When You Wish Upon a Star

by Thomas A. Droleskey

~*~ When You Wish Upon A Star ~*~

When You Wish Upon A Star

Music by Leigh Harline / Lyrics by Ned Washington
Performed by Jiminy Cricket (Cliff Edwards)

 

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires

Will come to you                                                                                 

If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do

Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing

Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true

Wish: www.solosong.net/wish.html

 

The dreams of many Catholics have centered for years now upon "official" approval by a conciliar "pope" of a "wider application" of the1984 and 1988 "indults" granted by John Paul II for the limited and highly-conditioned offering of the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition that was authorized by John XXIII in 1961, a version of the Missale Romanum that was in effect universally in the Roman Rite of the conciliar church for precisely two years before it was supplanted by the Ordo Missae of 1965 on November 29, 1964, the First Sunday of Advent. The "1962 Mass," as it is called commonly, is the "gold standard" for the conciliar "popes" and their curial officials as it retains the basic elements of Tradition while introducing novelties (such as the suppression of the feast days of saints, the suppression of the commemoration of the feasts of saints when said feasts fall on a Sunday, the suppression of the Confiteor before the distribution of Holy Communion) that pointed the way to the Novus Ordo Missae itself. His Excellency, the Most Reverend Daniel L. Dolan pointed this out in an article in The Roman Catholic in June of 1983:

VI. The John XXIII Changes (1960-62)

At last we come to "the liturgy of John XXIII," more properly called that of "middle Bugnini." The following changes were instituted in the Mass, the Divine Office and the Calendar:

(1) The lives of the saints at Matins were reduced to brief summaries.

(2) The lessons from the Fathers of the Church were reduced to the briefest possible passages, with the somewhat naive wish that the clergy would continue to nourish their souls with patristic writings on their own.

(3) The solitary recitation of the Divine Office was no longer held to be public prayer, and thus the sacred greeting Dominus vobiscum was suppressed.

(4) The Last Gospel was suppressed on more occasions.

(5) The proper conclusion of the Office Hymns was suppressed.

(6) Many feast days are abolished, as being redundant or not "historical, for example: (a) The Finding of the Holy Cross. (b) St. John Before the Latin Gate. (c) The Apparition of St. Michael. (d) St. Peter's Chair at Antioch. (e) St. Peter's Chains, etc. (7) During the Council, the principle of the unchanging Canon of the Mass was destroyed with the addition of the name of St. Joseph. (8) The Confiteor before Communion was suppressed.

It is to be noted that the "Liturgy of John XXIII was in vigor for all of three years, until it came to its logical conclusion with the promulgation of the Conciliar Decree on the Liturgy—also the work of Bugnini. (Pre-Vatican II Liturgical Changes: Road to the New Mass).

 

Father Francesco Ricossa elaborated on these truly revolutionary changes in Liturgical Revolution, which appeared originally in The Roman Catholic, Feb-Apr 1987:

The Triumph of Jansenism under John XXIII

Pius XII was succeeded by John XXIII, Angelo Roncalli. Throughout his ecclesiastical career, Roncalli was involved in affairs that place his orthodoxy under a cloud. Here are a few facts:

As professor at the seminary of Bergamo, Roncalli was investigated for following the theories of Msgr. Duchesne, which were forbidden under Saint Pius X in all Italian seminaries. Msgr. Duchesne's work, Histoire Ancienne de l'Eglise, ended up on the Index.

While papal nuncio to Paris, Roncalli revealed his adhesion to the teachings of Sillon, a movement condemned by St. Pius X. In a letter to the widow of Marc Sagnier, the founder of the condemned movement, he wrote: The powerful fascination of his [Sagnier's] words, his spirit, had enchanted me; and from my early years as a priest, I maintained a vivid memory of his personality, his political and social activity."

Named as Patriarch of Venice, Msgr. Roncalli gave a public blessing to the socialists meeting there for their party convention. As John XXIII, he made Msgr. Montini a cardinal and called the Second Vatican Council. He also wrote the Encyclical Pacem in Terris. The Encyclical uses a deliberately ambiguous phrase, which foreshadows the same false religious liberty the Council would later proclaim.

John XXIII's attitude in matters liturgical, then, comes as no surprise. Dom Lambert Beauduin, quasi-founder of the modernist Liturgical Movement, was a friend of Roncalli from 1924 onwards. At the death of Pius XII, Beauduin remarked: "If they elect Roncalli, everything will be saved; he would be capable of calling a council and consecrating ecumenism..."'

On July 25, 1960, John XXIII published the Motu Proprio Rubricarum Instructum. He had already decided to call Vatican II and to proceed with changing Canon Law. John XXIII incorporates the rubrical innovations of 1955-1956 into this Motu Proprio and makes them still worse. "We have reached the decision," he writes, "that the fundamental principles concerning the liturgical reform must be presented to the Fathers of the future Council, but that the reform of the rubrics of the Breviary and Roman Missal must not be delayed any longer."

In this framework, so far from being orthodox, with such dubious authors, in a climate which was already "Conciliar," the Breviary and Missal of John XXIII were born. They formed a "Liturgy of transition" destined to last—as it in fact did last—for three or four years. It is a transition between the Catholic liturgy consecrated at the Council of Trent and that heterodox liturgy begun at Vatican II.

The "Antiliturgical Heresy" in the Reform of John XXIII

We have already seen how the great Dom Guéranger defined as "liturgical heresy" the collection of false liturgical principles of the 18th century inspired by Illuminism and Jansenism. I should like to demonstrate in this section the resemblance between these innovations and those of John XXIII.

Since John XXIII's innovations touched the Breviary as well as the Missal, I will provide some information on his changes in the Breviary also. Lay readers may be unfamiliar with some of the terms concerning the Breviary, but I have included as much as possible to provide the "flavor" and scope of the innovations.

Reduction of Matins to Three Lessons

Archbishop Vintimille of Paris, a Jansenist sympathizer, in his reform of the Breviary in 1736, "reduced the Office for most days to three lessons, to make it shorter." In 1960 John XXIII also reduced the Office of Matins to only three lessons on most days. This meant the suppression of a third of Holy Scripture, two-thirds of the lives of the saints, and the whole of the commentaries of the Church Fathers on Holy Scripture. Matins, of course, forms a considerable part of the Breviary.

Replacing formulae in ecclesiastical style with Holy Scripture. "The second principle of the anti-liturgical sect," said Dom Guéranger, "is to replace the formulae in ecclesiastical style with readings from Holy Scripture." While the Breviary of St. Pius X had the commentaries on Holy Scripture by the Fathers of the Church, John XXIII's Breviary suppressed most commentaries written by the Fathers of the Church. On Sundays, only five or six lines from the Fathers remains.

Removal of saints' feasts from Sunday

Dom Guéranger gives the Jansenists' position: "It is their [the Jansenists'] great principle of the sanctity of Sunday which will not permit this day to be 'degraded' by consecrating it to the veneration of a saint, not even the Blessed Virgin Mary. A fortiori, the feasts with a rank of double or double major which make such an agreeable change for the faithful from the monotony of the Sundays, reminding them of the friends of God, their virtues and their protection—shouldn't they be deferred always to weekdays, when their feasts would pass by silently and unnoticed?"

John XXIII, going well beyond the well-balanced reform of St. Pius X, fulfills almost to the letter the ideal of the Janenist heretics: only nine feasts of the saints can take precedence over the Sunday (two feasts of St. Joseph, three feasts of Our Lady, St. John the Baptist, Saints Peter and Paul, St. Michael, and All Saints). By contrast, the calendar of St. Pius X included 32 feasts which took precedence, many of which were former holydays of obligation. What is worse, John XXIII abolished even the commemoration of the saints on Sunday.

Preference given to the Ferial Office over the Feasts of the Saints

Dom Guéranger goes on to describe the moves of the Jansenists as follows: "The calendar would then be purged, and the aim, acknowledged by Grancolas (1727) and his accomplices, would be to make the clergy prefer the ferial office to that of the saints. What a pitiful spectacle! To see the putrid principles of Calvinism, so vulgarly opposed to those of the Holy See, which for two centuries has not ceased fortifying the Church's calendar with the inclusion' of new protectors, penetrate into our churches!"

John XXIII totally suppressed ten feasts from the calendar (eleven in Italy with the feast of Our Lady of Loreto), reduced 29 feasts of simple rank and nine of more elevated rank to mere commemorations, thus causing the ferial office to take precedence. He suppressed almost all the octaves and vigils, and replaced another 24 saints' days with the ferial office. Finally, with the new rules for Lent, the feasts of another nine saints, officially in the calendar, are never celebrated. In sum, the reform of John XXIII purged about 81 or 82 feasts of saints, sacrificing them to "Calvinist principles."

Dom Guéranger also notes that the Jansenists suppressed the feasts of the saints in Lent. John XXIII did the same, keeping only the feasts of first and second class. Since they always fall during Lent, the feasts of St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Gregory the Great. St. Benedict, St. Patrick, and St. Gabriel the Archangel would never be celebrated.

Excising Miracles from the Lives of the Saints

Speaking of the principle of the Illuminist liturgists, Dom Guéranger notes: "the lives of the saints were stripped of their miracles on the one hand, and of their pious stories on the other."

We have seen that the reform of 1960 suppresses two out of three lessons of the Second Nocturn of Matins, in which the lives of the saints are read. But this was not enough. As we mentioned, eleven feasts were totally suppressed by the preconciliar rationalists. For example, St. Vitus, the Invention of the Holy Cross, St. John before the Latin Gate, the Apparition of St. Michael on Mt. Gargano, St. Anacletus, St. Peter in Chains, the Finding of St. Stephen, Our Lady of Loreto ("A flying house! How can we believe that in the twentieth century!"); among the votive feasts, St. Philomena (the Curé of Ars was so "stupid" to have believed in her).

Other saints were were eliminated more discreetly: Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Our Lady of Ransom, St. George, St. Alexis, St. Eustace, the Stigmata of St. Francis - these all remain, but only as a commemoration on a ferial day.

Two popes are also removed, seemingly without reason: St. Sylvester (was he too triumphalistic?) and St. Leo II (the latter, perhaps, because he condemned Pope Honorius.)

We note finally a "masterwork" which touches us closely. From the prayer to Our Lady of Good Counsel, the 1960 reform removed the words which speak of the miraculous apparition of her image, if the House of Nazareth cannot fly to Loreto, how can we imagine that a picture which was in Albania can fly to Genzzano?

Anti-Roman Spirit

The Jansenists suppressed one of the two feasts of the Chair of St. Peter (January 18), and also the Octave of St. Peter. Identical measures were taken by John XXIII.

Suppression of the Confiteor before the Communion of the Faithful

The suspect Missal of Trojes suppressed the Confiteor. John XXIII did the same thing in 1960.

Reform of Maundy Thursday. Good Friday. and Holy Saturday

This happened in 1736, with the suspect Breviary of Vintimille ("a very grave action, and what is more, most grievous for the piety of the faithful," said Dom Guéranger.) John XXIII had his precedent here, as we have seen! The same thing goes for the suppression of nearly all the octaves (a usage we find already in the Old Testament, to solemnize the great feasts over eight days), anticipated by the Jansenists in 1736 and repeated in 1955-1960.

The Idea, in a Word, of Making the Breviary as Short as Possible and without any Repetition

This was the dream of the renaissance liturgists (the Breviary of the Holy Cross, for example, abolished by St. Pius V), and then of the illuminists. Dom Guéranger said that the innovators wanted a Breviary "without those complicated rubrics which oblige the priest to make a serious study of the Divine Office; moreover, the rubrics themselves are traditions, and it is only right they should disappear. Without repetitions...and as short as possible... They want a short Breviary. They will, have it; and it will be up to the Jansenists to write it." These three principles will be the public boast of the reform of 1955 and 1960: the long petitions in the Office called Preces disappear; so too, the commemorations, the suffrages, the Pater, Ave, and Credo, the antiphons to Our Lady, the Athanasian Creed, two-thirds of Matins, and so on.

Ecumenism in the Reform of John XXIII

The Jansenists hadn't thought of this one. The reform of 1960 suppresses from the prayers of Good Friday the Latin adjective perfidis (faithless) with reference to the Jews, and the noun perfidiam (impiety) with reference to Judaism. It left the door open for John Paul II's visit to the synagogue. Number 181 of the 1960 Rubrics states: "The Mass against the pagans shall be called the Mass for the Defense of the Church. The Mass to Take Away Schism shall be called the Mass for the Unity of the Church."

These Changes Reveal the Liberalism, Pacifism, and False Ecumenism of Those Who Conceived and Promulgated Them

One last point, but one of the most serious: The Ottaviani Intervention rightly declared that "when the priest celebrates without a server the suppression of all the salutations (i.e., Dominus Vobiscum, etc.) and of the final blessing is a clear attack on the dogma of the communion of the saints." The priest, even if he is alone, when celebrating Mass or saying his Breviary, is praying in the name of the whole Church, and with the whole Church. This truth was denied by Luther.

Now this attack on dogma was already included in the Breviary of John XXIII, for it obliged the priest when reciting it alone to say Domine exaudi orationem meam (O Lord, hear my prayer) instead of Dominus vobiscum (The Lord be with you). The idea, "a profession of purely rational faith." was that the Breviary was not the public prayer of the Church any more, but merely private devotional reading.

 

That the changes wrought in the years prior to the "Second" Vatican Council were meant to accustom the faithful to liturgical instability is inarguable, no matter the arguments that exist within traditional circles concerning the liceity of rejecting all pre-conciliar liturgical changes, including those authorized during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII in 1955 and 1958. Angelo Roncalli's 1961 Missale Romanum was replaced in a short period of time by the "transitional" Mass, which was introduced in Saint Matthew's Church in Norwood, Ohio (now Immaculate Conception Church under the pastorate of Father William Jenkins of the Society of Saint Pius V), in its parish bulletin in the following manner:

Today is the First Sunday of Advent and the beginning of the Church's new liturgical year. Today we begin our "New Liturgy". Beginning today many parts of Holy Mass will be said in English. We ask each of you to do your very best to join the priest in the prayers of the Mass. Leaflets with the official text of these prayers were given most of your last Sunday. (For those of you who were unable to obtain your copies last Sunday, you may obtain one at the bulletin stands today.) For the Masses with singing (including the 9:45 a.m. High Mass), you are asked to use the cards found in the pews. Kindly stand, sit and kneel, according to the directions on your leaflet or the card. At the Masses today, seminarians will be on hand to help and guide you in this new participation. We wish to thank Msgr. Schneider, Rector of Mt. St. Mary's Seminary, for his kindness in sending us his students; and also the young men themselves for their generosity in helping us. We know that it will take a while (perhaps even months) before we have this new method of participating in Holy Mass perfected; we earnestly ask each one to cooperate loyally and faithfully to the best of his or her ability to make the public worship of God in St. Matthew Parish a true and worthy "sacrifice of praise." [Historical note: the Mount Saint Mary's Seminary referred to in the bulletin was known as Mount Saint Mary's Seminary of the West, located in Norwood, Ohio.]

 

Above and beyond all of the buzz of anticipation that is emanating within indult and within some "resist and recognize" circles, the forthcoming "liberation" of the modernized Mass of 1961 is yet another conciliarist charade. A bogus pontiff, who is not really a bishop, is going to use his desire for "pluralism" in what he views as the Catholic Church to "liberate" a version of the traditional Mass of the Roman Rite that will be offered mostly by dubious priests, each of whom must swear allegiance to the decrees of the "Second" Vatican Council and refrain from criticizing the evil that is the sacrilegious abomination known as the Novus Ordo Missae. Those in the "official" graces of the counterfeit church of conciliarism must believe, therefore, that the Novus Ordo Missae is free of any defects. Indeed, as will be demonstrated below, diocesan priests in the conciliar structures who offer the 1961 Mass under the forthcoming "motu proprio" will be unable to refuse to offer the Novus Ordo Missae, admitting that there will be a few exceptions in some dioceses.

Moreover, conciliar diocesan priests (and those priests in "mainstream" religious communities that have not been formed as a result of the 1988 Ecclesia Dei motu proprio of John Paul II) will be unable to defend the Faith against such outrages as the Vatican's endorsement of The Nativity Story and The Gospel of Judas and Benedict/Ratzinger's walking into a mosque in Turkey and turning in the direction of Mecca at the direction of a Mohammedan imam (and for those who contend that this was "necessary" to save the lives of Christians from being killed by Mohammedans, just consult 1 Machabees and 2 Machabees and Father A. J. O'Reilly's The Martyrs of the Coloseum and Edmund Campion: Hero of God's Underground for a little refresher course on the fact that we are do nothing that violates the First Commandment no matter what it costs us or anyone else insofar as physical safety is concerned) or calling the heretical and schismatic "patriarch" of Constantinople a "pastor in the Church of Christ. The necessity of each civil state recognizing the Catholic Church and subordinating its policies to her Divinely-given authority in all that pertains to the good of souls cannot even be mentioned, no less defended openly from the pulpit.

Yes, the "price of recognition" always has been quite high in order to have the modernized version of the Mass of Saint Pius V offered in diocesan-approved venues. There are, of course, a number of other questions that come to mind after a review of some of the breathless press reports on what is contained in the forthcoming motu proprio, which some apologists for the conciliar hierarchy are going to contend is indeed a "true universal indult" in that the threshold by which a conciliar bishop must made the 1961 Mass available in a particular parish is quite low (thirty people).

1. Are the conciliar bishops required to provide the 1961 Mass only on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation to the groups of Catholics that petition them for its celebration.
2. Will those who petition the conciliar bishops for the 1961 Mass be permitted to worship exclusively at that Mass on a daily basis?
3. Will those who petition the conciliar bishops for the 1961 Mass be required to have their children catechized in the regular parish religious education programs and to receive First Holy Communion and the Sacrament of Confirmation in the context of the Novus Ordo Missae with other parishioners?
4. Will those who petition the conciliar bishops for the 1961 Mass be allowed to baptize their children according to the traditional rite?
5. Will those who petition the conciliar bishops for the 1961 Mass be allowed to have Nuptial Masses according to the traditional rite?
6. Will those who petition the conciliar bishops for the 1961 Mass be allowed to have Requiem Masses according to the traditional rite?
7. Will those who petition the conciliar bishops for the 1961 Mass be required to demonstrate their "full and active" participation in parish life by being forced to show up at various parish functions featuring the Novus Ordo Missae?
8. Will well-known critics of the conciliarist agenda in the indult world be permitted to continue their critiques of some of the novelties of the "Second" Vatican Council and of the Novus Ordo Missae while maintaining their "good standing" in the conciliar structures?
9. Will traditional standards of modesty for men and women be required?
10. Will chapel veils for women be required?
11. Will Holy Communion (and there will be some instances in which the "liberated" indult Mass is offered by validly ordained priests) be administered in the hand to those who stretch out their paws to try to receive Our Blessed Lord and Saviour.
12. Will conciliar bishops protract "negotiations" with the faithful who petition them for the 1961 Mass (in the name of "hammering out" some of the questions just posed) as a way of discouraging the people and forcing them to engage in endless communications with the "beefed up" Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei? ( Let's Make A Deal Theme )
13. Will priests who have left their dioceses or religious communities to offer any version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition (pre-1956, 1958, 1961) for the Society of Saint Pius X or non-sedevacantist independent chapels be required to return to their dioceses or religious communities to offer the "approved" 1961 Mass licitly?
14. Will priests who have left their dioceses or religious communities to work with the Society of Saint Pius X or non-sedevacantist independent chapels and have been conditionally re-ordained by a bishop of the Society of Saint Pius X suffer any penalty for committing what is considered in normal circumstances to be a schismatic act that constitutes a doubt as to the validity of a sacramental rite promulgated by one recognized by the ordinand to be the Vicar of Christ?
    
15. Will conciliar diocesan bishops be instructed to "regularize" non-sedevacantist independent chapels that are not associated with the Society of Saint Pius V?
16. Would it take Chief Robert T. Ironside to find out the answers to these questions?
    
17. Or do you think that the combined efforts of Officers Gunther Toody (left) and Francis Muldoon (right) are needed here?

    http://www.youtube.com/confirm_email?cid=3B38268880A29EEE&nid=aEMw5jC-tpvia-3L9s9bTTjr p41RZAxGbPkgQYgD8nk=&next=/watch?v=aJaXx15qNCQ

 

Mind you, these are just a few questions that come to mind amidst all of the buzz that is circulating at present. Perhaps each of these questions has been "worked out" in detail and it will be possible for traditional Catholics in the conciliar structures to live "in peace" in their little corner of the "One-World Church" of conciliarism. Perhaps these traditional Catholics will be content to live pluralistically, perhaps even throwing to the wind whatever objections they have to a "Mass' that they know to be offensive to God and harmful to their own souls in order to demonstrate their own "good will" in the midst of Benedict's "generosity" to a modernized version of the Mass of the ages.

Some of the answers, though, are contained in Sacramentum Caritatis, Benedict XVI's "post-synodal" exhortation on matters pertaining to the "celebration of the Eucharist." Atila Simka Guimaraes astutely noted the following:

Paragraph 63 addresses those who received the celebret - permission to say the Tridentine Mass. It reads:

"A very different situation arises when, in the interest of more conscious, active and fruitful participation, pastoral circumstances favor small group celebrations. While acknowledging the formative value of this approach, it must be stated that such celebrations should always be consonant with the overall pastoral activity of the Diocese.These two sentences point to the audience being addressed here: Those priestly organizations or individual priests who submit themselves to the demands of the Ecclesia Dei Commission in order to say the Tridentine Mass. They receive such permission insofar as they agree to never publicly discuss Vatican II or the New Mass; they also promise to be obedient to the Bishop of the area."

New demands are made as paragraph 63 continues:

"These celebrations would actually lose their catechetical value if they were felt to be in competition with, or parallel to, the life of the particular Church."

This translates: If these groups or individuals should ever criticize the New Mass or make efforts to bring persons who assist at it to their Masses, they could lose their celebret - it would be a competition." This sanction would also apply should they restore traditional norms for penance, fasting, modesty in dress, etc. which conflict in any way with those of the local Bishop: this would be to establish "a parallel life." Should this occur, they would run the risk of either being excommunicated or having to be incorporated into a Novus Ordo parish.

Paragraph 63 then establishes the criteria for these groups and persons to keep their “catechetical value:” In this regard, the Synod set forth some necessary criteria: small groups must serve to unify the community, not to fragment it; the beneficial results ought to be clearly evident; these groups should encourage the fruitful participation of the entire assembly, and preserve as much as possible the unity of the liturgical life of individual families.This translates in several ways:

1. If any censure should come from a traditionalist community regarding the practices of a Novus Ordo parish, the 'guilty' priest could lose his celebret;

2. Persons from both the Tridentine Mass parish and the New Mass parish 'ought' to socialize, e.g. at gatherings to show ‘evident results’ that they are ‘unifying the community,’ that is, the Diocese. The choir of a Traditional Mass parish could be invited to perform in a Novus Ordo parish to embellish its liturgy or teach its choir Gregorian chant.

3. In the Traditional Mass parishes, the priests ‘should encourage the fruitful participation of the entire assembly.’ Even though there are no examples given in the text, it is clear that some sort of dialogue in the Mass, the kiss of peace, lay people reading the Epistle, and so on, will have to be established to fulfill such demand. Probably the concrete applications will be left to the local Bishop to decide for each particular case.

In their compromise made through Ecclesia Dei, those organizations – the Fraternity of St. Peter, Institute of Christ the King, the Fraternity of St. John Vianney, Good Shepherd Institute, etc. – probably thought that they could agree with Vatican demands once and for all. Their calculations were wrong. This new document sets them on a slippery ramp of increasing concessions to keep their precarious canonical status.

Where does this ramp lead? It clearly tends to close the distance as much as possible between those who go to a Tridentine Mass approved by the Bishop and those who go to a New Mass said in Latin. Between these groups there would be no doctrinal disputes and a cordial social harmony would exist. That is, the two communities would be reduced to something like two clubs of Latin language admirers.

These are the main points that came to my attention in a quick reading of the document. Certainly there would be more to say after a more careful analysis.

So, we have two new ingredients on the table from this document: the New Mass in Latin and new demands for those traditionalist priests who have compromised. Sacramentum Caritatis - New Mass in Latin and More Compromises Demanded

 

A very good analysis. We saw with our own eyes during our indulterating days how one priest after another compromised himself in order to "protect" the Mass. And even the news of the impending motu proprio has prompted between sixty and one hundred people in a non-sedevacantist independent chapel in the Midwest to abandon the priest who has served them for over three decades in order to have the "approval" of their local conciliar bishop in advance of the "liberation" of the 1961 Mass by Benedict/Ratzinger. The reasoning of these people is this: how can we say we "recognize" Benedict as pope when we worship at a chapel that does not have the "blessing" of a "bishop" who is in full communion with him? It is the inevitable result of the novel "resist and recognize" approach of the Society of Saint Pius X that is now being used quite adroitly by Benedict to empty longtime bastions of traditional resistance of their core supporters to thus neutralize them by administering an "innoculation" against taking traditionalism "too far" and thus being outside of the "mainstream" of the conciliar church.

My dear wife Sharon asked somewhat, although not entirely, facetiously if thirty women would have to coordinate the delivery of their children at one time so as to petition the conciliar bishop for the use of the traditional rite of Baptism. Would, she continued to ask, thirty couples have to coordinate their wedding plans so as to have Nuptial Masses? Sharon was on a roll and then asked if a person would have to keep his body in a morgue until twenty-nine other people had died so that relatives could petition for a Requiem Mass. You get the idea.

One journalist has asked why would any traditionalist not want to accept Benedict's offer and thus be in "full communion with him?" The answer is quite simple: Joseph Ratzinger is a Modernist who believes, among many other things, the following anathematized principle of Modernism:

"The text [of the Second Vatican Council] also presents the various forms of bonds that rise from the different degrees of magisterial teaching. It affirms -- perhaps for the first time with this clarity -- that there are decisions of the Magisterium that cannot be a last word on the matter as such, but are, in a substantial fixation of the problem, above all an expression of pastoral prudence, a kind of provisional disposition. Its nucleus remains valid, but the particulars, which the circumstances of the times have influenced, may need further ramifications.

“In this regard, one may think of the declarations of Popes in the last century about religious liberty, as well as the anti-Modernist decisions at the beginning of this century, above all, the decisions of the Biblical Commission of the time. As a cry of alarm in the face of hasty and superficial adaptations, they will remain fully justified. A personage such as Johann Baptist Metz said, for example, that the Church's anti-Modernist decisions render the great service of preserving her from immersion in the liberal-bourgeois world. But in the details of the determinations they contain, they become obsolete after having fulfilled their pastoral mission at the proper moment.” (L'Osservatore Romano, July 2, 1990)

 

The Vatican Council and Pope Saint Pius X had something to say about this belief, which no Catholic can hold even privately and remain a member of the Catholic Church:

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, Constitutio de Fide Catholica, Chapter iv.)

It is thus, Venerable Brethren, that for the Modernists, whether as authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church. Nor, indeed, are they without forerunners in their doctrines, for it was of these that Our predecessor Pius IX wrote: "These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts." On the subject of revelation and dogma in particular, the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new. We find it condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms: ''Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human reason"; and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council: ''The doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been proposed to human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it were a philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence also that sense of the sacred dogmas is to be perpetually retained which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the truth." Nor is the development of our knowledge, even concerning the faith, barred by this pronouncement; on the contrary, it is supported and maintained. For the same Council continues: "Let intelligence and science and wisdom, therefore, increase and progress abundantly and vigorously in individuals, and in the mass, in the believer and in the whole Church, throughout the ages and the centuries -- but only in its own kind, that is, according to the same dogma, the same sense, the same acceptation." (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

 

Although there will be great excitement in the conciliar structures when the forthcoming motu proprio is released--and more than a handful of people will abandon regular attendance at the Novus Ordo Missae to hear modernized 1961 Mass offered by dubious priests under illicit conditions, thus shifting the passengers on the conciliarist steamship from one "class" of travel to another, the conciliar religion will remain intact. It must. A fear of losing "the Mass" has paralyzed priests in the indult world and it has made a pariah of some of the Catholics who remain in the indult world but speak out against conciliarist novelties. (See: The Energizer Benny and His Enablers, Anathematized by His Own Words, Dinnertime on the Titanic)The indult has never been a way to defend the Catholic Faith. It never will, principally because it has been issued and modified by ecclesiastical robber barons who are not members of the Catholic Church, something that most Catholics will never accept until a legitimate pontiff in the future applies the anathemas of the past to the conciliarists.

We must remain steadfast in prayer in the meantime. What happens in the conciliar church, which the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre said in 1976 was a "schismatic church" with "bastard sacraments, is an irrelevancy. We must adhere to the fullness of tradition in the catacombs under bishops and priests who make no concessions to anything to do with conciliarism or the legitimacy of the conciliarist officials, praying all the while, however, for our fellow Catholics who think that we are "schismatic" or "disloyal" or just plain crazy to embrace the sedevacantist thesis and to state that it applies in our current circumstances. There were saints on every side of the divide during the Great Schism. So will there be in our own days.

We must be ever conscious of our need to make much reparation as the consecrated slaves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, never flagging in undertaking voluntary penances to undo the effects of sin on our own souls and to help undo its effects on the souls of others and in the Church and in the world. With Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary as the weapon we use to storm Heaven for the Restoration, both ecclesiastical and civil, that was the life's work of Pope Saint Pius X, may we concentrate on the sanctification and salvation of our own souls and hope to be received into the arms of Jesus, Mary and Joseph after we have drawn our dying breaths as members of the Catholic Church in states of Sanctifying Grace. Nothing else matters. Not the storms of the present moment. Not the loss of reputation or friends. Nothing else matters other than living and dying as a Catholic who is consecrated totally to Our Lady and who relies fervently upon the intercession of her most chaste spouse, Saint Joseph, and Saint Michael the Archangel and Saints Peter and Paul and our own Guardian Angels and Patron Saints.

We do not need to "wish upon a star." We just need Mary, Star of the Sea, and the Communion of the Saints to help us in our every need to weather our storms as we keep her company at the foot of her Divine Son's Holy Cross, upon which was wrought our salvation as He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood, every day as the Immemorial Mass of Tradition is offered in the catacombs of the present time.

 

Viva Cristo Rey!

 

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

 

Saint Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Jude, pray for us.

Saint John the Beloved, pray for us.

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, pray for us.

Saint John Bosco, pray for us.

Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us.

Saint John of God, pray for us.

Saint  Scholastica, pray for us.

Saint Benedict, pray for us.

Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.

Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.

Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Monica, pray for us.

Saint Agatha, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us.

Saint Rene Goupil, pray for us.

Saint John Lalonde, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel Lalemont, pray for us.

Saint Noel Chabanel, pray for us.

Saint Charles Garnier, pray for us.

Saint Anthony Daniel, pray for us.

Saint John DeBrebeuf, pray for us.

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us.

Saint Dominic, pray for us.

Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.

Saint Basil, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Sebastian, pray for us.

Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us.

Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Saint Genevieve, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.

Saint Rita of Cascia, pray for us.

Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.

Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Father Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.

Francisco Marto, pray for us.

Jacinta Marto, pray for us.

Juan Diego, pray for us.

 

The Longer Version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1888

O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil.  Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil.  Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with  the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven.  That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels.  Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage.  Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.  That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.  These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered.  Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory.  They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude.  Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church.  Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations.  Amen.

Verse: Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.

Response: The Lion of the Tribe of Juda has conquered the root of David.

Verse: Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.

Response: As we have hoped in Thee.

Verse: O Lord hear my prayer.

Response: And let my cry come unto Thee.

Verse: Let us pray.  O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin, immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of our souls. 

Response:  Amen.