The Fight is for the Holy Faith, Which Jorge and His Band of Heretics Do Not Possess

There was time back around 1972 as Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra was in his first year of managing the New York Mets following the death of the incomparable Catholic gentleman named Gilbert Ray Hodges on Easter Sunday when Jack “Hey, Hey!” Brickhouse, the longtime announcer for the Chicago Cubs, approached Yogi behind the batting cage during batting practice before a game at William A. Shea Stadium between the Mets and the visiting Cubs in Flushing Meadows, Queens, New York.

Although prone to a “homerism” of the sort I had never experienced during the years of the Mets’ Lindsey Nelson-Bob Murphy-Ralph Kiner broadcasting triumvirate (1962-1978), Jack Brickhouse, with whose work I became familiarized when pursing my master’s degree in political science at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, during calendar year 1973, was a literate man and a very sound professional broadcaster. He knew the English language and commanded it very effectively.

Brickhouse explained to Yogi Berra that it had been a long time since they had seen each other and that a lot had happened, including the death of Gil Hodgs and the accession of Berra to the Mets’ managerial position. “Tempus fugit,” Brickhouse said to Berra.

Yogi Berra, who had grown up in “The Hill” section of the City of St. Louis, Missouri, with his lifelong friend and fellow major league catcher Joseph Garagiola, did not understand the phrase “Tempus fugit” and look befuddled, saying to Brickhouse, “Yeah. All I know is that it’s been a while since I saw you.”

This is a long way of saying that it seems like only yesterday that the authorities who lurk behind the Walls of the Occupied Vatican on the West Bank of the Tiber River issued Traditiones Custodes on July 16, 2021, the Commemoration of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, that repealed Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum, July 7, 2007, to impose all manner of restrictions upon the offering/staging of the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition within the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. The very men who never criticize pro-abortion politicians and who have endorsed, at least on a de facto basis, countenanced the baptism of children conceived via in vitro fertilization to “couples” engaged in perverse acts against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments that are fruitless of their wicked nature, are absolutely ruthless with believing Catholics, especially those who desire to worship God with reverence and not in the spirit of worldly self-congratulations.

When all is said and done, however, it is time for those who do desire to worship God in the Roman Rite’s Sacred Liturgy of the ages to recognize the fact that Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his band of heretics do not possess the Catholic Faith and that the "church" they serve is not the Cathlic Church but her counterfeit ape, making the analysis of the new set of instructions pertaining to Traditionis Custodes that were issued on Saturday, December 18, 2021, just in time for Christmas both redundant and moot at the same time.

From Arthur Roche to the Dubia

The new instruction from the conciliar Congregation for Divine Worship is the form of answers to dubia (doubts) about the implementation of Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s Traditionis Custodes even though I, for one, thought that Jorge’s repeal of Summorum Pontificum was very clear in all its particulars: Jorge Mario Bergoglio wants the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition to be marginalized as much as possible and he wants those “attached” to it to be “accompanied” to understand the “beauty” of the liturgical “reform” effected during the antipapacy of Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/Montini. It is all really quite simple and eminently clear.

Perhaps the first task at hand, though, is to point out the interesting fact that not all dubia are created equal as the four “cardinals” (Raymond Burke, Joachim Meisner, Carlo Caffarra, Walter Brandmuller) who sent five dubia to Jorge Mario Bergoglio questioning the “teachings” contained in the latter’s Amoris Laetita, March 19, 2016, never received any answer. Two of these “cardinals” (Meisner and Caffarra) died within weeks of each other in 2017 and thus will never receive any kind of answer from the Stone Face Jorge. The dubia posed by the four “cardinals” will remain unanswered.  

On the other hand, of course, the self-serving dubia presented to the conciliar Congregation for Divine Worship were meant to provide Arthur Roche with an opportunity to, as the saying goes these days, “double down” on the limitations and restrictions imposed upon Catholics within the conciliar structures who are “attached” to the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition while recognizing the conciliar “popes” as true and legitimate Successors of Saint Peter, which they are not.

Thus, I will provide however many people who continue to read these articles with a question-by-question analysis of Arthur Roche’s statement and answers, starting with his preface:

Your Eminence / Your Excellency,

Following the publication by Pope Francis of the Apostolic Letter “Motu Proprio data” Traditionis custodes on the use of the liturgical books from prior to the reform of the Second Vatican Council, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, which exercises the authority of the Apostolic See for material within its competence (cf. Traditionis custodes, n. 7), received several requests for clarification on its correct application. Some questions have been raised from several quarters and with greater frequency. Therefore, after having carefully considered them, having informed the Holy Father and having received his assent, the responses to the most recurrent questions are published herewith.

The text of the Motu Proprio and the accompanying Letter to the Bishops of the whole world clearly express the reasons for the decisions taken by Pope Francis. The first aim is to continue “in the constant search for ecclesial communion” (Traditionis custodes, Preamble) which is expressed by recognising in the liturgical books promulgated by the Popes Saint Paul VI and Saint John Paul II, in conformity with the decrees of the Second Vatican Council, the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite (cf. Traditionis custodes, n. 1). This is the direction in which we wish to move, and this is the meaning of the responses we publish here. Every prescribed norm has always the sole purpose of preserving the gift of ecclesial communion by walking together, with conviction of mind and heart, in the direction indicated by the Holy Father.

Interjection Number One:

“This is the direction in we wish to move.”

That is, those Catholics who are attached to the Immemorial Mass of Tradition within the conciliar structures as a refuge from the abomination of desolation that is the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service are being told in no uncertain terms that their days of refuge are numbered, that they are going to have to learn to “love” what is offensive to God, namely, a “worship” service that begins with the officiant greeting the people rather after making the Sign of the Cross rather than of praying Psalm 42 in preparation to ascend to the altar of God, to the God Who giveth joy unto my youth.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s predecessor, Joseph Alois Ratzinger, who has lived much longer than the Argentine Apostate expected to him to live and thus got tired of waiting for him to die so that he could revoke Summorum Pontificum, believed in the absurdity of “two forms of the one Roman Rite (Ordinary Form—the Novus Ordo—and the “Extraordinary Form”—the 1962 Missale Romanum of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII, which was in effect for precisely three years before it was replaced by the Ordo Missae of Montini/Paul VI on Sunday, November 29, 1964, the First Sunday of Advent). Ratzinger/Benedict further believed that the two forms were “mutually enriching” and he authorized a few of his surrogates to say that his eventual goal was the much vaunted “reform of the reform” in a new rite combining elements of the “ordinary” and the “extraordinary”:

From this point of view, then, the new prayer for the Jews in the liturgy in the ancient rite does not weaken, but postulates an enrichment of the meaning of the prayer in use in the modern rite. Exactly like in other cases, it is the modern rite that postulates an enriching evolution of the ancient rite. In a liturgy that is perennially alive, as the Catholic liturgy is, this is the meaning of the coexistence between the two rites, ancient and modern, as intended by Benedict XVI with the motu proprio "Summorum Pontificum."

This is a coexistence that is not destined to endure, but to fuse in the future "in a single Roman rite once again," taking the best from both of these. This is what then-cardinal Ratzinger wrote in 2003 – revealing a deeply held conviction – in a letter to an erudite representative of Lefebvrist traditionalism, the German philologist Heinz-Lothar Barth. (Sandro Magister, A Bishop and a Rabbi Defend the Prayer for the Salvation of the Jews.)

"Neither the Missal of Pius V and John XXIII -- used by a small minority -- nor that of Paul VI -- used today with much spiritual fruit by the greatest majority -- will be the final 'law of prayer' of the Catholic Church." ("Father" Federico Lombardi, Zenit, July 15, 2007.)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI's easing of restrictions on use of the 1962 Roman Missal, known as the Tridentine rite, is just the first step in a "reform of the reform" in liturgy, the Vatican's top ecumenist said.

The pope's long-term aim is not simply to allow the old and new rites to coexist, but to move toward a "common rite" that is shaped by the mutual enrichment of the two Mass forms, Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said May 14.

In effect, the pope is launching a new liturgical reform movement, the cardinal said. Those who resist it, including "rigid" progressives, mistakenly view the Second Vatican Council as a rupture with the church's liturgical tradition, he said.

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.

Cardinal Koch said those who oppose this new reform movement and see it as a step back from Vatican II lack a proper understanding of the post-Vatican II liturgical changes. As the pope has emphasized, Vatican II was not a break or rupture with tradition but part of an organic process of growth, he said.

On the final day of the conference, participants attended a Mass celebrated according to the Tridentine rite at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter's Basilica. Cardinal Walter Brandmuller presided over the liturgy. It was the first time in several decades that the old rite was celebrated at the altar. (Benedict's 'reform of the reform' in liturgy to continue, cardinal says.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio has made sure that all the talk of a “reform of the reform” will be buried forever as he is a full believer and a fervent practitioner of the “liberated” liturgical style made possible by the synthetic concoction created by a committee that was advised by Protestants, who made their recommendations during coffee breaks that were later incorporated by actual members of the Consilium. All the hopes, all the expectations, all the anticipation associated with the talk of a “reform of a reform” since “Cardinal” Ratzinger’s book-length interview with Peter Seewald in 1985, The Ratzinger Report.

Arthur Roche went on to decry the “divisions” that came into existence with the implementation of the Novus Ordo on the First Sunday of Advent, November 29, 1969, even though the sort of “renewal” that was foisted on Catholics was unprecedent in the history of the Catholic Church even when one considers all the incremental ways that the liturgy had changed under Pope Pius XII in the 1950s and then under Roncalli/John XXIII before the Ordo Missae of 1965:

It is sad to see how the deepest bond of unity, the sharing in the one Bread broken which is His Body offered so that all may be one (cf. Jhn 17:21), becomes a cause for division. It is the duty of the Bishops, cum Petro et sub Petro, to safeguard communion, which, as the Apostle Paul reminds us (cf. 1 Cor 11:17-34), is a necessary condition for being able to participate at the Eucharistic table.

One fact is undeniable: The Council Fathers perceived the urgent need for a reform so that the truth of the faith as celebrated might appear ever more in all its beauty, and the People of God might grow in full, active, conscious participation in the liturgical celebration (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium n. 14), which is the present moment in the history of salvation, the memorial of the Lord’s Passover, our one and only hope.

Interjection Number Three:

Arthur Roche is not entirely wrong on the point made in the first paragraph just above as, yes, it is the duty of the bishops to safeguard communion with the Successor of Saint Peter, although his reference to the “Eucharistic table” rather than the altar of sacrifice explains just how revolutionary the changes were at the time and why many Catholics who knew better risked everything, including family relations, rather than to give the appearance of approval to a “liturgy” based on Protestant and Judeo-Masonic principles.

Roche’s contention that there was an “urgent need for a reform” is gratuitous as attendance at Holy Mass was around seventy-five percent in the United States of America in 1958 at the time of the death of Pope Pius XII and stood at sixty-five percent in 1965 at the end of the “Second” Vatican Council. Most surveys in recent years have indicated that Sunday Mass attendance around twenty percent at this country prior to the plandemic and is almost nonexistent in many European countries. The numbers do not lie. There was no need for the “liturgical reform” and the results speak for themselves. Only ideologically blind fools such as Arthur Roche and Jorge Mario Bergoglio refuse to see that this is so.

Arthur Roche went on to decry “sterile polemics” even though his “pope,” Jorge Mario Bergoglio, never ceases to engage in polemical attacks against Catholics who take the Act of Faith they pray daily by understanding that Holy Mother Church teaches what Our Lord has revealed and that He can neither deceive nor be deceived. Bergoglio’s recent screed against believing Catholics, a scold that was dressed up as his annual address to the conciliar curia, was replete with sterile polemics and a seething hatred for the Holy Faith and those who adhere to it that could have emanated only from the depths of hell itself:

As pastors we must not lend ourselves to sterile polemics, capable only of creating division, in which the ritual itself is often exploited by ideological viewpoints. Rather, we are all called to rediscover the value of the liturgical reform by preserving the truth and beauty of the Rite that it has given us. For this to happen, we are aware that a renewed and continuous liturgical formation is necessary both for Priests and for the lay faithful.

Interjection Number Four:

It is interesting how the conciliar revolutionaries use the word “ideological” to describe legitimate theological arguments against the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service that were made by such theologians as Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani and the Bishop of Campos, Brazil, Antonio Castro de Mayer in 1969. The Novus Ordo abomination is based entirely on ideological presuppositions, starting with false ecumenism, as it was the specific desire of Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul VI to conform what purported to be the Catholic Mass to the Calvinist “Mass of the Lord’s Supper”:

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

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

Let it be candidly said: the Roman Rite which we have known hitherto no longer exists. It is destroyed. (Father Joseph Gelineau, an associate of Annibale Bugnini on the Consilium, 1uoted and footnoted in the work of a John Mole, who believed that the Mass of the Roman Rite had been "truncated," not destroyed. Assault on the Roman Rite)

Moreover, the late Monsignor Klaus Gamber, a liturgical scholar who was not a traditionalist and was favorably disposed to a reform of the Roman Liturgy, explained that the Novus Ordo represented a wholesale destruction of Roman Rite of the preceding one thousand years:

Not only is the Novus Ordo Missae of 1969 a change of the liturgical rite, but that change also involved a rearrangement of the liturgical year, including changes in the assignment of feast days for the saints. To add or drop one or the other of these feast days, as had been done before, certainly does not constitute a change of the rite, per se. But the countless innovations introduced as part of liturgical reform have left hardly any of the traditional liturgical forms intact . . .

At this critical juncture, the traditional Roman rite, more than one thousand years old and until now the heart of the Church, was destroyed. A closer examination reveals that the Roman rite was not perfect, and that some elements of value had atrophied over the centuries. Yet, through all the periods of the unrest that again and again shook the Church to her foundations, the Roman rite always remained the rock, the secure home of faith and piety. . . .

Was all this really done because of a pastoral concern about the souls of the faithful, or did it not rather represent a radical breach with the traditional rite, to prevent the further use of traditional liturgical texts and thus to make the celebration of the "Tridentime Mass" impossible--because it no loner reflected the new spirit moving through the Church?

Indeed, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the prohibition of the traditional rite was announced at the same time as the introduction of the new liturgical texts; and that a dispensation to continue celebrating the Mass according to the traditional rite was granted only to older priests.

Obviously, the reformers wanted a completely new liturgy, a liturgy that differed from the traditional one in spirit as well as in form; and in no way a liturgy that represented what the Council Fathers had envisioned, i.e., a liturgy that would meet the pastoral needs of the faithful.

Liturgy and faith are interdependent. That is why a new rite was created, a rite that in many ways reflects the bias of the new (modernist) theology. The traditional liturgy simply could not be allowed to exist in its established form because it was permeated with the truths of the traditional faith and the ancient forms of piety. For this reason alone, much was abolished and new rites, prayers and hymns were introduced, as were the new readings from Scripture, which conveniently left out those passages that did not square with the teachings of modern theology--for example, references to a God who judges and punishes.

At the same time, the priests and the faithful are told that the new liturgy created after the Second Vatican Council is identical in essence with the liturgy that has been in use in the Catholic Church up to this point, and that the only changes introduced involved reviving some earlier liturgical forms and removing a few duplications, but above all getting rid of elements of no particular interest.

Most priests accepted these assurances about the continuity of liturgical forms of worship and accepted the new rite with the same unquestioning obedience with which they had accepted the minor ritual changes introduced by Rome from time to time in the past, changes beginning with the reform of the Divine Office and of the liturgical chant introduced by Pope St. Pius X.

Following this strategy, the groups pushing for reform were able to take advantage of and at the same time abuse the sense of obedience among the older priests, and the common good will of the majority of the faithful, while, in many cases, they themselves refused to obey. . . .

The real destruction of the traditional Mass, of the traditional Roman rite with a history of more than one thousand years, is the wholesale destruction of the faith on which it was based, a faith that had been the source of our piety and of our courage to bear witness to Christ and His Church, the inspiration of countless Catholics over many centuries. Will someone, some day, be able to say the same thing about the new Mass? (Monsignor Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, p. 39, p. 99, pp. 100-102.)

Monsignor Klaus Gamber was not an ideologue. He was a honest liturgical scholar who saw the harm represented by the Novus Ordo and saw it as his duty to point out the simple fact that it was based upon a rejection of the Catholic Faith.

“Archbishop” Arthur Roche, though, much like his boss Bergoglio, prefers the use of easy pejoratives to dismiss criticism of the Novus Ordo liturgical service, which, as he noted at the close of his introducing remarks to the replies given to the dubia about Traditionis Custodes, is “irreversible,” citing the “authority” of both Montini/Paul VI and the latter’s ideological acolyte, Jorge Mario Bergoglio:

At the solemn closing of the second session of the Council (4 December 1963), St Paul VI said (n. 11):

“The difficult, complex debates have had rich results. They have brought one topic to a conclusion, the sacred liturgy. Treated before all others, in a sense it has priority over all others for its intrinsic dignity and importance to the life of the Church and today we will solemnly promulgate the document on the liturgy. Our spirit, therefore, exults with true joy, for in the way things have gone we note respect for a right scale of values and duties. God must hold first place; prayer to him is our first duty. The liturgy is the first source of the divine communion in which God shares his own life with us. It is also the first school of the spiritual life. The liturgy is the first gift we must make to the Christian people united to us by faith and the fervour of their prayers. It is also a primary invitation to the human race, so that all may lift their now mute voices in blessed and genuine prayer and thus may experience that indescribable, regenerative power to be found when they join us in proclaiming the praises of God and the hopes of the human heart through Christ and the Holy Spirit”.

When Pope Francis (Address to the participants in the 68^th National Liturgical Week, Rome, 24 August 2017) reminds us that “after this magisterium, after this long journey, We can affirm with certainty and with magisterial authority that the liturgical reform is irreversible” he wants to point us to the only direction in which we are joyfully called to turn our commitment as pastors.

Let us entrust our service “to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph 4,3), to Mary, Mother of the Church.

From the offices of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, 4 December 2021, on the 58^thanniversary of the promulgation of the Constitution on the Scared Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium.

Interjection Number Five:

The conundrum for traditionally minded Catholics within the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism is this: It is impossible to reconcile the fealty that a Catholic must give to men they believe to have been true popes in the immediate past and to the one they believe is serving at this time with a rejection of their authority to impose upon the Universal Church a liturgy of their choosing.

The Catholic Church cannot give her children anything that is false or harmful, which is why a rejection of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service must come with the realization that the entity that promulgated the Novus Ordo is not the Catholic Church and the man who promulgated it and those who have thereafter defended it have not been true and legitimate Successors of Saint Peter.

It is as simple as that, unless, that is, the following Canon of the Council of Trent was mistaken:

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.)

No intellectually honest Catholic can deny that the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service does indeed provide incentives to impiety and has not given rise to the institutionalization of blasphemies, sacrileges, and pagan spectacles of the sort that even heretics of yore would have found revolting.

Dissecting the Replies to the Dubia Concerning Traditionis Custodes

As historical ignorance is rampant within the world, the principal purpose of my bothering to dissect the conciliar Congregation for Divine Worship’s replies to the dubia concerning Traditionis Custodes is to point out that little in the restrictions on the “approved” offering/staging of the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition is “new,” that most, although not all, of them are a re-imposition of the Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II’s first “indult,” Quattuor Abhinc Annos, October 3, 1984.

No matter the terms of Quattour Abhinc Annos, Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, July 2, 1988, or Summorum Pontificum, July 7, 2007, each of the counterfeit church of conciliarism’s decrees concerning the accommodations made to Catholic “attached” to an “earlier” form of the Roman Rite has been based in a paternalistic, condescending tolerance of those who had yet to realize that the “richness” of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service, and the goal of each was to, in effect, “convert” the poor goofs attached to the Traditional Mass into the “mainstream church.” None of the three “indults” had anything to do with the integrity of the Holy Faith.

Thus, we turn now to the first dubium and reply:

Traditionis custodes

Art. 3. Episcopus, in dioecesibus ubi adhuc unus vel plures coetus celebrant secundum Missale antecedens instaurationem anni 1970:

[…]

§ 2. statuat unum vel plures locos ubi fideles, qui his coetibus adhaerent, convenire possint ad Eucharistiam celebrandam (nec autem in ecclesiis paroecialibus nec novas paroecias personales erigens); 

To the proposed question:

When it is not possible to find a church, oratory or chapel which is available to accommodate the faithful who celebrate using the Missale Romanum (Editio typica 1962), can the diocesan Bishop ask the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments for a dispensation from the provision of the Motu Proprio Traditionis custodes (Art. 3 § 2), and thus allow such a celebration in the parish church?

The answer is:

Affirmative.

Interjection Number One:

Although this is a complete reversal and abrogation of the provisions found in Summorum Pontificum, July 7, 2007, this provision of Traditionis Custodes is identical to the following in Quattuor Abhinc Annos:

b) Such celebration must be made only for the benefit of those groups that request it; in churches and oratories indicated by the bishop (not, however, in parish churches, unless the bishop permits it in extraordinary cases); and on the days and under the conditions fixed by the bishop either habitually or in individual cases, (Quattuor Abhinc Annos, October 3, 1984.)

Those Catholics within the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism who have known only the alleged “liberality” of Summorum Pontificum must come to understand that the terms of Traditionis Custodes, which binds their consciences as a decree of a man they accept as a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter despite all the manifest evidence to the contrary, are rooted, shall we say, in the “traditional” of “papal” restrictiveness of access to the 1961/1962 Missale Romanum of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII. (The so-called “1962” Missal contains all the anti-liturgical changes authorized by Roncalli/John XXIII in 1960 and went into effect on the First Sunday of Advent, November December 3, 1960. The insertion of the name of Saint Joseph into the Canon of the Mass by Roncalli/John XXIII on December 8, 1962, is why the Roncalli Missale Romanum is dated “1962.” Dr. Carol A. Byrne, who is a sedeplenist, explained the importance of the breaking the inviolability of the Roman Canon in St. Joseph in the Canon: A John XXIII Innovation to Break Tradition.)

The conciliar Congregation for Divine Worship’s explanatory note to the answer given to the first dubium is thus very redundant as it is based on the same principles as in Quattuor Abhinc Annos:

Explanatory note.

The Motu Proprio Traditionis custodes in art. 3 § 2 requests that the Bishop, in dioceses where up to now there has been the presence of one or more groups celebrating according to the Missal prior to the reform of 1970, “designate one or more locations where the faithful adherents of these groups may gather for the Eucharistic celebration (not however in the parochial churches and without the erection of new personal parishes)”. The exclusion of the parish church is intended to affirm that the celebration of the Eucharist according to the previous rite, being a concession limited to these groups, is not part of the ordinary life of the parish community.

This Congregation, exercising the authority of the Holy See in matters within its competence (cf. Traditionis custodes, n. 7), can grant, at the request of the diocesan Bishop, that the parish church be used to celebrate according to the Missale Romanum of 1962 only if it is established that it is impossible to use another church, oratory or chapel. The assessment of this impossibility must be made with the utmost care.

Moreover, such a celebration should not be included in the parish Mass schedule, since it is attended only by the faithful who are members of the said group. Finally, it should not be held at the same time as the pastoral activities of the parish community. It is to be understood that when another venue becomes available, this permission will be withdrawn.

There is no intention in these provisions to marginalise the faithful who are rooted in the previous form of celebration: they are only meant to remind them that this is a concession to provide for their good (in view of the common use of the one lex orandi of the Roman Rite) and not an opportunity to promote the previous rite.

Interjection Number Two:

This explanatory note does contain something that is new in the history of conciliar “concessions” made toward Catholics who are seeking a refuge from the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical abomination, namely, that a “bishop’s” permission for the offering/staging of the 1962 Missale Romanum in a parish setting cannot be published in a parish’s bulletin and is not to conflict with any other parish activity (bingo, theological “update” classes, religious miseducation, “Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults” instruction, and meetings of various parish “committees—budget/finance, liturgy, hospitality, “Eucharistic ministers,” lectors, altar servers, picnics, bazaars, etc.) The explanatory note’s contention that the probation of publishing the very existence, no less the time, of a putative Traditional Latin Mass is not to “marginalize the faithful are rooted in the previous form of celebration” is laughable.

The conciliar sect has gone from “concessions” to those attached to a “previous form of celebration” to the universal permission found in Summorum Pontificum back to the days of “concessions” granted solely to remind “reactionary” Catholics that the Novus Ordo is irreversible and must be accepted as the “lex orandi” of what most people alive today think is the Catholc Church.

We move on now to the second dubium: 

Traditionis custodes

Art. 1. Libri liturgici a sanctis Pontificibus Paulo VI et Ioanne Paulo II promulgati, iuxta decreta Concilii Vaticani II, unica expressio “legis orandi” Ritus Romani sunt.

Art. 8. Normae, dispositiones, concessiones et consuetudines antecedentes, quae conformes non sint cum harum Litterarum Apostolicarum Motu Proprio datarum praescriptis, abrogantur.

 To the proposed question:

Is it possible, according to the provisions of the Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes, to celebrate the sacraments with the Rituale Romanum and the Pontificale Romanum which predate the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council?

The answer is:

Negative.

The diocesan Bishop is authorised to grant permission to use only the Rituale Romanum (last editio typica 1952) and not the Pontificale Romanum which predate the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council. He may grant this permission only to those canonically erected personal parishes which, according to the provisions of the Motu Proprio Traditionis custodes, celebrate using the Missale Romanum of 1962.

Interjection Number Three:

This means no more Baptisms, administration of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, Nuptial Masses/Services, and Confirmations according to the Rituale Romanum approved by Pope Pius XII in 1950 and promulgated in 1952 (the official Latin-English version was published in 1957 and is available in three volumes at: Roman Ritual 3 Volume Set) unless they are offered/staged in canonically erected “personal parish,” which would seem to mean that groups such as the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter and the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, can continue to use the 1952 Rituale Romanum. However, the conciliar Congregation for Divine Worship’s reply to this second dubia precludes priestly “ordinations” and “episcopal consecrations” according to the Pope Leo XIII’s 1896 edition of the Pontifcale Romanum. This provision is meant to eliminate the claim that those “ordained” or “consecrated” according to the 1896 Pontificale Romanum have “true” or “purer” orders than do the putative clergy installed via the worthless conciliar rites of priestly ordination and episcopal consecration.

On a practical level, however, most of the men who have been “ordained” in the traditional rite are not priests because the men who attempted to ordain them according to the 1896 Pontificale Romanum have not been true bishops.

Even in this, though, the situation is a bit more complicated as there are men within the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter other than its founders (who had been ordained by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre of the Society of Saint Pius X) who are true bishops because they were ordained by Bishop Fernando Areas Rifan of the Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney in Campos, Brazil. Rifan’s “consecrating” “bishop was Dario Castrillon “Cardinal” Hoyos, who was not a bishop, but his co-consecration, Bishop Licinio Rangel, was a true bishop as he had been consecrated on July 18, 1991, by Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais of the Society of Saint Pius X.

In other words, things are a mess in the “indult” communities, but it is to prevent Bishop Rifan’s use of the 1896 Pontificale Romanum that the CDW saw fit to prohibit its use ever again.

The explanatory note makes it clear that the goal is to move all Catholics within the conciliar structures to an acceptance of the nonexistent “legitimacy” and “goodness” of the conciliar rites:

Explanatory note.

The Motu Proprio Traditionis custodes intends to re-establish in the whole Church of the Roman Rite a single and identical prayer expressing its unity, according to the liturgical books promulgated by the Popes Saint Paul VI and Saint John Paul II, in conformity with the decrees of the Second Vatican Council and in line with the tradition of the Church.

The diocesan Bishop, as the moderator, promoter and guardian of all liturgical life, must work to ensure that his diocese returns to a unitary form of celebration (cf. Pope Francis, Letter to the Bishops of the whole world that accompanies the Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio data Traditionis custodes).

This Congregation, exercising the authority of the Holy See in matters within its competence (cf. Traditionis custodes, n. 7), affirms that, in order to make progress in the direction indicated by the Motu Proprio, it should not grant permission to use the Rituale Romanum and the Pontificale Romanum which predate the liturgical reform, these are liturgical books which, like all previous norms, instructions, concessions and customs, have been abrogated (cf. Traditionis Custodes, n. 8).

After discernment the diocesan Bishop is authorised to grant permission to use only the Rituale Romanum (last editio typica1952) and not the Pontificale Romanum which predate the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council. This permission is to be granted only to canonically erected personal parishes which, according to the provisions of the Motu Proprio Traditionis custodes, celebrate with the Missale Romanum of 1962. It should be remembered that the formula for the Sacrament of Confirmation was changed for the entire Latin Church by Saint Paul VI with the Apostolic Constitution Divinæ consortium naturæ (15 August 1971).

This provision is intended to underline thune need to clearly affirm the direction indicated by the Motu Proprio which sees in the liturgical books promulgated by the Saints Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II, in conformity with the decrees of the Second Vatican Council, the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite (cf. Traditionis custodes, n. 1).

In implementing these provisions, care should be taken to accompany all those rooted in the previous form of celebration towards a full understanding of the value of the celebration in the ritual form given to us by the reform of the Second Vatican Council. This should take place through an appropriate formation that makes it possible to discover how the reformed liturgy is the witness to an unchanged faith, the expression of a renewed ecclesiology, and the primary source of spirituality for Christian life.

Interjection Number Four:

In the simplest of terms: traditionally minded Catholics who are blind enough at this late date that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is the Catholic Church must see in a “renewed” [heretical] ecclesiology and “reformed liturgy” a “witness to an unchanged faith” and thus the primary “source of spirituality for Christian life.”

Is any of this new?

Of course not.

Consider the provisions found in Quattuor Abhinc Annos, Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, and in Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s explanatory letter that accompanied Summorum Pontificum:

a) That it be made publicly clear beyond all ambiguity that such priests and their respective faithful in no way share the positions of those who call in question the legitimacy and doctrinal exactitude of the Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1970. . . .

This concession, indicative of the common Father's solicitude for all his children, must be used in such a way as not to prejudice the faithful observance of the liturgical reform in the life of the respective ecclesial communities. (Quattuor Abhinc Annos, October 3, 1984.)

b) Moreover, I should like to remind theologians and other experts in the ecclesiastical sciences that they should feel themselves called upon to answer in the present circumstances. Indeed, the extent and depth of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council call for a renewed commitment to deeper study in order to reveal clearly the Council's continuity with Tradition, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church.

c) In the present circumstances I wish especially to make an appeal both solemn and heartfelt, paternal and fraternal, to all those who until now have been linked in various ways to the movement of Archbishop Lefebvre, that they may fulfill the grave duty of remaining united to the Vicar of Christ in the unity of the Catholic Church, and of ceasing their support in any way for that movement. Everyone should be aware that formal adherence to the schism is a grave offense against God and carries the penalty of excommunication decreed by the Church's law. (Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, July 2, 1988.)

It is true that there have been exaggerations and at times social aspects unduly linked to the attitude of the faithful attached to the ancient Latin liturgical tradition. Your charity and pastoral prudence will be an incentive and guide for improving these. For that matter, the two Forms of the usage of the Roman Rite can be mutually enriching: new Saints and some of the new Prefaces can and should be inserted in the old Missal. The 'Ecclesia Dei' Commission, in contact with various bodies devoted to the 'usus antiquior,' will study the practical possibilities in this regard. The celebration of the Mass according to the Missal of Paul VI will be able to demonstrate, more powerfully than has been the case hitherto, the sacrality which attracts many people to the former usage. The most sure guarantee that the Missal of Paul VI can unite parish communities and be loved by them consists in its being celebrated with great reverence in harmony with the liturgical directives. This will bring out the spiritual richness and the theological depth of this Missal. (Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Explanatory Letter on Summorum Pontificum, July 7, 2007.)

Ratzinger/Benedict was, in essence, saying that an attachment to the Immemorial Mass of Tradition was a matter of aesthetics having nothing to do with the integrity of the Holy Faith and that more reverent stagings of the Novus Ordo service would obviate the need for people to seek out reverence in “Tridentine Masses,” which ignored the simple fact that the Novus Ordo service is offensive to God and sacramentally invalid no matter how well it is staged.

Ratzinger/Benedict repeated this theme, thereafter, explaining in his letter to the conciliar “bishops” after the lifting of the “excommunications” of the four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer on June 30, 1988, that his goal was to “pacify the spirits” of traditionally-minded Catholics, a “pacification” he stressed over and over again in subsequent years:

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.)

Fr Federico Lombardi, S.J., Director of the Holy See Press Office: What do you say to those who, in France, fear that the "Motu proprio' Summorum Pontificum signals a step backwards from the great insights of the Second Vatican Council? How can you reassure them?

Benedict XVI: Their fear is unfounded, for this "Motu Proprio' is merely an act of tolerance, with a pastoral aim, for those people who were brought up with this liturgy, who love it, are familiar with it and want to live with this liturgy. They form a small group, because this presupposes a schooling in Latin, a training in a certain culture. Yet for these people, to have the love and tolerance to let them live with this liturgy seems to me a normal requirement of the faith and pastoral concern of any Bishop of our Church. There is no opposition between the liturgy renewed by the Second Vatican Council and this liturgy.

On each day [of the Council], the Council Fathers celebrated Mass in accordance with the ancient rite and, at the same time, they conceived of a natural development for the liturgy within the whole of this century, for the liturgy is a living reality that develops but, in its development, retains its identity. Thus, there are certainly different accents, but nevertheless [there remains] a fundamental identity that excludes a contradiction, an opposition between the renewed liturgy and the previous liturgy. In any case, I believe that there is an opportunity for the enrichment of both parties. On the one hand the friends of the old liturgy can and must know the new saints, the new prefaces of the liturgy, etc.... On the other, the new liturgy places greater emphasis on common participation, but it is not merely an assembly of a certain community, but rather always an act of the universal Church in communion with all believers of all times, and an act of worship. In this sense, it seems to me that there is a mutual enrichment, and it is clear that the renewed liturgy is the ordinary liturgy of our time. (Interview of the Holy Father during the flight to France, September 12, 2008.)

Liturgical worship is the supreme expression of priestly and episcopal life, just as it is of catechetical teaching. Your duty to sanctify the faithful people, dear Brothers, is indispensable for the growth of the Church. In the Motu Proprio “Summorum Pontificum”, I was led to set out the conditions in which this duty is to be exercised, with regard to the possibility of using the missal of Blessed John XXIII (1962) in addition to that of Pope Paul VI (1970). Some fruits of these new arrangements have already been seen, and I hope that, thanks be to God, the necessary pacification of spirits is already taking place. I am aware of your difficulties, but I do not doubt that, within a reasonable time, you can find solutions satisfactory for all, lest the seamless tunic of Christ be further torn. Everyone has a place in the Church. Every person, without exception, should be able to feel at home, and never rejected. God, who loves all men and women and wishes none to be lost, entrusts us with this mission by appointing us shepherds of his sheep. We can only thank him for the honour and the trust that he has placed in us. Let us therefore strive always to be servants of unity! (Meeting with the French Bishops in the Hemicycle Sainte-Bernadette, Lourdes, 14 September 2008.)

Ratzinger/Benedict’s supposed magnanimity to traditionally-minded Catholics attached to the counterfeit church of conciliarism in the mistaken belief that it is the Catholic Church and the conciliar entity has true sacramental rites, true bishops, true priests and continues to have true popes was based on sentiment towards those who have a “nostalgic” or “aesthetic” attachment to an “older” liturgy, not upon a desire to protect the inviolable integrity of the doctrines of the Holy Faith. Summorum Pontificum was bound to weaken over time as it was founded upon false premises that were not clear in the ever opaque, obscurantist, Hegelian mind of Antipope Benedict XVI. Ratzinger/Benedict repeatedly contradicted himself in the explanatory letter accompanying Summorum Pontificum in 2007 and then in the explanatory letter he issued in early 2009 to explain why he lifted the ban of excommunication that his predecessor, Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, had imposed upon Bishops Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson, and Alonso de Galaretta in 1988 after they had been consecrated without a “papal” mandate by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who remains “excommunicated” thirty years after his death on March 25, 1991.

The intent of Traditionis Custodes, no matter how vastly it differs from Summorum Pontificum in its particulars, is the same as that which motivated Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II to issue Quattuor Abhinc Annos and Ecclesia Dei Adflicta and motivated Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI to issue Summorum Pontificum: to lead the poor goofballs attached to the past to an appreciation and then an embrace of the Novus Ordo as the normative rite of what is purported to be the Catholic Church.

Yet it is that believing Catholics understand that the battle we fight is for the integrity of the Holy Faith and not for having a very restricted access to a modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition that is offered/staged mostly by men who are not validly ordained.

We turn now to the third dubium that was answered by the conciliar Congregation for Divine Worship:

Traditionis custodes

Art. 3. Episcopus, in dioecesibus ubi adhuc unus vel plures coetus celebrant secundum Missale antecedens instaurationem anni 1970:

§ 1. certior fiat coetus illos auctoritatem ac legitimam naturam instaurationis liturgicae, normarum Concilii Vaticani II Magisteriique Summorum Pontificum non excludere;

To the proposed question:

If a Priest who has been granted the use of the Missale Romanum of 1962 does not recognise the validity and legitimacy of concelebration – refusing to concelebrate, in particular, at the Chrism Mass – can he continue to benefit from this concession?

The answer is:

Negative.

However, before revoking the concession to use the Missale Romanum of 1962, the Bishop should take care to establish a fraternal dialogue with the Priest, to ascertain that this attitude does not exclude the validity and legitimacy of the liturgical reform, the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and the Magisterium of the Supreme Pontiffs, and to accompany him towards an understanding of the value of concelebration, particularly at the Chrism Mass.

Interjection Number Five:

This provision of Traditionis Custodes marks a return to what was contained in Quttuor Abhinc Annos and was implied in Ecclesia Dei Adflicta but left unaddressed in Summorum Pontificum, namely, that those who offer/stage the Missale Romanum of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII must not question the legitimacy of the “renewed liturgy.”

a) That it be made publicly clear beyond all ambiguity that such priests and their respective faithful in no way share the positions of those who call in question the legitimacy and doctrinal exactitude of the Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1970. (Quattuor Abnic Annos, October 3, 1984.)

b) Moreover, I should like to remind theologians and other experts in the ecclesiastical sciences that they should feel themselves called upon to answer in the present circumstances. Indeed, the extent and depth of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council call for a renewed commitment to deeper study in order to reveal clearly the Council's continuity with Tradition, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church. (Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, July 2, 1988.)

A brief digression:

Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II damned both himself and the “Second” Vatican Council  by calling for a “renewed commitment to deeper study in order to reveal clearly the Council’s continuity with Tradition, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church.”

Holy Mother Church has no “new” teachings. The fact that Wojtyla/John Paul II referenced such “new” teachings while also making an appeal to his version of dogmatic evolutionism (“living tradition) is itself an admission that the “Second” Vatican Council cannot be reconciled with the Holy Faith no matter how many times gratuitous claims to the contrary are made and then repeated in solemn tones.

Back to Ecclesia Dei Adflicta:

c) In the present circumstances I wish especially to make an appeal both solemn and heartfelt, paternal and fraternal, to all those who until now have been linked in various ways to the movement of Archbishop Lefebvre, that they may fulfil the grave duty of remaining united to the Vicar of Christ in the unity of the Catholic Church, and of ceasing their support in any way for that movement. Everyone should be aware that formal adherence to the schism is a grave offence against God and carries the penalty of excommunication decreed by the Church's law. (8) (Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, July 2, 1988.)

As far as Jorge Mario Bergoglio is concerned, everyone, whether he be a putative priest or a layman, has the obligation to accept the legitimacy of the “reformed rites.” This is an eminently reasonable expectation because, as was noted earlier in this commentary, the Catholic Church cannot give us a defective or offensive liturgical rite. The problem is, of course, that the conciliar rites are invalid, offensive to God and harmful to the souls redeemed by the shedding of every single drop of the Most Precious Blood of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and thus cannot be the work of the Catholic Church in any way, shape, or form.

To the explanatory note offered by the CDW on this dubium:

Explanatory note.

Art. 3 § 1 of the Motu Proprio Traditionis custodes requires the diocesan Bishop to ascertain that the groups requesting to celebrate with the Missale Romanum of 1962 “do not deny the validity and the legitimacy of the liturgical reform, dictated by Vatican Council II and the Magisterium of the Supreme Pontiffs”.

St Paul forcefully reminds the community of Corinth to live in unity as a necessary condition to be able to participate at the Eucharistic table (cf. 1 Cor 11,17-34).

In the Letter sent to the Bishops of the whole world to accompany the text of the Motu Proprio Traditionis custodes, the Holy Father says: “Because ‘liturgical celebrations are not private actions, but celebrations of the Church, which is the sacrament of unity’ (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 26), they must be carried out in communion with the Church. Vatican Council II, while it reaffirmed the external bonds of incorporation in the Church — the profession of faith, the sacraments, of communion — affirmed with St. Augustine that to remain in the Church not only ‘with the body’ but also ‘with the heart’ is a condition for salvation (cf. Lumen Gentium, n. 14)”.

The explicit refusal not to take part in concelebration, particularly at the Chrism Mass, seems to express a lack of acceptance of the liturgical reform and a lack of ecclesial communion with the Bishop, both of which are necessary requirements in order to benefit from the concession to celebrate with the Missale Romanum of 1962.

However, before revoking the concession to use the Missale Romanum of 1962, the Bishop should offer the Priest the necessary time for a sincere discussion on the deeper motivations that lead him not to recognise the value of concelebration, in particular in the Mass presided over by the Bishop. He should invite him to express, in the eloquent gesture of concelebration, that ecclesial communion which is a necessary condition for being able to participate at the table of the Eucharistic sacrifice.

Interjection Number Six:

Every priest or presbyter within the “Ecclesia Dei” communities must “concelebrate” with the diocesan “bishop” in whose territory they work and, by implication, must be willing stage the Novus Ordo abomination upon the “bishop’s” request. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as is his right if he is a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter, is letting it be known that that there is a little refuge from the “renewed liturgy” for priests/presbyters in the “Ecclesia Dei” communities as there is from his own “vaccine mandates” within the walls of the Occupied Vatican on the West Bank of the Tiber River.

To the fourth dubium: 

Traditionis custodes

Art. 3. Episcopus, in dioecesibus ubi adhuc unus vel plures coetus celebrant secundum Missale antecedens instaurationem anni 1970:

[…]

§ 3. constituat, in loco statuto, dies quibus celebrationes eucharisticae secundum Missale Romanum a sancto Ioanne XXIII anno 1962 promulgatum permittuntur. His in celebrationibus, lectiones proclamentur lingua vernacula, adhibitis Sacrae Scripturae translationibus ad usum liturgicum ab unaquaque Conferentia Episcoporum approbatis;

To the proposed question:

In Eucharistic celebrations using the Missale Romanum of 1962, is it possible to use the full text of the Bible for the readings, choosing the pericopes indicated in the Missal??

The answer is:

Affirmative. 

Explanatory note.

Art. 3 § 3 of the Motu Proprio Traditionis custodes states that the readings are to be proclaimed in the vernacular language, using translations of Sacred Scripture for liturgical use, approved by the respective Episcopal Conferences.

Since the texts of the readings are contained in the Missal itself, and therefore there is no separate Lectionary, and in order to observe the provisions of the Motu Proprio, one must necessarily resort to the translation of the Bible approved by the individual Bishops’ Conferences for liturgical use, choosing the pericopes indicated in the Missale Romanum of 1962.

No vernacular lectionaries may be published that reproduce the cycle of readings of the previous rite.

It should be remembered that the present Lectionary is one of the most precious fruits of the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council. The publication of the Lectionary, in addition to overcoming the “plenary” form of the Missale Romanum of 1962 and returning to the ancient tradition of individual books corresponding to individual ministries, fulfils the wish of Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 51: “The treasures of the Bible are to be opened up more lavishly, so that richer fare may be provided for the faithful at the table of God’s word. In this way a more representative portion of the holy scriptures will be read to the people in the course of a prescribed number of years”.

Interjection Number Seven:

While the “Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei” did issue an “indult” in 1990 to permit the use of the Novus Ordo readings in offerings/stagings of the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition, something that was forbidden in Quattuor Abnic Annos and in the text of Ecclesia Dei Adflicta but enshrined as in Summorum Pontificum as one if its principal goals, Traditionis Custodes is making it possible for priests/presbyters to abandon the Latin readings altogether and to pronounce them not only in the vernacular during the liturgy but to use the Biblical selections approved by the national “episcopal” conferences.

What does this mean?

A simple answer is this, at least in the United States of America: Goodbye, Douay-Rheims Bible. Hello, New American Bible.

That is, sure, the Scriptural selections will remain the same, but the priest/presbyter can choose to ignore the Latin text altogether for the vernacular version approved by the local “bishops” conference.

To the fifth dubium:

Traditionis custodes

Art. 4. Presbyteri ordinati post has Litteras Apostolicas Motu Proprio datas promulgatas, celebrare volentes iuxta Missale Romanum anno 1962 editum, petitionem formalem Episcopo dioecesano mittere debent, qui, ante concessionem, a Sede Apostolica licentiam rogabit.

To the proposed question:

Does the diocesan Bishop have to be authorised by the Apostolic See to allow priests ordained after the publication of the Motu Proprio Traditionis custodes to celebrate with the Missale Romanum of 1962 (cf. Traditionis custodies, n. 4)?

The answer is:

Affirmative.

Explanatory note.

Article 4 of the Latin text (which is the official text to be referenced) reads as follows: «Presbyteri ordinati post has Litteras Apostolicas Motu Proprio datas promulgatas, celebrare volentes iuxta Missale Romanum anno 1962 editum, petitionem formalem Episcopo dioecesano mittere debent, qui, ante concessionem, a Sede Apostolica licentiam rogabit».

This is not merely a consultative opinion, but a necessary authorisation given to the diocesan Bishop by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, which exercises the authority of the Holy See over matters within its competence. (cf. Traditionis custodes, n. 7).

Only after receiving this permission will the diocesan Bishop be able to authorise Priests ordained after the publication of the Motu Proprio (16 July 2021) to celebrate with the Missale Romanum of 1962.

This rule is intended to assist the diocesan Bishop in evaluating such a request: his discernment will be duly taken into account by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

The Motu Proprio clearly expresses the desire that what is contained in the liturgical books promulgated by Popes Saint Paul VI and Saint John Paul II, in conformity with the decrees of the Second Vatican Council, be recognised as the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite: it is therefore absolutely essential that Priests ordained after the publication of the Motu Proprio share this desire of the Holy Father.

All seminary formators, seeking to walk with solicitude in the direction indicated by Pope Francis, are encouraged to accompany future Deacons and Priests to an understanding and experience of the richness of the liturgical reform called for by the Second Vatican Council. This reform has enhanced every element of the Roman Rite and has fostered - as hoped for by the Council Fathers - the full, conscious and active participation of the entire People of God in the liturgy (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium no. 14), the primary source of authentic Christian spirituality.

Interjection Number Eight:

This is meant to strike at the heart of Summorum Pontificum’s universal grant of permission for even recently “ordained” presbyters to offer/stage the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition as they see fit. Bergoglio hates the fact that many younger “clergy” in various places around the world have been attracted to, learned and then have staged the traditional liturgy, and he wants to make it clear that there is to be no seminary instruction in the traditional liturgy and that any permission to stage it must have the approval of the local “bishop” and of the conciliar Congregation for Divine Worship.

More than anything else, I believe, it is the fact that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is rip-roaring furious that so many younger “priests” are attracted to a Mass that he believes, contrary to what Ratzinger/Benedict XVI contended in Summorum Pontificum, was abrogated and was not meant to return, no less return to compete with the “richness of the liturgical reform.”

To the sixth dubium:

Traditionis custodes

Art. 5. Presbyteri, qui iam secundum Missale Romanum anno 1962 editum celebrant, ab Episcopo dioecesano licentiam rogabunt ad hanc facultatem servandam. 

To the proposed question:

Can the faculty to celebrate using the Missale Romanum of 1962 be granted ad tempus?

The answer is:

Affirmative.

Explanatory note.

The possibility of granting the use of the Missale Romanum of 1962 for a defined period of time - the duration of which the diocesan Bishop will consider appropriate - is not only possible but also recommended: the end of the defined period offers the possibility of ascertaining that everything is in harmony with the direction established by the Motu Proprio. The outcome of this assessment can provide grounds for prolonging or suspending the permission.

Interjection Number Nine:

Once again, this is a blow against the “universal indult” granted by Ratzinger/Benedict in Summorum Pontificum that had no “expiration” date until Jorge Mario Bergoglio issued Traditionis Custodes on July 16, 2021, the Commemoration of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

The purpose of granting permission for the staging of the Missale Romanum of 1962 at tempus is to keep presbyters in line with the official teaching and the direction of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, something that is within the prerogative of a true pope to mandate.

Obviously, a true pope must possess the Catholic Faith and to be a true bishop. However, those who believe that Bergoglio is a true pope and a true bishop have to obey. The fact that he is so hostile to the Mass of the ages, though, should lead a truly discerning Catholic into an understanding that a hatred of Catholic Faith and Worship has nothing to do with the Catholic Faith.

To the eighth dubium:

To the proposed question:

Does the faculty granted by the diocesan Bishop to celebrate using the Missale Romanum of 1962 only apply to the territory of his own diocese?

The answer is:

Affirmative.

Interjection Number Ten:

Although these dubia are pretty redundant as the text of Traditionis Custodes is very clear on these points, the universal indult of Summorum Pontificum no longer applies. A presbyter only has
“permission” to stage the traditional liturgy in his home diocese and nowhere else unless he gets “permission” in every diocese he might visit.

To the ninth dubia: 

To the proposed question:

If the authorised Priest is absent or unable to attend, must the person replacing him also have formal authorisation?

The answer is:

Affirmative.

Interjection Number Eleven:

This is to preclude a priest/presbyter who had not been screened by the local “bishop” and received permission from the conciliar Congregation for Divine Worship to commit an “offense” against “ecclesial communion” by staging the traditional liturgy without permission.

To the tenth dubium: 

To the proposed question:

Do Deacons and instituted ministers participating in celebrations using the Missale Romanum of 1962 have to be authorised by the diocesan Bishop?

The answer is:

Affermative.

Interjection Number Twelve:

Anyone and everyone who comes under the authority of the local “bishop” must receive permission to exercise a liturgical function in the Roncalli/John XXIII Missale Romanum. This is to make sure that the local “bishop” keeps a list of such deacons and “instituted ministers” to assure their adherence to the teachings of the “Second” Vatican Council and also to the validity and “beauty” of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service.

To the eleventh dubium:

To the proposed question:

Can a Priest who is authorised to celebrate with the Missale Romanum of 1962 and who, because of his office (Parish Priest, chaplain, etc.), also celebrates on weekdays with the Missale Romanum of the reform of the Second Vatican Council, binate using the Missale Romanum of 1962?

The answer is:

Negative.

Explanatory note.

The Parish Priest or chaplain who - in the fulfilment of his office - celebrates on weekdays with the current Missale Romanum, which is the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite, cannot binate by celebrating with the Missale Romanumof 1962, either with a group or privately.

It is not possible to grant bination on the grounds that there is no “just cause” or “pastoral necessity” as required by canon 905 §2: the right of the faithful to the celebration of the Eucharist is in no way denied, since they are offered the possibility of participating in the Eucharist in its current ritual form.

Interjection Number Thirteen:

This is to prevent priests/presbyters from staging the Novus Ordo in the morning and then, say, traveling to a nearby city to offer/stage the traditional liturgy for a group such as a Purgatorian Society. As far as the conciliar revolutionaries are concerned, there is no “need” for a putative priest to do such a thing, making bination to be unjustified.

Bergoglio and his revolutionaries are thus making sure that all the practices that spread widely as a result of Summorum Pontificum are ended posthaste.

To the final dubium:

To the proposed question:

Can a Priest who is authorised to celebrate using the Missale Romanum of 1962 celebrate on the same day with the same Missal for another group of faithful who have received authorisation?

The answer is:

Negative.

Explanatory note.

It is not possible to grant bination on the grounds that there is no “just cause” or “pastoral necessity” as required by canon 905 §2: the right of the faithful to the celebration of the Eucharist is in no way denied, since they are offered the possibility of participating in the Eucharist in its current ritual form. (Responsa ad dubia of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments on some provisions of the Anti-Apostolic Letter issued Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes.)

Interjection Number Fifteen:

Gone are the days when the pastor of a parish in conciliar captivity can stage the Novus Ordo at one time on Sunday, for example, and then switch gears to offer/stage the traditional liturgy in a side chapel or at some other location on the same day. It is one or the other, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio is making it clear that is really simply one, the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service.

A True Pope Must Be Obeyed

It is time for those who have reluctant to accept this as being true to examine the situation in a dispassionate search for the truth as they consider the following question:

Can the Catholic Church ever approve of a liturgy that proves to be an incentive to impiety?

All right, here is a second question: Did the Catholic Church ever do so prior to the “Second” Vatican Council and its aftermath?

1) The counterfeit church of conciliarism is not and can never be the Catholic Church;

2) Each of the conciliar “popes” defected from the Catholic Faith on man points long before their apparent “elections;”

3) Those who accept the nonexistent authority of these “popes,” however, are duty bound to submit to and obey the teaching and the disciplinary decisions of one they consider to be a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter, something is simply part of Holy Mother Church’s Divine Constitution and is not subject to Gallicanist deconstructionism;

4) Traditionis Custodes is binding upon those who accept Jorge Mario Bergoglio as “Pope Francis”,

5) Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton explained in the American Ecclesiastical Review that no Catholic can dissent from anything that legitimate Successor of Saint Peter causes to be inserted into his Actapostolicae Sedis:

Thus, according to the clear teaching of the Humani generis, it is morally wrong for any individual subject to the Roman Pontiff to defend a thesis contradicting a teaching which the Pope, in his "Acta," has set forth as a part of Catholic doctrine.  It is, in other words, wrong to attack a teaching which, in a genuine doctrinal decision, the Sovereign Pontiff has taught officially as the visible head of the universal Church.  This holds true always an everywhere, even in those cases in which the Pope, in making his decision, did not exercise the plenitude of his apostolic teaching power by making an infallible doctrinal definition.

The Humani generis must not be taken to imply that a Catholic theologian has completed his obligation with respect to an authoritative doctrinal decision made by the Holy Father and presented in his published "Acta" when he has merely refrained from arguing or debating against it.  The Humani generis reminded its readers that "this sacred magisterium ought to be the immediate and universal norm of truth for any theologian in matters of faith and morals."[9]  Furthermore, it insisted that the faithful are obligated to shun errors which more or less approach heresy, and "to follow the constitutions and decrees by which evil opinions of this sort have been proscribed and forbidden by the Holy See."[10]  In other words, the Humani generis claimed the same internal assent for declarations of the magisterium on matters of faith and morals which previous documents of the Holy See had stressed.

We may well ask why the Humani generis went to the trouble of mentioning something as fundamental and rudimentary as the duty of abstaining from further debate on a point where the Roman Pontiff has already issued a doctrinal decision, and has communicated that decision to the Church universal by publishing it in his "Acta."  The reason is to be found in the context of the encyclical itself.  The Holy Father has told us something of the existing situation which called for the issuance of the "Humani generis."  This information is contained in the text of that document.  The following two sentences show us the sort of condition the Humani generis was written to meet and to remedy:

"And although this sacred magisterium ought to be the immediate and universal norm of truth on matters of faith and morals for any theologian, as the agency to which Christ the Lord has entrusted the entire deposit of faith - that is, the Sacred Scriptures and divine Tradition - to be guarded and defended and explained, still, the duty by which the faithful are obligated also to shun those errors which approach more or less to heresy, and therefore 'to follow the constitutions and decrees by which evil opinions of this sort have been proscribed and forbidden by the Holy See,' is sometimes ignored as if it did not exist.  What is said in encyclical letters of the Roman Pontiffs about the nature and constitution of the Church is habitually and deliberately neglected by some with the idea of giving force to a certain vague notion which they claim to have found in the ancient Fathers, especially the Greeks."[11]

Six years ago, then, Pope Pius XII was faced with a situation in which some of the men who were privileged and obligated to teach the truths of sacred theology had perverted their position and their influence and had deliberately flouted the teachings of the Holy See about the nature and the constitution of the Catholic Church.  And, when he declared that it is wrong to debate a point already decided by the Holy Father after that decision has been published in his "Acta," he was taking cognizance of and condemning an existent practice.  There actually were individuals who were contradicting papal teachings.  They were so numerous and influential that they rendered the composition of the Humani generis necessary to counteract their activities.  These individuals were continuing to propose teachings repudiated by the Sovereign Pontiff in previous pronouncements.  The Holy Father, then, was compelled by these circumstances to call for the cessation of debate among theologians on subjects which had already been decided by pontifical decisions published in the "Acta."

The kind of theological teaching and writing against which the encyclical Humani generis was directed was definitely not remarkable for its scientific excellence.  It was, as a matter of fact, exceptionally poor from the scientific point of view.  The men who were responsible for it showed very clearly that they did not understand the basic nature and purpose of sacred theology.  For the true theologian the magisterium of the Church remains, as the Humani generis says, the immediate and universal norm of truth.  And the teaching set forth by Pope Pius IX in his Tuas libenter is as true today as it always has been.

But when we treat of that subjection by which all Catholic students of speculative sciences are obligated in conscience so that they bring new aids to the Church by their writings, the men of this assembly ought to realize that it is not enough for Catholic scholars to receive and venerate the above-mentioned dogmas of the Church, but [they ought also to realize] that they must submit to the doctrinal decisions issued by the Pontifical Congregations and also to those points of doctrine which are held by the common and constant agreement of Catholics as theological truths and conclusions which are so certain that, even though the opinions opposed to them cannot be called heretical, they still deserve some other theological censure.[12]

It is definitely the business of the writer in the field of sacred theology to benefit the Church by what he writes.  It is likewise the duty of the teacher of this science to help the Church by his teaching.  The man who uses the shoddy tricks of minimism to oppose or to ignore the doctrinal decisions made by the Sovereign Pontiff and set down in his "Acta" is, in the last analysis, stultifying his position as a theologian. (The doctrinal Authority of Papal allocutions.)

Are there any further questions about the binding nature of what a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter places in the Actapostolicae Sedis?

Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton denounced "the shoddy tricks of minimism to ignore the doctrinal decisions made by the Sovereign Pontiff and set down his his 'Acta'."

4) The “resist while recognize” movement has reduced the papacy to little more than a political office that is “fair game” for dissent, open criticism and mockery;

5) The battle that is being fought at this time is about the integrity of the Catholic Faith, not about having access to a modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition;

6) Starting with an unremitting warfare against the very immutable nature of Divine Revelation, which is nothing other than an attack upon the very immutability of God Himself, the conciliar officials have made war upon true Catholic ecclesiology, reaffirmed non-Catholics in their false religions, taught that the Old Covenant was never abrogated even though this abrogation is a fact that has been taught from Apostolic times and reiterated many times, including most recently by Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis Christi, June 29, 1943, have publicly done things, such as esteeming the symbols of false religions with their own hands and participating in “inter-religious” “prayer” services, for which millions upon millions gave up their lives rather than even give the mere appearance of doing, have denied the irreformable teaching of the Social Reign of Christ the King both in theory and in fact having nothing to do to concessions made by our true popes to the regrettable state of things caused by the Protestant Revolution, dethroned the papacy in favor of “episcopal collegiality” and have proclaimed that members of false religions have a positive “right’ from God Himself to propagate their falsehoods;

7) Those who, in spite of this evidence, continue to insist on the falsehood that the Catholic Church has had “heretical popes,” have to reckon with Saint Robert Bellarmine's Defense of Popes Said to Have Erred in Faith and with the simple summary of Catholic truth as found in the readings for Matins in the Divine Office on the Feast of Pope Saint Leo the Great, April 11:

When the Lord, as we read in the Evangelist, asked His disciples Who did men, amid their divers speculations, believe that He, the Son of Man, was; blessed Peter answered and said Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father, Which is in heaven and I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Thus therefore standeth the ordinance of the Truth, and blessed Peter, abiding still that firm rock which God hath made him, hath never lost that right to rule in the Church which God hath given unto him.

In the universal Church it is Peter that doth still say every day, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, and every tongue which confesseth that Jesus is Lord is taught that confession by the teaching of Peter. This is the faith that overcometh the devil and looseth the bands of his prisoners. This is the faith which maketh men free of the world and bringeth them to heaven, and the gates of hell are impotent to prevail against it. With such ramparts of salvation hath God fortified this rock, that the contagion of heresy will never be able to infect it, nor idolatry and unbelief to overcome it. This teaching it is, my dearly beloved brethren, which maketh the keeping of this Feast to-day to be our reasonable service, even the teaching which maketh you to know and honour in myself, lowly though I be, that Peter who is still entrusted with the care of all other shepherds and of all the flocks to them committed, and whose authority I have, albeit unworthy to be his heir. 

When, therefore, we address our exhortations to your godly ears, believe ye that ye are hearing him speak whose office we are discharging. Yea, it is with his love for you that we warn you, and we preach unto you no other thing than that which he taught, entreating you that ye would gird up the loins of your mind and lead pure and sober lives in the fear of God. My disciples dearly beloved, ye are to me, as the disciples of the Apostle Paul were to him, (Phil. iv. 1,) a crown and a joy, if your faith, which, in the first times of the Gospel, was spoken of throughout the whole world, Rom. i. 8, abide still lovely and holy. For, albeit it behoveth the whole Church which is spread throughout all the world, to be strong in righteousness, you it chiefly becometh above all other peoples to excel in worth and godliness, whose house is built upon the very crown of the Rock of the Apostle, and whom not only hath our Lord Jesus Christ, as He hath redeemed all men, but whom also His blessed Apostle Peter hath made the foremost object of his teaching. (Pope Saint Leo the Great, as found in Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Pope Saint Leo the Great.)

Well, it is all there, isn’t it?

One must engage in all kinds of intellectual gymnastics to believe that the contagion of heresy is not rife within the counterfeit church of conciliarism, which is why all those who are not yet convinced of the truth of our ecclesiastical situation in this time of apostasy and betrayal should re-read these words:

This is the faith which maketh men free of the world and bringeth them to heaven, and the gates of hell are impotent to prevail against it. With such ramparts of salvation hath God fortified this rock, that the contagion of heresy will never be able to infect it, nor idolatry and unbelief to overcome it. (Pope Saint Leo the Great, as found in Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Pope Saint Leo the Great.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio has esteemed the symbols of idolaters. So have Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and “Saint John Paul II” before his own election as the head of the false conciliar sect on March 13, 2013, and Bergoglio has shown repeatedly that he has no belief in the integrity of the Catholic Faith. So have his predecessors in the past sixty-two and one-half years.

Dom Prosper Gueranger praised Pope Saint Leo the Great as follows in The Liturgical Year:

One of the grandest Saints in the Church’s Calendar is brought before us today. Leo, the Pontiff and Doctor, rises on the Paschal horizon, and calls for our admiration and love. As his name implies, he is the Lion of holy Church; thus representing, in his own person, one of the most glorious of our Lord’s titles. There have been twelve Popes who have had this name, and five of the number are enrolled in the catalogue of Saints; but not one of them has so honored the name as he whose feast we keep today: hence, he is called “Leo the Great.”

He deserved the appellation by what he did for maintaining the faith regarding the sublime mystery of the Incarnation. The Church had triumphed over the heresies that had attacked the dogma of the Trinity, when the gates of hell sought to prevail against the dogma of God having been made Man. Nestorius, a Bishop of Constantinople, impiously taught that there were two distinct Persons in Christ—the Person of the Divine Word, and the Person of Man. The Council of Ephesus condemned this doctrine, which, by denying the unity of Person in Christ, destroyed the true notion of the Redemption. A new heresy, the very opposite of that of Nestorianism, but equally subversive of Christianity, soon followed. The monk Eutyches maintained that, in the Incarnation, the Human Nature was absorbed by the Divine. The error was propagated with frightful rapidity. There was needed a clear and authoritative exposition of the great dogma, which is the foundation of all our hopes. Leo arose, and, from the Apostolic Chair, on which the Holy Ghost had placed him, proclaimed with matchless eloquence and precision the formula of the ancient faith—ancient, indeed, and ever the same, yet ever acquiring greater and fresher brightness. A cry of admiration was raised at the General Council of Chalcedon, which had been convened for the purpose of condemning the errors of Eutyches. “Peter,” exclaimed the Fathers, “Peter has spoken by the mouth of Leo!” As we shall see further on, the Eastern Church has kept up the enthusiasm thus excited by the magnificent teachings given by Leo to the whole world.

The Barbarian hordes were invading the West; the Empire was little more than a ruin: and Attila, “the Scourge of God,“ was marching on towards Rome. Leo’s majestic bearing repelled the invasion, as his word had checked the ravages of heresy. The haughty king of the Huns, before whose armies the strongest citadels had fallen, granted an audience to the Pontiff on the banks of the Mincio, and promised to spare Rome. The calm and dignity of Leo—who thus unarmed confronted the most formidable enemy of the Empire and exposed his life for his flock—awed the barbarian, who afterwards told his people that, during the interview, he saw a venerable person standing, in an attitude of defense, by the side of Rome’s intercessor: it was the Apostle St. Peter. Attila not only admired, he feared the Pontiff. It was truly a sublime spectacle, and one that was full of meaning;—a Priest, with no arms save those of his character and virtues, forcing a king such as Attila was, to do homage to a devotedness which he could ill understand, and recognize, by submission, the influence of a power which had heaven on its side. Leo, single-handed and at once, did what it took the whole of Europe several ages to accomplish later on.

That the aureola of Leo’s glory might be complete, the Holy Ghost gifted him with an eloquence which, on account of its majesty and richness, might deservedly be called Papal. The Latin language had, at that time, lost its ancient vigor; but we frequently come across passages in the writings of our Saint which remind us of the golden age.

In exposing the dogmas of our holy Faith, he uses a style so dignified and so impregnated with the savor of sacred antiquity, that it seems made for the subject. He has several admirable Sermons on the Resurrection; and speaking of the present Season of the Liturgical Year, he says: “The days that intervened between our Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension, were not days on which nothing was done: on the contrary, great were the Sacraments then confirmed, and great were the mysteries that were revealed.” (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, April 11, Feast of Pope Saint Leo the Great.)

“Peter has spoken by the mouth of Leo.”

Yes, it is always Saint Peter who speaks through the mouth of a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter.

Have the conciliar “popes” spoken truth or have they, quite instead, propagated falsehoods with ready abandon and made it appear as though their invocation of a “tradition” and/or a “hermeneutic of continuity” can disguise their belief in the philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned Modernist precept of dogmatic evolutionism. Indeed, the conciliar revolution has degenerated to the point where some of Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s “theologians” speak openly in support of dogmatic evolutionism without making any advertence whatsoever to the euphemisms used by Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, or Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

The devil, not Saint Peter, has spoken and continue to speak through the mouths of the current line of antipopes.

Dom Prosper Gueranger’s prayer to Pope Saint Leo the Great reminds us of what the constituent elements of a true pope, including integrity of doctrine, a hatred of error, and a pastoral zeal for the good of souls without flinching when approached by the mighty of this world such as Attila the Hun:

Glory be to thee, O Jesus, Lion of the Tribe of Juda! that hast raised up in thy Church a Lion to defend her in those dark times when holy Faith was most exposed to danger. Thou chargedst peter to confirm his Brethren; and we have seen Leo, in whom Peter lived, fulfill this office with sovereign authority. We have heard the acclamation of the holy Council which, in admiration at the heavenly teachings of Leo, proclaimed the signal favor thou conferredst on thy Flock, when thou badest Peter feed both Sheep and Lambs.

O holy Pontiff Leo! thou worthily didst represent Peter in his Chair, whence thy apostolic teaching ceased not to flow, ever beautiful in its truth and majesty. The Church of thine own day honoured thee as the great Teacher of Faith; and the Church of every succeeding age has recognised thee as one of the most learned Doctors and preachers of the divine Word. From thy throne in heaven, where now thou reignest, pour forth upon us the understanding of the great Mystery which thou wast called on to defend. Under thy inspired pen, this mystery grows clear; we see how sublimely it harmonizes with all other mysteries; and faith delights at gaining so close a view of the divine object of its belief. Oh! strengthen this faith within us. The Incarnate Word is blasphemed in these our own times; avenge his glory, by sending us men of thy zeal and learning.

Thou triumphedst over barbarian invaders: Attilacknowledged the influence of thy sanctity and eloquence by withdrawing his troops from the Christian land they infested. In these our days, there have risen up new barbarians—civilized barbarians, who would persuade us that religion should be eliminated from Education, and that the State, in its laws and institutions, should simply ignore our Lord Jesus Christ, the King to whom all power has been given, not only in heaven but on earth also. Oh! help us by thy powerful intercession, for our danger is extreme. Many are seduced, and are apostates while flattering themselves that they are still Christians. Pray that the light that is left within us may not be extinguished, and that the public scandals which now exist may be brought to an end. Attila was but a pagan; our modern statesmen and Governments are, or at least call themselves, Christians: have pity on them, and gain for them light to see the precipice to which they are hurrying society.

These days of Paschal Time must remind thee, holy Pontiff! of the Easters thou didst once spend, here on earth, when, surrounded by the Neophytes, thou gavest them the nourishment of thy magnificent Discourses: pray for the Faithful, who have this Easter, risen to a new life with Christ. What they most stand in need of is, a fuller and better knowledge of this their Saviour, in order that they may cling more closely to him, and persevere in his holy service. Thy prayers must get them this knowledge; by thy prayers, thou must teach them what he is both in his Divine and Human Nature: that, as God, he is their Last End, and their Judge after death; as Man, their Brother, their Redeemer, their Model. Bless, O Leo! and help the Pontiff who is now thy successor on the Chair of Peter. Show now thy love for that Rome, whose sacred and eternal destinies were so frequently the subject of thy glowing and heavenly eloquence. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, April 11.)

No one can oppose a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter nor scoff at a missal he has promulgated. The conciliar “popes” have not been true popes as each defect from one or more beliefs contained within the Sacred Deposit of Faith, and a disbelief in one part of the Holy Faith puts one outside her maternal bosom until one public abjures and repents of his errors:

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

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

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.)

Such is the nature of Catholicism that it does not admit of more or less, but must be held as a whole or as a whole rejected: ‘This is the Catholic Faith, which unless a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved’ (Athanasian Creed). There is no need of adding any qualifying terms to the profession of Catholicism: it is quite enough for each one to proclaim ‘Christian is my name and Catholic my surname,’ only let him endeavor to be in reality what he calls himself.

Besides, the Church demands from those who have devoted themselves to furthering her interests, something very different from the dwelling upon profitless questions; she demands that they should devote the whole of their energy to preserve the faith intact and unsullied by any breath of error, and follow most closely him whom Christ has appointed to be the guardian and interpreter of the truth. There are to be found today, and in no small numbers, men, of whom the Apostle says that: "having itching ears, they will not endure sound doctrine: but according to their own desires they will heap up to themselves teachers, and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables" (II Tim. iv. 34). Infatuated and carried away by a lofty idea of the human intellect, by which God's good gift has certainly made incredible progress in the study of nature, confident in their own judgment, and contemptuous of the authority of the Church, they have reached such a degree of rashness as not to hesitate to measure by the standard of their own mind even the hidden things of God and all that God has revealed to men. Hence arose the monstrous errors of "Modernism," which Our Predecessor rightly declared to be "the synthesis of all heresies," and solemnly condemned. We hereby renew that condemnation in all its fulness, Venerable Brethren, and as the plague is not yet entirely stamped out, but lurks here and there in hidden places, We exhort all to be carefully here and there in hidden places, We exhort all to be carefully on their guard against any contagion of the evil, to which we may apply the words Job used in other circumstances: "It is a fire that devoureth even to destruction, and rooteth up all things that spring" (Job xxxi. 12). Nor do We merely desire that Catholics should shrink from the errors of Modernism, but also from the tendencies or what is called the spirit of Modernism. Those who are infected by that spirit develop a keen dislike for all that savours of antiquity and become eager searchers after novelties in everything: in the way in which they carry out religious functions, in the ruling of Catholic institutions, and even in private exercises of piety. Therefore it is Our will that the law of our forefathers should still be held sacred: "Let there be no innovation; keep to what has been handed down." In matters of faith that must be inviolably adhered to as the law; it may however also serve as a guide even in matters subject to change, but even in such cases the rule would hold: "Old things, but in a new way." (Pope Benedict XV, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, November 1, 1914.)

Besides this, in connection with things which must be believed, it is nowise licit to use that distinction which some have seen fit to introduce between those articles of faith which are fundamental and those which are not fundamental, as they say, as if the former are to be accepted by all, while the latter may be left to the free assent of the faithful: for the supernatural virtue of faith has a formal cause, namely the authority of God revealing, and this is patient of no such distinction. For this reason it is that all who are truly Christ's believe, for example, the Conception of the Mother of God without stain of original sin with the same faith as they believe the mystery of the August Trinity, and the Incarnation of our Lord just as they do the infallible teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, according to the sense in which it was defined by the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican. Are these truths not equally certain, or not equally to be believed, because the Church has solemnly sanctioned and defined them, some in one age and some in another, even in those times immediately before our own? Has not God revealed them all? 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. But in the use of this extraordinary teaching authority no newly invented matter is brought in, nor is anything new added to the number of those truths which are at least implicitly contained in the deposit of Revelation, divinely handed down to the Church: only those which are made clear which perhaps may still seem obscure to some, or that which some have previously called into question is declared to be of faith.  (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

No, there is no such thing as “partial credit” Catholicism, and Catholics do not use political terms to identify themselves. No modifying adjective is needed when it comes to Catholics and their Catholic Faith. It is all or nothing. It is black and white:

Second, yes, Catholics must be obedient to a true pope.

Our last truly canonized pope, Pope Saint Pius X explained the constituent elements of obedience to a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter in an allocution he gave to Italian priests on November 18, 1912, the Feast of the Dedication of the Churches of Saints Peter and Paul, which was the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Apostolic Union:

Distracted with so many occupations, it is easy to forget the things that lead to perfection in priestly life; it is easy [for the priest] to delude himself and to believe that, by busying himself with the salvation of the souls of others, he consequently works for his own sanctification. Alas, let not this delusion lead you to error, because nemo dat quod nemo habet [no one gives what he does not have]; and, in order to sanctify others, it is necessary not to neglect any of the ways proposed for the sanctification of our own selves….

The Pope is the guardian of dogmand of morals; he is the custodian of the principles that make families sound, nations great, souls holy; he is the counsellor of princes and of peoples; he is the head under whom no one feels tyrannized because he represents God Himself; he is the supreme father who unites in himself all that may exist that is loving, tender, divine.

It seems incredible, and is even painful, that there be priests to whom this recommendation must be made, but we are regrettably in our age in this hard, unhappy, situation of having to tell priests: love the Pope!

And how must the Pope be loved? Non verbo neque lingua, sed opere et veritate. Not in word, nor in tongue, but in deed, and in truth - 1 Jn iii, 18] When one loves a person, one tries to adhere in everything to his thoughts, to fulfill his will, to perform his wishes. And if Our Lord Jesus Christ said of Himself, “si quis diligit me, sermonem meum servabit,” [if any one love me, he will keep my word - Jn xiv, 23] therefore, in order to demonstrate our love for the Pope, it is necessary to obey him.

Therefore, when we love the Pope, there are no discussions regarding what he orders or demands, or up to what point obedience must go, and in what things he is to be obeyed; when we love the Pope, we do not say that he has not spoken clearly enough, almost as if he were forced to repeat to the ear of each one the will clearly expressed so many times not only in person, but with letters and other public documents; we do not place his orders in doubt, adding the facile pretext of those unwilling to obey – that it is not the Pope who commands, but those who surround him; we do not limit the field in which he might and must exercise his authority; we do not set above the authority of the Pope that of other persons, however learned, who dissent from the Pope, who, even though learned, are not holy, because whoever is holy cannot dissent from the Pope.

This is the cry of a heart filled with pain, that with deep sadness I express, not for your sake, dear brothers, but to deplore, with you, the conduct of so many priests, who not only allow themselves to debate and criticize the wishes of the Pope, but are not embarrassed to reach shameless and blatant disobedience, with so much scandal for the good and with so great damage to souls. (Pope Saint Pius X, Allocution Vi ringrazio to priests on the 50th anniversary of the Apostolic Union, November 18, 1912, as found at: RORATE CÆLI: “Love the Pope!” – no ifs, and no buts: For Bishops, priests, and faithful, Saint Pius X explains what loving the Pope really entails.)

No one is holy who dissents from the pope.

Pope Saint Pius X’s allocution dispenses with every single false premise of the “resist while recognize” movement that, tragically, the Society of Saint Pius X dares to propagate.

Yes, one must obey the pope.

Ah, but a true pope cannot teach anything that is heretical or otherwise contrary to the Catholic Faith, and he cannot give us a defective liturgy of any kind.

we must pray to Our Lady to persevere in the true Catholic Faith to the point of our dying breaths. It matters not that we see the truth if we do not save our souls and if we do not bear ourselves charitably and patiently with our fellow Catholics who may be having as hard a time now to embrace the truth as some of us did for much longer than should have been the case.

Although I well recognize that I took far, far too long to recognize the truth of state of the Church Militant in this time of apostasy and betrayal, anyone who does not recognize that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is only bringing the false principles of conciliarism to their logical conclusion and who believe that they can “fight” the man who they think is a true, if heretical, “pope” when they judge him to be wrong has be willfully blind of the facts recited herein. The defense of the Holy Faith involves more than being “pro-life” as Catholics would not be arguing about the application of the binding precepts of the Fifth Commandment in public life if the conciliar revolutionaries had not overturned the essential ecclesiology of Holy Mother Church by embracing dogmatic evolutionism and the implantation of a new religion that stresses social work rather than the salvation of souls while venerating itself, not God, in its abominable liturgical rites.

Gone are the days when any responsible Catholic can say, “Well, at least our bishop is pro-life.”

Saint Robert Bellarmine, S.J., a true Jesuit because he was a true Catholic, put it this way:

There are some person, dear listeners, who hold almost everything with a firm faith that Catholics hold: but there is one thing or another, which they have not yet been able to accept completely, such as that purgatory exists, that sacred images are to be venerated, that the sovereign Pontiff is the vicar of Christ and the head of the whole Church. And since there are many things that they believe, and only one or two things that they do not believe and consider it is not important if taken together with the other articles, they think they are situated very well on the foundation of Christ. What is the difference, they say, even if I err in that one thing, which I still cannot believe, and at the judgment will the Lord be concerned about that? And will he not be mindful of the many difficult things I believe? Indeed, this is the way in which they flatter themselves; I serious rebuke them and say that they have fallen from grace and have laid their foundation on sand, and will have no part with Christ. Either the faith is had completely, or it is not had at all. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism. I ask you (to clarify the matter with a crass example), when you order a pair of shoes from a shoemaker, if when they are finally made you find they are an inch shorter than your feet, do you not put them on and wear them? Your will say “I cannot wear them” But they are only an inch too short, so why can't you wear them, since they are just a little bit short of the right measurement? As, therefore, your shoes are either the right size for your feet or they have no value at all, so also the faith is either integral, or it is not the faith. Therefore no one should deceive himself. If we want to build a house which cannot be moved by wind or rain, we must lay the foundation of both rocks, that is, on Christ and Peter. (Sermons of St. Robert Bellarmine, S.J., Part II: Sermons 30-55, Including the Four Last Things and the Annunciation., translated from the Latin by Father Kenneth Baker, S.J., and published in 2017 by Keep the Faith, Inc., Ramsey, New Jersey, pp. 152-154.)

Saint Robert Bellarmine combined Scholasticism with his own brilliant and very practical explanations of theological points that made it possible for those listening to him to comprehend and to remember his teaching. How much more simple can it get than “Either the faith is had completely, or it is not had at all” can it get?

As should go without saying, the entirety of the counterfeit church of conciliarism is premised upon a rejection and/or distortion of everything contained in the Sacred Deposit Faith as it is an instrument of Modernist perdition. Its “popes” and “bishops” have merely recycled the same Modernist propositions condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, and by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, when condemning the New Theology’s dressing up of Modernism in a different guise.

There is not one wretched thing about conciliarism that has the approval of the Mother of God.

No, not the "new ecclesiology."

No, not false ecumenism.

No, not "inter-religious prayer services."

No, not "inter-religious dialogue."

No, not "religious liberty."

No, not "separation of Church and State."

No, not "the hermeneutic of continuity" or its cousin, "tradition."

No, not "episcopal collegiality."

No, not the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service and all its Jansenist "reforms" (the liturgy as a "meal" and not the unbloody re-presentation or perpetuation of the Sacrifice of the Cross, the obliteration of the distinction between the presider and the laity, the proliferation of laity in the sanctuary, endless expressions of lay "participation" in the service, plenty of room for improvisation). The lords of conciliarism, including the so-called “conservatives” who stage the abominable Novus Ordo travesty and who endorse “natural family planning” and “religious liberty” as well their false opposites within the ranks of the Jacobin/Bolshevik “progressivists,” are blasphemers against God the Holy Ghost and the very inerrant nature of the true Church He guides infallibly.

Dom Prosper Gueranger explained the work of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, in his reflection for this day, Ember Wednesday within the Octave of Pentecost, contained in The Liturgical Year, wherein he stressed the fact that the Holy Ghost has promulgated “a precise Symbol of Faith which each of its Members is bound to accept—producing by its decisions the strictest unity of religious belief throughout the countless individuals who compose the society,” that is the Church:

We have seen with what fidelity the Holy Ghost has fulfilled, during all these past ages, the Mission he received from our Emmanuel, of forming, protecting and maintaining his Spouse the Church. This trust given by a God has been executed with all the power of a God, and it is the sublimest and most wonderful spectacle the world has witnessed during the eighteen hundred years of the new Covenant. This continuance of a social body—the same in all times and places—promulgating a precise Symbol of Faith which each of its Members is bound to accept—producing by its decisions the strictest unity of religious belief throughout the countless individuals who compose the society—this, together with the wonderful propagation of Christianity, is the master-fact of History. These two facts are not, as certain modern writers would have it, results of the ordinary laws of Providence; but Miracles of the highest order, worked directly by the Holy Ghost, and intended to serve as the basis of our faith in the truth of the Christian Religion. The Holy Ghost was not, in the exercise of his Mission, to assume a visible form; but he has made his Presence visible to the understanding of man, and thereby he has sufficiently proved his own personal action in the work of man’s salvation.

Let us now follow this divine action,—not in its carrying out the merciful designs of the Son of God, who deigned to take to himself a Spouse here below,—but in the relations of this Spouse with mankind. Our Emmanuel willed that she should be the Mother of men; and that all whom he calls to the honor of becoming his own Members should acknowledge that it is she who gives them this glorious birth. The Holy Ghost, therefore, was to secure to this Spouse of Jesus what would make her evident and known to the world, leaving it, however, in the power of each individual to disown and reject her.

It was necessary that this Church should last for all ages, and that she should traverse the earth in such wise that her name and mission might be known to all nations; in a word, she was to be Catholic, that is, Universal, taking in all times and all places. Accordingly, the Holy Ghost made her Catholic. He began by showing her, on the Day of Pentecost, to the Jews who had flocked to Jerusalem from the various nations; and when these returned to their respective countries, they took the good tidings with them. He then sent the Apostles and Disciples into the whole world, and we learn from the writers of those early times that a century had scarcely elapsed before there were Christians in every portion of the known earth. Since then, the Visibility of this holy Church has gone on increasing gradually more and more. If the Divine Spirit, in the designs of his justice, has permitted her to lose her influence in a nation that had made itself unworthy of the grace, he transferred her to another where she would be obeyed. If, at time, there have been whole countries where she had no footing, it was either because she had previously offered herself to them and they had rejected her, or because the time marked by Providence for her reigning there had not yet come. The history of the Church’s propagation is one long proof of her ever living and of her frequent migrating. Times and places, all are hers; if there be one when or where she is not acknowledged as supreme, she is at least represented by her Members; and this prerogative, which has given her the name of Catholic, is one of the grandest of the workings of the Holy Ghost.

But his action does not stop here; the Mission given him by the Emmanuel in reference to his Spouse obliges him to something beyond this; and here we enter into the whole mystery of the Holy Ghost in the Church. We have seen his outward influence, whereby he gives her perpetuity and increase; now we must attentively consider the inward direction she receives from him, which gives her Unity, Infallibility, and Holines,—prerogatives which, together with Catholicity, designate the true Spouse of Christ.

The union of the Holy Ghost with the Humanity of Jesus is one of the fundamental truths of the mystery of the Incarnation. Our divine Mediator is called “Christ” because of the anointing which he received; and his anointing is the result of his Humanity’s being united with the Holy Ghost. This union is indissoluble: eternally will the Word be united to his Humanity; eternally also will the Holy Spirit give to this Humanity the anointing which makes “Christ.” Hence it follows that the Church, being the body of Christ, shares in the union existing between its Divine Head and the Holy Ghost. The Christian, too, receives, in Baptism, an anointing by the Holy Ghost, who from that time forward, dwells in him as the pledge of his eternal inheritance; but while the Christian may, by sin, forfeit this union which is the principle of his supernatural life, the Church herself never can lose it. The Holy Ghost is united to the Church forever; it is by him that she exists, acts, and triumphs over all those difficulties to which, by the divine permission, she is exposed while Militant on earth.

St. Augustine thus admirably expresses this doctrine in one of his Sermons for the Feast of Pentecost: “The spirit, by which every man lives, is called the Soul. Now, observe what it is that our Soul does in the body. It is the Soul that gives life to all the members; it sees by the eye, it hears by the ear, it smells by the nose, it speaks by the tongue, it works by the hands, it walks by the feet. It is present to each member, giving life to them all, and to each one its office. It is not the eye that hears, nor the ear and tongue that see, nor the ear and eye that speak; and yet they all live; their functions are varied, their life is one and the same. So is it in the Church of God. In some Saints, she works miracles; in other Saints, she teaches the truth; in others, she practices virginity; in others, she maintains conjugal chastity; she does one thing in one class, and another in another; each individual has his distinct work to do, but there is one and the same life in them all. Now, what the Soul is to the body of man, that the Holy Ghost is to the Body of Christ, which is the Church: the Holy Ghost does in the whole Church, what the soul does in all the members of one body.”

Here we have given to us a clear exposition, by means of which we can fully understand the life and workings of the Church. The Church is the Body of Christ, and the Holy Ghost is the principle which gives her life. He is her Soul—not only in that limited sense in which we have already spoken of the Soul of her Church, that is, of her inward existence, and which, after all, is the result of the Holy Spirit’s action within her,—but he is also her Soul, in that her whole interior and exterior life, and all her workings, proceed from Him. The Church is undying, because the love, which has led the Holy Ghost to dwell within her, will last forever: and here we have the reason of that Perpetuity of the Church which is the most wonderful spectacle witnessed by the world.

Let us now pass on, and consider that other marvel, which consists in the preservation of Unity in the Church. It is said of her in the Canticle: One is my dove; my perfect one is One. Jesus would have but One, and not many to be his Church, his Spouse: the Holy Ghost will therefore see to the accomplishment of his wish. Let us respectfully follow him in his workings here also. And firstly; is it possible, viewing the thing humanly, that a society should exist for eighteen hundred years and never change? nay, could it have continued all that time, even allowing it to have changed as often as you will? And during these long ages, this society has necessarily had to encounter, and from its own members, the tempests of human passions, which are ever showing themselves, and which not unfrequently play havoc with the grandest institutions. It has always been composed of nations, differing from each other in language, character, and customs; either so far apart as not to know each other, or when neighbors, estranged one from the other by national jealousies and antipathies. And yet, notwithstanding all this—notwithstanding, too, the political revolutions which have made up the history of the world—the Catholic Church has maintained her changeless Unity: one Faith—one visible head—one worship (at least in the essentials)—one mode for the deciding every question, namely, by tradition and authority. Sects have risen up in every age, each sect giving itself out as “the true Church:” they lasted for a while, short or long, according to circumstances, and then were forgotten. Where are now the Arians with their strong political party? Where are the Nestorians, and Eutychians, and Monothelites, with their interminable cavillings? Could anything be imagines more powerless and effete than the Greek Schism, slave either to Sultan or Czar? What is there left of Jansenism, that wore itself away in striving to keep in the Church in spite of the Church? As to Protestantism—the produce of the principle of negation—was it not broken up into sections from its very beginning, so as never to be able to form one society? and is it not now reduced to such straits that it can with difficulty retain dogmas which, at first, it looked upon as fundamental—such as the inspiration of the Scriptures, or the Divinity of Christ?

While all else is change and ruin, our mother the holy Catholic Church, the One Spouse of the Emmanuel, stands forth grand beautiful in her Unity. But how are we to account for it? Is it that Catholics are of one nature, and Sectarians of another? Orthodox or heterodox, are we not all members of the same human race, subject to the same passions and errors? Whence do the children of the Catholic Church derive that stability which is not affected by time, nor influenced by the variety of national character, nor shaken by those revolutions that have changed dynasties and countries? Only one reasonable explanation can be given—there is a divine element in all this. The Holy Ghost, who is the soul of the Church, acts upon all the members; and as he himself is One, he produces Unity in the Body he animates. He cannot contradict himself: nothing, therefore, subsists by him which is not in union with him.

Tomorrow, we will speak of what the Holy Ghost does for the maintaining Faith, one and unvarying, in the whole body of the Church; let us today limit our considerations to this single point, namely, that the Holy Spirit is the source of external union by voluntary submission to one center of unity. Jesus had said: Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church: now, Peter was to die; the promise, therefore, could not refer to his person only, but to the whole line of his successors, even to the end of the world. How stupendous is not the action of the Holy Ghost, who thus produces a dynasty of spiritual Princes, which has reached its two hundred and fiftieth Pontiff, and is to continue to the last day! No violence is offered to man’s free will; the Holy Spirit permits him to attempt what opposition he lists; but the work of God must go forward. A Decius may succeed in causing a four years’ vacancy in the See of Rome; anti-popes may arise, supported by popular favor, or upheld by the policy of Emperors; a long schism may render it difficult to know the real Pontiff amidst the several who claim it: the Holy Spirit will allow the trial to have its course and, while it lasts, will keep up the faith of his Children; the day will come when he will declare the lawful Pastor of the Flock, and the whole Church will enthusiastically acknowledge him as such.

In order to understand the whole marvel of this supernatural influence, it is not enough to know the extrinsic results as told us by history; we must study it in its own divine reality. The Unity of the Church is not like that which a conqueror forces upon a people that has become tributary to him. The Members of the Church are united in oneness of faith and submission, because they love the yoke she imposes on their freedom and their reason. But who is it that thus brings human pride to obey? Who is it that makes joy and contentment be felt in a life-long practice of subordination? Who is it that brings man to put his security and happiness in the having no individual views of his own, and in the conforming his judgment to one supreme teaching—and this too in matters where the world chafes at control? It is the Holy Ghost, who works this manifold and permanent miracle, for he it is who gives soul and harmony to the vast aggregate of the Church, and sweetly infuses into all these millions a union of heart and mind which forms for our Lord Jesus Christ his “One” dearest Spouse.

During the days of his mortal life, Jesus prayed his Eternal Father to bless us with Unity: May they be one, as we also are. He prepares us for it, when he calls us to become his Members; but for the achieving this union, he sends his Spirit into the world—that Spirit who is the eternal link between the Father and the Son, and who deigns to accept a temporal Mission among men, in order to create on the earth a Union formed after the type of the Union which is in God himself.

We give thee thanks, O Blessed Spirit! who, by thy dwelling thus within the Church of Christ, inspirest us to love and practice Unity, and suffer every evil rather than break it. Strengthen it within us, and never permit us to deviate from it by even the slightest want of submission. Thou art the soul of the Church; oh! give us to be Members ever docile to thy inspirations, for we could not belong to Jesus who sent thee, unless we belong to the Church, his Spouse and our Mother, whom he redeemed with his Blood, and gave to thee to form and guide. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Reflection on Wednesday in Whitsun Week.)

It is worth reflecting on two passages quoted just above as they provide us with a marvelous and simple defense of the fact that, quite to the contrary of what has been one of the chief contentions of the conciliar “popes,” it is impossible for God the Holy Ghost to contradict Himself or to be an instrument of “making a mess of things” as His grace produces stability in the true Church, not disunity and conflict. No one can be a Catholic and declare himself at “war” with the true Church or, worse yet, to say that “no church” can tell him what to believe or how to behave:

While all else is change and ruin, our mother the holy Catholic Church, the One Spouse of the Emmanuel, stands forth grand beautiful in her Unity. But how are we to account for it? Is it that Catholics are of one nature, and Sectarians of another? Orthodox or heterodox, are we not all members of the same human race, subject to the same passions and errors? Whence do the children of the Catholic Church derive that stability which is not affected by time, nor influenced by the variety of national character, nor shaken by those revolutions that have changed dynasties and countries? Only one reasonable explanation can be given—there is a divine element in all this. The Holy Ghost, who is the soul of the Church, acts upon all the members; and as he himself is One, he produces Unity in the Body he animates. He cannot contradict himself: nothing, therefore, subsists by him which is not in union with him. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Reflection on Wednesday in Whitsun Week.)

We need to continue to pray to Our Lady, especially through her Most Holy Rosary, to live as befits her Divine Son’s redeemed creatures by bearing witness to the truth no matter what it might cost us personally and without for one moment considering ourselves one bit better than those who do not see the situation as it is with clarity and who refuse to act with alacrity to escape falsehood and sacrilege.