Remnant Articles
Editor's Note: This is the REVISED AND EXPANDED WEB VERSION of Mr. Ferrara's article by the same name which appears in the current print-edition of The Remnant. We've decided to post it here in its entirety due to the gravity of its subject matter and to the fact that it may well be our most definitive exposé of Pope Francis and his agenda to permanently change the Church. It gives us no joy to publish this devastating critique of the 'Joy of Love'. In fact, we regard it as nothing less than the heartbreaking duty of loyal sons of the Church who can see no alternative but to resist. Please pray for Pope Francis and for our beloved Catholic Church under obvious siege. MJM
No difficulty can arise that justifies the putting aside of the law of God which forbids all acts intrinsically evil. There is no possible circumstance in which husband and wife cannot, strengthened by the grace of God, fulfill faithfully their duties and preserve in wedlock their chastity unspotted. -Pius XI, Casti Connubii
Introduction: Spreading Alarm
As Cardinal Burke has observed in an article appearing in the National Catholic Register, upon careful reading AMORIS LÆTITIA reveals itself to be “a personal, that is, non-magisterial” document, “a personal reflection of the Pope” that “is not confused with the binding faith owed to the exercise of the magisterium.” This is true enough, but perhaps not for the reasons the Cardinal expresses, as I show at the conclusion of this essay.
Amoris Laetitia: Anatomy of a Pontifical Debacle Featured
By: Christopher A. Ferrara
Now that Amoris Laetitia, the long awaited post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation has been released, the real debate is over. Don’t misunderstand me, the document itself, as it is digested over the next weeks, will certainly undergo much-needed debate about particular passages. Obviously, there are several key paragraphs that raise immediate concern and these can and should be debated.
Yet, I think that much of that debate will be hampered because of the working assumption that goes into such debates, a key assumption that papal positivists, many conservative Catholics, and the revolutionaries are counting upon. That assumption upon which the groundwork of the revolution is laid is that the words on the page actually mean things and, conversely, don’t mean other things.
“The Joy of Love”: Truth in the Service of a Lie Featured
By: Patrick Archbold
SUNDAY SERMONS: Mercy, Justice and the Apostolic Exhortation
By: Michael J. Matt | Editor
“I can only reiterate the appreciation expressed by my predecessors, in reaffirming the importance which the Catholic Church attaches to the United Nations and the hope which she places in its activities.”
- Pope Francis, Address to the UN, September 25, 2015 -
Editor’s Note: One of the most popular regular features in the print- and e-edition of The Remnant is “The Last Word”, by Father Celatus. Father, who is a pastor working in the U.S. at a diocesan parish, enthusiastically celebrates the TLM as often as possible. Father’s call to his brother priests to stand and resist what is happening in Rome speaks for itself, but I’d remind our readers that this courageous priest is not part of the SSPX or FSSP or any other traditionalist fraternity or society. He is a diocesan priest who is protecting his flock and defending Truth at a critical juncture in history. May Father's brother priests heed his call. To catch Father’s regular column, please subscribe HERE. MJM
Dear Brother Priests:
The traditional Gospel of the Holy Mass on the Second Sunday of Easter is that of the Good Shepherd:
Diocesan Pastor Calls Brother Priests to Stand and Resist, Warns SSPX to Be Wary
By: Father Celatus
The New Synodal Church at Work
Cardinals Dolan (L) and Wuerl Attend Mass for the Opening of the Extraordinary Synod On the Family in Rome Last October
There is no other way to say this: Despite its protestations to the contrary Amoris Laetitia represents an attempt to achieve a revolution in Catholicism at the expense of the prior teaching of the Church on the indissolubility of marriage and reception of the Eucharist.In addition, and on a more mundane level, it is a tediously long and verbose piece of poorly-written and thought-out amateur post-modern-deconstructionist sociology.
The Apostolic Exhortation and the Abolishment of the Sin of Presumption
By: Michael J. Matt and Thomas More
Our Lord says "whoever puts away his wife and marries another commits adultery (Lk 16:18)."
But in Chapter 8 of “The Joy of Love” Francis says: Well, really, it depends on the circumstances.
In keeping with Our Lord’s divine admonition, the Church has constantly affirmed her “practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried” unless, if they "cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples.” (Familiaris consortio, 84)
Pope Francis, the Apostolic Exhortation and the Age of Individual Conscience Featured
By: Christopher A. Ferrara
Archbishop Marcel LefebvreArch goon, lunatic, and one of the comic masters of the 20th Century, Spike Milligan (R.I.P) was a classic Shakespearian fool, who lived his irreverent but prophetic vocation to the end. The inscription on his tombstone says it all: “I told you I was sick.”
The man was a crack-up in more ways than one. His wacky humour may not be everybody’s cup of English Breakfast, but his commitment to making people laugh was certainly impressive; laugh without the slightest trace of bitterness, as one who surrenders their whole being to the truth of who we are and have always been. Because the man who by God’s grace understands himself to be wholly an idiot stands the best chance of becoming a holy idiot.
Timothy Cardinal DolanThe “Joy of Love” is about to explode upon the Catholic world, no doubt overthrowing the teaching of both John Paul II and Benedict XVI, in line with all of Tradition, on the impossibility of Holy Communion for those living in a state of continual adultery. The overthrow will be veiled in ambiguous references to the “internal forum,” “integration,” and a “path or journey” culminating in admission to Holy Communion according to the “competence” of the local ordinary or the “episcopal conferences” Paul VI invented to begin the process of fragmenting the universal discipline of the Church Universal in the context of the “liturgical reform.”
In short, if what seems likely comes to pass, practice will hollow out the dogma on the indissolubility of marriage, making a mockery of the very words of Our Lord Himself, which “The Joy of Love” will of course affirm resoundingly with paragraph after paragraph of empty praise.
Cardinal Dolan on Apostolic Exhortation: “Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit the Church is trying to be faithful" Featured
By: Christopher A. Ferrara
When Tertullian wrote, probably in the late second century, that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church, the images in his mind, of bloodied, dismembered, mangled, and maimed Christian bodies subjected to persecution and put to death for the sake of Christ, were likely little different from those that crowd into our own minds today.
Turn where you will, you will find men and women crucified, beheaded, blinded, burned, imprisoned, and impaled—the Church Militant here below shading awfully, and yet supernaturally, into the Church Suffering above.
I have received a letter from Christopher A. Ferrara–an attorney for The Remnant which says:Readers may recall Fr. Dwight Longenecker’s unprovoked attack on traditional Catholics last month in an article entitled “Ten Traits of Catholic Fundamentalism” (Patheos.com). In the wake of that article, The Remnant issued a demand for public retraction from Fr. Longenecker.
"Accordingly, I hereby demand that within five days of the date of this letter you publish on your website, with as much prominence as the original article, your full and unequivocal retraction of the statements 'given enough rope they will move from verbal violence to physical violence' and 'given enough rope they will move from verbal violence to personal violence' as they apply to the Remnant its Editor and his associates."
In compliance with Mr Ferrara’s request I retract fully, unequivocally and completely any statement or suggestion that Mr Matt, The Remnant staff, readers and associates might tend towards violence of any kind, nor would they ever threaten anybody."
- Fr. Dwight Longenecker, March 31, 2016
Translated for The Remnant by Carolina Santos
“If anyone denies that in the venerable sacrament of the Eucharist the whole Christ is contained under each form and under every part of each form when separated, let him be anathema.” … Council of Trent
I have been observing discussions about the topic of “communion in the hand.” In all of them I notice a set of arguments frequently made by the laity and the clergy alike, some justifying the reception of communion in the hand, others the administration of it, which shows that, despite their good intentions, they do not understand the true nature of the problem at hand.