Leaving Death Bearers Deader Than Dead
by Thomas A. Droleskey
And first of all, by the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole world in the blood of Jesus Christ. For, while our Divine Savior was preaching in a restricted area -- He was not sent but to the sheep that were lost of the house of Israel -the Law and the Gospel were together in force; but on the gibbet of his death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees, fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race. "To such an extent, then," says Saint Leo the Great, speaking of the Cross of our Lord, "was there effected a transfer from the Law to the Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from many sacrifices to one Victim, that, as our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently from top to bottom."
On the Cross then the Old Law died, soon to be buried and to be a bearer of death, in order to give way to the New Testament of which Christ had chosen the Apostles as qualified ministers; and although He had been constituted the Head of the whole human family in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, it is by the power of the Cross that our Savior exercises fully the office itself of Head in His Church. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)
The false religion that was honored by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI no less than three times (twice at the "Pope" John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, April 17, 2008, and once at the Park East Synagogue in the Borough of Manhattan in the City of New York, New York, the next day, Friday, April 18, 2008) during his recent visit to the United States of America is a bearer of eternal death. It has the power to save no one. It is in the grip of the devil, doing his nefarious work to lead souls and nations into ruin. Its liturgical observances are despised by the Most Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI gave the appearance that Talmudic Judaism is indeed worthy of all esteem and respect, that its adherents actually please God in the observance of the ceremonies that He Himself abolished and superseded with the New and Eternal Covenant that He instituted at the Last Supper and ratified by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.
To give the appearance of esteeming a dead religion that has belonged to the devil since Good Friday is to reaffirm its adherents in false beliefs, thereby leaving their immortal souls at great risk of eternal perdition, also convincing many Catholics yet attached to the structures of the countefeit church of conciliarism that they are under no obligation to seek the conversion of the adherents of any false religion, including Talmudic Judaism, stifling the impulses that a believing Catholic should have within the very core of his being to be an apostle for souls at all times. How many Catholics in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism even think in terms of seeking to convert the souls of non-Catholics, no less pray for such conversions? Why should any Catholic in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism seek the conversion of non-Catholics when the man they believe, albeit falsely, to be the Vicar of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on earth not only does not seek such conversions when he addresses non-Catholics but actually praises those religions and expresses his best wishes on the observances of ceremonies that are hideous in the sight of God?
Thus it is that we have encountered in our running of errands within the past week any number of average, quite ordinary, television-watching Americans who are ever so happy that the "Church" has changed with respect to "accepting" all people no matter what they believe. This is the unmistakable message that has been conveyed by images of a "pope" standing up to place his own consecrated priestly hands on symbols of false religions. "The pope is so nice. He loves all religions, just like God does." "You told me that the Koran is a book containing evil. Your pope took the Koran as a gift. You owe me an apology." "Peaceful coexistence. That's what the pope preaches. You don't." Oh, these are just some of the things we have heard in various places (supermarkets, gasoline stations, laundromats, health food stores) (and messages that I have received) in the past week as a result of the "papal" visit. A lack of physical energy caused by massive allergies precludes anything approaching a fuller representation of the inanities that we have heard in the past seven days.
Indeed, there are many lay Catholics in the Motu world who are similarly "impressed" with the "papal" display of "kindness" and "charity" for all people in the name of "religious freedom," denounced as a heresy by Pope Pius VII in Post Tam Diuturnas 194 years ago tomorrow, April 29, 1814, and declared to be an "insanity" by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832. Oozing with the ethos of Americanist sentimentality and having been brainwashed by nearly fifty years of the sights and sounds of conciliarism's various displays of "respect" for false religions, many in the Motu world, especially those who simply want a nice offering (or simulation) of the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition without anything "controversial" or "divisive, actually complain to chancery offices if a priest says anything that could be construed as critical of the conciliar"popes" and their apostasies, no matter how mildly phrased. The "pope" has spoken by his actions, you see. "We" must simply get along with all others without being critical of what they believe. It all gets "worked out" eschatologically on the Last Day.
False religions, including the sects of Protestantism and Orthodoxy, deal death to their adherents. Death. They have false doctrines that blaspheme God and deny that He has founded but one Church upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope. They provide license for their adherents to engage in abject evils under the cover of "fidelity" to the "truth." They offer "worship" to their devils by claiming to worship God, something that Saint David himself taught in Psalm 95, verse 5:
For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils: but the Lord made the heavens.
The beliefs of false religions save no one. The beliefs of false religions have no "civil right" to be propagated openly, thus putting into question the truths that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has revealed to us in His Deposit of Faith and that He has entrusted exclusively to His Catholic Church for their eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. The beliefs of false religions can in no way contribute to the "betterment" of nations and the world. It is neigh-well next to impossible to communicate these immutable truths to others when the man considered to be the Successor of Saint Peter conveys, both in deed and in word, exactly the opposite. This results in leaving God Himself open to the most hideous of blasphemies and sacrileges to be committed in His Holy Name with almost no one willing to recognize the necessity of openly defending His honor and majesty by denouncing doctrinal falsehoods and by condemning open acts of public apostasy in the esteem shown to false idols, a direct and brazen violation of the First Commandment.
Nearly have a century of such open acts of apostasy and/or de facto exercises in religious indifferentism have so attacked and eroded the Catholic senses of so many millions of Catholics worldwide that it is those who do indeed denounce doctrinal falsehoods and who condemn open acts of public apostasy who are considered to be wrong and "divisive," if not "disobedient" and "schismatic." This is nothing new in the history of the Church. Very few in numbers were Catholics who saw through and rejected Arianism. Very few in numbers were Catholics who remained faithful to the Church during the time of the Protestant Revolt in England. Very few in numbers were those who saw any problems with conciliarism, including the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service, in the 1960s. Why should those who have been fed a steady diet of apostasy and sacrilege and lies see things more clearly now? Most Catholics in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, including many of those in the Motu world, have no ability to do so because they have never been taught the Catholic Faith, never taught that they have the duty as soldiers in the Army of Christ to defend the Faith.
Saint Athanasius, whose feast day (which is downgraded to a commemoration this year given the transfer of the Feast of Saints Philip and James from May 1, which the Feast of the Ascension, to May 2) is just four days from now, has provided us with a lasting testimony to the simple truth that the mere possession of Catholic churches and buildings does not mean Catholicism possesses the souls of those who control them:
"May God console you! ... What saddens you ... is the fact that others have occupied the churches by violence, while during this time you are on the outside. It is a fact that they have the premises – but you have the Apostolic Faith. They can occupy our churches, but they are outside the true Faith. You remain outside the places of worship, but the Faith dwells within you. Let us consider: what is more important, the place or the Faith? The true Faith, obviously. Who has lost and who has won in the struggle – the one who keeps the premises or the one who keeps the Faith? True, the premises are good when the Apostolic Faith is preached there; they are holy if everything takes place there in a holy way ...
"You are the ones who are happy; you who remain within the Church by your Faith, who hold firmly to the foundations of the Faith which has come down to you from Apostolic Tradition. And if an execrable jealousy has tried to shake it on a number of occasions, it has not succeeded. They are the ones who have broken away from it in the present crisis. No one, ever, will prevail against your Faith, beloved Brothers. And we believe that God will give us our churches back some day.
"Thus, the more violently they try to occupy the places of worship, the more they separate themselves from the Church. They claim that they represent the Church; but in reality, they are the ones who are expelling themselves from it and going astray. Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ" Letter of Saint Athanasius
As I noted several times during the recent visit of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI to the United States of America, the fact that he did not once invite anyone to pray Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary is a telling sign of how far he is from the Mind of the Divine Redeemer. Ratzinger/Benedict does not even have within his being to instinctively bless those pass whom his "antipopemobile" travels. He waves, at least for the most part, almost never imparting any blessings. We saw this in Rome, Italy, ourselves nearly three years ago now, as his anitpopemobile drove on the Via Della Concilazione to the Vatican after having taken "possession" of the Basilica of San Giovanni Laterano on May 13, 2005 (during which ceremony, which occurred on the eighty-eighth anniversary of Our Lady's first apparition to Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos in the Cova da Iria in Fatima, Portugal, he announced the appointment of the nefarious William Levada as his successor as the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, announcing also that cause of the "canonization" of his predecessor as antipope, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, was being placed on the "fast track"). It was evident during much of his recent visit to the United States of America. No exhortations to pray Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary. No inclination to even attempt to bless the crowds who came out to see him as a matter of routine.
A man who believes that dogmatic truth can be understood in different ways at different times--and who believes that "past" papal pronouncements and magisterial decisions are not the "last word" on various subjects--is bereft of the sensus Catholicus. Such a man is without a clue as he stands up to treat with respect the symbols of false religions. Such a man is without a clue as to how he offends God by doing this and by refusing to exhort one and all to to to Him through Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.
Among the several saints whose feasts are celebrated today, Monday, April 28, 2008 (Saint Paul of the Cross, the founder of the Congregation of the Passion, and Saint Vitals), is Saint Louis Grignion de Montfort, who suffered so much in his own day for his promotion of Total Consecration to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Saint Louis Grignion de Montfort taught us to love Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary, teaching us as well that the devil hates the Rosary, which is why, my friends, I am unbent in my claim that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI was, whether wittingly or unwittingly we leave to God to judge, doing the work of the devil not only by esteeming false religions and propagating the lie of religious liberty but most especially by refusing to exhort anyone to pray Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary, which is the chief weapon we have after Holy Mass itself of getting home to Heaven.
Here are just two passages from Saint Louis Grignion de Montfort's The Secret of the Rosary concerning how the devil and his minions despise Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary:
Blessed Alan [de la Roche] relates that a certain Cardinal Pierre,
whose titular church was that of Saint Mary-beyond-the-Tiber, was
a great friend of Saint Dominic's and had learned from him to have
a great devotion to the holy Rosary. He grew to love it so much
that he never ceased singing its praises and encouraging everyone
he met to embrace it. Eventually he was sent as legate to the
Holy Land to the Christians who were fighting against the
Saracens. So successfully did he convince the Christian army of
the power of the Rosary that they all started saying it and
stormed heaven for help in a battle in which they knew they would
be pitifully outnumbered. And in fact, their three thousand
triumphed over an enemy of one hundred thousand.
As we have seen, the devils have an overwhelming fear of the
Rosary. Saint Bernard says that the Angelic Salutation puts them
to flight and makes all hell tremble. Blessed Alan assures us
that he has seen several people delivered from Satan's bondage
after taking up the holy Rosary, even though they had previously
sold themselves to him, body and soul, by renouncing their
baptismal vows and their allegiance to Jesus Christ.
In 1578, a woman of Antwerp had given herself to the devil
and signed a contract with her own blood. Shortly afterwards she
was stricken with remorse and had an intense desire to make
amends for this terrible deed. So she sought out a kind and wise
confessor to find out how she could be set free from the power
of the devil.
She found a wise and holy priest, who advised her to go to
Father Henry, director of the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary, at
the Dominican Friary, to be enrolled there and to make her
confession. Accordingly, she asked to see him but met, not Father
Henry, but the devil disguised as a friar. He reproved her
severely and said she could never hope to receive God's grace,
and there was no way of revoking what she had signed. This
grieved her greatly but she did not lose hope in God's mercy and
sought out Father Henry once more, only to find the devil a second
time, and to meet with a second rebuff. She came back a third
time and then at last, by divine providence, she found Father Henry
in person, the priest whom she had been looking for, and he
treated her with great kindness, urging her to throw herself on
the mercy of God and to make a good confession. He then received
her into the Confraternity and told her to say the Rosary
frequently.
One day, while Father Henry was celebrating Mass for her, Our Lady forced the devil to give her back the contract she had signed. In this way she was delivered from the devil by the
authority of Mary and by devotion to the holy Rosary. (Saint Louis Grignion de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, pp. 80-82.)
Saint Louis Grignion de Montfort explained that Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary is indeed the most powerful weapon we have after Mass to contemplate the Passion of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to which the Congregation of the Passion founded by Saint Paul of the Cross was so devoted:
Saint Augustine assures us that there is no spiritual exercise
more fruitful or more useful than the frequent reflection on the
sufferings of our Lord. Blessed Albert the Great, who had Saint
Thomas Aquinas as his student, learned in a revelation that by
simply thinking of or meditating on the passion of Jesus Christ,
a Christian gains more merit than if he had fasted on bread and
water every Friday for a year, or had beaten himself with the
discipline once a week till blood flowed, or had recited the
whole Book of Psalms every day. If this is so, then how great
must be the merit we can gain from the Rosary, which commemorates
the whole life and passion of our Lord?
Our Lady one day revealed to Blessed Alan de la Roche that,
after the holy sacrifice of the Mass, which is the first and most
living memorial of our Lord's passion, there was indeed no more
excellent devotion or one of greater merit than that of the
Rosary, which is like a second memorial and representation of the
life and passion of Jesus ChriSaint
Father Dorland relates that in 1481 Our Lady appeared to the
Venerable Dominic, a Carthusian devoted to the holy Rosary, who
lived at Treves, and said to him:
"Whenever one of the faithful, in a state of grace, says the
Rosary while meditating on the mysteries of the life and passion of Christ, he obtains full and entire remission of all his sins."
She also said to Blessed Alan, "I want you to know that,
although there are numerous indulgences already attached to the
recitation of my Rosary, I shall add many more to every five
decades for those who, free from serious sin, say them with
devotion, on their knees. And whosoever shall persevere in the
devotion of the holy Rosary, with its prayers and meditations,
shall be rewarded for it; I shall obtain for him full remission
of the penalty and the guilt of all his sins at the end of his
life.
"And let this not seem incredible to you; it is easy for me
because I am the Mother of the King of heaven, and he calls me
full of grace. And being filled with grace, I am able to dispense
it freely to my dear children."
Saint Dominic was so convinced of the efficacy of the Rosary
and its great value that, when he heard confessions, he hardly
ever gave any other penance, as we have seen in the story I told
you of the lady in Rome to whom he gave only a single Rosary.
Saint Dominic was a great saint and other confessors also ought to
walk in his footsteps by asking their penitents to say the Rosary
with meditation on the sacred mysteries, rather than giving them
other penances which are less meritorious and less pleasing to
God, less likely to help them to advance in virtue, and not as
efficacious in helping them to avoid sin. Moreover, while saying
the Rosary, people gain numerous indulgences which are not
attached to many other devotions.
As Abbot Blosius says, "The Rosary, with meditation on the
life and passion of Christ, is certainly most pleasing to our
Lord and His blessed Mother and is a very successful means of
obtaining all graces; we can say it for ourselves as well as for
those who have been recommended to our prayers and for the whole
Church. Let us turn, then, to the holy Rosary in all our needs,
and we shall infallibly obtain the graces we ask for from God to
attain our salvation.
There is nothing more divine, according to the mind of Saint
Denis, nothing more noble or agreeable to God than to cooperate
in the work of saving souls and to frustrate the devil's plans
for ruining them. The Son of God came down to earth for no other
reason than to save us. He upset Satan's empire by founding the
Church, but the devil rallied his strength and wreaked cruel
violence on souls by the Albigensian heresy, by the hatred,
dissensions and abominable vices which he spread throughout the
world in the eleventh century.
Only severe remedies could possibly cure such terrible
disorders and repel Satan's forces. The Blessed Virgin,
protectress of the Church, has given us a most powerful means for
appeasing her Son's anger, uprooting heresy and reforming
Christian morals, in the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary, as
events have shown. It has brought back charity and the frequent
reception of the sacraments as in the first golden centuries of
the Church, and it has reformed Christian morals.
Pope Leo X said in his bull that this Confraternity had been
founded in honour of God and of the Blessed Virgin as a wall to
hold back the evils that were going to break upon the Church.
Gregory XIII said that the Rosary was given us from heaven as a
means of appeasing God's anger and of imploring the intercession
of Our Lady.
Julius III said that the Rosary was inspired by God that
heaven might be more easily opened to us through the favours of
Our Lady.
Paul III and Blessed Pius V declared that the Rosary was
given to the faithful in order that they might have spiritual
peace and consolation more easily. Surely everyone will want to
join a confraternity which was founded for such noble purposes.
Father Dominic, a Carthusian, who was deeply devoted to the
holy Rosary, had a vision in which he saw heaven opened and the
whole heavenly court assembled in magnificent array. He heard
them sing the Rosary in an enchanting melody, and each decade was
in honour of a mystery of the life, passion, or glory of Jesus
Christ and His holy Mother. Father Dominic noticed that whenever
they pronounced the holy name of Mary they bowed their heads, and
at the name of Jesus they genuflected and gave thanks to God for
the great good he had wrought in heaven and on earth through the
holy Rosary. He also saw Our Lady and the Saints present to God
the Rosaries which the Confraternity members say here on earth.
He noticed too that they were praying for those who practice this
devotion. He also saw beautiful crowns without number, which were
made of sweet-smelling flowers, for those who say the Rosary
devoutly. He learned that by every Rosary that they say they make
a crown for themselves which they will be able to wear in heaven.
This holy Carthusian's vision is very much like that which
the Beloved Disciple had, in which he saw a great multitude of
angels and saints, who continually praised and blessed Jesus
Christ for all that he had done and suffered on earth for our
salvation. And is not this what the devout members of the Rosary
Confraternity do?
It must not be imagined that the Rosary is only for women,
and for simple and unlearned people; it is also for men and for
the greatest of men. As soon as Saint Dominic acquainted Pope
Innocent III with the fact that he had received a command from
heaven to establish the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary, the
Holy Father gave it his full approval, urged Saint Dominic to
preach it, and said that he wished to become a member himself.
Even Cardinals embraced the devotion with great fervour, which
prompted Lopez to say, "Neither sex nor age nor any other
condition has kept anyone from devotion to the Rosary."
Members of this Confraternity have come from all walks of life: dukes, princes, kings, as well as prelates, cardinals and Sovereign Pontiffs. It would take too long to list them in this
little book. If you join this Confraternity, dear reader, you
will share in their devotion and their graces on earth and their
glory in heaven. "Since you are united to them in their devotion, you will share in their dignity." (Saint Louis Grignion de Montfort, The Secret of the Rosary, pp. 68-71.)
Our Lady's Rosary has dealt crushing defeats to heretics and infidels. The saint whose feast we celebrate tomorrow, Saint Peter of Verona (Saint Peter the Martyr) used the Rosary to preach against the Albigensians (aka Cathars) in the Thirteenth Century, giving up his very life at the hands of these latter day Manicheans. Are we willing to give up what we can (our reputations and lives included!) to promote devotion to Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary in these times of apostasy and betrayal?
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI left death bearers deader than dead by reaffirming them, both by word and by deed, in their false religions. He also left millions of Catholic yet attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism exposed to eternal death by refusing to preach to them about the most efficacious means of attaining our salvation after the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass itself, Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary. We must pray Rosaries of reparation for our sins, which are so responsible for the worsening of the state of the Church Militant on the face of the earth, and in the world, and for those of everyone in the world, praying especially that the scions of conciliarism who outrage God by their acts of open apostasy and blasphemy and sacrilege will be converted back to the true Faith before they die, having become apostles of the Rosary and the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel before the moments of their Particular Judgments.
This is time that God has known from all eternity that we would be alive. The graces that He won for us by the shedding of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces, are sufficient for us us to bear the difficulties of the present time, recognizing that there is nothing, including these present difficulties, that is the equal of what one of our least Venial Sins caused Him to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death. And the best way to carry the crosses of the present time, whether they be personal or social or ecclesiastical, is to keep close to Our Lady by means of total consecration to her Divine Son through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, making sure to pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit.
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
Our Lady of Fatima, 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 Louis Grignion de Montfort, pray for us.
Saint Paul of the Cross, pray for us.
Saint Vitalis, pray for us.
Saint Peter of Verona, pray for us.
Faithful then, Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen.
See also: A Litany of Saints
