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  A Short Primer: What you need to know about Fetal Cell Lines and Vaccines
Posted by: Stone - 03-15-2021, 10:45 AM - Forum: Health - No Replies

What you need to know about fetal cell lines and vaccines
A short primer by Dr. Marissa Brand


March 12, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — The first vaccine in the United States to use an aborted fetal cell line in its production was the MMR vaccine in 1979. Currently in the United States there are many vaccines that contain aborted fetal DNA in the end product of the vaccine, while others use aborted fetal cells in their research and development.

There are four cell lines that are being used in vaccines currently available, including those expected to be available in the next month or two. These four cell lines are MRC-5, WI-38, PER C6, HEK293.

In addition to these cell lines, abortions were also done to obtain RA27/3 for use in the rubella vaccine. The rubella vaccine alone is the result of at least 99 abortions (32 for WI-38 and 67 for RA27/3). Yes, they came from abortions, not babies who died naturally in the womb.

The baby has to be alive when the tissues are taken. Otherwise, they are unusable.

MRC-6 and Wi-38 are both from the 1960s. PER C6 is from 1985, while HEK293 is from 1972. There are other aborted fetal cell lines that exist, but are not currently being used for vaccines.

The most recent aborted fetal cell line is from 2015 (Walvax2). This particular cell line is the result of 9 abortions.

Of those vaccines that are currently FDA-approved, all of the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella), hepatitis a, and chickenpox vaccines, including any combination vaccines for these illnesses, use aborted fetal cell lines. One of the shingles vaccine brands and one of the rabies vaccines also use aborted fetal cells.

As for experimental COVID injections, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca both use aborted fetal cell lines on which to grow the virus for their vaccines. Pfizer and Moderna, for their COVID-19 injections, used the aborted fetal cell line HEK293 for the research and development of their vaccines.

With the exception of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, the others do contain aborted fetal DNA in the end product. It is next to impossible to remove all of the DNA from the virus grown in the aborted fetal cell lines. In fact, independent research has found levels as high as 142 to 2000 ng per dose, despite the FDA and WHO recommending limits of 10ng per dose.

The aborted fetal DNA contamination present in vaccines that use aborted fetal cell lines in their production come with risks. Specifically a risk of triggering autoimmune disease, as well as the risk of DNA insertion into the vaccine recipient’s DNA.

In addition to these risks, it is particularly interesting — given the current autism spectrum disorder (ASD) epidemic — that research shows that strong change-point correlations exist between rising ASD rates and when the first MMR vaccine with aborted fetal DNA was introduced, when the second dose was introduced, and when the chickenpox vaccine, which also contains aborted fetal DNA, was introduced in the United States.

The use of aborted fetal cell lines in vaccine research and production carries the serious moral concerns of abortion, trafficking of these babies, and denial of a proper burial, as well as serious health concerns.

As long as we as a society keep rolling up our sleeves for vaccines and other pharmaceuticals that use aborted fetal cells in their research, development or production, the situation is not going to get better, as there is no motivation for these companies to change their ways.


Dr. Marissa Brand is a board-certified Doctor of Natural Medicine and Doctor of Humanitarian Services, with a PhD in Natural Medicine.

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  California Teachers To Lead Students In Aztec Chants To God Of Human Sacrifice In New Curriculum
Posted by: Stone - 03-15-2021, 10:38 AM - Forum: Against the Children - No Replies

California Teachers To Lead Students In Aztec Chants To God Of Human Sacrifice In New Curriculum
Children will soon pray to an Aztec god of human sacrifice in public schools, should the new curriculum be used.

[Image: California-Aztec-Human-Sacrifice-Chant-1024x538.jpg]

National File | March 13, 2021

California is set to vote on a new curriculum for K-12 students, even as it faces criticism for promoting the belief that Europeans destroyed native religions with Christianity,
and for one particularly troubling lesson: Teachers will lead students in an Aztec chant meant to please a god of human sacrifice.

In its reading materials about the new K-12 curriculum’s focus on “ethnic studies,” the California Department of Education makes a series of confusing and troubling remarks about race. For example, it declares that while Mexican American students may be descended from Native Americans, they should not be included in this ethnicity, because “While Mexican Americans and Latina/o/x Americans have native ancestry, their indigenous histories are addressed in the Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x course outline.”

They also suggest the use of Latinx, because even though Spanish is a gendered language with different endings for male, -o, or female, -a, names, it, “The recent use of “x” is done for two purposes. The first “x” in Xicanx replaces the “ch” because the sound produced by “x” is much more in line with the Náhuatl language and indigenous etymologies. The second “x” renders the term gender-neutral and more inclusive of all identities.”

Again, this is written as the California Department of Education would also seemingly argue that the Náhuatl language should not matter when teaching about “Latinx” culture, because Náhuatl would be covered under Native American studies.

The document also suggests that teachers bring elements of these ethnic studies to seemingly unrelated classes. “For example, a geography teacher might develop a unit or lesson around urban geography, where students can delve into key concepts like environmental racism and ecological justice, and focus on the experiences of people of color in those spaces.”

However, the most troubling element would seem to be the veneration of an Aztec god of human sacrifice. The Epoch Times reported:

Quote:In the community chant of “In Lak Ech,” which translates to “You Are My Other Me,” teachers are instructed to first lead the group of students in chanting and clapping to Tezkatlipoka, a cannibalistic wizard-god who, according to the Aztec tradition, brought the downfall to the Toltec civilization in favor of the human-sacrificing Aztecs.

The students then chant to other deities including Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec sun god, seeking “healing epistemologies” and a “revolutionary spirit.” Seeing themselves as people of the sun, the Aztecs believed that Huitzilopochtli needed daily nourishment of human blood and hearts, and brutally sacrificed hundreds of thousands of people in offering to him.

The chant ends with a request for “liberation, transformation, decolonization,” after which students shout “Panche beh! Panche beh!” which translates to “seeking the roots of the truth” or “think critically.”

[...] Christopher Rufo, the journalist who first exposed the most troubling elements of the proposed K-12 curriculum, says the curriculum is inspired by “calls for the ‘decolonization’ of American society,” and that colonization must be countered by “a ‘countergenocide’ against white Christians.”

The chants have a clear implication: the displacement of the Christian god, which is said to be an extension of white supremacist oppression, and the restoration of the indigenous gods to their rightful place in the social justice cosmology. It is, in a philosophical sense, a revenge of the gods,” wrote Rufo. “The religious element of the ethnic studies curriculum, with direct appeals to Aztec gods, is almost certainly a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. Public schools are prohibited from leading state-sanctioned Christian prayers; they would presumably be similarly prohibited from leading state-sanctioned chants to the Aztec god of human sacrifice.”


[Emphasis mine.]

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  Viganò: Pope Benedict ‘surrounded himself with inadequate, unreliable or even corrupt collaborators’
Posted by: Stone - 03-15-2021, 10:20 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò - No Replies

Viganò: Pope Benedict ‘surrounded himself with inadequate, unreliable or even corrupt collaborators’
Archbishop Viganò in a wide-ranging interview speaks of Pope Benedict's collaborators and the situation of the Church under Pope Francis

INTERVIEW WITH ARCHBISHOP CARLO MARIA VIGANÒ BY RADIO SPADA
(Translation and Notes on square brackets by Dr. Robert Moynihan. Printed by LifeSiteNews.com with permission of Archbishop Viganò.)


Radio Spada: Good morning, Your Excellency, we thank you for the dialogue we will have. Let’s begin with Galleria neovaticana [the book title may be translated as “The Neo-Vatican Gallery”], a new book by Marco Tosatti for which you wrote the Preface. Allow us to tell you an anecdote: only a few hours after the news that the book was going to press, a Twitter post appeared, based only on the book’s cover and title, obviously, asking how much in keeping with the Gospel it was to print a volume dedicated to scabrous accusations and facts that are not always edifying. What would you answer to this objection?

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò: Allow me to recall here that Benedict XVI, in the months preceding his decision to assume the singular title of “pope emeritus”, instituted a Commission of Cardinals, chaired by Cardinal [Julian] Herranz, and composed of Cardinals [Jozef] Tomko and [Salvatore] De Giorgi, with the task of carrying out a thorough investigation into the confidential information disseminated in the “Vatileaks” affair [in 2011]. On that occasion, I had to request of Cardinal Herranz more than once that I be allowed to add my testimony, since it was not his intention to question me even though I had been personally involved as the author of confidential documents intended for the Pontiff which were stolen and delivered to the press. I gave them a substantial dossier in which I set forth all of the dysfunctions [of the Roman Curia] and described the network of corruption that I had come to know about and that I had to face as Secretary-General of the Vatican’ Governorate. I accompanied that dossier of mine with a cover letter in which, among other things, I wrote as follows.

Quote:“I am very saddened by the serious damage caused to the Church and to the Holy See by the leaking of so many confidential documents... If there are some who are responsible for such rash acts, far graver is the fault of those who have been responsible for so much corruption and moral degradation in the Holy See and in the Vatican City State, and far graver is the fault of some cardinals, prelates and lay people who, despite knowing (of these things), preferred to live with so much filth, putting their consciences to sleep in order to please the powerful superior and make an ecclesial career. I hope that at least this Commission of Cardinals, out of love for the Church, will be faithful to the Holy Father and will carry out all the necessary cleaning desired by him and will not allow this initiative of his to be covered up once again... Numerous journalists from various countries have sought to contact me... I remained silent, out of love for the Church and the Holy Father. The power of truth must flow from within the Church and not from the media… I pray for you Cardinals, that you may have the courage to tell the truth to the Holy Father; and I pray for the Holy Father, that he may have the strength to make the truth come to light in the Church.”

[Note: It seems fitting to note that this critique of Church corruption was made by Viganò in about 2011, under Pope Benedict; this puts what Viganò wrote about in his August 25, 2018 Testimony in a new light. The 2018 Testimony was, clearly, not the first time Viganò attempted to shed light on internal Church corruption; he had tried to shed that light in an internal investigation seven years earlier... RM]

That mass of information, together with the other evidence collected by the three Cardinals, would have allowed a cleansing operation: everything has been covered up! And it can only constitute a further element of blackmail for the names contained therein and, for the past eight years now, an occasion for discrediting those who, on the other hand, have faithfully served the Church and the Holy See.

Necesse est enim ut veniant scandala; verumtamen væ homini per quem scandalum venit (Mt 18:7). [For it must happen that scandals come; but woe unto those through whom the scandals come.]” Denouncing the corruption of clerics and prelates has imposed itself as a gesture of charity towards the faithful and an act of justice towards the tormented Church, because on the one hand it warns the people of God against wolves disguised as lambs and shows them for what they are, and on the other hand it shows that the Bride of Christ is the victim of a little group of conspirators [“conventicola” in the original Italian] of lustful men greedy for power, a group which, once removed [from positions of power in the Church], the Church can return to preaching the Gospel. It is not the one who brings to light the scandals who sins against evangelical charity, but the one who carries out those scandals and covers them up. The words of the Lord are very clear on this point.

Radio Spada: As we know, going beyond the moral theme, it is impossible not to identify in the doctrinal collapse the very hinge of the present crisis in the Church. In regard to this, on a number of occasions, you have expressed sharp criticism of Vatican II. On this point, we would ask you for a further specification. Speaking with [veteran Italian Vaticanist] Sandro Magister, you said: “The beautiful fable of hermeneutics – albeit authoritative for its Author – nevertheless remains an attempt to give the dignity of a Council to a real ambush against the Church.” May we, therefore, clarify that the problem is not identifiable only since Vatican II but in Vatican II? In other words: did the revolutionary process have a turning point in the “Council” and not only after the “Council”? So to place under accusation not simply with the postconciliar “Spirit of Vatican II,” but also the letter of the Council documents themselves?

Archbishop Viganò: I don’t see how one can maintain that there is a presumed orthodox Vatican II that no one has talked about for years, betrayed by a spirit of the Council that everyone also praised. The spirit of the Council is what animates it, what determines its nature, particularity, characteristics. And if the spirit is heterodox while the conciliar texts do not seem to be doctrinally heretical, this is to be attributed to a shrewd move by the conspirators, to the naiveté of the Council Fathers, and to the complicity of those who preferred to look elsewhere, from the beginning, rather than take a stand with a clear condemnation of doctrinal, moral and liturgical deviations.

The first to be perfectly well aware of the importance of putting their hand to the conciliar texts in order to be able to use them for their own purposes were progressive cardinals and bishops, particularly the Germans and the Dutch, with their experts [periti]. It was no coincidence that they managed to reject the Preparatory Schemas prepared by the Holy Office and ignored the desiderata [the requests] of the world’s bishops, including the condemnation of modern errors, especially of atheistic communism; they also succeeded in preventing the proclamation of a Marian dogma, seeing in it an “obstacle” to ecumenical dialogue. The new leadership of Vatican II was possible thanks to a real coup d’état, the pre-eminent role of the Jesuit (Augustin) Bea [1881-1968], and the support of Roncalli [Pope John XXIII, Pope from 1959 to 1963]. If the Schemas had been kept [as the basis for the Council’s documents; but they were put aside just after the Council began, in the fall of 1962, and not kept] nothing that came out of the Commissions [which were set up in the fall of 1962 to draft the Council’s documents, once the Council decided to set aside the prepared Schemas] would have been possible, because the Schemas were constructed on an Aristotelian-Thomistic model that did not permit equivocal formulations.

The letter itself of the Council [i.e., the text of the Council documents] must therefore be placed under accusation [the Italian is “messo sotto accusa”], because it is from this that the revolution started. On the other hand: could you give me a case in the history of the Church in which an Ecumenical Council was deliberately formulated in an equivocal way to ensure that what it taught in its official acts was then subverted and contradicted in practice? Look: this alone [i.e., the fact that ambiguity and equivocation were deliberately woven into certain passages in the conciliar texts] is enough to catalogue Vatican II as a unique case, an hapax [hapax is a Greek word meaning once, one time, a unique case] on which scholars can try their hand, but which will have to find a solution through the Supreme Authority of the Church.

Radio Spada: How did you become aware of this crisis? A gradual process? A sudden insight developed only recently?

Archbishop Viganò: My awareness was progressive, and it started relatively early. But understanding, or beginning to suspect, that what was presented to us as the fruit of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit was actually suggested by the inimicus homo [“the enemy of man,” i.e., the devil] was not enough to collapse that sense of dutiful obedience to the Hierarchy, even in the presence of multiple proofs of the bad faith and the malice of some of its members. As I have already had occasion to declare, what we saw then materialize – I speak, for example, of some novelties like episcopal collegiality or ecumenism or the Novus Ordo Missae – could appear as attempts to meet the common desire for renewal, in the wake of post-war reconstruction. Faced with the economic boom and major political events, the Church seemed to have to somehow rejuvenate herself, or so everyone was telling us, starting with the Holy Father. Those accustomed to pre-conciliar discipline, to the respect for Authority, to the veneration of the Roman Pontiff, did not even dare to think that what was surreptitiously shown to us as a means to spread the Faith and convert many souls to the Catholic Church was actually a vehicle, a deception behind which was hidden, in the minds of some, the intention to progressively cancel the Faith and leave souls in error and sin. Those “novelties” pleased almost no one, least of all the lay people, but they were presented to us as a sort of penance to accept, having in exchange a greater spread of the Gospel, and the moral and spiritual rebirth of a West prostrate due to the Second World War and threatened by materialism.

Radical changes began with Paul VI, with the liturgical reform and the drastic prohibition of the Tridentine Mass. I felt personally wounded and helpless when, as a young secretary to the then Apostolic Delegation of London [in the 1970s], the Holy See forbid the Una Voce Association to celebrate even one Mass according to the Ancient Rite in the crypt of Westminster Cathedral.

During the pontificate of John Paul II, some of the more extreme trends of the Council found a propulsive push in the pantheon of Assisi [1986], in the encounters in mosques and synagogues, in the requests for forgiveness for the Crusades and Inquisition, in the so-called “purification of memory.” The possibly subversive power of Dignitatis humanae and of Nostra aetate were evident in those years.

Then came Benedict XVI and his liberalization of the traditional liturgy, up until then ostentatiously opposed, despite the papal concessions following the Episcopal consecrations of Ecône [in 1988]. Unfortunately, the ecumenical exaggerations did not cease even with Ratzinger, and with them the conciliar ideology that justified them. The resignation of Benedict and the coming of Bergoglio continue to open the eyes of many people, especially of lay faithful.

Radio Spada: A distinct but connected theme is that relating to the protagonists of the conciliar and post-conciliar season. Let’s stop for a moment on the figure of Ratzinger: the role of the Bavarian theologian both at Vatican II and after is undeniable, albeit with different nuances (we recall that, from 1981 to 2005, he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, from 2005 to 2013 he reigned on the Throne of Peter, since 2013 he is “Pope Emeritus”). For our part, the judgment on the significance of Ratzingerism is certainly negative: under his administration at the CDF, the same deviations that today we see explicitly “flourishing” flourished; as soon as he was elected to the Chair of Peter he removed the tiara from the papal coat-of-arms; he continued on the path of indifferentist ecumenism by renewing the scandalous celebrations in Assisi; he wrote that “Luther’s thought, his entire spirituality, was entirely Christocentric”; in the Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum [July 7, 2007] he defined the Mass of all time and the Novus Ordo as two forms of the same rite (when on the contrary they imply two totally different theologies); he then created this unlikely hybrid of the “Pope Emeritus dressed in white” who – leaving aside intentions, which we do not judge – seems to be not only a dangerous misunderstanding but an almost necessary cog in the dualism that animates the current dynamic of ecclesial dissolution. These few examples, which could be followed by many others, are in our opinion revealing of the fact that Ratzinger has always been on the “other side of the fence,” albeit with roles and positions that are not identical. We have already seen your statement on the “beautiful tale of hermeneutics,” but also on other occasions, you have pointed out some problematic aspects of Ratzinger’s thought. We refer in particular to a recent statement on LifeSiteNews in which you argued: “However, it would be desirable that, especially in consideration of the Divine Judgment that awaits him, he definitively distances himself from those theologically incorrect positions – I am referring in particular to those of the Introduction to Christianity – which are still widespread today in universities and seminaries that pride themselves on calling themselves Catholic.” We, therefore, ask you: if you were to summarize your judgment on the thought of the Bavarian theologian, what would you say to our readers? Furthermore: You have had the opportunity to work closely with Benedict XVI, what can you tell us about him on the human level? It is not, mind you, a question about private things, but about the personality that he was able to get to know closely.

Archbishop Viganò: The points you have listed, albeit with some nuances, unfortunately, find me in agreement, not without considerable pain. Many acts of the government of Benedict XVI are in line with the conciliar ideology, of which the theologian Ratzinger was always a staunch and convinced supporter. His Hegelian philosophical approach led him to apply the thesis-antithesis-synthesis scheme in the Catholic context, for example, by considering the documents of Vatican II (thesis) and the excesses of the post-conciliar period (antithesis) things to be reconciled in his famous “hermeneutics of continuity” (synthesis); nor is the invention of the Emeritus Papacy an exception, where between being Pope (thesis) and no longer being Pope (antithesis), the compromise was chosen to remain Pope only in part (synthesis). The same mens [mind, mentality] lay behind the decision to liberalize the traditional liturgy, while flanking it with its conciliar counterpart in an attempt not to upset either the proponents of the liturgical revolution or the defenders of the venerable Tridentine rite.

The problem is therefore of an intellectual, ideological matrix: it emerges every time the Bavarian theologian wanted to give a solution to the crisis that afflicts the Church: on all these occasions his academic formation influenced by the thought of Hegel believed he could put opposites together. I have no reason to doubt that Benedict XVI desired, in his own way, to make a gesture of reconciliation with the hopes of Catholic traditionalism; nor that he is not aware of the disastrous situation in which the ecclesial body finds itself. But the only way to restore the Church is by following the Gospel, with a supernatural gaze and with the awareness that Good and Evil, by God’s decree, cannot be put together in an unreal juste milieu [happy medium] but that they are and remain irreconcilable and opposed, and that serving two masters ends up making them both unhappy.

As for my direct acquaintance with Benedict XVI, I can say that in the years of his Pontificate, in which I served the Church in the Secretariat of State, in the Governorate, and as Nuncio in the United States, I got the idea that he surrounded himself with inadequate, unreliable or even corrupt collaborators, who have largely taken advantage of the “meekness” of his character and of what could be considered as a certain “Stockholm syndrome” [i.e., a syndrome in which a prisoner, in a certain sense, comes to love those who have imprisoned him] especially towards Cardinal Bertone and towards his own personal secretary [G.G.].

Radio Spada: In some articles that appeared on CatholicFamilyNews.com it was noted that your position on the situation of the Church is close to that of Archbishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, one of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre. From the same source was reported a sentence by you according to which Archbishop Lefevbre himself would be an exemplary confessor of the Faith. Also, in the light of your firm criticism of Vatican II and, on the other hand, of your non-adherence to sedevacantism, it would seem that the approach you promote is very close to that of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X. Can you tell us something about it?

Archbishop Viganò: From many parts of the Catholic world, especially in the conservative milieux, we hear it said that Benedict XVI is the “true Pope” and that Bergoglio is an “antipope.” This opinion is based, on the one hand, on the belief that his Renunciation is invalid (due to the way it was formulated, due to pressure exerted by external forces or the distinction between munus [office] and papal ministerium [ministry]) and, on the other hand, on the fact that a group of progressive Cardinals is said to have tried to have their own candidate elected at the Conclave of 2013, in violation of the norms of the Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis of John Paul II. Beyond the plausibility of these arguments, which if confirmed could invalidate Bergoglio's election, this problem can only be solved by the Supreme Authority of the Church, when Providence deigns to put an end to this situation of very serious confusion.

Radio Spada: Let’s talk about the future. In these stormy years, you have intended to serve the Church with written interventions, with videos, participating in initiatives, and with all the activities that those who follow you know well. For the future, do you see the possibility that your episcopal mission will take different forms? Are you thinking of any specific activities? Of a greater public presence?

Archbishop Viganò: My age, the vicissitudes of recent years, and the situation of the Church do not allow me to make plans, as I have never made plans in my entire life. I let Providence dispose of me as it sees fit, showing me from time to time the path I must take. I sincerely hope that my testimony, especially as regards the understanding of the deception that is taking place in the Church, may allow the Cardinals, and my Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood, to open their eyes, in a gesture of humility, courage and confidence in the power of God. We cannot continue to defend the cause and origin of our present crisis just because we do not want to acknowledge that we have been misled: this obstinacy in error would be a worse fault than the error itself.

Radio Spada: We thank you for having answered our questions: we hope there will be opportunities for future comparisons.


March 11, 2021
Feria Quinta infra Hebdomadam III in Quadragesima

[Emphasis mine.]

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  Fourth Week in Lent [Monday - Saturday]
Posted by: Stone - 03-15-2021, 06:50 AM - Forum: Lent - Replies (5)

Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Gueranger (1841-1875)

[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi5.walmartimages.com%2F...f=1&nofb=1]


The Station is in the venerable Church of the Four Crowned (Brothers); their names are Severus, Severianus, Carpophorus, and Victorinus; they suffered martyrdom under the persecution of Diocletian. Their bodies, as also the Head of the great Martyr St. Sebastian, are among the Relics of this Church.

Collect
Præsta, quæsumus, omnipotens Deus: ut observationes sacras annua devotione recolentes, et corpore tibi placeamus et mente. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen. 
Grant, we beseech thee, O Almighty God, that we, who annually celebrate this holy fast, may be well pleasing to thee, both in body and mind. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.


Epistle
Lesson from the Book of Kings. III Ch. III.

In those days: Two women that were harlots, came to King Solomon, and stood before him; and one of them said: I beseech thee, my lord, I and this woman dwelt in one house, and I was delivered of a child with her in the chamber. And the third day after that I was delivered, she also delivered; and we were together, and no other person with us in the house, only we two. And this woman’s child died in the night, for in her sleep she overlaid him; and rising in the dead time of the night, she took my child from my side, while thy handmaid was asleep, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom. And when I rose in the morning to give my child suck, behold it was dead; but considering him more diligently when it was clear day, I found that it was not mine which I bore. And the other woman answered: It is not so as thou sayest, but thy child is dead, and mine is alive. On the contrary she said: Thou liest, for my child liveth, and thy child is dead. And in this manner they strove before the king. Then saith the king: The one saith my child is alive, and thy child is dead: and the other answereth: Nay, but thy child is dead, and mine liveth. The king therefore said: Bring me a sword. And when they had brought a sword before the king, Divide, said he, the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other. But the women, whose child was alive, said to the king (for her bowels were moved upon her child), I beseech thee, my lord, give her the child alive, and do not kill it. But the other said: Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it. The king answered and said: Give the living child to this woman and let it not be killed, for she is the mother thereof. And all Israel heard the judgment which the king had judged, and they feared the king, seeing that the wisdom of God was in him to do judgment.

Quote:St. Paul explained to us, in yesterday’s Epistle, the antagonism that there is between the Synagogue and the Church; he showed us how Sara’s son, who was the father’s favourite, was persecuted by the son of Agar. The two women, who appear before Solomon, are another figure of the same truth. The child they both lay claim to, is the Gentile people, which has ‘been brought to the knowledge of the true God. The Synagogue, typified by the woman who has caused death to her child, has misled the people confided to her care; and now unjustly claims one that does not belong to her. And whereas it is not from any motherly affection, but only from pride, that she puts forward such a claim, it matters little to her what becomes of the child, provided only he be not given to the true mother, the Church. Solomon, the King of Peace, who is one of the Scriptural types of Christ, adjudges the child to her that has given him birth, and nourished him; and the pretensions of the false mother are rejected. Let us, then, love our mother, the Holy Church, the Spouse of Jesus. It is she has made us children of God by Baptism. She has fed us with the Bread of Life; she has given us the Holy Spirit; and, when we had the misfortune to relapse into death by sin, she, by the divine power given to her, has restored us to life. A filial love for the Church is the sign of the Elect; obedience to her commandments is the mark of a soul in which God has set his kingdom.


Gospel
Sequel of the Holy Gospel according to John. Ch. II.

At that time the Pasch of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And he found in the temple them that sold oxen, and sheep, and doves, and the changers of money sitting. And when he had made as it were a scourge of little cords he drove them all out of the temple, the sheep also and the oxen; and the money of the changers he poured out, and the tables he overthrew. And he said to them that sold doves: Take these things hence, and make not the house of my Father a house of traffic. And his disciples remembered that it was written: “The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up,” Then the Jews answered and said to him: What sign dost these thou shew us, seeing thou dost these things? Jesus answered and said to them: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews then said: Six and forty years was this temple in building, and wilt thou raise it in three days? But he spoke of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen again from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture, and the word that Jesus had said. Now when he was at Jerusalem, at the Pasch, on the festival day, many believed in his name, seeing his signs which he did. But Jesus did not trust himself to them, because he knew all men, and because he needed not that any should give testimony of man, for he knew what was in man.

