Today’s Martyrology

The Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

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“That understanding of its sacred dogmas must be perpetually retained, which Holy Mother Church once declared; and there must never be a recession from that meaning under the specious name of a deeper understanding”
(Blessed Pope Pius IX, 1st Vatican Council, S.3, C.2 on Revelation, 1870 ex cathedra)

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Looking for Catholic Prayers in Latin and English?

Mary, Conceived without Sin, Pray for us who have Recourse to Thee

Mary, Conceived without Sin,

pray for us who have recourse to Thee

“Non Habemus Papam”?

Is it the Case that we REALLY do not have a Pope

of the “Roman Catholic Church” ... after all?

The Odor of Sulfur ... not Sanctity

“Get thee behind Me, Satan, thou art a scandal unto Me: because thou savorest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men.”

(Saint Matthew 16.23)

These were Christ’s words ... to Saint Peter — the first pope — when, of himself,

   Peter decided the way that Jesus should go ... the way that he himself deemed the best path. Imagine ... for that moment — Peter was Satan!

And now it is Francis!

Who has not Smelled it?

Obedience to the pope presumes the pope’s obedience to Christ, and to the nearly 2000 year old Sacred Deposit of Faith that Christ entrusted to His Bride the Church. In Holy Scripture, in Sacred Tradition, and in the Deposit of Faith we find the fullness of truth and the unerring certainty of the will of God in all things. Who defects from any of the three defects from all and who teaches otherwise teaches heresy. He is separated from the Church. ¹

No one is exempt because no one is immune to grievous sin — sin so grave that excommunication is incurred latæ sententiæ (automatically: as soon as the sin is committed). Canon Law 1463 states: “Certain particularly grave sins incur excommunication, the most severe ecclesiastical penalty, which impedes the reception of the sacraments and the exercise of certain ecclesiastical acts, and for which absolution consequently cannot be granted, according to canon law, except by the Pope, the bishop of the place or priests authorized by them.”

But what if the pope himself is the excommunicate (latae sententiae) ... or even worse?

Who is not confused?

In the face of the near daily assaults — by the present papacy itself and an episcopacy in apparent complicity with him — on 2000 years of the consistent teaching of the Church, on the very Deposit of Faith, and on the validity of Sacred Scripture itself, what Catholic has not asked — in the fearfully deep and most secret recesses of his soul — the question “Whence?” From whom and from what comes this relentless scourging of faith — even at the vertex of the Church itself — this overwhelming defection from all that is holy to all that is vile?

“There is smoke in the sanctuary” and instinctively we perceive it, recoil from it. It is proffered as incense but is pungent to our senses — as the fume of smoldering sulfur.

We are confused between the Word of God become Man and the word of man become god.

What a fearful divide rends the Body of Christ anew! See how the sheep are scattered! Need we tell you who is the father of confusion and lies ...?

No Longer Inconceivable ...

Imagine ... the pope himself as the principle cause of confusion — and defection — in the Catholic Church. It is nothing less than ... diabolically clever.

It is Francis indeed whom satan has sought to sift like wheat ² — and sadly, it would appear, with much success and to great measure.

Manifest Complicity with Evil — and the “Father of Lies” himself

In our obligation to Charity (one of the three Theological Virtues: Faith and Hope being the other two), we should pray that Francis, together with the cardinals and bishops complicit with him, should renounce their complicity with satan, the father of lies and their collaboration with the manifest evil that they have embraced and propagated — and through which they would pull down the walls of the Church and make Christ a liar! Indeed, did not Jesus speak of this current Brood of Vipers when He said:

“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof.” (St. John 8.44)

Mass Defection

A frightening number of cardinals, bishops, and priests have lost their faith altogether and no longer believe what Christ Himself and Holy Mother the Church taught for 2000 years. Formally, this is called apostasy. They have defected from the Bride of Christ because She is pure and their desires are evil — She is not of this world — but they are! Her Body is chaste and their desires are perverse, corrupt, and defiled. It is precisely in the paradigm of the The Third Temptation of Christ that we find the provenance of this defection (apostasy). What Jesus Christ spurned (worldly “power and glory” ), they have lusted for — and in exchange for it have given the required tribute to the “father of lies” — satan — who openly boasts of the “power” and “the glory of this world”, that: “to me they are delivered, and I give them to whom I will” (St. Luke 4.5-6).

The Tribute due to the father of lies

And what is that tribute? LIES.

If the father is a liar, then his brood can only be liars, too. Christ has already told us: “the desires of your father you will do ... for he is a liar, and the father thereof.” (St. John 8.44)

In exchange for power and perversion they have traded lies: lies about Christ’s teaching, lies about the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church, lies about the Sacred Deposit of Faith, lies about Catholic Doctrine and Dogma, lies about morals, lies about Heaven and Hell — lies about Sacred Scripture itself! They have lusted for power — perhaps even more than they have shamefully and perversely lusted for other men — and to acquire this power they have traded truth for lies!

It is, we will find, through the Faithful, the Laity, that the Church will be delivered — just as it was in the days of the early heresies when miter and crozier, cardinal and bishop, were bent in submission to apostasy from the Faith — apostasies to which the laity, having learned the truth in holy simplicity, gave no heed. They could smell a wolf under the greatest abundance of wool.

Christ Himself is the Good Shepherd. “The sheep follow Him, because they know His voice. But a stranger they follow not, but fly from him, because they know not the voice of strangers.” (St. John 10:4-5)

Hold fast to the Faith of our Fathers! Cleave to Christ and to what He has taught us, to what Holy Mother Church taught us prior to Vatican II — and fear nothing, and no one — no matter his power or how ruthlessly he demands submission. “For there is no other name under Heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts 4.12)

Did not Christ Himself promise: “I will not forsake you.” (St. John 14.18)

Nor must we ever forsake Him through any inducement to sin — by whomsoever.

“Dilexerunt enim gloriam hominum magis quam gloriam Dei.” “For they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God.” (St. John 12.43)

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¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excommunication_(Catholic_Church )

²   Saint Luke 22.31

Editor
Boston Catholic Journal

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Further Reading on the Papacy of Francis:

Francis as the Prince of this World and the Logical Conclusion of Vatican II

Our Francis who art in Rome

When Silence becomes Scandal: Lessons not Learned

The Art of Plausible Deniability: Closing Thoughts on Amoris Laetitia

Two Great Mysteries: God Needs Us, according to Francis

Francis — the Great Divider in the Post Modern Catholic Church

Has Francis Abolished Hell and has Logic Superseded Faith?

The Iron Fist of Pope Francis

Against Pharisees: by Bishop Athanasius Schneider concerning Amoris Laetitia

The Liability of Logic and the Francis Defect

A Tale of Two Popes: The Newest Paradigm — The Emeriti, Resignation, and Dissolution

Quotations from Chairman Francis and other Philosophical Absurdities

PachaPapa — a Pagan Pope — and Definitely not my “Holy Father”

Francis vs. Jesus Christ: a Serious Matter of Contradiction

Carefully Crafted Bad Language — from the Vicar of Jesus Christ on Earth?

Non Habemus Papam?

Is it the Case that we REALLY DO NOT HAVE A POPE

of the “Roman Catholic Church” ... after all?

It is typically the prerogative of the Protodeacon of the College of Cardinals who ceremoniously proclaims the election of a new pope with the words “Habemus Papam!”, or “We have a Pope” — following a conclave of Cardinal Electors who nominated him.

With something far more profound and painful than “regret”, we have come to acknowledge what had become increasingly obvious — and which found its clearest expression, its culmination, in the neo-pagan “papacy” of Jorge Bergoglio (“Francis”).

The See of Rome is no longer Catholic, as Catholicism had been understood and practiced for the 2000 years preceding Vatican II

That is to say, it had ceased to be identifiably and authentically Catholic following that calamitous consistory known to us as “Vatican II” which occurred between October 11, 1962 until December 8, 1965. Since that initial and unprecedented defection of Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli — “John XXIII” — together with what appear to have been at least latently apostate cardinals who nominated him to implement a Modernist agenda replete with the heretical ideologies that define it — and which Saint Pope Pius X had clearly enumerated in his encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis in 1907, stating that Modernism is the “synthesis of all heresies”, and therefore unequivocally antithetical to the One, True, Holy Catholic Church of the preceding 2000 years.

As a matter of public record and verifiable assertions, Jorge Bergoglio is merely the de facto “pope” of what is, in every aspect, a new religion altogether; a secularized religion that superficially resembles the authentic Catholic Church as it existed prior to 1962 — which it definitively renounced — while choosing to retain a simulacrum of it.

In other words, Jorge is, in fact, an actively presiding High Priest — of a spurious “Conciliar Church” that is distinct from, and opposed to, the authentic “Holy Roman Catholic Church” of 2000 years and, as such, is eo ipso without any lawful ecclesiastical authority outside the counterfeit “Conciliar Church” that emerged from “Vatican II”. The conclave that elected him was overwhelmingly compromised and canonically unlawful; and while appearing to have the faculties of electors — but obstinately remaining in a state of heresy — they in fact possessed none of the requisite legitimate credentials. See Saint Gallen conspiratorial group

The counterfeit papacy of Jorge Bergolglio is unquestionably the most perfidious and destructive in the 2000 year history of the Catholic Church. We do not “judge” the man — that is reserved to God. We do, however, examine his public statements and actions in light of the Sacred Deposit of Faith and Tradition (Tradere: “to hand down, to pass on”) entrusted to Holy Mother Church by God — and find them irreconcilable with Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, the Depositum Fidei, and the canons of logic.

The question now is WHERE are we to find the One, Tue, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church from time immemorial? It is and ever will be. Christ promised as much. But if the “First See” can no longer be found in Rome, where is it? Where is the Chair of Saint Peter? And if we can discover it, who occupies it? — if anyone! If we hold that “the Chair is empty” in light of the repudiation of orthodox Catholic canons— are we to be understood as “Sedevacantists” ... or simply “orthodox”?

God by any other name ...

Is, then, being an orthodox Catholic, or even a Sedevacantist (who holds that the Chair of Saint Peter is temporarily vacant) more scandalous than a “Conciliar Catholic” who maintains that there is no inconsistency in worshipping Pachamama idols together with Jesus Christ, or who holds that the God of the Catholic Saints and Martyrs is the same god as Islam’s Allah (a concept no Muslim would tolerate)? Or, for that matter, that the Sixth Commandment against adultery is not incompatible with divorce, and that, moreover, cohabitating adulterers can receive Holy Communion in good conscience — no matter what God said! Are “Post-Conciliar Catholics” more in keeping with the mind of Christ in promoting “Accompaniment” (in sin, more often than not) as more vital than conversion to the end of the salvation of souls— indeed, that the efforts of Missionaries to proselytize pagans into the one true Faith is really just so much “solemn nonsense”, as Jorge describes it?

We believe, rather, that we must be understood simply as orthodox Catholics had always been understood: as faithful to the Sacred Deposit of Faith and the authentic Magisterium of the Church over the two millennia preceding “Vatican II”, the widely vaunted “Aggiornamento”, and the unmitigated abdication of Catholicism in the pursuit of a pseudo-Ecumenism that has increasingly become pantheistic.

Largely secular issues such as discrete national states, politics, economics, environmentalism, commercial ventures, social justice, global warming, immigration, sovereign borders, aboriginal cultures, plastic in the ocean — to mention a few — have no place in an institution established solely to the end of the salvation of souls! Their strident advocates are many and broadly distributed in the “City of Man”. Only one institution — the Holy Catholic Church — is the sole advocate of the “City of God” to which it calls all men to eternal salvation and everlasting happiness.

Much, much, more remains to be said — so much of authentic Catholicism remains to be articulated against the hyphenated Catholics:

New-Age Catholics

Charismatic-Catholics

Neo-Catholics

Progressive-Catholics

Traditional-Catholics

Othodox-Catholics

Liberal-Catholics

Conservative-Catholics

Trad-Catholics

Neo-Trad Catholics

So much remains to be re-acquired because it has not been taught for 60 years; it has been forgotten, contemptuously dismissed, suppressed, and ridiculed by Jorge as “rigid” (by which assessment Christ is the paradigm of “rigidity”, for He was absolutely inflexible in His teachings! May we be as inflexible, and as rigid, as our Lord!) and by his five predecessors as “unenlightened by new and ever-evolving secular ideologies” — or as Jorge dismissively claims, simply “Stuck in the past”. To wit:

Joseph Ratzinger (“Benedict XVI”)

Karol Józef Wojtyła (“John Paul II”)

Albino Luciani (“John Paul I”)

Giovanni Montini (“Paul VI”)

Angelo Roncalli (“John XXIII”) the Proto-New-Age-Pontiff with the clarion to “throw open the windows of the Church”

Each of the above shamefully offered more than “a grain of incense” to false gods on the altar of Ecumenism in Assisi and elsewhere. The kissing of the Koran by nominally Catholic popes was not simply scandalous, but treasonable to the Catholic Faith and to Christ Himself to Whom alone allegiance and latria is due! Jorge’s claim that virtually all religions worship the same God is a blatant abrogation of the very First Commandment: “Thou shalt not have strange gods before me.” (Exodus 20.3). There are far too many instances to enumerate in which the One, True, Holy Catholic Faith is either attenuated, ignored, or dismissed altogether by every pontiff since Pope Pius XII.

Of course we understand that such insistence on authentic Catholicism, on the factual rendering of the Gospels and Epistles, the Church Fathers, and the Sacred Deposit of Faith and Tradition will be greeted with much enmity, contempt, ridicule, and disdain. Actually, we delight in this! Ever we have held that a faithful Catholic cannot be on mutually good terms with the World and God. Saint James was clear about this: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God?” (St. James 4.4)

We choose God.

“If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated Me before you. If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” (Saint John 15.18-19)

O, hope beyond joy!

II.

It remains to be said that the reluctant position into which we have found ourselves forced was not of our own choosing; it was, and remains deeply painful. Obedience to the pope was the sine qua non of every orthodox Catholic. It was unthinkable that a pope would openly contradict God, Holy Scripture, the Sacred Deposit of Faith, and Tradition. Indeed, to defend all four was, as we say, his “job description” — even to the point of the shedding of his blood. He was the faithful shepherd when all others fled. He laid down his life for his flock — as Christ did for him. He did not lead them into strange and foreign pastures, nor did he open the gate of the sheepfold to flocks that were not his own. Should a wolf in sheep’s clothing attempt to enter, his staff was ready and swift. After all, the sheep were entrusted to him, to do his master’s will — not his own. When this obligation to obedience, however, became obedience to sin and false gods, we fled the false shepherd who urged us to “accompany” him in implementing the priorities of the world, rather than the evangel of Christ.

We never left the sheepfold and never will — it was the shepherd who fled the fold to bring in recreants to mingle with and adulterate the faithful, and we can no longer call him our own — who belongs to these strange others as well. In the absence of a true shepherd, if we must bar the gate ourselves and at so great a cost to ourselves, bar it we will until the one with the Key arrives at the time of God’s choosing.

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It’s Snowing Babies!!

Why do we not hear this from every priest and in every parish?

“Salus Animarum”

the Salvation of Souls

Hell — from Dante's Inferno

Whatever became of this

most

Fundamental

Imperative

that is nothing less

than the very reason

CHRIST ESTABLISHED HIS CHURCH?

It is unlikely that the vast, indeed, the overwhelming majority of today’s Catholics have not so much as heard of this phrase as old as the Church itself; certainty, not in English — and with greater certainty still, not from the pulpit.

The very concept of “the salvation of the soul” appears to have been non grata in homiletics for quite nearly 60 years (corresponding, unsurprisingly, to the implementation of Vatican II) — despite the fact that the imperative itself is clearly and unambiguously codified as the supremus lex (the supreme law) of the Roman Catholic Church in (Canon Law 1752):

“Salus animarum supremus lex esto” — “the salvation of souls … must be the supreme law in the Church.”

It is nothing less than the sole reason for the Incarnation … the Suffering, Crucifixion, Death, and Resurrection … of Christ: the salvation of souls!

Christ as Savior, Christ as Redeemer, cannot be understood apart from this most fundamental and utterly simple concept: He came to save souls — not to heal bodies (although He did), not to rectify injustices, not to rehabilitate politics, not to instruct us on economics, and certainly not “save the Environment” — which, sadly, appear to be the principal if not the sole concerns of the present pontiff, who, sadly, is more an emissary of the United Nations and Globalist Ideology than the Vicar of Jesus Christ on Earth. Certainly an indifferentist (every religion is sufficient to salvation) and most definitely a heretic, he is nothing remotely proximate to his putative job description.

Jesus Christ, on the other hand, came with only two purposes that are really one:

To do the will of the Father
Which is: to save souls for all eternity in Heaven (and in so doing, to deliver them from Hell).

It is really that simple; in fact, so simple that it eludes us in our worldliness, in our pretensions to sophistication, and our penchant for sophistry and correctitude.

For 2000 years the mission of the Church (and its raison d’etre , the very reason for its being) could be summed up in two words instantiating that same beautiful simplicity: “Salus animarum — the Salvation of souls”. Through Christ in the Sacraments this is its sole mission.

No other Mandate

The Church has no other mandate from Christ. Even healing the sick, raising the dead, delivering men from demonic possession, and all that He taught in the Sermon on the Mount were means only to the principle end: the salvation of the soul. Christ Himself emphatically asks:

“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (St. Matthew 16.26).

The purpose of all that He said and did was always eschatological, that is to say, pertaining to the Four Last Things:

Death
Judgment
Heaven
Hell

Everything else pales in significance. Two come once only, and two are everlasting.

To pretend that we really do not fully understand what Christ was talking about, and which He proclaimed in the clearest terms, is just that: pretension. We know very well what Christ said and did — but to our own devious and often deviant ends, we assume an air of erudite perplexity concerning them:

“Despite what He appears to say; indeed actually says, this is what He really means …”

And our own interpretation only accords with what we wish He had said, for this would provide us with excuses for our sins or alternatives for His extremely unsettling pronouncements. We go from the reality of: “This is what Christ said …” to the fiction: “This is what we wish Christ had said” … because I am much more comfortable with this interpretation — which, rather coincidentally, allows me to continue in sin.” In short, it is nothing more than wishful thinking because they cannot be both true.

However contradictory to what Jesus and His Apostles really said and taught, we choose to believe another narrative, however factitious; a simulacrum that borrows the vocabulary of the real but with connotations utterly incongruous with it. It is disingenuous, a sham. There is a pathos of similitude but the depiction is counterfeit. We have not entered the mythical: we have fabricated it. Shamelessly. It pleases us … and this is the first clue that it is deceptive. We have both an aversion and an affinity for the truth. It is the patrimony of our broken heritage from the beginning. We ineluctably desire the true, but when it indicts us we demur from it; unable to accommodate both we resort to dissimilation, to a semblance of the real that is, despite our collusion with pretensions, a defection from it. Hence our penchant for comfortable and spurious “interpretations”.

For all our carefully fabricated allusions to what Christ really said and meant, we know the truth — because He is the Truth Who does not deceive nor can be deceived. We are not pleased with all He said, especially concerning things that frighten us because they describe us … and convict us — and we know it!

Despite this, we insist that so many vitally important things that Jesus clearly uttered are nevertheless not true — because they are not “inclusive” and do not accord with our delicate post-modern sensitivities that any real deity would surely ascribe to. That some, perhaps many, are left in “outer darkness", excluded from Heaven because of their depravity and perversion, their penchant for sin and their obstinate predilection for evil, is unacceptable to our presently enlightened humanity. The list of our objections would be too long to enumerate and ultimately too tedious. Let us be satisfied with a few:

The Short List:

Not everyone goes to Heaven (St. Matthew 7:14)
People — indeed, many people — go to Hell (St. Matthew 7:14)
Hell is a real place of punishment, torment, and eternal suffering beyond our comprehension. It is the abode of the devil and demons. It is eternal and eternally devoid of any hope. (St. Matthew 5.29-10; Luke 16:19-31, 13.42; 25.41; St. Mark 9:42-44 etc.)
No one “goes to the Father” — enters Heaven — except though Christ (St. John 14:6)
If you deny Him before men on earth, He will deny you before His Father in Heaven (St. Matthew 10:33)
Not everyone who says, “Lord, Lord!” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven (St. Matthew 7:21)
Not “any” and every religion will bring you to Heaven (St. John 6.26-70)
Being a “nice person” does not suffice to bring you to Heaven or exempt you from Hell (St. Matthew 5.20; St. Mark 16.15-16)

Such pernicious nonsense has no place in our mythologized concept of God. We will have Heaven … “dammit” ... but on our terms — despite what Jesus Christ says … much to our consternation, and quite likely to our damnation. We prefer other interpretations; more comfortable and convenient exegeses ... and sadly they abound.

Would that we had a Pontiff for whom the very concept of “The Salvation of Souls” was more than an antiquated and parenthetical aside — and who actually understood it as his fundamental job description. Jorge Bergoglio (Francis) will no doubt continue to sweep aside every obstacle to the “wide and easy”^* path he has chosen — but we must not follow him: we must follow Christ, even though the way to which He calls us is “narrow and hard”.^*It leads not to the hollow and funereal halls of the U.N. — but to Heaven itself!

Is there any other place that you would rather be ?

For my part, fool that I am, I will take Christ at His word.

In fact, I stake my life on it.

_____________________________

^* Saint Matthew 7.13-14

Geoffrey K. Mondello
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal

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The Scandal of Nominal - “Catholics”

(whose mothers chose NOT to abort them):

one-half-of-american-catholics-support-abortion

Almost one-half of U.S. Catholics find infanticide/murder acceptable

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/22/american-religious-groups-vary-widely-in-their-views-of-abortion/

Vatican II:

the Great Apostasy

and

The Myth called Ecumenism

Speed Praying: Saying as much in as Little Time Possible

You have heard it at every Mass

Indeed, it is very likely that you do it yourself.

It is even more likely that you do it praying the Holy Rosary.

Let us take one very, very, common example: The Apostles Creed:

“I-believe-in-God-the-Father-Almighty-Creator-of-Heaven-and-earth-
and-in-Jesus Christ-His-only-Son-Our Lord-Who-was-conceived-by-
the-Holy-Spirit-born-of the-Virgin-Mary-suffered-under-Pontius-Pilate
-was-crucified-died-and-was-buried-He-descended-into-Hell-the-third-
day-He-rose-again-from-the-dead-He-ascended-into-Heaven-and-sitteth
-at-the-righ-hand-of-God-the-Father-almighty-from-thence-He-shall-
come-to-judge-the-living-and-the-dead-I-believe-in-the-Holy-Spirit-the-
holy-Catholic-Church-the-Communion-of-Saints-the-forgiveness-of-
sins-the-resurrection-of-the-body-and-life-everlasting-Amen.”

All spoken as one sentence as quickly as possible — to get through it.

Worse still is the prayer to the very Mother of God, Mary Most Holy, ESPECIALLY as it is “recited” — rather than “prayed” in that beautiful prayer called the Angelic Salutation, but better known simply as the Hail Mary:

“HailMaryfullofgracetheLordiswiththeeblessedartthouamongstwomen
andblessedisthefruitofthywombJesusHolyMaryMotherofGodprayforus
sinnersnowandatthehourofourdeathAmen.”

Within 14 seconds flat! … and ten times between each sacred Mystery!

REALLY?

When the Shepherd Strikes the Sheep

“It is written: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered.” (Saint Matthew 26.31)

“I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered.”¹ We have often heard this. It pertains to the imminent Passion of Jesus Christ on the very night before He was betrayed into the hands of sinful men. He, the Good Shepherd, would be struck (in fact, repeatedly ...) and the Apostles, the Disciples, and the Faithful would be scattered — they would abandon Him, flee for their lives, and their unity in Him would be broken. Their Shepherd, in Whose fold they were one flock, had been struck! What the will become of the sheep? How much anxiety rends them!

But now, in some incomprehensible and ghastly apocalyptic narrative unfolding before our very eyes, the shepherd himself strikes the sheep — and they are scattered! Unfaithful to his trust and careless of the sheep entrusted to him, the shepherd not only abandons them to the wolves who have prowled the fences for 500 years … but he himself strikes them so that they are forced to leave the sheepfold; with his staff he strikes the necks and the backs of the defenseless sheep — not even sparing the Little Lambs — who cry out in their pain as they flee, seeking a fold where they will find pasture and protection. They are confused and frightened, and no other shepherd seems to have the courage to gather the lost and the scattered — not one other shepherd! Homeless and shelterless they are prey to wolves — wolves even more remorseless than the wolves who drove them from the sheepfold.

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 Face

And the Offspring

of Vatican II

Look carefully at this emblematic vision of Vatican II in the Pope Paul VI Audience Hall. It is, for want of any other aesthetic description, demonic and blasphemous, hideous and frightening — a sign of times to come — that are now here.

60 Years After its Defection from Catholicism

and its Conversion to the World

Hideous — is it not?

It has not changed much — apart from its growing defection from what the Holy Catholic Church taught for 2000 years before that most pernicious council.

It is increasingly elderly, gray, and disheveled. Its children — fewer and fewer every year — are largely the children of the world, checking off the boxes branded on their young minds by a perverse generation that has lost its Catholic Faith and Identity: for Abortion (yes), Homosexuality (yes), Lesbianism (yes), Transgenderism (yes), Gender Identity Choices (yes), Gender Re-assignment (yes), Euthanasia (yes), Cremation (yes), Pre-Marital Sex (yes), Co-Habitation (yes), “Social Justice” Issues (yes!) — the proper formation of a Catholic Conscience (NO!), Chastity (NO!) Virginity until Marriage (NO!) Sanctity (NO), learning the most fundamental aspects of the Catholic Religion into which they were summarily Baptized (NO!) the Priesthood (NO!), Religious Life (NO!) — Missionary zeal and the conversion of sinners and those who do not know Christ — which Francis (perhaps heretically) calls “solemn nonsense.” (NO!) When they look about them at their fellow “Catholics” and” Priests”, “Nuns” and “Religious” — even the papacy of Francis and the current Episcopacy (bishops and cardinals) — who can blame them? The Faith is not even authentically lived out by the highest prelates — and sadly enough by Francis himself who gives scandal on a routine basis.

Martyrology for Today

PV2 = Enrolled prior to Vatican II and deleted after Vatican II

ROMAN MARTYROLOGY

Friday May 7th in the Year of Grace 2021

Paschaltide

This Day, the Seventh Day of May

At Cracow, in Poland, the birthday of St. Stanislaus, bishop and martyr, who was murdered by the wicked king Boleslas.

At Terracina, in Campania, the birthday of blessed Flavia Domitilla, virgin and martyr, niece of the Consul Flavius Clemens. She received the religious veil at the hands of St. Clement, and in the persecution of Domitian was exiled with many others to the island of Pontia, where she endured a long martyrdom for Christ. Taken afterwards to Terracina, she converted many to the faith of Christ by her teaching and miracles. The judge ordered the chamber in which she was with the virgins Euphrosina and Theodora, to be set on fire, and she thus consummated her glorious martyrdom. She is also mentioned with the holy martyrs Nereus and Achilleus, on the 12th of this month.

The same day, St. Juvenal, martyr.

At Nicomedia, the holy martyrs Flavius, Augustus, and Augustine, brothers.

In the same city, St. Quadratus, martyr, who was frequently tortured in the persecution of Decius, and at last decapitated.

At Rome, St. Benedict, Pope and confessor.

At York, in England, St. John, bishop renowned for his saintly life and miracles.

At Pavia, the bishop St. Peter.

At Rome, the translation of the body of St. Stephen, the first martyr, which was brought from Constantinople to Rome, and laid in the sepulchre of the martyr St. Lawrence in the field of Verano, where it is honored with great devotion by the pious faithful.

And elsewhere in divers places, many other holy martyrs, confessors, and holy virgins.

Omnes sancti Mártyres, oráte pro nobis. ("All ye Holy Martyrs, pray for us", from the Litaniae Sanctorum, the Litany of the Saints)

Response: Thanks be to God.

Roman Martyrology by Month

January	February	March	April	May	June
July	August	September	October	November	December

New: the Roman Martyrology can now be downloaded entirely as either a PDF file or as a Microsoft Word File

Why the Martyrs Matter

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.

INTRODUCTION TO THE ROMAN MARTYROLOGY

By J. Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop Baltimore

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
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THE APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION

“QUO PRIMUM ”

(and what “Forever” really means)

Pope Pius V Catechism of Trent

“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.

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