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                 September 12, 2007

Conciliarism's Big Tent

by Thomas A. Droleskey

The late Lee Atwater was a hard-nosed Republican political operative who was not above shading the truth to win elections, something that he admitted quite candidly before he died in 1991 from brain cancer at the age of forty. One of Atwater's grand political strategies, which has more or less become the de facto policy of the Republican Party in certain elections, especially at the statewide level across the nation, was what he termed "The Big Tent." This meant that there was room in the Republican Party for those who opposed abortion in all instances without any exceptions and room for those who supported abortion in a limited number of cases and room for those who supported abortion all cases. "A political party is not a church," echoed Ralph Reed, then the Executive Director of the very much misnamed "Christian Coalition" that had been begun by Pat Robertson, the founder of the "Christian" Broadcasting Network and of Regent University.

Atwater's "big tent" philosophy, although it is no longer referred to by that time, has indeed won the day in the Republican Party. A thorough-going Catholic pro-abort, former Mayor of the City of New York Rudolph William Giuliani, continues to lead all other candidates in one opinion poll after another for the 2008 Republican Party's presidential nomination. Many "conservative" voters have made their peace with baby-killing, content to believe that "winning" is the bottom line, oblivious to the simple fact that a country steeped in religious indifferentism and cultural pluralism, one that rejects the Social Reign of Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen, is not going to secure itself no matter who "wins" an election (if actual election results, that is, are to be taken at face value), oblivious also to the simple truth that a nation that continues to kill the preborn by surgical and chemical means and that promotes evils in its own borders and around the world will continue to demonstrate the "inherent degeneracy of its own founding principles," as a member of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter noted after a talk I gave in his parish in the Fall of 2001. Lee Atwater's "big tent" was simply a means of providing political cover for those who were completely pro-abortion to consider themselves in "good standing" in one of our two major organized crime families, the Republican Party, which is as much of a nest of naturalists as is the other major organized crime family, the Democrat Party.

Well, the "big tent" is not confined to the arena of the naturalist circus and sideshow that is American electoral politics. Oh, no. The "big tent" also describe the efforts of Joseph Ratzinger/ Benedict XVI and his fellow conciliar revolutionaries in the counterfeit church of conciliarism to speak out of both sides of their mouths at the same time. They want to be see as the guardians of Catholic tradition by those who believe that Summorum Pontificum represents a significant measure of "progress" in the effort to restore the Catholic Faith rather than to view it as it is, a very cleverly-devised method to trap traditionally-minded Catholics who are still attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism into silence about the things they used to oppose vociferously in their spoken and written words. To be part of conciliarism's "big tent," which is part of the bigger tent of the One World Ecumenical Church condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1832, means that one must be willing to bite his tongue lest he jeopardize the blandishments bestowed on him by the enemies of Christ the King and thus of the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.

At the same time, however, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his fellow conciliar revolutionaries want to reassure their like-minded brethern in the "conservative" camp that all is well, that the "Second" Vatican Council is essential to the faith. This is true, of course. The "Second" Vatican Council is essential to the faith, the conciliar faith, not the Catholic Faith. Consider the following report of Ratzinger's own words of reassurance about the binding nature of the "Second" Vatican Council, spoken to a Novus Ordo "priest" in Italy.

THE CATHOLIC HERALD - POPE BENEDICT XVI has responded to fears that the church is moving away from the reforms of Vatican II by declaring that the Council is the church’s “magna carta”.


Speaking to clergy from the northern Italian dioceses of Belluno-Feltre and Treviso, he said: “The Council has given us a great road marker, we can go forward full of hope”.

Vatican II was “essential and fundamental” to the future of the faith, he said. Pope Benedict was answering a question from a priest who, describing himself as a member of the Vatican II generation, said that many of his counterparts were disheartened following the enthusiasm that accompanied the Council.

The priest’s concerns echoed those of many other Catholics, who feel that the recent motu proprio relaxing restrictions on the Traditional Mass has undermined the authority of the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council. But the pope encouraged his audience to stress the positive elements that grew out of the Council, including “the renewal of the liturgy”.

He said: “It seems to me that we must rediscover the great heritage of the Council, which is not a ’spirit’ reconstructed behind the texts, but the great Conciliar texts themselves, re-read today with the experiences that we have had and that have born fruit in so many movements, in so many new religious communities.”

Commentators who were previously nervous about the direction of the current papacy welcomed the pope’s words. Father Joseph Komonchak, writing for the liberal Catholic journal Commonweal, commented: “I see no reason to fear that he is about to go back on the great conciliar texts on the church’s relationship to the modern world.

“[Pope Benedict] distinguishes two extremes … a progressive mentality that thought everything can and ought to change in the church and an absolute anti-conciliarism, between which, he says, a third and more valid interpretation had difficulty making its way. The idea that Pope Benedict wants to return us to ‘those thrilling days of yesteryear’, that is, before the Council, should be discredited.”

Pope Benedict spoke to the Italian priests of his own experience of the Council. “I too lived through Vatican Council II,” he said, “coming to St. Peter’s Basilica with great enthusiasm and seeing how new doors were opening. It really seemed to be the new Pentecost, in which the church would once again be able to convince humanity.”

The pontiff observed, however, that historically great church councils have always been followed by periods of turbulence. “So it is not now, in retrospect, such a great surprise how difficult it was at first for all of us to digest the Council, this great message,” he said. “To grow is always to suffer as well, because it means leaving one condition and passing to another.”

Benedict XVI went on to discuss the post-conciliar age, which he argued was defined by two great moments in history.

The first was the “explosion” of revolutionary activity in 1968, which the pope said triggered a “cultural crisis” in the West. The “new, healthy modernity” put forward by the Council Fathers found itself facing a violent ideological rupture with the past, he said.

Some Catholics, he added, embraced Vatican II as an invitation to begin a “cultural revolution that wants to change everything”, while others rejected the Council because they understood it in the same terms.

The second turning point came in 1989 with the collapse of Communist regimes across Europe. “The response was … total scepticism, so called postmodernity,” the pope said. “There was the affirmation of materialism, of a blind pseudo-rationalistic skepticism.” Vatican II Essential to the Faith

 

So much for the Council of Trent. So much for the [First] Vatican Council. So much for the other eighteen legitimate general councils of the Catholic Church prior to the dawning of the age of conciliarism in 1958. As noted above, this is all very true if one is speaking of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, which apes the Catholic Church but is a creature that is opposed to her. A "priest" who is, as far as can be determined, still in the conciliar structures noted a few years ago that the "Second" Vatican Council launched what he termed an "ecclesiogenesis," that is the springing forth of a new church from nothing.

All one has to do to consider the truth contained in this "priest's" observation is to review the footnotes of the documents of the "Second" Vatican Council. Most of the references to preconciliar papal encyclical letters are gratuitous, not substantive, that is, made for the sake of making them. There is no reference, for example, in Unitatis Redintegratio, November 21, 1964, to Pope Pius IX's Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868, or to Pope Pius XI's Mortalium Animos, both of which called for the return of Protestants to the true Church. Mortalium Animos, replicating Pope Leo XIII's Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 20, 1894,, also called for those steeped in the Photian errors of Orthodoxy to return to Rome. This is a fundamental rejection of Catholic teaching that is absolutely irreconcilable with the true Faith. There is also no reference to Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae in Unitatis Redintegratio.

Similarly, Dignitatis Humanae, December 7, 1965, makes no reference to Pope Gregory XVI's Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, which is ignored in its entirety by the "Second" Vatican Council, or to Pope Pius IX's Syllabus of Errors or his Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864, which stated in no uncertain terms that:

For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of "naturalism," as they call it, dare to teach that "the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones." And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that "that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require." From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity,"2 viz., that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way." But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;"3 and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling."

 

Yes, the "Second" Vatican Council is a great "magna carta" all right, a great "magna carta" of a false religion that considers it of no account to dismiss the binding teaching of the Catholic Church and then to have its revolutionary apologists assert that such teaching is not binding as truth is only perceived in the mind imperfectly at any given moment and must be adapted to the changing circumstances in which it is alleged that the Church finds herself at a different point in time. A great "magna carta," therefore, to lead souls astray by canonizing a "healthy secularity," overthrowing the Social Reign of Christ the King and endorsing the condemned Protestant and Judeo-Masonic notion of the separation of Church and State, and opening its doors wide to a world that is founded on the naturalistic, anti-Incarnational principles of Modernity.

Also nowhere to be cited in the "Second" Vatican Council's footnotes--or in the works of the postconciliar antipopes--is this condemnation of religious liberty offered by Pope Pius VII in Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814, which was directed to the bishops of France:

For how can We tolerate with equanimity that the Catholic religion, which France received in the first ages of the Church, which was confirmed in that very kingdom by the blood of so many most valiant martyrs, which by far the greatest part of the French race professes, and indeed bravely and constantly defended even among the most grave adversities and persecutions and dangers of recent years, and which, finally, that very dynasty to which the designated king belongs both professes and has defended with much zeal - that this Catholic, this most holy religion, We say, should not only not be declared to be the only one in the whole of France supported by the bulwark of the laws and by the authority of the Government, but should even, in the very restoration of the monarchy, be entirely passed over? But a much more grave, and indeed very bitter, sorrow increased in Our heart - a sorrow by which We confess that We were crushed, overwhelmed and torn in two - from the twenty-second article of the constitution in which We saw, not only that "liberty of religion and of conscience" (to use the same words found in the article) were permitted by the force of the constitution, but also that assistance and patronage were promised both to this liberty and also to the ministers of these different forms of "religion". There is certainly no need of many words, in addressing you, to make you fully recognize by how lethal a wound the Catholic religion in France is struck by this article. For when the liberty of all "religions" is indiscriminately asserted, by this very fact truth is confounded with error and the holy and immaculate Spouse of Christ, the Church, outside of which there can be no salvation, is set on a par with the sects of heretics and with Judaic perfidy itself. For when favour and patronage is promised even to the sects of heretics and their ministers, not only their persons, but also their very errors, are tolerated and fostered: a system of errors in which is contained that fatal and never sufficiently to be deplored HERESY which, as St. Augustine says (de Haeresibus, no.72), "asserts that all heretics proceed correctly and tell the truth: which is so absurd that it seems incredible to me."

But We ought no less to wonder at and grieve over the freedom of printing guaranteed and permitted by Article 23 of the constitution; by which indeed the experience of past times itself teaches, if anyone could doubt it, what great perils and what certain poisoning of faith and morals are encouraged. For it is quite clear that it is principally by this means that, first, the morals of people were depraved, then their faith corrupted and overthrown, and finally seditions, riots and rebellions stirred up among them. Given the present state of great corruption of mankind, these most grave evils would still be an object of fear if - which may God prevent - the free power were permitted to anyone of publishing whatever he pleased. Nor indeed are We without other causes of grief in this new constitution of the kingdom, especially in articles 6, 24 and 25. We shall forbear to expound these to you individually since We do not doubt that your Fraternity will easily perceive in what direction these articles tend. Indeed in such great and so just perturbation of Our soul We are comforted by the hope that the king-designate does not subscribe to the articles of the proposed constitution which We have mentioned; indeed We promise ourselves this most certainly, on account of the ancestral piety and zeal for religion with which We have no doubt that he is enkindled. But since, if We were silent during the peril of faith and of souls, We should most certainly betray Our ministry, We have decided meanwhile to send this letter to you, Venerable Brother, whose faith and priestly strength have been so persuasively demonstrated to Us, not only so that it may be thoroughly known that We most vehemently reject those things which We have hitherto expounded to you, and whatever may perchance be proposed contrary to the Catholic religion, but also so that, having conferred also with the other bishops of the French churches, you would apply yourself to the counsels and studies which We have enjoined upon you in order that the grave evils which, unless they be most swiftly driven away, threaten the Church in France, should be averted, and that those laws and decrees and other sanctions of government concerning which, as you well know, We have never ceased to lament in recent years, and which are still flourishing, should be removed. Present yourself therefore to the king-designate; intimate to him the most vehement sorrow by which, after such great adversities and tribulations hitherto suffered, amidst the general rejoicing of all, Our soul, on account of the foregoing, is beset, and tormented; expound what grave injuries to the Catholic religion, what grave dangers to souls, what destruction of faith would be wrought in France if assent were granted to the articles of the constitution which has been drafted; let him know that We are entirely persuaded that he cannot desire to open his reign with such an inauspicious beginning as to inflict upon the Catholic religion this most serious and almost incurable injury; and tell him that, on the contrary, God Himself, in whose power are the laws of all kingdoms, most certainly demands from him that he should employ that power which He has, to the joy of all good men and especially of Ourself, restored to him, particularly for the defence and embellishment of the Church of God; and that We hope and fervently trust that it will come to pass, by the inspiration of God, that Our voice, relayed by yourself, will touch his soul, so that, following in the footsteps of his predecessors who on account of their having professed and so often vindicated the Catholic religion merited from this Holy See the title of Most Christian Kings, he may do what he is bound to do, what all good men expect him to do, what We, with burning eagerness, implore him to do: namely, to undertake the patronage of the Catholic Faith. Exert, Venerable Brother, all your strength, and the zeal for religion which enflames you. Employ in this most great and most holy duty the grace in which you are so strong, and your outstanding eloquence. You will certainly receive from the Lord what you should say, and We also do not omit to implore holy assistance for you by Our prayers, We who meanwhile most lovingly impart to you, and to the flock committed to your care, the Apostolic benediction. POST TAM DIUTURNAS

 

Is this one of those "provisional" truths that happens to be stated at one time and then loses its relevancy? Pope Pius VII called religious liberty a heresy! How can a heresy in 1814 not be a heresy in 1965 and thereafter? Yet, of course, Joseph Ratzinger continues to praise religious liberty ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

Joseph Ratzinger himself heralded Gaudium et Spes, the "Second" Vatican Council's Declaration on the Church in the Modern World, as a countersyllabus of errors, believe it or not.

It is desirable to offer a diagnosis of the text (Gaudium et Spes) as a whole, we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty, and world religions) it is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of countersyllabus. Harnack, as we know, interpreted the Syllabus of Pius IX as nothing less than a declaration of war against his generation. This is correct insofar as the Syllabus established a line of demarcation against the determining forces of the nineteenth century: against the scientific and political world view of liberalism. In the struggle against modernism the twofold delimitation was ratified and strengthened. Since then many things have changed. The new ecclesiastical policy of Pius XI produced a certain openness toward a liberal understanding of the state. In a quiet but persistent struggle, exegesis and Church history adopted more and more the postulates of liberal science, and liberalism, too, was obliged to undergo many significant changes in the great political upheavals of the twentieth century. As a result, the one-sidedness of the position adopted by the Church under Pius IX and Pius X in response to the situation created by the new phase of history inaugurated by the French Revolution and was, to a large extent, corrected via facti, especially in Central Europe, but there was still no basic statement of the relationship that should exist between the Church and the world that had come into existence after 1789. In fact, an attitude that was largely pre-revolutionary continued to exist in countries with strong Catholic majorities. Hardly anyone will deny today that the Spanish and Italian Concordat strove to preserve too much of a view of the world that no longer corresponded to the facts. Hardly anyone will deny today that, in the field of education and with respect to the historico-critical method in modern science, anachronisms existed that corresponded closely to this adherence to an obsolete Church-state relationship. Only a careful investigation of the different ways in which acceptance of the new era was accomplished in various parts of the Church could unravel the complicated network of causes that formed the background of the "Pastoral Constitution". and only thus can the dramatic history of its influence be brought to light.

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Let us be content to say here that the text serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789. Only from this perspective can we understand, on the one hand, the ghetto-mentality, of which we have spoken above; only from this perspective can we understand, on the other hand, the meaning of the remarkable meeting of the Church and the world. Basically, the word "world" means the spirit of the modern era, in contrast to which the Church's group-consciousness saw itself as a separate subject that now, after a war that had been in turn both hot and cold, was intent on dialogue and cooperation. From this perspective, too, we can understand the different emphases with which the individual parts of the Church entered into the discussion of the text. While German theologians were satisfied that their exegetical and ecumenical concepts had been incorporated, representatives of Latin American countries, in particular, felt that their concerns, too, had been addressed, topics proposed by Anglo-Saxon theologians likewise found strong expression, and representatives of Third World countries saw, in the emphasis on social questions, a consideration of their particular problems. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 381-382)

 

Sure, Popes Pius IX and St. Pius X had it all wrong. So did the totally ignored Pope Gregory XVI and the infrequently quoted Pope Leo XIII. The ecclesiogenesis of the "Second" Vatican Council, replete with its subsequent "liturgical renewal" that has done so much to devastate the Catholic Faith, has had it all right. So much for the infallibility of the Ordinary Magisterium of the Catholic Church. So much for truth. So much for the immutability of God Himself. That the approach of Joseph Ratzinger and his fellow conciliar revolutionaries is Hegelian should be obvious to anyone with a modicum of rationality. He is fully committed to the anti-Catholic agenda of conciliarism, fully convinced that the condemned propositions of the past do not bind him or the "church" he heads, which is anything but the Catholic Church, which cannot be the author of errors of any kind, no less headed by men who continue to believe privately in condemned propositions that cause them to fall from the Faith no matter what they attempt to "define" publicly.

The radical break represented by the "Second" Vatican Council can be seen in the nature of the footnotes in the encyclical letters of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. Although this material was included in an article two about two years ago now, there have been new readers to this site since that time that may not be familiar with the startling facts that reveal in empirical terms conciliarism's complete contempt for the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church.

Leaving aside Centesimus Annus, which was written in 1991 on the one hundredth anniversary of Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum and thus contained numerous references to the encyclical being commemorated, Karol Wojtyla rarely cited the works of the popes from the time of Gregory XVI to Pius XII. Here are the number of such references in the late John Paul II's encyclical letters (not including apostolic exhortations or Holy Thursday letters or post-synodal exhortations):

Redemptor Hominis, 1979: 8 of 205. (This includes multiple "cf."--confer--references within a single footnote. "Confer" references are to cite the entire body of a particular work or speech without citing any one passage or statement. It is a standard referencing tool in scholarly work. Many of the late Holy Father's references to the pre-conciliar popes were of this nature.)

Dives in Misericordia, 1980: 0 of 140.

Laborem Exercens, 1981: 3 of 91.

Slavorum Apostoli, 1985: 2 of 47.

Dominum et Vivificantem, 1986: 2 of 297. (Admittedly, this encyclical letter on the Holy Ghost contained mostly Scriptural citations.)

Redemptoris Mater, 1987: 6 of 146.

Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 1987: 3 of 92.

Redemptoris Missio, 1991: 2 of 178.

Veritatis Splendor, 1993:  5 of 155.

Evangelium Vitae, 1995: 7 of 142.

Ut Unum Sint, 1995: 0 of 162. (More on this encyclical letter below.)

Fides et Ratio, 1998: 9 of 132.

Ecclesia De Eucharistia, 2003: 5 of 104.

Wojtyla referred constantly to the "Second" Vatican Council and to his own encyclical letters, indicating he believed himself to be in possession of the true understanding of conciliarism, which is very true if you consider the fact that he was one of the most active participants in the "Second" Vatican Council (see Fathers Dominic and Francisco Radecki, Tumultuous Times.) Interestingly, the pre-conciliar pope who was least cited in the encyclical letters of Karol Wojtyla was Pope Saint Pius X, something that is very telling in and of itself as the Pope who inveighed against Modernism and against the very concept of the "separation of Church and State" in France that was praised by John Paul II in early 2005 has been consigned largely to the Orwellian memory hole. We are still waiting, now on September 12, 2007, for any official word from the conciliar Vatican on the one hundredth anniversary of Pope Saint Pius X's Pascendi Dominci Gregis.

The areas in which the popes of the past forty years have been least willing to cite the works of their pre-conciliar predecessors are those of the liturgy and ecumenism. This has been but an extension of the anti-Traditional bias of the "Second" Vatican Council itself, which brushed aside Pope Pius XII's 1947 encyclical letter, Mediator Dei, which contained warnings about the liturgical revolution that was then brewing, with but one footnoted reference (at Paragraph 22) in Sacrosanctum Concilium (The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), issued on December 1, 1963. Novelties have, in se, no precedent. Thus, there can be no references to anything in the Catholic Church's authentic Tradition that are fundamentally opposed to novelties and synthetic concoctions.

This is why, for example, Karol Wojtyla's Ut Unum Sint contained not one reference to any true pope of the past. Ut Unum Sint and Pope Pius XI's Mortalium Animos are mutually irreconcilable. Indeed, footnote 50 of Ut Unum Sint contains a very important reference to a man praised on August 19, 2005, by Joseph Ratzinger his address to Protestants in Cologne, Germany, on August 19, 2005, the late Abbe Paul Courtuier.

Maria Sagheddu was born at Dorgali (Sardinia) in 1914. At twenty-one years of age she entered the Trappistine Monastery in Grottaferrata. Through the apostolic labours of Abbé Paul Couturier, she came to understand the need for prayers and spiritual sacrifices for the unity of Christians. In 1936, at the time of an Octave for Unity, she chose to offer her life for the unity of the Church. Following a grave illness, Sister Maria Gabriella died on 23 April 1939.

 

Abbe Paul Couturier, though, did not believe that non-Catholic Christians had to be converted to the Catholic Church to be saved. He believed that Protestant denominations were instruments of God's saving plan. This from a website devoted to promoting his work:

The power of prayer, and its potential for overcoming separation and the wounds of centuries, lay at the heart of all groups of Christian believers, and so he came to see that, as people grow in sanctity in their different traditions, they grow closer to Christ. If Christians could then be aware of each others' history, spirituality, traditions of faith and worship, their hurts and their glories, they could thus grow closer to each other. The foundations, he realised, would need to be humility, reparation and no little suffering. But if Christians could imitate each other - not just go to each others' services, but embrace each others' spirituality and traditions for their own - the path to holiness in one Church could be adopted and enhance the path to holiness in the others too. This 'emulation' has been described as 'vying with one another' to advance on the path to holiness and to Christ - not mutual admiration, not unfriendly rivalry. but a 'race that is set before us' in which we spur each other on beyond our own small worlds to fresh understanding, to new awareness of Christ and his Church, to a closer bond with him and his people. In the last fifty years we have seen the Abbé's prayer that Christians could all pray the Lord's Prayer together realised. Catholics have adopted many great Protestant and Anglican hymns and chorales. Anglicans and other non-Roman Catholics have taken to heart the Retreat movement, and also embraced the importance for the Orthodox of Icons. The Orthodox have become increasingly influential members of the World Council of Churches, and all now share in a renewed common love of the Scriptures. These are fruits of spiritual emulation. The Abbé Paul Couturier and Spiritual Ecumenism

 

Abbe Paul Couturier, cited, however obliquely, by Karol Wojtyla and praised directly by Joseph Ratzinger, promoted a philosophy fundamentally at odds with the received teaching of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, summarized so succinctly by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928:

These pan-Christians who turn their minds to uniting the churches seem, indeed, to pursue the noblest of ideas in promoting charity among all Christians: nevertheless how does it happen that this charity tends to injure faith? Everyone knows that John himself, the Apostle of love, who seems to reveal in his Gospel the secrets of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and who never ceased to impress on the memories of his followers the new commandment "Love one another," altogether forbade any intercourse with those who professed a mutilated and corrupt version of Christ's teaching: "If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house nor say to him: God speed you." For which reason, since charity is based on a complete and sincere faith, the disciples of Christ must be united principally by the bond of one faith. Who then can conceive a Christian Federation, the members of which retain each his own opinions and private judgment, even in matters which concern the object of faith, even though they be repugnant to the opinions of the rest? And in what manner, We ask, can men who follow contrary opinions, belong to one and the same Federation of the faithful? For example, those who affirm, and those who deny that sacred Tradition is a true fount of divine Revelation; those who hold that an ecclesiastical hierarchy, made up of bishops, priests and ministers, has been divinely constituted, and those who assert that it has been brought in little by little in accordance with the conditions of the time; those who adore Christ really present in the Most Holy Eucharist through that marvelous conversion of the bread and wine, which is called transubstantiation, and those who affirm that Christ is present only by faith or by the signification and virtue of the Sacrament; those who in the Eucharist recognize the nature both of a sacrament and of a sacrifice, and those who say that it is nothing more than the memorial or commemoration of the Lord's Supper; those who believe it to be good and useful to invoke by prayer the Saints reigning with Christ, especially Mary the Mother of God, and to venerate their images, and those who urge that such a veneration is not to be made use of, for it is contrary to the honor due to Jesus Christ, "the one mediator of God and men." How so great a variety of opinions can make the way clear to effect the unity of the Church We know not; that unity can only arise from one teaching authority, one law of belief and one faith of Christians. But We do know that from this it is an easy step to the neglect of religion or indifferentism and to modernism, as they call it. Those, who are unhappily infected with these errors, hold that dogmatic truth is not absolute but relative, that is, it agrees with the varying necessities of time and place and with the varying tendencies of the mind, since it is not contained in immutable revelation, but is capable of being accommodated to human life. Besides this, in connection with things which must be believed, it is nowise licit to use that distinction which some have seen fit to introduce between those articles of faith which are fundamental and those which are not fundamental, as they say, as if the former are to be accepted by all, while the latter may be left to the free assent of the faithful: for the supernatural virtue of faith has a formal cause, namely the authority of God revealing, and this is patient of no such distinction. For this reason it is that all who are truly Christ's believe, for example, the Conception of the Mother of God without stain of original sin with the same faith as they believe the mystery of the August Trinity, and the Incarnation of Our Lord just as they do the infallible teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, according to the sense in which it was defined by the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican. Are these truths not equally certain, or not equally to be believed, because the Church has solemnly sanctioned and defined them, some in one age and some in another, even in those times immediately before our own? Has not God revealed them all? 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. But in the use of this extraordinary teaching authority no newly invented matter is brought in, nor is anything new added to the number of those truths which are at least implicitly contained in the deposit of Revelation, divinely handed down to the Church: only those which are made clear which perhaps may still seem obscure to some, or that which some have previously called into question is declared to be of faith.

 

Pope Pius XI was clearly condemning the work of men such as Abbe Paul Couturier. It is simply not possible for a true pope to be wrong on a matter of Faith and morals. Joseph Ratzinger would have us believe that the "Second" Vatican Council can be understood favorably in "light of Tradition." There is no way to understand religious liberty and ecumenism and the new ecclesiology in light of Catholic Tradition. There is no way in which a disciples of the late Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., would have been praised by a true pope of the Catholic Church.

Yes, Abbe Paul Courtuier, the disciple of "spiritual ecumenism," cited by Karol Wojtyla and praised by Joseph Ratzinger, was an open disciple of the ultimate evolutionist and proponent of "process theology," Teilhard de Chardin, as a website devoted to Couturier openly and proudly admits:

A third influence on Couturier was Teilhard de Chardin. Both men were scientists, and Teilhard's vision of the unity of creation and humanity expressed in the unity of Christ and the life of the Church appealed both scientifically and spiritually to Couturier. A reasoned consequence for him was that the unity of Christians was the sign for the unity of humanity, and that praying for the sanctification of Jews, Muslims and Hindus, among many others, could not fail but to lead to a new spiritual understanding of God where Christ could at last be recognised and understood. Couturier felt this keenly as he was partly Jewish and had been raised among Muslims in North Africa. It is worth noting that among Couturier's voluminous correspondents were Jews, Muslims, and Hindus, as well as every kind of Christian, all caught up in the Abbé's spirit of prayer, realising the significance and dimensions of prayer for the unity of Christians. Coincidentally, years later Mother Theresa spoke of the considerable number of Muslims who volunteered and worked at her house in Calcutta: 'If you are a Christian, I want to make you a better Christian - if you are a Muslim, I want to make you a better Muslim'. It cannot be denied that what those Muslims were seeing in Mother Theresa was Jesus Christ himself, just as the Abbe attracted so many to prayer across previously unbridgeable divides by his humility, penitence, and joyful charity in the peace of Christ. The Abbé Paul Couturier and Spiritual Ecumenism

 

Mother Teresa, a patron saint of conciliarism, gets a honorable mention here. Her reaffirmation of people in their false religions was confirmed recently by press reports that have not been repudiated by the conciliar Vatican. It is perfectly acceptable in an unofficial, de facto ethos of "universal salvation" and the very official, de jure ethos of religious liberty to reaffirm people in their false religions.

Aging revolutionaries must reaffirm themselves in their own false beliefs. Joseph Ratzinger has done this throughout the conciliar process, oblivious that the entire ethos of conciliarism's "opening up" to the world, especially by means of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service, has reaffirmed people in the ways of secularism that he says must be opposed by inter-denominational efforts. Blinded by his prideful rejection of Catholic truth, Joseph Ratzinger cannot see or publicly admit the wreckage of souls that has been produced in allegedly Catholic institutions of "education" and in one allegedly "Catholic" parish after another. Most Catholics today do not know the basics of their Faith (Special Creation, Original Sin, the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, the Incarnation of Our Lord, the meaning of His Redemptive Act and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the unbloody representation of that same Redemptive Act, the nature of Holy Mother Church and the fact that the entirety of Divine Revelation has been entrusted exclusively to her eternal safekeeping and infallible explication) nor how to bear suffering in the midst of the world. Billions of other people in the world wander about life aimlessly not knowing anything of the truths of the true Faith, which alone can provide them with the means to gear their crosses and to receive the supernatural helps to get them home to Heaven by dying as members of the Catholic Church in states of Sanctifying Grace.

I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, would it have been possible sixty or seventy or eighty years ago for a teacher in a Catholic school to have said publicly that "Jesus was a sinner" and have kept his job, no less his canonical standing as a member of the Catholic Church?  This is no problem, however, in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, wherein "bishops" and "priests" deny articles contained in the Deposit of Faith and engage in the most outlandish liturgical sacrileges and abominations, only to be promoted within the ranks of the conciliar structures. Vatican II as the "magna carta" of a new theology for a new religion? Absolutely. As the "magna carta" for the Catholic Faith? Impossible.

Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII began the "Second" Vatican Council on October 11, 1962, by expressing his belief that it was no longer opportune or necessary to oppose the errors of the day, which included Communism, that errors more or less go way on their own. From the very beginning of the the "Second" Vatican Council, therefore, assertions were made that were contrary to the Catholic Faith. Indeed, Pope Pius VI, writing in Inscrutabile, December 25, 1775, explained the absolute, binding necessity of opposing errors openly:

Consequently, you who are the salt of the earth, guardians and shepherds of the Lord's flock, whose business it is to fight the battles of the Lord, arise and gird on your sword, which is the word of God, and expel this foul contagion from your lands. How long are we to ignore the common insult to faith and Church? Let the words of Bernard arouse us like a lament of the spouse of Christ: "Of old was it foretold and the time of fulfillment is now at hand: Behold, in peace is my sorrow most sorrowful. It was sorrowful first when the martyrs died; afterwards it was more sorrowful in the fight with the heretics and now it is most sorrowful in the conduct of the members of the household.... The Church is struck within and so in peace is my sorrow most sorrowful. But what peace? There is peace and there is no peace. There is peace from the pagans and peace from the heretics, but no peace from the children. At that time the voice will lament: Sons did I rear and exalt, but they despised me. They despised me and defiled me by a bad life, base gain, evil traffic, and business conducted in the dark." Who can hear these tearful complaints of our most holy mother without feeling a strong urge to devote all his energy and effort to the Church, as he has promised? Therefore cast out the old leaven, remove the evil from your midst. Forcefully and carefully banish poisonous books from the eyes of your flock, and at once courageously set apart those who have been infected, to prevent them harming the rest. The holy Pope Leo used to say, "We can rule those entrusted to us only by pursuing with zeal for the Lord's faith those who destroy and those who are destroyed and by cutting them off from sound minds with the utmost severity to prevent the plague spreading." In doing this We exhort and advise you to be all of one mind and in harmony as you strive for the same object, just as the Church has one faith, one baptism, and one spirit. As you are joined together in the hierarchy, so you should unite equally with virtue and desire.

The affair is of the greatest importance since it concerns the Catholic faith, the purity of the Church, the teaching of the saints, the peace of the empire, and the safety of nations. Since it concerns the entire body of the Church, it is a special concern of yours because you are called to share in Our pastoral concern, and the purity of the faith is particularly entrusted to your watchfulness. "Now therefore, Brothers, since you are overseers among God's people and their soul depends on you, raise their hearts to your utterance," that they may stand fast in faith and achieve the rest which is prepared for believers only. Beseech, accuse, correct, rebuke and fear not: for ill-judged silence leaves in their error those who could be taught, and this is most harmful both to them and to you who should have dispelled the error. The holy Church is powerfully refreshed in the truth as it struggles zealously for the truth. In this divine work you should not fear either the force or favor of your enemies. The bishop should not fear since the anointing of the Holy Spirit has strengthened him: the shepherd should not be afraid since the prince of pastors has taught him by his own example to despise life itself for the safety of his flock: the cowardice and depression of the hireling should not dwell in a bishop's heart. Our great predecessor Gregory, in instructing the heads of the churches, said with his usual excellence: "Often imprudent guides in their fear of losing human favor are afraid to speak the right freely. As the word of truth has it, they guard their flock not with a shepherd's zeal but as hirelings do, since they flee when the wolf approaches by hiding themselves in silence.... A shepherd fearing to speak the right is simply a man retreating by keeping silent." But if the wicked enemy of the human race, the better to frustrate your efforts, ever brings it about that a plague of epidemic proportions is hidden from the religious powers of the world, please do not be terrified but walk in God's house in harmony, with prayer, and in truth, the three arms of our service. Remember that when the people of Juda were defiled, the best means of purification was the public reading to all, from the least to the greatest, of the book of the law lately found by the priest Helcias in the Lord's temple; at once the whole people agreed to destroy the abominations and seal a covenant in the Lord's presence to follow after the Lord and observe His precepts, testimonies and ceremonies with their whole heart and soul." For the same reason Josaphat sent priests and Levites to bring the book of the law throughout the cities of Juda and to teach the people. The proclamation of the divine word has been entrusted to your faith by divine, not human, authority. So assemble your people and preach to them the gospel of Jesus Christ. From that divine source and heavenly teaching draw draughts of true philosophy for your flock. Persuade them that subjects ought to keep faith and show obedience to those who by God's ordering lead and rule them. To those who are devoted to the ministry of the Church, give proofs of faith, continence, sobriety, knowledge, and liberality, that they may please Him to whom they have proved themselves and boast only of what is serious, moderate, and religious. But above all kindle in the minds of everyone that love for one another which Christ the Lord so often and so specifically praised. For this is the one sign of Christians and the bond of perfection.

 

Alas, the "Second" Vatican Council, having followed the advice of Ratzinger's mentor, the late Father Hans Urs von Balthasar, has "razed the bastions" of the Catholic Faith, doing so to disastrous consequences for men and for the very nations in which they live, nations that need the direction and correction that must be offered by the Catholic Church when the good of souls demands her maternal intervention. Part of tearing down those bastions has involved giving impetus and approval to the "movements" and "communities" ("Catholic" Charismatic Renewal, Communio, Focolare, Cursillo, Opus Dei, Legionaries of Christ, et al.) that have promoted the conciliar novelties and apostasies with special abandon. Ratzinger has been consistent on the necessity of "razing the bastions," writing about it on page 391 of his Principles of Catholic Theology:

Does this mean that the Council should be revoked? Certainly not. It means only that the real reception of the Council has not yet even begun. What devastated the Church in the decade after the Council was not the Council but the refusal to accept it. This becomes clear precisely in the history of the influence of Gaudium et spes. What was identified with the Council was, for the most part, the expression of an attitude that did not coincide with the statements to be found in the text itself, although it is recognizable as a tendency in its development and in some of its individual formulations. The task is not, therefore, to suppress the Council but to discover the real Council and to deepen its true intention in the light of the present experience. That means that there can be no return to the Syllabus, which may have marked the first stage in the confrontation with liberalism and a newly conceived Marxism but cannot be the last stage. In the long run, neither embrace nor ghetto can solve for Christians the problem of the modern world. The fact is, as Hans Urs von Balthasar pointed out as early as 1952, that the "demolition of the bastions" is a long-overdue task. (p. 391)

 

Did anyone have to "discover" the meaning of the Council of Trent or the Council of Florence or the Vatican Council (1969-1870)? Were those councils about "razing the bastions" of the Catholic Faith? Certainly not. Pope Pius VIII, writing in Traditi Humilitati Nostrae, May 24, 1829, specifically warned against those who wanted to "raze" the foundations of the Church:

 

Although God may console Us with you, We are nonetheless sad. This is due to the numberless errors and the teachings of perverse doctrines which, no longer secretly and clandestinely but openly and vigorously, attack the Catholic faith. You know how evil men have raised the standard of revolt against religion through philosophy (of which they proclaim themselves doctors) and through empty fallacies devised according to natural reason. In the first place, the Roman See is assailed and the bonds of unity are, every day, being severed. The authority of the Church is weakened and the protectors of things sacred are snatched away and held in contempt. The holy precepts are despised, the celebration of divine offices is ridiculed, and the worship of God is cursed by the sinner. All things which concern religion are relegated to the fables of old women and the superstitions of priests. Truly lions have roared in Israel. With tears We say: "Truly they have conspired against the Lord and against His Christ." Truly the impious have said: "Raze it, raze it down to its foundations."

Among these heresies belongs that foul contrivance of the sophists of this age who do not admit any difference among the different professions of faith and who think that the portal of eternal salvation opens for all from any religion. They, therefore, label with the stigma of levity and stupidity those who, having abandoned the religion which they learned, embrace another of any kind, even Catholicism. This is certainly a monstrous impiety which assigns the same praise and the mark of the just and upright man to truth and to error, to virtue and to vice, to goodness and to turpitude. Indeed this deadly idea concerning the lack of difference among religions is refuted even by the light of natural reason. We are assured of this because the various religions do not often agree among themselves. If one is true, the other must be false; there can be no society of darkness with light. Against these experienced sophists the people must be taught that the profession of the Catholic faith is uniquely true, as the apostle proclaims: one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Jerome used to say it this way: he who eats the lamb outside this house will perish as did those during the flood who were not with Noah in the ark. Indeed, no other name than the name of Jesus is given to men, by which they may be saved. He who believes shall be saved; he who does not believe shall be condemned.

 

By what stretch of logic can the "Second Vatican Council be said to represent "continuity" in the Catholic Church while at the same time being praised as an exercising of razing the bastions that true pope after true pope said had to be protected against the evils of the modern day and against Modernism itself?

The Holy Name of Mary is our salvation in the midst of this terrible crisis of apostasy and betrayal. The Holy Name of Mary was invoked, especially through her Most Holy Rosary, by King Jan Sobieski in Poland 324 years ago tomorrow, September 13, 1683, to defeat the Turkish Mohammedans who heavily outnumbered his own forces. As is related in The Garland of Roses:

In 1683 Turkish forces threatened once again to overrun Europe. They carried the war into Austria for the purpose of annihilating the Catholic religion. Kara Mustapha, Grand Vizier of Mahomet IV, had boasted that he would not rest until he had stabled his master's horses at Saint Peter's in Rome. With an army 300,000 strong, the leader of the infidels arrived at the gates of Vienna and laid siege to the city. Days of enemy assaults, fire, and disease had reduced the Austrian capital to the last extremity. A small garrison of exhausted men, under the command of the courageous Imperial General, Count Starhemberg, himself wounded in the attack, fought desperately, with no earthly help in sight.

Pope Innocent XI urgently appealed to the princes of Europe on behalf of the beleaguered city and, on the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, the "Unvanquished Lion of the North", John Sobieski, King of Poland, mounted his war-horse, going forth to battle for the glory of the cross and the preservation of all Christendom. (Letter to Blessed Pope Innocent XVI)

Before Our Lady's altar in Her sanctuary in Czestochowa, the King raised his sword and vowed not to sheathe it until the mighty Queen of Heaven had given victory. The army asked Her blessings on their enterprise. Marching towards Vienna, the men prayed the Holy Rosary, Sobieski, wearing an image of Our Lady of Czestochowa, gave his soldiers their battle cry: In the Name of Mary: Lord God, help!

Joining up with the Imperial army, under the command of Charles, Duke of Lorraine, John Sobieski, whose tranquil presence in the midst of fiercest combat had such power with his own forces, had been unanimously chosen to lead the united armies of Europe. Many a time had his fearless leadership routed the Moslem invaders!

At five o'clock on the morning of September 12, the Holy Sacrifice was celebrated by the papal legate, Father Marco d'Aviano, on the heights of Mount Kalemberg, overlooking the Austrian capital. The King yielded to no one in the honor serving that Mass. The armies of Christendom knelt in humble prayer. Later on that same day, Father Marco was to see a white dove hovering over this very king and his men while the battled raged, a sign of the victory to come.

The King gave a signal. Drums rolled, cannons roared and the great human avalanche plunged down the steep mountain precipices shouting, Jesus! Mary! Sobieski! Jesus! Mary! Sobieski!

Many were the separate and terrible combats on that memorable day, but suffice it to say that by five in the afternoon, the warrior king brandished his sword and charged upon the tent of the Turkish leader, shouting the words of the prophet king [David], Non nobis Domine exercituum, non nobis, sed Nomini tuo da gloriam. Not to us, O Lord of Host, not to us, but to Thy name give the glory. [Psalm 113:9]

The name of Sobieski spread panic throughout the enemy camp. Kara Mustapha, trembling in his boots, turned to the Tarter Khan, Selim Gieray, Can you not save me? he pleaded. I know the Polish king, Selim replied, where he is, flight is our only refuge. Look out upon the firmament and you will see that God Himself is against us. (The two armies saw the crescent moon fade in the skies.) The Moslem army fled in terror. Sobieski and his men attributed their victory to God and the power of Our Lady's name.

We are now on our march to Hungary, the king wrote, taking advantage of their distraction to defeat the remainder of their scattered troops. I have all the princes of the Empire my companions in this enterprise, who tell me they are ready to follow such a leader not only into Hungary but to the end of the world...Thanks be to Heaven, now the half-moon triumphs no longer over the Cross.

Blessed Pope Innocent XI, established the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary to be celebrated on the twelfth of September each year as a perpetual memory of the victory of Vienna. 

 

It is more than interesting to note that this great Feast of the Holy Name of Mary is merely an "optional memorial" in the counterfeit church of conciliarism's Novus Ordo liturgical calendar, meaning that it can be ignored with utter impunity by a conciliar "priest." Today's feast is a Greater Double in the calendar of the Catholic Church, which is alive and well in the catacombs. This is just one of many examples of the conciliarism's contempt for Catholicism that is expressed in overt and subtle ways in the Novus Ordo Missae itself.

With Our Lady as our sure guide and intercessor, may we be ever earnest about making reparation for our own many sins, each of has contributed to the worsening of the state of the Church Militant on earth. Once again, make no mistake about it: our own sins and our ingratitude and our lukewarmness have exacerbated, that is, worsened, the state of the Church Militant on earth. We cannot be content to wallow in spiritual mediocrity. We must accept whatever penances and humiliations that God chooses to send us so that we can give them back to His Most Sacred Heart through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother as her consecrated slaves, especially by means of praying as many Rosaries as our states-in-life permit.

Our Lady stands by the tomb of her Divine Son, Who has been buried mystically by the conciliarists' contempt for the truths that He has revealed exclusively through His Catholic Church and have been taught infallibly by her without any hint or shadow of change from Pentecost Sunday. We must keep her company at that tomb in our prayers, being ever willing to take on more penances and to renounce our own comfort and convenience in order to help to usher in the day when the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will make it possible for the enemies of her Divine Son in the modern world and in the grips of Modernism will be vanquished, permitting the restoration of all things in Christ the King as we honor her as our Immaculate Queen.

 

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Holy Name of Mary, be our our salvation!

 

Omnia instaurare in Christo.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our deaths. Amen.

All to you, Blessed Mother. All to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary

 

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 Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.

Saint Peter Claver, pray for us.

Saint Nicholas of Tolentino, pray for us.

Saints Protus and Hyacinth, pray for us.

Saint Gorgonius, pray for us.

Saint Giles, pray for us.

Saint Cloud, pray for us.

Saint Lawrence Justinian, pray for us.

Saint Hadrian, pray for us.

Saint Stephen of Hungary, pray for us.

Saint Rose of Lima, pray for us.

Saint Joseph Calasanctius, pray for us.

Pope Saint Zephyrinus, pray for us.

Saint Louis IX, King of France, pray for us.

Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, pray for us.

Saint Bartholomew, pray for us.

Saint Philip Benizi, pray for us.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.

Saint John Eudes, pray for us.

Saint Hyacinth, pray for us, pray for us.

Saint Agapitus, pray for us.

Saint Helena, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saint Clare of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Irenaeus, pray for us.

Saints Monica, pray for us.

Saint Jude, pray for us.

Saint John the Beloved, pray for us.

Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.

Saint John Bosco, pray for us.

Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us.

Saint  Scholastica, pray for us.

Saint Benedict, pray for us.

Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.

Saint Antony of the Desert, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.

Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.

Saint Turibius, pray for us.

Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Monica, pray for us.

Saint Agatha, pray for us.

Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us.

Saint Basil the Great, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us.

Saint Rene Goupil, pray for us.

Saint John Lalonde, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel Lalemont, pray for us.

Saint Noel Chabanel, pray for us.

Saint Charles Garnier, pray for us.

Saint Anthony Daniel, pray for us.

Saint John DeBrebeuf, pray for us.

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us.

Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Dominic, pray for us.

Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.

Saint Basil, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Sebastian, pray for us.

Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us.

Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Saint Genevieve, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.

Saint Rita of Cascia, pray for us.

Saint Louis de Montfort, pray for us.

Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.

Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Father Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.

Francisco Marto, pray for us.

Jacinta Marto, pray for us.

Juan Diego, pray for us.

Father Maximilian Kolbe,M.I., pray for us.

 

The Longer Version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1888

O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil.  Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil.  Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with  the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven.  That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels.  Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage.  Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.  That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.  These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered.  Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory.  They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude.  Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church.  Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations.  Amen.

Verse: Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.

Response: The Lion of the Tribe of Juda has conquered the root of David.

Verse: Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.

Response: As we have hoped in Thee.

Verse: O Lord hear my prayer.

Response: And let my cry come unto Thee.

Verse: Let us pray.  O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin, immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of our souls. 

Response:  Amen.  

 





© Copyright 2007, Thomas A. Droleskey. All rights reserved.