Defending the Truth is Never Any Kind of Game

by Thomas A. Droleskey

 

Several recent articles on this site have dealt with the the "revised Good Friday Prayer for the Jews" that has ignited such a furor, much of which consists of the devil's efforts to goad the ancient enemies of the Faith into attacking Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI as a means of prompting some traditionally-minded Catholics into rounding up support for the "pope" who is an absolutely committed conciliarist, a lifelong Hegelian whose theology and philosophy have been shaped by men with views anathematized by the [First] Vatican Council and condemned in Pope Pius IX's Syllabus of Errors, Pope Saint Pius X's Pascendi Dominici Gregis and Pope Pius XII's Humani Generis. Leaving aside any effort to judge anyone's subjective motivations in all of this, it is clear that the devil is winning major victories in all of this. And although these victories are temporary, the harm that is being done to souls, including those of the Talmudic Jews, is incalculable.

The net effect of these temporary victories of the adversary and his minions is to pit believing Catholics against each other, sometimes in a very fierce, emotional and ad hominem manner, as the conciliarist agenda of false ecumenism and the new ecclesiology and religious liberty/separation of Church and State  It is quite a spectacle to behold to see people rushing to defend a man whose lifelong rejection of the defined nature of dogmatic truth has led him to endorse the "worship" offered God by false religions, a "worship" that is loathsome to God and an abomination in His sight. It takes a suspension of all rationality to overlook Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's relentlessly aggressive promotion of an agenda that is contrary to the Deposit of Faith and thus harmful to the good of the souls for whom Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross simply because he is being opposed by the very people he sought to appease. The mere fact that a man who promotes one condemned proposition after another is being opposed by people he sought to appease is no reason to suspend rationality and to ignore his quite public and manifest errors, which he has put on display for all the world to view in his various books, none of which he has abjured, and has reiterated in many instances since his "elevation" on April 19, 2005.

Although I was "late" to come to accept the truth that a legitimately reigning pontiff cannot give us error in contravention of the defined teaching of the Catholic Church and cannot impose disciplinary laws that are evil and thus offensive to God and contrary to the eternal good of souls, I have recognized for most of the past two years now that the "resist and recognize" approach to the papacy is erroneous and reduces the scope of the infallibility of Holy Mother Church's Ordinary Magisterium to something that none of the Fathers of the Church would recognize or accept. A legitimately elected and reigning pontiff has the right to bind Catholics with what he teaches and to impose upon them liturgical and disciplinary regulations from which no Catholic may choose to exempt himself or dare to serve as the ultimate arbiter as to which papal decree or allocution or encyclical letter or regulation he believes is consonant with the perennial teaching and traditional practice of the Catholic Church.

Father Anthony Cekada has handled this very well in his Resisting the Pope, Sedevacantism and Frankenchurch, which I very much recommend to be read in full. Here is but a brief passage to illustrate the simple Catholic truth that we do not get to "pick and choose" which papal decrees and regulations we "like" and thus consider ourselves bound under penalty of sin to obey, if not "duty bound" to "resist" publicly:"

In my experience, the average layman who adheres to R&R [resist and recognize] does so based on the notion that Catholics are really bound only by “ex cathedra” pronouncements, that neither the New Mass nor the Vatican II errors fall under this heading, and that Catholics are therefore free to reject and denounce these things as non-Catholic, as well as to “resist” the various popes who promulgated them.

R&R apologists have offered more refined variations of the foregoing, but their arguments fail for the following reasons:

 

A. The authority of the Church cannot promulgate an evil rite of Mass. As I have demonstrated elsewhere,[6] Catholic theologians teach that the Church’s infallibility extends to universal disciplinary laws — she “can never sanction a universal law which would be at odds with faith or morality or would be by its very nature conducive to the injury of souls.”[7]

Based on the following anathema of the Council of Trent, moreover, theologians explicitly extend this infallibility to the Church’s laws governing the celebration of Mass:

“If anyone says that the ceremonies, vestments and outward signs, which the Catholic Church uses in the celebration of Masses, are incentives to impiety rather than the service of piety: let him be anathema.”[8]

But, as every traditionalist knows, Paul VI’s New Mass (even in Latin) is one big fat irritabulum impietatis — “incentive to impiety.”

You cannot reconcile the evil of this Mass with the notion that the man who promulgated it was a true pope, possessing supreme legislative authority from Jesus Christ.[9]

 

B.  Catholics must adhere to the teachings of the universal ordinary magisterium (pope and bishops together) and to the Holy See’s doctrinal decisions. In the Syllabus of Errors Pius IX condemned the proposition that Catholics are obliged to believe only those things proposed by the Church’s infallible judgment as dogmas of the faith.[10] Catholics must also adhere to:

(1) Teachings of the Universal Ordinary Magisterium.[11] One way this magisterium is exercised is “by the express teaching habitually imparted, outside of formal definitions, by the pope and the body of bishops dispersed throughout the world.”[12]

By this standard, for instance, the 1994-1997 Catechism of the Catholic Church contains “universal ordinary magisterium” for those who recognize John Paul II as a true pope. He explicitly declared the Catechism “a sure norm for teaching the faith,” “a sure and authentic reference text for teaching Catholic doctrine… to assist in the writing of new local catechisms… while carefully preserving the unity of faith and fidelity to Catholic doctrine.”[13]

Yet traditionalists who read SSPX publications, The Remnant, Catholic Family News, etc. know that the Catechism is filled with doctrinal error, because it promotes the Vatican II teachings on religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality, the Church, etc.

(2) Doctrinal Decrees of the Holy See.[14] These include doctrinal statements published by the Holy Office with the pope’s approval, as well as papal encyclicals. Catholics must give all authentically-approved papal doctrinal decrees “internal mental and religious assent,” given “out of reverence due to God, who governs through the sacred hierarchical authority of the Church.”[15]

Those traditionalists who recognized John Paul II as a true pope, therefore, would be required to give internal mental and religious assent to post-Vatican II pronouncements such as the Declaration Dominus Jesus, which “The Sovereign Pontiff… with sure knowledge and by his apostolic authority, ratified and confirmed.” [16]

Here too, publications put out by the R&R camp have pointed out that this document and others like it contain doctrinal errors about the Church, salvation, etc.

But again, one cannot reconcile the existence of doctrinal errors found in either source (presumed universal ordinary magisterium or papal doctrinal decrees) to the notion that a true pope and Catholic bishops, retaining teaching authority from Jesus Christ and the assistance of the Holy Ghost, imposed doctrinal error on the universal Church.

 

C.  Theologians do not support public “resistance” to a true pope’s laws and doctrine. Faced with the foregoing, the R&R camp has endlessly — and I mean endlessly — recycled a set of quotes from various theologians that supposedly support public “resistance” to a pope’s evil laws and false doctrines.[17] The quotes fall into two groups:

(1)  Commentaries on Paul’s Resistance to Peter. (Gal 2:11-14) Here St. Paul publicly rebuked St. Peter for dissimulating about observing the Old Testament dietary laws: “I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.”

St. Thomas[18] and others[19] observe that St. Paul gave an example of how subjects should give fraternal correction to their prelates “even publicly,” if they commit a crime that is public, scandalous and a danger to the faith. This is standard teaching in moral theology manuals.

