerly courageous traditional priests of Campos, Brazil, under the late Bishop de Castro Meyer, sold out to the "indult"? They were promised the moon and sixpence by Card. Hoyos, the Ecclesia Dei gauleiter. They were promised that the Newvatican "would not change anything; they would continue to fight for Tradition."
O, what a tangled web that Newvatican weaves, when it practices to deceive! And deceive it did. It set up a puppet "traditional" bishop by the name of Rifan. All kinds of propaganda went out in an effort to entice traditional Catholics over to the dark side of the "indult," like the fly to the spider, saying that Rifan was oh so traditional.
Now, folks, here it is in living color. The puppet "indult" Bishop Rifan, just like all indult personnel of the New Order, must celebrate the New Order Mess. And here he is concelebrating the Novus Ordo Mess, in all his formal pontificalia, demonstrating undeniably by a public act of false worship that he accepts the Novus Ordo Mess, using the phony "Eucharistic Prayer No. 2," made up by the Mason Bugnini, with its phony "consecration" ("shed for you and for all").
Thus, he proclaims that the Catholic Faith is not the true faith, but that Jews can be saved by following some other Messias than Our Lord Jesus Christ, that Mohammedans can follow Mohammed, that Buddhists can follow Buddha -- "we all worship the same god," so Newvatican now tells us, teaching a "novel" doctrine that was condemned by 260 popes, 20 Doctors of the Church, 20 Oecumentical Councils, and thousands of Saints.
Don't be deceived, folks. Rifan and Hoyos are now trying to deceive traditional Catholics in the United States and elsewhere to support this enterprise of the New Order that wraps itself in traditional garb. If you get a donation envelope for Campos, scribble NO MONEY TO SUPPORT THE NEW ORDER on it, and return to sender, postage due.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I have noticed questions about the validity of the "Luminous Mysteries," which were tagged onto the rosary by the New Order, that they are not Catholic. I know that JPII was behind them. Could you explain once again why they don't have any validity?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The so-called "Luminous Mysteries," like the New "Mass," the New Morality, the New Theology, etc., are vehicles for the Church of the New Order to undermine every form of Catholic Tradition, and therefore the Roman Catholic Faith itself.
As has been discussed on TRADITIO many times here before, the Most Holy Rosary is essentially a simplified form of the Divine Office for laypeople. Its 150 Aves reflect the 150 Psalms of the Psalter, which clergy, religious, and devout laypeople recite each week. Until JPII tried to pull the "200 Ave" Rosary, everyone understood this. Some people are just arithmetically compromised!
It is just the next step of the New Order, after having destroyed its "Mass," to go on to destroy its rosary. In addition, the "Luminous Mysteries" seem to have an unsettling association with the Modernist New Ageism that is now paganizing the Church of the New Order, so that pagan Messes with dancing girls, gymnastics, and even white witches are making their way into many Newchurch dioceses.
Traditional Catholics don't go for this Modernistic claptrap, which undermines the true Catholic Faith. People who are so gullible as to accept these changes are the same people sat back while the true Mass was taken away from them, and a Protestant-Masonic-Pagan counterfeit service was put in its place with hardly a whimper from them.
No wonder the Church of the New Order is so devoid of grace. It has lost its Mass, its Sacraments, its doctrine, and certainly its morality. Even JPII can't bring himself to condemn prelates who are deflowering Catholic youth and embezzling millions of dollars from Newchurch. JPII is not the solution to the problems; he is the cause, in many cases. He is like the father who, having an addict for a son, goes out and buys the cocaine for him because he can't bear to see the withdrawal symptoms that are necessary to get the son well.You can be sure that you are truly Catholic by staying with the millennia-old teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. Particularly in our times, you should take heed of St. Paul's warning: "For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears" (2 Timothy 4:3/DRV). Just make sure that you are not one of those whose ears itch for phony new doctrines and practices!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I am joining a Catholic homeschool group in which most members are Novus Ordo. I am going to a meeting this Thursday, and they will be praying the rosary. Unfortunately, it will be the Novus Ordo so-called "Luminous" mysteries. Should I silently pray the Joyful Mysteries? Or should I tell them that I do not pray the "Luminous" mysteries? And how would I tell them tactfully?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The rule of thumb is to consider Novus Ordinarians as Protestants and to act toward them as you would toward Protestants. Certainly, you should stay entirely away from any "religious" activities. Stick with the academics only. If that is not possible, find another school.
We're concerned that your children may be exposed daily to a false religion if you allow false religion to creep into this homeschool. That is worse than sending your children to a public school, which makes no religious pretensions. As Archbishop Fulton Sheen said of Novus Ordo "Catholic" schools as early as 1967, 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 school, 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.
If you stay with this homeschool, consistently make the point with the others that if individuals want to engage in religious activities, they should do so outside and keep religious proselytism out of the school. You see how already they have corrupted the Most Holy Rosary and are enticing to get you into the New Order camp. Don't worry about being "tactful." State your position clearly and forcefully; otherwise, there will be only misunderstandings.
Have you ever noticed how long the noses of U.S. bishops are? Like Pinocchio, they lie. Here are some examples.
Author David Gibson summarizes the situation for the Novus Ordo in The Coming Catholic Church:
You can't trust your bishops. You can't trust your priest [presbyter]. The parish where you were baptized and raised is being closed. And they want money to build a suburban church, but your kids aren't going to Mass [Mess].
And the Novus Ordo says that there are problems in the traditional Church, which is growing, has a fairly ample supply for priests for its churches and chapels throughout the country, and has very high Mass attendance. The Catholic world was once marked by stability," Gibson says. "Now all it is marked by is change."
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Could we start a petition here to request the EWTN network to broadcast the Traditional Latin Mass? What do you think?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The Eternal Word Television Network (once run by Mother Angelica, who is now incapacitated by a stroke) is an organ of the New Order. Any viewing of that network simply exposes traditional Catholics to the most virulent Newchurch and Charismatic craziness that goes on there. As TRADITIO has cautioned before, this network should be scrupulously avoided by traditional Catholics. Even the programs that seem relatively orthodox are subtlely colored with the errors of Modernism and the New Order. One, therefore, exposes his Faith to risk and perversion by viewing such things, which is a sin against the First Commandment.
You should be going to your local Traditional Latin Mass, not watching something on television. Watching Mass on television is of no avail. Participation in the Holy Sacrifice must be in person. Otherwise, you are not in attendance, you are simply watching phantom electric pulses, and there are no per se graces.
If you are distant from a Traditional Latin Mass, there are other alternatives for keeping the Lord's Day holy. For further details, see The Method of Hearing Mass Spiritually for the Absent in the TRADITIO Library of Files. In addition, there are many CDs, DVDs, and videotapes of the Traditional Latin Mass if you wish to view them simply for personal edification. For further details, see What Traditional Books Do You Recommend? in the TRADITIO Library of Files.
We are not so desperate that we need to watch a television network pandering the destruction of the Roman Catholic Faith.
TRADITIO was informed that the local archdiocese, which had already admitted from one pulpit its takeover of the late Fr. Wickens' independent traditional Catholic church, would make a wider announcement on Sunday, November 7. Our New York correspondent confirmed that a second announcement was in fact made by the diocese on schedule:
A Novus Ordo presbyter announced today, from the pulpit of his Novus Ordo parish, that he would be assuming the responsibilities of pastor at St. Anthony of Padua Chapel, the once-independent Roman Catholic Chapel of the late Fr. Paul Wickens.
In light of this, the Board continues to deny that the Archdiocese has taken control. Imagine: the local Novus Ordo parish announces this from the pulpit, but the very parishioners of St. Anthony's Chapel are still told that nothing has been decided yet.
Fr. Wickens threw Archbishop Gerety out of his hospital room twice when the Novus Ordinarian came to "reconcile" Fr. Wickens to the Novus Ordo. How is it, then, that this happened? Within two weeks after Fr. Wickens' death, the Board approached the Novus Ordo Archdiocese and sold out the legacy of St. Anthony's Chapel.
Another local correspondent reports:
Fr. Wickens' church is under the complete control of the diocese just like Our Lady of Fatima Church in Pequannock and Mater Ecclesiae Church in Berlin, as stated from the pulpit of Mater Ecclesiae on November 7. If the St. Anthony's Board is not admitting this, then they are not being up front with their people.
St. Anthony's Chapel will not be a stand-alone Novus Ordo parish but like Mater Ecclesiae. It will be considered a "Mission Church" under the umbrella of a Novus Ordo parish. Mater Ecclesiae is under the "banner" of St. Edward's Novus Ordo church. When I attended Pequannock, the presbyters there also referred to it as a "Mission Church." It is a "Mission Church" because the Novus Ordo is doing "missionary work" to those who "feel attached to the Traditional Latin Mass" to get them back into the Novus Ordo through the deceptive "indult." In Berlin, that approach has backfired on the diocese, but in Pequannock they have gotten the formerly traditional Catholics to embrace both the Novus Ordo and the Traditional Latin Mass.
One local was so enterprising as to check out the "dumpster" story. He reports in part as follows:
Thank you very much for posting all the alerts on St. Anthony's. After your mention of the dumpster, I stopped by to see for myself.
I climbed up all the sides in various places to peer inside and even unlocked the large rear hatch and walked inside to check the contents. The dumpster was almost filled, not merely with Fr. Wickens' personal possessions, but much more importantly it is full of construction material from the extensive renovations being done to Fr. Wickens' personal quarters and perhaps other areas as well.
These renovations are being done to the personal specification of the new occupant. I say this because of the nature of the items and also because a construction program of this extent could not be planned on the spur of the moment. The betrayal must have occurred immediately after Fr. Wickens' death, or even while he was still alive. Please note also that the chapel and residence are less that ten years old and in no need of any rehab.
The only independent priest whose chapel is near St. Anthony's is Fr. Francis Clifford, who is actually in residence at St. Anthony's at Fr. Wickens' invitation, and not only offers a 9 a.m. daily Mass at St. Anthony's, which is not listed in the bulletin. He also services a congregation at Our Lady of Fatima Chapel in Ocean Township.
These reports were even confirmed from the SSPX by another of our correspondents as follows:
Today at the SSPX chapel where I attend Mass, the priest told us what was happening at the late Fr. Wickens' church. He said, just as you have been saying, that the church's board is going to turn it over to the Novus Ordo diocese.
Father also mentioned that there will be a meeting next Sunday night, November 14, at 7:00 p.m. at St. Anthony's Chapel to discuss this and suggested that those of us who had the time should go to express our outrage at this terrible insult to a good and holy priest.
So, it appears that what has come to be known throughout the Traditional Catholic Movement as the "Judas Board" has been going behind the backs of its members to betray Fr. Wickens' church to the New Order, which he detested. Everyone seems concurred on that point. After all, Fr. Wickens himself publicly chastised the diocese as not Catholic and wished to have nothing to do with it after it began to teach false doctrine and implement a false worship service in the 1970s. Those Board members should be subjected to the severest public chastisement, just as Our Lord Himself chastised the hypocritical Pharisees.
These Board members claimed in a public document how much they respected Fr. Wickens. Well, if you respect a man, you respect his work. You don't have his possessions thrown in a dumpster and call in the New Order counterfeits to take over his ministry. For shame!
If the New Order is brought in to take over the chapel, Fr. Wickens' life and work tell his people that they should leave that place, shake the dust off their shoes, and never return again, leaving the diocese, and perhaps even the SSPX if its designs are covetous, to contest over a carcass, as once, St. Jude writes, Satan contested about the body of Moses.
And we don't doubt that Fr. Wickens would be smiling down on them. Remember that, as St. Basil the Great put it to the faithful Catholics in those ancient times much like our own, when most of the bishops, and perhaps even the pope, were heretics, as St. Jerome and history teach:
Who has lost and who has won in the struggle -- the one who keeps the premises [buildings] or the one who keeps the Faith? The Faith obviously. That therefore the ordinances which have been preserved in the churches from old time until now may not be lost in our days,... rouse yourselves, brethren,... seeing them now seized upon by aliens.
