Not Exactly from the Excommunication Scene in Becket

Reports of Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro’s “excommunication” are not only highly exaggerated; they are unfounded. The letter made public by Salvatore J. Cordileone, the conciliar “archbishop” of San Francisco, California, barred her from the reception of what purports to be Holy Communion in the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical travesty only within the boundaries of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, nowhere else. The egregious conciliar “archbishop” of Washington, District, of Columbia, Wilton Gregory, who is a direct acolyte of the doctrinally and morally corrupt Joseph Bernardin, the author of the “seamless garment” ideology that meant to indemnify the likes of Mario Matthew Cuomo (Pontius Cuomo/Mario Pilate) said in 2021 that the likes of Pelosi and President in Name Only Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.:

They share Roman Catholicism as a faith and California as their home base. Yet there’s a deep gulf between Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco and Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego in the high-stakes debate over whether politicians who support abortion rights should be denied Communion.

Cordileone, who has long established himself as a forceful anti-abortion campaigner, recently has made clear his view that such political figures — whose ranks include President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — should not receive Communion because of their stance on the issue. The archbishop issued a pastoral letter on the topic May 1 and reinforced the message in an hourlong interview Friday with the Catholic television network EWTN.

“To those who are advocating for abortion, I would say, ‘This is killing. Please stop the killing. You’re in position to do something about it,’” he told the interviewer.

In neither the letter nor the interview did Cordileone mention Pelosi, who represents San Francisco, by name. But he has criticized her in the past for stances on abortion that directly contradict Catholic teaching.

McElroy, in a statement published Wednesday by the Jesuit magazine America, assailed the campaign to exclude Biden and other like-minded Catholic officials from Communion.

“It will bring tremendously destructive consequences,” McElroy wrote. “The Eucharist is being weaponized and deployed as a tool in political warfare. This must not happen.”

The polarized viewpoints of the two prelates illustrate how divisive this issue could be if, as expected, it comes before the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at its national assembly starting June 16. There are plans for the bishops to vote on whether the USCCB's Committee on Doctrine should draft a document saying Biden and other Catholic public figures with similar views on abortion should refrain from Communion.

In accordance with existing USCCB policy, any such document is likely to leave decisions on withholding Communion up to individual bishops.

Biden, the second Catholic U.S. president, attends Mass regularly, worshipping at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and in Washington.

The archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, has made it clear that Biden is welcome to receive Communion at churches he oversees. Bishop William Koenig, appointed April 30 to head the Wilmington diocese, said he would gladly speak with Biden about his views on abortion but did not say whether he would allow him to continue receiving Communion, as Koenig's predecessor had done.

It’s considered unlikely that Biden would heed any call to forgo Communion, but a USCCB document urging him to do so would be a remarkable rebuke nonetheless.

Cordileone, in his pastoral letter, wrote that it’s the responsibility of Catholic clergy “to correct Catholics who erroneously, and sometimes stubbornly, promote abortion.”

Initially, this rebuke should come in private conversations between “the erring Catholic” and his or her priest or bishop, wrote Cordileone, who then noted that such conversations are often fruitless.

“Because we are dealing with public figures and public examples of cooperation in moral evil, this correction can also take the public form of exclusion from the reception of Holy Communion,” he wrote. “This is a bitter medicine, but the gravity of the evil of abortion can sometimes warrant it.”

In the 2020 presidential election, Catholic voters split their votes almost evenly between Biden and Republican Donald Trump. National polls have consistently shown that a majority of U.S. Catholics believe abortion should be legal in at least some cases.

Were Biden to be excluded from Communion, McElroy wrote, “fully half the Catholics in the United States will see this action as partisan in nature, and it will bring the terrible partisan divisions that have plagued our nation into the very act of worship that is intended by God to cause and signify our oneness.”

McElroy also questioned why abortion was the overarching focus of some bishops, while the sin of racism has not been prominent in their comments.

“It will be impossible to convince large numbers of Catholics in our nation that this omission does not spring from a desire to limit the impact of exclusion to Democratic public leaders,” McElroy wrote.

Toward the close of his statement, McElroy quoted Pope Francis as saying Communion is “not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.”

Cordileone, in an addendum to his pastoral letter, sought to explain its timing.

“I have been working on this Pastoral Letter for a long time, but did not want to publish it during the election year, precisely to avoid further confusion among those who would misperceive this as ‘politicizing’ the issue,” he wrote. “Regardless of which political party is in power at a given moment, we all need to review some basic truths and moral principles.” (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/catholic-bishops-odds-biden-receiving-communion-77585980.)

One of the most telling characteristics of life within the counterfeit church of conciliarism is the existence of a de facto schism within the ranks of its “hierarchy” about the morally heinous nature of baby-killing and/or about indemnifying or punishing Catholics in public life who support it. The fact that any so-called “bishop” can seek to equate the direct, intentional slaughter of an innocent human being with support for illegal immigration and/or opposition to the death penalty is obscene. Such is the state of things in the conciliar sect, however, that what is what cries out to Heaven for vengeance can be approved, tolerated, or minimized by men accepted to be representatives of the Catholic Church is obscene.

Only a Successor of Saint Peter can impose a formal, universal decree of excommunication upon a baptized Catholic, and the plain truth is that not even the supposed “pro-life” Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II excommunicated the likes of Edward Moore Kennedy, Mario Matthew Cuomo, Hugh Leo Carey, Rudolph William Giuliani, Richard Riordan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Barbara Mikulski, Edmund Muskie, Edmund Gerald Brown, Jr., Leon Panetta, Loretta Brixey Sanchez, Thomas Ridge, Thomas Harkin, Patricia Murray, Charles Rangel, George Elmer Pataki, Eric Lazio, Christopher Dodd, John Kerry, Geraldine Anne Ferraro-Zacarro, Carol Mosely Braun, Bill Richardson, William Brennan, Thomas Foley, Thomas O’Neill, among legions of others, or any other pro-abortion Catholic politician. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, despite his occasional denunciations of abortion, has shown open friendliness to every single pro-abortion public official, Catholic or non-Catholic, elected or appointed, whom he has met.

“Archbishop” Salvatore Cordileone, knowing his “pope’s friendliness towards pro-death politicians did his best in his statement about the penalty he imposed on Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi to defend an action he knows is in opposition to Bergoglio’s opposition to using “communion as a weapon” by making what I contend is an intellectually dishonest attempt to portray him as much as a seeming “defender” of the inviolability of the innocent unborn as say,
“Pope John Paul  II,” who talked about abortion despite the inaction noted just above:

Pope Francis has been one of the world’s most vocal advocates of human dignity in every stage and condition of life.  He decries what he evocatively calls the “throwaway culture.”  There can be no more extreme example of this cultural depravity than when direct attacks on human life are enshrined in a nation’s law, celebrated by society, and even paid for by the government.  This is why Pope Francis, as much as any pope in living memory, has repeatedly and vividly affirmed the Church’s clear and constant teaching that abortion is a grave moral evil.

Surely no Pope has spoken more eloquently than Pope Francis did in the earliest days of his Pontificate, saying on September 20, 2013:

In a frail human being, each one of us is invited to recognize the face of the Lord, who in his human flesh experienced the indifference and solitude to which we so often condemn the poorest of the poor, whether in developing countries or in wealthy societies.  Every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ, bears the face of the Lord, who even before he was born, and then just after birth, experienced the world’s rejection.[1]

Another valuable insight Pope Francis gives us is that of the inter-connectedness of all of the threats to human dignity in the throwaway culture.  As one clear example, in his landmark 2015 Encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’, he underscored that care for our common home includes care for the weakest among us, including the unborn child:

When we fail to acknowledge as part of reality the worth of a poor person, a human embryo, a person with disabilities – to offer just a few examples – it becomes difficult to hear the cry of nature itself; everything is connected.  Once the human being declares independence from reality and behaves with absolute dominion, the very foundations of our life begin to crumble, for ‘instead of carrying out his role as a cooperator with God in the work of creation, man sets himself up in place of God and thus ends up provoking a rebellion on the part of nature.’[2]

Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi’s position on abortion has become only more extreme over the years, especially in the last few months.  Just earlier this month she once again, as she has many times before, explicitly cited her Catholic faith while justifying abortion as a “choice,” this time setting herself in direct opposition to Pope Francis: “The very idea that they would be telling women the size, timing or whatever of their family, the personal nature of this is so appalling, and I say that as a devout Catholic”; “They say to me, ‘Nancy Pelosi thinks she knows more about having babies than the Pope.’  Yes I do.  Are you stupid?”[4]

After numerous attempts to speak with her to help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she is causing, and the danger to her own soul she is risking, I have determined that the point has come in which I must make a public declaration that she is not to be admitted to Holy Communion unless and until she publicly repudiate her support for abortion “rights” and confess and receive absolution for her cooperation in this evil in the sacrament of Penance.  I have accordingly sent her a Notification to this effect, which I have now made public.

