Madness Writ Large

Catholicism can never be mixed with even the slightest taint of error. It is important to bear this in mind when reviewing the insanity that emanates from the conciliar Vatican. Although the Society of Saint Pius X has done tremendous harm to a true understanding of the charism of infallibility that protects the teaching that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to His Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication, contending, among other things, that there is an "authentic magisterium" of "all time" that cannot err and a "governing magisterium" than can make mistakes (which is why there is a "need" for the Society to serve as "super-magisterium" to sift the teaching of true popes and their bishops, a proposition condemned by Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794), is always important to remember what the Catholic Church teaches about her being immune from even a "light tarnish of error:"

As for the rest, We greatly deplore the fact that, where the ravings of human reason extend, there is somebody who studies new things and strives to know more than is necessary, against the advice of the apostle. There you will find someone who is overconfident in seeking the truth outside the Catholic Church, in which it can be found without even a light tarnish of error. Therefore, the Church is called, and is indeed, a pillar and foundation of truth. You correctly understand, venerable brothers, that We speak here also of that erroneous philosophical system which was recently brought in and is clearly to be condemned. This system, which comes from the contemptible and unrestrained desire for innovation, does not seek truth where it stands in the received and holy apostolic inheritance. Rather, other empty doctrines, futile and uncertain doctrines not approved by the Church, are adopted. Only the most conceited men wrongly think that these teachings can sustain and support that truth. (Pope Gregory XVI, Singulari Nos, May 25, 1834.)

Pope Leo XIII made it clear in Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896, that the heretics of yore did not abandon all of the Faith, that they defected only from part of the Faith. That partial defection from Faith was all that was needed to expel from the Church entirely. It did not matter how many articles of the Faith that they continued to adhere to or how eloquently they spoke about Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Most Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph or other saints. All that mattered was that they had defected from the Faith one in thing. That alone was sufficient to cause them to fall in Its entirety. It is not possible for a Catholic to adhere knowingly to errors that have been condemned by the teaching authority of the Holy Mother Church without expelling themselves from her maternal bosom:

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).

We have witnessed Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his band of conciliarists place many drops of poison throughout the course of the past fifty years, drops of poison that have inflected "the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition."

It must be remembered that Modernism is a mixture of truth and error. Most Catholics have become so accustomed to this admixture of truth and error (see Accustomed to Apostasy from nine months ago now) that they are prone to dismiss major acts of apostasy and sacrilege because they believe that the devotional statements made by the "popes" and the "bishops" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism somehow "counter-balance" those acts of apostasy and sacrilege. Some have been so bold as to suggest that there is an "irreducible minima" of beliefs that one can maintain while remaining a member of the Catholic Church, a patently absurd proposition that has been made up out of whole cloth and has absolutely not a shred of any foundation in the writings of the Church Fathers or the teaching authority of the Catholic Church. Indeed, as Pope Leo XIII stated so forcefully in Satis Cognitum, the exact opposite of the phony "irreducible minima" standard that is designed to exculpate the conciliar "pontiffs" is true: to defect from the Faith in one thing is to defect from It in Its entirety.

Pope Saint Pius X warned us about the ways of the Modernists, explaining to us that they can sound like Catholics at some times and as Modernists on other occasion. The warning is clear. Very clear:

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

The Modernists completely invert the parts, and of them may be applied the words which another of Our predecessors Gregory IX, addressed to some theologians of his time: "Some among you, puffed up like bladders with the spirit of vanity strive by profane novelties to cross the boundaries fixed by the Fathers, twisting the meaning of the sacred text...to the philosophical teaching of the rationalists, not for the profit of their hearer but to make a show of science...these men, led away by various and strange doctrines, turn the head into the tail and force the queen to serve the handmaid."

This will appear more clearly to anybody who studies the conduct of Modernists, which is in perfect harmony with their teachings. In their writings and addresses they seem not unfrequently to advocate doctrines which are contrary one to the other, so that one would be disposed to regard their attitude as double and doubtful. But this is done deliberately and advisedly, and the reason of it is to be found in their opinion as to the mutual separation of science and faith. Thus in their books one finds some things which might well be approved by a Catholic, but on turning over the page one is confronted by other things which might well have been dictated by a rationalist. When they write history they make no mention of the divinity of Christ, but when they are in the pulpit they profess it clearly; again, when they are dealing with history they take no account of the Fathers and the Councils, but when they catechize the people, they cite them respectfully. In the same way they draw their distinctions between exegesis which is theological and pastoral and exegesis which is scientific and historical. So, too, when they treat of philosophy, history, and criticism, acting on the principle that science in no way depends upon faith, they feel no especial horror in treading in the footsteps of Luther and are wont to display a manifold contempt for Catholic doctrines, for the Holy Fathers, for the Ecumenical Councils, for the ecclesiastical magisterium; and should they be taken to task for this, they complain that they are being deprived of their liberty. Lastly, maintaining the theory that faith must be subject to science, they continuously and openly rebuke the Church on the ground that she resolutely refuses to submit and accommodate her dogmas to the opinions of philosophy; while they, on their side, having for this purpose blotted out the old theology, endeavor to introduce a new theology which shall support the aberrations of philosophers.

Enter once again Walter "Cardinal" Kasper, the President of the "Pontifical" Council for Promoting Christian Unity, who undermined the Catholic Faith at every possible turn during the false "pontificate" of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, and has continued to do so with perfect impunity during the false "pontificate" of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. Here is a sample of Kasper's "work," which is the same "work" of his fellow German, Ratzinger/Benedict, during the reign of Wojtyla/John Paul II:

By way of background on this issue, we note that when Cardinal Ratzinger was still Father Ratzinger, a former peritus of the Council, he provided in his Theological Highlights of Vatican II the following explanation of the Council's teaching on Christian unity and Church membership:

"The new text describes the relationship between the Church and non-Catholic Christians without speaking of "membership." By shedding this terminological armor, the text acquired a much wider scope. . . . The Catholic has to recognize that his own Church is not yet prepared to accept the phenomenon of multiplicity in unity; he must orient himself toward this reality. . . . Meantime the Catholic Church has no right to absorb the other Churches. The Church has not yet prepared a place of their own, but this they are legitimately entitled to. . . . A basic unity--of Churches that remain Churches, yet become one Church--must replace the idea of conversion, even though conversion retains its meaningfulness for those in conscience motivated to seek it. (Joseph Ratzinger, Theological Highlights of Vatican II, pp. 61, 68, quoted by Christopher A. Ferrara and Thomas E. Woods, Jr, The Great Facade, The Remnant Press, 2002, at p. 349.)

This remarkable text, which Cardinal Ratzinger has never repudiated, declares that the Magisterium can "shed" its own established terminology on membership in the Church, that the Bride of Christ had neglected to "prepare" itself for acceptance of the "reality" of non-Catholic confessions, that organizations indisputably founded by mere men in a rebellion against divine authority have a positive right to exist and be given "a place" by the one true Church, and that Protestants need not convert to Catholicism unless they are "motivated" to do so. In all candor, we do not see how Father Ratzinger's opinions here could have avoided censure during the reign of any preconciliar Pope.

As we have already demonstrated abundantly, these opinions are quite in line with the current thinking of Cardinal Ratzinger's fellow German bishop, Cardinal Walker Kasper, the new head of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity. We have noted that in the Italian journal Adista, Kasper declared "today that we no longer understand ecumenism in the sense of a return, by which the others would 'be converted' and return to being 'Catholics' This was expressly abandoned by Vatican II." Any Catholic should be horrified to see the head of a pontifical council ostensible devoted to "Christian unity" placing contemptuous quotation marks around the very words converted and Catholics. According to Cardinal Kasper, Vatican II "abandoned" what the Holy Office in 1949 describe as "the teachings of the encyclicals o the Roman Pontiffs on the return of the dissidents to the one true Church" and "the Catholic truth regarding...the only true union by the return of the dissidents to the one true Church."

And yet the context of Kasper's remarks in Adista was a defense of DI [Dominus Iesus] against Protestant critics! Nor did Cardinal Ratzinger offer any correction of Kasper's opinion, which Kasper expressed within days of his elevation to the rank of cardinal. These finds do not inspire confidence that DI represents a major course correction in the Church's postconciliar drift from her prior clarity of teaching about the condition of the dissidents who need to return to the one true Church.

Before Vatican II, it was perfectly obvious that there could that there could never be Christian unity unless the Orthodox and the Protestants assented to every single point of Catholic doctrine, thus becoming Catholics themselves. It is just as obvious that anyone who prescinds from even the least point of Catholic doctrine can never be united with us. As Pope Leo XIII taught in Satis Cognitum: "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."

Equally obvious is that to embrace the whole of Catholic doctrine without reservation is necessarily to turn away from the human institutions in which that doctrine was more or less corrupted, and to turn instead toward the Catholic Church, in which the Deposit of Faith has always been preserved undefiled. That is what conversion means. Even in today's ecumenical confusion, we still hear about the "conversion stories" of ex-Protestants.

How, for example, could any Lutheran came to an acceptance of the whole of Catholic teaching under the influence of God's grace, yet continue to insist upon belonging to an organization named after a psychotic, foul-mouthed, womanizing drunkard of a monk, who ran off and married a nun, indeed the greatest arch-heretic in Church history, who referred to the Vicar of Christ as an "ass-head."? What cold the husk of Luther's decrepit human organization possibly offer any Lutheran that is not found in superabundance in the Roman Catholic Church? Could anyone who would cling to the notion of belonging to Luther's version of a church ever be in union with us? On the other hand, if the Lutherans, by some miracle of grace, all suddenly decided to abjure every one of Luther's errors--in which case, why would they wish to be associated any longer with the name of Luther?--the Catholic Church would have no reason, much less a duty, to make a "place" for Luther's "church." It would simply cease to exist as a separate organization, the Lutherans having become Catholics. Is this really something that is debatable today? Apparently so.

That Christian unity can somehow be accomplished without all Christians becoming Catholics is one of the Zen-like notions that abound in postconciliar thinking. But not only has Cardinal Ratzinger never retracted Father Ratzinger's opinions, we also now find that they have become Vatican policy at the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity. Nor does it appear that DI [Dominus Iesus] in any way reproves Kasper's opinions. To the contrary: in discussing DI [Dominus Iesus] with the press, Cardinal Ratzinger affirmed his own support for the novel notion of "reconciled diversity" that we discussed earlier:

"Question: So then, after the publication of your document, is the ecumenical formula of 'reconciled diversity' still valid?

"Ratzinger: I accept the concept of a reconciled diversity, if it does not mean equality of content and the elimination of the question of truth so that we could consider ourselves one even if we believe and teach different things. To my mind this concept is used well, if it says that, despite our differences, which do not allow us to regard ourselves as mere fragments of a Church of Jesus Christ that does not exist in reality, we meet in the peace of Christ and are reconciled to one another, that is, we recognize that our division as contradicting the Lord's will and this sorrow spurs us to seek unity and to pray to him in the knowledge that we all need his love."

Notice that Ratzinger acknowledges that we could not consider ourselves one with Protestants unless we all believed in the same things. But in the meantime he proposes that "despite the difference" we can all be "reconciled to one another" as we "seek unity." Ratzinger does not explain--because quite obviously he cannot explain--how we can ever "find" unity with Protestants without their return to the one true Church Nor does he explain what it is that Catholics are "seeking" in terms of "unity," given that they already have the true Faith in the unity of the one true Church. Perhaps this is why Ratzinger has declared that "for the moment, I wouldn't dare venture to suggest any concrete realization, possible or imaginable, of this future Church. We are at an intermediate stage of unity in diversity."

Thus, according to Cardinal Kasper and (it would appear) Cardinal Ratzinger, there are no longer any dissidents who must return to the one true Church, but only "Christians engaged in a joint ecumenical "search for unity." The notion that the conversion and return of non-Catholics to the Catholic Church has suddenly been replaced by some other (as yet undefined) "model" of unity obviously has important implications for our understanding of DI. For if a return to the one true Church is no longer seen as necessary for Christian unity, then it can hardly be necessary salvation as such. This would men that the members of heretical and schismatic confessions, are presumed by DI to be adequately secured in their salvation, without need of formal membership in the Catholic Church and recourse to her sacraments. (Christopher A. Ferrara and Thomas E. Woods, Jr., The Great Facade, The Remnant Press, 2002.)

With all due respect to the authors of the above-cited book, "Cardinal" Joseph Ratzinger did not offer any correction to Walter Kasper in the year 2000 as he was and remains in complete agreement with the latter's "ecumenical" views. This is the same Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI who has not offered any correction to "Archbishop" Robert Zollitsch, the conciliar ordinary of the Archdiocese of Freiburg in Breisgau, who denied that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ died on the wood of the Holy Cross in atonement for or sins. It has now been exactly ten months, a total of three hundred six days, since Zollitsch uttered his blasphemous apostasy without any word of correction from the false "pontiff," who has only yesterday, Wednesday, February 10, 2010, praised the "good fruit" of false ecumenism, noting in particular the "progress" in the conciliar church's relationship with the Lutheran sect, most of which is represented by the contradiction of the Decree of Justification issued by the Council of Trent found in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, a document that was analyzed by Bishop Donald Sanborn in his Critical Analysis of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.

The beliefs of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Walter "Cardinal" Kasper are insane. They are mad. They even contradict each other as there are times when Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Kasper admit that the Catholic Church is indeed the true Church while they insist at the very same time that there is need to seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of non-Catholics to her maternal bosom and as they insist that adherents of the Talmud have their own path to salvation. There is a little problem with what the ancients would call "logic" in all of this: if the Catholic Church is the true Church of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, how can anyone save himself by persisting in the beliefs of any false religion--Protestant, Orthodoxy, Talmudic Judaism, Mohammedanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, et al.--until the point of his dying breath?

Persisting in the madness of anathematized statements and beliefs that are frequently contradictory one to the other, however, is a particular specialty of the conciliarists. Consider, for example, a recent exhortation that Walter Kasper made to Protestants to find some "common ground" in an "ecumenical catechism" as they continue to "search for unity" while at the same time recognizing that the Catholic Church is true Church. Got all that?

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A Vatican official has floated the idea of a shared "ecumenical catechism" as one of the potential fruits of 40 years of dialogue among Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and members of the Reformed churches.

"We have affirmed our common foundation in Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity as expressed in our common creed and in the doctrine of the first ecumenical councils," Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told representatives of the churches.

Opening a three-day symposium at the Vatican to brainstorm on the future of ecumenism, Cardinal Kasper said it is essential "to keep alive the memory of our achievements" in dialogue, educate the faithful about how much has been accomplished and prepare a new generation to carry on the work.

He said the members of his council "proposed an ecumenical catechism that would be written in consultation with our partners," but "we do not yet have any idea how such a catechism could be structured and written."

One thing for sure, he said, is that there is a need for "an ecumenism of basics that identifies, reinforces and deepens the common foundation" of faith in Christ and belief in the tenets of the creed. The churches may hold those positions officially, but if their members do not hold firmly to the basics of Christian faith, the dialogue cannot move forward, the cardinal said.

Cardinal Kasper, a theologian who will be 77 in March and has led the council for nine years, also said that ecumenical dialogue "is perhaps in danger of becoming a matter for specialists and thus of moving away from the grassroots."

He called for "a people-centered ecumenism" that would support and give new energy to the theological dialogues.

The symposium was a follow-up to the publication in October of "Harvesting the Fruits," a book complied by Cardinal Kasper and his staff summarizing the results of 40 years of official Catholic dialogue with the Anglican Communion, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Methodist Council and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.

As for questions that still must be tackled in order for Christians to reach full unity and be able to share the Eucharist, the cardinal identified two basic areas: a common understanding of the church and its structure; and a common approach to applying the Gospel to modern social and moral concerns without falling into relativism.

Ethical issues, such as homosexuality and women's equality, not only divide churches, he said, they raise more fundamental questions for modern and post-modern society, such as, "What is man, and what does it mean to be a man or woman in God's plan?"

In the area of church structure and ministry, he said, the dialogues have seen progress toward a common agreement on the sacramental nature of ordination and on apostolic succession in the ministry of bishops, and have taken initial steps toward discussing the primacy of the bishop of Rome, the pope.

But on a more basic level, the dialogues must get into "not only what is the church, but where is the church? Has God given his church a specific structure or has he left the church to find its own structure, in such a way that a pluralism of structures is possible?" Cardinal Kasper asked.

The cardinal said the Vatican needs to better explain to its dialogue partners the Catholic conviction that "the Catholic Church is the church of Christ and that the Catholic Church is the true church," even while "there exist many and important elements of the church of Christ outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church."

The Catholic Church does believe "there are deficits in the other churches," he said. "Yet on another level there are deficits, or rather wounds stemming from division and wounds deriving from sin, also in the Catholic Church."

Ecumenical dialogue is the place where all Christians "learn to grow and mature in their faithfulness to Christ," he said, and as each moves closer to Christ, they naturally will move closer to each other. (Cardinal asks dialogue partners if an ecumenical catechism might work; for a review of Kasper's desire, expressed in the year 2003, for the Anglicans to "stay together," please see Duh; for Kasper's denial that the Catholic Church has a mission from God to seek the conversion of the Jews, please see Wild Card or Mirror Image?)

An "ecumenical catechism". I thought we had that already. It's called the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" (See The New Catechism: Is it Catholic?, which can be also in its entirety at the end of Piracy, Conciliar Style).

Obviously, Kasper's talk is madness. Insanity. Deficits in other churches? Deficits? They are false. Each was born in rebellion to the Divine Plan that God Himself has instituted to effect man's return to Him through His Catholic Church. Non-Catholics simply need to be exhorted to convert unconditionally to the true Church. This is what Saint Peter, first pope, did with the Jews gathered in Jerusalem on the first Pentecost Sunday. This is what Saint Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, did in his preaching. This is what each of the Apostles and those who followed them did. This is what the great missionaries did throughout the history of the Church. This is why Our Lady gave Saint Dominic de Guzman her Holy Rosary. This is why the Holy Rosary was used by Pope Saint Pius V as a weapon to defeat the Mohammedan forces in the Battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571.

To seek the unconditional conversion of non-Catholics was the work of Saint Vincent Ferrer and Saint Josaphat and Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen and Saint Francis de Sales, among so many countless others. It why Our Lady of Guadalupe left the miraculous image of herself on the tilma of Juan Diego. Our Lady personally sought the conversion of the Calvinist Pierre Port-Combet and the Jew Alphonse Ratisbonne. It is absurd for anyone to contend that all of this work in behalf of the unconditional conversion of non-Catholics to the true Church was valid before 1958 but, to use the words of Walter Kasper in the year 2000, was "expressly abandoned by Vatican II."

The actual praxis of the counterfeit church of conciliarism has given credence to this apostate view as "dialogue" has taken the place of the seeking of converts to the true Faith and as "inter-religious prayer" services have been institutionalized in direct violation of the First Commandment and the constant tradition and practice of the Catholic Church.

It is always useful to contrast the the apostate view of the conciliarists, including the likes of Ratzinger/Benedict and Kasper, which contend that there are "core" beliefs that can be distinguished from those that are "not fundamental" (see Only Those Nasty Traditionalists Need to Convert), with the teaching of the Catholic Church:

The Catholic Church: "It is for this reason that so many who do not share 'the communion and the truth of the Catholic Church' must make use of the occasion of the Council, by the means of the Catholic Church, which received in Her bosom their ancestors, proposes [further] demonstration of profound unity and of firm vital force; hear the requirements [demands] of her heart, they must engage themselves to leave this state that does not guarantee for them the security of salvation. She does not hesitate to raise to the Lord of mercy most fervent prayers to tear down of the walls of division, to dissipate the haze of errors, and lead them back within holy Mother Church, where their Ancestors found salutary pastures of life; where, in an exclusive way, is conserved and transmitted whole the doctrine of Jesus Christ and wherein is dispensed the mysteries of heavenly grace.

"It is therefore by force of the right of Our supreme Apostolic ministry, entrusted to us by the same Christ the Lord, which, having to carry out with [supreme] participation all the duties of the good Shepherd and to follow and embrace with paternal love all the men of the world, we send this Letter of Ours to all the Christians from whom We are separated, with which we exhort them warmly and beseech them with insistence to hasten to return to the one fold of Christ; we desire in fact from the depths of the heart their salvation in Christ Jesus, and we fear having to render an account one day to Him, Our Judge, if, through some possibility, we have not pointed out and prepared the way for them to attain eternal salvation. In all Our prayers and supplications, with thankfulness, day and night we never omit to ask for them, with humble insistence, from the eternal Shepherd of souls the abundance of goods and heavenly graces. And since, if also, we fulfill in the earth the office of vicar, with all our heart we await with open arms the return of the wayward sons to the Catholic Church, in order to receive them with infinite fondness into the house of the Heavenly Father and to enrich them with its inexhaustible treasures. By our greatest wish for the return to the truth and the communion with the Catholic Church, upon which depends not only the salvation of all of them, but above all also of the whole Christian society: the entire world in fact cannot enjoy true peace if it is not of one fold and one shepherd." (Pope Pius IX, Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868.)

Weigh carefully in your minds and before God the nature of Our request. It is not for any human motive, but impelled by Divine Charity and a desire for the salvation of all, that We advise the reconciliation and union with the Church of Rome; and We mean a perfect and complete union, such as could not subsist in any way if nothing else was brought about but a certain kind of agreement in the Tenets of Belief and an intercourse of Fraternal love. The True Union between Christians is that which Jesus Christ, the Author of the Church, instituted and desired, and which consists in a Unity of Faith and Unity of Government. (Pope Leo XIII, referring to the Orthodox in Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 20, 1884.)

Let, therefore, the separated children draw nigh to the Apostolic See, set up in the City which Peter and Paul, the Princes of the Apostles, consecrated by their blood; to that See, We repeat, which is "the root and womb whence the Church of God springs," not with the intention and the hope that "the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth" will cast aside the integrity of the faith and tolerate their errors, but, on the contrary, that they themselves submit to its teaching and government. Would that it were Our happy lot to do that which so many of Our predecessors could not, to embrace with fatherly affection those children, whose unhappy separation from Us We now bewail. Would that God our Savior, "Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,"[29] would hear us when We humbly beg that He would deign to recall all who stray to the unity of the Church! In this most important undertaking We ask and wish that others should ask the prayers of Blessed Mary the Virgin, Mother of divine grace, victorious over all heresies and Help of Christians, that She may implore for Us the speedy coming of the much hoped-for day, when all men shall hear the voice of Her divine Son, and shall be "careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

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Even the Anglican "bishop" of York, England, commented recently that the only kind of conversion to the Catholic Church is total, unconditional conversion, not the sort of "reception" being accorded "Anglo-Catholics" by the conciliarists that permits them to retain their heretical, invalid liturgical rites without abjuring any of their past errors (see BBC - Will & Testament: Anglicans going to Rome are not "proper" Catholics), that they will not be "proper" Catholics. There is more truth in this than the bogus "bishop" of the Anglican sect understands as those "Anglo-Catholics are only shifting allegiances from one false church to another (see Defaming The English Martyrs, Still Defaming The English Martyrs, and Sanctioning Apostasy With Sanctimony.) It is a really telling commentary on the state of apostasy and betrayal facing us at this time that a member of a false sect knows more about what authentic conversion to the Catholic Church entails than do the lords of the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

Pope Pius XI indicated also in Mortalium Animos that the sort of "inter-religious dialogue" that has been praised and practiced by the conciliar "popes" and their "bishops" and priests/presbyters was condemned long ago by Lactantius:

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

Pope Pius XI wrote Mortalium Animos to condemn an ecumenical "movement" that originated in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1910 and would be enshrined in the liturgy and praxis of the counterfeit church of conciliarism that has been headed by men who have defected from the Catholic Faith in many ways. Who has praised that Edinburgh conference on no less than two different occasions recently? You got it? Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI (see Getting Bolder In His Apostasy and Still In Defiance of the Truth).

We must recognize the simple truth that it is impossible to remain in good standing with the Catholic Church if one believes and speaks and acts in the manner of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Walter Kasper and their fellow conciliarists. The Sixth Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church, the Third Council of Constantinople, explained that the Catholic Faith is unchanging, rejecting innovation in no uncertain terms, and it is innovation and novelty, such as Ratzinger/Benedict's "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity" to justify the apostasies and blasphemies and sacrileges of conciliarism as being in concert with the Catholic Faith, that has led to a meltdown of the Faith--and to silence in the face of abject, open, public and undeniable offenses against the honor and majesty and glory of God by this false "pontiff"--among a large preponderance of Catholics, both clergy and laity alike, who are as of yet attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism:

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

No true pope of the Catholic Church can teach error or introduce "innovation" or teach in any way at any time anything contrary to the Faith. Keep focused on the fact that the Catholic Church brings forth her teaching with "ease and security," not with obscurity or ambiguity or any degree of contradiction of her perennial teaching, which is, of course, absolutely immutable:

For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

This is the day that Our Lady first appeared to the fourteen year old Bernadette Soubirous in the Grotto of Massabielle outside of Lourdes, France. The apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes occurred less than twelve years after her apparition to Maximin Giraud and Melanie Calvat on September 19, 1846, in La Salette, France, and a little less than thirteen years before her apparition in Pontmain, France, and about eighteen years before her apparition in Pellevoisin. That Our Lady should honor France, the elder daughter of the Catholic Church, so many times within a century of the French Revolution speaks to us of the necessity of rejecting all of the evil influences of that revolution that have corrupted the faith of so many Catholics by means of the "Second" Vatican Council and the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service.

Mr. Frank Rega, a Third Order Franciscan who is the author of Saint Francis of Assisi and the Conversion of the Muslims, sent the following remarkable quotation from a book dealing about Pope Pius VII's dealings with Napoleon Bonaparte, who wanted to institutionalize the principles of the French Revolution in a "moderate manner" with the full assent of the Catholic Church:

"Times have changed -- times have changed! The Church must adapt and be reconciled with the Revolution." Napoleon Bonaparte haranguing Pope Pius VII, whom he held prisoner in France. (Robin Anderson, Pope Pius VII, TAN Books, 2001, page 131).

Who believes that what he believes to be the Catholic Church has to "adapt and be reconciled with the Revolution"? Of course. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:

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

Mr. Rega, who is not a sedevacantist, sent me the following observation after I sent him the full version of the quotation above from Principles of Catholic Theology:

Gosh! I never realized that the encyclicals of the prior popes were inspired by group-consciousness!

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI does not believe that God the Holy Ghost, the very Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, inspired the popes of the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries to write as they did. He believes that such teaching, although valid at a given point in time, can become "obsolete" in the particulars it contains as the particular language used to convey that teaching was "conditioned" by the historical circumstances in which it was formulated, a belief that has been condemned by the authority of the Catholic Church and is completely Modernist. However, Ratzinger/Benedict's logically absurd and philosophically condemned nature of dogmatic truth is what makes it possible for him and for his conciliar cronies, such as Walter Kasper, to eviscerate the teaching of the Catholic Church as the engage in "obstinate wranglings" with non-Catholics who simply need to be converted to the true Faith.

Begging Our Lady to help us in this hour of apostasy and betrayal, may we pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit, asking her to help us to cleave exclusively to true bishops and to true priests who make absolutely no concessions to conciliarism or to its false shepherds whatsoever.

Yes, Our Lady's Immaculate Heart will triumph, and that triumph will sweep away all of conciliarism's apostasies. May it be our privilege during this coming Lent to plant a few seeds for the flowering of this triumph as we die to self and make reparation for our own many sins as the totally consecrated slaves of her Divine Son through that same Immaculate Heart of hers.


© Copyright 2010, Thomas A. Droleskey. All rights reserved.

Madness Writ Large

by Thomas A. Droleskey