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Jorge Mario Bergoglio is Collecting Scalps
While it is certainly the case that everything that the now “excommunicated” “Archbishop” Carlo Maria Vigano has written and said about Jorge Mario Bergoglio is incontestable true as the latter does not possess the Catholic Faith and thus excommunicated himself decades ago for holding to Modernist and Sillonist propositions that have been condemned by our true popes, to say nothing of the Argentine Apostate’s constant warfare against almost the entirety of Catholic Faith, Worship, and Morals, the former conciliar nuncio to the United States of America has yet to understand that each of Bergoglio’s five immediate predecessors had also excommunicated themselves from the Holy Faith and that the entire conciliar enterprise itself is the fulfillment of the following prophecies of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Saint Paul the Apostle, and Saint John the Evangelist:
[21] For there shall be then great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be. [22] And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened. [23] Then if any man shall say to you: Lo here is Christ, or there, do not believe him. [24] For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect. [25] Behold I have told it to you, beforehand.
[26] If therefore they shall say to you: Behold he is in the desert, go ye not out: Behold he is in the closets, believe it not. [27] For as lightning cometh out of the east, and appeareth even into the west: so shall the coming of the Son of man be. [28] Wheresoever the body shall be, there shall the eagles also be gathered together. [29] And immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be moved: [30] And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all tribes of the earth mourn: and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with much power and majesty. (Matthew 24: 1-30.)
[3] Let no man deceive you by any means, for unless there come a revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, [4] Who opposeth, and is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself as if he were God. [5] Remember you not, that when I was yet with you, I told you these things?
6 And now you know what withholdeth, that he may be revealed in his time. 7 For the mystery of iniquity already worketh; only that he who now holdeth, do hold, until he be taken out of the way. 8 And then that wicked one shall be revealed whom the Lord Jesus shall kill with the spirit of his mouth; and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming, him, 9 Whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders, 10 And in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying:
11 That all may be judged who have not believed the truth, but have consented to iniquity. 12 But we ought to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, beloved of God, for that God hath chosen you firstfruits unto salvation, in sanctification of the spirit, and faith of the truth: 13 Whereunto also he hath called you by our gospel, unto the purchasing of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 14 Therefore, brethren, stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle. 15 Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God and our Father, who hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation, and good hope in grace, 16 Exhort your hearts, and confirm you in every good work and word. (2 Thessalonians 2: 3-16.)
[1] I charge thee, before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, by his coming, and his kingdom: [2] Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine. [3] 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: [4] And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables. [5] But be thou vigilant, labour in all things, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill thy ministry. Be sober. (2 Tim. 4: 1-15.)
Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that Antichrist cometh, even now there are become many Antichrists: whereby we know that it is the last hour. [19] They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us; but that they may be manifest, that they are not all of us. [20] But you have the unction from the Holy One, and know all things. (2 John 2: 18-20.)
Bergoglio is just the latest of the conciliar “popes” of the counterfeit church of conciliarism who has proved himself to be one among of the many Antichrists referred to by Saint John the Evangelist in his Second Epistle. They are not with what the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, she who enjoys a perpetual immunity from error and heresy, has taught from time immemorial without any corruption or even the slightest taint of error. They have shown themselves to be manifest heretics as each succeeding wave of them has become bolder and bolder in their public celebration of every falsehood and error imaginable. They are truly shameless in their conceits. Moreover, the conciliar revolutionaries have not had the unction from God the Holy Ghost as they have propagated the heresy that the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity can “lead” what they assert is the Catholic Church in “new directions” that contradict articles contained within the Sacred Deposit of Faith.
These men of sin, precursors and figures of the “man of sin” who is Antichrist himself, have devoted themselves entirely to the propagation of lies and to the celebration of sin in the name of “love,” “mercy,” and “compassion.” Although many “conservatives” and traditionally-minded Catholics who are as of yet still attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism are rending their garments and gnashing their teeth over the public celebration of adultery, fornication, perversity, cross-dressing and the bodily mutation known as “gender change,” the truth of the matter is that the conciliar revolution has long championed the cause of the sin of heresy, starting with the “new ecclesiology” that came to the forefront with the issuance of Lumen Gentium, November 21, 1964, that contained the following heretical proposition that became the basis for “inter-religious dialogue,” “inter-religious ‘prayer’ meetings” and a process of supposed “popes” treating the clergy of false religions as “sharing” in the “mission” that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ gave to the Apostles, the first bishops, on Ascension Thursday:
This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him,(13*) although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity. (Lumen Gentium, November 21, 1964.)
The presence of this passage in Lumen Gentium was engineered in large part by none other than a German peritus at the "Second" Vatican Council, Father Joseph Alois Ratzinger, who was acting upon a recommendation by a German Lutheran "observer" at the "Second" Vatican Council, suggested should be placed into the text of Lumen Gentium, November 21, 1964, in order to give formal recognition to the "elements" of "sanctification" that exist the "ecclesial" (Protestant) "communities" and in the Orthodox churches. In other words, the man who is considered the "great dogmatist" helped to attack the Sacred Deposit of Faith at the "Second" Vatican Council to help to give birth to the heresy that is the "new ecclesiolgy," whose principal contention was refuted prophetically by Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943:
Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. "For in one spirit" says the Apostle, "were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free." As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered - so the Lord commands - as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)
Yet it is that Jorge Mario Bergoglio believes that everyone is part of "the church," which is true if one is referring to the church of the adversary, who is the driving force behind his relentless effort to strip away the last bastions of anything remotely recognizable as part of Catholic Faith, Worship, and Morals. He hates Catholic doctrine with a diabolical fervor, and he is unashamed in condemning those who hold to its holy integrity. He has even been good enough to explain that it is his belief that Lumen Gentium, November 21, 1964, marked the beginning of a "rediscovery" of Our Lord and of God the Father that he contends had been "obscured" by "legalism":
ROME - Pope Francis has fired back at his critics over the document Amoris Laetita, suggesting they suffer from “a certain legalism, which can be ideological.” The critics now include a group of four cardinals who’ve accused the pontiff of causing grave confusion and disorientation and even floated the prospect of a public correction.
“Some- think about the responses to Amoris Laetitia- continue to not understand,” Francis said. They think it’s “black and white, even if in the flux of life you must discern.”
The pope’s comments came in a wide-ranging interview with the Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire published on Friday, in response to a question about his Jubilee Year of Mercy and its relation with the 1960s-era Second Vatican Council.
“The Church exists only as an instrument to communicate to men God’s merciful design,” he said, adding that during the council, the Church felt the “need to be in the world as a living sign of the Father’s love.”
The Council, particularly the document Lumen Gentium, according to Francis, moved the axis of the Christian conception “from a certain legalism, which can be ideological,” to God himself, who through the Son became human.
It’s in this context in which he talked about the responses to Amoris Laetitia by those who continue “not to understand” this point.
Although he gives no names, it’s not a stretch to imagine the pope was thinking about the dubia or “doubts” about the apostolic exhortation presented to him by four cardinals, including American Raymond Burke. (Argentine Apostate Fires Back At Critics.)
The Catholic Church was founded by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to sanctify and to save souls. The first law of the Church is the salvation of souls, and no one can save his soul if he dies in a state of final impenitence.
There is no “black and white” for Jorge Mario Bergoglio, however, except when it comes to the exercise of the plenipotentiary powers of the papacy, an office he does not hold, of course, to discipline those who defy and contradict his agenda to bring the conciliar revolution to its full maturation.
There is no need here to repeat what I have stated so many times before concerning Father Carlo Maria Vigano’s refusal to see that the conciliar “popes” he admires, Karol Jozsef Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI have been Modernists of the highest order. Indeed, the recent document issued by the conciliar dicastery for the doctrine of the faith about “reassessing” the nature of the papacy is nothing new as it was John Paul II himself who argued for such a reassessment in Ut Unum Sint, May 25, 1995, and even that call itself was probably prompted by the then Joseph “Cardinal” Ratzinger’s broaching such an idea in The Principles of Catholic Theology (1982 and 1987). Perhaps someone who knows how to contact “Archbishop” Vigano can send him the following articles: Another Front in the Conciliar Civil War, part two, Another Front in the Conciliar Civil War, part three, Another Front in the Conciliar Civil War, part four, and Another Front in the Conciliar Civil War, part five Dumbing Down the Papacy: 1976-2024, and What You Mean "We," Kemo Sabe.)_
That is, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the false “pope” of false “mercy,” has limitless tolerance for those of his “bishops” who go beyond even his own outlandish, heretical statements and actions as they are playing their roles as perverse prophets to make it possible for him to perversely claim that the “holy spirit” is “clearly” leading his false religious sect in the direction of (fill in the blank) whatever “change” Bergoglio himself believes should be adopted in the name of “mercy” or “updating” or “listening to the people.” Countless are the numbers of these “bishops,” who are scattered all throughout the world. Perhaps the most prominent examples in this country today are Rene Cupich (Chicago), Joseph Tobin (Newark, New Jersey), John Stowe (Lexington, Kentucky), and Wilton Gregory (Washington, District of Columbia), a direct acolyte of the late, corrupt Joseph “Cardinal” Bernardin. These are Jorge’s boys, and they can make whatever outlandish statements they want as they are only doing his bidding for him. They are his enforcers and his field agents in making messes of things.
