A One Man Wrecking Crew

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Father Raniero Cantalamessa is proving himself to be a one man wrecking crew of the defined dogmas of the Catholic Faith. It was just about four months ago that Father Cantalamessa said that " a Christian should want Jews to come to a knowledge of Jesus but not by any means of proselytism." As I noted in an article that was re-highlighted a few days ago (Papal Preacher to Pope (Saint Peter): You're Wrong), Father Cantalamessa, who is the Preacher to the Papal Household, having served now both the late Pope John Paul II and our current Holy Father, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, seemed to be saying that the chief proselytizer of all time, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, was wrong when he addressed the following words to the Jews:

Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him: “If you continue in my word, you shall be my disciples indeed.  And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

They answered Him: “We are the seed of Abraham: and we have never been slaves to any man.  How sayest thou: ‘You shall be free’?”

Jesus answered them: “Amen, amen, I say unto you that whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.  Now the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the son abideth for ever.  If therefore the son shall make you free, you are free indeed.  I know that you are the children of Abraham: but you seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.  I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and you do the things that you have seen with your father.”

They answered and said to Him: “Abraham is our father.”

Jesus saith to them: “If you be the children of Abraham, do the works of Abraham.  But now you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you, which I have heard from God.  This Abraham did not.  You do the works of your father.”

They said therefore to Him: “We are not born of fornication: we have one Father, even God.”

Jesus therefore said to them: “If God were your Father, you would indeed love me.  For from God I proceeded and came.  For I came not of myself: but He sent me.  Why do you not know my speech?  Because you can not hear my word.  You are of your father the devil: and the desires of your father you will do.  He was a murderer from the beginning: and he stood not in the truth, because truth is not in him.  When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof.  But if I say the truth, you believe me not.  Which of you shall convict me of sin?  If I say the truth to you, why do you not believe me?  He that is of God heareth the words of God.  Therefore you hear them not, because you are not of God.”

The Jews therefore answered and said to Him: “Do not we say well that thou art a Samaritan and hast a devil?”

Jesus answered: “I have not a devil: but I honor my Father.  And you have dishonored me.  But I seek not my own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth.  Amen, amen, I say to you: If any man keep my word, he shall not see death for ever.”

The Jews therefore said: “Now we know that thou hast a devil.  Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest: ‘If any man keep my word, he shall not taste death for ever.’  Art thou greater than our father Abraham who is dead?  And the prophets are dead.  Whom dost thou make thyself?”

Jesus answered: “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing.  It is my Father that glorifieth me, of whom you say that He is your God.  And you have not known Him: but I know Him.  And if I shall say that I know Him not, I shall be like you, a liar.  But I do know Him and do keep His word.  Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see my day: he saw it and was glad.”

The Jews therefore said to Him: “Thou art not yet fifty years old.  And hast thou seen Abraham?”

Jesus said to them: “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I AM! (Jn. 8:32-59

Well, the plain words of Scripture and the dogmatic pronouncements of the Church over the centuries mean nothing to Modernists such as Father Cantalamessa. With an impunity provided them by one pope after another, Modernists such as Father Cantalamessa are given free rein to put into question the Received Teaching of Our Lord in order to suit the malicious spirits of a malicious age. The following decree of the Council of Florence (1438-1445) means nothing to Father Cantalamessa or to Pope Benedict XVI:

The holy Roman Church believes, professes, and preaches that 'no one remaining outside the Catholic Church, not just pagans, but also Jews or heretics or schismatics, can become partakers of eternal life; but they will go to the everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels,' unless before the end of life they are joined to the Church. For the union with the body of the Church is of such importance that the sacraments of the Church are helpful to salvation only for those who remaining in it; and fasts, almsgiving, other works of piety, and the exercise of Christian warfare bear eternal rewards from them alone. And no one can be saved, no matter how much alms, he has given, even if he sheds his blood for the name of Christ, unless he remains in the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.

Thus, as was evidenced just a few days ago, Pope Benedict XVI simply refuses to invite Jews to convert to the Faith in any public setting, thereby indemnifying his one man wrecking crew of a Papal Preacher when the latter makes pronouncements that are at odds with articles contained in the Deposit of Faith and defined dogmatically by Councils of the Church over the centuries. There is thus no urgency to seek the conversion of Jews to the true Faith lest their immortal souls perish for all eternity. And there is no urgency to seek to convert anyone else to the Faith as the Hans Urs von Balthasar error of Universal Salvation permeates almost every aspect of the Church in her human elements at this time.

Not to be outdone by his previous comments concerning Jews, Father Cantalamessa gave credence during an Advent homily preached to the Papal Household to the condemned Lutheran proposition concerning Justification. Consider the following report, published on December 16, 2005, and written by Cindy Wooden of the Catholic News Service:

Even those who spend their lives serving the church must recognize that faith alone will save them, the preacher of the papal household told Pope Benedict XVI and his closest aides.

"Christianity does not start with that which man must do to save himself, but with what God has done to save him," Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa said in his Dec. 16 Advent meditation.

The preacher told the pope and top Vatican officials that they, like St. Paul, must avoid any temptation to think that the good works they have accomplished will guarantee their salvation.

"Gratuitous justification through faith in Christ is the heart" of St. Paul's preaching "and it is a shame that this has been practically absent from the ordinary preaching of the church," he said.

Father Cantalamessa said that the Protestant Reformation debate over the role of faith and works led the Catholic Church to focus so much on the need for the demonstration of faith in actions that it practically ignored the need for faith in the first place.

St. Paul, in his Letter to the Philippians, warned believers of the "mortal danger" of putting their own good works between them and Christ, as if the works would save them, Father Cantalamessa said.

Conversion to the fact that faith in Christ is the only means of salvation "is the conversion most needed by those who already are following Christ and have lived at the service of his church," the Capuchin said.

"It is a special conversion that does not consist in abandoning the bad, but abandoning the good, in a way," he said. "It means detaching oneself from everything one has done, repeating to oneself, 'We are useless servants; we have done only what was required.'"

Although Father Cantalamessa is correct to have stated that good works do not guarantee salvation, his assertion that the Catholic Church "practically ignored the need for faith in the first place" after the Protestant Revolt is a bald face lie. Let me repeat this so as not to be misunderstood: Father Raniero Cantalamessa is a bald-faced liar.

As the late Father William Heidt, O.S.B., noted in a class on Hermeneutics at Holy Apostles Seminary in 1983, "Saint Paul taught us that we must believe in the totality of the Deposit of Faith that Christ entrusted solely to the Catholic Church. It is to the Catholic Church alone that Our Lord has entrusted the Deposit of Faith and to her alone that He gave the means to produce an increase of sanctifying grace in the souls of the baptized." It is clear that Father Cantalamessa rejects this, preferring to believe that Protestants have something to teach the true Church of Christ, the Catholic Church, about Justification. Indeed, to assert that the Catholic Church did not care about Faith in the years following the Protestant Revolt is to dismiss as irrelevant all of the efforts by the missionaries (say, Saint Francis Xavier, Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, the North American Martyrs, Saint Peter Claver, Saint Peter Chanel, Blessed Junipero Serra, Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet and the Jesuits of the Western United States, Father Jacques Marquette, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, et al.) in the 400 years between the Council of Trent and the Second Vatican Council to convert souls to the true Faith. Indeed, Father Cantalamessa's lie about the Church ignoring "Faith" is one of the favorite aphorisms of the charismatic movement, which is founded in the belief that a "new outpouring of the Holy Ghost" has taken place to "awaken" the Faith of men whose hearts had grown cold as a result of "rigid" dogmas. And Father Cantalamessa cannot reference the missionary work of the Church in the second half of the Second Millennium as that work was all about the conversion of souls to the true Church, outside of which there is no salvation.

Ah, that is the nub of the matter, isn't it? Father Cantalamessa and the Holy Father do not believe that it is necessary to proselytize souls who are outside of the true Church.

One can see from a review of an article in the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia just how close Father Cantalamessa is to Protestantism:

The word justification (justificatio, from justum facere) derives its name from justice (justitia), by which is not merely meant the cardinal virtue in the sense of a contant purpose to respect the rights of others (suum cuique), nor is the term taken in the concept of all those virtues which go to make up the moral law, but connotes, especially, the whole inner relation of man to God as to his supernatural end. Every adult soul stained either with original sin or with actual mortal sin (children are of course excepted) must, in order to arrive at the state of justification, pass through a short or long process of justification, which may be likened to the gradual development of the child in its mother's womb. This development attains its fullness in the birth of the child, accompanied by the anguish and suffering with which this birth is invariably attended; our rebirth in God is likewise preceded by great spiritual sufferings of fear and contrition.

In the process of justification we must distinguish two periods: first, the preparatory acts or dispositions (faith, fear, hope, etc.); then the last, decisive moment of the transformation of the sinner from the state of sin to that of justification or sanctifying grace, which may be called the active justification (actus justificationis) with this the real process comes to an end, and the state of habitual holiness and sonship of God begins. Touching both of these periods there has existed, and still exists, in part, a great conflict of opinion between Catholicism and Protestantism. This conflict may be reduced to four differences of teaching. By a justifying faith the Church understands qualitatively the theoretical faith in the truths of Revelation, and demands over and above this faith other acts of preparation for justification. Protestantism, on the other hand, reduces the process of justification to merely a fiduciary faith; and maintains that this faith, exclusive even of good works, is all-sufficient for justification, laying great stress upon the scriptural statement sola fides justificat. The Church teaches that justification consists of an actual obliteration of sin and an interior sanctification. Protestantism,, on the other hand, makes of the forgiveness of sin merely a concealment of it, so to speak; and of the sanctification a forensic declaration of justification, or an external imputation of the justice of Christ. In the presentation of the process of justification, we will everywhere note this fourfold confessional conflict.

Father Raniero Cantalamessa is at odds with the dogmatic pronouncements of the Council of Trent on Justification. One can see that Father Cantalamessa's own words condemn him when he stated that conversion does not consist of "abandoning the bad, but of abandoning the good, in a way." No one is Justified who remains in a state of Mortal Sin.

Consider Canons IX and XXIX of the Council of Trent on Justification:

Canon IX:  If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.

Canon XXIX: If any one saith, that he, who has fallen after baptism, is not able by the grace of God to rise again; or, that he is able indeed to recover the justice which he has lost, but by faith alone without the sacrament of Penance, contrary to what the holy Roman and universal Church--instructed by Christ and his Apostles--has hitherto professed, observed, and taught; let him be anathema.

The Council of Trent taught dogmatically that Grace may be increased by our penance, prayers, and good works.

Canon XXIV: If any one saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anathema.

Canon XXVI: If any one saith, that the just ought not, for their good works done in God, to expect and hope for an eternal recompense from God, through His mercy and the merit of Jesus Christ, if so be that they persevere to the end in well doing and in keeping the divine commandments; let him be anathema.

Canon XXXII: If any one saith, that the good works of one that is justified are in such manner the gifts of God, as that they are not also the good merits of him that is justified; or, that the said justified, by the good works which he performs through the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, does not truly merit increase of grace, eternal life, and the attainment of that eternal life,--if so be, however, that he depart in grace,---and also an increase of glory; let him be anathema.

Canon XXIII: If any one saith, that, by the Catholic doctrine touching Justification, by this holy Synod inset forth in this present decree, the glory of God, or the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ are in any way derogated from, and not rather that the truth of our faith, and the glory in fine of God and of Jesus Christ are rendered (more) illustrious; let him be anathema.

Furthermore, the Council of Trent's Decree on Justification noted at Chapter X:

Having, therefore, been thus justified, and made the friends and domestics of God, advancing from virtue to virtue, they are renewed, as the Apostle says, day by day; that is, by mortifying the members of their own flesh, and by presenting them as instruments of justice unto sanctification, they, through the observance of the commandments of God and of the Church, faith co-operating with good works, increase in that justice which they have received through the grace of Christ, and are still further justified, as it is written; He that is just, let him be justified still; and again, Be not afraid to be justified even to death; and also, Do you see that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. And this increase of justification holy Church begs, when she prays, "Give unto us, O Lord, increase of faith, hope, and charity."