Quote:We read, in the Gospel of the first Tuesday of Lent, that Jesus drove from the Temple them that were making it a place of traffic. He twice showed this zeal for his Father’s House. The passage we have just read from St. John refers to the first time. Both occasions are brought before us during this Season of Lent, because this conduct of our Savior shows us with what severity he will treat a soul that harbors sin within her. Our souls are the Temple of God, created and sanctified by God to the end that he might dwell there. He would have nothing to be in them which is unworthy of their destination. This is the Season for self-examination; and if we have found that any passions are profaning the sanctuary of our souls, let us dismiss them; let us beseech our Lord to drive them out by the scourge of his justice, for we, perhaps, might be too lenient with these sacrilegious intruders. The day of pardon is close at hand; let us make ourselves worthy to receive it. There is an expression in our Gospel which deserves a special notice. 

The Evangelist is speaking to those Jews who were more sincere than the rest, and believed in Jesus, because of the miracles he wrought; he says: Jesus did not trust himself to them, because he knew all men. So that there may be persons who believe in and acknowledge Jesus, yet whose hearts are not changed! Oh! the hardness of man’s heart! Oh! cruel anxiety for God’s Priests! Sinners and worldlings are now crowding round the Confessional; they have faith, and they confess their sins! And the Church has no confidence in their repentance! She knows that, a very short time after the Feast of Easter, they will have relapsed into the same state in which they were on the day when she marked their foreheads with ashes. These souls are divided between God and the world; and she trembles as she thinks on the danger they are about to incur by receiving Holy Communion without the preparation of a true conversion. Yet on the other side, she remembers how it is written that the bruised reed is not to be broken, nor the smoking flax to be extinguished. Let us pray for these souls, whose state is so full of doubt and danger. Let us also pray for the Priests of the Church, that they may receive from God abundant rays of that light, whereby Jesus knew what was in man.

Humiliate capita vestra Deo. 
Bow down your heads to God.

Deprecationem nostram, quæsumus, Domine, benignus exaudi: et quibus supplicandi præstas affectum, tribue defensionis auxilium. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.
We beseech thee, O Lord, hear our prayer, and grant us thy protection, as it is thou who inspirest us to ask it. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Let us pray for the conversion of Sinners, using the beautiful Preface given us by the Roman Pontifical, which was formerly recited during the Reconciliation of the public Penitents.
Preface
Vere dignum et justum est, æquum et salutare, nos tibi semper, et ubique gratias agere, Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens, æterne Deus, per Christum Dominum nostrum: Quem, omnipotens Genitor, ineffabiliter nasci voluisti, ut debitum Adæ tibi persolveret æterno Patri, mortemque nostram sua interficeret, et vulnera nostra in suo corpore ferret, nostrasque maculas sanguine suo dilueret; et qui antiqui hostis corrueramus invidia, et ipsius resurgeremus clementia. Te per eum, Domine, supplices rogamus ac petimus, ut pro aliorum excessibus nos dignieris exaudiere, qui pro nostris non sufficimus exorare. Tu igitur, clementissime Domine, os famulos tuos, qos a te separaverunt flagitia, ad te revoca pietate solita. Tu namque nec Achab scelestissimi humiliationem despexisti, sed vindictam debitam protulisti. Petrum quoque lacrymantem exaudisti, clavesque postmodum cœlestis regni ipsi tradidisti; et confidenti latroni ejusdem regni præmia promisisti. Ergo, clementissime Domine, hos, pro quibus preces tibi fundimus, clemens recollige, et tuæ Ecclesiæ gremio redde, ut nequaquam de eis valeat triumphare hostis, sed tibi reconciliet Filius, tibi coæqualis, emundetque eos ab omni facinore, et ad tuæ sacratissimæ Cœnæ dapes dignetur admittere. Sicque sua carne, et sanguine reficiat, ut post hujus vitæ cursum ad cœlestia regna perducat. 


It is truly meet and just, right and available to salvation, that we should always and in all places give thanks to thee, O Holy Lord, Almighty Father, Eternal God, through Christ our Lord: Whom tho, O Almighty Father, didst will should be born among us by an ineffable Birth, that so he might pay to thee, his Eternal Father, the debt contracted by Adam, and put our death to death by his own, and bear our wounds in his own Flesh, and cleanse away our stains by his Blood; hereby enabling us, who had fallen by the envy of the old enemy, to rise again by his mercy. Through him, O Lord, we suppliantly beseech and pray thee that thou mayest graciously hear us making intercession for the sins of others, who are not worthy to plead for our own. Do thou, O most merciful Lord, recall to thyself, with thy wonted goodness, these thy servants, who have separated themselves from thee by their sins. For neither didst thou reject the most wicked Achab when he humbled himself before thee, but didst avert from him the punishment he had deserved. So, likewise, didst thou graciously hear Peter, when he wept, and didst afterwards give to him the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and thou didst promise the reward of that same kingdom to the Thief when he trusted in thee. Therefore, O most merciful Lord! mercifully welcome back these for whom we offer to thee our prayers, and restore them to the bosom of thy Church, that the enemy may not triumph over them, but that they may be reconciled unto thee by thy co-equal Son, and by Him be cleansed from their guilt, and graciously admitted by Him to the banquet of thy most Holy Supper. May he in such wise refresh them by his Flesh and Blood, as to lead them, after this life’s course is run, to the kingdom of heaven.

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  Fourth Sunday in Lent
Posted by: Stone - 03-14-2021, 05:31 PM - Forum: Lent - Replies (5)

INSTRUCTION ON THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT. (LÆTARE.)
Taken from Fr. Goffine's Explanations of the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays, Holydays, and Festivals throughout the Ecclesiastical Year 36th edition, 1880

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THE Introit of this day's Mass, which begins with the word Laetare, is as follows: Rejoice, O Jerusalem, and come together all you that love her; rejoice with joy you that have been in sorrow: that you may exult, and be filled from the breasts of your consolation. (Isai. Ixvi. 10. 11.) I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: We shall go into the house of the Lord. (Ps. cxxi. 1.) Glory be to the Father, &c.


PRAYER OF THE CHURCH. Grant, we beseech Thee, almighty God, that we who justly suffer for our deeds may be relieved by the consolation of Thy grace. Through &c.


EPISTLE. (Gat. iv. 22 — 31.) Brethren, it is written that Abraham had two sons; the one by a bondwoman and the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh; but he of the free-woman was by promise: which things are said by an allegory. For these are the two testaments. The one from Mount Sinai, engendering unto bondage, which is Agar: for Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which hath affinity to that Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But that Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our mother. For it is written: Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not: break forth and cry, thou that travailest not; for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that hath a husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born according to the flesh persecuted him that was after the spirit, so also it is now. But what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. So, then, brethren, we are not the children of the bondwoman, but of the free: by the freedom where with Christ hath made us free.

Quote:EXPLANATION. It was the common custom, in the days of the patriarchs, for a man to have more than one wife. This was permitted by God, partly because they and their descendants would hardly have been satisfied with one marriage, (Matt. xix. 8.) partly because bigamy was a means of promoting the increase of the people of Israel, typical of the future increase of the children of God. Thus Abraham had two wives, who had each a son; of these Ismael was born to Abraham from his bondwoman Agar, in the natural way; the other, Isaac, the son of the free wife Sara, was born in a supernatural manner according to the promise, (Gen. viii. 11. 14.) that she by the grace of God, although aged, would give birth to a son. These two women with their sons were types, as St. Paul says, of the two Testaments: Agar the bond- woman typified the Old, Sara, the free-woman, the New Testament; the son of Agar, the Jews, the son of Sara, the Christians; for the Jews, like Ismael, are descendants of Abraham by natural descent, but the Christians, like Isaac, by grace. The Old Testament gave birth only to servants; for the Jews obeyed the commandments of God through fear of punishment, and in hope of temporal reward: the New Testament, the Jerusalem from above, that is,the Christian Church, gives birth to children who willingly and through love obey the commandments of God. Although the Christian Church, the New Jerusalem, chosen from heathenism, was in the beginning barren, as- Was Sara, she gives birth, by the grace of God and through His apostles, to more children than the Jewish Church, which was so long the Church of God, that is, more were converted to Christianity from the Gentiles than from the Jews. The latter even hated and persecuted the Christians, as did Ismael his brother Isaac. For their hardness of heart they were cast out by God, like Agar and her son; that is, after the destruction of Jerusalem the Jews were dispersed to all parts of the world. Let us, therefore, give thanks to God, that through Jesus we have become the free children of our heavenly Father, who through love fulfil His holy will by which we shall be saved.

ASPIRATION. Give me the grace, O Jesus, that by prayer and fasting, and patience in all adversities and persecutions, I may be made less unworthy of Thy passion; that I may not, one day, be cast out by Thee, but become worthy of Thy divine promise and Thy eternal consolation in the heavenly Jerusalem.


GOSPEL. (John vi. i — 15.) At that time, Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is that of Tiberias; and a great multitude followed him, because they saw the miracles which he did on them that were diseased. Jesus therefore went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. Now the pasch, the festival day of the Jews, was near at hand. When Jesus therefore had lifted up his eyes, and seen that a very great multitude cometh to him, he said to Philip: Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat? And this he said to try him; for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered: Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one may take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, saith to him: There is a boy here that hath five barley loaves and two fishes: but what are these among so many? Then Jesus said: Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. The men therefore sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to them that were set down: in like manner also of the fishes, as much as they would. And when they were filled, he said to his disciples: Gather up the fragments that remain, lest they be lost. They gathered up, therefore, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above to them that had eaten. Now those men, when they had seen what a miracle Jesus had done, said: This is of a truth the prophet that is to come into the world. Jesus therefore when he knew that they would come to take him by force and, make him king, fled into the mountain himself alone.


Why did Christ try St. Philip?
To test his faith and confidence; to instruct us that before seeking supernatural means, we should first look for natural ways of providing; that the miracle of the multiplying of the loaves should be more marvelous to the people from having seen there was no provision; and that we may learn to trust in God, who is a helper in due time in tribulation. (Ps. ix. 10.)


What signs did Christ make use of in this miracle, and why?
According to St. Matthew (xiv. 19.) He lifted up His eyes to heaven , by which He showed that all good gifts come from above ; He gave thanks, thus teaching us to give God thanks for all His blessings."The table” says St. Chrysostom, "that is approached and is left with prayer will never know want, but the more richly yield its gifts." He blessed the bread showing us that the divine blessing increases all.


Why did Christ require them to gather up the fragments that were left?
That they should not be wasted or destroyed; that the greatness of the miracle should be made evident by the quantity of the fragments; and that we might learn to honor the gifts of God, even the most insignificant, and if we do not ourselves need them, give them to the poor.


Why did Christ, after this miracle, flee from the people?
Because after this miracle the people recognized in him the Messiah, and would have made Him king. He wished to teach us to flee from praise and honor, and in all our actions seek not our own, but God's glory.


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CONSOLATION IN POVERTY.

THIS gospel gives the account of Christ providing for those who followed and listened to Him, which is indeed consoling for the poor. God from the beginning of the world has always cared for His own. For the aid and comfort of His chosen people in time of famine God sent Joseph, the son of the Patriarch Jacob, in advance into Egypt: (Gen. xlv. 5.) for forty years He fed the children of Israel in the desert with bread from heaven; (Deut. viii. 2. 3.) He fed the Prophet Elias by a raven; (hi Kings vii. 6.) and thought of Daniel in the lions' den. (Dan. xiv. 37.) In the New Testament God shows His merciful care for His own, because in great need He fed them marvellously through angels, men, and even animals, as we frequently see in the lives of the saints. Truly has David said: God forsakes not the just, I have been young, and am now old: and I have not seen the just forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread, (Ps. xxxvi. 25.) that is, one who sincerely serves Him, and seeks before all the kingdom of God and His justice, as Christ commands. {Luke xii. 31.) Strive to be a faithful child, and you will have God for your father, and with King David you can cast your care upon the Lord, and He will sustain you. You must not think it is enough to pray and trust in God, He demands that you should use your strength to receive help, for if any man will not work, neither let him eat. (ii Thess. iii. 10.)


ASPIRATION. In Thy omnipotence and goodness, O my God, I put my trust, firmly believing that if 1 fear Thee, serve Thee faithfully, and avoid evil, I shall not be abandoned in poverty, but receive many good things. Amen.


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INSTRUCTION ON PREPARATION FOR EASTER


Now the Pasch the festival day of the Jews, was near at hand. (John vi. 4)

IF we would sing a joyful Alleluia with the Church on the festival of Easter, we must fulfil her desire, and prepare ourselves to celebrate it worthily. Therefore, we should shun improper, clamorous meetings, and retire often to pray in solitude, especially to meditate on the bitter sufferings of our Saviour, for when man is alone, God speaks to his heart. (Osee ii. 14.) We should carefully examine our conscience, and consider how we stand before God, for upon this day shall be the expiation for you, and the cleansing from all your sins: you shall be cleansed before the Lord; for it is a Sabbath of rest, and you shall afflict your souls, that is, by fasting, watching, and praying. (Lev.xvi. 30—31.) From this Sunday until Easter we should fast more strictly, give more alms to the poor if we are able, or if poor ourselves, bear our poverty more patiently, offering it to Christ in union with His poverty, His hunger, thirst, &c; we should make a sincere and contrite confession, and purify our heart from the old leaven of iniquity, that we may keep the Easter meal with Christ in the unleavened bread of purity and truth. (1 Cor. v. 7. 8.) For this end we should incite our- selves to holy desires, rise from sin, which is the death of the soul.