Men such as these are congregated all over the European continent and all throughout Asia. There is Jean-Claude Hollerich in Luxembourg, Reinhard Marx in Munich-Freising, Germany, Rainier Woelki in Cologne, Germany, Peter Kohlgraf in Mainz, Germany, Franz-Josef Overbeck of Essen, Germany, and so many scores upon scores of others, most of whom are full-throated supporters of the entire panoply of the sodomite agenda, women priests to be bound thereby, have been kept "safe" by Jorge, wo is busy promoting a “synodal way” that makes it appear that the process of Divine Revelation is “ongoing” and there must be a constant process of “discernment” concerning how what purports to be Catholic teaching should be “adjusted” in light of what the “people” want.
In other words, the conciliar “bishops” who enjoy Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s favor believe in everything criticized by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907. Here is a concise summary of the principal goals of Modernists concerning ecclesiastical “reform”:
It remains for Us now to say a few words about the Modernist as reformer. From all that has preceded, it is abundantly clear how great and how eager is the passion of such men for innovation. In all Catholicism there is absolutely nothing on which it does not fasten. They wish philosophy to be reformed, especially in the ecclesiastical seminaries. They wish the scholastic philosophy to be relegated to the history of philosophy and to be classed among absolute systems, and the young men to be taught modern philosophy which alone is true and suited to the times in which we live. They desire the reform of theology: rational theology is to have modern philosophy for its foundation, and positive theology is to be founded on the history of dogma. As for history, it must be written and taught only according to their methods and modern principles. Dogmas and their evolution, they affirm, are to be harmonized with science and history. In the Catechism no dogmas are to be inserted except those that have been reformed and are within the capacity of the people. Regarding worship, they say, the number of external devotions is to be reduced, and steps must be taken to prevent their further increase, though, indeed, some of the admirers of symbolism are disposed to be more indulgent on this head. They cry out that ecclesiastical government requires to be reformed in all its branches, but especially in its disciplinary and dogmatic departments They insist that both outwardly and inwardly it must be brought into harmony with the modern conscience which now wholly tends towards democracy; a share in ecclesiastical government should therefore be given to the lower ranks of the clergy and even to the laity and authority which is too much concentrated should be decentralized The Roman Congregations and especially the index and the Holy Office, must be likewise modified The ecclesiastical authority must alter its line of conduct in the social and political world; while keeping outside political organizations it must adapt itself to them in order to penetrate them with its spirit. With regard to morals, they adopt the principle of the Americanists, that the active virtues are more important than the passive, and are to be more encouraged in practice. They ask that the clergy should return to their primitive humility and poverty, and that in their ideas and action they should admit the principles of Modernism; and there are some who, gladly listening to the teaching of their Protestant masters, would desire the suppression of the celibacy of the clergy. What is there left in the Church which is not to be reformed by them and according to their principles? (Pascendi Dominici Gregis, No. 38)
The list of "reforms" that Pope Saint Pius X knew that the Modernists wanted to implement stands out as a prophetic warning as to the agenda that was formed by Modernist theologians in the years before the "Second" Vatican Council and became the fundamental basis for the whole ethos of conciliarism. Consider the prophetic nature of Pope Saint Pius X's list of "reforms" that the Modernists wanted to implement:
1) The passion for innovation. Innovation, which the Church has always eschewed, has become the very foundation of conciliarism. Indeed, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI praised novelty and innovation repeatedly, doing so during his now infamous December 22, 2005, Christmas address to his conciliar curia. Since when has this been the case in the history of the Catholic Church? It is standard practice in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, and "innovation" is the hallmark of the carciature of conciliarism, Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
2) "They wish the scholastic philosophy to be relegated to the history of philosophy and to be classed among absolute systems, and the young men to be taught modern philosophy which alone is true and suited to the times in which we live." This is a cogent summary of the belief of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI himself, which he outlined in Principles of Catholic Theology and in his own autobiography, Milestones. Bergoglio has no regard for philosophy of any kind as he is moved solely by pure subjectivism without the window dressing of his predecessors "new theology."
3) "Dogmas and their evolution, they affirm, are to harmonized with science and history." Thus it is, of course, that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI told us, both before and during his false "pontificate," that such things as Pope Pius IX's The Syllabus of Errors and even Pope Saint Pius X's Pascendi Dominci Gregis, among other encyclical letters and papal pronouncements (see Witness Against Benedict XVI: The Oath Against Modernism) itself served a useful purpose at one point in history but lose their binding force over time. In other words, we must harmonize Catholicism with the events of history (the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King, the institutionalization of Protestant "churches," the rise of the secular state) and not be "tied down" by a "time-centered" view of the Faith. As repetition is the mother of learning, perhaps it is good to repeat once again that this Modernist view of dogma was specifically condemned by the [First] Vatican Council. No Catholic is free to ignore these binding words and remain a Catholic in good standing:
For the doctrine of the faith which God has revealed is put forward
- not as some philosophical discovery capable of being perfected by human intelligence,
- but as a divine deposit committed to the spouse of Christ to be faithfully protected and infallibly promulgated.
- Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by holy mother church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.
God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever be in opposition to truth.
The appearance of this kind of specious contradiction is chiefly due to the fact that either: the dogmas of faith are not understood and explained in accordance with the mind of the church, or unsound views are mistaken for the conclusions of reason.
Therefore we define that every assertion contrary to the truth of enlightened faith is totally false. . . .
3. If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the church which is different from that which the church has understood and understands: let him be anathema.
And so in the performance of our supreme pastoral office, we beseech for the love of Jesus Christ and we command, by the authority of him who is also our God and saviour, all faithful Christians, especially those in authority or who have the duty of teaching, that they contribute their zeal and labour to the warding off and elimination of these errors from the church and to the spreading of the light of the pure faith.
But since it is not enough to avoid the contamination of heresy unless those errors are carefully shunned which approach it in greater or less degree, we warn all of their duty to observe the constitutions and decrees in which such wrong opinions, though not expressly mentioned in this document, have been banned and forbidden by this holy see. (Pope Pius IX, Vatican Council, Session III, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Chapter 4, On Faith and Reason, April 24, 1870. SESSION 3 : 24 April 1.)
4) "Regarding worship, they say, the number of external devotions is to be reduced, and steps must be taken to prevent their further increase, though, indeed, some of the admirers of symbolism are disposed to be more indulgent on this head." This describes the liturgical thrust of conciliarism quite accurately. Indeed, the last sentence in this sentence has particular application to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who was somewhat disposed to be "indulgent" to the symbolism of the liturgy but was nevertheless committed to "reforming" the conciliar "reform" Obviously, Jorge Mario Bergoglio comes from a more "liberated" background than his predecessor. The modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition can have its place, according to the falsehoods he published in Summorum Pontificum, July 7, 2007, for those who are "attached" to it. Bergoglio/Francis has made sure, of course, that there is no turning back on the "reform" itself, including the reduction of the saints commemorated on conciliarism's universal calendar. Indeed, then Cardinal Ratzinger wrote the following in Principles of Catholic Theology in 1982:
Among the more obvious phenomena of the last years must be counted the increasing number of integralist groups in which the desire for piety, for the sense of mystery, is finding satisfaction. We must be on our guard against minimizing these movements. Without a doubt, they represent a sectarian zealotry that is the antithesis of Catholicity. We cannot resist them too firmly. (pp. 389-390)
5) "They cry out that ecclesiastical government requires to be reformed in all its branches, but especially in its disciplinary and dogmatic departments They insist that both outwardly and inwardly it must be brought into harmony with the modern conscience which now wholly tends towards democracy; a share in ecclesiastical government should therefore be given to the lower ranks of the clergy and even to the laity and authority which is too much concentrated should be decentralized The Roman Congregations and especially the index and the Holy Office, must be likewise modified." The conciliarists have summarized Pope Saint Pius X's description of their Modernist view of Church governance very succinctly: Collegiality. It is no accident that Giovanni Montini/Paul VI gave away the Papal Tiara, which is on display in the crypt of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., and that Albino Luciani/John Paul I and Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II,Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio each refused to be crowned. Ratzinger/Benedict XVI went so far as to remove the tiara from his coat-of-arms, which is reflective of episcopal collegiality with his own bishops and a gesture in the direction of those steeped in the heresies of Photius, the Orthodox. And Jorge Mario Bergoglio has divested what little remained of "papal dignity" in the conciliar Petrine Ministry in the past sixty-two months. I mean, can anyone say "Plim Plim." What about Señor Wences?
