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ACTUS DEDICATIONIS HUMANI GENERIS
IESU dulcissime, Redemptor humani generis, respice nos ad altare tuum humillime provolutos. Tui sumus, tui esse volumus; quo autem tibi coniuncti firmius esse possimus, en hodie sacratissimo Cordi tuo se quisque nostrum sponte dedicat. Te quidem multi novere nunquam; te, spretis mandatis tuis, multi repudiarunt. Miserere utrorumque, benignissime Iesu, atque ad sanctum Cor tuum rape universos. Rex esto, Domine, nec fidelium tantum qui nullo tempore discessere a te, sed etiam prodignorum filiorum qui te reliquerunt: fac hos, ut domum paternam cito repetant, ne miseria et fame pereant. Rex esto eorum, quos aut opinionum error deceptos habet, aut discordia separatos, eosque ad portum veritatis atque ad unitatem fidei revoca, ut brevi fiat unum ovile et unus pastor. Rex esto eorum omnium, qui in tenebris idolatriae aut islamismi adhuc versantur, eosque in lumen regnumque tuum vindicare ne renuas. Respice denique misericordiae oculis illius gentis filios, quae tamdiu populus electus fuit: et Sanguis, qui olim super eos invocatus est, nunc in illos quoque redemptionis vitaeque lavacrum descendat. Largire, Domine, Ecclesiae tuae securam cum incolumitate libertatem; largire cunctis gentibus tranquillitatem ordinis; perfice, ut ab utroque terrae vertice una resonet vox: Sit laus divino Cordi, per quod nobis parta salus: ipsi gloria et honor in saecula. Amen.
ACT OF THE CONSECRATION OF THE HUMAN RACE
MOST sweet Jesus, Redeemer of the human race, look down upon us humbly prostrate in Thy presence. We are Thine, and Thine we wish to be; but to be more surely united with Thee, behold, each one of us freely consecrates himself today to Thy most Sacred Heart. Many indeed have never known Thee; many too, despising Thy precepts, have rejected Thee. Have mercy on them all, most merciful Jesus, and draw them to Thy Sacred Heart. Be Thou King, O Lord, not only of the faithful who have never forsaken Thee, but also of the prodigal children who have abandoned Thee; grant that they may quickly return to their Father's house lest they die of wretchedness and hunger. Be Thou King of those who are deceived by erroneous opinion, or whom discord keeps aloof, and call them back to the harbor of truth and the unity of faith, so that soon there may be but one flock and one Shepherd. Be Thou King of all those who are still involved in the darkness of idolatry or of Islamism, and refuse not to draw them all into the light and kingdom of God. Turn Thine eyes of mercy towards the children of that race, once Thy chosen people. Of old, they called down upon themselves the Blood of the Savior; may It now descend upon them as a laver of redemption and of life. Grant, O Lord, to Thy Church assurance of freedom and immunity from harm; give peace and order to all nations, and make the earth resound from pole to pole with one cry: Praise be to the Divine Heart that wrought our salvation; to It be glory and honor forever. Amen.
At this time of year the question often arises about the celebration of Halloween by traditional Catholics. Is it, for instance, "pagan" to dress up and go about as ghosts and goblins? The question often comes up because many modern Christians (mostly non-Catholic ones) believe that Halloween has something to do with worshipping the devil and participating in witchcraft. The fact is that the origins of Halloween are rooted deeply in the theology and popular customs of Catholics.
It is false to say that our modern celebration of Halloween has origins in pagan Druid customs. It is true that the ancient Celts celebrated a major feast (the Celtic New Year) on October 31st, but the fact is that they celebrated a festival on the last day of almost every month. Halloween, a contraction of All Hollows Eve, falls on October 31st because the Feast of All Saints or All Hallows" falls on November 1st, a great feastday and Holyday of Obligation for Catholics. The feast in honor of all the Saints used to be celebrated on May 13th, but Pope Gregory III, in 731, moved it to November 1st, the dedication day of All Saints Chapel in St. Peter's in Rome. This feast spread throughout the world. In 998, St. Odilo, the abbot of the powerful monastery of Cluny in France, added a celebration on November 2nd. This was a day of prayer for the souls of all the faithful departed. Therefore, the Church had a feast of the Saints and those in Purgatory.
It was the Irish Catholics who came up with the idea to remember those souls who did not live by the Faith in this life. It became customary for the Irish to bang on pots and pans on All Hallow's Eve to let the damned know that they were not forgotten. In Ireland, then, all the dead came to be remembered. This, however, is still not exactly like our celebration of Halloween. On Halloween we also dress up in costumes. This practice arose in France during the 14th and 15th centuries.
During the horrible bubonic plague, the Black Death, Europe lost almost half of her population. Artists depicted the plague on walls to remind us of our own mortality. These pictures and representations are known as the "Dance of Death" or "Dance Macabre." These figures were commonly painted on cemetery walls and showed the devil leading a daisy chain of people into the tomb. Sometimes the dance was re-enacted on All Soul's Day as a living tableau, with people dressed up as the dead. But the French dressed up on All Souls, not Halloween, and the Irish, who celebrated Halloween, did not dress up. The two were brought together in the colonies of North America during the 18th century, when Irish and French Catholics began to intermarry. Thus, the two celebrations became mingled, and we began dressing up on Halloween.
Trick-or-Treating is a very odd addition to Halloween. It is the (unwilling) contribution of English Catholics. Guy Fawkes Day became a great celebration against Catholics in England. It celebrated the day on which the plot to blow up Parliament and King James I was discovered. This occurred on November 5, 1605. Guy Fawkes was the rather reckless man guarding the gunpowder. He was arrested and hanged. During these times of persecution of the Catholic Church, bands of revelers would wear masks and visit Catholics in the night demanding they be given cakes and beer. Guy Fawkes Day arrived in the American colonies with the first English settlers. Old King James had long been forgotten, but Trick-or-Treating was too much fun to give up. Eventually, it moved to the Irish/French Catholic masquerade. This practice of Trick-or-Treating was simply moved to coincide with the Catholic celebration involving dressing up. The ancient Druids did contribute the candy, which was used to welcome the good spirits, and masks (jack o'lanterns), which were used to scare away the evil spirits.
Halloween can still serve the purpose of reminding us about Hell and how to avoid it. Halloween is also a day to prepare us to remember those who have gone before us in Faith, those already in Heaven and those still suffering in Purgatory. Halloween is a time to let people know about our Catholic roots and significance. Catholic parents who are not comfortable with the worst secular aspects of Halloween, which are admittedly increasing, can avail themselves of alternative activities on that day: family prayer and fasting for the Vigil of All Saints Day, visitations of houses in the garments of non-devilish personae, the reading aloud of stories of the Saints or of seasonal literature such as Edgar Allen Poe's The Masque of the Red Death and Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and the playing of seasonal music such as Saint-Saens Danse Macabre, Modest Moussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain, and Sergei Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead. As in all things, traditional Catholic parents must be sure to teach their children the proper balance in such matters, erring neither on the side of defect or excess.
For further information on Halloween, click on FAQ11: How Do You Explain These Traditional Catholic Practices in the TRADITIO Network's Library of Files (FAQs & Traditional Apologetics), in the article "Halloween."
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
In so many countries there are no Traditional Catholic priests. In some of these countries, there is a host of problems ranging from floods to famine to persecution. What heavenly relief can Catholics obtain in the absence of the true Mass?
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
First of all, the principal purpose of your prayer should be not to save your body, but to save your soul. All kinds of prayer exist for that: meditation on the Scriptures, spiritual reading, litanies, chants, etc. Those without regular traditional clergy can avail themselves, like the Saints in similar situations, of Spiritual Communion. For further information, click on DIALOGUE.PDF: The Method of Hearing Mass Spiritually for the Absent in the TRADITIO Network's Library of Files (FAQs and Traditional Apologetics).
Remember that in the history of the Church, it was more common not to have regular access to clergy. What did the pioneers of the American West do? What did the Japanese do after the Jesuits were expelled? What did Catholics living in Protestant Germany do?Also, you need to be sure that you are supporting, in every way possible, the traditional priests that you do have. So many moan about this or that inconvenience or deficit, but what are they doing to support their traditional clergy? The Newchurchers support their immoral and unCatholic presbyters, but do traditional Catholics pray every day for their traditional priests and support them in their work?
We TRADITIO Fathers think that in the current situation, traditional Catholics are being tested, as God has often tested the Faith of His people. And we are not passing the test. Traditional Catholics more often moan than help. Many, like the Motarians and many SSPXers, have lost faith and are selling out to the New Order. We should all be rereading and meditating upon the Book of Job for an example of what to do in such times as ours. Job received his reward, but only after his faith was thoroughly tested.
Poor JPII! His Novus Ordo monstrosity of a cultural center in Washington, D.C., which was opened with so much hoopla in March 2001 can't even draw a dozen visitors a day now. So as not to have to suffer the embarrassment of shutting it down completely, Newchurch has gotten a group of Newchurch nuns to enter into an agreement to buy the building and turn it into a house of Novus Ordo studies for their order.
Mother Assumpta of the Novus Ordo Dominican Sisters took a break from her order's annual golf outing to answer questions from the press, which has reported that "the John Paul II Cultural Center has been foundering for many years." [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by the National Catholic Register.]
I was interested in the Daily Commentary about a group of "Feeneyites" returning converting to the Newchurch diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire. I was interested because the Society of St. Pius X, now in dialogue with Newrome for a similar sellout, calls the Feeneyites heretics, and the Feeneyites doubt the Catholicity of those who do not accept their position against the doctrine of baptism de voto, including the SSPX. So, how can the Feeneyites and the SSPX live under the same Novus Ordo roof?
This development is just more proof that Newchurch is willing to practice "traditionalist" oecumenism. When are traditional Catholics going to wake up to the fact that Newrome, SSPX, and even the Feeneyites are playing them like offkey violins?
The first film about the 19th-century convert from Anglicanism who became a Catholic cardinal will star the famed actor F. Murray Abraham. Abraham, the son of an Assyrian Christian father and an Italian American mother, is no stranger to religious films. From the 1984 film Amadeus, he won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Antonio Salieri, the 18th-century composer of religious music (among other works), a contemporary of another church composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Two years later he delivered a chilling portrayal of the Inquisitor Bernardo Gui in the film adaptation of Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose.
The Newman film, titled The Unseen World, will begin shooting at the end of 2010, directed by Liani Marabini and filmed on location in Rome, Birmingham, and Oxford. The title reflects the metaphysical relationship between God and man referred to in Newman’s writings. The film will deal with Newman's conversion from the High Anglican Oxford Movement and his spiritual journey toward Roman Catholicism against the backdrop of Victorian England. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by the U.K. Catholic Herald.]
