And Elias, the prophet, stood up, as a fire, and his word burnt like a torch (Ecclesiasticus. 48.1, DRV)

Sunday, September 30, 2012

God's Unexpected Response

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JMJ

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Feast of St. Jerome,
 "the greatest Doctor of the Church" (Pope Benedict XV) who gave Christendom the Latin Vulgate of the Sacred Scriptures



From the eighth chapter of the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the progress from the immediate  cure  of fever to the command over nature and to the deliverance of souls from demonic possessions brings us today  (Mt. 9.1-8)  to the climactic exhibition of a power that truly belongs to God alone: Who can forgive sins, but God only? (Mk. 2.7). 

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in asserting His divine prerogatives, against which some of the Jewish scholars on the Law (the Scribes) accused Him of blasphemy – the same charge for which the Christ was finally condemned by the Sanhedrin to die the death on the Cross – utters to the man sick of palsy: … Thy sins are forgiven thee (v.2). Thus, the miracle God works is now more than a mere sensible wonder.

Faith in Jesus Christ is an implicit confession of sin and of repentance unto penance (Rom. 8.13; Col. 3.5). Therefore, “it elicits,” says a Jesuit Old Testament professor, “not a divine response  to be tested by observation but a declaration of forgiveness of sins – the miracle which escapes not only the Jewish scholars in the Gospel but also their modern-day kindred:  the agnostics and materialist-atheists (in their relative “If there is God…” paradigm). The afflictions of the fallen human condition are the consequences of sin – a deliberate and free-willing non serviam (“I will not serve,”): I will be like the Most High! (Is. 14.14, cf., our post yesterday “Quis ut Deus” on the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel) – and the forgiveness and remission of sins through the Blood of the divine Lamb, once physically shed on Calvary and being truly, really yet mystically poured forth on the Christian high altar (Heb. 13.10), extirpates the root of evil. Unless sin is cured, there is no genuine remedy for genuine human ills – his moral and spiritual disorders that come from man’s independence from God. This, according to the same Professor, “is the fullness of [Christ’s] saving power – not the mere power of thaumaturgy – that causes men to glorify God.”


Saturday, September 29, 2012

"Quis ut Deus"


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JMJ

Feast of St. Michael the Archangel


God did not create the devils; in the beginning He created angels, spirits possessed of reason and free will, but "a third of [these]" instantly turned themselves into devils in following the revolt of Lucifer – who became Satan – against God, claiming: I will be like the most High (Is. 14.14). But what is to be like God? It is to seat as the Supreme Judge deciding what is good and what is evil (cf., Gen. 3.5).

Before admitting the angels to the Beatific Vision, God, before Creation, placed them under probation, just as later He subjected mankind to a trial of obedience in the persons of Adam and Eve. The nature of the trial is not known with certainty. However, Sacred Scriptures reveals this circumstance which was taken by the learned and saintly doctors of the Church to be the point which Lucifer stumbled over: When He bringeth in the First Begotten into the world, He saith: And let all the angels of God adore Him (Heb. 1.6). That is, Lucifer, perhaps the most glorious and exalted princes of the heavenly court, dazzled by the splendor of the great power and gifts God bestowed on him, revolted at the thought that human nature should be preferred to his own angelic nature or that he should bow down to such lowly a nature no matter how God should perfectly unite it to the divine through the hypostatic union (cf., also our post "The Papal Condemnation of the Freemasons and their Doctrines"). At the same instant another great Archangel, equal in beauty and grace to the proud Lucifer, prostrated himself before the throne of God. With an act of profound adoration, he opposed to the battle cry of the revolters (I will be like the Most High) his own battle cry of love and loyalty: Mi-cha-ElQuis ut Deus (Who is like unto God?).

And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels: and they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world (Apoc. 12.7-9). This passage in the Apocalypse, though revealing what happened in heaven when God tested his angelic creatures, was rather a prophecy of a future event – the Apocalyptic battle in the Church, for heaven, where God reigns most perfectly,  in the prophetic sense used here refers to the Church founded and built by Christ (we recall here that after the Great Sign appeared in the Church at Fatima, cf., our post “The Great Sign in Heaven”, another sign – a great red dragon – also appeared  in heaven [the Church], cf., our post “TheYear that was 1929”). The circumstances of this Apocalyptic battle  were revealed to Pope Leo XIII in a vision, the summary and height of it is contained in the original version of the prayer to St. Michael the Roman Pontiff composed for the deliverance of the Church: the See of Peter in Rome would appear to be the seat of Satan (Apoc. 2.13) [cf., our post “A Perilous‘Catholic’ Voyage” and related posts: “The Great Tribulation”, “The UltimateDelusion of Vatican II ‘Catholicism’”, “Pope Benedict XVI’s ‘Motu Proprio’ onthe Traditional Latin Mass: ‘An act of toleration [of evil]’”, “Vatican II and ‘religiousliberty’”, and “Vatican II ‘spirit’ on homosexuality”] – the seeming eclipse of the Church of Rome ( “In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved, etc.,” cf., our post “Our Lady and the New Orientation in Rome inthe 1960s”), asserting and defending, not the rights of God, but of man (the cult of “the dignity of man” – the orientation given, but without formally binding the universal Church, by Pope John XXIII to the Second Vatican Council, cf., our post “The ‘Great Tribulation’”, and the same maintained up to this day! 

The visitations of Our Immaculate Mother at Fatima in Portugal preceded by the appearances of St. Michael and the present evil s that have consumed almost the whole of the institutional Church –  must convince us that we must turn, as Pope Leo XIII had already urged us long in advance, with deeper devotion to St. Michael the Archangel, who, as prefigured in the Old Testament, is “the Guardian Angel, Protector and Defender of the People of God”. We can choose no better leader fighting under the banner of Our Immaculate Mother in this Apocalyptic conquest of Satan than the powerful captain who led the faithful Angels to victory and to whom God has “entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude” (Pope Leo XIII in his “Prayer to Saint Michael”).  


Saturday, September 15, 2012

The Honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Sacrificed to Vatican II 'Ecumenism' (II)

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JMJ

Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary


In the first part of this post (cf., "The Honor of the Blessed Virgin... I"), we underscored the grave implications of the so-called 'misreading of Vatican II' - which the President of the Mariological Society of America pointed out, at an academic conference held in Rome last September 6, as the cause of what was perceived to be a "collapse of Marian devotion." The first one, it is falsehood that is prevailing in the official institutional 'Catholic Church'. Now, the President of the Mariological Society of America was nearly categorical in saying that it was "an overly rationalist historical approach" that was to blame. To put it categorically, it was Modernism (cf., our post "The Partisans of Error") then that, in the words of Hans Kung, the infamous Swiss apostate of the 'Catholic' Theological Faculty of the University of Tubingen in Germany, '[had] spread and permeated the entire atmosphere of the Church, due to the [Vatican II] Council" (in Msgr. J. Cirrincione, Fatima's Message for Our Times, TAN Books, 1990, p.55).

One distinguishing mark of Modernism, nay every falsehood or, to be 'politically correct', half-truth, is contradiction. The Mariological Society of America President claimed, on the one hand, that "the Council Fathers upheld Mary's critical place in the faith" (obviously, an effort to uphold still Vatican II along the Modernist lines of 'hermeneutic of continuity' of Pope Benedict XVI, cf., the first part of this post) while, on the other, recognizing the other vent of the Modernist revenge that prevailed in the official institutional 'Church' "due to the Council," "an apparent change in emphasis on the Blessed Virgin Mary contributed to a full-scale collapse of Mariology that has had very notable effects on the life of the Church." Originally, the schema "On the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church" was a separate text and was to be treated independently of the schema on the Church but the so-called European Alliance, which "regularly" (Msgr. Cirrincione, op. cit.) adopted the position of the German-speaking bishops - who in turn adopted the opinions of the Jesuit Karl Rahner, prevailed and had the Council  integrate in the schema on the Church everything pertaining to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Why? "According to Father Rahner," wrote Fr. Wiltgen, S.V.D. in his celebrated history of the Second Vatican Council, The Rhine Flows into the Tiber (published by TAN Books), "whose comments were distributed to all participants in the Fulda conference [of the European Alliance], 'Were the text to be accepted as it stood [which treated also of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Her title Mediatrix], unimaginable harm would result, from an ecumenical point of view, in relation to both Orientals and Protestants... It should therefore be urged with all possible insistence that the schema on the Blessed Virgin be made either a chapter or an epilogue of the schema on the Church [the latter, in fact, as an epilogue, was adopted]. This would be the easiest way to delete from the schema statements which, theologically, are [for Modernists, of course, who, preferring the search for truth rather than the possession of it, put everything up for a more 'rationally-situating' manner of discussion or 'deconstruction'] not sufficiently developed and which would only do incalculable harm from an ecumenical point of view.' What he attacked especially," continues Fr. Wiltgen in his account, "was the schema's teaching on the mediation of Mary and the title 'Mediatrix of all graces which it gave the Blessed Virgin." This belies what the Society President also stated that the final Vatican II text on the Blesssed Virgin Mary [the "Epilogue" of Lumen Gentium mentioning the titles "Mother of God" and "Mediatrix" but only in compromise for schematic integration] is "the most complete and conclusive doctrinal statement about the Blessed Virgin Mary ever written."

And to "rub salt to the wound", such Conciliar sacrifice of the honor of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary to the Ecumenical agenda of the Modernists was even hailed by Cardinal Angelo Amato who, in that same 'Mariological' conference in Rome, was quoted: "a momentous watershed moment for Marian discourse - steering it away from every undeserved doctrinal and devotional exaggeration." As if the Church of the Living God, the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3.15) were capable of "doctrinal exaggeration"! No, the Cardinal was not ignorant of Theology properly so-called; his mind is another product of pseudo-Theology, that is, the New 'Catholic Theology' of Vatican II (cf., our post "The Ultimate Delusion of Vatican II 'Catholicism'"), except that his is also more pronounced, like Rahner's, in its callous perversion.

Notwithstanding all of the above, the 'sacrifice' was actually pre-Conciliar. It begun with a virtual proposal by Pope John XXIII - the fallen star who unleashed the scourge of the locusts (cf., the first part of this post "The Honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary... I") and gave them a Council with which to eclipse the Sun and the moon (cf., commentary of St. Augustine in our post "The Great Tribulation") - when, on August 18, 1959, after reading the Third Secret of Our Lady of Fatima which the Blessed Virgin Mary wished to be opened in the 1960's (Pope John XXIII's reign, his death was in 1963), told his Secretary Msgr. Loris Capovilla to "Write": "Finally, he decided to put it back in the envelope, saying, 'I make no judgment on this.' He maintained silence in the face of what might be a manifestation of the divine or might not be" (in an interview with Msgr. Capovilla reproduced in CRC of December 1997, in M. Fellows, Fatima in Twilight, p. 163). Pope John XXIII, rather than to repudiate his Ecumenical program of a 'New Evangelization', that is, the New 'Catholic Theology', chose rather to abandon the logic of the Church's pronouncement on the visitations and messages at Fatima in Portugal as supernatural in origin!

"Does ecumenism consist in confessing or hiding the truth? Ought the Council to explain Catholic doctrine, or the doctrine of [the] separated brethren? Hiding the truth hurts both us and those separated from us. It hurts us, because we appear as hypocrites. It hurts those who are separated from us because it makes them appear weak and capable of being offended by the truth. Let the schemas be separated. Let us profess our Faith openly. Let us be the teachers we are in the Church by teaching with clarity, and not hiding what is true" (Servite Bishop Giocondo Grotti, of Acre e Purus, Brazil, in a rebuttal to all arguments in favor of an 'integrated schema' he circulated at the Council).

Mater Dolorosa, ora pro nobis!


Friday, September 14, 2012

Signum Crucis

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JMJ

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

The Cross of St. Benedict
The Sign of the Cross
by Fr. F. Spirago

The Catholic makes confession of his Faith most especially by the sign of the Holy Cross. By it he lets men know that he makes profession of belonging to the religion of the Savior, Jesus Christ and Him Crucified (1 Cor. 2.2) - to distinguish Him from the false 'Jesus Christ' of the "Bible-only" sectarians and of the New 'Catholic Theology' of Vatican II (cf., our post "The Ultimate Delusion of Vatican II 'Catholicism'"). To Jews and Mohammedans the Cross is an object of hatred and contempt; the ["Bible-only" sectarians], too, pay no honor to the Holy Cross, though there are indeed some of them who, in the present day, have learned the practice from the children of the Church. The Sign of the Cross is thus the peculiar property of Catholics all the world over. It is a custom so ancient that it is generally believed to have been introduced by the Apostles.

In making the Sign of the Cross we make profession of the most important of all the mysteries of our holy Religion, viz., the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

By uniting all three persons, Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, under one Name, we make profession of our belief in the unity of God [cf., I and the Father are one, Jn 10.30].

The "Name" of God indicates His authority and power, and that we act under His commission (Mk. 16.17; Ac. 3.16,17; 4.10).

In making the Sign of the Cross, we make profession of our belief in the Blessed Trinity by the words In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.

In making the Sign of the Cross, by the very form of the Cross which we make upon ourselves, we make profession that the Son of God died for us upon the Cross to save us from our sins and their fruit, eternal torments and misery with the devil in hell.

Thus we see that in the Sign of the Cross we have a short summary of the whole Catholic Faith. The Catholic Church holds the Sign of the Cross in great honor but not the pseudo-Catholic Church of Vatican II (on the counterfeit 'Catholic Church', cf., "The Year that was 1929"; "What is Truth?"). It is repeated over and over again in Holy Mass [but now almost entirely suppressed in the New 'Mass' of 1969 "fabricat[ed]" (Card. Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, in Msgr. Graber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, French ed.) by the Freemason Bugnini and his Protestant collaborators and declared the norm or "the ordinary form" (Pope Benedict XVI, Summorum Pontificum) in the Novus Ordo sanctuaries], in the [Traditional] Sacraments, in all [Traditional] Blessings and Consecrations; the Cross is placed on our churches, over our altars [not anymore the norm in the Novus Ordo], on banners, on sacred vestments, and over the graves of the faithful departed. Churches are built in the form of a Cross except the Novus Ordo houses of 'communion' and liturgical services.