6) "The ecclesiastical authority must alter its line of conduct in the social and political world; while keeping outside political organizations it must adapt itself to them in order to penetrate them with its spirit." This is of the essence of Gaudium et Spes, December 7, 1965. And it is of the essence of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's belief that the the "Second" Vatican Council represented an "official reconciliation" with the principles of 1789. Just as a little reminder so that readers with short memories do not think that I am misrepresenting the thought of the man who does not believe it to be the mission of the Catholic Church to seek with urgency the conversion of Protestants and Jews and the Orthodox and all others who are outside her maternal bosom:
Let us be content to say here that the text serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789. Only from this perspective can we understand, on the one hand, the ghetto-mentality, of which we have spoken above; only from this perspective can we understand, on the other hand, the meaning of the remarkable meeting of the Church and the world. Basically, the word "world" means the spirit of the modern era, in contrast to which the Church's group-consciousness saw itself as a separate subject that now, after a war that had been in turn both hot and cold, was intent on dialogue and cooperation. From this perspective, too, we can understand the different emphases with which the individual parts of the Church entered into the discussion of the text. While German theologians were satisfied that their exegetical and ecumenical concepts had been incorporated, representatives of Latin American countries, in particular, felt that their concerns, too, had been addressed, topics proposed by Anglo-Saxon theologians likewise found strong expression, and representatives of Third World countries saw, in the emphasis on social questions, a consideration of their particular problems. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 381-382)
Pope Saint Pius X wrote the following in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906 about those who would dare to contend that the Church had to "reconcile" herself to the separation of Church and State, which the Catholic Church condemned repeatedly and vigorously throughout her history prior to the "Second" Vatican Council:
That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. "Between them," he says, "there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul.-"Quaedam intercedat necesse est ordinata colligatio (inter illas) quae quidem conjunctioni non immerito comparatur, per quam anima et corpus in homine copulantur." He proceeds: "Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them.... As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error. -- "Civitates non possunt, citra scellus, gerere se tamquam si Deus omnino non esset, aut curam religionis velut alienam nihilque profuturam abjicere.... Ecclesiam vero, quam Deus ipse constituit, ab actione vitae excludere, a legibus, ab institutione adolescentium, a societate domestica, magnus et perniciousus est error." (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)
Pope Saint Pius X condemned as "absolutely false" the thesis that the State must be separated from the Church. Absolutely false. The conciliar "popes," including Jorge Mario Bergoglio, have accepted as true and good that which a canonized pope, repeating the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church, which no one has any authority to contradict, condemned as absolutely false. Are you beginning to see, possibly, that there is a problem with the conciliarism in its entirety? Are you beginning to see, possibly, that there is no reconciling the unprecedented heresies, sacrileges, apostasies, blasphemies of novelties of conciliarism and conciliarists, with the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church?
In addition to the above-noted paragraph in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Pope Saint Pius X went on to note the arrogance of the Modernists in their desire for novelty and in their contempt for scholastic theology and their efforts to view the Fathers in light of their own Modernist predilections:
Would that they had but displayed less zeal and energy in propagating it! But such is their activity and such their unwearying labor on behalf of their cause, that one cannot but be pained to see them waste such energy in endeavoring to ruin the Church when they might have been of such service to her had their efforts been better directed. Their artifices to delude men's minds are of two kinds, the first to remove obstacles from their path, the second to devise and apply actively and patiently every resource that can serve their purpose. They recognize that the three chief difficulties which stand in their way are the scholastic method of philosophy, the authority and tradition of the Fathers, and the magisterium of the Church, and on these they wage unrelenting war.Against scholastic philosophy and theology they use the weapons of ridicule and contempt. Whether it is ignorance or fear, or both, that inspires this conduct in them, certain it is that the passion for novelty is always united in them with hatred of scholasticism, and there is no surer sign that a man is tending to Modernism than when he begins to show his dislike for the scholastic method. Let the Modernists and their admirers remember the proposition condemned by Pius IX: "The method and principles which have served the ancient doctors of scholasticism when treating of theology no longer correspond with the exigencies of our time or the progress of science." They exercise all their ingenuity in an effort to weaken the force and falsify the character of tradition, so as to rob it of all its weight and authority. But for Catholics nothing will remove the authority of the second Council of Nicea, where it condemns those "who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind...or endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church"; nor that of the declaration of the fourth Council of Constantinople: "We therefore profess to preserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, by the Holy and most illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both general and local, and by everyone of those divine interpreters, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church." Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: "I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church.'' (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, No. 42)
This paragraph is a ringing condemnation of the work of conciliarism and of its progenitors, the so-called "new theologians" (Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Karl Rahner, Joseph Ratzinger, et al.). Look at how Pope Saint Pius X zeroed in on the three things that Joseph Ratzinger spent nearly 400 pages trying to deconstruct and explain away in Principles of Catholic Theology: (1) The Scholastic Method of Philosophy; (2) The Authority and Tradition of the Fathers; and (3) the Magisterium of the Church The then "Cardinal" Ratzinger had to rely upon his Hegelian view of the world to explain away dogmatic pronouncements and articles contained in the Deposit of Faith that constituted part of the Church's Ordinary Magisterium.
The Syllabus of Errors?
Well, right for its time perhaps, Ratzinger said and other conciliarists still say, but we can see now that it was a "hasty" and "superficial" overreaction to events of the day. Jorge Mario Bergoglio's solution to all of this? Simple. Don't even make a passing reference to the centenary of Pope Saint Pius X's death on August 20, 2014.
As Pope Saint Pius X noted; "They exercise all their ingenuity in an effort to weaken the force and falsify the character of tradition, so as to rob it of all of its weight and authority."
This is so very important. The conciliar popes have not used the word "tradition" to mean what Holy Mother Church has always taught it to mean. They have sought to "weaken the force" and to "falsify the character of tradition" precisely so as to "rob it of all its weight and authority," considering the word "tradition" to be an empty vessel into which he can pour whatever meaning these apostates have believed is appropriate for "modern man."
Pope Pius XII, writing in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, explained the "new theology's" effort to hold Tradition of no account, preferring that own rationalism to a reliance upon the teaching authority of Holy Mother Church:
22. To return, however, to the new opinions mentioned above, a number of things are proposed or suggested by some even against the divine authorship of Sacred Scripture. For some go so far as to pervert the sense of the Vatican Council's definition that God is the author of Holy Scripture, and they put forward again the opinion, already often condemned, which asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters. They even wrongly speak of a human sense of the Scriptures, beneath which a divine sense, which they say is the only infallible meaning, lies hidden. In interpreting Scripture, they will take no account of the analogy of faith and the Tradition of the Church. Thus they judge the doctrine of the Fathers and of the Teaching Church by the norm of Holy Scripture, interpreted by the purely human reason of exegetes, instead of explaining Holy Scripture according to the mind of the Church which Christ Our Lord has appointed guardian and interpreter of the whole deposit of divinely revealed truth.
23. Further, according to their fictitious opinions, the literal sense of Holy Scripture and its explanation, carefully worked out under the Church's vigilance by so many great exegetes, should yield now to a new exegesis, which they are pleased to call symbolic or spiritual. By means of this new exegesis the Old Testament, which today in the Church is a sealed book, would finally be thrown open to all the faithful. By this method, they say, all difficulties vanish, difficulties which hinder only those who adhere to the literal meaning of the Scriptures.
24. Everyone sees how foreign all this is to the principles and norms of interpretation rightly fixed by our predecessors of happy memory, Leo XIII in his Encyclical "Providentissimus," and Benedict XV in the Encyclical "Spiritus Paraclitus," as also by Ourselves in the Encyclical "Divino Affflante Spiritu."
25. It is not surprising that novelties of this kind have already borne their deadly fruit in almost all branches of theology. It is now doubted that human reason, without divine revelation and the help of divine grace, can, by arguments drawn from the created universe, prove the existence of a personal God; it is denied that the world had a beginning; it is argued that the creation of the world is necessary, since it proceeds from the necessary liberality of divine love; it is denied that God has eternal and infallible foreknowedge of the free actions of men -- all this in contradiction to the decrees of the Vatican Council[5] (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born just twenty-two years after the following letter was written by Gaetano Cardinal De Lai in 1914 to Father Angelo Roncalli, in whose heretical cradle Bergoglio was formed in his seminary days:
According to information that has come my way, I knew that you had been a reader of Duchesne [whose book, History of the Early Church, had been placed on the Index of Forbidden Books and used in Roncalli's seminary lectures] and other unbridled authors, and that on certain occasions you had shown yourself inclined to that school of thought which tends to empty out the value of Tradition and the authority of the past, a dangerous current which leads to fatal consequences. (Quoted in Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki, Tumultuous Times, p. 297)
Do you see a pattern here?
Modernists are proud men who attract those who are proudly unrepentant in their lives of wickedness to their twisted cause, which is why those who are still “shocked” by the statements of the conciliar revolutionaries are living in an alternative universe of their own making.
The true Church, the Catholic Church, cannot countenance falsehood and error.
Yet is that very well-meaning Catholics keep urging others to write “respectful” letters conciliar curial officials to protest this or that latest outrage even though the man who revels in this or that outrage, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is the man they believe to be the Vicar of Christ on earth is a heretic who takes special delight in promoting one error after another while he denounces those old “fuddy-duddies” who “rigidly” cling a “past” by seeking to “cage” the “holy spirit.” It is never possible to convince the letter writers and originators of petitions to convince them that to oppose a man they believe to be the pope is, to use a phrase found in Dom Prosper Gueranger’s elegy in praise of Pope Saint Clement I, “to oppose God Himself.” A kind of steel curtain that prevents otherwise intelligent people from accepting this truth seems to many to be preferable to admitting the obvious: that the See of Saint Peter has been vacant since the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958, the news of which I remember very well as it occurred during the second month of the 1958-1959 scholastic year at Saint Aloysius School, Great Neck, New York, and prompted special Masses and Rosaries for the repose of the soul of the Holy Father.
As one who was in the “conservative” trenches in the 1970s, 1980s, and the first three years of the 1990s before becoming an indulterer, I know full well of the futility of trying to fight the “bad” “bishops” at a time many of us though (actually, deluded) that we had a “good” “pope” who had a “master plan” of dealing with the bad guys. In other words, I was as pitiable and self-delusional concerning Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II’s governance of what I thought was the Catholic Church as so many people remain about the “master plan” that Donald John Trump was supposed to have had about ridding the world of evil cabals.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of Catholics in the United States of America wrote letters to Rome and/or actually visited Vatican dicasteries in the 1980s and 1990s to try to effect the removal of the following no-goodniks:
1. Joseph Bernardin, the late supporter of all things lavender, was transferred from being the conciliar archbishop of Cincinnati, Ohio, to being the conciliar archbishop of Chicago, Illinois by “Saint John Paul II.”
2. Roger Mahony, the disgraced former conciliar "bishop" of Fresno, California, and then the conciliar "archbishop" of Los Angeles, California. (See The Six Hundred Million Dollar Man and His Friends.)
3. Tod Brown, the conciliar "bishop" of Boise, Idaho, and then the conciliar "bishop" of San Diego, California.
4. Sylvester Ryan, the retired conciliar "bishop" of Monterey, California, who had an actual, honest-to-goodness baby-killer serving on his priest-abuse advisory board (See the news story at Catholic Citizens.)
5. Robert Brom, the former conciliar "bishop" of Duluth, Minnesota, and then the conciliar 'bishop" of San Diego, California, who presided over the San Diego diocese's bankruptcy proceedings caused by the cover-up of clergy abuse cases.
6. Patrick McGrath, the conciliar "bishop" of San Jose, California, who, among his other offenses, denied the historicity of the Gospel accounts of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Passion and Death.
7. George Patrick Ziemann, the late, disgraced former conciliar "bishop" of Santa Rosa, California.
8. Thomas Joseph O'Brien, the late, disgraced former conciliar "bishop" of Phoenix, Arizona.
9. Joseph Keith Symons, the disgraced former conciliar "bishop" of Palm Beach, Florida.
10. Daniel Leo Ryan, the late, disgraced former conciliar "bishop" of Springfield, Illinois, whom Karol Joseph Wojtyla would not remove even after a plethora of witnesses emerged to document his perversity. It took a full six years for the conciliar authorities to admit that the charges were true even though the clerics who investigated him knew all along that he was guilty as charged by Stephen G. Brady, the founder and president of Roman Catholic Faithful, Inc.
Ryan was a product of the homosexual stronghold known as the Diocese of Joliet under “Bishop” Joseph Imesch, himself a product of the epicenter of what Mrs. Randy Engel calls the “Homosexual Collective,” the Archdiocese of Detroit. Ryan consorted with males who trafficked themselves and abused at least two of his presbyters. He engaged in indescribably horrific behavior with them. He told them that they could always go to confession to him if “things went too far,” demonstrating that he had no concept of the horror of sin in general and the particular horror represented by enticing a person into the commission of a Mortal Sin by presuming that God will give them the Actual Grace to have true contrition and firm purpose of amendment for it after the fact of its commission.
Steve Brady was approached by the two presbyters who had been abused by Ryan. These men presented Brady with credible evidence of abuse.
Brady thereupon wrote to Ryan in November of 1996 to demand his resignation lest the charges be made public. Ryan did not respond. The Vatican Nuncio in Washington, D.C., "Archbishop" Agostino Cacciavillan, not only did not respond to an attorney’s letter about the abuse, he betrayed the names of the two abused presbyters to Daniel Leo Ryan himself! (This prompted a courageous layman and ex-Marine, the late Frank Kelly, the head of the no-exceptions Virginia Right to Life, an organization that has no links to the National Not-So-Right-Life Committee, to confront Cacciavillan outside of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Washington, District of Columbia, in November of 1997, as many of us, including Mr. Brady, were praying Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary for the conversion of the conciliar "bishops" who were gathered inside for their semi-annual gathering against the Holy Faith. Mr. Kelly, who takes no prisoners, walked wight up to Cacciavillan and poked his fingers right at his chest, saying, "You belong in jail for what you did to protect Daniel Ryan." Cacciavillan scampered into his car in great fright.
I was approached with the matter shortly after Brady wrote his letter to Ryan, informing the editor of The Wanderer, Mr. Alphonse J. Matt, Jr., about it. Mr. Matt wanted to send the information to the Congregation for the Bishops in the Vatican. I had a classmate of mine from Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary, “”Father James Conley of the Diocese of Wichita, who worked in that congregation. Conley, who is now the conciliar "ordinary" of the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, told me that the congregation was going to do nothing despite the evidence that had been amassed.
Having done what we thought was our due diligence, Steve Brady held a press conference at the Springfield Hilton on February 11, 1997, to reveal his findings. The secular media buried the story. The former communications director for the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, Mrs. Kathleen Sass, who held her job for many years thereafter despite all of the spinning she did (or maybe because of it), denounced Brady for "lying" about Ryan. My own story was published in the February 20, 1997, issue of The Wanderer (see Roman Catholic Faithful Accuses Bishop Ryan of Harassment), and it was shortly thereafter that a true priest, the legendary Father John A. Hardon, S.J., took one of the abused conciliar presbyters to Rome to meet with Dario Castrillon "Cardinal" Hoyos, then the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, to present the matter to him. The Vatican did not remove Ryan at that time. The presbyter, however, was given protection as Hoyos had him transferred to another diocese to work under Father Hardon.
Making a long and involved story short, more witnesses emerged a year later (see (see Witnesses Emerge in Bishop Ryan Case). Even Francis "Cardinal" George, the conciliar "archbishop of Chicago," admitted to Steve Brady over the telephone that the American “bishops” had known all about Ryan for years. George wanted silence from Brady in exchange for a “relationship” with the “hierarchy.” Steve refused. The Vatican did nothing. Nothing, that is, until the threat of a lawsuit by yet other victims in 1999 caused Ryan to go into an “early retirement.” He continued to function publicly until February of 2003, at which time a “special commission” finally concluded what Steve Brady had asserted from the beginning: Ryan was guilty as charged. (For a 2004 synopsis of the case, please see Seven Years Later, which was one of the first articles published after this site went "live" on February 20, 2004.)
Stephen G. Brady suffered rejection by longtime friends. His efforts to pursue the truth in the case of Daniel Leo Ryan were met with accusations of "calumny" and "detraction" from many. Others said that he was "dividing the church" and "causing scandal" even though it was Daniel Leo Ryan, a supporter of women's "ordination" to the priesthood, was the one causing the scandal and was a mortal threat to the eternal and temporal good of souls in the Diocese of Springfield.
Stephen G. Brady did not act rashly. He was advised behind-the-scenes by several priests, including the late Father Peter Mascari of the Diocese of Springfield, the famed Father Charles Fiore, O.P., also since deceased, and Father Alfred Kunz, who was brutally, ritualistically in Dane County, Wisconsin, on March 4, 1998, at the very time he was assisting Mr. Brady with the Daniel Leo Ryan case. As is well-known, Father Kunz's murder has not been solved to this date.
11. Robert Lynch, the former conciliar "bishop" of Saint Petersburg, Florida, who gave encouragement to Michael Schiavo's efforts to starve and dehydrate his wife, Mrs. Theresa Maria Schindler-Schiavo, and was a huge supporter of the lavender agenda.
12. Joseph Fiorenza, the former conciliar "archbishop" of Galveston, Houston, Texas, a protege of Joseph "Cardinal" Bernardin who was a thorough supporter of the conciliar revolution.
13. Robert Joseph Banks, a former conciliar auxiliary "bishop" in the Archdiocese of Boston, Massachusetts, and then the conciliar "bishop" of Green Bay, Wisconsin.
13. Bernard Law, the late, disgraced former conciliar "archbishop" of Boston, Massachusetts, who was appointed to that post by Wojtyla/John Paul II. Law, who presided over the systematic cover-up and protection of predator priests and presbyters in Boston, was appointed by Wojtyla/John Paul II to be the archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in 2004.
14. Thomas Daily, the late conciliar "bishop" of Palm Beach, Florida, and the former conciliar "bishop" of Brooklyn, New York, who was one of Law's chief enablers in protecting the likes of the notorious Father Paul Shanley.
15. William Murphy, the former conciliar "bishop" of Rockville Centre, New York, who was yet another participant in the great Boston-cover-up.
16. Richard Lennon, the late conciliar "bishop" of Cleveland, Ohio, who was a major supporter of Bernard Law's policies while an auxiliary "bishop" there.