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  April 20th - St. Agnes of Monte Pulciano and St. Marcellinus
Posted by: Elizabeth - 03-14-2021, 01:53 PM - Forum: April - No Replies

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Saint Agnes of Monte Pulciano
Virgin
(1274-1317)

Saint Agnes was born in Italy in 1274, a gentle future glory of the Order of Saint Dominic. Her father was an eminent Christian who dwelt in the village of Gracciano Vecchio, near the Lake of Perugia in central Italy. On the very day of her birth a first miracle announced to those present that this was a predestined child: mysterious burning torches appeared, shining brilliantly near her crib. Already at the age of four the little girl used to retire in solitude to pray to Jesus, her love.

When she was nine she asked her parents to enter a monastery; they opposed this wish, not certain of the will of God. But after she had prayed fervently that opinions might be changed, she was allowed to join the Sisters of Monte Pulciano who were living under the Rule of Saint Augustine. They soon venerated her as resembling an angel of paradise. When she reached the age of fourteen, to test her they assigned to her the prosaic duties of stewardess of her monastery, an office in which she would have to provide for the material needs of the Sisters and keep accounts; they wanted to see whether these occupations would detach her from her spirit of uninterrupted prayer. They were edified to see her carry out her duties cheerfully, in perfect obedience, without murmuring in any way and without her piety being in any way altered. Whenever a Sister needed any service, the response of Saint Agnes was always characterized by grace and charity.

Saint Agnes already had the reputation of sanctity; a number of persons had seen her raised in the air nearly two feet above ground. And when the residents of Procena, a neighboring town, decided to build a monastery for their daughters, they came to ask for her as its first Superior. She was at that time fifteen years old, and her humility was affrighted by this request. But she was commanded by the Sovereign Pontiff to accept the office as proposed. This experience would prepare her for a later important work, that of founding a large monastery in honor of the Mother of God at Monte Pulciano; the Blessed Virgin had already appeared to her and told her that it would be founded on faith in the Most High and undivided Trinity.
As the years passed, it occurred sometimes that where she knelt in prayer, flowers sprang up — violets, lilies and roses. One year, during the night of the Assumption, the Mother of the Saviour appeared to her again and placed the Infant Jesus in her arms. Saint Agnes succeeded in founding the foretold monastery, in which she presided over twenty cloistered Dominican Sisters; an Angel had told her to establish it under the Rule of Saint Dominic.

During her last illness, she was sent to bathe in curative waters; during her journey there she brought back to life a child who had drowned. Her health did not improve, but a spring welled up nearby which cured others and was named the water of Saint Agnes. Saint Agnes returned to her monastery and prepared for death. She died at the age of 43 on April 20, 1317. Miracles occurred at her tomb, as they had during her lifetime, and she was beatified in 1534, canonized in 1726. Her first biographer was Raymond of Capua, the confessor of Saint Catherine of Siena.



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Saint Marcellinus
Bishop of Embrun
(† 374)

Saint Marcellinus was born in Africa of a noble family; with two other Christians desiring to evangelize Gaul, Vincent and Domninus, he went to Pope Saint Damasus. The young men were sent to Eusebius, bishop of Verceil, who encouraged them for their mission and announced to them that they would have much to suffer. The three were ordained, and Marcellinus was consecrated bishop of Embrun by Eusebius and the bishop of Valencia. The gift of miracles fortified the preaching of Marcellinus at Embrun, in a region bordering on the Alps, while his companions continued their labors at Digne. Saint Domninus was later consecrated bishop of Digne by Saint Marcellinus, and energetically protected his flock from the errors of Arius; eventually Saint Vincent succeeded him there.

Marcellinus built at Embrun a chapel in which he passed his nights in prayer, after laboring all day in the exercise of his sacred calling. By his pious example, as well as by his earnest words and his miracles, he converted many of the pagans among whom he lived. A striking miracle, added to these influences, brought the entire population of Embrun into the church, with the exception of one idolater, who later also abandoned his gods. The waters in the nearby baptistry were increased, without the human intervention which had been proposed, to accommodate great numbers of catechumens who, during the feast of Christmas, would be baptized. The same event occurred again at Easter, and the sick were healed by the waters. For as long as the ancient baptistry remained standing, the miracle was renewed, as Saint Gregory of Tours and Saint Adon of Vienne attest — that is, for more than five hundred years.

Saint Marcellinus died at Embrun about the year 374, and was interred there. Saint Gregory of Tours, who speaks of him in terms of highest praise, narrates some of the countless miracles which multiplied at his tomb.

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  Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
Posted by: Stone - 03-13-2021, 11:11 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism - Replies (144)

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
A Plea for Silent Participation in the Liturgy

Taken from here. All emphasis in the original.

NB: It is my understanding that the following series of articles by Dr. Bryne were later compiled into the same book (Born of Revolution: A Misconceived Liturgical Movement) Fr. Hewko has been reading excerpts of in recent sermons, here. - The Catacombs


Introduction

By common consent, the post-Vatican II Hierarchy of the Church maintains that “active participation” of all the faithful in the liturgy is “the aim to be considered before all else” (1) – even, as it turned out, before respect for Tradition, reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, a sense of the transcendent, or decorum and modesty in the house of God.

Just how did the Bishops arrive at this astonishing conclusion? By falsely presenting the reforms they have implemented as a continuation of the work of Pope Pius X whose motu proprio, Tra le Sollecitudini (TLS) first contained the word “active” in its Italian (though not, significantly, in its Latin) version to describe lay participation in the Mass.

It is pertinent to ask how such a word, dangerously imprecise in its scope, could have found its way into a juridical code of sacred music intended to apply the Pope’s instructions on the liturgy with the force of law and by his own Apostolic Authority.

“Activity” had never been a defining characteristic of lay participation at Mass throughout the Church’s history. Therefore, some explanation is needed as to why it suddenly acquired an overwhelming significance in the early part of the 20th century and how it came to have a far reaching effect in the Liturgical Movement.

History has shown that the single word “active” created a Mexican wave that rippled through the 20th century, gathering momentum as it went, until it engulfed the entire Church with the blessing of Vatican II’s Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium on the Liturgy (1963). Ever since, “active participation” has taken on a life of its own and continues to be reinforced with a zeal surpassed only by the hostility of the reformers for the traditional Latin Mass.

We know from one of the progressivist Fathers of Vatican II, Card. Godfried Danneels of Belgium who had been involved in drafting the Constitution on the Liturgy, that the aim of “active participation” was to democratize the liturgy by blurring the distinction between priestly and lay roles:

“From its very beginnings, the aim of the liturgical movement, which originated in Belgium in 1909, was to close the gap between the official liturgy of the priest and that of the people. The term ‘active participation’ was born out of this movement and has since become part of our common usage.” (2)

Its usage has become so common that hardly anyone now stands aghast at the suggestion that lay people can be “empowered” to exercise an official role in the liturgy through their “active participation.” This was a concept promoted by Vatican II, but the traditional teaching of the Church, as explained by Pope Pius XII in Mediator Dei, is different. (3)

From this we learn that the priest, through the Sacrament of Ordination, acts in the name of the Church, in an official act of the liturgy. Lay people, however, by virtue of their Baptism, merely associate themselves with the official liturgy through internal participation (by faith and prayer).

The result of the new emphasis on “active participation” was that the people in the pews, who had generally participated in the ceremonies of the Roman rite in silence, were now transformed into rivals in a liturgical war with the clergy over the right to officiate in the public prayer of the Church.


St. Pius X’s Intentions

The subject matter of Tra le Sollecitudini was the restoration of sacred music, particularly Gregorian chant, in the Church’s liturgy. Its purpose was to lay down the true principles of liturgical music, both vocal and instrumental, to be disseminated throughout the world.

It is of the greatest importance to our study that this motu proprio was not about congregational singing in the liturgy but about the clergy and the choir as the only legitimate executors of liturgical chant. It laid down no obligation for the congregation to join in the chant or requirement for lay people (apart from selected choir members) to be trained in liturgical singing. Nor did it state or even imply that silence on the part of the congregation indicated an absence or deficiency in their full participation in the liturgy.


Some Points of Concern

The motu proprio was first published in Italian on November 22, 1903, in the Acta Sanctae Sedis, the official organ of the Holy See, but the Latin version bearing the same date did not see the light of day until much later, after many intervening documents. Both texts can be accessed .pdf]here. (4)

This wide separation of the texts is a departure from the protocol observed by the compilers of the Acta Sanctae Sedis, who normally published vernacular and Latin texts consecutively for the purposes of transparency and convenient reference. Furthermore, it was uncharacteristic of the Holy See’s policy to issue a legislative document of such weight and solemnity concerning the entire Catholic world in the vernacular and only much later in the universal language of the Church.

Another notable anomaly is the manner in which the Latin version is dated. Instead of the customary format found in the Acta Sanctae Sedis since 1865, it was written according to the method of calculation of the ancient Romans as X Kalendas Decembris. Thus the impression is given that the Latin text had been composed long after TLS, as if it were an afterthought and of relative unimportance. Only those who are familiar with the ancient dating system would realize that X Kalendas Decembris is, in fact, the equivalent of November 22, the same date as TLS. (5)

This has prompted some to assume that the Italian version, simply because it appeared first, is the official papal text. (6) TLS may be “official” in the sense of having been published by officials of the Vatican bureaucracy, but the fact remains that the Latin is invariably the only authoritative and official version of papal documents, even if it happens that this text only becomes available later.


Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Therefore, it is to be deplored that the Latin version was buried from immediate view and relegated to an inconvenient position. To add to the difficulties in locating the Latin text, the page number in the Acta Sanctae Sedis was printed as 587 instead of 387, thus misdirecting the researcher.

Why such obfuscation surrounding the only version of the motu proprio (i.e. the Latin) that conveys in indisputable terms the mind of the Pope? The answer will become clear when we come to examine the important discrepancies between the two documents.


Which Version to Follow – the Italian or Latin?

As the use of Latin in drafting documents was considered by the Church as the ultimate safeguard of objectivity, it is vitally important for the faithful transmission of the truth in a seamless way. Later generations of Catholics can recognize in the Latin words the exact meaning intended by the Popes. Thus it averted the risk of misleading the faithful through imprecise formulae or the rapid changes in meaning typical of vernacular languages.

As we shall see, misrepresentation is exactly what happened when TLS was placed into the hands of liturgical reformers. An examination of this document will show that it contains a number of key words and phrases for which there is no translational equivalence in the Latin version.

In other words, ideas had been inserted into TLS that pander to the aims and objectives of those who wanted to change the liturgy in ways not envisaged by Pope Pius X. Someone even managed to get the word attiva (“active”) written into the text of TLS to describe the participation of the laity, a term entirely missing in the Latin version.

It is noteworthy that the reformers could not have misinterpreted the Pope’s words in the Latin version because it was drafted with tamper-proof precision designed to give the crystal clear meaning of the Pope and deny any wiggle room for liturgical interventionists. But, for all its official status, the Italian version, as with all documents in the vernacular, could offer no such guarantees. In fact, the more it was translated into other vernacular languages, the greater the confusion and error that was transmitted.

Continued...

1. Sacrosanctum Concilium, The Constitution on the Liturgy (1963), § 14

2. Godfried Danneels, apud Keith Pecklers SJ, Liturgy in a Postmodern World, Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd, 2006, p. 7.

3. “The visible, external priesthood of Jesus Christ is not handed down indiscriminately to all members of the Church in general, but is conferred on designated men, through what may be called the spiritual generation of Holy Orders" (§ 41), "Hence he [the priest] goes to the altar as the minister of Christ, inferior to Christ but superior to the people" (§ 84). When “speaking of the people offering with the priest,” the Church means only that the people “unite their hearts in praise, impetration, expiation and thanksgiving, with the prayers and intention of the priest, even of the High Priest Himself” (§ 93).

4. Acta Sanctae Sedis, Vol. XXXVI, 1903-1904, p. 329; for the Italian version, p. 387 (misprinted as 587) for the Latin version.

5. The ancient Romans calculated their dates backwards by subtracting the stated number of days in the date from a fixed point in each month. As the Kalendae designated the first day of every month, if we count back 10 days inclusively from December 1, we come to November 22. So X Kalendas Decembris = 22 November.

6. A motu proprio means that the Pope was acting on his own initiative in creating new legislation rather than merely rubber-stamping a decree issued by a department of the Curia. The drafting of TLS was largely the work of Fr Angelo de Santi, SJ, Founder of the Pontifical Institute for Sacred Music, who had been closely associated with the Pope’s musical reforms when the latter was Bishop of Mantua and Patriarch of Venice. (See Robert Hayburn, Papal Legislation on Sacred Music: 95 AD to 1977 AD, Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1979, p. 220.)

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  COVID-19 vaccine rollout suspended in European countries after blood clots, deaths
Posted by: Stone - 03-12-2021, 06:52 PM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular] - No Replies

COVID-19 vaccine rollout suspended in European countries after blood clots, deaths
Deaths after receiving the Oxford/AstraZenica vaccine were reported in Austria, Sicily, Italy, Denmark, and the UK.


ZWETTL, Austria, March 11, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Several European countries suspended use of either batches of a COVID-19 vaccine or the entire vaccine.

Austria, Estonia, Lativa, Lithuania, and Luxembourg have all suspended the use of a suspect batch of the Oxford/AstraZenica vaccine. The batch, which consists of 1 million doses and is called ABV5300, was originally sent to 17 European countries. It has been implicated in the death of a 49-year-old nurse in Zwettl, Austria. A 35-year-old woman in the same town survived a pulmonary embolism she suffered shortly after taking a dose from the same batch.

Italy has suspended the use of a different batch of the Oxford/AstraZenica vaccine, ABV 2856, after 43-year-old naval officer Stefano Paternò had a fatal heart attack 24 hours after receiving a dose of it this week in Sicily. According to the Corriere della Sera, Paternò was in good health before his inoculation, and then afterward suffered a fever, followed by convulsions. There are also reports that a second Italian, a 50-year-old policeman named Davide Villa, also died after receiving the vaccine in Sicily. Villa developed deep vein thrombosis after his inoculation and succumbed 12 days later.

Denmark, Iceland, and Norway have suspended using any batch of the Oxford/AstraZenica vaccine after the death of a Danish woman with blood clots. The 60-year-old woman died shortly after receiving the vaccine. 

According to the Financial Times, residents of Denmark who have been inoculated with the Oxford/AstraZenica vaccine in the past two weeks will be contacted by health authorities. They will be instructed in the signs of blood clots and encouraged to “contact their doctors if they suffer any new or surprising symptoms.”

According to the BBC, the medical regulator for the European Union has stated that there is no proof that the Oxford/AstraZenica vaccine causes blood clots and that its benefits still “outweigh its risks.”

“There is currently no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions, which are not listed as side effects with this vaccine," the European Medicines Agency (EMA) declared.

"The vaccine's benefits continue to outweigh its risks and the vaccine can continue to be administered while investigation of cases of thromboembolic events is ongoing."

The EMA also said the number of incidents of blood clots in vaccinated people is no higher than in the general population.

The British government’s response to the total suspension of the Oxford/AstraZenica vaccine by its northern neighbors was to tell UK residents to continue taking it.

“This is a precautionary measure by the Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic authorities,” the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said today.

“It has not been confirmed that the report of a blood clot was caused by the AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine. People should still go and get their COVID-19 vaccine when asked to do so.”

Dr. Phil Bryan, the MHRA Safety Lead, stated that vaccine safety is of “paramount importance” and continually monitored.

“Blood clots can occur naturally and are not uncommon," Bryan added. 

“More than 11 million doses of the COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine have now been administered across the UK.”

Bryan also said that the reports of blood clots that have been received thus far “are not greater than the number that would have occurred naturally in the vaccinated population.”

“The safety of the public will always come first. We are keeping this issue under close review, but available evidence does not confirm that the vaccine is the cause,” he added.

According to Britain’s most recent “Yellow Card” report on COVID-19 vaccine side effects, published March 9, there have been 134 deaths, nine “sudden deaths,” and four miscarriages after the use of the Oxford/AstraZenica vaccine in Britain.

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  Pope St. Pius X: Iucunda Sane - On Pope Gregory the Great
Posted by: Stone - 03-12-2021, 06:42 PM - Forum: Encyclicals - No Replies

IUCUNDA SANE
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS X- ON POPE GREGORY THE GREAT
March 12, 1904



TO OUR VENERABLE BRETHREN, THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS, AND OTHER ORDINARIES IN PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE



Venerable Brethren,
Health and the Apostolic Benediction.

1. Joyful indeed comes the remembrance, Venerable Brethren, of that great and incomparable man, the Pontiff Gregory, first of the name, whose centenary solemnity, at the close of the thirteenth century since his death, we are about to celebrate. By that God who killeth and maketh alive, who humbleth and exalteth, it was ordained, not, We think, without a special providence, that amid the almost innumerable cares of Our Apostolic ministry, amid all the anxieties which the government of the Universal Church imposes upon Us, amid our pressing solicitude to satisfy as best We may your claims, Venerable Brethren, who have been called to a share in Our Apostolate, and those of all the faithful entrusted to Our care, Our gaze at the beginning of Our Pontificate should be turned at once towards that most holy and illustrious Predecessor of Ours, the honor of the Church and its glory. For Our heart is filled with great confidence in his most powerful intercession with God, and strengthened by the memory of the sublime maxims he inculcated in his lofty office and of the virtues devoutly practiced by him. And since by the force of the former and the fruitfulness of the latter he has left on God's Church a mark so vast, so deep, so lasting, that his contemporaries and posterity have justly given him the name of Great, and today, after all these centuries, the eulogy of his epitaph is still verified: "He lives eternal in every place by his innumerable good works" (Apud Joann. Diac., Vita Greg. iv. 68) it will surely be given, with the help of Divine grace, to all followers of his wonderful example, to fulfill the duties of their own offices, as far as human weakness permits.

2. There is but little need to repeat here what public documents have made known to all. When Gregory assumed the Supreme Pontificate the disorder in public affairs had reached its climax; the ancient civilization had all but disappeared and barbarism was spreading throughout the dominions of the crumbling Roman Empire. Italy, abandoned by the Emperors of Byzantium, had been left a prey of the still unsettled Lombards who roamed up and down the whole country laying waste everywhere with fire and sword and bringing desolation and death in their train. This very city, threatened from without by its enemies, tried from within by the scourges of pestilence, floods and famine, was reduced to such a miserable plight that it had become a problem how to keep the breath of life in the citizens and in the immense multitudes who flocked hither for refuge. Here were to be found men and women of all conditions, bishops and priests carrying the sacred vessels they had saved from plunder, monks and innocent spouses of Christ who had sought safety in flight from the swords of the enemy or from the brutal insults of abandoned men. Gregory himself calls the Church of Rome: "An old ship woefully shattered; for the waters are entering on all sides, and the joints, buffeted by the daily stress of the storm, are growing rotten and herald shipwreck" (Registrum i., 4 ad Joannem episcop. Constantino.). But the pilot raised up by God had a strong hand, and when placed at the helm succeeding not only in making the port in despite of the raging seas, but in saving the vessel from future storms.

3. Truly wonderful is the work he was able to effect during his reign of little more than thirteen years. He was the restorer of Christian life in its entirety, stimulating the devotion of the faithful, the observance of the monks, the discipline of the clergy, the pastoral solicitude of the bishops. Most prudent father of the family of Christ that he was (Joann. Diac., Vita Greg. ii. 51), he preserved and increased the patrimony of the Church, and liberally succored the impoverished people, Christian society, and individual churches, according to the necessities of each. Becoming truly God's Consul (Epitaph), he pushed his fruitful activity far beyond the walls of Rome, and entirely for the advantage of civilized society. He opposed energetically the unjust claims of the Byzantine Emperors; he checked the audacity and curbed the shameless avarice of the exarchs and the imperial administrators, and stood up in public as the defender of social justice. He tamed the ferocity of the Lombards, and did not hesitate to meet Agulfus at the gates of Rome in order to prevail upon him to raise the siege of the city, just as the Pontiff Leo the Great did in the case of Attila; nor did he desist in his prayers, in his gentle persuasion, in his skillful negotiation, until he saw that dreaded people settle down and adopt a more regular government; until he knew that they were won to the Catholic faith, mainly through the influence of the pious Queen Theodolinda, his daughter in Christ. Hence Gregory may justly be called the savior and liberator of Italy - his own land, as he tenderly calls her.

4. Through his incessant pastoral care the embers of heresy in Italy and Africa die out, ecclesiastical life in the Gauls is reorganized, the Visigoths of the Spains are welded together in the conversion which has already been begun among them, and the renowned English nation, which, "situated in a corner of the world, while it had hitherto remained obstinate in the worship of wood and stone" (Reg. viii. 29, 30, ad Eulog. Episcop. Alexandr.), now also receives the true faith of Christ. Gregory's heart overflowed with joy at the news of this precious conquest, for his is the heart of a father embracing his most beloved son, and in attributing all the merit of it to Jesus the Redeemer, "for whose love," as he himself writes, "we are seeking our unknown brethren in Britain, and through whose grace we find unknown ones we were seeking" (Reg. xi. 36 (28), ad Augustin. Anglorum Episcopum). And so grateful to the Holy Pontiff was the English nation that they called him always: our Master, our Doctor, our Apostle, our Pope, our Gregory, and considered itself as the seal of his apostolate. In fine, so salutary and so efficacious was his action that the memory of the works wrought by him became deeply impressed on the minds of posterity, especially during the Middle Ages, which breathed, so to say, the atmosphere infused by him, fed on his words, conformed its life and manners according to the example inculcated by him, with the result that Christian social civilization was happily introduced into the world in opposition to the Roman civilization of the preceding centuries, which now passed away for ever.

5. This is the change of the right hand of the Most High! And well may it be said that in the mind of Gregory the hand of God alone was operative in these great events. What he wrote to the most holy monk Augustine about this same conversion of the English may be equally applied to all the rest of his apostolic action: "Whose work is this but His who said: My Father worketh till now, and I work? (John v. 17). To show the world that He wished to convert it, not by the wisdom of men, but by His own power, He chose unlettered men to be preachers to the world; and the same He has now done, vouchsafing to accomplish through weak men great things among the nation of the Angles" (Reg. xi. 36 (28)). We, indeed, may discern much that the holy Pontiff's profound humility hid from his own sight: his knowledge of affairs, his talent for bringing his undertakings to a successful issue, the wonderful prudence shown in all his provisions, his assiduous vigilance, his persevering solicitude. But it is, nevertheless, true that he never put himself forward as one invested with the might and power of the great ones of the earth, for instead of using the exalted prestige of the Pontifical dignity, he preferred to call himself the Servant of the Servants of God, a title which he was the first to adopt. It was not merely by profane science or the "persuasive words of human wisdom (I Cor. ii. 4) that he traced out his career, or by the devices of civil politics, or by systems of social renovation, skillfully studied, prepared and put in execution; nor yet, and this is very striking, by setting before himself a vast program of apostolic action to be gradually realized; for we know that, on the contrary, his mind was full of the idea of the approaching end of the world which was to have left him but little time for great exploits. Very delicate and fragile of body though he was, and constantly afflicted by infirmities which several times brought him to the point of death, he yet possessed an incredible energy of soul which was for ever receiving fresh vigor from his lively faith in the infallible words of Christ, and in His Divine promises. Then again, he counted with unlimited confidence on the supernatural force given by God to the Church for the successful accomplishment of her divine mission in the world. The constant aim of his life, as shown in all his words and works, was, therefore, this: to preserve in himself, and to stimulate in others this same lively faith and confidence, doing all the good possible at the moment in expectation of the Divine judgment.

6. And this produced in him the fixed resolve to adopt for the salvation of all the abundant wealth of supernatural means given by God to His Church, such as the infallible teaching of revealed truth, and the preaching of the same teaching in the whole world, and the sacraments which have the power of infusing or increasing the life of the soul, and the grace of prayer in the name of Christ which assures heavenly protection.

7. These memories, Venerable Brethren, are a source of unspeakable comfort to Us. When We glance around from the walls of the Vatican We find that like Gregory, and perhaps with even more reason than he, We have grounds for fear, with so many storms gathering on every side, with so many hostile forces massed and advancing against Us, and at the same time so utterly deprived are We of all human aid to ward off the former and to help us to meet the shock of the latter. But when We consider the place on which Our feet rest and on which this Pontifical See is rooted, We feel Ourself perfectly safe on the rock of Holy Church. "For who does not know," wrote St. Gregory to the Patriarch Eulogius of Alexandria, "that Holy Church stands on the solidity of the Prince of the Apostles, who got his name from his firmness, for he was called Peter from the word rock? (Registr. vii. 37 (40)). Supernatural force has never during the flight of ages been found wanting in the Church, nor have Christ's promises failed; these remain today just as they were when they brought consolation to Gregory's heartnay, they are endowed with even greater force for Us after having stood the test of centuries and so many changes of circumstances and events.

8. Kingdoms and empires have passed away; peoples once renowned for their history and civilization have disappeared; time and again the nations, as though overwhelmed by the weight of years, have fallen asunder; while the Church, indefectible in her essence, united by ties indissoluble with her heavenly Spouse, is here today radiant with eternal youth, strong with the same primitive vigor with which she came from the Heart of Christ dead upon the Cross. Men powerful in the world have risen up against her. They have disappeared, and she remains. Philosophical systems without number, of every form and every kind, rose up against her, arrogantly vaunting themselves her masters, as though they had at last destroyed the doctrine of the Church, refuted the dogmas of her faith, proved the absurdity of her teachings. But those systems, one after another, have passed into books of history, forgotten, bankrupt; while from the Rock of Peter the light of truth shines forth as brilliantly as on the day when Jesus first kindled it on His appearance in the world, and fed it with His Divine words: "Heaven and earth shall pass, but my words shall not pass" (Matth. xxiv. 35).

9. We, strengthened by this faith, firmly established on this rock, realizing to the full all the heavy duties that the Primacy imposes on Us - but also all the vigor that comes to Us from the Divine Will - calmly wait until all the voices be scattered to the winds that now shout around Us proclaiming that the Church has gone beyond her time, that her doctrines are passed away for ever, that the day is at hand when she will be condemned either to accept the tenets of a godless science and civilization or to disappear from human society. Yet at the same time We cannot but remind all, great and small, as Pope St. Gregory did, of the absolute necessity of having recourse to this Church in order to have eternal salvation, to follow the right road of reason, to feed on the truth, to obtain peace and even happiness in this life.

10. Wherefore, to use the words of the Holy Pontiff, "Turn your steps towards this unshaken rock upon which Our Savior founded the Universal Church, so that the path of him who is sincere of heart may not be lost in devious windings" (Reg. viii. 24, ad Sabin. episcop.). It is only the charity of the Church and union with her which "unite what is divided, restore order where there is confusion, temper inequalities, fill up imperfections" (Registr. v. 58 (53) ad Virgil. episcop.). It is to be firmly held "that nobody can rightly govern in earthly things, unless he knows how to treat divine things, and that the peace of States depends upon the universal peace of the Church" (Registr. v. 37 (20) ad Mauric. Aug.). Hence the absolute necessity of a perfect harmony between the two powers, ecclesiastical and civil, each being by the will of God called to sustain the other. For, "power over all men was given from heaven that those who aspire to do well may be aided, that the path to heaven may be made broader, and that earthly sovereignty may be handmaid to heavenly sovereignty" (Registr. iii. 61(65) ad Mauric. Aug.).

