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Some years ago, when TRADITIO first started calling the Novus Ordo "bread" a "cookie" (because the New Order "recipes" included invalid matter and because the validity of the form and even intention had been compromised), we got a number of irate messages. But shortly we were absolutely flooded with congratulatory messages for being outspoken enough to call a spade a space, many of the messages coming from the same writers who had originally objected to the term.
As so often has happened, TRADITIO's position in the vanguard of the Traditional Catholic Movement was prescient. Now a number of traditional writers openly hold the invalidity of the "New Mass" and its cookie. Following such seminal works as P.H. Omlor's Questioning the Validity of the New, All-English Canon (1967), Cardinals Bacci and Ottaviani's Short Critical Study of the New Order of Mass (1969), and Fr. James Wathen's The Great Sacrilege (1971), Fr. Paul Trinchard in 2004 updated the evidence in The "New Mass" Conclusively Invalid, According to the Preponderance of Evidence. For further information, see the TRADITIO Library of Files for FAQ05: What Traditional Books Do You Recommend?
Even the pope had to admit that invalid "Masses" were rampant. On May 11, 1979, Pope John Paul II approved a letter from Franjo Cardinal Seper, Cardinal-Prefect of the Holy Office (the position later held by Joseph Ratzinger) to the National Council of [Newchurch] Catholic Bishops of the United States, in which the question of "invalid matter" being used was exposed. Although at the time the papal directive led to the exposure of what has been called an "American Scandal," you probably have never heard of it, have you? Why?
The answer is simple. If it ever got out that Newchurch bishops were "approving" phony Masses and phony cookies, many Novus Ordinarians would be forced, as never before, to face up to the fact that the New Order in their parishes is not Catholic, but a fraud. So embarrassed by the papal directive were the U.S. bishops that they put into effect with regard to their phony cookie the same technique that they fine-tuned to perfection in the later Great Sex & Embezzlement Scandal, which is still going on: they covered it up.
The President of the USCCB at the time, one John Quinn, Archbishop of San Francisco, who questioned the truth of the Resurrection and went on to Oxford University to preach against papal infallibility, simply ignored the papal directive. The USCCB ignored the papal directive. The USCCB never discussed. The USCCB took no action to correct what the papal directive had called "the obligation of justice." (And Newchurch calls itself "obedient to the pope"; what a laugh!) As a result the bishop-phonies of the United States repeated over and over again, from 1969 to this day, the horror of the mortal sin of simulation.
But, as the Newchurch bishops learned in the Great Sex & Embezzlement Scandal, Magna est veritas, et praevalet [Great is the truth, and it prevails] (1 Esdras 4:41/DRV). The Canadians have discovered the truth and, as United Press International reports, Novus Ordo cookies are growing in popularity as a snack food throughout Quebec, alongside potato chips and popcorn on supermarket shelves, harking back "to when Quebec was one of the most devout Roman Catholic enclaves in North America, and the wafers were seen only at Holy Communion.
Gaston Bonneau, one of the two major commercial producers in Quebec, told the Toronto Globe & Mail newspaper that his business started with just himself and his wife in the mid-1980s. Now it has grown to 16 employees, and he plans to automate production. Said supermarket manager Paul Saumure: "My son can eat a whole bag [of Novus Ordo cookies] while he's watching TV. He's had more of them outside of church than he ever did inside one." The consumption of Novus Ordo cookies, which are just as invalid inside the Novus Ordo temples as they are on the supermarket shelves, is occurring at the same time that Montreal churches are being refitted as condominiums and religious statuettes are being sold as home-decor items in antique shops.
Given the confusion and perversion of our modern era, this is not really a surprise. What is more of a surprise is that the Novus Ordinarians, who call themselves "Catholics," continue to support with mouth and wallet the very hierarchy that has turned their Roman Catholic Faith into an invalid counterfeit and has deprived them of the much-needed grace of the true Sanctissimum Sacramentum. No wonder Newchurch is sinking into the pit faster that Satan can flick his tail!
Although not yet published on any web site, I am giving TRADITIO the scoop on the 2004 statistics for Newchurch in England and Wales. It looks like a total collapse of Newchurch is happening here.
The latest statistics show, therefore, that the estimated number attending the Novus Ordo service in England and Wales has declined by 200,000 in just two years -- from 1,071,975 in 2002 to 876,613 in 2004 -- an average decline of 100,000 per year. Mass attendance rose steadily here until Vatican II, peaking at 2,114,219 in 1966; attendance was half that of 1966 by 1998; there was a drop of 380,000 during the decade beginning 1990. That rate of decline, as bad as it was, appears to have just accelerated drastically. Over 90% of children who now attend Novus Ordo schools here have given up the religion by the time they leave school.
In the forty years since Vatican II, three-quarters of Catholics have walked away from the New Order Church. If the decline continues at the current rate, Newchurch will be dead in Britain in seven years.
An Australian group of the heretical Church of England, which is breaking apart as a result of the 2003 decision of the "mainline" Anglican liberalists to consecrate as bishop Gene Robinson, an open homosexual with a live-in lover, is trying to take a false turn to the New Order. The misnamed Traditional Anglican Communion, which is not traditional, but merely slightly "conservative," is preparing a "Pastoral Plan" to ask Newvatican to become part of an "Anglican Rite Church" that would preserve the TAC's Anglican heresy, while allowing them to be "visibly united" with Newchurch.
The leader of the heretical group that wants to merge with Newchurch is John Hepworth, a Novus Ordo presbyter defrocked after his conversion to the heresy of Anglicanism. In a statement released earlier this year, Hepworth said that his communion no longer had an "doctrinal differences" with Newchurch, since Newchurch has, since Vatican II, changed its doctrines to become Protestant.
Newchurch has actually been Protestantizing itself for decades now. In 1987 Newvatican approved a Protestant "Mass," with ritual and texts taken from the Episcopalian Book of Common Prayer. The form of consecration is identical with the invalid ones in the Novus Ordo. Moreover, Newvatican has been slipping in married presbyters. By July 2005, eighty Episcopalian ministers had joined the New Order since 1980, when JPII received Episcopalian ministers as married presbyters.
The Traditional [sic] Anglican Communion is only one of a number of new Anglican organizations that have separated from the Church of England and its associated national groups over the issue of priestesses and/or homosexual ministers. Other truly traditional Anglican communions are not considering moving to Newrome, as they consider that to be moving simply from the frying pan into the fire!
Fr. Denis Fahey (1883-1954) was a major figure in the pre-Vatican II Church, on the same level as Fr. Leonard Feeney, whose Catholic books, such as Fish on Friday, were best-sellers, and Fr. Charles Coughlin, whose popular Catholic radio program was the precursor to Bishop Sheen's.
Columnist Patricius Anthony, who has written for several traditional publications, acquaints TRADITIO readers with this influential author, whose works foresaw the basic flaws of the New Order. For further information, see the Special Feature on Fr. Fahey against the Coming New Order.
Anthony points out that what is particularly horrific since the passing of this courageous priest some fifty years ago has been that the enemies of Christ have successfully infiltrated His visible Church and have diabolically transformed it into a false, man-centered monstrosity, the Novus Ordo religion. It is, therefore, no surprise that Fr. Fahey's works are an anathema to Newrome and are mostly held in esteem amongst traditional Catholics.
Anthony concludes that from all that is known about Fr. Fahey, it is unlikely that had he lived, he would have remained silent and not expressed vehement opposition to the wretched Second Vatican Council as it sowed its destructive seeds. It is puzzling that two other prominent priests, Frs. Feeney and Coughlin, who often preached and published on similar subjects to Fr. Fahey, were, at least in their writings, conspicuously reticent as the waves of reforms were ushered in, even though both lived into the late 1970s.
Newchurch archbishop Thomas "Bully" Burke, of St. Louis, must be wishing that he were back in La Crosse receiving transsexuals into final vows as "nuns." At least he was able to get away with that Novus Ordo travesty more easily than trying to "excommunicate" the faithful people of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in St. Louis. When this archbishop of the "Newchurch of Love" decided he would steal the church and its $10,000,000 in assets to pay off his sex-crime liabilities, even though the church has received a perpetual charter from the St. Louis archbishop over 125 years ago and had never received one red cent in those years from the archdiocese, he caught a tiger by the tail. Much of St. Louis is wishing that he'd hightail it back to La Crosse where he came from.
And the Novus Ordinarians, who are now waking up to the plundering of their Roman Catholic Faith by Newchurch, turned out to support the Kostkas in droves. Although the church has only 400 regular congregants, over 2000 turned out for the Christmas Midnight service, exposing themselves to more of these Newchurch "excommunications." If Bully Burke doesn't watch it, he might end up "excommunicating" all his Novus Ordinarians, and come to regret it as much as Newchurch regrets its illegal and invalid "excommunication" of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre for maintaining the Roman Catholic Faith in the face of the heretical New Order.
Burke, a Newchurch bishop who doesn't even really believe in sin, proclaimed that it would be a "mortal sin" for anyone to participate in the service -- and in that he was correct. Objectively, to attend the invalid and phony Novus Ordo Mess is a grave sin. But that stricture, ironically, applied to Burke's own Christmas Mess at the St. Louis cathedral!
Traditional Catholics in St. Louis are hoping and praying that this church, which has now made itself and its resources independent from Newchurch, will be further enlightened to see the false nature of the Novus Ordo Mess and will get a traditional priest to restore the Roman Catholic Faith at St. Stanislaus. It is ironic that idolatrous photographs of JPII and Benedict-Ratzinger were placed next to the creche, when these popes had sided with Bully Burke in wanting to steal St. Stanislaus. Unfortunately, the Kostkas are still half mad with Novus Ordoism.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Was it the Roman Canon that Benedict XVI used in his Christmas Mess? I thought the Roman Canon could be used exclusively only in the context of the Traditional Latin Mass, not some sort of hybrid ceremony. Is it possible to celebrate the Novus Ordo Mess and use the Roman Canon?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
First of all, there is no true "Roman Canon" in the Novus Ordo. There is only one Sacred Canon of the Mass, which originates from Sts. Peter and Paul. After all, the Greek canon means rule or standard. It certainly does not mean option! This is the central, consecratory part of the Mass, which no one, even a pope, dared to touch in 2000 years. Although Pope Pius IX specifically refused requests from the Modernists even to add the name of St. Joseph to the Canon, the pope refused, saying that he had no authority to do such a thing: he was only the pope! John XXIII, however, succumbed in 1962, opening the door for all Hell to break loose with the advent of the New Order service.
On October 22, 1967, the incipient New Mess became invalid when occurred what Fr. Lawrence Brey called "the most ominous and frightening day in the two-thousand-year history of the Catholic Church, and certainly in the history of the church in the United States of America." It was on that day that the Catholic and Apostolic Canon of the Mass was changed to invalidity with a New Order consecratory formula.
It was then, even before the famous Ottaviani intervention, in which two cardinals of the Roman Curia, together with a number of other Roman theologians, proclaimed to Paul VI that the Novus Ordo was little more than an heretical Protestant worship service, that the Novus Ordo became clearly invalid, and P.H. Omlor wrote the first salvo proclaiming the invalidity of the new service: Questioning the Validity of the New, All-English Canon. The pope was so shaken by this courageous act of his cardinals that he immediately withdrew the Novus Ordo from circulation.
Hannibal Bugnini and his six Protestant co-authors left a basterdized "Roman Canon" in the Novus Ordo Missal of 1969, but, in addition to other changes, it implemented the same invalid consecration formula as the three new "canons" then introduced (now called "Eucharistic prayers"). By the way, it was in the same year that Bugnini's Consilium [Committee] issued the Instruction Eucharisticum mysterium that broke with the Apostles, when it returned to condemned, anti-biblical Judaism by providing for the "Golf Mess" on Saturday afternoons to be equivalent to Sunday Mass.
And for those who like to take false comfort in the Bastard Mess aired on the EWTN cable network, it was interesting to note that this Mess was fully Novus Ordo, even if wrapped in a deceptive shroud of some Latin.
Those of your readers who still hold out for an "Indult" Mass should be reminded of what a ruse they are supporting. The vast majority of these sites are simply fraudulent funnels to launder the indultarians' money into Newchurch coffers.
On December 23 the Boston Globe reported that the pastor of the Boston parish here where the "Indult" Mass is held (Holy Trinity Church) was exposed as having illegally transferred more than $175,000 over a six-year period to another nearby Novus Ordo parish (St. James Church), where he is also pastor, to help underwrite expenses there. Of course, Holy Trinity is Novus Ordo too: it features vulgar Messes in German and English too! It seems that the Germans at Holy Trinity donate far more to the Novus Ordo than the Chinese at St. James.
This pastor treats the parish where an "Indult" Mass is held as if it were "gravy train" for the fully Novus Ordo parish, not only in the secret and illegal transfer of funds but also by telling those who attend the "Indult" Mass that when that church closes, they must attend the Novus Ordo parish without any promised or practical guarantee that the "Indult" Mass will continue. (I include "practical," because Holy Trinity has parking facilities, a rare and precious commodity in downtown Boston, for those who come from outside Boston to attend the Indult Mass, while St. James has no such comparable parking, private or public.)
The illegal transfer of funds was discovered after members of the Holy Trinity parish council (including members of the "indult" group) estimated such a shortage in the parish's account and demanded an audit, which revealed the amount and the reason for it. The audit was originally requested to show the parish's financial stability in order to justify keeping it open. An spokesman for Archbishop "Shaft-em" O'Malley, caught in the illegal act of laundering 20% of the income of Holy Trinity, called the illegality "a bookkeeping mistake." Sure, sure, that's what the president of Enron said, and he now resides in jail. So, once again, the indultarians are being played for fools, and O'Malley gets off scot free.
Holy Trinity is on the list of parishes to be closed and sold to underwrite the financial shortcomings of the Archdiocese of Boston (especially from the $100,000,000 settlement for sex crimes by Newchurch presbyters). Holy Trinity is in an ideal location for development, and its sale and subsequent destruction will bring millions of dollars to the archdiocese. The planned closing of Holy Trinity has been reprieved several times (the most recent being mid December after the publication of the results of the audit), but not cancelled.
The indultarians would be better off keeping their money from O'Malley, buying Holy Trinity outright, and making it an independent traditional church, so that it remains free of Newchurch entanglements forever.
It was suggested that the faithful buy Holy Trinity so as to save it, but the sad truth is that "Shaft-em" O'Malley in his madness refuses to sell any church or parochial school building to Catholics and always puts in sales deals a clause requiring the new owner to see to it that this never happens. In one case, some property even went on to become a Protestant meeting-house. One very soundly-built granite church near Holy Trinity was turned into condominia. Needless to say, even the secularists of Boston didn't feel comfortable sleeping in part of a former Catholic church, and many of its units remained unoccupied for many years.
No, the sad truth is that Catholic aren't allowed to buy back their churches and schools. The crazed Archbishop's policy is "burnt-earth": to wipe out completely the Catholic presence in the public places of the city. I believe that this is part of his policy because of the millions of dollars he has received and is receiving from liberalist Protestants and secularist Jews. There are a number of wealthy non-Catholic groups that buy off Catholic properties if they contract to pursue a secularist policy. Policies such as "burnt-earth" are intended to keep that kind of money rolling in.
Here's yet another Novus Ordo irony for you, which shows how much headway traditional Catholicism is making. Some weeks ago a TRADITIO Commentary featured an independent traditional Catholic church in Orlando, Florida, which was being persecuted by the local Newchurch bishop for not being "Catholic." Now TRADITIO has discovered a case in Oakland, California, where a Novus Ordo parish is fraudulently listing itself in the local telephone book under the category "Churches -- Catholic, Traditional" (the category for independent traditional Catholic churches) instead of "Churches -- Catholic, Roman" (where all Newchurch 1parishes are listed). For many years there has been another listing of a legitimate independent traditional Catholic Mass.
This Novus Ordo church, which doesn't even have an "Indult" Mass, is in a heavily Hispanic area of Oakland, which is known to harbor large numbers of illegal aliens from Mexico. Apparently, these Hispanics don't like the Novus Ordo and generally prefer the "traditional." So in order to drive Hispanics to the Novus Ordo church, the parish is choosing to list itself as a "traditional" Catholic church. What a fraud! Perhaps the bishop of Orlando would like to extend his persecution to the Newchurch parish in Oakland that is posing as "traditional"!
TRADITIO has called the New Order, and particularly its service, as Protestant-Masonic-Pagan. Here is further evidence of its paganism. False oecumenism has gone so far in Newchurch that Newvatican and its bishops don't even object when their "nuns" become pagan Buddhist. This is reminiscent of that wacko monk Thomas Merton, so worshipped by Newchurch, who electrocuted himself in a bathtub in the Orient while at a Buddhist "oecumenical" meeting.
Elaine MacInnes, of Toronto, a Newchurch "nun," has become a Buddhist Zen mistress, the highest echelon of the pagan religion. MacInnes meditates for thirty minutes a day as Buddhist. No one in Newchurch has raised any objection to her paganism: anything goes in the unCatholic Newchurch. [RNS\
What's next on the agenda for MacInness? Perhaps she wants to become a Jedi mistress next?
Benedict-Ratzinger threw the press for a loop when, in the frigid Roman winter (traditional Catholics might remember the Roman poet Horace's vivid description in Ode I.9: Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte), in which temperatures have been as low as 0 degrees Celsius, he donned the papal camauro, a fur-trimmed cap worn by popes since the eleventh century, but not recently since Pope John XXIII.
Traditional Catholics recalled the camauro from portraits of the popes, but the much of the press was confused (they are, after all, ignorant of most things Catholic) and thought that it was some kind of "Santa Claus hat." Actually, it is the original form of the biretta, worn by traditional clergy, which over the centuries took a different form, with four peaks and three wings. The camauro is made of red velvet with fir trim.
No one seems to know whether Benedict-Ratzinger recognized the utility of such a vestment in the cold Roman winter or whether he was again toying with people by trying to look like Santa Claus. Like his predecessor, Benedict-Ratzinger has some flair for the theatrical and ridiculous.
The good news is that a U.S. Appeals Court on December 20 unanimously upheld the decision of a lower court in allowing the inclusion of the Ten Commandments in a courthouse display, rejecting and even ridiculing the arguments of the American Civil Liberties Union and declaring, "The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state." The court's decision charged that the ACLU's "repeated reference 'to the separation of church and state' ... has grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state."
The display over which the ACLU sued included the Ten Commandments, the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, the Star Spangled Banner, the national motto, the preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, the Bill of Rights to the U. S. Constitution, and a picture of Lady Justice.
The bad news is that on December 1 a U.S. District Court ruled that the Indiana Legislature could no longer pray to open their sessions. A few days later a suit was filed to remove the motto "In God We Trust" from U.S. money. In September a federal judge in California again ruled that "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional.
Meanwhile, in Anaheim, California, site of Disneyland, California State College at San Bernardino denied the Christian Student Association a charter and refused to recognize its constitution because the group reserved the right to restrict its membership on the basis of religious beliefs and sexual orientation. The CSA's purpose is to "enlighten CSUSB students on how Christian principles impact their lives" and "provide a support group for students who desire to live the Christian life." The group also acknowledges in its Statement of Faith that "the practice of sin has no place in the life of a Christian." This includes any sexual activity "outside the bounds of marriage." The act of homosexuality is viewed as sexual sin.
CSA is a student-led group in which membership is voluntary, and the group does not receive one dime of direct public funding. Public colleges seem to have no problem with Muslim groups, "African-American" groups, Mexican-based groups, and homosexual-advocate groups. Only Christianity seems to be singled out for discrimination and bigotry. Pretty soon the United States will be like Canada. If you express your opinion that certain acts are immoral and sinful, you'll be thrown into jail. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and the like must be turning over in their graves at this point!
Just how far Newchurch has sunk is indicated by the fact that Newchurch Archbishop Raymond "Bully" Burke has been "outed" in the pages of the December 20 Wall Street Journal. As previous TRADITIO Commentaries have reported, Burke has been unremittingly trying to steal St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in St. Louis and its $10,000,000 assets in order to pay off for his presbyters' sex crimes, even though the church received a perpetual charter from Archbishop Peter Kendrick in 1880 to be run by a board of lay trustees, a common organizational format in the Catholic Church at the time. Not only is Burke greedy; he's lawless as well, and Newvatican, just as greedy and lawless, backs him to the hilt.
Less than two months after arriving in St. Louis in January 2004, from La Crosse, Wisconsin, Burke sought to finish a project begun by his predecessor, Justin Rigali, who high-tailed it out of St. Louis for Philadelpia: to rein in St. Stanislaus. Burke first tried to extort by a threat of phony "excommunication" a "voluntary" turnover of the church and its assets in a letter dated March 19, 2004.
The Journal quotes St. Stanislaus board chairman as rightly snubbing the bishop's recent action to "excommunicate" the board. On Christmas Eve 450 members of the church will join the board in excommunication as they personally join with their board's act of keeping St. Stanislaus independent of the Newchurch bishop. "Morally, everyone in our congregation knows they didn't do anything wrong. It's all about property and money." According to the Journal, Burke's Newchurch fiefdom is sinking fast. It has already spent nearly $9,000,000 to pay off sex crimes and closed over sixty churches.
The Journal report indicates that Newchurch leaders have invented a "cover story" that they are "reluctantly" closing parishes and selling property because of "demographics," not because of sex crimes. Look what Newchurch is admitting: that presbyters are in short supply (who in his right mind would want to be "ordained" as a supernumerary "presider" to sit in a big chair and do nothing!), that attendance at the vaunted "New Mess" and collections are down.
Settlements of sex-crimes nationwide have cost Newchurch dioceses more than $1,000,000,000 -- a number that some say could double as more cases are settled. In addition to the dioceses in Portland, Oregon, and Spokane, the Newchurch diocese of Tucson has also filed for bankruptcy. Congregants have risen up to fight for parish property in New York, Ohio, California, and Boston, epicenter of the abuse scandal, which has closed 62 parishes and paid out $100,000,000 for sex crimes. In a rare admission by Newvatican, Newchurch archbishop Sean O'Malley was found guilty of wrongly using assets from a parish that had been "merged" to pay general expenses at the diocese (in other words, Newvatican called O'Malley a thief). Currently, O'Malley is facing eight lawsuits from Novus Ordinarians and Novus Ordo parishes for thievery of everything from bank accounts to statues of Saints.
"Bully" Burke, in taking on St. Stanislaus's courageous members, has got a tiger by the tail. He's now in more trouble even than when he received into final vows as a "nun" a transsexual in his previous diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin, where the local press reported that he had covered up over 700 sex crimes by his Newchurch presbyters there.
The Wall Street Journal, which has consistently been the most objective periodical on reporting the sinking state of Newchurch, has now brought to the attention of the nation and the world the fact that Newchurch "parishioners from Boston to California are fighting back to prevent Newchurch dioceses from tapping parish properties as a source of cash. At stake are real estate, bank accounts, and religious artwork valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars -- not to mention a hierarchy's frayed relationship with its flock. Parishioners have filed lawsuits, lobbied public officials, staged vigils, and petitioned government agencies to reverse diocesan decisions. In some instances, parishioners allege that dioceses are closing even well-attended churches to gain access to bank accounts or valuable property."
Newpope has been named as a virtual unindicted co-conspirator in a Texas court for aiding and abetting sex crimes. His recent appointee as Sex-Crime Czar, William Levada, is under subpoena to return to California to face interrogation on his involvement in aiding and abetting sex crimes. As the old saying goes, "the fish rots from the head." And Providence is seeing to it that the rot of Newchurch and the "springtime of Vatican II" is being disposed of to lay the groundwork for His restored traditional Church.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I have been reading with interest the TRADITIO Commentaries on the situation in St. Louis and the efforts of the Newchurch bishop there to take away a church from the local parishioners. In Buffalo, Bishop Edward Kmiec has begun a program called "Journey in Faith and Grace," in which he is talking about closing or consolidating over 100 parishes! I fear that a pretty little Polish church in our own town is on the chopping block, even though the parishioners there recently spent a lot of hard-earned money on renovations. Any effort at closing the church will be extremely hurtful to the people.
How do we know if it is right to resist the Newchurch bishops? I've been reading the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch lately, and according to him it is wicked to act apart from the bishop and not to submit to him. Would he think differently under these circumstances? Has there been precedent in the Church for the laity resisting bishops?
Fr. Moderator Replies:
Of course it is right for even the laity to resist bishops of the New Order, who are not even Catholic. They are imposing an invalid, made-up Protestant-Masonic-Pagan "Mess," they change Catholic doctrines to papally-condemned Modernism, and they aid and abet criminal immoralities. Some of them have actually engaged in the criminal actions themselves: some dozen more bishops have already been caught in felonies.
Catholic theology is clear on this matter. Catholics are not to stand mute in the face of actions that destroy the Church. When a bishop is not acting in a Catholic manner, he has lost his right to obedience. To kowtow to such bishops is known as the vice of false obedience, servility, or pusillanimity. St. Paul is one of the best examples of this Catholic theological principle in practice. He resisted Pope Peter to his face when Peter had strayed from Apostolic doctrine. St. Paul resisted the evils of the leaders of the Church of his time and even called in the Roman civil government to help him resist them.
The bishops of Newchurch, or the New Order, or Vatican II are not teaching or practicing the Catholic Faith. They are certainly not the bishops of whom St. Ignatius was conceiving, like those who were later to risk their lives for the orthodox and traditional Catholic Faith (St. Athanasius, St. Basil the Great, St. Martin of Tours, St. Eusebius, etc.) in the face of the Arian heretic-bishops. Even so John Henry Cardinal Newman, in his scrupulously-reserached The Arians of the Fourth Century, concluded that it was the Catholic Faith of the people, the sensus Catholicus, that overcame the Arian heresy, since most of the bishops and priests at the time were Arian heretics.
No power in the Church is absolute. Only the power of Christ is absolute, and his delegation of that power, even to the pope, is limited by the Divine purpose of the particular office. As St. Thomas Aquinas, the Church's Principal Theologian, quotes the theologian Cardinal Cajetan:
The famous axiom Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia [Where the Pope is, there is also the Church] holds true only when the pope acts and behaves as the pope, because Peter is subject to the duties of the office; otherwise, neither is the Church in him, nor is he in the Church.
Those who once claimed that Newpope is "traditional," let alone "conservative," must be reeling from another blow to the head. The evidence over the last seven months has been piling up that Benedict XVI is indisputably the most Modernist/Conciliar pope to date. He just does his dirty work more quietly and with more European aplomb.
On December 15, Benedict-Ratzinger appointed George Niederauer to succeed William Levada as Newchurch archbishop of San Francisco. Levada, you will remember, was whisked off to Newrome under a pretense of "diplomatic immunity" before he could testify about his involvement in aiding and abetting sex crimes in Portland, Oregon, where he was previously archbishop. However, the U.S. Federal District Court threatened to pull his passport unless he swore to return on January 9 to be interrogated.