The Modernist predilections of Father Cantalamessa were very well-documented in an article, "From Pentecostalism to Apostasy," written by Mr. John Vennari for Catholic Family News. Mr. Vennari, who is one of the best and most thorough researchers defending the fullness of the Catholic Faith in our day, explored the connection between the "charismatic" movement, in which Father Cantalamessa has played a major role, and the contemporary rise of Modernism into the highest reaches of the true Church in her human elements (the footnotes to Mr. Vennari's article are appended at the conclusion of this commentary):

The Council of Trent defined dogmatically that without the Catholic Faith, "it is impossible to please God." [1] The Catholic Church also defined ex cathedra that there is only one true Church of Christ, the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation. [2]

Pope Leo XIII, elaborating on this point, taught, "since no one is allowed to be remiss in the service due to God . . . we are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will . . . It cannot be difficult to find out which is the true religion if it only be sought with an earnest and unbiased mind; for proofs are abundant and striking . . . From all these [proofs] it is evident that the only true religion is the one established by Jesus Christ Himself, and which He committed to His Church to protect and propagate." [3]

From these sources, and from countless other magisterial teachings, it is clear that the only religion positively willed by God is the religion established by Christ Himself, the Catholic Church.

Yet, at the Vatican's Good Friday Liturgy, 2002, the Preacher to the Papal Household, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, said the other religions "are not merely tolerated by God-----but positively willed by Him as an expression of the inexhaustible richness of His grace and His will for everyone to be saved." [4]

This, in short, is apostasy.

Saint John, the Apostle of Love, said, "Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son." [1 John 1: 22] Thus, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, any religion that rejects Christ, according to Scripture, is an Antichrist religion.

Regarding heretical religions, for example, "Orthodoxy" and Protestantism, Saint Paul tells us that false creeds are the "doctrines of devils." [1 Tim. 4: 1]

How, then, can Antichrist religions, and false creeds of heretics which are "doctrines of devils," be regarded as "not merely tolerated by God but positively willed by Him . . ."? This would mean that God positively wills religions to exist that teach Jesus Christ is not God and the Savior of mankind [as do non-Christian religions]. It means that God positively wills religions to exist, such as Protestantism, that teach Christ did not establish the Church, did not establish the Holy Eucharist, did not establish the Sacraments. It also means that those Protestant sects that hold devotion to Our Blessed Mother in abhorrence are positively willed by God. This, despite the fact that Our Lady of Fatima asked for the Five First Saturdays of reparation for the blasphemies against her Immaculate Heart that are the fruit of these false religions.

In short, Father Cantalamessa's sermon means that God positively wills error. God positively wills lies. God positively wills evil. Our Lord certainly permits evil, for He does not interfere with the free will of man. But it is blasphemy to claim that God wills it, since God cannot will that which is not good.

Is Jesus Full of Pride?

Father Cantalamessa's blasphemy does not end here. He also claimed that God is "humble in saving," and the Church should follow suit. "Christ is more concerned that all people should be saved than that they should know who is their Savior," he told a large congregation at Saint Peter's Basilica, which included Pope John Paul II and top Vatican officials.

It might sound sweet, but Father Cantalamessa is indirectly accusing Jesus Christ of pride. When he says, "Christ is more concerned that all people should be saved than that they should know who is their Savior," this is a pious snub to the pre-Vatican II teaching of 2000 years that holds it necessary for the soul to KNOW, love and serve Christ in this world if he wishes to be happy with Him forever in the next. Father Cantalamessa is thus advocating the heterodox teaching of Father Karl Rahner on the' "anonymous Christian."

In fact, only 50 years ago, if a 7-year-old student in Catholic school mouthed Father Cantalamessa's novel doctrine, he would have been deemed unfit to receive First Holy Communion. Now, 40 years into Vatican II's "New Springtime," this apostasy is preached on Good Friday at the Vatican by the Preacher to the Papal Household.

This episode also reveals one of the many disadvantages of the Internet. News of Father Cantalamessa's homily was broadcast around the world via the Internet to thousands of Catholics who would have never otherwise heard it. The result is that many Catholics assume the Capuchin's words delivered in Saint Peter's somehow approach the level of magisterial teaching. This is not true. Father Cantalamessa's Good Friday address is simply another homily filled with errors delivered by a Charismatic. It is that and nothing more.

Pentecostal Papal Preacher

Who is Father Raniero Cantalamessa?

To learn his story, we must go back to the 1977 pan-denominational Charismatic Conference held at a football stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. This conference was attended by 50,000 people from at least 10 different denominations including: Baptists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Messianic Jews, non-denominational "Christians," Pentecostals and United Methodists. [5]

At one point, Protestant Bob Mumford was preaching to the 50,000. Mumford lifted up his Bible and said, "And if you sneak a peak at the end of the book, JESUS WINS!" This sent the crowd into pandemonium. The entire football stadium suddenly erupted into an extended cheering, "praise-frenzy" that lasted about 17 minutes.

