Apologizing To Everyone Save For God Himself

by Thomas A. Droleskey

It is impossible for us to understand the next phase of the life of the novice Mariana de Jesus Torres. Hidden in the Heart of her Spouse, she was inflamed with a desire for a life of immolation and sacrifice. Our Lord Himself told her the practices she should carry out during the free hours of the community schedule and the penances she would perform each week. Her severe disciplines, sacrifices, fasting and prayer, all described in chapters of the manuscript, appear daunting to the man of our our century, who finds suffering something to avoid, or, at best, to endure as austerely as possible.

Suffering is highly ennobling. On this road of suffering in union with Christ, man finds the fullest meaning of his life, and he discovered that frequently it is in the great sufferings of life, accepted with a supernatural disposition, that he can find a joy which the greatest pleasures do not give. Further, he discovers in suffering an interior state that makes his capable of soaring to heights impossible for one who does not suffer. Only when man embraces great sufferings can his horizons expand to grand metaphysical and religious heights and his spirit advance to a superior state. At the end of Mother Mariana's life when her sanctity was acknowledged in the community and convent, she would look back with nostalgia and sigh for the days of persecution and suffering.

While the founding mothers admired Mother Mariana's perfect observance of the rule and practice of virtue, there were other sisters who were stirred by jealousy. Mother Mariana suffered insults and persecutions from these sisters without ever trying to justify herself or protest. Only at the foot of the Tabernacle did she confide her secret sorrows to her Beloved. One day in 1582, as he was praying before the altar, she saw the Tabernacle open and Christ Himself emerged, suffering as He had at Golgotha. The Blessed Virgin, at His feet, was shedding tears of perils. Mother Mariana asked her, "My Lady, am I to blame for this sadness?"

"No," she replied, "it is not you, but the criminal world." Then as Our Lord began His Agony, she heard the voice of the Eternal Father saying, "This punishment will be for the 20th century. She saw three swords hanging over the head of Christ. On each was written, "I shall punish heresy, blasphemy and impurity." With this, she was given to understand all that would take place in the present era." (Dr. Marian Therese Horvat, Our Lady of Good Success: Prophecies For Our Times, second edition, Tradition in Action Press, 2000, pp. 26-27.)

 

Heresy, blasphemy and impurity. That kind of summarizes the rotten fruit of the "Second" Vatican Council and the "magisterium" of the conciliar "popes," does it not?

Heresy? At this late date? See Ratzinger's War Against Catholicism.

Blasphemy? Are you serious? How about Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI esteeming the symbols of five false religions with his own hands? How about calling Mount Hiei in Japan "sacred"? How about calling mosques as "sacred" or as "jewels that stand out across the face of the earth"? How about saying that "Jews and Christians pray to the same Lord". Need more? Go to Baal, Yes, Most Holy Trinity, No, among many other articles.

Impurity? Just take a look at what has happened worldwide in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism?

Still trying to find some way to find the right tone to deal with the most recent round of clerical abuse scandals in the conciliar church, Ratzinger/Benedict expressed apologies yet again for the victims of clerical abuse, doing so in his weekly general audience address yesterday. Ratzinger/Benedict promised to implement measures to root out the abusers. This latest apology and promise came just two days after it was revealed in Der Spiegel that Monsignor Gerhard Gruber, who was vicar general of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising in 1980 when a perverted priest was transferred from the Diocese of Essen to Munich, whose "archbishop" at the time was Joseph Ratzinger, is confiding to friends that he was pressured into signing a statement taking full responsibility for the reassignment of Father Peter Hullermann.

Once again, of course, the individual clerical abusers should have been punished a long time ago. Moreover, no one in the conciliar structures, not even Tarcisio "Cardinal" Bertone in the extemporaneous remarks that he gave in Chile last week noting the connection between clerical abuse and the inclination to commit perverse acts in violation of the binding precepts fo the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, has stated publicly that the scandals that have exploded in full public view in the past decade are the direct result of the creation of a liturgical and pastoral environmental that is quite receptive to this sin against nation and that men so inclined have been systematically recruited, promoted and protected in the conciliar structures while at the same time the full might of conciliar power has been used to browbeat and intimidate the victims of such abuse over and over and over again.

How can any sensible person take Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's most recent apology, coming just a few days after the one he issued in person to victims of clerical abuse in Malta, seriously when he permitted his old friend Monsignor Gerhard Gruber to be pressured into taking the "full responsibility" for his own handling of the reassignment of Father Peter Hullermann to a parish in his archdiocese?

Ratzinger/Benedict is very good at apologizing in a general way for various things, including for how adherents of the Talmud were offended by the lifting of the late Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II's 1988 "excommunication" of Bishop Richard Williamson (along with the three other men who were consecrated as bishops by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on June 30, 1988) even though Bishop Williamson has been on record questioning the nature and extent of the crimes committed by agents of the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration at all to state that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI was, as Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, the architect of the "papal" "apologies" that have become an all too common feature in the life of the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

Consider this list of those who composed the conciliar Memory and Reconciliation: the Church and the faults of the past, which was released on March 13, 2000:

The study of the topic “The Church and the Faults of the Past” was proposed to the International Theological Commission by its President, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in view of the celebration of the Jubilee Year 2000. A sub-commission was established to prepare this study; it was composed of Rev. Christopher BEGG, Msgr. Bruno FORTE (President), Rev. Sebastian KAROTEMPREL, S.D.B., Msgr. Roland MINNERATH, Rev. Thomas NORRIS, Rev. Rafael SALAZAR CARDENAS, M.Sp.S., and Msgr. Anton STRUKELJ. The general discussion of this theme took place in numerous meetings of the sub-commission and during the plenary sessions of the International Theological Commission held in Rome from 1998 to 1999. The present text was approved in forma specifica by the International Theological Commission, by written vote, and was then submitted to the President, Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who gave his approval for its publication.

 

One will note that one of the contributors to Memory and Reconciliation: the Church and the faults of the past was the then "Monsignor" Bruno Forte, who had written an essay some six years before the actual fact of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Resurrection from the dead on Easter Sunday. Who personally "consecrated" Forte as a conciliar "archbishop" in 2004. Ah, none other than the then Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger. Forte has yet renounce his essay, Gesu di Nazaret, storia di Dio, Dio. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has yet to issue any kind of "apology" for promoting this Modernist's career.

One can also see the inimitable complex writing style of Ratzinger/Benedict in the following passage of Memory and Reconciliation: the Church and the faults of the past:

Finally, through the effort to know and to evaluate, an osmosis (a “fusion of horizons”) is accomplished between the interpreter and the object of the past that is interpreted, in which the act of comprehension properly consists. This is the expression of what is judged to be the correct understanding of the events or words of the past; it is equivalent to grasping the meaning which the events can have for the interpreter and his world. Thanks to this encounter of living worlds, understanding of the past is translated into its application to the present. The past is grasped in the potentialities which it discloses, in the stimulus it offers to modify the present. Memory becomes capable of giving rise to a new future.

This fruitful osmosis with the past is reached through the interwovenness of certain basic hermeneutic operations, which correspond to the stages of extraneousness, communality, and understanding true and proper. In relation to a “text” of the past (understood in a general sense as evidence which may be written, oral, monumental, or figurative), these operations can be expressed as follows: “1) understanding the text; 2) judging how correct one’s understanding of the text is; and 3) stating what one judges to be the correct understanding of the text.”(66) Understanding the evidence of the past means reaching it as far as possible in its objectivity through all the sources that are available. Judging the correctness of one’s own interpretation means verifying honestly and rigorously to what extent it could have been oriented or conditioned in any way by one’s prior understanding or by possible prejudices. Stating the interpretation reached means bringing others into the dialogue created with the past, in order both to verify its importance and to discover other possible interpretations (For a commentary on other John Paul II-era apologies, please see the following articles written by sedeplenists: http://www.newoxfordreview.org/note.jsp?did=0905-notes-apology; and Why Shouldn't the Pope Apologize for the Inquisition and The Bad Effects of the Papal Apologies of John Paul II..)

 

They used to institutionalize people in state hospitals who wrote in this way in the past.

Just incidentally, would like you like to know what how an actual, faithful Roman Catholic views history? Thought you would. Here goes:

Papal documents, treating of the Mystical Body in relation to Politics and Economics, as well as those which deal with the influence of the saints, the truly great men of the world, on their times, are of paramount importance for the study of the theology of history. The Syllabus and the various condemnations of Liberalism by the Sovereign Pontiffs aimed at fixing certain truths firmly in the minds of Catholics. The return to sane thinking about social organization demanded as a prerequisite the purification of thought and the elimination of error.

We can thus easily see that the entrance of Christianity into the world has meant two things. Primarily and principally, it has meant the constitution of a supernatural society, the Mystical Body of Christ, absolutely transcending every natural development of culture and civilization. Secondly, it has had for result that this supernatural society, the Catholic Church, began to exercise a profound influence on culture and civilization and modified in far-reaching fashion the existing temporal or natural social order.

The proper organization of society is thus dependent upon the due submission of rulers and the ruled to the authority of the Catholic Church, something that occurred, albeit imperfectly and inconsistently, in the Middle Ages:

In proportion as the Mystical Body of Christ was accepted by mankind, political and economic thought and action began to respect the jurisdiction and guidance of the Catholic Church, endowed, as she is, with the right of intervention in temporal affairs whenever necessary, because of her participation in the spiritual Kingship of Christ. Thus the natural or temporal common good of States came to be sought in a manner calculated to favour the development of true personality, in and through the Mystical Body of Christ, and social life came more and more fully under the influence of the supreme end of man, the vision of God in Three Divine Persons.

Accordingly, Catholic Social Order, viewed as a whole, is not primarily the political and social organization of society. It is primarily the supernatural social organism of the Church, and then, secondarily, the temporal or natural social order resulting from the influence of Catholic doctrine on politics and economics and from the embodiment of that influence in social institutions. If instead of Catholic Social Order we use the wider but more convenient expression of Kingdom of God, we may say that the Kingdom of God on earth is in its essence the Church, but, in its integrity, comprises the Church and the temporal social order which the influence of the Church upon the world is every striving to bring into existence. Needless to say, while the general principles of social order remain always the same, social structures will present great differences at different epochs. No particular temporal social order will ever realize all that the Church is capable of giving to the world. The theology of history must include, then, primarily, the study of the foundation and development of the Church, and secondarily, the examination of the ebb and flow of the world’s acceptance of the Church’s supernatural mission. (Father Denis Fahey, The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World.)

