On the Feast of Pope Saint Pius V

Pope Saint Pius V, whose feast is celebrated today, Friday, May 5, 2023, knew that error had to be opposed openly in order to defend the Holy Faith. Specifically, of course, Pope Saint Pius V reigned at a time when it was essential to oppose the multifaceted, inter-elated errors of Protestantism, something that Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., pointed out in The Liturgical Year:  

We have already met with the names of several Pontiffs on the Paschal Calendar. They form a brilliant constellation around our Risen Jesus, who, during the period between his Resurrection and Ascension, gave to Peter, their predecessor, the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Anicetus, Soter, Caius, Cletus and Marcellinus, held in their hands the palm of martyrdom: Leo was the only one who did not shed his blood in the cause of his divine Master. To-day there comes before us a holy Pope who governed the Church in these latter times; he is worthy to stand amidst the Easter group of Pontiffs. Like Leo, Pius V was zealous in combating heresy; like Leo, he saved his people form the barbarian yoke.

The whole life of Pius V was a combat. His pontificate fell during those troubled times when Protestantism was leading whole countries into apostasy. Italy was not a prey that could be taken by violence: artifice was therefore used, in order to undermine the Apostolic See and thus develop the whole Christian world in the darkness of heresy. Pius defend the Peninsula with untiring devotedness from the danger that threatened her. Even before he was raised to the Papal Throne he frequently exposed his life by his zeal in opposing the preaching of false doctrines. Like Peter the Martyr, he braved every danger and was the dread of the emissaries of heresy. When seated on the Chair of Peter, he kept the innovators in check by fear, roused the sovereigns of Italy to energy and by measures of moderate severity drove back beyond the Alps the torrent that would have swept Christianity from Europe had not the Southern States thus opposed it. From that time forward, Protestantism has never made any further progress: it has been wearing itself out by doctrinal anarchy. We repeat it: this heresy would have laid all Europe waste, had it not been for the vigilance of the pastor who animated the defenders of truth to resist it where it already existed, and who set himself as a wall against its invasion in the country where he himself was the master.

Another enemy, taking advantage of the confusion caused in the West by Protestantism, organized an expedition against Europe. Italy was to be its first prey. The Ottoman fleet started from the Bosphorus. This again would have meant the ruin of Christendom but for the energy of the Roman Pontiff, our Saint. he gave the alarm, and called the Christian Princes to arms. Germany and France, torn by domestic factions that had been caused by heresy, turned a deaf ear to the call. Spain alone, together with Venice and the little Papal fleet, answered the summons of the Pontiff. The Cross and the Crescent were soon face to face in the Gulf of Lepanto. The prayers of Pius V decided the victory in favor of the Christians, whose forces were much inferior to those of the Turks. We shall return to this important event when we come to the Feast of the Rosary in october. But we omit to mention to-day the prediction uttered by the holy Pope, on the evening of the great day of October 7, 1571. The battle between the Christian and Turkish fleets lasted from six o’clock in the morning till late in the afternoon. Towards evening, the Pontiff suddenly looked up towards heaven, and gazed upon it in silence for a few seconds. Then turning to his attendants, he exclaimed: ‘Let us give thanks to God! The Christians have gained the victory!’ The news soon arrived at Rome; and thus, Europe once more owed her salvation to a Pope! The defeat at Lepanto was a blow from which the Ottoman Empire has never recovered: its fall dates from that glorious day.

The zeal of this holy Pope for the reformation of Christian morals, his establishment of the observance of the laws of discipline prescribed by the Council of Trent and his publication of the new Breviary and Missal have made his six years’ pontificate to be one of the richest periods of the Church’s history. Protestants have frequently expressed their admiration of this vigorous opponent of the so-called Reformation. ‘I am surprised,’ said Bacon, ‘that the Church of Rome has not canonized this great man.’ Pius V did not receive this honour till about a hundred and thirty years after his death; so impartial is the Church, when she has to adjudicate this highest of earthly honors even to her most revered Pastors!

Of the many miracles which attested the merits of this holy Pontiff, even during his life, we select the two following: As he was one day crossing the Vatican Piazza, which is on the site of the ancient Circus of Nero, he was overcome with a sentiment of enthusiasm for the glory and courage of the martyrs who had suffered on that very spot in the first persecution. Stooping down, he took up a handful of dust from the hallowed ground which had been trodden by so many generations of the Christian people since the peace of Constantine. He put the dust into a cloth which the Ambassador of Poland, who was with him, held out to receive it. When the Ambassador opened the cloth, after returning to his house, he found it all saturated with blood, as fresh as though it had been that moment shed: the dust had disappeared. The faith of the Pontiff had evoked the blood of the martyrs, which thus gave testimony against the heretics that the Roman Church, in the sixteenth century, was identically the same as that for which those brave heroes and heroines laid down their lives in the days of Nero.

The heretics attempted more than once to destroy a life which baffled all their hopes of perverting the faith of Italy. By a base a sacrilegious stratagem, aided by treachery, they put a deadly poison on the feet of the crucifix which the Saint kept in his Oratory, and which he was frequently seen to kiss with great devotion. In the fervour of prayer, Pius was about to give this mark of love to the image of his crucified Master, when suddenly the feet of the crucifix detached themselves from the Cross and eluded the proffered kiss of the venerable old man. The Pontiff at once saw through the plot whereby his enemies would fain have turned the life-giving Tree into an instrument of death.

In order to encourage the faithful to follow the sacred Liturgy we will select another interesting example from the life of this great Saint. When, lying on his bed of death, and just before breathing his last, he took a parting look breathing his last, he took a parting look at the Church on earth, which he was leaving for that of heaven, he wished to make a final prayer for the flock which he knew was surrounded by danger; he therefore recited, but with a voice that was scarcely audible, the following stanza of the Paschal hymn: ‘We beseech thee, O Creator of all things! that in these days of Paschal joy, thou defend thy people from every assault of death!’ (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B.,The Liturgical Year, Paschal Time: Book II.)

There is much in this brief account of the life and the work of the holy Dominican, who was the Successor of Saint Peter from January 7, 1566, to May 1, 1572, that condemns the work of the enemies of Christ the King in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, starting with the fact that the Catholic Church is very, very slow to canonize a true pope who has not been martyred for the Faith as the holding of the papacy carries with it a weighty responsibility to preserve the integrity of Faith, Morals and Worship and to administer Holy Mother Church well by appointing worthy men as Successors of the Apostles. Anyone who can say that Karol Wojtyla/”SaintJohn Paul II,” who perverted the beatification and canonization processes to suit his own personal conciliarist predilections, is comparable to Pope Saint Pius V is not thinking very clearly (see the Novus Ordo Watch Wire commentary, written by “Athanasius,” The “Canonization” of John Paul II: A Catholic Perspective.)

Additionally, one will note that Pope Saint Pius V understood it was a requirement of the Holy Faith to oppose error and heresy, which do not simply “go away” on their own. This is quite in contrast to the spirit of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII that was expressed in his Opening Address to the “Second” Vatican Council on October 11, 1962, the Feast of the Divinity Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary:

In these days, which mark the beginning of this Second Vatican Council, it is more obvious than ever before that the Lord’s truth is indeed eternal. Human ideologies change. Successive generations give rise to varying errors, and these often vanish as quickly as they came, like mist before the sun.

The Church has always opposed these errors, and often condemned them with the utmost severity. Today, however, Christ’s Bride prefers the balm of mercy to the arm of severity. She believes that, present needs are best served by explaining more fully the purport of her doctrines, rather than by publishing condemnations.

Contemporary Repudiation Of Godlessness

Not that the need to repudiate and guard against erroneous teaching and dangerous ideologies is less today than formerly. But all such error is so manifestly contrary to rightness and goodness, and produces such fatal results, that our contemporaries show every inclination to condemn it of their own accord—especially that way of life which repudiates God and His law, and which places excessive confidence in technical progress and an exclusively material prosperity. It is more and more widely understood that personal dignity and true self-realization are of vital importance and worth every effort to achieve. More important still, experience has at long last taught men that physical violence, armed might, and political domination are no help at all in providing a happy solution to the serious problems which affect them.

A Loving Mother

The great desire, therefore, of the Catholic Church in raising aloft at this Council the torch of truth, is to show herself to the world as the loving mother of all mankind; gentle, patient, and full of tenderness and sympathy for her separated children. To the human race oppressed by so many difficulties, she says what Peter once said to the poor man who begged an alms: “Silver and gold I have none; but what I have, that I give thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, arise and walk.” In other words it is not corruptible wealth, nor the promise of earthly happiness, that the Church offers the world today, but the gifts of divine grace which, since they raise men up to the dignity of being sons of God, are powerful assistance and support for the living of a more fully human life. She unseals the fountains of her life-giving doctrine, so that men, illumined by the light of Christ, will understand their true nature and dignity and purpose. Everywhere, through her children, she extends the frontiers of Christian love, the most powerful means of eradicating the seeds of discord, the most effective means of promoting concord, peace with justice, and universal brotherhood. (Angelo Roncalli/ John XXIII ‘s Opening Address.)

Errors just sort of vanish away? Go tell that to the Mother of God, who gave Saint Dominic de Guzman, the founder of the Order of Preachers of which Father Michele Ghislieri, the future Pope Saint Pius V, was a member, her Most Holy Rosary to fight the heresy of Albigensianism, which simply didn’t go away on its own.

One of the first bishops consecrated personally by Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII was Father Albino Luciani, the future “John Paul I,” on December 27, 1958, less than two months after his, Roncalli/John XXIII’s “election.” Is it any accident that Father Luciani had a view of error that was almost identical to that of Roncalli?

John Paul I is often portrayed as a humble, saintly prelate of the Church. His doctrinal stand was very questionable as evidenced by his pastoral letter of 1967 in which he advised his clergy to “see, if instead of uprooting and throwing down [error], it might be possible to trim and prune it patiently, bringing to light the core of goodness and truth which is not often lacking even in erroneous opinions” [Reference 839: Our Sunday Visitor, September 28, 2003, “Celebrating the Smiling Pope,” by Lori Pieper.] This is like a doctor telling his patient: “I won’t take out all the cancer; it might be good for you. (Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki, CMRI, Tumultuous Times, p. 530.)

As we know all too well by now, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a true disciple of “Saint John XXIII,” keeps saying over and over again that this is “the time of mercy” as though it is not a fundamental act of mercy and charity to admonish and thus to correct the sinner.

Similarly, Pope Saint Pius V understood that the heresies of Protestantism were not going to away on their own. They had to be opposed. The children of Holy Mother Church had to be protected from the infection of error. He issued the Roman Missal that bears his name to standardize the offerings of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition around the world, exempting those dioceses (and religious communities) that could prove local usage older than two hundred years, thus preserving the Catholic spirit in the offering of Holy Mass that had begun to be compromised, especially in Germany, as unauthorized innovators sought to accommodate the Mass to appeal to the Catholics who had defected to Protestantism.

Sound familiar?

It should.

What did Giovanni Montini/Paul VI seek quite specifically to do when issuing the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service in 1969. Consider these words of the man he “rehabilitated,” Annibale Bugnini, and those of his, Montini/Paul VI’s, good friend–and the good friend of the “New Theology” of the likes of Maurice Blondel and Father Henri de Lubac–Jean Guitton: 

We must strip from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren that is for the Protestants. (Annibale Bugnini, L’Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1965.)

“[T]he intention of Pope Paul VI with regard to what is commonly called the Mass, was to reform the Catholic liturgy in such a way that it should coincide with the Protestant liturgy…. [T]here was with Pope Paul VI an ecumenical intention to remove, or at least to correct, or at least to relax, what was too Catholic in the traditional sense, in the Mass, and I, repeat, to get the Catholic Mass closer to the Calvinist mass” (Dec. 19, 1993),Apropos, #17, pp. 8f; quoted in Christian Order, October, 1994. (Jean Guitton, a close friend of Giovanni Montini/Paul VI. The quotation and citations are found in Christopher A. Ferrara and Thomas E. Woods, Jr., The Great Facade, The Remnant Publishing Company, 2002, p. 317.)

The spirit of Pope Saint Pius V, expressed in Quo Primum, July 14, 1570, was to preserve the Faith in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, not to make the accommodations desired by Annibale Bugnini and Montini/Paul VI. The difference could not be more stark:

From the very first, upon Our elevation to the chief Apostleship, We gladly turned our mind and energies and directed all out thoughts to those matters which concerned the preservation of a pure liturgy, and We strove with God’s help, by every means in our power, to accomplish this purpose. For, besides other decrees of the sacred Council of Trent, there were stipulations for Us to revise and re-edit the sacred books: the Catechism, the Missal and the Breviary. With the Catechism published for the instruction of the faithful, by God’s help, and the Breviary thoroughly revised for the worthy praise of God, in order that the Missal and Breviary may be in perfect harmony, as fitting and proper – for its most becoming that there be in the Church only one appropriate manner of reciting the Psalms and only one rite for the celebration of Mass – We deemed it necessary to give our immediate attention to what still remained to be done, viz, the re-editing of the Missal as soon as possible.

Hence, We decided to entrust this work to learned men of our selection. They very carefully collated all their work with the ancient codices in Our Vatican Library and with reliable, preserved or emended codices from elsewhere. Besides this, these men consulted the works of ancient and approved authors concerning the same sacred rites; and thus they have restored the Missal itself to the original form and rite of the holy Fathers. When this work has been gone over numerous times and further emended, after serious study and reflection, We commanded that the finished product be printed and published as soon as possible, so that all might enjoy the fruits of this labor; and thus, priests would know which prayers to use and which rites and ceremonies they were required to observe from now on in the celebration of Masses.

Let all everywhere adopt and observe what has been handed down by the Holy Roman Church, the Mother and Teacher of the other churches, and let Masses not be sung or read according to any other formula than that of this Missal published by Us. This ordinance applies henceforth, now, and forever, throughout all the provinces of the Christian world, to all patriarchs, cathedral churches, collegiate and parish churches, be they secular or religious, both of men and of women – even of military orders – and of churches or chapels without a specific congregation in which conventual Masses are sung aloud in choir or read privately in accord with the rites and customs of the Roman Church. This Missal is to be used by all churches, even by those which in their authorization are made exempt, whether by Apostolic indult, custom, or privilege, or even if by oath or official confirmation of the Holy See, or have their rights and faculties guaranteed to them by any other manner whatsoever.

This new rite alone is to be used unless approval of the practice of saying Mass differently was given at the very time of the institution and confirmation of the church by Apostolic See at least 200 years ago, or unless there has prevailed a custom of a similar kind which has been continuously followed for a period of not less than 200 years, in which most cases We in no wise rescind their above-mentioned prerogative or custom. However, if this Missal, which we have seen fit to publish, be more agreeable to these latter, We grant them permission to celebrate Mass according to its rite, provided they have the consent of their bishop or prelate or of their whole Chapter, everything else to the contrary notwithstanding.

All other of the churches referred to above, however, are hereby denied the use of other missals, which are to be discontinued entirely and absolutely; whereas, by this present Constitution, which will be valid henceforth, now, and forever, We order and enjoin that nothing must be added to Our recently published Missal, nothing omitted from it, nor anything whatsoever be changed within it under the penalty of Our displeasure.

We specifically command each and every patriarch, administrator, and all other persons or whatever ecclesiastical dignity they may be, be they even cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, or possessed of any other rank or pre-eminence, and We order them in virtue of holy obedience to chant or to read the Mass according to the rite and manner and norm herewith laid down by Us and, hereafter, to discontinue and completely discard all other rubrics and rites of other missals, however ancient, which they have customarily followed; and they must not in celebrating Mass presume to introduce any ceremonies or recite any prayers other than those contained in this Missal.

Furthermore, by these presents [this law], in virtue of Our Apostolic authority, We grant and concede in perpetuity that, for the chanting or reading of the Mass in any church whatsoever, this Missal is hereafter to be followed absolutely, without any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment, or censure, and may freely and lawfully be used. Nor are superiors, administrators, canons, chaplains, and other secular priests, or religious, of whatever title designated, obliged to celebrate the Mass otherwise than as enjoined by Us. We likewise declare and ordain that no one whosoever is forced or coerced to alter this Missal, and that this present document cannot be revoked or modified, but remain always valid and retain its full force notwithstanding the previous constitutions and decrees of the Holy See, as well as any general or special constitutions or edicts of provincial or synodal councils, and notwithstanding the practice and custom of the aforesaid churches, established by long and immemorial prescription – except, however, if more than two hundred years’ standing.

It is Our will, therefore, and by the same authority, We decree that, after We publish this constitution and the edition of the Missal, the priests of the Roman Curia are, after thirty days, obliged to chant or read the Mass according to it; all others south of the Alps, after three months; and those beyond the Alps either within six months or whenever the Missal is available for sale. Wherefore, in order that the Missal be preserved incorrupt throughout the whole world and kept free of flaws and errors, the penalty for nonobservance for printers, whether mediately or immediately subject to Our dominion, and that of the Holy Roman Church, will be the forfeiting of their books and a fine of one hundred gold ducats, payable ipso facto to the Apostolic Treasury. Further, as for those located in other parts of the world, the penalty is excommunication latae sententiae, and such other penalties as may in Our judgment be imposed; and We decree by this law that they must not dare or presume either to print or to publish or to sell, or in any way to accept books of this nature without Our approval and consent, or without the express consent of the Apostolic Commissaries of those places, who will be appointed by Us. Said printer must receive a standard Missal and agree faithfully with it and in no wise vary from the Roman Missal of the large type (secundum magnum impressionem).

Accordingly, since it would be difficult for this present pronouncement to be sent to all parts of the Christian world and simultaneously come to light everywhere, We direct that it be, as usual, posted and published at the doors of the Basilica of the Prince of the Apostles, also at the Apostolic Chancery, and on the street at Campo Flora; furthermore, We direct that printed copies of this same edict signed by a notary public and made official by an ecclesiastical dignitary possess the same indubitable validity everywhere and in every nation, as if Our manuscript were shown there. Therefore, no one whosoever is permitted to alter this notice of Our permission, statute, ordinance, command, precept, grant, indult, declaration, will, decree, and prohibition. Should know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. (Pope Saint Pius V, Quo Primum, July 14, 1570, which is printed in every traditional Missal of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.)

Even though Pope Saint Pius V's closing words in Quo Primum were standard ones for popes to use when issuing discplinary documents, conceding also that, yes, a true pope can make adjustments and modifications to the Sacred Liturgy, it is still nevertheless possible that perhaps–just perhaps–we are living through the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul as a result of the introduction of the spirit of Protestantism and Judeo-Masonry into what passes for Catholic “worship” in what is now called the “ordinary form of the Roman Rite,” the Novus Ordo service?

Perhaps?

Maybe?

Some would disagree, considering Quo Primum to be nothing more than a disciplinary measure that could not bind future popes.

My point, however, is this: Pope Saint Pius V sought to protect the integrity of the Catholic Faith in the Holy Mass while Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonia Maria Montini/Paul the Sick sought to make what passes for the Mass in the conciliar structures to have a Protestant flavor to it.

Dr. Adrian Fortescue, who wrote in the early part of the Twentieth Century, noted the following about the Missale Romanum promulgated by Pope Saint Pius V:

Essentially, the Missal of Pius V is the Gregorian Sacramentary; that again is formed from the Gelasian book, which depends upon the Leonine collection. We find prayers of our Canon in the treatise de Sacramentis and allusions to it in the [Fourth] Century. So the Mass goes back, without essential change, to the age when it first developed out of the oldest Liturgy of all. It is still redolent of that Liturgy, of the days when Caesar ruled the world, and thought he could stamp out the Faith of Christ, when our fathers met together before dawn and sang a hymn to Christ as God. The final result of our enquiry is that, in spite of some unresolved problems, in spite of later changes there is not in Christendom another rite so venerable as ours

The late Monsignor Klaus Gamber, who was not a traditionalist, said pretty much the same thing in his The Reform of the Roman Liturgy:

The reform introduced by St. Pius V did not create anything new. It was simple a comprehensive review of the Missal, editing out some additions and changes that, over time, had found their way into the text. Even so, older unique rights, if they dated back at least two hundred years were left untouched–demonstrating a spirit of amazing tolerance at that time in history. (Monsignor Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy.)

The reform of Pope Saint Pius V to safeguard Catholicism was not the revolution fostered by Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul the Sick to seek the favor of Protestants.

Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul the Sick also mocked the great victory over the Mohammedan forces in the Battle of Lepanto that was wrought by Pope Saint Pius V’s plea to Catholics to pray Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary by returning the Mohammedan flag to the Turks in 1965:

Presumably “no one” does does not include God. Paul’s performance at the United Nations [on October 4, 1965], an organization long viewed with suspicion by the Church for the obvious reasons, sent many a Catholic reeling. So did another papal act just two months later, when Paul gave back to the Muslims the Standard of Lepanto. The history of the flag was venerable. It was taken from a turkish admiral during a great naval battle in 1571. While Pope St. Pius V fasted and prayed the Rosary, an out-numbered Christian fleet defeated a much larger Moslem navy, thus saving Christendom from the infidel. In honor of the miraculous victory, Pius V instituted the Feast of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary to commemorate Her intercession.

In one dramatic act Paul renounced not only a remarkable Christian victory, but the prayers and the sacrifices of a great Pope and saint. Worse, he appeared to be rejecting the intercession of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary–again. “The wars of religion are finished for good,” Paul told the Turks by way of explanation. Their immediate response was not recorded, but the rise of militant Islam in the last three decades indicates that yet another of Pope Paul’s prophesies had gone awry. The next give-away involved Paul’s Shepherd’s Crook and fisherman’s ring, which he gave to the Buddhist U Thant [United Nations Secretary General between November 30, 1971, and December 31, 1971]. Paul also abolished the anti-Modernist oath of St. Pius X, and the Profession of Faith of the Council of Trent. In 1968 the Index was abolished. The Holy Office was reformed: its primary function now was research, not defending the Faith. (Mark Fellows, Fatima in Twilight, Marmion Publications, 2003, p. 193.)

The conciliarists have sought to eradicate almost all vestiges of what they disparage as “Catholic triumphalism,” believing in Modernism’s adaptations to the spirit of Modernity, which has no place for the Social Reign of Christ the King and Catholics to speak confessionally in public as Catholics to defend the Faith and to seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of non-Catholics to the Church’s maternal bosom.

This Modernist spirit is what predisposed Angelo Roncalli/John XXIIII to make the ludicrous assertion that “experience has at long last taught men that physical violence, armed might, and political domination are no help at all in providing a happy solution to the serious problems which affect them” and for Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini /Paul the Sick to make the blasphemous statement that “The peoples of the earth turn to the United Nations as the last hope of concord and peace” (Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul the Sick's Address to the United Nations, October 4, 1965.) The world’s only hope of concord and peace, as Pope Saint Pius V knew and taught very well, is the Catholic Church.

Pope Saint Pius V condemned as heretical the liturgical rites of the Anglican sect that were accepted im 2009 by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI as legitimate for those “Anglo-Catholics” who transferred their allegiance from one deck of the One World Ecumenical Church to another, that is, from the false Anglican “church” to the equally false counterfeit church of conciliarism, a transfer that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, of course, does not even think was necessary as he thinks that the Anglicans are fine right where they are in a false, schismatic and heretical sect, one that is dying off as a result of its falsehoods, which have descended into the same kind of pantheism as that of conciliarism itself, that was founded a lecherous king so that he could be free to "marry" his mistress and declare himself "supreme head of the Church in England":

Prohibiting with a strong hand the use of the true religion, which after its earlier overthrow by Henry VIII (a deserter therefrom) Mary, the lawful queen of famous memory, had with the help of this See restored, she has followed and embraced the errors of the heretics. She has removed the royal Council, composed of the nobility of England, and has filled it with obscure men, being heretics; oppressed the followers of the Catholic faith; instituted false preachers and ministers of impiety; abolished the sacrifice of the mass, prayers, fasts, choice of meats, celibacy, and Catholic ceremonies; and has ordered that books of manifestly heretical content be propounded to the whole realm and that impious rites and institutions after the rule of Calvin, entertained and observed by herself, be also observed by her subjects. (Regnans in Excelsis, the decree issued by Pope Saint Pius V on March 5, 1570, excommunicating Queen Elizabeth I.)

This entire section of Regnans in Excelsis describing the conduct of Queen Elizabeth I could be applied to what the conciliarists themselves did at the “Second” Vatican Council and thereafter.

Yet another contrast between Pope Saint Pius V with the “popes” of the counterfeit church of conciliarism is that our saint understood that the civil state had the immutable precepts of the Natural Law to impose the death penalty upon malefactors found guilty of heinous crimes after the due process of law, whether ecclesiastical or civil, had been followed and run its course. It is no more possible for any true pope of the Catholic Church to declare the death penalty as “unnecessary” and “in opposition to the Gospel message” as Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II did in a message on the “World Day of the Sick” in 2003:  

Through the celebration of this World Day of the Sick, may the Gospel of life and love resound loudly, especially in the Americas, where more than half the world’s Catholics live. On the continents of North and South America, as elsewhere in the world, «a model of society appears to be emerging in which the powerful predominate, setting aside and even eliminating the powerless: I am thinking here of unborn children, helpless victims of abortion; the elderly and incurable ill, subjected at times to euthanasia; and the many other people relegated to the margins of society by consumerism and materialism. Nor can I fail to mention the unnecessary recourse to the death penalty . . . This model of society bears the stamp of the culture of death, and is therefore in opposition to the Gospel message (Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia In America, 63).  (Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, XI World Day of the Sick, 2003).

It is the conciliar “popes’” and “bishops’” equating the inviolability of the lives of innocent human beings with those of heinous criminals that is “opposed to the Gospel message,” not the death penalty, which Pope Saint Pius V believed should be imposed upon clerics who committed perverse sins against nature:

That horrible crime, on account of which corrupt and obscene cities were destroyed by fire through divine condemnation, causes us most bitter sorrow and shocks our mind, impelling us to repress such a crime with the greatest possible zeal.

Quite opportunely the Fifth Lateran Council [1512-1517] issued this decree: "Let any member of the clergy caught in that vice against nature . . . be removed from the clerical order or forced to do penance in a monastery" (chap. 4, X, V, 31). So that the contagion of such a grave offense may not advance with greater audacity by taking advantage of impunity, which is the greatest incitement to sin, and so as to more severely punish the clerics who are guilty of this nefarious crime and who are not frightened by the death of their souls, we determine that they should be handed over to the severity of the secular authority, which enforces civil law.

Therefore, wishing to pursue with the greatest rigor that which we have decreed since the beginning of our pontificate, we establish that any priest or member of the clergy, either secular or regular, who commits such an execrable crime, by force of the present law be deprived of every clerical privilege, of every post, dignity and ecclesiastical benefit, and having been degraded by an ecclesiastical judge, let him be immediately delivered to the secular authority to be put to death, as mandated by law as the fitting punishment for laymen who have sunk into this abyss. (Pope Saint Pius V,Horrendum illud scelus, August 30, 1568)

Mind you, I am not suggesting the revival of this penalty in a world where it would not be understood and where the offender would be made a “martyr” for the cause of perversity, only pointing out the fact that the Catholic Church teaches that there are circumstances justifying the use of the death penalty, admitting that its application in concrete circumstances is a matter of due discretion for the civil authorities to determine. The Catholic Church can never deny as a matter of principle that the death penalty is any way a violation of the moral law whatsoever. It is not. Such is the difference yet again between Catholicism and conciliarism.

The difference between Catholicism and concilairism is stark, perhaps reflected no more clearly than in the retired but nevertheless hyperactive Walter “Cardinal” Kasper’s view, expressed some time ago, of the “doctrinal discussions” that took place between three representatives of the Society of Saint Pius X and three of the conciliar Vatican until 2012:

“Dialogue with them is not easy,” Kasper, who heads the Vatican department for relations with other Christian churches and with Jews, told a news conference during a visit to Paris.

“The main problem with them is not the Mass in Latin,” he said, referring to the SSPX’s insistence on the pre-Council liturgy, “but the concept of tradition. Do we want a living tradition or a petrif”ied one?”

“I’m for a dialogue, but on our conditions, not on the traditionalists’ conditions,” he added. The SSPX had to accept the Council reforms, the “sine qua non” of any accord.

Without an accord, the group will have no official status and its clergy will not be recognised as Catholic priests or allowed to exercise their ministry.

Benedict, who has promoted a return to Catholic tradition and identity during his five-year papacy, said in January that the talks among three theologians from each side were held up over “doctrinal problems” he did not specify.

The SSPX, numbering several hundred thousand members, insists it represents the true faith and the Vatican and the vast majority of the Church went off the rails at the Council.

Even while its theologians meet Vatican experts every other week to seek a common understanding of the Council, its leaders have been criticising key doctrines of that historic event.

SSPX head Bishop Bernard Fellay said in March the Vatican theologians “wish the Church well but also want to save the Second Vatican Council — that’s like squaring a circle.”

Williamson, ignoring a gag order Fellay imposed on him after his interview denying the Holocaust, dismissed the Vatican talks in January as a futile bid to harmonise irreconcilable views.

“Either the SSPX becomes a traitor, or Rome converts, or it’s a dialogue of the deaf,” he said.

In recent months, the SSPX head in Germany has criticised Benedict for visiting the Rome synagogue and the French district head said dialogue with other faiths was ruining the Church.

A former colleague, German theologian Wolfgang Beinert, told Der Spiegel magazine last month that the pope had told him the SSPX issue “robs him of his sleep.” He did not think Benedict would compromise at any cost with the ultra-traditionalists.

Kasper, the second-highest German at the Vatican after Benedict, said the SSPX has staunchly opposed the dialogue with other Christian churches for which he is responsible.

“They’ve attacked me as a heretic,” he said with a smile.

Asked why the ultra-traditionalists opposed ecumenical dialogue so strongly, he said: “Some people feel threatened in their Catholic identity when we speak with Protestants.

“We need to have a Catholic identity,” he said. “But we need an open and mature identity, not a closed one. That’s not a mature identity.” (Vatican talks with splinter group difficult-cardinal)

Look at what is taught perennially and immutably by the authority of the Catholic Church:

These firings, therefore, with all diligence and care having been formulated by us, we define that it be permitted to no one to bring forward, or to write, or to compose, or to think, or to teach a different faith. Whosoever shall presume to compose a different faith, or to propose, or teach, or hand to those wishing to be converted to the knowledge of the truth, from the Gentiles or Jews, or from any heresy, any different Creed; or to introduce a new voice or invention of speech to subvert these things which now have been determined by us, all these, if they be Bishops or clerics let them be deposed, the Bishops from the Episcopate, the clerics from the clergy; but if they be monks or laymen: let them be anathematized. (Sixth Ecumenical: Constantinople III).

They [the Modernists] exercise all their ingenuity in an effort to weaken the force and falsify the character of tradition, so as to rob it of all its weight and authority. But for Catholics nothing will remove the authority of the second Council of Nicea, where it condemns those “who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind…or endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church”; nor that of the declaration of the fourth Council of Constantinople: “We therefore profess to preserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, by the Holy and most illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both general and local, and by everyone of those divine interpreters, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.” Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: “I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church.” (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical’ misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. . . . The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way. (Pope Saint Pius X, The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910.) 

The Modernist concept of a “living tradition” was, as noted just above, condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis. Despite this fact, however, it was taken up anew by the disciples of the “New Theology” who were instrumental in misshaping the mind of young Joseph Ratzinger when he was a seminarian:

As [Maurice] Blondel’s new philosophy abandoned Thomism, so did Father [Henri] de Lubac’s “new theology” abandon Catholic theology. Using Blondel’s ideas of immanence and”living tradition,” as a base, de Lubac proceeded to deny the existence of “pure nature”. Believing there was no strict division between the supernatural and the natural worlds, de Lubac in effect divinized the natural world. Another word for his “horizontal” theology is naturalism. Pius XII took careful aim at de Lubac in Humani Generis, when he spoke of theologians who “destroy the gratuity of the supernatural order, since God, they say, cannot create intellectual beings without ordering them to the beatific vision.”

This was precisely the problem with de Lubac’s theology. It contradicted the basic Catholic doctrine that grace was gratuitous, that is, freely bestowed upon man by God. If pure nature did not exist, then grace was automatic, even compelled, certainly not a gift. If grace was inherent to human nature, as de Lubac believed, then everyone was a Christian–the only distinction is that some new it and some, the so-called “anonymous Christians, didn’t Evangelization consisted of informing the ignorant that they were actually in a state of grace. The logical conclusion to de Lubac’s ideas was universal salvation, the idea that everyone went to Heaven, be they Buddhists or axe murderers. (Mark Fellows, Twilight in Fatima, pp. 140-141.)

Do you see now–perhaps at long last–why the likes of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and other conciliar revolutionaries do not believe that it is absolutely necessary to seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of all non-Catholics to the maternal bosom of Holy Mother Church before they die? There can be no “common ground” between truth and error, which is why the “doctrinal discussions” between representatives of the Society of Saint Pius X and those of the conciliar Vatican are worse than a waste of time.

Catholics either see this clearly or they do not. They either see that the Catholic Church cannot give us false, contradictory, ambiguous or murky doctrines. She cannot give us liturgical rites that are incentives to impiety. Truth is simple, and it is simply true that none of the apostasies and blasphemies and sacrileges and errors and novelties of the past fifty years have come from the authority of the Catholic Church.

We turn, of course, to Our Lady, whose Most Holy Rosary has defeated the Mohammedans in the Battle of Lepanto and the Dutch Calvinists as they attempted to invade Lima, Peru,  and Manila, The Philippines in the early Seventeenth Century. Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary has been used by mothers to effect the conversion of their profligate children. Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary has been used by sons and daughters who have converted to the Faith to effect the conversion of their Protestant or Jewish or Mohammedan or simply unbelieving parents. We must fear nothing, nothing at all, in this passing, mortal vale of tears. Nothing at all. We have Our Lady at our side as she helps us to follow her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in the Catholic Church in this time of apostasy and betrayal.

We also need to invoke the intercession of Saint Joseph, the Patron of the Universal Church and the Protector of the Faithful, as well as that of Pope Saint Pius V and the only only true pope to be beatified and canonized in the past three hundred years, Pope Saint Pius X, to help us to stand fast to the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church as we make no concessions at all to conciliarism in the slightest.

Quite in contrast to the conciliar “popes,” who are eager to find the “good” in false religions, Pope Saint Pius V raised up forces to fight heresy and error:

There were massive problems of immediate urgency during the brief reign of Pius V. From within, the peace of the Church was disturbed by the several heresies of Luther, Calvin, and the Lombards, and by the need for clergy reform. In addition, England was tottering on the brink of a break with Rome. The Netherlands were trying to break away fro Spain and had embraced Protestantism. The missions across the sea needed attention. And all through the Mediterranean countries, the Turk was ravaging Christian cities, creeping closer to world conquest. In the six years of his reign, Pope Pius V had to deal with all these questions–any one of which was enough to occupy his entire time.

The unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots enjoyed the sympathy and encouragement of the pope. He sent encouraging letters to her, and once, at a time when no priest was allowed to go near her, he granted her special permission to receive Holy Communion by sending a tiny pyx that contained consecrated Hosts. He was finally had to pronounce excommunication on Elizabeth of England, after he had given her every possible chance of repentance.

He encouraged the new society founded by St. Ignatius and established the Jesuits in the Gregorian University. He consecrated the Jesuit bishops for India, gave St. Francis Borgia his greatest cooperation, and helped to finance missionaries to China and Japan. He built the church of Our Lady of the Angels for the Franciscans and helped St. Philip Neri in his establishment of the Oratory. Probably the act for which he will be longest remember is his leadership at the time of the Battle of Lepanto. (Sister Jean Mary Dorcy, O.P., Saint Dominic’s Family: Lives and Legends. Dubuque, Iowa: The Priory Press, 1964, pp. 311-312.)  

True popes fight error and heresy. They don’t seek accommodations with error and heresy. Pope Saint Pius V, a true son of Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary as a son of the holy founder to whom It was first given, Saint Dominic de Guzman, new that Our Lady was indispensable in fighting off the errors and heresies of the day. It is no different for us now, is it?

The Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph. We have Our Lady’s word on this. Why should we live in fear of the world, the flesh, and the devil when we have the opportunity to serve her Divine Son through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart with every beat of our own hearts, united as they must be to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, especially on this First Friday in the month of May, through that same Immaculate Heart.

Isn’t it time right now to pray at least five decades of Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary?

Isn’t it time to pray a Rosary now? 

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

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.

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.