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| Before Francis, Pope John Paul II also praised Pachamama |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-04-2025, 09:24 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
- Replies (1)
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The following is taken from TIA's What People are Commenting section, dated April 3, 2025:
JPII Praised Pachamama
Dear TIA,
Recently I googled "Pachamama" and notices the mention of John Paul II's endorsement, in this long Wikipedia article. Perhaps you might want to do a little more research. Francis gets all the blame for the horror of five years ago, but JP II set a precedent. For him was pagan worship all just fine?
Below is the most expressive text.
-P.O.B.
Quote:Along similar lines, Pope John Paul II, in two homilies delivered in Peru and Bolivia, identified homage to Pachamama as an ancestral recognition of divine providence that in some sense prefigured a Christian attitude toward creation. On February 3, 1985, he stated that "your ancestors, by paying tribute to the earth (Mama Pacha), were doing nothing other than recognizing the goodness of God and his beneficent presence, which provided them food by means of the land they cultivated."
On May 11, 1988, he stated that God "knows what we need from the food that the earth produces, this varied and expressive reality that your ancestors called "Pachamama" and that reflects the work of divine providence as it offers us its gifts for the good of man."
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| Transcription: Fr. Hekwo's Sermon for the Feast of the Annunciation [2025] |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-03-2025, 09:27 AM - Forum: Rev. Father David Hewko
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Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
![[Image: rs=w:1280]](https://img1.wsimg.com/isteam/ip/df55e1a9-c854-4d0b-a2a9-94177954436c/Studio-Project%20(1).png/:/cr=t:0%25,l:0%25,w:100%25,h:100%25/rs=w:1280)
The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
03/25/2025
Father Hewko
Transcription gratefully copied from The Catholic Trumpet [Slightly adapted and reformatted] | April 2, 2025
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.
I wish all of you the many graces and joys and blessings of this beautiful feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is March 25th, 2025. On this day in 1991, Archbishop Lefebvre died. This day is very special because today is the day Our Lord Jesus Christ became priest. He was ordained a priest today. He was also consecrated King, the King of all the universe, the King of all nations, the King of all men, the King of all the angels and devils. He's King. Jesus Christ was made priest and King, and He also received today His body and soul. And that means His human nature was assumed by the divine person. The divine person is God the Son, who is equal with the Father and the Holy Ghost. And it was God the Son who said to the Father, “I will come.”
Sacrifices and oblations you did not want. You did not want the blood of animals, goats and lambs and rams, because blood of animals doesn't do anything except inspire contrition for sin. And that was the Jewish sacrifices, which in their blindness, open brackets, in their blindness, the poor Jews are trying to resurrect the temple, the old temple, and they want to resurrect the Old Testament sacrifices. So they have their red cow ready and their red heifer and poor things, their blindness, poor, poor souls. So we pray for their conversion. And in their blindness, they want to resume all these Old Testament ceremonies, which are long dead.
And for Catholics to participate in any of the Jewish ceremonies, or any Protestant ceremonies, or Mormon or Muslim [ceremonies], is a serious betrayal to Jesus Christ. It is a mortal sin against the first commandment. And you have Pope Benedict XVI lighting the candles of the Jews. You have Pope John Paul II who prayed with the Jews in the synagogue while they were singing that they're still waiting for the Messiah to come. Their Messiah will come. It's the Antichrist. And that's why the Antichrist will be near once they start doing these sacrifices and rebuild their temple. They're really pushing fast forward for this. So are we drawing close to that hour of the Antichrist who will reign for three and a half years, seduce the whole population. All the nations will fall for him. Even the Muslims will adore him as God. The Jews, of course. And many Catholics who have been watered down and eroded by years of the New Mass and the scandals of Vatican II and its new heresies and errors. Many Catholics will fall for the Antichrist. Many will.
So that is the Old Testament priesthood. It's finished. It's done. It's long done. That's why the curtain in the temple was ripped in half from top to bottom, which was 60 feet high of heavy material. Only the hand of God could do this. And it was to show the death of the Jewish ceremonies. It's finished. So it's kind of laughable that they want to resurrect an old beaten skeleton and it will never come to life.
So this is the day Christ assumed the human nature. This is called the Hypostatic Union. It's a big word, but it has to be a big word to be precise. It's a Greek word, hypostasis, which means “the person of God assumed the human nature”. So the imagery you could put is the imagery from Scripture, which is the anointing of Aaron. When the priest was anointed, he would strip to his waist and they would pour down over his head a big vial of oil. And the oil would drip all down his face, down his beard, down his shoulders and bare chest, down to his toes, to show that the whole man was consecrated a priest of the Old Testament. And this prefigures Jesus Christ, who was by the Hypostatic Union, soaked in the oil of the living God, so that every thought, word, action, every sigh of Jesus Christ was an act of God. And it wasn't just a person of man, it was a person of God, but with our body, who would share our nature. As Saint Paul says, he took up and assumed everything in us, hunger, thirst, fatigue, sleep, eating, drinking, but not sin, not sin.
So this Hypostatic Union means also that today is when Jesus Christ took on a human heart in the womb of the Virgin Mary. His heart will be a tiny little dot and it will grow and grow and start beating. The first time the heart of Jesus starts beating in the womb of the Virgin Mary and her Immaculate Heart beats with her son's. It's the first time Our Lord Jesus Christ will assume a face, a face that would be designed by God. So that's why Our Lord Jesus Christ, His face is the most handsome, the most perfectly built. The Holy Ghost will chisel and form His body, which will be, as Saint Thomas Aquinas says, “the most perfect instrument for our Redemption.” His nervous system will be far keener than the average man in order to suffer for us. So His nervous system was sharp, fine-tuned. His skeletal system was perfectly built. His muscular system was perfectly built. Everything [about] Our Lord was chiseled to perfection. He was the perfect perfection of man.
And then He left us the image of His face in the Shroud of Turin. But it's not, we would say, a most handsome face, although you do see His majesty and His handsomeness come through the divinity and the peace of His face. But what face did He leave us? It's the face of Our God beaten and swollen. His cheek is swollen. His nose is busted. His lips are swollen from thirst. His beard has all [these] blotches from being ripped out. It's a beaten face. It's a spit on face. It's a face that we contributed [by] humiliating [Him] by our sins. So today is the day Jesus Christ, the living God, took on the face and the head of man. It is the first time God, from all eternity, He never had hands and feet. This will be the day the living God will take hands and feet in order to be nailed to the cross. God taking on our hands and feet to be butchered to the cross. And such is His love for us that for all eternity, God will always keep the human body. Jesus Christ, the King, His body is always forever in Heaven, always showing His wounds to the Father and showing the wealth of His spoils, which is all the souls that will enter Heaven. The saints, the innumerable number of saints, their robes [were] “washed in the blood of the Lamb”, as Saint John describes in the Apocalypse. So it's a beautiful thought that for all eternity, God and the Son never had a body from all eternity. But from now on, since today, He will have a body for all eternity. That shows the absoluteness of God's love for us, that he will become one of us and stay one of us forever. The body of Jesus Christ, the King. So he will have hands and feet for the first time.
And today, He will be called “Savior” for the first time, because He can only save us by redeeming us by His blood. Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. Today, He's called “Redeemer” for the first time, because He's here to redeem us in the womb of the Virgin Mary in Nazareth. Today, He can be called “Mediator”, because He takes on our flesh, and He's also the victim. Every priest must offer some sacrifice. A priest without sacrifice is a joke. It's laughable. That's why Protestantism is such a joke. It's so empty. Anglicanism and all religions that have no sacrifice. Muslims don't have a sacrifice. It's not a religion. Mormonism has no sacrifice. You cannot really call it a religion. At most, you can call it a psychosis. That's it, or an idea. A religion must entail sacrifice, priesthood, and a victim that's killed, that's consumed either in fire or by the fire of love on the cross. So, the only true religion that has the continual priesthood of Jesus Christ, and the sacrifice, and the victim in the Mass is Our Lord Jesus Christ in this holy Catholic religion that he founded.
So, on this day, Archbishop Lefebvre died, and it's also traditionally the day of the Crucifixion and death of Christ. Today was it. Today is, in fact, March 25th, the feast day of St. Dismas, the good thief. This is when he entered into Limbo, and when Our Lord arrived there shortly after, he turned Limbo into a Heaven, a true paradise. “This day, you'll be with me in paradise, ”because limbo was turned into paradise, as the fathers of the Church teach, because Our Lord allowed the souls in Limbo the Beatific Vision. They could see the Holy Trinity from then on, and they will enter [with] Our Lord into Heaven 40 days after His Resurrection, on the Ascension of Our Lord into Heaven.
Let me just draw from Archbishop Lefebvre, speaking of this:
“The Church cannot do without the Sacrifice of the Altar. Look at the beauty of the churches that have been built. Rev. Fr. Abbott has just been telling me that in this church”, this is a sermon given on September 8th, 1975, and Mariazell in Austria, Archbishop Lefebvre is preaching, “that at least the origin of this church,” that he's in “dates from the beginning of the 9th century. How many generations have come to this Church of Mariazell to pray and offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, to participate in the Sacrifice of the Mass offered by the priests? It is the life of the Church, the altar of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We must therefore have profound Faith in the action which takes place on the altar through the mouth of the priest. When the priest pronounces the words of Consecration, Our Lord, as on the cross, returns to the altar to offer His sacrifice, which continues yet on for the remission of our sins. That is the heart of the Mass. That is [what] the Blessed Virgin Mary teaches us. That is what the apostles teach us. You have learned from your catechism that the Sacrifice of the Altar is a real sacrifice, and that it differs from the Sacrifice of the Cross, only because in that, the Sacrifice of the Cross, there is shedding of blood, and in the Sacrifice of the Mass, there is no shedding of blood. That is the only difference between the Sacrifice of the Cross and the Sacrifice of the Altar. That is why we venerate the Sacrifice of the Altar. It is all there in Catholic doctrine. Everything is gathered into this small and immense reality of the Sacrifice of the Mass, because if there is a sacrifice, the victim must be present. If there is no victim present, there is no sacrifice. Hence, Our Lord must be present, since He offers Himself in sacrifice. Let us not say, therefore, that the Sacrifice of the Mass is simply a commemorative meal, or a meal of remembrance, a memento only of what Our Lord did at the Last Supper. It is all a blasphemy against the teaching of the Church, against what Our Lord Jesus Christ did, and what He meant to do. All that ruins the priesthood. What is it? The New Mass ruins the priesthood. The priest is not merely the president at a commemorative meal. The priest offers sacrifice. The priest is he who brings down upon the altar the victim present, really present, upon the altar. In that you behold all the greatness of the priest, who must be endowed with a special character, that he may offer the sacrifice, who must bear for all eternity a mark on his soul, to offer this sacrifice, who must remain a virgin, celibate, since for him it is a great marvel to bring God down from Heaven to earth, to bring Our Lord Jesus Christ into the Holy Eucharist by his words, by his lips. It is understandable that the priest should be a virgin, that he should not marry, that he should be virgin like the Virgin Mary. That is why the priest is a celibate and not because he is overburdened with the demands of his apostolate. All the greatness of the Sacrifice of the Mass arises simply from the fact that it is a real sacrifice. It is the Sacrifice of Calvary. That is what our forefathers have always believed. That is what the Church has always believed. We cannot change or alter that Faith by one iota. If we vary, if we change the forms, if we now say we are offering a Eucharist, we are holding a Eucharistic feast, we are having a supper, we are becoming Protestants and we are losing the whole reality of the Catholic Church, which rests on that truth. There is no longer a Catholic Church if there is no longer a Sacrifice of the Mass. There is no longer a Catholic Church if there is no longer a priest endowed with the character for the offering of the Holy Sacrifice.”
So what does that tell you when under Pope Paul VI in 1968, they actually changed the rite of ordination and changed several words and one of them is changing “ut” to “et”. And you might think, “well, what is the big deal? It is only two letters.” But many theologians, good theologians say it changes the whole meaning of what the priest is supposed to do. And that is why Pope Leo XIII condemned the Anglican ordinations as all invalid because it no longer expressed what the priest was supposed to do to offer sacrifice. And that is exactly what happened with the New Mass changes in 1968 for the ordination of the priest. So that is why it is not too rash to say there is an objective doubt to the new ordination of the Novus Ordo priest. It is objective.
And it is not for me to settle. It is for the Church to settle whether it all is valid or not. But one thing Archbishop Lefebvre did do, many times, was conditionally ordain priests who were ordained in the Novus Ordo because there was an objective doubt. And if he is not a priest, there is no Mass, no forgiveness of sins, he cannot give anything validly.
So what a triumph for the devil to cause invalid priests, very possibly, and therefore invalid sacraments. It is a very serious attack on the Church, this Novus Ordo changing of the sacraments. It is a direct attack on the Catholic Faith. So Archbishop Lefebvre defended the Catholic priesthood, he defended the Catholic Mass, he defended the Holy Sacrifice of the altar, he defended everything on which hinges all the Catholic Faith to continue. And that is why we must simply continue. Simply continue his position which is keep the Faith, keep the true Mass, keep the true sacraments, no compromise with Vatican II, no compromise with the New Mass, with the new Code of Canon Law, with this new Conciliar Church. And that is why we have to oppose the compromise of Bishop Fellay back in 2012. That is why we have had to stood up and oppose the compromises of Bishop Williamson in his lifetime. Towards the end of his life, he was promoting the New Mass quite heavily, and New Mass miracles. So pray for his soul. And then, of course, we must resist all compromise.
And many Catholics right now, you know, there is so much confusion, so much loss of Faith, so much scandal from Rome that has lost the Faith. What do we do? Well, Saint Vincent Lérin and Archbishop Lefebvre, they always said, “stay with what the Church has always done.” You cannot go wrong with holding the Faith of all the Popes before Vatican II, holding the Mass of all time, holding the Catholic Tradition. And that means not only holding definitions in books, but we must live the charity of Jesus Christ. Love Jesus Christ, the King. Love Him with all our heart, with all our whole being. Have the spirit of the martyrs. This is what's demanded of us in these days, is the spirit of the martyrs, that we have that spirit of the martyrs, which is one of extraordinary charity for God, and extraordinary charity for our neighbor. And that must shine in our lives, the charity of God and the charity of our neighbor.
That's what people used to say about the Catholics in the early Church. The pagans would look at them and know them and see their lives and say, “look at those Catholics. Look how they live. They have such love for one another. And even us pagans, they treat us as brothers and sisters when we need help.” And that shined in the early Catholics, and it needs to shine always, always in us.
So let's beg the Virgin Mary on this beautiful feast. You know, outside on [this day] in Nazareth, there was no comets, no asteroids, there was no fireworks, there was no sudden darkness or extended daylight. It was just a normal day in Nazareth. If you lived in Nazareth, just a few blocks down from where Our Lady was, you wouldn't have noticed anything different. It was just a normal day. But yet in that house of Loreto, it's called the House of Loreto, which the angels carried to Italy later, and the angels did carry it. They did all kinds of engineering and structural and physical and chemistry studies on the House of Loreto. And they say there's no way it was disassembled and put back together. It's not possible because it's made of all tiny rocks. The house was carried by angels, but I won't go into that story here. But just to say that house was where God became man. And if you lived in Nazareth, it wouldn't have been anything out of the ordinary [kind of] day. God worked the greatest miracle in a quiet way. And that's kind of how He was born, wasn't it? In Bethlehem, it was just another day in Bethlehem when He was born. But there were angels, there were shepherds, but for the townspeople, there was nothing all that much going on. So God often works quietly in a barn, in a little house, on a humble altar, the same reality takes place- God comes down on the altar, and a more extraordinary miracle, we could say, takes place. He doesn't become a little infant in Mary's womb. He becomes the Living Bread from Heaven, and the wine is changed to His most Precious Blood. So that's even a more extraordinary miracle, every single Mass.
And then [He] feeds you, feeds you with His body, blood, soul, and divinity, such as the love of the Sacred Heart. He feeds you with His burning heart. You eat fire. When you go to Communion, you eat fire. You consume Him, but He consumes us so that we can become one flame with Him by love of God, by charity with Him, by Sanctifying Grace. He wants this. So He wants to draw us, so this burning fire burns in us hotter and hotter, more intensely, especially when we unite ourselves with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, so that when we die, this burning fire of Sanctifying Grace turns into the Beatific Vision. And that's what enables the soul to see God as He really is, is Sanctifying Grace. And even if the soul has to pass through some fires of Purgatory, they're at great peace, and they're happy because they know they're going to Heaven. They're just being purged of all their sins on earth, or forgiven sins not yet sufficiently atoned for. But once they leave Purgatory, they love God and are burning in fire for the love of Him, and they will behold Him face to face for all eternity. So this is the day it all started. This is the day.
And traditionally this is also the day Adam and Eve fell. They fell on this day. So God came down to restore. How did He restore everything? What was the crack of dawn that announced the new day, the new age, which will be forever, the true golden age of the Redemption? It started with Mary, the Virgin Mary, and the angel telling her, “Ave Maria, Ave Maria.” “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” This is Our Lady's favorite prayer, so remember that when we pray her rosary every day. We honor her. So let's honor the Virgin Mary and beg her the grace to love the Mass, the re-enactment of Calvary. Love the Catholic priesthood.
Pray for your priests. Pray for priests in purgatory. Pray for priests on earth. Pray for fallen priests. Pray for all the fake resistance priests and bishops, that they wake up and start fighting the real fight and speak in the real truth. Pray for Novus Ordo priests, that they get conditionally ordained and become good priests. Pray for all compromising priests, especially the new SSPX. Many of them who were in my class, good priests in all those before us, they were all trained as crack troops to fight modernism. They were all trained like navy seals to fight the errors of our time. So what would it take to muffle them? What would it take to turn them from boxers in the ring taking on anybody to little mice on the sidelines afraid to say anything that might be uncomfortable or get them in a little trouble because it's the truth? Well, it took the leader to compromise, Bishop Fellay, and he did. It was a serious compromise, and it was public in 2012. It's not something hidden and, you know, little false accusations here or there, they publicly did it, [its] called the Doctrinal Declaration, and then the ongoing approvals with Rome, jurisdiction for confession, jurisdiction for marriages, jurisdiction for Holy Orders, and it puts them in a terrible position.
They should never have done this because now, and I hear this often now, Father, I call the priests of the society, “My grandmother's dying. Can you come and bring her Extreme Unction?” Or “my friend is dying.” Before 2012, any priest of the SSPX would just drop what they're doing, take a car or a flight, and go to that soul. It doesn't matter who it was because it's a dying person, and we have universal jurisdiction because it's the extreme necessity in the Church, the crisis of the Church, but now that they have so-called “jurisdiction”, thanks to Pope Francis and the recognition from Rome, now the priests, they can't say, “Okay, I'll be right there,” although some will still do that because they have good hearts and they have priestly hearts, but now the trend is more and more rising. “Sorry, are you a parishioner?” “No.” “Well, sorry, we can't come. Sorry, we can't help you. You've got to be a parishioner. You've got to be a registered parishioner. That's what the bishop wants.” Click. So what a terrible situation.
So that's what this jurisdiction has done. It has bound them in a way to muzzle them, to silence them, and they succeeded [in this]. Pope Benedict XVI succeeded to bring [about] the silencing of the SSPX, which used to be the powerhouse of the church. It used to be a great infantry, a great phalanx, a great army of priests preaching the Faith fearlessly with good bishops. But how did all this compromise happen? Very slowly, very weasley, very compromisingly.
So we've got to pray for them too in this Mass. Pray for all priests. Pray for all priests. And lastly, pray for this humble home, the Oratory of the Sorrowful Heart of Mary, a house of studies, where priests, if God wills, are starting to be formed. We have two right now, and next month we'll probably have perhaps one, one and a half, one or two more. We have some young men visiting, and in the fall, I understand, some more hope to come. We'll see.
And I just put it all in Our Lady's hands. But at least we got to do something to try to form priests for tomorrow. I shouldn't be doing it. It should be the bishops. But we're in such an emergency situation. Father Ruiz tells me, “You've got to start the seminary, our house of studies for priests. You've got to do it.” But Father, I'm useless. I'm not a bishop. Who's going to ordain our boys? “Don't worry. That's in God's hands. And just do what we can.” So we leave that in Our Lady's hands. So pray for the young men studying. Pray for the brothers that will come, priests, hopefully. Who will ordain them? That's one of the biggest mockery that we have. “You don't have a bishop.” That's what Father Chazal told me when we told him, “You're silent against Bishop Williamson's errors. You should be condemning his compromises with the New Mass and pushing the New Mass miracles. But you're silent.” And Father Chazal said, “Well, at least I have a bishop and you don't.” Well, he has bishops, yes. But at what price? Silence against errors. Sorry, Father Chazal. You know better than that. And Father Chazal is a great priest. He's a great warrior. But he knows he should not be silent on these points. He knows that. I know him well. And I think he still can shine yet bright and come back to the great soldier he always was.
So pray. And who's going to be our bishop? I don't know. God knows. Our Lady knows. There is some hope with Bishop Ballini. He seems very approachable. He did send me holy oils. He personally, he says, “I don't agree with Bishop Williamson's errors.” Thank God. So he doesn't. He doesn't agree with Bishop Fellay’s betrayal. But we need to hear it publicly. And that's what I asked him. We got to hear it publicly. You're a bishop. You're a public figure. We got to see pictures of your consecration and or at least videos, at least something to show you were really consecrated and we're not guessing it was some garage bishop. And today there's tons of garage Tuk bishops, Tuk line bishops that are all doubtful. Or most of them. So that's all I asked of Bishop Ballini. Please release some public photo of your consecration so there's no doubt. And secondly, say something against the errors of Bishop Williamson and the compromise of Bishop Fellay. So our faithful can trust you. How can we trust a bishop who we're not sure if he's compromising or not? We got to hear them speak publicly. That's not unreasonable.
And Archbishop Lefebvre said the faithful have a right to know where their priests and bishops stand. They have a right to know if they're evolutionary, if they're pro-Vatican II, if they're compromising with the New Mass. They have a right to know. And if they are, “Adios amigo, goodbye, I'm not coming to your Mass.” But if they are not compromising and they're preaching the Faith, we will flock to their Mass.
And I told Bishop Ballini we have 10 years, excuse me, now it's 13 years of families that are still waiting for Confirmation all over the U.S. and Canada and in England too, waiting for Confirmation. He nearly fell off his chair when [I] said 10 years or 12 years and he couldn't believe it. So I'm hoping we can see some cooperation on the doctrinal level. And I asked Bishop Zendejas, but forget that, he just shut the door and wouldn't even give any response. So maybe he was just in a bad mood, I don't know. But maybe he yet can turn around and shine also. But we shouldn't be having these weird games with our bishops. The bishops of Archbishop Lefebvre should be like Archbishop Lefebvre, preach the Faith, fight the errors, and take care of souls, and ordain priests. But good priests formed with a serious formation.
So I ask your prayers for this humble home. If Our Lord wants it, blessed be God. And if He doesn't want it, blessed be God. It's all in Our Lady's hands. And then I did announce not long ago about a house, a convent for nuns. And why? Because we need holy sisters that pray, girls that will marry Jesus Christ, consecrate their life totally to Him, and love Him with all their hearts, be married to Him alone, and make reparation to His Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and draw down grace on this wicked world. So there is a house available. It's still not bought. It's still available. They want $800,000 for it. I don't have that, but St. Joseph does. If he wants this convent, blessed be God. And I'm happy to take care of these sisters and so forth, but that's where we stand. I don't know if God wants that, but pray for that as well. So pray.
And then, of course, remember the priests in Purgatory and bishops, Bishop Williamson, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, if they're in Purgatory, pray for them. And then all the Society priests who have died, Fr. Beaumont, Fr. Iscara, Fr. Cooper, Fr. John Peake, and then all the independent priests who have died, who died fighting for Tradition, wonderful priests. And I'm sure many of them are in Heaven.
And pray for more priests. Pray for generous young men, good men. That's what we need is good, generous men who could be good athletes on the NHL hockey rinks or good athletes on the gridiron of the NFL or good military guys in the Army or Navy or Air Force or Marines or Navy SEALs or Green Berets. Why give their life to fight for Israel when they could give their life to fight for the King of Israel, the true Israel, which is the Catholic Church and eternity in Heaven, the heavenly Jerusalem? Why give your life for piles of money and bank accounts and just added on headaches and a Tesla car that will probably blow up and burn anyway because they're useless? Why give your life for that when they could give their life for the Redemption to help Our Lord save souls forever from eternal fires of Hell? What a great vocation and what a meaningful life. The priest's life is so meaningful, so full of excitement. I long for boredom. I would beg for some time of boredom. That's how over exciting it is.
So pray for priests, all priests, and pray for those priests who will die today or this week that they save their souls. Poor priests. The devil told Our lady and Sister Lucia [of] Fatima in her last interview, she said “the devil's waging his last battle and his main target is to attack consecrated souls”, priests and nuns and bishops and popes. Because if he can get one nun to fall, he takes many with him to hell. If he can take one priest to fall, he takes many to hell. A bishop to fall, he takes more to hell. A pope going to hell, oh my goodness, how many fall with him into hell? It's horrifying. So that's the battle we're in.
So and I know I'm going long here but let me just close with one last point. I, you know, the way the media portrays the Catholic priesthood and the smear on the priesthood by the scandals and the horrible bad examples, you know, especially when they are true, you know, when many priests have been falsely accused and ruined. But they're still good priests and they'll save their soul and they're innocent before God. But those who have been truly guilty of horrible crimes, unspeakable crimes, it has smeared the Catholic priesthood. And, you know, sometimes I think to myself and say, you know, if I was young right now, who would want to be a priest with that smeared tar all over it of that horrible reputation? But that's the worldly view of seeing it. And we're not, we're not meant to see the things of the world. We're not meant to love the world. We're to despise the world. We're to see the priesthood as it really is, the way Jesus Christ desires it. Priests who are another Christ, who continue the Redemption, continue the Mass, continue to preach the Faith, continue to love souls and save souls. That's the priest. Saint John Vianney, St. John Bosco, St. Isaac Jogues, St. René Goupil, Well, he wasn't a priest. St. John de Brébeuf was a priest. St. Edmund Campion. And the list goes on and on and on of great priests. And if they were alive right now, they would say exactly the same Mass. The exact same Mass. So, so tremendous is the priest that none of us are worthy of it. St. John Vianney said if a priest understood what he was and what he really is in his being, in his action, he would die out of love. He would just die out of love for God. His soul would be snatched to God. And how many good priests had seen Our Lord on the altar, Padre Pio saw the crucifixion of Our Lord and suffered it through the Mass. That's what the priesthood is. He offers that sacrifice. So how the world needs good priests. One good priest says the devil's told St. John Vianney, “if we had two more like you, our kingdom on earth would be destroyed.” So pray for priests, pray for priests.
And every young man should pass his mind. “Is this something God wills for me?” And if you're not sure, make a retreat this summer at Kansas. We'll have the Ignition Retreats, the men's retreat in the first week of July, women's retreat last week of June. Ask God and pray. We need an army of good priests. And this is what Archbishop Lefebvre really, really saw was so important to save the Church is to save the Catholic priesthood. You save the Catholic priesthood, you save the Church.
And then of course, the rest is in Our Lady's hands. We need a good Pope. We need the Virgin Mary to save this mess. Only she can pull us out of the mess we're in. And that's great because it all goes to her honor. And the Blessed Virgin Mary will have another great victory. The exciting thing is we're all part of it. You get to lay and help prepare that victory. She wants your cooperation. What does she want? Reparation and devotion to her Immaculate Heart. Pray the rosary every day, wear her brown scapular, the five first Saturdays of Reparation. This is what she wants. And by doing this, you are, wherever you are, however old you are, whether you're a woman or a man, a boy or a girl, you will help bring in the victory of our Blessed Mother. That's what she wants. It's a great, exciting time, actually. And if you die not seeing her victory, you'll see it in Heaven. And if you die seeing her victory, which will come eventually with a good Pope and the restoration of the Church and the reign of Christ's Kingship, prophecies say it will surpass the ages of the Faith of the 12th and 13th century. There'll be great saints in that era, generous souls in that era. And we might not be far from it because all it takes is one heavy chastisement. Men will be forced to their knees and realize God is everything. Christ is king. We got to reorder our politics, reorder everything back to Christ the King. That's foretold, and it's going to happen. So we get to be assisting the Virgin Mary in preparing for this reign of the Immaculate Heart. As useless and helpless as we are, you're doing a lot by doing what Our Lady asks.
So be generous. Be generous with Our Lord. And let's pray in this Mass of the Annunciation for all priests.
O Mary, conceived without sin. pray for us who have recourse to thee.
O Mary, conceived without sin. pray for us who have recourse to thee.
O Mary, conceived without sin. pray for us who have recourse to thee.
And for those who do not have recourse to Thee, especially all Communists and Freemasons and other enemies of Holy Mother Church. Amen.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen.
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| Fr. Ruiz: St. Joseph, Protector of the Holy Family and Tradition [Transcription] |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-03-2025, 09:22 AM - Forum: Fr. Ruiz's Sermons, Catechisms, & Conferences
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“ST. JOSEPH, PROTECTOR OF THE HOLY FAMILY AND OF TRADITION”
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The Catholic Trumpet | April 2, 2025
Sermon for the Third Sunday of Lent
03/23/2025
Father Ruiz
We are in the third Sunday of Lent.
Reading of the Epistle of the Apostle Saint Paul to the Ephesians:
“Be ye therefore followers of God, as most dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath delivered himself for us, an oblation and a sacrifice to God for an odour of sweetness. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not so much as be named among you, as becometh saints: Or obscenity, or foolish talking, or scurrility, which is to no purpose; but rather giving of thanks. For know you this and understand, that no fornicator, or unclean, or covetous person (which is a serving of idols), hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words. For because of these things cometh the anger of God upon the children of unbelief. Be ye not therefore partakers with them. For you were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord. Walk then as children of the light. For the fruit of the light is in all goodness, and justice, and truth.”
Continuation of the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke: “At that time Jesus was casting out a devil, and the same was dumb: and when he had cast out the devil, the dumb spoke: and the multitudes were in admiration at it: But some of them said: He casteth out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils. And others tempting, asked of Him a sign from Heaven. But He seeing their thoughts, said to them: Every kingdom divided against itself, shall be brought to desolation, and house upon house shall fall. And if Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? because you say, that through Beelzebub I cast out devils. Now if I cast out devils by Beelzebub; by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I by the finger of God cast out devils; doubtless the kingdom of God is come upon you. When a strong man armed keepeth his court, those things are in peace which he possesseth. But if a stronger than he come upon him, and overcome him; he will take away all his armour wherein he trusted, and will distribute his spoils. He that is not with me, is against me; and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through places without water, seeking rest; and not finding, he saith: I will return into my house whence I came out. And when he is come, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then he goeth and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and entering in they dwell there. And the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. And it came to pass, as he spoke these things, a certain woman from the crowd, lifting up her voice, said to him: Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that gave thee suck. But he said: Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it.”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.
