Aggiornamexit

 

As the latest figures from France abundantly show, the biological solution is on the march. 

V II priests are disappearing to the tune of more than 700 a year. You can bet your hat the vast majority of them are of the fluffy V II sort. An increasing percentage of (limited) ordination concerns priests more or less obviously not of the fluffy V II sort. The SSPX figures are obviously not included.

A much smaller number of priests, but with a much higher percentage of decent Catholic priests (some of them of the conservative V II sort, and some of them of the non-V II sort): this is where we are headed.

France and Belgium are particularly striking examples because the rot over there is particularly advanced, but the dearth of priests always comes in proportion to the death of Catholic values. What is most reassuring is this: even after three years of Francis’ destruction work, there is no evidence of fags invading the Francis-seminaries hoping to scrounge a fully paid sodomitical existence at the expense of deceased donors. FrancisChurch just doesn’t find anyone to follow its destruction work, not even offering paid sodomy for life!  Thank you, Lord, for sparing us at least this.  

Good riddance, fluffy V II priests, and may the Lord have mercy on you (though in many cases I don’t think he will). You are about to self-extinct, and put an end to the very work of destruction from the inside you have perpetrated for many decades. The Lord in His mercy will care that the elect find good guidance anyway, so I am not worried for the coming great scarcity of traitors like you. 

Let it be a challenge to find a priest. When it is found and it is a good one, it will do a lot of good. 

M

    

 

About Vocations

I have known a couple of priests whose vocations were highly questionable. I mean by that that not only I have seen several priests of whom you wondered “what ever led him to enter the seminary”; but that two at least of these priests disclosed their extremely poor (as in: labourer family living in huts without water or a bathroom in the Southern Italian countryside) circumstances, circumstances throwing a light on their extremely embarrassed priesthood.

This one – of the priest who chooses the path because of the security it offers – must have been a phenomenon observable in all times past. So much so, in fact, that in the immortal I Promessi Sposi one of the main characters, Don Abbondio, is exactly one of them. The fact that this character became extremely popular and a proverbial way to describe a priest with a vocation of convenience – even before Vatican II, of course – says a lot about the frequency with which the phenomenon occurred, even before V II. The big wave of priests leaving the habit in the first ten-fifteen years of the Great Madness (many of them, arguably, ordianed before, say, 1963) also indicates that, however strong the Church, there is no safe way to look into people’s hearts. If you have never met any (or some) of this priests, you can call yourself fortunate indeed.

Some might now say that the vows of celibacy are deterrent enough to those who do not think God is calling them to the priesthood. I respond to that that reality shows the contrary is the case. The phenomenon of the priest with a Bonnie on the side was, in the past, so widely spread that family names like “Del Prete” or similar are very common in Italy; names which clearly indicate the popular perception that Franco, or Marco were “of the priest”. In the XVI century, 90% of the priests were estimated to have a fixed mistress.

We are not in the XVI Century anymore, and for many centuries now some of the occasions of sin have been eliminated (the helper of the priest must be old, say). Still, the easiness with which even bishops live a double life for many years, unchallenged, tells you a thing or two about how easy it must be, for the willing priest, to have a mistress on the side. The more so, as in our day and age no one is even requiring that a priest dresses like one when he is out and about. Heck, for many decades now many priests have even found ways to live a life addicted to sodomy; nor are they a recent phenomenon, as Pius V’s document linked on the side shows.

To this you must add that men are born with different degrees of libido, and with varied desires to have a family and children. It is very credible that – as Manzoni states; and notice Don Abbondio is a weak, but certainly chaste priest – a man can simply adapt to the circumstances and come to terms with the disadvantages of his chosen condition in consideration of the substantial advantages he gets.

The question could then be asked: yes, there will be bad, or even non-existent vocations; but is it possible for an Atheist to desire to become a priest in the first place? To this I answer: on which Planet do you live? Do you think that a homosexual asking admission in the seminary has even a shred of faith? How many of them there are? Atheism makes one deprived of scruples. To him, religion is a tale. If the organisation based on the tale gives him the opportunity to reach objectives very important to him, do you think there will be scarcity of people ready to live a life of half lies? Mind, I have heard at least two priests openly deny the existence of hell – one of them a Jesuit, in church; the other a parish priest, in class; the latter the one, by the way, of extremely humble origins – so thesevteo at least did not even feel the need to lie. And again: people are born with different degrees of shamelessness and hypocrisy. Atheists are not an exception.

Summa summarum: the priest or religious with no vocation is a reality alive and kicking in the Church, and has been present in every age. It is wrong to assume they must necessarily not only have felt a sincere vocation, but even have had faith in God when they made their decision. To read in men’s hearts is so difficult, particularly if they are good liars, that entire religious orders can be created on that lie, growing to powerful organisations of men, themselves, of strong faith.

This is a fact we cannot escape, and unavoidable in part even when the Church is at its strongest. This is also something we must have in mind whenever we hear people like Kasper, Marx, or Bergoglio openly defy the Magisterium. The widespread heresy within the Church cannot be explained with loss of a once strong vocation. Too many are the examples. Too powerful the men. There was a general crisis of vocation quality that, if you ask me, is perfectly exemplified by Bergoglio & Co.

They might have lost the faith. They might have never had it. Their entire life might have been a game of deception, induced by any or all of the following: poverty, ambition, low libido, intention not to abide by the vow of chastity, or ever atheism.

Beware of the wolves. Do not assume they are lambs until they eat you.

And, if I may suggest, read “The Betrothed”; which, notwithstanding the inevitable loss of beauty in the translation, must be a very informative, entertaining, and edifying reading anyway.

M

 

The Way To More Vocations

Slapped people in the face; threw sandals across the classroom; could get angry with the best; never cared for popularity. But every good soul loved him.

There are interesting reflections around concerning what to do to have more vocations. Certainly, we must pray. Certainly, we can support the idea of vocations among the young in our environment. But if you ask me, the best way to more vocations is to have better priests.

I still remember very well my formative years, and looking back it is clear to me the office of priest was not considered by anyone as in the least desirable, not even by mistake. The reason for this is that most of the priests we had around us – and in the Italy of those times you had many priests around you, both in your place of residence and at school – had a common and distinctive trait: they looked, sounded, and even smelled, ashamed to be priests.

There was a kind of hierarchy of un-priestliness. There were those who were silently but obviously embarrassed, those who were more ostentatiously “modern” and those who were outright dissenters – the priest who whispered at school that the devil does not exist, in an heroic effort of blasphemy meant to let us understand how very courageous he was, I will never forget -. But all of them seemed to have the same slogan, a kind of “unglorious” one: the least Catholic, the better.

If the priest is ashamed himself of being a priest, who will want to become like him? If the priest is the very epitome of the uncool, pathetic loser, who will want to follow in his steps? And this is, in fact, what they pretty much all were: pathetic losers, ashamed to be priests; lives to be pitied, and an example not to be followed. The priest of those times was a cautionary tale.

This phenomenon created another one: the attempt to gain credibility not by being a true priest, but – in a suicidal, and not very manly move – by being something else: the “modern priest”, the “good friend”, the “nice chap”, the “favourite uncle”. The automatic self-divesting of any form of authority made of them, for all the world to see, unquestioned beta males deprived of true manliness, because manliness is always linked with assertiveness, self-assuredness, and a quiet but still very public show of testosterone.

Every man, but particularly adolescents, smell authority and manliness like the hound smells the fox. Not everyone has the natural assertiveness to be a natural leader, to be one to whom others look up to; but absolutely no one has the desire to be, for all the world to see, the last wolf in the pack. Such a one is not very manly at all, and could actually have problems of graver nature. Which is, I think, the origin and motive of many “vocations” in those years.

And so we have, I think, a faithful picture of perhaps 80% of the Western priesthood up to this day: no manliness, no authority, no “coolness” around them. Boys look at them, and pity them. As they well should, and as I do myself. They are embarrassed to be priests, and try to be as little of a priest as they can. As a consequence, they are embarrassing to be around.

Away goes sin; hell follows soon thereafter; “joy” is everywhere. Some time ago, I listened to a homily of a Cardinal. He sounded like a girl making a motivational talk for old aunts in a holiday resort. By all the authority given by the office, the red robe, and the choreography, he still smelled of girly loser. Who would want to be such a tool? Mind, this here was a Cardinal, helped by the trappings of the office. The girly parish priest truly has no chance with the boys.

A priest must be assertive, manly, unashamedly Catholic, outspoken, and with no hint of sissidom in him. He must be a shepherd, not a dry nurse. The shepherd has a rod, and he uses it. The shepherd leads his flock towards green pastures, he does not ask the sheep “where they want to go today”. The priest must be a natural leader, because a priest has to be a leader if he is to be successful. The priest has to be uncomfortable, harsh when needed, and quietly manly when he is gentle.

These are the priests who produce priests. These are the men who will cause boys to say “I want to become one like him”. These are men whose very demeanour will say to those around them that they are willing to die for their cause; which is as manly as it gets, and will be smelled by the boys around them like the above mentioned hounds smell the above mentioned fox. Not many will follow in his steps. But the admiration will – with God's grace – cause some of them to fo it. You must impress dozen to get one vocation to blossom, because this vocation will be nurtured from the respect or outright admiration surrounding the priest.

Boys will be boys, and their vocation must go with their nature, not against them. They must feel encouraged to use their own faith to channel the natural assertiveness, even aggressiveness, of the male of the species towards the higher goal of saving souls, of being shepherds of souls. This is one of the 1,374 reasons why women are not fit to be priest. Women are nurturers, not shepherds. God save us from a manly woman. There are two sexes for a reason, and this is the same reason why only those of one sex can be priests.

If you ask me, it's as simple as that. In the Seventies the priests were at their most stupid (the “worker priest”, the “social priest”; the Jorge Bergoglio types) and the vocations were at their lowest. As the worst excesses went away, the vocations slowly increased. Strong religious orders continue to create strong vocations to this day – so much so, that the Jorge Bergoglio types must crush them to deflect from their own bitchy incompetence – and the situation slowly, but gradually, improves. In the meantime, the Jorge Bergoglio types cause their seminaries to close. May their ruins be visible from afar, and be a monument to human stupidity.

But we need more of these good priests. The Brompton Oratory is always packed. You listen to them, and you know how a true vocation sounds, and how a real man speaks.

The boys listen, and learn.

Vocations are aplenty. No closures to be feared there.

Mundabor

 

On The “Novice Trade”

What? No vocations?

A rather strange expression from our humble Lider Maximo is making the round on the Internet: his opposition to the “Novice Trade”.

It is difficult, at least to me, to know what this is supposed to mean. The only logical and useful explanation I have found says that Francis’ words refer to novices asking to be transferred to other orders. If this is the explanation – and I cannot find any other – one naturally wonders: 1) why this happens, and 2) what is wrong with that.

A scenario I think might be rather common seeing the Pope’s words is the one of the young man accepted in a “spirit of V II” seminary and discovering he is surrounded either by faggots, or by total idiots like the Polish Dominicans already mentioned, or by faithless reprobates. As he gets to know the world of religious life he becomes aware of other possibilities, and of Orders who take things seriously instead of trying to be bad social workers with a hang for making clown of themselves, or for people of their own sex (Jesuits know a lot about this, I am sure). Unsurprisingly, these young men will at some point ask for admission in one of the traditionally oriented orders. They will do so, because they are looking for the spiritual life their present order cannot give them. Some people might think you may, as a Friar, dance to a Lady Gaga tune and avoid hell, but the smart ones will be scared stiff only at the idea of being associated with these idiots. This kind of “novice trade”, therefore, is there for a reason: the dismal inadequacy of much of today’s religious formation.

As to the second question: what’s wrong with the “novice trade”? It is rather natural that one should follow his own vocation, and it should be for the greater good of the Church that every novice finds the environment most suited to the flowering of his spiritual life. Should not every Pope be happy with that and, actually, encourage the process?

Still, this is, at least according to Francis, bad. One smells the pungent odour of decay here, with traditional Orders deservedly dying, and the more concerned because even among their few novices many ask to be transferred elsewhere. They ask to be transferred to the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, perhaps; an order grown from zero to 400 ordained friars – and as many sisters – in the short span of two decades; with seminaries full to the brim – google the figures – and obviously, like every other conservative Order, no financial troubles of any kind. How many of the FFI members have started their novitiate elsewhere? I have no idea, but Francis’ opposition to “novice trade” starts to make sense to me.

What also starts to make even more sense – in the wicked logic of the wolves currently in power – is the ruthless, brutal suppression of the FFI now under way.

How can Francis stop the “novice trade”? He could forbid transfers during novitiate. But if he does, the only result will be an ever bigger dearth of admissions among the stupid “spirit of V II” Orders, and an increase in demands of admission to the right shops – like the FFI – from day one. At this point, in Francis’ mind the only way to stop the “novice trade” would be to drive with the steamroller over those conservative Orders “depriving” the V II idiots of those novices they think, in their idiocy, they would otherwise have. A total nonsense, this one, as the most frequent alternative in this case will be not a life as a stupid Jesuit and probably leading to hell, but a life as an intelligent layman and hopefully leading to salvation.

Francis appears to think he can order vocations par ordre du Mufti, and in this he shows the same arrogant, senile obtuseness he shows in pretty much everything else. He will not get the vocations he desires, and the ruthless law of inverse selection will take care that only the worst – the secular, the fake, and the perverts – demand to be admitted in one of his demented Lady Gaga orders. Therefore, Francis will not get the quality, much less the numbers. Those who would have ended up as FFI friars will, after the Order’s destruction, end up by the SSPX, by other traditionalist Orders as long as they exist, or outside of religious life altogether.

Francis may think he has a solution for the “novice trade”, but he is unable to see he himself, and those like him, are the problem. The problem is, ultimately, insoluble from his perspective; because God has made the world so, that a bad Church is punished with lack of vocations, and with many good souls who would have been excellent priests and friars choosing, or being forced to choose, other paths instead.

Francis is an abject failure. His entire life is an abysmal disaster. His order and many others are dying, and he has given a massive contribution to it as seminary rector, bishop, and archbishop. He thinks he can hide his own bankruptcy by suppressing those who prosper, and by forbidding success by way of papal decree.

This was a leader among the Jesuits. It is no surprise they are in such a bad shape.

Mundabor

The Pope, The Friars And The Singer.

On reflection, he could have been Pope: Luigi Tenco.

Whenever a new text of Pope Francis is published, we are confronted with not one or two carelessly worded phrases, but an entire onslaught of questionable or utterly subversive statements.

The last example is the “Little Monsters” speech, held in November in front of representatives of an utterly failed model now on its way to a fully deserved death: the V II religious.  

Francis can’t put three periods in a row without saying something extremely banal, utterly stupid or very disquieting. He does so, because his entire Weltanschauung is just as banal, stupid and disquieting. A sound person will perhaps at times express himself in a not entirely happy manner, but everyone who listens to or reads this person will recognise that he is sound. Not so Francis. Francis says something questionable, or worse, without interruption because his very way of thinking is rotten to the core. His speeches are full of soundbites that mean perfectly nothing – or could mean anything – if read literally, but whose aim is to send a clear message: forget the Catholicism of your grandmother, we are in the age of Francis.

I might leave for another and more detailed post – if time and liver allow – the analysis of the actual bits of Papal madness. Here, let me focus on just three:

1. Mercy and morality.

Francis subverts the very concept of morality, in that he makes of it something clearly alternative to mercy. The consequence of this appalling thinking is clear: in the new Catholicism 2.0, mercy is utterly decoupled from moral. It is, in fact, amoral. Not enough for him to acknowledge that everyone of us is – obviously – a sinner, and the tendency to sin will remain with us as long as we live. No: to him, man’s sinful nature means that mercy, instead of morality, is the answer. When Eugenio Scalfari states that Francis has “abolished sin”, he goes far nearer the real thinking of Francis than the Pollyannas. Francis does not officially “abolish” sin, of course; but when he refuses to acknowledge morality as a value, he surrenders unconditionally and without resistance to man’s sinful nature. To him, sin is the disease and mercy is the cure, period. There is in all this no place for morality.

Possibly, morality gives him goose bumps.

Francis’ aversion to morality is in fact so pronounced that he suggested to his fellow Jesuits to “use mercy, not morality, when they preach”. Look: if morality is to be banned even from preaching, when will the Jesuit ever use it? Shall he hold little sermons in the confessional, perhaps? Or extol the virtues of the moral life to the old people whilst administering the Last Rites to them?

Make no mistake: this Pope is bent on the destruction of Christianity as it has been intended in the last 2000 years. He wants to substitute it – and he repeats it at every turn; so if you don’t get it, it is slowly your fault as much as his – with an alternative vision of the world in which everyone does as he pleases, morality is something for “little monsters”, and mercy is the panacea. This is the reason why he says that God does not do anything more serious than slapping one on the wrist; this is why he believes atheists are saved if they follow their conscience; and this is why – unless there are worse motives – he is so blind toward homosexuality. This vision of the world may sound good and will please those who rebel to God’s laws, but it isn’t even Christianity.

2. The “Little Monsters”

What stated above is very clear in the insisted criticism of Francis for those priests and religious who care for right living and the importance of the moral life. Not for the first time, Francis calls them “hypocrites”, as if doing one’s best to follow the rules necessarily implies they have a very dirty mind and live a life of lies; therefore, their good behaviour itself makes them hypocrites.

I do not know you, but if I heard a parish priest thundering against the hypocrisy of those who strive diligently to follow the rules I could not avoid thinking I am in front of a dirty old man. In exactly the same way as when I hear writers or journalists speak about the “hypocrisy” of traditional, middle-class, Christian values I know these people are certainly not even trying to follow the “small-minded” rules they are criticising, preferring adultery and light drugs instead. “Small-minded rules”. Wait, where have I heard this…

The “new hypocrisy” appear to consist, if you ask the humble Francis, in believing in rules and in our best effort to keep them; in counting rosaries; in having “excessive doctrinal security”; in praying by heart; and in general in doing everything Christians have done for 2,000 years, before Pope Diana The Humble appeared on the horizon.

In short, the “new mercy” is so similar to licence it cannot be distinguished anymore.

3. The “work of art” of priestly formation.

Similarly, Francis stresses that those seminarians – the few that have remained to these old V II nincompoops dancing around like retarded old men in the psychiatric hospital – must be trained intending their formation as “a work of art, not a police action”.

This man sees rules, discipline, proper behaviour as something negative. He talks like an ultra-liberal teacher from some American college campus rather than like a priest, much less a Pope. This is not only the caricature of a religious, but a man you should not allow to get near your children even if he were a layman, a neighbour, a colleague, or a family “friend”. He has no morality, and therefore doesn’t like it, and can’t teach it. He will corrupt your girls in no time with his talk of “no police action”, and education like a “work of art”. Ask yourself whether you would invite him for dinner and expose your family to the influence of a man like this. This is a wolf in wolf’s clothes, and no mistake. Invite him by you and the smell of the favela, the self-satisfied “doubts”, the moral “void”, and the general impious behaviour will enter your house with him. Hey, he might tell you Jesus pretended to be angry. Go figure.

Look at the Jesuits to see where such (degenerate) “art” leads to. Look at the Pope himself, questioning the obedience and humility of the Blessed Virgin! He is the product of such “art” himself.

——————————————-

Francis reminds me more and more of Luigi Tenco, an Italian singer of the Sixties and the perfect embodiment of the “rebel” generation of those years. Tenco composed a song titled “Ognuno e’ libero”, based on the words “ognuno e’ libero di fare quello che gli va”, or “everyone is free to do what he pleases”.

Add a sprinkle of mercy, a lot of pauperism and some (strong) smell of Favela, and you have Pope Francis’ Pontificate explained.

Luigi Tenco practised what he preached and, in a bout of worse than usual self-centred infantilism, committed suicide because he was not happy with the jury and the population at large for his treatment in a famous televised song contest.

No, seriously: he killed himself for that. But hey, “ognuno e’ libero…”.

Poor idiot.

Had he entered a Jesuit seminary instead, by now he could have been Pope.

Mundabor

“Queering” The Church

I have posted yesterday a video of a beautiful version of “Christus Vincit, Christus Regnat, Christus Imperat”. This is Gregorian chant, and the same version sung at the Brompton Oratory.

It is reverent but strong, and devoutly masculine. It is music written by a man, and meant to be sung by men.

Not inclusive enough, then; or enough effeminate, come to that.

Have your little “YouTube” tour searching for other version of this very song, and notice the utterly castrated rubbish of the same text that have been created after V II. Frightful stuff. Either girls' chirping, or as bent as Elton.

Now, why would anyone who has at his disposal a wonderful patrimony of ancient music recur to such utter rubbish? Because the rubbish is in his head first, that's why.

The desire to be “inclusive” and have music that would not let women feel “excluded” perfectly matches the agenda of the many Monsignor Riccas out there, to whom the Church must become as faggoty as just possible. As a result, the unholy alliance between the PC crowd and the perverted one creates an atmosphere of effeminacy, and makes of the sacred liturgy a hostage of the stupid and the perverts. Then we complain there are few altar servers, and a crisis of vocations.

Instead of blabbering about the role of women in the Church (there is no record the Blessed Virgin ever complained about her own, or the role of women within the Church in general) the Catholic clergy from the Pope down should talk more about the role of men in the Church. Priesthood must be seen again as something eminently and unmistakably masculine, not the last refuge for young males with uncertain sexuality – I have seen more than a couple of those – or worse – I think I have seen a couple of those, too -.

Men will be men. They will be helped to discover their vocation if they see in it their destiny as men, the accomplishment of the men God made them to be. If they see a camp atmosphere around them, they will naturally be put off from the priesthood. Not only is this very natural, but in agreement with God's plan, that the earthly Church be provided with many and good priests when she deserves it, and punished with a crisis of vocation, and mediocre or worse than mediocre clergy – up to the very top, of course – when she doesn't. We have seen this at work in the last 50 years.

As we pray for vocations, we must pray for an earthly Church that creates the conditions for both the abundance and the quality of them.

Keep the fags and the effeminate out of the temple.

Christus Vincit. Christus Regnat. Christus Imperat.

Mundabor

 

The Disease And The Wrong Cure

A dedicated, strong priest never looks ridiculous or weak. Never.

Read here an article of the National Catholic Reporter about the vocation crisis among the US Hispanics.

The article is particularly interesting for some, I think, rather extraordinary affirmations of Auxiliary Bishop Nevares of Phoenix; affirmations that I would like to share with you:

Auxiliary Bishop Eduardo Nevares of Phoenix believes that because Hispanics have such a strong sense of family that they don’t want to leave to attend seminary

This is very interesting. We learn from this that in the past, when Mexico and Latin America didn’t even know how to spell “vocation crisis”, the sense of the family must not have been so strong. Bad times, I suppose.

Even better is the second explanation:

Additionally, young Hispanic men have a sense of obligation to help support the family financially, which they cannot do in the seminary.

This is also very instructive, because it teaches us that in the past, when Mexico was infinitely poorer than the Hispanics today living in the US are, young boys did not hesitate in plunging their families into destitution and utter misery.

Bishop Nevares’s conclusion is, then, perfectly aligned with his “pass the buck” premises:

“We need to persuade young married people that having a son that is a priest is honorable and will bring many blessings to a family,” said the bishop. “It is a wonderful gift to have a child that is a priest.”

Yes, let us make a bit of marketing for the priesthood, says the bishop. If we just could explain. Perhaps a Power Point presentation would be useful? This way the bishop could impress the family, who would then say to him “Pedro and Armando are already too much into wine and songs, but we’ll talk to our youngest, Benito, who might be interested”.

It seems to me that bishop Nevares looks for the culprit in the wrong place – the society out there – rather than where he should – inside the Church structures, and in the mentality reigning within her -.

The mere idea of a bishop thinking that priesthood be a matter of mentality of his faithful is not very reassuring. This is an entirely secular thinking, which in turn cannot but reflect the way a diocese organises its affairs and, in turn, the way it is seen by its faithful. A Church focused on the world will never have enough vocations, a Church focused on God always will.

Is it a surprise that the Hispanic population, who has been so systematically deprived of the very bases of Catholic instruction – at the point of giving massive support to Obama in the 2008 election – does not produce vocations? Where is the relentless defence of Catholic values that would allow the Hispanic families to rediscover the importance and dignity of the priestly office? Where are the brave, manly priests able to inflame a child’s heart with love for God and to let him desire to be, one day, himself on that pulpit, fighting God’s fight? Where is the constant stress of the role of the priest as Alter Christus, the explanation and constant reminding of his unique role in the economy of salvation, the constant stressing of the miracle which takes place daily through him?

If you make of a priest a vaguely pathetic wannabe social worker who can’t marry – and rather often not even a very masculine one at that – is it a surprise that this priest will not be taken as model, will not inspire anyone to want to become as largely irrelevant and vaguely superfluous as they themselves are? Vocations are the result of the young being taught properly and being instructed about the role of the priest, and of the young seeing these priest both taking their sacramental role seriously and fighting the good fight. Prestige is not a matter of marketing or of persuasion, and the uniqueness of the priest’s role can’t be properly transmitted if the rest of the church’s activity, and the daily actions of the priests themselves, contradict the marketing slogans.

I wonder how many Traditional Masses these dioceses with vocation problems have, because I do not know any situation in which a massive use of the Tridentine Mass doesn’t go together with healthy, or very healthy, vocations. For crying out loud, the SSPX is in imperfect communion and they don’t know where to put all their seminarians – seminarians who look forward to suspensio a divinis the day they are ordained! – and reasonably wealthy, growing communities of dioceses perfectly aligned to Rome complain about vocations and blame the “secular mentality” out there? Where do they think the conservative/traditionalist orders live, on Mars?

Again, both the analysis of the bishop and the proposed solution show where the problem lie: the consciousness that vocations will come when Catholicism (in the liturgy; in the instruction of the faithful; in the defence of Catholic values) is taken seriously again is just not there.

Mundabor

There’s Hope For The Dominicans

El Greco - "St. Dominic In Prayer"

The Dominicans are my favourite Order. If I had ever felt a vocation, it would have been to become a Dominican.

The Dominicans are closely identified with the Inquisition, and this already makes them very special to my eyes. They are also closely identified with the Rosary, which makes them even dearer to me. When I hear them called domini canes, I can’t but find it a compliment.

It would appear that, after going through a phase of disorientation in the dreadful years following Vatican II, the Dominicans are now reacting in a different way than the Franciscans and the Jesuits and that they are, thankfully, recovering their identity and tradition.

Apart from anecdotical evidence (I mention here a brilliant commenter on another blog, and the author of the also brilliant domine, da mihi hanc aquam blog; a blog which has even made it in the very exclusive list of blogs linked to from this site 😉 ), the video below (taken from the above mentioned blog) seems to show that things are going – at least in the English province – in the right direction.

What striked me in this video were the following elements:

1) not one word on “social justice”, or “social issues”, or the like. Not one. Can’t imagine it’s a coincidence.

2) Not one second in which someone of them appears in anything than their traditional habit.

3) Average age (at least of the people appearing in the video) is rather low; there seem to be no huge difficulty in attracting vocations.

4) Strong accent on prayer and study. Strong accent on intellectual work. No effeminate emotionalism. God bless them.

5) Mission clearly given as the one of helping people to get to heaven, not helping people in their social instances or grievances.

6) At 8:11 a beautiful altar is shown, in the process of being aspersed with incense. The altar is clearly ad orientem. This looks like the beginning of a Tridentine Mass to me. Again, I can’t think this is a coincidence.

I can’t say I liked everything (well the white socks for starters 😉 , but a couple of rather naked, ungainly-looking Novus Ordo altars were not entirely pleasing either), but if this video is – as it must be – representative of the way the English Dominicans want to be perceived and therefore of what – irrespective of the problems they may still have – they want to become, then there is reason to be optimistic about their future.

You can compare with the Jesuits (say: here, here, here, or here) and see the differences for yourself.

Kudos to the English Province of the Dominicans, then, and best wishes to them in their chosen vocation.

Mundabor