17. John McCormack, the late former conciliar "bishop" of Manchester, New Hampshire, who was an enabler of predator priests and presbyters there as he had been as an auxiliary "bishop" in Boston, Massachusetts.
18. Matthew Clark, the former conciliar "bishop" of Rochester, New York, who said in the 1990s that the Catholic Church would have to find a way to "bless" same-gender "unions."
19. Kenneth Untener, the late conciliar "bishop" of Saginaw, Michigan, who was an enemy of the Catholic Faith.
20. Harry Flynn, the retired "archbishop" of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, who was ever tolerant of the "rainbow" agenda and brought disgrace upon himself by terming the late Father Paul Marx, O.S.B., the founder of Human Life International, as an "anti-Semite." (See: Disconnects.)
21. The late William Levada, created by Wojtyla/John Paul II as conciliar auxiliary "bishop" of Los Angeles in 1983 before being appointed as the conciliar "archbishop" of Portland, Oregon, in 1986, being transferred to San Francisco, California, in 1995, and then there by Ratzinger/Benedict on May 13, 2005, to be the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. (See Surely He Jests.)
22. George Niederauer, the late former conciliar "bishop" of Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1995, promoted by Ratzinger/Benedict to be the conciliar "archbishop" of San Francisco, California, in 2005. (At the Very Doorstep of Joseph Ratzinger Himself.)
23. Thomas Ludger Dupre, the late, disgraced retired "bishop" of Springfield, Massachusetts.
24. John Magee, the disgraced conciliar "bishop" of Cloyne, Ireland, and the long-time secretary to Giovanni Montini/Paul VI and Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II.
25. Christoph Schonborn, the conciliar "archbishop" of Vienna, Austria, who has committed one offense against God after another (see Almost Always At Odds With Themselves, Negotiating To Become An Apostate, They Continue to Caricature Themselves, and Meltdown.)
26. Robert Zollitsch, the former conciliar "archbishop" of Freiburg in Breisgau, who, of course denied on Holy Saturday, April 11, 2009, that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ did not die on the wood of the Holy Cross in atonement for our sins.
27. Hans Hermann Groer, the late, disgraced "archbishop" of Vienna, Austria, who was removed after "bishops" and members of the laity complained about his predatory behavior, which he denied until the day he died. (See Austria Cardinal Groer Exiled Over Sex Abuse.) Christoph Schonborn is now saying that the then Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger urged Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II to remove Groer, Schonborn's predecessor, but was stymied for a long time by John Paul II. Just another conciliar voice throwing John Paul II under the bus as the Benedict XVI continued to promote the fiction of his late predecessor's "sanctity" even though no one who protected moral derelicts is possessed of any sense of true sanctity.
28. The late Jean-Louis "Cardinal" Tauran, appointed as a "bishop" by John Paul II in 1990 and elevated to the conciliar colleges of cardinals in 2003. Ratzinger/Benedict appointed Tauran as the president of the "Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue." It was in this capacity that he said the following in 2008:
Interviewer: There was a sense that Islam mustn't monopolise the proceedings?
Tauran: Yes, the people are obsessed by Islam. For example I'm going to India next month and I want to give this message that all religions are equal. Sometimes there are priorities because of particular situations, but we mustn't get the impression there are first class religions and second class religions.(Interview with Terrasanta.net, a Website of the Holy Land Review.)
29. Walter Kasper, appointed as a "bishop" by John Paul II in 1989 and elevated to the conciliar "college of cardinals" in 2001. Need one say anything more?
30. Bruno Forte, who was recommended by Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger for the conciliar "episcopate" in 2004 despite Forte's having denied the actual fact of Our Lord's Bodily Resurrection on Easter Sunday:
Another example of this alarming situation, which threatens to make the Pope’s disciplinary laxity seem strictly conservative by comparison, is the little-noticed story of how Bruno Forte, a priest of the Archdiocese of Naples, was suddenly made a bishop five months ago.
Forte, who last year was brought to the Vatican to preach a Lenten retreat to an already incapacitated Pope, is rumored to be Cardinal Ratzinger’s replacement as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. How this happened is anybody’s guess. The rumor has caused a great deal of consternation for one simple reason: Forte is a flaming neo-modernist. As noted in the Winter 2005 issue of The Latin Mass in a report by its Italian correspondent, Alessandro Zangrando, Forte was a pupil of none other than the infamous Cardinal Walter Kasper. (In yet another sign of things falling apart at the top, immediately after Kasper’s own elevation to the rank of cardinal he publicly declared to the press that the Old Covenant remains in force and is salvific for the Jews, and that Protestants are under no obligation to convert and become Catholics.)
Worse still, Zangrando, a respected journalist not given to reckless claims, relates that Forte’s 1994 essay Gesu di Nazaret, storia di Dio, Dio della storia (Jesus of Nazareth, history of God, God of history) reveals Forte as nothing less than “the standard-bearer of theories so radical as to the point of putting in doubt even the historicity of the resurrection of Christ. The empty tomb, he argues, is a legend tied into the Jewish-Christian ritual performed at the place of Jesus’ burial. It is a myth inherited by the Christians from Jesus’ early disciples. Therefore, the empty tomb, along with other details surrounding the resurrection, is nothing but a ‘proof’ made up by the community. In other words, Forte is trying to change the resurrection of Christ into a myth, into a kind of fairy tale that cannot be proven.”
Forte’s elevation to bishop was rather mysterious. Zangrando notes that Forte’s name did not appear in any list of possible candidates submitted to the Italian Nunciature, and even his ordinary, Cardinal Michele Giordano, Archbishop of Naples, “was reportedly against that appointment.” But, “in an apparent attempt at putting to rest a growing controversy” over Forte’s candidacy, he was personally consecrated a bishop by none other than Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the very man Forte will succeed as head of the CDF, according to the rumors. Yes, “our only friend in the Vatican” has struck again. More and more it becomes apparent that this man is perhaps the most industrious ecclesial termite of the post-conciliar epoch, tearing down even as he makes busy with the appearance of building up. The longer Ratzinger “guards” Catholic doctrine, the more porous the barriers that protect it become.
Indeed, as I have pointed out more than once on these pages, it was Ratzinger who wrote in 1987 (in the second edition of his Principles of Catholic Theology) that the “demolition of bastions” in the Church is “a long-overdue task.” The Church, he declared, “must relinquish many of the things that have hitherto spelled security for her and that she has taken for granted. She must demolish longstanding bastions and trust solely the shield of faith.” Now it seems that with the bastions all but demolished, even the shield of faith is about to clatter to the ground.
There is no doubt the Holy Ghost will save the Church from extinction and bring about her restoration. In the end, no other result is possible.
Before this happens, however, the difference between extinction and non-extinction may come to be far smaller than even traditionalists might have supposed. On the other hand, the very next Pope could be another Saint Pius X, who will finally take arms against our enemies and impose immediate restorative measures we could scarcely have imagined. Who knows which way it will go? All we can do is continue our loyal opposition, pray for the advent of a kingly, militant pope, and hope that the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will soon be upon us. (Ratzinger Personally Consecrates Neo-Modernist Bishop.)
31. The late Theodore McCarrick, the founding conciliar "bishop" of Metuchen, New Jersey, and later the conciliar "archbishop" of Newark, New Jersey, and Washington, District of Columbia, who indemnified pro-abortion politicians and said openly that men suffering from the affliction of being "attracted" to other men should not be prohibited from studying for the conciliar presbyterate. He was later defrocked while denying any wrongdoing. (See "Uncle Teddy" McCarrick and the Conciliar Cesspool of Corruption, Another Front in the Conciliar Civil War, part two, Another Front in the Conciliar Civil War, part three, Another Front in the Conciliar Civil War, part four, and Another Front in the Conciliar Civil War, part five.)
32. The late Emerson Moore, an auxiliary "bishop" of the Archdiocese of New York who engaged in rank immorality and died of auto immune deficiency disease.
33. The late Eugene Marino, appointed by John Paul II to be the conciliar "archbishop" of Atlanta in 1988 but had to resign two years later after it was revealed that he had gotten married in a civil ceremony in 1988 to a lay-ministerette with whom he had been keeping company.
34. Emil Wcela, appointed by John Paul II to be a conciliar "bishop" of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York, despite officials in the Vatican knowing that Wcela was an open supporter of the impossibility known as "woman's ordination to the priesthood.
35. The Jacques Gaillot, the conciliar "bishop" of Evreux, France, from 1982 to 1995. Gaillot, was removed by Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II after years upon years of protests by Catholics about his words and actions, including his open and unapologetic support for the human pesticide, the French abortion pill, RU-486? (See Farley Clinton's February 2, 1995, article in The Wanderer, Gaillot Stripped of His Bishopric. I had my own commentary on the matter at the time that ran in the same newspaper.) That it took something approaching a revolution from Catholics attached to the conciliar structures in France to effect Gaillot's removal after years of complaints--and even admonitions from Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II himself--speaks volumes about the paralysis caused by the conciliar novelty of episcopal collegiality, one of the triumphs of the Modernist spirit in favor of democracy that had been described so clearly by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.
