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| April 14th - St. Lydwina of Schiedam and St. Benezet |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 03-02-2021, 11:18 PM - Forum: April
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Saint Lydwina of Schiedam
Virgin
(1380-1433)
Saint Lydwina was born in Holland of virtuous but poor parents, the only daughter among nine children. Her name means suffer in plenitude, and indeed her entire life was nothing but a continuous suffering. Even in the cradle a grievous illness afflicted her.
At twelve years of age her beauty was admired by all; her father wanted her to marry, but she told him she had already given herself to the divine Spouse of virgins. When at the age of fifteen she fell on the ice, she suffered a broken rib; and this injury, spreading, it would seem, to other parts of her body, reduced her to the state of an invalid for the last thirty-eight years of her life. For seventeen years, she could move no part of her body except, very slightly, her head and left arm. For a long time she could scarcely take any nourishment, and finally could no longer support any food at all. In this state she remained for nineteen years.
After her mother's death, she sold the furnishings she had inherited to give the price to the poor; and all the alms she received were also given to them. A purse containing money which she had placed there to pay the debts of one of her brothers who had died with many orphaned children and many unpaid obligations, was never afterwards found without at least forty francs, regardless of the amount distributed.
All the most dreaded illnesses seemed to have joined together to persecute Saint Lydwina, that she might endure in every one of the conjoined parts of her body, all that it could possibly bear. Despite her wounds, she was surrounded by an agreeable fragrance. Our Lord kept Lydwina company in her sufferings, and at times transported her in spirit elsewhere; she saw the pains of the damned and those of the souls in purgatory. For the latter she prayed much and delivered many, having suffered their torments for them. Our Saviour granted her His stigmata, but she prayed that they might remain invisible, in order not to derive any attention from them.
He taught us all a lesson through His Saint, when she became too afflicted by the death of a dear brother. He sent to her a holy hermit to tell her that the servants of Christ must be purified from the too tender affections of human nature, even though these are not unreasonable and are not condemned by Holy Scripture.
She was permitted to receive Holy Communion every two weeks, as it was observed that this gave her strength; and when she was nearing her end, four or five times a week that consolation was granted her. After the death of this servant of God on April 14, 1433 her body which had been covered with ulcers and deformed became straight and very beautiful. She was buried in the parish church of Saint John the Baptist in Schiedam. Her relics were later taken to Brussels and placed in the collegial church of Saint Gudule. Her life was written by three persons who knew her personally, and an abridged life was prepared by Thomas a Kempis.
Saint Benezet
Confessor
(1165-1184)
Saint Benezet kept his mother's sheep in the country, and while still a young child was devoted to practices of piety. In his day many persons were being drowned when crossing the Rhone, and Benezet was instructed by God to build a bridge over that rapid river at Avignon. He obtained the approbation of the bishop, proving his mission by miracles, and in 1177 began the work, which he directed during seven years. He died when the major difficulties of the undertaking were over, in 1184.
This remarkable feat of a young boy is attested by public monuments drawn up at that time and still preserved at Avignon, where the story is still known to all. His body was buried upon the bridge itself, which was not finished until four years after his decease. Its construction was attended with miracles from the first laying of the foundations until it was completed in 1188. Other miracles wrought afterwards at his tomb induced the city to build, on the bridge itself, a chapel, and there his body lay for nearly five hundred years. But in 1669, after the greater part of the bridge had fallen through the impetuosity of the waters, the coffin was taken up and opened in 1670, in the presence of the Church's authorities. The body was found entire, without the least sign of corruption; all was perfectly sound, and the color of the eyes still bright, even though, through the dampness of the surroundings, the iron bars around the coffin were much damaged with rust.
Saint Benezet's body was found in the same condition again in 1674, by the Archbishop of Avignon at the time when, accompanied by the Bishop of Orange and a great concourse of nobility, he carried out its translation with great pomp into the Church of the Celestines. That Order had obtained from Louis XIV the honor of being entrusted with the custody of his relics, until such time as the bridge and chapel should be rebuilt.
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| April 13th - St. Hermenegild |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 03-02-2021, 11:14 PM - Forum: April
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Saint Hermenegild
Martyr
(† 586)
Leovigild, Arian King of the Visigoths, had two sons, Hermenegild and Recared, who were reigning conjointly with him. All were Arians, but Hermenegild married a zealous Catholic, the daughter of Sigebert, King of France, and by her holy example was converted to the faith. His father, on hearing the news, denounced him as a traitor, and marched to seize his person. Hermenegild tried to rally the Catholics of Spain in his defense, but they were too weak to make any stand; and after a two years' fruitless struggle, Hermenegild surrendered on the assurance of a free pardon. Once he was safely in the royal camp, the king had him loaded with fetters and cast into a foul dungeon at Seville.
Tortures and bribes were in turn employed to shake his faith, but Hermenegild wrote to his father that he regarded the crown as nothing, and preferred to lose scepter and life rather than betray the truth of God. At length, on Easter night, an Arian bishop entered his cell, and promised him his father's pardon if he would receive Communion from his hands. Hermenegild indignantly rejected the offer, and knelt with joy for his death-stroke, praying for his persecutors. The same night a light streaming from his cell told the Christians keeping vigil nearby that the martyr had won his crown and was celebrating the Resurrection of the Lord with the Saints in glory.
King Leovigild, on his death-bed, was changed interiorly. He had been witness to the miracles that had occurred after his son's cruel death, and he told his son and successor Recared to seek out Saint Leander, whom he himself had persecuted. Recared should follow Hermenegild's example, said the king, and be received by the bishop into the Church. Recared did so; and although his father himself had not had the courage to renounce the false faith publicly, after his father's death the new king labored so earnestly for the extirpation of Arianism that he brought over the whole nation of the Visigoths to the Church. Nor is it to be wondered, says Saint Gregory, that he came thus to be a preacher of the true faith, since he was the brother of a martyr, whose merits helped him to bring so many into the haven of God's Church.
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| Fr. Ruiz: Open Letter to the Faithful of Mexico City [2013] |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-02-2021, 08:57 PM - Forum: Rev. Father Hugo Ruiz Vallejo
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“ When the salt loses its flavour...”
An Open Letter from Fr. Hugo Ruiz Vallejo to the Faithful of Mexico City
March 22, 2013
Dear Friends in Christ,
Some of you are already aware of my departure and my taking up residence here in St. Joseph's House, here in Mexico. In order to avoid any misunderstanding or perplexity on your part, it is not only important but also necessary for me to give you an explanation of the serious reasons which have created this necessity for me.
Nobody from among you should be ignorant of the very serious motives which have guided what is known as the Traditional movement, present at the beginning in various parts of the world, but now principally in the Society of St. Pius X, the work of an exemplary Bishop, Abp. Marcel Lefebvre, who tried to save the values of the Catholic Church from the Modernist invasion which hit the Church of Christ, above all by that which we call Vatican II, and by all the reforms of the Church which this council caused.
This attack provoked a totally legitimate defensive movement of faithful Catholics, a movement which is in itself very natural and necessary. The struggle, the war against the doctrinal errors of the modern world which was waged by the Popes of the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries, by Pope St. Pius X in particular, is the same one which we wished to take on and try to wage in our turn.
Nonetheless, those Traditionalists in particular who have known the beginning of this fight are the ones to state that our superiors have lowered the tone of our demands and of our fight for the defence of the Faith. To begin with, it was argued that this was a means of converting Rome: not only the fact of no longer denouncing as strongly the deviations of Churchmen, but also a way of coming closer and closer to the official Church. The question is: is all this a proportionate means of converting Rome? Or is it a mere illusion? Can one convert someone to the truth by hiding that same truth? Can one convert someone by leaning in the direction of their errors and dialectic?
With increasing concern, we see on the part of many SSPX priests and faithful, as well as allied religious orders, an omission which takes on ever greater and more misleading proportions. A silence which is more and more noticeable.
The fact is that the Romans have renounced not one of their very serious errors of Vatican II, nor the New Mass (Novus Ordo Missae), nor any one of the reforms which are a consequence of this Council and which affect the life of the whole Church. Rome has merely made some concessions of a political nature to bring the Society closer, little concessions which are not sufficient to serve as proof that there has been a real change of direction in Rome, in other words in the direction of Tradition. Quite the contrary, we find in all these negotiations and dialoguing a diplomacy which is full of duplicity. We cannot base our important decisions solely on rumours or facts which comprise no proof at all of the churchmen's conversion.
The fact is that, despite the famous failure of the doctrinal discussions, supposedly conducted in order to convert Rome, (and which remain unpublished to this day), we are still trying to go full steam ahead towards an agreement with Rome at any price, in extremely dangerous conditions. And to crown it all, there are already today those who think that the Society ought to make an agreement to submit Rome, whether or not Rome has converted! (“I would even say that, in front of this sublime reality, any talk of whether or not we have an agreement with Rome is a trifling matter... defending the Faith, keeping the Faith, dying in the Faith, that's what's important!” - Bp. Fellay, Paris, 30th January, 2013).
But perhaps we want to be dependent on those who do not have the same Catholic principles as us? Is it possible to have a good pastoral ministry without having good doctrine? Perhaps those who do not have sound doctrine could be in charge of the Traditionalist pastoral ministry? How can we understand one another regarding practice of the Faith if we do not have the same principles regarding Faith and Morals?
Perhaps Francis, the new Pope, didn't begin his Pontificate by recommending a book by the heretic Kasper in his Urbi et Orbi in St. Peter's Square! And wouldn’t it be a very pious idea to live in a cave with Ali Baba and the 40 thieves in order to convert Ali Baba and the 40 thieves...? A very pious idea, full of realism...!
The conclusions of the Society's last General Chapter have only dramatically confirmed our fears, because in its official conclusion the leaders of the Society declared what will be the six conditions for us to accept an agreement with Rome or a ‘regularisation’ inside the Roman system. According to these, three are necessary, and the three others “desirable”, which means that even if the Pope doesn't let us have them, we will still accept the “agreement”. I might mention at this point that one of the “desirable” conditions isn't really a condition. Much could be said about these conditions, but the worst is to be found in the first of these three “desirable” conditions: the decisions of our ecclesiastical tribunals could be overturned by the tribunals of the conciliar Church; and with our agreement too! In other words, they with their modernist principles would make decisions affecting the pastoral ministry of Traditional priests! What's more, in the second “desirable” condition we accept the possibility of having to depend on local bishops, even though we’re well aware of the extent to which they would like to have an opportunity to make us submit to the ideas and pastoral practice of Vatican II. A real programmed suicide of Tradition! In addition, in the third of these conditions we also
accept the possibility of the man in charge of the commission which represents us to the Pope not being himself a Traditionalist. But how could someone who does not think like
us, and who is not one of us, represent us? Fr. Mario Trejo, the District Superior of Mexico, recently said in the District newsletter (‘Dios Nunca Muere’, no.41, p.7) that in the declaration of the last General Chapter of the Society, “Every phrase, every word was weighed and examined in order to give testimony to the Faith of all time.” Well, with these conditions, how can the Faith of all time be defended by people who no longer profess it?
