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| Luis Navarro Origel: The First Cristero |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-31-2024, 10:16 AM - Forum: Uncompromising Fighters for the Faith
- Replies (2)
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LUIS NAVARRO ORIGEL: The First Cristero
Part I
![[Image: 2b98cde2b9cb4e6a335be053914892d0_L.jpg]](https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/media/k2/items/cache/2b98cde2b9cb4e6a335be053914892d0_L.jpg)
Theresa Marie Moreau | July 26, 2024
Paying a debt is justice; giving more than one owes is generosity or gratitude; giving everything without expectations is love. Luis Navarro Origel gave everything, without expectations, because he loved God above all things. - Martin Chowell
ROUNDS OF GUNFIRE exploded around 8 in the morning and continued to blast for the next hour, on September 28, 1926, in the Mexican town of Penjamo.
Without warning, the Cristero War had begun.
The next day, a disheveled and exhausted Luis Navarro Origel suddenly arrived on the doorstep of the home he shared with his wife and their five young children, who clutched onto his legs, chattering happily as he entered.
“We know that the government is coming. What are you going to do?” his terrified wife asked, as he changed into his riding pants and grabbed a pair of binoculars.
“We’re going to the mountains,” he explained, handing her some cash. “Keep this money outside the house, because if it burns down, you’ll have enough to eat the next day.”
At the threshold, she clung to him, their arms wrapped around one another, as the children – Ignacio, Guadalupe, Carmen, Margarita and Rafael – held tightly onto their father.
“When will we see each other again?” she asked.
“Not here, Carmela. We’ll see each other in Heaven,” he answered, with great serenity.
A final kiss. A final gaze. He pulled himself away, mounted his horse and galloped off, kicking up clumps of dirt, as his little family watched from the threshold until they could no longer see him, and never would again, alive.
Although the local telegraph and telephone cables had been cut, severing Penjamo from civilization, that didn’t stop the news from streaking out of that dusty town in the state of Guanajuato to the rest of the nation, from the northern border to the southern border, from the Sierra Madre Occidental to the Sierra Madre Oriental.
“Luis Navarro Origel stood up! Penjamo was taken by Luis Navarro Origel!” Catholics cheered.
In one day, that uprising changed everything after years of brutal tyranny in a reign of terror that smashed Catholics under the bloody fist of the ever-revolving Revolutionary regimes ruled by caudillos, those in the criminal class who ascended to the political class and relied on force and violence to grab and maintain power.
At last, hope. Finally. Finally, someone stood up. That someone: Luis Navarro Origel.
Born on February 15, 1897, to Guadalupe Origel Gutierrez and Bardomiano Navarro Navarro (1859-1919), he was the eighth child of 15, in an industrious, successful family. They lived happily and comfortably in a clean, spacious home, with a central courtyard, overgrown with ferns, flowers and trees, hugged by a loggia echoing with the songs of mockingbirds and canaries. In control of three large farms south of Penjamo – El San Jose de Maravilla, El Guayabo de Origel, El Tepetate de Navarro – the family, alongside hired laborers, worked the fertile fields day in, day out, which resulted in plentiful harvests and overflowing granaries.
A prayerful child, at an early age he studiously pored over and memorized the “Catecismo de los Padres Ripalda y Astete,” in preparation for his First Confession – which he made, prostrate, at the feet of the priest – and First Communion at the age of 6. When ready to launch his academic endeavors, his parents enrolled him in a school founded by Father Crisoforo Guevara. Buoyed at a young age by his intellectual achievements, he expressed a wish to transfer to the minor Seminary of Morelia, in the state of Michoacan, where his older brother, Ignacio, boarded and studied. Prodded for permission, Navarro’s father acquiesced and enrolled his son, at the age of 12, in 1909.
A year after he began attending classes at the seminary, the Mexican Revolution ignited, on November 20, 1910, after the promulgation of the Plan of San Luis Potosi, drafted by Francisco Ignacio Madero Gonzalez (1873-1913), who shot and slashed his way to the presidency, forcing the abdication of longtime dictator President Jose de la Cruz Porfirio Diaz (1830-1915).
Slowly, steadily, the country submerged into a societal bleakness, plunged into the Second Dark Age, a creeping, evil creature that burst forth from its Parisian womb in the Bastille Saint-Antoine during a violent, bloody birth, on July 14, 1789. Thereafter, it spread its perverted ideology – of pro-State, pro-collectivism, anti-Church, anti-individualism – from the Old World to the New World, rampaging in a savage force to annihilate the fruitful civilization that had bloomed from the Greco-Romans and blossomed into Christendom, the foundation of the Western world.
Propagated for decades in Mexico to incite rebellion, chaos and hatred between classes, races, sexes, ideologies and even family members – Socialism found a welcome and comfortable home in Mesoamerican politics.
Any good Revolution worth its weight in blood is usually accompanied with demands of land reform, and Mexico was no different. The Agrarian Mass Movement, initiated by the Plan of Ayala, drafted by Emiliano Zapata Salazar (1879-1919) and first proclaimed on November 28, 1911, agitated for collectivism – the confiscation and nationalization of private businesses and private property, which included Church holdings, as well as haciendas – huge estates owned by wealthy natives, as well as Europeans and their Criollo descendants, all the wealthy without political standing.
To ensure the enactment of land reform, those in power agitated their troops and their countryside comrades, the agraristas: rural Socialists with little or no land who actively worked for and killed for land expropriation and redistribution, because they were promised – lied to – that they would receive that land as reward. Authoritarians whipped up their minions to steal land and valuables from the wealthy, labeled as class and race enemies, just as the Bolsheviks had incited violence toward the kulaks during the dekulakization in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Communists had pushed persecution and death against the landlords in the People’s Republic of China.
Stealing land, livestock, harvests, treasures, depleting goods and resources from wherever they could, the Agrarista Junta – waving red flags, backed by warlords – devastated the countryside, as did the Revolution’s soldiers, uniformed malefactors who marauded from huts to haciendas as they marched along, filling their bellies and their pockets. What they couldn’t carry, they destroyed, burning anything that remained. And anyone deemed an enemy of the ruling Revolutionary faction was often executed on the spot, without proof, without trial.
A week after Navarro turned 16, he was still studying in the minor seminary when Madero – who had ignited the Revolution to oust Diaz – was overthrown and then assassinated three days later, on February 22, 1913, following the coup known as the Ten Tragic Days, headed by Jose Victoriano Huerta Marquez (1850-1916), who, in turn, usurped the presidency; however, he, himself, was overthrown, on July 15, 1914, by an opposing Revolutionary faction led by Jose Venustiano Carranza de la Garza (1859-1920).
With the ascension of Carranza – a rusty tool gripped in the bloodstained fists of the anti-clericals – the Revolution continued upon its path of destruction to force its sociopathic ideology upon the masses, especially Catholics. His military troops – culled from the most vicious criminal segments of society – terrorized the people.
Socialists – the self-proclaimed intellectually elite – categorized the majority of Mexicans – working-poor laborers and farmers – as sub-intelligent, illiterate religious fanatics, who needed to be cleansed of their superstitious beliefs inherited from the European colonizers and oppressors. The Old Man had to be destroyed for the creation of the New Man. Their old ways needed to be violently eradicated by the progressives, those in the vanguard who forced society to progress from Capitalism to a Socialist Utopia, translation: No Place.
To sledgehammer the Church in Mexico, stone by stone, to diminish its influence, the regime gobbled up property – which, not so coincidentally, often increased the wealth and estates of the politically powerful – targeting churches, rectories, convents, monasteries, orphanages, hospitals, clinics, asylums, old age homes and parochial schools.
Eventually, the chaos struck the seminary, in Morelia, where Navarro had thrived intellectually, surpassing all fellow students in philosophy classes, and where he had strived to perfect his interior spiritual life, through self-denial, restraint, daily examination of conscience, daily Communion, meditation – all to fine tune his Will, man’s highest faculty.
In 1914, the Revolutionaries – useful idiots as frenzied mobs under the protection of the Carrancistas – arrived at the seminary and plundered the Catholic institution, where Father Francisco Banegas Galvan (1867-1932) resided as rector. Seminary directors ruled not to resist the violent aggression, and Navarro watched helplessly as the rioters and looters trashed and stole costly furnishings, rare works from the library, and delicate meteorological instruments from the science laboratory.
Ravaged throughout. In one day, treasures – paid for by parishioners and collected over the centuries through great sacrifice – were destroyed.
After the seminary shut down, Navarro had no choice but to return home to Penjamo, to spend the winter holidays with his family, whose residence and agricultural business had also been attacked by locust-like Revolutionaries. The house, ransacked. The fields, destroyed. The granaries, emptied. Complete devastation.
But amidst the darkness, a light.
As Navarro had done before when home from school, he visited a fellow seminarian, Leopoldo Alfaro Madrigal, who lived 35 miles away, in Irapuato. It was then that Navarro – 17 at the time – fell in love with one of his friend’s five sisters: Carmen Alfaro Madrigal, a shy and sweet girl of 14.
Love bloomed.
Upon his return to Morelia to finish his final year of studies, since seminarians had been violently forced out from their residence, he boarded in the home of a Catholic family. His room was large, carpeted, with a padded kneeler, where he could pray his daily rosary. The family had a private chapel with an altar on which every few days he placed flowers, freshly cut from the planters that filled the patio garden. Waking early each morning, he attended Mass and received Communion before classes, which were held in secret wherever they could be conducted discreetly: in huts, open fields, under shade trees.
Because of the anti-clerical sentiment pushed by the Socialists, when not hiding for their lives, priests packed away their cassocks and wore common clothing. But, still, the clergy could not escape violence and death, such as Father David Galvan Bermudez (1881-1915), who was executed on January 30, 1915, after arrested for spiritually tending to soldiers wounded during a battle between opposing Revolutionary factions in Guadalajara.
A young man in the world, Navarro faced the fast-and-free debauchery pushed by the ruling ideology that condemned the sacred bond of traditional marriage as a bourgeois institution for class oppression, and denounced monogamous marital intimacy between a loving couple – taught by the Church to be equal in intimacy and dignity – as an oppressive and feudalistic aspect of a patriarchal, capitalistic society.
Instead, the 18-year-old deliberately chose and welcomed a supernatural, divine love and chastity, expressing his mature desires in a sweet correspondence to Carmen, as the two exchanged love letters filled with heart-felt expressions.
“My Beloved, we have an immense guarantee: We love each other with all our soul, and we have consecrated our love to our Creator, to our most loving Redeemer,” he gushed.
At the completion of his studies with a degree in philosophy, because of his stellar academic performance, his former superiors offered him assistance in any civil career of his choosing.
Unsure about his future, he narrowed down his options to just two choices: to find his vocation for the Church outside the clergy; or to continue his studies in a major seminary to pursue the priesthood, inspired by his older sisters – Margarita, Guadalupe, Concepcion – who had religious vocations and attended the Teresian College of Santa Maria de Guadalupe, in Morelia.
A decision needed to be made.
For clarity, he attended, in October 1916, a retreat based on the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola (born Inigo Lopez de Onaz y Loyola, 1491-1556), directed by Father Luis Maria Martinez y Rodriguez (1881-1956), vice-rector of the seminary. Ignatian retreats are a time of silent discernment. The first half is a lens that closely examines one’s past, followed with a General Confession. The second half focuses on a plan of action for the future. Between conferences, attendees pray and meditate in private, and it is not unusual for a retreatant to undergo an agonizing inner struggle.
On October 26, Navarro endured an intense battle in his soul that completely overwhelmed him, but when the spiritual scuffle subsided, his mind calmed and his being filled with tranquility.
“Today has been one of the worst and one of the happiest days of my life,” he noted in his private writings. “Today, I have taken a decisive step along the path of my life, after a combat that lasted the entire day, with about a thousand indecisions that made me die of anguish.”
The decision that needed to be made, he made, little understanding how he had manifested his fatal destiny. He resolved to sanctify his state in life with marriage, and to fulfill his duties as a son by returning home, to his family, and to continue their work, in the fields, trying to restore that which had been destroyed by the Revolutionaries.
But, the Revolution and its maniacal manipulators continued to thrive in tyranny.
With the new regime came a new constitution. The drafting of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States – illegally imposed by force, on February 5, 1917, by a triumphant military faction – was conceived and written not only to attribute the authority of God to the State, but also to grab more control over the masses and to, finally, completely break the connection the faithful had with the Church.
Carranza’s Liberal Constitutionalist Party, like other Socialist parties – whether Vladimir Lenin’s (1870-1924) Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Adolf Hitler’s (1889-1945) National Socialist German Workers’ Party, Benito Mussolini’s (1883-1945) National Fascist Party, Zedong Mao’s (1893-1976) Chinese Communist Party, – all had one commonality: Individualism must be destroyed, and oneness with the State must be forced.
But Navarro did not let the chaos in the nation ruin his plans for the future. On May 5, 1917, he and Carmen married, in her hometown of Irapuato. For their honeymoon, the newlyweds traveled to Mexico City by train – unreliable at best, dangerous at worst during the Revolution, with frequent de-railings, train robberies, bombed bridges, burned ties, twisted rails, hostile forces and the lack of upkeep on the rolling stock that incurred exploding engines and conked-out cabooses. Their excursion was no different, as the train they were on was attacked by bandits, and Navarro heroically defended the passengers.
As soon as the newly blessed couple arrived in their hotel, Navarro requested of his bride: “I want to ask you – like Tobias and Sarah – that we keep a few days of chastity.”
Blissfully, the few days stretched to 15, and, during that time, their conversations centered around spiritual endeavors and how their marriage would be consecrated, elevated from the ordinary to the extraordinary, from the material to the spiritual, from the natural to the supernatural.
Upon their return to Penjamo, they toiled – rising early, pinching pesos – to undo the sacking done by the Revolutionary invaders to the Navarro holdings. But soon the whole family had to seek refuge in Irapuato because of the frequent incursions onto the property by one of the most fearsome and extremely violent Revolutionaries, General Jose Ines Garcia Chavez (1889-1919), a psychopath known as the “Atila of the Bajio” for his crazy cruelty and torture inflicted upon men, women and even young children.
In Irapuato, Navarro started several businesses with his older brother Ignacio. However, a better Catholic than a businessman, all of his attempts fell into failure rather than sail into success, which led to further financial difficulty. But he continued to persevere, always planning to return to Penjamo, which they did, after his father suffered a fatal stroke, around the time of the birth of Navarro’s firstborn, Ignacio, nicknamed “Nachito,” on July 18, 1918.
Undeterred by his failures, somehow, he stumbled upon beekeeping, an untapped venture, and he immersed himself in the project, reading, studying, attempting to entice a queen and encourage nector-filled nests. After failing twice, he finally triumphed and eventually established 200 colonies. After bees, he eschewed traditional modes of farming and adopted modern techniques to successfully cultivate the land and raise livestock, such as chickens, pigs, cows.
Blessed with a happy nature, he savored the joys in life with his young family, but he also had a passion for reading and self-reflection in his spare time at night. His favorites, two great mystics: Saint Teresa of Avila (born Teresa Sanchez de Cepeda Davila y Ahumada, 1515-1582) and Saint John of the Cross (born Juan de Yepes y Alvarez, 1542-91), who – from their graves – guided his ascetic life of strict self-discipline, to follow the Will of God and the precepts of the Church.
But then, yet another political earthquake shook Mexico.
Carranza had attempted to modify the anti-Catholic articles of the 1917 Constitution, but his proposed amendments were vociferously rejected by two up-and-comers: Alvaro Obregon Salido (1880-1928) and Plutarco Elias Calles (born Francisco Plutarco Elias Campuzano, 1877-1945). When Carranza refused to apply the anti-clerical statutes, he was warned that if he continued to ignore them, he would face the consequences. And, on May 21, 1920, at 4 o’clock in the morning, he faced the consequences. While he slept, in Tlaxcalantongo, where he had sought refuge in a safehouse in the Sierra Norte de Puebla Mountains, 30 bullets were fired through the thin walls of his hut, with six finding their target, the president. In addition, eight others died during the assault.
Among Carranza’s bloodied clothing was found a Virgin Mary medal with the following inscription: My Mother Save Me.
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| Archbishop Lefebvre and Conditional Confirmations |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-31-2024, 07:39 AM - Forum: New Rite Sacraments
- No Replies
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Archbishop Lefebvre and Conditional Confirmations
Why did Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre administer the sacrament of confirmation to Catholics who were not his subjects, and repeat it conditionally for those confirmed in the new rites?
![[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...x1395.jpeg]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b416400-5067-407e-b547-8b932a0500dc_2480x1395.jpeg)
Image: Wiki Commons CC, with image of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
WM Review [slightly adapted] | Jul 22, 2024
Introduction
In a previous article, we saw why several of the “reformed” postconciliar sacramental rites could be considered doubtfully valid.
This is the first part of a series considering Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s attitudes towards these reformed sacramental rites, with a particular focus on those of holy orders.
This first part will lay the groundwork and consider the analogous question of the reformed rite of confirmation.
Why start with confirmation? The Archbishop's confirmation tours – in which he conferred the sacrament in the traditional rite on those who were not his subjects, including conditionally on those who had been confirmed in the reformed rite – was one of the early post-conciliar battlegrounds. It provides a number of instructive parallels for considering the validity of the new rite of ordination.
Why focus on Archbishop Lefebvre? Archbishop Lefebvre was an enormously significant figure in the twentieth century, and he remains enormously significant to the greater number of traditionalists today.
Hence, while Lefebvre is not a proper authority whose opinions can definitively settle such disputed questions, he nonetheless enjoys some sort of “auctoritas,” such that what he thought about the crisis in the Church is interesting and important in its own right, with practical ramifications for many people.
As an example of such ramifications, the bishops whom Lefebvre consecrated in 1988 continue this confirmation practice to this day. Very many traditional Catholics still receive conditional confirmations from the bishops of the SSPX, whilst many others are puzzled at the rationale for such a practice. This practice is also followed by the all other traditionalists bishops, despite their varying schools of thought on other matters. As such, understanding this situation is important in itself.
Through considering his attitudes and actions with regards to the reformed rites of confirmation and holy orders, we will also see that:
1. Archbishop Lefebvre considered it an accepted and acceptable opinion to have a universal presumption of doubt about the validity of holy orders conferred using the reformed rites.
2. Similarly, he considered it to be an accepted and acceptable opinion to reject and avoid everything to do with the conciliar reforms – indeed, at times he clearly stated that this was obligatory for those who wished to remain Catholic.
We will also see that his willingness to repeat sacraments conditionally was animated by a sensitive and pastoral concern for the faithful who had attached themselves to him, and motivated by both charity and justice.
Early Comments on Confirmation
In 1974, Archbishop Lefebvre said specifically of confirmation:
Quote:“It can happen that the sacraments are not valid. In any case it can occur that the Sacraments are doubtfully valid, that is, that they are doubtful.”1
In 1975, he again discussed the subject of his unusual administration of confirmation. This text is notable for his pastoral concern and willingness to give the faithful peace of mind regarding the validity of the sacraments conferred on their children (and, by extension, themselves).
His comments about the “certainly valid” traditional rite also suggests, by implication, some level of concern about the reformed rite itself:
Quote:“I believe that we all have a serious requirement for the type of priests who transmit the life of the soul. I am certain you do not wish to have priests who are apt to administer sacraments, which are invalid.
“From time to time I am asked to administer Confirmation which, of course, is irritating to local bishops who remind me that I have no right to confirm in their dioceses.
“Naturally, I recognize this, but I remind them in turn that they have no right to administer sacraments of doubtful validity to children whose parents want them to receive the sacramental grace. These parents have the right to be certain that their children are receiving the grace of Confirmation. This is, after all, a grave responsibility for parents. It is grace, which keeps the soul alive, and, to this end, I much prefer to see parents confident that their children have received the sacramental grace of Confirmation even when, by administering the sacrament in someone else's diocese, I am acting illicitly.
“I may at least rest easy in the knowledge that the children confirmed in the manner prescribed by the Church for centuries truly carry the sacramental grace within them, that the sacrament is truly valid.
“With respect to sacraments of doubtful validity, today bishops rarely confirm: they delegate their vicars-general or other priests, and many of these change even the new authorized formulas. Because the particular sacramental grace of each sacrament has to be signified explicitly, and as many of these changes of working do not signify the sacrament in question, it follows that the sacrament is invalid. In other words, it is not permissible to toy with the formula of the sacraments, just as in the Sacrifice of the Mass we many not tamper with the wording of the consecration. It is necessary to perform as the Church has always intended.”2 (Line breaks added)
Here we can see Archbishop Lefebvre treating the conditional repetition of the sacraments as both a pastoral necessity, and as a matter of justice to the parents and children.
In his 1985 book Open Letter to Confused Catholics, the Archbishop expands on this point:
Quote:“I always respond to the requests of parents who have doubts regarding the validity of the confirmation received by their children or who fear it will be administered invalidly, seeing what goes on around them. [...]
“I explained why I carried on in this way. I meet the wishes of the faithful who ask me for valid confirmation, even if it is not licit, because we are in a period when divine law, natural and supernatural, has precedence over positive ecclesiastical law when the latter opposes the former instead of being a channel to transmit it.
“We are passing through an extraordinary crisis and there need be no surprise if I sometimes adopt an attitude that is out of the ordinary.”3 (Line breaks and emphasis added)
What did he think of the new form for confirmation?
It is not immediately clear what the Archbishop thought of the reformed form of confirmation.
The grounds for doubt pertained to the matter (the oils used and the manner of administration), the form (the words), the sacramental intention of the minister, and – as we shall see in due course – the actual validity of the minister's orders themselves.4
When publicly justifying his actions in absolutely and conditionally confirming those who were not his subjects, he often focused on the faithful's desire for the traditional rite, as well as problems with the sacramental intention and matter.
At times he stated that he believed that the new form was valid. In 1983, he suggested in a conference at Ridgefield that, rather than assuaging generalised doubts about the new rite, he was responding to those with particular reasons for doubt about their own sacrament:
Quote:“I hope that you know if your Confirmation was valid or very doubtful. If there is no doubt, then you cannot ask me to repeat it. You know, that is very important. In Rome, they accuse me of performing many conditional sacraments without having investigated to see if there was sufficient doubt to warrant repeating them.”5
In 1979, during his examination by the CDF, he was also asked directly which sacramental formula he used for conferring Confirmation, and whether he recognised the validity of the reformed rite. He answered:
Quote:“I used the old sacramental formula. But I recognize the validity of the new Latin formula. I use the old formula to meet the wishes of the faithful. […]”6
While it might be tempting to take these to be definitive statements (especially if one personally favours this position), the reality appears to be that Lefebvre was undecided on the issue.
This is hardly surprising, given the implications of the different possibilities. It is most unfortunate that the Archbishop – it would be unfortunate for anyone – was nonetheless forced to take public stances on these tremendously difficult questions.
However, in spite of his claim to recognise the new formula in the examination by the CDF, in the same 1979 answer the Archbishop seems to let slip that other concerns were also present to his mind.
Quote:"Salus animarum suprema lex – the salvation of souls is the supreme law. I cannot refuse the sacrament to the faithful who ask me for it. It is at the request of the faithful, attached to Tradition, that I use the old sacramental formula, and also for safety's sake, keeping to formulas which have communicated grace for centuries with certainty.”7 (Emphasis added)
In his biography of the Archbishop, Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais also suggests that he was uncertain about the form:
Quote:“The Archbishop also believed that the validity of the sacrament of confirmation was affected by the new ‘form’ of the sacrament published on August 15, 1971.
“It came from an Eastern confirmation rite and expressed less clearly the special character of confirmation, especially in the sometimes unreliable vernacular translations.”8
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais's phrasing is important: it is true that the new form "came from an Eastern confirmation rite"; but in fact, it is not identical with any Eastern form, and Rama Coomaraswamy has argued that there is some significance to this difference.9
Is this difference significant enough to cast doubt? Some are personally sure of validity, based on their own reasoning, rather than the “authority” of the Conciliar Church's promulgation of the rite. But once they have begun trying to prove that the reformed rites fulfil the requirements of Catholic sacramental theology on intrinsic grounds, they are already implicitly conceding that "the authority of the Church" is insufficient to guarantee these rites.
Are they entitled to act on what is therefore necessarily only a probable opinion, based as it is on their own reasoning? And are they entitled to impose their personal certainty on others, and treat their personal reasoning as decisive?
It would seem strange to answer these questions in the positive, both because of general theological principles, but also because this particular change is a part of a wider reform that the Archbishop tells us that we are obliged to reject:
Quote:“It is impossible to modify profoundly the lex orandi without modifying the lex credendi. To the Novus Ordo Missae correspond a new catechism, a new priesthood, new seminaries, a charismatic Pentecostal Church—all things opposed to orthodoxy and the perennial teaching of the Church.
“This Reformation, born of Liberalism and Modernism, is poisoned through and through; it derives from heresy and ends in heresy, even if all its acts are not formally heretical.
“It is therefore impossible for any conscientious and faithful Catholic to espouse this Reformation or to submit to it in any way whatsoever.”10
Further, given that this form is indeed not identical to a rite received and used by the Church, it seems clear that Catholics are entitled to seek certainty and peace through conditional repetition of the sacrament.
We can see a further example of this attitude in a conference given in 1975, which uses similar language to other conferences and was included in a different translation in the anthology A Bishop Speaks:
Quote:“A common rite today is to pronounce simply ‘I sign you with the Sign of the Cross. Receive the Holy Spirit.’ In administering Confirmation, the bishop must indicate precisely the special sacramental grace whereby he confers the Holy Ghost. There is no Confirmation if he does not say, ‘I confirm you in the name of the Father...’
“Bishops frequently reproach me, and remind me, that I confer the Sacrament where I am not authorized. To them I answer that I confirm because the faithful fear that their children have not received the grace of Confirmation, because they have a serious doubt as to the validity of the Sacrament conferred in their Churches. Therefore, in order that they might at least be secure in their knowledge of the validity of the sacramental grace, they ask that I confirm their children.
“And I respond to their plea because it appears to me that I may not refuse those who request that their confirmation be valid, even if it may not be licit. We are clearly at a time when divine natural and supernatural law takes precedence over positive Church law when the latter is opposed to the former, when in reality it should he the channel leading to it.
“We are living in an age of extraordinary crisis, and we cannot accept its Reforms. […]
“I count on you for your prayers for my seminarians, that they may become true priests, priests who have the faith, in order that they may administer the true Sacraments and celebrate the true Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.”11 (Line breaks and emphasis added)
Despite the similarity between this text and others given, it is marked by a significant distinction: this text is not just objecting to distortions of the reformed rite, or to the possibility of oils other than olive oil being used, but rather contains (at least by implication) a critique of the reformed formula itself.
It also contains yet another statement of the Archbishop's “pastoral” reasons for conditional confirmations – along with a reminder of the necessity of rejecting the conciliar reforms as a whole.
What do his other actions tell us?
In the 1983 text above, the Archbishop suggests that the faithful should have some positive, specific reason for doubt about the actual administration of the rite, or the actual minister of the sacrament.
This is a standard idea. Canon Law states:
Quote:Canon 732
§ 1. The Sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and orders, which imprint a character, cannot be repeated.
§ 2. But if a prudent doubt exists about whether really and validly these [Sacraments] were conferred, they are to be conferred again under condition.
In another piece, we also saw that the moralists McHugh and Callan taught that the conditional repetition of a “useful sacrament” (such as confirmation – as opposed to a “necessary” or “more important sacrament” such as baptism or orders) may be:
Quote:Forbidden, if repeated on basis of a “groundless and foolish” fear
Lawful, if repeated on the basis of a “prudent misgiving”
Obligatory (gravely or lightly, depending on the case) if repeated on the basis of a “well-founded fear” and “if charity, justice or religion calls for repetition and the inconvenience will not be too great.”
From the text above, two questions may arise:
1. Is a doubt about confirmation (and, to be discussed at a later date, some of the other reformed sacramental rites) “groundless and foolish,” or a “prudent [and] well-founded fear,” or somewhere in between (e.g., a “prudent misgiving”)?
2. What did Archbishop Lefebvre think and how did he act?
It is a fact that, in practice, the investigations mentioned, into the validity of confirmation, have not been a real requirement. They have not typically played a part in the conferral of conditional confirmation; nor have the faithful been consistently warned about such a requirement. Exceptions have occurred here and there in the life of the Society, but they do not seem to have been enforced in any serious or widespread way.
Critics of the Society could paint this as being careless with sacred things. A more sympathetic interpretation of this is that “actions speak louder than words”. This practice (and omission) shows that a confirmation conferred in the reformed rite – without any particular investigation – is itself taken as basically sufficient grounds for some sort of prudent, positive doubt or misgiving, and thus for conditional confirmation.
Fr. Peter Scott SSPX is a witness to this attitude, in a “Q&A” on the topic:
Quote:“The bishops of the Society administer the sacrament of Confirmation conditionally when the faithful request it, that is, when they have a reasonable doubt as to the validity of the sacrament that they received, and this doubt cannot be resolved, as is usually the case.”12
Again, there is no suggestion in Fr. Scott’s answer of any serious need for an investigation into each case, or that each individual has such a duty. Rather, there is the presumption that these things are generally too difficult to resolve, and that a generalised state of doubt is reasonable.
He then gives the examples of wrong types of oil, and doubts about the words used. And yet he concludes:
Quote:“Since there is a great variety in the words used, and since the traditional words ‘I sign thee with the sign of the cross and I confirm thee with the chrism of salvation, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost’ are never used, there is very frequently a doubt about the validity of the administration of this sacrament.
“This is the reason why the Society’s bishops do not hesitate to administer it conditionally when asked to do so.”13
It is clear from this phrasing that the failure to use the traditional words is treated, even if just implicitly, as sufficient grounds for doubt. In any case, the results of such an investigation can no more be imposed on others than can the private reasonings as to the validity of the rites themselves.
This idea is expressed in even clearer terms by Fr Matthias Gaudron SSPX in his Catechism on the Crisis in the Church:
Quote:“Because of the defects presented above, one should not receive the sacraments in the new rites, but only in the traditional rites, which alone are worthy and certainly valid.
“Receiving the sacraments under a form that is even slightly doubtful is not allowed.”14
As an aside, McHugh and Callan's distinctions show that dismissing a generalised doubt about confirmations administered in the new rite as “groundless or foolish” (or scrupulous) necessarily entails accusing the Society of permitting and promoting unlawful and even sacrilegious repetition of the sacraments.
The circumstances mean that avoiding making this (obviously false) accusation entails admitting that we do indeed have grounds for at least a “prudent misgiving” (if not more) about either the reformed rite of confirmation itself, or at least the moral universality of its administrations in practice – the unresolvability of which leads to the same practical conclusions.
Preliminary Conclusions
Archbishop Lefebvre seems to have been understandably uncertain about these issues – including the very fact of whether he should or could be uncertain. At the very least, it is clear that he was uneasy about the reformed rite, and did not seem sure of what to make of it.
Who but the most callow today could fault him for uncertainty here; and who did more to respond to it at the time than he did?
In the early stage of the post-conciliar crisis, even if he did not voice his thoughts explicitly, the Archbishop’s words and deeds seem to express more or less doubt about the reformed rite of confirmation in principle, as well as accepting a presumption of doubt regarding of any given confirmation in this rite.
He did, however, explicitly recognise the legitimacy (and later, the necessity) of adhering to the traditional rites to the exclusion of the new.
He also explicitly recognised the pastoral and psychological needs of the faithful for certainty with regards to sacramental validity. Here, we see him acknowledging that “justice, charity or religion” (as McHugh and Callan say) obliging him to repeat these sacraments conditionally.
In other words, there is no need to think that the minister (still less his superiors) must themselves be certain that a given sacrament is doubtful, nor that they must personally find the grounds for concern compelling (or more compelling than the contrary), in order to recognise such doubt as legitimate and to remedy the situation accordingly.
Later in his “retirement”, we can see the Archbishop’s opinions getting firmer, both for this sacrament and for others. He remained somewhat uneasy and uncertain, and appeared reluctant to draw definitive conclusions on complicated issues outside of his authority.
But his general attitude can be summarised in his words and those reported by Bishop Tissier de Mallerais in the section on confirmations. He said:
Quote:“We no longer know if they are sacraments which give grace or do not give it.”15
And Bishop Tissier de Mallerais’ summarised:
Quote:“The faithful have the right to receive the sacraments validly.”16
All in all, the portrait that emerges is of a sensitive and pastoral Shepherd, trying to make sense of an unprecedented situation, whilst holding fast to what were his clear duties. It is a portrait of a bishop so concerned with the salvation of souls that he would travel the world in order to give the faithful certainly valid confirmations in the traditional rite, along with subjective peace and certainty on the matter – even if this involved acting somewhat outside of the normal way of doing things, and even if he was not himself always sure about how to judge the gravity of these doubts.
In a further part we will see how this attitude and his thoughts developed in relation to the wider question of the other reformed rites, as well as the more important question of the reformed rites of ordination.
1. Lefebvre, ‘To Preserve the Faith’, sermon given Pentecost Sunday, 1974. http://sspxasia.com/Documents/Archbishop...-Faith.htm
2. Lefebvre, ‘The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass’, An Address Given by His Grace: Ottawa, Canada November 1975. http://www.sspxasia.com/Documents/Archbi...e-Mass.htm
3. Lefebvre, An Open Letter to Confused Catholics, Fowler Wright Books Ltd for The Society of St Pius X, Leominster, Hertfordshire, 1986. Pp 54-5
4. This is a subject for a later part. In the meantime, let’s see the famous quote from his Open Letter to Confused Catholics:
“All these Popes have resisted the union of the Church with the Revolution; it is an adulterous union and from such a union only bastards can come. The rite of the new mass is a bastard rite, the sacraments are bastard sacraments. We no longer know if they are sacraments which give grace or do not give it.
“The priests coming out of the seminaries are bastard priests, who do not know what they are. They are unaware that they are made to go up to the altar, to offer the sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ and to give Jesus Christ to souls.” Chapter 15, https://www.sspxasia.com/Documents/Archb...ter-15.htm
5. This text is from a photograph of a typewritten 1983 conference at Ridgefield, Conncticut entitled “The Father Stark Issue”, provided by Tony La Rosa of Ecclesia Militans. I have been unable to find any other edition of it from the SSPX itself – but, naturally, that does not mean it does not exist. It is available at: https://www.ecclesiamilitans.com/2020/01...new-rites/
6. Lefebvre, quoted in Michael Davies, ‘Archbishop Lefebvre Before the SCDF”, 11 January 1979, from Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre Vol 2 Chapter XXXII . Available at https://web.archive.org/web/202108011902...ter_32.htm
7. Ibid.
8. Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre, The Biography, (ebook version) trans. Brian Sudlow, Angelus Press, Kansas City, MO, p 578.
9. Cf. Rama Coomaraswamy, The Problem with the Other Sacraments, Chapter IV, available at: http://www.the-pope.com/sacramentsc.html.
10. Lefebvre, Declaration of 1974. https://fsspx.uk/en/1974-declaration-arc...bvre-31164
11. Lefebvre, ‘Luther’s Mass: An Examination of the Shocking Similarities Between the New Mass and Luther's "Mass"’, Conference given February 15 1975 in Florence, Italy. https://www.sspxasia.com/Documents/Archb...s-Mass.htm
12. Fr Peter Scott, ‘Why does the Society of Saint Pius X administer conditionally the sacraments of baptism and confirmation to those who received them in the Novus Ordo?’ in “Catholic FAQs: Traditional”, from an archived version of the old SSPX USA website, available at: https://web.archive.org/web/200610132335...dnovusordo
13. Ibid.
14. Fr Matthias Guadron, A Catechism of the Crisis in the Church, trans. The Dominican Fathers of Avrillé, Angelus Press, Kansas City MO, 2010. P 397.
15. Lefebvre, Open Letter, Ch. 15.
16. Tissier de Mallerais, Ibid.
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| Is Archbishop Viganò really in schism? |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-30-2024, 01:25 PM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Is Archbishop Viganò really in schism?
In this article we will examine the Vatican’s charge against Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò and ask whether he is truly guilty of the crime of schism.
![[Image: Screen_Shot_2018-10-19_at_9.28.23_AM.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Screen_Shot_2018-10-19_at_9.28.23_AM.jpg)
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
don Elvir Tabaković, Can.Reg
Jul 29, 2024
(LifeSiteNews) — On July 5, 2024, the Vatican declared that Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò had automatically excommunicated himself because he was guilty of “the delict [crime] of schism.”
In this article we will examine the Vatican’s charge against the archbishop and ask whether he is truly guilty of the crime of schism.
What is automatic excommunication?
Excommunication is “a censure or penalty whereby a delinquent or obstinate person is excluded from the communion of the faithful, until after abandoning his contumacy he is absolved.”[1]
The Church can exercise this power in two ways.
The first is by attaching the penalty of excommunication to certain specified crimes, so that if a person is guilty of one these crimes they are automatically excommunicated by that very fact. This is called excommunication latae sententiae.
The second way is by passing a judicial sentence against a person who has been found guilty of a crime. This is called excommunication ferendae sententiae.
The Vatican has declared Viganò is excommunicated latae sententiae because, they allege, he has committed the crime of schism.
The Vatican document states that:
Quote:His public statements manifesting his refusal to recognize and submit to the Supreme Pontiff, his rejection of communion with the members of the Church subject to him, and of the legitimacy and magisterial authority of the Second Vatican Council are well known.
But does Viganò’s publicly expressed position really constitute evidence that he is guilty of the crime of schism?
What is schism?
Schism is defined as follows:
Quote:Schismatics are those who refuse to submit to the Sovereign Pontiff, and to hold communion with those members of the Church who acknowledge his supremacy.[2]
To be a member of the Catholic Church, one must submit to the authority which Jesus Christ, the Divine Head of the Church, exercises through His Vicar, the Roman Pontiff, and through the college of bishops in union with him. This power is threefold, that of sanctifying, teaching, and governing.
Schism is the refusal to submit to the governing authority of the Church, and thus separates a person from the Church. Similarly, heresy, which is a refusal to submit to the teaching authority of the Church, also severs a person from membership.
This teaching was clearly expressed by Pope Pius XII in his encyclical letter Mystici Corporis Christi, “On the Mystical Body of Christ”:
Quote:Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed… And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered – so the Lord commands – as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit.
He continued:
Quote:[N]ot every sin, however grave it may be, is such as of its own nature to sever a man from the Body of the Church, as does schism or heresy or apostasy.[3]
Monsignor Gerard Van Noort summarizes the teaching of Catholic theologians on schism:
Quote:Public schismatics are not members of the Church. They are not members because by their own action they sever themselves from the unity of Catholic communion. The term Catholic communion, as used here, signifies both cohesion with the entire body catholic (unity of worship, etc.), and union with the visible head of the Church (unity of government).[4]
It is clear then that anyone who refuses submission to the Supreme Pontiff is a schismatic, though it is important to make clear that there are forms of disobedience to legitimate authority which do not comprise rejection of the authority itself. Theologian Sylvester Hunter S.J. writes:
Quote:The sin of schism specially so called is committed by one who, being baptized, by a public and formal act renounces subjection to the governors of the Church; also by one who formally and publicly takes part in any public religious worship which is set up in rivalry of that of the Church. It is not an act of schism to refuse obedience to a law or precept of the Supreme Pontiff, or other ecclesiastical Superior, provided this refusal does not amount to a disclaimer of all subjection to him.[5]
Does Viganò refuse submission to the Supreme Pontiff?
It is clear from his public statements that Viganò refuses submission to Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who currently claims to occupy the See of St. Peter under the papal name of Francis.
However, it is equally clear that Viganò does not, by this act, intend to refuse submission to the Supreme Pontiff because he does not believe that Francis holds that position. One clear example, taken from his statement in response to the Vatican’s accusation of schism, will suffice to express the archbishop’s position:
Quote:I strongly reject the accusation of having torn the seamless garment of the Savior and of having departed from being under the Supreme Authority of the Vicar of Christ: in order to separate myself from ecclesial communion with Jorge Mario Bergoglio, I would have to have first been in communion with him, which is not possible since Bergoglio himself cannot be considered a member of the Church, due to his multiple heresies and his manifest alienness and incompatibility with the role he invalidly and illicitly holds.
It is clear therefore that Viganò intends to refuse submission to Francis, but does not intend to refuse submission to the Supreme Pontiff. He does not consider Francis to be the Supreme Pontiff.
Two questions therefore arise: - Is it schismatic to refuse submission to a doubtful claimant to the papacy?
- Are Francis’s claims to the papacy truly doubtful?
Is rejection of a doubtful pope schismatic?
To refuse submission to the Roman Pontiff, or to the Successors of the Apostles who govern the Church in union with him, is schismatic.
However, one has no obligation to obey a superior whose claim to an office is doubtful.
In their commentary on the 1917 Code of Canon Law, Fr. Francis X. Wernz and Fr. Peter Vidal state that it “would be rash to obey such a man who had not proved his title in law.” They explain further:
Quote:[J]urisdiction is essentially a relation between a superior who has the right to obedience and a subject who has the duty of obeying. Now when one of the parties to this relationship is wanting, the other necessarily ceases to exist also, as is plain from the nature of the relationship.[6]
In other words, a person only has an obligation to obey when there is someone who has the capacity to receive that obedience. One can only have the obligation to submit to a pope, when there is a pope to whom one can submit.
They continue:
Quote:However, if a pope is truly and permanently doubtful, the duty of obedience cannot exist towards him on the part of any subject. For the law, ‘Obedience is owed to the legitimately-elected successor of St. Peter,’ does not oblige if it is doubtful; and it most certainly is doubtful if the law has been doubtfully promulgated, for laws are instituted when they are promulgated, and without sufficient promulgation they lack a constitutive part, or essential condition.
As explained elsewhere, for a law or command to be legitimate, it must be duly promulgated by a legitimate authority. If the legitimacy of an authority is doubtful, then so too is the law or command, and there can be no intrinsic obligation to observe it. If this were otherwise, it would lead to the absurd position that anyone with some claim to plausibility could claim to hold authority, and others would be bound to obey them.
For example, if that were so, one would be obliged to obey someone who acted in the role of police officer, or army officer, or bishop, for as long as one was in doubt as to whether their claims were genuine. An obligation to obey doubtful authorities would be the end of legitimate authority and true freedom.
Hence, with reference to the papacy, Wernz and Vidal continue:
Quote:But if the fact of the legitimate election of a particular successor of St. Peter is only doubtfully demonstrated, the promulgation is doubtful; hence that law is not duly and objectively constituted of its necessary parts, and it remains truly doubtful and therefore cannot impose any obligation.
Indeed, it would be rash to obey such a man who had not proved his title in law.
And they continue:
Quote:The same conclusion is confirmed on the basis of the visibility of the Church. For the visibility of the Church consists in the fact that she possesses such signs and identifying marks that, when moral diligence is used, she can be recognized and discerned, especially on the part of her legitimate officers. But in the supposition we are considering, the pope cannot be found even after diligent examination. The conclusion is therefore correct that such a doubtful pope is not the proper head of the visible Church instituted by Christ.
If one cannot see, after due diligence has been deployed, that a man possesses all those signs and identifying marks proper to a pope – such as being male, baptized, publicly professing the Catholic faith, in communion with the members of the Church, in possession of the use of reason, and duly elected and accepted by the Church – then one cannot reasonably conclude that such a man is in fact the pope. (For more on what is required for a valid papal election see here.)
A doubtful pope is to be regarded as not the pope. Indeed, there is a traditional maxim “papa dubius, papa nullus.” A doubtful pope is no pope.
To refuse submission to a doubtful pope is an act of prudence, not an act of schism.
Wernz and Vidal write:
Quote:They cannot be numbered among the schismatics, who refuse to obey the Roman Pontiff because they consider his person to be suspect or doubtfully elected on account of rumors in circulation.[7]
This is the standard teaching of Catholic theologians.
The renowned fifteenth century theologian Cardinal Cajetan states:
Quote:If someone, for reasonable motive, holds the person of the pope in suspicion and refuses his presence and even his jurisdiction, he does not commit the delict of schism, not any other whatsoever, provided that he be ready to accept the pope were he not held in suspicion.[8]
And noted seventeenth century theologian Juan de Lugo comments:
Quote:[H]e will not be a schismatic who denies submission to the Pope because he doubts probably about his legitimate election or his authority.[9]
And mid-twentieth century theologian Rev. Ignatius J. Szal writes:
Quote:Nor is there any schism… if one refuses obedience inasmuch as one suspects the person of the Pope or the validity of his election, or if one resists him as the civil head of a state.[10]
Therefore, it is clear that to refuse submission to a claimant to the papacy because their claim is doubtful, is not schismatic.
We must now ask whether the claims of Francis to the papacy are doubtful.
Is Francis a doubtful pope?
An increasing number of Catholics regard it as morally certain or at least probable, that Jorge Mario Bergoglio was never validly elected to the papal office or, if he was, has since lost that office.
There are a number of different arguments that are put forward to support this position.
To do justice to all these arguments and provide them in their fullest and most comprehensive form, is beyond the scope of this article. Instead, we will briefly summarise some of the more important arguments, while giving references to more detailed presentations or supporting material.
(i) The argument from membership of the Church
It is the teaching of the Catholic Church that public heretics are not members of the Church. This doctrine has been explained in great detail in this article on public heresy and Church membership.
Dutch theologian Monsignor G. Van Noort summarizes the position as follows:
Quote:Public heretics (and a fortiori, apostates) are not members of the Church. They are not members because they separate themselves from the unity of Catholic faith and from the external profession of that faith. Obviously, therefore, they lack one of the three factors – baptism, profession of the same faith, union with the hierarchy – pointed out by Pius XII as requisite for membership of the Church. The same pontiff has explicitly pointed out that, unlike other sins, heresy, schism and apostasy automatically sever a man from the Church.[11]
Monsignor Van Noort, like other theologians, makes clear that what severs a person from membership of the Church is the public nature of the heresy and not an individual’s personal culpability. He writes:
Quote:By the term public heretics at this point we mean all who externally deny a truth (for example Mary’s Divine Maternity), or several truths of divine and Catholic faith, regardless of whether the one denying does so ignorantly and innocently (a merely material heretic), or willfully and guiltily (a formal heretic).[12]
It has also been clearly demonstrated that Francis is a public heretic. For example, the 2017 filial correction identified numerous distinct heresies which Francis has publicly professed and never retracted, despite being publicly corrected.
The pope, as head of the Church, must be a member of the Church, as theologian Rev. Sylvester Berry writes:
Quote:He must be a member of the Church since no one can be the head of any society unless he be a member of that society.[13]
Therefore, if Francis is not a member of the Church, he cannot be pope.
The argument can be expressed in the following syllogisms:
Major premise: A public heretic is not a member of the Catholic Church
Minor premise: Francis is a public heretic
Conclusion: Francis is not a member of the Catholic Church
Major premise: The pope is a member of the Catholic Church
Minor premise: Francis is not a member of the Catholic Church
Conclusion: Francis is not the pope.
Another line of argument that could be pursued is that Francis is a public schismatic, and therefore neither a member of the Church nor the pope, due to his persecution of the traditional rites of the Roman Church.
As famed sixteenth century Jesuit theologian Francisco Suarez, the Doctor Eximius, wrote: “And in this second mode the Pope could be schismatic, in case he did not want to have due union and coordination with the whole body of the Church as would be the case if he tried to excommunicate the whole Church, or if he wanted to subvert all the ecclesiastical ceremonies founded on apostolic tradition, as we observed by Cajetan (ad II-II, q. 39) and, with greater amplitude, Torquemada (1. 4, c.11).”[14]
(ii) Argument from lack of intention to fulfil the office of Pope
Archbishop Viganò has argued that Francis did not assume the papacy because he never intended to carry out the papal office. His position can be read in detail here. Others have put forward similar arguments over the years, such as proponents of the Thesis of Cassiacum.
The general position could be expressed as follows:
Major premise: A man who resolutely refuses to fulfil the duties of an office which he putatively holds either tacitly
resigns, or never accepted the office to start with.
Minor premise: Francis resolutely refuses to fulfil the duties of the office of the papacy which he putatively holds.
Conclusion: Francis has either tacitly resigned or never accepted the office to start with.
(iii) Argument from the unity of the Church
The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church possesses four marks by which she is to be always easily identified. These are the marks of (i) unity, (ii) sanctity, (iii) catholicity, and (iv) apostolicity.
These marks must always be clearly visible. As the First Vatican Council taught:
Quote:[T]o enable us to fulfil the obligation to embrace the true faith and to persistently persevere in it, God has instituted the Church through his only-begotten Son, and has bestowed on it manifest marks of that institution, that it may be recognized by all men as the guardian and teacher of the revealed Word.[15]
The first of these marks, that of unity, manifests itself as (i) unity of faith, (ii) unity of worship, and (iii) unity of government. The Church is always visibly united in faith, such that that unity is obvious to any honest observer. This unity of faith is brought about by the submission of all the members of the Church to the rule of faith proposed by the magisterium of the Church.
Monsignor Van Noort explains:
Quote:The unity of faith which Christ decreed without qualification consists in this, that everyone accepts the doctrines presented for belief by the Church’s teaching office. In fact, our Lord requires nothing other than the acceptance by all of the preaching of the apostolic college, a body which is to continue forever; or, what amounts to the same thing, of the pronouncements of the Church’s teaching office, which He Himself set up as the rule of faith. And the essential unity of faith definitely requires that everyone hold each and every doctrine clearly and distinctly presented for belief by the Church’s teaching office; and that everyone hold these truths explicitly or at least implicitly, i.e., by acknowledging the authority of the Church which teaches them.[16]
The visible principle of this unity is the pope, who is the supreme teacher of the faith. By being submissive to the teaching of the pope, the Church is united in that remarkable unity of faith which is one of her visible marks. The word principle here means origin. The Church is visibly united because every member submits to the teaching of the pope.
But it is quite clear that Francis is not the cause of the visible unity of the Catholic faithful. In fact, rejection of the heresies taught by Francis is something that is common to all faithful Catholics. Indeed, if a person were to submit to the whole body of doctrine proposed by Francis they would, as a result of that submission, depart from the visible unity of the faith.
As Francis is not the visible principle of unity of the Catholic Church, he cannot be the pope.
(iv) Argument from the disciplinary infallibility of the Church
This argument is based on the infallibility of the Church’s universal laws.
The pope can never make universal laws or establish disciplines which are intrinsically evil.
Pope Pius IV in the 1578 papal bull Auctorem Fidei, condemned the following proposition:
Quote:‘…the Church, which is ruled by the Spirit of God, could establish a discipline not merely useless and insupportable for the Christian spirit, but even dangerous, harmful, and conducive to superstition and to materialism.’
Dom Prosper Gueranger summarized the standard teaching of theologians:
Quote:It is an article of Catholic doctrine that the Church is infallible in the laws in which her general discipline consists – so that it is not permissible to maintain, without breaking with orthodoxy, that a regulation emanating from the sovereign power in the Church with the intention of obliging all the faithful, or at least a whole class of the faithful, could contain or favor error in faith or in morals.
It follows from this that, apart from the duty of submission in conduct, imposed by general discipline on all those whom it governs, we must recognize a ‘doctrinal value’ in ecclesiastical regulations like this.[17]
Cardinal Louis Billot sums up this doctrine as follows:
Quote:[T]he Church is assisted by God so that she can never institute a discipline which would be in any way opposed to the rule of faith or to evangelical holiness.[18]
The Church is a sound guide. The faithful can always submit to her laws and disciplines, assured that they will assist souls to heaven. However, Francis’s norms lead souls into error and sin. For example, in Amoris Laetitia he has given permission for those living in public adultery to receive Holy Communion and in Fiducia Supplicans he has permitted the blessing of same-sex “couples.”
In establishing dangerous norms for the whole Church, Francis would seem to be doing that which a true Roman Pontiff could never do.
These are just four of a number of a different theological approaches that could be taken to demonstrate that Francis is not the Roman Pontiff. Each one will be expounded with greater depth and rigour in articles to follow.
These are arguments based on sound theological principles and they render the claims of Francis to the papacy to be, at the very least, doubtful.
Other Catholics have raised doubts about the conclave which elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio. In particular, they have pointed to machinations by the “Saint Gallen group,” a self-confessed “mafia” of cardinals and bishops who admitted to plotting to secure the “election” of Bergolio. More can be read about the “Saint Gallen Mafia” here.
Some have argued that this plotting may have invalidated the papal election, because they hold the election to have been governed by norms established by Dominici Gregis of John Paul II, No. 78, of which states: “Confirming the prescriptions of my Predecessors, I likewise forbid anyone, even if he is a Cardinal, during the Pope’s lifetime and without having consulted him, to make plans concerning the election of his successor, or to promise votes, or to make decisions in this regard in private gatherings.”
No. 76 of the same document states: “Should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed, the election is for this very reason null and void, without any need for a declaration on the matter; consequently, it confers no right on the one elected.” Other Catholics have raised doubts about the resignation of Benedict XVI and its impact on the validity of the 2013 conclave.
While the present author considers the theological arguments to be the more compelling and more fruitful approach to the question, there is no question that doubts about the conclave have been a cause for some to doubt the validity of the papacy of Francis.
Is Viganò a schismatic?
In this article we have seen that refusal to submit to the Supreme Pontiff is schismatic.
However, we have also seen that refusal to submit to a doubtful pontiff is an act of prudence, not of schism.
The strong theological arguments that can be made against Francis’s claim to hold the Roman Pontificate make him, at best, a doubtful pontiff.
Therefore, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò must be regarded as “not guilty” of the grave crime of schism.
References
↑1 Rev. Joachim Salaverri, Sacrae Theologiae Summa IB, p432-33.
↑2 St. Thomas Aquinas, ST II.II q.39 a.1.
↑3 Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, No. 22.
↑4 Mgr G. Van Noort, Dogmatic Theology Volume II: Christ’s Church, (6th edition, 1957, trans. Castelot & Murphy), p243.
↑5 Rev. Sylvester Joseph Hunter S.J., Outlines of Dogmatic Theology, (London, 1896), No. 216.
↑6 Wernz, P. F-X, and Vidal, P. Petri,. Ius Canonicum ad Codicis Normam Exactum, Universitatis Gregorianae Universitas Gregoriana, Rome, 1938.
↑7 Wernz, Vidal, Ius Canonicum, Vol vii, 1937, n. 398.
↑8 Cajetan, Commentarium, 1540, II-II, 39, 1.
↑9 Juan de Lugo: Disp., De Virtute Fidei Divinae, pp 646-7, Disp xxv, sect iii, nn. 35-8, in Disputationes scholasticae et morales de virtute fidei diuinae, 1696.
↑10 Rev. Ignatius J. Szal, The Communication of Catholics with Schismatics, The Catholic University of America Press, Washington DC, 1948, p2.
↑11 Van Noort, Christ’s Church, p241.
↑12 Van Noort, Christ’s Church, p241.
↑13 Rev Sylvester Berry, Church of Christ: An Apologetic and Dogmatic Treatise, (Mount St Mary’s Seminary, 1955), p227-28.
↑14 Cited in Can a Pope be a Heretic? by Arnaldo Xavier da Silveira.
↑15 First Vatican Council, “Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith”, 24 April 1870.
↑16 Van Noort, Christ’s Church, pp 127-28.
↑17 Dom Prosper Guéranger, “Troisième lettre à Mgr l’évêque d’Orléans”, in Institutions liturgiques, second edition, Palmé, 1885, vol. 4, pp. 458-459.
↑18 Card. Billot, De Ecclesia Christi, Rome, 1927, volume I, p. 477
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| Charlemagne Discovers the Relics of St. Anne |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-30-2024, 05:52 AM - Forum: The Saints
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Charlemagne Discovers the Relics of St. Anne
![[Image: C115_Ann.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/images_A-E/C115_Ann.jpg)
St. Anne & her daughter Mary in royal garb
TIA | July 29, 2024
As mother of Our Lady, St. Anne was chosen by God for a hidden but exalted mission. Of course, this mission did not end after her earthly life. In every age of Church History, she has continually oriented souls toward the God Who became Man in the womb of her Daughter.
Beginning in the 6th century, St. Anne’s feast day was celebrated in the East, and churches were built in her honor. In the 8th century, the Syrian Pope Constantine spread her devotion to Rome.
At the dawn of the 9th century, St. Anne’s relics were miraculously discovered, greatly increasing her prestige and inspiring a wonderful series of effects.
St. Anne's Body
Not long after the death of Our Lord, a terrible wave of persecutions began. Around the year 47 AD, a notable group of Christians was captured by the Romans and put out to sea in a boat without sails or oars. Among them were St. Mary Magdalene, her siblings Sts. Martha and Lazarus, and Sts. Maximinus and Sedonius. This noble group had in their possession the relics of the body of St. Anne, which they took with them.
