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Saturday, October 29, 2011

Mary in the Sacred Scriptures: Our Sweetness

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JMJ

Mary our Sweetness: She renders Death sweet to her faithful children.
by St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church and Founder of the Congregation of the Holy Redeemer


He that is a friend loveth at all times; and a brother is proved in distress, says the Book of Proverbs (17.17). We can never know our friends and relatives in the time of prosperity; it is only in the time of adversity that we see them in their true colors. People of the world never abandon a friend as long as he is in prosperity; but should misfortunes overtake him, and more particularly should he be at the point of death, they immediately forsake him. Mary does not act thus with Her clients. In their afflictions, and more particularly in the sorrows of death, the greatest that can be endured in this world, this good Lady and Mother not only does not abandon Her faithful servants, but as, during our exile, She is our life, so also is She, at our last hour, our sweetness, by obtaining for us a calm and happy death. For from the day on which Mary had the privilege and sorrow of being present at the death of Jesus Her Son, Who was the Head of all the predestined, it became Her privilege to assist also at their deaths. And for this reason the Holy Church teaches us to beg this Most Blessed Virgin to assist us, especially at the moment of death: "Ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae!" (Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.)


Great are the sufferings of the dying! They suffer from remorse of conscience on account of past sins, from fear of the approaching judgment, and from the uncertainty of their eternal salvation. Then it is that hell arms itself, and spares no effort to gain the soul which is on the point of entering eternity; for it knows that only a short time remains in which to gain it, and that if it then loses it, it has lost it forever. The devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time (Apoc. 12.12). And for this reason: the enemy of our salvation, whose charge it was to tempt the soul during life, does not choose at death to be alone, but calls others to his assistance, according to the Prophet Isaias: Their houses shall be filled with serpents (13.21). And indeed they are so; for when a person is at the point of death, the whole place in which he is, is filled with devils, who all unite to make him loose his soul.


If at the hour of death we have only the protection of Mary, what need we fear from all our infernal enemies? How quickly do the rebellious spirits fly from the presence of this Queen! David, fearing the horrors of death, encouraged imself by placing his reliance on the death of the coming Redeemer and on the intercession of the Virgin Mother. For though, he says, I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death... Thy rod and Thy staff, they have comforted me (Ps. 22.4). The staff signifies the Cross, and the rod is the intercession of Mary; for She is the rod foretold by the Prophet Isaias: And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root (11.1). "This Divine Mother," says St. Peter Damian, "is that powerful rod with which the violence of the infernal enemies is conquered." And therefore does St. Antoninus encourage us, saying, "If Mary is for us, who shall be against us?"

St. Bonaventure tells us that Mary sends without delay the prince of the heavenly court, St. Michael, with all the angels, to defend Her dying servants against the temptations of the devils, and to receive the souls of all who in a special manner and perseveringly have recommended themselves to Her. The Saint, addressing our Blessed Mother, says, "Michael, the leader and prince of the heavenly army, with all the administering spirits, obeys thy commands,O Virgin, and defends and receives the souls of the faithful who have particularly recommended themselves to Thee, O Lady, day and night."


The Prophet Isaias tells us that when a man is on the point of leaving the world, hell is opened and sends forth its most terrible demons, both to tempt the soul before it leaves the body, and also to accuse it when presented before the tribunal of Jesus Christ for judgment. The Prophet says, Hell below was in uproar to meet thee at thy coming; it stirred up the giants for thee (14.9). But when the soul is defended by Mary, the devils dare not even accuse it, knowing that the Judge never condemned, and never will condemn, a soul protected by his august Mother. He asks, "Who would dare accuse one who is patronized by the Mother of Him Who is to judge?" Mary not only assists Her beloved servants at death and encourages them, but She Herself accompanies them to the tribunal seat of God.

As St. Jerome says, writing to the virgin Eustochia, "What a day of joy will that for thee, when Mary the Mother of Our Lord, accompanied by choirs of virgins, will go to meet thee." The Blessed Virgin assured St. Bridget of this; for, speaking of Her devout clients at the point of death, She said, "Then will I, their dear Lady and Mother, fly to them, that they may have consolation and refreshment." St. Vincent Ferrer says, that not only does the Most Blessed Virgin console and refresh them, but that "She receives the souls of the dying." This loving Queen takes them under Her mantle, and thus presents them to the Judge, Her Son, and most certainly obtains their salvation.


Ecclesiasticus says, that Her bands are a healthful binding, and that in the latter end thou shalt find rest in Her (6.31). We are indeed fortunate if at death we are bound with the sweet chains of the love of the Mother of God! These chains are chains of salvation; they are chains that will ensure our eternal salvation, and will make us enjoy in death that blessed peace which will be the beginning of our eternal peace and rest. 


You, devout reader, will, without doubt, experience the same joy and contentment in death, if you can then remember that you have loved this good Mother, Who cannot be otherwise than faithful to Her children who have been faithful in serving and honoring Her, by their visits, Rosaries, Her Scapular, and fasts, and still more by frequently thanking and praising Her, and often recommending themselves to Her powerful protection. Nor will this consolation be withheld, even if you have been for a time a sinner, provided that, from this day, you are careful to live well, and to serve this most gracious and benign Lady and Mother. In your pains, and in the temptations to despair which the devil will send you, She will console you, and even come Herself to assist you in your last moments.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Our Greatest Treasure: The Holy Eucharist

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JMJ



"It would hardly be an exaggeration to say, that from the contemplation of the Blessed Sacrament alone we could draw all that we know of God's goodness and dispositions towards us. If we seek for a disclosure of His love, where shall we find it more strikingly or more touchingly than in the Blessed Sacrament? He loved us 'to the end,' as St. John the 'Beloved' says when he speaks of the institution of the Holy Eucharist, not to the end of His life only, but... to the end of the possibilities of the divine liberality, to the farthest end that love could go, even His love who was God as well as Man.

It is not only gifts and graces which He gives us here, but He is Himself the Gift, Himself the Grace. Calvary was not enough. The seven Blood-shedding fell short of His merciful intent. Our ingratitude does not hinder Him. We have spurned His Cross and crucified Him afresh. We have trampled His Blood beneath our feet, and mixed it up with the mire of sin. Now, we shall have another mystery in which we may still outrage Him, while He still keeps wooing us to His love." - Fr. F.W. Faber


Thursday, the day the Holy Church traditionally dedicates to the special honor of Our Eucharistic Lord on His holy altar.




