Eleison Comments

Whereas arguments at best prove, comparisons at best illustrate. So comparisons do not prove but they can throw a lot of light from what one does know onto what one does not know. Now concerning the present crisis of the Church, half a century old, we need all the light we can get, because with each day that passes it becomes less and not more understandable. So here is a fruitful comparison sent to me recently by a recent convert to Tradition. He compares the Catholic Church and the Conciliar Church, or the Newchurch, to the legitimate and illegitimate families of one and the same man. Let us apply the comparison to his marriage, to his authority and to his children.

By a lawful marriage to his true wife a man starts a family and has legitimate children. But after a while he is unfaithful to her and divorces her to live with his mistress, by adultery with whom he also has children, who are bastards. Similarly by a Cardinal’s lawful canonical election as Pope, the Cardinal becomes the legitimate father of the Catholic Church and the spiritual father by the true Faith of a multitude of true Catholics. But after a while as a Conciliar Pope he goes whoring after the modern world, and by adultery with it he engenders a new family of Conciliar bastards. Thus as one man can be the father of both a lawful and an unlawful family, so one Pope can at the same time be head of the Catholic Church and of the Newchurch.

Secondly, as the family father has true authority over his true family but no true authority over his second family because it is not his true family, so the Conciliar Pope has true authority over all true Catholics but no true authority over the Newchurch with its Conciliar Catholics. And as the first family needs its true father, and both wife and children do all they can to bring him home, but he clings to his partner in adultery and to his illegitimate children who also do all they can to hold onto him, so each Conciliar Pope is still respected by Traditional Catholics who call upon him to do his duty by them, but he prefers Conciliar Catholics who have little real respect for him but who also hold onto him to cover their unlawful status.

And thirdly, as no true wife will accept to be put on the same footing as the adulterous partner that has supplanted her, nor will the true children (if they are mature enough) accept to be adopted by the false family and thus likened to the bastards, so Tradition is absolutely incompatible with the Newchurch, nor can true Catholics accept to be incorporated into it by any kind of sell-out or betrayal of Tradition. It is not for them to go whoring after their true father in his adulterous environment, even if he is their true father and they truly need him. It is for the father to return to his true family. Nor can the lawful children reasonably expect to bring their father home by joining him in his seductive surroundings. The much greater likelihood is that they too will be seduced.

This comparison of any Newpope to a father of two families is fruitful on many more points becaue it is in the nature of a Pope to be a father. But « Every comparison limps » (another brilliant comparison), and the bad leg of this comparison consists mainly in the fact that whereas the distinction between the two families of the one father is perfectly clear in real life, on the contrary the distinction between the Catholic Church and the Newchurch, while perfectly clear in theory, is very difficult to disentangle in practice, because they are almost hopelessly intertwined in real life.

To keep a Catholic head on one’s shoulders it is as necessary to know the clear distinction in theory as it is to recognize the desperate confusion in practice.

Kyrie eleison.

What a contrast there is between today’s Christmas scene in the once Christian nations, and the prophecies of the Messiah to come, which are scattered throughout the Old Testament! It is the contrast between the beginning and the end of those nations. It was the coming of Christ, prepared by the Jews over two thousand years, which through his Church forged those nations (Gentiles) to take up the service of God when the Jews mysteriously chose to abandon it. Today is the end of the time of those nations because they are now abandoning God in their turn. Let us remind ourselves of the glory and infinite greatness of the Messiah’s mission, and of the seriousness of turning our backs on him, by a random selection from the hundreds of messianic quotes in the Old Testament:—

1. David (1000 B.C.) – the messiah would be disowned by the Jews (Ps. XXI, 7–8). He would convert the Gentiles (Ps. XXI, 28). He would be betrayed by a disciple (Ps. XL, 10). He would be mocked in His agony (Ps. XXI, 7–9). His enemies would pierce His hands and His feet, and cast lots for his garments (Ps. XXI, 17, 19). They would give Him vinegar to drink (Ps.LXVIII, 22).

2 Isaias (720 B.C.) – The Messiah would convert the nations (II, 2–3). He would be born of a virgin (VII, 14). He would be adored as a child by kings (IX, 6–7). He would have a precursor; the precursor would prepare the people for Him (XL, 3–4). He would be mildness itself (XLII, 1–3). He would be a man of sorrows (LIII, 3). He would give His life to expiate for our sins (LIII, 5). He would never complain (LIII, 7). He would be made to seem a criminal (LIII, 12). He would reign over the world (LV, 5). His Church, His spouse, would give Him a multitude of children (LXVI, 18–23).

3. Osee (600 B.C.) – The Messiah would return from Egypt by order of His Father (XI, 1). He would convert the nations (II, 19–24). The Jews would be scattered throughout the world for denying Him (IX, 17).

4. Micheas (600 B.C.) – The Messiah would be born in Bethlehem and he would be both God and Man (V, 2). He would convert the nations (IV, 2–3). He would be our reconciliation (VII, 18–20).

5. Joel (600 B.C.) – The Messiah would send the Holy Ghost upon His Church and the faithful would prophesy (II, 28–29). The Messiah would come to judge the world in Power (III, 2).

6. Jeremias (600 B.C.) – The Messiah’s birth would be known by the slaughter of innocent children for whom their mothers would weep (XXXI, 18). He would convert the nations and establish a new covenant with the people, more perfect than the first (XXXI, 31–34).

7. Ezechiel (580 B.C.) – The Messiah would be of the race of David (XVII, 22). He would receive the crown of the royal house of David (XXI, 27).

8. Daniel (500 B.C.) – The Messiah would come in 490 years from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity; He would re-establish the reign of virtue; He would be denied by the Jews and put to death; the temple and the city of Jerusalem would be destroyed; the Jews would be in a state of desolation until the end of time (IX, 24–27).

To read these quotes again is to be reminded how inseparable the Messiah was from his people, the Jews, and yet how they have separated themselves from him ever since. By him God raised a new people, chosen by faith instead of race, and now that people also is wallowing in materialism. Lord, grant us at this time of year to remember how he changed the world, and how, without him, it is changing catastrophically back.

Kyrie eleison.

In two months’ time, from 18h00 on Friday evening of Feb. 19 to Sunday mid-day of Feb. 21, there will be held here in Broadstairs a three-day blast of the music of Beethoven. A young American pianist who can read at sight any of his 32 piano sonatas, and loves them all, is crossing the Atlantic to play some of them for us, we do not yet know which.

No doubt he will play the three great favourites, the Pathétique, Moonlight and Appassionata, also the Waldstein, but there will be time for him to analyze and present many others. Right now there will be no fixed programme for the three days. There will be room for plenty of questions and discussion and improvisation. A certain bishop will also be contributing to the analysis in some depth of his favourite composer. The purpose of the weekend will be for participants to take away with them an understanding they may not have had before, of how classical music ticks and of what makes Beethoven in particular one of its most famous composers.

But, somebody will object, what has music, especially Revolutionary music, to do with the defence and propagation of the Catholic Faith? The answer here has to be brief. Firstly, let nobody despise music. Both the Catholic Church and the Devil are acutely aware that it is a language uniquely capable of expressing and of shaping what goes on in the human soul, and therefore of influencing the direction which a soul is taking, towards Heaven (by Gregorian chant, for instance) or towards Hell (were not the victims of the recent shooting in Paris just then partaking in a Rock song that called on the Devil?). Almost every human being has some music or other in his soul, and that music normally runs deep, for good or ill. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that if a man does not have in him the music of his religion, he will have in him the religion of his music, e.g. the Devil. Catholics who realize that the music they love flies not much higher than Pop or Rock, may well seize the opportunity to get a handle on classical music, via a studious blast of Beethoven.

Now it is true that there is a great deal of music higher than Beethoven. He was born under the Old Order, 19 years before the French Revolution broke out in 1789, but he died 38 years later when the modern Revolutionary age was well under way, in 1827, so that his life straddled that tremendous upheaval which he expressed musically in a number of his masterworks, notably in the Appassionata piano sonata and in his Eroica Symphony, originally dedicated to that hero of the Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte. However, while the relative serenity of the musical masterworks prior to the Revolution is free of its agitation and Romantic disturbance, at the same time it is that much further removed from our own world of today, marinated in the Revolution. Therefore Beethoven can speak to souls of today that find little or no interest in music of the earlier masters. Nor is Beethoven only Revolutionary. The unique power of his best loved masterpieces derives from their Romantic wine being contained and ordered within the classical skins which he inherited from Haydn and Mozart.

To give us an idea of numbers, please let us know if you plan to attend the Beethoven weekend. Off season, local boarding-houses should have plenty of room to overnight. And if male readers would prefer something more directly Catholic, let them sign up as soon as possible for the Ignatian Exercises to be given here by Fr Abraham and myself between 18h00, December 26 and 18h00, December 31.

Kyrie eleison.

If the evidence for eucharistic miracles taking place within the Novus Ordo Church (see EC 436 and 437) is as serious as it seems, then Catholics must conform their minds to the mind of God, and not the other way round. And Catholics cleaving to Tradition have a special need to work out what God meant by the miracles, because they will not easily understand what he can have meant, when they know how distasteful to him the Novus Ordo Mass (NOM) must be in itself.

For many centuries God has been working such miracles. The primary reason has always been to strengthen the faith of Catholics in a truth of the Faith not easy to believe, but very close to the Heart of God. That after the Consecration at Mass of the bread and wine God himself takes the place of their substance is an occurrence so outside the normal course of nature that this invention of the love of God wishing to give himself as food and drink to his sheep may be practical, but it seems also incredible. So in due time and place God has wrought visible miracles in some shape or form to help doubting souls to believe. A secondary reason for these miracles, especially where there has been some profanation or other of the Holy Eucharist, is to remind Catholics of the sacred treatment and adoration always due to the humble appearances behind which hides God himself.

Both of these reasons apply today when the NOM has severely diminished the sense of the Real Presence without always nullifying it (see EC 437). Who can deny that the rite of the NOM and its practice throughout the Novus Ordo Church, e.g Communion standing and in the hand, have set countless Catholics on their way to disbelieving in the Real Presence, and countless priests on their way to a lack of due respect in their handling of the Holy Eucharist? Who can deny that both disbelief and disrespect towards it have hugely increased since the NOM was introduced in 1969? Humanly speaking, the wonder may be not that there have been miracles at all within the framework of the NOM, but that there have not been many more. In any case, God knows best.

However, these miracles – always assuming they are authentic – have lessons also for the Catholics of Tradition who have to some extent or another stood back from the Novus Ordo framework. The lesson most obvious is that not all Novus Ordo Masses are invalid, nor all Novus Ordo episcopal Consecrations nor all priestly Ordinations, as “Traditionalists” can be tempted to think. This is surely because while since the 1960’s a mass of Catholic sheep have become too worldly to deserve to keep the true rite of Mass, they have loved the Mass enough not to lose it altogether. The NOM may have been allowed by God to make it easier for Catholics to leave the Faith if they wanted to, but not impossible to keep it if they wanted to.

Therefore the NOM and the Novus Ordo Church as a whole are dangerous for the Faith, and Catholics are right who have clung to Tradition to avoid the danger. But as they have had to put a distance between themselves and the mainstream Church, so they have exposed themselves to the opposite danger of an isolation leading to a sectarian and even pharisaical spirit, disconnected from reality. There are true sacraments in the Novus Ordo and true Catholics, for whom God cares, and “Traditionalists” should be happy that there are. Let Traditionalists’ relative isolation not make them feel that they are bound to deny that there is anything Catholic at all left in the Novus Ordo. That is unreal, and reality’s pendulum will swing back, as with the leadership of the SSPX, presently failing to see the on-going need for isolation from the mainstream Church. No. Tradition still needs isolation, but with a generous and not an isolationist spirit.

Kyrie eleison.

Facts are stubborn — as long as they are facts. If readers doubt that the eucharistic miracle of 1996 in Buenos Aires is a fact, let them undertake their own research: http://youtu.be/3gPAbD43fTI. But if their research of that case leaves them unconvinced, then let them look up the parallel case of Sokólka in Poland, where a whole centre of pilgrimage has arisen around a eucharistic miracle of 2008 (e.g. jloughnan.tripod.com/sokolka.htm). And a little more Internet research would surely discover accounts of more such Novus Ordo miracles, with at least some of them being authentic.

But how is that possible? Traditional Catholics absorb with their mother’s milk that the new rite of Mass (NOM) is an abomination in the eyes of God, and has helped to make countless Catholics lose the Faith. This is because the NOM, like Vatican II which it followed, is ambiguous, favours heresy and has led numberless souls out of the Church, whom regular attendance at the Protestantised rite has turned into virtual Protestants. Most Traditional Catholics should be familiar with the serious doctrinal problems of this new rite, designed to diminish the essential Catholic doctrines of the Real Presence, the propitiatory Sacrifice and the sacrificing priesthood, amongst others. Then how can God work with it eucharistic miracles such as have made of Sokólka a national centre of pilgrimage for all Poland?

Doctrinally, the NOM is ambiguous, poised between the religion of God and the Conciliar religion of man. Now in matters of faith, ambiguity is deadly, being normally designed to undermine the Faith, as the NOM frequently does. But as ambiguity is precisely open to two interpretations, so the NOM does not absolutely exclude the old religion. Thus by a devout priest its ambiguities can all be turned in the old direction. That does not make the NOM acceptable as such, because its intrinsic ambiguity still favours the new direction, but it does mean for instance that the Consecration can still be valid, as Archbishop Lefebvre never denied. Moreover, if the eucharistic miracles are genuine, clearly not all Consecrations of Novus Ordo bishops or Ordinations of Novus Ordo priests are invalid either. In brief, the NOM as such is bad as a whole, bad in parts, but not bad in all its parts.

Now let us imagine, with the utmost respect, how Almighty God stands towards the new rite of Mass. On the one hand God loves his Church like the apple of His eye, and will preserve it to the end of the world (Mt. XVI, 18). On the other hand He has chosen to entrust its government to human and fallible churchmen, whom He will guide, but to whose free-will He evidently grants a remarkable degree of free play to govern it well or badly, starting with the betrayal of His own Son. Now in modern times the Revolution, be it Jewish, Masonic, communist or globalist, finds its main adversary in His Church, and it has worked especially on the Church’s leaders to make the Church collapse. Their most terrible success was Vatican II and its NOM, which were surely much more the fault of the shepherds than of the sheep. “The fort is betrayed even of them that should have defended it,” said St John Fisher at a parallel moment in the Reformation. Then how will God look after His sheep, many of whom – not all – are relatively innocent of the Conciliar betrayal?

After Vatican II, some priests and laity had the grace to see immediately what a betrayal it was, and within a few years the Traditional movement was under way. To other sheep God gave the grace to see it later. But can we not all admit that there are many good Catholics who trusted their bishops, as good Catholics normally should do? And did not these bishops insist on the lie that the NOM was no different from the true Mass? What specified Vatican II and the NOM was precisely the officialisation of the modernist heresy within the Church. So does it not make sense that in punishment of their modern worldliness these sheep would broadly lose the true rite of Mass, while in reward of their desire for Mass they would not lose every valid Mass? But the Church’s future depends on the souls that understand the Revolution and utterly repudiate all ambiguities of Vatican II and the NOM.

Kyrie eleison.

“Facts are stubborn things,” is a famous quote of the United States’ second President, John Adams (1735–1826), “and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” Concerning the New Order of Mass imposed upon the entire Latin Rite Church by Paul VI in 1969, there are some stubborn facts, apt to perturb the “wishes and inclinations” of Catholics cleaving to Catholic Tradition. Let successive issues of these “Comments” first of all present some of these facts; secondly let us see how they may be explained in view of the disastrous role played over the last 46 years by the NOM in helping Catholics to lose the Faith, and thirdly let us deliberate as to what conclusions a wise Catholic needs to draw. First of all, some facts:—

On august 18, 1996, in St Mary’s parish church in the centre of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Fr Alejandro Pezet was finishing distributing communion (of a new Mass, for sure) when a woman told him of a discarded host at the back of the church. A parishioner having received communion in the hand must have dropped it on their way out of church and abandoned it as being too dirty to be consumed off the floor. Fr Pezet picked it up, put it correctly in a vase of water and placed it in the tabernacle where in a few days it would normally dissolve and could be properly disposed of. However, when on August 26 he opened the tabernacle, what was his surprise to find that the host had turned into a bloody substance. Photographs taken on Bishop Bergoglio’s orders 11 days later showed that it had significantly increased in size. For three years it was kept under strict secret in the tabernacle, but in 1999 then Archbishop Bergoglio decided to carry out a scientific analysis. On October 15, 1999, in the presence of witnesses he allowed Dr Ricardo Castañon, a neuro-psycho physiologist approved of by Rome, to take a sample for testing.

Dr Castañon took the sample firstly to a forensic laboratory in San Francisco which recognized human ADN. A Dr Robert Lawrence located white globules. A Dr. Ardonidoli in Italy thought it was probably heart tissue. An Australian Professor, John Walker, recognized muscular tissue with white globules intact.

To remove all doubt Dr Castañon resorted to a renowned cardiologist and forensic pathologist from Columbia University, New York, Dr Federico Zugibe,without telling him where the specimen came from.

Looking down his microscope Dr Zugibe is quoted as having said, “I can tell you exactly what it is. It is part of the muscle found in the wall of the heart’s left ventricle which makes the heart beat and gives the body its life. Intermingled in the tissue are white blood-cells, which tells me firstly that the heart was alive at the moment when the sample was taken because white blood-cells die outside of a living organism, and secondly that white cells go to the aid of an injury, so this heart has suffered. This is the sort of thing I see in patients who have been beaten about the chest.” When asked how long these cells would have remained alive had they come from a sample kept in water, DrZugibe replied that they would have ceased to exist in a matter of minutes.

When in June of 1976 Archbishop lefebvre was on the brink of ordaining the first large batch of SSPX priests despite Rome’s disapproval, a Roman official came to promise him the end of all problems with Rome if only he would celebrate one NOM. On principle, for doctrinal reasons, he refused. Then how can Almighty God have worked eucharistic miracles with and for this new Mass? Read here next week a suggested answer.

Kyrie eleison.