The Last Word…

Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church, in Syracuse, NY, desecrated while transformed into a mosque. (Well played, Vatican II)

A few weeks ago America experienced a horrific mass shooting at a music concert by a radical Islamist; a few days ago we suffered through another horrific shooting, this time at a Baptist church by an avowed atheist. Both were acts of terrorism and both should be categorized as hate crimes; but they will not be, because Moslems and Atheists are both protected species whereas country music rednecks and main stream Christians count for little or nothing in the estimation of this diabolically disoriented world.

This just in from SSPX.org:

On November 12, 2017, the day after the feast of St. Martin, patron saint of the archdiocese of Utrecht, Bishop Fellay, Superior General of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X, reconciled the church of St. Willibrord. 

The church is situated in the historic center of the city of Utrecht, and 600 faithful from the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany were present. The ceremony began with the rite of reconciliation that the Roman Pontifical prescribes for restoring a sacred building to Catholic worship after it has been used for secular purposes. The bishop first blessed the “Gregorian water”, a mixture of water, wine, salt, and ashes, then sprinkled the interior walls and the ground  in the form of a cross, in order to purify the church of its profane defilements.

In his sermon, Bishop Fellay reminded the faithful that the artistic beauty of this place of worship is a reflection of the divine beauty, of which the Christian soul is also an image. He went on to point out that this sacred building has now been restored to the traditional liturgy for which it was built and that “has never been abrogated”, as pope emeritus Benedict XVI declared in his Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum on July 7, 2007, although certain members of the hierarchy claimed it had been. The ceremony continued with a Pontifical High Mass celebrated from the faldstool, directed by the seminarians of Zaitzkofen, and enhanced by the magnificent sounds of the sumptuous organ and the baroque pieces that were sung most excellently and professionally. Read the rest HERE

REMNANT COMMENT: Can there be doubt in anyone's mind that the Novus Ordo is on life support? It's in critical condition from within, as doctrinal organ shutdown and a ridiculously trivialized liturgy mean precious few mainstream Catholics even bother going to Mass anymore (do you blame them?), much less leave their hard earned dollars in the collection baskets. At this rate, the entire experiment in novelty will be over and done with in a generation or two.  

At the same time, traditional Catholicism and the Traditional Latin Mass are making a comeback never before thought possible, unless and until the great Modernist facade comes crashing down first. Well the great facade is doing just that, thanks be to God.

In this Fiftieth Anniversary year of The Remnant newspaper, let's take a moment to recall the way things used to be.

Here's a bit of "ancient" video I happened upon recently in preparation for last month's Catholic Identity Conference, where I was to deliver a talk on the history of the Traditional Catholic movement (available HERE in on-demand video, by the way).

This video takes us back to the early days of the Traditional Catholic counterrevolution—to my boyhood home—where my mother and father had set up a catacomb chapel of sorts, centered around an old altar they'd rescued from a “totally groovy” Novus parish that was chucking all the old statues, nixing the altars and bulldozing the sanctuaries.  So my father rescued what he could and installed it in our basement.

That catacomb altar served as an outpost for the early "men in black"—priests from all over the world who refused to go along with the Revolution, and who are now revered pioneers of the early Traditional Catholic resistance.

Here's a glimpse of what it looked like, keeping in mind that some fairly well known figures frequented this catacomb chapel.  Remnant founder, Walter L. Matt, is the old gent at the front, and old-timers will also recognize a young Michael Davies and several other early traditionalist Remnant writers receiving Holy Communion; yours truly, by the way, is serving Father John Emerson’s (ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre) Mass.

We've come a long way indeed. Now the Society of St. Pius X is erecting massive seminaries (including the largest built in the U.S. since the Council) and rescuing historic and monumental churches from dumpsters of Vatican II on both sides of the Atlantic.  

God is good. Congratulations to the SSPX---may God bless and Mary keep them all, and may we never forget the sacrifices of the early traditionalists--men and women, priests and laity (and two bishops)--who literally gave up everything in defense of the Traditional Latin Mass. They were Traditionalists before Tradition was cool, God bless them!

 

 

The USCCB finally finds its spine to speak out forcefully against.... tax cuts.

USCCB.org: House Tax Reform Bill “Unacceptable” As Written, Say U.S. Bishops Chairmen

November 9, 2017

WASHINGTON—In a letter of November 9, Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice, Florida, Bishop Oscar Cantú of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Bishop George V. Murry, SJ of Youngstown, Ohio called for amendments to the current draft of the House of Representatives tax reform bill "for the sake of families" and "for those struggling on the peripheries of society who have a claim on our national conscience."

"Doubling the standard deduction will help some of those in poverty to avoid tax liability, and this is a positive good contained in the bill," wrote the Bishops of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. "However, as written, this proposal appears to be the first federal income tax modification in American history that will raise income taxes on the working poor while simultaneously providing a large tax cut to the wealthy. This is simply unconscionable."

Bishop Dewane is the Chairman of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, Bishop Cantú chairs the Committee on International Justice and Peace, and Bishop Murry heads the Committee on Catholic Education.

…The bishop-chairmen highlighted positive provisions in the areas of education and modest increases to child tax credits, but stressed that the bill places "new and unreasonable burdens on families," and must be changed. Read the rest HERE

REMNANT COMMENT: …

 

This just in from National Catholic Register: Cardinal Burke Addresses the 'Dubia' One Year After Their Publication

In wishing to honor two recently deceased cardinals, the American cardinal makes a final plea to the Holy Father for clarity, saying the “grave” situation is “continually worsening” and that it is “urgent” the Pope “confirm his brothers in the faith.”

One year to the day since the dubia were made public, Cardinal Raymond Burke has made a final plea to the Holy Father to clarify key aspects of his moral teaching, saying the gravity of the situation is “continually worsening.”

In a Nov. 14 interview with the Register, Cardinal Burke said he was turning again “to the Holy Father and to the whole Church” to emphasize “how urgent it is that, in exercising the ministry he has received from the Lord, the Pope should confirm his brothers in the faith with a clear expression of the teaching regarding both Christian morality and the meaning of the Church’s sacramental practice.”

On Sept. 19 last year, Cardinal Burke, along with Cardinal Walter Brandmüller and recently deceased Cardinals Joachim Meisner and Carlo Caffarra, signed the dubia to the Pope. They made the initiative public on Nov. 14, 2016, when it became clear the Holy Father would not respond.

Aimed at clarifying disputed passages of Chapter 8 of his post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, the five-question dubia — an ancient and customary practice aimed at clarifying areas of doctrine — sought to ascertain, among other matters, whether previous Church teaching forbidding civilly “remarried” divorcees engaging in sexual relations to receive the sacraments remained in force.

Since Amoris Laetitia was published in April 2016, some bishops’ conferences, drawing on the exhortation, have said certain civilly-remarried divorcees can now receive the sacraments depending on their personal circumstances, while other bishops, basing their position on the Church’s perennial teaching, say they cannot.

“The concern was and is to determine precisely what the Pope wanted to teach as Successor of Peter,” Cardinal Burke said.

“Far from diminishing the importance of our questions,” the current situation only makes them “still more pressing,” he added.

He also made it clear in this fresh interview that he intends to honor the two deceased cardinals by underlining the position of the dubia signatories and by giving a summary of the situation. 

Edward Pentin: Your Eminence, at what stage are we since you, Cardinal Walter Brandmüller and the two recently deceased cardinals, Carlo Caffarra and Joachim Meisner, made the dubia public a year ago this week?

Cardinal Burke: One year after the publication of the dubia on Amoris Laetitia, which have not received any response from the Holy Father, we observe an increasing confusion about the ways of interpreting the apostolic exhortation. Hence our concern for the Church’s situation and for her mission in the world becomes ever more urgent. I, of course, remain in regular communication with Cardinal Walter Brandmüller regarding these gravest of matters. Both of us remain in profound union with the two late Cardinals Joachim Meisner and Carlo Caffarra, who have passed away in the course of the last months. Thus I once again present the gravity of the situation, which is continually worsening.

Much has been said about the dangers of the ambiguous nature of Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia, stressing that it is open to much interpretation. Why is clarity so important?

Clarity in teaching does not imply any rigidity, which would impede people from walking on the Gospel path, but, on the contrary, clarity provides the light necessary for accompanying families on the way of Christian discipleship. It is obscurity that keeps us from seeing the path and that hinders the evangelizing action of the Church. As Jesus says, “Night comes, when no one can work” (John 9:4).

Could you explain more about the current situation in light of the dubia?

The current situation, far from diminishing the importance of the dubia or questions, makes them still more pressing. It is not at all, as some have suggested, a matter of an “affected ignorance,” which poses doubts only because it is unwilling to accept a given teaching. Rather, the concern was and is to determine precisely what the Pope wanted to teach as Successor of Peter. Thus the questions arise from the recognition of the Petrine office that Pope Francis has received from the Lord for the purpose of confirming his brothers in the faith. The magisterium is God’s gift to the Church to provide clarity on issues that regard the deposit of the faith. By their very nature, affirmations that lack this clarity cannot be qualified expressions of the magisterium.

Why is it so dangerous, in your view, for there to be differing interpretations of Amoris Laetitia, particularly over the pastoral approach of those living in irregular unions, and specifically over civilly-remarried divorcees not living in continence and receiving Holy Communion?

It is evident that some of Amoris Laetitia’s indications regarding essential aspects of the faith and of the practice of the Christian life have received various interpretations that are divergent and at times incompatible with each other. This incontestable fact confirms that these indications are ambivalent, permitting a variety of readings, many of which are in contrast to Catholic doctrine. The questions we cardinals have raised thus regard what exactly the Holy Father has taught and how his teaching harmonizes with the deposit of the faith, given that the magisterium “is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit; it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed” (Vatican Council II, dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum, 10).

Hasn’t the Pope made clear where he stands through his letter to Argentine bishops, in which he said there is “no other interpretation” than the guidelines those bishops issued — guidelines that left open the possibility of some sexually active unmarried couples receiving the Holy Eucharist?

Contrary to what some have claimed, we cannot consider the Pope’s letter to the bishops of the region of Buenos Aires, written shortly before receiving the dubia and containing comments on the bishops’ pastoral guidelines, an adequate response to the questions posed. On the one hand, these guidelines can be interpreted in different ways; on the other, it is not clear that this letter is a magisterial text, in which the Pope intended to speak to the universal Church as the Successor of Peter. The fact that the letter first became known because it had been leaked to the press — and was only later made public by the Holy See — raises a reasonable doubt about the Holy Father’s intention to direct it to the universal Church. In addition, it would turn out to be quite astonishing — and contrary to Pope Francis’ explicitly formulated desire to leave the concrete application of Amoris Laetitia to the bishops of each country (Amoris Laetitia, 3) — that now he should impose on the universal Church what are only the concrete directives of a particular region. And shouldn’t the different dispositions promulgated by various bishops in their dioceses from Philadelphia to Malta then all be considered invalid? A teaching that is not sufficiently determined with respect to its authority and its effective content cannot cast into doubt the clarity of the Church’s constant teaching, which, in any case, remains always normative.

Are you also concerned that, by some bishops’ conferences allowing certain remarried divorcees living more uxorio (having sexual relations) to receive Holy Communion without a firm purpose of amendment, they are contradicting previous papal teaching, in particular Pope St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio?

Yes, the dubia or questions remain open. Those who assert that the discipline taught by Familiaris Consortio, 84 has changed contradict each other when it comes to explaining the reasons and the consequences. Some go as far as to say that the divorced in a new union, who continue to live more uxorio, do not find themselves in an objective state of mortal sin (citing in support Amoris Laetitia, 303); others deny this interpretation (citing in support Amoris Laetitia, 305), yet completely leave it up to the judgment of conscience to determine the criteria of access to the sacraments. It seems that the goal of the interpreters is to arrive, in whatever way, at a change in discipline, while the reasons they adduce to this end are of no importance, nor do they show any concern about how much they put into danger essential matters of the deposit of faith.

What tangible effect has this mix of interpretations had?

This hermeneutical confusion has already produced a sad result. In fact, the ambiguity regarding a concrete point of the pastoral care of the family has led some to propose a paradigm shift regarding the Church’s entire moral practice, the foundations of which have been authoritatively taught by St. John Paul II in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor.          

Indeed, a process has been put into motion that is subversive of essential parts of the Tradition. Concerning Christian morality, some claim that absolute moral norms need to be relativized and that a subjective, self-referential conscience needs to be given a — ultimately equivocal — primacy in matters touching morals. What is at stake, therefore, is in no way secondary to the kerygma or basic Gospel message. We are speaking about whether or not a person’s encounter with Christ can, by the grace of God, give form to the path of the Christian life so that it may be in harmony with the Creator’s wise design. To understand how far-reaching these proposed changes are, it is enough to think of what would happen if this reasoning were to be applied to other cases, such as that of a medical doctor performing abortions, of a politician belonging to a ring of corruption, of a suffering person deciding to make a request for assisted suicide ...

Some have said the most pernicious effect of all of this is that it represents an attack on the sacraments as well as the Church’s moral teaching. How is this so?           

Over and above the moral debate, the sense of the ecclesial sacramental practice is increasingly eroding in the Church, especially when it comes to the sacraments of penance and the Eucharist. The decisive criterion for admission to the sacraments has always been the coherence of a person’s way of life with the teachings of Jesus. If instead the decisive criterion were now to become the absence of a person’s subjective culpability — as some interpreters of Amoris Laetitia have suggested — would this not change the very nature of the sacraments? In fact, the sacraments are not private encounters with God, nor are they means of social integration into a community. Rather, they are visible and effective signs of our incorporation into Christ and his Church, in and by which the Church publicly professes and actuates her faith. Thus, by turning a person’s subjective diminished culpability or lack of culpability into the decisive criterion for the admission to the sacraments, one would endanger the very regula fidei, the rule of faith, which the sacraments proclaim and actuate not only by words, but also by visible gestures. How could the Church continue to be the universal sacrament of salvation if the meaning of the sacraments were to be emptied of its content?

Despite you and many others, including more than 250 academics and priests who have signed a filial correction, clearly having very serious misgivings about the effects of these passages inAmoris Laetitia, and because you have so far received no response from the Holy Father, are you here making a final plea to him? 

Yes, for these grave reasons, one year after rendering public the dubia, I again turn to the Holy Father and to the whole Church, emphasizing how urgent it is that, in exercising the ministry he has received from the Lord, the Pope should confirm his brothers in the faith with a clear expression of the teaching regarding both Christian morality and the meaning of the Church’s sacramental practice.

 

 

(Vatican Radio) The Vatican is calling for integral nuclear disarmament. According to the preliminary conclusions of a just-ended high level symposium entitled “Prospects for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons and for Integral Disarmament”, integral disarmament is both an urgent immediate need and a long-term process.

The symposium, organized by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development got underway as tensions escalated between the US and North Korea. 

It saw the participation of eleven Nobel peace laureates, top United Nations and NATO officials, leading experts, ‎heads of  major foundations and of civil society organizations, as well representatives of bishops conferences, Christian denominations and other faiths. Pope Francis addressed the gathering on Friday. READ FULL REPORT HERE

REMNANT COMMENT: Could they think of other ways to completely waste their time and money? Do they seriously think nations such as North Korea are just going to disassemble their nukes? Isn’t this the same tired left wing talking point from the 70’s and 80’s? 

What they really mean is that the US should unilaterally disarm. They are dreaming and they know it. No nation in its right mind is going to unilaterally disarm much less all of them. 

Francis is exactly wrong. A world without nuclear weapons is NOT possible. For a guy who says turning back the clock in the Church is impossible he sure fails to understand that it is impossible when it comes to technology. 

What a complete waste of a conference. How about having a conference on why the Church is bleeding membership and marriage is going in the toilet as well as why young people are checking out?

Since Pope Francis has already taken such competent care of the Catholic Church's spiritual needs, he can spend his time holding audiences with leaders of the “Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat” on such topics as food security, nutrition, climate change, disaster risk reduction and resilient means of subsistence. From the Vatican Press Office’s bulletin of the audience:

Address of the Holy Father

Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I offer a warm welcome to you, the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders. Your presence here is a visible sign of the rich variety of cultures and the great natural beauty of the Pacific region.

I share your concern for the peoples of the region, especially those exposed to the extreme environmental and climate events that are becoming more frequent and intense. Of concern too is the grave impact of rising sea levels and the disturbing and continuous deterioration of the barrier reef, a marine ecosystem of immense importance. In this regard, I remember the disquieting question posed almost thirty years ago by the Bishops of the Philippines: “Who turned the wonderworld of the seas into underwater cemeteries bereft of colour and life?” (cf. Laudato Si’, 41). A number of causes have led to this environmental decay and, sadly, many of them are due to short-sighted human activity connected with certain ways of exploiting natural and human resources, the impact of which ultimately reaches the ocean bed itself (cf. ibid.).

When we speak of rising sea levels, which “mainly affect impoverished coastal populations who have nowhere else to go” (ibid., 48), our thoughts turn to the problem of global warming widely discussed in various international forums and meetings. In these very days COP-23, the twenty-third session of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention Framework of the United Nations, is meeting in Bonn, under the presidency of one of the countries you represent, the Fiji Islands. It is my hope that the efforts of COP-23, and those yet to come, will always keep in mind the greater picture of that “earth without borders, with its highly rarified atmosphere”, as it was described by one of the astronauts currently orbiting in the International Space Station, with whom I recently had a fascinating conversation.

Read the complete bulletin HERE

REMNANT COMMENT:  Everything with the Church is well and good.  All humans are virtuous and all souls saved. Time to start spending all my time on ecology! Have to do something to bide my time until I return to Mother Earth, and they can commence proceedings for my canonization.