Remnant Articles
In honor of the 100th anniversary of St. Pius X’s death, I would like to make widely available the following article. It was written by Rev. Simon FitzSimons and published in The American Catholic Quarterly Review in 1908. Over a century later, Rev. FitzSimons’ brilliant insight into the driving forces behind this heresy as well as its remedy are needed more than ever. Writing shortly after Pascendi was published Rev. FitzSimons is able to give us a unique “fly on the wall” perspective of a Catholic living at that time. In this first installment, Rev. FitzSimons gives us a fascinating summary and analysis of public reaction to St. Pius X’s encyclical just months after it made its debut. Without further ado, I give you the Rev. Simon FitzSimons…Chris Jackson
Part I
The Reaction to Pascendi
“They had looked for a new religion which would be a sort of eclectic association of religion, science and socialism. Their new form of religion would be a sort of potpourri of modern science, advanced Protestantism and emancipated Catholicism, where the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man would be the chief corner-stone, where each man would be his own moral law and where the chief architectonic features would be a Saviourless Christianity, a Godless Christ and an unknowable God."
Deconstructing Modernism: Defending Pascendi in 1908
Written by By Rev. Simon FitzSimonsReaders of The Remnant will immediately recognize the name Anthony Fraser as the indefatigable editor of Apropos—the UK’s premier traditional Catholic magazine. Of course, Tony is also the son of the late, great Hamish Fraser—an early pioneer of the traditional Catholic movement as well as a close friend and collaborator of the founder of The Remnant, Walter L. Matt (RIP). His Approaches magazine is generally considered Europe’s traditionalist magazine of record during the turbulent years following Vatican II.
A Soldier of Christ the King Lays Down His Sword: Anthony Fraser, RIP
Written by Michael J. Matt | EditorMélanie, I will say something to you which you will not say to anybody:
The time of the God's wrath has arrived! If, when you say to the people what I have said to you so far, and what I will still ask you to say, if, after that, they do not convert, (if they do not do penance, and they do not cease working on Sunday, and if they continue to blaspheme the Holy Name of God), in a word, if the face of the earth does not change, God will be avenged against the people ungrateful and slave of the demon. My Son will make his power manifest! Paris, this city soiled by all kinds of crimes, will perish infallibly.
Will Rome Lose the Faith? (La Salette Revisited)
Written by By Solange Strong HertzHave you ever wondered how to respond to those who equate the efficacy of the Traditional Mass and the Novus Ordo by directing the argument to the level of validity? They rightly point out that any valid Mass is a renewal of Our Lord’s Sacrifice on Calvary, which was of infinite value, and then conclude that as long as a Mass is valid, it, too, is of infinite worth, and therefore equally efficacious for those who attend. They might concede that a scandalously celebrated Mass will have a negative effect on the subjective disposition of those present, which could perhaps lessen the amount of grace they receive, but they will insist (or at least imply) that neither liturgical abuses, nor an unworthy priest, nor watered down prayers or profane music, per se, will lessen the efficacy of the Mass or the fruit to be derived there from.
Mass Confusion: Why All Valid Masses Are Not Equal
Written by Robert J. SiscoeAn underground Roman Catholic priest, unlawfully detained by the Chinese Communists for the last eight years, was released on August 9, 2014, as reported by AsiaNews.
Political prisoner of conscience, Father Gen-Jun “Joseph” Lu, 52, of the Baoding diocese, Hebei province, was last seen on February 17, 2006, when he and Father Yan-Li Guo went to meet another underground priest at the Baoding Train Station.
As Lu and Guo walked down a narrow residential byway to the local bus station, they hugged close to the buildings, when a car speeding down the lane screeched to a halt, nearly hitting them. The doors popped open, and several men, shouting and screaming, scrambled out and headed for the two.
Catholic Priest Released from Chinese Prison
Written by Theresa Marie MoreauWhen they were asked by (visiting) Christians whereof they give to their deities these diversified forms, they answered that their fathers did so before them. "Those who preceded us left them such, and such shall we transmit them to our posterity." This discussion centered around the natives' custom of cannibalism…The Travels of Marco Polo in Zipangu– current day Japan)
The Trappist Nuns of Azeir, Syria 2013
It is not often that video clips viewed on the Internet will call attention to the presence of evil, but on three recent occasions I have viewed videos that have turned my stomach. Both the moral philosophers and Church Fathers knew man is capable of evil, but also believed that a strong and important religious life would reduce and/or eliminate those tendencies for most people, for they recognized that God is the final judge our actions.
Islam, the Pope, and the End of Christianity in the Middle East
Written by Vincent Chiarello | Remnant Columnist■ First they came for the Roman Rite, which they destroyed. Then they came for the Church Militant, which they disarmed and surrendered to the spirit of the age. Now, at the Synod, which threatens to become Vatican II rebooted, progressivist bishops and their apparatchiks will be coming for the moral law itself under the guise of a search for “pastoral solutions” to “challenges facing the family”
The Return of Vatican II Fever
The symptoms are unmistakable: after a period of relative remission during the years of Pope Benedict’s mysteriously self-terminated reign, the postconciliar “process of decay” remarked by the former Cardinal Ratzinger has resumed with a vengeance, like a rebound infection after an incomplete course of antibiotics. The progressivist priests and prelates who are the disease-causing agents of Vatican II Fever are now running amok throughout the ecclesiastical bloodstream. They have been let loose by a Pope who is so fond of publicly staged “surprises,” all tending to the diminution of traditional Roman Catholicism, that Respice in Me (look at me) could serve as the motto of this pontificate.
Since the 1980s The Remnant has been proud to publish the powerful insights and commentary of the incomparable Solange Hertz. A close friend of Remnant founder Walter L. Matt (RIP) for many years, she was with the Remnant almost from the beginning. In her own right, Mrs. Hertz came to be regarded as the matriarch of traditional Catholicism in the English-speaking world (although her writings appeared not infrequently in French, as well).
She was so far ahead of the curve in exposing the fundamental errors afflicting the modern Church and State that newcomers to the traditionalist movement sometimes fail to realize that it was Mrs. Hertz who pioneered the early and in-depth exposés of feminism, democracy gone awry, Americanism, Natural Family Planning, and the myriad attacks on Sacred Scripture by the forces of scientism. (In fact, if you’re interested in the questions of biblical inerrancy, for example, or the Galileo case, evolution and geocentrism, if is largely because Mrs. Hertz was tackling such 900-pound gorillas long before it became fashionable to do so.)
Editor’s Note: We’re pleased to publish the following homage to the great Pope Pius XII. Submitted to us for publication by its author, it was presented as the keynote address at The Angelus Press’s 2012 Conference for Catholic Tradition: The Papacy. When it comes to the defense of the great wartime Pope of Peace, Ven. Pius XII, we believe no effort should be spared nor stone unturned, for in defending Pius we defend the papal embodiment of the Tradition, history and sacred liturgy of the Catholic Church which today are everywhere under scurrilous and incessant attack. We’re thus pleased to offer this study in its entirety. Special thanks to Professor Clarendon. MJM
Introduction
One of the best ways of understanding what the Papacy is and means is to examine the lives of the successors of St. Peter. One such extraordinary figure from our own time is Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII, who reigned from 1939 to 1958. Even before he was called to be Christ’s Vicar, Pacelli was a figure who impressed one as being everything a future pope should be: ascetic, highly intelligent and cultured, yet approachable by all—and working, always working, never sparing himself, but giving his life for the Church. From staring down seven armed communists in his residence in Munich as Nuncio in 1919 to causing a Nazi ambassador to suffer a complete mental collapse after an audience in 1940, Pius was a man who inspired awe.
Editor's Note: The following article appeared in The Remnant's December 31, 2010 issue. It is part of a decade-long series of Remnant articles which vigorously and unapologetically opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq for violating the Church's teaching on what constitutes just war. For that editorial position, which continued from 2003 onward, we lost thousands of subscribers.
In recent weeks and months it has become very fashionable in neo-Catholic circles to finally begin to speak out against the genocide of Christians in Iraq at the hands of the Islamic extremists that took over after the U.S.-led “coalition of the willing” had finished bombing the living daylights out of Iraq for reasons even Fox News no longer cares to defend. That's all well and good, but I guess I'm curious to know where these neo-Catholic heroes were ten years ago when something might have been done to sandbag the lunatical U.S. foreign policy that would give us the insufferable Barack Obama and lead to the present crisis in Iraq, leaving millions homeless, tens of thousands dead, with our Christian brothers and sisters (those that survived the "shock and awe" of which we Americans were so embarrassingly proud at the time) driven from their homes, banished from their country and separated from their families forever.
Shock and Awe: Marriage and Martyrdom for Iraqi Catholics
Written by Rev. Fr. James H. Doran, FSSPX & Nicholas A. ChapelloRemnant readers are surely aware of the recent news surrounding two planned Satanic rituals, or Black Masses, and the condemnations they have elicited from Catholics throughout the country. However, a certain irony in this entire affair may have been missed by many.
During the five decades that have followed Vatican II’s “Declaration on Religious Freedom” (Dignitatis Humanae),[1] the post-conciliar hierarchy has repeatedly and emphatically stated that religious liberty is fundamental to human dignity. Thus while they fawn over backwards to accord religious liberty to an entire spectrum of false religions, they nevertheless deny this “right” to Satanists.