11. From these principles was derived that unconquerable firmness shown by Gregory, which We, with the help of God, will study to imitate, resolved to defend at all costs the rights and prerogatives of which the Roman Pontificate is the guardian and the defender before God and man. But it was the same Gregory who wrote to the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch: When the rights of the Church are in question, "we must show, even by our death, that we do not, through love of some private interest of our own want anything contrary to the common weal" (Registr. v. 41). And to the Emperor Maurice: "He who through vainglory raises his neck against God Almighty and against the statutes of the Fathers, shall not bend my neck to him, not even with the cutting of swords, as I trust in the same God Almighty" (Registr. v. 37). And to the Deacon Sabinian: "I am ready to die rather than permit that the Church degenerate in my days. And you know well my ways, that I am longsuffering; but when I decide not to bear any longer, I face danger with a joyful soul" (Registr. v. 6 (iv. 47)).

12. Such were the fundamental maxims which the Pontiff Gregory constantly proclaimed, and men listened to him. And thus, with Princes and peoples docile to his words, the world regained true salvation, and put itself on the path of a civilization which was noble and fruitful in blessings in proportion as it was founded on the incontrovertible dictates of reason and moral discipline, and derived its force from truth divinely revealed and from the maxims of the Gospel.

13. But in those days the people, albeit rude, ignorant, and still destitute of all civilization, were eager for life, and this no one could give except Christ, through the Church, who "came that they may have life and have it more abundantly" (John x. 10). And truly they had life and had it abundantly, precisely because as no other life but the supernatural life of souls could come from the Church, this includes in itself and gives additional vigor to all the energies of life, even in the natural order. "If the root be holy so are the branches," said St. Paul to the Gentiles, "and thou being a wild olive art ingrafted in them, and art made partaker of the root and of the fatness of the olive tree (Rom. xi. 16, 17).

14. Today, on the contrary, although the world enjoys a light so full of Christian civilization and in this respect cannot for a moment be compared with the times of Gregory, yet it seems as though it were tired of that life, which has been and still is the chief and often the sole fount of so many blessings - and not merely past but present blessings. And not only does this useless branch cut itself off from the trunk, as happened in other times when heresies and schisms arose, but it first lays the ax to the root of the tree, which is the Church, and strives to dry up its vital sap that its ruin may be the surer and that it may never blossom again.

15. In this error, which is the chief one of our time and the source whence all the others spring, lies the origin of so much loss of eternal salvation among men, and of all the ruins affecting religion which we continue to lament, and of the many others which we still fear will happen if the evil be not remedied. For all supernatural order is denied, and, as a consequence, the divine intervention in the order of creation and in the government of the world and in the possibility of miracles; and when all these are taken away the foundations of the Christian religion are necessarily shaken. Men even go so far as to impugn the arguments for the existence of God, denying with unparalleled audacity and against the first principles of reason the invincible force of the proof which from the effects ascends to their cause, that is God, and to the notion of His infinite attributes. "For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made: his eternal power also and divinity" (Rom. i. 20). The way is thus opened to other most grievous errors, equally repugnant to right reason and pernicious to good morals.

16. The gratuitous negation of the supernatural principles, proper to knowledge falsely so called, has actually become the postulate of a historical criticism equally false. Everything that relates in any way to the supernatural order, either as belonging to it, constituting it, presupposing it, or merely finding its explanation in it, is erased without further investigation from the pages of history. Such are the Divinity of Jesus Christ, His Incarnation through the operation of the Holy Ghost, His Resurrection by His own power, and in general all the dogmas of our faith. Science once placed on this false road, there is no law of criticism to hold it back; and it cancels at its own caprice from the holy books everything that does not suit it or that it believes to be opposed to the pre-established theses it wishes to demonstrate. For take away the supernatural order and the story of the origin of the Church must be built on quite another foundation, and hence the innovators handle as they list the monuments of history, forcing them to say what they wish them to say, and not what the authors of those monuments meant.

17. Many are captivated by the great show of erudition which is held out before them, and by the apparently convincing force of the proofs adduced, so that they either lose the faith or feel that it is greatly shaken in them. There are many too, firm in the faith, who accuse critical science of being destructive, while in itself it is innocent and a sure element of investigation when rightly applied. Both the former and the latter fail to see that they start from a false hypothesis, that is to say, from science falsely so called, which logically forces them to conclusions equally false. For given a false philosophical principle everything deduced from it is vitiated. But these errors will never be effectively refuted, unless by bringing about a change of front, that is to say, unless those in error be forced to leave the field of criticism in which they consider themselves firmly entrenched for the legitimate field of philosophy through the abandonment of which they have fallen into their errors.

18. Meanwhile, however, it is painful to have to apply to men not lacking in acumen and application the rebuke addressed by St. Paul to those who fail to rise from earthly things to the things that are invisible: "They became vain in their thoughts and their foolish heart was darkened; for professing themselves to be wise they became fools" (Rom. i. 21, 22). And surely foolish is the only name for him who consumes all his intellectual forces in building upon sand.

19. Not less deplorable are the injuries which accrue from this negation to the moral life of individuals and of civil society. Take away the principle that there is anything divine outside this visible world, and you take away all check upon unbridled passions even of the lowest and most shameful kind, and the minds that become slaves to them riot in disorders of every species. "God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves" (Rom. i. 24). You are well aware, Venerable Brethren, how truly the plague of depravity triumphs on all sides, and how the civil authority wherever it fails to have recourse to the means of help offered by the supernatural order, finds itself quite unequal to the task of checking it. Nay, authority will never be able to heal other evils as long as it forgets or denies that all power comes from God. The only check a government can command in this case is that of force; but force cannot be constantly employed, nor is it always available yet the people continue to be undermined as by a secret disease, they become discontented with everything, they proclaim the right to act as they please, they stir up rebellions, they provoke revolutions, often of extreme violence, in the State; they overthrow all rights human and divine. Take away God, and all respect for civil laws, all regard for even the most necessary institutions disappears; justice is scouted; the very liberty that belongs to the law of nature is trodden underfoot; and men go so far as to destroy the very structure of the family, which is the first and firmest foundation of the social structure. The result is that in these days hostile to Christ, it has become more difficult to apply the powerful remedies which the Redeemer has put into the hands of the Church in order to keep the peoples within the lines of duty.

20. Yet there is no salvation for the world but in Christ: "For there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we may be saved" (Acts iv. 12). To Christ then we must return. At His feet we must prostrate ourselves to hear from His divine mouth the words of eternal life, for He alone can show us the way of regeneration, He alone teach us the truth, He alone restore life to us. It is He who has said: "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John xiv. 16). Men have once more attempted to work here below without Him, they have begun to build up the edifice after rejecting the corner stone, as the Apostle Peter rebuked the executioners of Jesus for doing. And lo! the pile that has been raised again crumbles and falls upon the heads of the builders, crushing them. But Jesus remains for ever the corner stone of human society, and again the truth becomes apparent that without Him there is no salvation: "This is the stone which has been rejected by you, the builders, and which has become the head of the corner, neither is there salvation in any other" (Acts iv. 11, 12).

21. From all this you will easily see, Venerable Brethren, the absolute necessity imposed upon every one of us to receive with all the energy of our souls and with all the means at our disposal, this supernatural life in every branch of society - in the poor working man who earns his morsel of bread by the sweat of his brow, from morning to night, and in the great ones of the earth who preside over the destiny of nations. We must, above all else, have recourse to prayer, both public and private, to implore the mercies of the Lord and His powerful assistance. "Lord, save us - we perish" (Matthew viii. 25), we must repeat like the Apostles when buffeted by the storm.

22. But this is not enough. Gregory rebukes the bishop who, through love of spiritual solitude and prayer, fails to go out into the battlefield to combat strenuously for the cause of the Lord: "The name of bishop, which he bears, is an empty one." And rightly so, for men's intellects are to be enlightened by continual preaching of the truth, and errors are to be efficaciously refuted by the principles of true and solid philosophy and theology, and by all the means provided by the genuine progress of historical investigation. It is still more necessary to inculcate properly on the minds of all the moral maxims taught by Jesus Christ, so that everybody may learn to conquer himself, to curb the passions of the mind, to stifle pride, to live in obedience to authority, to love justice, to show charity towards all, to temper with Christian love the bitterness of social inequalities, to detach the heart from the goods of the world, to live contented with the state in which Providence has placed us, while striving to better it by the fulfillment of our duties, to thirst after the future life in the hope of eternal reward. But, above all, is it necessary that these principles be instilled and made to penetrate into the heart, so that true and solid piety may strike root there, and all, both as men and as Christians, may recognize by their acts, as well as by their words, the duties of their state and have recourse with filial confidence to the Church and her ministers to obtain from them pardon for their sins, to receive the strengthening grace of the Sacraments, and to regulate their lives according to the laws of Christianity.

23. With these chief duties of the spiritual ministry it is necessary to unite the charity of Christ, and when this moves us there will be nobody in affliction who will not be consoled by us, no tears that will not be dried by our hands, no need that will not be relieved by us. To the exercise of this charity let us dedicate ourselves wholly; let all our own affairs give way before it, let our personal interests and convenience be set aside for it, making ourselves "all things to all men" (I Cor. ix. 22), to gain all men to the Lord, giving up our very life itself, after the example of Christ: "The good shepherd gives his life for his sheep (John x. 11).

24. These precious admonitions abound in the pages which the Pontiff St. Gregory has left written, and they are expressed with far greater force in the manifold examples of his admirable life.

25. Now since all this springs necessarily both from the nature of the principles of Christian revelation, and from the intrinsic properties which Our Apostolate should have, you see clearly, Venerable Brethren, how mistaken are those who think they are doing service to the Church, and producing fruit for the salvation of souls, when by a kind of prudence of the flesh they show themselves liberal in concessions to science falsely so called, under the fatal illusion that they are thus able more easily to win over those in error, but really with the continual danger of being themselves lost. The truth is one, and it cannot be halved; it lasts for ever, and is not subject to the vicissitudes of the times. "Jesus Christ, today and yesterday, and the same for ever" (Hebr. xiii. 8).

26. And so too are all they seriously mistaken who, occupying themselves with the welfare of the people, and especially upholding the cause of the lower classes, seek to promote above all else the material well-being of the body and of life, but are utterly silent about their spiritual welfare and the very serious duties which their profession as Christians enjoins upon them. They are not ashamed to conceal sometimes, as though with a veil, certain fundamental maxims of the Gospel, for fear lest otherwise the people refuse to hear and follow them. It will certainly be the part of prudence to proceed gradually in laying down the truth, when one has to do with men completely strangers to us and completely separated from God. "Before using the steel, let the wounds be felt with a light hand," as Gregory said (Registr. v. 44 (18) ad Joannem episcop.). But even this carefulness would sink to mere prudence of the flesh, were it proposed as the rule of constant and everyday action - all the more since such a method would seem not to hold in due account that Divine Grace which sustains the sacerdotal ministry and which is given not only to those who exercise this ministry, but to all the faithful of Christ in order that our words and our action may find an entrance into their heart. Gregory did not at all understand this prudence, either in the preaching of the Gospel, or in the many wonderful works undertaken by him to relieve misery. He did constantly what the Apostles had done, for they, when they went out for the first time into the world to bring into it the name of Christ, repeated the saying: "We preach Christ crucified, a scandal for the Jews, a folly for the Gentiles" (I Cor. i. 23). If ever there was a time in which human prudence seemed to offer the only expedient for obtaining something in a world altogether unprepared to receive doctrines so new, so repugnant to human passions, so opposed to the civilization, then at its most flourishing period, of the Greeks and the Romans, that time was certainly the epoch of the preaching of the faith. But the Apostles disdained such prudence, because they understood well the precept of God: "It pleased God by the foolishness of our preaching to save them that believe (I Cor. i. 21). And as it ever was, so it is today, this foolishness "to them that are saved, that is, to us, is the power of God" (I Cor. i. 18). The scandal of the Crucified will ever furnish us in the future, as it has done in the past, with the most potent of all weapons; now as of yore in that sign we shall find victory.

27. But, Venerable Brethren, this weapon will lose much of its efficacy or be altogether useless in the hands of men not accustomed to the interior life with Christ, not educated in the school of true and solid piety, not thoroughly inflamed with zeal for the glory of God and for the propagation of His kingdom. So keenly did Gregory feel this necessity that he used the greatest care in creating bishops and priests animated by a great desire for the divine glory and for the true welfare of souls. And this was the intent he had before him in his book on the Pastoral Rule, wherein are gathered together the laws regulating the formation of the clergy and the government of bishops - laws most suitable not for his times only but for our own. Like an "Argus full of light," says his biographer, "he moved all round the eyes of his pastoral solicitude through all the extent of the world" (Joann. Diac., lib ii. c. 55), to discover and correct the failings and the negligence of the clergy. Nay, he trembled at the very thought that barbarism and immortality might obtain a footing in the life of the clergy, and he was deeply moved and gave himself no peace whenever he learned of some infraction of the disciplinary laws of the Church, and immediately administered admonition and correction, threatening canonical penalties on transgressors, sometimes immediately applying these penalties himself, and again removing the unworthy from their offices without delay and without human respect.

28. Moreover, he inculcated the maxims which we frequently find in his writings in such form as this: "In what frame of mind does one enter upon the office of mediator between God and man who is not conscious of being familiar with grace through a meritorious life?" (Reg. Past.i. 10). "U passion lives in his actions, with what presumption does he hasten to cure the wound, when he wears a scar on his very face?" (Reg. Past. i. 9). What fruit can be expected for the salvation of souls if the apostles "combat in their lives what they preach in their words?" (Reg. Past. i. 2). "Truly he cannot remove the delinquencies of others who is himself ravaged by the same" (Reg. Past. i. 11).

29. The picture of the true priest, as Gregory understands and describes him, is the man "who, dying to all passions of the flesh, already lives spiritually; who has no thought for the prosperity of the world; who has no fear of adversity; who desires only internal things; who does not permit himself to desire what belongs to others but is liberal of his own; who is all bowels of compassion and inclines to forgiveness, but in forgiveness never swerves unduly from the perfection of righteousness; who never commits unlawful actions, but deplores as though they were his own the unlawful actions of others; who with all affection of the heart compassionates the weakness of others, and rejoices in the prosperity of his neighbor as in his own profit; who in all his doings so renders himself a model for others as to have nothing whereof to be ashamed, at least, as regards his external actions; who studies so to live that he may be able to water the parched hearts of his neighbors with the waters of doctrine; who knows through the use of prayer and through his own experience that he can obtain from the Lord what he asks" (Reg. Past. i. 10).

30. How much thought, therefore, Venerable Brethren, must the Bishop seriously take with himself and in the presence of God before laying hands on young levites! "Let him never dare, either as an act of favor to anybody or in response to petitions made to him, to promote any one to sacred orders whose life and actions do not furnish a guarantee of worthiness" (Registr. v 63 (58) ad universos episcopos per Hellad.) With what deliberation should he reflect before entrusting the work of the apostolate to newly ordained priests! If they be not duly tried under the vigilant guardianship of more prudent priests, if there be not abundant evidence of their morality, of their inclination for spiritual exercises, of their prompt obedience to all the norms of action which are suggested by ecclesiastical custom or proved by long experience, or imposed by those whom "the Holy Ghost has placed as bishops to rule the Church of God" (Acts xx. 28), they will exercise the sacerdotal ministry not for the salvation but for the ruin of the Christian people. For they will provoke discord, and excite rebellion, more or less tacit, thus offering to the world the sad spectacle of something like division amongst us, whereas in truth these deplorable incidents are but the pride and unruliness of a few. Oh! let those who stir up discord be altogether removed from every office. Of such apostles the Church has no need; they are not apostles of Jesus Christ Crucified but of themselves.

31. We seem to see still present before Our eyes the Holy Pontiff Gregory at the Lateran Council, surrounded by a great number of bishops from all parts of the world. Oh, how fruitful is the exhortation that falls from his lips on the duties of the clergy! How his heart is consumed with zeal! His words are as lightnings rending the perverse, as scourges striking the indolent, as flames of divine love gently enfolding the most fervent. Read that wonderful homily of Gregory, Venerable Brethren, and have it read and meditated by your clergy, especially during the annual retreat (Hom. in Evang. i. 17).

32. Among other things, with unspeakable sorrow he exclaims: "Lo, the world is full of priests, but rare indeed it is to find a worker in the hands of God; we do indeed assume the priestly office, but the obligation of the office we do not fulfill" (Hom. in Evang. n. 3). What force the Church would have today could she count a worker in every priest! What abundant fruit would the supernatural life of the Church produce in souls were it efficaciously promoted by all. Gregory succeeded in his own times in strenuously stimulating this spirit of energetic action, and such was the impulse given by him that the same spirit was kept alive during the succeeding ages. The whole mediaeval period bears what may be called the Gregorian imprint; almost everything it had indeed came to it from the Pontiff - the rule of ecclesiastical government, the manifold phases of charity and philanthropy in its social institutions, the principles of the most perfect Christian asceticism and of monastic life, the arrangement of the liturgy and the art of sacred music.

33. The times are indeed greatly changed. But, as We have more than once repeated, nothing is changed in the life of the Church. From her Divine Founder she has inherited the virtue of being able to supply at all times, however much they may differ, all that is required not only for the spiritual welfare of souls, which is the direct object of her mission, but also everything that aids progress in true civilization, for this follows as a natural consequence of that same mission.

34. For it cannot be but that the truths of the supernatural order, of which the Church is the depository, promote also everything that is true, good, and beautiful in the order of nature, and this the more efficaciously in proportion as these truths are traced to the supreme principle of all truth, goodness and beauty, which is God.

35. Human science gains greatly from revelation, for the latter opens out new horizons and makes known sooner other truths of the natural order, and because it opens the true road to investigation and keeps it safe from errors of application and of method. Thus does the lighthouse show many things they otherwise would not see, while it points out the rocks on which the vessel would suffer shipwreck.

36. And since, for our moral discipline, the Divine Redeemer proposes as our supreme model of perfection His heavenly Father (Matthew v. 48), that is, the Divine goodness itself, who can fail to see the mighty impulse thence accruing to the ever more perfect observance of the natural law inscribed in our hearts, and consequently to the greater welfare of the individual, the family, and universal society? The ferocity of the barbarians was thus transformed to gentleness, woman was freed from subjection, slavery was repressed, order was restored in the due and reciprocal independence upon one another of the various classes of society, justice was recognized, the true liberty of souls was proclaimed, and social and domestic peace assured.

37. Finally, the arts modeled on the supreme exemplar of all beauty which is God Himself, from whom is derived all the beauty to be found in nature, are more securely withdrawn from vulgar concepts and more efficaciously rise towards the ideal, which is the life of all art. And how fruitful of good has been the principle of employing them in the service of divine worship and of offering to the Lord everything that is deemed to be worthy of him, by reason of its richness, its goodness, its elegance of form. This principle has created sacred art, which became and still continues to be the foundation of all profane art. We have recently touched upon this in a special motu proprio, when speaking of the restoration of the Roman Chant according to the ancient tradition and of sacred music. And the same rules are applicable to the other arts, each in its own sphere, so that what has been said of the Chant may also be said of painting, sculpture, architecture; and towards all these most noble creations of genius the Church has been lavish of inspiration and encouragement. The whole human race, fed on this sublime ideal, raises magnificent temples, and here in the House of God, as in its own house, lifts up its heart to heavenly things in the midst of the treasures of all beautiful art, with the majesty of liturgical ceremony, and to the accompaniment of the sweetest of song.

38. All these benefits, We repeat, the action of the Pontiff St. Gregory succeeded in attaining in his own time and in the centuries that followed; and these, too, it will be possible to attain today, by virtue of the intrinsic efficacy of the principles which should guide us and of the means we have at our disposal, while preserving with all zeal the good which by the grace of God is still left us and "restoring in Christ" (Ephes. i. 10) all that has unfortunately lapsed from the right rule.

39. We are glad to be able to close these Our Letters with the very words with which St. Gregory concluded his memorable exhortation in the Lateran Council: "These things, Brethren, you should meditate with all solicitude yourselves and at the same time propose for the meditation of your neighbor. Prepare to restore to God the fruit of the ministry you have received. But everything we have indicated for you we shall obtain much better by prayer than by our discourse. Let us pray: O God, by whose will we have been called as pastors among the people, grant, we beseech Thee, that we may enabled to be in Thy sight what we are said to be by the mouths of men" (Hom. cit., ii. 18).

40. And while We trust by the intercession of the holy Pontiff Gregory that God may graciously hear Our prayer, We impart to all of you, Venerable Brethren, and to your clergy and people the Apostolic benediction with all the affection of Our heart, as a pledge of heavenly favors and in token of Our paternal good will.

Given at Rome at St. Peter's on March 12, of the year 1904, on the feast of St. Gregory I. Pope and Doctor of the Church, in the first year of Our Pontificate.

PIUS X

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  Amazon One, a way to pay with your palm when entering stores
Posted by: Stone - 03-12-2021, 06:24 PM - Forum: General Commentary - No Replies

Getting closer to the book of the Apocalypse...


Amazon introduces the Amazon One, a way to pay with your palm when entering stores

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TechCrunch | September 29, 2020

In the middle of a pandemic when customers are often wearing plastic gloves to stores alongside their face masks, Amazon’s physical retail team is introducing a new biometric device that will allow shoppers to pay at Amazon Go stores using their palm. The company on Tuesday introduced its purportedly “contactless” Amazon One, a scanner of sorts where you’ll first insert your credit card, then hover your palm over the device to associate your palm signature with your payment mechanism. Once your card is on file, you’ll be able to enter the store in the future just by holding your palm above the Amazon One device for a second or so.

While you’re not actually supposed to press your palm down on the device itself, it’s a new technology that will require user education — and that could be a problem, at least in the short term.

Today, consumers are familiar with the idea of pressing down a finger to unlock an iPhone with Touch ID, for example, or using a thumbprint to open a secure lock. It’s likely that many will assume you are to also mash your palm down on Amazon One’s flat surface, too.

At any other time, that wouldn’t be much of a concern. But given that the device is being introduced in the U.S. which is still dealing with the COVID-19 health crisis, now may not be the best time to put another potential touchpoint at a store’s entry.

Amazon, of course, stresses that the device is “contactless,” which is something customers will appreciate. But unless store staff stands at the entry wiping the device regularly, it will likely be touched a lot as customers get up to speed on how exactly the thing works. Eventually, the Amazon One may achieve the goal of being “contactless.” But in the meantime, the device should be staffed, wiped and demonstrated to everyone who walks in.

Amazon says the new device uses computer vision technology in real time to create the unique palm signature — a choice the company made because it believes palm recognition is more private than some other means of biometric authentication. That is, you can’t determine someone’s identity just by looking at the image of their palm, Amazon says. That may be true, but given that the palm signature is associated with a payment card, it’s more important that the data is secured rather than how recognizable the palm image is.

Amazon also says the images are encrypted and sent to a secure area in the cloud, where customers’ palm signatures are created. There aren’t specific details about this process being provided at this time.

Amazon’s historical use of biometric products has also been controversial, however, having sold biometric facial recognition services to law enforcement in the U.S. Its facial recognition technology is also the subject of a data privacy lawsuit. Its Ring camera company was discovered to be working in partnership with police, raising civil rights complaints. And recently, it launched indoor drones for home security, in a new potential threat to homeowner privacy. In terms of user data privacy, Amazon hasn’t been careful either — for example, by continuing to store Alexa voice data even when users deleted audio files.

There is room, then, to question Amazon’s plans to create a database of customer biometric data.

Amazon says its new device doesn’t require you to have an Amazon.com account to enter the store — just a palm and phone number — but customers can associate their account to see their usage history on the Amazon website. They also can add a second palm print, if they choose.

The Amazon One is being trialed at two Seattle-area stores, including the original Amazon Go store at 7th & Blanchard and the store in South Lake Union at 300 Boren Ave. North. It won’t replace the other ways to enter the stores, however. Customers can still enter using the Amazon Go app, Amazon app or with associate assistance if they want to pay in cash.

The Amazon One doesn’t have to be used only for entry to retail stores, the company notes. It envisions the device being used by third-parties, including stadiums and office buildings, as well as other non-Amazon retailers.

Amazon says discussions are underway with some interested parties, but it has nothing to announce at this time. It’s unclear to what extent a third-party retailer would trust Amazon to host its customer transaction data, however, given Amazon’s history in using third-party data in an anti-competitive fashion.



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  Prayer to your Guardian Angel when you cannot attend Holy Mass
Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 03-12-2021, 02:28 PM - Forum: Prayers and Devotionals - No Replies

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Prayer to your Guardian Angel when you cannot attend Holy Mass

O HOLY ANGEL, at my side,
Go to the church for me,
Kneel in my place, at Holy Mass,
Where I desire to be.

At Offertory, in my stead,
Take all I am and own,
And place it as a sacrifice,
Upon the Altar Throne.

At holy Consecration’s bell,
Adore with Seraph’s love,
My Jesus, hidden in the Host,
Come down from heaven above.

Then pray for those I dearly love,
And those who cause me grief,
That Jesus’ Blood may cleanse all hearts,
And suffering souls relieve.

And when the priest communion takes,
Oh, bring my Lord to me,
That His sweet Heart may rest on mine,
And I His Temple be.

Pray that this Sacrifice Divine,
May mankind’s sins efface;
Then bring me Jesus, blessing home,
The pledge of every grace.
Amen.

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  April 19th - St. Elphege
Posted by: Elizabeth - 03-11-2021, 11:34 PM - Forum: April - No Replies

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Saint Elphege
Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr
(954-1012)

Saint Elphege was born in the year 954, of a noble Saxon family. He became a monk in the monastery of Deerhurst, near Tewkesbury, England, and afterwards lived as a hermit near Bath, where he founded a community under the rule of Saint Benedict and became its first abbot.

At thirty years of age he was chosen Bishop of Winchester, and twenty-two years later became Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1011, when the Danes landed in Kent and took the city of Canterbury, putting all to fire and sword, Saint Elphege was captured and carried off in the expectation of a large ransom. He was, however, unwilling that his ruined church and people should be put to such expense, and was therefore kept in prison at Greenwich for seven months.

While he was thus confined, some friends came and urged him to impose a tax upon his tenants to raise the sum demanded for his ransom. What reward can I hope for, said he, if I spend upon myself what belongs to the poor? Better give to the poor what is ours, than take from them the little which is their own. He continued to refuse to exact a ransom, and the enraged Danes finally fell upon him in a fury, beat him with the blunt sides of their weapons, and bruised him with stones. One whom the Saint had baptized shortly before, put an end to his sufferings by the blow of an axe. He died on Easter Saturday, April 19, 1012; his last words were a prayer for his murderers.