Levada was never known for his preaching on traditional Catholic morality. In fact, no one seems to recall Levada ever preaching a single sermon in his ten years as Newchurch archbishop of San Francisco, the most openly "gay-friendly" city in the United States, on the evils of homosexual acts, one of the four Sins that Cry to Heaven for Vengeance, in which Baghdad by the Bay is mired. Rather, Levada spoke several times at the Most Holy Redeemer Church, a largely "gay" parish in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood, and appointed gays and lesbians to important positions in the diocese.
But what about Levada's successor, Niederauer, who has been bishop of Salt Lake City since 1995, and before that studied New Order doctrine and practice for 32 years at the feet of the Master, Roger "Mad" Mahony, Newchurch archbishop of Los Angeles, where Niederauer serviced what is described as an "overwhelmingly gay Catholic [sic] parish" in West Hollywood.
When Newvatican recently issued a document about rampant homosexuality in Newchurch seminaries in the United States, Niederauer gave an interview to the Intermountain Catholic, in which he tried to cover up the seminary scandal by saying, "Some who are seriously mistaken have named sexual orientation as the cause of the recent scandal regarding the sexual abuse of minors by priests." This is the same man who, as bishop of Salt Lake City, had claimed in a February 13, 2004, interview with the Deseret Morning News that clergy sex crimes were "long past," when two Chairmen of the U.S. Conference of [Newchurch] Catholic Bishops have publicly reported that the sex crimes are worse now than ten years ago. It is just that the Newchurch bishop are doing better at covering everything up, "like a Mafia." Is there any wonder why Benedict-Ratzinger appointed Niederauer the new archbishop of San Francisco? Is Newpope so desperate to cover up rampant sex crimes in Newchurch? (Yes.)
Niederauer is undeniably a flaming homophile. He personally helped form the "Coalition of Concerned Religious Leaders," a group of Utah clergy who urged "tolerance" for "gays" and "lesbians" after the state legislature in 1996 banned "gay" student clubs when students at one school expressed interest in starting such a "gay" club. Niederauer has spoken boldly in support of "gay" presbyters and has praised "gay" parishioners. In 2004 Niederauer publicly opposed a constitutional ban on "gay marriage" that appeared on the Utah state ballot.
Oh, we know, this goes against Benedict-Ratzinger's own public statements. So what? Benedict has been caught in yet another lying hypocrisy. Newpope mouths what appears to be a relatively conservative morality, but his acts show that he believes otherwise. That is why TRADITIO constantly warns you, good Catholics, not to listen to the empty words of Newchurch, but to look at its actions. Who knows: maybe Benedict-Ratzinger is a closet homophile. When he appoints an immoral bishop like Niederauer, what else can reasonable people conclude? Newpope and Newbishop should be teaching Catholic doctrine uncompromisingly, so that those who are mired in these gravely immoral acts can be reformed and be called back to Christ and the Sacraments.
This New Order bishop-puppet of Newpope claims that "gay" men committed to Christ and Newchurch "can effectively minister as presbyters." In other words, Niederauer and Newchurch are so desperate for any warm bodies as presbyters that they will aid and abet grave sin in order to forward their Modernistic plans. The important thing is that they obey the ministers of Newchurch.
Leaders of "gay" organizations have publicly given Niederauer high marks for homophilia and are ecstatic at Newpope's appointment of Niederauer. "[This is] more than a small step forward for gay and lesbian Catholics [sic]," pontificated Sam Sinnett, National President of DignityUSA, a organization for "gay Catholics." As archbishop of the New Order, Niederauer will have a central role in determining who is ordained as presbyters in San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties. (Fortunately, there is a traditional Catholic outpost in the city for those who wish to remain Catholic.)
Francis DeBernardo, who leads New Ways Ministry, a national advocacy group for gay and lesbian "Catholics" [sic], said that the bishop was genuinely interested in reaching out to the gay and lesbian community. "With his pastoral experience in an overwhelmingly gay Catholic parish in West Hollywood, and his political experience dealing with extremism [sic] from anti-gay forces in Utah, I think that Bishop Niederauer is one of the best candidates to lead the heavily gay-populated Catholic community of San Francisco," DeBernardo said.
The undeniable record is that Newpope and Newvatican, as well as their local agent-bishops, speak with forked tongue. They do this so that they can keep both sides, "conservatives" and "liberalists" in the New Order fold, and keep them contributing their payoffs into the collection plate. It's an old ploy. The Novus Ordinarians must be deaf, dumb, and blind not to see it for what it is.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Yet another "Indult" organization has "gone south." Dr. John Rao, the former (and the last) president of Una Voce America, has recently charged that he was unceremoniously "purged" (his word) by an arbitrary action of the Board of Directors of Una Voce America in "liquidating" (again his word) the office of the presidency and replacing it with a "chairman," under the control of the Board, for which position the Board will now conduct a national search.
Dr. Rao concludes that he was persecuted because of his articles critical of the policies of John Paul "the Great," as well as his "anti-Americanist" position on temporal matters, in the tradition of Pope Leo XIII's Testem benevolentia. In his own words: "I was, I believe, perceived as being a radical wild card who posed a threat to serious negotiations with the Church authorities in the United States and the Vatican."
Fr. Moderator Replies.
So now the cat is really out of the bag. "Indult" organizations, and even the Fellayite faction of the Society of St. Pius X, are purging their ranks like Bolcheviks of any souls who have an antipathy to Newchurch and "negotiations" with it. Let's face it, good Catholics. These "indult" organizations are sellouts to the New Order, though they like to put a nice veneer over the obvious truth of the matter.
We have commented before that when the late Michael Davies was president of Una Voce International, he muted his criticism of Newchurch policies to curry favor with Newvatican. He eventually came to realize that he had in fact been played for a fool by the Newvatican bureaucrats -- Ratzinger, Hoyos, Arinze, and the like, but at least Davies had the honestly to admit the reality of the situation in a scathing report to Una Voce upon his resignation from the presidency. In the United States, Dr. Rao was equally honest and found his "indult" position "liquidated."
It appears, though, that Newvatican is getting scared. More and more traditional Catholics are openly taking the position that the post-Conciliar popes cannot be real popes, as they have strayed too far from the Roman Catholic Faith, Mass, Sacraments, and morality. Cardinal Hoyos openly admitted that Benedict-Ratzinger was trying to elicit a statement from the SSPX's Superior General Fellay to the effect that Benedict is a real pope.
Perhaps that is why Fellay and his minions seem so Hell-bent against sede-vacantism, even though the SSPX's Archbishop-Founder left open the possibility, if the Conciliar popes should ever go too far. Perhaps that is why Una Voce America can't tolerate Dr. Rao, who speaks his mind against Newchurch. Remember that a similar thing happened a year or two ago within the ranks of the Latin Mass Society of Great Britain. It appears that the Traditional Catholic Movement is coming to a new confrontation with Newchurch.
You see, good Catholics, in Newchurch there is no free speech unless it comes to to the likes of Hans Kung and Roger Mahony, who are redolent with the odor of heresy!
Some of you may remember the Watergate Scandal of the early 1970s. It just wouldn't go away, as the revelation of crimes worked its way up to taint the U.S. President himself. Exactly the same thing seems to be happening with the pope, Benedict-Ratzinger. The issue is no longer whether the pope was involved, but rather how soon and how deeply.
A U.S. Federal Court in Portland, Oregon, where Benedict-Ratzinger's personally-appointed doctrinal czar, William Levada, was archbishop, is holding Levada under subpoena. His return to face interrogation in San Francisco on January 9 was a condition of his being allowed to fly to the bosom of Benedict-Ratzinger to become one of Newpope's lieutenants.
Now the court wants to interrogate Levada about a report that Newchurch will allow him to perjure himself. Federal bankruptcy judge Elizabeth Perris is investigating the matter as she sets the ground rules for testimony as part of the bankruptcy case that the archdiocese filed last year to escape from its responsibility for Newchurch sex-crime lawsuits.
Levada was named personally by Benedict-Ratzinger to take over Newpope's old job as Newchurch Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a job that makes Levada directly responsible for protecting Newchurch against sex-crime claims. If anyone has a reason to lie, Levada certainly does (as does his predecessor, Ratzinger)!
This case is believed to be the first in which a high-ranking Newvatican official has faced such interrogation. Newvatican's attorney doesn't want Levada to be interrogated on any disposition to perjury. The judge said that she expects Levada to be questioned at length about his involvement with sex crimes during his tenure in Portland. She has stated: "I don't have a problem with, 'What did you know, what did you do, and why did you do it?'"
The Portland archdiocese was the first in the nation to declare bankruptcy when lawsuits for sex crimes on the part of its Newchurch clergy exceeded $155,000,000. The Portland diocese has "generously" offered to settle for less than one-third of that amount.
Just one of the many new immoral practices welcomed by Newchurch is that of cremating human bodies. This practice is an abomination to Catholics, an implicit denial of the Faith (why, then, is it surprising that Newchurch permits it?). In France, formerly the First Daughter of the Church, desecrations have reportedly become so common that human ashes are dumped into the garbage. The Church has traditionally held that anyone who directs that his body be given over to cremation is to be denied ecclesiastical burial.
Cremation has long been associated in the Church with pagan customs (the ancient Romans customarily burned their dead during the most corrupt period from the late republic to the mid third century) or with the denial of the Resurrection (cremation became popular around the time of the 18th-century "Enlightenment," when it was advocated by atheists and agnostics as a visual symbol of the denial of the soul's existence).
Among the Hindus and Buddhists, the practice is quite common. Since these religions believe in the reincarnation of men, it only follows that the body is not kept as a sacred temple of God, for (as they believe) the soul will just possess another one at a different time and place of existence after its release by death, perhaps into a dog, an insect, or a bacterium.
The Christian custom of burial of the dead, and not cremation, dates back to the time of Christ. In the New Testament, given that our Lord's body was not cast into flames, even though He died under the hands of the Romans, we have the most fundamental example of respect for the body for burial that could be learned. Christ, our Lord and Master, was not cremated, so neither should we allow ourselves this practice.
Given how this practice has been perverted even further in modern society, one sees the traditional wisdom of the Church. It is bad enough that the temple of the Holy Ghost be burned to a crisp, but it is even worse when the ashes aren't even buried or inurned, but instead tossed out into the garden, in the ocean, in the forest, etc.
Some try to justify cremation on the basis of expense, but that is a specious justification. If one insists on the minimal requirements, the expense of ground burial can be kept to a minimum, nor is cremation necessarily inexpensive in comparison. If one is without sufficient means, one can always avail oneself of potter's field. For those who wish a method other than interment, entombment is an ancient Christian alternative (though that is more expensive).
Because of the current confused state of the Church, it would be prudent, just as you would make a will, to give specific instructions for a traditional funeral and leave a copy with your executor, attorney, and the traditional organization or priest designated, in order to ensure that they will know what to do immediately. For further information, see FAQ10: How Do You Explain These Traditional Catholic Beliefs? in the TRADITIO Library of Files (FAQs and Traditional Apologetics) in the article "Cremation & Traditional Funeral Instructions."
It is a sad fact that the indultarians are getting to be almost as bad as the Novus Ordinarians. Not only do they, in their words, "thank, flatter, and fawn over" Newchurch bishops who eke out a controlled, often bastardized, form of the Modernized Mass of 1962, but now their perception has become so jaded that they can't even distinguish between a real Mass and a phony Mess.
A recent newsletter from an "indult" organization, the Institute of Christ the King, features a supposedly 1962 Mass in California as "traditional," whereas this Mess has been denounced by eyewitnesses as having the following features:
So confused is this "indult" site that it offers this bastardized 1962 service, as well as Novus Ordo services in Latin and English, giving out that "one rite is as good as another." It's the old "Chinese menu" ploy -- but it certainly isn't Catholic! But then the Newchurch bishop of the place was caught performing the Buddhististic "Chinese Tea" Mess, so what do you expect.
The Institute has fallen on hard times since its former U.S. Superior and another "indult" priest have been convicted of felonies and have been sentenced to jail terms. The U.S. Superior of the Novus Ordo "indult" organization was sentenced to eighteen months in jail and 20 years probation after pleading guilty to sex crimes against minors, as well as false imprisonment. The other Novus Ordo "indult" priest were charged with two felony burglary counts, one felony theft count, and one misdemeanor theft count, as well as with obstructing police by lying during a police investigation. He was sentenced to six months in jail after pleading nolo contendere.
It is getting harder and harder for traditional Catholics to tolerate the "Indult" Mass because so many of them are now corrupted by Novus Ordo features, and all pay credence to the invalid Protestant-Masonic-Pagan Novus Ordo service, which gets tops billing in the same Novus Ordo temple. For further information, see the chapter, Warning against Pseudo-Traditional Services in the Official Traditional Catholic Directory.
The courageous Catholics of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church stood up to the Newchurch bishop of St. Louis, when he wanted to rob their of their Faith -- and $10,000,000 to boot. Now the Kostans have possession of a beautiful church and a bulging bank account to maintain it. They have recently hired a Polish presbyter from Missouri to minister to their spiritual needs.
It didn't matter to the lawless Burke that the Kostkans had been given a perpetual charter by the Archbishop of St. Louis over 125 years ago for the church to be run by a lay Board of Trustees. Burke was so desperate to steal the $10,000,000 to pay off his presbyters' sex crimes that he huffed and puffed and has now "excommunicated" from Newchurch on December 16 the six Trustees of the church, who have now given Burke the raspberry and told him to shove his "Newchurch of Love"; they want no part of it. Said Trustee Bob Zabielski:
This is just last of the shameful actions done to us last couple years. He [Burke] wants the property and that's it and he's using every weapon in his arsenal. This is nothing more than a piece of paper written by a man trying to get our property.
