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August 6, 2008

With the "Pope's" Full Approval

by Thomas A. Droleskey

One of the truly pathetic refuges that has been sought by many who cling stubbornly to the patently laughable proposition that Joseph Ratzinger is a member of the Catholic Church is that he has done nothing "official," that is, nothing "ex cathedra" as Benedict XVI contrary to the Catholic Faith. Each of Joseph Ratzinger's multiple apostasies that are contained in his writings and statements before becoming the successor of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II as the head of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, the apparent Successor of Saint Peter, mean nothing. Nothing at all. Each of the things that Joseph Ratzinger has said and done as Benedict XVI give no indication that he has fallen from the Faith, only that he might be suffering from some kind of "diabolical disorientation," thereby implying that it is possible to be a member of the Catholic Church in good standing while holding notions about such things as the nature of dogmatic truth that abject philosophical absurdities and have been anathematized solemnly by the infallible authority of that same Catholic Church.

To discount the "private" or "unofficial" writings or beliefs or actions of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is one of the cornerstones of the "resist and recognize" camp that makes membership in the Catholic Church reducible to the holding of a certain--but never specifically defined--minimal number of "core" beliefs. This "minimal beliefs" standard, for which there is absolutely zero Patristic support, has become the "gold standard" by which so many traditionally-minded Catholics assess the state of the Church during this era of apostasy and betrayal, convincing themselves that it is an actual virtue to remain silent in the face of repeated outrages against the honor and glory and majesty of the Most Blessed Trinity committed by the conciliar "pontiffs," including Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

The truth is, of course, that one must believe in everything taught by the Catholic Church in order to remain a member in her maternal bosom in good standing. The standard by which one is a Catholic is "all or nothing," not some "minimal beliefs" standard that is determined arbitrarily by those wishing to serve as intellectually dishonest apologists of a man who has been at war with the Catholic Faith throughout his priesthood, a man who rejects the official philosophy of the Church, Scholasticism, as he made clear in his own memoirs, Milestones:

Ratzinger loved St. Augustine, but never St. Thomas Aquinas: "By contrast, I had difficulties in penetrating the thought of Thomas Aquinas, whose crystal-clear logic seemed to be too closed in on itself, too impersonal and ready-made" (op. cit., p.44). This aversion was mainly due to the professor of philosophy at the seminary, who "presented us with a rigid, neo-scholastic Thomism that was simply too far afield from my own questions" (ibid.). According to Cardinal Ratzinger, whose current opinions appear unchanged from those he held as a seminarian, the thought of Aquinas was "too closed in on itself, too impersonal and ready-made," and was unable to respond to the personal questions of the faithful. This opinion is enunciated by a prince of the Church whose function it is to safeguard the purity of the doctrine of the Faith! Why, then, should anyone be surprised at the current disastrous crisis of Catholicism, or seek to attribute it to the world, when those who should be the defenders of the Faith, and hence of genuine Catholic thought, are like sewers drinking in the filth, or like gardeners who cut down a tree they are supposed to be nurturing? What can it mean to stigmatize St. Thomas as having a "too impersonal and ready-made" logic? Is logic "personal"? These assertions reveal, in the person who makes them, a typically Protestant, pietist attitude, like that found in those who seek the rule of faith in personal interior sentiment.

In the two years Ratzinger spent at the diocesan seminary of Freising, he studied literature, music, modern philosophy, and he felt drawn towards the new existentialist and modernist theologies. He did not like St. Thomas Aquinas. The formation described does not correspond to the exclusively Catholic formation that is necessary to one called to be a priest, even taking into account the extenuating circumstances of the time, that is, anti-Christian Nazism, the war and defeat, and the secularization of studies within seminaries. It seems that His Eminence, with all due respect, gave too much place to profane culture, with its "openness" to everything, and its critical attitude...Joseph Ratzinger loved the professors who asked many questions, but disliked those who defended dogma with the crystal-clear logic of St. Thomas. This attitude would seem to us to match his manner of understanding Catholic liturgy. He tells us that from childhood he was always attracted to the liturgical movement and was sympathetic towards it. One can see that for him, the liturgy was a matter of feeling, a lived experience, an aesthetically pleasing "Erlebnis," but fundamentally irrational (op. cit. passim.). (The Memories of a Destructive Mind: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's Milestones.)

 

One must accept the totality of the truths of the Catholic Faith, not attempt to do what the Orthodox and Protestants have done in re-reading the Fathers of the Church without the "filter" provided by Scholasticism, something that is of the essence of the New Theology subscribed to and advanced consistently by Joseph Ratzinger throughout his priesthood despite its being condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950. No one free to "re-define" the Faith as efforts are made to justify the absurdity of "continuity in discontinuity" as the foundation of seeing a "link" between the novelties of conciliarism and the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church.

No Catholic is "free" to reject Scholasticism as the official philosophy of the Catholic Church. Pope Leo XIII explained in Aeterni Patris, August 4, 1879, that to disparage Saint Thomas Aquinas and Scholasticism was to attack at the very heart of the Faith itself:

 

A last triumph was reserved for this incomparable man -- namely, to compel the homage, praise, and admiration of even the very enemies of the Catholic name. For it has come to light that there were not lacking among the leaders of heretical sects some who openly declared that, if the teaching of Thomas Aquinas were only taken away, they could easily battle with all Catholic teachers, gain the victory, and abolish the Church. A vain hope, indeed, but no vain testimony.

 

Leaving aside all of the many other ways in which Joseph Ratzinger has defected from the Catholic Faith in his writings and statements and actions, it is on this basis alone, my friends, the nature of dogmatic truth, that proves that Joseph Ratzinger has expelled himself from the Catholic Church by defying anathematized propositions, thereby violating the Divine Positive Law and falling from the Faith as a result.

Once again, Pope Leo XIII provided us with the one and only true "gold standard," if you will, by which one is a member of the Catholic Church:

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

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

The need of this divinely instituted means for the preservation of unity, about which we speak is urged by St. Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians. In this he first admonishes them to preserve with every care concord of minds: "Solicitous to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. iv., 3, et seq.). And as souls cannot be perfectly united in charity unless minds agree in faith, he wishes all to hold the same faith: "One Lord, one faith," and this so perfectly one as to prevent all danger of error: "that henceforth we be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive" (Eph. iv., 14): and this he teaches is to be observed, not for a time only - "but until we all meet in the unity of faith...unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ" (13). But, in what has Christ placed the primary principle, and the means of preserving this unity? In that - "He gave some Apostles - and other some pastors and doctors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ" (11-12).

 

Another refuge sought by those desperate to indemnify Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI at almost every turn while castigating in the harshest terms those who recognize that the canonical-doctrinal principle of sedevacantism applies in this era of apostasy and betrayal is to contend, sometimes with a great deal of hubris and righteous indignation, that the "men around 'the pope'," don't really speak for "the pope" when they give various presentations and/or give statements to reporters. This is what we heard when Walter "Cardinal" Kasper, the President of the "Pontifical" Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the President of the Commission of the Holy See for Religious Relations with the Jews wrote the following to Rabbi David Rosen

Chief Rabbi David Rosen
Chairman
IJCIC
165 East 56th Street
New York, NY 10022 USA

Dear Rabbi Rosen,

Upon my return to Rome, I found your letter of 10 February 2008 regarding the prayer formulated for the extraordinary rite of the Good Friday liturgy. I well understand the sensitivities of some of the more traditional Jewish circles. However, if one reads exactly what is said in the reformulated prayer one sees nothing is withdrawn from Nostra Aetate; indeed, this text remains totally valid and fundamental for our Jewish-Christian relations. It is absolutely not the intention of anyone in the Roman Curia to step back and interrupt our fruitful dialogue, which for us is irreversible.

Yet we must not lose sight of the fact that this dialogue presupposes that both Jews and Christians maintain their identities and remain free to express their respective faiths. From the very beginning of our dialogue it was and it remains clear that notwithstanding all that we have in common there is a fundamental difference in Christology which is constitutive for both your Jewish and our own Christian identity. To give witness of our Christian faith, as is expressed in the reformulated prayer, is therefore in no way a return to the language of contempt but an expression of mutual respect in our respective otherness.

In reformulating the prayer of the now extraordinary liturgy, the Pope wanted to avoid formulations which were perceived by many Jews to be offensive, but he wanted at the same time to remain in line with the intrinsic linguistic and stylistic structure of this liturgy and therefore not simply replace the prayer for the prayer in the ordinary liturgy, which we must not forget is used by the vast majority of Catholic communities.

The reformulated text no longer speaks about the conversion of the Jews as some Jewish critics wrongly affirm. The text is a prayer inspired by Saint Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 11, which is the very text that speaks also of the unbroken covenant. It takes up Paul's eschatological hope that in the end of time all Israel will be saved. As a prayer the text lays all in the hands of God and not in ours. It says nothing about the how and when. Therefore there is nothing about missionary activities by which we may take Israel's salvation in our hands.

I cannot see why this prayer should present any reason to interrupt our dialogue. On the contrary, it is an opportunity and a challenge to continue the dialogue on what we have in common and what differentiates us in our Messianic hope.

I am happy that after some perplexities we now hear more and more voices from the Jewish world seeing things in a realistic way, and I do hope that this letter can be a contribution to overcome the misunderstandings and grievances.

Yours sincerely, Walter Cardinal Kasper President (Cardinal Kasper's Letter to Rabbi Rosen)

 

We were told by some that it was an exercise in "rash judgment" to contend that Walter Kasper spoke for "the pope" when he wrote that letter. Kasper, of course, was never corrected, now was he? Neither was Father Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M., Cap., the insidious little charismatic viper who destroys the Faith as the "Preacher to the 'Papal' Household," corrected when he said the following in 2005:

If Jews one day come (as Paul hopes) to a more positive judgment of Jesus, this must occur through an inner process, as the end of a search of their own (something that in part is occurring). We Christians cannot be the ones who seek to convert them. We have lost the right to do so by the way in which this was done in the past. First the wounds must be healed through dialogue and reconciliation. ("Appropriate Attitude Toward the Jewish People" Zenit, September 30, 2005.)

 

"We have lost the right to do so by the way in which this was done in the past"? Oh, really? Does Father Cantalamessa believe that Saint Peter had it wrong on Pentecost Sunday when he sought the conversion of the Jews? Does Father Cantalamessa believe that Saint Vincent Ferrer, O.P., was wrong to have sought with urgency the unconditional conversion of Jews and Mohammedans to the true Faith in the latter part of the Fourteenth and early part of the Fifteenth Centuries? Does Father Cantalamessa believe that Our Lady herself was wrong to have sought the conversion of the Catholic-hating Jew named Alphonse Ratisbonne at the Church of San Andrea della Fratte in Rome, Italy, on January 20, 1842? Is there any indication at all that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who has violated the Canon Law of the Catholic Church by entering into two synagogues as he, who believes himself to be the Vicar of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on earth, was treated as an inferior by his Talmudic hosts, without ever mentioning a word about exhorting adherents of the Talmud to convert to the true Faith, disagrees in the slightest with Raniero Cantalamessa?

Walter Kasper repeated almost word for word the same thing that he had stated on Vatican Radio on February 6, 2008, and his letter to Rabbi David Rosen on February 13, 2008, in an article published in L'Osservatore Romano on April 9, 2008, an article that was published in Germany a few weeks earlier:

The reference to saving Israel was "eschatological", a reference to a branch of theology dealing with the destiny of all humanity at the end of the world.

Kasper said the Catholic Church, unlike some evangelical Churches, did not have an institutionalized directive to convert Jews although Catholics are always encouraged to express their faith openly while showing respect.  (http://www.reuters.com/article)

 

Nothing "official," you understand. Just another conciliar curial "wild card" speaking on his own initiative. There is nothing in any of any Kasper's  comments or actions that reflect the mind of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI at all, right? Well, some of those who were contending this a few months ago were the exact same people who concluded during the false "pontificate" of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II that Kasper must have spoken in those days with Wojtyla's approval as he was never contradicted. It's amazing how Summorum Pontificum has changed things so radically, isn't it?

Well, although some websites are ignoring Walter "Cardinal" Kasper's latest reiteration of conciliar apostasies concerning the nature of the Church (the new ecclesiology) while others, including the New Advent website, have had the temerity to be so thoroughly irresponsible and reprehensible as to leave posted for public view a piece of very bad reporting from the Times of London that Kasper had declared Anglican "orders" invalid in his July 31, 2008, address to this heretical and schismatic sect, the truth is that Kasper's address to the Lambeth Congress of the worldwide "Anglican Communion" accepted this false "church" as a legitimate member of the "Christian community" and implied very strongly that the only impediment to the possible recognition of Anglican "orders" was the pending acceptance of the "ordination" of women to the Anglican"episcopate:

Rather than answer these questions, let me remind you of what we stated at the Informal Talks in 2003, and have reiterated on several occasions since then: “It is our overwhelming desire that the Anglican Communion stays together, rooted in the historic faith which our dialogue and relations over four decades have led us to believe that we share to a large degree.” Therefore we are following the discussions of this Lambeth Conference with great interest and heartfelt concern, accompanying them with our fervent prayers. Kasper's Address to Lambeth Congress. . . .


Since it is currently the situation that 28 Anglican provinces ordain women to the priesthood, and while only 4 provinces have ordained women to the episcopate, an additional 13 provinces have passed legislation authorising women bishops, the Catholic Church must now take account of the reality that the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate is not only a matter of isolated provinces, but that this is increasingly the stance of the Communion. It will continue to have bishops, as set forth in the Lambeth Quadrilateral (1888); but as with bishops within some Protestant churches, the older churches of East and West will recognise therein much less of what they understand to be the character and ministry of the bishop in the sense understood by the early church and continuing through the ages.

I have already addressed the ecclesiological problem when bishops do not recognize other’s episcopal ordination within the one and same church, now I must be clear about the new situation which has been created in our ecumenical relations. While our dialogue has led to significant agreement on the understanding of ministry, the ordination of women to the episcopate effectively and definitively blocks a possible recognition of Anglican Orders by the Catholic Church. Kasper's Address to Lambeth Congress

The "older churches of East and West will recognise them much less of what they understand to be the character and ministry of the bishop in the sense understood by the early church and continuing through the ages." Older churches of East and West? There is but one Church, the Catholic Church, Period. This man speaks with the authority and the approval of Joseph Ratzinger//Benedict XVI, whose apostasies in Australia were analyzed recently from the false "resist and recognize" perspective by an author associated with the Tradition in Action website (Disturbing Ratzinger Statements at WYD 2008 and Benedict initiated in a pagan ritual). Anyone who is going to contend at this late date that Walter Kasper does not speak for Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is living quite wilfully in an "alternative universe" of his own making.

 

"...the ordination of women to the episcopate effectively and definitively blocks a possible recognition of Anglican Orders by the Catholic Church"? Is Kasper serious? Is he being so bold as to go beyond what he said in 2003 and to actually assert that it is possible for conciliarists who claim, albeit falsely, to represent the Catholic Church to have "recognized" Anglican "orders" if the nasty little problem of "ordaining" women to the "episcopate" hadn't come along and reared its inconvenient little head? In other words, was Kasper saying that the "ordination" of women to the Anglican "episcopate" will block a process whereby it might have been possible to overturn--or to declare no longer "binding"--Pope Leo XIII's Apostolicae Curae?

The Catholic Church has taught infallibly and irreformably that Anglican "orders" are null and void, and Pope Leo XIII closed all future discussion of the matter:

 

Wherefore, strictly adhering, in this matter, to the decrees of the pontiffs, our predecessors, and confirming them most fully, and, as it were, renewing them by our authority, of our own initiative and certain knowledge, we pronounce and declare that ordinations carried out according to the Anglican rite have been, and are, absolutely null and utterly void. . . . .We decree that these letters and all things contained therein shall not be liable at any time to be impugned or objected to by reason of fault or any other defect whatsoever of subreption or obreption of our intention, but are and shall be always valid and in force and shall be inviolably observed both juridically and otherwise, by all of whatsoever degree and preeminence, declaring null and void anything which, in these matters, may happen to be contrariwise attempted, whether wittingly or unwittingly, by any person whatsoever, by whatsoever authority or pretext, all things to the contrary notwithstanding. (Pope Leo XIII, Apostolicae Curae, September 18, 1896.)

 

It doesn't appear as though Walter Kasper or Joseph Ratzinger believe that Apostolicae Curae "shall be always valid and in force and shall be inviolably observed both juridically and otherwise." It appears as though both of these apostates believe that this document is just another example of poor Pope Leo XIII, whose condemnation of forty erroneous propositions of Father Antonio Rosmini was "overturned" by Ratzinger's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2001, have made one of those historically "contingent" statements that was true for its time but whose "particulars" have become "obsolete" given the "limitations" of the historical circumstances in which the document was written and issued. I may sound like a broken record, my friends, but it is so essential to keep focusing on conciliarism's warfare against the nature of truth, as this warfare against the nature of dogmatic truth has been used as a battering ram against the bastions of the Catholic Faith that Joseph Ratzinger himself told us in Principles of Catholic Theology were long overdue to be razed.

Walter Kasper has, most evidently, not budged one little bit from the remarks he gave in 2003 that portrayed Apostolicae Curae as a product of a bygone era that was no longer "operative," to use the word uttered by the late Ronald Ziegler (White House Press Secretary to President Richard Milhous Nixon from January 20, 1969, to August 9, 1974) to explain to reporters why one of his earlier explanations about the "Watergate" cover-up was no longer relevant, that, in essence, we "know" more now that poor Pope Leo XIII knew in 1896:

As I see the problem and its possible solution, it is not a question of apostolic succession in the sense of an historical chain of laying on of hands running back through the centuries to one of the apostles; this would be a very mechanical and individualistic vision, which by the way historically could hardly be proved and ascertained. The Catholic view is different from such an individualistic and mechanical approach. Its starting point is the collegium of the apostles as a whole; together they received the promise that Jesus Christ will be with them till the end of the world (Matt 28, 20). So after the death of the historical apostles they had to co-opt others who took over some of their apostolic functions. In this sense the whole of the episcopate stands in succession to the whole of the collegium of the apostles.

 

To stand in the apostolic succession is not a matter of an individual historical chain but of collegial membership in a collegium, which as a whole goes back to the apostles by sharing the same apostolic faith and the same apostolic mission. The laying on of hands is under this aspect a sign of co-optation in a collegium.

This has far reaching consequences for the acknowledgement of the validity of the episcopal ordination of another Church. Such acknowledgement is not a question of an uninterrupted chain but of the uninterrupted sharing of faith and mission, and as such is a question of communion in the same faith and in the same mission.

It is beyond the scope of our present context to discuss what this means for a re-evaluation of Apostolicae Curae (1896) of Pope Leo XIII, who declared Anglican orders null and void, a decision which still stands between our Churches. Without doubt this decision, as Cardinal Willebrands had already affirmed, must be understood in our new ecumenical context in which our communion in faith and mission has considerably grown. A final solution can only be found in the larger context of full communion in faith, sacramental life, and shared apostolic mission.

Before venturing further on this decisive point for the ecumenical vision, that is a renewed communio ecclesiology, I should speak first on another stumbling block or, better, the stumbling block of ecumenism: the primacy of the bishop of Rome, or as we say today, the Petrine ministry. This question was the sticking point of the separation between Canterbury and Rome in the 16th century and it is still the object of emotional controversies.

Significant progress has been achieved on this delicate issue in our Anglican/Roman Catholic dialogues, especially in the last ARCIC document The Gift of Authority (1998). The problem, however, is that what pleased Catholics in this document did not always please all Anglicans, and points which were important for Anglican self-understanding were not always repaid by Catholic affection. So we still have a reception problem and a challenge for further theological work.

It was Pope John Paul II who opened the door to future discussion on this subject. In his encyclical Ut Unum Sint (1995) he extended an invitation to a fraternal dialogue on how to exercise the Petrine ministry in a way that is more acceptable to non-Catholic Christians. It was a source of pleasure for us that among others the Anglican community officially responded to this invitation. The Pontifical Council for Christian Unity gathered the many responses, analyzed the data, and sent its conclusions to the churches that had responded. We hope in this way to have initiated a second phase of a dialogue that will be decisive for the future of the ecumenical approach.

Nobody could reasonably expect that we could from the outset reach a phase of consensus; but what we have reached is not negligible. It has become evident that a new atmosphere and a new climate exist. In our globalized world situation the biblical testimonies on Peter and the Petrine tradition of Rome are read with new eyes because in this new context the question of a ministry of universal unity, a common reference point and a common voice of the universal church, becomes urgent. Old polemical formulas stand at odds with this urgency; fraternal relations have become the norm. Extensive research has been undertaken that has highlighted the different traditions between East and West already in the first millennium, and has traced the development in understanding and in practice of the Petrine ministry throughout the centuries. As well, the historical conditionality of the dogma of the First Vatican Council (1869-70), which must be distinguished from its remaining obligatory content, has become clear. This historical development did not come to an end with the two Vatican Councils, but goes on, and so also in the future the Petrine ministry has to be exercised in line with the changing needs of the Church.

These insights have led to a re-interpretation of the dogma of the Roman primacy. This does not at all mean that there are still not enormous problems in terms of what such a ministry of unity should look like, how it should be administered, whether and to what degree it should have jurisdiction and whether under certain circumstances it could make infallible statements in order to guarantee the unity of the Church and at the same time the legitimate plurality of local churches. But there is at least a wide consensus about the common central problem, which all churches have to solve: how the three dimensions, highlighted already by the Lima documents on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (1982), namely unity through primacy, collegiality through synodality, and communality of all the faithful and their spiritual gifts, can be brought into a convincing synthesis. A Vision of Christian Unity for the Next Generation

 

What I wrote a few weeks ago on this text of Kasper's, which he has not only not repudiated but gave every indication in his recent address to the Lambeth Congress is in jeopardy only because of the "ordination" of women to the Anglican "episcopate," is relevant once again:

 

This is simply apostasy of the highest order. Apostolic succession is not "an historical chain of laying on of hands running back through the centuries to one of the apostles"? The perpetually binding nature of Apostolicae Cenae needs to be re-evaluated? No member of the Catholic Church is free to assert such things and remain a Catholic in good standing (see Number 9, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)

The dogmatic decrees of the [First] Vatican Council are historically conditioned? Oh, please do not even attempt to say that Kasper is not reflecting the exact view of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI on the "time-conditioned" nature of past dogmatic decrees and/or papal encyclical letters. Ratzinger/Benedict has told us in his very words that he believes this precise thing, a proposition that has been condemned by that Vatican Council and to which he, Ratzinger, had to swear against in The Oath Against Modernism.

Ah, but this is why, you see, Walter Kasper does not believe that there is any need to seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of Anglicans to the Catholic Church, who he clearly believes have true bishops and true priests. It is simply up to the Lambeth Committee to chart its own "direction," to determine, in Kasper's words, whether Anglicans belongs more "to the churches of the first millennium -Catholic and Orthodox," which leads to the second major error in Kasper's recent remarks: that the patriarchies of the East constituted a separate "church" prior to the Greek Schism of 1054. No such "church" existed.

This is where the efforts to re-define the doctrine of Papal Primacy in order to advance "dialogue" with the Orthodox as per Principles of Catholic Theology and The Ravenna Document meet up with Kasper's "challenge" to the Anglicans to discern their "identity." Kasper is signaling quite plainly that it is possible for those Anglicans willing to effect a reunion with Rome, albeit Rome in conciliar captivity, along the same lines as that being proposed as a possible solution to the Orthodox in The Ravenna Document if the upcoming meeting of the Lambeth Committee "continues" on the path of the Protestantism of the Sixteenth Century in which the Anglican sect has its very origins. "High Anglicans" would be permitted their place in the One World Church without necessarily agreeing to every jot and tittle of those "historically conditioned" decrees of the Second Millennium. "Pluriformity in unity," to use Kasper's words, "diversity in unity," to "unity in multiplicity" and "multiplicity in unity," to use Ratzinger/Benedict's words.

Lost in all of this willingness to subject immutable truths to the "historical-critical" method of Hegelian analysis is the fact that one is either a Catholic who assents to all of the truths contained in the Deposit of Faith, or he is not. How absurd is it to ask Protestants to determine whether they belong to the Protestantism in which their sects had their origins? The Anglican "church" has no right from God to exist. It is a false religion. Its adherents are in need to be converted unconditionally to the Catholic Church.

 

The counterfeit church of conciliarism views its "partners" in ecumenical "dialogue" to be legitimate representatives of "Christianity," basing this view on the belief that the mere fact of their existence provides these "partners" with a credibility. In other words, as Father Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M., Cap., said in his 2002 Good Friday sermon in the Basilica of Saint Peter in the presence of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, that Protestant "churches" are not merely tolerated by God …. but positively willed by Him as an expression of the inexhaustible richness of His grace and His will for everyone to be saved." In other words, Protestant "churches" are "valid" means of salvation merely because they exist.

A careful reading of the entire text of Walter Kasper's July 31, 2008, address to the Lambeth Congress will reveal that the effort to seek "common ground" on certain issues over the last four decades and to delineate clear differences on others between the conciliar version of Catholicism and Anglicanism is entirely superfluous. Superfluous. There is simply a need for the Anglicans to accept the totality of the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church and for each of them to make an abjuration of errors before converting unconditionally to that same Catholic Church. Everything else is very much apart from the point, unless, that is, one wants to concede that certain points of doctrine, such as the nature and the exercise of Papal Primacy, are negotiable and that certain points of morality, such as contraception and divorce and remarriage and abortion, are merely "pastoral applications of moral principles," as Kasper indicated last week in his address:

While the texts of the second phase of ARCIC (1983-2005) have not been put forward for a formal response in either the Catholic Church or the Anglican Communion, and have not led to a conclusive resolution or to a full consensus on the issues addressed, they have each suggested a growing rapprochement. "Salvation in the Church" (1986) resonates, in many ways, with the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine on Justification signed by the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation in 1999. Building on the understanding of the Church as koinonia which was first set forward in the introduction of ARCIC I’s Final Report, ARCIC II offered the Commission’s most mature work on ecclesiology in The "Church as Communion" (1991).

"Life in Christ" (1994) was able to identify a shared vision and a common heritage for ethical teaching, despite differing pastoral applications of moral principles. "The Gift of Authority" (1999) returned to the theme of authority, and made important progress on the need for a universal ministry of primacy in the Church. "Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ" (2005) took important and unexpected strides towards a common understanding of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

 

Moreover, Kasper's discussion of the Catholic Church's condemnation of perverse acts in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments is couched in conciliarspeak. It is impossible, it seems, for a conciliarist to state simply that immoral actions are contrary to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law as these have been entrusted solely to the Catholic Church for their eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. There is no need to "discern" this matter. The Catholic Church, as the sole repository of the Deposit of Faith, declares by her ordinary and solemn teaching authority those things that, although knowable by the light of natural reason, have been entrusted to her so that men will know once and for all what is right and what is wrong.

As one can see below, Kasper made advertence to Scriptural proofs of the illicit nature of such acts. All well and good. However, he, as a conciliarist, is incapable of saying: God has ordered the world thus. It is up to us to obey. End of argument:

In this final section, I would like to briefly address two of the issues at the heart of tensions within the Anglican Communion and in its relations with the Catholic Church, questions pertaining to ordination of women and to human sexuality. It is not my intent to take up these points of dispute in detail. This is not necessary because the Catholic position, which understands itself to be consistent with the New Testament and the apostolic tradition, is well known. I want only offer a few thoughts from a Catholic perspective and with an eye to our relations -- past, present and future.

The Catholic Church’s teaching regarding human sexuality, especially homosexuality, is clear, as set forth in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, nn. 2357-59. We are convinced that this teaching is well founded in the Old and in the New Testament, and therefore that faithfulness to the Scriptures and to apostolic tradition is at stake. I can only highlight what IARCCUM’s "Growing Together in Unity and Mission" said: “In the discussions on human sexuality within the Anglican Communion, and between it and the Catholic Church, stand anthropological and biblical hermeneutical questions which need to be addressed” (§86e). Not without reason is today’s principal theme at the Lambeth Conference concerned with biblical hermeneutics.

I would like briefly to draw your attention to the ARCIC statement "Life in Christ", where it was noted (nn. 87-88) that Anglicans could agree with Catholics that homosexual activity is disordered, but that we might differ in the moral and pastoral advice we would offer to those seeking our counsel. We realise and appreciate that the recent statements of the Primates are consistent with that teaching, which was given clear expression in Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference. In light of tensions over the past years in this regard, a clear statement from the Anglican Communion would greatly strengthen the possibility of us giving common witness regarding human sexuality and marriage, a witness which is sorely needed in the world of today.

 

Catholic position? Please, this is the law of God knowable by reason alone but entrusted to the authority of the Catholic Church for its safekeeping and explication. We do not need a "clear statement from the Anglican Communion" on this matter. We need the Anglicans to convert to the Catholic Church and to accept the totality of the Deposit of Faith that has been entrusted to her exclusive teaching authority by her Divine Bridegroom and Mystical Head, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Period.

Pope Pius IX put the matter clearly to all Protestants in Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868:

It is for this reason that so many who do not share “the communion and the truth of the Catholic Church” must make use of the occasion of the Council, by the means of the Catholic Church, which received in Her bosom their ancestors, proposes [further] demonstration of profound unity and of firm vital force; hear the requirements [demands] of her heart, they must engage themselves to leave this state that does not guarantee for them the security of salvation. She does not hesitate to raise to the Lord of mercy most fervent prayers to tear down of the walls of division, to dissipate the haze of errors, and lead them back within holy Mother Church, where their Ancestors found salutary pastures of life; where, in an exclusive way, is conserved and transmitted whole the doctrine of Jesus Christ and wherein is dispensed the mysteries of heavenly grace.

It is therefore by force of the right of Our supreme Apostolic ministry, entrusted to us by the same Christ the Lord, which, having to carry out with [supreme] participation all the duties of the good Shepherd and to follow and embrace with paternal love all the men of the world, we send this Letter of Ours to all the Christians from whom We are separated, with which we exhort them warmly and beseech them with insistence to hasten to return to the one fold of Christ; we desire in fact from the depths of the heart their salvation in Christ Jesus, and we fear having to render an account one day to Him, Our Judge, if, through some possibility, we have not pointed out and prepared the way for them to attain eternal salvation. In all Our prayers and supplications, with thankfulness, day and night we never omit to ask for them, with humble insistence, from the eternal Shepherd of souls the abundance of goods and heavenly graces. And since, if also, we fulfill in the earth the office of vicar, with all our heart we await with open arms the return of the wayward sons to the Catholic Church, in order to receive them with infinite fondness into the house of the Heavenly Father and to enrich them with its inexhaustible treasures. By our greatest wish for the return to the truth and the communion with the Catholic Church, upon which depends not only the salvation of all of them, but above all also of the whole Christian society: the entire world in fact cannot enjoy true peace if it is not of one fold and one shepherd. (Iam Vos Omnes of Pope Pius IX at the convocation of the First Vatican Council)

 

Conciliarists such as Walter Kasper and Joseph Ratzinger have never spoken thus. They do not believe that it is necessary to seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of non-Catholics to the Catholic Church before they die. The ecclesiology of the countefeit church of conciliarism has nothing to do with seeking the unconditional conversion of non-Catholics to the true Faith. No, the "new ecclesiology" of conciliarism, critiqued so well by His Excellency Bishop Donald A. Sanborn in The New Ecclesiology: An Overview and in The New Ecclesiology: Documentation, speaks in terms of "koina" and "substantial agreement," not about conversion to the true Faith  As such, you see, any talk of exhorting the Anglicans to quit their false church was nowhere to be found in the text of Walter Kasper's July 31, 2008, Lambeth Congress address. And all of this was done with the "pope's" full approval.

Oh, sure, the counterfeit church of conciliarism will probably insist on the de novo "ordination" of  those Anglican "priests" desirous of feeling "more comfortable" with Rome than with Canterbury to the conciliar presbyterate by virtue of its own invalid "ordination" rite by its own invalid "bishops" to hammer home the point to the "worldwide Anglican communion" that "progress" on the matter of "recognizing" Anglican "orders" has been stalled. It is nevertheless true, however, that Walter Kasper explained clearly in 2003 and implied again just one week ago today that it is possible to circumvent Apostolicae Curae if the Anglicans behave themselves and don't give a "communion wide" endorsement to the "ordination" of women to their own false "episcopate." Anyone who believes that such a circumvention does not represent apostasy of the highest order is not thinking clearly or is actually intellectually dishonest.

Let those committed to the defense of the "legitimacy" of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict ignore the obvious and/or attempt to spin doctor apostasy into some kind of fidelity to a "living tradition" in the context of the "hermeneutics of continuity in discontinuity." Catholics recognize apostasy for what it is, and resolve firmly to have nothing to do with it or those who promote it, praying fervently at the same time for the conversion of the apostates to the Catholic Faith before they die as they make a complete, full and public abjuration of their errors that have caused so much harm to so many souls, including those in such false religions as Anglicanism.

Let us be reminded once again that novelty has nothing to do with the Catholic Faith. Then again, novelty is what the New Theology, based in a rejection of the "rigidities" of Scholasticism, is all about. Alas, those who reject Saint Thomas Aquinas and Scholasticism reject the Faith, as is made clear in these excerpts from the readings contained in the Dominican Breviary (II Nocturn) for the Feast of the Patronage of Saint Thomas Aquinas on November 13:

Innocent VI: "The teaching of this Doctor above all others, with the exception of Canon Law, has precision in terminology, propriety of expression, truth of judgment: so that never is one who has held it been found to have deviated from the path of truth."


Pius V: "It was wrought by the providence of Almighty God that by the force and truth of the Angelic Doctor's teaching, by which he illumined the Apostolic Church with the refutation of innumerable errors, that the many heresies which have arisen after his canonization have been confounded, overthrown and dispersed. This has been made evident both earlier and recently in the sacred decrees of the Council of Trent."


Clement VIII to the Neapolitans: "Devoutly and wisely are you thinking of adopting a new patron of your city, your fellow citizen, the Angelic interpreter of the Divine Will, splendid in the sanctity of his life and by his miracles, Thomas Aquinas, since indeed is this honor owed with the greatest justification to his virtues joined to his admirable doctrine. Indeed, witness to his doctrine is the great number of books which he composed, in a very brief time, in almost every class of learning, with a matchless arrangement and wondrous clearness, without any error whatsoever."


Paul V: "We greatly rejoice in the Lord that honor and veneration are increasing daily for the most splendid champion of the Catholic Faith, blessed Thomas Aquinas, by the shield of whose writings the Church Militant successfully parries the spears of the heretics.


And Leo XIII, at once embracing hand surpassing all of the praises of his predecessors, says of him: "Distinguishing reason from Faith, as is proper, but nevertheless combining the two in a friendly alliance, he both preserved the rights of each and had regard for the dignity of both., in such a way too that reason, carried on the wings of Thomas to the highest human limit, now almost cannot rise any higher, and faith almost cannot expect more or stronger helps from reason than it has already obtained through Thomas."


--And again, presenting St. Thomas to Catholics as a model and patron in various sciences, he says: "In him are all the illustrious ornaments of mind and character by which he rightly calls others to the imitation of himself: the richest doctrine, incorrupt, fittingly arranged; obedience to the Faith, and a marvelous consonance with the truths divinely handed down; integrity of life with the splendor of the greatest virtues." (Readings from the Dominican Breviary (II Nocturn) for the feast of the Patronage of Saint Thomas Aquinas, November 13. Text provided by His Excellency Bishop Robert F. McKenna, O.P. I thank His Excellency for providing me with these readings from the Dominican Breviary.)

 

Father Frederick Faber explained in The Precious Blood, published in 1860, that "no novelty" happens in God:

Still the vast life of God goes on. He was free to create; and Perhaps those two things have much to do with each other. He made himself an empire outside himself, and crowned himself over it, the kingliest of kings. God is very royal. Royalty is the seal which is set on all his perfections, and by which we see how they are one. He enfranchised his empire, and then began to reign. Still there was no change. His free people dethroned him. Oftentimes now in the depths of prayer the love of his saints beholds him sitting in dust and ashes as an uncrowned king, as it were piteously. But all this is embraced within his vast life without a shadow of change. It was part of the external idea of creation, that one of the Divine Persons should assume a created nature. The Second Person did so. He has carried it to heaven, and placed it in the bosom of the Holy Trinity for endless worship. This has displaced nothing. The vast life goes on. No pulse beats in it. No succession belongs to it. No novelty happens to it. The Precious Blood of the Son's Human Nature would have been a pure beauty, a pure treasure of God, an unimaginable created life, if there had been no sins. But there was sin, and the destiny of the Precious Blood was changed. But there was no change in the divine life. The Precious Blood became the ransom for sin. The Precious Blood had to conquer back to God his revolted empire. It had to crown him again, and to be his imperial viceregent. What stupendous mutabilities are these! Yet there is no change in the vast life of God. Its very vastness makes it incapable of change. It has no experiences. It goes through nothing. It cannot begin, or end, or suffer. It works while it rests, and it rests while it works; and it neither works nor rests, but simply lives, simply is. O adorable life of God! blessed a thousand times be thou in the darkness of thy glory, in the incomprehensible sweetness of thy majesty!

To us the Precious Blood is inseparable from the life of God. It is the Blood of the Creator, the agent of redemption, the power of sanctification. Moreover, to our eyes it is a token of something which we should call a change in God, if we did not know that there could not be change in him. It seems to give God a past, to recover for him something which he had lost, to be a second thought, to remedy a failure, to be a new ornament in the Divinity, a created joy in the very centre of the uncreated jubilee. The empire of the Precious Blood is due to its position in the history and economy of creation, or, in other words, to its relation to the adorable life of God. It seems to explain the eternity before creation, inasmuch as it reveals to us the eternal thoughts of God, his compassionate designs, his primal decrees, and his merciful persistence in carrying out his designs of love. It makes visible much that in its own nature was invisible. It casts a light backward, even upon the uttermost recesses of that old eternity. Just as some actions disclose more of a man's character than other actions, so the Precious Blood is in itself a most extensive and peculiarly vivid revelation of the character of God. The fact of his redeeming us, and still more, the way in which he has redeemed us, and, still more, the way in which he had redeemed us, discloses to us his reason for creating us; and when we get some view, however transient and indistinct, of his reason for creating us, we seem to look into the life he leads as God. The light is so light that it is darkness; but the darkness is knowledge, and the knowledge, love. (Father Frederick Faber, The Precious Blood, published originally in 1860, republished by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 82-84.)

 

Novelty is from the devil, who does indeed want to convince Catholics that the conciliarists are correct in treating false religions as valid means of salvation and that those who remain in these false religions until their deaths are not in any jeopardy whatsoever of losing their immortal souls for all eternity.

Today is the great Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on Mount Thabor.

Our Lord took three of His Apostles, Saints Peter, James and John, up to the top of Mount Thabor, where He was transfigured before them in glory, showing them the same glory He had from all eternity with the Father, Who said, "This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him." Appearing with Our Lord were Moses and Elias. The three Apostles were permitted to experience the image of Our Lord's Transfiguration in order to provide them with a bit of consolation during His Passion and Death, that they might call to mind the vision of His radiant glory as all appeared in human terms to be have been lost with His Death on the wood of the Holy Cross. It is that very same transfigured glory that Our Lord showed forth as He manifested His Easter Victory over sin and death in the Resurrection.

It is no accident that Our Lord took the same three Apostles with Him as He suffered His Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Just as Saints Peter, James and John fell down on the ground when they saw the image of Our Lord's transfigured glory on Mount Thabor, so would they fall fast asleep as the Divine Master demonstrated the depths of the horror afflicting His soul as He sweated droplets of His Most Precious Blood while contemplating all of the sins of all men until the end of time that would cause Him to undergo His fearful Passion and Death.

This incomparable feast day reminds us that Our Lord wants us to remember that there an empty tomb in Jerusalem because He got up and walked out of it, promising us that our own bodies will be transfigured in glory at the end of time if our souls persevere in states of Sanctifying Grace until the point of our dying breaths. And Our Lord wants us to remember that He will provide us a bit of consolation every now and then as we walk the rocky road that leads to the narrow gate of Life. We must not look for the consolation. However, He will send us a bit of consolation in order to encourage us as we keep our hands on the plough in order to furrow the ground so as to bring forth a rich harvest of souls for the Catholic Church. Our daily crosses are ever with us. They are the means of our sanctification and salvation, given freely to the His own Most Sacred Heart through His Most Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. If some bit of transfiguring joy comes our way now and then, thank God for it, but be ever ready to look at the Cross, without which it is impossible to know the glory of an unending Easter Sunday of joy in Paradise.

We are asked to bear the cross of humiliation and calumny and rejection and wordily hardship during this era of apostasy and betrayal by clinging only to true shepherds in the Catholic catacombs who make no concessions to conciliarism or to the nonexistent legitimacy of its false shepherds. The crosses of the present moment as the Church Militant on earth undergoes her Mystical Passion, Death and Burial have been perfectly fitted for her from all eternity by the very hand of God Himself, Who has willed from all eternity that we would be alive in the midst of this era of apostasy and betrayal. We must, therefore, lift high the Cross in our own daily lives, recognizing that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has work for us to do that only we can do as the consecrated slaves of His own Most Sacred Heart through the Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother. We do this work without seeking consolation, simply accepting that we will see the radiant glory of the Beatific Vision of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost for all eternity if we persevere in a state of Sanctifying Grace to the point of our dying breaths.

What is this work?

To sanctify our souls on a daily basis by assisting at the true offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass offered by true bishops and priests who are not "una cum" Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

To spend time on our knees in prayer before Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

To pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit.

To be enrolled in the Brown Scapular and to keep its obligations faithfully.

To have our homes Enthroned to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

To keep the Nine First Fridays and the Five First Saturdays. To make a weekly Confession of our sins to a true bishop or a true priest.

To spend at least fifteen minutes a day reading a passage from Scripture and to make it a point to do some spiritual reading after making one's Nightly Examination of Conscience.

To pass out blessed Green Scapulars and Miraculous Medals and Rosaries (with Rosary instruction booklets) to those whom God's Holy Providence places into our lives each day.

To pray for the Poor Souls in Purgatory (as many by name as possible) each day.

To pray for the eternal good of those with whom we are friendly and those who have rejected us and those who are the open enemies of the Catholic Faith.

To forgive all injuries readily as we hold no grudges at all against anyone for any reason whatsoever.

To perform each of the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy.

To defend the Social Reign of Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen.

To accept whatever physical or emotional or spiritual sufferings that come our way as being perfectly fitted for us from all eternity, remember that nothing we can endure in this life even comes close to equaling the horror that one of our least Venial Sins caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death as such a "least" Venial Sin caused Our Lady's Immaculate Heart to be pierced through and through with Seven Swords of Sorrow.

To accept rejection and calumny and ostracism with equanimity and with joy as the price of discipleship, the price of fidelity in refusing to associate with the apostates and by refusing to concede for one moment that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is anything other than a diabolical ape of the Catholic Church.

We desire to be transfigured in glory for all eternity in Heaven. There is only one way to get to the Heavenly Mount Thabor, and that is by climbing our way to Mount Calvary each day of our lives, especially by making sure that we make all sacrifices necessary to move our families to those safe shelters in the catacombs where true bishops and true priests who are not "una cum" apostasy and betrayal will feed our souls with the true Sacraments as they provide us with the perennial truths of the Catholic Faith that are never subject to negotiation with heretics and schismatics, never capable of being understood or expressed in any other way that they have been understood and expressed throughout the ages.

Our Lady desires to lead us to the Heavenly Mount Thabor. Are we willing to stand next to her each day at Mount Calvary in order to be in Heaven with her for all eternity?

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Viva Cristo Rey!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and the hour of our death.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

 

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

 

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

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

Saint James the Greater, pray for.

Pope Saint Sixtus, Saints Felicissimus and Agapitus, pray for us.

The English Martyrs, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

 





© Copyright 2008, Thomas A. Droleskey. All rights reserved.