Charismatics call this "The Holy Ghost Breakdown." They interpret this, natural, pep-rally enthusiasm as the Holy Spirit moving through the crowd, uniting the crowd [containing Catholics and members of various denominations] and inspiring this raving jubilation. This, according to them, is the "breaking down of denominational walls" that is positively willed by the Holy Spirit, even though it defies 2000 years of Catholic teaching on the one true Church of Christ. It also defies the traditional Catholic teaching that forbids Catholics to engage in positive religious camaraderie with false religions. [6]

Nevertheless, at the Kansas City conference, there was a Capuchin priest named Father Raniero Cantalamessa who had come from Milan to investigate the Charismatic Movement. He was so impressed with this rootin' tootin' praise frenzy that he became, in charismatic lingo, an "anointed preacher of the Charismatic Renewal." [7]

In 1980, this same Father Cantalamessa was appointed by Pope John Paul II as Preacher to the Papal Household. Now, this "anointed preacher" is given a pulpit in St. Peter's basilica on Good Friday ]in 2002] to tell the world that God positively wills false religions.

No wonder another Papal theologian, Cardinal Luigi Ciappi, who had access to the complete Third Secret of Fatima, said, "In the Third Secret is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top." [8]

Error is not a Gift of the Holy Ghost

Father Cantalamessa's Good Friday sermon is one of many powerful illustrations that the Charismatic Movement is not truly of God. Charismatics claim, either directly or indirectly, that they have a special hotline to the Holy Ghost that other Christians do not possess. They claim to be especially filled with the Spirit! But if a Catholic is "filled with the Spirit," it should be evident from his words and actions that he is filled with the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost.

One of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost is The Gift of Understanding, which gives the soul a deeper understanding of revealed truths. Father Adolph Tanqueray defines it as "a gift which, under the enlightening action of the Holy Ghost, gives us a deep insight into revealed truths, without however giving a comprehension of the mysteries themselves." [9]

The effect of the Gift of Understanding is that it enables us to penetrate into the very core of revealed truths and gives us a deeper grasp of them. Yet Charismatics, who continually boast of being "filled to overflowing with the spirit," constantly spout religious errors. [10] Far from possessing the Gift of Understanding, they appear to be bereft of even the most fundamental truths of the Catholic Faith.

In fact, as has been mentioned previously in CFN, the entire Charismatic Movement in the Catholic Church was founded on an objective mortal sin against Faith.

In 1967, a group of Catholics in Pittsburgh attended a Protestant Pentecostal gathering. The Protestants, who as members of a heretical religion possess no Sacramental power, laid hands on the Catholics. These Catholics began babbling in "tongues" and claimed to be "filled to overflowing with the Spirit" as a result.

The actions of these Catholics defy the 1917 Code of Canon Law, which was in force until 1983. Canon 1258 states, "It is absolutely not licit for the faithful either to actively assist at or to take part in non-Catholic ceremonies." Yet according to Charismatics, Catholics will be rewarded with a special influx of Holy Spirit if they thus violate Church law.

Further, seeking holiness from members of non-Catholic sects defies Catholic teaching that neither salvation nor sanctity [holiness] is found in non-Catholic religions. Pope Pius XII restated this doctrine within the context of a prayer to the Blessed Virgin:

"O Mary, Mother of Mercy and Seat of Wisdom! Enlighten the minds enfolded in the darkness of ignorance and sin, that they may clearly recognize the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church to be the only true Church of Jesus Christ, outside which neither sanctity nor salvation can be found." [11]

By contrast, "Catholic Pentecostalism," in the words of its prize preacher, claims that non-Catholic religions wherein "neither sanctity nor salvation can be found," are posItively willed by God.

Here we see one of the many ways in which "Catholic Pentecostalism" leads to apostasy.

As Mr. Vennari is wont to say, well, there you have it! Once again, we are face to face with a Modernist in a key position of influence in the Vatican, one who is able to spout off propositions condemned as heresies and yet retrain his position of influence. A man such as Father Raniero Cantalamessa should be doing penance in a monastery for how he has confused souls for over thirty years. Sadly, he is trusted by the Vicar of Christ to preach on the Faith, a matter about which he is either woefully ignorant or maliciously determined to undermine with a variety of Modernist errors. Father Raniero Cantalamessa is a one-man wrecking crew of the Catholic Faith, bound and determined to impose upon the Church a seemingly never-ending series of errors as Gospel truth.

What is even sadder about the phenomenon of Father Cantalamessa is that there is at least one priest, a diocesan pastor somewhere west of the Alleghenies, who is so eager to be a bishop that he was dispatching to his e-mail list in late-2004 almost every word uttered by Father Cantalamessa, thinking, it appears, that currying favor with Vatican bigwigs will get him "noticed" and placed into the episcopal pipeline. Is being a bishop worth appearing to uphold the errors of a man who has a contempt for the Deposit of Faith as It has been entrusted to the true Church by Our Lord Himself and has been defined dogmatically by one council after another through the centuries? What a terrible price any person has to pay for knowingly disseminating error. Father Cantalamessa's words drip with error. They reaffirm people in the fallacious belief that they can be saved in a variety of false religions. No Catholic, especially a priest, of all things, can participate in the slightest in any effort to make Father Cantalamessa appear to be a friend of the Catholic Faith, which he is not.

Once again, we must do penance for our own sins. We must make regular use of the Sacrament of Penance. We must spend time on our knees before the Blessed Sacrament in prayer. We must be totally consecrated to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. We must have the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Enthroned in our homes. We must cleave fast to the Immemorial Mass of Tradition and to the fullness of the Catholic Faith without any taint of the errors of the past forty to fifty years. And we must never despair in the midst of these truly unprecedented times, beseeching Our Lady to convert our ecclesiastical officials so that her Fatima Message will be fulfilled and the errors of Russia will cease being spread in the Church and in the world.

Let us start by saying an "Ave Maria" for Father Cantalamessa and for the Holy Father so that they will recant any and all words which undermine the Received Teaching of Our Lord and give any credence at all to any aspect of the Protestant Revolt, which is part and parcel of Modernity's war against Faith and thus against the eternal welfare of the souls for whom Our Lord shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saints Vincent and Anastasius, pray for us.

Saint Emerentia, pray for us.

Saint Timothy, pray for us.

Saint Agnes, pray for us.

Saint Boniface, pray for us.

Saint Peter Canisius, pray for us.

Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.

Saint Robert Bellarmine, pray for us.

Saint Charles Borromeo, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.

The North American Martyrs, pray for us.

Saint Peter Chanel, pray for us.

Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Blessed Junipero Serra, pray for us.

Blessed Jacinta, pray for us.

Blessed Francisco, pray for us.

Sister Lucia, pray for us.

Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet, pray for us.

 

Footnotes to John Vennari's "From Pentecostalism to Apostasy"

1. Session V on Original Sin. See Denzinger # 787.

2. The Church has defined this three times. The most forceful and explicit of the three comes from Pope Eugene IV when he defined ex cathedra at the Council of Florence on Feb. 4, 1442: "The Most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews, heretics, and schismatics can ever be partakers of eternal life, but that they are to go into the eternal fire "which was prepared for the devil and his angels," (Mt. 25: 41) unless before death they are joined with her; . . . No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved unless they abide within the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church."

3. Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter, Immortale Dei, cited from The Kingship of Christ and Organized Naturalism by Father Denis Fahey. (Regina Publications, Dublin, 1943), pp. 7-8.

4. All quotes from Father Cantalamessa's sermon are from the April 2, 2002 Catholic News Service report.

5. The details of this conference are contained in Chapter I of Close-ups of the Charismatic Movement, John Vennari, (TIA, Los Angeles, 2002).

6. See Mortalium Animos, Encyclical Letter of Pope Pius XI and "Ecumenism Condemned by Sacred Scripture" by Bishop George Hay

7. I saw Kevin Ranaghan tell this story at the 1997 "Catholic" Charismatic 30th anniversary conference in Pittsburgh. The lecture, called "Witness" is produced on cassette by Resurrection Tapes.

8. Cited from "The Third Secret of Fatima-----Has it Been Completely Revealed?" by Father Gerard Mura, Catholic, March 2002.

9. See The Spiritual Life: A Treatise on Ascetical and Mystical Theology, Father Adolph Tanquerey (Desclee, Tournai, 1930) pp. 627-628.

10. For greater detail, see Close-ups of the Charismatic Movement by John Vennari.

11. Pius XII: RAC:626.