Hello there, faithful readers!
I realize posting has been scarce here lately. Summer is always busy, and this one has been especially so. Home improvement projects, a wedding, a first communion, a flooded basement, an anniversary, and life as usual have all been happening within the past 30 days. I also submitted a work of short fantasy fiction to this contest. (Professional fiction writing is one of my life goals. But I’m either working on that or writing here, usually not both.)
Also, much to do on the business front as we are working to update and revamp systems, marketing, website, logo, etc. (Know anyone in Virginia looking to buy or sell a house? Send them our way!)
There’s been a lot going on that I’ve wanted to comment on, but just haven’t found the time or focus to address. Partially, this is because I don’t know how to put my finger on what I want to say. If there are temporal nodes, as it were — points in history around which a number of divergent factors coalesce to create a change larger than the sum of its parts — I’d say we’re right smack in the middle of one.
Why?
In no particular order: The war for the soul of the Church; the coming battle (already started) over communion for the divorced and remarried; the massive and deeply troubling and brutally violent rise of a self-proclaimed Islamic caliph (with nothing standing in his way); the hugely disturbing situation happening on our southern border; the immunological consequences thereof (and the oppression being used to keep that story from getting out); the uncontrolled outbreak of Ebola spreading through Africa (for which there is no cure); the dirty, knock-down, drag-out battle for control of the only party that can bring conservatives to power in this country; the ongoing instability in Europe; the never-relenting threat of economic collapse; and the fact that we’re still killing about 50 million babies every year around the globe.
I’m scratching the surface here. There’s a lot going on, and it’s getting really hard to read all the signs. But they all point down a fairly dark road, and lots of people are asking themselves how long we have before we reach a tipping point.
Not long, I expect. Not long. Something has to give.
Yesterday, my wife, who has a sense for the shifting tides of the world, sat up at her desk and asked me, “Do you feel that?”
“What?” I asked.
“Change.” She said. “Change is coming.”
“Good change or bad change?” I asked.
“You always ask me that.” She said. “I don’t know.”
I don’t know either. It could be good, it could be bad, it could be both. I’m increasingly convinced that it’s going to have to be very difficult for a while in order for things to get better.
But like the song says, “Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on….
Things to do. Kids to raise. Stories to finish. Coffee to drink.
Hope to write more soon.
Always good to read your commentary, brother. Yes, if one has one’s eyes open, it is hard not to feel that something momentous is creeping up on us. The question is whether it will be good or bad. The history of faith in the true and living God shows us that many times, in the darkest moments of the people of God (congregation or Church, both OT and NT), God has moved in unexpected ways. As your wife said, will be be good (a great movement of the Holy Spirit with mass repentance and conversions) or the final shoe of judgment falling upon us for the massive acts of worldwide wickedness and tolerance of evil?
We know the Bible thumper Fundamentalists are standing around in their white robes, waiting for the “Rapture of the Church” to take place at any second and all hell break loose upon the wicked of the earth (including us wicked papists!). But maybe God will give us something different — a blessing beyond any expectation which will turn Catholics to new faith and repentance.
I hope it is the latter.
Brother Ed
PS Still want to meet you some time. I’m just around the corner from where you live!
I really think we should have a blognik in the N. Virginia area….seems like lots of the readers here are from the area 🙂
And yes….something big is indeed coming….it’s already started; and I don’t have a good feeling about it.
You’re in NoVa too? Chock full of Susan’s we are here, I guess.
And ‘yes, please’ to a blognic.
Yet another reader from Northern VA here and I’m thinking it could be because we have one of the most orthodox diocese in the country with a bishop who is not at all hostile to Catholic tradition. A good place to be Catholic these days.
For those still following this thread, in order to take the legwork from Steve, I’ll volunteer to put one together….how ’bout in the fall, after the heat and busyness of the summer? I was thinking Clyde’s in Broadlands…GREAT place for afternoon libations on the terrace, and for those interested perhaps extending into an early dinner. It’ll be short notice (kinda de rigueur for a blognic), and whoever can come comes. I think it’ll be great good fun with this bunch! 🙂
“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be”. CS Lewis.
Enjoy your holiday. Enjoy your family and the time God has given you.
So did she say it was good or bad change?
My Uncle, Jerry, said: It is always darkest before the storm
!962-65 BCE (Bestest Council Ever) was our opening to the world (our ancient and permanent enemy) and so the world rushed-in and the darnel of indifferent ecumenism has nearly supplanted the Traditional wheat and breathes there one Christian Catholic who truly thinks the Hierarchy is open to change (restoration)?
No. The Hierarchy is comprised of the faithful followers of the V2 path into a warm and fuzzy enervating future that they were learnt in seminary to lovingly follow with confident strides as a new Pentecost, new Springtime (fill in the blank with your own favorite absurdity).
ABS knows he was abandoned a LONG time ago. Men milk me are but irksome irritants and if you think Pope Benedict XVI was the Traditionlaist many thought him to be, forget it; don;t forget he issued S.P. as an act of tolerance.
If you are a traditional catholic you must man-up and admit that what you love is barely tolerable (if at all) to the Hierarchy.
V2 was a new beginning; a revolution within the form of Catholicism; and the proof that the Holy Ghost is always present at every ecumenical council (yes, even V2) is that it chose to conduct itself at a pastor level without definitions/canons/decrees and about which Catholics can not disagree without suffering an anathema.
Look around; other than the existence of a rare species like Bishop Athanasius Schneider, who can you identify amongst the Hierarchy whose personal possession of Traditionalism could act as a force against our Inertia Into Indifferentism?
They simply do not exist.
Find a Cave of Covadonga (FSSP, IVK, etc) and hide your own self in there but what is simply not acceptable is to succor the sspx schism for its clerics celebrate the Sacraments in an illegal and sacrilegious manner.
“Find a Cave of Covadonga (FSSP, IVK, etc) and hide your own self…”
I have no EF Mass near me let alone FSSP. The NO I attend is at a men’s religious shrine where on occasion we are subject to ad libs in the Agnus Dei by the new provincial and 8 mins of ad libbing in the prayers of the faithful (including “Pls pray for Fr. XXX brother who is having car trouble right now…”) by the shrines administrator. I often dread attending Sunday Mass and have essentially given up on the daily Mass where (almost) anything goes… Bishop mostly interested in Immigration and support of Catholic Charities.
I’ll keep looking for that Cave. But, the search gets tougher every day.
if there’s an SSPX chapel nearby, go there. They are Catholic.
Susan — I just wanted to say thank you for your response and subsequent kindly and thoughtful posts.
I have to say that I am just not wise enough to know if the SSPX can and should be accessed for the sacraments. Their irregular status prevents me from attending or participating. I am not in any way casting any aspersions or negative comments on those who do. I have for some time prayed (as many other have as well) for the relationship between Rome and the SSPX was fully healed. That would be a huge boon to the Church. And, there is an SSPX chapel within easy driving distance of my home.
pax-
Keith, my brother in Christ, you are in my prayers. I do understand your plight, and you must do what you feel necessary after taking it to much prayer. I think I made clear what I’d do and why…their irregular status would probably keep me away from their other Sacraments, but their Masses are indeed valid. God bless you good man. My Rosary tonight is for you.
Dear Keith. ABS has sympathy for your plight. Who could have imagined a time when our Holy Father is also Our Cross and when going to Mass is a mini way of the Cross?
ABS also assists daily at the new Mass because he can only rarely assist at Mass, however, he is a member of the FSSP Confraternity but assisting at the new mass is one way to Heaven owing to our reception of Holy Eucharist and it is through Holy Communion (The risen Christ has passed over into the Sacraments) that one is divinised and, thus, capable of attaining to salvation and of seeing God as He really is.
Soldier, on, Catholic militant.
Dear Susan. You do not seem to understand that Satan will use whatever he can to cleave a Catholic from union with his Bishop and Pope and he has cleaved many from the Catholic Church via the Mass but its offering by the clerics of the schism is both illegal and sacrilegious .
Satan is using Holy Mass to cleave souls from the church and to cleave souls to him; he is not an idiot and one must give him his due for using Holy Mass in this way.
Susan, you must cleave to the Catholic Church in union with your Bishop and Pope despite the decencies of either or both.
THAT is Catholic Tradition; the idea a schism preserves Catholic Tradition is an ideology formed in Hell.
ABS, Not Sparticus, Bornacathollic, whatever….
First of all, for the upteenth time, I will repeat some facts for someone who simply refuses to hear certain words because they go against a set-in-concrete mindset out of phase with reality. The SSPX are not in schism…unless you’d like to nullify the proclamation of BXVI, and make yourself pope. Also, they fully recognize Bishop of Rome Francis as the pope; by the same token they recognize that much of his teaching is dangerous to the soul who follows it…do we really have an issue with them on that? Their Masses are (gasp!) valid, and in every respect; every measurement; every objective scrutiny; Catholic. They are, to be sure, now in a limbo of status within the Church…not excommunicate; not in schism; but neither in a regular status, like say that of Fr. Unni at St. Cecilia’s in Boston (Google him!), or the good folks at St. Francis Xavier in New York. (yes, sarcasm is on)
We have a good and faithful brother, Keith P., who is being put thru the wringer by what he’s forced to suffer thru at various apostate parishes (in good standing!) within reasonable driving distance for his home. He is in obvious pain. And you have the temerity to wax on and bloviate with the whole ‘keep watching Christ mocked and defiled in his own house by the apostate priests, and suck up the marxist rantings of the leftist bishop for the good of your soul’ bollox, as a way of telling him to stay away from an SSPX Mass….a Mass btw offered in the exact same way that Mass was offered for 2000 years up until the 60’s.
I happen to live in one of the few really good diocese left in this country, and as such I have access to a respectful, reverent, beautifully offered NO daily Mass, and my choice of same or TLM on Sundays. It is my sanity. When I travel and have to occasionally put up with what Keith experiences on a regular basis, I find myself more-often-than-not weeping thru the shambles of a Mass…left in a state of spiritual turmoil and pain. I cannot imagine having to stop going to daily Mass because I ache at the mockery I see there.
With this being the case for him, I find the pedantry in your post galling in the extreme. ‘You tie up burdens on his shoulders hard to bear, and lift not a finger to move them’ other than to say, ‘buck up!’, when his soul is being twisted and damaged by the liturgical mockery. If he’s got access to an SSPX Mass, I again say, with clarity and ease of conscience, run to it Keith!
Have to jump in here and let the hornets loose. The Mass has experienced changes over the last 2,000 years. It is hardly the Mass that was celebrated in the Upper Room. It is not the Mass that was present in the first century or second century.
I would just admonish you to fact check such broad based statements before making them. That said, I am not a particular fan of the current form of the N.O. Mass. Put in altar rails, communion on the tongue only, take out the altar girls, and turn the priest from ad populum to ad orientum and it will be a pretty decent Mass. Ad some Latin and I would say that it would really be an improvement.
Oh, and I forgot. Drop the silly ditties being sung and put in some good old Gregorian chant!
