by
Thomas A. Droleskey
We stayed in many campgrounds over between the time we purchased it in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Thursday, July 12, 2001, until it was driven away by its new owners on Tuesday, April 5, 2011.
One of the worst places at which we parked our Georgetown motor home was Bluff's Run R.V. Park in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The campground, such as it was, was situated in the parking lot of a casino. Most of those who parked there were compulsive gamblers, people who gambled from morning until night. We had parked there on Friday, March 15, 2002, in order to be able to go what we thought was Holy Mass at a "dual function" parish in Omaha, Nebraska. Little did we realize that the only true offering of any version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition in Omaha was at Mary Immaculate Catholic Church.
An incident occurred on Thursday, March 21, 2002, that has become the "stuff" of many an inside joke in our family since that time. Let me explain.
Attempting to fill up the motor home's fresh water tank, I discovered that there was no water to be had. None was coming out of the spigot. I telephoned the office, which was located in a makeshift building at the entrance to the recreational vehicle side of the parking lot. The woman who answered the telephone said that the water had been turned off, explaining that, "We got leakin' and stuff."
Yes, they had "leakin' and stuff."
Bluffs Run R.V. Park isn't only place to have experienced "leakin' and stuff," though.
The history of the United States of America is replete with examples of "leaks" plaguing presidents and their cabinet secretaries. Members of both houses of the Congress of the United States of America have leaked information and have been the victim of leaks, sometimes by their own staff members and sometimes by other members of Congress. Governors and state legislators have leaked and been the victims of leaks. So have mayors and county executives and local legislators, sheriffs and district attorneys.
Intrigue inside the walls of the Vatican is hardly new. That there is such intrigue now is nothing shocking. What is different about the intrigue that has taken place within the walls of the Vatican and its related extra-territorial offices in and around Rome is that it is taking place as a direct result of the entire conciliar ethos, starting with the cult of personality that began in earnest under the consummate theatrical performer, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II (
"Connecting" with Betrayal, "Canonizing" A Man Who Protected Moral Derelicts, Celebrating Apostasy and Dereliction of Duty, To Be Loved by the Jews, Perhaps Judas Was the First to Sing "A Kiss is Just a Kiss", Enjoy the Party, George, Enjoy the Party and Anticlimactic "Beatification" for an Antipope), that has convinced many Catholics worldwide that the Catholic Faith is so fungible and so malleable that it is subject to the vicissitudes of whoever happens to lay claim to the papal throne no matter how many times the claimant offends God in matters of Faith, Worship and Morals and how many times he protects moral reprobates among his own ranks.
This conciliar cult of personality around the persons of the conciliar "pontiffs" is to be distinguished from the true reverence and filial devotion that Catholics must show a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter. Romans have a saying: "One pope dies, they make another pope." In other words, while a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter is indeed the Vicar of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the Visible Head of the true Church, the Catholic Church, on earth, he is not in his person the Catholic Faith. He is the visible, human instrument by which Holy Mother Church is to be guided infallibly on Faith and Morals and to govern her monarchically as the one vested by the Divine Redeemer Himself with authority over all men on the face of this earth.
As there are many aspects to the story of intrigue concerning the leaks from inside the walls of the Vatican, including the Apostolic Palace, that have resulted in the arrest of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's personal butler, Paolo Gabriele, and carries implications of La Cosa Nostra-like power struggles among competing factions over the decisions of the Vatican Secretary of State, Tarcisio "Cardinal" Bertone, and the influence that he carries over Ratzinger/Benedict, who lacks the personal never to confront his longtime friend and fellow destroyer of Our Lady's Fatima Message, I will attempt to highlight a few salient points in as brief as manner as possible before permitting you all to be about your business and getting that check in the mail in response to last week's Donations page update.
Praise "Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press," Die by "Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press"
While it is certainly true that those who work for what they believe is the Catholic Church, especially for a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter, must abide by the strictest standards of confidentiality in matters pertaining to personal communications and internal decisions, keeping such matters as a priest would keep whatever is told to him in the confessional under seal and does not bring anything from the external forum to bear upon a penitent's confession, human nature is what it is. People tend to blab.