And don't think of appealing to Newrome and Newpope. The Kostkans already did that, and Benedict [Arnold] slammed the door in their face, supporting his Newchurch tool, Burke. Well, finally, the Kostkans can say with relief to Newchurch: "Good riddance to bad rubbish." They will be only the first of many to come, as the Novus Ordinarians bail from Newchurch, which is sinking into the mire. Meanwhile, this Christmas the 450 members of St. Stanislaus Kostka will celebrate their first service under their new pastor.
Burke is well known for his receiving as a "nun" a "transgenered person," a biological male. It seems that these Newchurch bishops recognize no law outside themselves: not natural law, not canon law, not civil law. You see, Newchurch bishops are not obligated to follow justice. They are their own law, and Newvatican remains silent, whatever they do or say. Newchurch bishops have only one law, the Law of Louis XIV: le État, c'est moi!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
It has been making the rounds of some of the traditional Catholic circles lately that Benedict XVI celebrated the Tridentine [sic] Mass at JPII's funeral and also at Benedict's own inauguration Mass. Is this true, or was it just a fancy Latin Novus Ordo?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
This is a good example of why traditional Catholics should be careful to eschew those prolific "conservative" web sites that purport to be "traditional," but are actually based in the New Order. So many of the sites that have been popping up recently as "traditional" are actually run by uneducated laymen and recent Protestant converts, who still clearly adhere to the Protestant mindset. Either they intend to mislead -- or they are just plain ignorant of the Roman Catholic Faith!
Your report is just another example of this fact. The people you are describing can hardly be called "traditional Catholics," as they apparently can't tell the difference between a Traditional Latin Mass and a Novus Ordo Mess. Both the funeral service and the inauguration service were Novus Ordo Protestant-Masonic-Pagan Messes. Oh, sure, they may have been clothed in a little more Latin than usual, but anyone knowing the Latin understands just how far people were being bamboozled. The Novus Ordo arsenic was just a little more sugar coated when the cameras of the world were pointed at Newchurch.
Blasphemy, sacrilege, perjury, rape, homosexual acts. These are some of sins traditionally recognized as grave in Catholic moral theology. Well, those days are over for Newchurch. Such sins are denied or ignored by Newchurch, which has a different moral code. And in that code the most serious sin is (get this): driving inattentively!
In Newchurch, where there is no longer any Sacrament of Confession, just some invalid Protestantized generic "reconciliation," if that, the Jesuit presbyter-editor of La Civilta Cattolica in Newrome, in an article cleared by the Newvatican Secretariat of State, has proclaimed that if one should commit the grievous sin of driving inattentively, he should rush off to "reconciliation," much more than for "seeing a provocative film." (Rapists and blasphemers, you're off the hook now!)
Now why is it that Newchurch seems so fixated on driving since Ratzinger became Benedict? Three of Newpope's Angelus messages have been devoted not to teaching the Roman Catholic Faith, but around inane comments on driving: "drive carefully," "have fun driving on vacation," and the like. Newchurch has become so trivial that it is a joke, no longer a serious religion. That's why the Novus Ordinarians are leaving it by the droves.
As one of our correspondents pointed out, if driving inattentively is a Novus Ordo "sin," Newchurch itself is the worst example around! Its own Bishop Thomas O'Brien, of Phoenix, was convicted of felony hit-and-run when he ran over an innocent man and claimed that he thought he had hit a dog. Or, for that matter, JPII and Benedict-Ratzinger, are asleep at the wheel while their Newchurch bishops are trying to cover up their complicity in horrendous sex crimes.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Is it possible that the SSPX's Superior General Bernard Fellay is smoothing the way for only himself to slither over to Newrome without taking a faction of the SSPX with him?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
That thought had occurred to us too as a possibility. If Fellay went "maverick" from the SSPX, he certainly wouldn't be the first. There have been a number of other celebrated cases of clerics in the liberalist fringe of the SSPX "slithering over," to use your expression, to the New Order. Some estimates place the number of SSPX defectees as high as 20% over the years. Some of these, of course, have gone the other way, to some of the more traditional groups, such as the Society of St. Pius V, the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen, etc.
Fellay's record shows that he just doesn't seem to have the same dedication to the SSPX's Archbishop-Founder's principles as other bishops, such as Richard Williamson. Time will tell.
Sometimes, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Here we have two pictures, one taken during World War II, one taken during a recent Novus Ordo Mess.
In the first photograph, even though the Traditional Latin Mass is being celebrated in a field because of the necessities of war, a very dignified altar has been set up, and the priest is wearing full vestments. Every one of the eleven soldiers is kneeing in the dirt, either with head bowed reverently or observing reverently the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
In the second photograph, a Novus Ordo Mess performed for a 2004 "Life Teen" retreat, the "altar" is a circular coffee table, the candles are unmatched plastic ersatz, and the presbyter is wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, and running shoes, with a multicolored Protestant stole hastily thrown over them. Every one of the eleven teen-agers is standing, not kneeling, looking off into space while supposedly "Jesus" is being held up. And you don't think that today's teenagers know the phony Novus Ordo from true religion?!
Do these Novus Ordo conservatives ever give up? They seem to grasp at tiny straws, and their predictions invariably turn out to be wrong, wrong, wrong! Remember how Benedict-Ratzinger was supposed to be so "traditional"? Wrong! He threw the SSPX's Fellay out the side door and then met for hours with condemned Modernist theologian Hans Kung. Remember how Benedict-Ratzinger was supposed to take many actions to correct the Church? Wrong! The man has turned out to be the biggest do-nothing pope in recent history (which is probably good, since anything he would do would only make things worse).
So now the conservatives are trying to make hay out of the fact that Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, of Sri Lanka, was appointed secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, who the conservatives claim is conservative, even "traditional," on the Mess. Yet the man didn't even have a traditional missal until 2002! Moreover, he was one of the "presiders" over the "Madhu" Festival of 2002, in which 5000 Novus Ordinarians were detained by the police for bringing liquor into what was supposed to be a "Marian" shrine! And this is the man the conservatives are hawking as the salvation of the Traditional Latin Mass? We think not!
Apparently, these conservatives have forgotten who is prefect of the same commission, Francis Cardinal Arinze, who hasn't met a chicken yet that he didn't think could be used in a Novus Ordo "sacrifice." For traditional writer Patricius Anthony's expose on this Novus Ordo counterfeit cardinal, see ARINZE.HTM: Cardinal Arinze's Change Church in the TRADITIO Features department.
In the end, why should traditional Catholics care what Newchurch does with the Modernized Mass of 1962? It's all a game for Newchurch and its minions until they abrogate the invalid Novus Ordo Mess as the Protestant-Masonic-Pagan service that it is. And they're not about to do that! If only the "indultarians," and more recently the Fellayite faction of the SSPX, had not been bamboozled by Newvatican into wasting their time pursuing the deceptions of Newchurch and instead had devoted their time and money during the post-conciliar years to building independent traditional Catholic churches and congregations, just think how much farther along the Traditional Catholic Movement would be today, with considerably more traditional churches and congregations outside the control of Modernist bishops.
Instead, Newvatican keeps deceiving these benighted "indultarians" into doing nothing except waiting for Newrome to restore the true Mass, Sacraments, and doctrine (which it never does). It is all a stratagem of Newvatican to lead the "indultarians" by the nose to keep chasing their tails!
Newchurch, claiming that it is so "modern" (really "Modernist"), has returned to the Middle Ages in a rare move against one of its own presbyers. The Newchurch diocese of San Bernardino convened a secret tribunal against one of its own presbyters after charging him with heresy and schism.
Ned Reidy, 69, resigned from his Newchurch diocese in 1999 and formed his own parish under another New Order denomination, the Oecumenical Catholic Communion. His theology is pretty liberal, but not that far from the direction that Newchurch is going. He doesn't recognize the traditional authority of the pope (but JPII and Benedict XVI don't either -- remember the 1995 Encyclical Letter Ut Unum Sint?). Reidy is not for mandatory priestly celibacy, but has no problem with blessing "gay marriage" and priestesses. Well, Newchurch is going in that direction already. Reidy is just a little ahead of Newchurch.
What many Novus Ordinarians don't realize is that the "new" Canon Law of 1983 permits repeats of the Galileo trial of 1633, whenever any flaky Newchurch bishop wants to play Torquemada. One Novus Ordo "canon lawyer" said, "I've never heard of such a thing!" So much for Vatican II's "liberty of the human person." You don't see Newchurch holding heresy and schism trials for Methodists and Episcopalians. Oh no, that wouldn't be oecumenical!
So why is Gerald Barnes, Newchurch bishop of San Bernardino, pushing ahead? It has been reported that U.S. Newchurch bishops are afraid that the new Novus Ordo denomination will attract Novus Ordinarians away. And why not? Reidy is merely taking the New Order to its logical conclusion. He just wants to get there faster. Can you blame him? The popes play at Modernism, like JPII and Benedict XVI giving the Novus Ordo cookie to Protestants before the world's television cameras. But if any presbyter does the same, Newchurch wants to burn him at the stake!
And what about that vaunted "Church of Love" that Newchurch is supposed to be? Reidy stated to the press that he had invited Barnes to discuss the matter more than 20 times over the years, most recently last week. "Never do they return a call," he said. "After that happens for some years, you simply say 'I don't want to be around them.' It's arrogance." Do you blame Reidy? In fact, so arrogant was this "loving" Newchurch Bishop "Bully" Barnes he told Newchurch parishioners that if they attended Reidy's spiritual retreats, they would have to confess personally to him!
So here we have the "Newchurch of Love" exposed again. It won't "dialogue" with its own. It will hold secret star chambers to judge its own in absentia. We wonder just how many secrets Barnes kept of criminal presbyters, who raped and stole from the Novus Ordinarians. Oh, that was okay because Barnes was pulling the strings. Reidy simply thumbed his nose at Barnes, saying that he wasn't interested in the outcome. "If I get some letter in a number of weeks about excommunication, I will write on there 'Refused. Return to Sender.' I won't even open it."
In a related story, "Newchurch of Love" and its Edward Cardinal Egan, of New York, Archbishop Myers, of New Jersey, and Bishop Howard Hubbard, of Albany, New York, were sued in federal court on December 13 by one of their own presbyters in the amount of $5,000,000 for illegal termination from his position as a Newchurch school director in 2005 because he publicly criticized Newchurch bishops for cover-ups related to the clergy sex scandal. What makes this case unusual is that the plaintiff, Robert Hoatson, is one of Newchurch's own, a prebyter "in good standing" with Newchurch, who has been a counselor for Catholic Charities since 2004.
Presbyter Hoatson's suit claims that the Newark Archdiocese violated New Jersey's "histleblower Act after he criticized Catholic bishops on May 20, 2003, at a legislative forum in Albany, New York, on a bill to help Newchurch sex-crime victims. Hoatson's comments came a year after the clergy sex-crimes scandal gained national attention with revelations that Newchurch bishops had helped protect criminal Newchurch presbyers. Hoatson said during the forum that Church leaders had "selected evil over good, denial over admission, lying over truth-telling." Well, he was sure right about that! Three days after making his comments, Hoatson received a letter of termination from his job at Our Lady of Good Counsel school in Newark.
Presbyter Hoatson's attorney said the allegations show that "the Catholic [sic] Church, after four years of being dragged through the mud with disclosures about the sexual abuse of children, still doesn't get it." He's exactly right: Newchurch, from the pope on down, doesn't get it. After dozens of phony "apology liturgies," the pope and his minions still play a secret control game with the lives of victims and punish their own for being truthful. And why not? Newpope has yet to take any action against his own men for their crimes. Consequently, the criminals now run Newchurch.
All this nonsense about traditional Catholics being "schismatic" for being faithful to the true Catholic Mass and Sacraments, doctrine, and morality and rejecting the New Order has again been exposed for the sham that it is by the scandal caused by the Newchurch cardinal known as the "Arch-heretic."
The scandal was rather effectively concealed by Newchurch, but it is undeniable that Roger Mahony, of Los Angeles, on November 5 performed the Novus Ordo Mess in a schismatic church, St. Peter's Patriotic National Church, for Chinese schismatics. These schismatics, declared as such from the reign of Pope Pius XII, are called the Patriotic National Church of China. It is a Communist-approved Church, which until a few years ago maintained the Traditional Latin Mass and Sacraments, so at least the Chinese people had some access to the Faith, controlled as it was by the Communists. (There is a so-called "Underground Church," but this is not Catholic; it is New Order.)
How does Mahony get away with persecuting traditional Catholics in his diocese and then perform a Mess for declared schismatics? The answer is simple. Newvatican hates traditional Catholics because they show up Newchurch for what it is, unCatholic and counterfeit, whereas they love Chinese Communists because they drool after defrauding over a billion of them into a dying Newchurch.
So, next time some benighted Novus Ordinarian calls you "schismatic," tell him that if he wants to see real schismatics, to go "shanghai" himself.
Edwin Gonzalez Concepcion has declared to his followers in Puerto Rico that he became a manifestation of John Paul II when the pope died in April and that Pope Benedict XVI is the Antichrist. Also in Puerto Rico, one Gladys Miranda has declared that she is the Virgin Mary. TRADITIO already reported that a group of Fatimists in the Philippines have declared the Virgin Mary to be God.
All of this would be funny if it hadn't been started by Newchurch. Granted, it has gotten a bit out of Newchurch's control, but Newchurch did start it. All the nonsense about JPII's "sudden sainthood," which was personally supported by Benedict XVI, is at the base of the JPII nonsense. Then the Newchurch-recognized "Catholic" Charismatics have been pushing the latter-day Fatima event into a Catholic cult that carries equal authority with Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.
It all just goes to prove that Newchurch and those who are in it have a screw loose and that those who wish to preserve their Roman Catholic Faith should scrupulously avoid Newchurch and its minions.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
If a new pope were to bring back fully the Traditional Latin Mass and Sacraments, what do you think the reaction of the clergy and people would be? If the true Church were to be fully restored, how would it be done?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
That's an interesting question. Probably there would be an outright schism on the part of some Novus Ordinarians -- which would be a good thing, as the reality needs to be seen clearly. Moreover, it would prove that all along the Modernist Novus Ordinarians were just giving lip-service to the Church. Remember that in the forty years since Vatican II, about 85% of Catholics have left the Church. The remaining 15% were the ones more tolerant of the New Order Church. So, we would estimate that about a third of them would go into formal schism, another third would drop out entirely, and the remaining third would ally with the existing traditional Catholics.
How would the pope accomplish the restoration in a practical sense? That would indeed be a difficulty because all the cardinals and bishops are allied to their New Order. There would be a few who would come over to the new pope, but we suspect that most of them are inveterate Modernist heretics and would go into schism. The pope would not, therefore, be able to rely upon the existing Newchurch bureaucracy to support him. We think that he would have to go over the heads of the New Order hierarchy directly to the people and use all media to proclaim:
It will take time for the practical aspects of what my predecessor Paul VI called the 'smoke of Satan,' introduced into the Church by Vatican II and the Modernists, to be routed from the Church. In the interim, you faithful Catholics have our benediction to exercise your right and obligation to the true Catholic and Apostolic Traditional Latin Mass and Sacraments. There are many faithful priests who have in the years since that Council, now publicly condemned and abrogated by Us, courageously heeded the dictum of St. Paul and held fast to Tradition when the Church was under the virtual control of the Modernists.
Therefore, seek out these traditional priests anywhere you can find them; seek out their Masses and Sacraments. If any bishop should dare to harass you as you exercise your right and obligation to the true Catholic Faith, Mass, and Sacraments, tell that heretic that We have bound you to disobey him and to denounce him to Us for degradation.
Some years ago a similar premise was developed in a traditional Catholic novel by Susan Claire Potts entitled The Glory of the Olive. It started with a new pope declaring, "The experiment of Vatican II is over," and describing the travails of the clergy and faithful of a parish that tried to follow the decree of the pope over the objection of their local bishop and presbyters. Without giving away the ending, let us just say that the Novus Ordinarians resorted to force to suppress the pope's decree.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I stumbled onto the Novus Ordo service internationally broadcast on December 8 from Saint Peter's Basilica, supposedly celebrating the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and was surprised by several things. The caption at the bottom of the screen read that the service was performed in honor of the closing of the Second Vatican Council. The caption was not changed until about halfway into the service to read that it was the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Secondly, and most shockingly, during the service, the Blessed Virgin was repeatedly referred to as "our mother and sister." I have never heard the Blessed Virgin referred to as "our sister" in my entire life!
By having a caption that read that the service was offered in honor of the closing of the Second Vatican Council instead of the Immaculate Conception (no doubt, to attract Protestants and other heretics repulsed by the Marian aspects of Catholicism), the Council was given a greater esteem and honor than the dogma and celebration of a Holy Day of Obligation. This was also an affront on the hyperdulia owed to the Blessed Virgin. Secondly, the references to the Blessed Virgin as "our sister" point to an increasingly destructive democratization of Catholicism, where God becomes an It, the Saints become His "collaborators," and Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ becomes merely our "friend."
Fr. Moderator Replies.
It is chilling how far the New Order counterfeit religion has taken over Rome itself. The Novus Ordo nonsense is fully in evidence at the Apostolic See, even at the Petrine basilica. The Lord of Heaven and Earth becomes merely our "friend." The highest creature of God becomes our "sister" in this false Faith. For the Novus Ordinarians, Vatican II has been deified and is worshipped. Strange, considering that both Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI disowned the council as having any of the dogmatic authority that past oecumenical councils had.
The Novus Ordinarians since Vatican II have played the "Rome" game. They ask traditional Catholics whether they are "with Rome." To the Novus Ordinarians, of course, Rome is a club. It has nothing to do with whether you believe as a Catholic should, practice the Faith as a Catholic should, hold to eternal morality as a Catholic should. No, it is a question of whether you kowtow a Newchurch clergy who, just as in the fourth century, has largely abandoned the Faith.
"Rome" is more than a city. It is certainly not a person. It is certainly not a fabricated mechanism of the New Order. It is Christ's teaching, the Apostles' teaching, the doctrines of the true Faith, the Mass and Sacraments of the true Faith, and the morals of the true Faith. Newrome falls far short of Catholic by that Catholic and Apostolic definition!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
At what point in the Mass may I leave and have fulfilled my Sunday Mass obligation, e.g., after Communion?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Whoever came up with that phrase "Mass obligation" should be shot! Holy Mass is not an obligation; it is a joy. If you are Catholic, you should be thinking less in terms of "obligation" and more of loving God to the point that you can hardly leave because you wish stay to adore him and thank him, and want to be in his presence as long as possible.
The Mass is a complete entity. One should not be leaving at any point, unless out of serious necessity. Can you imagine saying to your host: "I've fulfilled my 'obligation' to appear at your dinner, but keep your dessert. I have no obligation to stay." If you wouldn't say that to a human host, imagine the offense to Almighty God!
If you have the true Mass, you have a very special gift for which hundreds of thousands of Catholics around the world are praying ceaselessly. You have what Fr. Faber called "the most beautiful thing this side of Heaven." Don't waste it, or it will be to your eternal regret. Remember who it was that first Mass early -- Judas!
There is no "vocation" problem. There is only a New Order problem. Before the dark "spirit of Vatican II" moved over the waters to create the counterfeit New Order, the seminaries were bursting at the seams. No "married priests" were necessary; no "priestesses" were necessary; no "lay deacons" were necessary; no "eucharistic ministers" were necessary; no "Episcopalian married ministers turned presbyters" were needed.
Let's face it. The "vocations" problem is completely of the making of the New Order. They don't want priests because the New Order doesn't have the Sacrifice of the Mass. It has only a Protestantized service needing a minister -- "gay" or "straight," Episcopalian or Novus Ordo, married or unmarried, lay or clerical -- it really doesn't matter. Traditional seminaries, of which there are many in the United States and abroad as listed in the Official Traditional Catholic Directory, are having no problems getting men who want to be priests.
Now isn't this cozy? Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), sharing a plate of pasta with Dario Cardinal "Hannibal" Hoyos. This lunch was supposed to be "absolutely confidential," but Fellay was outed again by the Italian newspaper Panorama. The clergy and members of the SSPX must be scarlet with embarrassment that Fellay goes hat in hand to this minion of the New Order, whose portfolio from the pope is to destroy traditional Catholicism, including the SSPX, and bring them into the pit of the New Order. That, after all, is what Ecclesia Dei says.
Why does Fellay have such a death-wish for the SSPX, which he is supposed to protect? Why has he forsworn his allegiance to Archbishop Lefebvre, the Founder of the Society, who made no bones about the fact that there could be no sell-out to the New Order? Is it just possible that Fellay, whose term ends in June 2006, is hankering after the purple, or at least purple that the New Order "recognizes"? Is he tired of the fight for true Catholicism?
Remember, the same thing happened to Michael Davies. Davies wrote some excellent traditional Catholic works at the beginning of his career. Then he announced that he would become president of Una Voce and draw all traditional Catholics together in that capacity. What actually happened is that he was snookered into dining with the purples and scarlets at Newrome. After a few plates of ravioli, he was recanting the original editions of his books and publishing second editions that would be more acceptable to Newrome and its New Theology. He came up with a flawed theology of "indefectibility" in an effort to substantiate the Novus Ordo service.
What happened to Davies is in prospect for Fellay. Davies was not an ignorant man. He simply got carried away with become what Christ decried: being a "respecter of persons" rather than a respecter of Christ and His true Church. Davies ended his association with Una Voce a broken man. Perhaps his depression hastened his death shortly thereafter. He wrote a Farewell Address in which he admitted that he had been duped, that Newrome had no intention of doing anything but talk, and that his efforts for the past decade had been a waste. Davies found out, too late, that when the chicken plays with the fox, it is the fox that invariably outfoxes the chicken.
Archbishop Lefebvre wore his "excommunication" from the New Order as a badge of honor. His illegitimate progeny seems willing to sell the SSPX in exchange for "recognition" by the New Order. This was reportedly the big topic of conversation at Hoyos's Novus Ordo pasta party.
Remember that the fox here, as Our Lord used the term of Herod Antipas, this Hoyos, is the same who, in his capacity as president of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, destroyed the work of Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer, who preserved the diocese of Campos, Brazil, from the predations of the New Order and the Novus Ordo Mess for decades. It was Hoyos who saw to it that a puppet "indult" bishop, Rifan, was installed after Bishop Mayer's death, who, within a year, was publicly co-performing the Novus Ordo Mess in public and forswearing his oath to be a "traditional" bishop.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
I have read in some publications that purport to be "traditional," but appear in fact to be associated with the New Order, that the Novus Ordo service, though seriously flawed, is nevertheless valid if properly said. TRADITIO has consistently maintained, along with a number of other unimpeachable traditional clergy and theologians, that the Novus Ordo Mess is invalid. Could you elaborate?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
A good short answer to this question recently appeared in Catholic Voice, the quarterly newsletter of the Society of Traditional Roman Catholics:
Our position on the Novus Ordo Missae of Paul VI is that it is an invalid form of Catholic worship. It is not enough to say that it is sinful, or even that it is sacrilegious, for these terms would imply that, even if it is objectively sinful, the Novus Ordo still has some merit in validity and that God is called down on the altar each time it is said. We cannot agree. There are those who make excuses for the "form" of the modern liturgy by stating that, even though the words "for all" are recited instead of the traditional form "for many," the use of "for all" does not itself invaliditate the Novus Ordo. Why? Because (they say) all that is necessary is that the priest say the words "This is My Body" and "This is My Blood." However, those who present this "theory" on what some have called the "short form" usage do not see that their opinion is inconsistent with the teachings of the Church in De Defectibus and other places.
In fact, 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, because it fails to meet one or more of the three criteria established in Catholic dogmatic and sacramental theology for a valid Mass and most cogently in Pope Leo XIII's Apostolicae Curae. For further information, see CURAE.TXT: Apostolicae Curae Apostolic Letter in the TRADITIO Library of Files (FAQs and Traditional Apologetics). The Novus Ordo service fails the Catholic sacramental tests of validity even more clearly than the High Anglican service to which the pope was originally referring!
Some organizations that want to play footsie with New Order will not admit the patent invalidity of the Novus Ordo because, if they did so, Newchurch wouldn't prattle with them any longer. So, for these organizations, it is a political issue, not a theological one. Although the Fellayite faction of the SSPX is desperately trying to play footsie with Newchurch, nevertheless the viewpoint of what may be the majority within the SSPX is presented by SSPX Bishop William Richardson's in his Thoughts for December.
Bishop Williamson offers an exceptionally clear analysis of the current state of Newchurch, an analysis that actually corresponds to that of the Society's Founder-Archbishop, after which Willliamson concludes: "Do realize that were the SSPX to submit to conciliar Rome, it would not be a victory but a terrible defeat for the true Faith." TRADITIO agrees with this assessment, which is based upon clear and sound reasoning, not the purple and scarlet fantasies of those who would sell out the courageous archbishop's principles.
For further information on the invalidity of the so-called "short form," see SHORT.TXT: Why the "Short Form" of the Words of Consecration Cannot Possibly Suffice (Patrick Omlor) in the TRADITIO Library of Files (FAQs and Traditional Apologetics). For further information on the theological evidence for the conclusive invalidity of the Novus Ordo service, see the TRADITIO Library of Files for FAQ05: What Traditional Books Do You Recommend? for Fr. Paul Trinchard's recent book, "New Mass" Conclusively Invalid: According to the Preponderance of Evidence.
By the way, Catholic Voice is the best single traditional publication around these days. It is so inexpensive (free, though a $10 donation annually is suggested) that every traditional Catholic can avail himself of its information and completely traditional articles. For further information, see the listing under "Traditional Catholic Periodicals" in the Official Traditional Catholic Directory.
Dear Fr. Moderator:
My daughter is a baptized Catholic [Novus Ordinarian]. She was married by the Justice of the Peace. She was civilly divorced and was remarried in the Baptist Church. She is now a Methodist and feels that she has deep feelings for Catholicism. A Catholic [Novus Ordo] friend told her that the Catholic Church would welcome her back and that she could receive the sacraments without an annulment of her marriages. What is the Church policy on divorce? I do know what the Church policy was in the past but with all the changes it is hard to keep up.
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Sorry to be blunt, but your daughter needs a serious wake-up call. She has no "deep feelings for Catholicism." What good are "feelings" when she has willfully violated the most serious laws of God? She excommunicated herself from the Church by presuming to approach a civil official for a sacrament. Then she forswore that "marriage" and proceeded to contract another "marriage." Not only that: she has converted to two heretical sects in the process!