36. Sean Brady, the former conciliar "archbishop" of Armagh, Northern Ireland, who presided over the systematic protection of clerical abusers.
37. Michael Sheehan, the former conciliar "archbishop" of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in whose diocese is located one of the institutions most responsible for the phony "rehabilitation" of clerical abusers and who has keep in perfectly good standing the notorious "Father" Richard Rohr and has praised Barack Hussein Obama (see Unfortunate Enough to Be A Baby.)
38. The late Joseph Adamec, the former conciliar "bishop" of Altoona-Johnston, Pennsylvania, who went so far in 2003 as to silence all of his priests and presbyters from criticizing his handling of predators among their ranks.
39. Paul Loverde, the former conciliar "bishop" of Arlington, Virginia, who persecuted whistle blower priest Father James Haley (Bishop Loverde, Where is Fr. James Haley?: Letters to Bishop Loverde.)
40. James T. McHugh, the late conciliar "bishop" of Camden, New Jersey, and--for a brief time--Rockville Centre, New York, who was one of the chief agents of promoting the corruption of the innocence and purity of the young by means of explicit classroom instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. (See Mrs. Randy Engel's The McHugh Chronicles.)
41. The late Edward Egan, the former conciliar "archbishop" of New York who, as the conciliar "bishop" of Bridgeport, Connecticut, went so far as to assert that his diocese could be held legally liable for the actions of priests as the latter were "independent contractors" paid by their parishes, not by their dioceses. (See Paragon of Conciliar Orthodoxy.)
42. The late Rembert G. Weakland, the disgraced former conciliar "archbishop" of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, whose warfare against the Faith was of international scope, should have been stopped long before he was forced to resign in disgrace in 2002. He remained in "good standing" in the conciliar structures until he died on August 22, 2022. (See Weak In Mind, Weakest Yet In Faith and Memo To Howard Hubbard: Public Scandal Is Never A Private Matter.)
43. The late Thomas Gumbleton, a conciliar auxiliary "bishop" of Detroit, Michigan, an appointee of the late Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, whose work on behalf of moral perversion should have resulted in his suspension decades ago. He remained in "good standing" in the conciliar structures until he died on April 4, 2024.
44. Sean O'Malley, O.F.M. Cap., the conciliar "archbishop" of Boston, Massachusetts, who has distinguished himself as an ardent defender of the "legacy" of the late United States Senator Edward Moore Kennedy and a sycophantic tool of the ancient enemies of the Catholic Faith by serving the role in early-2009 of a demagogue against Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of Saint Pius X.
45. The late William Keeler, who was the conciliar "archbishop" of Baltimore, Maryland, from 1990 to 2007, who specialized in overseeing relations between the conciliar church and adherents of the Talmud, producing a document in 2002, "Reflections on Covenant and Mission", that had to be revised in 2009 because of its lack of clarity on several doctrinal points.
46. The late Howard Hubbard, the conciliar "bishop" of Albany from 1977 to 2014, an appointee of the late Giovanni Montini/Paul VI who has spent the past thirty-three years as a thorough champion of the conciliar religion. Not even an adoption arranged by Catholic Charities in Albany for a "couple" engaged in perversity could prompt Wojtyla/John Paul II to remove him.
47. The late John Raymond McGann, the conciliar "bishop" of Rockville Centre, New York, from June 24, 1976, to January 4, 2000, who presided over a full-bore implementation of the conciliar revolution in my home diocese, going so far as to persecute traditional-leaning pastors and priests and presbyters. Report after report was sent to Rome, some delivered personally to those close to the late Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. McGann, who protected his own share of clerical abusers (see Swinging Clubs To Protect The Club).
48. The late Daniel Pilarczyk, Bernardin's worthy "successor" as the conciliar "archbishop" of Cincinnati, Ohio, who protected clerical abuses and even had an actual Freemason serving as the archdiocesan psychologist who screened the mental and emotional fitness of candidates who were applying to study for the conciliar presbyterate.
49. Donald Wuerl, the former conciliar "bishop" of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (and how disgraced former "archbishop" of Washington, District of Columbia), who has been one of the chief proponents of explicit classroom instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments.
50. The late John Joseph O'Connor, the conciliar "archbishop" of New York, from March 19, 1984, to May 3, 2000, who protected his own share of pederasts in the conciliar clergy and who told the ABC News program Nightline that "God was smiling" on the conversion of a Catholic man to Judaism. (See The Endless Battle Between the False Opposites of Conciliar Revolutionaries.)
Mind you, this is just a partial listing and one that does even mention a non-bishop, Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, the late founder of the Legionaries of Christ whom Wojtyla/John Paul II protected despite having incontrovertible proof of his moral depravity. (See Unimaginable Deceit and Duplicity, Legionaries of Cash and Cover-Up, Remove and Replace: You are Still Left with the Same False Church, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio Makes a Mess of Things, All to Utter and Perverse Delight.)
Like examples could go on interminably if I was not tired enough already of having to think of the theological, moral, and liturgical disaster that the man for whom I once served as a willing cheerleader, Karol Joseph Wojtyla/John Paul II wrought upon the souls of Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
Many of these official "representatives" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have denied the Perpetual Virginity of Our Lady and have denied that she was Assumed body and soul into Heaven.
Many of these official "representatives" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, aping the example set by this sect's false "pontiffs," have participated quite openly in syncretistic liturgies and have blasphemed God by participating in inter-religious "prayer" services, some of which involve the outright incorporation of pagan practices into what has purported to be "Catholic" liturgies.
Many of these official "representatives" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have endorsed contraception and abortion and perverse acts in violation of the binding precepts of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments.
Many of these official "representatives" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have worked closely with openly pro-abortion organizations (in the name of "social justice," of course), using a variety of "shell games" to funnel money from "Catholic" Charities and the "Catholic" Campaign for Human Development to fund these organizations that are committed to the pursuit of one abject evil after another.
Many of these official "representatives" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have endorsed the theological and ontological impossibility of "women's ordination."
Many of these official "representatives" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have opposed quite openly the Catholic Church's teaching concerning the admissibility of the imposition of the death penalty for capital crimes following the fulfillment of all of the requirements of due process of law.
Many of these official "representatives" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have encouraged citizens of foreign nations to enter the United States of American illegally.
Many of these official "representatives" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have supervised the integration of formerly Catholic hospitals with secular "health-care systems," looking the other way as babies have been killed by means of surgical abortions and as women have undergone elective sterilizations.
Many of these official "representatives" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have convinced young Catholics attached to their false structures that it does not make any difference what they believe as each "religion" represents a "path" to God.
Many of these official "representatives" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have promoted the false, naturalistic ideologies of socialism, communism, feminism, environmentalism and, among so many others, evolutionism.
Many of these official "representatives" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have promoted indecency of dress and speech. Some have promoted motion pictures that promote various sins, oblivious to the simple fact that sin is what caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer unspeakable horrors in His Sacred Humanity and caused His Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart to be pierced through and through with Seven Swords of Sorrow.
Many of these official "representatives" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have denied the existence of Purgatory and Hell, endorsing quite openly the heresy of "universal salvation."
Many of these official "representatives" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have denied--openly and shamelessly--the doctrine of Transubstantiation and the sacerdotal nature of the Mass and the unique nature of the Catholic priesthood, which is different both in degree and in kind from the common priesthood of the faithful that each Catholic has by virtue of his Baptism.
Many of these official "representatives" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have disparaged devotion to the Mother of God, being especially contemptuous of her Most Holy Rosary, and to the saints, relishing with delight in the destruction of their statues and images in formerly Catholic churches now under their insidious control.
Many of these official "representatives" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have, aping this sect's false "pontiffs," reaffirmed Talmudic Judaism, a completely false religion that is loathsome in the sight of God, as a perfectly "valid" means of salvation, discouraging Catholics from seeking the conversion of Jews to the true Faith:
According to Roman Catholic teaching, both the Church and the Jewish people abide in covenant with God. We both therefore have missions before God to undertake in the world. The Church believes that the mission of the Jewish people is not restricted to their historical role as the people of whom Jesus was born "according to the flesh" (Rom 9:5) and from whom the Church’s apostles came. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger recently wrote, "God’s providence … has obviously given Israel a particular mission in this ‘time of the Gentiles.’" However, only the Jewish people themselves can articulate their mission "in the light of their own religious experience."
Nonetheless, the Church does perceive that the Jewish people’s mission ad gentes (to the nations) continues. This is a mission that the Church also pursues in her own way according to her understanding of covenant. The command of the Resurrected Jesus in Matthew 28:19 to make disciples "of all nations" (Greek = ethnē, the cognate of the Hebrew = goyim; i.e., the nations other than Israel) means that the Church must bear witness in the world to the Good News of Christ so as to prepare the world for the fullness of the kingdom of God. However, this evangelizing task no longer includes the wish to absorb the Jewish faith into Christianity and so end the distinctive witness of Jews to God in human history.
Thus, while the Catholic Church regards the saving act of Christ as central to the process of human salvation for all, it also acknowledges that Jews already dwell in a saving covenant with God. The Catholic Church must always evangelize and will always witness to its faith in the presence of God’s kingdom in Jesus Christ to Jews and to all other people. In so doing, the Catholic Church respects fully the principles of religious freedom and freedom of conscience, so that sincere individual converts from any tradition or people, including the Jewish people, will be welcomed and accepted.
However, it now recognizes that Jews are also called by God to prepare the world for God’s kingdom. Their witness to the kingdom, which did not originate with the Church’s experience of Christ crucified and raised, must not be curtailed by seeking the conversion of the Jewish people to Christianity. The distinctive Jewish witness must be sustained if Catholics and Jews are truly to be, as Pope John Paul II has envisioned, "a blessing to one another." This is in accord with the divine promise expressed in the New Testament that Jews are called to "serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness before God all [their] days" (Luke 1:74-75). (Joint Reflections on Covenant and Mission.)
(This is rank apostasy.)
Some of the conciliar "bishops" have nominated pro-abortion Talmudic "rabbis" for "papal" knighthoods and medals.
Some of the conciliar "bishops" have been feted by Masonic organizations such as B'Nai Brith.
No, it is the "popes" and the "bishops" and the "priests" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism who are not in communion with the Catholic Church as they subscribe to each of the apostasies and blasphemies and errors and outrages wrought by the "Second" Vatican Council and its aftermath.
Almost no one within the conciliar structures is sanctioned by the conciliar authorities unless he actually holds to more of the Catholic Faith than they do, especially by opposing sodomy, opposing false ecumenism, opposing administering what is thought to be Holy Communion to those who are divorced and civilly remarried without the fig leaf of a conciliar degree of nullity, and, within the past four years, if they oppose the plandemic’s lockdowns, “social distancing” and the global conspiracy against innocent human beings by the pharmaceutical/deep state/technology/disinformation dictatorship in behalf of the poisons being market in the name “vaccines,” endless mutations of which are being “required” to be counted among the “fully vaccinated” as many untold numbers of human beings continue to be injured seriously or killed.
It was fifty-three months ago that Senor Jorge acted against the conciliar “bishop” of Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Daniel Fernandez Torres, solely because he opposed the SARS-CoV-2 “vaccines” and “vaccine” mandates:
A Catholic bishop in Puerto Rico described his removal from office by Pope Francis on Wednesday as “totally unjust.”
Bishop Daniel Fernández Torres, who has led the Diocese of Arecibo since 2010, said he had been asked to resign because he “had not been obedient to the pope nor had I been in sufficient communion with my brother bishops of Puerto Rico.”
The Holy See press office announced on March 9 that the pope had relieved the 57-year-old bishop of the pastoral care of his diocese. The Vatican did not give a reason for the pope’s decision.
Pope Francis appointed Bishop Álvaro Corrada del Río, S.J., bishop emeritus of Mayagüez, as apostolic administrator of the diocese in the north of the island of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States.
In a March 9 declaration, published on the diocesan website, Fernández Torres strongly objected to his removal.
He said: “I deeply regret that in the Church where mercy is so much preached, in practice some lack a minimum sense of justice.”
“No process has been made against me, nor have I been formally accused of anything and simply one day the apostolic delegate [the pope’s representative in Puerto Rico] verbally communicated to me that Rome was asking me to resign.” (Catholic bishop in Puerto Rico says his removal by Pope Francis is ‘totally unjust’.)
What “Bishop” Daniel Fernandez Torres refused to accept is that, while there are canonical processes for the removal of bishops and pastors in the Catholic Church, a true pope, which he believes Jorge Mario Bergoglio to be, is not bound by those procedures as he is Holy Mother’s supreme governor and legislator. He can exercise his plenipotentiary powers at any time even if appears unjust and unfair in the human order of things.
Bergoglio’s quick action two years ago to remove Daniel Fernandez Torres over the matter of vaccine mandates should serve as a correlative proof of the fact that he does not possess the Catholic as no true pope would demand that the consciences of Catholics are bound by the diktats of anti-life statists who open support the depopulation programs of the “global reset of humanity” to promote “sustainable development goals” while accustoming the masses to being but mere vassals of the civil state whose movements, thoughts, words, or actions are restricted/and/or monitored.
Similarly, Bergoglio’s removal of Joseph Strickland as the conciliar “bishop” of Tyler, Texas, and the more recent “excommunication” of Father Carlo Maria Vigano should teach everyone within the conciliar sect who care about defending the Holy Faith that a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter would never act arbitrarily against men who call sin by its proper name and recognize apostasy for what it is.
Then again, that is the problem for both the “conservatives” and the “traditionalists” within the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. None of them would have to be circulating petition drives to "save” the “Latin Mass” (as an ecumenical group of prominent British celebrities are doing now in what is because called the “Agatha Christie Letter,” part two, a matter that will be the subject of the next commentary on this website) nor to get the man they believe to be the “pope” to rescind this or that appointment. A true pope is the guarantor of doctrinal orthodoxy, not its enemy. He is to be obeyed and reverenced, not to be defied and disparaged.
There are some in the conciliar structures, most notably “Bishop” Athanasius Schneider, who believe that “Archbishop” Vigano had gone “too far” in his criticism of “Pope Francis.”
“Bishop” Schneider ought not to be so convinced that Jorge Mario Bergoglio does not have him on his “to do list,” and Raymond Leo “Cardinal” Burke and Gerhard “Cardinal” Muller might have red hats lifted from their heads before or after the upcoming “synod on synodality” that will give official sanction “Father” James Martin’s commitment to “changing” what is thought to be the Catholic Church’s teaching on sodomy from “intrinsically disordered” to “differently ordered.”
Bergoglio knows that he is going to get a lot of “incoming” from “conservatives” within his hierarchy over the upcoming synod, and the “excommunication” of Carlo Mario Vigano is just a shot across the bow to prevent any more dubia from being submitted after the next synod has concluded and he has issued the inevitable “apostolic exhortation” to give “papal” blessings to “stable, committed same-sex relationships.” He has gotten several scalps in the last few years, and he would like nothing more than to collect a few others as the world exalts him as "Francis the Merciful."
None of the conciliar “popes” have believed that the Catholic Church is the sole means of human salvation. Each has embraced and propagated errors such as dogmatic evolutionism, the new ecclesiology, episcopal collegiality, Modernist scriptural exegesis and have presided over liturgical travesties that are so egregious that would have caused the Arians themselves to be ashamed and embarrassed. They have been heretics to a man.
Yet it is that most people alive today pay no attention to any of this as they live and die without any true understanding of First and Last Things. We have a great responsibility before the Divine Judge, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to show forth an integrity of life to those who are eager to look for some chink in us that they can use, however speciously, to blame the Faith for what are our own faults, failings and sinsRefusing to go along with others for the sake of "fellowship" or in the belief that "the numbers can't be wrong" does not make any one of us one whit better than those who do not see the truth. It is difficult, very difficult, for a Catholic with a true love of Holy Mother Church to come to the terrible conclusion that the man dressed in a white cassock in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican is a figure of Antichrist, an imposter, a pretender to the Throne of Saint Peter.
Sure, the "information" is "there" for people to accept or reject. Accepting or rejecting the truth in these confusing times is not as simple as it appears, especially when people are prone to go this way or that way and have their emotions lead them to "believe" the last thing they read or the last person with whom they have spoken, seeking ready answers without having any solid foundation to remain steadfast when pressured by friends to "come back" with them where "the numbers are to be found." We should remember that God alone is the sole judge of the subjective state of the souls of others, and while we can and must warn others about dangers to their souls and point out their errors is our obligation under the Spiritual Works of Mercy, we cannot be obsessed about whether they accept the truth or reject him. It should be enough for us to remain grateful to Our Lady for sending us the graces to see the truth and to persevere in it despite all of the sufferings that we may have endured in doing so, praying fervently for those from whom we are estranged at this time.
There is simply no escape from this question: is the conciliar church the Catholic Church or is it not?
We must continue to understand that this is the time that God has appoined for us from all eternity to live. The Barque of Saint Peter is sailing through stormy waters now. However, we must weather the storms and to bear with the difficulties of the moment with the sure confidence that Our Lord Himself will put an end to the madness in His good time.
As I am wont to say some who write me about the latest outrage in the counterfeit church of conciliarism or the latest attack on the Faith from the lords of Modernity, do not get lost in the "trees." The devil is having his time in the world now. He loses. He always does. In the end, of course, the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph, and the madness of the present time will pass. We must simply try to keep Our Lord company in prayer before His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament, if this is possible to do in your part of the world, and to pray as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.
What are waiting for?
Viva Cristo Rey!
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.
Saint Elizabeth of Portugal, pray for us.
Appendix
Dom Prosper Gueranger on the Feast of Saint Elizabeth of Portugal
In the footsteps of Margaret of Scotland and of Clotilde of France, a third queen comes to shed her brightness on the sacred cycle – St. Elizabeth of Portugal. Born at the southern extremity of Christendom, where it borders of Musselman lands, she was destined by the Holy Ghost to seal with peace the victories of Christ, and prepare the way for fresh conquests.
The blessed name of Elizabeth, which for half a century had been rejoicing the world with its sweet perfume, was given to her, foretelling that this newborn child, as though attracted by the roses which fell from the mantle of her Thuringian aunt, was to cause these same heavenly flowers to blossom in Iberia.
There is a mysterious heirship among the saints of God. The same year in which one niece of Elizabeth of Thuringia was born in Spain, another, the Blessed Margaret of Hungary, took her flight to heaven. She had been consecrated to God from her mother’s womb, as a pledge for the salvation of her people, in the midst of terrible disasters; and the hopes so early centered in her were not frustrated. A short life of twenty-eight years spent in innocence and prayer, earned for her country the blessings of peace and civilization; and then Margaret bequeathed to our saint of today the mission of continuing in another land the work of her holy predecessors.
The time had come for our Lord to shed a ray of His grace upon Spain. The thirteenth century was closing, leaving the world in a state of dismemberment and ruin. Weary of fighting for Christ, kings dismissed the Church from their councils, and selfishly kept aloof, preferring their own ambitious strifes to the common aspiration of the once great body of Christendom.
Such a state of things was disastrous for the entire West; much more, then, for that noble country where the crusade the multiplied kingdoms as so many outposts against the common enemy, the Moors. Unity of views and the sacrifice of all things to the great work of deliverance could alone maintain in the successors of Pelayo the spirit of the grand memories of yore.
Unfortunately these princes, though heroes on the battlefield, had not sufficient strength of mind to lay aside their petty quarrels and take up the sacred duty entrusted to them by providence. In vain did the Roman Pontiff strive to awaken them to the interests of their country and of the Christian name; these hearts, generous in other respects, were too stifled by miserable passions to heed his voice; and the Musselman looked on delightedly at these intestine strifes, which retarded his own defeat. Navarre, Castile, Aragon, and Portugal were not only at war with each other; but even within each of these kingdoms, father and son were at enmity, and brother disputed with brother, inch by inch, the heritage of his ancestors.
Who was to restore to Spain the still recent traditions of her Ferdinand III? Who was to gather again these dissentient wills into one, so as to make them a terror to the Sacracen and a glory to Christ? James I of Aragon, who rivalled St. Ferdinand both in bravery and in conquests, had married Yoland, daughter of Andrew of Hungary; whereupon the cultus of the holy Duchess of Thuringia, whose brother-in-law he had thus become, was introduced beyond the Pyrenees; and the name of Elizabeth, changed in most into Isabel, became, as it were, a family jewel with which the Spanish princesses have loved to be adorned. The first to bear it was the daughter of James and Yoland, who married Philip III of France, successor of St. Louis; the second was the grand-daughter of the same James I, the saint whom the Church honors today, and of whom the old king, with prophetic insight, loved to say, that she would surpass all the women of the race of Aragon.
Inheriting not only the name, but also the virtues of the “dear St. Elizabeth,” she would one day deserve to be called “the mother of peace and of her country.” By means of her heroic self-renunciation and all-powerful prayer, she repressed the lamentable quarrels of princes. One day, unable to prevent peace being broken, she cast herself between two contending armies under a very hailstorm of arrows, and so forced the soldiers to lay down their fratricidal arms.
Thus she paved the way for the happy event, which she herself was not to have the consolation of seeing: the re-organization of that great enterprise for the expulsion of the Moors, which was not to close till the following century under the auspices of another Isabel, her worthy descendant, who would add to her name the beautiful title of “the Catholic.” Four years after Elizabeth’s death, the victory of Salado was gained by the united armies of all Spain over 600,000 infidels, showing how a woman could, under most adverse circumstances, inaugurate a brilliant crusade, to the immortal fame of her country. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, July 8.)
(From the Divine Office) Elizabeth, of the royal race of Aragon, was born in the year of our Lord 1271. As a presage of her future sanctity, her parents, contrary to custom, passing over the mother and grandmother, gave her in Baptism the name of her maternal great-aunt, St. Elizabeth, Duchess of Thuringia.
No sooner was she born, than it became evident what a blessed peacemaker she was to be between kings and kingdoms; for the joy of her birth put a happy period to the miserable quarrels of her father and grandfather. As she grew up, her father, admiring the natural abilities of his daughter, was wont to assert that Elizabeth would far outstrip in virtue all the women descended of the royal blood of Aragon; and so great was his veneration for her heavenly manner of life, her contempt of worldly ornaments, her abhorrence of pleasure, her assiduity in fasting, prayer, and works of charity, that he attributed to her merits alone the prosperity of his kingdom and estate. On account of her widespread reputation, her hand was sought by many princes; at length she was, with all the ceremonies of holy Church, united in matrimony with Dionysius, king of Portugal.
In the married state she gave herself up to the exercise of virtue and the education of her children, striving, indeed, to please her husband, but still more to please God. For nearly half the year she lived on bread and water alone; and, on one occasion when, in an illness, she had refused to take the wine prescribed by the physician, her water was miraculously changed into wine. She instantaneously cured a poor woman of a loathsome ulcer by kissing it. In the depth of winter she changed the money she was going to distribute to the poor into roses, in order to conceal it from the king.
She gave sight to a virgin born blind, healed many other persons of grievous distempers by the mere sign of the cross, and performed a great number of other miracles of a like nature. She built and amply endowed monasteries, hospitals, and churches. She was admirable for her zeal in composing the differences of kings, and unwearied in her efforts to alleviate the public and private miseries of mankind.
After the death of King Dionysius, Elizabeth, who had been in her youth a model to virgins, and in her married life to wives, became in her solitude a pattern of all virtues to widows. She immediately put on the religious habit of St. Clare, assisted with the greatest fortitude at the king’s funeral, and then, proceeding to Compostella, offered there for the repose of his soul a quantity of silk, silver, gold, and precious stones.
On her return home she consumed in holy and pious works all she had that was dear and precious to her; she completed the building of her truly royal monastery of virgins at Coimbra; and, wholly engaged in feeding the poor, protecting widows, sheltering orphans, and assisting the afflicted in every way, she lived not for herself, but for the glory of God and the well-being of men. On her way to the noble town of Estremoz, whither she was going in order to make peace between the two kings, her son and son-in-law, she was seized with illness; and, in that town, after having been visited by the blessed Virgin, Mother of God, she died a most holy death, on the fourth day of July, in the year 1336.
After death she was glorified by many miracles, especially by the sweet fragrance of her body, which has remained incorrupt for nearly three hundred years; and she is always distinguished by the name of the “holy queen.” At length, in the year of jubilee, of our salvation 1625, with the unanimous applause of the assembled Christian world, she was solemnly enrolled among the Saints by Pope Urban VIII. (Matins, Feast of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, July 8.)
O blessed Elizabeth, we praise God for thy holy works, as the Church this day invites all her sons to do. (Invitatory of the Roman Breviary). More valiant than those princes in whose midst thou didst appear as the angel of thy fatherland, thou didst exhibit in thy private life a heroism which could equal theirs, when need was, even on the battlefield. God’s grace was the motive-power of thy actions, and His glory their sole end.
Often does God gain more glory by abnegations hidden from all eyes but His, than by great works justly admired by a whole people. It is because the power of His grace shines forth the more; and it is generally the way of His providence to cause the most remarkable blessings bestowed on nations, to spring from these hidden sources.
How many battles celebrated in history have first been fought and won in the sight of the Blessed Trinity, in some hidden spot of that supernatural world, where the elect are ever at war with hell, nay, struggle at times even with God Himself; how many famous treaties with peace have first been concluded between heaven and earth in the secret of a single soul, as a reward for those giant struggles which men misunderstand and despise! Let the fashion of this world pass away; and those deep-thinking politicians, who are said to rule the course of events, the proud negotiators and warriors of renown, all, when judged by the light of eternity, will appear for what they are: mere deceptions screening from the sight of men the only names truly worthy of immortality.
Glory then be to thee, through whom the Lord has deigned to lift a corner of the veil that hides from the world the true rulers of its destinies. In the golden book of the elect, thy nobility rests on better titles than those of birth. Daughter and mother of kings, thyself a queen, thou didst rule over a glorious land; but far more glorious is the family throne in heaven, where thou reignest with the first Elizabeth, with Margaret and with Hedwige, and where others will come to join thee, doing honor to the same noble blood which flowed in thy veins.
Remember, O mother of thy country, that the power given thee on earth is not diminished now that the God of armies has called thee to thy heavenly triumph. True, the land of Iberia, which owes its independence principally to thee, is no longer in the same troubled condition; but if at the present day there is no fear of the Moors, on the other hand, Spain and Portugal have fallen away from their noble traditions: lead them back to the right path, that they mat attain the glorious destiny marked out for them by providence.
Thy power in heaven is not restrained within the borders of a kingdom; cast then a look of mercy on the rest of the world: see how nations, recognizing no right but might, waste their wealth and their vitality in wholesale bloodshed; has the time come for those terrible wars, which are to be harbingers of the end, and wherein the world will work its own destruction! O mother of peace! hear how the Church, the mother of nations, implores thee to make full use of thy sublime prerogative; put a stop to these furious strifes; and make our life on earth a path of peace, leading up to the joys of eternity. (Collect of the day, Roman Missal) (Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, July 8.)