Was this the von Balthasar who wrote the afterword to Valentin Tomberg's "Meditations on the Tarot"? Trust that the seminarians don't go as far as reading that tome with its reincarnation, astral bodies and Luminous Holy Trinity.
I truly believe that the SSPX is barely holding on. Sooner or later they will have to admit that the Sedevacantists have been correct all these years. Their pride in Recognize, Resist, and bending the knee to the validity of the Second Vatican Council, the Novus Ordo, the changed rites of priestly ordination, and the changed rite of episcopal consecrations as valid will be the death of them. Right now, the Society and most of the laity in the pews do not recognize this.
So apparently we have stopped condemning heresies and are welcomed with open arms by the conciliar Church? Where's the proof? Our positions have not changed AT ALL since the founding of our priestly fraternity. Rome, however, has fluctuated up and down, left and right, as you would expect from modernists. We are no more welcomed than we have ever been.
The people who attach themselves to the idea of "the old SSPX" are simply nothing other than schismatics at heart. It's no wonder the author speaks so dreamily of the Orthodox as if they are some kind of example to follow. These are people who cannot stomach the idea of nuance and prudential changes based on changing circumstances. They equate prudential changes with doctrinal changes and so throw the baby out with the bathwater.
If you know anything about Archbishop Lefebvre then you know that his modus operandi was not "kick up a stink at ever moment" but simply "hand on what I have received" which is precisely what we are doing today. It was the reason for the Episcopal consecrations in '88 and it is the reason for all our actions now. Keep the faith and let Rome sort itself out. Rome clearly knows our positions. What more do you expect us to do?
This revolutionary spirit of the author is not what the SSPX has ever been despite what he thinks. We are not a revolution but a haven of sanity.
I'm so sick and tired of these SSPX resistance types whose ideas are nothing but a dead end of schism. I want nothing to do with it. I hope you feel the same.
The 'Conciliar Creep' that has modified and continues to modify the minds of the leaders and major influencers of the SSPX is thriving. When you have priests teaching things like 'theistic evolution' in direct contradiction to Church teaching because the Church 'needs to be corrected'; teaching that miracles are simply extraordinary natural events that seem miraculous ; or imposing the works of V2 revolutionaries; or the false doctrine that the Universal Ordinary Magisterium can universally impose error if the pope and the bishops decide to reject Tradition and teach novelty, then the heresies are being promoted publicly BY the SSPX. Does Truth matter? "And if the watchman see the sword coming, and sound not the trumpet: and the people look not to themselves, and the sword come, and cut off a soul from among them: he indeed is taken away in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at the hand of the watchman." (Ezechial 33:6)
Pray for the Society's priests who are no doubt in the cross hairs of the Enemy, but we must not show human respect to blatant falsehoods.
We need to pray for the priests. Without the priesthood there is no Church, and for that reason we know there will always be a faithful and valid priesthood - Christ promised. The Society priests do have a modernist mindset and errors taught in seminary are presented as 'de fide'. Church teaching is shown the door if it disagrees with the Society's teaching. "Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it." (Psalms 126:1)
The 'house' of the SSPX was not a vain labour. But the 'keepers' look to the world (V2 leaders who do not serve God) to 'keep' it.
"They that trust in their own strength, and glory in the multitude of their riches." (Psalms 48:7)
KEY POINT 1: We come to the truth by an accurate judgment of the reality in front of us.
• KEY POINT 2: Prudential judgments concern means, not ends.
• KEY POINT 3: Bishop Fellay has not stopped insisting on doctrine as a pre-condition to canonical regularization by the fact that he has stopped insisting on conversion as a pre-condition.
Some underlying principles are needed to properly understand the situation and thus the SSPX's response through Bishop Fellay during its discussions with Rome.
FIRST PRINCIPLE: The truth is always first.
What is truth?
• Truth is a relationship of correspondence between what is really there outside of our head and our mind's understanding of it, the result of the mind's conforming itself to what is really there.
• Respect for truth implies a docility to reality and a respect for nuance.
• Truth is not a romantic ideal and is often beautiful or ugly, sublime or mundane, satisfying or humiliating.
• People can wax poetic about "truth" and yet never make any serious effort to acquire it.
KEY POINT 1: We come to the truth by an accurate judgment of the reality in front of us.
We must remember that:
• Truth occurs when we judge accurately the reality outside of us.
• Truth is serious and precious but not romantic.
• We face handicaps in our pursuit of truth; because of this, if we do not seriously commit ourselves to judging well, we will not.
• Furthermore, people who do not make serious efforts to judge accurately do not give first importance to truth. They may get emotional about the word truth, but in actuality it is not the most important thing to them.
There are different kinds of judgments or truths:
Speculative Truths
These have to do with things that are the way they are and will always be the way they are (because of God's nature, the nature of creatures, or some choice of God).
Examples: God is Trinity, murder is a sin, the
Catholic Church has seven sacraments.
Prudential Truths
These concern actions, that is, what is prudent in a given set of circumstances or what is the best way to achieve a good in a given set of circumstances. These
truths depend on circumstances, and so what is pru-dentially true changes as circumstances change.
Example: It might be imprudent to begin a school in a parish until the number of students and commitment of the parents has reached a certain minimum.
Thus it is not a question of the priest not caring whether the children receive a Catholic education or not, but rather how best that good can be achieved in a given set of circumstances.
There is no faster way to cause a fight between well-intentioned people than to confuse a question of principle with a question of prudence.
N.B.: The presence of risk does not automatically
render an option imprudent.
KEY POINT 2: Prudential judgments concern means, not ends.
The end or the good to be achieved is presupposed and does not change with circumstances although the means often do.
There would seem to be five chief reasons for the
confusion and doubts among our faithful:
• A lack of understanding of the principles by which the SSPX has always operated.
• A lack of detailed knowledge of the events which have transpired.
• There has been a change in the SSPX's prudential policy (which is interpreted as a change in principle).
• The Archbishop, after the consecrations, said that it would be impossible to reach an agreement with the Vatican until Rome "converted."
1. A lack of understanding of the principles by which the SSPX has always operated.
Principles:
A. The SSPX is not sedevacantist, that is, the authorities in Rome and the diocesan authorities are the legitimate authorities in the Church, even if they abuse their authority in practice.
Without realizing it, some of our own faithful have adopted sedevacantist positions, such as, "To have anything to do with Modernist Rome is a compromise in principle." Contributing to this misconception has been an erroneous application of certain terms such
as "Conciliar Church" and "Modernist Rome."
• Again: Truth is the conformity of the mind to reality. Truth is not firstly a question of words but of the ideas for which the words stand.
• For example, the term "Conciliar Church" does not mean the same thing for the SSPX as it does for sedevacantists. For sedevacantists, the "Conciliar Church" is a different organization than the Catholic Church. But for the SSPX, it is a metaphor which refers to the clergy insofar as they hold modernist ideas.
Thus most sedevacantists do not recognize the pope and bishops as the true hierarchy of the Catholic Church, but as a counterfeit hierarchy of a different and false Church.
But the SSPX recognizes them as the hierarchy of the one and only Catholic Church, so to have some dealings with the hierarchy is normal. Of course, any current interaction will not be as complete as in normal times (and here the SSPX differs from the
"Ecclesia Dei" groups), but it will never be completely absent (and here the SSPX differs from sedevacantist groups).
B. The crisis in the Church is one of faith stemming from the ambiguity and errors of Vatican II and the New Mass, the expression and conveyor of a new (and erroneous) theology.
This distinguishes the SSPX from "Ecclesia Dei" groups (e.g., the Fraternity of St. Peter) that accept Vatican II and the New Mass, blaming the crisis on misinterpretations and abuses.
N.B.: while the crisis has been intensified by abuses in the liturgy which go beyond the official texts of the New Mass or by theological errors which go beyond the documents of Vatican II, these abuses are not the root of the problem.
The application of these principles:
Is accepting a canonical structure a question of principle or of prudence?
This is a question of prudence, for it is normal for religious congregations to have a legal framework.
The SSPX used to have one, and it lost it (offi-cially at least) due to an act of injustice. The Society recognizes the authority of the people who would be recognizing the Society. Thus, the question of whether to accept a structure now would be a question of prudence.
"Truth is serious and precious but not romantic...Prudential judgments concern means, not ends." Absolutely. Therefore, to claim as the Church an institution that promulgates error universally rejects both Truth and Prudence.
"The good must not be abandoned on account of the wicked, but the wicked must be endured for the sake of the good, insofar as the rule of faith and charity demands; that is, provided they neither spread the seeds of perfidy within the Church nor lead their brethren by deadly example to some evil deed." (St Fulgentius - https://www.wmreview.org/p/st-fulgentius-eens).
Bless you. I have the document but couldn't figure out how to post it for others to read 🥴 At any rate , I enjoy Chris' writing. I think it's needed for our time of confusion. The charge that the SSPX has somehow changed and that we don't call out modernist error is just plain false. See for yourself. Our young priests are amazing. Their sermons can be had all over YouTube if you search SSPX. Our crisis in the church podcast series is more detailed than any other that I've seen.
A decrease in sermons about the dangers of the current crisis ? 🤣🤣🤣 Tell you you've never been to an SSPX chapel without telling me. You're grasping at straws.
Sean Johnson’s “As We Are?”, currently out of print (it was published on Amazon till the author learned Amazon was paying for its employees’ baby murders), goes into this in depth. My wife & I were briefly in the SSPX, and saw some good priests there, but it’s ostrich time for the lay defenders and officials. A potential regular SSPX presence was scotched up in south Tennessee because the prospective parishioners did not believe Bergo was pope and because the local bishop wanted to keep people in the diocesan TLM while periodically dumping crap on trads. The SSPX rep took fright and then of course it was passed off as “not enough interest”, when in fact they REFUSED to welcome diocesan TLM goes because of the optics. What would the bishop do with their marriages if they fished in his pond?
Best case, as with Chris's last piece on the Vatican listening to pressure and leverage, is that the pressure works upon Rome and there's a negotiated solution, as was done with the Byzantines, that leaves us all better off.
It seems like TPTB in the Vatican sent out a marketing survey to rank and file Catholics, asking what they liked and didn’t like about Pope Francis. The consensus was the folks really liked Francis’ love for the poor and marginalized, but didn’t like it when he seemed rude and scolded people. And voila, they installed a kinder, gentler Francis, complete with all of his ideology, but one who is quiet and smiles a lot. A made to order pope for the masses, who will continue where Francis left off.
A golden age for the careers of yeti blood ritual shamans in the seminaries...
"What we got was an emphasis on novelty, experimentation, and irreverence: on communion in the hand, altar girls, balloons, and banality. The only thing emphasized was that nothing sacred could remain untouched."
Yes, the "great emphasis" on the Mass is in fact what has caused the chaos. By turning something that just was into something that had to be masterplanned every time, the reform's incentives created an arms race between egos, and wilder and wilder novelty was the only real result: https://grainofwheat.substack.com/p/how-the-novus-ordo-mass-became-an
If what we have seen so far indicates the direction of Leo XIV's pontificate, I must say that I preferred Francis in many ways! If nothing else, he was blunt and honest vis-à-vis tradition, and we knew exactly where we stood with him. I respect candor over indirectness.
I became Catholic in 1999 after years searching and attending many Protestant churches. Mother Angelica and EWTN were my first catechism teachers. I thought the Catholic church would never change as I watched my Protestant brothers and sisters introduce women pastors and blessed same sex marriages. I wonder now if it weren't for the "look of Vatican II" if I would have been brave enough to take the big step of coming home as Mother called it. Though I have never attended a Latin mass since I live on an island with none offered, only rock bands and singing reminiscent of the carismatic renewal. My faith still flourishes by the grace of Jesus and Mary. As my faith deepens so too do I value the Latin liturgy reflective from my original roots in the WELS churches where Latin liturgy was incorporated in worship. However, I wonder what other converts have to say who were children as I was during Vatican II.
Tina, your’s and my journey are so similar! But before Mother Angelica, I’d read a biography on Mother Teresa. Did not understand Eucharist but knew that woman served God!! By the way, the first Mass I watched on EWTN was still offered ad orientum. When I saw that I exclaimed “This IS the Jewish faith that accepted Christ as the Messiah!”
The mothers and fathers always should have been teaching catechism to their children. If parents hadn't farmed everything out to the priests we wouldn't be in this mess.
Excellent article, Chris! I remember vividly the "gutting out" days of the Church, when mannish women with short-cropped hair wearing men's slacks took it upon themselves in the name of VII to go through our Church's Crying Room and threw the nearly hundred-year-old statue of Our Lady of Fatima (a Thedim original but these idiots didn't know or care) on a trash heap of other traditional statues and pictures that once lined the Church. Lucky for me, though, because I rescued that beautiful Lady of Fatima statue and she's with me still some 30-something years later.
FSSP canceled in Valence for refusing to concelebrate the Novus Ordo Chrism Mass. of course, this highlights that in previous years these doubtfully ordained priests have been giving the conciliar hierarchy their annual pinch of incense, yet Trad Inc. (think The Remnant) wants to ask “Where’s the compromise?” without blushing. God willing, this refusal will lead these (putative) priests to some deeper reflections on the depth of the crisis, and the fact that it emanates from modernist Rome, and is perpetuated by their diocesan hirelings worldwide.
I hope I'm wrong, but I guess this ends my utopian "LeoAnon" theory and all the rumors that Cardinal Burke had secretly negotiated a deal with Cardinal Prevost before the conclave... I deleted that article.
I’ve mentioned my YouTube channel on this stack before. These are the main playlists that will help you to understand the solution to what is truly ailing the Church. And the solution to the problem. It will be a lot to digest, so feel free to take your time and really listen with an open mind and heart, and I believe that you will come up with the same conclusion as I did. The link for the whole channel is this one, click on the playlist tab:
“ Because seminarians read von Balthasar instead of Rahner”
Wow
Was this the von Balthasar who wrote the afterword to Valentin Tomberg's "Meditations on the Tarot"? Trust that the seminarians don't go as far as reading that tome with its reincarnation, astral bodies and Luminous Holy Trinity.
thank you for this data.
Both are heretics.
I truly believe that the SSPX is barely holding on. Sooner or later they will have to admit that the Sedevacantists have been correct all these years. Their pride in Recognize, Resist, and bending the knee to the validity of the Second Vatican Council, the Novus Ordo, the changed rites of priestly ordination, and the changed rite of episcopal consecrations as valid will be the death of them. Right now, the Society and most of the laity in the pews do not recognize this.
So apparently we have stopped condemning heresies and are welcomed with open arms by the conciliar Church? Where's the proof? Our positions have not changed AT ALL since the founding of our priestly fraternity. Rome, however, has fluctuated up and down, left and right, as you would expect from modernists. We are no more welcomed than we have ever been.
The people who attach themselves to the idea of "the old SSPX" are simply nothing other than schismatics at heart. It's no wonder the author speaks so dreamily of the Orthodox as if they are some kind of example to follow. These are people who cannot stomach the idea of nuance and prudential changes based on changing circumstances. They equate prudential changes with doctrinal changes and so throw the baby out with the bathwater.
If you know anything about Archbishop Lefebvre then you know that his modus operandi was not "kick up a stink at ever moment" but simply "hand on what I have received" which is precisely what we are doing today. It was the reason for the Episcopal consecrations in '88 and it is the reason for all our actions now. Keep the faith and let Rome sort itself out. Rome clearly knows our positions. What more do you expect us to do?
This revolutionary spirit of the author is not what the SSPX has ever been despite what he thinks. We are not a revolution but a haven of sanity.
I'm so sick and tired of these SSPX resistance types whose ideas are nothing but a dead end of schism. I want nothing to do with it. I hope you feel the same.
My SSPX priest ⚜️
The 'Conciliar Creep' that has modified and continues to modify the minds of the leaders and major influencers of the SSPX is thriving. When you have priests teaching things like 'theistic evolution' in direct contradiction to Church teaching because the Church 'needs to be corrected'; teaching that miracles are simply extraordinary natural events that seem miraculous ; or imposing the works of V2 revolutionaries; or the false doctrine that the Universal Ordinary Magisterium can universally impose error if the pope and the bishops decide to reject Tradition and teach novelty, then the heresies are being promoted publicly BY the SSPX. Does Truth matter? "And if the watchman see the sword coming, and sound not the trumpet: and the people look not to themselves, and the sword come, and cut off a soul from among them: he indeed is taken away in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at the hand of the watchman." (Ezechial 33:6)
Pray for the Society's priests who are no doubt in the cross hairs of the Enemy, but we must not show human respect to blatant falsehoods.
https://sspx.org/en/publications/regina-coeli-report-special-edition-jun-2013-36899
It's available as a PDF at SSPX Asia: https://www.sspxasia.com/Countries/Philippines/OLVC/Articles/Fr._Themann's_Talk.pdf
We need to pray for the priests. Without the priesthood there is no Church, and for that reason we know there will always be a faithful and valid priesthood - Christ promised. The Society priests do have a modernist mindset and errors taught in seminary are presented as 'de fide'. Church teaching is shown the door if it disagrees with the Society's teaching. "Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it." (Psalms 126:1)
The 'house' of the SSPX was not a vain labour. But the 'keepers' look to the world (V2 leaders who do not serve God) to 'keep' it.
"They that trust in their own strength, and glory in the multitude of their riches." (Psalms 48:7)
We all need daily conversion. So do the FSSPX.
• FIRST PRINCIPLE: The truth is always first.
KEY POINT 1: We come to the truth by an accurate judgment of the reality in front of us.
• KEY POINT 2: Prudential judgments concern means, not ends.
• KEY POINT 3: Bishop Fellay has not stopped insisting on doctrine as a pre-condition to canonical regularization by the fact that he has stopped insisting on conversion as a pre-condition.
Some underlying principles are needed to properly understand the situation and thus the SSPX's response through Bishop Fellay during its discussions with Rome.
FIRST PRINCIPLE: The truth is always first.
What is truth?
• Truth is a relationship of correspondence between what is really there outside of our head and our mind's understanding of it, the result of the mind's conforming itself to what is really there.
• Respect for truth implies a docility to reality and a respect for nuance.
• Truth is not a romantic ideal and is often beautiful or ugly, sublime or mundane, satisfying or humiliating.
• People can wax poetic about "truth" and yet never make any serious effort to acquire it.
KEY POINT 1: We come to the truth by an accurate judgment of the reality in front of us.
We must remember that:
• Truth occurs when we judge accurately the reality outside of us.
• Truth is serious and precious but not romantic.
• We face handicaps in our pursuit of truth; because of this, if we do not seriously commit ourselves to judging well, we will not.
• Furthermore, people who do not make serious efforts to judge accurately do not give first importance to truth. They may get emotional about the word truth, but in actuality it is not the most important thing to them.
There are different kinds of judgments or truths:
Speculative Truths
These have to do with things that are the way they are and will always be the way they are (because of God's nature, the nature of creatures, or some choice of God).
Examples: God is Trinity, murder is a sin, the
Catholic Church has seven sacraments.
Prudential Truths
These concern actions, that is, what is prudent in a given set of circumstances or what is the best way to achieve a good in a given set of circumstances. These
truths depend on circumstances, and so what is pru-dentially true changes as circumstances change.
Example: It might be imprudent to begin a school in a parish until the number of students and commitment of the parents has reached a certain minimum.
Thus it is not a question of the priest not caring whether the children receive a Catholic education or not, but rather how best that good can be achieved in a given set of circumstances.
There is no faster way to cause a fight between well-intentioned people than to confuse a question of principle with a question of prudence.
N.B.: The presence of risk does not automatically
render an option imprudent.
KEY POINT 2: Prudential judgments concern means, not ends.
The end or the good to be achieved is presupposed and does not change with circumstances although the means often do.
There would seem to be five chief reasons for the
confusion and doubts among our faithful:
• A lack of understanding of the principles by which the SSPX has always operated.
• A lack of detailed knowledge of the events which have transpired.
• There has been a change in the SSPX's prudential policy (which is interpreted as a change in principle).
• Misunderstanding Bishop Fellay's doctrinal declaration.
• The Archbishop, after the consecrations, said that it would be impossible to reach an agreement with the Vatican until Rome "converted."
1. A lack of understanding of the principles by which the SSPX has always operated.
Principles:
A. The SSPX is not sedevacantist, that is, the authorities in Rome and the diocesan authorities are the legitimate authorities in the Church, even if they abuse their authority in practice.
Without realizing it, some of our own faithful have adopted sedevacantist positions, such as, "To have anything to do with Modernist Rome is a compromise in principle." Contributing to this misconception has been an erroneous application of certain terms such
as "Conciliar Church" and "Modernist Rome."
• Again: Truth is the conformity of the mind to reality. Truth is not firstly a question of words but of the ideas for which the words stand.
• For example, the term "Conciliar Church" does not mean the same thing for the SSPX as it does for sedevacantists. For sedevacantists, the "Conciliar Church" is a different organization than the Catholic Church. But for the SSPX, it is a metaphor which refers to the clergy insofar as they hold modernist ideas.
Thus most sedevacantists do not recognize the pope and bishops as the true hierarchy of the Catholic Church, but as a counterfeit hierarchy of a different and false Church.
But the SSPX recognizes them as the hierarchy of the one and only Catholic Church, so to have some dealings with the hierarchy is normal. Of course, any current interaction will not be as complete as in normal times (and here the SSPX differs from the
"Ecclesia Dei" groups), but it will never be completely absent (and here the SSPX differs from sedevacantist groups).
B. The crisis in the Church is one of faith stemming from the ambiguity and errors of Vatican II and the New Mass, the expression and conveyor of a new (and erroneous) theology.
This distinguishes the SSPX from "Ecclesia Dei" groups (e.g., the Fraternity of St. Peter) that accept Vatican II and the New Mass, blaming the crisis on misinterpretations and abuses.
N.B.: while the crisis has been intensified by abuses in the liturgy which go beyond the official texts of the New Mass or by theological errors which go beyond the documents of Vatican II, these abuses are not the root of the problem.
The application of these principles:
Is accepting a canonical structure a question of principle or of prudence?
This is a question of prudence, for it is normal for religious congregations to have a legal framework.
The SSPX used to have one, and it lost it (offi-cially at least) due to an act of injustice. The Society recognizes the authority of the people who would be recognizing the Society. Thus, the question of whether to accept a structure now would be a question of prudence.
"Truth is serious and precious but not romantic...Prudential judgments concern means, not ends." Absolutely. Therefore, to claim as the Church an institution that promulgates error universally rejects both Truth and Prudence.
"The good must not be abandoned on account of the wicked, but the wicked must be endured for the sake of the good, insofar as the rule of faith and charity demands; that is, provided they neither spread the seeds of perfidy within the Church nor lead their brethren by deadly example to some evil deed." (St Fulgentius - https://www.wmreview.org/p/st-fulgentius-eens).
I think so.
For reference. It's available as a PDF at SSPX Asia: https://www.sspxasia.com/Countries/Philippines/OLVC/Articles/Fr._Themann's_Talk.pdf
Bless you. I have the document but couldn't figure out how to post it for others to read 🥴 At any rate , I enjoy Chris' writing. I think it's needed for our time of confusion. The charge that the SSPX has somehow changed and that we don't call out modernist error is just plain false. See for yourself. Our young priests are amazing. Their sermons can be had all over YouTube if you search SSPX. Our crisis in the church podcast series is more detailed than any other that I've seen.
The SSPX has never rebranded. Nor will it.
A decrease in sermons about the dangers of the current crisis ? 🤣🤣🤣 Tell you you've never been to an SSPX chapel without telling me. You're grasping at straws.
Sean Johnson’s “As We Are?”, currently out of print (it was published on Amazon till the author learned Amazon was paying for its employees’ baby murders), goes into this in depth. My wife & I were briefly in the SSPX, and saw some good priests there, but it’s ostrich time for the lay defenders and officials. A potential regular SSPX presence was scotched up in south Tennessee because the prospective parishioners did not believe Bergo was pope and because the local bishop wanted to keep people in the diocesan TLM while periodically dumping crap on trads. The SSPX rep took fright and then of course it was passed off as “not enough interest”, when in fact they REFUSED to welcome diocesan TLM goes because of the optics. What would the bishop do with their marriages if they fished in his pond?
3rd order. I'm not a priest and it's a priestly fraternity
Best case, as with Chris's last piece on the Vatican listening to pressure and leverage, is that the pressure works upon Rome and there's a negotiated solution, as was done with the Byzantines, that leaves us all better off.
And yet you ignore your own pride in believing you alone are right on everything.
It seems like TPTB in the Vatican sent out a marketing survey to rank and file Catholics, asking what they liked and didn’t like about Pope Francis. The consensus was the folks really liked Francis’ love for the poor and marginalized, but didn’t like it when he seemed rude and scolded people. And voila, they installed a kinder, gentler Francis, complete with all of his ideology, but one who is quiet and smiles a lot. A made to order pope for the masses, who will continue where Francis left off.
I said 2 weeks ago when Burke received he’s honorary letter from Prevost, he would just reciprocate and return praise
Sadly Burke’s been easier to predict than most would like to admit
A golden age for the careers of yeti blood ritual shamans in the seminaries...
"What we got was an emphasis on novelty, experimentation, and irreverence: on communion in the hand, altar girls, balloons, and banality. The only thing emphasized was that nothing sacred could remain untouched."
Yes, the "great emphasis" on the Mass is in fact what has caused the chaos. By turning something that just was into something that had to be masterplanned every time, the reform's incentives created an arms race between egos, and wilder and wilder novelty was the only real result: https://grainofwheat.substack.com/p/how-the-novus-ordo-mass-became-an
Outstanding as always. May God bless you
Thank you. You too!
If what we have seen so far indicates the direction of Leo XIV's pontificate, I must say that I preferred Francis in many ways! If nothing else, he was blunt and honest vis-à-vis tradition, and we knew exactly where we stood with him. I respect candor over indirectness.
I became Catholic in 1999 after years searching and attending many Protestant churches. Mother Angelica and EWTN were my first catechism teachers. I thought the Catholic church would never change as I watched my Protestant brothers and sisters introduce women pastors and blessed same sex marriages. I wonder now if it weren't for the "look of Vatican II" if I would have been brave enough to take the big step of coming home as Mother called it. Though I have never attended a Latin mass since I live on an island with none offered, only rock bands and singing reminiscent of the carismatic renewal. My faith still flourishes by the grace of Jesus and Mary. As my faith deepens so too do I value the Latin liturgy reflective from my original roots in the WELS churches where Latin liturgy was incorporated in worship. However, I wonder what other converts have to say who were children as I was during Vatican II.
Tina, your’s and my journey are so similar! But before Mother Angelica, I’d read a biography on Mother Teresa. Did not understand Eucharist but knew that woman served God!! By the way, the first Mass I watched on EWTN was still offered ad orientum. When I saw that I exclaimed “This IS the Jewish faith that accepted Christ as the Messiah!”
The mothers and fathers always should have been teaching catechism to their children. If parents hadn't farmed everything out to the priests we wouldn't be in this mess.
Excellent article, Chris! I remember vividly the "gutting out" days of the Church, when mannish women with short-cropped hair wearing men's slacks took it upon themselves in the name of VII to go through our Church's Crying Room and threw the nearly hundred-year-old statue of Our Lady of Fatima (a Thedim original but these idiots didn't know or care) on a trash heap of other traditional statues and pictures that once lined the Church. Lucky for me, though, because I rescued that beautiful Lady of Fatima statue and she's with me still some 30-something years later.
the title of your article is perfect.
Thanks for this. I actually feel lucky to have access to the pre-1955 Roman rite 1x/month in a hotel conference room. So many others suffer much more.
Please join me in praying the Chaplet of the Holy Face in reparation for blasphemy & the defilement of Sundays.
FSSP canceled in Valence for refusing to concelebrate the Novus Ordo Chrism Mass. of course, this highlights that in previous years these doubtfully ordained priests have been giving the conciliar hierarchy their annual pinch of incense, yet Trad Inc. (think The Remnant) wants to ask “Where’s the compromise?” without blushing. God willing, this refusal will lead these (putative) priests to some deeper reflections on the depth of the crisis, and the fact that it emanates from modernist Rome, and is perpetuated by their diocesan hirelings worldwide.
My FSSP priests have never concelebrated with the NO's
I hope I'm wrong, but I guess this ends my utopian "LeoAnon" theory and all the rumors that Cardinal Burke had secretly negotiated a deal with Cardinal Prevost before the conclave... I deleted that article.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlujpY65jECs3HDby7s_cOHvYQSzMSBra&si=_4Kf3IBpUbddDKeZ
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlujpY65jECvwu5bHAUsxVDmQDojj8-6Z&si=NwAQUkidc4dwA0vf
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlujpY65jECsApKW1902k5xvAlFJmK4kC&si=BN84Ly6e-wJfC1iw
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlujpY65jECsApKW1902k5xvAlFJmK4kC&si=BN84Ly6e-wJfC1iw
I’ve mentioned my YouTube channel on this stack before. These are the main playlists that will help you to understand the solution to what is truly ailing the Church. And the solution to the problem. It will be a lot to digest, so feel free to take your time and really listen with an open mind and heart, and I believe that you will come up with the same conclusion as I did. The link for the whole channel is this one, click on the playlist tab:
https://youtube.com/@thewizionary1?si=IWPe7kmvcRl3vXqO
Bill, thank you so much for providing these links to your YouTube channel.
Hi Elaine—
You’re welcome.
This is so depressing and disgraceful.