Integral Denial of Our Lady's Perfect Integrity

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Many observers make the mistake of trying to pick out various parts of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's writings and allocutions in a vain effort to find kernels o Catholicism within them. No matter the fact that there are times when the false "pontiff" does enunciate certain Catholic truths, it must be remembered that Modernism is an admixture of truth and error. The fact that a Modernist might hold to some truths of the Holy Faith while rejecting others, either outrightly or by means of the use of a thousand noxious devices of rationalism, does not mean that he is a member of the Catholic Church. Quite the contrary is true.

No, Virginia, there is no "irreducible minima" standard by which a person can remain a member of the Catholic Church and thus hold ecclesiastical office within her. This "irreducible minima" standard was invented by those seeking to find some "legal' loophole by which to exculpate men they know to defect from one or more points of the Catholic Faith. The "irreducible minima" standard is a human invention that has no support in the writing of the Church Fathers and flies in the face of Catholic doctrine.

Pope Leo XIII made this about as clear as it could be made in Paragraph Nine of Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896:

 

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). (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)

There is no wiggle room here at all.

If one even "privately" dissents from one article contained in the Catholic Faith while holding, however tenuously, to others, he has expelled himself from the bosom of Holy Mother Church by virtue of violating the Divine Positive Law.

Saint Francis de Sales had noted this same point over two hundred eighty years before:

 

With reference to its object, faith cannot be greater for some truths than for others. Nor can it be less with regard to the number of truths to be believed. For we must all believe the very same thing, both as to the object of faith as well as to the number of truths. All are equal in this, because everyone must believe all the truths of faith--both those which God Himself has directly revealed, as well as those he has revealed through His Church. Thus, I must believe as much as you and you as much as I, and all other Christians similarly. He who does not believe all these mysteries is not Catholic and therefore will never enter Paradise. (Saint Francis de Sales, The Sermons of Saint Francis de Sales for Lent Given in 1622, republished by TAN Books and Publishers for the Visitation Monastery of Frederick, Maryland, in 1987, pp. 34-37.)

A Catholic must hold to everything that is taught by Holy Mother Church as she has taught it without a shadow of change from time immemorial. To try to rationalize a supposed "pope's" defections from the Catholic Faith is to engage in the same kind of reinvention of Catholic doctrine that the conciliar "popes" have used to justify one condemned proposition after another. To contend that one can "sift" through the words and actions of a true pope is to make a mockery of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility by have recourse, even if by inadvertence, to the false principles of Gallicanism that were condemned by Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794, and mocked by Bishop Emil Bougaud, the Bishop of Laval, France, from 1887 to 1888:

 

6. The doctrine of the synod by which it professes that "it is convinced that a bishop has received from Christ all necessary rights for the good government of his diocese," just as if for the good government of each diocese higher ordinances dealing either with faith and morals, or with general discipline, are not necessary, the right of which belongs to the supreme Pontiffs and the General Councils for the universal Church,—schismatic, at least erroneous.

7. Likewise, in this, that it encourages a bishop "to pursue zealously a more perfect constitution of ecclesiastical discipline," and this "against all contrary customs, exemptions, reservations which are opposed to the good order of the diocese, for the greater glory of God and for the greater edification of the faithful"; in that it supposes that a bishop has the right by his own judgment and will to decree and decide contrary to customs, exemptions, reservations, whether they prevail in the universal Church or even in each province, without the consent or the intervention of a higher hierarchic power, by which these customs, etc., have been introduced or approved and have the force of law,—leading to schism and subversion of hierarchic rule, erroneous.

8. Likewise, in that it says it is convinced that "the rights of a bishop received from Jesus Christ for the government of the Church cannot be altered nor hindered, and, when it has happened that the exercise of these rights has been interrupted for any reason whatsoever, a bishop can always and should return to his original rights, as often as the greater good of his church demands it"; in the fact that it intimates that the exercise of episcopal rights can be hindered and coerced by no higher power, whenever a bishop shall judge that it does not further the greater good of his church,—leading to schism, and to subversion of hierarchic government, erroneous. (Pope Pius VI, Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794.)

The violent attacks of Protestantism against the Papacy, its calumnies and so manifest, the odious caricatures it scattered abroad, had undoubtedly inspired France with horror; nevertheless the sad impressions remained. In such accusations all, perhaps, was not false. Mistrust was excited., and instead of drawing closer to the insulted and outraged Papacy, France stood on her guard against it. In vain did Fenelon, who felt the danger, write in his treatise on the "Power of the Pope," and, to remind France of her sublime mission and true role in the world, compose his "History of Charlemagne." In vain did Bossuet majestically rise in the midst of that agitated assembly of 1682, convened to dictate laws to the Holy See, and there, in most touching accents, give vent to professions of fidelity and devotedness toward the Chair of St. Peter. We already notice in his discourse mention no longer made of the "Sovereign Pontiff." The "Holy See," the "Chair of St. Peter," the "Roman Church," were alone alluded to. First and alas! too manifest signs of coldness in the eyes of him who knew the nature and character of France! Others might obey through duty, might allow themselves to be governed by principle--France, never! She must be ruled by an individual, she must love him that governs her, else she can never obey.

These weaknesses should at least have been hidden in the shadow of the sanctuary, to await the time in which some sincere and honest solution of the misunderstanding could be given. But no! parliaments took hold of it, national vanity was identified with it. A strange spectacle was now seen. A people the most Catholic in the world; kings who called themselves the Eldest Sons of the Church and who were really such at heart; grave and profoundly Christian magistrates, bishops, and priests, though in the depths of their heart attached to Catholic unity,--all barricading themselves against the head of the Church; all digging trenches and building ramparts, that his words might not reach the Faithful before being handled and examined, and the laics convinced that they contained nothing false, hostile or dangerous. (Right Reverend Emile Bougaud, The Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. Published in 1890 by Benziger Brothers. Re-printed by TAN Books and Publishers, 1990, pp. 24-29.)