The principle, however, applies only to fraternal correction. No theologian I know of extends it to rejecting a pope’s universal disciplinary laws or teachings of his universal ordinary magisterium.[20] The theologian Suarez, in fact, says that neither Gal 2:11-14 nor Mt 18:17[21] allow “fraternal correction” of a pope through public denunciation of his crime.[22]

(2) Resistance to a Pope “Destroying the Church.” R&R-ers often cite quotes from 15th- and 16th-century theologians that say it is permissible to “resist” a true pope who does such things as attack souls by bad example, encourage sacrileges, appoint unworthy men to or sell church offices, wage unjust wars, inflict spiritual violence, order evil things, profane holy things, “destroy the Church,” etc. From these R&R-ers conclude that “under extraordinary circumstances, a Catholic can have not simply the right but the duty to disobey the Pope.”[23] However:

      •     These passages justify nothing more than disobeying a pope’s evil commands (“Sell Fatima to Disney, Monsignor, dynamite St. Peter’s and then bring me another blonde chorus girl…”), but NOT resisting his universal laws[24] (which are infallible) and the universal ordinary magisterium of pope and bishops (also infallible).

      •     Because the R&R-ers have not examined the context of their “proof-texts,” they mistakenly conclude that the authors were approving “resistance” to a pope by individual Catholics.

But in fact the quotes were part of the Catholic argument against the theories of the conciliarist theologian Gerson (1363-1429)[25] regarding how much a general or provincial council of bishops or a Catholic king could either “correct” or “resist” a morally evil pope —one who, like some Renaissance popes, sold ecclesiastical offices, appointed unworthy office-holders, irresponsibly granted dispensations, and thus “manifestly destroyed the Church.”[26]

So as regards each quote, either the title of the work in which it appeared, its general context, or the question that preceded it clearly indicates that Cajetan,[27] Vitoria,[28] Bellarmine[29] and Suarez[30] were supporting resistance to evil popes by councils, not individuals. (See footnotes.)

A theological commentary on Vitoria confirms this: “…when a pope by arbitrary dispensations manifestly destroys the Church, not private persons, but the bishops, in council or by mutual agreement may resist accepting or implementing them…Distinguished authors and firm defenders of papal authority such as Cajetan likewise upheld this teaching.” [31]

Vitoria himself puts the final nail into the coffin for the R&R “resistance” quotes:

“Proposition 23: ‘It would not seem permitted for any private person on his own authority to resist and not obey the Pope’s directives, however much these would contradict a Council’s decision.’ This is correct. For it would be a great act of irreverence and near-contempt for supreme authority if anyone were allowed to act towards a Pope in a way that would not be permitted towards a bishop, whose directive (however unjust) one may not disobey on private authority.”[32]

*****

Since the authority of the Church cannot give evil or error, and since individual Catholics may not “resist” a true pope, R&R-ers face three possible conclusions:

      (1)  The New Mass and Vatican II teachings are Catholic. (Stop resisting, check out that Saturday Novus Ordo at St. Teilhard’s, homeschool your son Marcel with that new Catechism, and sign up little Philomena for altar girls.)

      (2) The authority of the Catholic Church has defected. (Go Episcopalian — great music, no confession!)

      (3) The New Mass and the Vatican II teachings are not Catholic, and so could not have come from the authority of the Church. (Welcome to…

 

II. SEDEVACANTISM.

The evils and errors most traditionalists acknowledge, in other words, are solid evidence that the lawgivers lost their authority. Sedevacantism merely tries to explain how.

 Here, Catholic theology and canon law tell us that while the Church herself cannot defect from the faith, an individual member who holds Church office can. If he defects publicly, he automatically loses his office (authority).[33]

This principle applies even to a pope. Since the 16th century nearly all canonists and theologians who have addressed the issue teach that a pope who becomes a manifest (public) heretic “would, by divine law, fall from office without any sentence.”[34]

 

Father Cekada provided an excellent review of the "resist and recognize" errors in a sermon given on July 9, 2006 (The Errors of the Society of St Pius X.) His Excellency Bishop Mark A. Pivarunas has done so in the lecture he delivered at the Fatima Conference at Mount Saint Michael's Academy on October 13, 2006 (Oct. 13 Bishop Pivarunas      “Sedevacantism Part I”,   Part II,  Part III”, Part IV”). Helpful articles by His Excellency Bishop Donald A. Sanborn include Resistance and Indefectibility and The Mountains of Gelboe, among many others listed at Traditional Mass.

Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki, CMRI, summarize the matter as follows in their massive and well-documented Tumultuous Times:

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

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

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

 

Indeed, Pope Leo XIII's Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896, explains quite clearly that those who defect from even one teaching of the Catholic Church fall from the Faith and can no longer be considered a Catholic:

The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88).

The need of this divinely instituted means for the preservation of unity, about which we speak is urged by St. Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians. In this he first admonishes them to preserve with every care concord of minds: "Solicitous to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. iv., 3, et seq.). And as souls cannot be perfectly united in charity unless minds agree in faith, he wishes all to hold the same faith: "One Lord, one faith," and this so perfectly one as to prevent all danger of error: "that henceforth we be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive" (Eph. iv., 14): and this he teaches is to be observed, not for a time only - "but until we all meet in the unity of faith...unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ" (13). But, in what has Christ placed the primary principle, and the means of preserving this unity? In that - "He gave some Apostles - and other some pastors and doctors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ" (11-12).

 

Much time has been spent on this site demonstrating the particular ways in which the "Second" Vatican Council defected from the Catholic Faith and began to propagate a false religion. This false religion continues to be propagated by means of a synthetic liturgy that was fashioned with the help of six "liberal" Protestants. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has, as mentioned before, defected in numerous ways from the Catholic Faith, starting with his completely anathematized notion of the nature of dogmatic truth, a notion that is at the foundation of Modernism and the "New Theology" and hence of the totality of conciliarism. This anathematized notion of the nature of dogmatic truth was on full display as "Pope" Benedict XVI addressed his conciliar curia on December 22, 2005:

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

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

 

This view has been condemned by the Catholic Church, as one can see from the following statements below:

Hence, that meaning of the sacred dogmata is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy Mother Church, and there must never be an abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.... If anyone says that it is possible that at some given time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmata propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has always understood and understands: let him be anathema. [Vatican Council, 1870.]

Hence it is quite impossible to maintain that they [dogmatic statements and papal pronouncements] absolutely contain the truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sense in its relation to man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and must therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the religious sense. But the object of the religious sense, as something contained in the absolute, possesses an infinite variety of aspects, of which now one, now another, may present itself. In like manner he who believes can avail himself of varying conditions. Consequently, the formulas which we call dogma must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion

It is thus, Venerable Brethren, that for the Modernists, whether as authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church. Nor, indeed, are they without forerunners in their doctrines, for it was of these that Our predecessor Pius IX wrote: "These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts." On the subject of revelation and dogma in particular, the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new. We find it condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms: ''Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human reason"; and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council: ''The doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been proposed to human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it were a philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence also that sense of the sacred dogmas is to be perpetually retained which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the truth." Nor is the development of our knowledge, even concerning the faith, barred by this pronouncement; on the contrary, it is supported and maintained. For the same Council continues: "Let intelligence and science and wisdom, therefore, increase and progress abundantly and vigorously in individuals, and in the mass, in the believer and in the whole Church, throughout the ages and the centuries -- but only in its own kind, that is, according to the same dogma, the same sense, the same acceptation." [Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.]

Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical' misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. . . .

Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or what is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with the result that there would remain nothing but this plain simple fact-one to be put on a par with the ordinary facts of history-the fact, namely, that a group of men by their own labor, skill, and talent have continued through subsequent ages a school begun by Christ and his apostles. I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the apostles. The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way. [Pope Saint Pius X, The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910.]

 

This foundational error in the mind of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, a foundational error of conciliarism itself, provides the key to understanding how he can empty the words "tradition" and "doctrine" of their meanings and fill them with his efforts to "adapt" them to the circumstances of the moment, providing truth with a new "anchorage," well, at least for a time before it, truth, must be "anchored" somewhere else at some point in the future. And it is this foundational error that explains how Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI can write a prayer that eliminates any reference to the self-blindedness of the Jews and to eviscerate any necessity whatsoever of their converting to the Catholic Church before the end of the world, if then. One must view the work of Joseph Ratzinger through the keys that he has provided in his own works. He is simply doing now as "pope" what he has believed throughout the course of his nearly fifty-seven year priesthood.

The defects in the new conciliar Good Friday Prayer for the Jews that is to be inserted into the modernized Missal of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII have been analyzed quite accurately by several non-sedevacantist, if not overtly anti sedevacantist, sources. Although a discussion of these defects will never convince Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's defenders that they are wrong, a review of these analyses by dispassionate readers, both now and in the future, might be helpful to serve as an antidote to the positivism and spin-doctoring that is taking place at the present time as rationality is suspended in order to uphold the future of a "papal" grant, Summorum Pontificum, that is premised upon accepting the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition and the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service as being but "two forms of the one Roman Rite" and upon mandating that priests in the conciliar structure cannot only offer the Mass of Tradition but must offer the "ordinary form" as well. Here is one such analysis:

Today certainly merits being named "Black Tuesday". After some months of rumours, the Holy Father has opened the way to change in the Traditional Rite of the Church by ordering the replacement of the traditional prayer for the Jews which is prayed on Good Friday with another one which he has written. Such a move cannot but dismay the friends of Tradition, and embolden the enemies of the Church.

The Pope has changed the prayer due to pressure from the modernists and certain Jewish groups who have expressed their outrage at the message of the old prayer: that the Jews are in need of conversion, being presently in a state of spiritual blindness. Cardinal Bertone, the Secretary of State, had already suggested a change in the prayer was possible; and it cannot be a coincidence that the new prayer was released by the Secretariat of State. This also bodes ill for the future.

A comparison of the two prayers brings out the theological differences between them. The texts are as follows:

1962:

Oremus et pro Judaeis; ut Deus et Dominus noster auferat velamen de cordibus eorum; ut et ipsi agnoscant Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum.

Oremus.

Flectamus Genua.

Levate.

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui etiam Judaeos a tua misericordia non repellis; exaudi preces nostras, quas pro illius populi obcaecatione deferimus; ut agnita veritatis tuae luce, quae Christus est, a suis tenebris eruantur. Per eundem Dominum nostrum. Amen.

Let us pray also for the Jews, that Our God and Lord might take away the veil from their hearts; that they also may know Jesus Christ our Lord.

Let us pray.

Let us kneel.

Rise up.

Almighty and everlasting God, who drivest not away from thy mercy even the Jews; hear our prayers which we offer for the blindness of that people; that acknowledging the light of thy truth, they may be delivered from their darkness. Through the same our Lord. Amen.

Now a glance at this prayer reveals several things. Firstly, there is present an urgency regarding the Jews. Their condition is one of blindness, which is one also of bondage. Their blindness as to the truth provokes a prayer that God deliver them and give them knowledge of Christ.
The substance of this prayer is taken from II Corinthians 3, in which there is made a contrast between the law given to Moses, called a ministration of death, and the ministration of the spirit which is the new Law. St. Paul says that as the face of Moses was so bright that the Jews could not look upon him, and so had to be veiled, so the understanding of the Jews remained under a veil both regarding the meaning of the Old Law and of the promulgation of the New:

"For, until this present day, the selfsame veil, in the reading of the Old Testament remaineth, not taken away (because in Christ it is made void). But even until this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart."

The fact that the Old Law has been made void presents the Church with a great cause of concern for the Jews, since their covenant has ended and been put into the context of the New Covenant and indeed the foundation of the true Israel, the Church into which both Jews and gentiles are called to enter as the sole ark of salvation. Indeed, in Galatians, St. Paul refers to the Church as the true Jerusalem, and the Jews as the children of the slave, Hagar.

The new prayer is the following:

Oremus et pro Iudaeis. Ut Deus et Dominus noster illuminet corda eorum, ut agnoscant Iesum Christum salvatorem omnium hominum.
Oremus.

Flectamus genua.

Levate.

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui vis ut omnes homines salvi fiant et ad agnitionem veritatis veniant, concede propitius, ut plenitudine gentium in Ecclesiam Tuam intrante omnis Israel salvus fiat. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

Let us pray also for the Jews; that our God and Lord may enlighten their hearts that they may know Jesus Christ the saviour of all men.

Let us pray.

Let us kneel.

Arise.

Almighty everlasting God, who wills that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth; grant propitiously that the fullness of the gentiles coming into thy Church, all Israel might be saved. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Now this prayer contains the words of Saint Paul also. The final conversion of the Jews as a whole is foretold in Romans 11:25:

"For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery, (lest you should be wise in your own conceits), that blindness in part has happened in Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in."

The new prayer for the Jews which is to replace the old, puts the enlightenment of the Jews in an eschatological framework, that is, within those events which herald the end of the world. now certainly the Jews as a whole will only be converted during the end times, but placing this text within the context of a prayer for the Jews, removes the urgency of efforts at their conversion now, if conversion would even be the word meant by the Pope. They possess already a covenant from God, the argument goes; they have only to receive the fullness of truth at the end. But the problem is that Judaism is not the same now as before the coming of Christ. There has been a rejection of the Messiah. The synagogue is no longer ordered to Christ, but as the New Testament states, she has become the "synagogue of Satan". The further complication of the Talmud only acts as a further cause of blindness for the Jews. They are reduced to becoming Israel according to the flesh.

A reading of the writings of the former Cardinal Ratzinger, especially a work entitled "One religion, many covenants" reveal the problems of the pope's personal theology in this matter. For him both the vocation of Christ to the Cross in obedience to the Father, and the rejection of Christ by the Jewish leaders as an act of obedience to the Old Covenant and it's insistence that God is One, opens the door to a multi-covenantal way to salvation, rather than a simple replacement of the old by the new. He does not deny that Christ is Saviour of all men, but he posits covenants which are valid simultaneously. He simply leaves the conversion of the Jews to the end of the world. There is no need for them to convert now. And that is the error which makes this new prayer unacceptable, despite it's Pauline language, for Saint Paul strove to convert the Jews to the One Faith, suffering many trials and persecutions in order to do so. The Pope is willing to let God sort it all out in the end, without the Church having to actively convert the Jews to the Catholic Church. But he would have done well to have paid more attention to the teaching of the Council of Florence:

"The Roman Church... firmly believes, professes, and teaches that none of those who do not exist within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but Jews... can become partakers of eternal life... unless they become associated with it [the Church] before they die." (http://credidimuscaritati.blogspot.com.)

 

This analysis has been confirmed by Walter "Cardinal" Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the head of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, and by "Archbishop" Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture:

"When the Pope speaks now of the conversion of the Jews, one must understand this correctly. He quotes verbatim the eleventh chapter of the Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans. There the Apostle says that we as Christians hope, that when the fullness of the Gentiles enter the Church, that then will all of Israel be converted. That is an eschatalogical end-time hope, and thus does not mean that we have the intention of pursuing the conversion of the Jews as one pursues the conversion of the Gentiles (pagans)." (Walter "Cardinal" Kasper, as quoted on Vatican Radio, February 7, 2008.)