By means of the Sign of the Cross we obtain a blessing from God; and especially by it we are protected from the assaults of the devil and from all dangers both to body and soul.

The Sign of the Cross is no empty ceremony, but it is of itself a blessing, a prayer for a blessing from God. The Sign of the Cross chases away the devil and his temptations and artifices; as the dog fears the whip with which he is has been beaten, so the evil one dreads the Sign of the Cross, for it reminds him of the Holy Cross by which he was vanquished on Calvary.... Whenever we make the Sign of the Cross, we bear the inscription "I belong to Jesus Christ and Him Crucified," and this protects us from our enemy, the devil.

In war no one ventures to injure those who wear on their arm a band of white to indicate that they are phycisians, or nurses, or ministers of religion; so the devil does not dare attack those who are signed with the holy Sign of the Cross. "The Sign of the Cross," says St. John Damascene, "is a seal, at the sight of which the destroying angel passes on, and does us no harm." The brazen serpent fastened on a pole in the desert was an image of the Cross of Christ (Num. 21: Jn. 3.14), and protected all who looked upon it from being bitten by the fiery serpents; so the Sign of the Cross recalls to our minds the Cross of Christ, and protects us from the snares of that ancient serpent, the devil. In the year 312, Constantine the Great, with his whole army, saw a Cross of light in the sky, and upon it the words: In hoc Signo vinces (In this Sign thou shalt conquer.) - these words are also true of the Sign of the Cross we make. "Even to remember the Cross of Christ," says St. Augustine, "puts our hellish foe to flight, and give us strength to resist his temptations."

Many of the Saints used to make the Sign of the Cross whenever any evil thoughts assailed them. In the times of persecution the heathen gods often fell prostrate to the ground at the Sign of the Cross. On the occassion of the finding of the Holy Cross by St. Helena, a woman who was blind was restored to sigh by merely touching it. The Sign of the Cross often frees men from bodily evils also. Many of the holy Martyrs, on making the Sign of the Cross, felt no more pain in their torments. St. John the Divine once had a cup with a poisoned draught put into his hand to drink. He made the Sign of the Cross over it, and then drank it without receiving any harm from it. Something similar happened also to St. Benedict. In the Old Testament, we find an allusion to the Sign of the Cross in the letter Thau, mentioned by the Prophet Ezechiel. God sent destruction upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem on account of the abominations committed there; but an angel was previously commanded to mark the sign Thau upon the foreheads of all those who mourned and lamented on account of the sins of the city (9.4-6).

We should often make the Sign of the Cross, especially when we rise in the morning and when we retire to rest, before and after our prayers, before and after our meals, whenever we are tempted to sin, and when we have any important duty to perform.

The early Christians made continual Sign of the Cross. Tertullian (A.D. 240) says, "At the beginning and during the performance of all that we do, when we go in and out of the house, we dress ourselves, when we lie down to rest, in fact in everything, we mark ourselves on the forehead with the Sign of the Cross." St. Edith, the daughter of the King of England, often made the Sign of the Cross with her thumb upon the forehead; thirteen years after her death her thumb remained quite incorrupt. Each time we make the Sign of the Cross with contrite hearts, we gain, on the usual conditions prescribed, an indulgence of fifty days (Blesses Pope Pius IX, July 28, 1863).

When we make the Sign of the Cross, we should, if possible, make it with holy water [blessed by a traditional Catholic priest]. Holy water has a special power to defend us against all attacks of the devil. When we make the Sign of the Cross with holy water, we gain each time an indulgence of one hundred days (Bl. Pope Pius IX, March 23, 1876). Holy water is placed at the doors of the our churches, and should be placed at the door of our rooms.

We must never be ashamed of the Sign of the Cross, lest Christ be ashamed of us. The devil rejoices when he sees any one neglect to make the Sign of the Cross, for he knows that the Cross is his destruction and a sign of victory over his temptations.

A blessed Feast to all!

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

The Honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Sacrificed to Vatican II 'Ecumenism' (I)

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JMJ

Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary



On September 6, a 'Mariological' conference was held in Rome. The CNS published a report on the conference with the title, "Misreading of Vatican II led to 'collapse' in Marian devotion, studies."

The post-Second Vatican Council upheaval and decay is always blamed on the so-called 'misreading' of the Vatican II documents. Sickening as it may seem, though, yet, it is only an unequivocal admission that it is falsehood that is prevailing in the official institutional 'Catholic Church'. Where and how does the See of the Truth, the Chair of Peter, stand? Pope Paul VI could only speak of a "day of darkness" (cf., our post "Our Lady and the Diabolical Campaign"). Pope John Paul II could only lament "with feeling of deep pain, that Christians today in large measure feel lost, confused, perplexed, and even disappointed" (cf., ibid.) and, in his homily at Fatima in Portugal on the occasion of the Beatification of Francisco and Jacinta, exhort the faithful not to have anything to do with the dragon whose tail (cf., our post "The Year that was 1929") dragged down a number of the stars of heaven (cf., ibid.). But Pope Benedict XVI, he could only insist on the Modernist method of a mere shot on the possibility of an impossibility, the so-called 'hermeneutics of continuity': a reconciliation between two contradictories - Sacred Tradition and Modernism (cf., our post "'Partisans of Error'"); forgetting that it is an absurdity to engage in a sort of rational demonstration to prove or disprove something that is already self-evident, especially for one who has a truly Catholic sense - not halting between Catholicism and 'liberalism'!

'Misreading'? There are two distinctions. One, Pope John Paul II was clear: "Ideas opposed to the truth which has been revealed and always taught are being scattered abroad in abundance; heresies, in the full and proper sense of the word [that is, formal heresy - distinct from material heresy; also, formal schism and material schism] have been spread in the are of dogma and morals [see, for example, the Novus Ordo 'Catechism' on homosexuality in our post "The 'spirit' of Vatican II on Homosexuality"] creating doubts, confusions and rebellions; the liturgy has been tampered with..." (in our post "Our Lady and the Diabolical Campaign"); the so-called Vatican II 'spirit', though fallen, can not be underestimated to be dumb and no longer harmful as the New 'Catholic' Theology would have us believe (cf., our post "The Ultimate Delusion of Vatican II 'Catholicism'") when in fact it re-entered with a revenge* (cf., Mt. 12.45) more vicious. Two, the 'liberal' spirit is deceitful; he does not know bounds yet pretends to be a respectful 'Catholic' and so we find in the Vatican II documents his trick: Yes, but...
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* Pope St. Pius X was only able to drive it underground. Pope Pius XII tightly muzzled it. But, Pope John XXIII fulfilled what was written: ... A star fall from heaven, and there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit: and the smoke of the pit arose, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun [cf., the commentary of St. Augustine in our post "The Great Tribulation"] and the air were darkened [cf., Pope Paul VI's statement above] with the smoke of the pit. And from the smoke of the pit there came out locusts upon the earth. And power was given to them, as the scorpions of the earth have power (Apoc. 9.1,2-3) - he let free those who bore the mark of the Church's insidious enemies and even allowed them to take the role of periti (or theological experts) in his Vatican II Council!
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And from the smoke of the pit there came out locusts upon the earth. And power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power (Apoc. 9.3). Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ associates scorpions with the activity of Satan (cf., Lk. 10.19) and the power given them "primarily means [in Scriptural language] regal 'authority', the right to exercise some magisterial [that is, teaching] office over others" (Fr. H. Kramer, The Book of Destiny, Imprimatur by Joseph Mueller of Sioux City, Iowa on July 26, 1956). No wonder why it is falsehood ('misreading') that prevails. "It is painful to see such a great disorientation and in so many persons who occupy places of responsibility... the devil has succeeded in infiltrating evil under the cover of good... in leading priests and religious... into error... They are blind men guiding other blind men" (Sr. Lucia, C.D. in our post "Our Lady and the Diabolical Campaign"). "A sentiment of confusion... spreading among the children of the Church, even among the best ones, and sometimes also with the most qualified, who exercise the greatest authority [that is, the Pope!]" (Pope Paul VI, discourse of December 3, 1969, in ibid.). To be continued...


Sancta Maria, Stella Maris, ora pro nobis!



Saturday, September 8, 2012

"Partisans of Error"

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JMJ

Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary



Who is She 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)


"At the time of Mary's birth the whole world was plunged in darkness.The heathen nations were steeped in vice and pride... Everywhere there was sin and gloom, no bright spot on the face of the earth. But when Mary was born a light arose amid the darkness: the dawn of the glorious day that was to usher in the Redeemer [the light of men...the Orient from on high... to enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death : to direct our feet into the way of peace (Jn. 1.4; Lk. 1.78,79)]. So, too, the darkness of the sinner's soul is dispersed by Mary's holy influence" (Fr. S. Juergens, S.M., S.T.D., in The Ideal Missal, rev. ed., 1962, Nihil Obstat by Arthur J. Scanlan, S.T.D., Imprimatur by C. Eykens of Antwerp, now the 1962 Roman Catholic Daily Missal published by the Angelus Press).