There are some, loosely called Feeneyites after Fr. Leonard Feeney (1897-1978), who do not accept the teaching of the dogmatic Council of Trent on Baptism of Desire (de voto), but instead hold that unless a person undergoes baptism in water, he is automatically damned to Hell. The Feeneyites deny the traditional teaching, proceeding from Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, on baptism of blood and of desire. Granted, the teaching on de voto has not yet been fully defined doctrinally -- after all, it took almost two millennia to work out all the theological "kinks" in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception --, but de voto is certainly recognized in principle and clarified by several papal documents before Vatican II. For further information, click on FAQ10: How Do You Explain These Traditional Catholic Doctrines? in the TRADITIO Network's Library of Files (FAQs and Traditional Apologetics), in the section "Baptism of Desire and Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus."
The position of the Feeneyites is the direct opposite of the Vatican II Oecumenists who, in practice, seem to hold that baptism is not necessary at all. It may be that the Feeneyites arose as a counter sect to the growing culture of false oecumenism preached by Vatican II, but they went too far to the other extreme. It is far from clear that Fr. Leonard Feeney even held this position. Feeney was a popular and approved Catholic author, whose Fish on Friday (1934) was one of the most popular books of its time.
Some Feeneyites have become quite fanatical, even to the point of interrupting church services. Thus, it is ironic that one of the best-known and long-standing Feeneyite sects, that at St. Benedict Center in Richmond, New Hampshire, on October 14, 2010, announced that it had gone from the frying pan into the fire, by selling out to the Novus Ordo and its local Manchester Newbishop, William McCormack. We TRADITIO Fathers had heard rumors of this complete flipflop to the Novus Ordo being in the works for more than a year now.
It is not unusual for those on the extremes, such as the Feeneyites on the one end and the Novus Ordinarians on the other end, not to be on the extremes at all, but merely to "wrap round" at the ends, much as Fascism and Communism, rather than being polar opposites, are really joined in being autocratic dictatorships. In this case, the extremism of Feeneyism and the extremism of Novus Ordoism have simply found their natural home with each other.
Once-Catholic Notre Dame University of South Bend, Indiana, has paid a high price for its invitation to Barack Obama to give its May 17, 2009, Commencement Speech and to receive an honorary degree. Many elements of the university were opposed to Obama's appearance because he is a flaming abortion and "gay marriage" advocate. Traditional priests and laypeople demonstrated against the appearance, and some were even arrested for their protest. As a result of the Obama scandal, many alumni threatened to cut off donations to the university -- and it turns out that they did exactly that.
Private donations to Notre Dame in the fiscal year following the Obama scandal plunged over 120,000,000 U.S. dollars. The financial report that revealed the drop also indicated why Notre Dame was trying to play the sycophant to Obama: more than one-quarter of the money that the university received came from handouts from the U.S. federal government -- and that amount increased! [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by Catholic World News.]
A priest who was ordained in the traditional rite in 1948 and later sold out to the New Order was struck down dead at his "table" while performing the invalid Novus Ordo Protestant-Masonic-Pagan service, and in the traditionally-condemned "concelebrated" manner to boot. The incident occurred on October 22, 2010, at St. Stephen's Novus Ordo parish in Valrico, Florida.
The cause of the Novus Ordo monsignor remains a mystery. Traditional Catholics will note that the priest turned presbyter was stricken down at the moment just before he was about to commit the sacrilege of the Novus Ordo "consecration." [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by the Associated Press.]
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
Imagine for a moment if a truly traditional pope were elected to the papacy, whose first act were to nullify the Second Vatican Council and all the pastoral decrees and novelties that were implemented after Vatican II, including the Protestant-Masonic-Pagan Novus Ordo service. Imagine if a truly traditional pope brought back the fully Traditional Latin Mass and the fully traditional Catholic Sacraments. What kind of reaction would this cause among the Newbishops, who would want to retain everything that Vatican II has brought about? Would the Newbishops break off into their own sect?
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
The Novus Ordo bishops have already broken off into their own sect: the Novus Ordo sect. To perpetrate their hoax, they continue to call their sect "Catholic," but everyone really knows that it is not. In the circumstances that you describe, a few Novus Ordo bishops would probably return to the truly Catholic Church with the traditional pope (and would have to be educated in the true Faith and consecrated), but by now most Newbishops are dedicated Protestants and would not change their spots.
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
Our Newchurch parish has had a "Motu" Mass for the past three years. Recently, the presbyter who was saying this Mass has been transferred to perform a Novus Ordo service in Spanish at another parish. We were told by the bishop that there are no other presbyters from our area who can replace our presbyter for the "Motu" Mass. Do you have a list of traditional priests available?
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
Sic transit Missa "Motu"! The Half Novus Ordo Bugnini-Vatican II Mess will always take a back seat in Newchurch to the invalid Full Novus Ordo in the vulgar tongues. This situation of losing these "Motu" Messes is going to be happening more and more as Newchurchers tire of the novelty of the Bugnini-Vatican II "Mass of 1962+."
But this situation is really a blessing in disguise for you. You don't have to settle for the Half Novus Ordo Bugnini-Vatican II "Mess of 1962+" performed by a Novus Ordo presbyter, who is not a priest. You have an opportunity to find a fully Traditional Latin Mass. For further information, click on the TRADITIO Network's Official Traditional Catholic Directory department, provided to the TRADITIO Network by the National Registry of Traditional Latin Masses.
Yes, the TRADITIO Traditional Roman Catholic Network has for almost two decades now published a list of traditional Catholic priests available to accept positions for offering the Traditional Latin Mass. For further information, click on the TRADITIO Network's Traditional Catholic Priests Wanted and Available department.
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
May a Catholic read the works of Erasmus?
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
Indeed, you will find much of interest in the works of this great Christian humanist. Venerable Fr. Erasmus (1466-1537) and St. Thomas More (1478-1535) were the two most brilliant Christian humanists of their time. It is interesting to note that both the lay Saint and the priest were highly critical of papal conduct in their time, epitomized by the "Bad Pope" Alexander VI (r. 1492-1503), who by his overt corruption triggered, in the opinion of most historians, the Protestant Revolt about a decade after his death.
Erasmus and More, who were great friends, both pilloried the corrupt papacy of their time with biting satire, most notably in Erasmus' Moriae Encomium / Laus Stultitiae [The Praise of Folly], which St. Thomas held in the highest regard. Much of the corruption that Erasmus satirizes in this work parallels the situation of our own time.
Erasmus may be regarded as one of the fiercest advocates of Sacred Tradition. In his Explanatio Symboli Apostolorum sive Catechismus [Explanation of the Apostles Creed, or Catechism] (1533), he attacked Luther's heretical Protestant denial of the Catholic dogma that Sacred Tradition is as just as valid a source of revelation as the Bible. Erasmus also defended the Seven Sacraments and called "blasphemers" any who questioned the perpetual virginity of Mary.
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
I read an account recently in pseudo-traditionalist publication that a Bugnini-Vatican II "Mass of 1962+" was performed for the first time in forty years at the Fatima shrine in Portugal. I have serious problems with this incident. First of all, the Fatima shrine now is not the traditional one, but a Novus Ordo monstrosity that has been dubbed the "Tennis Racket," because its Modernistic form looks like a tennis racket. In it, pagan religious services have been held, such as those of the Hindu sect.
Secondly, the ministers who performed the Half Novus Ordo service were personnel from a "Motu" organization, who were "ordained" by "bishops" who were never consecrated as such, but merely "installed" under the Freemason Bugnini's invalid Novus Ordo Ordinal of 1968. Therefore, my understanding is that such "bishops" do not have the power to ordain priests, but merely to install presbyters for the Novus Ordo service.
The pseudo-traditionalist publication reporting this incident was amazed that 200 people attended this Half Novus Ordo "Extraordinary" service. But here in the state of Washington in the United States, we average more than 250 faithful traditional Catholics at the Traditional Latin Mass before the 1962 Conciliar changes, under the auspices of a traditional Catholic priest and a traditional Catholic bishop.
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
In a presentation given on October 16, 2010, in Kansas City, Missouri, the current superior general of the Society of St. Pius X, Bernie Fellay, presented the novel idea that "strictly speaking ... the excommunications [from the Novus Ordo sect] were 'lifted' on all six bishops, including Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop de Castro Meyer, and not only the four SSPX bishops named in the document." That was news to me! Where did Fellay get his latest novel idea?
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
"Strictly speaking," Fellay is dead wrong! You can read the actual decree for yourself in INDULTS.TXT: "Indults" for the Modernized Vatican II Mass Of 1962 & Related Documents in the TRADITIO Network's Library of Files (FAQs and Traditional Apologetics). There is reference in those documents only to the "four bishops" (Fellay, Galarreta, Tissier, Williamson). There is no reference to the Novus Ordo "unexcommunication" of Lefebvre or de Castro Meyer.
Fellay is spewing hot air in some Novus Ordo-like fashion that no one but Fellay, either in the SSPX or in Newchurch, has heretofore suggested. This novel idea is clearly a part of the disinformation campaign in which Fellay now routinely engages in an attempt to sell out the Archbishop's SSPX to the leaders of the Novus Ordo sect, whom the Archbishop publicly excoriated.
Remember that Archbishop Lefebvre specifically and publicly stated that Josef Ratzinger "is not a Catholic." Remember too that the Archbishop knew Ratzinger intimately for many years. Naturally, a statement like that from the SSPX's founding archbishop does not go down well in Ratzinger's Newrome. Thus, Fellay is trying to create a fairy-tale to snooker the SSPXers, although internal reports indicate that about half the SSPXers stand with Archbishop Lefebvre against Bernie Fellay's attempted sellout to his Novus Ordo masters.
Newchurchers are waking up to the lies of Vatican II and the Novus Ordo bishops. We need the John the Baptists and the Paul Reveres of our day to stand up and act! Is there a seed of hope that a new generation is not going to take the Modernistic errors and limped-wristed sermons anymore?
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
We are not sanguine about the prospects. This new generation of Newchurchers that you mention has bought into the New Order and support it personally and financially. Sure, they might have few quibbles on some narrow issues of political interest to them, but they are not Catholics at all, but Newchurchers, firmly attached to the New Order and its leaders, who have been convicted beyond doubt of the most vile doctrinal, moral, and liturgical rejection of Catholicism.
Good Catholics, do not be deluded by a little pretty frosting on a rancid cake. A few Half Novus Ordo Messes of 1962+ are not going to make Newchurch "traditional." Actually, they do much more harm than good because they deceive the Motarians that the Catholic Church and the Novus Ordo sect can live together in one framework. That is also what Fellay is trying to imply. But such a position is truly blasphemous, as Sts. Paul, Augustine, Athanasius, Basil, Martin of Tours, and so many great Doctors of the Catholic Church have taught.
Poor Raymond "Bully" Burke! The same day Benedict-Ratzinger announced that he would become a Newcardinal on November 20, 2010, Burke was implicated in court with fraud in the attempted theft of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church. On October 20, 2010, Burke was implicated, while he headed the Newchurch archdiocese of St. Louis, Missouri, with illegally converting St. Stanislaus' attorney to work as a "mole" for Burke's Newchurch archdiocese. Burke corrupted the church's own attorney to attend confidential meetings and pass confidential information back to Burke, in an egregious violation of the attorney-client privilege.
St. Stanislaus Kosta Church was given a perpetual charter by Archbishop Peter Kenrick in 1891 to operate independently of the archdiocese through its pastor and lay Board of Trustees. Even though threatened by Burke with Novus Ordo "excommunication," St. Stanislaus courageously maintained its rights under the perpetual charter and refused to turn the church over to Burke so that he could liquidate its 12,000,000 U.S. dollar value to pay of for sex crimes. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by United Press International.]
Burke, who because of this affair acquired the eponym "Bully," made such a mess of things that Benedict-Ratzinger had to scuttle him off to Newrome in 2008 and give him a sinecure, in a manner similar to the way JPII had to scuttle paedophilia-connected Newcardinal Bernard Law out of Boston, Massachusetts, to a sinecure in Newrome.
The irony is that Benedict-Ratzinger made the "fraudulent" archbishop his chief justice! It seems that Benedict-Ratzinger has once again incurred the condemnation of Christ, Who proclaimed: "My house shall be a house of prayer; but you have made it a den of robbers" (Luke 19:46/DRV).
A Spanish public transport union announced on October 20, 2010, that it will engage in a strike to coincide with the junket of Benedict-Ratzinger to Barcelona, Spain, on November 7, 2010. Spaniards are enraged that they have to foot the bill for a propaganda trip on the part of the "Paedophile Pope."
The public transport section of the CGT union said it "is calling a strike against the spending of public money during the visit of the pope." The union says that this money should go toward the area's unemployed, who are suffering under the growing economic depression presided over by the United States' Barack Obama and European leaders.
Benedict-Ratzinger's Newvatican demanded of the Spanish and Catalonia governments a payment of some 23,000,000 U.S. dollars to foot the bill for the propaganda trip. Yet Newcardinal Lluis Martinez Sistach has said that Benedict-Ratzinger's junket to the city would cost Newchurch only in the neighborhood of 750,000 dollars, some of which had already been raised through donations. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by Agence France Press.]
The question that Spaniards are asking is: is Benedict-Ratzinger attempting to defraud them to the tune of some 22,000,000 dollars?
Naturally, the clueless press, both secular and religious, will give you nothing but glowing reports on Benedict-Ratzinger's appointment October 20 (effective November 20), 2010, of 24 new Newcardinals. Even the Catholic News Service couldn't get the facts right, writing that Burke is prefect of the Apostolic "Signature," whereas he is in fact prefect of the Apostolic Signatura -- the word in Mediaeval Latin means tribunal. What none of the press, or for that matter the sycophantic Motarians and Neocon Newchurchers, will tell you is the real, documented story. To be sure, after Benedict-Ratzinger let the Newcollege of Cardinals fall to its lowest level in recent years, 101, he must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel in order to answer to demands that he get on the stick and do his papal job. He hadn't bothered to fill the Newcollege since April 2005.
Benedict-Ratzinger's record of appointments is abysmal. In the past, he has appointed as bishops philogays, paedophiles, and Communist spies. To get a (dis)taste for the quality of Benedict-Ratzinger's latest cardinaltial appointees, let's look at the two United States Newcardinals named, Raymond "Bully" Burke and Donald "Wimp" Wuerl.
Raymond "Bully" Burke has left a trail of corruption in his career since he was Newbishop of La Crosse, Wisconsin, from 1995 to 2003. During that time he gravely embarrassed his Newchurch masters by consecrating a surgically-altered ("transgendered") male as a Novus Ordo "nun." The local press dubbed this travesty the "Immaculate Deception." Burke's congregations wrote bitterly to the Apostolic Delegate in Washington, D.C., and JPII hustled him away from La Crosse to St. Louis, Missouri, in 2004.
Burke didn't stay out of trouble for long, causing another grand embarrassment to his Newchurch masters by attempting to steal a 12,000,000 dollar conservative Polish-based church, St. Stanislaus Kostka. More than a century previous, the church had been given a perpetual charter by Archbishop Peter Kenrick in 1891 to be run by a lay Board of Trustees (a common organizational structure in the American Church at that time), as long as the church paid all of its own expenses.
Succeeding trustees managed their charge exceptionally well, never asking for a dime from the archdiocese, even during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Enter Raymond "Bully" Burke. He was being pressed by the U.S. courts to pay damages for the rapes and sexual assaults upon children perpetrated by his presbyters. In order to pay off these debts, Burke decided to steal St. Stanislaus for his Newarchdiocese, but the courageous parishioners said a resounding No! to his attempted robbery. As a result, Burke tried to Novus Ordo-excommunicate the Trustees, but his ploy failed: the parishioners -- and religious leaders in St. Louis as a whole -- supported St. Stanislaus. "Bully" Burke was bested, and the only thing that Newvatican could do was to hustle him away to Newrome, so that he could be carefully watched. So, in 2008 Burke was given a sinecure as chief justice of Newvatican's supreme court -- promoveatur ut amoveatur is the Latin aphorism -- promote him so that we can get rid of him!
Donald Wuerl, the Newarchbishop of Washington, D.C., presents a picture less of corruption than of incompetence. When Newbishop of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he attempted to deprive a presbyter of his ecclesiastical rights. The presbyter didn't stand for this, appealed to Newrome, and was upheld. As a consequence, the Apostolic Delegate in Washington, D.C., delivered to Wuerl a humiliating letter, in which Wuerl was told that he was incompetent in canon law and needed to go back to school for re-education. The letter was supposed to be secret, but was leaked to the press by the aggrieved presybter. The embarrassment to Wuerl and Newchurch was compounded by the fact that he was at that time teaching a course in canon law on the EWTN Charismatic "Catholic" cable television station!
Embarrassed again, Benedict-Ratzinger had to do something, so, since he never fires his bishops for incompetence or even for child rape -- promoveatur ut amoveatur -- Wuerl was hustled off to Washington, D.C. Bad move! There the incompetent Wuerl caused more embarrassment to Benedict-Ratzinger by giving the Novus Ordo cookie to two prominent pro-abortion Newchurch senators, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. When challenged about this sacrilege, Wuerl washed his hands like a Pontius Pilate, saying that it was up to their Boston bishop to discipline them.
Good Catholics, Benedict-Ratzinger has once again show how corrupt he and his papacy are. He appoints as Newcardinals two Newarchbishops who by their actions spit upon the very God that they are supposed to be serving. Is it any wonder that Benedict-Ratzinger's papacy has been one of the most vile in the history of the Church, resulting in the assaults and rapes of hundreds of thousands of children under his personal cardinalatial and papal signature?
On October 20, 2010, Samuel Ciccolini, a presbyter of Akron, Ohio, who ran the Newchurch charity known as the Interval Brotherhood Home, was sentenced in U.S. Federal Court to prison, with a fine and restitution of 4,000,000 U.S. dollars for implicit embezzlement of Church funds. "Father Sam," as he was known in his Novus Ordo guise, was adjudged from the bench as "lying about the source of more than 1 million dollars in cash" that he kept in his rectory apartment, embezzled from the charity.
Good Catholics, many Newchurch bishops and presbyters have been found to be embezzlers of Church funds, some to support their paedophiliac habits of raping children. Any Newchurcher who puts a penny into the collection plate is an accomplice to immoral activity. It is long past the time when Newchurchers can claim ignorance of the facts about the Novus Ordo Church.
A Mohammedan from Somalia desecrated the high altar of the famed Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, better known as the Duomo of Florence, by jumping on its high altar and dancing upon it. The famous dome of the cathedral was architected in 1436 by Brunelleschi. Michelangelo learned much from this structure, as well as from the ancient Roman pantheon, to build the dome of St. Peter's in Rome in 1547.
The desecration occurred on the morning of October 11, 2010. The infidel stole in amongst a group of Newchurchers and visitors who crowded the cathedral and thus escaped the notice of the cathedral guards until he ran into the sanctuary and jumped upon the high altar, where he danced a profane dance and screeched prayers in Arabic.
Italian police have not charged the perpetrator with any crime. If a Christian perpetrated the same outrage in a Mohammedan mosque, he would probably have been killed on the spot. Such is the one-way street known as the false "Oecumenism" of Vatican II and its Newchurch.
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
What is the traditional Catholic position on modern music? What kind of music would you recommend for traditional Catholics?
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
In classical and Catholic aesthetics, music should elevate the mind, even though it may appeal secondarily to the emotions. First, therefore, would be the Sacred Chant, followed by Sacred Polyphony, then classical music, particularly of such composers as Bach and Mozart, followed by other composers. One finds that the quality tends to decrease particularly in the twentieth century, although there are exceptions. One might also admit folk music or classical film music. Catholics would, of course, want to avoid any significant contact with "hard rock," "rap," or other vulgar music.
For further information, click on FAQ07: What Sacred Music Recordings Do You Recommend? in the TRADITIO Network's Library of Files (FAQs and Traditional Apologetics).
We kid you not. Benedict-Ratzinger's official daily newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, has singled out Homer Simpson, the lead in a long-running cartoon series, as being the New Order's "true Catholic." Newvatican's latest spokesman, Newjesuit presbyter Francisco Occhetta, gives Simpson high Novus Ordo praise indeed in the papal newspaper. Another Newjesuit presbyter, Jim Martin, associate editor of the Newjesuit magazine, America, joins in the praise: "He [Simpson] is preaching the gospel, but I think he is doing it in a very postmodern way." Yes, the perfect spokesman for the Post-modern, post Vatican II sect. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by the Washington Post.]
Good Catholics, what can we say but that the New Order religion of Newchurch has become little more than a comic strip, fueled by the antics of Newpope and his hierarchs. It would be laughable if it didn't involve the religious deception of billions of people and the rape of hundreds of thousands of children.
Newchurch and its prelates are all talk and no action. It's all hot air. Talking a tough line as propaganda, but doing nothing to implement it is a characteristic that these prelates have learned from Benedict-Ratzinger. How many times has Newpope issued meaningless apologies for Newchurch's Great Sex & Embezzlement Scandal, but then has refused to accept any personal responsibility or to stop letting his bishop and presbyter criminals off the hook?
Second only to Benedict-Ratzinger himself in this regard is Newarchbishop Raymond "Bully" Burke. The bishop who preaches conservativism and then consecrates a "trangenered" nun. The bishop who tried to steal a church that was operating under an independent charter from an Archbishop. The bishop who so embarrased Newvatican that he was fired from his pastoral work and brought to Newrome's Supreme Court so that he could be carefully watched.
Now, in an October 15, 2010, address to a Human Life International Conference, Burke lamented the effect of Newchurch bishops and politicians who favor abortion and "gay" marriage. On and on he prattles. But he's Benedict-Ratzinger's Chief Justice. Why doesn't Burke do something about it? Because these self-proclaimed "conservative" Newchurch prelates never do. They talk tough for the cameras, but then they scurry off with their tails between their legs when it comes time do anything about it.
Remember that Benedict-Ratzinger himself on his 2007 Mexican junket spoke out against the Mexican Newchurch parliamentarians who voted for abortion, but then had his press secretary tell the press plane that he wasn't going to do one blessed thing about it. It's all part of the New Order deception. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by Zenit.]
Newchurch is desperate for a big-name saint for the Novus Ordo. The current pick is JPII. But, as previously reported in these Daily Commentaries, the first JPII "miracle" was thrown out because the doctors didn't buy it. Another one was thrown out because JPII's ghost said that he didn't have the power and instead referred the miracle-seeker to Pope Pius XII for an answer. Is Newchurch now trying to phony up yet another miracle for JPII?
Ever since the demonstration contrived by Polish enterpreneurs in St. Peter's Piazza to make JPII a Santo Subito, an immediate saint, more contrivances have been engineered at Newvatican, but they have fallen through, embarrassing an already derided Benedict-Ratzinger and his Newvatican for their role in aiding and abetting Newchurch's Great Sex & Embezzlement Scandal. Nevertheless, Newvatican is trying to engineer another "miracle" for poor JPII.
Newvatican has consistently made efforts, even before JPII's death, to make him in some kind of Novus Ordo saintly figure through the use of outright lies. Within the week before his death, Newvatican reports indicated that he was saying the Novus Ordo service in his bedroom. When the press asked Newvatican how a man so sick could do such a thing, Newvatican tripped all over itself to say that he hadn't performed the service, but followed it actively. Later, in a little noticed report in Newvatican's official publication, Acta Apostolicae Sedis, the official doctor's report indicated that JPII had been in a coma for up to a week before his death, oblivious to the world.
By the way, contrary to the Apostolic Consitution pertaining to the Sede Vacante period, someone stole the papal ring and appointed two dozen bishops while JPII was either dead or almost dead. Such are the machinations of this now New Order Church and its corrupt officials. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by Rome Television.]
For further information, click on FAQ10: How Do You Explain These Traditional Catholic Doctrines? in the TRADITIO Network's Library of Files (FAQs and Traditional Apologetics), in the section "Canonizations, Post-conciliar."
Before Vatican II, we were taught that only those receiving Holy Communion could approach the communion rail, and for very good reasons: above all, the Sacred Host must be protected, as even a tiny baby can unexpectedly flail his arms and knock the Host out of the priest's hands, and, in general, the awe and reverence for the Most Blessed Sacrament must be preserved.
Therefore, one parent would receive Holy Communion while the other waited with their infants, and when that parent came back, the other would go up to receive. It worked very well; there were no accidents. But recently I know of infants who have received their "First Communion" as babes in arms because a parent wasn't quick enough to prevent the babe from grabbing the Sacred Host.
This business of infants "going to communion" with their parents seems to be an anti-traditional and insidious crossover from the Novus Ordo.
We all know that Novus Ordo canonizations have become a joke. Certainly Benedict-Ratzinger has done nothing to make them any more valid or reverent. The latest one, of Mary MacKillop, featured aboriginal performers in face paint dancing to the cacophony of the profane didgeridoo in front of one of the most revered of traditional art works, Michelangelo's Pieta, in St. Peter's Basilica. The October 17, 2010, Novus Ordo extravaganza was approved by Benedict-Ratzinger for his archbasilica.
For further information, click on FAQ10: How Do You Explain These Traditional Catholic Doctrines? in the TRADITIO Network's Library of Files (FAQs and Traditional Apologetics), in the section "Canonizations, Post-conciliar."
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
I noticed in the "Universal Prayer For All Things Necessary to Salvation" by Pope Clement IX, the following sentence occurs: "Let me always remember to be submissive to my superiors, condescending to my inferiors, faithful to my friends, and charitable to my enemies." What did Pope Clement IX mean by "condescending" in this context? I thought that the word meant to make others feel less of a person by showing that you're better and above them.
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
This is yet another instance of the problem with translations. You do not give the text in the original, so we would guess that it might be using the Latin verb condescendere. Often in "translation" (as if such a thing were even possible), the use of a cognate in another language, condescend here, is often wrong, as it is in this case. The Latin word does not mean "to condescend" in the sense in which Modern English uses the word, but in the sense of "to humble oneself voluntarily." The Latin does not carry the pejorative meaning that the English cognate does.
One of many reasons why the Church has traditionally condemned the use of the vernacular for Sacred Scripture and Holy Mass, except in informal contexts is that no "translation" can ever convey a fully-accurate meaning from one language to the other. One may get the "gist" of the meaning through a "translation" for general purposes, but can never appreciate the true meaning of the original. And that is what is infallible in Sacred Scripture, not some "translated" meaning ginned up by a human "translator." Since the 1950s, Novus Ordo "translators" of the Bible have notoriously and deliberately changed the meaning of many passages, claiming that it is "translation." Beware "translations"!
To address Clement IX's (r. 1667-1669) text itself, remember that the pope had in mind lawful superiors, who were themselves following the commands of Christ and the doctrines and practices of (traditional) Catholicism. He did not have in mind popes and bishops who were themselves deniers of the Catholic Faith and its Sacred Liturgy, or who conspired in the perpetuation of the most vile immoralities against Catholic morality.
The Newchurch of the New Order, which is sinking fast, is getting so desperate that it is spending increasing sums on a television advertising in campaign called "Catholics Come Home." The Newdiocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin, tried the ploy and claimed that there was an increase of 7.4 per cent in Novus Ordo service attendance. But was there really?
If we've learned anything from Newchurch's Great Sex & Embezzlement Holocaust, we've learned that Newchurch leaders, up to and including its Newpope, will spin, damage-control, misinform, and even outright lie to keep money and power for their New Order. So how did the Green Bay Newdiocese deceptively skew the results of the campaign? They scheduled First Communions [sic] in 75 of their Newparishes to boost attendance. That's close to half the Newparishes in the Newdiocese!
Moreover, the Newdiocese revealed that attendance at the invalid Novus Ordo service is getting so small that one or two extra attendees could mean an increase of 7 per cent. A little arithmetic indicates that those Newparishes are drawing fewer than 20 attendees!
In yet another revelation from a study of the campaign results, the Newdiocese admitted: "Over 75 percent of our parishes reported that they saw very little or no more people attending sessions at the parish during Lent. Today's parish is not a space where the average Catholic, and certainly not our less active brothers and sisters, will spend much time outside of Mass [sic]." In other words, after the Novus Ordo Sunday dinner is over, these Newchurchers want to have nothing to do with Catholicism, Catholic devotion, or Catholic practice -- which they can't find in Novus Ordo parishes even if they wanted to! [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by the Compass.]
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
It seems so far, from my experience with families who raise their children in the SSPX, that their kids end up acting and behaving just like the young kids in the Novus Ordo. I'm not saying that all of them are like that, but it does seem that you don't see much of a difference between the SSPXers and the Novus Ordinarians. Could the reason be that SSPX children are exhibiting Novus Ordo tendencies?
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
That could be part of the explanation. Another is the strong secular, anti-religious milieu in the world right now. After the Roman emperor Constantine issued his Edict of Milan in the year 313, freeing the Christian Church from persecution, within fifty years the pope was complaining that the Christians were acting just like the pagans. Previously, 11,000,000 Christians underwent martyrdom rather than sacrifice to the pagan state.
In the calendar implemented by the Papal Bull Inter gravissimas of Pope Gregory XIII on February 24, 1582, and therefore known as the "Gregorian calendar," the method of calculating the date of Easter was restated in such a way that the date had to fall between March 22 and April 25, inclusively. Even most traditional Catholics are ignorant of the fact that this historic information is to be found in the front matter of the traditional Missale Romanum, in the section entitled De Anno et Eius Partibus.
The St. Lawrence Press, which publishes annually the fully Traditional Roman Catholic Ordo, has announced that 2011 will be a rare year, one in which the date of Easter will fall as late as it can ever get save one day, on April 24. Easter has not fallen that late for 152 years and will not fall that late again for another 84 years. In 1943, Easter last fell on the latest possible date, April 25, and will fall on that date again in 2038.
During the second century a heated dispute arose over the date of Easter. Pope Victor I terminated the controversy by threatening with excommunication all those who failed to comply with the Roman custom, which set Easter on the Sunday following the fourteenth day of the full moon, when the Passover began. That day was regarded as the exact date on which Christ arose from the dead, according to the authority of Sts. Peter and Paul. The date was confirmed by the First Oecumenical Council of the Church at Nicaea, two centuries later. The reason why Easter is fixed on the Sunday following the fourteenth day is to avoid coinciding with the Jews, in case the fourteenth day itself falls on a Sunday.
The Vatican II Council floated a trial balloon to change the date of Easter, issued as an Appendix to that Council's devastating Liturgy Constitution, Sacrosanctum concilium, which opened the way for the invalid Novus Ordo service. The idea was that the date of Easter would fall on a fixed Sunday in the Gregorian calendar. This trial balloon immediately flew up into the aether and was never to be seen again.
For further information on the fully-traditional Catholic 2011 Ordo and Calendar, see the TRADITIO Network's Traditional Liturgical Calendar department.
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
I'm told that Catholics over the age of 59 are not bound to fast on Fridays. Is this in accordance with traditional Catholic practice on the subject? A lot of Catholics are confused on the subject of Fridays.
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
There has not been a general requirement to fast on Fridays. You must be thinking of the weekly Friday abstinence from fleshmeat, which binds all Catholics over seven years of age under penalty of grave sin.
For further information on the Traditional Catholic Calendar, see the TRADITIO Network's Traditional Liturgical Calendar department. The Immaculate Heart of Mary Calendar described there has an excellent description of these matters in its backmatter, in addition to clear day-by-day details. Every Catholic should have a copy of this fully traditional Catholic calendar to refer to throughout the year.
Filipino presbyter Anscar Chupungco, former president of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute in Rome, in his 2010 book What, Then, Is Liturgy? Musings and Memoir, has made a number of revelations about the Freemason presbyter Hannibal Bugnini, chief architect of the Novus Ordo, and the Modernist machinations that went on behind the scenes at and after Vatican II to destroy the Traditional Latin Mass and to replace it with Bugnini's invalid Novus Ordo service, based on Protestant heretical models.
In his own book, La Riforma Liturgica (1948-1975), Bugnini cataloged those who stood up against his imposition of an invalid Novus Ordo service upon the Church. In fact, Chupungco records much opposition to the conciliar and post-conciliar machinations to dump the true Mass:
Chupungco in his book confirms that Bugnini himself, the Secretary of the Congregation of Divine Worship, which in 1969 replaced the traditional Sacred Congregation of Rites, founded by Pope Sixtus V in 1588, "programmed the liturgical reform [sic] and courageously pushed its implementation against all opposition." Chupungco states that he was personally present a meeting of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute when Bugnini declared, "I am the liturgical reform!"