Dear brethren, we are on the Third Sunday of Lent, but this week we have celebrated the feast of Saint Joseph, and this is also the month dedicated to Saint Joseph, the month of March. So I'm going to talk especially about Saint Joseph, protector of the Holy Family, on this day.
And Our Lord says at the end of the Gospel, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it”. That could refer to the Blessed Virgin, who, as this woman said, praising her, saying, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts that breastfed you.” But Our Lord says, that's fine. But it is more important to be faithful to these graces, than just the fact of having received the grace of being the Mother of God.
And then you could say the same about Saint Joseph, who was also the adoptive father of Our Lord. So, if Saint Joseph, after having received so many graces, as well as the Virgin Mary, had not been faithful, and had not put into practice the word of God, then what use would all these graces be to him? Even if these graces are great, they do not bear fruit, if one does not take advantage [of them], if there is no such fidelity to these graces.
So we should not be dismayed so much about the graces that God gives us. Yes, they are real, but if there is not a response from us, a practice, a fidelity to the gifts of God, then we are going to lose [the graces] and they will not bear fruit. So it is not enough that we have received the graces of God. We see this in the Virgin Mary, even the Virgin Mary, even Saint Joseph, what God really expected from them is that they were faithful to the graces received.
So that is what we celebrate about Saint Joseph, that he was a faithful soul, and that above all he was the protector of the Holy Family. So he was the head of the Holy Family, and because he was the protector of the Holy Family, he was also a protector of the Church. Today, naturally, logically, he is the protector of the Church.
So why is he the protector of the Church? Well, because Jesus is the head of the Mystical Body, that is, the head of the Church. Jesus Christ is the main part of the Church, he is the head of the Church, and Mary, the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, who is also in the Mystical Body, has the second most important place. Some compare her to the neck of the Mystical Body, because it is the neck that has all the influence over the head on the body.
So the Virgin Mary is also a very important part of the Church. So if Saint Joseph protected Jesus, he was the protector of Jesus, he was the protector of the Virgin Mary, because it is normal that by protecting them, he was protecting us. We depend [the most] on the head, and the neck of the Mystical Body, which are Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. So he is the protector of the Holy Church, because he is the protector of the Holy Family.
And this mission of Saint Joseph can be seen throughout the life of Our Lord, throughout the life of the Blessed Virgin, how Saint Joseph was faithful, and that being the husband of the Virgin Mary, he was in fact the adoptive father of the Child Jesus, because the Virgin Mary was his wife, and that what was born in her, even if he was not the real father of the Child Jesus, in any case he was the adoptive father, because the Child Jesus was born from his wife. So the Virgin Mary was his wife, and she belonged to Saint Joseph; thus, it was Saint Joseph's field, and in this field belonging to him, the Child Jesus was born.
So he was also the father, that child was also his property, and even if he was not the real father, he was the adoptive father. So for the very fact of having power over the Holy Family, for the very fact of being the protector of the Holy Family, he is the protector of the Church, and he is the protector of all the souls that have been saved thanks to the Redemption of this Child, of Jesus, and to the mediation of the Virgin Mary.
So he was involved in all this, in all this work, and it was a most Holy Soul that has left us an example of fidelity. Just as the Virgin Mary not only received thanks from God, she was also perfectly faithful to all the graces that God gave her, and so Saint Joseph was also faithful, and thanks to his fidelity, we have benefited, because if Saint Joseph had been unfaithful, or the Virgin Mary had been unfaithful, what would have happened to us? Perhaps the Redemption would not have been carried out, perhaps the Church would not have been founded, because their fidelity involves all of us, and everything that Saint Joseph did has to do with what is happening today in the Church.
[St. Joseph’s fidelity] is not a separate event that has nothing to do with us. No, what Saint Joseph did had consequences, had great consequences. For example, he was the protector of the Holy Family, because he protected Our Lady and the Child Jesus. During the persecution of Herod, he protected them, he saved them, he took them to Egypt, and thanks to him they were saved.
Today we can also invoke him so that he saves the Church, the Church of Christ, the Church of the Virgin Mary, so that he helps us, that he protects us, in these times of darkness, in these times of evil. The Church is persecuted, sometimes in a way, so to speak, that is not physical, but a moral persecution; persecution not only by the enemies declared by God, but also by the bad ecclesiastics who have occupied the Church and who persecute Tradition.
We, who want to preserve the Tradition of the Church, and what it represents, what the Church really represents, is the Tradition. So, where is the Church? Well, where is the Tradition? So, if the men of the modern Church, and the modern clergy, no longer keep the complete Faith, perhaps some do, others don't, we don't even know what to think, but they no longer keep the Mass as usual. The truth of the doctrine of the Church is questioned, even the Pope himself questions many things, he leads the Church to apostasy, even though in the Society of St. Pius X, Pope Francis taking the Church to apostasy and everything else, is being denied. So, he leads it [into apostasy] little by little, gradually, but that is the direction he has taken it.
So, St. Joseph protected the Holy Family from persecution, and we can also invoke him in that sense, because we are being persecuted, whether we like it or not, those of us who want to be faithful to Tradition will be persecuted. We have been persecuted within the Society, and also outside. There are also those who still create problems for us, but we have to be calm, because those who want to preserve the whole of Tradition, not partially, not only intellectually, but also practically, as Our Blessed Lord said, “Those who listen to the Word of God and practice it.” It is not only those who listen to it, not only those who receive the graces of God, to know how to be a Christian, but also those who practice it. And that is what St. Joseph taught us, and what we intend to do with his help. And that is why the Church is being persecuted. And currently Tradition, and the few who remain [faithful to it], some in the resistance of the SSPX, which today they call “Resistance”, but it is nothing other than the same Tradition, which does not want to mix, which does not want to degrade, so that is what the Church represents in a more definitive way.
Also, St. Joseph fed them with his work, that is, he was a provident Father, not only Protector, but Provident, because he provided everything the Holy Family needed, both when they were in Bethlehem, when they were in Egypt, or when they were in Nazareth, St. Joseph took care of earning bread with his work, with his efforts, the bread with which he fed the Holy Family, Our Lady and the Child Jesus. So he was a Father who gave food, who gave daily bread. So in the history of the Church, we see that many saints, especially there is what St. Teresa of Ávila said, who said that she had never asked anything of St. Joseph, that was not granted.
And she founded many convents, she founded many communities of Carmelites. She said that whenever she had a need, because to found a convent you need money, you need food, you need means, she said that whenever she went to St. Joseph, St. Joseph helped her and always listened to her.
So we also certainly need the protection of St. Joseph, when the world, the devil, chases us, and creates problems for us. But we also need to live. So in our needs, we must invoke St. Joseph, for our material needs. But not only that, because St. Teresa said that there are saints that one invokes especially to obtain a grace, or a benefit, but for St. Joseph, he is a universal saint, meaning that he can be invoked for all kinds of needs. So not only for material, but also spiritual, and all kinds of needs, you have to invoke St. Joseph. He is a provident Father. Since he was a provident Father of the Holy Family, he is automatically a provident Father of the whole Church. So he is a provident Father of the whole family of the Church. And who are we? Those who have Faith, who want to have all the Faith of the Church, not partial, not half, but all of it. So St. Joseph is a provident Father with the people who want to preserve this food of the Faith.
Because Jesus is the true food of the souls, and those who receive Him cannot receive Him in any other way than by the integrity of the Faith. Because if they have a half-Faith, then in reality they cannot receive Him. Our Lord demands total Faith, total Faith.
When someone corrupts a truth of the Faith, they no longer have Faith, like some heretics, even if they said “they believed in everything else”, but they denied a single truth of the Faith, then they no longer received, they no longer had the spiritual presence of Our Lord, and they were no longer spiritual children of St. Joseph. So the spiritual food that St. Joseph also provides for the Church, is not the food of the soul, the graces that we receive. He is very close to the Virgin Mary, he is very close to Jesus, and he can obtain those graces that we need today to resist [errors], to be faithful, to preserve all of the Faith in its integrity.
Because we also live in an era in which Faith has become a sentimental question, a pious question, a question of “feelings”. But Faith is above all teaching and doctrine. So, today modern Catholics no longer know what the food of Faith is, and what it consists of, and how this food should be received, how it should be preserved. So, for them, what counts is something else.
In Christian life, they are very interested in a charity that becomes automatically sentimental when it is not doctrinal. The charity that is not doctrinal is not a solid charity, it is not even Charity. So, we need to have that appreciation of doctrine, of Faith, and to have the sense of priority, the priority of doctrine. In the Christian life, many believe that the priority is to be pious, to say the rosary, to be good people. No, the priority of our religion is the doctrine. First of all, we must know, accept, and preserve the doctrine. Feeding this doctrine, deepening it, is the main thing in the Church. It is the main thing in our Christian life.
If we only believe that a certain piety is enough, then what do you believe in? Who do you believe in? We must have the Faith, we must have doctrine. What did Our Lord say? [“Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.”] That is doctrine. So, when the enemies of God want to corrupt this doctrine, they are corrupting the Church.
And if they succeed in getting someone to lose their Faith, then that person loses Charity, loses grace, and loses Heaven. Everything, everything. So, everything depends on the doctrine.
Although, there are people who are a little less instructed, they will nevertheless never deny the truths of the Faith, which they hold firmly and clearly.
So, we need to have that notion of the primacy of doctrine in the fight for Tradition. Right? Because right now, there are some who believe, some priests who are advocates of this notion, that all that matters is to have a nice Mass, to have nice ceremonies, but the doctrine is no longer there, there is no longer any doctrine, or if there is, it is very partial.
And there is no longer any talk of the matters of faith which are questioned today, which is the first duty of priests, to denounce those who are corrupting the Faith. It is the first duty of the priests.
For those who want to sanctify their souls, everything depends upon doctrine. A soul cannot be sanctified if it has a faith that is deformed, that is corrupted. It is not possible. And our prayer is not pleasing to God if we do not have the true Faith. It is not accepted by God, not received. So, if we want to do good works for the Church, if we want to convert souls, if we want to do beautiful ceremonies, to practice the virtues, the commandments. Well, first we have to have clear the doctrine, the [clear] teaching of God.
So, Saint Joseph cannot help us if we do not want to have and accept that food of the Faith, first, of the doctrine of the Church. Let us not have illusions, because there are many people who have a sentimental devotion for Saint Joseph, for the Virgin Mary, and the only thing that interests them is to feel beautiful when they pray, to have “good feelings”. But that is secondary, because there can be no proper prayer without a conception of the correct Faith, as it should be.