![[Image: C115_Sea.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/images_A-E/C115_Sea.jpg)
The boat without rudder or sail lands with its precious cargo – the relics of St. Anne – in Apt, France
Although the Romans hoped for these venerable Christians to perish at sea, the boat miraculously sailed to the shores of southern France, and the precious relics were taken to a town known today as Apt, France. The body of the Saint was buried in an underground chapel or crypt.
The miraculous passage by sea and the preaching of its passengers made a great impression on the local people of the area, who were converted to the Catholic Faith. Soon a church was built over the spot where the remains of St. Anne had been reverently laid.
Because the area was prey to invasions by the barbarian hordes, the first Bishop of Apta Julia, St. Auspicius, buried this holy treasure in a deep underground chapel whose entrance was known only to a few. That first church fell into decay during the turbulent times of wars and religious persecution that followed, and the site guarding the body of St. Anne was lost in history.
In subsequent centuries, after the Faith began to flourish in Europe, many sought to find the body of St. Anne in Apt. Records proved that she was buried somewhere in the city, but her body had been hidden so well that no one could locate it. To discover it would require divine intervention.
The Miraculous Discovery
During the time of Charlemagne, peace was restored to the region and a magnificent new cathedral was built on the site over the old chapel. Easter Sunday in the year 792 was the day chosen for its reconsecration.
Charlemagne, along with others of his court, was present for the occasion.
![[Image: C115_Sta.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/images_A-E/C115_Sta.jpg)
The steps opened to a narrow passageway, still found today in St. Anne Cathedral in Apt
A youth of 14 years named John, the son of a Baron, was also in attendance. He was deaf, blind and mute, and had been so since birth. What a shock for the audience when, during the ceremony, he suddenly became exceedingly excited. He rose from his seat, walked to the altar, and began to strike one of the altar steps over and over with his walking stick.
His embarassed family tried to take him away, but neither they nor the royal guards could keep the normally docile youth from returning to the step, which he continued to bang, making signs that they dig there. The eyes of the people turned to Charlemagne to see what he would do.
Recognizing the hand of God in this strange episode, Charlemagne called for workmen after the Mass to come and remove the steps. To their surprise, underneath the steps was a large door that opened to a subterranean passage.
The young boy entered without hesitation, leading the small group, with Charlemagne at its head, down a stairway. He continued down a narrow passageway until they and reached a wall that blocked the way. The boy indicated once again with his stick that it should be removed. This revealed another long passageway, which again the blind boy led them through, as if he were familiar with the way.
![[Image: C115_Cry.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/images_A-E/C115_Cry.jpg)
A vigil candle was burning on the wall of the crypt that guarded the relics of St. Anne
Finally, at the end of this corridor, the men discovered a crypt where a vigil lamp in a small niche burned, glowing with heavenly beauty. It must have been incredible to behold: A vigil lamp that had been burning, untended by human hands, for what appeared to be centuries.
As Charlemagne and the entourage in wonder stood before it, the lamp suddenly went out. At that very moment the boy immediately regained his hearing, vision and ability to speak.
“It is she! It is she!” he cried. Charlemagne, not understanding what he meant, nonetheless repeated the words. The call was taken up by the group and then echoed by the crowds in the Church above, who fell to their knees. A profound sacrality permeated the air, and all sensed that in this mysterious passage was something celestial and holy.
Who was she? The townspeople already realized that this was the burial place of the mother of Our Lady, for they knew from tradition that she was buried somewhere under the church.
The workmen opened the door of the crypt. The air smelled sweet, like an Eastern incense, and a casket lay within it. In the casket was an elaborate Oriental winding cloth, and the remains of a body. The inscription atop the relics read, “Here lies the body of St. Anne, mother of the glorious Virgin Mary.”
![[Image: C115_Ste.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/images_A-E/C115_Ste.jpg)
A side chapel in St. Anne’s Cathedral in Apt displays her relics
Charlemagne and all the others knelt in admiration, venerating the relics of the great St. Anne, in whose womb the Immaculate Conception took place. Charlemagne remained there a long time in prayer.
When the city received the joyful news, they were filled with joy and awe; for three days they only spoke when necessary, and in reverential whispers.
All of this made a deep impression on Charlemagne, who ordered a notary to make a detailed account of the miraculous finding to be sent to Pope Adrian I, along with a letter signed by himself. These documents and the Pope’s reply can still be seen to this day.
The discovery of St. Anne’s relics is all the more beautiful when we recall that Our Lord is her grandson by blood. When Catholics venerate the relics of St. Anne, they also pay tribute to the Son of her daughter Mary, Our Lord.
It is interesting to see how God used a simple youth – deaf, dumb and mute – to bring about the discovery of this great Saint who was mother of the Mother of God. Let us pray that God in His Providence might make use of us, who are slaves of Mary but laden with problems and broken by the Revolution, to help to make St. Anne known and her presence felt during the Reign of Mary that is to come.
![[Image: C115_Bus.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/images_A-E/C115_Bus.jpg)
Reliquary of St. Anne in her Cathedral in Apt |
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| Catholic NY Church Plans Supreme Court Appeal On Abortion Coverage Ruling |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-30-2024, 05:39 AM - Forum: Abortion
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NY Church Plans Supreme Court Appeal On Abortion Coverage Ruling
![[Image: image%2863%29_0.jpg?itok=eZndAm22]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/inline-images/image%2863%29_0.jpg?itok=eZndAm22)
The Supreme Court of the United States in Washington on Dec. 4, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)
ZH | Jul 29, 2024
Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A Roman Catholic diocese is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court a New York appeals court ruling that requires religious charities to provide abortion coverage in their employee health insurance packages.
Lori Windham, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, confirmed during an online news conference on July 25 that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, New York, is preparing a petition for certiorari, or review, to be filed in coming weeks with the nation’s highest court. The Becket organization is part of the diocese’s legal team.
The case is Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany v. Harris. Adrienne A. Harris is Superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, the agency that issued the health care insurance regulation that’s in dispute.
The deadline for filing the petition for certiorari, or review, was originally Aug. 19, but on July 26, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor extended the deadline to Sept. 18.
The case has been working its way through the judicial system for years.
In 2017, the New York Department of Financial Services issued a regulation requiring that employers fund abortions through their employee health insurance plans. The regulation exempted religious entities whose “purpose” is to inculcate religious values and who “employ” and “serve” primarily coreligionists. At the same time, the regulation forced religious organizations to cover abortions if they have a broader religious mission, such as serving the poor, or if they hire or serve people regardless of their faith.
Various Roman Catholic dioceses, along with Anglican nuns and Lutheran and Baptist churches, sued.
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York ruled in favor of the state in July 2020.
But in November 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court summarily vacated that decision.
The nation’s highest court sent the case back to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York for further consideration in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2021 ruling in Fulton v. Philadelphia.
In the Fulton ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a Roman Catholic charity in Pennsylvania may refuse on First Amendment religious freedom grounds to place children with same-sex couples.
Writing for the court in that case, Chief Justice John Roberts said that Philadelphia had violated the other side’s First Amendment rights.
The religious views of the diocese-affiliated Catholic Social Services “inform its work in this system,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. The charity believes that “marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman.”
“Because the agency understands the certification of prospective foster families to be an endorsement of their relationships, it will not certify unmarried couples—regardless of their sexual orientation—or same-sex married couples.”
However, when the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York reconsidered the case in June 2022, it ruled in favor of the state, finding that the Fulton ruling didn’t apply to the case and that the abortion insurance mandate did not violate the First Amendment.
On May 21 of this year, the New York Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling of the Appellate Division.
“Under Fulton, both the regulation itself and the criteria delineating a ‘religious employer’ for the purposes of the exemption are generally applicable and do not violate the Free Exercise Clause,” the court held.
Ms. Windham said in recent years the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of employers “every single time” in three cases when they have objected to having to provide coverage for contraception or abortion medication for their employees.
Despite that, New York decided to impose an abortion coverage mandate and “go all the way in the face of these three Supreme Court decisions.” First, the state enacted the insurance regulation and then the New York State Legislature decided to codify the regulation in state law, she said.
The exemption from the mandate is narrow, Ms. Windham said.
“If you primarily serve people of your own faith, then you can have an exception, but if you open your doors to all … [to] care for anyone regardless of your faith, if you’re out there offering a cup of soup to anyone who’s hungry, regardless of what their faith background is, then you lose your religious freedom protections, you lose your exemption under the statute, and you must also pay for abortions.”
This means that a “religious test” is being imposed on religious groups that provide social services, she said.
“All of these different groups are stuck with this abortion mandate, and all of them because of the work they do, and because of the good that they try to do within their communities, are being hit by this,” Ms. Windham said.
The New York Department of Financial Services didn’t respond by publication time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
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| Pope Francis silent on Olympic opening scandal |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-30-2024, 05:34 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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Pope Francis silent on Olympic opening scandal while scandal-plagued Vatican archbishop defends it
Pope Francis did not say anything about the Olympics’ blasphemous opening ceremony in his Sunday Angelus, and Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the Francis-appointed president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, claimed it ‘reveals a profound question.’
![[Image: Story3_7_29_24_2.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Story3_7_29_24_2.jpg)
Pope Francis
Flickr, Yahoo Commons
Jul 29, 2024
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews [adapted]) — The often scandalous Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia has issued a contradictory defense of the Olympic opening ceremony featuring a drag queen mockery of the Last Supper, while Pope Francis has remained notably silent about the incident.
In a social media post on July 27, Archbishop Paglia attempted to straddle both sides of the debate surrounding the Olympics’ infamous opening ceremony, which saw drag queens and dancers perform a mockery of the Last Supper, particularly appearing to faux-imitate Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper” painting.
The show was designed by a homosexual and received instant and near unprecedented condemnation from scores of bishops across the world, along with numerous secular leaders such as Elon Musk and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson.
However, Paglia’s response was much more conciliatory than those of some other bishops. “The mockery of the Last Supper at the #OlympicsParis2024, rightly deplored by @Eglisecatho, [French Catholic bishops’ conference] reveals a profound question,” he wrote.
That “profound question” Paglia described as being that “everyone, but really everyone, wants to sit at that table where Jesus gives life for all and teaches love.”
What has been notable by its absence is the complete lack of any comment from Pope Francis or an official position of the Holy See that would have been issued by the press office.
With the Olympics ceremony taking place on Friday night, many Catholics and Vaticanistas were waiting to see if Francis would comment on the scandal during his weekly Sunday Angelus. The Pope customarily makes reference to topical issues around the globe at the end of his Sunday address, often expressing his solidarity with particular groups of people and calling for prayers from Catholics.
Francis made no mention of the Olympic opening ceremony during his Angelus, while nevertheless making a number of special mentions for causes and celebrations around the world.
In fact, Francis did make mention of the Olympics generally but in reference to hunger and arms production. His comments were:
Quote:And while there are many people in the world who suffer due to disasters and hunger, we continue to produce and sell weapons and burn resources fueling wars, large and small. This is an outrage that the international community should not tolerate, and it contradicts the spirit of brotherhood of the Olympic Games that have just begun. Let us not forget, brothers and sisters: war is defeat!
Paglia, appointed by Pope Francis as the president of the now scandal-plagued Pontifical Academy for Life, is a notable Vatican official. His Pontifical Academy for Life has been mired by controversy, often spear-led by him personally, regarding the Catholic Church’s moral teaching.
The only other statement from a Vatican official in any capacity regarding the Olympic’s opening ceremony is that from Archbishop Charles Scicluna. The Maltese prelate is adjunct secretary of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and sent a message to the French ambassador of Malta, noting his “distress and great disappointment at the insult to us Christians.”
The French bishops’ conference was joined by numerous U.S. bishops and others in condemning the Olympics opening ceremony, some considerably more vigorously than others.
Spain’s Bishop José Munilla termed the show “blasphemous & deplorable,” and added that “[o]ur culture is giving its last breaths in the midst of woke decadence.”
“Fundamentalist Islamism rubs its hands together seeing how we ourselves ‘commit suicide’ spiritually and physically,” Bishop Munilla added.
San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said the ceremony reflected “secular fundamentalism” having “infiltrated the Olympics, even to the point of blaspheming the religion of over a billion people,” while Bishop Joseph Strickland called it a “new low for our human community.”
To this is added the declaration of Cardinal Gerhard Müller, who attested that by the “sacrilegious and vulgar representation” the Olympics body “has managed in one fell swoop to sully the noble face of the Olympics and to offend millions of believers around the world.”
Nor has the reaction to the drag queen ceremony been limited to religious figures, an aspect that makes the Pope’s silence even more striking.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson stated that “[t]he war on our faith and traditional values knows no bounds today,” and tech billionaire Elon Musk has issued a number of criticisms, including the warning that “[u]nless there is more bravery to stand up for what is fair and right, Christianity will perish.”
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| Is This Rome's New Tactic to Destroy Holy Mass? |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-30-2024, 05:05 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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Is This Rome's New Tactic to Destroy Holy Mass?
gloria.tv | July 30, 2024
On 25 July, it was announced that the Vatican had asked the Dominican Sisters of Pontcalec to modify the Roman Rite [Latin Mass] by introducing the Novus Ordo liturgical calendar, the Novus Ordo readings, and the prefaces invented by Paul VI.
According to Peter Kwasniewski (NewLiturgicalMovement.org, 29 July), the Vatican is conducting an experiment here that it would like to extend to all institutes of the Roman Rite.
This tactic would not consist in suppressing the Roman Rite, but in hybridising it with the Novus Ordo.
Thus, the diktat could be issued that the Roman Rite may be "retained", but the Novus Ordo calendar, lectionary and prefaces must always be used instead of those proper to the Roman Rite.
Kwasniewski fears that this is the next and more subtle strategy of the Vatican nomenclature, which has realised that it cannot achieve the direct and total abolition of the Roman Rite.
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| "CopenPay" – Europe's First Climate-Centric Social Credit Scheme |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-29-2024, 07:52 AM - Forum: Socialism & Communism
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"CopenPay" – Europe's First Climate-Centric Social Credit Scheme
![[Image: copenpay-denmark-banner-1.jpg?itok=OlPdR0LF]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/inline-images/copenpay-denmark-banner-1.jpg?itok=OlPdR0LF)
ZH [slightly adapted] | Jul 27, 2024
Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,
The world’s first climate-related social rewards scheme came into being two weeks ago, when the city of Copenhagen officially launched it’s new “CopenPay” system.
Through the CopenPay scheme, tourists visiting the city will be rewarded for “green actions” – such as using public transportation or cycling – with access to “cultural experiences”, free meals etc.
For example, arriving at the CopenHill dry ski slope by foot or on a bike will get you 20 free minutes of ski time, while anyone who volunteers at an organic urban farm will get a free lunch (vegetarian, naturally).
The official CopenPay website describes the purpose of the system as follows:
Quote:…to encourage sustainable behaviour and enrich the cultural experience of visitors and residents in Copenhagen by transforming green actions into currency for cultural experiences.
WonderfulCopenhagen.com adds:
Quote:There is a need to change the mindset of tourists and encourage green choices […]Through CopenPay we therefore aim to incentivize tourists’ sustainable behaviour while enriching their cultural experience of our destination. It is an experimental and a small step towards creating a new mindset […] The hope is not only to continue the pilot project, but also to inspire other cities around the world to introduce similar initiatives.
Now, complimentary organic meals and free windsurfing lessons might seem benign enough, but any talk of “changing mindset” and/or “encouraging behaviour” makes my brain itch.
It’s pretty easy to see through the happy-clappy tone of the promotion to the heart of the issue, it’s right there in their own words: Transforming green actions into currency.
This is climate change based behavioral modification. This is a social credit system. Small scale and optional, sure, but there’s no denying that’s what it is.
For now it’s optional and only for tourists. They are testing the waters. Barring a catastrophic failure it won’t stay that way for long. They likely won’t ever make it mandatory to take part, rather – like bank accounts and cellphones – opting out will simply be too difficult for most people to bother with.
Eventually “rewarding green actions” will segue into “punishing non-green actions”. The currency of “cultural experiences” replaced with actual currency.
This isn’t guesswork.
We don’t have to guess where this leads, because we know. They told us.
They laid out the world they want to build, and this is just one of the first bricks.
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| Catholic church in Paris vandalized with pro-Muslim graffiti ahead of Olympics |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-29-2024, 07:49 AM - Forum: Anti-Catholic Violence
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Catholic church in Paris vandalized with pro-Muslim graffiti ahead of Olympics
Notre-Dame-du-Travail had its exterior spray-painted with pro-Muslim, anti-Catholic graffiti sometime between July 14 and 15. The church also had one of its statues of Mary cut in the throat with a knife.
![[Image: 307720389_2124543131085627_6287747705327756812_n.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/307720389_2124543131085627_6287747705327756812_n.jpg)
Notre-Dame-du-Travail (Our Lady of Labor Church) in Paris, France
Facebook / Notre-Dame du Travail
Jul 27, 2024
PARIS (LifeSiteNews) — Another Catholic church in France has been vandalized.
According to French website CNEWS, Notre-Dame-du-Travail had its exterior spray-painted with pro-Muslim, anti-Catholic graffiti. The church also had one of its statues of Mary cut in the throat with a knife.
The vandalism reportedly took place between Sunday, July 14 and Monday, July 15.
In March 2023, Sacred Heart Church in Bordeaux was desecrated when perpetrators marked its doors and walls with satanic and communist phrases and symbols. A fire was also lit in the church’s courtyard, but it was extinguished before causing damage to the building.
In February 2024, the church of St. John the Baptist (Saint-Jean Baptiste) in the small town of Val-de-la-Haye had several sacred objects stolen, including the Blessed Sacrament in the form of consecrated hosts.
In October 2020, LifeSite reported that three Catholics were killed in an attack on Our Lady of the Assumption parish in Nice, France, by an Islamic terrorist. A similar attack occurred in Nice in April 2022, when a 31-year-old French national stabbed a priest and nun multiple times shortly before the 10 a.m. Sunday Mass at the church of Saint Pierre d’Arène.
The graffiti on Notre-Dame-du-Travail, which is located in Paris and in English means “Our Lady of Labor,” included slogans like infidels needing to pray to Allah, the Catholic Church is of Satan, and that heads of Christians will be cut off. CNEWS also reports that the vandals entered through an emergency exit door and broke cabinet doors and burned papers.
While LifeSite’s Paris correspondent Jeanne Smith has previously argued that attacks on church in France are “often tracked down to ‘native’ French vandals, the majority of whom are adolescents or young adults,” one of the most notable acts of evil carried out in a church was the death of Fr. Jacques Hamel in 2016.
Hamel, who was 85, was saying Mass on July 26 in the parish church of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy. During his sermon, two Islamic terrorists slit his throat. His last words were, “Go away, Satan!” Hamel was called a “martyr” by many Catholics across the world.
Notre-Dame-du-Travail was constructed between 1897 and 1902. A complaint to the police has been filed by Fr. Vincent de Mello, the vicar of the church, and an investigation has been opened, according to CNEWS.
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| Archbishop Viganò: Satan Goes Back - On the Sacriledges and Scandals of the Paris Olympic Games |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-29-2024, 07:46 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Satan Goes Back
Msgr. Carlo Maria Viganò: Declaration Following the Sacrileges and Scandals of the Paris Olympic Games
![[Image: IMG_4745.jpeg]](https://exsurgedomine.it/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/IMG_4745.jpeg)
July 28, 2024 [machine translated from the Italian]
The inaugural ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games is only the latest in a long series of vile attacks on God, to Catholic Religion and the Natural Moral by the anti-cristic elite that holds Western countries hostage. We had seen scenes no less disconcerting at the 2012 London Olympics, the inauguration of the 2016 Gotthard tunnel, the 2022 Commonwealth Games, with hellish figures, goats and terrifying animals. The elite that organizes these ceremonies not only demand the right to blasphemy and obscene ostentation of the most foul vices, but even their silent acceptance by Catholics and honest people, forced to suffer the outrage of seeing the most sacred symbols of their Faith and the very foundations of the natural Law desecrated.
We witnessed a dystopian dance macabre in which the holograms of the knights of the Apocalypse alternated with a blue Dionysus pingue, served under a bell from dishes; the parody of the Last LGBTQ Dinner + and the truculent performance of a beheaded Marie Antoinette singing Ça ira called to celebrate the horrors of the French Revolution; the ballets of bearded transvestites and effeminate dancers to pitiful singers in playback. In this provocative show, Satan does nothing but ruin the creative perfection of God, showing himself the envious author of every counterfeit. Satan creates nothing: he only knows how to ruin everything. It does not invent: handcuffs. And her followers are no different: they humiliate the femininity of the woman to cancel her motherhood which recalls the Virgin Mother; they castrate man's virility to snatch the image of God's fatherhood from him; they corrupt the little ones to kill innocence in them and make them victims of the most abject wokism.
The parade of the Olympic Games scandalizes not only for the arrogant ostentation of the ugly and the obscene, but for the infernal subversion of Good and Evil, for the mad claim to be able to blaspheme and desecrate everything, even the most sacred, in the name of an ideology of death, of ugliness, of lies that challenge Christ and scandalize those who recognize Him as Lord and God. It is no coincidence that to sponsor this revolting event there is an emissary of the World Economic Forum, Emanuel Macron, who peddles a transvestite with impunity as his wife, just as Barack Obama is accompanied by a muscular man in a wig. It is the realm of mystification, of falsehood, of fiction erected as a totem, in which man is disfigured, precisely because he was created in the image and likeness of God.
Tolerance cannot be the alibi for the systematic destruction of Christian society, in which billions of honest and hitherto silent people are recognized. This abuse must end! And it must end not so much and not only because it hurts the sensitivity of believers, but because it offends the Majesty of God. Satan does not have the rights of God, evil cannot be put on the same level as Good, nor can lies be equated with Truth. This is what our civilization is based on, which some would like to bury under the physical and moral rubble of a world in disrepair.
It must be clear that the patience and endurance of the faithful and citizens have run out, that it is no longer time to “ deplore ” but to act, also and above all when the civil and religious authority are complicit in the betrayal.
It is therefore necessary for Christians to move around the world with concrete actions, first of all with a boycott of the Olympic Games and all their sponsors. It is also necessary that companies not subservient to globalism revoke sponsorship contracts, and that delegations and individual athletes withdraw from the Games, inaugurated under the worst auspices. It is necessary to demand and demand that those responsible for these intolerable abuses answer for their actions, as well as for the corruption that also accompanies this event. Finally, the homosexual set designer who gave birth to this blasphemous and vulgar show must return the compensation that the Macroniadi have made French taxpayers pay.
I urge Catholics to repair with prayer, fasting and penance the outrages perpetrated against Our Lord Jesus Christ and against our holy Religion. That the confident appeal of the good at the throne of the Most High is not separated from a general awakening of consciences, so that the King of kings returns to reign over Nations, societies, families, on the Church.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
July 28, 2024
Dominica X post Pentecosten
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| The Good, the Bad, and the Fiendishly Synodal at the National Eucharistic Congress |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-28-2024, 07:35 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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The Good, the Bad, and the Fiendishly Synodal at the National Eucharistic Congress
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Robert Morrison, Remnant Columnist | July 22, 2024
“Eucharistic revival and synodality go together. Or to put it another way, I believe that we will have true Eucharistic revival when we experience the Eucharist as the sacrament of Christ’s incarnation: as the Lord walking with us together on the way.” (Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, November 14, 2023)eblast prompt
In his essay about converting to Catholicism in The Road to Damascus, Evelyn Waugh wrote of the self-evident logic that led him to conclude that if Christianity was true, the Catholic Church must be correct:
Quote:“It was self-evident to me that no heresy or schism could be right and the Church wrong. It was possible that all were wrong, that the whole Christian revelation was an imposture or a misconception. But if the Christian revelation was true, then the Church was the society founded by Christ and all other bodies were only good so far as they had salvaged something from the wrecks of the Great Schism and the Reformation.”
Although the logic here is impeccable, we know that many otherwise intelligent Christians fail to accept it. Thus, at least in practice, non-Catholic Christians believe that all of Christianity languished in critical errors from the time that Jesus Christ charged the Apostles with propagating the religion until centuries later when the founder of their respective Protestant sect fabricated a new, “corrected” religion. As Waugh wrote, it is self-evident that this cannot be the case.
Unfortunately, we must apply the same analysis to the divide between Traditional Catholicism and the deformed religion spawned by the Vatican II revolution. Unlike the founders of the various Protestant sects, though, the proponents of the "Conciliar religion” did not have the decency to officially break from the Catholic Church. Indeed, as the pre-Vatican II popes had consistently warned, the enemies of God and the Catholic Church desired to infiltrate the Church for the purpose of corrupting the religion from within. As a result, we are left with what Waugh would recognize as a self-evidently preposterous situation: the followers of the Vatican II revolution are convinced that the beliefs and practices of all Christians are more or less good, except if those Christians happen to be Traditional Catholics who adhere to what the Church had always taught prior to the Council.
The revolutionaries might have completely crushed Traditional Catholicism decades ago were it not for the fact that the simple test given to us by Our Lord — that we must judge a tree by its fruits (Matthew 7:15-20) — always works against them. Everywhere we turn, we see the hideous fruits of the Vatican II revolution; at the same time, the tree of Catholic Tradition still bears abundant, holy fruits, even though the revolutionaries do all they can to try to chop it down. For this reason, the revolutionaries must go slower than they would like, and occasionally have to give their disaffected followers a taste of wholesome Traditional Catholic belief and practice to keep them from rejecting the revolution’s toxic fruits.
All of this was on full display at the recent National Eucharistic Congress. Taken in isolation, several aspects of the event were good because, as Waugh expressed it, they salvaged something of Traditional Catholicism:
- Generally reverent adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
- Some Gregorian chant and Traditional Catholic hymns
- In at least a few of the Novus Ordo Masses, the absence of female altar servers and Eucharistic ministers
- Some calls for the need for repentance
Will the attendees who were attracted by these Traditional Catholic practices return to their Novus Ordo parishes and encourage their pastors to make changes? If so, would they be met with favorable responses?
In all likelihood, any attendees who found something new and attractive in the elements of Traditional Catholicism incorporated at the National Eucharistic Congress will return to their parishes to find the same disappointing fruits of the Vatican II revolution which dominated the event. At one moment during the Saturday morning session, Katie Prejean McGrady (the emcee) captured the Protestant/Vatican II ethos of the National Eucharistic Congress by introducing a praise song from the Sarah Kroger Band as follows:
Quote:“My mom was raised Baptist, so we’re going to go back to my family roots for a second, we’re just gonna pray. . . . We’re gonna take a moment and just let the Lord come upon us, so if you would just close your eyes, let’s pray.” (3:57)
It is certainly possible that those involved will earn high places in Heaven, but at no time prior to Vatican II would they have been permitted to stage such a performance in the name of “Catholic worship.”
The Fatima Center’s email regarding the National Eucharistic Congress put the matter as charitably as possible:
Quote:“You have likely heard of the surprisingly marvelous event occurring in Indianapolis, Indiana this weekend: the National Eucharistic Congress. It is immensely encouraging to see growing interest in Eucharistic Revival despite the many painful messages from our Church hierarchy that have resulted in ever greater irreverence, even disbelief, in Our Lord's True Presence in the Eucharist. . . . We commend the U.S. bishops for their pivotal role in organizing the 10th National Eucharistic Congress, a significant step towards addressing the decline in Eucharistic reverence and belief. However, it's important to remember that a return to Catholic Tradition is essential for fostering true Faith, regardless of the programs, talks, events, or money involved. Let's focus on the key aspect of Eucharistic reverence. As part of our rich history, Catholics must return to receiving Holy Communion from the priest only, on the tongue, and kneeling at a Communion rail. This is the first step towards reviving Eucharistic Faith.”
Unless there is a return to authentic Catholic Tradition, all efforts at “revival” are destined to fail. Accordingly, the best outcome of the National Eucharistic Congress would be if some attendees returned to Catholic Tradition after realizing that their Novus Ordo parishes can never satisfactorily provide the truth and beauty that they caught a glimpse of at the event.
Given the undeniable fact that the National Eucharistic Congresses’s most powerful figures — including Cardinals Wilton Gregory, Blase Cupich, and Luis Tagle — have absolutely no interest in leading souls to Catholic Tradition, it seems odd that the event would have taken any steps that could risk enkindling a love for the pre-Vatican II Faith. Many of the event’s organizers may have had noble motives, but it seems that we can find the rationale for Rome’s willingness to permit and support the congress in the words of Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States:
Quote:“Let’s be honest. We, all of us, we are afraid to go where the Spirit leads us. Is that not true. [Applause] Maybe this should be the main fruit of the Eucharistic revival. To be a people animated by the Spirit. A people able to listen to the voice of the Spirit. You remember when Pope Francis speaks about synodality, he says, the first step is precisely that: Listen to one another and listen to the Spirit in the person we listen [to]. The fruit of the Eucharistic revival.”
According to Cardinal Pierre, Rome’s desired fruit of the National Eucharistic Congress is not to increase devotion to Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist but to advance Francis’s Synod on Synodality. And as reported by the (often heretical) National Catholic Reporter, Cardinal Cupich’s presentation on the National Eucharistic Congress was also an overt promotion of the Synodal Church:
Quote:“The Eucharist can be thought of as a school for becoming a more synodal church, Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich said during a July 18 presentation at the National Eucharistic Congress.
Addressing a hotel ballroom packed with a diverse audience of Catholics, Cupich made several connections between the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, the central theme of the congress, and synodality.”
Thus, from the perspective of some of the National Eucharistic Congress’s most powerful figures, the event was valuable (or at least tolerable) to Rome because it could promote Synodality.
In his homily for the closing Mass of the National Eucharistic Congress, Cardinal Tagle was far more subtle in tying Eucharistic devotion to Synodality. He spoke of the great gift of Jesus’s presence in the Eucharist and our need to respond to that gift by sharing it with others — “a Eucharistic people is a missionary and evangelizing people.” Of course there is nothing inherently wrong with those ideas, but they are intricately tied to the Synod on Synodality, as we can glean from the recently released Instrumentum Laboris:
Quote:“Baptism is at the service of the dynamism of the likeness, and for this reason, it is not a punctual act closed at the moment of its celebration but a gift that must be confirmed, nourished and put to good use through the commitment to conversion, service to mission and participation in the life of the community. Christian initiation culminates, in fact, in the Sunday Eucharist, which is celebrated every week, a sign of the unceasing gift of grace that conforms us to Christ and makes us members of his Body and nourishment that sustains us on the path of conversion and mission. In this sense, the Eucharistic assembly manifests and nourishes the missionary synodal life of the Church.”
As we have seen, the “missionary spirit” of the Synodal Church (as distinct from the Catholic Church) does not consist in trying to teach souls to follow the Catholic religion but rather in “accompanying” people who decide that they do not want to accept the Church’s teachings. In fact, the Instrumentum Laboris further describes the Eucharist in terms of the participation of all Christians:
Quote:“Christian initiation culminates, in fact, in the Sunday Eucharist, which is celebrated every week, a sign of the unceasing gift of grace that conforms us to Christ and makes us members of his Body and nourishment that sustains us on the path of conversion and mission. In this sense, the Eucharistic assembly manifests and nourishes the missionary synodal life of the Church. In the participation of all Christians, in the presence of different ministries and the presidency of the bishop or priest, the Christian community is made visible, in which a differentiated co-responsibility of all for the mission is realised.”
This is the indispensable interpretive key for the Synod on Synodality and Rome’s goals with respect to the National Eucharistic Congress. Francis, Cupich, Tagle and the rest of the Synodal Church’s apostles use many of the same words that Catholics use, but they mean very different things. For them, the Eucharist should be shared with all baptized Christians as a means of promoting “unity,” which is unthinkable for actual Catholics who love the Blessed Sacrament.
In this light, we can consider Cardinal Tagle’s plea for us to share the Eucharist with others:
Quote:“We should not keep Jesus to ourselves, that is not discipleship, that is selfishness. The gift we have received we should give as a gift. . . . In his letter to me, Francis expressed the hope that the participants of the congress, fully aware of the universal gifts they receive from the heavenly food, may they impart them to others.”
The “others” here are not Catholics who may need a ride to Mass but those baptized non-Catholics, and non-practicing Catholics, who feel excluded from the Eucharist because they are prohibited by the Church’s rules from receiving Communion.
Again, it seems certain that many of the organizers and leaders of the National Eucharistic Congress were primarily interested in fostering true devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, and perhaps had no interest in promoting the Synodal Church. But it is also certain that this was not the goal of Francis and his emissaries who had Synodality as their primary objective. For them, the event was an opportunity to “bless” their unholy Synodal Church by associating it with sincere (even if misguided at times) devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.
The Fatima Center’s email about the National Eucharistic Congress included a link to a 2003 article by the late John Vennari, in which he summarized the lesson that the event’s organizers and presenters ought to have delivered:
Quote:“How often have we heard even our Church leaders lament that ‘we have lost the sense of the sacred.’ This is one of the most astounding statements a Churchman can utter . . . as if it were some sort of mystery. Because the sense of the sacred is not lost, we know exactly where it is, and it could be recovered in every single parish church on earth tomorrow. The ‘sense of the sacred’ is found wherever safeguarding the reverence for the Blessed Sacrament is put into practice of paramount importance. . . It is found in the celebration of the Old Latin Tridentine Mass where profound reverence for the Blessed Sacrament is deeply ingrained into every moment of the Liturgy, and where Communion in the hand and ‘Eucharistic Ministers’ are still looked upon in horror with Catholic eyes, and are clearly recognized as the out-of-place, sacrilegious, non-Catholic practices that they are.”
Those who seek to restore the sense of the sacred without returning to the Traditional Latin Mass are like those Protestants who seek to find immutable Christian truth without returning to the sole ark of salvation established by Our Lord, the Catholic Church. It is no mere coincidence that Francis and his Synodal Church are just as hostile to the immutable Catholic Faith as they are to the Traditional Latin Mass. May their hatred for the things of God inspire us to draw ever more closely to the unfathomable treasures that Jesus Christ left to His Church, which are found where the Traditional Catholic Faith is preserved.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
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