Pope St. Pius X
Holy souls, the seed of Mary who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ (Apoc. 12.17), "not only advance like the dawn," says Fr. John Arintero, O.P. in his mystical exposition of the above passage in the Sacred Canticles, "but [are] also beautiful as the moon, that is, similar to the Blessed Virgin, the true Moon of the mystical Heaven lighting up our darkness and watching over our nights." "The moon," continues Fr. Arintero, "does not have its own light, but receives it from the sun; so this soul tries to be like Mary and always ready to receive the divine rays of Her Sun Jesus, so as to become, under His continual influence, another new sun; in this way she seems pure and select like Him. For she shines so much with the clarity that she receives, and reflects His divine light so much when enlightening other souls, that she seems to mirror Him and to look like a real sun." As such, on this blessed day, exactly 105 years ago, when Pope St. Pius X, whose Feast we celebrated last 3rd of September, saw that Apocalyptic day, when immediately after the tribulation of those days [cf., our post "The Great Tribulation"], the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light [cf., commentary of St. Augustine on the same post "The Great Tribulation"], and the stars shall fall from heaven [cf., commentary on our post "The Year that was 1929"] (Mt. 24.29; Apoc. 8.12,) already approaching by the spreading apostasy in his day, issued the Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis on the doctrine of the Modernists:

"The partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church's open enemies; but, what is to be most dreaded and deplored, in her very bosom, and are the more mischievous the less they keep in the open. We allude, Venerable Brethren [addressing the Bishops], to many who belong to the Catholic laity, and, what is more sad, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, animated by a false zeal for the Church, lacking the solid safeguards of philosophy and theology [of the School of St. Thomas Aquinas], nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, put themselves forward as reformers of the Church;..."

Thus how Pope St. Pius X begins his program of immediate necessary action in arresting the great advances which the most deadly plague of the error of Modernism is making. Earlier, in his Syllabus Lamentabili sane of 3rd July 1907, the Sovereign Pontiff condemns and proscribes the errors of the Modernists; this time, he pinpoints and exposes where the greatest danger to the Christian Faith lies: clergymen contaminated by Modernism.

The "Plague of Modernism" at its heart: 'As for Me...'

Modernism "was the name given to the manifestation of the ['Rationalist'] movement [cf., our post "Papal Condemnation of Freemasons and their doctrines"] within the Catholic Church at the turn of the nineteenth century" (M. Davies, Partisans of Error: St. Pius X Against the Modernists, p. 9). Within "Bible-only"-Fundamentalism (or Protestantism), this movement took the name Liberalism. Cardinal Newman revealed in 1879 what is at the heart of this error: "Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion... but a sentiment and a taste; and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy" (taken from Newman Against the Liberals, pp. 13-14). The Modernist therefore reduces the Catholic Faith from being the system of divinely revealed truths - given assent to by reason, moved by grace, on the authority of God revealing - to "a certain need or impulse" (Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi, Encyclical Letter on the Doctrines of the Modernists); that is, the explanation for the 'phenomenon' of religion must be sought not outside or external of man [God, the author and source of His divinely revealed Religion is outside or external of man - "transcendent"] but that "it must therefore be looked for in man" (ibid.).

Now "since religion is a form of life, the explanation must certainly be found in the life of man" (ibid.) - the formula of what is called "the principle of religious immanence" (ibid.). As such religion, for the Modernists, "has its origin in a movement of the heart, which movement is called sense" (ibid.). It is "this sense to which Modernists give the name of 'faith', and this is what they hold to be the beginning of religion" (ibid.). "Therefore," St. Pius X points out, "as God is the object of religion, we must conclude that faith, which is the basis and foundation of all religion, must consist in a certain interior sense, originating in a need of the divine" which need, however, "is experienced only in special and favorable circumstances" so that it "cannot of itself appertain to the domain of consciousness, but is first latent beneath consciousness, or, to borrow a term from modern philosophy, in the subconsciousness, where also its root lies hidden and undetected" (ibid.).

If religion "lies hidden and undetected" "in the subconscious," then "truth and falsehood in religion are but matter of opinion; one [religion] is as good as another ['that's your belief, this is my belief - let's just respect each other's views']; there is no truth [for it is an absolute];... we are not more acceptable to God by believing this than by believing that;... our merit lies in seeking [the truth - that is, doctrinal 'reformulation' if not doctrinal 'evolutionism'], not in possessing; it is a duty to follow what seems to us true, without a fear lest it should not be true..." (Cardinal Newman, Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, in op. cit., pp. 20-21). This shows clearly that "religious indifferentism [cf., our posts "On Vatican II 'religious liberty'"; "Papal Condemnation of Freemasons and their doctrines"] lies at the basis of [this movement]" (M. Davies, op. cit., p. 10).

Thus, from the foregoing, it is Modernism that was at the root of the disastrous state of human society which terrified Pope St. Pius X upon ascending to the Chair of St. Peter in 1903. In his first Encyclical, E Supremi Apostolatus (October 1903), he wrote: "Who can fail to see that at the present time society is suffering more than in any past age from a terrible and radical malady which, while developing every day and gnawing into its very being, is dragging it to destruction? ... This disease is apostasy* from God. Truly nothing is more allied with ruin, according to the saying of the Prophet: For behold, they that go away from Thee perish (Ps. 72.27)... This is the distinguishing mark of the Antichrist, with unlimited boldness man has put himself in the place of God [Who alone judges what is truth and good], exalting himself above all that is called God [by rejecting the authority of His Church, the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3.15)."
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* That is, the complete defection from the true Faith on the part of one who received it in Baptism; the complete repudiation of the Catholic Religion "by denying, for example, [the] personal God or the Divinity of Jesus Christ" (cf., Fr. H. Jone, O.M.Cap., Moral Theology, 1962 ed.). This is distinct from heresy which is adherence to some of the doctrines revealed by God and rejection of others.
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Pride sits in a Modernist

"But it is pride which exercises an incomparably greater sway over the soul to blind it and lead it into error, and pride sits in Modernism as in its own house, finding sustenance everywhere in its doctrines and lurking in its every aspect. It is pride which fills Modernists with that self-assurance by which they consider themselves and pose as the rule for all [in substitution for the divinely constituted authorities]... It is pride which rouses in them the spirit of disobedience and causes them to demand a compromise between authority and liberty."

Innovation [being "up to date"] - the passion of the Modernist

Such is the battle cry of the Modernists to subtly rid themselves of the yoke of subjection to God through the authority of Christ's Church. "... The Modernist as reformer... how great and how eager is the passion of such men for innovation."

Pretending themselves to be 'reformers' of the Church established by the God-Man, they "exercise all their ingenuity in an effort to weaken the force and falsify the character of Tradition [that is, as they say, "Vatican II 'ecumenism', 'religious liberty', 'collegiality', etc. are guaranteed by the 'Living Tradition' of the Church - which means approved, proclaimed, and practiced by the Pope!"] and "dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind... or endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church" (Pope St. Pius X applying to them the words of the Second Council of Nicea). Overall, they desire that Catholic philosophy and theology [under the guiding light of St. Thomas Aquinas - who lived in the Middle Ages!], dogmas and moral canons, Rite of Worship, ecclesiastical government - "especially in its disciplinary and dogmatic departments" - and authority, especially in "its line of conduct in the social and political world", and the lifestyle of clergymen and religious "must be brought into harmony with the modern conscience, which now wholly tends toward democracy [ the Synagogue-inspired 'democracy': the 'democracy' that chose Barabbas over Our Lord and the modern-day representative democracy that prefers 'liberty of opinion' and 'liberty of conscience' over subjection to "dogmatic Christianity" (cf., Joshua Jehuda, considered by the Synagogue as its important 'spiritual' leader in their preparation for Vatican II, in our post "Anti-Christian Conspiracy: A theory - the Synagogue; A fact - the Catholic Church") - assail the formidable absoulte position of Christ (THE Way, THE Truth, THE Life, Jn. 14.6) and His Church (THE pillar and ground of the truth, 1 Tim. 3.15): it is the clamor of the greater number that decides what is true and what is good, a doctrine of the 1789 Revolution anathematized by Pope Leo XIII (Diuturnum illud) and Pope St. Pius X (Sillon)]."

"Further, none is more skillful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious devices; for they play the double part of 'rationalist' and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and as audacity is their chief characteristic [cf., the late Carlo Martini, appointed by Pope John Paul II as the 'official' 'Catholic' pastor of Milan, in out post "The Late Patriarch Martini of Milan, Reuters, and the Anti-Catholic Propaganda"]..."

Modernist contempt for the God-Man and His Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

"... And, forming more boldly into line of attack, assail all that is more sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the Person of the Divine Redeemer, Whom, with sacrilegious audacity, they degrade to the condition of a simple and ordinary man."

"... Assail all that is more sacred in the work of Christ...," that is, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (cf., our posts "Pope Benedict XVI on the New 'Mass': Outbalanced 'Liturgy' - More a Celebration than Worship"; "The Catholic Sanctuary (II)").

"... the Person of the Divine Redeemer... they degrade to the condition of a simple and ordinary man":

the laughing 'Christ'

Inculturated 'Christ at the Last Supper' in a Jesuit-run University  chapel


The Modernist - "the most pernicious" enemy of the Church

"We should number them amongst the enemies of the Church... regarding them as the most pernicious of all the adversaries of the Church. For... they put into operation their designs for her undoing, not from without but from within ["The Church attacking herself" - Pope Paul VI, cf., our post "Our Lady and the Diabolical Campaign"]. Hence the danger is present almost in the very reigns and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain from the very fact that their knowledge of her is more intimate."

"Mary shines forth to the world; devoutly we implore that by Her prayers we may be helped in mind and spirit" (3rd Antiphon, Office of Vespers for today's Feast)

A blessed Feast to all!

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

The Late Patriarch Martini of Milan, Reuters, and the Anti-Catholic Propaganda

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JMJ

"To use the words of the Fathers of Trent, it is certain that the Church 'was instructed by Jesus Christ and His Apostles and that all truth was daily taught it by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.' Therefore, it is obviously absurd and injurious to propose a certain 'restoration and regeneration' for her as though necessary for her safety and growth, as if she could be considered subject to defect or obscuration or other misfortune. Indeed these authors of novelties consider that a 'foundation may be laid of a new human institution,' and what [St.] Cyprian detested may come to pass, that what was a divine thing 'may become a human church.'"
- Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari vos (On the Condemnation of Liberalism), 
15 August 1832


Reuters, in its September 3 article “Late Cardinal represented Catholic Church that might have been,” and Carlo Martini, in his final interview remarking that “the Catholic Church was 200 years out of date,” fraudulently equate Liberal Catholicism with that Creed of which the Eternal Word Himself is the author (Heb. 12.2). Their lie consists in this: the Catholic Church as a human institution should, if it were to be regarded by man as still relevant to his life,  serve man’s interests (anyways, all directed toward his ‘happiness’ which is but the same end or purpose God has ordained for man after all) which change with the passing of time and, note 'Liberal Catholicism' in its essence, it must adopt for its norm whatever holds ‘true’ and ‘good’ in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man, notwithstanding the revolutionary spirit breathing upon its proponents who are but sworn enemies of Christ and of His Church! On the contrary, the Catholic Church, the body of Christ, is BOTH human AND divine – like her Head Who is the God-Man – with the human element in the service of the divine: bound to the divine service by the Commandments, by the “pompous” ceremonies and vestments fit for the Worship of His Sovereign Divine Majesty, by dogmatic formulations, and by strict moral precepts. Now, since the Eternal Truth made flesh (Jn. 1.14), the very principle and foundation upon which is built the constitution of the Church – bound and subject to Christ the Sovereign – can never be “out of date,” for Jesus Christ, yesterday, today; and the same for ever (Heb. 13.8), the “radical change” advocated by Martini – ostensibly in the name of ‘concern’ for the Church’s vitality - and spread abroad by the secular press runs into this: “… the Catholic Church that might have been dead- for the Catholic Church can never be subjected to a "radical" transformation, tantamount to mutation, in her monarchical constitution, in her Rite of Divine Worship, in her dogmatic formulations, and in her moral norms; her being overturned may only be wished for or even almost realized as accomplished but the gates of hell shall not prevail against [her] (Mt. 16.18).  Martini’s and Reuter’s agenda is nothing but the acceptance among Catholics of that anti-Catholic propaganda behind the great red dragon’s diabolical craft not only of ape-ing God but also His Church by means of a counterfeit Catholic Church (cf., our post “The Year that was 1929”), resembling the Church by retaining some of its trappings and even using her institutions, to make mockery of her: “See, the Catholic Church is not divine. ‘Are [you] afraid?’ It’s now high time to ‘rouse [yourselves]’ and defy her ‘out of date’ mentality on gender and sexuality.”


Martini, a wolf in the trappings of a Catholic prince, with Pope Benedict XVI
Martini was an openly-avowed ‘Liberal’. The ‘Catholic Church’ he represented could only be a figment of the perverted mind of “the worst enemies of the Church… these liberal ‘Catholics’” (Blessed Pope Pius IX, in Fr. P. Kramer, ed., The Devil’s Final Battle). Let us not be deceived, for such false apostles are deceitful workmen, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ: and no wonder: for Satan himself transformeth himself into an angel of light (2 Cor. 11.13-14), but a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished up in the words of Faith, and of the good doctrine... (1 Tim. 4.6).

   

Salvation is in the "Blood of the Lamb"

Apocalypse XIV now unfolding (cf., our posts "The Wine of the Wrath of God" and "After Pope Benedict XVI, the 'Last' Roman Pontiff?"). The divine chastisement of world-wide conflagration (Lk. 17.29-30, cf., our post "Our Lady, Vatican II Disorientation, and the Annihilation of Many Nations") to annihilate the 'super-power' and cities and nations drunk with the wine of its immodesty, impurity, fornication, homosexuality, and blasphemies (Apoc. 14.8) is imminent - the close of our end-times period (distinct from the consummation of the world, Mt. 28.20).

They... have made them white in the Blood of the Lamb
(Apoc. 7.14) ... All things... are cleansed with Blood: and without shedding of Blood there is no remission (Heb. 9.22).

The Blood of the [Divine] Lamb can be availed of in the traditional Rite of the Sacrament of Penance (cf., our post "On Concealing Sins in Confession") and of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist (the Traditional Latin Mass). Go to our traditional Catholic Mass Centers (links on the left-side bar of this site). Flee to the mountains... (Mt. 24.16).

See also the Messages and Appeals (on the upper right-side bar) of the Apocalyptic Woman in her title of Our Lady of Fatima.