The Great Salvation Sale

The Burning of a Heretic.

The first time, I thought I hadn’t heard correctly. I’m a  Foreigner, you know, and all that.

The priest ( a Novus Ordo priest; worse still, a Franciscan) went on blabbering as to how we have already been saved and the only think we have to do is to rejoice in the Lord, and that kind of stuff. “Sit back and relax, it’s all good”-wannabe theology for the gullible.

I knew this was a Franciscan and therefore I’d have to make allowances for the underlying heresy of their thinking, but I thought in some way some part of the homily which  (perhaps; in a way; so to speak) maintains what Catholicism has always held might not have been understood correctly by me. The prevalently sixty-eighter audience (you know the type) seemed rather pleased with both the priest and themselves.

Then there was the Jesuit from that beautiful church located in that well-known locality in the outskirts of London. The Gospel reading of the day included one of Our Lords’ (actually rather frequent) mentions of Hell, and in order to avoid the sensitivities of the present to be “hurt” our man hastened to point out that when Jesus spoke about Hell he meant we should not be happy with second best (or with imperfect choices, or the like; I don’t remember the exact words, but I certainly remember their exact meaning). That left me breathless; but again, this was a Jesuit, and they know how to do heresy in the oiliest of ways. I was angry and upset, but not surprised.

Recently – at another one of those NO churches where yours truly occasionally attends to in order to take the temperature of modern everyday, wannabe cool Catholicism – it happened again, and it was not pleasant. Also, this time as soon as I smelled the theological rat I went to extraordinary extents of concentration, so I can tell you I am positive I am reporting about the homily very accurately.

Frankly, what I heard was somewhere between scary and satanic.

The Church was very well-frequented, I would call them between 350 and 400 without any doubt, and we are talking of one mass.  The priest performed the longest homily I have ever heard, and at some point I thought he wanted all the people on the pews to fall asleep so as not to hear what he was saying; or, alternatively, that the good Lord had made the man so in love with himself the pewsitters fall asleep before they can be attacked by the father of lies.

I was not asleep, though, and actually I got increasingly more nervous as the never-ending blabber went on. The main points:

1) We are all saved when we are baptised, and we are saved because we are baptised. I awaited eagerly for some qualification of this statement. It did not come. The logical thinking (insofar as such a thinking can be called logical; it is actually very stupid) was as follows: Christ came to save us – when we are baptised we are saved – Jesus and the Church are there to ensure we are all saved – therefore all those who are baptised are saved – let us rejoice and be oh so good to the neighbour’s cat.

You’d think there would be the smallest caveat about damnation, mortal sin, hell, the lot. I don’t say an open  reminder (that goes clearly beyond these people), but I listened with the acutest attention in order to try to spot one small hint.

It did not come.

The day I die, I hope I’ll have a better hand of cards than this chap has today.

2) The strangest kindergarten vision of humanity was depicted. It can be summarised with these concepts: we are all saved – but we are imperfect – therefore we fall short of what the Lord expects from us – so we are sorrow for our imperfections – and we march in charity toward the end of our life which is, of course, salvation, see 1) . The idea people might be, or desire, or do evil was not even contemplated.

Once again, I was eagerly awaiting for one word referring to confession. One only. 

Nothing. Nada. Nil Return.

Basically, the chap blabbered about for twenty minutes and the only result he clearly achieved is to endanger the souls of those who were still awake by clearly prospecting to them a salvation already achieved several decades ago and which, therefore, doesn’t need confession or knows what to do with the very concept of mortal sin. Which, in this pervert logic, makes sense: if you think you are saved because you’re baptised, then there can be no place for mortal sin, and there is no need for confession.

It would sound like Protestantism, but I doubt even Protestants are so shallow and stupid. It is like the announcement of the Great Salvation Sale: just answer one or two short questions and you are qualified to profit from the unbelievable occasion Our Lord has in store for you.

This happened on a sunny April morning in the Year of the Lord 2012, 50 years after the opening of that Glorious Work, the Second Vatican Council.

Whilst I don’t like Luther at all, there’s one favourite saying of him I actually rather like: the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree. If the fruits are so egregiously bad, the tree of V II can’t be that good, either.

Mundabor

Mundabor’s Contribution To Ecumenical Dialogue

The sensible, charitable approach to heresy…

V II And Your Poor Knees

Piacenza, “Palazzo Gotico”. I really didn’t want to post a photo of the Cardinal, you see…

Cardinal Piacenza has suggested some days ago the VII documents should be read on one’s knees, because V II is “en event of the Holy Spirit”. All 141,000 words of them, I think he meant.

I have been trying for a while to give some sense to this rather extraordinary declaration. I could not find any other possible explanation than the following ones:

1. The Cardinal is a fun-loving person, always ready for a joke. Well said, Your Grace!

2. The Cardinal loves physical exercise, and thinks it should extend to one’s knees. I am not sure about the appropriateness of this particular suggestion, but I commend the concern for our physical health.

3.  The Cardinal is very fond of penance, and well aware of the redeeming virtue of sufferance. Therefore, he wants to add to our spiritual penance (the self-infliction of the V II documents in their entirety, so that we may say “never again!” with renewed conviction) a strong element of physical pain. I for myself would suggest such a penance only to the strongest souls, but again one understands where the Cardinal is headed.

On a slightly more joyous and therefore less suffering note, the Cardinal might be aware that the Society of St Pius X is on the brink of being fully reconciled to Rome; an event which, no doubt, goes to the great credit of the latter.

It would be interesting to know:

a) whether the cardinal thinks this is an “event of the Holy Spirit”, and

b) whether the Holy Father has demanded the SSPX bishops perform the above mentioned penance, seen that the V II documents were an event of the Holy Spirit…

But no, really, I think His Grace wanted to be funny.

Mundabor

The Great Good Friday Vatican II Rant

Vatican II in a snapshot

I have written a blog post about Pope Benedict’s words concerning the Heresy in Austria.

On the same occasion, though, the Pontiff expressed himself about Vatican II in a way I feel obliged to comment upon. Those who think a Catholic blogger should not comment on Pope’s declarations other than in the most subservient of terms can click away now.

The Holy Father is at this point talking about the Austrian heresy, and asks the rhetorical question whether orthodoxy does not bring to unintended or unwholesome consequences. His words are as follows (emphases mine):

Let us ask again: do not such reflections serve simply to defend inertia, the fossilization of traditions? No. Anyone who considers the history of the post-conciliar era can recognize the process of true renewal, which often took unexpected forms in living movements and made almost tangible the inexhaustible vitality of holy Church, the presence and effectiveness of the Holy Spirit. And if we look at the people from whom these fresh currents of life burst forth and continue to burst forth, then we see that this new fruitfulness requires being filled with the joy of faith, the radicalism of obedience, the dynamic of hope and the power of love.

The thinking here, as I understand it, is as follows: if we remain orthodox we are not going to generate inertia and fossilisation (British English spelling on my blog, thanks…). This is proved by Vatican II and the years that followed it, so rich in true spiritual renewal engendered by the Holy Spirit.

I must, respectfully, disagree on this. Whenever I look, I find Vatican II and the years that followed only brought devastation, which often took entirely expected forms of heresy, contributed to countless souls being lost, almost completely destroyed Catholicism’s cultural patrimony and traditions, almost completely killed catechesis, and left a spiritual wasteland on its trail. 

 If you ask me, the Pontiff’s words beautifully express, and I say this in the most respectful manner but also with no falseness, everything that is wrong with the Vatican today. There is, fifty years after the catastrophe started, still no desire to see what immense disaster was put in motion when Vatican II was started. On the contrary, there are desperate attempts to still try to portray it as something positive, as a phase of renewal. Vatican II (both in its weak, approval seeking and badly worded documents and in the mentality it engendered) was, as they say,  wreckovation rather than renovation.  It was an unmitigated failure, a stupid (no, let me reword it: stupid) attempt at self-destruction in a senseless quest for popularity and consensus, a disgraceful selling out to secular fashions. 

The Pope who spoke the words mentioned above presides over a Catholic world whose members in their vast majority do not even to go Mass; who couldn’t tell you the Ten Commandments to save their lives; who have almost no notion of the works of mercy or of other mainstay of traditional Catholic thinking; who barely know what a Rosary, or a Vesper is; who have such a superficial notion of Catholicism that they couldn’t tell you where the differences with Protestants lie; who have such a superficial notion of Christianity that they couldn’t tell you why contraception is wrong, or premarital sex; who couldn’t formulate in a halfway acceptable way why the Church does not contemplate “women priests”;  who know next to nothing about Catholic teaching on wealth, capital punishment, war; who couldn’t even tell you what Mass is, or what a sin is. My dear readers, I could go on for a long time, but this is everyday experience if you live in any but the most traditionally Catholic countries, at least in the West.

All this is the fruit of Vatican II. If the Church is alive today it is not because of Vatican II, but notwithstanding it. We see the Holy Spirit at work in the Church because we saw Vatican II trying to kill Her, and failing. 

This Pontiff and the men he has around him are unable – or unwilling – to see all this. They are unable to see the Vatican II “experiment” has failed, and has failed miserably. They are unable to see that it had to fail, because it was unCatholic from the start. Instead, we are dished the same rhetoric we have been fed for the last fifty years. At this point, every defence of Vatican II seriously reminds me of a North Korean PR exercise.

The long and painful, but necessary work of disintoxication from Vatican II will not start with this pontificate, possibly not even with the next. But it will come one day, and on that day Catholicism will finally behold the horror, and the immense stupidity, of it all and look back in shame at not one, but several generations of Churchmen abetting such devastation of Catholic patrimony.

I have, and no one of us conservative Catholic can have, the shadow of a doubt about the indefectibility of the Church, and the constant protection the Holy Ghost gives her.

We only have to look at Vatican II.

Mundabor

Obamacare and European Catholicism

Senza Parole

 

 

The blogosphere has been ablaze for some time with the (by the grace of God, ferocious) controversy now opposing the Obama administration (who wants to force Catholic employers to select health insurances who pay for “services”, like the killing of babies, the Church refuses to abet; a poisonous fruit of the “Obamacare” legislation) and the American bishops (who point out that this goes against the most fundamental freedom of religion, something the Obama administration knows absolutely nothing about).This time, it seems the fight will be long and hard, and I can’t see how the nazi-liberal can win it in the long run.

Father Blake then wonders why in the US such controversies should be so ferocious, when in Europe no one ever moved a finger. Interesting question, to which I’d like to give some attempt at answers, none of them very pleasant.

1) In Europe, from around the end of the Second World War (actually, before that in countries like Germany and Italy) the idea of having the entire population automatically covered by health incurance began to take foot. Whilst the systems were different (one state behemot in the UK, and a vast number of small structures in Italy and Germany; Italy then switched to the behemoth) the idea was not really controversial as it was purely about health. Also, in those years abortion was universally banned. Health insurance meant “healing the sick”, period. 

But as always (and I have written about this very recently) when you leave something to the care of the Government, the latter will soon take care to ruin things. Besides these organisations becoming monsters of waste of public money, they were abused for every sort of overt and covert hijacking of health funds for things which had nothing to do with “healing the sick”; from paying swimming lessons  to contraception to, unavoidably, abortion; and as the system was from the start thought of as “compulsory” and “universal”, once abortion was approved it was considered only natural the “universality” of the system would apply to it, too.

Therefore, a system started as “healing of the sick” became “killing of the unborn”. This is what happens when you allow the government to do things for you.  

2) The question now arises: why the Church didn’t say anything? Because they were cowards, is the answer. Even in Italy, there was a decidedly toothless fight against abortion and divorce. In the wake of Vatican II, “change” was considered more or less “inevitable” ( always the pet excuse of those who don’t want to fight). The main responsible of what has happened was obviously the Vatican, with the then reigning Pope a world champion when it was about feeling sorry, whining around and complaining he was disobeyed but rather non-existent when it was about doing revolutionary things like demanding obedience, or putting up a fight. In the Seventies, fights were passe’ and Paul VI’s idea of opposition rarely went beyond a very subdued meowing about what the Church thoughts should, ideally, happen. A bit like the weak uncle sitting at table, expressing his opinion in a very low voice and firmly expecting – and secretly hoping -  that he won’t be taken seriously, otherwise the discussion will have to become heated.

3) The third element is, of course, the complicity of the local church hierarchy. When the local hierarchy declares war, a war punctually erupts, as we see now in the United States. Nothing of the sort happened in most European countries, with the local bishops happy to go with the flow. More popular, you know, and we don’t want to do anything as “people won’t change their mind anyway” (another brilliant excuse for the coward; I though the bishops were there to convert, not to decide people won’t be converted. My bad, I am sure).

Therefore, we are now in a situation where even euthanasia is not a taboo anymore; where disgraceful Archbishops openly refuse to disapprove of so-called “civil partnerships”; where not even Mass obligation is transmitted to the faithful; where the priest has become the pathetic figure of an obsolete old man who tries not to be a nuisance and knows a lot of jokes, but is not seen by anyone as a moral guide, generally because he isn’t.

This, I think, is why we are where we are. Europe is old and tired, and being old still has too many old sixty-eighters around. It has contracted out the very concept of freedom to a very nazi-”liberal” wannabe elite who is stealthily stripping the population of the most elementary freedoms with the entire apparatus of “hate crime” and “sensitivity” legislation. It has slowly forgotten not only the basis of freedom, but the basis of Christianity, with those most affected (the pot-smoking, sixty-eighter generation) now in power.

The smarter part of the US population sees all this, and reacts accordingly. I do not doubt the likes of Nichols can’t even understand why they are so angry.

If one doesn’t get Christianity, or freedom, I am not surprised.

Mundabor

” A Homily In The Sixties”

The creator of this image forgot to add V II.

Read on Rorate Caeli the always intelligent considerations as to where the SSPX is in respect to the talks with Rome, and how this position is perfectly coherent with what Archbishop Lefebvre always did.

I found the last lines of particular interest:

The ball is on Rome’s court, where the Pope [...] can, simply with his signature, confer the widest prerogatives to the work directed by the Swiss prelate from the Valais. He can eventually acknowledge this recent thesis that defended, in Rome, that, “the authority of the magisterium of Vatican II is that of a homily in the 1960s.” Had not he himself affirmed that the Council “deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council”?

Words of wisdom, I think, and after 50 years of folly perhaps it is high time to go back to the sanity of the Church as she was understood these last two thousand years.

Mundabor

SSPX Gives Second Response To Vatican

Tradidi quod et accepi: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

In the matter of the Preambolo it has now transpired the first answer delivered by the SSPX to the Vatican has been considered not to the point (that is: too long-winded), and the SSPX has been requested to present a second answer, more concise and more focused on the Preambolo itself.

This second version is being examined as we speak, though of course no immediate reaction is to be expected.

What seems interesting to me from the source (the highly reputable Italian daily newspaper “La Stampa”) is that the SSPX answer is not a simple refusal of the Vatican offer, but a partial acceptance, with the clarification of what the SSPX is not ready to accept and the request of further clarifications from the Vatican as to what they mean by certain expressions.

The crux of the disagreement seems to me in the way the SSPX and (perhaps) the Vatican understand the ordinary (which means, erm, cough: the fallible) Magisterium.

For the Vatican, it would seem that

the Catholic is called to ensure a “religious submission of will and intellect” to the teachings that the Pope and the college of bishops “offer when they exercise their authentic Magisterium,” even if they are not proclaimed in a dogmatic way, as is the case with most of the documents of the magisterium.

For the SSPX, what is not in accordance with the Tradition is just plain wrong, and therefore there can be no question of religious submission to error. As a consequence,

the Lefebvrians do not intend to give their assent to the texts of the Council regarding collegiality, ecumenism, interreligious dialogue, and religious freedom, because they believe these to be inconsistent with tradition

As it is acutely pointed out – oh, the difference between Italian “vaticanisti” and the bunch of politically correct ignorant idiots employed by the BBC and elsewhere! -

the concept of tradition – “Traditio” – and its value, represents the crux of the debate that has characterized the talks between the Society and the Holy See. The Lefebvrians criticize some of the Council’s provisions, considering them to be at odds with the tradition of the Church.

In simple words, I will put it in this way: if your drunk father orders you to bring him more brandy, are you obliged to comply because he is your father and you are supposed to obey him? Substitute “drunkenness” with “Vatican II novelties” and you are, I think, not very far from the nucleus of this disagreement. The Vatican seems to think you still obey to papa because you owe him obedience, the SSPX says the very love and obedience you owe to your father requires that you refuse to comply. The comparison with drunkenness might seem strong, but after fifty years of Vatican II devastation I am inclined to call it gentle.

We shall see. Don’t hold your breath. Actually an Hail Mary or three is a better idea.

Mundabor.

The Wicked Witch Of The West And The Conciliar Fathers

If she had only avoided participating to Vatican II....

And so we are informed Cardinal Ranjith is of the opinion (which you can read here, and here) the Vetus Ordo is pretty much what the doctor ordered, and the Conciliar Fathers wanted.

I can only assume, then, the Wicked Witch of the West successively took control of pretty much everything in the affairs of the Church; probably whilst the Conciliar Fathers were having their tea and cake, or their afternoon nap.

Now don’t take me wrong: I can only cheer the good Cardinal for breaking a lance for the Tridentine Mass, a sport certainly not well spread among his colleagues. What I find always more than strange is this continuous desire – one would almost say, the felt obligation – to put Vatican II as the basis of everything good and sensible and consider everything that went awry afterwards as being to do with utterly external circumstances like the above mentioned female.

The simple truth of the matter is, the Conciliar Fathers might have wanted to keep Latin as the backbone of the liturgy at the very beginning of the Council – or, say, as long as they knew Pope John XXIII wanted things to stay that way -,  but they most certainly threw Latin out of the window in the course of the following years, and did so themselves in the clearest of manners, the bishops presiding over the massacre of Latin being very largely the same people who had taken part in the Council.

This of the Council being betrayed is, if you ask me, one of those legends always created to defend the indefensible (we all know the stories; for example, the imagined “good communism” or “good socialism” as opposed to the brutal reality). What happened after the council was every bit the unavoidable result of what happened during the council, and executed by the very same people.

Therefore, I welcome Cardinal Ranjith’s intervention.  I only wished he would stop trying to defend the indefensible and would either say things as they are – we’ll get there in time, I am sure – or cover with a charitable silence the thorny matter of the responsibility for the catastrophe of the last fifty years. We suffer the fruit of Vatican II every day to this day and the way out is not letting us believe in some utterly implausible “good Vatican II” ( or good communism, or good socialism), but to recognise that if the fruits have been so bad the tree cannot have been good at all, particularly considering the people tending the tree and distributing its fruits have been the same all along.

Mundabor

Bishop Fellay On Why The Negotiations Failed

From Rorate Caeli, the most clearly formulated explanation yet of why the talks between the SSPX and the Vatican failed.

I have never read anything so movingly beautiful from the SSPX than this intervention. There is no animosity there, and no acrimony. Bishop Fellay simply explain where things stand, why the proposal is not acceptable and how things could – but probably won’t for the time being – progress further.

I have read and re-read the message and could find nothing even remotely linked to the “Taleban attitude” so often moved as accusation against the Society. Once again, they might have their fair share of nutcases in the pews, but the clergy and the top brass are not irrational or fanatical – if we except Williamson, in part – at all.

This is so beautiful that is best understood if read in its entirety. I therefore invite you to click the link and make an idea for yourself on Rorate Caeli.

Next time you pray for Hitchens, think whether at that point the SSPX doesn’t deserve the same treatment, at the very least.

Mundabor

Mons Gherardini on Vatican II

Emphases mine.

Now, in conclusion, our discussion returns to Vatican II, so as to make, if possible, a definitive statement about whether or not it is part of Tradition and about its magisterial quality. There is no question about the latter, and those laudatores who for a good 50 years have tirelessly upheld the magisterial identity of Vatican II have been wasting their time and ours: no one denies it. Given their uncritically exuberant statements, however, a problem arises as to the quality: what sort of Magisterium are we talking about? The article in L’Osservatore Romano to which I referred at the outset speaks about doctrinal Magisterium: and who has ever denied it? Even a purely pastoral statement can be doctrinal, in the sense of pertaining to a given doctrine. If someone were to say doctrinal in the sense of dogmatic, however, he would be wrong: no dogma is proclaimed by Vatican II. If it has some dogmatic value also, it does so indirectly in passages where it refers back to previously defined dogmas. Its Magisterium, in short, as has been said over and over again to anyone who has ears to hear it, is a solemn and supreme Magisterium.

More problematic is its continuity with Tradition, not because it did not declare such a continuity, but because, especially in those key points where it was necessary for this continuity to be evident, the declaration has remained unproven.

 Please, pleaaase a prayer for this brave man!

Mundabor