Finding Conciliarism's Irreducible Minimum At Long Lost

Part Two

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Thursday, October 11, 2012, the Feast of the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is a sad day as it is it is the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the "Second" Vatican Council by the first in the line of false "pontiffs," the Rosicrucian frequenter of Masonic lodges and defender of The Sillon after it had been condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique on August 15, 1910, Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII.

The Modernist who had read and then refused to release the Third Secret of Fatima in 1960, something that I, then in fourth grade at Saint Aloysius School in Great Neck, New York, found terribly disappointing and disconcerting as Our Lady herself had given specific instructions on the matter, and who would make sure that his body was embalmed with strong preservatives so as to make it appear as though it was incorrupt after his death, decided to begin his attack on the Catholic Faith on a glorious feast day in honor of the Divine Maternity of Our Lady, a feast that is no longer celebrated on October 11 in the conciliar church, which abolished the Feast of the Circumcision on January 1 and replaced it with "solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God" (it is also permissible for that Novus Ordo "solemnity" to be bypassed entirely in favor of a "World Day of Peace" liturgical service). That great feast day, which was instituted to commemorate the dogmatic proclamation of Our Lady as Theotokos, the Mother of God, by the Council of Ephesus in the year 431, thus dealing a death blow in the Catholic Church to the heretical claims of Nestorius, who had claimed that Our Lady was the Mother of Jesus  and not the Mother of God, is now observed as a celebration of heresy, apostasy, error, ambiguity, contradiction, blasphemy and sacrilege.

When one thinks about the matter a little bit, though, it is entirely logical for the illogical rationalists of the Modernist revolution to have chosen the date of October 11 as the date for the commencement of their systematic effort to "raze the bastions" of Catholicism in order to replace the true Faith with a false one of their own making, thus engaging in a process of what one conciliar presbyter who was recently in the news has written under a pseudonym in the past wrote to me about eight years ago was a veritable "ecclesiogenesis," the springing forth of a new church, a counter-church. Why is this logical, you ask? Ah, I think you will find the answer very interesting. I will provide it to you in just a few moments if you have the time to bear with me, please.

Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII desired to use his revolutionary council as a means of "opening up" what he believed what the Catholic Church to the "world.," which the Catholic Church has nothing to "learn from," is never to be "reconciled with" and, quite indeed, has a mission from her Divine Founder and Invisible Head to convert. Everything about and in the world must revolve around the Catholic Faith and serve man in the realization of his Last End, the possession of the glory of the Beatific Vision of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost for all eternity in Heaven. The very premise of the the "Second" Vatican Council, that the Catholic Church had to be "reconciled" with "the world" was not only false but had been condemned in no uncertain terms by Pope  Pius IX in The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864:

 

80. The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.- -Allocution "Jamdudum cernimus," March 18, 1861. (Condemned Proposition, Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864.)

"Jolly old" "Pope" John XXIII's aggiornamento (bringing Catholic doctrine, liturgy and pastoral praxis "up to date") had been condemned a century before he opened the "Second" Vatican Council on the Feast of the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary on October 11, 1962, as the world was about to be steeped in the Cuban Missile Crisis, which those of us who lived through it remember very vividly.

An important constituent part of this aggiornamento or "updating" was, of course, the very sort of false ecumenism that had been condemned by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos on January 6, 1928, the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. An "opening up" was made to Protestants, the Orthodox, Mohammedans, Hindus, Buddhists, animists and an endless variety of other false religions, each of which proceeds from the devil.

For the sake of brevity, conciliarism's blithe acceptance of Protestantism as having a "mission" from Our Lord to serve Him and to preach His Gospel was also condemned by Pope Pius IX in The Syllabus of Errors:

 

18. Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church. -- Encyclical "Noscitis," Dec. 8, 1849. (Condemned Proposition, Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864.)

An acceptance of false, heretical, schismatic Christian sects as pleasing to God is a the heart of the "Second" Vatican Council and the "magisterium" of the conciliar "popes." It is of the essence of Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service, which was created out of whole cloth to enshrine all of the falsehoods of conciliarism, especially that of false ecumenism.

This is why it is no surprise at all that it was only a matter of time before the conciliar authorities would make approaches to the remnants of Nestorianism in the Assyrian Church of the East that still hold to everything taught by Nestorius and who have a liturgy that has no words of consecration:

 

Finally, the words of Eucharistic Institution are indeed present in the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, not in a coherent narrative way and ad litteram, but rather in a dispersed euchological way, that is, integrated in successive prayers of thanksgiving, praise and intercession. (Guidelines for admission to the Eucharist between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East, July 20, 2001.)

