
“Declaration of the Truths
relating to some of the most Common Errors
in the Life of the Church of our Time”
by
Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke
Cardinal Janis Pujats
Archbishop Tomash Peta
Archbishop Jan Pawel Lenga
Bishop Athanasius Schneider |
To say that confusion,
doubt,
misunderstanding, disorientation, uncertainty, and a loss of faith
has characterized the Catholic Church for the past 60 years
— and has become pandemic under the corrupt papacy of Francis
— is an understatement. In every practical sense it has ceased to
be what it had been, and since 1964 has been trying to define what
it is apart from what it was and wished no longer
to be because it was an impediment to rapprochement with the world.
As a consequence, the Church became increasingly intimate with the
world, ignoring the admonition of Saint James:
“The world’s friendship means
enmity with God, and the man who would have the world for his friend
makes himself God’s enemy.”
(Saint James 4.4)
In
many ways it appears to be making every effort to be effectively
indistinguishable from the world in the way of teaching and
morals — the very mandates
with which she was entrusted with the Keys of Saint Peter. She wishes
to be acceptable to world at the cost of becoming
unacceptable to God.
What
Cardinal Burke, and Bishops Schneider, Pujats, and Peta have done
is nothing short re-vitalizing genuine
Catholic Faith, teachings, and morals in the absence of sound teaching
and example in a misguided, corrupt, and in many ways malevolent
pontiff who has left the sheep scattered and frightened —
and who himself seeks to throw open the gates to the sheepfold.
But
where the wolves abound, a handful of faithful Shepherds remain
— undaunted by enemies within and without; and they are many
and powerful. But God is Power Absolute — and He Himself upholds
the good shepherds.
These few brave men — only four
— among the 5000 bishops worldwide
are very reminiscent of Gideon and the Midianites (read the Book
of Judges chapters 6-8). So few can do so much!
-
There is a Hell and those who go there
suffer for eternity
-
Church teaching can never contradict what was previous Church
teaching
-
Muslims do
not offer to God the same supernatural worship as do Christians
-
Ecumenism intends
that non-Catholics enter the Catholic Church
-
God does not will
the diversity of religions
-
No one has a natural
right to choose the moral evil of sin
-
Anyone in a state
of grace has the God-given strength to live a moral life
-
Intrinsically evil
actions such as abortion or euthanasia are wrong in all circumstances
-
Sexual acts are
only moral within a valid marriage and when open to life
-
Christ is truly,
really and substantially present in the Eucharist
-
Prior to receiving
Holy Communion all mortal sins must be confessed in number and
kind
-
Holy Communion
can't be given to those living in a public state of objectively
grave sin
-
Holy Communion can't be given to those who reject
the Catholic faith
-
Only men can be ordained priests
Unfortunately, for
many Catholics — or those who deem themselves Catholics —
what these cardinals and archbishops are stating — has been held
by the Catholic Church for over 2000 years!
It is not even old: it’s ancient!
It is a commentary unto itself that it must be re-stated
for many Catholics today, as though it were shocking and
new.
Much of
the credit for this appalling state of affairs goes to Francis
who has defiled the Seat of Peter; and virtually all of
it to the heretical Second Vatican Council (really,
how tiresome novelty becomes after 60 years!). Only one (perhaps
more) truth should be added to these, for it is in dire need of
repeating:
The Mass is a Sacrifice!
It is not a luncheon or good fellowship.
It is a SACRIFICE!
The
Third Rail
Most Catholics
do not understand, or fail to grasp the fact that the Mass is
“the Most Holy SACRIFICE of the Mass”.
They had never been taught this absolutely central mystery,
this most vital tenet of Catholicism — apart from which Catholicism
is incomprehensible. Why? It is a fair question. The answer
is as simple as the question is fair: No one told them. Not
their CCD teachers, nor did they learn it from their glossy, expensive,
and utterly useless CCD books, and most sadly, not even from their
priests. It is the Third Rail of Ecumenism: touch it and
you perish. It is too Catholic, too un-ecumenical, too redolent
of the Catholic Church of two millennia — and to hold that this
is true, of course, means that your Protestant, Jewish, or
Muslim neighbor is wrong in disagreeing with this Catholic
dogma. “Disagreement” is expunged from the Ecumenical Lexicon,
for disagreement foments rational discussion, and is understood
as (inexplicably) engendering “hostility”. In fact, the word “wrong”
has no place in the Ecumenical Lexicon either. We are all right
even when our propositions are contradictory. This is called Ecumenism.
It is also known as illogical, or the Hegelian Wonderland
where all utterly intractable contradictions are “reconciled”.
Francis and Friends — "at Table"
Why, we
ask, (apart from reference to the curious absence of the definite
article concerning the table) is the sacrificial
nature of the Mass either unrecognized or so widely misunderstood?
We have already provided two reasons (Francis and Friends — and
Vatican II) but the third is less obvious because we have been exposed
to the banality of it for over half a century: The presence
of “a table” and the absence of “an altar.”
You have your luncheon at a table. You sacrifice at an altar. What
could be clearer?
Protestants have “tables” and “communal meals” — Catholics witness
and participate in the most sublime sacrifice in history
— every Sunday and at every Mass! The Sacrifice of Jesus Christ
on the Cross re-presented as though Calvary were right there
before them — which it is!
Subjecting Christ
on the Cross to Laughter — again
That, too,
is why some “liturgical novelties” are so offensive —
even blasphemous: one does not:
-
strum
a guitar
-
bang on a drum
-
play a flute
-
break the “monotony
of sacred silence” with incessant piano strains more appropriate
to a lounge.
-
“sing” miserable
pop music
-
perform “liturgical
dances”
-
show off ones instrumental
skills or (presumed) vocal talent
-
Applaud
Think
of it: when
we commit any of these obscenities,
we subject Christ on the Cross to them:
our laughter, our absurd skits, and — and of all
things blasphemous — our APPLAUSE ... we vigorously
clap our hands as Christ suffers and dies on the Cross!
In an adaptation of one of the protestant
“Old
Plantation Hymns” — popular in today's Catholic Church,
“Were
you there when they Crucified my Lord?”, we must ask —
and you must seriously answer this:
“Were
you there”
... would you do these things? Laugh? Applaud? Make jokes. Emphasize
your vocal mastery? Bang on your drum? Play a piano? Rehearse
with a flute? Discuss mundane things with the person next to you?
Well?
Would you ...?
This is
Calvary, people! Not the Hard Rock Café! You would
do well to recognize your venue.
Back to Basics
In other
words back to what was, is, and ever will be genuinely Catholic
for all time.
We do not
have the time to enumerate all that is uniquely and distinguishably
Catholic that has been jettisoned since Vatican II in an effort
to make the Catholic Church a member in good standing with the 349
members of the Protestant World Council of Churches.
It would be too long and too depressing.
We have lost so, so
much of what is Catholic — at Mass, in our lives,
in our devotions, in the way of continuity with the thousands of
Saints and Martyrs who preceded 1964 and the Second Vatican Council.
Under Francis, it appears
that all things are negotiable, all things are on the table
— nothing is certain, even
“the
most cherished beliefs”
that, Cardinal Cupich (close advisor
to Francis) tells us we must be prepared to abandon.
Perhaps
to Francis ... and Cupich ... and so many, many other weak-kneed,
invertebrate, cardinals, bishops, priests,
“theologians”
and “ecumenists”.
But not to these four men (vir) who appear to be the only
4 pillars preventing the collapse of Catholicism altogether as a
distinguishable religion among many that have made their peace (and
place) with the world at the cost of Communion with Christ
through the Communion of Saints and their rejection of
perpetual and indefeasible doctrines and dogmas of Holy Mother the
Catholic Church for 2000 years:
Not Cardinal
Raymond Leo Burke, not Bishop Athanasius Schneider, nor Cardinal
Janis Pujats, or Archbishop Tomash Peta.
And definitely not me!
Geoffrey K. Mondello
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
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Comments?
Write us:
editor@boston-catholic-journal.com
Post
Script:
We are not asserting that Francis is
not the pope elected by the 120 cardinal electors on 13 March
2013. Whether he was legitimately elected, or elected
through collusion by a group of disaffected prelates who secretly
met in St. Gallen, Switzerland to overthrow pope Benedict
and have “their
Man”
(Cardinal Jorge Bergolglio, now Pope Francis) installed — much as
Cardinal Godfried Danneels proudly proclaimed — is something
we are likely never to know. We must choose the most charitable
interpretation and presume, despite the bluster of Danneels, that
Francis is, in fact, legitimately the Pope — I refrain, however,
from calling him “Our
Holy Father”.
It is certainly
at least by God's permissive will that he reigns as
pontiff. In other words, God permits it for reasons
we cannot determine — but permitting it is not to actively
will it. He may have permitted the evil collusion
of men to their own evil ends — for a good far beyond
our comprehension. This is not actively willing the evil
they perpetrate, anymore than allowing oneself to be struck
is wishing oneself to be struck. We may permit the present
and temporary evil in order to obtain a good that far exceeds the
temporary evil (read Christ's Sermon on the Mount: St. Matthew
chapters 5-7)
It nevertheless
remains that, as more than one writer has observed,
“we deserve
this pope”;
our perverse, willful, utterly secular and evil generation warrants
such a man, bred in this evil generation and nurtured on its permissiveness
and perversity. He is the man for our times, and God, it
appears to me, has justly afflicted him upon us, for his agenda
increasingly seems to be that of the world — not God's.
“Nescitis quia amicitia huius mundi
inimica est Dei?” —
Do you not know that the friendship of the this world is the enemy
of God? (Saint James 4.4)

Totally Faithful to the Sacred
Deposit of Faith entrusted to the Holy See in Rome
“Scio
opera tua ... quia modicum habes virtutem, et servasti verbum
Meum, nec non negasti Nomen Meum”
“I
know your works ... that you have but little power, and
yet you have kept My word, and have not denied My Name.”
(Apocalypse
3.8)
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