So, today they are destroying the Church, why? Because they have destroyed, first, the doctrine, and then everything else. So, that's why the Second Vatican Council began to corrupt the doctrine, and that's why the whole Church has been affected. But we can turn to Saint Joseph to restore the Faith in souls, the one who gives us the food for his intercession, for his help, so that the souls regain the meaning, the doctrinal meaning of what the Faith is. The liberal Catholics are not interested in doctrine, they are interested in the facts, they are interested in having peace, security, but without problems. They are interested in those things, but they are not interested in the doctrine. To restore the Church, it always begins with the doctrine. Everything else comes automatically, but always, first, with the doctrine.
Our Lord, the first thing He did was to preach. In his public life, the first thing He did was to preach. But what did he preach? Well, his teaching, his doctrine, his truth. So, all that is doctrine. And that's why the Church can be restored. There is no other way. So, Saint Joseph, the provident Father of the Holy Family, who gave them the physical bread, but also preserved the doctrine of the Faith in the people who invoke him. Just as in the Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus, they did not need the help of Saint Joseph to have good doctrine, but he took care of them, he protected them. So, Jesus Christ, who is the truth itself, the Virgin Mary, who is full of grace, the soul that had the greatest Faith in all of history, well, if he protected them, he will also propitiate in us that practice of the Faith.
Also, Saint Joseph aids and consoles us in our difficulties. The persecution is a protection. The food is a providence. But when there are penalties and there are jobs, help is needed, [and he is our] consolation. And Saint Joseph was also, for the Holy Family, an assistant, an assistant. And you have to imagine how difficult the trip was when they went to Egypt. The Virgin Mary, who had just had the Child Jesus, and the Child Jesus being a little baby, well, he relieved them on that trip, he provided them the help so they were able to rest, so that they were not so burdened by the work and consequences [of their hasty departure into Egypt].
And Saint Joseph was there with his strong arm to assist them. So we must also invoke Saint Joseph in our penalties, in our jobs, because sometimes it can happen that we are sad, or undergo desolation, and Saint Joseph can lift our spirits and we must turn to him to help us, so that we reach the end, right? So, that we reach the end of the journey, right? So that we reach the end that God is preparing for us in the afterlife. And it sometimes happens that there are people who get stuck on the road because they get discouraged, because they lose confidence and they lose hope, and they even lose faith.
There are some who move away from God because they do not want to overcome all the difficulties that it implies to have the Faith, to be a Catholic. So Saint Joseph is there for us to invoke him. Let us remember everything that he did for the Holy Family and how the Holy Family, the Child Jesus, the Virgin Mary, [were so important] because God wanted them to be here in this world so that the Church could exist, so that they could sanctify the Church.
So it is normal that Saint Joseph also protects us, the members of the Church. We must invoke him and we must believe in his protection, in his power. As Saint Teresa of Ávila said, “He is a saint who can be invoked in all kinds of needs and he is a saint who, if he is invoked will always listen to you.”
I would also like to give some quotes from the Popes who have encouraged, who have promoted the devotion to Saint Joseph. In past times, there was always a devotion to Saint Joseph, but more so in the last two and three centuries, there has been a flourishing in the Church, a special devotion to Saint Joseph, and the Church has also approved and promoted this devotion to Saint Joseph. For example, Pope Sixtus VI made a Mass and an office of Saint Joseph, which did not exist before, so it means that in these times God wants us to have more of a devotion to Saint Joseph. Also, when Our Lady of Fatima appeared, there was a vision in which Saint Joseph was seen with the Child Jesus who blessed all these people who were there, and Saint Joseph blessed them. So, Saint Joseph in these times, apocalyptic times, also has a special mission, and that is why he must be invoked more. Also, Pope Benedict XIII in 1726 added the name of Saint Joseph to the Litany of the Saints, which was not there before. Pope Pius VII added his name in a prayer a cunctis. Pope Leo XIII, who was a great devotee of Saint Joseph, developed the doctrine of the patronage of Saint Joseph and theology on holiness and the prerogatives of Saint Joseph. Pope Leo XIII explains this much better [than me]. He asked for all to pray in October, the prayer [to St. Joseph] “we have recourse to you in our tribulations…” after the Rosary, that it be said always in the month of October after the Rosary, this prayer. In the Society of St. Pius X, Archbishop Lefebvre wanted it to be said all year, always after the Rosary, the prayer is said to Saint Joseph. It is the same [prayer] we are currently saying as a novena for 30 days, which we are doing today in order to find a benefactor to help me buy this house. So, in the Society of Archbishop Lefebvre, he wanted it to be said always after the Rosary, the prayer to Saint Joseph, and it is always said.
Then, also Pope Leo XIII composed a form of consecration of the family to Saint Joseph, which he himself wrote and this formula can be used to consecrate families to Saint Joseph. Pope Benedict XIV also promoted his cult, and also said that if Saint Joseph was a putative father of Jesus, therefore he is also a father and patron of the Church. Pope Pius IX solemnly proclaimed Saint Joseph Patron of the Universal Church. Pope Benedict XV spoke of the unlimited powers of the Holy Patriarch. He instituted the Feast of the Holy Family, which in fact is also of Saint Joseph.
In the 20th century, due to the Industrial Revolution, many people began to work in factories, to work in industries, and there were not as many people who in other times worked in the field. There was a social phenomenon of the working class, which multiplied a lot during this time. During this time, Pope Benedict XV insisted that Catholic workers put themselves under the patronage of Saint Joseph, because Saint Joseph also worked, Saint Joseph also had to support his family. The Catholic workers should not be manipulated by Communism, by the communists, to make the struggle of classes, but they must work honorably to the model of Saint Joseph and not be involved in revolutions. Then Pope Pius XI in the 20th century put the action of the Catholic Church against Atheist Communism, put it under the protection of Saint Joseph, then Saint Joseph is also combative, combative against Atheist Communism. That action of the Church against Communism, Pope Pius XI put it under the special protection of Saint Joseph, but what the Popes have done and have said about Saint Joseph is much more. This is just a general idea, but there is much more that the Popes have said and that could be known about Saint Joseph, there is much to learn, and there are books that explain to us, for example, there are many different statements that the Popes have made, and it is good to get a book that talks about this topic.
So, in this month let's try to invoke Saint Joseph, we invoke him at the level of the Church, we invoke him at the level of the world, so that he protects us from all the current evils, and that he saves the Church, as he saved it, he saved the Holy Family during the persecution of Herod, so let's ask Saint Joseph to save the Church in these times of crisis, of lack of Faith. Let’s also ask Saint Joseph, invoke him at an individual level for our personal needs, our family needs, our spiritual needs, let's invoke Saint Joseph, who is the model of an inner soul, of a holy soul, of a soul that never offended God. Although Pope Francis said on one occasion, and I think he has repeated it, that Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph also had to fight every day against their defects, their human defects, as if they were sinners, as if also Virgin Mary had in herself the effects of original sin, which is a heresy, so what Pope Francis said was scandalous. Saint Joseph was a very holy soul, of the first order, because there are saints who had moments when they were bad but then converted, but saints like Saint Joseph, Saint John the Baptist, are saints who were very innocent. And so it is really very serious to talk about them as if they had sins, had defects, had passions. Other saints maybe yes, but those who were very close to Our Lord cannot be judged like that, right? Saint Joseph, Saint John the Baptist also, right? They are the ones who were really close to Our Lord, and it is a very serious offense to question St. Joseph’s holiness and above all the Virgin Mary’s.
It is already a heresy, but they are no longer afraid of heresy, modern ecclesiastics are no longer afraid of heresy, because today the doctrine in the Church has gone to a second term, and some do worry a little, but they do not worry enough, and they do not worry about everything, because the Faith is whole, you cannot sacrifice something. So, if something fails, then that one is no longer Catholic.
So, let's ask this month, Saint Joseph, let's not forget to invoke him, we can pray, because we are already saying the prayer to Saint Joseph every day for this novena, but we can continue and I encourage the faithful, although it is not an obligation to say this prayer to Saint Joseph whenever they say the rosary, after the rosary, to say the prayer to Saint Joseph, as Archbishop Lefebvre asked the Society, and that it is a good custom, especially during this [time] when the Church is being persecuted. We have to turn to Saint Joseph, our protector, protector of the Holy Church, and let's ask him also, not only because he was the putative father of the Child Jesus, but also he has a great dignity because he was the husband of the Mother of God, and that is not spoken about enough, Saint Joseph, husband of the Mother of God, that is a great title, a great title for Saint Joseph, who was the husband of the Mother of God, that he intercedes before the Child Jesus, but also for the Virgin Mary, and that he obtains the blessings, the prayers of the Holy Virgin.
We ask for the needs of the Church, we ask Saint Joseph for the needs of Tradition, and that he free us from the heresy, that he free us from the liberal spirit that is there today in the Church, and in Tradition, and that even in the Resistance, what we call “Resistance”, sometimes there can be some abnormal things. Then we must ask Saint Joseph that as a Provident Father to help us, protect us, and correct us with the protection of the Virgin Mary, for which he will intercede before her too.
Oh Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.
In the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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| Fr. Michael Müller: The Great Revolt Against Christ |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-03-2025, 07:15 AM - Forum: Resources Online
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From the beginning of the world there have been two elements—the good and the bad—combating each other. “There must be scandals,” says our Lord; St. Michael and Lucifer combat each other in heaven; Cain and Abel in the family of Adam; Isaac and Ismael in the family of Abraham; Jacob and Esau in the family of Isaac; Joseph and his brethren in the family of Jacob; Solomon and Absalom in the family of David; St. Peter and Judas in the company of Our Lord Jesus Christ; the Apostles and the Roman emperors in the Church of Christ; St. Francis of Assisi and Brother Elias, in the Franciscan Order; St. Bernard and his uncle Andrew, in the Cistercian Order; St. Alphonsus and Father Leggio in the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer; orthodox faith and heresy and infidelity, in the Kingdom of God on earth; the just and the wicked, in all places; in fact, where is the country, the city, the village, the religious community or the family, howsoever small it may be, in which these two elements are not found in opposition. The parable of the sower and the cockle is everywhere verified; even should you be quite alone, grace and nature will combat each other. “And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household.” (Matthew 10:36) Strange to say, not only the good and the wicked are found in perpetual conflict; but God, for wise ends, permits that even the holiest and best of men are sometimes diametrically opposed to one another and even incite persecution one against the other, though each one may be led by the purest and holiest of motives.
There must be scandals—a fatal, though divine warning!
There must be storms in nature to purify the air from dangerous elements. In like manner, God permits storms—heresies—to arise in his Church on earth in order that the erroneous and impious doctrines of heretics may, by way of contrast, set forth in clearer light the true and holy doctrines of the Church. As light is in the midst of darkness, gold contrasted with lead, the sun among the planets, the wise among the foolish, so is the Roman Catholic Church among non-Catholics. “If two things of different natures,” says the Wise Man, “be brought into opposition, the eye perceives their difference at once.” “Good is set against evil, and life against death: so also is the sinner against the just man. And so look upon all the works of the Most High. Two and two, and one against another.” (Ecclesiasticus 33:15)
Christ, then, permits the storms of heresies to burst upon his Church, in order to bring forth into clearer light his divine doctrine, and to remove dangerous elements from his Mystic Body, the Roman Catholic Church.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, with the exception of the Greek schismatics, a few Lollards in England, some Waldenses in Piedmont, scattered Albigenses or Manicheans, and a few followers of Huss and Zisca among the Bohemians, all Europe was Roman Catholic. England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Holland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden,—every civilized nation was in the unity of the Catholic faith. Many of these nations were at the height of their power and prosperity. Portugal was pushing her discoveries beyond the Cape of Good Hope, and forming Catholic settlements in the East Indies. Christopher Columbus, a Roman Catholic, had discovered America, under the patronage of the Catholic Isabella of Spain. England was in a state of great prosperity. Her two Catholic Universities of Oxford and Cambridge contained, at one time, more than fifty thousand students. The country was covered with noble churches, abbeys, and monasteries, and with hospitals where the poor were fed, clothed and instructed.
However, the progress of civilization tended to foster a spirit of pride, and encourage the lust of novelties. The prosperity of the Church led to luxury, and in many cases to a relaxation of discipline. There were, as there always have been, in every period of the Church, the days of the apostles not excepted, bad men in the Church. The wheat and tares grow together until the harvest. The net of the Church encloses good and bad. The writings of Wickliffe, Huss, and their followers, had unsettled the minds of many. Princes were restive under the check held by the Church upon their rapacity and lusts.
Henry VIII, for example, wanted to divorce a wife to whom he had been married twenty years, that he might marry a young and pretty one. He could not do this, so long as he acknowledged the spiritual supremacy of the Pope. Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, wanted two wives. No Pope would give him a dispensation to marry and live with two women at once. Then there were multitudes of wicked and avaricious nobles who wanted but an excuse to plunder the churches, abbeys, and monasteries, whose property was held in trust for the education of the people and the care of the poor, aged, and sick, all over Europe. Then there were priests and monks eager to embrace a relaxed discipline and many people who, incited by the cry of liberty, were ready to rush into license, and make war upon every principle of religion and social order, as soon as circumstances would favour the outbreak of this rebel spirit in individuals and masses.
Now, when God, says St. Gregory, sees in the Church many reveling in their vices, and, as St. Paul observes, believing in God, confessing the truth of his mysteries, but belying their faith by their works, he punishes them by permitting that, after having lost grace, they also lose the holy knowledge which they had of his mysteries, and that, without any other persecution than that of their vices, they deny the faith. It is of these David speaks, when he says: “Destroy Jerusalem to its foundations; " (Psalms 136:7) leave not a stone upon stone. When the wicked spirits have ruined in a soul the edifice of virtue, they sap its foundation, which is faith. St. Cyprian, therefore, said: “Let no one think that virtuous men and good Christians ever leave the bosom of the Church; it is not the wheat that the wind lifts, but the chaff; trees deeply rooted are not blown down by the breeze, but those which have no roots. It is rotten fruits that fall off the trees, not sound ones; bad Catholics become heretics, as sickness is engendered by bad humors. At first, faith languishes in them, because of their vices; then it becomes sick; next it dies; because, since sin is essentially a blindness of spirit, the more a man sins, the more he is blinded; his faith grows weaker and weaker; the light of this divine torch decreases, and soon the least wind of temptation or doubt suffices to extinguish it.”
Witness the great defection from faith in the sixteenth century, when God permitted heresies to arise, in order to exercise his justice against those who were ready to abandon the truth, and his mercy toward those who remained attached to it; to prove, by trials those who were firm in the faith, and to separate them from those who loved error; to exercise the patience and charity of the Church, and to sanctify the elect; to give occasion for the illustration of religious truth and the holy Scripture; to make pastors more vigilant, and value more the sacred deposit of faith; in fine, to render the authority of tradition more clear and incontestable. Heresy arose in all its strength; Martin Luther was its ringleader and its spokesman.
Martin Luther, an Augustinian friar, a bold man and a vehement declaimer, having imbibed erroneous sentiments from the heretical writings of John Huss of Bohemia, took occasion from the publication of indulgences promulgated by Pope Leo X, to break with the Catholic Church and to propagate his new errors, in 1517, at Wittenberg, in Saxony. He first inveighed against the abuse of indulgences; then he called in question their efficacy; and at last totally rejected them. He declaimed against the supremacy of the See of Rome and condemned the whole Church, pretending that Christ had abandoned it, and that it wanted reforming, as well in faith as discipline. Thus this new evangelist commenced that fatal defection from the ancient faith, which was styled “Reformation.”
The new doctrines being calculated to gratify the vicious inclinations of the human heart, spread with the rapidity of an inundation. Frederick, Elector of Saxony, John Frederick, his successor, and Philip, Landgrave of Hesse became Luther’s disciples. Gustavus Ericus, King of Sweden and Christian III, King of Denmark, also declared in favour of Lutheranism. It secured a footing in Hungary. Poland, after tasting a great variety of doctrines, left to every individual the liberty of choosing for himself. Munzer, a disciple of Luther, set up for doctor himself, and, with Nicholas Stark, gave birth to the sect of Anabaptists, which was propagated in Suabia and other provinces in Germany, in the Low Countries. Calvin, a man of bold, obstinate spirit, and indefatigable in his labours, in imitation of Luther, turned reformer also. He contrived to have his new tenets received at Geneva, in 1541. After his death, Beza preached the same doctrine. It insinuated itself into some parts of Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, and became the religion of Holland. It was imported by John Knox, an apostate priest, into Scotland, where, under the name of Presbyterianism, it took deep root, and spread over the kingdom.
But among the deluded nations, none drank more deeply of the cup of error than England. For many centuries this country had been conspicuous in the Christian world for the orthodoxy of its belief as also for the number of its saints. But by a misfortune never to be sufficiently lamented, and by an unfathomable judgment from above, its Church shared a fate which seemed the least to threaten it. The lust and avarice of one despotic sovereign threw down the fair edifice, and tore it off the rock on which it had hitherto stood. Henry VIII, at first a valiant asserter of the Catholic faith against Luther, giving way to the violent passions which he had not sufficient courage to curb, renounced the supreme jurisdiction which the Pope had always held in the Church, presumed to arrogate to himself that power in his own dominions and thus gave a deadly blow to religion. He then forced his subjects into the same fatal defection. Once introduced, it soon overspread the land. Being, from its nature, limited by no fixed principle, it has since taken a hundred different shapes, under different names, such as: the Calvinists, Arminians, Antinomians, Independents, Kilhamites, Glassites, Haldanites, Bereans, Swedenborgians, New-Jerusalemites, Orthodox Quakers, Hicksites, Shakers, Panters, Seekers, Jumpers, Reformed Methodists, German Methodists, Albright Methodists, Episcopal Methodists, Wesleyan Methodists, Methodists North, Methodists South, Protestant Methodists, Episcopalians, High Church Episcopalians, Low Church Episcopalians, Ritualists, Puseyites, Dutch Reformed, Dutch non-Reformed, Christian Israelites, Baptists, Particular Baptists, Seventh-day Baptists, Hardshell Baptists, Softshell Baptists, Forty Gallon Baptists, Sixty Gallon Baptists, African Baptists, Free-will Baptists, Church of God Baptists, Regular Baptists, Anti-mission Baptists, Six Principle Baptists, River Brethren, Winebremarians, Menonites, Second Adventists, Millerites, Christian Baptists, Universalists, Orthodox Congregationalists, Campbellites, Presbyterians, Old School Presbyterians and New School Presbyterians, Cumberland Presbyterians, United Presbyterians, The Only True Church of Christ, 573 Bowery, N.Y., up stairs, 5th story, Latter-day Saints, Restorationists, Schwenfelders, Spiritualists, Mormons, Christian Perfectionists, etc, etc, etc. All these sects are called Protestants because they all unite in protesting against their mother, the Roman Catholic Church.
Some time after, when the reforming spirit had reached its full growth, Dudithius, a learned Protestant divine, in his epistle to Beza, wrote: “What sort of people are our Protestants, straggling to and fro, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, sometimes to this side, sometimes to that? You may, perhaps, know what their sentiments in matters of religion are today, but you can never tell precisely what they will be tomorrow. In what article of religion do these churches agree which have cast off the Bishop of Rome? Examine all from top to bottom, and you will scarce find one thing affirmed by one which was not immediately condemned by another for wicked doctrine.”
The same confusion of opinions was described by an English Protestant, the learned Dr. Walton, about the middle of the last century, in his preface to his Polyglot, where he says: “Aristarchus heretofore could scarce find seven wise men in Greece; but with us, scarce are to be found so many idiots. For all are doctors, all are divinely learned: there is not so much as the meanest fanatic who does not give you his own dreams for the word of God. The bottomless pit seems to have been opened, from whence a smoke has arisen which has darkened the heavens and the stars, and locusts have come out with stings, a numerous race of sectaries and heretics, who have renewed all the ancient heresies, and invented many monstrous opinions of their own. These have filled our cities, villages, camps, houses and nay, our pulpits, too, and lead the poor deluded people with them to the pit of perdition.”
“Yes,” writes another author, “every ten years, or nearly so, the Protestant theological literature undergoes a complete revolution. What was admired during the one decennial period is rejected in the next, and the image which they adored is burnt to make way for new divinities; the dogmas which were held in honour , fall into discredit; the classical treatise of morality is banished among the old books out of date; criticism overturns criticism; the commentary of yesterday ridicules that of the previous day, and what was clearly proved in 1840, is not less clearly disproved in 1850. The theological systems of Protestantism are as numerous as the political constitutions of France—one revolution only awaits another.” (Le Semeur, June, 1840.)
It is indeed utterly impossible to keep the various members of one single sect from perpetual disputes, even about the essential truths of revealed religion. And those religious differences exist not only in the same sect, not only in the same country and town, but even in the same family. Nay, the self-same individual, at different periods of his life, is often in flagrant contradiction with himself. Today he avows opinions which yesterday he abhorred, and tomorrow he will exchange these again for new ones. At last, after belonging, successively, to various new-fangled sects, he generally ends by professing unmitigated contempt for them all. By their continual disputes and bickerings, and dividing and subdividing, the various Protestant sects have made themselves the scorn of honest minds, the laughing-stock of the pagan and the infidel.
These human sects, the “works of the flesh,” as St. Paul calls them, alter their shape, like clouds, but “feel no blow,” says Mr. Marshall, because they have no substance. They fight a good deal with one another, but nobody minds it, not even themselves, nor cares what becomes of them. If one human sect perishes, it is always easy to make another, or half a dozen. They have the life of worms, and propagate by corruption. Their life is so like death that, except by the putridity which they exhale in both stages, it is impossible to tell which is which, and when they are buried, nobody can find their graves. They have simply disappeared.
The spirit of Protestantism, or the spirit of revolt against God and his Church, sprung up from the Reformers’ spirit of incontinency, obstinacy, and covetousness. Luther, in despite of the vow he had solemnly made to God of keeping continency, married a nun, equally bound as himself to that sacred religious promise; but, as St. Jerome says, “it is rare to find a heretic that loves chastity.”
Luther’s example had indeed been anticipated by Carlostadtius, a priest and ringleader of the Sacramentarians, who had married a little before; and it was soon followed by most of the heads of the Reformation. Zwinglius, a priest and chief of the sect that bore his name, took a wife. Bucer, a member of the order of St. Dominic, became a Lutheran, left his cloister and married a nun. OEcolampadius, a Brigitin monk, became a Zwinglian, and also married. Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, had also his wife. Peter Martyr, a canon-regular, embraced the doctrine of Calvin, but followed the example of Luther, and married a nun. Ochin, General of the Capuchins, became a Lutheran, and also married.
Thus the principal leaders in the Reformation went forth preaching the new gospel, with two marks upon them: apostasy from faith, and open violation of the most sacred vows. The passion of lust, as has been already said, hurried also Henry VIII of England into a separation from the Catholic Church, and ranked him among the Reformers.
Those wicked men could not be expected to teach a holy doctrine; they preached up a hitherto unheard-of “evangelical liberty,” as they styled it. They told their fellow-men that they were no longer obliged to subject their understanding to the mysteries of faith, and to regulate their actions according to the laws of Christian morality; they told that every one was free to model his belief and practice as it suited his inclinations. In pursuance of this accommodating doctrine, they dissected the Catholic faith till they reduced it to a mere skeleton, they lopped off the reality of the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, the divine Christian sacrifice offered in the Mass, confession of sins, most of the sacraments, penitential exercises, several of the canonical books of Scripture, the invocation of saints, celibacy, most of the General Councils of the Church, and all present Church authority; they perverted the nature of justification, asserting that faith alone suffices to justify man; they made God the author of sin, and maintained the observance of the commandments to be impossible.
As a few specimens of Luther’s doctrine take the following: “God’s commandments are all equally impossible.” (De Lib. Christ., t. ii., fol. 4.) “No sins can damn a man, but only unbelief.” (De Captiv. Bab., t. ii., fol. 171.) " God is just, though by his own will he lays us under the necessity of being damned, and though he damns those who have not deserved it.” (Tom. ii., fol. 434, 480.) “God works in us both good and evil.” (Tom. ii., fol. 444.) “Christ’s body is in every place, no less than the divinity itself.” (Tom. iv., fol. 3;.) Then, for his darling principle of justification by faith, in his eleventh article against Pope Leo, he says: “Believe strongly that you are absolved, and absolved you will be, whether you have contrition or no.”
Again, in his sixth article: “The contrition which is acquired by examining, recollecting, and detesting one’s sins, whereby a man calls to mind his life past, in the bitternesses of his soul reflecting on the heinousness and multitude of his offence s, the loss of eternal bliss, and condemnation to eternal woe, this contrition, I say, makes a man a hypocrite, nay, even a greater sinner than he was before.”
Thus, after the most immoral life, a man has a compendious method of saving himself by simply believing that his sins are remitted through the merits of Christ.
As Luther foresaw the scandal that would arise from his own and such like sacrilegious marriages, he prepared the world for it, by writing against the celibacy of the clergy and all religious vows; and all the way up, since his time, he has had imitators. He proclaimed that all such vows “were contrary to faith, to the commandments of God, and to evangelical liberty.” (De Votis Monast.) He said again: “God disapproves of such a vow of living in continency, equally as if I should vow to become the mother of God, or to create a new world.” (Epist. ad Wolfgang Reisemb.) And again: “To attempt to live unmarried, is plainly to fight against God.”
Now, when men give a loose rein to the depravity of nature, what wonder if the most scandalous practices ensue. Accordingly, a striking instance of this kind appeared in the license granted, in 1539, to Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, to have two wives at once, which license was signed by Luther, Melanchthon, Bucer, and five other Protestant preachers.
On the other hand, a wide door was laid open to another species of scandal: the doctrine of the Reformation admitted divorces in the marriage state in certain cases, contrary to the doctrine of the Gospel, and even allowed the parties thus separated to marry other wives and other husbands.
To enumerate the errors of all the Reformers would exceed the limits of this treatise. I shall therefore only add the principal heads of the doctrine of Calvin and the Calvinists:
- that baptism is not necessary for salvation;
- good works are not necessary;
- man has no free-will;
- Adam could not avoid his fall;
- a great part of mankind are created to be damned, independently of their demerits;
- man is justified by faith alone, and that justification, once obtained, cannot be lost; even by the most atrocious crimes;
- the true faithful are also infallibly certain of their salvation;
- the Eucharist is no more than a figure of the body and blood of Christ.
Thus was the whole system of faith and morality overturned. Tradition they totally abolished; and though they could not reject the whole of the Scripture, as being universally acknowledged to be the word of God, they had, however, the presumption to expunge some books of it that did not coincide with their own opinions, and the rest they assumed a right to explain as they saw fit.
To pious souls, they promised a return to the fervour of primitive Christianity; to the proud, the liberty of private judgment; to the enemies of the clergy, they promised the division of their spoils; to priests and monks who were tired of the yoke of continence, the abolition of a law which, they said, was contrary to nature; to libertines of all classes, the suppression of fasting, abstinence and confession. They said to kings who wished to place themselves at the head of the Church as well as of the State, that they would be freed from the spiritual authority of the Church; to nobles, that they would be emancipated from all dues and forced services.
Several princes of Germany and of the Swiss Cantons supported by arms the preachers of the new doctrines. Henry VIII imposed his doctrine on his subjects. The king of Sweden drew his people into apostacy. The court of Navarre welcomed the Calvinists; the court of France secretly favour ed them.
At length Pope Paul III convoked a General Council at Trent, in 1545, to which the heresiarchs had appealed. Not only all the Catholic bishops, but also all Christian princes, even Protestants, were invited to come.
But now the spirit of pride and obstinacy became most apparent. Henry VIII replied to the Pope that he would never entrust the work of reforming religion in his kingdom to any one except to himself. The apostate princes of Germany told the papal legate that they recognized only the emperor as their sovereign; the Viceroy of Naples allowed but four bishops to go to the council; the king of France sent only three prelates, whom he soon after recalled. Charles V created difficulties, and put obstacles in the way. Gustavus Vasa allowed no one to go to the council. The heresiarchs also refused to appear.
The council, however, was held in spite of these difficulties. It lasted over eighteen years, because it was often interrupted by the plague, by war, and by the deaths of those who had to preside over it. The doctrines of the innovators were examined and condemned by the council, at the last session of which there were more than three hundred bishops present; among whom were nine cardinals, three patriarchs thirty-three archbishops, not to mention sixteen abbots or generals of religious orders, and one hundred and forty-eight theologians. All the decrees published from the commencement were read over, and were again approved and subscribed by the Fathers. Accordingly, Pius IV in a consistory held on the 26th of January, in 1564, approved and confirmed the council in a book which was signed by all the cardinals. He drew up, the same year, a profession of faith conformable in all respects with the definitions of the council, in which it is declared that its authority is accepted; and since that time, not only all bishops of the Catholic Church, but all priests who are called to teach the way of salvation, even to children, nay, all non-Catholics, on abjuring their errors, and returning to the bosom of the Church, have sworn that they had no other faith than that of the holy Council.
The new heresiarchs, however, continued to obscure and disfigure the face of religion. As to Luther’s sentiments in regard to the Pope, bishops, councils, etc., he says in the preface to his book, De Abroganda Missa Privata: “With how many powerful remedies and most evident Scriptures have I scarce been able to fortify my conscience so as to dare alone to contradict the Pope and to believe him to be Antichrist, the bishops his apostles, and the universities his brothel-houses;” and in his book, De Judicio Ecclesiae de Gravi Doctrina, he says: “Christ takes from the bishops, doctors, and councils both the right and power of judging controversies, and gives them to all Christians in general.”
His censure on the Council of Constance, and those that composed it, is as follows: “All John Huss’ articles were condemned at Constance by Antichrist and his apostles,” (meaning the Pope and bishops), “in that synod of Satan made up of most wicked sophisters; and you, most holy Vicar of Christ, I tell you plainly to your face, that all John Huss’ condemned doctrines are evangelical and Christian, but all yours are impious and diabolical. I now declare,” says he, speaking to the bishops, “that for the future I will not vouchsafe you so much honour as to submit myself or doctrine to your judgment or to that of an angel from heaven.” (Preface to his book Adversus falso nominatum ordinem Episcoporum.) Such was his spirit of pride that he made open profession of contempt for the authority of the Church, councils, and Fathers, saying “All those who will venture their lives, their estates, their honour , and their blood, in so Christian a work as to root out all bishoprics and bishops, who are the ministers of Satan, and to pluck by the roots all their authority and jurisdiction in the world,—these persons are the true children of God and obey his commandments.” (Contra Statum Ecclesiae et falso nominatum ordinem Episcoporum)
This spirit of pride and obstinacy is also most apparent from the fact that Protestantism has never been ashamed to make use of any arguments, though ever so frivolous inconsistent, or absurd, to defend its errors, and to slander and misrepresent the Catholic religion in every way possible. It shows itself again in the wars which Protestantism waged to introduce and maintain itself. The apostate princes of Germany entered into a league, offensive and defensive, against the Emperor Charles V, and rose up in arms to establish Protestantism.
Luther had preached licentiousness, and reviled the emperor, the princes, and the bishops. The peasants lost no time in freeing themselves from their masters. They overran the country in lawless bands, burned down castles and monasteries, and committed the most barbarous cruelties among the nobility and clergy. Germany became at last the scene of desolation and most cruel atrocities during the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648). More than one hundred thousand men fell in battle; seven cities were dismantled; one thousand religious houses were razed to the ground; three hundred churches and immense treasures of statuary, paintings, books, etc., were destroyed.
But what is more apparent and better known than the spirit of covetousness of Protestantism? Wherever Protestantism secured a footing, it pillaged churches, seized Church property, destroyed monasteries, and appropriated to itself their revenues.
In France, the Calvinists destroyed twenty thousand Catholic churches; they murdered, in Dauphiné alone, two hundred and twenty-five priests, one hundred and twelve monks, and burned nine hundred towns and villages. In England, Henry VIII confiscated to the crown, or distributed among his favourites, the property of six hundred and forty-five monasteries and ninety colleges, one hundred and ten hospitals, and two thousand three-hundred and seventy-four free-chapels and chantries.
They even dared to profane, with sacrilegious hands, the remains of the martyrs and confessors of God. In many places they forcibly took up the saints’ bodies from the repositories where they were kept, burned them, and scattered their ashes abroad. What more atrocious indignity can be conceived? Are parricides or the most flagitious men ever worse treated? Among other instances, in 1562, the Calvinists broke open the shrine of St. Francis of Paula, at Plessis-Lestours; and finding his body uncorrupted fifty-five years after his death, they dragged it about the streets, and burned it in a fire which they had made with the wood of a large crucifix, as Billet and other historians relate.
Thus at Lyons, in the same year, the Calvinists seized upon the shrine of St. Bonaventure, stripped it of its riches, burned the Saint’s relics in the market-place, and threw his ashes into the river Saône as is related by the learned Possevinus, who was in Lyons at the time.
The bodies also of St. Irenaeus, St. Hillary, and St. Martin, as Surius asserts, were treated in the-same ignominious manner. Such, also, was the treatment offered to the remains of St. Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury whose rich shrine, according to the words of Stowe, in his annals, “was taken to the king’s use, and the bones of St. Thomas, by the command of Lord Cromwell, were burnt to ashes in September, 1538.”
The Catholic religion has covered the world with its superb monuments. Protestantism has now lasted three hundred years; it was powerful in England, in Germany, in America. What has it raised? It will show us the ruins which it has made, amidst which it has planted some gardens, or established some factories. The Catholic religion is essentially a creative power, built up, not to destroy, because it is under the immediate influence of that Holy Spirit which the Church invokes as the Creative Spirit, “Creator Spiritus.” The Protestant, or modern philosophical spirit, is a principle of destruction, of perpetual decomposition and disunion. Under the dominion of English Protestant power, for four hundred years, Ireland was rapidly becoming as naked and void of ancient memorials as the wilds of Africa.
The Reformers themselves were so ashamed of the progress of immorality among their proselytes, that they could not help complaining against it. Thus spoke Luther: “Men are now more revengeful, covetous, and licentious, than they were ever in the Papacy.” (Postil. super Evang. Dom. i., Advent. ) Then again: “Heretofore, when we were seduced by the Pope, every man willingly performed good works, but now no man says or knows anything else than how to get all to himself by exactions, pillage, theft, lying, usury.” ( Postil. super Evang. Dom. xxvi., p. Trinit. )
Calvin wrote in the same strain: “Of so many thousands,” said he “who, renouncing Popery, seemed eagerly to embrace the Gospel, how few have amended their lives! Nay, what else did the greater part pretend to, than, by shaking off the yoke of superstition, to give themselves more liberty to follow all kinds of licentiousness?” (Liber de scandalis.) Dr. Heylin, in his History of the Reformation, complains also of “the great increase of viciousness” in England, in the reforming reign of Edward VI.
Erasmus says: “Take a view of this evangelical people, the Protestants. Perhaps ’tis my misfortune, but I never yet met with one who does not appear changed for the worse.” (Epist. ad Vultur. Neoc.) And again:“Some persons,” says he, “whom I knew formerly innocent, harmless, and without deceit, no sooner have I seen them joined to that sect (the Protestants), than they began to talk of wenches, to play at dice, to leave off prayers, being grown extremely worldly, most impatient, revengeful, vain, like vipers, tearing one another. I speak by experience.” (Ep. ad Fratres Infer. Germanae.)
M. Scherer, the principal of a Protestant school in France, wrote, in 1844, that he beholds in his Reformed Church “the ruin of all truth, the weakness of infinite division, the scattering of flocks, ecclesiastical anarchy, Socinianism ashamed of itself, Rationalism coated like a pill, without doctrine, without consistency. This Church, deprived alike of its corporate and its dogmatic character, of its form and of its doctrine, deprived of all that constituted it a Christian Church, has in truth ceased to exist in the ranks of religious communities. Its name continues, but it represents only a corpse, a phantom, or, if you will, a memory or a hope. For want of dogmatic authority, unbelief has made its way into three-fourths of our pupils.” (L’ Etat Actual deL’Eglise Reformée en France, 1844.)
Such has been Protestantism from the beginning. It is written in blood and fire upon the pages of history. Whether it takes the form of Lutheranism in Germany, Denmark, and Sweden; Anglicanism in Great Britain, or Calvinism and Presbyterianism in Switzerland, France, Holland, Scotland, and America,—it has been everywhere the same. It has risen by tumult and violence; propagated itself by force and persecution; enriched itself by plunder, and has never ceased, by open force, persecuting laws, or slander, its attempt to exterminate the Catholic faith, and destroy the Church of Christ, which the fathers of Protestantism left from the spirit of lust, pride, and covetousness,—a spirit which induced so many of their countrymen to follow their wicked example; a spirit on account of which they would have been lost at all events, even if they had not left their mother, the One, Holy, Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church.
The main spirit of Protestantism, then, has always been to declare every man independent of the divine authority of the Roman Catholic Church, and to substitute for this authority a human authority. Pope Pius IX spoke of Protestantism, in all its forms, as a “revolt against God, it being an attempt to substitute a human for a divine authority, and a declaration of the creature’s independence of the Creator.”
“A true Protestant, therefore,” says Mr. Marshall, "does not acknowledge that God has a right to teach him; or, if he acknowledges this right, he does not feel himself bound to believe all that God teaches him through those whom God has appointed to teach mankind. He says to God: If thou teachest me, I reserve to myself the right to examine thy words, to explain them as I choose, and admit only what appears to me true, consistent, and useful."
Hence St. Augustine says: “You, who believe what you please, and reject what you please, believe yourselves or your own fancy rather than the Gospel.” The faith of the Protestant, then, is based upon his private judgment alone; it is human. “As his judgment is alterable” says Mr. Marshall, “he naturally holds that his faith and doctrine is alterable at will, and is therefore continually changing it. Evidently, then, he does not hold it to be the truth; for truth never changes; nor does he hold it to be the law of God, which he is bound to obey; for if the law of God be alterable at will, it can only be altered by God himself, never by man, any body of men, or any creature of God.”
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| Bishop Galarreta Requires Surgery, Ordinations to Subdiaconate in Germany Cancelled |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-03-2025, 06:59 AM - Forum: The New-Conciliar SSPX
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Bishop Galarreta Requires Surgery, Ordinations to Subdiaconate in Germany Cancelled
gloria.tv | April 3, 2025
Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (FSSPX) has to undergo a minor medical operation.
As a result, the ordinations to the subdiaconate scheduled for April 5 at the German-speaking seminary in Zaitzkofen, near Regensburg, will not take place.
The ordinations to the subdiaconate will be conferred by Bishop Bernard Fellay at the same time in Ecône, Switzerland. The German-speaking candidates will participate in this liturgy and will be ordained together with the French-speaking seminarians.
The Sacrament of Confirmation, scheduled for April 6 in Germany, will be postponed.
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| Sacred Triduum Schedule 2025 |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-02-2025, 04:41 PM - Forum: Event Schedule
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Holy Week - Sacred Triduum
April 17-19, 2025
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✠ ✠ ✠ Holy Thursday ✠ ✠ ✠
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Confessions / Rosary - 2:15 PM
High Mass / Procession - 3:00 PM
Conference on the Passion - 6:00 PM
Holy Hour Reparation - 6:45 PM - 7:45 PM
Adoration till Midnight
✠ ✠ ✠ Good Friday ✠ ✠ ✠
Confessions / Rosary - 9:45 AM
Mass of the Pre-Sanctified - 10:30 AM
Stations of the Cross - 1:00 PM
Conference on the Passion - 1:45 PM
Sorrowful Mother Devotions - 2:30 PM
✠ ✠ ✠ Holy Saturday ✠ ✠ ✠
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Easter Vigil Ceremonies / Mass - 10:00 AM
Blessing of Easter Baskets - Immediately Following
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| The Catholic Trumpet: Latin on Their Lips. Treason in Their Deeds. |
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Posted by: Stone - 04-02-2025, 04:15 PM - Forum: The Catholic Trumpet
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Latin on Their Lips. Treason in Their Deeds.
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The Catholic Trumpet | April 2, 2025
They speak Latin. They wear Tradition. But they refuse the Cross and reject the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ—King of kings, Judge of nations, and rightful Ruler of all society.
This is not fidelity. It is betrayal—clothed in reverence.
Vatican II enthroned man. The New Mass enthroned ambiguity.
Now, a false resistance enthrones silence in the name of peace.
But peace without truth is treason.
As +Archbishop Lefebvre declared:
“We cannot be in accord with those who uncrown Our Lord!” — Fideliter, No. 68, 1988
And as St. Paul warns:
“And in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying: That all may be judged who have not believed the truth, but have consented to iniquity.” — 2 Thessalonians 2:10–11, Douay-Rheims
We do not judge hearts—but we must judge doctrines, public deeds, and the organized silence that aids the revolution.
There is no neutrality in this war.
Christ must reign: in doctrine, in worship, in society, and in every soul.
Now is the hour to choose:
Compromise or Combat. Silence or Witness. Treason—or the Reign of Christ the King.
There is only one Faith.
Only one Church.
Only one Resistance.
And He shall reign. Whether with us—or despite us.
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