Only five years later Paul VI fired Bugnini from his leading position on the liturgical commission because nineteen cardinals had called for his outster for proliferating messes sauvages [wild masses]. Bugnini was exiled to Iran, where in 1980 he is said to have betrayed American hostage secrets to the Iranian ayatollahs. Also his affiliation with the Freemasons had become so obvious that he was an embarrassment to Paul VI.
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
You have posted very pertinent comments on the SSPX recently. As the older generation of traditional Catholics, who were conversant with the Catholic Church as it existed before Vatican II, die out, the priest/presbyters of the SSPX can now move the goalposts without much challenge.
For example, while adverse motives are ascribed by traditional Catholics to Newchurch presbyters who show excessive "familiarity" to persons either of the same sex or of the opposite sex, it seems that norms of priestly "etiquette" are discarded when it is SSPX priest/presbyters who are involved in such behavior.
The TRADITIO Traditional Roman Catholic Network must be complimented for airing the grievances of the traditional Catholic community worldwide. Let us pray that Bishop Bernie Fellay will take cognizance of these legitimate complaints and act on them.
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
Do elephants fly? Fellay is not interested in acting on legitimate complaints. He has a deliberate programme, what we have called the "Hindenburg Plan," to sell out his Neo-SSPX to the Newpope and the New Order in Newrome, even though the other three SSPX bishops oppose him in this. SSPX sources report that the man is "an abyss of ambition" to get ahead in Newchurch, as has reached his "glass ceiling" in the Society.
One of the oldest and most prestigious Catholic Universities in Europe plans to drop "Catholic" from its name. The Catholic University of Louvain, of Brussels, Belgium, known simply as the "Louvain," has been a major center of Catholic theology since the 15th century. It has boasted in our time students of the caliber of the famed Catholic orator, Archbishop Fulton Sheen.
The purpose of "de-Catholicizing" its name -- really "de-Newchurching" it -- is that the university wants to distance itself from Newchurch's Great Sex & Embezzlement Holocaust, which has hit once-Catholic Belgium particularly hard. The university also wants to distance itself from Benedict-Ratzinger's knowing and personal role in the cover-up of the sex crimes against children. "The Catholic [sic] message is not appropriate for the university," said the university's rector. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by De Standaard.]
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
The SSPX's General Secretary sent me a message trying to convince me that the Novus Ordo service can be valid, that the Novus Ordo installation of presbyters can be valid, and that, in general, the SSPX has "not swerved one bit from the course of Archbishop Lefebvre." I'm not buying it! Before my eyes, the SSPX under Fellay as its superior general has swerved toward a gradual acceptance of the New Order, just as most Catholics of the 1960s gradually accepted the New Order.
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
You have that right! Bernie Fellay's Neo-SSPX line, which has been "nuanced" to soften up SSPXers for a sellout to the New Order, opposes Archbishop Lefebvre excoriation of Newchurch in general and Josef Ratzinger in particular as being "not Catholic." After 1988 the Archbishop said that, after all that had happened, he was coming to accept the possibility that Ratzinger was a heretic. That fact was documented in Dr. David White's book, The Horn of the Unicorn: A Mosaic of the Life of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Because Fellay wants to sell out his Neo-SSPX to Newrome, what the Archbishop called "Modernist Rome," Fellay has been trying since 2000 to distance himself from the Society's founder.
The Novus Ordo service is clearly worse more defective than the High Anglican rite, which Pope Leo XIII declared invalid with a Papal Bull. For further information, see the introduction to the TRADITIO Network's Novus Ordo Service Photo Gallery department. Pope Leo's basic argument is that the rite determines the intention. The Novus Ordo rite, as a matter of fact, was written by a Freemason (Bugnini) and his committee of six Protestant ministers with the specific intention of making it acceptable to Protestant heretics. That fact was documented in Bugnini's own book, La riforma liturgica (1948-1975).
The New Ordinal of 1968 comes from the same source and has the same purpose. That Novus Ordo Ordinal struck out the provision for ordaining priests "to offer the sacrifice of the Mass for the living and the dead" and "to forgive sins." It does not use the Sacramental form that was specifically decreed as valid by Pope Pius XII in his putatively infallible Apostolic Constitution Sacramentum Ordinis of 1947, confirming the traditional form. So deceptive was the article on the issue in the SSPX house organ that it relegated that putatively infallible papal decree to a footnote!
Instead, the Novus Ordo Ordinal "installs" presbyters "to preside over the assembly. The Cardinal Prefect of the Doctrine of Faith wrote to Paul VI at the time that the Novus Ordo service was in essence Protestant and invalid. Nevertheless, the New Order juggernaut trampled over him because the Modernists were bound and determined to make their Newchurch of the New Order into a Protestant sect -- and they have succeeded. The only difference now between the Newchurch leaders and the Protestant leaders is that the Protestant leaders have better morals than the Newchurch leaders!
A shocking new five-year study of the statistics of sex-crime activity by Newchurch clergy has revealed that in the home Newarchdiocese of the President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic [Sic] Bishops, Newcardinal Francis George, 60 percent of his Chicago, Illinois, Newparishes have harbored presbyters already accused of child rape: 250 out of 400 Newparishes. George has been Newarchbishop of Chicago since 1997.
This new study has shattered any notion that Newchurch's Great Sex & Embezzlement Scandal has gotten better in recent years. In fact, the study proves that the cover-up has gotten much worse under Benedict-Ratzinger as pope.
The accused presbyters were usually sent to lower-income Newparishes to prey on poorer kids. Thirty Newparishes have had two or more accused presbyters working there at the same time. Two Newparishes have had five accused presbyters working there, and six parishes have had four of them. The study makes it seem likely these statistics could be reflected in Newdioceses throughout the United States and the world. Only a few Newchurch dioceses have been analyzed in this way. A previous Los Angeles Times report indicated that 75 per cent of the Newparishes in the Los Angeles Newarchdiocese, headed since 1985 by Newcardinal Roger Mahony, have harbored presbyters associated with sex crimes against children. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by the Los Angeles Times.
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
That's it! I'm not buying any products from the SSPX's press any more. The press is now pandering the Novus Ordo version of Gregorian chant. This is not even the Bugnini-Vatican II "Mess of 1962+," but the full-blown Novus Ordo. There is no doubt about what these CDs are. They use Novus Ordo terminology like "Sundays of Ordinary Time" on their covers and bear copyright dates from 1985 to 2003. Why the SSPX press peddles these Novus Ordo knockoffs, I can't understand, when the earlier Solesmes recordings of the 1950s are still in print. Yet the SSPX press chooses to peddle the Novus Ordo CDs.
There is a growing feeling that since an SSPX agency is pushing Novus Ordo material, a new SSPX policy gives growing acceptability to the Novus Ordo "liturgy." After all, the Society's pseudo-traditionalist view on the Novus Ordo "reforms" has always been that a matter of interpretation rather than a blanket rejection, as traditional Catholic sources maintain. It may be just more SSPX "kite-flying" to measure opposition to the Novus Ordo sellout among the SSPXers.
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
You have hit the nail on the head about Fellay's plans to soften up the SSPXers for an eventual sellout to the Novus Ordo. The "Mess of 1962+" is merely an interim step. For further information on fully traditional recordings of Gregorian chant, click on the TRADITIO Network's Gregorian Chant department, provided as a courtesy to the TRADITIO Network by the St. John Schola for Gregorian chant.
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
Is there a traditional blessing of animals, specifically on October 4, St. Francis of Assisi's feastday? From what I've seen, such blessings were done in the Protestant Anglican/Episcopalian church, and some of the Novus Ordo churches have picked up on it.
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
There are in fact several blessings of animals in the traditional Rituale Romanum:
These blessings, however, have never been associated with the Novus Ordo/Protestant fabricated "Environmental Saint," Francis, but are intended as serious blessings, principally of those animals those used in the production of food for man. It is not intended to be that kind of silly "Green" extravaganza that the Novus Ordo or Protestants use, where the animals wander around the altar and soil the sanctuary.
In fact, the kind of sacrilege that goes on at those Novus Ordo/Protestant animal-blessing extravaganzas is specifically prohibited. As previously reported in these Daily Commentaries, there have even been cases where Novus Ordo presbyters and Protestant ministers (is there really any difference between them anymore?) have given their phony "eucharistic cookie" to the animals, as if it were cheap animal fodder. Well, it certainly isn't sacramental Holy Eucharist; that's for sure!
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
I use my Saint Andrew Daily Missal, which the TRADITIO Network recommends as the best and most traditional, in What Traditional Resources Do You Recommend?" in the TRADITIO Network's Library of Files (FAQs and Traditional Apologetics). I pray silently its translation of the Mass. I know that at one time translations for private use were prohibited, but later permitted. Otherwise, the members of the congregation individually prayed silently, meditated, said the Rosary or other devotions, etc. The New Order claims that congregations used to respond. Just what is the Novus Ordo justification for the Modernist Dialogue Mass?
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
From well before the time of Pope St. Gregory the Great (A.D. 600), it was the clergy that chanted the various parts of Holy Mass. When the Church spread out from cathedrals and monasteries into the parish system after the Renaissance, and clergy in Minor Orders were much less available, what we call today "altar servers" made the responses for the simpler Low (Recited) Mass form that developed. These were laymen vested as clergy in Minor Orders (that is why they wear the cassock and surplice).
The notion that the congregation should take these functions is a product of the post-Renaissance Protestant Revolution, as is the traditionally-condemned use of the vulgar tongues for the sacred Holy Mass.
Benedict-Ratzinger's Catholicism has long been called into question, as he adheres to traditionally-condemned Modernist beliefs and practices, but now even Protestants are questioning his basic Christianity! In an article appearing in the September 2010 Free Presbyterian Magazine, Matthew Vogan, an elder of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Scotland, has documented Josef Ratzinger's denial of the basic Christian dogma of the Resurrection, both of Christ and of man. Vogan points out in his article that during Ratzinger's early academic career, Ratzinger admired, and worked with, radical Modernist theologians such as Hans Kung, Karl Rahner, and Edward Schillebeeckx and was also one of the leaders of the Modernist faction at Vatican II (1962-1965).
In a 1985 review published as The Ratzinger Report: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church, Ratzinger described himself as a "balanced progressive," blending conservative and Modernist approaches. This duplicity explains why Ratzinger can seem both conservative and Modernist at the same time by different groups.
Vogan documents that in Ratzinger's Introduction to Christianity, issued in 1990 in German, Ratzinger explicitly denies the dogma of the resurrection of the body, instead stating that the word body "means 'the world of man.'" Vogan contends that Ratzinger is deliberately using a meaning that is impossible in the context, in order to explain away the clear meaning of the text. This book was banned because of heresy by Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, Primate of Poland.
Moreover, Vogan contends that, contrary to numerous Biblical passages, Ratzinger denies that Christ's Resurrection was an historical event and asserts as a Modernist that it was really "a matter of personal experience." Such a position by Ratzinger would be heretical, as the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) declared as dogmatic and infallible, in consonance with the text of the Apostles Creed ("carnis resurrectionem," the resurrection of the body), that all men "will rise again with their own bodies that they now bear about with them."
Vogan concludes his article with a sobering thought about Ratzinger's theological methodology: "There is a deceivability that goes beyond any other, and a particular deceit in presenting itself with an appeal for every kind of person, whatever form of belief or unbelief they prefer. Woe unto any 'Evangelical' deceived by it."
There is a common aphorism asking "Is the pope Catholic?" Newchurch has certainly declined to a nadir when a Protestant elder is more orthodox than the pope!"
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
As just another example of what is happening in the SSPX, the Society at its chapels has introduced the Conciliar-Bugnini Mess of 1962+ in the "dialogue" form over the protests of numerous SSPX congregations. Is the "Dialogue Mass" even traditional?
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
No, it is not. For further information on the historical and liturgical arguments why the so-called Dialogue Mass is not traditional, click on DIALOGUE.PDF: Dialogue Mass in the TRADITIO Network's Library of Files (FAQs and Traditional Apologetics).
St. Paul wisely warned his colleague, St. Timothy (2 Timothy 4:3-4/DRV): "For there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables." We TRADITIO Fathers cannot think of a more apt description for the Newchurchers of the post-Vatican II age as well. A case of "itching ears" always does real damage -- certainly spiritually, and now physically.
A Newchurch woman from New Haven, Connecticut, suffered brain damage and injuries and lost her sense of smell and taste after falling over backwards while "resting in the spirit" at the altar under the supervision of presbyter Robert Rousseau, who was simulating a "Charismatic" Mess at St. Augustine Church in North Branford. The woman fell backwards and hit the floor with the back of her head. She also suffered a haemorrhagic contusion, a concussion, injuries to her spine, and pain in her jaw. The presbyter may have to pay unspecified damages for "failing to provide a safe, soft surface for attendees." [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by Courthouse News.]
Good Catholics, the Newchurch of the New Order has embraced this silly "Charismaticism," which is founded in Protestant heresy and was a particular obsession of JPII. For further information, click on FAQ10: How Do You Explain These Traditional Catholic Doctrines? in the TRADITIO Network's Library of Files (FAQs and Traditional Apologetics), in the section "Charismatic Movement."
On October 5, 2010, the SSPX published an interview with Fr. Niklaus Pfluger, Superior General Bernie Fellay's First Assistant. Pfluger fell all over himself trying to deny that Fellay was engineering a sellout of his Neo-SSPX to the Newchurch of the New Order, as the TRADITIO Traditional Roman Catholic Network and other sources have consistently asserted. Pfluger even stoops to use against fully traditional Catholics (not the SSPX's semi-traditional Catholics) all of the false "fighting-words" that are regularly used against the SSPX: "schismatic" and "sede-vacantist"! Thus does Pfluger display the worm that is in reality boring into him and the SSPX.
Pfluger makes in his interview a patently false statement: "The large majority trust the leadership of the SSPX and the Superior General [Fellay]." To the contrary, there is now evidence of the falsity of this statement. When the Transalpine Redemptorists, once affiliated to the SSPX, left the Society and took steps to join the New Order sect, half of its SSPX supporters, by its own published figures, cut the Transalpines off and sent scathing messages of criticism to them.
Good Catholics, neither Fellay or Pfluger can cover up reality that half of the SSPX is anti-sellout and anti-Fellay. No amount of their Ratzinger-style duplicity can change those facts. The SSPX has effectively lost one of Archbishop Lefebvre's four consecrated bishops already. Fellay was so afraid of what senior bishop Richard Williamson had to say that he tried to silence him. It didn't work. Williamson sent out an Open Letter that was clearly critical of Fellay's sellout policy. As in the New Order sect, so in the Neo-SSPX, "the fish stinks from the head."
We must not forget the second part of the Newchurch Great Sex & Embezzlement Holocaust. Newchurch bishops and presbyters have raped children without mercy, to be sure, but to finance their criminal activities, they have also raped their contributors through embezzlement.
The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation has nabbed Newchurch presbyter Samuel Ciccolini for embezzling more than 1,200,000 U.S. dollars from a Newchurch charity through an elaborate scheme that involved falsifying invoices and financial records. He billed the charity for construction work and equipment that had been donated at no cost to the charity. He then issued checks for the work and equipment, noted them on the books of the charity as going to the contractors, and then deposited the stolen money into his personal bank accounts. The Newchurch contributors were, as usual, clueless how sinful their presbyter was. According to U.S. authorities:
The community held him in high regard and had a tremendous amount of faith and trust in him. He used all of this goodwill to take advantage of the situation and embezzled funds from the charity. The scheme was an elaborate subterfuge. There was deception at all levels along the way. He falsified invoices. He falsified financial records. He issued false checks of the not-for-profit.
In a turnabout of the usual process, "Father Sam" confessed to his embezzlement after the feds launched an investigation into his conduct, according to a 14-page court document filed October 5, 2010. Presbyter Ciccolini is scheduled to be sentenced on October 8, 2010, in U.S. Federal Court in Cleveland on income-tax and bank-related charges. This presbyter, "faithful and trusted" by Newchurch -- which negligently never audited the charity -- faces two years behind bars. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by the Akron Beacon Journal.]
Good Catholics, one of our correspondents recently revealed in these Daily Commentaries how cavalier the Society of St. Pius X is with the donations of its benefactors. Now it seems that the Newchurch of the New Order is just as bad. Perhaps it is from the Novus Ordo that the Neo-SSPX under Bernie Fellay has learned its "trade."
I would like to address the Newchurchers, including the Motarians, who also support the Newchurch of the New Order. Does your bishop preach strong oecumenical bonds in the community, respect and love all people of all religions, but evince a strong hatred for fully traditional Catholics, traditional priests, and traditional churches and chapels? How many fully traditional priests were viciously persecuted while Newchurch aided and abetted sex criminals and paedophiles without any censure whatsoever?
The unCatholic New Order sectarians turned their backs on Christ in the 1960s. A committee of six Protestants and one Freemason made the decisions about how to destroy the true Roman Catholic Mass and the traditional priesthood. They removed Christ from the tabernacles, which had once been built by true Catholics. They condoned sins, crimes, and scandals. They lied, and spread heresy and false teachings.
You Newchurchers and your presbyters have a choice to make. You can either stay with rapists, thieves, and heretics or attend the true Mass and Sacraments. Heaven and Hell are both real. It's your choice.
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
The other day I started reading the Ottaviani Intervention: A Short Critical Study of the New Order of Mass. Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani was in fact the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly called the Holy Office, the Vatican's highest doctrinal body. He was joined by Antonio Cardinal Bacci and a group of Roman theologians. Right there I found it -- in the words of Rome's own cardinals -- why the Novus Ordo is invalid.
The cardinals wrote that if seminarians were to rely on the "New Mass" for "doing what the Church does," a dogmatic requirement for the validity of a Mass, any Catholic was morally entitled to hold the "New Mass" invalid. I didn't realize how Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci had foreseen how the traditional Catholic theology of the Mass was already being eviscerated out of Catholic seminaries in 1969. Just the year before, Bugnini's Protestantized and invalid New Ordinal of 1968 was substituted for the traditional rite of Holy Orders, and from that point Newchurch no longer ordained valid priests "to offer Mass for the living and the dead," but merely installed presbyters "to preside over the assembly of the people."
Furthermore, the cardinals found that the Novus Ordo presbyters' intention of confecting the Eucharist became defective because of the ambiguities and Protestant-mindset found in the New Mass. In effect, the Novus Ordinarians became just like the Anglicans, whose service and priesthood Pope Leo XIII declared invalid in his Papal Bull Apostolicae Curae of 1896.
The Motarians, that is, those who think that they can escape the Novus Ordo by substituting the Bugnini-Vatican II "Mass of 1962+," are wrong because they think any Novus Ordo presbyter can do a flip-flop can say a valid "Motu" Mess. But Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci, as well as Pope Leo, find to the contrary.
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
With so many Newchurchers converting to traditional Catholicism, we long-time traditional Catholics often forget that they do not have the benefit of our knowledge of the seminal works and pioneers of the Traditional Catholic Movement. The Ottaviani Intervention is certainly one of the seminal works of the Catholic Traditional Movement. Everyone who calls himself a traditional Catholic should have read it. Too bad Paul VI didn't take it to heart! He would have spared the Church forty years of invalid Sacraments and grief.
For further information, click on The Ottaviani Intervention: A Short Critical Study of the New Order of Mass in the TRADITIO Network's Library of Files (FAQs and Traditional Apologetics). Also click on Apostolic Letter Apostolicae Curae [On the Nullity of Anglican Orders], Given by His Holiness Pope Leo XIII in the TRADITIO Network's Library of Files (FAQs and Traditional Apologetics). For other seminal resources of the Traditional Catholic Movement, click on What Traditional Resources Do You Recommend?" in the TRADITIO Network's Library of Files (FAQs and Traditional Apologetics) in the section "Traditional Catholic Faith vs. Vatican II & the Novus Ordo."
I am a member of what I have come to find out is not the Catholic Church, but the New Order sect. I have a lot to learn, so my first question is: what exactly is the "New Order"? Is it even Catholic?
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
The term "New Order" refers to the unCatholic Modernism that was introduced in the last half century into doctrine, morality, and worship, most particularly following the Modernist Vatican II Council (1962-1965). Much as some Newchurchers are desperate to make it seem like Catholicism, its essence clearly is not, although some of the external attributes have been retained so that the changes do not unduly scare the congregations.
The hallmark of the New Order is the Novus Ordo service and ordinal, introduced in 1969 and fabricated from Protestant and other unCatholic models. Its own documents indicate that it is no longer a Catholic Mass, but an "assembly of the people presided over by a presbyter." Leading doctrinal cardinals objected to the pope at the time, Paul VI, that the Novus Ordo service was invalid, and it was recalled for a year, but then reissued in essentially the same form. The actual Catholic Faith, which used to be called just that, now has to be distinguished from the New Order by calling itself "traditional" Catholic.
The co-founder of the Association of Irish Priests [sic], Sean McDonagh, on October 5, 2010, publicly called upon the four Irish Newchurch archbishops (Sean Brady, Diarmuid Martin, Dermot Clifford, and Michael Neary), meeting on October 6, 2010, with Benedict-Ratzinger's Congregation of Bishops in Newrome, to "turn the tables and point the finger of blame at Benedict-Ratzinger for his central role in Newchurch's Great Sex & Embezzlement Holocaust" and to put him personally "under fire." McDonagh said that the Newarchbishops should insist "from the outset" that Benedict-Ratzinger and his Newvatican should be held accountable for the worldwide sex crimes against children.
The four Newarchbishops were summoned to Newrome to help with planning for a papal junket to Ireland by Benedict-Ratzinger in 2012. Presbyter McDonaugh has said that Newpope's junket "should begin by scrutinizing Rome's own handling of sex-abuse allegations." Despite the near-universal agreement that the Irish Newbishops should be held accountable for their complicity in sex crimes against children, Benedict-Ratzinger has not fired a single one of them, even those identified as active participants by the Irish Government's Ryan and Murphy reports.
Presbyter McDonagh has also publicly called on an international team of investigators to join forces with the four Irish Newarchbishops in putting Benedict-Ratzinger and his Newvatican under fire. "I believe the Irish archbishops and the team of visitors should begin by scrutinizing Rome's own handling of sex abuse allegations," he said. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by the Belfast Telegraph.]
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
Ambrosio's question to you concerning the SSPX's suspicious handling of donations by benefactors reminds me of an SSPXer I knew, who was thrown out of an SSPX chapel a few years ago because he brought to the attention of the priest and several parishioners that "white envelopes" were passed out to certain men after Mass. He had reason to believe that money was in the envelopes and asked the priest what was in the white envelopes. For his efforts to seek the truth, he was told to leave the chapel -- for good. I used to attend an SSPX chapel myself (no more), and I too noticed this going on after Mass and wondered about it.
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
Who knows what was in the "white envelopes," but to be thrown out for simply asking? This is standard dictatorial action by Fellay and his Neo-SSPX. Fellay's organization is becoming more and more like the corrupt Newchurch of the New Order every day in which he hankers to become a "full communicant."
United States federal judge Rudolph Randa on September 24, 2010, signed a court order requiring that Newvatican officials cooperate in serving Benedict-Ratzinger and two other top officials with subpoenas in the case of sex crimes committed by one of their Milwaukee, Wisconsin, presbyters, Lawrence Murphy. The federal case accuses the three of conspiring to keep the crimes of the presbyter from police. The order was issued "as necessary in the interests of justice." The court foresees that Benedict-Ratzinger and his two lieutenants would testify about what they knew about Murphy's crimes.
Benedict-Ratzinger and his lieutenants in Newrome have a record of making the service of subpoenas difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. One of the attorneys in the case said, "Based on what they've done in other cases, I don't expect them to do the right thing. I expect more delay and obstruction."
Newpope Josef Ratzinger, Newcardinal Tarcisio Bertone (Newvatican Secretary of State), and Newcardinal Angelo Sodano (former Secretary of State) are named as defendants in the case, filed April 2010 in U.S. federal court. The case claims that the three men personally knew about the sex crimes against 200 children perpetrated at a Milwaukee-area school for the deaf and refused to take action. A court document bearing Ratzinger's signature confirms beyond doubt his complicity in the cover-up. Ratzinger personally directed, in a signed document, Milwaukee archbishop Rembert Weakland to lay off the paedophile presbyter.
As a result, the criminal presbyter-rapist of 200 deaf children died in 1998 "in good standing" with Ratzinger and Newchurch. [Some information for this report was contributed by the Associated Press.]
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
In your Daily Commentary on the Transalpine Redemptorists of Papa Stronsay Island, Scotland, you mention the fate of their erstwhile benefactors, who feel defrauded under false pretenses because the Transalpines are attempting to convert to the Newchurch of the New Order. I believe that the response that they gave to their outraged benefactors was: You did not give it to us; you gave it to God!
In the SSPX District that I am familiar with, not only do certain laypeople receive part of the donations but also the SSPX priests themselves, especially the head ones, go on unnecessary and wasteful trips. I'm sure that the SSPX donors would not be pleased if they knew that their hard-earned money was being spent contrary to the purposes they intended their donations for. What does Catholic moral theology teach about the defrauded SSPX benefactors?
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
The same issue arises when people gave religious items (candlesticks, statues, etc.) to Novus Ordo churches that are thereafter closed. The Newdioceses think that they should keep the items. But the people think that they should get the items back if the beneficiary church closes, as the they donated the items to their church, not to the Newdiocese.
We agree with the donors. Unless a donor indicates that donated items are intended for the Newdiocese, not the specific church in which they were being used, morally the donors should receive their donated items back. We know of people who have threatened to take their Newbishop to court to get their donations back, and the Newbishops have capitulated when threatened with a lawsuit.
The Transalpine Redemptorists received donations for their monastery as an SSPX agency. When they dumped the SSPX and decided to go to the Novus Ordo sect, we believe that they were morally obliged to give the donations back, as they defrauded their benefactors. It is ridiculous for the Transalpines to claim that "the money was given to God." Legally, it was given to the Transalpine Redemptorist organization, which publicized itself as traditional, not part of the Newchurch of the New Order.
Readers of these Daily Commentaries from the TRADITIO Fathers will remember the Transalpine Redemptorists on Papa Stronsay, a small island north of Scotland. This group abandoned the Society of St. Pius X to go into the Newchurch of the New Order. Well, they tried to do so, but they soon discovered that Benedict-Ratzinger's 2007 Motu Proprio Summorum pontificum was just so much hot air.
The Transalpine Redemptorists have been adrift in limbo. They have cut their cords with the SSPX, but they have not been received into the Newchurch of the New Order. Like the Anglicans and the Eastern Orthdox, they have been cooling their heels at the doorstep of Newrome for over two years now. With all the high-powered propaganda that Newchurch has shoveled out to try to entice traditional Catholics into its Novus Ordo clutches, it is remarkable that the Transalpine Redemptorists were the only group to fall for Benedict-Ratzinger's Great "Motu" Mess Hoax. The Transalpines' leader, priest/presbyter Michael Mary now admits: "Nobody expected it to take this long." When will these pseudo-traditionalist ever learn. They're so gullible!
The Transalpine Redemptorists have paid a heavy price for their treason to the traditional Catholic Faith in attempting to sell out to the unCatholic Novus Ordo sect and its Newpope, Benedict-Ratzinger, who is now being continuously dunned for his abdication because of his personal involvement in Newchurch's Great Sex & Embezzlement Holocaust. Already four brothers and two priests have left the Transalpines, and about 1,000 supporters in Britain have broken off contact with them. Only one or two families remain in touch. The Transalpines have justly become pariahs in the Traditional Catholic Movement.
Reports on the state of the Transalpine Redemptorists has finally given some definite figures about how many SSPXers would reject a sellout to the Novus Ordo sect. Since the Transalpines left the SSPX and tried to go Newchurch, subscriptions to their monthly newspaper dropped by half, from 4,000 to fewer than 2,000. This was after several multipage, full-color publicity campaigns in a certain pseudo-traditionalist monthly periodical. They received excoriating mail from their benefactors who had been defrauded by them. By rights, they should refund half of the donations to their deceived benefactors.
From these figures concerning the Transalpine Redemptorists and the reaction of their benefactors about their attempted sellout to the New Order, we can glean how many SSPXers would jump ship from Bernie Fellay's Neo-SSPX if he completed his own sellout to Newrome: one half. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by the UK Catholic Herald.]
We wonder whether the Transalpine Redemptorists, who were so tingly about the Bugnini-Vatican II "Motu" Mess of 1962+ have been apprised of Newchurch's Protocol 1411, which requires Indult/Motu priest/presbyters under Newchurch to simulate the invalid Novus Ordo Protestant-Masonic-Pagan service whenever so requested by their Newchurch diocesan bishop. This requirement has already been imposed on many indult/motu priest/presbyters around the world, as previously reported, with photographs, in these Commentaries.
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
My father has recently started attending a traditional Catholic church, while the rest of the family still goes to what he considers a Modernist (Novus Ordo) church. He states that it is wrong to go to the Modernist church and that the only true Catholic churches are the traditional ones, not associated with the Newchurch of the New Order. He travels two hours every Sunday to get to the traditional Catholic church, while the Novus Ordo church is five minutes away. The rest of the family has taken the stance that their church is fine; they are still worshiping Christ at the Novus Ordo service. My father's stance has caused quite a divide in the family. Should I support my father's traditional Catholicism?
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
Your father is indeed a wise and discerning man, a man of principle, who is courageously standing up for the true Faith at great inconvenience to himself. He is not selling out to parody of the Catholic Faith that one sees in the New Order sect's temples.
Your father is following the example of many Saints of the Church, like St. Athanasius, St. Basil the Great, St. Martin of Tours, and St. Augustine, who rejected the takeover of the Church that the Arian heretics attempted in the fourth century. It took a century, but the heretics, who had taken over most of the bishoprics and, some say, even the papacy, were kicked out, and orthodoxy restored.
You should listen to what your father has to say. He seems like a man that has much to teach you about real Catholicism and offers an example of commitment and zeal in his Faith in the face of your pusillanimous family members, who are more concerned about their own convenience than truth. Don't worry about division. Remember, Christ said: "Do not think that I have come to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword" (Matthew 10:34/DRV). If your father is wielding the sword of the true Faith and shaking up the weak consciences of your other family members, more power to him!
In the greatest challenge involving Benedict-Ratzinger's complicity in Newchurch's Great Sex & Embezzlement Holocaust, the president of the Belgian Newchurch's paedophilia investigation commission, probing hundreds of bishop and presbyter sex crimes against children there, on called on October 1, 2010, for Benedict-Ratzinger to abdicate the papacy.
President Peter Adriaenssens, a child psychologist, demanded that Benedict-Ratzinger should take responsibility for the crisis. "The pope should not content himself with just expressing regret," Adriaenssens said. "He should offer his resignation. We should be able to say that after everything that has taken place within the Church, one person is taking responsibility. Since the problem is not just in Belgium but has spread worldwide; the pope must set an example."
Adriaenssens released on September 10, 2010, a report by the commission over which he presided, which revealed that nearly 500 children had been sexual victims of Newchurch bishops and presbyters and that 13 children had committed suicide as a result. Benedict-Ratzinger expressed "sorrow and shame" in a meeting with child victims of his clergy during his September 16-19, 2010, British junket. Yet although his personal signature was discovered on many documents allowing even those civilly convicted of crimes to remain in the Novus Ordo presbyerate, Benedict-Ratzinger has refused to accept any personal responsibility for his complicity in abetting and covering up the crimes. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by Belgian News 24.]
Poor Benedict-Ratzinger. He just can't seem to get anything right. On November 4, 2009, his Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus tried to wangle conservatives among the Anglican/Episcopalian Church into his Novus Ordo. At first some Anglican/Episcopalian bishops made moves to accept the offer. But now it seems that all bets are off.
Three traditional Anglican bishops have announced that they had second thoughts about joining the "Paedophile Pope" and his New Order. The three newest bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion are instead engaged in merger talks with the Anglican Province of America, a separate body of traditional Anglican/Episcopalians, according to a letter released by Archbishop John Hepworth, primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion.
Meanwhile, it seems that Vatican II's false "oecumenism" doesn't work both ways. A special tribunal of the Anglican Church has found one of its Australian bishops, Ross Davies, of the Murray diocese, guilty on eight counts of disgraceful conduct and willful violation of Church ordinances for, inter alia, attending the Novus Ordo service. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by ABC News.]
The Polish Newbishops' Conference has officially rejected a popular movement to consecrate Poland to Christ the King. This action simply confirms the fact that Poland's bishops, once some of the most Catholic around the world, sold out to the New Order after Vatican II (1962-1965). "This plan should be given up," proclaimed Newarchbishop Jozef Michalik, the President of the Polish Newbishops' Conference on September 29, 2010, at the close of the Autumn Meeting of Newbishops in Warsaw.
More than 1,000 Newchurchers had demonstrated in Warsaw on September 26-27, 2010, for a proclamation from their Newbishops consecrating their country to Christ the King. They came with national flags and pictures of the Crowned Christ. The demonstrators reminded their Newbishops that in 1656 Poland had officially proclaimed the Blessed Virgin Mary as the "Queen of Poland." So, does the creature outrank her Creator? [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by Katholische Presseagentur.]
Here is yet another reason why no Catholic should contribute a penny to any Novus Ordo cause. They are simply being robbed to propagate condemned Modernism and Liberalist. Roger "Rogue" Mahony, Newchurch cardinal-archbishop of Los Angeles, California, has urged Newchurchers to take the "St. Francis Pledge" on climate change, a liberalist political movement that was exposed for inventing data to further their secular goals. "Climate change" has been rejected as pseudo-science no better than astrology by a British court, which ordered associated textbooks out of Britain's schools. Mahony is taking his dancing instructions from the Catholic [sic] Climate Covenant organization, a bogus political organization posing as "religious," as well as many Modernist/Liberalist organizations, such as the U.S. Conference of Catholic [sic] Bishops.
Mahony, who owes almost 1,000,000,000 U.S. dollars in damages to numerous child victims of rape by his presbyters and is under investigation by a Grand Jury and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation for his complicity in obstruction of justice and trafficking sex criminals across state lines, proposes to redirect some of that money to pseudo-science through the formation of an Newarchdiocesan Creation Sustainability Ministry.
Meanwhile, Mahony, now getting ready to retire, is trying to hide the incriminating evidence. He has pulled from his Newarchdiocesan web site the list of the sex criminals among his presbyters. A spokeswoman for the national Survivors Network of those Abused by [Presbyters] (SNAP) excoriated Mahony for his cover-up: "If Mahony can't do the easy thing and warn parishioners about dangerous men who worked with and around their kids, how can we expect him to do the right thing? ... We simply can't." [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by the L.A. Weekly]
More evidence piles up day to day that Benedict-Ratzinger's papacy is out of control. The notion that he is God's "doctrinal Rottweiler" is absurd. On his British junket September 16-19, 2010, he sported his "gay" stole, in non-liturgical blue with big lovey-dovey hearts on it. Ah, gee. Now a presbyter at his Georgetown "Catholic" University in Washington, D.C., Joseph Palacios, a Newjesuit, launched in January 2010 a new organization, Catholics for [Gay] Equality.
Palacios is an adjunct professor of sociology (now there's a bedrock science for you) at this once-Catholic university. He has founded the organization Catholics for Equality to "rally Catholics in support of gay rights" and to "reform Catholic doctrine." Presbyter Palacios and his organization endorse "gay marriage" and points to the statistic that, according to a Gallup poll, 48 per cent of Newchurchers support "gay marriage," thereby rejecting God's moral law.
Palacios maintains that Benedict-Ratzinger's New Order sect is "one of the most progressive Christian groups in the United States." And why shouldn't it be? It's had Novus Ordo nonsense from the Modernist Vatican II Council crammed down its throat for almost forty years now. Moreover, Newchurch is now led by presbyters who have not been ordained as priests since 1968. Even Benedict-Ratzinger himself was never consecrated a bishop in the traditional Roman Catholic rite; he was merely "installed" under Bugnini's New Ordinal of 1968, the first pope of whom this is a fact.
Catholics for [Gay] Equality now has chapters in D.C., Minnesota, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, and California. In a Newchurch gone non-Catholic, Palacios has encountered little resistance. Georgetown's Cardinal Newman Society wrote a letter to the University President voicing its opposition, but nothing came of it. Nothing ever does. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by Reuters.]
One of Newchurch's deep, dark secrets is how many Conciliar-Bugnini "Motu" Messes of 1962+ are being shut down after a brief flurry since July 7, 2007, when those Newchurchers known as Motarians pusillanimously gave up the fight for the Traditional Latin Mass and settled for the Conciliar-Bugnini Mess of 1962+ simulated by Novus Ordo presbyters not ordained as priests.
Recently a "Motu" Mess that had been thrown together in 2009 was canceled after a very public brouhaha. The presbyter, from the Novus Ordo-affiliated Institute of Christ the King, took one of those quickie "Learn Latin in 30 Minutes for Dummies" courses. This presbyter didn't even go through the required 7 year study of Latin prescribed in 1962 by Pope John XXIII for all priests.
Although everyone has a different story about what ultimately caused the cancellation of the "Motu" Mess, the pastor of the church refused to comment. The suspicion is that the local Newbishop was behind the cancellation, although officially the presbyter denied that. He had to. If he didn't, he'd be out of a job in the Novus Ordo! It was reported that the Newdiocese resisted the "Motu" Mess because of "the level of strife generated at the Newparish over the dispute." Newparish meetings ended up in a shouting match between the Motarians and the Novus Ordinarians.
Good Catholics, we have not given the exact location or names because this scenario is now being repeated around the world at many locations. The Newchurchers who embraced the Conciliar-Bugnini "Motu" Mess as the latest Newchurch fad simply sold out their Catholic Faith to a hoax sponsored by Benedict-Ratzinger to get more bodies and money into his rapidly-dying New Order. Now the Motarians are learning the just consequences of their execrable sellout to the Newchurch of the New Order.
On September 28, 2010, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, which for many years has issued highly-regarded studies on the state of religion in the United States, released a new Religious Knowledge Study confirming that American Newchurchers' knowledge of their own religion fell far behind that of atheists, agnostics, Jews, and Mormons!
Even Newchurch leaders have admitted that the remarkable system of Catholic education that had been established before the Modernist Vatican II Council (1962-1965) has slipped into a parody of what it once was. How badly has religious education slipped under the Newchurch of the New Order and its Newpopes? Very, very badly according to the Pew Study. American Newchurchers could not correctly give the most basic tenets of their own religion.
45 per cent of Newchurchers held the Protestant heresy about the Holy Eucharist. They believed that the species of bread and wine are just a symbol and do not become the Body and Blood of Christ. In a way they are right. Because the Novus Ordo service is not valid, and because the presbyters that simulate it are not valid, the species are not in fact transubstantiated -- but they're supposed to be!
The 3,412 respondents to the survey, conducted between May and June 2010, were asked 32 questions with a range of difficulty, including whether the respondents could name the Islamic holy book and the first book of the Bible, or say in what century the Mormon religion was founded. On average, Newchurchers answered fewer than half of the survey questions correctly. Athiests and agnostics answered two-thirds correctly. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by the Associated Press.]
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
What has happened to the Archangels in the Novus Ordo? I have heard that their feastdays have been eliminated.
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
That is essentially correct. The unCatholic Novus Ordo "New Calendar" of 1969, introduced with the invalid Novus Ordo service of 1969, denigrates the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Angels, and the Saints. It dumped St. Christopher and many other traditional Saints. The invalid Novus Ordo service has dumped all the Holy Archangels into one day and abolished three of their feastdays.
The traditional Roman Catholic calendar venerates the Holy Archangels, remembering the words of Scripture: "Minuisti eum paulo minus ab angelis" (Psalms 8:6/DRV) [Thou has made him (man) a little less than the angels] (Psalms 8:6/DRV). In the traditional Roman Catholic calendar, the three Archangels all have their own high-ranking feastdays. St. Michael, the Prince of the Heavenly Host, actually has two high-ranking feastdays: a Double Major Feast of the Apparition on May 8 and a Double Feast of the First Class of the Dedication on September 29. St. Gabriel has a Double Major Feast on March 24, and St. Raphael has a Double Major Feast on October 24.
An altar-girl prominently carries the papal processional cross ahead of Benedict-Ratzinger before his Mess Novus Ordo-beatifying John Henry Cardinal Newman at Cofton Park in Birmingham, England, September 19, 2010. The Mess drew about half the number expected, far fewer than 40,000. Newdioceses in Britain couldn't sell the tickets and returned many to Newvatican. Some Newchurchers felt cheated and demanded their money back from Newvatican.
Cardinal Newman, of course, who was truly traditional, never used altar-girls and would have considered Benedict-Ratzinger an unCatholic pope to reject Catholic Sacramental theology in this way. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by Reuters.]
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
Some people say that the Peace Sign, consisting of a vertical line supported at the bottom by two obliquely projecting lines within a circle, is something called Nero's Cross, a kind of upside-down cross-like symbol that the Roman emperor Nero (54-68) used to ridicule the Christian religion. Is the Peace Sign really Nero's Cross, ridiculing the Christians?
The TRADITIO Fathers Reply.
The Peace Sign was supposedly designed in 1958, originally to support nuclear disarmament and only later appropriated for the secular Peace Movement. It is not a cross at all, but was designed from the semaphore signals for N and D (nuclear disaramament). Nero obviously had nothing to do with it.
According to the Roman historian Tacitus, Nero set the great fire at Rome in A.D. 64 to allow him to proceed with the lavish rebuilding of Rome according his own design. To draw suspicion from himself, Nero blamed the fire on the Christians, a small and powerless group at that time that was easy to blame. Tacitus had no reason to be favorable to the Christians, yet he blamed Nero, not the Christians.
It is this historical episode from which we get the fanciful story that Nero "fiddled while Rome burned." Of course, there were no "fiddles" in Rome, as the violin was not invented until the sixteenth century. However, Nero was known to be attracted to the arts and competed in his own singing competitions (which he invariably won!), at which he accompanied himself on the lyre, a hand-held harp.
It is this kind of harp that is referred to in the initial psalm of Holy Mass, Introibo ad altare Dei, which contains the verse: "Confitebor tibi in cithara, Deus, Deus meus" [I shall acknowledge Thee on the lyre, God, my God]. From the Latin cithara, we get our modern English word zither, which is a stringed instrument, to be sure, although it is played on a table, not held in the hand.
So, the story of Nero's Cross seems just another one of those fanciful explanations that has no basis in history.
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