Wear Your Catholic Stripes Well

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Several articles on this site over the years have dealt with the sting that many Catholics feel as they are castigated by their family members and associates for rejecting conciliarism and its false shepherds. One of these articles was Understood By God Alone, published on the Feast of Saint John of God, March 8, 2010. It is worth re-reading, especially for those who have been rejected and ostracized as a result of seeking only the greater honor and glory of the Most Blessed Trinity by pointing out no true pope of the Catholic Church has ever esteemed the symbols of false religions, no less done so in public, or has given "joint blessings" with the "clergy" of false religions or has entered into places of false worship and called them "sacred." None of this has been done before. None of this can come from the Catholic Church, something, yes, yes yes, that it took me long enough to recognize and to accept.

Indeed, I have tried to be very careful in these articles to note the defections of conciliarism from the Catholic Faith while at the same time refusing to pass judgment on ordinary Catholics who find themselves attached to the structures of the false religion. The subjective state of souls is known only to God. While it is one thing to exhort our fellow Catholics to look at our ecclesiastical situation honestly and to compare the words and deeds of our true popes with the words and deeds of the pretenders to the Throne of Saint Peter of the past fifty-two years, it is quite another thing to lay blame on ordinary Catholics who do not want to admit that were are in the midst of an era of apostasy, betrayal and sacrilege. The blame for our situation rests squarely with the conciliar revolutionaries.

Human nature being what it is, however, many Catholics who have broken with the false church of conciliarism have been visited with cross upon cross of rejection, ridicule and ostracism. One person known to us learned recently from a longtime friend that her own family no longer considered her to be a Catholic because she went to a chapel where the legitimacy of the man who blasphemes God regularly and denies the nature of dogmatic truth in favor of the philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, is rejected as the Faith of our fathers is maintained without any concessions to the errors of conciliarism. No longer a Catholic, eh?

Well, I am sure that some of you have heard this from your relatives and friends over the years. No longer a Catholic. No longer a Catholic.

Let's just explore who is not a Catholic, all right? Indulge me on this one, my few and rather penurious (smile!--can't you take a good-natured ribbing), readers.

Consider the facts below that I assembled in an article published nearly seven months ago to see who is and who is not a Catholic. I believe it useful to reprise the list, which appeared first in Apologizing to Everyone Save For God Himself, April 23, 2010, and has been expanded and updated in light of events that have occurred since that article's publication. People forget. Many fully traditional Catholics are under siege on an almost daily basis by their relatives and friends. Perhaps this "reality check," to borrow a phrase from Novus Ordo Watch, will help serve as a reminder to those who are under such siege that we did not invent the events below. And the events below are incompatible with the Catholic Faith. Many have been condemned by the authority of the Catholic Church.

2005

May 13: Taking "canonical" possession of the Basilica of San Giovanni di Laterano, the cathedral of the pope in his capacity as the Bishop of Rome, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI announced that he was appointing a fellow Modernist and protege, William Levada, to be his own successor as the prefect of the conciliar Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. Ratzinger/Benedict also announced that he was placing his predecessor, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II on the "fast track" for conciliar "canonization."

August 19: Speaking to members of Protestant sects and Orthodox confessions in Cologne, Germany, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI specifically rejected what he called the "ecumenism of the return:"

We all know there are numerous models of unity and you know that the Catholic Church also has as her goal the full visible unity of the disciples of Christ, as defined by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council in its various Documents (cf. Lumen Gentium, nn. 8, 13; Unitatis Redintegratio, nn. 2, 4, etc.). This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (cf. Unitatis Redintegratio, n. 4); the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world.

On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return:  that is, to deny and to reject one's own faith history. Absolutely not!

It does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline. Unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity in unity:  in my Homily for the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul on 29 June last, I insisted that full unity and true catholicity in the original sense of the word go together. As a necessary condition for the achievement of this coexistence, the commitment to unity must be constantly purified and renewed; it must constantly grow and mature. (Ecumenical meeting at the Archbishopric of Cologne English)

 

Here is what our true popes have written on the matter of the "ecumenism of the return:"

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

So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. During the lapse of centuries, the mystical Spouse of Christ has never been contaminated, nor can she ever in the future be contaminated, as Cyprian bears witness: "The Bride of Christ cannot be made false to her Spouse: she is incorrupt and modest. She knows but one dwelling, she guards the sanctity of the nuptial chamber chastely and modestly."The same holy Martyr with good reason marveled exceedingly that anyone could believe that "this unity in the Church which arises from a divine foundation, and which is knit together by heavenly sacraments, could be rent and torn asunder by the force of contrary wills." For since the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one, compacted and fitly joined together, it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

 

Who is Catholic here? "Pope" Benedict XVI or Popes Pius IX and Pius XI?

 

August 19: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict enters into a Talmudic synagogue in Cologne, Germany, refusing to seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of those steeped in these false religion.

At the Cologne synagogue: prayer with the Jews

October 7: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI praised his Hegelian mentor in the New Theology (which was condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950), Father Hans Urs von Balthasar:

Hans Urs von Balthasar, the Pope writes, ‘was a theologian who put his work at the service of the Church,’ because he was convinced that theology is useful only within the context of Catholic practice. ‘I can testify that his life was an authentic search for truth," the Pope adds. Pope Benedict says that he hopes the 100th-anniversary observance will stimulate a revival of interest in the work of von Balthasar, recalling Henri de Lubac's claim that the Swiss theologian was "the most cultured man of our century.’ The Lateran University seminar is co-sponsored by Communio, the international theological journal that was founded by von Balthasar in cooperation with theologians such as Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) and Angelo Scola (now the Patriarch of Venice). Participants in the weekend's discussions include Cardinal Scola, Cardinal James Stafford, and Cardinal Marc Ouellet.” (Catholic World News.com, October 7, 2005.)

 

December 9: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI wished "God's abundant blessings" upon the Methodists who were attending his General Audience that day:

Since 1967, our dialogue has treated major theological themes such as: revelation and faith, tradition and teaching authority in the Church. These efforts have been candid in addressing areas of difference. They have also demonstrated a considerable degree of convergence and are worthy of reflection and study. Our dialogue and the many ways in which Catholics and Methodists have become better acquainted have allowed us to recognize together some of those "Christian treasures of great value". On occasion, this recognition has enabled us to speak with a common voice in addressing social and ethical questions in an increasingly secularized world. I have been encouraged by the initiative which would bring the member churches of the World Methodist Council into association with the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, signed by the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation in 1999. Should the World Methodist Council express its intent to associate itself with the Joint Declaration, it would assist in contributing to the healing and reconciliation we ardently desire, and would be a significant step towards the stated goal of full visible unity in faith.

Dear friends, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and mindful of God’s great and abiding Mercy throughout the world, let us seek to foster a mutual commitment to the Word of God, to witness and to joint prayer. As we prepare our hearts and minds to welcome the Lord in this Advent season, I invoke God’s abundant blessings upon all of you and on Methodists throughout the world. (Address of Benedict XVI to Methodists.)

 

The Methodists have no "commitment" to the Word of God as they do not accept It as It has been entrusted exclusively by God Himself to the authority of the Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. The Methodists also, just incidentally, you understand, reject entirely Apostolic or Sacred Tradition as the other source of Divine Revelation. "Joint prayer"? Strictly forbidden by the teaching authority and canonical doctrine of the Catholic Church (see The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion.)

December 22: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI uses a Christmas address to the members of the conciliar curia to give his own "papal" imprimatur to the "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity," blaspheming God the Holy Ghost Himself, Who has ever guided the Catholic Church in papal teachings and dogmatic decrees, by claiming that it was "necessary to learn" that the immemorial teaching of the Catholic Church is subject to different interpretations at different times:

"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 by the use of this philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity" that Ratzinger/Benedict justified the errors of "religious liberty," blaspheming the martyrs of the first centuries of the Church by saying that they were "martyrs for religious liberty," and a "re-thinking" of the "church's" "relationship with the 'faith of Israel'" in light of the "Shoah."

Consider the teaching of the [First] Vatican Council:

Hence, that meaning of the sacred dogmata is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy Mother Church, and there must never be an abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.... If anyone says that it is possible that at some given time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmata propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has always understood and understands: let him be anathema." [Vatican Council, 1870.] (See also Ratzinger's War Against Catholicism and  Continuity Plus Discontinuity Will Always Equal Insanity .)

 

2006

 

November 26: The Nativity Story, a blasphemous motion picture, produced by a Protestant, made its world premiere at the Paul VI Audience Hall in the Vatican, introduced by the then "Archbishop" (now "Cardinal") John Foley, the President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, and approved personally by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. The motion picture is a blasphemous depiction of Our Lady as a sulky, moody, rebellious teenager, thereby a denial of her gift of perfect Integrity of body and soul that is one of the chief doctrinal effects of her Immaculate Conception.

November 30: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI appeared as an equal with "Patriarch" Bartholomew I in Istanbul, Turkey, issuing a joint statement which included the following statement, "This commitment comes from the Lord’s will and from our responsibility as Pastors in the Church of Christ" (Common Declaration by Benedict XVI and Patriarch Bartholomew I). Bartholomew I, who "prayed" with Ratzinger/Benedict in the Sistine Chapel on Saturday, October 18, 2008, for an end to "fundamentalism" and for "religious tolerance, is not a "pastor" in the Church of Christ. The only Church of Christ is the Catholic Church, from which the heretic Bartholomew I is in schism. He is not a "pastor" in the Church of Christ. Of course, neither is Ratzinger/Benedict.

Benedict embraces schismatic patriarch Bartholomew I before praying together in the

 

November 30: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI entered into the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, taking off his shoes so as to symbolize that he was in a "holy place" and then turned in the direction of Mecca at the behest of his Mohammedan "host," who instructed him to assume the Mohammedan prayer position as they "prayed" together. God is offended by honor being given to such a false religion as the souls of His faithful Catholics are scandalized and bewildered and confused as a consequence.

Ratzinger at the Blue Mosque

2007

 

April 21: The International Theological Commission issues The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised, which concludes that there is every "hope" that unbaptized infants go to Heaven. This study, which is one of those "non-binding" conciliar documents, you understand, gave "official" expression to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's own view, which are in contradiction to the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church:

Limbo was never a defined truth of faith. Personally - and here I am speaking more as a theologian and not as Prefect of the Congregation - I would abandon it since it was only a theological hypothesis. It formed part of a secondary thesis in support of a truth which is absolutely of first significance for faith, namely, the importance of baptism. To put it in the words of Jesus to Nicodemus: 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God' (John 3:5). One should not hesitate to give up the idea of limbo, if need be (and it is worth noting that the very theologians who proposed 'limbo' also said that parents could spare the child limbo by desiring its baptism and through prayer); but the concern behind it must not be surrendered. Baptism has never been a side issue for faith; it is not now, nor will it ever be."  (Joseph Ratzinger, as Quoted in Vittorio Messori's The Ratzinger Report.)

For who would not detest a crime [abortion] as execrable as this — a crime whose consequence is that not just bodies, but — still worse! — even souls, are, as it were, cast away? The soul of the unborn infant bears the imprint of God’s image! It is a soul for whose redemption Christ our Lord shed His precious blood, a soul capable of eternal blessedness and destined for the company of angels! Who, therefore, would not condemn and punish with the utmost severity the desecration committed by one who has excluded such a soul from the blessed vision of God? Such a one has done all he or she could possibly have done to prevent this soul from reaching the place prepared for it in heaven, and has deprived God of the service of this His own creature." (Pope Sixtus V, Effrænatam, October 28, 1588 translation by Father Brian Harrison, Could Limbo Be 'Abolished'?)

June 30: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI sells out the underground Catholics in Red China, telling them to "reconcile" with the Communist-sponsored "Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association," a sellout more sweeping in its scope than Giovanni Montini/Paul VI's betrayal of the Primate of Hungary, Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty. The "guidelines" issued by Ratzinger/Benedict were so confusing that a "compendium" had to issue for the sake of "clarification" in 2009. (See  Red China: Workshop for the New Ecclesiology.)

July 7: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict issues Summorum Pontificum to "liberate" the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition. Traditionally-minded Catholics attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism rejoiced that this represented an important step in the "restoration" of what they believe to be the Catholic Church even that Ratzinger/Benedict made it clear that they would have to accept some of the prefaces and feast days included in the "Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite (that is, the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service), something that was reiterated recently by William "Cardinal" Levada (see Words Really Do Matter) during his "dedication" of the new chapel at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, Nebraska, that is run by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter.

Summorum Pontificum was also premised on the abject lie, for which Ratzinger/Benedict has never apologized, that there is no contradiction between two "forms" of the "one" Roman Rite. Who says that this is a lie? Ratzinger/Benedict himself, of course:

There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church's faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place. Needless to say, in order to experience full communion, the priests of the communities adhering to the former usage cannot, as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books. The total exclusion of the new rite would not in fact be consistent with the recognition of its value and holiness (Explanatory Letter on "Summorum Pontificum".)

What happened after the Council was something else entirely: in the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it--as in a manufacturing process--with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product. Gamber, with the vigilance of a true prophet and the courage of a true witness, oppose this falsification, and thanks to his incredibly rich knowledge, indefatigably taught us about the living fullness of a true liturgy. As a man who knew and loved history, he showed us the multiple forms and paths of liturgical development; as a man who looked at history form the inside, he saw in this development and its fruit the intangible reflection of the eternal liturgy, that which is not the object of our action but which can continue marvelously to mature and blossom if we unite ourselves intimately with its mystery. (Joseph Ratzinger, Preface to the French language edition of Monsignor Klaus Gamber's The Reform of the Roman Liturgy.)

The prohibition of the missal that was now decreed, a missal that had known continuous growth over the centuries, starting with the sacramentaries of the ancient Church, introduced a breach into the history of the liturgy whose consequences could only be tragic. It was reasonable and right of the Council to order a revision of the missal such as had often taken place before and which this time had to be more thorough than before, above all because of the introduction of the vernacular.

But more than this now happened: the old building was demolished, and another was built, to be sure largely using materials from the previous one and even using the old building plans. There is no doubt that this new missal in many respects brought with it a real improvement and enrichment; but setting it as a new construction over against what had grown historically, forbidding the results of this historical growth. thereby makes the liturgy appear to be no longer living development but the produce of erudite work and juridical authority; this has caused an enormous harm. For then the impression had to emerge that liturgy is something "made", not something given in advance but something lying without our own power of decision. (Joseph Ratzinger, Milestones.)

 

No "restoration" of the Catholic Church can take place on the foundation of lies, which come from the devil, not from God, Who hates lies and is, of course, the Author of all truth. Some adherents of the Talmud were upset

August 4: Paul "Cardinal" Poupard, then the President of the "Pontifical" Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, read the following letter written by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict to those attending an "inter-religious" conference taking place on Mount Hiei, Japan, a place where the Tendai sect of the false religion known as Buddhism first established itself:

I am glad to greet you and all the religious leaders gathered on the occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Religious Summit Meeting on Mount Hiei. I wish also to convey my best wishes to Venerable Eshin Watanabe, and to recall your distinguished predecessor as Supreme Head of the Tendai Buddhist Denomination, Venerable Etai Yamada. It was he who, having participated in the Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi on that memorable day of 27 October 1986, initiated the “Religious Summit Meeting” on Mount Hiei in Kyoto in order to keep the flame of the spirit of Assisi burning. I am also happy that Cardinal Paul Poupard, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, is able to take part in this meeting.

From the supernatural perspective we come to understand that peace is both a gift from God and an obligation for every individual. Indeed the world’s cry for peace, echoed by families and communities throughout the globe, is at once both a prayer to God and an appeal to every brother and sister of our human family. As you assemble on the sacred Mount Hiei, representing different religions, I assure you of my spiritual closeness. May your prayers and cooperation fill you with God’s peace and strengthen your resolve to witness to the reason of peace which overcomes the irrationality of violence!

Upon you all I invoke an abundance of divine blessings of inspiration, harmony and joy. (This used to be found on the DICI site of the Society of Saint Pius X; it is no longer there. Surprise, surprise, surprise, Sergeant Carter: Surprise Surprise Surprise.)

 

To whom is Mount Hiei "sacred"? Not to the true God of Divine Revelation. To the devil, that's who.

August 27: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict bestowed "papal" knighthood upon the pro-abortion, pro-perversity Rabbi Leon Klenicki. (see Continuing to Knight Infidels).

October 13: The Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue Between the Roman Catholic Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church issues The Ravenna Document, which featured a longtime goal of the late Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI: proposing that the "Petrine ministry" could be understood now as it the conciliarists contend that it was understood during the First Millennium:

It remains for the question of the role of the bishop of Rome in the communion of all the Churches to be studied in greater depth. What is the specific function of the bishop of the “first see” in an ecclesiology of koinonia and in view of what we have said on conciliarity and authority in the present text? How should the teaching of the first and second Vatican councils on the universal primacy be understood and lived in the light of the ecclesial practice of the first millennium? These are crucial questions for our dialogue and for our hopes of restoring full communion between us.

We, the members of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, are convinced that the above statement on ecclesial communion, conciliarity and authority represents positive and significant progress in our dialogue, and that it provides a firm basis for future discussion of the question of primacy at the universal level in the Church. We are conscious that many difficult questions remain to be clarified, but we hope that, sustained by the prayer of Jesus “That they may all be one … so that the world may believe” (Jn 17, 21), and in obedience to the Holy Spirit, we can build upon the agreement already reached. Reaffirming and confessing “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4, 5), we give glory to God the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who has gathered us together. (The Ravenna Document)

How, then are the maximum demands to be decided in advance? Certainly, no one who claims allegiance to Catholic theology can simply declare the doctrine of primacy null and void, especially not if he seeks to understand the objections and evaluates with an open mind the relative weight of what can be determined historically. Nor it is possible, on the other hand, for him to regard as the only possible form and, consequently, as binding on all Christians the form this primacy has taken in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. . . .

After all, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, in the same bull in which he excommunicated the Patriarch Michael Cerularius and thus inaugurated the schism between East and West, designated the Emperor and the people of Constantinople as "very Christian and orthodox", although their concept of the Roman primary was certainly far less different from that of Cerularius than from that, let us say, of the First Vatican Council. In other words, Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 198-199)

 

The Ravenna Document, which was issued on the ninetieth anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal (the conciliarists have tried mightily to deconstruct Our Lady's Fatima Message as they have turned her shrine in Fatima into a celebration of "false ecumenism; see In League with the Mayor of Ourem) and is another of those "unofficial" documents that have expressed perfectly the Modernist mind of the current false "pontiff," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, takes a view of papal primacy in the First Millennium that is at odds with the objective truth of the Catholic Church's history:

First of all, then, We cast an affectionate look upon the East, from whence in the beginning came forth the salvation of the world.  Yes, and the yearning desire of Our heart bids us conceive and hope that the day is not far distant when the Eastern Churches, so illustrious in their ancient faith and glorious past, will return to the fold they have abandoned.  We hope it all the more, that the distance separating them from Us is not so great: nay, with some few exceptions, we agree so entirely on other heads that, in defense of the Catholic Faith, we often have recourse to reasons and testimony borrowed from the teaching, the Rites, and Customs of the East.

The Principal subject of contention is the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff.  But let them look back to the early years of their existence, let them consider the sentiments entertained by their forefathers, and examine what the oldest Traditions testify, and it will, indeed, become evident to them that Christ's Divine Utterance, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, has undoubtedly been realized in the Roman Pontiffs.  Many of these latter in the first gates of the Church were chosen from the East, and foremost among them Anacletus, Evaristus, Anicetus, Eleutherius, Zosimus, and Agatho; and of these a great number, after Governing the Church in Wisdom and Sanctity, Consecrated their Ministry with the shedding of their blood.  The time, the reasons, the promoters of the unfortunate division, are well known.  Before the day when man separated what God had joined together, the name of the Apostolic See was held in Reverence by all the nations of the Christian world: and the East, like the West, agreed without hesitation in its obedience to the Pontiff of Rome, as the Legitimate Successor of St. Peter, and, therefore, the Vicar of Christ here on earth.

And, accordingly, if we refer to the beginning of the dissension, we shall see that Photius himself was careful to send his advocates to Rome on the matters that concerned him; and Pope Nicholas I sent his Legates to Constantinople from the Eternal City, without the slightest opposition, "in order to examine the case of Ignatius the Patriarch with all diligence, and to bring back to the Apostolic See a full and accurate report"; so that the history of the whole negotiation is a manifest Confirmation of the Primacy of the Roman See with which the dissension then began.  Finally, in two great Councils, the second of Lyons and that of Florence, Latins and Greeks, as is notorious, easily agreed, and all unanimously proclaimed as Dogma the Supreme Power of the Roman Pontiffs.

We have recalled those things intentionally, for they constitute an invitation to peace and reconciliation; and with all the more reason that in Our own days it would seem as if there were a more conciliatory spirit towards Catholics on the part of the Eastern Churches, and even some degree of kindly feeling.  To mention an instance, those sentiments were lately made manifest when some of Our faithful travelled to the East on a Holy Enterprise, and received so many proofs of courtesy and good-will.

Therefore, Our mouth is open to you, to you all of Greek or other Oriental Rites who are separated from the Catholic Church, We earnestly desire that each and every one of you should meditate upon the words, so full of gravity and love, addressed by Bessarion to your forefathers: "What answer shall we give to God when He comes to ask why we have separated from our Brethren: to Him Who, to unite us and bring us into One Fold, came down from Heaven, was Incarnate, and was Crucified?  What will our defense be in the  eyes of posterity?  Oh, my Venerable Fathers, we must not suffer this to be, we must not entertain this thought, we must not thus so ill provide for ourselves and for our Brethren."

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

Nor is there any reason for you to fear on that account that We or any of Our Successors will ever diminish your rights, the privileges of your Patriarchs, or the established Ritual of any one of your Churches.  It has been and always will be the intent and Tradition of the Apostolic See, to make a large allowance, in all that is right and good, for the primitive Traditions and special customs of every nation.  On the contrary, if you re-establish Union with Us, you will see how, by God's bounty, the glory and dignity of your Churches will be remarkably increased.  May God, then, in His goodness, hear the Prayer that you yourselves address to Him: "Make the schisms of the Churches cease," and "Assemble those who are dispersed, bring back those who err, and unite them to Thy Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church."  May you thus return to that one Holy Faith which has been handed down both to Us and to you from time immemorial; which your forefathers preserved untainted, and which was enhanced by the rival splendor of the Virtues, the great genius, and the sublime learning of St. Athanasius and St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzum and St. John Chrysostom, the two Saints who bore the name of Cyril, and so many other great men whose glory belongs as a common inheritance to the East and to the West. (Pope Leo XIII, Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 20, 1894. See also the excellent discussion of the the history of what led up to the Greek Schism that is contained in Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki's Tumultuous Times.)

 

December 16:  Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI authorized a "novel" Nativity scene to be displayed in the Piazza di San Pietro:

LONDON: The traditional nativity scene built each Christmas in front of St Peter’s Basilica has shown Jesus being born in a stable in Bethlehem for 25 years. But, this year, the Vatican will do away with the manger.

The Vatican has decided to abandon the traditional stable and the straw-ladden setting, shifting it to Nazareth, and placing Jesus in his father Joseph’s carpentry shop in a bid to reflect the more straightforward scenario as described by St Matthew.

"It’s time for a change and a return to St Matthew’s gospel," Daily Telegraph quoted a spokesman of the State Department of the Vatican, which organises and builds the giant presepe, or the nativity scene, as saying.

"In fact, in place of the sheep and hay, there will be a model of three rooms. Jesus will lie in Joseph’s shop, complete with the typical work tools of a carpenter...On one side, the shop will be flanked with a covered patio, on the other there’ll be the inside of a pub, with its hearth." The new setting was inspired by two verses in St Matthew’s gospel, Chapter 1:24 and 1:25, the Vatican said, which state: "When Joseph woke up, he did as the Angel of God ordered and took Mary into his house. Without them knowing each other, a child was born and he called his name Jesus."

But, a decision has been made to place the nativity scene in Nazareth regardless, the spokesperson said. The traditional depiction of Jesus in a manger comes from St Luke’s gospel, which said there was no room at the inn”. But it is Matthew’s gospel which forms the basis for the Angelus prayer, and the view of Jesus in a carpenter’s workshop matches the Franciscan tradition. The nativity scene at St Peter’s for Christmas was started by Pope John Paul II in 1982. (No more traditional nativity scene in Vatican.)

 

Remember what Pope Saint Pius X wrote in Pascendi Dominic Gregis (September 8, 1907)? Here it is once again?

 

It remains for Us now to say a few words about the Modernist as reformer. From all that has preceded, it is abundantly clear how great and how eager is the passion of such men for innovation. In all Catholicism there is absolutely nothing on which it does not fasten.

 

2008

February 7: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict unleashes a firestorm with his revised "Prayer for the Jews" to be used in the modernized version of the "extraordinary form of the Roman Rite" (the missal promulgated by Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII in 1961 and then amended in 1962 with the insertion of the name of Saint Joseph into the Canon of the Mass) as he angers a few (emphasis on a "few") traditionally-minded Catholics attached to the conciliar structures and finds himself facing a torrent of criticism from some adherents of the Talmud. Ratzinger/Benedict had promised in July of 2007, shortly after the issuance of Summorum Pontificum, to revise the Prayer for the Jews in the "1962 Missal" in response to pressure he had received from those who he says pray to the "same Lord" as Christians.

Ratzinger/Benedict's apologists tried to assure their readers that there was nothing wrong with the revised "prayer." Father Peter Scott of the Society of Saint Pius dissented from that view:

This prayer consequently favors ecumenism, and is not acceptable to traditional Catholics, nor will it be used. Traditional Catholics will not accept that the traditional Missal be tampered with, and that Benedict XVI succeed in his plan of bringing about an influence of the "ordinary" form, changing the "extraordinary form" of the Roman rite, as he calls it. Just as traditional priests retain the words "faithless" and "infidelity" that John XXIII tried to remove, so likewise will they retain the traditional prayer for the conversion of the Jews. (Once again, not surprisingly, the original "hot link" to this text has been disabled by the "memory hole" minders in the world of the Society of Saint Pius X.)

 

Ratzinger/Benedict's apologists also tried to contend--and with a perfectly straight face--that the following letter from Walter "Cardinal" Kasper to Rabbi David Rosen did not represent the mind of Ratzinger/Benedict himself:

In reformulating the prayer of the now extraordinary liturgy, the Pope wanted to avoid formulations which were perceived by many Jews to be offensive, but he wanted at the same time to remain in line with the intrinsic linguistic and stylistic structure of this liturgy and therefore not simply replace the prayer for the prayer in the ordinary liturgy, which we must not forget is used by the vast majority of Catholic communities.

The reformulated text no longer speaks about the conversion of the Jews as some Jewish critics wrongly affirm. The text is a prayer inspired by Saint Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 11, which is the very text that speaks also of the unbroken covenant. It takes up Paul's eschatological hope that in the end of time all Israel will be saved. As a prayer the text lays all in the hands of God and not in ours. It says nothing about the how and when. Therefore there is nothing about missionary activities by which we may take Israel's salvation in our hands. ("Cardinal" Kasper's Letter to Rabbi Rosen)

 

Even though claims were made that this letter did not represent the "mind" of the false "pontiff," Kasper was permitted to write an article in a German newspaper that was reprinted in L'Osservatore Romano, the semi-official newspaper of the Vatican, in which he wrote almost exactly what he had written above to the "papal" "knight," David Rosen:

The very fact that the prayer for Good Friday in the Missal of 1970 – and therefore in the ordinary form of the Roman rite, used in the vast majority of cases – remains fully in effect, demonstrates that the reformulated prayer for Good Friday, used by only an extremely small part of the community, cannot signify a step backward with respect to the declaration "Nostra Aetate" of Vatican Council II.

This is all the more true by virtue of the fact that the substance of the declaration "Nostra Aetate" is also contained in a document belonging to a higher formal level, the constitution on the Church "Lumen Gentium" (no. 16), and for this reason, in principle, it cannot be brought into question.

Furthermore, since the council there have been a great number of direct pontifical statements, including some by the current pope, referring to "Nostra Aetate" and confirming the importance of this declaration.

Unlike the 1970 text, the new formulation of the 1962 text speaks of Jesus as the Christ and as the salvation of all men, and therefore also of the Jews.

Many have understood this affirmation as new and unfriendly toward the Jews. But this is founded on the New Testament as a whole (cf. 1 Timothy 2:4), and indicates the fundamental difference, known everywhere, that endures for both the Christians and the Jews. Even if it is not explicitly mentioned in "Nostra Aetate," nor in the prayer of 1970 , "Nostra Aetate" cannot be removed from the context of all the cannot be removed from the context of all the other conciliar documents, nor can the Good Friday prayer of the Missal of 1970 be removed from the entirety of the liturgy of Good Friday that has as its object that conviction of the Christian faith.

The new formulation of the prayer for Good Friday in the Missal of 1962, therefore, does not really say anything new, but only expresses what until now was taken as obvious, but which evidently, in many dialogues, was not sufficiently explained (2).

In the past, faith in Christ, which distinguishes Christians from Jews, has often been transformed into a "language of disdain" (Jules Isaac), with all of the serious consequences that derive from this. If today we are striving for reciprocal respect, this can be founded only on the fact that we reciprocally recognize our diversity. For this reason, we do not expect that the Jews should agree on the Chistological content of the prayer for Good Friday, but that they should respect the fact that we pray as Christians according to our faith, as naturally we do also in regard to their way of praying. In this perspective, both sides still have something to learn.

The real controversial question is: should Christians pray for the conversion of the Jews? Can there be a mission to the Jews?

The word conversion is not found in the reformulated prayer. But it is indirectly included in the invocation to enlighten the Jews, so that they may recognize Jesus Christ. Moreover, there is the fact that the Missal of 1962 gives titles for each of the individual prayers. The title of the prayer to the Jews has not been modified; it sounds like it did before: "Pro conversione Judæorum," for the conversion of the Jews. Many Jews have read the new formulation in the perspective of this title, and this has raised the reaction already described.

In response to this, it can be noted that the Catholic Church, unlike some "evangelical" groups, does not have an organized, institutionalized mission to the Jews. With this reminder, however, the problem of the mission to the Jews has not, in fact, been clarified theologically yet. This is precisely the merit of the new formulation of the prayer for Good Friday, which, in its second part, presents an initial indication for a substantial theological response.

We pick up again from Chapter 11 of the letter to the Romans, which is fundamental also for "Nostra Aetate" (3).

The salvation of the Jews is, for Paul, a profound mystery of election through divine grace (9:14-29). God gives without regret, and the promises that God makes to his people, in spite of their disobedience, have not been revoked (9:6; 11:1.29). The hardening of Israel's heart produces salvation for the pagans. The wild branches of the pagans have been grafted onto the holy root of Israel (11:16ff.). But God has the power to graft on again the branches that were cut off (11:23). When the fullness of the pagans have found salvation, then all Israel will be saved (11:25ff.). Israel therefore remains the bearer of the promise and of the blessing. ("Oremus pro conversione Judæorum." Cardinal Kasper Takes The Field .)

 

It was also the case that "Archbishop" Gianfranco Ravasi and Rabbi Jacob Neusner wrote very much the same way without a word of rebuke from Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:

We repeat: this is the Christian vision, and it is the hope of the Church that prays. It is not a programmatic proposal of theoretical adherence, nor is it a missionary strategy of conversion. It is the attitude characteristic of the prayerful invocation according to which one hopes also for the persons considered near to oneself, those dear and important, a reality that one maintains is precious and salvific. An important exponent of French culture in the 20th century, Julien Green, wrote that "it is always beautiful and legitimate to wish for the other what is for you a good or a joy: if you think you are offering a true gift, do not hold back your hand." Of course, this must always take place in respect for freedom and for the different paths that the other adopts. But it is an expression of affection to wish for your brother what you consider a horizon of light and life. ("Archbishop" Gianfranco Ravasi, A Bishop and a Rabbi Defend the Prayer for the Salvation of the Jews.)

 

Why is all of this wrong? Consult Pope Saint Pius X, please consult (yes, yet again--repetition is the mother of learning, you know) Pope Saint Pius X's direct contradiction of most this apostasy in the audience he gave to the founder of international Zionism, Theodore Herzl, on January 25, 1904:

 

POPE: We are unable to favor this movement [of Zionism]. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem—but we could never sanction it. The ground of Jerusalem, if it were not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot answer you otherwise. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people.

HERZL: [The conflict between Rome and Jerusalem, represented by the one and the other of us, was once again under way. At the outset I tried to be conciliatory. I said my little piece. . . . It didn’t greatly impress him. Jerusalem was not to be placed in Jewish hands.] And its present status, Holy Father?

POPE: I know, it is disagreeable to see the Turks in possession of our Holy Places. We simply have to put up with it. But to sanction the Jewish wish to occupy these sites, that we cannot do.

HERZL: [I said that we based our movement solely on the sufferings of the Jews, and wished to put aside all religious issues].

POPE: Yes, but we, but I as the head of the Catholic Church, cannot do this. One of two things will likely happen. Either the Jews will retain their ancient faith and continue to await the Messiah whom we believe has already appeared—in which case they are denying the divinity of Jesus and we cannot assist them. Or else they will go there with no religion whatever, and then we can have nothing at all to do with them. The Jewish faith was the foundation of our own, but it has been superceded by the teachings of Christ, and we cannot admit that it still enjoys any validity. The Jews who should have been the first to acknowledge Jesus Christ have not done so to this day.

HERZL: [It was on the tip of my tongue to remark, “It happens in every family: no one believes in his own relative.” But, instead, I said:] Terror and persecution were not precisely the best means for converting the Jews. [His reply had an element of grandeur in its simplicity:]

POPE: Our Lord came without power. He came in peace. He persecuted no one. He was abandoned even by his apostles. It was only later that he attained stature. It took three centuries for the Church to evolve. The Jews therefore had plenty of time in which to accept his divinity without duress or pressure. But they chose not to do so, and they have not done it yet.

HERZL: But, Holy Father, the Jews are in a terrible plight. I do not know if Your Holiness is aware of the full extent of their tragedy. We need a land for these harried people.

POPE: Must it be Jerusalem?

HERZL: We are not asking for Jerusalem, but for Palestine—for only the secular land.

POPE: We cannot be in favor of it.

[Editor Lowenthal interjects here] Here unrelenting replacement theology is plainly upheld as the norm of the Roman Catholic Church. Further, this confession, along with the whole tone of the Pope in his meeting with Herzl, indicates the perpetuation of a doctrinal emphasis that has resulted in centuries of degrading behavior toward the Jews. However, this response has the “grandeur” of total avoidance of that which Herzl had intimated, namely that the abusive reputation of Roman Catholicism toward the Jews was unlikely to foster conversion. Further, if, “It took three centuries for the Church to evolve,” it was that very same period of time that it took for the Church to consolidate and launch its thrust of anti-Semitism through the following centuries.

HERZL: Does Your Holiness know the situation of the Jews?

POPE: Yes, from my days in Mantua, where there are Jews. I have always been in friendly relations with Jews. Only the other evening two Jews were here to see me. There are other bonds than those of religion: social intercourse, for example, and philanthropy. Such bonds we do not refuse to maintain with the Jews. Indeed we also pray for them, that their spirit see the light. This very day the Church is celebrating the feast of an unbeliever who became converted in a miraculous manner—on the road to Damascus. And so if you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we will be ready with churches and priests to baptize all of you. (Marvin Lowenthal, The Diaries of Theodore Herzl.)

 

April 15-20: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI visits the United States of America without ever once mentioning Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary. He personally esteemed the symbols of five false religions at the "John Paul II Cultural Center" in Washington, District of Columbia, Thursday, April 17, 2008, and praised the United Masonic Nations Organization on Friday, April 18, 2008. He also went into another Talmudic synagogue, where, of course, he refused to exhort anyone there to convert and as he listened patiently to a Talmudic hymn that denied the Messias had come once in time to redeem the entire human race (see No Room for Christ the King on the South Lawn, Latin and the Lector Babe, Asking Our Lady to Repair the Damage, No Room for Christ the King at the United Nations, Sorrow Beyond Description, No Room for Mary Immaculate Queen at Saint Patrick's Cathedral, No Room for Mary Immaculate Queen at Saint Joseph's Seminary, and All is Quicksand Without Our Lady.)

Ratzinger/Benedict receiving a copy of the Koran, "John Paul II Cultural Center," Washington, District of Columbia, Thursday, April 17, 2008. Would Our Lord receive a copy of this blasphemous document, no less with a smile on his face?  See the video of this exercise in apostasy, (See for yourself, April 17, 2008 - 6:15 p.m. - Interreligious Gathering.)

 

Ratzinger/Benedict at the Park East Synagogue, Friday, April 18, 2009.

July 12-21, 2008: Ratzinger/Benedict travels to Australia for the hootenanny known as "World Youth Day." He praises "false ecumenism" and participates in a "liturgy" featuring mostly naked "aboriginal" dancers. (See Nothing About Which to be Shocked and Learning from the Devil Himself.)

October 29, 2008: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI praises Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII on the fiftieth anniversary of his "election." (See Atop the Kremlin Wall, which contains a compendium of 2008 articles about conciliarism.)

 

2009

January 21: An interview with Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of Saint Pius X that was recorded in Regensburg, Germany, on November 2, 2008, airs on Swedish television. The most explosive part of the interview was Bishop Williamson's assertion that the number of Jews who were killed by the agents of the Third Reich of Nazi Germany was far less than the figure of six million accepted by "mainstream" historians and that none died in gas chambers. This sets off a firestorm that has only recently resulted in Bishop Williamson's conviction in absentia in a German court for having "denied the holocaust," causing Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI  and his conciliar "bishops" to rend their garments and pay their due obeisance to those deny the one and only holocaust, that which was offered by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to His Co-Equal and Co-Eternal Father in Spirit and in Truth on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday in atonement for our sins. Bishop Williamson was also disowned and denounced by the Superior-General of the Society of Saint Pius X, Bishop Bernard Fellay, who has been absolutely silent about the various apostasies and blasphemies and sacrileges committed by Ratzinger/Benedict since the issuance of Summorum Pontificum.

January 24: The conciliar Vatican announces the "lifting" of the "excommunications" imposed upon the four bishops who were consecrated by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on June 30, 1988, in Econe, Switzerland. The decree, which was signed on January 21, 2009, that formally "lifted" the "excommunications" did not mean that the bishops and priests of the Society of Saint Pius X could administer the sacraments licitly in the counterfeit church of conciliarism. The time of the announcement, coming three days after the airing of Bishop Williamson's interview on Swedish television, incites various members of Talmudic organizations, eager to exploit the crimes of the Third Reich of Nazi Germany to make various demands on the leaders of what they think is the Catholic Church, into accusing Ratzinger/Benedict of being "insensitive" to the plight of the Jews during World War II. (For a review of the inter-related issues of Bishop Williamson and the reintegration of the Society of Saint Pius X into the conciliar structures, please see: True Popes Never Need to Convert to the Faith, Negotiating To Become An Apostate, March to Oblivion, High Church, Low Church, Nothing to Negotiate, Those Who Deny The Holocaust, Recognize and Capitulate, A Little Bit "In," A Little Bit "Out", Disciples of Caiphas, Under The Bus, Nothing New Under the Conciliar Sun, Story Time in Econe, Shell Games With Souls, Pots and Kettles, One Sentence Says It All, Smashing Through the Conciliar Looking Glass, Winning at the Waiting Game, Yes, Sir, Master Scribe, No Crime Is Worse Than Deicide.)

February 4: Reeling from worldwide criticism, the conciliar Vatican's Secretariat of State issued a "clarification" of the "lifting" of the "excommunication of the bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X:

In the wake of reactions to the recent Decree of the Congregation for Bishops by which the excommunication of four prelates of the Society of Saint Pius X was remitted, and with regard to the negationist or reductionist statements made by Bishop Williamson concerning the Shoah, it seems opportune to clarify some aspects of the matter.

1. Remission of the Excommunication

As has already been publicly stated, the Decree of the Congregation for Bishops, dated 21 January 2009, was an act by which the Holy Father responded benevolently to repeated requests from the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X.

His Holiness desired to remove an impediment which was prejudicial to the opening of a door to dialogue. He now awaits a corresponding gesture from the four bishops expressing total adherence to the doctrine and discipline of the Church. The very grave penalty of latae sententiae excommunication, which these bishops incurred on 30 June 1988, and which was formally declared on 1 July 1988, was a consequence of their having been illegitimately ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

The remission of the excommunication has freed the four bishops from a very serious canonical penalty, but it has not changed the juridical status of the Society of Saint Pius X, which presently does not enjoy any canonical recognition by the Catholic Church. The four bishops, even though they have been released from excommunication, have no canonical function in the Church and do not licitly exercise any ministry within it.

2. Tradition, Doctrine and the Second Vatican Council

A full recognition of the Second Vatican Council and the Magisterium of Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI himself is an indispensable condition for any future recognition of the Society of Saint Pius X.

As already stated in the Decree of 21 January 2009, the Holy See will not fail, in ways judged opportune, to engage with the interested parties in examining outstanding questions, so as to attain a full and satisfactory resolution of the problems that caused this painful rupture.

3. Statements about the Shoah

The positions of Bishop Williamson with regard to the Shoah are absolutely unacceptable and firmly rejected by the Holy Father, as he himself remarked on 28 January 2009 when, with reference to the heinous genocide, he reiterated his full and unquestionable solidarity with our brothers and sisters who received the First Covenant, and he affirmed that the memory of that terrible genocide must lead "humanity to reflect upon the unfathomable power of evil when it conquers the heart of man", adding that the Shoah remains "a warning for all against forgetfulness, denial or reductionism, because violence committed against one single human being is violence against all".

In order to be admitted to function as a Bishop within the Church, Bishop Williamson must also distance himself in an absolutely unequivocal and public way from his positions regarding the Shoah, which were unknown to the Holy Father at the time of the remission of the excommunication.

The Holy Father asks for the prayerful support of all the faithful, so that the Lord will enlighten the Church’s path. May the commitment of the Pastors and all the faithful grow in support of the difficult and onerous mission of the Successor of Peter the Apostle, who "watches over the unity" of the Church. (Note from the Secretary of State concerning the four Prelates of the Society of Saint Pius X (February 4, 2009)

 

Apart from the fact that Bishop Williamson's support of revisionist historical scholarship concerning the events of World War II was just as well known to "Cardinal" Ratzinger as was the reassignment of Father Peter Hullermann to parish work in the Archdiocese of Munich of Freising (see Fall Guys Aren't Usually Stand-Up Guys), it is interesting to note that the irreducible "minimum," to borrow a phrase from a former colleague of mine, for "inclusion" as a member of the One World Ecumenical Church of conciliarism is to accept without question the claims made about the events of World War II by those who have a vested interest in exploiting those claims to make sure that what they think is the Catholic Church will continue to distance itself from its "criminal past" of seeking to convert Jews and to teach that the Old Covenant was superseded by the New and Eternal Covenant instituted by Our Lord Himself at the Last Supper and ratified by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.

March 10: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI issues a Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre. This letter was discussed at length in Nothing New Under the Conciliar Sun. One salient feature of this March 10, 2009, letter was Ratzinger/Benedict's explicit expression of his desire to "break down" the "one-sidedness" of the Society of Saint Pius X in order to effect within its ranks the same sort of "transformation" or "pacification" that he noted with satisfaction and contentment had occurred in the other traditionally-minded communities (Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, Institute of the Good Shepherd, the Transalpine Redemptorists, etc.). How any layman attached to the Society of Saint Pius X cannot recognize that this is the real goal of the false "pontiff's" desire to effect "reconciliation" with the Society is beyond comprehension. Ratzinger/Benedict has stated this very, very explicitly:

 

Leading men and women to God, to the God Who speaks in the Bible: this is the supreme and fundamental priority of the Church and of the Successor of Peter at the present time. A logical consequence of this is that we must have at heart the unity of all believers. Their disunity, their disagreement among themselves, calls into question the credibility of their talk of God. Hence the effort to promote a common witness by Christians to their faith - ecumenism - is part of the supreme priority. Added to this is the need for all those who believe in God to join in seeking peace, to attempt to draw closer to one another, and to journey together, even with their differing images of God, towards the source of Light - this is inter-religious dialogue. Whoever proclaims that God is Love 'to the end' has to bear witness to love: in loving devotion to the suffering, in the rejection of hatred and enmity - this is the social dimension of the Christian faith, of which I spoke in the Encyclical 'Deus caritas est'.

So if the arduous task of working for faith, hope and love in the world is presently (and, in various ways, always) the Church's real priority, then part of this is also made up of acts of reconciliation, small and not so small. That the quiet gesture of extending a hand gave rise to a huge uproar, and thus became exactly the opposite of a gesture of reconciliation, is a fact which we must accept. But I ask now: Was it, and is it, truly wrong in this case to meet half-way the brother who 'has something against you' and to seek reconciliation? Should not civil society also try to forestall forms of extremism and to incorporate their eventual adherents - to the extent possible - in the great currents shaping social life, and thus avoid their being segregated, with all its consequences? Can it be completely mistaken to work to break down obstinacy and narrowness, and to make space for what is positive and retrievable for the whole? I myself saw, in the years after 1988, how the return of communities which had been separated from Rome changed their interior attitudes; I saw how returning to the bigger and broader Church enabled them to move beyond one-sided positions and broke down rigidity so that positive energies could emerge for the whole. Can we be totally indifferent about a community which has 491 priests, 215 seminarians, 6 seminaries, 88 schools, 2 university-level institutes, 117 religious brothers, 164 religious sisters and thousands of lay faithful? Should we casually let them drift farther from the Church? I think for example of the 491 priests. We cannot know how mixed their motives may be. All the same, I do not think that they would have chosen the priesthood if, alongside various distorted and unhealthy elements, they did not have a love for Christ and a desire to proclaim Him and, with Him, the living God. Can we simply exclude them, as representatives of a radical fringe, from our pursuit of reconciliation and unity? What would then become of them?

Certainly, for some time now, and once again on this specific occasion, we have heard from some representatives of that community many unpleasant things - arrogance and presumptuousness, an obsession with one-sided positions, etc. Yet to tell the truth, I must add that I have also received a number of touching testimonials of gratitude which clearly showed an openness of heart. But should not the great Church also allow herself to be generous in the knowledge of her great breadth, in the knowledge of the promise made to her? Should not we, as good educators, also be capable of overlooking various faults and making every effort to open up broader vistas? And should we not admit that some unpleasant things have also emerged in Church circles? At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them - in this case the Pope - he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint. Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre (March 10, 2009)

 

The "broader vistas" to which Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict was referring are none other than full acceptance of "false ecumenism," "inter-religious dialogue," "inter-religious prayer" services, episcopal collegiality, "religious liberty," "separation of Church and State, "the hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity," "the new ecclesiology," and, of course, the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service. One report from a few years ago indicated that Ratzinger/Benedict personally told a leader of the Society of Saint Pius X that he wanted the "new theologians" (himself, Karl Rahner, Henri de Lubac, Maurice Blondel, Hans Urs von Balthasar) taught in the Society's seminaries. "Broader vistas"? I report. You decide.

April 11: "Archbishop" Robert Zollitsch, the conciliar "archbishop" of Freiburg and Breisgau and the president of the conciliar German "Bishops'" Conference, denies in an interview that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that died on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday in atonement for our sins. He has gone without any word of public rebuke or censure from Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict in the ensuing three hundred seventy-seven days, making new headlines worldwide as a result of the statements he has made in response to the clerical scandals in the Federal Republic of Germany.

April 30: L'Osservatore Romano, the semi-official newspaper of the Vatican, publishes an editorial claiming that the first one hundred days of the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama were not as "radical" as had been feared. This was the first of a series of articles during 2009, none of which has been criticized by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, praising the likes of Karl Marx, Michael Jackson, John Lennon, The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Oscar Wilde, John Calvin, Martin Luther, the fictional Harry Potter, and Charles Darwin. (See Urbanely Accepting Evil, Yesterdays Evils, L'Osservatore Del Naturalista, L'Osservatore Marxista, L'Osservatore Occulto, L'Osservatore del Calvinista, Still Urbanely Accepting Evil, L'Osservatore Benedetto, L'Osservatore Di Tutte Le Cose Grezze, Big Pharm Trumps the Holy Cross and L'Osservatore Romano Di Infirmita Mentale.)

May 8-15: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI visits Jordan and Israel, making the following incredible statements while there:

Places of worship, like this splendid Al-Hussein Bin Talal mosque named after the revered late King, stand out like jewels across the earth’s surface. From the ancient to the modern, the magnificent to the humble, they all point to the divine, to the Transcendent One, to the Almighty. And through the centuries these sanctuaries have drawn men and women into their sacred space to pause, to pray, to acknowledge the presence of the Almighty, and to recognize that we are all his creatures. (Speech to Muslim religious leaders, members of the Diplomatic Corps and Rectors of universities in Jordan in front of the mosque al-Hussein bin Talal in Amman)

Ratzinger/Benedict at the Mosque Al-Hussein bin Talal, Amman, Jordan, Saturday, May 9, 2009.

 

I cordially thank the Grand Mufti, Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, together with the Director of the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, Sheikh Mohammed Azzam al-Khatib al-Tamimi, and the Head of the Awquaf Council, Sheikh Abdel Azim Salhab, for the welcome they have extended to me on your behalf. I am deeply grateful for the invitation to visit this sacred place, and I willingly pay my respects to you and the leaders of the Islamic community in Jerusalem. (Courtesy visit to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem at the Mount of the Temple, since when is a place of false worship "sacred" to the true God of Divine Revelation?)

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI entering the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, Wednesday, May 12, 2009. Note that the false "pontiff" has taken off his shoes once again.

Saints gave up their lives rather than to give even the appearance of such apostasy.

 

God of all the ages, on my visit to Jerusalem, the “City of Peace”, spiritual home to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, I bring before you the joys, the hopes and the aspirations, the trials, the suffering and the pain of all your people throughout the world.

God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, hear the cry of the afflicted, the fearful, the bereft; send your peace upon this Holy Land, upon the Middle East, upon the entire human family; stir the hearts of all who call upon your name, to walk humbly in the path of justice and compassion.

“The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him” (Lam 3:25)! (Prayer at the Western Wall, May 12, 2009; one will note, of course, that there is not one reference to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.)

 

What's that about a picture being worth a thousand words?

 

An indication of the potential of this series of meetings is readily seen in our shared concern in the face of moral relativism and the offences it spawns against the dignity of the human person. In approaching the most urgent ethical questions of our day, our two communities are challenged to engage people of good will at the level of reason, while simultaneously pointing to the religious foundations which best sustain lasting moral values. May the dialogue that has begun continue to generate ideas on how Christians and Jews can work together to heighten society’s appreciation of the distinctive contribution of our religious and ethical traditions. Here in Israel, given that Christians constitute only a small portion of the total population, they particularly value opportunities for dialogue with their Jewish neighbors.

Trust is undeniably an essential element of effective dialogue. Today I have the opportunity to repeat that the Catholic Church is irrevocably committed to the path chosen at the Second Vatican Council for a genuine and lasting reconciliation between Christians and Jews. As the Declaration Nostra Aetate makes clear, the Church continues to value the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews and desires an ever deeper mutual understanding and respect through biblical and theological studies as well as fraternal dialogues. May the seven Bilateral Commission meetings which have already taken place between the Holy See and the Chief Rabbinate stand as evidence! I am thus grateful for your reciprocal assurance that the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Chief Rabbinate will continue to grow in respect and understanding in the future. (Courtesy visit to the two Chief Rabbis of Jerusalem at Hechal Shlomo Center in Jerusalem, May 12, 2009; for an elaboration on this topic, please see Respect Those Who Break the First Commandment? Respect Those Who Break the Fifth Commandment and Saint Peter and Anti-Peter.)

 

Wanna quick antidote to this apostasy? Back to Pope Leo XIII's Custodi Di Quella Fede once again:

Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God. (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)

 

May 17: Barack Hussein Obama is granted an honorary doctorate from the University of Notre Dame du Lac, Notre Dame, Indiana, after which he delivers the commencement address to that year's graduates of my own master's alma mater. The award granted to the pro-abortion Obama generates a storm of protest. Eighty-eight people on the grounds of Our Lady's university were arrested on the orders of the university's president,. "Father" John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. Father Jenkins has refused to show any leniency to the "Notre Dame 88." Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has yet to intervene through his "apostolic nuncio," "Archbishop" Pietro Sambi, to do urge Jenkins to do so. (Our Lady Does Not Honor Pro-Aborts, No "Common Ground" Between Truth and Error and Persecuting Those Who Defended Our Lady's Honor.)

June 5: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict endorses the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Benedict backs U.N. push to protect children). The "convention" is a thorough assault on the rights of parents and of the due subordination of children to them:

While all of these legal problems are caused by the nature of both our federal and state laws, a new threat to the family has loomed on the international horizon which, if not approached properly by the U.S. Government, may render fruitless any efforts to correct our laws--and may have the effect of extending the threat to families throughout the world. This is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was motivated by the thinking of, and drafted by, Western and Western-oriented "child-savers" and has now been widely ratified by nations around the world, some with reservations, although the U.S. Senate has not yet done so. A detailed discussion of the Convention is not possible here. We will merely quote from a letter the Society of Catholic Social Scientists sent to all the members of the Senate, urging a vote not to ratify. The letter was primarily drafted by political scientist and journalist Dr. Thomas A. Droleskey and contributed to by this writer (Dr. Stephen M. Krason, the President of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists):

It is clear that the Convention on the Rights of the Child seeks to subject parents to close bureaucratic supervision. Parents who do not educate or raise their children according to the dictates of the prevailing cultural trends will be subject to all kinds of civil and criminal penalties, if not the seizure of their children. This is a form of ideological totalitarianism.

Article 12 of the Convention states that children have the "right" to express their own views freely in all matters. All matters? Child-rearing? Discipline? The fact there are some self-appointed child advocates, such as Hillary Clinton, who believe that children as young as seven years of age can assert legal rights indicates that it would be possible under the Convention for grammar school students to sue their parents in order to express their views. This is absurd. Children are children. They need to learn about life. They need to respect their parents. They need to understand the virtues of humility and obedience, of submission to lawful authority. Also, of course, they will not be able to sue or otherwise oppose their parents on their own. The state will do it for them, with "child advocates" supplanting parents and deciding what is best for children.

Article 13 asserts that children have the right to receive all kinds of information through the "media of the child's choice." Parents concerned about protecting the purity and innocence of their children would be legally barred from censoring the television watched in the home, the movies their children choose to watch, and the books they choose to read. And those parents who do not have a television in their homes might be forced to secure one in order to respect their children's "right" to receive information. Is it overkill to point out that child pornography laws would be invalidated by this article of the Convention? Article 17 extends this "right" to national and international sources in the media.

Article 14 discusses the right of each child to freedom of religion. This appears, at first glance, to be praiseworthy. The article, however, contains an implicit threat to the rights of parents to raise their children. Can a child who does not want to receive religious education sue his parents for abuse because the parents refuse to honor the child's wishes? Can parents who tell their children to engage in family prayers be judged guilty of not respecting a child's freedom from religion? This is an attempt on the part of the secularists to free children from the influence of parents who desire to pass along transcendent truths to their children.

Article 16 immunizes children from any degree of parental censorship insofar as correspondence is concerned. While confidentiality is an important part of correspondence, parents nevertheless have to monitor the activities of their children, particularly those in the adolescent years. Can one seriously suggest that a parent has no right to determine if his child is being solicited by a pornographer or child molester? Does a parent have no right to determine if his child is receiving contraband drugs through the mail? This is absurd.

Article 18 seems likely to encourage the displacement of parents in raising their children by the state as it calls for the expansion in the state role in providing facilities to care for children.

Article 19 provides the basis for the establishment of dangerous, coercive state structures to track and pressure parents who violate the Convention’s notion of their children's "rights." In fact, Article 43 establishes perhaps the ultimate in distant, arrogant bureaucratic structures--an international committee of ten "experts" to oversee the progress of the Convention’s implementation. In other words, ten individuals will dictate to the hundreds of millions of parents in the world how to raise their children.

It appears as though Article 30, which guarantees a child the right to use his own language, might sanction the use of profanity. A parent would be powerless to tell his child to speak clearly and nobly, never using any vile language. And Article 31, giving children the "right to rest and leisure," would make it difficult for parents to command their children to do anything. All a child would have to do to avoid chores or assignments is to say that he is entitled to rest and leisure.  (http://www.catholicsocialscientists.org/Content/Organization/PDFs/chap9Krason.pdf; see also Kindred Spirit of the New World Order)

 

June 29 Ratzinger/Benedict issues Caritatis in Veritate, an "encyclical letter" in which he endorsed openly the concept of a "world political authority," one that would, of course, respect the principles of subsidiarity and national sovereignty, once again demonstrating that his fundamental rejection of Scholasticism has enveloped him in a world of such contradiction and paradox that he can't even see how his own ideas contradict each other in full violation of the principle of non-contradiction:

In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. This seems necessary in order to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago. Such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good, and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth. Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for right. Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums. Without this, despite the great progress accomplished in various sectors, international law would risk being conditioned by the balance of power among the strongest nations. The integral development of peoples and international cooperation require the establishment of a greater degree of international ordering, marked by subsidiarity, for the management of globalization. They also require the construction of a social order that at last conforms to the moral order, to the interconnection between moral and social spheres, and to the link between politics and the economic and civil spheres, as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations. (Caritas in veritate, June 29, 2009; see also Give Me Two Bayers, Please and Two More Bayers, Please.)

 

July 10: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI met in the Apostolic Palace with Barack Hussein Obama:

Pope Benedict XVI welcomed American President Barack Obama to the Vatican today, and the two discussed world issues addressed at the Group of Eight summit.

As they met, Mr Obama told the Pope: "It's a great honor; thank you so much."

The two sat down at a desk in the papal library and began discussing the G8 summit which concluded that morning in L'Aquila, Italy. The summit focused on the economic crisis, climate change and global tensions.

Pope Benedict told the president: "You must be tired after all these discussions."

The president replied that the meetings marked "great progress" and "something concrete". The private meeting lasted more than 30 minutes.

At the end of the meeting, Pope Benedict told the president: "A blessing on all your work and also for you." (Benedict XVI meets Obama - Catholic Herald Online; also see A "Blessing" on a Murderer and His Work.)

Two believers in one world governance.

 

July 24: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI expresses his admiration once again for at least part of the work of the late Jesuit evolutionist, Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. (see Revealing His Inner Teilhard Yet Again).

August 25: United States Senator Edward Moore Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, dies at the age of seventy-seven. He was permitted to die as a "Catholic" in "good standing" in the counterfeit church of concilairism despite his open, unrepentant support for the chemical and and surgical slaughter of innocent preborn babies and of perversity, among other evils. The same Sean "Cardinal" O'Malley who had vigorously condemned Bishop Richard Williamson, blaspheming God in the process by saying that the "holocaust" was the greatest crime in human history, concelebrated Kennedy's Novus Ordo "Mass of Christian Burial." Ratzinger/Benedict does nothing to stop this travesty. (See Another Victim of Americanism; Behold The Free Rein Given to Error; Behold The Free Rein Given to Error; Unfortunate Enough to Be A Baby; Unfortunate Enough to Be A Baby; Beacon of Social Justice?; Spotlight On The Ordinary; What's Good For Teddy Is Good For Benny; Sean O'Malley: Coward and Hypocrite: More Rationalizations and Distortions.)

October 9: Speaking in behalf of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, "papal" spokesflack "Father" Federico Lombardi, S.J., expressed "high hopes" upon learning that the pro-abortion Barack hussein Obama had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- News that U.S. President Barack Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was met with high hopes from the Vatican spokesman.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi told journalists Oct. 9 that the news "was greeted with appreciation at the Vatican in light of the president's demonstrated commitment to promoting peace on an international level and, in particular, in recently promoting nuclear disarmament."

"It is hoped that this very important recognition would offer greater encouragement for such a difficult but fundamental dedication to the future of humanity so that it may bring about the desired results," he said in a written statement.

The new U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, Miguel Diaz, told Vatican Radio that the president was being recognized for his efforts in working to build understanding between people and eliminate nuclear weapons from all parts of the world.

Winning the Nobel Peace Prize is a great encouragement to keep working toward building a better world, said Diaz.

He said that when he presented his credentials as the new U.S. ambassador Oct. 2, Pope Benedict XVI "made clear to me how grateful he was" that Obama was especially committed to ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

Bishops attending the Synod of Bishops for Africa also reacted to the selection of Obama.

Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta said it "clearly was an unexpected honor to come to the president" and he hopes that "it leaves an invitation for greatness."

"I hope in receiving the award, the president realizes and responds to the great challenge that has been placed before him," he told Catholic News Service Oct. 9.

"The world has sent a signal, at least insofar as the Nobel Prize is concerned, that it has high expectations for him and hopes he will live up to the energy and the positive things that he has thus far set on the world stage," said Archbishop Gregory.

Another synod participant, Archbishop Charles G. Palmer-Buckle of Accra, Ghana, was ecstatic and "overwhelmed that (Obama) won the Nobel Peace Prize," he told journalists Oct. 9.

"I would like the world to look at it as an encouragement, a motivation" to recognize the talents and potential of Africans and people of African descent, he said.

"Blacks are as talented as anyone else ... and I think the world is now coming face to face with the fact that if we are appreciated, we can give still more," said Archbishop Palmer-Buckle.

The archbishop told CNS that Obama "definitely deserves" the prize and that the U.S. leader is an inspiration.

He recalled Obama's visit to Ghana in July and how much he was moved by the president's encouragement for people to take destiny into their own hands.

"He told the youths, don't look to Europe, don't look to America for solutions to your problems. You can, yes, you can. And I think we've taken it up ... and we are going to do it," he said.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the U.S. president was chosen "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," it said Oct. 9.

Speaking at the White House later the same day, Obama said he was "surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel committee."

"Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations," he said. (Nobel Peace Prize to Obama greeted with praise, high hopes at Vatican; see also Figures of Antichrist Applauding Each Other.)

 

October 20: The conciliar Vatican announces that a "constitution" would be issued concerning the "reception" of Anglicans into the structures of its own counterfeit church. The actual constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus, issued on November 4, 2009, permits such "Anglo-Catholics" to retain liturgical rites that were deemed to be heretical by Pope Saint Pius V in Regnans in Excelsis, March 5, 1570. (See Defaming The English Martyrs and Still Defaming The English Martyrs.)

 

2010

January 17: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI commits yet another act of apostasy by entering into the Talmudic synagogue in Rome, Italy, saying that "Christians and Jews" pray to the same Lord, a blasphemy that has been condemned repeatedly by Holy Mother Church, including by Saint John Chrysostom:

(2) But at any rate the Jews say that they, too, adore God. God forbid that I say that. No Jew adores God! Who says so? The Son of God says so. For he said: "If you were to know my Father, you would also know me. But you neither know me nor do you know my Father". Could I produce a witness more trustworthy than the Son of God?

(3) If, then, the Jews fail to know the Father, if they crucified the Son, if they thrust off the help of the Spirit, who should not make bold to declare plainly that the synagogue is a dwelling of demons? God is not worshipped there. Heaven forbid! From now on it remains a place of idolatry. But still some people pay it honor as a holy place. (Saint John Chrysostom: Eight Homilies Against the Jews; see also Saint Peter and Anti-Peter.)

Rome Synagogue, Sunday, January 17, 2010.

 

January 20: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI praised the 1910 "World Missionary Conference" that took place in Edinburgh, Scotland, that began the modern "ecumenical" movement that was condemned by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928. (Getting Bolder In His Apostasy.)

March 14: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI enters a Lutheran "church" in Rome, listening to the "sermon" given by the Lutheran minister, saying when it was his turn to speak that "I think we should first be thankful that there is so much unity. It's nice that we can pray together today, sing the same hymns together, hear the same word of God together, that we can interpret and try to understand it together." Unity? Yes, he is one with his fellow Lutherans on many points. (See Unity Among Lutherans; a video of this appearance can be viewed by clicking on ROME REPORTS TV News Agency - The Catholic and Lutheran.)

May 11-14: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI traveled to Portugal. He set about his Modernist business immediately upon arriving at the airport in Lisbon as he praised "separation of Church and State" in Portugal:

From a wise vision of life and of the world, the just ordering of society follows. Situated within history, the Church is open to cooperating with anyone who does not marginalize or reduce to the private sphere the essential consideration of the human meaning of life. The point at issue is not an ethical confrontation between a secular and a religious system, so much as a question about the meaning that we give to our freedom. What matters is the value attributed to the problem of meaning and its implication in public life. By separating Church and State, the Republican revolution which took place 100 years ago in Portugal, opened up a new area of freedom for the Church, to which the two concordats of 1940 and 2004 would give shape, in cultural settings and ecclesial perspectives profoundly marked by rapid change. For the most part, the sufferings caused by these transformations have been faced with courage. Living amid a plurality of value systems and ethical outlooks requires a journey to the core of one’s being and to the nucleus of Christianity so as to reinforce the quality of one’s witness to the point of sanctity, and to find mission paths that lead even to the radical choice of martyrdom. (Official Reception at Lisbon Portela International Airport, Tuesday, May 11, 2010.)

 

Ratzinger/Benedict thus mocked Pope Saint Pius X, who had condemned the very separation of Church and State in Portugal that Ratzinger had praised for working in a once Catholic land where it is now legal to kill babies and for those engaged in perverse acts against nature to "marry:"

2. Whilst the new rulers of Portugal were affording such numerous and awful examples of the abuse of power, you know with what patience and moderation this Apostolic See has acted towards them. We thought that We ought most carefully to avoid any action that could even have the appearance of hostility to the Republic. For We clung to the hope that its rulers would one day take saner counsels and would at length repair, by some new agreement, the injuries inflicted on the Church. In this, however, We have been altogether disappointed, for they have now crowned their evil work by the promulgation of a vicious and pernicious Decree for the Separation of Church and State. But now the duty imposed upon Us by our Apostolic charge will not allow Us to remain passive and silent when so serious a wound has been inflicted upon the rights and dignity of the Catholic religion. Therefore do We now address you, Venerable Brethren, in this letter and denounce to all Christendom the heinousness of this deed.

3. At the outset, the absurd and monstrous character of the decree of which We speak is plain from the fact that it proclaims and enacts that the Republic shall have no religion, as if men individually and any association or nation did not depend upon Him who is the Maker and Preserver of all things; and then from the fact that it liberates Portugal from the observance of the Catholic religion, that religion, We say, which has ever been that nation's greatest safeguard and glory, and has been professed almost unanimously by its people. So let us take it that it has been their pleasure to sever that close alliance between Church and State, confirmed though it was by the solemn faith of treaties. Once this divorce was effected, it would at least have been logical to pay no further attention to the Church, and to leave her the enjoyment of the common liberty and rights which belong to every citizen and every respectable community of peoples. Quite otherwise, however, have things fallen out. This decree bears indeed the name of Separation, but it enacts in reality the reduction of the Church to utter want by the spoliation of her property, and to servitude to the State by oppression in all that touches her sacred power and spirit. (Pope Saint Pius X, Iamdudum, May 24, 1911.)

 

Who's the Catholic in this picture? "Pope" Benedict XVI or Pope Saint Pius X? (See also Mocking Pope Saint Pius X and Our Lady of Fatima.)

The false "pontiff" also disparaged the physical reality of Our Lady's apparitions in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, on May 13, 1917, June 13, 1917, July 13, 1917, August 19, 1917, September 13, 1917, and October 13, 1917:

 

Brothers and sisters, in listening to these innocent and profound mystical confidences of the shepherd children, one might look at them with a touch of envy for what they were able to see, or with the disappointed resignation of someone who was not so fortunate, yet still demands to see. To such persons, the Pope says, as does Jesus: “Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?” (Mk 12:24). The Scriptures invite us to believe: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (Jn 20:29), but God, who is more deeply present to me than I am to myself (cf. Saint Augustine, Confessions, III, 6, 11) – has the power to come to us, particularly through our inner senses, so that the soul can receive the gentle touch of a reality which is beyond the senses and which enables us to reach what is not accessible or visible to the senses. For this to happen, we must cultivate an interior watchfulness of the heart which, for most of the time, we do not possess on account of the powerful pressure exerted by outside realities and the images and concerns which fill our soul (cf. Theological Commentary on The Message of Fatima, 2000). Yes! God can come to us, and show himself to the eyes of our heart.

Moreover, that Light deep within the shepherd children, which comes from the future of God, is the same Light which was manifested in the fullness of time and came for us all: the Son of God made man. (Homily at the Purported Mass on the Esplanade of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima.)

 

Permit me to provide you with a reprise of the commentary that I offered at the time so that this current article can be bookmarked as a reference source for future reference without having to search through various past articles that have appeared on this site:

It is very significant that the false "pontiff" cited his own Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message from ten years ago as he is conveying, albeit in the obscurantist manner of a Modernism, that the Faith is purely a matter of the senses (no room for the intellect here) and that the three shepherd children had a "Light deep within them" that caused them to "see" Our Lady interiorly, meaning, of course, that she was not truly physically visible to the eyes of their bodies. And that is leaving aside the phrase "the future of God" as no true pope has ever spoken in such a absurd manner. A Catholic can speak about the future possession of the glory of the Beatific Vision of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. One possessed of a Catholic mind does speak of the "future of God" as He is without beginning or end.

How does the Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message connect with Ratzinger/Benedict's words yesterday to justify a conclusion that he does not believe that Our Lady really appeared physically before the eyes of Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos? Consider this passage from that Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message:

Before undertaking an interpretation of the message of Fatima, we must still attempt briefly to offer some clarification of their anthropological (psychological) character. In this field, theological anthropology distinguishes three forms of perception or “vision”: vision with the senses, and hence exterior bodily perception, interior perception, and spiritual vision (visio sensibilis - imaginativa - intellectualis). It is clear that in the visions of Lourdes, Fatima and other places it is not a question of normal exterior perception of the senses: the images and forms which are seen are not located spatially, as is the case for example with a tree or a house. This is perfectly obvious, for instance, as regards the vision of hell (described in the first part of the Fatima “secret”) or even the vision described in the third part of the “secret”. But the same can be very easily shown with regard to other visions, especially since not everybody present saw them, but only the “visionaries”. It is also clear that it is not a matter of a “vision” in the mind, without images, as occurs at the higher levels of mysticism. Therefore we are dealing with the middle category, interior perception. For the visionary, this perception certainly has the force of a presence, equivalent for that person to an external manifestation to the senses.   

Interior vision does not mean fantasy, which would be no more than an expression of the subjective imagination. It means rather that the soul is touched by something real, even if beyond the senses. It is rendered capable of seeing that which is beyond the senses, that which cannot be seen—seeing by means of the “interior senses”. It involves true “objects”, which touch the soul, even if these “objects” do not belong to our habitual sensory world. This is why there is a need for an interior vigilance of the heart, which is usually precluded by the intense pressure of external reality and of the images and thoughts which fill the soul. The person is led beyond pure exteriority and is touched by deeper dimensions of reality, which become visible to him. Perhaps this explains why children tend to be the ones to receive these apparitions: their souls are as yet little disturbed, their interior powers of perception are still not impaired. “On the lips of children and of babes you have found praise”, replies Jesus with a phrase of Psalm 8 (v. 3) to the criticism of the High Priests and elders, who had judged the children's cries of “hosanna” inappropriate (cf. Mt 21:16).   

“Interior vision” is not fantasy but, as we have said, a true and valid means of verification. But it also has its limitations. Even in exterior vision the subjective element is always present. We do not see the pure object, but it comes to us through the filter of our senses, which carry out a work of translation. This is still more evident in the case of interior vision, especially when it involves realities which in themselves transcend our horizon. The subject, the visionary, is still more powerfully involved. He sees insofar as he is able, in the modes of representation and consciousness available to him. In the case of interior vision, the process of translation is even more extensive than in exterior vision, for the subject shares in an essential way in the formation of the image of what appears. He can arrive at the image only within the bounds of his capacities and possibilities. Such visions therefore are never simple “photographs” of the other world, but are influenced by the potentialities and limitations of the perceiving subject. (Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message.)

 

In others, just as Modernists contend that Faith itself is a matter of interior consciousness that comes from within so do they believe that seers such as Saint Bernadette Soubirous and Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos have had real but necessarily "subjective" experiences that have no actual visible, spatial reality with the eyes of the body.

It is important to examine the connection between the Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message of ten years ago and the "homily" given on the Esplanade of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima yesterday.

First, Ratzinger/Benedict made the point yesterday that the three shepherd children of Fatima were able to "see" Our Lady because they had "these innocent and profound mystical confidences," meaning that the children had to have pure, innocent souls to see interiorly what they thought they had seen with their eyes. This corresponds exactly to what he wrote ten years ago, that "this explains why children tend to be the ones to receive these apparitions: their souls are as yet little disturbed, their interior powers of perception are still not impaired."

My friends, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI does not believe that Our Lady physically appeared before the physical eyes of Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia. He has dismissed the Fatima apparitions as an "interior vision" that are designed to move us closer to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and have nothing at all to do with apostasy in the ranks of those who believe themselves to be Catholics or, Heaven forfend, the consecration of Russia to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart by a true pope with all of the world's bishops.

Ratzinger/Benedict does not believe triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary that he referred to gratuitously yesterday has nothing at all to do with the consecration of Russia or the conversion of souls to the true Faith, Catholicism. Why did Ratzinger/Benedict make reference to that triumph, therefore? Because it makes life easier for those in the Motu communities and for Bishop Fellay of the Society of Saint Pius X as they bask in the false reassurance that their false "pontiff" is a partisan of the Fatima Message. One cannot believe in a request of a message that conflicts with good relations with those in Russia, whether it be the Communists of yore (and the present day, of course) or the Orthodox at the present time.

If what happened at Fatima was but a mere "interior vision," then why did each of the children, when being examined by ecclesiastical authorities, give identical testimony as to what they saw with the physical eyes of their bodies? Each had the identical vision? Logic has never been Ratzinger/Benedict's long suit as his rejection of Thomism (both Thomistic Philosophy and Thomistic Theology) has opened up to grow from young adulthood into an old man who has lived in a world of contradiction, paradox and ambiguity which makes it almost impossible for to him to see the fallacies in what he presents as "explanations" of the Faith and the events associated with It.

Second, Ratzinger/Benedict said yesterday that God "has the power to come to us, particularly through our inner senses, so that the soul can receive the gentle touch of a reality which is beyond the senses and which enables us to reach what is not accessible or visible to the senses." This corresponds with his statement of ten years ago:

It is clear that in the visions of Lourdes, Fatima and other places it is not a question of normal exterior perception of the senses: the images and forms which are seen are not located spatially, as is the case for example with a tree or a house. This is perfectly obvious, for instance, as regards the vision of hell (described in the first part of the Fatima “secret”) or even the vision described in the third part of the “secret”. . . .

It means rather that the soul is touched by something real, even if beyond the senses. It is rendered capable of seeing that which is beyond the senses, that which cannot be seen—seeing by means of the “interior senses”. It involves true “objects”, which touch the soul, even if these “objects” do not belong to our habitual sensory world. This is why there is a need for an interior vigilance of the heart, which is usually precluded by the intense pressure of external reality and of the images and thoughts which fill the soul. (Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message.)

Why is it "perfectly obvious" that the images and forms seen, to cite the false "pope's own example, by the fourteen year-old Bernadette Soubirous and Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia "are not located spatially"?

Our Lady did not actually part the earth and show Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia a vision of Hell that they saw with their own eyes? This was merely an "interior" vision vision of theirs that did not really happen in time and space?

The the buds on holm oak tree over which Our Lady hovered as she physically appeared to Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia did not change their appearance as seen by eyewitnesses who came to watch them? (On Full Display: The Modernist Mind.)

 

Disparaging the actual, physical apparitions of the Mother of God at Lourdes and Fatima? Yes, by all means, please call those of us who dissent from this blasphemy as not being Catholic.

June 4-6: On his visit to Cyprus, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI continued to plead for the "co-existence" of all religions, stating that such is the basis of "true peace and unity:"

Dear brothers and sisters, given your unique circumstances, I would also like to draw your attention to an essential part of our Church’s life and mission, namely the search for greater unity in charity with other Christians and dialogue with those who are not Christians. Especially since the Second Vatican Council, the Church has been committed to advancing along the path of greater understanding with our fellow Christians with a view to ever stronger ties of love and fellowship among all the baptized. Given your circumstances, you are able to make your personal contribution to the goal of greater Christian unity in your daily lives. Let me encourage you to do so, confident that the Spirit of the Lord, who prayed that his followers might be one (cf. Jn 17:21), will accompany you in this important task.

With regard to interreligious dialogue, much still needs to be done throughout the world. This is another area where Catholics in Cyprus often live in circumstances which afford them opportunities for right and prudent action. Only by patient work can mutual trust be built, the burden of history overcome, and the political and cultural differences between peoples become a motive to work for deeper understanding. I urge you to help create such mutual trust between Christians and non-Christians as a basis for building lasting peace and harmony between peoples of different religions, political regions and cultural backgrounds. (Meeting with the Catholic community of Cyprus at the sports field of St. Maron primary school, Nicosia, 5 June 2010.)

 

Catholicism alone is the only basis of true peace and unity:

Since the Church is the safe and sure guide to conscience, for to her safe-keeping alone there has been confided the doctrines and the promise of the assistance of Christ, she is able not only to bring about at the present hour a peace that is truly the peace of Christ, but can, better than any other agency which We know of, contribute greatly to the securing of the same peace for the future, to the making impossible of war in the future. For the Church teaches (she alone has been given by God the mandate and the right to teach with authority) that not only our acts as individuals but also as groups and as nations must conform to the eternal law of God. In fact, it is much more important that the acts of a nation follow God's law, since on the nation rests a much greater responsibility for the consequences of its acts than on the individual.

When, therefore, governments and nations follow in all their activities, whether they be national or international, the dictates of conscience grounded in the teachings, precepts, and example of Jesus Christ, and which are binding on each and every individual, then only can we have faith in one another's word and trust in the peaceful solution of the difficulties and controversies which may grow out of differences in point of view or from clash of interests. An attempt in this direction has already and is now being made; its results, however, are almost negligible and, especially so, as far as they can be said to affect those major questions which divide seriously and serve to arouse nations one against the other. No merely human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations, Christianity. It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages this law was often violated; still it always existed as an ideal, according to which one might judge the acts of nations, and a beacon light calling those who had lost their way back to the safe road.

There exists an institution able to safeguard the sanctity of the law of nations. This institution is a part of every nation; at the same time it is above all nations. She enjoys, too, the highest authority, the fullness of the teaching power of the Apostles. Such an institution is the Church of Christ. She alone is adapted to do this great work, for she is not only divinely commissioned to lead mankind, but moreover, because of her very make-up and the constitution which she possesses, by reason of her age-old traditions and her great prestige, which has not been lessened but has been greatly increased since the close of the War, cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail.

It is apparent from these considerations that true peace, the peace of Christ, is impossible unless we are willing and ready to accept the fundamental principles of Christianity, unless we are willing to observe the teachings and obey the law of Christ, both in public and private life. If this were done, then society being placed at last on a sound foundation, the Church would be able, in the exercise of its divinely given ministry and by means of the teaching authority which results therefrom, to protect all the rights of God over men and nations.

It is possible to sum up all We have said in one word, "the Kingdom of Christ." For Jesus Christ reigns over the minds of individuals by His teachings, in their hearts by His love, in each one's life by the living according to His law and the imitating of His example. Jesus reigns over the family when it, modeled after the holy ideals of the sacrament of matrimony instituted by Christ, maintains unspotted its true character of sanctuary. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922; see also Catholicism Is The Only Foundation of Personal and Social Order.)

 

 September 16-20: The false "pontiff's" journey to Scotland and England was well chronicled on this site (Calling Cesar Romero, Calling Cesar Romero, part one, Calling Cesar Romero, Calling Cesar Romero, part two, Generic Christianity Is Not Good Enough For God, Day Two of the Conciliar Circus in the United Kingdom, part one, Day Two of the Conciliar Circus in the United Kingdom, part two, Days Three and Four of the Conciliar Circus in the United Kingdom, part one, Days Three and Four of the Conciliar Circus in the United Kingdom, part two, What's The First Commandment Got To Do With Anything?, and The Cost of "Recognition" Keeps Getting Higher and Higher). Perhaps the following images will serve as a potent reminder that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is the one who is not Catholic, not those of us who point out his multiple defections from the Catholic Faith:

Layman Rowan Williams greets Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI at Westminster Abbey, Friday, September 17, 2010. Note that Rowan Williams wore a miter. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, did not wear one. Obviously, neither are bishops, although Ratzinger/Benedict is a true priest, something that Williams is not.

Ratzinger/Benedict greets the "Reverend" Doctor Jane Hedges, the "canon steward" of Westminster Abbey (see Benedict XVI publicly shakes hand with clergywoman for first time). Lest apologists for all things Benedict try to take false refuge in the delusional belief that the "pope" was taken by "surprise" when he met the "Reverend Doctor Jane Hedges, the encounter was no surprise at all. See Anglican clergywoman to greet Benedict during visit.)

 

The Catholic Church has condemned such acts of apostasy:

This being so, it is clear that the Apostolic See cannot on any terms take part in their assemblies, nor is it anyway lawful for Catholics either to support or to work for such enterprises; for if they do so they will be giving countenance to a false Christianity, quite alien to the one Church of Christ. Shall We suffer, what would indeed be iniquitous, the truth, and a truth divinely revealed, to be made a subject for compromise? For here there is question of defending revealed truth. Jesus Christ sent His Apostles into the whole world in order that they might permeate all nations with the Gospel faith, and, lest they should err, He willed beforehand that they should be taught by the Holy Ghost: has then this doctrine of the Apostles completely vanished away, or sometimes been obscured, in the Church, whose ruler and defense is God Himself? If our Redeemer plainly said that His Gospel was to continue not only during the times of the Apostles, but also till future ages, is it possible that the object of faith should in the process of time become so obscure and uncertain, that it would be necessary to-day to tolerate opinions which are even incompatible one with another? If this were true, we should have to confess that the coming of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles, and the perpetual indwelling of the same Spirit in the Church, and the very preaching of Jesus Christ, have several centuries ago, lost all their efficacy and use, to affirm which would be blasphemy. But the Only-begotten Son of God, when He commanded His representatives to teach all nations, obliged all men to give credence to whatever was made known to them by "witnesses preordained by God," and also confirmed His command with this sanction: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned." These two commands of Christ, which must be fulfilled, the one, namely, to teach, and the other to believe, cannot even be understood, unless the Church proposes a complete and easily understood teaching, and is immune when it thus teaches from all danger of erring. In this matter, those also turn aside from the right path, who think that the deposit of truth such laborious trouble, and with such lengthy study and discussion, that a man's life would hardly suffice to find and take possession of it; as if the most merciful God had spoken through the prophets and His Only-begotten Son merely in order that a few, and those stricken in years, should learn what He had revealed through them, and not that He might inculcate a doctrine of faith and morals, by which man should be guided through the whole course of his moral life. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

 

Let me dust off this quote from Pope Leo XIII's Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896, that I have not used for a while:

The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88). (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)

 

There just a few more "drops" of poison than  just "one" drop of poison contained in the material cited above.

Obviously, Ratzinger/Benedict also had his hands full in the first few months of the year s with "damage" control over the continuing explosion of stories of clerical abuse in one country after another, including his own mismanagement of the case of the aforementioned Father Peter Hullermann. (See Waterloo For Benedict?, Always Evading Root Causes, Swinging Clubs To Protect The Club, Surely He Jests, "Canonizing" A Man Who Protected Moral Derelicts, More Than A Matter of Legality, Dario Castrillon Hoyos, Meet Pope Saint Pius V and "Fall Guys" Aren't Usually "Stand-Up Guys". You can also listen to Scandal In a Church of Apostasy.WMA.)

Even this expanded and updated list his has not been anything close to a comprehensive list of the things for which Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI should be apologizing to God. This list--and its documentary links--has been compiled so as to help provide something of an overview of how God has been offended so much in the person of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI just in the five years since his "election" to replace Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II in the "chair" of conciliarism in a Rome that indeed has become the seat of apostasy as Our Lady of La Salette prophesied.

 

The Catholic Church can never give us any liturgy that is in any way defective or that is an incentive to impiety or that can be used a means of institutionalizing gross offenses to God. Who says so? The Council of Trent:

CANON VII.--If any one saith, that the ceremonies, vestments, and outward signs, which the Catholic Church makes use of in the celebration of masses, are incentives to impiety, rather than offices of piety; let him be anathema. (Session Twenty-Two, Chapter IX, Canon VII, Council of Trent, September 17, 1562, CT022.)

 

The Catholic Church cannot be stained by any taint of error, as pope after pope has taught us:

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

Just as Christianity cannot penetrate into the soul without making it better, so it cannot enter into public life without establishing order. With the idea of a God Who governs all, Who is infinitely Wise, Good, and Just, the idea of duty seizes upon the consciences of men. It assuages sorrow, it calms hatred, it engenders heroes. If it has transformed pagan society--and that transformation was a veritable resurrection--for barbarism disappeared in proportion as Christianity extended its sway, so, after the terrible shocks which unbelief has given to the world in our days, it will be able to put that world again on the true road, and bring back to order the States and peoples of modern times. But the return of Christianity will not be efficacious and complete if it does not restore the world to a sincere love of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate. It identifies Itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption. It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of Its blood, and strong in the Divine assistance and of that immortality which has been promised it, It makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the commands which  it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity. Legitimate dispenser of the teachings of the Gospel it does not reveal itself only as the consoler and Redeemer of souls, but It is still more the internal source of justice and charity, and the propagator as well as the guardian of true liberty, and of that equality which alone is possible here below. In applying the doctrine of its Divine Founder, It maintains a wise equilibrium and marks the true limits between the rights and privileges of society. The equality which it proclaims does not destroy the distinction between the different social classes. It keeps them intact, as nature itself demands, in order to oppose the anarchy of reason emancipated from Faith, and abandoned to its own devices. The liberty which it gives in no wise conflicts with the rights of truth, because those rights are superior to the demands of liberty. Not does it infringe upon the rights of justice, because those rights are superior to the claims of mere numbers or power. Nor does it assail the rights of God because they are superior to the rights of humanity. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)

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

 

Please note that Pope Gregory XVI wrote that the truth can be found in the Catholic Church without "even a slight tarnish of error."

Please note that Pope Leo XIII stressed that the Catholic Church "makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the command which it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity."

Please note that that Pope Pius XI explained that the Catholic Church brings forth her teaching "with ease and security to the knowledge of men."

Anyone who says that this has been done by the counterfeit church of concilairism, which has made its "reconciliation" with the false principles of Modernity that leave no room for the confessionally Catholic civil state and the Social Reign of Christ the King, is not thinking too clearly (and that is as about as charitably as I can put the matter). If the conciliar church has brought forth its teaching "with ease and security to the knowledge of men," why is there such disagreement even between the "progressive" conciliarists and "conservative" conciliarists concerning the proper "interpretation" of the "Second" Vatican Council and its aftermath? Or does this depend upon what one means by "ease and security"?

Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki, CMRI, explained in Tumultuous Times that the Catholic Church can never give us "novelties" of any kind, no less those that have been institutionalized by the counterfeit church of conciliarism:

A legitimate pope cannot contradict or deny what was first taught by Christ to His Church. An essential change in belief constitutes the establishment of a new religion.

The attribute of infallibility was given to the popes in order that the revealed doctrines and teaching of Christ would remain forever intact and unchanged. It is contrary to faith and reason to blindly follow an alleged pope who attempts to destroy the Catholic Faith--for there have been 41 documented antipopes. Papal infallibility means that the Holy Ghost guides and preserves the Catholic Church from error through the succession of legitimate popes who have ruled the Church through the centuries. All Catholics, including Christ's Vicar on earth, the pope, must accept all the doctrinal pronouncements of past popes. These infallible teachings form a vital link between Christ and St. Peter and his successors.

If a pope did not accept and believe this entire body of formulated teachings (the Deposit of Faith), he could not himself be a Catholic. He would cease to belong to Christ's Church. If he no longer belongs to the Catholic Church, he cannot be her Head. (Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki, CMRI, Tumultuous Times, p. 274.)

"Do not be misled by various and passing doctrines. In the Catholic Church Herself we must be careful to hold what has been believed everywhere, always and by all; for that alone is truly and properly Catholic." (Saint Vincent of Lerins, quoted in Tumultuous Times by Frs. Francisco and Dominic Radecki, CMRI, p. 279.)

 

The "traditions" to which Ratzinger/Benedict has show his steadfast fidelity are from Hell. They are from the devil, who inspired the conciliar revolution just as he inspired the Protestant Revolution (and every false religion, including that quintessentially Americanist sect of the devil, Mormonism) and the various social revolutions of Modernity.

What do you do if you are called, perhaps behind your back, to be "out of the Church"? What do you do if someone says that you are not a Catholic for rejecting these outrages and blasphemies and apostasies as coming from the Catholic Church and for asserting that those who are responsible for perpetrating them are enemies of the Cross of the Divine Redeemer and threats to the sanctification and salvation of immortal souls, Catholics and non-Catholics alike? What do you do?

You wear your Catholic stripes well, that's what.

There's little that you can say. There's no use to getting angry or hurt. Indeed, rejoice! Say with Saint Francis Assisi "Deo gratias" whenever you are caricatured for standing fast in behalf of the Faith without any concessions to conciliarism. Those who castigate us do us a favor. Every cross we receive comes from the hand of God, does it not? Why should we not rejoice when we are insulted by our own relatives and former friends, some of whom may have been very close friends? Why not rejoice and give thanks to God for being rejected and cast aside? Have not we done this--and so much more--to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Most Blessed Mother? Why do we even think about nurturing hurt and resentment? Rejoice! Thanks be to God. Humiliation is the path by which God seeks to purify us.

Indeed, remember that it was our own sins of pride caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to be crowned with thorns, a mockery of His Kingship. We are but creatures who are filled with inordinate pride and disordered self-love. We need to be beaten down and crushed so as to be reminded that our sufferings are nothing, absolutely nothing, in comparison to what we imposed upon the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Take it from one who has been stripped of friends of longstanding and who has lost all but a handful of people who are willing to support the work of this site, it is truly good to be publicly humiliated and castigated. We are going to stand before Christ the King at the moment of our Particular Judgments. We had better start doing some penance now for our own sins of pride and for our own sins against the Virtue of Charity by how we have mistreated and spoken ill of others, perhaps behind their backs. Most of us are not innocent of these sins at all. Give thanks to the good God for sending us the difficulties of the present moment. Give thanks to the good God through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Moreover, we must never nurture any kind of grudge or hurt feelings against those who have rejected us or have calumniated us. We must forgive as we are forgiven. Our Lord Himself taught us that we will not be forgiven our sins unless we forgive others their sins against us from the very depths of our hearts. Do you think He was joking? (See To Forgive As We Are Forgiven.) Forgive others. Pray for them. While it might be the case that we may never be reconciled in this life to those who have, for one reason or another, whether justly or unjustly, rejected us, we must pray for them in this life, praying fervently that we and they may be reconciled in eternity in the very Beatific Vision of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.

Nothing we suffer--and I mean precisely that: nothing we suffer--in this passing, mortal vale of tears is the equal of what one of our least Venial Sins caused Our Lord to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death and caused His Most Blessed Mother's Immaculate Heart to suffer as those Seven Swords of Sorrow were pierced through and through that same Immaculate Heart of Mary. Embrace the cross. Wear your Catholic stripes well.

Perhaps it is wise to reprise this passage from a book about the life of Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres:

It is impossible for us to understand the next phase of the life of the novice Mariana de Jesus Torres. Hidden in the Heart of her Spouse, she was inflamed with a desire for a life of immolation and sacrifice. Our Lord Himself told her the practices she should carry out during the free hours of the community schedule and the penances she would perform each week. Her severe disciplines, sacrifices, fasting and prayer, all described in chapters of the manuscript, appear daunting to the man of our our century, who finds suffering something to avoid, or, at best, to endure as austerely as possible.

Suffering is highly ennobling. On this road of suffering in union with Christ, man finds the fullest meaning of his life, and he discovered that frequently it is in the great sufferings of life, accepted with a supernatural disposition, that he can find a joy which the greatest pleasures do not give. Further, he discovers in suffering an interior state that makes his capable of soaring to heights impossible for one who does not suffer. Only when man embraces great sufferings can his horizons expand to grand metaphysical and religious heights and his spirit advance to a superior state. At the end of Mother Mariana's life when her sanctity was acknowledged in the community and convent, she would look back with nostalgia and sigh for the days of persecution and suffering.

While the founding mothers admired Mother Mariana's perfect observance of the rule and practice of virtue, there were other sisters who were stirred by jealousy. Mother Mariana suffered insults and persecutions from these sisters without ever trying to justify herself or protest. Only at the foot of the Tabernacle did she confide her secret sorrows to her Beloved. One day in 1582, as he was praying before the altar, she saw the Tabernacle open and Christ Himself emerged, suffering as He had at Golgotha. The Blessed Virgin, at His feet, was shedding tears of perils. Mother Mariana asked her, "My Lady, am I to blame for this sadness?"

"No," she replied, "it is not you, but the criminal world." Then as Our Lord began His Agony, she heard the voice of the Eternal Father saying, "This punishment will be for the 20th century. She saw three swords hanging over the head of Christ. On each was written, "I shall punish heresy, blasphemy and impurity." With this, she was given to understand all that would take place in the present era." (Dr. Marian Therese Horvat, Our Lady of Good Success: Prophecies For Our Times, second edition, Tradition in Action Press, 2000, pp. 26-27.)

 

Heresy, blasphemy and impurity. That kind of summarizes the rotten fruit of the "Second" Vatican Council and the "magisterium" of the conciliar "popes," does it not?

Do not worry if others don't "get it" yet. Pray for them. Send them truly blessed Green Scapulars. The fact that any of us "get it" is solely the working of the graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of the Most Precious Blood of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on the wood of the Holy Cross that He sends to us through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces. Pray to persevere in this grace as it is easy to "go back," to quit "kicking against the goad," to not "stand out" any longer, to be content with a somewhat traditional liturgy, perhaps simulated by a presbyter, without having to defend the integrity of the Holy Faith and the honor and glory and majesty of God that has been and continues to be blasphemed by the conciliar officials. Pray, pray, pray. It is easier to "quit" than it is to persevere. Pray.

While each person must come to recognize the true state of the Church at this time for himself (it took me long enough to do so!), we must nevertheless embrace the truth once we do come to recognize and accept it without caring for one moment what anyone else may think about us.

We must ask Our Lady to overcome the torments of the devil in our own days of the apostasy and betrayal wrought by the conciliarists, revolutionaries who have set believing Catholics against believing Catholics almost as never before in the history of the Catholic Church.

The hour is late. Figures of Antichrist walk among us in the realm of civil government and pose, albeit falsely, as leaders of the Catholic Church. We must be about the business of making reparation for our sins and those of the whole world as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary according to the formula of Saint Louis de Montfort. Every Rosary we pray can help to plant a few seeds for the resurrection of the Church Militant on earth and for the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King.

What are we waiting for? Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon.

 

Viva Cristo Rey! 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 John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Martin of Tours, pray for us.

Saint Mennas, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints