Home Articles Golden Oldies Speaking Schedule About Christ or Chaos Links Donations Contact Us
                 May 17, 2009

"When He Cometh, Shall He Find, Think You, Faith on Earth"

by Thomas A. Droleskey

But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth? (Luke 18: 8)

 

Is there any Faith left on earth when a putative "pope" can utter the following words in front of a mosque, a place of devil worship, that are "censored" by "conservative" and quasi-traditional Catholics attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism in order to try to prove as an exercise in rank intellectual dishonesty that their "pope" believes in every article of Faith without fail and does not speak any words or engage in actions that offend the greater honor and majesty and glory of God?

My visit to Jordan gives me a welcome opportunity to speak of my deep respect for the Muslim community, and to pay tribute to the leadership shown by His Majesty the King in promoting a better understanding of the virtues proclaimed by Islam. Now that some years have passed since the publication of the Amman Message and the Amman Interfaith Message, we can say that these worthy initiatives have achieved much good in furthering an alliance of civilizations between the West and the Muslim world, confounding the predictions of those who consider violence and conflict inevitable. Indeed the Kingdom of Jordan has long been at the forefront of initiatives to promote peace in the Middle East and throughout the world, encouraging inter-religious dialogue, supporting efforts to find a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, welcoming refugees from neighboring Iraq, and seeking to curb extremism. I cannot let this opportunity pass without calling to mind the pioneering efforts for peace in the region made by the late King Hussein. How fitting that my meeting tomorrow with Muslim religious leaders, the diplomatic corps and University rectors should take place in the mosque that bears his name. May his commitment to the resolution of the region's conflicts continue to bear fruit in efforts to promote lasting peace and true justice for all who live in the Middle East. (Ratzinger Address Upon Arrival in Amman.)

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)

 

Is God mutable? Does He now approve of such blasphemous talk? Does He countenance the silence of those who enable such blasphemous talk by making it appear, quite falsely, it should be added, that these words were never spoken or that they are "no big deal"? Have these words of Pope Pius XII, contained his allocution Ci Riesce, December 6, 1953, lost their meaning in light of the "importance" of promoting the diabolical trap that is Summorum Pontificum?

Her deportment has not changed in the course of history, nor can it change whenever or wherever, under the most diversified forms, she is confronted with the choice: either incense for idols or blood for Christ. The place where you are now present, Eternal Rome, with the remains of a greatness that was and with the glorious memories of its martyrs, is the most eloquent witness to the answer of the Church. Incense was not burned before the idols, and Christian blood flowed and consecrated the ground. But the temples of the gods lie in the cold devastation of ruins howsoever majestic; while at the tombs of the martyrs the faithful of all nations and all tongues fervently repeat the ancient Creed of the Apostles. (Pope Pius XII, Ci Riesce, December 6, 1953.)

 

Is there any Faith left on earth when a putative pope can take off his shoes in front of the mosque of the Dome of the Rock and utter the following words:

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.

 

Is the mosque of the Dome of the Rock a "sacred" place in the eyes of  God? Or is it a hideous place of false worship inspired by the devil to deny the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity? Have these words of King David, contained in Psalm 95, verse 5, lost their relevance of the importance of promoting the diabolical trap that is Summorum Pontificum?

For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils: but the Lord made the heavens. (Psalm 95: 5)

 

Is there any Faith left on the earth when a putative "pope" can pray as a member of a dead religion at a dead place, the Wailing Wall, to insert a prayer that makes no reference to the Son of God made Man in Our Lady's Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of God the Holy Ghost at the Annunciation so as not to "offend" His Talmudic hosts?

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)

 

Was Saint John Chrysostom, a Father and a Doctor of the Catholic Church, wrong to have condemned esteem being paid to the false religion of Talmudic Judaism?

Many, I know, respect the Jews and think that their present way of life is a venerable one. This is why I hasten to uproot and tear out this deadly opinion. I said that the synagogue is no better than a theater and I bring forward a prophet as my witness. Surely the Jews are not more deserving of belief than their prophets. "You had a harlot's brow; you became shameless before all". Where a harlot has set herself up, that place is a brothel. But the synagogue is not only a brothel and a theater; it also is a den of robbers and a lodging for wild beasts. Jeremiah said: "Your house has become for me the den of a hyena". He does not simply say "of wild beast", but "of a filthy wild beast", and again: "I have abandoned my house, I have cast off my inheritance". But when God forsakes a people, what hope of salvation is left? When God forsakes a place, that place becomes the dwelling of demons.

(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)

 

Is God mutable? Do not these words of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI stand condemned by the doctrines of the Catholic Church that was taught so faithfully by Saint John Chrysostom and, of course, the Council of Florence's Cantate Domino, February 4, 1442?

Distinguished Rabbis, I reciprocate by expressing my own respect and esteem for you and your communities. I assure you of my desire to deepen mutual understanding and cooperation between the Holy See, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and Jewish people throughout the world.

A great source of satisfaction for me since the beginning of my pontificate has been the fruit yielded by the ongoing dialogue between the Delegation of the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel’s Delegation for Relations with the Catholic Church. I wish to thank the members of both delegations for their dedication and hard work in implementing this initiative, so earnestly desired by my esteemed predecessor Pope John Paul II, as he said during the Great Jubilee Year of 2000.

Our encounter today is a most fitting occasion to give thanks to the Almighty for the many blessings which have accompanied the dialogue conducted by the Bilateral Commission, and to look forward with expectation to its future sessions. The willingness of the delegates to discuss openly and patiently not only points of agreement, but also points of difference, has already paved the way to more effective collaboration in public life. Jews and Christians alike are concerned to ensure respect for the sacredness of human life, the centrality of the family, a sound education for the young, and the freedom of religion and conscience for a healthy society. These themes of dialogue represent only the initial phases of what we trust will be a steady, progressive journey towards an enhanced mutual understanding.

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. (Courtesy visit to the two Chief Rabbis of Jerusalem at Hechal Shlomo Center in Jerusalem, May 12, 2009)

 

Is Judaism no longer a dead religion with the power to save no one?

Does God expect Catholics to have an "appreciation" for the "distinctive contributions" of false religions that worship the devil?

Can the Catholic Church be "enhanced" in any way at all by an "understanding" of false religions that she does not already possess as part of her Divine Constitution?

Can there be any "sound education for the young" that is not Catholic education? Was Pope Pius XI wrong, therefore, to have written the following in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929?

It is therefore as important to make no mistake in education, as it is to make no mistake in the pursuit of the last end, with which the whole work of education is intimately and necessarily connected. In fact, since education consists essentially in preparing man for what he must be and for what he must do here below, in order to attain the sublime end for which he was created, it is clear that there can be no true education which is not wholly directed to man's last end, and that in the present order of Providence, since God has revealed Himself to us in the Person of His Only Begotten Son, who alone is "the way, the truth and the life," there can be no ideally perfect education which is not Christian education. (Pope Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929?)

 

Is there such a thing as a "new spiritual impulse towards communion in diversity?" (Regina Cœli prayer with the Ordinaries of the Holy Land in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, May 12, 2009 .)

Is it true that "different religious traditions have a powerful potential to promote a culture of peace, especially through teaching and preaching the deeper spiritual values of our common humanity. By molding the hearts of the young, we mold the future of humanity itself. Christians readily join Jews, Muslims, Druze, and people of other religions in wishing to safeguard children from fanaticism and violence while preparing them to be builders of a better world." (Meeting with the religious leaders of Galilee in the Auditorium of the Shrine of the Annunciation in Nazareth, May 14, 2009?

Was Pope Leo XIII wrong to condemn the Masonic spirit of  a "respect for all religions" and reconciling the maxims of the Gospel with the Revolution?

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.)

 

Does it not matter that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI rejects the teaching of the Catholic Church that the civil state must recognize her as the true religion and to submit to her in all that pertains to the good of souls?

Does it not matter Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes that the "better world" can be built in an interdenominational way, making a mockery of these words of Pope Saint Pius X, contained in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15,1910, that the Pope Saint Pius X wrong to insist the Catholicism alone is the singular foundation of personal and social order?

Here we have, founded by Catholics, an inter-denominational association that is to work for the reform of civilization, an undertaking which is above all religious in character; for there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion: it is a proven truth, a historical fact. The new Sillonists cannot pretend that they are merely working on “the ground of practical realities” where differences of belief do not matter. Their leader is so conscious of the influence which the convictions of the mind have upon the result of the action, that he invites them, whatever religion they may belong to, “to provide on the ground of practical realities, the proof of the excellence of their personal convictions.” And with good reason: indeed, all practical results reflect the nature of one’s religious convictions, just as the limbs of a man down to his finger-tips, owe their very shape to the principle of life that dwells in his body.

 

Well, evidently, sadly and most predictably, to those in the fantasy world of boundless facades and artifices designed to shield the naked conciliar emperor from his clear defections from the Catholic Faith during his recently concluded pilgrimage to Jordan and Israel, none of this matters at all. The honor and glory of majesty of God? A spirited defense of the truth concerning the falsity of non-Catholic religions and how we must avoid giving them even the appearance of credibility? We are indeed in such an age of apostasy and betrayal that those who seek to hide or molest the known truth about the apostate words and deeds of the conciliar revolutionaries believe that they are doing a "service" to Catholics.

What Pope Saint Pius X wrote about the tactics of the Modernists in Pascendi Dominici Gregis applies to the defenders of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict who are so willing to bend, twist, distort and misrepresent and even conceal facts so as to suit their own "strategies" that are designed to "promote" a modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition at cost of the honor to due to the Most Holy Trinity and at the cost of integrity to the Faith for which millions upon millions of Catholics shed their lives rather than to give even the appearance of compromise and accommodation to known enemies of the Faith:

Further, none is more skillful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious devices; for they play the double part of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and as audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance. To this must be added the fact, which indeed is well calculated to deceive souls, that they lead a life of the greatest activity, of assiduous and ardent application to every branch of learning, and that they possess, as a rule, a reputation for irreproachable morality. Finally, there is the fact which is all hut fatal to the hope of cure that their very doctrines have given such a bent to their minds, that they disdain all authority and brook no restraint; and relying upon a false conscience, they attempt to ascribe to a love of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and obstinacy.

 

Decisions have been made by some Catholics who serve as "gatekeepers" of information in "conservative" and quasi-traditional conciliar circles and in in the Society of Saint Pius X, a recent de facto addition to these circles, to pretend as those the scandals that some of them used to denounce with vigor and clarity during the false "pontificate" of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II no longer matter because they have decided that this is so. These gatekeepers have become the arbiters of what is "traditional" and what is "proper" and what is "legitimate" and anyone who dares to point out their rank intellectual dishonesty for even failing to report--no less to condemn--the blasphemous words and deeds of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI when he praised the false religions of Mohammedanism and Talmudic Judaism and praised their ability to "contribute" to the "better" world must be treated with the use of emotional red-herrings, feigned "disgust" and the most shallow device of all used by cowards who are caught in the act of shading the truth to suit their own "strategies," the ad hominem attack.

 

But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth? (Luke 18: 8)

 

No, Our Lord find the Catholic Faith in the heart and the soul of Joseph Ratzinger as He defects from It in multiple ways. As I noted in  Keep Focused on Root Causes two days ago:

Catholicism can never be mixed with even the slightest taint of error. It is important to bear this in mind when reviewing the speeches and "homilies" that have been given thus far by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI during his visit to Jordan and Israel that began on Friday, May 8, 2009. No amount of pious invocations of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in front of Catholic audiences and congregations can make one a member of the Catholic Church until and unless he has abjured the apostasies and sacrileges he has committed in front non-Catholic audiences, to say nothing of the multiple ways in which one defects from the Faith by believing in and and promoting propositions that have been condemned most solemnly by the Church's teaching authority and by her true popes.

Although I included this quotation from Pope Gregory XVI's Singulari Nos, June 25, 1834, in several recent articles, including the one posted yesterday, Words and Actions of Antichrist, it is worth repeating once again so as to demonstrate that a man who can refer to mosques as "jewels" that stand out "across the face of the earth" and who can refuse to seek the conversion of the Jews (and who refuses to correct his own curial officials who say that the Catholic Church has no "mission from God" to do so) has as little understanding as to Who Our Lord is as does a Protestant. No one who can blaspheme God by entering into--and praising--places of false worship and the false religions practiced therein has a clue as to Who God is and what He as revealed to His true Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication:

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

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

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

 

We have witnessed Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI place many drops of poison during his pilgrimage to Jordan and Israel in the past seven days that have inflected"the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition."

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

 

No one can make the facts of Ratzinger/Benedict's apostasies and blasphemies "disappear" by refusing to report them and then emphasizing how "Catholic" he sounds on other occasions without bothering to inform their readers of the "pontiff's" apostate and blasphemous words and deeds. The Fuller Brush Man, Billy Graham, could can sound like a Catholic in his prime when speaking on some matters of Christology. This did not make him a Catholic. No amount of Catholic-sounding language before Catholic audiences can make one a member of the Catholic Church if one has engaged in apostate acts and spoken things contrary to the Faith that he has not confessed to a true priest and then publicly abjured.

I defy anyone in a Motu community or in the Society or Saint Pius X to state publicly that it is not gravely offensive to God to call a mosque a "splendid' place of "worship" and a "jewel" that stands out on the face of the earth

I defy anyone in a Motu community or in the Society of Saint Pius X to state publicly that it is not gravely offensive to God to take off one's shoes so as to treat a mosque as a "holy" place.

I defy anyone in a Motu community or in the Society of Saint Pius X to state publicly that it not gravely offensive to God to call the mosque of the Dome of the Rock as a "sacred place."

I defy anyone in a Motu community or in the Society of Saint Pius X to state publicly that it is not gravely offensive to God to insert a meaningless piece of paper into the Wailing Wall, which is not a place of prayer.

I defy anyone in a Motu community or in the Society of Saint Pius X to state publicly that it is not gravely offensive to God to treat Talmudic Judaism as a means of salvation for its adherents or that it has any means to provide for "social order.

I defy anyone in a Motu community or in the Society of Saint Pius X to state publicly that it is not gravely offensive to God to speak as a Catholic before Catholic audiences and as an ecumenist before non-Catholic audiences:

But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil. (Matthew 5: 37.)

 

I defy anyone in a Motu community or in the Society of Saint Pius X to state publicly that it is not gravely offensive to God to promote a concept of "communion in diversity" that makes a mockery of the unicity of the Church.

I defy anyone in a Motu community or in the Society of Saint Pius to state publicly that it is not gravely offensive to God to treat representatives of the schismatic and heretical Orthodox confessions, confessions that reject the doctrines of the Filioque and Papal Primacy and Papal Infallibility, Original Sin, Purgatory and the Marian dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and her bodily Assumption into Heaven exactly as they have been proclaimed and taught by the authority of the Catholic Church, as "ministers" of His Church.

Indeed, Ratzinger/Benedict, on the last day of his pilgrimage to Israel, Friday, May 15, 2009, once again treated representatives of the Orthodox confessions as members of  "the Church,  when he said the following at an ecumenical meeting:

 

Of particular joy for our Churches has been the participation of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His Holiness Bartholomew I, at the recent Synod of Bishops in Rome dedicated to the theme: The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church. The warm welcome he received and his moving intervention were sincere expressions of the deep spiritual joy that arises from the extent to which communion is already present between our Churches. Such ecumenical experience bears clear witness to the link between the unity of the Church and her mission. Extending his arms on the Cross, Jesus revealed the fullness of his desire to draw all people to himself, uniting them together as one (cf. Jn 12:32). Breathing his Spirit upon us he revealed his power to enable us to participate in his mission of reconciliation (cf. Jn 19:30; 20:22-23). In that breath, through the redemption that unites, stands our mission! Little wonder, then, that it is precisely in our burning desire to bring Christ to others, to make known his message of reconciliation (cf. 2 Cor 5:19), that we experience the shame of our division. Yet, sent out into the world (cf. Jn 20:21), empowered by the unifying force of the Holy Spirit (ibid. v. 22), proclaiming the reconciliation that draws all to believe that Jesus is the Son of God (ibid. v. 31), we shall find the strength to redouble our efforts to perfect our communion, to make it complete, to bear united witness to the love of the Father who sends the Son so that the world may know his love for us (cf. Jn 17:23).

Some two thousand years ago, along these same streets, a group of Greeks put this request to Philip: “Sir, we should like to see Jesus” (Jn 12:21). It is a request made again of us today, here in Jerusalem, in the Holy Land, in the region and throughout the world. How do we respond? Is our response heard? Saint Paul alerts us to the gravity of our response: our mission to teach and preach. He says: “faith comes from hearing, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ” (Rm 10:17). It is imperative therefore that Christian leaders and their communities bear vibrant testimony to what our faith proclaims: the eternal Word, who entered space and time in this land, Jesus of Nazareth, who walked these streets, through his words and actions calls people of every age to his life of truth and love. (Ecumenical meeting in the Throne Hall of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, May 15, 2009.)

 

Our Churches? A "link between the unity of the Church and her mission? Christian leaders? Our faith? Redouble our efforts to perfect our communion.

These conciliar beliefs, which belong to the category of errors that constitute the "new ecclesiology" that has been critiqued so well by His Excellency Bishop Donald Sanborn in The New Ecclesiology: An Overview and The New Ecclesiology: Documentation and Ratzinger's Dominus Jesus: A Critical Analysis and Communion: Ratzinger's Ecumenical One-World Church, are contrary to the clear words of Pope Leo XIII's Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 20, 1894, on the necessity of the Orthodox, who are outside of the one and only true Church of Christ, the Catholic, of returning to the bosom of their Holy Mother from whence they strayed nearly a thousand years ago now:

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.

 

This is quite a contrast with the apostasy of the new ecclesiology wherein it is contended that there is such a thing as "partial communion" with the Catholic Church, which is, of course, as taught by Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943, identical with the Catholic Church:

Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. "For in one spirit" says the Apostle, "were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free." As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered - so the Lord commands - as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit.

 

In other words, Ratzinger/Benedict's beliefs about "partial communion" of the Orthodox in the "Church of Christ," beliefs that fundamental building-blocks of the apostasy known as the new ecclesiology, are lies from beginning to end that cannot be reconciled with Catholic dogma in the slightest.

This point was made in a book, replete with anti-sedevacantist disclaimer, published seven years ago called The Great Facade :

Pius XII clearly meant his teaching to apply to the schismatic churches of the East, whose members he described in his encyclical Orientalis Ecclesiae as "those who are wafted towards her [the Catholic Church], as it were, on wings of yearning desire"--the same yearning and desire Pius attributed to morally upright, good-faith Protestants in Mystici Corporis. In Orientalis Ecclesiae, Pius also spoke of "promoting the reunion of our separated sons with the one Church of Christ." Obviously, the Orthodox churches cannot be part of the Mystical Body if they are wafting toward the Catholic Church and need to reunited with "the one Church of Christ," which Pius XII clearly identifies with the Catholic Church. And if the Orthodox churches need to be reunited with the "one Church of Christ, referred to by Pius XII, how can "the Church of Christ" referred to by Cardinal Ratzinger already be 'present and operative" in the Orthodox churches as "true particular churches"? Furthermore, how can the Orthodox churches "remain united" to us "by the closest of bonds," as DI [Dominus Iesus, August 6, 2000] asserts, if, as Pius XII taught, there must be a reunion of the Orthodox with the one Church of Christ, i.e., the Catholic church What sense does it make to speak of the Church being united with those who have yet reunited with her?

These questions all arise from the conundrum caused by the postconciliar "optimism" that refuses to view heretics and schismatics, even objectively speaking, as outside the Church--as in the defined dogma that outside the Church there is no salvation. Yet the Council of Florence was surely speaking about the actual state of somebody when it declared infallibly that the Church "firmly believes, professes and proclaims that those no living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews, heretics and schismatics, cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart 'into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels,' unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock...." If that was true of pagans, Jews, heretics and schismatics in the fifteenth century, it holds all the more today, in an age of moral depravity that even the likes of Luther would find unbelievable.

On the other hand, if it is admitted that the Orthodox churches are not part of the Mystical Body and thus are outside the one true Church, then how can they possibly be "true particular churches"? Can there be a true particular church outside the visible aspect of the Mystical Body, which is inseparable from its invisible aspect? How is this possible? DI offers no apparent answers to any of these questions.

Perhaps the difficulties we have noted here explains why DI contains not a single reference to the Catholic doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ. DI 16 does refer to "a single body of Christ," but makes no mention of the Mystical Body of preconciliar teaching, consisting of a visible Church inseparably united to it soul, the Holy Ghost, and identified so precisely with the Roman Catholic Church by Pius XII and Leo XIII. Are we witnessing the "shedding" of more "terminological armor" for the sake of ecumenism? (Christopher A. Ferrara and Thomas E. Woods, Jr., The Great Facade, The Remnant Press, pp. 348-363.)

 

The "terminological armor" of the Catholic Church has indeed been shed for the sake of false ecumenism, and was on full display in Ratzinger/Benedict's address in the afore-cited Ecumenical meeting in the Throne Hall of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The shedding of the "terminological armor" of the Catholic Church was also on full display when Ratzinger/Benedict addressed the clergy of another schismatic church, the Armenian Apostolic Church, wherein he made an allusion to The Ravenna Document, the product of the "Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue Between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church (referred as to the "Mixed Commission" in Ratzinger/Benedict's address to clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church) the that was issued on, of all dates, October 13, 2007, the ninetieth anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun:

In a spirit of gratitude to the Lord, I wish also to express my appreciation of the unwavering commitment of the Armenian Apostolic Church to the continuing theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. This dialogue, sustained by prayer, has made progress in overcoming the burden of past misunderstandings, and offers much promise for the future. A particular sign of hope is the recent document on the nature and mission of the Church produced by the Mixed Commission and presented to the Churches for study and evaluation. Together let us entrust the work of the Mixed Commission once more to the Spirit of wisdom and truth, so that it can bear abundant fruit for the growth of Christian unity, and advance the spread of the Gospel among the men and women of our time.  (Visit to the Armenian patriarchal church of St. James in Jerusalem , May 15, 2009.)

 

This is a very important passage as it reflects Ratzinger/Benedict's deeply-held beliefs that the Orthodox and other schismatic churches were "misunderstood" by the Catholic Church in dogmatic councils during the Second Millennium in which representatives from these schismatic and heretical churches were not present to have their "say," which is why he has long believed that these schismatic and heretical churches cannot be held to accept doctrinal pronouncements, such as those on Papal Primacy made by the Council of Trent and Papal Infallibility made by the [First] Vatican Council, in which they were not represented. Such a view is, of course, once again a blasphemy against God the Holy Ghost as it implies that the work of those dogmatic councils in the Second Millennium which did not include representatives from the schismatic and heretical churches of the East is "incomplete" and based on "past misunderstandings" that are only only now beginning to be remedied.

One can see that the following passage from The Ravenna Document, one of those "unofficial" documents of the counterfeit church of conciliarism that does not "bind" anyone, you understand (as you can see, there is now an admonition to this effect on the Vatican website above the text of  The Ravenna Document), is based almost entirely on Ratzinger's erroneous beliefs concerning how the "Petrine Ministry" was exercised in 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 doctrine of Papal Primacy and its exercise is an "open issue" subject to debate and discussion. Go tell that to the Fathers of the [First] Vatican Council.

Pope Leo XIII's recitation of true history demonstrates the abject falsity of Ratzinger's beliefs that the "form" of Papal Primacy in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries has differed from that which was accepted by the Greeks in the First Millennium:

The Principal subject of contention is the Primacy of the Roman PontiffBut 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."

 

Ratzinger/Benedict believes in lies about history and doctrine. The late Father Eldred Leslie, who was murdered on the Feast of Saint Agnes, Wednesday, January 21, 2009, said the following to a priest of the Society of Saint Pius X in South Africa shortly before Christmas of last year: "Dr. Ratzinger is no more the pope than Cleopatra."

Sadly, there are some today who believe, evidently, that they can cloth the naked conciliar emperor by refusing to rise as Catholics to defend the honor and glory and majesty of God that have been so offended by the words of actions of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict that cause scandal to Catholics and non-Catholics alike as they communicate the undeniable falsehood that God is pleased with false religions and their rites and their temples and their "values" and their "ability" to contribute to a better world. We are witnessing the sad spectacle of the neo-Catholic attitude held by a publisher of a "conservative" Catholic journal (who said to me in 1999 when I complained about why he was not publishing any stories about the nefarious Joint Declaration on Justification that had been engineered in large measure by Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, "Some things are best left unreported") have taken hold in the minds and hearts of some traditionally-minded Catholics who, without drawing the logical conclusions from their work, were light years ahead of many of the rest of us in recognizing and publicizing and denouncing the exact same errors of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II that were replicated en toto from May 8 to May 15, 2009, by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI during his pilgrimage to Jordan and Israel.

But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth? (Luke 18: 8)

 

Even Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's remarks on the sufferings of the Palestinians at the hand of the Israelis, calculated as they were to make a point without assigning blame, failed to go to the root of the problem in the Middle East that transcends all of the injustices that have been perpertrated by the moral monsters who govern the State of Israel. For the root of the problem in the Middle East is simple: save for validly baptized Palestinian Christians, most of those who have fought each other for so long in the wake of the Zionist dispossession and imprisonment and maltreatment of Palestinian Arabs have immortal souls that are held captive to the devil by means of Original Sin and are thus predisposed to hate and exact revenge upon each in an endless cycle of violence that resulted in such terrible results in southern Lebanon in 2006 and in Gaza just five months ago now. The solution is to seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of Mohammedans and Talmudic Jews to the true Faith, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there is no true social order, and then to forgive each other as a Catholic Kingdom is created where former enemies may realize this prophecy of Isaias:

And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness. And he shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge according to the sight of the eyes, nor reprove according to the hearing of the ears. But he shall judge the poor with justice, and shall reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: land he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. And justice shall be the girdle of his loins: and faith the girdle of his reins.

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb: and the leopard shall lie down with the kid: the calf and the lion, and the sheep shall abide together, and a little child shall lead them. The calf and the bear shall feed: their young ones shall rest together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp: and the weaned child shall thrust his hand into the den of the basilisk. They shall not hurt, nor shall they kill in all my holy mountain, for the earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the covering waters of the sea. In that day the root of Jesse, who standeth for an ensign of the people, him the Gentiles shall beseech, and his sepulchre shall be glorious. (Isaias 11: 1-10.)

 

A failure to exhort with urgency the conversion of non-Catholics to the true Church in the presence of their hearing is a grave dereliction of any Catholic's apostolic duty, no less that of a man who believes himself to be, albeit falsely, the Vicar of Christ on earth.

How can people lost in lives of anger and revenge be truly reconciled with one another unless they become brothers in the true Faith who forgive each other as they are forgiven in the Baptismal font and thereafter in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance?

How can people lost in lives of anger and revenge be truly reconciled with one another unless Catholics are exhorted to pray Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary, to which not a single reference was made in any of the thirty-three statements made by Ratzinger/Benedict during his eight day stay in Jordan and Israel, in reparation for their sins and for the sins of the whole world as they are exhorted also to remember this prayer taught by Our Lady to Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, on May 13, 1917?

