by
Thomas A Droleskey
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has described himself as a "rationalist," that is, a person who believes that it is necessary to reason things out on his own in light of alleged new verities (new truths) that man encounters as "progress" takes him to newer visions of himself and the world around him over the course of time.
Rationalism is of the essence of the Protestant Revolution as it was only logical for men, having rejected the teaching authority of the true Church that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ founded upon the rock of Peter, the Pope, to trust in their own "abilities" to interpret Sacred Scripture by explaining it anew with "insights" of their very own.
Rationalism is, of course, at the very foundation of the so-called "Age of Reason" or "Enlightenment" that spawned so many variations of what are, when all of the complexities and intricacies are stripped away, the same naturalist theme: that God, if He exists at all, has revealed nothing definitively binding upon all men at all times and that it is therefore necessary for men to "rethink" basic presuppositions in order to "discover" the meaning of life and ways of improving man's lot here on earth.
Modernism has its proximate antecedent roots in the rationalism of the Protestant Revolution, replete with all of its own complex variations that mutations, and the rationalism of the "Enlightenment" that led to reign of the "rights of man" in the place of the the rights of the Social Reign of Christ the King.
Although not described by Pope Pius IX as Modernism, the rationalism he condemned in his first encyclical letter, Qui Pluribus, November 9, 1846, is one of the essential building-blocks of Modernism as defined, analyzed and condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907:
5. In order to easily mislead the people into making errors, deceiving
particularly the imprudent and the inexperienced, they pretend that they alone
know the ways to prosperity. They claim for themselves without hesitation the
name of "philosophers." They feel as if philosophy, which is wholly concerned
with the search for truth in nature, ought to reject those truths which God
Himself, the supreme and merciful creator of nature, has deigned to make plain
to men as a special gift. With these truths, mankind can gain true happiness and
salvation. So, by means of an obviously ridiculous and extremely specious kind
of argumentation, these enemies never stop invoking the power and excellence of
human reason; they raise it up against the most holy faith of Christ, and they
blather with great foolhardiness that this faith is opposed to human reason.
6. Without doubt, nothing more insane than such a doctrine, nothing more
impious or more opposed to reason itself could be devised. For although faith is
above reason, no real disagreement or opposition can ever be found between them;
this is because both of them come from the same greatest source of unchanging
and eternal truth, God. They give such reciprocal help to each other that true
reason shows, maintains and protects the truth of the faith, while faith frees
reason from all errors and wondrously enlightens, strengthens and perfects
reason with the knowledge of divine matters.
7. It is with no less deceit, venerable brothers, that other enemies of
divine revelation, with reckless and sacrilegious effrontery, want to import the
doctrine of human progress into the Catholic religion. They extol it with the
highest praise, as if religion itself were not of God but the work of men, or a
philosophical discovery which can be perfected by human means. The charge which
Tertullian justly made against the philosophers of his own time "who brought
forward a Stoic and a Platonic and a Dialectical Christianity"[2] can very aptly
apply to those men who rave so pitiably. Our holy religion was not invented by
human reason, but was most mercifully revealed by God; therefore, one can quite
easily understand that religion itself acquires all its power from the authority
of God who made the revelation, and that it can never be arrived at or perfected
by human reason. In order not to be deceived and go astray in a matter of such
great importance, human reason should indeed carefully investigate the fact of
divine revelation. Having done this, one would be definitely convinced that God
has spoken and therefore would show Him rational obedience, as the Apostle very
wisely teaches.[3] For who can possibly not know that all faith should be given
to the words of God and that it is in the fullest agreement with reason itself
to accept and strongly support doctrines which it has determined to have been
revealed by God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived? (Pope Pius IX, Qui Pluribus, November 9, 1846.)
Rationalism is opposed to rationality. That is, rationalism, trusting in man's ability to "figure everything out for himself," leads to skepticism of the past and skepticism of most supernatural truths that rationalists believe can only be accepted if they are made "accessible" to "modern men" by adapting their expression to the exigencies of a given period in history.
We have been eyewitnesses to the endless, tireless, ceaseless efforts on the part of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI to do precisely this without almost every facet of the Holy Faith.
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI,
puffed up with overweening pride and oozing with hubris, believes that
he knows better than the true popes of the Catholic Church.
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI knows better than anyone else how to re-read Sacred Scripture.
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has found the "true way" to re-read the Fathers of the Church.
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has twisted the words of various saints and doctors to attempt to make them witnesses in behalf of the apostasies, blasphemies and sacrileges of his false religion, conciliarism, rejecting entirely the official philosophy of the Catholic Church, Scholasticism, going so far as to refer the philosophy employed by Saint Thomas Aquinas and endorsed by numerous popes and the fathers of the Council of Trent as "the philosophical school" of the Angelic Doctor's time.
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI knows better than Pope Eugene IV and the fathers of the Council of Florence under whom Cantate Domino was issued on February 4, 1442.
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI knows better than Popes Benedict XIII and Saint Pius V and Clement XII and Blessed Urban V and Innocent VI and Leo XIII, each of whom endorsed the Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas as the true way by which Faith and reason work together as the creature uses the rational faculties God gave him to to see all things through the light of the Faith and to accept that we must accept that the supernatural truths revealed by Him and taught in His Holy Name by the Catholic Church can never be contradicted or understood in any other way.
The Modernist, inebriated by rationalism and the agnosticism that it breeds, stands the true use of human reason on its head, believing that contraries can be true, believing that God the Holy Ghost did not direct the work of the fathers of Holy Mother Church's twenty general councils and/or that the language employed in the decrees promulgated by those councils were but temporary dispositions of the truth as it was understood in the context of the particular age in which those councils meant, that it is possible and every necessary to revisit matters that have been considered closed. This is rationalism, and it was condemned by Pope Pius IX in The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864:
II. MODERATE RATIONALISM
8. As human reason is placed on a level with religion itself, so theological
must be treated in the same manner as philosophical sciences. -- Allocution "Singulari
quadam," Dec. 9, 1854.
9. All the dogmas of the Christian religion are indiscriminately the object
of natural science or philosophy, and human reason, enlightened solely in an
historical way, is able, by its own natural strength and principles, to attain
to the true science of even the most abstruse dogmas; provided only that such
dogmas be proposed to reason itself as its object. -- Letters to the Archbishop
of Munich, "Gravissimas inter," Dec. 11, 1862, and "Tuas libenter," Dec. 21,
1863.
10. As the philosopher is one thing, and philosophy another, so it is the
right and duty of the philosopher to subject himself to the authority which he
shall have proved to be true; but philosophy neither can nor ought to submit to
any such authority. -- Ibid., Dec. 11, 1862.
11. The Church not only ought never to pass judgment on philosophy, but ought
to tolerate the errors of philosophy, leaving it to correct itself. -- Ibid.,
Dec. 21, 1863.
12. The decrees of the Apostolic See and of the Roman congregations impede
the true progress of science. -- Ibid.
13. The method and principles by which the old scholastic doctors cultivated
theology are no longer suitable to the demands of our times and to the progress
of the sciences. -- Ibid.
14. Philosophy is to be treated without taking any account of supernatural
revelation. -- Ibid. (Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864.)
Propositions twelve and thirteen apply particularly to the lifelong work of the current head of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI (see Sixty Years of Priestly Apostasy, which provides links to any number of articles dealing with this truth).
Similarly, the rationalism that is at the foundation of Modernism was condemned by the [First] Vatican Council on April 24, 1870, over which Pope Pius IX himself presided:
-
For the doctrine of the faith which God has revealed is put forward
- not as some philosophical discovery capable of being perfected by human intelligence,
- but as a divine deposit committed to the spouse of Christ to be faithfully protected and infallibly promulgated.
-
Hence, too, that meaning of the
sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by
holy mother church, and there must never be any abandonment of this
sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.
God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever be in opposition to truth.
The appearance of this kind of specious
contradiction is chiefly due to the fact that either: the dogmas of
faith are not understood and explained in accordance with the mind of
the church, or unsound views are mistaken for the conclusions of reason.
Therefore we define that every assertion contrary to the truth of enlightened faith is totally false. . . .
3. If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a
sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the church which is
different from that which the church has understood and understands: let him be anathema.
And so in the performance of our supreme pastoral
office, we beseech for the love of Jesus Christ and we command, by the
authority of him who is also our God and saviour, all faithful
Christians, especially those in authority or who have the duty
of teaching, that they contribute their zeal and labour to the warding
off and elimination of these errors from the church and to the spreading
of the light of the pure faith.
But since it is not enough to avoid the contamination of heresy unless those errors are carefully shunned which approach it in greater or less degree, we warn all of their duty to observe the
constitutions and decrees in which such wrong opinions, though not
expressly mentioned in this document, have been banned and forbidden by
this holy see. (Pope Pius IX, Vatican Council, Session III,
Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Chapter 4, On Faith and
Reason, April 24, 1870. SESSION 3 : 24 April 1870.)
Modernism and its latter-day offshoot, the "new theology," are thus founded on the quicksand of the sophistries of rationalism, ever eager to subject every facet of the truths of the Faith to "new interpretations" that will "ring true in hearts of men," meaning that the immutable truths of the Catholic Faith cannot appeal to all men in every age, which is to make of Divine Revelation a most imperfect "work" whose expression needs to be refined over the course of time.
Pope Saint Pius X, critiquing Modernism as the synthesis of all heresies, examined the role of rationalism in the mind and the work of Modernists:
35. The Modernist apologist depends in two ways on the philosopher. First,
indirectly, inasmuch as his subject-matter is history -- history dictated, as we
have seen, by the philosopher; and, secondly, directly, inasmuch as he takes
both his doctrines and his conclusions from the philosopher. Hence that common
axiom of the Modernist school that in the new apologetics controversies in
religion must be determined by psychological and historical research. The
Modernist apologists, then, enter the arena, proclaiming to the rationalists
that, though they are defending religion, they have no intention of employing
the data of the sacred books or the histories in current use in the Church, and
written upon the old lines, but real history composed on modern principles and
according to the modern method. In all this they assert that they are not using
an argumentum ad hominem, because they are really of the opinion that the truth
is to be found only in this kind of history. They feel that it is not necessary
for them to make profession of their own sincerity in their writings. They are
already known to and praised by the rationalists as fighting under the same
banner, and they not only plume themselves on these encomiums, which would only
provoke disgust in a real Catholic, but use them as a counter-compensation to
the reprimands of the Church. Let us see how the Modernist conducts his
apologetics. The aim he sets before himself is to make one who is still without
faith attain that experience of the Catholic religion which, according to the
system, is the sole basis of faith. There are two ways open to him, the
objective and the subjective. The first of them starts from agnosticism. It
tends to show that religion, and especially the Catholic religion, is endowed
with such vitality as to compel every psychologist and historian of good faith
to recognize that its history hides some element of the unknown. To this end it
is necessary to prove that the Catholic religion, as it exists today, is that
which was founded by Jesus Christ; that is to say, that it is nothing else than
the progressive development of the germ which He brought into the world. Hence
it is imperative first of all to establish what this germ was, and this the
Modernist claims to he able to do by the following formula: Christ announced the
coming of the kingdom of God, which was to be realized within a brief lapse of
time and of which He was to become the Messias, the divinely-given founder and
ruler. Then it must be shown how this germ, always immanent and permanent in the
Catholic religion, has gone on slowly developing in the course of history,
adapting itself successively to the different circumstances through which it has
passed, borrowing from them by vital assimilation all the doctrinal, cultural,
ecclesiastical forms that served its purpose; whilst, on the other hand, it
surmounted all obstacles, vanquished all enemies, and survived all assaults and
all combats. Anyone who well and duly considers this mass of obstacles,
adversaries, attacks, combats, and the vitality and fecundity which the Church
has shown throughout them all, must admit that if the laws of evolution are
visible in her life they fail to explain the whole of her history -- the unknown
rises forth from it and presents itself before Us. Thus do they argue, not
perceiving that their determination of the primitive germ is only an a priori
assumption of agnostic and evolutionist philosophy, and that the germ itself has
been gratuitously defined so that it may fit in with their contention. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
Oh, you want me to provide you proof that Ratzinger/Benedict believes that we can "discover" things about the Faith that have been heretofore previously unknown? Sure, I'm up to that challenge.
Out of the many examples that have been provided on this site in numerous previous articles, permit me to give you just two, each coming from "Pope" Benedict XVI's infamous December 22, 2005, address to the members of his curia. Here is the first of those two examples:
It is precisely
in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels
that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of
innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically
than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for
example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation
of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely
because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is
only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain
as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within.
On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)
"It was necessary to learn"? Does any rational, sane human being reading this article want to contend that God the Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, kept this "truth" from Holy Mother Church for nearly two millennia, that He permitted true popes and a dogmatic council to be wrong in condemning such an absurd belief? "It was necessary to learn"? If you believe this, you're on the wrong website as you do not believe in the Catholic Faith.
It is by this so-called "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity" that the false "pontiff" has justified all of the doctrinal and liturgical aberrations of conciliarism, including a "new definition of the relationship between the Christian faith and the world religions and with the "faith of Israel":
Thirdly, linked more generally to this was the problem of religious
tolerance - a question that required a new definition of the
relationship between the Christian faith and the world religions. In
particular, before the recent crimes of the Nazi regime and, in general,
with a retrospective look at a long and difficult history, it was
necessary to evaluate and define in a new way the relationship between
the Church and the faith of Israel.(Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)
Everything must be "new," everything must be "reevaluated" for those possessed of the rationalist spirit that is at the heart and soul of Modernism. Such is not Catholicism. Such is absurdity. Such is apostasy.
Rationalism is irrationality, an attempt to make contraries appear "reasonable," which only winds up creating a system of rationalization, not of true rationality that works in conjunction with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI knows better than Pope Saint Pius V.
Behold the rationalization by which the "restorer of Tradition" who is really trying to be faithful to Our Lady's Fatima Message even though he is "prevented" from speaking openly about it by "bad" "cardinals" (such as his Secretary of State, Tarcisio "Cardinal" Bertone, and Bertone's predecessor, Angelo "Cardinal" Sodano; see No Friend of Fatima) sought to claim in his 2008 address the to claim that the triennial hootenanny known as "World Youth Day" is not the equivalent of a "Catholic Woodstock" but a means by which the young can "experience" the Faith and make It their own:
The presence of the God’s Word – of God himself – in this present
hour of history was also a theme of this year’s Pastoral Visits: the real
meaning of these visits can only be to serve this presence. On occasions like
these, the Church takes on a public profile and, with her, so does the faith
itself, and, if nothing else, also the question of God.
This public manifestation of faith is a challenge to anyone who
wishes to understand the present time and the forces at work within it. The
phenomenon of World Youth Day, in particular, has increasingly become a subject
of debate, in an attempt to understand this species, so to speak, of youth
culture.
Australia had never seen so many people coming from all continents,
not even during the Olympics, as it did during World Youth Day. And although
fears were expressed beforehand that this mass influx of young people might
create some problems for public order – clogging traffic, disrupting daily life,
sparking violence and drug abuse – all these fears proved unfounded. The event
was a celebration of joy, a joy that in the end spread even to the doubtful, and
when all was said and done, no one was inconvenienced.
Those days were festive for everyone. Indeed, it was only then that
people came to realize what a celebration really is – an event where people, so
to speak, step outside themselves, beyond themselves, and thus are truly with
themselves and with others.
What, then, really happens at a World Youth Day? What are the
forces at play? Popular analyses tend to view these days as a variant of
contemporary youth culture, a sort of rock festival in an ecclesial key, with
the Pope as its main attraction.
Such analyses presume that, with or without faith, these festivals
would be basically the same; and thus the whole question of God can be set
aside. Even some Catholics would seem to agree, seeing the whole event as a
huge spectacle, magnificent perhaps, but of no real significance for the
question of faith and the presence of the Gospel in our time. They might be
ecstatic celebrations, but in the end they would really change nothing, nor have
any deeper effect on life.
This, however, leaves completely unexplained the real nature of
these Youth Days and the specific character of their joy, and their power to
build communion. First of all, it has to be realized that World Youth Days do
not consist only of the one week when they are brought to the attention of the
world.
They are preceded by a long process of preparation both practical
and spiritual. The Cross, accompanied by the icon of the Mother of the Lord,
goes on pilgrimage to many countries. Faith, in its own way, needs to see and
to touch. The encounter with the World Youth Day Cross, which is touched and
carried, becomes an interior encounter with the One who died for us on the
Cross. The encounter with the Cross awakens within the young people the
remembrance of the God who chose to become man and to suffer with us.
We also see the woman he gave to us as our Mother. The solemn World
Youth Days are nothing if not the culmination of a long process in which the
young people turn to one another and then, together, turn to Christ.
In Australia it was not by chance that the Way of the Cross, winding through the city, became the high point of those days. Once again, it
summed up everything that had occurred in previous years, while pointing to the
One who gathers us together: to that God who loves us all the way to the Cross.
Thus, the Pope himself is not the star around which everything
revolves. He is completely and solely a Vicar. He points beyond himself to the
Other who is in our midst. In the end, the solemn liturgy is the centre of the
whole event, because in it there takes place something that we ourselves cannot
bring about, yet something for which we are always awaiting. Christ is
present. He comes into our midst. The heavens are rent and the earth filled
with light. This is what makes life joyful and free, uniting people with one
another in a joy that cannot be compared to the ecstasy of a rock festival.
Friedrich Nietzsche once said: “The important thing is not to be
able to organize a party but to find people who can enjoy it”.
According to Scripture, joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit
(cf. Gal 5:22). This fruit was abundantly visible during those days in
Sydney. Just as a long journey precedes the celebration of World Youth Day, a
continuing journey follows it. Friendships are formed which encourage a
different way of life and which give it deep support. The purpose of these
great Days is, not least, to inspire such friendships and so to create places of
living faith in the world, places which are, at the same time, settings of hope
and practical charity. (Christmas greetings to the members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December
22, 2008; for a review of the irrational, experiential foundation of "World Youth Day," please see the appendix below.)
Has any true pope ever favorably referenced the nihilist Friedrich Nietzsche, who claimed that the "Abrahamic God" had been "killed" by "progress," to be "replaced" one day by an ubermensch (superman). Ever? Leave it to the rationalist Ratzinger/Benedict to find "good" in a man whose whole life was devoted to falsehood. Then again, the two have a lot of common when it comes to falsehood.
Here's another question for the few readers who remain on this site: Why is the spectacle--and it is nothing other than that despite the false "pontiff's" protestations to the contrary "World Youth Day" necessary for young Catholics to have such "an interior encounter with Christ" replete with rank immodesty and sacrilegious liturgies and all manner of impure dances and the diabolical wretchedness of "rock music" that is omnipresent?
Did Catholics suffer from a lack of this "interior encounter with Christ" in the Thirteenth Century?
Did they lack it in the Sixteenth Century?
Did they lack it in the decades immediately preceding the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958? Why is it necessary to subject young people to so many occasions of sin as so many liturgical offenses are given to God for them to have what Catholics learned in the home and in Catholic schools prior to the conciliar revolution?
Was there something lacking in the formation and "faith experiences" of those young Catholics in the Nineteenth Century who were later raised by Holy Mother Church to her altars as saints? Was there, for example, something lacking in the formation of Therese Martin or Giovanni Bosco or Giuseppe Sarto?
Why is it, therefore, that we need something "new" now to appeal to the "youth of the day"? The Catholic Faith and her various liturgical rites, including the Roman Rite, are ageless, possessing the ability to "reach" men of all ages in all places because they are of the true God of Divine Revelation.
Ratzinger/Benedict spoke favorably of "World Youth Day" in Sydney, Australia. Permit me to provide you a summary of the "music" program that was distributed on the day, July 17, 2008, that he arrived in Sydney:
Heavy metal, acid jazz, reggae, rap,
Gospel, Afro-Caribbean, Gregorian Chants and Christian rock - hear it
all at World Youth Day
Pope Benedict XVI may be the 'rock star' attraction of World
Youth Day Sydney 2008 (WYD08), but many headline and emerging artists
will also take centre stage during the week.
More than 165 outdoor concerts will take place during WYD08 week, 15 - 20 July, as part of the Youth Festival.
Headline acts include the likes of Damien Leith, Guy Sebastian,
Paulini, the Tap Dogs, Diesel, Vanessa Amorosi and Australian Idol
finalist Joseph Gateau.
They are joined by some of the world's leading Christian
artists, multicultural wonders, eclectic bands and emerging local and
international acts.
"Dance and song is just some of the ways we can express our faith," said Fr Mark Podesta, WYD08 spokesman.
"Apart from the Liturgy, they seem to
be the most popular ways for young people with over 165 different acts
performing during the week.
"WYD08 will be a great celebration, and
by the fantastic array of musical genres that will be on stage, there
will be something for everybody."
All Youth Festival acts are available to registered pilgrims and members of the public, and are listed at www.wyd2008.org/youthfestival
Highlights include:
· Resonaxis @ Sydney Opera House Concert Hall
A fusion of the secular and the sacred, acid jazz meets Gregorian Chant
Wednesday 16 July, 3.00pm - 3.45pm
· Metatrone @ Tumbalong Park
Catholic heavy metal band from Italy
Wednesday 16 July, 8.00pm - 9.00pm
· Scythian @ Palm Grove, Darling Harbour
Celtic, gypsy and Klezmer music with high energy rhythms
Wednesday 16 July, 9.00pm - 10.00pm
· World Youth 4 Justice concert by St Vincent de Paul @ Barangaroo
A concert raising
awareness of the needs of Australia's poor and oppressed, addressing
social poverty and injustice in the world featuring DIESEL, Vanessa
Amorosi, Rick Price and The McClymonts
Thursday 17 July, 6.00pm - 9.00pm
· Amanda Vernon and Psalm6Teen @ Harbourside Amphitheatre
Up-tempo gospel to ballads and rap Amanda Vernon collaborates with Psalm6Teen an exciting father and son Christian rock band
Thursday 17 July, 6.30pm - 7.30pm
· Internationally renowned Christian act, the Matt Maher Band @ Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre (SCEC)
Christian pop rock from the USA with powerful teaching and prayer
Thursday 17 July, 7.30pm - 10.00pm
· Rexband @ Royal Hall of Industries
Contemporary Christian band from India incorporating Indian classical, western classical, rock, pop and R&B
Thursday 17 July, 8.00pm - 10.00pm
· Tony Melendez, the 'toe picker' @ Sydney Opera House Forecourt
Highly talented composer and musician, and an excellent guitarist with no arms, known as the 'toe picker'
Friday 18 July, 6.00pm - 6.40pm
· Receive The Power Live! featuring the Matt Maher Band, Hillsong United and Darlene Zscech @ Barangaroo
Friday 18 July, 7.00pm - 10.00pm
· Timothy Upshur and Jesus His Passion @ Sydney Opera House Forecourt
A multi sensory interpretation fusing Gregorian chant, jazz, drum rhythms and rich imagery of photographic artist Thomas Upshur
Friday 18 July, 7.00pm - 7.20pm
· Mustard Seeds Community Choir @ Tumbalong Park
African choral performance from Zimbabwe
Friday 18 July, 7.00pm - 7.40pm
Handel's Messiah performed by Australian Catholic Students Association, Artes Christi and Campion College Australia @ St Peter's, Surry Hills
One of the world's greatest choral works, performed with an 80 strong choir and orchestra
Friday 18 July, 8.30pm - 10.00pm
Judy Bailey Band @ Randwick Racecourse
Blend of Afro-Caribbean grooves with religious roots
Saturday 19 July, 5.00pm - 5.45pm
Tongan Dance @ Randwick Racecourse
Traditional and contemporary Tongan dance
Sunday 20 July, 2.40pm - 2.55pm
The WYD08 Youth Festival will take place from Tuesday 15 July -
Sunday 20 July commencing at 2.00pm each day. The Youth Festival will
also feature performing arts, visual arts exhibitions, debate, film,
national and community gatherings, street performers, workshops and a
Vocations Expo. (See Nothing About Which to be Shocked; the link to the "WYD 2008" website no longer works.)
Let me put this as simply as I can in one declarative sentence: This is no way to encounter Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ or to grow in the Catholic Faith. This is a way of meeting the devil in a false church of his own creation, the counterfeit church of conciliarism. All right. That was two sentences. What are you going to do, stop sending non-tax-deductible financial gifts? Join the crowd! It's a long one.
Ratzinger/Benedict's speech to the representatives of "other religions" in Sydney, Australia, on July 18, 2008, featured his telling the assembled infidels that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ "discloses the human potential for virtue and and goodness, and he who liberates us form sin and darkness" while at the same time assuaging his listeners by saying that the "Church eagerly seeks opportunities to listen to the spiritual experience of other religions:"
The Church shares these observations with
other religions. Motivated by charity, she approaches dialogue
believing that the true source of freedom is found in the person of
Jesus of Nazareth. Christians believe it is he who fully discloses the
human potential for virtue and goodness, and he who liberates us from
sin and darkness. The universality of human experience, which transcends
all geographical boundaries and cultural limitations, makes it
possible for followers of religions to engage in dialogue so as to
grapple with the mystery of life’s joys and sufferings. In this regard,
the Church eagerly seeks opportunities to listen to the spiritual experience of other religions. We could say that all religions aim to penetrate the profound meaning
of human existence by linking it to an origin or principle outside
itself. Religions offer an attempt to understand the cosmos as coming
from and returning to this origin or principle. Christians believe that
God has revealed this origin and principle in Jesus, whom the Bible
refers to as the "Alpha and Omega" (cf. Rev 1:8; 22:1).
My dear friends, I have come to Australia as an
ambassador of peace. For this reason, I feel blessed to meet you who
likewise share this yearning and the desire to help the world attain it.
Our quest for peace goes hand in hand with our search for meaning, for it is in discovering the truth that we find the sure road to peace (cf. Message for World Day of Peace, 2006).
Our effort to bring about reconciliation between peoples springs from,
and is directed to, that truth which gives purpose to life. Religion offers peace,
but more importantly, it arouses within the human spirit a thirst for
truth and a hunger for virtue. May we encourage everyone – especially
the young – to marvel at the beauty of life, to seek its ultimate
meaning, and to strive to realize its sublime potential!
With these sentiments of respect and encouragement,
I commend you to the providence of Almighty God, and I assure you of my
prayers for you and your loved ones, the members of your communities,
and all the citizens of Australia. (Meeting with representatives of other religions in the Chapter Hall of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, July 18, 2008.)
The Catholic Church
has nothing to learn from the "experience" of false religions, each of
which comes the devil and is designed to leads its adherents to Hell for
all eternity. The Catholic Church does not have "observations"
(!) to make to those who worship at various and sundry altars of the
devil and his minions. The Catholic Church has the truths
contained in the Deposit of Faith entrusted to her by her Divine
Bridegroom and Invisible Head, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ, for Its infallible safekeeping and eternal explication to
proclaim without compromise and without hesitation as she seeks with
urgency the unconditional conversion of all men and all nations to her
maternal bosom, outside of which there is no salvation.
As has been noted several times on this site in the past year, the great missionaries of the Catholic Church rejected false religions, seeing in them instruments of the
devil that had to be eradicated as their adherents were converted.
Learning from "spiritual experience" of "other religions indeed.
Is there something incomplete in the Catholic Church that needs to be supplemented with a dose of Hinduism or
Buddhism or Jainism? Is there, at this late date in salvation history,
something that the Catholic Church does not know--and hence
might have rejected prematurely or rashly--about any false religion,
each of which has been studied over the years by her scholars? Was Saint
John Chrysostom wrong in anything that he wrote in his Eight Homilies Against the Jews?
Was Saint Francis Xavier wrong to have condemned the Indians as
barbarous people engaged as he encouraged the destruction of their idols
(see Letter from India, to the Society of Jesus at Rome, Saint Francis Xavier, Letter on the Missions, to St. Ignatius de Loyola)?
What does the Catholic Church have to learn known about the "spiritual
experience" of "other religions" that was not known by Saint Francis
Xavier, who spent himself tirelessly for the unconditional conversion of
those steeped in paganism?
In other words, we offer you the Saviour of the world but we we want to learn more about you. This is Modernism. This is absolute irrationality. Respect for false religions? Never. True popes have understood that each false religion is from the devil. Well, there's hope, though. Perhaps Ratzinger/Benedict can learn to listen and to respect the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church and not his Modernist, rationalist conception of the Holy Faith. Perhaps. Keep praying.
Unfortunately, however, Ratzinger/Benedict's "respect" for false religions is deep-seated. Consider this passage from one of his books, Many Religions--One Covenant (published by Ignatius Press in 1999):
The question remains: What does this mean in concrete terms? What can be expected from Christianity, thus understood, in the dialogue of religions? Does the theistic, incarnational model bring us farther than mystical and the pragmatic?
Let me speak plainly: Anyone who expects the dialogue between religions to result in their unification is bound for disappointment. This is hardly possible within our historical time, and perhaps it is not even desirable.
What then? I would like to say three things.
First, the encounter of the religions is not possible by renouncing the truth but only by a deeper entering into it. Scepticism does not unite people. Nor does mere pragmatism. Both only make way for ideologies that become all the more self-confident as a result.
The renunciation of truth and conviction does not elevate man but hands him over to the calculations of utility and robs him of his greatness.
What we need, however, is respect for the beliefs of others, and the readiness to look for the truth in what strikes us as strange or foreign; for such truth concerns us and can correct us and lead us farther along the path. What we need is the willingness to look behind the alien appearances and look for the deeper truth hidden there.
Furthermore, I need to be willing to allow my narrow understanding of truth to be broken down. I shall learn my own truth better if I understand the other person and allow myself to be moved along the road to the God who is ever greater, certain that I never hold the whole truth about God in my own hands, but am always a learner, on pilgrimage toward it, on a path that has no end. (Joseph Ratzinger, Many Religions--One Covenant. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999, pp. 109-110.)
Respect for the beliefs of others? I need to be willing to allow my narrow understanding of truth to be broken down? I never hold the whole truth about God in my own hands? No believing Catholic speaks in this way (and this "book" was a transcription of lectures given at several conferences). No believing Catholic thinks in these terms. This is the mind and heart of an apostate on full display.
It gets worse:
Second, if this is the case, if I must always look for what is positive in the other's beliefs--and in this way he becomes a help to me in searching for the truth--the critical element can and may not be missing; in fact, it is needed. Religion contains pearl of truth, so to speak, but it is always hiding it, and it is continually in danger of losing sight of its own essence. Religion can fall sick, it can become something destructive. I can and should lead us to truth, but it can also cut men off from truth. The criticism of religion found in the Old Testament is still very relevant today. We may find it relatively easy to criticize the religion of others, but we must be ready to accept criticism of ourselves and our own religion.
Karl Barth distinguished in Christianity between religion and faith. He was wrong if hew as intending to make a complete separation between them, seeing only faith as positive and religion as negative. Faith without religion is unreal; religion belongs to it, and Christian, faith, of its very nature, must live as a religion. But he was right insofar as the religion of the Christian can succumb to sickness and become superstition: the concrete religion in which faith is lived out must continually be purified on the basis of truth, that truth which shows itself, on the one hand, in faith and, on the other hand, reveals itself anew through dialogue, allowing us to acknowledge its mystery and infinity.
Third: Does this mean that missionary activity should cease and be replaced by dialogue, where it not a question of truth but of making one another better Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, or Buddhists? My answer is No. For this would be nothing other than total lack of conviction; under the pretext of affirming one another in our best points, we would in fact be failing to take ourselves (or others) seriously; we would be finally renouncing truth. Rather, the answer must be that mission and dialogue should no longer be opposites but should mutually interpenetrate.
Dialogue is not aimless conversation: it aims at conviction, at finding the truth; otherwise it is worthless. Conversely, missionary activity in the future cannot proceed as if it were simply a case of communicating to someone who has no knowledge at all of God what he has to believe.
There can be this kind of communication, of course, and perhaps it will become more widespread in certain places i a world that is becoming increasingly atheistic. But in the world of religions we meet people who have heard of God through their religion and try to live in relationship with him.
In this way, proclamation of the gospel must be necessarily a dialogical process. We are not telling the other person something that is entirely unknown to him; rather, we are opening up the hidden depth of something which, in his own religion, he is already in touch.
The reverse is also the case: the one who proclaims is not only the giver; he is also the receiver. In this sense,. what Cusanus saw in his vision of the heavenly council, which he expressed as both a wish and a hope, should come true in the dialogue of religions: the dialogue of religions should become more and more a listening to the Logos, who is pointing out to us, in the midst of our separation and our contradictory affirmations, the unity we already share. (Joseph Ratzinger, Many Religions--One Covenant. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999, pp. 110-113.)
Got all that?
So much for the Apostles.
So much for Saint Vincent Ferrer.
So much for Saint Francis Xavier.
So much for Catholicism.
Religion can become sick? We must criticize our own religion? I'll tell you what, "Pope" Benedict XVI, we can criticize your false religion anytime we want do as you are bereft of the Catholic Faith. And this--yes, every single bit of it--is at the foundation of conciliarism and World Youth Day.
My dear wife summarized this very well when she said: "This man is a lunatic. He should be locked up." Very well put, Sharon, my dear wife. Very well put.
"WYD 2008," which was praised so highly by Ratzinger/Benedict, also featured a "Way of the Cross" that included, as was wont on many Good Fridays during the false "pontificate" of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, "revised" stations that were designed specifically to be "inoffensive" to adherents of Talmudic Judaism, and the closing staging of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service featured "Pope" Benedict XVI being escorted to the worship stage by almost entirely naked men in a celebration of aboriginal Australian pagan rituals. (This procession was almost identical to a Thursday, November 22, 1962, episode of McHale's Navy that introduced actor Jacques Aubuchon as native island Chief Pali Urulu being escorted into PT-73's encampment by his subjects. The two processions were almost identical, and, obviously, I can't link to either for reasons of modesty.) A similar display occurred during the "Presentation of the Gifts" as Australian seminarians dressed down as aborigines to bring alleged gifts up to the false "pontiff" on the worship stage.
A rationalist can rationalize almost anything, including trying to claim that aberrations are actually "innovative" ways to reach the "young" "where they are."
Today is the seventh anniversary of the death of Father Maximilian Kolbe in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Father Kolbe, ordained as a Conventual Franciscan in 1919, was an implacable foe of all forms of naturalism, including socialism, communism, Nazism and Zionism. He understood very well that the forces of Judeo-Masonry were marching triumphantly in their quest to deal what they believed would be death blows to the influence of Holy Mother Church in the world, having witnessed them march with great hatred on the streets of Rome in January of 1917, just a mere four months before Our Lady's first apparition to Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal.
Father Kolbe wrote of how this transformed his life and his priesthood to such an extent that the formed the Militia Immaculata (Knights of the Immaculata) fight the influences of Freemasonry in the world by promoting total consecration to Mary Immaculate, seeking build up the City of Mary Immaculate in all that he said and did:
When the time came to enter the
novitiate - or was it the profession of vows - I don't remember
correctly, I made known to the Master my difficulty concerning the
Religious state. Father Dionysius soon changed my mind about this
fighting for the Immaculata physically, with material weapons. He told
me to recite the "Sub Tuum Praesidium" once daily. From that day until
today I recite this prayer daily for I began to understand what that
fight for the Immaculata would really be.
At that time I was conscious of a
greater tendency to pride; nevertheless I felt the Immaculata drawing me
to herself more and more closely... I had a custom of keeping a holy
picture of one of the Saints to whom she appeared on my prie-dieu in my
cell, and I used to pray to the Immaculata very fervently. One of my
confreres, upon seeing the picture, remarked that I must have a great
devotion to that Saint. But it was really the Immaculata to whom I was
directing my prayers.
Years later, the Freemasons in Rome
began to demonstrate openly and belligerently against the Church. They
placed the black standard of the "Giordano Brunisti" under the windows
of the Vatican. On this standard the archangel, St. Michael, was
depicted lying under the feet of the triumphant Lucifer. At the same
time, countless pamphlets were distributed to the people in which the
Holy Father was attacked shamefully.
Right then I conceived the idea of
organizing an active society to counteract Freemasonry and other slaves
of Lucifer. In order to be sure this idea was given me by the
Immaculata, I sought the advice of Fr. Alexander Basile, a Jesuit, who
was my spiritual director as well as the confessor for the students of
the Collegio (Serafico). Having listened to me, he put me under
obedience to follow up this idea of an organization. (.)
Father Kolbe was kind to individual Jews. He was a fierce opponent of Zionism, and he was a fierce opponent of the false ecumenism that had arisen in Protestant circles with "World Missionary Day" in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1910, and gained impetus in Catholic circles after World War I (see Planting Seeds of Revolutionary Change). In other words, he was a fierce opponent of the very false ecumenism practiced by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict that he is always eager to display and justify, a false ecumenism that was on display in Sydney, Australia, thirty-seven months ago and will be on full display in Madrid, Spain, starting at the end of this coming week. Here are Father Kolbe's own words:
Only until all schismatics
and Protestants profess the Catholic Creed with conviction, when all
Jews voluntarily ask for Holy Baptism – only then will the Immaculata
have reached its goals.”
“In other words” Saint Maximilian insisted, “there
is no greater enemy of the Immaculata and her Knighthood than today’s
ecumenism, which every Knight must not only fight against, but also
neutralize through diametrically opposed action and ultimately destroy.
We must realize the goal of the Militia Immaculata as quickly as
possible: that is, to conquer the whole world, and every individual soul
which exists today or will exist until the end of the world, for the
Immaculata, and through her for the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.” (Father
Karl Stehlin, Immaculata, Our Ideal, Kansas City, Missouri, Angelus Press, 2007, p. 37.)
Although I will conclude my series on "Charity Covereth a Multitude of Sins" soon as I continue work on my book length project on Americanism and its influences on the "Second" Vatican Council, that article will touch upon the truly nauseating, revolting "Hitler meant well" comments that come out of the mouths of some supposedly traditional Catholics. Adolf Hitler "did not mean well." He hated Communism because it was a rival to his own form of socialism, German national socialism, and he was determined to kill anyone and everyone who stood in his diabolical way. The Ribbentrop-Molotov nonaggression pact that was signed by the foreign ministers of Nazi Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on August 25, 1939, made possible the systematic dismemberment of Poland from the west by the Nazis and from the East by the Soviets.
Look at the reality of what the "Hitler who meant well" did to our own co-religionists in the land of my paternal great-grandfather, John Jacob Droleski (who was born in 1852 and hailed from a part of Poland that was controlled by Prussia; other parts of the historic Polish boundaries were controlled until the end of World War I by the united German states and also by the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires):
The Catholic Church in Poland was especially hard hit by the Nazis.
In 1939, 80 percent of the Catholic clergy and five of the bishops of
the Warthegau region had been deported to concentration camps. In
Wroclaw, 49.2 percent of the clergy were dead; in Chelmno, 47.8
percent; in Lodz, 36.8 percent; in Poznan, 31.1. In the Warsaw diocese,
212 priests were killed; 92 were murdered in Wilno, 81 in Lwow, 30 in
Cracow, thirteen in Kielce. Seminarians who were not killed were
shipped off to Germany as forced labor.
Of 690 priests in the Polish province of West Prussia, at least
460 were arrested. The remaining priests of the region fled their
parishes. Of the arrested priests, 214 were executed, including the
entire cathedral chapter of Pelplin. The rest were deported to the
newly created General Government district in Central Poland. By 1940,
only 20 priests were still serving their parishes in West Prussia.
Of the city of Poznan's 30 churches and 47 chapels, the Nazis
left two open to serve some 200,000 souls. Thirteen churches were
simply locked and abandoned; six became warehouses; four, including the
cathedral, were used as furniture storage centers. In Lodz, only four
churches were allowed to remain open to serve 700,000 Catholics.
Cardinal Augustine Hlond, Archbishop of Gniezno-Poznan, wrote to
the Holy See on December 10, 1939: "The Cathedral has been turned into
a garage at Pelplin; the Bishop's palace into a restaurant; the chapel
into a ballroom. Hundreds of churches have been closed. The whole
patrimony of the Church has been confiscated, and the most eminent
Catholics executed."
Throughout the country, monasteries, convents, seminaries, schools and other religious institutions were shut down.
Many nuns shared the same fate as priests. Some 400 nuns were
imprisoned at Bojanowo concentration camp. Many were later sent to
Germany as slave labor.
Without warning, on July 31, 1943, the Nazis entered the convent
of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth at Nowogrodek. They
arrested the superior, Sr. Maria Stella, and ten other nuns. The next
day the sisters were loaded into a van, driven outside the town and
shot. Their bodies were thrown into a mass grave. In Silesia, Bishop
Stanislaw Adamski ordered his clergy and laity to declare themselves Volkdeutsch (German nationals), hoping that this ruse would keep his people,
priests and religious from harm and his churches open. The effort was
futile. Sixty convents and monasteries in Silesia were closed; 43
priests died in concentration camps and thirteen priests were deported,
including Bishop Adamski. To his credit, the Bishop never tried to
save his own life by declaring himself Volkdeutsch.
No exception was made for Poland's higher clergy. Bishop Michael
Kozal of Wladislava died in Dachau; Bishop Nowowiejski of Plock and
his suffragan Bishop Wetmanski both died in prison in Poland; Bishop
Fulman of Lublin and his suffragan Bishop Goral were sent to a
concentration camp in Germany.
Nor were the small Evangelical churches of Poland spared. All
the Protestant clergy of the Cieszyn region of Silesia were arrested
and sent to the death camps at Mauthausen, Buchenwald, Dachau and
Oranienburg.
Among the Protestant martyrs were Karol Kulisz, director of the
Evangelical Church's largest charitable organization, who died in
Buchenwald in November 1939; Professor Edmund Bursche, a member of the
Evangelical Faculty of Theology at the University of Warsaw, who died
in the stone quarries of Mauthausen; and the 79-year-old Bishop of the
Evangelical Church, Juliusz Bursche, who died in solitary confinement
in Berlin.
In this dark time, one archbishop deserted his flock. Cardinal
Hlond, whose Gniezno-Poznan archdiocese lay in the afflicted Warthegau
region, simply disappeared. When he showed up in Rome, Pope Pius XII
manifested his displeasure by refusing to grant the Cardinal an
immediate audience.
After his humiliating visit to Rome, Cardinal Hlond went to
France to join Poland's government-in-exile. When France fell to the
Nazis, the Cardinal was stranded. In 1943, as he was trying to return
to Poland, the Nazis arrested and interned him. They offered Cardinal
Hlond his freedom if he would send a message to Polish Catholics urging
them to join the Germans in the fight against the invading Soviet
army, but he refused.
A Polish Martyrology for 1939-45 lists six bishops, 2,030
priests, 127 seminarians, 173 lay brothers and 243 nuns murdered by the
Nazis. (This is found on a website whose link I will provide you at some point after the posting of this article; I don't agree the use of the term "holocaust" by the authors and there are other assertions of historical fact that I need to qualify before linking to the whole article. Obviously, there can be Protestant "victims" of various crimes. There is no such thing as a Protestant "martyr."
There's you're "good Hitler," readers, and it is that "good Hitler" whose regime had Father Maximilian Kolbe arrested as the Nazis knew him to be their foe, and indeed he was, and we should be proud of that as Roman Catholics who are consecrated to the Most Sacred Heart of Christ the King through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary our Immaculate Queen. Although I will discuss this in more detail in an upcoming article when my other writing projects permit, it is one thing to note that the Nazi regime was the logical consequence of the Protestant Revolution, which began in Wittenberg, Germany, on October 31, 1517, and the systematic, planned attack upon the influence of the Catholic Church for four centuries thereafter by the agents of Talmudic Judaism, who thereby unwittingly brought upon themselves a chastisement for their crimes against God and man by their attacks against the Holy Faith. It is quite another to pretend as though the documented crimes against Polish Catholics did not take place or should not occupy any of our attention, leaving aside all other considerations for the time being.
Certainly, Father Kolbe was not a martyr for the Catholic Faith as Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II proclaimed him upon his conciliar "canonization" on February 17, 1941. He died as a result of being injected with a lethal dose of carbolic acid on this day seventy years ago after starved having survived for two weeks following his volunteering to take the place of a Jewish man who had been chosen to be starved to death in retribution for the fact that three prisoners had escaped from the "Hitler meant to do well" Auschwitz concentration camp. Father Kolbe was, however, a Confessor of the Catholic Faith, and I have no doubt that he will be raised legitimately to the altars of Holy Mother Church once the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is made manifest.
Indeed, Father Kolbe is the antithesis of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's rationalism as he, Father Kolbe, trusted entirely in the Rosary and Our Lady's Miraculous Medal to fight the demons associated with every brand of naturalism, including the current false "pope's" own rationalism. Father Kolbe had a vision of Our Lady when he was a boy, a vision that inspired him to fight for the Immaculata, although he thought at first he was to fight with military arms before realizing that he was to do so with the weapons that Our Lady had already provided him to use. He used no less than twelve publications around the world, including in Japan, where the monastery he established in Nagasaki survived the atomic bombed dropped on this city filled with Catholics on August 9, 1945, to spread devotion to Mary Immaculate and to warn people, especially the young about all forms of naturalism.
You want to reach the "youth of today," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI? Convert and devote whatever is left of your left here on earth in a monastery to make reparation for the monumental public offenses you have given to the honor and glory and majesty of God and for all the falsehoods that you have dared to utter in the name of the Catholic Church as a putative Successor of Saint Peter. You need to have the humility of Father Maximilian Kolbe to rely upon Mary Immaculate and not upon the rationalism that is at the foundation of Modernism and of its stepchild to which you are so devoted, the "new theology."
With Father Maximilian Kolbe, therefore, we reject the irrationality of rationalism and seek always to cling to the spiritual weapons given us by Our Lady to fight the forces of the world, the flesh and the devil, the forces, that is, of Modernity in the world and Modernism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, especially by praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.
Our Lady will help us to be ever ready to defend the honor and the glory of the Blessed Trinity to Whom she is Daughter, Mother, and Spouse. She will lead us to be ever mindful of making reparation for our own many sins by offering our daily penances to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, ever desirous of spending time with her at Holy Mass and in front of her Divine Son's Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament as a foretaste of the Heavenly glories that will await us if we die in a state of Sanctifying Grace as members of the Catholic Church.
The possession of the glory of the Beatific Vision in Heaven is our goal. And that goal cannot be achieved by a participation in, no less a celebration of, the hideous events of "World Youth Day" or by anything else to do with the counterfeit church of conciliarism.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and the hour of our death Amen
Vivat Christus Rex!
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us
Saint Joseph, pray for us
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us
Saint John the Baptist, 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 Eusebius, pray for us.
See also: A Litany of Saints
Isn't time to pray a Rosary now?
Appendix A
Text from World Youth Day: From Catholicism to Counterchurch
(Excerpt written by Mrs. Cornelia Ferreira)
Like Focolare, other syncretic sects have received,
or are in the process of receiving, canonical status, allowing them to
masquerade as Catholic religious orders, complete with
Statutes, community life, vows and even seminaries. The Neocatechumenate
alone, founded by a lay man and ex-nun, has produced 196 priests from
its Redemptoris Mater diocesan seminar in Rome and more than 1,000 from
its 50 seminaries across the world. Besides the priests being developed
by this and other sects, many other clergy live their spirituality.
Bishops have already come from their heretical ranks, ordained by John
Paul II and favoured with privileged positions, some within the Roman
Curia and on Pontifical Councils. It is only logical to assume that they
could produce a pope, loyal only to his particular "church" or
movement. The ecclesial movements comprises priests, religious, single
and married laity--each movement a parallel or an anti-Church within the
bosom of the Catholic Church
But we don't have to look to the future for a pope produced by a lay movement. Pope John Paul himself was the "product"
and progenitor of dynamic lay groups." In 1940, Karol Wojtyla, aged 19,
fell under the sway of a Polish rationalist and self-taught
psychologist, Jan Tyranowski, who had "developed his own spirituality"
and had the reputation of a "mystic." Quite in line with Deweyite and
Jungian adult church principles, Tyranowski preached a gnostic
experiential religion; "inner liberation from the faith,"
i.e., from Catholicism; and "transformation of personality from
within," i.e., spiritual growth, through the "friendship" of a
community. He also preached a life of service, especially to those of
one's community, as the fruit of the "practice and the presence of God."
"To bring young people into this same faith"--not Catholicism--he led
weekly discussion meetings for young men he recruited, "in which
theological questions were argued." (Questioning the Faith is called
"critical thinking" today.)
Tyranowski formed the Living Rosary, which shared
many of the characteristics of modern lay movements. Its weekly
meetings were run by lay people in homes, not by priests in parish
halls. By 1943, there were 60 "animates" who reported to Tyranowski. One
of these group leaders was Karol Wojtyla.
It is strange that Chiara
Lubich also termed her group "the living Rosary." Did she get the idea
from Bishop Wojtyla, whom Focolare got to know in Poland? "The Living
Rosary as created by Jan Tyranowski consisted of groups of fifteen young
men, each of which was led b a more mature youngster who received
personal spiritual direction ... from the mystically gifted tailor." The
difference between the two "living" Rosaries is that Tyranowoski's
groups represented the decades of the Rosary, whilst Lubitch's members
were Hail Marys.
The inner transformation taught by Tyranowski is
what New Agers today call a change in consciousness or paradigm shift,
in which one synthesizes two opposing ideas, such as believing one is a
good Catholic even if holding superstitious or occult beliefs. It is
similar to Dewey's merger of nature and grace or Jung's "wholeness." It
is an occult, gnostic, kabbalistic method of producing a personal shift
in values that engenders social transformation. Inner transformation led
to religious orders abandoning the supernatural focus of Catholicism
for naturalistic and social activism after Vatican II.
Pope John Paul II's acceptance of the gnostic
philosophy of the sects is also the product of the theatrical
experiences of his youth. Theatre for Karol was "an experience of
community"; but more than that, it was a serious training in gnostic
transformation by Mieczyslaw Kotlarczyk, director of the Rhapsodic
Theatre, which he co-founded with Karol. This Theatre, with its "theme
of consciousness," provided Wojtyla's "initiation to phenomenology."
Kotlarczyk, who lived for some time in the Wojtyla home, tutored Karol
in his method from the time Karol was sixteen until he joined the
seminary six years later. He created a "theater of the inner world" to
present "universal truths and universal moral values, which . . .
offered the world the possibility of authentic transformation." Plot,
costumes and props were not important. Instead, speech--the "word"--was
his focus, the goal being to use it to transform the consciousness of
the audience (and actor). Hence Kotlarczyk, insisted on every word being
pronounced just so.
That this was a training in the kabbalistic, occult use of words became clear when Kotlarczyk's book, The Art of the Living Word: Diction, Expression, Magic,
was published in 1975 by the Papal Gregorian University in Rome.
Cardinal Wojtyla penned the preface to this book in which Kotlarczyk
listed the sources of his ideas. The included the writings of several
occultists and theosophists, amongst them some of the foremost
kabbalists and occultists of modern times: Russian Mason Helena
Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society and the New Age Movement;
French occultist Eliphas Levi (who influenced Blavatsky, Albert Pike,
Grand Commander of Scottish Rite Masonry, and sorcerer Aleister Crowley,
long-time head of the high Masonic Ordo Templi Orientis or OTO); and
Rudolph Steiner. Illuminatus, Rosicrucian, theosophist, OTO member,
Communist and founder of the Anthroposophical Society and Waldorf
Schools. Theosophy had been condemned by the Church in 1919, the Holy
Office stating one could not "read [theosophists'] books, daily papers,
journals and writings.
Kotlarczyk believed he was an "archpriest of
drama," his living word method being a religion and "vocation," with the
actor as priest. As with theosophists who use the title "Master" for
highly evolved humans who guide humanist, he called himself "Master of
the Word." He saw theater "as ritual" and "understood the liturgical character of theatrical action,
. .. offering the possibility of entering into a new dimension. . . ."
Theater could be "a way of perfection" if "the word" had absolute
priority" over "externals and spectacles."
Compare Kotlarczyk's ideas with Anthroposophy or
"Christian Illuminism," which is a Luciferian initiation" that forms the
enlightened or "deified" man with occult abilities. Anthroposophy
teaches that occult knowledge, or the "inner meaning" of realities can
be obtained through a "disciplined use of the arts, words, colour, music
and eurhythmic ("universal harmony"), a way of dance that Steiner
(1861-1925) created to express the inner meanings of sound. The
explosion in the Church today of theatrics, "creative liturgy," and
eurhthmic-style"liturgical dance" (even at Papal Masses) as an
experiential means of teaching the Faith, denotes both a Jungian and
Steinerian influence. (Steiner's techniques are actually a "subversive"
form of hypnosis applied to religious, political and educational groups
to make them tools for effecting the Masonic Universal Republic.
Destroying rational thought, they produce the "false idealist"
and "soft peacemonger" who lives by feelings, finds goodness and beauty
in ugliness and evil, does not criticized error, gives up his personality, and blends with another. He is then easily controlled and even obsessed.)
Karol and his friends committed themselves to "the
dramatic exploration of the interior life" under Kotlarczyk. Amongst his
man roles, Karol was the "Seer John" in Steiner's arrangement of the
Apocalypse. Other esoteric works in which he acted or which had
"significance in his spiritual formation" included productions by
Juliusz Slowacki (1809-49) and Adam Mickiewicz (1789-1855). Slowacki was
an evolutionist and reincarnationalist who believed Poland's political
sufferings were "karma." Mickiewicz was a kabbalist and Martinist (a
form of occultism). Both men subscribed to Polish Messianism, which was
intertwined with Jewish Messianism and occultism. Their ideas were
incorporated into other plays. To "rebuke" Pius IX, who did not support
Polish nationalism and the Masonic revolution in Italy, Slowacki also
composed a poem about a future "Slavic Pope" who would head a "reformed
papacy," and would be tough, but "a brother of the people." As Pope John
Paul II, Karol would later apply this poem to himself.
The following comment by Father Wojtyla (under a
pseudonym) in 1958 shows how the Rhapsodic Theatre solidified his
rejection of individualism in favour of the one mind enforced in the new
ecclesial sects:
This theater ... defends the young actors against
developing a destructive individualism, because it will not let them
impose on the text anything of their own; it gives them inner
discipline. A group of people, collectively, somehow unanimously,
subordinated to the great poetic word, evoke ethical associations; this
solidarity of people in the word reveals particularly strongly and
accentuates the reverence that is the point of departure of the
rhapsodists' word and the secret of their style.
After his ordination, Father
Wojtyla created his own youth group, "Little Family," whose members
called him "Uncle." Little Family became the core of a larger community
known as Srodowisko or "milieu," which he led until elected Pope. The seeds for World Youth Day lay in the co-ed hiking across Poland, sleeping in barns, discussing anything, singing,
praying, and attending his outdoor Masses. His good friend, Fr.
Mieczyslaw Malinski, another Tyranowski graduate, admiringly referred to
him as "Wojtyla the revolutionary," who shocked "the entire Cracow
diocese." He was also the type of priest Focolare likes, "wholly devoid
of clericalism." Tyranowski's training taught him to highly value the
laity, and he tested his philosophical ideas on Srodowisko friends and his Lublin University doctoral students, encouraging a "mutual exchange" of ideas, happy to learn from them.
Having gone from lay leader to Pope, it is no
surprise that John Paul became the greatest promoter and protector of
the lay movements, starting with gaining them official recognition at
Vatican II. Furthermore, Focolare, Neocatechumenal Way, Communion and
Liberation and Light-Life (for Oasis) were well-established in Communist Poland,
where Karol Wojtyla got to know them; and he championed them since his
days as Archbishop of Cracow. He saw the movements as crucial "for
achieving his vision": they are "privileged channels for the formation
and promotion of an active laity ..." The following statement he made to
Communion and Liberation in 1979 encapsulates the continuity of thought
between his Tyranowski days and the modern sects: "the true liberation of man comes about, therefore, in the experience of ecclesial communion. . . ."
Pope John Paul's Apostolic Letter for the Year of the
Eucharist (October 2004-October 2005) shows that Vatican II was a
bridge for this continuity. Citing Vatican II's Lumen Gentium,
Pope John Paul says the Eucharist is a sign and instrument of "the unity
of the whole human race"--i.e., it is meant to bring about the
pantheistic Masonic one-world community! It should inspire Christians to
"become promoters [sic] of dialogue and communion," and communities to "building a more just and fraternal society." (Cornelia Ferreira and John Vennari, World Youth Day: From Catholicism to Counterchurch, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Canisius Books, 2005, pp. 126-133.)
[Thomas A. Droleskey note: Although Mrs. Ferreira and Mr. Vennari accept the "legitimacy" of the conciliar "pontiffs," the text above is more than abundant proof of the simple fact that Karol Wojtyla fell form the Catholic Faith in his youth.]
Appendix B
Text from the final pages of Many Religions--One Covenant
The question remains: What does this mean in concrete terms? What can be expected from Christianity, thus understood, in the dialogue of religions? Does the theistic, incarnational model bring us farther than mystical and the pragmatic?
Let me speak plainly: Anyone who expects the dialogue between religions to result in their unification is bound for disappointment. This is hardly possible within our historical time, and perhaps it is not even desirable.
What then? I would like to say three things.
First, the encounter of the religions is not possible by renouncing the truth but only by a deeper entering into it. Scepticism does not unite people. Nor does mere pragmatism. Both only make way for ideologies that become all the more self-confident as a result.
The renunciation of truth and conviction does not elevate man but hands him over to the calculations of utility and robs him of his greatness.
What we need, however, is respect for the beliefs of others, and the readiness to look for the truth in what strikes us as strange or foreign; for such truth concerns us and can correct us and lead us farther along the path. What we need is the willingness to look behind the alien appearances and look for the deeper truth hidden there.
Furthermore, I need to be willing to allow my narrow understanding of truth to be broken down. I shall learn my own truth better if I understand the other person and allow myself to be moved along the road to the God who is ever greater, certain that I never hold the whole truth about God in my own hands, but am always a learner, on pilgrimage toward it, on a path that has no end.
Second, if this is the case, if I must always look for what is positive in the other's beliefs--and in this way he becomes a help to me in searching for the truth--the critical element can and may not be missing; in fact, it is needed. Religion contains pearl of truth, so to speak, but it is always hiding it, and it is continually in danger of losing sight of its own essence. Religion can fall sick, it can become something destructive. I can and should lead us to truth, but it can also cut men off from truth. The criticism of religion found in the Old Testament is still very relevant today. We may find it relatively easy to criticize the religion of others, but we must be ready to accept criticism of ourselves and our own religion.
Second, if this is the case, if I must always look for what is positive in the other's beliefs--and in this way he becomes a help to me in searching for the truth--the critical element can and may not be missing; in fact, it is needed. Religion contains pearl of truth, so to speak, but it is always hiding it, and it is continually in danger of losing sight of its own essence. Religion can fall sick, it can become something destructive. I can and should lead us to truth, but it can also cut men off from truth. The criticism of religion found in the Old Testament is still very relevant today. We may find it relatively easy to criticize the religion of others, but we must be ready to accept criticism of ourselves and our own religion.
Karl Barth distinguished in Christianity between religion and faith. He was wrong if hew as intending to make a complete separation between them, seeing only faith as positive and religion as negative. Faith without religion is unreal; religion belongs to it, and Christian, faith, of its very nature, must live as a religion. But he was right insofar as the religion of the Christian can succumb to sickness and become superstition: the concrete religion in which faith is lived out must continually be purified on the basis of truth, that truth which shows itself, on the one hand, in faith and, on the other hand, reveals itself anew through dialogue, allowing us to acknowledge its mystery and infinity.
Third: Does this mean that missionary activity should cease and be replaced by dialogue, where it not a question of truth but of making one another better Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, or Buddhists? My answer is No. For this would be nothing other than total lack of conviction; under the pretext of affirming one another in our best points, we would in fact be failing to take ourselves (or others) seriously; we would be finally renouncing truth. Rather, the answer must be that mission and dialogue should no longer be opposites but should mutually interpenetrate.
Dialogue is not aimless conversation: it aims at conviction, at finding the truth; otherwise it is worthless. Conversely, missionary activity in the future cannot proceed as if it were simply a case of communicating to someone who has no knowledge at all of God what he has to believe.
There can be this kind of communication, of course, and perhaps it will become more widespread in certain places i a world that is becoming increasingly atheistic. But in the world of religions we meet people who have heard of God through their religion and try to live in relationship with him.
In this way, proclamation of the gospel must be necessarily a dialogical process. We are not telling the other person something that is entirely unknown to him; rather, we are opening up the hidden depth of something which, in his own religion, he is already in touch.
The reverse is also the case: the one who proclaims is not only the giver; he is also the receiver. In this sense,. what Cusanus saw in his vision of the heavenly council, which he expressed as both a wish and a hope, should come true in the dialogue of religions: the dialogue of religions should become more and more a listening to the Logos, who is pointing out to us, in the midst of our separation and our contradictory affirmations, the unity we already share. (Joseph Ratzinger, Many Religions--One Covenant. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999, pp. 110-113.)
