The Silence of the Wolves

by Thomas A. Droleskey

 

Take heed to yourselves, and to the whole flock, wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops, to rule the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. I know that, after my departure, ravening wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock. And of your own selves shall arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.  (Acts 20: 28-30)

State-sponsored executions of the innocent take place every day in this country, both surgically and chemically, the logical result of a world shaped by the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King produced by the Protestant Revolt and the rise of Freemasonry. The wolves in shepherds' clothing who howl about the imposition of the death penalty upon criminals adjudged guilty after due process of committing heinous crimes are silent as the daily carnage of the preborn continues unabated. The wolves in shepherds' clothing howl about alleged injustices done to illegal immigrants, urging Catholics to break the law in the process, while they lift not a finger to challenge laws that permit the starvation and dehydration of disabled human beings. The wolves in shepherds' clothing howl loudly about the necessity of "obeying the law" concerning the placing of orphaned or abandoned children in the care of those steeped in acts of (and/or the support of) unrepentant perverse behavior in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. The wolves in shepherds' clothing howl madly about Roman "interference" in the admission of perverts to study for the priesthood while they promote policies and programs inimical to the sanctification and salvation of the souls for whom Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.

The wolves in shepherds' clothing howl in support of all manner of things that are repugnant to the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law. The wolves in shepherds' clothing howl about the "dangers" posed by Traditional and other so-called "fundamentalist" Catholics while articles contained in the Deposit Faith are placed into doubt or denied outright by themselves and those under their direct authority. The wolves in shepherds' clothing howl about what they assert, falsely, to be the "divisiveness" of the Traditional Latin Mass while they tolerate and/or promote "liturgies" that are so distinct from one another as to create in a de facto manner a spirit of abject congregationalism in each parish. The wolves in shepherds' clothing howl about "social justice" as they act in unjust and arbitrary ways against priests who are faithful to Tradition and to the Deposit of Faith and against members the laity who attempt to bring to their attention grievous matters upon which they should act with alacrity. Anyone who asserts that most of the bishops of the world, save for a few exceptions here and there, have not lost the sensus Catholicus is not dealing with reality.

How can it be that bishops and their representatives can speak about "respecting" state laws governing the placement of children, whose souls must be protected from even the hint of circumstances that could threaten their sanctification and salvation, into the care of perverts and their apologists?

How can it be that bishops and their representatives can speak about "respecting" or "supporting" state laws providing "civil union" recognition to "couples," whether heterosexual or perverted, who are steeped unrepentantly in sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments?

How can it be that every single bishop in this nation mandates some form of explicit classroom instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments when said instruction has been specifically and categorically forbidden by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri?

How can it be that priests and consecrated religious and professors and teachers can remain in canonical good standing while they undermine belief in the miracles of Our Lord and appear on television and radio--and write magazine and "scholarly" articles--that support such things as abortion, contraception, embryonic stem-cell research and transplantation, and the starvation and dehydration of disabled human beings?

How can it be that any bishop or priest could, as a matter of principle, support any exceptions to the inviolability of innocent human life, especially as they support no exceptions to their opposition to the imposition of the death penalty upon criminals?

How can it be that the work of converting souls, a mission entrusted to the Eleven by Our Lord before He ascended to the Father's right hand in glory on Ascension Thursday, is no longer an urgent necessity?

How can it be that the very demonic pagan rituals that were eradicated in Europe and Africa and Asia and the Americas by Catholic missionaries--and by the appearance of the Mother of God herself in Guadalupe in 1531--can be incorporated into the context or alleged acts of Catholic "worship"?

How can it be that that Catholic priests and consecrated religious, both men and women, are permitted to participate in parades in honor of perversity?

How can it be that popes and cardinals and bishops and priests can make it appear as though it was beyond God's power to have created the world and everything in it as is recorded in His own Book of Genesis?

How can it be that the widest possible latitude is given to non-Catholics to use Catholic fora (parishes, schools, universities, seminaries) to undermine Catholic teaching while those who adhere to the fullness of Tradition and to the Deposit of Faith are said to be schismatic and disloyal and disobedient?

Our Lord died for the sanctification and salvation of souls. It must be recognized clearly and unequivocally that most of the Catholic bishops of the world are indeed wolves in shepherds' clothing, men who have been raised up by the devil himself to be placed in positions of authority to do as much damage to souls and thus to the Church in her human elements as possible. John Vennari pointed this out in his masterful The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita:

In his book Athanasius and the Church of Our Time, Bishop Rudolph Graber quoted a Freemason who declared that "the goal [of Freemasonry] is no longer the destruction of the Church, but to make use of it by infiltrating it.

In other words, since Freemasonry cannot completely obliterate Christ's Church, it plans not only to eradicate the influence of Catholicism in society, but also to use the Church's structure as an instrument of "renewal," "progress" and "enlightenment" to further many of its own principles and goals.

The strategy advanced in The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita is astonishing in its audacity and cunning. From the start, the document tells of a process that will take decades to accomplish. Those who drew up the document knew that they would not see its fulfillment. They were inaugurating a work that would be carried on by succeeding generations of the initiated. The Permanent Instruction says, "In our ranks the soldier dies and the struggle goes on."

The Instruction called for the dissemination of liberal ideas and axioms throughout society and within the institutions of the Catholic Church so that laity, seminarians, clerics and prelates would, over the years, gradually be imbued with progressive principles.

In time, this mind-set would be so pervasive that priests would be ordained, bishops would be consecrated and cardinals would be nominated whose thinking was to be in step with the modern thought rooted in the French Revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man and other "Principles of 1789" (equality of religions, separation of Church and State, religious pluralism, etc.)

Eventually, a Pope would be elected from these ranks who would lead the Church on the path of "enlightenment" and "renewal." They stated that it was not their aim to place a Freemason on the Chair of Peter. Their goal was to effect an environment that would eventually produce a Pope and a hierarchy won over to the ideas of liberal Catholicism, all the while believing themselves to be faithful Catholics.

These Catholic leaders, then, would no longer oppose the modern ideas of the Revolution (as had been the consistent practice of the Popes from 1789 until 1958--the death of Pope Pius XII--who condemned these liberal principles) but would amalgamate them into the Church. The end result would be a Catholic clergy and laity marching under the banner of the Enlightenment, all the while thinking they are marching under the banner of the Apostolic keys. [John Vennari, The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita: A Masonic Blueprint for the Subversion of the Catholic Church, pp. 1-3.]

Specifically, Mr. Vennari goes on to state that some cardinals had recognized the success of this plan of infiltration as early as the pontificate of Pope Pius XI (1922-1939):

A little-known drama that unfolded during the reign of Pope Pius XI demonstrates that the underground current of Modernist thought was alive and well in the immediate post-Pius X period.

Father Raymond Dulac relates that at the secret consistory of May 23, 1923, Pope Pius XI questioned the thirty Cardinals of the Curia on the timeliness of summoning an ecumenical council. In attendance were such illustrious prelates as Cardinals Merry del Val, De Lai, Gasparri, Boggiani and Billot. The Cardinals advised against it.

Cardinal Billot warned, "The existence of profound differences in the midst of the episcopacy itself cannot be concealed . . . [They] run the risk of giving place to discussions that will be prolonged indefinitely."

Boggiani recalled the Modernist theories from which, he said, a part of the clergy and of the bishops were not exempt. "This mentality can incline certain Fathers to present motions, to introduce methods incompatible with Catholic traditions."

Billot was even more precise. He expressed his fear of seeing the council "maneuvered" by the worst enemies of the Church, the Modernists, who are already getting ready, as certain indications show, to bring forth the revolution in the Church, a new 1789."

In discouraging the idea of a council for such reasons, these Cardinals showed themselves more apt at recognizing the "signs of the times" than all the post-Vatican II theologians combined. Yet their caution may have been rooted in something deeper. They may also have been haunted by the writings of the infamous illumine, the excommunicated Canon Roca (1830-1893), who preached revolution and Church "reform" and who predicted a subversion of the Church that would be brought about by a council. [John Vennari, The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita: A Masonic Blueprint for the Subversion of the Catholic Church, pp. 15-16.]

Honesty must compel one to recognize that that has indeed happened. The enemies of Our Lord are clothed in shepherds' attire, replete with staffs and mitres. The very "reconciliation" with the principles of 1789 foretold by Cardinal Billot in 1923 was promoted by then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger throughout the course of his priesthood prior to his elevation to the Throne of Saint Peter nearly a year ago now. Pope Benedict XVI has the temerity to speak of a "creative fidelity" to a nondescript, non-denominational "Christian heritage" in Europe while he states that "The Church's action in promoting them [human rights] is therefore not confessional in character, but is addressed to all people, irrespective of any religious affiliation they may have."  Contrast this with the following injunction of Pope Leo XIII, expressing the consistent, unbroken teaching of the Catholic Church, in Sapientiae Christianae, 1890:

The chief elements of this duty consist in professing openly and unflinchingly the Catholic doctrine, and in propagating it to the utmost of our power. For, as is often said, with the greatest truth, there is nothing so hurtful to Christian wisdom as that it should not be known, since it possesses, when loyally received, inherent power to drive away error. So soon as Catholic truth is apprehended by a simple and unprejudiced soul, reason yields assent.

Pope Leo XIII, repeating the consistent teaching of the Church, denounced the State that is without God, noting in in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900, that the State without God leads always to moral ruin:

From this it may clearly be seen what con sequences are to be expected from that false pride which, rejecting our Saviour's Kingship, places man at the summit of all things and declares that human nature must rule supreme. And yet, this supreme rule can neither be attained nor even defined. The rule of Jesus Christ derives its form and its power from Divine Love: a holy and orderly charity is both its foundation and its crown. Its necessary consequences are the strict fulfilment of duty, respect of mutual rights, the estimation of the things of heaven above those of earth, the preference of the love of God to all things. But this supremacy of man, which openly rejects Christ, or at least ignores Him, is entirely founded upon selfishness, knowing neither charity nor selfdevotion. Man may indeed be king, through Jesus Christ: but only on condition that he first of all obey God, and diligently seek his rule of life in God's law. By the law of Christ we mean not only the natural precepts of morality and the Ancient Law, all of which Jesus Christ has perfected and crowned by His declaration, explanation and sanction; but also the rest of His doctrine and His own peculiar institutions. Of these the chief is His Church. Indeed whatsoever things Christ has instituted are most fully contained in His Church. Moreover, He willed to perpetuate the office assigned to Him by His Father by means of the ministry of the Church so gloriously founded by Himself. On the one hand He confided to her all the means of men's salvation, on the other He most solemnly commanded men to be subject to her and to obey her diligently, and to follow her even as Himself: "He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me" (Luke x, 16). Wherefore the law of Christ must be sought in the Church. Christ is man's "Way"; the Church also is his "Way"-Christ of Himself and by His very nature, the Church by His commission and the communication of His power. Hence all who would find salvation apart from the Church, are led astray and strive in vain.

As with individuals, so with nations. These, too, must necessarily tend to ruin if they go astray from "The Way." The Son of God, the Creator and Redeemer of mankind, is King and Lord of the earth, and holds supreme dominion over men, both individually and collectively. "And He gave Him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him" (Daniel vii., 14). "I am appointed King by Him . . . I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession" (Psalm ii., 6, 8). Therefore the law of Christ ought to prevail in human society and be the guide and teacher of public as well as of private life. Since this is so by divine decree, and no man may with impunity contravene it, it is an evil thing for the common weal wherever Christianity does not hold the place that belongs to it. When Jesus Christ is absent, human reason fails, being bereft of its chief protection and light, and the very end is lost sight of, for which, under God's providence, human society has been built up. This end is the obtaining by the members of society of natural good through the aid of civil unity, though always in harmony with the perfect and eternal good which is above nature. But when men's minds are clouded, both rulers and ruled go astray, for they have no safe line to follow nor end to aim at.

Just as it is the height of misfortune to go astray from the "Way," so is it to abandon the "Truth." Christ Himself is the first, absolute and essential "Truth," inasmuch as He is the Word of God, consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father, He and the Father being One. "I am the Way and the Truth." Wherefore if the Truth be sought by the human intellect, it must first of all submit it to Jesus Christ, and securely rest upon His teaching, since therein Truth itself speaketh. There are innumerable and extensive fields of thought, properly belonging to the human mind, in which it may have free scope for its investigations and speculations, and that not only agreeably to its nature, but even by a necessity of its nature. But what is unlawful and unnatural is that the human mind should refuse to be restricted within its proper limits, and, throwing aside its becoming modesty, should refuse to acknowledge Christ's teaching. This teaching, upon which our salvation depends, is almost entirely about God and the things of God. No human wisdom has invented it, but the Son of God hath received and drunk it in entirely from His Father: "The words which thou gavest me, I have given to them" john xvii., 8). Hence this teaching necessarily embraces many subjects which are not indeed contrary to reasonfor that would be an impossibility-but so exalted that we can no more attain them by our own reasoning than we can comprehend God as He is in Himself. If there be so many things hidden and veiled by nature, which no human ingenuity can explain, and yet which no man in his senses can doubt, it would be an abuse of liberty to refuse to accept those which are entirely above nature, because their essence cannot be discovered. To reject dogma is simply to deny Christianity. Our intellect must bow humbly and reverently "unto the obedience of Christ," so that it be held captive by His divinity and authority: "bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians x., 5). Such obedience Christ requires, and justly so. For He is God, and as such holds supreme dominion over man's intellect as well as over his will. By obeying Christ with his intellect man by no means acts in a servile manner, but in complete accordance with his reason and his natural dignity. For by his will he yields, not to the authority of any man, but to that of God, the author of his being, and the first principle to Whom he is subject by the very law of his nature. He does not suffer himself to be forced by the theories of any human teacher, but by the eternal and unchangeable truth. Hence he attains at one and the same time the natural good of the intellect and his own liberty. For the truth which proceeds from the teaching of Christ clearly demonstrates the real nature and value of every being; and man, being endowed with this knowledge, if he but obey the truth as perceived, will make all things subject to himself, not himself to them; his appetites to his reason, not his reason to his appetites. Thus the slavery of sin and falsehood will be shaken off, and the most perfect liberty attained: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" john viii., 32). It is, then, evident that those whose intellect rejects the yoke of Christ are obstinately striving against God. Having shaken off God's authority, they are by no means freer, for they will fall beneath some human sway. They are sure to choose someone whom they will listen to, obey, and follow as their guide. Moreover, they withdraw their intellect from the communication of divine truths, and thus limit it within a narrower circle of knowledge, so that they are less fitted to succeed in the pursuit even of natural science. For there are in nature very many things whose apprehension or explanation is greatly aided by the light of divine truth. Not unfrequently, too, God, in order to chastise their pride, does not permit men to see the truth, and thus they are punished in the things wherein they sin. This is why we often see men of great intellectual power and erudition making the grossest blunders even in natural science.

It must therefore be clearly admitted that, in the life of a Christian, the intellect must be entirely subject to God's authority. And if, in this submission of reason to authority, our self-love, which is so strong, is restrained and made to suffer, this only proves the necessity to a Christian of long-suffering not only in will but also in intellect. We would remind those persons of this truth who desire a kind of Christianity such as they themselves have devised, whose precepts should be very mild, much more indulgent towards human nature, and requiring little if any hardships to be borne. They do not properly under stand the meaning of faith and Christian precepts. They do not see that the Cross meets us everywhere, the model of our life, the eternal standard of all who wish to follow Christ in reality and not merely in name.

God alone is Life. All other beings partake of life, but are not life. Christ, from all eternity and by His very nature, is "the Life," just as He is the Truth, because He is God of God. From Him, as from its most sacred source, all life pervades and ever will pervade creation. Whatever is, is by Him; whatever lives, lives by Him. For by the Word "all things were made; and without Him was made nothing that was made." This is true of the natural life; but, as We have sufficiently indicated above, we have a much higher and better life, won for us by Christ's mercy, that is to say, "the life of grace," whose happy consummation is "the life of glory," to which all our thoughts and actions ought to be directed. The whole object of Christian doctrine and morality is that "we being dead to sin, should live to justice" (I Peter ii., 24)-that is, to virtue and holiness. In this consists the moral life, with the certain hope of a happy eternity. This justice, in order to be advantageous to salvation, is nourished by Christian faith. "The just man liveth by faith" (Galatians iii., II). "Without faith it is impossible to please God" (Hebrews xi., 6). Consequently Jesus Christ, the creator and preserver of faith, also preserves and nourishes our moral life. This He does chiefly by the ministry of His Church. To Her, in His wise and merciful counsel, He has entrusted certain agencies which engender the supernatural life, protect it, and revive it if it should fail. This generative and conservative power of the virtues that make for salvation is therefore lost, whenever morality is dissociated from divine faith. A system of morality based exclusively on human reason robs man of his highest dignity and lowers him from the supernatural to the merely natural life. Not but that man is able by the right use of reason to know and to obey certain principles of the natural law. But though he should know them all and keep them inviolate through life-and even this is impossible without the aid of the grace of our Redeemer-still it is vain for anyone without faith to promise himself eternal salvation. "If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth" john xv., 6). "He that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mark xvi., 16). We have but too much evidence of the value and result of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits and even distress, and that the evil is daily on the increase? We are told that society is quite able to help itself; that it can flourish without the assistance of Christianity, and attain its end by its own unaided efforts. Public administrators prefer a purely secular system of government. All traces of the religion of our forefathers are daily disappearing from political life and administration. What blindness! Once the idea of the authority of God as the Judge of right and wrong is forgotten, law must necessarily lose its primary authority and justice must perish: and these are the two most powerful and most necessary bonds of society. Similarly, once the hope and expectation of eternal happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be greedily sought after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share for himself. Hence arise envy, jealousy, hatred. The consequences are conspiracy, anarchy, nihilism. There is neither peace abroad nor security at home. Public life is stained with crime.

Pope Pius IX had condemned the very errors being promoted today by Pope Benedict XVI, who nowhere mentioned the necessity of restoring Christ as the King of all nations in any of his writings before he became pope and rejects completely and utterly the confessional state that is at the heart of the infallible teaching of the Ordinary Magisterium of the Catholic Church, and his fellow conciliarists. Writing in Quanta Cuara, December 8, 1864, Pope Pius IX condemned as babbling the nonsense of separating Church from state, of having the non-denominational state as the norm, echoing the warnings of his predecessor, Pope Gregory XVI:

But, although we have not omitted often to proscribe and reprobate the chief errors of this kind, yet the cause of the Catholic Church, and the salvation of souls entrusted to us by God, and the welfare of human society itself, altogether demand that we again stir up your pastoral solicitude to exterminate other evil opinions, which spring forth from the said errors as from a fountain. Which false and perverse opinions are on that ground the more to be detested, because they chiefly tend to this, that that salutary influence be impeded and (even) removed, which the Catholic Church, according to the institution and command of her Divine Author, should freely exercise even to the end of the world -- not only over private individuals, but over nations, peoples, and their sovereign princes; and (tend also) to take away that mutual fellowship and concord of counsels between Church and State which has ever proved itself propitious and salutary, both for religious and civil interests.

For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of "naturalism," as they call it, dare to teach that "the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones." And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that "that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require." From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity," viz., that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way." But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;" and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling."

And, since where religion has been removed from civil society, and the doctrine and authority of divine revelation repudiated, the genuine notion itself of justice and human right is darkened and lost, and the place of true justice and legitimate right is supplied by material force, thence it appears why it is that some, utterly neglecting and disregarding the surest principles of sound reason, dare to proclaim that "the people's will, manifested by what is called public opinion or in some other way, constitutes a supreme law, free from all divine and human control; and that in the political order accomplished facts, from the very circumstance that they are accomplished, have the force of right." But who, does not see and clearly perceive that human society, when set loose from the bonds of religion and true justice, can have, in truth, no other end than the purpose of obtaining and amassing wealth, and that (society under such circumstances) follows no other law in its actions, except the unchastened desire of ministering to its own pleasure and interests? For this reason, men of the kind pursue with bitter hatred the Religious Orders, although these have deserved extremely well of Christendom, civilization and literature, and cry out that the same have no legitimate reason for being permitted to exist; and thus (these evil men) applaud the calumnies of heretics. For, as Pius VI, Our Predecessor, taught most wisely, "the abolition of regulars is injurious to that state in which the Evangelical counsels are openly professed; it is injurious to a method of life praised in the Church as agreeable to Apostolic doctrine; it is injurious to the illustrious founders, themselves, whom we venerate on our altars, who did not establish these societies but by God's inspiration."5 And (these wretches) also impiously declare that permission should be refused to citizens and to the Church, "whereby they may openly give alms for the sake of Christian charity"; and that the law should be abrogated "whereby on certain fixed days servile works are prohibited because of God's worship;" and on the most deceptive pretext that the said permission and law are opposed to the principles of the best public economy. Moreover, not content with removing religion from public society, they wish to banish it also from private families. For, teaching and professing the most fatal error of "Communism and Socialism," they assert that "domestic society or the family derives the whole principle of its existence from the civil law alone; and, consequently, that on civil law alone depend all rights of parents over their children, and especially that of providing for education." By which impious opinions and machinations these most deceitful men chiefly aim at this result, viz., that the salutary teaching and influence of the Catholic Church may be entirely banished from the instruction and education of youth, and that the tender and flexible minds of young men may be infected and depraved by every most pernicious error and vice. For all who have endeavored to throw into confusion things both sacred and secular, and to subvert the right order of society, and to abolish all rights, human and divine, have always (as we above hinted) devoted all their nefarious schemes, devices and efforts, to deceiving and depraving incautious youth and have placed all their hope in its corruption. For which reason they never cease by every wicked method to assail the clergy, both secular and regular, from whom (as the surest monuments of history conspicuously attest), so many great advantages have abundantly flowed to Christianity, civilization and literature, and to proclaim that "the clergy, as being hostile to the true and beneficial advance of science and civilization, should be removed from the whole charge and duty of instructing and educating youth."

The acceptance of the "principles of 1789,"  which themselves were the logical result of the rise of the Modern State produced by Protestantism and Freemasonry, is what led  directly to the state-sponsored murder of Mrs. Theresa Marie Schindler-Schiavo a year ago today. A brain-damaged woman was denied her basic human rights by being starved and dehydrated to death, a process that began on March 18, 2005, which was the Feast of the Seven Dolors of Our Lady last year, and today, March 31, which was Thursday in the Octave of Easter at this time last year. While some have written to denounce the actions of her faithless husband, Michael Schiavo, whose actions are certainly deplorable, it must be pointed out that Mr. Schiavo was enabled at every turn by the Bishop of Saint Petersburg, Florida, the Most Reverend Robert Lynch, who persisted until the end of Mrs. Schiavo's ordeal in refusing to admit that Pope John Paul II himself had stated that the provision of food and water to disabled persons was not "medical treatment" or "extraordinary means" but simply the normative care demanded by the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law.

Bishop Lynch did not call for Judge George Greer's decisions to permit the starvation and degradation of Mrs. Schiavo to be violated. He was never physically present in front of the Woodside Hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida, to pray the Rosary with those who were supporting Mrs. Schiavo's fundamental right to life. Indeed, only two priests from the Diocese of Saint Petersburg were present on a consistent basis in front of the Woodside Hospice. Several priests from national pro-life organizations were present rather consistently. And Father Brendan Dardis, who is associated with the Society of Saint Pius X, traveled from Kentucky to Florida to lead the recitation of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary for several days as Mrs. Schiavo was being murdered. The silence of Mrs. Schiavo's wolf in shepherds' clothing,  Bishop Robert Lynch, who boasted of doing "holy war" with Rome to push the liturgical revolution beyond even where Rome was willing to take it, was deafening. Bishop Lynch remains a bishop in "good standing," doesn't he?

Bishop Lynch's fellow wolves in shepherds' clothing also remain in good standing. Only a handful of bishops spoke out and/or wrote in support of Mrs. Schiavo's right to life. Among these bishops were the Most Reverend Thomas Wenski, Bishop of Orlando, Florida, the Most Reverend Robert Vasa, Bishop of Baker City, Oregon, the Most Reverend Fabian Bruskewitz, the Bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska, Justin Cardinal Rigali, the Archbishop of Philadelphia, the Most Reverend Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Denver, Colorado, and the Most Reverend Michael Sheridan, the Bishop of Colorado Springs, Colorado. With a few exceptions that do not come immediately to mind as of this writing, most of the remaining 186 diocesan ordinaries of the United States of America were silent as Mrs. Schiavo lay dying in great pain from starvation and dehydration. Not even the plea for Mrs. Schiavo's life made by Renato Cardinal Martino, the President of the Pontifical Council for Peace and Justice, moved most of the American bishops to break the evil bonds formed by the conciliarist novelty of "collegiality," which is translates into "Thou shalt not criticize thy brother bishops."

When you think about it, however, how could many of the bishops in this country criticize Bishop Robert Lynch. Catholic hospitals in their own dioceses permit the starvation and dehydration of disabled human beings regularly. One such instance occurred in a northeastern state in 1995. Eyewitnesses to the starvation and dehydration of a priest provided me with incontrovertible evidence about what had happened to him in a Catholic hospital for inclusion in a story that I had prepared for publication in The Wanderer. The threat of a lawsuit by the hospital's administrator, however, was enough to cause the witnesses to demur. Just three years later, though, episcopal support for the starvation and dehydration of disabled human beings was on full display. Archbishop Thomas Kelly, O.P., of Louisville, Kentucky, who personally banned me, then just a "traditional-leaning conservative Catholic," from speaking in the undercroft of his cathedral in 1995, and and Bishop Walter Sullivan, then the Bishop of Richmond, Virginia, supported Mrs. Michelle Finn's efforts to starve her disabled husband, Hugh Finn, to death under cover of the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia. No, the truth is this: many of bishops support the execution of innocent human beings who are in need of assistance to be fed and hydrated.

What happened to Archbishop Kelly and Bishop Sullivan in 1998? Nothing. Archbishop Kelly is still in power in Louisville. He will retire in perfectly good standing when he turns seventy-five years of age this July 14, 2006. Bishop Sullivan retired in good standing on September 16, 2003, after thirty-three years of supporting nefarious causes. The novelty of episcopal collegiality imprisons not bishops. It imprisons popes from removing men who are threats to the eternal welfare of the souls for whom Our Lord gave up His very life on the wood of the Holy Cross. Scores of Terri Schiavos are dying in hospitals across this nation and the world because Catholic bishops say nothing as family members are in complete agreement about the murder of their relatives. The only reason that Mrs. Schiavo's case made headlines between 2001 and 2005 was that she had family members who wanted to save her life, not because her shepherd, who had the obligation to safeguard her body and soul, and to warn her faithless husband that he risked the fires of hell for seeking to kill her by the removal of her food and water.

Some will protest that it is not "charitable" to write such "harsh" things about bishops, who are the Successors of the Apostles. It is never uncharitable to write the truth. It is an ultimate act of charity to speak the truth. One cannot put into words the grief in one's soul produced by seeing so many young Catholics bereft of any understanding of their Faith as I saw in my thirty years of formal classroom teaching at the college and university levels. One cannot put into words the horror of experiencing professors in seminaries deride the miracles of Our Lord and/or promote one objective moral evil after another. One cannot put into words the sadness of watching Our Lord profaned at the hands of priests in the offering of Holy Mass. One cannot express enough bewilderment at how bishops and their chancery factotums have promoted perversity and then browbeaten the lay people who were victimized once by the perverts and then again and again by chancery officials and the attorneys let loose to devour them as so much rubbish. One cannot put into words the incredible blindness caused by Modernism's embrace of the very factors in the world that led to Mrs. Schiavo's state-sonsored execution. The true state of the episcopate worldwide is beyond pathetic. The true state of the episcopate worldwide corresponds to these telling words of Pope Pius IX, included in his first encyclical letter, Qui Pluribus, November 9, 1846:

To this end also tend the most dark designs of men in the clothing of sheep, while inwardly ravening wolves. They humbly recommend themselves by means of a feigned and deceitful appearance of a purer piety, a stricter virtue and discipline; after taking their captives gently, they mildly bind them, and then kill them in secret. They make men fly in terror from all practice of religion, and they cut down and dismember the sheep of the Lord. To this end, finally -- to omit other dangers which are too well known to you -- tends the widespread disgusting infection from books and pamphlets which teach the lessons of sinning. These works, well-written and filled with deceit and cunning, are scattered at immense cost through every region for the destruction of the Christian people. They spread pestilential doctrines everywhere and deprave the minds especially of the imprudent, occasioning great losses for religion.

As a result of this filthy medley of errors which creeps in from every side, and as the result of the unbridled license to think, speak and write, We see the following: morals deteriorated, Christ's most holy religion despised, the majesty of divine worship rejected, the power of this Apostolic See plundered, the authority of the Church attacked and reduced to base slavery, the rights of bishops trampled on, the sanctity of marriage infringed, the rule of every government violently shaken and many other losses for both the Christian and the civil commonwealth. Venerable brothers, We are compelled to weep and share in your lament that this is the case.

Therefore, in this great crisis for religion, because We are greatly concerned for the salvation of all the Lord's flock and in fulfillment of the duty of Our Apostolic ministry, We shall certainly leave no measure untried in Our vigorous effort to secure the good of the whole Christian family. Indeed, We especially call forth in the Lord your own illustrious piety, virtue and prudence, venerable brothers. With these and relying on heavenly aid, you may fearlessly defend the cause of God and His holy Church as befits your station and the office for which you are marked. You must fight energetically, since you know very well what great wounds the undefiled Spouse of Christ Jesus has suffered, and how vigorous is the destructive attack of Her enemies. You must also care for and defend the Catholic faith with episcopal strength and see that the flock entrusted to you stands to the end firm and unmoved in the faith. For unless one preserves the faith entire and uninjured, he will without doubt perish forever.

So, in accordance with your pastoral care, work assiduously to protect and preserve this faith. Never cease to instruct all men in it, to encourage the wavering, to convince dissenters, to strengthen the weak in faith by never tolerating and letting pass anything which could in the slightest degree defile the purity of this faith. With the same great strength of mind, foster in all men their unity with the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation; also foster their obedience towards this See of Peter on which rests the entire structure of our most holy religion. See to it with similar firmness that the most holy laws of the Church are observed, for it is by these laws that virtue, religion and piety particularly thrive and flourish.

"It is an act of great piety to expose the concealments of the impious and to defeat there the devil himself, whose slaves they are. Therefore We entreat you to use every means of revealing to your faithful people the many kinds of plot, pretense, error, deceit and contrivance which our enemies use. This will turn them carefully away from infectious books. Also exhort them unceasingly to flee from the sects and societies of the impious as from the presence of a serpent, earnestly avoiding everything which is at variance with the wholeness of faith, religion and morality. Therefore, never stop preaching the Gospel, so that the Christian people may grow in the knowledge of God by being daily better versed in the most holy precepts of the Christian law; as a result, they may turn from evil, do good, and walk in the ways of the Lord. You know that you are acting as deputies for Christ, who is meek ant humble, and who came not to call the just but sinners. This is the example that we should follow. When you find someone disregarding the commandments and wandering from the path of truth and justice, rebuke them in the spirit of mildness and meekness with paternal warnings; accuse, entreat and reprove them with all kindness, patience and doctrine. "Often benevolence towards those who are to be corrected achieves more than severity, exhortation more than threats, and love more than power."

The sheep need their shepherds to be faithful to the entirety of the Church's authentic Tradition. There are a few bishops who are kindly disposed to Tradition. Bishop Robert Finn in Kansas City, Missouri, is one. Bishop Thomas Olmsted in Phoenix, Arizona, is yet another. Archbishop Raymond Burke is a third. Such bishops truly need to be encouraged to embrace the totality of Tradition without compromise and to realize the harm of conciliarism. They are not wolves in shepherds' clothing despite whatever weaknesses and shortcoming may be present in their dioceses. Those that are wolves, however, have resisted all efforts over the years to accept correction offered with benevolence and forbearance by priests and laity alike. They persist in picking apart the sheep of the one Sheepfold of Our Lord as they promote errors and evils. They treat the sheep with contempt and persecute holy priests who are attempting to save souls as best they can under difficult circumstances.

When all is said and done, however, we must reckon with this simple fact: we get the bishops we deserve. That is, one of the signs that God is thoroughly displeased with his people, as a traditional priest reminded his flock in a sermon in March of 2004, is to send them bad, corrupt priests. How much more is this the case when He sends us bad, doctrinally and morally corrupt bishops? We bear our share of the blame for the state of the Church in her human elements today. There is no escaping this simple fact.

We have not prayed enough. We have not prayed enough for the Church. We have not prayed enough for popes, both living and deceased. We have not prayed enough for our bishops, yes, including those who are the wolves in shepherds' clothing. We have not spent enough time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. We have not prayed enough Rosaries. We have not distributed enough Miraculous Medals and Green Scapulars to those outside of the Church. We have not fasted enough. We have detached ourselves enough from the ways of the world, the flesh, and the devil, making too many compromises in our daily lives with a culture that is from the devil and leads straight to hell. We have not been bold enough to speak about the Faith to our family members, our friends, our acquaintances, our co-workers. We are getting, therefore, the episcopate and the clergy that we deserve for our own lukewarmness and our own unwillingness to offer up the difficulties of this present era in the history of the Church Militant on earth with total confidence to God through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Yes, it is important to state the reality of our situation with forthrightness. It is also important to redouble our own efforts, especially as we are on the cusp of Passiontide, which begins with First Vespers tomorrow evening, Saturday, April 1, 2006, to make reparation for our own sins and those of the whole world. We must realize that God has known from all eternity that we would be alive during these difficult times in Church history, these times when the Mystical Body of Christ on earth is undergoing a veritable Passion. The graces He won for us by the shedding of every drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross are sufficient for us to deal with these problems, which will not be ameliorated until some pope actually consecrates Russia to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart with all of the world's bishops, thereby ceasing the spread of the errors of Russia, which are really the anti-Incarnational errors of Modernity in the world and Modernism in the Church.

In the meantime, though, we must never despair of God's help. He has not abandoned His Church. He means to use us, despite our own sins and weaknesses, to be instruments of planting the seeds for that glorious day when a pope will obey Our Lady's Fatima Message. We may not live to see the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary with our own eyes. Moses did not live to enter the Promised Land, although he saw it from a distance. The Apostles and the early martyrs of the Church did not live to see the glories of Christendom. God means to use our fidelity, however, to Him as the consecrated slaves of His Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart in ways that we will only understand in eternity. What matters now is that we strive to persevered in states of sanctifying grace until the moment of our dying breaths. Then it will be, please God we are granted that grace of Final Perseverance, that the merits of His own Easter victory over sin and eternal death will be applied to our own poor souls, whether immediately or after a time of expiation as members of the Church Suffering in Purgatory. We must never lose sight of the necessity of working first for the conversion of our own souls on a daily basis, especially by means of frequent Confession and the worthy reception of Holy Communion in the Immemorial Mass of Tradition, and then doing what we can to help others embrace the fullness of the Church's authentic Tradition without compromise.

Finally, we must forgive the wolves in shepherds' clothing. That's right, we must forgive them even as we rebuke them for their crimes against souls. God wants them to be with Him for all eternity in Heaven. He wants them to be converted from their pride and errors. We must forgive them as God forgives us in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance, as He forgave His executioners, meaning each one of us, from the gibbet of the Holy Cross on Good Friday. Victim-souls such as Theresa Marie Schindler-Schiavo are praying for the conversion of men such as Bishop Robert Lynch, just as surely as Saint Stephen prayed for the conversion of Saul of Tarsus and just as surely as Saint Maria Goretti prayed for the conversion of her own murderer, Alessandro Serenelli.

May our prayer be this Passiontide that the wolves in shepherds' clothing will be transformed into the Good Shepherd, transformed into men who embrace all of the Church's authentic patrimony and who seek only the honor and glory of the Blessed Trinity as they work hard to the salvation of the souls of all men, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, and offering Him only the form of worship that He taught the Apostles to offer before He ascended into Heaven, that is the Immemorial Mass of Tradition. It is an obligation of filial piety to pray for our shepherds, good and bad alike, remembering as many by name as possible, especially during Passiontide. The soul we save in the process might just be our own. Perhaps the scourge of the bad bishops and bad priests that is being visited upon us at present may lessen, at least a little bit, if we simply prayed more and talked less, which is why there will be nothing other than commentaries on the events of Passiontide on this site until after Easter Sunday.

May each of you have a blessed Passiontide, remembering that we must do penance for our own sins on a regular basis and to pray fervently for all those who are in need of cooperating with Our Lady's graces to accept the glories of Tradition without compromise and without delay.

Let us remember as well, especially today, to pray for the repose of the soul of the late Mrs. Theresa Marie Schindler-Schiavo in our prayers--and to pray for her parents and her brother and sister who tried so valiantly to save her life.

Our Lady of Sorrows, 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.

Saint Andrew, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint James the Greater, pray for us.

Saint James the Lesser, pray for us.

Saint Jude, pray for us.

Saint Simon, pray for us.

Saint Philip, pray for us.

Saint Bartholomew, pray for us.

Saint Matthias, pray for us.

Saint Thomas the Apostle, pray for us.

Saint Matthew, pray for us.

Saint Mark, pray for us.

Saint Luke, pray for us.

Saint Barnabas, pray for us.

Saints Titus and Timothy, pray for us.

Saints Fabian and Sebastian, pray for us.

Saint Eustacius and Companions, pray for us.

Saints Cosmas and Damian, pray for us.

Saints Gervase and Protase, pray for us.

Saints Perpetua and Felicity, pray for us.

Pope Saint Clement I, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Agnes, pray for us.

Saint Agatha, pray for us.

Saint Lawrence the Deacon, pray for us.

Saint Stephen the Deacon, pray for us.

Saint Jerome, pray for us.

Pope Saint Damasus, pray for us.

Pope Saint Melchiades, pray for us.

Saint Benedict, pray for us.

Saint Scholastica, pray for us.

Saint John Damascene, pray for us.

Saint John Chrysostom, pray for us.

Saint John Capistran, pray for us.

Saint Meinrad, pray for us.

Saint Boniface, pray for us.

Saint Augustine of Hippo, pray for us.

Saint Augustine of Canterbury, pray for us.

Saint Patrick, pray for us.

Saint Denis and Companions, pray for us.

Saint Louis IX, King of France, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Clare of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Francis de Sales, pray for us.

Saint Alphonsus Liguori, pray for us.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

Saint Dominic, pray for us.

Saint Albert the Great, pray for us.

Saint John Bosco, pray for us.

Saint John Marie Vianney, pray for us.

Saint Rita, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saint Maria Goretti, pray for us.

Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.

Pope Saint Gregory the Great, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.

Saint John Neumann, pray for us.

Saint Nicholas of Flue, pray for us.

Saint Nicholas of Myra, pray for us.

Saint Peter Damien, pray for us.

Saint Padre Pio, pray for us.

Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe, pray for us.

Saint Catherine Laboure, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Catherine of Siena, pray for us.

Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.

Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.

Blessed Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, pray for us.

Blessed Junipero Serra, pray for us.

Blessed Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.

Blessed Francisco, pray for us.

Blessed Jacinta, pray for us.

Sister Lucia, pray for us.