Death of An Apostate and Blasphemer

As noted a few days ago, Father Richard P. McBrien, a priest in good standing with the conciliar authorities in the Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut, has died at the age of seventy-eight. McBrien died on Sunday, January 25, 2015, the Third Sunday after the Epiphany and the Commemoration of the Conversion of Saint Paul, and just twenty-four days after the death of the pro-abortion Catholic whose hideous career he enabled and championed, Mario Matthew Cuomo (see It Is Still A Terrible Thing to Fall into the Hands of the Living God, part one.)

There was quite a bond between McBrien and Cuomo forged by their common Italian ethnicity. Yes, you read that correctly. Father Richard P. McBrien’s mother was Italian, something that made him particularly sympathetic to the likes of Cuomo.

Indeed, McBrien and Cuomo once appeared together on the WPIX-TV, Channel 11, program of the famed “Mr. Italy” travel agent, Mario Perillo (it took me a while to come up that name, and I had to pray to Saint Anthony for it as I could hear his voice and see his face without coming up with the name of Mario Perillo) who died on February 28, 2003, at the age of seventy-six, to discuss how their Italian ancestry bound them all together. Obviously, McBrien and Cuomo did not need a common ancestral tie to bind them together as the stronger tie that bound them to each other was their mutual commitment to statism and moral relativism. The ethnic tie, though, certainly did give McBrien a little extra impetus to serve as Cuomo’s water boy throughout the latter’s blood-stained career as an apologist in behalf of the chemical and surgical assassination of innocent preborn children. (McBrien could also use the Irish-American card when he he found it useful to do so, including an appearance he made on The O'Reilly Factor.)

It was at McBrien's invitation when he was chairman of the Department of Theology in 1984 that the then Governor of the State of New York, Mario Matthew Cuomo, gave his famous apologia in defense of his "I'm personally opposed to abortion but cannot impose my views on others" position (Cuomo's Notre Dame speech, September 13 1984). McBrien, dressed in a jacket and tie, personally introduced Cuomo to the admiring throng who gathered for his address.

Father McBrien, who supported women's "ordination" to the conciliar "priesthood," gave active rhetorical support to Catholic politicians who support the chemical and/or surgical assassination of innocent preborn babies. His doing so on a telecast of the American Broadcasting Company's Nightline program on May 15, 1989, following the telecast of the made-for-television motion picture Roe v. Wade, scandalized a Protestant "minister," who, to our utter shame as Catholics, said the following to McBrien (and this is a paraphrase):

"Father, and I will call you that because that is your title, I don't think that Jesus is going to say to all of those politicians who support the killing of babies "well done, good and faithful servant" when they stand before Him next to a pile of dead babies as they are being judged by Him."

McBrien's infamous book, Catholicism, was even too much for the doctrinal committee of the then named National Conference of Catholic Bishops, which noted in 1996 the following doctrinal problems or ambiguities in the book's text:

A. Examples of Inaccurate or Misleading Statements

1) The Impeccability of Jesus Christ

Catholicism insists that it is possible to hold the faith of the church while maintaining that Jesus Christ could have sinned. "It is not that Jesus Christ was absolutely incapable of sin, but rather that he was able not to sin and, in fact, did not sin"( p. 547). The book argues that "both views—the one favoring impeccability and the one that does not—are within the range of Catholic orthodoxy" (p. 547). This position, however, cannot be reconciled with the Christology of the councils. In two natures, Jesus Christ is only one hypostasis (or person), the hypostasis of the Word. With Christ there is no possible subject of the verb to sin. There are indeed two wills in Christ, but only one person, one subject. The contention that Jesus could have sinned, if followed to its logical conclusion, inevitably implies a Nestorian or an adoptionist Christology, though it must be said that Catholicism does not draw such extreme conclusions.

2) The Virginal Conception of Jesus

Catholicism presents the virgin birth of Jesus as being of uncertain and perhaps even doubtful historicity. The book argues that belief in the virgin birth should be considered a theologoumenon, "a nondoctrinal theological interpretation that cannot be verified or refuted on the basis of historical evidence, but that can be affirmed because of its close connection with some defined doctrine about God" (p. 542). While the adjective non-normative has been deleted from the new edition's definition of theologoumenon (in the study edition, p. 516), the book continues to describe belief in the virgin birth as "nondoctrinal." This belief, however, has been a constant part of church teaching from the first century and has been reaffirmed by the Holy See since Vatican II.

It is confusing to say, as Catholicism does (p. 543), that the cooperation of Joseph in the conception of Jesus was not excluded by any explicit definition. That point has been implicitly taught in the creeds, and the implication has been spelled out by constant and repeated magisterial teaching since the fifth century.

The 1985 statement of the Committee on Doctrine pointed to (among other matters) the treatment of the virginal conception of Jesus in Catholicism as one of those that were found "confusing and ambiguous." This description also applies to the treatment of this question in the new edition, for it remains substantially the same. The book seems to suggest that as a result of modern biblical scholarship the scales tip against the factual historicity of the virginal conception. Interpreted in this way, Catholicism comes very close to denying, if it does not actually deny, an article of faith.

3) The Perpetual Virginity of Mary

While Catholicism offers an examination of the virgin birth and concludes that this belief is a theologoumenon, its treatment of the belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary is purely descriptive and never systematic. The matter is discussed in terms of a descriptive history of the development of this belief, an account that itself appears in the course of an overview of the development of veneration of Mary in general (pp. 1078-1100). This overview has a decidedly skeptical tone, emphasizing the lack of reference and the occasionally negative references to Mary in the New Testament and in the early church, the influence of apocryphal and particularly Docetic writings, and the opposition of major saints and theologians (Bernard, Bonaventure, Aquinas) to doctrines such as the immaculate conception.

The book stresses that the New Testament says nothing about the perpetual virginity of Mary (rather, it speaks of brothers and sisters of Jesus) and asserts that even in the second century there is no evidence for this belief apart from the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James (pp. 1081-83). According to Catholicism, the development of belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary "coincided with a newly positive assessment of virginity" (p. 1083). While the book does not explicitly conclude that the cause for the acceptance of belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary was the church's desire to promote virginity as an ascetical state, the reader seems to be invited to draw this inference. It was because the church sought to foster the "glorification of the Virgin Mary for ascetical reasons" that the church ignored the opposition of those like Tertullian who recognized that such a doctrine "introduced a new danger of Docetic trends" (p. 1083). The acceptance of belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary is presented as closely if not inextricably linked with the fostering of asceticism, which supposedly arose only in the third century. After pointing out the absence of evidence for this belief in the New Testament and second-century fathers, including the opposition of Tertullian, the text continues:

"Mary's perpetual virginity, however, came to be almost universally accepted from the third century on. By now consecrated virgins had been established as a special state in the church, and Mary was presented to them as their model" (p. 1083).

Although Catholicism does not arrive at any explicit conclusions as to the status of the belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary, the description of the history of the development of this belief gives the impression that rather than a truth that the church only gradually uncovered, the belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary was a creation of the third-century church as part of its program to promote virginity and asceticism. The book apparently favors the view that Mary had "normal sexual relations after the birth of Jesus" and that Jesus had blood brothers and sisters, while admitting, however, that the New Testament evidence does not constitute an "insuperable" barrier to the belief that Mary remained ever a virgin (p.1081).

While the perpetual virginity of Mary may rank lower in the hierarchy of truths than the virginal conception of Jesus, it must be reckoned as a constant teaching of the church, and not as an open question. The net effect of the discussion of the point in Catholicism is to leave the impression that the teaching of the church on this matter is not to be trusted. (Review of Fr. McBrien's Catholicism.)

Leaving aside the formerly naed National Conference of "Catholic" "Bishops'" effort to rank the Perpetual Virginity of Our Lady as "lower" in the "hierarchy of truths" than the "virginal conception" of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (see endnote at the conclusion of the article), the review of McBrien's Catholicism by its "doctrinal committee" meant nothing to the conciliar "archbishop" of Hartford, Connecticut, at the time, Daniel Cronin. McBrien's open support for women's ordination and open opposition to the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, meant nothing to Cronin's predecessor, Archbishop John Francis Whealon (a true bishop), who said in response to a question I posed to him as his student in a Scripture course he was teaching in 1983 at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut, that McBrien's case was "very interesting," never explaining why he had chosen to let him teach at the University of Notre Dame and to leave him uncensured to harm souls. Archbishop Whealon, who died on August 2, 1991, at the age of seventy, never answered the question.

Father Richard P. McBrien was shameless as he sought to distort Catholic teaching. He was sometimes so bold as to leave believing Catholics speechless, as occurred when Father James LeBar, the official exorcist of the Archdiocese of New York, appeared on Nightline with McBrien in the early-1990s (after the ABC-TV program 20/20 aired a video of an exorcism performed by Father LeBar, who is a true priest) and had no answer for McBrien when the latter said that the Catholic Church had never declared dogmatically that the devil existed. McBrien, using the same sort of Modernist/Hegelian sleight of hand for which Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has distinguished himself throughout his priesthood, might have actually believed this to be the case as he, a doctrinal minimalist, did not consider the dogmatic declarations of the Church's councils to be much more than simply exercises in "apologetics" that do not bind the consciences of anyone, especially those belonging to "theologians" such as himself.

Unfortunately for Father McBrien, the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215, did have something to say about the devil (so did the Council of Trent in  Chapter I of its Decree on Justification):

We firmly believe and openly confess that there is only one true God, eternal and immense, omnipotent, unchangeable, incomprehensible, and ineffable, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; three Persons indeed but one essence, substance, or nature absolutely simple; the Father (proceeding) from no one, but the Son from the Father only, and the Holy Ghost equally from both, always without beginning and end. The Father begetting, the Son begotten, and the Holy Ghost proceeding; consubstantial and coequal, co-omnipotent and coeternal, the one principle of the universe, Creator of all things invisible and visible, spiritual and corporeal, who from the beginning of time and by His omnipotent power made from nothing creatures both spiritual and corporeal, angelic, namely, and mundane, and then human, as it were, common, composed of spirit and body. The devil and the other demons were indeed created by God good by nature but they became bad through themselves; man, however, sinned at the suggestion of the devil. This Holy Trinity in its common essence undivided and in personal properties divided, through Moses, the holy prophets, and other servants gave to the human race at the most opportune intervals of time the doctrine of salvation.

And finally, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God made flesh by the entire Trinity, conceived with the co-operation of the Holy Ghost of Mary ever Virgin, made true man, composed of a rational soul and human flesh, one Person in two natures, pointed out more clearly the way of life. Who according to His divinity is immortal and impassable, according to His humanity was made passable and mortal, suffered on the cross for the salvation of the human race, and being dead descended into hell, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. But He descended in soul, arose in flesh, and ascended equally in both; He will come at the end of the world to judge the living and the dead and will render to the reprobate and to the elect according to their works. Who all shall rise with their own bodies which they now have that they may receive according to their merits, whether good or bad, the latter eternal punishment with the devil, the former eternal glory with Christ.

There is one Universal Church of the faithful, outside of which there is absolutely no salvation. In which there is the same priest and sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine; the bread being changed (transubstantiation) by divine power into the body, and the wine into the blood, so that to realize the mystery of unity we may receive of Him what He has received of us. And this sacrament no one can effect except the priest who has been duly ordained in accordance with the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ Himself gave to the Apostles and their successors. (Twelfth Ecumenical Council: Lateran IV 1215.)

Modernists attempt to use a variety of linguistic tricks to explain away the Catholic Church's twenty dogmatic councils. Alas, their wiles were exposed and condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, and by Pope Saint Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950. McBrien was a past master of using various tricks to present apostasy as acceptable Catholic "truth," making him of one mind and heart in this regard with the conciliar "popes: Ratzinger/Benedict XVI himself, no matter where they might differ on this or that point or how the might go about expressing the particular tenets of such apostasies as the "new ecclesiology" with different emphases or with different terms.

That having been noted, however, McBrien's wrote a syndicated column in August of 2008 that was still being carried in a number of conciliar diocesan newspapers, that represented a view of ecclesiology that was almost identical with that of Ratzinger's, admitting that the latter attempts to deconstruct the notion of the Church's mark of Unity in very slightly different terms than those used by McBrien:

The Creed of the Council of Constantinople (381), better known as the Nicene Creed, contains the line: "We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church." These are known as the marks, or notes, of the Church.

They were used by Counter-Reformation theologians to distinguish the Catholic Church as "the one, true Church of Christ" from all of the "false" claimants that had emerged from the Protestant Reformation.

The Catholic apologists argued that the true Church must possess the marks of unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity, as specified in the Creed, and that the Catholic Church alone has them in a visible, easily verifiable form.

The best English-language treatment of the marks of the Church is Francis Sullivan's "The Church We Believe In: One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic" (Paulist Press, 1988). The Jesuit theologian has a highly compressed version of the book in the one-volume "HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism" ("marks of the Church," pp. 817-18).

As Father Sullivan points out therein, the apologetical approach of the Counter-Reformation period was severely marred by the theological presuppositions that were prevalent at the time. The four marks of the Church, he observes, "were practically reduced to the requirement that the true Church must be one governed by the Bishop of Rome."

Another problem with the apologetical approach was its insistence on the visibility of the marks, such that any objective person could readily see them in the Catholic Church. But, as Father Sullivan insists, "there is much more to the oneness, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity of the Church than what can be seen of them."

Catholic theologians today, and since the mid-20th century, have abandoned the apologetical approach in favor of one that is called eschatological. This means that the four marks are as much future goals of the Church, still to be achieved, as they are present realities.

Thus, the Church already experiences some measure of unity because of the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit, who is the principal source of unity, and also because of the Eucharist, which is the sacrament of unity.

The oneness of the Church is also, but not primarily, insured by the Petrine ministry of the Bishop of Rome, the pope, whose major pastoral responsibility is to insure the unity of the whole Church.

At the same time, however, the Church is not united; it is divided: East from West, and Protestant and Anglican from Catholic. So it is theologically --- and empirically --- more accurate to say that the Church is already one, but not yet fully one.

And that is what is meant by the term "eschatological." The Church already shares in the unity of the triune God by the working of the Holy Spirit, but at this moment of salvation history it "strains toward the consummation of the kingdom and, with all its strength, hopes and desires to be united in glory with its King" (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, n. 5).

The same can be said of the other marks. The Church is already holy, but not yet fully holy. The Church is already catholic, but not yet fully catholic. The Church is already apostolic, but not yet fully apostolic.

The fundamental source of the Church's earthly unity, as noted above, is the Holy Spirit, who is available to all Christians, Catholic and non-Catholic alike.

The next most powerful source of unity is the Eucharist, in the celebration of which the Church prays for, and to some significant extent receives, the grace of God that creates and sustains the unity of the whole, yet still-divided, Church.

For many Protestant communities, however, the liturgical emphasis is on the preached Word to the practical exclusion of the sacrament. Consequently, the Eucharist plays a more limited role in sustaining and strengthening the unity of the earthly Church than does the Holy Spirit.

And the Petrine ministry, exercised by the pope, has an even more limited role, because fewer portions of the Body of Christ recognize his primacy over the whole Church than celebrate the Eucharist or some form thereof.

To be sure, the Catholic Church teaches that it is not simply one Church among many. It is, in some real theological sense, the one, true Church of Christ in which the Body of Christ "subsists," even if not fully so (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, n. 8).

But Vatican II also acknowledges that there are other Churches and "ecclesial communities" within the Body of Christ, which share faith in Christ, celebrate one Baptism, and are committed to the Word of God and its moral demands (Decree on Ecumenism, n. 3).

The Church is one, but not yet one. (The Church is one | The-Tidings.com.)

This was a remarkable piece of apostasy, for which Richard McBrien did not suffer one bit of censure from the authorities of the Archdiocese of Hartford, then under the direction of "archbishop" Henry Mansell, a true priest ordained by Francis Cardinal Spellman of the Archdiocese of New York on December 19, 1962, (who retired in 2013 and was replaced by an ultra-progressive conciliar revolutionary, Leonard Paul Blair. McBrien's thoroughly apostate views were considered within the pale of conciliarism's "new ecclesiology," especially in light of the fact that his views were in almost complete conformity with those of the Antipope Emeritus, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who has always used contradiction and paradox to a very fine degree to obfuscate the meaning of the mark of Unity, stating on some occasions that this mark "subsists" within the Catholic Church without "its ever being lost" while on the other hand stating that unity has yet to be achieved:

We all know there are numerous models of unity and you know that the Catholic Church also has as her goal the full visible unity of the disciples of Christ, as defined by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council in its various Documents (cf. Lumen Gentium, nn. 8, 13; Unitatis Redintegratio, nn. 2, 4, etc.). This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (cf. Unitatis Redintegratio, n. 4); the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world.

On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return:  that is, to deny and to reject one's own faith history. Absolutely not!

It does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline. Unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity in unity:  in my Homily for the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul on 29 June last, I insisted that full unity and true catholicity in the original sense of the word go together. As a necessary condition for the achievement of this coexistence, the commitment to unity must be constantly purified and renewed; it must constantly grow and mature.(Ecumenical meeting at the Archbishopric of Cologne, August 19, 2005.)

Father Francis Connell dispensed quite handily with the "unity in multiplicity" and "multiplicity in unity" apostasy in 1959:

To characterize the relation between Catholics and Protestants as 'unity-in-diversity' is misleading, inasmuch as it implies that essentially Catholics are one with heretics, and that their diversities are only accidental. Actually, the very opposite is the true situation. For, however near an heretical sect may seem to be to the Catholic Church in its particular beliefs, a wide gulf separates them, insofar as the divinely established means whereby the message of God is to be communicated to souls--the infallible Magisterium of the Church--is rejected by every heretical sect. By telling Protestants that they are one with us in certain beliefs, in such wise as to give the impression that we regard this unity as the predominant feature of our relation with them, we are actually misleading them regarding the true attitude of the Catholic Church toward those who do not acknowledge Her teaching authority. (Father Francis Connell, Father Connell Answers Moral Questions, published in 1959 by Catholic University of America Press, p. 11; quoted in Fathers Dominic and Francisco Radecki, CMRI, TUMULTUOUS TIMES, p. 348.)

Yes, far from representing an approach of Catholic "apologetics" that can be dismissed as determined by the historical circumstances in which the Counter-Reformation missionaries to the Protestants sought to convert heretics and schismatics to the true Church, outside of which there is no salvation, the efforts of the likes of Saints Francis de Sales and Peter Canisius and Robert Bellarmine and others in the Sixteenth Century and thereafter were founded in the immutable doctrine of the Catholic Church, from which no Catholic may dissent and remain a member in good standing of the Catholic Church.

McBrien, the trickster, would have had his uninformed readers think that the unnamed "apologists" were stupid men whose minds were clouded by the "prejudices" of the moment in which they lived. As I wrote in 2008, "All right, Father McBrien, please tell us that Saint Francis de Sale and Saint Peter Canisius were wrong to with assiduously for the conversion of Protestants. Please tell us that Saint Josaphat was wrong to give up his life to convert the heretical and schismatic Orthodox. Name your apologists and explain how they were "wrong" to base their tireless work in behalf of the conversion of souls to the true Faith on the immutable teaching of the Catholic Church."

Ah, then, it is far better for a rhetorical trickster to try to obfuscate his apostasy without naming names and without informing his readers that the Catholic Church has rejected the "new ecclesiology" of conciliarism long before the "Second" Vatican Council.

Pope Pius XII, writing in Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943, defined the nature of the Mark of Unity of the Catholic Church precisely, explaining that those who rejected the teaching of the Church about her very Divine Constitution have strayed from the Divine truth:

Weigh carefully in your minds and before God the nature of Our request.  It is not for any human motive, but impelled by Divine Charity and a desire for the salvation of all, that We advise the reconciliation and union with the Church of Rome; and We mean a perfect and complete union, such as could not subsist in any way if nothing else was brought about but a certain kind of agreement in the Tenets of Belief and an intercourse of Fraternal love.  The True Union between Christians is that which Jesus Christ, the Author of the Church, instituted and desired, and which consists in a Unity of Faith and Unity of Government. (Pope Leo XIII, addressing the Orthodox in Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 20, 1894.)

Agreement and union of minds is the necessary foundation of this perfect concord amongst men, from which concurrence of wills and similarity of action are the natural results. Wherefore, in His divine wisdom, He ordained in His Church Unity of Faith; a virtue which is the first of those bonds which unite man to God, and whence we receive the name of the faithful - "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. iv., 5). That is, as there is one Lord and one baptism, so should all Christians, without exception, have but one faith. And so the Apostle St. Paul not merely begs, but entreats and implores Christians to be all of the same mind, and to avoid difference of opinions: "I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms amongst you, and that you be perfect in the same mind and in the same judgment" (I Cor. i., 10). Such passages certainly need no interpreter; they speak clearly enough for themselves. Besides, all who profess Christianity allow that there can be but one faith. It is of the greatest importance and indeed of absolute necessity, as to which many are deceived, that the nature and character of this unity should be recognized. And, as We have already stated, this is not to be ascertained by conjecture, but by the certain knowledge of what was done; that is by seeking for and ascertaining what kind of unity in faith has been commanded by Jesus Christ. (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)

If we would define and describe this true Church of Jesus Christ -- which is the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church -- we shall find nothing more noble, more sublime, or more divine than the expression "the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ" - an expression which springs from and is, as it were, the fair flowering of the repeated teaching of the Sacred Scriptures and the holy Fathers.

That the Church is a body is frequently asserted in the Sacred Scriptures. "Christ," says the Apostle, "is the Head of the Body of the Church." If the Church is a body, it must be an unbroken unity, according to those words of Paul: "Though many we are one body in Christ." But it is not enough that the body of the Church should be an unbroken unity; it must also be something definite and perceptible to the senses as Our predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII, in his Encyclical Satis Cognitum asserts: "the Church is visible because she is a body." Hence they err in a matter of divine truth, who imagine the Church to be invisible, intangible, a something merely "pneumatological" as they say, by which many Christian communities, though they differ from each other in their profession of faith, are united by an invisible bond. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)

Aware that many of the disciples of the New Theology in which young Joseph Ratzinger was being indoctrinated in seminary in Germany were promoting the very false, heretical notion of the "Church of Christ" as would be expressed in Lumen Gentium and propagated, albeit in slightly varying ways, by the likes of Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Richard McBrien, Pope Pius XII reiterated in Humani Generis the consistent, immutable Catholic teaching on the Divine Constitution of the Catholic Church and reminded one and all that must accept papal encyclical letters as exercises in the Ordinary Infallibility of that same Catholic Church:

Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their Teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: "He who heareth you, heareth me"; and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine. But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of the same Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians. . . .

Some say they are not bound by the doctrine, explained in Our Encyclical Letter of a few years ago, and based on the sources of revelation, which teaches that the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing. Some reduce to a meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation. Others finally belittle the reasonable character of the credibility of Christian faith. (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)

The Catholic Church, the one and only true Church founded by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, has always and exclusively possessed the Four Marks of Unity, Holiness, Catholicity, and Apostolicity. Anyone, such as the late Father Richard McBrien, who says that these marks are to be realized eschatologically is an apostate. Anyone such as the currently reigning universal public face of apostasy, Joge Mario Bergoglio, who says that "unity" is something for which we must "strive" by means of "inter-religious dialogue" in the here and now is an apostate. There is only one way to make those outside of the Catholic Church sharers in her Four Marks, and that is by seeking with urgency their unconditional conversion to her maternal bosom. Period:

It is for this reason that so many who do not share “the communion and the truth of the Catholic Church” must make use of the occasion of the Council, by the means of the Catholic Church, which received in Her bosom their ancestors, proposes [further] demonstration of profound unity and of firm vital force; hear the requirements [demands] of her heart, they must engage themselves to leave this state that does not guarantee for them the security of salvation. She does not hesitate to raise to the Lord of mercy most fervent prayers to tear down of the walls of division, to dissipate the haze of errors, and lead them back within holy Mother Church, where their Ancestors found salutary pastures of life; where, in an exclusive way, is conserved and transmitted whole the doctrine of Jesus Christ and wherein is dispensed the mysteries of heavenly grace. (Pope Pius IX, Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868.)

Let, therefore, the separated children draw nigh to the Apostolic See, set up in the City which Peter and Paul, the Princes of the Apostles, consecrated by their blood; to that See, We repeat, which is "the root and womb whence the Church of God springs," not with the intention and the hope that "the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth" will cast aside the integrity of the faith and tolerate their errors, but, on the contrary, that they themselves submit to its teaching and government. Would that it were Our happy lot to do that which so many of Our predecessors could not, to embrace with fatherly affection those children, whose unhappy separation from Us We now bewail. Would that God our Savior, "Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth," would hear us when We humbly beg that He would deign to recall all who stray to the unity of the Church! In this most important undertaking We ask and wish that others should ask the prayers of Blessed Mary the Virgin, Mother of divine grace, victorious over all heresies and Help of Christians, that She may implore for Us the speedy coming of the much hoped-for day, when all men shall hear the voice of Her divine Son, and shall be "careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6 1928.)

As I wrote in 2008:

This is awfully good advice for apostates such as Richard McBrien and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI to keep in mind as they continue propagating, albeit a bit differently in very slightly nuanced ways, the new ecclesiology that was condemned by the Catholic Church thirty-nine years before Pope Saint Pius X ascended to the Throne of Saint Peter to do battle with the Modernists.

Father Richard McBrien was celebrated in many precincts within the counterfeit church of conciliarism, and he was celebrated by anti-Catholics in the midst of world as they applauded him to “daring” to challenge what was thought to be the “official Catholic Church” into the “modern era.”

McBrien continued his work of apostasy and blasphemy up to the very point of his death, having attacked the practice of Eucharistic adoration, something that he had in common with so many conciliar “bishops” (including the retired “Bishop” William Franklin of the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, and the still-active “Bishop” Robert Lynch of the Diocese of Saint Petersburg, Florida—see my last “hard news” story for The Wanderer--ST PETERSBURG DIOCESE ENDS PERPETUAL EXPOSITION, written, of course, during my indulterer years), in 2009 in addition to having served as a theological consultant for the epic work of heresy and blasphemy, The Da Vinci Code, in 2012.

McBrien was also an eager publicity hound, eager to accept whatever opportunity given him by the mainslime media to serve as a commentator on breaking news involving the conciliar church or when covering live events for “papal” visits. He derisively noted to Harry Reasoner when covering Wojtyla/John Paul II’s address at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary in Overbrook, Pennsylvania that the “pope’s” reiteration of an all-male “priesthood” in the midst of an all-male audience reminded him of a Rotary Club or Kiwanis Club meeting. In other words, he was indicating that the false “pontiff” was “living in the past” to deny women the “right” to be installed into the conciliar presbyterate. Moreover, Father Richard Peter McBrien’s “progressive” syndicated newspaper columns were carried in many diocesan newspapers in the United States of America, providing him a forum that no conciliar “archbishop” of Hartford, Connecticut, ever dared to take away from him.

McBrien’s syndicated newspaper columns, most of which were rife with heterodoxy, were carried in many diocesan newspapers in the United States of America, providing him a forum that no conciliar “archbishop” of Hartford, Connecticut, ever dared to take away from him.

To the contrary, of course, none other than the current conciliar “archbishop” of Hartford, Leonard Paul Blair, an “ultra-progressive” conciliar revolutionary, will preside at McBrien’s so-called “Mass of Christian Burial at the Church of Saint Helena in West Hartford, Connecticut, tomorrow, Friday, January 30, 2015, the Feast of Saint Martina. (see Hartford's Own Richard McBrien). This apostate will receive a hero’s sendoff tomorrow by his fellow apostates.

These apostates should enjoy the party while it lasts as the great Doctor of Holy Mother Church whose feast we celebrate today, Saint Francis de Sales, explained that those who defect from the Catholic Faith in one thing defect from It in Its entirely. They are outside of the bosom of Holy Mother Church, a point reiterated by Pope Leo XIII two hundred eighty years later:

With reference to its object, faith cannot be greater for some truths than for others. Nor can it be less with regard to the number of truths to be believed. For we must all believe the very same thing, both as to the object of faith as well as to the number of truths. All are equal in this, because everyone must believe all the truths of faith--both those which God Himself has directly revealed, as well as those he has revealed through His Church. Thus, I must believe as much as you and you as much as I, and all other Christians similarly. He who does not believe all these mysteries is not Catholic and therefore will never enter Paradise. (Saint Francis de Sales, The Sermons of Saint Francis de Sales for Lent Given in 1622, republished by TAN Books and Publishers for the Visitation Monastery of Frederick, Maryland, in 1987, pp. 34-37.)

The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88). (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)

There is no wiggle room here at all.

If one even "privately" dissents from one article contained in the Catholic Faith while holding, however tenuously, to others, he has expelled himself from the bosom of Holy Mother Church by virtue of violating the Divine Positive Law.

The aforementioned Saint Francis de Sales, quite unlike apostates such as the conciliar "popes" and Father Richard Peter McBrien, sought to defend the Holy Integrity of the Catholic Faith while seeking with great urgency the unconditional conversion of those who had fallen away from the true Faith into the diabolical lie that is Calvinism back into the fold of Holy Mother Church. The Divine Office tells us that Saint Francis de Sales, who disputed Calvinists with such effectiveness that some plotted to murder him, converted (yes, Jorge, CONVERTED) over 72,000 Calvinists back to the Catholic Church. Saint Francis de Sales performed Spiritual Works of Mercy that were scoffed at by the likes of McBrien and denounced as contrary to "ecumenism" by Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Here is the account of the life and the work of Saint Francis de Sales as found in Matins from today's Divine Office:

Francis was born of godly and noble parents, in the town of Sales, from which his family take their name of de Sales, (upon the 21st day of August, in the year of our Lord 1567.) In his childish years his staid and godly demeanour gave promise of his future sanctity. He received a liberal education as he grew up, and afterwards studied Philosophy and Theology at Paris. In order to the complete furnishing of his mind, he took the degree of Doctor of Laws, both Civil and Ecclesiastical, at Padua, with much distinction. He had already bound himself with a vow of perpetual virginity at Paris, and he renewed the same in the Holy House of Loreto. From this path of virtue, neither the temptations of the devil nor the allurements of the world ever induced him.

He refused to be made Counsellor of the Parliament of Chambery, for which his family had obtained for him patents from the Duke of Savoy, and determined to become a clergyman. He was appointed to the Provostship of the Church of Geneva, and, being shortly afterwards ordained Priest, discharged so admirably the duties of his position, that he was sent by Granier, his Bishop, to preach the word of God in Chablais, and other places in the outskirts of the diocese, where the inhabitants had embraced the heresy of Calvin. He joyfully undertook this mission, in which he suffered much, being often hunted by the Protestants to murder him, and assailed by many calumnies and plots. Amid all these dangers and struggles his constancy remained invincible, and under the blessing and care of God he is said to have recalled seventy-two thousand of these heretics to the Faith of Christ's Universal Church, among whom were many distinguished by rank and learning.

After the death of Bishop Granier, who had procured his appointment as Coadjutor, he was consecrated Bishop, upon the 3rd day of December, 1602. In that office he was truly a burning and a shining light, showing all around a bright example of godliness, zeal for the discipline of the Church, ardent love of peace, tenderness to the poor, and, indeed, of all graces. For the greater ornament of God's worship he established a new Order of Nuns, which is named from the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin. These nuns follow the Rule of St Austin, but Francis added thereto several additional constitutions distinguished by wisdom, prudence, and tenderness. He enlightened the Church by writings full of heavenly teaching, and pointing out a safe and simple road to Christian perfection. In the 55th year of his age, while on his way from France to Annecy, after saying mass at Lyons on the Feast of St John the Evangelist, he was seized with fatal illness, and on the next day passed from earth to heaven, in the year of our Lord 1622. His body was carried to Annecy and honourably buried in the Church of the nuns of the Visitation, where it soon began to be distinguished for miracles. The truth of these having been proved, the Supreme Pontiff, Alexander VI L, enrolled his name among those of the Saints, and appointed for his Feast-day the 29th of January. And the Supreme Pontiff, Pius IX., on the advice of the Congregation of Sacred Rites, declared him a Doctor of the Universal Church. (Matins, January 29, Feast of Saint Francis de Sales.)

Saint Francis de Sales was known as the Apostle Charity, and so he was. Ah, but the Apostle of Charity knew that nothing was more charitable than to denounce heresy as strongly as possible:

The declared enemies of God and His Church, heretics and schismatics, must be criticized as much as possible, as long as truth is not denied.

It is a work of charity to shout: "Here is the wolf!" when it enters the flock or anywhere else. (Saint Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, part III, chap. 29)

Some believe that it is "uncharitable" to criticize men such as the late Father Richard Peter McBrien, who almost always wore lay clothing, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio too strongly. Indeed, man have written to me over the years to state that my own work is "uncharitable." Please refer to the passage from Saint Francis de Sales's Introduction to the Devout Life as it is necessary to identify the wolf and to criticize him, yes, even using mockery and scorn as such people are deserving of no respect whatsoever. While we pray for the conversion of the living and the souls of dead, we do not pretend that heresy is anything other than what it is, and we cannot mince words in the defense of Catholic Truth.

We turn, as always to Our Lady, who holds us in the crossing of her arms and in the folds of her mantle. We must, as the consecrated slaves of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit, trusting that we might be able to plant a few seeds for the Triumph of that same Immaculate Heart.

We may not see until eternity, please God and by the graces He sends to us through the loving hands of His Most Blessed Mother, the fruit of the seeds we plant by means of our prayers and penances and sacrifices, given unto the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We must remain confident, however, that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ wants to us, as unworthy as we are, to try to plant a few seeds so that more and more Catholics in the conciliar structures, both "priests" and laity alike, will recognize that it is indeed a sin to stand by He is blasphemed by Modernists, that He--and His true priesthood--are to be found in the catacombs where no concessions at all are made to conciliarism or its wolves in shepherds' clothing.

Vivat Christus Rex!

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Viva Cristo Rey!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and the hour of our death.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saints Tiburtius and Susanna, pray for us.