Eleison Comments

Soul Attacked

Soul Attacked on September 22, 2018

Archbishop Viganò’s revelations of grave moral corruption among a number of the Church’s highest officials, not excluding Pope Francis himself, can be a severe trial for the faith of Catholics who have trusted the official churchmen for the last 50 years because they have not seen – or have not wanted to see – any essential problem in the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). Three weeks ago these “Comments” quoted words of a Catholic brought to virtual despair, even before the publication of Viganò’s letter, by the Attorney General of the State of Pennsylvania revealing similar Newchurch scandals in that State. The threat now being real of an avalanche of such scandals, let these “Comments” this week show how the Devil is turning his heavy artillery on another such Catholic to make him lose his faith. Here are the Devil’s shells, as related by this soul, with brief answers offered by these “Comments,” in the hope of fortifying other souls whose faith will be shaken in the foreseeable future:—

* In my home city I attended a Newmass celebrated for Sisters by a local auxiliary bishop. His sermon on the Sacred Heart was doctrinally beyond reproach and highly edifying. Yet a friend of mine with his own eyes once saw the same bishop kissing a seminarian! This bishop sets an agonising problem for me – how can he believe in the Sacred Heart on whose love he preaches so well?

He is a modernist, like easily most churchmen in the Church “renewed” by Vatican II, or, as we can call it, the “Newchurch.” Now modernism means adapting the Catholic Church to the anti-Catholic modern world, and this it does by a process of making objective reality depend on subjective feeling. But the process of subjectivising reality can take time, so that a churchman falling for modernism need not immediately lose the objective Catholic faith, even if it is already subjectively undermined in his soul.

It can be God alone who knows exactly when such a churchman loses the faith. So if this bishop believes in Vatican II, he is certainly on his way to losing the faith, far enough to let himself commit grave sin against the Sixth Commandment, but not yet far enough to have lost all notion of the Sacred Heart.

* But in order to destroy Catholic Truth as successfully as the Roman impostors are now doing, they must have known it. If they knew it, they must have known its force. If they knew its force, how can they have ceased to believe in it, unless it is a fairy-tale, untrue like all other religions, with the Catholic Church being in no way superior, and with man having no access to the Truth of God?

To believe the Catholic Faith a man’s mind must accept many supernatural truths which are not unreasonable but which are beyond his mind’s natural reach. To accept and to submit to these truths his mind must be pushed by his will. If his will stops pushing, or pushes in a contrary direction, he can lose the faith. Now modernism is proud, because in the Newchurch man takes the place of God. Therefore the Roman impostors, as you rightly call them, may have been Freemasons or Communist infiltrators from the start, or they may have believed to begin with, like Judas Iscariot, but the pride of taking God’s place and of remaking His Church overcame their wills, and their minds lost the faith. God knows.

* Then might we not be deceived, fighting an endless war for a fragile promise of Heaven, unable to know anything about God? Would we not be better off if God did not exist? Amid today’s chaos, I cannot help thinking that the Church is a purely human affair, so that there are times when I cannot help envying the people who lead happy lives without God.

Dear friend, a happy life without God is an illusion, however “happy” godless people pretend to be. We human beings are all from God, our souls are all directly created by God for us to go to God, body and soul. Today’s world and Church are in chaos precisely because they are trying to live without Him.

* It would appear that we are predestined to Heaven or Hell, and free-will cannot do much about it.

“The poison is in the tail,” said the Latins. This heavyweight conclusion of yours, a horrible heresy, is the proof that the devil is throwing everything at you to shake your faith. Pray the Rosary to obtain the help of the Mother of God. I send you my blessing.

Kyrie eleison.

Viganò Letter

Viganò Letter on September 15, 2018

A reader wrote in with a few questions on the 11-page letter of the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Viganò, which declared with a wealth of details, and quoting names, that there is immense moral corruption rotting the Catholic clergy in the USA, and that the responsibility for the crimes involved reaches to the very top of the Church. At the time of writing these “Comments,” the scandal caused by the letter is immense, and it is having widespread repercussions. Nobody can tell right now what the ultimate fallout will be. Here are the reader’s four questions with brief answers –

1 What is to be thought of the Viganò letter? Is it as serious as it looks?

Yes, because Archbishop Viganò gives all indications of being an honest man. In 2011 he was exiled from Rome and sent to the USA because he was making a successful attempt to clean up Vatican finances. At the time of writing he is in hiding because he is in fear for his life. He has serious enemies.

2 Will the letter be a bombshell in the Church, or a mere fire-cracker, with no lasting consequences?

Time must tell. Certainly the corruption high in the Church is matched by the corruption high among the powers-that-be in the world, politicians, bankers, media and so on. Satan rules, because satanists are linked with one another in all domains, and they are not going to allow one mere Archbishop to upset their apple-cart, if they can help it. In fact it is God who holds the whip-hand. Are people turning back to Him, or not? If not, He will allow the servants of Satan to continue whipping Church and world into the New World Order. If they are turning back to Him, we will have before long the Consecration of Russia.

3 Will the scandal make Menzingen think again about seeking recognition from the Pope and Rome?

It certainly should do so, but I fear it may not. For many years now, Society headquarters in Menzingen have been in the clouds, and liberals do not change their doctrine. For liberals, it is reality that is in the wrong. At all costs official recognition for the Society must be obtained from Rome, and so Pope Francis must still be treated as a friend. Maybe Menzingen can admit that they have been wrong for 20 years, but it will not be easy for them to change course. Archbishop Lefebvre on the contrary decided 30 years ago to let the Conciliar Popes go their way. He would not have been at all surprised by the Viganò letter.

4 What made the Archbishop so clear-sighted?

Doctrine. Scratch many a materialistic Westerner of today and you find an heir of Protestantism who tends to strain out a gnat and swallow a camel (Mt. XXIII, 24), meaning that he is more severe on sins of the flesh than on sins of the spirit, such as doctrinal error, or heresy. Now sins of the flesh are serious enough to contribute to the eternal damnation of a huge number of the souls that fall into Hell – so said Our Lady to the children of Fatima. But it is heresy which opens the way to these sins. See Romans I, 21 to 31. Breaking the First Commandment leads to impurity in general (21–24), to homosexuality in particular (26–27), and to all kinds of other sins in general (28–32). In other words it is the First Commandment which is the first, and not the Sixth.

Thus the real scandal being denounced by Archbishop Viganò is implicit rather than explicit. It is less the perverse sins of the flesh running riot in high-up churchmen than the official idolatry committed by Vatican II in its documents, which did more than anything else to take off the Catholic brakes on immorality. If no State should coerce doctrinally false religions in public ( Dignitatis Humanae), why should I have to observe Catholic morals which put special limits on my liberty? If Hell is a mere “doctrine” of the Church, why should it stop me from sinning how I like? Vatican II ( Nostra Aetate, Unitatis Redintegratio) declared that several religions beside Catholicism have their points. Was this not the Catholic Church itself teaching me that I do not really need to be Catholic?

Kyrie eleison.

Whither, “Resistance” ? – II

Whither, “Resistance” ? – II on September 8, 2018

When John-Paul II became Pope in 1978, a number of Catholics were genuinely hopeful that the situation in the Church would get better than it had been under Paul VI, but I can remember Archbishop Lefebvre saying that if John-Paul II did not clean house in Rome within the first six months of his pontificate, he would not be able to break with the policies established in Rome by Paul VI. Similarly, if Fr. Pagliarani does not clean house soon at the top of the Society, the followers around him of Bishop Fellay are liable to hinder him from making any significant change in the disastrous policies of his predecessor. The rot that started with GREC in the 1990’s has had time to put down some deep roots.

Therefore if anyone is concerned about the future of the “Resistance,” on the grounds that the Society is coming back on track with the new Superior General so that the “Resistance” will no longer be necessary, the first part of the answer is that it is not yet certain that the Society is coming back on track. We must wait and see. Fr Pagliarani is a good man, he surely means well, and we pray for him, but if he chooses first and foremost to unite liberals and anti-liberals within the Society by means of human and political compromises, he will never save the Society from its present downward slide. Our faith is our victory over the world, says St John (I Jn. V, 4), and not our politics. Therefore the “Resistance,” that small and scattered group of bishops, priests and laity doing what they can to resist disastrous politics of Rome and Menzingen, cannot yet give up resisting, however disorganised they are, however ineffective they may seem. Somebody in the Church must fight for what Archbishop Lefebvre fought for.

For indeed, secondly, imagine a convert being led by the grace of God, even today, to the Catholic Faith. By its very principles it must be incarnate somewhere. He may well not find it in the antics of the Novus Ordo. He turns away from the Conciliar Church towards Tradition. He finds the Society of St Pius X, but then discovers that it is going Conciliar. Where does he turn to next? If there is no “Resistance,” he risks giving up on the Incarnate Christ. Somebody in the Church must be living by the logic of the true Faith of 20 centuries, otherwise there risk being souls that conclude that that Faith is obsolete in today’s world.

Likewise souls letting go of the Society’s high trapeze need a Catholic safety-net to fall into, with or without the name of the “Resistance.”

And thirdly, there is any number of ways of mixing whisky with water, but they all depend on somebody producing pure whisky. Similarly, there is an even greater variety of ways of mixing Our Lord with the world, but they all depend upon some people upholding in their lives, and not only in their words, an example for all to see of true Catholic living. This function always used to be served by the Church’s religious Orders and Congregations. Hence their importance. After the Council which ruined them, that function was served especially by the Archbishop and his Society. Today from all over the world the reports come in of the fellayised Society giving a weaker and weaker example of Catholic life and morals. Somebody in the Church must give witness by at least striving to live up to the high standards of doctrine and morals demanded of souls by Our Lord Himself (Mt. V, 48).

And a fourth reason for the “Resistance” not to resign or go out of business or give up the wearisome fight for the Truth, is that it cannot do so, because if it did, then as Our Lord says (Lk XIX, 40), the stones of the street would have to cry out. In other words, the Truth may be smothered by all mankind, but it is not men, it is God who is in charge of the world, and God will never allow the Truth to be completely silenced, because that would frustrate His purpose in creating the world, which is to populate Heaven.

Therefore the “Resistance” may tomorrow, or the day after, change form – and in this respect its present formlessness will actually help! – but in some form or other God will make it continue (cf. Is. VI, 9–11).

We carry on.

Kyrie eleison.

Whither, “Resistance”? – I

Whither, “Resistance”? – I on September 1, 2018

If anybody still wonders what the Catholic “Resistance” movement is meant to be doing, recent events in the United States make it more obvious than ever – it must keep the Faith! With the official publication last month by the State of Pennsylvania, USA, of an 800-page document proving beyond doubt the guilt of high-ranking Catholic churchmen in abominable crimes against the law of the land and the law of God, millions of Catholics will be tempted, and not only in the USA, to doubt the Faith and to quit the Church.

One reader of these “Comments” names three disturbing Internet links, and he writes:

“My heart is hurting. Jesus didn’t teach this. I am bitterly weeping. I am a hard-headed man and don’t cry often at all. I can’t take this. I’m sorry, but if this continues I will have to become Eastern Orthodox or I will absolutely lose my mind. I just can’t take this monstrosity any more. I am in physical pain because this is making my chest hurt. I’m going to lose my mind. All the prayers and Masses are in vain if this is still being done by those who partake in prayers and Masses. Our Lord is being turned upside down by these heretics! I can’t take it!”

Now sin happens, and sin will go on happening until world’s end, even among priests and bishops because God does not take away their free-will, and no wise lawmaker in Church or State trusts in mere legislation to abolish sin. The grace alone of Our Lord Jesus Christ can cleanse souls of sin (Rom. VII, 24, 25). That is why the State is basically powerless to heal the deepest human problems of priests, or families, or nations. It is obliged to do its best to protect its citizens, but all intelligent and honest statesmen recognise that the Catholic Church alone is fully possessed of the means to reach with healing into the depths of human souls. That is why they will favour the Church as best they can for the good of the State, and protect as best they can the reputation of bishops and priests, and leave the Church to deal with her own criminals, if they will. But if the Church refuses to deal with its criminals, then the State has to intervene.

What is so scandalous in the present plague of abuse by churchmen of adolescents and children is the extent of the abuse, the systematic cover-up of the abuse by high-ranking churchmen, and the height of the rank of some of them, reaching up to the very top of the Church. In fact the scandal has been known about in the USA for tens of years, and it is wholly impossible that it was not common knowledge in Rome also. For tens of years, however, a network of homosexuals has had immense power within the structure and hierarchy of the Church, to the point that they exert far-reaching control in Rome over the appointment of bishops, and in the dioceses over the choice of seminarians. It can be more and more difficult to become either bishop or priest without belonging in person to that network.

But what can possibly explain such a disaster among so many churchmen? The only proportionate explanation is the loss of faith let loose by the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), following on which the great protector of the priest’s perseverance, his Breviary, and the purpose of his existence, the Mass, were both maimed and crippled ( Sacrosanctum Concilium, Chapters II and IV). Take away from any man the purpose of his existence, and he is bound to look elsewhere for satisfaction. At least one American commentator blames Satanism for the disaster, a sin directly attacking God and, as such, much graver than sins of the flesh. But men only turn to Satan when they have turned away, or been turned away, from God. Vatican II opened the door for seemingly the entire Church to turn away from God.

Kyrie eleison.

“Rigged Video-Game” – II

“Rigged Video-Game” – II on August 25, 2018

The story is told of the great Catholic monarch of Spain, Queen Isabella (1451–1504), that when asked once what she wanted to see in a painting, she replied “a priest saying Mass, a woman giving birth and a criminal being hanged.” In other words, everybody has a part to play in life, and they should play that part and not another. We can only imagine what she would have said about a world in which priests celebrate eucharistic picnics, women freely contraceive and abort, and criminals are sentenced to shorter and shorter sentences in prisons resembling luxury hotels. Today “Nothing is but what is not” (Macbeth, I, 3).

Today many people sense that modern life is false, but few can see why “nothing is but what is not,” or why “Nothing is real, And nothing to get hung about, Strawberry Fields for ever” (Beatles). They observe police oppressing, journalists lying, pharmacy poisoning, lawyers cheating, politicians betraying, women self-sterilising, youth suiciding, teachers corrupting, doctors killing, and so on and so on, and worst of all, priests apostatising. It is not difficult to see around us a disordered world which is the exact opposite of the right order that Queen Isabella had in mind for Spain. But the disorder is so disguised as to resemble in the present the right order of the past, so that few people can work out where the disorder comes from, and many give up the attempt to track it down, settling down instead among the material comforts that it has to offer. For instance many a Rock musician makes good money by screaming at the bad fruits of materialism, but few if any go after its roots, so that most end up as quite comfortable materialists, part and parcel of the falsity that they recognised correctly in their money-making days.

In the words of the old song, “Why, why, why, Delilah?” Because people have so gotten rid of the presence of God in their lives that they have no inkling that His absence is the problem. And if ever they do have an inkling, then for the same reason that they got rid of Him in the first place, they will now look anywhere rather than in His direction for the solution. Yet it was Christ who created, towards world’s end, that Christendom which lifted civilisation to unprecedented heights in the Middle Ages, and of which “Western civilisation” is the Christ-less successor. But, as readers of these “Comments” know, Christ-endom without Christ is “-endom,” better spelt as “end-doom.”

But “end-doom” has to compete with the Middle Ages, otherwise men will want to go back to Christ. Hence the appearances of Christian law, hospitals, parliaments, etc., must be maintained even while the substance is emptied out. Hence over the last 500 years a series of “conservatives” who conserve nothing but the last conquest by the liberals. Hence a long procession of hypocritical politicians outwardly right-wingers but in fact left-wingers, because that is what the peoples want – leaders who will appear to be rendering homage to the remnants of God and of Christ, but who in reality are serving the Devil by making way for ever more freedom from God and from Christ.

Hence the Church’s Second Vatican Council, maintaining the outward appearance of Catholicism even while replacing it with the reality of modernism. Hence the Society of St Pius X’s Chapter of six years ago, pretending to maintain Catholic Tradition even while preparing to subordinate it to Vatican II. Hence the Society’s Chapter of 2018, dethroning the architect of the 2012 Chapter only to reinstate him right next to the throne. Hence a Chapter representing not the reality of the situation of Church or Society, but that which risks turning into another video-game, rigged to tranquillise those resisting the Society’s march towards Conciliar Rome even while protecting that march. Please God, we are wrong.

And so, is there a solution if the whole world is rigging video-games? It is impossible that Heaven could have left us without one. Ever since the Middle Ages Our Lady has given to all of us the Rosary. More recently, She has given us the devotion of the First Saturdays. We neglect Her remedies at our peril.

Kyrie eleison.

Rigged Video Game – I

Rigged Video Game – I on August 18, 2018

Charity certainly prays for the new Superior General of the Society of St Pius X that God may give him the insight and the strength to bring the Society back onto the course set for it – and for the good of the Universal Church – by Archbishop Lefebvre, but realistically Fr Pagliarani may not even have the desire to do any such thing. Realistically, on the human level, the indications are that he is on the same wavelength as Bishop Fellay, and that his election as Superior General was Rome’s and Bishop Fellay’s joint back-up plan for the Chapter if Bishop Fellay himself failed to be re-elected, as seems to have been the case. Thus if Fr Pagliarani would look after Bishop Fellay’s interests, Bishop Fellay would in case of need promote his candidacy for Superior General. Here are a few indications that the two of them are conspiring to bring the Traditional Society under Conciliar Rome –

* At the interim (non-elective) General Chapter of 2012, it is reported that it was Fr Pagliarani who saved Bishop Fellay from devastating arguments presented to the Chapter for Bishop Fellay’s dismissal and replacement as Superior General. Fr Pagliarani told the Chapter that it should not give the Superior a slap in the face – and the weak-kneed Chapter went straight on to other business.

* Soon after that Chapter Fr Pagliarani was promoted – rewarded? – by Bishop Fellay with the elevated post of Seminary Rector at the Society’s seminary for Latin America in La Reja, Argentina. There Fr Pagliarani has been heard to criticise whoever does not understand the need for an agreement between the Society and Rome – Bishop Fellay’s own policy.

* We may hope one day to know for sure exactly how it happened that the two “Counsellors” were added to the Society’s General Council, thus putting Bishop Fellay close back to the seat of power in the Society from which he had just been dethroned a few days before. But is it likely that the all too docile and respectful Capitulants would have voted for such a move if it had not seemed to be agreeable to the new Superior General himself? In fact, if it had not been proposed by Fr Pagliarani himself?

Such questions remain speculations until the facts are made known, but they are not idle speculations, because upon the course of the Society over the next few years depends a great deal in the Universal Church. Will the Society become again the central bulwark of resistance to Conciliar apostasy wreaking havoc within the Church, or is it going to join that movement of apostasy? Within the mainstream Church the Society was always numerically insignificant when compared with all the other institutions together making up the Universal Church, but the Society’s unique faithfulness to the Catholic doctrine and sacraments of all time, being abandoned or perverted by the Church’s highest officials, made the Society a force to be reckoned with. The Archbishop’s stand on Truth made him redoubtable. The Conciliar Popes could neither swallow him down nor spit him out. They have long since swallowed down and eaten up Bishop Fellay.

Time will tell how Fr Pagliarani will handle his tremendous responsibilities. Meanwhile we pray for him, but we are not humanly hopeful. The risk is all too great of the Society’s leaders following the rest of the world’s leaders, and turning the Society into a “rigged video-game,” as somebody well described today’s world. To punish mankind abandoning God everywhere, He is giving power to His enemies to root out the last remains of Christ and of Christian civilisation. However, at least for a while yet, appearances of Christ and His Church must be maintained until they no longer arouse even nostalgia in men being de-christianised. Hence the video-game with no reality beneath the appearances emptied out. Hence the rigging of elections and of Chapters to bring about the Brave New World, without Christ or God.

Alas, for these poor enemies. God exists, and Our Lord is going to strike!

Kyrie eleison.