Why The MODERNISTS Have Already Lost – Episode 3437

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I just had to put this up for all my faithful readers, so as to get your weekend off to a great start. You can read the original post and view more pictures at the New Liturgical Movement website here.

I am re-posting it…

FOR THE RECORD

Archbishop Lefebvre, ora pro nobis

Friday, September 18, 2015

A Mother Writes about Seeing the Old Mass for the First Time

Gregory DiPippo

We received the following report and pictures from Fr Kyle Doustou, parochial vicar of the Parish of the Precious Blood, in Caribou, Maine, about the institution of a regular EF in his parish, and some thoughts about the Mass by one of his parishioners, which we are glad to share with our readers.

I am the parochial vicar of an extremely large, rural parish comprised of 10 churches in a geographical area of 834 sq. miles in northern Maine. On September 3rd of this year – the feast of St. Pius X – we celebrated a Missa Cantata in the Extraordinary Form with the participation of over 120 of the faithful. This Mass was held at one of our churches – St. Denis in Fort Fairfield – a small, farming community where you’re more likely to see moose or Amish buggies than anything. Since my arrival in July 2014, the people here have been requesting the celebration of the Usus Antiquior, and after obtaining the permission of our pastor, we have been able to begin doing so. As it stands, we will be celebrating the Extraordinary Form on a monthly basis.

There is enormous support for the celebration of Mass according to the Extraordinary Form even in this rural, north-eastern most part of the United States. Since September 3rd, I have had numerous phone calls and e-mails from people expressing their excitement over this and who plan to frequent our monthly Masses. I’d like to share with you the testimony of one of my parishioners, a wife and mother of 7, who has fallen in love with this form of the Mass.

“I had never been to a Latin Mass and I didn’t know what to think. As a convert, my family certainly didn’t talk about the ‘old days’ before Vatican II. Surprisingly, no one in my new church ‘family’ did either. So, when our young, full of the Spirit priest suggested a monthly Latin Mass being held in our parish, I thought ‘there’s no way anyone will come!’ You see, to my mind, it seemed that most people had forgotten everything the Church had been prior to 1968.

The weeks leading up were a bit anxious. Would anyone come? I approached my fellow Daughters of Isabella about refreshments after the Mass. The response was overwhelming. “Of course!” they said and the room erupted in questions and ladies saying they couldn’t wait! But, of course, I still doubted.
My six youngest children are homeschooled. Due to this flexibility in our schooling, our 9-year-old twin boys are learning the Latin Mass. You can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been, right? Due to this, they were asked to be altar boys. I never imagined that I would see them on the altar, serving a Latin Mass. Never in a million years.

Finally, the evening was upon us. When I arrived an hour early to bring the boys, there were many people already in the pews. Would that be all? I stood in the back to hand out missals as parishioners came in. One missal for every two people and the stack of 100 dwindled to less than twenty-five. They had come!! A few faces were unfamiliar, but most were friends. Some I knew would come, but others surprised me with their attendance.

I knew very little about the Mass we were about to attend. What I did know is that I wanted to know more. More about why things were changed, why it was all thrown out and more about why it wasn’t permitted regularly for all those years since Vatican II. I was about to find out.

The Missa Cantata was like nothing I had ever experienced in the Church. The smells and the chants made it a heavenly experience. I wondered how I would feel about the priest standing ‘ad orientem’. Would I be able to see? The answer is, no, I couldn’t really, but it only brought home that the priest is offering the sacrifice FOR us, not TO us. The focus was on God. I have and do know several pious, holy priests, but nothing they have ever done spoke to me as this position of the priest during the Latin Mass. All eyes were on God, and it wasn’t something you saw, but you could almost hear the beat of angel’s wings. Yes, it is that profound of an experience.

As to my questions prior to the mass, I felt they were answered. I understood why some things were changed, like to the native tongue. Latin is very hard to understand, however with the Latin/English missal available with small illustrations along the borders, it was quite simple to catch up if you had gotten lost. I also understood why it wasn’t permitted regularly – I believe you would have more Latin Masses being said every Sunday than Novus Ordo. It is truly that spectacular. Not spectacular like a show or performance, but spectacular in its reverence and focus on God. There are no distractions.

However, the sudden change and acceptance`of the Novus Ordo after Vatican II shows, to me, the dedication of the faithful to our Church and to the Mass. After only attending NO Mass in my 15 years as a Catholic, I am grateful to Pope Emeritus Benedict for recognizing there is room for both forms of the Mass. As I was surrounded by over 120 people at this Mass, I realized how wrong I was to feel that others wouldn’t want to experience it as well. Sometimes where you’re going isn’t as good as where you’ve been.

As a mother, I would be remiss to not mention my boys, the altar boys at their first Latin Mass. The ease at which they did their jobs was astonishing. I would love to tell you I focused on their every move, but I didn’t. They performed their duties I observed with grace and all the reverence the occasion called for-pure, innocent love of Our Lord and His Mass. I am very proud, but I am more grateful for the experience and the opportunity to continue. May God bless our priests may they continue to bring us all to Christ through the Traditional Latin Mass.”

T -61: The Dominican’s Lefebvrist Drift

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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.

T -62: Meaningless Words

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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. Structuralism developed 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 a objective 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)

 

T -75: The Francis Effect And Its New Bedfellows

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Before we get into the subject matter of this post, one minor point of order is needed. When this blogger started the run up to the Stealth Sex Synod of 2015 on the 12th of January 2015 with the post General Quarters, (see here) the idea was to publish one post daily dedicated exclusively to the Synod, hence the numbering of the posts. However, due to an unforeseen heavy work/family schedule, it has just not been possible. So from today, I will just designate my posts with the number of days left to the commencement of the Synod, which is on the Monday 5th of October 2015.  Therefore, today is the 75th day before the first session of the Synod of Bishops of 2015 begins.

And now to our subject matter for today.

Today we go over to the New Liturgical Movement website and a post based on a post of Sandro Magister. (see here)  On the 17th of July, we find a post that deals with what is commonly known as the “new springtime of the spirit of Vatican II”. In the post, we read that the post-conciliar Dominican Order in Florence is “on the verge of closing one of its most important houses”. Furthermore, the “spirit of the new springtime” is on a roll. The inevitable closing of the Florence house comes on the back of another equally significant closing. “This 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”.

The above situation, as Sandro Magister explains, is caused by the “lack of vocations”. Therefore, we have a prima facie evidence of the Francis Effect in full force. And just to confirm that the Francis Effect does not limit itself to Italy, we also have a report from the US via Fr. Z. In a post titled Summorum Pontificum – 8 years on – and an ACTION ITEM! (see here), the following passage appears:

Second, while there was a large increase this year in ordinations in these USA, 24.7%, (i.e., Benedict Effect) I am told that applications to enter seminaries this year is down. [Ed. note: i.e., Francis Effect] I don’t have official stats, but rather word of mouth via vocation directors.

All one can say is “by their fruits…”

And while we are on the subject of “fruits”, we have another sighting of “a spirit”, but this time, the Holy Spirit. On the Eponymous Flower website (see here) we are informed of a group of “good-natured Capuchins who want to take over an abandoned Capuchin friary with the blessing of the local mayor”. There is a problem however. The “problem” is that these “good-natured Capuchins” are affiliated with the Society of St. Pius X, and naturally the Capuchins are being blocked from taking over the abandoned friary in the French medieval village of Conflans. But there is a twist to this story in that the ones doing the blocking are not the usual suspects. It turns out that “the mostly harmless local Ordinary doesn’t seem to mind.  He’d prefer to avoid conflict.” So who is doing the heavy lifting? Well, the followers of that other “anthropocentric theology”, i.e. materialist atheism are doing the heavy lifting in this case. It is the “socialists” who are leading the charge in this case. And the “tactics, objections and motivation” that the Socialists are using seems very familiar. Here is how the EF explains it:

What is interesting to me is the similarity between the tactics, objections and what motivates the Socialists and those within the Catholic Church who use such strident language to attack the Society.

So a number of questions arise at this point. The first question is what could possibly be the reason that the post-conciliar church has abandoned this fight and left it to the Socialists? For the answer to this question, one needs to look no further than the DICI website. In a post pertaining to French vocations (see here), we find out that:

Le Figaro of July 7, 2015, indicates that “the number of priests ordained in France has never been so low.” Indeed, the French bishops’ conference announced 68 ordinations of diocesan priests in 2015, down from 82 in 2014. Together with the 52 ordinations of priests from religious orders, this makes up 120 priests (diocesan and religious) who are ordained for the year 2015, as compared to 140 last year. This is the lowest number in the last 15 years.

In the next paragraph, we read:

The future is hardly brighter, for only 87 diocesan seminarians were ordained to the diaconate in 2015 and are due to become priests next year. As Figaro columnist Caroline Picquet writes, “the chronic drop in the number of priests in France has been concerning the bishops for a long time.

So the above “chronic” dearth of vocations that are “concerning the bishops for a long time” could lie behind the “passively aggressively” passive approach of the local ordinary, an approach which has created a situation where the Socialists have to do the heavy lifting.

Which brings us to the second question. How is it that the Socialists have co-opted post-conciliar language in their “struggle” to deny the Capuchins the friary in Conflans?

Very odd indeed.

But then again, maybe not.

Going forward, what we could be witnessing in the Capuchins of Conflans situation is “an arrangement”, whether formal or not, of how the post-conciliar church’s interests will be represented once the post-conciliar church is no longer with us.

And to be perfectly honest, this should not surprise the casual observer. The reason it should not surprise anyone really, is that both these “fractions”, i.e. neo-modernist’s and material atheists represent the same anthropocentric ideology. This ideology has been “integrated” into the post-conciliar church of man over the last 50 years.

And it cannot be said that it is Francis who is the chief architect of this new novelty. No, this novelty is much older than Francis. What is new with Francis however, is that he is the first to admit that these two fractions are really just varieties of the same ideology. Therefore, is it any wonder why the chief proponents of the “materialist atheistic theology of man” such as the Marxist dictator cum “President” of Bolivia would get along so well with the main proponent of the neo-modernist post-conciliar fraction of the same ideology, i.e. Francis?

I am not surprised.

And neither should you.

T -164: Reading Francis through Benedict – Part I

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Today we again focus on the Church in Poland and a post on the Polish language site of the New Liturgical Movement’s (see here) FB page. There is a curious letter posted, written by the bishop of the Polish city of Kalisz. It is written to commemorate the 5 year anniversary of the offering of the Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite in the Kalisz Basilica. What we would call the Catholic Mass on this blog.  But I digress… This letter was written by the bishop of Kalisz, the Most Rev. Edward Janiak and sent to the attention of the celebrant for a wider proclamation to all Faithful who were in attendance at the liturgy in the Kalisz Basilica.

What caught my eye was less the anniversary celebration, which is news in itself deep in the heart of JPII country, but rather the manner in which the Kalisz bishop references the anniversary and the wider “new evangelization” effort with a passage from…

I will not spoil the surprise, so here is the translation:

Reverend Father and pastor of souls and the Faithful participating in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite in the Basilica of St. Joseph in Kalisz (Poland),

Thank you for your information, together with a report on the five-year period during which the Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite has been offered in the Basilica of St. Joseph in Kalisz. With the participation of approximately 50 individuals from various parts of our Diocese, the liturgy offered in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite poses a challenge, which is to diligently prepare the appropriate rites and deepen our knowledge of them.

Our Holy Father Francis, in his exhortation EVANGELII GAUDIUM, dedicated to the proclamation of the Gospel in today’s world, wrote: I feel enormous gratitude for the commitment of all, who work in the Church. I would not want to stop here and present the activities of the various pastors of souls, from bishops all the way down to the most humble and hidden church ministries. I would rather reflect on the challenges, that they all have to face in the context of a globalized culture.”

It is in the spirit of this papal teaching that I would encourage you, to use this anniversary period to take the opportunity to act as a witness to the love of the liturgy of the Church and to a deeper participation in the mission to proclaim the Gospel of Christ in today’s world.

To all who are involved, I express my gratitude and heartfelt blessings.

Bishop of Kalisz

Who would have thunk?

Theological deconstructionism in the service of Tradition.

But I like the idea.

Here’s why.

The reason that I bring the above to your attention is due to another passage that I read recently, this one from an interview given by the Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Muller. In this interview, Card. Muller “mentioned that one of the duties of his office is the mission to “theologically structure” Pope Francis’ pontificate given that the current Successor of Peter is not a theologian by profession.” (see here).

Well, he ain’t a liturgist by profession either.

Therefore…

If the above literal reading is indeed the case (please read the linked post for clarity sake), than it would appear that the bishop of Kalisz has taken Card. Muller’s “approach” one step further. The bishop of Kalisz is using words written in an apostolic exhortation to “context” the “new evangelization” with a return to Tradition. Or to paraphrase card. Muller, the bishop of Kalisz is using Tradition to “provide liturgical structure” to the papal exhortation EVANGELII GAUDIUM.

Simply amazing!

Taking this new “approach” one step futher, think of all the possibilities that this new reading of Francis through Benedict provides in a post-Francis environment?

Post scriptum

Please keep the link to the VASSALLOMALTA link in mind. I will be returning to it in a future post.

Messaging: Truth and Error

Tags

Archbishop Gadecki, Benedict XVI, Bergoglio, Bruno Forte, Cardinal Burke, Cardinal George, Cardinal Kasper, Catholic Church, Chicago, child protection, Children, Divorce, Error, Francis church, German Bishops' Conference, Great Cardinal, heretical pope, Italian Bishops' Conference, Kirchensteuer, lost election, messeging, Modernists, Moral Teaching, New Liturgical Movement, new springtime, optics, pathological, Poland, Polish Episcapal Conference, Pope Francis, Raymond Burke, Re-married, Rorate Caeli blog, Sandro Magister, spirit of Vatican II, Synod 2014, Truth, US Bishops' Conference, Vatican II, Wroclaw

Today Deus Ex Machina has a Polish theme. But first a few introductory comments are in order.

We start with Cardinal George’s interview, sections of the interview appear on the Rorate Caeli blog (see here). I would have written about it earlier, however I try not to visit nor promote blogs that are propagandistic in nature, whose political editorial line promote Error. Therefore, I have a deep appreciation for the RC blog since they sift through the manure so that I do not have to.

Next and incidentally, how does cd. George fit into the Polish theme, you may ask dear reader? It’s simple. Cardinal George is archbishop of Chicago. Chicago historically has been known as Poland’s “second city”, also. Historically, more individuals of Polish descent lived in Chicago than any other city outside of Warsaw. So that is the explanation.

Now let’s go to the subject at hand. There were a couple of interesting features in the cd. George interview that need to be pointed out. On a ‘bigger picture’ level, here are the key points starting from lesser importance: (reproduced with emphasis and [comments])

Creating Expectation:

Cd. George states:
It’s [the Who am I to judge? faux pas] created expectations around him that he can’t possibly meet. That’s what worries me. At a certain moment, people who have painted him as a bit player in their scenarios about changes in the Church will discover that’s not who he is. He’s not going in that direction. Then he’ll perhaps get not only disillusionment, but opposition that could be harmful to the effectiveness of his magisterium.

This paragraph is interesting in that it sends a clear message to Francis, namely “you can be as innovative as you like”, but the risk is that your body of “teaching” (and I use the term loosely) will be thrown onto the trash heap of history. Now cd. George suggests that the ‘throwers’ could be the special interests that Francis is promoting, but the implication is that he or his novelties will be terminated once a non-ideological successor ascends to the Throne of St. Peter. In a similar fashion as Francis is doing with the “teachings” of JP II and B XVI. Please keep in mind dear reader that cd. Burke still in not quite sure what Evangelii Gaudium is.

In support of the above contention, the interviewer notices the following:

You’ve now mentioned twice things you’d like to ask the pope. It sounds to me as if you’d really like to have some face time with him.

I bet the good cardinal would like to have a friendly chat with the bishop of Rome. Here cd. George is offering fraternal “help”, which is what a cardinal is appointed for in the first place.

Truth and Error:

Cd. George states:
The differences are becoming so wide within the Church, the division so stark, we are not talking anymore about “liberals” or “conservatives” or left and right, but about what is true and what is false, about those who are faithful or unfaithful to the Magisterium.

Even though cd. George did not use the word “Error”, the word “false” is as close as it gets. With this statement, cd. George is sending a message to Francis that he could be “interpreted” as teaching Error. And if this is the case, then please refer to the above point.

Furthermore, we can add this statement to the list of maxims that will underpin the upcoming struggle for the Church as we know it. These words spoken by cd. George were just as clear as were cd. Burke’s Twelve Words spoken in Limrick.(see here)

Calling out Francis to clarify:

Cd. George states:
The question is raised, why doesn’t he himself clarify these things? Why is it necessary that apologists have to bear that burden of trying to put the best possible face on it? Does he not realize the consequences of some of his statements, or even some of his actions? Does he not realize the repercussions? Perhaps he doesn’t. I don’t know whether he’s conscious of all the consequences of some of the things he’s said and done that raise these doubts in people’s minds.

The importance of this paragraph is that another cardinal-elector has called out Francis to clarify. Please bear in mind that cd. George is only 77 years old, and has a 50/50 chance of surviving his illness. If the good Lord allows, he will be a cardinal elector at the next conclave.

And now to Poland proper.

Archbishop Gadecki, President of the Polish Episcopal Conference gave an interview recently that Rorate Caeli also has reproduced, with translation on its blog (see here). Before I go into what the good bishop said, it must be pointed out that the issue of aberro-sexual unions was never mentioned directly. The only reference to them was in what bp. Gadecki called the “controversial points discussed at the Synod”. The reason that I mention this is to demonstrate just how low priority this issue is in the Polish reality.

But let’s get back to what bishop Gadecki did say. The key points raised are these:

Germany is the problem

Bp Gadecki states:
Abp. Gądecki explained that the postulate of allowing Communion for divorced and living in new relationships was raised by the Synod mainly on the initiative of German and South American circles. In Germany, in practice, nobody goes to confession any more, yet everybody (including divorced) proceeds to receive Holy Communion.
In South America, on the other hand, the problem is that people who are divorced and living in new relationships often join sects, where they receive communion and blessing. This is one of the important reasons of such strong development of sects on this continent. Such situation creates a pressure on South American bishops to somewhat oppose this process. [Way too simplistic of an explanation and made to order for the German hierarchy.]

By pointing the finger at Germany, and their vassal bishops’ conferences in South America, he is highlighting that the problem with the orthodox Catholic moral teaching is very restricted to a narrow “special interest group” who are promoting these positions. And the support of these positions leads directly to the Kirchensteuer (see here) which funds the German church and by extension the churches in the South American countries. A German re-conquista in all intents and purposes.

Modern Times do not excuse changing moral teaching

Bp. Gadecki states:
This prohibition was transmitted to us by Christ in conditions equally difficult as today, perhaps even more difficult, because pagans converting to Christianity had even more irregular marital situations, also with respect to marriages between close relatives.

Therefore, stressed Abp. Gądecki, holding onto the Tradition of the Church, also clearly explained in the Catechism, there is no possibility of absolution and Holy Communion for a person who is in a situation of divorce and who remains in a new relationship. There is no possibility of such a change of the doctrine of the Church which would admit other solutions, even restricting them to specific cases. This is especially true if one is aware that exceptions would soon become a rule. The Archbishop of Poznań informed [journalists] that in the eyes of bishops from many regions of the world, e.g. from central and eastern Europe, this [such change] would be absolutely unthinkable.

Abp. Gądecki explained that one cannot be guided only by sociological categories, because the Church does not come to the truth by consensus, one or another, but [the Church] is obliged to be faithful to the doctrine. Any “positive” solution to this problem would only serve as a “smoothing down” of the sociological situation existing in some countries, for example in Germany. [Called out by name. And this is from an Episcopate that has taken advantage of the German church’s generosity on more than one occasion in the past.]

This argument directly undercuts the Kasperian “theology of mercy done on the knees.” Bp. Gadecki says that if divorced and remarried want to receive communion, they should abstain from conjugal relations. But changing teaching is a dead end, as is clear from the phenomenon that we have highlighted here, that goes by the euphemism “the new springtime”. Besides, this is a show stopper because for the Poles and “many regions of the world, e.g. from central and eastern Europe”, this solution is VERBOTEN.

Protect the Children.

Bp. Gadecki states:
This survey [pre-Shameful Secret Synod survey], he added, demonstrated that the crisis of marriage and family is not only a Polish issue, but it is something extensive and affecting all continents. The percentage of divorces and the number of children harmed by this are frightening.

Abp. Gądecki also stressed that if we put the main emphasis on the mercy to divorced parents, then the welfare of their children will be ignored. One cannot pursue happiness at the expense of the child. He added that the rights of children should be placed first, according to the principle that we are obliged to defend in the first place the rights of the weak, and such are the children.

Here the bishop is not so much highlighting the hypocrisy of Francis’s “theology of mercy done on the knees” (loves the pew sitter who throws the Euro’s into the collection plate, but ignore the consequences on the children) but is instead playing to the domestic audience. Poland in general and the Polish Catholic Church in particular are presently under assault from “genderology”. The present government is promoting ‘gender’ programs now even at the level of elementary education. Funding for these initiatives come from European Union and United Nations funding as well as the private foundations of the George Soros variety. Given the situation on the ground, “child welfare” message is one that resonates in Poland and could resonate well in the wider Church.

Truth and Error Again!:

Bp. Gadecki
Answering a question of one of the journalists asking if he has changed his line, because in the past he seemed to be a representative of the liberal part of the Episcopate, Abp. Gądecki answered that the categories of “liberal” and “conservative” have been borrowed from the political domain, yet when transferred to the religious domain they do not describe the reality of the Church correctly. In the ecclesiastical order there is no such things as “liberal” or “conservative” approach to the faithfulness to the Magisterium of the Church. At most, one can be faithful to the Tradition of the Church or one can be unfaithful.

And here we see the convergence of messages of the Polish Episcopate and the US Episcopate. And as we know from Sandro Magister’s interview, the US bishops’ positions are “coherent and combative” (see here). So with these words, bishop Gadecki, speaking on behalf of the entire Polish Episcopate is giving a strong signal to Francis that his actions could fall into Error.

And on a final note of interest is the phenomenon whereby “liberal” bishops like Gadecki have had a real eye opening experience with the advent of the church of Francis. This is something that is an observable phenomenon presently not only in Poland but in other national churches. Think Italy and the Italian Bishops’ Conference abuse of Bruno ‘slippery as an eel’ Forte. (see here)

And finally, I will end this post with some more good news from Poland.

On October 25th, a Pontifical Mass was offered by His Grace Marian Gołębiewski, Archbishop Emeritus of Wroclaw, at the Sanctuary of St Hedwig in Trzebnica, Poland. Wroclaw (pre-war Breslau) and the Lower Silesia region of Poland is turning into quite a hotbed of the Restoration movement in Poland. But that’s for a future post. Below is the link to the event courtesy of the New Liturgical Movement blog. Enjoy (see here)