The President of the Pontifical Council for Culture defends the Good Friday intercession in the old Rite. Behind the recasting of the Latin text, there lies "no missionary strategy directed towards," writes Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi in an article in the L' Osservatore Romano. "At the heart of the Christian hope is Jesus, and that's why the church prays, at the end of time, if they are to share Jesus, "the faithful of Israel" will be found at their side. That was "the Christian vision", but not a "program" for the "conversion" of the Jews. The Good Friday intercession for the Jews can be found in the Missal of the old form of the Catholic Rite, it was recently reworded by Pope Benedict, alluding to a quote from St Paul. (http://cathcon.blogspot.com/2008/02/no-conversion-strategy.html.)

 

The fact that vocal opposition has arisen from some Talmudic Jewish leaders to anything that even implies the necessity of seeking the conversion of the Jews to the Catholic Church does not change in the slightest the simple fact that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's new composition is a product of his thoroughly heretical notion of the nature of truth and his apostate representation that there exists a "multi-covenantal way to salvation, rather than a simple replacement of the old by the new." To cite such opposition as any reason whatsoever to support the "Holy Father" is to throw all rationality aside to let the enemies of the ancient Faith dictates the terms by which we use the minds that God gave us to analyze and to assess words in light of their true context and meaning rather than projecting into words the meaning that wishful thinkers want them to convey.

Moreover, Walter "Cardinal" Kasper has sent a letter to Rabbi David Rosen, the Chairman of International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, to reinforce his own earlier statements on Vatican Radio and those expressed by "Archbishop" Ravasi" in L'Osservatore Romano:

Chief Rabbi David Rosen
Chairman
IJCIC
165 East 56th Street
New York, NY 10022 USA

Dear Rabbi Rosen,

Upon my return to Rome, I found your letter of 10 February 2008 regarding the prayer formulated for the extraordinary rite of the Good Friday liturgy. I well understand the sensitivities of some of the more traditional Jewish circles. However, if one reads exactly what is said in the reformulated prayer one sees nothing is withdrawn from Nostra Aetate; indeed, this text remains totally valid and fundamental for our Jewish-Christian relations. It is absolutely not the intention of anyone in the Roman Curia to step back and interrupt our fruitful dialogue, which for us is irreversible.

Yet we must not lose sight of the fact that this dialogue presupposes that both Jews and Christians maintain their identities and remain free to express their respective faiths. From the very beginning of our dialogue it was and it remains clear that notwithstanding all that we have in common there is a fundamental difference in Christology which is constitutive for both your Jewish and our own Christian identity. To give witness of our Christian faith, as is expressed in the reformulated prayer, is therefore in no way a return to the language of contempt but an expression of mutual respect in our respective otherness.

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

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

I cannot see why this prayer should present any reason to interrupt our dialogue. On the contrary, it is an opportunity and a challenge to continue the dialogue on what we have in common and what differentiates us in our Messianic hope.

I am happy that after some perplexities we now hear more and more voices from the Jewish world seeing things in a realistic way, and I do hope that this letter can be a contribution to overcome the misunderstandings and grievances.

Yours sincerely,

Walter Cardinal Kasper
President (Cardinal Kasper's Letter to Rabbi Rosen)

 

Does anyone want to claim that Walter Kasper acted unilaterally in sending this letter to Rabbi David Rosen, a member of the Conservative branch of Talmudic Judaism who supports the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the case of Roe v. Wade, January 22, 1973 (see: USCJ: The Abortion Controversy), who was made a "Papal" Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Gregory by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI in 2005 (see: Rabbi David Rosen Home Page; he's also the honorary President of the International Jewish Vegetarian and Ecology Society), without the approval of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI? This letter admits once again what the defenders of the "revised" Good Friday prayer keep saying over and over again is not the case: "The reformulated text no longer speaks about the conversion of the Jews as some Jewish critics wrongly affirm. . . . Therefore there is nothing about missionary activities by which we may take Israel's salvation in our hands." So much for Saint Peter's discourse to the Jews on Pentecost Sunday. So much for Saint Paul's own efforts to convert the Jewish people. So much for Saint Vincent Ferrer, O.P. So much for Fathers Theodore and Alphonse Ratisbonne. So much for the truth. We find such revolutionary phrases as "mutual respect in our respective otherness" in the place of these words written under the inspiration of God the Holy Ghost Himself describing Saint Peter's discourse to the Jews on Pentecost Sunday:

 

Therefore let all the house of Israel know most certainly, that God hath made both Lord and Christ, this same Jesus, whom you have crucified. Now when they had heard these things, they had compunction in their heart, and said to Peter, and to the rest of the apostles: What shall we do, men and brethren? But Peter said to them: Do penance, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins: and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all that are far off, whomsoever the Lord our God shall call. And with very many other words did he testify and exhort them, saying: Save yourselves from this perverse generation.

They therefore that received his word, were baptized; and there were added in that day about three thousand souls. (Acts 2: 36-41.)

Moreover, Walter Kasper's letter to Rabbi David Rosen reminded the latter that:

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

 

In other words, Walter Kasper is telling David Rosen that only a handful of Catholics will be present at Good Friday liturgies conducted with the modernized missal of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII. The "vast majority of Catholic communities" will use the prayer "in the ordinary liturgy," which is as follows:

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. Let us pray: 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.

 

This is the prayer that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI himself will pray on Good Friday, March 21, 2008, not the revised prayer for use in the "extraordinary form of the Roman Rite." It is clear that the scions of the counterfeit church of conciliarism do not believe that the Catholic Church has a mission to seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of all men to her maternal bosom, including those who adhere to a dead, superseded religion, Judaism and its mutant variation, Talmudic Judaism. Remember these words of Walter Kasper's:

Therefore there is nothing about missionary activities by which we may take Israel's salvation in our hands.

 

Remember these words. They belong to an apostate who himself belongs to a counterfeit church which has abandoned the cause of the salvation of the souls of those in false religions in the name of a false ecumenism, itself founded upon a false notion of "universal salvation."

For one to claim that the likes Walter Kasper and Gianfranco Ravasi do not speak for the "Holy Father" and that they are seeking to "undermine" his work is to do with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI what many of us did for far too long with Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II: find every excuse imaginable to claim that the poor "Holy Father" is surrounded by saboteurs and/or agents provocateurs whom he tolerates until he can replace them with more suitable appointees. One of those appointees, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M., Cap., remains in same position that he held under John Paul II, that of Preacher to the "Papal" Household, from which position he wrote the following in 2005 without ever being contradicted by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:

If Jews one day come (as Paul hopes) to a more positive judgment of Jesus, this must occur through an inner process, as the end of a search of their own (something that in part is occurring). We Christians cannot be the ones who seek to convert them. We have lost the right to do so by the way in which this was done in the past. First the wounds must be healed through dialogue and reconciliation. (Zenit, September 30, 2005.)

 

One wonders what the likes of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Walter Kasper, Gianfranco Ravasi and Raniero Cantalamessa would make of this reflection on the Fifth Dolor of Our Lady written by Father Frederick Faber in his The Foot of the Cross (also known as The Dolors of Mary):

Oh, it was a fearful thought to think of her beautiful Child, that He was to be in some sense a destroyer. Not altogether a Saviour, but a law of life which was to be a sentence of death to some, nay, to many. Things had become very grave now between God and His world. Jesus would be a touchstone. Men must take their sides now, more definitely, more intelligently. God was weary of their sins, weary of waiting for their return. The very greatness of this last long prophesied mercy made the rejection of it the more fatal and irretrievable. The salvation of men would now be in some respects more like that of the angels. Their probation was becoming more divine, and therefore more decisive. To reject Jesus was to be lost eternally, and yet the "Rejected of men: was one of the very names which Scripture gave Him. If any thing could have been hard to Mary's faith, it would have been that Jesus was to be the ruin of many souls; and faith's heroic acceptance of this worshipful truth only made the edge of it keener, and the point sharper, to go down into her heart.

It is part of our imperfection that one impression upon our mind dulls another. We cannot attend to many things at once. Even sorrows, when they come thickly, in some measure neutralize each other. Great sorrows absorb us, and then little ones fall upon us, and we hardly feel them more than the drops of a thunder-shower. We are conscious of them: but the suffering they cause is hardly distinct. But it was not so in our Lady, with the perfections of her unfallen nature. Her self-collection was complete, and embraced every thing. There was no confusion in her mind from want of balance. It received, appreciated, and thoughtfully handed on to her exquisite sensibilities of pain, every slightest aggravation of any one of her multiplied sorrows. So it was now. The curse incurred by her native land, because of the rejection of Jesus, was a distinct and bitter grief. All the glories of its past history, from Exodus to the Maccabees, rose up before her mind. Her heart swelled over the vicissitudes, now sad, now more glorious, of her people. She thought of the Tombs of the saints and prophets scattered among the hills. Her eye traversed the battlefields, where the sword of man had so often avenged the majesty of God. It was the land of promise, very various, very beautiful. It had what no other land had upon it, the golden light of God's mysterious choice. It was the holy East advancing to the water's edge, and confronting that grant West which it was first to convert, and then civilize, and last of all to glorify. It was not a mere feeling of patriotism which stirred within her. That land had been the earthly home of heavenly truth, when the rest of the world lay in the cold shadow of spiritual darkness. It was more like a sanctuary than a region of the earth's geography. There was hardly a mountain which had not seen some miracle, hardly a hollow to which some promise was not attached. The banks of its river, the shores of its inland sea, were overhung with clouds of sacred poetry. A very network of prophecy lay over the whole land, over all the localities of the separate tribes. Their virtues and their faults had to do with the geography of the regions allotted for their dwelling. The peculiar scenery of the country was the imagery of the Scriptures; and it was soon to be something more, because of the teaching of her Son. Then there was Jerusalem. Even the great God had loved that city, almost as if He were a man, with a human affection. He had cherished it in His heart as fondly and as wistfully as any Hebrew who mused upon it beneath the willows by the waters of Babylon. Jesus Himself wept over it, as if His heart would break, from the top of Olivet. Poor city! fair city! It was the trophy of so many mercies, of so much divine tenderness, of so many victories of divine love. It was the tabernacle of the visible glory of the Most High. The sweet savor of sacrifice rose from it everywhere. And now the adorable blood of Jesus was to lay it all desolate, and the Roman fire, and then the ruin of ages, were to lick up almost the vestiges of its holy places! What made Jesus weep, what made Him feel like a mother who would faint shelter her young beneath her wings, must needs have been to Mary the intensest misery. And Simeon's sword had not forgotten even this! Sweet Mother! Thy Son and thyself must ruin Judah, the chosen, the long-endured, the delightful of the world. Fan as thou art to be nothing but the glad channel of God's love to earth, thou must be content to be an instrument of His wrath as well. Thou, too, Mother of mercy! art not thou thyself, even to this day, set for the fall of many, both in the old Israel and in the new? Sweet is the will of God, even when it is terrible in its counsels over the children of men! (Father Frederick Faber, The Foot of the Cross, first published in England in 1857, republished by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 89-91.)

 

For the conciliarists, you see, those who adhere to a false religion and its Talmudic variant are more or less assured of their salvation. There is no need to seek with urgency their unconditional conversion to the Catholic Church. This is apostasy. This is a betrayal of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and a cause of intense grief to His Most Blessed Mother, who appeared to the Jewish man Alphonse Ratisbonne on January 20, 1842, in the Church of San Andrea della Fratte in Rome to effect his conversion to the Catholic Faith.

Those who accept the "legitimacy" of Benedict XVI must indeed accept his "authority" to revise whatever he wants in the liturgy that he believes is under his control. No matter how much they deny it, however, they must also accept his embrace of false ecumenism, which he reiterates constantly. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI may not have expected the adherents of the Talmud he sought to appease by rewriting the Good Friday Prayer for the Jews to have reacted with the vehemence that they have thus far. One can be certain, however, that he considers such opposition to serve his purposes quite well in  tamping down criticism of his ecumenical words and deeds from at least some in "resist and recognize" camp who have chosen to ignore his referring to a mountain on which false worship is offered by Buddhists to their devils as "sacred" and his making space available for false "worship" offered by Protestants in a major Roman archbasilica, that of Saint Paul's Outside the Walls, thereby offending God, Who loathes false religions and their false worship.

Bishop George Hay, the Vicar Apostolic of the Lowland District of Scotland from 1778 to 1805, explained this in a discourse on The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion:

 

Q. What are those laws which prohibit this in general?

A. They are principally these following:

(1) The first is grounded upon the light in which all false religions are considered in the Holy Scripture; for there we are assured that they arise from false teachers, who are called seducers of the people, ravenous wolves, false prophets, who speak perverse things: that they are anti-Christs, and enemies of the cross of Christ; that, departing from the true faith of Christ, they give heed to the spirits of error; that their doctrines are the doctrines of devils, speaking lies; that their ways are pernicious, their heresies damnable, and the like. In consequence of which, this general command of avoiding all communication with them in religion is given by the apostle: "Bear not the yoke together with unbelievers; for what participation hath justice with injustice? or what fellowship hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbelievers? or what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God." (2 Cor. 6:14)

Now it is the true religion of Jesus Christ, the true doctrine of His gospel, which is justice and light; all false doctrines are injustice and darkness; it is by our holy faith that we belong to Christ, and are temples of the living God; all false religions flow from the father of lies, and make those who embrace them unbelievers; therefore all participation, all fellowship, all communication with false religions, is here expressly forbidden by the Word of God. We have seen above 2 that we are obliged to love the persons of those who are engaged in false religions, to wish them well, and to do them good; but here we are expressly forbidden all communication in their religion — that is, in their false tenets, and worship. Hence the learned and pious English divines who published at Rheims their translation of the New Testament, in their note upon this passage, say: "Generally, here is forbidden conversation and dealing with unbelievers in prayers, or meetings at their schismatical service, or other divine office whatsoever; which the apostle here uttereth in more particular terms, that Christian people may take the better heed of it."

(2) The next general command to avoid all religious communication with those who are heretics, or have a false religion, is this, — "A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, AVOID; knowing that he that is such a one is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned by his own judgment." (Tit. 3:10)

Here we see another general command to avoid all such — that is, to flee from them, to have no communication with them. But in what are we commanded to flee from them? Not as to their persons, or the necessary communications of society; for then, as the same holy apostle says upon a similar occasion, "You must needs go out of the world." [1] Cor. 5:10) Not as to the offices of Christian charity; for these we are commanded by Christ himself, in the person of the good Samaritan, to give to all mankind, whatever their religion be: therefore, in the most restricted and limited sense which the words can bear, the thing in which we are commanded to avoid them is in all matters of religion; in that in which they themselves are subverted and sin; in things relating to God and His service. In these they err, in these they are subverted, in these they are condemned; therefore in these we must avoid them.

Hence the pious translators of the Rheims New Testament, in their note on this text, say, "Heretics, therefore, must not wonder if we warn all Catholics, by the words of the apostle in this place, to take heed of them, and to shun their preachings, books, and conventicles."

(3) A third general command on this subject is manifestly included in this zealous injunction of the apostle: "We charge you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother walking disorderly, and not according to the tradition which they have received from us." (2 Thes. 3:6)

In this passage, all the different sects of false religions are particularly pointed out; for, however they may differ in other respects they generally agree in this, of rejecting apostolical traditions handed down to us by the Church of Christ; all such the apostle here charges us, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to avoid — to withdraw ourselves from them. Now it is evident that the most limited sense in which this command, so warmly laid on us by the apostle, can be taken, is to withdraw ourselves from them in everything relating to religion, — from their sacraments, prayers, preachings, religious meetings, and the like. It is in these things that they "do not walk according to the tradition received from the apostles". In these things, then, we are here commanded, in the name of Christ Himself, "to withdraw ourselves from them".

Seeing, therefore, that the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of this holy apostle, has so often, and in such strong terms, forbidden all manner of fellowship in religion with those who are out of His holy Church, let us not be deceived by the specious but vain sophistry of cunning men, who lie in wait to deceive; let us not offend our God, by transgressing these His express commands, by joining in the prayers or going to the meetings of such as are separated from His holy Church, lest He should withdraw His holy grace from US, and as we expose ourselves to the danger, leave us to perish in it.

Let us hear and follow the advice and command of the same holy apostle: "As therefore ye have received Jesus Christ the Lord, walk ye in Him; rooted and built up in Him, and confirmed in the faith; as also ye have learned, abounding in Him in thanksgiving. Beware lest any man impose upon you by philosophy and vain deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the rudiments of the world, and not according to Christ." (Col. 2:6) Wherefore, to all those arguments which may be brought from human, worldly, or interested motives, to induce us to join in or to partake of any religious duty with those of a false religion, though in appearance only, we ought to oppose this one, — "God has expressly forbidden it, therefore no human power can make it lawful." (The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion.)

False ecumenism is at the very nerve center of all things conciliar, including the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service. It is what drove Benedict XVI to try appease the adherents of the Talmud by seeking to rewrite the Good Friday prayer. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI specifically and categorically rejects what he calls disparagingly the "theology of the return." No one who is in his right mind or who is intellectually honest can call this a "minor" matter. Souls are at stake. The souls for whom Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood. The souls which Our Blessed Mother brought to spiritual birth in such agony at the foot of the Cross as the Fifth Sword of Sorrow was thrust through her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Souls. Souls. Souls. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI reaffirms souls in false religions as he propagates a false ecumenism and a false theology of the "Church as communion," claiming, as he did on January 25, 2008, that Catholics are in "communion" with those who dissent from them on articles contained in the Deposit of Faith:

The World Council of Churches and the Catholic Church have enjoyed a fruitful ecumenical relationship dating back to the time of the Second Vatican Council. The Joint Working Group, which began in 1965, has worked assiduously to strengthen the “dialogue of life” which my predecessor, Pope John Paul II, called the “dialogue of charity” (Ut Unum Sint, 17). This cooperation has given vivid expression to the communion already existing between Christians and has advanced the cause of ecumenical dialogue and understanding.

The centenary of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity offers us an opportunity to thank Almighty God for the fruits of the ecumenical movement, in which we can discern the presence of the Holy Spirit fostering the growth of all Christ’s followers in unity of faith, hope and love. To pray for unity is itself “an effective means of obtaining the grace of unity” (Unitatis Redintegratio, 8), since it is a participation in the prayer of Jesus himself. When Christians pray together, “the goal of unity seems closer” (Ut Unum Sint, 22), for the presence of Christ in our midst (cf. Mt 18:20) fosters a profound harmony of mind and heart: we are able to look at each other in a new way, and to strengthen our resolve to overcome whatever keeps us apart.

On this day, then, we think back with gratitude to the work of so many individuals who, over the years, have sought to spread the practice of spiritual ecumenism through common prayer, conversion of heart and growth in communion. We also give thanks for the ecumenical dialogues which have borne abundant fruit in the past century. The reception of those fruits is itself an important step in the process of promoting Christian unity, and the Joint Working Group is particularly suited to studying and encouraging that process. (To members of the Joint Working Group between the World Council of Churches and the Catholic Church )

 

Catholics are NOT in "communion" with those who dissent from articles contained in the Deposit of Faith. Pope Pius IX made this clear in Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868. Pope Leo XIII made this abundantly clear in Satis Cognitum. So did Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928:

The Church of Christ, therefore, is one and the same for ever; those who leave it depart from the will and command of Christ, the Lord - leaving the path of salvation they enter on that of perdition. "Whosoever is separated from the Church is united to an adulteress. He has cut himself off from the promises of the Church, and he who leaves the Church of Christ cannot arrive at the rewards of Christ....He who observes not this unity observes not the law of God, holds not the faith of the Father and the Son, clings not to life and salvation" (S. Cyprianus, De Cath. Eccl. Unitate, n. 6).

But He, indeed, Who made this one Church, also gave it unity, that is, He made it such that all who are to belong to it must be united by the closest bonds, so as to form one society, one kingdom, one body - "one body and one spirit as you are called in one hope of your calling (Eph. iv., 4). Jesus Christ, when His death was nigh at hand, declared His will in this matter, and solemnly offered it up, thus addressing His Father: "Not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in Me...that they also may be one in Us...that they may be made perfect in one" John xvii., 20-21 23). Yea, He commanded that this unity should be so closely knit and so perfect amongst His followers that it might, in some measure, shadow forth the union between Himself and His Father: "I pray that they all may be one as Thou Father in Me and I in Thee" (Ibid. 21).

Agreement and union of minds is the necessary foundation of this perfect concord amongst men, from which concurrence of wills and similarity of action are the natural results. Wherefore, in His divine wisdom, He ordained in His Church Unity of Faith; a virtue which is the first of those bonds which unite man to God, and whence we receive the name of the faithful - "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. iv., 5). That is, as there is one Lord and one baptism, so should all Christians, without exception, have but one faith. And so the Apostle St. Paul not merely begs, but entreats and implores Christians to be all of the same mind, and to avoid difference of opinions: "I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms amongst you, and that you be perfect in the same mind and in the same judgment" (I Cor. i., 10). Such passages certainly need no interpreter; they speak clearly enough for themselves. Besides, all who profess Christianity allow that there can be but one faith. It is of the greatest importance and indeed of absolute necessity, as to which many are deceived, that the nature and character of this unity should be recognized. And, as We have already stated, this is not to be ascertained by conjecture, but by the certain knowledge of what was done; that is by seeking for and ascertaining what kind of unity in faith has been commanded by Jesus Christ. (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)

So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. During the lapse of centuries, the mystical Spouse of Christ has never been contaminated, nor can she ever in the future be contaminated, as Cyprian bears witness: "The Bride of Christ cannot be made false to her Spouse: she is incorrupt and modest. She knows but one dwelling, she guards the sanctity of the nuptial chamber chastely and modestly." The same holy Martyr with good reason marveled exceedingly that anyone could believe that "this unity in the Church which arises from a divine foundation, and which is knit together by heavenly sacraments, could be rent and torn asunder by the force of contrary wills." For since the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one, compacted and fitly joined together, it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head.

Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ no man can be or remain who does not accept, recognize and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter and his legitimate successors. Did not the ancestors of those who are now entangled in the errors of Photius and the reformers, obey the Bishop of Rome, the chief shepherd of souls? Alas their children left the home of their fathers, but it did not fall to the ground and perish for ever, for it was supported by God. Let them therefore return to their common Father, who, forgetting the insults previously heaped on the Apostolic See, will receive them in the most loving fashion. For if, as they continually state, they long to be united with Us and ours, why do they not hasten to enter the Church, "the Mother and mistress of all Christ's faithful"? Let them hear Lactantius crying out: "The Catholic Church is alone in keeping the true worship. This is the fount of truth, this the house of Faith, this the temple of God: if any man enter not here, or if any man go forth from it, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation. Let none delude himself with obstinate wrangling. For life and salvation are here concerned, which will be lost and entirely destroyed, unless their interests are carefully and assiduously kept in mind."

Let, therefore, the separated children draw nigh to the Apostolic See, set up in the City which Peter and Paul, the Princes of the Apostles, consecrated by their blood; to that See, We repeat, which is "the root and womb whence the Church of God springs," not with the intention and the hope that "the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth"will cast aside the integrity of the faith and tolerate their errors, but, on the contrary, that they themselves submit to its teaching and government. Would that it were Our happy lot to do that which so many of Our predecessors could not, to embrace with fatherly affection those children, whose unhappy separation from Us We now bewail. Would that God our Savior, "Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth," would hear us when We humbly beg that He would deign to recall all who stray to the unity of the Church! In this most important undertaking We ask and wish that others should ask the prayers of Blessed Mary the Virgin, Mother of divine grace, victorious over all heresies and Help of Christians, that She may implore for Us the speedy coming of the much hoped-for day, when all men shall hear the voice of Her divine Son, and shall be "careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

 

(For excellent analyses of the "new ecclesiology" and the "Church as communion, aka 'Frankenchurch,'" see: His Excellency Bishop Donald Sanborn's The New Ecclesiology: An Overview, The New Ecclesiology: Documentation and Ratzinger's Subsistent Error and Father Anthony Cekada's sermon, Ratzinger’s Frankenchurch Heresy.)

No one who believes that Catholics are in "communion" with those in false religions is himself a Catholic. No one who endorses and promotes the "spiritual ecumenism" that was the brainchild of the late Abbe Paul Couturier, a disciple of the late Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., is a friend of souls. Indeed, such a person demonstrates himself to be absolutely and arrogantly defiant of the condemnation of such "spiritual ecumenism" by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos:

This being so, it is clear that the Apostolic See cannot on any terms take part in their assemblies, nor is it anyway lawful for Catholics either to support or to work for such enterprises; for if they do so they will be giving countenance to a false Christianity, quite alien to the one Church of Christ. Shall We suffer, what would indeed be iniquitous, the truth, and a truth divinely revealed, to be made a subject for compromise? For here there is question of defending revealed truth. Jesus Christ sent His Apostles into the whole world in order that they might permeate all nations with the Gospel faith, and, lest they should err, He willed beforehand that they should be taught by the Holy Ghost: has then this doctrine of the Apostles completely vanished away, or sometimes been obscured, in the Church, whose ruler and defense is God Himself? If our Redeemer plainly said that His Gospel was to continue not only during the times of the Apostles, but also till future ages, is it possible that the object of faith should in the process of time become so obscure and uncertain, that it would be necessary to-day to tolerate opinions which are even incompatible one with another? If this were true, we should have to confess that the coming of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles, and the perpetual indwelling of the same Spirit in the Church, and the very preaching of Jesus Christ, have several centuries ago, lost all their efficacy and use, to affirm which would be blasphemy. But the Only-begotten Son of God, when He commanded His representatives to teach all nations, obliged all men to give credence to whatever was made known to them by "witnesses preordained by God," and also confirmed His command with this sanction: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned." These two commands of Christ, which must be fulfilled, the one, namely, to teach, and the other to believe, cannot even be understood, unless the Church proposes a complete and easily understood teaching, and is immune when it thus teaches from all danger of erring. In this matter, those also turn aside from the right path, who think that the deposit of truth such laborious trouble, and with such lengthy study and discussion, that a man's life would hardly suffice to find and take possession of it; as if the most merciful God had spoken through the prophets and His Only-begotten Son merely in order that a few, and those stricken in years, should learn what He had revealed through them, and not that He might inculcate a doctrine of faith and morals, by which man should be guided through the whole course of his moral life.

 

This is a condemnation of conciliarism. This is a condemnation of the very life's work of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Once again, only the willfully blind or the intellectually dishonest can fail to recognize and to admit this, drawing therefrom the logical conclusion that the Catholic Church cannot in any way, shape or form make it appear as though she now teaches the opposite, officially or "unofficially," and that it is possible for God to permit one pope to teach in consonance with the Faith as it has been handed down to us perennially and a "council" and other popes to ignore and contradict what had been taught from time immemorial. To believe in a church wherein error can be taught by its councils and governing officials is to believe in anything but the Catholic Church. To assert that those who hold the contrary to what has been taught perennially by the Catholic Church remains a Catholic in the eyes of God is to spit on the teaching of the Catholic Church and to consign the firm teaching of the Fathers of the Church, summarized so well by Pope Leo XIII in Satis Cognitum, to the Orwellian memory hole.

To discuss and to defend the truth of the situation facing Holy Mother Church today is not any kind of "game," as some have written so smugly condescendingly as they seek to bind the conscience of all Catholics concerning their spin-doctoring in behalf of a prayer that wreaks of the "new theology" that was embraced by seminarian Joseph Ratzinger in the late-1940s. The eternal fate of souls, including that of my very own, is no kind of "game" whatsoever. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has proven himself over and over again to be an enemy of souls as he obfuscates the truths of the Faith in his books and as he promotes as "pope" the same condemned propositions in which he has believed and expressed quite publicly throughout his priesthood.

As Mr. Mario Derksen, a Catholic writer whose works have been featured on a number of websites, wrote to me:

"I am certain that when God chooses to restore Holy Mother Church to her former glory and splendor, no one will be able to doubt it. It will happen in miraculous and magnificent fashion! It certainly won't be the kind of charade that's going on in Rome right now. Fr. Ratzinger is still the same sly modernist he was in his suit-and-tie days, when with Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar he called for the razing of the Catholic bastions and warned against traditionalists. It is incomprehensible to me how it is that so many who believe themselves to be part of a remnant "selected out of grace and truth" (Romans 11:5) are abandoning the fight so quickly simply because the Modernist-in-Chief has thrown a few crumbs to them from his Hegelian table. Did St. Pius X not warn against the modernist tactics of balancing modernism with orthodoxy in order to deceive people all the more cleverly (Encyclical "Pascendi," par. 18)? How can anyone seriously take these shenanigans to be the starting point of a genuine restoration of Holy Mother Church? Are people forgetting that the very "Pope" who is now being "persecuted" by the Jews because of his "masterstroke" has one foot in a synagogue, the other in a mosque, and his head in a Masonic lodge?! What do we think is going on here? Do we honestly think this is the beginning of God's Glorious Restoration of the Church? Does this not rather look like the devil's last-ditch efforts to deceive even the elect? Truth is being mixed with error; Christ is put on a par with Belial; the Traditional Mass, even in its mutilated 1962 form, is being equated with the Novus Ordo monstrosity of Paul VI! What would St. Paul identify this as? The Great Deception or the Great Restoration? When the blind lead the blind, both fall into the pit!"

 

Pope Pius X explained in Pascendi Dominici Gregis that admixture of truth and error is the hallmark of Modernism, not of Catholicism:

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.

Although they express their astonishment that We should number them amongst the enemies of the Church, no one will be reasonably surprised that We should do so, if, leaving out of account the internal disposition of the soul, of which God alone is the Judge, he considers their tenets, their manner of speech, and their action. Nor indeed would he be wrong in regarding them as the most pernicious of all the adversaries of the Church. For, as We have said, they put into operation their designs for her undoing, not from without but from within. Hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain from the very fact that their knowledge of her is more intimate. Moreover, they lay the ax not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibers. And once having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to diffuse poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth which they leave untouched, none that they do not strive to corrupt. Further, none is more skillful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious devices; for they play the double part of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and as audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance To this must be added the fact, which indeed is well calculated to deceive souls, that they lead a life of the greatest activity, of assiduous and ardent application to every branch of learning, and that they possess, as a rule, a reputation for irreproachable morality. Finally, there is the fact which is all hut fatal to the hope of cure that their very doctrines have given such a bent to their minds, that they disdain all authority and brook no restraint; and relying upon a false conscience, they attempt to ascribe to a love of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and obstinacy.

Once indeed We had hopes of recalling them to a better mind, and to this end We first of all treated them with kindness as Our children, then with severity; and at last We have had recourse, though with great reluctance, to public reproof. It is known to you, Venerable Brethren, how unavailing have been Our efforts. For a moment they have bowed their head, only to lift it more arrogantly than before. If it were a matter which concerned them alone, We might perhaps have overlooked it; but the security of the Catholic name is at stake. Wherefore We must interrupt a silence which it would be criminal to prolong, that We may point out to the whole Church, as they really are, men who are badly disguised.

It is one of the cleverest devices of the Modernists (as they are commonly and rightly called) to present their doctrines without order and systematic arrangement, in a scattered and disjointed manner, so as to make it appear as if their minds were in doubt or hesitation, whereas in reality they are quite fixed and steadfast. For this reason it will be of advantage, Venerable Brethren, to bring their teachings together here into one group, and to point out their interconnection, and thus to pass to an examination of the sources of the errors, and to prescribe remedies for averting the evil results.

 

Those who see that this applies to the counterfeit church of conciliarism and to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI do not need convincing. Those who do not will continue to make a thousand sophistic excuses for ignoring multiple defections from the Faith as grave harm is done to souls. No amount of argumentation and proof is going to change minds that are willfully closed.

Mind you, those who recognize that the Catholic Church cannot be the author of error or of an evil, defective liturgy are not one whit better than those who do not see this and/or who serve as apologists, whether they realize it or not, for the One World Religion that is conciliarism. The devil wants believing Catholics to fight with each other while his conciliarist servants to his bidding for him as they continue to propagate such things as false ecumenism.This is not about personalities and ad hominem attacks. No, this is about truth. This is about the eternal fate of souls. This is about an epoch of apostasy and betrayal that has been prophesied in the past, including by Saint Nicholas of Flue:

The Church will be punished because the majority of her members, high and low, will become so perverted. The Church will sink deeper and deeper until she will at last seem to be extinguished, and the succession of Peter and the other Apostles to have expired. But, after this, she will be victoriously exalted in the sight of all doubters.

 

Keeping in mind always that each of our sins not only wounded Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ once in time during His Passion and Death but have wounded His Mystical Body on earth, the Church Militant, we must cleave close to true bishops and true priests in the modern-day catacombs where no concessions are made to conciliarism or to the nonexistent "legitimacy" of its false shepherds. We must get ourselves to the daily offering of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition in the Catholic "catacombs" as our circumstances permit, making arrangements, if at all possible, to move to locations where a true offering of the Mass by shepherds not tainted by conciliarism or its ethos in any way whatsoever is available. We must spend time with Our Beloved in His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament. And we must pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit, seeking to offer to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus all of our prayers, works, sufferings, humiliations, mortifications and penances through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

No one who loves Holy Mother Church can be at all happy about the situation facing us at the present time. It is very saddening to see how our sins have caused there to be so many wounds in the Mystical Body of Christ here on earth. It is very saddening to be divided from other Catholics, many of whom have been great champions of the Social Reign of Christ the King and firm opponents of the heresy of Americanism, as Modernists attack the very foundations of the Catholic Faith and thus offend God and do great damage to souls. Father Frederick Faber has some consoling words for us in his The Foot of the Cross:

But let us now consider the lessons which this first dolor teaches to ourselves. It was a lifelong unhappiness. Unhappiness is not without mystery even in a fallen world. By rights there should be no unhappiness at all. For is not the whole world full of God everywhere, and can there be unhappiness in the neighborhood of God? How much goodness and kindness is there in every one around us, if we only take a kindly view of them ourselves! Sin is easily forgiven to those who are earnest. Grace is prodigally bestowed. There is an almost incredible amount of actual enjoyment, and pain and suffering themselves are quickly turned to sanctity. Yet for all this the unhappiness of the world is real. Almost every heart on earth is a sanctuary of some secret sorrow. With some the grief is fresh. With others it is old. With immense numbers the unhappiness is literally lifelong, one out of which there is no possible escape except through the single door of death. With some it arises from having chosen an unfit lot in life from the first. With others it is from the unkindness, misconduct, or misunderstanding of those they love. In some cases men have to suffer for their religion, and its consequences are made by the cruelty of others to last to the end of their days. Not unfrequently it comes from men's characters, or from their sins, or from some consequences of these. Now and then it is the burden of a broken heart, a heart which has been overweighted, and so has snapped, and thus lost is elasticity and the power of throwing off its sorrow. To such suffering time brings no healing. The broken heart lies bleeding in the hand of its Heavenly Father. He will look to it. No one else can. It is astonishing how shallow all human consolation is. The waters glitter so in the sun, we do not see the sandy bottom only just below the surface. We believe it deep, till we have once been to draw water there, and then we learned all about it, for we drew as much sand as water.

Now, what is to be done with this lifelong sorrow! Let our Lady teach us out of the depths of her first dolor. Her sorrows were lifelong. This was the characteristic the first dolor impressed upon them. She suffered without seeking consolation. She suffered without needing to lean on human sympathy. She suffered in silence. She suffered in joy. Let us put this aside, not as inimitable; the time will come when we shall be able to imitate even these things; but let us put it aside as beyond us now. But she had no suffering which was dissociated from the Passion of Jesus. We can make our sorrows in a measure like hers by continually uniting them to the sorrows of our dearest Lord. If our sorrow comes from sin, of course it cannot be like Mary's sorrow; but it can be just as easily, just as acceptably, united with the passion of our Lord. He will despise the offerings. The fact of our griefs being a consequence of sin need not even increase the measure of our grieving. Happy they, and true sons, whom our Father punishes in this life! Like Mary, we must be loving, sweet, and patient with those who cause us any unhappiness, and, laying our head with unrestrained and unashamed tears on our Lord's Bosom, let us think quietly of God and heaven. It is not a slight consolation for lifelong mourners to know that our Blessed Lady was lifelong mourner too. Let us be of good cheer. Let us look our great sorrow in the face, and say to it, "You have made up your mind not to part with me till I go down to the grave: be, then, a second guardian angel to me, be a shadow of God, hindering the heat and glare of the world from drying up the fountains of prayer within my heart." All of us, even if we have not a lifelong sorrow, have a guardian angel of this description. Our sorrows may not be one, but many. They may come on guard, like sentinels, one following the other as each watch of this earthly night is done. Unhappiness is like a secret, subterranean world. We are perpetually walking over it without knowing it, and so seeming unkind and thoughtless to each one to another when in our hearts we are not really so. What a consolation, then, it is to us to reflect that the lives both of Jesus and Mary were lives of one incessant, secret unhappiness! With confidence, therefore, may we seek the Mother of sorrows, and ask her to be the Mother of our our sorrow. Jesus has a special love for the unhappy. The longest day has its evening, the hardest work its ending, and the sharpest pain is contented and everlasting rest. (Father Frederick Faber, The Foot of the Cross, published first in 1857 in England, republished by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 98-100.)

 

The long day of apostasy and betrayal will come to an end. There will indeed be a glorious restoration of the Church, whether now or at the end of time we do not know. We do know, however, that it is our obligation to try to plant a few seeds for this restoration as the fruit of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

What are we waiting for?

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints