Wild Cards or Mirror Images?

by Thomas A. Droleskey

As noted in Singing the Old Songs nearly three months ago now, one of the banes of "conservative" Catholics (and I used to be one of these people, please understand) who are attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism is to indemnify the apostasies of the conciliar "pontiffs" by blaming everyone but the false popes for the "misinterpretations" of the "Second" Vatican Council and for being "disobedient" to the decrees of the postconciliar "pontiffs."

Thus it is in this delusional view that bad "cardinals," even those who work in the conciliar Vatican, act as veritable "wild cards," uttering apostate statements that could not possibly have the approval of the particular "pope" in power at the time. "The 'pope' doesn't know or approve of these statements." "The 'pope' is too busy to police his cardinals and bishops." The 'pope' can't separate the chaff from the wheat without harming the wheat." "The 'pope' doesn't want to cause a schism to happen." The 'pope' is so kind and pastoral that he can't bring himself to rebuke his brother bishops. He has to observe the tenets of episcopal collegiality, you know." The 'pope' will just let the bad cardinals and bishops retire when they get older. You watch and see. He'll replace them with better ones. Just wait. Be patient. Rome wasn't built in a day." The 'pope' is a little weak. Better this, though, than a bitterness that would scandalize the faithful and cause more divisions in the Church."

These delusional rationalizations, used so long by "conservative" Catholics (and, yes, once again, please, I used to be one of these folks), began to infect the original "indult" communities (Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest) almost as soon as they were formed. Firm expressions of defense of the Catholic Faith in the midst of assaults on that Faith by Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and his "cardinals" and "bishops," which expressions could be heard now and again in various places, faded from view. Some of the more courageous "priests" in the indult even found themselves called into chancery offices now and again to explain their criticisms of conciliarism and/or their insistence that Catholic standards of modesty of attire be maintained in the simulations of the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition offered in the indult world at the time.

The gradual pall of silence that fell over the "indult" communities over the course of time has been replaced by the same "conservative" fantasies and delusions that are still being propagated by full-throated enthusiasts for the edicts of the "Second" Vatican Council and the "beauty" of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service now that Summorum Pontificum has been promulgated. "Oh, the 'pope' so traditional. He's restoring the Church one brick at a time." "Benedict just has go to into a synagogue. It would be so rude of him to ignore our 'elder brothers in the faith.'" "Look at all of the new churches where Catholics can go to the Traditional Latin Mass on Sundays. Isn't this wonderful?" Fantasies. Absolute fantasies. (It is an especial fantasy to think that actual Masses are being offered by men who are not validly ordained to the Catholic priesthood.)

Ah, you see, silence about apostasies and heresies and sacrileges and of various other errors leads ultimately to fantastic and delusional views. Indeed, fantastic and delusional views must spring forth from silence about apostasies and heresies and sacrileges. The only way by which any sane individual can deal with the contradictions posed by conciliarism against Catholicism is to try deny that there are any contradictions at all, leading to the conclusion that "we must emphasize the positive" in the hope that the undeniably "negative" things will just somehow "go away."

Error, however, doesn't just "go away." The Arian heresy did not just go away. It had to be fought. Our Lady gave Saint Dominic de Guzman her Most Holy Rosary to fight the Albigensian heresy. God raised up--and Our Lady protected--the Society of Jesus to fight Protestantism and to be in the vanguard of the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Popes of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries condemned the various naturalistic, anti-Incarnational errors of Modernity.

Indeed, Pope Pius VI, writing in Inscrutabile, December 25, 1775, explained the urgent importance of openly opposing errors:

We thought it useful to speak to you lovingly on these matters in order to strengthen your excellent resolve. But a much more serious subject demands that We speak of it, or rather mourn over it. We refer to the pestilent disease which the wickedness of our times brings forth. We must unite our minds and strength in treating this plague before it grows rife and becomes incurable in the Church through Our oversight. For in recent days, the dangerous times foretold by the Apostle Paul have clearly arrived, when there will be "men who love themselves, who are lifted up, proud, blasphemous, traitors, lovers of pleasure instead of God, men who are always learning but never arriving at the knowledge of truth, possessing indeed the appearance of piety but denying its power, corrupt in mind, reprobate about the faith." These men raise themselves up into "lying" teachers, as they are called by Peter the prince of the Apostles, and bring in sects of perdition. They deny the Lord who bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction. They say they are wise and they have become fools, and their uncomprehending heart is darkened.

You yourselves, established as scouts in the house of Israel, see clearly the many victories claimed by a philosophy full of deceit. You see the ease with which it attracts to itself a great host of peoples, concealing its impiety with the honorable name of philosophy. Who could express in words or call to mind the wickedness of the tenets and evil madness which it imparts? While such men apparently intend to search out wisdom, "they fail because they do not search in the proper way. . . and they fall into errors which lead them astray from ordinary wisdom." They have come to such a height of impiety that they make out that God does not exist, or if He does that He is idle and uncaring, making no revelation to men. Consequently it is not surprising that they assert that everything holy and divine is the product of the minds of inexperienced men smitten with empty fear of the future and seduced by a vain hope of immortality. But those deceitful sages soften and conceal the wickedness of their doctrine with seductive words and statements; in this way, they attract and wretchedly ensnare many of the weak into rejecting their faith or allowing it to be greatly shaken. While they pursue a remarkable knowledge, they open their eyes to behold a false light which is worse than the very darkness. Naturally our enemy, desirous of harming us and skilled in doing so, just as he made use of the serpent to deceive the first human beings, has armed the tongues of those men with the poison of his deceitfulness in order to lead astray the minds of the faithful. The prophet prays that his soul may be delivered from such deceitful tongues. In this way these men by their speech "enter in lowliness, capture mildly, softly bind and kill in secret." This results in great moral corruption, in license of thought and speech, in arrogance and rashness in every enterprise.

When they have spread this darkness abroad and torn religion out of men's hearts, these accursed philosophers proceed to destroy the bonds of union among men, both those which unite them to their rulers, and those which urge them to their duty. They keep proclaiming that man is born free and subject to no one, that society accordingly is a crowd of foolish men who stupidly yield to priests who deceive them and to kings who oppress them, so that the harmony of priest and ruler is only a monstrous conspiracy against the innate liberty of man.

Everyone must understand that such ravings and others like them, concealed in many deceitful guises, cause greater ruin to public calm the longer their impious originators are unrestrained. They cause a serious loss of souls redeemed by Christ's blood wherever their teaching spreads, like a cancer; it forces its way into public academies, into the houses of the great, into the palaces of kings, and even enters the sanctuary, shocking as it is to say so.

Consequently, you who are the salt of the earth, guardians and shepherds of the Lord's flock, whose business it is to fight the battles of the Lord, arise and gird on your sword, which is the word of God, and expel this foul contagion from your lands. How long are we to ignore the common insult to faith and Church? Let the words of Bernard arouse us like a lament of the spouse of Christ: "Of old was it foretold and the time of fulfillment is now at hand: Behold, in peace is my sorrow most sorrowful. It was sorrowful first when the martyrs died; afterwards it was more sorrowful in the fight with the heretics and now it is most sorrowful in the conduct of the members of the household.... The Church is struck within and so in peace is my sorrow most sorrowful. But what peace? There is peace and there is no peace. There is peace from the pagans and peace from the heretics, but no peace from the children. At that time the voice will lament: Sons did I rear and exalt, but they despised me. They despised me and defiled me by a bad life, base gain, evil traffic, and business conducted in the dark." Who can hear these tearful complaints of our most holy mother without feeling a strong urge to devote all his energy and effort to the Church, as he has promised? Therefore cast out the old leaven, remove the evil from your midst. Forcefully and carefully banish poisonous books from the eyes of your flock, and at once courageously set apart those who have been infected, to prevent them harming the rest. The holy Pope Leo used to say, "We can rule those entrusted to us only by pursuing with zeal for the Lord's faith those who destroy and those who are destroyed and by cutting them off from sound minds with the utmost severity to prevent the plague spreading." In doing this We exhort and advise you to be all of one mind and in harmony as you strive for the same object, just as the Church has one faith, one baptism, and one spirit. As you are joined together in the hierarchy, so you should unite equally with virtue and desire.

The affair is of the greatest importance since it concerns the Catholic faith, the purity of the Church, the teaching of the saints, the peace of the empire, and the safety of nations. Since it concerns the entire body of the Church, it is a special concern of yours because you are called to share in Our pastoral concern, and the purity of the faith is particularly entrusted to your watchfulness. "Now therefore, Brothers, since you are overseers among God's people and their soul depends on you, raise their hearts to your utterance," that they may stand fast in faith and achieve the rest which is prepared for believers only. Beseech, accuse, correct, rebuke and fear not: for ill-judged silence leaves in their error those who could be taught, and this is most harmful both to them and to you who should have dispelled the error. The holy Church is powerfully refreshed in the truth as it struggles zealously for the truth. In this divine work you should not fear either the force or favor of your enemies. The bishop should not fear since the anointing of the Holy Spirit has strengthened him: the shepherd should not be afraid since the prince of pastors has taught him by his own example to despise life itself for the safety of his flock: the cowardice and depression of the hireling should not dwell in a bishop's heart. Our great predecessor Gregory, in instructing the heads of the churches, said with his usual excellence: "Often imprudent guides in their fear of losing human favor are afraid to speak the right freely. As the word of truth has it, they guard their flock not with a shepherd's zeal but as hirelings do, since they flee when the wolf approaches by hiding themselves in silence.... A shepherd fearing to speak the right is simply a man retreating by keeping silent." But if the wicked enemy of the human race, the better to frustrate your efforts, ever brings it about that a plague of epidemic proportions is hidden from the religious powers of the world, please do not be terrified but walk in God's house in harmony, with prayer, and in truth, the three arms of our service. Remember that when the people of Juda were defiled, the best means of purification was the public reading to all, from the least to the greatest, of the book of the law lately found by the priest Helcias in the Lord's temple; at once the whole people agreed to destroy the abominations and seal a covenant in the Lord's presence to follow after the Lord and observe His precepts, testimonies and ceremonies with their whole heart and soul." For the same reason Josaphat sent priests and Levites to bring the book of the law throughout the cities of Juda and to teach the people. The proclamation of the divine word has been entrusted to your faith by divine, not human, authority. So assemble your people and preach to them the gospel of Jesus Christ. From that divine source and heavenly teaching draw draughts of true philosophy for your flock. Persuade them that subjects ought to keep faith and show obedience to those who by God's ordering lead and rule them. To those who are devoted to the ministry of the Church, give proofs of faith, continence, sobriety, knowledge, and liberality, that they may please Him to whom they have proved themselves and boast only of what is serious, moderate, and religious. But above all kindle in the minds of everyone that love for one another which Christ the Lord so often and so specifically praised. For this is the one sign of Christians and the bond of perfection.

 

Pope Pius VI was condemning the naturalistic, anti-Incarnational, semi-Pelagian errors of Judeo-Masonry, the bedrock errors of Modernity itself that will be exalted by the Modernist Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI during his visit to the United States of America, which begins tomorrow, Wednesday, April 16, 2008. Although I have been entirely out of touch with "priests" in the former "indult" and current "Motu" communities for some years now, I did know a number of these men who were forceful and eloquent opponents of Americanism and champions of the Social Reign of Christ the King. Those days are no more. How can a putative priest oppose openly errors that will be articulated with great enthusiasm by Ratzinger/Benedict himself, an arch-Americanist, as he visits the cities of Washington, District of Columbia, and New York, New York in the next five days? He must be silent, a silence that leads his parishioners into thinking "all is well" when a bold and shameless blasphemer and an active participant in sacrilegious actions walks among their midst.

Oh, yes, there are some in the laity who will oppose the likes of Walter "Cardinal" Kasper, the President of the "Pontifical" Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the President of President of the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews as they have done in the past. Unlike the past, however, when these critics of Kasper's apostasies held Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II personally responsible for having appointed Kasper and that he must agree with Kasper's views because he, Wojtyla/John Paul II, appointed him, it is the case at present, at least with some in the "resist and recognize" camp, that it is considered to be an exercise in "rash judgment" to hold Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI so responsible for Kasper's views. It cannot be the case, we are told, that Ratzinger/Benedict agrees with Kasper.

So what if Walter Kasper says and writes over and over again that the Catholic Church has no "institutionalized directive" to seek the conversion of the Jews, doing so in an article in L'Osservatore Romano on Wednesday, April 9, 2008, as was reported by Reuters:

"The new formulation of the prayer ... doesn't say anything truly new, but just expresses what until now was assumed to be obvious," Kasper wrote in the Italian-language article.

The reference to saving Israel was "eschatological", a reference to a branch of theology dealing with the destiny of all humanity at the end of the world.

Kasper said the Catholic Church, unlike some evangelical Churches, did not have an institutionalized directive to convert Jews although Catholics are always encouraged to express their faith openly while showing respect.

Last week, the Vatican issued a statement on the prayer saying it "in no way intends to indicate a change in the Catholic Church's regard for the Jews". ( http://www.reuters.com/article)

 

Kasper said the exact same thing on Vatican Radio on February 7, 2008. He wrote the exact same thing to Rabbi David Rosen on February 13, 2008. The article that appeared in L'Osservatore Romano on April 9, 2008, had appeared in Germany about a month before. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI does not know about or approve of Kasper's "private views"? Absolutely preposterous.

Walter Kasper. A wild card or a mirror image of the currently reigning conciliar "pontiff"?

Consider an out-of-print book's analysis of the then Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger's comments about Judaism following the release of Dominus Iesus, August 6, 2000:

Cardinal Ratzinger himself began backpedaling almost immediately at the September 5 [2000] press conference itself. According to the Italian bishops' newspaper Avvenire, when asked whether DI [Dominus Iesus] taught that the Jews could not be saved without faith in Christ, Ratzinger offered the following non-answer: "Every Catholic theologian recognizes the salvific role of that people." Granted that "salvation is of the Jews," as our Lord taught us (John 4:22), but as He says immediately afterward: "But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth"--that is, the Messiah has arrived and shall be adored by those who worship truly. Having rejected the Messiah, however, what "salvific role" does modern Israel play today? When pressed on whether an individual Jew could be saved without recognizing Christ, the Cardinal replied that "it is not necessary that he recognize Christ the savior, and it is not given to us to explore how salvation, the gift of God, can come even for him." Ratzinger went on to say that "Christ is a reality that changes history, even for those who do not recognize him." Are we to take from this that Christ saves the Jews whether they recognize him or not, simply because His existence "changes history"?

However, it appears that at the same press conference Ratzinger gave a more nuanced answer, apparently in response to another questioner:

[We]e are in agreement that a Jew, and this is true for believers of other religions, does not need to know or acknowledge Christ as the Son of God in order to be saved, if there are insurmountable impediments, of which he is not blameworthy, to preclude it. However...Christian history affects us all, even those who are opposed or cannot encounter Christ. This is a reality that transforms history; it is something important for others, without violating their conscience.

Now, which is it--that a Jew need not recognize Christ in order to be saved, or that a Jew need not recognize Christ if there is an "insurmountable impediment"? Note also that Cardinal Ratzinger here repeats the suggestion that the mere presence of Christ in history "affects" Jews who reject him. What does this mean? One thing all these remarks mean is a diminution of the impact of DI's teaching that Christ is the sole mediator of the only way of salvation for all men--a teaching DI itself nuances nearly to the point of irrelevance.

Since the publication of DI was supposed to be the occasion for clarifying confusion about Christ and salvation, why not end a long period of postconciliar confusion by stating forthrightly what the Church always taught before the Council: "Yes, objectively speaking, a Jew must come to Christ and be baptized in order to be saved, just like everyone else in the human race; for Christ is God and He commissioned His Church to make disciples of all nations. This is what the Catholic Church has always taught and always will teach." Instead, Cardinal Ratzinger immediately focused on "insurmountable impediments." And what is an "insurmountable impediment" in the first place? Is this notion something even broader than the ever-expanding category of "invincible ignorance"? Cardinal Ratzinger gave no indications. However, if one of Rabbi Toaff's own predecessors as chief rabbi of Rome, Rabbi Israel Zolli, was able to follow God's grace into the Roman Catholic Church immediately after World War II, then why not Rabbi Toaff himself or any other Jew alive today--especially after thirty-five years of "Jewish-Christian" dialogue," which was supposed to engender greater understanding of the Church on the part of Jews?

Or is the mere fact of being a Jew, immersed in Jewish religion and culture, and facing ostracism if one converts, now to be considered an "insurmountable impediment" to conversion? If so, then no Jew from St. Paul to the present day has ever been subjectively obliged to join the Church; nor has anyone else in religious, emotional or cultural circumstances that would make conversion difficult. But this would mean that the only people obliged to become Catholics are those who would not find conversion unduly burdensome. Everyone else has an "insurmountable impediment." That is the very thesis being promoted by some of the more liberal exponents of "invincible ignorance," who speak of "unconscious psychological blocks" and other elaborate pseudo-scientific excuses for not becoming a Catholic that have proliferated since Vatican II. There is very little place for the power of God's grace in this kind of semi-Pelagian thinking. We are not here contending that Cardinal Ratzinger himself actually teaches anything like this, but in view of the veiled nature of his remarks it is difficult to know what he is teaching. A clarification of DI's "clarifications" is already urgently needed. (out of print book, which could be referred to from hereon out as OOPB, pp. 369-372. My dear wife Sharon came up with this acronym, saying, "I can't help it that I was born on the Feast of Saint Jerome." A reader of this site has also recommended the acronym "BOOP," which stands for "Book out of Print." Sharon approves of this alternate acronym!)

 

Clarifications. The counterfeit church of conciliarism must issue them regularly to "correct," "amend, "revise" or to misrepresent in a positivistic manner its multiple defections from the Catholic Faith. Clarifications indeed.

The recent "clarification" issued by the conciliar Vatican's Secretariat of State concerning the "revised" Good Friday Prayer for the Jews stresses (yet again) the fact that the Good Friday Prayer for the Jews in the Novus Ordo ("ordinary form of the 'one' Roman Rite") is the one that will be used by all but a tiny fraction of Catholics in the world. Is that prayer a clear call for the conversion of the Jews. Just consider the words of OOPB or BOOP (aka out of print book or book out of print):

The postconciliar Vatican has not been altogether straightforward regarding the Jews' need for conversion. either. The fashionable doctrine these days--again, contrary to all prior papal teaching--is the claim that the Old Covenant that God established with the Jews, far from having been superseded by the New Covenant of Christ and the Church, is in fact still in effect. Thus we have John Paul II telling a Jewish audience: "The first dimension of this dialogue, that is, the meeting between the people of the Old Covenant, never revoked by God, and that of the New Covenant , is at the same time a dialogue within our Church, that is to say, between the first and second part of her Bible." "Jews and Christians," he went on to say, "as children of Abraham, are called to be a blessing to the world" by "committing themselves together for peace and justice among all men and peoples." Such statements seem impossible to reconcile with the Church's divine commandment to convert the Jews for the salvation of their souls. In fact, Cardinal Kasper, whom the Pope has also made the President of the Pontifical Council for Religious Relations with the Jews, has repudiated the conversion of Jews as explicitly as he has repudiated the return of the Protestant dissidents to the one true Church:

[T]he old theory of substitution is gone since the Second Vatican Council. for us Christians today the covenant with the Jewish people is a living heritage, a living reality.... Therefore, the Church believes that Judaism, i.e., the faithful response of the Jewish people to God's irrevocable covenant, is salvific for them, because God is faithful to his promises.... Thus mission, in this strict sense, cannot be used with regard to Jews, who believe in the true and one God. Therefore--and this is characteristic--there does not exist any Catholic missionary organization for Jews. There is dialogue with Jews; no mission in this proper sense of the word towards them. (Address at 17th meeting of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee, New York, May 1, 2001, quoted in OOPB or BOOP, pp. 203-204.)

 

Once again, Kasper received no correction from the Pope or any Vatican dicastery [Thomas A. Droleskey interjection here: and neither has Kasper received any correction from Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI for saying similar things repeatedly in the course of the past nine weeks!]. On the contrary, he has received only a promotion to his current position of authority. What can one conclude but that the Vatican has de facto abandoned the conversion of the Jews, and the return of the Orthodox and Protestants to Catholic unity. [Thomas A. Droleskey interjection again: Rash judgment? Or was this conclusion in OOPB or BOOP an exercise in simple Catholic logic?} (OOPB or BOOP, pp. 203-204.)

 

After OOPB goes on to "assure" its readers that there is nothing "binding" in any of this repeatedly stated apostasy, it goes on to discuss the Good Friday Prayer for the Jews:

A fundamental ambiguity is evident everywhere, particularly in the new Good Friday liturgy. Catholic Family News editor John Vennari recently compared the papally approved prayer for the Jews in three versions of the Roman liturgy: those of 1954, 1964, and 1974. In 1954, the prayer read:

We pray for the perfidious Jews: that Our Lord and God may lift the covering of their hearts, so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ Our Lord. Let us pray. Almighty, eternal God, who does not reject the Jews in Your own mercy: hear our prayers which we offer for the blindness of this people, that acknowledging the truth of Your light which is Christ, they may be pulled out of their darkness. Through the same Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.

 

The only difference in the 1964 version of the prayer is that the word "perfidious" has been removed; the remainder of the text is unchanged. The 1974 prayer, however, which is what we have now, reads as follows:

Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, that they may continue to grow in the love of His Name and in faithfulness to His covenant. Almighty and eternal God, long ago You gave Your promise to Abraham and his posterity. Listen to Your Church as we pray that the people You first made Your own may arrive at the fullness of redemption. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

That the language of this prayer is as insipid and uninspiring as we have come to expect form the reformed liturgy is the least of its problems. Does Rome want the Jews to convert to belief in Christ or not? If so, why not just say so, rather than forcing good Catholic priests to repeat every Good Friday the meaningless sentiment that the Jews "continue to grow in the love of [God's] Name and in faithfulness to His covenant"? What does that mean? The appeal to God later in the prayer that the Jews "arrive at the fullness of redemption" is no less vague. Are we praying that the Jews arrive at the fullness of redemption through belief in Christ and membership in His Church? If so, why not just say so? Here, as in so many other areas, the viruses of ambiguity abound, with an resulting debilitation of the teaching of the Church.

It is a false charity that engages the Jews in irenic dialogue without making clear their need for conversion, a need that extends to the entire human race. Everyone needs Christ; what kind of charity wants to deprive anyone of the means of salvation? Christ Himself was clearly not speaking of a people who could be confident of their salvation in their present state when He said, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not? Behold, your house shall be left to you, desolate" (Matt 23:28-39). The patristic testimony on the matter is unanimous and resounding.

But the new teaching on the religious status of the Jews now appears to be taken for granted. Thus Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, admired as a conservative by neo-Catholics, could write in his diocesan newspaper that "the Church has also sinned against the Jewish people, first of all, in teaching that God's covenant with Israel is no longer valid for them. . ."  (OOPB or BOOP, pp. 204-205.)

 

This is not "ambiguity." This is apostasy. These are not "viruses," These are defections from the Catholic Faith that will be reiterated, both in word and in action, by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI during his upcoming visit to the United States of America,

It is interesting that the Novus Ordo Good Friday prayer, which was used first on March 27, 1970, following the promulgation of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service on April 3, 1969, by Giovanni Montini/Paul VI and its being instituted on November 30, 1969, the First Sunday of Advent, is being heralded by the conciliar Vatican's Secretariat of State as a means of soothing Talmudic anger over the "revised" Good Friday Prayer for the Jews for use by the Motu communities:

"The Holy See wishes to reassure that the new formulation of the Prayer, which modifies certain expressions of the 1962 Missal, in no way intends to indicate a change in the Catholic Church's regard for the Jews which has evolved from the basis of the Second Vatican Council, particularly the Declaration Nostra Aetate. In fact, Pope Benedict XVI, in an audience with the Chief Rabbis of Israel on 15 September 2005, remarked that this document has proven to be a milestone on the road towards the reconciliation of Christians with the Jewish people. The continuation of the position found in Nostra Aetate is clearly shown by the fact that the prayer contained in the 1970 Missal continues to be in full use, and is the ordinary form of the prayer of Catholics". CLARIFICATIONS ON THE NEW "OREMUS ET PRO IUDAEIS"

 

Has that which was termed "ambiguous" by OOPB or BOOP suddenly become clear and free of "viruses"? How is the Secretariat of State's official communique, which had the unquestionable approval of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI himself, any different on this point than what Walter Kasper wrote to Rabbi David Rosen, a pro-abortion "papal knight" and honorary president of the International Jewish Vegetarian and Ecology Society, on February 13, 2008?

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

 

OOPB or BOOP briefly examined the late John "Cardinal" O'Connor's approval of a Catholic man's conversion to Talmudic Judaism, something that I wrote about and condemned in the strongest terms in an article that appeared in The Wanderer in early-1999, "How to Break a Mother's Heart. O'Connor, the conciliar "archbishop" of New York from March 19, 1984, to May 3, 2000, was fondly remembered by Stephen Dubner, the man to whom he gave his approval to convert from Catholicism to the lie of a dead religion, at the "cardinal's" death eight years ago:

John Cardinal O'Connor was a man who liked to fix things, and since I had a broken relationship -- with my mother -- I went to see him.

My mother revered the cardinal, thought he stood for everything that was righteous and true about Catholicism, everything that had led her to convert from Judaism more than 50 years earlier.

I was a different matter. I had let my mother down, grievously. The youngest of eight children, I was her last, best hope for the priesthood. I had taken my altar-boy duties seriously; I tried in every way to believe as my parents believed, which was deeply. My father was also a Jewish convert, and you must believe me when I say that it would be hard to find a more zealous pair of Catholics than these two former Brooklyn Jews.

Not only did I not become a priest, but I became . . . a Jew. My mother thought this preposterous. To her, Judaism was an outmoded religion whose only contribution had been to preserve monotheism until Christ came along.

We fought, stewed, then stumbled into a prickly silence. That's when I went to see the cardinal.

This was four years ago, and he was still strong. His desk was immaculate, his in-box empty. On his lapel he wore a small red-rose pin, the same pro-life symbol my mother favored. I told him about our dilemma. "I don't mean to turn this into a shrink session or a confessional," I said, "but how would you suggest that we go about resolving that conflict?"

He listened hard; you would have thought he was considering a matter far more momentous than one family's theological dispute. "I think in two ways," he finally answered. "First off, I would look at recent declarations of Pope John Paul II about the validity of Judaism. This has radically changed Jewish-Catholic dialogue. Radically." His second point concerned "the primacy of an informed conscience" -- that is, the Vatican's belief that if someone has duly educated himself in the ways of the Church and the ways of another faith, and feels that God wants him to belong to that other faith, that is where he indeed belongs. The cardinal told me I should go to my mother and tell her "that this is where you think God wants you to be, an informed Jew."

This was what the cardinal's friends always said: For all his power and wit, what he loved more than anything was being a priest. Having eyes that see, ears that hear, and a tongue unafraid to deliver the verdict.

I told my mother about our conversation; she sent the cardinal a thank-you note. She also started talking to me differently. Little by little we built a peace -- an odd and often delicate peace, but one that we were both grateful for, since her health was fading.

By the time she died, a few months ago, we had reconciled. We were not so much Catholic and Jew as mother and son, and for that I had John Cardinal O'Connor to thank. I wrote to tell him so and he wrote back, promptly as always, even though by now his own health was worsening.

At my mother's wake, the parish priest, Father Connelly, approached me. "I've read all about you and your mother and the cardinal," he said. "I thought maybe you'd like to recite the mourner's Kaddish after the mass?"

The following day, at the grave site, Father Connelly distributed photocopies of the mourner's Kaddish. It is known as the Jewish prayer for the dead but it is essentially an exaltation of God -- quite like the Lord's Prayer, in fact. And I suspect it may be spoken over the cardinal's tomb as well in years to come.(Stephen Dubner recalls the cardinal.)

Can you see why I entitled my article, "How to Break a Mother's Heart", meaning Our Blessed Mother's Most Sorrowful and Heart? John Cardinal O'Connor. Wild card or mirror image? Imagine the accountability for telling a man that it pleased God for him to convert to a false, superseded religion. Unthinkable.

 

OOPB or BOOP went on to examine the views of the then Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger concerning the salvation of the Jews, views, of course, which he continues to hold as the false "pope," Benedict XVI:

In late 2001, the Pontifical Biblical Commission released a book entitled The Jewish People and the Holy Scriptures in the Christian Bible that confirmed the radical (but non-Magisterial) drift of Rome's position vis-a-vis the Jews. The book argues that the Jews' continued wait for the Messiah is validated and justified by the Old Testament. "The expectancy of the Messiah was in the Old Testament," papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls explained, "and if the Old Testament keeps its value, then it keeps that as a value, too. It says you cannot just say all the Jews are wrong and we are right." Asked by reporters whether his statements might be taken to suggest that the Messiah may not in fact have come, Navarro-Valls replied, "It means it would be wrong for a Catholic to wait for the Messiah, but not for a Jew." The latest position of the Vatican apparatus (not be confused with the Church's constant Magisterium) is, in essence, that the Jews are perfectly entitled to live as if Christ has never come. They wait for "their" Messiah and we wait for ours. So much for the objective truth of the matter?

Cardinal Ratzinger put it this way: "The difference consists in the fact that for us he (sic) who will come will have the same traits of the Jesus who has already come." The same traits of that Jesus (is there more than one?)--and only "for us"? Would it make the slightest bit of sense to say that, for us, the head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith has the same traits of that Cardinal Ratzinger who occupies the offices of the CDF. What is to account for this apparent dread aversion to the simple, straightforward declaration that the Messiah for everyone, not just "for us," is Jesus Christ crucified in the flesh, and none other than He?

To say the least, the Cardinal's novel locution obscures the fact that that when Christ returns it will be as clear to the Jews as it is to everyone else in the world that this is the One Whom the Pharisees rejected when He walked amongst His people 2,000 years ago--the God Incarnate,Who said to the Pharisees, "Before Abraham was, I am," and Who sternly admonished them that "you shall not see me henceforth till you say: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord" (Matt. 23:38-39).

Evidently, we are to assume that the Holy Catholic Church was mistaken in the teaching of her traditional Good Friday liturgy. Now we are told that it is suddenly no longer a question of a hardening of the heart or or blindness, but merely a difference of opinion about whether there will be one or two comings of the same Messiah? The Cardinal's implication that the whole question of Jewish conversion can be reduced to the observation that Christ's return will represent His Second Coming for us but only a first coming for the Jews, with no eternal consequences arising from "the difference," dispenses with the entire tradition of the the Church.

The response of the neo-Catholic establishment this time was a stony silence. One can hardly blame them; every Catholic instinct must recoil in revulsion at this most recent (and almost unbelievable) display of cowardice. Jewish commentators delightedly hailed as a marvelous innovation. "This is a total novelty," said Chief Rabbi Joseph Levi of Florence. Rabbi Alberto Piatelli, a professor and Jewish leader in Rome, remarked: "This is something altogether new. . . . It recognizes the value of the Jewish position regarding the wait for the Messiah, changes the whole exegesis of biblical studies, and restores our biblical passages to their original meaning. I was surprised." And so yet another "surprise" is added to the mountain of surprises we have only attempted to sketch in this book. (OOPB or BOOP , pp. 206-207.)

 

It is more than a little interesting that those of us who provide similar analyses of conciliarism's most official teaching about the Jews at the present time are condemned by the very people who held Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II personally responsible for the words and actions of his subordinates, but who have chosen to ignore the simple fact Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI shares those views himself. It thus cannot be discussed or admitted openly that Ratzinger has, by defecting from the Faith by means of violating the Divine Positive Law, shown himself to be enemy of God and of the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.

Did Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI seek the conversion of Jews when he paid an "official" visit to a Talmudic synagogue on Friday, August 19, 2008? Did he seek the conversion of the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Richard Di Segni, when the latter paid him a visit at the Vatican on Monday, January 16, 2006? Judge for yourselves:

Distinguished Chief Rabbi,
Dear Friends, Shalom!

"My strength and my courage is the Lord, and he has been my Saviour" (Ex 15: 2): thus sang Moses with the Children of Israel when the Lord saved his people by enabling them to cross the sea. In the same way Isaiah sang: "God indeed is my Saviour; I am confident and unafraid. My strength and my courage is the Lord, and he has been my Saviour" (Is 12: 2).

Your visit brings me great joy and spurs me to renew with you this same canticle of gratitude for the salvation obtained. The people of Israel have been released from the hands of enemies on various occasions, and in the centuries of anti-Semitism during the tragic moments of the Shoah, the hand of the Almighty sustained and guided them.

The special favour of the God of the Covenant has always accompanied them, giving them the strength to overcome trials. Your Jewish Community, which has been present in the City of Rome for more than 2,000 years, can also witness to this loving divine attention.

The Catholic Church is close and is a friend to you. Yes, we love you and we cannot but love you, because of the Fathers: through them you are very dear and beloved brothers to us (cf. Rom 11: 28b). This reciprocal esteem and trust has continued to grow since the Second Vatican Council. Fraternal and cordial contacts continued to develop and were intensified throughout the Pontificate of my Venerable Predecessor, John Paul II.

In Christ we participate in the same heritage of the Fathers as you, to serve Almighty God "with one accord" (Zep 3: 9), grafted onto the one holy trunk (cf. Is 6: 13; Rom 11: 16) of the People of God. This makes us Christians aware that, with you, we have the responsibility of cooperating for the good of all peoples, in justice and in peace, in truth and in freedom, in holiness and in love.

In light of this common mission, we cannot but denounce and battle with determination against the hatred and misunderstandings, injustices and violence that continue to sow anxieties in the hearts of men and women of good will. In this context, how can we not be grieved and concerned about the renewed demonstrations of anti-Semitism that are at times reported?

Distinguished Chief Rabbi, you were recently entrusted with the spiritual guidance of Rome's Jewish Community; you have taken on this responsibility enriched by your experience as a scholar and a doctor who has shared in the joys and sufferings of a great many people. I offer you my heartfelt good wishes for your mission, and I assure you of my own and my collaborators' cordial esteem and friendship.

Furthermore, there are so many urgent needs and challenges, in Rome and in the world, that prompt us to join our hands and hearts in practical initiatives of solidarity, of tzedek (justice) and tzedekah (charity). Together, we can collaborate in transmitting to the young generations the torch of the Decalogue and hope.

May the Eternal Father watch over you and the entire Jewish Community of Rome! On this special occasion, I make my own the prayer of Pope Clement I as I invoke the blessings of Heaven upon you all: "Give harmony and peace to all the inhabitants of the earth, just as you gave to our fathers when they devoutly called upon you in faith and in truth" (To the Corinthians 60, 4). (To Doctor Riccardo Di Segni, Chief Rabbi of Rome)

 

Did I miss the call for Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni's conversion? Was it hidden someplace like the "find the hidden squirrel" feature in Highlights magazine for children?

Will Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI seek the conversion of Rabbi Arthur Schneier when he visits him "privately" at the Park Avenue Synagogue this Friday, April 18, 2008, in the Borough of Manhattan in the City of New York, New York? Don't hold your breath. The false "pontiff" will wish Rabbi Schneier a "blessed Passover," thus offending God greatly and teaching Catholics and non-Catholics alike that it is a good thing for a false, superseded religion that belongs to the devil to celebrate a feast that has been replaced by the New and Eternal Passover of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which He instituted at the Last Supper and ratified by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.

Does Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI disagree with the teaching of his predecessor, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, on the Jews and supersession?

Mr. John Vennari, the editor of Catholic Family News who is not, of course, a sedevacantist and rejects the position entirety, wrote a very good analysis of the late Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II's belief that the New and Eternal Covenant of Our Lord did not supersede the Old Covenant that God had made with Moses. Here is but a brief excerpt from that article, which was entitled "The Secret of Pope John Paul II's Success," which appeared in Catholic Family News in May, 2005:

In what appears to be an attempt to make “explicit” what was “implicit” in the Council Document Nostra Aetate,[38] Pope John Paul II said the following in a speech to a Jewish Community in Mainz, Germany on November 17, 1980:

“The first dimension of this dialogue, that is, the meeting between the people of the Old Covenant, never revoked by God, and that of the New Covenant, is at the same time a dialogue within our Church, that is to say, between the first and second part of her Bible ... Jews and Christians, as children of Abraham, are called to be a blessing to the world. By committing themselves together for peace and justice among all men and peoples.”[39]

 

This statement of the Pope, in fact, is now quoted in modern Church documents to reinforce the new, post-Conciliar teaching against “supersessionism”.

In 1985, the Vatican issued its Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis of the Roman Catholic Church.[40] The document’s introduction bids the reader to take “special note” of Paragraph 3 “which speaks about Judaism as a present reality and not only as a historical (and thus superseded) reality.” When we turn to Paragraph 3, we see that the Notes quotes the above speech where John Paul speaks of “the people of God of the Old Covenant” which has “not been revoked.”[41]

Far from claiming that the Notes misinterpreted his words, John Paul spoke of his unqualified support of the document. On October 28, 1985, John Paul II said “[The] Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis of the Roman Catholic Church” is “proof of the Holy See’s continued interest in and commitment to this renewed relationship between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people,” and that the Notes “will greatly help toward freeing our catechetical and religious teaching of a negative or inaccurate presentation of Jews and Judaism in the context of the Catholic Faith”.[42]

Thus it is demonstrable that what the Jews say of John Paul II is true; the words they quote from John Paul II are found in Vatican documents with John Paul II’s approval.

Yet we know from Saint Peter’s sermon on the first Pentecost, that the Old Covenant is not still in force, not acceptable to God, not capable of providing salvation. We know from the words of Our Lord Jesus Christ that those who will not accept Him will die in their sins. We know from Saint John’s Epistle that he who denies that Jesus is the Christ, is anti-Christ. We know from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews that the New Covenant has made obsolete the Old. And we know from the infallible Council of Florence that the Old Covenant ceased with the establishment of the New Covenant by Jesus Christ. (John Vennari, The Secret of Pope John Paul II's Success)

The Old Convenant ended when Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ breathed His last breath on the wood of the Holy Cross and the curtain in the Temple in Jerusalem was torn in two from top to bottom. Over. Done with. Finished. Ended. The dispersal of the Jews in the year 70 A.D. following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans was a public ratification by God of the fact that the Old Covenant indeed had been superseded by the New and Eternal Covenant instituted by Our Lord at the Last Supper and and consummated as He, the Paschal Lamb Who takest away the sins of the world, shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross to redeem us.

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes in the "enduring validity" of the "Sinai Covenant," placing him at odds, among many others, with the first pope, Saint Peter, Saint John the Evangelist, Saint Paul, and Saint Justin Martyr, whose feast we celebrated yesterday, Monday, April 14, 2008, who wrote the following in the Second Century:

CHAPTER XXV -- THE JEWS BOAST IN VAIN THAT THEY ARE SONS OF ABRAHAM.

"Those who justify themselves, and say they are sons of Abraham, shall be desirous even in a small degree to receive the inheritance along with you; as the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of Isaiah, cries, speaking thus while he personates them: 'Return from heaven, and behold from the habitation of Thy holiness and glory. Where is Thy zeal and strength? Where is the multitude of Thy mercy? for Thou hast sustained us, O Lord. For Thou art our Father, because Abraham is ignorant of us, and Israel has not recognised us. But Thou, O Lord, our Father, deliver us: from the beginning Thy name is upon us. O Lord, why hast Thou made us to err from Thy way? and hardened our hearts, so that we do not fear Thee? Return for Thy servants' sake, the tribes of Thine inheritance, that we may inherit for a little Thy holy mountain. We were as from the beginning, when Thou didst not bear rule over us, and when Thy name was not called upon us. If Thou wilt open the heavens, trembling shall seize the mountains before Thee: and they shall be melted, as wax melts before the fire; and fire shall consume the adversaries, and Thy name shall be manifest among the adversaries; the nations shall be put into disorder before Thy face. When Thou shall do glorious things, trembling shall seize the mountains before Thee. From the beginning we have not heard, nor have our eyes seen a God besides Thee: and Thy works, the mercy which Thou shall show to those who repent. He shall meet those who do righteousness, and they shall remember Thy ways. Behold, Thou art wroth, and we were sinning. Therefore we have erred and become all unclean, and all our righteousness is as the rags of a woman set apart: and we have faded away like leaves by reason of our iniquities; thus the wind will take us away. And there is none that calleth upon Thy name, or remembers to take hold of Thee; for Thou hast turned away Thy face from us, and hast given us up on account of our sins. And now return, O Lord, for we are all Thy people. The city of Thy holiness has become desolate. Zion has become as a wilderness, Jerusalem a curse; the house, our holiness, and the glory which our fathers blessed, has been burned with fire; and all the glorious nations have fallen along with it. And in addition to these [misfortunes], O Lord, Thou hast refrained Thyself, and art silent, and hast humbled us very much.'"

And Trypho remarked, "What is this you say? that none of us shall inherit anything on the holy mountain of God?"

CHAPTER XXVI -- NO SALVATION TO THE JEWS EXCEPT THROUGH CHRIST.

And I replied, "I do not say so; but those who have persecuted and do persecute Christ, if they do not repent, shall not inherit anything on the holy mountain. But the Gentiles, who have believed on Him, and have repented of the sins which they have committed, they shall receive the inheritance along with the patriarchs and the prophets, and the just men who are descended from Jacob, even although they neither keep the Sabbath, nor are circumcised, nor observe the feasts. Assuredly they shall receive the holy inheritance of God. For God speaks by Isaiah thus: 'I, the Lord God, have called Thee in righteousness, and will hold Thine hand, and will strengthen Thee; and I have given Thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out them that are bound from the chains, and those who sit in darkness from the prison-house.' And again: 'Lift up a standard s for the people; for, lo, the Lord has made it heard unto the end of the earth. Say ye to the daughters of Zion, Behold, thy Saviour has come; having His reward, and His work before His face: and He shall call it a holy nation, redeemed by the Lord. And thou shalt be called a city sought out, and not forsaken. Who is this that cometh from Edom? in red garments from Bosor? This that is beautiful in apparel, going up with great strength? I speak righteousness, and the judgment of salvation. Why are Thy garments red, and Thine apparel as from the trodden wine-press? Thou art full of the trodden grape. I have trodden the wine-press all alone, and of the people there is no man with Me; and I have trampled them in fury, and crushed them to the ground, and spilled their blood on the earth. For the day of retribution has come upon them, and the year of redemption is present. And I looked, and there was none to help; and I considered, and none assisted: and My arm delivered; and My fury came on them, and I trampled them in My fury, and spilled their blood on the earth.'"( Roberts-Donaldson English Translation: Dialogue with Trypho.)

 

Walter Kasper is a mirror image of Joseph Ratzinger, not a wild card.

So is Christoph Schonborn, the conciliar "cardinal archbishop" of Vienna, Austria, who has defended the decision to display at the Dommuseum Wien, the official museum of  Saint Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, the "art" of a man, Alfred Hrdlicka, who painted an unspeakably blasphemous depiction of Our Lord and the Apostles at the Last Supper that was included in an exhibit of Hrdlicka's works:

Vienna, Apr. 9, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schönborn (bio - news) has issued a statement defending the decision to host an art exhibit featuring homo-erotic images of Christ and the apostles at the Vienna cathedral's museum.

In response to a query from the German-language kath.net news site, Cardinal Schönborn noted that Alfred Hrdlicka, the artist whose works have provoked charges of blasphemy, is "one of Austria's most notable living artists."

Hrdlicka, the cardinal said, "has dealt with biblical subjects all his life, especially with the suffering of Christ." He noted that the controversial artist "has appealed for 'compassion' with the 'Passion.'" Cardinal Schönborn conceded that Hrdlicka "expresses this 'compassion' in a most perturbing way." The cardinal called for the removal of one work from the exhibit, responding to complaints from viewers insulted by the depiction of the Last Supper as a homosexual orgy.

Cardinal Schönborn said that he gave his approval for the Hrdlicka exhibit, without knowing details about the works that would be presented in the cathedral museum, because of his respect for the artist's reputation. He explained: "In spite of the fact that he claims to be a Communist and an atheist, he nevertheless has a burning interest in the Holy Bible, and has personally admitted that he has a great longing for faith." (Catholic World News : Austrian cardinal defends art exhibit.) 

 

Although, "Cardinal" Schonborn, a protege of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, removed Hrdlicka's truly blasphemous depiction of the the Last Supper from the display in the Dommuseum Wien, he praised the work of Hrdlicka, meaning that the fact that Hrdlicka's warped, perverse mind could produce such a despicable representation of the Last Supper is not considered by Schonborn to be any sort of indication that Hrdlicka is man who has, objectively speaking, greatly offended Our Lord and the Apostles and has made visible a piece of filth that could entice some to sin and children to lose their innocence entirely. None of this matters to Schonborn. The man, Alfred Hrdlicka, has a "great longing for faith." Oh, really? Faith in what? Not in the truths of the Catholic Faith, which are as foreign to Schonborn as they are to Hrdlicka.

Christoph Schonborn. A wild card or a mirror image of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI? The latter has appeared at World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, in August of 2005 as young Catholics dressed in the most indecent and immodest of attire, a phenomenon that will be repeated in Sydney, Australia, later this year. An American "singer" named Kelly Clarkson, about whom I knew nothing until our friend Spencer Colgan informed me on Sunday, April 13, 2008, of her background, who wears all manner of indecent and immodest attire in her "performances,"  will "warm up" the crowd at Yankee Stadium in five days before Ratzinger/Benedict arrives to offer the Novus Ordo service and to sing the Ave Maria during Mass. What should that matter?

Why should it matter that she will be held up as a role model" for young Catholics as she and singer Harry Connick, Jr., who has contributed money to the presidential campaign of the pro-abortion elitist named Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois), about whom some more attention will be paid in a few days, host a "show" prior to the offering of what purports to be Holy Mass at Yankee Stadium on Sunday, April 20, 2008? We must be "tolerant" of these things, right? No, Christoph Schonborn's most liberal embrace of Alfred Hrdlicka is just part and parcel of conciliarism's "official reconciliation with the principles of the new era inaugurated in 1789" (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, p. 382.)

Conciliar "Bishop" Michael Malone of the Diocese Maitland-Newcastle, Australia, and conciliar "Bishop" David Walker of the Diocese of Broken Bay, Australia. Wild cards or mirror images? Did these "bishops" act unilaterally when they signed a covenant with their brother non-bishops from the Anglican "Church"?

In a spontaneous standing ovation last night over 1000 people affirmed the signing of an historic covenant between the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle and the Catholic Dioceses of Maitland-Newcastle and Broken Bay. The signing took place within a moving ceremony at Newcastle’s Christ Church Anglican Cathedral.

While similar covenants have been signed between Anglican and Catholic churches at parish level, it is believed to be the first covenant between Anglican and Catholic Dioceses in Australia.

The congregation was called to prayer by the sound of the didgeridoo, followed by a smoking ceremony.

Recognising the reconciling elements of water and fire within Aboriginal culture and the centrality and commonality of baptism within the Anglican and Catholic traditions, Anglican Bishops Brian Farran and Graeme Rutherford (Diocese of Newcastle) and Catholic Bishops Michael Malone and David Walker (Dioceses of Maitland-Newcastle and Broken Bay) gathered with Aboriginal elders at the Baptismal font. They prayed over the water together, before sprinkling the congregation.

The Very Reverend Graeme Lawrence, Dean of Newcastle and Christ Church Cathedral welcomed the congregation to this “joyful and historic occasion”.

The preacher was Dominican Sister, Jenny Gerathy OP, who acknowledged both the honour and the nervousness she felt as she addressed the congregation.

“How timely this significant event should take place within the Easter season of our Church’s year – the time which offers so many signs of hope and new life. That time when we welcome new members into our churches through the gift of Baptism; the time when we ourselves are invited to reflect on what it means to be a baptised people, an Easter people.”

Sr Jenny compared the occasion of the signing of the covenant with the recent Earth Hour initiative. Just as last year Sydney had led the way with Earth Hour which has recently been taken up throughout Australia as well as internationally, Sr Jenny hopes that “tonight we lead the way, as we take this small but significant step which we hope will lead the way for others, locally and globally.”

“Our Covenant invites us into Relationship – with our God and with each other - beyond the signatures on the page ... The Covenant must take on flesh and bones and we the people of God are those flesh and bones.”

“Tonight is the night to let go of the wounds of the past, whatever they be, because of earlier divisions between our Churches,” Sr Jenny continued. “What a gift we are being offered! Tonight is the night to transfer all that is fearful into boldness of heart – for the kingdom.”

Representatives from each diocese presented the Bishops with a stole, a sign of their priestly office. As the stole was placed around each bishop’s neck, they were reminded that they serve Christ and Christ’s People. “May this stole carry one further remembrance for you: that you are pledged to pursue unity, peace and love among all God’s people.”

Vested in the stoles which they had just received, the bishops moved to stand behind the altar to receive the gifts of bread and wine, brought forward by two young families from the Catholic and Anglican traditions.

The bishops received the gifts and placed them on the altar, before walking away in silence. Bishop Michael Malone described this as a very poignant moment: “A didgeridoo lament was played, to show the sadness of our inability to share in the Eucharist at this point.”

Students from St Mary’s Campus All Saints College ‘danced’ the copies of the Covenant to the altar for signing by the bishops and other representatives of each diocese. The Covenant commits the three dioceses to a series of joint initiatives ranging from an annual Bishops’ Dialogue to the exploration of possibilities for the sharing of church resources. It was co-signed by clergy and lay representatives from each diocese and copies were given to each parish.

In the words of Dean Graeme Lawrence, “Acknowledging those things that still separate us, but recognising that what unites is far greater than what divides, we, the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle, the Catholic Diocese of Broken Bay and the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle come together to enter into a Covenant relationship that we hope will help to build that unity which Christ desires for all his Church. (Packed Cathedral Supports Historic Covenant.)

 

Wild cards or mirror images of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI? As will be demonstrated yet again at Saint Joseph's Church in the Borough of Manhattan in the City of New York, New York three days from now, Friday, April 18, 2008, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI rejects the necessity of seeking with urgency the unconditional conversion of all non-Catholics to the true Faith. He rejects firmly and unequivocally the "ecumenism of the return," as he himself stated in Cologne, Germany, on August 19, 2005:

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

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

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

To this end, dialogue has its own contribution to make. More than an exchange of thoughts, an academic exercise, it is an exchange of gifts (cf. Ut Unum Sint, n. 28), in which the Churches and the Ecclesial Communities can make available their own riches (cf. Lumen Gentium, nn. 8, 15; Unitatis Redintegratio, nn. 3, 14ff.; Ut Unum Sint, nn. 10-14).

As a result of this commitment, the journey can move forward, step by step, as the Letter to the Ephesians says, until at last we will all "attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph 4: 13). (Ecumenical meeting at the Archbishopric of Cologne English)

 

It might be interesting to see what OOPB (aka out-of-print book) or BOOP (book out of print) wrote about Joseph Ratzinger's views concerning the "unity of faith:"

By way of background on this issue, we note that when Cardinal Ratzinger was still Father Ratzinger, a former peritus of the Council, he provided in his Theological Highlights of Vatican II the following explanation of the Council's teaching on Christian unity and Church membership:

"The new text describes the relationship between the Church and non-Catholic Christians without speaking of "membership." By shedding this terminological armor, the text acquired a much wider scope. . . . The Catholic has to recognize that his own Church is not yet prepared to accept the phenomenon of multiplicity in unity; he must orient himself toward this reality. . . . Meantime the Catholic Church has no right to absorb the other Churches. The Church has not yet prepared a place of their own, but this they are legitimately entitled to. . . . A basic unity--of Churches that remain Churches, yet become one Church--must replace the idea of conversion, even though conversion retains its meaningfulness for those in conscience motivated to seek it. (Joseph Ratzinger, Theological Highlights of Vatican II, pp. 61, 68, quoted in OOPB or BOOP at p. 349.)

This remarkable text, which Cardinal Ratzinger has never repudiated, declares that the Magisterium can "shed" its own established terminology on membership in the Church, that the Bride of Christ had neglected to "prepare" itself for acceptance of the "reality" of non-Catholic confessions, that organizations indisputably founded by mere men in a rebellion against divine authority have a positive right to exist and be given "a place" by the one true Church, and that Protestants need not convert to Catholicism unless they are "motivated" to do so. In all candor, we do not see how Father Ratzinger's opinions here could have avoided censure during the reign of any preconciliar Pope.

As we have already demonstrated abundantly, these opinions are quite in line with the current thinking of Cardinal Ratzinger's fellow German bishop, Cardinal Walker Kasper, the new head of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity. We have noted that in the Italian journal Adista, Kasper declared "today that we no longer understand ecumenism in the sense of a return, by which the others would 'be converted' and return to being 'Catholics'  This was expressly abandoned by Vatican II." Any Catholic should be horrified to see the head of a pontifical council ostensible devoted to "Christian unity" placing contemptuous quotation marks around the very words converted and Catholics. According to Cardinal Kasper, Vatican II "abandoned" what the Holy Office in 1949 describe as "the teachings of the encyclicals o the Roman Pontiffs on the return of the dissidents to the one true Church" and "the Catholic truth regarding...the only true union by the return of the dissidents to the one true Church."

And yet the context of Kasper's remarks in Adista was a defense of DI [Dominus Iesus] against Protestant critics! Nor did Cardinal Ratzinger offer any correction of Kasper's opinion, which Kasper expressed within days of his elevation to the rank of cardinal. These finds do not inspire confidence that DI represents a major course correction in the Church's postconciliar drift from her prior clarity of teaching about the condition of the dissidents who need to return to the one true Church.

Before Vatican II, it was perfectly obvious that there could that there could never be Christian unity unless the Orthodox and the Protestants assented to every single point of Catholic doctrine, thus becoming Catholics themselves. It is just as obvious that anyone who prescinds from even the least point of Catholic doctrine can never be united with us. As Pope Leo XIII taught in Satis Cognitum: "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."

Equally obvious is that to embrace the whole of Catholic doctrine without reservation is necessarily to turn away from the human institutions in which that doctrine was more or less corrupted, and to turn instead toward the Catholic Church, in which the Deposit of Faith has always been preserved undefiled. That is what conversion means. Even in today's ecumenical confusion, we still hear about the "conversion stories" of ex-Protestants.

How, for example, could any Lutheran come to an acceptance of the whole of Catholic teaching under the influence of God's grace, yet continue to insist upon belonging to an organization named after a psychotic, foul-mouthed, womanizing drunkard of a monk, who ran off and married a nun, indeed the greatest arch-heretic in Church history, who referred to the Vicar of Christ as an "ass-head."? What could the husk of Luther's decrepit human organization possibly offer any Lutheran that is not found in superabundance in the Roman Catholic Church? Could anyone who would cling to the notion of belonging to Luther's version of a church ever be in union with us? On the other hand, if the Lutherans, by some miracle of grace, all suddenly decided to abjure every one of Luther's errors--in which case, why would they wish to be associated any longer with the name of Luther?--the Catholic Church would have no reason, much less a duty, to make a "place" for Luther's "church." It would simply cease to exist as a separate organization, the Lutherans having become Catholics. Is this really something that is debatable today? Apparently so.

That Christian unity can somehow be accomplished without all Christians becoming Catholics is one of the Zen-like notions that abound in postconciliar thinking. But not only has Cardinal Ratzinger never retracted Father Ratzinger's opinions, we also now find that they have become Vatican policy at the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity. Nor does it appear that DI in any way reproves Kasper's opinions. To the contrary: in discussing DI with the press, Cardinal Ratzinger affirmed his own support for the novel notion of "reconciled diversity" that we discussed earlier:

"Question: So then, after the publication of your document, is the ecumenical formula of 'reconciled diversity' still valid?

"Ratzinger: I accept the concept of a reconciled diversity, if it does not mean equality of content and the elimination of the question of truth so that we could consider ourselves one even if we believe and teach different things. To my mind this concept is used well, if it says that, despite our differences, which do not allow us to regard ourselves as mere fragments of a Church of Jesus Christ that does not exist in reality, we meet in the peace of Christ and are reconciled to one another, that is, we recognize that our division as contradicting the Lord's will and this sorrow spurs us to seek unity and to pray to him in the knowledge that we all need his love."

Notice that Ratzinger acknowledges that we could not consider ourselves one with Protestants unless we all believed in the same things. But in the meantime he proposes that "despite the difference" we can all be "reconciled to one another" as we "seek unity." Ratzinger does not explain--because quite obviously he cannot explain--how we can ever "find" unity with Protestants without their return to the one true Church. Nor does he explain what it is that Catholics are "seeking" in terms of "unity," given that they already have the true Faith in the unity of the one true Church. Perhaps this is why Ratzinger has declared that "for the moment, I wouldn't dare venture to suggest any concrete realization, possible or imaginable, of this future Church. We are at an intermediate stage of unity in diversity."

Thus, according to Cardinal Kasper and (it would appear) Cardinal Ratzinger, there are no longer any dissidents who must return to the one true Church, but only "Christians engaged in a joint ecumenical "search for unity." The notion that the conversion and return of non-Catholics to the Catholic Church has suddenly been replaced by some other (as yet undefined) "model" of unity obviously has important implications for our understanding of DI. For if a return to the one true Church is no longer seen as necessary for Christian unity, then it can hardly be necessary salvation as such. This would men that the members of heretical and schismatic confessions, are presumed by DI to be adequately secured in their salvation, without need of formal membership in the Catholic Church and recourse to her sacraments.

How can DI's apparent abandonment of the return of the dissidents to the one true Church to be reconciled with the perennial Magisterium? As recently as 1943, Pope Pius XII declared in his monumental encyclical Mystici Corporis:

"They, therefore, walk in the path of dangerous error who believe that they can accept Christ as the Head of the Church, while not adhering loyally to His Vicar on earth. They have taken away the visible head, broken the visible bonds of unity and left the Mystical Body of the Redeemer so obscured and so maimed, that those who are seeking the haven of eternal salvation can neither see it nor find it."

For this reason, Pius XII implored all who would call themselves Christians "to correspond to the interior movements of grace, and to seek to withdraw from that state in which they cannot be sure of their salvation." Pius XII was warning heretics and schismatics as charitably as he could that they were risking eternal damnation if they did not correspond to grace and enter the Catholic Church. Where do we find this teaching affirmed in DI 176 or anywhere else in the document, or, for that matter, anywhere in the vast "ecumenical venture" as a whole? And is it not this very teaching that needs affirming, in view of the moral decrepitude of the Protestant sects?

In short, what has happened to the Church's perennial concern for the danger to souls lost in error? Where do we see today anything like the solicitude for souls expressed by Bl. Pius IX in Quanto Conficiamur Moerore:

"God forbid that the children of the Catholic Church should even in any way be unfriendly to those who are not at all united to us by the same bonds of faith and love. On the contrary, let them be eager always to attend to their needs with all the kind services of Christian charity, whether they are poor or sick or suffering any other kind of visitation. First of all, let them rescue them from the darkness of the errors into which they have unhappily fallen and strive to guide them back to Catholic truth and to their most loving Mother who is ever holding out her maternal arms to receive them lovingly back into her fold. Thus, firmly founded in faith, hope, and charity and fruitful in every good work, they will gain eternal salvation."

 

As laymen, we are mystified that today's Vatican apparatus expresses no concern about the eternal fate of souls who, by every objective measure, are in far greater danger of damnation than the comparatively upright Protestants Bl. Pius IX had in view--Protestants, moreover, who would regard their own pro-abortion, pro-"gay right" descendants as worthy of hellfire.

Turning to the particular language of DI 17 we pose some additional concerns:

First, how is it possible that the schismatic churches of the East can be "united to her [the Catholic Church] by the closest of bonds"? Here it seems we are facing yet another novelty of postconciliar thought: the concept of unity in schism. How can this by anything but an oxymoron?

As Pope Leo taught definitively in Satis Cognitum, there can be no unity in the Mystical Body without visible unity under its earthly head, the Vicar of Christ. This is because the visible and invisible aspects of the Church are as inseparably united as the body and the soul in human nature, and the divine and human nature in Christ Himself:

"The connection and union of both elements is as absolutely necessary to the true Church as the intimate union of the soul and body is to human nature. The Church is not something dead: it is the body of Christ endowed with supernatural life. . . .  The union consequently of visible and invisible elements because it harmonizes with the natural order and by God's will belongs to the very essence of the Church, must necessarily remain so long as the Church itself shall endure. . . . that the Church should be His mystical body, with which He should be united as the Head. . . . As He took to Himself a mortal body, which He gave to suffering and death in order to pay the price of man's redemption, so also He has one mystical body in which and through which He renders men partakers of holiness and of eternal salvation. . . .Scattered and separated members cannot possibly cohere with the head so as to make one body."

Now the neo-Catholics have no problem affirming this doctrine most strongly when it comes to "extreme traditionalists," including members of the Society of St. Pius X, whom they denounce as "schismatics" with great relish, as they piously intone the necessity of strict communion with Peter for membership in the Church. But when it comes to the Protestants and the Orthodox, who are objectively guilty of both schism and heresy, the neo-Catholics, along with DI, retreat into the ambiguities of Vatican II.

According to DI 17 (which refers to Lumen Gentium's use of the term subsistit), the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church but is also "present and operative" in the Orthodox churches are true particular churches, even though they lack "full communion:" with the Catholic Church. This goes even beyond what is said of the Protestant sects--i.e., that they possess "ecclesial elements," though they are not proper churches. But a we now, in Human Generis 27, Pope Pius XII taught that the Catholic Church and the Mystical Body of Christ are identical: "Some say they are not bound by the doctrine, explained in Our Encyclical Letter of a few years ago, and based on the sources of revelation, which teaches that the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing [quae quidem docet corpus Christi mysticum et Ecclesiam Catholicam Romanum unum idemque esse]."

This leads to further question: If the Church of Christ can subsist in the Catholic Church while also being present and operative in Orthodox churches, does this not mean that the Church of Christ is an entity greater in scope than the Roman Catholic Church, and therefore not identical to it as Pius XII taught? If the Church of Christ can be present and operative in the Orthodox churches at the same time the Orthodox churches lack communion with the Catholic Church, then how can the Church of Christ and the Catholic Church be one and the same thing?

For the past thirty-five years, traditionalists have been claiming that the term "subsists" was inserted by the conciliar liberals to imply that the Church of Christ is "larger" than, and thus not identical to, the Roman Catholic Church, whereas our neo-Catholic brethren insisted that "subsists" was merely a more powerful way of expressing that the Church of Christ is the the Roman Catholic Church. Well, it appears that at least as far as the principal author of DI is concerned, we were right and they were wrong. In an extensive interview in the German newspaper Frankfort Allgemeine following publication of DI, Cardinal Ratzinger addressed various non-Catholic objections to DI's teaching on the nature of the Church. Here is what the Cardinal said about the Council's use of the term subsistit:

"When the Council Fathers replaced the word "is" with the word "subsistit," they did so for a very precise reason. The concept expressed by "is" (to be) is far broader than that expressed by "to subsist." "To subsist" is a very precise way of being, that is, to be as a subject, which exists in itself. Thus the Council Fathers meant to say that the being of the Church as such is a broader entity than the Roman Catholic Church, but within the latter it acquires, in an incomparable way, the character of a true and proper subject ."

 

If the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing, then what exactly is this "Church of Christ" whose "being as such is a broader entity than the Roman Catholic Church." and which subsists in the Roman Catholic Church while also being present and operative in the Orthodox churches? How can there be an ecclesial entity broader than the Mystical Body itself? As Catholic laymen who believe they understand their Faith, we do not see how Cardinal Ratzinger's opinion can be reconciled with the teaching of the Pius XII; and we also believe we have the right to ask how it can be reconciled.

It might be argued that what Ratzinger means to teach is that the Church of Christ is identical to the Mystical Body, and that the Mystical Body (being identical to the Church of Christ) subsists in the Catholic Church. But if the Church of Christ is identical to the Mystical Body, and if Pius XII taught that the Roman Catholic Church is identical to the Mystical Body, then the Church of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church must likewise be identical, since if A=B and C=B, then A=C. But in the Frankfurter Allgemeine interview, Cardinal Ratzinger explicitly denies that the Church of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are identical:

"In his Encyclical, Pius XII said: The Roman Catholic Church "is" the one Church of Jesus Christ. This seems [!] to express a complete identity, which is why there was no Church outside the Catholic community. However, this is not the case: according to Catholic teaching, which Pius XII obviously also shared, the local Churches of the Eastern Church separated from Rome are authentic local churches."

Cardinal Ratzinger provided no proof that what "seems" to be the complete identity between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Christ in the teaching of Pius XII is "not the case." Further, Ratzinger's Frankfurter Allgemeine interview provides no demonstration that Pius XII "shared" the teaching of DI 17, that the Orthodox churches are "authentic local churches." If Pius XII or the other preconciliar Popes had ever taught such a thing, one supposes their teaching would have been cited rather prominently in DI to show its continuity with the perennial Magisterium. To the contrary, in Satis Cognitum, Leo XIII taught the following about the ecclesial status of non-Catholic sees:

"[I]t must be clearly understood that Bishops are deprived of the right and power of ruling, if they deliberately secede from Peter and his successors; because, by this secession, they are separated from the foundation on which the whole edifice must rest. They are therefore outside the edifice itself; and for this very reason they are separated from the fold, whose leader is the Chief Pastor; they are exiled from the Kingdom, the keys of which were given by Christ to Peter alone."

Likewise, in his letter on reunion with Eastern churches, St. Pius X declared as follows:

"Let, then, all those who strive to defend the cause of unity go forth; let them go forth wearing the helmet of faith, holding to the anchor of hope, and inflamed with the fire of charity, to work unceasingly in this most heavenly enterprise; and God, the author and lover of peace, will hasten the day when the nations of the East shall return to Catholic unity, and, united to the Apostolic See, after casting away their errors, shall enter the part of everlasting salvation."

There is an urgent need for the Church to explain, in a definitive and binding pronouncement, how churches that lack all jurisdiction, are separated from the very foundation of the Church, are outside the edifice of the Church, not within the fold, exiled from the Kingdom, and not yet in the port of everlasting salvation, can be "true particular churches or "authentic local churches."

It is not enough to say that individual members of the schismatic Orthodox churches may be inculpable of the personal sin of schism. This is not the point here. The point is that, according to every preconciliar papal pronouncement on the subject, the Orthodox churches, as institutions, are in a state of schism--cut off from Peter, the very foundation of Christian unity (Again, neo-Catholics have no problem saying this when it comes to the alleged schism of the Society of Saint Pius X.) The departure of the Orthodox churches from a number of Catholic doctrines and their permission for the sin of divorce and remarriage demonstrate the dire consequences of that cutting off.

Granted, the Orthodox churches would become true particular churches the moment they abjured their errors, submitted to the Vicar of Christ and thereby entered "the port of eternal salvation," to recall the words of St. Pius X. But then any Jew would become a Christian the moment he was baptized and professed the Faith. The potential state of churches or individual people is not the same as their actual state. But it seems to us that confusion between the actual and the potential is a the heart of ecumenism, and that DI 17 only perpetuates the confusion.

Indeed, if Leo XIII and St. Pius X were not addressing their teaching to the actual, objective condition of Orthodox churches and their adherents, what was the point of their teaching? Are we to suppose that these two great Popes lamented an ecclesial condition from which no one was actually suffering any longer, merely because the Orthodox schism had perdured for centuries and all the Orthodox could be presumed to be in good faith? Or has the ecclesial standing of the Orthodox somehow been elevated since the pontificates of Leo and Pius?

Furthermore, one must ask: Of which Church are the Orthodox churches said to be "true particular churches"? Are they true particular churches of the Catholic Church? This is obviously untenable. Are they, then, true particular churches of the posited Church of Christ, which DI says is "present and operative" in Orthodox churches despite their lack of communion with the Catholic Church? In that case, the Church of Christ would have to be regarded as an entity capable of being present and operative without the  Catholic Church also being present and operative--meaning, once again, that the Church of Christ and the Catholic Church are distinct from each other, a conclusion whose harmony with Catholic teaching is not apparent.

 Then again, if the Orthodox churches are said to be particular churches of neither the Catholic Church nor the Church of Christ, but merely particular churches standing alone, how can the use of the phrase "particular churches" be justified, since the concept of a particular church has meaning only with reference to the universal church? By analogy, if one of the American states had permanently secede from the Union before the Civil War--say, Virginia--would we still call it today, or would it not simply be the independent commonwealth of Virginia?

More questions present themselves: if the Orthodox churches are said to be "true particular churches," does this means that they are part of the Mystical Body of Christ? But how could this be true, in view of the solemn teaching of Pius XII in Mystici Corporis that churches not in communion with the Pope are not part of the Mystical Body, since they are not part of the visible Catholic Church? Pius teaches:

"Actually, only those who 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 have been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. . . . 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."

Here, Pius XII was repeating the teaching his predecessor, Pius XI, in Mortalium Animos:

"For since the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one, compacted and fitly joined together, it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head."

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 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? (OOPB or BOOP, pp. 348-363.)

 

Although the thesis of this out-of-print book (or book out of print) rejects sedevacantism out of hand and believes that conciliarism represents "nothing official" that is binding on the Catholic faithful (which is true, of course, as it has not come from the Catholic Church!), the analysis of Ratzinger's views on "unity" among Christians is excellent. Outstanding, which is why I wrote an endorsement of the book (which was included on the back cover of its second printing). At least one true bishop told me last summer that he could not have written a better analysis of Ratzinger's apostasies.

No, Walter Kasper and Christoph Schonborn and Michael Malone (no, not our friend from Phoenix, Arizona, thank you) and David Walker. Wild cards or mirror images of the chief conciliarist, the head of the counterfeit church of conciliarsm? Each is clearly a mirror image of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who does nothing to remonstrate with these--and other officials--who say and do things contrary to the Catholic Faith.

Indeed, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict has said and done enough things of his own in the past three years since he succeeded Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II as the head of the counterfeit church of conciliarism to prove his deviations from the Catholic Faith, starting with his embrace of false ecumenism on the day after his "election," Wednesday, April 20, 2005:

Theological dialogue is necessary; the investigation of the historical reasons for the decisions made in the past is also indispensable. But what is most urgently needed is that "purification of memory", so often recalled by John Paul II, which alone can dispose souls to accept the full truth of Christ. Each one of us must come before him, the supreme Judge of every living person, and render an account to him of all we have done or have failed to do to further the great good of the full and visible unity of all his disciples.

The current Successor of Peter is allowing himself to be called in the first person by this requirement and is prepared to do everything in his power to promote the fundamental cause of ecumenism. Following the example of his Predecessors, he is fully determined to encourage every initiative that seems appropriate for promoting contacts and understanding with the representatives of the different Churches and Ecclesial Communities. Indeed, on this occasion he sends them his most cordial greeting in Christ, the one Lord of us all.  (20 April 2005: First message at the end of the Eucharistic Concelebration with the Cardinal Electors in the Sistine Chapel. )

 

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has dared to permit a motion picture, The Nativity Story, that blasphemed Our Lady, the Mother of God herself, and thus offended her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to make its "world premiere" at the Paul VI Audience Hall on Sunday, November 27, 2006. It's no big deal that the motion picture portrayed Our Lady, who was conceived without stain of Original and Act Sin and thus had the gift of Integrity of body and soul, as a sulky and moody teenager, right? It's just "show business," right? "People" will understand, right? Our Lady isn't really offended, is she? Neither is her Divine Son, true?

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI approved of The Nativity Story. Did God?

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has dared to speak of himself and of the schismatical and heretical "patriarch" of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, as "pastors in the Church of Christ" in a joint declaration issued on November 30, 2006 (see: Common Declaration by Benedict XVI and Bartholomew I, November 30, 2006.), the same day that he took off his shoes and entered into the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, a blasphemous act of apostasy that was described very well by Dr. Marian Therese Horvat on the Tradition in Action website:

Like so many Catholics regrettably accustomed to ecumenical gestures, my friend Jan made light of Benedict XVI’s prayer at the Blue Mosque on November 30, 2006 in Turkey. “He wasn’t really praying with the Muslims,” she affirmed. “He was just meditating. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

This is also the spin the Catholic media are putting on the symbolic act of Pope Ratzinger. Even before the visit was over, papal spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi was pointing out to journalists that the Pope had not actually prayed, but was “in meditation.”

AP photo Barefoot and facing Mecca, Benedict joined the Muslim mufti in prayer [more pictures]

 

Who can judge the intentions of the Pontiff when he turned east and joined in prayer with the Istanbul mufti? This question of private intentions, in my opinion, is fundamentally wrong. We are not dealing with private intentions, everything about that visit was open, symbolic and quite clear in its main goal: Benedict intended to humiliate himself – and with him the Papacy – before the Muslim religion. This intention is quite unambiguous.

First, he went to the mosque.

Second, before entering it, he removed his shoes.

Third, he humbly received “instruction” from Mustafa Cagriche on the basics of Muslim prayer.

Fourth, he meekly followed the Muslim’s command to turn toward “the Kiblah” – the direction of Mecca. Then the prayer began.

Fifth, he did not even make the Sign of the Cross or give any external sign that he was making a Catholic prayer. On the contrary, he imitated the mufti, crossing his hands on his stomach in a classical Muslim prayer attitude known as “the posture of tranquility.” Eyes closed, they prayed together for several minutes.

Therefore, every external sign of a tacit apostasy from Catholic prayer was present, not any sublime personal attitude. This was the indisputable message Benedict XVI wanted to send to Muslims and Catholics.

This was also how the world viewed it. The media heralded the “prayer of the Pope” in the mosque as an “unexampled gesture.” “Pope and Muslim cleric pray in historic mosque,” announced the London Guardian. “The Prayer in the mosque is the symbol of the Pope’s visit,” read El Mundo in Madrid. “The Pope turned toward Mecca and prayed like Muslims,” reported The New York Times.

So, Benedict XVI became the second Pope in history (after John Paul II in Damascus in 2001) to set foot in a Muslim temple, and the first to pray publicly with a Muslim mufti.

“And what is wrong with that?” Jan and several other readers have asked. “What if the Holy Father was praying for the light of Christ to enlighten and convert Muslims?”

Once again, the matter in question is not the intention of the Pontiff’s prayer. It is the act itself, that symbolic act noted easily by the media, but glossed over by so many conciliar Catholics.

Summarizing centuries of Church legislation, the Code of Canon Law of 1917 clearly stated: “It is not licit for the faithful to actively assist at or participate in ceremonies of non-Catholics” (canon 1258).

Before Vatican II, for a Catholic layman - much less the Supreme Pontiff, to pray openly with pagans in a Muslim temple was simply unthinkable. Participating in heretical, schismatic or pagan worship was constantly and uniformly forbidden.

Point de Vue, August 16-22, 2000 Another historic scandal: the visit of John Paul II to a Damascus mosque, 2001

Many Catholics will still remember some of the strict instructions enforced by the Holy Office. Its 1907 Decretas specified that Catholics could not pray or sing with heretics, schismatics or pagans. We were instructed, under pain of sin, to never participate in the liturgical acts of those who reject the one true Catholic Church. (1)

Special permission had to be sought to attend weddings and funerals of non-Catholics. In such cases, a Catholic could only be passively present, and by no means participate in rites or ceremonies of false sects.

To even enter a temple of false religion was a very serious matter. It was sinful if one had the intention to actually assist at a sacred function of pagans, or even if one appeared to be participating in the worship with pagans, thereby giving scandal. Also, a Catholic could not be a godparent of a schismatic or heretic.

In short, it is “constantly and uniformly forbidden” for Catholics to participate in schismatic and heretic worship.

Pope Gregory XVI wrote clear, strong words on this topic: “We reach now another cause for the evils that unhappily afflict the Church at this time. That is, we arrive at this ‘Indifferentism,’ or this perverse opinion that has spread everywhere as the work of evil ones, according to which it would be possible to achieve eternal salvation by means of any profession of faith, so long as the practices be upright and honest. It will not be difficult, in such a clear and evident matter, to reject from the bosom of the Catholics who are confided to your care this fatal error.

“Given that the Apostle warns us that there is only ‘one Lord, one Faith, one baptism’ (Eph 4:5), these Catholics should fear those who imagine that every religion offers the means to arrive at eternal happiness and should understand that, according to the testimony of the Savior Himself, ‘he that is not with me, is against me’ (Lk 11:23), and that they unhappily scatter since they do not gather with Him. Consequently, ‘it is not to be doubted that they will perish eternally if they do not profess the Catholic Faith and if they do not guard it entire and inviolate.’ (3)”(4)

Therefore, dear Jan, putting aside the question of private intentions, what we can see is that the Pope blatantly gave a great scandal to Catholics by his action. He implied that Muslims can be saved when they are good Muslims. Now then, this is precisely the error condemned by Pope Gregory XVI above. Pope Benedict XVI Prays at the Blue Mosque in Turkey - A Scandal @ TraditionInAction.org

 

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI considers Bartholomew I to be a "pastor" in the "Church of Christ." Does God?

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI humbled himself in the presence of Mohammedan? Would the One Whose Vicar he thinks he is, albeit falsely, have done so? Come on, seriously, you defenders of Ratzinger/Benedict. Speak up. Would Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ have gone into mosque and turned in the direction of Mecca and assumed a Mohammedan prayer position? How is anyone who would do such a thing a friend of Our Lord's? How can such a man lay any claim to being a "defender" or a "restorer" of the Catholic Faith?

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has called Mount Hiei in Japan, whereupon Buddhists offer their false worship that offends God greatly as "sacred." (See Benedict XVI sends message to interreligious meeting in Japan.)

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI considers Mount Hiei "sacred." Does God?

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has pledged cooperation with Samuel Kobia, the head of the pro-abortion, pro-contraception, pro-Communist World Council of Churches, at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome Italy, on January 25, 2008, Ratzinger/Benedict has gone so far as to make "worship space" available for Protestants to "pray" at this Roman archbasilica.

Does God approve of providing "worship space" of false religions that are from the devil himself, no matter their pious invocations of His own Holy Name?

Consider once again, please these words of Catholic truth written by Bishop George Hay, the Vicar Apostolic of the Lowland Region of Scotland, over two hundred years ago now:

A. The spirit of Christ, which dictated the Holy Scriptures, and the spirit which animates and guides the Church of Christ, and teaches her all truth, is the same; and therefore in all ages her conduct on this point has been uniformly the same as what the Holy Scripture teaches. She has constantly forbidden her children to hold any communication, in religious matters, with those who are separated from her communion; and this she has sometimes done under the most severe penalties. In the apostolical canons, which are of very ancient standing, and for the most part handed down from the apostolical age, it is thus decreed: "If any bishop, or priest, or deacon, shall join in prayers with heretics, let him be suspended from Communion". (Can. 44)

Also, "If any clergyman or laic shall go into the synagogue of the Jews, or the meetings of heretics, to join in prayer with them, let him be deposed, and deprived of communion". (Can. 63)

So also, in one of her most respected councils, held in the year 398, at which the great St. Augustine was present, she speaks thus: "None must either pray or sing psalms with heretics; and whosoever shall communicate with those who are cut off from the Communion of the Church, whether clergyman or laic, let him be excommunicated". (Coun. Carth. iv. 72 and 73)

The same is her language in all ages; and in this she shows herself to be the true mother, who will not suffer her children to be divided. She knows her heavenly spouse has declared that "no man can serve two masters; we cannot serve God and Mammon;" and therefore she must either have them to be hers entirely, or she cannot acknowledge them as such. She knows His holy apostle has protested that there can be no "participation, no fellowship, no concord, no pact, no agreement between the faithful and the unbeliever;" and therefore she never can allow any of her faithful children to have any religious communication with those of a false religion and corrupted Faith. (The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion.)

 

Does Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believe one word of what Bishop George Hay wrote? God does. Why doesn't Ratzinger/Benedict? Is he, the currently reigning false "pope," free to "anchor" truth where he wants? He is free to ignore those "things" in the "past" he does not "like" and/or believes have become obsolete?

No, my friends, Walter Kasper and Christoph Schonborn and Michael Malone and David Walker are not wild cards. They are but the mirror images of a man who helped to bring about the revolution wrought by the "Second" Vatican Council, Joseph Ratzinger.

As has been noted in several articles recently, the various acts of apostasy and sacrilege that will be committed this week by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI in the United States of America cannot be reconciled to the Catholic Faith at all. Oh, yes, as I have pointed out in several recent articles, he will, as Modernists are wont to do, mix Catholicism with Modernism (see paragraph eighteen of Pope Saint Pius X's Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907). That deadly mixture of truth and error in Catholic settings is bad enough. It is unspeakably tragic that most ordinary Catholics have been so brainwashed by the lies of conciliarism that they do not recognize sacrilege when it is right before their very eyes. Indeed, it is abominable that most of these Catholics will applaud Ratzinger/Benedict for being so "broadminded" and "pastoral." It is so sad that most Catholics do not realize that those who do and say things contrary to the Faith are no longer members of the Catholic Church--and cannot be considered as Catholics in any sense at all--until and unless they specifically and publicly abjure their errors:

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).

The need of this divinely instituted means for the preservation of unity, about which we speak is urged by St. Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians. In this he first admonishes them to preserve with every care concord of minds: "Solicitous to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. iv., 3, et seq.). And as souls cannot be perfectly united in charity unless minds agree in faith, he wishes all to hold the same faith: "One Lord, one faith," and this so perfectly one as to prevent all danger of error: "that henceforth we be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive" (Eph. iv., 14): and this he teaches is to be observed, not for a time only - "but until we all meet in the unity of faith...unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ" (13). But, in what has Christ placed the primary principle, and the means of preserving this unity? In that - "He gave some Apostles - and other some pastors and doctors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ" (11-12).

 

Unlike what is believed by Joseph Ratzinger and Walter Kasper and Christoph Schonborn and Michael Malone and David Walker and Francis George and the late John O'Connor and the late Karol Wojtyla, God cannot change. He is immutable. We must understand His truths always in the same way that they have been taught from time immemorial. The Catholic Church, protected and guided by the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, cannot be wrong, as Francis George openly stated, on matters pertaining to Divine Revelation.

Father Frederick Faber, writing in The Precious Blood (1860), stated the need in his day to make reparation for offenses against the immutability of God:

Let us pause for a moment to make an act of loving reparation to the immutability of God. We have to speak of him with the infirmity of human words, as if his plans had failed, or his counsels had been altered. But we must let any such idea rest on our minds. How it is that he did change we cannot see: but we know that he did not; and we adore this blissful immutability. God changes his works without changing his counsels, says St. Augustine. But the change is in creatures, not in him. Time cannot change him, because he is eternal; nor place, because he is immense. He cannot within himself, because he is perfect. He cannot be changed by any thing outside him, because he is almighty. He is life is absolute repose, beatitude, simplicity: and in all this there can be no change. They very necessity, which compels us to speak of God as if he changed, only brings home to us more forcibly the perfection of his tranquility. Let us then boldly offer to his love these ignorant words; and while, they enable us to understand somewhat of the peculiar office and grandeur of the Precious Blood, let us lovingly adore that unchangeableness of God, which has lain for all eternity move unwrinkled than a summer sea, and will lie to all eternity, with almost infinite words, round about it, and yet have neither current, stream, or pulse, or tide, or wave, with no abyss to hold it and with no shore to bound it, with no shadow from without, and no throbbing within. (Father Frederick Faber, The Precious Blood, written in 1860 and republished by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 89-90.)

 

A most successful revolution has been accomplished by the conciliarists. The victories of the revolutionaries are, however, transitory. Christ the King will emerge victorious in the end as a result of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We must make our own acts of reparation this week to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, praying as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit. We must resolve to make Friday a particular day of penance and reparation for the multiple egregious offenses that will be given to God by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI in the next six days or so, as I have noted in several recent articles.

Indeed, here is a summary of the plans of several fully traditional venues to make reparation for these offenses on Friday, April 18, 2008:

1. Saint Gertrude the Great Church, 4900 Rialto Road, West Chester Ohio: Solemn Exposition of the Most Blessed Sacrament at 4:45 p.m., followed by recitation of all fifteen decades of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary prior to the 5:30 p.m. Low Mass.

2. Mary Immaculate Church, 7745 Military Avenue, Omaha, Nebraska: 6:00 p.m. Mass, followed by Solemn Exposition of the Most Blessed Sacrament and the praying of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary.

3. Our Lady of the Rosary Church, 15 Pepper Street, Monroe, Connecticut: 10:45 School Mass of reparation, followed by the recitation of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary in front of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima on the parish grounds.

 

Please plan to make Friday, April 18, 2008, a day of penance and reparation for the offenses that will be given to God in His Holy Name by a Modernist who is unbent in his lifelong commitment to the "new theology" that was condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.

We must never forget course, that our own sins have contributed to the weakening of the Church Militant on earth and that we must concentrate first and foremost on building up the Reign of Christ the King in our hearts and souls. Availing ourselves of the Sacrament of Penance on a weekly basis and spending time before Our Beloved in His Real Presence will, in addition to offering up all of our daily prayers and penances and sufferings and humiliations and calumnies and mortifications to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, help to plant least a few seeds for Him to reign once again as the King of all men and all nations through His Catholic Church, not simply be invoked in the name of a generic sense of "Christianity" and "Christian hope" that is dissevered from seeking with urgency the conversion of all men and all nations to the true Church.

We must continue to beseech Our Lady to help us to usher in the day when all men and women will utter the cry popularized by the Cristeros in Mexico and the brave Catholics of Spain during the Spanish Revolution, a cry that has never been heard being uttered from the lips of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, the cry that was uttered by Father Miguel Augustin Pro, S.J,, on November 23, 1927, as he was put to death by the Masonic revolutionaries in Mexico:

Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of Consolation, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

 

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

 

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

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

See also: A Litany of Saints