Please know that I find no pleasure whatsoever in fulfilling my pastoral duty here.  Speaker Pelosi remains our sister in Christ.  Her advocacy for the care of the poor and vulnerable elicits my admiration.  I assure you that my action here is purely pastoral, not political.  I have been very clear in my words and actions about this.  Speaker Pelosi has been uppermost in my prayer intentions ever since I became the Archbishop of San Francisco.  It was my prayer life that motivated me to ask people all around the country to join me in praying and fasting for her in the “Rose and Rosary for Nancy Campaign.”  I especially pray that she will see in the roses she has received a sign of the honest love and care that many thousands of people have for her. 

I very sincerely thank all of you who have participated in this campaign, and all others who have otherwise prayed and made spiritual sacrifices for our Speaker, and I ask you to continue (or start) to do so.  I also ask you actively to support with your time, talent and treasure the efforts of pro-life advocates to accompany women in crisis pregnancies and offer them the support they need to make a choice for life, as well as those who have been scarred by the abortion experience (for our local efforts, see: https://sfarchdiocese.org/standwithmoms).  This is what it means to be truly pro-life.  It is the way of love.

May God grant us the grace to be true advocates for the dignity of human life, in every stage and condition of life, and to accompany, support and love women who otherwise would be alone and afraid at a most vulnerable time in their lives. (https://sfarchdiocese.org/letter-to-the-faithful-on-the-notification-sent-to-speaker-nancy-pelosi/.)

Try as Salvatore Cordileone would like, it is impossible to turn Jorge Mario Bergoglio into anything other than he is not. Indeed, the passage Cordileone cited from Jorge’s egregious Laduato Si’ referred to a “human embryo,” not a baby, and equate make it appear that “nature” was equitable to the worth of living human beings. This effort, no matter how well-intended, is transparently obvious to anyone who understands the warped mind of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who, being always prone to anger at those who misuse his statements, is no dope. He will see right through this effort to use his words in support of Cordileone’s banning Pelosi from receiving “Holy Communion” in the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

Believing himself to be truly the archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone did explain his duties as a pastor of souls to care for the good of Pelosi’s soul and to protect the souls of all “Christian faithful to committed” to his care and to reprimand her for the scandal she continues to give Catholics and non-Catholics alike:

As the Archbishop of San Francisco, I am bound to be “concerned for all the Christian faithful entrusted to [my] care” (Code of Canon Law, can. 383, §1).  This most serious duty can sometimes become unpleasant, especially when Catholics in public life explicitly promote practices that involve the direct taking of innocent human life, which is what abortion does.  I have struggled with this issue in my own conscience for many years now, especially with regard to the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and member of our Archdiocese, Nancy Pelosi.

I have received letters from very many of you over the years expressing distress over the scandal being caused by such Catholics in public life who promote such grievously evil practices as abortion.  I have responded that conversion is always better than exclusion, and before any such action can be taken it must be preceded by sincere and diligent efforts at dialogue and persuasion.  With regard to Speaker Pelosi, I have striven to follow this wise route, as delineated by then-Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) in a letter to U.S. bishops regarding Holy Communion and Catholic politicians who cooperate in the grave evils of abortion and euthanasia:

… when a person’s formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.  When ‘these precautionary measures have not had their effect …,’ and the person in question, with obstinate persistence, still presents himself to receive the Holy Eucharist, ‘the minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it.’[3]

This instruction is in accordance with canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law, which stipulates, “Those … obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”  In the pastoral letter I issued a year ago, Before I Formed You in the Womb I Knew You, I laid out the Church’s teaching on cooperation in evil, especially that of abortion, and the proper disposition for receiving Holy Communion, precisely to help our people better understand these principles and what is at stake here.

To give credit where credit is due without acknowledging the legitimacy of the 1983 conciliar code of canon law, “Archbishop” Cordileone made a very correct in the passage cited just above as a true Catholic bishop is indeed responsible for the spiritual well-being of every person, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, within the boundaries of his diocese. He was also correct in explaining the necessity of applying a medicinal remedy when a Catholic in public life supports baby-killing, although there was really no need for him to “struggle” with doing so as the time for “conversation” should have ceased within a year of the Supreme Court’s decision in the cases of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, January 22, 1973. Cordileone’s predecessors within the conciliar hierarchy did nothing despite some of their “pro-life” rhetoric, and “archbishops” of San Francisco such as John Quinn, William Levada, and George Niederauer were openly friendly to Pelosi and her ilk.

Additionally, “Archbishop” Cordileone’s reference to Joseph Alois “Cardinal” Ratzinger’s infamous 2004 letters to the since disgraced sodomite Theodore McCarrick concerning the admission of pro-abortion Catholics in public office is also more than a little disingenuous as those letters caused nothing other than confusion during the middle of the battles between the “no communion to pro-aborts” Raymond Leo Burke, then the conciliar “archbishop” of St. Louis, Missouri, and the “communion for pro-aborts” Theodore Edgar McCarrick.

Just look at the confusion caused in 2004 by the efforts of some conciliar "bishops" in the United States of America to warn pro-abortion Catholics such as then United States Senator John F. Kerry (D-Massachusetts) not to approach to receive what is purported to be Holy Communion in the Novus Ordo liturgical service and the confusing, contradictory role played by the de facto "pope" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism at the time, Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, then the prefect of the misnamed Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to resolve the matter:

After a fair deal of typical confusion with what passes for decision-making in the conciliar Vatican, including the then Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger's seeming to support Burke before issuing a statement that McCarrick brandished at a meeting of the so-called United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in June of 2004 that seemed to support his position. Confused? So was I at the time! Here is a time line of these confusing events, written when I subscribed to the "resist but recognize" view that saw me write an article in Catholic Family News criticizing "Cardinal" Ratzinger before thinking that I had been wrong, concluding ultimately as I had wrote at the time, "never mind, I was the right the first time:"

June 4, 2004: The Most Reverend Donald Pellotte, the Bishop of Gallup, New Mexico, reported that Cardinal Ratzinger had told a group of American bishops during their ad limina apostolorum they should "proceed cautiously" in the matter of denying Holy Communion to pro-abortion Catholic politicians.

June 17, 2004: A Catholic World News report indicated that Cardinal Ratzinger had sent a private letter to Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., and Bishop Wilton Gregory, the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, that provided guidelines for the American bishops on the matter as they deliberated on it during their semi-annual meeting, held in Englewood, Colorado. The initial report was sketchy, but it indicated that Ratzinger had seemed to side with the stands that had been taken by St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke and Colorado Springs, Colorado, Bishop Michael Sheridan. The details were shrouded in mystery. It appeared that Ratzinger's remarks could have served either side of the issue, typical of the conciliarist penchant for ambiguity and uncertainty.

June 17, 2004: The American bishops voted overwhelmingly to adopt a statement of "Catholics in Political Life" that was essentially an agreement for the bishops to disagree with each other, stating that each bishop had to approach the matter of denying Holy Communion to pro-abortion Catholics in public life on his own.

July 3, 2004: The text of what was purported to be Cardinal Ratzinger's letter to the American hierarchy is published by a well-respected Italian reporter of Vatican affairs, Sandro Magister. The statement, though raising a lot of questions, seemed to indicate that Catholic pro-abortion politicians must be denied Holy Communion after an undefined period of "instruction" on the part of their pastors (although who specifically is defined as "pastor," whether a parish priest or a diocesan bishop). Apart from a very important and much needed clarification between the issues of abortion and the imposition of the death penalty, the statement contained a horrific Note Bene which basically undermined the likes of Archbishop Burke and Bishop Sheridan, who had said that Catholics could never vote for a pro-abortion candidate, stating that Catholics could vote for a pro-abortion candidate for public office if they did so for "proportionate reasons" despite that candidate's "permissive" pro-abortion stance and not meaning to endorse such a stance. In other words, it was the status quo ante.

July 4, 2004: Thinking I had gotten the story wrong I did a mea culpa and wiped the egg off of my face to apologize to His Eminence for suggesting in Catholic Family News that he had sided with the likes of Cardinal McCarrick and Roger Cardinal Mahony, the Archbishop of Los Angeles, both of whom had said that they would not deny Holy Communion to pro-abortion Catholic politicians. I did raise a number of questions about the ambiguities contained in the statement. However, I thought that the Ratzinger statement was released to make the American bishops look bad and to give a sort of back-handed endorsement to the approach taken by Archbishop Burke and Bishop Sheridan. Sandro Magister's article was entitled, "What Ratzinger Wanted, but Didn't Get."

July 6, 2004: Cardinal McCarrick says that the Ratzinger statement, which he said at the time that he had not seen, was not the whole story, that the Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith had sent a cover letter to the statement (never mind the apparent contradiction between McCarrick saying that he had not seen the Ratzinger statement and that a cover letter had been sent with it) that gave the American bishops great leeway to decide the matter for themselves. McCarrick implies that a series of phone conversations with Cardinal Ratzinger had given the American bishops the same impression.

After July 6, 2004: A series of articles were published by prominent Catholics to praise Cardinal Ratzinger's firmness and to criticize most of the American bishops for failing to follow the Ratzinger statement. Several of these Catholics strained at gnats, trying to convince themselves that the Ratzinger statement was more or less binding on the American bishops, that His Eminence's statement that Catholic pro-abort politicians "must" be denied Holy Communion was an absolute mandate. Others overlooked the problematic Note Bene, wherein Ratzinger basically gave Catholics carte blanche to vote for pro-abortion politicians, something that I pointed out in an article posted on the Daily Catholic website on July 9, 2004. The matter had become a typical postconciliar mess. Bishops arguing with each other. Well-meaning Catholics attempting to grasp at straws to prove that their hero, Cardinal Ratzinger, was defending the integrity of the Eucharist.

July 13, 2004: After more days of confusion and contradictory statements, Cardinal McCarrick released a letter, dated July 9, 2004, by Cardinal Ratzinger which stated the following:

Your Eminence:

With your letter of June 21, 2004, transmitted via fax, you kindly sent a copy of the Statement "Catholics in Political Life," approved by the members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops at their June meeting.

The Congregation is grateful for this courtesy. The statement is very much in harmony with the general principles "Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion," sent as a fraternal service-to clarify the doctrine of the Church on this specific issue-in order to assist the American Bishops in their related discussion and determinations.

It is hoped that this dialogue can continue as the Task Force carries on its important work.

With fraternal regards and prayerful best wishes, I am,

Sincerely yours in Christ
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (The letter can be found archived at the Office of Communications of the so-called United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.)

Thus, the June 17, 2004, statement of Cardinal Ratzinger, "Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion," was merely sent "as a fraternal service to clarify the doctrine of the Church on this specific issue--in order to assist the American bishops in their related discussion and determinations." It was not binding on the bishops. It does not have the force of law. It was simply another empty "white paper" from the Vatican that has been trumped by the machinations of those bishops in the United States of America who do not support the position taken by Archbishop Burke and Bishop Sheridan. Once again, a threat to the novelty of "collegiality," which has done much to undermine the good of the Church and thus of souls, had to be resolved by the papering over of differences between the Holy See and many of the American bishops, including Cardinal McCarrick and his allies.

In other words, I was right in my July article in Catholic Family News. Cardinal Ratzinger is neither a defender of the Faith nor of the Eucharist. He is a propagator of many doctrinal (Jews look "expectantly" for the Messiah) and pastoral errors that are symbolic of the entire state of confusion ushered in as a result of the Second Vatican Council and its aftermath. If apologies are owed to anybody, they are to be given to Cardinal McCarrick, of all people, who turns out to have been telling the truth, evidently, when he said last week that Cardinal Ratzinger had affirmed privately what the American bishops had decided in Englewood, Colorado. McCarrick is wrong on the stand he has taken with respect on this issue. Then again, so was Cardinal Ratzinger's June 17 statement. The only fitting way to deal with pro-abortion Catholic politicians is to excommunicate them all, not to engage them in more "dialog" as babies are killed both chemically and surgically. (See that "resist while recognize" article: Never Mind! I Was Right the First Time.)

Things were not as “clear” in 2004 as Salvatore Cordileone made them out to be, and it is this kind of cheekiness of the part of “conservative, “pro-life” conciliar “bishops” that undermine all their well-meaning efforts to “do something” about Catholic pro-aborts in public life as the current conciliar “pope” has not only refused to take any action at all against such merchants of death but has authorized his prefect of the misnamed Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith to warn the American “bishops” about doing precisely what “Archbishop” Salvatore Cordileone has done with respect to Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi. It has only been about fourteen months since Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer issued a set of “guidelines” for the American conciliar hierarchy to consider:

The head of the Vatican’s doctrine office is warning U.S. bishops to deliberate carefully and minimize divisions before proceeding with a possible plan to rebuke Catholic politicians such as President Joe Biden for receiving Communion even though they support abortion rights.

The strong words of caution came in a letter from Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, addressed to Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The USCCB will convene for a national meeting June 16, with plans to vote on drafting a document on the Communion issue

There is division among the bishops, with some pressing for Biden and other Catholic public figures to be excluded from Communion over their abortion stance, and other bishops warning that such a move would be politically polarizing.

Ladaria, in his letter, said any new policy “requires that dialogue occurs in two stages: first among the bishops themselves, and then between bishops and Catholic pro-choice politicians within their jurisdictions.”

Even then, Ladaria advised, the bishops should seek unanimous support within their ranks for any national policy, lest it become “a source of discord rather than unity within the episcopate and the larger church in the United States.”

Ladaria made several other points that could complicate the plans of bishops pressing for tough action:

— He said any new statement should not be limited to Catholic political leaders but broadened to encompass all churchgoing Catholics in regard to their worthiness to receive Communion.

— He questioned the USCCB policy identifying abortion as “the preeminent” moral issue, saying it would be misleading if any new document “were to give the impression that abortion and euthanasia alone constitute the only grave matters of Catholic moral and social teaching that demand the fullest accountability on the part of Catholics.” (Vatican Warns US “Bishops” Over “Get Tough” Communion Proposals.)

Luis Ladaria was not acting on his own. He was doing exactly what Jorge Mario Bergoglio wants him to do. In this regard, therefore, perhaps it should be good to call to mind that the false “pontiff” who has engaged in a lifetime war against the Catholic Faith made a point of refusing to talk about abortion when he addressed a joint session of the United States Congress on Thursday, September 24, 2015, as he, after pausing for effect, emphasized his opposition to the death penalty:

This conviction has led me, from the beginning of my ministry, to advocate at different levels for the global abolition of the death penalty.  I am convinced that this way is the best, since every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes.  Recently my brother bishops here in the United States renewed their call for the abolition of the death penalty.  Not only do I support them, but I also offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation. (Bergoglio's Address to U.S. Congress.)

The pestilential apostate from Argentina made it perfectly clear that he was on the side of then President Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro and that he was more than ready for a “President” Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton. It was no accident that Chelsea Clinton Mezvinsky was one of the invitees to speak at a Vatican conference years ago on “mind and body” that was the subject of Jorge’s False Church Enables Enemies of Christ the King and Souls Without a Thought of Offending God last month.

Luis Ladaria was telling the conciliar “archbishop” of Los Angeles, Jose Gomez, that his fellow lay Jesuit revolutionary,  Jorge Mario Bergoglio, would have no problem mandating adherence to his program of complete support for the George Soros agenda “open borders,” “racial justice,” redistribution of income, sustainable development goals, including the forcible reduction of the use of fossil fuels, the homosexualist agenda, state-enforced censorship of “hurtful” and/or “hateful” speech, and an unalterable opposition to capital punishment as absolute conditions for the reception of what is believed to be Holy Communion within the structures of his false religious sect if Gomez and other American “bishops” of the Girondist/Menshevik variety insist on banning pro-abort and pro-sodomite Catholics from the “Communion” line.

Obviously, Bergoglio’s handpicked stooge Ladaria was endorsing what can be called the “seamless garment on steroids,” thus making the morally, doctrinally, and liturgically corrupt Joseph “Cardinal” Bernardin to be a “prophet” of an ever-evolving “consistent ethic of life” whose one and only goal is to indemnify adherents of the false opposite of the naturalist “left” in each and every single one of their policy prescriptions, including those that endorse abject evils and enshrine them under cover of the civil law, as part of the conciliar church’s ever-evolving depositem fidei.

