Expecting From "The Bishops" What Is
Not Forthcoming From The Pope"
by Thomas A. Droleskey
This will be a very short article as the hour is late. No, I am not necessarily referring to the hour of the day on which this article is being composed, although it is after 9:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 14, 2010, and I am very tired from driving 1700 miles in a fifty-three and one-half hour span from 12:31 p.m., Eastern time, on Monday, January 11, 2010, to 4:00 p.m., Eastern time, on Wednesday, January 13, 2010. No, the lateness of the hour to which I am referring concerns the number of years that the conciliar "pontiffs" have been offending God by violating the First and Second Commandments very directly as they have entered into places of false worship, such as synagogues and mosques, and esteemed the values and beliefs of false religions, sometimes going so far as to esteem the symbols of these religions with their own priestly hands.
Although Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's visit to the Talmudic synagogue in Rome in two days will be reviewed on this site after its completion, there are enough details emerging now to curdle the blood of a believing Catholic who, despite his own sins and failings, does indeed love God as He has revealed Himself to us through His true Church and weeps bitter tears of sorrow over the ways in which His greater honor and majesty and glory are blasphemed repeatedly by the conciliar "pontiffs." Ratzinger/Benedict, far from being a "restorer of Tradition," is a blasphemer who denies the very nature God Himself by denying the immutable nature of dogmatic truths and by his entering into mosques and synagogues, treating each as holy places that are "sacred" to the true God of Divine Revelation.
Ratzinger/Benedict has taken off his shoes and then assumed the Mohammedan prayer position once as he turned in the direction of Mecca (in the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, on November 30, 2006). He termed two different Mohammedan mosques, one in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the other being the Mosque of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem,, as follows:
Places of worship, like this splendid Al-Hussein Bin Talal mosque named after the revered late King, stand out like jewels across the earth’s surface. From the ancient to the modern, the magnificent to the humble, they all point to the divine, to the Transcendent One, to the Almighty. And through the centuries these sanctuaries have drawn men and women into their sacred space to pause, to pray, to acknowledge the presence of the Almighty, and to recognize that we are all his creatures. (Speech to Muslim religious leaders, members of the Diplomatic Corps and Rectors of universities in Jordan in front of the mosque al-Hussein bin Talal in Amman, May 9, 2009.)
I cordially thank the Grand Mufti, Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, together with the Director of the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, Sheikh Mohammed Azzam al-Khatib al-Tamimi, and the Head of the Awquaf Council, Sheikh Abdel Azim Salhab, for the welcome they have extended to me on your behalf. I am deeply grateful for the invitation to visit this sacred place, and I willingly pay my respects to you and the leaders of the Islamic community in Jerusalem." (Courtesy visit to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem at the Mount of the Temple, May 12, 2009.)
No priest or presbyter in any Motu community has publicly defended the honor and glory and majesty of the Most Blessed Trinity by denouncing these words of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who once termed Mount Hiei, upon which the Tendei sect of Buddhists worship their devils, as "sacred" (see
Benedict XVI sends message to interreligious meeting in Japan). No bishop of the Society of Saint Pius X has done so. Recognition--or the desire for it-by the conciliar officials carries with it a very high price tag insofar as being able to defend the honor and glory and majesty of the Most Blessed Trinity.
Ratzinger/Benedict has also entered into two Talmudic synagogues thus far (one in Cologne, Germany, on Friday, August 19, 2005, and one in the Borough of Manhattan in the City of New York, New York, on Friday, April 18, 2008) without exhorting adherents of the Talmud to convert to the true Faith, also listening quite patiently to those who deny the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ sing a hymn that speaks of the "wait" for the Messiah as though He has never come. Ratzinger/Benedict also prayed as a Jew at the Western (Wailing) Wall on Tuesday, May 12, 2009):
God of all the ages, on my visit to Jerusalem, the 'City of Peace', spiritual home to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, I bring before you the joys, the hopes and the aspirations, the trials, the suffering and the pain of all your people throughout the world. God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, hear the cry of the afflicted, the fearful, the bereft; send your peace upon this Holy Land, upon the Middle East, upon the entire human family; stir the hearts of all who call upon your name, to walk humbly in the path of justice and compassion. 'The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him' (Lam 3:25)! (Prayer at the Western Wall, May 12, 2009).
So much for the necessity or professing the Holy Name of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, whether in season or out of season. So much for these words of Pope Saint Pius X to the founder of international Zionism, Theodore Herzl, on January 25, 1904:
HERZL: Yesterday I was with the Pope [Pius X]. . . . I arrived ten minutes ahead of time, and without having to wait I was conducted through a number of small reception rooms to the Pope. He received me standing and held out his hand, which I did not kiss. Lippay had told me I had to do it, but I didn’t. I believe this spoiled my chances with him, for everyone who visits him kneels and at least kisses his hand. This hand kiss had worried me a great deal and I was glad when it was out of the way.
He seated himself in an armchair, a throne for minor affairs, and invited me to sit by his side. He smiled in kindly anticipation. I began:
HERZL: I thank Your Holiness for the favor of granting me this audience. [I begged him to excuse my miserable Italian, but he said:
POPE: No, Signor Commander, you speak very well.
HERZL: [He is an honest, rough-hewn village priest, to whom Christianity has remained a living thing even in the Vatican. I briefly laid my request before him. But annoyed perhaps by my refusal to kiss his hand, he answered in a stern categorical manner.
POPE: We are unable to favor this movement [of Zionism]. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem—but we could never sanction it. The ground of Jerusalem, if it were not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot answer you otherwise. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people.
HERZL: [The conflict between Rome and Jerusalem, represented by the one and the other of us, was once again under way. At the outset I tried to be conciliatory. I said my little piece. . . . It didn’t greatly impress him. Jerusalem was not to be placed in Jewish hands.] And its present status, Holy Father?
POPE: I know, it is disagreeable to see the Turks in possession of our Holy Places. We simply have to put up with it. But to sanction the Jewish wish to occupy these sites, that we cannot do.
HERZL: [I said that we based our movement solely on the sufferings of the Jews, and wished to put aside all religious issues].
POPE: Yes, but we, but I as the head of the Catholic Church, cannot do this. One of two things will likely happen. Either the Jews will retain their ancient faith and continue to await the Messiah whom we believe has already appeared—in which case they are denying the divinity of Jesus and we cannot assist them. Or else they will go there with no religion whatever, and then we can have nothing at all to do with them. The Jewish faith was the foundation of our own, but it has been superceded by the teachings of Christ, and we cannot admit that it still enjoys any validity. The Jews who should have been the first to acknowledge Jesus Christ have not done so to this day.
HERZL: [It was on the tip of my tongue to remark, “It happens in every family: no one believes in his own relative.” But, instead, I said:] Terror and persecution were not precisely the best means for converting the Jews. [His reply had an element of grandeur in its simplicity:]
POPE: Our Lord came without power. He came in peace. He persecuted no one. He was abandoned even by his apostles. It was only later that he attained stature. It took three centuries for the Church to evolve. The Jews therefore had plenty of time in which to accept his divinity without duress or pressure. But they chose not to do so, and they have not done it yet.
HERZL: But, Holy Father, the Jews are in a terrible plight. I do not know if Your Holiness is aware of the full extent of their tragedy. We need a land for these harried people.
POPE: Must it be Jerusalem?
HERZL: We are not asking for Jerusalem, but for Palestine—for only the secular land.
POPE: We cannot be in favor of it.
[Editor Lowenthal interjects here] Here unrelenting replacement theology is plainly upheld as the norm of the Roman Catholic Church. Further, this confession, along with the whole tone of the Pope in his meeting with Herzl, indicates the perpetuation of a doctrinal emphasis that has resulted in centuries of degrading behavior toward the Jews. However, this response has the “grandeur” of total avoidance of that which Herzl had intimated, namely that the abusive reputation of Roman Catholicism toward the Jews was unlikely to foster conversion. Further, if, “It took three centuries for the Church to evolve,” it was that very same period of time that it took for the Church to consolidate and launch its thrust of anti-Semitism through the following centuries.
HERZL: Does Your Holiness know the situation of the Jews?
POPE: Yes, from my days in Mantua, where there are Jews. I have always been in friendly relations with Jews. Only the other evening two Jews were here to see me. There are other bonds than those of religion: social intercourse, for example, and philanthropy. Such bonds we do not refuse to maintain with the Jews. Indeed we also pray for them, that their spirit see the light. This very day the Church is celebrating the feast of an unbeliever who became converted in a miraculous manner—on the road to Damascus. And so if you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we will be ready with churches and priests to baptize all of you. (Marvin Lowenthal, Diaries of Theodore Herzl, pp. 427- 430.)
What does this mean to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI? Nothing. He believes that the "Shoah," that is, the crimes committed by agents of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich against Jews and others, has "changed" the relations between the Catholic Church and the "faith of Israel." Ratzinger/Benedict believes that a "Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one," meaning that God is so obscure in His Divine Revelation that it is difficult for men to recognize the Divine Redeemer in the Person of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and thus to seek to follow Him as He has revealed Himself to us through His true Church that He created upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope:
Thirdly, linked more generally to this was the problem of religious tolerance - a question that required a new definition of the relationship between the Christian faith and the world religions. In particular, before the recent crimes of the Nazi regime and, in general, with a retrospective look at a long and difficult history, it was necessary to evaluate and define in a new way the relationship between the Church and the faith of Israel. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005)
First it declares that “the Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one, in continuity with the Jewish Scriptures of the Second Temple period, a reading analogous to the Christian reading, which developed in parallel fashion” (no. 22). It adds that Christians can learn a great deal from a Jewish exegesis practised for more than 2000 years; in return, Christians may hope that Jews can profit from Christian exegetical research (ibid.). I think this analysis will prove useful for the pursuit of Judeo-Christian dialogue, as well as for the interior formation of Christian consciousness. (Joseph Ratzinger, Preface to The Jewish People and Their Scriptures in the Christian Bible.)
So much for these simple words of Saint John Chrysostom, whose feast we celebrate twelve days from day, that is, on Wednesday, January 27, 2010:
Let that be your judgment about the synagogue, too. For they brought the books of Moses and the prophets along with them into the synagogue, not to honor them but to outrage them with dishonor. When they say that Moses and the prophets knew not Christ and said nothing about his coming, what greater outrage could they do to those holy men than to accuse them of failing to recognize their Master, than to say that those saintly prophets are partners of their impiety? And so it is that we must hate both them and their synagogue all the more because of their offensive treatment of those holy men." (Saint John Chrysostom, Fourth Century, A.D., Saint John Chrysostom: Eight Homilies Against the Jews.)
Many, I know, respect the Jews and think that their present way of life is a venerable one. This is why I hasten to uproot and tear out this deadly opinion. I said that the synagogue is no better than a theater and I bring forward a prophet as my witness. Surely the Jews are not more deserving of belief than their prophets. "You had a harlot's brow; you became shameless before all". Where a harlot has set herself up, that place is a brothel. But the synagogue is not only a brothel and a theater; it also is a den of robbers and a lodging for wild beasts. Jeremiah said: "Your house has become for me the den of a hyena". He does not simply say "of wild beast", but "of a filthy wild beast", and again: "I have abandoned my house, I have cast off my inheritance". But when God forsakes a people, what hope of salvation is left? When God forsakes a place, that place becomes the dwelling of demons.
(2) But at any rate the Jews say that they, too, adore God. God forbid that I say that. No Jew adores God! Who says so? The Son of God says so. For he said: "If you were to know my Father, you would also know me. But you neither know me nor do you know my Father". Could I produce a witness more trustworthy than the Son of God?
(3) If, then, the Jews fail to know the Father, if they crucified the Son, if they thrust off the help of the Spirit, who should not make bold to declare plainly that the synagogue is a dwelling of demons? God is not worshipped there. Heaven forbid! From now on it remains a place of idolatry. But still some people pay it honor as a holy place. (Saint John Chrysostom: Eight Homilies Against the Jews)
Ratzinger/Benedict will indeed once again convey his belief that God is worshipped in a Talmudic synagogue as he participates in the
program mapped out for him on Sunday, including the singing of Psalm 126 as he enters into the synagogue itself. Here is Psalm 126:
Behold now bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord: Who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God. In the nights lift up your hands to the holy places, and bless ye the Lord. May the Lord out of Sion bless thee, he that made heaven and earth.
A synagogue is not a "house of the Lord." By entering into a synagogue as Psalm 126 is being sung, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is denying the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He is denying the Catholic Faith, once again demonstrating himself to be an apostate.
What does the Catholic Church teach us about one who enters into a synagogue?
The spirit of Christ, which dictated the Holy Scriptures, and the spirit which animates and guides the Church of Christ, and teaches her all truth, is the same; and therefore in all ages her conduct on this point has been uniformly the same as what the Holy Scripture teaches. She has constantly forbidden her children to hold any communication, in religious matters, with those who are separated from her communion; and this she has sometimes done under the most severe penalties. In the apostolical canons, which are of very ancient standing, and for the most part handed down from the apostolical age, it is thus decreed: "If any bishop, or priest, or deacon, shall join in prayers with heretics, let him be suspended from Communion". (Can. 44)
Also, "If any clergyman or laic shall go into the synagogue of the Jews, or the meetings of heretics, to join in prayer with them, let him be deposed, and deprived of communion". (Can. 63) (Bishop George Hay, (The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion.)
It is indeed very ironic that Bishop Bernard Fellay, the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X, is utterly silent now in the face of Ratzinger/Benedict's upcoming visit to the Talmudic synagogue in Rome as the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was very outspoken against Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II's visit to the same place of false worship nearly twenty-four years ago now:
And most recently, the Pope has been in the synagogue of the Jews in Rome. How can the Pope pray with the enemies of Jesus Christ? These Jews know and say and believe that they are the successors of the Jews that killed Jesus Christ, and they continue to fight against Jesus Christ everywhere in the world. At the end of the Pope's visit, the Jews sang a "hymn" that included the line "I believe with all my heart in the coming of the Messiah," meaning that they refuse Jesus as the Messiah, and the Pope had given permission for this denial of Christ be sung in his presence, and he listened, head bowed! And the Holy See announces that in the near future that he will visit Taize to pray with the Protestants, and he himself said in public at St. Paul Outside the Walls that later this year he will hold a ceremony gathering all of the religions of the world together to pray for peace at Assisi in Italy, on the occasion of the Feast of Peace proclaimed by the United Nations due to take place on October 24.
“Now all these facts are public, you have seen them in the newspapers and the media. What are we to think? What is the reaction of our Catholic Faith? That is what matters. It is not our personal feelings, a sort of impression or admission of some kind. It is a question of knowing what our Faith tells us, faced with these facts. Let me quote a few words - not my words - from Canon Naz’s Dictionary of Canon Law, a wholly official and approved commentary on what has been the Catholic Church’s body of law for nineteen centuries. On the subject of sharing in the worship of non-Catholics (after all, this is what we now see Pope and bishops doing), the Church says, in Canon 1258-1: ‘It is absolutely forbidden for Catholics to attend or take any active part in the worship of non-Catholics in any way whatsoever.’ On this Canon the quasi-official Naz Commentary says, and I quote, ‘A Catholic takes active part when he joins in heterodox; i.e., non-Catholic worship with the intention of honouring God by this means in the way non-Catholics do. It is forbidden to pray, to sing or to play the organ in a heretical or schismatic temple, in association with the people worshipping there, even if the words of the hymn or the song or the prayer are orthodox.’ The reason for this prohibition is that any participation in non-Catholic worship implies profession of a false religion and hence denial of the Catholic Faith. By such participation Catholics are presumed to be adhering to the beliefs of the non- Catholics, and that is why Canon 2316 declares them ‘suspect of heresy, and if they persevere, they are to be treated as being in reality heretics.’
“Now these recent acts of the Pope and bishops, with Protestants, animists and Jews, are they not an active participation in non-Catholic worship as explained by Canon Naz on Canon 1258-1? In which case, I cannot see how it is possible to say that the Pope is not suspect of heresy, and if he continues, he is a heretic, a public heretic. That is the teaching of the Church.
“Now I don’t know if the time has come to say that the Pope is a heretic; I don’t know if it is the time to say that. You know, for some time many people, the sedevacantists, have been saying ‘there is no more Pope,’ but I think that for me it was not yet the time to say that, because it was not sure, it was not evident, it was very difficult to say that the Pope is a heretic, the Pope is apostate. But I recognize that slowly, very slowly, by the deeds and acts of the Pope himself we begin to be very anxious. I am not inventing this situation; I do not want it. I would gladly give my life to bring it to an end, but this is the situation we face, unfolding before our eyes like a film in the cinema. I don’t think it has ever happened in the history of the Church, the man seated in the chair of Peter partaking in the worship of false gods.
“What conclusion must we draw in a few months if we are confronted by these repeated acts of partaking in false worship? I don’t know. I wonder. But I think the Pope can do nothing worse than call together a meeting of all religions, when we know there is only one true religion and all other religions belong to the devil. So perhaps after this famous meeting of Assisi, perhaps we must say that the Pope is a heretic, is apostate. Now I don’t wish yet to say it formally and solemnly, but it seems at first sight that it is impossible for a Pope to be publicly and formally heretical. Our Lord has promised to be with him, to keep his faith, to keep him in the Faith - how can he at the same time be a public heretic and virtually apostatise? So it is possible we may be obliged to believe this Pope is not Pope. (The Angelus, July 1986, transcripts of talks given by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on March 30 and April 18, 1986.)
Quite a difference in tone between 1986 and 2010 as Bishop Fellay and the other bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X remain mute as Ratzinger/Benedict makes his way to the Talmudic synagogue in two days to make "reparation" for the "sin" of Bishop Richard Williamson's comments about the nature and extent of the crimes of the agents of the Third Reich that were aired almost a year ago after the "excommunication" against the Society of Saint Pius X's bishops was "lifted." Quite a difference.
The silence is not only on the part of those in the Motu communities or in the Society of Saint Pius X. Not at all. Many involved in the important work of defending the inviolability of the innocent preborn refuse to take their heads of the sand and to consider the simple fact that it is exceedingly difficult to defend the precepts of the Fifth Commandment when the "pope" violates the First and Second Commandments with such utter impunity--and as they, leaders of the pro-life movement, remain silent about these unspeakably horrid outrages against the honor and glory and majesty of God. Why should any of these well-meaning and hard-working people expect the American "bishops" to defend the inviolability of innocent human life or the Natural Law principle of subsidiarity by opposing ObamaCare in toto as a matter of principle when their "pope" aborts the reverence that is due God and actually mocks and blasphemes Him by entering into places of false worship and esteeming the beliefs of those who deny the Incarnation and Redemptive Act of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man in Our Lady's Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of God the Holy Ghost. One simply cannot expect from "the bishops" what is not forthcoming from "the pope."
There is little hope, humanly speaking, of large numbers of people recognizing and accepting these basic truths in the midst of the insanity of the moment. So be it. However, what we can do is present these facts to those who are open to looking at the truth of our ecclesiastical situation, trying to plant a few seeds as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through His Most Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart to help more and more people to see that the Catholic Church cannot be responsible for the apostasies and blasphemies and sacrileges of the moment. Every Rosary we pray will help to plant a few more seeds that might, please God and by Our Lady's maternal intercession, result in the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
We need to pray many Rosaries of reparation in the next few days prior to the offenses that will be given to God by the false "pontiff," who represents the Catholic Church in the eyes of most people, whether they be Catholics or non-Catholics, in the world. God will be offended. Souls will be confused. People who adhere to false religions will be reaffirmed in those false religions until the moment of their deaths. We need, therefore, to make much reparation for these sins as we seek always to make reparation for our own sins as we entrust to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary the need of the present moment.
We must, of course, continue to remember that this is the time that God has appointed from all eternity for us to be alive. He has work for us to do. Let us do this work with courage and valor as we never count the cost of being humiliated for the sake of defending the integrity of Faith, as we never cease our prayers for the conversion of all people, including those who adhere to the Talmud, to the true Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.
Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!
Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!
