THE CATHOLIC MONITOR

Not a “Accident of History that Pope Pius XII, in the Year 1950, on the Cusp of the Descent… into the Filth of the Sexual Revolution, Solemnly Defined the Bodily Assumption of Mary into Heaven” 

August 15, 2021

The Assumption of Mary had been strongly believed since the earliest times of Church history (in the East as well as in the West). Above is an Egyptian Coptic icon in the Church of St Menas, Cairo. [https://www.fministry.com/2011/08/assumption-of-blessed-virgin-mary.html]

It is of great significance that St. Paul weds the final answer and solution to all our pains and sorrows in this life not only to our adoption as the sons of God, but also to the redemption of our bodies (which unlike Mary’s Bodily Assumption, will not occur until the Final Judgment). Nor is it an accident of history that Pope Pius XII, in the year 1950, on the cusp of the descent of both the world and the Church into the filth of the sexual revolution, solemnly defined the Bodily Assumption of Mary into Heaven.

We might tend to think that Mary’s Bodily Assumption is merely an additional privilege granted to Her by a merciful God, and we might further possess what is probably a mostly unconscious attitude which considers the presence of our own bodies in Heaven as being a not-all-that- important adjunct to our attaining to the Vision of God’s Essence (the Beatific Vision). In this, we would be very wrong. As St. Paul also writes, “For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake; that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” And lest we are tempted to believe that this “life of Jesus in our mortal flesh” refers only to the soul and its presence in mortal flesh during this life. – James Larson

We must keep fighting for the restoration of the Church by exposing the falsehoods and evil that have entered the Church.

We must keep doing this, but we will fail if we don’t pray at Mass and outside Mass for the restoration.

Jesus Christ will restore the Church through His Mother. Independent scholar James Larson explained why:

Rosary to the Interior: For the Purification of the Church 

“The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways, before he made anything from the beginning…. I was with him, forming all things: and was delighted every day, playing before him at all times. Playing in the world: and my delights were to be with the children of men. (Proverbs 8: 22, 30-31).

“For we know that every creature groaneth and travaileth in pain, even till now. And not only it, but ourselves also, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body.” (Romans 8: 22-23).

The two above-quoted passages from Holy Scripture present absolutely contrasting images of human life on this earth. The first, which is applied by the Church to Mary on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (in the Missal of the Traditional Latin Mass), depicts the delight of spiritual childhood, playing before God with the innocence and purity which began for Mary on this earth with the Immaculate Conception, and which culminated with Her Glorious Assumption, Body and Soul, into Heaven. The second resonates with the loss of this spiritual childhood through both original and actual sin, which is the experience of each one of us. The first speaks of radiant perfection and joy achieved; the second, of painful labor, waiting, and hope.

It is of great significance that St. Paul weds the final answer and solution to all our pains and sorrows in this life not only to our adoption as the sons of God, but also to the redemption of our bodies (which unlike Mary’s Bodily Assumption, will not occur until the Final Judgment). Nor is it an accident of history that Pope Pius XII, in the year 1950, on the cusp of the descent of both the world and the Church into the filth of the sexual revolution, solemnly defined the Bodily Assumption of Mary into Heaven.

We might tend to think that Mary’s Bodily Assumption is merely an additional privilege granted to Her by a merciful God, and we might further possess what is probably a mostly unconscious attitude which considers the presence of our own bodies in Heaven as being a not-all-that- important adjunct to our attaining to the Vision of God’s Essence (the Beatific Vision). In this, we would be very wrong. As St. Paul also writes, “For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake; that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” And lest we are tempted to believe that this “life of Jesus in our mortal flesh” refers only to the soul and its presence in mortal flesh during this life, we also have the following from St. Paul:

Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall all indeed rise again: but we shall not all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise again incorruptible: and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption; and this mortal must put on immortality. (1 Cor. 15: 51-53).

What we are dealing with here is an extraordinary work of God’s Mercy, a mercy which applies not only to our souls, but also to our bodies which must eventually be gloriously united to our souls in order to constitute what it means to be fully human.

St. Thomas, in considering the question as to what constitutes the greatest act of God’s Mercy, writes the following:

“A work may be called great in two ways: first, on the part of the mode of action, and thus the work of creation is the greatest work, wherein something is made from nothing; secondly, a work may be called great on account of what is made, and thus the justification of the ungodly, which terminates at the eternal good of a share in the Godhead, is greater than the creation of heaven and earth, which terminates at the good of mutable nature.” (ST I-II, Q. 113. A, 9)

The angels were created, and offered a simple choice – whether to submit to God and His plan for creation, or not. Depending on this single choice – yes, or no – they were either instantly admitted to the Beatific Vision, or were irremediably sentenced for all eternity to Hell. The reason for this is that the angels are pure spirits who apprehend and will “immovably”, and therefore their initial choice, either for or against God and His divine order, was immovable and unchangeable. There could therefore be for them no “justification of the ungodly”.

A very different situation exists with human beings. As long as any man is alive, he exists with a potentiality either to accept or reject God and His Ways. The work of “justification of the ungodly” is therefore exclusively reserved to men. God’s greatest work, His supreme act of Mercy, was therefore reserved for men.

It can be of great profit to us to meditate a bit on the mystery of God’s mysterious creation of such “flesh-bound”, fragile, moveable, changeable creatures as are men. God certainly could have created only purely spiritual creatures (angels) from nothing; and, in St. Thomas’s words, this would have still been the greatest work according to its mode (the creation of something from nothing). But in creating man, he chose to unite an eternal, spiritual soul to what is virtually the smallest, weakest, and inconsequential thing imaginable – a mutable physical body possessing an incredible dependence upon the working of an enormous complexity of fragile and intricate parts and systems with all their growth and change, all of this being integrated with an extraordinarily rich complexity of neurological reactions and sensations, and united to an intellect and will, ever subject to change, and which is called upon to make fundamental free choices in the midst of all this mutability. It might almost seem to us as though God’s mercy could not rest until he reached out and offered Beatitude to the smallest and weakest thing conceivable.

At the very center of this Great Mystery stands Jesus Christ in Whom, for all eternity, was willed the unity of God with man – the Incarnation. And alongside Him, willed and conceived for all eternity in the Heart of the Trinity, was the creation of the Immaculate Body and Soul of a Woman Who was to be His Mother, completely united with Him in His work of redemption, and therefore also the Mother of all men. What began to be on this earth with the Immaculate Conception of Mary within the womb of her mother Anne, was present with God from endless ages. Appropriately, in the first reading for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in the Traditional Latin Mass missal (and tragically omitted from this Feast in the Novus Ordo Mass) is the following description of both this eternal design, and the fundamental choice which inevitably must be made by every human being:

“The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways, before he made any thing from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, and of old before the earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived. neither had the fountains of waters as yet sprung out: The mountains with their huge bulk had not as yet been established: before the hills I was brought forth: 

“He had not yet made the earth, nor the rivers, nor the poles of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was present: when with a certain law and compass he enclosed the depths: When he established the sky above, and poised the fountains of waters: When he compassed the sea with its bounds, and set a law to the waters that they should not pass their limits: when be balanced the foundations of the earth; I was with him forming all things: and was delighted every day, playing before him at all times. Playing in the world: and my delights were to be with the children of men. 
“Now therefore, ye children, hear me: Blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, and that watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors. He that shall find me, shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord: 

“But he that shall sin against me, shall hurt his own soul. All that hate me love death.” (Proverbs *: 22-36)

The last two paragraphs of this passage of scripture set before us an eternal enmity. On the one hand are those who attain to spiritual childhood, find our Lady (and of course also Wisdom, Our Lord, and the Holy Spirit), keep her ways, and find life; and, on the other hand, are those who sin against her, “hurt” their own souls by so doing, and “love death”. It is the same enmity which we read about in the Garden of Eden between the Woman Who shall crush Satan’s head, and the Serpent who “lies in wait for her heel”. (Genesis 3:15). In Mary this victory is fully accomplished in Her Immaculate Conception and Her Assumption, Body and Soul, into Heaven. In each and every man and woman, and in the Church, this victory awaits those who “keep her ways”, and die to this world and the ways of “fallen flesh” in order “that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh.”

Stop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He wants you to do now and next. In this silence remember God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost – Three Divine Persons yet One God, has an ordered universe where you can know truth and falsehood as well as never forget that He wants you to have eternal happiness with Him as his son or daughter by grace. Make this a practice. By doing this you are doing more good than reading anything here or anywhere else on the Internet.

Francis Notes:

– Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church in such a situation:

“[T]he Pope… WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See.”
(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)

Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said “the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church.”
[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]

– “If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html

– “Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html

 –  LifeSiteNews, “Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers,” December 4, 2017:

The AAS guidelines explicitly allows “sexually active adulterous couples facing ‘complex circumstances’ to ‘access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'”

–  On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:

“The AAS statement… establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense.”

– On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:

“Francis’ heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents.”

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.

Election Notes:  

– Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: “212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted…Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden” [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]

– Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times “Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html– Tucker Carlson’s Conservatism Inc. Biden Steal Betrayal is explained by “One of the Greatest Columns ever Written” according to Rush: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/tucker-carlsons-conservatism-inc-biden.html?m=1 – A Hour which will Live in Infamy: 10:01pm November 3, 2020: 
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1 What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs‘”: 
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1] 
Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it. SHARE

Dr. Zelenko: The Pandemic is an international Genocidal Scam which will kill 75-90% of Vaxxed | From Rome

https://www.fromrome.info/2021/08/14/dr-zelenko-the-pandemic-is-an-international-genocidal-scam/

THE CATHOLIC THING

• » What Does God Say? David Warren

FRIDAY, AUGUST 13, 2021“Reason speaks in words alone, but love has a song.”I have lifted this motto from Josef Pieper, who took it from Joseph de Maistre, and who (songfully) reminds us that there are forms of Reason that bypass reason, and yet are perfectly reasonable and comprehensible.The reasoning of poetry is something like this, but I am shy of making the unqualified statement, because poetry is often vague and showy, and not “just so.”De Maistre (who is among my favorite French, or Savoyard, reactionaries, absolutely untroubled by the “spirit of the enlightenment” and other hints of progress) – did not say, and did not mean, “music.” Instead, he referred to a song, which is something else.As we know, in the Middle Ages and before, music was closer to song. This was because it was sung, exclusively, by the human voice or in chorus. The two arts began to depart in more modern time, as instruments confused the issue. A violin can do many things, but it cannot sing. It can sort of sing, but needs conscious playing.A jackhammer, or a buzz saw, or an electric guitar, can make a noise, but not music. Indeed, the development of “rock music,” and further degeneration beyond punk, represents something different again: I would rather not give it a name.Not only has the human voice lapsed, except as a source of unpleasant noise, but song and music have ceased to convey what was conventionally thought of as the contemplative. Music, and song, have become lost arts today, in our march to human extinction. Rather than providing a source of living joy, they are a source of pain and sadness (except where sadness was allied to beauty).But also, as the quotation affirms, singing is distinguished from talk. It communicates, but not what is communicated by talk; for the same reason one doesn’t write a production manual in elegant verse. It is a different kind of thing, as we know instinctively. Or are quite perverse.I got myself into trouble recently by contradicting Pope Francis’s frankly Pelagian (and characteristic) declaration that, “We can only renew ourselves by discerning God’s will in our daily lives.” Several readers insisted that “discernment” had been an “official” part of the Catholic religion from soon after its beginning; and is entirely necessary in such functions as “discerning whether one is called to be a priest or religious.”We are not children, and I will assume that in tongues of fire, or other pronouncements, the divine is not restricted to language. By analogy to human persons, we imagine Our Lord singing, not chatting. In fact, in my Blakean imagination, He goes beyond singing, as also beyond the cliches of extrasensory perception, or magic.In my one believed encounter with Jesus, I noticed that his phrase, “Cross this bridge with me,” was communicated entirely without words, yet entirely unambiguously.*I would go farther and guess that God doesn’t mumble. He would not have difficulty with language – though He might choose to be patiently silent.Beyond this, I guess with less confidence. Is He loud, or has He the proverbial “still small voice”? Does He speak only through the conscience? Or through the intermediation of angels and other mysterious entities? Be assured, that I can’t answer any such question, except, perhaps, on the point of volume.For I am not only much disturbed by viciously ugly noise in my environment, but in my realization of how recent it is. Only a couple of centuries have passed since the loudest noise anyone ever heard was the thunder. No human “tech” had any device to compete with it, regularly, or at all. Peace was normal. The fright caused, by a stroke of lightning in its contact with our world, or at the culmination of another natural disaster, filled many with a holy dread. (Is such fear now religious, holy?)It was a form of music. The birds and grasshoppers (and whales) are equipped with voices; with joy I think, but not with articulate song. The auditor is not told anything coherent. whether useful or not. One could nevertheless listen to this music at one’s leisure, and exult in its kindly senselessness.The human music of mood is like song, but opposite. It has less meaning than we assign to it, for this “mood music” is merely something added, which no words confirm. It is not intrinsic to the music, and the hypnosis can be added in a note jotted above the musical line. (Without words, or the memory of words, it is surprisingly easy to alter the mood of instrumental music, by altering its speed.)On one occasion, embarrassing and memorable, I recall taking advice, nearly involuntarily, from a kindly, but angry, protective angel. I was being told sharply to end what was becoming a tryst. The angel seemed perched on my right shoulder, like a crow. It suggested the phrase, “Get out!”I shouted it immediately, and in the aftermath, I felt I’d been (undeservedly) saved.Now this was a communication from an angel, not God. Even so, it did not require any elaborate exercise of discernment.As in most other matters, for which “discernment” is recommended, and possibly for any of them, the challenge is not to figure out what God wants. This we may learn from our long reading of the Bible and the Saints. Or even from a short reading – if we are candid with ourselves, or willing to check the Catechism when we are unsure.It is why I take such a dim view of that word “discernment,” and am inclined almost to insult those who smugly overuse it. Let me acknowledge that it may have some uses. But let me insist that those uses are not only rare, but vexed. The person who calls for “discernment” is most likely trying to escape a moral imperative.Is God fooled? *Image: Emmaus by Jane Brooks-Gerloff, 1992 [Kornelimünster Abbey, Aachen, Germany]© 2021 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.orgThe Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.About the AuthorLatest ArticlesDavid WarrenDavid Warren is a former editor of the Idler magazine and columnist in Canadian newspapers. He has extensive experience in the Near and Far East. His blog, Essays in Idleness, is now to be found at: davidwarrenonline.com.

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The Taliban Just Gave Biden An Early Christmas Present

August 12, 2021

The Biden White House and the taxpayer-funded refugee movement agenda are working to allow in tens of thousands of Afghanis into the country.

The White House has said that as of July 15 around 20,000 Afghans already applied for their immigration visa, which is not including family. Including family members, the Biden Admin. believes this could go up to around 100,000 migrants who will be brought into the U.S.

The refugee industry, which should probably be said to be the trafficking industry, is jumping at the opportunity to soak up more taxpayer money to bring in more refugees from a third-world nation that will further add to America’s demographic destruction.

“To date, there is no obvious plan about how these allies will be brought to safety,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, leader of the Lutheran Refugee Service resettlement organization, said about the Afghani supporters of the failed war.

“We cannot in good faith put them at risk in third nations with unreliable human-rights histories, or where the Taliban might be able to get to them,” she said.

Thus far, 2,500 Afghans are scheduled to be promptly be resettled to the United States under a program named “Operation Allies Refuge.” The first flight already arrived at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington recently. They will now be processed and bussed to communities across the country.

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Nancy Pelosi Arrests Pro-Life Americans Protesting Her Plan to Fund Abortions

National  |  Micaiah Bilger  |   Aug 13, 2021   |   12:14PM   |  Washington, DChttps://www.facebook.com/v2.5/plugins/share_button.php?app_id=&channel=https%3A%2F%2Fstaticxx.facebook.com%2Fx%2Fconnect%2Fxd_arbiter%2F%3Fversion%3D46%23cb%3Df3e3a1aee600092%26domain%3Dwww.lifenews.com%26is_canvas%3Dfalse%26origin%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.lifenews.com%252Ff2bfc56aab295ee%26relation%3Dparent.parent&container_width=67&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lifenews.com%2F2021%2F08%2F13%2Fnancy-pelosi-arrests-pro-life-americans-protesting-her-plan-to-fund-abortions%2F&locale=en_US&sdk=joey&type=box_count85

Pro-life advocates were arrested Thursday for peacefully protesting against taxpayer-funded abortions on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Stanton Public Policy, the advocacy branch of a pro-life women’s healthcare group, and its Purple Sash Revolution led the protest in support of the Hyde Amendment, according to a press release from the organization.

President Joe Biden and Democrat leaders in Congress are trying to get rid of the long-standing amendment and force taxpayers to fund abortions. The Hyde Amendment prohibits taxpayer funding for elective abortions in Medicaid and other federal programs.

One of the pro-lifers who was arrested was Danielle Versluys, chief operating officer for Stanton Public Policy.

“Last week, Cori Bush was allowed to protest [the eviction moratorium] and camp out for several nights on the Capitol steps. The U.S. Capitol Police stood by and watched …” she said in a statement. “Yesterday, Stanton Public Policy members took our message to the very same public platform as Congresswoman Bush, asking Congress to protect our most vulnerable citizens — babies in the womb.”

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The pro-life advocates carried signs that read “Taxpayers shouldn’t pay for abortion violence,” “Pro-life for the whole life,” “Hyde saves human lives” and “Birth is a human right.” In less than 10 minutes, however, she said they were arrested by Capitol Police.

“We were peaceful, respectful, and asking simply for the same rights afforded Ms. Bush. Instead, our message was swiftly silenced,” Versluys said.

The pro-life organization is discussing its legal options after the arrests.

Stanton Public Policy slammed the U.S. Capitol Sergeant at Arms and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a pro-abortion Democrat, for trampling on their First Amendment rights by allowing some people to protest their causes on the Capitol steps while prohibiting others from doing the same.

The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, chief strategy officer for the pro-life organization, warned Americans of the implications of such treatment by America’s top leaders.

“America and freedom are endangered when political elites can arrest citizens in the public square just because they disagree with their message,” Stanton said.

Pelosi and other Democrat leaders are trying to get rid of the Hyde Amendment in federal spending bills and force taxpayers to pay for the killing of unborn babies in elective abortions.

Since 1976, the Hyde Amendment has saved an estimated 2.5 million babies’ lives, including about 60,000 each year, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

Polls consistently show that most Americans oppose taxpayer funding for abortions.

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THE CATHOLIC MONITOR

Are Where Peter Is & the Dissenting National Catholic Reporter part of a Francis Power Play to Protect Gay Sex Abusers?

August 14, 2021

Even the liberal Anne Barrett Doyle, the co-director of the left-leaning Bishops Accountability victims group, said the Vatican’s power play was “truly incredible”: 

“What we see here is the Vatican again trying to suppress even modest progress by the U.S. bishops,” she told reporters outside the conference, where her group is holding several events, including a press event where it called for all U.S. bishops to resign en masse. “We’re seeing where the problem lies, which is with the Vatican.”
[https://www.thedailybeast.com/pope-francis-just-pulled-a-power-play-on-american-bishops-at-crucial-conference] – Catholic Monitor 

It appears that Francis Catholic media such as Where Peter Is is part of Francis’s power play to protect gay sex abusers:

“[B]laming gay men for this abuse crisis is simply scapegoating. The problem isn’t gay men… The problem, as Pope Francis rightly stated, is ‘the abuse of power’ and ‘clericalism.'”
(Where Peter Is, “The Gay Scapegoat, an Exercise in Unjust Discrimination,” August 22, 2018)

On 12, 2018, the liberal Daily Beast headline said it best:

“Pope Francis Just Pulled a Power Play on American Bishops at Crucial Conference”

Even the liberal Anne Barrett Doyle, the co-director of the left-leaning Bishops Accountability victims group, said the Vatican’s power play was “truly incredible”: 

“What we see here is the Vatican again trying to suppress even modest progress by the U.S. bishops,” she told reporters outside the conference, where her group is holding several events, including a press event where it called for all U.S. bishops to resign en masse. “We’re seeing where the problem lies, which is with the Vatican.”
[https://www.thedailybeast.com/pope-francis-just-pulled-a-power-play-on-american-bishops-at-crucial-conference]

The gay activist Michael Sean Winters writing for the dissenting Francis National Catholic Reporter explained that the Francis’s power play was about protecting the gay sex abusers from “procedures and policies which might help police the crime of sex abuse” and not to “blame the gays” for their sex abuse:

“The pope doesn’t talk in his sleep and they don’t let us listen at the door if he did. But, the obvious place to start finding an answer came in the address delivered by Archbishop Christophe Pierre [who is speaking for Pope Francis], the apostolic nuncio, immediately following the announcement…”

‘… The U.S. bishops’ conference proposals were too narrowly focused on procedures and policies which might help police the crime of sex abuse but they did not get to the root of the problem, the clerical culture that led bishops to think more about their own reputations than about the welfare of children exposed to sexual predators.”

“As I noted this morning, there are two meta-narratives competing to become the overarching frame for the bishops’ response to the sex abuse mess, the “blame the gays” narrative we saw at First Things and on EWTN in recent weeks, or the clerical culture narrative. Pierre clearly applied the latter:”

 ‘We cry for the injustices perpetrated upon victims of abuse. We vow to fight a clerical culture that tolerates the abuse of authority. When abuse occurs, it is our sin and we must take it as such. These are not the sins of the media or the products of vast conspiracies. These are things we must recognize and fix. Our Holy Father has said it must end, and it must — not simply because he has said it, but because each of us in our hearts know that this is the only right thing to do.’

“He did not ‘blame the gays.’ He did not suggest that a failure to clearly articulate the church’s sexual ethics was the problem. He did not echo the complaints and concerns, still less the technocratic and puritanical solutions, discussed at the conference on “Authentic Reform,” that my colleague Heidi Schlumpf reported on. The problem is “a clerical culture that tolerates the abuse of authority. Punto.”
[https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/bishops-meeting-bombshell-vatican-says-no-voting-abuse-crisis]

Francis’s power play in calling homosexual sexual abuse “clericalism” or even pedophilia is a lie unless he is accusing himself of clericalism or pointing his finger at himself.

There has been clericalism in the Church since St. Paul rebuked St. Peter for a type of clericalism, but never has the Church experienced a crisis of the gravity of the present largely gay sex abuse scandal which is being represented as a pedophile crisis.

Attorney and international child rights advocate Liz Yore refuted this misrepresentation of the scandal with facts:

“Largely it’s not a pedophile crisis,” Yore said. “We know from the John Jay report, 81-percent of the victims were males, mostly teens. And we know because our subclass of predators are all male, this is a male-on-male crime, and primarily with teens between the ages of 14 to 17. Those are the victims.”

“The grand jury report also highlighted that,” she said. “Seminarians who are over the age of consent, that they too were victims, nevertheless, they’re crimes, all of them, some federal crimes, some state crimes.”
{https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.lifesitenews.com/mobile/news/sex-abuse-crisis-in-us-catholic-church-is-about-homosexuality-not-pedophili#ampshare=https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/sex-abuse-crisis-in-us-catholic-church-is-about-homosexuality-not-pedophili]

Yore clearly showed that it is not a pedophile crisis, but a homosexual sexual abuse crisis.

But even if is it was a pedophile crisis, Francis’s power play in calling the so-called pedophile scandal “clericalism” is a lie except in the sense that Francis is using the full clerical power of the papacy to protect homosexual pedophile sex abusers.

The clericalism finger is pointing directly at Francis.

In this sense, clericalism is the problem because Francis is abusing his clerical authority to protect gay sex abusers. So if he is going call the sex abuse crisis clericalism then the finger points mainly to Francis and his gay sex abuse protecting inner circle.

That Francis and his appointed Vatican consultant Fr. James Martin are building a bridge to hell using this abuse of clerical authority can clearly be seen when you substitute the word pedophile for gay or LGBT and other gay activist language as quoted from Martin’s WMOF speech in the Catholic Herald:

– Headline: “Fr. James Martin critiques [‘pedophilephobic’] pastors at WMOF”

– “‘[W]elcome [pedophile] persons’… into parish life.”

– “Don’t reduce [pedophile] people to the call to chastity.”

-“The priest said those with [‘pedophilephobic’] pastors, ‘either silently or overtly,’ are ‘out of luck.'”

-“[L]isten to [pedophile] parishioners;. ‘trust that the Holy Spirit will guide them’… rather than ‘simply repeating Church teachings without considering their [pedophile] lived experience.”
(Catholic Herald, August 23, 2017)

Don’t forget Church Militant’s September 20, 2017 headline where we substitute pedophile for homosexual:

– “Father Martin: [Pedophiles] not Bound to Chastity”

The point is there is no reason under the sun not to justify pedophile behavior if one uses Martin and Francis language in justifying gay behavior in the Church.

There is no reason not to justify pedophile crimes using Francis/Martin-speak when one substitutes pedophile for gay:

– “Who am I to judge” [pedophiles].

– “God made you like this” [pedophiles].

– That is the “lived experience” of [pedophiles].

– [Pedophile] “discrimination… should be avoided.”

Here is one that even conservative Catholics were using in the earlier part of the McCarrick scandal:

“It is consensual” so it’s not that big a deal and can be taken care of in the confessional.

What Fr. Z said of Martin applies to the Francis Catholic media and in the long run to the pedophilia and gay sex abuse cover ups of the Francis Vatican:

“[T]his is part of a larger, concerted effort to normalize sodomy, which is a sin that ‘cries to heaven’… Martin’s talk is a nightmare of manipulation and misdirection… they use ‘lived experience’ to justify whatever the hell they want.”
(Fr.Z’s Blog, “@JamesMartinSJ talk at #WMOF18,” August 23, 2018)

The Francis/Martin language “is a nightmare of manipulation and misdirection” that is a bridge to hell.

Stop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He wants you to do now and next. In this silence remember God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost – Three Divine Persons yet One God, has an ordered universe where you can know truth and falsehood as well as never forget that He wants you to have eternal happiness with Him as his son or daughter by grace. Make this a practice. By doing this you are doing more good than reading anything here or anywhere else on the Internet.

Francis Notes:

– Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church in such a situation:

“[T]he Pope… WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See.”
(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)

Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said “the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church.”
[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]

– “If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html

– “Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html

 –  LifeSiteNews, “Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers,” December 4, 2017:

The AAS guidelines explicitly allows “sexually active adulterous couples facing ‘complex circumstances’ to ‘access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'”

–  On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:

“The AAS statement… establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense.”

– On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:

“Francis’ heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents.”

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.

Election Notes:  

– Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: “212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted…Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden” [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]

– Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times “Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html– Tucker Carlson’s Conservatism Inc. Biden Steal Betrayal is explained by “One of the Greatest Columns ever Written” according to Rush: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/tucker-carlsons-conservatism-inc-biden.html?m=1 – A Hour which will Live in Infamy: 10:01pm November 3, 2020: 
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1 What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs‘”: 
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1] 
Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it. 

What Does God Say?

David Warren

FRIDAY, AUGUST 13, 2021

“Reason speaks in words alone, but love has a song.”

I have lifted this motto from Josef Pieper, who took it from Joseph de Maistre, and who (songfully) reminds us that there are forms of Reason that bypass reason, and yet are perfectly reasonable and comprehensible.

The reasoning of poetry is something like this, but I am shy of making the unqualified statement, because poetry is often vague and showy, and not “just so.”

De Maistre (who is among my favorite French, or Savoyard, reactionaries, absolutely untroubled by the “spirit of the enlightenment” and other hints of progress) – did not say, and did not mean, “music.” Instead, he referred to a song, which is something else.

As we know, in the Middle Ages and before, music was closer to song. This was because it was sung, exclusively, by the human voice or in chorus. The two arts began to depart in more modern time, as instruments confused the issue. A violin can do many things, but it cannot sing. It can sort of sing, but needs conscious playing.

A jackhammer, or a buzz saw, or an electric guitar, can make a noise, but not music. Indeed, the development of “rock music,” and further degeneration beyond punk, represents something different again: I would rather not give it a name.

Not only has the human voice lapsed, except as a source of unpleasant noise, but song and music have ceased to convey what was conventionally thought of as the contemplative. Music, and song, have become lost arts today, in our march to human extinction. Rather than providing a source of living joy, they are a source of pain and sadness (except where sadness was allied to beauty).

But also, as the quotation affirms, singing is distinguished from talk. It communicates, but not what is communicated by talk; for the same reason one doesn’t write a production manual in elegant verse. It is a different kind of thing, as we know instinctively. Or are quite perverse.

I got myself into trouble recently by contradicting Pope Francis’s frankly Pelagian (and characteristic) declaration that, “We can only renew ourselves by discerning God’s will in our daily lives.” Several readers insisted that “discernment” had been an “official” part of the Catholic religion from soon after its beginning; and is entirely necessary in such functions as “discerning whether one is called to be a priest or religious.”

We are not children, and I will assume that in tongues of fire, or other pronouncements, the divine is not restricted to language. By analogy to human persons, we imagine Our Lord singing, not chatting. In fact, in my Blakean imagination, He goes beyond singing, as also beyond the cliches of extrasensory perception, or magic.

In my one believed encounter with Jesus, I noticed that his phrase, “Cross this bridge with me,” was communicated entirely without words, yet entirely unambiguously.

I would go farther and guess that God doesn’t mumble. He would not have difficulty with language – though He might choose to be patiently silent.

Beyond this, I guess with less confidence. Is He loud, or has He the proverbial “still small voice”? Does He speak only through the conscience? Or through the intermediation of angels and other mysterious entities? Be assured, that I can’t answer any such question, except, perhaps, on the point of volume.

For I am not only much disturbed by viciously ugly noise in my environment, but in my realization of how recent it is. Only a couple of centuries have passed since the loudest noise anyone ever heard was the thunder. No human “tech” had any device to compete with it, regularly, or at all. Peace was normal. The fright caused, by a stroke of lightning in its contact with our world, or at the culmination of another natural disaster, filled many with a holy dread. (Is such fear now religious, holy?)

It was a form of music. The birds and grasshoppers (and whales) are equipped with voices; with joy I think, but not with articulate song. The auditor is not told anything coherent. whether useful or not. One could nevertheless listen to this music at one’s leisure, and exult in its kindly senselessness.

The human music of mood is like song, but opposite. It has less meaning than we assign to it, for this “mood music” is merely something added, which no words confirm. It is not intrinsic to the music, and the hypnosis can be added in a note jotted above the musical line. (Without words, or the memory of words, it is surprisingly easy to alter the mood of instrumental music, by altering its speed.)

On one occasion, embarrassing and memorable, I recall taking advice, nearly involuntarily, from a kindly, but angry, protective angel. I was being told sharply to end what was becoming a tryst. The angel seemed perched on my right shoulder, like a crow. It suggested the phrase, “Get out!”

I shouted it immediately, and in the aftermath, I felt I’d been (undeservedly) saved.

Now this was a communication from an angel, not God. Even so, it did not require any elaborate exercise of discernment.

As in most other matters, for which “discernment” is recommended, and possibly for any of them, the challenge is not to figure out what God wants. This we may learn from our long reading of the Bible and the Saints. Or even from a short reading – if we are candid with ourselves, or willing to check the Catechism when we are unsure.

It is why I take such a dim view of that word “discernment,” and am inclined almost to insult those who smugly overuse it. Let me acknowledge that it may have some uses. But let me insist that those uses are not only rare, but vexed. The person who calls for “discernment” is most likely trying to escape a moral imperative.

Is God fooled?

*Image: Emmaus by Jane Brooks-Gerloff, 1992 [Kornelimünster Abbey, Aachen, Germany]

© 2021 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.orgThe Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

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David Warren

David Warren is a former editor of the Idler magazine and columnist in Canadian newspapers. He has extensive experience in the Near and Far East. His blog, Essays in Idleness, is now to be found at: davidwarrenonline.com.

Pope Francis’ motu proprio on the usus antiquior defeats its own stated purposes

Vatican II did not intend to bring a new, distinct church into being, as the “hermeneutic of rupture” assumed, and therefore its ancient liturgical traditions could be preserved without any violence being done to the council’s true agenda.

August 12, 2021 Matthew Cullinan Hoffman Features, Opinion 19Print

Pope Francis new motu proprio on the traditional liturgy of the Roman Rite is, as so many commentators have already observed, a shockingly draconian exercise of papal authority, one that strikes at the heart of the spiritual life for millions of Catholics. In effect, the pope is seeking to exclude from parish churches – and ultimately to eliminate – a liturgical usage that has defined the religious culture of Catholics for centuries, a tradition stretching back in an organic continuum to the earliest days of the Church. If Pope Benedict’s own motu proprio Summorum pontificum is to be taken seriously, the legal validity of such a move would seem be inadmissible, and many bishops appear to be dumbfounded by its implications.

But this strange document, so filled with contradictions and unanswered questions, is no less shocking for its self-defeating nature. It appears to be designed to achieve precisely the opposite of its stated goals, principally the defense of the Second Vatican Council. It seems that after so many years of suspicion regarding Pope Francis’ ultimate agenda, he has finally shown his hand, and his hand is nothing less than a souped-up version of the “hermeneutic of rupture” that unleashed chaos in the Church during the 1960s and 70s, and has continued to undermine the credibility of Vatican II since the council’s completion in 1965.

In 1988, the then-cardinal Josef Ratzinger, as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, lamented this interpretation of Vatican II and identified it as the source of the conflict that had led to the scandalous ordination of bishops by Archbishop Marcel Lefevbre that same year. In a speech to the bishops of Chile, Ratzinger claimed that cause of the break was found in a false understanding of the council that treated it like a revolutionary rejection of the historic faith, rather than an application of perennial teaching in the context of contemporary society.

“Certainly there is a mentality of narrow views that isolate Vatican II and which has provoked this opposition [of Archbishop Lefevbre],” Ratzinger told the bishops of Chile. “There are many accounts of it which give the impression that, from Vatican II onward, everything has been changed, and that what preceded it has no value or, at best, has value only in the light of Vatican II.”

“The Second Vatican Council has not been treated as a part of the entire living Tradition of the Church, but as an end of Tradition, a new start from zero,” said Ratzinger. “The truth is that this particular Council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of superdogma which takes away the importance of all the rest.”

Ratzinger told the bishops that the free-for-all innovations in the Latin rite, together with the prohibition of traditional liturgical forms, had given force to criticisms of Vatican II, adding, “That which previously was considered most holy — the form in which the liturgy was handed down — suddenly appears as the most forbidden of all things, the one thing that can safely be prohibited.”

Cardinal Ratzinger understood quite well that people were taking refuge in the 1962 missal because they saw it as a bulwark against the ambiguities and liturgical chaos that were unleashed during the liturgical reform of the late 1960s, a reform that is increasingly seen today as inconsistent with the intentions of Vatican II itself.

“While there are many motives that might have led a great number of people to seek a refuge in the traditional liturgy, the chief one is that they find the dignity of the sacred preserved there,” Ratzinger told the Chilean bishops, adding that the liturgical reform had been used as a vehicle for a program of what he called “desacralization,” the elimination of the sense of the sacred from the sacramental life of the Church.

Pope Benedict’s decision to do away with earlier restrictions on the traditional mass was made in part to help reverse this desacralizing tendency in the liturgy, but also to counteract the false narrative that the Church intended to repudiate its own history with Vatican II. The council did not intend to bring a new, distinct church into being, as the “hermeneutic of rupture” assumed, and therefore its ancient liturgical traditions could be preserved without any violence being done to the council’s true agenda.

There was no conflict between the old and the new, according to Ratzinger, and later Pope Bendict XVI. The heremenutic of rupture was a false one, and the true interpretive lens was a “hermeneutic of continuity” with the past. Proving this by eliminating most restrictions on the missal of 1962 and acknowledging its legitimacy was a major element in his effort to place Vatican II within the continuum of Catholic tradition. Pope Benedict expressed his hope that the old and new usages would gradually enrich each other, to the benefit of the whole Church.

Pope Francis’ motu proprio Traditionis custodes and its accompanying explanatory letter appears to be seeking to restore the very same state of affairs that Cardinal Ratzinger was addressing in 1988. Until that year, Catholics who wished to participate in the more ancient usage or “usus antiquior” of the Roman rite were excluded from the parish churches, and could only celebrate at irregular times with the permission of their bishop. The papal indult that outlined this system was first issued by Pope Paul VI in 1974 for the United Kingdom only, and then was expanded ten years later by Pope John Paul II to apply to all Latin rite dioceses worldwide.

This restricted permission to use the traditional liturgy provided useful evidence that the usus antiquiorof the Roman rite had never been eliminated from the Church, but also indicated to traditionalists that the ancient usage was seen as dangerous for the post-Vatican II regime, so much so that it had to be contained and isolated from the rest of the Church. Traditionalists and their liturgy were in effect placed in a quarantine, as if they were somehow ill and dangerously contagious, or perhaps a second class of ecclesiastical citizen in a system of liturgical segregation.

Pope John Paul II wisely brought this system to an end in 1988, by urging diocesan bishops to accommodate lay groups that preferred the ancient usage and by lifting the prohibition of the liturgy in parish churches. A Vatican dicastery was created, the Pontifical Ecclesia Dei Commission, to provide for the needs of liturgical traditionalists and to provide mediation with the Holy See and the bishops. Eventually, in an attempt to integrate traditionalists further into the life of the institutional Church and even to promote the use of the ancient liturgical forms, Pope Benedict famously eliminated the need to obtain permission to celebrate according to the usus antiquior and mandated the Tridentine form of the rite be “duly honoured for its venerable and ancient usages.” The traditional liturgy was now on firmer canonical and theological ground.

The massive, global response to Summorum pontificum is well-documented, and its effects are clear to any careful observer. The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter and other orders in the Church stepped forward to prove that the traditional liturgy could exist and even thrive within the post-Vatican II Church, always in cooperation and with the permission of the diocesan bishop. Millions of Catholics became aware of the riches of the traditions of the Latin rite, and the perceived need for separatist solutions, such as those offered by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X, was significantly reduced. The scandal of liturgical abuses, which had led so many away from the Church in preceding decades, was reduced by the counterexample provided by the traditional liturgical forms.

I can say from my own experience that Pope Benedict’s motu proprio, Summorum pontificum, had a tremendous effect in this regard in Mexico, where a large number of independent chapels, mostly led by sedevacantist clergy, had been offering some version of the ancient usage for decades. Now the traditional liturgy is offered at parish churches to Mexicans who identify with the liturgy of their ancestors, particularly those of the Cristeros, who gave their lives in defense of the Catholic faith in the 1920s and 30s. These traditional mass apostolates have flourished and have functioned in harmony with the institutional Church, and with its approval. They have not been sources of division, but profound sources of unity with the visible, institutional Church, a testimony to the continuity of the faith.

Pope Francis’ new motu proprio and accompanying letter place this whole policy in reverse, and seem to ignore the painful experience of the Church in the decades prior to 1988. In essence, the pope is claiming that the usus antiquior is so dangerous to the purposes of Vatican II that it must be placed back into its previous quarantine and ultimately eliminated entirely, in contradiction to Pope Benedict’s admonition in Summorum pontificum that “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.” It is as if Francis has decided that Vatican II really does require the elimination of the Church’s traditional liturgical practices, as critics of the council have so long claimed.

Although Pope Francis decries deviations from the approved texts of the Novus Ordo Missae of Paul VI,he offers no recognition of the grave losses to the liturgical tradition of the Church that occurred following the council, even the loss of elements that Vatican II explicitly ordered to be conserved and promoted. He notably ignores the loss of liturgical Latin, Gregorian Chant, the silent canon, the ad orientem posture of the priest, and other generic elements that characterize the most profound elements of the Latin rite, and even mutatis mutandis, the Eastern rites. Although these elements can be used in the Novus Ordo, in practice they are almost never found there, and Catholics can encounter them almost exclusively in the pre-1969 liturgical books.

Now they are being told that this shelter from the liturgical storm is to be eliminated, in order to protect the reputation of Vatican II. How can this have any positive effect for the reputation of the council?

Pope Francis claims, without offering any specific proofs, that, “the instrumental use of Missale Romanum of 1962 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.’” This begs the question: how can the usus antiquior be instrumentalized in this way if there is no conflict between Vatican II and the Church’s liturgical traditions? Shouldn’t it be a simple matter to prove that Vatican II never mandated the elimination of the traditional elements of the Roman rite? Indeed, it is, but by remaining silent about this, Pope Francis allows the opposite conclusion to stand, and only promotes the perception of a conflict between Vatican II and liturgical tradition.

The inevitable effect, insofar as this motu proprio is truly implemented, will be to drive liturgical traditionalists into the arms of groups, such as the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X, which expressly reject the authority of Vatican II and blame it for the liturgical revolution – status quo ante, if you will excuse the Latin. It will thus achieve the opposite of its stated purpose, and strangely almost seems designed to do so.

In his enthusiasm to eliminate the usus antiquior, the pope even seeks to downplay the fact that the Roman rite was never the only rite permitted in the Latin Church, and seems to treat liturgical diversity itself as a threat to the integral unity of the Church. In reality, both the Latin Rite and Eastern Rite churches have enjoyed a rich variety of liturgical practices from time immemorial. The pope’s ahistorical reasoning might have sinister overtones for Catholics who are integrated into the dozens of other rites that exist in the Eastern churches: if a single rite is necessary for unity in the Latin Church, why would this not be true of the Church as a whole?

Pope Benedict told us in 2007 that “there is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture.” The best way to ensure this outcome, and to ensure true unity in the Church, is to protect the fullness of the historical Roman rite, and to show respect for what Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict called the “legitimate aspirations” of those who are attached to its traditions. Pope Francis’ new motu proprio will only undermine that intention.

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About Matthew Cullinan Hoffman 16 ArticlesMatthew Cullinan Hoffman is a Catholic essayist and journalist, and the author and translator of The Book of Gomorrah and St. Peter Damian’s Struggle Against Ecclesiastical Corruption (2015). His award-winning articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, London Sunday Times, Catholic World Report, LifeSite News, Crisis, the National Catholic Register, and many other publications. He holds an M.A. in Philosophy from Holy Apostles College and Seminary, with a focus on Thomism. He has attended the usus antiquior for a quarter century. He lives in Mexico.

SPIRITED THINKING SINCE 1888

The Vatican Trials: A Breakdown 

Christopher R. AltieriAugust 13, 2021 at 1:23 pm

After the preliminary audience in the Vatican’s maxi-trial of Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu and nine others on charges they bilked, swindled, hoodwinked, cheated, threatened, extorted, and/or stole millions from the Vatican, the business has taken on the look and feel of a phoney war. Don’t be deceived. The preliminary hearing on July 27th in Vatican City was basically a pre-trial hearing – a procedural prelude – with the next session in late October and those to follow it promising blood, steel, and fire (or at least major fireworks). 

THE CATHOLIC MONITOR

Taylor Marshall’s & 1P5 Tim Flanders’ Champion Ryan Grant vs. Renowned Latin Language Expert Br. Bugnolo on Francis’s Validity 

August 13, 2021

Finally, it appears that Grant is claiming that Br. Bugnolo is wrong on a number of subjects so the Catholic Monitor thought it would be helpful to understand the Francis is infallibly definitely the pope position by presenting Benedict is the pope Bugnolo’s take on Grant’s quoted arguments as well as his counter arguments.

Let’s get ready to rumble!

Here is the Italian Stallion Bugnolo vs. the Pipe Smoker Grant – Catholic Monitor

Taylor Marshall and Tim Flanders in their YouTube get together last year apparently abandoned Steve Skojec’s weak “universal acceptance” theories and took as their champion for their Francis is infallibly definitely the pope position: 

Latinist Ryan Grant’s theories as a backbone of their position.

Grant is not a canon lawyer or theologian so his only claim to be listened to is his Latin language translation skills.

How good a Latin language translator is Ryan Grant compared to Latin language scholar Br. Alexis Bugnolo?

The renowned Latin language expert Br. Bugnolo was the editor of the Franciscan Archive as publisher, project coordinator and translator of Bonaventure and Lombard.

If one googles Br. Alexis Bugnolo and books.google, one finds Bugnolo’s name as well as translations mentioned over and over again in footnotes and text.

Grant wrote for Steve Skojec’s One Peter Five and according to that blog’s biography of him his Latin language scholarly background is:

“Ryan Grant… taught Latin for seven years.”
(One Peter Five, “Author: Ryan Grant”)

The Latin teacher is not a theologian or a canon law expert. The apparent only reason any one should even bother to listen to him is because he has done some Latin translations of St. Robert Bellarmine and St. Alphonsus.

Here is renowned Latin language expert Br. Bugnolo’s assessment of one of Ryan’s Latin translations:

“The passages I have examined in his [Grant’s] translation of St. Alphonsus have more than one error in every sentence, and hence I conclude they are worthless for anyone to use.”
(From Rome, ” From Straw Man to Superstition,” February 5, 2020)

Grant who has possibly not top flight skills in Latin translation according to the assessment a Latin language scholar and is not a canon law expert or a theologian on the Taylor Marshall YouTube ignored canon 17 and claimed ministerium and munus are a “metonym,” that is a synonym or near synonym:

“[Grant said:] In Benedict, it is like you know, ministry, he is using, he is probably using it as a metonym and it is common to use one thing for the other.”
(Dr. Taylor Marshall YouTube channel, “Can Popes become Heretics? St. Robert Bellarmine Analysis, January 31, 2020, 147:17-147:24)

On the show Grant said:

“If I ever come out and say I am a theologian take me out to the wood shed and beat me.”
(144:08-144:13)

Why is Grant who stated on the YouTube show that he was not a “theologian” and claims no expertise in canon law ignoring canon 17?

Canon lawyer Edward Peters explains canon 17’s importance:

“Canon 17… states ‘if the meaning [of the law, and UDG is a law] remains doubtful and obscure, recourse must be made to parallel places.”
(Catholic World Report, “Francis was never pope? Call me unpersuaded,” September 28, 2017)

Finally, it appears that Grant is claiming that Br. Bugnolo is wrong on a number of subjects so the Catholic Monitor thought it would be helpful to understand the Francis is infallibly definitely the pope position by presenting Benedict is the pope Bugnolo’s take on Grant’s quoted arguments as well as his counter arguments.

Let’s get ready to rumble!

Here is the Italian Stallion Bugnolo vs. the Pipe Smoker Grant:

One such argumentor is Ryan Grant, and he bravely makes his argument on YouTube in the comment section of some video — where I do not know — but I have been sent screen shots of it, and will use them to make a further reply.Ryan Grant is the translator of some of the writings of Saint Alphonsus. I do not think he has studied Canon Law, but then I do not know anything more about him.So here we go… The context of his comments is the contents of PPBXVI.org the banner site for the Movement for Pope Benedict XVI, which does not have a comment section, . . ..

Here is my reply, which I was solicited for by Grant’s interlocutor, who is a frequent commentator here at FromRome.Info:While it is true that the Supreme Legislator is the Roman Pontiff and that he has the right and capacity to authoritatively interpret his own acts, Mons. Arrieta, Secretary to the Pontifical Council for Legal Texts, affirmed on Dec. 11, 2019, that the act of a papal renunciation is not subject to the interpretation of anyone, because it must be clear in and of itself, and no on has the right to interpret it, not even the one who makes it. And as Saint Alphonsus, who held a doctorate in both civil and canon law, says in his tract on Legal Interpretation, to interpret a word to mean that which it does not in normal parlance or legal tradition mean is an act of interpretation which can only be done by the legislator in a second and subsequent act. Therefore, though you are correct to say that the Roman Pontiff can normally interpret his acts, this is one act of which even an interpretation issued in forma specifica cannot correct via an interpretation. Indeed, as Mons Arrieta affirmed there never was a papal interpretation made of the act before Feb 29, 2013. So your objection is unfounded as to the matter and erroneous as to the form of your claim. This is how canon law really works, if you knew anything real about it.Grant rebuts my argument, thus:

Grant makes the common fallacy of thinking that the one who resigns the papal office is the Pope. Nope! An act of papal resignation, as affirmed by Dr. Ghirlanda, S.J., professor of Canon Law here at Rome, in an article he published in March of 2013, affirms correctly that an act of renunciation of office is an act whereby one separates himself from the office he holds. — But the office cannot separate itself from itself.  — While it is true Canon 332 §2 speaks of that man as the Roman Pontiff, that is simply because prior to the act of renunciation the substance of the one acting bears that exalted dignity.So Grant misapplies the principle, The First See is judged by no one, because he failed to notice that the one who resigns is not the See nor the Pontiff, but the man who holds the latter and occupies the former. Otherwise, if we are NOT talking about a papal resignation, then the principle applies to the Pope at all times. So Grant’s argument begins with a fallacy of fact and proceeds to a fallacy praeter rem. Thus it is invalid on two grounds.Having been defeated on the point of legal interpretation, by my first reply, Grant, next, attempts to argue that the behavior of Pope Benedict XVI after Feb. 28, 2013 manifests his intention and his mind, and thus serves as an interpretation of the act. This is an argument which no canonist would ever make, since behavior is not a juridical act. But even common sense can see that since the Canon requires a Renunciation, and as all good Latinists know, a renutiare is an act which is verbal, not one made by gestures or actions, his argument is also praeter rem, and presupposes a fallacy of not reading the Canon in its precise terms. For the canon says, “If a Roman Pontiff renounce,” not, “If a Roman Pontiff separate himself from his office.”His next argument is drawn from my published notes on my meeting with Bishop Arrieta. You can read my notes for yourself here. — This means that Grant does read FromRome.Info, even if he is ashamed to admit it. — Well, then, Grant is confused. Because you cannot admit principles and then try to undermine them by personal testimony. Bishop Arrieta and I agreed on many principles, and in my notes I pointed out that my questions regarding where we disagreed were never answered. So Grant is saying that since Bishop Arrieta does not agree with me but refused to give me a reason for his disagreement, which is in accord with any principle of law, that that means that I am wrong and Arrieta is correct. I do not think sane people argue this way, but that is not a valid argument, because it cites no reason.

Next, Grant admits that no one can interpret the Act of renunciation, and then argues that since Barnhardt and I say it means what it says, but Arrieta says it means something else, that clearly Barnhardt and I are wrong. This is the same kind of mental argumentation I see often by those who say Benedict is not the pope. It is called gaslighting, because Grant is insisting on something contrary to the basic laws of language, namely when you explain anything using different words you are interpreting the statement which you are explaining. Ann and I do not do that. Grant and Arrieta do. So they are condemned by the very principles they admit, even if they insist that others view reality in their own distorted manner. This is so like the Left!Finally, Grant gets into big ontological problems with his assertion that ministry and power flow from the munus and thus to renounce them is to renounce the munus. I guess he cannot understand my Scholastic Question, which was all about the distinction found in all the Scholastics like Saint Thomas Aquinas, that the substance holds all the potentia of the being of a thing, and thus to renounce anything which flows from the substance is not and cannot be a renunciation of the substance, just like when you renounce staying away and thus fall asleep, you still have the power and being to wake again in the morning. Once again, then, Grant argues against reality itself. What can I say? I do not have to refute him, reality itself does that more eloquently.As for his assertion that canonists all agree with him, that is gratuitous. I do not know of any canonist in the entire Church who has marshaled an argument for Grant’s position. Not even Bishop Arrieta. All you get in reply is assertions without arguments. And in logic, that means you have conceded that your position is irrational, and thus untrue, unless of course you are an idiot who cannot think or reason, which none of these men are.There is another error in Grant’s argument, and Mons. Arrieta made the same error: they both hold that the Canon says, “If a Roman Pontiff renounce his office.” But that is not what it says; it says, “If a Roman Pontiff renounce his munus.” Canon 1331 in section 2, n. 4, shows that the Code of Canon Law distinguishes between munus and office. That means that the specific act essential to a papal renunciation does require the renunciation of munus, and that means, that both the liberty and due manifestation required, also regard the renunciation of the munus. This is a very important point, and is the key argument to use against all of Pope Benedict’s opponents. They have to use this fallacious reading, because they can see that the text of the Declaratio is not in conformity with the Canon.

Now I understand why Grant does not want to argue with me directly. I have challenged everyone to a debate, even 3 Pontifical Faculties of Canon Law, no one takes my offer, because they do not want to expose that their position is irrational and not sustained by the principles of law. — However, I grant this to Ryan, he has had the integrity to argue it in public. I respect him for that.[https://fromrome.info/2020/02/01/answering-questions-from-ryan-grant/]

Stop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He wants you to do now and next. In this silence remember God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost – Three Divine Persons yet One God, has an ordered universe where you can know truth and falsehood as well as never forget that He wants you to have eternal happiness with Him as his son or daughter by grace. Make this a practice. By doing this you are doing more good than reading anything here or anywhere else on the Internet.

Francis Notes:

– Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church in such a situation:

“[T]he Pope… WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See.”
(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)

Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said “the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church.”
[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]

– “If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html

– “Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html

 –  LifeSiteNews, “Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers,” December 4, 2017:

The AAS guidelines explicitly allows “sexually active adulterous couples facing ‘complex circumstances’ to ‘access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'”

–  On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:

“The AAS statement… establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense.”

– On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:

“Francis’ heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents.”

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.

Election Notes: 

– Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: “212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted…Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden” [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]

– Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times “Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html– Tucker Carlson’s Conservatism Inc. Biden Steal Betrayal is explained by “One of the Greatest Columns ever Written” according to Rush: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/tucker-carlsons-conservatism-inc-biden.html?m=1 – A Hour which will Live in Infamy: 10:01pm November 3, 2020: 
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1 What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs‘”: 
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1] 
Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it. SHARE