In other words, the words of consecration are there even though they are not. At least it was the case with the old Highlights magazine for children that the hidden drawings actually were in the depictions where they were hidden. One did not have to wish that they were there as in the case of the sophistic guidelines. Yes, yes, yes. We all know who was responsible for this. A chap named Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

This prompted one of the coauthors of that book whose name continues to escape me at the present moment to write the following a few years later when discussing a different matter in a Catholic publication:

 

Yes, “our only friend in the Vatican” is at it yet again, seemingly poised to tear down another tradition.  We are reminded once again of the sentiments the Cardinal expressed back in the 1980s in his book Principles of Catholic Theology (at page 391 for those who are checking): “The fact is, as Hans Urs von Balthasar pointed out as early as 1952, that ‘the demolition of bastions’ is a long-overdue task…. She [the Church] must relinquish many of the things that have hitherto spelled security for her and that she has taken for granted. She must demolish longstanding bastions and trust solely the shield of faith.”

As we know, in 2001 Ratzinger demolished a longstanding bastion when he approved as a valid Mass a “Eucharistic prayer” used by the schismatic Nestorian Assyrians, called the “Anaphora of Addai and Mari,” which lacks the words of the Consecration. Since a Mass without a Consecration is preposterous, traditionalists objected to Ratzinger’s utter novelty (the implications for the entire Catholic doctrine of matter and form being obvious), only to be accused by the neo-Catholic gallery, yet again, of being “more Catholic than the Pope.” But, yet again, the traditionalist objection has been vindicated. In the November 5, 2004 issue of NCR, John Allen reported that Divinitas, a theological journal published by the Vatican press, ran no fewer than four articles questioning Ratzinger’s decision (as well as six in favor). One of these articles, by German scholar David Berger, who is associated with Una Voce in Germany, states “the Church has no authority to change something in the essential rites of these sacraments which is based on a divine ordinance.” Allen noted that “another strongly critical piece was written by a veteran Vatican monsignore, Fr. Brunero Gherardini, who was the postulator for the beatification of Pope Pius IX. Gherardini is the editor-in-chief of Divinitas.” Gherardini lists five arguments against Ratzinger’s decision. Even more telling, “the journal comes with an imprimatur from Cardinal Francesco Marchisano, arch-priest of St. Peter’s Basilica and the pope’s vicar general for Vatican City.” Allen concludes: “All this suggests that the decision of 2001 has some powerful critics inside Vatican corridors.” The neo-Catholic gallery has suddenly fallen silent. (Miracles? We Don't Need No Stinking Miracles, as found on a Polish website as it no longer appears on the old website of the publication in which it was printed. There was once an active hyperlink to the article in its original that worked just fine. It does not work any longer. The "pope" at the time was Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II.)

Has "our only friend in the Vatican" abjured this preposterous act of his? Indeed not. Now, of course, the "mainstream" traditionalists and the "conservatives" with whom they used to engage in all manner of battles are of one mind concerning the "necessity" of holding one's fire about the "pope" because of "all" that he has supposedly "done" for Tradition and because he has so many "enemies" surrounding him. (I'm quite familiar with the argument, thank you. I made it in defense of Wojtyla/John Paul II for a long time.)

Well, so much for the argument made by some "conservative" conciliarists, referred to as "neo-Catholics" by the coauthors of that book whose title seems to escape me again at the moment, that the "irreducible minimum" for a valid Catholic liturgy is that the words "Hoc Est Enim Corpus Meum" and "Hic Est Enim Calix Sanguinis Mei" (or their vernacular equivalents) be spoken no matter whatever else may have be added or removed from the authentic Roman Canon of the Catholic Church. It turns out that one can just imagine that such words exist. There is a word for this: Immanentism. Emmanuel Kant, call your office. Yes, there is a simpler word to describe this: positivism, the belief that something is true because it has been asserted as being true.

The revolution against the Catholic Faith launched by Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII, aided abetted by "periti" such as Father Joseph Ratzinger, who under suspicion of heresy during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII (see Joseph Ratzinger under suspicion of heresy and who was deemed a heretic by some of the bishops at the "Second" Vatican Council (see Ratzinger accused of Heresy, John XXIII called "Precursor of Antichrist"), eventually made its "reconciliation" with Nestorianism by means of accepting the liturgy of the Assyrian Church of the East while refusing to condemn its denial that Our Lady is Theotokos, the very Mother of God. No wonder that Annibale Bugnini, C.M., and Rembert Weakland, O.S.B. and the others who served on the Consilium that planned the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service from 1967 to 1969, believed it opportune to abolish the Feast of the Divine Maternity of the Mother of God.

Gerhard Ludwig Muller Acquits the "Second" Vatican Council and Convicts the Society of Saint Pius X

On the cusp of the counterfeit church of conciliarism's so-called "Year of Faith" (October 11, 2012, to, of all dates, November 24, 2013, which will, apart from being my sixty-second birthday if it is within God's Holy Providence for me to be alive at that time, the date of the conciliarist Feast of Christ the King that stresses Our Lord's eschatological Kingship and not His Social Kingship over men and their nations) during which time Catholics attached to the conciliar structures are being offered a "plenary indulgence" if they perform various exercises, which include attending lessons given on the "acts" of the "Second" Vatican Council and the so-called Catechism of the Catholic Church (see decree), Gerhard Ludwig Muller has given an interview, referenced in part one of this series three days ago now, acquitting the "Second" Vatican Council of all charges against it and convicting the Society of Saint Pius X on several fronts.

For the sake of brevity, I am going to limit myself just to a few excerpts from the latest Muller interview, providing very brief commentaries that will refute Muller's gratuitous assertions.

Excerpt One

 

Q: Did the appointment come at all as a surprise to you?

A: Given that I had been a member of this congregation for a number of years, and that I had been a professor of dogmatics for years before that, it was not entirely surprising. There are, of course, plenty of other people who could have been appointed, but I am the editor of his collected works, he knows me very well, and he knows where I stand on things — so the Pope decided to appoint me. (Gerhard Ludwig Muller: The Conciliar Church is Not a Fortress.)

Brief Commentary: In other words, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI knows all about Gerhard Ludwig Muller's defections from the Holy Faith. The false "pontiff" is, of course, of one mind and heart with this fellow German.

Excerpt Two

 

Q: The Year of Faith begins Oct. 11. What will be your role during this special year?

A: There will be the Synod of Bishops regarding the Year of Faith in which I will participate, but, clearly, this congregation has its own priorities. Above all we need to address the challenges posed by the so-called new atheism, which in reality is aggressive in its intolerance of Christianity. The new atheists want to establish a world without God, which we can never accept. The Church needs to regain its confidence and once again find her own role in this world. We need to stop looking inward, towards ourselves, always discussing the same inter-ecclesiastical questions. We must concentrate our forces on the New Evangelization, especially in the old Christian countries of the West, which have lost their way a little. (Gerhard Ludwig Muller: The Conciliar Church is Not a Fortress.)

Brief Commentary: To believe in the condemned Modernist proposition of the "evolution of doctrine" that was labeled by Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II as "living tradition" and is being "sold" today by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI under the aegis of "the hermeneutic of continuity" is to disbelieve in the very nature of God Himself. It is, as has been pointed out on this site hundreds upon hundreds of times, a mockery and blaspheming of God the Holy Ghost in its contention that doctrinal formulations and papal pronouncements are "conditioned" by the circumstances in which they were made and need further "adjustments" over time. Those who disbelieve in the nature of God as He has revealed Himself to us through His true Church cannot combat atheism as they do not believe truly in God themselves. Such people are also intellectually dishonest in claiming to believe in God while rejecting the binding nature of His teaching. At least atheists have the intellectual dishonesty to state openly that they are unbelievers.

Moreover, the spread of atheism, although it has roots in certainly aspects of the Renaissance, to be sure, is only the logical consequence of the Social Reign of Christ the King and of the rise of all manner of purely naturalistic, man-centered ideologies and "philosophies" that are the foundation of modern law, education, science, art, music, literature, entertainment and thought and with which the "Second" Vatican Council that was opened by Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII fifty years ago had been convened  to make its "reconciliation." Behold the results. A new theology with a new, sacramentally barren liturgy has helped to make converts, millions of them, as millions upon millions of Catholics have quit the practice of the Faith entirely and are, at least in practice, atheists themselves. Great work, Angelo. Great work.