In the sanctuary have I come before Thee, to see Thy power and Thy glory (Ps. 62.3, DRV)


Saturday, October 22, 2011

Mary in the Sacred Scriptures: Our Life (II)

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JMJ

Mary, Our Life: She obtains for us the grace of Perseverance
by St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church and Founder of the Congregation of the Holy Redeemer

Final perseverance, the grace for us to die in the love and friendship of Our Lord, is so great a gift of God, that (as it was declared by the Holy Church through the Council of Trent) it is quite gratuitous on His part, and we cannot merit it. Yet we are told by St. Augustine, that all who seek for it obtain from God; and... they obtain it infallibly, if only they are diligent in asking for it to the end of their lives. For as St. Robert Bellarmine [a Doctor of the Church] remarks, "that which is daily required must be asked for every day." Now if it is true that all the graces that God dispenses to men pass through the hands of Mary, it will be equally true that it is only through Mary that we can hope for this greatest of all graces - perseverance. And we shall obtain it most certainly, if we always seek it with confidence through Mary. This grace She Herself promises to all who serve Her faithfully during life, in the following words of Sacred Scriptures and which are applied to Her by the Church - the ground and pillar of the truth (1 Tim. 3.15) - on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception: They that work by me shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting (Ecclus [Ecclesiasticus, the Catholic Douay-Rheims Version] 24.30).

In order that we may be preserved in the life of grace, we require spiritual fortitude to resist the many enemies of our salvation. Now this fortitude can can be obtained only by means of Mary, and we are assured of it in the Book of Proverbs, for the Church applies this passage to the Blessed Virgin: Strength is mine; by me kings reign (8.14); meaning, by the words strength is mine, that God has bestowed this precious gift on Mary, in order that She may dispense it to Her faithful clients. And by the words, by me kings reign, She signifies that by Her means Her servants reign over and command their senses and passions, and thus become worthy to reign eternally in heaven. Mary is that tower spoken of in the Book of Canticle of Canticles: Thy neck is as the tower of David, which is built with bulwarks; a thousand bucklers hang upon it, all the armor of valiant men (4.4). She is as a well-defended fortress in defence of Her lovers, who in their wars have recourse to Her. In Her do Her clients find all shields and arms, to defend themselves against hell.

And for the same reason the Most Blessed Virgin is called a plane-tree in the words of Ecclesiasticus: As a plane-tree by the water in the streets was I exalted (24.19). The plane-tree has leaves like shields, to show how Mary defends all who take refuge with Her. This Holy Virgin is also called a plane-tree because as the plane-tree shelters travellers under its branches from the heat of the sun and from the rain, so do men find refuge under the mantle of Mary from the ardor of their passions and from the fury of temptations. Truly are those souls to be pitied who abandon this defence, in ceasing their devotion to Mary, and no longer recommending themselves to Her in the time of danger. If the sun ceased to rise, says St. Bernard, how could the world become become other than a chaos of darkness and horror? And applying his question to Mary, he repeats it. "Take away the sun, and where will be the day? Take away Mary, and what will be left but the darkest night?" When a soul loses devotion to Mary, it is immediately enveloped in darkness, and in that darkness of which the Holy Ghost speaks in the Psalms:  Thou hast appointed darkness, and it is night; in it shall all the beasts of the woods go about (103.20, chapter and verse after the Sacred Latin Vulgate Bible). When the light of heaven ceases to shine in a soul, all is darkness, and it becomes the haunt of devils and of every sin. St. Anselm says, that "if anyone is disregarded and condemned by Mary, he is necessarily lost," and therefore we may with reason exclaim, "Woe to those who are in opposition to this sun?" Woe to those who despise its light! that is to say, all who despise devotion to Mary. St. Germanus: "As breathing is not only a sign but even a cause of life, so the name of Mary, which is constantly found on the lips of God's servants, both proves that they are truly alive, and at the same time causes and preserves their life, and gives them every succor."

Mary says in the following words of the Book of Proverbs applied to Her by the Holy Church: Blessed is the man that heareth me, and that watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors (8.34) - as if She would say, Blessed is he that hears my voice and is constantly attentive to apply at the door of my mercy, and seeks light and help from me. For clients who do this, Mary does Her part, and obtains them the light and strength they require to abandon sin and walk in the paths of virtue. For this reason, Pope Innocent III, beautifully calls Her "the moon at night, the dawn at break of day, and the sun at midday." She is a moon to enlighten those who blindly wander in the night of sin, and makes them see and understand the miserable state of damnation in which they are; She is the dawn (that is, the forerunner of the sun) to those whom She has already enlightened, and makes them abandon sin and return to God Who Is the true Sun of Justice; finally, She is a sin to those who are in a state of grace, and prevents them from falling again into the precipice of sin.

Learned writers apply the following words of Ecclesiasticus to Mary: Her bands are a healthful binding (6.31). "Why bands?" asks St. Laurence Justinian, "except it be that She binds Her servants, and thus prevents them from straying into the paths of vice." And truly this is the reason for which Mary binds Her servants. St. Bonaventure also, in his commentary on the words of Ecclesiasticus, frequently used in the "Officium Parvum" or the "Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary", My abode is in the full assembly of saints (24.16), says the Mary not only has Her abode in the full assembly of saints, but also preserves them from falling, keeps a constant watch over their virtue, that it may not fail, and restrains the evil spirits from injuring them. Not only has She Her abode in the full assembly of the saints, but She keeps the saints there, by preserving their merits that they may not lose them, by restraining the devils from injuring them, and by withholding the arm of Her Son from falling on sinners.

In the Book of Proverbs, we are told that all Mary's clients are clothed with double garments. For all her domestics are clothed with double garments (21.21). This double clothing consists in Her adorning Her faithful servants with the virtues of Her Son and with Her own; and thus clothed, they persevere in virtue.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Teresian Carmel

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JMJ

Feast of our Holy Mother Teresa of Jesus (Teresa of Avila)
Reformer of the Carmelite Order and Foundress of the Discalced Carmelites of the unmitigated Primitive Rule




Zelo zelatus sum pro Domino Deo exercituum (With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of hosts…) – 3 Kings 19.10. These are the words of inscription that cut across the sword of flame held by the hand of the great Prophet of Mt. Carmel – the Prophet Elias – which one reads as he looks closer at the coat of arms of the Carmelite Order of Teresian Reform. And this phrase forms the first part of the very words the great Prophet of Carmel replied to Our Lord Who asked His Prophet the reason for hiding in the mount of Horeb – in Sacred Scriptures, the mount of God.

In reforming Carmel, St. Teresa of Jesus, no doubt inspired by the spirit of the Father and Founder of the Carmelite Order, looked up to the primitive eremitical life led by the successors of the Prophets Elias and Eliseus on the Mount of Carmel – a life permeated by those words of their Father and Founder: zeal for the honor and glory of God. And a burning zeal it must be for the Order is the contemplative Order par excellence.

Common opinion has it that a “contemplative” Order such as Teresian Carmel is one that is devoted to prayer and silence. Some deny Teresian Carmel as the contemplative Order par excellence because silence in the monasteries of the Carthusian Order is almost absolute. It must be distinguished that the exercise of prayer is one thing and the grace and gift of prayer is another, and that prayer – both as exercise and grace – together with silence [and penitential exercises] are only means toward our goal: that of infused contemplation, that is, God’s gift of Himself or God, our Highest Good, communicating and giving Himself to us in so far as we are capable of receiving Him in this life and according to the degree of our generosity in giving ourselves wholly to Him.

This burning desire – this zeal – that a Teresian Carmelite carries in his heart is not human passion but the intense charity of God and which intensity heightens as the soul draws closer and closer to the summit of the mount of Christian Perfection. It is that divine fire which set the bush in flames but without destroying it and in the midst of which God communicated Himself to Moses on the mount of Horeb (cf., Ex. 3) – the same mount as above where the great Prophet of Carmel spoke about his zeal for Our Lord. The fire of divine love so intense yet so delicately gentle towards those it draws and chooses to be drawn to the Heart of God to be Its fit receptacle of repose; but also the fire of God’s avenging justice, which did not shy to consume the heart of the Prophet Elias, towards those who turn souls away from the true God* and who obstinately spurn God’s "merciful love" and goodness – the height of this God's "merciful love" was manifested on Calvary. 
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* The fiery Prophet of God had the more than four hundred false prophets of a false god seized and killed (cf., 3 Kings 18.40).
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The Teresian Carmelite Spirit then is prophetic. In Scriptural language, a prophet is a “man of God” called to bring God to His people and his people to God – to speak in the place of and to give witness to the true God: the God of justice and of mercy. And for this reason, this prophetic vocation is eminently Marian – hence the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, the Apocalyptic Woman that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array (Canticle of Canticles, 6.9), with Her diadem on Her head of twelve stars, crowns the edifice of the Order surmounted as it is with the Cross of Her Crucified Son: for it was Our Immaculate Mother who brought forth the God-Man, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and still brings forth and forms Her son in the souls of God’s children until they are perfectly conformed to the image of Her Son consumed with the vehement intensity of divine charity, of that perfect love towards God and towards souls  – the image of Her Son on the Cross, Him Crucified (2 Corinthians 2.2).  

According to the Word of God, a prophet is one who is raised up to take the place of God as regards the people (cf., Deut. 18.16). But what is man, like Moses, to be counted upon by God to take His place and to represent His interest? Sacred Scriptures tells us that the Lord… called Moses unto the top [of the mount]…. And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man is wont to speak to his friend (Ex. 19.20; 33.11); that is, he who is called the “man of God” is the friend of God. But a true friend is proved in times of trouble when his heroic love is counted upon: Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends (Jn. 15.13). And since, looking on Him Whom they pierced (Jn. 19.37; also, Zacharias 12.10), it is a "dreadful" thing to have God for one's friend because of the cost of being counted upon by Him, Our Lord gives his friend the company of His Mother who, though bodily stood at the foot of the Cross, burned nevertheless in Her grieving heart with the zealous love of a mother most ready and determined to take the place of Her only beloved child!  


This sentiment of the Immaculate Heart is what Our Blessed Mother at the foot of the Cross bequeaths especially to Her children who asks to be clothed in Her holy Habit – Her Scapular. When our dearest “Little Therese” (as she would like to be called) recalled an incident in her childhood, where she was offered by her sister Leonie a basket filled with doll dresses and other pieces for making others and then was asked to “choose,” she took her reply “I choose all!” as the summary of her whole life (cf., Story of a Soul, Chapter 1). She writes: “later on when perfection was set before me, I understood that to become ‘a saint’ one had to suffer much, seek out always the most perfect thing to do, and forget self. I understood, too, there were many degrees of perfection and each soul was free to respond to the advances of Our Lord, to do little or much for Him, in a word, to ‘choose’ among the sacrifices He was asking. Then, as in the  days of my childhood, I cried out: My God, ‘I choose all!’ I don’t want to be a ‘saint by halves,’ I’m not afraid to suffer for You, I fear only one thing: to keep my ‘own will’; so take it, for ‘I choose all’ that You will!” St. Therese proved how faithful a daughter she was of St. Teresa who in turn proved also a faithful daughter of Her Mother of Carmel. The “Little Flower” of Carmel took to heart the admonition of La Madre (Teresa de Jesus) which rings as a Teresian Carmelite religious enters his cell wherein on the wall is hung a big cross without the corpus or the body of the Crucified: "be ready to take the place of your Beloved on the Cross!"

Now "all our perfection consists in being conformed, united, and consecrated to Jesus Christ" (St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to Maryand Him Curicified (1 Corinthians 2.2): I know... the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death (Philippians 3.10). If we look at the emblem of Teresian Carmel, we see Mount Carmel surmounted by the Cross of Our Lord - being the Order instituted by Our Lord and Our Blessed Mother as the school par excellence of Christian perfection the summit of which is crowned by charity: that excelling love of God and souls as  manifested by the Crucified. And when one is granted the privilege to enter, much less to just take a peek, into the cell of a Discalced Carmelite Friar or Nun, he will see a big Cross hanging on the wall without the 'corpus' or the body of the Crucified. But why a 'corpus'-less Cross in Teresian Carmel? In the fourth Station of the Cross according to the method of St. Francis of Assisi, the Saint reflects on Our Sorrowful Mother meeting His Beloved: "How earnestly did She desire to die in place of Jesus..." Teresian Carmelite must own such sentiment of the Immaculate Heart of Our Blessed Mother and thus is he exhorted: "Be ready to take the place of your Beloved !" for the most perfect of all devotion is, without any doubt, that which the most perfectly conforms, unites, and consecrates us to Jesus Christ Crucified. Jesus, our greatest friend, has given Himself to us without reserve, body and soul, virtues, graces, and merits. "He has bought the whole of me by whole of Himself," says St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Is it not, then, a simple matter of justice and of gratitude that we should give Him all that we can give Him? He has been the first to be liberal towards us; let us, at least, be the second... "With the liberal He will be liberal."



"When evening comes, you will be examined in love. 
Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved. 
Learn to love as God desires to be loved
and abandon you own ways of acting.
 What does it profit you to give God one thing
if He asks you another?
Consider what it is that God wants, and then do it.
 You will as a result satisfy your heart better
than with something toward which you yourself are inclined."

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Our Lady of Fatima, Vatican II Disorientation, and the "Annihilation of Many Nations"

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JMJ

Our Blessed Mother at Fatima, Portugal declared that if Her requests were not heeded, the ultimate tragic consequence that the world faces is the annihilation of many nations. This divine chastisement that shall befall upon us was presaged by the ball of fire plunging down towards the crowd that gathered at Fatima this day, ninety-four years ago, awaiting the miracle promised by the Woman  to the three children (see our post, “The Great Sign in Heaven”).

