Eleison Comments

EMERGENCY ADVICE – I

EMERGENCY ADVICE – I on February 17, 2024

God asks us not the impossible to do,

But to leave for others the freedom you want for you.

A reader much confused by what is going on inside the Catholic Church sends in a number of practical questions which many Catholic souls must be asking themselves today in connection with the serious duty for any Catholic of attending Mass to fulfil his Sunday obligation. Normally the answers are more or less clear, but circumstances since the 1960s’ revolution of Vatican II inside the Church are no longer normal, and so the answers are no longer so clear. Let us list this reader’s questions in order, going from the general to the particular, to reply with answers offered by these “Comments,” but not imposed.

1 To what extent is the Newchurch of Vatican II Catholic, and to what extent is it counterfeit?

Answer, God alone knows, because He alone knows the secrets of men’s hearts, and the borderline between the true and the false Church often runs through men’s hearts, for instance whether or not they have the Catholic Faith. Since He alone can know for sure, then He does not expect us to know. However, He does give us sufficient means to know what we do need to know, and that is to judge by the fruits (cf. Mt. VII, 15–20). These will infallibly tell the difference, for instance, between true and false shepherds. Real joy and charity will reveal where the true Church still exists, even inside the Newchurch structures.

2 Do we have a Pope?

Answer, if we judge Pope Francis by his fruits, they are disastrous for the true Church, to the point that many serious Catholics argue that he is an anti-pope. God does not require of me to know for sure, one way or the other. Good Catholic theologians can disagree. The wisdom of Archbishop Lefebvre for his priests was that they could have their own opinion in private, but in public they should behave as though the apparent Vatican II popes are true Popes, unless and until the evidence is clear that they are not Popes. Even Pope Francis is still serving the Catholic function of providing the structural Church with a visible head, enabling the Church structures to continue functioning until God cleans out the Augean stables. In His own good time God will put the Pope back on his feet. Meanwhile, I may despair of this or that pope, but I must not despair of the Papacy, or of any other institution from the Tradition of Our Lord Himself.

3 What about the Newchurch sacraments?

Answer, like the Newchurch as a whole of which they are product and part, they are still partly good but essentially rotting, like the rotten apples to which they may be compared, because the Newchurch was cleverly designed from the beginning to rot over tens of years until there would be nothing of the true Church left. This was because by the 1960’s when Vatican II happened, many churchmen at the top of the Church had been thoroughly infected by the thinking of Freemasonry, the secret society created in 1717 in London to infiltrate the Catholic Church until it could be destroyed from within, thus enabling the known enemies of God and man to take over the world. Our Lord’s own Church is the great obstacle in their way.

4 What about the “Eucharistic miracles,” supposedly taking place at Novus Ordo “Masses”?

Answer, down all near 2000 years of Church history so far, God has always by such miracles helped Christians to believe in the stupendous miracle of His Presence beneath mere appearances of bread and wine, and these miracles continue today, because the Sacred Heart will not abandon sheep misled by their shepherds. The difference is that today modern science is available to provide truly scientific evidence to prove that the miracles, if they are genuine, are genuine. See for instance the book “A Cardiologist examines Jesus” by Dr. Franco Serafini, with explanations and photographic illustrations from several recent miracles. It is published by Sophia Institute Press, available from SophiaInstitute.com God bless Traditionalists for clinging to the Traditional Latin Mass, but not for refusing scientific evidence provided by the Sacred Heart for the salvation of souls.

5 And what about receiving hosts supposedly consecrated at Novus Ordo Masses?

Answer, perhaps best avoid them, because they can be invalid, and with time may be more and more so. However, in case of need you can receive such hosts, because they may also be valid.

Kyrie eleison.

REASON for the “RESISTANCE”

REASON for the “RESISTANCE” on February 10, 2024

God gave us the wise old Saint He knew we need –

How could a youngster think that he could lead?

Less than one month ago, on January 24, the Brazilian Prior of the Traditional Benedictine Monastery of Santa Cruz, nestling in high hills of Brazil behind Rio de Janeiro, Bishop Thomas Aquinas, published a severe denunciation of a prominent leader who is active worldwide in the Traditional Catholic movement. But surely Traditionalists have enough problems from outside of Tradition without having to fight among themselves as well? Normally that is Catholic common sense, but not if the very basis of Catholicism, the Catholic Faith, is at stake. Now in the struggle between Rome and the Society of St Pius X, never has it not been at stake. Let readers judge for themselves if, as a shepherd of Our Lord’s flock, Bishop Thomas has done anything other than his bounden duty by denouncing this wolf in sheep’s clothing – 

The reason for the existence of the Resistance is none other than Dom Fellay, with his words and actions. His words minimized the gravity of the crisis and of the Council. His actions exposed Tradition to suffer the same fate as the Ecclesia Dei communities. 

Dom Fellay did not speak like Dom Lefebvre. Dom Lefebvre strongly denounced the Council’s mistakes, as well as the churchmen who were the cause of those mistakes. He warned virtually all the popes about their responsibilities. He told John Paul II that if he continued on the path of ecumenism he would no longer be the good shepherd, and in the drawing about Assisi he said, with images and words, that John Paul II would go to hell if he continued to be an ecumenist. He told Cardinal Ratzinger that he, Ratzinger, was against the Christianization of society. The Archbishop denounced the apostasy of Vatican II. ( . . . ) He defended priests and faithful from modernist contagion. He exposed himself to an invalid but degrading excommunication. In defence of France he did not back down in the face of the Muslim danger. He protected us against Dom Gérard’s Roman temptation. He was, in short, like bishops of old: the defender of Christianity and of its basis, which is the faith. He was the man of theological virtues, who sustained our faith and all virtues. 

And Dom Fellay? Did he continue Dom Lefebvre’s actions? No. Both in word and in deed, Dom Fellay distanced himself from Dom Lefebvre. Regarding the heresy of Religious Freedom, he minimized the seriousness of what the Council had said. He did not react to the mistakes like Dom Lefebvre. He did not talk about the two churches, as did Dom Lefebvre. He did not clearly distinguish the official Church from the Catholic Church, but spoke of a “Concrete Church,” confusing the faithful and even priests. What specific church is this? Do we have to be in this church? We are in the Catholic Church. We recognize the Pope, but not the Conciliar Church that Cardinal Benelli spoke of. We recognize the Pope, but not his doctrine or his actions contrary to Tradition. These acts are not Catholic, but anti-Catholic. 

It was under the influence of Dom Fellay that the 2012 Chapter modified the principle enunciated by the 2006 Chapter: there can be no practical agreement without doctrinal agreement. This did not please Dom Fellay, and it was changed. Under certain conditions, the Fraternity can now reach a practical agreement without a doctrinal agreement. It is a legal loophole, opening the way to lead the Fraternity down the path of the Ecclesia Dei communities. He did not go that far, but he lowered his guard, and Rome took advantage of that. Opposition from within the Fraternity Dom Fellay repressed by expelling Dom Williamson and other priests; then he punished others, such as the seven deans who rightly protested against Rome’s marriage document. Dom Fellay disorganized Tradition, walked away from Dom Lefebvre’s line, and made others also depart from it. To resist this departure was the reason for the “Resistance” coming into existence. 

We want to follow Dom Lefebvre in everything, in doctrine and also in practical solutions, because, as Aristotle and St.Thomas teach, the examples of the ancients serve as principles of action. We follow Dom Lefebvre in doctrine and action, especially in relation to modernist Rome, and we do this to be faithful to Eternal Rome, teacher of truth and holiness. 

Kyrie eleison 

CONSECRATIONS’ VALIDITY

CONSECRATIONS’ VALIDITY on February 3, 2024

Be it bishops or women, is your life-style hollow?

First, get things straight with God – the rest will follow.

Amidst Traditional Catholics there has recently been disputed again the question of whether Catholic bishops’ Consecrations performed with the new rite fabricated by Pope Paul VI following on Vatican II are valid as Consecrations, or not. In other words, can we be sure that a priest who has undergone the new rite of Consecration is himself truly a bishop? The question is of immense importance, because upon valid bishops depends the very survival of the Catholic Church and of souls being able to get to Heaven, because souls absolutely need priests and sacraments to die in that state of sanctifying grace without which they they gravely risk falling into Hell. 

Broadly speaking, there are two schools of thought on the question. The huge majority of Catholics, down to and including the Newsociety of St Pius X, as reoriented in 2012 by the successors of Archbishop Lefebvre at the head of the Society which he first oriented in 1970 to defend Faith and Church against the ravages of the Conciliar revolution, see no problem. Of course Vatican II (1962–1965) was not such a disaster, they say, that God allowed His enemies to gain so much power inside the Church that they could succeed in tampering seriously with the very wellsprings of its future, the rite of consecration of its future leaders. The mere idea is ridiculous! Vatican II was bad, but it cannot have been that bad. Alas, it was! 

Just look at the fruits, which show infallibly what is at work. Between 20 years before and 20 years after the Council, a mass of Catholic hospitals, schools, convents, seminaries, priories, monasteries – all closed down or turned over for the keeping of apples (Ps. 78, 1). Have there ever been at any one time so many vocations abandoned, or so few new vocations arising, as in the period after Vatican II? Why? Surely because, for instance, the mass of citizens today are persuaded that a social worker is more useful than a priest. Where there is no Faith, at least as it used to be understood before the Council, the bishop and the priest are at a discount for what they properly are, and all that is left for them is to do a bad imitation of somebody who they are not at all, like a social worker. And who should be preaching that Faith? Bishops and priests! How brilliantly with Vatican II the Devil turned the churchmen’s minds inside out and upside down! Maybe the new rite of Consecration has, somehow, been a problem for the bishops after all . . . 

Fr. Alvaro Calderon is one of the Society’s best theologians, stationed at the Society’s priestly seminary in Argentina. Over ten years ago he wrote a tract on this question of the validity of the new rite of bishops’ Consecration. He concludes that it is “very probably valid,” but not certainly. However, since valid bishops are absolutely essential to the life and survival of the Church, then that shadow of doubt involved is still that too much doubt, and all Catholic bishops consecrated only with the new rite should consent to being reconsecrated conditionally also with the old rite, with its old, certainly valid, sacramental Form. Likewise, he says, all priests ordained only with the Conciliar rite of ordination should seek conditional re-ordination with the traditional rite to repair any serious defects in their Conciliar priesthood. 

And where does Fr Calderon say that this shadow of a doubt lies? He says the intention of the new rite is not to make regal authoritative bishops, with a divine authority behind them immediately over the sheep, true thunderclouds of God; but rather a diocesan facilitator, a nice man, a democratic administrator, ready to obey to the letter the local Sister Snap-dragon who rules all cocks in the roost for miles around, and who is dreaming of the day when she can at last celebrate what tatters remain of the Holy Mass. Boys, keep the women in their place, because they are unbearable when they are out of control! God first! 

Kyrie eleison.

BEGGING with CONFIDENCE

BEGGING with CONFIDENCE on January 27, 2024

Around us, evil on evil is unfurled? “

Fear not,” said Jesus, “I’ve overcome the world” (Jn. XVI, 33).

On the last day of 2023 a Franciscan priest of the Capucin Friary of Morgon in France gave a sermon on that recent document of Pope Francis, Fiducia Supplicans (“Begging with Confidence”) , which has given scandal to souls all over the world. This sermon is a notable summary of why the document has given such scandal. The sermon is in its turn summarised here below, to less than half its original length.

In the account of the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Gospel of St Luke (II, 34), we read how the old man Simeon prophesied that the new-born child just laid in his arms by Mary would be a sign of contradiction for the entire world. All men would have to accept Him or reject Him, because they cannot remain neutral. A classic example of this contradiction is the Catholic laws of marriage. If in practice Catholics break these laws out of weakness, that is already grave, but if they deny those laws in principle, it is a spiritual sin, much graver still.

In this respect, the Pope’s recent signing of “Fiducia Supplicans” will cause untold damage to the Church, because it will entitle all kinds of couples presently living in sin to “beg with confidence” for a blessing from any Catholic priest, and thereby to think that they are no longer living in sin. This will put in peril their eternal salvation. For were John the Baptist and Thomas More then mere fools for giving their lives to defend God’s laws of marriage? True, Our Lord himself did not condemn the woman caught in adultery (Jn.VIII, 3–11), but He never blessed her either, rather He told her to sin no more (v.11). To bless sinners, with no instruction or rebuke for their sin, can only encourage them to continue in their sin.

Entering the New Year, we must pray for all those who risk being victims of this terrible document. Firstly for Catholic priests, that they have the courage of John the Baptist and Thomas More to stand up to the joint pressure of today’s bad authorities in Church and State, who would both want to make priests go with the flow of today’s godless world so as to abandon God, by breaking His clear and strict laws of marriage. Secondly we must pray for Catholic families striving against all odds to uphold God’s laws of marriage, especially for abandoned spouses seeing the pope encourage those who do not keep, but break, His law. Thirdly, we must pray for souls worldwide, offended by such a scandal, coming from the Pope.

For indeed any scandal is all the greater for the height of the authority from which it comes, for the obviousness of the immorality it promotes, and for the number of souls which it offends. On all three counts, the scandal of “Fiducia Supplicans” is immeasurable. As for the authority scandalising, there is no higher moral authority on earth than that of the (at least seeming) Vicar of Christ, the Pope. As for the immorality promoted, what is more basic to human society than the natural laws of marriage which Christ reinforced, but which even pagans clearly grasp who abominate adultery and homosexuality? And as for the extension of souls scandalised, what human society is not undermined in the formation of its building bricks, its families, by the Vicar of Christ using all of his authority on earth to command the priests of Christ to bless sinful souls that are living in defiance of God’s natural laws of marriage?

One may wonder if ever in all the 2,000 years of Church history such a huge scandal has been seen. We must pray even for Pope Bergoglio, that he may save his soul – right now, it is in grave danger.

And finally we must pray not for Our Divine Lord but to Him, to thank Him for taking upon Himself to rescue us from the devastation of sin being wrought all around us, especially by sinful churchmen. He alone paid for us the debt otherwise unpayable to His Father for our sins. He alone opens for us the otherwise barred gates of Heaven. He alone enables us to sing at the end of Mass not the “Miserere” but the “Te Deum Laudamus” – we praise Thee, O God, for Thy wisdom in allowing sin and death, to be conquered by Thine own suffering. We beg Thee only for the grace of perseverance to the end.

Kyrie eleison.

FORTUNATE LEADERS

FORTUNATE LEADERS on January 20, 2024

But such a message rulers will not hear?

Maybe, but the truth was told in a manner clear.

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain” (Ps. CXXVI, 1). All the more true for those building a State! Lucky the politicians today who have Catholic priests to remind them of how truly to serve their land. Alas, today’s politicians hardly have ears to hear those ancient and important truths. The leaders of Switzerland have recently had such a priest, a Swiss priest of the “ Resistance,” appealing to them to submit the direction of their country’s affairs to the one true God of Switzerland’s Catholic past. Their reaction seems to have been minimal. Like all the rest of us, they may have to learn the hard way. But in the meantime, here below is this priest’s appeal, only abbreviated to fit into an A4 page –

Honourable Lady President, honourable ladies and gentlemen recently re-elected as Federal, State or Local Councillors for 2023 to 2027, warm congratulations on your re-election! Please allow me as a Catholic priest of the Apostles of Jesus and Mary to bring to you a request for the government of our country to make a public return to the profession and respect of the Christian religion. Thereby we may hope for God’s blessing and protection from harm for our beloved country. Here are four thoughts –

1 At the last major meeting of the oldest of all Christian churches, the Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church held in Rome from 1962 to 1965, many Catholic leaders, faced with our godless times, judged it best for God’s Church to be modernised. That was the right problem but the wrong solution, as it meant, for instance, that religion would henceforth be a merely private affair. Grave error. From long before the founding of Switzerland in 1291, Jesus Christ had been Creator and Redeemer of all men ever alive, and until world’s end, Lord, Judge and King, of Switzerland and the entire world.

2 As a result of Christ and His one true Church being cut out by deism, naturalism and liberalism, Christ is brought down to the same level as all other religions, and anything supposedly supernatural loses all interest, and mankind is handed over to the tyranny of the now purely secular civil States. For wherever the Majesty of the one true God is bracketed out, some anti-god is bound to step in to take His place.

3 In the mid-17th century a saintly German priest, the Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser (1613–1658), was given by Heaven visions of the whole history of the Church in seven Ages, including the Fifth Age of Apostasy from Luther to today. But we have become too blind to be able to see our times like this.

4 Switzerland’s Patron Saint, Nicholas of Flue (1417–1487), is famous for his saying that, “If God is driven out of a State, it is doomed to destruction.” Thus Switzerland’s 700-year existence as a Christian democracy is at an end, unless we can revive the profession of faith in God of our forefathers.

Honourable leaders of our government, Jesus Christ alone can bring us to Heaven. Witnesses to that fact are the churches, crosses and chapels strewn all over our country, as are the Christian values still buried in the depths of many a Swiss conscience. But these values are being smothered in dirt, or washed out altogether, so that our country is well on the way to its destruction, as when three years ago the Swiss people were misled into voting for a law opposed to God and to Nature, in favour of same-sex marriage. If that is freedom of religion and conscience, it will lead to the loss of all religion and all conscience.

Ahead of us is either Christianity or Communism. We are all of us made for Heaven. Let our rulers create favourable conditions for the Church, and the Church will look after our people and our youth. Ladies and Gentlemen, rulers all, let me ask of you to respect the rights of God and the Catholic family, to profess and promote the Christian religion, and to maintain the Christian neutrality of our land. And may God be with you all. I pray for you every day, at Mass and with the Holy Rosary.

With the greatest respect, and with all blessings, Fr. Aloysius Bruehwiler.

Kyrie eleison

VIGANO SEDEVACANTIST – II ?

VIGANO SEDEVACANTIST – II ? on January 13, 2024

If a soul seeks God’s Authority, let it search

In one direction mainly – the Catholic Church!

Ever since Archbishop Vigano, once Number Four in the Secretariat of State, left behind the Second Vatican Council and all its pomps and all its works, some of his observations concerning Pope Bergoglio have been so caustic that many Catholics have wondered if the Archbishop still considers him to be Pope at all. Has he not joined the ranks of the “sedevacantists,” ie. those Catholics who consider that the See of Peter has been vacant ever since that accursed Council did so much damage to the Catholic Church? How is it possible that truly Catholic Popes presided over that Council and its aftermath?

The problem is agonising, because by that Council, Catholic Authority split itself from Catholic Truth, forcing Catholics to abandon one or the other, wholly or in part, because they could no longer follow both. Catholics either clung to the Truth and more or less “disobeyed” what seemed to be Catholic Authority, or they clung to falsified “Authority” and were more or less unfaithful to the unchanging Truth. As for Archbishop Vigano, for tens of years after the Council (1962–1965) he was faithful to his colleagues and comrades in the highest ranks of Church Authority, because, on his own confession, he “could not believe that they meant to destroy the Church.” But in 2018, he met with such corruption in the United States of America where he was Papal Nuncio and also in the Vatican Curia, that he was forced to seek the proportionate cause, and he found it in the Council. From there he found it especially in the Conciliar Pope of his own time, the “Argentine Jesuit,” as he calls him, about whom he has made such scathing remarks that many observers have been driven to wonder if the Archbishop still believes that Bergoglio is Pope. Let us see what he said on December 9.

See the “Eleison Comments” of last week (#859 of December 30) for a six-paragraph summary of what he said, to which the following numbers in heavy print correspond. Better still, look up on the Internet his full original words, accessible in English at catholicfamilynews.com orlifesitenews.com

1- Over the last 10 years, the Catholic Church has been turned over to revolution and chaos.

2 – Cardinals, Bishops should be blocking this destruction, but they are too Conciliar themselves to do so.

3 – Church Authority, so paralysed, is explicable only by the “operation of error” foretold for world’s end.

4 – It makes Bergoglio a usurper on Peter’s Throne. He is a false prophet. We need not obey him.

5 – However, we have no Authority to declare officially that he is not Pope, so there is no human solution.

6 – Nor is our whole battle merely between men, and to think so is to invite still further serious trouble.

Here is the merest skeleton of the Archbishop’s rich argument – do see the original to let him speak for himself – but it is enough to indicate that he is hanging back from public “sedevacantism.” After building up his case against the one he calls “Bergoglio” for the large part of his discourse (1–4), just as he arrives at the climactic point where he will propose his own solution (5), he may well himself share the conviction of many serious Catholics that this or that Conciliar Pope, anywhere from John XXIII to Francis inclusive, has not been a true Pope, but that conviction, shared by however many of them, can never amount to an official Church declaration, and any such declaration will have to wait until Mother Church has recovered from her present deadly attack of modernism, a barely curable mental disease.

In the meantime this apparent stop of Archbishop Vigano on the road to sedevacantism is highly reasonable, because it safeguards in a Catholic mind and heart a measure of respect for Catholic Authority which might otherwise go completely by the board. Woe to Catholic Tradition, or to its “Resistance,” that would lose all respect for Catholic Authority, because that Authority is divine, and it must and will come back, in full force, one day, just like the sun after an eclipse, and before world’s end.

Kyrie eleison.