His body was first buried in Saint Paul's, London, but was afterwards translated to Canterbury by King Canute. A church dedicated to Saint Elphege still stands upon the place of his martyrdom at Greenwich.

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  Pope admits charges of ‘heresy’ are ‘risk’ he’s willing to take
Posted by: Stone - 03-11-2021, 07:09 PM - Forum: Pope Francis - No Replies

As Pope Francis himself points out, he is 'only' following the progressive dictates of Vatican II. For example, keep the following statements from Vatican II in mind as you read the article that follows:
  • “According to the almost unanimous opinion of believers and unbelievers alike, all things on earth should be directed towards man as their centre and crown.” Gaudium et spes 12
  • This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits." Dignitatis Humanae 2
  • “This Church [the Church of Christ] constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure.” Lumen Gentium 8
  • “But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, together with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind.” Lumen Gentium 16

See also: Little Catechism on the Second Vatican Council

See also: Summary of the Principal Errors of Vatican II Ecclesiology

See also: SiSiNoNo: The Errors of Vatican II


✠ ✠ ✠



Pope admits charges of ‘heresy’ are ‘risk’ he’s willing to take to ‘move forward with other religions’
Francis believes 'human fraternity' with people of other faiths is important while acknowledging the criticisms made against him.


ABOARD PAPAL PLANE, March 10, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Francis said charges that he acts against “Catholic doctrine” and is even on the verge of committing “heresy” are a “risk” he’s willing to take to move forward on the path toward “human fraternity” with believers of other religions.

“This is important, human fraternity, that as men we are all brothers, and we must move forward with other religions,said the Pope on March 8 while speaking to reporters on the plane returning from his trip to Iraq.

The Second Vatican Council took a big step in this, and also the institutions after, the Council for Christian Unity and the Council for Interreligious Dialogue,” continued the Pope.

“Cardinal (Miguel) Ayuso accompanies us today. You are human, you are a child of God and you are my brother, period! This would be the greatest indication, and so many times you have to risk to take this step,” he said.

It was at this point that the Pope mentioned the risks he is willing to take.

“You know that there are some criticisms: that the pope is not courageous, he is a reckless person who is taking steps against Catholic doctrine, that he is one step away from heresy, there are risks. But these decisions are always made in prayer, in dialogue, in asking for advice, in reflection. They are not a whim and also are the line that the Council taught,” he said.

The Pope made these comments while responding to a question about his meeting two years ago in Abu Dhabi with Imam Al Tayyeb of Al Azhar where both Pope and Imam signed the controversial Declaration on Human Fraternity, sometimes referred to as the Abu Dhabi statement.

The document stated, among other things, that the “pluralism and the diversity of religions” are “willed by God.” At no point does the document mention the name of Jesus.

A number of prominent Catholic clergymen and scholars reacted by accusing Pope Francis of committing heresy. In an April 2019 open letter to the Pope, they charged him of backing the notion that “God not only permits, but positively wills, the pluralism and diversity of religions, both Christian and non-Christian.”

They quoted various scriptural passages that appear to contradict the position to which the Pope signed his name. This included a passage from the Gospel of John in which Christ states "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me,” as well as a passage from the Acts of the Apostles which states that Christ is the “stone which was rejected by you the builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved."

Two months AFTER this accusation, Cardinal Raymond Burke and Bishop Athanasius Schneider, together with several other bishops, issued in June 2019 a public declaration of truths of the faith, part of which made clear reference to the controversial declaration which Pope Francis signed in Abu Dhabi.

“The religion born of faith in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God and the only Savior of humankind, is the only religion positively willed by God,” they stated in their declaration.

During his trip in Iraq, the Pope met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, one of the most influential figures in Shi’ite Islam.

On his flight back to Rome, the Pope referred to Sistani as a “great, a wise man, a man of God.”

“He got up to greet me, twice, a humble and wise man, it did good to my soul this meeting. He is a beacon of light, and these wise men are everywhere because God's wisdom has been scattered all over the world. It is the same with the saints who are not just those on the altars. It happens every day, those I call the saints next door, men and women who live their faith, whatever it may be, with consistency,” he said.

The Pope’s comments on the plane correspond to what he has written in his latest encyclical on brotherhood. ‘Fratelli tutti’ has been praised by the Masons for his embrace of “Universal Brotherhood” while it has been criticized by some prominent Catholic voices such as Professor Roberto de Mattei for placing the value of “fraternity” over Christ himself.

“The absolute truth (in Fratelli tutti) is not Jesus Christ, in whose name and in whose baptism Christians are brothers,” De Mattei wrote. “Fraternity is a value superior to Christ himself because it has the ability, according to Pope Francis, to reconcile Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists and atheists themselves, who also have their faith and convictions.”

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  Bp. Fellay - Focus on 'Validity,' Ignore 'Illegitimate'
Posted by: Stone - 03-11-2021, 01:07 PM - Forum: The New-Conciliar SSPX - No Replies

Taken and slightly adapted from The Catacombs archived site.
Original article here.


THE TRICK- focus on word VALID, avoid the word ILLEGITIMATE
Fr. Calderón Refutes Bishop Fellay 

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Fr Alvaro Calderon, professor of philosophy and dogmatic theology at the seminary of the SSPX in Buenos Aires and author of several texts of extraordinary quality, such as "La Lámpara Bajo el Celemín" (The Lamp Under the Bushel) and "Prometheus, the Religion of Man," has published a study in the journal "Si, Si, No, No" No. 267,  November 2014, which is entitled "Are the Episcopal Consecrations Reformed by Paul VI Valid?"  Although the main purpose of the article is to respond to the objections of the sedevacantist sectors that oppose the validity of the new rite of episcopal consecration, some seriously erroneous statements made by Bishop Fellay in his never retracted "Doctrinal Declaration" of October 2012 are refuted from the point of view of sacramental theology in this study by Fr. Calderón .

Bishop Fellay said in No. 7 of the Doctrinal Declaration:
Quote:"We declare that we recognize the validity of the sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments celebrated with the intention to do what the Church does according to the rites indicated in the typical editions of the Roman Missal and the Sacramentary Rituals legitimately promulgated by Popes Paul VI and John-Paul II."

Consequently, the Superior General:

a) Recognizes the validity of all the sacraments reformed by the modernists, provided that they are held with the intention due. There are three components to consider in judging the validity of the sacraments: matter, form and intention of a true minister. Bishop Fellay does not object to anything regarding the matter, nor regarding the form of the Novus Ordo Sacraments, and refers only to the requirement of the necessary intent of the celebrant

However, in the seminaries of the SSPX it has always been taught that there are serious doubts about the validity of various reformed [New/Novus Ordo] Sacraments, due to the changes introduced by the modernists as to the matter, form, or intention. That's why the sound custom of conditionally confirming those confirmed in the Novus Ordo and of conditionally ordaining those priests ordained according to the rite of Paul VI has always existed in the Society. Extreme Unction was always considered as very likely invalid, etc.

b) He states that these sacraments were legitimately promulgated, an ambiguous expression (Does he say that the Sacraments are legitimate or is it only the act of promulgating these that is legitimate?) that has been interpreted by the majority of Catholics as nothing more than an acceptance of the legitimacy of the Sacraments of the Novus Ordo. For the concept of "legitimacy", see here.

Well, Fr. Calderon says the contrary: The [New] Rite of Episcopal Consecration (which is sacramental) is "certainly illegitimate" and "probably valid" (noting that "there is no certainty of its validity").

Here are the essential quotes:
  • "The new rite is certainly illegitimate.
  • The new Rite that Paul VI intended to promulgate by his apostolic constitution Pontificalis Romani is certainly illegitimate by the accumulation of two reasons: firstly, because no pope has authority to destroy the Roman liturgical tradition and much less so to invent a rite that is in rupture with the whole of Catholic tradition; secondly, because the contamination with modernist doctrines causes harm to the faith, and a decision contrary to the common good of the Church cannot have the force of law. (...)
  • Because of all this, even though the rite, considered as such, were totally orthodox and a better expression of the doctrine of the episcopate, it would not be legitimate, because no pope has the authority to break the liturgical tradition of the Church. The invention of a new Rite is an act which is certainly illegitimate, even if he is a pope or an angel from heaven who intends to establish it. (...)
  • (...) And the Society is obligated to declare the illegitimacy of the Novus Ordo Missae, because of the doctrines of the Paschal Mystery that inspire it (...), so we must also recognize that the Novus Ordo episcopal consecration is certainly illegitimate.
  • The new rite is probably valid.A sacramental rite can be certainly illegitimate, but that does not necessarily invalidate it. (...)
  • If we consider the matter, form and intention of the new rite of episcopal consecration in the context of the rite and the circumstances of their institution, we think it is most likely valid (...)
  • But we also believe that there is no certainty of its validity (...)
  • Now, in a matter of utmost importance for the life of the Church, such as the validity of the episcopate, it is necessary to be absolutely certain. Therefore, to accept in good conscience this rite, it would be necessary to not only rely on the judgment of theologians, but on the infallible judgment of the Magisterium. As for the practical attitude to maintain in light of the new episcopal consecrations, it seems justified that which until now had been held by the Society: (Note the past tense, "had been held" NON POSSUMUS.) (...)
  • (...) the positive and objective defects that this Rite suffers, which prevent having certainty of its validity, we feel that (...) they justify and necessitate the conditional ordination of priests consecrated by new bishops and, if necessary, the conditional consecration of these bishops. Such doubts in the very root of the sacraments cannot be tolerated." 

[Emphasis - The Catacombs]

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  The Shield of Faith - The Dramatic Conversion of Alphonsus de Liguori
Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 03-11-2021, 12:33 PM - Forum: Doctors of the Church - No Replies

Life of Alphonsus De Liguori, Austin Berthe, J. Duffy & Co. Dublin, 1905, from Chapter IV.



The Shield of Faith


"Go thy way, thy faith has saved thee."


The Dramatic Conversion of Alphonsus de Liguori

He had just come from an argument with his father, who wished his son to appear with him at a function of the Neopolitan Court. It was to be a reception attended by the high nobility of Naples, of which the esteemed de Liguori family was a part. His father begged his son to accompany him, and after repeated requests, the young Alphonsus replied, “What would you have me to do at the Court? All that is only vanity.” Finally his father left in indignation. He had been in vain trying to persuade this, his oldest son, to resume his successful career as a lawyer. The events of the remainder of that day, August 28, 1723, are chronicled in the words of the saint's most eminent biographer, Austin Berthe:

After this incident Alphonsus became a prey to the most distressing perplexity. With grace on the one hand drawing him from the world, and his father on the other endeavoring with might and main to lead him back to it, how was he to act without doing violence to his conscience? “If I resist my father's authority, I am doing wrong,” he argued. “But if I follow my father against the will of God, shall I not be doing worse? Who will show me the road I ought to take.” In great agitation he set out for the Hospital of the Incurables, where he was to hear God's answer.

He had begun his usual visit to the patients when suddenly he found himself surrounded by a mysterious light. At the same time the house seemed to him to rock as if under the shock of an earthquake. Then he heard an interior voice distinctly pronounce these words: “Leave the world and give thyself to Me.” Though he was moved to the very depths of his soul, Alphonsus still preserved sufficient calmness to go on with his work of charity. The visit ended, he was going down the hospital stairs when the dazzling light suddenly reappeared; again the house seemed to rock, and the same voice repeated with even greater force: “Leave the world and give thyself to Me.” He stood still in amazement and cried out: “Lord, too long have I resisted Thy grace; do with me what Thou wilt.”

With the impression of this strange occurrence still upon him he wended his way, not to the Liguori palace, but towards a building he had much frequented during those last fifteen days. This was the church of the Redemption of Captives, dedicated to Our Lady of Ransom. A novena had lately been celebrated there in preparation for the feast of the Assumption, and Alphonsus had attended the devotions with great fervor. The celebrated statue of the Madonna was still adorned for the feast.

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Maria de Mercede, fresco by Ghirlandaio

Instinctively he went and threw himself at his Mother's feet to ask, through her, for grace to know and do the will of God. That same moment he found himself, for the third time, filled with a heavenly light, and rapt as it were out of himself. The hour had come for the great holocaust. Drawn by divine grace Alphonsus consecrated himself to the service of God, and bound himself irrevocably to enter the ecclesiastical state. Furthermore he took the resolution to join the Congregation of the Oratory as soon as possible, and as a pledge of his promise he ungirded his sword, and laid it on Our Lady's altar.

Thus did God complete in this church of the Redemption of Captives the conquest of him who was himself to help to redeem so many souls from the slavery of Satan. Alphonsus never forgot that memorable day, nor this sanctuary of Mary, nor did he ever in later days return to Naples without visiting his heavenly benefactress. “She it was,” he said one day, pointing to the picture of Our Lady of Ransom, “who drew me from the world and made me enter the service of the Church.”

Within two months, on October 23 in the year 1723, at the age of twenty-seven, Alphonsus laid aside his secular dress to put on the livery of his heavenly Master. It was a Saturday. Our Lady of Ransom, who had called him, wished herself on her own day to offer him to her Divine Son.


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Chiesa di Santa Maria della Mercede e Sant'Alfonso Maria de' Liguori, Naples

We have this history of the Saint's call to leave the world from his own lips. Being one day, in after years, in recreation with his students at Ciorani, on a certain 27th of August, he said to them: “To-morrow is the anniversary of my conversion.” Then at their earnest request, and by the wish of Father Villani his director, he told them the story of what happened in the Hospital of the Incurables, as related above.

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