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It Is Never Advisable to Die as the Former Head of a False Religion, part three
Surreal is the only way to describe the world in which are living.
Government agents have been seeking to censor criticism of anything and everything to do with the “infallible” directives issued by adherents of the false opposite of the naturalist “left” and to suppress any narratives that deviate from the concoctions invented by unelected apparatchiks seeking to “transform” Western countries, including the United States of America, into a mirror image of Communist China.
Young, well-conditioned athletes as well as otherwise healthy people of all ages have been dropping dead suddenly without any hint from the mainslime media that there is even the slightest connection between these deaths and the “salvific” vaccines that are still being heralded as such by the poor narcissist named Donald John Trump.
Much more significantly, however, is the surreal way many “bishops,” priests/presbyters and laymen within the conservative commentariat class of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have praised the late Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI as a “defender of the faith” when he was, quite in fact, a destroyer of the nature of dogmatic truth throughout the course of his seventy-one years of priestly life. As has been discussed repeatedly on this site in the past seventeen years, Ratzinger/Benedict’s attacks on the nature of dogmatic truth were nothing other than attacks upon the nature of God Himself. To assert, as Ratzinger did as a priest, “cardinal,” and “pope, that “we had to learn” about the “hermeneutic of continuity” in the aftermath of the “Second” Vatican Council was to imply blasphemously that God the Holy Ghost had deceived Holy Mother Church by permitting her true popes to (and the bishops at the Vatican Council, 1869-1870) to denounce the very proposition that he had “discovered” in the middle of the Twentieth Century.
Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict worked overtime to destroy the unicity of the Catholic Church, refused to seek with urgency the conversion of non-Catholics to her maternal bosom, stated that Jews had a “parallel path to salvation” in a convent that remained perfectly valid, claimed that “religious liberty” was the “key” to peace, reaffirmed the conciliar teaching that the first end of marriage is the unitive and not the procreative end, and that the civil state had no obligation the objective order of things to recognize the Catholic Church nor that those who served in it had any obligation to seek the common temporal good in light of man’s Last End. Ratzinger/Benedict uttered untruths about how the papacy was exercised in the First Millennium and preferred the fuzzy opaqueness of Orthodox “theology,” such as it is, to the “crystal-clear logic” of Saint Thomas Aquinas.
The details of these defections from the Catholic Faith were summarized in the first two parts of this series, but it is still nevertheless very astounding that otherwise sane and rational Catholics can ignore this as they lionize a man, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who, despite differences in matters of style and emphasis, was united to his vulgar, Jacobin/Bolshevik successor in most theological matters, especially pertaining to the nature of dogmatic truth, ecclesiology, false ecumenism, and religious liberty. To contend that the Girondist/Menshevik revolutionary from Bavaria was “better” than the Jacobin/Bolshevik revolutionary form Argentina is to fall into the trap of false opposites that so many of the late antipope’s eulogists still fall into in the realm of partisan politics and civil governance.
As has been discussed on this site to the constant consternation of “true believers” in Americanism, “conservatism” or Donald John Trump’s “populism,” all those in the realm of politics and civil government are united, no matter their policy differences, in the belief that it is possible for men to govern as though the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity made Man in Our Lady’s Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, is a matter of complete indifference and that it not necessary for men to have reliance upon, access to and cooperation upon Sanctifying Grace to be virtuous. Members of the false opposites of the naturalist “left” and “right” are also completed united in their rejection of any obligation imposed by the true God of Divine Revelation for elected or appointed government officials to submit with humility and docility to the teaching of Holy Mother Church in all that pertains to the good of souls, upon which depends the right order of men and their nations.
Similarly, the false opposites of “conservatives” and “progressives” within the counterfeit church of conciliarism are absolutely united in their rejection of the dogmatic degrees of the Councils of Florence, Trent, and the Vatican (1869-1870) and the binding nature of papal teaching concerning religious liberty, separation of Church and State, ecumenism, and the very nature of dogmatic truth. These false opposites only differed about the direction of the conciliar revolution and the speed with which its goals were to be achieved.
Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, of course, believed that his interpretation of the “true meaning” of the “Second Vatican Council was beyond question while so-called “progressives,” such as Jorge Mario Bergoglio,’ believe that they are fulling the robber council’s “true meaning” by tearing down the very bastions that Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI wrote in his very misnamed Principles of Catholic Theology had urged:
Does this mean that the Council should be revoked? Certainly not. It means only that the real reception of the Council has not yet even begun. What devastated the Church in the decade after the Council was not the Council but the refusal to accept it. This becomes clear precisely in the history of the influence of Gaudium et spes. What was identified with the Council was, for the most part, the expression of an attitude that did not coincide with the statements to be found in the text itself, although it is recognizable as a tendency in its development and in some of its individual formulations. The task is not, therefore, to suppress the Council but to discover the real Council and to deepen its true intention in the light of the present experience. That means that there can be no return to the Syllabus, which may have marked the first stage in the confrontation with liberalism and a newly conceived Marxism but cannot be the last stage. In the long run, neither embrace nor ghetto can solve for Christians the problem of the modern world. The fact is, as Hans Urs von Balthasar pointed out as early as 1952, that the "demolition of the bastions" is a long-overdue task. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, p. 391)
Pope Pius VIII wrote the following about the razing of those bastions in his one and only encyclical letter:
Traditii Humiliate Nostrae, May 24, 1829:
We open Our heart with joy to you, venerable brothers, whom God has given to Us as helpers in the conduct of so great an administration. We are pleased to let you know the intimate sentiments of Our will. We also think it helpful to communicate those things from which the Christian cause may benefit. For the duty of Our office is not only to feed, rule, and direct the lambs, namely the Christian people, but also the sheep, that is the clergy.
2. We rejoice and praise Christ, who raised up shepherds for the safekeeping of His flock. These shepherds vigilantly lead their flocks so as not to lose even one of those they have received from the Father. For We know well, venerable brothers, your unshakeable faith, your zeal for religion, your sanctity of life, and your singular prudence. Co-workers such as you make Us happy and confident. This pleasant situation encourages Us when We fear because of the great responsibility of Our office, and it refreshes and strengthens Us when We feel overwhelmed by so many serious concerns. We shall not detain you with a long sermon to remind you what things are required to perform sacred duties well, what the canons prescribe lest anyone depart from vigilance over his flock, and what attention ought to be given in preparing and accepting ministers. Rather We call upon God the Savior that He may protect you with His omnipresent divinity and bless your activities and endeavors with happy success.
3. Although God may console Us with you, We are nonetheless sad. This is due to the numberless errors and the teachings of perverse doctrines which, no longer secretly and clandestinely but openly and vigorously, attack the Catholic faith. You know how evil men have raised the standard of revolt against religion through philosophy (of which they proclaim themselves doctors) and through empty fallacies devised according to natural reason. In the first place, the Roman See is assailed and the bonds of unity are, every day, being severed. The authority of the Church is weakened and the protectors of things sacred are snatched away and held in contempt. The holy precepts are despised, the celebration of divine offices is ridiculed, and the worship of God is cursed by the sinner.[1] All things which concern religion are relegated to the fables of old women and the superstitions of priests. Truly lions have roared in Israel.[2] With tears We say: "Truly they have conspired against the Lord and against His Christ." Truly the impious have said: "Raze it, raze it down to its foundations."[3]
4. Among these heresies belongs that foul contrivance of the sophists of this age who do not admit any difference among the different professions of faith and who think that the portal of eternal salvation opens for all from any religion. They, therefore, label with the stigma of levity and stupidity those who, having abandoned the religion which they learned, embrace another of any kind, even Catholicism. This is certainly a monstrous impiety which assigns the same praise and the mark of the just and upright man to truth and to error, to virtue and to vice, to goodness and to turpitude. Indeed this deadly idea concerning the lack of difference among religions is refuted even by the light of natural reason. We are assured of this because the various religions do not often agree among themselves. If one is true, the other must be false; there can be no society of darkness with light. Against these experienced sophists the people must be taught that the profession of the Catholic faith is uniquely true, as the apostle proclaims: one Lord, one faith, one baptism.[4] Jerome used to say it this way: he who eats the lamb outside this house will perish as did those during the flood who were not with Noah in the ark.[5] Indeed, no other name than the name of Jesus is given to men, by which they may be saved.[6] He who believes shall be saved; he who does not believe shall be condemned.[7]
5. We must also be wary of those who publish the Bible with new interpretations contrary to the Church's laws. They skillfully distort the meaning by their own interpretation. They print the Bibles in the vernacular and, absorbing an incredible expense, offer them free even to the uneducated. Furthermore, the Bibles are rarely without perverse little inserts to insure that the reader imbibes their lethal poison instead of the saving water of salvation. Long ago the Apostolic See warned about this serious hazard to the faith and drew up a list of the authors of these pernicious notions. The rules of this Index were published by the Council of Trent;[8] the ordinance required that translations of the Bible into the vernacular not be permitted without the approval of the Apostolic See and further required that they be published with commentaries from the Fathers. The sacred Synod of Trent had decreed[9] in order to restrain impudent characters, that no one, relying on his own prudence in matters of faith and of conduct which concerns Christian doctrine, might twist the sacred Scriptures to his own opinion, or to an opinion contrary to that of the Church or the popes. Though such machinations against the Catholic faith had been assailed long ago by these canonical proscriptions, Our recent predecessors made a special effort to check these spreading evils.[10] With these arms may you too strive to fight the battles of the Lord which endanger the sacred teachings, lest this deadly virus spread in your flock.
6. When this corruption has been abolished, then eradicate those secret societies of factious men who, completely opposed to God and to princes, are wholly dedicated to bringing about the fall of the Church, the destruction of kingdoms, and disorder in the whole world. Having cast off the restraints of true religion, they prepare the way for shameful crimes. Indeed, because they concealed their societies, they aroused suspicion of their evil intent. Afterwards this evil intention broke forth, about to assail the sacred and the civil orders. Hence the supreme pontiffs, Our predecessors, Clement XII, Benedict XIV, Pius VII, Leo XII,[11] repeatedly condemned with anathema that kind of secret society. Our predecessors condemned them in apostolic letters; We confirm those commands and order that they be observed exactly. In this matter We shall be diligent lest the Church and the state suffer harm from the machinations of such sects. With your help We strenuously take up the mission of destroying the strongholds which the putrid impiety of evil men sets up.
7. We want you to know of another secret society organized not so long ago for the corruption of young people who are taught in the gymnasia and the lycea. Its cunning purpose is to engage evil teachers to lead the students along the paths of Baal by teaching them un-Christian doctrines. The perpetrators know well that the students' minds and morals are molded by the precepts of the teachers. Its influence is already so persuasive that all fear of religion has been lost, all discipline of morals has been abandoned, the sanctity of pure doctrine has been contested, and the rights of the sacred and of the civil powers have been trampled upon. Nor are they ashamed of any disgraceful crime OT error. We can truly say with Leo the Great that for them "Law is prevarication; religion, the devil; sacrifice, disgrace.'[12] Drive these evils from your dioceses. Strive to assign not only learned, but also good men to train our youth. (Pope Pius VIII, Traditii Humiliatae Nostrae, May 24, 1829.)
This was a prophetic description of conciliarism and also a condemnation of the “theologies” of both Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Do not be deceived by those claiming that the “urbane” heretic from Bavaria was a defender of the Catholic Faith and that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is its destroyer. Each man devoted his life to the work of doing from within what they thought was the Catholic Church that the likes of Martin and Luther and John Calvin, et al., had begun in the Sixteenth Century.
To wit, as a prelude to antipapal “beatification” of Father Antonio Rosmini-Serbati in 2007, Joseph “Cardinal” Ratzinger saw fit to, in essence, claim that Pope Leo XIII had been mistaken on December 14, 1887, to confirm and approve the Holy Office’s condemnation forty of Rosmini-Serbati’s errors, a list of which can be found on pages 475 to 480 of Monsignor Henry Denziger’s The Sources of Catholic Dogma (Thirteenth Edition of Henry Denizger’s Enchiridion Symbolorum) that was published in the United States of America by B. Herder Books in 1957.
Yesterday’s condemned propositions can be rehabilitated very simply by rejecting Thomism and claiming that it is “impossible” to express dogmatic truth adequately at any particular time because of the influences of historical circumstances and the vagaries of human language.
Rosmini’s rehabilitation in 2001 was merely a prelude to his “beatification,” which occurred on November 18, 2007, after his cause had been approved by the man who rehabilitated him, Ratzinger/Benedict:
The events following Rosmini's death required a certain distancing of the Church from his system of thought and, in particular, from some of its propositions. It is necessary to consider the principal historical-cultural factors that influenced this distancing which culminated in the condemnation of the "40 Propositions" of the Decree Post obitum of 1887.
The first factor is the renewal of ecclesiastical studies promoted by the Encyclical Aeterni Patris (1879) of Leo XIII, in the development of fidelity to the thought of St Thomas Aquinas. The Papal Magisterium saw the need to foster Thomism as a philosophical and theoretical instrument, aimed at offering a unifying synthesis of ecclesiastical studies, above all in the formation of priests in seminaries and theological faculties, in order to oppose the risk of an eclectic philosophical approach. The adoption of Thomism created the premises for a negative judgement of a philosophical and speculative position, like that of Rosmini, because it differed in its language and conceptual framework from the philosophical and theological elaboration of St Thomas Aquinas.
A second factor to keep in mind is the fact that the condemned propositions were mostly extracted from posthumous works of the author. These works were published without a critical apparatus capable of defining the precise meaning of the expressions and concepts used. This favoured a heterodox interpretation of Rosminian thought, as did the objective difficulty of interpreting Rosmini's categories, especially, when they were read in a neo-Thomistic perspective. (Note on the Force of the Doctrinal Decrees Concerning the Thought and Work of Fr Antonio Rosmini Serbati.)
There are two things that stand out in this passage of the "note" reversing Pope Leo XIII's condemnation of the propositions of Father Antonio Rosmini.
First, "Cardinal Ratzinger," with the full approval and "papal" benediction of John Paul II, essentially said that Pope Leo XIII was too stupid to understand the complexity of Rosmini's admittedly ambiguous work, leading to that pontiff's misunderstanding of that work. Ratzinger's contention was that the "misunderstanding" served the Church well at the time as, in essence, most other people would have come to the same conclusions as they lacked the "tools" to unlock the "true" meaning hidden deep within Rosmini's words. Ratzinger, of course, had those "tools" at his disposal, most fortunately for the cause of conciliar "truth," you understand.
In other words, Father Rosmini’s posthumously published works that were condemned by the Holy Office under the authority of Pope Leo XIII on December 14, 1887, were “victimized” by the very Thomism that Ratzinger himself had long believed was to “crystal clear” and “too logical” to be of any real use to examine such a “profound” thinker as Father Antonio Rosmini Serbati. Pope Leo XIII was wrong, Ratzinger believed, to have place such an emphasis on what he, Ratzinger, dismissed as the “school of thought” of Saint Thomas Aquinas..)
A review of Rosmini’s propositions as condemned by Pope Leo XIII in 1887 leads one to recognize very readily that the likes of Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his own predecessor, “Saint John Paul the Great,” who praised Rosmini as a “great thinker” in Fides et Ratio, September 14, 1998, had a profound kinship with a fellow traveler in the belief that religious faith just kind of “springs up” from within one’s inner consciousness. Indeed, the very first through fourth of Rosmini’s proposition condemned by the Holy Office in 1887 contain germs, if you will, of this cornerstone of Modernism:
1. In the order of created things there is immediately manifested to the human intellect something of the divine in its very self, namely, such as pertains to divine nature.
2. When we speak of the divine in nature, we do not use the word divine to signify a nondivine effect of a divine cause; nor, is it our mind to speak of a certain thing as divine because it is such through participation.
3. In the nature of the universe, then, that is in the intelligences that are in it, there is something to which the term of divine not in a figurative but in a real sense is fitting.–The actuality is not distinct from the est of divine actuality.
4. Indeterminate being, which without doubt is known to all intelligences, is that divine thing which is manifest to man in nature.
5. Being, which man observes, must be something of the necessary and eternal being, the creating cause, the determining and final cause of all contingent beings: and this is God.
6. In the being which prescinds from creatures and from God, which is indeterminate being, and in God, not indeterminate but absolute being, the essence is the same.
7. The indeterminate being of intuition, initial being, is something of the Word, which the mind of the Father distinguishes, not really, but according to reason from the Word. (As found in Henry Denzinger, Enchirdion Symbolorum, thirteenth edition, translated into English by Roy Deferrari and published in 1955 as The Sources of Catholic Dogma–referred to as “Denziger,” by B. Herder Book Company of St. Louis, Missouri, and London, England, Nos. 2183-2185, pp. 475-476. A very good analysis of Rosmini’s propositions was written well over a decade over now by the late, militantly antisedevacantist writer, Mr. James Larson: The Rosmini Rehabilitation – When To Be is Not To Be. Those who believe that a true pope can be in error and is need of “correction” from members of the laity, however, have to realize that such a position is false. Pope Leo XIII made this very clear in EPISTOLA TUA, June 17, 1885, and EST SANE MOLESTUM, December 17, 1888. To “be” a true pope one must be a Catholic, and to be a Catholic means that one cannot defect from even a single tenet of the Holy Faith. Not one. See also Bishop Sanborn’s response to Bp. Williamson on Sedevacantism.)
Conciliarism’s embrace of propositions condemned by Holy Mother Church as the circumstances of time required was noted by an “ultra-progessive” conciliar revolutinonary, “Father” Gregory Baum, S.J., shortly after “Cardinal” Ratzinger’s “rehabilitation” of Father Antonio Rosmini-Serbati’s propositions was promulgated on July 1, 2001:
Today the situation is different. First, according to Ratzinger, serious research has shown that if Rosmini’s ambiguous and obscure passages are interpreted in the light of his own philosophical work, which is, of course, the only honest way of reading a philosophical text, then their meaning is not contrary to the Catholic tradition. Second, in his encyclical Faith and Reason of 1998, John Paul II has welcomed philosophical pluralism in the church and, in fact, mentioned with great respect Antonio Rosmini among several Catholic thinkers of the 19th century. That is why, at the present time, lifting the condemnations decreed in 1887 is justified.
The nota of July 2001 is an important ecclesiastical document because it applies the historical-critical method to the understanding of the magisterium. Yet has Ratzinger’s “attentive reading” demonstrated that lifting the condemnation does not involve the magisterium in an internal contradiction? I do not think so.
He has shown that the condemnation of Rosmini’s propositions in 1887 was justified in terms of the church’s pastoral policy and hence could be lifted without inconsistency later. Yet he does not raise the truth question. The readers of the condemnation of 1886 were made to believe that these propositions were erroneous: They were not told that they were erroneous only when read from a neo-Thomist perspective and that their true meaning should not be pursued at that time because Pope Leo XIII wanted neo-Thomism to become the church’s official philosophy.
The nota demonstrates that the condemnation of 1886 exercised a useful ecclesiastical function, not that it was true. Ratzinger’s explanation reveals that the Holy Office showed no respect for the truth at all. Its intentions were tactical and political. The Holy Office at that time saw itself as a servant of the church’s central government and judged ideas in terms of their ecclesiastical implications, not their truth.
Still, the nota is an important document since it is the first time an ecclesiastical statement wrestles with a question that has troubled Catholics for a long time. How are we to interpret apparent contradictions in the magisterium?
Here is a famous example. In the bull Unam Sanctam of 1302, Pope Boniface VIII wrote these words: “We declare, we set forth, we define that submission to the Roman pontiff is necessary for the salvation of any human creature.” And the Council of Florence solemnly declared in 1442 that outside the Catholic church there is no salvation, neither for heretics nor schismatics, even if they should live holy lives or shed their blood in the name of Christ. Vatican Council II appeared to proclaim an entirely different doctrine. We read in Gaudium et Spes that since Christ has died for all humans and since the destiny of humanity is one, we are to hold that, in a manner known to God, participation in the mystery of redemption is offered to every human being.
We are bound to ask with Ratzinger whether there is an internal contradiction in the magisterium. Were the solemn declarations of Boniface VIII and the Council of Florence wrong? The words of Boniface were so emphatic, “we declare, we set forth, we define,” that the reader may wonder whether Vatican Council II has made a mistake. At the same time, the declarations of Boniface and the cardinals in attendance at the Council of Florence were hard to reconcile with the teaching of the Church Fathers of the second and third centuries who believed that God’s redemptive Word, incarnate in Christ, was operative wherever people sought the truth. There may have been good church-political reasons for Boniface and the cardinals of the Council of Florence to make these harsh declarations, yet — I would argue — these declarations were wrong. The magisterium has made mistakes. The church, guided by the Spirit, is forever learning.
Ratzinger’s document has sent theologians off into a new area of research. (Ratzinger explains how condemnation was right then, wrong now)
Left unaddressed by Baum’s analysis is the simple fact that the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, cannot contradict Himself. Alas, those impressed with Georg Hegel and Teilhard de Chardin and Hans Urs von Balthasar believe, at least minimally, that the “Spirit” can contradict Himself as men grasp to understand “Him” better over time. Pure Modernism, of course.
Baum’s “analysis,” although supportive of conciliarism, is nevertheless interesting because it does raise the issue of contradiction. Yes, those of us who have come to realize that the conciliar church is not the Catholic Church and that its “magisterium” has no authority to contradict anything taught by the Catholic Church realize that the “overturning” of Pope Leo XIII’s 1887 condemnation of forty of Antonio Rosmini’s propositions by Joseph Ratzinger’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on July 1, 2001, has no binding force whatsoever. It is always useful, however, when true conciliar revolutionaries such as Gregory Baum point out the plain truth that “contradiction” can be part of the Faith, an important component element of the Modernist mind.
Then again, you see, Father Antonio Rosmini-Serbati was, apart from providing a useful justification of the conciliar revolutionaries’ embrace of Modernism, an apostle to the poor, and that, according to the likes of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his comrades is all that is needed to save one’s soul. They really do believe that “outside the poor there is no salvation” just as much as they reject the Catholic doctrine of outside the Church there is no salvation (Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus).
To attack the nature of dogmatic truth is to attack the nature of God, and to do that is to attack His very existence and that He has revealed anything so definitive that cannot be understood differently by different generations as befits supposedly different “circumstances” in which men live, and this is how the conciliar revolutionaries can “redefine” Original Sin and Special Creation and thus come to put the lower species, plants and inert matter on the plane of equality with the human being. To “redefine” life is to debase man as the zenith of God’s creative work and thus to debase Our Lord, the Incarnate Word, and His Redemptive Act on the wood of the Holy Cross as being nothing other than an expression of “love” that had nothing to do with paying back the debt of Adam’s sin. (A detailed examination of Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s careerlong obscuring of the doctrine of Original Sin is appended below.)
Rosmini’s rehabilitation in 2001 was merely a prelude to his “beatification,” which occurred on November 18, 2007, after his cause had been approved by the man who rehabilitated him, Ratzinger/Benedict.
Similarly, none other than that great “restorer of Tradition,” used his variation of the historical-critical method to accept the Assyrian Church of the East’s Anaphora of Addai and Mari of the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East that does not contain any actual words of consecration within its text. The fact that this Anaphora, which was rejected by the authority of the Catholic Church in the Sixteenth Century when the Chaldeans (the former Nestorians) were reunited with Rome and once again in 1902 when news reached Rome that many priests of the Chaldean Rite were still using the old Assyrian Anaphora of Addai and Mari without the words of consecration. Nonetheless, however the then Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, who was one very busy little ecclesiastical termite in the years prior to his "election" on April 19, 2005, used the exact same false methodology in this instance as he had when he rehabilitated Rosmini-Serbati:
The principal issue for the Catholic Church in agreeing to this request, related to the question of the validity of the Eucharist celebrated with the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, one of the three Anaphoras traditionally used by the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East. The Anaphora of Addai and Mari is notable because, from time immemorial, it has been used without a recitation of the Institution Narrative. As the Catholic Church considers the words of the Eucharistic Institution a constitutive and therefore indispensable part of the Anaphora or Eucharistic Prayer, a long and careful study was undertaken of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, from a historical, liturgical and theological perspective, at the end of which the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith on January 17th, 2001 concluded that this Anaphora can be considered valid. H.H. Pope John Paul II has approved this decision. This conclusion rests on three major arguments.
In the first place, the Anaphora of Addai and Mari is one of the most ancient Anaphoras, dating back to the time of the very early Church; it was composed and used with the clear intention of celebrating the Eucharist in full continuity with the Last Supper and according to the intention of the Church; its validity was never officially contested, neither in the Christian East nor in the Christian West.
Secondly, the Catholic Church recognises the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East as a true particular Church, built upon orthodox faith and apostolic succession. The Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East has also preserved full Eucharistic faith in the presence of our Lord under the species of bread and wine and in the sacrificial character of the Eucharist. In the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East, though not in full communion with the Catholic Church, are thus to be found "true sacraments, and above all, by apostolic succession, the priesthood and the Eucharist" (U.R., n. 15). Secondly, the Catholic Church recognises the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East as a true particular Church, built upon orthodox faith and apostolic succession. The Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East has also preserved full Eucharistic faith in the presence of our Lord under the species of bread and wine and in the sacrificial character of the Eucharist. In the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East, though not in full communion with the Catholic Church, are thus to be found "true sacraments, and above all, by apostolic succession, the priesthood and the Eucharist" (U.R., n. 15).
Finally, the words of Eucharistic Institution are indeed present in the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, not in a coherent narrative way and ad litteram, but rather in a dispersed euchological way, that is, integrated in successive prayers of thanksgiving, praise and intercession.
4. Guidelines for admission to the Eucharist
Considering the liturgical tradition of the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East, the doctrinal clarification regarding the validity of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, the contemporary context in which both Assyrian and Chaldean faithful are living, the appropriate regulations which are foreseen in official documents of the Catholic Church, and the process of rapprochement between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East, the following provision is made:
1. When necessity requires, Assyrian faithful are permitted to participate and to receive Holy Communion in a Chaldean celebration of the Holy Eucharist; in the same way, Chaldean faithful for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister, are permitted to participate and to receive Holy Communion in an Assyrian celebration of the Holy Eucharist.
2. In both cases, Assyrian and Chaldean ministers celebrate the Holy Eucharist according to the liturgical prescriptions and customs of their own tradition.
3. When Chaldean faithful are participating in an Assyrian celebration of the Holy Eucharist, the Assyrian minister is warmly invited to insert the words of the Institution in the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, as allowed by the Holy Synod of the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East.
4. The above considerations on the use of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari and the present guidelines for admission to the Eucharist, are intended exclusively in relation to the Eucharistic celebration and admission to the Eucharist of the faithful from the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East, in view of the pastoral necessity and ecumenical context mentioned above.
Rome, July 20th, 2001 Guidelines for Chaldean Catholics receiving the Eucharist in Assyrian Churches
This was pure positivism as to say that the words of consecration are implicitly present in a supposed “institute narrative” when they are not there are all is to stand reality on its hand.
Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI did not consider himself bound by anything about the preconciliar era that he found “troubling” even though those “troubles” had been issued by Holy Mother Church’s general councils and/or by individual popes in the course of their ordinary magisterium. Ratzinger/Benedict thus made short work of both papal infallibility and of Holy Mother’s absolute immunity form error and heresy that was summarized as follows by Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925:
Not least among the blessings which have resulted from the public and legitimate honor paid to the Blessed Virgin and the saints is the perfect and perpetual immunity of the Church from error and heresy. (Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas, December 11, 1925.)
The Catholic Church is incapable of being touched by any kind of error, no less heresy, yes, even in her Universal Ordinary Magisterium.
Who says so?
None other than the late Alfred Cardinal Ottaviani, who was the Pro-Secretary of the Holy Office under Pope Pius XII from January 15, 1953, to the time of the last true pontiff''s death on October 9, 1958.
Yes, that's who, well at least that's one who taught us this fact.
Using the teaching of Pope Pius XII about the binding nature of papal encyclical letters as the starting point for his treatise, Cardinal Ottaviani explained that no Catholic may put into question, no less reject, a pronouncement of a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter.
The principal target of Cardinal Ottaviani's treatise was, of course, none other than Father John Courtney Murray, S.J., the infamous proponent of the heresy of "religious liberty" that wound up being enshrined in the "Second" Vatican Council's Dignitatis Humanae, December 7, 1965.
Father Murray argued that papal pronouncements on matters pertaining to the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church, especially condemnations of religious liberty and separation of Church and State, were merely "transitory" or, more accurately, had "transitory elements" and were thus subject to be "reformed." Murray's boldness in this regard was so open that Alfred Cardinal Ottaviani, saw fit to confront Murray's assertions without any kind of equivocation:
Here the problem presents itself of how the Church and the lay state are to live together. Some Catholics are propagating ideas with regard to this point which are not quite correct. Many of these Catholics undoubtedly love the Church and rightly intend to find a mode of possible adaptation to the circumstances of the times. But it is none the less true that their position reminds one of that of the faint-hearted soldier who wants to conquer without fighting, or of that of the simple, unsuspecting person who accepts a hand, treacherously held out to him, without taking account of the fact that this hand will subsequently pull him across the Rubicon towards error and injustice.
The first mistake of these people is precisely that of not accepting fully the "arms of truth" and the teaching which the Roman Pontiffs, in the course of this last century, and in particular the reigning Pontiff, Pius XII, by means of encyclicals, allocutions and instructions of all kinds, have given to Catholics on this subject.
To justify themselves, these people affirm that, in the body of teaching given in the Church, a distinction must be made between what is permanent and what is transitory, this latter being due to the influence of particular passing conditions. Unfortunately, however, they include in this second zone the principles laid down in the Pontifical documents, principles on which the teaching of the Church has remained constant, as they form part of the patrimony of Catholic doctrine.
In this matter, the pendulum theory, elaborated by certain writers in an attempt to sift the teaching set forth in Encyclical Letters at different times, cannot be applied. "The Church," it has been written, "takes account of the rhythm of the world's history after the fashion of a swinging pendulum which, desirous of keeping the proper measure, maintains its movement by reversing it when it judges that it has gone as far as it should.... From this point of view a whole history of the Encyclicals could be written. Thus in the field of Biblical studies, the Encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu, comes after the Encyclicals Spiritus Paraclitus and Providentissimus. In the field of Theology or Politics, the Encyclicals, Summi Pontificatus, Non abbiamo bisogno and Ubi Arcano Deo, come after the Encyclical, Immortale Dei."
Now if this were to be understood in the sense that the general and fundamental principles of public Ecclesiastical Law, solemnly affirmed in the Encyclical Letter, Immortale Dei, are merely the reflection of historic moments of the past, while the swing of the pendulum of the doctrinal Encyclicals of Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII has passed in the opposite direction to different positions, the statement would have to be qualified as completely erroneous, not only because it misrepresents the teaching of the Encyclicals themselves, but also because it is theoretically inadmissible. In the Encyclical Letter, Humani Generis, the reigning Pontiff teaches us that we must recognize in the Encyclicals the ordinary magisterium of the Church: "Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand assent, in that, when writing such Letters, the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their teaching authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say "He who heareth you heareth Me" (St. Luke 10:16); and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already belongs for other reasons to Catholic doctrine."
Because they are afraid of being accused of wanting to return to the Middle Ages, some of our writers no longer dare to maintain the doctrinal positions that are constantly affirmed in the Encyclicals as belonging to the life and legislation of the Church in all ages. For them is meant the warning of Pope Leo XIII who, recommending concord and unity in the combat against error, adds that "care must be taken never to connive, in anyway, at false opinions, never to withstand them less strenuously than truth allows." (Duties of the Catholic State in Regard to Religion.)
Father John Courtney Murray was trying to "historicize" Catholic Social Teaching even though our true popes had condemned "religious liberty" and "separation of Church and State" as heretical in se as matters of principle while, of course, conceding the existence of those heresies as a fait accompli in the pluralist, religious indifferentist state of Modernity. Our true popes never ceased condemning these heresies while making allowance for Holy Mother Church's childen in such countries to make use of the constitutional and legal structures under which they lived to practice their Faith and to profess It openly without inteference or molestation from the civil authorities.
Father Murray sought to "historicize" Catholic Social Teaching even though such "historicization," which asserts that part of a particular teaching was applicable only to the situation that existed at a certain time and thus was not binding upon the Church in perpetuity, had been condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, which was, of course, simply a reiteration of the condemnations of the "evolution of dogma" promulgated at the [First] Vatican Council by Pope Pius IX and contained in the teaching of Pope Saint Pius X, most particularly in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.
Father Murray's efforts to "historicize" Catholic Social Teaching did not escape the notice of young priest who had been ordained on June 29, 1951, the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, in Munich, Germany, named Father Joseph Alois Ratzinger, who had been trained in his seminary years by the "new theologians" in this exact same methodology.
The very foundation of what Ratzinger/Benedict came to term as the "heremeneutic of continuity" is both philosophically absurd and stands as dogmatically condemned, representing also, of course utter blasphemy against the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, by not only "hiding" a "discovery" of the impermanence of dogmatic formulations but had actually permitted direct condemnations of this very proposition by a dogmatic council and various true popes.
How does something it absoluely false in 1906 become "true" a century later, a "truth" that must be, as noted yesterday, celebrated by the "popes" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism?
This is impossible.
Cardinal Ottaviani's treatise against the contentions of Father John Cardinal Murray, S.J., was written at about the same time that the great Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton of the American Ecclesiastical Review examined the binding nature of all pronouncements of the Sovereign Pontiff as recorded in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis and of fact that all decisions of the Roman congregations must be "religiously observed."
Using the teaching of Pope Pius XII about the binding nature of papal encyclical letters as the starting point for his treatise, Monsignor Fenton explained that no Catholic may put into question, no less reject, a pronouncement of a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter.
As was the case with Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani's own treatise, the principal target, albeit unnamed, of Monsignor Fenton's treatise was, of course, none other than Father John Courtney Murray, S.J. Monsignor Fenton discussed a "tendency towards an unhealthy minimism" in the United States of America concerning whether papal allocutions and "other vehicles of the Holy Father's ordinary magisterium" should be acceped as authoritative:
Despite the fact that there is nothing like an adequate treatment of the papal allocutions in existing theological literature, every priest, and particularly every professor of sacred theology, should know whether and under what circumstances these allocutions addressed by the Sovereign Pontiffs to private groups are to be regarded as authoritative, as actual expressions of the Roman Pontiff's ordinary magisterium. And, especially because of the tendency towards an unhealthy minimism current in this country and elsewhere in the world today, they should also know how doctrine is to be set forth in the allocutions and the other vehicles of the Holy Father's ordinary magisterium if it is to be accepted as authoritative. The present brief paper will attempt to consider and to answer these questions.
The first question to be considered is this: Can a speech addressed by the Roman Pontiff to a private group, a group which cannot in any sense be taken as representing either the Roman Church or the universal Church, contain doctrinal teaching authoritative for the universal Church?
The clear and unequivocal answer to this question is contained in the Holy Father's encyclical letter Humani generis, issued Aug. 12, 1950. According to this document: "if, in their 'Acta' the Supreme Pontiffs take care to render a decision on a point that has hitherto been controverted, it is obvious to all that this point, according to the mind and will of these same Pontiffs, can no longer be regarded as a question theologians may freely debate among themselves."[6]
Thus, in the teaching of the Humani generis, any doctrinal decision made by the Pope and included in his "Acta" are authoritative. Now many of the allocutions made by the Sovereign Pontiff to private groups are included in the "Acta" of the Sovereign Pontiff himself, as a section of the Acta apostolicae sedis. Hence, any doctrinal decision made in one of these allocutions that is published in the Holy Father's "Acta" is authoritative and binding on all the members of the universal Church.
There is, according to the words of the Humani generis, an authoritative doctrinal decision whenever the Roman Pontiffs, in their "Acta," "de re hactenus controversa data opera sententiam ferunt." When this condition is fulfilled, even in an allocution originally delivered to a private group, but subsequently published as part of the Holy Father's "Acta," an authoritative doctrinal judgment has been proposed to the universal Church. All of those within the Church are obliged, under penalty of serious sin, to accept this decision. . . .
Now the questions may arise: is there any particular form which the Roman Pontiff is obliged to follow in setting forth a doctrinal decision in either the positive or the negative manner? Does the Pope have to state specifically and explicitly that he intends to issue a doctrinal decision on this particular point? Is it at all necessary that he should refer explicitly to the fact that there has hitherto been a debate among theologians on the question he is going to decide?
There is certainly nothing in the divinely established constitutional law of the Catholic Church which would in any way justify an affirmative response to any of these inquiries. The Holy Father's doctrinal authority stems from the tremendous responsibility Our Lord laid upon him in St. Peter, whose successor he is. Our Lord charged the Prince of the Apostles, and through him, all of his successors until the end of time, with the commission of feeding, of acting as a shepherd for, of taking care of, His lambs and His sheep.[7] Included in that responsibility was the obligation, and, of course, the power, to confirm the faith of his fellow Christians.
And the Lord said: "Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren."[8]
St. Peter had, and has in his successor, the duty and the power to confirm his brethren in their faith, to take care of their doctrinal needs. Included in his responsibility is an obvious obligation to select and to employ the means he judges most effective and apt for the accomplishment of the end God has commissioned him to attain. And in this era, when the printed word possesses a manifest primacy in the field of the dissemination of ideas, the Sovereign Pontiffs have chosen to bring their authoritative teaching, the doctrine in which they accomplish the work of instruction God has commanded them to do, to the people of Christ through the medium of the printed word in the published "Acta."
The Humani generis reminds us that the doctrinal decisions set forth in the Holy Father's "Acta" manifestly are authoritative "according to the mind and will" of the Pontiffs who have issued these decisions. Thus, wherever there is a doctrinal judgment expressed in the "Acta" of a Sovereign Pontiff, it is clear that the Pontiff understands that decision to be authoritative and wills that it be so.
Now when the Pope, in his "Acta," sets forth as a part of Catholic doctrine or as a genuine teaching of the Catholic Church some thesis which has hitherto been opposed, even legitimately, in the schools of sacred theology, he is manifestly making a doctrinal decision. This certainly holds true even when, in making his statement, the Pope does not explicitly assert that he is issuing a doctrinal judgment and, of course, even when he does not refer to the existence of a controversy or debate on the subject among theologians up until the time of his own pronouncement. All that is necessary is that this teaching, hitherto opposed in the theological schools, be now set forth as the teaching of the Sovereign Pontiff, or as "doctrina catholica."
Private theologians have no right whatsoever to establish what they believe to be the conditions under which the teaching presented in the "Acta" of the Roman Pontiff may be accepted as authoritative. This is, on the contrary, the duty and the prerogative of the Roman Pontiff himself. The present Holy Father has exercised that right and has done his duty in stating clearly that any doctrinal decision which the Bishop of Rome has taken the trouble to make and insert into his "Acta" is to be received as genuinely authoritative.
In line with the teaching of the Humani generis, then, it seems unquestionably clear that any doctrinal decision expressed by the Sovereign Pontiff in the course of an allocution delivered to a private group is to be accepted as authoritative when and if that allocution is published by the Sovereign Pontiff as a part of his own "Acta." Now we must consider this final question: What obligation is incumbent upon a Catholic by reason of an authoritative doctrinal decision made by the Sovereign Pontiff and communicated to the universal Church in this manner?
The text of the Humani generis itself supplies us with a minimum answer. This is found in the sentence we have already quoted: "And if, in their 'Acta,' the Supreme Pontiffs take care to render a decision on a point that has hitherto been controverted, it is obvious to all that this point, according to the mind and will of these same Pontiffs, can no longer be regarded as a question theologians may freely debate among themselves."
Theologians legitimately discuss and dispute among themselves doctrinal questions which the authoritative magisterium of the Catholic Church has not as yet resolved. Once that magisterium has expressed a decision and communicated that decision to the Church universal, the first and the most obvious result of its declaration must be the cessation of debate on the point it has decided. A man definitely is not acting and could not act as a theologian, as a teacher of Catholic truth, by disputing against a decision made by the competent doctrinal authority of the Mystical Body of Christ on earth.
In line with the teaching of the Humani generis, then, it seems unquestionably clear that any doctrinal decision expressed by the Sovereign Pontiff in the course of an allocution delivered to a private group is to be accepted as authoritative when and if that allocution is published by the Sovereign Pontiff as a part of his own "Acta." Now we must consider this final question: What obligation is incumbent upon a Catholic by reason of an authoritative doctrinal decision made by the Sovereign Pontiff and communicated to the universal Church in this manner? (The doctrinal Authority of Papal allocutions.)
Monsignor Fenton answered the question he posted with a ringing condemnation of the false proposition that one can "ignore," no less seek to "refute," anything contained in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis:
The text of the Humani generis itself supplies us with a minimum answer. This is found in the sentence we have already quoted: "And if, in their 'Acta,' the Supreme Pontiffs take care to render a decision on a point that has hitherto been controverted, it is obvious to all that this point, according to the mind and will of these same Pontiffs, can no longer be regarded as a question theologians may freely debate among themselves."
Theologians legitimately discuss and dispute among themselves doctrinal questions which the authoritative magisterium of the Catholic Church has not as yet resolved. Once that magisterium has expressed a decision and communicated that decision to the Church universal, the first and the most obvious result of its declaration must be the cessation of debate on the point it has decided. A man definitely is not acting and could not act as a theologian, as a teacher of Catholic truth, by disputing against a decision made by the competent doctrinal authority of the Mystical Body of Christ on earth.
Thus, according to the clear teaching of the Humani generis, it is morally wrong for any individual subject to the Roman Pontiff to defend a thesis contradicting a teaching which the Pope, in his "Acta," has set forth as a part of Catholic doctrine. It is, in other words, wrong to attack a teaching which, in a genuine doctrinal decision, the Sovereign Pontiff has taught officially as the visible head of the universal Church. This holds true always an everywhere, even in those cases in which the Pope, in making his decision, did not exercise the plenitude of his apostolic teaching power by making an infallible doctrinal definition.
The Humani generis must not be taken to imply that a Catholic theologian has completed his obligation with respect to an authoritative doctrinal decision made by the Holy Father and presented in his published "Acta" when he has merely refrained from arguing or debating against it. The Humani generis reminded its readers that "this sacred magisterium ought to be the immediate and universal norm of truth for any theologian in matters of faith and morals."[9] Furthermore, it insisted that the faithful are obligated to shun errors which more or less approach heresy, and "to follow the constitutions and decrees by which evil opinions of this sort have been proscribed and forbidden by the Holy See."[10] In other words, the Humani generis claimed the same internal assent for declarations of the magisterium on matters of faith and morals which previous documents of the Holy See had stressed.
We may well ask why the Humani generis went to the trouble of mentioning something as fundamental and rudimentary as the duty of abstaining from further debate on a point where the Roman Pontiff has already issued a doctrinal decision, and has communicated that decision to the Church universal by publishing it in his "Acta." The reason is to be found in the context of the encyclical itself. The Holy Father has told us something of the existing situation which called for the issuance of the "Humani generis." This information is contained in the text of that document. The following two sentences show us the sort of condition the Humani generis was written to meet and to remedy:
"And although this sacred magisterium ought to be the immediate and universal norm of truth on matters of faith and morals for any theologian, as the agency to which Christ the Lord has entrusted the entire deposit of faith - that is, the Sacred Scriptures and divine Tradition - to be guarded and defended and explained, still, the duty by which the faithful are obligated also to shun those errors which approach more or less to heresy, and therefore 'to follow the constitutions and decrees by which evil opinions of this sort have been proscribed and forbidden by the Holy See,' is sometimes ignored as if it did not exist. What is said in encyclical letters of the Roman Pontiffs about the nature and constitution of the Church is habitually and deliberately neglected by some with the idea of giving force to a certain vague notion which they claim to have found in the ancient Fathers, especially the Greeks."[11]
Six years ago, then, Pope Pius XII was faced with a situation in which some of the men who were privileged and obligated to teach the truths of sacred theology had perverted their position and their influence and had deliberately flouted the teachings of the Holy See about the nature and the constitution of the Catholic Church. And, when he declared that it is wrong to debate a point already decided by the Holy Father after that decision has been published in his "Acta," he was taking cognizance of and condemning an existent practice. There actually were individuals who were contradicting papal teachings. They were so numerous and influential that they rendered the composition of the Humani generis necessary to counteract their activities. These individuals were continuing to propose teachings repudiated by the Sovereign Pontiff in previous pronouncements. The Holy Father, then, was compelled by these circumstances to call for the cessation of debate among theologians on subjects which had already been decided by pontifical decisions published in the "Acta."
The kind of theological teaching and writing against which the encyclical Humani generis was directed was definitely not remarkable for its scientific excellence. It was, as a matter of fact, exceptionally poor from the scientific point of view. The men who were responsible for it showed very clearly that they did not understand the basic nature and purpose of sacred theology. For the true theologian the magisterium of the Church remains, as the Humani generis says, the immediate and universal norm of truth. And the teaching set forth by Pope Pius IX in his Tuas libenter is as true today as it always has been.
But when we treat of that subjection by which all Catholic students of speculative sciences are obligated in conscience so that they bring new aids to the Church by their writings, the men of this assembly ought to realize that it is not enough for Catholic scholars to receive and venerate the above-mentioned dogmas of the Church, but [they ought also to realize] that they must submit to the doctrinal decisions issued by the Pontifical Congregations and also to those points of doctrine which are held by the common and constant agreement of Catholics as theological truths and conclusions which are so certain that, even though the opinions opposed to them cannot be called heretical, they still deserve some other theological censure.[12]
It is definitely the business of the writer in the field of sacred theology to benefit the Church by what he writes. It is likewise the duty of the teacher of this science to help the Church by his teaching. The man who uses the shoddy tricks of minimism to oppose or to ignore the doctrinal decisions made by the Sovereign Pontiff and set down in his "Acta" is, in the last analysis, stultifying his position as a theologian. (The doctrinal Authority of Papal allocutions.)
Are there any further questions about the binding nature of what a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter places in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis?
Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton denounced "the shoddy tricks of minimism to ignore the doctrinal decisions made by the Sovereign Pontiff and set down his his 'Acta'."
The same shoddy tricks of minimism that were being used by the likes of Father John Courtney Murray, S.J., and the "new theologians," including Father Joseph Ratzinger, in the 1950s that prompted Pope Pius XII to issue Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, have been employed for the past forty years or more by those seeking to claim the absolutely nonexistent ability to ignore and/or refute the teaching of men they have recognized to be a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter. I know. I contributed to that literature for a while. I was wrong. So are those who persist in their willful, stubborn rejection of the binding nature of all that is contained in the Universal Ordinary Magisterium of the Catholic Church even though if not declared infallible in a solemn manner.
Writing in 1949, a year before Pope Pius XII issued Humani Generis and seven years before his commentary on the binding authority of papal allocutions, Monsignor Fenton explained that what is contained in the Universal Ordinal Magisterium of Holy Mother Church is to be believed with religious assent, which means that no one has the authority to dissent therefrom:
[Theologians] Vacant and Scheeben make it clear that in speaking of the Decreta (as distinct from the Constitutiones), the Vatican Council definitely included the pronouncements of the various Roman Congregations among those teachings which Catholics are bound in conscience to accept perseveringly. [62] These pronouncements are unquestionably non-infallible statements. They have obviously less authority than those documents which emanate directly from the Holy Father, even when the Vicar of Christ does not intend to use the fullness of his apostolic teaching power. If these decrees of the Roman Congregations are mentioned as doctrinal pronouncements “to be observed” by all of the faithful, then it is perfectly clear that the Vatican Council, speaking as the voice of the entire ecclesia docens, insists that the teachings set forth in papal encyclicals must be accepted sincerely.
The Vatican Council’s exhortation has reference, immediately and directly, to those Constitutiones et Decreta which appeared prior to the promulgation of the Dei Filius and which dealt with doctrine closely connected with the teachings set forth in the Dei Filius. Indirectly however, by reason of the Council’s mode of procedure, it most certainly affirmed the obligation incumbent upon all Catholics of accepting and assenting to the teachings presented to the City of God on earth, even in a non-infallible manner, by the Roman Pontiff. It must be remembered that the Council did not intend to oblige the faithful to accept these pontifical statements by reason of any command contained in the Dei Filius. It simply warned them to be faithful to the obligation already incumbent upon them by reason of the pontifical authority itself. The encyclicals which have appeared since the year 1870 have manifestly just as much claim to be accepted and believed by all the faithful as had the pontifical documents issued prior to that date.
The internal acceptance which Catholics are bound to give to that portion of the Church’s teaching not presented absolutely as infallible is described as a “religious assent.” It is truly religious by reason of its object and of its motives. The Vatican Councl’s conclusion to its Constitution Dei Filius stresses the religious object of this assent. The faithful are reminded of their obligation to believe the doctrinal pronouncements of the Roman Congregations because these statements denounce and forbid definite errors which are closely connected with “heretical wickedness” and which thus are opposed to the purity of the faith. Teachings that contradict errors of this sort are obviously religious in character since they deal more or less directly with the content of divine revelation, the body of truth which guides and directs the Church of God in its worship.
The letter Tuas libentur, sent on Dec. 21, 1863 by Pope Pius IX to the Archbishop of Munich, stresses in a singularly effective way the religious motivation of the assent Catholics are bound to give to those teachings presented in a non-infallible manner in the Church’s ordinary magisterium. After reminding his readers that the dogma itself can be set forth by the Church’s ordinary magisterium as well as in its solemn judgments, the great Pontiff made the following statement.
Sed cum agatur de illa subiectione, qua ex conscientia ii omnes catholici obstringuntur, qui in contemplatrices scientias incumbunt, ut novas suis scriptis Ecclesiae afferant utilitates, idcirco eiusdem conventus viri recognoscere debent, sapientibus catholicis haud satis esse, ut praefata Ecclesiae dogmata recipiant ac venerentur, verum etiam opus esse, ut se subiciant decisionibus, quae ad doctrinam pertinentes a Pontificiis Congregationibus proferuntur, tum iis doctrinae capitibus, quae communi et constanti Catholicorum consensu retinentur ut theologicae veritates et conclusiones ita certae, ut opiniones eisdem doctrinae capitibus adversae quamquam haereticae dici nequant, tamen aliam theologicam mereantur censuram. [63] (Authority of Papal Encyclicals.)
The passage from Pope Pius IX's Tuas Liberantur that was cited by Monsignor Fenton in 1949, a year before the issuance of Humani Generis by Pope Pius XII that prompted him, Monsignor Fenton, to explicate once again on the matter as he, as noed above, applied the teaching of Human Generis to papal allocutions and all other pronouncements recorded in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, was preceded by another paragraph that is just as important to demonstrate the fallacy of "rejecting" the teaching of the Universal Ordinary Magisterium while claiming to "recognize" a man to be a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter:
While, in truth, We laud these men with due praise because they professed the truth, which necessarily aries from their obligation to the Catholic faith. We wish to persuade Ourselves that they did not wish to confine the obligation, by which Catholic teachers and writers are absolutely bound, only to those decrees which are set forth by the infallible judgment of the Church as dogmas of faith, to be believed by all. And We persuade Ourselves, also, that they did not wich toe declare that that perfect adhesion to revealed truths, which they recognized as absolutely necessary to attain true progress in the sciences and to refute errors, could be obtained if faith and obedience were only given to the dogmas expessly defined by the Church. For, even if it were a matter concerning that subjection which is to be manifested by an act of divine faith, nevertheless, it would not have to be limited to those matters which have been defined by express decrees of the ecumenical Councils, or of the Roman Pontiffs and of this See, but would have to be extended also to those matters which are handed down as divinely revealed by the ordinary teching power of the whole Church spread throughout the world, and therefore, by universal and ocmmon consent are held by Catholic theologians to belong to faith.
But since it is a matter of subjection by which in conscience all those Catholics are bound who work in the speculative sciences, in order that they may bring new advantages to the Church by their writings, on that account, then, the men of the same convention should recognize that it is not sufficient for learned Catholics to accept and revere the aforesaid dogmas of the Church, but that it is also necessary to subject themselves to the decisions pertaining to doctrine which are issued by the Pontifical Congregations, and also to those forms of doctrine which are held by the common and constant consent of Catholics as theological truths and conclusions, so certain that opinions opposed to these same forms of doctrine, although they cannot be called heretical, nevertheless deserve some theological censure. (Pope Pius IX, "The Conventions of the Theologians of Germany," from the letter Tuas Libenter, to the Archbishop of Munich-Freising, December 21, 1863. As found in Henry Denzinger, Enchirdion Symbolorum, thirteenth edition, translated into English by Roy Deferrari and published in 1955 as The Sources of Catholic Dogma--referred to as "Denziger," by B. Herder Book Company of St. Louis, Missouri, and London, England, Nos. 1683-1684, pp. 427-428.)
Perhaps it is useful in the final part of this three part series about the late Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI to call to mind once again that it was when he stated the following thirty-three years ago during his time as the "prefect" of the countefeit church of conciliarism's misnamed Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:
1990: The text [of the document Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesial Vocation] also presents the various types of bonds that rise from the different degrees of magisterial teaching. It affirms - perhaps for the first time with this clarity - that there are decisions of the magisterium that cannot be the last word on the matter as such, but are, in a substantial fixation of the problem, above all an expression of pastoral prudence, a kind of provisional disposition. The nucleus remains valid, but the particulars, which the circumstances of the times influenced, may need further correction.
In this regard, one may think of the declarations of Popes in the last century [19th century] about religious liberty, as well as the anti-Modernist decisions at the beginning of this century, above all, the decisions of the Biblical Commission of the time [on evolutionism]. As a cry of alarm in the face of hasty and superficial adaptations, they will remain fully justified. A personage such as Johann Baptist Metz said, for example, that the Church's anti-Modernist decisions render the great service of preserving her from falling into the liberal-bourgeois world. But in the details of the determinations they contain, they became obsolete after having fulfilled their pastoral mission at their proper time.
(Joseph Ratzinger, "Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesial Vocation," published with the title "Rinnovato dialogo fra Magistero e Teologia," in L'Osservatore Romano, June 27, 1990, p. 6, cited at Card. Ratzinger: The teachings of the Popes against Modernism are obsolete.)
Alas, condemnations of "religious liberty" and "separation of Church and State" that Ratzinger rejected in complete conformity to what Father John Courtney Murray had been doing in his, Razinger's, seminary days and first decade as a priest were made by our true popes, not merely by the Roman Congregations. Murray believed what Ratzinger held until the day he died on December 31, 2023, the Feast of Pope Sylvester I, namely, that no dogmatic pronouncement of the Catholic Church is ever free from reformulation as it is never possible to adequately express the many-fold aspects of dogma within the confines of human language, which must, it is contended, is the prisoner of subjective circumstances and the imperfection of those who choose the language.
Unfortunately for those who believe this, the One responsible for the formulation of dogma is the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, under Whose infallible protection popes teach the truths of the Catholic at all times, yes, even when not proclaiming something solemnly ex cathedra. Catholics are bound to obey everything proposed by a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter without any degree of dissent, reservation, or qualification. Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton proved that this is so in his scholarly treatises cited above.
Those who continue to praise such a blaspheming Hegelian, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, must willfully ignore the body of evidence concerning his rejection of many of Holy Mother Church’s teachings derived just from his work as the “prefect” of the conciliar church’s “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” and his seven years, ten months, eleven days as “Pope Benedict XVI” without even mentioning the evidence found in his published “scholarly” works, including but not limited to Introduction to Christianity, Principles of Catholic Theology, Milestones, and his Jesus of Nazareth trilogy. It was in Milestones that he wrote the following about “Christian hotheads” who did not “respect” the temples of false religions and/or their idols:
In the relationship with paganism quite different and varied developments took place. The mission as a whole was not consistent. There were in fact Christian hotheads and fanatics who destroyed temples, who were unable to see paganism as anything other than idolatry that had to be radically eliminated. People saw points in common with philosophy, but not in pagan religion, which was seen as corrupt. (Joseph Ratzinger, God and the World: A Conversation with Peter Seewald, Ignatius Press, 2002, p. 373.)
Was Saint Benedict guilty of being one of these “Christian hotheads and fanatics who destroyed temples,” men “who were unable to see paganism as anything other than idolatry that had to be radically eliminated”?
The late Antipope Emeritus Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI not only blasphemed God as he denied the nature of dogmatic truth and esteemed the symbols and the “values” of false religions. He blasphemed the work and the memory of the very saint who evangelized his own German ancestors, the man who is the very patron saint of Germany, his homeland, Saint Bonfiace.
Saint Boniface also knew that there was no middle ground between Catholicism and any false religion. He knew that he had to evangelize the non-Catholics to whom he had been sent without engaging in what Pope Pius XI referred to in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928, as obstinate wranglings with unbelievers. Pope Pius XII commented as follows about the heroic efforts of Saint Boniface to oppose false idols at the point of his own life:
When by the grace and favor of God this very important task was done, Boniface did not allow himself his well-earned rest. In spite of the fact that he was already burdened by so many cares, and was feeling now his advanced age and realizing that his health was almost broken by so many labors, he prepared himself eagerly for a new and no less difficult enterprise. He turned his attention again to Friesland, that Friesland which had been the first goal of his apostolic travels, where he had later on labored so much. Especially in the northern regions this land was still enveloped in the darkness of pagan error. Zeal that was still youthful led him there to bring forth new sons to Jesus Christ and to bring Christian civilization to new peoples. For he earnestly desired "that in leaving this world he might receive his reward there where he had first begun his preaching and entered upon his meritorious career." Feeling that his mortal life was drawing to a close, he confided his presentiment to his dear disciple, Bishop Lullus, and asserted that he did not want to await death in idleness. "I yearn to finish the road before me; I cannot call myself back from the path I have chosen. Now the day and hour of my death is at hand. For now I leave the prison of the body and go to my eternal reward. My dear son, . . . insist in turning the people from the paths of error, finish the construction of the basilica already begun at Fulda and there bring my body which has aged with the passage of many years.
When he and his little band had taken departure from the others, "he traveled through all Friesland, ceaselessly preaching the word of God, banishing pagan rites and extirpating immoral heathen customs. With tremendous energy he built churches and overthrew the idols of the temples. He baptized thousands of men, women and children." After he had arrived in the northern regions of Friesland and was about to administer the Sacrament of Confirmation to a large number of newly baptized converts, a furious mob of pagans suddenly attacked and threatened to kill them with deadly spears and swords. Then the holy prelate serenely advanced and "forbade his followers to resist, saying, 'Cease fighting, my children, for we are truly taught by Scripture not to return evil for evil, but rather good. The day we have long desired is now at hand; the hour of our death has come of its own accord. Take strength in the Lord, . . . be courageous and do not be afraid of those who kill the body, for they cannot slay an immortal soul. Rejoice in the Lord, fix the anchor of hope in God, Who will immediately give you an eternal reward and a place in the heavenly court with the angelic choirs'." All were encouraged by these words to embrace martyrdom. They prayed and turned their eyes and hearts to heaven where they hoped to receive soon an eternal reward, and then fell beneath the onslaught of their enemies, who stained with blood the bodies of those who fell in the happy combat of the saints." At the moment of this martyrdom, Boniface, who was to be beheaded by the sword, "placed the sacred book of the Gospels upon his head as the sword threatened, that he might receive the deadly stroke under it and claim its protection in death, whose reading he loved in life. (Pope Pius XII, Ecclesiae Fastos, June 5, 1954.)
Perhaps another “Christian hothead” was Saint Francis Xavier, who was relentless in his pursuit of the destruction of false idols:
As to the numbers who become Christians, you may understand them from this, that it often happens to me to be hardly able to use my hands from the fatigue of baptizing: often in a single day I have baptized whole villages. Sometimes I have lost my voice and strength altogether with repeating again and again the Credo and the other forms. The fruit that is reaped by the baptism of infants, as well as by the instruction of children and others, is quite incredible. These children, I trust heartily, by the grace of God, will be much better than their fathers. They show an ardent love for the Divine law, and an extraordinary zeal for learning our holy religion and imparting it to others. Their hatred for idolatry is marvellous. They get into feuds with the heathen about it, and whenever their own parents practise it, they reproach them and come off to tell me at once. Whenever I hear of any act of idolatrous worship, I go to the place with a large band of these children, who very soon load the devil with a greater amount of insult and abuse than he has lately received of honor and worship from their parents, relations, and acquaintances. The children run at the idols, upset them, dash them down, break them to pieces, spit on them, trample on them, kick them about, and in short heap on them every possible outrage. (St. Francis Xavier: Letter from India, to the Society of Jesus at Rome, 1543.)
We have in these parts a class of men among the pagans who are called Brahmins. They keep up the worship of the gods, the superstitious rites of religion, frequenting the temples and taking care of the idols. They are as perverse and wicked a set as can anywhere be found, and I always apply to them the words of holy David, "from an unholy race and a wicked and crafty man deliver me, O Lord." They are liars and cheats to the very backbone. Their whole study is, how to deceive most cunningly the simplicity and ignorance of the people. They give out publicly that the gods command certain offerings to be made to their temples, which offerings are simply the things that the Brahmins themselves wish for, for their own maintenance and that of their wives, children, and servants. Thus they make the poor folk believe that the images of their gods eat and drink, dine and sup like men, and some devout persons are found who really offer to the idol twice a day, before dinner and supper, a certain sum of money. The Brahmins eat sumptuous meals to the sound of drums, and make the ignorant believe that the gods are banqueting. When they are in need of any supplies, and even before, they give out to the people that the gods are angry because the things they have asked for have not been sent, and that if the people do not take care, the gods will punish them by slaughter, disease, and the assaults of the devils. And the poor ignorant creatures, with the fear of the gods before them, obey them implicitly. These Brahmins have barely a tincture of literature, but they make up for their poverty in learning by cunning and malice. Those who belong to these parts are very indignant with me for exposing their tricks. Whenever they talk to me with no one by to hear them they acknowledge that they have no other patrimony but the idols, by their lies about which they procure their support from the people. They say that I, poor creature as I am, know more than all of them put together.
They often send me a civil message and presents, and make a great complaint when I send them all back again. Their object is to bribe me to connive at their evil deeds. So they declare that they are convinced that there is only one God, and that they will pray to Him for me. And I, to return the favor, answer whatever occurs to me, and then lay bare, as far as I can, to the ignorant people whose blind superstitions have made them their slaves, their imposture and tricks, and this has induced many to leave the worship of the false gods, and eagerly become Christians. If it were not for the opposition of the Brahmins, we should have them all embracing the religion of Jesus Christ. (St. Francis Xavier: Letter from India, to the Society of Jesus at Rome, 1543.)
My own and only Father in the Heart of Christ, I think that the many letters from this place which have lately been sent to Rome will inform you how prosperously the affairs of religion go on in these parts, through your prayers and the good bounty of God. But there seem to be certain things which I ought myself to speak about to you; so I will just touch on a few points relating to these parts of the world which are so distant from Rome. In the first place, the whole race of the Indians, as far as I have been able to see, is very barbarous; and it does not like to listen to anything that is not agreeable to its own manners and customs, which, as I say, are barbarous. It troubles itself very little to learn anything about divine things and things which concern salvation. Most of the Indians are of vicious disposition, and are adverse to virtue. Their instability, levity, and inconstancy of mind are incredible; they have hardly any honesty, so inveterate are their habits of sin and cheating. We have hard work here, both in keeping the Christians up to the mark and in converting the heathen. And, as we are your children, it is fair that on this account you should take great care of us and help us continually by your prayers to God. You know very well what a hard business it is to teach people who neither have any knowledge of God nor follow reason, but think it a strange and intolerable thing to be told to give up their habits of sin, which have now gained all the force of nature by long possession. Saint Francis Xavier, Letter on the Missions, to St. Ignatius de Loyola, 1549.)
Saint Francis Xavier had a hatred of idolatry, and he marveled at the fact that his followers shared that hatred. The conciliar “popes,” including the late Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, have praised false religions and have thought nothing—absolutely nothing—of offending the true God of Divine Revelation. They have been men of sin, of apostasy, of blasphemy, of heresy, of sacrilege, impurity, and indecency, and filth. They have been men of the adversary himself as he is the author of all beliefs and actions that opposed to the teaching of Catholic Church, and this is to say quite directly that these men have been nothing other than forerunners of Antichrist himself.
Those who continue to praise a man whose mission was to direct the “right course” of a revolution based on the “demolition” of the Catholic Church’s bastions cannot say that love God and then be indifferent about the heresies of errors of Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, which is why such people should consider the following words of Father Frederick William Faber in his reflection on the Sixth Dolor of Our Lady, the Pieta:
The love of God brings many new instincts into the heart. Heavenly and noble as they are, they bear no resemblance to what men would call the finer and more heroic developments of character. A spiritual discernment is necessary to their right appreciation. They are so unlike the growth of earth, that they must expect to meet on earth with only suspicion, misunderstanding, and dislike. It is not easy to defend them from a controversial point of view; for our controversy is obliged to begin by begging the question, or else it would be unable so much as to state its case. The axioms of the world pass current in the world, the axioms of the gospel do not. Hence the world has its own way. It talks us down. It tries us before tribunals where our condemnation is secured beforehand. It appeals to principles which are fundamental with most men but are heresies with us. Hence its audience takes part with it against us. We are foreigners, and must pay the penalty of being so. If we are misunderstood, we had no right to reckon on any thing else, being as we are, out of our own country. We are made to be laughed at. We shall be understood in heaven. Woe to those easy-going Christians whom the world can understand, and will tolerate because it sees they have a mind to compromise!
The love of souls is one of these instincts which the love of Jesus brings into our hearts. To the world it is proselytism, there mere wish to add to a faction, one of the selfish developments of party spirit. One while the stain of lax morality is affixed to it, another while the reproach of pharisaic strictness! For what the world seems to suspect least of all in religion is consistency. But the love of souls, however apostolic, is always subordinate to love of Jesus. We love souls because of Jesus, not Jesus because of souls. Thus there are times and places when we pass from the instinct of divine love to another, from the love of souls to the hatred of heresy. This last is particularly offensive to the world. So especially opposed is it to the spirit of the world, that, even in good, believing hearts, every remnant of worldliness rises in arms against this hatred of heresy, embittering the very gentlest of characters and spoiling many a glorious work of grace. Many a convert, in whose soul God would have done grand things, goes to his grave a spiritual failure, because he would not hate heresy. The heart which feels the slightest suspicion against the hatred of heresy is not yet converted. God is far from reigning over it yet with an undivided sovereignty. The paths of higher sanctity are absolutely barred against it. In the judgment of the world, and of worldly Christians, this hatred of heresy is exaggerated, bitter, contrary to moderation, indiscreet, unreasonable, aiming at too much, bigoted, intolerant, narrow, stupid, and immoral. What can we say to defend it? Nothing which they can understand. We had, therefore, better hold our peace. If we understand God, and He understands us, it is not so very hard to go through life suspected, misunderstood and unpopular. The mild self-opinionatedness of the gentle, undiscerning good will also take the world's view and condemn us; for there is a meek-loving positiveness about timid goodness which is far from God, and the instincts of whose charity is more toward those who are less for God, while its timidity is searing enough for harsh judgment. There are conversions where three-quarters of the heart stop outside the Church and only a quarter enters, and heresy can only be hated by an undivided heart. But if it is hard, it has to be borne. A man can hardly have the full use of his senses who is bent on proving to the world, God's enemy, that a thorough-going Catholic hatred of heresy is a right frame of man. We might as well force a blind man to judge a question of color. Divine love inspheres in us a different circle of life, motive, and principle, which is not only not that of the world, but in direct enmity with it. From a worldly point of view, the craters in the moon are more explicable things than we Christians with our supernatural instincts. From the hatred of heresy we get to another of these instincts, the horror of sacrilege. The distress caused by profane words seems to the world but an exaggerated sentimentality. The penitential spirit of reparation which pervades the whole Church is, on its view, either a superstition or an unreality. The perfect misery which an unhallowed touch of the Blessed Sacrament causes to the servants of God provokes either the world's anger or its derision. Men consider it either altogether absurd in itself, or at any rate out of all proportion; and, if otherwise they have proofs of our common sense, they are inclined to put down our unhappiness to sheer hypocrisy. The very fact that they do not believe as we believe removes us still further beyond the reach even of their charitable comprehension. If they do not believe in the very existence our sacred things, how they shall they judge the excesses of a soul to which these sacred things are far dearer than itself?
Now, it is important to bear all this in mind while we are considering the sixth dolor. Mary's heart was furnished, as never heart of saint was yet, yet with these three instincts regarding souls, heresy, and sacrilege. They were in her heart three grand abysses of grace, out of which arose perpetually new capabilities of suffering. Ordinarily speaking, the Passion tires us. It is a fatiguing devotion. It is necessarily so because of the strain of soul which it is every moment eliciting. So when our Lord dies a feeling of repose comes over us. For a moment we are tempted to think that our Lady's dolors ought to have ended there, and that the sixth dolor and the seventh are almost of our own creation, and that we tax our imagination in order to fill up the picture with the requisite dark shading of sorrow. But this is only one of the ways in which devotion to the dolors heightens and deepens our devotion to the Passion. It is not our imagination that we tax but our spiritual discernment. In these two last dolors we are led into greater refinements of woe, into the more abstruse delicacies of grief, because we have got to deal with a soul rendered even more wonderful than it was before by the elevations of the sorrows which have gone before. Thus, the piercing of our Lord with the spear as to our Blessed Lady by far the most awful sacrilege which it was then in man's power to perpetrate upon the earth. To break violently into the Holy of Holies in the temple, and pollute its dread sanctity with all manner of heathen defilement, would have been as nothing compared to the outrage of the adorable Body of God. It is in vain that we try to lift ourselves to a true appreciation of this horror in Mary's heart. Our love of God is wanting in keenness, our perceptions of divine things in fineness. We cannot do more than make approaches and they are terrible enough. (Father Frederick Faber, The Foot of the Cross, published originally in England in 1857 under the title of The Dolors of Mary, republished by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 291-295.)
Why are we so ready to forget these truths by surrendering to the sentimentality of the moment?
Perhaps it is good to remember these words of Dom Prosper Guerager, O.S.B, that were contained in his reflection on the life of Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen:
A Catholic who gives heretics credit for sincerity when they talk about religious toleration proves the he knows nothing about the past or the present. There is a fatal instinct in error, which leads it to hate the Truth; and the true Church, by its unchangeableness, is a perpetual reproach to them that refuse to be her children. Heresy starts with an attempt to annihilate them that remain faithful; when it has grown tired of open persecution it vents its spleen in insults and calumnies; and when these do not produce the desired effect, hypocrisy comes in with its assurances of friendly forbearance. The history of Protestant Europe, during the last three centuries, confirms these statements; it also justifies us in honouring those courageous servants of God who, during that same period, have died for the ancient faith. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year.)
Dom Prosper Gueranger described with prophetic accuracy the very spirit of those who have looked the other way at their non-restorer of tradition’s lifelong warfare against the Catholic Faith.
Why are we so ready to make our own peace with that which was opposed so valiantly by Catholic martyrs just because a ninety-five year old priest dies after presiding over a revolution against the nature of dogmatic truth, which was and remains the cornerstone of the “new ecclesiology,” “episcopal collegiality, false ecumenism, religious liberty, separation of Church and State, false moral theologies, false Scriptural exegeses, and a false liturgy that has the power to sanctify and save no one.
A true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter is to be venerated as the Vicar of Christ on earth, not disparaged as a cardboard figure capable of being torn apart as though he were some kind of elected official holding civil office.
A true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter is our guarantor against heresy and the contagion of error.
A true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter is the Principle of Unity, not the source of division and disunity.
It is precisely because the spiritual robber barons who have presented themselves as "popes" since October 28, 1958, have not been members of the Catholic Church (something that they have shown by fomenting doctrinal, liturgical, moral and pastoral revolutions that could never come from Holy Mother Church) that Catholicism has ceased to exist in the souls of so many hundreds of millions of Catholics worldwide.
The counterfeit church of conciliarism has been awash in heresy from its beginnings as it is premised upon Modernism’s condemned precept of “the evolution of dogma” that is nothing other than a denial of the very immutability of God Himself. It is thus no exaggeration to state that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is premised upon a denial of God’s very Divine Nature as He has revealed It to us exclusively through His Catholic Church.
From the denial of God’s Divine Nature flows quite logically the heresies associated with the Divine Constitution of his Holy Catholic Church by means of the “new ecclesiology,” false ecumenism, “inter-religious prayer” services and “episcopal collegiality. Similarly, the denial of God’s Divine Nature is responsible for the rejection of the Social Reign of Christ the King over men and their nations in favor of the heresy of “religious liberty” that is so responsible for producing havoc all throughout the supposedly “civilized world,” starting in the new places that gave birth to it, the United States of America and the “First Republic of France.”
The counterfeit church of conciliarism is awash in abominable sacrileges, starting with the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service and its other false sacramentally barren rites (“episcopal consecration,” “priestly ordination,” “confirmation,” “anointing of the sick”) and the wretched displays of wanton debauchery spawned thereby.
Ah, but our relatives, former friends and acquaintances think that we are the problem for holding fast to the truths of the true Faith that Jorge despises:
We must always remember these words of Saint Athanasius:
May God console you!...What saddens you...is the fact that others have occupied the churches by violence, while during this time you are on the outside. It is a fact that they have the premises -- but you have the Apostolic Faith. They can occupy our churches, but they are outside the true Faith. You remain outside the places of worship, but the Faith dwells within you. Let us consider: What is more important, the place or the Faith? The true Faith, obviously. Who has lost and who has won in this struggle? The one who keeps the premises or the one who keeps the Faith?
True, the premises are good when the Apostolic Faith is preached there -- they are holy if everything takes place there in a holy way...
You are the ones who are happy. You who remain within the Church by your faith, who hold firmly to the foundations of the Faith which has come down to us from Apostolic Tradition. And if an execrable jealousy has tried to shake it on a number of occasions, it has not succeeded. They are the ones who have broken away from it in the present crisis.
No one, ever, will prevail against your faith, beloved brothers. And we believe that God will give us our churches back some day.
Thus, the more violently they try to occupy the places of worship, the more they separate themselves from the Church. They claim that they represent the Church, but in reality, they are the ones who are expelling themselves from It and going astray.
Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ. (Letter of St. Athanasius to his flock.)
"What is more important, the place or the Faith? The true Faith, obviously. Who has lost and who has won in this struggle? The one who keeps the premises or the one who keeps the Faith?"
These are words to remember. No place, not even places where the Holy Mass was once offered by true bishops and true priests, is more important than the Faith. We must seek out that true Faith today as we make no concessions to conciliarism or to the nonexistent legitimacy of its false shepherds, recognizing, of course, that we are not one whit better than anyone else and that we have much for which to make reparation as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, praying as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit.
Every Rosary we pray, offered up to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, will help to make reparation for our sins, which are so responsible for the state of the Church Militant on earth and for that of the world-at-large, and those of the whole world, including the conciliarists who blaspheme God regularly by means of lies such as the "hermeneutic of continuity” and the alleged need to “accompany” sinners who have no intention of repenting their sins or amending their lives of perdition.
The conciliarists lose in the end. Christ the King will emerge triumphant once again as the fruit of the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of His Mother and our Queen, Mary Immaculate. The Church Militant will rise again from her mystical death and burial.
Keep praying. Keep sacrificing. Keep fulfilling Our Lady's Fatima Message in your own lives.
August Queen of Heaven, sovereign mistress of the angels, thou who from the beginning hast received from God the power and the mission to crush the head of Satan: we humbly implore thee to send thy holy legions, so that under thy command and by thy power they may drive the devils away, everywhere fight them subduing their boldness, and thrust them down into the abyss.
Who is like unto God?
O good and tender Mother, thou willst always be our love and our hope.
O divine Mother send thy holy angels to defend me and to drive from away from me the cruel enemy.
Holy Angels and Archangels, defend us and keep us.
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary right now?
Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!
Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!
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 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.
Appendix
A Partial Laundry List of Ratzinger/Benedict's Antipapal Highlights
2005
May 13: Taking "canonical" possession of the Basilica of San Giovanni di Laterano, the cathedral of the pope in his capacity as the Bishop of Rome, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI announced that he was appointing a fellow Modernist and protege, William Levada, to be his own successor as the prefect of the conciliar Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. Ratzinger/Benedict also announced that he was placing his predecessor, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II on the "fast track" for conciliar "canonization." Levada, for his part, endorsed dogmatic evolutionism on several occasions, including in March of 2010:
The role of the Church in that dialogue between an individual and his or her God, says the Cardinal, is not to be the first interlocutor, but the role is indispensable. "We believe that the apostles and their successors received the mission to interpret revelation in new circumstances and in the light of new challenges. That creates a living tradition that is much larger than the simple and strict passing of existing answers, insights and convictions from one generation to another.
But at the end of the day there has to be an instance that can decide whether a specific lifestyle is coherent with the principles and values of our faith, that can judge whether our actions are in accordance with the commandment to love your neighbor. The mission of the Church is not to prohibit people from thinking, investigate different hypotheses, or collect knowledge. Its mission is to give those processes orientation". ( Levada Gives Rare Interview: "I Am Not Responsible for the Crusades, Past or Present.)
Heresy.
O my God, I firmly believe that Thou art One God in Three Divine Persons. I believe that Thy Divine Son became Man, died for our sins, and will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which Thy Holy Catholic Church teaches because Thou hast revealed them, Who canst neither deceive nor be deceived. (Act of Faith.)
August 19: Speaking to members of Protestant sects and Orthodox confessions in Cologne, Germany, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI specifically rejected what he called the "ecumenism of the return:"
We all know there are numerous models of unity and you know that the Catholic Church also has as her goal the full visible unity of the disciples of Christ, as defined by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council in its various Documents (cf. Lumen Gentium, nn. 8, 13; Unitatis Redintegratio, nn. 2, 4, etc.). This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (cf. Unitatis Redintegratio, n. 4); the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world.
On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one's own faith history. Absolutely not!
It does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline. Unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity in unity: in my Homily for the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul on 29 June last, I insisted that full unity and true catholicity in the original sense of the word go together. As a necessary condition for the achievement of this coexistence, the commitment to unity must be constantly purified and renewed; it must constantly grow and mature. (Ecumenical meeting at the Archbishopric of Cologne English)
Here is what our true popes have written on the matter of the "ecumenism of the return:"
"It is therefore by force of the right of Our supreme Apostolic ministry, entrusted to us by the same Christ the Lord, which, having to carry out with [supreme] participation all the duties of the good Shepherd and to follow and embrace with paternal love all the men of the world, we send this Letter of Ours to all the Christians from whom We are separated, with which we exhort them warmly and beseech them with insistence to hasten to return to the one fold of Christ; we desire in fact from the depths of the heart their salvation in Christ Jesus, and we fear having to render an account one day to Him, Our Judge, if, through some possibility, we have not pointed out and prepared the way for them to attain eternal salvation. In all Our prayers and supplications, with thankfulness, day and night we never omit to ask for them, with humble insistence, from the eternal Shepherd of souls the abundance of goods and heavenly graces. And since, if also, we fulfill in the earth the office of vicar, with all our heart we await with open arms the return of the wayward sons to the Catholic Church, in order to receive them with infinite fondness into the house of the Heavenly Father and to enrich them with its inexhaustible treasures. By our greatest wish for the return to the truth and the communion with the Catholic Church, upon which depends not only the salvation of all of them, but above all also of the whole Christian society: the entire world in fact cannot enjoy true peace if it is not of one fold and one shepherd." (Pope Pius IX, Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868.)
So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. During the lapse of centuries, the mystical Spouse of Christ has never been contaminated, nor can she ever in the future be contaminated, as Cyprian bears witness: "The Bride of Christ cannot be made false to her Spouse: she is incorrupt and modest. She knows but one dwelling, she guards the sanctity of the nuptial chamber chastely and modestly."The same holy Martyr with good reason marveled exceedingly that anyone could believe that "this unity in the Church which arises from a divine foundation, and which is knit together by heavenly sacraments, could be rent and torn asunder by the force of contrary wills." For since the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one, compacted and fitly joined together, it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)
Who is Catholic here? "Pope" Benedict XVI or Popes Pius IX and Pius XI?
August 19: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict enters into a Talmudic synagogue in Cologne, Germany, refusing to seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of those steeped in these false religion.
October 7: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI praised his Hegelian mentor in the New Theology (which was condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950), Father Hans Urs von Balthasar:
Hans Urs von Balthasar, the Pope writes, ‘was a theologian who put his work at the service of the Church,’ because he was convinced that theology is useful only within the context of Catholic practice. ‘I can testify that his life was an authentic search for truth," the Pope adds. Pope Benedict says that he hopes the 100th-anniversary observance will stimulate a revival of interest in the work of von Balthasar, recalling Henri de Lubac's claim that the Swiss theologian was "the most cultured man of our century.’ The Lateran University seminar is co-sponsored by Communio, the international theological journal that was founded by von Balthasar in cooperation with theologians such as Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) and Angelo Scola (now the Patriarch of Venice). Participants in the weekend's discussions include Cardinal Scola, Cardinal James Stafford, and Cardinal Marc Ouellet.” (Catholic World News.com, October 7, 2005.)
December 9: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI wished "God's abundant blessings" upon the Methodists who were attending his General Audience that day:
Since 1967, our dialogue has treated major theological themes such as: revelation and faith, tradition and teaching authority in the Church. These efforts have been candid in addressing areas of difference. They have also demonstrated a considerable degree of convergence and are worthy of reflection and study. Our dialogue and the many ways in which Catholics and Methodists have become better acquainted have allowed us to recognize together some of those "Christian treasures of great value". On occasion, this recognition has enabled us to speak with a common voice in addressing social and ethical questions in an increasingly secularized world. I have been encouraged by the initiative which would bring the member churches of the World Methodist Council into association with the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, signed by the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation in 1999. Should the World Methodist Council express its intent to associate itself with the Joint Declaration, it would assist in contributing to the healing and reconciliation we ardently desire, and would be a significant step towards the stated goal of full visible unity in faith.
Dear friends, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and mindful of God’s great and abiding Mercy throughout the world, let us seek to foster a mutual commitment to the Word of God, to witness and to joint prayer. As we prepare our hearts and minds to welcome the Lord in this Advent season, I invoke God’s abundant blessings upon all of you and on Methodists throughout the world. (Address of Benedict XVI to Methodists.)
The Methodists have no "commitment" to the Word of God as they do not accept It as It has been entrusted exclusively by God Himself to the authority of the Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. The Methodists also, just incidentally, you understand, reject entirely Apostolic or Sacred Tradition as the other source of Divine Revelation. "Joint prayer"? Strictly forbidden by the teaching authority and canonical doctrine of the Catholic Church (see The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion.)
December 22: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI uses a Christmas address to the members of the conciliar curia to give his own "papal" imprimatur to the "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity," blaspheming God the Holy Ghost Himself, Who has ever guided the Catholic Church in papal teachings and dogmatic decrees, by claiming that it was "necessary to learn" that the immemorial teaching of the Catholic Church is subject to different interpretations at different times:
"It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within.
"On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)
It was by the use of this philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity" that Ratzinger/Benedict justified the errors of "religious liberty," blaspheming the martyrs of the first centuries of the Church by saying that they were "martyrs for religious liberty," and a "re-thinking" of the "church's" "relationship with the 'faith of Israel'" in light of the "Shoah."
Consider the teaching of the [First] Vatican Council:
Hence, that meaning of the sacred dogmata is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy Mother Church, and there must never be an abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.... If anyone says that it is possible that at some given time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmata propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has always understood and understands: let him be anathema." [Vatican Council, 1870.] (See also Ratzinger's War Against Catholicism and Continuity Plus Discontinuity Will Always Equal Insanity.)
2006
November 26: The Nativity Story, a blasphemous motion picture, produced by a Protestant, made its world premiere at the Paul VI Audience Hall in the Vatican, introduced by the then "Archbishop" (now "Cardinal") John Foley, the President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, and approved personally by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. The motion picture is a blasphemous depiction of Our Lady as a sulky, moody, rebellious teenager, thereby a denial of her gift of perfect Integrity of body and soul that is one of the chief doctrinal effects of her Immaculate Conception.
November 30: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI appeared as an equal with "Patriarch" Bartholomew I in Istanbul, Turkey, issuing a joint statement which included the following statement, "This commitment comes from the Lord’s will and from our responsibility as Pastors in the Church of Christ" (Common Declaration by Benedict XVI and Patriarch Bartholomew I). Bartholomew I, who "prayed" with Ratzinger/Benedict in the Sistine Chapel on Saturday, October 18, 2008, for an end to "fundamentalism" and for "religious tolerance, is not a "pastor" in the Church of Christ. The only Church of Christ is the Catholic Church, from which the heretic Bartholomew I is in schism. He is not a "pastor" in the Church of Christ. Of course, neither is Ratzinger/Benedict.
November 30: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI entered into the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, taking off his shoes so as to symbolize that he was in a "holy place" and then turned in the direction of Mecca at the behest of his Mohammedan "host," who instructed him to assume the Mohammedan prayer position as they "prayed" together. God is offended by honor being given to such a false religion as the souls of His faithful Catholics are scandalized and bewildered and confused as a consequence.
2007
April 21: The International Theological Commission issues The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised, which concludes that there is every "hope" that unbaptized infants go to Heaven. This study, which is one of those "non-binding" conciliar documents, you understand, gave "official" expression to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's own view, which are in contradiction to the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church:
Limbo was never a defined truth of faith. Personally - and here I am speaking more as a theologian and not as Prefect of the Congregation - I would abandon it since it was only a theological hypothesis. It formed part of a secondary thesis in support of a truth which is absolutely of first significance for faith, namely, the importance of baptism. To put it in the words of Jesus to Nicodemus: 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God' (John 3:5). One should not hesitate to give up the idea of limbo, if need be (and it is worth noting that the very theologians who proposed 'limbo' also said that parents could spare the child limbo by desiring its baptism and through prayer); but the concern behind it must not be surrendered. Baptism has never been a side issue for faith; it is not now, nor will it ever be." (Joseph Ratzinger, as Quoted in Vittorio Messori's The Ratzinger Report.)
For who would not detest a crime [abortion] as execrable as this — a crime whose consequence is that not just bodies, but — still worse! — even souls, are, as it were, cast away? The soul of the unborn infant bears the imprint of God’s image! It is a soul for whose redemption Christ our Lord shed His precious blood, a soul capable of eternal blessedness and destined for the company of angels! Who, therefore, would not condemn and punish with the utmost severity the desecration committed by one who has excluded such a soul from the blessed vision of God? Such a one has done all he or she could possibly have done to prevent this soul from reaching the place prepared for it in heaven, and has deprived God of the service of this His own creature." (Pope Sixtus V, Effrænatam, October 28, 1588 translation by Father Brian Harrison, Could Limbo Be 'Abolished'?)
June 30: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI sells out the underground Catholics in Red China, telling them to "reconcile" with the Communist-sponsored "Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association," a sellout more sweeping in its scope than Giovanni Montini/Paul VI's betrayal of the Primate of Hungary, Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty. The "guidelines" issued by Ratzinger/Benedict were so confusing that a "compendium" had to issue for the sake of "clarification" in 2009. (See Red China: Workshop for the New Ecclesiology.)
July 7: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict issues Summorum Pontificum to "liberate" the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition. Traditionally-minded Catholics attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism rejoiced that this represented an important step in the "restoration" of what they believe to be the Catholic Church even that Ratzinger/Benedict made it clear that they would have to accept some of the prefaces and feast days included in the "Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite (that is, the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service), something that was reiterated by William "Cardinal" Levada (see Words Really Do Matter) during his "dedication" of the new chapel at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, Nebraska, that is run by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter.
Summorum Pontificum was also premised on the abject lie, for which Ratzinger/Benedict has never apologized, that there is no contradiction between two "forms" of the "one" Roman Rite. Who says that this is a lie? Ratzinger/Benedict himself, of course:
There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church's faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place. Needless to say, in order to experience full communion, the priests of the communities adhering to the former usage cannot, as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books. The total exclusion of the new rite would not in fact be consistent with the recognition of its value and holiness (Explanatory Letter on "Summorum Pontificum.)
What happened after the Council was something else entirely: in the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it--as in a manufacturing process--with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product. Gamber, with the vigilance of a true prophet and the courage of a true witness, oppose this falsification, and thanks to his incredibly rich knowledge, indefatigably taught us about the living fullness of a true liturgy. As a man who knew and loved history, he showed us the multiple forms and paths of liturgical development; as a man who looked at history form the inside, he saw in this development and its fruit the intangible reflection of the eternal liturgy, that which is not the object of our action but which can continue marvelously to mature and blossom if we unite ourselves intimately with its mystery. (Joseph Ratzinger, Preface to the French language edition of Monsignor Klaus Gamber's The Reform of the Roman Liturgy.)
The prohibition of the missal that was now decreed, a missal that had known continuous growth over the centuries, starting with the sacramentaries of the ancient Church, introduced a breach into the history of the liturgy whose consequences could only be tragic. It was reasonable and right of the Council to order a revision of the missal such as had often taken place before and which this time had to be more thorough than before, above all because of the introduction of the vernacular.
But more than this now happened: the old building was demolished, and another was built, to be sure largely using materials from the previous one and even using the old building plans. There is no doubt that this new missal in many respects brought with it a real improvement and enrichment; but setting it as a new construction over against what had grown historically, forbidding the results of this historical growth. thereby makes the liturgy appear to be no longer living development but the produce of erudite work and juridical authority; this has caused an enormous harm. For then the impression had to emerge that liturgy is something "made", not something given in advance but something lying without our own power of decision. (Joseph Ratzinger, Milestones.)
No "restoration" of the Catholic Church can take place on the foundation of lies, which come from the devil, not from God, Who hates lies and is, of course, the Author of all truth. Some adherents of the Talmud were upset.
August 4: Paul "Cardinal" Poupard, then the President of the "Pontifical" Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, read the following letter written by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict to those attending an "inter-religious" conference taking place on Mount Hiei, Japan, a place where the Tendai sect of the false religion known as Buddhism first established itself:
I am glad to greet you and all the religious leaders gathered on the occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Religious Summit Meeting on Mount Hiei. I wish also to convey my best wishes to Venerable Eshin Watanabe, and to recall your distinguished predecessor as Supreme Head of the Tendai Buddhist Denomination, Venerable Etai Yamada. It was he who, having participated in the Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi on that memorable day of 27 October 1986, initiated the “Religious Summit Meeting” on Mount Hiei in Kyoto in order to keep the flame of the spirit of Assisi burning. I am also happy that Cardinal Paul Poupard, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, is able to take part in this meeting.
From the supernatural perspective we come to understand that peace is both a gift from God and an obligation for every individual. Indeed, the world’s cry for peace, echoed by families and communities throughout the globe, is at once both a prayer to God and an appeal to every brother and sister of our human family. As you assemble on the sacred Mount Hiei, representing different religions, I assure you of my spiritual closeness. May your prayers and cooperation fill you with God’s peace and strengthen your resolve to witness to the reason of peace which overcomes the irrationality of violence!
Upon you all I invoke an abundance of divine blessings of inspiration, harmony and joy. (This used to be found on the DICI site of the Society of Saint Pius X; it is no longer there. Surprise, surprise, surprise, Sergeant Carter: Surprise Surprise Surprise.)
To whom is Mount Hiei "sacred"?
Not to the true God of Divine Revelation.
To the devil, that's who.
August 27: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict bestowed "papal" knighthood upon the pro-abortion, pro-perversity Rabbi Leon Klenicki. (see Continuing to Knight Infidels).
October 13: The Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue Between the Roman Catholic Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church issues The Ravenna Document, which featured a longtime goal of the late Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI: proposing that the "Petrine ministry" could be understood now as it the conciliarists contend that it was understood during the First Millennium:
It remains for the question of the role of the bishop of Rome in the communion of all the Churches to be studied in greater depth. What is the specific function of the bishop of the “first see” in an ecclesiology of koinonia and in view of what we have said on conciliarity and authority in the present text? How should the teaching of the first and second Vatican councils on the universal primacy be understood and lived in the light of the ecclesial practice of the first millennium? These are crucial questions for our dialogue and for our hopes of restoring full communion between us.
We, the members of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, are convinced that the above statement on ecclesial communion, conciliarity and authority represents positive and significant progress in our dialogue, and that it provides a firm basis for future discussion of the question of primacy at the universal level in the Church. We are conscious that many difficult questions remain to be clarified, but we hope that, sustained by the prayer of Jesus “That they may all be one … so that the world may believe” (Jn 17, 21), and in obedience to the Holy Spirit, we can build upon the agreement already reached. Reaffirming and confessing “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4, 5), we give glory to God the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who has gathered us together. (The Ravenna Document)
How, then are the maximum demands to be decided in advance? Certainly, no one who claims allegiance to Catholic theology can simply declare the doctrine of primacy null and void, especially not if he seeks to understand the objections and evaluates with an open mind the relative weight of what can be determined historically. Nor it is possible, on the other hand, for him to regard as the only possible form and, consequently, as binding on all Christians the form this primacy has taken in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. . . .
After all, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, in the same bull in which he excommunicated the Patriarch Michael Cerularius and thus inaugurated the schism between East and West, designated the Emperor and the people of Constantinople as "very Christian and orthodox", although their concept of the Roman primary was certainly far less different from that of Cerularius than from that, let us say, of the First Vatican Council. In other words, Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 198-199)
The Ravenna Document, which was issued on the ninetieth anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal (the conciliarists have tried mightily to deconstruct Our Lady's Fatima Message as they have turned her shrine in Fatima into a celebration of "false ecumenism; see In League with the Mayor of Ourem) and is another of those "unofficial" documents that have expressed perfectly the Modernist mind of the current false "pontiff," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, takes a view of papal primacy in the First Millennium that is at odds with the objective truth of the Catholic Church's history:
First of all, then, We cast an affectionate look upon the East, from whence in the beginning came forth the salvation of the world. Yes, and the yearning desire of Our heart bids us conceive and hope that the day is not far distant when the Eastern Churches, so illustrious in their ancient faith and glorious past, will return to the fold they have abandoned. We hope it all the more, that the distance separating them from Us is not so great: nay, with some few exceptions, we agree so entirely on other heads that, in defense of the Catholic Faith, we often have recourse to reasons and testimony borrowed from the teaching, the Rites, and Customs of the East.
The Principal subject of contention is the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff. But let them look back to the early years of their existence, let them consider the sentiments entertained by their forefathers, and examine what the oldest Traditions testify, and it will, indeed, become evident to them that Christ's Divine Utterance, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, has undoubtedly been realized in the Roman Pontiffs. Many of these latter in the first gates of the Church were chosen from the East, and foremost among them Anacletus, Evaristus, Anicetus, Eleutherius, Zosimus, and Agatho; and of these a great number, after Governing the Church in Wisdom and Sanctity, Consecrated their Ministry with the shedding of their blood. The time, the reasons, the promoters of the unfortunate division, are well known. Before the day when man separated what God had joined together, the name of the Apostolic See was held in Reverence by all the nations of the Christian world: and the East, like the West, agreed without hesitation in its obedience to the Pontiff of Rome, as the Legitimate Successor of St. Peter, and, therefore, the Vicar of Christ here on earth.
And, accordingly, if we refer to the beginning of the dissension, we shall see that Photius himself was careful to send his advocates to Rome on the matters that concerned him; and Pope Nicholas I sent his Legates to Constantinople from the Eternal City, without the slightest opposition, "in order to examine the case of Ignatius the Patriarch with all diligence, and to bring back to the Apostolic See a full and accurate report"; so that the history of the whole negotiation is a manifest Confirmation of the Primacy of the Roman See with which the dissension then began. Finally, in two great Councils, the second of Lyons and that of Florence, Latins and Greeks, as is notorious, easily agreed, and all unanimously proclaimed as Dogma the Supreme Power of the Roman Pontiffs.
We have recalled those things intentionally, for they constitute an invitation to peace and reconciliation; and with all the more reason that in Our own days it would seem as if there were a more conciliatory spirit towards Catholics on the part of the Eastern Churches, and even some degree of kindly feeling. To mention an instance, those sentiments were lately made manifest when some of Our faithful travelled to the East on a Holy Enterprise, and received so many proofs of courtesy and good-will.
Therefore, Our mouth is open to you, to you all of Greek or other Oriental Rites who are separated from the Catholic Church, We earnestly desire that each and every one of you should meditate upon the words, so full of gravity and love, addressed by Bessarion to your forefathers: "What answer shall we give to God when He comes to ask why we have separated from our Brethren: to Him Who, to unite us and bring us into One Fold, came down from Heaven, was Incarnate, and was Crucified? What will our defense be in the eyes of posterity? Oh, my Venerable Fathers, we must not suffer this to be, we must not entertain this thought, we must not thus so ill provide for ourselves and for our Brethren."
Weigh carefully in your minds and before God the nature of Our request. It is not for any human motive, but impelled by Divine Charity and a desire for the salvation of all, that We advise the reconciliation and union with the Church of Rome; and We mean a perfect and complete union, such as could not subsist in any way if nothing else was brought about but a certain kind of agreement in the Tenets of Belief and an intercourse of Fraternal love. The True Union between Christians is that which Jesus Christ, the Author of the Church, instituted and desired, and which consists in a Unity of Faith and Unity of Government.
Nor is there any reason for you to fear on that account that We or any of Our Successors will ever diminish your rights, the privileges of your Patriarchs, or the established Ritual of any one of your Churches. It has been and always will be the intent and Tradition of the Apostolic See, to make a large allowance, in all that is right and good, for the primitive Traditions and special customs of every nation. On the contrary, if you re-establish Union with Us, you will see how, by God's bounty, the glory and dignity of your Churches will be remarkably increased. May God, then, in His goodness, hear the Prayer that you yourselves address to Him: "Make the schisms of the Churches cease," and "Assemble those who are dispersed, bring back those who err, and unite them to Thy Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church." May you thus return to that one Holy Faith which has been handed down both to Us and to you from time immemorial; which your forefathers preserved untainted, and which was enhanced by the rival splendor of the Virtues, the great genius, and the sublime learning of St. Athanasius and St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzum and St. John Chrysostom, the two Saints who bore the name of Cyril, and so many other great men whose glory belongs as a common inheritance to the East and to the West. (Pope Leo XIII, Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 20, 1894. See also the excellent discussion of the the history of what led up to the Greek Schism that is contained in Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki's Tumultuous Times.)
December 16: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI authorized a "novel" Nativity scene to be displayed in the Piazza di San Pietro:
LONDON: The traditional nativity scene built each Christmas in front of St Peter’s Basilica has shown Jesus being born in a stable in Bethlehem for 25 years. But, this year, the Vatican will do away with the manger.
The Vatican has decided to abandon the traditional stable and the straw-ladden setting, shifting it to Nazareth, and placing Jesus in his father Joseph’s carpentry shop in a bid to reflect the more straightforward scenario as described by St Matthew.
"It’s time for a change and a return to St Matthew’s gospel," Daily Telegraph quoted a spokesman of the State Department of the Vatican, which organises and builds the giant presepe, or the nativity scene, as saying.
"In fact, in place of the sheep and hay, there will be a model of three rooms. Jesus will lie in Joseph’s shop, complete with the typical work tools of a carpenter...On one side, the shop will be flanked with a covered patio, on the other there’ll be the inside of a pub, with its hearth." The new setting was inspired by two verses in St Matthew’s gospel, Chapter 1:24 and 1:25, the Vatican said, which state: "When Joseph woke up, he did as the Angel of God ordered and took Mary into his house. Without them knowing each other, a child was born and he called his name Jesus."
But, a decision has been made to place the nativity scene in Nazareth regardless, the spokesperson said. The traditional depiction of Jesus in a manger comes from St Luke’s gospel, which said there was no room at the inn”. But it is Matthew’s gospel which forms the basis for the Angelus prayer, and the view of Jesus in a carpenter’s workshop matches the Franciscan tradition. The nativity scene at St Peter’s for Christmas was started by Pope John Paul II in 1982. (No more traditional nativity scene in Vatican.)
Remember what Pope Saint Pius X wrote in Pascendi Dominic Gregis (September 8, 1907)? Here it is once again?
It remains for Us now to say a few words about the Modernist as reformer. From all that has preceded, it is abundantly clear how great and how eager is the passion of such men for innovation. In all Catholicism there is absolutely nothing on which it does not fasten.
2008
February 7: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict unleashes a firestorm with his revised "Prayer for the Jews" to be used in the modernized version of the "extraordinary form of the Roman Rite" (the missal promulgated by Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII in 1961 and then amended in 1962 with the insertion of the name of Saint Joseph into the Canon of the Mass) as he angers a few (emphasis on a "few") traditionally-minded Catholics attached to the conciliar structures and finds himself facing a torrent of criticism from some adherents of the Talmud. Ratzinger/Benedict had promised in July of 2007, shortly after the issuance of Summorum Pontificum, to revise the Prayer for the Jews in the "1962 Missal" in response to pressure he had received from those who he says pray to the "same Lord" as Christians.
Ratzinger/Benedict's apologists tried to assure their readers that there was nothing wrong with the revised "prayer." Father Peter Scott of the Society of Saint Pius dissented from that view:
This prayer consequently favors ecumenism, and is not acceptable to traditional Catholics, nor will it be used. Traditional Catholics will not accept that the traditional Missal be tampered with, and that Benedict XVI succeed in his plan of bringing about an influence of the "ordinary" form, changing the "extraordinary form" of the Roman rite, as he calls it. Just as traditional priests retain the words "faithless" and "infidelity" that John XXIII tried to remove, so likewise will they retain the traditional prayer for the conversion of the Jews. (Once again, not surprisingly, the original "hot link" to this text has been disabled by the "memory hole" minders in the world of the Society of Saint Pius X.)
Ratzinger/Benedict's apologists also tried to contend--and with a perfectly straight face--that the following letter from Walter "Cardinal" Kasper to Rabbi David Rosen did not represent the mind of Ratzinger/Benedict himself:
In reformulating the prayer of the now extraordinary liturgy, the Pope wanted to avoid formulations which were perceived by many Jews to be offensive, but he wanted at the same time to remain in line with the intrinsic linguistic and stylistic structure of this liturgy and therefore not simply replace the prayer for the prayer in the ordinary liturgy, which we must not forget is used by the vast majority of Catholic communities.
The reformulated text no longer speaks about the conversion of the Jews as some Jewish critics wrongly affirm. The text is a prayer inspired by Saint Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 11, which is the very text that speaks also of the unbroken covenant. It takes up Paul's eschatological hope that in the end of time all Israel will be saved. As a prayer the text lays all in the hands of God and not in ours. It says nothing about the how and when. Therefore there is nothing about missionary activities by which we may take Israel's salvation in our hands. ("Cardinal" Kasper's Letter to Rabbi Rosen)
Even though claims were made that this letter did not represent the "mind" of the false "pontiff," Kasper was permitted to write an article in a German newspaper that was reprinted in L'Osservatore Romano, the semi-official newspaper of the Vatican, in which he wrote almost exactly what he had written above to the "papal" "knight," David Rosen:
The very fact that the prayer for Good Friday in the Missal of 1970 – and therefore in the ordinary form of the Roman rite, used in the vast majority of cases – remains fully in effect, demonstrates that the reformulated prayer for Good Friday, used by only an extremely small part of the community, cannot signify a step backward with respect to the declaration "Nostra Aetate" of Vatican Council II.
This is all the more true by virtue of the fact that the substance of the declaration "Nostra Aetate" is also contained in a document belonging to a higher formal level, the constitution on the Church "Lumen Gentium" (no. 16), and for this reason, in principle, it cannot be brought into question.
Furthermore, since the council there have been a great number of direct pontifical statements, including some by the current pope, referring to "Nostra Aetate" and confirming the importance of this declaration.
Unlike the 1970 text, the new formulation of the 1962 text speaks of Jesus as the Christ and as the salvation of all men, and therefore also of the Jews.
Many have understood this affirmation as new and unfriendly toward the Jews. But this is founded on the New Testament as a whole (cf. 1 Timothy 2:4), and indicates the fundamental difference, known everywhere, that endures for both the Christians and the Jews. Even if it is not explicitly mentioned in "Nostra Aetate," nor in the prayer of 1970 , "Nostra Aetate" cannot be removed from the context of all the cannot be removed from the context of all the other conciliar documents, nor can the Good Friday prayer of the Missal of 1970 be removed from the entirety of the liturgy of Good Friday that has as its object that conviction of the Christian faith.
The new formulation of the prayer for Good Friday in the Missal of 1962, therefore, does not really say anything new, but only expresses what until now was taken as obvious, but which evidently, in many dialogues, was not sufficiently explained (2).
In the past, faith in Christ, which distinguishes Christians from Jews, has often been transformed into a "language of disdain" (Jules Isaac), with all of the serious consequences that derive from this. If today we are striving for reciprocal respect, this can be founded only on the fact that we reciprocally recognize our diversity. For this reason, we do not expect that the Jews should agree on the Chistological content of the prayer for Good Friday, but that they should respect the fact that we pray as Christians according to our faith, as naturally we do also in regard to their way of praying. In this perspective, both sides still have something to learn.
The real controversial question is: should Christians pray for the conversion of the Jews? Can there be a mission to the Jews?
The word conversion is not found in the reformulated prayer. But it is indirectly included in the invocation to enlighten the Jews, so that they may recognize Jesus Christ.
Moreover, there is the fact that the Missal of 1962 gives titles for each of the individual prayers. The title of the prayer to the Jews has not been modified; it sounds like it did before: "Pro conversione Judæorum," for the conversion of the Jews. Many Jews have read the new formulation in the perspective of this title, and this has raised the reaction already described.
In response to this, it can be noted that the Catholic Church, unlike some "evangelical" groups, does not have an organized, institutionalized mission to the Jews. With this reminder, however, the problem of the mission to the Jews has not, in fact, been clarified theologically yet. This is precisely the merit of the new formulation of the prayer for Good Friday, which, in its second part, presents an initial indication for a substantial theological response.
We pick up again from Chapter 11 of the letter to the Romans, which is fundamental also for "Nostra Aetate" (3).
The salvation of the Jews is, for Paul, a profound mystery of election through divine grace (9:14-29). God gives without regret, and the promises that God makes to his people, in spite of their disobedience, have not been revoked (9:6; 11:1.29). The hardening of Israel's heart produces salvation for the pagans. The wild branches of the pagans have been grafted onto the holy root of Israel (11:16ff.). But God has the power to graft on again the branches that were cut off (11:23). When the fullness of the pagans have found salvation, then all Israel will be saved (11:25ff.). Israel therefore remains the bearer of the promise and of the blessing. ("Oremus pro conversione Judæorum." Cardinal Kasper Takes The Field .)
It was also the case that "Archbishop" Gianfranco Ravasi and Rabbi Jacob Neusner wrote very much the same way without a word of rebuke from Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:
We repeat: this is the Christian vision, and it is the hope of the Church that prays. It is not a programmatic proposal of theoretical adherence, nor is it a missionary strategy of conversion. It is the attitude characteristic of the prayerful invocation according to which one hopes also for the persons considered near to oneself, those dear and important, a reality that one maintains is precious and salvific. An important exponent of French culture in the 20th century, Julien Green, wrote that "it is always beautiful and legitimate to wish for the other what is for you a good or a joy: if you think you are offering a true gift, do not hold back your hand." Of course, this must always take place in respect for freedom and for the different paths that the other adopts. But it is an expression of affection to wish for your brother what you consider a horizon of light and life. ("Archbishop" Gianfranco Ravasi, A Bishop and a Rabbi Defend the Prayer for the Salvation of the Jews.)
Why is all of this wrong?
Consult Pope Saint Pius X, please consult (yes, yet again--repetition is the mother of learning, you know) Pope Saint Pius X's direct contradiction of most this apostasy in the audience he gave to the founder of international Zionism, Theodore Herzl, on January 25, 1904:
POPE: We are unable to favor this movement [of Zionism]. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem—but we could never sanction it. The ground of Jerusalem, if it were not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot answer you otherwise. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people.
HERZL: [The conflict between Rome and Jerusalem, represented by the one and the other of us, was once again under way. At the outset I tried to be conciliatory. I said my little piece. . . . It didn’t greatly impress him. Jerusalem was not to be placed in Jewish hands.] And its present status, Holy Father?
POPE: I know, it is disagreeable to see the Turks in possession of our Holy Places. We simply have to put up with it. But to sanction the Jewish wish to occupy these sites, that we cannot do.
HERZL: [I said that we based our movement solely on the sufferings of the Jews, and wished to put aside all religious issues].
POPE: Yes, but we, but I as the head of the Catholic Church, cannot do this. One of two things will likely happen. Either the Jews will retain their ancient faith and continue to await the Messiah whom we believe has already appeared—in which case they are denying the divinity of Jesus and we cannot assist them. Or else they will go there with no religion whatever, and then we can have nothing at all to do with them. The Jewish faith was the foundation of our own, but it has been superceded by the teachings of Christ, and we cannot admit that it still enjoys any validity. The Jews who should have been the first to acknowledge Jesus Christ have not done so to this day.
HERZL: [It was on the tip of my tongue to remark, “It happens in every family: no one believes in his own relative.” But, instead, I said:] Terror and persecution were not precisely the best means for converting the Jews. [His reply had an element of grandeur in its simplicity:]
POPE: Our Lord came without power. He came in peace. He persecuted no one. He was abandoned even by his apostles. It was only later that he attained stature. It took three centuries for the Church to evolve. The Jews therefore had plenty of time in which to accept his divinity without duress or pressure. But they chose not to do so, and they have not done it yet.
HERZL: But, Holy Father, the Jews are in a terrible plight. I do not know if Your Holiness is aware of the full extent of their tragedy. We need a land for these harried people.
POPE: Must it be Jerusalem?
HERZL: We are not asking for Jerusalem, but for Palestine—for only the secular land.
POPE: We cannot be in favor of it.
[Editor Lowenthal interjects here] Here unrelenting replacement theology is plainly upheld as the norm of the Roman Catholic Church. Further, this confession, along with the whole tone of the Pope in his meeting with Herzl, indicates the perpetuation of a doctrinal emphasis that has resulted in centuries of degrading behavior toward the Jews. However, this response has the “grandeur” of total avoidance of that which Herzl had intimated, namely that the abusive reputation of Roman Catholicism toward the Jews was unlikely to foster conversion. Further, if, “It took three centuries for the Church to evolve,” it was that very same period of time that it took for the Church to consolidate and launch its thrust of anti-Semitism through the following centuries.
HERZL: Does Your Holiness know the situation of the Jews?
POPE: Yes, from my days in Mantua, where there are Jews. I have always been in friendly relations with Jews. Only the other evening two Jews were here to see me. There are other bonds than those of religion: social intercourse, for example, and philanthropy. Such bonds we do not refuse to maintain with the Jews. Indeed we also pray for them, that their spirit see the light. This very day the Church is celebrating the feast of an unbeliever who became converted in a miraculous manner—on the road to Damascus. And so if you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we will be ready with churches and priests to baptize all of you. (Marvin Lowenthal, The Diaries of Theodore Herzl.)
April 15-20: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI visits the United States of America without ever once mentioning Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary. He personally esteemed the symbols of five false religions at the "John Paul II Cultural Center" in Washington, District of Columbia, Thursday, April 17, 2008, and praised the United Masonic Nations Organization on Friday, April 18, 2008. He also went into another Talmudic synagogue, where, of course, he refused to exhort anyone there to convert and as he listened patiently to a Talmudic hymn that denied the Messias had come once in time to redeem the entire human race (see No Room for Christ the King on the South Lawn, Latin and the Lector Babe, Asking Our Lady to Repair the Damage, No Room for Christ the King at the United Nations, Sorrow Beyond Description, No Room for Mary Immaculate Queen at Saint Patrick's Cathedral, No Room for Mary Immaculate Queen at Saint Joseph's Seminary, and All is Quicksand Without Our Lady.)
July 12-21, 2008: Ratzinger/Benedict travels to Australia for the hootenanny known as "World Youth Day." He praises "false ecumenism" and participates in a "liturgy" featuring mostly naked "aboriginal" dancers. (See Nothing About Which to be Shocked and Learning from the Devil Himself.)
October 29, 2008: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI praises Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII on the fiftieth anniversary of his "election." (See Atop the Kremlin Wall, which contains a compendium of 2008 articles about conciliarism.)
2009
January 21: An interview with Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of Saint Pius X that was recorded in Regensburg, Germany, on November 2, 2008, airs on Swedish television. The most explosive part of the interview was Bishop Williamson's assertion that the number of Jews who were killed by the agents of the Third Reich of Nazi Germany was far less than the figure of six million accepted by "mainstream" historians and that none died in gas chambers. This sets off a firestorm that has only recently resulted in Bishop Williamson's conviction in absentia in a German court for having "denied the holocaust," causing Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his conciliar "bishops" to rend their garments and pay their due obeisance to those deny the one and only holocaust, that which was offered by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to His Co-Equal and Co-Eternal Father in Spirit and in Truth on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday in atonement for our sins. Bishop Williamson was also disowned and denounced by the Superior-General of the Society of Saint Pius X, Bishop Bernard Fellay, who has been absolutely silent about the various apostasies and blasphemies and sacrileges committed by Ratzinger/Benedict since the issuance of Summorum Pontificum.
January 24: The conciliar Vatican announces the "lifting" of the "excommunications" imposed upon the four bishops who were consecrated by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on June 30, 1988, in Econe, Switzerland. The decree, which was signed on January 21, 2009, that formally "lifted" the "excommunications" did not mean that the bishops and priests of the Society of Saint Pius X could administer the sacraments licitly in the counterfeit church of conciliarism. The time of the announcement, coming three days after the airing of Bishop Williamson's interview on Swedish television, incites various members of Talmudic organizations, eager to exploit the crimes of the Third Reich of Nazi Germany to make various demands on the leaders of what they think is the Catholic Church, into accusing Ratzinger/Benedict of being "insensitive" to the plight of the Jews during World War II. (For a review of the inter-related issues of Bishop Williamson and the reintegration of the Society of Saint Pius X into the conciliar structures, please see: True Popes Never Need to Convert to the Faith, Negotiating To Become An Apostate, March to Oblivion, High Church, Low Church, Nothing to Negotiate, Those Who Deny The Holocaust, Recognize and Capitulate, A Little Bit "In," A Little Bit "Out", Disciples of Caiphas, Under The Bus, Nothing New Under the Conciliar Sun, Story Time in Econe, Shell Games With Souls, Pots and Kettles, One Sentence Says It All, Smashing Through the Conciliar Looking Glass, Winning at the Waiting Game, Yes, Sir, Master Scribe, No Crime Is Worse Than Deicide.)
February 4: Reeling from worldwide criticism, the conciliar Vatican's Secretariat of State issued a "clarification" of the "lifting" of the "excommunication of the bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X:
In the wake of reactions to the recent Decree of the Congregation for Bishops by which the excommunication of four prelates of the Society of Saint Pius X was remitted, and with regard to the negationist or reductionist statements made by Bishop Williamson concerning the Shoah, it seems opportune to clarify some aspects of the matter.
1. Remission of the Excommunication
As has already been publicly stated, the Decree of the Congregation for Bishops, dated 21 January 2009, was an act by which the Holy Father responded benevolently to repeated requests from the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X.
His Holiness desired to remove an impediment which was prejudicial to the opening of a door to dialogue. He now awaits a corresponding gesture from the four bishops expressing total adherence to the doctrine and discipline of the Church. The very grave penalty of latae sententiae excommunication, which these bishops incurred on 30 June 1988, and which was formally declared on 1 July 1988, was a consequence of their having been illegitimately ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
The remission of the excommunication has freed the four bishops from a very serious canonical penalty, but it has not changed the juridical status of the Society of Saint Pius X, which presently does not enjoy any canonical recognition by the Catholic Church. The four bishops, even though they have been released from excommunication, have no canonical function in the Church and do not licitly exercise any ministry within it.
2. Tradition, Doctrine and the Second Vatican Council
A full recognition of the Second Vatican Council and the Magisterium of Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI himself is an indispensable condition for any future recognition of the Society of Saint Pius X.
As already stated in the Decree of 21 January 2009, the Holy See will not fail, in ways judged opportune, to engage with the interested parties in examining outstanding questions, so as to attain a full and satisfactory resolution of the problems that caused this painful rupture.
3. Statements about the Shoah
The positions of Bishop Williamson with regard to the Shoah are absolutely unacceptable and firmly rejected by the Holy Father, as he himself remarked on 28 January 2009 when, with reference to the heinous genocide, he reiterated his full and unquestionable solidarity with our brothers and sisters who received the First Covenant, and he affirmed that the memory of that terrible genocide must lead "humanity to reflect upon the unfathomable power of evil when it conquers the heart of man", adding that the Shoah remains "a warning for all against forgetfulness, denial or reductionism, because violence committed against one single human being is violence against all".
In order to be admitted to function as a Bishop within the Church, Bishop Williamson must also distance himself in an absolutely unequivocal and public way from his positions regarding the Shoah, which were unknown to the Holy Father at the time of the remission of the excommunication.
The Holy Father asks for the prayerful support of all the faithful, so that the Lord will enlighten the Church’s path. May the commitment of the Pastors and all the faithful grow in support of the difficult and onerous mission of the Successor of Peter the Apostle, who "watches over the unity" of the Church. (Note from the Secretary of State concerning the four Prelates of the Society of Saint Pius X (February 4, 2009)
Apart from the fact that Bishop Williamson's support of revisionist historical scholarship concerning the events of World War II was just as well known to "Cardinal" Ratzinger as was the reassignment of Father Peter Hullermann to parish work in the Archdiocese of Munich of Freising (see Fall Guys Aren't Usually Stand-Up Guys), it is interesting to note that the irreducible "minimum," to borrow a phrase from a former colleague of mine, for "inclusion" as a member of the One World Ecumenical Church of conciliarism is to accept without question the claims made about the events of World War II by those who have a vested interest in exploiting those claims to make sure that what they think is the Catholic Church will continue to distance itself from its "criminal past" of seeking to convert Jews and to teach that the Old Covenant was superseded by the New and Eternal Covenant instituted by Our Lord Himself at the Last Supper and ratified by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.
March 10: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI issues a Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre. This letter was discussed at length in Nothing New Under the Conciliar Sun. One salient feature of this March 10, 2009, letter was Ratzinger/Benedict's explicit expression of his desire to "break down" the "one-sidedness" of the Society of Saint Pius X in order to effect within its ranks the same sort of "transformation" or "pacification" that he noted with satisfaction and contentment had occurred in the other traditionally-minded communities (Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, Institute of the Good Shepherd, the Transalpine Redemptorists, etc.). How any layman attached to the Society of Saint Pius X cannot recognize that this is the real goal of the false "pontiff's" desire to effect "reconciliation" with the Society is beyond comprehension. Ratzinger/Benedict has stated this very, very explicitly:
Leading men and women to God, to the God Who speaks in the Bible: this is the supreme and fundamental priority of the Church and of the Successor of Peter at the present time. A logical consequence of this is that we must have at heart the unity of all believers. Their disunity, their disagreement among themselves, calls into question the credibility of their talk of God. Hence the effort to promote a common witness by Christians to their faith - ecumenism - is part of the supreme priority. Added to this is the need for all those who believe in God to join in seeking peace, to attempt to draw closer to one another, and to journey together, even with their differing images of God, towards the source of Light - this is inter-religious dialogue. Whoever proclaims that God is Love 'to the end' has to bear witness to love: in loving devotion to the suffering, in the rejection of hatred and enmity - this is the social dimension of the Christian faith, of which I spoke in the Encyclical 'Deus caritas est'.
So if the arduous task of working for faith, hope and love in the world is presently (and, in various ways, always) the Church's real priority, then part of this is also made up of acts of reconciliation, small and not so small. That the quiet gesture of extending a hand gave rise to a huge uproar, and thus became exactly the opposite of a gesture of reconciliation, is a fact which we must accept. But I ask now: Was it, and is it, truly wrong in this case to meet half-way the brother who 'has something against you' and to seek reconciliation? Should not civil society also try to forestall forms of extremism and to incorporate their eventual adherents - to the extent possible - in the great currents shaping social life, and thus avoid their being segregated, with all its consequences? Can it be completely mistaken to work to break down obstinacy and narrowness, and to make space for what is positive and retrievable for the whole? I myself saw, in the years after 1988, how the return of communities which had been separated from Rome changed their interior attitudes; I saw how returning to the bigger and broader Church enabled them to move beyond one-sided positions and broke down rigidity so that positive energies could emerge for the whole. Can we be totally indifferent about a community which has 491 priests, 215 seminarians, 6 seminaries, 88 schools, 2 university-level institutes, 117 religious brothers, 164 religious sisters and thousands of lay faithful? Should we casually let them drift farther from the Church? I think for example of the 491 priests. We cannot know how mixed their motives may be. All the same, I do not think that they would have chosen the priesthood if, alongside various distorted and unhealthy elements, they did not have a love for Christ and a desire to proclaim Him and, with Him, the living God. Can we simply exclude them, as representatives of a radical fringe, from our pursuit of reconciliation and unity? What would then become of them?
Certainly, for some time now, and once again on this specific occasion, we have heard from some representatives of that community many unpleasant things - arrogance and presumptuousness, an obsession with one-sided positions, etc. Yet to tell the truth, I must add that I have also received a number of touching testimonials of gratitude which clearly showed an openness of heart. But should not the great Church also allow herself to be generous in the knowledge of her great breadth, in the knowledge of the promise made to her? Should not we, as good educators, also be capable of overlooking various faults and making every effort to open up broader vistas? And should we not admit that some unpleasant things have also emerged in Church circles? At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them - in this case the Pope - he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint. Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre (March 10, 2009)
The "broader vistas" to which Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict was referring are none other than full acceptance of "false ecumenism," "inter-religious dialogue," "inter-religious prayer" services, episcopal collegiality, "religious liberty," "separation of Church and State, "the hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity," "the new ecclesiology," and, of course, the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service. One report from a few years ago indicated that Ratzinger/Benedict personally told a leader of the Society of Saint Pius X that he wanted the "new theologians" (himself, Karl Rahner, Henri de Lubac, Maurice Blondel, Hans Urs von Balthasar) taught in the Society's seminaries. "Broader vistas"? You decide.
April 11: "Archbishop" Robert Zollitsch, the conciliar "archbishop" of Freiburg and Breisgau and the president of the conciliar German "Bishops'" Conference, denies in an interview that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that died on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday in atonement for our sins. He has gone without any word of public rebuke or censure from Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict in the ensuing three hundred seventy-seven days, making new headlines worldwide as a result of the statements he has made in response to the clerical scandals in the Federal Republic of Germany.
April 30: L'Osservatore Romano, the semi-official newspaper of the Vatican, publishes an editorial claiming that the first one hundred days of the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama were not as "radical" as had been feared. This was the first of a series of articles during 2009, none of which has been criticized by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, praising the likes of Karl Marx, Michael Jackson, John Lennon, The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Oscar Wilde, John Calvin, Martin Luther, the fictional Harry Potter, and Charles Darwin. (See Urbanely Accepting Evil, Yesterday’s Evils, L'Osservatore Del Naturalista, L'Osservatore Marxista, L'Osservatore Occulto, L'Osservatore del Calvinista, Still Urbanely Accepting Evil, L'Osservatore Benedetto, L'Osservatore Di Tutte Le Cose Grezze, Big Pharm Trumps the Holy Cross and L'Osservatore Romano Di Infirmita Mentale.)
May 8-15: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI visits Jordan and Israel, making the following incredible statements while there:
Places of worship, like this splendid Al-Hussein Bin Talal mosque named after the revered late King, stand out like jewels across the earth’s surface. From the ancient to the modern, the magnificent to the humble, they all point to the divine, to the Transcendent One, to the Almighty. And through the centuries these sanctuaries have drawn men and women into their sacred space to pause, to pray, to acknowledge the presence of the Almighty, and to recognize that we are all his creatures. (Speech to Muslim religious leaders, members of the Diplomatic Corps and Rectors of universities in Jordan in front of the mosque al-Hussein bin Talal in Amman)
I cordially thank the Grand Mufti, Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, together with the Director of the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, Sheikh Mohammed Azzam al-Khatib al-Tamimi, and the Head of the Awquaf Council, Sheikh Abdel Azim Salhab, for the welcome they have extended to me on your behalf. I am deeply grateful for the invitation to visit this sacred place, and I willingly pay my respects to you and the leaders of the Islamic community in Jerusalem. (Courtesy visit to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem at the Mount of the Temple, since when is a place of false worship "sacred" to the true God of Divine Revelation?)
God of all the ages, on my visit to Jerusalem, the “City of Peace”, spiritual home to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, I bring before you the joys, the hopes and the aspirations, the trials, the suffering and the pain of all your people throughout the world.
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, hear the cry of the afflicted, the fearful, the bereft; send your peace upon this Holy Land, upon the Middle East, upon the entire human family; stir the hearts of all who call upon your name, to walk humbly in the path of justice and compassion.
“The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him” (Lam 3:25)! (Prayer at the Western Wall, May 12, 2009; one will note, of course, that there is not one reference to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.)
An indication of the potential of this series of meetings is readily seen in our shared concern in the face of moral relativism and the offences it spawns against the dignity of the human person. In approaching the most urgent ethical questions of our day, our two communities are challenged to engage people of good will at the level of reason, while simultaneously pointing to the religious foundations which best sustain lasting moral values. May the dialogue that has begun continue to generate ideas on how Christians and Jews can work together to heighten society’s appreciation of the distinctive contribution of our religious and ethical traditions. Here in Israel, given that Christians constitute only a small portion of the total population, they particularly value opportunities for dialogue with their Jewish neighbors.
Trust is undeniably an essential element of effective dialogue. Today I have the opportunity to repeat that the Catholic Church is irrevocably committed to the path chosen at the Second Vatican Council for a genuine and lasting reconciliation between Christians and Jews. As the Declaration Nostra Aetate makes clear, the Church continues to value the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews and desires an ever deeper mutual understanding and respect through biblical and theological studies as well as fraternal dialogues. May the seven Bilateral Commission meetings which have already taken place between the Holy See and the Chief Rabbinate stand as evidence! I am thus grateful for your reciprocal assurance that the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Chief Rabbinate will continue to grow in respect and understanding in the future. (Courtesy visit to the two Chief Rabbis of Jerusalem at Hechal Shlomo Center in Jerusalem, May 12, 2009; for an elaboration on this topic, please see Respect Those Who Break the First Commandment? Respect Those Who Break the Fifth Commandment and Saint Peter and Anti-Peter.)
Wanna quick antidote to this apostasy? Back to Pope Leo XIII's Custodi Di Quella Fede once again:
Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God. (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)
May 17: Barack Hussein Obama is granted an honorary doctorate from the University of Notre Dame du Lac, Notre Dame, Indiana, after which he delivers the commencement address to that year's graduates of my own master's alma mater. The award granted to the pro-abortion Obama generates a storm of protest. Eighty-eight people on the grounds of Our Lady's university were arrested on the orders of the university's president,. "Father" John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. Father Jenkins has refused to show any leniency to the "Notre Dame 88." Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has yet to intervene through his "apostolic nuncio," "Archbishop" Pietro Sambi, to do urge Jenkins to do so. (Our Lady Does Not Honor Pro-Aborts, No "Common Ground" Between Truth and Error and Persecuting Those Who Defended Our Lady's Honor.)
June 5: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict endorses the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Benedict backs U.N. push to protect children). The "convention" is a thorough assault on the rights of parents and of the due subordination of children to them:
While all of these legal problems are caused by the nature of both our federal and state laws, a new threat to the family has loomed on the international horizon which, if not approached properly by the U.S. Government, may render fruitless any efforts to correct our laws--and may have the effect of extending the threat to families throughout the world. This is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was motivated by the thinking of, and drafted by, Western and Western-oriented "child-savers" and has now been widely ratified by nations around the world, some with reservations, although the U.S. Senate has not yet done so. A detailed discussion of the Convention is not possible here. We will merely quote from a letter the Society of Catholic Social Scientists sent to all the members of the Senate, urging a vote not to ratify. The letter was primarily drafted by political scientist and journalist Dr. Thomas A. Droleskey and contributed to by this writer (Dr. Stephen M. Krason, the President of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists):
It is clear that the Convention on the Rights of the Child seeks to subject parents to close bureaucratic supervision. Parents who do not educate or raise their children according to the dictates of the prevailing cultural trends will be subject to all kinds of civil and criminal penalties, if not the seizure of their children. This is a form of ideological totalitarianism.
Article 12 of the Convention states that children have the "right" to express their own views freely in all matters. All matters? Child-rearing? Discipline? The fact there are some self-appointed child advocates, such as Hillary Clinton, who believe that children as young as seven years of age can assert legal rights indicates that it would be possible under the Convention for grammar school students to sue their parents in order to express their views. This is absurd. Children are children. They need to learn about life. They need to respect their parents. They need to understand the virtues of humility and obedience, of submission to lawful authority. Also, of course, they will not be able to sue or otherwise oppose their parents on their own. The state will do it for them, with "child advocates" supplanting parents and deciding what is best for children.
Article 13 asserts that children have the right to receive all kinds of information through the "media of the child's choice." Parents concerned about protecting the purity and innocence of their children would be legally barred from censoring the television watched in the home, the movies their children choose to watch, and the books they choose to read. And those parents who do not have a television in their homes might be forced to secure one in order to respect their children's "right" to receive information. Is it overkill to point out that child pornography laws would be invalidated by this article of the Convention? Article 17 extends this "right" to national and international sources in the media.
Article 14 discusses the right of each child to freedom of religion. This appears, at first glance, to be praiseworthy. The article, however, contains an implicit threat to the rights of parents to raise their children. Can a child who does not want to receive religious education sue his parents for abuse because the parents refuse to honor the child's wishes? Can parents who tell their children to engage in family prayers be judged guilty of not respecting a child's freedom from religion? This is an attempt on the part of the secularists to free children from the influence of parents who desire to pass along transcendent truths to their children.
Article 16 immunizes children from any degree of parental censorship insofar as correspondence is concerned. While confidentiality is an important part of correspondence, parents nevertheless have to monitor the activities of their children, particularly those in the adolescent years. Can one seriously suggest that a parent has no right to determine if his child is being solicited by a pornographer or child molester? Does a parent have no right to determine if his child is receiving contraband drugs through the mail? This is absurd.
Article 18 seems likely to encourage the displacement of parents in raising their children by the state as it calls for the expansion in the state role in providing facilities to care for children.
Article 19 provides the basis for the establishment of dangerous, coercive state structures to track and pressure parents who violate the Convention’s notion of their children's "rights." In fact, Article 43 establishes perhaps the ultimate in distant, arrogant bureaucratic structures--an international committee of ten "experts" to oversee the progress of the Convention’s implementation. In other words, ten individuals will dictate to the hundreds of millions of parents in the world how to raise their children.
It appears as though Article 30, which guarantees a child the right to use his own language, might sanction the use of profanity. A parent would be powerless to tell his child to speak clearly and nobly, never using any vile language. And Article 31, giving children the "right to rest and leisure," would make it difficult for parents to command their children to do anything. All a child would have to do to avoid chores or assignments is to say that he is entitled to rest and leisure. (http://www.catholicsocialscientists.org/Content/Organization/PDFs/chap9Krason.pdf; see also Kindred Spirit of the New World Order)
June 29 Ratzinger/Benedict issues Caritatis in Veritate, an "encyclical letter" in which he endorsed openly the concept of a "world political authority," one that would, of course, respect the principles of subsidiarity and national sovereignty, once again demonstrating that his fundamental rejection of Scholasticism has enveloped him in a world of such contradiction and paradox that he can't even see how his own ideas contradict each other in full violation of the principle of non-contradiction:
In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. This seems necessary in order to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago. Such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good, and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth. Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for right. Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums. Without this, despite the great progress accomplished in various sectors, international law would risk being conditioned by the balance of power among the strongest nations. The integral development of peoples and international cooperation require the establishment of a greater degree of international ordering, marked by subsidiarity, for the management of globalization. They also require the construction of a social order that at last conforms to the moral order, to the interconnection between moral and social spheres, and to the link between politics and the economic and civil spheres, as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations. (Caritas in veritate, June 29, 2009; see also Give Me Two Bayers, Please and Two More Bayers, Please.)
July 10: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI met in the Apostolic Palace with Barack Hussein Obama:
Pope Benedict XVI welcomed American President Barack Obama to the Vatican today, and the two discussed world issues addressed at the Group of Eight summit.
As they met, Mr Obama told the Pope: "It's a great honor; thank you so much."
The two sat down at a desk in the papal library and began discussing the G8 summit which concluded that morning in L'Aquila, Italy. The summit focused on the economic crisis, climate change and global tensions.
Pope Benedict told the president: "You must be tired after all these discussions."
The president replied that the meetings marked "great progress" and "something concrete". The private meeting lasted more than 30 minutes.
At the end of the meeting, Pope Benedict told the president: "A blessing on all your work and also for you." (Benedict XVI meets Obama - Catholic Herald Online; also see A "Blessing" on a Murderer and His Work.)
July 24: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI expresses his admiration once again for at least part of the work of the late Jesuit evolutionist, Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. (see Revealing His Inner Teilhard Yet Again).
August 25: United States Senator Edward Moore Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, dies at the age of seventy-seven. He was permitted to die as a "Catholic" in "good standing" in the counterfeit church of conciliarism despite his open, unrepentant support for the chemical and and surgical slaughter of innocent preborn babies and of perversity, among other evils. The same Sean "Cardinal" O'Malley who had vigorously condemned Bishop Richard Williamson, blaspheming God in the process by saying that the "holocaust" was the greatest crime in human history, concelebrated Kennedy's Novus Ordo "Mass of Christian Burial." Ratzinger/Benedict does nothing to stop this travesty. (See Another Victim of Americanism; Behold The Free Rein Given to Error; Behold The Free Rein Given to Error; Unfortunate Enough to Be A Baby; Unfortunate Enough to Be A Baby; Beacon of Social Justice?; Spotlight On The Ordinary; What's Good For Teddy Is Good For Benny; Sean O'Malley: Coward and Hypocrite: More Rationalizations and Distortions.)
October 9: Speaking in behalf of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, "papal" spokesflack "Father" Federico Lombardi, S.J., expressed "high hopes" upon learning that the pro-abortion Barack Hussein Obama had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace:
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- News that U.S. President Barack Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was met with high hopes from the Vatican spokesman.
Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi told journalists Oct. 9 that the news "was greeted with appreciation at the Vatican in light of the president's demonstrated commitment to promoting peace on an international level and, in particular, in recently promoting nuclear disarmament."
"It is hoped that this very important recognition would offer greater encouragement for such a difficult but fundamental dedication to the future of humanity so that it may bring about the desired results," he said in a written statement.
The new U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, Miguel Diaz, told Vatican Radio that the president was being recognized for his efforts in working to build understanding between people and eliminate nuclear weapons from all parts of the world.
Winning the Nobel Peace Prize is a great encouragement to keep working toward building a better world, said Diaz.
He said that when he presented his credentials as the new U.S. ambassador Oct. 2, Pope Benedict XVI "made clear to me how grateful he was" that Obama was especially committed to ridding the world of nuclear weapons.
Bishops attending the Synod of Bishops for Africa also reacted to the selection of Obama.
Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta said it "clearly was an unexpected honor to come to the president" and he hopes that "it leaves an invitation for greatness."
"I hope in receiving the award, the president realizes and responds to the great challenge that has been placed before him," he told Catholic News Service Oct. 9.
"The world has sent a signal, at least insofar as the Nobel Prize is concerned, that it has high expectations for him and hopes he will live up to the energy and the positive things that he has thus far set on the world stage," said Archbishop Gregory.
Another synod participant, Archbishop Charles G. Palmer-Buckle of Accra, Ghana, was ecstatic and "overwhelmed that (Obama) won the Nobel Peace Prize," he told journalists Oct. 9.
"I would like the world to look at it as an encouragement, a motivation" to recognize the talents and potential of Africans and people of African descent, he said.
"Blacks are as talented as anyone else ... and I think the world is now coming face to face with the fact that if we are appreciated, we can give still more," said Archbishop Palmer-Buckle.
The archbishop told CNS that Obama "definitely deserves" the prize and that the U.S. leader is an inspiration.
He recalled Obama's visit to Ghana in July and how much he was moved by the president's encouragement for people to take destiny into their own hands.
"He told the youths, don't look to Europe, don't look to America for solutions to your problems. You can, yes, you can. And I think we've taken it up ... and we are going to do it," he said.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the U.S. president was chosen "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," it said Oct. 9.
Speaking at the White House later the same day, Obama said he was "surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel committee."
"Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations," he said. (Nobel Peace Prize to Obama greeted with praise, high hopes at Vatican; see also Figures of Antichrist Applauding Each Other.)
October 20: The conciliar Vatican announces that a "constitution" would be issued concerning the "reception" of Anglicans into the structures of its own counterfeit church. The actual constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus, issued on November 4, 2009, permits such "Anglo-Catholics" to retain liturgical rites that were deemed to be heretical by Pope Saint Pius V in Regnans in Excelsis, March 5, 1570. (See Defaming The English Martyrs and Still Defaming The English Martyrs.)
2010
January 17: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI commits yet another act of apostasy by entering into the Talmudic synagogue in Rome, Italy, saying that "Christians and Jews" pray to the same Lord, a blasphemy that has been condemned repeatedly by Holy Mother Church, including by Saint John Chrysostom:
(2) But at any rate the Jews say that they, too, adore God. God forbid that I say that. No Jew adores God! Who says so? The Son of God says so. For he said: "If you were to know my Father, you would also know me. But you neither know me nor do you know my Father". Could I produce a witness more trustworthy than the Son of God?
(3) If, then, the Jews fail to know the Father, if they crucified the Son, if they thrust off the help of the Spirit, who should not make bold to declare plainly that the synagogue is a dwelling of demons? God is not worshipped there. Heaven forbid! From now on it remains a place of idolatry. But still some people pay it honor as a holy place. (Saint John Chrysostom: Eight Homilies Against the Jews; see also Saint Peter and Anti-Peter.)
January 20: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI praised the 1910 "World Missionary Conference" that took place in Edinburgh, Scotland, that began the modern "ecumenical" movement that was condemned by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928. (Getting Bolder In His Apostasy.)
March 14: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI enters a Lutheran "church" in Rome, listening to the "sermon" given by the Lutheran minister, saying when it was his turn to speak that "I think we should first be thankful that there is so much unity. It's nice that we can pray together today, sing the same hymns together, hear the same word of God together, that we can interpret and try to understand it together." Unity? Yes, he is one with his fellow Lutherans on many points. (See Unity Among Lutherans; a video of this appearance can be viewed by clicking on ROME REPORTS TV News Agency - The Catholic and Lutheran.)
May 11-14: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI traveled to Portugal. He set about his Modernist business immediately upon arriving at the airport in Lisbon as he praised "separation of Church and State" in Portugal:
From a wise vision of life and of the world, the just ordering of society follows. Situated within history, the Church is open to cooperating with anyone who does not marginalize or reduce to the private sphere the essential consideration of the human meaning of life. The point at issue is not an ethical confrontation between a secular and a religious system, so much as a question about the meaning that we give to our freedom. What matters is the value attributed to the problem of meaning and its implication in public life. By separating Church and State, the Republican revolution which took place 100 years ago in Portugal, opened up a new area of freedom for the Church, to which the two concordats of 1940 and 2004 would give shape, in cultural settings and ecclesial perspectives profoundly marked by rapid change. For the most part, the sufferings caused by these transformations have been faced with courage. Living amid a plurality of value systems and ethical outlooks requires a journey to the core of one’s being and to the nucleus of Christianity so as to reinforce the quality of one’s witness to the point of sanctity, and to find mission paths that lead even to the radical choice of martyrdom. (Official Reception at Lisbon Portela International Airport, Tuesday, May 11, 2010.)
Ratzinger/Benedict thus mocked Pope Saint Pius X, who had condemned the very separation of Church and State in Portugal that Ratzinger had praised for working in a once Catholic land where it is now legal to kill babies and for those engaged in perverse acts against nature to "marry:"
2. Whilst the new rulers of Portugal were affording such numerous and awful examples of the abuse of power, you know with what patience and moderation this Apostolic See has acted towards them. We thought that We ought most carefully to avoid any action that could even have the appearance of hostility to the Republic. For We clung to the hope that its rulers would one day take saner counsels and would at length repair, by some new agreement, the injuries inflicted on the Church. In this, however, We have been altogether disappointed, for they have now crowned their evil work by the promulgation of a vicious and pernicious Decree for the Separation of Church and State. But now the duty imposed upon Us by our Apostolic charge will not allow Us to remain passive and silent when so serious a wound has been inflicted upon the rights and dignity of the Catholic religion. Therefore do We now address you, Venerable Brethren, in this letter and denounce to all Christendom the heinousness of this deed.
3. At the outset, the absurd and monstrous character of the decree of which We speak is plain from the fact that it proclaims and enacts that the Republic shall have no religion, as if men individually and any association or nation did not depend upon Him who is the Maker and Preserver of all things; and then from the fact that it liberates Portugal from the observance of the Catholic religion, that religion, We say, which has ever been that nation's greatest safeguard and glory, and has been professed almost unanimously by its people. So let us take it that it has been their pleasure to sever that close alliance between Church and State, confirmed though it was by the solemn faith of treaties. Once this divorce was effected, it would at least have been logical to pay no further attention to the Church, and to leave her the enjoyment of the common liberty and rights which belong to every citizen and every respectable community of peoples. Quite otherwise, however, have things fallen out. This decree bears indeed the name of Separation, but it enacts in reality the reduction of the Church to utter want by the spoliation of her property, and to servitude to the State by oppression in all that touches her sacred power and spirit. (Pope Saint Pius X, Iamdudum, May 24, 1911.)
Who's the Catholic in this picture? "Pope" Benedict XVI or Pope Saint Pius X? (See also Mocking Pope Saint Pius X and Our Lady of Fatima.)
Tell me if "Pope" Benedict XVI believes in the Social Reign of Christ the King and that the civil state has an obligation to recognize the Catholic Church as the true religion either in theory or in practice?
The false "pontiff" also disparaged the physical reality of Our Lady's apparitions in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, on May 13, 1917, June 13, 1917, July 13, 1917, August 19, 1917, September 13, 1917, and October 13, 1917:
Brothers and sisters, in listening to these innocent and profound mystical confidences of the shepherd children, one might look at them with a touch of envy for what they were able to see, or with the disappointed resignation of someone who was not so fortunate, yet still demands to see. To such persons, the Pope says, as does Jesus: “Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?” (Mk 12:24). The Scriptures invite us to believe: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (Jn 20:29), but God, who is more deeply present to me than I am to myself (cf. Saint Augustine, Confessions, III, 6, 11) – has the power to come to us, particularly through our inner senses, so that the soul can receive the gentle touch of a reality which is beyond the senses and which enables us to reach what is not accessible or visible to the senses. For this to happen, we must cultivate an interior watchfulness of the heart which, for most of the time, we do not possess on account of the powerful pressure exerted by outside realities and the images and concerns which fill our soul (cf. Theological Commentary on The Message of Fatima, 2000). Yes! God can come to us, and show himself to the eyes of our heart.
Moreover, that Light deep within the shepherd children, which comes from the future of God, is the same Light which was manifested in the fullness of time and came for us all: the Son of God made man. (Homily at the Purported Mass on the Esplanade of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima.)
Permit me to provide you with a reprise of the commentary that I offered at the time so that this current article can be bookmarked as a reference source for future reference without having to search through various past articles that have appeared on this site:
It is very significant that the false "pontiff" cited his own Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message from ten years ago as he is conveying, albeit in the obscurantist manner of a Modernism, that the Faith is purely a matter of the senses (no room for the intellect here) and that the three shepherd children had a "Light deep within them" that caused them to "see" Our Lady interiorly, meaning, of course, that she was not truly physically visible to the eyes of their bodies. And that is leaving aside the phrase "the future of God" as no true pope has ever spoken in such a absurd manner. A Catholic can speak about the future possession of the glory of the Beatific Vision of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. One possessed of a Catholic mind does speak of the "future of God" as He is without beginning or end.
How does the Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message connect with Ratzinger/Benedict's words yesterday to justify a conclusion that he does not believe that Our Lady really appeared physically before the eyes of Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos? Consider this passage from that Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message:
In this field, theological anthropology distinguishes three forms of perception or “vision” with the senses, and hence exterior bodily perception, interior perception, and spiritual vision (visio sensibilis - imaginativa - intellectualis). It is clear that in the visions of Lourdes, Fatima and other places it is not a question of normal exterior perception of the senses: the images and forms which are seen are not located spatially, as is the case for example with a tree or a house. This is perfectly obvious, for instance, as regards the vision of hell (described in the first part of the Fatima “secret”) or even the vision described in the third part of the “secret”. But the same can be very easily shown with regard to other visions, especially since not everybody present saw them, but only the “visionaries”. It is also clear that it is not a matter of a “vision” in the mind, without images, as occurs at the higher levels of mysticism. Therefore we are dealing with the middle category, interior perception. For the visionary, this perception certainly has the force of a presence, equivalent for that person to an external manifestation to the senses.
Interior vision does not mean fantasy, which would be no more than an expression of the subjective imagination. It means rather that the soul is touched by something real, even if beyond the senses. It is rendered capable of seeing that which is beyond the senses, that which cannot be seen—seeing by means of the “interior senses”. It involves true “objects”, which touch the soul, even if these “objects” do not belong to our habitual sensory world. This is why there is a need for an interior vigilance of the heart, which is usually precluded by the intense pressure of external reality and of the images and thoughts which fill the soul. The person is led beyond pure exteriority and is touched by deeper dimensions of reality, which become visible to him. Perhaps this explains why children tend to be the ones to receive these apparitions: their souls are as yet little disturbed, their interior powers of perception are still not impaired. “On the lips of children and of babes you have found praise”, replies Jesus with a phrase of Psalm 8 (v. 3) to the criticism of the High Priests and elders, who had judged the children's cries of “hosanna” inappropriate (cf. Mt 21:16).
“Interior vision” is not fantasy but, as we have said, a true and valid means of verification. But it also has its limitations. Even in exterior vision the subjective element is always present. We do not see the pure object, but it comes to us through the filter of our senses, which carry out a work of translation. This is still more evident in the case of interior vision, especially when it involves realities which in themselves transcend our horizon. The subject, the visionary, is still more powerfully involved. He sees insofar as he is able, in the modes of representation and consciousness available to him. In the case of interior vision, the process of translation is even more extensive than in exterior vision, for the subject shares in an essential way in the formation of the image of what appears. He can arrive at the image only within the bounds of his capacities and possibilities. Such visions therefore are never simple “photographs” of the other world, but are influenced by the potentialities and limitations of the perceiving subject. (Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message.)
In other words, just as Modernists contend that Faith itself is a matter of interior consciousness that comes from within so do they believe that seers such as Saint Bernadette Soubirous and Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos have had real but necessarily "subjective" experiences that have no actual visible, spatial reality with the eyes of the body.
It is important to examine the connection between the Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message of ten years ago and the "homily" given on the Esplanade of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima yesterday.
First, Ratzinger/Benedict made the point yesterday that the three shepherd children of Fatima were able to "see" Our Lady because they had "these innocent and profound mystical confidences," meaning that the children had to have pure, innocent souls to see interiorly what they thought they had seen with their eyes. This corresponds exactly to what he wrote twenty-two years ago, that "this explains why children tend to be the ones to receive these apparitions: their souls are as yet little disturbed, their interior powers of perception are still not impaired."
My friends, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI does not believe that Our Lady physically appeared before the physical eyes of Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia. He has dismissed the Fatima apparitions as an "interior vision" that are designed to move us closer to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and have nothing at all to do with apostasy in the ranks of those who believe themselves to be Catholics or, Heaven forfend, the consecration of Russia to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart by a true pope with all of the world's bishops.
Ratzinger/Benedict does not believe triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary that he referred to gratuitously yesterday has nothing at all to do with the consecration of Russia or the conversion of souls to the true Faith, Catholicism. Why did Ratzinger/Benedict make reference to that triumph, therefore? Because it makes life easier for those in the Motu communities and for Bishop Fellay of the Society of Saint Pius X as they bask in the false reassurance that their false "pontiff" is a partisan of the Fatima Message. One cannot believe in a request of a message that conflicts with good relations with those in Russia, whether it be the Communists of yore (and the present day, of course) or the Orthodox at the present time.
If what happened at Fatima was but a mere "interior vision," then why did each of the children, when being examined by ecclesiastical authorities, give identical testimony as to what they saw with the physical eyes of their bodies? Each had the identical vision? Logic has never been Ratzinger/Benedict's long suit as his rejection of Thomism (both Thomistic Philosophy and Thomistic Theology) has opened up to grow from young adulthood into an old man who has lived in a world of contradiction, paradox and ambiguity which makes it almost impossible for to him to see the fallacies in what he presents as "explanations" of the Faith and the events associated with It.
Second, Ratzinger/Benedict said yesterday that God "has the power to come to us, particularly through our inner senses, so that the soul can receive the gentle touch of a reality which is beyond the senses and which enables us to reach what is not accessible or visible to the senses." This corresponds with his statement of ten years ago:
It is clear that in the visions of Lourdes, Fatima and other places it is not a question of normal exterior perception of the senses: the images and forms which are seen are not located spatially, as is the case for example with a tree or a house. This is perfectly obvious, for instance, as regards the vision of hell (described in the first part of the Fatima “secret”) or even the vision described in the third part of the “secret”. . . .
It means rather that the soul is touched by something real, even if beyond the senses. It is rendered capable of seeing that which is beyond the senses, that which cannot be seen—seeing by means of the “interior senses”. It involves true “objects”, which touch the soul, even if these “objects” do not belong to our habitual sensory world. This is why there is a need for an interior vigilance of the heart, which is usually precluded by the intense pressure of external reality and of the images and thoughts which fill the soul. (Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message.)
Why is it "perfectly obvious" that the images and forms seen, to cite the false "pope's own example, by the fourteen year-old Bernadette Soubirous and Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia "are not located spatially"?
Our Lady did not actually part the earth and show Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia a vision of Hell that they saw with their own eyes? This was merely an "interior" vision vision of theirs that did not really happen in time and space?
The the buds on holm oak tree over which Our Lady hovered as she physically appeared to Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia did not change their appearance as seen by eyewitnesses who came to watch them? (On Full Display: The Modernist Mind.)
Disparaging the actual, physical apparitions of the Mother of God at Lourdes and Fatima?
Yes, by all means, please call those of us who dissent from this blasphemy as not being Catholic.
This is why I must chuckle at the confident prediction made to us on Monday, October 31, 2005, at the Days Inn near the Indianapolis, Indiana, Airport by a prominent presbyter, the Reverend Nicholas Gruner, who was at one and the same time part of the "recognize but resist" movement while soliciting funds from Catholics all across the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide for his apostolate.
"This pope [Benedict XVI] will be assassinated. The next pope will do the [collegial] consecration [of Russia to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart].” (Reverend Gruner speaking to us, October 31, 2005.)
The great Modernist and hater of Our Lady's Fatima Message (see No Friend of Fatima and A New Fatima For A New Religion) retired in peace without the "crown of martyrdom," thus ranking the late presbyter's confident prediction alongside a certain "infallible" "prophet of end times" who had predicted that Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II would reign for forty years. The prediction business is very tough, you understand.
June 4-6: On his visit to Cyprus, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI continued to plead for the "co-existence" of all religions, stating that such is the basis of "true peace and unity:"
Dear brothers and sisters, given your unique circumstances, I would also like to draw your attention to an essential part of our Church’s life and mission, namely the search for greater unity in charity with other Christians and dialogue with those who are not Christians. Especially since the Second Vatican Council, the Church has been committed to advancing along the path of greater understanding with our fellow Christians with a view to ever stronger ties of love and fellowship among all the baptized. Given your circumstances, you are able to make your personal contribution to the goal of greater Christian unity in your daily lives. Let me encourage you to do so, confident that the Spirit of the Lord, who prayed that his followers might be one (cf. Jn 17:21), will accompany you in this important task.
With regard to interreligious dialogue, much still needs to be done throughout the world. This is another area where Catholics in Cyprus often live in circumstances which afford them opportunities for right and prudent action. Only by patient work can mutual trust be built, the burden of history overcome, and the political and cultural differences between peoples become a motive to work for deeper understanding. I urge you to help create such mutual trust between Christians and non-Christians as a basis for building lasting peace and harmony between peoples of different religions, political regions and cultural backgrounds. (Meeting with the Catholic community of Cyprus at the sports field of St. Maron primary school, Nicosia, 5 June 2010.)
Catholicism alone is the only basis of true peace and unity:
Since the Church is the safe and sure guide to conscience, for to her safe-keeping alone there has been confided the doctrines and the promise of the assistance of Christ, she is able not only to bring about at the present hour a peace that is truly the peace of Christ, but can, better than any other agency which We know of, contribute greatly to the securing of the same peace for the future, to the making impossible of war in the future. For the Church teaches (she alone has been given by God the mandate and the right to teach with authority) that not only our acts as individuals but also as groups and as nations must conform to the eternal law of God. In fact, it is much more important that the acts of a nation follow God's law, since on the nation rests a much greater responsibility for the consequences of its acts than on the individual.
When, therefore, governments and nations follow in all their activities, whether they be national or international, the dictates of conscience grounded in the teachings, precepts, and example of Jesus Christ, and which are binding on each and every individual, then only can we have faith in one another's word and trust in the peaceful solution of the difficulties and controversies which may grow out of differences in point of view or from clash of interests. An attempt in this direction has already and is now being made; its results, however, are almost negligible and, especially so, as far as they can be said to affect those major questions which divide seriously and serve to arouse nations one against the other. No merely human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations, Christianity. It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages this law was often violated; still it always existed as an ideal, according to which one might judge the acts of nations, and a beacon light calling those who had lost their way back to the safe road.
There exists an institution able to safeguard the sanctity of the law of nations. This institution is a part of every nation; at the same time it is above all nations. She enjoys, too, the highest authority, the fullness of the teaching power of the Apostles. Such an institution is the Church of Christ. She alone is adapted to do this great work, for she is not only divinely commissioned to lead mankind, but moreover, because of her very make-up and the constitution which she possesses, by reason of her age-old traditions and her great prestige, which has not been lessened but has been greatly increased since the close of the War, cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail.
It is apparent from these considerations that true peace, the peace of Christ, is impossible unless we are willing and ready to accept the fundamental principles of Christianity, unless we are willing to observe the teachings and obey the law of Christ, both in public and private life. If this were done, then society being placed at last on a sound foundation, the Church would be able, in the exercise of its divinely given ministry and by means of the teaching authority which results therefrom, to protect all the rights of God over men and nations.
It is possible to sum up all We have said in one word, "the Kingdom of Christ." For Jesus Christ reigns over the minds of individuals by His teachings, in their hearts by His love, in each one's life by the living according to His law and the imitating of His example. Jesus reigns over the family when it, modeled after the holy ideals of the sacrament of matrimony instituted by Christ, maintains unspotted its true character of sanctuary. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922; see also Catholicism Is The Only Foundation of Personal and Social Order.)
September 16-20: The false "pontiff's" journey to Scotland and England was well chronicled on this site (Calling Cesar Romero, Calling Cesar Romero, part one, Calling Cesar Romero, Calling Cesar Romero, part two, Generic Christianity Is Not Good Enough For God, Day Two of the Conciliar Circus in the United Kingdom, part one, Day Two of the Conciliar Circus in the United Kingdom, part two, Days Three and Four of the Conciliar Circus in the United Kingdom, part one, Days Three and Four of the Conciliar Circus in the United Kingdom, part two, What's The First Commandment Got To Do With Anything?, and The Cost of "Recognition" Keeps Getting Higher and Higher). The Catholic Church has condemned such acts of apostasy:
This being so, it is clear that the Apostolic See cannot on any terms take part in their assemblies, nor is it anyway lawful for Catholics either to support or to work for such enterprises; for if they do so they will be giving countenance to a false Christianity, quite alien to the one Church of Christ. Shall We suffer, what would indeed be iniquitous, the truth, and a truth divinely revealed, to be made a subject for compromise? For here there is question of defending revealed truth. Jesus Christ sent His Apostles into the whole world in order that they might permeate all nations with the Gospel faith, and, lest they should err, He willed beforehand that they should be taught by the Holy Ghost: has then this doctrine of the Apostles completely vanished away, or sometimes been obscured, in the Church, whose ruler and defense is God Himself? If our Redeemer plainly said that His Gospel was to continue not only during the times of the Apostles, but also till future ages, is it possible that the object of faith should in the process of time become so obscure and uncertain, that it would be necessary to-day to tolerate opinions which are even incompatible one with another? If this were true, we should have to confess that the coming of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles, and the perpetual indwelling of the same Spirit in the Church, and the very preaching of Jesus Christ, have several centuries ago, lost all their efficacy and use, to affirm which would be blasphemy. But the Only-begotten Son of God, when He commanded His representatives to teach all nations, obliged all men to give credence to whatever was made known to them by "witnesses preordained by God," and also confirmed His command with this sanction: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned." These two commands of Christ, which must be fulfilled, the one, namely, to teach, and the other to believe, cannot even be understood, unless the Church proposes a complete and easily understood teaching, and is immune when it thus teaches from all danger of erring. In this matter, those also turn aside from the right path, who think that the deposit of truth such laborious trouble, and with such lengthy study and discussion, that a man's life would hardly suffice to find and take possession of it; as if the most merciful God had spoken through the prophets and His Only-begotten Son merely in order that a few, and those stricken in years, should learn what He had revealed through them, and not that He might inculcate a doctrine of faith and morals, by which man should be guided through the whole course of his moral life. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)
Let me dust off this quote from Pope Leo XIII's Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896, that I have not used for a while:
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.)
November 18: In an address to the "Pontifical" Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI explained that it was necessary to "excogitate models of unity":
Dear friends, despite the presence of new problematic situations or difficult points for the dialogue, the aim of the ecumenical path remains unchanged, as does the firm commitment in pursuing it. It is not, however, a commitment according to political categories, so to speak, in which the ability to negotiate or the greater capacity to find compromises come into play, from which could be expected, as good mediators, that, after a certain time, one will arrive at agreements acceptable to all. Ecumenical action has a twofold movement. On one hand there is the convinced, passionate and tenacious search to find full unity in truth, to excogitate models of unity, to illumine oppositions and dark points in order to reach unity. And this in the necessary theological dialogue, but above all in prayer and in penance, in that spiritual ecumenism which constitutes the throbbing heart of the whole path: The unity of Christians is and remains prayer, it resides in prayer. On the other hand, another operative movement, which arises from the firm awareness that we do not know the hour of the realization of the unity among all the disciples of Christ and we cannot know it, because unity is not "made by us," God "makes" it: it comes from above, from the unity of the Father with the Son in the dialogue of love which is the Holy Spirit; it is a taking part in the divine unity. And this should not make our commitment diminish, rather, it should make us ever more attentive to receive the signs of the times of the Lord, knowing how to recognize with gratitude that which already unites us and working to consolidate it and make it grow. In the end, also in the ecumenical path, it is about leaving to God what is only his and of exploring, with seriousness, constancy and dedication, what is our task, being aware that to our commitment belongs the binomial of acting and suffering, of activity and patience, of effort and joy.
We confidently invoke the Holy Spirit, so that he will guide our way and that each one will feel with renewed vigor the appeal to work for the ecumenical cause. I encourage all of you to continue your work; it is a help that you render to the Bishop of Rome in fulfilling his mission at the service of unity. As a sign of affection and gratitude, I impart to you my heartfelt apostolic blessing. (Papal Words to Members of Christian Unity Council.)
"Excogitate models of unity"? This is the talk of an insane man. This is craziness. This is absurdity.
November 20-December 23: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's book length interview with journalist Peter Seewald, The Light of the World: the Pope, The Church and Signs of The Times, is published and then becomes embroiled in controversy as the anti-Thomistic Ratzinger/Benedict endorsed the use of a certain type of prophylactic, used to prevent the conception of children, by those engaged in the selling of their bodies for immoral purposes in order to prevent the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus. Officials in the conciliar Vatican had to issue all manner of clarifications of the "pope's" views as eager defenders of all things "papal" in the "conservative" circles of the counterfeit church of conciliarism rushed to rationalize his views as perfectly compatible with Catholic moral theology. Finally, the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had to issue a Note to attempt to make his "unofficial" comments made in an "unofficial" book seem "officially" Catholic. ( If Them, Why Not Others?, Let the Olympic Games of Absurdity Begin!, Razing The Last Bastions, Nothing New Under Benedict's Sun, Talk About Clothing the Emperor!, Words and Actions Without Consequences, Making a Mockery of Catholicism).
2011
January 1: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI devotes his "World Day of Peace" message to the promotion of "religious liberty," calling for yet another day gather of the leaders of the world's "religions" to take place at Assisi, Italy, in October to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first such travesty that was convened by his predecessor, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. Here is an excerpt of what Ratzinger/Benedict said in his "World Day of Peace" message:
How can anyone deny the contribution of the world’s great religions to the development of civilization? The sincere search for God has led to greater respect for human dignity. Christian communities, with their patrimony of values and principles, have contributed much to making individuals and peoples aware of their identity and their dignity, the establishment of democratic institutions and the recognition of human rights and their corresponding duties.
Today too, in an increasingly globalized society, Christians are called, not only through their responsible involvement in civic, economic and political life but also through the witness of their charity and faith, to offer a valuable contribution to the laborious and stimulating pursuit of justice, integral human development and the right ordering of human affairs. The exclusion of religion from public life deprives the latter of a dimension open to transcendence. Without this fundamental experience it becomes difficult to guide societies towards universal ethical principles and to establish at the national and international level a legal order which fully recognizes and respects fundamental rights and freedoms as these are set forth in the goals – sadly still disregarded or contradicted – of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (44th World Day of Peace 2011, Religious Freedom, the Path to Peace.)
As a Roman Catholic, I deny that the "world's great religions" contributed to the development of true civilization. Catholicism is the one and only foundation of true and lasting personal and social order.
There is no need to "search for God." He has revealed Himself. The Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity became Man for us in the Virginal and Immaculate Womb of His Most Blessed Mother by the power of God the Holy Ghost to redeem us. He commissioned His Apostles to proclaim His Gospel to the ends of the world. It is His Divine Will that each man and each nation be professedly Catholic as they submit themselves to Him, Christ the King. Indeed, it is as King that the Three Kings of the East--Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balathsazar--worshiped the Infant Jesus as they presented Him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh at the Epiphany.
Ratzinger/Benedict believes that this "search for God" has led to a "greater respect for human dignity." The man is mad. Mad. Insane. Where is this greater respect to be found? One cannot even find this in the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service as so-called "extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist" and lectors dress in short skirts or tight pants and as members of the laity dress casually and immodestly and speak or applaud almost at will? Greater respect for human dignity? Where? In one's local pharmacy, where one can find a variety of pills and devices to frustrate the natural end of marriage and, at least in most instances, to chemically execute an innocent preborn baby? Where? In local abortuaries, in hospices, in hospitals, where elderly or chronically or terminally ill patients are routinely denied food and water and/or are administered with such increasingly higher doses of sedatives and palliatives that they stop respirating? Where? In the world's entertainment industry? The "pope" lives in a fanciful world of his own creation, a world that does not correspond to reality in the slightest.
Ratzinger/Benedict's respect for "religions" is indeed of the essence of Judeo-Masonry and it has been condemned in no uncertain terms by our true popes:
Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God. (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)
Who is correct? Pope Leo XIII or your "Pope" Benedict XVI? (See Another Year of the Same Conciliar Apostasy, Part One, Another Year of the Same Conciliar Apostasy, Part Two, Another Year of the Same Conciliar Apostasy, Part Three, Not Interested in Assisi III, Night and Day and in Processing Along The Path To Antichrist.)
March 2: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's latest "unofficial" book, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, is released and creates yet another controversy by departing from the teaching of the Catholic Church concerning the guilt of the Jews for the death of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and going so far as to deny the simple truth that it was Saint Peter himself who uttered the words that resulted in the conversion of over three thousand Jews on the first Pentecost Sunday. This is part of what I wrote at the time, quoting directly from the book itself to illustrate the very Modernist methodology that the man whom many in the "recognize but resist" movement want us to believe is trying to "remedy the errors" in his conciliar church:
It is necessary, as Ratzinger/Benedict sees it, to "rediscover" the true "historical figure of Jesus" so that the men of this time can have "personal" contact with Him, which implies that the Angelic Doctor's discourse on the events of Our Lord's Passion, Death and Resurrection were so "cold and impersonal" as to be incapable of reaching the hearts of men who live in what the false "pontiff" contends is a "different historical and spiritual context":
In the foreword to Part One, I stated that my concern was to present "the figure and the image of Jesus". Perhaps it would have been good to assign these two words--figure and message--a subtitle to the book, in order to clarify its intention. Exaggerating a little, one could say that I set out discover the real Jesus on the basis of whom something like a "Christology from below" would then become possible. The quest for the "historical Jesus", as conducted in mainstream critical exegesis in accordance with its hermeneutic presumptions, lacks sufficient content to exert any significant historical impact. It is focused too much on the past for it to make possible a personal relationship with Jesus. In the combination of the two hermeneutics of which I spoke earlier, I have attempted to develop a way of observing and listening to the Jesus of the Gospels that can indeed lead to personal encounter and that, through collective listening with Jesus' disciples across the ages, can indeed attain sure knowledge of the real historical figure of Jesus. (Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011. pp. xvi-xvii.)
Dismissing the ability of Saint Thomas Aquinas and of those of his fellow Modernists who employ what he believes to be a too "rigid" reliance upon the historical-critical method of Biblical exegesis (see Ratzinger/Benedict believes that he has "discovered" the hermeneutic that makes it possible for men of this time to "encounter" and to "attain sure knowledge of the real historical figure Jesus," a blasphemous contention that implies that Holy Mother Church has not done this for nearly two millennia under the inspiration of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, and with the assistance of her Fathers and Doctors whose works she has held in such high esteem and which have been relied upon by the council fathers of her true councils, including the Council of Trent and the [First] Vatican Council, to reflect upon the meaning of the truths contained in the Sacred Deposit of Faith as they have conducted their deliberations under the infallible guidance of the same God the Holy Ghost.
Pope Saint Pius X explicated this Modernist approach to Divine Revelation in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, stressing the fact that Modernists must assess everything about the Faith in term of their own interior feelings and experiences, incapable of accepting the Tradition of Holy Mother Church as It has been passed down from time immemorial under the infallible guidance of God the Holy Ghost as they must "revise" and "reinterpret" that which does not correspond to their own interior dispositions and feelings:
Moreover, the first actuation, so to speak, of every vital phenomenon -- and religion, as noted above, belongs to this category -- is due to a certain need or impulsion; but speaking more particularly of life, it has its origin in a movement of the heart, which movement is called a sense. Therefore, as God is the object of religion, we must conclude that faith, which is the basis and foundation of all religion, must consist in a certain interior sense, originating in a need of the divine. This need of the divine, which is experienced only in special and favorable circumstances. cannot of itself appertain to the domain of consciousness, but is first latent beneath consciousness, or, to borrow a term from modern philosophy, in the subconsciousness, where also its root lies hidden and undetected. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
Revise and reinterpret the Faith according to his own "hermeneutic," of which he is so very proud and boastful, is precisely what Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has done throughout the course of his nearly sixty years as a priest and the nearly six years he has spent as the head of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, indifferent to what our last canonized pope had to say about those who disparage or to seek to put into question the Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas. (See Impressed With His Own Originality, Accepting "Popes" As Unreliable Teachers, Coloring Everything He Says and Does, part one, Coloring Everything He Says and Does, part two and Atila Sinka Guimaraes's Benedict XVI's Different Religion).
Those who believe that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI was "restoring" Tradition during his 2873 days on the conciliar chair of apostasy were projecting their own desires into the mind of their "pope." Sadly, believed that the "pope" would be as "faithful" to Tradition as Ratzinger/Benedict had been. They were in for quite a surprise, weren’t they?
April 30: William "Cardinal" Levada, the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issues a "papally" approved "instruction," Universae Ecclesiae, for the "proper implementation" of Summorum Pontificum. The "instruction" reiterates Ratzinger/Benedict's contention, made at the time of the issuance of Summorum Pontificum on July 7, 2007, that there was no "rupture" between the Immemorial Mass of Tradition and the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service even he, as "Cardinal" Ratzinger, had said the exact opposite:
What happened after the Council was something else entirely: in the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it--as in a manufacturing process--with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product. Gamber, with the vigilance of a true prophet and the courage of a true witness, opposed this falsification, and thanks to his incredibly rich knowledge, indefatigably taught us about the living fullness of a true liturgy. As a man who knew and loved history, he showed us the multiple forms and paths of liturgical development; as a man who looked at history form the inside, he saw in this development and its fruit the intangible reflection of the eternal liturgy, that which is not the object of our action but which can continue marvelously to mature and blossom if we unite ourselves intimately with its mystery. (Joseph "Cardinal: Ratzinger, Preface to the French language edition of Monsignor Klaus Gamber's The Reform of the Roman Liturgy.)
The prohibition of the missal that was now decreed, a missal that had known continuous growth over the centuries, starting with the sacramentaries of the ancient Church, introduced a breach into the history of the liturgy whose consequences could only be tragic. It was reasonable and right of the Council to order a revision of the missal such as had often taken place before and which this time had to be more thorough than before, above all because of the introduction of the vernacular.
But more than this now happened: the old building was demolished, and another was built, to be sure largely using materials from the previous one and even using the old building plans. There is no doubt that this new missal in many respects brought with it a real improvement and enrichment; but setting it as a new construction over against what had grown historically, forbidding the results of this historical growth. thereby makes the liturgy appear to be no longer living development but the produce of erudite work and juridical authority; this has caused an enormous harm. For then the impression had to emerge that liturgy is something "made", not something given in advance but something lying without our own power of decision. (Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, Milestones.)
Universae Ecclesiae also reiterated Ratzinger/Benedict's desire for the "extraordinary form of the 'one' Roman Rite" to include at least some of the "new prefaces" and the feast days of the "new saints."
May 1: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI "beatifies" his predecessor, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. (see "Connecting" with Betrayal, "Canonizing" A Man Who Protected Moral Derelicts, Celebrating Apostasy and Dereliction of Duty, To Be Loved by the Jews, Perhaps Judas Was the First to Sing "A Kiss is Just a Kiss", Enjoy the Party, George, Enjoy the Party and Anticlimactic "Beatification" for an Antipope.)
May 16: Kurt "Cardinal" Koch, the president of the "Pontifical" Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said at a conference on Summorum Pontificum in Rome what Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger had said in 2003: that the "coexistence" between the "extraordinary" and "ordinary" forms of the "Roman liturgy" was not meant to last:
Cardinal Koch made the remarks at a Rome conference on "Summorum Pontificum," Pope Benedict's 2007 apostolic letter that offered wider latitude for use of the Tridentine rite. The cardinal's text was published the same day by L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.
Cardinal Koch said Pope Benedict thinks the post-Vatican II liturgical changes have brought "many positive fruits" but also problems, including a focus on purely practical matters and a neglect of the paschal mystery in the Eucharistic celebration. The cardinal said it was legitimate to ask whether liturgical innovators had intentionally gone beyond the council's stated intentions.
He said this explains why Pope Benedict has introduced a new reform movement, beginning with "Summorum Pontificum." The aim, he said, is to revisit Vatican II's teachings in liturgy and strengthen certain elements, including the Christological and sacrificial dimensions of the Mass.
Cardinal Koch said "Summorum Pontificum" is "only the beginning of this new liturgical movement."
"In fact, Pope Benedict knows well that, in the long term, we cannot stop at a coexistence between the ordinary form and the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, but that in the future the church naturally will once again need a common rite," he said.
"However, because a new liturgical reform cannot be decided theoretically, but requires a process of growth and purification, the pope for the moment is underlining above all that the two forms of the Roman rite can and should enrich each other," he said. (Benedict's "reform of the reform" in liturgy to continue.)
Jorge Mario Bergoglio has put an end to all such talk.
June 3: The Vice President of the United States of America, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., makes a "personal" visit to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. Biden continued his "good standing" in the conciliar church thereafter despite his continued support for the chemical and surgical assassination of innocent preborn children under cover of the civil law. Biden came out in 2012 in support of "gay marriage" without suffering any penalties from conciliar officials. (See Just A Personal Visit, Abiding Biden And His Counsel and Silence In The Face Of Advancing Evils.)
August 18: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict appears at World Youth Day 2011 in Madrid, Spain, telling those assembled there that they must "build up" Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II's vaunted "civilization of love:"
Dear friends, our society, which all too often questions the inestimable value of life, of every life, needs you: in a decisive way you help to build the civilization of love. What is more, you play a leading role in that civilization. As sons and daughters of the Church, you offer the Lord your lives, with all their ups and downs, cooperating with him and somehow becoming “part of the treasury of compassion so greatly needed by the human race” (Spe Salvi, 40) (Visit to San José Foundation for disabled youth, Madrid, 20 August 2011.)
Here's the kind of civilization that Pope Saint Pius X told us to restore as we avoid the unremitting attacks of "insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants:"
This, nevertheless, is what they want to do with human society; they dream of changing its natural and traditional foundations; they dream of a Future City built on different principles, and they dare to proclaim these more fruitful and more beneficial than the principles upon which the present Christian City rests.
No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. omnia instaurare in Christo. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)
September 22: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI addresses members of the Talmudic community in Berlin, Germany, repeating his well-known views on the Jews and Judaism:
Alongside these important initiatives, it seems to me that we Christians must also become increasingly aware of our own inner affinity with Judaism, to which you made reference. For Christians, there can be no rupture in salvation history. Salvation comes from the Jews (cf. Jn 4:22). When Jesus’ conflict with the Judaism of his time is superficially interpreted as a breach with the Old Covenant, it tends to be reduced to the idea of a liberation that mistakenly views the Torah merely as a slavish enactment of rituals and outward observances. Yet in actual fact, the Sermon on the Mount does not abolish the Mosaic Law, but reveals its hidden possibilities and allows more radical demands to emerge. It points us towards the deepest source of human action, the heart, where choices are made between what is pure and what is impure, where faith, hope and love blossom forth.
The message of hope contained in the books of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament has been appropriated and continued in different ways by Jews and Christians. “After centuries of antagonism, we now see it as our task to bring these two ways of rereading the biblical texts – the Christian way and the Jewish way – into dialogue with one another, if we are to understand God’s will and his word aright” (Jesus of Nazareth. Part Two: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, pp. 33f.). This dialogue should serve to strengthen our common hope in God in the midst of an increasingly secularized society. Without this hope, society loses its humanity.
All in all, we may conclude that the exchanges between the Catholic Church and Judaism in Germany have already borne promising fruits. Enduring relations of trust have been forged. Jews and Christians certainly have a shared responsibility for the development of society, which always includes a religious dimension. May all those taking part in this journey move forward together. To this end, may the One and Almighty, Ha Kadosch Baruch Hu, grant his blessing. I thank you. (Meeting with representatives of the Jewish community in a room of the Reichstag Building Berlin, September 22, 2011; see also Modernist At Work, part one.)
Apostasy. Si, si, no, no, right?
September 23: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI addresses Mohammedans in the Apostolic Nunciature in Berlin, Germany, explaining how they can how other "believers" make "contributions" to the betterment of society:
Dear friends, on the basis of what I have outlined here, it seems to me that there can be fruitful collaboration between Christians and Muslims. In the process, we help to build a society that differs in many respects from what we brought with us from the past. As believers, setting out from our respective convictions, we can offer an important witness in many key areas of life in society. I am thinking, for example, of the protection of the family based on marriage, respect for life in every phase of its natural course or the promotion of greater social justice.
This is another reason why I think it important to hold a day of reflection, dialogue and prayer for peace and justice in the world, which as you know we plan to do on 27 October next in Assisi, twenty-five years after the historic meeting there led by my predecessor, Blessed Pope John Paul II. Through this gathering, we wish to express, with simplicity, that we believers have a special contribution to make towards building a better world, while acknowledging that if our actions are to be effective, we need to grow in dialogue and mutual esteem. (Meeting with representatives of the Muslim community in the reception room of the Apostolic Nunciature of Berlin, September 23, 2011.)
September 23: Having traveled to Erfurt, Germany, after Berlin, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict addresses Lutherans in a church their hideous founder stole from the Catholic Church, speaking kind words of praise for the man who divided Christendom and set it on a course of auto-demolition with which the "Second" Vatican Council and the "magisterium" of the conciliar "popes" have aided and abetted:
As I begin to speak, I would like first of all to say how deeply grateful I am that we are able to come together. I am particularly grateful to you, my dear brother, Pastor Schneider, for receiving me and for the words with which you have welcomed me here among you. You have opened your heart and openly expressed a truly shared faith, a longing for unity. And we are also glad, for I believe that this session, our meetings here, are also being celebrated as the feast of our shared faith. Moreover, I would like to express my thanks to all of you for your gift in making it possible for us to speak with one another as Christians here, in this historic place.
As the Bishop of Rome, it is deeply moving for me to be meeting you here in the ancient Augustinian convent in Erfurt. As we have just heard, this is where Luther studied theology. This is where he was ordained a priest. Against his father’s wishes, he did not continue the study of Law, but instead he studied theology and set off on the path towards priesthood in the Order of Saint Augustine. And on this path, he was not simply concerned with this or that. What constantly exercised him was the question of God, the deep passion and driving force of his whole life’s journey. “How do I receive the grace of God?”: this question struck him in the heart and lay at the foundation of all his theological searching and inner struggle. For Luther theology was no mere academic pursuit, but the struggle for oneself, which in turn was a struggle for and with God.
