The Conciliar Revolutionaries Do Not Believe in God. Period.

It is frequently the case that the conciliar revolutionaries show themselves to be manifest enemies of the true God of Divine Revelation, the Most Holy Trinity, and of His Sacred Deposit of Faith that He has entrusted exclusively to His Holy Catholic Church for its infallible explication and eternal safekeeping.

The so-called “Dicastery of the Synod of Bishops” has done believing Catholics a tremendous service by publishing a document denouncing the belief that Catholic teaching on matters of Faith and Moral is immutable. The document is bold enough to blaspheme the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, directs what they purport to be the Catholic Church in a synodal process by which He “moves” the people to reflect on their lived experiences in light of the alleged “dynamics” of Catholic teaching that is relative to the changing circumstances of the times and the way that people actually live their lives even though in contradiction to what old fuddy-duddies claim is immutable doctrine.

You doubt my word?

Well, the dicastery’s own words speak very loudly and boastfully while making blasphemously heretical statements that are not only contrary to the immutable nature of God, the Divine Constitution of His Holy Church while ignoring even the existence of the precepts of the Natural Law that are knowable, albeit imperfectly given fallen human nature, by reason alone unaided by Divine Revelation. The Natural Law is ignored because the authors of the “synodal report” do not believe there it exists.

This is part of the text’s thoroughly Modernist treatment of Catholic morality:

The Church’s mission is not a matter of abstractly proclaiming and deductively applying principles that are set out in an immutable and rigid manner, but of fostering a living encounter with the person of the risen Lord Jesus, by engaging with the lived experience of faith of the People of God in its personal and social relevance, in relation to the diverse situations of life and the many cultural contexts. Only the fruitful tension between what has been established in the Church’s doctrine and Her pastoral practice and the practices of life in which what has been established is verified, in the exercise of personal and communal life in the light of the Gospel, expresses the generative dynamism of Tradition: against the temptation of the sterile and regressive ossification of principles and statements, of norms and rules, regardless of the experience of individuals and communities. As Jesus taught, “the Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath” (Mk. 2:27).

Pope Leo reiterated this when referring to the meaning of the Church’s “social doctrine,” but the description can apply in a more general sense: “[D]octrine appears as the product of research, and hence of hypotheses, discussions, progress and setbacks, all aimed at conveying a reliable, organized and systematic body of knowledge about a given issue. Consequently, a doctrine is not the same as an opinion, but is rather a common, collective and even multidisciplinary pursuit of truth. ‘Indoctrination’ is immoral. It stifles critical judgement and undermines the sacred freedom of conscience, even if erroneous. It resists new notions and rejects movement, change or the evolution of ideas in the face of new problems. ‘Doctrine,’ on the other hand, as a serious, serene, and rigorous discourse, aims to teach us primarily how to approach problems and, even more importantly, how to approach people.”4 We could imagine the Christian experience as a journey with two horizons:

We could imagine the Christian experience as a journey with two horizons: ultimate eschatological fulfilment (God’s universal saving will in Jesus, through the ministry of the Church, in service to the coming of the Kingdom); and the concrete, varied, complex, ever-changing reality in which we live (the historical mediation of the Gospel, with its anthropological dimension, ethical significance, and social production). From this perspective, the synodal Church commits itself to answering, within its mission, a question that underlies and illuminates emerging issues: how must we articulate this two-fold focus of the journey of the Christian experience, faithful to the Revelation of God, who revealed himself as Agape for each and every person “once and for all” in Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Jn. 4:8, 16), and at the same time in the concrete daily reality of Christian communities and individuals?

Through the commitment to articulate these two focal points, listening to the voice of the Spirit and being open to his ceaseless action, the horizon of experience and understanding of the saving truth, that shines forth for us in Jesus (cf. DV 2), unfolds and becomes accessible, in the present moment of history and in the diversity of contexts. The way/truth/life of Jesus (cf. Jn 14:6), which is the agape of God “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom 5:5), a truth that is realised in love (cf. Eph. 4:15) and that “sets us free” (cf. Jn. 8:32), calls for us, always and in every instance, to embrace the way in which it presents itself and expresses itself from within and from below the concrete, place-bound journey of individuals and communities. 1.2 A shared commitment to a historical, experiential, and practical hermeneutics that is genuinely human A fundamental aspect for bringing about this paradigm shift is a hermeneutics of the human that embraces its historical, experiential, practical, and contextual nature. This was demonstrated in practice, in an inceptive but decisive manner, by the teaching of Vatican II, particularly in Gaudium et spes and Ad gentes. This focus is required by the Gospel, since the human is constitutive to the Gospel. The indissoluble relationship between what is human and what is Christian must be conceived and lived by interpreting the human as the anticipation of God’s gift that Jesus brought to fulfilment, making it available to each and every person through the boundless outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

The proclamation and the signs of salvation wrought by Jesus are addressed to those who are existentially involved, starting from their life situation, in the decision to entrust themselves freely to the gift of grace offered to them. The proclamation of the Gospel is inseparable from the people it addresses and must take them into account. God’s gift is given only in the response that receives it. The integral and definitive vocation of humanity, implied in the gift of the Gospel, calls for the recognition that the historicity of existence and of the culture in which humanity expresses itself, in all its complexity and richness, is a constitutive moment of the self-giving of the truth of humanity itself in its fulfilment in Christ.

In fidelity to this commitment, the experience of the synodal Church demands that we listen to one another, opening ourselves to “welcome every person and all people.”5 Particular attention must be paid to those “who are most vulnerable, or those who are ‘out of the game’ or ‘outside the box,’ with a view to gathering their unique experiences (including those who are sick, people in poverty, those who are civilly divorced and remarried, people with same-sex attractions, people facing discrimination, victims of abuse and injustice, etc.).” This corresponds to an anthropological approach whose fundamental characteristics can be summarised as follows6: every person is a singularity, whose wholeness and uniqueness is constituted in relation to the other, to society and to culture, according to a profile that is both temporal and narrative.7 It is within all these relationships that each person decides for themselves in their original and foundational relationship with God, whether they are aware of it or not. (SG-9_Final-Report.pdf.)

This is a motherlode of pure situation ethics that is nothing other than the recrudescence of the sophistry of the morally relativistic Sophists of the Fifth Century Before Christ.

However, before dropping several rhetorical nuclear bombs on this blasphemous heresy that demonstrates a total believe in a God Who commands and judges his rational creatures, who must conform their lives to His Commandments, permit me to demonstrate that this is even a contradiction of Persona Humana, which was issued by the conciliar congregation for the deconstruction and destruction of the Holy in 1975:

Hence, those many people are in error who today assert that one can find neither in human nature nor in the revealed law any absolute and immutable norm to serve for particular actions other than the one which expresses itself in the general law of charity and respect for human dignity. As a proof of their assertion they put forward the view that so-called norms of the natural law or precepts of Sacred Scripture are to be regarded only as given expressions of a form of particular culture at a certain moment of history.

But in fact, Divine Revelation and, in its own proper order, philosophical wisdom, emphasize the authentic exigencies of human nature. They thereby necessarily manifest the existence of immutable laws inscribed in the constitutive elements of human nature and which are revealed to be identical in all beings endowed with reason.

Furthermore, Christ instituted His Church as "the pillar and bulwark of truth."[6] With the Holy Spirit's assistance, she ceaselessly preserves and transmits without error the truths of the moral order, and she authentically interprets not only the revealed positive law but "also . . . those principles of the moral order which have their origin in human nature itself"[7] and which concern man's full development and sanctification. Now in fact the Church throughout her history has always considered a certain number of precepts of the natural law as having an absolute and immutable value, and in their transgression she has seen a contradiction of the teaching and spirit of the Gospel.

ince sexual ethics concern fundamental values of human and Christian life, this general teaching equally applies to sexual ethics. In this domain there exist principles and norms which the Church has always unhesitatingly transmitted as part of her teaching, however much the opinions and morals of the world may have been opposed to them. These principles and norms in no way owe their origin to a certain type of culture, but rather to knowledge of the Divine Law and of human nature. They therefore cannot be considered as having become out of date or doubtful under the pretext that a new cultural situation has arisen. (Persona Humana, December 29, 1975.)

To be sure, Persona Humana was a document of the conciliar church, which means that there were drops of error here and there, especially as concerns homosexuality, which it condemned while attempting to extend a palm branch to those engaged in “transitory” acts. It is also made the distinction between sodomite acts and those inclinded to the commission of sodomy by using the phrase "homosexual persons," which gives credibility to the false belief that one can identify oneself on the basis of one's predilection to commit perverse sins against God and against nature itself. It is no accident that this part of Persona Humana was praised in the new document released two days ago by the conciliar sect's "dicastery of the synod of bishops."

Nonetheless, however, its text reaffirmed in the immutable nature of moral truths, something that has long been attacked by Modernists and received “papal” currency during the twelve years, thirty-nine days of the antipapal presidency of the late Jorge Mario Bergoglio and is being promoted anew by the Argentine Apostate’s appeared on the balcony of the Basilica of Saint Peter. Indeed, the new document produced he dicastery of “synod of  bishops” asserts s that a “plurality” of “diversity” of theological views can vitiate an adherence to norms which its authors do not believe are immutable of their very nature, which, of course, is to deny the immutability of God, Who is Himself immutable, and this is to deny God Himself as He truly is.

Yes, you have to hand it to the conciliar revolutionaries as nothing is immutable to them, not even the doctrinal documents issued under the authority of one of their own “popes,” Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, and especially not the supposedly “conservative” Karol Jozef Wojtyla/John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor:

Today, however, it seems necessary to reflect on the whole of the Church's moral teaching, with the precise goal of recalling certain fundamental truths of Catholic doctrine which, in the present circumstances, risk being distorted or denied. In fact, a new situation has come about within the Christian community itself, which has experienced the spread of numerous doubts and objections of a human and psychological, social and cultural, religious and even properly theological nature, with regard to the Church's moral teachings. It is no longer a matter of limited and occasional dissent, but of an overall and systematic calling into question of traditional moral doctrine, on the basis of certain anthropological and ethical presuppositions. At the root of these presuppositions is the more or less obvious influence of currents of thought which end by detaching human freedom from its essential and constitutive relationship to truth. Thus the traditional doctrine regarding the natural law, and the universality and the permanent validity of its precepts, is rejected; certain of the Church's moral teachings are found simply unacceptable; and the Magisterium itself is considered capable of intervening in matters of morality only in order to "exhort consciences" and to "propose values", in the light of which each individual will independently make his or her decisions and life choices.

In particular, note should be taken of the lack of harmony between the traditional response of the Church and certain theological positions, encountered even in Seminaries and in Faculties of Theology, with regard to questions of the greatest importance for the Church and for the life of faith of Christians, as well as for the life of society itself. In particular, the question is asked: do the commandments of God, which are written on the human heart and are part of the Covenant, really have the capacity to clarify the daily decisions of individuals and entire societies? Is it possible to obey God and thus love God and neighbour, without respecting these commandments in all circumstances? Also, an opinion is frequently heard which questions the intrinsic and unbreakable bond between faith and morality, as if membership in the Church and her internal unity were to be decided on the basis of faith alone, while in the sphere of morality a pluralism of opinions and of kinds of behaviour could be tolerated, these being left to the judgment of the individual subjective conscience or to the diversity of social and cultural contexts. (Karol Jozef Wojtyla/John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, August 6, 1993.)

Today’s conciliar revolutionaries do not even think that the teaching enunciated by one of their own fabricated “papal” “saints” is binding upon them. As Pope Saint Pius X noted in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, “nothing is stable, nothing secure” for the Modernists when it comes to Catholic teaching and the same, ironically enough, is true how they treat Wojtyla/John Paul II’s reiteration of the immutability of God’s laws.

Sure, Veritatis Splendor was couched in conciliarspeak in many places and reflected Wojtyla/John Paul II’s “Thomistic phenomenology” (spoiler alert: there is no such things, of course while referencing various documents of the “Second” Vatican Council” and the so-called Catechism of the Catholic Church,  but the Polish Phenomenologist did teach that God commands His rational creatures to do things and that His commandments are burdensome or “impossible” to keep or subject to different “interpretations” and “applications” at different times and in different cultural contexts.

Wojtyla/John Paul II even quoted Pope Leo XIII’s summary of Saint Thomas Aquinas’s defense of the existence of the Natural Law:

The Church has often made reference to the Thomistic doctrine of natural law, including it in her own teaching on morality. Thus my Venerable Predecessor Leo XIII emphasized the essential subordination of reason and human law to the Wisdom of God and to his law. After stating that "the natural law is written and engraved in the heart of each and every man, since it is none other than human reason itself which commands us to do good and counsels us not to sin", Leo XIII appealed to the "higher reason" of the divine Lawgiver: "But this prescription of human reason could not have the force of law unless it were the voice and the interpreter of some higher reason to which our spirit and our freedom must be subject". Indeed, the force of law consists in its authority to impose duties, to confer rights and to sanction certain behaviour: "Now all of this, clearly, could not exist in man if, as his own supreme legislator, he gave himself the rule of his own actions". And he concluded: "It follows that the natural law is itself the eternal law, implanted in beings endowed with reason, and inclining them towards their right action and end; it is none other than the eternal reason of the Creator and Ruler of the universe". (Karol Jozef Wojtyla/John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, August 6, 1993.)

Pow!

Kaboom!

Ouch!

(Sure, I watched a few early episodes of Batman in January of 1966 when I was in ninth grade at Oyster Bay High School.)

Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV and his band of conciliar really do believe that “past teaching” on morality becomes “outdated” and thus must be conformed to the way in which the people live their lives even though the truth of the matter is that we must conform ourselves to the law of God and to the teaching of Holy Mother Church, who teaches us authoritatively and infallibly in His Holy Name.

No one, however, should be in the least bit surprised about the bold manner in which the Catholic moral teaching is under attack by the conciliar sect’s synodal process as it is very easy to attack the immutability moral teaching once one admits that matter of Catholic doctrine, including the very Divine Constitution of Holy Mother Church, are subject to reevaluation according to the philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned principles that have gone by the titles of “living tradition” and/or the “hermeneutic of continuity.” Dogmatic evolutionism leads to moral evolutionism just as surely as it leads also to liturgical evolutionism and, ultimately, to the triumph of the pantheistic spirit of subjectivism.

One of the consistent themes on this site in the past twenty years since I came, most belatedly, to be sure (and after several people had heated arguments with me dating back to 1975), to accept the fact that the men who had been “elected” since the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958, were heretics and that what appeared to be the Catholic Church was actually her counterfeit ape is that dogmatic evolutionism is the foundation of the entire false enterprise that tries to passes itself off as the Catholic Church. Over three hundred fifty articles on this site in the sixteen years either centered or touched upon the counterfeit church of conciliarism’s foundational warfare against the nature of dogmatic truth, which is nothing other than an open attack upon the nature of God Himself and His immutability.

This attack on the nature of dogmatic truth is nothing other than an attack upon then nature of God Himself, Who is without any shadow of change or alteration.

Yet it is that the conciliar revolutionaries, imbued with the Modernist heresy of dogmatic evolutionism, have used various euphemisms to mask the fact that they are indeed dogmatic evolutionists. “Saint John Paul II,” for all of his being correct the nature of the  moral law, was a progenitor of conciliarism and masqueraded the Modernist principle of dogmatic evolutionism by referring to as “living tradition,” meaning that everything in Sacred Deposit of Faith was open to reinterpretation and “adaptation” as the circumstances require:

5. Today the Church rejoices at the renewed confirmation of the prophet Joel's words which we have just heard: "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh" (Acts 2:17). You, present here, are the tangible proof of this "outpouring" of the Spirit. Each movement is different from the others, but they are all united in the same communion and for the same mission. Some charisms given by the Spirit burst in like an impetuous wind, which seizes people and carries them to new ways of missionary commitment to the radical service of the Gospel, by ceaselessly proclaiming the truths of faith, accepting the living stream of tradition as a gift and instilling in each person an ardent desire for holiness.

Today, I would like to cry out to all of you gathered here in St Peter's Square and to all Christians: Open yourselves docilely to the gifts of the Spirit! Accept gratefully and obediently the charisms which the Spirit never ceases to bestow on us! Do not forget that every charism is given for the common good, that is, for the benefit of the whole Church.  (Meeting with ecclesial movements and new communities.)

It is not therefore a matter of inventing a "new programme". The programme already exists: it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition, it is the same as ever. Ultimately, it has its centre in Christ himself, who is to be known, loved and imitated, so that in him we may live the life of the Trinity, and with him transform history until its fulfilment in the heavenly Jerusalem. This is a programme which does not change with shifts of times and cultures, even though it takes account of time and culture for the sake of true dialogue and effective communication. This programme for all times is our programme for the Third Millennium.

But it must be translated into pastoral initiatives adapted to the circumstances of each community. The Jubilee has given us the extraordinary opportunity to travel together for a number of years on a journey common to the whole Church, a catechetical journey on the theme of the Trinity, accompanied by precise pastoral undertakings designed to ensure that the Jubilee would be a fruitful event. I am grateful for the sincere and widespread acceptance of what I proposed in my Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente. But now it is no longer an immediate goal that we face, but the larger and more demanding challenge of normal pastoral activity. With its universal and indispensable provisions, the programme of the Gospel must continue to take root, as it has always done, in the life of the Church everywhere. It is in the local churches that the specific features of a detailed pastoral plan can be identified — goals and methods, formation and enrichment of the people involved, the search for the necessary resources — which will enable the proclamation of Christ to reach people, mould communities, and have a deep and incisive influence in bringing Gospel values to bear in society and culture.

I therefore earnestly exhort the Pastors of the particular Churches, with the help of all sectors of God's People, confidently to plan the stages of the journey ahead, harmonizing the choices of each diocesan community with those of neighbouring Churches and of the universal Church. (Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte.)

It should be noted furthermore that Karol Joseph Wojtyla/John Paul II note specifically in Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, July 2, 1988, that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre had placed the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (more commonly known as the Society of Saint Pius X) into schism with what is purported to be the Catholic Church by consecrating four priests as bishops without a “papal” mandate and for refusing to accept what the “canonized pope” said was “the living character of tradition”:

4. The root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition. Incomplete, because it does not take sufficiently into account the living character of Tradition, which, as the Second Vatican Council clearly taught, "comes from the apostles and progresses in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on. This comes about in various ways. It comes through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts. It comes from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience. And it comes from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth".(5)

But especially contradictory is a notion of Tradition which opposes the universal Magisterium of the Church possessed by the Bishop of Rome and the Body of Bishops. It is impossible to remain faithful to the Tradition while breaking the ecclesial bond with him to whom, in the person of the Apostle Peter, Christ himself entrusted the ministry of unity in his Church.(6)

5. Faced with the situation that has arisen I deem it my duty to inform all the Catholic faithful of some aspects which this sad event has highlighted.

a) The outcome of the movement promoted by Mons. Lefebvre can and must be, for all the Catholic faithful, a motive for sincere reflection concerning their own fidelity to the Church's Tradition, authentically interpreted by the ecclesiastical Magisterium, ordinary and extraordinary, especially in the Ecumenical Councils from Nicaea to Vatican II. From this reflection all should draw a renewed and efficacious conviction of the necessity of strengthening still more their fidelity by rejecting erroneous interpretations and arbitrary and unauthorized applications in matters of doctrine, liturgy and discipline.

To the bishops especially it pertains, by reason of their pastoral mission, to exercise the important duty of a clear-sighted vigilance full of charity and firmness, so that this fidelity may be everywhere safeguarded.(7)

However, it is necessary that all the Pastors and the other faithful have a new awareness, not only of the lawfulness but also of the richness for the Church of a diversity of charisms, traditions of spirituality and apostolate, which also constitutes the beauty of unity in variety: of that blended "harmony" which the earthly Church raises up to Heaven under the impulse of the Holy Spirit.

b) Moreover, I should like to remind theologians and other experts in the ecclesiastical sciences that they should feel themselves called upon to answer in the present circumstances. Indeed, the extent and depth of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council call for a renewed commitment to deeper study in order to reveal clearly the Council's continuity with Tradition, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church. (Karol Wojytla/John Paul II, Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, July 2, 1988.)

Wojtyla/John Paul II was absolutely correct to state that the teaching of the universal magisterium of the Catholic Church cannot be contrary to Tradition. Some in the Society of Saint Pius X have posited a nonexistent conflict between the “authoritative magisterium” and the “governing magisterium.” There is no such distinction as no such division in the magisterium exists. It is a fabrication. The universal ordinary magisterium of the Catholic Church cannot teach error, something that was reviewed most recently in Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton Calls Out Tricks of Shoddy Minimism.

Unfortunately, for “Saint John Paul II,” however, his very argument in favor of the continuity between the “Second” Vatican Council and the Tradition of the Catholic Church is based upon an admission that that false council’s texts might be too obscure to understand properly “especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church.” Holy Mother Church teaches clearly. There is nothing “new” in her teaching. The “Polish Pope” was trying to have it both ways by referring to the “living character of Tradition” to call the Society of Saint Pius X to obedience while at the same time unwittingly admitting that that there are “new” points of doctrine that need to be “understood.” This is not from the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, Who is immutable.

What was a "living tradition" for Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II mutated into Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who had championed dogmatic evolutionism by means of his Hegelian reasoning over the course of thirty-four years prior to doing so as in capacity as the fifth in the current line of antipopes on December 22, 2005, when he gave it the name of "the hermeneutic of continuity":

1971: "In theses 10-12, the difficult problem of the relationship between language and thought is debated, which in post-conciliar discussions was the immediate departure point of the dispute. 

The identity of the Christian substance as such, the Christian 'thing' was not directly ... censured, but it was pointed out that no formula, no matter how valid and indispensable it may have been in its time, can fully express the thought mentioned in it and declare it unequivocally forever, since language is constantly in movement and the content of its meaning changes." (Fr. Ratzinger: Dogmatic formulas must always change.)

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 Alois 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)

Secondly, it was necessary to give a new definition to the relationship between the Church and the modern State that would make room impartially for citizens of various religions and ideologies, merely assuming responsibility for an orderly and tolerant coexistence among them and for the freedom to practise their own religion.

Thirdly, linked more generally to this was the problem of religious tolerance - a question that required a new definition of the relationship between the Christian faith and the world religions. In particular, before the recent crimes of the Nazi regime and, in general, with a retrospective look at a long and difficult history, it was necessary to evaluate and define in a new way the relationship between the Church and the faith of Israel.

These are all subjects of great importance - they were the great themes of the second part of the Council - on which it is impossible to reflect more broadly in this context. It is clear that in all these sectors, which all together form a single problem, some kind of discontinuity might emerge. Indeed, a discontinuity had been revealed but in which, after the various distinctions between concrete historical situations and their requirements had been made, the continuity of principles proved not to have been abandoned. It is easy to miss this fact at a first glance.

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.

Basic decisions, therefore, continue to be well-grounded, whereas the way they are applied to new contexts can change. Thus, for example, if religious freedom were to be considered an expression of the human inability to discover the truth and thus become a canonization of relativism, then this social and historical necessity is raised inappropriately to the metaphysical level and thus stripped of its true meaning. Consequently, it cannot be accepted by those who believe that the human person is capable of knowing the truth about God and, on the basis of the inner dignity of the truth, is bound to this knowledge.

It is quite different, on the other hand, to perceive religious freedom as a need that derives from human coexistence, or indeed, as an intrinsic consequence of the truth that cannot be externally imposed but that the person must adopt only through the process of conviction.

The Second Vatican Council, recognizing and making its own an essential principle of the modern State with the Decree on Religious Freedom, has recovered the deepest patrimony of the Church. By so doing she can be conscious of being in full harmony with the teaching of Jesus himself (cf. Mt 22: 21), as well as with the Church of the martyrs of all time. The ancient Church naturally prayed for the emperors and political leaders out of duty (cf. I Tm 2: 2); but while she prayed for the emperors, she refused to worship them and thereby clearly rejected the religion of the State.

The martyrs of the early Church died for their faith in that God who was revealed in Jesus Christ, and for this very reason they also died for freedom of conscience and the freedom to profess one's own faith - a profession that no State can impose but which, instead, can only be claimed with God's grace in freedom of conscience. A missionary Church known for proclaiming her message to all peoples must necessarily work for the freedom of the faith. She desires to transmit the gift of the truth that exists for one and all. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)

What was that Pope Pius XII wrote in Humani Generis about how the "new theologians" deny that the true meaning of doctrines may be known and understood with metaphysical certitude?

Let me remind you:

34. It is not surprising that these new opinions endanger the two philosophical sciences which by their very nature are closely connected with the doctrine of faith, that is, theodicy and ethics; they hold that the function of these two sciences is not to prove with certitude anything about God or any other transcendental being, but rather to show that the truths which faith teaches about a personal God and about His precepts, are perfectly consistent with the necessities of life and are therefore to be accepted by all, in order to avoid despair and to attain eternal salvation. All these opinions and affirmations are openly contrary to the documents of Our Predecessors Leo XIII and Pius X, and cannot be reconciled with the decrees of the Vatican Council. It would indeed be unnecessary to deplore these aberrations from the truth, if all, even in the field of philosophy, directed their attention with the proper reverence to the Teaching Authority of the Church, which by divine institution has the mission not only to guard and interpret the deposit of divinely revealed truth, but also to keep watch over the philosophical sciences themselves, in order that Catholic dogmas may suffer no harm because of erroneous opinions. (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)

For the likes of men such as the conciliar revolutionaries to be correct, the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity not only hid the true meaning of doctrines for over nineteen hundred years, He permitted true popes and the Fathers of Holy Mother Church's twenty true general councils to condemn propositions that have, we are supposed to believe, only recently been "discovered" as having been true. Blasphemous and heretical.

Pope Pius XII explained against the family in an allocution he delivered on April 18, 1952, as His Holiness pointed out the dangers of “situation ethics,” which is, of course, the very foundation of the new document issued by the conciliar sect’s “synod of  bishops”:

The new ethic (adapted to circumstances), say its authors, is eminently “individual.” In this determination of conscience, each individual finds himself in direct relationship with God and decides before Him, without the slightest trace of intervention by any law, any authority, any community, any cult or religion. Here there is simply the “I” of man and the “I” of the personal God, not the God of the law, but of God the Father, with whom man must unite himself in filial love. Viewed thus, the decision of conscience is a personal “risk,” according to one’s own knowledge and evaluation, in all sincerity before God. These two things, right intention and sincere response, are what God considers! He is not concerned with the action. Hence the answer may be to exchange that Catholic faith for other principles, to seek divorce, to interrupt gestation, to refuse obedience to competent authority in the family, the Church, the State, and so forth.

All this would be perfectly fitting for man’s status as one who has come “of age” and, in the Christian order, it would be in harmony with the relation of sonship which, according to the teaching of Christ, makes us pray to God as “Our Father.”

This personal view of things spares man the necessity of having to ask himself, at every instant, whether the decision to be taken corresponds with the paragraphs of the law or to the canons of abstract standards and rules. It preserves man from the hypocrisy of pharisaical fidelity to laws; it preserves him both from pathological scruples as well at from the flippancy or lack of conscience, because it puts the responsibility before God on the Christian personally. Thus speak those who preach the “new morality.”

It is Alien to the Faith and Catholic Principles

8. Stated thus expressly, the new ethic is so foreign to the faith and to Catholic principles that even a child, if he knows his catechism, will be aware of it and will feel it. It is not difficult to recognize how this new moral system derives from existentialism which either prescinds from God or simply denies Him, and, in any case, leaves man to himself. It is possible that present-day conditions may have led men to attempt to transplant this “new morality” into Catholic soil, in order to make the hardships of Christian life more bearable for the faithful. In fact, millions of them are being called upon today, and in an extraordinary degree, to practice firmness, patience, constancy, and the spirit of sacrifice, if they wish to preserve their faith intact. For they suffer the blows of fate, or are placed in surroundings which put within their reach everything which their passionate heart yearns for or desires. Such an attempt can never succeed.

The Fundamental Obligations of the Moral Law

9. It will be asked, how the moral law, which is universal, can be sufficient, and even have binding force, in an individual case, which, in the concrete, is always unique and “happens only once.” It can be sufficient and binding, and it actually is because precisely by reason of its universality, the moral law includes necessarily and “intentionally” all particular cases in which its meaning is verified. In very many cases it does so with such convincing logic that even the conscience of the simple faithful sees immediately, and with full certitude, the decision to be taken.

10. This is especially true of the negative obligations of the moral law, namely those which oblige us not to do something, or to set something else aside. Yet it is not true only of these obligations. The fundamental obligations of the moral law are based on the essence and the nature of man, and on his essential relationships, and thus they have force wherever we find man. The fundamental obligations of the Christian law, in the degree in which they are superior to those of the natural law, are based on the essence of the supernatural order established by the Divine Redeemer. From the essential relationships between man and God, between man and man, between husband and wife, between parents and children; from the essential community relationships found in the family, in the Church, and in the State, it follows, among other things, that hatred of God, blasphemy, idolatry, abandoning the true faith, denial of the faith, perjury, murder, bearing false witness, calumny, adultery and fornication, the abuse of marriage, the solitary sin, stealing and robbery, taking away the necessities of life, depriving workers of their just wage (James 5:4), monopolizing vital foodstuffs and unjustifiably increasing prices, fraudulent bankruptcy, unjust maneuvering in speculation—all this is gravely forbidden by the divine Lawmaker. No examination is necessary. No matter what the situation of the individual may be, there is no other course open to him but to obey.

11. For the rest, against “situation ethics,” We set up three considerations, or maxims. The first: We grant that God wants, first and always, a right intention. But this is not enough. He also wants the good work. A second principle is that it is not permitted to do evil in order that good may result (Rom 3:8). Now this new ethic, perhaps without being aware of it, acts according to the principle that the end justifies the means. A Christian cannot be unaware of the fact that he must sacrifice everything, even his life, in order to save his soul. Of this we are reminded by all the martyrs. Martyrs are very numerous, even in our time. The mother of the Maccabees, along with her sons; Saints Perpetua and Felicitas, notwithstanding their newborn children; Maria Goretti, and thousands of others, men and women, whom the Church venerates—did they, in the face of the “situation” in which they found themselves, uselessly or even mistakenly incur a bloody death? No, certainly not, and in their blood they are the most explicit witnesses to the truth against the “new morality.” (Pope Pius XII, Address “Soyez Les Bienvenues” (1952) – Novus Ordo Watch.)

Following up on Pope Pius XII’s Soyez Les Bievenues, the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office issued a formal dogmatic condemnation of situation ethics on February 2, 1956, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary:

Contrary to the moral doctrine and its application that is traditional in the Catholic Church, there has begun to be spread abroad in many regions, even among Catholics, an ethical system that generally goes by the name of a certain "Situation Ethics," and which, they claim, does not rest upon the principles of objective ethics (which ultimately is rooted in “Being” itself), rather, it is not merely subject to the same limit as objective ethics, but transcends it.

The authors who follow this system hold that the decisive and ultimate norm of conduct is not the objective right order, determined by the law of nature and known with certainty from that law, but a certain intimate judgment and light of the mind of each individual, by means of which, in the concrete situation in which he is placed, he learns what he ought to do.

And so, according to them, this ultimate decision a man makes is not, as the objective ethics handed down by authors of great weight teaches, the application of the objective law to a particular case, which at the same time takes into account and weighs according to the rules of prudence the particular circumstances of the "situation", but that immediate, internal light and judgment. Ultimately, at least in many matters, this judgment is not measured, must not and cannot be measured, as regards its objective rectitude and truth, by any objective norm situated outside man and independent of his subjective persuasion but is entirely self-sufficient.

According to these authors, the traditional concept of "human nature" does not suffice; but recourse must be had to the concept of "existent" human nature, which in many respects does not have absolute objective value, but only a relative and, therefore, changeable value, except, perhaps, for those few factors and principles that pertain to metaphysical (absolute and unchangeable) human nature.

Of the same merely relative value is the traditional concept of the "law of nature". Thus, many things that are commonly considered today as absolute postulates of the natural law, according to their opinion and doctrine, rest upon the aforesaid concept of existent nature and are, therefore, but relative and changeable; they can always be adapted to every situation.

Having accepted these principles and put them into practice, they assert and teach that men are preserved or easily liberated from many otherwise insoluble ethical conflicts when each one judges in his own conscience, not primarily according to objective laws, but by means of that internal, individual light based on personal intuition, what he must do in a concrete situation.

Many of the things set forth in this system of "situation ethics" contradict the truth of the matter and the dictates of sound reason, betray traces of relativism and modernism, and wander far from the Catholic doctrine handed down through the centuries. In many of their assertions they are akin to several non-Catholic ethical systems.

Having considered these things, in order to avert the danger of the “New Morality,” of which the Supreme Pontiff Pope Pius XII spoke in the Allocutions held on the days of March 23 and April 18, 1952, and in order to safeguard the purity and intactness of Catholic doctrine, this Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office interdicts and prohibits this doctrine of "Situation Ethics” from being taught or approved, under any name whatsoever it may be designated, whether in Universities, Athenaeums, Seminaries or houses of religious formation, or in books, dissertations, lectures, whether, as they say, at conferences, or by any other means of being propagated or defended.

Given at Rome, from the Palace of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, on the day of February 2, of the year 1956.

Giuseppe Cardinal PIZZARDO, Bishop of Albano, Secretary

Sources:

Latin Original: AAS 48 [1956] 144-145

http://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/AAS-48-1956-ocr.pdf#page=144  (As found at: Library : Contra doctrinam | Catholic Culture.)

Wham!

The counterfeit church of conciliarism has not been, is not now, nor can it ever be the same thing as the Catholic Church, she who is the spotless, virginal Mystical Bride of her Mystical Bridegroom and Divine Head, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

To contend that documents such as the new report issued by conciliarism’s “synod of bishops” can come forth from the authority of the Holy See is commit a criminal act.

Who says so?

Saint Ambrose of Milan, for one:

“The Catholic faith derives so much strength and support from the words of the Apostolic See, that it is criminal to entertain any doubt concerning it.”

It took me a very long time to come to this conclusion twenty years ago, and it is a cause for great rejoicing that the Transalpine Redemptorists of Papa Stronsay Island in Scotland have come to this conclusion for themselves. I am sure that, given their ties to the Society of Saint Pius X, the members of this community will make every effort, found in supplications to Our Lady, especially through her Most Holy Rosary, that the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X from which they took Holy Orders will come to recognize the errors of their Gallican ways and come to the realization that To Disobey a True Pope is to Disobey God Himself.

Part two of this two-part commentary will deal with the principal reason that the so-called dicastery of the “synod of bishops” released its document yesterday, Tuesday, May 5, 2026, the Feast of Pope Saint Pius V, namely, to indemnify adulterers, homosexuals, fornicators and others who defy the clear Commandments of God in full contradiction to these words contained in the Epistle of Saint Jude Thaddeus:

[1] Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James: to them that are beloved in God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called. [2] Mercy unto you, and peace, and charity be fulfilled. [3] Dearly beloved, taking all care to write unto you concerning your common salvation, I was under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. [4] For certain men are secretly entered in, (who were written of long ago unto this judgment,) ungodly men, turning the grace of our Lord God into riotousness, and denying the only sovereign Ruler, and our Lord Jesus Christ. [5] I will therefore admonish you, though ye once knew all things, that Jesus, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, did afterwards destroy them that believed not:

[6] And the angels who kept not their principality, but forsook their own habitation, he hath reserved under darkness in everlasting chains, unto the judgment of the great day. [7] As Sodom and Gomorrha, and the neighbouring cities, in like manner, having given themselves to fornication, and going after other flesh, were made an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. [8] In like manner these men also defile the flesh, and despise dominion, and blaspheme majesty. [9] When Michael the archangel, disputing with the devil, contended about the body of Moses, he durst not bring against him the judgment of railing speech, but said: The Lord command thee. [10] But these men blaspheme whatever things they know not: and what things soever they naturally know, like dumb beasts, in these they are corrupted.

[11] Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain: and after the error of Balaam they have for reward poured out themselves, and have perished in the contradiction of Core. [12] These are spots in their banquets, feasting together without fear, feeding themselves, clouds without water, which are carried about by winds, trees of the autumn, unfruitful, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, [13] Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own confusion; wandering stars, to whom the storm of darkness is reserved for ever. [14] Now of these Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying: Behold, the Lord cometh with thousands of his saints, [15] To execute judgment upon all, and to reprove all the ungodly for all the works of their ungodliness, whereby they have done ungodly, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against God. 

[16] These are murmurers, full of complaints, walking according to their own desires, and their mouth speaketh proud things, admiring persons for gain' s sake. [17] But you, my dearly beloved, be mindful of the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, [18] Who told you, that in the last time there should come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodlinesses. [19] These are they, who separate themselves, sensual men, having not the Spirit. [20] But you, my beloved, building yourselves upon your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, 

[21] Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto life everlasting. [22] And some indeed reprove, being judged:[23] But others save, pulling them out of the fire. And on others have mercy, in fear, hating also the spotted garment which is carnal. [24] Now to him who is able to preserve you without sin, and to present you spotless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,[25] To the only God our Saviour through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory and magnificence, empire and power, before all ages, and now, and for all ages of ages. Amen. (Jude 1-25.)

There are no “loopholes” in these passages. 

The so-called “biblical scholars” who believe that they can deconstruct the plain words inspired by God the Holy Ghost are abject rebels who have been anathematized by the Council of Trent:

Moreover, the same sacred and holy Synod,—considering that no small utility may accrue to the Church of God, if it be made known which out of all the Latin editions, now in circulation, of the sacred books, is to be held as authentic,—ordains and declares, that the said old and vulgate edition, which, by the lengthened usage of so many years, has been approved of in the Church, be, in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions, held as authentic; and that no one is to dare, or presume to reject it under any pretext whatever.

Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, It decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall,—in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, —wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church,—whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures,—hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; even though such interpretations were never (intended) to be at any time published. Contraveners shall be made known by their Ordinaries, and be punished with the penalties by law established. (Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent.)

Thus stands condemned the efforts of James Martin and his “biblical scholars” to deconstruct the following passages of Sacred Scripture that are not in the least unclear or ambiguous.

Furthermore, Pope Leo XIII explained that no one must ever doubt the fact that the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, inspired every word of Sacred Scripture, which cannot be ignored by anyone desirous of pleasing God and saving his own immortal soul.

Hence, because the Holy Ghost employed men as His instruments, we cannot therefore say that it was these inspired instruments who, perchance, have fallen into error, and not the primary author. For, by supernatural power, He so moved and impelled them to write — He was so present to them — that the things which He ordered, and those only, they, first, rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and finally expressed in apt words and with infallible truth. Otherwise, it could not be said that He was the Author of the entire Scripture. Such has always been the persuasion of the Fathers. “Therefore,” says St. Augustine, “since they wrote the things which He showed and uttered to them, it cannot be pretended that He is not the writer; for His members executed what their Head dictated.” And St. Gregory the Great thus pronounces: “Most superfluous it is to inquire who wrote these things — we loyally believe the Holy Ghost to be the Author of the book. He wrote it Who dictated it for writing; He wrote it Who inspired its execution.” (Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, November 18, 1893.)

To take issue with the clear denunciations of sodomy contained in Holy Writ, is to blaspheme God the Holy Ghost, and Pope Benedict XV was aware that innovators were trying to deconstruct the plain words of Sacred Scripture by casting aspersions upon Saint Jerome’s translation of it into the Latin Vulgate by claiming that the holy Dalmatian’s work was unreliable.

The innovators have captured Catholic institutions but they are not Catholics themselves but merely usurpers who occupy churches, educational institutions, hospitals., and even the Vatican itself.

God does not command the impossible.

He has told us to do this, not to do that.

This is simple as He is simple as He is complete in Himself, no parts outside of parts.

Saint John the Evangelist, whose feast before the Latin Gate we celebrate today, Wednesday, May 6, 2026, put the matter as succinctly as possible:

Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God. And every one that loveth him who begot, loveth him also who is born of him. In this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the charity of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not heavy. (1 John 5: 1-3)

It is one thing to sin and to be sorry and then to be reconciled to God in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance, but it is an entirely different matter to reaffirm hardened sinners in their lives of perdition that lead only to hell for all eternity if they die in a state of final impenitence according to a blasphemous and heretical conception of God and an unapologetic embrace of situation ethics.

May we continue to pray during this month of May, the month of Our Lady, for own daily conversion away from sin and worldliness so that, as the consecrated sons of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, each Rosary we pray will heighten our fervor for the love of the Most Holy Trinity and deepen our desire to please Him at all times and in things, especially by praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.

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

Dom Prosper Gueranger on the Feast of Saint John Before the Latin Gate

The Beloved Disciple John, whom we saw standing near the Crib of the Babe of Bethlehem, comes before us again today; and this time, he is paying his delighted homage to the glorious Conqueror of death and hell. Like Philip and James, he too is clad in the scarlet robe of Martyrdom. The Month of May, so rich in Saints, was to be graced with the Palm of St. John.

Salome one day presented her two sons to Jesus and, with a mother’s ambition, had asked him to grant them the highest places in his kingdom. The Savior, in his reply, spoke of the Chalice which he himself had to drink, and foretold that these two Disciples would also drink of it. The elder, James the Greater, was the first to give his Master this proof of his love; we shall celebrate his victory when the sun is in Leo; it was today that John, the younger Brother, offered his life in testimony of Jesus’ Divinity.

But the martyrdom of such an Apostle called for a scene worthy the event. Asia Minor, which his zeal had evangelized, was not a sufficiently glorious land for such a combat. Rome—whither Peter had transferred his Chair and where he died on his cross, and where Paul had bowed down his venerable head beneath the sword—Rome alone deserved the honor of seeing the Beloved Disciple march on to Martyrdom, with the dignity and sweetness which are the characteristics of this veteran of the Apostolic College.

Domitian was then Emperor—the tyrant over Rome and the world. Whether it were that John understood this journey of his own free choice, and from a wish to visit the Mother-Church, or that he was led thither bound with chains, in obedience to an imperial edict—John, the august founder of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor, appeared before the Tribunal of pagan Rome. He was convicted of having propagated, in a vast province of the Empire, the worship of a Jew that had been crucified under Pontius Pilate. He was a superstitious and rebellious old man, and it was time to rid Asia of his presence. He was therefore sentenced to an ignominious and cruel death. He had somehow escaped Nero’s power; but he should not elude the vengeance of Cæsar Domitian!

A huge cauldron of boiling oil is prepared in front of the Latin Gate. The sentence orders that the preacher of Christ be plunged into this bath. The hour is come for the second son of Salome to partake of his Master’s Chalice. John’s heart leaps with joy at the thought that he—the most dear to Jesus, and yet the only Apostle that has not suffered death for him—is at least permitted to give him this earnest of his love. After cruelly scourging him, the executioners seize the old man, and throw him into the cauldron; but lo! the boiling liquid has lost all its heat; the Apostle feels no scalding; on the contrary, when they take him out again, he feels all the vigor of his youthful years restored to him. The Prætor’s cruelty is foiled and John, the Martyr in desire, is to be left to the Church for some few years longer. An imperial decree banishes him to the rugged Isle of Patmos, where God reveals to him the future of the Church, even to the end of time.

The Church of Rome, which counts the abode and martyrdom of St. John as one of her most glorious memories, has marked, with a Basilica, the spot where the Apostle bore his noble testimony to the Christian Faith. This Basilica stands near the Latin Gate, and give a title to one of the Cardinals.

In honor of the great Apostle of love, we give the following Sequence, composed by Adam of Saint-Victor.

SEQUENCE

The happy realm of grace, (where the King of glory is seen by the soul’s unfettered ken,) gives union with his God, and equality with Angels, to John, whose revelations have made known to men the mysteries of heaven.

He drank of the living waters that spring up to life eternal, when he leaned on his Lord’s breast. The wonderful miracles he wrought have made him shine as a bright light in the Church. He quenched the heat of the boiling oil.

Men know that the torments for him are cruel beyond measure; yet do they wonder within themselves, how a man can be a Martyr, and feel no pain.

O Martyr, O Virgin, O guardian of the Virgin by whom the world received Him who is its glory! pray for us to this Jesus, from whom, and in whom, and by whom, are all things.

O thou that wast loved above the rest! — by thine intercession and prayers, render propitious unto us the Jesus, by whom thou wast loved.

Lead us to the Fountain, thou that art a stream! Lead us to the Mountain, thou that art a hill I O thou, whom grace made so wholly pure, pray for us that we may see the Beloved. Amen.

We are delighted to meet thee again, dear Disciple of our risen Jesus! The first time we saw thee, was at Bethlehem, where thou wast standing near the Expected of Nations, the promised Savior, who was sweetly sleeping in his Crib. We then thought on all thy glorious titles: Apostle, Evangelist, Prophet, high-soaring Eagle, Virgin, Doctor of Charity, and, above all, Jesus’ Beloved Disciple. To-day, we greet thee as Martyr; for if the ardor of thy love quenched the fire prepared for thy torture, thy devotedness to Christ had honestly and willingly accepted the Chalice, of which he spoke to thee in thy younger years. During these days of Paschal Time, which are so rapidly fleeting by, we behold thee ever close to this divine Master, who treats thee with every mark of affection. Who could be surprised at his partiality towards thee? Wast thou not the only one of all the Disciples, who stood at the foot of the Cross? Was it not to thee that he gave the care of his Mother, and made her thine? Wast thou not present when his Heart was opened, on the Cross, by a Spear? When, on the morning of the great Sunday, thou repairedst with Peter to the Tomb, wast thou not, by thy faith, the first of all the Disciples, to honor Jesus’ Resurrection? Oh, yes! thou hast a right to all the special love wherewith Jesus treats thee; — but pray to him, for us, O blessed Apostle!

We ought to love him for all the favors he has bestowed upon us; and yet we are tepid in his love, we humbly confess it. Thou hast taught us to know the Infant Jesus, thou hast described to us the Crucified Jesus; show us now the Risen Jesus, that we may keep close to him during these last few days of his sojourn on earth. And when he has ascended into heaven, get us brave hearts, that, like thee, we may be prepared to drink the Chalice of trials which he has destined for us.

Rome was the scene of thy glorious confession, O holy Apostle! She is most dear to thee; unite, then, with Peter and Paul in protecting her. If the palm of Martyrdom be in thy hand as well as the pen of the Evangelist, remember it was at the Latin Gate that thou obtainedst it. It was in the East thou didst pass the greater part of thy life; but the West claims the honor of counting thee as one of her grandest Martyrs. Bless our Churches, re-animate our Faith, re-kindle our Love, and deliver us from the Antichrists, against whom thou warnedst the Faithful of thine own times, and who are causing such ravages among us. Adopted son of Mary! thou art now enjoying the sight of thy Mother’s glory: oh! present to her the prayers we are offering to her during this Month, which is consecrated to her, and obtain for us the petitions which we presume to make to her. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint John the Evangelist before the Latin Gate, May 6.)