As if we didn’t know it before, today we learned why the Secret Synod was conducted in secret, with the faithful not being permitted to see the texts of the participants’ addresses or even to know which bishop or cardinal was advancing which position. The Secret Synod was conducted in secret because evil advances in shadows.

Many others, and not just traditionalists, have already expressed outrage over the disastrous “Relatio post disceptationem,” which appeared on the Vatican website today, October 13. This is the anniversary of Pope Leo’s vision of Satan’s attack on the Church (leading to his composition of the Leonine prayer suddenly abandoned after Vatican II), the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, and the derailing of the Second Vatican Council by Cardinal Liénart’s violation of the procedural rules in seizing the microphone in order to demand new drafting committees for the conciliar documents.

There is an old political axiom that has apparently been totally lost on the people in charge of the Synod: how something looks is often more important than what it is. In our times, the question asked most often by smart political advisors is "How does this look?" Optics, and how to avoid other people manipulating it for you, is particularly now in the age of Twitter at the heart of modern political life, but also seems to be one thing the Vatican simply can't grasp.

But what outsiders need to remember is that this is a very common problem in Italian politics in general. For centuries, Italian rulers have just done whatever they wanted, and whoever didn't like it could just go jump. The Italian national characteristic most abhorred by the other races is certainly their arrogance and total disinterest in anyone who does not seem immediately useful. Anyone who has ever taken a walk in Rome and had to stop and specifically ask the Romans crowded around the outside of the coffee bar to please move over the three inches required to pass on the sidewalk - and received the cold, blank Roman stare in response - will be familiar. They will often simply treat other people as though they are not there, and will pretend to be surprised when a person magically appears out of nowhere asking them to get out of the way.

The other day, a bishop in Algeria, the former head of the Dominican Order in France, Bishop Jean-Paul Vesco, on the website of the weekly magazine La Vie, made defense of the Kasper plan, to “pardon” those who have left their marriage, taken a civil “divorce” and entered into a second adulterous connection. The Catholic world is in turmoil over the possibility that this apparently common practice in Germany will be allowed formally throughout the world, and some powerful voices thunder against it, with the Pope, except for a few brief words of warm praise in the beginning, still silent.

Now we have the “pardon” instead of forgiveness of sins, covering instead of deleting them. Obviously, for the simple reason that repentance is difficult, too difficult for ordinary people.

A caution to the reader: What follows is a very harsh assessment of the current pontificate. I felt compelled to write it, but no one is compelled to read it. I am nothing and nobody in the great scheme of things, although I am privileged to contribute to the record of a venerable traditional Catholic journal that will surely have its place in the history of these times. I have no illusions that my little lamentations will have any effect on the Pope, for whom I pray each day, or on events in the Church. But at least I, at least The Remnant, at least traditionalists in general will be able say one day, concerning what was done to the Bride of Christ, “Not us. Not us.”

§

Here is an inescapable truth that ought to trouble every Catholic: Francis is the first Pope in the history of the Church to be universally lauded by “the rulers of the world of this darkness… the spirits of wickedness in the high places.” (Eph. 6:12) Even Barack Obama, a veritable forerunner of the Antichrist, is “hugely impressed” by Francis. There is no need to demonstrate yet again the copious outpouring of the world’s unprecedented praise for a Roman Pontiff. The world’s love affair with Francis has woven itself into the very Zeitgeist, as any Internet search for the terms “Pope Francis” and “revolution” will reveal. “Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you! for in the same manner did their fathers to the false prophets.”

Editor’s Note: This personal remembrance of a great man is something I wrote 10 years ago, days after the death of my friend, Michael Davies, on September 25, 2004. We’re posting it here, unedited from how it first appeared, so obviously some of the dates and chronology mentioned herein are dated by one decade. Younger readers may wonder about the title of this article. For over 30 years Michael Davies wrote a bi-weekly column for The Remnant called, simply, “A Letter from London.” May he rest in peace. MJM


Thirty-three years ago this past June, Michael Davies submitted his first article for publication in these columns. I was five years old at the time. I don’t remember when he wasn’t a vital part of The Remnant family.

For well over three decades his “Letter from London” came in month after month and year after year, keeping thousands of post-Vatican II Catholics informed and encouraged during three of the most turbulent decades in the history of the Church.

American Diocesan Priest Interviewed on Effects of TLM, Summorum Pontificum

It would seem quite fitting for the Third Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage to Rome to field three senior Cardinals as main celebrants of the three extraordinary rite pontificals scheduled for late October: H.E. George Pell in the traditional parish church of Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini on Friday, October 24th; H.E. Raymond L. Burke on Saturday, October 25th in St. Peter’s Basilica; and H.E. Walter Brandmüller on Sunday, October 26th, in the Benedictine community in Norcia on the feast of Christ the King, October’s last Sunday in the Tridentine calendar.

The unprecedented development on the occasion of this third traditional pilgrimage is the fact that the religious services will be ushered in H.E. George Cardinal Pell, generally regarded as the highest-ranking prelate in the Vatican after his appointment in February 2014 as the first Cardinal-Prefect of the newly created Secretariat for the Economy to oversee the Vatican finances. But the former archbishop of Melbourne and Sydney is also known for his sensitivity in favour of the traditional liturgy, which he himself celebrates from time to time.