“How do I receive the grace of God?” The fact that this question was the driving force of his whole life never ceases to make a deep impression on me. For who is actually concerned about this today – even among Christians? What does the question of God mean in our lives? In our preaching? Most people today, even Christians, set out from the presupposition that God is not fundamentally interested in our sins and virtues. He knows that we are all mere flesh. And insofar as people believe in an afterlife and a divine judgement at all, nearly everyone presumes for all practical purposes that God is bound to be magnanimous and that ultimately he mercifully overlooks our small failings. The question no longer troubles us. But are they really so small, our failings? Is not the world laid waste through the corruption of the great, but also of the small, who think only of their own advantage? Is it not laid waste through the power of drugs, which thrives on the one hand on greed and avarice, and on the other hand on the craving for pleasure of those who become addicted? Is the world not threatened by the growing readiness to use violence, frequently masking itself with claims to religious motivation? Could hunger and poverty so devastate parts of the world if love for God and godly love of neighbour – of his creatures, of men and women – were more alive in us? I could go on. No, evil is no small matter. Were we truly to place God at the centre of our lives, it could not be so powerful. The question: what is God’s position towards me, where do I stand before God? – Luther’s burning question must once more, doubtless in a new form, become our question too, not an academic question, but a real one. In my view, this is the first summons we should attend to in our encounter with Martin Luther.
Another important point: God, the one God, creator of heaven and earth, is no mere philosophical hypothesis regarding the origins of the universe. This God has a face, and he has spoken to us. He became one of us in the man Jesus Christ – who is both true God and true man. Luther’s thinking, his whole spirituality, was thoroughly Christocentric: “What promotes Christ’s cause” was for Luther the decisive hermeneutical criterion for the exegesis of sacred Scripture. This presupposes, however, that Christ is at the heart of our spirituality and that love for him, living in communion with him, is what guides our life. (Meeting with representatives of the German Evangelical Church Council in the Chapter Hall of the Augustinian Convent Erfurt, Germany, September 23, 2011.)
Why should we have to encounter Martin Luther with anything other than total rejection?
To paraphrase from Pope Saint Pius X's Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, what is this strange respect for false religions and errors of all kinds?
Ratzinger/Benedict also addressed a whole assortment of non-Catholic Christians on the same day during an "ecumenical celebration:"
Our fundamental unity comes from the fact that we believe in God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth. And that we confess that he is the triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The highest unity is not the solitude of a monad, but rather a unity born of love. We believe in God – the real God. We believe that God spoke to us and became one of us. To bear witness to this living God is our common task at the present time. (Ecumenical Celebration in the church of the Augustinian Convent, Erfurt, Germany, September 23, 2011; see also Modernist At Work, part two.)
How is this consonant with the following words of Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943?
Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. "For in one spirit" says the Apostle, "were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free." As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered - so the Lord commands - as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)
October 26: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI presides over Assisi III at the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi in Italy, thereby offending God once again and giving the world yet another display of religious indifferentism: See: Outcome Based Conciliar Math: Assisi I + Assisi II + Assisi III = A-P-O-S-T-A-S-Y for an analysis if this horrific event, which included the following piece of blasphemy from the long-since retired antipope:
Yet I do not intend to speak further here about state-imposed atheism, but rather about the decline of man, which is accompanied by a change in the spiritual climate that occurs imperceptibly and hence is all the more dangerous. The worship of mammon, possessions and power is proving to be a counter-religion, in which it is no longer man who counts but only personal advantage. The desire for happiness degenerates, for example, into an unbridled, inhuman craving, such as appears in the different forms of drug dependency. There are the powerful who trade in drugs and then the many who are seduced and destroyed by them, physically and spiritually. Force comes to be taken for granted and in parts of the world it threatens to destroy our young people. Because force is taken for granted, peace is destroyed and man destroys himself in this peace vacuum.
The absence of God leads to the decline of man and of humanity. But where is God? Do we know him, and can we show him anew to humanity, in order to build true peace? Let us first briefly summarize our considerations thus far. I said that there is a way of understanding and using religion so that it becomes a source of violence, while the rightly lived relationship of man to God is a force for peace. In this context I referred to the need for dialogue and I spoke of the constant need for purification of lived religion. On the other hand I said that the denial of God corrupts man, robs him of his criteria and leads him to violence. (Day of reflection, dialogue, and prayer for peace and justice in the world "Pilgrims of Truth, Pilgrims of Peace": Address of the Ratzinger/Benedict, Assisi, 27 October 2011.)
Blasphemy.
The Catholic Church has never been and can never be an instrument of violence. She has called for the use for legitimate force, which is not violence. And while her children have sinned, she is the spotless mystical bride of her Divine Spouse and Invisible Head, Christ the King. Violence and terrorism and other crimes have spread in the world because men persist in their sins unrepentantly and because they see no need to seek sacramental absolution for them at the hands of a true priest. Ratzinger/Benedict himself sins in the objective order of things every time he refuses to exhort men to convert unconditionally to the true Church, which is the only means of human salvation and hence of true social order and international peace.
The rise of violence in the world in recent times is attributable to the triumph of the diabolical forces that were unleashed as a result of the Protestant Revolution's overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and the subsequent rise of the combined forces of naturalism that can be termed as Judeo-Masonry. These forces have been given greater impetus in the past four decades as the barren liturgical rites of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have robbed the world of the Sanctifying and Actual Graces that it needs to avoid sin and thus to scale the heights of personal sanctity, which is a fundamental precondition for social order.
Ratzinger/Benedict also said:
Therefore I have consciously invited delegates of this third group to our meeting in Assisi, which does not simply bring together representatives of religious institutions. Rather it is a case of being together on a journey towards truth, a case of taking a decisive stand for human dignity and a case of common engagement for peace against every form of destructive force. Finally I would like to assure you that the Catholic Church will not let up in her fight against violence, in her commitment for peace in the world. We are animated by the common desire to be “pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of peace”. (Day of reflection, dialogue, and prayer for peace and justice in the world "Pilgrims of Truth, Pilgrims of Peace": Address of the Ratzinger/Benedict, Assisi, 27 October 2011.)
Unbelievers can challenge "the followers of religion." There is nothing lack in the Divine Constitution of Holy Mother Church to instruct us on any point. Those who do not believe or who doubt in the existence of God are objects of prayer for their conversion. They make no contribution to the world other than add to the confusion prophesied by Popes Gregory XVI and Pius IX would be the case when men live in a world of unfettered "freedom of conscience" and "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press" and "religious freedom."
November 17: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI addressed the "Courtyard of the Gentiles" to encourage them to "search for the truth," a reference, of course, to his lifelong admiration of his mentor Hans Urs von Balthasar's "search for the truth:"
ROME, NOV. 17, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The search for truth is a journey that must be made united, says Benedict XVI, as he sent words of encouragement to a "Courtyard of the Gentiles" event held this week in Albania.
The Monday through Tuesday gathering was held in Tirana, and had the theme "Collaborators of the Truth."
The Holy Father referred to the event as a valuable occasion both of encounter and confrontation, to "walk together toward the truth."
The papal message was entrusted by his secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, to Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture and promoter of the initiative.
At the beginning of this year, the Vatican launched the "Courtyard of the Gentiles," an initiative proposed by Benedict XVI in an address to the Roman Curia at the end of 2009.
It is a permanent Vatican structure to promote dialogue and encounter between believers and nonbelievers.
The courtyard of the Gentiles refers to a space in the ancient Temple of Jerusalem that was not reserved for the Jews, but rather was open to any person independent of his culture or religion. (Ratzinger Says Do This: Search for Truth in Unity.)
Excuse me, didn't the Apostles and those who followed them proclaim the Truth, Our Lord Himself, and Him Crucified? Search for truth? It must be proclaimed as non-Catholics, including "non-believers," must be invited to convert unconditionally to the true Church. While it is true that it might take time for individual men to respond to the graces sent to them by Our Lady as the Mediatrix of All Graces in order to convert, we must nevertheless plant the seeds for this by proclaiming the truths of the Catholic Faith.
Do any of you in this site's very, very small readership believe that the views of outgoing conciliar "pope" and his "bishops" that the work of, say, Saint Vincent Ferrer, O.P., in seeking to convert Jews and Mohammedans was wrong even though thousands of them did so as they responded to his firm preaching?
November 30: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI permits L'Ossevatore Romano to republish a 1998 article of his that said it might be possible to permit divorced and remarried Catholics who lack a conciliar decree of nullity to receive what purports to be Holy Communion in the conciliar liturgical services (see No Communion for Outlaws. But Benedict Is Studying Two Exceptions.)
2012
April 5: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI referred to the "fossilization of traditions" in his Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo Chrism service held at the Basilica of Peter in the Vatican:
But let us not oversimplify matters. Surely Christ himself corrected human traditions which threatened to stifle the word and the will of God? Indeed he did, so as to rekindle obedience to the true will of God, to his ever enduring word. His concern was for true obedience, as opposed to human caprice. Nor must we forget: he was the Son, possessed of singular authority and responsibility to reveal the authentic will of God, so as to open up the path for God’s word to the world of the nations. And finally: he lived out his task with obedience and humility all the way to the Cross, and so gave credibility to his mission. Not my will, but thine be done: these words reveal to us the Son, in his humility and his divinity, and they show us the true path.
Let us ask again: do not such reflections serve simply to defend inertia, the fossilization of traditions? No. Anyone who considers the history of the post-conciliar era can recognize the process of true renewal, which often took unexpected forms in living movements and made almost tangible the inexhaustible vitality of holy Church, the presence and effectiveness of the Holy Spirit. And if we look at the people from whom these fresh currents of life burst forth and continue to burst forth, then we see that this new fruitfulness requires being filled with the joy of faith, the radicalism of obedience, the dynamic of hope and the power of love. (Novus Ordo Chrism Service.)
Is this the teaching of the Catholic Church? It is not.
The retired nonagenarian antipope emeritus was simply aping the theology of the Orthodox that was the model for the further corruption of the Deposit of Faith by Martin Luther and John Calvin and the other Protestant Revolutionaries who followed them, believes that he and the "renewal" he helped to bring about in what he thinks is the Catholic Church has "restored" the concept of "true" obedience to Our Lord by "correcting" the "inertia" that was caused by the "fossilization of traditions," ascribing such a "renewal" to none other than God the Holy Ghost. This is, of course, quite a work of blasphemy. It is also heresy:
These firings, therefore, with all diligence and care having been formulated by us, we define that it be permitted to no one to bring forward, or to write, or to compose, or to think, or to teach a different faith. Whosoever shall presume to compose a different faith, or to propose, or teach, or hand to those wishing to be converted to the knowledge of the truth, from the Gentiles or Jews, or from any heresy, any different Creed; or to introduce a new voice or invention of speech to subvert these things which now have been determined by us, all these, if they be Bishops or clerics let them be deposed, the Bishops from the Episcopate, the clerics from the clergy; but if they be monks or laymen: let them be anathematized. (Sixth Ecumenical: Constantinople III).
They [the Modernists] exercise all their ingenuity in an effort to weaken the force and falsify the character of tradition, so as to rob it of all its weight and authority. But for Catholics nothing will remove the authority of the second Council of Nicea, where it condemns those "who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind...or endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church"; nor that of the declaration of the fourth Council of Constantinople: "We therefore profess to preserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, by the Holy and most illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both general and local, and by everyone of those divine interpreters, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church." Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: "I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church.'' (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical' misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. . . . The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way. (Pope Saint Pius X, The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910.)
Ratzinger/Benedict has no concern for any of this.
July 1: Gerhard Ludwig Muller, the conciliar "bishop" of Regensburg, Germany, who had made war upon the Society of Saint Pius X for many years, is appointed to be the new prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Deconstruction of the Faith. Muller, of course, has denied the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and helped to propagate Ratzinger/Benedict's Modernist belief that dogmatic truth is capable of being understood anew in light of changing circumstances given the "imprecision" of human language. See Deft? Daft Is More Like It, part two, Daft? Deft Is More Like It, part three, Does The Defense of Catholic Truth Matter To You?, When Will The Madness End?, part one, Memo To Bishop Fellay: Ratzinger/Benedict Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Loves Gerhard Ludwig Muller, Finding Conciliarism's Irreducible Minimum At Long Last, Finding Conciliarism's Irreducible Minimum At Long Last, part two, Contrast The Outrage, part one, Crushed By The Weight Of Error, part two, All Together Now: Go Right Ahead, Gerhard, Make Our Day, and Forever Preserving False "Traditions", to list just a few of the articles on this website that were written about Muller.
August 3, 2012: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict praises yet another diabolical "ecumenical" prayer meeting atop Mount Hiei, Japan:
I am pleased to greet you and the religious leaders gathered for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Religious Summit on Mount Hiei, in the spirit of the 1986 historic meeting in Assisi promoted by my predecessor Blessed John Paul II. The commitment to the cause of peace by religious leaders is of the greatest importance and I am happy to learn that, thanks to your efforts, the Summit on Mount Hiei has become a major annual event that contributes effectively to dialogue between people of different beliefs. I am confident that the of the Summit and the Symposium studying the response of religious leaders to natural disasters will lead to greater solidarity and mutual help. According to the Christian perspective, the love given lo those who suffer is a reflection of the divine charity of God who so loved the world that he sent his only Son Jesus Christ. In this sense, my mind turns to the earthquake and tsunami in north-east Japan last year and the harrowing consequences for the whole nation. It was heartening to learn of the effective role of religious leaders in offering hope and support, as well as counsel and solace, to all those suffering. The tragic event also shows how people of different beliefs can cooperate with one another for the good of the human person. With these sentiments, and as a pledge of goodwill and friendship, upon all gathered I invoke an abundance of divine blessings. (Love given to the suffering a reflection of the divine charity. See also Aren't These Guys Supposed To Be On Vacation Or Something?)
November 28, 2012: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI issued the final part of his Jesus of Nazareth trilogy, continuing his work of deconstructing the Holy Faith and putting into question numerous points of Catholic doctrine, including Our Lady's Perpetual Virginity. See Does This Man Give Any Thought To His Particular Judgment? and Integral Denial of Our Lady's Perfect Integrity.
December 20, 2012: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI signed the decree issued by the counterfeit church of conciliarism's Congregation for the Causes of the Saints that declared the hideous, perverted Modernist by the name of Giovanni Montini/Paul VI possessed "heroic virtues" and is hereby to be called as "Venerable," thus placing this monstrous man on the path to yet another conciliar "beatification." See "Blessed" Paul The Sick and In Death As In Life: The Antithesis Of Christ The King.)
2013
February 6, 2013: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI says in his general audience address the the serpent in the Garden of Eden was derived from "Eastern fertility cults." See Preparing To Spend All Eternity With His Allegorical Figure
These are just a few more "drops" of poison than just "one" drop of poison contained in the selected and hardly exclusive material cited herein.
A Few Final Observations
The examples provided above have indeed shown that the one-time public face of what most people in the world think is Catholicism, deceived the souls of Catholics and non-Catholics alike, reaffirming billions of souls outside of the bosom of Holy Mother Church into believing that there is absolutely no need for them to even consider converting to the Catholic Faith before they die. Did not Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood to redeem these poor people?
How is it any act of fidelity to Him, Christ the King, to make it appear to them that God is pleased with their false religions and their false liturgies?
Where is the precedent for this in the history of the Catholic Church?
Where?
Where is this callous disregard for the salvation of souls to be found prior to October 28, 1958?
Where?
This is all--every single last bit of it--without any precedent in the history of the Catholic Church. Although anti-sedevacantists like to disparage the canonical teaching of the Church, reiterated by a conciliar "cardinal," Mario Francesco Pompedda, shortly before John Paul II's death on April 1 or 2, 2005, by noting that a papal vacancy of half a century is without precedent and that it is to defy the teaching of the [First] Vatican Council that Saint Peter has perpetual successors to assert that this is so (see An Objection to Sedevacantism: 'Perpetual Successors' to Peter). Well, my friends, none of what has been documented above is without any kind of precedent in the history of the Church. And to continue to indemnify the conciliar "popes" as legitimate successors of Saint Peter is to assert that the Catholic Church can give us defective liturgies or liturgies that can can give rise to unprecedented acts of impiety and sacrilege and that popes can teach error when they are not defining a doctrine ex cathedra. This is simply not so.
The Catholic Church can never give us any liturgy that is in any way defective or that is an incentive to impiety or that can be used a means of institutionalizing gross offenses to God. Who says so? The Council of Trent:
CANON VII.--If any one saith, that the ceremonies, vestments, and outward signs, which the Catholic Church makes use of in the celebration of masses, are incentives to impiety, rather than offices of piety; let him be anathema. (Session Twenty-Two, Chapter IX, Canon VII, Council of Trent, September 17, 1562, CT022.; here is but a sampling of a few of the articles on this subject in the past fifteen months or so, please see With Perfection Staring Directly At Them, Turning Perfection Aside For A More Perfect Banality, Taking The Obvious For Granted, Enough Spin To Make Our Heads Spin, Calling Cesar Romero, Calling Cesar Romero, part two, Transforming the Extraordinary Into the Ordinary, The Better Mousetrap and "Cardinals" Burke and Canizares, Meet The Council of Trent.)
Quite despite what those in the Society of Saint Pius X and elsewhere in the "recognize but resist" movement" have contended, although errors have existed to a greater or lesser extent in the minds of Catholics during various times in the history of Holy Mother Church, she cannot be stained by any taint of error, as pope after pope has taught us:
As for the rest, We greatly deplore the fact that, where the ravings of human reason extend, there is somebody who studies new things and strives to know more than is necessary, against the advice of the apostle. There you will find someone who is overconfident in seeking the truth outside the Catholic Church, in which it can be found without even a light tarnish of error. Therefore, the Church is called, and is indeed, a pillar and foundation of truth. You correctly understand, venerable brothers, that We speak here also of that erroneous philosophical system which was recently brought in and is clearly to be condemned. This system, which comes from the contemptible and unrestrained desire for innovation, does not seek truth where it stands in the received and holy apostolic inheritance. Rather, other empty doctrines, futile and uncertain doctrines not approved by the Church, are adopted. Only the most conceited men wrongly think that these teachings can sustain and support that truth. (Pope Gregory XVI, Singulari Nos, May 25, 1834.)
Just as Christianity cannot penetrate into the soul without making it better, so it cannot enter into public life without establishing order. With the idea of a God Who governs all, Who is infinitely Wise, Good, and Just, the idea of duty seizes upon the consciences of men. It assuages sorrow, it calms hatred, it engenders heroes. If it has transformed pagan society--and that transformation was a veritable resurrection--for barbarism disappeared in proportion as Christianity extended its sway, so, after the terrible shocks which unbelief has given to the world in our days, it will be able to put that world again on the true road, and bring back to order the States and peoples of modern times. But the return of Christianity will not be efficacious and complete if it does not restore the world to a sincere love of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate. It identifies Itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption. It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of Its blood, and strong in the Divine assistance and of that immortality which has been promised it, It makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the commands which it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity. Legitimate dispenser of the teachings of the Gospel it does not reveal itself only as the consoler and Redeemer of souls, but It is still more the internal source of justice and charity, and the propagator as well as the guardian of true liberty, and of that equality which alone is possible here below. In applying the doctrine of its Divine Founder, It maintains a wise equilibrium and marks the true limits between the rights and privileges of society. The equality which it proclaims does not destroy the distinction between the different social classes. It keeps them intact, as nature itself demands, in order to oppose the anarchy of reason emancipated from Faith, and abandoned to its own devices. The liberty which it gives in no wise conflicts with the rights of truth, because those rights are superior to the demands of liberty. Not does it infringe upon the rights of justice, because those rights are superior to the claims of mere numbers or power. Nor does it assail the rights of God because they are superior to the rights of humanity. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)
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. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)
Please note that Pope Gregory XVI wrote that the truth can be found in the Catholic Church without "even a slight tarnish of error."
Please note that Pope Leo XIII stressed that the Catholic Church "makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the command which it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity."
Please note that that Pope Pius XI explained that the Catholic Church brings forth her teaching "with ease and security to the knowledge of men."
Anyone who says that this has been done by the counterfeit church of conciliarism, which has made its "reconciliation" with the false principles of Modernity that leave no room for the confessionally Catholic civil state and the Social Reign of Christ the King, is not thinking too clearly (and that is as about as charitably as I can put the matter) or is being, perhaps more accurately, intellectually dishonest. If the conciliar church has brought forth its teaching "with ease and security to the knowledge of men," why is there such disagreement even between the "progressive" conciliarists and "conservative" conciliarists concerning the proper "interpretation" of the "Second" Vatican Council and its aftermath? Or does this depend upon what one means by "ease and security"?
No, the Catholic Church has never endorsed error in any of her officials documents and we have never seen anything like the apostasies, blasphemies and sacrileges that have characterized the "magisterium" of the conciliar "popes" in the past sixty-four years now.
Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., explained in but one sentence the simple fact those steeped in error cannot have any part in the Catholic Church, meaning that Federico Lombardi's desire to put aside "differences" is of the devil, not of God:
There is a fatal instinct in error, which leads it to hate the Truth; and the true Church, by its unchangeableness, is a perpetual reproach to them that refuse to be her children. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, commentary on the life of Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen.)
The true Church, the Catholic Church, cannot countenance falsehood and error.
Perhaps it would be good for those who do not yet believe that the conciliar "popes" have been heretics and are thus enemies of Christ the King and the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on Calvary to redeem to view For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada, especially the scene that depicts the bravery of Jose Luis Sanchez Del Rio after he had been tortured and before his martyrdom in defense of the Social Reign of Christ the King, which your "pope" rejects both in theory and in practice.
Young Jose Luis Sanchez Del Rio, who suffered martyrdom ninety-four years ago, that is, on February 8, 1928, was told by his Godfather, the Mayor of Sahuayo, that all he had to do was to save his life was to say "Death to Christ the King, Long Live the Federal Government." Jose exclaimed in a loud and clear voice after he expressing his love for his mother, "Viva Cristo Rey!," an proclamation that has heard from the lips of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI only in passing when discussing the Cristeros during his pilgrimage to Mexico from March 26-29, 2012.
No one can be forced to "see" the truth of our situation for what it is, that the conciliar revolutionaries are not Catholic and that they belong to a counterfeit church bereft of Holy Orders and of the graces that flow therefrom. That any of our true bishops and priests, among so many others, who have seen things clearly in the past forty years, right in the midst of a most diabolically clever use of the media to convey images of Catholicism and Catholicity, is the working of the graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of the Most Precious Blood of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and that flowed into their hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces. We must remember that it is very easy to go "back," to refuse to "kick against the goad," to "conform" to what the "mainstream" believes is "respectable" and "prudent."
The "mainstream" is not to be followed.
God permitted one hundred percent of the human race to be deceived in the Garden of Eden.
God permitted all but eight members of the human race to be deceived and deluded prior to the Great Flood.
Almost all of the Chosen People who had been led out of their bondage to the slavery of the Egyptian Pharaoh by Moses built and worshiped a molten calf whilst Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments from God on Mount Sinai.
None but a handful of people stood by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as He suffered and died for us on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday.
All but one bishop, Saint John Fisher of Rochester, England, defected from the Faith at the time of the Protestant Revolt in England when King Henry VIII took this thoroughly Catholic country out of the Church.
All but thirty bishops defected from the Faith at the time Queen Elizabeth I took England out of the Church once again in the 1660s following the brief restoration that took place under the reign of her half-sister, Queen Mary, from 1553 to 1558.
The "mainstream" is not be followed. We need apostolic courage in these times of apostasy and betrayal. God's greater honor and glory must be defended against the against of men who have proved themselves to be precursors of the Antichrist.
How do we think that we are going to recognize, no less resist and reject, the Antichrist when he comes we are so complacent and smug in the face of the groundwork that is being laid by his conciliar minions for his coming? Will the emotionalism of sentimentality and the delusion of positivism not prevail then in the minds and hearts of most men?
It's been nearly seventeen years now since I began to publicly write about the plausibility of the sedevacantist thesis. I can report that those seventeen years have been difficult ones, humanly speaking, as friendships have been strained or broken and as many former contributors stopped donating to us. Obviously, friendship is a free gift and people are free also to end non-tax-deductible donations whenever they want to do so. It is not for the "money" or for any kind of "honor" or "prestige" that one comes to recognize that the conciliar "popes" have indeed been figures of Antichrist. To embrace sedevacantism is to lose one's credibility on all subjects, including that of the defense of the Social Reign of Christ the King, in the eyes of traditionally-minded "gatekeepers" in the "resist but recognize movement," some of whom would rather turn to lifelong Protestants or to Catholic apostates turned Protestants or Mormons for "commentary" on the events of the day.
No, embracing the truth of our ecclesiastical situation does not make one any bit better than those who do not. Indeed, some of the worst witnesses in behalf of sedevacantism are sedevacantists, both clergy and laity. The bad example given by those who do see the truth of our ecclesiastical situation does not make invalidate the truth that they seek to defend despite all of the opposition that is engendered thereby.
No one has anything to gain, humanly speaking by recognizing that the conciliar "popes" are apostates, and their liturgical rites are sacramentally barren and offensive to God and their doctrines have been condemned repeatedly by the authority of the Catholic Church. Yes, it is good to suffer for one's sins. It is necessary to do so in order to save one's soul. One does not embrace the truth in order to suffer, though, as that suffering will find him in due course.
Sedevacantists compose only a handful of mostly warring tribes. They are not the problem facing Holy Mother Church in this time of apostasy and betrayal. Just take a look at the evidence presented above if you believe that I am mistaken.
We turn, as always to Our Lady, who holds us in the crossing of her arms and in the folds of her mantle. We must, as the consecrated slaves of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit, trusting that we might be able to plant a few seeds for the Triumph of that same Immaculate Heart.
We may not see until eternity, please God and by the graces He sends to us through the loving hands of His Most Blessed Mother, the fruit of the seeds we plant by means of our prayers and penances and sacrifices, given unto the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We must remain confident, however, that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ wants to us, as unworthy as we are, to try to plant a few seeds so that more and more Catholics in the conciliar structures, both "priests" and laity alike, will recognize that it is indeed a sin to stand by He is blasphemed by Modernists, that He--and His true priesthood--are to be found in the catacombs where no concessions at all are made to conciliarism or its wolves in shepherds' clothing.