Jorge Mario Bergoglio Once Again Displays His Hatred for Catholic Faith, Worship, and Morals

Revolutionaries of all varieties, whether social or ecclesiastical, have long sought to denounce and isolate those who disagree with them by all manner of pejoratives, up to and including the use of the “mentally ill card.” This was a favorite tool of Vladmir I. Lenin and Joseph Stalin, and it has been a tool that has been used to the hilt by the conciliar revolutionaries.

It's always the same with revolutionaries, whether they are in the world of Modernity or in the world of Modernism, as it is of the nature of rebels after they acquire power to use the same tactics of intimidation and fear that they claim were used to “repress” their ascent to power. In other words, revolutionaries are hypocrites as they want to use power arbitrarily and autocratically to repress anyone who dares to criticize their tyrannical ways, and no one is more hypocritical and more tyrannical the master tyrant and bully from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Revolutionaries are worried about those who dissent from their own ideological "orthodoxy" because they are fascists.

Revolutionaries wax on and on about mercy while showing mercilessness to those who disagree with their revolutionary schemes.

Revolutionaries speak of humility while being arrogant and dismissive of those they view with contempt.

Revolutionaries say they eschew those who “judge” others while judging “counterrevolutionaries” with great harshness.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio is now what he has always been, a fascist, a man who uses insults, invectives and methods of active persecution to marginalize, humiliate and punish those he believes must be excluded from his plans of inclusiveness.

As noted on this site so many times in the past, however, the likes of Jorge Mario Bergoglio have been a dime a dozen from the very earliest days of the conciliar revolution, which was itself foisted upon by the faithful by clericalist bullies who hated Catholic Faith, Worship and Morals and who even used the pulpit in the 1970s to denounce members of the laity in various parishes who were known for their outspokenness against the conciliar revolution.

Bergoglio and his fellow fiends have used some of the same methods as employed by Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev and Mikhail Gorbachev to stigmatize those guilty of “thought crimes” with diagnoses of “mental illness” in order to break down their resistance to ideological “truth” by means of psychiatric reprogramming, which is why he sought to persecute the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate by placing them under the supervision of the late “Father” Fidenzio Volpi, O.F.M.,  eleven years ago, and it is why he also persecuted the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate simultaneously, as well as removing “Bishop” Joseph Strickland from the See of Tyler, Texas, and, most recently, ordering an “apostolic visitation” of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (see From "Apostolic Visitation" to "Papal" Evisceration.)

Although he wanted to so after Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI died, Jorge Mario Bergoglio got tired of waiting for the nonagenarian to take his last breath and thus suppressed the former’s Summorum Pontificium, which was issued on July 7, 2007, with Traditiones Custodes, which was issued on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, July 16, 2021 (see Jorge Mario Bergoglio Bares His Teeth to Do the Work of Baal.)

Additionally, although largely anecdotal and not yet recounted in a systematic manner in any one place, many of us know numerous instances in which priests and religious have been sent to psychiatric reprogramming centers because they resisted the first wave of the conciliar "reforms" in the middle to latter part of the 1960s. This persecution of those deemed to be "conservative" or "rigid" has continued in many dioceses and religious communities to this very day.  

We were told some eighteen years ago now of some very compelling stories by a consecrated religious woman who had worked as a nurse prior to entering the religious life, one of which involved a woman religious in the 1960s who was told by her superiors to report to a psychiatrist for “evaluation” because she would not give up her community's traditional habit.

The psychiatrist knew the consecrated religious because she had worked in the same hospital for a while as a nurse. He told to get out of the hospital immediately, that there was nothing wrong with her, but that she should not return to her community as there was an effort to imprison those priests and religious who resisted the conciliar changes. The psychiatrist led the religious woman, who told the story to our narrator, herself in traditional religious life, to a door where she could exit without being noticed, although she had seen many of her “disappeared” sisters sitting in wheelchairs in a doped-up state on her way into the psychiatrist's office.

This particular story has credibility as I know of men who have been candidates for the conciliar presbyterate who have been screened out in many dioceses and religious communities because they have been deemed to suffer from "rigidity."

As I have recounted on other occasions, the secular Talmudic psychologist who screened candidates for the Diocese of Rockville Centre for many years, the late Dr. Leonard Krinsky, came to some interesting conclusions following about me in May of 1979 following a psychological evaluation of me. Dr. Krinsky, now deceased, wrote that my concept of the priesthood as the sacerdos was preconciliar and self-centered, noting that that my desire to live a priestly life of prayer, penance, self-denial and mortification were "possible signs of masochism." Dr. Krinsky’s report concluded by saying that while I was “free of any psychopathology, intelligent, creative, and had the capacity for rich, interpersonal relationships,” I “lacked the sufficient flexibility needed to adapt to the changing circumstances of a postconciliar vocation.”' In other words, I was "too rigid" in my beliefs, something that many other vocations directors, both for dioceses and religious communities told me in the 1970s and 1980s.

I know of scores of men who were persecuted for their "conservatism" after their installation as presbyters in the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

One man, the late Reverend Anthony Dandry, who was a seminarian with me at Holy Apostles Seminary during the 1983-1984 academic year, told me that he had been ordered to seek a psychological evaluation because he wore a biretta and preached about the reality of hell “too much.” Tony Dandry may not have been a true priest. However, he was very devoted to Our Lady, believing that he had been “ordained” as a priest to save souls, not to make his parishioners feel comfortable. After seeking the advice of a true priest, the late Father Benedict Groeschel, within the conciliar structures, though, he arranged to get an evaluation from a psychologist not associated with his diocese, obtaining a clean bill of mental health thereafter.

Yes, good readers, stories related in the past on this site about the abuse of psychiatry and psychology in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics are very relevant to what has been happening and what continues to happen to men and to women in the counterfeit church of conciliarism who are deemed to be “rigid” and thus “mentally deficient” by the “merciful” and “non-judgmental” agents of Antichrist, to say nothing of those who are helping to expose the moral rote within a false religious sect that is doctrinally, liturgically and pastorally corrupt.

In this regard, therefore, it seems that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is possessed by a burning contempt for those, especially the young, who desire to assist at purported offerings of the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition within his counterfeit church of conciliarism, taking special delight, it would appear, in denouncing such Catholics as “rigid” and even “mentally imbalanced," which is a phrase that could describe Bergoglio’s own detestation of anything that even hints at true Catholicism:

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis has issued fresh criticism of devotees of the traditional Mass, accusing them of practicing “backwardism” and of “sectarian worldliness.”

“From a sociological point of view, it is interesting to consider the phenomenon of traditionalism, this ‘backwardism’ that regularly returns each century, this reference to a supposed perfect age that each time is another age,” commented Pope Francis.

The lines come as part of his recent wide-ranging memoir Hope released Tuesday, in which the Pope renewed his oft-repeated criticisms of young Catholics devoted to the Latin Mass, styling them as “rigid.”

“It has now been ruled that the possibility of celebrating Mass in Latin, following the missal prior to the Second Vatican Council, must be expressly authorized by the Dicastery for Divine Worship, who will allow it only in special cases,” said Francis, alluding to his 2021 document Traditionis Custodes.

The motive for ushering in such sweeping restrictions on the ancient liturgy was “for the reason that it is unhealthy for the liturgy to become ideology,” said Francis.

Commenting further on the rapidly growing phenomena of young Catholics flocking to the traditional Mass – such as at the Chartres pilgrimage – Francis added:

It is curious to see this fascination for what is not understood, for what appears somewhat hidden, and seems also at times to interest the younger generations.

The 88-year-old accused Latin Mass devotees of being concerned purely with external appearances rather than the content of the liturgy or practice of devotion:

This rigidity is often accompanied by elegant and costly tailoring, lace, fancy trimmings, rochets. Not a taste for tradition but clerical ostentation, which then is none other than an ecclesiastic version of individualism. Not a return to the sacred but to quite the opposite, to sectarian worldliness.

Seemingly not content with such a sweeping condemnation of many younger members of the Church, Francis expanded on the theme, suggesting that devotion to the Latin Mass revealed the possibility of a “mental imbalance”:

These ways of dressing up sometimes conceal mental imbalance, emotional deviation, behavioral difficulties, a personal problem that may be exploited.

He referenced four occasions in Italy and Paraguay on which “the papacy has had to intervene on this problem,” namely a diocese accepting seminarians who had already been “sent away from other seminaries.”

“When this happens there is generally something wrong, something that leads people to hide their own personality in closed or sectarian environments.”  (Francis accuses young Catholic priests who like the Latin Mass of 'mental imbalance'.)

This is important information when one considers that the man most people in the world believe is “Pope Francis” developed a hatred for the truths of the Holy Faith when he was but a boy, a hatred that extended to how he viewed the ineffable Sacrifice of the Cross offered according to the unreformed Missal of Pope Saint Pius X when he was an altar boy:

A children's book titled "Dear Pope Francis" is set to be released March 1. 

While there will undoubtedly be much to analyze once it's published, one excerpt, which was shared with us, stood out. And -- as is typical with this pontificate -- not in a good way. 

Pope Francis, as could be assumed, served the traditional Latin Mass as a boy. If you wonder why the tradition of the Church never stuck with the young Jorge Bergoglio, maybe this disturbing explanation tells us why (as found at Rorate-Caeli blogspot.com.)

Here one sees in a nutshell the simple fact that even as a young altar boy, Jorge Mario Bergoglio did not have any understanding of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the unbloody re-presentation or perpetuation of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s propitiatory offering of Himself to His Co-Equal and Co-Eternal God the Father on the wood of the Holy Cross in atonement for our sins. It was why it was all so much gibberish to him.

Little Jorge did not understand the Sacred Liturgy is about the worship of God, not about the reaffirmation of “the people,” which is why the priest faces the altar, which is generally, although not always, of course, oriented to the East, that is, to Jerusalem and the site of Our Lord’s Resurrection from the dead on Easter Sunday. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is not a Protestant fellowship service, although this is precisely what the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service was designed to be.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio still sees a blank wall. A true priest in deep in conversation with God, conscious of the fact that he is about to bring God down on the altar of sacrifice in the presence of His Most Blessed Mother, Saint Joseph, and all of at the angels of saints, each of whom are present mystically at every valid offering of Holy Mass. Such a truth is foreign to the mocking mind of Bergolio.

The priest, an alter Christus who acts in persona Christi at the Holy Mass, in a conversation with God as he, but a mere mortal, offers the Divine oblation to God the Father in Spirit and in Truth. Our focus in the true Roman Rite of the Catholic is Our Lord’s Redemptive Act, not on the “community.”

As I have noted on other occasions, the first person to celebrate a “liturgy” facing the people was Martin Luther. Father Joseph Jungmann, who was a supporter of "liturgical reform" but was intellectually honest about some points despite the questionable nature of much of his other research, noted, "The claim that the altar of the early Church was always designed to celebrate facing the people, a claim made often and repeatedly, turns out to be nothing but a fairy tale." We do not need to look at the priest and he does not need to look at us.

Both priest and people are called to focus their attention on God, not on each other. While a particular priest celebrating a particular Mass is important in that there would be no Mass celebrated at that time without his having been ordained to the sacerdotal priesthood of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, his individual personality is unimportant, totally irrelevant. We need to focus on the work he is doing in persona Christi by virtue of the powers given him by God at the moment of his priestly ordination. The orientation of the priest toward the High Altar of Sacrifice is an important constituent element of the solemnity befitting the Adoration of the God the Father through the God the Son in Spirit and in Truth.

Every aspect of the Mass demands solemnity, sobriety, and reverence. The priest in the Immemorial Mass of Tradition does not come out to greet the people as do those priests/presbyters who stage the conciliar liturgical travesty. He comes out to pray at the foot of the steps leading to the High Altar, preparing himself and the faithful gathered (if any) for the perfect prayer which is the Mass. As noted just above, a priest is in conversation with God. We unite our prayers with those of the priest. However, the focus of a priest in the Immemorial Mass of Tradition is not the people. It is Christ, the King.

Although there are responses that the choir sings in a Solemn High Mass, the priest addresses us as a priest, not as an entertainer who has to add something of his personality or his own wordiness to "make" the Mass a more "complete" experience for us. The entirety of the Mass must convey solemnity, especially at that sublime moment when the priest utters the glorious words, Hoc est enim Corpus Meum. . . . Hic est enim Calix Sanguinis mei, novi et aerteni testamenti: mysterium fidei, qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum. The very solemn nature of the Roman Rite does this. No priest had to exaggerate the elevation in order to convey that which is lacking in the essence of the Mass (as some do in the Novus Ordo). No priest had to improvise words to emphasize that the words of consecration are indeed the most important part of the Mass (as some do quite idiosyncratically in the Novus Ordo). Every aspect of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition conveyed reverence and solemnity.

Solemnity is also conveyed in the Immemorial Mass of Tradition by the very positioning of the priest in conversation with God (or ad orientem, in the case of the actual, Eastward orientation of the High Altar of a particular church).

Permanence and Transcendence are two other constituent elements related to the end of Adoration found in the Mass. A rite is meant of its nature to be fixed, not ever changing. Pope Pius XII noted in Mediator Dei in 1947 that the human elements (or accidentals) of the Mass are subject to change. If such change should occur, he noted, it should occur organically, slowly over the course of time.

Rapid change bewilders the faithful. Constant, unremitting change (and the variations that exist within parishes, among parishes, and among priests) lead people to conclude that doctrine itself must be subject to the sort of change and evolution evidenced in the liturgy. Everything is up for grabs, including the nature of God Himself. Nothing is fixed in the nature of things or by the Deposit of Faith Our Lord entrusted to the Church through the Apostles. That this is one of the chief goals of the liturgical revolutionaries is plain for all to see and is something that has been the fodder of much discussion over the past forty years.

A liturgical rite is meant to reflect permanence. God is unchanging. Our need for Him is unchanging. His truths are unchanging. As the liturgy is meant to provide us with a sense of same sort of security we find in our earthly dwellings, our homes, as a foretaste of the security we will know in our Heavenly dwelling if we persist until our dying breaths in states of sanctifying grace, it is obviously the case that it should reflect the permanence and transcendence of God and of the nature of His revelation. The Immemorial Mass of Tradition conveys this sense of permanence by virtue of the fixed nature of the rites (the gestures, the stability of the liturgical calendar, the annual cycle of readings, the repetition of the readings of a Sunday Mass during the following week if no feast days or votive Masses are celebrated on a particular day). It also conveys the sense of permanence and transcendence by its use of Latin, a dead language.

As Dr. Adrian Fortesque pointed out in his works, Latin is by no means a necessity for the celebration of the Mass. The various Eastern rites are offered in different idioms. And Latin itself was once the language of the people. (Indeed, one of the ways to rebut the charge made so regularly by Protestants that Catholics desired to "hide" the Bible from the people prior to the Protestant Revolt is to point out that when Saint Jerome translated the Bible from the Hebrew and the Greek into the Latin Vulgate, he did so to make it accessible to the people. Latin was the language of the people at that time.) The fall of the Roman Empire in the West, however, led to Latin's falling into disuse as the vernacular of the people. This was an "accident" of history, admitting, obviously, that all things happen in the Providence of God. This "accident," however, wound up serving to convey the sense of permanence and transcendence which is so essential to the Adoration of the Most Blessed Trinity in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

As Latin is now a dead language, it is no longer subject to the sort of ideological manipulation and deconstructionism found in a living language. A dead language is what it is. Its words have a permanent, precise meaning. This "accident" of history, which, of course, has occurred within the Divine Providence of God, has helped to convey the sense that God is permanent, His truths are permanent, our need for Him is permanent, and our worship of Him must reflect this permanence. Furthermore, Latin conveys the universality of the Faith. A dead language is beyond the ability of anyone, including a priest, to manipulate. Thus, the Mass of the Roman Rite is the same everywhere. It is the same in New York as it is Spain. It is the same in the United Kingdom as it is in Japan. It is the same in Nigeria as it is in Argentina. It is the same in its essence in 2016 as it was 1571. This furthers the sense of permanence as a constituent element of the end of Adoration.

Latin also conveys the sense of the Mysterium Tremendum. Although it is possible to pray the Mass with a priest by the use of a good Missal (such as the Father Lasance New Roman Missal), even those who are fluent in ecclesiastical and scholastic Latin understand that Latin conveys of its nature a sense of mystery. The Mass after all contains within it the mysteries of salvation. We know intellectually what the Mass is and what takes place therein. However, not even the greatest theologian in the history of the Church understands fully how these mysteries take place. We accept them as having been given us by Our Lord through Holy Mother Church. We want to plumb their depths by means of assiduous prayer and study. No human being, however, can possibly claim to understand the mystery of God's love for His sinful creatures, no less His desire to reconcile us to Himself through the shedding of His own Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross. Latin conveys the sense of the tremendous mystery which is the Mass.

Moreover, Latin is not an incomprehensible language, as some defenders of the new order of things contend so arrogantly.

Little Jorge Mario Bergoglio could not understand in his youth what he rejects to this very day that is, the simple fact even illiterate peasants in the Middle Ages understood the Mass as a result of their being immersed into it week after week after week. Indeed, they had a better understanding of the nature of the Mass (and of its ends) than do the lion's share of Catholics today, immersed as they have been in almost fifty-six of vernacular banality and incessant “innovations,” whether “approved” or “unapproved.” Nevertheless, Latin conveys the beauty and the glory and the honor and the permanence and the transcendence and the mystery associated with God and His Revelation.

To be sure, Latin is not an absolute guarantor of such qualities. The constituent prayers of the Mass must express the fullness of the Holy Faith, something which is not done in the Latin editio typica of the Novus Ordo. A simple comparison of the prayers found in the Missale Romanum promulgated by Pope Saint Pius V and the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service of Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul the Sick demonstrates that the expression of the faith has been changed quite radically (as I noted when analyzing Paragraph 15 of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal in Change for change sake). This is especially the case with feasts of the Blessed Mother as I noted in the text of the third edition of G.I.R.M. Warfare: The Conciliar Church's Unremitting Warfare Against Catholic Faith and Worship.

That those responsible the synthetic conciliar liturgy felt free to tamper with the expression of the faith indicates that it is not simply Latin in se which is the guarantor of the permanence associated with the Adoration of God in the Mass. It is the use of Latin and the prayers that most fully express within themselves the Deposit of Faith that conveys such permanence and universality. And, naturally, as Latin is the language of Missale Romanum of Pope Saint Pius V, it does not need to be translated into a living language for its celebration by the priest, who thereby is simply an agent to whom has been entrusted our glorious liturgical tradition, to be celebrated in all of its beauty and splendor.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio did not understand this as a boy, and he is does not understand this now in his eightieth year of life. He is as much a mocker of the Holy Faith and of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition now as he was then.

This is because Bergoglio believes in a different faith, a false faith that is the counterfeit ape of Catholicism, a false faith that demanded a new form of worship, one that stresses the horizontal relationship of men with each other, not the vertical relationship of man to His Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.

The late Monsignor Klaus Gamber, who was in favor of some liturgical reforms but a critic of Annibable Bugnini’s Novus Ordo service, explained this fact in no uncertain terms:

Not only is the Novus Ordo Missae of 1969 a change of the liturgical rite, but that change also involved a rearrangement of the liturgical year, including changes in the assignment of feast days for the saints. To add or drop one or the other of these feast days, as had been done before, certainly does not constitute a change of the rite, per se. But the countless innovations introduced as part of liturgical reform have left hardly any of the traditional liturgical forms intact . . .

At this critical juncture, the traditional Roman rite, more than one thousand years old and until now the heart of the Church, was destroyed. A closer examination reveals that the Roman rite was not perfect, and that some elements of value had atrophied over the centuries. Yet, through all the periods of the unrest that again and again shook the Church to her foundations, the Roman rite always remained the rock, the secure home of faith and piety. . . .

Was all this really done because of a pastoral concern about the souls of the faithful, or did it not rather represent a radical breach with the traditional rite, to prevent the further use of traditional liturgical texts and thus to make the celebration of the "Tridentime Mass" impossible--because it no loner reflected the new spirit moving through the Church?

Indeed, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the prohibition of the traditional rite was announced at the same time as the introduction of the new liturgical texts; and that a dispensation to continue celebrating the Mass according to the traditional rite was granted only to older priests.

Obviously, the reformers wanted a completely new liturgy, a liturgy that differed from the traditional one in spirit as well as in form; and in no way a liturgy that represented what the Council Fathers had envisioned, i.e., a liturgy that would meet the pastoral needs of the faithful.

Liturgy and faith are interdependent. That is why a new rite was created, a rite that in many ways reflects the bias of the new (modernist) theology. The traditional liturgy simply could not be allowed to exist in its established form because it was permeated with the truths of the traditional faith and the ancient forms of piety. For this reason alone, much was abolished and new rites, prayers and hymns were introduced, as were the new readings from Scripture, which conveniently left out those passages that did not square with the teachings of modern theology--for example, references to a God who judges and punishes.

At the same time, the priests and the faithful are told that the new liturgy created after the Second Vatican Council is identical in essence with the liturgy that has been in use in the Catholic Church up to this point, and that the only changes introduced involved reviving some earlier liturgical forms and removing a few duplications, but above all getting rid of elements of no particular interest.

Most priests accepted these assurances about the continuity of liturgical forms of worship and accepted the new rite with the same unquestioning obedience with which they had accepted the minor ritual changes introduced by Rome from time to time in the past, changes beginning with the reform of the Divine Office and of the liturgical chant introduced by Pope St. Pius X.

Following this strategy, the groups pushing for reform were able to take advantage of and at the same time abuse the sense of obedience among the older priests, and the common good will of the majority of the faithful, while, in many cases, they themselves refused to obey. . . .

The real destruction of the traditional Mass, of the traditional Roman rite with a history of more than one thousand years, is the wholesale destruction of the faith on which it was based, a faith that had been the source of our piety and of our courage to bear witness to Christ and His Church, the inspiration of countless Catholics over many centuries. Will someone, some day, be able to say the same thing about the new Mass? (Monsignor Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, p. 39, p. 99, pp. 100-102.)

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself described Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s blasphemous mockeries directed at everything to do with authentic Catholic Faith and Worship:

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. (John 8: 44.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio is not a Catholic, and it is generally a nifty kind of thing for one who claims to be a true pope to be a Catholic, and I will let both Saint Francis de Sales and Pope Leo XIII explain why Bergoglio is not a member of the Catholic Church:

With reference to its object, faith cannot be greater for some truths than for others. Nor can it be less with regard to the number of truths to be believed. For we must all believe the very same thing, both as to the object of faith as well as to the number of truths. All are equal in this because everyone must believe all the truths of faith--both those which God Himself has directly revealed, as well as those he has revealed through His Church. Thus, I must believe as much as you and you as much as I, and all other Christians similarly. He who does not believe all these mysteries is not Catholic and therefore will never enter Paradise. (Saint Francis de Sales, The Sermons of Saint Francis de Sales for Lent Given in 1622, republished by TAN Books and Publishers for the Visitation Monastery of Frederick, Maryland, in 1987, pp. 34-37.)

The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88). (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)

No, “partial credit” does not cut it to retain one's membership in good standing within the maternal bosom of Holy Mother Church:

Such is the nature of Catholicism that it does not admit of more or less, but must be held as a whole or as a whole rejected: ‘This is the Catholic Faith, which unless a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved’ (Athanasian Creed). There is no need of adding any qualifying terms to the profession of Catholicism: it is quite enough for each one to proclaim ‘Christian is my name and Catholic my surname,’ only let him endeavor to be in reality what he calls himself.

Besides, the Church demands from those who have devoted themselves to furthering her interests, something very different from the dwelling upon profitless questions; she demands that they should devote the whole of their energy to preserve the faith intact and unsullied by any breath of error, and follow most closely him whom Christ has appointed to be the guardian and interpreter of the truth. There are to be found today, and in no small numbers, men, of whom the Apostle says that: "having itching ears, they will not endure sound doctrine: but according to their own desires they will heap up to themselves teachers, and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables" (II Tim. iv. 34). Infatuated and carried away by a lofty idea of the human intellect, by which God's good gift has certainly made incredible progress in the study of nature, confident in their own judgment, and contemptuous of the authority of the Church, they have reached such a degree of rashness as not to hesitate to measure by the standard of their own mind even the hidden things of God and all that God has revealed to men. Hence arose the monstrous errors of "Modernism," which Our Predecessor rightly declared to be "the synthesis of all heresies," and solemnly condemned. We hereby renew that condemnation in all its fulness, Venerable Brethren, and as the plague is not yet entirely stamped out, but lurks here and there in hidden places, We exhort all to be carefully here and there in hidden places, We exhort all to be carefully on their guard against any contagion of the evil, to which we may apply the words Job used in other circumstances: "It is a fire that devoureth even to destruction, and rooteth up all things that spring" (Job xxxi. 12). Nor do We merely desire that Catholics should shrink from the errors of Modernism, but also from the tendencies or what is called the spirit of Modernism. Those who are infected by that spirit develop a keen dislike for all that savours of antiquity and become eager searchers after novelties in everything: in the way in which they carry out religious functions, in the ruling of Catholic institutions, and even in private exercises of piety. Therefore it is Our will that the law of our forefathers should still be held sacred: "Let there be no innovation; keep to what has been handed down." In matters of faith that must be inviolably adhered to as the law; it may however also serve as a guide even in matters subject to change, but even in such cases the rule would hold: "Old things, but in a new way."  (Pope Benedict XV, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, November 1, 1914.)

Pope Pius XI, writing in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928, also rejected any notion of a distinction between "fundamental" and allegedly "non-fundamental" doctrines of the Catholic Faith:

Besides this, in connection with things which must be believed, it is nowise licit to use that distinction which some have seen fit to introduce between those articles of faith which are fundamental and those which are not fundamental, as they say, as if the former are to be accepted by all, while the latter may be left to the free assent of the faithful: for the supernatural virtue of faith has a formal cause, namely the authority of God revealing, and this is patient of no such distinction. For this reason it is that all who are truly Christ's believe, for example, the Conception of the Mother of God without stain of original sin with the same faith as they believe the mystery of the August Trinity, and the Incarnation of our Lord just as they do the infallible teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, according to the sense in which it was defined by the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican. Are these truths not equally certain, or not equally to be believed, because the Church has solemnly sanctioned and defined them, some in one age and some in another, even in those times immediately before our own? Has not God revealed them all? For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. But in the use of this extraordinary teaching authority no newly invented matter is brought in, nor is anything new added to the number of those truths which are at least implicitly contained in the deposit of Revelation, divinely handed down to the Church: only those which are made clear which perhaps may still seem obscure to some, or that which some have previously called into question is declared to be of faith.  (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

It is very late for anyone not to see that the conciliar "popes" have not possessed the Catholic Faith, and they did not possess it at the time of their supposed "elections" by their brother apostates in 1958, 1963, twice in 1978, 2005, and 2013, and I hope that those who are not yet convinced of this truth will take the time to read Memorandum from Saint Ambrose to All Catholics: “The Catholic faith derives so much strength and support from the words of the Apostolic See, that it is criminal to entertain any doubts concerning it” and Dumbing Down the Papacy: 1976-2024.

On the Feast of Saint Paul the First Hermit

Today is the Feast of Saint Paul the First Hermit and the Commemoration of Saint Maurus, the very first disciple of Saint Benedict of Nursia.

Saint Paul the First Hermit sought to escape the business of the world to focus entirely on the things of Heaven, finding an intimacy with the Divine Redeemer that led him to embrace all manner of austere fasting and penances to more closely conform himself to Him and His Holy Passion.

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., provided a detailed hagiography of Saint Paul in The Liturgical Year:

Today, the Church honours the memory of one of those men, who were expressly chosen by God to represent the sublime detachment from all things, which was taught to the world by the example of the Son of God, born in a Cave, at Bethlehem. Paul the Hermit so prized the poverty of his Divine Master, that he fled to the desert, where he could find nothing to possess and nothing to covet. He had a mere cavern for his dwelling; a palm-tree provided him with food and clothing; a fountain gave him wherewith to quench his thirst; and heaven sent him his only luxury, a loaf of bread brought to him daily by a crow. For sixty years did Paul thus serve, in poverty, and in solitude, that God, who was denied a dwelling on the earth He came to redeem, and could have but a poor Stable wherein to be born.

But God dwelt with Paul in his cavern; and in him began the Anchorites, that sublime race of men, who, the better to enjoy the company of their God, denied themselves, not only the society, but the very right, of men. They were the Angels of earth, in whom God showed forth, for the instruction of the rest of men, that he is powerful enough, and rich enough, to supply the wants of his creatures, who, indeed, have nothing but what they have from Him. The Hermit, or Anchoret, is a prodigy in the Church, and it behoves us to glorify the God who has produced it. We ought to be filled with astonishment and gratitude, at seeing how the Mystery of a God made Flesh has so elevated our human nature, as to inspire a contempt and abandonment of those earthly goods, which heretofore had been so eagerly sought after.

The two names, Paul and Antony, are not to be separated; they are the two Apostles of the Desert; both are Fathers--Paul of Anchorites, and Antony of Cenobites; the two families are sisters, and both have the same source, the Mystery of Bethlehem. The sacred Cycle of the Church's year unites, with only a day between their two Feasts, these two faithful disciples of Jesus in his Crib.

The Church reads in her Office, the following abridgment of St . Paul's wonderful Life.

Paul, the institutor and master of Hermits, was born in Lower Thebais. He lost his parents when he was fifteen years of age. Not long after that, in order to escape the persecution of Decius and Valerian, and to serve God the more freely, he withdrew into the desert, where he made a cave his dwelling. A palmtree afforded him food and raiment, and there he lived to the age of a hundred and thirteen. About that time, he received a visit from Antony, who was ninety-years old. God bade him visit Paul. The two Saints, though they had not previously known each other, saluted each other by their names. Whilst holding a long conversation on the kingdom of God, a crow, which every day brought half a loaf of bread, carried them a whole one. When the crowhad left them, Paul said: "See! our truly good and truly merciful Lord has sent us our repast. For sixty years, I have daily received a half loaf; now, because thou art come to see me, Christ has doubled the portion for his soldiers."

Wherefore, they sat near the fountain, and, giving thanks, they eat the bread; and when they were refreshed, they again returned the accustomed thanks to God, and spent the night in the divine praises. At daybreak, Paul tells Antony of his approaching death, and begs him go and bring the cloak, which Athanasius had given him, and wrap his corpse in it. As Antony was returning from his cell, he saw Paul's soul going up into heaven, amidst choirs of Angels, and a throng of Prophets and Apostles.

When he had reached the hermit's cell, he found the lifeless body: the knees were bent, the head erect, and the hands stretched out and raised towards heaven. He wrapped it in the cloak, and sang hymns and psalms over it, according to the custom prescribed by Christian tradition. Not having a hoe wherewith to make a grave, two lions came at a rapid pace from the interior of the desert, and stood over the body of the venerable Saint, showing how, in their own way, they lamented his death. They began to tear up the earth with their feet, and seemed to strive to outdo each other in the work, until they had made a hole large enough to receive the body of a man. When they had gone, Antony carried the holy corpse to the place, and covering it with the soil, he arranged the grave after the manner of the Christians. As to the tunic, which Paul had woven for himself out of palm-leaves, as baskets are usually made, Antony took it away with him, and, as long as he lived, wore it on the great days of Easter and Pentecost. (From Matins, Divine Office, Feast of Saint Paul the First Hermit.)

Father and Prince of Hermits! thou art now contemplating in all his glory that God, whose weakness and lowliness thou didst study and imitate during the sixty years of thy desert-life: thou art now with him in the eternal union of the Vision. Instead of thy cavern, where thou didst spend thy life of unknown penance, thou hast the immensity of the heavens for thy dwelling; instead of thy tunic of palm-leaves, thou hast the robe of Light; instead of the pittance of material bread, thou hast the Bread of eternal life; instead of thy humble fountain, thou hast the waters which spring up to eternity, filling thy soul with infinite delights. Thou didst imitate the silence of the Babe of Bethlehem by thy holy life of seclusion; now, thy tongue is for ever singing the praises of this God, and the music of infinite bliss is for ever falling on thine ear. Thou didst not know this world of ours, save by its deserts; but now, thou must compassionate and pray for us who live in it; speak for us to our dear Jesus; remind Him how He visited it in wonderful mercy and love; pray his sweet blessing upon us, and the graces of perfect detachment from transitory things, love of poverty, love of prayer, and love of our heavenly country. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint Paul the First Hermit, January 15.)

We must imitate the virtues of Saint Paul the First Hermit and retreat, as far as is possible given the duties from our state-in-life, from the distractions of the world and to long for the glories of Heaven as we meditate upon the Sacred Mysteries of our Redemption.

We have not here a permanent dwelling. The madness of a world gone mad without Christ the King is not going to end even after President-elect Donald John Trump takes the oath of office for second, nonconsecutive term on Monday, January 20, 2025, which is why we must turn to Our Lady of Prompt Succor on this her feast day.

Our Lady came to the aid of Catholics in New Orleans during the Battle of New Orleans, fought about six weeks after the signing of the Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812 between the United Kingdom and the United States of America, on January 8, 1815. Our Lady came to the aid of the forces of Colonel Andrew Jackson, a wretched demagogue of a man who was a partisan of the principles of the French Revolution and a Freemason who did not have a particularly high regard for Catholics prior to this time—and who always had contempt for the American Indians, as he defended the City of New Orleans from the British onslaught while Catholics prayed Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary before the miraculous statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor. Prayers to Our Lady of Prompt Succor had saved the Ursuline Convent in New Orleans a few years before.

Andrew Jackson, however, never converted to the Faith, remaining true to his "republican" principles to the end of his life. He witnessed a miracle but was unmoved to convert to the Faith whose adherents had prayed for him to turn back the British military onslaught.

It must not be that way with us.

We must cooperate with the graces that Our Lady showers upon us to change us so that we can plant the seeds for the conversion of our nation to the true Faith.

As I have noted before, it may not be within the Providence of God for such a conversion to occur. We must, however, do our work to this end as this is what is expected of us. True patriotism wills the good of one's nation, the ultimate expression of which is her Catholicization in every aspect of her social life and public policies without any exception whatsoever. Our Lady is the Heavenly aid sent us to by her Divine Son to help us in this regard. 

You want real change in your own soul and in our nation?

Pray the Rosary faithfully and fervently and offer up everything in your daily life to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart as we fulfill her Fatima Message in our own homes, enthroned as they should be to those same Twin Hearts of matchless Love.

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of Prompt Succor, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Paul the Abbot, pray for us.

Saint Maurus, pray for us.

Appendix

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., on the Feast of Saint Maurus the Abbot

Saint Maurus—one of the greatest masters of the Cenobitical Life, and the most illustrious of the Disciples of St. Benedict, the Patriarch of the Monks of the West—shares with the First Hermit the honours of this fifteenth day of January. Faithful, like the holy Hermit, to the lessons taught at Bethlehem, Maurus has a claim to have his Feast kept during the forty days, which are sacred to the sweet Babe Jesus. He comes to us each January to bear witness to the power of that Babe’s humility. Who, forsooth, will dare to doubt of the triumphant power of the Poverty, and the obedience shown in the Crib of our Emmanuel, when he is told of the grand things done by those virtues in the Cloisters of Fair France?

It was to Maurus that France was indebted for the introduction into her territory of that admirable Rule, which produced the great Saints, and the great Men, to whom she owes the best part of her glory. The children of St. Benedict, by St. Maurus, struggled against the barbarism of the Franks, under the first race of her kings; under the second, they instructed, in sacred and profane literature, the people, in whose civilization they had so powerfully co-operated; under the third—and even in modern times, when the Benedictine Order, enslaved by the system of Commendatory-Abbots, and decimated by political tyranny or violence, was dying out amidst every kind of humiliation—they were the fathers of the poor by the charitable use of their large possessions, and the ornaments of literature and science by their immense contributions to ecclesiastical science and archaeology, as also to the history of their own country.

St. Maurus built his celebrated Monastery of Glanfeuil, and Glanfeuil may be considered as the mother house of the principal Monasteries in France, Saint Germain and Saint Denis of Paris, Marmoutier, Saint Victor, Luxeuil, Jumieges, Fleury Corbie, Saint Vannes, Moyen-Moutier, Saint Wandrille, Saint Waast, La Chaise-Dieu, Tiron, Cheza, Benoit, Le Bec, and innumerable other Monasteries in France gloried in being daughters of Monte-Cassino by the favourite Disciple of St. Benedict. Cluny, which gave several Popes to the Church—and among them, St. Gregory the Seventh, and Urban the Second—was indebted to St. Maurus for that Rule, which gave her her glory and her power. We must count up the Apostles, Martyrs, Bishops, Doctors, Confessors, and Virgins, who were formed, for twelve hundred years, in the Benedictine Cloisters of France; we must calculate the services, both temporal and spiritual, done to this great country by the Benedictine Monks, during all that period; and we shall have some idea of the results produced by the mission of St. Maurus—results, whose whole glory redounds to the Babe of Bethlehem, and to the mysteries of his humility, which are the source and model of the Monastic Life. When, therefore, we admire the greatness of the Saints, and recount their wonderful works, we are glorifying our Jesus, the King of all Saints.

The Monastic Breviary, in the Office of this Feast, gives us the following sketch of the Life of St. Maurus.

Maurus was by birth a Roman. His father, whose name was Eutychius, and a Senator by rank, had placed him, when a little boy, under the care of St. Benedict. Trained in the school of such and so great a Master of holiness, he attained to the highest degree of monastic perfection, even before he had ceased to be a child; so that Benedict himself was in admiration, and used to speak of his virtues to every one, holding him forth to the rest of the house as a model of religious discipline. He subdued his flesh by austerities, such as the wearing a hair-shirt, night watching, and frequent fasting; giving, meanwhile, to his spirit the solace of assiduous prayer, holy compunction, and reading the Sacred Scriptures. During Lent, he took food but twice in the week, and that so sparingly, as to seem rather to be tasting than taking it. He slept standing, or, when excessive fatigue obliged him to it, sitting, or, at times, lying down on a heap of lime and sand, over which he threw his hair-shirt. His sleep was exceedingly short, for he always recited very long prayers, and often the whole of the Psalms, before the midnight Office.

He gave a proof of his admirable spirit of obedience on the occasion of Placid’s having fallen into the lake, and being nearly drowned. Maurus, at the bidding of the Holy Father, ran to the lake, walked dry-shod upon the water, and, taking the child by the hair of his head, drew him safe to the bank; for Placid was to be slain by the sword as a martyr, and our Lord reserved him as a victim, which should be offered to him. On account of such signal virtues as these, the same Holy Father made Maurus share the cares of his duties; for, from his very entrance into the monastic life, he had had a part in his miracles. He had been raised to the holy order of Deaconship by St. Benedict’s command; and by placing the stole he wore on a dumb and lame boy, he gave him the power both to speak and walk.

Maurus was sent by his Holy Father into France. Scarcely had he set his foot on that land, than he had a vision of the triumphant entrance of that great saint into heaven. He promulgated in that country the Rule which St. Benedict had written with his own hand, and had given to him on his leaving Italy; though the labour and anxiety he had to go through in the accomplishment of his mission, were exceedingly great. Having built the celebrated Monastery, which he governed for forty years, so great was the reputation of his virtues, that several of the , noblest lords of King Theodobert’s court put themselves under Maurus’ direction, and enrolled in the holier and more meritorious warfare of the monastic life.

Two years before his death, he resigned the government of his Monastery, and retired into a cell near the Oratory of St. Martin. There he exercised himself in most rigorous penance, wherewith he fortified himself for the contest he had to sustain against the enemy of mankind, who threatened him with the death of his Monks. In this combat a holy Angel was his comforter, who, after revealing to him the snares of the wicked spirit, and the designs of God, bade him and his disciples win the crown prepared for them. Having, therefore, sent to heaven before him, as so many forerunners, a hundred and more of his brave soldiers, and knowing that he, their leader, was soon to follow them, he signified his wish to be carried to the Oratory, where, being strengthened by the Sacrament of Life, and lying on his hair-shirt, as a victim before the Altar, he died a saintly death. He was upwards of seventy years of age. It would be difficult to describe the success wherewith he propagated Monastic discipline in France, or to tell the miracles which, both before and after his death, rendered him glorious among men.

How blessed was thy Mission, O favourite and worthy disciple of the great Saint Benedict! How innumerable the Saints that sprang from thee and thy illustrious Patriarch! The Rule thou didst promulgate, was truly the salvation of that great country which thou and thy disciples evangelised; and the fruits of the Order thou didst plant there, have been indeed abundant. But now that from thy throne in heaven thou beholdest that fair France, which was once covered with Monasteries, and from which there mounted up to God the ceaseless voice of prayer and praise, and now thou scarce findest the ruins of these noble Sanctuaries—dost thou not turn towards our Lord, and beseech him that he make the wilderness bloom once more as of old? Oh! what has become of those Cloisters, wherein were trained Apostles of Nations, learned Pontiffs, intrepid defenders of the Liberty of the Church, holy Doctors and heroes of sanctity—all of whom call thee their second Father? Who will bring back again those vigorous principles of poverty, obedience, hard work, and penance, which made the Monastic Life be the object of the people’s admiration and love, and attracted tens of thousands of every class in society to embrace it? Instead of this holy enthusiasm of the ages of faith, we, alas! can show little else than cowardice of heart, love of this life, zeal for enjoyment, dread of the cross, and, at best, comfortable and inactive piety. Pray, great Saint! that these days may be shortened; that the christians of the present generation may grow earnest by reflecting on the sanctity to which they are called; that our sluggish hearts may put on the fortitude of knowing and doing, at least, our duty. Then, indeed, will the future glories of the Church be as great and bright as our love of her makes us picture them to ourselves—for, all the Church needs in order to fulfil her destinies, is courageous hearts. Oh! if our God hear thy prayer, and give us once more the Monastic Life in all its purity and vigour,—we shall be safe, and the evil of faith without earnestness, which is now producing such havoc in the spiritual world, will be replaced by christian energy. Teach us, O Maurus! to know the dear Babe of Bethlehem, and to get well into our hearts his life and doctrine; for we shall then understand the greatness of our christian vocation, and that the only way to overcome our enemy the world, is that which He, our Master and Guide, followed. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint Maurus, Abbot, January 15.)