Revised: Joseph Alois Ratzinger: Entirely Unashamed by His Career of Theological Crimes

A recent commentary on this site, Joseph Alois Ratzinger: Ever Impervious to the Horror of Personal Sin, Including His Own Sins of Heresy, provided an overview of the findings released by the German “bishops” about the failures of Joseph Alois “Cardinal” Ratzinger to discipline clerical predators, including the infamous January 15, 1980, during his time as the conciliar “archbishop” of Munich and Freising from May 28, 1977, to February 15, 1982, although he had actually started living on the palace of the Holy Office since November 25, 1981, following his appointment as the conciliar prefect of the misnamed Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Since the release of the new report on January 20, 2022, Ratzinger/Benedict has been busy writing a letter to apologize for his faults, although he admitted no specific responsibility for any of the decisions he authorized as the “archbishop” of Munich and Freising as clerical predators were reassigned to different parishes without the faithful having been warned of their deviancy.

Joseph Alois Ratzinger fashions himself an academic, which is why he spent time during his antipapacy writing his Jesus of Nazareth trilogy and giving book length interview to his friend Peter Seewald. He has always hated administrative work, and it is very likely the case that he was not, as is said today, “fully engaged” in all the agenda items that were discussed during the infamous meeting in his chancery office on January 15, 1980, when he approved of the assignment of “Father” Peter Hullermann to a parish in the archdiocese even though the latter had been found guilty of predatory behavior in another diocese.

Indeed, the first and probably last “emeritus pope” in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism was so unimpressed with what he considers to be the mundane chores of his work in Munich that his was only after the report of his fellow conciliar revolutionaries, albeit those of the Jacobin/Bolshevik variety as opposed to his Girondist/Menshevik ilk, confirmed that he was present at the January 15, 1980, that he called his original denial of the fact to have been an oversight. This is curious as the fact of his presence there had been established definitively eleven years ago when Vatican officials tried to throw Gruber under the bus and to take the fall for the then “Pope Benedict”:

Catholic Church officials assigned full responsibility for the reassignment of a known pedophilic priest to retired vicar general Gerhard Gruber who served as deputy to Joseph Ratzinger when he was archbishop. Gruber is now challenging a Church statement that he "acted on his own authority," a claim he says was never discussed with him.

The emergency plan was hastily assembled in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising on the evening of March 11, a Thursday. The Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper had exposed the scandal surrounding pedophile priest Peter H., and the affair over sexual abuse in the church was getting dangerously close to the pope.

Peter H., a vicar from the western German city of Essen who had molested boys on several occasions, was sent to Munich in 1980, where he was assigned to work as a pastor again. As a result, he was able to abuse even more boys. The archbishop and chairman of the diocesan council, which approved H.'s appointment, was Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.

Ratzinger also chaired a meeting on Jan. 15, 1980, in which the pedophile priest's living arrangements and therapy were discussed. He must have been familiar with H.'s criminal past. Because of this, the diocese has, in recent weeks, left no stone unturned in its effort to explain why the current pope could not be held accountable for H.'s continued service in his diocese.

That effort has been supported by documents found in the diocese records office that related to H., and that were signed by someone else at the time: the loyal Vicar General Gerhard Gruber, Ratzinger's deputy during his time as archbishop.

Apparently no one on the crisis team objected to the idea of taking Pope Benedict "out of the firing line" and using Gruber, 81, as a scapegoat instead. On the morning of March 12, while the press office was busy drafting a statement in which Gruber was given the full blame for H.'s appointment to serve as a pastor, and that included Gruber's personal apology, a church official was badgering the retired priest on the phone.

But Gruber, who felt put under pressure, later confided in theologian friends. He told them that he had been emphatically "asked" to assume full responsibility for the affair, and that church officials had promptly faxed him a copy of the statement and instructed him to make any changes he deemed necessary.

'Incorrect Decisions'

According to the statement released by the archdiocese, Ratzinger was partly responsible for making the decision to accept H.'s appointment. "Notwithstanding this decision," however, H. was assigned "by the then vicar general" to assist in pastoral care, without restriction, in a Munich parish. The statement also read: "Gruber assumes full responsibility for the incorrect decisions." A spokesman for the archdiocese later added that Gruber had "acted on his own authority" in the case of Peter H.

Gruber’s friends say that the old man was only familiar with parts of the statement, that he was apparently being used as a scapegoat and that he was also under additional emotional pressure. To everyone's surprise, Gruber wrote an open letter in which he qualified the archdiocese's statement, writing that he did not sign any documents over which he had no influence. He also noted that he was "very upset" about the "manner in which the incidents were portrayed" by the archdiocese. "And the phrase 'acted on his own authority' also wasn't discussed with me," he wrote.

The archdiocese was unwilling to comment on the accusations, except to state it continued to believe that the former vicar general had acted on his own authority in the case of Peter H., and that he had admitted to having made mistakes. Gruber has gone on a trip to recuperate from “weeks that have been very stressful for me.” His loyalty is greatly appreciated in Munich. Archbishop Reinhard Marx, Gruber writes, has sent him his best wishes and “expressed his appreciation for my ‘participation’.” (Catholic Abuse Scandal: Was Munich's Vicar General Forced to Serve as Ratzinger's Scapegoat?; see also Priest says he was pressurised into taking blame for pope.) 

 

Like almost everything else in the life and work of Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, truth is negotiable, a merely “academic” affair that is always open to “refinement” and “clarification” according to the dialectical process of his philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned theological evolutionism that he tried to sell as the “hermeneutic of continuity.”

I, for one, find the hubristic pathos Ratzinger/Benedict used at the close of his apology to be nothing less than pitiable:

I have come increasingly to appreciate the repugnance and fear that Christ felt on the Mount of Olives when he saw all the dreadful things that he would have to endure inwardly. Sadly, the fact that in those moments the disciples were asleep represents a situation that, today too, continues to take place, and for which I, too, feel called to answer. And so, I can only pray to the Lord and ask all the angels and saints, and you, dear brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.

Quite soon, I shall find myself before the final judge of my life. Even though, as I look back on my long life, I can have great reason for fear and trembling, I am nonetheless of good cheer, for I trust firmly that the Lord is not only the just judge, but also the friend and brother who himself has already suffered for my shortcomings, and is thus also my advocate, my ‘Paraclete.’ In light of the hour of judgment, the grace of being a Christian becomes all the more clear to me. It grants me knowledge, and indeed friendship, with the judge of my life, and thus allows me to pass confidently through the dark door of death. In this regard, I am constantly reminded of what John tells us at the beginning of the Apocalypse: he sees the Son of Man in all his grandeur and falls at his feet as though dead. Yet he, placing his right hand on him, says to him: “Do not be afraid! It is I …” (cf. Rev 1:12-17).

Dear friends, with these sentiments I bless you all. (Antipope Benedict Apology.)

This is very interesting for what it does not say as much as for what it does say about a heretic’s supreme confidence as he faces death, a confidence that borders the sin of Presumption if it is not in fact Presumption unalloyed.

How can I say this?

Well, it is really simple: Any man, no less a heretic who has made a mockery of the Holy Faith, who thinks that all is well as he approaches death without being tenderly reliant on the intercession and protection of the Mother of God is a fool. No, such person is worse than a fool as Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI rarely discussed Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary and even admitted years ago that he did not pray it every day. Anyone who believes that he can approach death without having the sweet name of Mary on his lips as he prays her Most Rosary is lost.

How can I say this?

Well, once again, it is really simple: Ratzinger/Benedict’s letter of apology contained a variation of the truncated, corrupted Novus Ordo Confiteor (which is not mandatory in the liturgical abomination as it could be replaced with one or another “options,” including improvised ones, at the choice of the presider—see G.I.R.M. Warfare: The Conciliar Church's Unremitting Warfare Against Catholic Faith and Worship) that omitted all reference to Our Lady:

Now, to these words of thanks, there must necessarily also follow a confession. I am increasingly struck by the fact that day after day the church begins the celebration of holy Mass — in which the Lord gives us his word and his very self — with the confession of our sins and a petition for forgiveness. We publicly implore the living God to forgive (the sins we have committed through) our fault, through our most grievous fault. It is clear to me that the words “most grievous” do not apply each day and to every person in the same way. Yet every day they do cause me to question if today, too, I should speak of a most grievous fault. And they tell me with consolation that however great my fault may be today, the Lord forgives me, if I sincerely allow myself to be examined by him and am really prepared to change.  (Antipope Benedict Apology.)

Ratzinger/Benedict went out of his way to avoid mentioning Our Lady as she is indeed included in the Novus Ordo Confiteor.

No, try as he might with all his hubristic pathos, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict’s expression of confidence as he approaches his Particular Judgment flies in the face of the fact that has been a lifelong warfare against the nature of dogmatic truth, which is nothing less than warfare upon the nature of God Himself, Who is immutable. 

This is why it is truly laughable for those in the secular media to contend that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has been "conservative" dogmatically. The only thing that Ratzinger has sought to "conserve" as "Pope" Benedict XVI was the conciliar revolution whose progenitor he was and whose prime institutionalizing force sought to be during the time of his antipapacy from the conciliar "pontiff" since April 19, 2005, to February 28, 2013.

Joseph Ratzinger did not want "restore" Tradition by issuing Summorum Pontificum on July 7, 2007, which was revoked by “Pope Francis” in Traditionis Custodes, July 16, 2021 (see Jorge Mario Bergoglio Bares His Teeth to Do the Work of Baal), or by "lifting" the "excommunications" upon the four bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X on January 21, 2009. His intention was solely to "pacify the spirits" of those who are attached to the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition, something that is documented in greater detail below. As one young observer noted nine years ago, "It can't be old [1910] and it can't be new [1965 or 1969]. It's got to be 1962."

Contrary to what the secular and even most of the "religious" experts have stated, Joseph Ratzinger has never been a so-called "conservative."

He is a man who has made unremitting warfare upon almost every aspect of Catholic Faith, Worship, Morals, and pastoral praxis, starting with the very nature of dogmatic truth. He has engaged in the most hideous forms of "inter-religious" prayer services.

He attempted to make various Apostles, Fathers, Doctors Saints and true popes of the Catholic Church into perjured witnesses in behalf his conciliar apostasies, blasphemies and sacrileges such as the "new ecclesiology," "religious liberty," "separation of Church and State," false ecumenism, etc.

He publicly praised propositions condemned by our true popes.

He dared to esteem the symbols of false religions with his own priestly hands.

He refused to discipline "bishops" who recruited, promoted, and protected clerical predators.

His rejection of Scholasticism caused him to speak in such ambiguous and contradictory terms at times that clarification after clarification had to be issued by his spokesflack, "Father" Federico Lombardi, S.J.

He spoke about the Mother of God rarely, including, as noted above, no mention her in his letter of apology, and usually in the most perfunctorily terms, almost never exhorting Catholics to pray their Rosary, no less to pray the Rosary daily, something that he admitted that he did not do.

And quite unlike Pope Leo XIII, who asked "Why put a limit on God's goodness?" when a cardinal told him on his ninetieth birthday that he hoped the Holy Father lived to be one hundred years old, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, a man who has always hated criticism and sought to run away from it, believed that it was necessary to start yet a new “tradition” of “papal” resignation to pave the way for his “successors” to do the same in the future. 

The truth is, of course, that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has been and continues to be as mocked today by the chief priests of conciliarism as He was by the chief priests of the Jews on Good Friday:

And the inscription of his cause was written over: THE KING OF THE JEWS. And with him they crucify two thieves; the one on his right hand, and the other on his left. And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith: And with the wicked he was reputed. And they that passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads, and saying: Vah, thou that destroyest the temple of God, and in three days buildest it up again; Save thyself, coming down from the cross.

In like manner also the chief priests mocking, said with the scribes one to another: He saved others; himself he cannot save. Let Christ the king of Israel come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe. And they that were crucified with him reviled him. (Mark 15: 26-32)

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI spat on Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ each time he said or did one hideous thing after another during the 2,873 days of his presidency of the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

Ratzinger/Benedict, objectively speaking, committed Mortal Sins against the First Commandment every time he has put into question or has denied a dogma of the Faith or has praised a false religion or has entered a temple of false worship. He has done so every time he has staged the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service.

Anyone who denies that entering into and treating with respect places of false worship without seeking the unconditional conversion of those adhere the devils worshiped therein is damnable is intellectually dishonest or bereft of the sensus Catholicus (thereby lacking any knowledge of the necessity of defending the honor and glory and majesty of the Most Blessed Trinity) or is a coward who is afraid to speak to the truth of the Faith for one reason or another.

 

God will not be mocked. The God of Revelation does not want members of the Catholic Church, no less those who believe themselves to be bishops and priests, to give even the slightest degree of credibility to any false religion. The God of Revelation, which consists of Sacred Scripture and Sacred (Apostolic) Tradition, hates each and every false religion. He has no respect for false religions, which have the power to save no one and are instruments of disorder in souls and thus of disorder and chaos within nations. Those who show respect for false religions by esteeming their symbols and praising their nonexistent "ability" to contribute to the "betterment" of nations and the world are themselves enemies of God as they find themselves condemned by these very words of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself:

But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of scandals. For it must needs be that scandals come: but nevertheless woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh. And if thy hand, or thy foot scandalize thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee. It is better for thee to go into life maimed or lame, than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thy eye scandalize thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee. It is better for thee having one eye to enter into life, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire. See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 18: 6-10.)

 

Here, therefore, is a brief chronological reminder of the many ways in which the “new theologian,” Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, offended God during is antipapal from April 19, 2005, to February 28, 2013. It is for the following deeds and words that Ratzinger/Benedict should be trembling he approaches his particular judgment, but he remains cluelessly impervious to his crimes of heresy and apostasy that stand ready to damn him to hell for all eternity unless he converts and then abjures his lifelong commitment to one falsehood after another before he dies.

A Partial Laundry List of  Ratzinger/Benedict's Theological Crimes

2005

May 13: Taking "canonical" possession of the Basilica of San Giovanni di Laterano, the cathedral of the pope in his capacity as the Bishop of Rome, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI announced that he was appointing a fellow Modernist and protege, William Levada, to be his own successor as the prefect of the conciliar Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. Ratzinger/Benedict also announced that he was placing his predecessor, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II on the "fast track" for conciliar "canonization." Levada, for his part, endorsed dogmatic evolutionism on several occasions, including in March of 2010:

The role of the Church in that dialogue between an individual and his or her God, says the Cardinal, is not to be the first interlocutor, but the role is indispensable. "We believe that the apostles and their successors received the mission to interpret revelation in new circumstances and in the light of new challenges. That creates a living tradition that is much larger than the simple and strict passing of existing answers, insights and convictions from one generation to another.

But at the end of the day there has to be an instance that can decide whether a specific lifestyle is coherent with the principles and values of our faith, that can judge whether our actions are in accordance with the commandment to love your neighbor. The mission of the Church is not to prohibit people from thinking, investigate different hypotheses, or collect knowledge. Its mission is to give those processes orientation". ( Levada Gives Rare Interview: "I Am Not Responsible for the Crusades, Past or Present.)

Heresy.

O my God, I firmly believe that Thou art One God in Three Divine Persons. I believe that Thy Divine Son became Man, died for our sins, and will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which Thy Holy Catholic Church teaches because Thou hast revealed them, Who canst neither deceive nor be deceived. (Act of Faith.)

August 19: Speaking to members of Protestant sects and Orthodox confessions in Cologne, Germany, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI specifically rejected what he called the "ecumenism of the return:"

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 English) 

Here is what our true popes have written on the matter of the "ecumenism of the return:"

"It is therefore by force of the right of Our supreme Apostolic ministry, entrusted to us by the same Christ the Lord, which, having to carry out with [supreme] participation all the duties of the good Shepherd and to follow and embrace with paternal love all the men of the world, we send this Letter of Ours to all the Christians from whom We are separated, with which we exhort them warmly and beseech them with insistence to hasten to return to the one fold of Christ; we desire in fact from the depths of the heart their salvation in Christ Jesus, and we fear having to render an account one day to Him, Our Judge, if, through some possibility, we have not pointed out and prepared the way for them to attain eternal salvation. In all Our prayers and supplications, with thankfulness, day and night we never omit to ask for them, with humble insistence, from the eternal Shepherd of souls the abundance of goods and heavenly graces. And since, if also, we fulfill in the earth the office of vicar, with all our heart we await with open arms the return of the wayward sons to the Catholic Church, in order to receive them with infinite fondness into the house of the Heavenly Father and to enrich them with its inexhaustible treasures. By our greatest wish for the return to the truth and the communion with the Catholic Church, upon which depends not only the salvation of all of them, but above all also of the whole Christian society: the entire world in fact cannot enjoy true peace if it is not of one fold and one shepherd." (Pope Pius IX, Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868.)

So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. During the lapse of centuries, the mystical Spouse of Christ has never been contaminated, nor can she ever in the future be contaminated, as Cyprian bears witness: "The Bride of Christ cannot be made false to her Spouse: she is incorrupt and modest. She knows but one dwelling, she guards the sanctity of the nuptial chamber chastely and modestly."The same holy Martyr with good reason marveled exceedingly that anyone could believe that "this unity in the Church which arises from a divine foundation, and which is knit together by heavenly sacraments, could be rent and torn asunder by the force of contrary wills." For since the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one, compacted and fitly joined together, it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

Who is Catholic here? "Pope" Benedict XVI or Popes Pius IX and Pius XI?

August 19: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict enters into a Talmudic synagogue in Cologne, Germany, refusing to seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of those steeped in these false religion.

October 7: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI praised his Hegelian mentor in the New Theology (which was condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950), Father Hans Urs von Balthasar:

Hans Urs von Balthasar, the Pope writes, ‘was a theologian who put his work at the service of the Church,’ because he was convinced that theology is useful only within the context of Catholic practice. ‘I can testify that his life was an authentic search for truth," the Pope adds. Pope Benedict says that he hopes the 100th-anniversary observance will stimulate a revival of interest in the work of von Balthasar, recalling Henri de Lubac's claim that the Swiss theologian was "the most cultured man of our century.’ The Lateran University seminar is co-sponsored by Communio, the international theological journal that was founded by von Balthasar in cooperation with theologians such as Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) and Angelo Scola (now the Patriarch of Venice). Participants in the weekend's discussions include Cardinal Scola, Cardinal James Stafford, and Cardinal Marc Ouellet.” (Catholic World News.com, October 7, 2005.)

December 9: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI wished "God's abundant blessings" upon the Methodists who were attending his General Audience that day:

Since 1967, our dialogue has treated major theological themes such as: revelation and faith, tradition and teaching authority in the Church. These efforts have been candid in addressing areas of difference. They have also demonstrated a considerable degree of convergence and are worthy of reflection and study. Our dialogue and the many ways in which Catholics and Methodists have become better acquainted have allowed us to recognize together some of those "Christian treasures of great value". On occasion, this recognition has enabled us to speak with a common voice in addressing social and ethical questions in an increasingly secularized world. I have been encouraged by the initiative which would bring the member churches of the World Methodist Council into association with the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, signed by the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation in 1999. Should the World Methodist Council express its intent to associate itself with the Joint Declaration, it would assist in contributing to the healing and reconciliation we ardently desire, and would be a significant step towards the stated goal of full visible unity in faith.

Dear friends, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and mindful of God’s great and abiding Mercy throughout the world, let us seek to foster a mutual commitment to the Word of God, to witness and to joint prayer. As we prepare our hearts and minds to welcome the Lord in this Advent season, I invoke God’s abundant blessings upon all of you and on Methodists throughout the world. (Address of Benedict XVI to Methodists.)

The Methodists have no "commitment" to the Word of God as they do not accept It as It has been entrusted exclusively by God Himself to the authority of the Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. The Methodists also, just incidentally, you understand, reject entirely Apostolic or Sacred Tradition as the other source of Divine Revelation. "Joint prayer"? Strictly forbidden by the teaching authority and canonical doctrine of the Catholic Church (see The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion.)

December 22: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI uses a Christmas address to the members of the conciliar curia to give his own "papal" imprimatur to the "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity," blaspheming God the Holy Ghost Himself, Who has ever guided the Catholic Church in papal teachings and dogmatic decrees, by claiming that it was "necessary to learn" that the immemorial teaching of the Catholic Church is subject to different interpretations at different times:

"It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within.

"On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)

It was by the use of this philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity" that Ratzinger/Benedict justified the errors of "religious liberty," blaspheming the martyrs of the first centuries of the Church by saying that they were "martyrs for religious liberty," and a "re-thinking" of the "church's" "relationship with the 'faith of Israel'" in light of the "Shoah."

Consider the teaching of the [First] Vatican Council:

Hence, that meaning of the sacred dogmata is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy Mother Church, and there must never be an abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.... If anyone says that it is possible that at some given time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmata propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has always understood and understands: let him be anathema." [Vatican Council, 1870.] (See also Ratzinger's War Against Catholicism and  Continuity Plus Discontinuity Will Always Equal Insanity.)

2006

November 26: The Nativity Story, a blasphemous motion picture, produced by a Protestant, made its world premiere at the Paul VI Audience Hall in the Vatican, introduced by the then "Archbishop" (now "Cardinal") John Foley, the President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, and approved personally by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. The motion picture is a blasphemous depiction of Our Lady as a sulky, moody, rebellious teenager, thereby a denial of her gift of perfect Integrity of body and soul that is one of the chief doctrinal effects of her Immaculate Conception.

November 30: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI appeared as an equal with "Patriarch" Bartholomew I in Istanbul, Turkey, issuing a joint statement which included the following statement, "This commitment comes from the Lord’s will and from our responsibility as Pastors in the Church of Christ" (Common Declaration by Benedict XVI and Patriarch Bartholomew I). Bartholomew I, who "prayed" with Ratzinger/Benedict in the Sistine Chapel on Saturday, October 18, 2008, for an end to "fundamentalism" and for "religious tolerance, is not a "pastor" in the Church of Christ. The only Church of Christ is the Catholic Church, from which the heretic Bartholomew I is in schism. He is not a "pastor" in the Church of Christ. Of course, neither is Ratzinger/Benedict.

November 30: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI entered into the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, taking off his shoes so as to symbolize that he was in a "holy place" and then turned in the direction of Mecca at the behest of his Mohammedan "host," who instructed him to assume the Mohammedan prayer position as they "prayed" together. God is offended by honor being given to such a false religion as the souls of His faithful Catholics are scandalized and bewildered and confused as a consequence.

2007

April 21: The International Theological Commission issues The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised, which concludes that there is every "hope" that unbaptized infants go to Heaven. This study, which is one of those "non-binding" conciliar documents, you understand, gave "official" expression to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's own view, which are in contradiction to the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church: 

Limbo was never a defined truth of faith. Personally - and here I am speaking more as a theologian and not as Prefect of the Congregation - I would abandon it since it was only a theological hypothesis. It formed part of a secondary thesis in support of a truth which is absolutely of first significance for faith, namely, the importance of baptism. To put it in the words of Jesus to Nicodemus: 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God' (John 3:5). One should not hesitate to give up the idea of limbo, if need be (and it is worth noting that the very theologians who proposed 'limbo' also said that parents could spare the child limbo by desiring its baptism and through prayer); but the concern behind it must not be surrendered. Baptism has never been a side issue for faith; it is not now, nor will it ever be."  (Joseph Ratzinger, as Quoted in Vittorio Messori's The Ratzinger Report.)

For who would not detest a crime [abortion] as execrable as this — a crime whose consequence is that not just bodies, but — still worse! — even souls, are, as it were, cast away? The soul of the unborn infant bears the imprint of God’s image! It is a soul for whose redemption Christ our Lord shed His precious blood, a soul capable of eternal blessedness and destined for the company of angels! Who, therefore, would not condemn and punish with the utmost severity the desecration committed by one who has excluded such a soul from the blessed vision of God? Such a one has done all he or she could possibly have done to prevent this soul from reaching the place prepared for it in heaven, and has deprived God of the service of this His own creature." (Pope Sixtus V, Effrænatam, October 28, 1588 translation by Father Brian Harrison, Could Limbo Be 'Abolished'?)

June 30: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI sells out the underground Catholics in Red China, telling them to "reconcile" with the Communist-sponsored "Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association," a sellout more sweeping in its scope than Giovanni Montini/Paul VI's betrayal of the Primate of Hungary, Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty. The "guidelines" issued by Ratzinger/Benedict were so confusing that a "compendium" had to issue for the sake of "clarification" in 2009. (See  Red China: Workshop for the New Ecclesiology.)

July 7: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict issues Summorum Pontificum to "liberate" the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition. Traditionally-minded Catholics attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism rejoiced that this represented an important step in the "restoration" of what they believe to be the Catholic Church even that Ratzinger/Benedict made it clear that they would have to accept some of the prefaces and feast days included in the "Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite (that is, the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service), something that was reiterated by William "Cardinal" Levada (see Words Really Do Matter) during his "dedication" of the new chapel at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, Nebraska, that is run by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter.

Summorum Pontificum was also premised on the abject lie, for which Ratzinger/Benedict has never apologized, that there is no contradiction between two "forms" of the "one" Roman Rite. Who says that this is a lie? Ratzinger/Benedict himself, of course:

There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church's faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place. Needless to say, in order to experience full communion, the priests of the communities adhering to the former usage cannot, as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books. The total exclusion of the new rite would not in fact be consistent with the recognition of its value and holiness (Explanatory Letter on "Summorum Pontificum.)

What happened after the Council was something else entirely: in the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it--as in a manufacturing process--with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product. Gamber, with the vigilance of a true prophet and the courage of a true witness, oppose this falsification, and thanks to his incredibly rich knowledge, indefatigably taught us about the living fullness of a true liturgy. As a man who knew and loved history, he showed us the multiple forms and paths of liturgical development; as a man who looked at history form the inside, he saw in this development and its fruit the intangible reflection of the eternal liturgy, that which is not the object of our action but which can continue marvelously to mature and blossom if we unite ourselves intimately with its mystery. (Joseph Ratzinger, Preface to the French language edition of Monsignor Klaus Gamber's The Reform of the Roman Liturgy.)

The prohibition of the missal that was now decreed, a missal that had known continuous growth over the centuries, starting with the sacramentaries of the ancient Church, introduced a breach into the history of the liturgy whose consequences could only be tragic. It was reasonable and right of the Council to order a revision of the missal such as had often taken place before and which this time had to be more thorough than before, above all because of the introduction of the vernacular.

But more than this now happened: the old building was demolished, and another was built, to be sure largely using materials from the previous one and even using the old building plans. There is no doubt that this new missal in many respects brought with it a real improvement and enrichment; but setting it as a new construction over against what had grown historically, forbidding the results of this historical growth. thereby makes the liturgy appear to be no longer living development but the produce of erudite work and juridical authority; this has caused an enormous harm. For then the impression had to emerge that liturgy is something "made", not something given in advance but something lying without our own power of decision. (Joseph Ratzinger, Milestones.)

No "restoration" of the Catholic Church can take place on the foundation of lies, which come from the devil, not from God, Who hates lies and is, of course, the Author of all truth. Some adherents of the Talmud were upset.

August 4: Paul "Cardinal" Poupard, then the President of the "Pontifical" Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, read the following letter written by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict to those attending an "inter-religious" conference taking place on Mount Hiei, Japan, a place where the Tendai sect of the false religion known as Buddhism first established itself:

I am glad to greet you and all the religious leaders gathered on the occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Religious Summit Meeting on Mount Hiei. I wish also to convey my best wishes to Venerable Eshin Watanabe, and to recall your distinguished predecessor as Supreme Head of the Tendai Buddhist Denomination, Venerable Etai Yamada. It was he who, having participated in the Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi on that memorable day of 27 October 1986, initiated the “Religious Summit Meeting” on Mount Hiei in Kyoto in order to keep the flame of the spirit of Assisi burning. I am also happy that Cardinal Paul Poupard, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, is able to take part in this meeting.

From the supernatural perspective we come to understand that peace is both a gift from God and an obligation for every individual. Indeed, the world’s cry for peace, echoed by families and communities throughout the globe, is at once both a prayer to God and an appeal to every brother and sister of our human family. As you assemble on the sacred Mount Hiei, representing different religions, I assure you of my spiritual closeness. May your prayers and cooperation fill you with God’s peace and strengthen your resolve to witness to the reason of peace which overcomes the irrationality of violence!

Upon you all I invoke an abundance of divine blessings of inspiration, harmony and joy. (This used to be found on the DICI site of the Society of Saint Pius X; it is no longer there. Surprise, surprise, surprise, Sergeant Carter: Surprise Surprise Surprise.) 

To whom is Mount Hiei "sacred"?

Not to the true God of Divine Revelation.

To the devil, that's who.

August 27: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict bestowed "papal" knighthood upon the pro-abortion, pro-perversity Rabbi Leon Klenicki. (see Continuing to Knight Infidels).

October 13: The Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue Between the Roman Catholic Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church issues The Ravenna Document, which featured a longtime goal of the late Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI: proposing that the "Petrine ministry" could be understood now as it the conciliarists contend that it was understood during the First Millennium:

It remains for the question of the role of the bishop of Rome in the communion of all the Churches to be studied in greater depth. What is the specific function of the bishop of the “first see” in an ecclesiology of koinonia and in view of what we have said on conciliarity and authority in the present text? How should the teaching of the first and second Vatican councils on the universal primacy be understood and lived in the light of the ecclesial practice of the first millennium? These are crucial questions for our dialogue and for our hopes of restoring full communion between us.

We, the members of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, are convinced that the above statement on ecclesial communion, conciliarity and authority represents positive and significant progress in our dialogue, and that it provides a firm basis for future discussion of the question of primacy at the universal level in the Church. We are conscious that many difficult questions remain to be clarified, but we hope that, sustained by the prayer of Jesus “That they may all be one … so that the world may believe” (Jn 17, 21), and in obedience to the Holy Spirit, we can build upon the agreement already reached. Reaffirming and confessing “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4, 5), we give glory to God the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who has gathered us together. (The Ravenna Document)

How, then are the maximum demands to be decided in advance? Certainly, no one who claims allegiance to Catholic theology can simply declare the doctrine of primacy null and void, especially not if he seeks to understand the objections and evaluates with an open mind the relative weight of what can be determined historically. Nor it is possible, on the other hand, for him to regard as the only possible form and, consequently, as binding on all Christians the form this primacy has taken in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. . . .

After all, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, in the same bull in which he excommunicated the Patriarch Michael Cerularius and thus inaugurated the schism between East and West, designated the Emperor and the people of Constantinople as "very Christian and orthodox", although their concept of the Roman primary was certainly far less different from that of Cerularius than from that, let us say, of the First Vatican Council. In other words, Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 198-199)

The Ravenna Document, which was issued on the ninetieth anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal (the conciliarists have tried mightily to deconstruct Our Lady's Fatima Message as they have turned her shrine in Fatima into a celebration of "false ecumenism; see In League with the Mayor of Ourem) and is another of those "unofficial" documents that have expressed perfectly the Modernist mind of the current false "pontiff," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, takes a view of papal primacy in the First Millennium that is at odds with the objective truth of the Catholic Church's history:

First of all, then, We cast an affectionate look upon the East, from whence in the beginning came forth the salvation of the world.  Yes, and the yearning desire of Our heart bids us conceive and hope that the day is not far distant when the Eastern Churches, so illustrious in their ancient faith and glorious past, will return to the fold they have abandoned.  We hope it all the more, that the distance separating them from Us is not so great: nay, with some few exceptions, we agree so entirely on other heads that, in defense of the Catholic Faith, we often have recourse to reasons and testimony borrowed from the teaching, the Rites, and Customs of the East.

The Principal subject of contention is the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff.  But let them look back to the early years of their existence, let them consider the sentiments entertained by their forefathers, and examine what the oldest Traditions testify, and it will, indeed, become evident to them that Christ's Divine Utterance, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, has undoubtedly been realized in the Roman Pontiffs.  Many of these latter in the first gates of the Church were chosen from the East, and foremost among them Anacletus, Evaristus, Anicetus, Eleutherius, Zosimus, and Agatho; and of these a great number, after Governing the Church in Wisdom and Sanctity, Consecrated their Ministry with the shedding of their blood.  The time, the reasons, the promoters of the unfortunate division, are well known.  Before the day when man separated what God had joined together, the name of the Apostolic See was held in Reverence by all the nations of the Christian world: and the East, like the West, agreed without hesitation in its obedience to the Pontiff of Rome, as the Legitimate Successor of St. Peter, and, therefore, the Vicar of Christ here on earth.

And, accordingly, if we refer to the beginning of the dissension, we shall see that Photius himself was careful to send his advocates to Rome on the matters that concerned him; and Pope Nicholas I sent his Legates to Constantinople from the Eternal City, without the slightest opposition, "in order to examine the case of Ignatius the Patriarch with all diligence, and to bring back to the Apostolic See a full and accurate report"; so that the history of the whole negotiation is a manifest Confirmation of the Primacy of the Roman See with which the dissension then began.  Finally, in two great Councils, the second of Lyons and that of Florence, Latins and Greeks, as is notorious, easily agreed, and all unanimously proclaimed as Dogma the Supreme Power of the Roman Pontiffs.

We have recalled those things intentionally, for they constitute an invitation to peace and reconciliation; and with all the more reason that in Our own days it would seem as if there were a more conciliatory spirit towards Catholics on the part of the Eastern Churches, and even some degree of kindly feeling.  To mention an instance, those sentiments were lately made manifest when some of Our faithful travelled to the East on a Holy Enterprise, and received so many proofs of courtesy and good-will.

Therefore, Our mouth is open to you, to you all of Greek or other Oriental Rites who are separated from the Catholic Church, We earnestly desire that each and every one of you should meditate upon the words, so full of gravity and love, addressed by Bessarion to your forefathers: "What answer shall we give to God when He comes to ask why we have separated from our Brethren: to Him Who, to unite us and bring us into One Fold, came down from Heaven, was Incarnate, and was Crucified?  What will our defense be in the  eyes of posterity?  Oh, my Venerable Fathers, we must not suffer this to be, we must not entertain this thought, we must not thus so ill provide for ourselves and for our Brethren."

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.

Nor is there any reason for you to fear on that account that We or any of Our Successors will ever diminish your rights, the privileges of your Patriarchs, or the established Ritual of any one of your Churches.  It has been and always will be the intent and Tradition of the Apostolic See, to make a large allowance, in all that is right and good, for the primitive Traditions and special customs of every nation.  On the contrary, if you re-establish Union with Us, you will see how, by God's bounty, the glory and dignity of your Churches will be remarkably increased.  May God, then, in His goodness, hear the Prayer that you yourselves address to Him: "Make the schisms of the Churches cease," and "Assemble those who are dispersed, bring back those who err, and unite them to Thy Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church."  May you thus return to that one Holy Faith which has been handed down both to Us and to you from time immemorial; which your forefathers preserved untainted, and which was enhanced by the rival splendor of the Virtues, the great genius, and the sublime learning of St. Athanasius and St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzum and St. John Chrysostom, the two Saints who bore the name of Cyril, and so many other great men whose glory belongs as a common inheritance to the East and to the West. (Pope Leo XIII, Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 20, 1894. See also the excellent discussion of the the history of what led up to the Greek Schism that is contained in Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki's Tumultuous Times.)

December 16:  Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI authorized a "novel" Nativity scene to be displayed in the Piazza di San Pietro:

LONDON: The traditional nativity scene built each Christmas in front of St Peter’s Basilica has shown Jesus being born in a stable in Bethlehem for 25 years. But, this year, the Vatican will do away with the manger.

The Vatican has decided to abandon the traditional stable and the straw-ladden setting, shifting it to Nazareth, and placing Jesus in his father Joseph’s carpentry shop in a bid to reflect the more straightforward scenario as described by St Matthew.

"It’s time for a change and a return to St Matthew’s gospel," Daily Telegraph quoted a spokesman of the State Department of the Vatican, which organises and builds the giant presepe, or the nativity scene, as saying.

"In fact, in place of the sheep and hay, there will be a model of three rooms. Jesus will lie in Joseph’s shop, complete with the typical work tools of a carpenter...On one side, the shop will be flanked with a covered patio, on the other there’ll be the inside of a pub, with its hearth." The new setting was inspired by two verses in St Matthew’s gospel, Chapter 1:24 and 1:25, the Vatican said, which state: "When Joseph woke up, he did as the Angel of God ordered and took Mary into his house. Without them knowing each other, a child was born and he called his name Jesus."

But, a decision has been made to place the nativity scene in Nazareth regardless, the spokesperson said. The traditional depiction of Jesus in a manger comes from St Luke’s gospel, which said there was no room at the inn”. But it is Matthew’s gospel which forms the basis for the Angelus prayer, and the view of Jesus in a carpenter’s workshop matches the Franciscan tradition. The nativity scene at St Peter’s for Christmas was started by Pope John Paul II in 1982. (No more traditional nativity scene in Vatican.)

Remember what Pope Saint Pius X wrote in Pascendi Dominic Gregis (September 8, 1907)? Here it is once again?

It remains for Us now to say a few words about the Modernist as reformer. From all that has preceded, it is abundantly clear how great and how eager is the passion of such men for innovation. In all Catholicism there is absolutely nothing on which it does not fasten.

2008

February 7: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict unleashes a firestorm with his revised "Prayer for the Jews" to be used in the modernized version of the "extraordinary form of the Roman Rite" (the missal promulgated by Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII in 1961 and then amended in 1962 with the insertion of the name of Saint Joseph into the Canon of the Mass) as he angers a few (emphasis on a "few") traditionally-minded Catholics attached to the conciliar structures and finds himself facing a torrent of criticism from some adherents of the Talmud. Ratzinger/Benedict had promised in July of 2007, shortly after the issuance of Summorum Pontificum, to revise the Prayer for the Jews in the "1962 Missal" in response to pressure he had received from those who he says pray to the "same Lord" as Christians.

Ratzinger/Benedict's apologists tried to assure their readers that there was nothing wrong with the revised "prayer." Father Peter Scott of the Society of Saint Pius dissented from that view:

This prayer consequently favors ecumenism, and is not acceptable to traditional Catholics, nor will it be used. Traditional Catholics will not accept that the traditional Missal be tampered with, and that Benedict XVI succeed in his plan of bringing about an influence of the "ordinary" form, changing the "extraordinary form" of the Roman rite, as he calls it. Just as traditional priests retain the words "faithless" and "infidelity" that John XXIII tried to remove, so likewise will they retain the traditional prayer for the conversion of the Jews. (Once again, not surprisingly, the original "hot link" to this text has been disabled by the "memory hole" minders in the world of the Society of Saint Pius X.)

Ratzinger/Benedict's apologists also tried to contend--and with a perfectly straight face--that the following letter from Walter "Cardinal" Kasper to Rabbi David Rosen did not represent the mind of Ratzinger/Benedict himself:

In reformulating the prayer of the now extraordinary liturgy, the Pope wanted to avoid formulations which were perceived by many Jews to be offensive, but he wanted at the same time to remain in line with the intrinsic linguistic and stylistic structure of this liturgy and therefore not simply replace the prayer for the prayer in the ordinary liturgy, which we must not forget is used by the vast majority of Catholic communities.

The reformulated text no longer speaks about the conversion of the Jews as some Jewish critics wrongly affirm. The text is a prayer inspired by Saint Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 11, which is the very text that speaks also of the unbroken covenant. It takes up Paul's eschatological hope that in the end of time all Israel will be saved. As a prayer the text lays all in the hands of God and not in ours. It says nothing about the how and when. Therefore there is nothing about missionary activities by which we may take Israel's salvation in our hands. ("Cardinal" Kasper's Letter to Rabbi Rosen)

Even though claims were made that this letter did not represent the "mind" of the false "pontiff," Kasper was permitted to write an article in a German newspaper that was reprinted in L'Osservatore Romano, the semi-official newspaper of the Vatican, in which he wrote almost exactly what he had written above to the "papal" "knight," David Rosen:

The very fact that the prayer for Good Friday in the Missal of 1970 – and therefore in the ordinary form of the Roman rite, used in the vast majority of cases – remains fully in effect, demonstrates that the reformulated prayer for Good Friday, used by only an extremely small part of the community, cannot signify a step backward with respect to the declaration "Nostra Aetate" of Vatican Council II.

This is all the more true by virtue of the fact that the substance of the declaration "Nostra Aetate" is also contained in a document belonging to a higher formal level, the constitution on the Church "Lumen Gentium" (no. 16), and for this reason, in principle, it cannot be brought into question.

Furthermore, since the council there have been a great number of direct pontifical statements, including some by the current pope, referring to "Nostra Aetate" and confirming the importance of this declaration.

Unlike the 1970 text, the new formulation of the 1962 text speaks of Jesus as the Christ and as the salvation of all men, and therefore also of the Jews.

Many have understood this affirmation as new and unfriendly toward the Jews. But this is founded on the New Testament as a whole (cf. 1 Timothy 2:4), and indicates the fundamental difference, known everywhere, that endures for both the Christians and the Jews. Even if it is not explicitly mentioned in "Nostra Aetate," nor in the prayer of 1970 , "Nostra Aetate" cannot be removed from the context of all the cannot be removed from the context of all the other conciliar documents, nor can the Good Friday prayer of the Missal of 1970 be removed from the entirety of the liturgy of Good Friday that has as its object that conviction of the Christian faith.

The new formulation of the prayer for Good Friday in the Missal of 1962, therefore, does not really say anything new, but only expresses what until now was taken as obvious, but which evidently, in many dialogues, was not sufficiently explained (2).

In the past, faith in Christ, which distinguishes Christians from Jews, has often been transformed into a "language of disdain" (Jules Isaac), with all of the serious consequences that derive from this. If today we are striving for reciprocal respect, this can be founded only on the fact that we reciprocally recognize our diversity. For this reason, we do not expect that the Jews should agree on the Chistological content of the prayer for Good Friday, but that they should respect the fact that we pray as Christians according to our faith, as naturally we do also in regard to their way of praying. In this perspective, both sides still have something to learn.

The real controversial question is: should Christians pray for the conversion of the Jews? Can there be a mission to the Jews?

The word conversion is not found in the reformulated prayer. But it is indirectly included in the invocation to enlighten the Jews, so that they may recognize Jesus Christ.

Moreover, there is the fact that the Missal of 1962 gives titles for each of the individual prayers. The title of the prayer to the Jews has not been modified; it sounds like it did before: "Pro conversione Judæorum," for the conversion of the Jews. Many Jews have read the new formulation in the perspective of this title, and this has raised the reaction already described.

In response to this, it can be noted that the Catholic Church, unlike some "evangelical" groups, does not have an organized, institutionalized mission to the Jews. With this reminder, however, the problem of the mission to the Jews has not, in fact, been clarified theologically yet. This is precisely the merit of the new formulation of the prayer for Good Friday, which, in its second part, presents an initial indication for a substantial theological response.

We pick up again from Chapter 11 of the letter to the Romans, which is fundamental also for "Nostra Aetate" (3).

The salvation of the Jews is, for Paul, a profound mystery of election through divine grace (9:14-29). God gives without regret, and the promises that God makes to his people, in spite of their disobedience, have not been revoked (9:6; 11:1.29). The hardening of Israel's heart produces salvation for the pagans. The wild branches of the pagans have been grafted onto the holy root of Israel (11:16ff.). But God has the power to graft on again the branches that were cut off (11:23). When the fullness of the pagans have found salvation, then all Israel will be saved (11:25ff.). Israel therefore remains the bearer of the promise and of the blessing. ("Oremus pro conversione Judæorum." Cardinal Kasper Takes The Field .)

It was also the case that "Archbishop" Gianfranco Ravasi and Rabbi Jacob Neusner wrote very much the same way without a word of rebuke from Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:

We repeat: this is the Christian vision, and it is the hope of the Church that prays. It is not a programmatic proposal of theoretical adherence, nor is it a missionary strategy of conversion. It is the attitude characteristic of the prayerful invocation according to which one hopes also for the persons considered near to oneself, those dear and important, a reality that one maintains is precious and salvific. An important exponent of French culture in the 20th century, Julien Green, wrote that "it is always beautiful and legitimate to wish for the other what is for you a good or a joy: if you think you are offering a true gift, do not hold back your hand." Of course, this must always take place in respect for freedom and for the different paths that the other adopts. But it is an expression of affection to wish for your brother what you consider a horizon of light and life. ("Archbishop" Gianfranco Ravasi, A Bishop and a Rabbi Defend the Prayer for the Salvation of the Jews.)

Why is all of this wrong?

Consult Pope Saint Pius X, please consult (yes, yet again--repetition is the mother of learning, you know) Pope Saint Pius X's direct contradiction of most this apostasy in the audience he gave to the founder of international Zionism, Theodore Herzl, on January 25, 1904:

POPE: We are unable to favor this movement [of Zionism]. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem—but we could never sanction it. The ground of Jerusalem, if it were not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot answer you otherwise. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people.

HERZL: [The conflict between Rome and Jerusalem, represented by the one and the other of us, was once again under way. At the outset I tried to be conciliatory. I said my little piece. . . . It didn’t greatly impress him. Jerusalem was not to be placed in Jewish hands.] And its present status, Holy Father?

POPE: I know, it is disagreeable to see the Turks in possession of our Holy Places. We simply have to put up with it. But to sanction the Jewish wish to occupy these sites, that we cannot do.

HERZL: [I said that we based our movement solely on the sufferings of the Jews, and wished to put aside all religious issues].

POPE: Yes, but we, but I as the head of the Catholic Church, cannot do this. One of two things will likely happen. Either the Jews will retain their ancient faith and continue to await the Messiah whom we believe has already appeared—in which case they are denying the divinity of Jesus and we cannot assist them. Or else they will go there with no religion whatever, and then we can have nothing at all to do with them. The Jewish faith was the foundation of our own, but it has been superceded by the teachings of Christ, and we cannot admit that it still enjoys any validity. The Jews who should have been the first to acknowledge Jesus Christ have not done so to this day.

HERZL: [It was on the tip of my tongue to remark, “It happens in every family: no one believes in his own relative.” But, instead, I said:] Terror and persecution were not precisely the best means for converting the Jews. [His reply had an element of grandeur in its simplicity:]

POPE: Our Lord came without power. He came in peace. He persecuted no one. He was abandoned even by his apostles. It was only later that he attained stature. It took three centuries for the Church to evolve. The Jews therefore had plenty of time in which to accept his divinity without duress or pressure. But they chose not to do so, and they have not done it yet.

HERZL: But, Holy Father, the Jews are in a terrible plight. I do not know if Your Holiness is aware of the full extent of their tragedy. We need a land for these harried people.

POPE: Must it be Jerusalem?

HERZL: We are not asking for Jerusalem, but for Palestine—for only the secular land.

POPE: We cannot be in favor of it.

[Editor Lowenthal interjects here] Here unrelenting replacement theology is plainly upheld as the norm of the Roman Catholic Church. Further, this confession, along with the whole tone of the Pope in his meeting with Herzl, indicates the perpetuation of a doctrinal emphasis that has resulted in centuries of degrading behavior toward the Jews. However, this response has the “grandeur” of total avoidance of that which Herzl had intimated, namely that the abusive reputation of Roman Catholicism toward the Jews was unlikely to foster conversion. Further, if, “It took three centuries for the Church to evolve,” it was that very same period of time that it took for the Church to consolidate and launch its thrust of anti-Semitism through the following centuries.

HERZL: Does Your Holiness know the situation of the Jews?

POPE: Yes, from my days in Mantua, where there are Jews. I have always been in friendly relations with Jews. Only the other evening two Jews were here to see me. There are other bonds than those of religion: social intercourse, for example, and philanthropy. Such bonds we do not refuse to maintain with the Jews. Indeed we also pray for them, that their spirit see the light. This very day the Church is celebrating the feast of an unbeliever who became converted in a miraculous manner—on the road to Damascus. And so if you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we will be ready with churches and priests to baptize all of you. (Marvin Lowenthal, The Diaries of Theodore Herzl.)

April 15-20: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI visits the United States of America without ever once mentioning Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary. He personally esteemed the symbols of five false religions at the "John Paul II Cultural Center" in Washington, District of Columbia, Thursday, April 17, 2008, and praised the United Masonic Nations Organization on Friday, April 18, 2008. He also went into another Talmudic synagogue, where, of course, he refused to exhort anyone there to convert and as he listened patiently to a Talmudic hymn that denied the Messias had come once in time to redeem the entire human race (see No Room for Christ the King on the South Lawn, Latin and the Lector Babe, Asking Our Lady to Repair the Damage, No Room for Christ the King at the United Nations, Sorrow Beyond Description, No Room for Mary Immaculate Queen at Saint Patrick's Cathedral, No Room for Mary Immaculate Queen at Saint Joseph's Seminary, and All is Quicksand Without Our Lady.)

July 12-21, 2008: Ratzinger/Benedict travels to Australia for the hootenanny known as "World Youth Day." He praises "false ecumenism" and participates in a "liturgy" featuring mostly naked "aboriginal" dancers. (See Nothing About Which to be Shocked and Learning from the Devil Himself.)

October 29, 2008: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI praises Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII on the fiftieth anniversary of his "election." (See Atop the Kremlin Wall, which contains a compendium of 2008 articles about conciliarism.)

2009

January 21: An interview with Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of Saint Pius X that was recorded in Regensburg, Germany, on November 2, 2008, airs on Swedish television. The most explosive part of the interview was Bishop Williamson's assertion that the number of Jews who were killed by the agents of the Third Reich of Nazi Germany was far less than the figure of six million accepted by "mainstream" historians and that none died in gas chambers. This sets off a firestorm that has only recently resulted in Bishop Williamson's conviction in absentia in a German court for having "denied the holocaust," causing Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI  and his conciliar "bishops" to rend their garments and pay their due obeisance to those deny the one and only holocaust, that which was offered by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to His Co-Equal and Co-Eternal Father in Spirit and in Truth on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday in atonement for our sins. Bishop Williamson was also disowned and denounced by the Superior-General of the Society of Saint Pius X, Bishop Bernard Fellay, who has been absolutely silent about the various apostasies and blasphemies and sacrileges committed by Ratzinger/Benedict since the issuance of Summorum Pontificum.

January 24: The conciliar Vatican announces the "lifting" of the "excommunications" imposed upon the four bishops who were consecrated by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on June 30, 1988, in Econe, Switzerland. The decree, which was signed on January 21, 2009, that formally "lifted" the "excommunications" did not mean that the bishops and priests of the Society of Saint Pius X could administer the sacraments licitly in the counterfeit church of conciliarism. The time of the announcement, coming three days after the airing of Bishop Williamson's interview on Swedish television, incites various members of Talmudic organizations, eager to exploit the crimes of the Third Reich of Nazi Germany to make various demands on the leaders of what they think is the Catholic Church, into accusing Ratzinger/Benedict of being "insensitive" to the plight of the Jews during World War II. (For a review of the inter-related issues of Bishop Williamson and the reintegration of the Society of Saint Pius X into the conciliar structures, please see: True Popes Never Need to Convert to the Faith, Negotiating To Become An Apostate, March to Oblivion, High Church, Low Church, Nothing to Negotiate, Those Who Deny The Holocaust, Recognize and Capitulate, A Little Bit "In," A Little Bit "Out", Disciples of Caiphas, Under The Bus, Nothing New Under the Conciliar Sun, Story Time in Econe, Shell Games With Souls, Pots and Kettles, One Sentence Says It All, Smashing Through the Conciliar Looking Glass, Winning at the Waiting Game, Yes, Sir, Master Scribe, No Crime Is Worse Than Deicide.)

February 4: Reeling from worldwide criticism, the conciliar Vatican's Secretariat of State issued a "clarification" of the "lifting" of the "excommunication of the bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X:

In the wake of reactions to the recent Decree of the Congregation for Bishops by which the excommunication of four prelates of the Society of Saint Pius X was remitted, and with regard to the negationist or reductionist statements made by Bishop Williamson concerning the Shoah, it seems opportune to clarify some aspects of the matter.

1. Remission of the Excommunication

As has already been publicly stated, the Decree of the Congregation for Bishops, dated 21 January 2009, was an act by which the Holy Father responded benevolently to repeated requests from the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X.

His Holiness desired to remove an impediment which was prejudicial to the opening of a door to dialogue. He now awaits a corresponding gesture from the four bishops expressing total adherence to the doctrine and discipline of the Church. The very grave penalty of latae sententiae excommunication, which these bishops incurred on 30 June 1988, and which was formally declared on 1 July 1988, was a consequence of their having been illegitimately ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

The remission of the excommunication has freed the four bishops from a very serious canonical penalty, but it has not changed the juridical status of the Society of Saint Pius X, which presently does not enjoy any canonical recognition by the Catholic Church. The four bishops, even though they have been released from excommunication, have no canonical function in the Church and do not licitly exercise any ministry within it.

2. Tradition, Doctrine and the Second Vatican Council

A full recognition of the Second Vatican Council and the Magisterium of Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI himself is an indispensable condition for any future recognition of the Society of Saint Pius X.

As already stated in the Decree of 21 January 2009, the Holy See will not fail, in ways judged opportune, to engage with the interested parties in examining outstanding questions, so as to attain a full and satisfactory resolution of the problems that caused this painful rupture.

3. Statements about the Shoah

The positions of Bishop Williamson with regard to the Shoah are absolutely unacceptable and firmly rejected by the Holy Father, as he himself remarked on 28 January 2009 when, with reference to the heinous genocide, he reiterated his full and unquestionable solidarity with our brothers and sisters who received the First Covenant, and he affirmed that the memory of that terrible genocide must lead "humanity to reflect upon the unfathomable power of evil when it conquers the heart of man", adding that the Shoah remains "a warning for all against forgetfulness, denial or reductionism, because violence committed against one single human being is violence against all".

In order to be admitted to function as a Bishop within the Church, Bishop Williamson must also distance himself in an absolutely unequivocal and public way from his positions regarding the Shoah, which were unknown to the Holy Father at the time of the remission of the excommunication.

The Holy Father asks for the prayerful support of all the faithful, so that the Lord will enlighten the Church’s path. May the commitment of the Pastors and all the faithful grow in support of the difficult and onerous mission of the Successor of Peter the Apostle, who "watches over the unity" of the Church. (Note from the Secretary of State concerning the four Prelates of the Society of Saint Pius X (February 4, 2009)

Apart from the fact that Bishop Williamson's support of revisionist historical scholarship concerning the events of World War II was just as well known to "Cardinal" Ratzinger as was the reassignment of Father Peter Hullermann to parish work in the Archdiocese of Munich of Freising (see Fall Guys Aren't Usually Stand-Up Guys), it is interesting to note that the irreducible "minimum," to borrow a phrase from a former colleague of mine, for "inclusion" as a member of the One World Ecumenical Church of conciliarism is to accept without question the claims made about the events of World War II by those who have a vested interest in exploiting those claims to make sure that what they think is the Catholic Church will continue to distance itself from its "criminal past" of seeking to convert Jews and to teach that the Old Covenant was superseded by the New and Eternal Covenant instituted by Our Lord Himself at the Last Supper and ratified by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.

March 10: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI issues a Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre. This letter was discussed at length in Nothing New Under the Conciliar Sun. One salient feature of this March 10, 2009, letter was Ratzinger/Benedict's explicit expression of his desire to "break down" the "one-sidedness" of the Society of Saint Pius X in order to effect within its ranks the same sort of "transformation" or "pacification" that he noted with satisfaction and contentment had occurred in the other traditionally-minded communities (Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, Institute of the Good Shepherd, the Transalpine Redemptorists, etc.). How any layman attached to the Society of Saint Pius X cannot recognize that this is the real goal of the false "pontiff's" desire to effect "reconciliation" with the Society is beyond comprehension. Ratzinger/Benedict has stated this very, very explicitly: 

Leading men and women to God, to the God Who speaks in the Bible: this is the supreme and fundamental priority of the Church and of the Successor of Peter at the present time. A logical consequence of this is that we must have at heart the unity of all believers. Their disunity, their disagreement among themselves, calls into question the credibility of their talk of God. Hence the effort to promote a common witness by Christians to their faith - ecumenism - is part of the supreme priority. Added to this is the need for all those who believe in God to join in seeking peace, to attempt to draw closer to one another, and to journey together, even with their differing images of God, towards the source of Light - this is inter-religious dialogue. Whoever proclaims that God is Love 'to the end' has to bear witness to love: in loving devotion to the suffering, in the rejection of hatred and enmity - this is the social dimension of the Christian faith, of which I spoke in the Encyclical 'Deus caritas est'.

So if the arduous task of working for faith, hope and love in the world is presently (and, in various ways, always) the Church's real priority, then part of this is also made up of acts of reconciliation, small and not so small. That the quiet gesture of extending a hand gave rise to a huge uproar, and thus became exactly the opposite of a gesture of reconciliation, is a fact which we must accept. But I ask now: Was it, and is it, truly wrong in this case to meet half-way the brother who 'has something against you' and to seek reconciliation? Should not civil society also try to forestall forms of extremism and to incorporate their eventual adherents - to the extent possible - in the great currents shaping social life, and thus avoid their being segregated, with all its consequences? Can it be completely mistaken to work to break down obstinacy and narrowness, and to make space for what is positive and retrievable for the whole? I myself saw, in the years after 1988, how the return of communities which had been separated from Rome changed their interior attitudes; I saw how returning to the bigger and broader Church enabled them to move beyond one-sided positions and broke down rigidity so that positive energies could emerge for the whole. Can we be totally indifferent about a community which has 491 priests, 215 seminarians, 6 seminaries, 88 schools, 2 university-level institutes, 117 religious brothers, 164 religious sisters and thousands of lay faithful? Should we casually let them drift farther from the Church? I think for example of the 491 priests. We cannot know how mixed their motives may be. All the same, I do not think that they would have chosen the priesthood if, alongside various distorted and unhealthy elements, they did not have a love for Christ and a desire to proclaim Him and, with Him, the living God. Can we simply exclude them, as representatives of a radical fringe, from our pursuit of reconciliation and unity? What would then become of them?

Certainly, for some time now, and once again on this specific occasion, we have heard from some representatives of that community many unpleasant things - arrogance and presumptuousness, an obsession with one-sided positions, etc. Yet to tell the truth, I must add that I have also received a number of touching testimonials of gratitude which clearly showed an openness of heart. But should not the great Church also allow herself to be generous in the knowledge of her great breadth, in the knowledge of the promise made to her? Should not we, as good educators, also be capable of overlooking various faults and making every effort to open up broader vistas? And should we not admit that some unpleasant things have also emerged in Church circles? At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them - in this case the Pope - he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint. Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre (March 10, 2009)

The "broader vistas" to which Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict was referring are none other than full acceptance of "false ecumenism," "inter-religious dialogue," "inter-religious prayer" services, episcopal collegiality, "religious liberty," "separation of Church and State, "the hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity," "the new ecclesiology," and, of course, the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service. One report from a few years ago indicated that Ratzinger/Benedict personally told a leader of the Society of Saint Pius X that he wanted the "new theologians" (himself, Karl Rahner, Henri de Lubac, Maurice Blondel, Hans Urs von Balthasar) taught in the Society's seminaries. "Broader vistas"? You decide.

April 11: "Archbishop" Robert Zollitsch, the conciliar "archbishop" of Freiburg and Breisgau and the president of the conciliar German "Bishops'" Conference, denies in an interview that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that died on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday in atonement for our sins. He has gone without any word of public rebuke or censure from Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict in the ensuing three hundred seventy-seven days, making new headlines worldwide as a result of the statements he has made in response to the clerical scandals in the Federal Republic of Germany.

April 30: L'Osservatore Romano, the semi-official newspaper of the Vatican, publishes an editorial claiming that the first one hundred days of the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama were not as "radical" as had been feared. This was the first of a series of articles during 2009, none of which has been criticized by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, praising the likes of Karl Marx, Michael Jackson, John Lennon, The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Oscar Wilde, John Calvin, Martin Luther, the fictional Harry Potter, and Charles Darwin. (See Urbanely Accepting Evil, Yesterday’s Evils, L'Osservatore Del Naturalista, L'Osservatore Marxista, L'Osservatore Occulto, L'Osservatore del Calvinista, Still Urbanely Accepting Evil, L'Osservatore Benedetto, L'Osservatore Di Tutte Le Cose Grezze, Big Pharm Trumps the Holy Cross and L'Osservatore Romano Di Infirmita Mentale.)

May 8-15: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI visits Jordan and Israel, making the following incredible statements while there:

Places of worship, like this splendid Al-Hussein Bin Talal mosque named after the revered late King, stand out like jewels across the earth’s surface. From the ancient to the modern, the magnificent to the humble, they all point to the divine, to the Transcendent One, to the Almighty. And through the centuries these sanctuaries have drawn men and women into their sacred space to pause, to pray, to acknowledge the presence of the Almighty, and to recognize that we are all his creatures. (Speech to Muslim religious leaders, members of the Diplomatic Corps and Rectors of universities in Jordan in front of the mosque al-Hussein bin Talal in Amman)

I cordially thank the Grand Mufti, Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, together with the Director of the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, Sheikh Mohammed Azzam al-Khatib al-Tamimi, and the Head of the Awquaf Council, Sheikh Abdel Azim Salhab, for the welcome they have extended to me on your behalf. I am deeply grateful for the invitation to visit this sacred place, and I willingly pay my respects to you and the leaders of the Islamic community in Jerusalem. (Courtesy visit to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem at the Mount of the Temple, since when is a place of false worship "sacred" to the true God of Divine Revelation?)

God of all the ages, on my visit to Jerusalem, the “City of Peace”, spiritual home to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, I bring before you the joys, the hopes and the aspirations, the trials, the suffering and the pain of all your people throughout the world. 

God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, hear the cry of the afflicted, the fearful, the bereft; send your peace upon this Holy Land, upon the Middle East, upon the entire human family; stir the hearts of all who call upon your name, to walk humbly in the path of justice and compassion.

“The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him” (Lam 3:25)! (Prayer at the Western Wall, May 12, 2009; one will note, of course, that there is not one reference to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.)

An indication of the potential of this series of meetings is readily seen in our shared concern in the face of moral relativism and the offences it spawns against the dignity of the human person. In approaching the most urgent ethical questions of our day, our two communities are challenged to engage people of good will at the level of reason, while simultaneously pointing to the religious foundations which best sustain lasting moral values. May the dialogue that has begun continue to generate ideas on how Christians and Jews can work together to heighten society’s appreciation of the distinctive contribution of our religious and ethical traditions. Here in Israel, given that Christians constitute only a small portion of the total population, they particularly value opportunities for dialogue with their Jewish neighbors.

Trust is undeniably an essential element of effective dialogue. Today I have the opportunity to repeat that the Catholic Church is irrevocably committed to the path chosen at the Second Vatican Council for a genuine and lasting reconciliation between Christians and Jews. As the Declaration Nostra Aetate makes clear, the Church continues to value the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews and desires an ever deeper mutual understanding and respect through biblical and theological studies as well as fraternal dialogues. May the seven Bilateral Commission meetings which have already taken place between the Holy See and the Chief Rabbinate stand as evidence! I am thus grateful for your reciprocal assurance that the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Chief Rabbinate will continue to grow in respect and understanding in the future. (Courtesy visit to the two Chief Rabbis of Jerusalem at Hechal Shlomo Center in Jerusalem, May 12, 2009; for an elaboration on this topic, please see Respect Those Who Break the First Commandment? Respect Those Who Break the Fifth Commandment and Saint Peter and Anti-Peter.)

Wanna quick antidote to this apostasy? Back to Pope Leo XIII's Custodi Di Quella Fede once again:

Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God. (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)

 May 17: Barack Hussein Obama is granted an honorary doctorate from the University of Notre Dame du Lac, Notre Dame, Indiana, after which he delivers the commencement address to that year's graduates of my own master's alma mater. The award granted to the pro-abortion Obama generates a storm of protest. Eighty-eight people on the grounds of Our Lady's university were arrested on the orders of the university's president,. "Father" John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. Father Jenkins has refused to show any leniency to the "Notre Dame 88." Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has yet to intervene through his "apostolic nuncio," "Archbishop" Pietro Sambi, to do urge Jenkins to do so. (Our Lady Does Not Honor Pro-Aborts, No "Common Ground" Between Truth and Error and Persecuting Those Who Defended Our Lady's Honor.)

June 5: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict endorses the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Benedict backs U.N. push to protect children). The "convention" is a thorough assault on the rights of parents and of the due subordination of children to them:

While all of these legal problems are caused by the nature of both our federal and state laws, a new threat to the family has loomed on the international horizon which, if not approached properly by the U.S. Government, may render fruitless any efforts to correct our laws--and may have the effect of extending the threat to families throughout the world. This is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was motivated by the thinking of, and drafted by, Western and Western-oriented "child-savers" and has now been widely ratified by nations around the world, some with reservations, although the U.S. Senate has not yet done so. A detailed discussion of the Convention is not possible here. We will merely quote from a letter the Society of Catholic Social Scientists sent to all the members of the Senate, urging a vote not to ratify. The letter was primarily drafted by political scientist and journalist Dr. Thomas A. Droleskey and contributed to by this writer (Dr. Stephen M. Krason, the President of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists):

It is clear that the Convention on the Rights of the Child seeks to subject parents to close bureaucratic supervision. Parents who do not educate or raise their children according to the dictates of the prevailing cultural trends will be subject to all kinds of civil and criminal penalties, if not the seizure of their children. This is a form of ideological totalitarianism.

Article 12 of the Convention states that children have the "right" to express their own views freely in all matters. All matters? Child-rearing? Discipline? The fact there are some self-appointed child advocates, such as Hillary Clinton, who believe that children as young as seven years of age can assert legal rights indicates that it would be possible under the Convention for grammar school students to sue their parents in order to express their views. This is absurd. Children are children. They need to learn about life. They need to respect their parents. They need to understand the virtues of humility and obedience, of submission to lawful authority. Also, of course, they will not be able to sue or otherwise oppose their parents on their own. The state will do it for them, with "child advocates" supplanting parents and deciding what is best for children.

Article 13 asserts that children have the right to receive all kinds of information through the "media of the child's choice." Parents concerned about protecting the purity and innocence of their children would be legally barred from censoring the television watched in the home, the movies their children choose to watch, and the books they choose to read. And those parents who do not have a television in their homes might be forced to secure one in order to respect their children's "right" to receive information. Is it overkill to point out that child pornography laws would be invalidated by this article of the Convention? Article 17 extends this "right" to national and international sources in the media.

Article 14 discusses the right of each child to freedom of religion. This appears, at first glance, to be praiseworthy. The article, however, contains an implicit threat to the rights of parents to raise their children. Can a child who does not want to receive religious education sue his parents for abuse because the parents refuse to honor the child's wishes? Can parents who tell their children to engage in family prayers be judged guilty of not respecting a child's freedom from religion? This is an attempt on the part of the secularists to free children from the influence of parents who desire to pass along transcendent truths to their children.

Article 16 immunizes children from any degree of parental censorship insofar as correspondence is concerned. While confidentiality is an important part of correspondence, parents nevertheless have to monitor the activities of their children, particularly those in the adolescent years. Can one seriously suggest that a parent has no right to determine if his child is being solicited by a pornographer or child molester? Does a parent have no right to determine if his child is receiving contraband drugs through the mail? This is absurd.

Article 18 seems likely to encourage the displacement of parents in raising their children by the state as it calls for the expansion in the state role in providing facilities to care for children.

Article 19 provides the basis for the establishment of dangerous, coercive state structures to track and pressure parents who violate the Convention’s notion of their children's "rights." In fact, Article 43 establishes perhaps the ultimate in distant, arrogant bureaucratic structures--an international committee of ten "experts" to oversee the progress of the Convention’s implementation. In other words, ten individuals will dictate to the hundreds of millions of parents in the world how to raise their children.

It appears as though Article 30, which guarantees a child the right to use his own language, might sanction the use of profanity. A parent would be powerless to tell his child to speak clearly and nobly, never using any vile language. And Article 31, giving children the "right to rest and leisure," would make it difficult for parents to command their children to do anything. All a child would have to do to avoid chores or assignments is to say that he is entitled to rest and leisure.  (http://www.catholicsocialscientists.org/Content/Organization/PDFs/chap9Krason.pdf; see also Kindred Spirit of the New World Order) 

June 29 Ratzinger/Benedict issues Caritatis in Veritate, an "encyclical letter" in which he endorsed openly the concept of a "world political authority," one that would, of course, respect the principles of subsidiarity and national sovereignty, once again demonstrating that his fundamental rejection of Scholasticism has enveloped him in a world of such contradiction and paradox that he can't even see how his own ideas contradict each other in full violation of the principle of non-contradiction:

In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. This seems necessary in order to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago. Such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good, and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth. Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for right. Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums. Without this, despite the great progress accomplished in various sectors, international law would risk being conditioned by the balance of power among the strongest nations. The integral development of peoples and international cooperation require the establishment of a greater degree of international ordering, marked by subsidiarity, for the management of globalization. They also require the construction of a social order that at last conforms to the moral order, to the interconnection between moral and social spheres, and to the link between politics and the economic and civil spheres, as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations. (Caritas in veritate, June 29, 2009; see also Give Me Two Bayers, Please and Two More Bayers, Please.)

 July 10: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI met in the Apostolic Palace with Barack Hussein Obama:

Pope Benedict XVI welcomed American President Barack Obama to the Vatican today, and the two discussed world issues addressed at the Group of Eight summit.

As they met, Mr Obama told the Pope: "It's a great honor; thank you so much."

The two sat down at a desk in the papal library and began discussing the G8 summit which concluded that morning in L'Aquila, Italy. The summit focused on the economic crisis, climate change and global tensions.

Pope Benedict told the president: "You must be tired after all these discussions."

The president replied that the meetings marked "great progress" and "something concrete". The private meeting lasted more than 30 minutes.

At the end of the meeting, Pope Benedict told the president: "A blessing on all your work and also for you." (Benedict XVI meets Obama - Catholic Herald Online; also see A "Blessing" on a Murderer and His Work.)

July 24: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI expresses his admiration once again for at least part of the work of the late Jesuit evolutionist, Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. (see Revealing His Inner Teilhard Yet Again).

August 25: United States Senator Edward Moore Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, dies at the age of seventy-seven. He was permitted to die as a "Catholic" in "good standing" in the counterfeit church of conciliarism despite his open, unrepentant support for the chemical and and surgical slaughter of innocent preborn babies and of perversity, among other evils. The same Sean "Cardinal" O'Malley who had vigorously condemned Bishop Richard Williamson, blaspheming God in the process by saying that the "holocaust" was the greatest crime in human history, concelebrated Kennedy's Novus Ordo "Mass of Christian Burial." Ratzinger/Benedict does nothing to stop this travesty. (See Another Victim of Americanism; Behold The Free Rein Given to Error; Behold The Free Rein Given to Error; Unfortunate Enough to Be A Baby; Unfortunate Enough to Be A Baby; Beacon of Social Justice?; Spotlight On The Ordinary; What's Good For Teddy Is Good For Benny; Sean O'Malley: Coward and Hypocrite: More Rationalizations and Distortions.)

October 9: Speaking in behalf of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, "papal" spokesflack "Father" Federico Lombardi, S.J., expressed "high hopes" upon learning that the pro-abortion Barack Hussein Obama had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- News that U.S. President Barack Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was met with high hopes from the Vatican spokesman.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi told journalists Oct. 9 that the news "was greeted with appreciation at the Vatican in light of the president's demonstrated commitment to promoting peace on an international level and, in particular, in recently promoting nuclear disarmament."

"It is hoped that this very important recognition would offer greater encouragement for such a difficult but fundamental dedication to the future of humanity so that it may bring about the desired results," he said in a written statement.

The new U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, Miguel Diaz, told Vatican Radio that the president was being recognized for his efforts in working to build understanding between people and eliminate nuclear weapons from all parts of the world.

Winning the Nobel Peace Prize is a great encouragement to keep working toward building a better world, said Diaz.

He said that when he presented his credentials as the new U.S. ambassador Oct. 2, Pope Benedict XVI "made clear to me how grateful he was" that Obama was especially committed to ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

Bishops attending the Synod of Bishops for Africa also reacted to the selection of Obama.

Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta said it "clearly was an unexpected honor to come to the president" and he hopes that "it leaves an invitation for greatness."

"I hope in receiving the award, the president realizes and responds to the great challenge that has been placed before him," he told Catholic News Service Oct. 9.

"The world has sent a signal, at least insofar as the Nobel Prize is concerned, that it has high expectations for him and hopes he will live up to the energy and the positive things that he has thus far set on the world stage," said Archbishop Gregory.

Another synod participant, Archbishop Charles G. Palmer-Buckle of Accra, Ghana, was ecstatic and "overwhelmed that (Obama) won the Nobel Peace Prize," he told journalists Oct. 9.

"I would like the world to look at it as an encouragement, a motivation" to recognize the talents and potential of Africans and people of African descent, he said.

"Blacks are as talented as anyone else ... and I think the world is now coming face to face with the fact that if we are appreciated, we can give still more," said Archbishop Palmer-Buckle.

The archbishop told CNS that Obama "definitely deserves" the prize and that the U.S. leader is an inspiration.

He recalled Obama's visit to Ghana in July and how much he was moved by the president's encouragement for people to take destiny into their own hands.

"He told the youths, don't look to Europe, don't look to America for solutions to your problems. You can, yes, you can. And I think we've taken it up ... and we are going to do it," he said.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the U.S. president was chosen "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," it said Oct. 9.

Speaking at the White House later the same day, Obama said he was "surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel committee."

"Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations," he said. (Nobel Peace Prize to Obama greeted with praise, high hopes at Vatican; see also Figures of Antichrist Applauding Each Other.) 

October 20: The conciliar Vatican announces that a "constitution" would be issued concerning the "reception" of Anglicans into the structures of its own counterfeit church. The actual constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus, issued on November 4, 2009, permits such "Anglo-Catholics" to retain liturgical rites that were deemed to be heretical by Pope Saint Pius V in Regnans in Excelsis, March 5, 1570. (See Defaming The English Martyrs and Still Defaming The English Martyrs.)

2010

January 17: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI commits yet another act of apostasy by entering into the Talmudic synagogue in Rome, Italy, saying that "Christians and Jews" pray to the same Lord, a blasphemy that has been condemned repeatedly by Holy Mother Church, including by Saint John Chrysostom:

(2) But at any rate the Jews say that they, too, adore God. God forbid that I say that. No Jew adores God! Who says so? The Son of God says so. For he said: "If you were to know my Father, you would also know me. But you neither know me nor do you know my Father". Could I produce a witness more trustworthy than the Son of God?

(3) If, then, the Jews fail to know the Father, if they crucified the Son, if they thrust off the help of the Spirit, who should not make bold to declare plainly that the synagogue is a dwelling of demons? God is not worshipped there. Heaven forbid! From now on it remains a place of idolatry. But still some people pay it honor as a holy place. (Saint John Chrysostom: Eight Homilies Against the Jews; see also Saint Peter and Anti-Peter.)

January 20: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI praised the 1910 "World Missionary Conference" that took place in Edinburgh, Scotland, that began the modern "ecumenical" movement that was condemned by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928. (Getting Bolder In His Apostasy.)

March 14: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI enters a Lutheran "church" in Rome, listening to the "sermon" given by the Lutheran minister, saying when it was his turn to speak that "I think we should first be thankful that there is so much unity. It's nice that we can pray together today, sing the same hymns together, hear the same word of God together, that we can interpret and try to understand it together." Unity? Yes, he is one with his fellow Lutherans on many points. (See Unity Among Lutherans; a video of this appearance can be viewed by clicking on ROME REPORTS TV News Agency - The Catholic and Lutheran.)

May 11-14: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI traveled to Portugal. He set about his Modernist business immediately upon arriving at the airport in Lisbon as he praised "separation of Church and State" in Portugal:

From a wise vision of life and of the world, the just ordering of society follows. Situated within history, the Church is open to cooperating with anyone who does not marginalize or reduce to the private sphere the essential consideration of the human meaning of life. The point at issue is not an ethical confrontation between a secular and a religious system, so much as a question about the meaning that we give to our freedom. What matters is the value attributed to the problem of meaning and its implication in public life. By separating Church and State, the Republican revolution which took place 100 years ago in Portugal, opened up a new area of freedom for the Church, to which the two concordats of 1940 and 2004 would give shape, in cultural settings and ecclesial perspectives profoundly marked by rapid change. For the most part, the sufferings caused by these transformations have been faced with courage. Living amid a plurality of value systems and ethical outlooks requires a journey to the core of one’s being and to the nucleus of Christianity so as to reinforce the quality of one’s witness to the point of sanctity, and to find mission paths that lead even to the radical choice of martyrdom. (Official Reception at Lisbon Portela International Airport, Tuesday, May 11, 2010.) 

Ratzinger/Benedict thus mocked Pope Saint Pius X, who had condemned the very separation of Church and State in Portugal that Ratzinger had praised for working in a once Catholic land where it is now legal to kill babies and for those engaged in perverse acts against nature to "marry:"

2. Whilst the new rulers of Portugal were affording such numerous and awful examples of the abuse of power, you know with what patience and moderation this Apostolic See has acted towards them. We thought that We ought most carefully to avoid any action that could even have the appearance of hostility to the Republic. For We clung to the hope that its rulers would one day take saner counsels and would at length repair, by some new agreement, the injuries inflicted on the Church. In this, however, We have been altogether disappointed, for they have now crowned their evil work by the promulgation of a vicious and pernicious Decree for the Separation of Church and State. But now the duty imposed upon Us by our Apostolic charge will not allow Us to remain passive and silent when so serious a wound has been inflicted upon the rights and dignity of the Catholic religion. Therefore do We now address you, Venerable Brethren, in this letter and denounce to all Christendom the heinousness of this deed.

3. At the outset, the absurd and monstrous character of the decree of which We speak is plain from the fact that it proclaims and enacts that the Republic shall have no religion, as if men individually and any association or nation did not depend upon Him who is the Maker and Preserver of all things; and then from the fact that it liberates Portugal from the observance of the Catholic religion, that religion, We say, which has ever been that nation's greatest safeguard and glory, and has been professed almost unanimously by its people. So let us take it that it has been their pleasure to sever that close alliance between Church and State, confirmed though it was by the solemn faith of treaties. Once this divorce was effected, it would at least have been logical to pay no further attention to the Church, and to leave her the enjoyment of the common liberty and rights which belong to every citizen and every respectable community of peoples. Quite otherwise, however, have things fallen out. This decree bears indeed the name of Separation, but it enacts in reality the reduction of the Church to utter want by the spoliation of her property, and to servitude to the State by oppression in all that touches her sacred power  and spirit. (Pope Saint Pius X, Iamdudum, May 24, 1911.) 

Who's the Catholic in this picture? "Pope" Benedict XVI or Pope Saint Pius X? (See also Mocking Pope Saint Pius X and Our Lady of Fatima.)

Tell me if "Pope" Benedict XVI believes in the Social Reign of Christ the King and that the civil state has an obligation to recognize the Catholic Church as the true religion either in theory or in practice?

The false "pontiff" also disparaged the physical reality of Our Lady's apparitions in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, on May 13, 1917, June 13, 1917, July 13, 1917, August 19, 1917, September 13, 1917, and October 13, 1917: 

Brothers and sisters, in listening to these innocent and profound mystical confidences of the shepherd children, one might look at them with a touch of envy for what they were able to see, or with the disappointed resignation of someone who was not so fortunate, yet still demands to see. To such persons, the Pope says, as does Jesus: “Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?” (Mk 12:24). The Scriptures invite us to believe: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (Jn 20:29), but God, who is more deeply present to me than I am to myself (cf. Saint Augustine, Confessions, III, 6, 11) – has the power to come to us, particularly through our inner senses, so that the soul can receive the gentle touch of a reality which is beyond the senses and which enables us to reach what is not accessible or visible to the senses. For this to happen, we must cultivate an interior watchfulness of the heart which, for most of the time, we do not possess on account of the powerful pressure exerted by outside realities and the images and concerns which fill our soul (cf. Theological Commentary on The Message of Fatima, 2000). Yes! God can come to us, and show himself to the eyes of our heart.

Moreover, that Light deep within the shepherd children, which comes from the future of God, is the same Light which was manifested in the fullness of time and came for us all: the Son of God made man. (Homily at the Purported Mass on the Esplanade of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima.)

 

Permit me to provide you with a reprise of the commentary that I offered at the time so that this current article can be bookmarked as a reference source for future reference without having to search through various past articles that have appeared on this site:

It is very significant that the false "pontiff" cited his own Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message from ten years ago as he is conveying, albeit in the obscurantist manner of a Modernism, that the Faith is purely a matter of the senses (no room for the intellect here) and that the three shepherd children had a "Light deep within them" that caused them to "see" Our Lady interiorly, meaning, of course, that she was not truly physically visible to the eyes of their bodies. And that is leaving aside the phrase "the future of God" as no true pope has ever spoken in such a absurd manner. A Catholic can speak about the future possession of the glory of the Beatific Vision of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. One possessed of a Catholic mind does speak of the "future of God" as He is without beginning or end.

How does the Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message connect with Ratzinger/Benedict's words yesterday to justify a conclusion that he does not believe that Our Lady really appeared physically before the eyes of Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos? Consider this passage from that Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message:

In this field, theological anthropology distinguishes three forms of perception or “vision” with the senses, and hence exterior bodily perception, interior perception, and spiritual vision (visio sensibilis - imaginativa - intellectualis). It is clear that in the visions of Lourdes, Fatima and other places it is not a question of normal exterior perception of the senses: the images and forms which are seen are not located spatially, as is the case for example with a tree or a house. This is perfectly obvious, for instance, as regards the vision of hell (described in the first part of the Fatima “secret”) or even the vision described in the third part of the “secret”. But the same can be very easily shown with regard to other visions, especially since not everybody present saw them, but only the “visionaries”. It is also clear that it is not a matter of a “vision” in the mind, without images, as occurs at the higher levels of mysticism. Therefore we are dealing with the middle category, interior perception. For the visionary, this perception certainly has the force of a presence, equivalent for that person to an external manifestation to the senses. 

Interior vision does not mean fantasy, which would be no more than an expression of the subjective imagination. It means rather that the soul is touched by something real, even if beyond the senses. It is rendered capable of seeing that which is beyond the senses, that which cannot be seen—seeing by means of the “interior senses”. It involves true “objects”, which touch the soul, even if these “objects” do not belong to our habitual sensory world. This is why there is a need for an interior vigilance of the heart, which is usually precluded by the intense pressure of external reality and of the images and thoughts which fill the soul. The person is led beyond pure exteriority and is touched by deeper dimensions of reality, which become visible to him. Perhaps this explains why children tend to be the ones to receive these apparitions: their souls are as yet little disturbed, their interior powers of perception are still not impaired. “On the lips of children and of babes you have found praise”, replies Jesus with a phrase of Psalm 8 (v. 3) to the criticism of the High Priests and elders, who had judged the children's cries of “hosanna” inappropriate (cf. Mt 21:16).  

 

“Interior vision” is not fantasy but, as we have said, a true and valid means of verification. But it also has its limitations. Even in exterior vision the subjective element is always present. We do not see the pure object, but it comes to us through the filter of our senses, which carry out a work of translation. This is still more evident in the case of interior vision, especially when it involves realities which in themselves transcend our horizon. The subject, the visionary, is still more powerfully involved. He sees insofar as he is able, in the modes of representation and consciousness available to him. In the case of interior vision, the process of translation is even more extensive than in exterior vision, for the subject shares in an essential way in the formation of the image of what appears. He can arrive at the image only within the bounds of his capacities and possibilities. Such visions therefore are never simple “photographs” of the other world, but are influenced by the potentialities and limitations of the perceiving subject. (Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message.)

In other words, just as Modernists contend that Faith itself is a matter of interior consciousness that comes from within so do they believe that seers such as Saint Bernadette Soubirous and Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos have had real but necessarily "subjective" experiences that have no actual visible, spatial reality with the eyes of the body.

 

It is important to examine the connection between the Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message of ten years ago and the "homily" given on the Esplanade of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima yesterday.

First, Ratzinger/Benedict made the point yesterday that the three shepherd children of Fatima were able to "see" Our Lady because they had "these innocent and profound mystical confidences," meaning that the children had to have pure, innocent souls to see interiorly what they thought they had seen with their eyes. This corresponds exactly to what he wrote twenty-two years ago, that "this explains why children tend to be the ones to receive these apparitions: their souls are as yet little disturbed, their interior powers of perception are still not impaired."

My friends, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI does not believe that Our Lady physically appeared before the physical eyes of Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia. He has dismissed the Fatima apparitions as an "interior vision" that are designed to move us closer to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and have nothing at all to do with apostasy in the ranks of those who believe themselves to be Catholics or, Heaven forfend, the consecration of Russia to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart by a true pope with all of the world's bishops.

Ratzinger/Benedict does not believe triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary that he referred to gratuitously yesterday has nothing at all to do with the consecration of Russia or the conversion of souls to the true Faith, Catholicism. Why did Ratzinger/Benedict make reference to that triumph, therefore? Because it makes life easier for those in the Motu communities and for Bishop Fellay of the Society of Saint Pius X as they bask in the false reassurance that their false "pontiff" is a partisan of the Fatima Message. One cannot believe in a request of a message that conflicts with good relations with those in Russia, whether it be the Communists of yore (and the present day, of course) or the Orthodox at the present time.

If what happened at Fatima was but a mere "interior vision," then why did each of the children, when being examined by ecclesiastical authorities, give identical testimony as to what they saw with the physical eyes of their bodies? Each had the identical vision? Logic has never been Ratzinger/Benedict's long suit as his rejection of Thomism (both Thomistic Philosophy and Thomistic Theology) has opened up to grow from young adulthood into an old man who has lived in a world of contradiction, paradox and ambiguity which makes it almost impossible for to him to see the fallacies in what he presents as "explanations" of the Faith and the events associated with It.

Second, Ratzinger/Benedict said yesterday that God "has the power to come to us, particularly through our inner senses, so that the soul can receive the gentle touch of a reality which is beyond the senses and which enables us to reach what is not accessible or visible to the senses." This corresponds with his statement of ten years ago: 

It is clear that in the visions of Lourdes, Fatima and other places it is not a question of normal exterior perception of the senses: the images and forms which are seen are not located spatially, as is the case for example with a tree or a house. This is perfectly obvious, for instance, as regards the vision of hell (described in the first part of the Fatima “secret”) or even the vision described in the third part of the “secret”. . . .

It means rather that the soul is touched by something real, even if beyond the senses. It is rendered capable of seeing that which is beyond the senses, that which cannot be seen—seeing by means of the “interior senses”. It involves true “objects”, which touch the soul, even if these “objects” do not belong to our habitual sensory world. This is why there is a need for an interior vigilance of the heart, which is usually precluded by the intense pressure of external reality and of the images and thoughts which fill the soul. (Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message.)

Why is it "perfectly obvious" that the images and forms seen, to cite the false "pope's own example, by the fourteen year-old Bernadette Soubirous and Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia "are not located spatially"?

 

Our Lady did not actually part the earth and show Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia a vision of Hell that they saw with their own eyes? This was merely an "interior" vision vision of theirs that did not really happen in time and space?

The the buds on holm oak tree over which Our Lady hovered as she physically appeared to Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia did not change their appearance as seen by eyewitnesses who came to watch them? (On Full Display: The Modernist Mind.) 

Disparaging the actual, physical apparitions of the Mother of God at Lourdes and Fatima?

Yes, by all means, please call those of us who dissent from this blasphemy as not being Catholic.

This is why I must chuckle at the confident prediction made to us on Monday, October 31, 2005, at the Days Inn near the Indianapolis, Indiana, Airport by a prominent presbyter, the Reverend Nicholas Gruner, who was at one and the same time part of the "recognize but resist" movement while soliciting funds from Catholics all across the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide for his apostolate.

"This pope [Benedict XVI] will be assassinated. The next pope will do the [collegial] consecration [of Russia to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart].” (Reverend Gruner speaking to us, October 31, 2005.)

The great Modernist and hater of Our Lady's Fatima Message (see No Friend of Fatima and A New Fatima For A New Religion) retired in peace without the "crown of martyrdom," thus ranking the late presbyter's confident prediction alongside a certain "infallible" "prophet of end times" who had predicted that Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II would reign for forty years. The prediction business is very tough, you understand.

June 4-6: On his visit to Cyprus, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI continued to plead for the "co-existence" of all religions, stating that such is the basis of "true peace and unity:"

Dear brothers and sisters, given your unique circumstances, I would also like to draw your attention to an essential part of our Church’s life and mission, namely the search for greater unity in charity with other Christians and dialogue with those who are not Christians. Especially since the Second Vatican Council, the Church has been committed to advancing along the path of greater understanding with our fellow Christians with a view to ever stronger ties of love and fellowship among all the baptized. Given your circumstances, you are able to make your personal contribution to the goal of greater Christian unity in your daily lives. Let me encourage you to do so, confident that the Spirit of the Lord, who prayed that his followers might be one (cf. Jn 17:21), will accompany you in this important task.

With regard to interreligious dialogue, much still needs to be done throughout the world. This is another area where Catholics in Cyprus often live in circumstances which afford them opportunities for right and prudent action. Only by patient work can mutual trust be built, the burden of history overcome, and the political and cultural differences between peoples become a motive to work for deeper understanding. I urge you to help create such mutual trust between Christians and non-Christians as a basis for building lasting peace and harmony between peoples of different religions, political regions and cultural backgrounds. (Meeting with the Catholic community of Cyprus at the sports field of St. Maron primary school, Nicosia, 5 June 2010.) 

Catholicism alone is the only basis of true peace and unity:

Since the Church is the safe and sure guide to conscience, for to her safe-keeping alone there has been confided the doctrines and the promise of the assistance of Christ, she is able not only to bring about at the present hour a peace that is truly the peace of Christ, but can, better than any other agency which We know of, contribute greatly to the securing of the same peace for the future, to the making impossible of war in the future. For the Church teaches (she alone has been given by God the mandate and the right to teach with authority) that not only our acts as individuals but also as groups and as nations must conform to the eternal law of God. In fact, it is much more important that the acts of a nation follow God's law, since on the nation rests a much greater responsibility for the consequences of its acts than on the individual.

When, therefore, governments and nations follow in all their activities, whether they be national or international, the dictates of conscience grounded in the teachings, precepts, and example of Jesus Christ, and which are binding on each and every individual, then only can we have faith in one another's word and trust in the peaceful solution of the difficulties and controversies which may grow out of differences in point of view or from clash of interests. An attempt in this direction has already and is now being made; its results, however, are almost negligible and, especially so, as far as they can be said to affect those major questions which divide seriously and serve to arouse nations one against the other. No merely human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations, Christianity. It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages this law was often violated; still it always existed as an ideal, according to which one might judge the acts of nations, and a beacon light calling those who had lost their way back to the safe road.

 

There exists an institution able to safeguard the sanctity of the law of nations. This institution is a part of every nation; at the same time it is above all nations. She enjoys, too, the highest authority, the fullness of the teaching power of the Apostles. Such an institution is the Church of Christ. She alone is adapted to do this great work, for she is not only divinely commissioned to lead mankind, but moreover, because of her very make-up and the constitution which she possesses, by reason of her age-old traditions and her great prestige, which has not been lessened but has been greatly increased since the close of the War, cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail.

It is apparent from these considerations that true peace, the peace of Christ, is impossible unless we are willing and ready to accept the fundamental principles of Christianity, unless we are willing to observe the teachings and obey the law of Christ, both in public and private life. If this were done, then society being placed at last on a sound foundation, the Church would be able, in the exercise of its divinely given ministry and by means of the teaching authority which results therefrom, to protect all the rights of God over men and nations.

It is possible to sum up all We have said in one word, "the Kingdom of Christ." For Jesus Christ reigns over the minds of individuals by His teachings, in their hearts by His love, in each one's life by the living according to His law and the imitating of His example. Jesus reigns over the family when it, modeled after the holy ideals of the sacrament of matrimony instituted by Christ, maintains unspotted its true character of sanctuary. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922; see also Catholicism Is The Only Foundation of Personal and Social Order.)

September 16-20: The false "pontiff's" journey to Scotland and England was well chronicled on this site (Calling Cesar Romero, Calling Cesar Romero, part one, Calling Cesar Romero, Calling Cesar Romero, part two, Generic Christianity Is Not Good Enough For God, Day Two of the Conciliar Circus in the United Kingdom, part one, Day Two of the Conciliar Circus in the United Kingdom, part two, Days Three and Four of the Conciliar Circus in the United Kingdom, part one, Days Three and Four of the Conciliar Circus in the United Kingdom, part two, What's The First Commandment Got To Do With Anything?, and The Cost of "Recognition" Keeps Getting Higher and Higher). The Catholic Church has condemned such acts of apostasy:

This being so, it is clear that the Apostolic See cannot on any terms take part in their assemblies, nor is it anyway lawful for Catholics either to support or to work for such enterprises; for if they do so they will be giving countenance to a false Christianity, quite alien to the one Church of Christ. Shall We suffer, what would indeed be iniquitous, the truth, and a truth divinely revealed, to be made a subject for compromise? For here there is question of defending revealed truth. Jesus Christ sent His Apostles into the whole world in order that they might permeate all nations with the Gospel faith, and, lest they should err, He willed beforehand that they should be taught by the Holy Ghost: has then this doctrine of the Apostles completely vanished away, or sometimes been obscured, in the Church, whose ruler and defense is God Himself? If our Redeemer plainly said that His Gospel was to continue not only during the times of the Apostles, but also till future ages, is it possible that the object of faith should in the process of time become so obscure and uncertain, that it would be necessary to-day to tolerate opinions which are even incompatible one with another? If this were true, we should have to confess that the coming of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles, and the perpetual indwelling of the same Spirit in the Church, and the very preaching of Jesus Christ, have several centuries ago, lost all their efficacy and use, to affirm which would be blasphemy. But the Only-begotten Son of God, when He commanded His representatives to teach all nations, obliged all men to give credence to whatever was made known to them by "witnesses preordained by God," and also confirmed His command with this sanction: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned." These two commands of Christ, which must be fulfilled, the one, namely, to teach, and the other to believe, cannot even be understood, unless the Church proposes a complete and easily understood teaching, and is immune when it thus teaches from all danger of erring. In this matter, those also turn aside from the right path, who think that the deposit of truth such laborious trouble, and with such lengthy study and discussion, that a man's life would hardly suffice to find and take possession of it; as if the most merciful God had spoken through the prophets and His Only-begotten Son merely in order that a few, and those stricken in years, should learn what He had revealed through them, and not that He might inculcate a doctrine of faith and morals, by which man should be guided through the whole course of his moral life. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.) 

 

Let me dust off this quote from Pope Leo XIII's Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896, that I have not used for a while:

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.)

November 18: In an address to the "Pontifical" Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI explained that it was necessary to "excogitate models of unity":

Dear friends, despite the presence of new problematic situations or difficult points for the dialogue, the aim of the ecumenical path remains unchanged, as does the firm commitment in pursuing it. It is not, however, a commitment according to political categories, so to speak, in which the ability to negotiate or the greater capacity to find compromises come into play, from which could be expected, as good mediators, that, after a certain time, one will arrive at agreements acceptable to all. Ecumenical action has a twofold movement. On one hand there is the convinced, passionate and tenacious search to find full unity in truth, to excogitate models of unity, to illumine oppositions and dark points in order to reach unity. And this in the necessary theological dialogue, but above all in prayer and in penance, in that spiritual ecumenism which constitutes the throbbing heart of the whole path: The unity of Christians is and remains prayer, it resides in prayer. On the other hand, another operative movement, which arises from the firm awareness that we do not know the hour of the realization of the unity among all the disciples of Christ and we cannot know it, because unity is not "made by us," God "makes" it: it comes from above, from the unity of the Father with the Son in the dialogue of love which is the Holy Spirit; it is a taking part in the divine unity. And this should not make our commitment diminish, rather, it should make us ever more attentive to receive the signs of the times of the Lord, knowing how to recognize with gratitude that which already unites us and working to consolidate it and make it grow. In the end, also in the ecumenical path, it is about leaving to God what is only his and of exploring, with seriousness, constancy and dedication, what is our task, being aware that to our commitment belongs the binomial of acting and suffering, of activity and patience, of effort and joy. 

We confidently invoke the Holy Spirit, so that he will guide our way and that each one will feel with renewed vigor the appeal to work for the ecumenical cause. I encourage all of you to continue your work; it is a help that you render to the Bishop of Rome in fulfilling his mission at the service of unity. As a sign of affection and gratitude, I impart to you my heartfelt apostolic blessing. (Papal Words to Members of Christian Unity Council.) 

"Excogitate models of unity"? This is the talk of an insane man. This is craziness. This is absurdity.

November 20-December 23: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's book length interview with journalist Peter Seewald, The Light of the World: the Pope, The Church and Signs of The Times, is published and then becomes embroiled in controversy as the anti-Thomistic Ratzinger/Benedict endorsed the use of a certain type of prophylactic, used to prevent the conception of children, by those engaged in the selling of their bodies for immoral purposes in order to prevent the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus. Officials in the conciliar Vatican had to issue all manner of clarifications of the "pope's" views as eager defenders of all things "papal" in the "conservative" circles of the counterfeit church of conciliarism rushed to rationalize his views as perfectly compatible with Catholic moral theology. Finally, the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had to issue a Note to attempt to make his "unofficial" comments made in an "unofficial" book seem "officially" Catholic. ( If Them, Why Not Others?, Let the Olympic Games of Absurdity Begin!, Razing The Last Bastions, Nothing New Under Benedict's Sun, Talk About Clothing the Emperor!, Words and Actions Without Consequences, Making a Mockery of Catholicism). 

2011

January 1: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI devotes his "World Day of Peace" message to the promotion of "religious liberty," calling for yet another day gather of the leaders of the world's "religions" to take place at Assisi, Italy, in October to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first such travesty that was convened by his predecessor, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. Here is an excerpt of what Ratzinger/Benedict said in his "World Day of Peace" message: 

How can anyone deny the contribution of the world’s great religions to the development of civilization? The sincere search for God has led to greater respect for human dignity. Christian communities, with their patrimony of values and principles, have contributed much to making individuals and peoples aware of their identity and their dignity, the establishment of democratic institutions and the recognition of human rights and their corresponding duties.

Today too, in an increasingly globalized society, Christians are called, not only through their responsible involvement in civic, economic and political life but also through the witness of their charity and faith, to offer a valuable contribution to the laborious and stimulating pursuit of justice, integral human development and the right ordering of human affairs. The exclusion of religion from public life deprives the latter of a dimension open to transcendence. Without this fundamental experience it becomes difficult to guide societies towards universal ethical principles and to establish at the national and international level a legal order which fully recognizes and respects fundamental rights and freedoms as these are set forth in the goals – sadly still disregarded or contradicted – of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (44th World Day of Peace 2011, Religious Freedom, the Path to Peace.)

As a Roman Catholic, I deny that the "world's great religions" contributed to the development of true civilization. Catholicism is the one and only foundation of true and lasting personal and social order.

There is no need to "search for God." He has revealed Himself. The Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity became Man for us in the Virginal and Immaculate Womb of His Most Blessed Mother by the power of God the Holy Ghost to redeem us. He commissioned His Apostles to proclaim His Gospel to the ends of the world. It is His Divine Will that each man and each nation be professedly Catholic as they submit themselves to Him, Christ the King. Indeed, it is as King that the Three Kings of the East--Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balathsazar--worshiped the Infant Jesus as they presented Him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh at the Epiphany.

Ratzinger/Benedict believes that this "search for God" has led to a "greater respect for human dignity." The man is mad. Mad. Insane. Where is this greater respect to be found? One cannot even find this in the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service as so-called "extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist" and lectors dress in short skirts or tight pants and as members of the laity dress casually and immodestly and speak or applaud almost at will? Greater respect for human dignity? Where? In one's local pharmacy, where one can find a variety of pills and devices to frustrate the natural end of marriage and, at least in most instances, to chemically execute an innocent preborn baby? Where? In local abortuaries, in hospices, in hospitals, where elderly or chronically or terminally ill patients are routinely denied food and water and/or are administered with such increasingly higher doses of sedatives and palliatives that they stop respirating? Where? In the world's entertainment industry? The "pope" lives in a fanciful world of his own creation, a world that does not correspond to reality in the slightest.

Ratzinger/Benedict's respect for "religions" is indeed of the essence of Judeo-Masonry and it has been condemned in no uncertain terms by our true popes: 

Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God. (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)

Who is correct? Pope Leo XIII or your "Pope" Benedict XVI? (See Another Year of the Same Conciliar Apostasy, Part One, Another Year of the Same Conciliar Apostasy, Part Two, Another Year of the Same Conciliar Apostasy, Part Three, Not Interested in Assisi III, Night and Day and in Processing Along The Path To Antichrist.)

March 2: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's latest "unofficial" book, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, is released and creates yet another controversy by departing from the teaching of the Catholic Church concerning the guilt of the Jews for the death of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and going so far as to deny the simple truth that it was Saint Peter himself who uttered the words that resulted in the conversion of over three thousand Jews on the first Pentecost Sunday. This is part of what I wrote at the time, quoting directly from the book itself to illustrate the very Modernist methodology that the man whom many in the "recognize but resist" movement want us to believe is trying to "remedy the errors" in his conciliar church:

It is necessary, as Ratzinger/Benedict sees it, to "rediscover" the true "historical figure of Jesus" so that the men of this time can have "personal" contact with Him, which implies that the Angelic Doctor's discourse on the events of Our Lord's Passion, Death and Resurrection were so "cold and impersonal" as to be incapable of reaching the hearts of men who live in what the false "pontiff" contends is a "different historical and spiritual context": 

In the foreword to Part One, I stated that my concern was to present "the figure and the image of Jesus". Perhaps it would have been good to assign these two words--figure and message--a subtitle to the book, in order to clarify its intention. Exaggerating a little, one could say that I set out discover the real Jesus on the basis of whom something like a "Christology from below" would then become possible. The quest for the "historical Jesus", as conducted in mainstream critical exegesis in accordance with its hermeneutic presumptions, lacks sufficient content to exert any significant historical impact. It is focused too much on the past for it to make possible a personal relationship with Jesus. In the combination of the two hermeneutics of which I spoke earlier, I have attempted to develop a way of observing and listening to the Jesus of the Gospels that can indeed lead to personal encounter and that, through collective listening with Jesus' disciples across the ages, can indeed attain sure knowledge of the real historical figure of Jesus. (Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011. pp. xvi-xvii.)

Dismissing the ability of Saint Thomas Aquinas and of those of his fellow Modernists who employ what he believes to be a  too "rigid" reliance upon the historical-critical method of Biblical exegesis (see Ratzinger/Benedict believes that he has "discovered" the hermeneutic that makes it possible for men of this time to "encounter" and to "attain sure knowledge of the real historical figure Jesus," a blasphemous contention that implies that Holy Mother Church has not done this for nearly two millennia under the inspiration of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, and with the assistance of her Fathers and Doctors whose works she has held in such high esteem and which have been relied upon by the council fathers of her true councils, including the Council of Trent and the [First] Vatican Council, to reflect upon the meaning of the truths contained in the Sacred Deposit of Faith as they have conducted their deliberations under the infallible guidance of the same God the Holy Ghost.

Pope Saint Pius X explicated this Modernist approach to Divine Revelation in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, stressing the fact that Modernists must assess everything about the Faith in term of their own interior feelings and experiences, incapable of accepting the Tradition of Holy Mother Church as It has been passed down from time immemorial under the infallible guidance of God the Holy Ghost as they must "revise" and "reinterpret" that which does not correspond to their own interior dispositions and feelings:

Moreover, the first actuation, so to speak, of every vital phenomenon -- and religion, as noted above, belongs to this category -- is due to a certain need or impulsion; but speaking more particularly of life, it has its origin in a movement of the heart, which movement is called a sense. Therefore, as God is the object of religion, we must conclude that faith, which is the basis and foundation of all religion, must consist in a certain interior sense, originating in a need of the divine. This need of the divine, which is experienced only in special and favorable circumstances. cannot of itself appertain to the domain of consciousness, but is first latent beneath consciousness, or, to borrow a term from modern philosophy, in the subconsciousness, where also its root lies hidden and undetected. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.) 

Revise and reinterpret the Faith according to his own "hermeneutic," of which he is so very proud and boastful, is precisely what Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has done throughout the course of his nearly sixty years as a priest and the nearly six years he has spent as the head of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, indifferent to what our last canonized pope had to say about those who disparage or to seek to put into question the Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas. (See Impressed With His Own Originality, Accepting "Popes" As Unreliable Teachers, Coloring Everything He Says and Does, part one, Coloring Everything He Says and Does, part two and Atila Sinka Guimaraes's Benedict XVI's Different Religion).

Those who believe that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI was "restoring" Tradition during his 2873 days on the conciliar chair of apostasy were projecting their own desires into the mind of their "pope." Sadly, believed that the "pope" would be as "faithful" to Tradition as Ratzinger/Benedict had been. They were in for quite a surprise, weren’t they?

April 30: William "Cardinal" Levada, the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issues a "papally" approved "instruction," Universae Ecclesiae, for the "proper implementation" of Summorum Pontificum. The "instruction" reiterates Ratzinger/Benedict's contention, made at the time of the issuance of Summorum Pontificum on July 7, 2007, that there was no "rupture" between the Immemorial Mass of Tradition and the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service even he, as "Cardinal" Ratzinger, had said the exact opposite: 

What happened after the Council was something else entirely: in the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it--as in a manufacturing process--with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product. Gamber, with the vigilance of a true prophet and the courage of a true witness, opposed this falsification, and thanks to his incredibly rich knowledge, indefatigably taught us about the living fullness of a true liturgy. As a man who knew and loved history, he showed us the multiple forms and paths of liturgical development; as a man who looked at history form the inside, he saw in this development and its fruit the intangible reflection of the eternal liturgy, that which is not the object of our action but which can continue marvelously to mature and blossom if we unite ourselves intimately with its mystery. (Joseph "Cardinal: Ratzinger, Preface to the French language edition of Monsignor Klaus Gamber's The Reform of the Roman Liturgy.)

The prohibition of the missal that was now decreed, a missal that had known continuous growth over the centuries, starting with the sacramentaries of the ancient Church, introduced a breach into the history of the liturgy whose consequences could only be tragic. It was reasonable and right of the Council to order a revision of the missal such as had often taken place before and which this time had to be more thorough than before, above all because of the introduction of the vernacular.

But more than this now happened: the old building was demolished, and another was built, to be sure largely using materials from the previous one and even using the old building plans. There is no doubt that this new missal in many respects brought with it a real improvement and enrichment; but setting it as a new construction over against what had grown historically, forbidding the results of this historical growth. thereby makes the liturgy appear to be no longer living development but the produce of erudite work and juridical authority; this has caused an enormous harm. For then the impression had to emerge that liturgy is something "made", not something given in advance but something lying without our own power of decision. (Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, Milestones.)

Universae Ecclesiae also reiterated Ratzinger/Benedict's desire for the "extraordinary form of the 'one' Roman Rite" to include at least some of the "new prefaces" and the feast days of the "new saints."

May 1: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI "beatifies" his predecessor, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. (see "Connecting" with Betrayal,   "Canonizing" A Man Who Protected Moral Derelicts, Celebrating Apostasy and Dereliction of Duty, To Be Loved by the Jews, Perhaps Judas Was the First to Sing "A Kiss is Just a Kiss", Enjoy the Party, George, Enjoy the Party and Anticlimactic "Beatification" for an Antipope.)

May 16: Kurt "Cardinal" Koch, the president of the "Pontifical" Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said at a conference on Summorum Pontificum in Rome what Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger had said in 2003: that the "coexistence" between the "extraordinary" and "ordinary" forms of the "Roman liturgy" was not meant to last: 

Cardinal Koch made the remarks at a Rome conference on "Summorum Pontificum," Pope Benedict's 2007 apostolic letter that offered wider latitude for use of the Tridentine rite. The cardinal's text was published the same day by L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

Cardinal Koch said Pope Benedict thinks the post-Vatican II liturgical changes have brought "many positive fruits" but also problems, including a focus on purely practical matters and a neglect of the paschal mystery in the Eucharistic celebration. The cardinal said it was legitimate to ask whether liturgical innovators had intentionally gone beyond the council's stated intentions.

He said this explains why Pope Benedict has introduced a new reform movement, beginning with "Summorum Pontificum." The aim, he said, is to revisit Vatican II's teachings in liturgy and strengthen certain elements, including the Christological and sacrificial dimensions of the Mass.

Cardinal Koch said "Summorum Pontificum" is "only the beginning of this new liturgical movement."

"In fact, Pope Benedict knows well that, in the long term, we cannot stop at a coexistence between the ordinary form and the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, but that in the future the church naturally will once again need a common rite," he said.

"However, because a new liturgical reform cannot be decided theoretically, but requires a process of growth and purification, the pope for the moment is underlining above all that the two forms of the Roman rite can and should enrich each other," he said. (Benedict's "reform of the reform" in liturgy to continue.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio has put an end to all such talk.

June 3: The Vice President of the United States of America, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., makes a "personal" visit to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. Biden continued his "good standing" in the conciliar church thereafter despite his continued support for the chemical and surgical assassination of innocent preborn children under cover of the civil law. Biden came out in 2012 in support of "gay marriage" without suffering any penalties from conciliar officials. (See Just A Personal Visit, Abiding Biden And His Counsel and Silence In The Face Of Advancing Evils.)

 

August 18: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict appears at World Youth Day 2011 in Madrid, Spain, telling those assembled there that they must "build up" Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II's vaunted "civilization of love:"

 Dear friends, our society, which all too often questions the inestimable value of life, of every life, needs you: in a decisive way you help to build the civilization of love. What is more, you play a leading role in that civilization. As sons and daughters of the Church, you offer the Lord your lives, with all their ups and downs, cooperating with him and somehow becoming “part of the treasury of compassion so greatly needed by the human race” (Spe Salvi, 40) (Visit to San José Foundation for disabled youth, Madrid, 20 August 2011.)

Here's the kind of civilization that Pope Saint Pius X told us to restore as we avoid the unremitting attacks of "insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants:" 

This, nevertheless, is what they want to do with human society; they dream of changing its natural and traditional foundations; they dream of a Future City built on different principles, and they dare to proclaim these more fruitful and more beneficial than the principles upon which the present Christian City rests.

 

No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. omnia instaurare in Christo. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

September 22: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI addresses members of the Talmudic community in Berlin, Germany, repeating his well-known views on the Jews and Judaism: 

Alongside these important initiatives, it seems to me that we Christians must also become increasingly aware of our own inner affinity with Judaism, to which you made reference.  For Christians, there can be no rupture in salvation history.  Salvation comes from the Jews (cf. Jn 4:22).  When Jesus’ conflict with the Judaism of his time is superficially interpreted as a breach with the Old Covenant, it tends to be reduced to the idea of a liberation that mistakenly views the Torah merely as a slavish enactment of rituals and outward observances.  Yet in actual fact, the Sermon on the Mount does not abolish the Mosaic Law, but reveals its hidden possibilities and allows more radical demands to emerge.  It points us towards the deepest source of human action, the heart, where choices are made between what is pure and what is impure, where faith, hope and love blossom forth.

 

The message of hope contained in the books of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament has been appropriated and continued in different ways by Jews and Christians.  “After centuries of antagonism, we now see it as our task to bring these two ways of rereading the biblical texts – the Christian way and the Jewish way – into dialogue with one another, if we are to understand God’s will and his word aright” (Jesus of Nazareth. Part Two: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, pp. 33f.).  This dialogue should serve to strengthen our common hope in God in the midst of an increasingly secularized society.  Without this hope, society loses its humanity.

All in all, we may conclude that the exchanges between the Catholic Church and Judaism in Germany have already borne promising fruits.  Enduring relations of trust have been forged. Jews and Christians certainly have a shared responsibility for the development of society, which always includes a religious dimension.  May all those taking part in this journey move forward together.  To this end, may the One and Almighty, Ha Kadosch Baruch Hu, grant his blessing.  I thank you. (Meeting with representatives of the Jewish community in a room of the Reichstag Building Berlin, September 22, 2011; see also Modernist At Work, part one.)

 

Apostasy. Si, si, no, no, right?

 

September 23: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI addresses Mohammedans in the Apostolic Nunciature in Berlin, Germany, explaining how they can how other "believers" make "contributions" to the betterment of society: 

Dear friends, on the basis of what I have outlined here, it seems to me that there can be fruitful collaboration between Christians and Muslims.  In the process, we help to build a society that differs in many respects from what we brought with us from the past.  As believers, setting out from our respective convictions, we can offer an important witness in many key areas of life in society.  I am thinking, for example, of the protection of the family based on marriage, respect for life in every phase of its natural course or the promotion of greater social justice.

This is another reason why I think it important to hold a day of reflection, dialogue and prayer for peace and justice in the world, which as you know we plan to do on 27 October next in Assisi, twenty-five years after the historic meeting there led by my predecessor, Blessed Pope John Paul II.  Through this gathering, we wish to express, with simplicity, that we believers have a special contribution to make towards building a better world, while acknowledging that if our actions are to be effective, we need to grow in dialogue and mutual esteem.  (Meeting with representatives of the Muslim community in the reception room of the Apostolic Nunciature of Berlin, September 23, 2011.)

 

September 23: Having traveled to Erfurt, Germany, after Berlin, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict addresses Lutherans in a church their hideous founder stole from the Catholic Church, speaking kind words of praise for the man who divided Christendom and set it on a course of auto-demolition with which the "Second" Vatican Council and the "magisterium" of the conciliar "popes" have aided and abetted:

As I begin to speak, I would like first of all to say how deeply grateful I am that we are able to come together.  I am particularly grateful to you, my dear brother, Pastor Schneider, for receiving me and for the words with which you have welcomed me here among you.  You have opened your heart and openly expressed a truly shared faith, a longing for unity.  And we are also glad, for I believe that this session, our meetings here, are also being celebrated as the feast of our shared faith.   Moreover, I would like to express my thanks to all of you for your gift in making it possible for us to speak with one another as Christians here, in this historic place.

As the Bishop of Rome, it is deeply moving for me to be meeting you here in the ancient Augustinian convent in Erfurt.  As we have just heard, this is where Luther studied theology.  This is where he was ordained a priest.  Against his father’s wishes, he did not continue the study of Law, but instead he studied theology and set off on the path towards priesthood in the Order of Saint Augustine.  And on this path, he was not simply concerned with this or that.  What constantly exercised him was the question of God, the deep passion and driving force of his whole life’s journey.  “How do I receive the grace of God?”: this question struck him in the heart and lay at the foundation of all his theological searching and inner struggle.  For Luther theology was no mere academic pursuit, but the struggle for oneself, which in turn was a struggle for and with God.

“How do I receive the grace of God?”  The fact that this question was the driving force of his whole life never ceases to make a deep impression on me.  For who is actually concerned about this today – even among Christians?  What does the question of God mean in our lives?  In our preaching?  Most people today, even Christians, set out from the presupposition that God is not fundamentally interested in our sins and virtues.  He knows that we are all mere flesh.  And insofar as people believe in an afterlife and a divine judgement at all, nearly everyone presumes for all practical purposes that God is bound to be magnanimous and that ultimately he mercifully overlooks our small failings.  The question no longer troubles us.  But are they really so small, our failings?  Is not the world laid waste through the corruption of the great, but also of the small, who think only of their own advantage?  Is it not laid waste through the power of drugs, which thrives on the one hand on greed and avarice, and on the other hand on the craving for pleasure of those who become addicted?  Is the world not threatened by the growing readiness to use violence, frequently masking itself with claims to religious motivation?  Could hunger and poverty so devastate parts of the world if love for God and godly love of neighbour – of his creatures, of men and women – were more alive in us?  I could go on.  No, evil is no small matter.  Were we truly to place God at the centre of our lives, it could not be so powerful.  The question: what is God’s position towards me, where do I stand before God? – Luther’s burning question must once more, doubtless in a new form, become our question too, not an academic question, but a real one.  In my view, this is the first summons we should attend to in our encounter with Martin Luther.

Another important point: God, the one God, creator of heaven and earth, is no mere philosophical hypothesis regarding the origins of the universe.  This God has a face, and he has spoken to us.  He became one of us in the man Jesus Christ – who is both true God and true man.  Luther’s thinking, his whole spirituality, was thoroughly Christocentric: “What promotes Christ’s cause” was for Luther the decisive hermeneutical criterion for the exegesis of sacred Scripture.  This presupposes, however, that Christ is at the heart of our spirituality and that love for him, living in communion with him, is what guides our life. (Meeting with representatives of the German Evangelical Church Council in the Chapter Hall of the Augustinian Convent Erfurt, Germany, September 23, 2011.)

Why should we have to encounter Martin Luther with anything other than total rejection?

To paraphrase from Pope Saint Pius X's Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, what is this strange respect for false religions and errors of all kinds?

Ratzinger/Benedict also addressed a whole assortment of non-Catholic Christians on the same day during an "ecumenical celebration:"

Our fundamental unity comes from the fact that we believe in God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth.  And that we confess that he is the triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The highest unity is not the solitude of a monad, but rather a unity born of love.  We believe in God – the real God.  We believe that God spoke to us and became one of us.  To bear witness to this living God is our common task at the present time. (Ecumenical Celebration in the church of the Augustinian Convent, Erfurt, Germany, September 23, 2011; see also Modernist At Work, part two.)

How is this consonant with the following words of Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943?

Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. "For in one spirit" says the Apostle, "were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free." As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered - so the Lord commands - as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.) 

October 26: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI presides over Assisi III at the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi in Italy, thereby offending God once again and giving the world yet another display of religious indifferentism: See: Outcome Based Conciliar Math: Assisi I + Assisi II  + Assisi III = A-P-O-S-T-A-S-Y for an analysis if this horrific event, which included the following piece of blasphemy from the long-since retired antipope:

Yet I do not intend to speak further here about state-imposed atheism, but rather about the decline of man, which is accompanied by a change in the spiritual climate that occurs imperceptibly and hence is all the more dangerous. The worship of mammon, possessions and power is proving to be a counter-religion, in which it is no longer man who counts but only personal advantage. The desire for happiness degenerates, for example, into an unbridled, inhuman craving, such as appears in the different forms of drug dependency. There are the powerful who trade in drugs and then the many who are seduced and destroyed by them, physically and spiritually. Force comes to be taken for granted and in parts of the world it threatens to destroy our young people. Because force is taken for granted, peace is destroyed and man destroys himself in this peace vacuum.

The absence of God leads to the decline of man and of humanity. But where is God? Do we know him, and can we show him anew to humanity, in order to build true peace? Let us first briefly summarize our considerations thus far. I said that there is a way of understanding and using religion so that it becomes a source of violence, while the rightly lived relationship of man to God is a force for peace. In this context I referred to the need for dialogue and I spoke of the constant need for purification of lived religion. On the other hand I said that the denial of God corrupts man, robs him of his criteria and leads him to violence. (Day of reflection, dialogue, and prayer for peace and justice in the world "Pilgrims of Truth, Pilgrims of Peace": Address of the Ratzinger/Benedict, Assisi, 27 October 2011.)

Blasphemy.

The Catholic Church has never been and can never be an instrument of violence. She has called for the use for legitimate force, which is not violence. And while her children have sinned, she is the spotless mystical bride of her Divine Spouse and Invisible Head, Christ the King. Violence and terrorism and other crimes have spread in the world because men persist in their sins unrepentantly and because they see no need to seek sacramental absolution for them at the hands of a true priest. Ratzinger/Benedict himself sins in the objective order of things every time he refuses to exhort men to convert unconditionally to the true Church, which is the only means of human salvation and hence of true social order and international peace.

The rise of violence in the world in recent times is attributable to the triumph of the diabolical forces that were unleashed as a result of the Protestant Revolution's overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and the subsequent rise of the combined forces of naturalism that can be termed as Judeo-Masonry. These forces have been given greater impetus in the past four decades as the barren liturgical rites of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have robbed the world of the Sanctifying and Actual Graces that it needs to avoid sin and thus to scale the heights of personal sanctity, which is a fundamental precondition for social order.

Ratzinger/Benedict also said:

Therefore I have consciously invited delegates of this third group to our meeting in Assisi, which does not simply bring together representatives of religious institutions. Rather it is a case of being together on a journey towards truth, a case of taking a decisive stand for human dignity and a case of common engagement for peace against every form of destructive force. Finally I would like to assure you that the Catholic Church will not let up in her fight against violence, in her commitment for peace in the world. We are animated by the common desire to be “pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of peace”. (Day of reflection, dialogue, and prayer for peace and justice in the world "Pilgrims of Truth, Pilgrims of Peace": Address of the Ratzinger/Benedict, Assisi, 27 October 2011.) 

Unbelievers can challenge "the followers of religion." There is nothing lack in the Divine Constitution of Holy Mother Church to instruct us on any point. Those who do not believe or who doubt in the existence of God are objects of prayer for their conversion. They make no contribution to the world other than add to the confusion prophesied by Popes Gregory XVI and Pius IX would be the case when men live in a world of unfettered "freedom of conscience" and "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press" and "religious freedom." 

November 17: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI addressed the "Courtyard of the Gentiles" to encourage them to "search for the truth," a reference, of course, to his lifelong admiration of his mentor Hans Urs von Balthasar's "search for the truth:"

ROME, NOV. 17, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The search for truth is a journey that must be made united, says Benedict XVI, as he sent words of encouragement to a "Courtyard of the Gentiles" event held this week in Albania.

The Monday through Tuesday gathering was held in Tirana, and had the theme "Collaborators of the Truth."

The Holy Father referred to the event as a valuable occasion both of encounter and confrontation, to "walk together toward the truth."

The papal message was entrusted by his secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, to Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture and promoter of the initiative.

At the beginning of this year, the Vatican launched the "Courtyard of the Gentiles," an initiative proposed by Benedict XVI in an address to the Roman Curia at the end of 2009.

It is a permanent Vatican structure to promote dialogue and encounter between believers and nonbelievers.

 

The courtyard of the Gentiles refers to a space in the ancient Temple of Jerusalem that was not reserved for the Jews, but rather was open to any person independent of his culture or religion. (Ratzinger Says Do This: Search for Truth in Unity.)

Excuse me, didn't the Apostles and those who followed them proclaim the Truth, Our Lord Himself, and Him Crucified? Search for truth? It must be proclaimed as non-Catholics, including "non-believers," must be invited to convert unconditionally to the true Church. While it is true that it might take time for individual men to respond to the graces sent to them by Our Lady as the Mediatrix of All Graces in order to convert, we must nevertheless plant the seeds for this by proclaiming the truths of the Catholic Faith.

Do any of you in this site's very, very small readership believe that the views of outgoing conciliar "pope" and his "bishops" that the work of, say, Saint Vincent Ferrer, O.P., in seeking to convert Jews and Mohammedans was wrong even though thousands of them did so as they responded to his firm preaching?

November 30: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI permits L'Ossevatore Romano to republish a 1998 article of his that said it might be possible to permit divorced and remarried Catholics who lack a conciliar decree of nullity to receive what purports to be Holy Communion in the conciliar liturgical services (see No Communion for Outlaws. But Benedict Is Studying Two Exceptions.) 

2012  

April 5: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI referred to the "fossilization of traditions" in his Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo Chrism service held at the Basilica of Peter in the Vatican: 

But let us not oversimplify matters. Surely Christ himself corrected human traditions which threatened to stifle the word and the will of God? Indeed he did, so as to rekindle obedience to the true will of God, to his ever enduring word. His concern was for true obedience, as opposed to human caprice. Nor must we forget: he was the Son, possessed of singular authority and responsibility to reveal the authentic will of God, so as to open up the path for God’s word to the world of the nations. And finally: he lived out his task with obedience and humility all the way to the Cross, and so gave credibility to his mission. Not my will, but thine be done: these words reveal to us the Son, in his humility and his divinity, and they show us the true path.

Let us ask again: do not such reflections serve simply to defend inertia, the fossilization of traditions? No. Anyone who considers the history of the post-conciliar era can recognize the process of true renewal, which often took unexpected forms in living movements and made almost tangible the inexhaustible vitality of holy Church, the presence and effectiveness of the Holy Spirit. And if we look at the people from whom these fresh currents of life burst forth and continue to burst forth, then we see that this new fruitfulness requires being filled with the joy of faith, the radicalism of obedience, the dynamic of hope and the power of love. (Novus Ordo Chrism Service.)

Is this the teaching of the Catholic Church? It is not.

The retired nonagenarian antipope emeritus was simply aping the theology of the Orthodox that was the model for the further corruption of the Deposit of Faith by Martin Luther and John Calvin and the other Protestant Revolutionaries who followed them, believes that he and the "renewal" he helped to bring about in what he thinks is the Catholic Church has "restored" the concept of "true" obedience to Our Lord by "correcting" the "inertia" that was caused by the "fossilization of traditions," ascribing such a "renewal" to none other than God the Holy Ghost. This is, of course, quite a work of blasphemy. It is also heresy: 

 

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.)

Ratzinger/Benedict has no concern for any of this.

July 1: Gerhard Ludwig Muller, the conciliar "bishop" of Regensburg, Germany, who had made war upon the Society of Saint Pius X for many years, is appointed to be the new prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Deconstruction of the Faith. Muller, of course, has denied the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and helped to propagate Ratzinger/Benedict's Modernist belief that dogmatic truth is capable of being understood anew in light of changing circumstances given the "imprecision" of human language. See Deft? Daft Is More Like It, part two, Daft? Deft Is More Like It, part three, Does The Defense of Catholic Truth Matter To You?, When Will The Madness End?, part one, Memo To Bishop Fellay: Ratzinger/Benedict Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Loves Gerhard Ludwig Muller, Finding Conciliarism's Irreducible Minimum At Long Last, Finding Conciliarism's Irreducible Minimum At Long Last, part two, Contrast The Outrage, part one, Crushed By The Weight Of Error, part two, All Together Now: Go Right Ahead, Gerhard, Make Our Day, and Forever Preserving False "Traditions", to list just a few of the articles on this website that were written about Muller.

August 3, 2012:  Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict praises yet another diabolical "ecumenical" prayer meeting atop Mount Hiei, Japan: 

I am pleased to greet you and the religious leaders gathered for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Religious Summit on Mount Hiei, in the spirit of the 1986 historic meeting in Assisi promoted by my predecessor Blessed John Paul II. The commitment to the cause of peace by religious leaders is of the greatest importance and I am happy to learn that, thanks to your efforts, the Summit on Mount Hiei has become a major annual event that contributes effectively to dialogue between people of different beliefs. I am confident that the of the Summit and the Symposium studying the response of religious leaders to natural disasters will lead to greater solidarity and mutual help. According to the Christian perspective, the love given lo those who suffer is a reflection of the divine charity of God who so loved the world that he sent his only Son Jesus Christ. In this sense, my mind turns to the earthquake and tsunami in north-east Japan last year and the harrowing consequences for the whole nation. It was heartening to learn of the effective role of religious leaders in offering hope and support, as well as counsel and solace, to all those suffering. The tragic event also shows how people of different beliefs can cooperate with one another for the good of the human person. With these sentiments, and as a pledge of goodwill and friendship, upon all gathered I invoke an abundance of divine blessings. (Love given to the suffering a reflection of the divine charity. See also Aren't These Guys Supposed To Be On Vacation Or Something?) 

November 28, 2012:  Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI issued the final part of his Jesus of Nazareth trilogy, continuing his work of deconstructing the Holy Faith and putting into question numerous points of Catholic doctrine, including Our Lady's Perpetual Virginity. See Does This Man Give Any Thought To His Particular Judgment? and Integral Denial of Our Lady's Perfect Integrity.

December 20, 2012: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI signed the decree issued by the counterfeit church of conciliarism's Congregation for the Causes of the Saints that declared the hideous, perverted Modernist by the name of Giovanni Montini/Paul VI possessed "heroic virtues" and is hereby to be called as "Venerable," thus placing this monstrous man on the path to yet another conciliar "beatification." See "Blessed" Paul The Sick and In Death As In Life: The Antithesis Of Christ The King.)

2013

February 6, 2013: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI says in his general audience address the the serpent in the Garden of Eden was derived from "Eastern fertility cults." See Preparing To Spend All Eternity With His Allegorical Figure

These are just a few more "drops" of poison than just "one" drop of poison contained in the selected and hardly exclusive material cited herein.

A Few Final Observations

The examples provided above have indeed shown that the one-time public face of what most people in the world think is Catholicism, deceived the souls of Catholics and non-Catholics alike, reaffirming billions of souls outside of the bosom of Holy Mother Church into believing that there is absolutely no need for them to even consider converting to the Catholic Faith before they die. Did not Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood to redeem these poor people?

How is it any act of fidelity to Him, Christ the King, to make it appear to them that God is pleased with their false religions and their false liturgies?

Where is the precedent for this in the history of the Catholic Church?

Where?

Where is this callous disregard for the salvation of souls to be found prior to October 28, 1958?

Where? 

This is all--every single last bit of it--without any precedent in the history of the Catholic Church. Although anti-sedevacantists like to disparage the canonical teaching of the Church, reiterated by a conciliar "cardinal," Mario Francesco Pompedda, shortly before John Paul II's death on April 1 or 2, 2005, by noting that a papal vacancy of half a century is without precedent and that it is to defy the teaching of the [First] Vatican Council that Saint Peter has perpetual successors to assert that this is so (see An Objection to Sedevacantism: 'Perpetual Successors' to Peter). Well, my friends, none of what has been documented above is without any kind of precedent in the history of the Church. And to continue to indemnify the conciliar "popes" as legitimate successors of Saint Peter is to assert that the Catholic Church can give us defective liturgies or liturgies that can can give rise to unprecedented acts of impiety and sacrilege and that popes can teach error when they are not defining a doctrine ex cathedra. This is simply not so. 

The Catholic Church can never give us any liturgy that is in any way defective or that is an incentive to impiety or that can be used a means of institutionalizing gross offenses to God. Who says so? The Council of Trent: 

CANON VII.--If any one saith, that the ceremonies, vestments, and outward signs, which the Catholic Church makes use of in the celebration of masses, are incentives to impiety, rather than offices of piety; let him be anathema. (Session Twenty-Two, Chapter IX, Canon VII, Council of Trent, September 17, 1562, CT022.; here is but a sampling of a few of the articles on this subject in the past fifteen months or so, please see With Perfection Staring Directly At Them, Turning Perfection Aside For A More Perfect Banality, Taking The Obvious For Granted, Enough Spin To Make Our Heads Spin, Calling Cesar Romero, Calling Cesar Romero, part two, Transforming the Extraordinary Into the Ordinary, The Better Mousetrap and "Cardinals" Burke and Canizares, Meet The Council of Trent.)

Quite despite what those in the Society of Saint Pius X and elsewhere in the "recognize but resist" movement" have contended, although errors have existed to a greater or lesser extent in the minds of Catholics during various times in the history of Holy Mother Church, she cannot be stained by any taint of error, as pope after pope has taught us:

As for the rest, We greatly deplore the fact that, where the ravings of human reason extend, there is somebody who studies new things and strives to know more than is necessary, against the advice of the apostle. There you will find someone who is overconfident in seeking the truth outside the Catholic Church, in which it can be found without even a light tarnish of error. Therefore, the Church is called, and is indeed, a pillar and foundation of truth. You correctly understand, venerable brothers, that We speak here also of that erroneous philosophical system which was recently brought in and is clearly to be condemned. This system, which comes from the contemptible and unrestrained desire for innovation, does not seek truth where it stands in the received and holy apostolic inheritance. Rather, other empty doctrines, futile and uncertain doctrines not approved by the Church, are adopted. Only the most conceited men wrongly think that these teachings can sustain and support that truth. (Pope Gregory XVI, Singulari Nos, May 25, 1834.)

Just as Christianity cannot penetrate into the soul without making it better, so it cannot enter into public life without establishing order. With the idea of a God Who governs all, Who is infinitely Wise, Good, and Just, the idea of duty seizes upon the consciences of men. It assuages sorrow, it calms hatred, it engenders heroes. If it has transformed pagan society--and that transformation was a veritable resurrection--for barbarism disappeared in proportion as Christianity extended its sway, so, after the terrible shocks which unbelief has given to the world in our days, it will be able to put that world again on the true road, and bring back to order the States and peoples of modern times. But the return of Christianity will not be efficacious and complete if it does not restore the world to a sincere love of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate. It identifies Itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption. It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of Its blood, and strong in the Divine assistance and of that immortality which has been promised it, It makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the commands which  it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity. Legitimate dispenser of the teachings of the Gospel it does not reveal itself only as the consoler and Redeemer of souls, but It is still more the internal source of justice and charity, and the propagator as well as the guardian of true liberty, and of that equality which alone is possible here below. In applying the doctrine of its Divine Founder, It maintains a wise equilibrium and marks the true limits between the rights and privileges of society. The equality which it proclaims does not destroy the distinction between the different social classes. It keeps them intact, as nature itself demands, in order to oppose the anarchy of reason emancipated from Faith, and abandoned to its own devices. The liberty which it gives in no wise conflicts with the rights of truth, because those rights are superior to the demands of liberty. Not does it infringe upon the rights of justice, because those rights are superior to the claims of mere numbers or power. Nor does it assail the rights of God because they are superior to the rights of humanity. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)

For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.) 

Please note that Pope Gregory XVI wrote that the truth can be found in the Catholic Church without "even a slight tarnish of error."

Please note that Pope Leo XIII stressed that the Catholic Church "makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the command which it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity."

Please note that that Pope Pius XI explained that the Catholic Church brings forth her teaching "with ease and security to the knowledge of men."

Anyone who says that this has been done by the counterfeit church of conciliarism, which has made its "reconciliation" with the false principles of Modernity that leave no room for the confessionally Catholic civil state and the Social Reign of Christ the King, is not thinking too clearly (and that is as about as charitably as I can put the matter) or is being, perhaps more accurately, intellectually dishonest. If the conciliar church has brought forth its teaching "with ease and security to the knowledge of men," why is there such disagreement even between the "progressive" conciliarists and "conservative" conciliarists concerning the proper "interpretation" of the "Second" Vatican Council and its aftermath? Or does this depend upon what one means by "ease and security"?

No, the Catholic Church has never endorsed error in any of her officials documents and we have never seen anything like the apostasies, blasphemies and sacrileges that have characterized the "magisterium" of the conciliar "popes" in the past sixty-four years now.

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., explained in but one sentence the simple fact those steeped in error cannot have any part in the Catholic Church, meaning that Federico Lombardi's desire to put aside "differences" is of the devil, not of God: 

There is a fatal instinct in error, which leads it to hate the Truth; and the true Church, by its unchangeableness, is a perpetual reproach to them that refuse to be her children. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, commentary on the life of Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen.)

The true Church, the Catholic Church, cannot countenance falsehood and error.

Perhaps it would be good for those who do not yet believe that the conciliar "popes" have been heretics and are thus enemies of Christ the King and the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on Calvary to redeem to view For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada, especially the scene that depicts the bravery of Jose Luis Sanchez Del Rio after he had been tortured and before his martyrdom in defense of the Social Reign of Christ the King, which your "pope" rejects both in theory and in practice.

Young Jose Luis Sanchez Del Rio, who suffered martyrdom ninety-four years ago, that is, on February 8, 1928, was told by his Godfather, the Mayor of Sahuayo, that all he had to do was to save his life was to say "Death to Christ the King, Long Live the Federal Government." Jose exclaimed in a loud and clear voice after he expressing his love for his mother, "Viva Cristo Rey!," an proclamation that has heard from the lips of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI only in passing when discussing the Cristeros during his pilgrimage to Mexico from March 26-29, 2012.

No one can be forced to "see" the truth of our situation for what it is, that the conciliar revolutionaries are not Catholic and that they belong to a counterfeit church bereft of Holy Orders and of the graces that flow therefrom. That any of our true bishops and priests, among so many others, who have seen things clearly in the past forty years, right in the midst of a most diabolically clever use of the media to convey images of Catholicism and Catholicity, is the working of the graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of the Most Precious Blood of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and that flowed into their hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces. We must remember that it is very easy to go "back," to refuse to "kick against the goad," to "conform" to what the "mainstream" believes is "respectable" and "prudent."

The "mainstream" is not to be followed.

God permitted one hundred percent of the human race to be deceived in the Garden of Eden.

God permitted all but eight members of the human race to be deceived and deluded prior to the Great Flood.

Almost all of the Chosen People who had been led out of their bondage to the slavery of the Egyptian Pharaoh by Moses built and worshiped a molten calf whilst Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments from God on Mount Sinai.

None but a handful of people stood by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as He suffered and died for us on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday.

All but one bishop, Saint John Fisher of Rochester, England, defected from the Faith at the time of the Protestant Revolt in England when King Henry VIII took this thoroughly Catholic country out of the Church.

All but thirty bishops defected from the Faith at the time Queen Elizabeth I took England out of the Church once again in the 1660s following the brief restoration that took place under the reign of her half-sister, Queen Mary, from 1553 to 1558.

The "mainstream" is not be followed. We need apostolic courage in these times of apostasy and betrayal. God's greater honor and glory must be defended against the against of men who have proved themselves to be precursors of the Antichrist.

How do we think that we are going to recognize, no less resist and reject, the Antichrist when he comes we are so complacent and smug in the face of the groundwork that is being laid by his conciliar minions for his coming? Will the emotionalism of sentimentality and the delusion of positivism not prevail then in the minds and hearts of most men?

It's been nearly sixteen years now since I began to publicly write about the plausibility of the sedevacantist thesis. I can report that those six years have been difficult ones, humanly speaking, as friendships have been strained or broken and as many former contributors stopped donating to us. Obviously, friendship is a free gift and people are free also to end non-tax-deductible donations whenever they want to do so. It is not for the "money" or for any kind of "honor" or "prestige" that one comes to recognize that the conciliar "popes" have indeed been figures of Antichrist. To embrace sedevacantism is to lose one's credibility on all subjects, including that of the defense of the Social Reign of Christ the King, in the eyes of traditionally-minded "gatekeepers" in the "resist but recognize movement," some of whom would rather turn to lifelong Protestants or to Catholic apostates turned Protestants or Mormons for "commentary" on the events of the day.

No, embracing the truth of our ecclesiastical situation does not make one any bit better than those who do not. Indeed, some of the worst witnesses in behalf of sedevacantism are sedevacantists, both clergy and laity. The bad example given by those who do see the truth of our ecclesiastical situation does not make invalidate the truth that they seek to defend despite all of the opposition that is engendered thereby.

 

No one has anything to gain, humanly speaking by recognizing that the conciliar "popes" are apostates, and their liturgical rites are sacramentally barren and offensive to God and their doctrines have been condemned repeatedly by the authority of the Catholic Church. Yes, it is good to suffer for one's sins. It is necessary to do so in order to save one's soul. One does not embrace the truth in order to suffer, though, as that suffering will find him in due course.

 

Sedevacantists compose only a handful of mostly warring tribes. They are not the problem facing Holy Mother Church in this time of apostasy and betrayal. Just take a look at the evidence presented above if you believe that I am mistaken.

 

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.

Appendix

On the Feast of Saint Scholastica

Today, Thursday, February 10, 2022, is the Feast of Saint Scholastica, the twin sister of Saint Benedict whose soul was as innocent as the Dove that announced to her brother had taken its flight into Heaven.

The Benedict Abbot of Solesmes from July 14, 1937, to January 30,1875, Dom Prosper Gueranger, provides us with a glowing hagiography of a soul that glowed so brightly with the love of the true God of Divine Revelation, the Most Holy Trinity:

The Sister of the Patriarch Saint Benedict comes to us today, sweetly inviting us to follow her to heaven. Apollonia the Martyr is succeeded by Scholastica the fervent daughter of the Cloister. Both of them are the Spouses of Jesus, both of them wear a crown, for both of them fought hard, and won the palm. Apollonia’s battle was with cruel persecutors, and in those hard times when one had to die to conquer; Scholastica’s combat was the lifelong struggle, whose only truce is the soldier’s dying breath. The Martyr and the Nun are sisters now in the Heart of Him they both so bravely loved.

God, in his infinite wisdom, gave to St. Benedict a faithful cooperatrix—a Sister of such angelic gentleness of character that she would be a sort of counterpoise to the Brother whose vocation as the Legislator of monastic life needed a certain dignity of grave and stern resolve. We continually meet with these contrasts in the lives of the Saints; and they show us that there is a link of which flesh and blood know nothing; a link which binds two souls together, gives them power, harmonizes their differences of character, and renders each complete. Thus it is in heaven with the several hierarchies of the Angels; a mutual love, which is founded on God himself, unites them together, and makes them live in the eternal happiness of the tenderest brotherly affection.

Scholastica’s earthly pilgrimage was not a short one; and yet it has left us but the history of the Dove, which told the Brother, by its flight to heaven, that his Sister had reached the eternal home before him. We have to thank St. Gregory the Great for even this much, which he tells us as a sequel to the holy dispute she had with Benedict, three days previous to her death. But how admirable is the portrait thus drawn in St. Gregory’s best style! We seem to understand the whole character of Scholastica: an earnest simplicity, and a child-like eagerness, for what was worth her desiring it; an affectionate and unshaken confidence in God; a winning persuasiveness, where there was opposition to God’s will, which, when it met such an opponent as Benedict, called on God to interpose, and gained its cause. The old poets tell us strange things about the swan, how sweetly it can sing when dying; how lovely must not have been the last notes of the Dove of the Benedictine Cloister, as she was soaring from earth to heaven!

But how came Scholastica, the humble retiring Nun, by that energy which could make her resist the will of her Brother, whom she revered as her master and guide? What was it told her that her prayer was not a rash one, and that what she asked for was a higher good than Benedict’s unflinching fidelity to the Rule he had written, and which it was his duty to teach by his own keeping it? Let us hear St. Gregory’s answer: “It is not to be wondered at that the Sister, who wished to prolong her Brother’s stay, should have prevailed over him; for, whereas St. John tells us that God is Charity, it happened by a most just judgment that she that had the stronger love, had the stronger power.

”Our Season is appropriate for the beautiful lesson taught us by St. Scholastica—fraternal charity. Her example should excite us to the love of our neighbor, that love which God bids us labor for, now that we are intent on giving Him our undivided service and our complete conversion. The Easter Solemnity we are preparing for is to unite us all in the grant Banquet, where we are all to feast on the one Divine Victim of Love. Let us have our nuptial garment ready; for He that invites us, insists on our having union of heart when we dwell in his House. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint Scholastica, February 10.)

The readings for Matins in today’s Divine Office contains Holy Mother Church’s official account of Saint Scholastica’s most pure life:

The worshipful Scholastica, the sister of our Father Benedict, was hallowed unto the Lord Almighty from a child. Her custom was to come to see her brother once every year. And when she came, the man of God went down unto her, not far from the gate, but, as it were, within the borders of his monastery. And there was a day when she came, as her custom was, and her worshipful brother went down to her, and his disciples with him. Then they passed the whole day together, praising God, and speaking one to the other of spiritual things. And when the night came, they brake bread together. And while they were yet at table, and conversed together on spiritual things, the hour was late. Then the holy woman his sister besought him, saying Leave me not, I pray thee, this night, but let us speak even until morning of the gladness of the eternal life. He answered her: What is it that thou sayest, my sister? I can by no means remain out of my cell. Now the firmament was so clear that there were no clouds in the sky. Then the holy nun, when she had heard the words of her brother, that he would not abide with her, clasped her hands on the table, and laid her face on her hands, and besought the Lord Almighty. And it came to pass that when she lifted up her head from the table, there were great thunderings and lightnings, and a flood of rain, insomuch that neither the worshipful Benedict nor the brethren that were with him could move as much as a foot over the threshold of the place where they sat.

Now when the holy woman laid her head in her hands upon the table, she wept bitterly, and as she wept, the clearness of the sky was turned to a tempest. As she prayed, immediately the flood followed. And the time was so, that she lifted up her head when it thundered, and when she had lifted up her head, the rain came. When the man of God saw that he could not return to his monastery, because of the lightnings, and thunderings, and the great rain, he was sorrowful and grieved, saying Almighty God forgive thee, my sister; what is this that thou hast done? She answered him Behold, I besought thee, and thou wouldest not hear; I besought my God, and He hath heard me; if, therefore, thou wilt, go forth, leave me alone, and go thy way to thy monastery. But he could not, and so he tarried in the same place, not willingly, but of necessity. And so it came to pass that they slept not all that night, but fed one another with discourse on spiritual things.

And when the morning was come, the worshipful woman arose, and went unto her own cell, and the man of God went back to his monastery. And, behold, after three days he was sitting in his cell, and he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and saw the soul of his sister, delivered from the body, fly to heaven in a bodily shape like a dove. Wherefore he rejoiced because of the glory that was revealed in her, and gave thanks to Almighty God in hymns and praises, and made known to the brethren that she was dead. He commanded them also to go and take up her body, and bring it to his monastery, and lay it in the grave which he had made ready for himself. Whereby it came to pass that they twain who had ever been of one mind in the Lord, even in death were not divided. (Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Saint Scholastica, February 10.)

 

Dom Prosper Gueranger composed the following prayer to our Saint:

Dear Spouse of the Lamb! Innocent and simple Dove! How rapid was thy flight to thy Jesus, when called home from thine exile! Thy Brother’s eye followed thee for an instant, and then heaven received thee with a joyous welcome from the choirs of the Angels and Saints. Thou art now at the very source of that love which here filled thy soul, and gained thee everything thou asked of thy Divine Master. Drink of this fount of life to thy heart’s eternal content. Satiate the ambition taught thee by thy Brother in his Rule, when he says (Instrument 46) that we must “desire Heaven with all the might of our spirit.” Feed on that sovereign Beauty, who himself feeds, as he tells us, among the lilies.

But forget not this lower world, which was to thee what it is to us—a place of trial, for winning heavenly honors. During thy sojourn here, thou was the Dove in the clefts of the rock; as the Canticle describes a soul like thine own; there was nothing on this earth which tempted thee to spread thy wings in its pursuit, there was nothing worthy of thy giving it the treasure of the love which God had put in thy heart. Timid before men and simple as innocence ever is, thou knewest not that thou hadst wounded the Heart of the Spouse. Thy prayers were made to him with all the humility and confidence of a soul that had never been disloyal; and he granted thee thy petitions with the promptness of tender love: so that thy Brother—the venerable Saint—he who was accustomed to see nature obedient to his command—yes, even Benedict was overcome by thee in that contest wherein thy simplicity was more penetrating than his profound wisdom.

And who was it, O Scholastica, that gave thee this sublime knowledge, and made thee, on that day of thy last visit, wiser than the great Patriarch, who was raised up in the Church to be the living rule of them that are called to Perfection? It was the same God who chose Benedict to be one of the pillars of the Religious State; but who wished to show that a holy and pure and tender charity is dearer to him than the most scrupulous fidelity to rules, which are only made for leading men to what thou hadst already attained. Benedict, himself such a lover of God, knew all this; the subject so dear to thy heart was renewed, and Brother and Sister were soon lost in the contemplation of that Infinite Beauty, who had just given such a proof that he would have you neglect all else. Thou wast ripe for heaven, O Scholastica! Creatures could teach thee no more love of thy Creator; he would take thee to himself. A few short hours more, and the Divine Spouse would speak to thee those words of the ineffable Canticle, which the Holy Spirit seems to have dictated for a soul like thine: Arise, make haste, my Love, my Dove, my beautiful one, and come! Show me thy face; let thy voice sound in mine ears; for thy voice is sweet, and comely is thy face.