Confirmed- Bishop Williamson Is Out

Rorate has the story.

Sad. I don't think anyone would be surprised if he went full-bore sede at this point. If you're at all familiar with his comments the last couple of years, he sounds like he's been there for a while without having made a formal declaration. Of course, he'll take many souls down this path with him. Read the Rorate comments. That so many Catholics would take pleasure in a bishop flaunting the virtue of obedience is repulsive.

All the more reason to pray.

SSPX News- +Williamson out?

If you want to know where the talks are, you can check out Rorate and the interview with Fr. Pfluger. In a nutshell, things are back to "square one." Damn shame.

All of that pales in comparison to this report I saw from Tancred wherein it appears that Bishop Williamson and the SSPX are about to split.

The break, indicated since October 2011 between Bishop Richard Williamson and the Society of St. Pius X has come to an end phase. The General Superior of the Society of St. Pius X, Bernard Fellay, should have issued an ultimatum to his English colleague in the office of Bishop. With the document he demanded that Msgr. Williason, within ten days, accept the legitimate authority of the General Superior. This was reported by Andrea Tornielli. Should Bishop Williamson continue to maintain his disobedience,separation would be the logical consequence.

Less trustworthy sources are indicating that Bishop Williamson is already gone. This is all very weird. I remember all the wailing and gnashing of teeth during the talks about Bishop Fellay opting for reconciliation and how it would fracture the SSPX, with +Williamson leading the exodus. Since then, we are back to the aforementioned square one, and the latter is still failing to acknowledge the fact that the former is his Superior.

How many saints have praised the virtue of humility as the bulwark of all the other virtues? When was the last time we saw +Williamson exhibit this virtue?

The Church In Italy Is To Be Taxed

The Telegraph has the latest story, which we had initially discussed here back in February. Nothing too surprising. Just another element of the Church vs. the World.

The Church currently pays tax on several properties it owns that are commercial enterprises but is exempt if at least some of the activities on the property are "non-commercial" - for example a chapel in a hotel.

"The regulatory framework will be definite by January 1, 2013 - the start of the fiscal year - and will fully respect the (European) Community law," Prime Minister Mario Monti's government said in a statement late Tuesday.

In February, the government had amended Italy's property tax law to end the Church's privileges amid rising calls for the Vatican to share in debt crisis sacrifices and in the face of intense scrutiny from the European Commission.

On Monday the Council of State, Italy's highest ranking court for administrative litigation, rejected the decree. But the government insisted everyone would pay property tax, Church included.

I'm sure President Obama, et al are taking notes. What will happen if the Church can't maintain all its charitable enterprises as a result of this new financial burden? Do you think that the EU cares?

Vatican II's Real Birthday

What most folks don't realize is that, while Blessed John XXIII did formally open the Council on October 11, 1962, the initial working session was October 13. On that day, the whole thing came unraveled. You can read the full account of what happened at our prior posts here and here.

The gentleman in the picture above could probably be regarded as the Godfather of the Spirit of Vatican II. He's Cardinal Achille Lienart of France. Most folks don't understand how Blessed John's original vision of the Council was shattered, largely thanks to this guy and his allies. As mentioned previously, the whole story is above, but for those looking for the nutshell version, a group of prelates, mostly from the Rhine area of Europe, essentially desired to change the Church's teachings on a plethora or issues. They knew that they would be unable to do so. With that in mind, they met in advance of the Council and formed a plan to overthrow all of the initial preparatory work initiated by Pope John.

In a blatant violation of the Council's rules of order, Cardinal Lienart took the microphone and demanded that all of the individual schema commissions be revisited and that new members of each commission be appointed. This was quickly seconded by Cardinal Frings and enough bishops followed along to pass the motion. The Rhine group block voted their way to power on the commissions, meaning they controlled the draft language to be submitted to the approving votes by the bishops as a whole. The plan at this point called for obfuscation and ambiguity so that, in the words of Dutch theologian Ed Schillebeecx:

We have used ambiguous phrases during the Council and we know how we will interpret them afterwards.

Hence the Spirit of Vatican II was born.

This is all very important, though. There is a tendency to claim that the documents of Vatican II have nothing to do with the current crisis and that the "Spirit" promoted by the current crop of modernists is somehow a total fabrication. What we know from the actual conciliar events is that the documents are indeed part of the problem because they were drafted with the purpose of muddying the waters and making the "Spirit" defensible to the masses. Does this mean that the entirety of Vatican II is somehow bad or that there is no orthodox reading thereof? No. It means that the difficulties we've had with the interpretation of the Council was intentional and, as a result, we should be cautious in reading it.

Moreover, it calls us to focus on the fact that Vatican II lacks dogmatic character and infallible content except in the cases when it repeats content previously identified as infallible. If we were being objective, we'd have to acknowledge that VII is on the bottom rung for ecumenical council importance.  Yet somehow it is heralded by some as a "New Pentecost" and other such superlative titles. This is the perception fostered by the re-interpreters who must de-emphasize what came before and exalt what they are using as the foundation of their novelties.

There's been a lot of work done to fix all this, but the genie doesn't go back in the bottle so easily. For anyone reading the documents on their own, we can only recommend sticking to the text and considering the footnotes. If you think something sounds hope-and-changeish, consider why you think that and what other interpretation might be possible.

What are we left with at the moment? We are left with the inescapable conclusion that the Council is a failure. Sure, you can always point to some undefined period in the future when we'll all look back at the now and laugh because the conciliar fruit is so awesome. Until then, all we have seen is an enormous loss of faith, withering vocations, disco liturgy, etc. A good synopsis was furnished by Kenneth Jones back in 2003. And he's an ND grad.

