President Bergoglio
by
Thomas A. Droleskey
Although there is much speculation in the Italian press that longtime Vaticanist Sandro Magister, who is very close to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, is carrying water for the retired universal public face of apostasy by criticizing the words and actions of the current public face of apostasy, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis, none of the commentary published thus far has come to grips that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is simply a victim of his own philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity."
That is, Father Joseph Ratzinger, a complete disciple of the condemned Modernist proposition of the "evolution of dogma" as it was "rei mag in ed," if you will, by his mentor, Father Hans Urs von Balthasar, as part of the "new theology" that was condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, believed that he had found a way to dismiss the relevance of "past" dogmatic pronouncements that had been reiterated by our true popes in response to various heresies and errors that had come to the forefront during their pontificates. Ratzinger's thoroughly Modernist belief hinged on the contention that the formulation of doctrine had to be "understood" in the context of the alleged "imprecision" of language and the historical circumstances in which it was expressed. (Please see Appendix A below for another recitation of Ratzinger/Benedict's condemned beliefs. Appendix B contains Holy Mother Church's condemnation of those beliefs, thus making any claim by anyone that the retired apostate is a "man faith" just patently absurd.)
Much as has been the case with any other dogmatic rebel who tried to dismiss the immutable teaching of the Catholic Church, either by rejecting it in whole or in part, Ratzinger is sitting in retirement as "Benedict XVI" watching, perhaps with horror, as his successor starts to undo his plans to give a "definitive" meaning to the revolution he helped to inaugurate, that of the "Second" Vatican Council, and his attempt to merge the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition with the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service into a "reform of the reform." Ratzinger/Benedict has been personally responsible for transforming the conciliar office of "Petrine Minister" into nothing other than a conciliar equivalent of a president or prime minister of a civil government, a mere office-holder who establishes policies and practices during his own administration that are subject to change by a successor, whether the one who follows him immediately or ones who may come in years thereafter.
Impermanence is a necessity to the Modernist mind as to accept the
permanence and immutability of dogmatic truths is to prevent the
evolutionary processes of "change" and "novelty" and "progress" from
unfolding as they should in the life of Catholic theology and liturgy.
It is this commitment to doctrinal and liturgical evolutionism that
drove Ratzinger/Benedict to defend the "changes" and the "progress" of
the past five and one-half decades since the "election" of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII
on October 28, 1958, by seeking to institutionalize them so as to
better direct their implementation and acceptance. It is also what subjected his Girondist effort to establish a "fixed" or "definitive" interpretation of the "Second" Vatican Council and the "magisterium" of the conciliar popes to be overthrown by Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the penultimate Jacobin.
Another way to view to the surrogate war that the retired "pontiff" may be waging, if ever so cautiously, against Bergoglio/Francis is to understand that Ratzinger/Benedict is the theological equivalent of a Menshevik as opposed to the Bolshevik Bergoglio. The supposedly "moderate" revolutionary was destined to have his presidential administration and policies overthrown, both in a de jure and de facto manner.
The inherent instability of the
idiocy that is the "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity"
produces such instability and uncertainty into the lives of Catholics
attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism
that the conciliar "popes" and their defenders open themselves up to
being contradicted at some later point if a future "pope" decides that
he needs to "interpret" the words of the "Second" Vatican Council and
the likes of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict
XVI in a different way. The logical conclusion to all of this is as
follows: Why should anyone pay attention to anything that any of
"pope" write and says since if it can all be wiped away just as easily as
John Paul II and Benedict XVI and their apologists attempted to
wipe away those things from the Catholic past they did not "like" or did not believe were "accessible" to the totally mythical entity known as "modern" man?
Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is "a new king over Egypt, that knew not Joseph (cf. Exodus 1: 8), which in this case is Joseph Alois Ratzinger.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis does not care even for what is considered to be "doctrinal orthodoxy" according to the "teaching" of the conciliar church.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis's constant denunciations of those who are "moralistic ideologues" may be taken to refer not only to those of us who are "restorationists" and "triumphalists" but also to the soon-to-be-"canonized" Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, the man who shook his finger at Father Ernesto Cardenal, a Sandinista revolutionary who served as the "Minister of Culture" in the presidential administration of Communist dictator Daniel Ortega (who was elected to the Nicaraguan presidency in 2006 sixteen and one-half years after his defeat by Violeta Chamorro), on March 4, 1983, upon the Polish "pope's" arrival in Managua, Nicaragua:
Moralizing, March 4, 1983
Indeed, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis's "liberated" liturgical style contrasts not only "President Ratzinger's" desire for a "reform of the reform" but also with "President Wojtyla's" efforts, which were contradicted in practice by his participation in some of the worst, most scandalous conciliar "papal" liturgies that the world had ever seen up to that point, to stop what he called "liturgical abuses" that were the result, I know now, of the liturgical abuse par excellence, the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service.
"President Wojtyla's" efforts to aright the conciliar liturgical ship led him to apologize in two occasions, one in 1980, and the other in 2003, for the abuses engendered by the "liturgical renewal" that he supported with great enthusiasm:
I consider it my duty, therefore to appeal
urgently that the liturgical norms for the celebration of the Eucharist
be observed with great fidelity. These norms are a concrete expression
of the authentically ecclesial nature of the Eucharist; this is their
deepest meaning. Liturgy is never anyone's private property, be
it of the celebrant or of the community in which the mysteries are
celebrated. The Apostle Paul had to address fiery words to the community
of Corinth because of grave shortcomings in their celebration of the
Eucharist resulting in divisions (schismata) and the emergence of factions (haireseis) (cf. 1 Cor 11:17-34). Our
time, too, calls for a renewed awareness and appreciation of liturgical
norms as a reflection of, and a witness to, the one universal Church
made present in every celebration of the Eucharist. Priests who
faithfully celebrate Mass according to the liturgical norms, and
communities which conform to those norms, quietly but eloquently
demonstrate their love for the Church. Precisely to bring out more
clearly this deeper meaning of liturgical norms, I have asked the
competent offices of the Roman Curia to prepare a more specific
document, including prescriptions of a juridical nature, on this very
important subject. No one is permitted to undervalue the mystery
entrusted to our hands: it is too great for anyone to feel free to treat
it lightly and with disregard for its sacredness and its universality. (Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, Dominicae Cenae, February 24, 1980.)
All of this makes clear the great responsibility
which belongs to priests in particular for the celebration of the
Eucharist. It is their responsibility to preside at the Eucharist in persona Christi and to provide a witness to and a service of communion not only for the
community directly taking part in the celebration, but also for the
universal Church, which is a part of every Eucharist. It must be
lamented that, especially in the years following the post-conciliar
liturgical reform, as a result of a misguided sense of creativity and
adaptation there have been a number of abuses which have been a
source of suffering for many. A certain reaction against “formalism”
has led some, especially in certain regions, to consider the “forms”
chosen by the Church's great liturgical tradition and her Magisterium as
non-binding and to introduce unauthorized innovations which are often
completely inappropriate. (Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, April 17, 2003.)
Numerous efforts were made during "President Wojtyla's" administration to curb the "excesses" of the heresy of "episcopal collegiality" as various national "episcopal" conferences and their respective translation commissions sought approval for very broad translations of the hideous Novus Ordo's Latin editio typica into the vernacular. One of the language groups that vexed authorities in the conciliar Vatican during the Wojytyla administration consisted of the English-speaking nations, whose "bishops" had formed the International Commission for English in the Liturgy, herein after referred to as ICEL
Numerous pitched battles were fought by "conservative" "bishops" and various priests/presbyters and laymen in the 1970s and 1980s to assure "proper" translations of Latin edtio typica to the English as it was as early as the late-1970s that some of the American "bishops," working in conjunction with the ultra-progressive revolutionary apparatchiks who served as consultants to ICEL
Memorably, the late "Bishop" Austin Vaughan, an auxiliary of the Archdiocese of New York, a truly humble and scholarly priest who worked very hard to maintain the Catholic Faith in the conciliar structures, rose to the floor at the November 1979 meeting of the "National Conference of Catholic Bishops" (hereinafter referred to as the NCCB) to protest the demands being made by others, many of whom at that point were indeed true bishops, for "gender-inclusive" language. Although written after his death on June 25, 2000, at a time I was still under the misapprehension that the counterfeit church of conciliarism was the Catholic Church, the following description of "Bishop" Vaughan's intervention at the NCCB meeting provides a glimpse into the pitched battles that were fought on the matter of the "proper" translation of the atrocity that has been the singular instrument of perdition in catechizing Catholics to accept the apostate ways of conciliarism, the Novus Ordo:
Humble though he was, however, Bishop
Vaughan was also a man of abiding courage. Without any degree of bitterness or
sarcasm, he would use his interventions during the annual meeting of the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops to stand foursquare in behalf of doctrinal
orthodoxy and liturgical reverence. He was a thorn in the side of those intent on
making the Mass their ideological plaything. At a time in 1979 when the bishops
and the International Committee for English in the Liturgy (ICEL) were pushing for
all types of “gender-neutral language,” Bishop Vaughan reminded his brother
bishops that there were more than 1,100 errors in translation from the Latin
Missale Romanum of Pope Paul VI found in the English Sacramentary. Many of his
brother bishops just gnashed their teeth as he quietly and calmly spelled out how
the faith was being eviscerated by real revolutionaries. (A True Friend of Our Lord and Our Lady.)
The vote taken by the conciliar "bishops" in 1979 paved the way for the "bishop" members of ICEL to petition the conciliar Vatican to approve their proposed change of the words "pro multis," which had been mistranslated originally by ICEL as "for all men," in the four "Eucharistic prayers" to "pro omnibus," "for all," which was considered to be "gender inclusive." The Vatican gave approval for this change in the Fall of 1981 when I was studying at Mount Saint Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, while on leave from teaching at Nassau Community College.
The whooping and hollering was noticeable in the hallways of that
once venerable seminary when word arrived that "Rome" had approved the "gender inclusive" change. Although other ICEL-proposed changes were rejected at the same time, the
elimination of the word "man," in the various "Eucharistic
Prayers" was deemed to be a major victory. Such are the problems created
by living languages and by the heightened sensitivities of those who
are concerned about their own feelings and sense of earthly empowerment.
It was not too long thereafter, however, that the word "man" was
blacked out in the missalettes in the chapel at Mount Saint Mary's,
reminiscent of how a Ruthenian Rite Catholic Church, Saint Andrew's in
Westbury, Long Island, had blacked out the words "and the Son" in the
Filioque of the Nicene Creed (a phenomenon in Uniat Rite churches that
had the full approval of "President Wojtyla."
Battles continued raging into the 1990s as the ideologues who worked and served as consultants to ICEL, egged on by many in the American conciliar "episcopate" and by their feminist minders in the older communities of consecrated religious, pushed and pushed and the pushed the envelope to snowball the "conservatives" into accepting various changes designed to create a totally "gender inclusive" liturgy, including in the ordinary of the Novus Ordo Sacramentary and in the conciliar rite for presbyteral installation. Believe me, I was eyewitness to the proceedings at the NCCB meeting in Washington, District of Columbia, in November of 1993 as a correspondent for The Wanderer.
My work for The Wanderer and as a covert aide to a conciliar "bishop" who was working with prominent "conservative" priests to stop the "avalanche" of ICEL's propagandizing, gave me an opportunity to work in a more formal way with very prominent "conservative" priests to keep those "gender inclusive" translations from making their way into the texts of the Collects in the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service. There was even a little bit of a victory at the annual meeting of the then named National Conference of Catholic "Bishops" in 1993 as some "conservative" 'bishops" stood their ground against a set of translations that was being foisted upon the entire body of "bishops" by the apparatchiks in the International Committee on English in the Liturgy, whose longtime executive secretary, Dr. John Page, had been interviewed by me just a short time before that 'bishops'" meeting.
The following report, written by a "conservative" presbyter in the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, summarized some of the complex history of ICEL's relentless efforts to get the conciliar Vatican to "hold the line" on the ideologues' "abuses." The report contained the remarkable back-hand admission by "Bishop" Anthony Bosco that the American conciliar "bishops" should stop arguing about the "translations" as "Rome" would serve as a "safeguard" against any doctrinal "hanky panky" on the part of ICEL:
The decade of the 1990s saw ICEL in a flurry of translation and revision. The most significant ICEL project was the revised ICEL Sacramentary. This is ICEL's first major revision of the translation of the Latin Roman Missal since 1973. The Sacramentary is the book of prayers used by the priest to celebrate Mass. ICEL expected its Sacramentary to be routinely confirmed by the Vatican in 1994 after an anticipated quick approval by the American (and other English-speaking) bishops.
But at their November 1993 plenary meeting, the American bishops delayed the approval process up to three years when they rejected the first segment of the new ICEL Sacramentary. That action set back the work of ICEL for several years. A year later, during the November 1994 meeting of American bishops, Bishop Donald W. Trautman of Erie— then the chairman of the bishops' Committee on Liturgy—admitted that instead of producing a revised Sacramentary in 1994 as originally planned, ICEL now envisioned a 1998 release as more likely. Even that estimate proved optimistic.
The texts for the revised Sacramentary —eventually released in eight segments, along with certain ancillary texts—were finally approved by the American bishops in 1997, after an exhausting and confusing review process. The Vatican received the texts in 1998. It remains uncertain if and when these texts will be confirmed. The National Catholic Reporter is probably correct in reporting (in a December 24, 1999 article) that, "most observers doubt [the ICEL Sacramentary] will be approved without significant revision."
Revisions by the Vatican—significant or not—were certainly expected by some of the bishops. At the November 1994 plenary meeting of bishops, Bishop Anthony G. Bosco of Greensburg, tried to allay any fears among his brother bishops by suggesting that questions of orthodoxy in the translated texts would be ultimately resolved by the Holy See. He predicted that the Holy See would review the texts with a "fine sieve." He suggested, therefore, that the bishops not continue the "debate on taste" with respect to the translations.
In a September 20, 1997 letter to Bishop Anthony M. Pilla, who was then the president of the NCCB, the then-Archbishop Medina indicated that ICEL's revised Rites of Ordination "cannot be approved or confirmed by the Holy See for liturgical use." Archbishop Medina wrote that the texts of the Rites of Ordination would not be confirmed "not only by reason of its failure to adhere faithfully" to the Latin original "and to convey accurately in English its contents, but also because the translation is not without doctrinal problems." Archbishop Medina observed that because "the shortcomings are so diffused . . . minor isolated corrections will not suffice."
The ICEL translation of the Rites of Ordination is a translation project separate and distinct from the ICEL Sacramentary. For reasons that have never been revealed, the former translation was never approved by the body of the American bishops. Had it been confirmed by the Vatican without that approval from the US bishops' conference, a precedent would have been set that would obviously have influenced the confirmation process for the revised ICEL Sacramentary. (War of the Words: ICEL Called to Accountability.)
Look at all of this insanity, which I thought prior to 1994 actually meant "something" good was happening. "President Wojytyla's" decision to to permit altar girls in April of 1994 drove me away from such battles, which is why I did not attend the 1994 meeting of the NCCB as I had had quite enough, concluding that the Novus Ordo was, although valid, something that I realized later it was not, was irredeemable.
What is truly laughable about the information "Father" Jerry Pokorsky, whose heart was certainly in the right place, provided in his article was that it documents unintentionally the argument against a liturgy in a living language. None of this madness was known before in the history of the Catholic Church. None of it.
There were no "episcopal conferences" and multi-national commissions to deal with "translations" of the Missale Romanum of Pope Saint Pius V, who made that missal mandatory in 1570 to standardize the offering of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition so as to avoid the minor regional differences that had arisen over time and to eliminate any possibility that some of the "innovations" that some bishops had authorized prior to the Council of Trent to "respond" to the "spirit" of the Protestant Revolution of being a permanent feature in the liturgical life of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.
The mammoth efforts to translate and re-translate and to revise and revise yet again the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service have engendered confusion in the ranks of the conciliar "episcopate," "presbyterate" and laity that would have absolutely unimaginable even as late as the 1950s as Catholic Worship is an expression of the Catholic Faith, which unites men around the altar of sacrifice, not confuses and divides them over which "translation" from the Latin editio typica to the vernacular is "kosher," shall we say.
Perhaps most to the point is the simple fact that all of the conflict and controversy engendered and all of the efforts expended to understand "what the prayer really says" is absurd on its face as the Latin editio typica and the conciliar rites of "episcopal consecration" and "priestly ordination" themselves are invalid and contains prayers that have been influenced by various Protestant and Judeo-Masonic currents. The then-Archbishop Medina's concern for the doctrinal validity of the proposed ICEL translation of the conciliar rite of "priestly ordination" is itself sadly ironic as the Latin original itself is invalid on its face.
The Novus Ordo's ideology is anthropocentric (man-centered), not Christocentric. The liturgical revolutionary, "Archbishop" Piero Marini, a direct acolyte of the Freemason Annibale Bugnini, C.M., keeps telling us that we have not yet seen the full "fruit" of the "renewal" contained within the hideous liturgical service that he helped to write and whose implementation he sought to implement in the most scandalous expansive manner possible, especially as he planned and executed the outdoor extravaganza liturgies at which "President Wojtyla" presided between October 16, 1978, and April 1 (or 2, depending on when he actually died), 2005:
The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Marini told the audience, was really "a matrix for other reforms" and possible changes yet to come. It is not enough, he said, to look at the written document as a manual for reforming the church's rites.
"It was an event that continues even today to mark ecclesial life," the archbishop said. "It has marked our ecclesial life so much that very little of the church today would be as it is had the council not met."
Marini, who was master of liturgical ceremonies under Blessed John Paul II, told the liturgists that Vatican II did not give the world static documents. In an ever-evolving culture, the Catholic liturgy is incomplete unless it renews communities of faith.
"The council is not behind us. It still precedes us," Marini said. (Vatican II continues to mark ecclesial life today, Marini says.)
When did Piero Marini say this?
Well, it wasn't fifty years ago. It was in Erie, Pennsylvania, during a conference of liturgical revolutionaries that was held between October 7 and 12, 2014. And guess who thinks very highly of Marini, who now serves as the president of the conciliar committee on pretended Eucharistic Congresses and served as "President Wojtyla's" and "President Ratzinger's" master of travesties, er, ceremonies, such as they were, from 1987 to 2007?
That's right.
You got.
None other than Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis, who praised the "bishop" members of the International Commission for English in the Liturgy on Friday, October 18, 2013, the Feast of Saint Luke, for their "exemplary" work in making the liturgy more "accessible" to the "people" to afford them a life of "full, active and conscious participation" the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service:
I welcome the members and staff of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy as you gather in Rome to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Commission’s establishment. I thank Archbishop Arthur Roche, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and a former President of ICEL, for presenting you. Through you, I send greetings and the expression of my gratitude to the Conferences of Bishops which you represent, and to the consultors and personnel who cooperate in the ongoing work of the Commission.
Founded as part of the implementation of the great liturgical renewal called for by the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Divine Liturgy, ICEL was also one of the signs of the spirit of episcopal collegiality which found expression in the Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (cf. Lumen Gentium, 22-25). The present anniversary is an occasion for giving thanks for the work which the Commission has accomplished over the past fifty years in providing English translations of the texts of the liturgy, but also in advancing the study, understanding and appropriation of the Church’s rich sacramental and euchological tradition. The work of the Commission has also contributed significantly to that conscious, active and devout participation called for by the Council, a participation which, as Pope Benedict XVI has rightly reminded us, needs to be understood ever more deeply “on the basis of a greater awareness of the mystery being celebrated and its relation to daily life” (Sacramentum Caritatis, 52). The fruits of your labours have not only helped to form the prayer of countless Catholics, but have also contributed to the understanding of the faith, the exercise of the common priesthood and the renewal of the Church’s missionary outreach, all themes central to the teaching of the Council. Indeed, as Blessed John Paul II pointed out, “for many people, the message of the Second Vatican Council was perceived principally through the liturgical reform” (Vicesimus quintus annus, 12).
Dear friends, last evening you celebrated a solemn Mass of thanksgiving at the tomb of Saint Peter, beneath the great inscription which reads: Hinc una fides mundo refulget; hinc unitas sacerdotii exoritur. By enabling the vast numbers of the Catholic faithful throughout the world to pray in a common language, your Commission has helped to foster the Church’s unity in faith and sacramental communion. That unity and communion, which has its origin in the Blessed Trinity, is one which constantly reconciles and enhances the richness of diversity. May your continuing efforts help to realize ever more fully the hope expressed by Pope Paul VI in promulgating the Roman Missal: that “in the great diversity of languages, a single prayer will rise as an acceptable offering to our Father in heaven, through our high priest Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit”.
To you, and to all associated with the work of the Commission, I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of abiding joy and peace in the Lord. (Pope meets with International Commission on English in the Liturgy.)
In other words, all of the pitched battles fought to prevent the International Commission in the Liturgy from mistranslating and/or creating "alternative" prayers based on a "sense" of the "spirit" of the Sunday readings or of a particular feast day have been for naught. Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis does not really care "what the prayer says" as long as there is a "sense" of permitting the people to "feel at home" and to be fully "active and conscious" participants in the "renewed liturgy," which is to say that Catholics had been inactive and unconscious passive bystanders for oh, well, let me see, yes, that's right, around nineteen centuries.
It's time for all of those, including those associated with Catholics United for the Faith, and those who "blog" for semi-traditional websites to shut up, Bergoglio is saying. He's got ICEL's back, which is why the following comments, made by "Bishop" Wilton Gregory, a direct acolyte of the then President of the National Conference of Catholic "Bishops," Joseph "Cardinal" Bernardin, a friend of all things lavender, and now the conciliar "archbishop" of Atlanta, Georgia, in response to the objection of some "conservative" "bishops" in 1993 reflects the mind of the current universal public face of apostasy, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis, with great exactitude:
Bishop Anthony Bosco [Greensburg;
member, Committees on Women in Society and in the Church, Pastoral
Practices and Administrative Committee; recently appointed a member of
the BCL]: Bishop Gregory, each year I look forward to seeing which
of our agenda items is going to generate the most mail and thus enrich
the U.S. Postal Service. The winner by far this year was inclusive
language, obviously generated, since most of the letters said the same
thing, but included also- and I'm sure I'm not the only bishop that
received this - was a critique of the English translation of Comme le prévoit. That
about exhausts my French right there. [laughter] And since I don't know
what the provenance of that was there is some question as to whether
there was some malice in it, some manipulation, that it was a poor
translation of the French and consequently misled those of us who are
not fluent in French.
Would you have
anything to say about the origin of our English translation and whether
it deserves the disdain that it has provoked?
Bishop Gregory: Bishop Bosco, I am aware of the questions regarding the translation.
May it suffice to say that the translation was 'indeed prepared by ICEL
but it was submitted as a draft translation to the Concilium which did not accept uncritically the draft that it received and made corrections in that draft and issued it in its own name.
But the concern that some have regarding the translation might properly be addressed to the Concilium rather than to ICEL since the Concilium made adjustments - perhaps some would consider not enough adjustments - but the Concilium did issue the text as we have it in English as a legitimate translation.
Much beyond that, Bishop, I cannot say, but I think part of the difficulty was that some people were saying that the Concilium really
had nothing to do with this translation, that it simply received it and
in an uncritical manner issued it, and there are documents which would
argue against that. Whether they would convince those parties who have
trouble with the translation, of its accuracy or validity, it is de facto a document from the Holy See.
[Note: Concilium was an agency created to implement the Vatican II constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum concilium, and was eventually absorbed into the Congregation for Divine Worship and Sacraments. Members of ICEL who were also Concilium members provided the English translation of Comme le prévoit. - ed.]
Archbishop Keeler: Thank you. Before I recognize the next speaker, I've received a
bulletin amending the amended deadline for amendments. It will now be
not twelve noon but 12:30 [laughter] for those who are rushing in with
amendments to liturgical documents. Bishop Weigand, a question for
clarification.
Bishop William Weigand [Salt Lake City, member Adm. Committee. Now Bishop of Sacramento.]: Bishop
Gregory, I don't relish the prospect of comment and debate on every one
of these prayers when we later get to that point, but could you help
those of us who are not at all experts on translation to understand the
philosophy behind it? Are these generally literal translations or a more
fluid kind of translation and, depending on that - at least if you
think there's going to be outlandish discussion later - wouldn't it be
better to get a sense of the body about those two ways of translating?
Bishop Gregory: Bishop Weigand, I would like to separate in the first segment two types of prayers.
The first type
are the prayers that are translated from the Latin. The guiding
principles that ICEL has followed are those that are enunciated in your
green book and are in conformity with Comme le prévoit and other
documents from the Holy See regarding the translation of Latin. I guess
the operative word is "literal," since a number of bishops and
individuals believe that literal means an absolute word-by-word even
word order conformity with the Latin.
The principles that Comme le prévoit outlined
is that that type of literal translation is not required, that what is
more important is that the truth of the prayer in Latin be rendered in a
suitable, knowable way in the modem language.
It also means
that in those translations from the Latin it might be possible to
amplify and enrich them, so for those who are looking for an absolute
literal translation, the difficulty, perhaps, is not so much with this
text as with some of the guiding principles in Comme le prévoit.
The second
type of prayers are the newly composed prayers that are original English
composition and those prayers are written to reflect- or at least
allude to - the scripture readings of the Sundays on which they are
assigned and thus they sometimes make reference to the Gospel or one of
the readings in an oblique fashion. They are new compositions; they are
not translations from Latin. So you really have to look at it from those
two different vantage points.
- See more at: http://www.adoremus.org/1193-BishopMeetingReport.html#sthash.tWgIxeuS.dpuf
Bishop Anthony Bosco [Greensburg;
member, Committees on Women in Society and in the Church, Pastoral
Practices and Administrative Committee; recently appointed a member of
the BCL]: Bishop Gregory, each year I look forward to seeing which
of our agenda items is going to generate the most mail and thus enrich
the U.S. Postal Service. The winner by far this year was inclusive
language, obviously generated, since most of the letters said the same
thing, but included also- and I'm sure I'm not the only bishop that
received this - was a critique of the English translation of Comme le prévoit. That
about exhausts my French right there. [laughter] And since I don't know
what the provenance of that was there is some question as to whether
there was some malice in it, some manipulation, that it was a poor
translation of the French and consequently misled those of us who are
not fluent in French.
Would you have
anything to say about the origin of our English translation and whether
it deserves the disdain that it has provoked?
Bishop Gregory: Bishop Bosco, I am aware of the questions regarding the translation.
May it suffice to say that the translation was 'indeed prepared by ICEL
but it was submitted as a draft translation to the Concilium which did not accept uncritically the draft that it received and made corrections in that draft and issued it in its own name.
But the concern that some have regarding the translation might properly be addressed to the Concilium rather than to ICEL since the Concilium made adjustments - perhaps some would consider not enough adjustments - but the Concilium did issue the text as we have it in English as a legitimate translation.
Much beyond that, Bishop, I cannot say, but I think part of the difficulty was that some people were saying that the Concilium really
had nothing to do with this translation, that it simply received it and
in an uncritical manner issued it, and there are documents which would
argue against that. Whether they would convince those parties who have
trouble with the translation, of its accuracy or validity, it is de facto a document from the Holy See.
[Note: Concilium was an agency created to implement the Vatican II constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum concilium, and was eventually absorbed into the Congregation for Divine Worship and Sacraments. Members of ICEL who were also Concilium members provided the English translation of Comme le prévoit. - ed.]
Archbishop Keeler: Thank you. Before I recognize the next speaker, I've received a
bulletin amending the amended deadline for amendments. It will now be
not twelve noon but 12:30 [laughter] for those who are rushing in with
amendments to liturgical documents. Bishop Weigand, a question for
clarification.
Bishop William Weigand [Salt Lake City, member Adm. Committee. Now Bishop of Sacramento.]: Bishop
Gregory, I don't relish the prospect of comment and debate on every one
of these prayers when we later get to that point, but could you help
those of us who are not at all experts on translation to understand the
philosophy behind it? Are these generally literal translations or a more
fluid kind of translation and, depending on that - at least if you
think there's going to be outlandish discussion later - wouldn't it be
better to get a sense of the body about those two ways of translating?
Bishop Gregory: Bishop Weigand, I would like to separate in the first segment two types of prayers.
The first type
are the prayers that are translated from the Latin. The guiding
principles that ICEL has followed are those that are enunciated in your
green book and are in conformity with Comme le prévoit and other
documents from the Holy See regarding the translation of Latin. I guess
the operative word is "literal," since a number of bishops and
individuals believe that literal means an absolute word-by-word even
word order conformity with the Latin.
The principles that Comme le prévoit outlined
is that that type of literal translation is not required, that what is
more important is that the truth of the prayer in Latin be rendered in a
suitable, knowable way in the modem language.
It also means
that in those translations from the Latin it might be possible to
amplify and enrich them, so for those who are looking for an absolute
literal translation, the difficulty, perhaps, is not so much with this
text as with some of the guiding principles in Comme le prévoit.
The second
type of prayers are the newly composed prayers that are original English
composition and those prayers are written to reflect- or at least
allude to - the scripture readings of the Sundays on which they are
assigned and thus they sometimes make reference to the Gospel or one of
the readings in an oblique fashion. They are new compositions; they are
not translations from Latin. So you really have to look at it from those
two different vantage points.
- See more at: http://www.adoremus.org/1193-BishopMeetingReport.html#sthash.tWgIxeuS.dpuf
Bishop Anthony Bosco [Greensburg;
member, Committees on Women in Society and in the Church, Pastoral
Practices and Administrative Committee; recently appointed a member of
the BCL]: Bishop Gregory, each year I look forward to seeing which
of our agenda items is going to generate the most mail and thus enrich
the U.S. Postal Service. The winner by far this year was inclusive
language, obviously generated, since most of the letters said the same
thing, but included also- and I'm sure I'm not the only bishop that
received this - was a critique of the English translation of Comme le prévoit. That
about exhausts my French right there. [laughter] And since I don't know
what the provenance of that was there is some question as to whether
there was some malice in it, some manipulation, that it was a poor
translation of the French and consequently misled those of us who are
not fluent in French.
Would you have
anything to say about the origin of our English translation and whether
it deserves the disdain that it has provoked?
Bishop Gregory: Bishop Bosco, I am aware of the questions regarding the translation.
May it suffice to say that the translation was 'indeed prepared by ICEL
but it was submitted as a draft translation to the Concilium which did not accept uncritically the draft that it received and made corrections in that draft and issued it in its own name.
But the concern that some have regarding the translation might properly be addressed to the Concilium rather than to ICEL since the Concilium made adjustments - perhaps some would consider not enough adjustments - but the Concilium did issue the text as we have it in English as a legitimate translation.
Much beyond that, Bishop, I cannot say, but I think part of the difficulty was that some people were saying that the Concilium really
had nothing to do with this translation, that it simply received it and
in an uncritical manner issued it, and there are documents which would
argue against that. Whether they would convince those parties who have
trouble with the translation, of its accuracy or validity, it is de facto a document from the Holy See.
[Note: Concilium was an agency created to implement the Vatican II constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum concilium, and was eventually absorbed into the Congregation for Divine Worship and Sacraments. Members of ICEL who were also Concilium members provided the English translation of Comme le prévoit. - ed.]
Archbishop Keeler: Thank you. Before I recognize the next speaker, I've received a
bulletin amending the amended deadline for amendments. It will now be
not twelve noon but 12:30 [laughter] for those who are rushing in with
amendments to liturgical documents. Bishop Weigand, a question for
clarification.
Bishop William Weigand [Salt Lake City, member Adm. Committee. Now Bishop of Sacramento.]: Bishop
Gregory, I don't relish the prospect of comment and debate on every one
of these prayers when we later get to that point, but could you help
those of us who are not at all experts on translation to understand the
philosophy behind it? Are these generally literal translations or a more
fluid kind of translation and, depending on that - at least if you
think there's going to be outlandish discussion later - wouldn't it be
better to get a sense of the body about those two ways of translating?
Bishop Gregory: Bishop Weigand, I would like to separate in the first segment two types of prayers.
The first type
are the prayers that are translated from the Latin. The guiding
principles that ICEL has followed are those that are enunciated in your
green book and are in conformity with Comme le prévoit and other
documents from the Holy See regarding the translation of Latin. I guess
the operative word is "literal," since a number of bishops and
individuals believe that literal means an absolute word-by-word even
word order conformity with the Latin.
The principles that Comme le prévoit outlined
is that that type of literal translation is not required, that what is
more important is that the truth of the prayer in Latin be rendered in a
suitable, knowable way in the modem language.
It also means
that in those translations from the Latin it might be possible to
amplify and enrich them, so for those who are looking for an absolute
literal translation, the difficulty, perhaps, is not so much with this
text as with some of the guiding principles in Comme le prévoit.
The second
type of prayers are the newly composed prayers that are original English
composition and those prayers are written to reflect- or at least
allude to - the scripture readings of the Sundays on which they are
assigned and thus they sometimes make reference to the Gospel or one of
the readings in an oblique fashion. They are new compositions; they are
not translations from Latin. So you really have to look at it from those
two different vantage points.
- See more at: http://www.adoremus.org/1193-BishopMeetingReport.html#sthash.tWgIxeuS.dpuf
Archbishop Keeler: Thank you. Before I recognize the next speaker, I've received a bulletin amending the amended deadline for amendments. It will now be not twelve noon but 12:30 [laughter] for those who are rushing in with amendments to liturgical documents. Bishop Weigand, a question for clarification.
Bishop William Weigand [Salt Lake City, member Adm. Committee. Now Bishop of Sacramento.]: Bishop Gregory, I don't relish the prospect of comment and debate on every one of these prayers when we later get to that point, but could you help those of us who are not at all experts on translation to understand the philosophy behind it? Are these generally literal translations or a more fluid kind of translation and, depending on that - at least if you think there's going to be outlandish discussion later - wouldn't it be better to get a sense of the body about those two ways of translating?
Bishop Gregory: Bishop Weigand, I would like to separate in the first segment two types of prayers.
The first type are the prayers that are translated from the Latin. The guiding principles that ICEL has followed are those that are enunciated in your green book and are in conformity with Comme le prévoit and other documents from the Holy See regarding the translation of Latin. I guess the operative word is "literal," since a number of bishops and individuals believe that literal means an absolute word-by-word even word order conformity with the Latin.
The principles that Comme le prévoit outlined is that that type of literal translation is not required, that what is more important is that the truth of the prayer in Latin be rendered in a suitable, knowable way in the modem language.
It also means that in those translations from the Latin it might be possible to amplify and enrich them, so for those who are looking for an absolute literal translation, the difficulty, perhaps, is not so much with this text as with some of the guiding principles in Comme le prévoit.
The second type of prayers are the newly composed prayers that are original English composition and those prayers are written to reflect- or at least allude to - the scripture readings of the Sundays on which they are assigned and thus they sometimes make reference to the Gospel or one of the readings in an oblique fashion. They are new compositions; they are not translations from Latin. So you really have to look at it from those two different vantage points. (NCCB Debate on Liturgical Revisions. I attended this entire meeting, sitting in the press section next to a true Jesuit scholar and journalist on side and a "conservative" presbyter on the other. Reading through the transcript once again called to mind everything about that meeting, which I thought at the time represented "progress" when it was a mere shifting of the deck chairs on the Titanic that was doomed to be sunk sooner or later.)
Jorge Mario Bergoglio has now "officially" congratulated the "bishop" members of ICEL, thus rendering completely moot all past arguments that occupied the time of the conciliar "bishops" so needlessly as they got lost in the trees of forest of apostasy and sacrilege without realizing that everything they were arguing about is the exact result of papal condemnations of rendering the liturgy of the Roman Rite into the vernacular rather than be content with a dead language whose precision safeguards the transmission of the Holy Faith with doctrinal soundness and whose grandeur provides a sense of the mysterium tremendum that is conveyed in the unbloody re-presentation or perpetuation of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's sacrificial offering of Himself to His Co-Eternal and Co-Eternal God the Father on the wood of the Holy Cross in atonement for our sins.
Here is what Pope Pius VI had to say about the illegal Synod of Pistoia's efforts to encourage liturgies in the vernacular:
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.)
Moreover, Pope Pius VI also condemned prophetically Jorge Mario
Bergoglio/Francis's rejection of saying a prescribed number of prayers
that the conciliar "pontiff" has mocked as "Pelagianism" when it is pure
and simple Catholicism:
The doctrine which notes as universally superstitious "any efficacy
which is placed in a fixed number of prayers and of pious
salutations"; as if one should consider as superstitious the efficacy
which is derived not from the number viewed in itself, but from the
prescript of the Church appointing a certain number of prayers or of
external acts for obtaining indulgences, for fulfilling penances and, in
general, for the performance of sacred and religious worship in the
correct order and due form,—false, rash, scandalous, dangerous,
injurious to the piety of the faithful, derogatory to the authority of
the Church, erroneous. (Pope Pius VI, Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794.)
Pope Pius XII also noted the importance of Latin as a means to preserve the integrity of the doctrine of the Holy Faith in the Sacred Liturgy:
59. 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 prayerbooks approved for public use the sacred texts of the Old
Testament, deeming them little suited and inopportune for modern times.
60. 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.
61. 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.[52] They are equally the resources used by the
majestic Spouse of Jesus Christ to promote and procure the sanctity of man.
62. 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 tableform; 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.
63. 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.
64. 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.[53] 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.)
Behold the paralysis and weakening of the "process of sanctification" wrought by the liturgical revolution that likes of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Piero Marino believe have not even begun to unfold its "matrix of reform."
By praising ICEL as he has you see, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis, has also made entirely irrelevant each of the following conciliar documents that were issued to try to correct "abuses" in the implementation of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service and/or designed to "finalize" the process of rendering that hideous liturgy's Latin editio typica into the vernacular: Inter Oecumenici, Ecclesiae Semper, Comme le Prevoit, Eucharisticum Mysterium, Memoriale Domini. Actio Pastoralis Ecclesiae, Cenam Paschalem, Liturgiae Instataurartiones, Congerentiarum Episcopalium, Dominicae Cenae, Inaestimabile Donum, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, Sacramentum Caritatis, Redemptionis Sacramentum, and Liturgiam Authenticam.
Liturgiam Authenticam was issued on March 28, 2001, and was supposed to stop "abuses" engendered by ICEL's ideologically-laden translations and original composition, resulting in an entirely re-translated English version of the third edition of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo missal. The re-translated text was implemented on the First Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2011, and was criticized by ultra-progressive conciliar revolutionaries as being "too traditional" and thus "clumsy" rather than "conversational." The re-translation of the English text of the conciliar liturgical abomination represent "President Ratzinger's" desire to make the staging of the conciliar service "more reverent and devout." It is, however, impossible to make something that is sacramentally invalid on its face and a sacrilege in the sight of the Most Blessed Trinity no matter how one attempts to "dress it up," to use a phrase invoked frequently by a conciliar presbyter once in my acquaintance who also coined the term Paul the Sick to refer to the conciliar liturgy's progenitor.
"President Bergoglio" has no use for Liturgiam Authenticam. He has authenticated "papally" the Piero Marini "matrix of reform" paradigm that served as the principal guiding force for those who worked as members and consultants of ICEL.
Indeed, Dr John Page, the Executive Director of ICEL from 1980 to 2002, told me in an extensive interview that I conducted with him for The Wanderer in ICEL's Washington, D.C., headquarters in 1993, just prior to the NCCB meeting that year, that he believed it was the job of ICEL to
"push the liturgy into the Twenty-first Century." He did not give me a
direct answer when I asked him if there were "scholars," many of whom
were arch-feminists, male and female alike, in the employ of ICEL who
supported contraception or surgical abortion or who believed in women's
ordination as part of "pushing the liturgy" into the then upcoming
century. John Page had the full support of the then episcopal head of
ICEL, "Archbishop" Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, and of many other
leading American "bishops" in the conciliar church. The retired Dr. Page, who was very sincerely committed to ICEL's program of "pushing the liturgy into the Twenty-first Century" has now lived long enough to see his work vindicated by "President Bergoglio."
Those who continue to fight for "reverence" in a liturgical abomination ought to realize that they are Still Hunkered Down In Mindanao as it's liturgical "free-for-all" time in the counterfeit church of conciliarism courtesy of the full "papal" support provided for a "liberated liturgical style" by "President Bergoglio" in both word and in deed.
None of this should come as any kind of surprise as to believe in evolution of doctrine and liturgy, whether it was justified by "President Wojtyla" as "living tradition" or by "President Ratzinger" as the "hermeneutic of continuity," results in impermanence and instability as a norm in the life of every false church, including the counterfeit church of conciliarism.
Lost in all of the argumentation that has gone on since the issuance of Sacrosanctum Concilium on December 1, 1963, by the "Second" Vatican Council is that the conciliar the front-line revolutionaries who planned the
abomination that is the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service boasted of their plans to create a "Mass" stripped of Catholic elements that would be "liked" by Protestants:
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.)
Let it be candidly said: the Roman Rite which we
have known hitherto no longer exists. It is destroyed. (Father Joseph
Gelineau, who worked with Annibale Bugnini's Consilium, Quoted and
footnoted in the work of a Father John Mole, who believed that the Mass
of the Roman Rite had been "truncated," not destroyed. Assault on the Roman Rite)
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 same awareness of the present state of the
world also influenced the use of texts from very ancient tradition. It
seemed that this cherished treasure would not be harmed if some phrases
were changed so that the style of language would be more in accord with
the language of modern theology and would faithfully reflect the actual
state of the Church's discipline. Thus there have been changes of some
expressions bearing on the evaluation and use of the good things of the
earth and of allusions to a particular form of outward penance belonging to another age in the history of the Church. (General Instruction to the Roman Missal,
Paragraph 15. Here is an admission that the texts of ancient tradition
were being changed so that they "would be more in accord with the
language of modern theology." What is modern theology, you ask?
Modernism, thank you. How can anyone claim that tradition was preserved
when the revolutionaries admit that they changed it in light of "modern
theology" and the "actual state of the Church's discipline," no less to
disparage, as I have noted in other articles and in my own G.I.R.M. Warfare, practices of "outward penance" that are said, quite arrogantly, "to belong to a different age in the history of the Church"?)
The late Monsignor Klaus Gamber, who was not a traditionalist, explained that it was a desire to destroy the Faith of our fathers that motivated the composition and implementation of the "liturgical renewal:"
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 pastoral benefits that so many
idealists had hoped the new liturgy would bring about did not
materialize. Our churches emptied in spite of the new liturgy (or
because of it?), and the faithful continue to fall away from the Church
in droves.
Although our young people have been literally
seduced in to supporting the new forms of liturgical worship, they have,
in fact, become more and more alienated from the faith. They are drawn
to religious sects--Christian and non-Christian ones--because fewer and
fewer priests teach them the riches of our Catholic faith and the tenets
of Christian morality. As for older people, the radical changes made to
the traditional liturgy have taken from them the sense of security in
their religious home.
Today, many among us wonder: Is this Spring people
had hoped would emerge from the Second Vatican Council? Instead of a
genuine renewal in our Church, we have seen only novelties. Instead of
our religious life entering a period of new invigoration, as happened in
the past, what we see now is a form of Christianity that has turned
towards the world.
We are now involved in a liturgy in which God is no
longer the center of our attention. Today, the eyes of our faithful are
no longer focused on God's Son having become Man hanging on the cross,
or on the pictures of His saints, but on the human community assembled
for a commemorative meal. The assembly of people is sitting there, face
to face with the "presider," expecting from him, in accordance with the
"modern" spirit of the Church, not so much a transfer of God's grace,
but primarily some good ideas and advice on how to deal with daily life
and its challenges.
There are few people who speak of the Holy Mass as
the Sacrifice of the New Covenant which we offer to God the Father
through Jesus Christ, or of the sacramental union with Christ that we
experience when we receive Holy Communion. Today, we are dealing with
the "Eucharistic feat," and with the "holy bread," to be shared as a
sign among as a sign of our brotherhood with Jesus.
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, pp. 100-102.)
These prophetic words of the Venerable Anne Katherine Emmerich have come true right before our very eyes:
I saw a strange church being built against every rule. . . No angels were supervising the building operations. In that church, nothing came from high above. . . There was only division and chaos. It is probably a church of human creation, following the latest fashion, as well as the new heterodox church of Rome, which seems of the same kind. . .
I saw again the strange big church that was being built there (in Rome). There was nothing holy in it. I saw this just as I saw a movement led by Ecclesiastics to which contributed angels, saints and other Christians. But then (in the strange big change) all the work was being done mechanically (i.e. according to set rules and formulae). Everything was being done according to human reason. . .
I saw all sorts of people, things, doctrines, and opinions. There was something proud, presumptuous, and violent about it, and they seemed to be very successful. I did not see a single Angel nor a single saint helping in the work. But far away in the background, I saw the seat of a cruel people armed with spears, and I saw a laughing figure which said: "Do build it as solid as you can; we will put it to the ground" . . . . (as found in Yves Dupont, Catholic Prophecy: The Coming Chastisement, TAN Books and Publishers, 1970, p. 61)
All one needs to do is to open his eyes and see that that church is the counterfeit church of conciliarism, which is headed today by "President Bergoglio," who desires to complete the destruction of the Catholic Faith that was begun under Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII in 1958, and who is acting with incredible swiftness to make it clear to those who hoped that "President Ratzinger's" alleged "restoration," which was no "restoration" at all, only a "correction" of the direction of the conciliar revolution he helped to plan, is over.
Yes, Francis Says ¡Viva la Revolución! (see also Francis Says ¡Viva la Revolución!, part two, Francis Says ¡Viva la Revolución!, part three and Francis Says ¡Viva la Revolución!, part four).
Those who believe that the "presidential administration" of Jorge Mario Bergoglio is merely transitory deceive themselves as it is impossible for that which is false to do anything other than to unravel, perhaps at various speeds now and again, over the course of time to the point all talk of "getting the toothpaste back in the tube" is nothing other than delusionally insane. None of this can come from the Catholic Church. Not one little bit of this.
Every Rosary we pray--and we should pray as many each day as our states-in-life permit--helps to make reparation for our own sins and those of the whole world. We must have confidence in Our Lady's intercessory power to help others as she has helped us, sinners who are no better than anyone else at all (!), to find a way out of the false church of conciliarism once and for all.
We must keep close to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary in this time of the Great Apostasy.
The Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph in the end. We just have to suffer through this all at present as our sins deserve, recognizing that as bad as the situation is today, and it is very bad indeed, there are at least some Catholics who are responding to this moment of grace by recognizing that "President Bergoglio" is friend of Antichrist, not Christ the King, and his false church is but the counterfeit ape of the spotless, immaculate Mystical Spouse of Our Divine King, the Catholic Church.
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!
Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!
Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!
Saint Joseph, Patron of Departing Souls, 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 Peter of Alcantara, pray for us.
Saint John Cantius, pray for us.
Appendix A
Joseph Ratzinger's Condemned Views on Dogmatic Evolution
1971: "In theses 10-12, the
difficult problem of the relationship between language and thought is
debated, which in post-conciliar discussions was the immediate departure
point of the dispute.
The identity of the Christian substance as such, the
Christian 'thing' was not directly ... censured, but it was pointed out
that no formula, no matter how valid and indispensable it may have been
in its time, can fully express the thought mentioned in it and declare
it unequivocally forever, since language is constantly in movement and
the content of its meaning changes. (Fr. Ratzinger: Dogmatic formulas must always change.)
1990:
The text [of the document Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesial
Vocation] also presents the various types of bonds that rise from the
different degrees of magisterial teaching. It affirms - perhaps
for the first time with this clarity - that there are decisions of the
magisterium that cannot be the last word on the matter as such, but are,
in a substantial fixation of the problem, above all an expression of
pastoral prudence, a kind of provisional disposition. The nucleus
remains valid, but the particulars, which the circumstances of the times
influenced, may need further correction.
In this regard, one may think of the declarations of Popes in the last
century [19th century] about religious liberty, as well as the
anti-Modernist decisions at the beginning of this century, above all,
the decisions of the Biblical Commission of the time [on evolutionism].
As a cry of alarm in the face of hasty and superficial adaptations, they
will remain fully justified. A personage such as Johann Baptist Metz
said, for example, that the Church's anti-Modernist decisions render the
great service of preserving her from falling into the liberal-bourgeois
world. But in the details of the determinations they contain, they
became obsolete after having fulfilled their pastoral mission at their
proper time.
(Joseph Ratzinger, "Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesial Vocation,"
published with the title "Rinnovato dialogo fra Magistero e Teologia,"
in L'Osservatore Romano, June 27, 1990, p. 6, cited at Card. Ratzinger: The teachings of the Popes against Modernism are obsolete)
It is precisely in this
combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that
the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of
innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically
than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for
example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation
of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely
because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to
recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that
express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent,
motivating decisions from within.
On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that
depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)
Appendix B
The Catholic Church's Consistent Condemnation of Joseph Ratzinger's Views on Dogmatic Evolution
-
For the doctrine of the faith which God has revealed is put forward
- not as some philosophical discovery capable of being perfected by human intelligence,
- but as a divine deposit committed to the spouse of Christ to be faithfully protected and infallibly promulgated.
-
Hence, too, that meaning of the
sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by
holy mother church, and there must never be any abandonment of this
sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.
God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever be in opposition to truth.
The appearance of this kind of specious contradiction is chiefly due to the fact that either: the dogmas of faith are
not understood and explained in accordance with the mind of the church,
or unsound views are mistaken for the conclusions of reason.
Therefore we define that every assertion contrary to the truth of enlightened faith is totally false. . . .
3. If anyone says that it is possible that
at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be
assigned to the dogmas propounded by the church which is different from
that which the church has understood and understands: let him be
anathema.
And so in the performance of our supreme pastoral
office, we beseech for the love of Jesus Christ and we command, by the
authority of him who is also our God and saviour, all faithful
Christians, especially those in authority or who have the duty of
teaching, that they contribute their zeal and labour to the warding off
and elimination of these errors from the church and to the spreading of
the light of the pure faith.
But since it is not enough to avoid the
contamination of heresy unless those errors are carefully shunned which
approach it in greater or less degree, we warn all of their duty to
observe the constitutions and decrees in which such wrong opinions,
though not expressly mentioned in this document, have been banned and
forbidden by this holy see. (Pope Pius IX, Vatican Council, Session III,
Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Chapter 4, On Faith and
Reason, April 24, 1870. SESSION 3 : 24 April 1.)
Hence it is quite impossible [the Modernists assert] to maintain that they [dogmatic statements] absolutely contain the truth: for,
in so far as they are symbols, they are the images of truth, and so
must be adapted to the religious sense in its relation to man; and as
instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and must therefore in their
turn be adapted to man in his relation to the religious sense. But the
object of the religious sense, as something contained in the absolute,
possesses an infinite variety of aspects, of which now one, now another,
may present itself. In like manner he who believes can avail himself of
varying conditions. Consequently, the formulas which we call dogma must
be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change.
Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have
an immense structure of sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
Fourthly, I
sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the
apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and
always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical'
misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to
another different from the one which the Church held previously. . . .
Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the
modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or
what is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with
the result that there would remain nothing but this plain simple
fact-one to be put on a par with the ordinary facts of history-the fact,
namely, that a group of men by their own labor, skill, and talent have
continued through subsequent ages a school begun by Christ and his
apostles. I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the
belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was,
and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the
apostles. The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be
tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture
of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by
the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different,
may never be understood in any other way.
I promise that I shall keep all these articles
faithfully, entirely, and sincerely, and guard them inviolate, in no way
deviating from them in teaching or in any way in word or in writing.
Thus I promise, this I swear, so help me God. (The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910.)