 

Holy Mother Church herself has given us true history. The saints who have been raised to her altars have given eyewitness accounts of history. The collects used by Holy Mother Church in her Sacred Liturgy, Holy Mass and the Divine Office, reflect these eyewitness accounts. The supposed "complexity" of understanding the past is the product of the Modernist mind, influenced by many different rationalist elements. The passages from Memory and Reconciliation: the Church and the faults of the past are an showcase example of the Modernist view of history that was critiqued by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907:

Then the philosopher must come in again to enjoin upon the historian the obligation of following in all his studies the precepts and laws of evolution. It is next for the historian to scrutinize his documents once more, to examine carefully the circumstances and conditions affecting the Church during the different periods, the conserving force she has put forth, the needs both internal and external that have stimulated her to progress, the obstacles she has had to encounter, in a word, everything that helps to determine the manner in which the laws of evolution have been fulfilled in her. This done, he finishes his work by drawing up a history of the development in its broad lines. The critic follows and fits in the rest of the documents. He sets himself to write. The history is finished. Now We ask here: Who is the author of this history? The historian? The critic? Assuredly neither of these but the philosopher. From beginning to end everything in it is a priori, and an apriorism that reeks of heresy. These men are certainly to be pitied, of whom the Apostle might well say: "They became vain in their thoughts...professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.'' At the same time, they excite resentment when they accuse the Church of arranging and confusing the texts after her own fashion, and for the needs of her cause. In this they are accusing the Church of something for which their own conscience plainly reproaches them.

The result of this dismembering of the records, and this partition of them throughout the centuries is naturally that the Scriptures can no longer be attributed to the authors whose names they bear. The Modernists have no hesitation in affirming generally that these books, and especially the Pentateuch and the first three Gospels, have been gradually formed from a primitive brief narration, by additions, by interpolations of theological or allegorical interpretations, or parts introduced only for the purpose of joining different passages together. This means, to put it briefly and clearly, that in the Sacred Books we must admit a vital evolution, springing from and corresponding with the evolution of faith. The traces of this evolution, they tell us, are so visible in the books that one might almost write a history of it. Indeed, this history they actually do write, and with such an easy assurance that one might believe them to have seen with their own eyes the writers at work through the ages amplifying the Sacred Books. To aid them in this they call to their assistance that branch of criticism which they call textual, and labor to show that such a fact or such a phrase is not in its right place, adducing other arguments of the same kind. They seem, in fact, to have constructed for themselves certain types of narration and discourses, upon which they base their assured verdict as to whether a thing is or is not out of place. Let him who can judge how far they are qualified in this way to make such distinctions. To hear them descant of their works on the Sacred Books, in which they have been able to discover so much that is defective, one would imagine that before them nobody ever even turned over the pages of Scripture. The truth is that a whole multitude of Doctors, far superior to them in genius, in erudition, in sanctity, have sifted the Sacred Books in every way, and so far from finding in them anything blameworthy have thanked God more and more heartily the more deeply they have gone into them, for His divine bounty in having vouchsafed to speak thus to men. Unfortunately. these great Doctors did not enjoy the same aids to study that are possessed by the Modernists for they did not have for their rule and guide a philosophy borrowed from the negation of God, and a criterion which consists of themselves.

We believe, then, that We have set forth with sufficient clearness the historical method of the Modernists. The philosopher leads the way, the historian follows, and then in due order come the internal and textual critics. And since it is characteristic of the primary cause to communicate its virtue to causes which are secondary, it is quite clear that the criticism with which We are concerned is not any kind of criticism, but that which is rightly called agnostic, immanentist, and evolutionist criticism. Hence anyone who adopts it and employs it makes profession thereby of the errors contained in it, and places himself in opposition to Catholic teaching. This being so, it is much a matter for surprise that it should have found acceptance to such an extent among certain Catholics. Two causes may be assigned for this: first, the close alliance which the historians and critics of this school have formed among themselves independent of all differences of nationality or religion; second, their boundless effrontery by which, if one then makes any utterance, the others applaud him in chorus, proclaiming that science has made another step forward, while if an outsider should desire to inspect the new discovery for himself, they form a coalition against him. He who denies it is decried as one who is ignorant, while he who embraces and defends it has all their praise. In this way they entrap not a few, who, did they but realize what they are doing, would shrink back with horror. The domineering overbearance of those who teach the errors, and the thoughtless compliance of the more shallow minds who assent to them, create a corrupted atmosphere which penetrates everywhere, and carries infection with it. But let Us pass to the apologist.

 

As I have noted a few times in the past, Pope Saint Pius X had mystical experiences. Could it have been the case that our last canonized pope had some kind of vision of the writing of Joseph Ratzinger in front of him when he wrote Pascendi Dominici Gregis? On the other hand, the very Modernists that Pope Saint Pius X critiqued and condemned in Pascendi wrote as Ratzinger/Benedict does not. No mystical experience would have been necessary for an intellectually honest Catholic to recognize Modernism when it is right in front of your very nose.

The conciliar "popes" have been very good at "apologizing" for the work of what they disparage of Catholic "triumphalism." When are they going to apologize to God for blaspheming his honor and majesty and glory by their esteem of false religions and by their promotion of one anathematized proposition after another.

Although far from a comprehensive review of the past five years (there have been occasions when I have provided listings of past articles to refer readers to specific events, something I am simply lack the time to do at present), here are just some of the things for which Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI needs to apologize to God:

2005

May 13: Taking "canonical" possession of the Basilica of San Giovanni di Laterano, the cathedral of the pope in his capacity as the Bishop of Rome, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI announced that he was appointing a fellow Modernist and protege, William Levada, to be his own successor as the prefect of the conciliar Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. Ratzinger/Benedict also announced that he was placing his predecessor, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II on the "fast track" for conciliar "canonization."

August 19: Speaking to members of Protestant sects and Orthodox confessions in Cologne, Germany, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI specifically rejected what he called the "ecumenism of the return:"

We all know there are numerous models of unity and you know that the Catholic Church also has as her goal the full visible unity of the disciples of Christ, as defined by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council in its various Documents (cf. Lumen Gentium, nn. 8, 13; Unitatis Redintegratio, nn. 2, 4, etc.). This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (cf. Unitatis Redintegratio, n. 4); the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world.

On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return:  that is, to deny and to reject one's own faith history. Absolutely not!

It does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline. Unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity in unity:  in my Homily for the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul on 29 June last, I insisted that full unity and true catholicity in the original sense of the word go together. As a necessary condition for the achievement of this coexistence, the commitment to unity must be constantly purified and renewed; it must constantly grow and mature. (Ecumenical meeting at the Archbishopric of Cologne English)

 

August 19: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict enters into a Talmudic synagogue in Cologne, Germany, refusing to seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of those steeped in these false religion.

At the Cologne synagogue: prayer with the Jews

October 7: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI praised his Hegelian mentor in the New Theology (which was condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950), Father Hans Urs von Balthasar:

Hans Urs von Balthasar, the Pope writes, ‘was a theologian who put his work at the service of the Church,’ because he was convinced that theology is useful only within the context of Catholic practice. ‘I can testify that his life was an authentic search for truth," the Pope adds. Pope Benedict says that he hopes the 100th-anniversary observance will stimulate a revival of interest in the work of von Balthasar, recalling Henri de Lubac's claim that the Swiss theologian was "the most cultured man of our century.’ The Lateran University seminar is co-sponsored by Communio, the international theological journal that was founded by von Balthasar in cooperation with theologians such as Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) and Angelo Scola (now the Patriarch of Venice). Participants in the weekend's discussions include Cardinal Scola, Cardinal James Stafford, and Cardinal Marc Ouellet.” (Catholic World News.com, October 7, 2005.)

 

December 9: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI wished "God's abundant blessings" upon the Methodists who were attending his General Audience that day:

Since 1967, our dialogue has treated major theological themes such as: revelation and faith, tradition and teaching authority in the Church. These efforts have been candid in addressing areas of difference. They have also demonstrated a considerable degree of convergence and are worthy of reflection and study. Our dialogue and the many ways in which Catholics and Methodists have become better acquainted have allowed us to recognize together some of those "Christian treasures of great value". On occasion, this recognition has enabled us to speak with a common voice in addressing social and ethical questions in an increasingly secularized world. I have been encouraged by the initiative which would bring the member churches of the World Methodist Council into association with the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, signed by the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation in 1999. Should the World Methodist Council express its intent to associate itself with the Joint Declaration, it would assist in contributing to the healing and reconciliation we ardently desire, and would be a significant step towards the stated goal of full visible unity in faith.

Dear friends, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and mindful of God’s great and abiding Mercy throughout the world, let us seek to foster a mutual commitment to the Word of God, to witness and to joint prayer. As we prepare our hearts and minds to welcome the Lord in this Advent season, I invoke God’s abundant blessings upon all of you and on Methodists throughout the world. (Address of Benedict XVI to Methodists.)

 

The Methodists have no "commitment" to the Word of God as they do not accept It as It has been entrusted exclusively by God Himself to the authority of the Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. The Methodists also, just incidentally, you understand, reject entirely Apostolic or Sacred Tradition as the other source of Divine Revelation. "Joint prayer"? Strictly forbidden by the teaching authority and canonical doctrine of the Catholic Church (see The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion.)

December 22: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI uses a Christmas address to the members of the conciliar curia to give his own "papal" imprimatur to the "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity," blaspheming God the Holy Ghost Himself, Who has ever guided the Catholic Church in papal teachings and dogmatic decrees, by claiming that it was "necessary to learn" that the immemorial teaching of the Catholic Church is subject to different interpretations at different times:

"It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within.

"On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)

 

It was by the use of this philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity" that Ratzinger/Benedict justified the errors of "religious liberty," blaspheming the martyrs of the first centuries of the Church by saying that they were "martyrs for religious liberty," and a "re-thinking" of the "church's" "relationship with the 'faith of Israel'" in light of the "Shoah."

 

2006

 

November 26: The Nativity Story, a blasphemous motion picture, produced by a Protestant, made its world premiere at the Paul VI Audience Hall in the Vatican, introduced by the then "Archbishop" (now "Cardinal") John Foley, the President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, and approved personally by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. The motion picture is a blasphemous depiction of Our Lady as a sulky, moody, rebellious teenager, thereby a denial of her gift of perfect Integrity of body and soul that is one of the chief doctrinal effects of her Immaculate Conception.

November 30: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI appeared as an equal with "Patriarch" Bartholomew I in Istanbul, Turkey, issuing a joint statement which included the following statement, "This commitment comes from the Lord’s will and from our responsibility as Pastors in the Church of Christ" (Common Declaration by Benedict XVI and Patriarch Bartholomew I). Bartholomew I, who "prayed" with Ratzinger/Benedict in the Sistine Chapel on Saturday, October 18, 2008, for an end to "fundamentalism" and for "religious tolerance, is not a "pastor" in the Church of Christ. The only Church of Christ is the Catholic Church, from which the heretic Bartholomew I is in schism. He is not a "pastor" in the Church of Christ. Of course, neither is Ratzinger/Benedict.

Benedict embraces schismatic patriarch Bartholomew I before praying together in the

 

November 30: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI entered into the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, taking off his shoes so as to symbolize that he was in a "holy place" and then turned in the direction of Mecca at the behest of his Mohammedan "host," who instructed him to assume the Mohammedan prayer position as they "prayed" together. God is offended by honor being given to such a false religion as the souls of His faithful Catholics are scandalized and bewildered and confused as a consequence.

Ratzinger at the Blue Mosque

2007

 

April 21: The International Theological Commission issues The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised, which concludes that there is every "hope" that unbaptized infants go to Heaven. This study, which is one of those "non-binding" conciliar documents, you understand, gave "official" expression to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's own view, which are in contradiction to the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church:

Limbo was never a defined truth of faith. Personally - and here I am speaking more as a theologian and not as Prefect of the Congregation - I would abandon it since it was only a theological hypothesis. It formed part of a secondary thesis in support of a truth which is absolutely of first significance for faith, namely, the importance of baptism. To put it in the words of Jesus to Nicodemus: 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God' (John 3:5). One should not hesitate to give up the idea of limbo, if need be (and it is worth noting that the very theologians who proposed 'limbo' also said that parents could spare the child limbo by desiring its baptism and through prayer); but the concern behind it must not be surrendered. Baptism has never been a side issue for faith; it is not now, nor will it ever be."  (Joseph Ratzinger, as Quoted in Vittorio Messori's The Ratzinger Report.)

For who would not detest a crime [abortion] as execrable as this — a crime whose consequence is that not just bodies, but — still worse! — even souls, are, as it were, cast away? The soul of the unborn infant bears the imprint of God’s image! It is a soul for whose redemption Christ our Lord shed His precious blood, a soul capable of eternal blessedness and destined for the company of angels! Who, therefore, would not condemn and punish with the utmost severity the desecration committed by one who has excluded such a soul from the blessed vision of God? Such a one has done all he or she could possibly have done to prevent this soul from reaching the place prepared for it in heaven, and has deprived God of the service of this His own creature." (Pope Sixtus V, Effrænatam, October 28, 1588 translation by Father Brian Harrison, Could Limbo Be 'Abolished'?)

June 30: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI sells out the underground Catholics in Red China, telling them to "reconcile" with the Communist-sponsored "Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association," a sellout more sweeping in its scope than Giovanni Montini/Paul VI's betrayal of the Primate of Hungary, Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty. The "guidelines" issued by Ratzinger/Benedict were so confusing that a "compendium" had to issue for the sake of "clarification" in 2009. (See  Red China: Workshop for the New Ecclesiology.)

July 7: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict issues Summorum Pontificum to "liberate" the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition. Traditionally-minded Catholics attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism rejoiced that this represented an important step in the "restoration" of what they believe to be the Catholic Church even that Ratzinger/Benedict made it clear that they would have to accept some of the prefaces and feast days included in the "Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite (that is, the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service), something that was reiterated recently by William "Cardinal" Levada (see Words Really Do Matter) during his "dedication" of the new chapel at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, Nebraska, that is run by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter.

Summorum Pontificum was also premised on the abject lie, for which Ratzinger/Benedict has never apologized, that there is no contradiction between two "forms" of the "one" Roman Rite. Who says that this is a lie? Ratzinger/Benedict himself, of course:

There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church's faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place. Needless to say, in order to experience full communion, the priests of the communities adhering to the former usage cannot, as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books. The total exclusion of the new rite would not in fact be consistent with the recognition of its value and holiness (Explanatory Letter on "Summorum Pontificum".)

What happened after the Council was something else entirely: in the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it--as in a manufacturing process--with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product. Gamber, with the vigilance of a true prophet and the courage of a true witness, oppose this falsification, and thanks to his incredibly rich knowledge, indefatigably taught us about the living fullness of a true liturgy. As a man who knew and loved history, he showed us the multiple forms and paths of liturgical development; as a man who looked at history form the inside, he saw in this development and its fruit the intangible reflection of the eternal liturgy, that which is not the object of our action but which can continue marvelously to mature and blossom if we unite ourselves intimately with its mystery. (Joseph Ratzinger, Preface to the French language edition of Monsignor Klaus Gamber's The Reform of the Roman Liturgy.)

The prohibition of the missal that was now decreed, a missal that had known continuous growth over the centuries, starting with the sacramentaries of the ancient Church, introduced a breach into the history of the liturgy whose consequences could only be tragic. It was reasonable and right of the Council to order a revision of the missal such as had often taken place before and which this time had to be more thorough than before, above all because of the introduction of the vernacular.

But more than this now happened: the old building was demolished, and another was built, to be sure largely using materials from the previous one and even using the old building plans. There is no doubt that this new missal in many respects brought with it a real improvement and enrichment; but setting it as a new construction over against what had grown historically, forbidding the results of this historical growth. thereby makes the liturgy appear to be no longer living development but the produce of erudite work and juridical authority; this has caused an enormous harm. For then the impression had to emerge that liturgy is something "made", not something given in advance but something lying without our own power of decision. (Joseph Ratzinger, Milestones.)

 

No "restoration" of the Catholic Church can take place on the foundation of lies, which come from the devil, not from God, Who hates lies and is, of course, the Author of all truth. Some adherents of the Talmud were upset

August 4: Paul "Cardinal" Poupard, then the President of the "Pontifical" Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, read the following letter written by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict to those attending an "inter-religious" conference taking place on Mount Hiei, Japan, a place where the Tendai sect of the false religion known as Buddhism first established itself:

I am glad to greet you and all the religious leaders gathered on the occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Religious Summit Meeting on Mount Hiei. I wish also to convey my best wishes to Venerable Eshin Watanabe, and to recall your distinguished predecessor as Supreme Head of the Tendai Buddhist Denomination, Venerable Etai Yamada. It was he who, having participated in the Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi on that memorable day of 27 October 1986, initiated the “Religious Summit Meeting” on Mount Hiei in Kyoto in order to keep the flame of the spirit of Assisi burning. I am also happy that Cardinal Paul Poupard, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, is able to take part in this meeting.

From the supernatural perspective we come to understand that peace is both a gift from God and an obligation for every individual. Indeed the world’s cry for peace, echoed by families and communities throughout the globe, is at once both a prayer to God and an appeal to every brother and sister of our human family. As you assemble on the sacred Mount Hiei, representing different religions, I assure you of my spiritual closeness. May your prayers and cooperation fill you with God’s peace and strengthen your resolve to witness to the reason of peace which overcomes the irrationality of violence!

Upon you all I invoke an abundance of divine blessings of inspiration, harmony and joy. (This used to be found on the DICI site of the Society of Saint Pius X; it is no longer there. Surprise, surprise, surprise, Sergeant Carter: Surprise Surprise Surprise.)

 

To whom is Mount Hiei "sacred"? Not to the true God of Divine Revelation. To the devil, that's who.

August 27: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict bestowed "papal" knighthood upon the pro-abortion, pro-perversity Rabbi Leon Klenicki. (see Continuing to Knight Infidels).

October 13: The Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue Between the Roman Catholic Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church issues The Ravenna Document, which featured a longtime goal of the late Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI: proposing that the "Petrine ministry" could be understood now as it the conciliarists contend that it was understood during the First Millennium:

It remains for the question of the role of the bishop of Rome in the communion of all the Churches to be studied in greater depth. What is the specific function of the bishop of the “first see” in an ecclesiology of koinonia and in view of what we have said on conciliarity and authority in the present text? How should the teaching of the first and second Vatican councils on the universal primacy be understood and lived in the light of the ecclesial practice of the first millennium? These are crucial questions for our dialogue and for our hopes of restoring full communion between us.

We, the members of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, are convinced that the above statement on ecclesial communion, conciliarity and authority represents positive and significant progress in our dialogue, and that it provides a firm basis for future discussion of the question of primacy at the universal level in the Church. We are conscious that many difficult questions remain to be clarified, but we hope that, sustained by the prayer of Jesus “That they may all be one … so that the world may believe” (Jn 17, 21), and in obedience to the Holy Spirit, we can build upon the agreement already reached. Reaffirming and confessing “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4, 5), we give glory to God the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who has gathered us together. (The Ravenna Document)

How, then are the maximum demands to be decided in advance? Certainly, no one who claims allegiance to Catholic theology can simply declare the doctrine of primacy null and void, especially not if he seeks to understand the objections and evaluates with an open mind the relative weight of what can be determined historically. Nor it is possible, on the other hand, for him to regard as the only possible form and, consequently, as binding on all Christians the form this primacy has taken in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. . . .

After all, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, in the same bull in which he excommunicated the Patriarch Michael Cerularius and thus inaugurated the schism between East and West, designated the Emperor and the people of Constantinople as "very Christian and orthodox", although their concept of the Roman primary was certainly far less different from that of Cerularius than from that, let us say, of the First Vatican Council. In other words, Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 198-199)

 

The Ravenna Document, which was issued on the ninetieth anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal (the conciliarists have tried mightily to deconstruct Our Lady's Fatima Message as they have turned her shrine in Fatima into a celebration of "false ecumenism; see In League with the Mayor of Ourem) and is another of those "unofficial" documents that have expressed perfectly the Modernist mind of the current false "pontiff," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, takes a view of papal primacy in the First Millennium that is at odds with the objective truth of the Catholic Church's history:

First of all, then, We cast an affectionate look upon the East, from whence in the beginning came forth the salvation of the world.  Yes, and the yearning desire of Our heart bids us conceive and hope that the day is not far distant when the Eastern Churches, so illustrious in their ancient faith and glorious past, will return to the fold they have abandoned.  We hope it all the more, that the distance separating them from Us is not so great: nay, with some few exceptions, we agree so entirely on other heads that, in defense of the Catholic Faith, we often have recourse to reasons and testimony borrowed from the teaching, the Rites, and Customs of the East.

The Principal subject of contention is the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff.  But let them look back to the early years of their existence, let them consider the sentiments entertained by their forefathers, and examine what the oldest Traditions testify, and it will, indeed, become evident to them that Christ's Divine Utterance, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, has undoubtedly been realized in the Roman Pontiffs.  Many of these latter in the first gates of the Church were chosen from the East, and foremost among them Anacletus, Evaristus, Anicetus, Eleutherius, Zosimus, and Agatho; and of these a great number, after Governing the Church in Wisdom and Sanctity, Consecrated their Ministry with the shedding of their blood.  The time, the reasons, the promoters of the unfortunate division, are well known.  Before the day when man separated what God had joined together, the name of the Apostolic See was held in Reverence by all the nations of the Christian world: and the East, like the West, agreed without hesitation in its obedience to the Pontiff of Rome, as the Legitimate Successor of St. Peter, and, therefore, the Vicar of Christ here on earth.

And, accordingly, if we refer to the beginning of the dissension, we shall see that Photius himself was careful to send his advocates to Rome on the matters that concerned him; and Pope Nicholas I sent his Legates to Constantinople from the Eternal City, without the slightest opposition, "in order to examine the case of Ignatius the Patriarch with all diligence, and to bring back to the Apostolic See a full and accurate report"; so that the history of the whole negotiation is a manifest Confirmation of the Primacy of the Roman See with which the dissension then began.  Finally, in two great Councils, the second of Lyons and that of Florence, Latins and Greeks, as is notorious, easily agreed, and all unanimously proclaimed as Dogma the Supreme Power of the Roman Pontiffs.

We have recalled those things intentionally, for they constitute an invitation to peace and reconciliation; and with all the more reason that in Our own days it would seem as if there were a more conciliatory spirit towards Catholics on the part of the Eastern Churches, and even some degree of kindly feeling.  To mention an instance, those sentiments were lately made manifest when some of Our faithful travelled to the East on a Holy Enterprise, and received so many proofs of courtesy and good-will.

Therefore, Our mouth is open to you, to you all of Greek or other Oriental Rites who are separated from the Catholic Church, We earnestly desire that each and every one of you should meditate upon the words, so full of gravity and love, addressed by Bessarion to your forefathers: "What answer shall we give to God when He comes to ask why we have separated from our Brethren: to Him Who, to unite us and bring us into One Fold, came down from Heaven, was Incarnate, and was Crucified?  What will our defense be in the  eyes of posterity?  Oh, my Venerable Fathers, we must not suffer this to be, we must not entertain this thought, we must not thus so ill provide for ourselves and for our Brethren."

Weigh carefully in your minds and before God the nature of Our request.  It is not for any human motive, but impelled by Divine Charity and a desire for the salvation of all, that We advise the reconciliation and union with the Church of Rome; and We mean a perfect and complete union, such as could not subsist in any way if nothing else was brought about but a certain kind of agreement in the Tenets of Belief and an intercourse of Fraternal love.  The True Union between Christians is that which Jesus Christ, the Author of the Church, instituted and desired, and which consists in a Unity of Faith and Unity of Government.

Nor is there any reason for you to fear on that account that We or any of Our Successors will ever diminish your rights, the privileges of your Patriarchs, or the established Ritual of any one of your Churches.  It has been and always will be the intent and Tradition of the Apostolic See, to make a large allowance, in all that is right and good, for the primitive Traditions and special customs of every nation.  On the contrary, if you re-establish Union with Us, you will see how, by God's bounty, the glory and dignity of your Churches will be remarkably increased.  May God, then, in His goodness, hear the Prayer that you yourselves address to Him: "Make the schisms of the Churches cease," and "Assemble those who are dispersed, bring back those who err, and unite them to Thy Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church."  May you thus return to that one Holy Faith which has been handed down both to Us and to you from time immemorial; which your forefathers preserved untainted, and which was enhanced by the rival splendor of the Virtues, the great genius, and the sublime learning of St. Athanasius and St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzum and St. John Chrysostom, the two Saints who bore the name of Cyril, and so many other great men whose glory belongs as a common inheritance to the East and to the West. (Pope Leo XIII, Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 20, 1894. See also the excellent discussion of the the history of what led up to the Greek Schism that is contained in Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki's Tumultuous Times.)

 

December 16:  Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI authorized a "novel" Nativity scene to be displayed in the Piazza di San Pietro:

LONDON: The traditional nativity scene built each Christmas in front of St Peter’s Basilica has shown Jesus being born in a stable in Bethlehem for 25 years. But, this year, the Vatican will do away with the manger.

The Vatican has decided to abandon the traditional stable and the straw-ladden setting, shifting it to Nazareth, and placing Jesus in his father Joseph’s carpentry shop in a bid to reflect the more straightforward scenario as described by St Matthew.

"It’s time for a change and a return to St Matthew’s gospel," Daily Telegraph quoted a spokesman of the State Department of the Vatican, which organises and builds the giant presepe, or the nativity scene, as saying.

"In fact, in place of the sheep and hay, there will be a model of three rooms. Jesus will lie in Joseph’s shop, complete with the typical work tools of a carpenter...On one side, the shop will be flanked with a covered patio, on the other there’ll be the inside of a pub, with its hearth." The new setting was inspired by two verses in St Matthew’s gospel, Chapter 1:24 and 1:25, the Vatican said, which state: "When Joseph woke up, he did as the Angel of God ordered and took Mary into his house. Without them knowing each other, a child was born and he called his name Jesus."

But, a decision has been made to place the nativity scene in Nazareth regardless, the spokesperson said. The traditional depiction of Jesus in a manger comes from St Luke’s gospel, which said there was no room at the inn”. But it is Matthew’s gospel which forms the basis for the Angelus prayer, and the view of Jesus in a carpenter’s workshop matches the Franciscan tradition. The nativity scene at St Peter’s for Christmas was started by Pope John Paul II in 1982. (No more traditional nativity scene in Vatican.)

 

Remember what Pope Saint Pius X wrote in Pascendi Dominic Gregis (September 8, 1907)? Here it is once again?

 

It remains for Us now to say a few words about the Modernist as reformer. From all that has preceded, it is abundantly clear how great and how eager is the passion of such men for innovation. In all Catholicism there is absolutely nothing on which it does not fasten.

 

2008

February 7: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict unleashes a firestorm with his revised "Prayer for the Jews" to be used in the modernized version of the "extraordinary form of the Roman Rite" (the missal promulgated by Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII in 1961 and then amended in 1962 with the insertion of the name of Saint Joseph into the Canon of the Mass) as he angers a few (emphasis on a "few") traditionally-minded Catholics attached to the conciliar structures and finds himself facing a torrent of criticism from some adherents of the Talmud. Ratzinger/Benedict had promised in July of 2007, shortly after the issuance of Summorum Pontificum, to revise the Prayer for the Jews in the "1962 Missal" in response to pressure he had received from those who he says pray to the "same Lord" as Christians.

Ratzinger/Benedict's apologists tried to assure their readers that there was nothing wrong with the revised "prayer." Father Peter Scott of the Society of Saint Pius dissented from that view:

This prayer consequently favors ecumenism, and is not acceptable to traditional Catholics, nor will it be used. Traditional Catholics will not accept that the traditional Missal be tampered with, and that Benedict XVI succeed in his plan of bringing about an influence of the "ordinary" form, changing the "extraordinary form" of the Roman rite, as he calls it. Just as traditional priests retain the words "faithless" and "infidelity" that John XXIII tried to remove, so likewise will they retain the traditional prayer for the conversion of the Jews. (Once again, not surprisingly, the original "hot link" to this text has been disabled by the "memory hole" minders in the world of the Society of Saint Pius X.)

 

Ratzinger/Benedict's apologists also tried to contend--and with a perfectly straight face--that the following letter from Walter "Cardinal" Kasper to Rabbi David Rosen did not represent the mind of Ratzinger/Benedict himself:

In reformulating the prayer of the now extraordinary liturgy, the Pope wanted to avoid formulations which were perceived by many Jews to be offensive, but he wanted at the same time to remain in line with the intrinsic linguistic and stylistic structure of this liturgy and therefore not simply replace the prayer for the prayer in the ordinary liturgy, which we must not forget is used by the vast majority of Catholic communities.

The reformulated text no longer speaks about the conversion of the Jews as some Jewish critics wrongly affirm. The text is a prayer inspired by Saint Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 11, which is the very text that speaks also of the unbroken covenant. It takes up Paul's eschatological hope that in the end of time all Israel will be saved. As a prayer the text lays all in the hands of God and not in ours. It says nothing about the how and when. Therefore there is nothing about missionary activities by which we may take Israel's salvation in our hands. ("Cardinal" Kasper's Letter to Rabbi Rosen)

 

Even though claims were made that this letter did not represent the "mind" of the false "pontiff," Kasper was permitted to write an article in a German newspaper that was reprinted in L'Osservatore Romano, the semi-official newspaper of the Vatican, in which he wrote almost exactly what he had written above to the "papal" "knight," David Rosen:

The very fact that the prayer for Good Friday in the Missal of 1970 – and therefore in the ordinary form of the Roman rite, used in the vast majority of cases – remains fully in effect, demonstrates that the reformulated prayer for Good Friday, used by only an extremely small part of the community, cannot signify a step backward with respect to the declaration "Nostra Aetate" of Vatican Council II.

This is all the more true by virtue of the fact that the substance of the declaration "Nostra Aetate" is also contained in a document belonging to a higher formal level, the constitution on the Church "Lumen Gentium" (no. 16), and for this reason, in principle, it cannot be brought into question.

Furthermore, since the council there have been a great number of direct pontifical statements, including some by the current pope, referring to "Nostra Aetate" and confirming the importance of this declaration.

Unlike the 1970 text, the new formulation of the 1962 text speaks of Jesus as the Christ and as the salvation of all men, and therefore also of the Jews.

Many have understood this affirmation as new and unfriendly toward the Jews. But this is founded on the New Testament as a whole (cf. 1 Timothy 2:4), and indicates the fundamental difference, known everywhere, that endures for both the Christians and the Jews. Even if it is not explicitly mentioned in "Nostra Aetate," nor in the prayer of 1970 , "Nostra Aetate" cannot be removed from the context of all the cannot be removed from the context of all the other conciliar documents, nor can the Good Friday prayer of the Missal of 1970 be removed from the entirety of the liturgy of Good Friday that has as its object that conviction of the Christian faith.

The new formulation of the prayer for Good Friday in the Missal of 1962, therefore, does not really say anything new, but only expresses what until now was taken as obvious, but which evidently, in many dialogues, was not sufficiently explained (2).

In the past, faith in Christ, which distinguishes Christians from Jews, has often been transformed into a "language of disdain" (Jules Isaac), with all of the serious consequences that derive from this. If today we are striving for reciprocal respect, this can be founded only on the fact that we reciprocally recognize our diversity. For this reason, we do not expect that the Jews should agree on the Chistological content of the prayer for Good Friday, but that they should respect the fact that we pray as Christians according to our faith, as naturally we do also in regard to their way of praying. In this perspective, both sides still have something to learn.

The real controversial question is: should Christians pray for the conversion of the Jews? Can there be a mission to the Jews?

The word conversion is not found in the reformulated prayer. But it is indirectly included in the invocation to enlighten the Jews, so that they may recognize Jesus Christ. Moreover, there is the fact that the Missal of 1962 gives titles for each of the individual prayers. The title of the prayer to the Jews has not been modified; it sounds like it did before: "Pro conversione Judæorum," for the conversion of the Jews. Many Jews have read the new formulation in the perspective of this title, and this has raised the reaction already described.

In response to this, it can be noted that the Catholic Church, unlike some "evangelical" groups, does not have an organized, institutionalized mission to the Jews. With this reminder, however, the problem of the mission to the Jews has not, in fact, been clarified theologically yet. This is precisely the merit of the new formulation of the prayer for Good Friday, which, in its second part, presents an initial indication for a substantial theological response.

We pick up again from Chapter 11 of the letter to the Romans, which is fundamental also for "Nostra Aetate" (3).

The salvation of the Jews is, for Paul, a profound mystery of election through divine grace (9:14-29). God gives without regret, and the promises that God makes to his people, in spite of their disobedience, have not been revoked (9:6; 11:1.29). The hardening of Israel's heart produces salvation for the pagans. The wild branches of the pagans have been grafted onto the holy root of Israel (11:16ff.). But God has the power to graft on again the branches that were cut off (11:23). When the fullness of the pagans have found salvation, then all Israel will be saved (11:25ff.). Israel therefore remains the bearer of the promise and of the blessing. ("Oremus pro conversione Judæorum." Cardinal Kasper Takes The Field .)

 

It was also the case that "Archbishop" Gianfranco Ravasi and Rabbi Jacob Neusner wrote very much the same way without a word of rebuke from Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:

We repeat: this is the Christian vision, and it is the hope of the Church that prays. It is not a programmatic proposal of theoretical adherence, nor is it a missionary strategy of conversion. It is the attitude characteristic of the prayerful invocation according to which one hopes also for the persons considered near to oneself, those dear and important, a reality that one maintains is precious and salvific. An important exponent of French culture in the 20th century, Julien Green, wrote that "it is always beautiful and legitimate to wish for the other what is for you a good or a joy: if you think you are offering a true gift, do not hold back your hand." Of course, this must always take place in respect for freedom and for the different paths that the other adopts. But it is an expression of affection to wish for your brother what you consider a horizon of light and life. ("Archbishop" Gianfranco Ravasi, A Bishop and a Rabbi Defend the Prayer for the Salvation of the Jews.)

 

Why is all of this wrong? Consult Pope Saint Pius X, please consult (yes, yet again--repetition is the mother of learning, you know) Pope Saint Pius X's direct contradiction of most this apostasy in the audience he gave to the founder of international Zionism, Theodore Herzl, on January 25, 1904:

 

POPE: We are unable to favor this movement [of Zionism]. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem—but we could never sanction it. The ground of Jerusalem, if it were not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot answer you otherwise. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people.

HERZL: [The conflict between Rome and Jerusalem, represented by the one and the other of us, was once again under way. At the outset I tried to be conciliatory. I said my little piece. . . . It didn’t greatly impress him. Jerusalem was not to be placed in Jewish hands.] And its present status, Holy Father?

POPE: I know, it is disagreeable to see the Turks in possession of our Holy Places. We simply have to put up with it. But to sanction the Jewish wish to occupy these sites, that we cannot do.

HERZL: [I said that we based our movement solely on the sufferings of the Jews, and wished to put aside all religious issues].

POPE: Yes, but we, but I as the head of the Catholic Church, cannot do this. One of two things will likely happen. Either the Jews will retain their ancient faith and continue to await the Messiah whom we believe has already appeared—in which case they are denying the divinity of Jesus and we cannot assist them. Or else they will go there with no religion whatever, and then we can have nothing at all to do with them. The Jewish faith was the foundation of our own, but it has been superceded by the teachings of Christ, and we cannot admit that it still enjoys any validity. The Jews who should have been the first to acknowledge Jesus Christ have not done so to this day.

HERZL: [It was on the tip of my tongue to remark, “It happens in every family: no one believes in his own relative.” But, instead, I said:] Terror and persecution were not precisely the best means for converting the Jews. [His reply had an element of grandeur in its simplicity:]

POPE: Our Lord came without power. He came in peace. He persecuted no one. He was abandoned even by his apostles. It was only later that he attained stature. It took three centuries for the Church to evolve. The Jews therefore had plenty of time in which to accept his divinity without duress or pressure. But they chose not to do so, and they have not done it yet.

HERZL: But, Holy Father, the Jews are in a terrible plight. I do not know if Your Holiness is aware of the full extent of their tragedy. We need a land for these harried people.

POPE: Must it be Jerusalem?

HERZL: We are not asking for Jerusalem, but for Palestine—for only the secular land.

POPE: We cannot be in favor of it.

[Editor Lowenthal interjects here] Here unrelenting replacement theology is plainly upheld as the norm of the Roman Catholic Church. Further, this confession, along with the whole tone of the Pope in his meeting with Herzl, indicates the perpetuation of a doctrinal emphasis that has resulted in centuries of degrading behavior toward the Jews. However, this response has the “grandeur” of total avoidance of that which Herzl had intimated, namely that the abusive reputation of Roman Catholicism toward the Jews was unlikely to foster conversion. Further, if, “It took three centuries for the Church to evolve,” it was that very same period of time that it took for the Church to consolidate and launch its thrust of anti-Semitism through the following centuries.

HERZL: Does Your Holiness know the situation of the Jews?

POPE: Yes, from my days in Mantua, where there are Jews. I have always been in friendly relations with Jews. Only the other evening two Jews were here to see me. There are other bonds than those of religion: social intercourse, for example, and philanthropy. Such bonds we do not refuse to maintain with the Jews. Indeed we also pray for them, that their spirit see the light. This very day the Church is celebrating the feast of an unbeliever who became converted in a miraculous manner—on the road to Damascus. And so if you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we will be ready with churches and priests to baptize all of you. (Marvin Lowenthal, The Diaries of Theodore Herzl.)

 

April 15-20: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI visits the United States of America without ever once mentioning Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary. He personally esteemed the symbols of five false religions at the "John Paul II Cultural Center" in Washington, District of Columbia, Thursday, April 17, 2008, and praised the United Masonic Nations Organization on Friday, April 18, 2008. He also went into another Talmudic synagogue, where, of course, he refused to exhort anyone there to convert and as he listened patiently to a Talmudic hymn that denied the Messias had come once in time to redeem the entire human race (see No Room for Christ the King on the South Lawn, Latin and the Lector Babe, Asking Our Lady to Repair the Damage, No Room for Christ the King at the United Nations, Sorrow Beyond Description, No Room for Mary Immaculate Queen at Saint Patrick's Cathedral, No Room for Mary Immaculate Queen at Saint Joseph's Seminary, and All is Quicksand Without Our Lady.)

Ratzinger/Benedict receiving a copy of the Koran, "John Paul II Cultural Center," Washington, District of Columbia, Thursday, April 17, 2008. Would Our Lord receive a copy of this blasphemous document, no less with a smile on his face?  See the video of this exercise in apostasy, (See for yourself, April 17, 2008 - 6:15 p.m. - Interreligious Gathering.)

 

Ratzinger/Benedict at the Park East Synagogue, Friday, April 18, 2009.

July 12-21, 2008: Ratzinger/Benedict travels to Australia for the hootenanny known as "World Youth Day." He praises "false ecumenism" and participates in a "liturgy" featuring mostly naked "aboriginal" dancers. (See Nothing About Which to be Shocked and Learning from the Devil Himself.)

October 29, 2008: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI praises Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII on the fiftieth anniversary of his "election." (See Atop the Kremlin Wall, which contains a compendium of 2008 articles about conciliarism.)

 

2009

January 21: An interview with Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of Saint Pius X that was recorded in Regensburg, Germany, on November 2, 2008, airs on Swedish television. The most explosive part of the interview was Bishop Williamson's assertion that the number of Jews who were killed by the agents of the Third Reich of Nazi Germany was far less than the figure of six million accepted by "mainstream" historians and that none died in gas chambers. This sets off a firestorm that has only recently resulted in Bishop Williamson's conviction in absentia in a German court for having "denied the holocaust," causing Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI  and his conciliar "bishops" to rend their garments and pay their due obeisance to those deny the one and only holocaust, that which was offered by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to His Co-Equal and Co-Eternal Father in Spirit and in Truth on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday in atonement for our sins. Bishop Williamson was also disowned and denounced by the Superior-General of the Society of Saint Pius X, Bishop Bernard Fellay, who has been absolutely silent about the various apostasies and blasphemies and sacrileges committed by Ratzinger/Benedict since the issuance of Summorum Pontificum.

January 24: The conciliar Vatican announces the "lifting" of the "excommunications" imposed upon the four bishops who were consecrated by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on June 30, 1988, in Econe, Switzerland. The decree, which was signed on January 21, 2009, that formally "lifted" the "excommunications" did not mean that the bishops and priests of the Society of Saint Pius X could administer the sacraments licitly in the counterfeit church of conciliarism. The time of the announcement, coming three days after the airing of Bishop Williamson's interview on Swedish television, incites various members of Talmudic organizations, eager to exploit the crimes of the Third Reich of Nazi Germany to make various demands on the leaders of what they think is the Catholic Church, into accusing Ratzinger/Benedict of being "insensitive" to the plight of the Jews during World War II. (For a review of the inter-related issues of Bishop Williamson and the reintegration of the Society of Saint Pius X into the conciliar structures, please see: True Popes Never Need to Convert to the Faith, Negotiating To Become An Apostate, March to Oblivion, High Church, Low Church, Nothing to Negotiate, Those Who Deny The Holocaust, Recognize and Capitulate, A Little Bit "In," A Little Bit "Out", Disciples of Caiphas, Under The Bus, Nothing New Under the Conciliar Sun, Story Time in Econe, Shell Games With Souls, Pots and Kettles, One Sentence Says It All, Smashing Through the Conciliar Looking Glass, Winning at the Waiting Game, Yes, Sir, Master Scribe, No Crime Is Worse Than Deicide.)

February 4: Reeling from worldwide criticism, the conciliar Vatican's Secretariat of State issued a "clarification" of the "lifting" of the "excommunication of the bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X:

In the wake of reactions to the recent Decree of the Congregation for Bishops by which the excommunication of four prelates of the Society of Saint Pius X was remitted, and with regard to the negationist or reductionist statements made by Bishop Williamson concerning the Shoah, it seems opportune to clarify some aspects of the matter.

1. Remission of the Excommunication

As has already been publicly stated, the Decree of the Congregation for Bishops, dated 21 January 2009, was an act by which the Holy Father responded benevolently to repeated requests from the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X.

His Holiness desired to remove an impediment which was prejudicial to the opening of a door to dialogue. He now awaits a corresponding gesture from the four bishops expressing total adherence to the doctrine and discipline of the Church. The very grave penalty of latae sententiae excommunication, which these bishops incurred on 30 June 1988, and which was formally declared on 1 July 1988, was a consequence of their having been illegitimately ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

The remission of the excommunication has freed the four bishops from a very serious canonical penalty, but it has not changed the juridical status of the Society of Saint Pius X, which presently does not enjoy any canonical recognition by the Catholic Church. The four bishops, even though they have been released from excommunication, have no canonical function in the Church and do not licitly exercise any ministry within it.

2. Tradition, Doctrine and the Second Vatican Council

A full recognition of the Second Vatican Council and the Magisterium of Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI himself is an indispensable condition for any future recognition of the Society of Saint Pius X.

As already stated in the Decree of 21 January 2009, the Holy See will not fail, in ways judged opportune, to engage with the interested parties in examining outstanding questions, so as to attain a full and satisfactory resolution of the problems that caused this painful rupture.

3. Statements about the Shoah

The positions of Bishop Williamson with regard to the Shoah are absolutely unacceptable and firmly rejected by the Holy Father, as he himself remarked on 28 January 2009 when, with reference to the heinous genocide, he reiterated his full and unquestionable solidarity with our brothers and sisters who received the First Covenant, and he affirmed that the memory of that terrible genocide must lead "humanity to reflect upon the unfathomable power of evil when it conquers the heart of man", adding that the Shoah remains "a warning for all against forgetfulness, denial or reductionism, because violence committed against one single human being is violence against all".

In order to be admitted to function as a Bishop within the Church, Bishop Williamson must also distance himself in an absolutely unequivocal and public way from his positions regarding the Shoah, which were unknown to the Holy Father at the time of the remission of the excommunication.

The Holy Father asks for the prayerful support of all the faithful, so that the Lord will enlighten the Church’s path. May the commitment of the Pastors and all the faithful grow in support of the difficult and onerous mission of the Successor of Peter the Apostle, who "watches over the unity" of the Church. (Note from the Secretary of State concerning the four Prelates of the Society of Saint Pius X (February 4, 2009)

 

Apart from the fact that Bishop Williamson's support of revisionist historical scholarship concerning the events of World War II was just as well known to "Cardinal" Ratzinger as was the reassignment of Father Peter Hullermann to parish work in the Archdiocese of Munich of Freising (see Fall Guys Aren't Usually Stand-Up Guys), it is interesting to note that the irreducible "minimum," to borrow a phrase from a former colleague of mine, for "inclusion" as a member of the One World Ecumenical Church of conciliarism is to accept without question the claims made about the events of World War II by those who have a vested interest in exploiting those claims to make sure that what they think is the Catholic Church will continue to distance itself from its "criminal past" of seeking to convert Jews and to teach that the Old Covenant was superseded by the New and Eternal Covenant instituted by Our Lord Himself at the Last Supper and ratified by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.

March 10: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI issues a Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre. This letter was discussed at length in Nothing New Under the Conciliar Sun. One salient feature of this March 10, 2009, letter was Ratzinger/Benedict's explicit expression of his desire to "break down" the "one-sidedness" of the Society of Saint Pius X in order to effect within its ranks the same sort of "transformation" or "pacification" that he noted with satisfaction and contentment had occurred in the other traditionally-minded communities (Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, Institute of the Good Shepherd, the Transalpine Redemptorists, etc.). How any layman attached to the Society of Saint Pius X cannot recognize that this is the real goal of the false "pontiff's" desire to effect "reconciliation" with the Society is beyond comprehension. Ratzinger/Benedict has stated this very, very explicitly:

 

Leading men and women to God, to the God Who speaks in the Bible: this is the supreme and fundamental priority of the Church and of the Successor of Peter at the present time. A logical consequence of this is that we must have at heart the unity of all believers. Their disunity, their disagreement among themselves, calls into question the credibility of their talk of God. Hence the effort to promote a common witness by Christians to their faith - ecumenism - is part of the supreme priority. Added to this is the need for all those who believe in God to join in seeking peace, to attempt to draw closer to one another, and to journey together, even with their differing images of God, towards the source of Light - this is inter-religious dialogue. Whoever proclaims that God is Love 'to the end' has to bear witness to love: in loving devotion to the suffering, in the rejection of hatred and enmity - this is the social dimension of the Christian faith, of which I spoke in the Encyclical 'Deus caritas est'.

So if the arduous task of working for faith, hope and love in the world is presently (and, in various ways, always) the Church's real priority, then part of this is also made up of acts of reconciliation, small and not so small. That the quiet gesture of extending a hand gave rise to a huge uproar, and thus became exactly the opposite of a gesture of reconciliation, is a fact which we must accept. But I ask now: Was it, and is it, truly wrong in this case to meet half-way the brother who 'has something against you' and to seek reconciliation? Should not civil society also try to forestall forms of extremism and to incorporate their eventual adherents - to the extent possible - in the great currents shaping social life, and thus avoid their being segregated, with all its consequences? Can it be completely mistaken to work to break down obstinacy and narrowness, and to make space for what is positive and retrievable for the whole? I myself saw, in the years after 1988, how the return of communities which had been separated from Rome changed their interior attitudes; I saw how returning to the bigger and broader Church enabled them to move beyond one-sided positions and broke down rigidity so that positive energies could emerge for the whole. Can we be totally indifferent about a community which has 491 priests, 215 seminarians, 6 seminaries, 88 schools, 2 university-level institutes, 117 religious brothers, 164 religious sisters and thousands of lay faithful? Should we casually let them drift farther from the Church? I think for example of the 491 priests. We cannot know how mixed their motives may be. All the same, I do not think that they would have chosen the priesthood if, alongside various distorted and unhealthy elements, they did not have a love for Christ and a desire to proclaim Him and, with Him, the living God. Can we simply exclude them, as representatives of a radical fringe, from our pursuit of reconciliation and unity? What would then become of them?

Certainly, for some time now, and once again on this specific occasion, we have heard from some representatives of that community many unpleasant things - arrogance and presumptuousness, an obsession with one-sided positions, etc. Yet to tell the truth, I must add that I have also received a number of touching testimonials of gratitude which clearly showed an openness of heart. But should not the great Church also allow herself to be generous in the knowledge of her great breadth, in the knowledge of the promise made to her? Should not we, as good educators, also be capable of overlooking various faults and making every effort to open up broader vistas? And should we not admit that some unpleasant things have also emerged in Church circles? At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them - in this case the Pope - he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint. Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre (March 10, 2009)

 

The "broader vistas" to which Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict was referring are none other than full acceptance of "false ecumenism," "inter-religious dialogue," "inter-religious prayer" services, episcopal collegiality, "religious liberty," "separation of Church and State, "the hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity," "the new ecclesiology," and, of course, the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service. One report from a few years ago indicated that Ratzinger/Benedict personally told a leader of the Society of Saint Pius X that he wanted the "new theologians" (himself, Karl Rahner, Henri de Lubac, Maurice Blondel, Hans Urs von Balthasar) taught in the Society's seminaries. "Broader vistas"? I report. You decide.

April 11: "Archbishop" Robert Zollitsch, the conciliar "archbishop" of Freiburg and Breisgau and the president of the conciliar German "Bishops'" Conference, denies in an interview that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that died on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday in atonement for our sins. He has gone without any word of public rebuke or censure from Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict in the ensuing three hundred seventy-seven days, making new headlines worldwide as a result of the statements he has made in response to the clerical scandals in the Federal Republic of Germany.

April 30: L'Osservatore Romano, the semi-official newspaper of the Vatican, publishes an editorial claiming that the first one hundred days of the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama were not as "radical" as had been feared. This was the first of a series of articles during 2009, none of which has been criticized by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, praising the likes of Karl Marx, Michael Jackson, John Lennon, The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Oscar Wilde, John Calvin, Martin Luther, the fictional Harry Potter, and Charles Darwin. (See Urbanely Accepting Evil, Yesterdays Evils, L'Osservatore Del Naturalista, L'Osservatore Marxista, L'Osservatore Occulto, L'Osservatore del Calvinista, Still Urbanely Accepting Evil, L'Osservatore Benedetto, L'Osservatore Di Tutte Le Cose Grezze, Big Pharm Trumps the Holy Cross and L'Osservatore Romano Di Infirmita Mentale.)

May 8-15: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI visits Jordan and Israel, making the following incredible statements while there:

Places of worship, like this splendid Al-Hussein Bin Talal mosque named after the revered late King, stand out like jewels across the earth’s surface. From the ancient to the modern, the magnificent to the humble, they all point to the divine, to the Transcendent One, to the Almighty. And through the centuries these sanctuaries have drawn men and women into their sacred space to pause, to pray, to acknowledge the presence of the Almighty, and to recognize that we are all his creatures. (Speech to Muslim religious leaders, members of the Diplomatic Corps and Rectors of universities in Jordan in front of the mosque al-Hussein bin Talal in Amman)

Ratzinger/Benedict at the Mosque Al-Hussin bin Talal, Amman, Jordan, Saturday, May 9, 2009.

 

I cordially thank the Grand Mufti, Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, together with the Director of the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, Sheikh Mohammed Azzam al-Khatib al-Tamimi, and the Head of the Awquaf Council, Sheikh Abdel Azim Salhab, for the welcome they have extended to me on your behalf. I am deeply grateful for the invitation to visit this sacred place, and I willingly pay my respects to you and the leaders of the Islamic community in Jerusalem. (Courtesy visit to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem at the Mount of the Temple, since when is a place of false worship "sacred" to the true God of Divine Revelation?)

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI entering the Dome of the Rock in Jersualem, Wednesday, May 12, 2009. Note that the false "pontiff" has taken off his shoes once again.

Saints gave up their lives rather than to give even the appearance of such apostasy.

 

God of all the ages, on my visit to Jerusalem, the “City of Peace”, spiritual home to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, I bring before you the joys, the hopes and the aspirations, the trials, the suffering and the pain of all your people throughout the world.

God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, hear the cry of the afflicted, the fearful, the bereft; send your peace upon this Holy Land, upon the Middle East, upon the entire human family; stir the hearts of all who call upon your name, to walk humbly in the path of justice and compassion.

“The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him” (Lam 3:25)! (Prayer at the Western Wall, May 12, 2009; one will note, of course, that there is not one reference to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.)

 

What's that about a picture being worth a thousand words?

 

An indication of the potential of this series of meetings is readily seen in our shared concern in the face of moral relativism and the offences it spawns against the dignity of the human person. In approaching the most urgent ethical questions of our day, our two communities are challenged to engage people of good will at the level of reason, while simultaneously pointing to the religious foundations which best sustain lasting moral values. May the dialogue that has begun continue to generate ideas on how Christians and Jews can work together to heighten society’s appreciation of the distinctive contribution of our religious and ethical traditions. Here in Israel, given that Christians constitute only a small portion of the total population, they particularly value opportunities for dialogue with their Jewish neighbors.

Trust is undeniably an essential element of effective dialogue. Today I have the opportunity to repeat that the Catholic Church is irrevocably committed to the path chosen at the Second Vatican Council for a genuine and lasting reconciliation between Christians and Jews. As the Declaration Nostra Aetate makes clear, the Church continues to value the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews and desires an ever deeper mutual understanding and respect through biblical and theological studies as well as fraternal dialogues. May the seven Bilateral Commission meetings which have already taken place between the Holy See and the Chief Rabbinate stand as evidence! I am thus grateful for your reciprocal assurance that the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Chief Rabbinate will continue to grow in respect and understanding in the future. (Courtesy visit to the two Chief Rabbis of Jerusalem at Hechal Shlomo Center in Jerusalem, May 12, 2009; for an elaboration on this topic, please see Respect Those Who Break the First Commandment? Respect Those Who Break the Fifth Commandment and Saint Peter and Anti-Peter.)

 

Wanna quick antidote to this apostasy? Back to Pope Leo XIII's Custodi Di Quella Fede once again:

Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God. (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)

 

May 17: Barack Hussein Obama is granted an honorary doctorate from the University of Notre Dame du Lac, Notre Dame, Indiana, after which he delivers the commencement address to that year's graduates of my own master's alma mater. The award granted to the pro-abortion Obama generates a storm of protest. Eighty-eight people on the grounds of Our Lady's university were arrested on the orders of the university's president,. "Father" John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. Father Jenkins has refused to show any leniency to the "Notre Dame 88." Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has yet to intervene through his "apostolic nuncio," "Archbishop" Pietro Sambi, to do urge Jenkins to do so. (Our Lady Does Not Honor Pro-Aborts, No "Common Ground" Between Truth and Error and Persecuting Those Who Defended Our Lady's Honor.)

June 5: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict endorses the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Benedict backs U.N. push to protect children). The "convention" is a thorough assault on the rights of parents and of the due subordination of children to them:

While all of these legal problems are caused by the nature of both our federal and state laws, a new threat to the family has loomed on the international horizon which, if not approached properly by the U.S. Government, may render fruitless any efforts to correct our laws--and may have the effect of extending the threat to families throughout the world. This is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was motivated by the thinking of, and drafted by, Western and Western-oriented "child-savers" and has now been widely ratified by nations around the world, some with reservations, although the U.S. Senate has not yet done so. A detailed discussion of the Convention is not possible here. We will merely quote from a letter the Society of Catholic Social Scientists sent to all the members of the Senate, urging a vote not to ratify. The letter was primarily drafted by political scientist and journalist Dr. Thomas A. Droleskey and contributed to by this writer (Dr. Stephen M. Krason, the President of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists):

It is clear that the Convention on the Rights of the Child seeks to subject parents to close bureaucratic supervision. Parents who do not educate or raise their children according to the dictates of the prevailing cultural trends will be subject to all kinds of civil and criminal penalties, if not the seizure of their children. This is a form of ideological totalitarianism.

Article 12 of the Convention states that children have the "right" to express their own views freely in all matters. All matters? Child-rearing? Discipline? The fact there are some self-appointed child advocates, such as Hillary Clinton, who believe that children as young as seven years of age can assert legal rights indicates that it would be possible under the Convention for grammar school students to sue their parents in order to express their views. This is absurd. Children are children. They need to learn about life. They need to respect their parents. They need to understand the virtues of humility and obedience, of submission to lawful authority. Also, of course, they will not be able to sue or otherwise oppose their parents on their own. The state will do it for them, with "child advocates" supplanting parents and deciding what is best for children.

Article 13 asserts that children have the right to receive all kinds of information through the "media of the child's choice." Parents concerned about protecting the purity and innocence of their children would be legally barred from censoring the television watched in the home, the movies their children choose to watch, and the books they choose to read. And those parents who do not have a television in their homes might be forced to secure one in order to respect their children's "right" to receive information. Is it overkill to point out that child pornography laws would be invalidated by this article of the Convention? Article 17 extends this "right" to national and international sources in the media.

Article 14 discusses the right of each child to freedom of religion. This appears, at first glance, to be praiseworthy. The article, however, contains an implicit threat to the rights of parents to raise their children. Can a child who does not want to receive religious education sue his parents for abuse because the parents refuse to honor the child's wishes? Can parents who tell their children to engage in family prayers be judged guilty of not respecting a child's freedom from religion? This is an attempt on the part of the secularists to free children from the influence of parents who desire to pass along transcendent truths to their children.

Article 16 immunizes children from any degree of parental censorship insofar as correspondence is concerned. While confidentiality is an important part of correspondence, parents nevertheless have to monitor the activities of their children, particularly those in the adolescent years. Can one seriously suggest that a parent has no right to determine if his child is being solicited by a pornographer or child molester? Does a parent have no right to determine if his child is receiving contraband drugs through the mail? This is absurd.

Article 18 seems likely to encourage the displacement of parents in raising their children by the state as it calls for the expansion in the state role in providing facilities to care for children.

Article 19 provides the basis for the establishment of dangerous, coercive state structures to track and pressure parents who violate the Convention’s notion of their children's "rights." In fact, Article 43 establishes perhaps the ultimate in distant, arrogant bureaucratic structures--an international committee of ten "experts" to oversee the progress of the Convention’s implementation. In other words, ten individuals will dictate to the hundreds of millions of parents in the world how to raise their children.

It appears as though Article 30, which guarantees a child the right to use his own language, might sanction the use of profanity. A parent would be powerless to tell his child to speak clearly and nobly, never using any vile language. And Article 31, giving children the "right to rest and leisure," would make it difficult for parents to command their children to do anything. All a child would have to do to avoid chores or assignments is to say that he is entitled to rest and leisure.  (http://www.catholicsocialscientists.org/Content/Organization/PDFs/chap9Krason.pdf; see also Kindred Spirit of the New World Order)

 

June 29 Ratzinger/Benedict issues Caritatis in Veritate, an "encyclical letter" in which he endorsed openly the concept of a "world political authority," one that would, of course, respect the principles of subsidiarity and national sovereignty, once again demonstrating that his fundamental rejection of Scholasticism has enveloped him in a world of such contradiction and paradox that he can't even see how his own ideas contradict each other in full violation of the principle of non-contradiction:

In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. This seems necessary in order to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago. Such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good, and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth. Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for right. Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums. Without this, despite the great progress accomplished in various sectors, international law would risk being conditioned by the balance of power among the strongest nations. The integral development of peoples and international cooperation require the establishment of a greater degree of international ordering, marked by subsidiarity, for the management of globalization. They also require the construction of a social order that at last conforms to the moral order, to the interconnection between moral and social spheres, and to the link between politics and the economic and civil spheres, as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations. (Caritas in veritate, June 29, 2009; see also Give Me Two Bayers, Please and Two More Bayers, Please.)

 

July 10: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI met in the Apostolic Palace with Barack Hussein Obama:

Pope Benedict XVI welcomed American President Barack Obama to the Vatican today, and the two discussed world issues addressed at the Group of Eight summit.

As they met, Mr Obama told the Pope: "It's a great honor; thank you so much."

The two sat down at a desk in the papal library and began discussing the G8 summit which concluded that morning in L'Aquila, Italy. The summit focused on the economic crisis, climate change and global tensions.

Pope Benedict told the president: "You must be tired after all these discussions."

The president replied that the meetings marked "great progress" and "something concrete". The private meeting lasted more than 30 minutes.

At the end of the meeting, Pope Benedict told the president: "A blessing on all your work and also for you." (Benedict XVI meets Obama - Catholic Herald Online; also see A "Blessing" on a Murderer and His Work.)

Two believers in one world governance.

 

July 24: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI expresses his admiration once again for at least part of the work of the late Jesuit evolutionist, Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. (see Revealing His Inner Teilhard Yet Again).

August 25: United States Senator Edward Moore Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, dies at the age of seventy-seven. He was permitted to die as a "Catholic" in "good standing" in the counterfeit church of concilairism despite his open, unrepentant support for the chemical and and surgical slaughter of innocent preborn babies and of perversity, among other evils. The same Sean "Cardinal" O'Malley who had vigorously condemned Bishop Richard Williamson, blaspheming God in the process by saying that the "holocaust" was the greatest crime in human history, concelebrated Kennedy's Novus Ordo "Mass of Christian Burial." Ratzinger/Benedict does nothing to stop this travesty. (See Another Victim of Americanism; Behold The Free Rein Given to Error; Behold The Free Rein Given to Error; Unfortunate Enough to Be A Baby; Unfortunate Enough to Be A Baby; Beacon of Social Justice?; Spotlight On The Ordinary; What's Good For Teddy Is Good For Benny; Sean O'Malley: Coward and Hypocrite: More Rationalizations and Distortions.)

October 9: Speaking in behalf of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, "papal" spokesflack "Father" Federico Lombardi, S.J., expressed "high hopes" upon learning that the pro-abortion Barack hussein Obama had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- News that U.S. President Barack Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was met with high hopes from the Vatican spokesman.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi told journalists Oct. 9 that the news "was greeted with appreciation at the Vatican in light of the president's demonstrated commitment to promoting peace on an international level and, in particular, in recently promoting nuclear disarmament."

"It is hoped that this very important recognition would offer greater encouragement for such a difficult but fundamental dedication to the future of humanity so that it may bring about the desired results," he said in a written statement.

The new U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, Miguel Diaz, told Vatican Radio that the president was being recognized for his efforts in working to build understanding between people and eliminate nuclear weapons from all parts of the world.

Winning the Nobel Peace Prize is a great encouragement to keep working toward building a better world, said Diaz.

He said that when he presented his credentials as the new U.S. ambassador Oct. 2, Pope Benedict XVI "made clear to me how grateful he was" that Obama was especially committed to ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

Bishops attending the Synod of Bishops for Africa also reacted to the selection of Obama.

Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta said it "clearly was an unexpected honor to come to the president" and he hopes that "it leaves an invitation for greatness."

"I hope in receiving the award, the president realizes and responds to the great challenge that has been placed before him," he told Catholic News Service Oct. 9.

"The world has sent a signal, at least insofar as the Nobel Prize is concerned, that it has high expectations for him and hopes he will live up to the energy and the positive things that he has thus far set on the world stage," said Archbishop Gregory.

Another synod participant, Archbishop Charles G. Palmer-Buckle of Accra, Ghana, was ecstatic and "overwhelmed that (Obama) won the Nobel Peace Prize," he told journalists Oct. 9.

"I would like the world to look at it as an encouragement, a motivation" to recognize the talents and potential of Africans and people of African descent, he said.

"Blacks are as talented as anyone else ... and I think the world is now coming face to face with the fact that if we are appreciated, we can give still more," said Archbishop Palmer-Buckle.

The archbishop told CNS that Obama "definitely deserves" the prize and that the U.S. leader is an inspiration.

He recalled Obama's visit to Ghana in July and how much he was moved by the president's encouragement for people to take destiny into their own hands.

"He told the youths, don't look to Europe, don't look to America for solutions to your problems. You can, yes, you can. And I think we've taken it up ... and we are going to do it," he said.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the U.S. president was chosen "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," it said Oct. 9.

Speaking at the White House later the same day, Obama said he was "surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel committee."

"Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations," he said. (Nobel Peace Prize to Obama greeted with praise, high hopes at Vatican; see also Figures of Antichrist Applauding Each Other.)

 

October 20: The conciliar Vatican announces that a "constitution" would be issued concerning the "reception" of Anglicans into the structures of its own counterfeit church. The actual constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus, issued on November 4, 2009, permits such "Anglo-Catholics" to retain liturgical rites that were deemed to be heretical by Pope Saint Pius V in Regnans in Excelsis, March 5, 1570. (See Defaming The English Martyrs and Still Defaming The English Martyrs.)

 

2010

January 17: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI commits yet another act of apostasy by entering into the Talmudic synagogue in Rome, Italy, saying that "Christians and Jews" pray to the same Lord, a blasphemy that has been condemned repeatedly by Holy Mother Church, including by Saint John Chrysostom:

(2) But at any rate the Jews say that they, too, adore God. God forbid that I say that. No Jew adores God! Who says so? The Son of God says so. For he said: "If you were to know my Father, you would also know me. But you neither know me nor do you know my Father". Could I produce a witness more trustworthy than the Son of God?

(3) If, then, the Jews fail to know the Father, if they crucified the Son, if they thrust off the help of the Spirit, who should not make bold to declare plainly that the synagogue is a dwelling of demons? God is not worshipped there. Heaven forbid! From now on it remains a place of idolatry. But still some people pay it honor as a holy place. (Saint John Chrysostom: Eight Homilies Against the Jews; see also Saint Peter and Anti-Peter.)

Rome Synagogue, Sunday, January 17, 2010.

 

January 20: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI praised the 1910 "World Missionary Conference" that took place in Edinburgh, Scotland, that began the modern "ecumenical" movement that was condemned by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928. (Getting Bolder In His Apostasy.)

March 14: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI enters a Lutheran "church" in Rome, listening to the "sermon" given by the Lutheran minister, saying when it was his turn to speak that "I think we should first be thankful that there is so much unity. It's nice that we can pray together today, sing the same hymns together, hear the same word of God together, that we can interpret and try to understand it together." Unity? Yes, he is one with his fellow Lutherans on many points. (See Unity Among Lutherans; a video of this appearance can be viewed by clicking on ROME REPORTS TV News Agency - The Catholic and Lutheran.)

Obviously, Ratzinger/Benedict has had his hands full in the past few months with "damage" control over the continuing explosion of stories of clerical abuse in one country after another, including his own mismanagement of the case of the aforementioned Father Peter Hullermann. (See Waterloo For Benedict?, Always Evading Root Causes, Swinging Clubs To Protect The Club, Surely He Jests, "Canonizing" A Man Who Protected Moral Derelicts, More Than A Matter of Legality, Dario Castrillon Hoyos, Meet Pope Saint Pius V and "Fall Guys" Aren't Usually "Stand-Up Guys". You can also listen to Scandal In a Church of Apostasy.WMA.)

As noted earlier, this has not been anything close to a comprehensive list of the things for which Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI should be apologizing to God. This list--and its documentary links--has been compiled so as to help provide something of an overview of how God has been offended so much in the person of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI just in the five years since his "election" to replace Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II in the "chair" of conciliarism in a Rome that indeed has become the seat of apostasy as Our Lady of La Salette prophesied.

 

The Catholic Church can never give us any liturgy that is in any way defective or that is an incentive to impiety or that can be used a means of institutionalizing gross offenses to God. Who says so? The Council of Trent:

CANON VII.--If any one saith, that the ceremonies, vestments, and outward signs, which the Catholic Church makes use of in the celebration of masses, are incentives to impiety, rather than offices of piety; let him be anathema. (Session Twenty-Two, Chapter IX, Canon VII, Council of Trent, September 17, 1562, CT022.)

 

The Catholic Church cannot be stained by any taint of error, as pope after pope has taught us:

As for the rest, We greatly deplore the fact that, where the ravings of human reason extend, there is somebody who studies new things and strives to know more than is necessary, against the advice of the apostle. There you will find someone who is overconfident in seeking the truth outside the Catholic Church, in which it can be found without even a light tarnish of error. Therefore, the Church is called, and is indeed, a pillar and foundation of truth. You correctly understand, venerable brothers, that We speak here also of that erroneous philosophical system which was recently brought in and is clearly to be condemned. This system, which comes from the contemptible and unrestrained desire for innovation, does not seek truth where it stands in the received and holy apostolic inheritance. Rather, other empty doctrines, futile and uncertain doctrines not approved by the Church, are adopted. Only the most conceited men wrongly think that these teachings can sustain and support that truth. (Pope Gregory XVI, Singulari Nos, May 25, 1834.)

Just as Christianity cannot penetrate into the soul without making it better, so it cannot enter into public life without establishing order. With the idea of a God Who governs all, Who is infinitely Wise, Good, and Just, the idea of duty seizes upon the consciences of men. It assuages sorrow, it calms hatred, it engenders heroes. If it has transformed pagan society--and that transformation was a veritable resurrection--for barbarism disappeared in proportion as Christianity extended its sway, so, after the terrible shocks which unbelief has given to the world in our days, it will be able to put that world again on the true road, and bring back to order the States and peoples of modern times. But the return of Christianity will not be efficacious and complete if it does not restore the world to a sincere love of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate. It identifies Itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption. It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of Its blood, and strong in the Divine assistance and of that immortality which has been promised it, It makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the commands which  it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity. Legitimate dispenser of the teachings of the Gospel it does not reveal itself only as the consoler and Redeemer of souls, but It is still more the internal source of justice and charity, and the propagator as well as the guardian of true liberty, and of that equality which alone is possible here below. In applying the doctrine of its Divine Founder, It maintains a wise equilibrium and marks the true limits between the rights and privileges of society. The equality which it proclaims does not destroy the distinction between the different social classes. It keeps them intact, as nature itself demands, in order to oppose the anarchy of reason emancipated from Faith, and abandoned to its own devices. The liberty which it gives in no wise conflicts with the rights of truth, because those rights are superior to the demands of liberty. Not does it infringe upon the rights of justice, because those rights are superior to the claims of mere numbers or power. Nor does it assail the rights of God because they are superior to the rights of humanity. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)

For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

 

Please note that Pope Gregory XVI wrote that the truth can be found in the Catholic Church without "even a slight tarnish of error."

Please note that Pope Leo XIII stressed that the Catholic Church "makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the command which it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity."

Please note that that Pope Pius XI explained that the Catholic Church brings forth her teaching "with ease and security to the knowledge of men."

Anyone who says that this has been done by the counterfeit church of concilairism, which has made its "reconciliation" with the false principles of Modernity that leave no room for the confessionally Catholic civil state and the Social Reign of Christ the King, is not thinking too clearly (and that is as about as charitably as I can put the matter). If the conciliar church has brought forth its teaching "with ease and security to the knowledge of men," why is there such disagreement even between the "progressive" conciliarists and "conservative" conciliarists concerning the proper "interpretation" of the "Second" Vatican Council and its aftermath? Or does this depend upon what one means by "ease and security"?

Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki, CMRI, explained in Tumultuous Times that the Catholic Church can never give us "novelties" of any kind, no less those that have been institutionalized by the counterfeit church of conciliarism:

A legitimate pope cannot contradict or deny what was first taught by Christ to His Church. An essential change in belief constitutes the establishment of a new religion.

The attribute of infallibility was given to the popes in order that the revealed doctrines and teaching of Christ would remain forever intact and unchanged. It is contrary to faith and reason to blindly follow an alleged pope who attempts to destroy the Catholic Faith--for there have been 41 documented antipopes. Papal infallibility means that the Holy Ghost guides and preserves the Catholic Church from error through the succession of legitimate popes who have ruled the Church through the centuries. All Catholics, including Christ's Vicar on earth, the pope, must accept all the doctrinal pronouncements of past popes. These infallible teachings form a vital link between Christ and St. Peter and his successors.

If a pope did not accept and believe this entire body of formulated teachings (the Deposit of Faith), he could not himself be a Catholic. He would cease to belong to Christ's Church. If he no longer belongs to the Catholic Church, he cannot be her Head. (Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki, CMRI, Tumultuous Times, p. 274.)

"Do not be misled by various and passing doctrines. In the Catholic Church Herself we must be careful to hold what has been believed everywhere, always and by all; for that alone is truly and properly Catholic." (Saint Vincent of Lerins, quoted in Tumultuous Times by Frs. Francisco and Dominic Radecki, CMRI, p. 279.)

 

The "traditions" to which Ratzinger/Benedict has show his steadfast fidelity are from Hell. They are from the devil, who inspired the conciliar revolution just as he inspired the Protestant Revolution (and every false religion, including that quintessentially Americanist sect of the devil, Mormonism) and the various social revolutions of Modernity.

While each person must come to recognize this for himself (it took me long enough to do so!), we must nevertheless embrace the truth once we do come to recognize and accept it without caring for one moment what anyone else may think about us.

We must ask Our Lady to overcome the torments of the devil in our own days of the apostasy and betrayal wrought by the conciliarists, revolutionaries who have set believing Catholics against believing Catholics almost as never before in the history of the Catholic Church.

The hour is late. Figures of Antichrist walk among us in the realm of civil government and pose, albeit falsely, as leaders of the Catholic Church. We must be about the business of making reparation for our sins and those of the whole world as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary according to the formula of Saint Louis de Montfort. Every Rosary we pray can help to plant a few seeds for the resurrection of the Church Militant on earth and for the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King.

What are we waiting for? Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon.

 

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

 

Our Lady of Fatima, 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.

Saint George, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints