One God For Life And At Death

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Defenders of all things Benedict are quick to use one emotional red herring after another to distract Catholics from embracing the truth that anyone who dissents knowingly from the Catholic Faith in one thing dissent from It in Its entirety and thus, have expelled himself from the bosom of Holy Mother Church, cannot hold ecclesiastical office within her ranks legitimately. This is a point that has been made in hundreds of articles on this site in the past five years since I, who was quite a slacker to grasp this most elementary of concepts, first began to write publicly about the legitimacy of the sedevacantist thesis.

I do find it remarkable, however, that some recently-minted traditionally-minded Catholics deny that sedevacantism is even a possibility, meaning that the conciliar "cardinal," Mario Francesco Pompedda, who headed the Apostolic Signatura from 1997 to 2004, was guilty of gross ignorance of Catholic teaching when he asserted the following as the soon-to-be beatified Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II was in the final stages of the Parkinson's disease that would take his life on either Friday, April 1, 2005, or Saturday, April 2, 2005, depending upon which date you prefer to believe that the comatose Wojtyla died (even the dating of the death of a conciliar "pope" is ambiguous in the counterfeit church of conciliarism):

It is true that the canonical doctrine states that the see would be vacant in the case of heresy. ... But in regard to all else, I think what is applicable is what judgment regulates human acts. And the act of will, namely a resignation or capacity to govern or not govern, is a human act. (Cardinal Says Pope Could Govern Even If Unable to Speak, Zenit, February 8, 2005.)

 

Admittedly, "Cardinal" Pompedda, who was the head of the counterfeit church of conciliarism's Apostolic Signatura from 1997 to 2004, did not admit the canonical-doctrinal truth of sedevacantism applied during the "pontificate" of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. Unlike what many traditionally-minded Catholics have heard from the theologians of the Society of Saint Pius X, however, Pompedda was intellectually honest enough to admit that sedevacantism is indeed a part of the canonical doctrine of the Catholic Church. Only a handful of Catholics, priests and laity alike, accepted this doctrine and recognized that it applied in our circumstances in the aftermath of the "Second" Vatican Council. I was not one of them.

Some anti-sedevacantists argue viscerally that "God would never permit" there to be a period of papal vacancy lasting over fifty years now, noting that such a situation is without precedent and is in violation of the teaching of the [First] Vatican Council that Saint Peter will have perpetual successors to his throne (for a refutation of the latter argument, please see An Objection to Sedevacantism: 'Perpetual Successors' to Peter). This specious argument, however, means that it is possible for there to be a period of over fifty years wherein true popes can blaspheme God repeatedly by publicly esteeming the symbols of false religions, entering into places of false worship and treating the "ministers" of false religions as having a mission from God to serve and thus to save souls and of praising the nonexistent ability of false religions to contribute to the "building" of a "better" world that corresponds to the "dignity of man" in his quest for the "civilization of love." Where is the precedent for this? Where?

No one with a shred of intellectual honesty can assert that there is any precedent for one supposed "pope" after another doing and saying things that have been anathematized by the Catholic Church's true dogmatic councils, each of which was guided infallible by the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, and/or been condemned by the Fathers of the Church and/or by our true popes.

There is no precedent, not even in the times of Arianism, for the sort of liturgical abominations that have stemmed from the liturgical abomination par excellence, the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service that is hideous in the sight of the Most Blessed Trinity.

There is no precedent for a "pope" to deny the very nature of dogmatic truth or to make it appear as though the Catholic Church does not have a mission to seek with urgency the conversion of all non-Catholics to the true Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.

There is no precedent for a "pope" to deny the very nature of the Church by stating that non-Catholic Christians have a "partial" communion with her.

There is no precedent for a "pope" to enter into a Talmudic synagogue, a place that, like all other temples of false worship, belongs to the devil himself, and being treated as an inferior while listening to a demonic hymn that denies that the Messias has already come.

There is no precedent for a "pope" to enter into a Mohammedan mosque as he takes off his shoes so as to signify being in a "holy" place or of assuming the Mohammedan "prayer" position as he turns in the direction of Mecca at the behest of his Mohammedan host.

Something unprecedented is happening. Either the See of Peter is vacant or God is permitting true popes to defect from the Faith while remaining members of the Catholic Church in good standing. The former is a canonical doctrine of the Catholic Church. The latter is impossible.

No true pope in the history of the Catholic Church authorized annual "Happy Diwali" or "Happy Vesakh" messages to be sent to adherents of two of the devil's false religions of the "Eastern" variety, Buddhism or Hinduism (see Have a Happy, Baal, Yes, Most Holy Trinity, No, One or the Other, On A Mission of Their Very Own and A Tale of Two Benedicts).

No true pope in the history of the Catholic ever referred to a mountain on which a particular sect of the Buddhist form of devil worship originated as "sacred:"

I am glad to greet you and all the religious leaders gathered on the occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Religious Summit Meeting on Mount Hiei. I wish also to convey my best wishes to Venerable Eshin Watanabe, and to recall your distinguished predecessor as Supreme Head of the Tendai Buddhist Denomination, Venerable Etai Yamada. It was he who, having participated in the Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi on that memorable day of 27 October 1986, initiated the “Religious Summit Meeting” on Mount Hiei in Kyoto in order to keep the flame of the spirit of Assisi burning. I am also happy that Cardinal Paul Poupard, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, is able to take part in this meeting.

"From the supernatural perspective we come to understand that peace is both a gift from God and an obligation for every individual. Indeed the world’s cry for peace, echoed by families and communities throughout the globe, is at once both a prayer to God and an appeal to every brother and sister of our human family. As you assemble on the sacred [to the devil-worshiping Buddhists, that is] Mount Hiei, representing different religions, I assure you of my spiritual closeness. May your prayers and cooperation fill you with God’s peace and strengthen your resolve to witness to the reason of peace which overcomes the irrationality of violence!

"Upon you all I invoke an abundance of divine blessings of inspiration, harmony and joy.” (Benedict XVI sends message to interreligious meeting in Japan, found at first on a Society of Saint Pius X website, DICI.)

 

No true pope in the history of the Catholic Church has ever convened or participated in the sorts of blasphemous events such as those that have taken place in Assisi, Italy, in 1986 and 2002 and will occur again later this year (see Another Year of the Same Conciliar Apostasy, part three and Another Year of the Same Conciliar Apostasy, part three).

Those who attempt to dismiss all of these, among many other, unprecedented "novelties" that blaspheme the honor and majesty and glory and the very immutability of the Most Blessed Trinity by making advertence to "diabolical disorientation" are substituting their own application of a judgment made by Sister Lucia in an interview for the canonical doctrine of the Catholic Church on the nature of papal infallibility and the simple truth that it is dogmatically impossible for the Catholic Church to give us liturgical rites that are in any way defective or lead in any way to impiety or to provide teachings that are, at the very least, unclear or ambiguous. The Catholic Church cannot be stained by the slightest taint of error. Pope after pope has pointed this out (see Accepting "Popes" As Unreliable Teachers, Obeying The Commands of a False Church and Consistently Inconsistent).

The conciliar "popes" have been content to let non-Catholics alone to live, to suffer and to die in their false religions, leaving these poor people, each of whom has an immortal soul for which Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood to redeem, to "pray" to their false idols in times of trial and tragedy, something that is happening at the present moment in Japan in the aftermath of the earthquake that occurred on Friday, March 11, 2011, and the tsunami that followed thereafter that damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing radioactivity to be released into the atmosphere:

The Japanese are beginning memorial ceremonies for people killed in the earthquake and tsunami. Times of crisis lead many people to turn to religion for strength and comfort. In Japan, the focus will be on honoring the dead, and moving on with life.

On Monday, Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara startled many when he said, "The Japanese people must take advantage of this tsunami to wash away their selfish greed. I really do think this is divine punishment."

The governor soon apologized. But people were shocked, not just because it seemed to blame the victims — but also because it is so at odds with the beliefs of modern-day Japanese.

Moving Beyond The 'Why'

"They know about tectonic plates, geography, geology — they know why tsunamis happen," says John Nelson, an expert on Asian religions at the University of San Francisco.

"And they don't need some governor to say it's the will of heaven that this happened," he says.

Nelson says that while Japanese society is largely secular, events frequently drive them back to ancient traditions.

"There's a famous saying in Japanese that, 'People turn to the gods in times of trouble,' " he says. "And I think we'll see that here."

The rituals of Shinto and Buddhism permeate Japanese life. And in these two belief systems, scholars say, people do not focus on why the tragedy happened, but on how they should proceed.

After Deaths, Buddhist Rituals

Duncan Williams is a Buddhist priest who just returned from Japan. "We can't pinpoint exactly what brought this about," Williams says. "I think the takeaway is that, for Buddhists, it almost doesn't matter what caused this situation; what's important is the response."

That response, he says, should include showing patience, resilience and self-sacrifice in the face of tragedy, and memorializing the dead.

Ian Reader, professor of Japanese studies at Britain's University of Manchester, says that when honoring their loved ones, most Japanese turn to Buddhist rituals, where priests read scripture and chant sutras before the body is cremated.

"The general perception is that you do need rituals to be done, to help the passage of the spirit from the realm of the living to the dead," Reader says, "and also to separate the spirit from this realm."

And if those rituals are not performed, says Brian Bocking, an expert on Asian religions at Ireland's University College Cork, bad things can happen.

"A spirit of an ancestor who's not properly memorialized can cause problems in the family, in the home, in the business and so forth," he says, "because they're unhappy, they're not being looked after properly."

But what if a body — or thousands of bodies — have been washed out to sea? Bocking and others say Buddhist priests can hold mass memorials for the dead, and they are likely to do so in the next few days.

A Time For Shinto

After the funerals, when people begin building new homes and their lives, Shinto will move center stage. If Buddhism deals with death in Japan, Shinto deals with life. At the center are kami — life forces that are a little like deities and are ever-present.

"The deities have two faces," says Nelson, of the University of San Francisco. One face is benevolent, as the deities help people in their day-to-day lives. "But those same deities have this wrathful side," he says, "which can manifest itself at unpredictable moments."

And people turn to Shinto priests and rituals, he says, to restore the balance between the human and the divine.

The Japanese appeal to Shinto deities at the beginning of things: the birth of a child; a wedding; a new home; a new car. Professor Brian Bocking says that Japanese companies send delegations to Shinto shrines, and many have their own shrines.

"And this is not because all the employees are devout followers," Bocking says. "Or, it's just that everyone in Japan knows there's all sorts of things that could happen in life — and why not get the gods on your side? I mean, they might not exist. But if they do, you might as well invoke them."

Which is what the Japanese will be doing, as they cope with a tragedy not seen in a generation. (After Tsunami, Japanese Turn To Ancient Rituals.)

 

Buddhism for life. Shintoism for death. Which conciliar "bishop" in Japan has said the following that any true Catholic bishop would say in the beat of a heart that was consecrated to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary?

 

With compassion for the suffering and for those who have lost relatives and loved ones in the midst of this great tragedy, we must remember that the events of this passing, mortal vale of tears can be understood and accepted only if one understands and accepts the Deposit of Faith that the very Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, entrusted to His one, true Church, the Catholic Church, for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. Absent the true Faith, the Catholic Faith, and the supernatural helps Holy Mother Church provides by means of her Sacraments, it is impossible to recognize that nothing we suffer in this life, including the events that have afflicted our country recently is the equal of the horrors that one of our least Venial Sins imposed upon Our Emperor, Christ the King, during His Passion and Death and caused His Most Blessed Mother to suffer as those Seven Swords of Sorrow were thrust through and through her Immaculate Heart.

There is one true God. He is a Trinity of Co-Equal Persons: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. It is He alone Whom we worship through His Catholic Church. None other.

Out of love for us, my friends, God the Father sent His Co-Equal and Co-Eternal Son, to redeem us on the wood of the Holy Cross, taking upon Himself the weight of our own sins though He, being God, was guilty of no son. God the Son, the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, condescended to be conceived as a helpless embryo by the power of God the Holy Ghost in the Virginal and Immaculate Womb of His Most Blessed Mother. He was born in anonymity. He lived as an exile for seven years in Egypt. He worked doing hard manual labor as a carpenter in Nazareth before He assumed His Public Ministry, during which time He taught as no one had taught before and performed miracles that proved His Sacred Divinity.

Our Lord suffered and died on the wood of the Holy Cross to redeem you and to redeem me. He has made it possible for us to unite our sufferings with those of his so that we can pay back the debt of our own sins and help convert other poor sinners to the true Faith, absent which it is impossible to know personal peace in one's soul or order within one's own nation. He has given us His Most Blessed Mother, she is our Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces, to be our own Blessed Mother, providing also with a Communion of Saints, including His own foster-father, Good Saint Joseph, to help us in all of our daily needs as He offers His own very Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity to us in the Holy Eucharist for our spiritual nourishment unto eternal life.

Do not rush to the altars of false gods during this time of crisis. Each false god is from the devil. King David himself teaches us that this is so:

For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils: but the Lord made the heavens. (Psalm 95: 5)

 

You cannot be saved or helped by your false religions that are filled with the superstitions of the devil. Convert to the true Faith, the Catholic Faith, and know the consolation of your true Emperor, Christ the King, as you offer the sufferings of this present moment to Him through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of your true Empress, Mary our Immaculate Queen, His Most Blessed Mother.

The future of Japan depends upon your conversion and that of our nation to the true Faith. Why delay? Why provoke the true God of Divine Revelation with your further worship of idols made of mortal and metal? Convert, my friends, to Catholicism and start planting the seeds for the Social Reign of Christ the King here in our nation as we conduct Rosary crusades in honor of the very woman, Our Blessed Mother, who made possible our salvation by her perfect Fiat to the will of God the Father at the Annunciation.

 

Instead, however, the revolutionaries of the counterfeit church of conciliarism continue to let people wallow in their false religions as they extol the "virtues" of religious liberty and liberty of conscience that have been condemned by the Catholic Church:

1. At the heart of fundamental human rights is freedom of religion, conscience and belief: it affects personal identity and basic choices and it makes possible the enjoyment of other human rights. As the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Religious Discrimination recognises, the spiritual dimension of life is a vital part of human existence.[1] But an increased proliferation of episodes of discrimination and acts of violence against persons and communities of faith and places of worship in several different geographical regions of the world denies in practice the principle proclaimed in law. Religious strife is a danger to social, political, and economic development. Religious conflict polarizes society, breaking the bonds necessary for social life and commerce to flourish. It produces violence, which robs people of the most fundamental right of all, the right to life. And it sows seeds of distrust and bitterness that can be passed down through the generations. Often impunity and media neglect follow such tragedies. A recent survey shows that out of 100 people killed because of religious hatred, 75 are Christian.[2] That concentration of religious discrimination should cause concern to all of us. But the Holy See's purpose in this intervention is to reaffirm the importance of the right to freedom of religion for all individuals, for all communities of faith, and for every society, in all parts of the world. ("Archbishop" Silvano Tomasi's Address to UN Rights Council, Geneva, Switzerland, March 7, 2011.)

 

The "right" to freedom of religion for all individuals, for all communities of faith, and for every society, in all parts of the world? Consider, yes, once again, these words of Popes Gregory XVI and Pius IX:

This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. "But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say. When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly "the bottomless pit" is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws -- in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty. (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of "naturalism," as they call it, dare to teach that "the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones." And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that "that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require." From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity," viz., that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way." But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;" and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling."

And, since where religion has been removed from civil society, and the doctrine and authority of divine revelation repudiated, the genuine notion itself of justice and human right is darkened and lost, and the place of true justice and legitimate right is supplied by material force, thence it appears why it is that some, utterly neglecting and disregarding the surest principles of sound reason, dare to proclaim that "the people's will, manifested by what is called public opinion or in some other way, constitutes a supreme law, free from all divine and human control; and that in the political order accomplished facts, from the very circumstance that they are accomplished, have the force of right." But who, does not see and clearly perceive that human society, when set loose from the bonds of religion and true justice, can have, in truth, no other end than the purpose of obtaining and amassing wealth, and that (society under such circumstances) follows no other law in its actions, except the unchastened desire of ministering to its own pleasure and interests? (Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864.)

 

The warfare waged by the conciliar revolutionaries against the Sacred Deposit of Faith have played its role in upsetting even the natural forces of the world that have wreaked such havoc in so many places in recent years, including Japan.

True, each one of our own sins has played its role in upsetting even the forces of nature in the world. Quite true. A repentant sinner, however, does not add to the problems created by his sins by persisting in them or by publicly extolling them as the foundation of personal and social order. The conciliar revolutionaries have done precisely this as they continue to blaspheme God by their publicly expressed heresies and falsehoods and errors and their most public sacrileges committed against His greater honor and glory and majesty. And it is their crimes, much like the crimes of the Jews who handed Our Lord over to Pontius Pilate, that is all the more grave as they, the conciliar revolutionaries, know that they are departing from what they consider to be the "past" teaching of the Catholic Church as they celebrate with great gusto their own rapprochement with Modernity.

We must, therefore, as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary seek to use this penitential season of Lent to make reparation for our sins and those of the whole world as we continue to pray, fast, give alms and undertake a program of daily Scriptural and spiritual reading. Each of us can find time to pray more Rosaries each day and, if at all possible in the area where you live, to spend more time in fervent prayer before Our Lord's Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

We can plant a feed seeds for the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary that will help all men everywhere to understand and accept the very simple truth that there is one God for life and at death: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, Whose very Beatific Vision we have been made to behold for all eternity in Heaven by persisting in a state of Sanctifying Grace until the moment of our death, which can, of course, occur at any time.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen!

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Our Lady of the Rosary, 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.

See also: A Litany of Saints