In yesterday’s post titled “Tłuste Lata” For Catholicism in Poland (see here) we chronicled the advance that Catholicism is making in the Polish Church. The advance can be seen in the growing numbers of men who are presently studying for the priesthood in Catholic seminaries.
Today, we turn our focus to the Catholic Church’s FIRST RELIGIOUS SOCIETY AMONG EQUALS, the Fraternal Priestly Society of St. Pius X. On the SSPX’s US website, (see here) via the DICI website, we are informed that a total of 53 new entrants have commenced their first year of study at SSPX seminaries. Furthermore, another 49 men have entered the pre-seminary phase who will take courses in the humanities before beginning their specialized seminary studies.
To provide context, since context is everything, I would like to draw your attention to the situation at the Seminary of Our Lady Co-Redemptrix in La Reja Argentina. La Reja is approximately 30 miles west of Buenos Aires. (seehere) Just this year, 9 new entrants will begin their first year of spirituality and a further 14 will begin the pre-seminary phase. That is a total of 23 men just this year. When added to the 30+ seminarians (will confirm once I have exact figure but there are 49 seminarians in La Reja and Goulburn collectively), the total comes out to no less than 53.
While at the same time, over at the diocesan seminary of Buenos Aires, the number of seminarians is less than 30. (Once again, see here) And for further context, here is a comment from a friend of this blog, Mr Richard Malcomb who writes:
“Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio in his last year as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires had in his seminary a grand total of 28 seminarians.” …which was a two thirds dropoff from what he inherited in 1997.
Before I go to the post, I would just like to remind all my readers that the SSPX’s Seminary Project in Virginia is underway. (see here) Last time we checked in, the slate roof was being installed. (see here) If you would be so kind as to venture over to their website and even kinder and contribute to this noble cause, your humble blogger would be most grateful.
On an aside, at this rate, it would appear that this new seminary will be needed just to handle the overflow from St. Thomas Aquinas Seminiary in Winona.
Deo Gratias!
Archbishop Lefebvre, ora pro nobis!
And now, I am reproducing the post below…
FOR THE RECORD
From DICI we offer this joyful news about this academic year’s number of entrants to the SSPX’s seminaries, as well as the total of postulants to the brotherhood.
The Society of St. Pius X is admitting a total of 53 young men to their first year of spirituality in its different seminaries for the current academic year 2015-2016.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the Seminary of the Holy Cure of Ars in Flavigny (France) is welcoming 14 new seminarians (4 Frenchmen, 4 Swiss, 2 Gabonese, 2 Italian, 1 Nigerian and 1 Pole) and 2 postulant brothers (1 French and 1 Canadian), as well as a pre-seminarian.
Sacred Heart Seminary in Zaitzkofen (Germany) is welcoming 10 new seminarians (2 Germans, 2 Czechs, 1 Austrian, 1 Frenchman, 1 Lithuanian, 1 Pole, 1 Russian and 1 South African).
St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Winona, Minnesota (U.S.A.) is welcoming 12 new seminarians and 5 postulant brothers (all Americans), as well as 30 pre-seminarians who will take courses in the humanities before beginning their specialized seminary studies. [Read at STAS.ORG: 35 new vocations]
In the Southern Hemisphere the beginning of the new academic year in March 2015 saw the arrival at the Seminary of Our Lady Co-Redemptrix in La Reja (Argentina) of 9 new seminarians (5 Argentines, 2 Brazilians, 1 Chilean and 1 Guatemalan) and 3 postulant brothers (1 American, 1 Brazilian and 1 Dominican), and of 14 pre-seminarians as well.
At Holy Cross Seminary in Goulburn (Australia), 8 new seminarians had entered as first-year students (2 Australians, 2 Filipinos, 1 American, 1 Indian, 1 Kenyan, and 1 Ugandan), as well as one postulant brother and 4 pre-seminarians.
That makes for this calendar year 2015 a total of 53 first-year seminarians and 10 entering as postulants to become brothers. There were 51 new seminarians in 2014, 43 in 2013, 50 in 2012, 57 in 2011, and 48 in 2010.
I interrupt the chronicling of the Synod of Filth to bring some good news. Below is a translation of two posts, one from the SSPX Polish website and the other from the UnaCum.pl post (Polish Una Voce) pertaining to seminarians studying in SSPX and Ecclesia Dei Seminaries.
As you can see dear reader, the Poles are experiencing “Tłuste Lata”, which translates roughly into a “Years of plenty”.
First, the SSPX since they have pride of place and are first among equals on your humble blogger’s even humbler blog. On the back of the 39 seminarians that took their cassocks at the SSPX’s seminaries that we chronicled in the post titled Vaches Grasses (see here) and had to quickly update it, which we did with the post titled Make That 39!, (see here) all in February of this year. Well the new year has started and it promises to be another “Tłuste Lato”. We have a further 10 taking their cassock at the SSPX’s Zaitzkfen International Seminary alone, being reported by the SSPX’s Polish website. Here is the translated post: (original see here)
This year, to the international seminary belonging to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Zaitzkofen Bavaria, knocked the next ten young men who want to study and take formation to serve the Church as priests. Candidates for the priesthood come from eight countries: among them two Germans and two Czechs and one candidate from Austria, France, Lithuanian, Poland, South Africa and Russia – the latter does not appear in the photo, because it is still waiting for a visa to enter the EU .
And from co-religionists and brothers in Christ, fighting the good fight inside the pro-conciliar church structures, over at at the UnaCum.pl website the following can be read: (original see here)
Poles in traditional seminars UnaCum.pl
As every year, we publish the joyous news about Poles who are preparing for the priesthood in the priestly pontifical institutes of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei. These seminarians are asking for prayers, for their priestly vocations.
In the European seminary of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) in Wigratzbad in Bavaria, studying theology are Mr James who comes from the Diocese of Torun and Mr Michael who is from the Archdiocese of Warsaw. Studying philosophy in Bavaria are two Poles: Mr Peter of the Archdiocese of Lodz and Mr Wojciech from the diocese of Bielsko-Zywiec. In the US seminary of the FSSP in Denton studying theology is Mr Krzysztof who comes from the diocese of Bielsko – Zywiec.
The seminary of the Institute of the Good Shepherd (IBP) in Courtalain in France, the following individuals are preparing for the priesthood: Mr Wojciech from the Diocese of Torun, Mr Michael of the Archdiocese of Warsaw, Mr. Rafal from the Diocese of Radom, Mr. Peter of the Archdiocese of Gniezno, Mr.. Przemysław from the Archdiocese Warsaw and Mr.George of the Archdiocese of Warsaw.
On 1 November 2012, the Superior of Institute of St. Philip Neri (ISPN), headquartered in Berlin, the Academy was established by Card. Baronius. The Academy educates future priests for the Institute, but the classes are open to all. The course of studies at the Academy last 6 years and is consistent with the Roman guidelines for training priests in philosophy and theology. In this academic year, continuing his studies at the Academy is Mr. Martin who is from the Diocese of Rzeszow.
Sancte Gabriel Possenti, ora pro eis!
And just to give you a point of reference as to how big this news is, please recall that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio in his last year as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires had in his seminary a grand total of 28 seminarians. (see here)
A big DEO GRATIAS and please keep these young men, all the other young men who are attending traditional seminaries as well as seminaries that teach traditional Catholicism in your prayers.
This post was originally titled The Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary, whose feast day is today. I have changed its title however, to give it a historical perspective. Even though the title is “lighter”, it does not distract from the intended context, triumphalist by its very nature.
Here is the original post:
Today, the 12th of September is the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary. It has been a universal Roman Rite feast since 1684, when Pope Innocent XI included it in the General Roman Calendar to commemorate the victory at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.
As to what is at stake, I link to a Fr. Z post that lays it out quite neatly in his post titled The final target of the Third Hijra: Rome and the Catholic Church. (see here)
Today more than ever, we need to go to Church, pray and do penance. Please also keep the Hungarians, the Poles and the Czech in your prayers. They are on the front lines and heroically resisting against much larger and better funded forces, both internal and external, of heretics, heathens and infidels.
Background of the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary from Wikipedia: (see here)
Before the Battle of Vienna in 1683, John III Sobieski had placed his troops under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the following year, to celebrate the victory, Pope Innocent XI added the feast to the General Roman Calendar, assigning to it the Sunday within the octave of the Nativity of Mary.
The reform of Pope Pius X in 1911 restored to prominence the celebration of Sundays in their own right, after they had been often replaced by celebrations of the saints. The celebration of the Holy Name of Mary was therefore moved to 12 September.[7] Later in the same century, the feast was removed from the General Roman Calendar in 1969 in the reform of the Calendar by Pope Paul VI, as something of a duplication of the 8 September feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary,[8] but it did not cease to be a recognized feast of the Roman Rite, being mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on 12 September. In 2002 Pope John Paul II restored the celebration to the General Roman Calendar.[
On a lighter side:
The Croissant:
The day was commemorated in Vienna by creating a new kind of pastry, known now as the croissant, shaping it in the form of a half-moon from the crest on the Turkish flag. It was eaten along with coffee which was part of the booty from the Turks.
Legend has it that soldiers of the Polish-Habsburg army, while liberating Vienna from the second Turkish siege in 1683, found a number of sacks with strange beans that they initially thought were camel feed and wanted to burn. The Polish king Jan III Sobieski granted the sacks to one of his officers named Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki, who started the first coffee house. This story was published by the Catholic Priest Gottfried Uhlich in 1783 in his History of the second Turkish Siege, and he took some liberties. In reality, Kolschitzky’s coffee house missed being the first by more than a year. A more factual account has been reported by Karl Teply.[5]
After some experimentation, the legend goes on, Kolschitzky added some sugar and milk, and the Viennese coffee tradition was born. This achievement has been recognized in many modern Viennese coffeehouses by hanging a picture of Kulczycki in the window.[6] Another account is that Kulczycki, having spent two years in Ottoman captivity, knew perfectly well what coffee really is and tricked his superiors into granting him the beans that were considered worthless.[7]
So the next time anyone tries to convince you that a Polish breakfast has to do with cold cuts, please…please by all means correct them!
I have not posted lately since I am on vacation. I am spending time with the family, as per video above. However, that does not mean that I do not follow current events. A big Deo gratias for Pew Sitter website is in order here. But I digress…
The reason that I am breaking my radio silence a few days early is due to a post that appeared on the Fr. Z blog that I just couldn’t resist commenting on. The post is titled Coming Soon! The “Eleven Cardinals Book”! (see here) The reason that I am bringing this post to your attention is due to a certain name that appears as a contributor. In other words, one of these contributors is not like the others! 😉
For those who have been following this blog, you will notice it right off the bat. That cardinal is non other than the President of the Episcopate of the Netherlands Willem Cardinal Eijk, who we featured in our post titled The Neo-modernist “Theology of Death”! (see here)
And the reason that I am bringing this to your attention dear reader is for its historical perspective. Please recall that a predecessor of Willem Cardinal Eijk was the notorious Bernardus Johannes Alfrink the Archbishop of Utrecht from 1955 to 1975 and a major player at the Second Vatican Council. The manner in which Cardinal Alfrink figures into the destruction of the Catholic Church we described in two posts, i.e. Man Marking Marx – Dei Power Ball (see here) and Man Marking Marx – The Network (see here).
The significance of this development, as you can no doubt figure out, is that in the span of 50 years, the Dutch Catholic Church, whose representative lead the charge to institute the neo-modernist agenda at Vatican II, now finds itself in total disintegration. The FORCED realization of this OBJECTIVE FACT has led his successor to revert back a “more Catholic” agenda. Hence his contribution to the 11 Cardinal Book.
Below is the Fr. Z post that I am reproducing… (original see here)
The Italian site La Nuova Bussola has learned that, in advance of the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the family, yet another “Cardinals Book” is being released.
This time, however, its the “Eleven Cardinals Book™”!
This is sure to strike terror in the hearts of the Kasperites!
Eleven Cardinals, as the headline runs, are trying to stop the “Protestantization of the Church”.
Baselios Cleemis, Arcivescovo maggiore della Chiesa cattolica siro-malankarese e Presidente della Conferenza episcopale dell’India;
Paul Josef Cordes, Presidente emerito del Consiglio pontificio «Cor Unum»;
Dominik Duka, O.P., Arcivescovo di Praga, Primate di Boemia;
Willem Jacobus Eijk, Arcivescovo di Utrecht;
Joachim Meisner, Arcivescovo emerito di Colonia;
John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, Arcivescovo di Abuja (Nigeria);
Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, Arcivescovo emerito di Madrid;
Camillo Ruini, Vicario generale emerito di Sua Santità per la Diocesi di Roma;
Robert Sarah, Prefetto della Congregazione per il culto divino e la disciplina dei sacramenti;
Jorge Liberato Urosa Savino, Arcivescovo di Caracas, Santiago de Venezuela
The editor is the German professor of Canon Law Winfried Aymans, at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich.
It seems that Cardinals and only Cardinals are the writers. I am pleased to see Card. Sarah in the list, as well as Caffarra.
It doesn’t say anything concrete about the publisher. It doesn’t mention the title. It doesn’t say anything about the languages, though given that this is in an Italian site we can assume Italian is – at least – one of the languages.
The Five Cardinals Book (which everyone ought to have, especially every priest and bishop) came out simultaneously in five languages. HERE
Also, in the same Bussola piece there is a hint that another book is coming with contributions of 11 bishops and cardinals… all Africans!
You can guess what side of the marriage and the sodomy issues they will be on!
A quick post today pertaining to the Restoration, seeing as how we are exactly 2 months away from the start of the Stealth Sex Synod™ of Bishops of 2015. In a post which appeared on the New Liturgical Movement’s website on the 17th of July (see here), which we featured in our post titled The Francis Effect And Its New Bedfellows (see here), information was provided about the situation within the Dominican order in Italy and in the US.
In our above mentioned post, we highlighted the collapse of the Dominicans in Italy. Using information provided by Sandro Magister, we noted “that for lack of vocations, the central Italian province of the Dominicans is apparently on the verge of closing one of its most important houses, San Marco in Florence”. This development in Florence “follows the decision last year by the southern Italian province to close the equally important Neapolitan house at San Domenico Maggiore, once the home of St Thomas Aquinas”.
What we didn’t mention in our post was that the Dominican Order in the eastern US, the Province of St. Joseph was experiencing a growth in vocations. Here is this good news from the First Things post written by Dominic Bouck O.P. titled “MUST BE THE RECESSION” (see here): “After the ordination of eight of our brothers, there are over fifty of us studying for the priesthood or preparing to live life as a consecrated brother, about to be joined by fifteen more on July 25.”
The reason that this information has been left out of the post The Francis Effect And Its New Bedfellows was due to not being able to establish the underlying cause of this vocations anomaly. We can state with a very high degree of certainty that the cause of the increased vocations is not the Francis Effect with its dated 1960’s neo-modernist “Theology of Death” (see here). The article likewise gives no clues as to what is behind this apparent immunity from the “spirit of the new springtime”. Likewise, no clue is given as to the growth in vocations in the eastern US while the deadly “spirit of the new springtime of Vatican II” ravages the Dominicans of Italy.
From past experience, your humble blogger suspected that the explanation could be very similar to the one that we provided when comparing the Diocese of Madison with the Diocese of Scranton in our post titled To Compare and To Contrast (see here). But we had no evidence.
That is until today. Over at the always excellent Rorate Caeli blog, in a post titled Order of Preachers embracing liturgy of founder (see here), we have our first evidence at the plausible answer to our conundrum of Dominican vocations. Below, this post is being reproduced…
On an aside, now if they could only embrace the theology of their greatest theologian… (see here)
Deo Gratias
St. Dominic, Ora pro nobis.
FOR THE RECORD
Order of Preachers embracing liturgy of founder
On today’s feast of Saint Dominic we share a bit of hope with readers, concerning the Order of Friars Preachers (aka the Dominicans).
This past Sunday the Dominican vocations office of the Province of Saint Joseph, which represents the northeastern portion of the United States, sponsored a Dominican rite Mass for “young men, 18-35 years old, considering a vocation to the Order of Preachers.”
The sung Mass, at Saint Patrick’s church in Columbus, Ohio, was offered by Father Dominic Langevin, OP, the assistant master of students at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C.
Codified in 1254 after Saint Dominic earlier wished to have his men use one missal instead of offering regional variations of the Roman rite, the Dominican rite is fairly similar to what we know as the traditional Latin Mass, although with distinct features such as the celebrant invoking “Saint Dominic our father” in a shortened Confiteor and holding his arms in a cruciform position after the consecration.
Following Summorum Pontificum, a renewed interest in the Dominican rite has been demonstrated here and there, especially involving younger friars and student brothers. But Sunday’s explicit outreach to young men considering a vocation to the Order of Preachers sends a clear message to traditionally-minded Catholics that the Dominican order is focusing on restoration and expansion.
Combined with a traditional approach to theology, exemplified by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter sending priests for graduate degrees at the Dominican House of Studies, it is no wonder vocations are booming — at least in some parts of the world — at the order of Saint Dominic de Guzman.
Today we jump around a bit due to an interesting post that appeared on the SSPX Canada website recently. The post contains a letter that was written to Friends and Benefactors by Fr. Daniel Couture, District Superior of Canada. The title of Fr. Couture’s post is Post-conciliar Language (see here), which highlights a phenomenon that we can call the corruption of language. A phenomenon that we identify and comment on quite often.
Your humble blogger has noticed that this corruption of language phenomenon “afflicts” Francis quite frequently, but also “afflicts” many of the leading neo-modernist clerics. We highlighted exactly this issue in a series of posts titled Man-Marking Marx (see an example here). In this series, we analyzed one of the main practitioners of this corruption the language methodology and the driving force behind the Stealth Sex Synod™ of 2015, one Cardinal Reinhard “Bling” Marx.
With respect to Fr. Couture’s post, the reason that it caught your humble blogger’s eye is because it serves as a good follow-up to an earlier post titled When Words Have No Meaning (see here). Today’s post will attempt to explain the genesis of this phenomenon of corrupted language and its derivative “meaningless words”. We often observe this phenomenon in documents and texts produced at the Second Vatican Council and in the post-conciliar church, hence the title of this post.
Before we get to Fr. Couture’s post, a few words about the genesis and context this meaningless words phenomenon. As Fr. Couture’s rightly observes, this phenomenon was already present at the time of Pope St. Piux X and mentioned in his Pascendi encyclical in 1907. The phenomenon of meaningless words can be traced to what is known as the Structuralism movement of the early to mid XXth century. Structuralism is defined as “a theory [which claims] that elements of human culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure” (see here). Of the areas of study that the Structuralism movement infected were linguistics and literary criticism. Structuralismdeveloped as a theoretical framework in linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure in the late 1920s, early 1930 (see here) and was seen as a “reaction to ’modernist’ alienation and despair”(see here). And as we can observe from the Pascendi passage, the Modernists were already alienated and despaired by 1907, which should provide context for what is written below.
So to address the general alienation and despair, Structuralism was conceived. As mentioned earlier, one area in which Structuralism took hold is in the field of linguistics. And as you no doubt by now can figure out dear reader, the reason for this development was due to a small problem that the Modernist’s encountered, i.e. a dictionary. To be more precise, the problem was the FACT that there is an objective meaning of words and their usage. The manner in which Structural linguistics got around the problem of the dictionary i.e. the objective meaning of words and their usage is through the novel theory that words were only symbols (signs) and the meaning was much less important than the underlying “structure” that those words represent. Hence the designation “structuralism”. Here is a good explanation of the above (see here):
Structuralism developed as a theoretical framework in linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure in the late 1920s, early 1930s. De Saussure proposed that languages were constructed of hidden rules that practitioners known but are unable to articulate. In other words, though we may all speak the same language, we are not all able to fully articulate the grammatical rules that govern why we arrange words in the order we do. However, we understand these rules of an implicit (as opposed to explicit) level, and we are aware when we correctly use these rules when we are able to successfully decode what another person is saying to us (Johnson 2007: 91).
From the above, one can appreciate the powerful weapon that Structuralism provided the Modernist in their fight against the dreaded dictionary. Also notice the “space” that “understanding these rules of an implicit (as opposed to explicit) level” can provide for the activities of the “god of surprises”. But I digress…
The bad news however, was that this movement itself soon faded into obscurity due to a small design flaw, i.e. the inherent logical fallacy of contradictory conditions. In other words, Structuralism implicitly breached the rule of non self-contradiction. The specific problem was this: in order to use Structuralism, i.e. a theory that states that words DO NOT have an objective meaning, one needs to use words that DO have aobjective meaning. This realization led to the next big linguistic movement, i.e. Deconstructionism, which partially rectified this obvious logical flaw with Structuralism. Deconstructionism in turn states that the meaning of words is ambiguous. But I digress…
Partial communion anyone?
Which brings us to Pascendi and theology. This problem with Structuralism described above, i.e. the fallacy of contradictory conditions was addressed in the area of linguistics, but it is was not addressed in the neo-modernist post-conciliar theology. Whereas the linguists had a problem with the objective meaning of words in general, the neo-modernist “theologians” problem can be reduced to a problem with one word: TRUTH.
On an aside, it is for this reason that we termed this theology as The Neo-modernist “Theology of Death” (see here). It is also dying, but unlike Structuralism, only its ultimate demise is taking much longer.
To get a good understanding of what exactly is the problem with post-conciliar neon-modernist “theology”, we refer back to a staple post of this blog, i.e. the John Lamont essay titled Attacks on Thomism (see here). Here is the relevant passage: (emphasis added)
The neomodernist position, when stated clearly,is not liable to attract many people. Although its conception of truth has been defended by the pragmatist school of philosophy, most lay opinion agrees with the majority of philosophical opinion in rejecting the pragmatist understanding of truth.
In other words, TRUTH is an OBJECTIVE REALITY. Aristotle in turn described truth by saying: of what is, that it is. And to continue this thought to its logical conclusion, using mathematical notation: (what is, that it is = TRUTH = GOD).
But it gets better…
In addition, no great philosophical expertise is needed to see that the historical perspectivism of the neomodernists is self-refuting. Historical perspectivism is a universal philosophical claim about the nature of human concepts and human knowledge, a claim that is presented as being true for all people at all times, and as being known to be true by the neomodernists. But such a claim contradicts historical perspectivism itself, which denies the possibility of knowledge of this sort.The success of neomodernism thus seems mystifying, and requires explanation.
So not only do the neo-modernists have a problem with understanding what constitutes TRUTH, they also constructed their “theology” on a logical fallacy.
As to the explanation to the question regarding the “success of neo-modernism”, the most likely explanation is that the neo-modernist post-conciliar church is living off the patrimony that they captured inherited post Second Vatican Council. A good proof of just this case, can be derived from the observation between the income generated by the Holy See (Modernist Rome) and the Vatican City State (Eternal Rome) that was observed in the post Giving an Accounting to Peter (see here).
Which brings us to the Fr. Couture’s post. By far the most important observation that Fr. Couture makes is the corruption of the word “encyclical”. Fr. Couture correctly observes that: (emphasis added)
There is something wrong with calling Laudato si an encyclical. According to the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia: “In modern times usage has confined the term encyclical almost exclusively to certain papal documents (…) which in their superscription are explicitly addressed to the patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops of the Universal Church in communion with the Apostolic See.
Whereas, in the Laudato Si, we read the following:
Pope Francis’ new encyclical is not aimed at Patriarchs, Archbishops, etc., but is rather an appeal to “everyone” (nn. 14, 64, 79, etc. – 17 times in the document in English) and “addressed to all people of good will” (n. 62). Moreover it does not intend to teach (the normal act of a teacher, a Magister in Latin, thus of a Magisterium) but to dialogue, to converse, to debate: “I urgently appeal, then, for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all.” (n.14)
So what conclusion does Fr. Couture come to:
Thus the Pope admits that he is not teaching; nevertheless he wants his encyclical to become part of the Church’s teaching: “It is my hope that this Encyclical Letter, which is now added to the body of the Church’s social teaching…” (n.15)
In one word: confusion.
But also a proper key by which to assess just what in fact Laudato si, and by extension the Francis magisterium is.
Which brings to mind another commentary about another papal document provided by Cardinal Raymond Burke. When asked to comment about the Evangelii Gaudium Apostolic Exhortation, here is what Card. Burke observed: (see here)
“To me, it’s a distinct kind of document, and I haven’t quite figured out in my mind exactly how to describe it. But I would not think that it was intended to be part of papal magisterium. At least that’s my impression of it.”
Concluding, from reading the above, what becomes apparent is that the issues that Fr. Couture has with the “encyclical” Laudato si exists on many different levels.
At its root, the issue with Laudato si is the same problem that is at the root of all of Francis speeches, homilies and daily musing emanating from the Domus Sanctae Marthae, collectively known as Francis’ magisterium. This problem can be reduced to the fact that the words he uses are meaningless. In linguistic circle, Francis would be a genuine Structuralist.
The second problem that Francis’ magisterium has is derived from his “theological Structuralism”, and that is this. To an educated reader, Francis’ is a walking and talking and writing example of the logical fallacy of non self-contradiction. Fr. Couture provides a great example. Francis contradicts himself by calling this document an “encyclical”. One can only explain this problem as one of Structuralist linguistics. Furthermore, the more serious problem is that in the text of the document itself, Francis says that he “admits that he is not teaching; nevertheless he wants his encyclical to become part of the Church’s teaching“. This sentence is nothing short of gobbledygook (written gibberish).
And then there is the example of the oxymoron “living Tradition”, which I will leave for you dear reader to savor.
Which brings me to the final thought: how a Faithful Catholic should interpret the Laudato si and Evangelii Gaudium for that matter. Are they part of Francis’ teaching or are they not part of the Francis’ teaching?
To correctly interprest this above posed question, one needs to turn to Francis himself and guided oneself by his often repeated phases: I am a loyal son of the Catholic Church.
In other words, regardless what Francis says or writes, a Faithful Catholic MUST interpret his speeches, homilies and daily musing emanating from the Domus Sanctae Marthae, collectively known as Francis’ magisterium through the hermeneutic of continuity.
Regardless even of what Francis says.
There is no other way.
And here is a good example of how this can done. (see here)
Today we change from our theme of the circular nature of what leftists understand as gradualism or the novelty of Francisgraduality as per Secret Synod of 2014 as we have explained (see here), and turn to the theme of the circular nature of history. For my regular reader, you will no doubt recognize this as the theme of the Visibilium Omnium, et Invisibilium post (see here) And you are correct. The following passage from this post is of major relevance:
The reason that I am drawing your attention to this passage [from the Credo] is due to the fact that when we recite the part about the …Maker […] of all that is, […] unseen, we are dealing with all the “processes” in the natural law that govern the behavior of us fallen human beings.
The reason why the above passage explains our assertion of the circular nature of history is that just as in the Santayana observation at the top of the page, the “processes” contained in natural law – et Invisibilium are universal. A better term here would be “omnipresent”. In other words, they hold in all time and in all spaces. Therefore, if the above is true, and it is true, then the question becomes one of conforming to these universal processes. Actually, the issue is really to what degree any entity possessing free will, regardless of whether we are dealing with a single individual or an organization consisting of two or more individuals, conform to the omnipresent processes contained natural law.
As a rule of thumb, we can infer that the higher the degree of conformity in the actions of the entity to natural law, the more positive will be the result. And vice verse, the lesser the degree to conformity, the worse the results. We can also infer a general principle that the degree of non conformity is positively correlated to the degree of negativity of results. For a visual representation, think of the actions of a sinner and how they relate to that sinner finding himself on the heaven/purgatory/hell continuum.
Not only can we infer that this general principle holds in the spiritual realm, but we can also infer that this same general principle holds in the here and now. In the post titled Visibilium Omnium, et Invisibilium, we superimposed a situation that is playing itself out in the post conciliar church, and the Vatican specifically onto an economic analysis of the situation that is playing itself out in Greece presently. We can readily see that a parallel process very similar in nature is playing itself out in both these instances.
Today we take this analysis of the situation in Modernist Rome derived from the above post and try to project it into the future. We see that although the consolidated financials of the Vatican are fine, as we have laid out in our post titled Giving an Accounting to Peter (see here), we have also observed evidence of the disintegration of the universal church, or at least that part that contributes to the Vatican budget under the contributions made pursuant to Canon 1271 of the Code of Canon Law. We have also made the observation that whereas the Vatican City State is consistently operation in the black, the Holy See operates in the red. And by using the Holy See’s results as a proxy for that part of the Vatican that is the descendant of the “new springtime of the spirit of Vatican II”, we see that this will not end well.
Given the above, we now look to find an example of “non-conformity” in the area of national fiscal policy and economics that is more advance than that of Greece. (see here) The reason that we are doing this is to see not only what the future of Greece holds, but also to ascertain how a parallel process could look with respect to Modernist Rome. And as good fortune would have it, this sort of post-Greece situation is playing out with another regime that Francis is close to, i.e. the one in Venezuela. For reference, please see our Road Kill post. (see here)
The below comes from the ZeroHedge website and is titled Venezuela Increasingly Looks Like A War Zone (see here). I think that this post will provides a good indication of the process going forward for both Greece and the Vatican under their anthropocentric/socialist regimes. Also please keep in mind, that the country whose economic situation is the closest to that of Greece in the Eurozone (the Euro currency regime) is non other than Italy, so the comparison is timely to say the least.
And now on to the ZeroHedge post and it is…
FOR THE RECORD
Venezuela Increasingly Looks Like A War Zone
Over the years, we have repeatedly poked fun at the transformation of Venezuela into a “socialist utopia” – an economy in a state of terminal collapse, where the destruction of the currency (one black market Bolivar is now worth 107 times less than the official currency’s exchange rate) and the resulting hyperinflation is only matched be barren wasteland that local stores have transformed into now that conventional supply chains are irreparably broken.
Just this past Wednesday we showed a clip of what is currently taking place inside Venezuela supermarkets, noting that “the hyperinflationary collapse in Venezuela is reaching its terminal phase. With inflation soaring at least 65%, murder rates the 2nd highest in the world, and chronic food (and toilet paper shortages), the following disturbing clip shows what is rapidly becoming major social unrest in the Maduro’s socialist paradise… and perhaps more importantly, Venezuela shows us what the end game for every fiat money system looks like (and perhaps Janet and her colleagues should remember that).”
Unfortunately, while mocking socialist paradises everywhere is a recurring theme especially once they have completely run out of other people’s money to burn through, what always follows next is far less amusing – completely social collapse, with riots, civil war and deaths not far behind.
That is precisely what the video shown below has captured. In the clip, a demonstration against Venezuela’s poor transportation services quickly turned violent. End result: one person dead from a gunshot wound, more than 80 arrested and four shops looted on the Manuel Piar Avenue in San Felix.
What is most distrubing is how comparable to an open war zone what was once a vibrant, rich and beautiful Latin American country has become.
This is just the beginning: with the ongoing collapse of the economy, the resultant acts of social violence will only deteriorate and claim more innocent lives, until the “socialist utopia” ends as it always does: with the arrival of a military coup or a full blown civil war.
The article below appeared on LifeSiteNews and explains very nicely how BIG GENDER operates in the US.
What should be of note is that these usual suspects, i.e. the foundations were the same folks that flooded Ireland with a crazy amount of overseas money (see here) over a ten-year period in the lead up to the aberro-sexual referendum. (see here) The takeaway from the above is that these advocacy operations are global.
Given the above, what are the chances that the above suspects are also playing a behind the scenes role in the lead up to the Stealth Sex Synod of 2015?
More on this in a future post.
Here is the Life Site New post (see original here)
Foundations pouring millions into campaign to eradicate religious exemptions on gay ‘marriage’
WASHINGTON D.C. July 31, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) — Revelations that a half dozen well-heeled liberal foundations are pouring millions of dollars into a concerted campaign to force religious organizations to accept same sex “marriage” have defenders of religious rights warning of a new “wave” of litigation.“
Attacking religious exemptions is the next big wave,” Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League, told LifeSiteNews. “Gay rights are only the pretext. These groups won’t be satisfied till every trace of religion is erased from public life in America.”
After investigating their financial and annual reports, The Catholic News Agency has released the names of six foundations that have recently donated millions to groups and campaigns to eliminate any religious exemption under the First Amendment from federal, state or municipal human rights regulations, requiring couples in same-sex “marriages” be treated the same as heterosexual married couples.
The Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, the Gill Foundation, the Proteus Fund, the David Bohnett Foundation, the Arcus Foundation, and the Ford Foundation have contributed $4.8 million to the cause of suppressing religious rights.
According to Scott Walter, executive director of the Capital Research Center, Tim Gill, the homosexual multi-millionaire behind the Gill Foundation, was instrumental in turning Colorado from “a reliably red state to a blue state,” in the course of a decade, first using his money to win both state chambers for the Democrats, then the governor’s mansion, and finally both federal Senate seats.“
It’s called the ‘Colorado Miracle,” said Walter. “If Gill is turning his sights onto religious exemptions from same-sex marriage rights, defenders of religious liberty need to be very, very nervous. Gill has declared that homosexual rights is his number one interest. He has the money and he is incredibly effective.”
In Colorado Gill put together an alliance of like-minded donors and foundations, who funded or created public advocacy law firms, liberal financial watchdog groups, and paid for investigations and lawsuits, all without admitting their goal was getting Democrats into office.
The Catholic News Agency article quotes homosexual advocate Tim Sweeney, “a onetime program director of the Haas Fund,” as having told a conference of like-minded lobbyists early this year, “We are at a crossroads where the choices we make will mean we will fight religious exemptions for two to three years or have a protracted twenty year struggle on our hands.”
Sweeney warned the Out & Equal Executive Forum that victory was not complete with the Supreme Court decision overthrowing state laws defending traditional, heterosexual marriage. The homosexual and trans communities “face a new set of threats around religious exemptions to laws that protect us and our families,” he said.
Sweeney reportedly told his audience that state and federal religious freedom laws such as the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts and judicial decisions like the 2014 Hobby Lobby case (allowing the Christian owners of the Hobby Lobby company an exemption from insuring employees for contraception) are “all about using religious liberty as an excuse to discriminate against LGBT people and others.”
But Bill Donohue of the Catholic League makes the counterclaim that organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union are fighting against religious exemptions “to use the gay issue as a lever to eliminate religion from every nook and cranny.”
Lawyer James Bopp of the James Madison Center for Free Speech agrees that what is at stake is religious liberty. “We are facing a group that will insist on conformity on anybody in the public square. Churches are especially vulnerable,” he said, “because they can be threatened through their tax-exempt status.”
If the foundations and the advocacy groups they fund get their way, Donohue warned, Christian colleges would be forced to allow same-sex couples to use their married student housing. Schools would be forced to hire or prevented from firing homosexual couples that have undergone “marriage” ceremonies.
Jeremy Tedesco, senior legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, added, “The First Amendment protects more than just the freedom of religion, it protects the freedom of people to live and act according to their religious beliefs. These groups are wrongly attempting to relegate religious freedom to something that exists only in people’s churches and homes. That’s not religious freedom, it’s religious hostility.”
Peter Breen of the Chicago-based Thomas More Law Center told LifeSiteNews that states which have not pass laws legalizing same-sex marriage are particularly vulnerable to legal action restricting religious exemptions. Ironically, wherever states passed same- sex marriage laws, they included protection for religious freedom.
But states which never legalized same-sex marriage also never provided exemptions from anti-discrimination laws for Christians—whether bakers, or universities or churches with Scout troops. So States with old laws on the books intending to protect heterosexual married couples from discrimination will now cover same-sex marriages too.“
We need to alert state legislators that they are not providing the protection for religious groups their citizens want. And we need to help them draft very well-written religious protection laws.” Breen said the six foundations exposed by the Catholic News Agency “will try to stop those laws being made.”
Today we quickly look at an interesting development that has been brought to your humble bloggers attention on the Eponymous Flower Blog. (see here) But before we get into the subject matter, a few words to provide context.
In our post titled Synod of the Three Paragraphs that we originally published on the 14th of December 2014 (see here) we laid out our case, using our Pierce/Ockham methodology (see here), that the upcoming Synod of Bishops of 2015 will have as its main goal, what we termed the HIDDEN AGENDA, the changing of Catholic moral teaching regarding aberro-sexuality. Actually, we wrote that the upcoming Synod, which we dubbed the Stealth Sex Synod can be reduced to revolving around two words, i.e. INTRINSIC and DISORDERED. To be more precise, the Synod will be manipulated in order to purge Catholic moral teaching of natural moral law that states that aberro-sexual unions are INTRINSICALLY DISORDERED.
In a follow-up post titled Meet BIG GENDER from the 17th of February 2015 (see here), we established that what it behind this HIDDEN AGENDA is nothing more than the special interest groups that are lobbying for the introduction of Gender Ideology into various national legal statutes of targeted countries. In Germany, we have observed this BIG GENDER has use the German Bishops’ Conference hierarchy, i.e. Cardinal Reinhard “Bling” Marx to introduce Gender Ideology into the Church Labor law. Furthermore, it is this BIG GENDER that is now using the German representatives to the bi-Synods as a proxy in order to change Catholic moral teaching regarding sexuality by introducing Gender Ideology into the moral teaching of the universal Church.
In a post titled So It Was The Homo Agenda All Along from the 27th of May 2015 (see here), we provide anecdotal proof that we have been correct in our assertion (hypothesis) that… well… it was the homo agenda all along. It was this homo-agenda that served as the HIDDEN AGENDA at the Secret Synod of Bishops of 2014 and will serve as the HIDDEN AGENDA at the upcoming Stealth Synod of Bishops of 2015. The proof that we provided was in the form of a report from a “closed-door” meeting of the FORCES that are behind the attempt to subvert Catholic moral teaching, subsequently termed the “Alternative Synod”. We noticed that the report from this secret one day meeting was exclusively focused on changing Catholic moral teaching with respect to aberro-sexuality. The other nominal issues, i.e. communion for divorced/remarried and concubinage was glanced over at best, suggesting that they are just fig leafs to cover up the HIDDEN AGENDA. We explained just this situation in our post titled Francis “Showing a Leg”. (see here)
Which brings us up to date and today’s additional evidence for our primary hypothesis that it is the change in Catholic moral teaching with respect to aberro-sexuality that is the TRUE AGENDA behind the bi-Synod of Bishop. If you dear reader recall, in a recent post titled Same-sex Union ⊂ Gender Ideology : The Cardinals Get It! from the 15th of June 2015 (see here), we laid out our observations that at least one cardinal, i.e. Card. Robert Sarah understands not only that same-sex unions are a SUBSET of Gender Ideology, but that Gender Ideology is the most dangerous of all the ideologies that the Catholic Church is fighting presently. Here is the relevant quote:
“ideologies to fight against today”[…] one of the most dangerous ideologies is that of gender,[…] that says that human sexuality does not depend on the identity of man and woman, but a sexual orientation, such as homosexuality…
Given that this is the case, it is with “amazement” that one reads the following text in the Eponymous Flower post titled Fight Against Human Trafficking, Fight for Gender-Ideology — From One the Vatican Distances Itself, the Other Not (see here): [emphasis added]
[There is] No distancing from a children’s book series which will appear in the name of Pope Francis for gender ideology. The Foundation Scholas Occurrentes, a worldwide network of schools was established on the initiative of Pope Francis in August 2013 at the Vatican. The Argentine newspaper Clarín have been publishing since spring 2015 in cooperation with the Pope Foundation in Spanish, the children’s book series, “With Francis at my side.” The children’s stories, which are now widely circulated in Spain, advertise homosexuality, transexuality and “new family forms” on behalf of the Pope. The children’s book series is promoted with the image of Pope Francis, it was photographed at the Vatican.
Furthermore, the following is written:
The driving force behind the establishment of the foundation Scholas Occurrentes was also the Argentine Archbishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo. The establishment took place in a ballroom run by Sorondo’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Both Scholas Occurrentes and the Vatican wash their hands in innocence. Nobody wants to have known something or anything to do with the contents of the children’s book series. A distancing has not taken place until today,although the book series coincides with Pope Francis’ image, stabbing Catholic initiatives in the back with the portrait, trying to clarify the aims of gender ideology and roll back their influence.
The newspaper publisher Clarín continues, meanwhile, negotiations with other newspaper publishers to translate the children’s books into other languages and spread them to other countries.
Concluding, how can one interpret this situation?
Just to briefly summarize what we are witness to:
Francis establishes the Foundation Scholas Occurrentes in 2013. The main driving force behind the Foundation initiative is Archbishop Marcelo “I hate Tea Parties” Sanchez Sorondo. This Foundation establishes a network of schools. This foundation is behind the publication of a series of children’s book that promote Gender Ideology.The Gender Ideology is promoted with images of Francis. The Vatican “washes its hands in innocence”, i.e. claims it doesn’t know anything about this situation. Yet theVatican does nothing to stop it. Proof is that in the mean time, the publisher is continuing negotiations to publish these same Gender Ideology promoting books with Francis’ image with entities for translating and distribution into other countries and languages.
Posted without any comment from the Society of St. Pius X website. (see original here)
First Mass repeats history in Pittsburgh
Continuing a parish and family tradition, recently-ordained Fr. Michael Brown celebrated his First Mass at St. James Church in Pittsburgh.
History seems to keep repeating itself at St. James in Pittsburgh. Last Christmas the SSPX offered Midnight Mass as the official reopening of St. James, as had been done twice before in the parish’s history.
On Sunday, July 26th, as the Society in Pittsburgh was celebrating the external solemnity of St. James, the newly-ordained Fr. Michael Brown offered a first Mass for the parish. This too was very interesting in view of the parish’s history as Fr. Brown’s great-great uncle, Fr. Thomas Brown, was the pastor of St. James for some 20 years.
Fr. Thomas Brown took up the care of St. James parish in 1941 and played a pivotal role in the parish’s history, being the one who burned the mortgage after all of the renovations needed from the 1927 explosion that destroyed so much of the church. There too he celebrated the parish’s 100th anniversary on June 13, 1954.
Another family member, Fr. John Fording, also celebrated a first Mass at St. James under Fr. Thomas Brown’s tenure as pastor. Now, 61 years to the date after that 100th anniversary Mass, Fr. Michael Brown offered his first Mass as a priest in Winona and on this Sunday in July returned to the parish marked by his ancestors to offer some of the first fruits of his priesthood with his family and the faithful of St. James.
370 friends and faithful filled the pews of the church to unite themselves to the sacrifice of the Mass offered by Fr. Brown, the exact same Mass his uncle and relatives offered in this sanctuary of sacrifice. Surely Fr. Thomas Brown smiled in his eternal rest as he saw his family coming back to the church in which he labored so much. How truly Providential it is that God has brought back St. James church just in time for Fr. Michael Brown to be able to offer a first Mass there.
In August, Fr. Michael Brown will be assigned to the priory in Walton, Kentucky from which he will take care of the SSPX faithful of St. James in another interesting act of Providence. Please pray for Fr. Brown, and all the newly-ordained priests, as their new assignments take effect in August. May they all bear great fruits in union with Our Lord.
You’re invited!
The current pastor, Fr. Patrick Rutledge, is inviting everyone to join a Marian Procession that St. James Church will host on Saturday, August 15th at 8:30pm (following the 7:00pm Mass).
This procession was promised to Our Lady if she helped the Pittsburgh area chapel to acquire St. James Church, and so on August 15th—exactly one year after we closed on the church—we will hold a candlelit procession in her honor. We will also consecrate the parish and the West End Village to her Immaculate Heart at the official entrance to the West End.
For details, please contact the parish:St. James Church
326 S. Main Street Pittsburgh, PA 15220 412-875-6323 | email
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