In any case, it has now become clear that there is now a new attitude towards Rome and its errors on the part of those who now run the SSPX, a new position full of omissions and
ready to make very serious compromises which, even if it hasn’t yet been brought about, brings to light a more than worrying state of mind. There is a gradual omission of any reference to our combat, or the objectives which Abp. Lefebvre gave the Society, An external policy corresponds to an internal ‘policy’: which is to say that within the Society, each time in an increasingly obvious way, the existence of a policy of repression against anyone who does not agree with the new orientation of the Society is confirmed. Pressuring, harassing, discrediting and punishing in various different ways anyone who shows that they disagree. Many more disturbing statements and actions could be added. Like, for example, what Fr. Raphael Arizaga heard from the mouth of Bishop Fellay in a conference to seminarians at Winona, on 21st December last year: “Because I wanted to preserve the internal unity of the Society, I withdrew the document in which I said 'I do not reject all of Vatican II' - which is what I really said.”
Abp. Lefebvre counselled against going to Indult Masses as well as those groups with an atmosphere such as the Fraternity of St. Peter, because such atmospheres are corrupted at
their root, in the sense that what is taught and promoted in the short- or long-term tends towards assimilation with the conciliar Church. But if the Society of St. Pius X changes its
spirit and its objectives, could it not also end up being in a similar state, equal or worse, even if the agreement with Rome has, for the moment, not been made concrete?
I myself have commented on how many priests have changed their attitude towards the combat of Tradition against the enemy, and unfortunately this has been more frequently
the case with new priests. I am myself a victim of this new line from our superiors, a line full of omissions about struggle and our combat. Already, they're not seeing many enemies in Rome; optimism has little by little replaced the distrust which one ought naturally to feel towards the destroyers of the Church. My District Superior, Fr. Mario Trejo, has forbidden me to speak about these subjects: not just in sermons, but also in private! Whether it be with the faithful or with other priests, and that with the threat of transfer and severe punishments.
And since I cannot accomplish my mission as a priest from within the Society, a mission which consists of showing forth the truth and denouncing danger which threatens souls, I
have decided to continue my ministry outside the structure of the Society, although I continue to be a member of it, and this is for the good of the faithful who are in Mexico City and who wish to have recourse to my priestly ministry. I hope that you, as well as my fellow priests, will understand the reasons for this serious decision.
May God, through Our Lady of Guadalupe, bless and enlighten you,
Fr. Hugo Ruiz Vallejo, SSPX
22nd March, 2013 - In memory of the Seven Dolours of Our Lady
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| The Recusant: Letter to Our Fellow Priests By a French Priest of the SSPX [2013] |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-02-2021, 05:38 PM - Forum: True vs. False Resistance
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The Recusant - Issue 5 [March 2013]
Letter to Our Fellow Priests
By a French Priest of the SSPX
[Editor’s note: At the start of February we took this article from the French website AntiModernisme.info and had it translated into English. A week or two later that same website disappeared for good and with it, the original French article. Our English translation survives on TheRecusant.com Since then, a new French website has appeared as a replacement, which we recommend to our readers as an excellent resource: LaSapiniere.info]
Our articles of association recommend that we avoid “modern errors carefully, specifically liberalism and all its substitutes.” Our articles of association are binding on the Superior General and on the Assistants so that they make sure that the Society does not fall “into tepidity” nor “into compromise with the world frame of mind”. By the light of teachings of our founder, Archbishop Lefebvre, and that of our Superior General, Bishop Fellay, we are setting out to work in such direction.
The General Council reminded the three bishops, on April 14 2012, of the need to make “necessary distinctions” “about the liberal” in order to avoid “a ‘total’ hardening”. Indeed, the ‘conciliar liberal’ seeks a compromise between the Church and the world whereas the ‘traditionalist liberal’ seeks a compromise between Catholic Tradition and the conciliar Church which is a friend of the world. In a conference given in Ecône in December 1973, Archbishop Lefebvre noted that our “drama” is today “infinitely more severe” than in the past, because “liberals are nowadays widespread within the Church to such extent that one wonders who is not a liberal! Soon, we will be able to count on our fingers the few individuals that truly respect the Church’s doctrine!” The arguments of “liberal Catholics” were:
“The Church must find an agreement with the society in which we live, we cannot continue to live on the fringes of society, the Church must in the end accept the world such as it is, in order to penetrate inside the world and supposedly convert the world … The separation between Church and the State, the Church on equal footing with other religions, freedom of the press, freedom of conscience …, it is not possible to continue to fight against those things. These things are now admitted by everybody, even by priests!”
Quote:“But”, replied Archbishop Lefebvre, “one must take it or leave it. Either this is the end of Catholicism, or we defend truly Our Lord Jesus Christ and the whole Church and the whole Catholic religion … If we begin to cohabit with evil, to discuss endlessly with evil, to make compromises with evil, then we've lost, we've lost!”
I) To study liberalism is a pastoral duty
The Chapter insisted several times on the grave duty for a priest to study. Among topics that need to be studied, liberalism plays an important role. During a retreat that took place in Ecône, on September 22 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre expressed his astonishment regarding the “number of encyclicals about Freemasonry”. “Why talk about those things in a seminary, as if this be the knowledge needed to be acquired in a seminary, as if this be what was needed to be taught to the faithful? But if we did not know the source of errors, of what destroys societies, souls and the Church, we would be incompetent shepherds …it is an absolute requirement to study liberalism and to understand it well and I believe that many of those that left us ‘to rejoin Rome’ so-say, did not understand what liberalism is and how the Roman authorities since the Council are infested with these errors. If they had understood it, they would have fled from it and would have stayed with us. This is serious, because by coming close to these authorities, one is necessarily contaminated. They represent the authority and we are subordinates … they impose on us their principles … so long as they do not rid themselves of these errors of liberalism, there is no way one can find an agreement with them, it is just not possible.”
Fellow priests “in favour of an agreement” and priests that find favour with the director of DICI – by the way, this director is also a founder member of GREC – have they read and understood references recommended by Archbishop Lefebvre on this topic? If yes, how could they wish to subject Tradition to Roman authority? Rome deceives the world, humiliates the Church and instead of denouncing this imposture, we are asking Rome to acknowledge us “as we are”(1)? And this, knowing that “discussions have showed profound disagreement on almost all topics discussed”(2)? What can explain such self-delusion, if it is not ignorance of liberalism?
II) The liberal is an illogical individual
“We are so much tempted by illogicality which is very close to liberalism. The liberal is one that would be tempted not to follow his intelligence when it needs to be put into practice because it is difficult, because it is hard work. He understands, but in practice, he compromises. He makes compromises with himself, but this compromise is a sin. We are illogical when we sin … there are always reasons to say: “it was a good thing in the past, it probably will be a good thing in the future, but today no … there are some truths that one should not say, that one should not assert”. Thus, about this attitude, it is imperative that this not be our attitude in our lives. We must avoid being illogical, being people who make things up…” (3).
And yet Bishop Fellay and his Council wrote to the three bishops: “For the common good of the Society, we would prefer by far the current interim solution of the status quo, but obviously Rome no longer tolerates this situation”. (Bishop Fellay, letter dated April 14, 2012)
III) The virtue of Prudence
[Archbishop Lefebvre:]
Quote:“Catholic liberals have kept on saying that their will for orthodoxy is equivalent of the most hard-line people. The compromise they have sought is not theoretical but practical. … They always come back to this reasoning. They tell us: “You see, we are shepherds. We accept the reality, we are concrete people, we are practical!” But what are practicalities? Practicalities are the implementation of principles with the help of the virtue of prudence, nothing else than that. What are practicalities when principles are missing? … “Yes, yes, yes, we agree, we share the same Credo, etc. Yes, but when we find ourselves in the world, then one must adjust oneself to the level of others, one must live with others, otherwise you will never convert others”. To say this is a total error! … Popes have perceived the danger of those Catholics that are almost elusive because they claim when one wants to corner them: “No, no, I agree”. But afterwards, they come to terms with enemies of the Church … They are traitors … more dreadful than avowed enemies … they divide minds, destroy unity, weaken strengths that instead should be combined all together against the enemy … You will be told that it is you who cause division, but it is not possible to divide when one abides by the truth … those who divide are those who try to diminish the truth in order to find agreement with everyone … Those that have it wrong must convert themselves to the truth and should not try to find common ground between truth and error …” (4)
During the Council, liberals put Catholics to sleep by telling them that dogma would remain untouched and that the Council was only taking care of pastoral matters. During the ‘SSPX Council’ [the General Chapter - Ed.], liberals among us put us to sleep by saying that Catholic principles are not being reviewed but that “this is not about a human prudence,” this is about a supernatural prudence, this is about “an equilibrium that is very fragile, that requires the assistance of the Holy Ghost and the Gift of Counsel” (5).
Archbishop Lefebvre, in a conference in 1978 (assisted by the Holy Ghost?) claimed:
Quote: “I think that during the next meeting, it will be me who will ask them questions. I will be the one who will interrogate them and I will ask them: ‘What Church are you? Which Church are we dealing with here? I would like to know if I am talking to the Catholic Church or if I am speaking with another Church, with a counter-Church, with a counterfeit Church?’ ...I sincerely believe that we are currently dealing with a counterfeit Church and not with the Catholic Church. Why do I say this? Because they no longer teach the Catholic Faith. They no longer defend the Catholic Faith. They are leading the Church into something other than the Catholic Church. It is no longer the Catholic Church. They sit on the chair of their predecessors, but they are not continuing their predecessors.”
Bishop Fellay does not think that way:
Quote:“we are not talking about a Church that does not exist materially! We are talking about the Church that exists, really exists, that is in front of us, that has a hierarchy, with a pope. It is not the product of our imagination: the Church is there, the Church truly is there, it is the Roman Catholic Church. We claim and we must confess that this Church is holy, is one, because faith requires us to do so.” (6)
IV) Is this ‘Concrete Church’ Catholic ?
Archbishop Lefebvre wished “to reintegrate into the official and standard structure of the Church”.
And yet:
Quote:“I believe,” he used to say, “that we are in the Church and that we are the true sons of the Church, and that others are not. They are not the true sons of the Church, because liberalism is not a son of the Church. Liberalism is against the Church, liberalism operates to destroy the Church, in that sense they cannot claim that they are sons of the Church … some are prepared to sacrifice the fight for the faith by saying: “Let us first re-enter the Church! Let us first do everything to integrate the official, public structure of the Church. Let us be silent about dogmatic issues. Let us be silent about the malice of the [New] Mass. Let us keep quiet over the issues of religious freedom, Human Rights, ecumenism. And, once we are inside the Church, we will be able to do this, we will be able to achieve that …” That's absolutely false! You don't enter into a structure, under superiors, by claiming that you will overthrow everything as soon as you are inside, whereas they have all the means to suppress us! They have all the authority. What matters to us first and foremost it is to maintain the Catholic Faith. That's what we are fighting for. So the canonical issue, this purely public and exterior issue in the Church, is secondary. What matters, it is to stay within the Church … inside the Church, in other words, in the Catholic Faith of all time, in the true priesthood, in the true Mass, in the true sacraments, and the same catechism, with the same Bible. That's what matters to us. That's what the Church is. Public recognition is a secondary issue. Thus we should not seek what is secondary by losing what is primary, by losing what is the primary goal of our fight! “Once we are recognised,” you say, “we will be able to act from within the Church.” This is completely wrong; it is to totally misunderstand the minds of those in the present hierarchy! To realise this, one need only read that much talked about remark of Cardinal Ratzinger… I'll now read to you the sentence which is essential in his interview: “The problem of the nineteen sixties was to acquire for the Church the best values expressed during two centuries of liberal culture … this objective has been attained”. Yet the principles of two centuries of liberal culture are ecumenism and the declaration of Human Rights, religious liberty! And Cardinal Ratzinger recognizes them. He says: “this has been done!” … That's extremely serious! It condemns everything he says in his interview, because that is the heart of his thoughts, and that is what we have a problem with, it's what we do not want. We cannot place ourselves under an authority whose ideas are liberal and who little by little would condemn us, by the logic of the thing, to accept these liberal ideas and all the consequences of these liberal ideas, which are the new Mass, changes in the liturgy, changes in the Bible, changes in catechism, all these changes … Some say: “but they have fought against the catechism!” … yes, but they simply put the brakes on, because the changes were going so far that they even had to slow it down a bit. The consequences of their own principles scare them. Thus they put on the brakes at times, but they nevertheless continue to want to keep liberal ideas. Changing their liberal ideas is out of the question!”(7)
But Bishop Fellay stated:
Quote:“Priests or bishops [and the pope?] are leading souls to hell […] And the Church, even in that state, remains holy, remains capable of sanctifying. If today, dear faithful, we receive sacraments, grace, faith, it is through this Roman Catholic Church, not through its faults, but through this real concrete Church. […] The Church is today capable of transmitting the faith, of communicating grace, the sacraments.”(8)
The illegitimate Mass? The heresies of the new code and of the new catechism ? The sins against the faith in Assisi …? That's not the way Archbishop Lefebvre preached:
Quote:“I think you need to be convinced of this: you truly represent the Catholic Church … lately, we are being told that it is necessary that Tradition enters into the visible Church. I think a very, very serious error is committed here. Where is the visible Church ? … Where are the true marks of the Church? … Clearly we are the ones who preserve the Unity of the Faith, which has disappeared from the official Church … we are the ones who have the marks of the visible Church … it is not us but the modernists who leave the Church. And about the expression “to leave the visible Church”, it is an error to equate official Church with visible Church … is it therefore necessary to leave the official Church? To some extent, yes, it is obvious. One is obliged to leave the environment of these bishops, if one does not want to lose one’s soul. But this will not suffice because it is in Rome that heresy has settled. If bishops are heretics, it is not without the influence of Rome.” (9)
Bishop Fellay sharply distances himself from the ecclesiology of Archbishop Lefebvre. On the pretext of ‘a mystery’, he mixes up and amalgamates the Catholic Church and the conciliar Church in one unique “very concrete Church … that is in a miserable state.” (10)
V) To publicly rebuke those responsible for liberal errors
Our articles of association ask us to be attached “unfailingly to the Roman Church and to the successor of Peter who is acting as a true Successor of Peter”, but not to the conciliar Church: neither to a modernist who offers as an example of holiness a sacrilegious pope who kisses the Koran, nor to a pope who invites Julia Kriteva, representing the nonbelievers, in order “to pray for peace” (sic). This woman, after having praised John Paul II as apostle of Human Rights, declared: “thanks go to Pope Benedict XVI for having invited for the first time in these locations humanists among your ranks.” This woman wanted, in the sanctuary, “a world government that is ethical, universal and solidarity based.” How is it possible that some superiors remained silent and sought an agreement with this conciliar Church when our patron saint warned the Catholic Church against this Quote:“vast movement of apostasy organized, in all countries, for the establishment of a universal Church.” (11)
The Chapter wants the Society to continue to “freely” “rebuke even publicly those responsible for liberal errors and their consequences”. Yet, let's not delude ourselves, if the head of the Church is modernist, the head of the Society is today seriously tainted with liberalism. All of us, particularly our superiors, have to examine our own conscience: will not each of us be, from our own place, responsible of the rise of liberalism in our own congregation?
Not long ago, Bishop Fellay explained to us that in 2006, “Heresies are spreading quickly” and “the authorities are propagating the modern and modernist spirit of Vatican II”, but that in year 2012, there is a restoration of the Church, ad intra, by Benedict XVI.
And that “this requires us to take a new positioning with regards to the official Church … it is about a supernatural view on the Church.” (12) How can he have written these lines after Assisi III? Is Benedict XVI restoring the Faith ad intra by organizing ad extra interreligious gatherings condemned by the Church, with on top of this, the help of humanist atheists to work for the “promotion of the true good of humanity”? One of our theologians who participated in the Roman discussions confided to one fellow priest: “Bishop Fellay's head is rotten but the Chapter will prevent him from signing. We'll just have to somehow make it through the next 6 years.” Is that such a sure thing? Is that enough? How many members of the Chapter are prepared to profess publicly the Catholic faith with all its consequences:
Quote: “We have never wanted to belong to that system that calls itself the ‘Conciliar Church’, and which defines itself by the Novus Ordo Missae, ecumenism disengaged from the Catholic cause and the widespread secularisation of all of society.”(13)
Archbishop Lefebvre was deceived in May 1988. In September 2012, in spite of his grace of state and in spite of his Council, in spite also of “the assistance of the Holy Ghost and the Gift of Counsel”, Bishop Fellay admitted that he was deceived regarding the intentions of the Pope. But, in reality, there is no deception, because Benedict XVI never hid his intentions. The problem comes from a hazy concept of the “real Church” which is “a very, very serious error.”
Errare humanum est, sed perseverare diabolicum! The liberalism of our superiors is a punishment for our congregation. Do we not share responsibility in that sin because of our negligence and failure to live from the treasure transmitted by our founder, because of our laxity, because of our worldly ties and because of our clerical presumption swollen with pride?
Vigilate et orate.
Footnotes
1 Bishop Fellay, Cor unum, number 102, Summer 2012
2 Bishop Fellay, Cor unum, number 101, March 2012
3 Archbishop Lefebvre, retreat in Ecône, September 17, 1981
4 Archbishop Lefebvre, spiritual conference, Ecône, January 1974
5 Bishop Fellay, Cor unum, number 102, Summer 2012
6 Bishop Fellay, conference in Flavigny, September 2, 2012
7 Archbishop Lefebvre, spiritual conference, Ecône, December 21, 1984
8 Bishop Fellay, November 1, 2012, Ecône
9 Ecône, September 9, 1988
10 Bishop Fellay, conference in Flavigny, September 2, 2012
11 Pie X, Notre charge apostolique, August 25, 191
12 Bishop Fellay, Cor Unum, number 101, March 2012
13 Open letter of SSPX superiors to Cardinal Gantin, Ecône, July 6, 1988
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| The Recusant [2014]: A Questionnaire for Understanding What Has Happened in the SSPX |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-02-2021, 02:34 PM - Forum: The New-Conciliar SSPX
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The Recusant - Issue 13 [January 2014]
YES or NO?
A Questionnaire for understanding what has happened in the SSPX
[Original by Fr. Rioult - translated from www.LaSapiniere.info by The Recusant]
This questionnaire offers you facts and questions. It is up to you, alone and according to your conscience, to answer them.
Read it, make copies of it, give it to others (friends, relatives, people you know from Mass, etc.)
“He that hath ears to hear, let him hear” (Mark 4,9)
The 2006 General Chapter
1. “The contacts made from time to time with the authorities in Rome have no other purpose than to help them embrace once again that Tradition which the Church cannot repudiate without losing her identity, and not just to benefit the Society, nor to arrive at some merely practical impossible agreement.”
With these words, did the General Chapter of 2006 forbid any practical agreement without doctrinal agreement? YES or NO?
2. Bearing in mind that, “What the General Chapter decides is a law which is in force all the way up to the next Chapter” (Bp. Fellay, Écône September 2012), was this law forbidding any purely practical agreement still in force from the General Chapter of July 2006 until the General Chapter of July 2012? YES or NO?
The Disobedience of the General Council
3. In April 2012, writing to the three bishops: “Let it be noted in passing that we did not look for a practical agreement. That is false. All we have done is not refusing a priori, as you ask, to consider the offer of the Pope.” – Did the General Council let it be understood that it was prepared to break the law of the 2006 Chapter? YES or NO?
4. In writing to Benedict XVI, on 17th June 2012: “I had believed that you were disposed to leave till a later date the resolution of outstanding disagreements over certain points of the Council and liturgical reform [...] in order to achieve union and I committed myself in this perspective despite the fairly strong opposition in the ranks of the Society and at the price of substantial disruption. And I fully intend to continue to do my best to pursue this path to reach the necessary clarifications.” Did Bishop Fellay disobey the law of the 2006 Chapter? YES or NO?
The Sedition of the General Council
5. Given Bishop de Galarreta’s intervention in 2011: “For the good of the Society and of Tradition, we must shut this Pandora’s Box as quickly as possible, so as to avoid the discrediting and demolition of authority, disputes, discord and division, from which perhaps there may be no going back.” (Bp. de Galarreta, Albano, October 2011).
And given the intervention of the three Bishops in 2012: “Your Excellency, Fathers, take care! You are leading the Society to a point where it will no longer be able to turn back, to a profound division from which there will be no return and, if you end up arriving at such an agreement, at powerful and destructive influences whose influence the Society will not be able to resist.”(Letter of the three Bishops to Menzingen, April 2012) Can it be said that the General Council had been alerted to the serious consequences of their policy? YES or NO?
6. In writing to the three Bishops, “For the good of the Society, we would have by far preferred the present solution of an intermediary status quo, but it is manifestly clear that Rome will put up with it no longer,” did the General Council have the good of the Society in mind? YES or NO?
7. Given the following words: “We know that there will be some casualties, but we’re going to continue all the way to the end” (said by one of Bishop Fellay’s assistants, in his presence, in May 2012, to the superiors of the Benedictines, Capuchins and Dominicans) and: “I cannot exclude that there may be a split” (Bp. Fellay, CNS interview, 12/05/12), can we say that Bishop Fellay was aware of the division that was being caused? YES or NO?
8. Can it be said that the General Council, in knowingly going against the good of the Society, was guilty of sedition, in other words that it knowingly caused division amongst the members in order to impose its own will which was contrary to the demands of a higher authority (the 2006 Chapter)? YES or NO?
The Subversion during and after the Chapter
9. At the July 2012 Chapter, Fr. de Journa proved that Bishop Fellay’s Doctrinal Declaration was nothing other than Benedict XVI’s ‘hermeneutic of continuity.’ His conclusion said:
“This declaration is therefore profoundly ambiguous and it sins by omission of a clear and sharp denunciation of the main errors which are still running rampant inside the Church and destroying the faith of the faithful. This declaration, as it stands, allows it to be believed that we accept the premise of the ‘hermeneutic of continuity.’ Used as the foundation for an agreement, such a document would make that same question unclear from the very beginning and would favour all the sliding that would follow.”
His presentation was met with not a single objection from any of the other members. After this presentation, Fr. Pagliarani stood up to support Bishop Fellay with the words:
“Dear colleagues! Surely we’re not going to give our Superior General a slap in the face by forcing him to retract it! The retraction will be implicit in the final declaration of the Chapter.”
Then the Chapter moved on to other business. The General House [Menzingen] gave them to understand that the Declaration had been withdrawn and its author implicitly frowned upon thereby.
Bishop Tisser thought so, along with everyone else. In a letter of 29th March, 2013, he said that: “It was tacitly concluded that there was no need to insist on the issue, since it was obvious that the Superior General was sorry for his mistake was determined ‘not to do it again.’” (Appendix to Circular Letter, 2013-04) And yet, since then, Bishop Fellay has not ceased from trying to defend the contents of his seditious Doctrinal Declaration. He talks about an “extremely delicate” text which “did not achieve unanimity in the Society” “to such an
extent that I said to Rome, that’s it, I’m withdrawing it, it’s not going to be any use if it’s not even understood by our own people, because, well, perhaps it was a bit too subtle. Well, too bad, we’re withdrawing it.” (Bp. Fellay, Lille, 7th May, 2013) “A minimalist text, which could have led to some confusion in our ranks.” (Bp. Fellay, Cor Unum 102) A text which “was not sufficiently clear” (Bp. Fellay, Écône, 07/09/2012) A Doctrinal Declaration which “excluded any ambiguity regarding our judgement of the Council, including the famous ‘hermeneutic of continuity’.” A Declaration which “was not understood by several high-ranking members of the Society, who saw in it an ambiguity, or even a false compromise with the idea of the hermeneutic of continuity.” (Bp. Fellay, Cor Unum 104, ‘Note on the Doctrinal Declaration of April 15th 2012’) Does Bishop Fellay’s description correspond to reality? YES or NO?
Is it moral to take advantage of the oath of silence sworn by the Chapter members so as to present an ‘official version’ of things which contradicts reality? YES or NO?
Is Menzingen’s official version (‘not understood by our own people,’ ‘too bad, we’re withdrawing it,’ ‘sufficiently clear’) doctrinally satisfactory? YES or NO?
Can we oppose the General Council?
10. On 8th October, 1988, at Écône, Archbishop Lefebvre pronounced the following words: “They’ve been put under the authority of the conciliar Church. It’s really amazing to think that, in spite of all the things they ought to see and take note of, they stay put. They don’t think of leaving to found another monastery or of demanding that Dom Gerard step down and be replaced. No, nothing. We’re obedient. [...] It’s pathetic to see how easily a monastery which was part of Tradition goes under the modernist, conciliar authorities. And everyone just stays
put. It’s a shame, and it’s really sad to see. [...] This transfer of authority is what is really serious, it’s excessively grave. It’s not enough simply to say ‘We haven’t changed anything in practice...’ It’s this transfer of authority which is so serious, because the intention of these authorities is to destroy Tradition.”
With these words, was Archbishop Lefebvre encouraging priests and religious to sedition and disobedience? YES or NO?
Wasn’t he rather calling for the survival and defence of the Faith? YES or NO?
11. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that: “Those however who defend the common good and withstand the seditious party are not themselves seditious, any more than a man may be called quarrelsome because he defends himself.” (II, II Q.42, Art 2c) As a result therefore, can Bishop Williamson and the priests who opposed the sedition of Menzingen (which went against the common good of the Society) be accused justly and truly of sedition and rebellion? YES or NO?
The means employed by the General House (Menzingen) to conceal its sedition
12. During the disciplinary trial of Fr. Pinaud, Fr. Quilton wrote a ‘narration of the facts’ in which he tells us that: “Fr. Waillez created for himself the fake email address, nicolas_pinaud@yahoo.fr in the name of Fr. Pinaud and made use of it between 3 and 5 times to entrap colleagues and faithful implicated in the rebellion.”
That: “At the same time, Fr. Wailliez, helped by Fr. Thouvenot, easily gained access to Fr. Rioult’s inbox, rather like finding the badly hidden keys to a safe,” and that, “having gained complete access to and control of the email account, Fr. Waillez was able to get hold of all the documents sent to and from Fr. Rioult, still present on the Yahoo server. He then left it to the General house to whatever use they wished of all the available material. Fr. Waillez undertook all these actions with the total agreement of the General House.”
Is it acceptable that a District Superior, with the help of the Secretary General and the agreement of Menzingen, steals private correspondence, engages in identity theft, making a fraudulent use of someone else’s identity so as to harm the priests who were opposing the sedition of Menzingen? YES or NO?
13. Is it just for Fr. Pinaud, after eight months of isolation, to be condemned by Fr. Wuilloud and forbidden to say Mass ever again or to hear confessions... because he thought that one can oppose an authority which endangers the Faith, even if that authority is called Bishop Fellay? YES or NO?
Conclusion: “When just men increase, the people shall rejoice: when the wicked shall bear rule, the people shall mourn.” (Proverbs 29,2) YES or NO?
“Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a provoking house: who have eyes to see, and see not: and ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a provoking house.” (Ez 12,2)
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| Interview with Ratzinger: "There are not two Popes." |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-02-2021, 01:49 PM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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Interview with Ratzinger: «There are not two Popes. The resignation of 8 years ago? I think I did well"
Benedict XVI's message to those who do not give up and to Bergoglio's fans who fear his shadow. “It was a painful decision, but I think I did well. My conscience is fine "
Corriere Della Sera [computer translated from the Italian]| March 1, 2021
" There are two popes. The Pope is only one… ». Joseph Ratzinger says it in a faint voice, striving to articulate every word well. He is seated on one of the two light leather armchairs which, together with a sofa, furnish the living room on the first floor of the Mater Ecclesiae cloistered monastery.: the place where he retired, far from everything, in March 2013. His reading glasses are placed on the bedside table, next to an ancient wooden statuette depicting a Madonna and Child. «This is the Guardini Room. It is so called because it collects among other things the complete work of the Italian-German theologian Romano Guardini. It is there, behind you », explains Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, his personal secretary and Prefect of the Papal Household, pointing to the bookcase lining the walls. The editor of Corriere della Sera , Luciano Fontana, hands the Pope Emeritus a red folder containing two caricatures that Emilio Giannelli , cartoonist appreciated by Benedetto, has designed especially for him.He looks at the first for a long time, and smiles. Then he moves on to the second, and the smile widens into laughter . "Giannelli is a witty person", he glosses with papal and Bavarian aplomb.
Until 2012, the cloistered nuns lived in the twelve cells of this building, built between 1992 and 1994 and previously occupied by the Gendarmerie and papal gardeners. Now he hosts Benedict, the four "Memores", the consecrated women of Communion and Liberation who assist him, and Monsignor Gaenswein . It appears suddenly after a hairpin bend in the highest and most inaccessible part of the Vatican City. It is protected by an electric gate , beyond which an unreal silence reigns. Meeting Benedict is rare, especially in recent times. And even more unusual is the fact that you agree to address one of the most traumatic topics for the life of the Catholic Church in recent centuries. His clarification on the uniqueness of the Papacy is obvious to himbut not for some sectors of conservative Catholicism more irreducible in hostility to Francis. For this reason, he reiterates that "the Pope is only one", weakly tapping the palm of his hand on the armrest : as if he wanted to give words the strength of a definitive affirmation.
It is significant: he delivers the message to the Corriere on the eve of February 28, the same day eight years ago when his renunciation of the Papacy, announced on February 11, became effective . After a long time, the disorientation, the amazement, the gossip that accompanied that epochal gesture still stagnate. And Benedict seems to want to exorcise them. We ask if in recent years he has often thought about that day. He nods. “It was a difficult decision. But I took it fully aware, and I think I did well. Some of my slightly "fanatic" friends are still angry, they did not want to accept my choice. I think of the conspiracy theories that followed it: some said it was the fault of the Vatileaks scandal, some of a conspiracy by the gay lobby, some of the case of the conservative Lefebvrian theologian Richard Williamson. They don't want to believe in a conscious choice. But my conscience is fine ».
The sentences come out with a dropper, the voice is a breath, it comes and goes . And Monsignor Gaenswein in some rare passages repeats and "translates", while Benedict nods in approval. The mind remains clear, quick as the eyes, alert and lively. The white hair is slightly long, under the papal skullcap as white as the robe. Two very thin wrists emerge from the sleeves that underline an image of great physical fragility. Ratzinger wears a watch on his left wrist and on his right a strange contraption that looks like another watch but is actually an alarm ready to go off if something happens . What he himself defined in February 2018, in a letter to the Corriere, «This last period of my life», flows quietly, in the hermitage between the hairpin bends of the Vatican Gardens flanked by trees, waterfalls and altars, which overlooks Rome. Until February 2, in the hall where he receives us there was a nativity scene and a Christmas tree, framed between the library, the icons hung on the walls together with other sacred images: a sober room, not large, welcoming.
The rhythms are routine. Newspapers previously selected by the Vatican offices are read every day. In addition, the Osservatore romano , the Corriere della Sera and two German newspapers arrive in print . At the table, with the Memores we often discuss politics. And now the Pope Emeritus is curious about Mario Draghi. "We hope he will be able to resolve the crisis," he says. "He is a very respected man in Germany too." He mentions Sergio Mattarella, although he admits that he knows the head of state less than his predecessor, Giorgio Napolitano. "How are you?", He informs himself. And the speech slips on the Covid 19 epidemic.
Ratzinger has already been vaccinated , he received the first dose and then he was given the second, like Monsignor Gaenswein and most of the inhabitants of the Vatican City. In this respect, the small state is observed with a touch of envy in Italy and in much of Europe, where vaccines arrive slowly. The virus is frightening, and Benedict mentions the dramatic experience lived by the president of the CEI, Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, who was healed after a long battle. “I just saw him again and he told me he is much better now. I found it well ». And when the Pope Emeritus is asked about Francis' next visit to Iraq, the expression becomes serious, worried . "I think it's a very important journey," he notes." Unfortunately, it falls at a very difficult time that also makes it a dangerous trip : for security reasons and for Covid. And then there is the unstable Iraqi situation. I will accompany Francis with my prayer ». Some men of the Vatican Gendarmerie and the Swiss Guards are already there to organize all possible protective measures around Pope Francis. Italian intelligence agents have also been present for weeks, but it is not clear who they are collaborating with. There are no comments on this from the monastery where Ratzinger lives. It comes naturally to think of the United States, and to observe that now, with Joe Biden in the White House replacing Donald Trump, relations with the Vatican are destined to improve.
On Biden, the second Catholic president after John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Ratzinger expresses some reservations on a religious level . “It's true, he's Catholic and observant. And personally he is against abortion, ”he observes. "But as president, he tends to present himself in continuity with the line of the Democratic Party ... And on gender politics we have not yet fully understood what his position is", he whispers, giving voice to the mistrust and hostility of a large part of the US episcopate towards Biden and his party, considered too liberal.
Forty-five minutes have passed, outside it is starting to get dark: far away, even if in reality they are less than a kilometer, you can see the lights of Rome. Benedict gives as a souvenir of the interview a commemorative medal and a bookmark with his blessing photo: both from when he was Pope. And again the paradox emerges not only of his own but of a Church immersed unwittingly in the inextricable intertwining of two papal identities. Ratzinger greets, remaining seated, with a hint of a smile, and thanks by pointing to the two cartoons by Giannelli placed on the table. In one, Benedict symbolically embraces a crowded St Peter's Square: a nostalgic reminder not only of his pontificate but of the world before Covid 19. And it is an image that contrasts with the powerful, dramatic one of Francis that on March 27, 2020 speaks from the churchyard of the same square, desertified by the coronavirus and ghostly. In the other vignette, in color, the Pope Emeritus gives the keys of the Church to a frowning Francis, adding: «I recommend…». As always when it comes to the Vatican, reality and symbolism are indissolubly linked. And the enigmas of the German Pope Emeritus and the Argentine Pontiff seem to have been made on purpose to feed the legends about ecclesiastical power and its mysteries.
Leaving the monastery, escorted by car by a plainclothes Swiss guard with a headset , one would think that when Ratzinger insists with a veil of voice "the Pope is one", he is certainly addressing the "fanatics" who do not give up. To reassure them, he speaks to the followers of Francis who fear the intellectual shadow of this old and frail theologian with age. But perhaps, after eight years, with his inner voice, the Pope Emeritus unconsciously whispers it even to himself.
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| St. Gregory Thaumaturgus: A Sectional Confession of the Faith |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-02-2021, 01:40 PM - Forum: Fathers of the Church
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Home > Fathers of the Church > A Sectional Confession of the Faith (St. Gregory Thaumaturgus)
A Sectional Confession of the Faith
1
Most hostile and alien to the Apostolic Confession are those who speak of the Son as assumed to Himself by the Father out of nothing, and from an emanational origin; and those who hold the same sentiments with respect to the Holy Spirit; those who say that the Son is constituted divine by gift and grace, and that the Holy Spirit is made holy; those who regard the name of the Son as one common to servants, and assert that thus He is the first-born of the creature, as becoming, like the creature, existent out of non-existence, and as being first made, and who refuse to admit that He is the only-begotten Son, — the only One that the Father has, and that He has given Himself to be reckoned in the number of mortals, and is thus reckoned first-born; those who circumscribe the generation of the Son by the Father with a measured interval after the fashion of man, and refuse to acknowledge that the aeon of the Begetter and that of the Begotten are without beginning; those who introduce three separate and diverse systems of divine worship, whereas there is but one form of legitimate service which we have received of old from the law and the prophets, and which has been confirmed by the Lord and preached by the apostles. Nor less alienated from the true confession are those who hold not the doctrine of the Trinity according to truth, as a relation consisting of three persons, but impiously conceive it as implying a triple being in a unity (Monad), formed in the way of synthesis and think that the Son is the wisdom in God, in the same manner as the human wisdom subsists in man whereby the man is wise, and represent the Word as being simply like the word which we utter or conceive, without any hypostasis whatever.
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But the Church's Confession, and the Creed that brings salvation to the world, is that which deals with the incarnation of the Word, and bears that He gave Himself over to the flesh of man which He acquired of Mary, while yet He conserved His own identity, and sustained no divine transposition or mutation, but was brought into conjunction with the flesh after the similitude of man; so that the flesh was made one with the divinity, the divinity having assumed the capacity of receiving the flesh in the fulfilling of the mystery. And after the dissolution of death there remained to the holy flesh a perpetual impassibility and a changeless immortality, man's original glory being taken up into it again by the power of the divinity, and being ministered then to all men by the appropriation of faith.
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If, then, there are any here, too, who falsify the holy faith, either by attributing to the divinity as its own what belongs to the humanity — progressions, and passions, and a glory coming with accession — or by separating from the divinity the progressive and passible body, as if subsisted of itself apart — these persons also are outside the confession of the Church and of salvation. No one, therefore, can know God unless he apprehends the Son; for the Son is the wisdom by whose instrumentality all things have been created; and these created objects declare this wisdom, and God is recognised in the wisdom. But the wisdom of God is not anything similar to the wisdom which man possesses, but it is the perfect wisdom which proceeds from the perfect God, and abides for ever, not like the thought of man, which passes from him in the word that is spoken and (straightway) ceases to be. Wherefore it is not wisdom only, but also God; nor is it Word only, but also Son. And whether, then, one discerns God through creation, or is taught to know Him by the Holy Scriptures, it is impossible either to apprehend Him or to learn of Him apart from His wisdom. And he who calls upon God rightly, calls on Him through the Son; and he who approaches Him in a true fellowship, comes to Him through Christ. Moreover, the Son Himself cannot be approached apart from the Spirit. For the Spirit is both the life and the holy formation of all things; and God sending forth this Spirit through the Son makes the creature like Himself.
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One therefore is God the Father, one the Word, one the Spirit, the life, the sanctification of all. And neither is there another God as Father, nor is there another Son as Word of God, nor is there another Spirit as quickening and sanctifying. Further, although the saints are called both gods, and sons, and spirits, they are neither filled with the Spirit, nor are made like the Son and God. And if, then, any one makes this affirmation, that the Son is God, simply as being Himself filled with divinity, and not as being generated of divinity, he has belied the Word, he has belied the Wisdom, he has lost the knowledge of God; he has fallen away into the worship of the creature, he has taken up the impiety of the Greeks, to that he has gone back; and he has become a follower of the unbelief of the Jews, who, supposing the Word of God to be but a human son, have refused to accept Him as God, and have declined to acknowledge Him as the Son of God. But it is impious to think of the Word of God as merely human, and to think of the works which are done by Him as abiding, while He abides not Himself. And if any one says that the Christ works all things only as commanded by the Word, he will both make the Word of God idle, and will change the Lord's order into servitude. For the slave is one altogether under command, and the created is not competent to create; for to suppose that what is itself created may in like manner create other things, would imply that it has ceased to be like the creature.
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Again, when one speaks of the Holy Spirit as an object made holy, he will no longer be able to apprehend all things as being sanctified in (the) Spirit. For he who has sanctified one, sanctifies all things. That man, consequently, belies the fountain of sanctification, the Holy Spirit, who denudes Him of the power of sanctifying, and he will thus be precluded from numbering Him with the Father and the Son; he makes nought, too, of the holy (ordinance of) baptism, and will no more be able to acknowledge the holy and august Trinity. For either we must apprehend the perfect Trinity in its natural and genuine glory, or we shall be under the necessity of speaking no more of a Trinity, but only of a Unity; or else, not numbering created objects with the Creator, nor the creatures with the Lord of all, we mast also not number what is sanctified with what sanctifies; even as no object that is made can be numbered with the Trinity, but in the name of the Holy Trinity baptism and invocation and worship are administered. For if there are three several glories, there must also be three several forms of cultus with those who impiously worship the creature; for if there is a distinction in the nature of the objects worshipped, there ought to be also with these men a distinction in the nature of the worship offered. What is recent surely is not to be worshipped along with what is eternal; for the recent comprehends all that has had a beginning, while mighty and measureless is lie who is before the ages. He, therefore, who supposes some beginning of times in the life of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, therewith also cuts off any possibility of numbering the Son and the Spirit with the Father. For as we acknowledge the glory to be one, so ought we also to acknowledge the substance in the Godhead to be one, and one also the eternity of the Trinity.
6
Moreover, the capital clement of our salvation is the incarnation of the Word. We believe, therefore, that it was without any change in the Divinity that the incarnation of the Word took place with a view to the renewal of humanity. For there took place neither mutation nor transposition, nor any circumscription in will, as regards the holy energy of God; but while that remained in itself the same, it also effected the work of the incarnation with a view to the salvation of the world: and the Word of God, living on earth after man's fashion, maintained likewise in all the divine presence, fulfilling all things, and being united properly and individually with flesh; and while the sensibilities proper to the flesh were there, the divine energy maintained the impassibility proper to itself. Impious, therefore, is the man who introduces the passibility into the energy. For the Lord of glory appeared in fashion as a man when He undertook the economy upon the earth; and He fulfilled the law for men by His deeds, and by His sufferings He did away with man's sufferings, and by His death He abolished death, and by his resurrection He brought life to light; and now we look for His appearing from heaven in glory for the life and judgment of all, when the resurrection of the dead shall take place, to the end that recompense may be made to all according to their desert.
7
But some treat the Holy Trinity in an awful manner, when they confidently assert that there are not three persons, and introduce (the idea of) a person devoid of subsistence. Wherefore we clear ourselves of Sabellius, who says that the Father and the Son are the same. For he holds that the Father is He who speaks, and that the Son is the Word that abides in the Father, and becomes manifest at the time of the creation, and thereafter reverts to God on the fulfilling of all things. The same affirmation he makes also of the Spirit. We forswear this, because we believe that three persons— namely, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit— are declared to possess the one Godhead: for the one divinity showing itself forth according to nature in the Trinity establishes the oneness of the nature; and thus there is a (divinity that is the) property of the Father, according to the word, There is one God the Father; 1 Corinthians 8:6 and there is a divinity hereditary in the Son, as it is written, The Word was God; John 1:1 and there is a divinity present according to nature in the Spirit into wit, what subsists as the Spirit of God— according to Paul's statement, You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you. 1 Corinthians 3:6
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Now the person in each declares the independent being and subsistence. But divinity is the property of the Father; and whenever the divinity of these three is spoken of as one, testimony is borne that the property of the Father belongs also to the Son and the Spirit: wherefore, if the divinity may be spoken of as one in three persons, the trinity is established, and the unity is not dissevered; and the oneness Which is naturally the Father's is also acknowledged to be the Son's and the Spirit's. If one, however, speaks of one person as he may speak of one divinity, it cannot be that the two in the one are as one. For Paul addresses the Father as one in respect of divinity, and speaks of the Son as one in respect of lordship: There is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him. 1 Corinthians 8:6 Wherefore if there is one God, and one Lord, and at the same time one person as one divinity in one lordship, how can credit be given to (this distinction in) the words of whom and by whom, as has been said before? We speak, accordingly, not as if we separated the lordship from the divinity, nor as estranging the one from the other, but as unifying them in the way warranted by actual fact and truth; and we call the Son God with the property of the Father, as being His image and offspring; and we call the Father Lord, addressing Him by the name of the One Lord, as being His Origin and Begettor.
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The same position we hold respecting the Spirit, who has that unity with the Son which the Son has with the Father. Wherefore let the hypostasis of the Father be discriminated by the appellation of God; but let not the Son be cut off from this appellation, for He is of God. Again, let the person of the Son also be discriminated by the appellation of Lord; only let not God be dissociated from that, for He is Lord as being the Father of the Lord. And as it is proper to the Son to exercise lordship, for He it is that made (all things) by Himself, and now rules the things that were made, while at the same time the Father has a prior possession of that property, inasmuch as He is the Father of Him who is Lord; so we speak of the Trinity as One God, and yet not as if we made the one by a synthesis of three: for the subsistence that is constituted by synthesis is something altogether partitive and imperfect. But just as the designation Father is the expression of originality and generation, so the designation Son is the expression of the image and offspring of the Father. Hence, if one were to ask how there is but One God, if there is also a God of God, we would reply that that is a term proper to the idea of original causation, so far as the Father is the one First Cause. And if one were also to put the question, how there is but One Lord, if the Father also is Lord, we might answer that again by saying that He is so in so far as He is the Father of the Lord; and this difficulty shall meet us no longer.
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And again, if the impious say, How will there not be three Gods and three Persons, on the supposition that they have one and the same divinity? — we shall reply: Just because God is the Cause and Father of the Son; and this Son is the image and offspring of the Father, and not His brother; and the Spirit in like manner is the Spirit of God, as it is written, God is a Spirit. John 4:24 And in earlier times we have this declaration from the prophet David: By the word of the Lord were the heavens established, and all the power of them by the breath (spirit) of His mouth. And in the beginning of the book of the creation it is written thus: And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Genesis 1:2 And Paul in his Epistle to the Romans says But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Romans 8:9 And again he says: But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you. Romans 8:11 And again: As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Romans 8:14-15 And again: I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost. Romans 9:1 And again: Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, by the power of the Holy Ghost. Romans 15:13
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And again, writing to those same Romans, he says: But I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort, as putting you in mind, because of the grace that is given to me of God, that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the Gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost. I have therefore whereof I may glory through Jesus Christ in those things which pertain to God. For I dare not to speak of any of those things which Christ has not wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit. And again: Now I beseech you, brethren, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and by the love of the Spirit. Romans 15:30 And these things, indeed, are written in the Epistle to the Romans.
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Again, in the Epistle to the Corinthians he says: For my speech and my preaching was not in the enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. 1 Corinthians 2:4-5 And again he says: As it is written, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love Him. But God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God. 1 Corinthians 2:9-11 And again he says: But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. 1 Corinthians 2:14
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Do you see that all through Scripture the Spirit is preached, and yet nowhere named a creature? And what can the impious have to say if the Lord sends forth His disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit?Matthew 28:19 Without contradiction, that implies a communion and unity between them, according to which there are neither three divinities nor (three) lordships; but, while there remain truly and certainly the three persons, the real unity of the three must be acknowledged. And in this way proper credit will be given to the sending and the being sent (in the Godhead), according to which the Father has sent forth the Son, and the Son in like manner sends forth the Spirit. For one of the persons surely could not (be said to) send Himself; and one could not speak of the Father as incarnate. For the articles of our faith will not concur with the vicious tenets of the heresies; and it is right that our conceptions should follow the inspired and apostolic doctrines, and not that our impotent fancies should coerce the articles of our divine faith.
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But if they say, How can there be three Persons, and how but one Divinity? — we shall make this reply: That there are indeed three persons, inasmuch as there is one person of God the Father, and one of the Lord the Son, and one of the Holy Spirit; and yet that there is but one divinity, inasmuch as the Son is the Image of God the Father, who is One — that is, He is God of God; and in like manner the Spirit is called the Spirit of God, and that, too, of nature according to the very substance, and not according to simple participation of God. And there is one substance in the Trinity, which does not subsist also in the case of objects that are made; for there is not one substance in God and in the things that are made, because none of these is in substance God. Nor, indeed, is the Lord one of these according to substance, but there is one Lord the Son, and one Holy Spirit; and we speak also of one Divinity, and one Lordship, and one Sanctity in the Trinity; because the Father is the Cause of the Lord, having begotten Him eternally, and the Lord is the Prototype of the Spirit. For thus the Father is Lord, and the Son also is God; and of God it is said that God is a Spirit. John 4:24
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We therefore acknowledge one true God, the one First Cause, and one Son, very God of very God, possessing of nature the Father's divinity, — that is to say, being the same in substance with the Father; and one Holy Spirit, who by nature and in truth sanctifies all, and makes divine, as being of the substance of God. Those who speak either of the Son or of the Holy Spirit as a creature we anathematize. All other things we hold to be objects made, and in subjection, created by God through the Son, (and) sanctified in the Holy Spirit. Further, we acknowledge that the Son of God was made a Son of man, having taken to Himself the flesh from the Virgin Mary, not in name, but in reality; and that He is both the perfect Son of God, and the (perfect) Son of man — that the Person is but one, and that there is one worship for the Word and the flesh that He assumed. And we anathematize those who constitute different worships, one for the divine and another for the human, and who worship the man born of Mary as though He were another than the God of God. For we know that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1 And we worship Him who was made man on account of our salvation, not indeed as made perfectly like in the like body, but as the Lord who has taken to Himself the form of the servant. We acknowledge the passion of the Lord in the flesh, the resurrection in the power of His divinity, the ascension to heaven, and His glorious appearing when He comes for the judgment of the living and the dead, and for the eternal life of the saints.
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And since some have given us trouble by attempting to subvert our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and by affirming of Him that He was not God incarnated, but a man linked with God; for this reason we present our confession on the subject of the aforementioned matters of faith, and reject the faithless dogmas opposed thereto. For God, having been incarnated in the flesh of man, retains also His proper energy pure, possessing a mind unsubjected by the natural and fleshly affections, and holding the flesh and the fleshly motions divinely and sinlessly, and not only unmastered by the power of death, but even destroying death. And it is the true God unincarnate that has appeared incarnate, the perfect One with the genuine and divine perfection; and in Him there are not two persons. Nor do we affirm that there are four to worship, viz., God and the Son of God, and man and the Holy Spirit. Wherefore we also anathematize those who show their impiety in this, and who thus give the man a place in the divine doxology. For we hold that the Word of God was made man on account of our salvation, in order that we might receive the likeness of the heavenly, and be made divine after the likeness of Him who is the true Son of God by nature, and the Son of man according to the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ.
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We believe therefore in one God, that is, in one First Cause, the God of the law and of the Gospel, the just and good; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, true God, that is, Image of the true God, Maker of all things seen and unseen, Son of God and only-begotten Offspring, and Eternal Word, living and self-subsistent and active. always being with the Father; and in one Holy Spirit; and in the glorious advent of the Son of God, who of the Virgin Mary took flesh, and endured sufferings and death in our stead, and came to resurrection on the third day, and was taken up to heaven; and in His glorious appearing yet to come; and in one holy Church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the flesh, and life eternal.
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We acknowledge that the Son and the Spirit are consubstantial with the Father, and that the substance of the Trinity is one — that is, that there is one divinity according to nature, the Father remaining unbegotten, and the Son being begotten of the Father in a true generation, and not in a formation by will, and the Spirit being sent forth eternally from the substance of the Father through the Son, with power to sanctify the whole creation. And we further acknowledge that the Word was made flesh, and was manifested in the flesh-movement received of a virgin, and did not simply energize in a man. And those who have fellowship with men that reject the consubstantiality as a doctrine foreign to the Scriptures, and speak of any of the persons in the Trinity as created, and separate that person from the one natural divinity, we hold as aliens, and have fellowship with none such. There is one God the Father, and there is only one divinity. But the Son also is God, as being the true image of the one and only divinity, according to generation and the nature which He has from the Father. There is one Lord the Son; but in like manner there is the Spirit, who bears over the Son's lordship to the creature that is sanctified. The Son sojourned in the world, having of the Virgin received flesh, which He filled with the Holy Spirit for the sanctification of us all; and having given up the flesh to death, He destroyed death through the resurrection that had in view the resurrection of us all; and He ascended to heaven, exalting and glorifying men in Himself; and He comes the second time to bring us again eternal life.
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One is the Son, both before the incarnation and after the incarnation. The same (Son) is both man and God, both these together as though one; and the God the Word is not one person, and the man Jesus another person, but the same who subsisted as Son before was made one with flesh by Mary, so constituting Himself a perfect, and holy, and sinless man, and using that economical position for the renewal of mankind and the salvation of all the world. God the Father, being Himself the perfect Person, has thus the perfect Word begotten of Him truly, not as a word that is spoken, nor yet again as a son by adoption, in the sense in which angels and men are called sons of God, but as a Son who is in nature God. And there is also the perfect Holy Spirit supplied of God through the Son to the sons of adoption, living and life-giving, holy and imparting holiness to those who partake of Him — not like an unsubstantial breath breathed into them by man, but as the living Breath proceeding from God. Wherefore the Trinity is to be adored, to be glorified, to be honoured, and to be reverenced; the Father being apprehended in the Son even as the Son is of Him, and the Son being glorified in the Father, inasmuch as He is of the Father, and being manifested in the Holy Spirit to the sanctified.
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And that the holy Trinity is to be worshipped without either separation or alienation, is taught us by Paul, who says in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. 2 Corinthians 13:13 And again, in that epistle he makes this explanation: Now He which establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, is God, who has also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 And still more clearly he writes thus in the same epistle: When Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 Corinthians 3:15-18
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And again Paul says: That mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now He that has wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also has given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 5:4-5 And again he says: Approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities. 2 Corinthians 6:4 and so forth. Then he adds these words: By kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God. 2 Corinthians 6:6-7 Behold here again the saint has defined the holy Trinity, naming God, and the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And again he says: Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 And again: But you are washed, but you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:11 And again: What! Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God? 1 Corinthians 6:19 And I think also that I have the Spirit of God. 1 Corinthians 7:40
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And again, speaking also of the children of Israel as baptized in the cloud and in the sea, he says: And they all drank of the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:4 And again he says: Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the sane Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another various kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: but all these works that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will. For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body. 1 Corinthians 12:3-13 And again he says: For if he who comes preaches another Christ whom we have not preached, or if you receive another spirit that you have received not, or another gospel which you have not obtained, you will rightly be kept back.
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Do you see that the Spirit is inseparable from the divinity? And no one with pious apprehensions could fancy that He is a creature. Moreover, in the Epistle to the Hebrews he writes again thus: How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost? Hebrews 2:3-4 And again he says in the same epistle: Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost says, Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness; when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; for they have not known my ways: as I swore in my wrath, that they should not enter into my rest. Hebrews 3:7-11 And there, too, they ought to give ear to Paul, for he by no means separates the Holy Spirit from the divinity of the Father and the Son, but clearly sets forth the discourse of the Holy Ghost as one from the person of the Father, and thus as given expression to by God, just as it has been represented in the before-mentioned sayings. Wherefore the holy Trinity is believed to be one God, in accordance with these testimonies of Holy Scripture; albeit all through the inspired Scriptures numberless announcements are supplied us, all confirmatory of the apostolic and ecclesiastical faith.
A fragment of the same Declaration of Faith, accompanied by glosses. From Gregory Thaumaturgus, as they say, in his Sectional Confession of Faith.
To maintain two natures in the one Christ, makes a Tetrad of the Trinity, says he; for he expressed himself thus: And it is the true God, the unincarnate, that was manifested in the flesh, perfect with the true and divine perfection, not with two natures; nor do we speak of worshipping four (persons), viz., God, and the Son of God, and man, and the Holy Spirit. First, however, this passage is misapprehended, and is of very doubtful import. Nevertheless it bears that we should not speak of two persons in Christ, lest, by thus acknowledging Him as God, and as in the perfect divinity, and yet speaking of two persons, we should make a Tetrad of the divine persons, counting that of God the Father as one, and that of the Son of God as one, and that of the man as one, and that of the Holy Spirit as one. But, again, it bears also against recognising two divine natures, and rather for acknowledging Him to be perfect God in one natural divine perfection, and not in two; for his object is to show that He became incarnate without change, and that He retains the divinity without duplication. Accordingly he says shortly: And while the affections of the flesh spring, the energy retains the impassibility proper to it. He, therefore, who introduces the (idea of) passion into the energy is impious; for it was the Lord of glory that appeared in human form, having taken to Himself the human economy.
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| Pope Emeritus Benedict’s new scandalous comments on Joe Biden |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-02-2021, 10:22 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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Pope Emeritus Benedict’s new scandalous comments on Joe Biden
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI speaks about Joe Biden’s 'observant' Catholicism.
![[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3...%3DApi&f=1]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.Bq3l1Deo3Jfpqa2G7VPe7QHaEX%26pid%3DApi&f=1)
March 1, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – Wow, just wow. Some unbelievable comments today from Pope Benedict XVI in a new interview with an Italian newspaper where he speaks of Joe Biden’s Catholicism. And if you missed the attack on the Holy Mother of God from Biden’s pick for the head of HHS, you need to see this. In this show I’m going to give you both the reason for all this insanity and the solution to it.
In a new interview released today by the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Serra, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said of President Joe Biden, “It is true, he is Catholic and observant.” Benedict XVI added that Biden “is personally against abortion.” Further demonstrating his misinformation about US political realities, the pope emeritus said of Biden “on gender politics we have not yet fully understood what his position is.”
The only caveat Pope Benedict mentioned was what seemed like a lament. “But as a president he tends to present himself in continuity with the line of the Democratic Party,” said the former pope.
What is Pope Benedict watching in terms of media or news that leads him to believing or worse yet parrot that Biden is personally opposed to abortion?
In his first two weeks in office, Biden has pledged to make abortion available to “everyone” by “codifying” the Supreme Court’s 1973 pro-abortion decision Roe v. Wade, and has revoked the Mexico City policy that blocks federal funds from going to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that provide abortions in developing countries.
And even if he saw none of that, he would surely have seen the letter from the US bishops conference that called out Biden on inauguration day for pushing abortion. A Jan. 20 Inauguration Day letter written by Archbishop José Gomez, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), warned that Biden’s pledge to pursue anti-life and anti-family policies would advance “moral evils” in the areas of “abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender.”
But another thing Pope Benedict is quoted in the paper as saying is just as troubling. Benedict said he didn’t fully understand Biden’s stance on gender.
You know, I used to joke about ‘Catholic’ politicians like Biden saying he’d have to marry a homosexual couple himself and make it public for people to believe. But that’s no joke, Biden did exactly that! He personally officiated at a wedding ceremony for two men, making sure to photograph it and boast of it.
Moreover, on the very first day of his presidency Biden issued an executive order to force gender-confused men into women’s sports. And if all that is not evidence enough the so-called Equality Act Biden is pushing now is the death-knell for pro-family, pro-life and religious rights in America. It would force Catholic institutions to hire transgenders, female “priests” — or face sanctions. It would force Christian doctors and hospitals to perform transgender mutilation surgeries, abortions leaving no room for conscientious objection. And it would would increase girls’ risk of sexual assault and eliminate women’s sports by forcing the acceptance of biologically male athletes to compete in women’s sports and use women’s changerooms.
You know what underlies this thinking? It is the thinking of so many prelates in the Church about Catholicism. How can they act as if well, yes, there are all these sticky political issues on which we differ, but we are all brothers, everything is fine and we should all be polite and supportive of one another and dialogue and never stray into accusations or god forbid question someone’s sincerity of faith.
How? How can this be? How in the face of promoting the slaughter of a million American babies in their mother’s wombs every single year? How? I’ll tell you how. The false notion of universal salvation underpins this whole mess. If everyone is going to heaven, then really everything doesn’t matter that much. We can go along to get along. Because in the end it really doesn’t matter all that much. Thankfully, there are some priests who still get it, like Fr. Mark Goring.
But there is more.
Do you remember when in 2008 while running for office, Biden famously said: “I will shove my rosary beads down the throat of any Republican who says I am not a Catholic.” Well we got to know what he meant when he kept mentioning his rosary on TV, and using it to tout his faith in order both to attract Catholic votes and ward off Catholic criticism of his anti-Catholic positions.
Well he evidently likes to see the M.O. in his collaborators. Check this out. Did you catch the questioning of Xavier Beccera in his confirmation hearings for his nomination by President Biden to head up the US Dept of HHS? It was enraging. He was asked over and over again if he had even a single reason where there could be any single limit on abortion. And what did he respond? By talking about his grandmother praying the rosary and blessing him.
Are they insane?
It’s bad enough to be pro-abortion. But to invoke the Mother of God in the midst of excusing your advocacy of the killing of God’s children?
Xavier Beccera is another of these self-professed Catholics who is massively pro-abortion.
Lifesite’s Calvin Freiburger reports that as Attorney General of the Golden State, Becerra has shown a marked hostility to Americans who follow Judeo-Christian teaching on matters such as abortion and homosexuality, from forcing churches to subsidize elective abortions and nuns to subsidize contraceptives, to forcing pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise abortion resources, to refusing to fund state employees’ travel to South Carolina in protest of its law protecting adoption agencies that insist on giving children both a mother and a father.
But being pro-abortion and then invoking the Mother of God and the Holy Rosary. Have they lost their minds? Do they not fear God in the slightest?
Perhaps the blame though should not rest with them but on the priests and bishops who fail to strenuously warn them of the eternal punishment awaiting them for such blasphemies against the Mother of God.
I’m going to tell you how serious this is. Do you know that one of the main reasons God permitted the most stupendous miracles apart from the resurrection itself - the miracle at Fatima in 1917? It was because of the sins and outrages committed against the Blessed Virgin Mary. Jesus Himself spoke to Sr. Lucia about this in 1930.
In Matthew 12:32 Our Lord expresses a sentiment common to men of honour when someone would insult his family. He said “And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come.”
Men of honour often warn their adversaries that harm to themselves can be forgiven but to mess with his family will garner a terrible retribution.
Jesus, being a perfect son to Mary guards Her honour and thus the incomprehensible abusing of the rosary to excuse the killing of the innocent is beyond imagination.
Where are the prophets among the bishops who will warn Biden and Beccera of the terrible justice of the Son of God they will face for having dared to blaspheme His Holy Mother?
Thank God for prophets such as Fr. Mark Goring who are not afraid to warn people of impending hell, and implore them to turn from their wicked ways and repent.
But I told you at the beginning that I would also be giving you the solution to this mess. And here it is. It goes back to the message of Fatima of course.
On December 10, 1925, the Mother of God with the Infant Jesus appeared to Sister Lucia. The Blessed Virgin put Her hand on Lucia’s shoulder and showed Lucia a heart encircled by thorns which she was holding in her hand. The Child Jesus said: “
And let me quote from Sister Lucia directly from her book Lucia Speaks, Memoirs and Letters of Sister Lucia (taken from Guido del Rose)
“Have compassion on the Heart of your most holy Mother, covered with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to make an act of reparation to remove them.” Then the most holy Virgin said: “Look, my daughter, at my Heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce me at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me and say that I promise to assist, at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”
And there it is. There is our solution to the mess we are in. That is our task, the task of the laity. The bishops and the Pope, they have another role, namely the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart, but we must do our part and that is the First Saturdays Devotion. This coming Saturday is the first Saturday of the month. So will you start with me here and do this for at least 5 first Saturday’s of the month. Confession – within 8 days, Holy Mass, Communion, a single rosary and then a meditation of 15 minutes on all the 15 mysteries of the rosary. All offered for the intention of reparation to Our Lady.
We can do this. And with it we can pray for the conversion not only of Biden and Beccera but also of the prelates who fail in their prophetic mission to warn Catholics who abuse Our Lady of the need to repent before the wrath of God falls on them.
[Emphasis mine.]
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| Dr. Scott Atlas Explains How Public Health Officials Have Damaged the American Psyche |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-02-2021, 10:09 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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'Very Frightening': Dr. Scott Atlas Explains How Public Health Officials Have Damaged the American Psyche
TownHallNews |Feb 24, 2021
Many Americans don’t know what to believe about COVID-19 because public health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci have flip-flopped so many times on so many issues it’s hard to keep track. Turning on the news isn’t helpful either, as viewers will likely be met with doom and gloom stories about the pandemic, including death tracker chyrons (thanks, CNN) that seemed to stay on screen no matter what topic is being discussed (at least under Trump). Finally, when vaccines got the green light many breathed a sigh of relief, hoping it meant that soon this pandemic would be over. No more social distancing, no more isolation, no more lockdowns, no more Zoom school, no more masks…or double masks. But then the “experts” said not so fast—you still have to do all those things even if you get inoculated. After all, the pandemic response is about control, and as Matt wrote Tuesday, that’s not something the COVID Nazis and Democrats want to give up.
Eventually, however, when the pandemic is over, and things do go back to normal, public health officials have done so much harm to the American psyche that many people will have a difficult time moving forward, said Dr. Scott Atlas, former White House COVID adviser and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
“If you look at the data from the National Bureau of Economic Research, over 90 percent of American stories [about COVID-19] were negative and therefore fear invoking whereas in Europe it’s just over 50 percent,” he told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham.
“That has an impact, and at this point when you have people that keep repeating that kind of stuff, misinformation, totally ignoring the science on the masks, actually, completely ignoring and therefore pushing false information—they’re instilling fear and that’s what’s worrisome here, because when you look at the data on the surveys, over 70 percent of Americans say they will wear a mask after the pandemic is over. That’s very frightening,” he continued. “We have a damaged American psyche, and it's due to these public health officials that are just really not saying the real data, probably because they don't want to admit they were so wrong."
Other voices challenging public health orthodoxy on COVID-19, like Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, are bringing more optimistic outlooks on the pandemic to the American people. In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, he predicted COVID-19 will be "mostly gone" by April thanks in large part to herd immunity.
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| Fauci: Those Vaccinated Must Continue to Wear Masks to Protect Others |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-02-2021, 09:47 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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Fauci: Those Vaccinated Must Continue to Wear Masks to Protect Others
Breitbart | 28 Feb 20210
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases head Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that Americans who have been vaccinated need to continue wearing masks to protect others from spreading coronavirus.
Anchor George Stephanopoulos said, “We don’t know a lot about how vaccines affect transmission, whether they truly prevent transmission. For people who have been vaccinated, what can they do?”
Fauci said, “Well, you should still be careful, George, that you could conceivably have, because the endpoint of the vaccine efficacy trial is preventing symptomatic disease, which means that potentially theoretically, and maybe, in reality, you’re going to have infection that you don’t get any clinical manifestation, you could be protected from disease and still have the virus, and if that’s the case that’s the reason why you hear all the public health officials say, wear a mask. The reason is, essentially, to protect other people, you may inadvertently infect someone else even though you’re protected. That’s the reason.”
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| Transhumanism and The Spiritual Battle For Humanity |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-02-2021, 09:02 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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This little article was published by the founder of a social media site called Gab. The founder and CEO, Andrew Torba, has been harassed and persecuted by Big Tech and Big Money for a long time. He is a Protestant but what he has written here is an interesting perspective on the push toward transhumanism:
Transhumanism and The Spiritual Battle For Humanity
![[Image: sensing-the-universe-3-1200x675.jpg]](https://news.gab.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/sensing-the-universe-3-1200x675.jpg)
Andrew Torba | February 27, 2021
Earlier this month I appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room to discuss the topic of transhumanism. In the simplest terms transhumanists believe in using technology to transcend beyond the limitations of human biology into a post-human existence.
This is something we are all familiar with on a surface level thanks to many different movies and TV shows over the years, but it’s time to start taking it seriously as a threat to humanity itself.
The march towards transhumanism isn’t a conspiracy theory or some outlandish science fiction movie, it’s a very real and dire situation unfolding before our eyes.
The oligarchs in the American regime, in particular the ones in Silicon Valley, are obsessed with eternal life and the topic of transhumanism. Peter Thiel wants to inject himself with young people’s blood as a method of “radical life extension.” Elon Musk put a computer chip in a pig’s brain with the hopes of one day soon putting one in yours.
Facebook is working on “brain tech” that can read your mind. Google’s Ray Kurzweil is obsessed with progressing towards the “singularity,” a moment where artificial intelligence overtakes human thinking, on his quest to become “immortal.”
The goal of the Silicon Valley oligarchs, and of the globalists in general, is transhumanism. They aren’t hiding this, in fact they are flaunting it in front of our faces. While we are all too busy bickering about what AOC tweeted this week, the oligarchs are spending billions of dollars to become immoral “gods.”
Their strategy is two-fold.
First, they perfect the transhumanist technology behind closed doors and become among the first human beings to “transcend” beyond the limitations of human biology to become “gods” with eternal life and access to all of the knowledge and information available in the cloud.
Second, they will get the rest of us to adopt a form of this technology that they own and control by selling us on “progress” and convenience. If you doubt they will be successful with this approach, just look at the phone in the palm of your hand as a wildly successful beta test of this strategy.
In many ways the smartphone was the first iteration of this grand vision. We are now witnessing the consequences of giving them the power to control the flow of information and access to basic online services in the form of censorship, deplatforming, and outright unpersoning of individuals, businesses, and any threat to their system of control. What do you think will happen when they build, own, and control the chip they plant in your brain at birth?
In order to fully understand this you need to understand the mindset of the Silicon Valley elite and the American Oligarch Regime. These people believe that they are superior to the rest of us in every way. They went to the “best” schools. They built the “best” companies. They consolidated all of the wealth into their hands. They know what is “best.” This is why they project their supremacy on the rest of us with terms like “white supremacist.” We are but mere cattle to them. Digital serfs.
This may all sound outlandish now, but this technology is being developed as we speak and it is something that people under 50 will witness in their lifetime. We need to be prepared to fight for our humanity and to resist the literal dehumanization of the entire human race itself.
Ultimately, this is a spiritual war. They are targeting our very humanity. This is evidenced by everything that these people promote. Their “values” are inherently anti-human. Abortion. Moral decay. The destruction of sovereign nations and people. The persecution of everything and anything related to God Almighty our Creator.
We need to prepare ourselves for what is coming by exiting their entire system and raising up our children to value and cherish human life. We need to build our own economy. We need to return to tradition and get right with God right now, because the judgement day of singularity is upon us.
Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab.com
February 27th, 2021
Jesus is King
[Emphasis mine.]
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| April 12th - Blessed Catherine of St. Augustine and St. Julius I |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 03-01-2021, 10:46 PM - Forum: April
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Blessed Catherine of St. Augustine
Virgin
(1632-1668)
A young future missionary to New France, Catherine de Longpré, in religion Sister Marie-Catherine of Saint Augustine, was a nursing nun in the community of the Hospitaler Sisters of Saint Augustine in Evreux. Born in France in 1632, she went to Quebec at the age of sixteen. Having offered her life for the sick and the sanctification of souls, she found in Quebec City a newly-established and very poor hospital, where she would labor for twenty years with unfailing devotion and courage.
Blessed Catherine's physical and moral sufferings increased to a measure which few Saints have surpassed; she was chosen as a victim by God for the expiation of sins, in this territory which He destined for Himself in a particular way. To sustain her in the terrible obsessions which she endured, to preserve other souls who could not have withstood hell's assaults, she was given for her heavenly spiritual director, Saint John de Brebeuf, the North American martyr who had died not long before, in what is now Ontario. The entire history of her interior life was written by her confessor, the Jesuit Paul Ragueneau, who had been a friend of the great Martyr and had labored with him. Father Ragueneau recognized as authentic his fellow Jesuit's spiritual role in the life of this remarkable religious.
The sale of alcoholic beverages to the Indians in exchange for furs was a grievous abuse which the saintly first bishop of Quebec, Monsignor Francis Montmorency de Laval, was striving to abolish; sins of the tongue, immodesty and impiety were rampant in the city and surroundings. Monsignor de Laval recognized in Sister Catherine a soul of predilection, and he often asked her intercession for particular persons, for the colony and the Indians, whose souls were his great concern, as they were also of his clergy and missionaries. She, for her part, complied by her prayers and sacrifices, and saw in vision how the demons of hell were working for the ruin of the colony, in various places and in various ways. A spiritual battle of great proportions was underway, to win Canada for Christ.
Blessed Catherine died at the age of 36, saying shortly before she expired: My God, I adore Your divine perfections; I adore Your divine Justice; I abandon myself to it with my whole heart. One of the great mystics of the Church, her life remains a prodigy of sacrifice and love, a gold mine of doctrine for those who seek understanding of God's ways with His Saints and His people.
Saint Julius I
Pope
(† 352)
Saint Julius was by birth a Roman; he was chosen Pope on the 6th of February in 337, and was remarkable for the sanctity of his life and his zeal in strengthening the Christian faith.
The impious heresy of Arius was progressing dangerously everywhere in the East, and many holy bishops were obliged to leave their sees. Saint Julius received them warmly in Rome, Saint Athanasius in particular, and he defended them to the end against their adversaries. He condemned the synods which the Arians had assembled in Tyre and in Antioch, with the intention of abolishing the faith of Nicea. He assembled two councils in Rome, where he heard the exiled bishops and proclaimed their innocence.
By his counsel, the Emperor Constans, the pious prince of the West, influenced his brother Constantius to recall Saint Athanasius from exile.
Saint Julius rejected a deceptive formula of faith, imagined by the Eusebians, who were partisans of Arius at the second council of Antioch. He assembled the second Council of Sardica, composed of both Western and Oriental bishops. His legates presided there, and he saw to it that useful measures for the maintenance of the Catholic faith and the re-establishment of ecclesiastical discipline were drafted and implemented.
He built two basilicas in Rome and adorned them with sacred paintings. He had three cemeteries constructed, on the Flaminian and Aurelian ways, and at Porto. He regulated legal questions concerning the clergy, ordaining that they would plead nowhere but in ecclesiastical courts.
Saint Julius reigned for fifteen years, and died on the 12th of April, 352.
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| To Jesus nailed to the Cross - Devotion to the Passion |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 03-01-2021, 02:22 PM - Forum: In Honor of Our Lord
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(Taken from St. Alphonsus’ Prayer-Book – pages 451)
DEVOTION TO THE PASSION
To Jesus nailed to the Cross.
The wounds of Jesus are wounds which soften the hardest hearts and inflame the most frozen souls.
Ah, my Jesus, what was it that nailed Thy Hands and Thy Feet to this wood but the love Thou didst beat to men? Thou, by the pain of Thy pierced Hands, wast willing to pay the penalty due to all the sins of touch that men have committed; and, by the pain of Thy Feet, Thou wast willing to pay for all the steps by which we have gone our way to offend Thee. O my crucified Love, with these pierced Hands give me Thy benediction! Oh, nail this ungrateful heart of mine to Thy Feet, that so I may no more depart from Thee, and that this will of mine, which has so often rebelled against. Thee, may remain ever steadily fixed in Thy love. Grant that nothing else but Thy love, and the desire of pleasing Thee, may move me. Although I behold Thee suspended upon this gibbet, I believe Thee to be the Lord of the world, the true Son of God, and the Saviour of mankind. For pity’s sake, O my Jesus, never abandon me again at any period of my life, and more especially at the hour of my death, in those last agonies and struggles with hell, do Thou assist me, and strengthen me to die in Thy love. I love Thee, my crucified Love, I love Thee with all my heart. Amen.
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| The Miraculous Novena of Grace of St. Francis Xavier |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 03-01-2021, 02:03 PM - Forum: Novenas
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The Miraculous Novena of Grace
March 4 -March 12
Origins of the Novena of Grace to St. Francis Xavier
In Naples in 1633 there lived Fr. Marcello Mastrilli, S.J. He had taken the vow to ask to be assigned to the Japan Mission, then the most difficult; for at that time the Buddhist persecution was most cruel against the Catholic religion and the new form of martyrdom introduced was most excruciating. It was known as the "Pit" for the martyrs were kept hung, head downwards over a volcanic pit from which sulphurous gases and waters welled up. At times the martyrdom was protracted for several days before the victim expired.
The torture was so horrible that in 1633 the Provincial of the Japan Mission Fr. Ferrara after five days of agony over the "Pit" apostatized. But hundreds of others, priests and laymen, Europeans and Japanese in holy emulation reached the martyr's crown through the terrible "Pit".
When the news of the unfortunate Ferrara's apostasy reached Europe, many Jesuits vowed themselves to the Japan Mission to replace their martyred brethren and to atone for the apostate. Marcello Mastrilli was one of them. (Fr. Ferrara was subsequently reconverted and atoned for his fall by dying a martyr's death over the "Pit" in 1652.)
In December 1633, while waiting for the passage to Japan, Fr. Mastrilli organized on a grand scale the feast of the Immaculate Conception in the College of Naples, putting up for the occasion an elaborate structure that drew the admiration of the whole town. The feast was a stupendous success that helped so much to bring home to the faithful the great privilege of Our Lady, which then was not yet defined as a dogma of the Faith.
The feast over, Fr. Mastrilli was supervising the removal of the temporary structure when a heavy hammer slipped from the hands of a worker and fell with deadly precision on Fr. Mastrilli's head. The injury caused thereby was severe, and Fr. Mastrilli was on the verge of death.
Just when the crisis was on, St. Francis Xavier appeared to Fr.Mastrilli and, bidding him renew the vow to go to Japan, said to him: "All those who implore my help daily for nine consecutive days, from the 4th to the 12th of March included, and worthily receive the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist on one of the nine days, will experience my protection and may hope with entire assurance to obtain from God any Grace they ask for the good of their souls and the glory of God."
The Father arose, instantly cured. So well has the Saint kept this promise that this devotion in his honor became universally known as the Novena of Grace. Its efficacy is not restricted to the dates mentioned. It may be made very appropriately from November 25 -December 3, the Feast of St. Francis Xavier.
HISTORY: The Novena of Grace, which begins March 4th and ends on the 12th, the day of the canonization of St. Francis Xavier, owes its origin to the Saint himself.
PRAYERS FOR NOVENA
PRAYER TO ST. FRANCIS XAVIER
Attributed to Father Marcello Mastrilli, S.J. (17th century)
O SAINT Francis Xavier, well beloved and full of charity, in union with thee, I reverently adore the Majesty of God; and since I rejoice with exceeding joy in the singular gifts of grace bestowed upon thee during thy life, and thy gifts of glory after death, I give Him hearty thanks therefore; I beseech thee with all my heart's devotion to be pleased to obtain for me, by thy effectual intercession, above all things, the grace of a holy life and a happy death. Moreover, I beg of thee to obtain for me (here mention the spiritual or temporal favor to be prayed for). But if what I ask of thee so earnestly doth not tend to the glory of God and the greater good of my soul, do thou, I pray, obtain for me what is more profitable to both these ends. Amen. Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be.
If, for any reason, the above prayer cannot be said, it will suffice to say five times Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be.-----S.C. Ind., March 23, 1904.
PRAYER OF ST. FRANCIS XAVIER FOR THE CONVERSION OF INFIDELS
ETERNAL God, Creator of all things, remember that Thou Alone didst create the souls of infidels, framing them to Thine Own image and likeness; behold, O Lord! how, to Thy dishonor, Hell is daily replenished with them. Remember, O Lord! Thine Only Son, Jesus Christ, Who suffered for them, most bountifully shedding His Precious Blood: suffer not, O Lord Thy Son and Our Lord to be any longer despised by infidels; but rather, being appeased by the entreaties and prayers of the elect, the Saints, and of the Church, the most blessed spouse of Thy Son, vouchsafe to be mindful of Thy mercy, and forgetting their idolatry and infidelity, cause them also to know Him Whom Thou didst send, Jesus Christ Thy Son, Our Lord, Who is our health, life, and resurrection, through Whom we are freed and saved, to Whom be all glory forever. Amen.
ST. FRANCIS XAVIER'S HYMN OF LOVE
O GOD, I love Thee for Thyself, and not that I may Heaven gain,
Nor because those who love Thee not, must suffer Hell's eternal pain.
Thou, O my Jesus! Thou didst me upon the Cross embrace;
For me didst bear the nails and spear and manifold disgrace;
And griefs and torments numberless, and sweat of agony;
E'en death itself-----and all for one who was Thine enemy.
Then why, O blessed Jesus Christ, Should I not love Thee well:
Not for the sake of winning Heaven, or of escaping Hell;
Not with the hope of gaining aught, not seeking a reward;
But, as Thyself hast loved me, O ever-loving Lord?
E'en so, I love Thee, and will love, and in Thy praise will sing;
Solely because Thou art my God and my Eternal King.
(From My Prayerbook, by Fr. Lasance)
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