Moreover, the conciliar "popes," in complete contradistinction to our true popes, have praised "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press" as "inalienable rights" that inhere in the "dignity of the human person." It is only natural for people who have lived their entire lives in an atmosphere of "openness" and of all manner of leaks in the secular press concerning governmental officials to consider themselves excused from the bonds of confidentiality when circumstances require. Why not make use of the "press" to make use of one's right of "free speech" to seek to correct various wrongs and to seek to thwart the rise of a particularly power hungry and corrupt "cardinal" from succeeding the current conciliar "pontiff," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI?
After all, Ratzinger/Benedict himself has praised "freedom of speech," doing so in the talk he gave in Westminster Hall to leading members of British society on Friday, September 17, 2010:
This country’s Parliamentary tradition owes much to the national instinct for
moderation, to the desire to achieve a genuine balance between the legitimate
claims of government and the rights of those subject to it. While decisive
steps have been taken at several points in your history to place limits on the
exercise of power, the nation’s political institutions have been able to evolve
with a remarkable degree of stability. In the process, Britain has emerged as a
pluralist democracy which places great value on freedom of speech, freedom of
political affiliation and respect for the rule of law, with a strong sense of
the individual’s rights and duties, and of the equality of all citizens before
the law. While couched in different language, Catholic social teaching has much
in common with this approach, in its overriding concern to safeguard the unique
dignity of every human person, created in the image and likeness of God, and in
its emphasis on the duty of civil authority to foster the common good. (Meeting with the representatives of British Society,
including the Diplomatic Corps, politicians, academics and business leaders at Westminster Hall, City of
Westminster, 17 September 2010.)
"Catholic social teaching has much in common with this approach"?
Not really, thank you very much:
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.
Here We must include that harmful and never
sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and
disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote
with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines
and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books,
pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very
great in malice. We are in tears at the abuse which proceeds from them
over the face of the earth. Some are so carried away that they
contentiously assert that the flock of errors arising from them is
sufficiently compensated by the publication of some book which defends
religion and truth. Every law condemns deliberately doing evil simply
because there is some hope that good may result. Is there any sane man
who would say poison ought to be distributed, sold publicly, stored, and
even drunk because some antidote is available and those who use it may
be snatched from death again and again? (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)
Yet, with the discernment of a true mother, the
Church weighs the great burden of human weakness, and well knows the
course down which the minds and actions of men are in this our age being
borne. For this reason, while not conceding any right to anything save
what is true and honest, she does not forbid public authority to
tolerate what is at variance with truth and justice, for the sake of
avoiding some greater evil, or of obtaining or preserving some greater
good. God Himself in His providence, though infinitely good and
powerful, permits evil to exist in the world, partly that greater good
may not be impeded, and partly that greater evil may not ensue. In the
government of States it is not forbidden to imitate the Ruler of the
world; and, as the authority of man is powerless to prevent every evil,
it has (as St. Augustine says) to overlook and leave unpunished many
things which are punished, and rightly, by Divine Providence. But if, in
such circumstances, for the sake of the common good (and this is the
only legitimate reason), human law may or even should tolerate evil, it
may not and should not approve or desire evil for its own sake; for evil
of itself, being a privation of good, is opposed to the common welfare
which every legislator is bound to desire and defend to the best of his
ability. In this, human law must endeavor to imitate God, who, as St.
Thomas teaches, in allowing evil to exist in the world, "neither wills
evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done, but wills only to permit
it to be done; and this is good.'' This saying of the Angelic Doctor
contains briefly the whole doctrine of the permission of evil.
But, to judge aright, we must
acknowledge that, the more a State is driven to tolerate evil, the
further is it from perfection; and that the tolerance of evil which is
dictated by political prudence should be strictly confined to the limits
which its justifying cause, the public welfare, requires. Wherefore, if
such tolerance would be injurious to the public welfare, and entail
greater evils on the State, it would not be lawful; for in such case the
motive of good is wanting. And although in the extraordinary
condition of these times the Church usually acquiesces in certain modern
liberties, not because she prefers them in themselves, but because she
judges it expedient to permit them, she would in happier times exercise
her own liberty; and, by persuasion, exhortation, and entreaty would
endeavor, as she is bound, to fulfill the duty assigned to her by God of
providing for the eternal salvation of mankind. One thing, however,
remains always true -- that the liberty which is claimed for all to do
all things is not, as We have often said, of itself desirable, inasmuch
as it is contrary to reason that error and truth should have equal
rights.
And as to tolerance, it is surprising how
far removed from the equity and prudence of the Church are those who
profess what is called liberalism. For, in allowing that
boundless license of which We have spoken, they exceed all limits, and
end at last by making no apparent distinction between truth and error,
honesty and dishonesty. And because the Church, the pillar and
ground of truth, and the unerring teacher of morals, is forced utterly
to reprobate and condemn tolerance of such an abandoned and criminal
character, they calumniate her as being wanting in patience and
gentleness, and thus fail to see that, in so doing, they impute to her
as a fault what is in reality a matter for commendation. But, in spite
of all this show of tolerance, it very often happens that, while they
profess themselves ready to lavish liberty on all in the greatest
profusion, they are utterly intolerant toward the Catholic Church, by
refusing to allow her the liberty of being herself free. (Pope Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum, June 20, 1888.)
Those who have been bereft of instruction in the true teaching of the Catholic Church on modern liberties find it far easier than others to take full advantage of them, especially when matters that are not publicly known--and hence not notorious--are revealed. It is precisely because most Catholics today are bereft of any understanding of right principles that they act according to the lights of the world according to the "rights" that the conciliar "popes" have told them are theirs inherently because of the "dignity of the human person."
Creating A Milieu Conducive to Leaks
One of the banes of daily existence in the counterfeit church of conciliarism is the very trend towards decentralization or "democratization" in decision-making that leads to such bureaucratic paralysis in the face of real and legitimate abuses (protecting and promoting morally corrupt clergy, corrupt and immortal, if not illegal, financial practices). Equally paralyzed have been the conciliar "popes," men who have made of what they think is the office of the papacy into a mere clearinghouse for what has been decided by a bevy of committees. Indeed, both the conciliar "popes" and their "bishops" have made themselves prisoner of that which is the very antithesis of the monarchical foundation of Holy Mother Church's Divine Constitution, "episcopal collegiality."
God so loved the world that He did not create a committee. He gave us a man, Adam, as the head of the first human household. He gave us a representative of the New Adam, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to be the visible head of His true Church on earth. The powers of a true pope and of a true diocesan ordinary must be just and measured. However, the exercise of said powers are not dependent ultimately upon what some committee may have recommended.
The chancellor of a diocese where I once worked told me in my job interview in September of 1988 that the "bishop" he served--and for whom I wound up working--in a direct capacity for a year and then in an advisory capacity for another ten years--did not make decisions until others had carefully sifted them, that he considered his role as a "conciliator" rather than an arbiter. This proved to be very maddening during my stay in the chancery office as serious abuses went unchecked. When I mentioned to the "bishop" that he had an obligation to crack down on what I thought were "liturgical abuses" but came to recognize as merely manifestations of the hideous nature of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service, he responded by saying, "If all I did was to correct liturgical abuses, I'd be nothing more than a traffic cop." I replied by saying that there is chaos in cities which lack police officers to direct traffic, especially at times of emergencies and/or when power blackouts take place.
In other words, I was trying to explain to him that he had the obligation to govern his diocese even though I admit very fully that I did not recognize that conciliarism itself made this impossible. Although I did not leave the formal employ of the diocese for another five months, I did tender a letter of resignation after what I thought was the Easter Vigil Mass in the diocesan cathedral after having endured listening to a rendition of the Litany of the Saints that included the names of Martin Luther King, Jr., "Archbishop" Oscar Romero, who was murdered by military assassins on March 24, 1989, and each of the four women murdered in El Salvador (Jean Donovan, Dorothy Kazel, Ita Ford and Maura Clarke) by a military death squad on December 2, 1980). The rector of the cathedral required that a fairly "conservative," recently-installed conciliar presbyter assigned to the cathedral parish submit his "homilies" to the parish "liturgy committee" for approval before he could give them. This is simply not Catholic. This is "lay control of the clergy" taken to its penultimate by the conciliar revolutionaries.
The vessel by which conciliarism is communicate to Catholics in the conciliar church is indeed the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service, which is staged in different ways with different prayers and different songs even in the same parish in order to serve various "constituency" groups therein and to appeal to the "lay movements" in some cases. This feeds the sense that there is no order, no structure, no real governance within what most people believe is the Catholic Church. This cannot but result in the "democratizing" of the Vatican itself in the name of "collegiality" and "openness" to the "spirit of the world.
Novelty and Ambiguity Lead to Endless Gabfests With the Media
The ubiquitous presence of the modern mass media is certainly one
reason why curial "cardinals" speak at all publicly, something that was almost never the case in the years prior to the death of our last true pope thus far, Pope Pius XII, on October 9, 1958.
Even with the ubiquitous presence of a team of Vatican reporters as is the case today, however,
it is arguably the case that the curial officials who served our true popes would have
eschewed the spotlight and do their work in holy anonymity.
Additionally, the curial officials of the past had no need to be
interviewed precisely because the doctrinal and pastoral language of the
Church was crystal clear. It needed no elaborate explanations.
Ambiguity was not part of the language of popes or Vatican documents.
One of the reasons that the writings of such great popes as Pius VI, Pius VII, Gregory XVI. and Leo XIII and Saint Pius X are still producing
converts to the true Faith is that they explained things in their
encyclical letters with excruciating clarity as they had not defected from the Faith and had been trained in the Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Each of their documents
resonates with Catholicity. Although Vatican I was interrupted by the
Franco-Prussian War, the work it did manage to complete, including the
solemn decree of Papal infallibility, did not have to be explained by
endless processions of curial cardinals or other Vatican spokesmen
(there was no equivalent of Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls or "Father" Federico Lombardi, S.J., in the past). The
documents and decrees spoke for themselves. And those documents and
decrees were taken seriously by many, although certainly not all, of the
world's bishops and priests.
To wit, there was serious academic discussion in Catholic high
schools and colleges and universities of Pope Pius XI's great encyclical
on the Social Kingship of Our Blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Quas Primas, soon
after its issuance on December 11, 1925. Indeed, the program for my late father's
graduation ceremony in February of 1938 at Brooklyn Preparatory High School,, which was
run by the Jesuits during the Catholic phase of their history, indicates
that the subject of the salutatorian's address was "The Catholic State
in Theory" and the subject of the valedictorian's address was "The
Catholic State in Practice." Encyclicals such as Quas Primas did
not need legions of theologians and workshops to make them
understandable to the average Catholic. Their inherent Catholicity spoke
for themselves. Indeed, the older encyclical letters, many of which are
contradicted by the language and praxis of the conciliar church, resonate
the desire to be faithful to Our Lord's command to bring all souls into
the true Church He founded on the Rock of Peter, the Pope.
The documents of the "Second" Vatican Council contained texts that put into question, if not denied, parts of the Sacred Deposit Faith. The conciliar "popes: have issued statements and written "unofficial" books and made addresses that simply contradict what was taught by our true popes and is thus contained in the Sacred Deposit of Faith.
Entire forests of trees have been torn down to produce the paper necessary to
explain how the phrase "the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic
Church" is the same as the Catholic Church is the true Church founded by
Christ Himself. As if the ambiguity of the texts of many of the
Vatican II documents is not enough, Catholics have had to contend with
numerous papal statements and actions that have bewildered, if not
actually scandalized, the faithful. The list of such things is too long
to be recounted here. The contradictions are there for all who have the honesty to
admit that they exist and that they cannot be explained away by
spin-doctoring.
Undaunted, though, Vatican officials, including Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, and his curial "curial" cardinals must issue "clarifications" time and time again after stating something that went beyond even the "officially" approved apostasies of their false church.
Furthermore, Ratzinger/Benedict himself has repackaged the Modernist concept of "evolution of dogma" in a slogan called "the hermeneutic of continuity" as a means of explaining away simple truths by making
positivistic statements and defying the logic of the principle of
non-contradiction.
The novelties, apostasies, blasphemies and sacrileges in the conciliar church's liturgy and doctrine of the past fifty years have produced, therefore, a situation where public comment by curial
"cardinals" is expected and welcomed. The more these men talk, however,
the more confusion is added, especially to those who follow these
bewildering and scandalous developments on various services such as the
Vatican Information Service (VIS) and ZENIT. This has led to a situation
where Catholics who accept the Deposit of Faith--but who try very hard
to convince themselves that the conciliar "popes" have not expelled themselves from the bosom of Holy Mother Church--find that their efforts to defend the indefensible often get contradicted by the statements of various "cardinals" and "bishops" who have felt free to "clarify" what the "'pope' really meant to say or teach." The sort of public visibility and conflict thus
generated has made it appear to Catholics and non-Catholics alike that what they think is the Catholic Church does not have "any
answers" to help "modern humankind" face the challenges of a
"technologically advanced" world.
Why blame underlings such a Paolo Gabriele for doing what has come all too naturally to the "cardinals" and the "bishops" themselves in the past fifty years? Novelties do, after all, beget novelties just as error begets itself repeatedly.
Loss of the Sensus Catholicus Leads to Misplaced Anger and Outrage
The conciliar "pontiff," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, is reported to be "wounded" by his butler's betrayal of his confidences. This is interesting considering the fact that Ratzinger/Benedict is not at all "wounded" or outraged for the honor and glory of the Most Blessed Trinity over anything he--or his "cardinals" and "bishops" have done that are contrary to the true patrimony of the Catholic Church and thus hideous in the sight of God. Moreover, who among the great legion of his defenders in the traditionally-minded blogosphere gets offended when their "suffering 'pope'" offends God by breaking the First and Second Commandments in the most bold manner imaginable, thereby deceiving Catholics and non-Catholics alike into believing that, all conciliar protestations to the contrary, one "religion is just as good as another."
How can any sane and rational human being believe that men who offend
God by personally esteeming the symbols of false religions and
participating in joint "prayer" services with non-Catholics that are
direct violations of the First and Second Commandments and a complete
defiance of Holy Mother Church's immutable condemnation of such
activities, the likes of which caused millions upon millions of martyrs
to prefer horrible deaths than even to give the appearance of
such sacrileges and blasphemies, can foster an environment of respect for the confidentiality of their own correspondence when they do not respect and honor the honor and glory and majesty of God by doing and saying things contrary to the Faith? Men who have no
regard for the First and Second Commandments or for the fact that their
activities have been condemned by Apostles and Fathers and Doctors and
Confessors and true popes can hardly expect those who work for them will respect them any more than they have shown respect for God and His immutable truths.
Yes, conciliarism has led to such a loss of the sensus Catholicus that men get outraged over the slightest offense to their own persons while having little, if any, outrage left over for the very offenses that they give to God on a daily basis, starting with staging a false liturgical service that "Pope" Benedict XVI does not represent a "rupture" with the past even though he, writing as "Cardinal" Ratzinger, said that it was such a rupture or break (see Trying To Understand Apostasy).
You wanna see rupture? Go to the closing part of the 1949 movie Come to the Stable featuring the conversion of a hardened agnostic, played by Hugh Marlowe, who had been convinced after uttering a simple prayer to donate land that he had wanted to keep for his own use to a community of religious sisters from France. The final scenes portray the end of a pontifical high Mass, something that most Catholics alive today have never witnessed and thus have not even a scintilla of appreciation for what they experience in in their local parishes is far, far from true Catholic worship and thus offensive to God and harmful to souls. (See Come to the Stable Part Ten; we have a copy of the movie on DVD. I thank Mr. Frank Rega, however, for inspiring me to link to its final five and one-half minutes as a means of explaining visually the absurdity of the "hermeneutic
We have to keep saying to our friends and relatives who castigate us for believing that we are "outside of the Church" that we will remain faithful to Catholic teaching what anyone, including our closest relatives and friends, say about us as they have failed to consider these telling words:
