BY PAULY FONGEMIE, WEB MASTER




"My people have been silent, because they had no knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will reject thee, that thou shalt not do the office of priesthood to me: and thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I also will forget thy children.

According to the multitude of them so have they sinned against me: I will change their glory into shame.

 They shall eat the sins of my people, and shall lift up their souls to their iniquity.

And there shall be like people like priest: and I will visit their ways upon them, and I will repay them their devices.

And they shall eat and shall not be filled: they have committed fornication, and have not ceased: because they have forsaken the Lord in not observing His law." -----Hosea 4: 6-10.

Web Master Note
St. Cecilia was chosen as our headline Saint because she is the Patroness of Musicians and Singers and was a Virgin-Martyr:

St. Cecilia belonged to an illustrious Roman family who became a Christian and dedicated her virginity to our Lord Jesus Christ. Her parents, however, insisted on espousing her to a young Roman noble gentleman called Valerian. On the day of their marriage, Cecilia spoke frankly to her husband and told him that she had pledged her virginity to God and was defended by an Angel who would certainly punish him if he did not respect her pledge. Valerian, who was a pagan, asked to see the Angel, and Cecilia replied that he could do so if he became a Christian. To this he consented and sought out Pope Urban, who was hidden in the catacombs, owing to the fierce persecution then raging against the Church.

The Holy Father received him kindly, instructed him and Baptized him.

On returning home, he at once saw the Angel, resplendent with beauty, who placed a crown on his head and another on that of Cecilia, saying:

"Be worthy to keep these precious crowns; I bring them to you from Heaven."

Valerian was filled with joy and told all that had happened to his brother Tiburcio, also a pagan. He too, desirous of seeing the Angel, received instruction and after Baptism had the same happiness and was enraptured by the sweetness and majesty of the blessed Spirit. All three, later on, laid down their lives for the love of Christ, assisted by their holy Angels.

According to tradition St. Cecilia's body is incorrupt.

The title of this analysis is the Great Discordance, a reference to disharmony in music that strikes the ear so displeasingly, that if shrill or harsh enough, it actually disturbs the soul.

 Another name for discordance in society, which is meant by God to be harmonious, united under His holy will, is disorientation. While I am employing a musical metaphor, I am really addressing the great disorientation in late twentieth century western civilization that began within the Church and filtered down into society at large.

The disorientation or discordance, in effect a break with the centuries of harmony otherwise known as Tradition, is a cacophony of six distinct, but not separate, screaming strains or dissonant chords that make up a type of "concert", proclaiming, "We will not obey Thee, O God, and Thy ordinances we will no longer observe!":

1. Birth Control as taught by the advocates of "natural family planning" within the official Church, in contravention of Church teaching from the very beginning: that the purpose of marriage is the rearing of children for the glory of God, that is, to make as many Saints for Heaven as possible, provided that God has ordained it so.

2. The revolution of the Holy Mass from a Sacrifice of propitiation to a dialogue meal whereby the role of priest and people are essentially reversed.

3. Women speaking in church [the role of lector and even preacher in some cases] and the cessation of the covering of their heads while in church.

4. The reception of Holy Communion in the hand and distributed by the unordained.

5. The loss of Fatherhood and fatherhood, that is the diminution of the glory of the first Person of the Holy Trinity and the subsequent marginalization of men as fathers, and as fathers, the head of the family.

6. The rise and dominance of the homosexual ethos so pervasive that it has destroyed the soul of western culture, a veritable invasion of all our social and political institutions, the arts and humanities, schools, the mass media, our very language in how we converse, thus to a large extent how we think and believe, and most especially the deCatholicization of our churches and parishes, the final plague permitted by God as a chastisement for our disobedience.

While appearing to be so distinct as to bear no organic relation to one another, these ruptures or disorientations are indeed, so intertwined that they are unavoidably one while appearing to be but a few among many; the first brought a loss of grace that yielded the second, and onward in sequence resulting in the tumultuous times in which we live, whereby we make war on our very nature as persons created in the likeness of God, for God alone. All six are intrinsically, and thus, intensely, diabolical.

The Myth of Natural "Family Planning"

Long before abortion as the sine qua non ideology [and law] of the land, there was stirring within the Church and in some Protestant sects the notion that although the mechanical means of contraception was not a good thing, that man was free to decide if he wanted children or not and how many and when. But so strong was the natural law written in the hearts of men that it was not until the 1930s that a deliberate course of revolt was finally undertaken. The socialist state or the idea of the state as the dominant force, and not the family, had at at last captured the minds and hearts of those who wielded influence in all walks of life. A series of smaller wars and a devastating World War had taken its toll on the allegiance of men: the "enlightenment" writ large. So in not so merry Old England the Anglicans held a conference whereby it was asserted that man has a natural right to limit his children according to his own will, provided the means were medically sound. This insolence goes by the name of The Lambeth Conference of 1930. 1

While decrying Lambeth officially, the Catholic Church was in the midst of its own revolution along the same lines but executed much more audaciously [and dangerously] because of its spectacular low-key, stealth approach. Our revolt took the form of the "family action" or "family movement" groups that sprang up, perhaps the most notorious of them being the one headed by the Crowley team of husband and wife from the heartland, and who were able to manipulate the Catholic in the pew and his bishop, successfully, scarcely a generation following Lambeth. Among the Catholic elites and those emulating them there was now the talk of "artificial contraception" versus "family planning" which was presented as natural, thus licit before God. To be sure, the proposition was not yet put precisely in these terms, but the game was up-----exposed by what was not said and what was stressed: Instead of contraception, period, there was now "bad" or "artificial contraception", and then never the term "good contraception" as such, but the immediate fall back to the "spacing of children". In other words, "good contraception" was any kind that could be used to thwart the will of God and exert man's will as the prevailing standard, using methods that could be devised to technically [according to the letter and not the spirit] avoid having to be mentioned in Confession or so the thinking went. And the bishops, mostly hail fellows, well-met, in the democratic spirit of Americanism and optimism, could be counted on to pick up the refrain without much reflection. I noted hardly a bishop who did not use the term "artificial contraception" instead of contraception. In fact I recall a famous Archbishop using the term more than once, although I know not his motive, but cannot think other than it was simply ill-advised or not reasoned through to consequences. The bishops began to speak of the two purposes of marriage, the "mutuality" of the spouses and the rearing of children. And consequences there have been.

As more Catholic families went about using "natural means"-----I use quotation marks because there is no such thing as a natural method to thwart the designs of God simply because any method is by definition unnatural-----of spacing and limiting children, what was called the "calendar method" or the measuring of fertility using medical science, with the bishops not mounting a defense of the actual teaching of the Church on the matter, leaving their flocks in ignorance [Paraphrasing for short: 'My people perish for a lack of knowledge.'], 2 God seemed to withdraw some of His grace from the Catholic Church. There is an old truism that where the Catholic Church is holy, society at large is blessed and that when She is not so holy, society experiences dislocation and worse. Soon the once large Catholic family now became the family of three children and less [natural infertility being but 10% on the whole] and just as soon, and not coincidentally [?], there arose the liturgical movement, first among insiders, just as contraception with the Crowleys and their gang, then it spread slowly, almost unnoticed, among the general laity who attended Sunday Mass regularly. At first it was in the small things, but always "for a most important reason"-----as if in prior generations there had never been "good reasons"-----such as the changing of the required fast days and the dissolution of Ember Days, etc. Small things but not small by any other measure. Man no longer wanted to do penance for sin, for man had "made progress". Man now wanted to dialogue and the indult or permission had been given for the "dialogue Mass", ostensibly to foster devotion, and I am sure that in most quarters this was genuine; however, whenever one willingly disregards Tradition, one does so at one's own peril, and when one has charge of the souls of others, theirs, too. Vatican II was in the offing, about to take advantage of a weakened, sin loving populace, given to accepting contradictions as the price for "social progress".

And almost as soon, only a decade or so behind, seminaries were changing their precepts for evaluation and modernism in all its disarray was again being taught to less than suitable candidates more often than a healthy and vibrant Church can withstand.

The sin of Onan was to spill "his seed" rather than bring forth a child and God slew him for it. The sin of modern man in western society is the sin of Onan but in a more "sophisticated" manner, the manipulation of the "marriage privilege" by the calendar and God is slaying him also, with spiritual death, with a hierarchy corrupted by cowardice, unbelief, materialism, and in a noteworthy number of cases, sensualism and even perversion. "They shall eat the sins of my people, and shall lift up their souls to their iniquity."

Sterile marriage relations are the moral equivalent to the other perversions, such as the sin that ought never be named, but because of the times, must be mentioned for the sake of clarity. Deliberate sterility, whatever method employed, is still sterility, a death wish, and God grants man his wish it seems in ways man does not bargain for. Contraception is another form of sodomy, the marriage chamber defiled. Before one could recognize the sin for what it was and is, abortion was now "enshrined" in our national Constitution, under the name of "choice" and rights and freedom, as a back-up to failed contraception: once the natural law is breached for one reason it becomes arbitrary in the minds of men to stop there. And the dissolution in the Church advanced headlong in its contrary trajectory, for Her prelates tolerated "Catholic" politicians who supported abortion rights, in practice if not formally. Enter the next sequence:

Go, the Holy Mass has Ended . . .

  Sister Lucy of Fatima warned us about "the diabolical disorienation" that was to occur if Russia was not consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Nothing is coincidental with God and it is especially noteworthy that the seer was also told that the Third Secret was to be revealed by 1960 if not sooner, when "things would be clearer." Thus, I am morally certain that the diabolical disorientation refers to the disorientation that has brought so much sorrow and woe to the Church [and to society which receives actual grace from God by means of the Church] through the Novus Ordo Mass, a complete, abrupt, and sinful departure from all our patrimony and Tradition, a break that began even before Vatican II was off the ground. Before the opening of the first ecumenical council in the history of the Church not to be called for a dogmatic purpose, the periti or experts were plotting against Tradition, betraying Christ and their offices. As Michael Davies so brilliantly presents in his work, Liturgical Time Bombs in Vatican II: The Destruction of Catholic Faith Through Changes in Catholic Worship, these periti were experts without peer in crafting ambiguous phrases requiring their interpretation long after the council had closed, thereby being assured that their new religion would be implanted within the sanctuary, and into the hearts of the Catholic people over the course of just a few years, one generation in essence. As one of the periti wrote: "I do not know whether, as we are told, the Council has freed us from the tyranny of the Roman Curia, but what is sure is that, willy-nilly, it has handed us over (after having first surrendered itself) to the dictatorship of the journalists and particularly the most incompetent and irresponsible among them." 3

Actually it was through our first sin, that of wanting only a few children, and our complying bishops [by neglect], that we handed ourselves over. A Catholic people inspired by sacrifice and Martyrdom, if necessary, would not have been such easy prey; but a generation of Catholics no longer generating Catholics as before, was just soft enough to be spiritually blind and thus the raw material for the experiment that succeeded beyond the dreams of the revolutionaries, the veritable destruction of the Roman rite 4 and the devastation of the vineyard that sapped true vocations-----"And there shall be like people like priest: and I will visit their ways upon them, and I will repay them their devices." Because we did not want to have all the children God had planned for us, He has punished us by not permitting all the priests we need. How often I have heard, "We have only two children and I do not want my son to be a priest." No more need be said here.

One disorientation generating the other and we have been delivered up to our inquities indeed, because the New Mass is so defective, that while meeting the bare requirements for validity, it has little if any salutary, sanctifying effects. For how could it! When the ancient Israelites took it upon themselves to do away with the prescribed worship given by God for man's sanctification and worshipped instead the golden calf, they met with death and ruin for God will not be mocked. His ordinances are not to be disregarded through pride and self-indulgence and sheer audacity! Before the Mass of Paul VI became normative [Cardinal Ratzinger subsequently admitted that Paul VI had never abolished the Roman Mass, see Footnote 5], there were converts by the score, so numerous no one could name them all, let alone count them; afterwards, the very Mass that was put together with the assistance of Protestant clergymen 5 in order to attract Protestants [ostensibly], cannot even attract lifelong Catholics, let alone Protestants. Mass attendance, in the United States, while higher than in Canada, Europe and Australia, is not nearly what it once was, blessedly? A cursory look at any parish taken at random is evidence enough. Now the converts are few, so few, that those who do convert are so remarkable that we can all name them; in fact they are known precisely in the media because they are converts, and this for the most part, because of the discovery of Tradition, not the New Mass! Sadly, if one who is not attached to a traditional Catholic chapel or parish because it is not possible, lands a potential convert in his net, where can he take him for valid instruction to prepare for the Sacraments?

The Mass of Tradition, the Immemorial Roman Rite of ancient roots-----not devised by a committee of heretics and those amenable to them-----gave us many a Martyr and many more Saints. Who among us would be willing to give up our lives for a table and Communion in the hand? Not even the Novus Ordo enthusiasts, I suspect. The Mass is what shapes our identity as Catholics and forms our sanctity and subsequent Martyrdom when necessary. The thousands of English Martyrs who died for the Holy Roman Mass rather than attend the Protestantized Mass of the apostate bishop, Cranmer, which was actually more dignified than the present Novus Ordo, although essentially using the same words and gestures as the New Mass, reveal our shame in not doing more to oppose the Novus Ordo. Not only did we not do enough to oppose it, we either surrendered like cowards or were blind-sided by the improper application of the virtue of obedience. But if the English Martyrs were not so easily led astray by the enemies of Christ, why so us? Was it because they had no Lambeth and its far-reaching aftermath?

The "New Mass" is the fruit of unbelief, period, and thus it teaches a religion that is not Catholic. Ask any diehard Novus Ordian what he believes and if he can muster enough coherence in the first place, he will regale you with the man-made religion of universal salvation and the other touchy-feely nostrums of modern sentimentalism. This is because the Mass is also a catechism by its very design. The "New Mass", no less than the Traditional Roman Mass: the adherents of the Mass of Paul VI have learned their lessons well. While attending a diocesan event held at a local Novus Ordo parish I encountered parishioner after parishioner who no longer believed in the efficacy and or necessity of most of the Sacraments, and some of those no longer cared, if they ever did. How did this happen? How could it have happened, when our grandparents, most with large families, set the superb example by forsaking necessities to pay for the finest in altar furnishings for the Mass and those of the other Sacraments given to the Church by Christ through His Apostles and first bishops, and until recently, safeguarded by them for the salvific treasures they are?

We must resist the impulse to over simplify, but there are always factors that are so fundamental to any observed phenomena of social pattern, that there is also a risk in over complicating matters. I pray that I am avoiding both propensities. Hear the clamor of discord number three:

Gender Politics Versus Tradition

In the first book of Corinthians, Chapter 3, verses 16 and 17, St. Paul instructs thus:

Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which you are.

And in Chapter 11 he goes on:

[1] Be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ.
[2] Now I praise you, brethren, that in all things you are mindful of me: and keep my ordinances as I have delivered them to you.
[3] But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
[4] Every man praying or prophesying with his head covered, disgraceth his head.
[5] But every woman praying or prophesying with her head not covered, disgraceth her head: for it is all one as if she were shaven.
[6] For if a woman be not covered, let her be shorn. But if it be a shame to a woman to be shorn or made bald, let her cover her head.
[7] The man indeed ought not to cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man.
[8] For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man.
[9] For the man was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man.
[10] Therefore ought the woman to have a power over her head, because of the angels.
[11] But yet neither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man, in the Lord.
[12] For as the woman is of the man, so also is the man by the woman: but all things of God.
[13] You yourselves judge: doth it become a woman, to pray unto God uncovered?
[14] Doth not even nature itself teach you, that a man indeed, if he nourish his hair, it is a shame unto him?
[15] But if a woman nourish her hair, it is a glory to her; for her hair is given to her for a covering.

In her excellent work, On the Contrary, Chapter 9, "The Glorious Rib", Solange Hertz explains the full implication of the above New Testament citations, that is, the order of creation and woman's purpose; that when women succumbed to the heresy of feminism she altered God's ordained order in nature, thereby bringing ruin not only to her true glory but destroying society which is now in spiritual, moral and social crisis, complete chaos. One of the manifestations of this disorder is the almost abandoned custom of women covering their heads in church.

You know, it is very interesting to contemplate how this occurred, at least in the Catholic Church, here in America. If you are old enough to recall that when the "New Mass" was imposed on the laity who never asked for these changes, imposed through deception and with uncharitable means, there was no corresponding document forbidding the wearing of head veils or hats for women, who had always worn them. There was something in the New Mass itself that lent itself to such unveiling, that unleashed a diminished capacity for modesty and a sense of place, as if the disordering of the Liturgy spread throughout society. When the ordained order of the altar's orientation [and the priest's], was reversed so contrarily, nowhere ordered by Vatican II, a nihilism or violence pervaded every aspect of our Catholic lives, almost imperceptibly at first, thereby ever the more insidious. As women in America became more and more immodest in clothing, so did Catholic women or perhaps vice-versa I should say. The confluence of these two events did the rest.

Without any lawful Vatican order, or command from the priest, women just suddenly stopped covering their heads at Mass and in church, as if they had given themselves permission to imitate the old Eve, rather than the new Eve, Mary. "They say we don't have to anymore." But nobody knew for sure who the "They" were. And the rest is history as the saying goes. Even more interesting to note is the fact that men did not start covering their heads, but retained the customary practice of removing their hats when entering the church. In other words, once again the disorder began as it did in the Garden with the serpent and the woman: she, wanting her will, come Hell or high-water, and Hell came once more. Only this time Adam did not bite the apple at first. And even more curiously women still insisted on covering their heads when attending church weddings, as if to honor the bride but not the Bride. When women were willing to degrade their honor in such unfashion, to coin a word, they became the objects of every form of degradation: one has only to have read the news accounts for the last forty years to know what is meant by that phrase. Removing our head coverings did not cause one direct act of this debasement certainly, but the removal signaled that we no longer were interested in modesty as the genteel sex; that we no longer considered ourselves "the glory of the glory of the man": that the order established by God was secondary to our will. We brought the spirit of this disobedience into our daily lives and into society, without realizing it.

Solange Hertz's chapter includes an excellent synopsis of the two strengths and weaknesses of the complimentary sexes and the underlying dynamic that operates in human relations. She also discusses the importance of hair, using various Scriptural accounts that involve the importance of matter, specifically hair, including the shorter hairstyles worn by so many women.

In the same book of Corinthians, Chapter 14, verses 34-35, St. Paul further promulgates the command of God:

"Let women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted them to speak, but be subject as also the law saith.

But if they would learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church."

A shame, indeed, most shameful, that women have so lost the natural sense of shame that now they brazenly prance about the sanctuary giving instructions, making announcements, reading the Epistle and Lessons, and on occasion delivering even the sermon as a guest homilist. And I won't but allude to their unladylike attire. To accommodate this scandal the passages from St. Paul have virtually "disappeared" in the three-year cycle that boasts of being more complete than that of the Traditional Roman Missal. And God's people keep "perishing for a lack of knowledge".

This disorder whereby women take the lawful place of men in church has not only degraded their husbands and sons because it has caused them to acquiesce in the name of peace and or actually applaud the practice, but most importantly the fundamental order of worship as given by God and all of the precepts therein prescribed in Tradition, have been overturned. The feminization of the liturgy is so sacrilegious that words almost fail. An article is not designed to be a treatise so it is not possible to adequately address the nature and severity of the sin. Briefly, however, one of the essential elements of the theology of the Mass is that the Holy Sacrifice must have male ministers, expressly the ordained along with the acolytes and the rest of the lower orders, because the Church is the Bride of Christ and as His representative only a man can truly re-witness for Christ Who came Incarnate as Man. Any other arrangement is a symbolic homosexuality or perversion. Women simply cannot image Christ as Bridegroom. This should be so axiomatic and obvious that a Catholic people who are Catholic first, and citizens second, need not have the issue raised and open for discussion by definition! And just as at the Last Supper Christ was surrounded by men, not women, not even the most noble and holiest creature, His Mother, so it must be in the holy of Holies.

To the contrary, to borrow Solange Hertz's apt phrase, the dominance of women in the sanctuary and the subsequent emasculation of men-----which has its parallel in Title IX in federal law in relation to the government schools where boys are now openly discriminated against to favor girls-----has brought us one unmitigated disaster after another, the nightmarish scream of dissonance four.

The Great Sacrilege

Essentially, we were bought and paid for. The American ego, never a small thing, was given its due. While the Vatican still yet did not permit the reception of Communion in the hand, we were encouraged to do so to keep "with the spirit of Vatican II." When we questioned the propriety of the practice we were castigated for being judgmental-----assuming that they, too, not only ourselves, were not worthy of touching the Sacred Species; in the end they treated us like Jansenist dolts to be avoided at all costs. The perennial teaching of the Church, its Sacred Tradition, the writings of the Saints and Doctors of the Church, none of these were of avail to persuade, for the people were heady from their new-found "empowerment". And eventually as we all know, a weakened Vatican relented. Disobedience is now rewarded while obedience is dismissed and its adherents marginalized.

Every Catholic now had a special "ministry." Of course, human nature since the Fall in the Garden, being what it is, when everyone and his uncle is a "minister" no one really is anymore, including the priest. As what was left of the once Holy of holies, the Catholic sanctuary, became filled with lay men and women [and often mostly the latter] opening the Tabernacle, distributing Holy Communion, putting away the Ciborium, etc., the priest was viewed as necessary only for the Consecration, a brief interlude in the Mass that had been extended: for environmental prayers and such, hand clapping and congratulations here and there during Mass on frequent occasions, the Kiss of Peace handshakes that took sometimes 15 minutes as the priest and his entourage made their way down the aisle and back up again the other side. Instant camaraderie and intimacy! The new laying on of hands as it were. But the priest could no longer distribute Holy Communion alone, "because this takes too much time."

More and more pastors reported that they found the Host left in the pew, on the floor and even in the holy water font. Some of them seemed very concerned but powerless to change things. The frustration gave way to acceptance all too many times, or so it appeared to me. All I know is that they ceased complaining and had gone on to other matters, although the situation was as critical as before. But the priest had also been bought and paid for-----if he was to maintain his position and the goodwill of the people, a tacit arrangement to be sure-----he knew his boundaries. As one put it to me, "If I preach the truth, I will lose my parishioners." But he had already lost them as believing Catholics, and did not perceive the irony to say the least.

Then a very sad, but not unexpected thing happened. One of the Extraordinary Eucharistic ministers, but oh so ordinary as in ubiquitous among other characteristics, said to me, "What do we believe as Catholics about the Eucharist? Are we not all the same as Protestants now?" She no longer knew the doctrine and or thought that it had changed, as if it ever could. I had to resist the impulse to ask her why she was not worshipping at the local Baptist church where she could make up her own rules using the Bible. I knew the probable answer anyway. I tried to explain what the Mass truly is, but she did not seem to comprehend and she no longer had any keen interest in learning I surmised as she quickly walked away-----better not to know and to have to make some hard choices perhaps. And she was not the only one. She ended up, the last I saw of her, becoming one of the conversationalists at Mass, that hideous jabberwocky that is the conducting of a non-stop discussion in muted but increasingly audible tones, throughout the Mass, except for the Consecration. It started as the norm in many parishes before Mass, then expanded, the proverbial inch into a mile. The dialogue Mass is now morphing into the conversation Mass. You know, where the priest sometimes make interjections to parishioners by name, and whole pews engage in discussions about movies, shopping and family matters loud enough for others to hear even when not trying to, said conversations punctured by the snapping of gum, and nobody seems to mind, including the priest who ought to do something, if he could or only if he would, that is.

While busy as experts in ministry, running here and there, doing what the priest who alone is consecrated for, these benighted people [though well-intended] had no time to notice what was happening to their faith. "Experts" and specialists are expected to attend workshops for "updating". These sessions were loaded with the aforementioned time-bombs, set off with a slow fuse by way of indoctrination in the new religion. While being bought off with fancy titles when they decided they needed to be important in ways never before attempted in the Church and for good reason, that it is not part of God's intention and is ruinous to souls, they handed over their precious "sense of the faith" to be tampered with by those in power with an agenda to destroy the Church. A few woke up, some in time, but others were too demoralized to know what to do. Most simply did not and have not. And to some extent the same thing has happened to those who may not be lay ministers of this and that but who actively approve of the others doing it.

Please note carefully that the initial explosion of Eucharist ministers took place prior to the manufactured "shortage of priests".

All because of Communion in the hand you claim?  I answer, succinctly, yes, simply because it is a great sacrilege bringing God's displeasure upon us. The editor of Catholic Family News, John Vennari has just published a magnificent-----and masterfully brief-----article on the sacrilege of Communion in the hand. I cite at some length:

"It is a bedrock Catholic truth, taught by the Church since the time of the Apostles, that Our Lord Jesus Christ is truly present in the Most Holy Eucharist: Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.

"The Council of Trent defined dogmatically that Our Lord Jesus Christ is present in every part of the Blessed Sacrament. The Council taught infallibly:

'If anyone denieth that, in the venerable Sacrament of the Eucharist, the whole Christ is contained under each species, and under every part of each species, when separated; let him be anathema.'

"This means that Our Lord is present even in the smallest particle of the Host, and in the smallest particle that may fall to the ground. Thus the reverence that we owe to the Blessed Sacrament demands that we take every precaution that no particle of the Host-----not even the smallest-----is left open for desecration . . . First of all, Saint Thomas Aquinas taught that 'out of reverence for this Sacrament, nothing touches it but what is consecrated.' Thus, he said the sacred vessels of the altar are consecrated for this holy purpose, but also, the priest's hands are consecrated for touching this Sacrament. And St. Thomas said that it is therefore not lawful for anyone else to touch it, except to save it from desecration. (Summa, III, Q. 82: Art. 3)

"This reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, and even for the smallest particles, was incorporated into the traditional Mass-----the Old Latin Mass-----which contained strict rubrics on this point
. . ." 6

So sacrilegious is the innovation of the laity distributing Holy Communion, not just in a truly extraordinary circumstance but regularly scheduled as such for all Sunday Masses, that I am convinced that just as He did with the Israelites, God has withdrawn His grace and is permitting the punishment of the people who have wantonly and carelessly abandoned His holy precepts of worship. The accompaniment to this chastisement is that cacophony of dissident voices that comprise the new Arianism that is so disharmonious with Tradition and the dogma of the faith about salvation, and the express will of God, a most unCatholic occurrence that has caused the wholesale loss of the faith in its entirety, with precious few Athanasiuses to turn to.

Again I cite Mr. Vennari:

"It is no mystery why so many Catholics have lost faith in the Sacred Mysteries. Too many of our priests have abandoned the outward devotion necessary: 1) to give proper reverence to Christ in the Blessed Sacrament; 2) to teach the people through example that the highest reverence must be shown to Our Lord Jesus Christ truly present in the Blessed Sacrament.

"Yet, the post-Conciliar catastrophe will not go on indefinitely. Someday the Church will once again be blessed with a hierarchy that gives Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament the reverence due to the King of Kings.

"In the meantime, let us resist sacrilegious innovations such as Communion in the hand and lay-Eucharistic ministers, encourage others to resist them, and cling to the Latin Tridentine Mass wherein the rubrics that safeguard the reverence to the Blessed Sacrament are meticulously
preserved." 7

The author later writes about the need for reparation for this sacrilege, from which I will incorporate a portion into the body of my closing remarks.

Meanwhile, the shrill strains of disharmony five have already been heard in the background:

The Rejection of Fatherhood

Now that the sacred order within the sanctuary and between the sexes had been turned upside down, with women predominating without regard for the sacredness of place as prescribed by Almighty God our Creator, it was a foregone conclusion that the emasculation of men and their indispensable, rightful, that is supremely just position as head of the family would be eclipsed to the ruin of the Church and society itself. Let me interject that I in no way discount the parallel influence of the feminist movement largely run by embittered, spoiled, ill-mannered boorish women of unbelief and often the just plain lesbian; but the addressing of secular and or pagan forces is not my purpose here. It is the rejection of the Fatherhood of God in practice and the rejection of the father as head of the family as an absolute necessity, within the Church herself, that is my focus. The first men to be affected were not the heads of families but the heads of their flocks, the priests, all too often with their own complicity, if only through ignorance.

"And there shall be like people like priest: and I will visit their ways upon them, and I will repay them their devices."

Ironically it all began in the early 70s with a brief movement that I have chosen to call, "the Abba initiative". During these few years modernized priests were going about the laity introducing them to "Agape meals", seder suppers, and above all, encouraging their flocks to say "Abba" when they prayed. It was "Abba" this and "Abba" that, like a mantra. One priest was heard to refer to God the Father as "the Great Whobody". I am not kidding. Now, since "Abba" means "Father", one would be inclined to think that this practice would be a good and not a hindrance to orthodoxy. But think about it.

When the abortionists wanted to quell our ability to respond to their outrageous and cruel demands, they devised the habit of substituting the word "fetus" for unborn baby. Actually a fetus is an unborn baby at a particular stage of physical development to be technically accurate. But human nature in the day-to-day arrangements does not work this way and the enemy knew this better than we should have. With the habit of using "fetus" for the unborn child established, the humanity and uniqueness of the child in the womb was soon abolished psychologically, a purposeful dynamic for those engaging in warfare on the helpless preborn. The war of words or "conditioning" always precedes the actual war that ensues and no less in social battles. And so it went with "Abba".

The use of the word, Abba, like that of fetus in of itself is not incorrect. Fetus to the doctor or medical scientist it is normal and signifies what preborn baby does to the layman; and Abba, when used by those ancient cultures from which the term comes, it was the same. But just as "fetus" has the effect of signifying something less than "preborn baby" to the layman, so it was with "Abba." Only in this case, it still meant God the Father, but it changed our perception of the dignity of the Trinity, that is to say, the intimacy was one of over-familiarity. Hence the "Whobody" nonsense which followed so easily. I do not think it was coincidental that during this same period of time that many priests asked us to call them by their first name, rather than Father --------. Again the improper familiarity.

Once more I must interject that I am well aware that the "Abba initiative" was too brief-----and not universally in effect in the English-speaking Catholic world-----in of itself to actually be of much import. I mention its advent because in my experience it was a small but sure signpost that we were headed in the wrong direction, if only we had paid attention: that even the unnatural has a natural progression, and this one a portend of coming horrors.

Parallel to both phenomena was the feminist thrust within what was once called the "switching points" of power in the institutions of the local Church and within the United States Bishops' Conference committees. The stress at the time was on the supposed injustice in the Church, in Scripture, considered "the source of violence against women" 8 combined with prayer "as a propaganda tool". 9

The means to indoctrinate women with a seething rage against the Bible and the hierarchical nature of the Church was the tried and true: diocesan workshops and conferences. One of the more notorious of these was a conference held in Auburn, Maine in the early 90s at which the Auxiliary Bishop of Maine was present. The purpose of the event was to "advise" the Bishop of women's needs for the upcoming US Bishops' Document on Women. Bishop Proulx served on the committee with his friend Bishop Imesch. A prayer sheet was handed out that was idolatrous to the core and utterly impious. A new prayer to the Trinity had been devised in which all-male pronouns had been removed and the Mother of God became the poster girl for abandoned women, and unwed mothers, as if St. Joseph could have done such a thing! The unwed mother canard but worse because it used prayer to say it. The Bishop did not seem to mind; in fact I overheard him afterwards expressing how pleased he was with the session, pure agitprop from abortion to contraception to clever, subtle hints at lesbianism. He actually laughed at "contraceptive-like" jokes! He also advised me personally, suggesting I would be better off if I became more "liberal" when I sent a letter of concern about a similar conference prior to the one just described.

I was told by insiders that similar sessions had been held and would be held in other dioceses.

And it was also at this time that women lectors were changing the pronouns in the readings at Mass, either on their own or in conjunction with a wink from the pastor. I will never forget the use of "Child of God" when referring to Christ the Savior as fully grown into manhood. Anything to avoid the dreaded "He" or "Son". Soon some of the sillier priests were heard to gush over the "Sheness" of God the Holy Spirit, recommending that their parishioners use the feminine "She" for the Third Person, as a sign that "we had grown in our faith." This is an exact quote. The Fatherhood of God was now on an indefinite back-burner, an embarrassed part of our past; to call Him Father, rather than Mother was considered an injustice, and although no bishop of ours ever promulgated this in any way officially, none of them did anything to stop the scandal and so the tyranny of ideological idolatry became part of our lexicon and then incorporated into how we contemplated the Blessed Trinity. There were of course, the usual references to God as "She" with the throwaway lines accompanied by nervous laughter, as if to convey that the proponents of this blasphemy really knew their complicity in the sin, so used laughter as a cover. Oddly, the Apostles' Creed was still intact. But as I said we had grown used to contradictions as the price we paid for "social progress".

A scant few years later the priest was suddenly no longer the priest, but "the presider." This unfortunate term is now the accepted norm throughout the United States. I do not think it would have been possible for this to have happened if we had not first "demoted" God. We had grown up respecting the dignity of the priest as one just below Mary but above that of the Saints and Angels. No matter the particular faults of any priest, he was God's chosen "another Christ". But if the Trinity can be the object of veiled contempt, it's a small matter to put the priest in his place by having him and the hierarchy do it for themselves, to which they readily consented, taking up the spirit of the times. And surely it was no coincidence that this same period of time saw many priests leave the active ministry, some just faded away into secular society, others left to marry. The priestly "sabbatical" was born, as more and more of them took a few months to a year off, ostensibly for study and or rest or "to discern their vocation". Having said this, I do not mean to convey that men answered the call to the priesthood for the title; of course not. But just as they used to tremble before ordination, just as surely they ought to have trembled before permitting the sacerdotal office to be so cavalierly "rearranged." If the priest does not safeguard the dignity of his office because it belongs to Christ, who will or would want to?

It was a foregone expectation that the new feminized and as Fr. Trinchard of MAETA says, diabolical local Church would soon midwife the anti-male male, first by favoring and using the increasing numbers of effeminate priests and demoralizing the still normal males, of all ages. The first sign was the loss of male altar servers [the term acolyte no longer in use] in vast numbers. Eventually the majority of the servers were girls, some in adolescence and even grown women. The boys were lost because the girls were found in numbers to disobey the then prohibition. Use girls to create the problem, then require them to solve the problem. The standard operating procedure of Modernism. The singular males stood out as the exception. This phenomenon was matched in the education posts: probably close to ninety percent, based on my observation in the diocese, of the top teaching volunteer staff are held by women. In times past nuns predominated in the instruction of the young, but always with the priest whom everyone knew was in charge, not just on the sidelines pro forma. And those good nuns did not attend workshops for "updating".

In today's Church the young boy sees few manly males to identify with: certainly not the all too numerous gushy, goofy acting "presiders", and seldom at Catholic education [if we ought to still call it that]. Everywhere he sees women as the head, especially since too often the priest plays into the goals of these proliferating women, who are able to intimidate the pastor to go along in order to keep a false peace or avoid conflict. I heard numerous pastors say that "I no longer have the stomach for conflict." Our embittered instructor at one workshop boasted of being able to manipulate her pastor. He later became so confused and demoralized he left to become a "social worker". He told me he no longer "knew who to believe, the Chancery or the Vatican." In those days the Vatican was still issuing orthodox norms although they were seldom enforced. This priest was told by the Portland Chancery that he could "disobey" in good conscience, in so many words.  Please pray for him, wherever he is now.

Right along came the open mocking of the passages in St. Paul that the feminized Church considered old-fashioned, the father as head of the family being a Church teaching. Eventually pastors agreed to not use the "offending" passages. I do not know if the Bishops formally did away with them with permission from Rome or not, but it does not matter. Out of earshot out of mind. This, too, is on a par with sacrilege, for it brazenly defies and defiles the Word of God which is sacred and for all time. When His creatures no longer have holy zeal for the sacred and that which is not to be touched, not even one iota, nor disregarded as if some outdated trash or quaint saying, how can we expect Him to approve by granting us the actual and sanctifying graces we need?

As the father became the titular head only, on some level more afraid of his wife and the few children he consented to, than he had fear of God, the trend of boys coming to Mass with body piercings and multiple earrings, among other atrocities was realized. What self-respecting father who knows he has to answer to God could permit a son of his to enter the church, the House of God, in such disrepair? Only one who has lost his position except in name only. Boys emulating the effete: a sign of the loss of grace from God. Enter the last-----and most soul-searing , screeching and hideous sequence . . .

"For This Cause God Delivered Them Up to Shameful Affections"

"And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and of four footed beasts, and of creeping things. Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, Who is blessed for ever. Amen.

"For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error. And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense . . ." 10 [Emphasis added.]

For many years now the laity had become used to frequently increasing number of effeminate and or emasculated men who were being ordained and assigned to their parishes. To be fair, almost every lay person I know simply could not grasp the reality beyond the mere appearance. What normal, decent person, no matter how worldly knowledgeable would be capable of thinking then what we all know now?

Actually this aspect is immaterial because the real problem was the disordered theology that came with these priests. Even the normal priest was affected by it, but he at least did not try to project it onto his parishioners usually, as if something or Someone held him back. The priests who suffered from the disorder of being attracted to unnatural vice, and who believed they had a "right" to the sacerdotal office, are a special breed. Not only were they becoming more "open" about who and what they were, they were teaching us an inversion of belief. The disorder they suffer from is so pervasive that it affects more than the base appetites. The perpetual virginity of Our Lady, the sin of "self-abuse", were the first to go. And then, it was that Christ had no idea what His mission was until He finally hung on the Cross. The new Arianism. Christ had to become as helpless as they perceived themselves to be. Or to put it more accurately, they made Him to be as hapless as they knew we perceived them to be. And Our Lady as impure as they knew they were in their pronouncements here and there. I mean, imagine a priest daring to write a weekly column in which among other hideous things he discusses his homosexual fantasies, and then gets away with it essentially, despite protests from the outraged laity?

Liberties were taken at Mass that surpassed anything the dismal Mason, Bugnini, of the Consilium that composed the New Mass, could have imagined. As one woman put it, "It has become a circus!" Literally. The only thing missing was acrobatic attire. Balloons set aloft, strange and or profane musical instruments, a crowd gathered around "the presider", children well over the teething age chewing on cookies and playing with toys, with much laughter and all sorts of profane furnishings, noisy water fountains, decorator fabrics by way of pendants, arranging the Cranmerian table askew at an angle to copy the latest fashion of interior decor and on and on, such as purple stuffed rabbits at Easter and gigantic pumpkins that overtook the sanctuary. Stopping in at a local parish while traveling in the Northeast several years ago, I encountered a pumpkin so large it had to have set an agricultural record: it sat before the table which was dwarfed by its enormity. Thinking that I could not see the Tabernacle because of the size of the pumpkin, thankfully not yet a jack-o' lantern, I genuflected. As I knelt in the pew to begin my prayer I was so unsettled by the pub-type piano music being pumped out to the side, I got up to leave. Passing a nun I asked her about the Tabernacle since the atmosphere was so profane. She pointed to a little corner in the back of the church, a dusty place no larger than a closet actually, and there Our Lord was waiting. I had to fight the scream which welled up in my throat when I realized I had genuflected to the Great Pumpkin! At one point plastic butterflies adorned one Tabernacle long ago set to the side in another Northeast church, and as we all know, the "ressufixes." Even clown Masses on occasion. Or priests in stoles with cartoon faces. Priests in pink shirts with Roman collars, swishing all over the place with exaggerated gestures and odd turns of phrase as happened to me while visiting for a few weeks in the Southeast, and even one sporting an earring himself here at home. Priests conducting tours on cruise ships for their parishioners or to Atlantic city for shopping and gambling.

These things should have been enough to send us in flight in droves, rather than the comparatively slow trickle that actually left. Parents willing to expose their children to this sacrilege and general mayhem have some responsibility for what we later learned had been happening all along. If this sounds hard and without compassion, let it be. One ought not have to think of sexual perversion to recognize spiritual corruption; the soul is more important than the body at all costs. We supported these misfits and degenerates, period! I recognize that this appears a caricature and that it was more "complicated" than I am reporting here. And that there were good, traditional Catholics who did not know what else to do just as there were and still are and like-minded priests, too. This is not my point. There were those of us who did know what to do and we asked for help from our fellow Catholics: some who knew better reneged on promises, but most just refused and turned away. One such "traditional Catholic" told me "get used to it, it won't seem so bad after a while." I guess she did because she ended up gushing over one of the most outrageous gushy, effeminate priests an absolute heretic and blasphemer, saying to me "I wish he were my pastor." At the time she was among the better Catholics one met at least in practice, believe it or not. Instead of a few small committees of concerned and outraged laity meeting with the bishop, we should have gone en masse to him, in such numbers that he would have had to do something, even if only as little as he was willing to do, given that some of the bishops were degenerate pederasts and perverts themselves. At least as inadequate as the Vatican had become, it would have had to take notice and for the sake of publicity if nothing else, taken some action. And anyway, that some of the bishops were like these priests was unknown then, so there was nothing preventing us from going to him whole parishes at a clip. That is, if we had still our Catholic soul which we had sold a piece at a time, for the sake of a phony harmony. When a Catholic mother and father sees the priest acting like a buffoon and or openly mocking Tradition and even simple, basic human dignity before their children, the most Catholic and normal thing to do is to get up and go, fleeing "into Egypt" with the Holy Family before Herod "slays" their children. The fact that over half [and now almost a third] came back Sunday after Sunday is nothing less than tragic, the saddest statistic of all. As things declined from bad to worse than worse, eventually there was nowhere left to go, but to drive out of state in many an instance, or out of the county, which in Maine may be more difficult than out of state in other dioceses. There was almost nowhere left to go because the chastisement of perversity in all things had spread like a virulent disease left unchecked. The safe havens were becoming fewer as the good old priests died off or got too ill to be there for us. We should have had the courage of the Martyrs----the Japanese Martyrs and their descendants for instance, who went it alone with their Rosaries, Baptizing their children themselves until God permitted the fullness of the Sacraments and parish life, if need be. Courage requires grace along with the act of will. And for the most part we had surrendered any claim to this special grace long before. We no longer knew how to suffer, shrinking from the very idea of it. We have to want the virtue of courage and have to pray for it and even do penance! We had become Americans first and Catholics, second, no make that third, second place going to consumerism, especially on Sunday.

Without dismissing the untold misery of those young men whose bodies were ravaged by these rotten, diseased Judases, destroying their souls, too, as horrible as this was and is, the greatest sorrow, the greatest sin is that we allowed them to pervert our precious Catholic faith; we bought the lies of tolerance, the cunning deceit that excluded Tradition in the name of diversity and became non-Catholics, keeping but the name. There is no other way to say it and to say it thus, says it all in its ugly essence. I say it once more: We, too, sinned, diabolically, and unnaturally. They may have sodomized some of our sons but we allowed them to rape our souls, to change the faith according to their own unbelief . . .

Now is the Time for Mercy

Whenever God is so displeased with a nation or a people He leaves them to their own devices, that is the worship they devise to suit their vanity: the last punishment He sends them is contrariness, perversions of all sorts and never more evil and repugnant than that described by St. Paul in the above passage from Romans. History also teaches us this about the fall of societies and whole nations and empires. Inversion is the last proverbial nail in the coffin. But all is not lost as we still have been granted a great grace, that of recognizing our error, our weakness, the sins of sacrilege and idolatry and God is not without mercy. Some of the Doctors of the Church, such as St. Alphonsus Liguori write that God has an acceptable time in which He grants His mercy but that if we wait too long to repent the time may never come, that is we could be left unrepentant because of our lukewarmness.

Now is the time to do penance and to seek His forgiveness. He wants to show us His mercy:

"The Lord is sweet to all: and His tender mercies are over all His works." 11

Our Blessed Savior got up on the Cross to die for our sins and secure our redemption. Not content with waiting for us poor sinners He has sent His Holy Mother as our Lady of Fatima, not only as an ambassador from Heaven, and His prophet, but His gift of mercy, Divine mercy. She has given us a foolproof plan of action for ourselves, our families, indeed for the world, if only we heed her. She has asked for the daily Rosary and the Saturdays of Reparation and to offer up our daily duty done with purity of intention as penance. Reparation is the act of making amends for wrongs done to others, either God or our neighbor.

In John Vennari's article on the sacrilege of Holy Communion in the hand, he closes thus:

"In 1916, a year before Our Lady's visitations at Fatima, the "Angel of the Eucharist" appeared with Chalice and Host to the children. He administered the Sacred species to the three children saying, "Eat and drink the Body and Blood of Our Lord, horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Make reparation for their crimes and console your God." The Angel left the chalice and the Host suspended in the air, and prostrated himself before It. The children imitated him. The Angel then prayed repeatedly this act of reparation:

'Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I offer Thee the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference by which He Himself is offended. And by the infinite merits of His most Sacred Heart and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.'
 
"Let us commit to memory this prayer and say it throughout the day as often as possible. The "outrages, sacrileges and indifference" toward the Blessed Sacrament engendered by the Vatican II revolution are unprecedented, probably the worst in history. Sacrilege is so commonplace that it is no longer recognized as sacrilege. The need for reparation is colossal." 12

There are two kinds of reparation, that which is directed to God, which is called satisfaction, and which is the reparation that Mr. Vennari writes of and pleads for. The other kind is called restitution and is directed to restoring to our neighbor that which was justly his and taken unjustly. This, too, we owe our neighbor and our country. Our country, because unless the Catholic Church is as holy as possible the nations, although they be non-Catholic as political states, are dependent on the Church for grace, whether they recognize this reality or not. Our neighbor, [and ourselves] because he and we have souls to be saved above everything else, even our very lives. It is only just that right order [restitution] be put back in the sanctuary and in society. Maybe we cannot see how anyone else might want to do likewise, but God will not judge us by what our neighbor may or may not do; He judges us by what we do.

First, if you have not already done so, I urge you to obtain a copy of the February, 2006 issue of Catholic Family News or a reprint of John Vennari's article, "Communion in the Hand is a Sacrilege". Ask for #2075; it is only 2.00. The telephone number is [905] 871-6292. I know that you will be very moved by it and if are not convinced as yet that receiving Communion in the hand and distributing it as a regular lay Eucharistic minister is a sacrilege, although permitted unwisely by the Holy See, you will be. I beseech you to stop and go back to Tradition in this most urgent matter.

Second, If you have been misinformed or have a spouse that is and are not observing the marriage laws of the Church as always taught in Tradition, pray for the grace that you and your husband or wife will repent and begin to do so.

Third, if you a woman or young girl, and are not presently covering your head when in church, please, do so now. Likewise, if you are serving as a lay lector and are a woman or young girl, discontinue the practice, no matter what anyone may suggest to you so as to dissuade you. I am not asking you to listen to me, for who am I but just another sinner? I am asking you to listen to the greatest Evangelist and a Martyr, St. Paul.

The other points covered are mostly beyond our ability as laity to do anything about, but we can pray and offer up our suffering, deprivation, and loneliness as a sacrifice in union with the Passion of Christ in partial atonement for our own sins and those of others. However, if you are in such a parish as described above, flee, even if you think you can withstand it, especially for your children's sake. If we had all done this much sooner, the Novus Ordo establishment would have been neutralized, at the very least. Do not support degenerates, whether of the mind or body.

The First and Third are not only restorative to the order prescribed by Almighty God, they provide a means of witness and silent but resounding testimony. The second restores grace in such way that the graces proper to the Sacrament of Matrimony can have their salutary effect of sanctification.

All three prepare us for true spiritual combat and as we sanctify ourselves through prayer, daily duty and love of neighbor and the Holy Roman Mass, when available, we will also be better citizens, lifting up society, not letting it drift into utter degradation.

You may well ask, why are you writing this for me to read? I am a Traditionalist, that is, a Catholic as only a Catholic must be, you are preaching to the choir, madam. Oh, do you not see that I am not writing this for you, but for all those well-intended Catholics who have been de-Catholicized through the increasingly apostate ETWN channel, their local parishes and fellow Catholics and the mass media; they may still want to do the right thing; they may even think that they are. This is very important, heed these words: you may be the only courageous and properly informed Catholic they still know. I do not know who they are, but you do, just as I know those in my own life. If and when an opportunity presents itself-----each one of us will need to pray for prudence here----we ought to have on hand a copy of Mr. Vennari's short and most excellent article to give them to read. This may seem like a small step, but it is in fact a very great one and such an act of charity for a fellow Catholic, that although I know you would not want to have your acts of kindness brandished about like a boast, for our boast must be only in Christ, Jesus, you will be truly the Good Samaritan, known only to God.

If you think about it, we all had a John Vennari somewhere in our past, that someone who has the truth by the horns and would not let go, neither of that saving truth, nor of us, and we found our way out of the trap laid for us by the devil and his minions. We may still wander in the wilderness, having to be content with crumbs cast so miserly to us by our bishops, but we can rejoice for Christ has gone before us and we know that if we persevere to the end we will be victorious with Him. Eternity in Heaven is worth the little dry martyrdom we may endure now!

O Saint Cecilia

O glorious Saint, who chose to die
Instead of denying thy King,
We pray thee please to help us
As His fair praise we sing!
We lift our hearts in joyous song
To honor Him this way,
And while we sing, remembering,
To sing is to doubly pray.
At once in our hearts and in our tongues
We offer double prayer
 Sent Heavenward on winged notes
To praise God dwelling there.
While in our hearts and tongues we try
With song to praise God twice,
We ask dear Saint, to help us be
United close to Christ!

St. Cecilia's Feast Day is November 22.

The link for Catholic Family News on line is HERE.

1. You are referred to http://anglicanhistory.org/gore/contra1930.html

2. Paraphrase of the opening quotation: Note that the emphasis is in the original Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible, Challoner version, and was not added by the author.

3. Fr. L. Bouyer as cited by Michael Davies in Chapter 1 of Liturgical Time Bombs in Vatican II.

4. The Roman Rite Destroyed, Michael Davies, pp. 20/21.

5. Pope John's Council, Michael Davies, Chapter 9. The reference to the immediately preceding admittance by Cardinal Ratzinger was at the Christfidelis Conference in Fort Lee, NJ, May 20, 1995.

6. "Communion in the Hand is a Sacrilege", John Vennari, Catholic Family News, February, 2006 issue, p. 1.

7. Ibid., p. 20.

8. "The Midwives" of Modernism, a series in the former GUARDIAN, by this author, that was written in 1988, and updated for publication, 1992.

9. "Prayer as Propaganda", THE GUARDIAN, September, 1992, p. 28.

10. St. Paul to the Romans, Chapter 1, verses 23-28, Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible. Emphasis added by this writer.

11. Psalm 144: 9, Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible.

12. "Communion in the Hand is a Sacrilege", John Vennari, Catholic Family News, February, 2006 issue, p. 20.



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