Ed
“Essentially the Missal of Pius V is the Gregorian Sacramentary; that again is formed from the Gelasian book, which depends on the Leonine collection. We find the prayers of our Canon in the treatise de Sacramentis and allusions to it in the 4th century. So our Mass goes back, without essential change, to the age when it first developed out of the oldest liturgy of all. It is still redolent of that liturgy, of the days when Caesar ruled the world and thought he could stamp out the faith of Christ, when our fathers met together before dawn and sang a hymn to Christ as to a God. The final result of our inquiry is that, in spite of unsolved problems, in spite of later changes, there is not in Christendom another rite so venerable as ours.” In a footnote he added: “The prejudice that imagines that everything Eastern must be old is a mistake. Eastern rites have been modified later too; some of them quite late. No Eastern Rite now used is as archaic as the Roman Mass.”
– Adrian Fortescue, 1912, The Mass: A Study of the Roman Liturgy, s.l., 1912, p. 213
Not sure whether this will be on top of or beneath the other replies. But to Edward: I don’t think any intelligent and educated pro-Old Mass person is saying that the Old Mass is superior precisely because it is more like (in every way) the first Mass, or the early 1st or 2nd century Masses. Rather, the Old Mass was an organic development. Pro-New Mass people make claims in sort of a swirl. On the one hand, we must update things to conform with modern circumstances. On the other hand, certain things are justified on the basis that they are MORE in conformity with the practices of the early Church–such as Communion in the hand. But they are extremely selective with that. For example, at one point in the early Church, if you converted to Christianity but then were caught in adultery (or even just plain fornication), you were OUT, with no exception offered through confession or anything else. Now, I don’t like that. Nor, in my subjective opinion, would Jesus have liked that, but there it is. So on what criterion do we accept Communion in the hand but not the “one strike and you’re out” thing? No argument is ever given, which is why I don’t think that pro-New Mass, pro-Communion in the hand (and whatever else) people are particularly interested in logical argument or even historical precedent, once you get past the posturing.
I just “liked” my own comment by mistake. Ignore. I’m still only at +1.
I think I understand now why my posts on your threads are most generally ignored: you appear to have the Roman Rite’s Traditionalist’s disdain for anything which smacks of the Eastern Church. You probably feel that Eastern Catholics are some sort of bizarre anomaly to the true religion of Roman Catholicism.
Knowing that the prayers and some of the rubrics of the Eastern Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom go back to the the fourth century, and knowing that the Latin Mass has had it’s ups and downs through the century as well, I take your commentary with a grain of salt. Both of our traditions have developed from a seed, and to take Susan’s comment that the Roman Mass has been unchanged for 2,000 years without correcting her shows your bias.
I wish you well in your efforts to clean up the liturgical mess you Romans have on your hands, yet I do so with some reservation, for if you yourself were to be in charge, I have the distinct feeling that it would be a resurrection of Bishop John Ireland, which we in the Catholic East simply do not need.
Edward, Susan is correct. I have no problem with the Eastern rites. I’m quite fond of them, and have taken refuge there quite often over the years when trying to avoid bad Roman liturgies.
And the Eastern rites do much to shore up the argument that it is the Novus Ordo which is the outlier. There is much more in common between the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and the Traditional Latin Mass than either has in common with the Novus Ordo.
The argument for the antiquity of the Roman Rite was relevant to your comment about its historicity. Adrian Fortescue was, if I am not mistaken, considered one of the great historians of liturgical development. What I quoted was from something he wrote in 1912, long before the Roman Rite became schizophrenic.
Just, wow Edward.
First of all, Steve’s comment was a quote from a historian, and quite a good one at that. There was no Eastern bashing, simply a statement of historical fact to emphasize how very far back the essentials of the the Roman Liturgy reach. You display an overreaction that is baffling and unbecoming a Christian brother (that is if you actually consider us Western mongrels as brothers).
Second of all, I should have been clearer in my statement and said that the Mass as offered for 2000 years was of the same cloth. Someone attending Mass in 1950 would have been VERY at home at the Mass of Gregory the Great….it was all quite recognizable and universal; I daresay, the average Roman of the 50’s could have been transported back to a catacombs Mass and been able to follow the Liturgy with barely a sidewards glance. With Trent, the cloth was set in stone (kind of like officially proclaiming the Dogma of the Assumption later, even though the Church believed it from the beginning). That Mass, that ancient Golden Thread, was broken and remade into polyester tenpenny with VII. That was my point, and I shorthanded it for brevity. Thanks for your pedantry.
And you might really wanna brush the huge chip off your shoulder….it’s very heavy.
Thank you, Susan. I have nothing to add here.
I have seen Presbyterians who swear that Jesus was a Calvinist and that Presbyterianism goes all the way back to His time. KJV Only people who say that Jesus preached from the “God-breathed and God-inspired” KJV.
No, I am not kidding! Lunacy comes in many forms and flavors, and I just got finished fielding a comment from a Roman Rite person who swore that it goes all the way back……all the way back!
I thank you for your clarification, both you and Steve. Nonetheless, not everyone in the Traditionalist movement of the Roman Rite is irenic towards the East. And perhaps if you had suffered as much meddling from the East as we have from the West, you might be more sympathetic.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm……in thinking about that last statement, I would say that you SHOULD be more sympathetic because you have had men like Anabale Bugnini meddle with that which was not broken in order to make it “more palatable to the Protestants.” He had no business changing that which was good and holy (the fruits of his labors are wretchedly evident today) and neither did the West have any business meddling with our Eastern Liturgy or ways. Perhaps that might explain the “large chip on my shoulder” — which is quite similar to the “large chip on your shoulder” that N.O. lovers claim that Traditionalists have.