O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

 

Sadness fills the heart of any Catholic who, despite his own sins (as I noted yesterday in Having No Regard for the Horror of Personal Sin), understands the open and most blatant sacrileges and blasphemies committed by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI just in the past week.

As one who took far too long to understand that it is impossible for the Catholic Church to be responsible for defective liturgies that offend God and for true popes to mislead the faithful in any way at any time on defined matters of Faith and Morals, it is not my intention to put my thumb in the eye of anyone who has chosen to remain silent about the apostasies and sacrileges and blasphemies committed by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI just in the past week.

It is my intention, however, to try to convince a few of the readers this site who are "on the fence," so to speak, that God deserves better than a strategic "silence" and calculated acts of "censorship" when He is so dishonored and blasphemed and profaned so openly for all the world to see and as adherents of false religions are reaffirmed in their false beliefs to the point of their dying breaths, which is, whether or not anyone wants to accept the fact, a "back door" way of continuing to "mainstream" the heresy of "universal salvation" that was propagated by one of Ratzinger/Benedict's principal mentors, the late Hegelian Father Hans Urs von Balthasar.

The Sixth Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church, the Third Council of Constantinople, explained that the Catholic Faith is unchanging, rejecting innovation in no uncertain terms, and it is innovation and novelty, such as Ratzinger/Benedict's "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity" to justify the apostasies of conciliarism as being in concert with the Catholic Faith, that has led to a meltdown of the Faith--and to silence in the face of abject, open, public and undeniable offenses against the honor and majesty and glory of God by this false "pontiff"--among a large preponderance of Catholics, both clergy and laity alike, who are as of yet attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism:

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

 

We must pray for our fellow Catholics even as we pray to make reparation for our sins and those of the whole world, seeking at all times to offer up all of prayers and penances and sacrifices and calumnies and humiliations and whatever merits we might earn as the consecrated slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, trusting that she will dispose of them as necessary for the honor and glory of God and for the good of souls, including the members of the Church Suffering in Purgatory, who will be very grateful to us for our remembering them to Our Lady with every beat of our hearts, consecrated as they must be to the Most Sacred Heart of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. And we must do so without looking for results, content to leave everything in the hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces.

We should also pray at least one set of mysteries of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary each day before her Divine Son's Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament, trying also make time for our mental prayer before Our Lord as He awaits our love, our adoration, our acts of thanksgiving and our desire to make reparation for our sins through His Blessed Mother's Immaculate Heart. Saint Paschal Baylon, whose feast we commemorate today, the Fifth Sunday after Easter, was most devoted to Eucharistic piety. Everyone serious about getting to Heaven should imitate his blessed example.

We must do so, of course, as we cleave exclusively to true bishops and true priests who make no concessions to conciliarism or to its apostate shepherds who think nothing of blaspheming God and esteeming false religions, knowing full well that there is a new army of Catholics, including the bishops and priests of the Society of Saint Pius X, who are willing to indemnify these outrages against God. We simply cannot heap more hot coals on our own souls by continuing to be "una cum" (one with) men who are so blithe about the offenses they give to God and the scandals they give to His "little ones."

"One day, through the Rosary and Scapular I will save the world."

 

Our goal must be one that is not shared by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI: the restoration of the Catholic City that was at the heart of the anti-Modernist pontificate of the truly good shepherd of souls, Pope Saint Pius X:

This, nevertheless, is what they want to do with human society; they dream of changing its natural and traditional foundations; they dream of a Future City built on different principles, and they dare to proclaim these more fruitful and more beneficial than the principles upon which the present Christian City rests.

No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. omnia instaurare in Christo. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

 

Anyone who believes that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes in this eloquent reiteration of Catholic truth is badly deceived.

May we believe in this exhortation with all of our hearts as we give unto the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary all of our efforts to plant a few seeds when all men everywhere will exclaim as the fruit of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary:

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

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, especially on your feast day today!

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Paschal Baylon, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

.




© Copyright 2009, Thomas A. Droleskey. All rights reserved.