Deposit of Faith

Embattled Parents

Embattled Parents on May 8, 2010

Sister’s words from last week’s “Eleison Comments” remain in my mind: “The world has a tight grip on our girls.” Over a mere three years “the change of their mentality is noticeable. We struggle to maintain principles and morality.” Now the world is hardly going to ease off its pressure on the girls, on the contrary. Then either our Catholic Faith has ceased to be “our victory over the world” (I Jn.V,4), or Sister’s words may be a red light flashing to warn us all that our Faith needs to be activated, or Catholic Tradition may need to be sifted again?

For between home and school, if school is responsible for, say, two-sevenths of a child’s formation, home is responsible for at least five-sevenths. That is why, as was suggested here last week, it is a grave error for parents to think that if they have entrusted their child to a good school, their duty is done. The main responsibility for children’s formation has always belonged in the home. Sister would certainly not shuck off onto the home what is her own responsibility, but on the other hand her main hope, after the mercy of God, must be good homes.

Now nobody reasonable can today not have compassion on parents. For instance, father is liable to be run ragged by commuting, by unsatisfying work, by an anti-catholic work-place, while mother is liable to be exhausted by the series of children God can send if she and her husband are to obey the laws of Catholic marriage, by schooling them at home if outside schools are too corrupt, by work outside the home as well as inside if an incorrupt school outside is expensive, and by people’s scorn if she stays at home. In any such worst case scenario, God expects of none of us to do the impossible. But he does expect us to carry our Cross, and to do the possible.

Fathers, are you acting as the manly – not tyrannical! – head of the family? Do you put family before money, or money before family? Are you giving your girls the example of loving and supporting their mother? Do you listen to her? Are you encouraging her to dress or behave for your own pleasure in such a way as can only give to your daughters bad example? They will do much more what she does than what she says. Do you take time with your girls? Do you give them that wise attention and care which they so much need from their father? Mothers, only one question: do you give to your girls the example of respecting and obeying their father (even if he may not always deserve it), or do you use your tongue to make him small in front of them? Do both of you give to them an example of respect for the priest?

One last question for fathers and mothers: have you ever listened to those Catholic parents of children around the time of Vatican II who were asleep at the switch of their children’s formation, woke up too late and have now nothing but tears to shed for their children living, and being prepared to die, outside the Faith? Throw out that TV set! Fellow-priests and Sisters, let us not be afraid of making ourselves unpopular! And let us all beware of our Catholic Tradition becoming so cosy that for our own good the Lord God must let us do a re-run of Vatican II!

Kyrie eleison.

Muslim Distress

Muslim Distress on February 27, 2010

A little example of a big problem came across my path last month when I met in London a Muslim born and living in France, being torn between his Mohammedan ancestry and his European environment. The clash for him between loyalty to his ancestral roots and loyalty to his land of birth was clearly agonising. Some Mohammedans might completely adopt French values, many others might completely reject them, but he could do neither.

His problem is of course much more than just cultural or political or even historical. It is religious. Islam began some 1400 years ago as a breakaway from Catholic Christendom in the Middle East. Rooted in the Monophysite heresy which holds that there is only one Person in God, it spread like wildfire through a dried out Christendom in the Middle East and North Africa, occupied Spain for many centuries and broke briefly into France. A simple and violent religion, it seeks to conquer the whole world by the sword. It is a scourge of God, which for a thousand years Christendom could only hold at bay by the sword.

However, now that the European Christians themselves are losing nearly all belief in Christ or in Christendom, they are allowing – and their anti-Christian governments are positively encouraging – Mohammedans to come back into Europe, not by the sword but by immigration, which is how this young man’s family have been in France for two or three generations. What is behind this immigration? The Globalists want it to help dissolve the once glorious Christian nations, and melt them down into the New World Order. Liberals want it to proclaim their folly that men’s differences of race or religion are insignificant. The Mohammedans want it to enable them to take over Europe.

Yet even though Europe is daily more rotten, still there are traces of its ancient glory, a glory which it owed to the Catholic Church. These traces are enough on the one hand to inspire in someone like this young man a loyalty of patriotism rivalling the loyalty of blood to his ancestors, on the other hand to rouse still in many Europeans such a love of their own way of life that they will defend it with a bloodbath if it seems or becomes too threatened from outside. Satan is no doubt planning for that bloodbath. God may allow it as a punishment. It is looking more and more likely.

Meanwhile what should this young man do? Ideally, he will go to the root of the problem, which is whether Jesus Christ is the Second of the three Persons of God, or just a Prophet, however sublime. Then if he is intelligent, he will connect the gifts of France he so admires with their giver, the same Incarnate God, and if he then became a true Catholic, not only for himself would he see how to combine all true good in his roots with all true good in his land of birth, but also for others he would be able to contribute, in however limited a way, to the avoidance of the looming bloodbath.

And what should the ancestral Europeans do to avoid it? Return to their ancestral Faith and to its practice, which alone has the power to unite all peoples and races in the Truth, in justice and in peace. This is their ancient responsibility and vocation from God, to give such an example as will draw the whole world to Our Lord Jesus Christ. If they continue to be unfaithful, the blood is sure to flow.

Kyrie eleison.

Papal Error – II

Papal Error – II on February 6, 2010

Just coming out in English (see truerestoration.blogspot.com) is the valuable 100-page treatise in French by Bishop Tissier de Mallerais of the Society of St Pius X on the doctrine of Pope Benedict XVI: “The Faith imperilled by Reason.” The title says it all. Bishop Tissier’s thesis is that Benedict XVI allows human reasoning to adulterate the Catholic Faith. Let me paraphrase a paragraph from the Bishop’s conclusion which goes to the heart of the matter:—

“Benedict XVI frequently calls for a “hermeneutic of continuity,” meaning an interpretation of Vatican II and of Catholic Tradition which shows that there is no break but continuity

between them. After studying the Pope’s teachings, I now realize that this “hermeneutic” goes further than I originally thought. It means not just a new reading of Faith and Reason, but a new birth of both, and it is of universal application. Firstly, each is to purify the other: Reason will stop Faith from sliding into intolerance, while Faith will heal Reason’s blind independence. Secondly, each is to regenerate the other: Reason will enrich the Faith with the liberal values of Enlightenment thinking, while Faith, suitably re-expressed for modern times, will win a hearing from Reason. And this process is to be applied across the board to all religions and all ways of reasoning. Without any one system of values being imposed on everybody, those values which keep the world going will be strengthened.”

Note here firstly how, on his own admission, Bishop Tissier originally under-estimated the breadth and depth of the Pope’s vision. Catholics following Tradition know that the Conciliar reconciling of the Faith with modernity (especially the sentence that I have underlined above) is wrong, and is destroying the Church, but they do need to recognize that it has been thought out with intelligence, however misguided, and it is held with conviction. Benedict XVI believes profoundly both in the old way of believing and in the new way of thinking, and he is confident that by his own way of solving any apparent problems between them, all men can be brought together. This “solution” drives his Papacy.

Alas, I cannot reconcile 2+2=4 with 2=2=5 by saying that four is “more or less than four and a half,” while five is “more or less than four and a half,” because four apples will remain obstinately four, while five oranges will persist in being five. Thus the true Faith may tolerate the person erring, but it cannot tolerate their error, whereas modern Reason may wish to see, but as long as it is modern it insists on putting its own eyes out, the eyes of the mind (Kant). At every turn Bishop Tissier demonstrates that the eternal Faith, revealed by God, cannot lie down with modern reasoning, fabricated by men, which is designed to exclude either God or at least his demands on men (Religious Liberty).

Thank you, your Excellency! For, however charming may be the Pope’s prospect of “peace in our time,” it is not charm but truth in charity that will get us to Heaven.

Kyrie eleison.

Papal Error – I

Papal Error – I on January 30, 2010

Speaking two weeks ago on relations between the Rome of Vatican II and the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), Pope Benedict XVI showed once more how subtle and powerful the Conciliar error is. He was addressing on Jan.15 a plenary session of the Roman Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly known as the Holy Office). The three first paragraphs of his twelve-paragraph address need to be quoted in full, but a summary, as faithful as possible, will have to do.

1. Your Congregation shares in the special ministry of the Pope to ensure Church unity by safeguarding Catholic doctrine. That unity depends on unity in the Faith of which the Pope is the foremost defender. To confirm the brethren in the Faith and keep them united is his prime task. 2 Your teaching authority, like the Pope’s, involves obedience to the Faith, so that there may be one flock under the one Shepherd. 3. At all times the Church must get all Christians to witness together to the Faith, “In this spirit I place a particular trust in your commitment to overcoming any remaining doctrinal problems in the way of the SSPX achieving full communion with the Church.”

The problem here is much more than just whether or not the SSPX is in “full communion with the Church.” The problem is the whole relationship between unity and the Faith. In reality, Catholic unity is essentially dependent on the Catholic Faith. A Catholic being defined firstly by what he believes, then wherever there is no Catholic Faith there can be no Catholics to unite, and wherever there is that Faith there is the essential basis of Catholic unity. Now the Pope does say (1) that “Unity is in fact primarily unity in the Faith,” but generally (1,2,3) he connects unity and Faith as though they are on an equal footing, almost as though they are interdependent, whereas true unity is entirely dependent on the true Faith. How else could he arrive at his conclusion of (3), quoted above in full, where he gives the impression of instructing his Congregation to overcome doctrinal problems for the sake of Rome-SSPX unity?

Yet the duty of Christ’s Vicar is not to unite Rome and the SSPX at any cost, so to speak, but to unite them in the Catholic Faith as given us by Christ. So if there is a doctrinal difference between Rome and the SSPX (and there is, and it is huge!), then his prime problem is which of the two has the Catholic Faith, and which has not. And then he must unite the whole Church around whichever of them has that Faith, even if that happens to be the poor li’l SSPX! “Li’l,” or little, because it is insignificant except by its Faith!

Alas, Benedict XVI is more Conciliar than he is Catholic. But the Council, putting man before God, constantly undermined the Revealed doctrine of God, or the Faith, in the name of the ecumenical unity of men. That is why Benedict XVI is incapable of grasping, short of a miracle, the significance of the SSPX’s doctrinal stand. Yet how many Catholics are not liable to be deceived by the smoothness of his transition from much Truth (in 1,2) to its undoing (in 3)? Few! The error is as powerful as it is subtly conceived and expressed! We must pray for the miracle.

Kyrie eleison.

Unique Delinquency – II

Unique Delinquency – II on November 28, 2009

Last week’s “Eleison Comments” argued that the problem with the administration of sacraments in the Church following on Vatican II is that the Conciliar Revolution with its new sacramental Rites is apt to undermine not only the faith but also the sacramental Intention of any Newchurch Minister of a sacrament. It remained to be shown that the Conciliar Church undermines Catholic sacramental Intention in a way in which it can hardly have been undermined for 2000 years!

For indeed that Intention without which no sacrament is valid is the human Minister’s intention to do what the Church does, because by that Intention the Minister puts his instrumental action under the power of God, indispensable source of the sacramental grace which merely flows through the Minister’s action to the recipient of the sacrament.But a human intention depends on what idea I have of what it is that I am intending, and that idea may or may not correspond to reality. For instance I may intend to fly over the North Pole, but if I am not very good at geography I may find myself flying over the South Pole instead.

So if sacramental validity depends on my Intention “to do what the Church does,” that intention will in turn depend on my idea of what the Church does, which will certainly depend on my idea of what the Church is. Supposing then that I intend to administer a sacrament, but have been given a radically false idea of what the Church is and does – how can I have a valid sacramental Intention?

Now never before in all 2,000 years of Church history was an Ecumenical Council designed like Vatican II (1962–1965) to give to Catholics from top to bottom of the Church a false idea of what the Church is and does. This is because never before in these two millennia had mankind so universally replaced the realities of God with the fantasies of man that the fantasy finally swamped God’s own churchmen. To be sure, the fantasy was skilfully designed by them at the Council so as to make as comfortable and imperceptible as possible the slide from Catholicism into what we might call Chocolatism, the feel-good religion, but Chocolatism in its pure state is just officialized apostasy.

So never before in all Church history has it been so easy for the Minister of a sacrament to have a false idea of what the Church is: instead of the assembly of the faithful united by their Faith, sacraments and hierarchy, a sort of Chocolate Club. Never then can sacramental Ministers even with the best of intentions so easily have had false ideas of what the Church does, never so easily have arrived at the South rather than the North Pole. For, if they were born and bred within the Chocolate Club, how can they know the reality of “what the Church does” so as to be able to intend it?

And if they cannot intend it, how can their sacraments be valid?

Vatican II was a unique delinquency. Woe to its authors and to all still promoting it!

Kyrie eleison.

Mass Error

Mass Error on October 3, 2009

An interesting criticism of the Society of St. Pius X, mainly false but slightly true, was made by Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos in an interview which he gave ten days ago to a South German newspaper (text available on the Internet). He said that the SSPX leaders whom he met in 2000 gave him the impression of being fixated on the New Mass as though it were “the source of all evil in the world.”

Obviously the reform of the Latin liturgy of the Mass which followed on Vatican II (1962–1965) is not responsible for all evil in the world, but it is responsible for a great deal of the evil in the modern world. Firstly, the Roman Catholic religion is the one and only religion instituted by the one true God when he once, and only once, took human nature, becoming the God-man Jesus Christ, 2000 years ago. Secondly, Jesus Christ’s bloody self-sacrifice on the Cross, alone capable of placating the just wrath of God inflamed by today’s global apostasy, maintains that placation only through that sacrifice’s unbloody re-presentation in the true sacrifice of the Mass. Thirdly, the ancient Latin rite of that Mass, essential parts of which reach back to the beginnings of the Church, was significantly changed after Vatican II by Paul VI, in a manner which he himself told his friend Jean Guitton was designed to please the Protestants.

But all Protestants take their name from their protesting against Catholicism. That is why the rite of Mass reformed “in the spirit of Vatican II” severely dominishes the expression of essential Catholic truths: in order, 1/ Transubstantiation of the bread and wine, making 2/ the Sacrifice of the Mass, constituting in turn 3/ the sacrificing Priesthood, all by 4/ the intercession of the Blessed Mother of God. In fact the complete ancient Latin liturgy is the complete expression of Catholic doctrine.

If then it is primarily by attending Mass and not by reading books or by attending lectures that the great number of practising Catholics absorb these doctrines and live them out in real life, and if it is by so doing that they act as the light of the world against error and as the salt of the earth against corruption, then it is small wonder if today’s world is in such confusion and immorality. “Let us destroy the Mass, and we will destroy the Church,” said Luther. “The world can sooner do without the light of the sun than without the Sacrifice of the Mass,” said Padre Pio.

That is why Archbishop Lefebvre’s first priority in founding the SSPX was to save the ancient Latin rite of Mass. Thank God, it is slowly but surely making its way back into the mainstream Church (which it will not do under the Antichrist). But now his Society must save the full doctrinal underpinning of that Mass from the victims and perpetrators of Vatican II, still firmly ensconced in Rome. We must pray hard for the “doctrinal discussions” due to open this month between Rome and the SSPX.

Kyrie eleison.