[26] For among my people are found wicked men, that lie in wait as fowlers, setting snares and traps to catch men. [27] As a net is full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit: therefore are they become great and enriched. [28] They are grown gross and fat: and have most wickedly transgressed my words. They have not judged the cause of the widow, they have not managed the cause of the fatherless, they have not judged the judgement of the poor. [29] Shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? or shall not my soul take revenge on such a nation? [30] Astonishing and wonderful things have been done in the land.
[31] The prophets prophesied falsehood, and the priests clapped their hands: and my people loved such things: what then shall be done in the end thereof? (Jeremias 5: 26-31.)
That old conciliar fowler, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, continues to lay more snares and traps to neutralize what little opposition remains amongst Catholics attached to the structures of his counterfeit church of conciliarism to whom he has made "generous concessions" regarding "legally approved" stagings of the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition. The latest trap comes in the form of yet another "instruction" to clarify the "proper" implementation of Summorum Pontificum, which was issued on July 7, 2007. It is thus important, as I see it, to take apart the machinery of the snares and traps contained in this new "instruction" by providing a summary of what has happened in the past twenty-six and one-half years since that motu proprio was issued a prelude to examining the selected provisions contained within its text.
It is necessary, though, to take some care to do this. Readers of this site know that I am committed to the examination of contemporary problems, both civil and ecclesiastical, by attempting to explain their root causes, both remote and proximate. As the new "instruction" issued by William "Cardinal" Levada, the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the president of the "Pontifical" Commission Ecclesia Dei, governing the implementation of Summorum Pontificum is, like so many other Vatican "clarifications" in the past fifty years, a rehash of the terms of the original document and of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's explanatory letter that accompanied it, although it does contain some new twists and turns as conciliar traps of this sort usually do, this part of my four part series seeks to provide a comprehensive overview that will help readers to avoid falling into the snare and the traps laid for them by that old conciliar fowler from Germany.
A Trap From the Very Beginning
The first trap that was laid on July 7, 2007, with the issuance of Summorum Pontificum, has turned out to be nothing other than a Trojan Horse filled with various schemes to "update" and "revise" the Missal issued by Angelo Roncalli/John XXIIII in 1961 that was revised in 1962 with the insertion of the name of Saint Joseph into the Roman Canon (for a summary of the changes reflected in the "Liturgy of John XXIII, see Bishop Daniel Dolan's The Pius X and John XXIII Missals Compared and Father Francesco Ricossa's Liturgical Revolution). It was almost immediately upon the issuance of Summorum Pontificum that Talmudists began to demand that the false "pontiff" prohibit or revise the Good Friday Prayer for the Jews that had been changed three times previously, something that Bishop Donald Sanborn noted in Genuflecting to the Jews, February 25, 2008:
(1) 1955: Genuflection Introduced. In 1955, there was a major revision of the rites of Holy Week, engineered and designed by none other than the author of the New Mass, Annibale Bugnini.
Among other things, a genuflection was inserted in the prayer for the conversion of the Jews. This was probably the first time, in the entire history of the Church, that a rite of the Church was influenced by a“sensitivity” to non-Catholics.
(2) 1959: “Faithless” Removed. In 1959, the word faithless was removed from the prayer by John XXIII.
In Latin the word is perfidis, which transliterates, but does not translate, into perfidious. I emphasize the fact that it merely transliterates, which means that it looks very similar to the English word perfidious, but that the Latin does not carry the meaning of the English word perfidious. Pope Pius XII had been urged by Eugenio Maria Zolli, formerly Israel Zolli and chief Rabbi of Rome before converting to Catholicism in 1945, to remove the word “perfidis” from the Good Friday prayer for the Jews:
For some time the ex-Chief Rabbi and the reigning Pope spoke privately. Zolli later told Dezza [the priest, later Cardinal, who baptized [Zolli] that he had entreated the pontiff to remove references in the solemn Good Friday liturgy to “perfidious Jews,” Pius refused to do so and explained to Zolli that the adjective “perfidious” which is ordinarily defined as “deliberately faithless” or “treacherous” or “deceitful” actually meant “incredulous” in the context of the Catholic prayers.1
This is the John XXIII prayer, which is contained in the 1962 Missal:
Let us pray also for the Jews: that almighty God may remove the veil from their hearts; so that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let us pray. Let us kneel. Arise.
Almighty and eternal God, who dost also not exclude from Thy mercy the Jews: hear our prayers, which we offer for the blindness of that people; that acknowledging the light of Thy truth, which is Christ, they may be delivered from their darkness. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen. (Bishop Donald Sanborn, Genuflecting to the Jews, February 25, 2008.)