I don’t find the Early Fathers katowing to the heretics of that day. What I do find is St. Nicholas slapping heretic Arias silly and throwing him out of the council as a heretic.
I think also (I haven’t done my homework yet but have been informed by people much smarter than I) that a look at the history of the development of the Western Liturgy does not support the idea of a Liturgy that is unchanged from the time of Christ. My red flags go up any time I see that statement because it is usually put out by someone who wishes the whole world to be Roman Catholic instead of just Catholic (I want the whole world to be Catholic – in whatever local and ethnic flavors it comes in).
Does that help explain my feelings a little bit?
BTW — Adrian Fortescue is indeed a great historian, but like all human beings, his writings are colored by the times in which he lived. In other words, writing as a Roman Catholic, he was not completely 100% bias free.
jeeeeeze, again, just, wow.
You just keep insulting and sniping away at the West, when no-one has said anything negative about the East. Seriously, it is hugely unbecoming. That chip is a spiritual poison…let it go.
The Eastern Liturgy is indeed beautiful, and the funny thing is, that I only truly began to understand and see the depth of its beauty after I attended a few TLMs. I felt the connection and similarities…I began feeling at home at the Melkite Divine Liturgies I sometimes attend (!), but I’m willing to bet (just on a hunch, sorry if I’m wrong), that you can’t say the opposite because you steer clear of Western TLMs as though the plague….perhaps a sense of superiority coupled with victim mentality?…simply my amateur psychologist observations.
No one wants you to change your Liturgy; that’s kinda the point….the beauty of the two lungs; both ancient. And, well why not go for broke with this statement and have a few blood vessels really pop, it can be rightly said that you are a Roman Catholic practicing in an Eastern Rite, while I am a Roman Catholic practicing the Western or Latin Rite. Oh yeah, that’s a fact. One of the non-negotiables for all Catholics is to recognize the Church of Rome as the Primacy and Peter as the Pope…the one (and only one) with the keys.
“The Eastern Rite Catholics are part of the Roman Catholic Church, not the Orthodox Church. While the majority of Roman Catholics belong to the Latin Rite, the Eastern Rites provide a special dimension to our Catholic heritage and spirituality.”
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0246.html
And, oh yeah, one more thing Edward, the Eastern sources you’ll research and those “people much smarter than (you)” that you go to for a look at the history of the development of the Western Liturgy will be completely “bias free” (as you say)…unlike, say, Fortescue?
Again Edward, please read my 2nd post on this thread again….I said that the Mass developed organically, but that the essentials were certainly there from the beginning, and the the Mass of Gregory the Great in the late 6th Century would have indeed been very close to the Mass of 1950. Indeed, the Tridentine Mass is very close to the Chrysostom Divine Liturgy in essentials; both expressed uniquely; both expressed with extreme and ancient beauty.
Then for the umpteenth time + 1, you are wrong
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=20046
Sorry, Susan. The SSPX are protestants in Fiddlebacks and the recognize the Pope to the same extent as do the Presbyterians; that is, both know who he is, both acknowledge he is Pope yet neither obeys him if he takes decisions contrary to their wills; that is, both exercise the protestant praxis of private judgement.
You seem not to have the first inkling that all sacraments celebrated by the clerics of the sspx schism are illegal, criminal, and sacrilegious (even the Mass) and so, yes, it is better for one’s soul to remain united with his Bishop and Pope and to suffer a new mass if one cannot get to assist at Mass approved by a Bishop in union with the Pope.
Yours in an indefensible position completely at odds with the entirety of Catholic Tradition and that is owing to limited success of the pernicious propaganda spread by the SSPX.
You can not find one example – ONE – within Catholic Tradition of a Saint approving of any Schism. EVER.
But you, and many sadly deluded others, think this schism is just peachy; well, that is an evil mephitic novelty infinitely worse than anything any crazy Cleric has claimed since 1962.
Lay off the histrionics, ABS. There’s certainly reasonable doubt about the schismatic nature of those priests and lay people who receive sacraments within the SSPX.
Masses at SSPX are most certainly not sacrilegious by any definition of the term. The masses are valid, and the PCED has, over the years, told the faithful that they may assist at these masses and legitimately fulfill their Sunday obligation.
Cardinal Muller (whom, I note, has no problem trying to un-do the condemnations of liberation theology from a previous CDF) is making a statement that stands fairly well alone in a complex situation.
The catechism defines schism as follows: “schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.” [Code of Canon Law c.751]”
So while one could say that Archbishop Lefebvre and the four bishops he consecrated refused this submission, the rest of the priests of the order did not. Neither did the laity involved. Pope Benedict raised the penalty of excommunication on the bishops, and nothing has really changed since.
I don’t like the SSPX as a group. I think they have a bad attitude and tread in dangerous waters. But they are most certainly Catholic. Where their sacraments lack jurisdiction, beware. But their masses are legitimate, and more reverent and less sacrilegious than most.
This Change? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-jCOw21XMs&feature=player_detailpage (Nature groaning as the DAY OF THE LORD nears…)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RNokFM5R90&feature=player_detailpage (More signs of..CHANGE)
I would like to hear your thoughts on the coming changes and current concerns when you have time. I am not a traditionalist catholic, but I seem to find myself in agreement with some of your posts.
I am in San Francisco. They first time I felt the darkness coming on in a powerful and decisive way was the first election night win of President Obama. There was a feeling but also an actual darkness and oppressive element in the atmosphere. I am in a place where the election and its import were resoundingly celebrated. I would have to say the demons were celebrating, as it was palpably felt.
Will there be grand chastisements? Will grand chastisements cause self-examination societally for a nation that doesn’t recognize the humanity of the unborn nor the offense to God in same-sex relations? I honestly don’t think this nation will recognize and change course even if ten Hurricane Sandy’s came to us.
It is good at this time to steel oneself to speak the truth about the Gospel and God’s laws despite the suffering that comes, keeping Heaven in mind while the persecution envelops us. I speak as one living in a center of hatred for the truth. How long will God allow men fondling men in public and babies crushed in the womb-and these things forcefully exported to other nations? We shall see.
I see no argument for why SSPX masses are “sacrilegious”.
But thinking of attending mass as potentially a “mini-cross we have to bear” or whatever, certainly is so. If the mass one is attending is not “the most beautiful thing this side of heaven” at least in its essence, then it is not a mass, nor is it worth attending.
AD APOSTOLORUM PRINCIPIS
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XII ON COMMUNISM AND THE CHURCH IN CHINA JUNE 29, 1958
38. For it has been clearly and expressly laid down in the canons that it pertains to the one Apostolic See to judge whether a person is fit for the dignity and burden of the episcopacy,[11] and that complete freedom in the nomination of bishops is the right of the Roman Pontiff.[12] But if, as happens at times, some persons or groups are permitted to participate in the selection of an episcopal candidate, this is lawful only if the Apostolic See has allowed it in express terms and in each particular case for clearly defined persons or groups, the conditions and circumstances being very plainly determined.
39. Granted this exception, it follows that bishops who have been neither named nor confirmed by the Apostolic See, but who, on the contrary, have been elected and consecrated in defiance of its express orders, enjoy no powers of teaching or of jurisdiction since jurisdiction passes to bishops only through the Roman Pontiff as We admonished in the Encyclical Letter Mystici Corporis in the following words: “. . . As far as his own diocese is concerned each (bishop) feeds the flock entrusted to him as a true shepherd and rules it in the name of Christ. Yet in exercising this office they are not altogether independent but are subordinate to the lawful authority of the Roman Pontiff, although enjoying ordinary power of jurisdiction which they receive directly from the same Supreme Pontiff.”[13]
40. And when We later addressed to you the letter Ad Sinarum gentem, We again referred to this teaching in these words: “The power of jurisdiction which is conferred directly by divine right on the Supreme Pontiff comes to bishops by that same right, but only through the successor of Peter, to whom not only the faithful but also all bishops are bound to be constantly subject and to adhere both by the reverence of obedience and by the bond of unity.”[14]
41. Acts requiring the power of Holy Orders which are performed by ecclesiastics of this kind, though they are valid as long as the consecration conferred on them was valid, are yet gravely illicit, that is, criminal and sacrilegious.
42. To such conduct the warning words of the Divine Teacher fittingly apply: “He who enters not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up another way, is a thief and a robber.”[15] The sheep indeed know the true shepherd’s voice. “But a stranger they will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.”[16]
The clerics of the SSPX Schism are criminals and robbers whose sacraments are gravely illicit and sacrilegious but not one of the suckers who succor the schism are aware of that truth because the SSPCX Schism hides Catholic Tradition from them while they just make-up novel explanations so as to actualise the personal preferences of Mons Lefebvre.
What would happen if the schism told the truth abut their vagus Bishop and Priests?
They’d lose 75 % of their backers in a heartbeat and their coffers would shrink significantly.
The other 25% have been so poisoned against the Catholic Church and The Popes that they are NEVERR coming home. How many stop to think that three generations of SSPX children have been taught to distrust the Catholic Church and the Popes and have been taught that tHe Catholic Church teaches error?
How few stop to consider that not one- not ONE – cleric of the SSPX Schism could take the Oath against Modernism for not one of them – NOT ONE– thinks the Catholic Church does not teach error.
The SSPX is not engaged in sacrilege. You’re using the term incorrectly.
Sacrilege is the desecration of something sacred. The whole reason why the SSPX is in the situation it is in is because the institutional Church decided to create a liturgy which, by design, makes sacrilege intensely more likely than ever before.
As for children being taught to distrust the Church and the popes? I’ve never so much as set foot inside an SSPX chapel and I teach my children that. They have earned distrust and resistance through their abdication of duty to tradition, catechesis, and reverential treatment of the sacraments. I long for the day when we can trust the Magisterium implicitly. For now, though, they are the proverbial father who gives stones to the son asking for bread.
The Church is implicitly teaching error, even though she cannot explicitly do so. I’ve made this clear in my critiques of Pope Francis, Cardinal Kasper, et. al. There are theologians and priests far more competent than I (and not on the fringes) who have told me of their grave concerns about the errors being propagated by Church prelates, even if those errors could never be boiled down to “official Church teaching.”
Like I always say: as long as you give the impression that you’ve changed everything, who cares what you’ve actually done? The result is the same.
ABS, your unhinged rage says everything. Like I said before, no amount of fact can open the eyes and heart of someone intransigent to reality. BXVI said they are not excommunicate; he proclaimed them not in schism; their Masses are legitimate. Period. It would seem however, that you are now the pope.
Don’t go to their other Sacraments, I get that; their status is officially “irregular”, but in Keith’s, case where a marxist bishop offers his flock nothing but soul-sucking, Christ-mocking abuse, I again say with no qualm, run to the SSPX Mass. The marxist bishop will be culpable.
Now, you can keep spittle-fleck nutty-ing yourself, and raging with your bone, but I’ll keep responding calmly with the same facts.
Your false imputation of rage, while it may be self-satisying, is completely off the mark and your ignoring of the words of the Prefect of the CDF was entirely expected.
You are an ideologue not a Traditionalist for no traditionalist worthy of the name advises others to succor a schism but such is the diabolical disorientation of the times that not a few think a schism is good.
As to the proscription of calling evil good, well, that is so yesterday, isn;t it?
Pope Sturgeon, you’re saying BXVI was (is) full of beans.
They are not excommunicate; they are not in schism; their Masses are legitimate. Period.
Sorry, Sister. I’ll stick with the judgement of the Prefect of the CDF and as to the criminal and sacrilegious nature of the sacraments celebrated by the clerks of the sspx schism, I’l stick with the teaching of a Pope and which teaching is Catholic Tradition.
and, oh yeah, just had to say that your assertion of *this* is really laughably (though thoroughly unintendedly) ironic….”As to the proscription of calling evil good, well, that is so yesterday, isn;t it?”,
in light of this astute and inarguable Robert DePiante quote: “What Catholics once were, we are. If we are wrong, then Catholics through the ages have been wrong. We are what you once were. We believe what you once believed. We worship as you once worshipped. If we are wrong now, you were wrong then. If you were right then, we are right now.”
Sat up late and reread Mortalium Animos again. My friend, there is no bloody way to square that beautiful, Catholic, infallible teaching with the rewrite of ecumenism that came out of VII and has grown into the nonsensus Catholicus chimera assaulting us today, championed at the highest levels (“hold fast to you korans!”); there is no way to read the equally beautiful, clear, infallible prophecy of Pascendi, and not see the current pontificate and those he surrounds himself with writ large; there is no way to not anticipate the actual selling-out of Christ for much less than Wales by the bishops this fall, when looking at this quote (inter alia) from Instrumentum Laboris, “In this regard, respondents propose bringing the issue to public discussion and developing the idea of biblical inspiration and the ‘order in creation’, which could permit a re-reading of the concept of the natural law in a more meaningful manner in today’s world”, putting the very Truth of Natural Law up for grabs and redefinition. All the while, the German bishops conference, the most apostate and deviant of all, is being given more and more power, and more and more of a voice before an eager, approving ear on the papal throne.
…something is very, VERY wrong. And you can keep up your unhinged cap-riddled rants pitting your interpretation of a CDF prefect up against the very words and declarations of a good pope in an obsessive effort to win the argument at all costs, while you lose the brother (or sister). In so doing, you ignore the fire all around you. Something is very, VERY wrong.
Has God allowed a Pella to exist and flourish for the remnant in this time of the crumbling of Jerusalem? I don’t know…I can’t answer it, which means I can’t say ‘no’. I’ve been pondering Romans 8:28 a lot of late, along with the Prophets, and quite frankly, I don’t know. I think this fall will make things much clearer, one way or another. God is angry; and He is right in being so. We are being punished mightily in the majority prelate clergy we have been given (the clergy we deserve). And what I’ve been saying, in the case of our suffering brother Keith, which if you’re able to remember is what this whole thread has been about (at least on my end), is that when all he is given is variations on this….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67Lom28KSlg
and this… http://www.patheos.com/blogs/kathyschiffer/2013/10/german-circus-mass-transforms-liturgy-into-sideshow/
and this… http://the-american-catholic.com/2010/07/05/unholy-mass-in-austria-with-explicit-approval-of-cardinal-schonborn/
….it is no sin to tell him to go to this… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDR2k3H-Ruc
Susan. You are an ideologue whose succoring of the cult of lefebvre has rendered you deaf to the teaching of Catholic Tradition.
O, and it has also made you blind to such an extent that can not distinguish twixt the Cave of Covadonga and the Casillero del Diablo which is filed with dead souls for they have separated themselves from union with their Bishop and Pope whereas those in the Cave of Covadonga maintain the Bonds of Unity with their local Bishop and Pope and they are living souls.
ABS is responding to the lurkers via your name for it is ineluctable that you will also gainsay this teaching from Tradition
SATIS COGNITUM ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH
Christ the Head of the Church
5. Furthermore, the Son of God decreed that the Church should be His mystical body, with which He should be united as the Head, after the manner of the human body which He assumed, to which the natural head is physiologically united. As He took to Himself a mortal body, which He gave to suffering and death in order to pay the price of man’s redemption, so also He has one mystical body in which and through which He renders men partakers of holiness and of eternal salvation. God “hath made Him (Christ) head over all the Church, which is His body” (Eph. i., 22-23). Scattered and separated members cannot possibly cohere with the head so as to make one body. But St. Paul says: “All members of the body, whereas they are many, yet are one body, so also is Christ” (I Cor. xii., 12). Wherefore this mystical body, he declares, is “compacted and fitly jointed together. The head, Christ: from whom the whole body, being compacted and fitly jointed together, by what every joint supplieth according to the operation in the measure of every part” (Eph. iv., 15-16). And so dispersed members, separated one from the other, cannot be united with one and the same head. “There is one God, and one Christ; and His Church is one and the faith is one; and one the people, joined together in the solid unity of the body in the bond of concord. This unity cannot be broken, nor the one body divided by the separation of its constituent parts” (S. Cyprianus, De Cath. Eccl. Unitate, n. 23). And to set forth more clearly the unity of the Church, he makes use of the illustration of a living body, the members of which cannot possibly live unless united to the head and drawing from it their vital force. Separated from the head they must of necessity die. “The Church,” he says, “cannot be divided into parts by the separation and cutting asunder of its members. What is cut away from the mother cannot live or breathe apart” (Ibid.). What similarity is there between a dead and a living body? “For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ doth the Church: because we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones” (Eph. v., 29-30).
Another head like to Christ must be invented – that is, another Christ – if besides the one Church, which is His body, men wish to set up another. “See what you must beware of – see what you must avoid – see what you must dread. It happens that, as in the human body, some member may be cut off – a hand, a finger, a foot. Does the soul follow the amputated member? As long as it was in the body, it lived; separated, it forfeits its life. So the Christian is a Catholic as long as he lives in the body: cut off from it he becomes a heretic – the life of the spirit follows not the amputated member” (S. Augustinus, Sermo cclxvii., n. 4).
The Church of Christ, therefore, is one and the same for ever; those who leave it depart from the will and command of Christ, the Lord – leaving the path of salvation they enter on that of perdition. “Whosoever is separated from the Church is united to an adulteress. He has cut himself off from the promises of the Church, and he who leaves the Church of Christ cannot arrive at the rewards of Christ….He who observes not this unity observes not the law of God, holds not the faith of the Father and the Son, clings not to life and salvation” (S. Cyprianus, De Cath. Eccl. Unitate, n. 6).
Christ therefore must have given to His Church a supreme authority to which all Christians must render obedience. For this reason, as the unity of the faith is of necessity required for the unity of the church, inasmuch as it is the body of the faithful, so also for this same unity, inasmuch as the Church is a divinely constituted society, unity of government, which effects and involves unity of communion, is necessary jure divino. “The unity of the Church is manifested in the mutual connection or communication of its members, and likewise in the relation of all the members of the Church to one head” (St. Thomas, 2a 2ae, 9, xxxix., a. I).
From this it is easy to see that men can fall away from the unity of the Church by schism, as well as by heresy. “We think that this difference exists between heresy and schism” (writes St. Jerome): “heresy has no perfect dogmatic teaching, whereas schism, through some Episcopal dissent, also separates from the Church” (S. Hieronymus, Comment. in Epist. ad Titum, cap. iii., v. 10-11). In which judgment St. John Chrysostom concurs: “I say and protest (he writes) that it is as wrong to divide the Church as to fall into heresy” (Hom. xi., in Epist. ad Ephes., n. 5). Wherefore as no heresy can ever be justifiable, so in like manner there can be no justification for schism. “There is nothing more grievous than the sacrilege of schism….there can be no just necessity for destroying the unity of the Church” (S. Augustinus, Contra Epistolam Parmeniani, lib. ii., cap. ii., n. 25).
In the same way Maximus the Abbot teaches that obedience to the Roman Pontiff is the proof of the true faith and of legitimate communion. Therefore if a man does not want to be, or to be called, a heretic, let him not strive to please this or that man…but let him hasten before all things to be in communion with the Roman See. If he be in communion with it, he should be acknowledged by all and everywhere as faithful and orthodox. He speaks in vain who tries to persuade me of the orthodoxy of those who, like himself, refuse obedience to his Holiness the Pope of the most holy Church of Rome: that is to the Apostolic See.” The reason and motive of this he explains to be that “the Apostolic See has received and hath government, authority, and power of binding and loosing from the Incarnate Word Himself; and, according to all holy synods, sacred canons and decrees, in all things and through all things, in respect of all the holy churches of God throughout the whole world, since the Word in Heaven who rules the Heavenly powers binds and loosens there” (Defloratio ex Epistola ad Petrum illustrem).
Bishops Separated from Peter and His Successors, Lose All Jurisdiction
15. From this it must be clearly understood that Bishops are deprived of the right and power of ruling, if they deliberately secede from Peter and his successors; because, by this secession, they are separated from the foundation on which the whole edifice must rest. They are therefore outside the edifice itself; and for this very reason they are separated from the fold, whose leader is the Chief Pastor; they are exiled from the Kingdom, the keys of which were given by Christ to Peter alone.
Hence the teaching of Cyprian, that heresy and schism arise and are begotten from the fact that due obedience is refused to the supreme authority. “Heresies and schisms have no other origin than that obedience is refused to the priest of God, and that men lose sight of the fact that there is one judge in the place of Christ in this world” (Epist. xii. ad Cornelium, n.
But the Epsicopal order is rightly judged to be in communion with Peter, as Christ commanded, if it be subject to and obeys Peter; otherwise it necessarily becomes a lawless and disorderly crowd.
Such is the sine qua non of Catholic Tradition which has been slated by the sspx schism whose pernicious propaganda has poisoned and destroyed the intellects of its acolytes.
C’et la vie..
O, and I could cite Catholic Tradition like this all day long while all the time realising that it will do no good because those who succor the schism are lost souls.
Good and evil was placed before them and they chose evil and they now call that evil, good.
you know, I couldn’t even read the totality of your screed, and quite frankly ABS, I have no desire to. You are someone who like, actually enjoys to fight…that’s a bad trait. I’ve said what I intended, and I think said it rather clearly. We disagree. With that said, I’m ending my part in this opus. God bless.
Entirely predictable. You call infallible teaching from a great Pope “my screed” owing to the fact that infallible teaching entirely eviscerates the web of the sspx lies that has ensnared you and others.
ABS does take the time to thank Mr Skojec for his patience. While we certainly disagree about whether or not the Pope was right in his use of the word sacrilegious to describe what is done by the sspx clerics, ABS recognizes the otherwise solid grasp of Tradition that Mr Skojec evinces.
For those interested, ABS will shortly begin a series of posts on his crummy blog that will completely unmask the evil that is the SSPX schism and the vast preponderance of evidence presented there will be directly from Catholic Tradition – Papal Encyclicals and Ecumenical Councils and the teachings of the Doctors of the Church.
O, and one last aside; those who succor the sspx schism and its haughty hierarchy talk more about Tradition than almost anyone else but they know less about Tradition than any regular member of the FSSP Fraternity.
I wouldn’t be that anxious about Ebola outbreaks just yet. Dreadful for the people directly affected, but modes of transmission pretty much require contact sufficiently intimate that it’s not going to spread like an airborne or waterborne infection, but rather to household members and health-care workers. There have been not quite 800 cases in the last six months, found thus far in a set of provinces with a total population of about 2 million.
This was the statement that caught my eye:
“One case can restart an entire epidemic,” he warned, justifying the dramatic measures taken to contain Ebola, which is spread via bodily fluids including sweat, meaning just touching an infected person is enough to spread the virus.
If I understand correctly, it has to pass through a cut or a mucous membrane. It differs from AIDS in that it can be transmitted by sweat or saliva.
“Good change or bad change?”
Good and bad, for those who love God always works for the good.
E.g. the current crisis is leading some to discover or rediscover the Catholic Faith: TLM, Rosary, The Brown scapular of Our lady of Mount Carmel, EF of Mass/TLM, etc.
Quite an excellent point. It’s easy to loose the message of Romans 8:28 in the midst of the deepening miasma.
Thanks @Susan. Keep up the good fight and let’s pray for each other.
you got it my friend! 🙂
PS ‘You don’t realize the good thing you had until you lost it’. The crisis has also led some to discover the importance of the papacy, appreciation and thanksgiving for the good popes we have had, regret for having taken some of them (e.g. B16) for granted, and renewed prayers for the Church, the Pope, the Bishops, and priests.
Billy Graham’s daughter, Anne Graham Lotz’s message is that something is coming: [Anne Graham Lotz’s Urgent Call to Prayer | CBN.com | One of the things He has impressed on me is that we are living at the end of human history as we know it. […]. He gave me the message I was to deliver, which was from Joel 1…the Day of the Lord is at hand. It was a message warning that judgment is coming.]( http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/churchandministry/anne-graham-lotz-urgent.aspx).
According to Desmond A. Birch (cf. Trial, Tribulation and Triumph: Before, During and After Antichrist, by Desmond A. Birch). because Our Lady’s warnings [cf. approved apparitions] have not been [fully] heeded, there will be a chastisement, 3-day darkness at the end of it, world wide conversion and a period of peace (triumph of Mary’s Immaculate Heart), coming of the Antichrist (perhaps born during the chastisement), the final battle (Antichrist and Nations gathered against Israel), coming of Christ and Judgement (of the Nations), new heavens and a new earth.
What is coming is no joke. Cf. The Sermon on the End Mt. Ch 24, Books of Maccabees, and Books of Revelation: the plagues on Egypt return …
The signs are evident cf. Mt. 24: 26-28.
I am looking at Russia, Rome, the Popes [e.g. Last secret of Fatima], wars and natural disasters, etc.
It will get a lot worse before it becomes a lot better …
PS The chastisements prune/purify the saints and the Church.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_usATdU5JJQ&feature=player_detailpage (Our Lady of Lasallette prophecy from the mid 19th century till the end of time.) This is really the Gem of all Marian Prophecy from The Queen Of All Prophets. It is, though, like the prophecy given to St. John in REVELATION, sweet in your mouth (exciting to know what is to happen), but bitter in your stomach (the realization of what these events mean and the many horrors so many will suffer temporally and eternally). The greatest MARIAN PROPHECIES are given to us in Ecuador (Our Lady of Good Counsel), here, Fatima, and Akita. There are many APPROVED prophets (Venerables, Blesseds, and Saints) that highlight many of the aspects of Her words. THE DAY OF THE LORD is much greater in significance than the defeat of antichrist. It also should be seen apart from THE PAROUSIA. Timeline seems to be this: THE DAY OF THE LORD (immense horror, in ways unimaginable, using earth, sky, creatures, known and unknown, and hell itself culminating in THREE DAYS OF DARNESS that really makes THE FLOOD look like a day at the beach; THE REIGN OF THE IMMACULATE HEART (about 40 years and the best time EVER to be practicing THE FAITH!); birth of antichrist (society gradually devolves again) and reign of antichrist (33 years in total); DEFEAT of antichrist and his adherents; THE THOUSAND YEAR REIGN (CHRIST) (could be literal or figurative); satan released, Gog and Magog attack and are easily destroyed (Revelation gives period just one paragraph), and satan is locked up once and for all to be tormented forever (YEAH!); JUDGMENT of The Living and The Dead (but there could be a great pause until then, so much so, OUR LORD wonders if HE will find Faith when HE comes.) So no more satan, but perhaps an indifference/ingratitude sets in with the not-so-Faithful. Our nature is still fallen, remember. I also think, if there’s not a huge generational lag between events, we could have a lot of peripatetic, quasi-catatonic, PTSD nominees trying to make due. Keep in mind, mortal man doesn’t do real well with the supernatural, reference Peter during The Tansfiguration. Imagine seeing Heaven, hell, and their supernatural tug-o-war, in full view, as common as the trees on your street? So, brother, let’s not be referencing television (St Elizabeth Anne Seton prophesying in 1800: “Every American would have a black box in their home through which the devil would enter.”) in the precious few days before trumpets begin to blow, but let us go to OUR HOLY QUEEN and The Prophets that loved and served her best before us! SALVE REGINA MATER MISERICORDIA, ORA PRO NOBIS! VIVO CHRISTO REY!!!