Anyways, what makes the Vatican II situation so unique is that the content of the Faith and its attending disciplines are painted as their opposites. Nobody has ever said that Nicea said that Jesus wasn't of the same substance as the Father. Or that Chalcedon said Christ wasn't Divine. With Vatican II, you have folks saying the Council said things like:

1. Any religion can save you.
2. Latin should not be the language of the liturgy.
3. The Mass is just a communal meal.
4. Lay folk are the same as priests.
5. Personal conscience dictates morality.

These are the exact opposites of Catholic teachings. This is completely different from anything we've faced before. We know how it happened. The question is whether or not the "decomposition of Catholicism," as Fr. Bouyer called it, that was wrought in the post-conciliar era will be reversed anytime soon.

Not necessarily.

Luke 18:8

50 Years Later

No, we aren't going to talk about Vatican II. We'll talk about the opening of the Council on the day the Council really opened.

That wasn't today, no matter what folks want to remember.

Sacrosanctum Concilium, Pt. 11

Picking up where we left off, we continue with the specific things that are actually brought up for revision by the liturgical constitution. Of course, none of these things call for a whole new Mass.

Both the rites for the baptism of adults are to be revised: not only the simpler rite, but also the more solemn one, which must take into account the restored catechumenate. A special Mass "for the conferring of baptism" is to be inserted into the Roman Missal.

Recall that the catechumenate was discussed here.

The rite for the baptism of infants is to be revised, and it should be adapted to the circumstance that those to be baptized are, in fact, infants. The roles of parents and godparents, and also their duties, should be brought out more clearly in the rite itself.

The baptismal rite should contain variants, to be used at the discretion of the local ordinary, for occasions when a very large number are to be baptized together. Moreover, a shorter rite is to be drawn up, especially for mission lands, to be used by catechists, but also by the faithful in general when there is danger of death, and neither priest nor deacon is available.

In place of the rite called the "Order of supplying what was omitted in the baptism of an infant," a new rite is to be drawn up. This should manifest more fittingly and clearly that the infant, baptized by the short rite, has already been received into the Church.

Notice that baptism is still considered a big deal, unlike today when you can go to an RCIA class and be told that baptism isn't really that big of a deal and that it's a shame that we still baptize babies. Even though Vatican II thought enough about it to mention explicitly a new rite for infants.

And a new rite is to be drawn up for converts who have already been validly baptized; it should indicate that they are now admitted to communion with the Church.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! What is this? Let me get this straight. There needs to be a new rite for folks already baptized. Why? To show that now they are admitted to Communion with the Church. Now, meaning, after they become Catholic, right? Which would mean that before they are Catholic, they excluded from communion with the Church. Right? Maybe someone should tell folks like Fr. McBrien about this, since he clearly thinks this is the sort of badness that Vatican II addressed (allegedly).

Except during Eastertide, baptismal water may be blessed within the rite of baptism itself by an approved shorter formula.

The rite of confirmation is to be revised and the intimate connection which this sacrament has with the whole of Christian initiation is to be more clearly set forth; for this reason it is fitting for candidates to renew their baptismal promises just before they are confirmed.

Confirmation may be given within the Mass when convenient; when it is given outside the Mass, the rite that is used should be introduced by a formula to be drawn up for this purpose.

I think it's pretty safe to say that if the new rite of Confirmation was help clarify what the sacrament is and does that it has been a colossal failure. How many times have you heard about Confirmation as the sacrament of "mature commitment" or some other such nonsense? I'm sure that would come as a surprise to Karl and our other Eastern brethren who confirm/chrismate infants. Either the rite failed miserably in its stated purpose or only about 1 in every 100 Catholics actually pay attention to what is going on, which would also, I think, be an indictment of the new rite.

The rite and formulas for the sacrament of penance are to be revised so that they more clearly express both the nature and effect of the sacrament.

Ditto what I wrote about Confirmation. If it were otherwise, one would expect the lines for confession to be much, much longer. Or just existent, for that matter.

"Extreme unction," which may also and more fittingly be called "anointing of the sick," is not a sacrament for those only who are at the point of death. Hence, as soon as any one of the faithful begins to be in danger of death from sickness or old age, the fitting time for him to receive this sacrament has certainly already arrived.

I know a lot of folks who really get in a twist about this part, but like with so many other things, I think they are usually thrown off by how it's been implemented rather than what the constitution actually says.

Note that it still requires that there be a danger of death, albeit not necessarily imminent. In other words, the wholesale provision of this sacrament to the masses isn't what was envisioned. If this wasn't the case, why would it indicate that the name "extreme unction" is still an appropriate name for the sacrament? True, "anointing of the sick" might be more fitting, but if it can also be called "extreme unction," doesn't that mean that there should be some, you know, extremeness going on?

In addition to the separate rites for anointing of the sick and for viaticum, a continuous rite shall be prepared according to which the sick man is anointed after he has made his confession and before he receives viaticum.

The number of the anointings is to be adapted to the occasion, and the prayers which belong to the rite of anointing are to be revised so as to correspond with the varying conditions of the sick who receive the sacrament.

This was just asking for trouble. Putting in the possibility of variation is a recipe for abuse, especially when left as vague as this. If someone might die, isn't that all you need? I'm reminded of a bit from A Few Good Men. Jack Nicholson is asked if the deceased Marine was in "grave danger." His response: Is there any other kind?

I will say this. At least they didn't mention that the new rite of anointing was supposed to clarify what was happening or the purpose of the sacrament. If they had, it would have been yet another epic fail, since the new rite de-emphasizes the principle goal of the sacrament, namely, to heal the soul from sin and prepare it for death.

Both the ceremonies and texts of the ordination rites are to be revised. The address given by the bishop at the beginning of each ordination or consecration may be in the mother tongue.

When a bishop is consecrated, the laying of hands may be done by all the bishops present.