This is not a question of "Church policy." Christ Himself said clearly that one who divorces and marries another is an adulterer. This woman has shown extreme contempt for the Church that Christ established, for the Sacrament of marriage, and for the First Commandment of God. And she says that she has "deep feelings for Catholicism"?! She has deluded herself.
This woman has seriously offended the law of God, and there is no "quick fix." The first need on her part is for a metanoia, a change of heart, including an unconditional contrition for what she has done and a complete willingness to renounce a false marriage and a false religion. If she has such contrition and willingness, guide her to a traditional priest.
In the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, President John Kennedy attended the traditional Mass with his family. Who knows? Maybe his commitment to worship God in those trying times was what helped him resolve the crisis in a way that was described at the time as a "miracle."
His descendents certainly don't have the same Catholic Faith that the President did. It turns out that Maria Shriver, the niece of President Kennedy, and wife of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California, whom she married in 1986, attend the invalid New Mess at Saint Monica's Newchurch parish in Santa Monica, a parish that, according to the "gay"-activist Rainbow Sash Movement, is a "welcoming parish." The parish is well known throughout the Archdiocese for it's "gay-inclusive" atmosphere.
The Republican Governor and his Democratic wife are often seen at the parish receiving the invalid Novus Ordo cookie in spite of their support of abortion rights. Shriver is well known as a having a big influence on the governor's recent pick of Democratic-party activist and avowed lesbian Susan Kennedy to lead his staff. (In spite of her name, Susan Kennedy has no connection with the famous Kennedy family, as far as we are aware.)
One wonders why the duo don't make the effort to fly off in their private jet to go to Mel Gibson's very traditional Holy Name Church (sorry, we have been asked not to give out its location because of the paparazzi, but you can be sure that Mel would give Arnold and Maria a personal invitation!).
Archbishop Fulton Sheen (1895-1979) was well known for his many books, radio and television appearances, and popular preaching. While teaching at the Catholic University of America for nearly 25 years and dealing with students, he noted with deep concern what was happening in Catholic education and the fact that many young people were losing the faith since Vatican II (1962-1965). His advice on higher education, given around 1967, was as prophetic as it was startling:
You are better off going to a state school where you will have the chance to fight for your faith, than going to a modern Catholic university where you will have the new watered-down, modernist version of the faith spoon-fed to your unsuspecting minds, so that you will be apt to lose your faith.
The archbishop's contention has been confirmed again in a recent study by Dr. Luke Saker at a Western Australian university, concluding that "almost all students who graduate from Catholic [sic] education regard the Church as irrelevant." Dr. Saker found that only 12.8% of students polled attended Mess on Sunday, while 82% rarely or never confessed -- sorry, "reconciled." 59% believed that sex outside of marriage is okay. An even greater majority, 66% (!), felt that homosexual sex was acceptable. Dr. Saker said he estimates that 90% of students emerging from the Catholic [sic] school systems are not practicing. Previously, a large study conducted in the United States and published in 2003, recorded similar findings.
TRADITIO concurs completely with Archbishop Sheen's assessment. We believe that for traditional college-bound students, when possible, the best choice is a conservative liberal arts college. The best major is Classics (Latin and Greek), which, in addition to giving the student the foundation for all secular and religious study, is usually one of the most conservative departments at any given institution. Institutions associated with the New Order and the New Mess, even when billed as "conservative," should be particularly avoided.
In addition to getting a thorough grounding in the classical languages, other courses that should be emphasized are philosophy (particularly classical and mediaeval philosophy), music (particularly early and classical music), history (particularly ancient and mediaeval history), mathematics and the natural sciences, psychology and the social sciences (one must be careful here in choosing conservative courses), and oratory and rhetoric (sometimes called "Speech").
Previous coverage on TRADITIO has demonstrated that the movement to make JPII a "sudden" Novus Ordo "saint" was engineered. The marches and the signs of Subito Santo at his funeral were planned by elements from Poland and Opus Dei. They were not a spontaneous event.
It seems that not only have traditional Catholics had a bellyful of this nonsense, but even liberalist Novus Ordinarians have tired of all this propaganda. Several Italian newspapers on November 6 carried an appeal by liberalist Novus Ordo theologians critical of John Paul II, urging Catholics to speak out against the late pope's bid for sainthood and pressing Newchurch officials to include a critical review of his policies in their evaluations of his candidacy, instead of "fast-tracking" this nonsense. Entitled A Call for Clarification and signed by the eleven theologians, the statement cited JPII's criminal mishandling of the sex abuse scandal, inter alia.
The eleven Novus Ordo theologians also openly criticized Benedict-Ratzinger for his "authoritarian interventions of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." These interventions included the cover-up of rampant sex crimes by Novus Ordo bishops and presbyters under JPII's papacy, and now his own.
One thing you have to say about Producer-Director Mel Gibson is that he has guts. After having been attacked mercilessly by Zionists for portraying the events of the Passion of Christ is fighting back in a new nonfiction television movie, Flory, for ABC's 2006-2007 season.
Flory is based on the true story of a Dutch Jew named Flory Van Beek and her Gentile boyfriend, who sheltered her from the Nazis for three years during the German occupation. Already the Zionist activists, in the person of Rafael Medoff of the Institute for "Holocaust" Studies, has started their usual mantra against any history that doesn't coincide with their liberalist political agenda.
When asked in 2004 by ABC reporter Diane Sawyer about his father's statements that openly challenge much of the politicization of the "Holocaust," Gibson replied: "Atrocities happened. War is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps. Many people lost their lives. In the Ukraine, several million starved to death between 1932 and 1933."
Such a statement is not acceptable to the Zionists, who refuse in practice to recognize that anyone died in Second World War except Jews in concentration camps. They blithely pass over the murder of 3,000,000 Polish Catholics, and others. Since the 1960s, the Zionists have basically taken the attitude: "This is our holocaust; don't stick your nose into it." The Zionists even objected to a group of nuns at Auschwitz, who prayed daily for the souls in the cemetery there. Medoff said Gibson was trying to "minimize and blur the Holocaust" by making it just one of many atrocities of the war.
Surprisingly, however, ABC hasn't been pandering to the pro-Zionist activists. Quinn Taylor, ABC's Senior Vice President in Charge of Television Movies, had a harsh reply for early Zionist critics: "Shut up and wait to see the movie, and then judge." Wow! Gibson really seems to have taught Hollywood a lesson!
The Zionist lobby wants to paint a false picture of what they call the "holocaust." Most of these people aren't even practicing Jews, yet they want to paint the false picture that no Gentile ever helped them. It is this attitude (which was not characteristic of the Jewish leaders of the 1940s and 1950s) that has falsely pilloried Pope Pius XII, who in fact was the virtual savior of the Italian Jews.
Thanks, Mel! Your outspokenness as a traditional Catholic who rejects Vatican II and Newchurch and your courage in confronting the Hollywood liberalist machine are the model for our times.
Now here's a Christmas story that traditional Catholics need to teach their children. St. Nicholas, yes, "Saint Nick," was punished by heretic bishops when he stood up for the Catholic Faith.
St. Nicholas, as Bishop of Myra, was summoned by the Roman emperor Constantine to the Council of Nicaea, the First Oecumenical Council. The priest Arius, who gave his name to the Great Arian Heresy of the fourth century that denied the divinity of Christ, which St. Jerome tells us swept into its wake almost all the bishops of the Church at the time, and probably the pope as well, was called upon to explain his heretical views, and thus Arius started preaching his execrable heresies before the Council Fathers.
St. Nicholas listened as Arius attacked the divinity of Our Blessed Lord, becoming more and more full of righteous anger. Finally, "St. Nick," know around the world for his great charity, became so enraged that he charged at Arius and struck the heretic a mighty blow out of righteous indignation. The bishops expelled St. Nicholas from the Council, and the emperor had him stripped of his episcopal vestments and thrown into prison.
It is related that on that night Our Blessed Lord and Savior appeared to the emperor and demanded that he free and reinstate St. Nicholas, for his only motive in attacking Arius had been his all-consuming love of His true Lord. The emperor obeyed at once. When the jailer went to release St. Nicholas, the Saint was found sitting in his cell miraculously clothed in his episcopal vestments, reading the Gospels. He related that Our Blessed Lord and Lady had appeared to him, Our Lord giving him the Book of the Gospels (one of the symbols of the episcopal office) and Our Lady restoring to him his vestments.
He was restored to his rightful place at the Council, which was converted to side with him against Arius, utterly condemning the wretched heresy and composing the Nicaean Creed to protect the orthodoxy of the faithful.
You have read previously on TRADITIO that shortly after the institution of the Novus Ordo Mess, dozens of distinguished British writers, scholars, artists, and historians appealed to Paul VI to restore the Traditional Latin Mass. A few years later, the international association of Church musicians condemned the desecration that Vatican II had wreaked on Church music. The Church that had inspired Machaut, Palestrina, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi, Vaughan Williams, and so many more had snuffed out Church music in a decade, the musicians said.
Now the architects have weighted in against Vatican II. Newchurch has St. Coleman Cathedral in Cobh, Ireland, on the drawing board for Novus Ordoization, and the world's architects are livid. St. Colman is perhaps the greatest example of Gothic architecture in Ireland, even the world. This magnificent cathedral, designed by renowned Gothic architects Edward Pugin and George Ashlin and dominating Cork Harbor from land and sea, took 47 years to build, being completed in 1915.
The Newchurch bishop-vandal plans to remove and relocate the altar rails and extend the sanctuary area into the nave to accommodate a new Novus Ordo "table." This work would ruin the mosaic sanctuary floor designed by architect George Ashlin and made by Ludwig Oppenheimer of Manchester in 1892 by covering up nearly 30 metres of the original mosaic flooring.
But the serfs of this vandal-bishop are rising in revolt. Pointing to the fact that Newchurch has already gutted the interiors of numerous great pieces of 19th century Irish church architecture (Monaghan, Letterkenny, Limerick, Killarney, Armagh, and many more), and now perhaps the greatest of them all, the majority of the diocese's Novus Ordinarians oppose the project and are demanding that the cathedral be left exactly as it is. 24,000 Novus Ordinarians have already signed the petition to stop their bishop-vandal, and 200 legal appeals have been filed to block the project.
Although the bishop-vandal has downplayed the Novus Ordo modifications, the architects and friends of St. Colman have the bishop-vandal's number. They believe that what is now proposed for the cathedral is merely what happened elsewhere in Ireland in the guise of "the spirit of Vatican II." In a twenty year period from the mid 1980s onwards, most Irish cathedrals lost their original interior fittings, including railings, high altars, side altars, pulpits, and thrones. This makes the integrity of Cobh all the more important.
Look at St. Macartan Cathedral in Monaghan, the architects and friends say. It is widely regarded to be the best work of J.J. McCarthy, dubbed the "Irish Pugin." In the mid 1980s, the entire interior with the exception of the organ was removed and destroyed. Now the interior lacks focus, the body of the church does not draw the eye to the magnificent hammerbeam roof as intended by the architects; instead, the sacristy area is nondescript, bland, and beige -- just like Vatican II and its bastardized progeny. Over the years, cathedrals from Killarney to Letterkenny have been hacked beyond recognition to fall in line with the incumbent bishop-vandals' interpretation of Vatican II.
And the architects and friends are winning. Novus Ordinarians across Ireland now regret bitterly what was allowed happen in the name of "the spirit of Vatican II." They realize more and more that they have been duped by the Counterfeit Church of the New Order, which is not Catholic, but barbarian. St. Patrick in Armagh has recently restored much of its traditional strucutre. People in Killarney who purchased some of the removed fittings have been offering to sell them back (at cost) for re-insertion at St. Mary.
Let the courage of the Irish be a wake-up call to those in the United States and elsewhere. These traditional churches do not belong to the Newchurch bishop-vandals. They have voided their contract with the people to guard our Roman Catholic heritage. The people must fight these bishop-vandals and preserve their Catholic heritage -- candlestick by candlestick.
One can see now exactly how Newchurch plans to accelerate its decline into heresy. The chosen vehicle, perhaps improbably, has become Limbo. We have already seen how Newchurch is attempting to bamboozle people in thinking that Limbo is not "binding," so in its place an heretical substitute can be imposed.
Remember two things. First of all, Limbo is a teaching directly associated with a dogma, to wit: the souls of those who die in actual Mortal Sin, or in Original Sin alone, immediately go down to Hell, to be punished, however, with different punishments. Thus did two dogmatic oecumenical councils define the dogma. Now, theologians can dicker about what the exact nature of the place where these souls end up, but dogmatically it is not Heaven; it is Hell, if only a "limb" of Hell. But the Newchurch committee apparently proposes to deny the Catholic dogma by saying the heresy that "unbaptized babies go directly to Heaven." Just consider what an incentive that false doctrine is for women to get abortions: kill and baby and send him to Heaven!
Remember, secondly, that the teaching on Limbo is the conclusion of many centuries of the best minds in the Catholic Church on the subject. The teaching is not only forwarded by the Prince of Theologians, St. Augustine, but also the Church's Principal Theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas, both Doctors of the Church, as well as other Latin Fathers, the Great Greek Father, St. Gregory Nazianzus, and various popes.
Listen to the words that the New Order is using to undermine not only this patristic teaching, but every other one as well: "There is no Catholic doctrine that is binding," says Luis Ladaria, the Secretary-General of the Newchurch committee said, as Newchurch does not recognize anything as doctrinal. Any doctrine can be changed, can be nuanced, can be ignored. "Because of recent developments, not only theological but also of the magisterium, this belief [in Limbo] is in crisis today," says Ladaria. "We must begin with the fact that God wants the salvation of all and does not want to exclude any one. We must base ourselves on the fact that Christ died for all men and that the Church is a universal sacrament of salvation, as the Second Vatican Council teaches."
So, this overturning of 2000 years of teaching is based upon -- you guessed it -- Vatican II, which Pope Paul VI condemned as introducing the "smoke of Satan" into the Catholic Church. He must have been inspired by the Holy Ghost when he made that insightful statement! Notice how Ladaria, from effectively denying Limbo, swerved into that heresy that Newchurch likes to push above all: Universal Salvation. The good and the bad; Catholics and non-Catholics; unrepentant murderers, rapists, and panderers; Islamic terrorists; Hitler and Stalin; four-time divorcees -- all attain Heaven. All religions are equal. We all worship the same god. You all know the Modernist mantras. Even Martin Luther and John Calvin would be horrified at such statements!
Just as Limbo is the edge of Hell, so the topic of Limbo is the wedge that the New Order is using to complete the Protestantization of Newchurch. Forget Scripture. Forget Tradition. Set up a committee and get it to accept divorce, "gay marriage," homosexuality, and all the other moral ills of the present and future days.
Novus Ordo Presbyter James Haley, 48, has learned his lesson. Newchurch is simply a Counterfeit Church, the Newchurch of Hate. Haley blew the whistle to his Newchurch bishop, Paul Loverde of Arlington, about "numerous instances of homosexual activity among diocesan clergy." Did Newchurch bishop Paul Loverde, of Arlington, even investigate Haley's charges? Of course not. Instead, he ordered the priest silenced on October 23, 2001!
After four years, Haley has still not heard anything significant about his supposed ecclesiastical "trial." His case has still not been received by Newvatican, where it may sit for many more years. Presbyter Haley's only crime is his insistence that homosexual priests are at the root of the sex-crimes crisis in Newchurch. The Novus Ordo presbyter is demoralized, he says, by groups of homosexual clerics who control who gets admitted to seminary, which men get nominated for bishop, and which presbyters get the plum parishes.
"I am astounded the bishops will protect these guys, promote them, even make them bishops," he says. "This is a huge moral issue, and if the bishops aren't clear on this, the pope needs to rule on it." The pope won't. He's been behind it from the beginning! A kangaroo court has been set up with Newchurch bishop Thomas "Do-em-in" Doran, of Rockford, Illinois, whose true colors were shown when he persecuted an "indult" group in that city.
It has taken four years, but Presbyter Haley has finally figured Newchurch out. "It looks like the evil men have won. A priest for ever -- utter nonsense! A Church that teaches the fullness of truth in faith and morals -- total baloney! And the good people in the pews? Simple, blind, stupid sheep who are still totally culpable every time they pay a dime to the Church without first insisting on the fullness of truth about this horrendous moral tragedy. A brief 'instruction' from the Vatican will do nothing to solve this outrageous moral dilemma, nor prevent the infiltration of future homosexual men; in fact, it will probably encourage even more to join."
"There's a point where you have to put your faith on the line," Presbyter Haley said. "You have to put your life at risk. I am willing to die for this. I am willing to stand up for the truth. Someday, this will all come out. The abuse scandal will seem small compared to this." Too bad Haley has it only half right. He's willing to die not for the Most Blessed Sacrament, but for the invalid Novus Ordo cookie. He's willing to die for an oecumenical Protestant theology. He's willing to die for a Newchurch that the Apostles and the Fathers and Doctors of the Church would not recognize as Catholic and Apostolic.
You're right about Newchurch, Presbyter Haley. But until you reject it as an unCatholic counterfeit and embrace the traditional Roman Catholic Faith, Mass, and Sacraments, you may as well give up the ghost. You'll get no "justice" from Newchurch of Hate.
They're "mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore." Christians tired of hearing Christ's Mass turned into some kind of generic pagan "holiday." Even the well-known popular song We Wish You a Merry Christmas has been bowdlerized into We Wish You a Happy Holiday. In Dodgeville, Wisconsin, Ridgeway Elementary School's "winter program" has changed the lyrics of Silent Night to: "Cold in the night, no one in sight, winter winds whirl and bite, how I wish I were happy and warm, safe with my family out of the storm."
But Christians are fighting back with more vigor this year, launching a campaign to identify retailers who plan to benefit extensively from Christmas shopping, but who are not including the word Christmas in their advertisements. Of the United States' 11 major retailers, only McRae's/Belk's used the word Christmas in its advertising for Christmas shopping. The other 10 companies did not mention Christmas a single time, but the term holiday was used by those 10 companies a total of 59 times. The companies that failed to mention Christmas a single time in their 260 pages of insert promotions were Target, Kroger, Office Max, Walgreen's, Sears, Staples, Lowe's, J.C. Penney, Dell, and Best Buy.
The "Remember the Reason for the Season" Movement has claimed the third-highest-ranking U.S. government official, House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert. Hastert has told federal officials that the lighted, decorated tree on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol, known in recent years as the "Holiday Tree," should be renamed the "Capitol Christmas Tree," as it was called until the late 1990s. The speaker believes that a Christmas tree is a Christmas tree, and it is as simple as that, said a spokesman for the Speaker.
The issue of calling a Christmas tree a Christmas tree has become more controversial in recent years. More and more agencies, retailers, and governments want to celebrate Christmas without acknowledging Christ as the sole reason that the holiday exists in the first place!
Readers of TRADITIO will remember the case of St. Stanislaus Kosta parish in St. Louis, to which over 125 years ago the archbishop gave a charter to be run in perpetuity by lay trustees. And run it they did, even during the Great Depression, without receiving a dime from the archdiocese. But a perpetual charter from an archbishop was not enough for Raymond "Bully" Burke, who, after publicly receiving into a religious order as a "nun" a transgendered person," i.e., a neutered male, abandoned LaCrosse, Wisconsin, for greener pastures as Newchurch archbishop of St. Louis in December 2003.
The assets of the parish now exceeded $10,000,000, and that was just too rich a pot of gold for this Newchurch vassel, who eyed it to pay off for the sex crimes of his presbyters. Therefore, he began a campaign to steal St. Stanislaus. Even Benedict-Ratzinger's Newvatican sided with the theft. And why not? Ratzinger as former head of the sex-crimes commission has been personally implicated in the cover-up and active involvement by the bishops. He's even been charged as an "unindited co-conspirator" in a Texas court and is currently trying to wiggle out of it by claiming "diplomatic immunity."
In a revolt that was heard clear to Newvatican, the Stanislausians woke up to the predations of the New Order and told the archbishop "Non!" Not used to being denied, the archbishop, in typical Newchurch style, huffed and puffed and even threatened a phony Newchurch "excommunication" of the church's trustees. These courageous trustees, who had, after all, been given a perpetual charter by the archdiocese, said again, "Non!" When Bully Burke carried through on his threat, the trustees told him to go pound sand.
St. Stanislaus is a conservative (unfortunately not traditional -- yet), primarily Polish, congregation. Therefore, they cast about for a conservative Polish priest to serve them. And now they have found one. Presbyter Marek Bozek announced that he was leaving St. Agnes parish in Springfield-Cape Girardeau to become the pastor of now independent St. Stanislaus Kosta. In typical Newchurch style, John Leibrecht, Newchurch bishop of Springfield-Cape Girdeau, "suspended" Bozek. He's even threatening another one of those phony Newchurch "excommunications." But the courageous 30-year-old Polish native didn't change his mind. He is moving to St. Stanislaus Kostka, saying "it is more important for me to listen to the cries of the people of God rather than to the strict and heartless interpretation of canon law."
It is TRADITIO's hope that St. Stanislaus Kosta, which has now gone half way toward Catholicism, will see the full picture and eventually go independent traditional. If you're going to go out of the New Order, you may as well go all the way. The right way!
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Could you give me some info concerning the Advent wreath? When did it come into existence? Has it always been a Catholic tradition?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
The Advent wreath is a simple evergreen wreath hung with three violet candles and one rose candle to represent each Sunday of Advent, the rose candle representing the Third Sunday of Advent, called "Gaudete" Sunday from the first word of its Introit and being celebrated a little more joyously in rose vestments.
The question of Advent candles always stirs some controversy. Some see it as hailing from the Protestant tradition:
The Advent Wreath came from Germany during the time of Martin Luther. The practice of the wreath and lighting candles was spread by the German Mennonites, so this did come from Protestants. The Book of Blessings even has a ritual for the blessing of an Advent wreath, whereas the traditional Roman Ritual does not.
On the other hand, even some Catholic areas of Germany seem to have had the practice:
Our family used the Advent wreath in the mid-1950s. Each evening, prior to dinner, one to four candles was lit (depending on the week of Advent), and the Antiphon for that Sunday was recited (e.g., Rorate Caeli), followed by one Pater, Ave, and Gloria. It seemed a fitting prayer to remind us of the Advent season. This was done, of course, well before the Novus Ordo.
The practice may have been inspired by the Swedish Crown of Lights worn by young Swedish girls on St. Lucia's Day, with the evergreen symbolizing the blessing of eternal life. In ancient Rome the people used to decorate wreaths as a sign of victory and celebrating, the strength of life overcoming the forces of winter. There is also controversy about when this practice came generally into churches in the United States. Some remember it from the 1950s; others remember it coming after the Novus Ordo.
Whatever the conclusion one reaches about the history of this practice, it would be fair to say that it has become markedly more prominent since the Novus Ordo.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear to men beautiful but within are full of dead men's bones and of all filthiness.... You serpents, generation of vipers, how will you flee from the judgment of hell? (Matthew 23:27,33/DRV).
In Our Lord's day, the leaders of the Church, the Scribes and Pharisees, were outright hypocrites. The "charitable" Christ called them every vile name in the book. St. Matthew's Gospel devotes a whole chapter to Our Lord's condemnation of the leaders of the Church of his time. Imagine what Christ would say about the Newchurch hypocrite leaders of the present day, who overturn Catholic doctrine, destroy the Mass, and allow rapists in the clergy to go unpunished?
Certainly one of the most hypocritical figures in Newchurch today is Bishop Fernando Rifan, of Campos, Brazil, Cardinal Hoyos's Ecclesia Dei maquereau. For many years after Vatican II, Campos was blessed with a true bishop, Antonio de Castro Mayer, who, until the time of his retirement in 1981, refused to implement the Mess of Vatican II. When Newvatican forced him to retire in 1981, the Traditional Latin Mass was still being celebrated by virtually every priest in every church in Campos. (So, you see, it could be done. You just have to have a courageous bishop.)
Even after his resignation, throughout the 1980s, Castro Mayer continued to be the leader of the traditional Catholics in Campos, who were a vast majority in the diocese, because they had never known any other liturgy. In 1991, Bishop Liciano Rangel, who was consecrated by three SSPX bishops, continued Mayer's work, but eventually sold out to the New Order on January 22, 2002. In return, Newrome gave Rangel the "recognition" of Newchurch.
Before the end of that year, however, on December 16, 2002, Newrome had canned Rangel and appointed its own puppet bishop, Fernando Rifan, in his place and established a puppet "indult" organization called the Society of St. John Mary Vianney, through which Rifan was to lead the traditional Catholics of Campos into the New Order. (Vergil's famous saying comes to mind: Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes.)
Of course the semi-traditionalists lauded this puppet arrangement as betokening a great advance for the "indult." Even Bernard Fellay of the SSPX couldn't find the words to condemn it thoroughly. Rifan mouthed all the right "traditional" words to lead the sheep astray. Then all Hell broke loose. Rifan, who had claimed (as all the "indult" clergy do) that he was exclusively traditional rite, was caught concelebrating in public the Novus Ordo Mess with a pacel of Newchurch bishops on September 8, 2004, at the Basílica Nacional de Nossa Senhora Aparecida near San Paolo in Brazil.
While the cameras whirred and provided the world with videos of this Benedict Arnold bishop and Rome's duplicity, Rifan did the only thing he felt that he could do: he lied. He say that he wasn't really celebrating the Novus Ordo Mess, but was merely holding his arms up at the altar with the other Newchurch bishops! (Poor Rifan forgot what happened to U.S. President Bill Clinton when he claimed that he "didn't really have sex with that woman.") So, in other words, not only did Rifan lie, but he admitted to committing the grievous sin of simulatio sacramenti, consciously performing a rite without the right intention.)
This hypocrite "indult" bishop appeared at the indultarian Una Voce America conference in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 19, to perform/simulate? an "indult" Mass, during which this fou presumed to leave the altar to perform at the organ when he should have been distributing Holy Communion. ("Forget you, Christ; I have a music lesson to give.")
Rifan, having been exposed as a fraud in Campos, is currently making efforts to wangle traditional Catholics in the United States over to the New Order. Fancy glossy bulletins are being circulated to trick money out of semi-traditionalists, who crave any traditional veneer, even if it serves the New Order.
Rifan told the benighted Una Vocans: "I will defend you always, especially Una Voce, when I speak to the pope." Sure, Fernando. Just as you defended the Traditional Latin Mass when you violated your promise to stay with that Mass (or at least the 1962 Modernized Mass) exclusively. How people can trust a word of what you, or Newrome says, is beyond us. Your track record is just as bad as the Church leaders Our Lord condemned to Hell.
At the conference Rifan played the Newvatican game to the hilt. He emphasized the need for "patience." That is a Newvatican code word that means: "we're not going to give what you want, but we don't want to tell you to your face to get you riled up. Obey Newchurch; don't make waves; you don't know the power you have."
Then Rifan lied to the Una Vocans again. "In my 30 years in the priesthood," Bishop Rifan said, "I have offered only the Traditional Latin Mass." You've conveniently forgotten the video, eh, Fernando? You forgot your lie? Oh, he will admit something almost as bad. He said that because he is a bishop in Newchurch, he sometimes must attend the invalid Novus Ordo Mess in violation of the First Commandment.
Rifan is just a Newchurch puppet. We don't expect anything from him but hypocrisy and lies. However, we do pity the poor Una Vocans who swallow his hypocrisy and lies hook line and sinker, even though they know better. Michael Davies, late President of Una Voce, after several years of trying to deal with Newvatican, finally resigned and, in his last report, pretty much admitted that Newrome had played him for the fool, had led him on with meretricious words, but no action. Too bad that the Una Vocans didn't learn the important lesson that their President told them on his deathbed.
But somebody at the Una Voce conference had the sense to ask the coup de grace:: "Will Benedict XVI publicly offer the Traditional Latin Mass in St. Peter's Basilica?" Rifan's answer: "I don't know." That says it all: actions speak louder than words.
Newchurch is famous for dumping any doctrines that are not "politically correct." When was the last time that Newchurch talked about Hell? Yet it is mentioned, according to Archbishop Sheen, over forty times in Scripture. When was the last time that Newchurch talked about Purgatory? Yet it is mentioned at least nine times in Scripture.
As we all know, Newchurch denies sin de facto. That is why it no longer has a valid Sacrament of Penance. If there is no sin, how can a sinner be contrite, let alone receive absolution? The matter of the Sacrament is missing. Consequently, Newchurch no longer has a Sacrament of Extreme Unction or Last Rites, but merely a "blessing of the sick." Newchurch no longer has a funeral in black, in which the departed soul is prayed for, but a "resurrection" in white, which all Novus Ordinarians get -- even a four-times divorced congressman, a homosexual/advocate dress designer, or a transvestite/advocate teenager.
Having already denied Actual Sin, now Newchurch wants to get rid of Original Sin, which the Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton called the most undeniable of doctrines, since we all know we have it! A consequence of Original Sin is that those who die in it cannot see the Beatific Vision. This is Scriptural: "There shall not enter into it [Heaven] any thing defiled (Apocalypse of St. John, 21:27/DRV). Our Lord Himself said: "Amen, amen, I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John 3:5/DRV).
The Fourteenth and Seventeenth Oecumenical Councils decreed, as a matter of dogma, in exactly the same words:
illorum autem animas, qui in actuali mortali peccato vel solo originale decedunt, mox in infernum descendere, poenis tamen disparibus puniendas
[moreover, the souls of those who die in actual Mortal Sin, or in Original Sin alone, immediately go down to Hell, to be punished, however, with different punishments [than those who go down to Hell in Mortal Sin]
So, if Newchurch wants to deny a dogma of the Catholic Church, how does it do so? By a committee, of course! JPII the Non-Great, who was so deficient in theology that he couldn't give the Catholic answer, appointed an international committee of Modernists in 2004, which met in Rome the week of November 27 and is expected to recommend to Benedict-Ratzinger to dump the dogma of Limbo. The committee, puffed up with deadly Modernist pride, has apparently decided that its opinion supersedes a dogma decreed by an oecumenical council and confirmed by popes.
Even before he became pope, Benedict-Ratzinger, in an interview in 1984, attempted to make out that limbo had been "only a theological hypothesis." That is like saying that evolution is merely a "theory," when we know in fact that the vast majority of the scientific community (whether rightly or wrongly) publicizes evolution as a proven scientific fact. In 1984, the Modernist Ratzinger said that he was all ready to dump the teaching of the Fathers, such as the great St. Augustine, "Prince of Theologians."
Contrast JPII's confusion and Ratzinger's toying with heresy to Pope St. Pius X's declaration in 1905, which was perfectly in accord with the Fathers, the Seventeenth Oecumenical Council, and other popes:
Children who die without baptism go into Limbo, where they do not enjoy God, but they do not suffer either, because having Original Sin, and only that, they do not deserve Paradise, but neither Hell or Purgatory.
But this isn't even a question about Limbo. Nor is it necessary to hold that there is any "pain" in Limbo. The souls may simply be deprived of the lack of the Beatific Vision, though being perfectly happy in the natural sense. That is how St. Thomas Aquinas, the Church's principal theologian, put it. For further information, see the TRADITIO Library of Files for FAQ10: How Do You Explain These Traditional Catholic Beliefs? in the TRADITIO Library of Files (FAQs and Traditional Apologetics) in the article "Limbo."
The committee apparently proposes to deny the Catholic dogma by saying that "unbaptized babies go directly to Heaven." Just consider what an incentive that false doctrine is for women to get abortions: kill and baby and send him to Heaven! Although one would be approaching heresy by denying Limbo, one would certainly be at least a material heretic by believing that souls in Original Sin go to Heaven, as that contradicts even the words of Our Lord and formally declared Catholic dogma.
If one holds this heresy, what's next? To deny that the Blessed Virgin was immaculately conceived? To deny that she was assumed into Heaven body and soul? To deny that the pope has even extraordinary infallibility, but is merely a primus inter pares? Better watch out, Benedict, you may end up cutting off your own head to spite your face!
But much as the Newchurch committee is apparently toying with heresy, and much as Ratzinger himself has toyed with heresy, Benedict, in the end, may perhaps not. Remember that when such a committee told Paul VI in 1968 that artificial birth control was now morally acceptable, Paul VI stunned the Modernists of Newchurch by confirming the Catholic teaching in Humanae Vitae.. There may yet be hope for Benedict-Ratzinger -- but don't bet on it. Once a Modernist, always a Modernist.
TRADITIO has frequently said that the best way to understand what is going on in the Church today is to study ecclesiastical history. One learns much from such a study. One thing one learns is that the Church has problem experienced more bad periods that good, so far as its prelates and bureaucracy are concerned. Another thing one learns is that, contrary to the picture of a serene papacy that the papolators (pope-worshippers) draw, there have been many problems in the last 2000 years with popes, and some have acted illegally and invalidly outside the power of the office, as defined in Catholic dogma.
One case in point is Pope John XII (r. 955-963). Double-dealing popes are nothing new. This pope forswore his papal oath and turned to both the pagan Hungarians and the off-and-on schismatic Byzantine Empire against the Catholic emperor, Otto I, a successor of Blessed Charlesmagne as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The pope had sworn the oath on the body of St. Peter, but perjured himself to ally with himself the enemies of Christendom. Moreover, the pope had violated numerous grave ecclesiastical and moral laws, to wit:
The Catholic bishops, far from considering the pope above ecclesiastical law, deposed this pope from the papacy on December 4, 963, and elected Leo VIII in his stead.
Even though this pope reigned over a thousand years ago, doesn't it all sound eerily modern? The Conciliar popes have done far more than merely ordain clerics out of season in unseemly places. They have completely overturned the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and allowed an unCatholic invalid service to be performed in its place. They have not just turned their palace into a brothel, but allowed thousands of New Order bishops and presbyters to rape and molest young Catholics unpunished. They have invoked pagan gods not just at dice, but on official papal visits, when they have been marked on the forehead by Hindu priestesses, smeared with pitch at Mess by pagan aboriginess, and prayed in the groves of the pagan gods at Pago Pago.
Vatican I infallibly expressed the mind of Our Lord Jesus Christ when it defined the purpose and limited nature of the papal office in this way:
Neque enim Petri successoribus Spiritus sanctus promissus est, ut eo revelante novam doctrinam patefacerent, sed ut eo assistente traditam per apostolos revelationem seu fidei depositum sancte custodirent et fideliter exponerent.
[For the Holy Ghost was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by His revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by His assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or Deposit of Faith transmitted by the Apostles.]
This is Catholic dogma. No Catholic can disagree with this definition of the limitation of papal power without surrounding himself with the odor of heresy. The Roman congregations' preparation for that Council revealed that historically no fewer than forty popes had fallen into personal heresy (such as John XXII, whom we have discussed here before). Catholic doctrine is that popes may, under very carefully defined and limited conditions, issue an infallible decree, but they are not impeccable; that is, they are prone to fall into personal sin, just as St. Peter did.
So, what does ecclesiastical history tell us will be the method of resolving the current problems in the Church? Perhaps, as in the Great Arian Heresy of the fourth century, which included most of the bishops and even likely the pope, the resolution will come, as it did then, not from the pope or the "institutional Church" bureaucracy, but from a small remnant of bishops and laity who remained orthodox and suffered false "excommunication" for it, only to be regarded as Saints after the Church was restored.
We haven't had a good Novus Ordo Mess in a while, so here is the "Squat" Mess, provided by those Novus Ordo "minimalist" Jesuits. On September 21, 2005, the presbyter squats down in front of a stool-altar, while his lunch is conveniently stored under the stool. The fresh air out in the woods is so nice, why bother putting on any vestments? A golf shirt and cargo pants are good enough for the Lord God Almighty.
This guy probably things that Mess in the woods is more "relevant" to kids. But look at the two kids. The boredom on their faces is evident. One isn't even looking at the stool! Is this "Catholic"? Is this even religion? Don't strain for the answer; it's obvious. You can be darn sure, though, that Newpope and Newvatican consider this a "valid" expression of the Vatican II Springtime, while the true Mass is placed under stricture so that if one is to retain his Roman Catholic Faith, he must operate outside of the insanity of the New Order.
For further Messes, see TRADITIO's Novus Ordo Service Photo Gallery. 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.
We've seen it before, and we'll see it again. When true Catholicism goes, as it has in places such as Mexico and Africa, the people sink back into the paganism out of which the Church raised them. Mexico had been a pagan land, even practicing human sacrifice before the Spanish Catholics came. Now that the Catholic Church has almost entirely faded in Mexico, the people are returning to their former pagan practices.
Africa, in the early centuries of the first millennium, was a Christian country, having several hundred Catholic bishops. Now there are only a handful of Newchurch bishops, and one of these is recommending a return to animal sacrifice at Mess because that is what, he says, the paganism of the Africans understands.
In fact, the Anglicans in Cape Town, South Africa, are now planning to sacrifice an ox to mark the inauguration of a new diocese. The local priest supports the animal sacrifice in words that are identical with Vatican II's erroneous doctrine of "inculturation." "Our church is a diverse church, diverse in culture, worshipping and spirituality, and people must appreciate that diversity because it indicates how different cultures worship God," he said. The local archbishop has been appealed to to stop this paganism, but has refused to intervene in the matter, except to say, "all care will be taken to spare the animal unnecessary stress and suffering." [From BBC and UPI reports]
History shows that as the Anglican Church goes, so goes the New Order Church (annulment-divorce, homosexuality, invalid "Messes," etc.) A Novus Ordo archbishop has already advocated animal sacrifice for the counterfeit Church of the New Order.
Ever since the Novus Ordo took over the Catholic Church, we have seen a profusion of pagan beliefs and practices in Newchurch. The private devotions centering around Fatima have turned into a cult of "Fatimism," in which Fatima has been placed on a doctrinal level equivalent to Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. We have heard nonsense about Our Lady being seen in a broken window-glass in Pennsylvania, in an oil stain in a Mexico subway, and even at Medjugorje, where several demented "seers" fax out their "revelations" every week.
None of this is Catholicism. It is blasphemy. It is scandalous. It is paganism. Our Blessed Lady as portrayed in Scripture and Tradition is dignified. She utters one of the most beautiful prayers in Sacred Scripture, the Magnificat, which the Church traditionally chants every evening at Vespers of the Divine Office. She stands at the foot of the Cross in silence, far from the blabbermouth that these charismatic fanatics paint her.
So it is no surprise that the capital of the Left Coast has given us the latest example of this unCatholic madness. A Vietnamese Novus Ordo presbyter in Sacramento has been revving up the poor Novus Ordinarians to believe that a statue of the Virgin Mary has begun crying a substance that "looks like blood" (at least he's rational enough to hedge his bets against a charge of fraud).
Well, you can hardly blame demented the Novus Ordinarians. They do not have the Sacrament of Corpus Christi, but only an invalid Novus Ordo cookie. They do not have the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, but only an invalid and silly Mess. Is it any wonder that these poor Novus Ordinarians fall pray to anything that speaks to them of something sacred, since Newchurch has stolen their Faith from them?
Dear Fr. Moderator:
Why is it that the message that traditional Catholics give of Jesus, the Son of God, is so different from the one that the Novus Ordinarians give?
Fr. Moderator Replies.
Traditional Catholics don't worship the false "wimp" Jesus that the Modernists have tried to impose on the Novus Ordinarians in order to further their liberalist goals. Don't forget: the Modernists have been "re-translated" the Bible since Vatican II to make it conform to their own political agenda.
No one who has read the Gospels in the original or even in a literal translation, can come away with the Modernists' false caricature of Christ. Our Lord is no wimp. He is strong, speaks without compromise, is not a respecter of persons, and in truth calls the Church authorities of his time hypocrites and other vile names again and again. He stands courageously in the face of the Church authorities who call him a devil and want to kill him. He stands for truth and fights for it.
This is the Christ of the Bible. He treated people of Faith generously, but he spoke out against ecclesiastical institutions and "authorities" who preached a false Gospel. Just as the Scribes and Pharisees of Our Lord's time, the Newchurch authorities of the present day have sold out Our Lord for a few pieces of silver. We need to fight back, just as St. Peter and St. Paul fought back. We cannot be the "wimps" in Faith that the Modernists would force us to be -- for their own benefit.
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