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his fellow conciliar "revolutionaries" have given us plenty of proof by means of their words and deeds and "official" and "unofficial" statements that they belong to a false church, a counterfeit ape of the Catholic Church. Their word and actions were condemned prospectively by pope after true pope, including by Pope Gregory XVI and Pope Saint Pius X, among so many others:

 

Indeed you will accomplish this perfectly if, as the duty of your office demands, you attend to yourselves and to doctrine and meditate on these words: "the universal Church is affected by any and every novelty" and the admonition of Pope Agatho: "nothing of the things appointed ought to be diminished; nothing changed; nothing added; but they must be preserved both as regards expression and meaning." Therefore may the unity which is built upon the See of Peter as on a sure foundation stand firm. May it be for all a wall and a security, a safe port, and a treasury of countless blessings. To check the audacity of those who attempt to infringe upon the rights of this Holy See or to sever the union of the churches with the See of Peter, instill in your people a zealous confidence in the papacy and sincere veneration for it. As St. Cyprian wrote: "He who abandons the See of Peter on which the Church was founded, falsely believes himself to be a part of the Church. (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

Would that they had but displayed less zeal and energy in propagating it! But such is their activity and such their unwearying labor on behalf of their cause, that one cannot but be pained to see them waste such energy in endeavoring to ruin the Church when they might have been of such service to her had their efforts been better directed. Their artifices to delude men's minds are of two kinds, the first to remove obstacles from their path, the second to devise and apply actively and patiently every resource that can serve their purpose. They recognize that the three chief difficulties which stand in their way are the scholastic method of philosophy, the authority and tradition of the Fathers, and the magisterium of the Church, and on these they wage unrelenting war. Against scholastic philosophy and theology they use the weapons of ridicule and contempt. Whether it is ignorance or fear, or both, that inspires this conduct in them, certain it is that the passion for novelty is always united in them with hatred of scholasticism, and there is no surer sign that a man is tending to Modernism than when he begins to show his dislike for the scholastic method. Let the Modernists and their admirers remember the proposition condemned by Pius IX: "The method and principles which have served the ancient doctors of scholasticism when treating of theology no longer correspond with the exigencies of our time or the progress of science." They exercise all their ingenuity in an effort to weaken the force and falsify the character of tradition, so as to rob it of all its weight and authority. But for Catholics nothing will remove the authority of the second Council of Nicea, where it condemns those "who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind...or endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church"; nor that of the declaration of the fourth Council of Constantinople: "We therefore profess to preserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, by the Holy and most illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both general and local, and by everyone of those divine interpreters, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church." Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: "I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church.'' (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici 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.

I promise that I shall keep all these articles faithfully, entirely, and sincerely, and guard them inviolate, in no way deviating from them in teaching or in any way in word or in writing. Thus I promise, this I swear, so help me God. (The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910.)

Only someone who is willfully blind and/or intellectually dishonest can contend that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has not said and done things that are in direct violation of these solemn words.

Thus it is, you see, that one errs grievously by focusing on narrow aspects of conciliarism in the belief that "all" that has to be done is to "get rid" of this or that particular component part of it in order for things to improve in the Church Militant on earth. The church to which the conciliar officials belong is not the Catholic Church, she who is the spotless, virginal Mystical Bride of Christ the King, her Invisible Head and Mystical Bridegroom. The Catholic Church cannot give us defective liturgies or erroneous doctrines. Her true popes do not enter into temples of false worship and praise such dens of the devil as "sacred," no less give "joint blessings" with the false clergy of false religions. Her true popes do not seek to made complex that which is simple, the truths of the Catholic Faith, and they do not seek to "demythologize" that which is part of the Deposit of Faith.

At the root of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's Modernist methodology, of course, is his warfare against the nature of dogmatic truth, which is, of course, a denial of the very nature of God and of the infallible guidance that God the Holy Ghost has provided Holy Mother Church and her true general councils and true popes for nearly two millennia. It is by means of this Modernist methodology, much discussed and critiqued on this site, that Ratzinger/Benedict has made short work of the entirety of the Catholic Faith throughout the course the nearly sixty-one and one-half years of his priestly life.

Once one understand this, you see, it is then more possible to understand how Ratzinger/Benedict continues to about razing the bastions of the Catholic Faith.

Although there has been much discussion of the false "pontiff's" Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, including my own Does This Man Give Any Thought To His Particular Judgment?, I thought it useful to explain in this Christmas Eve posting how Ratzinger/Benedict attacks an essential Marian doctrine, that of her Perfect Integrity, as essential to how he can dismiss in such a cavalier manner the vow of virginity that Our Lady had made in her childhood that has been believed by Holy Mother Church and taught by able spiritual writers over the centuries.

That is, Our Lady, having been preserved from all stain of Original and Actual Sin at the moment of her Immaculate Conception, was singular among all other human beings in having the gift of Perfect Integrity, meaning that there were no disorderly inclinations in her and that she only grew in grace from the first moment of Immaculate Conception at which she was already filled with grace.

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI does not believe that this is so as, as has been discussed on this site numerous times, he does not believe in the doctrine of Original Sin as it has been defined dogmatically and taught infallibly by Holy Mother Church.

Mr. James Larson, who rejects sedevacantism, explained this very well in The Point of Departure:

 

“In the story that we are considering [Ch. 3 of Genesis], still a further characteristic of sin is described. Sin is not spoken of in general as an abstract possibility but as a deed, as the sin of a particular person, Adam, who stands at the origin of humankind and with whom the history of sin begins. The account tells us that sin begets sin, and that therefore all the sins of history are interlinked. Theology refers to this state of affairs by the certainly misleading and imprecise term ‘original sin’. What does this mean? Nothing seems to us today to be stranger or, indeed, more absurd than to insist upon original sin, since, according to our way of thinking, guilt can only be something very personal, and since God does not run a concentration camp, in which one’s relatives are imprisoned because he is a liberating God of love, who calls each one by name. What does original sin mean, then, when we interpret it correctly?

"Finding an answer to this requires nothing less than trying to understand the human person better. It must once again be stressed that no human being is closed in upon himself or herself and that no one can live of or for himself or herself alone. We receive our life not only at the moment of birth but every day from without – from others who are not ourselves but who nonetheless somehow pertain to us. Human beings have their selves not only in themselves but also outside of themselves: they live in those whom they love and in those who love them and to whom they are ‘present.’ Human beings are relational, and they possess their lives – themselves – only by way of relationship. I alone am not myself, but only in and with you am I myself. To be truly a human being means to be related in love, to be of and for. But sin means the damaging or the destruction of relationality. Sin is a rejection of relationality because it wants to make the human being a god. Sin is loss of relationship, disturbance of relationship, and therefore it is not restricted to the individual. When I destroy a relationship, then this event – sin – touches the other person involved in the relationship. Consequently sin is always an offense that touches others, that alters the world and damages it. To the extent that this is true, when the network of human relationships is damaged from the very beginning, then every human being enters into a world that is marked by relational damage. At the very moment that a person begins human existence, which is a good, he or she is confronted by a sin- damaged world. Each of us enters into a situation in which relationality has been hurt. Consequently each person is, from the very start, damaged in relationships and does not engage in them as he or she ought. Sin pursues the human being, and he or she capitulates to it.” (Joseph Ratzinger, Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall, pp. 71-73, quoted in James Larson's  The Point of Departure. For a different translation of the same text, replete with a superb commentary from authors who understand that Joseph Ratzinger expelled himself from the bosom of Holy Mother Church long, long before his supposed "election" to a Chair that has been empty since the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958, is still empty, please see Benedict on Original Sin at Novus Ordo Watch for some quite valuable information on this important subject without holding to Ratzinger's false claim to be a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter.)

"Misleading and imprecise" term "original sin"? One who gets the doctrine of Original Sin wrong, as will be discussed more in a few days, will get the doctrine of Our Lady's Immaculate Conception wrong. Indeed, Mr. James Larson, who is opposed to sedevacantism, noted the following about the passages he had quoted from Ratzinger's Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall:

 

 

First of all, I would suggest that we might search 2,000 years of history and never find another statement so clearly and profoundly heretical made by a member of the Church in as high a position as that occupied by Cardinal Ratzinger. What Cardinal Ratzinger here denies, of course, is the dogma of the faith that original sin is passed down from Adam to all men through generation. Cardinal Ratzinger considers such a view of sin misleading and imprecise and, in fact, ridicules it as stemming from a view of God which sees Him as the Commandant of a Consecration Camp Who imprisons one’s relatives just because of the fact that they share a common descent. In so doing, of course, he is directly contradicting Scripture and the clearly defined teaching of the Church. The following is from the Decree Concerning Original Sin of the Council of Trent.

 

“For that which the Apostle has said, ‘By one man, sin entered into this world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned.’ (Rom 5:12), is not to be understood otherwise than as the Catholic Church spread everywhere hath always understood it. For, by reason of this rule of faith, from a tradition of the Apostles, even infants who could not as yet commit any sin of themselves, are for this cause truly baptized for the remission of sins, that in them that may be cleansed away by regeneration which they have contracted by generation. For, ‘unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.’” (John 3:5).

Adam’s original sin was, first of all, a denial of the immutable Nature and Being of God. It was a calling into question of His Supreme Being and Authority as expressed in His commandment and prohibition to man. Secondly, it was a repudiation of man’s wholly contingent and dependent nature, as expressed in Satan’s temptation to Eve, ”No, you shall not die the death.” Finally, it culminated in a profound lie concerning the true relationship of man to God: “For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil." Original sin is, in other words, a violation of the truth about nature and being at all levels.

As explored in my article Heart of Betrayal, it is this ontological reality of things which is the object of the war conducted by Modernism against the Faith. Modernism, especially as found in Phenomenalism and Personalism, seeks to make the Faith primarily a matter of an ongoing and developing relationship. Cardinal Ratzinger, in the paragraph quoted above in which he tries to give new meaning to original sin, uses some form of the word relationship 13 times. Not once, however, in all this overdone discussion of “relationality” is there a consideration of man’s relationship to God. The focus is exclusively on our relationship to our fellow man. (James Larson, The Point of Departure.)

Concentration camp? May God help us in this time of apostasy and betrayal. May His Most Blessed Mother preserve from recognizing this apostate as a member of the Catholic Church.

It was because of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's heretical view of Original Sin, which is very similar to that of the Orthodox, who, of course, reject the dogmatic authority of the Council of Trent, that he had no problem six years ago endorsing a Protestant-produced motion picture, The Nativity Story, which portrayed Our Lady as a a sulky, moody and rebellious teenager and which portrayed the Nativity of her Divine Son as a painful birth. The Nativity Story, which Ratzinger/Benedict previewed and thereafter gave his consent to have this blasphemous production make its world premiere in the Paul VI Audience Hall on Sunday, November 26, 2006, and had John "Cardinal" Foley, then the President of the "Pontifical" Council for Social Communications, introduce it to an audience of seven thousand, which included his fellow destroyer of Our Lady's Fatima Message, Tarcisio "Cardinal" Bertone, the Secretary of State for the Holy See in conciliar captivity.

Ratzinger/Benedict does not have any conception of the horror of Original Sin, which rent asunder man's relationship with God and with his fellow men as it overthrew the delicate balance between our higher, rational faculties and our lower, sensual passions, and the privileges according to the fairest flower of our race precisely because she was preserved from all stain of Original Sin. This explains not only Ratzinger/Benedict's endorsement of The Nativity Story. It also explains the following passage he wrote in Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives:

 

Mary's response, which we will consider now, unfolds in three steps. To begin with, in reaction to an angel's greeting she is troubled and pensive. Her reaction is different from Zechariah's. Of him it is said that he was troubled an "fear fell upon him" (Lk. 1:12). In Mary's case the first word is the same (she was troubled), but what follows is not fear but an interior reflection on the angel's greeting. She ponders (dialogues within herself) over what the greeting of God's messenger could mean. So one salient feature of the image of the mother of Jesus is already present here, and we will encounter it again in two similar situations in the Gospel: her inner engagement with the word (cf. Lk. 2:19, 51).

She does not remain locked in her initial troubled state at the proximity of God in his angel, but she seeks to understand. So Mary appears as a fearless woman, one who remains composed even in the presence of something utterly unprecedented. At the same time she stands before us as a woman of great interiority, who holds heart and mind in harmony and seeks to understand the context, the overall significance of God's message. In this way, she becomes an image of the Church as she considers the word of God, tries to understand in its entirety and guards in her memory the things that have been given to her. (Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives. Translated by Philip J. Whitmore and published by Image, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, 2012, pp. 33-34.)

This is an example of what I termed as Ratzinger/Benedict's Practical Paganism eleven days ago now. That is, the passage from Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives is a projection onto Our Lady of what the false "pontiff" believes to have been the case. He thus attempts, quite blasphemously, I hasten to add, to make Our Lady a perjured witness in behalf conciliarism by using such phrases as "dialogues within herself) and by referring to the Sacred Deposit of Faith, which Holy Mother Church has always had the infallible protection of God the Holy Ghost to interpret and teach, as but a "memory." This is nothing other than pure rationalism as there is no discussion whatsoever of the illumination that Our Lady had received prior to the Annunciation, an illumination of which countless saints have written in the most eloquent and inspirational of terms imaginable.

As bad that Ratzinger/Benedict's attempt to transform Our Lady into a caricature of the Modernist mind, the section that followed in his book is a direct denial of Perfect Integrity of body and soul as well as an assault upon the whole doctrine of Our Lady's Perpetual Virginity as defined and taught by Holy Mother Church, thereby placing the false "pontiff" in the same blasphemous, heretical camp as his countryman Gerhard Ludwig Miller, the prefect of the conciliar church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (see Deft? Daft Is More Like It, part two, Daft? Deft Is More Like It, part three, Does The Defense of Catholic Truth Matter To You?, When Will The Madness End?, part one and Memo To Bishop Fellay: Ratzinger/Benedict Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Loves Gerhard Ludwig Muller):

 

Mary's second reaction is somewhat puzzling for us. After the thoughtful reflection with which she had received his initial greeting, the angel informs her that she has been chosen to the mother of the Messiah. Many replies with a short, incisive question: "How shall this be, since I have no husband?" (Lk. 1:34).

Let us consider again the difference between this response and the reaction of Zechariah, who doubted the possibility of the task announced to him. Like Elizabeth, he was advanced in years: he could not longer hope for a son. Mary, on the other hand, does not doubt. She asks not whether, but how the promise is so fulfilled, as she cannot recognize any way it could happen: "How shall this be, since I have no husband?" (Lk. 1:34). This question seems unintelligible to us, because Mary was betrothed, which means that, according to Jewish law, she was already effectively a married woman, even if she did not yet live with her husband an they had not yet begun their conjugal life.

Since Saint Augustine, once explanation that has been put forward is that Mary had taken a vow of virginity and had entered into the betrothal simply in order to have a protector for her virginity. But this theory is quite foreign to the world of the Judaism of Jesus' time, and in that context it seems inconceivable. So how are we to understand the passage? A satisfying answer has yet to be found by modern exegesis. Mary had had no dealings with men, yet she saw the task as immediately pressing. But this fails to convince, as the time when she would be taken into the the marital home could not have been far off. Other exegetes have wanted to view the saying as a purely literary construction, designed to continue the dialogue between Mary and the angel. Yet this is not real explanation of the saying either. Another element to keep in mind is that according to Jewish custom, betrothal was unilaterally pronounced by the man,  and the woman was not invited to express her consent. Yet this does not solve the problem either.

So the riddle remains--or perhaps one say say the mystery--of this saying. Mary sees no fly, for reasons that are beyond our grasp that she could become mother of the Messiah through marital relations. The angel confirms that her motherhood will not come about in the informal way after she has been taken home by Joseph, but through the "overshadowing, by the power of the Most High," by the coming of the Holy Spirit, and he notes emphatically: "For with God nothing will be impossible" (Lk 1:37). (Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives. Translated by Philip J. Whitmore and published by Image, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, 2012, pp. 34-35.)

Although Ratzinger/Benedict went on in the next passage to describe what he calls Our Lady's "third reaction" to Saint Gabriel the Archangel at the Annunciation in terms of her perfect Fiat to the will of God the Father, it is necessary to examine Ratzinger/Benedict's utter rationalism at work in his "exegesis" quoted just above. What Ratzinger/Benedict describes as a "riddle" or a "mystery" has been described in the most eloquent term over the course of the centuries by able spiritual writers.

Before entering into a brief commentary on the false "pontiff's" rationalism, however, it is worthy to note that he basis is his entire effort to "solve" his self-made "puzzle" or "riddle" by using a false translation of the Verse Thirty-four in Chapter One of the Gospel according to Saint Luke. Here is the Gospel text as translated into English in Bishop Richard Challoner's Douay-Rheims Bible:

 

[34] And Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man?

Father George Leo Haydock rendered it the same way:

 

34 And Mary said to the Angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man?

That is not good enough for "modern man," for "modern" exegetes, men who are mad in their quest for the "new" and supposedly "scientific" explanations of that which they believe has not been "explained" adequately prior to now.

Father Haydock took for granted what had been passed down from time immemorial concerning Our Lady's vow of virginity that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI finds impossible to accept given his supposedly vast knowledge of Jewish history at the time. It couldn't be, of course, that part of Our Lady's Perfect Integrity was that Our Lady had been prepared from the very moment of her Immaculate Conception to listen attentively to the words of Saint Gabriel the Archangel and to respond as the very handmaiden of the Lord that she is:

 

Ver. 34. How shall this be done? She only asks about the manner. --- Because I know not man.[6] This answer, as St. Augustine takes notice, would have been to no purpose, had she not made a vow to God to live always a virgin. (Witham) --- Listen to the words of this pure Virgin. The angel tells her she shall conceive; but she insists upon her virginity, holding her purity in higher estimation than the promised dignity. (St. Gregory of Nyssa.) --- She did not doubt the truth of what the angel said, (as Calvin impiously maintained) but she wished it might not happen to the prejudice of her vowed virginity. (St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, Ven. Bede, Theophylactus, &c. &c.) (Haydock Commentary.)

Ratzinger/Benedict is thus up against Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine and, among others, Saint Bede. In with the "new," out with that which does not correspond to "history" as he understands it.

Ratzinger/Benedict is also up against the wisdom of Dom Prosper Gueranger, whose words are, unlike the false "pontiff's," simply and eloquent in their description of the great scene of the Annunciation, the very moment at which the Word became Flesh and dwelt amongst us:

Mary hears what Gabriel has spoken to her; but this most prudent Virgin is silent. She is surprised at the praise given her by the angel. The purest and humblest of virgins has a dread of flattery; and the heavenly messenger receives no reply from her, until he has fully explained his mission by these words: 'Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a Son: and thou shalt be call His name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of David, His father: and He shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever, and of His Kingdom there shall be no end.'

What magnificent promises are these, which are made to her in the name of God! What higher glory could she, a daughter of Juda, desire, knowing, as she does, that the fortunate Mother of the Messias is to be the object of the greatest veneration? And yet it tempts her not. She has for ever consecrated her virginity to God., in order that she may be the more closely united to Him by love. The grandest possible privilege, if is to be be on the condition of violating this sacred vow, would be less than nothing in her estimation. She thus answers the angel: "How shall this be done? because I now not man.'

The first Eve evinces no such prudence or disinterestedness. No sooner has the wicked spirit assured her that she may break the commandment of her divine Benefactor and not die; that the fruit of her disobedience will be a wonderful knowledge, which will put her on a equality with God Himself: than she immediately yields, she is conquered. Her self-love has made her forget at once both duty and gratitude: she is delighted at the thought of being freed from the twofold tie which bins her to her Creator.

Such is the woman that caused our perdition. But how different is she that was to save us! The former cares not for her posterity; she looks but to her own interests: the latter forgets herself to think only of her God, and of the claims He has to her service. The angel, charmed with sublime fidelity, thus answers the question put to him by Mary, and reveals to her the designs of God: 'The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren; because no word shall be impossible with God.' This said, he is silent, and reverently awaits the answer of the Virgin of Nazareth.

Let us look once more at the virgin of Eden. Scarcely has the wicked spirit finished speaking than Eve casts a longing look at the forbidden fruit: she is impatient to enjoy the independence it is to bring her. She rashly stretches forth her hand; she plucks the fruit; she eats is, and death takes possession of her: death of the soul, for sin extinguishes the light of life; and the death of the body which being separated from the source of immortality, becomes an object of shame and horror, and finally crumbles into dust.

But let us turn our eyes form this sad spectacle, and fix them on Nazareth. Mary has heard the angel's explanation of the mystery; the will of heaven is made known to her! She, the humble maid of Nazareth, is to have the ineffable happiness of becoming the Mother of God, and yet the treasure of her virginity is to be left to her! Mary bows down before this sovereign will, and says to the heavenly messenger: 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it done unto me according to thy word.'

Thus, as the great St. Irenaeus and so many of the holy fathers remark, the obedience of the second Eve repaired the disobedience of the first; for no sooner does the Virgin of Nazareth speak her fiat, 'be it done,' than the Eternal Son of God (who, according to the divine decree, awaited this word) is present, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, in the chaste womb of Mary, and there He begins His human life. A Virgin is a Mother, and Mother of God; and it is this Virgin's consenting to the divine will that has made her conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost. This sublime mystery puts between the eternal Word and mere woman the relations of Son and Mother; it gives to the almighty God a means whereby He may, in a manner worthy of His majesty, triumph over satan, who hitherto seemed to have prevailed against the divine plan.

Never was there a more entire or humiliating defeat than that which this day befell satan. The frail creature, over whom he had so easily triumphed at the beginning of the world, now rises and crushes his proud head. Eve conquers in Mary. God would not choose man for the instrument of His vengeance' the humiliation of satan would not have been great enough; and therefore she who as the first prey of hell, the first victim of the tempter, is selected to give battle to the enemy. The result of so glorious a triumph is that Mary is to be superior not only to the rebel angels, but to the whole human race, yea, to all the angels of heaven. Seated on her exalted throne, she, Mother of God, is to be the Queen of all creation. Satan, in the depths of the abyss, will eternally bewail his having dared to direct his first attack against the woman, for God has now so gloriously avenged her; and in heaven, the very Cherubim and Seraphim reverently look up to Mary, and deem themselves honored when she smiles upon them, or employs them in the execution o any of her wishes, for she is the Mother of their God. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year: Volume V--Lent, pp. 456-459.)

 

This, quite unlike that provided by the rationalist Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI in Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, is Catholic explication of the Annunciation. Dom Prosper Gueranger, you see, was a Catholic. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is an apostate.

Ratzinger/Benedict's description of Our Lady's Fiat, though it quotes from Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, lacks the Catholicity provided by Dom Prosper Gueranger in The Liturgical Year. An attentive reader will see in the text from the false "pope's" Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives below no mention of Our Lady as the New Eve. There is an simple explanation for this: Ratzinger/Benedict believes that the account of the Fall is merely allegorical. He does not believe in Original Sin or the actual persons of Adam and Eve, which is why he referred in the passage below to what he called the "error of our first parents:"

 

Now comes the third reaction, Mary's actual answer: her straightforward yes. She declares herself to be the handmaid of the Lord. "Let it be to me according to your word" (Lk 1:38).

In one of his Advent homilies, Bernard of Clairvaux offers a stirring presentation of the drama of this moment. After the error of our first parents, the whole world was shrouded in darkness, under the dominion of death. Now God seeks to enter the world anew. He knocks at Mary's door. He needs human freedom. The only way he can redeem man, who was created free, is by means of a free "yes" to his his will. In creating freedom, he made himself in a certain sense dependent upon man. His power is tied to the unenforceable "yes" of a human being. So Bernard portrays heaven and earth as it were holding its breath at this moment of the question addressed to Mary. Will she yes? She hesitates . . . will her humility hold her back? Just this once--Bernard tells her--do not be humble but daring! Give us your 'yes'! This is the crucial moment when, from her lips, from her heart, the answer comes: "Let it to me according to your word." It is the moment of free, humble yet magnanimous obedience in which the loftiest choice of human freedom is made.

Mary becomes a mother through her "yes." The Church Fathers sometimes express this by saying Mary conceived through her ear---that is to say: through her hearing. Through her obedience, the Word entered into her and become fruitful in her. In this connection, the Fathers developed the idea of God's birth in us through faith and baptism, in which the Logos came to us ever anew, making us God's children. For example, we may recall the words of Saint Irenaeus: "How shall man pass into God, unless God has first passed into man? How as mankind to escape this birth unto death, unless he were born again through faith, by that new birth from the Virgin, the sign of salvation that is God' wonderful and unmistakable gift?" (Adv. Haer. IV 33.4; f. H. Rahner, Our Lady and the Church, p. 60.) (Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives. Translated by Philip J. Whitmore and published by Image, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, 2012, pp. 36-37.)

By the way, the "H. Rahner" cited in Ratzinger/Benedict's "confer--'cf'--note," was the Modernist older brother of the Modernist Karl Rahner, S.J., I just thought that you would like to know the connection.

Despite the "elements" of Catholicism contained in this passage, Ratzinger does happen to place those little drops of poison into the well so as to pollute the entire passage.

"Error of our first parents"?

Original Sin?

He does not believe in it as defined and taught by the Catholic Church.

The existence of Adam and Eve?

He believes that they were only allegorical, thereby placing himself at odds with the pope who condemned the "new theology" in which he was being trained:

 

37. When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own. (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 15, 1950.)

 

Ratzinger/Benedict thus attributes to the Church Fathers what he calls the "development" of "the idea of God's birth in us through faith and baptism" even though they, the Fathers only explicated that which was believed and taught by the Apostles themselves, that which they learned from the very lips of the Divine Redeemer. One ought to take seriously the simple truth that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict really does not believe in the Catholic Faith as it has been handed down to us from time immemorial under the infallible protection of God the Holy Ghost.

Once again, however, most pertinent for our consideration today, the Vigil of Christmas, is that Ratzinger/Benedict not only rejects the constant tradition of the Church concerning Our Lady's vow of perpetual virginity, he scoffs as fantastic any account of the Annunciation such as the Venerable Mary of Agreda tell us that Our Lady explained gave to her:

132. The holy archangel saluted our and his Queen and said: "Ave gratia plena, Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus" (Luke 1, 28). Hearing this new salutation of the angel, this most humble of all creatures was disturbed, but not confused in mind (Luke 1, 29). This disturbance arose from two causes : first, from her humility, for She thought Herself the lowest of the creatures and thus in her humility, was taken unawares at hearing Herself saluted and called the "Blessed among women"; secondly, when She heard this salute and began to consider within Herself how She should receive it, She was interiorly made to understand by the Lord, that He chose Her for his Mother, and this caused a still greater perturbance, having such an humble opinion of Herself. On account of this perturbance the angel proceeded to explain to Her the decree of the Lord, saying : "Do not fear, Mary, for thou hast found grace before the Lord (Luke 1, 30) ; behold thou shalt conceive a Son in thy womb, and thou shalt give birth to Him, and thou shalt name Him Jesus; He shall be great, and He shall be called Son of the Most High"; and the rest as recorded of the holy archangel.

133. Our most prudent and humble Queen alone, among all the creatures, was sufficiently intelligent and magnanimous to estimate at its true value such a new and unheard of sacrament; and in proportion as She realized its greatness, so She was also moved with admiration. But She raised her humble heart to the Lord, who could not refuse Her any petition, and in the secret of her spirit She asked new light and assistance by which to govern Herself in such an arduous transaction; for, as we have said in the preceding chapter, the Most High, in order to permit Her to act in this mystery solely in faith, hope and charity, left Her in the common state and suspended all other kinds of favors and interior elevations, which She so frequently or continually enjoyed. In this disposition She replied and said to holy Gabriel, what is written in saint Luke: "How shall this happen, that I conceive and bear; since I know not, nor can know, man ?"; At the same time She interiorly represented to the Lord the vow of chastity, which She had made and the espousal, which his Majesty had celebrated with Her.

134. The holy prince Gabriel replied (Luke 1, 24) :"Lady, it is easy for the divine power to make Thee a Mother without the co-operation of man ; the Holy Spirit shall remain with Thee by a new presence and the virtue of the Most High shall overshadow Thee, so that the Holy of holies can be born of Thee, who shall himself be called the Son of God. And behold, thy cousin Elisabeth has likewise conceived a son in her sterile years and this is the sixth month of her conception ; for nothing is impossible with God. He that can make her conceive, who was sterile, can bring it about, that Thou, Lady, be his Mother, still preserving thy virginity and enhancing thy purity. To the Son whom Thou shalt bear, God will give the throne of his father David and his reign shall be everlasting in the house of Jacob. Thou art not ignorant, O Lady, of the prophecy of Isaias (Is. 7, 14), that a Virgin shall conceive and shall bear a son, whose name shall be Emmanuel, God with us. This prophecy is infallible and it shall be fulfilled in thy person. Thou knowest also of the great mystery of the bush, which Moses saw burning without its being consumed by the fire (Exod. 3, 2). This signified that the two natures, divine and human, are to be united in such a manner, that the latter is not consumed by the divine, and that the Mother of the Messias shall conceive and give birth without violation of her virginal purity. Remember also, Lady, the promise of the eternal God to the Patriarch Abraham, that, after the captivity of his posterity for four generations, they should return to this land; the mysterious signification of which was, that in this, the fourth generation,* the incarnate God is to rescue the whole race of Adam through thy co-operation from the oppression of the devil (Gen. 15, 16). And the ladder, which Jacob saw in his sleep (Gen. 28, 12), was an express figure of the royal way, which the eternal Word was to open up and by which the mortals are to ascend to heaven and the angels to descend to earth. To this earth the Onlybegotten of the Father shall lower Himself in order to converse with men and communicate to them the treasures of his Divinity, imparting to them his virtues and his immutable and eternal perfections."

135. With these and many other words the ambassador of heaven instructed the most holy Mary, in order that, by the remembrance of the ancient promises and prophecies of holy Writ, by the reliance and trust in them and in the infinite power of the Most High, She might overcome her hesitancy at the heavenly message. But as the Lady herself exceeded the angels in wisdom, prudence and in all sanctity, She withheld her answer, *In the autograph manuscript Mary of Agreda explains this fourth generation as follows: "The mystery of this fourth generation is that there are four generations: is 1st that of Adam without a father or mother; 2nd, that of Eve without a mother; 3rd, of our own, from a father and mother; 4th, that of our Lord Jesus Christ, from a Mother without a father" in order to be able to give it in accordance with the divine will and that it might be worthy of the greatest of all the mysteries and sacraments of the divine power. She reflected that upon her answer depended the pledge of the most blessed Trinity, the fulfillment of his promises and prophecies, the most pleasing and acceptable of all sacrifices, the opening of the gates of paradise, the victory and triumph over hell, the Redemption of all the human race, the satisfaction of the divine justice, the foundation of the new law of grace, the glorification of men, the rejoicing of the angels, and whatever was connected with the Incarnation of the Onlybegotten of the Father and his assuming the form of servant in her virginal womb (Philip 2, 7).

136. A great wonder, indeed, and worthy of our admiration, that all these mysteries and whatever others they included, should be intrusted by the Almighty to an humble Maiden and made dependent upon her fiat. But befittingly and securely He left them to the wise and strong decision of this courageous Woman (Prov. 31, 11), since She would consider them with such magnanimity and nobility, that perforce his confidence in Her was not misplaced. The operations, which proceed within the divine Essence, depend not on the co-operation of creatures, for they have no part in them and God could not expect such co-operations for executing the works ad intra; but in the works ad extra and such as were contingent, among which that of becoming man was the most exalted, He could not proceed without the co-operation of most holy Mary and without her free consent. For He wished to reach this acme of all the works outside Himself in Her and through Her and He wished that we should owe this benefit to this Mother of wisdom and our Reparatrix.

137. Therefore this great Lady considered and inspected profoundly this spacious field of the dignity of Mother of God (Prov. 21, 11) in order to purchase it by her fiat; She clothed Herself in fortitude more than human, and She tasted and saw how profitable was this enterprise and commerce with the Divinity. She comprehended the ways of his hidden benevolence and adorned Herself with fortitude and beauty. And having conferred with Herself and with the heavenly messenger Gabriel about the grandeur of these high and divine sacraments, and finding Herself in excellent condition to receive the message sent to Her, her purest soul was absorbed and elevated in admiration, reverence and highest intensity of divine love. By the intensity of these movements and supernal affections, her most pure heart, as it were by natural consequence, was contracted and compressed with such force, that it distilled three drops of her most pure blood, and these, finding their way to the natural place for the act of conception, were formed by the power of the divine and holy Spirit, into the body of Christ our Lord. Thus the matter, from which the most holy humanity of the Word for our Redemption is composed, was furnished and administered by the most pure heart of Mary and through the sheer force of her true love. At the same moment, with a humility never sufficiently to be extolled, inclining slightly her head and joining her hands, She pronounced these words, which were the beginning of our salvation: "Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum"; (Luke 1,31).

138. At the pronouncing of this "fiat,"; so sweet to the hearing of God and so fortunate for us, in one instant, four things happened. First, the most holy body of Christ our Lord was formed from the three drops of blood furnished by the heart of most holy Mary. Secondly, the most holy soul of the same Lord was created, just as the other souls. Thirdly, the soul and the body united in order to compose his perfect humanity. Fourthly, the Divinity united Itself in the Person of the Word with the humanity, which together became one composite being in hypostatical union ; and thus was  formed Christ true God and Man, our Lord and Redeemer. This happened in springtime on the twentyfifth of March, at break or dawning of the day, in the same hour, in which our first father Adam was made and in the year of the creation of the world 5199, which agrees also with the count of the Roman Church in her Martyrology under the guidance of the Holy Ghost. This reckoning is the true and certain one, as was told me, when I inquired at command of my superiors. Conformable to this the world was created in the month of March, which corresponds to the beginning of creation. And as the works of the Most High are perfect and complete (Deut. 32, 4), the plants and trees come forth from the hands of his Majesty bearing fruit, and they would have borne them continually without in termission, if sin had not changed the whole nature, as I will expressly relate in another treatise, if it is the will of the Lord; now however I will not detain myself therewith, since it does not pertain to our subject.

139. In the same instant, in which the Almighty celebrated the nuptials of the hypostatic union in the womb of most holy Mary, the heavenly Lady was elevated to the beatific vision and the Divinity manifested Itself to Her clearly and intuitively. She saw most high sacraments, of which I will speak in the next chapter. The mysteries of the inscriptions, with which She was adorned and which the angels exhibited as related in the seventh chapter (No. 82, also Part I, 207, 363-4), were made clear to Her each in particular. The divine Child began to grow in the natural manner in the recess of the womb, being nourished by the substance and the blood of its most holy Mother, just as other men; yet it was more free and exempt from the imperfections, to which other children of Adam are subject in that place and period. For from some of these, namely those that are accidental and unnecessary to the substance of the act of generation, being merely effects of sin, the Empress of heaven was free. She was also free from the superfluities caused by sin, which in other women are common and happen naturally in the formation, sustenance and growth of their children. For the necessary matter, which is proper to the infected nature of the descend ants of Eve and which was wanting in Her, was supplied and administered in Her by the exercise of heroic acts of virtue and especially by charity. By the fervor of her soul and her loving affections the blood and humors of her body were changed and thereby divine Providence provided for the sustenance of the divine Child. Thus in a natural manner the humanity of our Redeemer was nourished, while his Divinity was recreated and pleased with her heroic virtues. Most holy Mary furnished to the Holy Ghost, for the formation of this body, pure and limpid blood, free from sin and all its tendencies. And whatever impure and imperfect matter is supplied by other mothers for the growth of their children was administered by the Queen of heaven most pure and delicate in substance. For it was built up and supplied by the power of her loving affections and her other virtues. In a like manner was purified whatever served as food for the heavenly Queen. For, as She knew that her nourishment was at the same time to sustain and nourish the Son of God, She partook of it with such heroic acts of virtue, that the angelic spirits wondered how such common human actions could be connected with such supernal heights of merit and perfection in the sight of God.

140. The heavenly Lady was thus established in such high privileges in her position as Mother of God, that those which I have already mentioned and which I shall yet mention, convey not even the smallest idea of her excellence, and my tongue cannot describe it. For, neither is it possible to conceive it by the understanding, nor can the most learned, nor the most wise of men find adequate terms to express it. The humble, who are proficient in the art of divine love, become aware of it by infused light and by the interior taste and feeling, by which such sacraments are perceived. Not only was most holy Mary become a heaven, a temple and dwelling place of the most holy Trinity, transformed thereto, elevated and made godlike by the special and unheard of operation of the Divinity in her most pure womb; but her humble cottage and her poor little oratory was consecrated by the Divinity as a new sanctuary of God. The heavenly spirits, who as witnesses of this marvelous transformation were present to contemplate it, magnified the Almighty with ineffable praise and jubilee; in union with this most happy Mother, they blessed Him in his name and in the name of the human race, which was ignorant of this the greatest of his benefits and mercies. (Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God: Book II: The Incarnation, pp. 106-113.)

 

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI does not think of Our Lady in these terms. He does not believe in such private revelations as his rationalist mind has to dismiss out of hand anything that is not found in Sacred Scripture which he makes alongside Sacred Tradition pretty much what he wants according to the "lights" of his philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity."

The rationalist mind of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, which must find "explanations" to his "satisfaction," was described perfectly by Saint Louis Grignion de Montfort in The Secret of the Rosary, Our Lady's own spiritual weapon to which the false "pontiff" almost never makes any reference at all:

To stories of Holy Scripture we owe Divine faith; To stories concerning other than religious subjects, which do not militate against common sense and which are written by trustworthy authors, we pay the tribute of human faith; whereas To sometimes deal with happenings which are above the ordinary run of events) we pay the tribute of pious faith.

I agree that we must be neither too credulous nor too critical and that we should remember that "virtue takes the middle course" - keeping a happy medium in all things in order to find just where truth and virtue lie. But on the other hand I know equally well that charity easily leads us to believe all that is not contrary to faith or morals: "Charity . . . believeth all things;" in the same way pride induces us to doubt even well authenticated stories on the plea that they are not to be found in the Bible.

This is one of the devil's traps; heretics of the past who denied Tradition have have fallen into it and overcritical people of today are falling into it too without even realizing it.

People of this kind refuse to believe what they do not understand or what is not to their liking, simply because of their own spirit of pride and independence. (Saint Louis Grignion de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, The Tenth Rose.)

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Saint Louis Grignion de Montfort described you over two centuries before your birth.

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI does not believe in Our Lady's Perfect Integrity because he does not "like" how the Catholic Church has defined Original Sin. He feels free to jettison everything, including that which redounded to Our Lady as the New Eve and the very fairest flower of the human race in whom was conceived and from whom was born this very night Our Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

What more is there to say?

Christmas joy is near! Let us spend this final day of Advent in preparation for welcoming the Baby Jesus at Midnight Mass and by giving Him the gift of a soul, having been cleansed in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance, and refreshed by thoughtful meditations upon the Joyful Mysteries of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary, make sure to make inn for Him in the inns of our hearts and souls, praying to the Patron of the Universal Church and the Protector of the Faithful, Saint Joseph, to do so.

Make Haste, The Lord Is Nigh!

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

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.

See also: A Litany of Saints