What about the "new evangelization"? Well, here is a very brief description found on the anti-sedevacantist Tradition in Action website:

This plan is being presented to save and advance “Christianity” through ecumenism, pilgrimages and missionary work by religious and lay alike. It also aims to decentralize the authority of the Bishops to benefit local communities - a bottom-up form of communitarianism. In fact, it is a Protestant concept of “being Church” through which we will all be brothers in this man-centered utopia.

It appears that this ecumenical “Christianity” is replacing Catholicism. What happened to the duty of Catholics to convert Protestants and Schismatics? Much has been written about recent Popes and their collaborators diminishing the importance of conversion. Now, Rome has this plan in place to negate the idea all together. (A New and Intrusive Ecclesiastical Communism.)

To simplify things even more, the "new evangelization" that is to be advanced in the "year of faith" for a "unified Christianity" is simply the latest attempt to make the very philosophical foundation of conciliarism, the condemned principles of The Sillon, appear to be something "new" when it is not.

The "new evangelization" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism is just another effort to realize the ultimate goal of The Sillon: a One World Ecumenical Church":

We fear that worse is to come: the end result of this developing promiscuousness, the beneficiary of this cosmopolitan social action, can only be a Democracy which will be neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Jewish. It will be a religion (for Sillonism, so the leaders have said, is a religion) more universal than the Catholic Church, uniting all men become brothers and comrades at last in the "Kingdom of God". - "We do not work for the Church, we work for mankind."

And now, overwhelmed with the deepest sadness, We ask Ourselves, Venerable Brethren, what has become of the Catholicism of the Sillon? Alas! this organization which formerly afforded such promising expectations, this limpid and impetuous stream, has been harnessed in its course by the modern enemies of the Church, and is now no more than a miserable affluent of the great movement of apostasy being organized in every country for the establishment of a One-World Church which shall have neither dogmas, nor hierarchy, neither discipline for the mind, nor curb for the passions, and which, under the pretext of freedom and human dignity, would bring back to the world (if such a Church could overcome) the reign of legalized cunning and force, and the oppression of the weak, and of all those who toil and suffer. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

Say goodnight, "Archbishop" Muller. Say goodnight.

Excerpt Three:

 

Q: As there continues to be a lack of clarity over the Council, particularly in its interpretation, could an encyclical from the Pope clarify matters?

A: Yes, we need an authentic interpretation of the magisterium of the Council. The Pope offered a good and faithful interpretation of the Council when he said it did not create a new Church. Like every other ecumenical council, Vatican II must be interpreted according to the Tradition, based on Revelation and on Scripture.

The great achievement of Vatican II was that it brought the doctrine of the Church into a whole; it provided an overview. In other words, it didn’t underline only some aspects of doctrine like in other councils, but, rather, summarized the main contents of our belief. What it says in Dei Verbum about divine Revelation, for example, is a summary of all that is said in the magisterium about personal revelation. And in Lumen Gentium we have a comprehensive vision of all the dimensions belonging to ecclesiology, the sacraments founded by Jesus Christ, the hierarchy, the laity, the people of God, the body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit. We have a unified ecclesiology. Also in Gaudium et Spes and in other documents, we can say that the Second Vatican Council collected together the basic elements of our doctrine in one place. (Gerhard Ludwig Muller: The Conciliar Church is Not a Fortress.)

Brief Commentary: To borrow a phrase from a former colleague of mine, this is patently absurd.

The "great achievement" of the "Second" Vatican Council "brought the doctrine of the Church into a whole"? This implies, of course, that the "doctrine of the Church" had not been brought "into a whole" before 1962. The doctrine of the Church exists in a whole in the Sacred Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ entrusted to His true Church for its eternal safekeeping an infallible explication.

Gerhard Ludwig Muller, permit me to introduce you to The Roman Catechism and to the Catechism of St. Pius X as the means to provide a true overview of the Sacred Deposit of Faith. It takes a great deal of hubris to contend that we needed the "overview" of apostasy represented by the "Second" Vatican Council in order to view the Catholic Faith as a whole.

Dei Verbum? A revolutionary document that reflect the "insights" of Protestant "scholars" in the field of Sacred Scripture.

Consider the reaction of Douglas Horton, a Protestant observer at the "Second" Vatican Council, to promulgation of the "dogmatic" constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, which was issued on November 18, 1965:

 

There were two other conciliar instruments promulgated today--the dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation and the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity.

That on divine revelation is of special interest, for its history is virtually the history of the evolution of the mind and of the council itself. It had been developed by a pre-conciliar commission infected by the biblical theology of today, nostalgic for the happy yesterdays when the magisterium of the church commanded an unreflecting obedience from all the faithful, and definitely fearful of the results that a scientific approach to the Bible record might have upon Rome. Examining some of the methods and attitudes accepted by leading biblical scholars throughout the Western world, it roundly condemned form criticism and its finding, and in general represented the scholarly thought of 1870 rather than that of 1962. Pope John appointed a joint commission to repair the document, and this commission, having worked effectively through the intervening years, was now able to witness the culmination and coronation of its work. Instead of putting out a declaration oriented to the past, which would have been an astonishment and hissing among scholars, the church today promulgated a constitution which casts light on the path into the future, and unites Roman scholarship with that of the best schools of the Western world. (Douglas Horton, Vatican Diary: 1965: A Protestant Observes the Fourth Session of Vatican Council II, United Church Press, 1966, pp, 158-159.)

Lumen Gentium? At this late date? Lumen Gentium? Belief that true Church of Christ "subsists in the Catholic Church"? Condemned:

Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. "For in one spirit" says the Apostle, "were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free." As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered - so the Lord commands - as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)

 

Gaudium et Spes? Gaudium et Spes? Gaudium et Spes?

Here is what a peritus (expert) at the "Second" Vatican Council wrote in that document's favor seventeen years after its issuance:

Let us be content to say here that the text [of Gaudium et Spes] serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789. Only from this perspective can we understand, on the one hand, the ghetto-mentality, of which we have spoken above; only from this perspective can we understand, on the other hand, the meaning of the remarkable meeting of the Church and the world. Basically, the word "world" means the spirit of the modern era, in contrast to which the Church's group-consciousness saw itself as a separate subject that now, after a war that had been in turn both hot and cold, was intent on dialogue and cooperation. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, p. 382.)

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

 

Continuity, Herr Muller? Only in the mind of Hegelians such as yourself and the man whose collection of books you are editing, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

Excerpt Four:

 

Q: But if it does present such a comprehensive view of ecclesiology, why are there groups such as the Society of St. Pius X who want to stick to “frozen tradition,” as it were, rather than come into full communion? Does this suggest errors in this comprehensive vision?

A: We have breakaway groups, not only on the traditionalist wing, but also on the liberal wing. I think that some have developed sets of ideas, which they have formed into an ideology, and then they judge all things in the context of this one set of ideas. The traditionalists, for instance, focus heavily on the liturgy. But we cannot say that there is only one form in which the liturgy can be celebrated, that the extraordinary form is the only form of the Mass. We also cannot change the content of the holy Mass — it’s the same content — but some elements of the liturgy have developed. We have had a lot of rites, Roman, Byzantine, etc., and all are valid, and all have had a certain growth. (Gerhard Ludwig Muller: The Conciliar Church is Not a Fortress.)

Brief Commentary: Straw man, straw man, straw man, come out wherever you are. Gerhard Ludwig Muller has made a straw man argument as there is no one anyone on the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide in this time of apostasy and betrayal who contends that the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church is the only form of the Catholic liturgy. No one contends that this is the case as to do so would be to cast aside the rich liturgical patrimony of the Eastern rites and of the Mozarabic and Milanese rites. Gerhard Ludwig Muller would be unable to cite the name of a single traditional Catholic over the course of the past fifty years who has ever made such a contention. Ever. At any time.

Any true Catholic appreciates the beauty and the splendor of the Byzantine rites, some of which I have experienced. An intellectually honest Catholic, however, recognizes that there is no rite older than the Roman Rite, a point made by the eminent liturgist of the early Twentieth Century, Father Adrian Fortescue:

 

Essentially, the Missal of Pius V is the Gregorian Sacramentary; that again is formed from the Gelasian book, which depends upon the Leonine collection. We find prayers of our Canon in the treatise de Sacramentis and allusions to it in the [Fourth] Century. So the Mass goes back, without essential change, to the age when it first developed out of the oldest Liturgy of all. It is still redolent of that Liturgy, of the days when Caesar ruled the world, and thought he could stamp out the Faith of Christ, when our fathers met together before dawn and sang a hymn to Christ as God. The final result of our enquiry is that, in spite of some unresolved problems, in spite of later changes there is not in Christendom another rite so venerable as ours. (Dr. Adrian Fortescue, The Wisdom of Adrian Fortescue, edited by Michael Davies.)

That, Herr Muller, is an entirely different argument, thank you very much.

True, there were regional variations of the Mass as events developed in the Middle Ages. Different religious communities had their own missals. To standardize the offering of Holy Mass for the people in the world's dioceses, though, Pope Saint Pius V issued the Missal bearing his name in 1570 and specifically stated that any other local usages that were less than two hundred years old could not be used. The Missale Romanum he promulgated was such a fitting expression of the Mass of the preceding fifteen hundred years that only dioceses, Toledo (with its Mozarabic Rite) and Milan (with its Ambrosian Rite), with rites older than two hundred years opted out of it. This speaks volumes about the fidelity of the Missal of Pope Saint Pius V to the authentic, perennial liturgical tradition of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.

What many of us do assert, separating us from traditionally-minded Catholics in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, is that there is, admitting that the Dominicans have their own rite and that the Franciscans and Carmelites have missals that incorporate their own saints and customs, but one missal for the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, that which was issued by Pope Saint Pius V in 1570 and that has been "changed" only with the additional new feast days and the correction of typographical errors in the text of its various printings over the centuries.

Organic development of the liturgy? Have you ever read the words of the contemporaries who planned the monstrous liturgical abomination known as the Novus Ordo, Herr Muller?

 

We must strip from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren that is for the Protestants." (Annibale Bugnini, L'Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1965.)

Let it be candidly said: the Roman Rite which we have known hitherto no longer exists. It is destroyed. (Father Joseph Gelineau, who worked with Annibale Bugnini's Consilium, Quoted and footnoted in the work of a Father John Mole, who believed that the Mass of the Roman Rite had been "truncated," not destroyed. Assault on the Roman Rite)

Certainly we will preserve the basic elements, the bread, the wine, but all else will be changed according to local tradition: words, gestures, colors, vestments, chants, architecture, decor. The problem of liturgical reform is immense. (Archbishop Karol Wojtyla, 1965, Quoted and footnoted in Assault on the Roman Rite. This has also been noted on this site in the past, having been provided me by a reader who had access to the 1980 French book in which the quote is found.)

"[T]he intention of Pope Paul VI with regard to what is commonly called the Mass, was to reform the Catholic liturgy in such a way that it should coincide with the Protestant liturgy.... [T]here was with Pope Paul VI an ecumenical intention to remove, or at least to correct, or at least to relax, what was too Catholic in the traditional sense, in the Mass, and I, repeat, to get the Catholic Mass closer to the Calvinist mass" (Dec. 19, 1993), Apropos, #17, pp. 8f; quoted in Christian Order, October, 1994. (Jean Guitton, a close friend of Giovanni Montini/Paul VI.)

Herr Muller, permit me to introduce you to the writing of the late Monsignor Klaus Gamber, who, though, not a traditionalist and was in favor of some liturgical reforms, was an intellectually honest liturgical scholar who wrote the following about the abject lie that the Novus Ordo liturgical service was merely the translation of the "old Mass" into the vernacular:

 

Not only is the Novus Ordo Missae of 1969 a change of the liturgical rite, but that change also involved a rearrangement of the liturgical year, including changes in the assignment of feast days for the saints. To add or drop one or the other of these feast days, as had been done before, certainly does not constitute a change of the rite, per se. But the countless innovations introduced as part of liturgical reform have left hardly any of the traditional liturgical forms intact . . .

At this critical juncture, the traditional Roman rite, more than one thousand years old and until now the heart of the Church, was destroyed. A closer examination reveals that the Roman rite was not perfect, and that some elements of value had atrophied over the centuries. Yet, through all the periods of the unrest that again and again shook the Church to her foundations, the Roman rite always remained the rock, the secure home of faith and piety. . . .

Was all this really done because of a pastoral concern about the souls of the faithful, or did it not rather represent a radical breach with the traditional rite, to prevent the further use of traditional liturgical texts and thus to make the celebration of the "Tridentime Mass" impossible--because it no longer reflected the new spirit moving through the Church?

Indeed, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the prohibition of the traditional rite was announced at the same time as the introduction of the new liturgical texts; and that a dispensation to continue celebrating the Mass according to the traditional rite was granted only to older priests.

Obviously, the reformers wanted a completely new liturgy, a liturgy that differed from the traditional one in spirit as well as in form; and in no way a liturgy that represented what the Council Fathers had envisioned, i.e., a liturgy that would meet the pastoral needs of the faithful.

Liturgy and faith are interdependent. That is why a new rite was created, a rite that in many ways reflects the bias of the new (modernist) theology. The traditional liturgy simply could not be allowed to exist in its established form because it was permeated with the truths of the traditional faith and the ancient forms of piety. For this reason alone, much was abolished and new rites, prayers and hymns were introduced, as were the new readings from Scripture, which conveniently left out those passages that did not square with the teachings of modern theology--for example, references to a God who judges and punishes.

At the same time, the priests and the faithful are told that the new liturgy created after the Second Vatican Council is identical in essence with the liturgy that has been in use in the Catholic Church up to this point, and that the only changes introduced involved reviving some earlier liturgical forms and removing a few duplications, but above all getting rid of elements of no particular interest.

Most priests accepted these assurances about the continuity of liturgical forms of worship and accepted the new rite with the same unquestioning obedience with which they had accepted the minor ritual changes introduced by Rome from time to time in the past, changes beginning with the reform of the Divine Office and of the liturgical chant introduced by Pope St. Pius X.

Following this strategy, the groups pushing for reform were able to take advantage of and at the same time abuse the sense of obedience among the older priests, and the common good will of the majority of the faithful, while, in many cases, they themselves refused to obey. . . .

The real destruction of the traditional Mass, of the traditional Roman rite with a history of more than one thousand years, is the wholesale destruction of the faith on which it was based, a faith that had been the source of our piety and of our courage to bear witness to Christ and His Church, the inspiration of countless Catholics over many centuries. Will someone, some day, be able to say the same thing about the new Mass? (Monsignor Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, p. 39, p. 99, pp. 100-102.)

Organic development?

Here's a little quizzeroo for you, Herr Muller. Who used to agree with Monsignor Gamber before he took a dose of Professor Pepperwinkle's Anti-Memory spray and contended the reverse in 2007?

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

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

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

 

Say goodnight, Herr Muller. Say goodnight.

Excerpt Five

 

Q: The SSPX and some traditionalists in communion with the Church have trouble reconciling the fact that we’ve had popes in the past who have categorically stated teachings that appeared to be refuted by the Council, religious freedom being one example. What do you say in response to this concern?

That is not true — it’s a false interpretation of history. In the 19th century, the freemasons or liberals interpreted religious freedom as the freedom to reject the truth given by God. It was this false notion of religious freedom that the popes of the 19th century rejected, and the Second Vatican Council repeats that we are not free to reject the truth. It is on another level, on the level of human rights, that everyone has to be true to himself or herself and act according to his or her own conscience.

Furthermore, the Church cannot, on the doctrinal level, contradict herself — that is impossible. Any perceived contradiction is caused by false interpretation. We cannot say today, “Jesus is the Son of God, he has a divine nature,” and then tomorrow accept what the Arians said [that Christ was distinctly separate from God the Father]. That would be a real contradiction.

What they [SSPX] are proposing is, in essence, a tension arising from the use of terminology, but the Church never contradicted herself. If you study the texts of different centuries, of different contexts, of different languages, you must do so on the basis of established Catholic doctrine. (Gerhard Ludwig Muller: The Conciliar Church is Not a Fortress.)

Partial credit, Herr Muller. Partial credit.

Gerhard Ludwig Muller is correct when stating that the Catholic Church can never contradict herself. Excellent. Quite correct.

Unfortunately for Herr Muller, however, his church is not the Catholic Church and has indeed contradicted the perennial and immutable teaching left to her by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ endlessly.

Also most unfortunate for the supposed dogmatic "expert" from Germany is the fact that he misstated the teaching of the Catholic Church that condemned religious liberty entirely and without equivocation. The toleration of error in the name of doing no violence to the consciences of non-Catholics is not the same thing as asserting as there exists a "human right" given by God Himself to publicly propagate falsehood.

Gerhard Ludwig Muller is a positivist. Even Ratzinger/Benedict understands the contradictions posed by the following papal pronouncement, one of several, condemning "religious liberty," which he, Ratzinger/Benedict dismisses as being but a prime example of "conditional" or "provisional" statements that were "hasty" reactions to circumstances during what he called the Catholic Church's "ghetto mentality:"

 

The necessary effect of the constitution decreed by the Assembly is to annihilate the Catholic Religion and, with her, the obedience owed to Kings. With this purpose it establishes as a right of man in society this absolute liberty that not only insures the right to be indifferent to religious opinions, but also grants full license to freely think, speak, write and even print whatever one wishes on religious matters – even the most disordered imaginings. It is a monstrous right, which the Assembly claims, however, results from equality and the natural liberties of all men.

But what could be more unwise than to establish among men this equality and this uncontrolled liberty, which stifles all reason, the most precious gift nature gave to man, the one that distinguishes him from animals?

After creating man in a place filled with delectable things, didn’t God threaten him with death should he eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil? And with this first prohibition didn’t He establish limits to his liberty? When, after man disobeyed the command and thereby incurred guilt, didn’t God impose new obligations on him through Moses? And even though he left to man’s free will the choice between good and evil, didn’t God provide him with precepts and commandments that could save him “if he would observe them”? …

Where then, is this liberty of thinking and acting that the Assembly grants to man in society as an indisputable natural right? Is this invented right not contrary to the right of the Supreme Creator to whom we owe our existence and all that we have? Can we ignore the fact that man was not created for himself alone, but to be helpful to his neighbor? …

Man should use his reason first of all to recognize his Sovereign Maker, honoring Him and admiring Him, and submitting his entire person to Him. For, from his childhood, he should be submissive to those who are superior to him in age; he should be governed and instructed by their lessons, order his life according to their laws of reason, society and religion. This inflated equality and liberty, therefore, are for him, from the moment he is born, no more than imaginary dreams and senseless words. (Pope Pius VI, Brief Quod aliquantum, March 10, 1791; Religious Liberty, a “Monstrous Right".)

Say goodnight, Herr Muller. Say goodnight.

The concluding part of this series will focus on "Archbishop" Gerhard Ludwig Muller's protracted remarks concerning the soap opera with the Society of Saint Pius X that may not be as "frozen" as some would like to think, certainly not with the rash of expulsions an denials of priest and denials of Holy Communion to laymen who assist at the Society's chapels and are known critics of a "reconciliation" with conciliar authorities and of Bishop Bernard Fellay's reign of terror upon the dissenters.

For now, though, perhaps Herr Muller ought to consider these words issued by the Third Council of Constantinople in the year 681:

 

These firings, therefore, with all diligence and care having been formulated by us, we define that it be permitted to no one to bring forward, or to write, or to compose, or to think, or to teach a different faith. Whosoever shall presume to compose a different faith, or to propose, or teach, or hand to those wishing to be converted to the knowledge of the truth, from the Gentiles or Jews, or from any heresy, any different Creed; or to introduce a new voice or invention of speech to subvert these things which now have been determined by us, all these, if they be Bishops or clerics let them be deposed, the Bishops from the Episcopate, the clerics from the clergy; but if they be monks or laymen: let them be anathematized. (Sixth Ecumenical: Constantinople III).

May we cling to the Cross of Our Divine Redeemer, praying as many Rosaries each day in this month of October as our state-in-life permits. The sufferings of the present moment will pass. Christ the King will triumph over His enemies in our world of naturalism and in the the counterfeit church of conciliarism. Our Lady's Fatima Message will be fulfilled.

Every extra moment we spend in prayer before Our King in the Most Blessed Sacrament and every extra set of mysteries of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary that we pray will help us to be more and more conformed to the likeness of Our Divine Redeemer, Who endured the Cross, heedless of Its shame, to redeem us and to make us members of His Catholic Church.

We must always remember that this is the time that God has appointed from all eternity for us to live and thus to sanctify and to save our immortal souls as members of the Catholic Church. The graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of Our Lord's Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flows into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces, are sufficient for us to handle whatever crosses--personal, social and ecclesiastical--that we are asked to carry. We must give thanks to God at all times for each of our crosses as we seek to serve Him through Our Lady in this time of apostasy and betrayal, remember the words in the sky that were seen by the son of Saint Helena, the Emperor Constantine: In hoc signo vinces, in this sign, you shall conquer.

Yes, in the Sign of the Cross we shall conquer as the consecrated slaves of Christ the King through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Queen of Heaven and of Earth.

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

 

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint John Leonard, pray for us.

Saint Dionysius and Companions, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints