 “Salus animarum supemus lex
esto” — ”the
salvation of souls must be the supreme law in the Church.”
Canon Law 1752 |
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Commentary on
The Great Apostasy of Our Times:Vatican II
Watch this Incredibly Important Short Movie NOW
The “AMAZONIAN FACE”
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Pro-abortion, pro-lesbian/pro-gay/pro-bisexual/pro-transsexual
ex-United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, |
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Pro-homosexual and left-wing
propagandist Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego |
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Renegade Cardinal Reinhard
Marx of Germany |
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Father Eleazar López Hernández,
Mexican liberation theologian and proponent of “indigenous
Indian theology” that has absolutely nothing to do with
the Gospels. |
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German Father “we can
discover God's Revelation among these indigenous peoples”
Paulo Suess |
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Jewish American economist
Jeffrey Sachs, who advocates abortion and Malthusian
population control, and who was a key contributor
to Laudato Si, Francis's Encyclical confusing environmentalism
with worship. |
A pro-everything (except Pro-Life) non-Catholic UN Secretary, Moon who at least hints at his own confusion: “To those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual,or transgender, let me say — you are not alone. ... decriminalize consensual same-sex relationships, ban discrimination and educate the public” — and whose attempts to state anything profound and memorable (“Terrorism is a threat to peace and security”) do not quite attain to the Analects of Confucius ...
Bishop Robert McElroy insists that “Many times, our discussions in the life of the Church suggest that chastity has a singularly powerful role in determining our moral character, or our relationship with God. It does not.” Hmmmm. The bishop, clearly, is no Biblical exegete. Moreover, consider the following, “We have to reflect upon the question as to how to assess in a differentiated manner a relationship between two homosexual persons,” he says. “Is there not so much positive and good and right so that we have to be more just?”
Cardinal Reinhard Marx — oddly, much like Moon and McElroy — has an odd fixation on male genitalia: “If a same-sex couple are faithful, care for one another and intend to stay together for life God won't say 'All that doesn't interest me.”
Father Eleazar López Hernández: Is an outspoken proponent of indigenous and pre-Christian “Indian Theology” (pagan spirituality) insistent on “nourishing in the faithful expectations contrary to the Magisterium and Tradition, as in the case of a permanent diaconate oriented towards a married priesthood.”
Father Paulo Hess, it appears, has found no need for the Synoptic Gospels — or, far that matter, Sacred Scripture itself — which has been regressively “aufheben” or abolished by the — ready for this word? “aucthonomus” (a big word meaning nothing more than native, but sounding so much more learned!) religions and spiritualities that are held to have preceded Christianity itself — which is warrant enough to imply that it is more authentic in virtue of being presumably older (history and even historiography were not fields of study in Amazonian culture. Apart from oral tradition and crude artifacts there is no Amazonian history preceding Christianity which brought this reflexive concept with it. In this sense “aucthonomus” Egyptian religion circa 2050 B.C. with its polytheistic deities (including animals) is superior to divinely revealed and rationally articulated Christianity. Because it is older. Older = wiser = more authentic = “aucthonomus” which = native, which = older. Rather circular reasonong, but you get the point.
Jeffrey Sachs — an economist? — will likely be pontificating on a religion he does not believe in the way that Francis pontificates on economies he has no understanding of. It is a matter of competence which neither seems to grasp — to say nothing of widespread perception.
In a way reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s famous mantra to his field workers, “It’s the economy, stupid!” when his political machine swerved from the central issue in canvassing for the votes that he was sure would get him elected, the absence of moral credentials in those especially invited by Francis is quite beside the point. The “Pan-Amazon Synod” is not about morals. Still less is it about promoting Catholicism in a continent quickly being lost to Evangelical Protestants through the religious vacuum that resulted from the absence — and in Francis's case, the prohibition against — Catholic Missionary zeal since Vatican II. In this case “it's Ecumenism, stupid”. But no one is listening. The planet must be saved! An ecological apocalypse is upon us — now! And the Amazon, we are told, has “the Lungs” even if the Catholic episcopate does not have “the Brains” to distinguish between socio-political flatus and a clearly distinguishable reality.
In what Gospel, we ask, did Christ proclaim that ecological mandate?
Are endangered souls a concern to “the church” any longer
... or just endangered species and tribal affinities
for a summum bonum understood as being “close to the earth”
rather than close to God?
Must we now confess (were Confession acknowledged as a vital Sacrament since Vatican II) our “sins against Mother Earth, Sister Sun, and Brother Moon” — and will two of the three constitute ecological incest?! Perhaps that is the sin for which there is no forgiveness in the New church-of-Accompaniment that supplanted the Holy Catholic Church in 1969? — in addition, of course, to the “religious imperialism” that Catholic Missionaries in centuries past inflicted — oddly, at great cost to themselves — on this advanced culture — “with a perfectly good religion of their own”— notwithstanding human and animal sacrifice, the subjugation of women, and the enslavement of enemies with whom they warred ceaselessly.
In the meanwhile, let us strive to cultivate “the
gaze of love” on all that moves upon the earth — except the
Catholics who have kept the Faith against every persecutor in the
“church” since 1960 — you know, the gaze that so
suffuses the countenance of its principle proponent (see above).
What’s not to love?
Geoffrey K. Mondello
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
October 5, 2019
Printable PDF Version
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editor@boston-catholic-journal.com
The REAL Goal
of the LGBT Movement is DIABOLICAL:
Why?
Just as Satan cannot create, but only mimic, imitate, in the LGBT Movement we find his (Satan’s) effort to contrive a spurious — a completely counterfeit and totally perverse mockery — of the genuine family. It is a diabolical attempt to pass off what is a fiction for what is real — with the willing collaboration of a profoundly sexually and militantly perverse community.
But there is an impediment to this epic exploit in Western culture as it devolves into de-civilization and debauchery: the family.
As long as the nuclear family of husband, wife and children still remains intact, it is an indictment of the sterile sexual perversity that the LGBT fascists embrace and promote. It stands as an unassailable reproach to the counterfeit, for it is genuinely procreative and naturally perpetuates itself — as every other species has from the dawn of creation.
The family — one man and one woman, one husband and one wife, with children of their own flesh as the natural fruit of their marital love — exists naturally, not artificially. It is not the product of science, sociology, or legislation: indeed, without the traditional nuclear family as it has always been understood, mankind ineluctably ceases to be. It is the natural hedge against the delusional. Not all the artificial appurtenances, appendages, cosmetics, or clothing can so much as approximate this natural biological unit. However subtle science and surgery, elements of the counterfeit remain and invoke an instinctive revulsion to the artificially abnormal — it is inescapable! The most convincing robot engineered to virtually resemble a human being in every way — remains no more than that: a robot. Even if it is made by other robots, it never attains to being human. Ever.
No legislation or law that depraved man can implement or advocate to assuage the guilt of his perversity can ever be authentically internalized. However strident his social expression, however forceful the apparatus of the state, and despite every effort at pretension and dissemblance, the perverse is instinctively apperceived — and loathed.
It is a self-loathing so profound that it attempts to extinguish its own identity and become completely another. Not simply another gender, but another person — which is precisely what another gender is! It is someone apart from who one is; so much so that even the gender must be eradicated and artificially reassigned to its polar opposite. This is self-loathing.
The devil, as it is said, is not simply in the details — but in the fabrication itself! In a word, it is diabolical. The devil has no gender, and no “skin in the game.” That is why he can equally work both sides: male and female, pit them against each other, even against themselves, for whatever the aftermath, and however ugly, ultimately it is against God — and for Satan, a win! He mocks the Holy Family with the instigation of the unholy family of his fabrication: the homosexual “marriage”. Playing into our own pride that we will determine what is good and what is evil — not God — he makes us masters of our own destruction.
Oh, yes, he finally gets the last laugh, too, telling us in our smug insolence that we are not pagan gods after all — that pride is his dominion, not ours in all our pretension. We can pathetically tell him to go to Hell, but it is extremely likely that he will only politely, if mordantly, reply: “after you!”
Geoffrey K. Mondello
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
August 26, 2019
Printable PDF Version
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editor@boston-catholic-journal.com
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The FaceAnd the Offspring of Vatican II
60 Years After its Defection from Catholicism
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Comments? Write us: editor@boston-catholic-journal.com
This question — and any conceivable answer
to it — is the most compelling argument against any speculative
proposition that could logically lend itself to the project of what
we have come to understand as “ecumenism” (a word first
coined in 1948) — the novel and ultimately implausible notion that
was the principal motivation behind the convocation of the Second
Vatican Council. It is an unavoidable question that is absolutely
unanswerable in terms consistent with the entirely specious — or
better yet, factitious — “ecumenical” project:
Why was it necessary for Christ to die
on the Cross — if “any religion” suffices to bring man to God,
offers salvation, and ultimately leads men to Heaven?
Why do we — indeed, how could we — maintain the
indispensability of the Holy Catholic Church — in other words,
on what grounds do we maintain that it is necessary — rather than
merely redundant and ultimately superfluous — if any
and every other religion is the sufficient means to the salvation
of souls and the attainment of Heaven?
Francis — the pre-eminent product and culmination of Vatican II
— recently and finally made this clear — indeed
even signed a document with one of Islam’s Grand Imams declaring
that:
“The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings,” … “This divine wisdom is the source from which the right to freedom of belief and the freedom to be different derives. Therefore, the fact that people are forced to adhere to a certain religion or culture must be rejected, as too the imposition of a cultural way of life that others do not accept.”
Two years earlier he had emphasized this radical insistence on ecumenism
through a different tack, the absolutely clear terms of which by
now we are all familiar:
“It is not licit that you convince them of your faith; proselytism is the strongest poison against the ecumenical path.” 1
It is not the proclamation of the Gospel and
the conversion of souls to Jesus Christ and His Holy
Catholic Church that is paramount — and mandated by Christ when
He told His Apostles “Go therefore
and teach all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teach them to observe all
things whatsoever I have commanded you.”
(St. Matthew 28.19-20) — but the heretical program of Ecumenism
that is central to Christianity.
To Reiterate the Point:
Why, then, was it necessary for Christ to die on the Cross
— if “any religion” suffices to bring man to God, offers salvation,
and ultimately leads men to Heaven?
The answer to this question had apparently been peripheral to the
“Council Fathers” and the answer to it still eludes the sophistic
casuistry of Catholic and Protestant theologians alike, as it had
in their collaborative construction of the Council and the documents
that emerged from it.
At first the heresy of ecumenism was confined to nominally “Christian
denominations” — but as the many ineluctable contradictions unfolded,
it increasingly and necessarily moved beyond Christianity to encompass
all religions — and no religion at all.
Let us be as forthright as possible: why — for what possible
reason — was it necessary for Jesus Christ to suffer and die
on the Cross … if — if — there was another way, another religion,
in fact any religion that suffices (including that of the Canaanite
god Moloch who required child sacrifice, and the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli
— who also required human sacrifice), to say nothing of the Trimurti
of the Hindus, Allah of the Muslims, Mormonism, Zoroastrianism,
Judaism, Gnosticism, etc. or, in fact, no religion at all
as Francis’s argument implies?
Absurdity may, in fact, be
a prerogative of Francis’s fabricated “god of surprises”
— but it is not the same God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; not the
God revealed in His Incarnate Son, and certainly not the God worshipped
in the Catholic Church.
If it was not necessary for Christ to die on the Cross
to redeem man from his sins and so open Heaven to men — then His
immolation on Calvary was purely gratuitous. He suffered and
died needlessly. God the Father capriciously and wantonly
crucified His Only-Begotten Son. The Crucifixion was pointless,
and the agony of His Mother of no consequence. This is the necessary
conclusion to the spurious attempt to both initiate and implement
all that is inherently irreconcilable in the disastrous project
of “ecumenism”. Any other religion would have been sufficient
without Christ and the Cross.
As a postscript I suggest that you not attempt to use the
“ut unum sint”
(“that they may be one” ) citation from Holy Scripture. There are
too many citations to the contrary. Christ was clearly speaking
of His Apostles:
“And now I am not in the world, and these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep them in Thy name whom Thou has given me; that they may be one, as We also are. While I was with them, I kept them in Thy name. Those whom Thou gavest me have I kept; and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that the scripture may be fulfilled.” (Saint John 17.11-12)
If you argue that the revelation of
God is a gradually evolving and on-going process, a continual “up-dating”
of His most holy will so that He, Who created the world,
can keep pace with the times and man’s “evolving consciousness”—
then Jesus is not the final Word of God after all:
“God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.” (Hebrews 1.1-2)
The revelation of God was completed in His Son, and ended upon
the death of the last Apostle, Saint John.
This is long-established Catholic Doctrine.
But now, we are to believe, God is going to speak through
Francis and abolish this doctrine by revealing that Christianity
(Catholicism) is not the only way to the Father despite what Christ
Himself said:
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by Me.” (Saint John 14.6)
Francis’s proclamation — without precedent in Catholic history — is nothing less than a betrayal of Christ, the Teachings of Christ’s Church, the Sacred Deposit of Faith and is a grievous wound in our Holy Mother the Church whom he has also betrayed.
It is heresy.
And if this is not heresy (specifically the heresy of Indifferentism)
then nothing qualifies for the definition.
The Second Reason
The second reason is not a crime against God and holy religion
— it is much more mundane, but no less powerful: It is an affront
to Logic — specifically the Law of Non-Contradiction.
Simply stated it is the Law that cannot consistently prescind from
Reason (and Logic) which maintains that contradictory beliefs
and doctrines cannot both be true in the same sense
at the same time — and that to maintain the legitimacy
of such a contradiction against the unimpeachable canons of reason
and logic results in absurdity — it is to dispute the proposition
that nonsense makes sense.
This is particularly true as it relates to Catholic dogma:
To maintain that the Holy Eucharist IS the Body, Blood, Soul,
and Divinity of Jesus Christ — and that it is ALSO simply a “memorial”
or “communal meal” or “symbolic” and that it has no such substantial
species as maintained by Catholic Church — is irreconcilably contradictory.
Both cannot be true of the same species, in the same sense, at the
same time. In short, The Eucharist cannot both be and not be
the real Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. It is or it is not.
What is more, if it is not, then nothing of necessity can be predicated
of it relative to the salvation of the immortal soul: the Eucharist
and, therefore the Holy Mass, is inconsequential to salvation. Why
offer Mass? Why attend Mass? If it is not necessary to the final
disposition of the soul, then any rite, ritual, or symbol (or none
at all) suffices to attaining eternal happiness in Heaven: witchcraft,
sorcery, and necromancy are equally efficacious, to say nothing
of other “religions” which hold themselves to be indispensible to
salvation: Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Shintoism — and, perversely
enough, Satanism and Atheism.
Mary, the Mother of God (Jesus Christ) is either Immaculate
(free of Original Sin and Actual Sin) and a Virgin before she bore
Christ in her womb, while He was in her womb, and remained a perpetual
virgin her entire life on earth. This is Catholic dogma, the belief
in which is incumbent upon every Catholic. Nearly every Protestant
sect — not to mention nearly every other religion in the world —
deny this. Either Mary was and is Immaculate and Virgin — or
she is not. But she cannot be held to be both.
In fact, most Catholic dogma — whether it is concerning the divinity
of Christ, Baptism, Penance, etc. — is denied (implicitly or explicitly)
by most of “the 47,000 [Protestant] denominations which the Center
for Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary,
which is evangelical Protestant, estimates that there are.”
2 Once again, this does not include “non-Christian”
religions that are too many to enumerate here. To maintain that
“Ecumenism” can reconcile all the conflicting deities, religious
beliefs, observances, and practices of every religious denomination
— “Christian and non-Christian” — is absurd. Simply put God is not
Vishnu.
The so-called “Ecumenical
endeavor” of the post-Conciliar Church is, in the end, a repudiation
of the Catholic Church — and the Logic with which She was consistent
for the 2000 years preceding Vatican II. Rejecting the notions of
“the salvation of the soul” and “conversion to Christ and His Church”
to the end of attaining to Heaven has been systematically supplanted
by something no less insipid than the “Brotherhood of Man” (oh,
yes — “and no religion, too” — Imagine, by the Beatles).
What a sorry trade!
________________________
1
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/pope-to-teen-girl-proselytism-is-the-strongest-poison-against-the-ecumenica
2
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/sbeale/just-how-many-protestant-denominations-are-ther
Geoffrey K. Mondello
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
June 1, 2019
Printable PDF Version
Comments? Write us:
editor@boston-catholic-journal.com
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WHAT Faith ...? |
and of WHOSE Fathers? |
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No more
stunning, no more frightening, and perhaps no more
ominously portentous words are spoken in all the Gospels,
in fact, in the entire New Testament — perhaps even in the entirety
of Sacred Scripture itself ...
than these words; words that have become increasingly fraught with significance with every passing generation. Indeed, we must wonder if they are, in fact, spoken of this generation ... or of one soon — very soon, to come.
“When the Son of Man comes will He
find Faith on earth?” (Saint
Luke 18.8)
As with so many of Christ’s teachings, the
troubling question Christ puts to us in asking if He will so
much as find Faith upon His return is too often and too deftly
explained away — especially by the overwhelming number of liberal
theologians and bishops who have proliferated and multiplied since
1962 — which is to say, by “the learned
and the wise”. It would appear that
either Christ does not know what He is saying, or we do not know
what He is saying — although we all agree that He said something
that sounds suspiciously clear.
These are twelve words, however, to which we must pay careful attention,
perhaps more now than at any other time in Church history.
However reluctant we are to take Christ at His word — which becomes
increasingly inconvenient to us — we must recognize that Jesus never
spoke idly: His words, His teachings — and yes, His Commandments
— were always uttered to one explicit end: the salvation
of souls — attaining to Heaven and everlasting happiness and
to avoiding Hell and eternal misery. The Jewish religious authorities
— “the learned” of His own time — had scornfully dismissed Christ’s
warning that not so much as stone would remain standing in the great
Temple 1 ... the very Temple within which, 70 years later,
these words were fulfilled when Rome laid waste in days what took
46 years to build.
We tend to view such alarming statements made by Jesus — and there
are many — with the same scorn and disdain today.
A mere fifty years ago we
ourselves would have instinctively replied “Of course He will find
faith! There simply must be some deeper, some obscure and less evident
meaning to this that we do not presently understand — and what He
appears to be saying, He is not really saying at all. Surely the
“learned” of our own day can deftly explain the answer to this troubling
question. In the end, they will conclude, Jesus is really asking
something entirely different from what He appears to be asking and
that it has nothing to do with our very real defection from the
Faith.”
It is likely that many Jews of Jesus’ time — both the learned and
the unlearned — had replied in much the same way. In fact, they
did. 2
In other words, to us, our faith, the Faith of the Catholic Church
for two millennia, could no sooner disappear than ... well, the
stones of the great Temple 2000 years ago!
If, however, we take a careful inventory of our present and undeniably
dismal and increasingly scandalous situation in the Church — especially
as it has unfolded in the last five decades — Jesus does not quite
appear as ... “perplexing” ... as so many apparently make Him to
be.
CANDIDLY Ask yourself the following:
Has the Faith — the Catholic
Faith — indeed, has Christianity itself, flourished in the last
50 years, or has it withered?
Are vocations to the Priesthood
and Religious life growing or dwindling?
Are Catholics (are Christians
in general) having more children or are they having fewer children?
Are Missionary efforts,
to the end of (dare we say it?) “conversion” as mandated by
Christ 2 encouraged as intrinsic to Catholicism —
or are they discouraged as impolite, obtrusive, culturally imperialistic
and inherently inimical to the “Ecumenical spirit of Vatican
II” — especially as interpreted by Pope Francis for whom “proselytism
is solemn nonsense”, to use his own words?
Is it really the case
that “conversion” to Christ and His Church is actively discouraged
— that especially under Pope Francis it is no longer
understood as a holy and inherently necessary endeavor — rather
than being disdained, even dismissed, as “socially and
culturally incorrect” — indeed, has it really come to this:
that promoting our Catholic Faith as Christ has commanded us
to, been all but forbidden by Francis and his “progressive”
coterie of feckless and disaffected cardinals and bishops?
Is our understanding of the Catholic Church, as an absolutely unique institution indispensable to the ordinary means of salvation, emphasized as urgently today (if it is emphasized at all) as it was a hundred years ago? Fifty years ago? Indeed, is the concept itself of the singularity and indispensability of the Holy Catholic Church authentically deemed a dogma and a viable concept any longer?
For all our insolence and equivocation, we know the answers,
and we are uncomfortable with them, for they fly in the face of
Christ and all that He taught — to say nothing of Sacred Scripture,
Holy Tradition, and the Sacred Deposit of the Faith entrusted to
the Catholic Church by God Himself.
Indeed, Christ’s question takes on a greater sense of urgency, for
the sheep are scattered and confused as never before. The papacy
of Francis has been disastrous for the Church. Why? Because he has
taken Vatican II to its logical conclusion: the irrelevance of
the Church.
Where is the Shepherd? Who is earnestly addressing this spiritual malaise and religious decay, the indolence and dereliction of the vast majority of American and European bishops who appear far more eager for secular plaudits than the now quaint and discredited notion of “the salvation of souls.” Pope Francis has effectively declared this mandate defunct in favor of the rehabilitation — and sometimes transformation — of bodies, societies, economies, and the environment. That the passing material environment of man is infinitely less important than the eternal abode of his soul often appears to elude Francis. Indeed, it appears to elude most Catholics whose mantra increasingly coincides with the world’s: Social activism! ... not interior conversion away from this world and to Christ.
Shame! Shame on us! By our silence, our fear of being disparaged
by “other Catholics” for the sake of Christ, we condone this
travesty — are complicit in it ... even promote it! What
will motivate us to recognize, and to redress, this frightful and
ultimately deadly state of affairs?
There are, after all, other contenders in this world
for the souls of men ... seen and unseen! As our own wick
smolders, others blaze! The burning Crescent of Islam, poised like
a scimitar, and every bit as deadly, glows and grows in the east,
and with it, not an ethnic, but a Religious Cleansing
to which the world remains indifferent — an expunging of every vestige
of Christianity in partibus infidelium. Even the European
Union will no longer tolerate the inclusion of its indissoluble
Christian heritage within its Constitution. Not only does it thoroughly
repudiate its own Christian cultural heritage — it prohibits it
— even banishes it!
Surely, then, in our effort to remedy this impending state of dissolution,
we will first turn to our bishops, since they are, preeminently,
the “Teachers and Guardians of the Faith”. But more often than not
— much more often than not — in the well-appointed office at the
end of the corridor we do not find a shepherd of souls but a deeply
sequestered, occasionally avuncular, and predictably remote ...
“administrator”.
Relegating his prime responsibility as Teacher and Promoter of the
Faith ... to others, in the form of Lay committees and subcommittees
largely “chaired” by liberal Catholics more concerned with social
issues than the salvation of souls, are we confident that the patrimony
of our faith will somehow percolate through this strata of already
contaminated soil and reach our children authentically and intact?
Is our fear mitigated ... or further exacerbated ... by our bishops’
resolute lack of diligence in being attentive to what Catholic colleges
and theologians in their own dioceses are really teaching — and
who are teaching the teachers ... who, in turn, are teaching our
children?
Do you think that your bishop actually — that is to say, cognitively
— is aware of, or even concerned with — what the teachers themselves
are actually teaching?
Not in this diocese. Not in Boston. In fact, Cardinal Sean Patrick
O’Malley routinely fetes, praises, and holds up as exemplary the
clueless “Catechists” who churn out our children to the Sacrament
of Confirmation — with no clue whatever of that in which they are
being confirmed. By comparison, even the dismal failure of our public
schools in Boston must be deemed a stunning success.
For most of us — especially in the Archdiocese of Boston, but no
less elsewhere — the answer is, as they say, a “no-brainer”: it
is a universally resounding no. Most of us find, to our growing
dismay and deepening cynicism, that our Bishops appear to have “more
important”, more ... “pressing” things to do ... than to communicate
the Faith to the faithful ... especially the children.
Really, we beg the question: if no one teaches the teachers — who,
then, teaches the children? If they are not brought the faith by
those to whom it has been entrusted — the bishops, the episcopacy
— who will bring it to them?
Will they — how can they — acquire the Faith ... if no one brings
it to them? Saint Paul is very clear about this:
“How then shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they be sent ...?” (Romans 10.14-15)
Ask yourself candidly: do you know more ... or less ... of your
Catholic faith than your children? Very likely more — although,
in all honesty, it is probably little. You politely assent to the
now quaint Catholic notion that “parents are the primary teachers
of their children”, but knowing little of your own Faith, you simply
shell out $50.00 per child and pan off this grave responsibility
to others of whom you know nothing, and who themselves largely know
nothing of the faith they presume to teach. You go through the motions
as careless of what your children are taught in their 10 years of
“Religious Education” as your Bishop is of what the teachers teach.
10 years later, and $500 poorer per child, you scratch your head
and wonder why Johnny still does not know God, and why Judy never
goes to Mass — and yet we have agreed that you know more than your
children ...
What, then, we must ask — with growing apprehension — will your
children teach their children ...?
What will they — who know even less than you — teach those who know
nothing?
Total Ignorance
The momentum, as we see, is
inexorable — until it culminates in total ignorance: every generation
knows less of their faith than the generation preceding it. It is,
in the end, the devolution from doctrine to legend, from legend
to fiction, and from fiction to myth.
That is not just a poor, but a stultifying and ultimately deadly
patrimony.
This default — at every level — in transmitting the authentic Catholic
faith intact ... leaves Jesus question suddenly very real.
“Recently, a Gallup poll was taken on Catholic attitudes toward Holy Communion. The poll showed serious confusion among Catholics about one of the most basic beliefs of the Church. Only 30 percent of those surveyed believe they are actually receiving the Body and Blood, soul and divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ under the appearance of bread and wine.” 4
The problem is more than mathematical,
as we have seen; it is exponential. 70% of Catholics do not possess
this most fundamental, this most essential understanding of the
core article of genuine Catholic doctrine: that “Unless you eat
of the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, you have no
life in you.” Heavy stuff!
It is not just a matter of the greatest concern, but nothing less
than a matter of the gravest dereliction that most Catholics do
not realize — do not know — that the very Mass itself is an abbreviation
of “The Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass”, and that it is really
a Sacrifice, the actual re-enactment of Calvary before their very
eyes!
This failure of understanding ... culminates in a failure in Faith.
It possesses, in significant ways, the remorseless characteristics
of mathematical certainties. Not understanding, grasping — having
never been taught — the most elementary features of the faith, how
can they be understood to possess what they have not acquired, and
how can they transmit, pass on, what they do not possess? It is
inescapable.
Prognostication, of course, is for fools.
But the words of Christ are certainties that will come to pass.
“Weep not for Me, but for your children”,
5 Christ told the sorrowing women on the road to Calvary.
In very deed.
Jesus’ question, then — “When the Son of Man comes will He find
faith on earth?”, is not a “rhetorical question” at all; it is a
question fraught with enormous significance ... the frightful answer
to which appears to be unfolding before our very eyes — but that
is if you take Christ at His word — and given Jesus’ track record
on things yet to come, we would do well and wisely to give pause
for more than thought.
Are you worried now ...? Not nearly enough.
And this is all the more frightening still.
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
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Comments? Write us: editor@boston-catholic-journal.com
_____________________________________________
1 Saint Matthew 24.1
2 Saint John 2.19
3 Matthew 28:19
4
http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=1340
5 Saint Luke 23.28
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Comments? Write us:
editor@boston-catholic-journal.com
Further Reading on the Papacy of Francis:
Francis as the Prince of this World and the Logical Conclusion of Vatican II
The Art of Plausible Deniability: Closing Thoughts on Amoris Laetitia
Is Francis the Great Divider in the Post Modern Catholic Church?
Against Pharisees: by Bishop Athanasius Schneider concerning Amoris Laetitia
A Tale of Two Popes: The Newest Paradigm — The Emeriti, Resignation, and Dissolution
Quotations from Chairman Francis and other Philosophical Absurdities
The State vs. Frankie: a Case of Institutionalized Sexual Corruption
A Sober Reflection on “Laudato si”— an Encyclical Defective in Authority
ROMAN MARTYROLOGY
Thursday October 17th in the Year of Grace 2019 Time after Pentecost
P2V: At Paray-le-Monial, in the diocese of Autun,
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, virgin, a
professed nun in The Order of the Visitation of the Most Blessed
Virgin Mary who won renown for her great merits in spreading the
devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and in furthering its
public veneration. Pope Benedict XV canonized her and added her to
the list of Holy Virgins. P2V: On the same day, the suffering of SS. Victor, Alexander, and Marianus. P2V: In Persia, St. Mameltas,
martyr. By the warning of an angel, he was converted to the
faith from the worship of idols. He was stoned by the pagans and
drowned in a deep lake. Approved by the Sacred Congregation of
Rites in 1961 and prior to the purging of Saints by Pope Paul VI
following Vatican II Response: Thanks be to God. Note: P2V preceding a name
indicates that the Saint or Martyr was added after 1900 and
before the Second Vatican Council in 1962.
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ROMAN MARTYROLOGY
Friday October 18th in the Year of Grace 2019 Time after Pentecost
P2V: At Aureville, in New York State,
the holy Jesuit martyrs Isaac Jogues (Priest)
and John de LaLande (lay brother), who on this and the
following day were tortured to death by the Iroquois, in the same
place where, a few years earlier, Rene Goupil
— a lay brother also — had won the palm
of martyrdom. Response: Thanks be to God.
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| January | February | March | April | May | June |
| July | August | September | October | November | December |
Each day we bring you a calendar, a
list really, of the holy Martyrs who had suffered and died for Christ,
for His Bride the Church, and for our holy Catholic Faith; men and
women for whom — and well they knew — their Profession of Faith
would cost them their lives.
They could have repudiated all three (Christ, Church, and Catholic
Faith) and kept their lives for a short time longer (even the lapsi
only postponed their death — and at so great a cost!).1
What would motivate men, women, even children and entire families
to willingly undergo the most evil and painfully devised tortures;
to suffer death rather than denial?
Why did they not renounce their Catholic Faith when the first flame
licked at their feet, after the first eye was plucked out, or after
they were “baptized” in mockery by boiling water or molten lead
poured over their heads? Why did they not flee to offer incense
to the pagan gods since such a ritual concession would be merely
perfunctory, having been done, after all, under duress, exacted
by the compulsion of the state? What is a little burned incense
and a few words uttered without conviction, compared to your own
life and the lives of those you love? Surely God knows that you
are merely placating the state with empty gestures …
Did they love their wives, husbands, children — their mothers, fathers
and friends less than we do? Did they value their own lives less?
Were they less sensitive to pain than we are? In a word, what did
they possess that we do not?
Nothing. They possessed what we ourselves are given in the Sacrament
of Confirmation — but cleaved to it in far greater measure than
we do: Faith and faithfulness; fortitude and valor, uncompromising
belief in the invincible reality of God, of life eternal in Him
for the faithful, of damnation everlasting apart from Him for the
unfaithful; of the ephemerality of this passing world and all within
it, and lives lived in total accord with that adamant belief.
We are the Martyrs to come. What made them so will make us so. What
they suffered we will suffer. What they died for, we will die for.
If only we will! For most us, life will be a bloodless martyrdom,
a suffering for Christ, for the sake of Christ, for the sake of
the Church in a thousand ways outside the arena. The road to Heaven
is lined on both sides with Crosses, and upon the Crosses people,
people who suffered unknown to the world, but known to God. Catholics
living in partibus infidelium, under the scourge of Islam. Loveless
marriages. Injustices on all sides. Poverty. Illness. Old age. Dependency.
They are the cruciform! Those whose lives became Crosses because
they would not flee God, the Church, the call to, the demand for,
holiness in the most ordinary things of life made extraordinary
through the grace of God. The Martyrology we celebrate each day
is just a vignette, a small, immeasurably small, sampling of the
martyrdom that has been the lives of countless men and women whom
Christ and the Angels know, but whom the world does not know.
“Exemplum enim dedi vobis”,
Christ said to His Apostles: “I have given you an example.” And
His Martyrs give one to us — and that is why the Martyrs matter.
Geoffrey K. Mondello
Editor
editor@boston-catholic-journal.com
Boston Catholic Journal
Note: We suggest that you explore our newly edited and revised “De
SS. Martyrum Cruciatibus — The Torments and Tortures of the Christian
Martyrs” for an in-depth historical account of the sufferings
of the Martyrs.
THE ROMAN MARTYROLOGY is an official
and accredited record, on the pages of which are set forth in simple
and brief, but impressive words, the glorious deeds of the Soldiers
of Christ in all ages of the Church; of the illustrious Heroes and
Heroines of the Cross, whom her solemn verdict has beatified or
canonized. In making up this long roll of honor, the Church has
been actuated by that instinctive wisdom with which the Spirit of
God, who abides in her and teaches her all truth, has endowed her,
and which permeates through and guides all her actions. She is the
Spouse of Christ, without spot or wrinkle or blemish, wholly glorious
and undefiled, whom He loved, for whom He died, and to whom He promised
the Spirit of Truth, to comfort her in her dreary pilgrimage through
this valley of tears, and to abide with her forever. She is one
with Him in Spirit and in love, she is subject to Him in all things;
she loves what He loves, she teaches and practices what He commands.
If the world has its “Legions of Honor”, why should not also the
Church of the Living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth?
If men who have been stained with blood, and women who have been
tainted with vice, have had their memory consecrated in prose and
in verse, and monuments erected to their memory, because they exhibited
extraordinary talents, achieved great success, or were, to a greater
or less extent, benefactors of their race in the temporal order,
which passeth away, why should not the true Heroes and Heroines
of Jesus, who, imitating His example, have overcome themselves,
risen superior to and trampled upon the world, have aspired, in
all their thoughts, words, and actions, to a heavenly crown, and
have moreover labored with disinterested zeal and self-forgetting
love for the good of their fellow-men, have their memories likewise
consecrated and embalmed in the minds and hearts of the people of
God? If time have its heroes, why should not eternity; if man, why
should not God? “Thy friends, O Lord, are exceedingly honored; their
principality is exceedingly exalted.” Whom His Father so dearly
loved, the world crucified; whom the world neglects, despises, and
crucifies, God, through His Church, exceedingly honors and exalts.
Their praises are sung forth, with jubilation of heart, in the Church
of God for ages on ages.
The wisdom of the Church of God in honoring her Saints is equaled
only by the great utility of the practice thus consecrated. The
Saints are not merely heroes; they are models. Christ lived in them,
and Christ yet speaks through them. They were the living temples
of the Holy Ghost, in whose mortal bodies dwelt all the riches of
His wisdom and grace. They were in life consecrated human exemplars
of divine excellence and perfection. Their example still appeals
to our minds and to our hearts, more eloquently even than did their
words to the men of their own generation, while they were in the
tabernacle of the flesh. Though dead, they still speak. Their relics
are instinct with sanctity, and through them they continue to breathe
forth the sweet odor of Christ. The immortality into which they
have entered still lingers in their bones, and seems to breathe
in their mortal remains. As many an ardent, spirit has been induced
to rush to the cannon's mouth by reading the exploits of earthly
heroes, so many a generous Christian soul has been fired with heavenly
ardor, and been impelled to rush to the crown of martyrdom, by reading
the lives and heroic achievements of the Saints and Martyrs of Christ.
Example, in its silent appeal, is more potent in its influence on
the human heart and conduct than are words in their most eloquent
utterances.
The Church knows and feels all this, in the Spirit of God with whom
she is replenished ; and hence she sets forth, with holy joy and
exultant hope, her bright and ever-increasing Calendar of Sanctity
of just men and women made perfect and rendered glorious, under
her unearthly and sublime teachings. In reading this roll of consecrated
holiness, our instinctive conclusion is, precisely that which the
great soul of St. Augustine reached at the very crisis of his life,
the moment of his conversion “If other men like me have attained
to such sanctity, why not I? Shall the poor, the afflicted, the
despised of the World, bear away the palm of victory, the crown
of immortality, while I lie buried in my sloth and dead in my sins,
and thus lose the brilliant and glorious mansion already prepared
for me in heaven? Shall all the gifts, which God has lavished upon
me, be ingloriously spent and foolishly wasted, in the petty contest
for this world's evanescent honors and riches, while the poor and
contemned lay up treasures in heaven, and secure the prize of immortal
glory? Shall others be the friends of God, whom He delights to honor,
while I alone remain His enemy, and an alien from His blessed Kingdom?”
It is a consoling evidence of progress in the spiritual life in
this country to find the Martyrology here published, for the first
time, in English, and thereby made accessible, in its rich treasures
of Sanctity, to all classes of our population. It will prove highly
edifying and useful, not only to the members of our numerous religious
Communities of both sexes, but also to the laity generally. Every
day has here its record of Sanctity; and there is scarcely a Christian,
no matter how lowly or how much occupied, who may not be able to
daily peruse, with faith and with great profit, the brief page of
each day's models of Holiness. These belong to all classes and callings
of life; from the throne to the hovel, from the Pontiff to the lowest
cleric, from the philosopher to the peasant, from the busy walks
of life to the dreary wastes of the desert.
Let all, then, procure and read daily the appropriate portions of
this Martyrology. Its daily and pious perusal will console us in
affliction, will animate us in despondency, will make our souls
glow with the love of God in coldness, and will lift up our minds
and hearts from this dull and ever-changing earth to the bright
and everlasting mansions prepared for us in Heaven!
Imprimatur, J. Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop Baltimore, Maryland
1916
Printable PDF Version
(and what “Forever” really means)
“From
the very first, upon Our elevation to the chief Apostleship,
We gladly turned our mind and energies and directed all out thoughts
to those matters which concerned the preservation of a pure liturgy,
and We strove with God's help, by every means in our power, to accomplish
this purpose. For, besides other decrees of the sacred Council of
Trent, there were stipulations for Us to revise and re-edit the
sacred books: the Catechism, the Missal and the Breviary. With the
Catechism published for the instruction of the faithful, by God's
help, and the Breviary thoroughly revised for the worthy praise
of God, in order that the Missal and Breviary may be in perfect
harmony, as fitting and proper — for it is most becoming that
there be in the Church only one appropriate manner of reciting the
Psalms and only one
rite for the celebration of Mass — We deemed it necessary
to give our immediate attention to what still remained to be done,
viz, the re-editing of the Missal as soon as possible.
Hence, We decided to entrust this work to learned men of our selection.
They very carefully collated all their work with the ancient codices
in Our Vatican Library and with reliable, preserved or emended codices
from elsewhere. Besides this,
these men consulted the
works of ancient and approved authors concerning the same sacred
rites; and thus they have restored the Missal itself to the original
form and rite of the holy Fathers. When this work has been
gone over numerous times and further emended, after serious study
and reflection, We commanded that the finished product be printed
and published as soon as possible, so that all might enjoy the fruits
of this labor; and thus, priests would know which prayers to use
and which rites and ceremonies they were required to observe from
now on in the celebration of Masses.
Let all everywhere adopt and observe what has been handed down by
the Holy Roman Church, the Mother and Teacher of the other churches,
and let Masses not be
sung or read according to any other formula than that of this Missal
published by Us.
This ordinance applies henceforth,
now, and forever, throughout all the provinces of the Christian
world, to all patriarchs, cathedral churches, collegiate and parish
churches, be they secular or religious, both of men and of women
— even of military orders — and of churches or chapels without a
specific congregation in which conventual Masses are sung aloud
in choir or read privately in accord with the rites and customs
of the Roman Church. This Missal is to be used by all churches,
even by those which in their authorization are made exempt, whether
by Apostolic indult, custom, or privilege, or even if by oath or
official confirmation of the Holy See, or have their rights and
faculties guaranteed to them by any other manner whatsoever.
This new rite alone is to be used unless approval of the practice
of saying Mass differently was given at the very time of the institution
and confirmation of the church by Apostolic See at least 200 years
ago, or unless there has prevailed a custom of a similar kind which
has been continuously followed for a period of not less than 200
years, in which most cases We in no wise rescind their above-mentioned
prerogative or custom. However, if this Missal, which we have seen
fit to publish, be more agreeable to these latter, We grant them
permission to celebrate Mass according to its rite, provided they
have the consent of their bishop or prelate or of their whole Chapter,
everything else to the contrary notwithstanding.
All other of the churches referred to above, however, are hereby
denied the use of other missals, which are to be discontinued entirely
and absolutely; whereas, by
this present Constitution,
which will be valid henceforth, now, and forever, We order
and enjoin that nothing must be added to Our recently published
Missal, nothing omitted from it, nor anything whatsoever be changed
within it under the penalty of Our displeasure.
We specifically command each and every patriarch, administrator,
and all other persons or whatever ecclesiastical dignity they may
be, be they even cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, or possessed
of any other rank or pre-eminence, and
We order them in virtue
of holy obedience to chant or to read the Mass according to the
rite and manner and norm herewith laid down by Us and, hereafter,
to discontinue and completely discard all other rubrics and
rites of other missals, however ancient, which they have customarily
followed; and they must not in celebrating Mass presume to introduce
any ceremonies or recite any prayers other than those contained
in this Missal.
Furthermore, by these presents [this law],
in virtue of Our Apostolic
authority, We grant and concede in perpetuity that, for the
chanting or reading of the Mass in any church whatsoever, this Missal
is hereafter to be followed absolutely, without
any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment,
or censure, and may freely and lawfully be used. Nor are superiors,
administrators, canons, chaplains, and other secular priests, or
religious, of whatever title designated, obliged to celebrate the
Mass otherwise than as enjoined by Us. We likewise declare and
ordain that no one whosoever is forced or coerced to alter this
Missal, and that this present document cannot be revoked or modified,
but remains always valid and retain its full force notwithstanding
the previous constitutions and decrees of the Holy See, as well
as any general or special constitutions or edicts of provincial
or synodal councils, and notwithstanding the practice and
custom of the aforesaid churches, established by long and immemorial
prescription — except, however, if more than two hundred years'
standing.
It is Our will, therefore, and by the same authority, We decree
that, after We publish this constitution and the edition of the
Missal, the priests of the Roman Curia are, after thirty days, obliged
to chant or read the Mass according to it; all others south of the
Alps, after three months; and those beyond the Alps either within
six months or whenever the Missal is available for sale. Wherefore,
in order that the Missal be preserved incorrupt throughout the whole
world and kept free of flaws and errors, the penalty for nonobservance
for printers, whether mediately or immediately subject to Our dominion,
and that of the Holy Roman Church, will be the forfeiting of their
books and a fine of one hundred gold ducats, payable ipso facto
to the Apostolic Treasury. Further, as for those located in other
parts of the world, the penalty is excommunication latae sententiae,
and such other penalties as may in Our judgment be imposed; and
We decree by this law that they must not dare or presume either
to print or to publish or to sell, or in any way to accept books
of this nature without Our approval and consent, or without the
express consent of the Apostolic Commissaries of those places, who
will be appointed by Us. Said printer must receive a standard Missal
and agree faithfully with it and in no wise vary from the Roman
Missal of the large type (secundum magnum impressionem).
Accordingly, since it would
be difficult for this present pronouncement to be sent to all parts
of the Christian world and simultaneously come to light everywhere,
We direct that it be, as usual, posted and published at the doors
of the Basilica of the Prince of the Apostles, also at the Apostolic
Chancery, and on the street at Campo Flora; furthermore, We direct
that printed copies of this same edict signed by a notary public
and made official by an ecclesiastical dignitary possess the same
indubitable validity everywhere and in every nation, as if Our manuscript
were shown there. Therefore, no one whosoever is permitted to alter
this notice of Our permission, statute, ordinance, command, precept,
grant, indult, declaration, will, decree, and prohibition. Should
anyone dare to contravene it, know that he will incur the wrath
of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.”
Given at St. Peter’s in the year of the Lord's Incarnation, 1570,
on the 14th of July of the Fifth year of Our Pontificate.
Printable PDF Version
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