Vatican II

Convert Today – III

Convert Today – III on March 16, 2019

Dear young friend,

Two weeks ago these “Comments” related your own story of your conversion from the wasteland of a modern university to the truth of the Catholic Faith. It ended with your request for advice because you yourself realised that God had given you the Truth, but you needed to get your bearings in a very confused situation of Church and world. It took last week’s issue of the “Comments” to give you the basic advice that is valid for a Catholic convert in general, i.e. in all times and places. It will take this issue to offer you the particular advice recommended for you to see where you are in today’s chaos of the Church, unprecedented in all 20 centuries of Church history.

The crisis is unprecedented because the world will have only one ending, and we are approaching it. See Our Lord’s own description of the last times (Mt. XXIV, Lk. XXI), and see St Paul’s warning, dating from around 67AD, for these times (II Tim. III, 1–9), especially verses 5 and 8: men will be “corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning the faith,” “having the appearance of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid.” Excellent advice for 2019AD, because it is important to realise that today men in general and Catholics in particular are as a whole not “normal,” but men at the wrong end of a long process of degeneration. The purpose of such a realisation is neither to scorn them, nor to despair, but to take the right measure of what it means to live as a Catholic in a post- and anti-Christian world. In God it can be done – “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me ” (Phil. IV, 13).

The chaos in the Church is special today because never before Vatican II in the 1960’s had the official Church in Rome departed officially from the Catholic Faith. Now Catholic Truth and Catholic Authority were designed by Our Lord to go hand in hand – when Peter is to be confirmed in the Faith (Catholic Truth), then he is to confirm the other Apostles (Catholic Authority – Lk. XXII, 32). Thus Truth is the very purpose of Authority, but it needs Authority to protect it. Each needs the other, but at Vatican II they were split apart, because the Popes and Cardinals and Bishops (Authority), magnetised by the modern world, gave up the old religion (Truth). From now on all Catholics had to be schizophrenic – either they clung to Truth and let go of the false authority, or they clung to Authority and let go of the Truth, or they found their way somewhere in between. From now on every Catholic sheep had to find its own way through the thorn-hedge set up by the bad shepherds of Vatican II.

Judging by the fruits (Mt. VII, 15–20), Archbishop Lefebvre’s way, of resisting the false shepherds while still recognising their authority, has proved to be one of the most fruitful ways of dealing with the confusion let loose by the Council, but his successors at the head of his Society have not proved faithful to his balance between Truth and Authority. Even now many are crawling back to false Rome, when it is falser than ever! Let this be a warning to you of the danger of thinking today that the appearance of Catholicism is the same thing as its substance. Then how do you know where the substance is to be found? The best answer is Our Lord’s, just mentioned – judge by the fruits. By what fruits? By supernatural faith, as God has just given you to understand it, and by genuine supernatural charity.

Then mix for a while with all kinds of Catholics, but listen more than you talk. Be in no hurry to pursue a vocation because God is never in a hurry (Gal. I, 18; II, 1). Have a boundless trust in His Wisdom and Providence, and be careful of clinging to any human leader or leaders, until God puts His Church back on its feet (as He certainly will do). Always honour your father and mother, however wrong they may seem to be (God has not given them the grace He has given to you). Have a boundless compassion on the mass of confused souls around you, but never confuse subjective sincerity with objective truth. Love the Mother of God, and pray every day for as long as you can all 15 Mysteries of Her Holy Rosary. And God be with you.

Kyrie eleison.

Consecration Imminent?

Consecration Imminent? on November 17, 2018

A rumour has been flying around in Catholic Tradition that there will soon be in the Society of St Pius X the consecration of a new bishop, or bishops. Rumours need never be taken too seriously, but on the other hand they are not always without foundation. In the present case the SSPX certainly needs new bishops, because Bishop Tissier has for some time now been not in good health, Bishop de Galarreta as the Society’s First Assistant must now concern himself with administering Society affairs worldwide, and that leaves Bishop Fellay alone with complete freedom to travel anywhere for Confirmations and Ordinations. So there is certainly foundation for the rumour of a new consecration.

But the rumour goes further, because it says that the bishop(s) to be consecrated will have the approval of the Roman authorities, and here is where the rumour is worth considering, even if it is untrue, because here lies the clearest example of the impossible dead end into which the Newsociety has driven itself by its policy of seeking official approval from the Conciliar authorities in Rome. For if the bishop elect has the approval of unrepentant Conciliarists, how can he be pleasing to true Traditionalists? And if he has the approval of true Traditionalists, how can he be at the same time be pleasing to the masters of Conciliarism in Rome? And the answer to that question can only be either that the Conciliarists are giving up on their Vatican II, or Traditionalists are going over to Vatican II, or that Conciliarists and Traditionalists are meeting somewhere in between, as though 2+2=4 and 2+2=5 can be reconciled at 2+2=four and a half.

For do we need to be reminded that Catholic Tradition and Vatican II are intrinsically irreconcilable? Yes we do, because we poor human beings are always wanting to have our cake and eat it. We are always wanting to square the circle, to mix oil and water, to dance with the Devil in this life while not spoiling our chances of enjoying with God in the next life. We want to have it both ways, so that any recipe for reconciling God with the Devil will always sell like hot cakes until it inevitably fails, whereupon it will be immediately succeeded by the next recipe for doing the same thing. The failure is inevitable because in the words of the Anglican Bishop Butler of the 18th century, “Things are what they are, their consequences will be what they will be, why then should we seek to be deceived?”

Thus Catholic Tradition came from Jesus Christ, who is God, while Vatican II (1962–1965) came from the desire of modern man to combine God’s religion with godless modernity arising from the French Revolution. For about Vatican II both Cardinal Suenens on the left and Archbishop Lefebvre on the right said the same thing, namely that it was the Revolution of 1789 inside the Church: religious liberty to free men from all truth of the past, equality to level down all order of old Christendom, and fraternity to create the New World Order of the Masonic brotherhood of man without God. Of course Vatican II has failed, except in the secret purpose of its Judeo-Masonic designers to destroy God’s Church, and since Almighty God, to cleanse His Church, is still giving power to His age-old enemies to scourge it, then they are by no means renouncing their Council, rather today’s Church authorities are putting it into action more than ever.

Therefore if the same authorities approve of a bishop elect coming from inside the once Traditional SSPX, it can only be to help dissolve any remaining resistance from within the SSPX to their Masonic Newchurch. And if any Traditionalists approve of the bishop elect who pleases the Newchurch, it can only be because they are losing their Catholic Faith under the overpowering influence of today’s worldwide apostasy. “Caveant consules,” said the Latins. Let those who are in command watch out.

Kyrie eleison.

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”? – 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.

Church Resurrection?

Church Resurrection? on March 31, 2018

And the day before Easter should be a good moment to think of how Mother Church is going to rise from her present stricken state. By our Catholic Faith we know with absolute certainty that she will rise again, and that she will last to the end of the world (Mt. XXVIII, 20). But it is a great mistake to think that she will rise this time by human means, because then I start believing for instance in human means to come to her rescue, like for instance “theological discussions” or diplomatic negotiations with her present masters in the Vatican.

Thus the theological discussions of 2009–2011 led nowhere, which is why we have heard almost nothing of them ever since, because they proved that the doctrinal gulf between Conciliar Rome and Catholic Tradition cannot be bridged. And diplomatic negotiations can lead at most to the mere appearance of a rescue for Tradition, because today’s Romans have 2000 years’ experience of diplomacy, and they do not want Tradition, because it is a serious obstacle in the way of their New World Order, where Our Lord Jesus Christ has no business to be doing any more reigning. The problem is a wholesale rejection of God on the part of mankind in general, and on the part of His own churchmen in Rome in particular.

Therefore the problem is not going to be solved by merely human means. As Cardinal Villot (1905–1979), a former Secretary of State in the Vatican under three Conciliar Popes (1969–1979), admitted on his deathbed, “Humanly, the Church is finished.” And it is a great lack of supernatural spirit, not without some arrogance, on the part of the present leaders of the Society of St Pius X to argue as they do that the Society must negotiate some settlement with the Church officials in Rome because there is no other solution for the crisis of the Church. Do these men really think that the Lord God is short of means to come to the rescue of His Church? Do they really think that the arm of God is shortened by the wickedness of men? Here speaks His prophet Isaiah (LIX, 1–3):—

1 Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; 2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you so that he does not hear. 3 For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mutters wickedness. 4 No one enters suit justly, no one goes to law honestly; they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity.

Men’s iniquities are the problem. And is it likely that God has no solution? No. And is it likely that He wants men to play no part in His solution? No. And is it likely that what He wants them to do to save His Church is specially difficult or complicated? No. But is it likely that it will require some humility? Yes, because “God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble” (James IV, 6). And will it require some faith? Certainly, because “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb.XI, 6). And is there any chance that God will not have told mankind, on the brink of destroying itself, what humble means He wants men to believe in and to apply, for Himself to step in and save them from destruction? There is no such chance at all. Then what has He in fact told mankind for His Church to be able to rise again?

He said it through His Mother, at Fatima, in 1917, in Pontevedra in 1925, and in Akita in 1973. In Fatima: Russia must be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by the Pope with all the Catholic bishops. In Pontevedra: Catholics must practise the Devotion of the First Saturdays. In Akita; Catholics must pray the Rosary, for the Pope, for bishops, for priests. Are these three points humble? Yes. Are they supernatural, requiring supernatural faith? Definitely. Are any of them too much to ask, for the Church to rise again, and for mankind to come back from the brink of destruction? Definitely not. Then let nobody complain that there is nothing they can do!

Kyrie eleison.