There is a special irony in all this, however: neither “progressivists” nor the “conservatives” within the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism believe that the principal purpose of civil government is to foster those conditions that make it more possible for men to sanctify and thus to save their souls as members of the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order. Neither the “progressivists” nor the “conservatives” within the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism believe that the good of nations depends upon right order within the souls of men, an order that is impossible without having belief in, access to, and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace.

Mind you, “Archbishop” Cordileone’s punishment of Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi is entirely just and long overdue even if it falls far short of the excommunication that this egregiously arrogant woman so richly deserves, and for imposing the punishment that he did Cordileone is to be given credit for taking action when so many of his fellow “bishops” within the conciliar structures continue to talk about engaging pro-abort Catholics in public life in “dialogue.”

However, there are a lot of ecclesiastical dominoes that might tumble down in the wake of Cordileone’s actions, starting first with the fact that his “pope,” who removed a conciliar “bishop” in Puerto Rico because of his opposition to vaccine mandates, might very well be inclined to remove him for his supposedly injecting “partisan politics” into what Jorge believes should be the “accompanying” role of a “bishop.” The San Francisco Examiner is already calling upon “Pope Francis” to remove “Archbishop” Cordileone:

In open defiance of Pope Francis, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone on Friday banned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from taking Holy Communion here in her home diocese. The reason? Her strong support of women’s abortion rights.

Cordileone’s decree was guaranteed to provoke deep chagrin among San Francisco Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Last year, Cordileone joined other bishops in the United States as they pushed to ban President Joe Biden from taking Communion. Pope Francis headed off that divisive idea, stating that Communion “is not the reward of saints, but is the bread of sinners.” He also told pro-choice President Biden that he is a “good Catholic.”

The Vatican’s top doctrinal official, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, ratified the pope’s action, stating that this politicized effort to ostracize the president would “become a source of discord rather than unity within the episcopate and the larger church in the United States.”

Instead, American bishops approved watered-down guidelines that reportedly stated, “It is the special responsibility of the diocesan bishop to work to remedy situations that involve public actions at variance with the visible communion of the Church and the moral law.”

Cordileone has now upped the ante by grandstanding on the issue and picking a fight with the most powerful woman – and second-most powerful Catholic — in American politics. His attack on Pelosi comes as conservative justices on the Supreme Court are poised to play a key role in reversing legal precedent to overturn abortion rights. This decision promises to further polarize American politics and strip away a key health right crucial to preserving the health and safety of tens of millions of women. Many women will die if the court goes through with this decision.

That will apparently be just fine with Cordileone, who prefers to pick partisan fights rather than make the church a place that welcomes people of all political backgrounds and all faiths.

In 2015, he attempted to force teachers and staff at San Francisco’s Catholic schools to condemn gay rights, abortion and birth control as “intrinsically evil.” This led a group of 100 prominent local Catholics to run a full-page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle that called on Pope Francis to replace Cordileone.

“Holy Father, please provide us with a leader true to our values and your namesake,” read the text of the “Appeal to Pope Francis from San Francisco Community Leaders.” “Please replace Archbishop Cordileone.”

“The Archbishop has isolated himself from our community,” read the letter. “He disregards advice from his priests and has brushed aside the deep reservations expressed by our retired priests regarding his actions. He relies instead on a tiny group of advisors recruited from outside our diocese and estranged from their own religious orders. The Archdiocese of San Francisco is threatened by Archbishop Cordileone’s single-issue agenda and cannot survive, let alone thrive and grow, under his supervision. The City of Saint Francis deserves an Archbishop true to our values and to your teachings.”

Seven years later, Cordileone’s efforts to sow division and politicize the faith have intensified. Now, he has trained his sights on Speaker Pelosi, a woman who has worked tirelessly to improve the lives of the poor, the suffering and the oppressed —and who is a role model for women all over the world.

Cordileone seeks to deprive her of a key component of her faith, but where is his zeal for punishment and purity when it comes to right-wing politicians? Why don’t Republican Catholics have to fear being cut off from Communion when they vote against health care or funding for the poor? Where was Cordileone’s harsh judgment when right-wing politicians voted this week against a measure to ease the nation’s baby formula shortage?

Pelosi has consistently fought on the morally right side of these issues. Why is she being singled out for punishment in her hometown, especially when she can still receive Communion in Washington, D.C. or Oakland?

The answer is that Cordileone’s chief loyalty is not to Christ, but to the cabal of far-right American bishops led by Raymond Leo Burke, a Catholic prelate who has led a continual campaign to undermine Pope Francis’ authority.

In light of Cordileone’s resurgent efforts to create discord, we repeat the call for Pope Francis to remove him and replace him with a leader who can unify rather than divide. Cordileone’s radical conservative politics might attract more people to the faith in places like Oklahoma or Texas, but his partisan pomposity will win no converts in San Francisco. His placement here was a cruel strategy meant to bedevil our community and set up exactly the kind of destructive political games unfolding today.

It is Nancy Pelosi, not Archbishop Cordileone, who reflects the true spirit of Christian care in the City of St. Francis. For the Catholic Church to continue to thrive here, we need a leader who opens the church’s doors to all, not a small-minded man who locks out his political adversaries.

We appeal to Pope Francis to send a clear message that he, not Cordileone, is the leader of the faith. He can do this by relieving this insubordinate saboteur of his duties in San Francisco and putting an end to his political schemes.

Now more than ever, our nation needs Pelosi’s care and leadership, which are rooted in her deep faith. As such, The Examiner Editorial Board is proud to endorse her for another term in Congress. (https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/editorial-attack-on-nancy-pelosi-should-be-san-francisco-archbishops-final-act-here/.)

This editorial is replete with one misunderstanding after another that it is worth a few moments to examine each.

First, there is no such as “women’s abortion rights.” No one has the “right” to kill an innocent human being.

Second, one of the ironies in all this is that no one involved in this needless controversy is a “good Catholic” as those who do not hold the Faith in its entirety is not a Catholic at all.

Not Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.

Not Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi.

Certainly not Jorge Mario Bergoglio nor Salvatore Cordileone as each believes in the false conciliar religion (dogmatic evolutionism, the new ecclesiology, episcopal collegiality, episcopal synodality, false ecumenism, religious liberty, separation of Church and State, etc.) and each offends God daily in the staging of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service. As much as “Archbishop” Cordileone wants to avoid scandal, he himself is the source of scandal by adhering to teachings condemned by our true popes and many of Holy Mother Church’s legitimate general councils.

Third, this having been noted, however, the Examiner editorial did point out that Cordileone was acting in defiance of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and the aforementioned letter that Luis Laderia Ferrer sent to “Archbishop” Jose Gomez last year, and “Pope Francis” ha made it clear that he is never afraid to discipline “conservative” “bishops” when they defy and/or embarrass him.

While “Archbishop” Cordileone has certainly put Bergoglio in a difficult position, he, Bergoglio has eager allies in the likes of Rene Cupich, Joseph Tobin, John Stowe, and Wilton Gregory, among so many others of his Jacobin/ Bolshevik revolutionaries within the conciliar hierarchy to serve as his “unofficial” spokesmen to denounce Cordileone and/or to announce punishments to be imposed upon Catholics in public life who support the death penalty, oppose the open borders agenda, and who oppose statist measures that are enacted in the name of “social justice.”

Fourth, for all his acceptance of the conciliar agenda, though, “Archbishop” Salvatore Cordileone understands what the editorial board of the San Francisco Examiner does not: that one who supposes himself to be a bishop must act medicinally for the good of souls in imitation of Good Shepherd Himself, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Whose firmness was described as follows by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910:

How far this position is removed from that of Catholic teaching! We have already seen how its fallacies have been condemned by the Vatican Council. Later on, we shall see how these errors, combined with those which we have already mentioned, open wide the way to Atheism. Here it is well to note at once that, given this doctrine of experience united with that of symbolism, every religion, even that of paganism, must be held to be true. What is to prevent such experiences from being found in any religion? In fact, that they are so is maintained by not a few. On what grounds can Modernists deny the truth of an experience affirmed by a follower of Islam? Will they claim a monopoly of true experiences for Catholics alone? Indeed, Modernists do not deny, but actually maintain, some confusedly, others frankly, that all religions are true. That they cannot feel otherwise is obvious. For on what ground, according to their theories, could falsity be predicated of any religion whatsoever? Certainly it would be either on account of the falsity of the religious sense or on account of the falsity of the formula pronounced by the mind. Now the religious sense, although it maybe more perfect or less perfect, is always one and the same; and the intellectual formula, in order to be true, has but to respond to the religious sense and to the believer, whatever be the intellectual capacity of the latter. In the conflict between different religions, the most that Modernists can maintain is that the Catholic has more truth because it is more vivid, and that it deserves with more reason the name of Christian because it corresponds more fully with the origins of Christianity. No one will find it unreasonable that these consequences flow from the premises. But what is most amazing is that there are Catholics and priests, who, We would fain believe, abhor such enormities, and yet act as if they fully approved of them. For they lavish such praise and bestow such public honor on the teachers of these errors as to convey the belief that their admiration is not meant merely for the persons, who are perhaps not devoid of a certain merit, but rather for the sake of the errors which these persons openly profess and which they do all in their power to propagate.

We wish to draw your attention, Venerable Brethren, to this distortion of the Gospel and to the sacred character of Our Lord Jesus Christ, God and man, prevailing within the Sillon and elsewhere. As soon as the social question is being approached, it is the fashion in some quarters to first put aside the divinity of Jesus Christ, and then to mention only His unlimited clemency, His compassion for all human miseries, and His pressing exhortations to the love of our neighbor and to the brotherhood of men. True, Jesus has loved us with an immense, infinite love, and He came on earth to suffer and die so that, gathered around Him in justice and love, motivated by the same sentiments of mutual charity, all men might live in peace and happiness. But for the realization of this temporal and eternal happiness, He has laid down with supreme authority the condition that we must belong to His Flock, that we must accept His doctrine, that we must practice virtue, and that we must accept the teaching and guidance of Peter and his successors. Further, whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them. Whilst He called to Himself in order to comfort them, those who toiled and suffered, it was not to preach to them the jealousy of a chimerical equality. Whilst He lifted up the lowly, it was not to instill in them the sentiment of a dignity independent from, and rebellious against, the duty of obedience. Whilst His heart overflowed with gentleness for the souls of good-will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them. He was as strong as he was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body. Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven: the royal way of the Cross. These are teachings that it would be wrong to apply only to one’s personal life in order to win eternal salvation; these are eminently social teachings, and they show in Our Lord Jesus Christ something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio would have Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself turned into the exact image of the falsified Christ that was at the foundation of The Sillon, whose falsehoods were near and dear to the heart of the first in the current line of antipopes, Angelo Roncalli/“Saint John XXIII.” Roncalli said in his opening address at the “Second” Vatican Council, October 11, 1962, the Feast of the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that errors did not have to be opposed, that they just kind of “go away” over time, and Bergoglio fashions himself as an agent of “mercy” even though he is an insidious pest who reaffirms hardened sinners in their lives of apostasy and who believes that it is never necessary to seek converts to what he thinks is the Catholic Church, although he does browbeat and castigate those Catholics who have not as of yet “converted” to the conciliar revolutionary agenda against all Catholic Faith, Worship and Morals.

It is the duty of all Catholics to exhort sinners to convert, and it the direct, intentional taking of an innocent human from the moment of conception until death is a sin that cries out to Heaven for vengeance no matter what the multitudes may say to the contrary, and those who support such executions in public life will answer to Our Divine Judge, Christ the King, when they die as described in no uncertain terms by Pope Pius XI:

Those who hold the reins of government should not forget that it is the duty of public authority by appropriate laws and sanctions to defend the lives of the innocent, and this all the more so since those whose lives are endangered and assailed cannot defend themselves. Among whom we must mention in the first place infants hidden in the mother's womb. And if the public magistrates not only do not defend them, but by their laws and ordinances betray them to death at the hands of doctors or of others, let them remember that God is the Judge and Avenger of innocent blood which cried from earth to Heaven. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)

“Archbishop” Salvatore Cordileone’s justified punishment of Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi is, when you come right down it, an expression of the sort of half-measures for which conciliar “popes” and “bishops” have been known, and such half-measures pale into pusillanimous insignificance when compared to the words put into the mouth of the dramatized Saint Thomas a Becket in Becket, which contains many notable historic accuracies but which does nevertheless portray Saint Thomas, who had always maintained himself chastely throughout his life, quite accurately in his defense of Holy Mother Church’s liberties:

Lord Gilbert,

Baron of England by the grace of His Majesty, King Henry II, seized upon the person of a priest of the Holy Church and did unlawfully hold him in custody. Furthermore, in the presence of Lord Gilbert and by his command, his men seized upon this priest when he tried to escape and put him to death. This is the sin of murder and sacrilege.

In that Lord Gilbert has offered no act of contrition or repentance and is at this moment at liberty in the land, we do here and now separate him from the Precious Body and Blood of Christ and from the society of all Christians. We exclude him from our Holy Mother Church in all her Sacraments in Heaven and on earth. We declare him excommunicate and anathema. We cast him into the outer darkness. We judge him damned with the devil and his fallen angels and all the reprobate to eternal fire and everlasting pain. (Excommunication Scene from Becket.)

As I used to say in my years of teaching “History through Film” in summer session courses at the then named C. W. Post Center of Long Island University in the 1990s, “Now that’s a bull of excommunication that can should be applied to all pro-abort Catholics in public life.”

In the final analysis, therefore, although “Archbishop” Salvatore Cordileone’s banning of Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi from what purports to be “Holy Communion” in the stagings of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical abomination in the Archdiocese of San Francisco is both commendable and long overdue, it is my belief that it will not inspire many of his “conservative” brethren with the American conciliar hierarchy to follow suit. Corideleone himself may be one who ends up being punished while the ever “merciful” Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Pelosi get the last laugh before they are condemned for all eternity by Christ the King for their defections from Faith and Morals if they do not convert and repent of their crimes against God and man before they die.

The controversy that has been engendered by Salvatore Cordileone’s public statement of his disciplining Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi must not distract us from the falsity of the conciliar church nor distract us from the abject invalidity of its liturgical rites, including the conciliar rite of episcopal “ordination” (not consecration).

Remember, crimes against God and His Holy Deposit Faith are graver in His sight than are even the crimes that cry out to Heaven for vengeance (willful murder, the sin of Sodom, withholding the day laborer’s wages, defrauding the widow). Yet it is that these crimes are being committed each day as God Himself is profaned every time the liturgical abomination of desolation promulgated by Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI is staged.

This is to say nothing of the way in which the honor and glory of the Most Holy Trinity is blasphemed by billions of ordinary people worldwide on a daily basis nor to discuss sins of impurity, indecency, scurrilous speech and the wholesale usury that is at the foundation of the world’s economic system. It impossible for there to be right order in civil societies when such order does not exist in the souls of men who not only persist in their sins unrepentantly but who have sought to protect their sins under the cover of the civil law and to celebrate them widely.

Once again, therefore, consider these words of Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, who lived from December 31, 1540, to August 16, 1603, as quoted in Pope Pius XI’s Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929:

The more closely the temporal power of a nation aligns itself with the spiritual, and the more it fosters and promotes the latter, by so much the more it contributes to the conservation of the commonwealth. For it is the aim of the ecclesiastical authority by the use of spiritual means, to form good Christians in accordance with its own particular end and object; and in doing this it helps at the same time to form good citizens, and prepares them to meet their obligations as members of a civil society. This follows of necessity because in the City of God, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the same thing. How grave therefore is the error of those who separate things so closely united, and who think that they can produce good citizens by ways and methods other than those which make for the formation of good Christians. For, let human prudence say what it likes and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquillity by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity. (Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, quoted by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.)

God the Holy Ghost saw fit to instruct us in Sacred Scripture, including in the passage from the Book of Proverbs:

[34] Justice exalteth a nation: but sin maketh nations miserable. (Proverbs 14: 34.)

Christ the King will not be mocked. He will suffer the sins of men so that they and their nations might be brought to repentance. He is not, however, indifferent that which Him to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross, sin, and that wounds the Church Militant on earth and impedes the pursuit of the true common temporal good of men and their nations.

This is the time of the Great Apostasy. It is time for all Catholics to take seriously the following words of Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., about Pope Saint Leo the Great concerning the nature of the papacy itself that has been undermined perhaps even more by the “resist while recognize” crowd than by the conciliar revolutionaries themselves:

When the Lord, as we read in the Evangelist, asked His disciples Who did men, amid their divers speculations, believe that He, the Son of Man, was; blessed Peter answered and said Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father, Which is in heaven and I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Thus therefore standeth the ordinance of the Truth, and blessed Peter, abiding still that firm rock which God hath made him, hath never lost that right to rule in the Church which God hath given unto him.

In the universal Church it is Peter that doth still say every day, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, and every tongue which confesseth that Jesus is Lord is taught that confession by the teaching of Peter. This is the faith that overcometh the devil and looseth the bands of his prisoners. This is the faith which maketh men free of the world and bringeth them to heaven, and the gates of hell are impotent to prevail against it. With such ramparts of salvation hath God fortified this rock, that the contagion of heresy will never be able to infect it, nor idolatry and unbelief to overcome it. This teaching it is, my dearly beloved brethren, which maketh the keeping of this Feast to-day to be our reasonable service, even the teaching which maketh you to know and honour in myself, lowly though I be, that Peter who is still entrusted with the care of all other shepherds and of all the flocks to them committed, and whose authority I have, albeit unworthy to be his heir.

When, therefore, we address our exhortations to your godly ears, believe ye that ye are hearing him speak whose office we are discharging. Yea, it is with his love for you that we warn you, and we preach unto you no other thing than that which he taught, entreating you that ye would gird up the loins of your mind and lead pure and sober lives in the fear of God. My disciples dearly beloved, ye are to me, as the disciples of the Apostle Paul were to him, (Phil. iv. 1,) a crown and a joy, if your faith, which, in the first times of the Gospel, was spoken of throughout the whole world, Rom. i. 8, abide still lovely and holy. For, albeit it behoveth the whole Church which is spread throughout all the world, to be strong in righteousness, you it chiefly becometh above all other peoples to excel in worth and godliness, whose house is built upon the very crown of the Rock of the Apostle, and whom not only hath our Lord Jesus Christ, as He hath redeemed all men, but whom also His blessed Apostle Peter hath made the foremost object of his teaching. (Pope Saint Leo the Great, as found in Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Pope Saint Leo the Great.)

Well, it is all there, isn’t it?

One must engage in all kinds of intellectual gymnastics to believe that the contagion of heresy is not rife within the counterfeit church of conciliarism, which is why all those who are not yet convinced of the truth of our ecclesiastical situation in this time of apostasy and betrayal should re-read these words:

This is the faith which maketh men free of the world and bringeth them to heaven, and the gates of hell are impotent to prevail against it. With such ramparts of salvation hath God fortified this rock, that the contagion of heresy will never be able to infect it, nor idolatry and unbelief to overcome it. (Pope Saint Leo the Great, as found in Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Pope Saint Leo the Great.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio has esteemed the symbols of idolaters. So have Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and “Saint John Paul II” before his own election as the head of the false conciliar sect on March 13, 2013, and Bergoglio has shown repeatedly that he has no belief in the integrity of the Catholic Faith. So have his predecessors in the past sixty-two and one-half years.

Dom Prosper Gueranger praised Pope Saint Leo the Great as follows in The Liturgical Year:

One of the grandest Saints in the Church’s Calendar is brought before us today. Leo, the Pontiff and Doctor, rises on the Paschal horizon, and calls for our admiration and love. As his name implies, he is the Lion of holy Church; thus representing, in his own person, one of the most glorious of our Lord’s titles. There have been twelve Popes who have had this name, and five of the number are enrolled in the catalogue of Saints; but not one of them has so honored the name as he whose feast we keep today: hence, he is called “Leo the Great.”

He deserved the appellation by what he did for maintaining the faith regarding the sublime mystery of the Incarnation. The Church had triumphed over the heresies that had attacked the dogma of the Trinity, when the gates of hell sought to prevail against the dogma of God having been made Man. Nestorius, a Bishop of Constantinople, impiously taught that there were two distinct Persons in Christ—the Person of the Divine Word, and the Person of Man. The Council of Ephesus condemned this doctrine, which, by denying the unity of Person in Christ, destroyed the true notion of the Redemption. A new heresy, the very opposite of that of Nestorianism, but equally subversive of Christianity, soon followed. The monk Eutyches maintained that, in the Incarnation, the Human Nature was absorbed by the Divine. The error was propagated with frightful rapidity. There was needed a clear and authoritative exposition of the great dogma, which is the foundation of all our hopes. Leo arose, and, from the Apostolic Chair, on which the Holy Ghost had placed him, proclaimed with matchless eloquence and precision the formula of the ancient faith—ancient, indeed, and ever the same, yet ever acquiring greater and fresher brightness. A cry of admiration was raised at the General Council of Chalcedon, which had been convened for the purpose of condemning the errors of Eutyches. “Peter,” exclaimed the Fathers, “Peter has spoken by the mouth of Leo!” As we shall see further on, the Eastern Church has kept up the enthusiasm thus excited by the magnificent teachings given by Leo to the whole world.

The Barbarian hordes were invading the West; the Empire was little more than a ruin: and Attila, “the Scourge of God,“ was marching on towards Rome. Leo’s majestic bearing repelled the invasion, as his word had checked the ravages of heresy. The haughty king of the Huns, before whose armies the strongest citadels had fallen, granted an audience to the Pontiff on the banks of the Mincio, and promised to spare Rome. The calm and dignity of Leo—who thus unarmed confronted the most formidable enemy of the Empire and exposed his life for his flock—awed the barbarian, who afterwards told his people that, during the interview, he saw a venerable person standing, in an attitude of defense, by the side of Rome’s intercessor: it was the Apostle St. Peter. Attila not only admired, he feared the Pontiff. It was truly a sublime spectacle, and one that was full of meaning;—a Priest, with no arms save those of his character and virtues, forcing a king such as Attila was, to do homage to a devotedness which he could ill understand, and recognize, by submission, the influence of a power which had heaven on its side. Leo, single-handed and at once, did what it took the whole of Europe several ages to accomplish later on.

That the aureola of Leo’s glory might be complete, the Holy Ghost gifted him with an eloquence which, on account of its majesty and richness, might deservedly be called Papal. The Latin language had, at that time, lost its ancient vigor; but we frequently come across passages in the writings of our Saint which remind us of the golden age.

In exposing the dogmas of our holy Faith, he uses a style so dignified and so impregnated with the savor of sacred antiquity, that it seems made for the subject. He has several admirable Sermons on the Resurrection; and speaking of the present Season of the Liturgical Year, he says: “The days that intervened between our Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension, were not days on which nothing was done: on the contrary, great were the Sacraments then confirmed, and great were the mysteries that were revealed.” (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, April 11, Feast of Pope Saint Leo the Great.)

“Peter has spoken by the mouth of Leo.”

Yes, it is always Saint Peter who speaks through the mouth of a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter.

Have the conciliar “popes” spoken truth or have they, quite instead, propagated falsehoods with ready abandon and made it appear as though their invocation of a “living tradition” and/or a “hermeneutic of continuity” can disguise their belief in the philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned Modernist precept of dogmatic evolutionism. Indeed, the conciliar revolution has degenerated to the point where some of Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s “theologians” speak openly in support of dogmatic evolutionism without making any advertence whatsoever to the euphemisms used by Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, or Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

The devil, not Saint Peter, has spoken and continue to speak through the mouths of the current line of antipopes.

In this regard, therefore, it is important to pray, fast and to make sacrifices for those of good will in the conciliar structures to recognize these stark truths that compel any honest Catholic to realize that the conciliar apostates are spiritual robber barons who had seized the buildings of the Catholic Church to perpetuate the greatest fraud known in salvation history:

When the Lord, as we read in the Gospel, asked his disciples who did men, amid their divers speculations, believe him the Son of Man to be, blessed Peter answered and said: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And the Lord answered and said unto him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father, which is in heaven: and I say also unto thee: That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. But the dispensation of truth perdures, and blessed Peter, persevering in the strength of the rock which he hath received, hath not relinquished the position he assumed at the helm of the Church.

In the universal Church it is as if Peter were still saying every day: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. For every tongue which confesseth the Lord is taught that confession by the teaching of Peter. This is the Faith that overcometh the devil and looseth the bonds of his prisoners. This is the Faith which maketh men free of the world and bringeth them to heaven, and the gates of hell are impotent to prevail against it. This is the rock which God hath fortified with such ramparts of salvation, that the contagion of heresy will never be able to infect it, nor idolatry and unbelief to overcome it. And therefore, dearly beloved, we celebrate today's festival with reasonable obedience, that in my humble person he may be acknowledged and honoured who doth continue to care for all the shepherds as well as sheep entrusted unto him, and who doth lose none of his dignity even in an unworthy successor. (As found in Matins, Divine Office, Feast of Pope Saint Clement, November 23.)

With only one exception, all of the documents which attest Clement's intervention in the affairs of distant churches have perished with time; but the one that remains shows us in full action the monarchical power of the bishop of Rome at that primitive epoch. The church of Corinth was disturbed with intestine quarrels caused by jealously against certain pastors. These divisions, the germ of which had appeared even in St. Paul's time, had destroyed all peace, and were causing scandal to the very pagans. The Corinthians at last felt the necessity of putting an end to a disorder which might be prejudicial to the extension of the Christian faith; and for this purpose it was requisite to seek assistance from outside. The apostle had all departed this life, except St. John, who was still the light of the Church. It was not great distance from Corinth to Ephesus where the apostle resided: yet it was not to Ephesus but to Rome that the church of Corinth turned. Clement examined the case referred to his judgment by that church, and sent to Corinth five commissaries to represent the Apostolic See. They were bearers of a letter, which St. Irenaeus calls potentissimas litteras. It was considered at the time so beautiful and so apostolic, that it was long read in many churches as a sort of continuation of the canonical Scriptures. Its tone is dignified but paternal, according to St. Peter's advice to pastors. There is nothing in it of a domineering spirit; but the grave and solemn language bespeaks the universal pastor, whom none can disobey without disobeying God Himself. These words so solemn and so firm wrought the desired effect: peace was re-established in the church of Corinth, and the messengers of the Roman Pontiff soon brought back the happy news. A century later, St. Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, expressed to Pope St. Soter the gratitude still felt by his flock towards Clement for the service he had rendered. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.)

Well, just at is way, way past time for “dialogue” with Catholic pro-aborts and pro-perverts in public life, it is really, way, way past time for those who believe that such a thing as a heretical pope is even ontologically possible, no less who keep insisting that there have been heretical popes in the past even though this falsehood has been refuted definitively and repeatedly over the past three decades or so, to come to grips with these clear statements about the Catholic Faith that make it abundantly clear that the Holy Faith has entirely, or it is not held at all:

There are some person, dear listeners, who hold almost everything with a firm faith that Catholics hold: but there is one thing or another, which they have not yet been able to accept completely, such as that purgatory exists, that sacred images are to be venerated, that the sovereign Pontiff is the vicar of Christ and the head of the whole Church. And since there are many things that they believe, and only one or two things that they do not believe and consider it is not important if taken together with the other articles, they think they are situated very well on the foundation of Christ. What is the difference, they say, even if I err in that one thing, which I still cannot believe, and at the judgment will the Lord be concerned about that? And will he not be mindful of the many difficult things I believe? Indeed, this is the way in which they flatter themselves; I serious rebuke them and say that they have fallen from grace and have laid their foundation on sand, and will have no part with Christ. Either the faith is had completely, or it is not had at all. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism. I ask you (to clarify the matter with a crass example), when you order a pair of shoes from a shoemaker, if when they are finally made you find they are an inch shorter than your feet, do you not put them on and wear them? Your will say “I cannot wear them” But they are only an inch too short, so why can't you wear them, since they are just a little bit short of the right measurement? As, therefore, your shoes are either the right size for your feet or they have no value at all, so also the faith is either integral, or it is not the faith. Therefore no one should deceive himself. If we want to build a house which cannot be moved by wind or rain, we must lay the foundation of both rocks, that is, on Christ and Peter. (Sermons of St. Robert Bellarmine, S.J., Part II: Sermons 30-55, Including the Four Last Things and the Annunciation., translated from the Latin by Father Kenneth Baker, S.J., and published in 2017 by Keep the Faith, Inc., Ramsey, New Jersey, pp. 152-154.)

With reference to its object, faith cannot be greater for some truths than for others. Nor can it be less with regard to the number of truths to be believed. For we must all believe the very same thing, both as to the object of faith as well as to the number of truths. All are equal in this because everyone must believe all the truths of faith--both those which God Himself has directly revealed, as well as those he has revealed through His Church. Thus, I must believe as much as you and you as much as I, and all other Christians similarly. He who does not believe all these mysteries is not Catholic and therefore will never enter Paradise. (Saint Francis de Sales, The Sermons of Saint Francis de Sales for Lent Given in 1622, republished by TAN Books and Publishers for the Visitation Monastery of Frederick, Maryland, in 1987, pp. 34-37.)

The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine:they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88). (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)

No, “partial credit” does not cut it to retain one's membership in good standing within the maternal bosom of Holy Mother Church:

Such is the nature of Catholicism that it does not admit of more or less, but must be held as a whole or as a whole rejected: ‘This is the Catholic Faith, which unless a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved’ (Athanasian Creed). There is no need of adding any qualifying terms to the profession of Catholicism: it is quite enough for each one to proclaim ‘Christian is my name and Catholic my surname,’ only let him endeavor to be in reality what he calls himself.

Besides, the Church demands from those who have devoted themselves to furthering her interests, something very different from the dwelling upon profitless questions; she demands that they should devote the whole of their energy to preserve the faith intact and unsullied by any breath of error, and follow most closely him whom Christ has appointed to be the guardian and interpreter of the truth. There are to be found today, and in no small numbers, men, of whom the Apostle says that: "having itching ears, they will not endure sound doctrine: but according to their own desires they will heap up to themselves teachers, and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables" (II Tim. iv. 34). Infatuated and carried away by a lofty idea of the human intellect, by which God's good gift has certainly made incredible progress in the study of nature, confident in their own judgment, and contemptuous of the authority of the Church, they have reached such a degree of rashness as not to hesitate to measure by the standard of their own mind even the hidden things of God and all that God has revealed to men. Hence arose the monstrous errors of "Modernism," which Our Predecessor rightly declared to be "the synthesis of all heresies," and solemnly condemned. We hereby renew that condemnation in all its fulness, Venerable Brethren, and as the plague is not yet entirely stamped out, but lurks here and there in hidden places, We exhort all to be carefully here and there in hidden places, We exhort all to be carefully on their guard against any contagion of the evil, to which we may apply the words Job used in other circumstances: "It is a fire that devoureth even to destruction, and rooteth up all things that spring" (Job xxxi. 12). Nor do We merely desire that Catholics should shrink from the errors of Modernism, but also from the tendencies or what is called the spirit of Modernism. Those who are infected by that spirit develop a keen dislike for all that savours of antiquity and become eager searchers after novelties in everything: in the way in which they carry out religious functions, in the ruling of Catholic institutions, and even in private exercises of piety. Therefore it is Our will that the law of our forefathers should still be held sacred: "Let there be no innovation; keep to what has been handed down." In matters of faith that must be inviolably adhered to as the law; it may however also serve as a guide even in matters subject to change, but even in such cases the rule would hold: "Old things, but in a new way." (Pope Benedict XV, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, November 1, 1914.)

Pope Pius XI, writing in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928, also rejected any notion of a distinction between "fundamental" and allegedly "non-fundamental" doctrines of the Catholic Faith:

Besides this, in connection with things which must be believed, it is nowise licit to use that distinction which some have seen fit to introduce between those articles of faith which are fundamental and those which are not fundamental, as they say, as if the former are to be accepted by all, while the latter may be left to the free assent of the faithful: for the supernatural virtue of faith has a formal cause, namely the authority of God revealing, and this is patient of no such distinction. For this reason it is that all who are truly Christ's believe, for example, the Conception of the Mother of God without stain of original sin with the same faith as they believe the mystery of the August Trinity, and the Incarnation of our Lord just as they do the infallible teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, according to the sense in which it was defined by the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican. Are these truths not equally certain, or not equally to be believed, because the Church has solemnly sanctioned and defined them, some in one age and some in another, even in those times immediately before our own? Has not God revealed them all? For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. But in the use of this extraordinary teaching authority no newly invented matter is brought in, nor is anything new added to the number of those truths which are at least implicitly contained in the deposit of Revelation, divinely handed down to the Church: only those which are made clear which perhaps may still seem obscure to some, or that which some have previously called into question is declared to be of faith.  (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

“Pope Francis” is not the “pope” as it is impossible for a Catholic to adhere to his teaching without defecting from the Catholic Faith as he, Bergoglio, did in his youth in Argentina.

Moreover, each of the conciliar “popes” and “bishops” have violated the First Commandment by praising false religions, participating in inter-religious “prayer” services and even, in the case of most of them, esteeming the symbols of false religions themselves. Bergoglio’s indifference to the slaughter of the innocent preborn is just the logical denouement of a regime of sixty-two and one-half years of apostasy, sacrilege, heresy, error and betrayal that is now culminating in a frank, outright admission that the dogmatic evolutionism condemned in The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864, the [First] Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, April 24, 1870, Saint Pius X’s Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907, and Pope Pius XII’s Humani Generis, April 12, 1950.

Although we may not live to see the resolution of this era of apostasy and betrayal, we can continue to try to plant the seeds for the restoration of a true pope on the Throne of Saint Peter and the vanquishing of the heresies that abound at this time as we pray as well that Catholics of good will in the conciliar structures will respond to Our Lady’s graces with alacrity to see the truth, something that it took me much too long—inexcusably long—to see and accept.

We can do this by offering up our entire liberty—everything—as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of  Mary, being content to let her make use of whatever merits we might earn according to her sweet dispositions that are to be found in the depth of her maternal heart that longs for the children redeemed by the shedding of every single drop of her Divine Son’s Most Precious Blood to save their souls. All we need to do is to live more penitentially by offering up to her Divine Son through that same Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart our acts of reparation for our many sins as we beg her for the graces of final perseverance.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph in the end.

We have nothing to fear.

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

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 Andrew the Apostle, 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 John Baptist de Rossi, pray for us.

Appendix

Dom Prosper Gueranger on Rogation Monday

It seems strange that there should be anything like mourning during Paschal Time: and yet these three days are days of penance. A moment’s reflection, however, will show us that the institution of the Rogation Days is a most appropriate one. True, our Savior told us, before his Passion, that the children of the Bridegroom should not fast whilst the Bridegroom is with them: but is not sadness in keeping with these the last hours of Jesus’ presence on earth? Were not his Mother and Disciples oppressed with grief at the thought of their having so soon to lose Him, whose company had been to them a foretaste of heaven?

Let us see how the Liturgical Year came to have inserted in its Calendar these three days, during which Holy Church, though radiant with the joy of Easter, seems to go back to her Lenten observances. The Holy Ghost, who guides her in all things, willed that this completion of her Paschal Liturgy should owe its origin to a devotion peculiar to one of the most illustrious and venerable Churches of southern Gaul: it was the Church of Vienne.

The second half of the 5th century had but just commenced, when the country round Vienne, which had been recently conquered by the Burgundians, was visited with calamities of every kind. The people were struck with fear at these indications of God’s anger. St. Mamertus, who, at the time, was Bishop of Vienne, prescribed three days’ public expiation, during which the Faithful were to devote themselves to penance, and walk in procession chanting appropriate Psalms. The three days preceeding the Ascension were the ones chosen. Unknown to himself, the holy Bishop was thus instituting a practice, which was afterwards to form part of the Liturgy of the universal Church.

The Churches of Gaul, as might naturally be expected, were the first to adopt the devotion. St. Alcimus Avitus, who was one of the earliest successors of St. Mamertus in the See of Vienne, informs us that the custom of keeping the Rogation Days was, at that time, firmly established in his Diocese. St. Cæsarius of Arles, who lived in the early part of the 6th century, speaks of their being observed in countries afar off; by which he meant, at the very least, to designate all that portion of Gaul which was under the Vigisoths. That the whole of Gaul soon adopted the custom, is evident from the Canons drawn up at the first Council of Orleans, held in 511, and which represented all the Provinces that were in allegiance to Clovis. The regulations, made by the Council regarding the Rogations, give us a great idea of the importance attached to their observance. Not only abstinence from flesh-meat, but even fasting, is made of obligation. Masters are also required to dispense theier servants from work, in order that they may assist at the long functions which fill up almost the whole of these three days. In 567, the Council of Tours, likewise imposed the precept of fasting during the Rogation Days, and as to the obligation of resting from servile work, we find it recognised in the Capitularia of Charlemagne and Charles the Bald.

The main part of the Rogation rite originally consisted (at least in Gaul), in singing canticles of supplication whilst passing from place to place,—and hence the word Procession. We learn from St. Cæsarius of Arles, that each day's Procession lasted six hours;  and that when the Clergy became tired, the women took up the chanting. The Faithful of those days had not made the discovery, which was reserved for modern times, that one requisite for religious Processions is that they be as short as possible.

The Procession for the Rogation Days was preceded by the Faithful receiving the Ashes upon their heads, as now at the beginning of Lent; they were then sprinkled with Holy Water, and the Procession began. It was made up of the Clergy and people of several of the smaller parishes, who were headed by the Cross of the principal Church, which conducted the whole ceremony. All walked bare-foot, singing the Litany, Psalms and Antiphons. They entered the Churches that lay on their route, and sang an Antiphon or Responsory appropriate to each.

Such was the original ceremony of the Rogation Days, and it was thus observed for a very long period. The Monk of St. Gaul’s, who has left us so many interesting details regarding the life of Charlemagne, tells us that this holy Emperor used to join the Processions of these three Days, and walk bare-footed from his palace to the Stational Church. We find St. Elizabeth of Hungary, in the 14th century, setting the like example: during the Rogation Days, she used to mingle with the poorest women of the place, and walked bare-footed, wearing a dress of coarse stuff. St. Charles Borromeo, who restored in his Diocese of Milan so many ancient practices of piety, was sure not to be indifferent about the Rogation Days. He spared neither word nor example to reanimate this salutary devotion among his people. He ordered fasting to be observed during these three Days; he fasted himself on bread and water. The Procession, in which all the Clergy of the City were obliged to join, and which began after the sprinkling of Ashes, started from the Cathedral at an early hour in the morning, and was not over till three or four o’clock in the afternoon. Thirteen Churches were visited on the Monday; nine, on the Tuesday; and eleven, on the Wednesday. The saintly Archbishop celebrated Mass and preached in one of these Churches.

If we compare the indifference shown by the Catholics of the present age, for the Rogation Days, with the devotion wherewith our ancestors kept them, we cannot but acknowledge that there is a great falling off in faith and piety. Knowing, as we do, the importance attached to these Processions by the Church, we cannot help wondering how it is that there are so few among the Faithful who assist at them. Our surprise increased when we find persons preferring their own private devotions to these public Prayers of the Church, which to say nothing of the result of good example, merit far greater graces than any exercises of our own fancying.

The whole Western Church soon adopted the Rogation Days. They were introduced into England at an early period; so, likewise, into Spain, and Germany. Rome herself sanctioned them by her own observing them; this she did in the 8th century, during the Pontificate of St. Leo the Third. She gave them the name of the Lesser Litanies, in contradistinction to the Procession of the 25th of April, which she calls the Greater Litanies. With regard to the Fast which the Churches of Gaul observed during the Rogation Days, Rome did not adopt that part of the institution. Fasting seemed to her to throw a gloom over the joyous forty days, which our Risen Jesus grants to his Disciples; she therefore enjoined only abstinence from flesh-meat during the Rogation Days. The Church of Milan, which, as we have just seen, so strictly observes the Rogations, keeps them on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday after the Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension, that is to say, after the forty days devoted to the celebration of the Resurrection.

If, then, we would have a correct idea of the Rogation Days, we must consider them as Rome does,—that is, as a holy institution which, without interrupting our Paschal joy, tempers it. The purple vestments used during the Procession and Mass do not signifty that ou Jesus has fled us, but that the time for his departure is approaching. By prescribing Abstinence for these three days, the Church would express how much she will feel the loss of her Spouse, who is so soon to be taken from her.

In England, as in many other countries, abstinence is no longer of obligation for the Rogation Days. This should be an additional motive to induce the Faithful to assist at the Processions and Litanies, and, by their fervently uniting in the prayers of the Church, to make some compensation for the abolition of the law of Abstinence. We need so much penance, and we take so little! If we are truly in earnest, we shall be most fervent in doing the little that is left us to do.

The object of the Rogation Days is to appease the anger of God, and avert the chastisements which the sins of the world so justly deserve; moreover, to draw down the divine blessing on the fruits of the earth. The Litany of the Saints is sung during the Procession, which is followed by a special Mass said in the Stational Church, or, if there be no Station appointed, in the Church whence the Procession first started.

The Litany of the Saints is one of the most efficacious of prayers. The Church makes use of it on all solemn occasions, as a means for rendering God propitious through the intercession of the whole court of heaven. They who are prevented from assisting at the Procession, should recite the Litany in union with holy Church: they will thus share in the graces attached to the Rogation Days; they will be joining in the supplications now being made throughout the entire world; they will be proving themselves to be Catholics.

The Mass of the Rogations, which is the same for all three days, speaks to us, throughout, of the power and necessity of prayer. The Church uses the Lenten colour, to express the expiatory character of the function she is celebrating: but she is evidently full of confidence; she trusts to the love of her Risen Jesus, and that gives her hope of her prayers being granted. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B, The Liturgical Year, Rogation Monday.)