sacraments, sacramental rites

Calming Confusion

Calming Confusion on December 12, 2009

It has taken three issues of “Eleison Comments” to disentangle why the alleged death-bed testimony of Cardinal Lienart (EC 121) could easily be true, given that it corresponds exactly to how the validity of the Catholic sacraments has been imperilled by the Conciliar sacramental Rites introduced after Vatican II (EC 124, 125, 126). A friendly critic thinks that I have been too concerned to defend the validity of the Conciliar sacraments. But I no more want to exaggerate their validity than their invalidity.

For indeed no reasonable person who loves the truth wants to do anything other than conform his mind to reality, because truth is defined as “the matching of mind and reality.” If a situation is black, I want to call it black. If it is white, I want to call it white. And if it is varying shades of grey in between, I want to make that grey in my mind no more grey-black nor grey-white than it is in reality.

Now it is true that any one sacrament administered in real life will have been either valid or invalid. There are no more shades between valid and invalid than there are between pregnant and not pregnant. But if we consider the Conciliar sacraments being all the time administered throughout the Newchurch as a whole, we can only say some are valid, some are invalid, but they have all been placed on a slide towards invalidity by the Conciliar Rites’ total thrust to replace the religion of God with the religion of man. That is why the Newchurch is on its way to disappearing altogether, and why the Society of St. Pius X can in no way allow itself to be absorbed into it.

But at what exact point on that slide any given priest or priests, for instance, so lose the true idea of the Church that they can no longer Intend to do what the Church does, God alone knows. It may well be that to reach that point takes more than I suggested in EC 125. Maybe it takes less, as our critic suggests. In any case, since only God can know for sure, I do not need to know. All I need to have clear in my mind is that the Conciliar Rites have put God’s sacraments on a slide away from God, and once it is clear to me that they are helping to destroy the Church, that they were even designed to destroy the Church, I should stay away from them.

Meanwhile, as to just how far down the slide is this or that priest, or even the Newchurch as a whole, I will apply the great principle of St. Augustine: “In things certain, unity; in things doubtful, liberty; in all things, charity.” And within the framework of certainties such as, within the Newchurch neither already nothing, nor everything still, is Catholic, I mean to extend to my fellow-Catholics the same liberty to judge of things uncertain as I hope they will extend to me. Mother of God, obtain the rescue of the Church!

Kyrie eleison.

Unique Delinquency – III

Unique Delinquency – III on December 5, 2009

For a Catholic sacrament to be validly administered, the Minister must have the Intention “to do what the Church does” (EC 124). That Intention requires that he have a minimally correct idea of what the Church is and does (EC 125). It remains now to be shown that Vatican II undermined that Intention by corrupting that idea, and in such a way as it can never before have been corrupted in all Church history.

This is because Vatican II was the officialization, or rendering official within the Catholic Church, of the anti-Catholic humanism going back at least to the Renaissance in the1400’s. For centuries after, the Catholic churchmen adoring the true God had stoutly resisted the modern world’s substitute adoration of man, but as that world over 500 years grew only more pagan, the churchmen finally gave up resisting in the 1960’s, and with Vatican II they set about following the modern world instead of leading it. There had always been in the Church followers of the world, but never before had that following been made official in the Universal Church!

However, the Council Fathers would not and could not give up the old religion altogether, partly because they still believed in it, partly because they had to keep up appearances. That is why the Council documents are characterized by their ambiguity, mixing the religion of God in the place of God with the religion of man in the place of God. This ambiguity means that both conservative Catholics can appeal to the letter in the Council texts to maintain that Vatican II does not exclude the old religion, and progressive Catholics can appeal to the spirit in the same texts to maintain that the Council was promoting the new religion – and here both conservatives and progressives are right! Thus the old religion was still present in Vatican II, but the skids had been put under it, and it has been disappearing ever since.

A similar ambiguity afflicts the sacramental Rites re-written in the spirit of the Council which paid outward respect to the religion of God but inwardly was embracing the religion of man. The old religion can still be there because the sacramental Forms (words essential for validity) are as a rule not automatically invalid, but at the same time all of the Rites surrounding these Forms are sliding towards the new religion. So, given the soft but fierce pressure of the modern world to put man in the place of God, and given that all sacramental Ministers have our poor old human nature which under pressure easily prefers the easy way, then these new Rites are tailor-made to undermine eventually the Ministers’ sacramental Intention and therewith the sacraments’ validity.

Catholics, avoid the new Rites, but keep the balance of truth. Say neither that these Rites are automatically invalid, nor, because they can be valid, that they are harmless. Even if they are valid, they undermine the Faith. As for the clergy that use them, say neither that they have lost the Faith if they use the new Rites, nor that they are harmless if they do use them. These Ministers may well still have the Faith, but they risk harming you if they use Rites designed to undermine your Faith. Seek out the old Rites, and the clergy that use them. By so doing you will help to save the honour of God, His true religion, and numbers of souls lost without that religion.

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.

Unique Delinquency – I

Unique Delinquency – I on November 21, 2009

In order to highlight once more the unique delinquency of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), two weeks will not be too many to reply to a reader’s reasonable objection to the argument of “Eleison Comments” of three weeks ago (Oct. 31). That argument maintained that the sacramental Rites of the Newchurch, introduced in the wake of the Council, are of a nature to invalidate the Church’s sacraments in the long run, because they were designed by their ambiguity to erode the Minister’s sacramental Intention, without which there can be no sacrament.

The reader objected with the Church’s classic teaching that personal failings of the sacramental Minister, even his lack of the Faith, can be made up for by the Faith of the Church in whose name he is administering the sacrament (cf. Summa Theologiae, 3a, LXIV, 9 ad 1). Thus – classic example – a Jew who has no Catholic faith at all can nevertheless validly baptize a dying friend so long as the Jew both knows that the Catholic Church does something when it baptizes, and he means to do that thing that the Church does. This Intention to do what the Church does he shows by saying the words and performing the actions laid down in the Church’s Rite of baptism.

Therefore, argued our reader, the Newchurch may have corrupted the Minister’s Catholic faith, but the Eternal Church will make up for any lack of his faith, and the sacraments he administers will still be valid. To which the first part of the reply is that if the Newchurch’s sacramental Rites attacked only the Minister’s faith, the objection would be valid, but if they also undermine his sacramental Intention, then there will be no sacrament at all.

Another classic example should make the point clear. For water to flow down a metal pipe, it does not matter if the pipe is made of gold or lead, but for the water in either case to flow, the pipe must be connected to the tap. The water is sacramental grace. The tap is the main source of that grace, God alone. The pipe is the instrumentalsource, namely the sacramental Minister, through whose action flows from God the grace of the sacrament. The gold or lead is the personal holiness or villainy of the Minister. Thus the validity of the sacrament does not depend on the personal faith or unfaith of the Minister, but it does depend on his connecting himself to the main source of the sacramental grace, God.

This connection he makes precisely by his Intention in performing the sacrament to do what the Church does. For by that Intention he puts himself as an instrument in the hands of God for God to pour the sacramental grace through him. Without that sacramental Intention he and his faith may be of gold or lead, but he is disconnected from the tap. It remains to be shown next week how Vatican II was designed and is liable to corrupt not only the Minister’s faith, but also any sacramental Intention he may have.

Kyrie eleison.

Valid Bishops?

Valid Bishops? on October 31, 2009

Remarkable confirmation of the Society of St. Pius X’s balanced position on the validity of the Newchurch sacraments appeared last week in the bulletin of a fighting Gaul, “Courrier de Tychique.” From a “reliable source” it appears there that Freemasonry, ancient enemy of the Church, planned for the Conciliar Revolution to invalidate the Catholic sacraments, not by alteration of their Form, rendering them automatically invalid, but rather by an ambiguity of their Rite as a whole, undermining in the long run the Minister’s necessary sacramental Intention.

The “reliable source” is a Frenchman who heard directly from a venerable old priest some of what Cardinal Lienart on his deathbed confessed to the priest. No doubt fearing Hell, the Cardinal begged the priest to reveal it to the world, and thus released him from the Confessional seal. The priest was thenceforth discreet in public, but in private he was more forthcoming as to what the Cardinal revealed to him of Freemasonry’s three-point plan for the destruction of the Church. Whether or not he entered Freemasonry at the precocious age of 17, the Cardinal rendered it supreme service when only two days after the opening of Vatican II he wrenched the Council off course by demanding irregularly that the carefully prepared Traditional documents be rejected altogether.

According to the Cardinal, Freemasonry’s first objective at the Council was to break the Mass by so altering the rite as to undermine in the long run the celebrant’s Intention: “to do what the Church does.” Gradually the Rite was to induce priests and laity alike to take the Mass rather for a “memorial” or “sacred meal” than for a propitiatory sacrifice. The second objective was to break the Apostolic Succession by a new Rite of Consecration that would eventually undermine the bishops’ power of Orders, both by a new Form not automatically invalidating but ambiguous enough to sow doubt, and above all by a new Rite which as a whole would eventually dissolve the consecrating bishop’s sacramental Intention. This would have the advantage of breaking the Apostolic Succession so gently that nobody would even notice. Is this not exactly what many believing Catholics are now afraid of?

Howsoever it may be with the “reliable source,” in any case today’s Newchurch Rites of Mass and Episcopal Consecration correspond exactly to the Masonic plan as unveiled by the Cardinal. Ever since these new Rites were introduced in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, many serious Catholics have refused to believe that they could be used validly. Alas, they are not automatically invalid (how much simpler if they were!). They are worse! Their sacramental Form is Catholic enough to persuade many a celebrant that they can be validly used, but they are designed as a whole to be so ambiguous and so suggestive of a non-Catholic interpretation as to invalidate the sacrament over time by corrupting the Intention of any celebrant either too “obedient” or insufficiently watching and praying.

Rites thus valid enough to get themselves accepted by nearly all Catholics in the short term, but ambiguous enough to invalidate the sacraments in the long term, constitute a trap satanically subtle. To avoid it, Catholics must on the one hand shun all contact with these Rites, but on the other hand they must not discredit their sound Catholic instincts by exaggerated theological accusations which depart from sound Catholic doctrine. It is not always an easy balance to keep.

Kyrie eleison.

Masterly Confusion

Masterly Confusion on November 15, 2008

Ever since Vatican II (1962–1965), a number of intelligent and serious Catholic souls have striven to prove that the changes made to the Latin Church’s sacramental rites by Pope Paul VI in particular render these rites automatically invalid. One might reply, if only it were that simple! But simplicity is no substitute for truth.

Here is how one such soul seeks to prove that the new rite of priestly Ordination is automatically invalid, and his argument is not without value:

Major: Wherever the words of a sacramental Form, essential to the validity of the sacrament, are significantly changed, or wherever the same words are being given in context a significantly different meaning, the Form, and with it the sacrament, can only be invalid.

Minor: Now the words themselves of the new Form of priestly Ordination have not been significantly changed, but in the context of the new rite taken as a whole, the same word of “priest” is being given a significantly different meaning, in accordance with the Council’s total revolutionizing of the Catholic priesthood.

Conclusion: Therefore never can a priest be validly ordained with the new rite.

In this argument, there is no problem with the Major, which is Catholic doctrine. As for the Minor, it is true that the words of the Form have remained essentially intact. It is also true that the whole drift of Vatican II and the post-Conciliar reforms is towards an emptying out of the Catholic priesthood, as of the whole Catholic religion, to replace it with a religion of man. But the argument above, to arrive at its conclusion, would have to prove that Conciliar documents and reforms in themselves positively exclude the Catholic priesthood and religion, because so long as the new rite can be taken not to exclude the true priesthood, it can still be used validly to ordain a true priest.

Alas (for purposes of clarity), the will of Paul VI as seen in all his reforms (and now of Benedict XVI) is so to introduce the new religion of man alongside the Catholic religion of God as to include and not exclude the latter! Now any sane mind cannot stand the idea of 2 and 2 being 5 in such a way as not to exclude their being 4. But Conciliar minds are not sane. They want to apostatize while still remaining Catholic! Thus the new rite of Ordination may omit many features of the Catholic ordination, but it introduces nothing that positively excludes a true ordination. If only it did! Then it could no longer deceive so many souls into thinking that it presents no problem for Catholics. Here is the problem: the drift of the text is to invalidate the true priesthood (2+2=5), but the text may still be used validly (2+2=4)! Sister Lucy of Fatima called it “Diabolical disorientation.”

Kyrie eleison.