by Pauly Fongemie
June 5, 2015
PART 1
In his bi-monthly ever brilliant column in The Remnant, The Last Word, of April 20, 2015, titled "Crashing the 'Spirit of V2' ", Father Celatus, writing under the pen name taken from the Latin for concealed, compares the "Spirit of Vatican II" and its ruinous effect on all things Catholic, to that of the doomed Airbus A30, co-piloted by the German, Andreas Lubitz into the French Alps, committing suicide and mass murder. Father names the operation of the modernists in control, the Spirit V2. Like a skilled surgeon, after a minute and thorough diagnosis, he exposes the blight eating away the Mystical Body, leading the reader through the various stages of decline [steep, rapid, descent] from the beginning of Vatican II Council to the present, and I quote from the last:
"So it is that Bishop of Rome Francis has seized the controls of the ill-fated Spirit V2 and barred the door. As the aircraft progresses through its deadly descent the progressives among the passengers swill down drinks as they cheer on the pilot. Neo-Catholics quickly pulled down window shades lest they might see the mountain peaks around them and they reassure each that the aircraft is in good hands. Panic has arisen among sensible Catholics as they realize their predicament and they are crying out 'Oh God' for mercy. Meanwhile, as they have been doing for decades, Traditional Catholics continue to pound at the door, pleading with the pilot to abandon a diabolically disoriented flight and make a course correction."
As you can see, Father has a capacity for presenting the profound with poignancy - his insights as sharp as his Catholic instincts, the sensus fidelium. This is why I always turn to The Last Word first. His genius is that he never fails to provide the immediate perspective required for the rest, truly a gift of grace, not to mention sardonic wit, precisely because all of this matter about salvation is no laughing matter.
As I was reading Father's piece, it occurred to me that there are different types of parallels in the universe populated by modern man. Those that are most central to our very existence as creatures and the salvation of every single soul is that of the two "natural laws", the dismantling of both are aligned in an unholy parallel. I have often written of these, and like all truths centered on salvation, they bear repeating, much like the repetition of valued principles and prayers, and occasions of special meaning, such as anniversaries. The other columns were just that; this piece is meant as an entire exposition.
While I am known for using satire on occasion, I will not do so today, preferring to let Father's Last Word be the last word in this department.
The first incidence referenced, is the natural law itself, as old as the first man, Adam; it is inherent - within man's very nature as created by God - his very guide which implants the boundaries that he is to observe in his actions by himself and with others. It can be known by right reason aided by actual grace. Without recognizing - either through malice or laxity - and honoring the limits of the natural law, man descends into barbarism, generally in phases, so that the enormity of his crime eludes him. He begins to pride himself that he is not like those former savages of old; no, he, of course, has a good reason according to his own light - it was only the anthropophagites of yore that were in the dark and being unreasonable, a deadly delusion common to those who are given to congratulating themselves as opposed to those they look down upon, just like the Pharisee and the sinner in the Gospel. One of the greatest sins, after blasphemy, is to think one is without sin.
He becomes comfortable with enmity against the natural lawgiver, Almighty God, Whom he no longer depends on first and foremost, preferring not to acknowledge Him in the public square except in a perfunctory manner. Practical atheism de facto, and almost entirely de jure. Having in effect, denied his creatureliness, he divests himself from the bonds of responsibility to Him, not only natural, but supernatural, or to put it succinctly, man is no longer conscious of the sense of sin that Adam knew after the Fall. The first casualty - and the convulsive schism, cutting man off from God - was the loss of obedience to - and reverence for - the natural law. Like Adam who convinced himself that he could be the arbiter of right and wrong, good and evil, rather than God, man "freed" himself to decide who is meritorious of personhood, thereby sanctioning murder through "law". The year was 1973. There would soon be no limits worth the mention; after all, if man can decide who among the innocent has the right to live and the duty to die, is there any meaning to the very ideas embodied within moral limits - the boundary having collapsed? Since the right to life is the first, most sacred right, it constitutes the absolute border. Trespass beyond and the very concept of limitation on human actions erodes over time. It is in the very nature of the thing. To think otherwise is sheer madness, almost as mad as those who devised legalities for government-sponsored grave immorality on a massive scale, thinking they were improving society.
Until the last fifty years, western societies, at least, upheld the legitimacy of the natural law and its binding precepts, although individual governments and members of society were known to breach it. The fact that western cultures overall could bring attention to that breach was evidence that the natural law was still the first rule of all man-made law [what is called positive law, because it claims to posit a body of principles]. The best known example in modernity is, of course, Hitler's genocide of the Jews and the Nuremberg trial. Without the natural law, man violates his very nature, his very dignity, not only the just rights of others. This is what is meant when we say the natural law is inherent to man's nature. Then it could at least be said that man retained his devotion to the necessity of the natural law. What do we mean by devotion?
"Devotion is the will to give oneself readily to matters that pertain to the service of God - an act of the appetite of the soul that moves the will. Now, since devotion is an act of the will whereby man offers himself to the service of God, Who is man's last end, it necessarily follows that devotion prescribes the mode of human actions." [The Sacred Heart in the Life of the Church, Margaret William, RSCJ, with Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, 1957] When we speak of the generality of the mode of human actions in society, we are referring to nothing less than the natural law. That devotion is maintained and promulgated through Tradition, because man's nature as a creature is unchanging and his Creator, Who is the Supreme, Uncreated Being is Unchanging, the very foundation for Tradition; which in turn constitutes the preservation of Truth handed down from one generation to another and the natural law, which are sometimes referred to as the eternal verities.
The ineffable devotion imperative in re the natural law, and man's venerable nature as a creature is derived from the Incarnation, the taking on of human nature itself, joined to the Divine nature by the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ, so that "knowing God visibly we might know Him invisibly." [Ibid.]
1973 was the great rupture in the natural sphere - an impious break with Tradition - and like Humpty Dumpty, it could not be made whole again. That bridge too far. In his rash audacity man thought that he could sanction some abortion while regulating others. Sheer asininity! Despite the so-called declaration of the US Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, that the states could legislate abortions in later terms if not, the first trimester, that has not turned out to be the reality. With the rarest of exceptions - there is usually one to secure the rule - almost every state that has attempted to limit late-term abortions has been prevented from doing so by some federal court or other, including the US Supreme. The latest case being Idaho which was not even able to prevail in regulating facilities for late-term abortions! The back story to all this bloodshed of the innocent is that although a majority of the voters want limits on late term abortions at the very least, we have not been able to establish any that actually do so. Why?
Because it was the courts that over-ruled the natural law and it is the courts that maintain supreme power over the other two powers of government, contrary to the establishing principles of the United States, where the three branches would be equal in balance. Why has the judiciary gained supremacy? Two reasons. First, the people did not rise up and impeach the Supremes, preferring the ease of not doing so, despite the consequences. In effect, we, the people, ratified the Court. And second, because the people presumed that we could have some abortion and only some, no different than the claim that a little divorce is not so bad. There is no such thing folks. Either you have lots of divorce, or none at all. It is the law of expanding consequences - once one party is given permission, it seems "unfair" to deny other parties. There is no way to set limits, practically speaking once the official consent is granted. The people again ratified this fiendish fissure by refusing and or neglecting to instruct their legislators to use Constitutional grants to limit the jurisdiction of the courts. If the people still had the grace of God enough to have the light of reason, Congress would have done so, a priori. Then a Human Life Amendment or at least some federal limit to abortion would have been possible [if a state decided to approve abortion], free of being struck down by the obstructive judiciary which has seized control because it remains unelected in most jurisdictions. The very thing the Founders feared most, which they called tyranny.
Now the natural law is a singular entity - breach one aspect and sooner, rather than later, it crumbles, a piece at a time because the people no longer see what they ought, but what they want. Why? Because the natural law is a sacred thing that requires that devotion we have spoken of - it is not like building a shopping mall, or any one of a thousand human enterprises. It is not a creation of man, but of his creator, Almighty God, and it is sacred as it was made for man who is a sacred creature - i.e., ordered to grace - because he was made for God and God alone and has an immortal soul. Pretending this is not so or believing this to be a myth, no matter how sincerely one claims, does not, cannot dispense with man's responsibility to the natural law. Without formal adherence to it by society, man is less free until he not free at all. And this is what we are suffering today, that great agonizing sense of loss - that although we proclaim all these natural rights and civic freedoms, in reality we all know that we are less free than we were in 1973.
Speech codes, but one of dozens of examples, are strictly enforced - not to prevent the incidence of authentic blasphemy against the One and Only God, the Blessed Trinity, not to prevent the raw sewage of pornographic filth to corrupt morals and destroy souls - but to prevent the Truth itself from being promulgated. Our elites - the academy and media, primarily - in control of the culture and thought fear that man will be corrupted by Truth, not sin! It all began with a lie - that we do not know when life begins, or if we do, it no longer is a consideration, the willful killing of an innocent baby for convenience - this is what it is, a convenience for less than nine months, whatever motives are asserted otherwise. To enforce and buttress the lie, more lies had to be implanted in the minds of men. As always, these kinds of lies become their own legitimizer. Now it is the lie that is preferred to Truth, which is also a sacred thing. Now you may start to perceive the interconnectedness of every part of the natural law, if you have not allowed yourselves to be hostages of the Big Lie permanent campaign. Most men never do; this is why Christ said that the road to perdition was wide and many there are that find it. This is the way of the world and those who are enamored of its ways. And this is why God instructs us to be in the world, not of the world. It was always the natural law that enlightened men to impose upon themselves limits suited to their nature as creatures and not creators.
It is 2015 and we have come almost completely full circle. First it was abortion [after contraception and divorce were legalized - the prepping phases through sensual bribery], and now it is the fight to preserve the God-given two sexes - male and female [as He created them]. Chromosomes determine gender, not individuals with mental disorders or suffering from complexes instilled by a degraded culture. Does the male athlete, proclaiming womanhood still have the legal right to compete with real women, while retaining his male chromosomes - which cannot be altered by surgery - and thus his male advantage, even with hormonal therapy, when it comes to strength? Nobody is asking this, so I am.
Child sexualization beyond that which occurs with so-called sex education, designer babies in the laboratory, bestiality, the joining of animal and human physiologically, legalized incest, and the equalization under law of all species are on the immediate horizon, hitherto unimaginable. The first volley to test those waters is the chimpanzee or some primate. A court will decide if this animal without an immortal soul is the same legally as a person. Meaning, the meaning of personhood and its dignity is slated for the dumpster of history. For a person would be a transitory entity - subject to redefinition. The intervening engine that drives these shocking endeavors? The rise of the culture of sodomy! For the legalization of sodomy through the courts - the main enforcer - is transforming modern society, from reverence for the natural or normal, the ordered, and the enshrinement of the unnatural and disordered to such an extent, that the "rights" of sodomites trump all other rights! In most locales and precincts you can be pro-life and still keep your job; if you are known to be against "gay marriage" it would be the exception for you not to lose your position.
If the baby in the womb is no longer inviolate, then the marriage privilege - now no longer considered the privilege of marriage alone - or sexuality - is not sacred either, by definition, because they are necessarily connected by Divine design. The primary purpose of the marriage privilege is the begetting of children. If sexuality is no longer sacrosanct, in that it is set apart for a special purpose, but is merely a means of gratification with a partner, any partner, even when one does not know his or her name - then how one achieves this sensuality is also without limit. By definition and human weakness. Just as if man disregards the laws of nature - by being careless with fire in a forest, let's say - man reaps his own demise - the loss of human dignity and the light of reason - when he plays fast and loose with the laws of his nature. This is one of those self-evident truths that only those with the ego inflamed by hubris or demoralized through persistent propaganda, are unable to acknowledge.
Just as the man who claims there is no law of gravity is still subject to it, whether he admits it or not, so too, with man who has the audacity to set aside the natural law, it being a hindrance to his pleasure and self-will. And while it is gravity and his acceptance of its rule over him, that sustains man's natural safety, so it is with the natural law, that regulates man's moral action. The comparison is not perfect, for the laws of nature go on whether man likes it or not, but the natural law, although integral to man's nature, depends on his will to uphold it, even at great sacrifice if need be. Devotion and piety. What we used to call, strength of character, even nobility.
The natural law can, in fact, be said to be the social-moral law of gravity. Go beyond its bounds and man is in free fall - hurling himself over a cliff. Because the first is strictly physical, man thinks he is safe to pretend otherwise with the second. But, ironically it is the physical that is first affected also with the second - for example, venereal disease - even though the ultimate danger lies beyond and above the mere physical, for man's meaning as man is irretrievably altered and never for the better! Why? Because the natural law is closely tied with reason. One cannot tinker with one and not affect the other. By vitiating the normal or natural, man loses his foresight, slowly until he can no longer see that he cannot see any longer, see in the manner of a dignified creature with an intellect deigned to rule over the baser instincts. It is the natural punishment for the displacement of the natural by that which is wholly unsuited to the human person. Man no longer seeks to sanctify himself in the traditional, and only genuine sense, precisely because he has lost a great part of whom he is, since Original Sin, and that knowledge which includes a sense of sin has been lost to him through an act of sheer repudiation, the egregious will. Because he has lost the sense of whom he really is, he simultaneously loses his sense of place and until at last the physical boundaries also deteriorate. This, too, is the very nature of things, like it or not. To be conscious that one is a sinner in need of redemption is not a loathsome thing, but the very nobility of humility itself. This recognition, rather than render man ugly, makes him lovable and gives him the faculty of empathy, a conscience that includes the eternal welfare of others. It is the beginning of grace, which builds on nature. Grace cannot build on the unnatural because the unreal is opposed to the operation of grace. Again, it is in the nature of the thing itself.
How do I mean that man lost his sense of place? Place is multi-dimensional. It refers to a specific location set within a circumscribed boundary, of course, but so much more. When I speak of "place" I mean one's relationship with others primarily. If a man has lost the sense of his destiny as a creature, made for God; if he no longer thinks he is bound to the natural law, then he sees the other in a manner that is also unnatural, or an object to be used and or with an ersatz familiarity and affection, for example. Today this rupture is seen in the growth of "social media" where people we have never met are hailed as "friends". Young children call adults they have barely met by their first names, as if worthy of a proper friendship in an instant. To many people these seem like little matters. Actually they are signals that something much greater and graver is going on in society. Men are both withdrawing from one another and reaching out in their natural need for social bonding in ways that are artificial at best. To accommodate the new arrangement new manners, that is, the almost complete lack of manners is now the norm. The disgusting, and often obscene messages about others, displayed for all the world to see is now a permanent freak show in social media. Physical separation or distance provides the opportunity to debase others for the sake of self-gratification. The idea of being a lady or a gentleman, with modesty and humility is fading fast. Too many people are "reinventing themselves". Who knows who anyone really is anymore? It is all unreal.
I am not talking about the ordinary means of communication, such as a straightforward electronic memo or any one of informational and otherwise wholesome web sites. They are not the problem as they are not conducive to this obstreperous, boorish behavior in of themselves. It is the "personalized" media where people follow one another, that lend themselves to it. Like so much of the so-called reality shows on television, it isn't really real except the vulgarity and mean-spiritedness. Oh, I recognize the good that comes from some social media - those who reach out to others in desperate need and provide assistance in particular ways. If that was all it was, wonderful! But there is a deep rupture in man now, and too many are susceptible to the worst impulses, not because they are so clever or evil themselves, but because they are merely weak and social media affords them the opportunity to act out and up. This aspect seems to be growing, as man distances himself from himself in his nature, created to give praise to God, instead he praises either himself or entirely the wrong things that violate his dignity. If the natural law prevailed overall, the ugly in social media would be such a small fringe, it could be dismissed. I am really thinking of symptoms of social breakdown and less the mode itself. The mode is the means, not the cause. Man is at war with himself because he is at war with his nature, with Tradition. He has lost his sense of where he truly belongs vis a vis his neighbor. He may think he has a beef with his neighbor, but deep inside he is really angry with himself because he feels dispossessed, his own doing. This is what I mean when I say "lost his sense of place". Man is no longer at home because he refuses to be subject to the limits of the natural law, written in the hearts of all men at their creation. Since he no longer truly knows what and who he is, he does not comprehend how he should be where he is. He is not evicted from the paradise of Tradition, he has chosen to leave, much like the Prodigal Son. And like him he will travel long and far, falling and failing until he finally recognizes he must return.
This is why God is chastising us - for our own good. He is letting us have our way without intervening until we ask for His help, until we recognize we have strayed far from our natural setting where God has placed us, within the nurturing arms of Tradition, repenting in order to come home again. He will not compel us. The gift of free will is an awesome, yet fearful thing. And human pride, the worst companion for any journey. Modern man will wander in his self-imposed exile for a long long time until ...
We all know the aphorism, nature abhors a vacuum.
Man can no more escape sin and its consequences by renaming sins either by no longer considering real sins, sins - especially against nature - or devising "new sins" that are really not sins in of themselves - all these isms we are supposed to avoid even when they defy common sense and just plain normalcy. The modern West now has entire clusters of "sins" - artificial boundaries that to transgress can render a man heaped with shame and rejection; so-called sins against the earth, one example, most of which climate change has virtually nothing to do with man and his actions, but with sun spot activity. Man has eschewed the possible, the attainable, the normal, in favor of attempting the impossible and to do so the elites are prepared to sacrifice every aspect of natural freedom, if necessary. If Algorism and mutant strains predominate, every aspect of human life will be regulated until life itself is almost impossible. Even now there are those profligate prophets of doom who suggest that animal species and even flora have the same rights as man. Drought in California is now dictated to spare a particular species, killing off family farms and driving up food prices. Energy policy could actually be so draconian and unreasonable that to "sustain" the earth in the manner the new pagans envision, whole regions populated by man will become a wasteland where only death and misery thrive.
This is not chicken little stuff. For who in his most expansive imagination could have thought it possible that serious people would advocate child sex, such as Alfred Kinsey, or that chimpanzees could be thought to have the rights of persons, or that two men or two women could be "married"? Marriage by definition refers to a husband and wife. There is no such thing as a marriage where there are wives or husbands without the other. It is beyond diabolic to hear a woman refer to her "wife". One hears this all the time now. Once the bridge is crossed and blown to bits - and we have destroyed the bridge, Tradition and the natural law - there is no going back. And polls, however poorly designed, demonstrate this, the West is inexorably moving left on what are called "social issues." To accommodate this, later, if not sooner, the economic will follow. By definition. But man is blind and prefers to see what he hopes for than what really is. What do I mean? If the willingness to sacrifice the normal for the sake of the "equality" of the unnatural or abnormal is the ethos, it gradually filters down into all business and commercial undertakings, by law, forever changing them to suit the hegemony of presumptive pride and the tyrannical impulse. If man is no longer truly free, he can no longer engage in a "free" market, properly defined.
Worship of the earth is the new paganism, without any of the class of the older. Why? Two reasons. First, the former paganism recognized actual limits and encouraged public devotion to the gods, however non-existent they were. It at least attempted to preserve a rudimentary natural law. Second, because the supernatural also abhors a vacuum.
Man was made for God, to worship Him as the Supreme Being, to know Him, to be happy with Him for all eternity. So man, preferring himself and his vaunted ideas to God, cannot endure psychologically and or spiritually without a "god." So he has manufactured causes that serve the purpose. Of course, he has not done so consciously, purposefully, for modern man would that no "god" at all exists. But this is against his very nature, unrealized by him. So it is that somehow, somewhere within himself he has "created" the "god" he fancies. It is unavoidable. Atheists insist they do not worship God but I have never met one who at last did not worship a cause so religiously he would not be willing to impose it if in power. Our hearts are restless for God - and for the neo-man another "god" must suffice. I once heard a most serious atheist finish a declaratory statement with the phrase, and I am not kidding, "God willing." I do not know if he ever recognized his faux pas, but to know and love God is natural, normal to man, no matter how hard he tries to eviscerate this reality, much like the lady reporter who favored abortion and who once uttered, "the baby in the womb" - which she did not intend to say, but said it anyway because we all know it's a baby, including her. She tried to walk it back by repeating her sentence by changing the baby to "fetus". Actually a fetus is simply an unborn baby of a certain gestational age. The expression on her face for a few seconds was revealing and then some! Some days we pro-lifers win even when "they" say we are losing. The PC god is not merciful as only the Only God is, treating His children as the beloved; no this insatiable god treats his spawn as hapless dolts.
When Christendom prevailed - and the natural law was unhindered in its domain - man could be reasonably happy on earth, even given the vicissitudes of life brought on by the Fall. If he honored God, kept holy the Sabbath, raised his children within the traditional family, kept the commandments as best he was able, strove hard to supply for himself and his family, he was relatively free to sanctify himself, without being deemed guilty of a "hate crime". He did not have to confront all these new "sins" or isms, ageism, lookism, the ever-morphing face of "racism", thugism and so forth. Every week there is a new sin we are supposedly guilty of, especially if one is white and male or white, female and conservative and Christian. Apparently every other category of person was born without Original Sin. It's really amazing! [See Note 1]
Now God is no longer honored in society and the halls of officialdom. The natural law is now considered hate speech, and the Catholic Church and its teachings pertaining to that law, a hate group. This is why Catholic chaplains are restricted in their daily duties, what would have been recognized as normal and natural just a decade ago. While non-Christian "chaplains" are left unmolested in their activities, the Catholic priest serving in the military is not supposed to teach Christ in his counseling to other Catholics. Of course, if you are still somewhat normal you realize how ludicrous and unjust and intolerant this is, and done in the "name of tolerance itself" a logical impossibility. Who could have possibly envisioned such an edict just a few years ago? Only those scheming even then. All things are now possible, especially if they defy normalcy, common sense and justice. Especially. Words now signify what the regime says they do and the meanings, which are actually meaningless in the authentic sense, multiply day by day. Everything that brings order with dignity, is absent while the abnormal, the monstrous, the grotesque and repulsive are triumphant. Step by step the rationalization and acceptance came into its own. By brute force? No.
By subtlety in the beginning, the clever shift of meaning of thousands of years' knowledge of right and wrong, revealed by our Creator. Then the process of deluge - one outrage following in the wake of another, so quickly and furiously that whole segments of society wearied, felt overcome and gave up. This is essentially what occurred with the acceptance of "gay marriage" within ten short years. Nothing about "the gay lifestyle" or practices changed, nothing about anything actually, that would lead people to shout Eureka, we have seen a great light! No. They were suffused with propaganda so clever they never knew what was happening to them - the messages included strict scrutiny for "hate" so devilishly designed no one could escape its wrath unless they complied. Weakened human nature and man's tendency to want human respect before reverence for God, did the rest. But try to tell the people this, they would laugh as they truly have no idea, they believe it was all their idea. But then they never read the homofascist leaders and their plans to sell the unnatural as normal and nice. It's too late, now. Even if we could convince them of the truth, there is no longer any will for the fullness of Tradition by and large. The self is too supreme for that. As one airline ad says, "It's all about you." That is, me, me, me. Leave me alone and you can be you, you, you. I am me and I want to be loved and admired and accepted. I want to do my own thing, but I must be loved for it. Just don't hate me and you can have whatever you want. The irony is overwhelming, supreme individualism rules, yet there is only one set of ideas that must be believed and practiced - what the group - the elites - dictate. So much for individualism. And tolerance. But then, perplexity is the modus operandi of the devil, the Prince of this world. Truth, and Goodness are One, completely unfractured, clear without confusion or the need for nuance; evil is a many unsplendored contradictory and defused thing.
An aside on Tradition and its intrinsicality with human nature:
Despite modernity's love affair with the novel and sometimes the outrageous, its rejection of Tradition, man cannot hope to escape the fact that it is a vital part of the human perspective. For instance, many many commercials today refer to a return to the traditional past - perhaps a superficial nostalgia, but this very reality tells us that some re-acquaintance with Tradition is what the people are yearning for. It cannot be any other way as Tradition and man are bound together if his life is to continue to have meaning beyond a surface familiarity with one another, because it is Tradition that safeguards the uprightness of his actions from generation to generation, and is the fortress of certitude when doubt assails him.
[When I speak of Tradition, capital T, I am referring to the certainty of Truth, capital T, handed down through the ages, not tradition with a lower case t. By the latter I mean slavery and other such long-standing evils that have taken on a semblance of a "tradition".]
The derogation of the natural law has continued unabated to the point that some communities are seriously considering paying criminals with our money to not commit murder and other vicious crimes. This, after first making it almost impossible for the laws against crime to be effectively enforced. The police are now a suspect class. Liberalism and its disastrous ideas that do not comport with human nature always lead to chaos and such lunacy, such as punishing a Black teacher for disciplining wayward Black youth in the classroom. Apparently one may discipline White kids, but not Blacks, at least not the males. Talk of real racism, and patronization!
Furthermore we are now aliens in our own land while those who legally ought to be deemed aliens are on the ascendancy of power, and because who is a "citizen" under the law is now up for grabs, they will soon be voting in numbers so large that the regime of totality - liberalism - will be unstoppable using Constitutional means. Once the moral boundaries were removed, the physical boundaries were unenforced, as night follows day as corruption of the mind and heart and will cannot be appeased - it is its own "god." Only the sacrifice of the normal, the rational, the just, will be the sacrifice required by this relentlessly angry "god."
Mark these words: if H. Clinton gains the Presidency, as promised to the Latinos, she will go further with executive orders than Obama ever dreamed of. Unless a Court has the tenacity and wisdom to put an estoppel on her efforts, illegals will be voting! Just as she supplied the so-called "valid" rational for deleting State Department e-mails, she will have on the ready a not so plausible "plausible" rationale that will pass muster with what are called "the low information" voters. People who know nothing and do not want to know anything other than which keeps them amused or flattered. And anybody who has the temerity to point this out or to criticize her policy will be hailed anti-woman, a sexist! When your arguments are without merit, hurl invective at the character of your opponent in lieu of a valid counterpoint, an old trick that still works wonders in getting people to succumb to the Zeitgeist. No more natural boundaries of national sovereignty, a natural good, while strictly maintained unnatural boundaries of thought and opinion, a morbid evil.
And this brings us to the other "natural law", the supernatural law of the Catholic Church, or ecclesiastical Tradition, which is the natural, inherent guide for the Church. There are four pivotal years, 1917, 1960, 1968 and 1969. It is important to note this because 1973 would not have been humanly possible without these preceding years of dynamic, - and destructive in the case of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th - turning points.
PART 2
Without understanding the appearances of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal in 1917, taking to heart what she told the world about the dangers coming fast upon it and the enormity of the sins of mankind, the other turning points seem disconnected and or coincidental to the casual observer who is not an ardent student of history.
Our Lady predicted a great World War, chastisements by Almighty God and the loss of nations and the dominance of the "errors of Russia" if the Pope did not obey her in consecrating Russia, not the world, Russia, to her Immaculate Heart, which her Son, Jesus desired as the means He chose for the sanctification of the Church and the various nations of the world, in particular Russia. To demonstrate she was whom she said she was and that Fatima was a Divine work, the Miracle of the Sun occurred. Even atheist reporters recognized the phenomenon as unexplainable in merely human terms. One of the requests she asked was that the Third Secret be revealed by 1960 at the latest. The first Two had already been given to the three little seers and made known to the public. If the Consecration was not done as asked, great misfortunes to the Church and nations would arise.
In 1960, Pope John XXIII, determined that the Secret was "not for our time", despite the fact that our Lady said it was urgent and was to be revealed by 1960, if not earlier. We know from those theologians who had read the Third Secret that it contained dire warnings of apostasy from the top in the Church and the loss of dogma. The last sentence leading into the Third Secret tells us that in Portugal, the dogma of the Faith would be preserved. This must mean, logically, that elsewhere it would be lost, which is prescisely what we have been witness to for over 50 years now.
When the Holy See at last revealed part of the Third Secret, the apostasy aspect was omitted. Eventually the Holy See [Cardinal Bertone caught in a fabication] had to admit it had not been entirely honest. When Pope Benedict was still Cardinal Ratzinger he said that one of his regrets was about what occurred with the Third Secret episode.
The Popes disregarded the Consecration as requested, instead, on occasion, using the phrase, the world, rather than Russia, for political ends, not the supernatural and natural good of souls. Thus the Church lost many graces from God for this disobedience, this defiance of the Divine.
Now, since all actual graces to the world are dispensed through the Sacramental life of the Catholic Church, by the expressed will of Christ, the world would suffer as well.
The graces that Holy Mother Church lost left its mark in the spiritual blindness during the impulsive Council of Vatican II, which was brought about by a so-called flash of inspiration on the part of Pope John. Dismissing the counsels of Our Lady, in preference for a Council of optimism where dogma would not be defended, dogma more than ever in need of such fortification, this Pontiff introduced the opening salvo to that apostasy beginning at the top.
The Sixties were ushered in, in conformity with the prevailing ennui - the distaste for things Divine and Immutable. Novelty, a distinctly unCatholic thing, was all the rage as it continues even now.
The Council was wholly unprecedented because it carefully avoided dogma in order to focus on "opening windows to the world." Again, a distinctly unCatholic thing, so much so that the loss of grace from rejecting Heaven's plea through Our Lady of Fatima was this: rather than engaging the world more profoundly and compellingly, the Church found it had let in the world in all its worldly ways, which was in turn unduly influencing It, something the Church had always consciously avoided because of Its very nature as the Mystical Body of Christ. The Council served up a smörgåsbord of confusion, "on the one hand" and "on the other hand" statements, so that anyone who dissented from doctrine could find vindication - something for everyone. The art of "nuance" was born - the clever shading of terms so as give the impression that doctrinal reality can be mitigated by circumstances. Since doctrine can never change there is no way to actually change it outright. Thus the "nuance" tended to dominate. There are a number of ways to apply moral shading. I will give one example, which is emblematic of the genre. It became fashionable at that time to omit the use of the adjective, mortal when referring to deadly sin - that which kills the soul as it is devoid of all grace, and in lieu of mortal, used the term, "serious". Now, mortal sin is, indeed, serious, but the sense of what mortal sin actually causes the soul is lost simply because "serious" does not exactly convey "death". After a few years many sincere Catholics with poor catechesis through no fault of their own, began asking the question, "Is serious sin somewhere between mortal and venial?" Genuinely perplexed. The nuance can be and is often deadly to belief. There is no reason to use it in these sort of cases, unless one is trying to downplay the truth, so as to not appear "harsh". Feelings were replacing sound thought, which has continued into the present, in society, as well as the Church. Vatican II is replete with the nuance as is most, if not all subsequent statements from the Holy See. As for the document on the liturgy, one finds the Traditional teaching on the Mass, side by side with "on the other hand" declarations that dismember the doctrinal principles of Tradition relating to the Mass, so that although "Latin was to have pride of place" it virtually ceased within a few years, around 1972. And this is one of many such "time-bombs" as the eminent writer on the Mass, Michael Davies called them. All because what was given with "one hand" was then removed by the "other". This way the dissenters or liberal periti, who dominated the Council could honestly say they never condemned Truth, yet had their impudent cake with frosting on it, because the wording of most of each document was such that appealed to the natural weakness in fallen man. Only the devil could arrange such subtle, yet substantial, stubborn destruction. Satan detests the Holy Mass of Tradition because it is Holy above all else in the prayer of the Church and is clearly a Sacrifice of propitiation above all else. The Immemorial Mass destroys a vast amount of his "empire" where it is said by a holy priest. The holier the Mass, the holier the priest, the more abundant the graces. Although a flaming heretic can say the Mass and it would be valid if he had the intent to confect the Blessed Sacrament and used the proper form of Consecration, but the Mass would confer very few graces. This is a part of the Catholic Faith and as children we were taught this important truth.
Pope Paul recognized the debacle stemming from his promulgation of the New Mass. He actually knew it intensely four years before, in 1965 at the closing of Vatican II, when he said the following which is truly remarkable for what he was admitting to, yet without the strength of character and grace from God [apparently] to right the floundering Barque of Peter, which he had plenary power to do:
"The conciliar Church, it is true, has also been much concerned with man, with man as he really is today, with living man, with man totally taken up with himself, with man who not only makes himself the center of his own interests, but who dares to claim that he is the end and aim of all existence.
"Secular, profane, humanism has finally revealed itself in its terrible shape and has, in a certain sense, challenged the Council. The religion of God made man has come up against a religion – for there is such a one – of man who makes himself God.”
"And what happened? An impact, a battle, an anathema? That might have taken place, but it did not. It was the old story of the Samaritan that formed the model for the Council's spirituality. It was permeated only with endless boundless sympathy. The attention of our Council was taken up with the discovery of human needs - which become greater as the son of the earth makes himself greater. …
"Do you at least recognize this merit, you modern humanists who have no place for the transcendence of the things supreme, and come to know our new humanism: we also, we more than anyone else, have the cult of man."
Three years after the close of that confounding Council he was forced to declare:
"The Church is in the process of auto-demolition."
Finally, in 1972, on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, Pope Paul VI delivered a sermon that startled the world. Describing the chaos then consuming the post-conciliar Church, he lamented: "From some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God."
And following his example, the laity, too, dismissed the Church in ruins all around them as but a mirage manufactured by some Traditionalists.
The New Mass, the portal for Satan's entry, which we will look at once again below, centers on a "meal", little on the need for sacrifice for sin, and has caused the bewilderment that dislocates by combining the role of priest and laity. How? The priest became a presider, a Protestant notion that does not require ordination and the people's priestly role through Baptism was inordinately raised, so that they gained entrance into the Holy of Holies, where those with orders of the priesthood and related should only be. That inter-exchange for roles is what one finds in the Protestant churches, specifically because they have no Sacrifice. The mutation of roles and the muting of the irreplaceable, august Holy Mass of Propitiation is key to understanding the de-Catholicization of the people and their introduction to many notions of Protestantism. Total decomposition. Part of that diabolical disorientation Our Lady warned us about. The molten wax sealing the deal was the Mass no longer facing towards Christ, but the people. This disruption of order and a sense of "place" vis a vis the Mass and the breakdown of the composition of the beauty and majesty of the Church from Apostolic times was unavoidable. This is how vital "a sense of place" is to the human person, whether in secular society or in church. The Catholic in the pew began losing his Catholic identity other than in a superficial, cultural manner. Soon Catholics decided they could decide for themselves what to believe and not to, what is a sin and what is not. If you ask most Catholics today, what they believe, you would get an assortment much like the variety in a garden club membership, not the Faith of the ages. The sensus fidelium is gone now, except mainly in Traditionalist quarters. So whenever a pastor or poorly educated Pope with worldly ideas comes along, they tend to go along, even when down deep in their bones they may sense something is not quite right. They dare not ask. The dissenters were cynical and oh so demonic - they used an incorrect idea about true obedience - to lead the people into disobedience to Christ and the Apostolic mandate. And they knew what they were doing and counted on our innocence. It worked, and it still is to a large extent.
Now there are Catholics who actually suspect something is wrong, very wrong, in fact, that apostasy fills the air we breathe, but they are reluctant to get involved or even acknowledge it in a helpful manner to themselves or others. These are those "Neo-Catholics" who quickly pulled down window shades lest they might see the mountain peaks around them reassuring each that the aircraft is in good hands. [Father Celatus] Some might think it is the liberals that are the problem. No. The calamity wrought by liberalism would have worn itself out as all revolts against Tradition and the normative end up by eating their children, but it is the Neos that perpetuate it, allowing it to gather a little more steam here and there to keep going. They are, unknowing to them, the most dangerous element of the catastrophe. To bolster their own view Neos generally have to tear away at Traditionalists, more so than at liberalism, simply because they are afraid to admit the truth. One finds this in Republican politics much of the time, the secular parallel. It is part of the lesser part of human nature, actually.
The orthodox declarations, stemming from Tradition and past Councils were just some among many and finally the modernists, who were were given the task of interpreting the texts - imagine declarations so unclear they required interpretation - had the upper hand as the Council itself was controlled by the "progressives", much like the present Synod on the Family. Many of the Bishops were too trusting and, lacking the necessary prudence, they left the import of the implementation of the Council in the hands of those who had essentially lost their Faith, there is no polite way to put it. And to use the phrase, "All Hell broke loose" - the chastisement foretold by Our Lady who also spoke of a great disorientation. That became evident in the rise of the Cult of Man in lieu of the City of God which has been a central theme in Papal writings ever since.
The loss of grace and the chastisement from the 1960 pact with the devil - the Consecration to Russia would not be done so as to not antagonize the Soviets - was followed by such blindness of the mind and will that the year of the issuance of Humanae Vitae by Pope Paul VI, 1968, brought on an explosion of events approaching apostasy.
Before he wrote that encyclical, Paul VI had convened a commission to study the Pill or contraception in that form, a decidedly unCatholic thing by definition as there could never be a possibility of a formal approval ex cathedra for such an evil. To call for a study left the impression with the Catholic in the pew and in academia that there might be approval for some form of contraception after all. This is simple human nature. One does not call for a study for something that is impossible on its face, again by definition. So when such a study is undertaken, false hopes arise, it should have been expected. Paul's call for a commission was altogether imprudent at the very least.
Because the Holy Father acts as the Vicar of Christ, he can never teach from the Chair of Peter, or infallibly, anything that is untrue or immoral. Never. As Pope, as a man, he is not impeccable - free of sin and error - in his ordinary duties, daily speeches and other acts that may be his opinion. While a Pontiff can not formally teach error, he can promulgate it informally by faulty decisions pertaining to discipline, which may not comport with moral or theological doctrine, but may induce people to invalidly conclude that teaching had changed, which, of course, it cannot. Dogma is irreformable, immutable, as it is revealed Truth. It is not the creation of man. But unwise and or bad policy can give the impression that it can change and then raised expectations in the minds of the weak become reality and they act accordingly, disregarding any disclaimers that may be forthcoming. A part of human nature subject to Original Sin and its tendency to temptation that weakens the will even after Baptism - why the sin of giving scandal, which further weakens the will, is so grave. And this is why after the Arian heresy, all the Popes but the recent ones [which is telling, indeed] have taken the Papal Oath, binding them to Tradition and the defense of the Faith so as to not scandalize the faithful by intemperate or lax decisions, among other promises. Because a humble Pope knows he is not without weakness and faults and must be on the double guard against leading others into error through the scandal of his own poor comportment and example and so forth.
A significant component of that chastisement by Almighty God was the succession of injudicious Popes at the very least, with far too much confidence in the "progress of man" than is warranted.
Although Pope Paul VI could not, through the power of the Holy Ghost as promised by Christ, approve of the Pill and contraception, by the time he released Humanae Vitae, it was effectively too late, at least in much of western societies. In Canada and the US, the bishops as a body remained silent and did nothing to solidify the restatement of age-old teaching. There were those who said that the encyclical was not "infallible", that is, did not have the precise language of the formal Magisterium that distinguishes it from the ordinary [as if one was free to disbelieve what is called the Ordinary Magisterium]. But that was being overweeningly subservient to technicalities, in order to avoid the obvious Spirit of the Letter. Like true liberals: if the Letter appears to go against the revolution, cite the Spirit; if the "Spirit" does, use the "Letter". If neither one can be utilized, shut up and let fallen nature take its course.
Devout Catholics know that both the Letter and Spirit are indispensable helpmates. For, in fact, when the Church has taught a doctrine consistently throughout, it is held to be the equivalent of ex cathedra definitions because it is said to have already been irreformably defined, as dogma, which is a revealed and defined moral or theological Truth, that cannot change. Since Humanae Vitae said what the Church has always taught about the primary purpose of marriage, it is by definition infallible. In any event this was but a rhetorical ruse for the Bishops at large who had lost the savor of the teaching of the Faith on marriage, having given in to the pressure of sexual "politics". Knowing they could not condemn Humanae Vitae outright, they merely pretended it was a forgotten footnote, so to speak.
The American and Canadian people have been contracepting in majority numbers ever since, claiming the teaching has changed because no one speaks of it from the pulpit except in those rare, blessed parishes where the priest is a Traditionalist and still keeps the Faith whole and unblemished And has a Bishop who is a true, faithful and valiant Shepherd. There is much disingenuousness here as the same populace that insists the teachings have changed are the very same who listen to the secular media and it is this media which makes constant war with the Church through its shrill challenges to doctrine pertaining to sexuality primarily, that keeps telling the public the Church condemns contraception - one of the few facts they do not distort.
The "progressives" hope and plot to steer the 2014-2015 Synod on the Family toward the same folly as Pope Paul's commission intervention - at the very least raise expectations and then, if no coup succeeds, it won't matter, for Voila! the genie is out of the bottle and remarriage after divorce will no longer be a hindrance to the reception of the Blessed Sacrament, just as contraception hasn't been in years! As it stands now there is much anger since contracepting Catholics receive Communion and the divorced and remarried cannot - a hypocrisy that is duly noted by the rest of us as well. But then, although the Bishops are silent on contraception, neither have they formally approved of the practice as is being attempted by the Synod in the case of divorce and remarriage. If that Synod approves the dastardly deed, contraception will be the next item on the agenda, in disciplinary matters, not doctrine as it is with divorce. And then, why stop there, after all, what about the rest of us sinners? In any event this is the likely drill. Sordid is an understatement. Vile approximates the high treason. It is all mockery, for if mortal sin is no longer a barrier to the holy reception of the Holiest, the Body of Christ, then surely it must follow that it no longer keeps one out of Heaven. And there goes the entire Redemption, because if sin is without eternal consequence, nothing else really matters, does it not? Not to mention the abject cruelty afflicting the priest with a wholly and blessed Catholic conscience, is he to be expendable? What of him and what is he to do to save his own soul and those of his parishioners encharged to him? If the heretics succeed, what looks like a series of outposts scattered among the ruins now will be an unimaginable wasteland, giving new depth to what someone once coined, Roamin' Catholic, a play on words that reveals the awful truth.
1969 followed 1968 and it would prove to be the sine qua non of betrayals: the self-flagellation or the purposeful sacking of Rome - a convulsion against supernatural Tradition mightier than that against the natural of 1973.
By this time the Church [and the world] had lost many graces, so many that Its self-induced blindness, i.e., that of prelates and people, not the Sacred Institution ordered and established by Christ, was on automatic pilot, loosely borrowing from Father Celatus.
Because our prelates had sacrificed the foresight and vision that comes with compliance to Sacred Tradition, what followed was, humanly speaking, unavoidable.
It is necessary to pause here, momentarily, to re-examine the insidious nature of "Novelty" that has always been forbidden until the spiritual blindness of the modern Papacy. To do so, I have but to cite the following:
1. I cannot sufficiently be astonished that such is the insanity of some men, such the impiety of their blinded understanding, such, finally, their lust after error, that they will not be content with the rule of faith delivered once and for all from antiquity, but must daily seek after something new, and even newer still, and are always longing to add something to religion, or to change it, or to subtract from it! [St. Vincent of Lerins]
2. And I hold it not with the understanding that a thing can be held which seems better and more suited to the culture of a certain age, but in such a way that nothing else is to be believed than by the words; and I hold that this absolute and unchangeable truth preached by the Apostles from the earliest times is to be understood in no way other than by the words. [Oath Against Modernism]
3. Diabolical error decks itself out with ease in lying colors with some appearance of truth, so that the force of pronouncement is corrupted by a very brief addition or change, and the confession of faith which should have resulted in salvation, by a subtle transition leads to death! [Pope Clement XIII]
4. The present or "current" teaching of the Church does not admit of a development that is either a reversal or a contradiction. [Pope John Paul II]
5. Let us regard the Tradition of the Church also as worthy of belief. Is it a tradition? Seek no further! [St. John Chrysostom ]
6. Change nothing; be content with Tradition. [St. Cyprian]
7. Let nothing novel be introduced! [Ven. Pope Pius XII]
8. "Avoid the profane novelty of words," St. Paul says (1 Timothy 6: 20) ... For if novelty is to be avoided, antiquity is to be held tight to; and if novelty is profane, antiquity is sacred. [St. Vincent of Lerins]
9. The ancient doctrines must be confirmed, but novel and absurd inventions must be condemned and cast aside. [St. Cyril of Alexandria ]
10. Why cast yourself over a cliff, deciding in your writings about things of which you are ignorant? Why do you not keep to what you have received from the Fathers and Doctors of the Church? You introduce novelties! [St. Eusebius of Caesaria ]
11. The devil is always discovering something novel against the truth. [Pope St. Leo the Great]
12. To announce, therefore, to Catholic Christians anything besides that which they have received has never been lawful, is lawful nowhere, and never will be lawful; and to anathematize those who announce anything besides that which has been once received has always been necessary. This being the case, is there anyone of such audacity as to teach other than that which has already been taught in the Church, or anyone of such levity as to receive anything besides that which he has once received from the Church? St. Paul, the teacher of the Gentiles, cries aloud, and he cries out loud again and again, to all men, to all times, and to all places that, if anyone announces a new dogma, let him be anathematized! [St. Vincent of Lerins]
13. Wherefore, by the authority of Apostolic power, We declare inventors of novel notions, which as the Apostle Paul has said are of no edification, but rather are practiced to beget most foolish questions, are to be deprived of the communion of the Church. [Pope St. Innocent]
14. I have neither permitted, nor shall I permit, the things which have been settled by the holy fathers to be violated by any innovation. [Pope St. Leo the Great]
15. This custom has always prevailed in the Church: that, the more religious a man was, the more promptly did he withstand novel inventions. [St. Vincent of Lerins]
16. "They knew only too well the intimate bond that unites faith with worship, the law of belief with the law of prayer, and so, under the pretext of restoring the order of the liturgy to its primitive form, they corrupted it in many respects to adapt it to the errors of the Innovators." [Pope Leo XIII, Apostolicae Curae]
17. Let nothing new be introduced. [Pope Benedict XV]
18. What then, shall a Catholic Christian do ... if some novel contagion attempt to infect no longer a small part of the Church alone but the whole Church alike? He shall then see to it that he cleave unto antiquity, which is now utterly incapable of being seduce by any craft or novelty. [St. Vincent of Lerins]
This "novel contagion" that infected the whole Church was the introduction of the New Mass of Pope Paul VI, which satisfied the Protestants who attended Vatican II and were influential with those devising the hideous hybrid, a mixture of Protestantism and Freemasonry, to be exact. But the details pertaining to the hybrid Mass are for another exposition. Our purpose here is to keep within the framework of our two parallels. The citations, supra, provide the crucial background demonstrating that Paul VI had no authority to do what he did regarding the Mass, essentially attempting to bring cessation to the Immemorial Mass as the norm, which was set for all time in the infallible papal Bull, Quo Primum, Establishing the Canon of the Mass Forever, of St. Pius V:
We specifically command each and every patriarch, administrator, and all other persons or whatever ecclesiastical dignity they may be, be they even cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, or possessed of any other rank or pre-eminence, and We order them in virtue of holy obedience to chant or to read the Mass according to the rite and manner and norm herewith laid down by Us and, hereafter, to discontinue and completely discard all other rubrics and rites of other missals, however ancient, which they have customarily followed; and they must not in celebrating Mass presume to introduce any ceremonies or recite any prayers other than those contained in this Missal.
Furthermore, by these presents [this law],
in virtue of Our Apostolic authority, We grant and concede in
perpetuity
that, for the chanting or reading of the Mass in any church whatsoever,
this Missal is hereafter to be followed absolutely, without any scruple
of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment, or censure,
and
may freely and lawfully be used. Nor are superiors, administrators,
canons,
chaplains, and other secular priests, or religious, of whatever title
designated,
obliged to celebrate the Mass otherwise than as enjoined by Us. We
likewise
declare and ordain that no one whosoever is forced or coerced to alter
this Missal, and that this present document cannot be revoked or
modified,
but remain always valid and retain its full force not withstanding the
previous
constitutions and decrees of the Holy See, as well as any general or
special
constitutions or edicts of provincial or synodal councils, and
not withstanding
the practice and custom of the aforesaid churches, established by long
and immemorial prescription-----except,
however, if more than two hundred years' standing. ...
... no one whosoever is permitted to alter this notice of Our permission, statute, ordinance, command, precept, grant, indult, declaration, will, decree, and prohibition. Should know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.
As far back as 1861, Cardinal Manning saw clearly that the cessation of the Holy Mass, that is, the Eternal Sacrifice, was in the offing, having studied the Church Fathers on this subject from earliest times. This prescient Cardinal gave us these predictions, surely inspired by the grace of God:
"The Holy Fathers who have written upon the subject of Antichrist, and
of the prophecies of Daniel, without a single exception, as far as I
know - and they are the Fathers of both the East and the West, the
Greek and the Latin Church - all of them unanimously - say that in the
latter end of the world, during the reign of Antichrist, the Holy
Sacrifice of the Altar will cease. In the work on the end of the the
world, St. Hyppolytus, after a long description of the afflictions of the last days, we read as follows:
"The Churches shall lament with great lamentation, for there shall be
offered no more oblation nor worship acceptable to God. The sacred
buildings of the churches shall be as hovels; and the precious Body and
Blood of Christ shall not be manifest in those days; the true Liturgy
shall become extinct .... Such is the universal testimony of the
Fathers of the early centuries." [CRISIS OF THE HOLY SEE, 1861]
Before he was the Pope, as Cardinal Pacelli, Ven. Pius XII said:
"Suppose, dear friend, that Communism [one of 'the errors of Russia' mentioned in the Message of Fatima] was only the most visible of the instruments of subversion to be used against the Church and the traditions of Divine Revelation. … I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a Divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in her Liturgy, Her theology and Her soul. … I hear all around me innovators who wish to demolish the Holy Sanctuary, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject Her adornments and make Her feel remorse for Her historical past. A day will come when the civilised world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God. … In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene, weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask, “Where have they taken him?" [Cited by Mgr. Georges Roche's & Philippe Saint Germain, 'Pie XII Devant L'Histoire'.]
After they read the New Mass for the first time this was the conclusion of two high-ranking Cardinals:
"The Novus Ordo is .... a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Holy Mass."
- stated by Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci of the Commission of upper
clergy and theologians to Pope Paul VI regarding that version of the Novus Ordo, which was actually closer to being orthodox than the form used today.
The New Mass of Paul VI is clearly a novelty which is forbidden. How do we know? Because he himself said so just before he promulgated it and I quote [emphasis in bold added as well as commentary in brackets] from
Address to a General Audience, November 26, 1969
Our Dear Sons and Daughters:
1. We ask you to turn your minds once more to the liturgical innovation of the new rite of the Mass. This new rite will be introduced into our celebration of the holy Sacrifice starting from Sunday next which is the first of Advent, November 30 (in Italy).
2. A new rite of the Mass: a change in a venerable tradition that has gone on for centuries. This is something that affects our hereditary religious patrimony, which seemed to enjoy the privilege of being untouchable and settled. It seemed to bring the prayer of our forefathers and our Saints to our lips and to give us the comfort of feeling faithful to our spiritual past, which we kept alive to pass it on to the generations ahead.
3. It
is at such a moment as this that we get a better understanding of the
value of historical tradition and the Communion of the Saints.
This change will affect the ceremonies of the Mass. We shall become
aware, perhaps with some feeling of annoyance, that the ceremonies at
the altar are no longer being carried out with the same words and
gestures to which we were accustomed—perhaps so much accustomed that we
no longer took any notice of them. This change also touches the
faithful. It is intended to interest each one of those present, to draw
them out of their customary personal devotions or their usual torpor.
[The Pontiff is assuming this and has no assurance that with the New
Mass, tepid souls will not experience torpor. It is an old canard,
although I have no doubt someone convinced him that it was true.
4. We must prepare for this many-sided inconvenience. It is the kind of upset caused by every novelty that breaks in on our habits. We shall notice that pious persons are disturbed most, because they have their own respectable way of hearing Mass, and they will feel shaken out of their usual thoughts and obliged to follow those of others. Even priests may feel some annoyance in this respect.
5. So
what is to be done on this special and historical occasion? First of
all, we must prepare ourselves. This novelty is no small thing. We
should not let ourselves be surprised by the nature, or even the
nuisance, of its exterior forms. As intelligent persons and
conscientious faithful we should find out as much as we can about this
innovation. It will not be hard to do so, because of the many fine
efforts being made by the Church and by publishers. As We said on
another occasion, we shall do well to take into account the motives for
this grave change. The first is obedience
to the Council. That obedience now implies obedience to the Bishops,
who interpret the Council's prescription and put them into
practice. ... [The Council did not call for a New Mass at all,
this is a grave misrepresentation. I have read both published versions
in their entirety. The Council fathers expected an updated Mass with
minor changes, one of the changes did not include the mandate for the
vernacular only, but stressed that Latin was to have "pride of place."
But those who invented the New Mass did not pay attention, see the next
paragraph.]
9. We have reason indeed for regret, reason almost for bewilderment. What can we put in the place of that language of the angels? We are giving up something of priceless worth. But why? What is more precious than these loftiest of our Church's values?
10. The answer will seem banal, prosaic. Yet it is a good answer, because it is human ... [I need say no more.]
In the 15th century, St. Nicholas of Flue, Patron of Switzerland forewarned us:
"The Church shall be punished because the majority of her members, high
and low, will become perverted. The Church will sink deeper and deeper
until She will at last seem to be extinguished and the succession of
Peter and the other Apostles to have expired. But after this, She will
be exalted."
The Sacred Womb of the Tabernacle that contains the hidden Incarnation was violated with the imposition of the Protestant Mass, the very same Mass that is an echo of the deformed, invalid Mass of the apostate Archbishop Cranmer, only more banal, if that were possible. If the Eternal Sacrifice is but a "meal" and that it does not take place unless the people are there - a heresy - then it stood to reason that over time belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist would diminish and fade. This is what has happened.
It would be only four years between cataclysms: the supernatural upheaval begetting the natural in 1973, the devaluation of the tiny baby in his mother's womb. For Roe v Wade did not only endorse the slaughter of the smallest human beings, it made it possible that over time the sacredness of all humanity would dissipate. This, too, occurred and we all know the struggle it is to hold on to that sacred thing - that human life, in particular innocent human life is not cheap and disposable. Our society is saturated with outrages against innocence itself.
If the Sacred Species of the Tabernacle can be handled by the unordained, passed around as mere bread and given to those who are in mortal sin, objectively speaking, it is a lesser matter that human beings are things to be manipulated, not unique, irreplaceable souls, with a destiny more sublime than "historic greatness" or Facebook appeal and the status of cultural icon.
Society did not have the wherewithal through grace to reject the apostasy of the US Supreme Court because those graces were not available, having been lost first by the Pope's refusal to Consecrate Russia to Mary's Immaculate Heart, in turn losing the grace to forestall and or prevent the demise of effective Catholicism derived from the Second Vatican Council, and the Unholy Mass that was its supposed pride and glory.
There was no conspiracy between the world and the Church, but an opportune collusion between the two revolutions against Tradition, one enabling the other, and each in turn fortifying the other, first the Supernatural, then the unnatural in the natural sphere.
Do you think, ladies and gentlemen, that I am all gloom and doom? No. I am a realist, not an optimist. But, I am foremost a Catholic, and since I am I have hope, for there is always hope, if one keeps the perspective proper to reason combined with faith.It will be late, as Our Lady of Fatima foretold, but the Pope, some Pope, this one or a future one, will Consecrate Russia, the source of many errors in society and in the Church. Many many souls will be converted and the world will know real peace and concord between the nations for a specified time known only to Heaven. I believe this, so much that I can say that I know this.
I am old and it is doubtful that I will live to witness that great awe-inspiring, grace-filled event in latter day human history. But I am joyous even now, because I believe and know.
Meanwhile I am blissfully content for I know that somewhere at every hour in some place the ancient Eternal Sacrifice is showering graces upon men as the Angels and Saints join in with their Songs of Praise.At every hour in some place, the Eternal Sacrifice that brings salvation is being said.
The priest, who is ordained specifically for that sacrifice, will enter the Holy of Holies, and bending in humility and the wonder of serving God, he will begin the august mysteries:
In nómine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
P. Introíbo ad altáre Dei.
R. Ad Deum qui lætificat juventútem meam.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
P. I will go into the altar of God.
R. To God, Who giveth joy to my youth. ...
At the very thought, the knowing with certainty that this holy, holy Eternal Sacrifice is continued somewhere throughout the world, there is still Christendom, there is still the natural rule which lifeblood is the Supernatural, and my heart, my entire being soars Heavenward, and I, too, hear the glorious praise of the Angels and Saints, for my Guardian Angel goest before me when I cannot be bodily present ... to God Who giveth joy to my youth.
NOTES:
1. Regarding the confusion over the rights of animals versus persons, I had very much wanted to discuss the repugnant trend of all over body tattoos. As garish they were just a few years ago, the latest type to gain currency is the animal skin tattoo. The person has the appearance of a snake, a tiger, or any number of wild creatures, a practice that is converging with the movement to place animals on the same moral plane as human beings. Some might object, "But people have always worn animal skins." This is not the same thing at all. It is one thing to wear a fur coat for warmth, for the animals serve man. We are only obligated to treat them without pitiless brutality, to waste their lives by needless killing - for the sheer killing. Not because animals have rights in themselves, but because wanton slaughter demeans the person who engages in it. The animal skin tattoos are something far different - it is actually the uniting of two forms of life through "body art". There is an identity, as if a longing for a sameness with that which is meant to be other, that which has no immortal soul. Man truly no longer knows whom he was created to be if he either approves of this or does it himself. I chose to not incorporate this aspect of modern "culture" because the piece was getting too long, but I briefly touch upon it here so as to bring attention to it as I think it is quite indicative of man's confusion about himself - first in gender and now species. If the trajectory holds, I predict that two of the most wicked 'isms" to be forthcoming will be the "sins" of "genderism" and "speciesism". If one merely conducts herself or himself as created by God, naturally feminine or masculine, competent in the complimentary roles of woman or man, mother or father, one will eventually be condemned in some fashion. Likewise regarding the species.
2. As I was preparing to upload this presentation I learned that Hillary C.'s plan is to expand drivers' licenses to all illegals of eligible age. And in one foul swoop, like the ravenous, cunning raptor she truly is, she hopes to have voter motor universal in the states. And Hesto, Presto, illegals are virtually guaranteed the right to vote, thus garnishing a lock on the Presidency for the Democrats for generations. Gee, do you suppose the chimps will be voting, too, that is, if they are declared "persons" with rights? One simply has to ask as everything is so weird now it could actually happen, since so many in politics are wont to make monkeys of us.
3. I chose the two images by the artist, C. Bosseron Chambers, Our Lady of the Sacred Coat and the Sacred Heart of Jesus because it is the Incarnation that is the center of all human history and edifies the sacred character of human nature; and because impurity of every kind is rampant. Our Lady is the very essence of purity, of perfection in modesty. By cutting ourselves off from our nature as children of God and not taking seriously the absolute necessity of a society composed of a vast number of men and women of virtue, we have in essence "rent our garments", not in repentance, but in revolt against the natural. Our Lady is holding the cherished robe of her Son, the very garment the centurions drew lots for on Calvary.
4. The Pontiff has plenary power, which means he can act alone, without a Council. Full or plenary power does not mean he has the moral right to exceed Tradition; he may do so, but if and when he does he incurs the wrath of God. Whenever a Pope goes outside the bounds of Tradition, it is our duty as Catholics to resist him, to not follow his example, and to pray for him that he will come to his senses. He may not be helping us save our souls, but we have all the good Popes and pastors who have gone before us, the Saints, to help us. We ought not fear in our distress. Thus it is imperative for us as sincere Catholics to study Tradition, that we do not inadvertently stray ourselves, giving into scandal and demoralization, fearful that we might stand alone. We are never alone, for we know that our Good God is near ...
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