Some Words About Blog Moderation

Go away. You are not welcome.

As the disgraceful Francis throws away the mask and shows the true Jesuit behind it, it is perhaps fitting to say a couple of words about the way the highly emotional, rather short-tempered author of this blog will cope with the challenges of our time.

1. This is no place for Sedevacantists. Whilst we criticise the advanced state of decay in which the Church finds Herself, we are fully loyal to the Church.

One does not apply for a new passport – or, more fittingly put, denies the legitimacy of those issuing the passport – because one despises the bunch currently in charge. Particularly if it is Christ’s passport, and the passport to Purgatory. Every comment even vaguely reeking of Sedevacantism will be culled, because I do not want my blog to be occasion of scandal to the many good Catholics reading this effort every day; or encourage them, upset as they must understandably be, to sinful thoughts. Let us be firm in the intention of loving the Church more and more, as she is more and more trampled by this (generally speaking, and with the obvious exception of the good ones) disgraceful clergy of ours.

When the SSPX declares that the Sea is vacant, I will believe it. Not one day before.

2. This blog takes enough time, energy and adrenaline. My bad, I am sure, but I have none of them left for people posting messages on the lines of “perhaps Francis does all this because he has a rare virus compelling him to act strangely”, or “Francis must be such an innocent man that he is unable to see anything bad in homosexual priests, or sodomite helpers”.

Just for the record: if you think the like of this, you are stupid. No, you really are. Yes, I am talking to you.

Stay away from this blog, because this blog isn’t for the stupid, and the stupid will never get anything out of it. If you really can’t avoid reading it – which I can’t prevent; though I would if I could – at least don’t post.

There is no Kool-aid here. Click elsewhere. You are not wanted.

I have enough of people posting just to tell me how thick hey are, thinking – being thick – that they look good in the process. These are the people who have contributed most to the present situation, the professional Pollyannas and world champions of brainlessness; the Catholic Chamberlains unable to see an elephant in the room, but feeling so good because they don’t.

Enjoy Francis, then, little Chamberlains. And, at least on this blog, have the decency to shut up.

Life’s too short for your comments.

Mundabor

Generational Change

The first World Youth Day held under a Pope Bishop of Rome who wasn’t a bishop at the time of the Council shows the V II disease has now reached a new, more virulent form. Whilst former Popes had been formed in pre V II times and at least knew what they were demolishing, an entire generation below them was going out of seminaries with an extremely bad formation. The bad formation did not prevent them from climbing the Vatican career ladder and, in time, some of those confused social worker priests of whom the faithful wondered who on earth thought them fit for the habit became bishops; some of the bishops, cardinals; one of the cardinals, Pope.

True enough, in the meantime traces of sanity manifest themselves at the roots: priestly instruction is probably better now than it has been for decades; vocations are increasing, and are certainly less plagued by homosexuals looking for sodomy partners than it was before; a growing number of young priest is either able or willing to celebrate the Traditional Mass; among the faithful, a small but determined nucleus of duri e puri (“hard and pure”) has been forming, and they are young. It’s not all bad.

Still, if we consider how these generational matters proceed in waves, we haven’t much to rejoice. As the old wave of traitors of proper Catholicism was dying out, a new wave of very badly formed, popularity-seeking, not too infrequently perverted nincompoops was forming. This wave is now reaching maximum height, and it is the one who has swept away the Church with its idiocy. Bar a supernatural intervention, we are going to stay under water for a long time, as it will now take decades before this disgraceful generational wave of bad entertainers dies out, and makes place for the following wave of at least more mixed talents.

Bishop Bergoglio discovered, or thought he discovered, his vocation relatively late, and if memory serves received Holy Orders only in the second part of the Sixties. Theologically speaking, he is probably younger than his age, and at the same time at the beginning of a disgraceful wave of bad priests going out of the seminaries in the following fifteen years at least. He is the top of a very high wave, that will give us Dolans and Nicholses aplenty; at least a couple of them will, of course, become popes, though whether they will even want to be called that way is questionable.

We are now about to be submerged under a huge wave of stupidity, ignorance, and utter faithlessness, and must endure it for as long as the Lord pleases. I suggest we take a very deep breath now, because we are going to be under water for a while.

Mundabor

 

Error Has No Rights

 

 

Extremely strange article from George Weigel, about which I think I should spend two words; not criticising its orthodoxy, as the people at Rorate brilliantly do, but its logic.

Weigel’s argument is that Cardinal Ottaviani’s conviction that “error has no right” is now being used against us by rabid secularists, maintaining that Christianity must be silenced because…. error has no rights. This would show that Ottaviani’s conviction was wrong.

Now, apart from the huge problem that the Cardinal’s opinion is what the Church has always believed, the argument just doesn’t work from a logical point of view.

The idea that Error has no rights is not proven wrong because others oppress Christians or the Church using the same argument, for the very reason that… they are wrong. Christians have always been persecuted, and will always be persecuted irrespective of whether they hold to Truth in matters of religious freedom, or cave in to the modern “inclusive” mentality. If anything, the last years have abundantly showed even caving in to “inclusiveness” does not spare from persecution.

The argument, tough, does not work in an even more elementary way. If we say that “it is right to put dangerous criminals in jail” this does not prevent others from unjustly putting us in jail because they deem us dangerous criminals; but this does not negate the validity of the principle in the least!

How, then, do we distinguish those who are right from those who are wrong? Simply by knowing what is right and what is wrong. The Church is right, the Heresies are wrong. Christianity is right, Atheism is wrong. God is right, those who oppose Him are wrong. How do I know that? Because the Church says so. And who is the Church to say so? She is the Bride of Christ.

It’s simple, really. Right is right and wrong is wrong, and what is important is on which side one is. To say Muslims should have the right to build mosques if we want to have the right to build churches neglects the fundamental difference between a church and a mosque, Truth and Error, true God and false god.

We must stop with this inclusive, egalitarian waffle and resolutely take the side of Christ. Be assured caving in to the fashion of the time is not only to betray God, but will not ensure a single additional church being built, as these times of church closures and coming persecution abundantly prove.

Mundabor

 

Horses, Friars, And The Pope

He is not concerned. Perhaps the Pope should.

One of the issues touched by the Holy Father during his disastrous meeting with CLAR was the one of the dying orders that cling to the vast possessions they have; a state of affairs the Pontiff doesn't like because he would rather use the assets for other purposes (presumably, giving the money away) whilst the interested parties reply the money is necessary to provide for them before the old nincompoops stretch – as the cynical Italian would say – their paws.

It stroke me as odd that the Pontiff didn't even mention with one word the lamentable state of these orders, or wondered how they could slowly commit suicide in such a stupid way, or admit the unprecedented crisis of religious life; he also did not waste one second to mention in passing the enormous damage created by the lack of religious personnel for the coming generations. His concern was, apparently, centred on the fact the old boys cling to vast real estate, which the Pontiff would rather see sold and, if the now fashionable rhetoric is to be followed, spread among the poor.

I am informed that horses are extremely centred in the present, which is why they can, say, be bought and sold many times in a way that would, say, break a dog's heart. The horse only thinks of today, they say. He is not in the least interested in the past, nor remotely concerned about the future.

The Holy Father's free-wheeling reflections concerning the money of the dying orders reminded me of the horse thinking, with the Pontiff faced with the utter ruin of a vast number of once great religious orders and the great damage for future generations, but concerned about the fact they don't want to give him the dough.

Alternatively, I can only imagine that his repeated “what do I know” and “perhaps” reflect his real thinking, and this Pope subscribes to the disquieting theory that the Holy Ghost doesn't need or want religious orders anymore, as in this oh so brilliant new age of ours, in which divorce, contraception, sexual perversion and defiance of Christian values are in a new Springtime, He will transfer the task to the oh so new man, and the contracepting, aborting, divorcing laity will take care of things. In this perspective, it makes perfect sense that the Holy Father say “what do I know” about the fact these orders are dying, but does know he would like their vast resources. Again, we would be here in front of a Jesuit rather unconcerned with the almost extinction of his and many other orders. Once again, note he says “they have no vocations” and sees in that a fact he can't really explain. That there are no vocations because the orders foxtrotted things up in the most egregious manner doesn't even enter his mind. Such is the mentality of a product of V II.

I Imagine this, because if this were not to be the case the Pontiff would most certainly focus on the restructuring of the orders according to pre-Vatican II rules, and encourage them to use their generally extensive resources to finance their growth; a growth which, if you believe God wants to have solid religious orders, you must believe will come once these orders are made solid again.

Nothing of this is to be seen in the Papal reflections. The traditional orders are all more or less dying, and his words suggest a sort of confrontation or at least opposition to his wishes that has gone on for some time, with the Vatican gently suggesting the orders divest part of their assets and the orders gently answering that they need them to fund their old age.

Probably horse mentality is, therefore, not really at play. Rather, a perfect easiness with the dying of religious orders. This is, of course, coupled with the near-perfect blindness of the V II man, either unable to see that the traditional orders are growing fast, or willing to consider their growth a residue of the past, as if those people still believed they live, erm, cough, in the Forties.

But hey, what does he know.

In the meantime, give him the money.

Mundabor

 

The Good And The Harmless

Let the bad times roll…

 

One of the many mistakes of modern thinking is the inability to assess goodness in its proper light. This in turn causes a tragic inability to understand who the really good people are.

It is traditional Christian teaching that God’s goodness is, so to speak, the sum total of both His Mercy and His Justice. On the human and practical level, this always implied the obvious concept that one can’t be good if he isn’t also able to enforce good behaviour, or to defend what is good with more than words. The idea that the Crusades be “not good” would have never entered the mind of people able to properly assess goodness.

Not so today. You will notice everywhere – and most tragically, in the thinking of many Catholics – that for very many “good” means “harmless”. If one is ready to punish, he can’t be really “good”. Goodness has become spineless thinking and behaviour, the non-violent, Gandhi-crap that has been polluting Western society for too long.

Popes are, unfortunately, a tragic example of this new thinking. Popes like Pius IX, Pius X, Pius XI and Pius XII were good in that they were not only good men, but able enforcers. In contrast, the last Popes have all been bad enforcers, and their “goodness” has now become synonymous with the inability to act as a Pope should. Modern Popes are Gandhis in a white tunic: perfectly harmless, photogenic, and utterly innocuous for the Church hierarchy.

The first example of this was John XXIII, whose nickname il Papa buono (the good-hearted Pope) is due to his utter inability to do much else than being pious.

The Vatican Council he naively started was out of control only weeks into it, and there were no consequences. Theologians censured or silenced until a very few years before took over proceedings well before his death, and again there was no reaction. The very idea of the Council was thrown over board very rapidly, and one would almost think it I possible the Pope who called the Council is the one who presided over its highjacking.

How can such an irrelevance be good? It can only if one is drink with the kook-aid of the new times, of peace and dialogue as supreme values, with Gandhi instead of Christ as the guiding light.

Pope John XXIII certainly was a saintly man, with a very good heart. But he was the first of he ones to confuse “good” and “harmless”.

We pay the consequences still today.

Mundabor

 

 

 

What Went Wrong, From A Priest’s Mouth.

What a mess he started: Pope Blessed John XXIII

I truly believe that unless we return to the very basics in our preaching, in our school texts and in our public statements, and unless we return to a liturgy that is God-focused rather than people-centred, we will continue to see the Church dwindle by lapsation and lose influence in society. We need to be formed again, theologically and catachetically. in key issues: the Primacy of the Pope in Doctrine and Discipline; the unique nature of the Catholic Church as the One True Church from which all salvation flows; the necessity of regular Confession for regular Communion; the Mass as the Sacrifice of Calvary and not simply a fraternal banquet; the inherent evil of contraception; of fornication, abortion and euthanasia. We also need to rediscover the essential vocation and responsibility of the laity as the salt of the earth wherein they set out to evangelisation of the world in its media, health care, politics, education etc. We in the clergy need to remember that we serve by taking responsibility (not power) before God for the teaching, sanctifying and governing of the Church. Collaboration does not mean shirking this responsibility.

This is an excerpt from a very good post at “Catholic Collar and Tie” (this one is from the “collar”, if you ask), where a priest reflects on what went wrong and why. His very fitting reflections conclude with another phrase I cannot avoid citing: 

In that it is the Truth which sets us free, I believe we have to return –and return soon- to forming them in doctrinal accuracy and in the understanding that Holy Mass is the worship of God in adoration, propitiation and supplication, rather than a community jamboree, which it becomes when we seek jolly songs and use skits and dramas.

The part about “who is Jesus Christ for you?” must also reflect a common problem in English school, as it is not the first time I hear of such nonsense (didn’t happen in my country and in my time, happily. We weren’t asked who Jesus is. We were told. At least that).

I suggest that you click and read the post in its entirety, and also focused on the first comment, from “Adrienne”, which truly gives a realistic picture of what is happening.

It is consoling to see that some of the younger priests “get it” and do not continue in the delusions of their older colleagues, who seem to consider the “key issues” like immaterial options that can be left out provided one has a good heart, or the like .

Mundabor

Pollyanna And V II

Empty Pews. The work of the Holy Ghost?

 

 

 

Someone tweeted me the question whether I believe that V II was not the work of the Holy Spirit. The tweet was possibly a joke, as anyone who takes two minutes to read my blog cannot really have many doubts where I stand. Still, we must confront the tragic reality that as I write this there are people out there who in fact believe the Holy Ghost, instead of Satan, was the source of inspiration for the entire matter.

So let us think for a moment what the logical consequence of this thinking is. If the Holy Ghost inspired V II, it follows that the Holy Ghost has changed his mind very radically about the way to say Mass, thinking on second thoughts that the injection of Calvinist elements and the removal of Catholic elements from the Mass is just the ticket. Following, we must also agree the Holy Ghost desired that theologians censored by the Church only a few years before may now be called to redefine what Catholic theology is, even trying, as they almost successfully did, to demolish Papal authority or – as, if memory serves, Rahner tried, inter alia, to do – to steer the Church towards embracing the Protestant tenet of sola fide.

Further, the Holy Ghost must in this perspective have wanted the most spectacular exercise in muddling of Church teaching ever attempted in two thousand years – involving key aspects of the Church, like religious freedom – with the explosion of duplicity and doublespeak – and the utter abandonment of clear theological language and Thomist thinking – found pretty much everywhere in the conciliar documents.

But this is not all. The biggest crisis of vocations ever experienced, and a significant percentage of the clergy leaving the habit, must also have been wanted by the Holy Ghost, because if the Holy Ghost wills a revolutionary council he must perforce will its consequences. From this follows, with elegant inevitability, that the Holy Ghost also willed (as opposed to: allowed) the huge loss of grip of the Church in Catholic countries, and Catholics all over the West starting to divorce, contracept and abort in a manner not really distinguishable from the ways of non-Catholics.

I could go on for very long, but I will keep it short. In short, the idea of these people is that the Holy Ghost both changes his mind and starts doing things in a catastrophically wrong way.

If you ask me, in order to believe such a huge load of rubbish one must be equipped with either a very low intelligence, or a robust dose of disingenuousness, or a substantial emotional investment blinding him to the obvious error of his ways. I’d say the first kind is rather spread among the less gifted pew sitters; the second is the preserve of those desiring to do away with hell and all the unpleasant teachings, and the third is the main trait of most of the clergy, starting from the Popes – all of them, almost certainly; though we do not know what Pope Luciani would have done with V II behind the usual words – and ending with the stupid priest wishing “a bigger role for women with the new Papacy” about whom yours truly has reported.

To all of them is common a good dose of denial. To see so many Western countries introduce a parody of marriage whilst church attendance plummets to very low levels and still think that this is nothing to do with the Church’s surrender to the desire of popularity and harmony proves that it is the desire not to see that blinds them, and makes them think V II may have something to do with the Holy Ghost rather than being an open attack to Him.

In the meantime, we experience a new generation of Catholics: those whose sons are generally indifferent and whose nephews don’t get baptised. I wonder when this has happened last. I actually wonder whether it has ever happened in the first place.

Two generations after V II, we are seeing post-Christianity at work. To say this immense work of demolition of Christian societies all over the West is merely a problem of implementation has the same content of intelligence and logic as to maintain Communism was good, but unfortunately its implementation was lacking.

Mundabor

V II, Mice, Top Cat

Reblog of the day

Fatima: Cardinal Policarpo Can Seriously Damage Your Health.

The usual Rorate Caeli has the integral text of Cardinal Policarpo's prayer for the consecration of Pope Francis' Pontificate to Our Lady of Fatima.

There is so much sugar it would spoil every coffee. If I read it again, I'll have to get a medical check for diabetes, so I suggest you inflict the exercise on yourself only once.

The Blessed Virgin thought it fitting to show to the three children of Fatima (operative word here is children) a horrifying vision of hell, which became famous worldwide and helps faithful to keep away from hell to this day and, no doubt, for many days to come. If you read Cardinal Policarpo, there's so much luuuv you think you are in a hippy commune, but no warning about the horrible punishment of hell, and the concrete danger it represent for everyone of us and all those we love.

I dare to doubt the Blessed Virgin will be much pleased with a Cardinal only able to pick on the good parts of the apparition to make of it another exercise in popularity quest, which is the very negation of the true charity the Blessed Virgin had for the children when she showed them the vision of hell.

But here we are: what the Blessed Virgin thought children can not only stomach, but make their own and draw great spiritual profit from, the Cardinal thinks unfitting for adult Catholics, in a message that he certinly knew would get worldwide resonance.

Not only does the Cardinal avoid every explicit threat or even mention of hell; but if you read the last sentence, he produces himself in the usual exercise in V II doublespeak, with a phrase that – particularly in the sugary context – allows all those who so desire to read it in the sense that Mary does lead all to salvation, so we will be all fine.

If you want a good example of what nuChurch is, you need to do no more than to read the Cardinal's message.

Once, of course.

Mundabor

 

SSPX: Feast Your Eyes (Plus Some Sad Reflections).

On the newly launched website  of the new building for the St. Thomas Aquinas’ Seminary, you can see the future of Catholicism in the Western world.

Whilst the Vatican II church waffles itself into irrelevance and almost extinction, the sane parts of the Church not only resist, but grow and prosper. See the video below

http://youtu.be/KgOS9m-SBHg

to see what is happening.

It is difficult, very difficult not to see that traditional Catholicism is prospering and growing, whilst the (numerically still vaster) NuChurch is dying fast, sinking into irrelevance in the process.

The site and video explain to you nothing less than the future of Catholicism: solid, determined, serious. No laughing clowns in sight, no “daring” architectures, no waffle whatever.

Rorate Caeli  not only has the video, but in a truly dramatic contrast has another blog post about the slow but perceptible decline of the Church in France.  Besides the sobering statistical figures, the blog post has a rather telling photo of a huge (and, if you ask me, horrible, Le Corbusier or no Le Corbusier; see photo below) Dominican seminary now housing a dozen of seminarians.

For the dozen seminarians, the sense of decay must be palpable every hour of the day.

Vatican II in Images.

This is how the drunkenness of Vatican II is dying: leaving a lot of (mostly ugly) concrete in empty buildings, after deserting the Western world now under a massive attack from the forces of evil; forces of evil which the church continues to cajole and try to be friends with.

The two photos shown give a very clear idea of what the future of these two opposed vision of the Church will be, and which one of the two (the traditional, of the V II  one) will survive.

The bill for the madness of the past is being presented very fast, and with the almost complete extinction of those organisations which have embraced the “spirit of Vatican II”-Zeitgeist (Jesuits and Franciscans come to mind; an awful lot of scrounging nuns; and who knows how many other minor orders) more and more bills will become due in the next decade or two.

Another who just couldn’t get it: Comrade Erich Honecker.

In the meantime, serious Catholicism will continue to grow, until in one generation or two it will control the field again because of the literal, physical death of the opposing camp. A much reduced Catholicism it might be, but probably a much more effective one; than the vast majority of the hundreds of thousands of priests and religious we have now aren’t doing much for Catholicism other than muddle the waters, encourage sodomy or support same-sex couples, desecrate the mass,  abet heresy, being openly simoniacal and hobnob with the enemy.

In their blindness, they remind me of Erich Honecker, the deluded DDR Comrade celebrating the 40th anniversary of the DDR whilst the building was squeaking in a way impossible not to notice.

Honecker’s regime did not live to see the 50th anniversary.

Whatever the challenges of the future, we can be very confident the V II madness will not live to see the 100th.

Mundabor

The Beatification Of V II And The “Hermeneutic Of Embarrassment”.

Red Alert

And so the Year of Faith has begun, and I hope it will end without much damage.

I am not so sure, though. It seems to me this year of faith exists with the main objective of the beatification of V II and the attempt to sanitise it and at the same time make of it a permanent element of the Church landscape. I do think both objective will fail, but I digress…

There are rumours of the impending beatification of both Pope Paul VI ( imagine that… Who’s next? Archbishop Bugnini?) and John Paul I. As John XXIII has already been beatified and the current Pontiff has already cared for V-II marketing weapon number 1, this would make a succession of four Popes to be beatified; five, if we consider the one who would merit it – miracle presupposed – just for avoiding antics like V II.

Embarrassing. Still, it might be only a rumour, and Pope Benedict would very probably not expose himself to the very just criticism of beatifying three (perhaps four) of his predecessors, basically pre-ordering his own beatification and – besides making a mockery of the beatification process, which after JP II’s reform largely is largely the case anyway – creating a precedent  in such bad taste that  in comparison the earth-kissing and rock-concert-loving of his predecessor would be considered innocent and devout pastimes.

So, the Holy Father wouldn’t do it. Or would he? Hand on heart, would you have expected him to ever appoint one like Mueller? Exactly…

Then there are the rather absurd rumours – picked up here and there, and personally never believed – of a new version of the Traditional Mass, who would be “modernised” with the introduction of some aspects of the intermediate version of the Novus Ordo (then itself surpassed by the events when the alleged “spirit” began to wreak serious havoc within the Liturgy). According to this rumour, we would have a, say, “2013 Missal” to take the place of the 1962 (or 1955) one. This rumour seems absurd to me not because I think Pope Benedict would never do something like that to the Traditional Mass (I do think he would be well capable of that; he isn’t a traditionalist by any conceivable definition of the word), but rather because there would be more chances of Kim-Jong-Un one day becoming Pope than of such an exercise being accepted by those who are supposed to be its users, submerging the author of such an attempt with a tidal wave of ridicule for all centuries to come. This rumour can, I think, be therefore dismissed without any worry.

Much more real is the massive PR exercise we have seen in the last weeks in favour of V II. The concept truly reminds one of Gorbachev’s idea that what is intrinsically bad can be saved and made useful just taking some pieces here and there, giving it a hand of polish, talking the process to the sky and developing the entire mess into an exercise in which, suddenly, everything magically starts to work. We will be told ad nauseam that V II was oh so good, and that for reasons probably linked to the lunar phases some evil gremlin took it hostage for fifty years causing a huge wave of wannabe “spirit”, the emptying of churches, the oblivion of Catholic teaching, a scary loss of power and influence even in the most religious US States (who would have imagined the HHS mandate  in the Fifties? Abortion? Same-sex “marriages”?) and in general a long attempt – perpetrated or abetted or tolerated by the clergy themselves – to make Catholicism forgotten, irrelevant, and consisting in little more than a couple of stupid slogans about peace and social justice.

Already the Pontiff says that we must take the Council “literally”, but – as always in this kind of reasoning – he begs the question. If there are no significant novelties in the “literal” reading of the Conciliar documents, then the Beatification of V II does not make sense at all and every traditional Catholic can dismiss it as an event of mediocre content and little consequence. If there are, then this is exactly where the  problem lies; even more so, because the “reading” is now “literal” and there is, literally, nowhere to hide.

Vatican II was always a circular argument, but in the past there was at least the excuse of the “spirit” now magically waking up and starting to do things in a completely different manner than in the past 2000 years, for reasons which were never satisfactorily explained.

Now that the “spirit” is being very clearly “un-spirited” again, the circular argument is reduced to “V II was so wonderful because it was so wonderful”, and I frankly think it is high time to wake up, acknowledge the devastation, and begin a serious work or reparation of the damage done.  I’d call the SSPX theologians for that; I wonder if Archbishop Mueller would approve, though….

I personally suggest a new interpretative key of the texts of Vatican II: the “hermeneutic of embarrassment”, according to which the Vatican hierarchy acknowledge the huge amount of waffle and populism, the appalling lack of clarity, the huge doors intentionally left open to convenient misinterpretations, and the shameless desire to be friends with everyone and “in tune”  with pretty much everything under the sun, and set up to reformulate in clear and unmistakable manner all the issues touched by Vatican II documents and which have grated those who can be seen as the most credible defender of traditional Catholic faith.

In doing so, this “hermeneutic of embarrassment” would literally follow the word of one, ahem,  noted theologian:

“The truth is that this particular Council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of ‘superdogma,’ which takes away the importance of all the rest”

I doubt the “hermeneutic of embarrassment” will hold sway during my lifetime, which I even hope long and happy. But I have no doubt one day it will prevail, as it has already prevailed in the mind of countless sincere and devout Catholics fed up with this endless rubbish of either the “spirit” making a pig’s breakfast of everything Catholic, or the “milestone” which wasn’t even supposed to be one but must be believed under pain of, erm, excommunication.

Pray for the priests of the SSPX.

Mundabor

.

Cardinal Koch Only Half Right On Luther

Chesterton still dared to say the word out loud.

The 500th  anniversary of the date conventionally considered the start of the Heresy of Luther (1517) is fast approaching, and the V II – ecumenical hearts are all a-flutter already.

Cardinal Koch, the man at the Vatican in charge of telling it as it is without ever telling it as it is,  has started the hostilities by declaring that the Church does not participate in celebrations of sins. He would, instead, favour a kind of strange “commemoration” during which a “two-sided admission of guilt” would take place.  How very John Paul II.

The Cardinal is now running the risk of being accused of not being ecumenical enough; than if you are truly “ecumenical” you are supposed to “charitably” overlook little details like Truth and Heresy, and to take part in the Great Mahatma Gandhesque Ecumenical Love-In, in which everyone loves everybody, God forgives everyone everything, and it should be good that we remind ourselves that we are, at times, all a bit naughty in one way or another.

I do hope the Cardinal does get accused. Firstly, this would have the beneficial effect of unmasking those within the Church who are openly sympathising with heresies; secondly, it might have the effect of forcing the Cardinal to tell a couple of things straight rather than always, always taking the whip out of the drawer and starting the usual public self-flagellation. This is a new fashion introduced by Blessed John Paul II, the brilliant Pope who went around implicitly criticising the Crusades (and perfectly happy to have the media understand the message in that way) whilst he protected all sort of sodomites, fornicators, thieves, and protectors of paedophiles.

In fact, one can reasonably say Cardinal Koch made the first step, but stopped with the second foot in mid-air. His warning that Luther committed “a sin” remains a very vague and very weak statement, if the Cardinal doesn’t openly tell why. Explicit, unmistakeable and insisted condemnation of heresy should be the very first duty of each and every Prince of the Church. Instead, we are served a feeble voice in favour of Truth, without a clear statement as to what this Truth is based upon. The Cardinal should have used this occasion for an open condemnation of heresy and an open call to conversion, without any consideration for the popularity of such statement. This would have been at the same time authentically charitable and authentically ecumenical, then he who does not strongly upholds the faith does not promote Christian unity, but Christian division. The watering-down of Truth through the umpteenth admission of past guilt is not really enticing for confused Christians. On the contrary, the Cardinal’s statement will reinforce in them the feeling that everyone is wrong one way or the other; and if this is so, why shouldn’t they continue to consider the Church wrong in theological matters?

We live in such disgraceful times that even these feeble accusations expose a Cardinal to criticism – a state of thing actively promoted by the Vatican itself in these last 50 years -and we must therefore be grateful for every half word of support for truth. 

But make no mistake, every mention of the Heresy of Luther which does not clearly and openly attack heresy falls short of the mark.

Mundabor

  

 

 

Cardinal Burke on Summorum Pontificum

You can't see them, but the teeth are there: Cardinal Burke.

Cardinal Burke has given an interview to the French magazine La Nef (source: Rorate Caeli). In it, the Cardinal rather vigorously defends Summorum Pontificum, declares that the Tridentine has been of great inspiration to him personally and, in general, leaves not many excuses to the enemies of Summorum Pontificum.

You can see an example of his rather direct style in this statement (emphases mine):

To those who claim not to understand the intentions of Summorum Pontificum, I suggest a re-reading of the Letter to the Bishops, written by our Holy Father when it was promulgated, as well as the numerous writings of the Holy Father on sacred liturgy, published before and after his election to the Chair of Peter.

Note the expression “claim” not to understand, followed by the encouragement to, well, just do one’s homework. The reference to the “numerous writings” also makes clear enough that the boycott of Summorum Pontificum can only be attributed to the bad faith of its enemies.

This would be, methinks, a very fitting Pope.

The only element that personally leaves me a bit perplexed is his statement (we do not know whether sincerely felt, or due to reasons of diplomatic expediency) that V II had good intentions, but these intentions have been “betrayed” successively.

How can this be, one asks, when it is crystal clear that this betrayal has been so widely spread, and looked at in the perfect inaction by the same bishops who were at the Council? Has there a nuclear war or a genocide intervened, so that the bishops presiding over the horrible post-conciliar years were different ones than the oh so well-intentioned ones giving us the V II masterworks in circiterism and double entendre? Thought not….

Should Cardinal Burke become our next Pontiff, I hope that he will, profiting from a degree of liberty he cannot enjoy now – start the work of demolition of the mentality that gave us V II in the first place without sparing the holy cow of the “good intentions”, a tale whose utter falseness has been abundantly proved by the facts of the post-conciliar years.

V II was merely a pastoral council. It is now – after the great drunkenness of the Sixties and Seventies – abundantly clear that it was inspired, informed and executed in the worst pastoral spirit one can imagine. V II can be put in the garbage can in its entirety without any doctrinal compromise with the doctrinal Truth of the Church.

The sooner, the better.

Mundabor