New South Wales Police Commissioner Mick Fuller has officially become a violator of international human rights, and under international law, he should be arrested and prosecuted. Fuller has warned anyone organizing or planning to attend a second COVID lockdown protest in Sydney that “you will be arrested.” There is nothing legal about what he is ordering the police to do and following his orders is no different than the Nazis pretending what they were doing was legal simply because they were ordered to do so. Fuller is destroying Australia as a free country, pushing it into the clutches of the evolving totalitarian regime being created quietly behind the curtain as inspired by the World Economic Forum. Video Player00:0000:26
Fuller has become so anti-human rights that he is labeling COVID protestors as anarchists as if that somehow justifies imprisoning people and abusing international human rights. The NSW police are violating every possible principle of a free government and this is the very excuse the West used to invade Iraq and Syria because their respective governments were abusing the accord on international human rights. This is an extremely dangerous position for the police to take. History warns that such people are the very types who inspire revolutions. Revolution will come. Our computer is very clear on that. Our present form of representative governments around the world will collapse, for they no longer represent the people. Fuller is condemning his own family to tyranny and he and his police force will forever be seen as the evil tyrants by history. Just because a politician decrees something does NOT make it legal, ethical, or morally correct.
The NSW police have become so ruthless, they have no problem subjecting people to experimental vaccines that are not working. Israelis reporting that the Pfizer vaccine is now down to only 39% effective against the Delta variant. We have to wonder why the police are like the Nazis of World War II with the same identical excuse — I am just following orders! This implies they are incapable of actual free thinking. Scott Morrison changed his position from treating COVID as the flu to a lethal disease that justified destroying the economy. It has been suggested that he is taking his marching order from the World Economic Forum, and this change now justifies Fuller to violate international human rights.
This video is already circulating about the Australian government and how they are violating every international principle of human rights. Obviously, Australia is certainly not a country to visit on vacation anymore. It was once upon a time, a place I often thought I would like to retire to. I loved Australia. Spent a lot of time there. Went into Kakadu and Ayers Rock. I even have paintings by Australian artists to remind me of how beautiful it was.
Traditional orders react to Traditionis Custodes: Bishops are now the ‘jailers’ of the Latin Mass
“Many people have discovered or returned to the Faith thanks to this liturgy. How can we fail to notice, moreover, that the communities of the faithful attached to it are often young and flourishing, and that many Christian households, priests or religious vocations have come from it?’ asked the FSSP. Wed Jul 21, 2021 – 3:19 pm EST
July 21, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – As the long-term fallout from Pope Francis’s motu proprio restricting the traditional liturgy of the Church, Traditionis Custodes, remains to be fully understood, priestly societies have registered their varying reactions to the document, as the future of such traditional groups remains in the “anti-traditional” hands of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies for Apostolic Life.
Traditionis Custodes was promulgated and came into effect July 16, 2021, ushering in a new era in the Catholic Church for the clergy and members of the faithful devoted to the traditional liturgy (also called the Latin Mass, Traditional Latin Mass, Extraordinary Form, Old Rite, or Mass of the Ages). It stipulates that priests are to “request” permission from their diocesan bishops to say the traditional Mass, and consequently bishops can essentially forbid priests from saying the Latin Mass. The bishops are also to decide “whether or not to retain” parishes which had been canonically erected for the offering of the traditional liturgies.
Such stipulations do away with the permissions of Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 Summorumpontificum, which afforded priests the right to celebrate Mass in the traditional rites, without needing the express authorization of the bishop or the Holy See.
As for the traditional orders offering the Mass and sacraments according to the 1962 Missal under the Pontifical Commission EcclesiaDei, such as the Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), the Institute of Christ the King Soverign Priest (ICKSP), and the Institute of the Good Shepherd (IBP), Pope Francis has now moved them to the care of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDW), and the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies for Apostolic Life.
The CDW is led by the recently appointed Archbishop Arthur Roche, who is known as a firm opponent of the Latin Mass. Meanwhile the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies for Apostolic Life has been recently described by theologian and liturgy expert Dr. Peter Kwasniewski as “notoriously anti-traditional,” and is led by Cardinal João Bráz de Aviz. — Article continues below Petition — SIGN: Show Pope Francis the Latin Mass will survive any suppression
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In light of the motu proprio, and with the potential impact as yet not fully clear, the FSSP, as well as the Priestly Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), have responded to the document with separate statements, although the SSPX’s is not an official statement from the group’s superior general. The SSPX merely published an article offering “initial thoughts” on the motu proprio via its official news service, FSSPX.news.
The other two major traditional groups, the ICKSP and the Institute of the Good Shepherd, have not issued official responses to the motu proprio as yet.
Fraternity of St. Peter does not recognize itself ‘in the criticisms made’
On the day of the motu proprio’s promulgation, the FSSP released a brief missive, describing the document as a “Cross” and a “means of our sanctification.” The group, founded as a clerical Society of Apostolic Life of Pontifical Right in 1988, added that it remained “committed to serving the faithful attending our apostolates in accordance with our Constitutions and charism as we have done since our founding.”
However, on July 20, an updated message was released from the FSSP’s headquarters in Fribourg, Switzerland, expressing how the Fraternity received TraditionisCustodes with “surprise.”
The FSSP noted it has “always professed its adherence to the entire Magisterium of the Church and its fidelity to the Roman Pontiff and the successors of the Apostles, exercising its ministry under the responsibility of the diocesan bishops.” Such a line could be viewed as a response to the Pope’s accompanying letter to the motu proprio, in which he decried “the instrumental use of MissaleRomanum of 1962” which he said “is often characterized by a rejection not only of the liturgical reform, but of the Vatican Council II itself, claiming, with unfounded and unsustainable assertions, that it betrayed the Tradition and the ‘true Church’.”
The FSSP said it was “deeply saddened” to hear of the underlying reasons behind the Pope’s restrictions on the traditional Mass, and that the FSSP “in no way recognizes itself in the criticisms made.”
Furthermore, the FSSP mentioned the surprising nature of the absence from the motu proprio of the “the many fruits visible in the apostolates” celebrating the traditional liturgy, and the “joy of the faithful in being able to benefit from this liturgical form.”
“Many people have discovered or returned to the Faith thanks to this liturgy,” stated the Fraternity. “How can we fail to notice, moreover, that the communities of the faithful attached to it are often young and flourishing, and that many Christian households, priests or religious vocations have come from it?”
The Fraternity wrote that it was faced with a two-fold aspect, whereby it wished to reaffirm its “unwavering fidelity to the successor of Peter on the one hand,” while also remaining “faithful to our Constitutions and charism, continuing to serve the faithful as we have done since our foundation.”
The statement expressed the hope for a continued collaboration with and understanding from the bishops of the Catholic Church.
SSPX: TLM has gone from an animal sanctuary to the zoo, where it’s targeted for extinction
The Society has yet to issue its own official statement in response to the motu proprio, but has published an article giving its “initial thoughts” on the document. Pope Francis’ document “illustrates the precariousness of the current magisterium,” wrote the SSPX.
Nor was the Society sparing in its summary of TraditionisCustodes: “Everything, or just about everything in Summorumpontificum, is scattered, abandoned, or destroyed.”
The article contrasted the Pope’s defense of ecological issues, such as “an endangered animal or plant species,” while he also “promulgates the extinction of those who are attached to the immemorial rite of the Holy Mass.”
“While Francis defends an endangered animal or plant species, he decides and promulgates the extinction of those who are attached to the immemorial rite of the Holy Mass,” the SSPX wrote.
Paraphrasing the Pope’s attitude to the Latin Mass, the SSPX wrote: “This species no longer has the right to live: it must disappear. And all means will be used to achieve this result.”
The Society’s tone is far more free than that of the Fraternity, describing how the traditional liturgy has been relegated from a “reservation” or sanctuary-style system under Summorum Pontificum to a “zoo regime,” where such ancient liturgical celebrations are in “cages, narrowly circumscribed and demarcated.” The zoo keepers of these Masses, or “jailers,” are “none other than the bishops themselves.”
Each aspect of the motu proprio is broken down and analyzed in detail, availing of zoological terminology.
Describing Article 3, §6 of the motu proprio, which prohibits diocesan bishops from allowing new traditional groups to spring up, the SSPX writes: “This measure is akin to sterilization: it is forbidden to reproduce and perpetuate these savages of the past who must disappear.”
As for the permission now required for priests to say the Latin Mass, the SSPX states “if it is a question of restraining, reducing, or even destroying groups, the bishops have carte blanche, but if it there is a need to grant authorization, the pope does not trust them: it is necessary to go through Rome.”
Vatican II is compared to a vaccine used to inoculate the faithful against the Latin Mass, which the SSPX paraphrased as being a “virus”: “Carried away by his enthusiasm, the pope almost comes to the point of saying that it is the Old Mass which is a dangerous virus that must be defended against.”
Pope Francis’s accompanying letter has been described by some online as being “worse than [TraditionisCustodes] itself.” Referring to this letter and the motu proprio, the SSPX summarizes that the two documents give “impression of sectarianism coupled with an overt abuse of power.”
The article echoed the words of Dr. Kwasniewski, describing the motu proprio as being without “legitimacy,” and “not a law of the Church,” since “a law against the common good is no valid law.”
Such “angry proponents” of the “liturgical reform” are marked by “resentment” against the traditional liturgy, wrote the SSPX, and hence such people “cannot take” the “success” of the traditional liturgy.
“The fact remains that this motu proprio, which will sooner or later end in the oblivion of the history of the Church, is not good news in itself,” closes the Society’s article. “It marks an abrupt end in the reappropriation of its Tradition by the Church, and it will delay the end of the crisis which has already been going on for more than sixty years.”
July 22, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – This great and powerful article by Professor Massimo Viglione constitutes one of the most lucid and profound comments on the ominous Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes. In sharing this important intervention, I intend to offer it to the reading and reflection of all the faithful, Catholics and also non-Catholics, so that each one can draw from it prophetic clarity and apostolic courage in the very hard war that we are all called to face, a war whose inevitable outcome will be the triumph of the Bride of Christ over the unleashing of the infernal powers.
This article by Prof. Viglione deserves wide visibility also for showing the overall vision on the simultaneous and coherent strategy and action of the deep state and the deep church. At a time when discrimination against the unvaccinated is also adopted by the Bergoglian church, it is our duty and responsibility to resist with the utmost determination, raise our voices, denouncing what is happening and revealing what is being prepared.
Dear friends of Duc in altum, Massimo Viglione has written this article after the publication of Traditionis Custodes. It is one of the most complete and lucid analyses that we have read commenting on the papal provision against the Mass of all time. In addition to a comprehensive analysis (in which the liturgical problem is joined to that of the imposition of the New World Order), I would like to draw your attention to his reflection on the question of obedience.
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“They will throw you out of the synagogues” (Jn 16:2) The hermeneutic of Cain’s envy against Abel
There have been many comments, one after the other, in these days following the official declaration of war – made by Francis himself – of the ecclesiastical hierarchy against the Holy Mass of all time. And more than one comment has revealed the not-at-all concealed contempt and the simultaneous absolute clarity of content and form that marks the Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes, written in a style and formality that is political more than theological or spiritual. It is in effect a declaration of war. It is noteworthy that there is a formal difference and also a difference in tone found in the various documents with which Paul VI, beginning in 1964, announced, planned, and implemented his liturgical reform, which was finally made official with the Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum issued on 3 April 1969, by which the ancient Roman Rite was de facto replaced (this is the most appropriate term both from the point of view of intentions as well as facts) with the new vulgar Rite. In the Montinian documents we find, on several occasions, hypocritical but evident pain, regret, and remorse, and paradoxically the beauty and sacredness of the ancient Rite are celebrated.
In short, it is as if Montini had said: “Dear Rite of all time, I am sending you away, but you were so beautiful!”
In contrast, in the Bergoglian document, as many have noted, sarcasm and hatred for the ancient Rite shine through. A hatred such that it cannot be contained.
Naturally, Francis is not the initiator of this war, which was begun by the modernist liturgical movement (or, if you like, with Protestantism), but rather, on the official and operative level, it was Paul VI himself. Bergoglio has only – to use the strong and popular metaphor – “shot madly” in an effort to kill once and for all a mortally wounded thing that in the course of the post-conciliar decades not only did not die but returned to life, dragging along with it, with an exponential crescendo in the last 14 years, an incalculable number of faithful all over the world.
And this is the crux of the whole matter. The progressive and more convinced modernist clergy had to suffer Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio, dragged by the neck, but at the same time they constantly worked against the Mass of all time through hostile resistance by the majority of the world episcopate, which has always openly disobeyed what Summorum Pontificum established, beginning right in the years of the Ratzingerian pontificate, and then all the more so after the resignation up until today.
The hostility of the bishops meant that in the end the task of putting the Motu Proprio into action very often fell to the courage of a few priests celebrating it anyway, even without the permission of the bishop (which was specifically not necessary according to the provisions of Summorum Pontificum). Now, those bishops who have been constantly and undauntedly disobedient to the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church and one of his Motu Proprios, in the name of obedience to the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church and one of his Motu Proprios, will be able not only to continue but even to intensify their censorship, the war that is no longer hidden but is now blatant, as is in fact already happening.
But Francis has not limited himself to “shooting” the immortal victim. He wanted to take a further step, that of a fast and furious – to say nothing of monstruous – “burying alive” of the ancient rite, affirming that the new rite is the Lex Orandi of the Catholic Church. From which it should be deduced that the Mass of all time is no longer the Lex Orandi.
It is well known that Our Friend [Bergoglio] doesn’t have a clue about theology (which is a bit like saying that a doctor doesn’t have a clue about medicine, or that a blacksmith doesn’t know how to use fire and iron). The Lex Orandi of the Church, in fact, is not a “precept” of positive law voted on by a parliament or prescribed by a sovereign, which can always be retracted, changed, replaced, improved, or worsened. The Lex Orandi of the Church, furthermore, is not a specific and determined “thing” in time and space, as much as it is the collective whole of theological and spiritual norms and liturgical and pastoral practices of the entire history of the Church, from evangelical times – and specifically from Pentecost – up to today. Although it obviously lives in the present, it is however rooted in the entire past of the Church. Therefore, we are not talking here about something human – exclusively human – that the latest boss can change at his pleasure. The Lex Orandi comprises all twenty centuries of the history of the Church, and there is no man or group of men in the world who can change this twenty-century-old deposit. There is no pope, council, or episcopate that can change the Gospel, the Depositum Fidei, or the universal Magisterium of the Church. Nor can the Liturgy of all time be changed. And if it is true that the ancient Rite had an essential apostolic core that then harmonically grew over the course of the centuries, with progressive mutations (even up to Pius XII and John XXIII), it is also true that these mutations – at times more appropriate and other times less so, and sometimes perhaps not appropriate at all – have always been however harmonically structured in a continuum of Faith, Sacredness, Tradition, and Beauty.
The Montinian reform broke all this apart, improvisedly inventing a new rite adapted to the needs of the modern world and transforming the sacred Catholic Liturgy from being theocentric to being anthropocentric. From the Holy Sacrifice of the Cross repeated in an unbloody manner through the action of the sacerdos, we transitioned to the assembly of the faithful led by its “presider.” From a salvific and even exorcistic instrument, we passed to a horizontal populist gathering, susceptible to continual autocephalous and relativistic changes and adaptations that are more or less “festive” and whose supposed “value” is based on winning mass consensus, as if it were a political instrument aimed at the audience, an audience however that is progressively completely disappearing.
It is useless to continue on this path: the very results of this liturgical subversion speak to minds and hearts and cannot lie. What it is important to clarify however is the reason for this transition from Montinian hypocrisy to Bergoglian sincerity.
What has changed? The general climate has changed. It has literally turned upside down. Montini believed that in a few years no one would remember the Mass of all time. Already John Paul II, faced with the evidence that the enemy did not die at all, was constrained – he too dragged by the neck – to grant an “indult” (as if the Sacred Catholic Liturgy of all time needed to be forgiven for something in order to continue to exist) which (no one ever says this) was even more restrictive than this latest Bergoglian document, although devoid of the hatred that characterizes the latter. But above all it was the uncontainable success among the people – and in particular among young people – that the Mass of all time found after Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio that was the triggering factor for this hatred.
The “new Mass” has lost in the face of history and the evidence of the facts. The churches are empty, ever more empty; the religious orders – even, and perhaps above all, the most ancient and glorious ones – are disappearing; monasteries and convents are deserted, inhabited only by religious who are now very advanced in years, and upon whose death the doors will be shuttered; vocations are reduced to nothing; even the “otto per mille” [Italian church tax] has been cut in half, despite the obsessive cloying and pathetic third-worldesque publicity it receives; priestly vocations are scarce – everywhere we see pastors with three, four, or at times even five parishes to run. The mathematics of the Council and the “new Mass” is the most merciless thing that can exist.
But the failure is above all qualitative, from the theological, spiritual and moral point of view. Even the clergy that exists and resists is in large part openly heretical or in any case tolerant of heresy and error in the exact measure that it is intolerant towards the Tradition, no longer recognizing any objective value in the Magisterium of the Church (except for what pleases it), living instead on theological and dogmatic improvisation, and liturgical and pastoral improvisation as well, all based on doctrinal and moral relativism, accompanied by an immense flood of chatter and empty and inane slogans; nor have we even mentioned the devastating – when it is not monstruous – moral situation of a good part of this clergy.
It’s true, there are the so-called “movements” that save the situation a little. But they save it at the cost, once again, of doctrinal relativism, liturgical relativism (guitars, tambourines, entertainment, “participation”), and moral relativism (the only sin is to go against the dictates of this society: today against the vaccine; everything else is more or less permitted). Are these movements still Catholic? And in what measure and quality? If we were to analyze their fidelity with theological and doctrinal precision, how many would pass the examination?
“Lex orandi, lex credenda,” the Church teaches. And in fact, the Lex Orandi of the nineteen centuries prior to Vatican II and the Montinian liturgical reform have produced one type of faith, and the fifty years following it have produced another type of faith – and another type of Catholic. “You will know them by their fruits” (Mt 7:16), the Founder of the Church taught. Exactly. The fruits of the total failure of modernism (or, if you like – for the most attentive and intelligent – the triumph of the true purposes of modernism), the fruits of the Second Vatican Council, the fruits of the post-council. Where did the hermeneutic of continuity shipwreck? It shipwrecked, along with “Mercy,” in the Hermeneutic of Hatred.
The Mass of all time, on the other hand, is the exact antithesis of all this. It is disruptive in its propagation, despite all of the constant hostility and episcopal censorship; it is sanctifying in its perfection; it is engaging precisely because it is the expression of the Eternal and Unchanging, of the Church of all time, of the theology and spirituality of all time, of the liturgy of all time, of the morality of all time. It is loved because it is divine, sacred, and hierarchically ordered, not human, “democratic” or liberal-egalitarian. It is both divine and human together, like its Founder on the day of the Last Supper.
It is loved above all by young people, both the laity who frequent it as well as among those are approaching the priesthood: while the seminaries of the new rite (the Lex Orandi of Bergoglio) are dens of heresy and apostasy (and it is better to be silent about what else…), the seminaries and novitiates of the world of Tradition overflow with vocations, both male and female, in an unstoppable stream. The explanation of this incontrovertible fact is found in the one Lex Orandi of the Catholic Church, which is the one willed by God Himself and from which no rebel may escape.
Here is the root of the hatred. It is the worldwide and multi-generational consensus against the enemy who must die, in the face of the failure of that which was supposed to bring new life and instead is withered and dying, because the lifeblood of Grace is missing.
It is hatred of kneeling girls wearing white veils, hatred of ladies with many children wearing black veils; hatred of men kneeling in prayer and recollection, perhaps with the rosary between their hands; hatred of priests in cassocks who are faithful to the doctrine and spirituality of all time; hatred of families that are large and peaceful despite the difficulties of this society; hatred of fidelity, of seriousness, of the thirst for the sacred.
It is hatred of an entire world, ever more numerous, that has not fallen – or no longer falls – into the humanistic and globalist trap of the “New Pentecost.”
At its root, that mad shooting is nothing other than a new murder of Abel by an envious Cain. And in fact, in the new Rite what is offered to God is “the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands (Cain), while in the Rite of all time what is offered is “hanc immaculatam Ostiam” (the firstborn Lamb of Abel: Gen 4:2-4).
Cain always wins momentarily through violence, but then without fail he suffers the punishment of his hatred and his envy. Abel dies momentarily, but then he lives forever in the sequela Christi.
What will happen now?
This is a more interesting and inevitable question than anyone can believe, and at many levels. Since we cannot know the future, let’s ask ourselves some fundamental questions in the meantime.
Will all the bishops obey?
It seems not. Apart from the great majority of them, who will fall in line quite willingly either because they share their boss’s hatred (almost all of them) or because they are afraid for their personal future, we think that there will be not a few of them who could also oppose the Bergoglian “machine gun,” as already appears to be happening in various cases in the USA and in France (we have little hope for the Italians, who are the most fearful and flattened as always), either because they are not hostile in principle [to the ancient rite] or else out of friendship with the various orders tied to the Mass of all time, or else perhaps – is this a vain hope? – out of a jolt of just pride in response to the humiliation, which could even be called grotesque, that they have received at the hands of this document, wherein first it says that the decision regarding the granting of permission falls to them, but then not only does it restrict every liberty of action, placing conditions on any minimal possibility of choice, but it also falls into the most blatant contradiction, affirming that in every case they must receive the permission of the Holy See!
Will everyone really obey blindly, or will some cracks start to make the system of hatred shake?
And what will happen in the so-called “traditionalist” world?
“We will see some good ones,” to use a popular expression. Without excluding historical twists. There are those who will fall, who will survive, who perhaps will benefit from it (but beware of the poisoned meatballs of the servants of the Father of Lies!). Instead, let us trust in divine Grace, so that the faithful not only remain faithful but also grow.
All this will be confirmed above all by an aspect that up until now no one has highlighted: the true goal of this multi-decade war against the Sacred Catholic Liturgy, which then is the true goal of the creation of the New Rite ex nihilo (better to say improvisedly [a tavolino], in some cave), is the dissolution of the Catholic Liturgy in itself, of every form of the Holy Sacrifice, of doctrine itself, of the Church herself in the great globalist current of the universal religion of the New World Order. Concepts like the Most Holy Trinity, the Cross, original sin, Good and Evil understood in the Christian and traditional sense, the Incarnation, the Resurrection and thus the Redemption, the Marian privileges and the very figure of the Mother of God who is the Immaculate Conception, the Eucharist and the Sacraments, Christian morality with its Ten Commandments and the Doctrine of the Universal Magisterium (defense of life, of the family, of rightly ordered sexuality in all its forms, with all the consequent condemnations of today’s follies) – all of this must disappear into the universal and monist cult of the future.
And, in this perspective, the Mass of all time is the first element that must disappear, since it is the absolute bulwark of all that they want to make disappear: it is the first obstacle to every form of ecumenism. Over time, this will inevitably involve a progressive movement closer to the Sacred Liturgy of all time by the body of the faithful who still linger in attendance at the new Rite, perhaps trying to go to those priests who celebrate it with dignity. Because in the end, sooner or later, even those priests will find themselves at the crossroads of having to choose between obedience to evil or disobedience in order to remain faithful to the Good. The comb of the Revolution, in society as in the Church, does not leave any knots: sooner or later they all fall out, if not here then there. And this will involve the search by the good ones, who are still confused, for Truth and Grace – that is, for the Mass of all time.
Those who still linger today [at the new rite], so as not to have to deal with these “questions,” following these bishops and parish priests, know that, if they want to remain truly Catholic and truly avail themselves of the Body and Blood of the Redeemer…their days are numbered. Soon, they will have to choose.
We have now touched on the central problem of this entire situation: how to behave in the face of a hierarchy that hates the True, the Good, the Beautiful, the Tradition, which fights against the one true Lex Orandi in order to impose another one that is pleasing not to God but to the prince of this world and his “controller” servants (in a certain sense, his “bishops”)?
It is the key problem of obedience, over which even in the world of Tradition a dirty game is often played, often incited not by a sincere search for what is best and for the truth but by personal wars, which have today become more acute in the face of the rift caused by health totalitarianism and vaccination.
Obedience – and this is an error that finds its deepest roots even in the pre-conciliar Church, it must be said – is not an end. It is a means of sanctification. Therefore, it is not an absolute value, but rather an instrumental one. It is a positive value, very positive, if it is ordered towards God. But if one obeys Satan, or his servants, or error, or apostasy, then obedience is no longer a good, but rather a deliberate participation in evil.
Exactly like peace. Peace – the divinity of today’s subversion – is not an end, but rather an instrument of the Good and the Just, if it is aimed at creating a good and just society. If it is ordered towards creating or favoring a society that is Satanic, malignant, erroneous, and subversive, then “peace” becomes the instrument of hell.
We must be “pleasing not to men, but to God, who tests our hearts” (1 Thess 2:4). Exactly! Therefore, whoever obeys men while being aware of facilitating evil and obstructing the Good, whoever they may be – including the ecclesiastical hierarchy, including the pope – in reality becomes an accomplice of evil, of lies, and of error.
Whoever obeys in these conditions disobeys God. “Because no slave is greater than his master” (Mt 10:24). Even Judas was part of the apostolic college. Or else he falls into hypocrisy. As if – just to give an example from academia – a Catholic traditionalist, self-erected as the dispenser and judge of the seriousness of others, would openly criticize the present pontiff for Amoris Laetitiae or this latest document, but then, as regards the submission – even obligatory submission! – to vaccinism in itself and the acceptance of the use of human cell lines obtained from fetuses that are the victims of voluntary abortion, he would declare, in order to defend himself in the face of just and obvious general indignation, that he is obedient to what the “Sovereign Pontiff” says on this matter.
The conditio sine qua non of all seriousness lies not so much in the “tones” used (also, this is an important aspect but absolutely not primary and above all it remains subjective) but first and foremost in the doctrinal, ideal, and intellectual coherence of the Good and the Truth in their integrity, in every aspect and circumstance. In other words, we must understand whether the one who guides the Church today wishes to be a faithful servant of God or a faithful servant of the prince of this world. In the first hypothesis, obedience is due to him and obedience is the instrument of sanctification. In the second, the consequences have to be drawn out. Clearly, in respect for the norms codified by the Church and as children of the Church and also with the proper education and serenity of tone. But one must always draw out the consequences: the first concern ought to be to always follow and defend the Truth, not the cloying, obsequious, and scrupulous grovelling which is the spoiled fruit of a misunderstood Tridentinism. Neither pope nor hierarchy can be used as a referent of truth in fits and starts according to one’s personal ends.
We are in the most decisive days of human history and also of the history of the Church. All of the authors who have commented in these days invite their readers to prayer and hope. We will obviously do this too, in the full conviction that everything that is happening in these days and, more generally, since February 2020, is the unequivocal sign that the times are drawing near in which God will intervene to save His Mystical Body and humanity, as well as the order that He Himself has given to creation and to human coexistence, in the measure He wishes to give it, in the way and time of His choosing.
Let us pray; let us hope; let us keep vigil, and let us choose to be on the right side. The enemy helps us in the choice: in fact, he is always the same everywhere.
Traditionis Custodes: Guardians of tradition or betrayers of tradition?
Is the liturgy the Pope’s personal possession that he can so blithely discard? Or is this possibly a monumental abuse of the power of the papacy? Tue Jul 20, 2021 – 8:16 pm EST
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July 20, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – Traditionis Custodes, issued by Pope Francis on the Feast of Our Lady of Carmel, is an exercise in diabolically contemptuous sarcasm. But before discussing why, let’s begin by recognizing some laudable qualities that this motu proprio possesses. Indeed, Traditionis Custodes and its accompanying letter display qualities that are as rare nowadays as they are precious: clarity and brevity.
Laudable clarity and brevity
The intention is crystal clear: Pope Francis explicitly states his aim to abolish the Mass of the Ages, before laying down a number of norms for the implementation of this clearly stated goal. To anyone who has long been spiritually nourished by the Mass of the Ages, in communion with all the saints over the centuries, this can only appear absolutely apocalyptic.
Here is how Pope Francis unambiguously states, in the letter accompanying his new motu proprio, this intention to thoroughly obliterate the Mass of the Ages: “I take the firm decision to abrogate all the norms, instructions, permissions and customs that precede the present Motu proprio, and declare that the liturgical books promulgated by the saintly Pontiffs Paul VI and John Paul II, in conformity with the decrees of Vatican Council II, constitute the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.” This means that the venerable Traditional Latin Mass, with more than a millennium of existence, is no longer part of the Roman Rite. With one simple stroke of the pen, it has quite simply been written out of the Roman Rite. If this is not clear enough, Pope Francis also dictates two principles that all bishops must follow: even if those who are attached to the Traditional Latin Mass are temporarily permitted to continue attending it, they “need to return in due time to the Roman Rite promulgated by Saints Paul VI and John Paul II,” and bishops must “discontinue the erection of new personal parishes.” So, there is to be, on the one hand, temporary tolerance for already existing Traditional Mass celebrations, and on the other hand, a strict interdiction to allow any new Traditional Mass parishes. This is a clear death sentence.
One immediately wonders: Is the liturgy the Pope’s personal possession that he can so blithely discard? Or is this possibly a monumental abuse of the power of the papacy? Indeed, Pope Benedict XVI wrote, when promulgating Summorum Pontificum: “What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.” Not so, apparently, according to Pope Francis. In fact, his new motu proprio expresses the exact opposite: “What earlier generations held as sacred must be considered by us as harmful and therefore must ultimately be forbidden.” SUBSCRIBE to LifeSite’s daily headlines U.S. Canada World Catholic
A model of Orwellian rhetoric
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Taking into account this clearly expressed aim to obliterate the Traditional Roman Rite, let’s ponder a moment over the title given to the motu proprio, which is an example of what one might call Orwellian antiphrasis. Antiphrasis is the rhetorical device that consists in sarcastically saying the opposite of what is actually meant in such a way that one’s true intention is made manifest and obvious. Pope Francis clearly announces his determined will to eliminate the Traditional Mass of the Ages, and yet the decree is sarcastically entitled: ‘Traditionis Custodes,” meaning “Guardians of Tradition.” No theological studies are required to see the obvious: this is sheer sneering sarcasm that, presupposing the best intentions on the part of the Holy Father, is a trickery of the devil, who has so cleverly managed to disorient his mind and his heart.
The discord and dissonance between this clearly stated aim and this title reminds one of the names given to the totalitarian government headquarters depicted by George Orwell in his novel 1984: the Ministry of Truth, which spreads propaganda and lies, the Ministry of Peace, which prepares for war, the Ministry of Abundance, which propagates famine, or the Ministry of Love, where innocent men are tortured. In like manner, “Guardians of Tradition” instructs the shepherds to ultimately obliterate the Traditional Roman Rite. “Betrayers of Tradition” would be a much more apt title.
Such Orwellian rhetoric could also make one think of another commonplace antiphrastic expression: “sexual and reproductive rights,” which designates in reality not the right to reproduce, to have children, but the exact contrary: the right to murder one’s own child in the womb through abortion. Likewise, these so-called “Guardians of Tradition,” rather than protecting, nurturing, and caring for it as a loving mother would do for her child, would murder it and throw its remains onto the garbage heap of history.
Diabolical deception
However, that is not all. Pope Francis continues: “I take comfort in this decision from the fact that, after the Council of Trent, St. Pius V also abrogated all the rites that could not claim a proven antiquity, establishing for the whole Latin Church a single Missale Romanum.” This claim of continuity with the sainted Pope Pius V is blatantly deceptive.
There is a superficial similitude in that both popes establish unity through a single Roman Rite, but there is an essential difference that is obfuscated: Pope St. Pius V abrogated precisely the novel rites that were less than 200 years of age, thereby upholding and guarding Tradition, whereas Pope Francis does the exact contrary: it is the novel 60-year-old novus ordo mass that is made the universal norm of the Church while the ancient, venerable rite, which alone has any claim to antiquity, is abolished. Thus, Pope Francis diametrically opposes the sainted pope’s clear intentions by abolishing the Traditional Rite his predecessor so faithfully guarded.
Moreover, Saint Pius V, in Quo Primum, in which he promulgated the Tridentine Mass, stated, “Therefore, no one whosoever is permitted to alter this notice of Our permission, statute, ordinance, command, precept, grant, indult, declaration, will, decree, and prohibition. Would anyone, however, presume to commit such an act, he should know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.” Did Pope Francis truly take this dire warning into grave consideration before issuing his motu proprio, or is he perhaps the victim of some diabolical disorientation? For, when Francis claims to be following the example of Pope St. Pius V, while in essence doing precisely the contrary, there is unquestionably some sort of diabolical deception at work.
A protest filled with filial piety
All of the above remarks, some Catholics might say, are disrespectful and demonstrate a lack of filial piety toward the Holy Father. We Catholics do have to be very careful to always venerate the See of Peter, especially when we feel the need to cry out in dismay at a diabolical deception aimed at attacking the heart of the Church: the Holy Mass of the Ages. Here is a very sincere question: By crying out against such ungodly trickery, is a faithful Catholic not, in fact, showing more reverential respect toward the Holy Father, than by remaining silent? We all desire to express filial piety toward our shepherds, and above all the supreme shepherd of the entire flock, the Vicar of Christ. This is done firstly by praying for the Church and for the Holy Father, but also by warning fellow Catholics who otherwise might fall prey to this deception. Were this deceit without grave consequences, perhaps silent prayer alone would be best, but this trickery aims very explicitly at the very gravest of consequences: the Abolition of Tradition. And so, with true filial piety, we might all cry out: Please, Holy Father, wake up! Open your eyes and see that Satan, sarcastically sneering, is making a cruel mockery of you and of your children! For the sake of the salvation of our souls and of your own, be a true Guardian, not a Betrayer, of the Sacred Tradition!
Archbishop Viganò: Vaccines made with fetal tissue are a ‘human sacrifice of innocent victims offered to Satan’
‘The most innocent and defenseless creature, the baby in the womb in the third month of gestation, is sacrificed and dismembered in order to extract tissue from his still palpitating body with which to produce a non-cure, a non-vaccine, which not only does not heal from the virus, but in all likelihood causes a greater percentage of death than Covid itself, especially in the elderly or those who are sick.’ Wed Jul 21, 2021 – 1:00 pm EST
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò speaks at the Rome Life Forum in May 2018.
July 21, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, in a foreword to a book on the problem of the coronavirus vaccine, decries the satanic nature of this vaccine using tissue of aborted babies in its production and testing. For this Italian prelate, the vaccine is a tool of the globalist ideology which is “anti-human, anti-religious, and antichristic.”
Viganò sees that “abortion is proposed by the Satanists as a true and proper religious rite,” arguing that in this Satanic world view, through an abortion-tainted vaccine, one becomes a member of the Satanic anti-church. He writes that Satan claims, “through the pharmaceutical companies that use fetal tissue from abortions to manufacture a so-called vaccine that is presented in the delirium of Covid-19 as a sacrament of salvation by which one is incorporated into the ‘mystical body’ of Satan, the globalist anti-church.”
Mors Tua Vita Mea (Your death is my life) is the title of the Italian book on the abortion-tainted coronavirus vaccines to which Archbishop Viganò has contributed a foreword (see excerpts of it in English translation below). Edited by Professor Massimo Viglione, the book contains essays also by Bishop Athanasius Schneider and LifeSite’s editor-in-chief John-Henry Westen. Its subtitle is: “The End Does Not Justify the Means.”
For Archbishop Viganò, there is no doubt that coronavirus vaccines can never justify the killing of unborn babies. On the contrary, this vaccine seems to be used as a means to getting us more and more used to the killing of babies for the sake of humanity. He states:
…we cannot fail to see how instrumental it [the vaccine] is, precisely in its “mystical” value, to the collective acceptance of human sacrifice as normal and indeed necessary: the most innocent and defenseless creature, the baby in the womb in the third month of gestation, is sacrificed and dismembered in order to extract tissue from his still palpitating body with which to produce a non-cure, a non-vaccine, which not only does not heal from the virus, but in all likelihood causes a greater percentage of death than Covid itself, especially in the elderly or those who are sick.
Below is the excerpt of Archbishop Viganò’s foreword to the book Mors Tua Vita Mea, published with kind permission by Professor Massimo Viglione:
Aures habent, et non audient. Ps 113
The barbarism in which our society finds itself is now evident: its values have been gradually erased as hateful vestiges of an extinct world, to the advantage of the delusions of globalist ideology, which shows itself to be ever more anti-human, anti-religious, and antichristic. The most antithetical principle of this infernal barbarism with respect to Christian civilization is infanticide, the human sacrifice of innocent victims offered to Satan; and despite the horror of seeing it brazenly admitted, we cannot be surprised if abortion is proposed by the Satanists as a true and proper religious rite, to which protection must be given in the name of freedom of worship. The ancient pagan rituals – omnes dii gentium demonia, says the Psalm – live again today in the sacrificial offering that unfortunate mothers believe can be claimed as a right.
If the firstborn of Israel belong to the Lord, the simia Dei demands much more of the firstborn and even claims them through the pharmaceutical companies that use fetal tissue from abortions to manufacture a so-called vaccine that is presented in the delirium of Covid-19 as a sacrament of salvation by which one is incorporated into the “mystical body” of Satan, the globalist anti-church. On the other hand, the “liturgical” connotation of the pandemic intentionally echoes signs and symbols proper to the True Religion in such a way as to deceive even the simple and push them to conform to a collective cult that exempts them from making decisions independently and binds them to an uncritical obedience. We cannot forget the funeral processions of military trucks, the contradictory and intolerant attitude of the Covid priests, the health magisterium of the “experts,” the inquisition against the denier “heretics,” and the fideistic adherence to the most grotesque superstitions passed off as science by virologist sorcerers and television vestals.
The gene serum that is called a vaccine, as scientists and specialists have very well demonstrated and as its producers themselves admit, does not guarantee immunity; it does not rule out serious short-term and long-term side effects; it is not effective against certain variants of Covid; it does not eliminate the need for masks and social distancing; in the majority of cases the number of positive tests increases, and so media terrorism and the tightening of containment measures also increases. Proposed as a panacea, the so-called “vaccine” has turned out only to be the source of enormous, scandalous profits for Big Pharma and, at the same time, serves as a pretext to impose health passports and other systems for controlling the masses and limiting natural liberties.
But alongside this obvious uselessness of the “vaccine” – a uselessness that any doctor not subservient to the system would have considered from the beginning, since the Corona viruses are susceptible to mutation – we cannot fail to see how instrumental it is, precisely in its “mystical” value, to the collective acceptance of human sacrifice as normal and indeed necessary: the most innocent and defenseless creature, the baby in the womb in the third month of gestation, is sacrificed and dismembered in order to extract tissue from his still palpitating body with which to produce a non-cure, a non-vaccine, which not only does not heal from the virus, but in all likelihood causes a greater percentage of death than Covid itself, especially in the elderly or those who are sick.
But who are the mothers who, denying their very nature, agree to kill their own child? The majority of them are women in their first pregnancy, unaware of the horror they are about to commit and the remorse that will accompany them forever. Here are the first-born to be consecrated to Satan: the children of unfortunate mothers and spoiled girls, who discover what it means to be mothers precisely in not wanting to be so, instead perverting their femininity by reducing it to a bargaining chip or an instrument of ephemeral enjoyment, in the name of rights which they claim for themselves but which they permit themselves to deny to the creatures they carry in their womb. The non serviam repeats itself inexorably every time the obedience of the fiat is refused and the will of the Almighty is rebelled against.
In abortion, Satan achieves the greatest injury to God: he offends Him as Creator, making the mother the murderer of her own child; he offends Him as Lord, usurping the right of life and death over innocent creatures and claiming the right to violate the Fifth Commandment with impunity; he offends Him as Redeemer, nullifying the fruits of Christ’s Passion for creatures killed without the grace of Baptism; he offends Him as Father, while also vilifying the Sacred Maternity of the Most Holy Virgin.
Great confusion reigns in this painful phase of the history of the Church: the inaction or abuse of the authority of the Hierarchy, along with the betrayal of so many false pastors and mercenaries, does not help to dispel the confusion of the faithful, and indeed the Shepherds even feed the confusion with partial, discordant and contradictory directions. In this too we can realize the gravity of the situation, and how much the defection of the Pastors is a necessary premise for the establishment of the kingdom of the Antichrist. If the Pope and the Bishops had a minimum of fear of God, they would not try to justify with unworthy sophistry a vaccine that in order to be produced requires stem cells obtained from voluntarily aborted fetuses. The pretium sanguinis would be enough to make them not even take it into consideration, but perhaps among the beneficiaries of that pretium there are also Prelates who care more about the hypocritical praise of the enemies of Christ than the heroic witness of the Faith. [..
Bishop Schneider addresses clampdown on Traditional Latin Mass
The Pope has the fundamental task of confirming all the faithful and the bishops in the faith. And if the Pope does not do this, we must help him, starting with us bishops, to make clarity, with respectful words. Wed Jul 21, 2021 – 6:35 pm EST
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July 21, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – Even before the publication of Traditionis Custodes – a horrible antiphrase, since it consists of a methodical destruction of the Church’s liturgical tradition – Archbishop Athanasius Schneider addressed the question of the foreseeable restrictions on the celebration of the Tridentine Mass, which Benedict XVI had affirmed in Summorum Pontificum, in a conference organized in Paris on June 25 by the traditional lay association “Renaissance catholique.”
The abolition of the 2007 Motu Proprio is deliberately cruel and violent, if not unheard of (things weren’t so good in 1969 either). It seeks, in its spirit, to have the unconditional supporters of the traditional liturgy traced, tested, marked, and isolated out of sight of the people of God so that there will be no more contact between the “trads” and the beneficiaries of the Mass of Paul VI within the dioceses in order to preserve the faithful of the “only” lex orandi of the Catholic Church of Roman Rite from contamination, and it clearly expresses its desire to eradicate the Tridentine virus.
Bishop Schneider, the courageous auxiliary bishop of St. Mary in Astana, declared that these new measures were to be anticipated (but at the time of his conference no one imagined how brutal they would be). He said, “The faithful as well as priests have the right to a liturgy that is a liturgy of all the saints (…). Therefore, the Holy See does not have the power to suppress a heritage of the whole Church, it is an abuse, it would be an abuse even on the part of a bishop. In this case, you can continue to celebrate the Mass even in this form: It is a form of obedience (…) to all the popes who have celebrated this Mass.”
“Renaissance catholique,” editor of the French edition of Bishop Schneider’s Christus Vincit, published a statement on Tuesday about the abusive decision by Pope Francis under the title “The Pope of Exclusion.”
Here below is the complete transcript of Bishop Schneider’s conference (except for the first minutes of his introductory remarks). The first few paragraphs are part of this brief introduction, followed by a question-and-answer session I was asked to conduct, and finally the questions from the audience and Bishop Schneider’s responses. SUBSCRIBE to LifeSite’s daily headlines U.S. Canada World Catholic
Among the topics addressed by Bishop Schneider were the right to uphold the Traditional Latin Mass, the attitude we should adopt when it is becoming so hard to believe that the Catholic Church is “one, holy, catholic and apostolic,” and the temptation of sedevacantism and the temptation of stepping out of the Church to choose orthodoxy.
Bishop Schneider gave his talk in French. The English translation offered here has not been revised by His Excellency.
Conference of Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Paris, June 25, 2021
Introductory remarks by Bishop Schneider
The structures of evil dominate our time in an almost apocalyptic dimension on a global level. Particularly noteworthy is the state of internal crisis in the Church, which no honest person can deny, because it is already too obvious. Think of these precise observations, which are well known and in which Pope Paul VI honestly described the state of spiritual health of the Church in our time; they remain of great relevance. I quote Paul VI: “It was believed that after the Council the sun would shine on the history of the Church. But instead there came a day of clouds, storms, darkness, searching and uncertainty.” … These are the words of Paul VI. There is no spring. And the Pope added this bold phrase:
“The smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God.”
These words were pronounced on June 29, 1972. Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, speaking at the 1976 Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia, U.S.A., said, “We are now faced with the greatest historical opposition that humanity has ever known. I don’t think that American society as a whole or the Christian community as a whole is fully aware of this. We are now faced with the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, between the Gospel and the anti-gospel, between Christ and the Antichrist. This confrontation is part of the plan of Divine Providence. Therefore, it is part of God’s plan and it is a trial that the Church must accept and face with courage.” These are the words of Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, two years before his papal election. God from all eternity, in His wise and loving plan, has chosen this important but extremely difficult time for us, in which we live, and God wants to reward us with His eternal love. We want to say from the bottom of our hearts to the Lord in these difficult times: « Lord, everything is for you, all my sufferings, all my humiliations, all my tears, all my works, all my love … Everything is for you. Non nobis, Domine, non nobis. Not to us, not to us, Lord, but to your name give glory.”
J.S.: Excellency, I am very moved to be here with you. We had frequent exchanges by e-mail during the work of translation of your book Christus Vincit that I carried out, where you checked and paid attention to the precise meaning of every word, since you have a very good command of French. Before I begin this conversation, I would like to pay tribute to Diane Montagna, who carried out this book-length interview with Bishop Schneider, in English. She is an American fellow journalist based in Rome. In this book, she really pushed Bishop Schneider to the edge. She really asked all the questions, she dug deep, she came back to her questions, she didn’t avoid any difficult subject and I think Bishop Schneider didn’t avoid any controversial subject either. You speak of Freemasonry, which is quite classic, as well as of Islam or of the Society of Saint Pius X, and so we have an overall vision of the Church which is very lucid and at the same time, as you have just shown, full of hope. The first question I wanted to ask you concerns the main thread of the book, the quotation from Saint Matthew (XXIV, 29): “The sun shall be darkened, the moon shall no longer give her light, and the stars shall fall from Heaven.” Obviously this scares us, I won’t conceal that! I wonder if the Apocalypse is actually going to fall on our heads in the near future. And secondly, you have just quoted Cardinal Wojtyla who said in Philadelphia that the Church must respond, must face up to the ordeal with courage, but there are many of us who wonder where the Church’s courage is today. How is it possible that we are in such bad times, when at the same time, as you said, sensible people see what is going on. Can you go into this reflection a little more deeply?
Bishop Schneider: A person who believes, who has faith, should never be afraid. Our faith should be strong, convincing. Faith is the gift of God, the divine life of our soul. If the Lord is with us, who is against us? Even if the apocalyptic time comes, the Lord will always be with us, we have the Lord, in the faith of our heart. He said, « I am with you until the end of the world. » He has remained with us especially in the Eucharist, in the tabernacle, in Holy Communion, and even if we have to enter the time of the catacombs again, perhaps, like the first Christians, as I had the privilege of living also in the catacombs during my childhood under the Soviet Union, this time will always be a time of abundant graces. And if Divine Providence grants us these graces, these trials, Divine Providence, Divine Goodness will always give us all the strength we need to face these difficult, even almost apocalyptic times. This is the first thing.
Regarding what Cardinal Karol Wojtyla said about the Church today having to face with courage the confrontation of the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel and the anti-Gospel, perhaps Cardinal Wojtyla thought in 1976 that this confrontation would be between the Church and the enemies of the Church, who are outside the Church. But I think now we have the confrontation of a Church against a Church within, in the midst of the life of the Church. We have already seen this phenomenon in the past years, when we saw virtually the introduction of divorce in the Church through the text Amoris Laetitia, which is very ambiguous. So it’s an anti-gospel; it’s against what Jesus said about marriage. And then there are the forms of relativism that we have seen … There are very serious signs of the acceptance of idols, even in the Vatican during the Amazon synod, these signs showing that it was not the Gospel. Our Lord Jesus Christ would never have accepted to worship an idol. The apostles of “Mother Earth” – they were called by another name – collaborated with the whole abortion industry, with the fetus industry, and with close collaboration. So these are just a few examples where we can see the confrontation that Cardinal Wojtyla was already talking about, but now we are in the middle of this confrontation. At the same time, we must always have the certainty of Christ’s victory, and for this reason in the book Christus Vincit, the main theme is always the victory of Christ and of the Catholic faith.
J.S.: I would like to come back to one of your expressions: you spoke of the “privilege” of the catacombs, you spoke of the “gift” of this trial that the Church is going through, and I would like to say to you, perhaps in the name of those who are listening to us this evening: we are all the same in confusion, we are in a form of incomprehension in front of what is happening, we feel to a certain extent that we have a responsibility to fight this, but we also see that never have Catholics, in their majority, been so poorly instructed in their faith. So how is it possible that this trial is coming to us now, when there is such unpreparedness within the Church, and what should we do about it?
Bishop Schneider: This situation has been prepared for decades, it did not just happen yesterday. It is a process of already 50 years, from the time of the Council, when the tendency of the leaders of the Church was rather to take care of temporal, corporal things, and not the primacy of eternal things, of the truth. And so there was as a consequence in the catechesis, in the formation of the priests, in the seminaries, a fundamental defect and a lack of the fundamental doctrine, of the doctrine of the faith. In the seminaries, in catechism, in the schools, dialogue was promoted: the relativist mentality according to which all religions are on the same level and go together towards God by different ways. But this is false, it is against the Gospel! It is a denial of the Gospel, if we say that all religions are almost on the same level. And so you are right, since these decades have had the effect of spreading a very deep ignorance in Catholic circles and among priests. But at the same time we can see now the thirst of young people for truth, clarity, certainty, this need of our heart. It is a need that God has given us: the certainty of truth, and this desire for certainty. And now we can see in young people the desire to have integrity, the fullness also of divine worship, of the Holy Mass, of life and doctrine. For this reason, I can see a sign of hope, however small, that we must encourage and transmit. I think it is a fundamental task to teach a clear catechism that is 100 percent Catholic. Take the old catechisms, please; teach the children, the youth, and even us, the adults. Why not take a children’s catechism and repeat the eternal truths? I consider the transmission of the doctrine of faith a very important task.
J.S.: We are in a way invited, called to make up for the shortcomings of authority. In your book you show that this situation is not entirely new. How can we justify saying that such and such a bishop, my bishop, my parish priest, may be teaching false things, is an admirer of the Pachamama … Do we have the right, the duty to react, and how can we justify that in a hierarchical society like the Church?
Bishop Schneider: Of course we have this right, because the Church is not a dictatorship. The Church is a family, which is indeed hierarchical. And the father, the fatherhood, the children, are also spiritual. And in a family there is also the care for the common, spiritual good of the church; this care also concerns the faithful, because if the shepherd begins to give the sheep bad things, they should demand please to be given the true things, for nourishment. Because this is your task, these are the duties that God has given you: you must give us the divine food, not your new and ideological ideas. And for this reason, I think that, with respect, the faithful have the duty to demand this from the hierarchy; the faithful have the right to a clear, integral doctrine. And if the priest, the bishop, or the pope does not give them a clear doctrine, they should say: we have the right, give us this, please, we are hungry for doctrine, will you leave us without food, without bread? This is a fundamental demand of the faithful. I repeat, with respect. This is part of the hierarchical structure, because the Church is not a human organization, a political party, a political dictatorship, where everyone is afraid of the leader. No, we are a family. And in a family we can ask for our right too, with respect. This is not a contract; this is what the exceptional situation requires, this situation where the faithful should make admonitions or in some way complaints to the hierarchy so that it gives a clear doctrine and a dignified liturgy.
This exceptional situation is rare in the history of the Church, but there was already one in the 4th century with the Arian crisis, and now we are witnessing a similar situation. But this situation is only temporary. You also have the privilege, in a very difficult situation, of testifying to your fidelity, to your baptismal faith and to the faith of your ancestors, the faith of the saints whom you know, of testifying to this faith even before leaders of the hierarchy who have perhaps partially lost the faith, to help, to remind the shepherds that it is necessary to return to the purity of the faith. Therefore you do a great meritorious work before God when you faithfully keep your faith, even in the face of this sad situation, when part of the hierarchy is starting to deny the faith.
J.S.: The next phases in the Church, or at least what is being organized in Rome, aim at an ever greater synodality. This includes giving a voice to the faithful, which is not without paradox after what you have just said. In your book, you have very harsh words for the current organization of the Church, where episcopal meetings, synods, follow one another, often very expensive because their organization is costly, and where we end up with declarations that nobody reads. I would like to ask you: do you think that we have reached a kind of desire for democracy in the Church, but to the exclusion of those who want the truth?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, exactly. The Church is a democracy of saints. So we must consult the saints who lived before us, the holy Doctors of the Church, the holy Fathers of the Church, and let the voice of the Church of all time speak. The purpose of a synod is to strengthen the faith, to clarify the faith, the discipline of the Church, and sanctity of life. That is the purpose of a synod. A good synod would be one in which the pope invites the faithful of “Renaissance catholique,” of the Society of St. Pius X, of the Ecclesia Dei communities, of the laity, to make proposals asking to return to the faith and liturgy and the moral life of all times. This would be a good synod. But it seems that the communities and people of your spirit, the spirit of “Renaissance catholique,” will not have a voice in this synod. But you have a voice before God. That is better. That is more effective. And you have the means: your prayer, your sacrifices and your silent apostolate, where you live, and the priests, where they work. I have the impression that this method of the synodal way is the means to further Protestantize the life of the Church, and to make the opinion of the Church more relativistic, unclear, that is to say, to increase the confusion, the state of uncertainty. We must pray that God, that divine intervention helps us, that this synod, which should take place in 2023, does not take place, perhaps by a divine intervention, because the Church is in the hands of God.
J.S.: I think you have already partly answered the question I was going to ask you, but I’ll ask it anyway: sometimes we are tempted to ask ourselves how we can still have faith in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church in the current situation. I was talking recently with a friend who has suffered through the Church and who told me she was re-reading St. Catherine of Siena and all the beautiful things she said about the Church: it is one and holy, but also “the leprous bride of Christ.” How can we reconcile this one, holy, catholic, apostolic Church, which we love and which we must love, with what we see before our eyes? What practical advice would you give to preserve and strengthen our faith?
Bishop Schneider: The Church is also a mystery. Mysterium: mystery, supernatural. And at the same time it is a human society. It is a special, unique organization, which is divine and human. And sometimes in this body of the Church evil increases even among the representatives of the hierarchy, and good is diminished, and truth, and holiness – as in the Gospel, where Our Lord spoke of those fields where there are both good grain and tares. So there is always a mixture in the Church. This mystery of the mixture, of evil and good, will remain until the end of the world. Sometimes the evil is more abundant, sometimes less. Now we live in a situation where it seems that the weeds dominate and the good seed is very much reduced. But it exists, it has not disappeared. It exists, but diminished. It is a great hope: to believe that the Church will always remain holy, apostolic, even in a diminished number. For example, in the fourth century, during the Arian crisis, almost the entire episcopate of the Church accepted the politics of heresy, or semi-heresy. Only a few bishops remained faithful: St. Athanasius, St. Hilary of Poitiers, St. Basil… Imagine the whole episcopate accepting the politically correct, the heresy! Pope Liber was very weak, and he even excommunicated Saint Athanasius. So there was darkness in the Church. But the faith triumphed among the faithful, among you, the faithful. It was a miracle. And the faithful kept the Church that lived on within souls: the Holy, Apostolic Church lived in the souls of the faithful and in the souls of the priests and the bishops so few. I think the situation is similar today. The Church continues to be holy, apostolic, catholic, in every catholic soul – layperson, priest or bishop – who faithfully keeps the integrity of the faith and of the Christian life.
J.S.: Excellency, you explain in your book that your name, Athanasius, was given to you – it is a religious name. Did you think when you received it that it was destined for a particular struggle?
Bishop Schneider: Never. Absolutely never. It was impossible for me. Even the name Athanasius was, to me, completely strange. I didn’t know why I was given the name Athanasius; I knew the life of St. Athanasius, but I was a simple priest, and I could never imagine when I became a priest that one day I would become a bishop and have to fight a battle sometimes similar to that of St. Athanasius, who even had to resist the Holy Father at times, to admonish the Pope as I did with the Abu Dhabi commentary on diversity of religions. I had to admonish the Pope in facie, face to face, personally, with respect, but I had to resist and admonish. But it was for the love of the Church that I did it, for the love of the Pope. That’s important: the intention. It would be easier for me to say nothing to the Pope. But my conscience would not allow me to do so. I should live like Saint Athanasius. Saint Athanasius said these words to another bishop of his time, a friendly bishop: “We must not serve our time, we must serve God.” This is our purpose, our task. So I think that Divine Providence guides us and we must live only for truth and for eternity.
J.S.: I was just going to ask you about that: you spoke about your request for clarification to the Pope about the Abu Dhabi document, which claims that the diversity of religions was willed by God in His wisdom, and you obtained an answer that could considered to be satisfactory, saying that it was a “permissive will” of God. But that response did not extend to the whole Church and on the whole the faithful are faced with a pope who – not all the time but quite often – would seem to teach things that are totally contrary to what we believe. And my question is perhaps a bit sharp: what can we do to continue to love the pope and obey his authority as Christ’s vicar?
Bishop Schneider: We must always see the ministry of the Pope with the eyes of faith. Not with sentimentality. The Pope has the fundamental task of confirming all the faithful and the bishops in the faith. And if the Pope does not do this, we must help him, starting with us bishops, to make clarity, with respectful words. We even have examples, like that of St. Catherine of Siena. She wrote many letters to the Pope of her time, so that he would return from Avignon to Rome, because this situation was to the detriment of the Church. One letter that St. Catherine wrote was to the Pope, I think it was Urban VI, who was very problematic. She admonished this Pope to change his attitude, because his behavior was to the detriment of the Church. She wrote: Most Holy Father, you are the sweet Christ on earth, I am your loving and obedient daughter; but if you don’t convert, give up the papacy, give up your task. “Your loving and obedient daughter”… She continued to love the Pope, but she gave admonitions for love of the Pope, because perhaps, renouncing the Papacy would mean for the Pope to save his soul before God, before the judgment of God. It’s a gesture of love for one’s neighbor.
But unfortunately, as time has gone by – I think in particular of the last two centuries – there has been even until today a phenomenon that many people now call papolatry, the adoration of the Pope almost: to consider the Pope as God, who can never make a mistake. This is wrong. This attitude towards the Pope has never existed in the Church. The Pope is human, the Pope is not the good God. We have to reform this, it is unhealthy. The Pope is only a vicar, a serving minister, and also a sinner. Only on special and rare occasions does he have the charism of infallibility. But sometimes, as history has shown, the Pope has made mistakes, serious mistakes, moral, political … rarely doctrinal, thanks to God. But it is the same situation now. We can tell them to the Pope, with love, and make filial, fraternal admonitions. As a bishop, I have the task of helping the Pope, as colleagues, as in a collegiality. So the Pope is not a king. The Pope cannot say: I am the Church, as Louis XIV said: I am the State! The Church is not the private property of the Pope. He is only an administrator, a vicar. And we must help the Holy Father, with our prayers, our penances, our atonements, and sometimes respectful admonitions.
J.S.: This is ultimately opening up perspectives. But in the contacts I have with readers, I see that there is a sedevacantist temptation in the present situation. And I would very much like you to tell us how to fight it: should we fight it? How can we fight it? This temptation seems to me to be very present right now.
Bishop Schneider: Do you know what the root of sedevacantism is? It is exactly papolatry, the fact of divinizing the pope. So it is a false vision of these sedevacantist faithful and priests, according to which the Pope is almost the good God, the Pope can never make mistakes, and therefore if a Pope has defects, as was the case after the Council, with the new Mass, then in Assisi, and now with the phenomenon we know, Amoris Laetitia, Pachamama, Abu Dhabi, etc., then he is no longer Pope, because the Pope cannot have any defects. He is the good Lord. If a Pope shows some weaknesses, serious ones, like after the Council, regarding the liturgy, regarding the doctrine, his faithful say that now he is not Pope anymore: sede vacantia. And we should wait for God to give us again a divine pope, completely holy, completely infallible. But this is wrong! It is a completely un-Catholic view. This is, I think, the deep, doctrinal, psychological root of the thinking of these faithful. And we have to help these faithful, to correct this completely unrealistic attitude that also contradicts the history of the Church. I think another root is that these faithful are scandalized, and reject the Cross. We have to carry the cross of a difficult Pope, of a Pope who makes confusion. This is the heaviest cross, and we have to carry this cross. I think that these sedevacantist faithful do not want to carry this cross, this suffering, for the Church, to support such an ecclesiastical superior as Supreme Pastor. So we need to have a supernatural vision.
J.S.: We were talking earlier, Bishop Schneider, before this meeting, about a pope who had bought his office. I would like you to share this anecdote because there is a lot of talk about the election of Pope Francis having been rendered invalid by various circumstances, by certain canonical laws. If you could tell us that, I think it would be very enlightening.
Bishop Schneider: I think that in general it is very beneficial to know the history of the Church and the history of the papacy. It is very important for our time. For example, in the 11th century, when there was still the phenomenon of the Saeculum obscurum, the Dark Ages, when the papacy was occupied by groups of mafias, immoral groups, there were forces for the renewal of the Church. Hildebrandt, the future Pope Gregory VII, a Benedictine abbot in Rome, was the soul of a group of cardinals working for a true reform of the Church, and after his death, these times were called the “Gregorian reform.” He saw that the Pope was a gravely immoral person, who was giving public scandals that were unbearable. There was a good cardinal, and Abbot Hildebrandt, who had heard that this pope loved money very much and was ready to sell the papacy for money, had combined this thing for the good of the Church: to remove this immoral pope. He advised this cardinal to buy the pontificate for a large sum of money from this corrupt Pope. And so the Pope sold his papacy to this good cardinal, who became Pope Gregory VI and appointed Hildebrandt cardinal, and so he was able to do a good job of reforming the Church. It was canonically invalid, since it was simony. But the Church has always considered this Pope Gregory VI as valid, even though he became Pope by simony, by buying his office.
J.S.: Excellency, your book, when I translated it and read it very carefully, seemed to me to be programmatic. I don’t think you actually wanted to present a platform as a candidate, but in any case you sought to explain how the Church can recover its holiness, and your message is ultimately a message of hope. In this program that you describe by showing how to appoint good bishops, what points should be stressed? Could you describe somewhat the way out of this crisis as you see it?
Bishop Schneider: It all depends on good people being strategically put in place: good, competent people. This has always been the method during the crises of the church. We must have leaders who are people of integrity, people of faith. I think that the reform of the Church should indeed begin in the Holy See, with a reformed papacy, renewed in the spirit of the Martyr Popes, of Christ, without fear, without an inferiority complex before the world. The Church needs this kind of pope, who can appoint bishops, cardinals, of the same spirit. It is logical. A good bishop can transform his whole diocese for generations. I had this experience in Brazil. My bishop was a very strong Catholic in the midst of Liberation theology; he renewed the whole diocese with a well-formed clergy, with faithful, with churches, and he restored communion on the knees and on the tongue. The whole diocese and the clergy were renewed. It was an example. Imagine if all the dioceses in France were like that, with such bishops. Courageous bishops, strong in prayer, like apostles. The whole of France would change. And then the priests! We would have new clergy, and families. And for this reason, we must renew the episcopate, of course. Because you, the faithful, already have the faith and you are preparing the ground. God is preparing the ground with you, little faithful. And then will come the time when Divine Providence will again give us strong bishops, like St. Hilary of Poitiers, St. Martin of Tours, Cardinal Pius of Poitiers, and so on. There are great figures of the episcopate in France and in other countries, like Cardinal von Galen, at the time of Nazism …
So there is hope, we have to work, but of course it is not enough, it is very necessary that from the Holy See, a clear document emanates, a kind of Syllabus, or a kind of very precise profession of faith, looking at the common errors of our time, with even threats of excommunication, as there have always been, and that Our Lord created as a spiritual doctor. It is therefore necessary to have good appointments, and the profession of faith.
J.S.: At the end of your book, you published a text by St. Peter Julien Eymard, “The Triumph of the Church through the Holy Eucharist,” and this is one of the questions that Diane Montagna asked you a little earlier. She said, “She [the Church] must return to her First Love? » And you answered, in the book: “To Eucharistic love.” What exactly is the place of this Eucharistic love in the program you are giving to the faithful tonight to work for the victory of Christ?
Bishop Schneider: The Eucharist is the heart of the Church. The Church is a mystical body, not a human organization, nor a political one. The Church is the mystical body of Christ, and every body has a heart: here the heart is the Eucharist. Now, for decades, we have been witnessing a heart disease, a Eucharistic heart disease, which I call cardiastenia eucharistica, a kind of weakness of the Eucharistic heart, because of the widespread forms of desecration, sacrilege, outrage of our Lord in the small consecrated host, even in the small particles that fall during communion, because of communion in the hand. Nobody can deny it, it is obvious that Our Lord falls on the ground. This is for me the deepest wound in the life of the Church. And for this reason we must restore and re-establish all the dignity, the sublimity, of the Eucharistic cult, especially during the distribution of Holy Communion and the celebration of Holy Mass, which is the principal, vital act of the Church: the sacrifice of the Cross that is now present on our altars. And so we must renew the mode of celebration of the Christocentric, theocentric Mass, with sacredness: to give Jesus again the centrality of the Mass in the mode of celebration and at the moment of Holy Communion. And on this will depend again the renewed life of the Church.
J.S.: There is a chapter toward the end of your book that touched me immensely, the one about the guardian angels for whom you have a very special veneration – and we could talk here about how this is linked to your order, the Canons regular of the Holy Cross. I would appreciate it very much if you were to tell us about the guardian angels so that in times that are difficult, we may be prompted to lean on them.
Bishop Schneider: The world of angels is the supernatural world par excellence. One root of the spiritual illness of the Church is the loss, the lack of supernatural vision. The Church has turned to the temporal, to the natural, and has lost the vision of a part of the supernatural, the primacy of the supernatural. And the world of angels is the supernatural world par excellence. They are always before the presence of God. The first task of the angels is the worship of God. The whole essence of angels says: God first, and only God. This is the whole meaning of angels. Everything for God, for the worship of God. Turned completely to God, that is the essence of the angel. And it is our task, that of the Church and men, to be turned towards God always. Sin consists in the fact that we are not turned towards God, sin turns us towards ourselves, towards selfishness. And for this reason I stress the devotion, the awareness of the existence of the angels that God has given us, sent us, as our companions, as our brothers who always accompany us in our first task of worshipping God, of being turned towards the supernatural, towards eternity. And then each of us has his own guardian angel. What generosity! What a privilege God gives us! Each one of us has a special guardian angel, just for us. This guardian angel will never leave you, day and night, he will always be with you, personally. And he prays, he worships God in our place, always. What a good brother, what a good friend, our best friend!
And so the whole Church should again be more aware of the existence, the presence, and the work, the apparitions of the holy angels. The angels have as another task to fight against the evil spirits, the fallen angels. And the Church militant, we live every day of our battles against sin, against the devil, against temptation, and we must invoke the holy angels to fight with us. We are soldiers of Christ, and the angels accompany us. The moment of spiritual warfare is very important, and the guardian angels, and St. Michael and the other angels remind us of this reality that we must fight. And one day we will all be together with the angels for all eternity, forming a family of God. But now already on earth, you know that in every Mass at the end of the preface, before the Sanctus, the Church says: and with all the angels we sing “Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,” to proclaim the holiness of God.
J.S.: Here is my last question before those of the audience: tell us about the snowdrops and the salmon.
Bishop Schneider: Yes, I chose this flower, which I like very much, because these snowdrops already announce the arrival of spring, still in the time of winter, but already they say the nearness of spring. And the snowdrop pierces the snow. There is already a flower, but in the middle of the snow. And you, the little faithful, the Catholic families, the Catholic children, the Catholic youth, the young priests – also the elderly priests! – you are the snowdrops in the fields still covered with snow, but you announce the coming of spring. In German we say “Schneeglöckchen,” i.e. the snow bells, which already sound the coming of spring. The other image is the salmon, the fish. It is the fish of the bishops, an episcopal symbol, because the salmon swims against the current. So the task of the bishops today is to swim against the current. That’s why we need many snowdrops and many salmon.
*
Questions from the audience were collated and read to Bishop Schneider.
The first questions concern Vatican II.
“In this time of the European Cup of Nations, can we say ‘Vatican 2 – Church nil?”
One person asks, “If the pre-Vatican II Church failed to prevent the Council, despite the warnings of the Virgin Mary and the Archangel St. Michael to Pope Leo XIII, which church can we put in the place of Vatican II, the same one? Another one?”
Another person wrote, “Bishop Schneider, you said that there should not be another Vatican II Council, but a second Council of Trent, can you elaborate on this idea?”
First of all, divine providence allowed the Second Vatican Council, we must accept this fact. Even if this event historically brought more disadvantages to the whole Church, God can still make a negative thing, an evil, a good, an even greater good. And we can see that even during the crises after the Council, and now, God has awakened, called up heroic figures, professions of faith, and testimonies of faith. And, secondly, we need a Council of Trent II, simply for the clarity, the need to establish again the clarity of the doctrine and the discipline of the Church. I hope that one day a kind of Council of Trent II will come, not necessarily in the city of Trent, but in the spirit of the Council of Trent.
“Your Excellency, do you have any contact with Archbishop Vigano and what do you think of his positions on the Second Vatican Council? I gather that you are not in a process of absolute rejection of Vatican II but of clarification, and this is what you say in your book.”
Yes.
On the subject of the traditional Mass, there are several questions.
Firstly, are you familiar with the case of Dijon, where the Fraternity of St. Peter is being dismissed by the bishop, Bishop Minnerath? Other traditional communities are experiencing vexations on the part of their bishops, and this is also a theme that has been set before you.
One question asks: “If the Motu proprio Summorum pontificum were to be suppressed, what attitude should Ecclesia Dei communities who wish to remain faithful to the extraordinary form of the Mass adopt? Should they privilege obedience, or should they enter into resistance? For the moment, this does not seem to be aimed at Ecclesia Dei communities, but if so, what attitude do you recommend?”
For the moment these are simply hypotheses. It does not seem that the Holy See will abolish Summorum Pontificum, I would consider that very unreal, not realistic. But perhaps there will be a limitation on the use of Summorum Pontificum. In this case, I think that you, the faithful and the priests, have the right to a liturgy that is the liturgy of all the saints, almost of all times. So in this case the Holy See does not have the right to suppress a heritage of the whole Church. That would be an abuse, even on the part of a bishop. In this case, you can continue to celebrate the Mass, formally in disobedience, but you will be in obedience to the Church of all times, to all the popes who have celebrated this Mass. And continue with respect to pray for this bishop or for the pope. But find some forms perhaps of catacomb Masses, of clandestine Masses. But always with the spirit “sentire cum Ecclesia,” with a love for the Church and for souls. So it would be a service to the whole Church. The Church is not just now, the Church is of all times.
A couple of questions, again general:
« What do you think about the temptation to become Orthodox of the Moscow Patriarchate? »
« What about the errors of the Popes and the dogma of infallibility, mainly for the Popes of the 20th and 21st centuries? »
There is a true concern about the Church, there has been a lot of talk about it: what do you think about this temptation to become Orthodox?
It is very false, because becoming Orthodox is worse than becoming sedevacantist. Because they reject the faith, the dogma of the primacy of Peter. This is a Gospel truth, it is a truth of dogma. Sedevacantism does not reject the dogma, it only declares, in an arbitrary way, the seat of Peter vacant, but this is unrealistic. The Orthodox, however, reject the dogma, and for this reason we cannot go in that direction, even to have a beautiful liturgy. You know that the Orthodox Church admits divorce. Do you want to have a church with divorce? You can get married, even in church, in the Orthodox Church: a second time, a third time. But only three times, not four. The second marriage, and perhaps the third, is called a penitential marriage.
The rite is penitential: the father blesses couples who are de facto adulterers, with a somewhat penitential rite. So it’s a contradiction, and it’s very serious. There is no clear magisterium on contraception either, there is no universal magisterium. So it is problematic. The Orthodox Church has many values, I have many Orthodox friends, even bishops and priests and faithful, they have good values, a liturgy, sacredness, humility, reverence, fasting, penance, and that is good. But that is not all.
On the Mass and the Eucharistic celebration, there are several questions:
“Why does Pope Francis denounce ‘rigid priests’? Who is he targeting? Why this obsession?” Now, I don’t think you can answer for the Pope, but I submit the point.
Another question that comes from a priest: “A few years ago, Cardinal Sarah invited all priests, especially young priests, to celebrate the first Sunday of Advent facing the Lord. Among those who were convinced, how many were able to do so? The Church violates priests and seminarians continuously. Do you think it would be useful to fill the ecclesiastical courts with complaints to force the Church to return to its law and doctrine? The Pope Emeritus said not to oppose the abuse of power is to become an accomplice.”
Still on the same theme: “Could you, Monsignor, admonish the Archbishop of Paris and all our bishops concerning the Holy Communion they want to be given in the hand? Thank you for what you are.”
I am not able, as part of my own task, to admonish the bishop of Paris, because I am not the pope. Only the Pope, the superior, can do that. I can, if he asks me, give him fraternal advice, but not publicly, and in a respectful way. But perhaps you can send my book, especially on communion in the hand, to these French bishops.
[Jean-Pierre Maugendre’s intervention: This has been done, all the bishops of France have received Bishop Schneider’s book. About 10 of them have kindly acknowledged receipt, and some of these have committed themselves to read it].
You can, I think, launch an initiative of the faithful, perhaps on behalf of the youth, to ask the Pope, the Holy See, to guarantee the right of every faithful to receive communion on the lips, even during the so-called pandemic, because all sanitary measures can be respected, and therefore there is no objective, scientific reason not to do do. For this reason you can make a request, with evidence from specialists, and send it to Rome to guarantee your rights. For the Mass, there is also another procedure to allow all priests to celebrate the Mass, even the new Mass, towards God.
Should we take these matters to the ecclesiastical courts?
Go to the Holy See, because that is the source. From there must come an order, an orientation.
Now a question about the Church in America and President Biden. “We know that there is a lot of controversy at the moment, in particular in projects and reflections of the American bishops, which aim at refusing communion to President Joe Biden who declares himself Catholic and at the same time pro-abortion. Some say that this is a strictly political matter. How can a Catholic feel he is in a state of grace allowing him to receive Communion while at the same time declaring himself to be pro-abortion, and how can such an issue come to divide the Church?”
This is proof that a part of the bishops have lost some faith in the importance of the Eucharist. What is the Eucharist? It is Our Lord, the immense holiness of God, and therefore they have also lost faith in the inestimable greatness of the Eucharist. And they have forgotten the Holy Scripture that tells us: whoever eats the body of the Lord unworthily, eats his judgment. So these bishops, who admit Biden or other politicians who promote abortion, to Holy Communion, these bishops are cruel. They are letting these souls go to waste and eat the judgment of God. This is a very irresponsible thing, a great sin against the love of our neighbor. And so the other bishops who do not allow communion for Biden have a true love for Biden, for Biden’s soul, so that he does not eat the divine judgment. So there are two things, the loss of faith of these bishops in the sanctity of Holy Communion, and the danger of receiving Holy Communion in an objectively unworthy state. They forget that this gesture of admitting these people publicly is at the same time saying that we implicitly approve of the fact that politicians can promote abortion. This is a very irresponsible pastoral attitude.
There are two questions left.
The first one is: « Do you see other bishops joining your ideas, the current that you embody, or does this current remain isolated? »
I don’t have contact with all the bishops, but some of course have the same concern, the same spirit, but a large part of the bishops unfortunately, even good bishops, are intimidated. They prefer to keep silent for personal reasons or to preserve their ecclesiastical career, or because of a kind of papalism, unhealthy papolatry, or various other reasons. But numbers are not important in the reign of God.
And the last question:
Bishop Schneider, in Christus Vincit you mention the question of Our Lady of Fatima, her message, her requests, the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, you express doubts as to whether this consecration was done in full in the way Our Lady wanted. A participant asks, “Appealing to the Pope to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a project of a small group in France, would you be willing to support this supernatural initiative?”
Yes, I am ready. I think it is necessary. But it is in God’s hands. Of course a full, explicit consecration will bring many graces to our world and to the Church, and to Russia and the whole world, as Our Lady promised. Therefore, we must pray, we must take steps, so that the Pope will make the full and explicit consecration, and to ask Our Lady for the Triumph of her maternal and Immaculate Heart.
Top USCCB priest resigns after bombshell revelations he was active on gay hookup app
The alleged covert homosexual activity by Burrill is especially troubling because of his role at the USCCB directing diocesan and conference responses to clerical sexual scandals. Wed Jul 21, 2021 – 10:39 am EST
WASHINGTON, D.C., July 21, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – The general secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, resigned yesterday just hours before a media report was published alleging that he had “engaged in serial sexual misconduct.”
The bombshell investigation by The Pillar was based on a presumed massive trove of commercially available data from the gay hook-up app Grindr, which an analyst was then able to link to a mobile device used by Burrill, showing that he “visited gay bars and private residences while using a location-based hookup app in numerous cities from 2018 to 2020, even while traveling on assignment for the U.S. bishops’ conference.”
The alleged covert homosexual activity by Burrill is especially troubling because of his role at the USCCB directing diocesan and conference responses to clerical sexual scandals.
The Pillar’s sexual misconduct report on this one priest may well be just the tip of the iceberg based on the presumed wide scope of the data now in the possession of the online publication. So far there is no indication from The Pillar concerning plans for future revelations based on additional incriminating evidence in the data set.
“Just imagine how many priests that have used the grinder app are freaking out right about now,” Lepanto Institute founder and president Michael Hichborn said in a Facebook post.
“The revelation regarding Msgr. Burrill is a drop in the bucket on the information contained in that dataset,” he added.
“Well, friends, this is not just one more corrupt priest,” said Catholic scholar Dr. Janet E. Smith, retired professor of moral theology and a renowned worldwide as an expert on Humanae Vitae.
“I fear his proclivities and activities were well known by those who hired him,” Smith wrote on Facebook. “And it is highly likely that many bishops are using the same apps. So this is huge. There are going to be many sleepless bishops.”
“Let it sink in that Burrill from 2009 until 2013 was a professor and formation director at the Pontifical North American College in Rome,” Smith wrote in a commentary for Crisis Magazine. “In a lawsuit by a former seminarian, accusations are being made that sexual predation has been common for a very long time at the NAC. I think a new line of investigation has just opened up.”
“Bishops should want to know what immoral activity their priests are engaged in is that the whole diocese is liable for their behavior—for the abuse both of minors and the vulnerable,” asserted Smith.
“Shouldn’t the bishops welcome this data? Msgr. Burill has a bishop who is his spiritual father. Msgr. Burill’s soul is in mortal danger. His father should want to know what he is doing and help him stop and recommit himself to a chaste life,” she concluded. “For let’s not forget, this is all about souls.”
According to an archived version of Burrill’s now-deleted profile on the USCCB website, “Msgr. Burrill is a priest of the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin, where he served as pastor of St. Bronislava Church from 2013-2016.” The bishop of the Diocese of La Crosse recently suspended the faculties of outspoken priest Father James Altman, famous for his viral video “You Can’t be Catholic and a Democrat.”
Phone data: A new frontier for investigations
While Catholics such as Smith think this is a huge story for the Church, the ground-breaking data-based investigation has also caught the attention of the secular and tech worlds.
“Some privacy experts said that they couldn’t recall other instances of phone data being de-anonymized and reported publicly,” noted a report by the Washington Post. “It’s not illegal and will likely happen more as people come to understand what data is available about others.”
Shortly before The Pillar published its report on Burrill, Catholic News Agency (CNA) issued a preemptive article based on anonymous sources.
“The prospect of private parties using national security-style surveillance technology to track the movements and activities of bishops, priests, and other Church personnel is raising concerns about civil liberties, privacy rights and what means are ethical to use in Church reform efforts,” wrote CNA.
CNA claimed to have been offered in 2018 access to the data set used by The Pillar’s report on Burrill, but turned it down. J.D. Flynn and Ed Condon, founders and editors of The Pillar, previously worked for CNA. Flynn and Condon are canon lawyers.
Leftist Catholics, organizations freaked out by the Burrill revelations
Apparently appalled that the revelations about Burrill’s serial homosexuality were made public, far-left and pro-LGBT Catholics condemned The Pillar, attempting to ward off future reports by suggesting that both the investigation and publication of the Burrill report were unethical.
“This is a disgrace: spying on bishops and priests to see if they’re being chaste and celibate,” tweeted Father James Martin, SJ, perhaps the most outspoken force for the normalization of homosexuality and transgenderism within the Roman Catholic Church. The Church teaches that bishops and priests (with the exception of those married before ordination, such as Eastern Rite priests or those in the Anglican Ordinariate) are to be celibate.
In a separate Twitter thread, Martin suggested a priest with a high-powered job for the USCCB might be considered a “vulnerable” person: “These witch hunts, usually aimed at vulnerable people working for the church, or targeting people that the authors don’t agree with or simply don’t like, must end.’
“The Pillar investigation of Monsignor Burrill is unethical, homophobic innuendo,” blared a Religion News (RNS) headline. “The hook on which this story hangs is a long-discredited link between sexual abuse and homosexuality.”
The majority of sexually abusive priests prey on teenage boys. — Article continues below Petition — PETITION: Urge U.S. Bishops to publicly excommunicate Joe Biden (and other pro-abortion politicians)
27,916 have signed the petition.Let’s get to 30,000! Add your signature: Show Petition Text Keep me updated via email on this petition and related issues.
“Ultimately today’s big story won’t be the priest Pillar Catholic outed, but questions about the ethics of data mining and buying mined data to reveal personal information,” tweeted Mike Lewis, editor of Where Peter Is, a liberal blog.
Questions also remain about the source of funding for The Pillar’s data acquisition and analysis.
“Such investigations don’t come cheap,” said left-wing Catholic writer Dawn Eden Goldstein, who recently sued the president of the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM) for “online harassment” (the case was thrown out).
“Do the site’s funders have an enemies list? Do the editors choose to reveal dirt on some folks & not others? Why should we trust their good intentions without knowing their donors?”
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July 22, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – A group of young Catholics from across the world have sent a video message to Pope Francis, defending their “love” for the ancient liturgy in response to his recent restrictions upon it, and asking him to support them in their desire to “follow the call to holiness” through the Traditional Latin Mass.
“As young Catholics who go to the Traditional Latin Mass, we often encounter a lack of understanding in the older generations,” declared the youth.
They then contradicted some of the objections made regarding devotees of the traditional liturgy by the Pope and other critics.
“We do not question the validity of the new liturgy or disdain its celebration, » the young people said.
“We love the Traditional Mass not because we are old and grumpy. We love it not because we are old-fashioned. We love it not because we are separatist.”
Expressing their personal devotion to the Mass, the youthful participants pointed to aspects of the traditional liturgy which attracted them to it.
“We love the Traditional Latin Mass for its devotion and trustful fear of God,” said one.
“We love its orientation of priest and faithful together in the same direction, towards God and Christ, » said another.
“We love it, because it is the same all over the world, it is universal, catholic in the original sense of the word. We love it, because its transcendence gives us a peace and hope the world cannot give.”
The young Catholics also answered the attacks made in Pope Francis’s accompanying letter to the motu proprio, in which he decried “the instrumental use of MissaleRomanum of 1962” which he said “is often characterized by a rejection not only of the liturgical reform, but of the Vatican Council II itself, claiming, with unfounded and unsustainable assertions, that it betrayed the Tradition and the ‘true Church’.”
Participating in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, Estonia, USA, Nigeria, Indonesia, Croatia, Ireland, Australia and Sri Lanka, the group protested the Pope’s accusation that Latin Mass attendees “widen the gaps” and “reinforce the divergences.”
Quoting directly from his letter, they replied: “We do not ‘encourage disagreements that injure the Church’. We do not ‘block her path’ or ‘expose her to the peril of division’.”
Contradicting the idea that they promote a life of “division,” the young devotees of the ancient liturgy of the Church declared that they “simply aim at a Christian life in faith, hope, and love for God and our neighbor.”
“We try to follow the call to holiness and we draw our strength from the Latin Mass, » their message continued.
“Dear Holy Father, dear Bishops, we are not just a few deplorably stubborn adherents of an outdated rite. As loyal Roman Catholics, we are YOUR multitudinous and lively youth.” — Article continues below Petition — SIGN: Show Pope Francis the Latin Mass will survive any suppression
24,901 have signed the petition.Let’s get to 25,000! Add your signature: Show Petition Text Keep me updated via email on this petition and related issues.
Re-iterating their devotion to the Pope, which manifests in their daily prayers, the young Catholics issued an earnest plea to Pope Francis: “Please do not let us down. Can we count on you?”
Their message has garnered considerable attention on social media.
Hong Kong’s bishop emeritus, Cardinal Joseph Zen, shared the video on Twitter without comment, and Catholic priests also highlighted the message, describing it as “heart-warming.”
Chad Pecknold, columnist for First Things magazine, wrote how the witness of young, faithful Catholics reminded him of St. Catherine of Siena’s own witness to the Pope. “I wept watching this. As one who teaches young Catholics, it rang true of what I know about my college-aged son’s generation. Watching this, I was reminded of St. Catherine of Siena, whose letters to the pope had a similar poignancy, power — and I pray, effect.”
EWTN’S Raymond Arroyo also highlighted the video, while Father Ron Vierling described the young Catholics as “a great blessing to the Church.”
Promulgated on July 16, the new motu proprio Traditionis Custodes stipulates, amongst other things, that priests are to “request” permission from their diocesan bishops to say the Traditional Latin Mass, and consequently bishops can essentially forbid priests from saying it. The bishops are told to decide “whether or not to retain” parishes which had been canonically erected for the offering of the traditional liturgies.
The document has been described by Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), as a Papal plan “to condemn the Extraordinary Form to extinction.” The motu proprio does away with the permissions of Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 Summorumpontificum, which afforded priests the right to celebrate Mass in the traditional rites without needing the express authorization of their bishops or the Holy See.
Doctors and Scientists Write to the European Medicines Agency, Warning of COVID-19 Vaccine Dangers for a Third Time
Ahead of European Green Certificate (vaccine passport) vote in the European Parliament on April 28, the experts warn that cardinal symptoms of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) dominate the list of adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines- Doctors for Covid EthicsApr
For the urgent personal attention of Emer Cooke, Executive Director of the European Medicines Agency
Emer Cooke, Executive Director, European Medicines Agency, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 20 April 2021
BY EMAIL ONLY
Dear Sirs/Mesdames,
FOR THE URGENT PERSONAL ATTENTION OF EMER COOKE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE EUROPEAN MEDICINES AGENCY
The European Medicines Agency and those persons who work for that regulatory body, of which body you are Executive Director, were put on notice by Doctors for Covid Ethics on 1 April 2021.
We note your iterations to the press since that date.
Our concerns re the gene-based vaccines are not confined to that of Astra-Zeneca, rather to all the COVID-19 gene-based vaccines, namely those of Astra-Zeneca, Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.
1a. Our most serious concern re ALL the gene-based vaccines is that you convey the impression that cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) is a very rare adverse event. In fact the opposite is probably true. The cardinal symptoms of CVST dominate the list of adverse reactions:
piercing headache
nausea and vomiting
impaired consciousness
impaired speech
impaired vision
impaired hearing
paralysis of varying degrees in various locations
loss of motor control (including such severe loss that victims mimic the symptoms of Huntington’s Chorea).
It is imperative that proper medical attention is given to every individual who presents with any of the above symptoms.
It is the indirigible duty of the European Medicines Agency to disseminate the above information to medical doctors and responsible authorities.
1b. A further serious concern is that peripheral “clot” formation is not alluded to by you at all.
It is evident that “clot” formation in the deep veins of the legs and arms can lead to life-threatening pulmonary embolism.
1c. Further, thrombus formation in the small vessels of the lungs can lead to a clinical picture resembling atypical pneumonia.
1d. In addition, it is vitally important to understand that any one of 1a. 1b. 1c. or any combination of these can lead via consumption of coagulation factors to the clinical picture of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) which is actually characterised by massive bleeding events into the skin and into other organs of the body.
It is imperative that all the above diagnoses are actively searched for and that all cases displaying symptoms consistent with any of these diagnoses are recorded properly as adverse vaccine-related events.
1e. Furthermore, long term adverse effects, in particular the danger of immune dependant enhancement of disease and adverse effects of subsequent vaccinations are impossible to predict.
The European Medicines Agency, as the regulator re vaccines for almost 450 million people across 27 European Union member states, must inform the public and the relevant authorities of this profoundly important issue.
2. We believe that the number of deaths due to the gene-based vaccines to which you have publicly admitted is but a small percentage of the actual number of deaths due to the gene-based vaccines.
3. With regard to 2. we suspect that death certificates a
I have reported on here that I was tested for COVID five times and they were all negative. I went to Tampa hospital to see the top pulmonary doctor and after saying I was tested 5 times, he bluntly said that did not matter – the test is invalid. After December 31, 2021, CDC will withdraw the request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization for the PCR Test. CDC is providing this advance notice for clinical laboratories to have adequate time to select and implement one of the many FDA-authorized alternatives.
The problem with this entire TEST is that it has blown up the entire COVID Pandemic for political purposes and it has seriously hurt people and the world economy. I know Europeans who have to fly to Central America to get then to the United States. Canadians are shuffling back and forth between the USA and Mexico fearful of returning to Canada for if one of their children tests positive, they would be taken away from them.
The inventor of the PCR test, Kary Mullis, dates back to 1985 for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1993. In 1996, John Lauritsen wrote about HIV and AIDS. Lauritsen at that time said that the PCR test identifies substances qualitatively not quantitatively, detecting the genetic sequences of viruses rather than the viruses themselves:
“PCR is intended to identify substances qualitatively, but by its very nature is unsuited for estimating numbers. Although there is a common misimpression that the viral load tests actually count the number of viruses in the blood, these tests cannot detect free, infectious viruses at all; they can only detect proteins that are believed, in some cases wrongly, to be unique to HIV. The tests can detect genetic sequences of viruses, but not viruses themselves.”
Here is a letter from Professor Dr. Thomas Aigner about the crisis in medicine surrounding this virus which has become so political. He is referring to a report that is being ignored which points out the conflicts of interest and politicians have destroyed the world economy for something which is clearly not well-founded. (see the report if the link vanishes:
By Michael Haynes
By Jeanne Smits, Paris correspondent
By Doug Mainwaring
naufrage/sauvetage 