Far from maintaining the Catholic Faith, as the conciliar revolutionaries keep insisting, the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service, as will noted in summary form later as much has been written on this site about it, expresses a different faith, a synthetic or man-made faith that is the antithesis of Catholicism, although it has "elements" of it. Bishop Sanborn's description noted that the 1970 Prayer for the Jews in the Novus Ordo omitted any reference whatsoever to conversion:
(3) 1970: “Conversion” Goes. In 1970, Paul VI abolished the traditional prayer entirely, and substituted this prayer, which appears in the 1970 Novus Ordo Missal:
Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, that they may continue to grow in the love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant.
(Prayer in silence.) Then the priest says:
Almighty and eternal God, long ago you gave your promise to Abraham and his posterity. Listen to your Church as we pray that the people you first made your own may arrive at the fullness of redemption.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
It should be noted that in the 1970 Missal all reference to the conversion of the Jews is removed. The prayer clearly states that they can achieve the “fullness of redemption” by merely continuing “to grow in the love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant.” So despite the fact that they deny Christ, they are described as loving the name of God and as being faithful to His covenant. Such statements blatantly contradict the holy gospels and the epistles of Saint Paul. Indeed, it is raw blasphemy. (Bishop Donald Sanborn, Genuflecting to the Jews, February 25, 2008.)
Accustoming Traditionally-Minded Catholics in the Conciliar Structures to the Novus Ordo's Spirit of Change and Impermanence
Ratzinger/Benedict's revision of the Prayer for the Jews was just one change, however, that has taken place for traditionally-minded Catholics who are attached to the counterfeit church of conciliarism. There has been, at least in some dioceses, a little bit of "creep," shall we say, as such Novus Ordo practices as altar girls, "extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist," and reception of what purports to be Communion in the hand have become accepted in stagings of the Motu. More significant changes are forthcoming, changes were anticipated in Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's Explanatory Letter of it:
It is true that there have been exaggerations and at times social aspects unduly linked to the attitude of the faithful attached to the ancient Latin liturgical tradition. Your charity and pastoral prudence will be an incentive and guide for improving these. For that matter, the two Forms of the usage of the Roman Rite can be mutually enriching: new Saints and some of the new Prefaces can and should be inserted in the old Missal. The “Ecclesia Dei” Commission, in contact with various bodies devoted to the usus antiquior, will study the practical possibilities in this regard. The celebration of the Mass according to the Missal of Paul VI will be able to demonstrate, more powerfully than has been the case hitherto, the sacrality which attracts many people to the former usage. The most sure guarantee that the Missal of Paul VI can unite parish communities and be loved by them consists in its being celebrated with great reverence in harmony with the liturgical directives. This will bring out the spiritual richness and the theological depth of this Missal. (Letter to the "Bishops" that accompanies the Motu Proprio Summorum)
Ratzinger/Benedict meant meant every word of this, something that Dario "Cardinal" Castrillon Hoyos, then the President of "Pontifical" Commission Ecclesia Dei, emphasized when addressing the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales on June 14, 2008:
Let me say this plainly: the Holy Father wants the ancient use of the Mass to become a normal occurrence in the liturgical life of the Church so that all of Christ’s faithful – young and old – can become familiar with the older rites and draw from their tangible beauty and transcendence. The Holy Father wants this for pastoral reasons as well as for theological ones. In his letter accompanying Summorum Pontificum Pope Benedict wrote that:
"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."
3. This brings me to my third point. You are rightly convinced that the usus antiquior is not a museum piece, but a living expression of Catholic worship. If it is living, we must also expect it to develop. Our Holy Father is also of this conviction. As you know, he chose motu proprio – that is on his own initiative – to alter the text of the prayer pro Iudæis in the Good Friday liturgy. The intention of the prayer was in no way weakened, but a formulation was provided which respected sensitivities.
Likewise, as you also know, Summorum Pontificum has also provided for the Liturgy of the Word to be proclaimed in the vernacular without being first read by the celebrant in Latin. Today’s Pontifical Mass, of course, will have the readings solemnly chanted in Latin, but for less solemn celebrations the Liturgy of the Word may be proclaimed directly in the language of the people. This is already a concrete instance of what our Holy Father wrote in his letter accompanying the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum:
"the two Forms of the usage of the Roman Rite can be mutually enriching: new Saints and some of the new Prefaces can and should be inserted in the old Missal. The “Ecclesia Dei” Commission, in contact with various bodies devoted to the usus antiquior, will study the practical possibilities in this regard."
Naturally we will be happy for your input in this important matter. I simply ask you not to be opposed in principle to the necessary adaptation which our Holy Father has called for.
This brings me to another important point. I am aware that the response of the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” with regard to the observance of Holy Days of obligation has caused a certain amount of disturbance in some circles. It should be noted that the dates of these Holy Days remain the same in both the Missal of 1962 and the Missal of 1970. When the Holy See has given the Episcopal Conference of a given country permission to move certain Holy Days to the following Sunday, this should be observed by all Catholics in that country. Nothing prevents the celebration of the Feast of the Ascension, for example, on the prior Thursday, but it should be clear that this is not a Mass of obligation and that the Mass of the Ascension should also be celebrated on the following Sunday. This is a sacrifice which I ask you to make with joy as a sign of your unity with the Catholic Church in your country. (http://thenewliturgicalmovement.blogspot.com.)
Far from representing a "liberalization" of the "old Mass," Summorum Pontificum was and remains a liberalizing trap that permits what was prohibited in the text of the first Vatican "indult," issued on October 3, 1984, Quattuor Abhinc Annos , and reaffirmed in Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II's Ecclesia Dei ad afflicta motu proprio, July 2, 1988, that there was to be no "mixing of the two rites." Consider the difference between Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II's Quattuor Abhinc Annos and the reiteration of the points made by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's letter to explain Summorum Pontificum and last year by the current secretary of the Ecclesia Dei commission, "Monsignor" Guido Pozzo:
a) That it be made publicly clear beyond all ambiguity that such priests and their respective faithful in no way share the positions of those who call in question the legitimacy and doctrinal exactitude of the Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1970.
b) Such celebration must be made only for the benefit of those groups that request it; in churches and oratories indicated by the bishop (not, however, in parish churches, unless the bishop permits it in extraordinary cases); and on the days and under the conditions fixed by the bishop either habitually or in individual cases.
c) These celebrations must be according to the 1962 Missal and in Latin.
d) There must be no interchanging of texts and rites of the two Missals.
e) Each bishop must inform this Congregation of the concessions granted by him, and at the end of a year from the granting of this indult, he must report on the result of its application. (Quattuor abhinc annos, October 3, 1984.)
Q: Pope Benedict wishes that both forms of the Roman Rite should enrich each other, but without mixing. What can the old liturgy “learn” from the new?
A. “Firstly, in the motu proprio’s accompanying letter to the bishops, Pope Benedict mentions on the one hand the necessity of updating the calendar of saints: that is, incorporating those saints canonised after 1962; and on the other the inclusion of certain prefaces from the missal of Paul VI., in order to enrich the collection of prefaces in the missal of 1962. The Commission Ecclesia Dei has initiated a programme of studies in order to fulfil the will of the Holy Father. We will soon come, I think, to a suggestion which will shortly be laid before the Holy Father for approval. I believe that one must also recognise that the ordinary form of the Roman Rite offers more extensive readings from the Holy Scriptures than the missal of 1962. Nevertheless, a change in this direction in the missal of 1962 is not easy, because one must always have in view the relationship between the individual scriptural readings and the antiphons or responsories in the Roman Breviary for the relevant day. We must also recall, though, that under Pope Pius XII a range of complementary readings for the commons of saints was added. Thus, one cannot exclude an eventual expansion even in the readings for Mass. That does not mean that, as the celebrating priest or the bishop, one can subjectively and arbitrarily change the order of the lectionary, or mix the two forms, such that the distinctiveness in each is lost.” (Interview with Ecclesia Dei Secretary - Full Text)
What "Monsignor" Pozzo did not mention in this interview last year is that while "bishops" and priests/presbyters cannot change the readings in the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition promulgated in 1961 and 1962 by Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII, "bishops" have petitioned "Pontifical" Commission Ecclesia Dei to do so. Yes, the first president of the commission, the late Paul Augustin "Cardinal" Mayer, with whom I met many times during my trips to Rome in the 1980s and 1990s, gave permission for the use of the Novus Ordo readings in "indult" Masses even though the first "indult," Quattuor abhinc annos, cited just above, insisted "There must be no interchanging of texts and rites of the two Missals." Nothing is stable, nothing is permanent in the land of conciliarism.
You doubt my word that this is true, that officials in the conciliar Vatican contradict themselves all of the time, sometimes even in mid-sentence? Well, consider that the new "instruction" issued by William "Cardinal" Levada in his capacity as the conciliar prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and as the president of "Pontifical" Commission of Ecclesia Dei re-emphasizes the "pope's" desire to incorporate some of the Novus Ordo prefaces and feasts of the saints "beatified" and "canonized" by the conciliar "popes" into the offerings of the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass by priests and presbyters acting within the constraints of Summorum Pontificum and its oversight by the Ecclesia Dei Commission:
25. New saints and certain of the new prefaces can and ought to be inserted into the 1962 Missal, according to provisions which will be indicated subsequently. (Instruction on the Implementation of Summorum Pontificum, April 30, 2011.)
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI means to use this provision of the new instruction, taken directly from his 2007 explanatory letter of Summorum Pontificum, as the Trojan Horse to bring the Missal of 1961/1962 ever closer to the "ordinary form" of the conciliar version of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service. That veritable Keystone Cops of spinmeister, "Father" Federico Lombardi, S.J., has stressed the fact that "Pontifical" Commission Ecclesia Dei will indeed be "editing" "any eventual of the liturgical texts" for the Motu Mass at some point:
A brief Section of the document (nn. 9-11) recalls the duties and powers of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, upon whom the Pope has "conferred ordinary vicarious power" in the matter. This implies two very important consequences, among others. First, the Commission may decide on appeals that are filed against any action by bishops or other ordinary, which seem contrary to the provisions of the Motu proprio (subject to the possibility of further appeal against the Commission’s decisions at the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura ). In addition, the Commission must, with the approval of the Congregation for Divine Worship, edit any eventual edition of liturgical texts for the forma extraordinaria of the Roman Rite (in the document hope is expressed for the inclusion of new saints and new prefaces, for example). ("Father" Federico Lombardi's explanatory note.)
The new instruction has several footnoted references to none other than--guess what?--Ratzinger/Benedict's own July 7, 2007, Letter to the "Bishops" that accompanies the Motu Proprio Summorum. It is impossible to find any document of the Catholic Church to justify such a regime of ceaseless, revolutionary change. This is the case because the Catholic Church never changed the liturgy of the Roman Rite with regularity, no less as ceaselessly as has been done with the conciliar revolutionaries, men who have used the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service as the means by which the sensus Catholicus of Catholics, which inclines them to resist change and novelty and impermanence as being antithetical to the Catholic Faith, could be broken down. and thus replaced by the "guidance" offered them by so-called "experts."
Destroying the Sensus Catholicus with Non-Catholic Worship
These "experts" are none other than open liturgical revolutionaries, men and women who are quite adept at the use of all manner of both high-power and very subtle psychological warfare to convince Catholics that what existed in the past was "bad" and "harmful," that the "new liturgy" has "liberated" them to engage in a spirit of "full, active and conscious participation" that they had never experienced before. It was essential to break down the sensus Catholicus of older Catholics, particularly in the 1960s (although the seeds of the revolution were planted in the 1950s, to be sure), in order to "clear the field," if you will, for future generations of Catholics to accept uncritically and without question the conciliar doctrinal agenda (false ecumenism, separation of Church and State, religious liberty, episcopal collegiality, the new ecclesiology, a "new" understanding of dogmatic truth) that the liturgical revolution was designed to teach and then institutionalize.
The spirit of revolutionary change, although evident with the liturgical changes engineered by Fathers Ferdinando Antonelli, O.F.M., and Annibale Bugnini, C.M., in the 1950s, that began in earnest under Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII in 1960 and reached their crescendo under its "papal" patron and guide, Giovanni Montini/Paul VI, who issued the Ordo Missae in 1964 to take the place of the Missal that was promulgated by Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII in 1961 and 1962.
Consider yet again this wonderful piece of evidence, provided to me by Father William Jenkins of the Society of Saint Pius V in 2006, of how the revolutionaries sought to "teach" the "ignorant" sheep as to how to accept the changes that were coming their way without complaint:
Today is the First Sunday of Advent and the beginning of the Church's new liturgical year. Today we begin our "New Liturgy". Beginning today many parts of Holy Mass will be said in English. We ask each of you to do your very best to join the priest in the prayers of the Mass. Leaflets with the official text of these prayers were given most of your last Sunday. (For those of you who were unable to obtain your copies last Sunday, you may obtain one at the bulletin stands today.) For the Masses with singing (including the 9:45 a.m. High Mass), you are asked to use the cards found in the pews. Kindly stand, sit and kneel, according to the directions on your leaflet or the card. At the Masses today, seminarians will be on hand to help and guide you in this new participation. We wish to thank Msgr. Schneider, Rector of Mt. St. Mary's Seminary, for his kindness in sending us his students; and also the young men themselves for their generosity in helping us. We know that it will take a while (perhaps even months) before we have this new method of participating in Holy Mass perfected; we earnestly ask each one to cooperate loyally and faithfully to the best of his or her ability to make the public worship of God in St. Matthew Parish a true and worthy "sacrifice of praise." [Historical note: the Mount Saint Mary's Seminary referred to in the bulletin was known as Mount Saint Mary's Seminary of the West, located in Norwood, Ohio.]
