Part Two
by
Thomas A. Droleskey
Even though Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, the outgoing executive director of the Occupy Vatican Movement, contended in an address to the "bishops" and clergy of the Diocese of Rome that what he called a "council of journalists" had misrepresented the "Second" Vatican Council and was responsible for the devastation of the Catholic Faith in the lives of Catholics thereafter, his own words prove that it was the council itself and its false, Modernist presuppositions that caused the damage he blamed so sanctimoniously on the"council of journalists."
To wit, Ratzinger/Benedict cited the "Liturgical Movement" as a prime force in the "renewal of the liturgy" as anticipated in and defended in the "Second" Vatican Council's first document, Sacrosanctum Concilium, November 1, 1963. This "Liturgical Movement," which was led by Modernist revolutionaries who hijacked the original Liturgical Movement that had commenced with the work of Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B,, the author of The Liturgical Year, in the Nineteenth Century, attempted to revive the antiquarian principles of Jansenism that were condemned Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei, August 28,1794.
Here is the counterfeit church of conciliarism's outgoing "pope's" elegy of praise in behalf of the the hijacked "Liturgical Movement:"
Referring to the reform of the liturgy, the Pope recalled that "after the First World War, a liturgical movement had grown in Western Central Europe," as "the rediscovery of the richness and depth of the liturgy," which hitherto was almost locked within the priest’s Roman Missal, while the people prayed with their prayer books "that were made according to the heart of the people", so that "the task was to translate the high content, the language of the classical liturgy, into more moving words, that were closer to the heart of the people. But they were almost two parallel liturgies: the priest with the altar servers, who celebrated the Mass according to the Missal and the lay people who prayed the Mass with their prayer books”. " Now - he continued - "The beauty, the depth, the Missal’s wealth of human and spiritual history " was rediscovered as well as the need more than one representative of the people, a small altar boy, to respond "Et cum spiritu your" etc. , to allow for "a real dialogue between priest and people," so that the liturgy of the altar and the liturgy of the people really were "one single liturgy, one active participation": "and so it was that the liturgy was rediscovered, renewed."
The Pope said he saw the fact that the Council started with the liturgy as a very positive sign, because in this way "the primacy of God” was self evident”. Some – he noted - criticized the Council because it spoke about many things, but not about God: instead, it spoke of God and its first act was to speak of God and open to the entire holy people the possibility of worshiping God, in the common celebration of the liturgy of the Body and Blood of Christ. In this sense - he observed - beyond the practical factors that advised against immediately starting with controversial issues, it was actually "an act of Providence" that the Council began with the liturgy, God, Adoration.
The Holy Father then recalled the essential ideas of the Council: especially the paschal mystery as a centre of Christian existence, and therefore of Christian life, as expressed in Easter and Sunday, which is always the day of the Resurrection, "over and over again we begin our time with the Resurrection, with an encounter with the Risen One. " In this sense - he observed - it is unfortunate that today, Sunday has been transformed into the end of the week, while it is the first day, it is the beginning: "inwardly we must bear in mind this is the beginning, the beginning of Creation, the beginning of the re-creation of the Church, our encounter with the Creator and with the Risen Christ. " The Pope stressed the importance of this dual content of Sunday: it is the first day, that is the feast of the Creation, as we believe in God the Creator, and encounter with the Risen One who renews Creation: "its real purpose is to create a world which is a response to God's love. "
The Council also pondered the principals of the intelligibility of the Liturgy - instead of being locked up in an unknown language, which was no longer spoken - and active participation. "Unfortunately – he said - these principles were also poorly understood." In fact, intelligibility does not mean "banalizing" because the great texts of the liturgy - even in the spoken languages - are not easily intelligible, "they require an ongoing formation of the Christian, so that he may grow and enter deeper into the depths of the mystery, and thus comprehend". And also concerning the Word of God - he asked - who can honestly say they understand the texts of Scripture, simply because they are in their own language? "Only a permanent formation of the heart and mind can actually create intelligibility and participation which is more than one external activity, which is an entering of the person, of his or her being into communion with the Church and thus in fellowship with Christ." (Blame the Media, Not the Council, Not Me or My Apostate Views.)
Rediscovering the "richness and depth of the liturgy"?
To believe this, of course, one must believe that the Immemorial of Mass of Tradition, which has been the principal rite of the Catholic Church throughout her history, had hidden the "richness and depth of the liturgy, a notion that is blasphemous and absurd.
" 'The beauty, the depth, the Missal’s wealth of human and spiritual history' was rediscovered as well as the need more than one representative of the people, a small altar boy, to respond 'Et cum spiritu your' etc. , to allow for "a real dialogue between priest and people," so that the liturgy of the altar and the liturgy of the people really were 'one single liturgy, one active participation': "and so it was that the liturgy was rediscovered, renewed"?
Sickening beyond description.
Ratzinger/Benedict does indeed live in a fantasyland of his own making as he would have us believe that the countless number of souls, no less canonized saints, who were edified and sanctified by glories of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition, even admitting regional variations prior to the issuance of the Missale Romanum in 1570 by Pope Saint Pius V, over the course of over nineteen centuries had been deprived of the "richness and depth of the liturgy." In other words, the leaders of the hijacked "Liturgical Movement" had "secret" knowledge somewhat akin to Gnosticism. They had "rediscovered" what had been lost in the past just as Ratzinger/Benedict himself had to "discover" for us that doctrinal truth can never be formulated precisely at any one time given the imprecision of human language and the vicissitudes of changing historical circumstances.
This all calls to mind Pope Saint Pius X's description of the overweening pride possessed by Modernists:
40. To penetrate still deeper into the meaning of Modernism and to find a
suitable remedy for so deep a sore, it behooves Us, Venerable Brethren, to
investigate the causes which have engendered it and which foster its growth.
That the proximate and immediate cause consists in an error of the mind cannot
be open to doubt. We recognize that the remote causes may be reduced to two:
curiosity and pride. Curiosity by itself, if not prudently regulated, suffices
to account for all errors. Such is the opinion of Our predecessor, Gregory XVI,
who wrote: "A lamentable spectacle is that presented by the aberrations of human
reason when it yields to the spirit of novelty, when against the warning of the
Apostle it seeks to know beyond what it is meant to know, and when relying too
much on itself it thinks it can find the truth outside the Catholic Church
wherein truth is found without the slightest shadow of error."
But it is pride which exercises an incomparably greater sway over the soul to
blind it and lead it into error, and pride sits in Modernism as in its own
house, finding sustenance everywhere in its doctrines and lurking in its every
aspect. It is pride which fills Modernists with that self-assurance by which
they consider themselves and pose as the rule for all. It is pride which puffs
them up with that vainglory which allows them to regard themselves as the sole
possessors of knowledge, and makes them say, elated and inflated with
presumption, "We are not as the rest of men," and which, lest they should seem
as other men, leads them to embrace and to devise novelties even of the most
absurd kind. It is pride which rouses in them the spirit of disobedience and
causes them to demand a compromise between authority and liberty. It is owing to
their pride that they seek to be the reformers of others while they forget to
reform themselves, and that they are found to be utterly wanting in respect for
authority, even for the supreme authority. Truly there is no road which leads so
directly and so quickly to Modernism as pride. When a Catholic layman or a
priest forgets the precept of the Christian life which obliges us to renounce
ourselves if we would follow Christ and neglects to tear pride from his heart,
then it is he who most of all is a fully ripe subject for the errors of
Modernism. For this reason, Venerable Brethren, it will be your first duty to
resist such victims of pride, to employ them only in the lowest and obscurest
offices. The higher they try to rise, the lower let them be placed, so that the
lowliness of their position may limit their power of causing damage. Examine
most carefully your young clerics by yourselves and by the directors of your
seminaries, and when you find the spirit of pride among them reject them without
compunction from the priesthood. Would to God that this had always been done
with the vigilance and constancy which were required!
41. If we pass on from the moral to the intellectual causes of Modernism, the
first and the chief which presents itself is ignorance. Yes, these very
Modernists who seek to be esteemed as Doctors of the Church, who speak so
loftily of modern philosophy and show such contempt for scholasticism, have
embraced the one with all its false glamour, precisely because their ignorance
of the other has left them without the means of being able to recognize
confusion of thought and to refute sophistry. Their whole system, containing as
it does errors so many and so great, has been born of the union between faith
and false philosophy.
42. Would that they had but displayed less zeal and energy in propagating it!
But such is their activity and such their unwearying labor on behalf of their
cause, that one cannot but be pained to see them waste such energy in
endeavoring to ruin the Church when they might have been of such service to her
had their efforts been better directed. Their artifices to delude men's minds
are of two kinds, the first to remove obstacles from their path, the second to
devise and apply actively and patiently every resource that can serve their
purpose. They recognize that the three chief difficulties which stand in their
way are the scholastic method of philosophy, the authority and tradition of the
Fathers, and the magisterium of the Church, and on these they wage unrelenting
war. Against scholastic philosophy and theology they use the weapons of ridicule
and contempt. Whether it is ignorance or fear, or both, that inspires this
conduct in them, certain it is that the passion for novelty is always united in
them with hatred of scholasticism, and there is no surer sign that a man is
tending to Modernism than when he begins to show his dislike for the scholastic
method. Let the Modernists and their admirers remember the proposition condemned
by Pius IX: "The method and principles which have served the ancient doctors of
scholasticism when treating of theology no longer correspond with the exigencies
of our time or the progress of science." They exercise all their ingenuity
in an effort to weaken the force and falsify the character of tradition, so as
to rob it of all its weight and authority. But for Catholics nothing will remove
the authority of the second Council of Nicea, where it condemns those "who dare,
after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions,
to invent novelties of some kind...or endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow
any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church"; nor that of the
declaration of the fourth Council of Constantinople: "We therefore profess to
preserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic
Church, by the Holy and most illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils,
both general and local, and by everyone of those divine interpreters, the
Fathers and Doctors of the Church." Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV and
Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following
declaration: "I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical
traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church.''
The Modernists pass judgment on the holy Fathers of the Church even as they
do upon tradition. With consummate temerity they assure the public that the
Fathers, while personally most worthy of all veneration, were entirely ignorant
of history and criticism, for which they are only excusable on account of the
time in which they lived. Finally, the Modernists try in every way to diminish
and weaken the authority of the ecclesiastical magisterium itself by
sacrilegiously falsifying its origin, character, and rights, and by freely
repeating the calumnies of its adversaries. To the entire band of Modernists may
be applied those words which Our predecessor sorrowfully wrote: "To bring
contempt and odium on the mystic Spouse of Christ, who is the true light, the
children of darkness have been wont to cast in her face before the world a
stupid calumny, and perverting the meaning and force of things and words, to
depict her as the friend of darkness and ignorance, and the enemy of light,
science, and progress.'' This being so, Venerable Brethren, there is little
reason to wonder that the Modernists vent all their bitterness and hatred on
Catholics who zealously fight the battles of the Church. There is no species of
insult which they do not heap upon them, but their usual course is to charge
them with ignorance or obstinacy. When an adversary rises up against them with
an erudition and force that renders them redoubtable, they seek to make a
conspiracy of silence around him to nullify the effects of his attack. This
policy towards Catholics is the more invidious in that they belaud with
admiration which knows no bounds the writers who range themselves on their side,
hailing their works, exuding novelty in every page, with a chorus of applause.
For them the scholarship of a writer is in direct proportion to the recklessness
of his attacks on antiquity, and of his efforts to undermine tradition and the
ecclesiastical magisterium. When one of their number falls under the
condemnations of the Church the rest of them, to the disgust of good Catholics,
gather round him, loudly and publicly applaud him, and hold him up in veneration
as almost a martyr for truth. The young, excited and confused by all this clamor
of praise and abuse, some of them afraid of being branded as ignorant, others
ambitious to rank among the learned, and both classes goaded internally by
curiosity and pride, not infrequently surrender and give themselves up to
Modernism. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
Pope Saint Pius X was known to have mystical experiences. Could he have foreseen Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict himself when he wrote these words? Perhaps not. However, the words describe the outgoing conciliar "pope" and his entire methodology with laser-sharp accuracy. The entirety of Ratzinger/Benedict's life's work and thus of the valedictory address that he delivered two days ago was condemned a little less than twenty years prior to his birth in Bavaria.
One does not need to spend much time dispensing with Ratzinger/Benedict's rhetorical question about the inability to understand Sacred Scripture even if its text has been translated into one's own language. I will let Saint Paul dispense with this in no uncertain terms:
[16] All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice, [17] That the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work. (2 Timothy 3: 16.)
Bishop Richard Challoner explained how Sacred Scripture has been understood and taught by Holy Mother Church:
[16] All scripture,: Every part of divine scripture is
certainly profitable for all these ends. But, if we would have the whole
rule of Christian faith and practice, we must not be content with those
Scriptures, which Timothy knew from his infancy, that is, with the Old
Testament alone: nor yet with the New Testament, without taking along
with it the traditions of the apostles, and the interpretation of the
church, to which the apostles delivered both the book, and the true
meaning of it.
Who can really understand Sacred Scripture even if it is rendered into his own language, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI?
Well, Holy Mother Church, guided infallible by the very Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, under Whose inspiration every word of Sacred Scripture was written, has done so from her very beginning, and she has never needed the "great discoveries" of Protestants or any other heretic or infidel to discharge her duties as our magistra.
Saint Jerome also had a pretty good understanding of Sacred Scripture, something that Pope Benedict XVI made clear in Spiritus Paraclitus, September 15, 1920:
57. "As a matter of fact, mere loquacity would not win any credit unless
backed by Scriptural authority, that is, when men see that the speaker is trying
to give his false doctrine Biblical support" (Tit. 1:10). Moreover, this
garrulous eloquence and wordy rusticity "lacks biting power, has nothing vivid
or life-giving in it; it is flaccid, languid and enervated; it is like boiled
herbs and grass, which speedily dry up and wither away."[106]
On the contrary the Gospel teaching is straightforward, it is like that
"least of all seeds" -- the mustard seed -- "no mere vegetable, but something
that 'grows into a tree so that the birds of the air come and dwell in its
branches'."[107] The consequence is that everybody hears gladly this simple and
holy fashion of speech, for it is clear and has real beauty without
artificiality:
"There are certain eloquent folk who puff out their cheeks and produce a
foaming torrent of words; may they win all the eulogiums they crave for! For
myself, I prefer so to speak that I may be intelligible; when I discuss the
Bible I prefer the Bible's simplicity[108]. . . A cleric's exposition of the
Bible should, of course, have a certain becoming eloquence; but he must keep
this in the background, for he must ever have in view the human race and not the
leisurely philosophical schools with their choice coterie of disciples."[109] (Pope Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, September 15, 1920.)
Those who have read Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth trilogy know that he specializes in making Sacred Scripture complex, depriving It of Its holy simplicity. This is what the man does with the entirety of the Deposit of Faith, thereby not-so-implicitly denying one of God's essential properties, His simplicity. His commands are simple. They are intelligible.
To be sure, the Sacred Mysteries that an alter Christus re-presents as an alter Christus during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass are beyond full human comprehension. The mysteries of the Faith, however, inspire us to love God Who has permitted us, His mere creatures, to worship Him in a fitting, dignified manner, something that we can fully comprehend as creatures are supposed to understand their lowliness as they marvel at the wonder of the Most Blessed Trinity and His ineffable goodness to us.
The Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service, has, in addition to depriving Catholics in the conciliar church of sacramental graces, robbed the lion's share of Catholics in the world of the sensus fidei to such an extent that the no longer believe in His Real Presence, something that is but a logical by-product of the fact that Our Blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ does not become present in the Novus Ordo service and is not in their tabernacles. And for Ratzinger/Benedict XVI to contend that the faithful did not truly "understand" the Sacred Liturgy prior to the "liturgical renewal" ignores the simple fact that the "full, active and conscious participation" institutionalized in the Novus Ordo, whose "true spirit" he believes he has found at last, has produced nothing other than the very banality that he, lacking a Scholastic mind, decries, seeing no connection between the banality he decries and the very "liturgical renewal" he praises so much.
It was no "council of journalists" who "reformed" Lenten practices to such an extent that there are only only two obligatory fast days during the six weeks of Lent in the Novus Ordo, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
It was no "council of journalists" who eliminated most references to a God Who judges and of Hell and the possibility of eternal damnation from the collects of the Novus Ordo service by contending that "certain practices of outward penance" belong to "a different age in the history of the Church." (Paragraph Fifteen, General Instruction to the Roman Missal.)
No, it was the conciliar revolutionaries themselves who did such things, and did them proudly and openly, explaining their intentions quite publicly during and after the "Second" Vatican Council:
We must strip from our Catholic prayers and from
the Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling
block for our separated brethren that is for the Protestants." (Annibale
Bugnini, L'Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1965.)
Certainly we will preserve the basic elements, the
bread, the wine, but all else will be changed according to local
tradition: words, gestures, colors, vestments, chants, architecture,
decor. The problem of liturgical reform is immense. (Archbishop Karol
Wojtyla, 1965, Quoted and footnoted in Assault on the Roman Rite.
This has also been noted on this site in the past, having been provided
me by a reader who had access to the 1980 French book in which the
quote is found.)
"[T]he intention of Pope Paul VI with regard to
what is commonly called the Mass, was to reform the Catholic liturgy in
such a way that it should coincide with the Protestant liturgy....
[T]here was with Pope Paul VI an ecumenical intention to remove, or at
least to correct, or at least to relax, what was too Catholic in
the traditional sense, in the Mass, and I, repeat, to get the Catholic
Mass closer to the Calvinist mass" (Dec. 19, 1993), Apropos,
#17, pp. 8f; quoted in Christian Order, October, 1994. (Jean Guitton, a
close friend of Giovanni Montini/Paul VI. The quotation and citations
are found in Christopher A. Ferrara and Thomas E. Woods, Jr., The Great Facade, The Remnant Publishing Company, 2002, p. 317.)
Let it be candidly said: the Roman Rite which we
have known hitherto no longer exists. It is destroyed. (Father Joseph
Gelineau, an associate of Annibale Bugnini on the Consilium, 1uoted and
footnoted in the work of a John Mole, who believed that the Mass of the
Roman Rite had been "truncated," not destroyed. Assault on the Roman Rite)
So much for Pope Saint Pius X's Quo Primum, July 1, 1570:
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 remain 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 know that he will incur the wrath of
Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. (Pope Saint Pius V, Quo Primum, July 14, 1570, which is printed in every traditional Missal of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.)
Ratzinger/Benedict's much vaunted "liturgical movement" was meant from its beginning to enshrine false ecumenism, which will be the subject of part three of this commentary. Suffice it to say for the moment, however, that, as noted above, Pope Pius VI condemned its antiquarian propositions while Pope Pius XII condemned those propositions and and many of its "innovations:"
31. The proposition of the synod enunciating that it is fitting, in accordance with the order of divine services and ancient custom, that there be only one altar in each temple, and therefore, that it is pleased to restore that custom,—rash, injurious to the very ancient pious custom flourishing and approved for these many centuries in the Church, especially in the Latin Church.
32. Likewise, the prescription forbidding cases of sacred relics or flowers being placed on the altar,— rash, injurious to the pious and approved custom of the Church.
33. The proposition of the synod by which it shows itself eager to remove the cause through which, in part, there has been induced a forgetfulness of the principles relating to the order of the liturgy, "by recalling it (the liturgy) to a greater simplicity of rites, by expressing it in the vernacular language, by uttering it in a loud voice"; as if the present order of the liturgy, received and approved by the Church, had emanated in some part from the forgetfulness of the principles by which it should be regulated,— rash, offensive to pious ears, insulting to the Church, favorable to the charges of heretics against it. (Pope Pius VI, Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794
The Church is without question a living organism,
and as an organism, in respect of the sacred liturgy also, she grows,
matures, develops, adapts and accommodates herself to temporal needs and
circumstances, provided only that the integrity of her doctrine be
safeguarded. This notwithstanding, the temerity and daring of
those who introduce novel liturgical practices, or call for the revival
of obsolete rites out of harmony with prevailing laws and rubrics,
deserve severe reproof. It has pained Us grievously to note, Venerable
Brethren, that such innovations are actually being introduced, not
merely in minor details but in matters of major importance as well. We
instance, in point of fact, those who make use of the vernacular in the
celebration of the august eucharistic sacrifice; those who transfer
certain feast-days -- which have been appointed and established after
mature deliberation -- to other dates; those, finally, who delete from
the prayer books approved for public use the sacred texts of the Old
Testament, deeming them little suited and inopportune for modern times.
The use of the Latin language, customary in a
considerable portion of the Church, is a manifest and beautiful sign of
unity, as well as an effective antidote for any corruption of doctrinal
truth. In spite of this, the use of the mother tongue in connection with
several of the rites may be of much advantage to the people. But the
Apostolic See alone is empowered to grant this permission. It is
forbidden, therefore, to take any action whatever of this nature without
having requested and obtained such consent, since the sacred liturgy,
as We have said, is entirely subject to the discretion and approval of
the Holy See.
The same reasoning holds in the case of
some persons who are bent on the restoration of all the ancient rites
and ceremonies indiscriminately. The liturgy of the early ages is most
certainly worthy of all veneration. But ancient usage must not be
esteemed more suitable and proper, either in its own right or in its
significance for later times and new situations, on the simple ground
that it carries the savor and aroma of antiquity. The more recent
liturgical rites likewise deserve reverence and respect. They,
too, owe their inspiration to the Holy Spirit, who assists the Church in
every age even to the consummation of the world. They are equally the
resources used by the majestic Spouse of Jesus Christ to promote and
procure the sanctity of man.
Assuredly it is a wise and most laudable thing to
return in spirit and affection to the sources of the sacred liturgy. For
research in this field of study, by tracing it back to its origins,
contributes valuable assistance towards a more thorough and careful
investigation of the significance of feast-days, and of the meaning of
the texts and sacred ceremonies employed on their occasion. But it is
neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every
possible device. Thus, to cite some instances, one would be
straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to
its primitive table form; were he to want black excluded as a color for
the liturgical vestments; were he to forbid the use of sacred images and
statues in Churches; were he to order the crucifix so designed that the
divine Redeemer's body shows no trace of His cruel sufferings; and
lastly were he to disdain and reject polyphonic music or singing in
parts, even where it conforms to regulations issued by the Holy See.
Clearly no sincere
Catholic can refuse to accept the formulation of Christian doctrine more
recently elaborated and proclaimed as dogmas by the Church, under the
inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit with abundant fruit for
souls, because it pleases him to hark back to the old formulas. No more
can any Catholic in his right senses repudiate existing legislation of
the Church to revert to prescriptions based on the earliest sources of
canon law. Just as obviously unwise and mistaken is the zeal of one who
in matters liturgical would go back to the rites and usage of antiquity,
discarding the new patterns introduced by disposition of divine
Providence to meet the changes of circumstances and situation.
This way of acting
bids fair to revive the exaggerated and senseless antiquarianism to
which the illegal Council of Pistoia gave rise. It likewise attempts to
reinstate a series of errors which were responsible for the calling of
that meeting as well as for those resulting from it, with grievous harm
to souls, and which the Church, the ever watchful guardian of the
"deposit of faith" committed to her charge by her divine Founder, had
every right and reason to condemn. For perverse designs and ventures of
this sort tend to paralyze and weaken that process of sanctification by
which the sacred liturgy directs the sons of adoption to their Heavenly
Father of their souls' salvation. (Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947.)
"For perverse designs and
ventures of this sort tend to paralyze and weaken that process of
sanctification by which the sacred liturgy directs the sons of adoption
to their Heavenly Father of their souls' salvation." Anyone who cannot
see that this one sentence describes the effects of the innovations of
the abomination that is the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service is not being intellectually honest. The Novus Ordo service
is of its very nature as much a revolution against Catholic Faith and
Worship as that represented by the liturgies of Protestant sects, no matter what Ratzinger/Benedict may contend to the contrary as he persists in his own personal fantasy until the very end.
Ratzinger/Benedict's lifelong warfare against the Catholic Faith is, of course, premised upon his warfare against the very nature of dogmatic truth. His belief in the "evolution of dogma," which has been much discussed and dissected on this site, is at the very heart and soul of Modernism. How ironic it is that it was the apostate writer named Benedetto Croce who, though an avowed disciple of Georg Friedrich Hegel, pointed out the intellectual inconsistency of the Modernists condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, men who claimed to be Catholic while at the same time asserting that dogmatic truth could never be expressed adequately at any one time given the alleged imprecision of human language:
It would be wrong, however, to think that on the one side was ranged an inflexible Pius X and his more or less obscurantist court, and on the other side learned Catholics, whether churchmen or not, who were being unjustly persecuted, attracting the sympathy of all “enlightened” men. Paradoxically, it was a non-Catholic, the renowned philosopher Benedetto Croce, who took up the defense of Pascendi and of Pius X in the very same Giornale d’Italia. On October 15 he wrote:
Modernism, according to Minocchi, claims to distinguish between dogma’s real content and its metaphysical expressions, which he regards as something accidental, just as the different forms of language which can translate the same thought are accidental. This comparison is the first and principal sophism of the Modernists.
It is true, of course, that the same concept can be translated in different ways. But metaphysical thought is not a form of expression; it is logic. Consequently, a dogma translated into a different metaphysical form is no longer the same dogma, just as a concept transformed into another concept is no longer the same concept.
Modernists are free to transform dogmas according to their ideas. I myself exercise this freedom... The difference is that when I do it, I am aware of being outside the Church, outside all religion, whereas the Modernists stubbornly proclaim to be not only religious, but Catholics. If, trying to escape from the consequences of their principle, and sympathizing with positivists, pragmatists, and empiricists of all kinds, they claim not to believe in the value of thought and logic, they will necessarily end in agnosticism and scepticism, doctrines which can be harmonized with a vague religious sentiment, but are hostile to all positive religion... My good Modernist friends must excuse my enjoying this situation; I shall hardly have such good fortune again to be in agreement with the Pope. (Yves Chiron, Saint Pius X: Restorer of the Church. Translated by Graham Harrison. Angelus Press, 2002, p. 211.)
Behold a description of the illogical mind of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI by a fellow Hegelian, albeit one who understood the difference between dogmas and ideas,
Ratzinger/Benedict will continue to promote his fantasyland vision of what he thinks is the Catholic Faith for another twelve days. The speech he gave two days ago, however, is nothing new. It is vintage Modernist. It is vintage Ratzinger, something that will demonstrated yet again in part three of this commentary tomorrow, God willing and Our Lady interceding.
Saint John of the Cross, whose feast
day is celebrated or commemorated on that marvelous date of
November 24, was asked by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ what
he, Saint John, the great mystic and reformer of the Order of Carmel
who worked with Saint Teresa of Avila and who was imprisoned for nine months
as mad by members of his order before God rescued him miraculously in
August of 1578, wanted as a reward for his many labors. Saint John of
the Cross replied,
"Lord, to suffer and be humiliated for Thee."
I pray to continue to
suffer and to continue be even further humiliated than I have been thus
far for the sake of Our Lord and His Holy Faith as but a just punishment for my sins! That is what I deserve, especially for being so slow to recognize that the Novus Ordo and the whole rot of conciliarism are abominations and for resisting the advice of those who tried to
convince me to flee from it and its false church once and for all. I am, though, trying to make up for the "lateness" of my arrival at the truth of the state of the Church Militant in this apostasy and betrayal by trying to keep up with this work as best as I am able to do so.
Our days are short.
Who knows? One of us could be hit by a meteor shower, something that happened yesterday in the Ural Mountains of Russia, which is the progenitor of the errors of Modernity and Modernism. Our Lady did speak of the errors of Russia, did she not? Well, behold the errors in the midst of the world in the midst of the counterfeit church of conciliarism.
We do not
know the day or the hour of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour's Coming for
us at the end of our lives. To prepare for this terrible moment of our
Particular Judgments is never easy. It is even more difficult in these
days of apostasy and betrayal, which is why we must be enough enough to flee from
the false church of conciliarism no matter what kind of humiliation and castigation comes our way as a result.
And those who are able to have access to the daily offering of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition
offered by true bishops and true priests must be grateful for having a refuge from a world of
insanity that flows from the abomination of desolation that is the Novus Ordo and the paradoxes and contradictions contained within the conciliar
ethos that gave birth to it and is communicated by it even as the false "pope" defends it as a "liturgical renewal" to the very end of his reign of terror against God and man.
Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ gave us His Most Blessed Mother to be our Mother as she stood so
valiantly by the foot of His Most Holy Cross as He shed every single
drop of His Most Precious Blood to redeem us. He has instructed her to
give Saint Simon Stock the Brown Scapular and to give Saint Dominic de Guzman her Most Holy Rosary and to give
Saint Catherine Laboure the Miraculous Medal. He has let His Most
Blessed Mother teach us through her apparition to Juan Diego that He
wants the entirety of the Americas converted to His Social Kingship as
she is honored publicly by men and their nations, and He has warned us
through her apparition at La Salette in France of impending doom in the
Church and the world as a result of the sins of men. And He has told His
Most Blessed Mother to console us with her Fatima Message, which is why
we really should be earnest in praying as many Rosaries each day as our
states-in-life permit.
Every Ave Maria we pray helps us to
prepare for the hour of our deaths as we seek to repair the damage
caused by our sins and those of the whole world. May we be generous in
praying our Rosaries as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary,
remembering, a true Charity demands, to pray fervently for the
conversion of the conciliar revolutionaries before they die. We must
never be unbent in our sins and we must never be unaware of how we must
give God the honor and glory that are His due as members of the Catholic
Church who have fled to the catacombs in this time of apostasy and betrayal, far, far away from the fantasyland of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his counterfeit church of conciliarism.
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!
Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
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, especially on your feast day today!
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.
See also: A Litany of Saints