It has been demonstrated in our post “When Mary Comes (III)” that the Vatican has yet to fulfill the critical condition laid down by Our Lord through Our Blessed Mother: the Consecration of Russia. And since this Consecration, according to Fr. Joaquin Alonso, the official archivist of Fatima, would mean the conversion of that nation to the Catholic Faith – “conversion” according to the traditional Catholic notion (see our post “Our Lady and the ‘New Orientation’in Rome”) – the Vatican of “New Orientation” was forced to impose silence on Fr. Alonso and on those who demand the Consecration as it was required by Our Blessed Mother and with a most obvious published lie that the last “Consecration” made by Pope John Paul II was already a fulfillment of heaven’s demand. Our Lady, She who crushes heresies and other subtle diabolical errors ( that is, under the guise of truth), then clearly contradicts the “New ‘Catholic’ Orientation” already current in the hierarchy, institutions, and, finally, in the revised rites (of blessings, exorcism – see Vatican’s Chief Exorcist, Fr. Gabriel Amorth, on the “New Rite of Exorcism” authorized by Pope Paul VI in our post “Our Lady and the ‘Diabolical Campaign’”- and the administration of the “New Sacraments”) of the Novus Ordo or the “New ‘Catholic’ Order” – the “Orientation” Our Lady desired to be exposed with the full disclosure of the Third Secret of Fatima as early as 1960 (Vatican II was from 1962-1965) [see our previous post, “Our Lady and the ‘New Orientation’”].

The “New Orientation” in the Church of Rome makes it plain why the Woman in Her Apocalyptic battle did not refer to the Church called the “Mistress of the Truth” but in Portugal where “dogma of the faith will always be preserved.” This must not be understood, however, as if the Church of Rome has officially apostatized [see Apoc. 2.13 in our post “On the Sedevacantist Position (I)”] – the ridiculous position of the Sedevacantists – only in that the Successors of St. Peter in question have spoken and acted with contradiction but without officially engaging and binding the whole Church, that is, they did not formally claim infallibility in their contradictions.

Disoriented New 'Catholic' priesthood and the divine curse 

And the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be moved (Mt. 24.29, see commentary in our post “Our Lady and the ‘Diabolical Campaign’”). Among the churches, the Church of Rome holds the exalted place of primacy as it was foretold of Old, the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills (Is. 2.2). But what of souls, most especially of priests, who, after having been exalted by God to a position closer and nearer Him, fall off from their so high a position to follow their own whim and walk according to their own ways and inventions? In the order arranged and determined by God, they, like Lucifer, deserve to hit the very rock bottom of the abyss of hell. And this chastisement God manifests even in their earthly existence. Speaking to His priests who departed out of the way, and have caused many to stumble at the law, have made void [the Levitical character of the priesthood established by Our Lord and thereby concocted for themselves a new priesthood] (Malachi 2.8): Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all people (ibid., v.9).

Salt of the earth (Mt. 5.13)

Contemptible and base before all people:  such is the repute that can be admitted of the “New ‘Catholic’ Priesthood” racked as it is by the basest of all scandals, that of effeminacy and homosexuality – the effeminate shall rule over them... and they have proclaimed abroad their sin as Sodom and they have not hid it (Is.3.4,9) – and the members of which, preachers and propagators of Vatican II’s “New ‘Catholic’ Orientation” (see the statement of Pope Paul VI to the Novus Ordo seminarians at the Lombard College in Rome in our post "Our 'Great Reversal'"),  are demoted to the position of mere “presiders” in Novus Ordo parishes where the holiness of the Lord is profaned (ibid., v.11).* And since it shall be as with the people, so with the priest (ibid., 24.2), therefore shall a curse devour the earth, and the inhabitants thereof shall sin: and therefore they that dwell therein shall be mad, and few men shall be left (ibid., v.6). 
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* Made evident: 1) by the tabernacle – where the Real Presence of Our Lord is – booted out from its customary central and exalted place on the high altar (see how the tabernacle is always centrally reserved on the high altar at a traditional Catholic sanctuary). The Word of God commanded Moses that the loaves [of proposition]… the most holy of the sacrifices of the Lord by a perpetual right (Numbers 24.9), be always set on the most clean table before the Lord (ibid., v.6) – to be replaced only with new ones on the Sabbath (v.8) – thereby showing us, according to the figures of Old, where the Sacred Hosts must always be reserved in our churches; not deposited in a hollow space on a wall, not perched on a decorated trunk, and not reserved even outside the Sanctuary! 2) And, by those unconsecrated hands of the Novus Ordo lay or “extraordinary Eucharistic ministers” taking hold of sacred things – if only they knew what chastisement the living (Hebrews 4.12)  Word of God decrees for such sacrilege and reserves to those ‘priests’ (granting that they are validly ordained, consecrating with the prescribed matter and form and with the traditional intention of the Church) who tolerate such profanation!
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… A curse… and… mad[ness]: St. John Chrysostom, one of the Great Fathers and Doctors of Christianity, points out that this curse and madness is that perversion of homosexuality. In denouncing it, St. John Chrysostom, in unison with the Chair of St. Peter and the great Fathers and Doctors of the Church, teaches: “All passions are dishonorable, for the soul is even more prejudiced and degraded by sin than is the body by diseases; but the worst of all passions is lust between men. The sins against nature are more difficult and less rewarding, so much so that one cannot even say that they procure pleasure, since true pleasure is only the one according to nature [human and bestial]There is nothing, absolutely nothing more mad or damaging than this perversity…since they threaten the [human] species by deviating the sexual organs away from their primary procreative end [which even dogs burning in their shameless bestiality out on the streets do not commit]. But when God abandons man [by withdrawing His grace], everything is turned upside-down! Therefore, not only their [the homosexuals] passions satanic, but their lives are diabolic!”**(Commentary on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, 1.26-27).
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** Fr. Gabriele Amorth, Vatican’s chief Exorcist, related in his book "An Exorcist Tells His Story" (published by the Ignatius Press) that exorcism is secretly said over those who, at the confessional, admit the crime of homosexuality.
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At the rate that homosexuality has already become widespread and “gay lifestyle” has become widely tolerated even in those nations who still claim “Christian” – forgetting that not only they that do [it], but they that consent to them that do [it]… are worthy of death (Rom. 1.32) – the world’s condition is already ripe for the divine chastisement that blotted out Sodom and Gomorrah (and their infected surroundings) from the face of the earth. And in the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man shall be revealed (Lk. 17.29-30).


Related posts: The Neo-Catholic Scandals & "The Year That Was 1929," "The Neo-Catholic Teaching on Homosexuality". See also "The Wine of the Wrath of God(on the imminent destruction of the great Babylon - the pseudo-Catholic Church drunk with the wine of ecumenical fornication, Catholic nations who have apostatized, and cities where enormous sins of impurity and homosexuality abound and daily committed) and On the Number of Sins Beyond Which God Pardons No More 


Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Our Lady and the Disorientation of Rome in the 1960s (II)

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JMJ

Feast of the Motherhood of Mary



… How often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not? (Mt. 23.37)

In the fourth Memoir of Sr. Lucia, C.D. of Fatima is written this sentence which introduces the Third Secret of Fatima: “Em Portugal se conservara sempre o dogma da fe etc.” (In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc.) “… Etc.” comes next the Third Secret of Fatima which of course must make references to the loss of the Faith which our Lord prophesied (cf., Lk. 18.8) as one of the conditions to mark His visitation. Fr. Joaquin Alonso, the official archivist of Fatima, explains this last sentence of Sr. Lucia’s fourth Memoir: “If ‘in Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved,’… it can be clearly deduced from this that in other parts of the Church these dogmas are going to become obscure or even lost altogether” (“The Greatest Conspiracy,” Christian Order, November 2000). In The Fatima Crusader, Fr. Alonso further states: ”It is therefore completely probable that the text makes concrete references to the crisis of the faith within the Church and to the negligence of the pastors themselves [and the] internal struggles in the very bosom of the Church and of grave pastoral negligence of the upper hierarchy” (in Fr. P.Kramer, “The ‘Party Line’ in Relation to Fatima,” Issue 69, Winter 2002).

Our Blessed Mother, foreseeing the events that will take place, instructed Sr. Lucia that the letter in which was contained the Third Secret and addressed to Bishop da Silva of Leiria “would definitely be opened and read to the world either at [Sr. Lucia's] death or in 1960, whichever would come first.” (in Canon Jose Galamba de Oliviera who convinced the Bishop of Leiria to suggest to Sr.Lucia that she write down the Third Secret because at that time, Sr. Lucia was stricken with pleurisy and her Bishop feared that Sr. Lucia would die without revealing the Secret, in Fr. J. Alonso, La Verdad sobre el Secreto de Fatima). But why in the year 1960? In 1955, Cardinal Ottaviani (then Cardinal Prefect of the Holy Office – now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) asked Sr. Lucia why it was not to be opened before 1960. Sr. Lucia replied: “Because then it will seem clearer (mais claro, in Portuguese).” Sr. Lucia had made the Bishop of Leiria-Fatima promise that the Secret would be read to the world at her death, but in no event later than 1960, “because the Blessed Virgin wishes it so.”

“In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc.” and the New “Orientation” in Rome in the 1960s.
The Church “Opens” Herself to
“Dialogue” with Communist and Masonic Enemies
(Fr. P. Kramer and the Editorial Staff of the Missionary Association)

With Vatican II [1962-1965] began the large enterprise of collaboration with the forces of the world, the great opening to the world. Nowhere is this more apparent than in "Gaudium et Spes" itself, which declares: “By unremitting study they”—meaning every priest in the Catholic Church, every bishop, every member of the hierarchy—“should fit themselves to do their part in establishing dialogue with the world and with men of all shades of opinion”.

       Now the objection will be raised: What is wrong with peaceful collaboration and dialogue with men of all shades of opinion in those areas in which the Church can find some sort of basic agreement? Here again the pre-conciliar Popes warned us about one of the devil's snares and delusions under the appearance of good. Speaking precisely about this call to collaborate and dialogue with Communists in causes which are supposedly common to all mankind—which is really the devil's call for the Church to lay down Her arms and join the enemy—Pope Pius XI warned as follows in Divini Redemptoris (Encyclical on Atheistic Communism, March 19, 1937):
       In the beginning Communism showed itself for what it was in all its perversity. But very soon it realized that it was alienating people. It has, therefore, changed its tactics and strives to entice the multitudes by trickery in various forms, hiding its real designs behind ideas that are in themselves good and attractive. Under various names that do not suggest Communism, they try perfidiously to worm their way even into professedly Catholic and religious organizations. They invite Catholics to collaborate with them in the realm of so-called humanitarianism and charity. And at times make proposals that are in perfect harmony with the Christian spirit and the doctrine of the Church. See to it faithful brethren that the Faithful do not allow themselves to be deceived. Communism is intrinsically evil, and no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever.


       Pope Pius XI could not have been clearer about the duty to shun “dialogue” and collaboration with Communists. And why? The Italians have a saying: Dimmi con chi vai, e ti diro che sei —“Tell me who you go with and I will tell you what you are.” As Pope Pius XI recognized, if one associates with a certain class of people, one will inevitably be influenced to become as they are, in spite of oneself. If one collaborates with the forces of the world they will tend to seduce him; he will become like them. If the Church opens Herself to the world in the sense of ceasing Her opposition to the powers that She once opposed, and if She says instead that the Church will now collaborate and dialogue with Her enemies, Her members will, in time, become like those they once opposed. And the opening to the world will result in the Church becoming like the world, as Pope Paul VI himself was forced to admit in the statement quoted above.

The Church “Reconciles” Herself with Liberalism

       Those “conservatives” who deny that Vatican II constitutes a break with tradition, or that it contradicts prior teaching, have failed to listen to the very movers and shakers of the Council, who shamelessly acknowledge the truth. The Dominican Yves Congar, O.P., one of the Council's “experts” and chief among the artisans of the Council's reforms, remarked with quiet satisfaction that “The Church has had, peacefully, its October [1789 French ] Revolution” [“Le Concile au jours le jours deuxième section” (“The Council day by day, second session”), (Paris, Cerf, 1964) p. 115].  Congar also admitted, as if it were something to be proud of, that Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Liberty is contrary to the Syllabus of Pope Pius IX.* He said:
       It cannot be denied that the affirmation of religious liberty by Vatican II says materially something other than what the Syllabus of 1864 said, and even just about the opposite of propositions 16, 17 and 19 of this document La Crise d'Eglise et Msgr. Lefebvre, (Paris, Cerf, 1977, p. 54).
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* In truth, there can be no such thing as a “Counter-Syllabus”, since Blessed Pope Pius IX's Syllabus of 1864 is plainly a solemn, definitive teaching binding on all Catholics (can. 750 § 2). In Paragraph 6 of the Encyclical Quanta Cura which was issued with the Syllabus on Dec. 8, 1864, Blessed Pope Pius IX stated solemnly: “Amid, therefore, so great perversity of depraved opinions, We, well remembering Our Apostolic Office, and very greatly solicitous for Our most holy Religion, for sound doctrine and the salvation of souls which is entrusted to Us by God, and (solicitous also) for the welfare of human society itself, have thought it right to raise up Our Apostolic voice. Therefore, by Our Apostolic Authority, We reprobate, proscribe and condemn all the singular and evil opinions and doctrines severally mentioned in this Letter, and will and command that they be thoroughly held by all children of the Catholic Church as reprobated, proscribed and condemned (Emphasis added). Taken from The Popes Against Modern Errors, (TAN Books and Publishers, Rockford, Illinois, 1999) p. 21.
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       Congar thus blithely suggests that Vatican II has undone an infallible papal condemnation of error.

       Most noteworthy are the statements of the progressivist Cardinal Suenens, one of the most liberal prelates of the Twentieth Century, himself a Council Father, who spoke glowingly of the old regimes that have come crashing down. The words he used in praise of the Council are supremely telling, perhaps the most chilling and the most damning of all. Suenens declared “Vatican II is the French Revolution of the Church” (Cited from Open Letter to Confused Catholics, p. 100).

       And, only a few years ago, none other than Cardinal Ratzinger, apparently unruffled by such admissions, added one of his own. According to him, the Vatican II text Gaudium et Spes is nothing less than a counter-Syllabus”. He said:
       If it is desirable to offer a diagnosis of the text (Gaudium et Spes) as a whole, we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty, and world religions) it is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of countersyllabus ... Let us be content to say here that the text serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789… the one-sidedness of the position adopted by the Church under Pius IX and Pius X in response to the situation created by the new phase of history inaugurated by the French Revolution was, to a large extent, corrected via facti, especially in Central Europe, but there was still no basic statement of the relationship that should exist between the Church and the world that had come into existence after 1789. In fact, an attitude that was largely pre-revolutionary continued to exist in countries with strong Catholic majorities. Hardly anyone will deny today that the Spanish and Italian Concordat strove to preserve too much of a view of the world that no longer corresponded to the facts [that is, the position of the Church, the ground and pillar of the truth (1 Timothy 3.15), has become obsolete!]. Hardly anyone will deny today that, in the field of education and with respect to the historico-critical method in modern science, anachronisms existed that corresponded closely to this adherence to an obsolete Church-state relationship (Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 381-382).
       Consider the sheer audacity of a Cardinal calling two of the greatest Popes in Church history “one-sided” in their efforts to protect the Church from the errors of liberalism and modernism! According to Cardinal Ratzinger himself, at Vatican II the Church made an “attempt” to “correct” and “counter” the teaching of Blessed Pope Pius IX and Pope Saint Pius X, and to reconcile Herself instead with the French Revolution and the Enlightenment.

       But this was the very goal of the Permanent Instruction, Masonry's blueprint for subversion of the Church! That is precisely why, in his Syllabus of Errors, Blessed Pius IX condemned the proposition that “The Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.” (Condemned Proposition #80). And Saint Pius X, in his apostolic letter Notre Charge Apostolique, condemned the Sillon movement in France, rebuking its members because “They do not fear to make blasphemous reconciliations between the Gospel and the Revolution.”

       But according to Cardinal Ratzinger, “there can be no return to the Syllabus, which may have marked the first stage in the confrontation with liberalism but cannot be the last stage" (Ibid., p. 191). And what is this last “stage” in the “confrontation with liberalism”? Apparently, in Cardinal Ratzinger's view, it is the Church's acceptance of the very ideas She once condemned! Confronting liberalism by reconciling with it is doubletalk. Cardinal Ratzinger's “confrontation” with liberalism is nothing more than an abject surrender.

       Moreover, in the opinion of Cardinal Ratzinger, not only the condemnations of liberalism in the Syllabus of Blessed Pope Pius IX but also the anti-modernist teaching of Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi must now be considered outdated. In 1990, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued an “Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesiastical Vocation.” In explaining the Instruction to the press, Cardinal Ratzinger claimed that certain teachings of the Magisterium were “not considered to be the final word on the subject as such, but serve rather as a mooring in the problem, and, above all, as an expression of pastoral prudence, a kind of temporary disposition” (L'Osservatore Romano, English Weekly Edition, July 2, 1990, p. 5). As examples of these “temporary dispositions,” Cardinal Ratzinger cited “the statements of the Popes during the last century on religious freedom, as well as the anti-modernist decisions at the beginning of this century …” (Ibid.) —that is, the anti-modernist teaching of Saint Pius X in the early 1900s.

       These comments by Cardinal Ratzinger should disturb any Catholic, not only because they admit that the Council embraced a cherished goal of the Church's enemies, but because they come from the very man who, as the head of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), is supposed to be in charge of guarding the purity of Catholic doctrine. And this, as we shall soon show, is the same man who has led the charge to do away with the traditional Catholic understanding of the Message of Fatima.

The Traditional Catholic Teaching that "the Roman Catholic Church
IS Exclusively the
One True Church of Christ" Is Abandoned

       As the attempt to reconcile the Church with the principles of the French Revolution would neutralize the Church's once fierce opposition to the errors of the modern age, so would the “ecumenical venture” launched at the Council soon bring about the de facto abandonment of all efforts to convert Protestants and schismatics to the Catholic faith—as in the conversion of Russia.

       At the same time the Council embraced the “ecumenical movement”—only 35 years after Pope Pius XI had condemned it in his encyclical Mortalium Animos—the Council's document Lumen Gentium threw into confusion the whole doctrine of the Catholic Church as the one true Church. According to Lumen Gentium “the Church of Christ ... subsists in the Catholic Church.”

       This causes bewilderment. Why doesn't the document clearly proclaim what the Catholic Church has always taught, as seen in the encyclicals of Pope Pius XII—namely, that the one true Church of Christ is the Catholic Church?51 Why employ a term favorable to the progressivist error that the Church of Christ is actuallybigger than the Catholic Church, so that schismatic and Protestant sects are “in some mysterious way” part of (or linked with) the Church of Christ? This error, based upon Vatican II's use of the word “subsists”, is trumpeted by Father Avery Dulles, made a Cardinal by Pope John Paul II:
       The Church of Jesus Christ is not exclusively identical to the Roman Catholic Church. It does indeed subsist in Roman Catholicism, but it is also present in varying modes and degrees in other Christian communities to the extent that they too are what God initiated in Jesus and are obedient to the inspirations of Christ's Spirit. As a result of their common sharing in the reality of the one Church, the several Christian communities already have with one another a real but imperfect communion [Taken from Vatican II, the Work That Needs to Be Done, edited by David Tracy with Hans Küng and Johann Metz (Concillium, Seabury Press, NY, 1978) p. 91].
       Likewise, Cardinal Ratzinger once again embraces the views of the “New 'Catholic' Theology.” In an interview with the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine, Cardinal Ratzinger said the following:
       When the Council Fathers replaced the word “is” with the word “subsistit” (subsists), they did so for a very precise reason. The concept expressed by “is” (to be) is far broader than that expressed by “to subsist.” “To subsist” is a very precise way of being, that is, to be as a subject, which exists in itself. Thus the Council Fathers meant to say that the being of the Church as such is a broader entity than the Roman Catholic Church, but within the latter it acquires, in an incomparable way, the character of a true and proper subject.*
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L'Osservatore Romano, Italian edition, October 8, 2000, p. 4: “Quando i Padri conciliar sostituirono la parola ‘è’ con la parola ‘subsistit’ lo fecera con un scopo ben preciso. Il concetto espresso da ‘è’ (essere) è piu ampio di quello espresso da ‘sussistere.’ ‘Sussistere’ un modo ben preciso di essere, ossia essere come soggeto che esiste in sé. I Padri conciliari dunque intendevano dire che l'essere della Chiesa in quanto tale è un entità piu ampia della Chiesa cattolica romana.” 
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       Cardinal Ratzinger claims that the Council Fathers intended to say that the “being” of the Church is broader than the Catholic Church, but his claim is false. The generality of the Council Fathers had no intention of contradicting the teaching of Pope Pius XII that the Church of Christ is the Catholic Church, not some vague “entity” that is “broader” than the Catholic Church.

       In truth, it was Cardinal Ratzinger's intention to use ambiguity to undermine the traditional teaching that the one and only Church of Christ is the Catholic Church—an intention he shared with his fellow partisans of the “new theology” at Vatican II. We know this because it was Father Ratzinger himself, serving as a theological peritus [that is, a theological expert] at the Council, who introduced the term “subsistit” (subsists) into the drafting of the conciliar document Lumen Gentium. He inserted this term at the suggestion of a Protestant minister, Pastor Schmidt, from Germany.