What had been accepted calmly by most Catholics in England over 400 years before was accepted calmly by most Catholics in the United States of America in the 1960s and thereafter. The revolutionaries accustomed Catholics to what they had theretofore been unaccustomed to: ceaseless change and unpredictability as institutionalized features of a parish's liturgical life. The "few months" of adjustment noted in the bulletin announcement above has become four and one-half decades of ceaseless, unremitting liturgical change, which has played its role in accustoming Catholics to changes in matters of Faith and morals. Catholics who become accustomed to ever-changing forms of prayer in what purports to be the Mass, which must convey the permanence and the immutability and the majesty of the Blessed Trinity Himself, will come to expect all too logically that everything in the Faith is "up for grabs," that nothing is permanent, not even God Himself.
Want to get rid of the Catholic Faith in a flash? Change the liturgy. It worked in Germany with Martin Luther. It worked in Geneva with John Calvin. It worked in England with Thomas Cranmer and Elizabeth I It worked in Scotland with John Knox. It worked in the lives of most Catholics in the wake of the "Second" Vatican Council.
A quote from Giovanni Montini/Paul VI in this regard was included in the aforementioned Saint Matthew's Church bulletin the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, July 4, 1965:
The Liturgical reform affects habits that are dear to us; it demands of us some effort. We may not relish this, but we must be docile and have trust. The religious and spiritual plan unfolded before us by the new liturgical constitution is a stupendous one for death and authenticity of doctrine, for rationality of Christian logic, for purity and riches of culture and art. It corresponds to the interior being and needs of modern man.
Ah, yes, the "needs of modern man." Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI was a thorough believer in Modernism's condemned presuppositions about the "necessity" of tailoring the Faith for "modern" man, heedless of the fact that man's authentic "needs" never change. They are as unchanging as God Himself. Each man needs, no matter what era of salvation history in which he lives, to be a Catholic, to submit to the truths revealed by Our Lord to His Holy Church, to cooperate on a daily basis with the graces won for us by the shedding of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross, to surrender himself to God through Mary Immaculate. There are no "modern" needs for man. He needs the security and the stability and the certainty provided by the Catholic Faith, not ambiguity, uncertainty, confusion, instability, impermanence and disarray.
Indeed, Pope Pius XI wrote in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928, that the Catholic Church brings forth the teaching that her Divine Bridegroom and Invisible Head, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, has entrusted to her with "ease and security:"
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.
Can any truthful, honest person say that the "Second" Vatican Council and the conciliar "popes" have brought forth their teaching with "ease and security to the knowledge of men"?
Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI's mind about "modern" man is reflected perfectly in the mind of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Their perception of the Church and the world is identical. And this perception of the Church and the world just happened to be condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, and by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950. The Modernist always justifies his advertence to novelty by claiming to suit the needs of "modern" man, creating ambiguity out of certainty, complexity out of simplicity, contradiction out of truth.
Pope Saint Pius X noted this in Pascendi Dominici Gregis:
One of the primary obligations assigned by Christ to the office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord's flock is that of guarding with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and the gainsaying of knowledge falsely so called. There has never been a time when this watchfulness of the supreme pastor was not necessary to the Catholic body, for owing to the efforts of the enemy of the human race, there have never been lacking "men speaking perverse things," "vain talkers and seducers," "erring and driving into error." It must, however, be confessed that these latter days have witnessed a notable increase in the number of the enemies of the Cross of Christ, who, by arts entirely new and full of deceit, are striving to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, as far as in them lies, utterly to subvert the very Kingdom of Christ. Wherefore We may no longer keep silence, lest We should seem to fail in Our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, We have hitherto shown them, should be set down to lack of diligence in the discharge of Our office.
That We should act without delay in this matter is made imperative especially by the fact that the partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church's open enemies; but, what is to be most dreaded and deplored, in her very bosom, and are the more mischievous the less they keep in the open. We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many who belong to the Catholic laity, and, what is much more sad, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, animated by a false zeal for the Church, lacking the solid safeguards of philosophy and theology, nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, put themselves forward as reformers of the Church; and, forming more boldly into line of attack, assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the Person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious audacity, they degrade to the condition of a simple and ordinary man. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
These truths were lost on Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII and Giovanni Montini/Paul VI and Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. They are lost on Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI who had a professor in seminary who was so enraged by Pope Pius XII's condemnation of the "new theology" in Humani Generis that he, the professor, threw his books onto the floor of his living room after a class in 1950. Pope Pius XII's words, however, apply to the minds of each of the conciliar "popes" and their contempt for the Faith as It has been handed down to us through the ages under the infallible guidance and protection of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost:
These new opinions, whether they originate from a reprehensible desire of novelty or from a laudable motive, are not always advanced in the same degree, with equal clarity nor in the same terms, nor always with unanimous agreement of their authors. Theories that today are put forward rather covertly by some, not without cautions and distinctions, tomorrow are openly and without moderation proclaimed by others more audacious, causing scandal to many, especially among the young clergy and to the detriment of ecclesiastical authority. Though they are usually more cautious in their published works, they express themselves more openly in their writings intended for private circulation and in conferences and lectures. Moreover, these opinions are disseminated not only among members of the clergy and in seminaries and religious institutions, but also among the laity, and especially among those who are engaged in teaching youth.
In theology some want to reduce to a minimum the meaning of dogmas; and to free dogma itself from terminology long established in the Church and from philosophical concepts held by Catholic teachers, to bring about a return in the explanation of Catholic doctrine to the way of speaking used in Holy Scripture and by the Fathers of the Church. They cherish the hope that when dogma is stripped of the elements which they hold to be extrinsic to divine revelation, it will compare advantageously with the dogmatic opinions of those who are separated from the unity of the Church and that in this way they will gradually arrive at a mutual assimilation of Catholic dogma with the tenets of the dissidents. (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)
The Ordo Missae of 1964-1965, which abolished the recitation of the Judica me (Psalm 42), the Last Gospel, which had been a custom of priests of the Roman Rite from the time of the Twelfth Century and had been mandated by Pope Saint Pius V in 1570, the Prayers after Low Mass, which had been optional by Roncalli/John XXIII in 1961, presaged a new religion, conciliarism that sought to make what was represented as the Catholic liturgy acceptable in the eyes of Protestants, something that Giovanni Montini/Paul VI admitted to his longtime friend Jean Guitton:
"[T]he intention of Pope Paul VI with regard to what is commonly called the Mass, was to reform the Catholic liturgy in such a way that it should coincide with the Protestant liturgy.... [T]here was with Pope Paul VI an ecumenical intention to remove, or at least to correct, or at least to relax, what was too Catholic in the traditional sense, in the Mass, and I, repeat, to get the Catholic Mass closer to the Calvinist mass" (Dec. 19, 1993), Apropos, #17, pp. 8f; quoted in Christian Order, October, 1994. (Jean Guitton, a close friend of Giovanni Montini/Paul VI. The quotation and citations are found in Christopher A. Ferrara and Thomas E. Woods, Jr., The Great Facade, The Remnant Publishing Company, 2002, p. 317.)
Behold the results of fifty-six years of a continuing liturgical revolution that has confused and bewildered Catholics as God Himself has been profaned in his formerly Catholic churches day in and day out.
High altars have been smashed in a manner that would have delighted the likes of John Calvin and Oliver Cromwell.
Tables have replaced altars in many conciliar churches, emphasizing the liturgy as a "community meal," not as the unbloody re-presentation of Our Lord's one Sacrifice of Himself to His Co-Equal and Co-Eternal Father in Spirit and in Truth in atonement for our sins.
The sacred music of the Catholic Church has been replaced with the profanity of songs composed to propagandize in behalf of the new religion.
The architecture of many of the newer conciliar churches reflects an ugliness and sterility evocative of Puritanism and rank paganism, conveying also a Calvinist-Americanist ethos of egalitarianism. This is especially the case with Roger "Cardinal" Mahony's two hundred million dollar monstrosity on the Hollywood Freeway in Los Angeles, California, as I reported in The Remnant in its January 31, 2003, issue, I believe.
"Papal" liturgies have been used to promote the falsehood known as the "inculturation of the Gospel" to permit outrages theretofore unknown in the history of the Church that would have made even the Arians and the Donatists and Novatians blanche. "Archbishop" Piero Marini, a direct acolyte of Annibale Bugnini and longtime "papal" master of ceremonies under Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II admitted in 2003 that he had used the "papal" extravaganza liturgical services as prototypes that could be used by local diocesan officials as models to follow in their efforts to implement the "inculturation of the Gospel" in accordance with terms Paragraphs 395-397 of the General Instruction to the Roman Missal.
The loss of the sacred on the part of many Catholics who have been exposed to the Novus Ordo service and its banalities is attested to by the low percentage of attendance at weekend services and by the fact that only around thirty percent of conciliar Catholics believe as a matter of dogmatic truth that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is truly present--Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity--in the Most Blessed Sacrament.
Behold the results of forty-five years of a continuing revolution that has confused and bewildered Catholics as God Himself has been profaned in is formerly Catholic churches day in and day out. No, this is not a mistake. I meant to write this sentence again.
The Novus Ordo service has driven large numbers of out of their parishes as they found refuge in the waiting arms of Protestant evangelical or fundamentalist sects. Is it any accident that former Alaska Governor Sarah Heath Palin's father took her out of the Faith in 1976 at the age of twelve when the conciliar revolution was in full bloom under the corrupt leadership of Giovanni Montini/Paul VI to join a Protestant sect? Is it any accident that former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty did so when he was an adult or that radio and television commentator abandoned the true Faith for the diabolical deceits of Mormonism after what he admits were his years of substance abuse? These people are just some of the millions upon millions of souls worldwide who have driven out of what they have though is the Catholic Church but is in fact he counterfeit ape.
The "new liturgy" heralded at Saint Matthew's Church in Norwood, Ohio, forty-six and one-half years ago was just part of a new religion, one that disdains the Social Reign of Christ the King and forbids "proselytism" in the name of "ecumenism" and "religious liberty."
Saint Matthew's Church in Norwood, Ohio, was a victim of the very conciliar revolution it helped to launch. It was closed by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. It is not known as Saint Matthew's Church any longer. It is now known as Immaculate Conception Church, where the Immemorial Mass of Tradition is offered by Fathers William Jenkins and Joseph Greenwell of the Society of Saint Pius V. Who says God doesn't have a good sense of humor? He saw to it that a place that reveled in the revolution was handed back to authentic Catholics, some of whom were parishioners at Saint Matthew's many decades ago.
Just Be Quiet! We Have the "Latin Mass!" That's Enough
Thus it is that what appeared in 2007 to many traditionally-minded Catholics to be a "liberalization" of a version of the "old Mass" that was only normative in the life of the conciliar church for there years prior to its replacement , as noted before, by that Ordo Missae of Paul VI on November 29, 1964, the First Sunday of Advent, five years to the very day prior to the implementation of the Novus Ordo service, was and remains a trap to accustom them to gradual changes over the course of time that will wind up bringing the "extraordinary form" of the conciliar version of the Roman Rite closer, at least by way of liturgical praxis, to the "ordinary" form, the Novus Ordo, while they are expected to demonstrate their "gratitude" to the "pope" by remaining silent as he deconstructs the Catholic Faith and as he violates the First and Second Commandments by esteeming the symbols of false religions and calling places of false worship as "sacred" to the true God of Divine Revelation. It is Ratzinger/Benedict's goal to neutralize opposition to the "Second" Vatican Council from his "right" flank, as he sees it, in order to concentrate on implementing a "correct" version of that council that will outlive the aging ultra-progressives who are honest enough to see it, the council, as the break from Catholic teaching that it is while he, Ratzinger/Benedict, uses his convoluted "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity" to justify a notion of "continuity in renewal" (an absurdity that I dealt with yet again in Scholarship in Conciliarism's Land of Oz).
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict went to great lengths in the letter he wrote to his "bishops" in 2009 to explain the "lifting" of the excommunications on the four bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X that he is very committed to the advancement of the conciliar revolution, especially ecumenism, and he urged his "bishops" to help him "reeducate" those who had a "one-sided" view of the council, boasting that his efforts to pacify Ecclesia Dei communities (including, but not limited to, Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, the Canon Regulars of the New Jerusalem and, more recently, the Transalpine Redemptorists and the two monks from Christ the King Abbey in Cullman, Alabama) have borne fruit thus far:
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.)
Ratzinger/Benedict laid out his agenda very clearly here. He was telling the conciliar "bishops" that the Society of Saint Pius X is composed of "extremist," "narrow," "one-sided" elements that need to be opened up to "broader vistas" such as those that have been embraced by the priests of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter and the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest and the Sisters who left the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen. These "bishops" must be willing, as he is, to overlook "various faults" in order to make "every effort to open up broader vistas." In other words, the members of the Society of Saint Pius X need to be "re-educated" so that they do not become more "extreme" and "narrow" and "one-sided" than they have become over the years.
The false "pontiff" wanted the "unhealthy and distorted elements" in the Society of Saint Pius X be rooted out, replaced by an acceptance of the Novus Ordo and a spirit of quietism about any perceived contradictions between Catholicism and conciliarism. Ratzinger/Benedict was thus pleading with the conciliar "bishops" to permit him the chance to make the bishops and priests and laity of the Society of Saint Pius X full members of the One World Church along with "Catholic" Charismatic Renewal, Opus Dei, Focolare, Cursillo, the Sant'Egidio Community, the Shalom Catholic Community, the Chemin Neuf Community, the International Community of Faith and Light, Regnum Christi, Communion and Liberation, the Emmanuel Community, the Seguimi Lay Group of Human-Christian Promotion, and. among many, many others, the Neocatechumenal Way. This may take time and patience. However, it is an "effort" that Ratzinger/Benedict must be made in the name of "ecumenism," in the name of "tolerance," in the name of a "search" for "reconciliation and unity." And, as will be discussed in part two of this series of articles, this is precisely the point of the new "instruction" that seeks to "clarify" the implementation of Summorum Pontificum.
Have we forgotten that Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger told us very directly in Principles of Catholic Theology that traditionalists, whom he disparaged as integralists, could not be resisted strongly enough?
Among the more obvious phenomena of the last years must be counted the increasing number of integralist groups in which the desire for piety, for the sense of mystery, is finding satisfaction. We must be on our guard against minimizing these movements. Without a doubt, they represent a sectarian zealotry that is the antithesis of Catholicity. We cannot resist them too firmly. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 389-390)
Only the willfully delusional and those who believe that it is "too painful" to face reality will continue to believe that Ratzinger/Benedict does not believe in this now just as much as he did when he wrote it in 1982, that Summorum Pontificum, despite its appearance of "liberating" the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition, has as its goal the "pacification of "spirits" of traditionally-minded Catholics so that they will be content to have "the Mass" at all costs, including that of absolute silence about the sort of offenses to the honor and glory and majesty of the Most Blessed Trinity that millions upon millions of Catholics over the cases suffered all manner of torture and even martyrdom itself rather than even give the appearance of condoning, no less participating in alongside those of "other faiths."
Part two of this series will discuss the new Vatican instruction's reiteration of the old conciliar canard, that the "faith" expressed in the "ordinary form" of the Roman Rite (the Novus Ordo) and the "extraordinary form" (the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition) are one and the same. They are not.
We place our trust, as always, in our dear Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, praying as many Rosaries each day as our freely chosen states-in-life permit, understanding that the graces won for us on Calvary by the shedding of her Divine Son's Most Precious Blood and that flow into our hearts and souls through her loving hands as the Mediatrix of All Graces are sufficient to see us through this period of the Church Militant on earth's Mystical Passion, Death and Burial.
Remember these words of Pope Pius XI, contained in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925:
History, in fact, tells us that in the course of ages these festivals have been instituted one after another according as the needs or the advantage of the people of Christ seemed to demand: as when they needed strength to face a common danger, when they were attacked by insidious heresies, when they needed to be urged to the pious consideration of some mystery of faith or of some divine blessing. Thus in the earliest days of the Christian era, when the people of Christ were suffering cruel persecution, the cult of the martyrs was begun in order, says St. Augustine, "that the feasts of the martyrs might incite men to martyrdom." The liturgical honors paid to confessors, virgins and widows produced wonderful results in an increased zest for virtue, necessary even in times of peace. But more fruitful still were the feasts instituted in honor of the Blessed Virgin. As a result of these men grew not only in their devotion to the Mother of God as an ever-present advocate, but also in their love of her as a mother bequeathed to them by their Redeemer. Not least among the blessings which have resulted from the public and legitimate honor paid to the Blessed Virgin and the saints is the perfect and perpetual immunity of the Church from error and heresy. We may well admire in this the admirable wisdom of the Providence of God, who, ever bringing good out of evil, has from time to time suffered the faith and piety of men to grow weak, and allowed Catholic truth to be attacked by false doctrines, but always with the result that truth has afterwards shone out with greater splendor, and that men's faith, aroused from its lethargy, has shown itself more vigorous than before. (Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas, December 11, 1925.)
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now so that we can plant a few more seeds that might result, please God and by the intercession of Our Lady, in the restoration of the Catholic Faith and the vanquishing of conciliarism and all of its egregious errors and novelties and blasphemies and sacrileges and heresies once and for all? Just one Rosary more. Right now. Isn't it time?
Viva Cristo Rey!
Our Lady of the Rosary, 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 Peter of Alcantara, pray for us.