By "revised," they must have meant "eviscerated" if you look at what actually happened. Let me be clear that I think the new rite of ordination is absolutely valid. Look at what it says, though, or perhaps doesn't say. Multiple references to the sacrificial aspect of the priesthood are gone, along with those relating to absolution of sins. I highly recommend Michael Davies's book The Order of Melchisedech on this point. The differences are quite shocking.

Next up: Marriage (to be cont.)

Prayer For Parishioners By Parishioners

Something for us all to remember, courtesy of Rorate:

Prayer of a Parishioner 

Thank you, Lord, for the shortcomings of our Priests! If they did not have them, they would not be able to understand our own weaknesses.

I forgot that, when outside, they must greet everyone. I also forgot that they always have to welcome others with a smile on their lips, even when they are somewhat dead inside.

I ask you, Lord, that I may practice charity with our Priests, that I may understand that I have only one Priest to suffer, while he has to suffer us all.

And who would ever want to put up with all of us?

Guilty

So the Pope's butler has been sentenced to an 18 month prison term for his role in the whole Vatican leaks "scandal." Take a look at these comments:

Before the verdict was announced, Gabriele, wearing a dark gray suit, a white shirt, and a blue tie, insisted he was not a thief and that he had acted out of concern for the Catholic church and the pontiff.

“What I feel strongly inside me, is the conviction of having acted out of exclusive and visceral love for Jesus’ church, and for his visible leader. I repeat, I don’t feel like a thief,” he told the tribunal.

Arru (the defense attorney) had argued there was no theft, as Gabriele photocopied the documents and did not remove the originals.

She said he was driven by his faith, high morals and by motives that she hoped one day would be “recognized and rewarded” as he was pushed to do what he did by the “evil” he saw around him.

Reflect on that a bit and on some of the other things that we've reported on this incident and the Curial hijinks brought to light recently. Now, consider this report from the Telegraph:

Officers from the Vatican Gendarmerie found thousands of papers when they raided Paolo Gabriele’s apartment on May 23, acting on suspicions that he was the mole who had leaked highly compromising material to an Italian investigative journalist, who published it in a book.
The massive haul showed that Mr Gabriele had a keen interest in secret services, espionage, the occult, scandals involving the Vatican bank and the P2, a shadowy Masonic lodge whose members included prominent Italian politicians.

The encoded documents were sent from the Vatican Secretariat of State to papal nuncios, or ambassadors, around the world.

There are other claims, including that some of the documents had been marked for destruction. Oh, and allegedly these reference stuff far enough back that even Roberto Calvi is mentioned.

The point is that you've got a guy, who by all accounts seems very loyal to the Holy Father. This man is going to prison, still claiming that what he did was for the Pope and the Church. The contents of the documents he was copying showed where his main interests were. It stands to reason then that there were lots of documents actually referring to these topics. It's also fair to assume, I think, that these are the things that Mr. Gabriele felt were so dangerous to the Pope and the Church.

Recall that, sometimes, there really is a conspiracy, then draw your own conclusions.

Here's A Question

Since we're letting all these married Anglicans come over and be ordained without a whole lot of problems, does this mean we can dispense with all the foolishness about keeping Eastern rite priests from being married?

Please?

The New Project

Make sure you visit and bookmark Boniface & Company's (including yours truly) new project at the Unam Sanctam Catholicam web site. It's good stuff on a whole host of Church-related issues, ranging from history to theology to movie reviews. Most folks here should have some exposure to the kind of content I'm talking about thanks to prior linkages to Boniface's blog, which can be found here.

Unam Sanctam Catholicam!

One More Thing Re: Bees

You can read Fr. Emile Warre's book on bees here. Fr. Warre invented the hive design that carries is name. It is a simple beekeeping method that most anyone can probably do.

His book is just excellent though.

I Love Bees

I got my own beehive back in March of this year. I'm not looking to become a honey magnate or anything. It's just something I've always been intrigued by and finally found myself in a position to work on as a hobby.  There's also the fact that my kids find it interesting, so it gives us something to do together.

Even if you're a single guy, though, I highly recommend this.

If I may delve into corniness for a moment, bees make very good teachers. You know that bit from the Gospel about the ravens and the lilies and how God takes care of them? The first thing I learned about beekeeping was that all I was going to do is mess stuff up if I tried to "fix" something for the ladies of the hive. They didn't want or need my help. Eventually, they got the message across.

I have to say that they do have one thing over the lilies/ravens. When it comes to laboring, sowing, etc., the ladies of the hive are about as impressive a force of nature as I can imagine. It's not the destructiveness of hurricanes and tornadoes. Think of the creative opposite. Thousands of tiny little cogs, all whirring around the central axis of the queen, simultaneously fulfilling their duties without gripe or complaint. It's an almost symphonic display of work. They take care of themselves and each other. They don't know violence, except in defense of their own, at which point they will offer their own lives for the common good. Of course, there's also the fact that their work sustains the entire ecosystem by assisting plants with pollination. What a wonderful creature!

Seriously, you can sit and watch them for hours without getting bored.

Anyway, since this is a Catholic blog, I felt obligated to mention how the Church has paid homage to the ladies. If you were at Easter this year, you heard the return of bees to the Exsultet:

On this, your night of grace, O holy Father, accept this candle, a solemn offering, the work of bees and of your servants’ hands, an evening sacrifice of praise, this gift from your most holy Church.

But now we know the praises of this pillar, which glowing fire ignites for God’s honour, a fire into many flames divided, yet never dimmed by sharing of its light, for it is fed by melting wax, drawn out by mother bees to build a torch so precious.

A pox on whoever thought it was a good idea to edit that out for the last how many decades.

More than that, there is a wonderful speech that Venerable Pius XII gave to some beekeepers back in 1948.

Your presence in such large numbers, your desire to assemble before Us, beloved sons, is a real comfort: and so We express our heartfelt gratitude for your homage and your gifts, both particularly pleasing to Us. Beyond its material and technical importance, the work which you represent, by its nature and significance has a psychological, moral, social, and even religious interest of no small value. Have not bees been sung almost universally in the poetry, sacred no less than profane, of all times?

Impelled and guided by instinct, a visible trace and testimony of the unseen wisdom of the Creator, what lessons do not bees give to men, who are, or should be, guided by reason, the living reflection of the divine intellect!

Bees are models of social life and activity, in which each class has its duty to perform and performs it exactly—one is almost tempted to say conscientiously—without envy, without rivalry, in the order and position assigned to each, with care and love. Even the most inexperienced observer of bee culture admires the delicacy and perfection of this work. Unlike the butterfly which flits from flower to flower out of pure caprice; unlike the wasp and the hornet, brutal aggressors, who seem intent on doing only harm with no benefit for anyone, the bee pierces to the very depths of the flower's calix diligently, adroitly, and so delicately, that once its precious treasure has been gathered, it gently leaves the flowers without having injured in the least the light texture of their garments or caused a single one of their petals the loss of its immaculate freshness.

Then, loaded down with sweet-scented nectar, pollen, and propolis, without capricious gyrations, without lazy delays, swift as an arrow, with precise, unerring, certain flight, it returns to the hive, where valorous work goes on intensely to process the riches so carefully garnered, to produce the wax and the honey. . (Virgil, , 4, 169.)

Ah, if men could and would listen to the lesson of the bees: if each one knew how to do his daily duty with order and love at the post assigned to him by Providence; if everyone knew how to enjoy, love, and use in the intimate harmony of the domestic hearth the little treasures accumulated away from home during his working day: if men, with delicacy, and to speak humanly, with elegance, and also, to speak as a Christian, with charity in their dealings with their fellow men, would only profit from the truth and the beauty conceived in their minds, from the nobility and goodness carried about in the intimate depths of their hearts, without offending by indiscretion and stupidity, without soiling the purity of their thought and their love, if they only knew how to assimilate without jealousy and pride the riches acquired by contact with their brothers and to develop them in their turn by reflection and the work of their own minds and hearts; if, in a word, they learned to do by intelligence and wisdom what bees do by instinct—how much better the world would be!

Working like bees with order and peace, men would learn to enjoy and have others enjoy the fruit of their labors, the honey and the was, the sweetness and the light in this life here below.

Instead, how often, alas, they spoil the better and more beautiful things by their harshness, violence, and malice: how often they seek and find in every thing only imperfection and evil, and misinterpreting even the most honest intentions, turn goodness into bitterness!

Let them learn therefore to enter with respect, trust, and charity into the minds and hearts of their fellow men discreetly but deeply; then they like the bees will know how to discover in the humblest souls the perfume of nobility and of eminent virtue, sometimes unknown even to those who possess it. They will learn to discern in the depths of the most obtuse intelligence, of the most uneducated persons, in the depths even of the minds of their enemies, at least some trace of healthy judgment, some glimmer of truth and goodness.

As for you, beloved sons, who while bending over your beehives perform with all care the most varied and delicate work for your bees, let your spirits rise in mystic flight to experience the kindness of God, to taste the sweetness of His word and His law (Ps. 18:11; 118: 103), to contemplate the divine light symbolized by the burning flame of the candle, product of the mother bee, as the Church sings in her admirable liturgy of Holy Saturday: (For it is nourished by the melting wax, which the mother bee produced for the substance of this precious light.)

Yeah, I reproduced the whole thing, but that's because it's awesome. 

Finally, there's actually a blessing of bees, which I will definitely have done next year on the feast of St. Benedict.

O Lord, God almighty, who hast created heaven and earth and every animal existing over them and in them for the use of men, and who hast commanded through the ministers of holy Church that candles made from the products of bees be lit in church during the carrying out of the sacred office in which the most holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ thy Son is made present and is received; may thy holy blessing descend upon these bees and these hives, so that they may multiply, be fruitful and be preserved from all ills and that the fruits coming forth from them may be distributed for thy praise and that of thy Son and the holy Spirit and of the most blessed Virgin Mary.

Anyways, if you have any kind of yard at all where you live, look into beekeeping. As far as hobbies go, it's not that expensive, it will conform to any vocation or lifestyle.

St. Ambrose, patron of bees, and St. Benedict, patron of beekeepers, pray for us.

An Observation On The Presidential Election

With all the new flak over Mitt Romney and his comments about the 47% (or whatever it is) who don't pay income tax, a not-very-funny thing occurred to me.

On one hand, you seem to have a campaign, whether directly attributable to Romney or not, that seems to be all-in for stirring up feelings of greed and/or selfishness among the electorate.

On the opposing side, you have a push, whether directly from the President or not, that is apparently hell-bent on fanning the flames of envy.

Are we supposed to feel comfortable with either of these choices? Granted, one side is basically the party of Moloch, but this appeal to dueling Deadly Sins isn't giving me any comfort regarding the future of our nation.

This illustrates a problem with our modern form of government. With an electorate that doesn't understand the problems the nation faces, much less the solutions, it's way easier to just lob stuff toward the baser instincts and wait for the fish to start biting. Let us reflect again on the words of St. John Chrysostom to understand why a deficit of charity is incurable by the government and, as we can see from the present election, is probably only something that the government will make worse.

Should we look to kings and princes to put right the inequalities between rich and poor? Should we require soldiers to come and seize the rich man's gold and distribute it among his destitute neighbors? Should we beg the emperor to impose a tax on the rich so great that it reduces them to the level of the poor and then to share the proceeds of that tax among everyone?

Equality imposed by force would achieve nothing, and do much harm. Those who combine both cruel hearts and sharp minds would soon find ways of making themselves rich again. Worse still, the rich whose gold was taken away would feel bitter and resentful; while the poor who received the gold from the hands of soldiers would feel no gratitude, because no generosity would have prompted the gift. Far from bringing moral benefit to society, it would actually do moral harm. Material justice cannot be accomplished by compulsion; a change of heart will not follow. The only way to achieve true justice is to change people's hearts first - and then they will joyfully share their wealth.

Encouraging Blasphemy

That's on the program for the Mother Teresa Catholic secondary school in Ontario. They are setting up a prayer room for Muslims in the school. And, of course, they're tremendously proud of it.

"They're members of our school community. We want to ensure that all our students feel welcome, that they feel that they belong," said Principal Ana Paula Fernandes.

The prayer room, expected to be completed by the end of September, is located on a busy stretch on the second floor, just metres from the school's large chapel.

"That was very important to ensure that it was included in the main building, and not tucked away somewhere," Fernandes said.

Yeah, it's important that we set up places the false worship of religions that are essentially based on blasphemy. And why are they facilitating the blasphemy?

Grade 12 student Amir Farhi, 17, was part of the group that led the push for the prayer room.

"We do have quite a bit of Muslims in this school who find it hard to practice their religion," he said. "Having this prayer room, it's easy for them to do their Friday prayers."

Though Muslims pray facing Mecca, Saudi Arabia, five times a day, the room will mainly be used Fridays, the holiest day of the week in Islam.

Administration and students are working with a local imam, a leader of Islamic worship services, to create guidelines governing use of the room.

"We just want to come together as a community, exchange our beliefs, sharing our ideas and helping grow this school with its values," said Farhi, who applauded school officials for moving so quickly to create the room.

What values?  One would think that a Catholic school would number the propagation of Truth as a value. Apparently, though, Truth is a secondary concern to providing a forum for the worship, beliefs, and ideas that lead souls away from God. Of course, we all remember the stories from the Bible where the Apostles set up altars to false gods, right? Right? Something about what kind of concord there is between Christ and Belial. Or maybe this:

What then? Do I say, that what is offered in sacrifice to idols, is any thing? Or, that the idol is any thing?  But the things which the heathens sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God. And I would not that you should be made partakers with devils.

1 Corinthians 10:19-20

I wonder if they will wind up making the leap from setting up rooms for Mohammedan prayer to wiping out space for Christian worship.

I know, I know. I'm just being all mean and unirenical.

Thank You, American Idol

I've been watching your show for several years now, trying to stop, but always getting pulled back in by the sheer incredulity of watching you force a bunch of worthless crap music on society and watching it be assimilated repeatedly, even as your "stars'" careers often fall off into oblivion.

Now, you've given me ample reason to stop. You've decided to give Nicki Minaj a job. For those who don't know, Minaj gave a well-nigh Satanic performance at the Grammys a while back and did so with all the impunity that money and fame can give. I can only hope that her arrival on American Idol will result in the complete destruction of the show and all those associated with it. 

Oh, and if the singing didn't suck.

Catholic Eschatology

This is one of the things that is most overlooked in the Church today, and Boniface at Unam Sanctam has done a good job of breaking down the problems. Since I wholeheartedly agree with him on this point, especially as it relates to the current dominance of preterist Scriptural interpretations, I felt obliged to link to it here.

Watch the video, then keep watch for the signs. Really, there's nothing wrong with that.

Pro-Life = Racism

Things are getting more and more 1984-ish. War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength. Freedom is Slavery. Pro-Life is Racist. That's what this thunderously stupid article by Brian Fung would have us believe.

I'm not going to reproduce much of the article, as I'm sure our readers value their brain cells. I couldn't live with myself knowing that I had deliberately exposed any of you to such an intellectual hazard. Let us be content with the sacrifice of my own neurons in this endeavor. Here is the concluding paragraph:

Non-white and low-income women aren't so lucky. For them, an abortion ban would mean either carrying their unplanned pregnancies to term -- something the NBER paper predicts could happen to some degree, and which would likely be exacerbated by conservative attempts to limit contraception access at the same time that they crack down on abortion -- or resorting to unsafe, illegal abortions. These procedures, by their very nature, would be ignored by official abortion figures so that to speak of the "gains" of a ban would be to turn a blind eye to a very nasty black-market business. It'd also create new headaches for states: between the threat to public health posed by underground abortions, and the rise of teen birth rates; the added economic burden on state social and health-care services; the mockery it'd make of public statistics; and their inherent racial and socio-economic unfairness, it's hard to see how abortion bans would advance anything except ideology.

Folks, I ain't got the words. Here we have a defense of killing minority children under cloak of liberty, whilst accusing those who would save these children of bigotry. I guess it's just an accident that Planned Parenthood and the other disciples of Margaret Sanger have always targeted blacks. They were just doing them a favor. It's not like it's genocide, right?

Black is white. Up is down. What other insanities will these people (yeah, I said THESE PEOPLE) come up with in order to justify their evil?

More Comments From The Holy Father On Obedience

Running with our prior post regarding Pope Benedict's speech on Judas(es) and why dissenters should leave the Church, I thought this was worth posting as well.

In their economic and social activities, Catholics often come into contact with others who do not share their view of life. In such circumstances, they must, of course, bear themselves as Catholics and do nothing to compromise religion and morality. Yet at the same time they should show themselves animated by a spirit of understanding and unselfishness, ready to cooperate loyally in achieving objects which are good in themselves, or can be turned to good. Needless to say, when the Hierarchy has made a decision on any point Catholics are bound to obey their directives. The Church has the right and obligation not merely to guard ethical and religious principles, but also to declare its authoritative judgment in the matter of putting these principles into practice.


The Holy Father's comments are well-taken. We are bound to obey. The Church is bound to compel us to believe.

Oh, by the way, the Holy Father who wrote the above? It was Blessed John XXIII in Mater et Magistra.

Maybe someone should tell Joe Biden about this.

Communists Bringing The Blasphemy

As they always have and always will. No amount of ostpolitik, detente, appeasement or whatever you want to call it will ever change that.

Communist officials compelled Catholics in a south-central Vietnamese village to remove the altar, tabernacle, cross, and Marian image from a Catholic chapel. The objects were taken to a lay Catholic leader’s home.

Stating that the chapel would henceforth be used “for village activities, not for worship,” officials placed a portrait of Communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969) where the cross had been located.

St. John Damascene, St. Theophane Venard, and Servant of God Marcel Van, please pray for these people.

Paolo Gabriele And The Twenty Leakers?

According to recent reports, the Pope's butler, Paolo Gabriele, is claiming that there are at least twenty folks involved in the Vatican leak scandal. This is no big surprise. We've been saying here for a while that there was no way in heaven, hell, or anywhere else that this guys was acting alone. Really, the only other thing this latest bit of news does is confirm what we already knew, especially concerning the motives behind all this, which are allegedly rooted in protecting the Church and assisting the Holy Father in getting rid of some of the ongoing corruption.

Except for one puzzling comment:

Gabriele has previously claimed he was acting out of love for the church, but said in the interview that people were afraid to speak out from inside the city walls: "Ours is a state where you can get in, kill and leave undisturbed, and after 24 hours no one can say what happened."

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where did that come from? This isn't the kind of comment you just whip out of nowhere and casually drop in a conversation. If I let my old lawyer side take over for a moment, I'd say this almost sounds like Paolo is sending out a threat to air something that really is dangerous. But that would just be my cynical lawyer side talking.

St. Augustine On Sin And The Church

I thought this was a good selection to consider for folks who may find themselves frustrated by things like the sex abuse scandal or any other moral failing by Catholic clergy or laity. Just for context, St. Augustine was writing this letter in the context of the Donatist heresy and the constant Donatist claims that they were being unjustly persecuted:

From which it is manifest that, whether these charges be true or false, they do not belong to the Lord's wheat, which must grow until the end of the world throughout the whole field, i.e. the whole earth; as we know, not by the testimony of a false angel such as confirmed your correspondent in his error, but from the words of the Lord in the Gospel. And because these unhappy Donatists have brought the reproach of many false and empty accusations against Christians who were blameless, but who are throughout the world mingled with the chaff or tares, i.e. with Christians unworthy of the name, therefore God has, in righteous retribution, appointed that they should, by their universal Council, condemn as schismatics the Maximianists, because they had condemned Primianus, and baptized while not in communion with Primianus, and rebaptized those whom he had baptized, and then after a short interval should, under the coercion of Optatus the minion of Gildo, reinstate in the honours of their office two of these, the bishops Felicianus of Musti and Prætextatus of Assuri, and acknowledge the baptism of all whom they, while under sentence and excommunicated, had baptized.

St. Augustine, Letter LIII

If, therefore, they are not defiled by communion with the men thus restored again to their office—men whom with their own mouth they had condemned as wicked and impious, and whom they compared to those first heretics whom the earth swallowed up alive, — let them at last awake and consider how great is their blindness and folly in pronouncing the whole world defiled by unknown crimes of Africans, and the heritage of Christ (which according to the promise has been shown unto all nations) destroyed through the sins of these Africans by the maintenance of communion with them; while they refuse to acknowledge themselves to be destroyed and defiled by communicating with men whose crimes they had both known and condemned.

People have been having these issues for a long time. Everyone sins. Try not to let yourself be scandalized by what these others are doing. Trust that God's justice will be properly meted out, whether by the Church or by His own hand, as was the case with Dathan, Korah, and Abiram (who are mentioned later in the same letter). And don't forget that you yourself are not exempt.

We all got it comin', kid

Cardinal Brandmuller Beat Us To The Punch

One of the things we were going to use as a capstone for our discussion of Sacrosanctum Concilium was to compare what we know as the Pauline Mass with what appears to have been envisioned by the liturgical constitution itself. The question would then be posed whether or not what was discussed in the Council was what was actually done in practice.

Cardinal Brandmuller, who I'm certain is a huge fan and reader of this blog (who isn't?), has decided to go ahead and answer the question for us. Per Rorate:

I must emphasise that the form of the post-conciliar liturgy with all its distortions, is not attributable to the Council or to the Liturgy Constitution established during Vatican II which by the way has not really been implemented even to this day. The indiscriminate removal of Latin and Gregorian Chants from liturgical celebrations and the erection of numerous altars were absolutely not acts prescribed by the Council.

With the benefit of hindsight, let us cast our minds back in particular to the lack of sensitivity shown in terms of care for the faithful and in the pastoral carelessness shown in the liturgical form. One need only think of the Church’s excesses, reminiscent of the [Iconoclastic crisis] which occurred in the [8th] century. Excesses which catapulted numerous faithful into total chaos, leaving many fumbling around in the dark.

Just about anything and everything has been said on this subject. Meanwhile, the liturgy has come to be seen as a mirror image of Church life, subject to an organic historical evolution which cannot - as did indeed happen - suddenly be changed by decree par ordre de mufti. And we are still paying the price today.

Interesting stuff, and dead-on accurate, I think.

Being Judas Iscariot

The Holy Father's recent address on the Bread of Life discourse needs to be mentioned, with a comparison to current affairs. Consider the following, pulled from Zenit:

In the end, Jesus knew that even among the Twelve there was one who did not believe: Judas. Judas too could have left like the other disciples did; perhaps he should have left had he wanted to be honest. 

Those proclaiming to be a follower of Christ, yet not actually believing the words of Christ, are liars.

Instead he stayed with Jesus. He stayed not because of faith, not because of love, but with the secret plan to get back at the Master. Why? Because Judas felt that Jesus had betrayed him and he decided to betray Jesus in turn. 

If a person lies about being Catholic (translation: believing Catholic stuff) and stays in the Church in order to mold it in their own image, such a person is just as much of a traitor as Judas.

Judas was a zealot and wanted a victorious Messiah who would lead a revolt against the Romans. Jesus frustrated these expectations. The problem is that Judas did not leave and his gravest fault was falsity, which is the sign of the devil. Because of this Jesus said to the Twelve: “One among you is a devil!”

In other words, these liars and traitors don't belong to Christ. They belong to The Adversary. As the lines keep drawn in clearer and clearer terms, it is getting harder and harder to attribute ignorance to the masses who claim the right to dissent from the Magisterium. This is especially true in the cases where the dissenter declares that they know all this stuff and will continue their revolt anyway.

Let's remember these people as we move forward. Charity must always be exercised, like with the priest in the clip, but we can't dodge these folks either. Charity doesn't mean shying away from confrontation.

Sacrosanctum Concilium, Pt. 10

In our last entry, we closed with a comment about concelebration, and how manufacturing a new rite for concelebration in the West appeared to contradict the liturgical constitution's own terms that spoke of restricting innovations. Moving along, we now reach a new chapter that discusses the other sacraments and sacramentals:

The purpose of the sacraments is to sanctify men, to build up the body of Christ, and, finally, to give worship to God; because they are signs they also instruct. They not only presuppose faith, but by words and objects they also nourish, strengthen, and express it; that is why they are called "sacraments of faith." They do indeed impart grace, but, in addition, the very act of celebrating them most effectively disposes the faithful to receive this grace in a fruitful manner, to worship God duly, and to practice charity.

This is a loaded paragraph. In a day and age where the sacraments tend to be reduced entirely to exercises of feel-good Oprahism. Here, the emphasis is on the supernatural order, the worship of God, and the faithful's need of grace. I'm not sure that there has been anything more devastating to the liturgy than the loss of sense that the Mass is the supreme act of worship. It is, quite literally, the most important thing that happens on the planet, and its status as an act of worship is what makes it that way. Yet few seem to grasp this.

It is therefore of the highest importance that the faithful should easily understand the sacramental signs, and should frequent with great eagerness those sacraments which were instituted to nourish the Christian life.

For me, this sentence encapsulates something that should be an approach that everyone should take to the Council. The Council had a goal for the faithful to better understand certain things, such as the sacraments. With the complete collapse of the Faith in the last half century, it's obvious that the Council was a miserable failure on this point. It wouldn't be the first time a Council bombed on an important goal. Lateran V did likewise. So did Florence. And they were dogmatic councils. A big part of the problem here has been the constant drumbeat of absurd optimism and praise about Vatican II.

There's no shame in admitting the Council failed. Continuing to double down on what a huge success it was doesn't make it true.

Holy Mother Church has, moreover, instituted sacramentals. These are sacred signs which bear a resemblance to the sacraments: they signify effects, particularly of a spiritual kind, which are obtained through the Church's intercession. By them men are disposed to receive the chief effect of the sacraments, and various occasions in life are rendered holy.

I guess now is a good time to mention that most Catholics probably have no idea what a sacramental is.

Thus, for well-disposed members of the faithful, the liturgy of the sacraments and sacramentals sanctifies almost every event in their lives; they are given access to the stream of divine grace which flows from the paschal mystery of the passion, death, the resurrection of Christ, the font from which all sacraments and sacramentals draw their power. There is hardly any proper use of material things which cannot thus be directed toward the sanctification of men and the praise of God.

The last sentence poses a problem because, while true, such things only function in that way when  they are adopted as such on God's terms, rather than our own. It's easy to read this in after decades of abuses, but if VII has taught us anything, it's that stuff like this can be reinterpreted to suit the needs of the reader. In this case, you see it when folks use this line to justify their own activities above the Church's. For example, going to Seder meals and such during Holy Week. Sure, it might be an educational experience, but I see more and more Catholics trying to make such events into a religious ritual, often whilst scorning legitimate Catholic traditions.

With the passage of time, however, there have crept into the rites of the sacraments and sacramentals certain features which have rendered their nature and purpose far from clear to the people of today; hence some changes have become necessary to adapt them to the needs of our own times. For this reason the sacred Council decrees as follows concerning their revision.

Adaptation. Again. Somehow, these rites and sacramentals were able to nourish the faith of Catholics for centuries, across all continents, and through myriad cultural settings. What happened in 1963 that demonstrated this need for change? The fact that Catholics actually participated in these rites or used the sacramentals? The 80%+ Mass attendance and literacy in the Faith?

And has the adaptation worked? Are things better? Take a look around and let me know what you see.

One other thing about this section (and the document as a whole). Notice that there isn't a lot of detail on what the problems are and why they are so bad or ineffective. This makes fixing any potential problem very difficult since you don't really know what the problem is.  It also makes novelty more palatable, as folks can come up with their own view of what the problem is, then go about "fixing" it in the manner that they feel is appropriate.

Because of the use of the mother tongue in the administration of the sacraments and sacramentals can often be of considerable help to the people, this use is to be extended according to the following norms

And we're back to the vernacular again.

The vernacular language may be used in administering the sacraments and sacramentals, according to the norm of Art. 36.

But not really, since any use of the vernacular is subject to the prior point that Latin is is to be preserved as the regular language of the Western Church.

On this point, I'd like to refer back to one of our commentators, Mr. Gary MacEoin, from his book What Happened in Rome? MacEoin foresaw these sorts of items as leading to a demolition of liturgical Latin altogether. Of course, this is done without reference to Blessed John XXIII's views or the language of the Council itself. Here's what Mr. MacEoin said on pg. 68:

In January 1964, Pope Paul set up a permanent committee in Rome, charged with the duty of completing the liturgical reform according to the principles established in the Council decree. This will mean not only an extension of the use of the living language, perhaps to the entire text of the Mass, but a reformation and reformulation of the content of the Mass and other public prayers of the Latin rite. The result will be a liturgy closer to that of the early Church and at the same time more meaningful to twentieth-century man.

Not only does this analysis ignore the principles of SC that are supportive of Latin, but he basically refers to the stated norm as being on its way to extinction. This shift will lead to a more "meaningful" liturgy. Just check out the average wardrobe at Mass and discern for yourself if its more meaningful now than 50 years ago.

In harmony with the new edition of the Roman Ritual, particular rituals shall be prepared without delay by the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Art. 22, 2, of this Constitution. These rituals, which are to be adapted, also as regards the language employed, to the needs of the different regions, are to be reviewed by the Apostolic See and then introduced into the regions for which they have been prepared. But in drawing up these rituals or particular collections of rites, the instructions prefixed to the individual rites the Roman Ritual, whether they be pastoral and rubrical or whether they have special social import, shall not be omitted.

First, notice that there is only a mention of a new edition of the Roman Ritual. It's not that there is going to be a whole new thing created, merely a new edition of the old. Of course, that isn't what happened.

Second, the latter part flings open the door to all  sorts of shenanigans. We've already discussed the problems with Art. 2, 22, but the remainder seems to give a blank check for novelty at first glance. That's not the case either. Any adaptation, whether linguistic or cultural must be approved by Rome. Even if it gets approved by some whackjob cardinal, the other restrictions on all other rites of the Church are still maintained. In other words, if you're only supposed to be using water for baptism, it doesn't matter if you're in a society that likes beer a lot. You can't baptize with beer.

The catechumenate for adults, comprising several distinct steps, is to be restored and to be taken into use at the discretion of the local ordinary. By this, means the time of the catechumenate, which is intended as a period of suitable instruction, may be sanctified by sacred rites to be celebrated at successive intervals of time.

I have no idea what this means. The Rite of Election perhaps? I'm not aware of there being any other "successive intervals" here or anywhere else. Somebody out there know?

In mission lands it is found that some of the peoples already make use of initiation rites. Elements from these, when capable of being adapted to Christian ritual, may be admitted along with those already found in Christian tradition, according to the norm laid down in Art. 37-40, of this Constitution.

We've talked before about the value of pulling from the local culture for liturgical practice. It's not that it's bad. It's just something that has to be monitored closely, lest the local element overpower the Catholic part of what is going on. Like Skillet vs. chant. Anyways, the other side of this is the cases where our existing Catholic heritage should be enough. We've seen how the TLM can be welcome, even in diverse places like Africa. Why the urge to jump immediately to novel developments, rather than first seeing if what we already have will work?

I must add that, like with so many other provisions of Sacrosanctum Concilium, none of the assertions made in the foregoing sections carry a single footnote or other reference. There is nothing from Scripture, the Magisterium, the Fathers, or the Doctors of the Church that might be used to judge what the parameters are for the benefits of  inculturation, the instruction period for catechumens, etc. to give anybody a better idea of what is supposed to be going on. As mentioned above, people tend to fill in these gaps with their own ideas. It's been with poor results for the Church. For what it's worth, even MacEoin admits that the sections here are ambiguous on purpose:

The Council decreed that the national and regional bishops' conferences should decide whether and to what extent the living language was to be used. The point was left deliberately vague in deference to some Fathers who were opposed to any change.

In other words, it was vague in order to deceive them. As we know from Cardinal Stickler's testimony, the issue of replacing Latin altogether was mentioned at the Council and met with derision. By making it sound conservative, it was easier to rope in the orthodox bishops' votes.

This is running a bit long, so I think I'll close out this entry there. We're probably about halfway done with the whole thing now. Maybe I'll do a better job of keeping up with it.

Christians Waking Up To The Arab Spring

This is from an article by a guy named Salim Mansur in the Toronto Sun. Recall that these are just the things that we know about.

William Dalrymple, the well-respected historian and author of From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium (1998), recently wrote, “Wherever you go in the Middle East today, you see the Arab Spring rapidly turning into the Christian winter … The past few years have been catastrophic for the region’s beleaguered 14 million strong Christian minority.” 

The decline, probably disappearance, of Christians from the Middle East is an ominous sign of a tragic future for the region. And such an eventuality has precedence. 

Jews of the Arab-Muslim world from the pre-Christian era, with their rich heritage and long historical presence in ancient cities across the region — Alexandria, Algiers, Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Constantine, Damascus, Fez, Oran, Sana’a, Tripoli, Tunis and more — were compelled to leave lands conquered by Arabs in the name of Islam following the establishment of Israel in 1948. 

There have been numerous anti-Coptic riots with attacks on Christian churches in Egypt. 

From Gaza reports have come of forced conversions among Christians reduced to a miniscule presence.

Iraqi Christians fled in large numbers following post-Saddam sectarian strife, and they found refuge in Syria. This safe-haven for Iraqi Christians is in jeopardy as the sectarian conflict in Syria has intensified, and Syrian Christians are endangered.

It's natural for all of us to be outraged over this. However, we heard nothing but supportive statements about the revolution in Egypt and the ousting of Assad in Syria. Even with an American presence in Iraq, we are being exterminated there.

It's pretty clear that the governments of the West are anxious for all the Christians in the Middle East to hurry up and die or at least flee so that this pesky moral dilemma can be solved. I can't say I've heard any kind of denunciation of these crimes against Christians. If there was one, it was awful quiet. That seems to be how genocides go. Maybe in a couple of decades, someone will throw us the sop of regret. We'll hear about how "the nations of the world stood silently by" and how horrible it was and how it will never be allowed to happen again.

And somehow we'll all supposed to feel better about ourselves while we trod over the graves of our martyred brethren on our way to the next "Inter-Faith Ecumenical Dialogue For Co-Existence and Tolerance" seminar.