A lot of the faithful of Fr. Wickens' church are wondering how his church could be betrayed to the New Order that the good priest detested? One answer to this question might lie in the fact that, as TRADITIO has been informed, Fr. Wickens had a brother who used to be a presbyter in the archdiocese, but was laicized by Paul VI and later married. How much more Novus Ordo can you get! It seems that St. Anthony's Chapel has its own Cain and Abel.
The Associated Press reports that two more Newchurch congregations said that they plan to occupy their churches in an attempt to block their scheduled closing by the Archdiocese of Boston. There are now ten parishes staging round-the-clock sit-ins.
The archdiocese is trying to close one-fourth of its 357 parishes. The Archdiocese admits that among the causes for these closures is "declining Mass attendance." So, the truth is out again. The Vatican II "Springtime" is kaput. All of the propaganda about how the Novus Ordinarians love the "New Mess" is just so much malarky. The numbers tell the story.
TRADITIO has received much mail on the St. Anthony issue. The readership of TRADITIO has significantly increased in the last week because of our independent reporting on this problem, which seems to represent for many traditional Catholics what is worst in pandering to the New Order. The issue is also salient because it involves the work and memory of an independent traditional priest who was vilified by the New Order establishment, but who had a sterling reputation among traditional Catholics.
And it is clear from this mail, much of it from members of the late Fr. Wickens' church, that the St. Anthony's Board is blowing it. In response to one writer who attempted to defend the Board's behavior, we wrote the following:
Our reports are not "rumors." They come from reliable eyewitness sources, who are not members of your church and who do not have a personal interest in the outcome. The mail to us, much of it from your own church members, points to one major point of controversy: the Board is undermining its own position by operating in secret. Your own church members are complaining bitterly about the fact the Board operates behind closed doors and is not keeping the members informed every step of the way.
It is not up to TRADITIO to reveal its sources. That is our journalistic prerogative. That anyone should ask for this information indicates that they are not focused on the only important issue: getting a proper successor to the late Fr. Wickens. Instead, they are getting sidetracked into self-serving politics. If they continue that approach, they may as well board up St. Anthony of Padua, because its soul will be dead.
It is up to your Board to make clear to your church members what it is doing. Get your Board to focus on its communication to its own church members. If the Board does not involve its own church members openly in the decision-making process up front, chances are that this whole thing will blow up in the Board's faces, whatever the Board eventually chooses to do, as the majority of your church members will leave in disgust and go to any of a number of other Traditional Latin Mass sites in the area.
TRADITIO always looks for clear acts, not propaganda talk. If the Board has publicly stood up and said to its church members, "We will never allow Fr. Wickens' church to be placed in the hands of the New Order diocese that he detested," we will correct the record. Otherwise, we stand with the reports given, and consider all the rest empty words.
Follow-up. The Board is said to have stated in a letter of July 25 to the parishioners that it had "no intention of signing over the parish to the archdiocese or to the Fraternity of Saint Peter." Yet other reports indicate that a local Newchurch pastor announced from the pulpit on October 31 that the diocese was taking over the site in the person of a Novus Ordo presbyter. As TRADITIO has consistently said, this situation is very much a "developing story," and it will be acts, not words, that matter in the end.
TRADITIO has now received reports from two independent sources that the traitors on the board of Fr. Wickens' church are selling his church out to the New Order diocese and that the diocese has already made one public announcement to this effect. This is a truly despicable act, the moral equivalent of spitting upon Fr. Wickens' grave. Fr. Wickens courageously left the diocese and went independent decades ago because he did not believe that the diocese was Catholic any longer.
These Wolseys, who have operated in secret and have not been addressing the members of Fr. Wickens' church, have no shame. It is reported by a traditional priest eyewitness that a dumpster was brought onto the church property and that all of what remained of Father Wickens' personal effects were unceremoniously dumped.
If the remaining members of Fr. Wickens' church have any guts, they'll confront their Benedict Arnold Board and give them a foretaste of the fires of Hell for their treachery. You lawyers out there, now is your opportunity to prove that you are no John Edwardses, but actually can fight the good fight. If such measures fail, there are traditional churches and chapels in the greater metropolitan area to which the faithful can go, shaking the dust of the New Order vandals off their feet. But first to fight!
It is just indescribably sad that the hard work of Fr. Wickens should be trashed in this way. But we don't need to tell you, good people, that those who remain attached in any way to the New Order Church of Hate have no concern for right or justice, only for power and deceit.
Robert Dornan, former California Congressman and a "conservative" Novus Ordinarian, reports that at the October 30 National Shrine funeral for James Cardinal Hickey, Bernard Cardinal Law, the former Archbishop of Boston, and his successor, Archbishop Sean O'Malley, both present, stated that Massachusetts Senator John Kerry never received an annulment from the Archdiocese of Boston from his marriage. Kerry then left his wife, Julia Thorne, and his two children to purportedly marry Theresa Heinz in a civil ceremony on Nantucket Island in 1995. Photographs of the Cape Cod justice of the peace service have been published.
It now seems almost uncontrovertible that the Kerrys are traditionally both excommunicates from the Catholic Faith and are prohibited from the Sacraments until absolution is sought publicly and until a penance is imposed in the external forum (not in the internal forum of the confessional, as the original act was a public act of separation from the Church). Moreover, since his marriage to Julia Thorne is still valid, Kerry is living in a state of bigamy. Kerry thus has far more serious problems than an ambiguous position on abortion and "gay marriage."
Kerry himself has never seriously addressed this issue. Although he claims to be "Catholic" (meaning Novus Ordinarian), as recently as the Third Presidential Debate, yet when he has been asked about the status of his purported marriage to Theresa Heinz, he simply jokes about it. He has never claimed that his marriage to Julia Thorne was annulled.
Congressman Dornan reports that Newchurch Archbishop O'Malley answered "Absolutely not; no, nothing since I have been there" to the question whether the archdiocese under him found that Kerry's marriage to Julia Thorne was annulled. Cardinal Law similarly answered "No, he did not, never under me," to the question whether the marriage had been annulled.
Moreover, Congressman Dornan states that a Boston priest who had studied in Rome during the time when Kerry allegedly sought an annulment in the late 1990s stated that he had heard, while in Rome, that Kerry had approached the Vatican for an annulment, but was refused on lack of grounds.
When Joe Kennedy could not even get a quickie Newchurch annulment from the Boston Archdiocese, his race for governor ended. Although the liberalist press never touched the issue, it seems that the result for Kerry has providentially been the same as for Kennedy.
Since matters have been commented upon here peripheral to the U.S. elections, some kind of wrap-up would be in order. Rather than get into personalities and positions, we would like to look at the "big picture."
As TRADITIO has pointed out before, the same liberalistic principles that you see in secular politics have been incorporated into the running of Newchurch, the Church of the New Order. And why not? Newchurch is a Modernist organ, which uses the tactics of Secular Liberalism. And what are the basic principles of this Secular Liberalism that we see in Newchurch as Modernism?
The first liberalistic principle is: We're entitled to power and superiority." The end justifies the means in the liberalists' world. If that means that you try to suppress freedom of speech when a group of swiftboat officers disagrees with you, then do so. Don't upload the First Amendment, or do so only when the speakers agree with you. Don't uphold the principle, enunciated even by the great liberalist Voltaire: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." If you disagree with the other party, vandalize their offices and steal their computers.
In Newchurch, haven't we seen this liberalistic principle in operation? If you are a traditional Catholic, and all you're doing is upholding the Roman Catholic Faith of the popes and councils and Saints, the Newchurch hierarchy will try to shut you down, call you vile names, damn you to Hell, and all the rest. It's an old ploy, getting pretty tiresome, when this is the same hierarchy that is denying the Faith, putting on phony Messes and sacraments, and fornicating with every body in sight, then using the law to conceal their corruption.
The second liberalistic principle is: "Don't persuade by argument; use the law to coerce." Newchurch doesn't try to persuade Catholics that it is right. It can't, because it is wrong. Therefore, the only way to impose a false faith, Mess, and sacraments is to coerce by purported law (of course, such unjust laws are null and void à la St. Thomas Aquinas). You know the drill. "You have to obey the pope" -- this from the liberalists who routinely disobey virtually everything the pope says. Moreover, they refuse to obey a putatively infallible pronouncement by Pope St. Pius V on the Catholic and Apostolic Mass, enacted "in perpetuum." Irrational, isn't it?
The third liberalistic principle is: "Create an every-changing state of core principles and beliefs." On the secular side, for example, the principle of freedom of speech is redefined to become freedom of politically correct speech. The law is turned on its head to serve the opposite purpose. In Newchurch, once Catholic principles are revised with every Newvatican pronouncement. You have heard it. "Christ is not the Messias for the Jews," denying every principle of the New Covenant. "We all worship the same god," denying the First Commandment.
Yes, folks, Newchurch uses the same liberalistic ploys that we have seen used in the recent U.S. presidential campaign. Liberalism, whether in Newchurch or the State, is out of control. This is not the intellectual liberalism of a Voltaire. This is the bully liberalism of a Stalin or Mao Tse Tung. And thinking people should reject it, no matter what the source, even if that source be a bishop or the pope. These are human beings, not gods. They must obey the same Natural Law and Commandments that all of humanity must. If they tell lies and act the bully, they should be rejected just as surely as the schoolyard bully. Christ Himself said so (Matthew 20).
You have a God-given prerogative not to be bullied out of the true Faith.
There they go again! The Arizona Republic reports that Phoenix presbyters have voted for an "open discussion" of mandatory celibacy. Doing away with this traditional teaching is supposed to save Newchurch from rapidly declining vocations. And who is behind this move? Why, the ACLUs of Newchurch: FutureChurch and Call to Action, which are also trying to introduce abortion and gay marriage.
They just don't get it, do they? For 2000 years celibacy has not been a problem. The priesthood and religious orders received more postulants than they could handle. Millions of men were happy to embrace celibacy. The problem is not celibacy. The problem is Newchurch: its counterfeit faith, Mess, and sacraments. What man in his right mind would give his life to "preside over the assembly from a big chair"? To play psychologist rather than be a confessor? To have scantily-clothed ministresses and lay deacons sachet around handling the "new rites"? No, the problem is not celibacy. The problem is a false faith.
Moreover, why is Newchurch so worried about the lack of postulants? They don't need them. Since the imposition of the New Mess, attendance has fallen in less than fifty years from 79% to 15%. Wake up, you Novus Ordinarians. Newchurch is dying. The New Mess is dying. You won't need any presbyters at all before long.
And, by the way, we thought that Newchurch wanted to condemn traditional Catholics, whose only sin is to practice the Roman Catholic Faith as popes and Saints have done for 2000 years, for "disobeying" JPII. Well, aren't these Phoenix presbyters, as well as many others around the world, disobeying the pope by raising an issue that he has forbidden to be discussed? Sounds like typical liberalistic hypocrisy, doesn't it?
We are beginning to see perhaps the Divine plan for testing and bringing down the Church of the New Order. Like so many occasions in the past, when the hierarchy sank into immorality, Newchurch too, it appears, will be brought down by its immorality, by its serving of Mammon (a pagan god) rather than Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now a third Newchurch diocese is headed toward bankruptcy. Selling off traditional church buildings has not brought enough money in for the necessary payoffs to paper over the crimes. Moreover, the Novus Ordinarians are starting to fight back -- at least for the buildings, if not for the Roman Catholic Faith.
Now CNA reports that the Newchurch Archdiocese of Spokane, Washington, joins the Portland, Oregon, and Tucson, Arizona, dioceses in moving toward legal bankruptcy. The archdiocese is facing at least 19 lawsuits, involving 58 plaintiffs, who have accused nine diocesan presbyters and two Jesuits of crimes.
As TRADITIO has consistently maintained, just give Newchurch time to destroy itself. Since it has turned its back on the Roman Catholic Faith, Mass, and Sacraments, not to speak of morality, the cesspool that has lain underground since Vatican II is, in due course, bubbling to the top, where everyone can smell its stink. One can only pray that the Novus Ordinarians wake up, leave the Counterfeit Church to its own demise, do penance, and return to the true Roman Catholic Church of the millenia, the Mass, the Sacraments, the Faith, and morality.
As it happens, there is a very large traditional Catholic establishment right there in Spokane, so the Novus Ordinarians don't even have to go that far. Thus does a merciful Providence provide.
There has been a lot of ink spilled on the "sex scandal" in the Church of the New Order, but only TRADITIO has consistently pointed up the fact that the sex part is in some ways only a superficial focus. Actually, the scandal shows up the thorough corruption of the hierarchy of Newchurch. Frankly, we have been consistently surprised that the Novus Ordinarians aren't screaming: "They're stealing our money!"
The thievery that is going on in Newchurch is far worse than the titillating sex stuff. The Newchurch bishops, who claim that they are so "loving" (of evil, apparently), are essentially robbing the poor box. Yet those daft people who go to the invalid Novus Ordo Protestant-Masonic-Pagan service and put their mites into the collection plate are morally reprehensible. The Novus Ordinarians are knowingly funding the moral corruption of the Newchurch clergy and contributing to the destruction of the Roman Catholic Church.
Now the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has investigated a dozen cases and discovered that Newchurch priests and bishops accused of sex crimes all over the United States also stand accused of stealing from their Church.And these are just the cases that were investigated by the newspaper. Given all the other reports -- for example, the Archbishop of Milwaukee stealing more than $500,000 from Newchurch to pay of his catamite -- we can only imagine that hundreds of Newchurch bishops and priests have been stealing from their Church. And the daft Novus Ordinarians wonder why so many of their churches are being closed!
Those who are contributing to the Novus Ordo collection plate cannot be that daft. They must suspect that they are contributing to immoral purposes, at least partially. That is clearly the sin of criminal collusion. And yet these are the people who worry about phony Newchurch "political" sins in voting for Kerry/Bush. These Novus Ordinarians wouldn't know a real sin if it hit them in the derriere!
NOTE. The plot thickens. TRADITIO has been informed that SSPXers is now circulating a petition among their local congregations to take over 100% ownership and operation of the late Fr. Wickens' St. Anthony of Padua Chapel. The SSPX petition alleges that the Archdiocese of Newark claims that the church is in the process of being "absorbed" by the archdiocese.
It still seems to us that a strong independent priest, modeled after Fr. Wickens himself, is the best resolution of this situation. As we've said before, in our current milieu, organizations, whether it be Newchurch or SSPX or some other organization, bring more problems of their own to the table than they solve.
Fr. Wickens obviously chose the independent path for a reason. He could have gone SSPX if had wanted to, but he didn't. It would be wiser for all factions to yield to his independent choice made public by his actions rather than engaging in historical revisionism for personal gain. Fr. Wickens' only mistake was in not personally providing for his successor to avoid all this unseemly wrangling.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Is there really any difference between "gay marriage" and "civil unions"? Both Bush and Kerry are in favor of civil unions. In reality, it seems to me that they are really in favor of "gay marriage" because there is no real difference between the two. "Gay marriage" under any name is a moral abomination.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Of course you're right. "Civil unions" are just a way for politicians to say that they're against "gay marriage." There is no real difference. Even with "civil unions," the law already allows for other methods for taking care of the purported concerns advanced (e.g., powers of attorney, healthcare POAs, etc.) A rose is a rose by any other name, but in this case it's a stinky garlic clove.
NOTE. TRADITIO has been inundated with messages about the goings-on at St. Anthony of Padua. It is a matter of great interest to the traditional Catholic community. Most messages are expressions of concern that Fr. Wickens' work be honestly carried out in the way that he himself did. We have received phone calls and messages from traditional priests around the world (several of them SSPX priests), from local members of the congregation on all sides of the issue seeking our counsel, and from other concerned observers of the goings-on, including a private investigator and an attorney who are monitoring whether what is going on is legal.
The concern of this varied group of traditional Catholics is moving. However, a few messages were received of rather vile nature, whose content is not to try to understand and resolve the situation in a fair way, but to vilify individuals by name, among which vilified individuals are traditional priests. In every case, the vile messages have come from those who identify themselves as associated with or favoring the Society of St. Pius X. If he were alive today, Abp. Lefebvre, a most gentlemanly and saintly man, would disown them!
These messages only confirm exactly the warning that has been raised about the SSPX organization. It is not that the Society is "schismatic" or theologically off base. TRADITIO has consistently defended the Society upon those points. It is, rather, that the Society has appointed too many unqualified and, yes, nasty people to its leadership. They do not hold a candle to the standards that the Archbishop set for them. Some new visitors to SSPX chapels report receiving this chilling attitude (although it is only fair to say that there are many fine SSPX priests, who do not exhibit such an attitude).
It is this chilling attitude that some SSPX leaders and some SSPX priests have, which filters down to the laypeople in association with them, that requires a warning for people who have never dealt with the SSPX on a leadership level. One messenger admitted that he knew nothing of the historical matters mentioned. Then, instead of researching them, he went into a tirade against certain non-SSPX priests.
TRADITIO tries maintain a reasonable balance between all factions of the Traditional Catholic Movement, but based on history and the public record. We have never condemned the Society as a whole. We have always spoken in a praiseworthy fashion of its saintly Archbishop-Founder. Some of the Society's products, such as The Angelus and The Angelus Press, have many praiseworthy features.
What we do remind people of is that some leaders of the SSPX, particularly in the United States (and we're not speaking here of a bishop), have compiled a public record of undermining non-SSPX sites just like Fr. Wickens', even through stealth (here we are thinking of the "Blue Paper" documentation about the money and property of an independent site being converted to SSPX coffers).
Inexperienced people, like the St. Anthony's Board, need to be aware of this history; otherwise, they may make important decisions in ignorance. We'd rather that they used informed judgment in advance rather than having them come back to us, stripped of their money and property saying, as has happened on several occasions, "We wished we'd listened to you in the first place."
Isn't it interesting that the Church of the New Order, which made such a big deal about going Protestant by reintroducing "communion" from the "cup" to Novus Ordinarians, are now eliminating that practice right and left not for religious reasons, but "for health reasons"? Perhaps these Newchurch bishops are just more dense than their mediaeval predecessors who, for a number of practical reasons, received under only one Species.
Vermont's Newchurch bishop Kenneth Angell is not only withholding the lay cup to avoid the flu, he's even nixed the lay "handshake of peace." That has become such a silly component of the Novus Ordo Mess that you know things have gotten bad when they nix it too!
All this is quite specious, of course. Can you imagine how many diseases other than the flu are communicated through the Novus Ordinarians slobbering all over the cup? And forget the Eastern-rite argument. It doesn't exist. The Easterners traditionally don't allow laypeople to drink out of the chalice. They offer Communion by intinction; that is, the priest dips the Host into the Precious Blood and the priest places It upon the tongue of the communicant. No filthy hands to grab "the bread" and self-communicate.
For further details see the section "Communion under One Species" in How Do You Explain These Traditional Beliefs in the TRADITIO Library of Files.
NOTE. A new report indicates that the SSPX, having formerly declared itself incompetent to staff the late Fr. Wickens' St. Anthony of Padua Church in West Orange, New Jersey, is now trying to come back into the picture. More organizational shenanigans? It is well known that the Society has a history of coveting property, and Fr. Wickens' parish is probably too juicy a prize to ignore. We think that the proper thing to do would be to respect Fr. Wickens' position, amply demonstrated by his life and work, of remaining scrupulously independent of both the diocese and the SSPX.
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