       If the reader finds Cardinal Ratzinger's explanation of the use of the term “subsistit” (subsists) to be confusing, know that it was meant to be. “Subsists” and “is” can, however, mean the very same thing, contrary to what Cardinal Ratzinger suggests. For the sake of the precision that should characterize any conciliar document, the Council ought to have stated clearly that “The Church of Christ subsists only in the Catholic Church.” But as Father Edward Schillebeeckx, O.P.,  another conciliar peritus, admitted, his liberal confreres had deliberately inserted ambiguities into the conciliar texts (See statements by Father Schillebeeckx in the Dutch magazine De Bauzuin, No. 16, 1965, quoted in the French translation in Itineraires, No. 155, 1971, p. 40) knowing that they would later be able to interpret them in a heterodox manner after the Council.

       That is precisely what Cardinal Ratzinger now does with the ambiguous term “subsistit” (subsists). Indeed, as two prominent Catholic commentators have observed in a recent study of post-conciliar changes in the Church, the original German text of the above-quoted interview in Frankfurter Allgemeine shows that Cardinal Ratzinger is even more radical in his departure from the teaching of Pope Pius XII: “... die Konzilsväter das von Pius XII gebrauchte Wort ‘ist’ durch ‘subsistit’ ersetzten”—which translates as: “... the Council Fathers replaced the word ‘is,’ used by Pius XII, with ‘subsistit.’” That is, Cardinal Ratzinger admits that Vatican II replaced the terminology of Pope Pius XII—thanks to none other than Cardinal Ratzinger and his Protestant minister friend! Even worse, the original German of the interview also states: “So wollten die Väter sagen: Das Sein der Kirche als solches reicht viel weiter als die römisch-katholische Kirche,”—which translates as: “Thus the Fathers meant to say: the being of the Church as such extends much further than the Roman Catholic Church” (Frankfurter Allgemeine, September 22, 2000; Italian translation in L'Osservatore Romano, October 8, 2000) Thus, Dulles and Cardinal Ratzinger flatly contradict the perennial Catholic teaching that the Church of Christ exists exclusively in the Catholic Church. Yet their view is now the common interpretation of Vatican II.

       Here we see a prime example of how the “new theologians” at Vatican II have passed the theological football to themselves, while pretending that it was the “Council” that threw the pass.

Vatican II's Novus Ordo ("New 'Catholic' Order") No Longer Seeks the
Conversion and Return of Heretics and Schismatics

       With this new view of “the Church of Christ” as something much bigger than the Roman Catholic Church, it is no wonder that after 40 years of “ecumenical activity” even Vatican prelates now openly repudiate the return of Protestants and schismatics to Rome.

       One prominent example of this departure from traditional teaching is the recent statement of Cardinal Walter Kasper, the former secretary of the Church's most prominent post-conciliar heretic, Hans Küng. Kasper, whose Modernist views are well-known throughout the Church, was made a Cardinal by Pope John Paul II in February 2001 and now enjoys the rank of Prefect of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Kasper said:
       ... today we no longer understand ecumenism in the sense of a return, by which the others would ‘be converted’ and return to being ‘Catholics’. This was expressly abandoned at Vatican II (Adista, Feb. 26, 2001. English translation quoted from “Where Have They Hidden the Body?” by Christopher Ferrara, The Remnant, June 30, 2001).
       In fact, Kasper's statement scorns the thrice-defined infallible dogma that “outside the Church there is no salvation.” (extra ecclesia nulla salus) The actual wording of these three solemn, infallible (and, therefore, impossible to change)* definitions that are binding on all Catholics** (of whatever rank, including
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* “We, with the approval of the sacred council, teach and define that it is a divinely revealed dogma: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when, acting in the office of shepherd and teacher of all Christians, he defines, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, possesses through the divine assistance promised to him in the person of St. Peter, the infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to be endowed in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals; and that such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are therefore irreformable because of their nature, but not because of the agreement of the Church.” (D.S. 1839)

** “But if anyone presumes to contradict this Our definition (God forbid that he do so): let him be anathema.” (D.S. 1840)
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Cardinals and Popes) to believe, under pain of being automatically excommunicated (expelling themselves from the Catholic Church) are as follows:
       There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved. (Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, 1215.)
       We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff. (Pope Boniface VIII, the Bull Unam Sanctam, 1302.)
       The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church. (Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1442.)
       This teaching must not be understood to preclude the possibility of salvation for those who do not become formal members of the Catholic Church if, through no fault of their own, they do not know of their objective obligation to do so. Nevertheless, as Blessed Pope Pius IX taught in Singulari Quadem, Catholics must not preoccupy themselves with pointless speculation about salvation for those who are not formal members of the Church, since only God knows whom He will save (in some extraordinary manner) from among the great mass of humanity which has not exteriorly professed the Catholic religion. For this reason, Blessed Pius IX—whom Pope John Paul II himself beatified—exhorted the faithful to hold fast to the dogma “outside the Church there is no salvation” and to continue with ever greater fervor the divinely appointed work of the Church in making disciples of all nations. As for the lot of those who remain outside the visible Church, His Holiness warned that “all further inquiry is unlawful.”

       Who can doubt the wisdom of Blessed Pope Pius IX's warning? Indeed, the Church has also taught constantly and infallibly that no one in this world (absent a special private revelation) can know with absolute certainty the subjective state of any soul, much less whether a soul—even one's own—is numbered among the elect. Since it is not possible for the Church to presume that anyone is either saved or damned, the ministers of the Church are duty-bound to seek the conversion of every man, woman and child on the face of the earth, following Our Lord's own commands: Go forth and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded thee (Matt. 28.19-20); He who believes and is baptized shall be saved; he who believes not shall be condemned (Mk. 16.16).

       By declaring that Protestants need no longer convert to Catholicism, Cardinal Kasper brazenly defies both the infallible teaching of the Magisterium and the commands of Our Lord Himself. Kasper's view also flatly contradicts the Church's constant teaching that the only way to Christian unity is the return of the dissidents to the Catholic Church through their conversion. In the 1949 admonition of the Holy Office of Pope Pius XII concerning the “ecumenical movement,” the bishops were warned that in any “ecumenical” discussions they might authorize, the Protestant interlocutors must be presented with “the Catholic truth” and “the teaching of the Encyclicals of the Roman Pontiffs on the return of the dissidents to the Church” (AAS 42-142). The Catholic doctrine of the return of the dissidents was stressed again by Pope Pius XII himself on December 20, 1949: “The Catholic doctrine will have to be proposed and exposed totally and integrally: what the Catholic Church teaches about the true nature and means of justification, about the constitution of the Church, about the primacy of the jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, about the only true union which is accomplished with the return of the dissidents to the only true Church of Christ, must not be passed over in silence or covered over in ambiguous words” (“On the Ecumenical Movement,” December 20, 1949).

       At least Kasper says openly what most of today's prelates seem to believe anyway, but will neither confirm nor deny. Yet Kasper's policy actually represents the prevailing “spirit of Vatican II.” This was confirmed by none other than Cardinal Ratzinger, when he was still Father Ratzinger, in his 1966 book Theological Highlights of Vatican II. In Theological Highlights of Vatican II Cardinal Ratzinger claims that the Council had given the Church a new orientation toward non-Catholics, which dispenses with any call for their conversion:
       The Catholic Church has no right to absorb the other Churches ... [A] basic unity—of Churches that remain Churches, yet become one Church—must replace the idea of conversion, even though conversion retains its meaningfulness for those in conscience motivated to seek it (Paulist Press, New York, 1966], p. 65-66. This section of the book focuses on the deliberate ecumenical foundation on which is based the Council document Lumen Gentium. For a more complete discussion of Father Ratzinger's book, see “Vatican II vs. the Unity Willed by Christ,” by J. Vennari, Catholic Family News, Dec. 2000).
       Now, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote this book during the Council. As a co-worker with Fr.Karl Rahner, S.J., he was heavily involved with drafting the conciliar documents. He is in a position to tell us what were the actual intentions of the “architects” of Vatican II, which is not to be confused with the intention of the Council Fathers themselves. And he declares that the teaching of Vatican II, according to those who drew up the documents, was that conversion is an option.*** That is, according to Ratzinger, the non-Catholic need not convert to the true Church—either for salvation or for unity.
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*** Even if Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, would completely change his own personal views to a more orthodox position, the Council texts themselves remain ambiguous, imprecise, and appear to be oriented toward an unorthodox ecumenism which does not seek the conversion of non-Catholics to Catholicism.
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       This view is no less radical than that of Father Edward Schillebeeckx, O.P.,  another progressivist Council peritus, who was investigated by the Vatican after the Council (but never disciplined) for his open denial of various Catholic dogmas. Schillebeeckx exulted that “At Vatican II, the Catholic Church officially abandoned its monopoly over the Christian religion” [Igreja ou igrejas?, in V.A. Cinco problemas que desafiam a Igreja hoje, pp. 26f. Cited from In the Murky Waters of Vatican II, Atila Sinke Guimarães, (Maeta, Metairie, 1997) p. 243].

       Likewise, a “Catholic” journal from the Rome-based International Jewish-Christian Documentation Service (SIDIC)  spoke of Vatican II's new orientation toward non-Catholics. In 1999 it spotlighted what it considers to be the “main problem” with so-called “traditional Catholics”, including Archbishop Lefebvre:
       Lefebvre's refusal to accept ecumenism originates in clear teachings from the Magisterium: the encyclical Satis Cognitum of Leo XIII (1896); the encyclical Mortalium Animos of Pius XI (1928); the Dec. 20, 1949, Instruction of the Holy Office regarding ecumenism. The only ecumenism accepted by Lefebvre and his followers is that which strives for the unconditional return of the members of other confessions to the one Church of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church. This hardened sectarianism is precisely the kind of logic which Vatican IIthrough profound reflection on the nature of the Church, refused to accept ... (Service International de Documentation Judéo-Chrètienne, Rome, [English edition from Washington, D.C.] Vol. XXXII, No. 3, 1999, p. 22).
       The novel claim that non-Catholics need not convert because they are “in some mysterious way” part of the Church of Christ scorns the Church's perennial teaching on the necessity of non-Catholics to abandon their errors and return to the one true Church of Jesus Christ, as the pre-conciliar Popes unanimously taught.

       There are reported cases of Vatican Cardinals actively discouraging non-Catholics who desire to convert to Catholicism, evidently in keeping with this same false interpretation of the CouncilCatholic Family News published the story of Father Linus Dragu Popian, who had been raised in the Romanian Orthodox religion. In 1975 he risked his life to escape Communist Romania and presented himself as a seminarian to the Vatican, expressing his wish to convert to Catholicism. The then-Secretary of State, Cardinal Villot, and other Vatican Cardinals were horrified. They told young Popian that he must not flee Communism and must not become Catholic, because this would damage the Vatican's relations with Communist Romania and the Romanian Orthodox Church (Father Popian's testimony on audio cassette entitled “Vatican's Ostpolitik and Ecumenism Tried to Prevent My Conversion to Catholicism” is also available from the Fatima Center, 17000 State Route 30, Constable, NY 12926).

       Little has changed in Rome since then. Bishop Fellay of the Society of St. Pius X related in an interview that he had met a schismatic [Orthodox] bishop who wanted to convert to the Catholic Church. Bishop Fellay advised him to deal directly with Rome. When the Orthodox bishop told the Vatican he wanted to become a Catholic, “panic ensued. The following day, Cardinal Neves, Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops said to the schismatic bishop, ‘Your Excellency, it is not necessary to convert. Since the Council, things have changed! There's no need to convert any more.’” (“We are a Sign of Contradiction”, interview with Bishop Bernard Fellay, SSPX, Latin Mass Magazine, Fall 2001, p. 11).

       This deliberate refusal to allow a schismatic Orthodox bishop to return to Rome is completely in line with the Balamand Declaration of 1993, negotiated between certain Vatican officials and various Orthodox churches. In this document the Vatican's representative (Cardinal Cassidy of the Pontifical Council for “Christian Unity”) actually agreed that, owing to “radically altered perspectives and thus attitudes” engendered by Vatican II, the Catholic Church will train new priests “to pave the way for future relations between the two churches, passing beyond the outdated ecclesiology of return to the Catholic Church” (Balamand Statement, nn. 13 and 30. The Balamand Statement (1993) was cited approvingly by Pope John Paul II in Ut Unum Sint, n. 59)

       The claim that the Magisterium's constant teaching on the return of the dissidents (heretics and schismatics) to the one true Church as the only means of true Christian unity is now “outdated ecclesiology” is a heresy, since it flatly contradicts not only the Church's teaching on the return of the dissidents, but also the infallibly defined Catholic dogma that outside the Church there is no salvation.

       The abandonment of the Church's traditional teaching in this area does not represent “charity” toward the separated brethren but rather a retreat from the Church's duty to tell them the simple truth. Again, the result is no boon to non-Catholics, but rather a weakened, scandal-ridden Church which is hardly able to serve as the leaven of society it was meant to be. While the Church, being a divine as well as a human institution, will inevitably be restored to Her former vigor, as She has following other crises in Her past, the Church and the world will undergo great suffering until this crisis of faith is ended. 

[from "The Devil's Final Battle," NY: Good Counsel Publications, 2002, pp. 63-72]

I am the Mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope. 
In me is all grace of the way and of the truth,
In me is all hope of life and of virtue.
Come over to me... he hearkeneth to me shall not be confounded,
and they that work by me shall not sin 
(Ecclesiasticus 24.23-31, Epistle for today's feast, taken from the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel).

Related posts: "Our Lady and the Diabolical Campaign", "Upheaval: 'Russia's Errors' Spreading from the Neo-Vatican", and "The Ultimate Delusion of Vatican II 'Catholicism'"