Reality is What It Is
by Thomas A. Droleskey
To look at the situations we face in the Church in her human elements and in the world is not to engage in "negativity." A Catholic is a person of complete and total trust in the Providence of God, never doubting for a moment His ineffable wisdom and love. We must always see ourselves and the world in which we live in light of an understanding that the graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of Our Lord's Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross are sufficient for us individually and sufficient for Holy Mother Church collectively. Although there are times when we come to face to face with difficult decisions to make as to how best to sanctify and to save our souls in the midst of the problems that face Holy Mother Church in her human elements, we must never retreat from the difficulties by believing that they are "all going to go away" or advance blindly in such a way that we become veritable semi-Pelagians, thinking that we can "save the Church" by our own efforts.
This all comes to mind in light of some of the response that has been generated after the posting of Pope Benedict XVI, Meet Pope Paul IV and Father Lawrence C. Smith's Facing Hard Questions two days ago. Some people are inferring that these articles are needlessly raising questions that might place doubt into the minds of Catholics. I have news for these folks: informed Catholics have questions raised in their minds all of the time by the very statements and actions of our recent popes and cardinals and bishops. Any Catholic who is possessed of a good grasp of his elementary school catechism lessons recognizes problems when he sees them.
The Catholic Faith is not complex. It mirrors the simplicity of God, Who is simplicity (no parts outside of parts). It is the devil who seeks to make the true Faith complex and cumbersome in order to make it the plaything of those who believe that they alone have the "key" to unlock the complex. In other words, the attempt on the part of Modernists to make the Faith complex and thus explicable only by themselves is the modern incarnation of Gnosticism. We have to rely upon "experts" to explain things that they have made complex in order to make us believe that our sensus Catholicus, which warns us when something doesn't appear or sound to be Catholic, is wrong and that they are right. These "experts" rely on very sophisticated means of mind-control to break down our natural Catholic resistance to novelty and innovation, thus paralyzing our noblest Catholic aspirations and making us the willing servants of men who want to "raze the bastions" of the Catholic Faith.
Saint Anthony of the Desert put it this way:
Men will surrender to the spirit of the age. They will say that if they had lived in our day, Faith would be simple and easy. But in their day, they will say, things are complex; the Church must be brought up to date and made meaningful to the day's problems. When the Church and the World are one, then those days are at hand. Because our Divine Master placed a barrier between His things and the things of the world.
Can any serious Catholic say that this observation from the Fourth Century is not entirely relevant now, that it is not an absolutely accurate description of the reality of the ethos of conciliarism and of each of the popes we have had from 1958 to the present time? Reality is what it is. One will go insane trying to deny reality--or by trying to make reality into something that it is not, which so many people, including myself for much longer than I would like to admit, tried to do with respect to making it appear as though the problems we faced in the wake of the Second Vatican Council were the result of bad bishops and bad theologians, not the very ethos of the council and of the popes who have served as its promoters and apologists.
Although I did not understand why the Mass of Tradition had been taken away from us in 1969, when I was eighteen years of age, I accepted the change. What I could never understand, however, was how bishops and priests could place into question articles contained in the Deposit of Faith. How could there be such a fundamental shift from the certitude of the teaching I had received at Saint Aloysius School in Great Neck, New York, from 1956 to 1962 to the explosion of doubt and outright denials of the Faith that took over practically every segment of Catholic life (diocesan chancery offices, seminaries, universities, colleges, elementary and secondary schools, parishes)? The Faith of fathers as it had been expressed over the centuries was wiped off of the face of the Catholic map rather quickly. I could not believe my ears when vocations directors for the various religious communities I was considering joining after completing my doctoral studies in the 1970s said things that I knew to be contrary to the Catholic Faith. "How can they say these things and remain in good standing?" I asked myself over and over again.
Well, I simply tried to do the best I could in my college teaching career to try to help my students to recognize that they had to see the world as Catholics. This did not make me popular in the secular world. And it did not win me many friends in the Catholic colleges and universities at which I taught. The blindness caused by my own sins and my refusal to recognize the actual reality of our situation led me to try put the best spin on our situation that I could, especially when Pope John Paul II was elected on October 16, 1978. "Aha," I thought to myself, "now the nightmare is over." I projected into the mind of Pope John Paul II my own desires, thus detaching myself from the actual reality of the situation.
Oh, as early as November 25, 1976, I was confronted in the home of my father's first cousins in Utica, New York, where I was then teaching at Mohawk Valley Community College, with the actual reality of the Church in her human elements. I was told that Masons and Communists had infiltrated the Church, that it was important to seek out the Mass of Tradition in the "underground," as these people were doing in a garage in New Hartford, New York, at the time. "These people are nuts!" I said to myself. "I have to get out of here." If memory serves me correctly, I might have even said that to their stunned faces. No, they were quite sane. Although I was within six months of obtaining my doctorate in political science, I was blind and stupid and ignorant as to the actual reality of our situation. They were right. I was very wrong.
It took me another fourteen years or so to see that my relatives in Utica were perfectly sane and had a complete grasp of the reality of the situation of the Church in her human elements. Others had hit me very hard over the matter of the Mass, especially in the middle-1980s, making all of the points about the harm of the Novus Ordo Missae that I would wind up making myself in due course. I argued, but I also listened. Intently. I thought my friends were wrong. However, I no longer thought that they were crazy. I came to realize that they had a very good grasp of reality grounded in truth.
Thus it is that there will be times in our lives when many will think us crazy for coming to grips with the reality of our situation and asking unpleasant, uncomfortable questions to generate thought and reflection. Several have subtly questioned my own sanity ("You sound tired, get some rest, stop writing, go on a retreat") in the last few days, echoing what Archbishop Joseph Fiorenza said to Father Stephen Zigrang three years ago when the latter offered the Immemorial Mass of Tradition at Saint Andrew Church in Channelview Texas, on June 28-29, 2003. Archbishop Fiorenza told Father Zigrang to take two months off, go on a retreat, get some rest, get psychological help. Isn't it interesting that those who come to realize the gravity of situation get accused of being crazy by those who think that everything is fine the way it is or that their particular approach or strategy to dealing with a problem is beyond review?
As noted above, I had fallen into that erroneous way of thinking in my youth thirty years ago. Thus, it is only fitting that one of the ways I am being asked to pay back my own sins in this regard is to be considered daft for raising questions about the vast amount of heterodoxy in the writings of the current Holy Father, the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Although I have relied upon "conservative" Catholic authors for their penetrating analyses of Pope Benedict XVI's writings as a priest and cardinal, the emphasis must be shifted from a dispassionate search for the truth of the problems in the Holy Father's writings to the mere fact that these problems are being raised at all and associated with a papal document, Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio, that might have some bearing on our situation. The reality of our situation is clear. Pope Benedict XVI's mind is opposed to any traditional expression of Catholicism. I am not the one making this up.
But didn't the Holy Father call for the conversion of Jews in his General Audience address of March 15, 2006?. Just yesterday, for instance, Sandro Magister, the Italian journalist who covers the Catholic Church for www.chiesa.com, carried a story with the headline that the Pope was calling for the conversion of the Jews. A careful review of the text of Pope Benedict XVI's address reveals that the Holy Father called for no such thing. Mr. Magister wishes for the text to read something that it doesn't. He has done this many times in the past year since the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger has served as the Supreme Pontiff.
Here is the full text of the March 15, 2006, General Audience address in which it is alleged that the Pope called for "the conversion of the Jews:"
Dear brothers and sisters, after the catechesis on the psalms and canticles of morning and evening prayer, I would like to dedicate the next Wednesday encounters to the mystery of the relationship between Christ and the Church, considering it from the experience of the apostles in the light of the mission entrusted to them.
The Church has been built on the foundation of the apostles as a community of faith, hope and love. Through the apostles, we reach all the way back to Jesus.
The Church was initially established when some fishermen from Galilee met Jesus; they allowed themselves to be won over by his gaze, his voice and his strong and warm invitation, "Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men" (Mark 1:17; Matthew 4:19).
My beloved predecessor, John Paul II, at the beginning of the third millennium, proposed to the Church the contemplation of Christ's face (cf. "Novo Millennio Ineunte," No. 16ff). Moving in this direction, in the catechesis I begin today, I would like to show that precisely the light of that Face is reflected in the face of the Church (cf. "Lumen Gentium," No. 1), despite the limitations and the shadows of our fragile and sinful humanity.
After Mary, the pure reflection of the light of Christ, the apostles, through their word and testimony, hand on to us the truth of Christ. Their mission is not isolated. It is framed within the mystery of communion and involves all of God's people and is brought about in stages from the old to the new covenant.
In this sense, we must say that we completely distort Jesus' message when we separate it from the context of the faith and hope of the chosen people. As did John the Baptist, his immediate precursor, Jesus principally addresses all of Israel (cf. Matthew 15:24), in order to "unite it" in the eschatological time that arrived with his coming.
And as happened with John, Jesus' preaching is at one and the same time a call of grace and a sign of contradiction and judgment of all of God's people. Therefore, from the first moment of his salvific activity, Jesus of Nazareth tends to unite and purify the people of God. Although his preaching is always a call to personal conversion, in reality it continually tends to build the people of God which he came to gather together and save.
For this reason, the individualistic interpretation of Christ's proclamation of the Kingdom as proposed by liberal theology is unilateral and unfounded. Here is how the great liberal theologian Adolf von Harnack summarized this interpretattion, in a series of lectures in 1900 entitled "What is Christianity?": "The Kingdom of God comes in the degree in which it comes to specific men, finds an opening into the soul and is accepted by them. The Kingdom of God is the 'lordship' of God, that is to say, the dominion of the Holy God in each different heart" (Third Lecture, 100ff).
Actually, this individualism of liberal theology is accentuated particularly in modern times. In the perspective of biblical tradition and in the realm of Judaism in which Jesus' work is classified despite all of its novelty, it remains evident that the entire mission of the Son made flesh has a communitarian finality: He came precisely to gather together a scattered humanity, he came precisely to gather together the people of God.
An evident sign of the Nazarene's intention to gather together the community of the covenant in order to manifest in it the fulfillment of the promises made to the forefathers, who always speak of summoning, unification and unity, is the institution of the Twelve. We have heard the Gospel of the institution of the Twelve.
I now reread the central passage: "He went up the mountain and summoned those whom he wanted and they came to him. He appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) that they might be with him and he might send them forth to preach and to have authority to drive out demons: He appointed the twelve..." (Mark 3:13-16; cf. Matthew 10:1-4; Luke 6:12-16).
In the place of the revelation, "the mountain," with an initiative that manifests absolute awareness and determination, Jesus constitutes the twelve so that they might be witnesses and heralds with him of the arrival of the Kingdom of God. There is no room for doubt concerning the historical character of this call, not only because of the antiquity and multiplicity of testimonies but also because of the simple fact that the name of the apostle Judas, the traitor, appears despite the difficulties that including his name could imply for the incipient community.
The number 12, which evidently refers to the 12 tribes of Israel, reveals the meaning of the prophetic-symbolic action implied in the new initiative of founding the holy people again. After the downfall of the system of the 12 tribes, Israel awaited the reconstruction of this system as a sign of the arrival of the eschatological time (this can be read in the conclusion of the Book of Ezekiel 37:15-19; 39:23-29; 40-48).
By choosing the twelve, introducing them into a communion of life with him and making them sharers in the same mission of announcing the Kingdom with words and deeds (cf. Mark 6:7-13; Matthew 10:5-8; Luke 9:1-6; 6:13), Jesus wants to say that the definitive time has arrived; the time for rebuilding God's people, the people of the 12 tribes, which is now converted into a universal people, his Church.
By their mere existence, the twelve – called from different backgrounds – have become a summons to all Israel to conversion and to allow themselves to be reunited in a new covenant, full and perfect accomplishment of the old. By entrusting to them the task of celebrating his memorial in the supper, before his passion, Jesus shows that he wanted to transfer to the entire community, in the person of its heads, the commandment of being a sign and instrument of the eschatological assembly begun by him.
In a certain sense, we could say that the last supper is precisely the act of founding his Church, because he gives himself and in this way creates a new community, a community united in the communion with himself. From this perspective, it is understood that the risen one grants them, with the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, the power to forgive sins (John 20:23). The twelve apostles are in this way the most evident sign of Jesus' will over the existence and mission of his Church, the guarantee that between Christ and the Church there is no opposition: They are inseparable, despite the sins of the people who make up the Church.
Therefore, there is no way to reconcile Christ's intentions with the slogan that was fashionable a few years ago, "Christ yes, the Church no." The individualist Jesus is a fantasy. We cannot find Jesus without the reality that he created and through which he communicates himself.
Between the Son of God, made man and his Church, there is a profound, inseparable continuity, in virtue of which Christ is present today in his people.
He is always our contemporary – our contemporary in the Church built upon the foundation of the apostles. He is alive in the succession of the apostles. And his presence in the community, in which he himself always gives himself, is the reason for our joy. Yes, Christ is with us, the Kingdom of God is coming.
Father Lawrence C. Smith analyzed this text in a very pithy manner when I asked him if Pope Benedicdt was seeking the conversion of the Jews to the Catholic Faith.
The answer to your question is a resounding NO!
1) This is the operative editorial note from Sandro Magister: "This appeal from the pope for the conversion of the Jews – stated as still valid today – will certainly provoke discussion. In any case, it is perfectly consistent with the view expressed by Benedict XVI when meeting the Jews in the synagogue of Cologne, on August 19, 2005." The statement of the "call to conversion" to the Jews is consistent with the view that the Jews need not convert. The bottom line of that self-contradiction is that there is no need for conversion. Oh, and by the way, the full text of the Pope's remarks contains absolutely no such call for conversion.
2) There is an implicit nod in the direction of universal salvation in his remark that the founding of the People of God in Christ is a matter of the unification of all men, irrespective of the necessity of Baptism and membership in the Body of Christ, the Catholic Church.
3) There is no reference to the Cross in his remarks about the Last Supper.
4) There is no reference to the Mass in his remarks about the Presence of Jesus Christ in the Church today.
5) The work of the Apostles is in no way described as calling anyone to conversion, to the renunciation of error, or to explicit, visible, and exclusive membership in the Body of Christ the Catholic Church.
6) Not only is Pope Benedict not calling the Jews to be Catholic, he makes no sign that it is the work of the Church to insist that anyone at all be Catholic.
7) Harnack [the liberal Protestant "theologian"] is not "great."
8) "Conversion" is not a generic word applicable to anyone and anything; the only conversion is away from error and toward Christ in the Catholic Church through Baptism and thence the other Sacraments
9) The "Rock" foundation of the Church is not the college of the Apostles -- ptooey on false collegiality -- but is St. Peter: Pope Benedict is yet again denying his own office; with enemies like Pope Benedict, the sedevacantists don't need any friends.
Father Smith has cut right to the heart of matter: Pope Benedict XVI continues to make complex the simple reality that all men must convert to Catholicism. Mr. Magister believes he has the "key" to unlock Pope Benedict's words, which bear no relationship to the stories he writes about them. Then again, he is doing what I, among many others, did for so long with Pope John Paul II: attempt to ignore reality and to create an illusion to reassure us that things are not as bad as they actually seem.
The reality of our situation bears no resemblance to what Vatican apologists of any stripe want to convince us is true. No, the reality of our situation bears a striking resemblance to this prophetic statement of Saint Nicholas of Flue:
The Church will be punished because the majority of her members, high and low, will become so perverted. The Church will sink deeper and deeper until she will at last seem to be extinguished, and the succession of Peter and the other Apostles to have expired. But, after this, she will be victoriously exalted in the sight of all doubters.
Blessed Anne Katherine Emmerich had a pretty good grasp on what would happen in the future, which appears to describe perfectly our own present days:
Then, I saw that everything that pertained to Protestantism was gradually gaining the upper hand, and the Catholic religion fell into complete decadence. Most priests were lured by the glittering but false knowledge of young school-teachers, and they all contributed to the work of destruction.
In those days, Faith will fall very low, and it will be preserved in some places only, in a few cottages and in a few families which God has protected from disasters and wars.
I see many excommunicated ecclesiastics who do not seem to be concerned about it, or even aware of it. Yet, they are (ipso facto) excommunicated whenever they cooperate to [sic] enterprises, enter into associations, and embrace opinions on which an anathema has been cast. It can be seen thereby that God ratifies the decrees, orders and interdictions issued by the Head of the Church, and that He keeps them in force even though men show no concern for them, reject them, or laugh them to scorn. . . .
I saw that many pastors allowed themselves to be taken up with ideas that were dangerous to the Church. They were building a great, strange, and extravagant Church. Everyone was to be admitted in it in order to be united and have equal rights: Evangelicals, Catholics, sects of every description. Such was to be the new Church. . . But God had other designs.
Yes, God has other designs. We must persevere through our present difficulties, recognizing that God has known from all eternity that we would be alive during them. He wants us to offer up to Him through Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart all of our difficulties and problems in a spirit of perfect trust and equanimity. We must look at reality square in the face then have every confidence in this simple fact: in the end, as Our Lady promised at Fatima, the Immaculate Heart will triumph. In the meantime, of course, we remain steadfast in our assistance at the daily offering of the Mass of all ages (which is indispensable to avoid emotionalism and irrationality), we remain on our knees before the Blessed Sacrament in prayer, and we remain completely under the mantle of Our Most Blessed Mother as we beseech her through her Most Holy Rosary.
Good and faithful Catholics may come to different conclusions about the the nature and the extent of our problems. Good and faithful Catholics may come to different conclusions as to how to act in the midst of our problems. We must support each other in prayer, especially those with whom we disagree and who might consider us daft for the decisions we make. God sees the intentions of all hearts. Better a little humiliation now in order to wait until the intentions of all hearts are made manifest at the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead.
Most importantly, of course, we pray for the Holy Father and the cardinals and the bishops and our priests. Even if one harbors a doubt as to whether our ecclesiastical authorities hold office legitimately, we pray for them nevertheless. Fervently. If they have indeed disqualified themselves, there is all the more reason to pray so that they can receive the light of the true Faith once again. And if they really do hold the offices assigned to them, then our prayers will help in ways that we will only be understood in eternity. No prayer is ever wasted. Not one. Ever. In the very least, you see, our prayers offered to the Blessed Trinity through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary will help our souls, especially in this time of unparalleled crisis and heresy.
Reality is what it is. We should face reality as Catholics and be unafraid to fly to Our Lady, who stands by the Cross of her Divine Son as His Mystical Body undergoes a veritable Passion at the present time.
Our Lady, Help of Christians, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, 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 Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Pope Saint Gregory the Great, pray for us.
Saint Jerome, pray for us.
Saint Athanasius, pray for us.
Saint Basil the Great, pray for us.
Saint Augustine, pray for us.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.
Saint Charles Borromeo, pray for us.
Saint Peter Canisius, pray for us.
Saint Francis de Sales, pray for us.
Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.
Saint Robert Bellarmine, pray for us.
Saint Louis IX, King of France, pray for us.
Saint Henry, pray for us.
Saint Canute, pray for us.
Saint Edward the Confessor, pray for us.
Saint Philomena, pray for us.
Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.
Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.
Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe, pray for us.
Blessed Emperor Charles, pray for us.
Blessed Jacinta, pray for us.
Blessed Francisco, pray for us.
Sister Lucia, pray for us.
The Longer Version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1888
O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil. Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil. Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven. That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels. Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage. Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory. That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity. These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered. Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory. They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude. Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church. Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations. Amen.
Verse: Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.
Response: The Lion of the Tribe of Juda has conquered the root of David.
Verse: Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.
Response: As we have hoped in Thee.
Verse: O Lord hear my prayer.
Response: And let my cry come unto Thee.
Verse: Let us pray. O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin, immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of our souls.
Response: Amen.
