Tuesday, July 31, 2018

THE CATHOLIC MONITOR

Alone it is Bishop Gracida against Francis in the Greatest Church Crisis in History & the Historic Gracida Open Letter 

– Updated September 2, 2019

We are in the greatest crisis in the history of the Church because Francis and his pro-gay bishops network who make the immoral Borgia popes and their inner circles look like choir boys are creating gay heretical cardinals in a attempt to make a permanent gay heretical church.

As a priest recently said even if we can get the Church or state to remove all the bad men, Francis is only going to replace them with worse men.

Of course, we must continue to work for the removal of Francis’s immoral pro-gay bishops network, but the only way we are going to begin a real restoration of the Church is to remove Francis as well as all his controllers and collaborators.

There is only one bishop in the Church actively working toward the removal of Francis.

He is Bishop Rene Henry Gracida.

Whether he acknowledges it or not, Bishop Gracida is our St. Athanasius.

Athanasius virtually alone, except for the faithful laity, lead the resistance against the Arian heresy in the fourth century even when the Pope excommunicated him.

They said it was Athanasius against the world. Now, it is Gracida against the world.

The Bishop became like Athanasius when he explicitly said Amoris Laetitia is in error and to resist sacrilege Communions.

On December 2, 2017, Bishop Gracida became the only bishop to resist the Amoris Letitia sacrilege on his official website declaring Pope Francis is teaching error:

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

We have a humble yet heroic man to lead us in the resistance against heterodoxy and those who have created the greatest crisis in the history of the Church.

Bishop Gracida was a courageous WWII airman, monk, friend of Pope John Paul II and the “Savior of EWTN” as Raymond Arroyo called him in his book (see post below) who at 95 looks like his is in his 70’s, is mentally sharper than most men 30 years younger than him and looks by a large margin younger than Pope Benedict XVI or Francis.
[https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2016/01/11/airman-monk-priest-bishop-an-interview-with-bp-rene-henry-gracida/]

We have leading us in Gracida a real life hero who makes every other living bishop in the whole world look like a midget by comparison.

We have a 95 year old retired bishop with the heart of a lion leading us: Rene the Lionhearted.

I’ll say it again:

They said it was Athanasius against the world. Now, it is Gracida against the world.

I know he will not be happy that I said this. He told me by email that it would be prideful to think of himself as a Athanasius.

But for better or worst that appears to be the role God has given him in this crisis.

Since most of the clergy apparently have abandoned us, what can we the faithful laity do to assist Bishop Gracida against the world?

First pray for him.

Then please read, pray and share the following open letter with cardinals, bishops, clergy, canon lawyers and the laity so clarity and the action that is within God’s will can result from the letter.

The laity need to force people like Cardinal Raymond Burke and others to answer the theologically sound, clear and precise arguments put forward and either clearly and precisely counter them or put into action the needed canonical procedures to remove Francis if he was “never validly elected” the pope or else remove him from the Petrine office for heterodoxy.

If Burke and others do not act they are putting their immortal souls in danger because they are denying the Petrine office of Pope John Paul II who made binding law for the 2013 conclave in Universi Dominici Gregis.

The open letter of Bishop Gracida is a analysis of Pope John Paul Il’s Universi Dominici Gregis which appears to establish the “legal conclusion that Monsignor Bergoglio was never validly elected Roman Pontiff”  and calls the Cardinals to “Address… [the] probable invalidity”:

• FRED MARTINEZ

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CARDINALS OF THE HOLY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND OTHER CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN FAITHFUL IN COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CARDINALS OF THE HOLY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND OTHER CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN FAITHFUL IN COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE

Posted on July 30, 2018  by abyssum

AN OPEN LETTERTO THE CARDINALS OF THE HOLY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCHAND OTHER CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN FAITHFULIN COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE

Recently many educated Catholic observers, including bishops and priests, have decried the confusion in doctrinal statements about faith or morals made from the Apostolic See at Rome and by the putative Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis. Some devout, faithful and thoughtful Catholics have even suggested that he be set aside as a heretic, a dangerous purveyor of error, as recently mentioned in a number of reports.
Claiming heresy on the part of a man who is a supposed Pope, charging material error in statements about faith or morals by a putative Roman Pontiff, suggests and presents an intervening prior question about his authenticity in that August office of Successor of Peter as Chief of The Apostles, i.e., was this man the subject of a valid election by an authentic Conclave of The Holy Roman Church?  This is so because each Successor of Saint Peter enjoys the Gift of Infallibility. 
So, before one even begins to talk about excommunicating such a prelate, one must logically examine whether this person exhibits the uniformly good and safe fruit of Infallibility.  If he seems repeatedly to engage in material error, that first raises the question of the validity of his election because one expects an authentically-elected Roman Pontiff miraculously and uniformly to be entirely incapable of stating error in matters of faith or morals.  So to what do we look to discern the invalidity of such an election?  
His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, within His massive legacy to the Church and to the World, left us with the answer to this question.  The Catholic faithful must look back for an answer to a point from where we have come—to what occurred in and around the Sistine Chapel in March 2013 and how the fruits of those events have generated such widespread concern among those people of magisterial orthodoxy about confusing and, or, erroneous doctrinal statements which emanate from The Holy See.  
His Apostolic Constitution (Universi Dominici Gregis) which governed the supposed Conclave in March 2013 contains quite clear and specific language about the invalidating effect of departures from its norms.  For example, Paragraph 76 states:  “Should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed, the election is for this very reason null and void, without any need for a declaration on the matter; consequently, it confers no right on the one elected.”  
From this, many believe that there is probable cause to believe that Monsignor Jorge Mario Bergoglio was never validly elected as the Bishop of Rome and Successor of Saint Peter—he never rightly took over the office of Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and therefore he does not enjoy the charism of Infallibility.  If this is true, then the situation is dire because supposed papal acts may not be valid or such acts are clearly invalid, including supposed appointments to the college of electors itself.
Only valid cardinals can rectify our critical situation through privately (secretly) recognizing the reality of an ongoing interregnum and preparing for an opportunity to put the process aright by obedience to the legislation of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, in that Apostolic Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis.  While thousands of the Catholic faithful do understand that only the cardinals who participated in the events of March 2013 within the Sistine Chapel have all the information necessary to evaluate the issue of election validity, there was public evidence sufficient for astute lay faithful to surmise with moral certainty that the March 2013 action by the College was an invalid conclave, an utter nullity.
What makes this understanding of Universi Dominici Gregis particularly cogent and plausible is the clear Promulgation Clause at the end of this Apostolic Constitution and its usage of the word “scienter” (“knowingly”).  The Papal Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis thus concludes definitively with these words:  “.   .   .   knowingly or unknowingly, in any way contrary to this Constitution.”  (“.   .   .   scienter vel inscienter contra hanc Constitutionem fuerint excogitata.”)  [Note that His Holiness, Pope Paul VI, had a somewhat similar promulgation clause at the end of his corresponding, now abrogated, Apostolic Constitution, Romano Pontifici Eligendo, but his does not use “scienter”, but rather uses “sciens” instead.  This similar term of sciens in the earlier abrogated Constitution has an entirely different legal significance than scienter.]
This word, “scienter”, is a legal term of art in Roman law, and in canon law, and in Anglo-American common law, and in each system, scienter has substantially the same significance, i.e., “guilty knowledge” or willfully knowing, criminal intent.  Thus, it clearly appears that Pope John Paul II anticipated the possibility of criminal activity in the nature of a sacrilege against a process which He intended to be purely pious, private, sacramental, secret and deeply spiritual, if not miraculous, in its nature. This contextual reality reinforced in the Promulgation Clause, combined with:  (1) the tenor of the whole document; (2) some other provisions of the document, e.g., Paragraph 76; (3) general provisions of canon law relating to interpretation, e.g., Canons 10 & 17; and, (4) the obvious manifest intention of the Legislator, His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, tends to establish beyond a reasonable doubt the legal conclusion that Monsignor Bergoglio was never validly elected Roman Pontiff.
 This is so because:
1.  Communication of any kind with the outside world, e.g., communication did occur between the inside of the Sistine Chapel and anyone outside, including a television audience, before, during or even immediately after the Conclave;
2.   Any political commitment to “a candidate” and any “course of action” planned for The Church or a future pontificate, such as the extensive decade-long “pastoral” plans conceived by the Sankt Gallen hierarchs; and,
3.  Any departure from the required procedures of the conclave voting process as prescribed and known by a cardinal to have occurred:each was made an invalidating act, and if scienter (guilty knowledge) was present, also even a crime on the part of any cardinal or other actor, but, whether criminal or not, any such act or conduct violating the norms operated absolutely, definitively and entirely against the validity of all of the supposed Conclave proceedings.
Quite apart from the apparent notorious violations of the prohibition on a cardinal promising his vote, e.g., commitments given and obtained by cardinals associated with the so-called “Sankt Gallen Mafia,” other acts destructive of conclave validity occurred.  Keeping in mind that Pope John Paul II specifically focused Universi Dominici Gregis on “the seclusion and resulting concentration which an act so vital to the whole Church requires of the electors” such that “the electors can more easily dispose themselves to accept the interior movements of the Holy Spirit,” even certain openly public media broadcasting breached this seclusion by electronic broadcasts outlawed by Universi Dominici Gregis.  
These prohibitions include direct declarative statements outlawing any use of television before, during or after a conclave in any area associated with the proceedings, e.g.:  “I further confirm, by my apostolic authority, the duty of maintaining the strictest secrecy with regard to everything that directly or indirectly concerns the election process itself.”
Viewed in light of this introductory preambulary language of Universi Dominici Gregis and in light of the legislative text itself, even the EWTN camera situated far inside the Sistine Chapel was an immediately obvious non-compliant  act which became an open and notorious invalidating violation by the time when this audio-visual equipment was used to broadcast to the world the preaching after the “Extra Omnes”.  While these blatant public violations of Chapter IV of Universi Dominici Gregis actuate the invalidity and nullity of the proceedings themselves, nonetheless in His great wisdom, the Legislator did not disqualify automatically those cardinals who failed to recognize these particular offenses against sacred secrecy, or even those who, with scienter, having recognized the offenses and having had some power or voice in these matters, failed or refused to act or to object against them:  “Should any infraction whatsoever of this norm occur and be discovered, those responsible should know that they will be subject to grave penalties according to the judgment of the future Pope.”  [Universi Dominici Gregis, ¶55]   
No Pope apparently having been produced in March 2013, those otherwise valid cardinals who failed with scienter to act on violations of Chapter IV, on that account alone would nonetheless remain voting members of the College unless and until a new real Pope is elected and adjudges them.  Thus, those otherwise valid cardinals who may have been compromised by violations of secrecy can still participate validly in the “clean-up of the mess” while addressing any such secrecy violations with an eventual new Pontiff.  In contrast, the automatic excommunication of those who politicized the sacred conclave process, by obtaining illegally, commitments from cardinals to vote for a particular man, or to follow a certain course of action (even long before the vacancy of the Chair of Peter as Vicar of Christ), is established not only by the word, “scienter,” in the final enacting clause, but by a specific exception, in this case, to the general statement of invalidity which therefore reinforces the clarity of intention by Legislator that those who apply the law must interpret the general rule as truly binding. 
 Derived directly from Roman law, canonical jurisprudence provides this principle for construing or interpreting legislation such as this Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis.  Expressed in Latin, this canon of interpretation is:   “Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis.”  (The exception proves the rule in cases not excepted.)  In this case, an exception from invalidity for acts of simony reinforces the binding force of the general principle of nullity in cases of other violations.
Therefore, by exclusion from nullity and invalidity legislated in the case of simony:   “If — God forbid — in the election of the Roman Pontiff the crime of simony were to be perpetrated, I decree and declare that all those guilty thereof shall incur excommunication latae sententiae.  At the same time I remove the nullity or invalidity of the same simoniacal provision, in order that — as was already established by my Predecessors — the validity of the election of the Roman Pontiff may not for this reason be challenged.”  His Holiness made an exception for simony.  Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis. 
 The clear exception from nullity and invalidity for simony proves the general rule that other violations of the sacred process certainly do and did result in the nullity and invalidity of the entire conclave.
While it is not necessary to look outside Universi Dominici Gregis in order to construe or to interpret its plain meaning, the first source to which one would look is the immediately prior constitution which Universi Dominici Gregis abrogated or replaced.  Pope John Paul II replaced entirely what Pope Paul VI had legislated in the immediately previous Constitution on conclaves, Romano Pontfici Eligendo, but in so doing, Pope John Paul II used Romano Pontfici Eligendo as the format or pattern for His new constitution on conclaves.  Making obvious changes, nonetheless, Pope John Paul II utilized the content and structure of his predecessor’s constitution to organize and outline Universi Dominici Gregis.  Therefore, while it is not legally necessary to look outside Universi Dominici Gregis, the primary reference to an extraneous source of construction would entail an examination of Romano Pontfici Eligendo, and that exercise (bolsterd by the use of the key word “scienter” in the Promulgation Clause) would reinforce the broad principle of invalidity. 

Comparing what Pope John Paul II wrote in His Constitution on conclaves with the Constitution which His replaced, you can see that, with the exception of simony, invalidity became universal. In the corresponding paragraph of what Pope Paul VI wrote, he specifically confined the provision declaring conclave invalidity to three (3) circumstances described in previous paragraphs within His constitution, Romano Pontfici Eligendo.  No such limitation exists in Universi Dominici Gregis.  See the comparison both in English and Latin below:
Romano Pontfici Eligendo, 77. Should the election be conducted in a manner different from the three procedures described above (cf. no. 63 ff.) or without the conditions laid down for each of the same, it is for this very reason null and void (cf. no. 62), without the need for any declaration, and gives no right to him who has been thus elected. [Romano Pontfici Eligendo, 77:  “Quodsi electio aliter celebrata fuerit, quam uno e tribus modis, qui supra sunt dicti (cfr. nn. 63 sqq.), aut non servatis condicionibus pro unoquoque illorum praescriptis, electio eo ipso est nulla et invalida (cfr. n. 62) absque ulla declaratione, et ita electo nullum ius tribuit .”] as compared with:Universi Dominici Gregis, 76:  “Should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed, the election is for this very reason null and void, without any need for a declaration on the matter; consequently, it confers no right on the one elected.”  [Universi Dominici Gregis, 76:  “Quodsi electio aliter celebrata fuerit, quam haec Constitutio statuit, aut non servatis condicionibus pariter hic praescriptis, electio eo ipso est nulla et invalida absque ulla declaratione, ideoque electo nullum ius tribuit.”]        
Of course, this is not the only feature of the Constitution or aspect of the matter which tends to establish the breadth of invalidity.  Faithful must hope and pray that only those cardinals whose status as a valid member of the College remains intact will ascertain the identity of each other and move with the utmost charity and discretion in order to effectuate The Divine Will in these matters. The valid cardinals, then, must act according to that clear, manifest, obvious and unambiguous mind and intention of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, so evident in Universi Dominici Gregis, a law which finally established binding and self-actuating conditions of validity on the College for any papal conclave, a reality now made so apparent by the bad fruit of doctrinal confusion and plain error.

        It would seem then that praying and working in a discreet and prudent manner to encourage only those true cardinals inclined to accept a reality of conclave invalidity, would be a most charitable and logical course of action in the light of Universi Dominici Gregis, and out of our high personal regard for the clear and obvious intention of its Legislator, His Holiness, Pope John Paul II.  Even a relatively small number of valid cardinals could act decisively and work to restore a functioning Apostolic See through the declaration of an interregnum government.  The need is clear for the College to convene a General Congregation in order to declare, to administer, and soon to end the Interregnum which has persisted since March 2013.
Finally, it is important to understand that the sheer number of putative counterfeit cardinals will eventually, sooner or later, result in a situation in which The Church will have no normal means validly ever again to elect a Vicar of Christ.  After that time, it will become even more difficult, if not humanly impossible, for the College of Cardinals to rectify the current disastrous situation and conduct a proper and valid Conclave such that The Church may once again both have the benefit of a real Supreme Pontiff, and enjoy the great gift of a truly infallible Vicar of Christ.  It seems that some good cardinals know that the conclave was invalid, but really cannot envision what to do about it; we must pray, if it is the Will of God, that they see declaring the invalidity and administering an Interregnum through a new valid conclave is what they must do. Without such action or without a great miracle, The Church is in a perilous situation. 
 Once the last validly appointed cardinal reaches age 80, or before that age, dies, the process for electing a real Pope ends with no apparent legal means to replace it. Absent a miracle then, The Church would no longer have an infallible Successor of Peter and Vicar of Christ.  Roman Catholics would be no different than Orthodox Christians.
In this regard, all of the true cardinals may wish to consider what Holy Mother Church teaches in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, ¶675, ¶676 and ¶677 about “The Church’s Ultimate Trial”.  But, the fact that “The Church .   .   .  will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection” does not justify inaction by the good cardinals, even if there are only a minimal number sufficient to carry out Chapter II of Universi Dominici Gregis and operate the Interregnum.This Apostolic Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis, which was clearly applicable to the acts and conduct of the College of Cardinals in March 2013, is manifestly and obviously among those “invalidating” laws “which expressly establish that an act is null or that a person is effected” as stated in Canon 10 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law.  And, there is nothing remotely “doubtful or obscure” (Canon 17) about this Apostolic Constitution as clearly promulgated by Pope John Paul II.  The tenor of the whole document expressly establishes that the issue of invalidity was always at stake. 
 This Apostolic Constitution conclusively establishes, through its Promulgation Clause [which makes “anything done (i.e., any act or conduct) by any person  .   .   .   in any way contrary to this Constitution,”]  the invalidity of the entire supposed Conclave, rendering it “completely null and void”.So, what happens if a group of Cardinals who undoubtedly did not knowingly and wilfully initiate or intentionally participate in any acts of disobedience against Universi Dominici Gregis were to meet, confer and declare that, pursuant to Universi Dominici Gregis, Monsignor Bergoglio is most certainly not a valid Roman Pontiff.  Like any action on this matter, including the initial finding of invalidity, that would be left to the valid members of the college of cardinals. 
 They could declare the Chair of Peter vacant and proceed to a new and proper conclave.  They could meet with His Holiness, Benedict XVI, and discern whether His resignation and retirement was made under duress, or based on some mistake or fraud, or otherwise not done in a legally effective manner, which could invalidate that resignation.  Given the demeanor of His Holiness, Benedict XVI, and the tenor of His few public statements since his departure from the Chair of Peter, this recognition of validity in Benedict XVI seems unlikely.
In fact, even before a righteous group of good and authentic cardinals might decide on the validity of the March 2013 supposed conclave, they must face what may be an even more complicated discernment and decide which men are most likely not valid cardinals.  If a man was made a cardinal by the supposed Pope who is, in fact, not a Pope (but merely Monsignor Bergoglio), no such man is in reality a true member of the College of Cardinals.  In addition, those men appointed by Pope John Paul II or by Pope Benedict XVI as cardinals, but who openly violated Universi Dominici Gregis by illegal acts or conduct causing the invalidation of the last attempted conclave, would no longer have voting rights in the College of Cardinals either.  (Thus, the actual valid members in the College of Cardinals may be quite smaller in number than those on the current official Vatican list of supposed cardinals.)
In any event, the entire problem is above the level of anyone else in Holy Mother Church who is below the rank of Cardinal.  So, we must pray that The Divine Will of The Most Holy Trinity, through the intercession of Our Lady as Mediatrix of All Graces and Saint Michael, Prince of Mercy, very soon rectifies the confusion in Holy Mother Church through action by those valid Cardinals who still comprise an authentic College of Electors.  Only certainly valid Cardinals can address the open and notorious evidence which points to the probable invalidity of the last supposed conclave and only those cardinals can definitively answer the questions posed here.  May only the good Cardinals unite and if they recognize an ongoing Interregnum, albeit dormant, may they end this Interregnum by activating perfectly a functioning Interregnum government of The Holy See and a renewed process for a true Conclave, one which is purely pious, private, sacramental, secret and deeply spiritual.  If we do not have a real Pontiff, then may the good Cardinals, doing their appointed work “in view of the sacredness of the act of election”  “accept the interior movements of the Holy Spirit” and provide Holy Mother Church with a real Vicar of Christ as the Successor of Saint Peter.  May these thoughts comport with the synderetic considerations of those who read them and may their presentation here please both Our Immaculate Virgin Mother, Mary, Queen of the Apostles, and The Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.N. de PlumeUn ami des Papes
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church.Fred Martinez at 3:51 PMShare

4 comments:

1. Fr. VF1:49 PMBishop Gracida is the only bishop in the US who instructed the police that removing people who were preventing abortions is a mortal sin. Such police actions make the police into accomplices to abortion, since removing an obstacle that is preventing a crime always makes one an accomplice to the crime.
   
   This is not the only time that Bishop Gracida has been a majority of one.
   
   Pro-life rescues are becoming a regular event once again. There have been at least two in Washington. Not surprisingly, Cardinal Wuerl has remained silent as the police commit the mortal sin of removing obstacles that are preventing abortions.Reply
2. Veri Catholici2:30 PMThank you for defending the work and good name of the only courageous bishop.Reply
3. Therese4:18 PMI feel as though I’m living in someone’s blockbuster novel.
   
   Prayers, please, as we approach the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The faithful of my diocese have organized a revival to take place on that date, and many are deeply dismayed at the hostile response of our bishop–if I didn’t know better, I might think he doesn’t want us to pray for him and our poor priests.Reply
4. Therese4:25 PMQ. What is worse, immoral (sexual or otherwise) abuse or the teaching of heresy?
   
   A. The teaching of heresy is worse than immoral abuse. Whereas immoral abuse murders the soul of one person, the teaching of heresy potentially murders countless souls as it spreads like a plague.

Monday, September 02, 2019

Francis’s New Cardinals: “Most [Heretical] Liberal group… EVER” & When does Cardinal Investigation into Francis Conclave Validity Begin? 

http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2019/09/rorate-caeli-franciss-new-cardinals-are.html?m=1

Rorate Caeli’s sources says Francis’s newly about to be named cardinals are the “most liberal,” which just means “most heretical,” group of cardinals “ever assembled” with two being “widely known for their ‘gay’ preferences.” Liberal defacto means heretical because it means they defacto support Communion for adulterers.
(Rorate Caeli, “Francis Announces  Creation of 13 new Cardinals – 10 New Electors, Most Liberal Group Ever Assembled,” No date given)

It appears that this heretical “assembled” group is even more heretical than all the pseudocardinals created by all the antipopes in history.

This unprecedented assembly of about to be created heretical Francis cardinals reminds one of the 8 pseudocardinals created by antipope Anacletus II.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux investigated the validity of the supposed “Pope” Anacletus conclave and found his pontificate was not valid because he had violated the conclave constitution and was thus a antipope with his supposed “cardinals” being pseudocardinals.

Cardinal Raymond Burke told Patrick Coffin on his YouTube show there are “grounds… for calling into question the [Francis] conclave.”
(Patrick Coffin show, Dubia Cardinal Goes on Record – Raymond Cardinal Burke,” 19:55 to 21:46)

Bishop Rene Gracida in a Open Letter to the cardinals has documented evidence that the Francis conclave appears to be invalid because it violated the Pope John Paul II Universi Dominici Gregis conclave constitution.

Bishop Gracida is calling on all faithful Catholics to put pressure on the cardinals to investigate the Francis conclave.

Pray an Our Father now that the cardinals begin a investigation into the validity of the Francis conclave?

Pray an Our Father for the restoration of the Church

.Fred Martinez at 9:52 AM

AUGUST 27, 2019

Nothing new under the sun: St. Bernard’s advice to a pope

FR. GEORGE W. RUTLER

CRISIS MAGAZINE

From a natural perspective, the difference that God makes is evident in whether human existence is cyclical or linear. Some eminent classical philosophers made sense of human experience only as repetitious, and that view migrated from Plato up to moderns like Spengler and Santayana. The cyclical theory subjects human will to fate; but, as the Scriptures begin in an earthly garden and end in a heavenly city, life is not repetitive but progressive. That’s why providence conquers fatalism.

The cyclical view is different from the sort of ennui expressed even in Scripture. “There is nothing new under the sun,” we’re told in Ecclesiastes. There’s a hint of world-weary resignation, too, in Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages of Man,” chronicling how that human nature never changes. That canticle to the ageing process in As You Like It is by the same author who wrote: “What is past is prologue.” Generations pass, but human nature perdures, and the spiritual DNA in Adam is endemic to every child of man: a nature fallen, but originally upright, and raised up again by the Resurrection of Christ.

Sometimes, the mind experiences what the vernacular philosopher Yogi Berra called “déjà vu all over again.” It seems we’ve been there before.

Some neurologists call this “split perception” or “cryptomnesia.” Seemingly-forgotten information (which has, in fact, been stored deeper in the brain) is recovered in a dual neurological processing. At least, that’s one physical explanation for why things unfamiliar suddenly seem familiar. 

Morally, experience plainly brings to mind the fact that “history repeats itself”—not like a broken record, but in a progressive way, in which personality types and circumstances are “typical” regardless of changes in centuries and customs. This is why we can speak of “personality types,” and why so many of the Church Fathers relished typology in their exegesis of the Scriptures—possibly, on occasion, even to the point of guileless excess.

If there is “nothing new under the sun” in terms of human nature, new people are nevertheless responsible for their actions. “New occasions teach new duties,” as the hymn says, but it is possible to learn from how other people once handled similar situations.

One can take as an example the 12th century, which is often looked upon as the dawn of a Golden Age of civilization.  Yet its challenges prevent any assumption that our problems today are unprecedented. In the life of St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), there are striking similarities between the centuries numbered 12 and 21.

❧

The accomplishments of St. Bernard—his travels, writings, and influence on culture in general—are exhausting just to read. The intensified Rule he instituted inspired the foundation of 163 monasteries of the Cistercian reform, from France to Germany, Sweden, Italy, Portugal, England and Ireland. The fact that he accomplished all this in just 63 years, before modern travel and medicine, burdened with migraine, gastritis, hypertension, and anemia, testifies to the power of what he called the three fundamental virtues: humility, humility, and humility. He never yearned for early retirement, nor would he have been a golfer.

As human nature never changes, the best and worst of Bernard’ times foreshadow the same types now. The rising of great Gothic churches and the spread of universities were contemporary with schisms and corruption. Because of humility, humility, humility, Bernard dispensed with the kind of calculated diffidence that is humility’s caricature, and he did not shy from exposing corruption. This annoyed Cardinal Harmeric, who thought Bernard was disrespectful to Pope Honorius II. “It is not fitting that noisy and troublesome frogs should come out of their marshes to trouble the Holy See and the cardinals,” he sneered in a letter to the holy abbot. But even that complainer came around to admit the truth of what Bernard was writing from the Vallée d’Absinthe(Valley of Bitterness), which he happily renamed the Bright Valley, Claire Vallé—Clairvaux.

When one of his former monks, Bernardo Pignatelli, became Pope Eugenius III, Bernard undertook a series of writings, De Consideratione, on how to get it right. These were occasional pieces and not one fixed volume, as Cardinal Baronius mistakenly thought later on. They treat religious and secular authority, finances, and law (Gratian’s Decretals had finally put canon law into some sort of order), and scholarship when pedants were going off track by engaging useless dialecticism, giving Scholasticism a bad name. “God is found more easily in prayer rather than in discussion,” he noted.

Above all, the mystical quality of the Church must take precedence over (while not contradicting) its juridical aspect. Law is a friend of justice, but legalism becomes its enemy. Perstrepunt in prelatio leges, sed Justiniani, non Domini, Bernard complained to Eugenius: “Daily the laws resound in the palace, but they are the laws of Justinian, not of the Lord.” With poignant honesty, Bernard also analyzes the miserable failure of the Second Crusade, which he had preached.

In Bernard’s  thirteenth letter to Pope Innocent II—the third legitimate pope before Eugenius, and whose cause he had championed against the claims of antipopes Anicletus and Victor—he sets the tone for how he will advise  Eugenius: “To his most loving father and lord, Innocent, by the grace of God supreme pontiff, the devotion, for what it is worth, of Bernard called Abbot of Clairvaux. ‘Scandals are necessary, necessary (Matt. 18:7) but unpleasant!” Later, he writes to his protegé:

 True, you sit on Peter’s seat. What of that? Though you walk on the wings of the wind, you will never outstrip my affection. Love knows no lord… It is not so with some, not so: but they are moved with fear or avarice. These are they who seem to bless, but there is evil in their hearts; they flatter to one’s face, but in the time of need they desert us. But charity never fails.

❧

A couple of generations after Bernard, the French cardinal Jacques de Vitry indulged a bit of stereotyping to describe students in the University of Paris. The English (he said) were drunkards, the French effeminate, the Germans obscene, the Burgundians vulgar and stupid, the Sicilians tyrannical and cruel, and the Romans “seditious, turbulent, and slanderous.”

Bernard also surveyed types through a Gallican eye, but with a Galilean heart consumed by zeal for his Father’s House. “Show me a man in  the whole city of Rome,” he wrote to Eugenius,

who welcomed you as Pope without having his price, or hoping to get it. Even when they profess to be your very humble servants, they aim at being your masters. They pledge their fidelity only that they may more conveniently injure the confiding. Hence it is that there can be no deliberation from which they think they ought to be excluded; there will be no secret into which they do not worm their way. If the doorkeeper keeps one of them waiting a minute or two, I should not like to be in his shoes. Now for a few illustrations, so that you may know whether I understand this people’s ways, and how far. First of all, they are wise to do evil, but they know not how to do good. Hateful to heaven and earth, they have laid hands on both; they are impious towards God, heedless in holy things;  turbulent among themselves, jealous of their neighbors, barbarous to foreigners, they love no man and are loved of none; and when they aim at being feared by all, all must fear.  These are they who cannot bear to be beneath, though they are not qualified to be at the head, faithless to superiors, insufferable to inferiors. They have no modesty in asking, and no shame in refusing. They worry you to get what they want; they cannot rest till they get it; they have no gratitude once they have got it. They have taught their tongue to speak great things, when there is but little doing. They are lavish promisors, niggardly performers; the smoothest of flatterers, and the worst of backbiters; artless dissemblers, and malignant traitors.

His practical counsel to Eugenius in Book II of the Consideration includes a reminder that his lips are for sacred speech and should not engage “idle talk” and “buffoonery.”  What the Pontiff says should be measured, infrequent, and solemn. In Book III, he moves on to the serious problem of avarice: “a vice from which your character is safe enough,” but which tempts others. There were the problematic Germans with “moneybags” and others who used base bribes to gain favor and secure bishoprics. Here again the local curial culture was not impervious to mercenary allurements: “Was Rome ever known to refuse gold?”

In Chapter IV, Book II, Bernard glides to new heights of suffused indignation, and he enjoins discipline while not being naïve about changing behavior. “Is there anything in history more notorious than the wantonness and pride of the Romans?” he asks;

A race unaccustomed to peace, familiar with tumult; a race to this very day fierce and intractable; who will never submit except when they have no power to resist. Here is the mischief; this is the care that lies heavy upon you, and you must not disguise the fact. You perhaps smile as you read this, for you are convinced that they will never be cured. Do not despair: what is required of you is the care, not the cure.

❧

The Pope must be aware of, and not ignore, the dissolution around him, as it manifests itself in felinity and effeteness. He is directly responsible for his household, and laxity will only engender worse abuse. “Impunity is the mother of audacity, audacity brings forth excess,” he warns. Thus in Book V:

In the look, dress, gait of the priests about your person you should allow no trace of immodesty or indecency. Let your fellow bishops learn from you not to have about them boys with their hair curled, or effeminate youths. It is surely unbecoming for a bishop to go hither and thither surrounded by fops who wear the turban and use the curling iron. And remember the admonition of the wise man, They are thy daughters: make not thy face cheerful toward them.

This was not an uncommon problem in medieval courts, as the chronicles of St. Peter Damian attest. Bernard, who kept close correspondence with various countries, may have been aware that St. Anselm of Canterbury, while in Hastings with the royal court at the start of Lent, had refused to give ashes to epicene young noblemen who wore long curled hair.

In sum: times change, but human nature does not. The anapodoton plus ça changeremains. And, if some are enticed by the chimera of nostalgia to think that things were better in more tranquil ages than now, when profligacy is confederate with heresy, or who ask how was it possible for such good times to have collapsed so quickly, recall the 1953 encyclical of Pope Pius XII on St. Bernard: “The Catholic faith, supreme solace of mankind, often languishes in souls, and in many regions and countries is even subjected to the bitterest public attacks. With the Christian religion either neglected or cruelly destroyed, morals, both public and private, clearly stray from the straight way, and, following the tortuous path of error, end miserably in vice… Therefore, as the Doctor of Clairvaux sought and obtained from the Virgin Mother Mary help for the troubles of his times, let us all through the same great devotion and prayer so strive to move our divine Mother, that she will obtain from God timely relief from these grave evils which are either already upon us or may yet befall, and that she who is at once kind and most powerful, will, by the help of God, grant that the true, lasting, and fruitful peace of the Church may at last dawn on all nations and peoples.”139

By Fr. George W. Rutler

Fr. George W. Rutler is pastor of St. Michael’s church in New York City. He is the author of many books including Principalities and Powers: Spiritual Combat 1942-1943 (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press) and Hints of Heaven (Sophia Institute Press). His latest books are He Spoke To Us (Ignatius, 2016); The Stories of Hymns (EWTN Publishing, 2017); and Calm in Chaos (Ignatius, 2018).

AUGUST 30, 2019

Scrap the Jesuits and start over

MICHAEL WARREN DAVIS

CRISIS MAGAZINE

Imagine what Church historians of the future will say about the Jesuits:

“The Society of Jesus was founded in 1540 by St. Ignatius of Loyola and played a crucial role in the Church’s efforts to extinguish the nascent Protestant heresy. Over the centuries, however, it became the stronghold of another heresy—Modernism—and was eventually suppressed on the orders of Pope Pius XIII. Remnants of the order persisted in the United States through the middle of the 21^st century, mostly due to the value of the land upon which they had built college campuses. Then, in the year 2103, the Society’s seven remaining priests were collectively re-ordained in the Episcopal Church, briefly doubling the number of Episcopalian clerics.”

Harsh? Maybe. But what reason do we have to be optimistic about the Jesuits’ future in the Catholic Church?

❧ 

Just last week, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Fr. Arturo Sosa—he’s the chap in the mustaches, above—was upbraided by the International Association of Exorcists for calling Satan a“symbolic reality, not as a personal reality.”

The IAE pointed out to Fr. Sosa that the “real existence of the devil, as a personal subject who thinks and acts and has made the choice of rebellion against God, is a truth of faith that has always been part of Christian doctrine.”

“The finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist,” as Charles Baudelaire quipped. Well, the leader of the world’s 16,000 Jesuits fell for it.

❧

Somehow, it gets worse. On August 28^th, both secular and Catholic outlets reported that an elderly gay man with an aggressive tumor in his throat received a blessing from a Jesuit priest in Seattle shortly before “marrying” his partner and committing medically-assisted suicide. “I have absolutely no reservations about what I am doing,” Robert Fuller wrote on Facebook shortly before taking his own life. “And my pastor/sponsor has given me his blessings. And he’s a Jesuit!!!”

Pray for the repose of Mr. Fuller’s soul, and pray hard. There’s a chance his culpability in these two grave sins was diminished if a competent authority—namely, Fr. Quentin Dupont, SJ—told him his actions were consistent with the Catholic faith.

If that’s the case, however, Fr. Dupont will have to give an account of his actions on the Last Day. So, better pray for him, too.

❧

Then, of course, there’s Fr. James Martin, SJ. We needn’t go into his campaign to erode Church teachings on human sexuality, or to ruin the lives of those faithful Catholics working to oppose his subterfuge. We needn’t touch on the hard work of his magazine to rehabilitate communism for the Catholic masses. No, we can learn everything we need to know about Fr. Martin’s intellectual silliness by looking at commemorating the Feast of St. Augustine, depicting the Doctor of Grace as a gentleman of Sub-Saharan extraction.

In fact, Augustine was a Berber: a light-skinned African of Eurasian extraction.

Not that his skin color should matter, of course. But, if you’re really just an SJW in a Roman collar, you might consider willfully misleading your 250,000 Twitter followers just to own the conservabigots.

❧

No orthodox Catholic should gloat over the sad decline of the Society of Jesus. There are few greater saints in the history of the Anglosphere than Jesuits Edmund Campion and Robert Southwell. The Jesuits were instrumental in giving us the Douay-Rheims Bible, the only English translation of Sacred Scripture to rival the King James Version in pure lyrical beauty. None did more to convert this land than the glorious Martyrs of North America. This generation of American Catholics was nourished by two luminary priests of the Society of Jesus, Frs. James V. Schall and Francis Canavan. Fr. Robert McTeigue, SJ, is one of the most popular and thoughtful apologists in the country.

But there won’t be many more like them. The SJ’s leadership is corrupt from top to bottom. All that remains is for a small, brave clique of young priests to split and form a reformed order. They could call themselves “Discalced Jesuits,” or maybe “Ignatians of the Primitive Observance.” Just pray they move swiftly. Never before has the Church so badly needed that fearless and uncompromising devotion to orthodoxy that earned the Society of Jesus its nickname “God’s Marines.”

Tagged as Fr. Arturo Sosa S.J., Fr. James Martin S.J., Society of Jesus (Jesuits)132

By Michael Warren Davis

Michael Warren Davis is the editor of Crisis magazine and host of The Crisis Point podcast. His column appears every Friday.

PERSONAL NOTE:

My family, and I, have always had a great respect for the Society of Jesus.

All the men of my family in New Orleans were Jesuit trained.

I seriously considered taking my vocation to the religious life to the Society.

Instead I joined the Benedictines and took the name of Saint Rene Goupil, S.J.

I have known and loved several Jesuit priests.

But enough is enough.

The next Pope needs to suppress the Society of Jesus.

+Rene Henry Gracida

Missouri has no illegals; go figure… shouldn’t the other states do the same? Missouri’s approach to the problem of illegal immigration appears to be more advanced, sophisticated, strict and effective than anything to date in Arizona. Does the White House appreciate what Missouri has done? So, why doesn’t Missouri receive attention? Answer: There are no illegals in Missouri to demonstrate. (And the Media doesn’t want to publicize that fact!)

The “Show Me” state has again shown us how it should be done. There needs to be more publicity and exposure regarding what Missouri has done. Please pass this around.

In 2007, Missouri placed on the ballot a proposed constitutional amendment designating English as the official language of Missouri In November 2008, nearly 90% voted in favor! Thus, English became the official language for ALL governmental activity in Missouri. No individual has the right to demand government services in a language OTHER than English.

In 2008, a measure was passed that required the Missouri Highway Patrol and other law enforcement officials to verify the immigration status of any person arrested, and inform federal authorities if the person is found to be in Missouri illegally. Missouri law enforcement officers receive specific training with respect to enforcement of federal immigration laws.

In Missouri, illegal immigrants do NOT have access to taxpayer benefits such as food stamps or health care through Missouri Health NET.

In 2009, a measure was passed that ensures Missouri ‘s public institutions of higher education do NOT award financial aid to individuals who are illegally in the United States.

In Missouri, all post-secondary institutions of higher education are required to annually certify to the Missouri Dept. of Higher Education that they have NOT knowingly awarded financial aid to students who are unlawfully present in the United States.

It is important to remember, Missouri has been far more proactive in addressing this horrific problem. Missouri has made it clear that illegal immigrants are NOT WELCOME in the state and they will NOT receive public benefits at the expense of Missouri taxpayers.

DON’T DELETE THIS, AMERICA. KEEP IT GOING UNTIL WE GET ALL 50 STATES TO COMPLY!

Taken from: “The Ozarks Sentinel” Editorial –

AUGUST 19, 2019

Uncle Tommy—Happy Martyr, and the Priest We Need

KEVIN WELLS

CRISIS MAGAZINE

It’s coming up on 20 years since my uncle, Msgr. Thomas Wells, was murdered in his Maryland rectory during a somber late summer night. Deputy state attorney Kay Winfree called the scene spine-chilling: as gruesome as anything she’d ever encountered.

His body was marked by deep stab wounds around his head and neck, accompanied by many dozens of slashes to various other parts of his body, like stigmata from hell. His murderer, Robert Paul Lucas, followed the well-worn path of a cold-blooded killer, hiding his outdated brown-and-beige van amid a metallic forest of other dilapidated vehicles tucked away off a country road.

An alcohol- and cocaine-fueled homeless tree trimmer carried out Satan’s handiwork. But that’s only part of the story of the murder of one of the most beloved priests in the history of the Archdiocese of Washington.

The groundwork was laid by bad Catholic priests. 

An unshakable conviction, shared by dozens of priests and thousands of lay faithful in the Maryland/DC corridor, is that Msgr. Wells’s life and 29-year priesthood ended as a direct result of the active homosexuality practiced by priests who once lived in that rectory.

In the aftermath of Tommy’s murder (from here on out I’ll refer to my uncle as “Tommy,” as our family called him with affection) we learned that the now-bulldozed Mother Seton rectory in Germantown, Maryland had been the site of years of appalling sacrilege and sin. It emerged that two priests, Rev. Paul E. Lavin and Rev. Aaron J. Cote, who had served at Mother Seton, had been credibly accused as sexual predators of teenage boys. Lavin has been stripped of his clerical faculties and Cote, accused of sexual molestation in at least four states and Peru, died in 2012. A third Mother Seton priest, who seems to have vanished from the state of Maryland, is widely known to have been sexually active with other men prior to my uncle’s arrival.

My uncle’s first official act as pastor at Mother Seton was to rip out the rectory hot tub. A close friend and confidant of Tommy’s, a secret service agent and police officer involved with the investigatory work of the murder, knew my uncle was twice requested by James Cardinal Hickey of Washington, DC to uproot homosexual rings at Mother Seton and at his previous parish. This confidant shared with me what many around these parts already knew: priests living in the Mother Seton rectory were widely known to have thrown “hot tub parties” for other priests.

“Msgr. Wells was the hand-picked priest to get rid of the rot. He was to report to the Cardinal on what he’d discovered,” the secret service agent told me. “I have no doubt about it—that night, his murderer was looking for a ‘trick.’ Msgr. Wells was murdered because of the homosexual activity that had taken place in that rectory.”

So, why bring up this sewer of memory now?

Well, for one, I loved my uncle. I spent much of my life in his orbit, vacationing with him in Ireland, Montana, the Berkshires, and numerous other places. For many years after his murder, I wrestled with my own conflicted thoughts about the Church and her priests. Within this divine and human institution, what are the contours and limits of a priest’s supernatural weight? What is the fullness of his earthly role? In addition to asking God to help answer these questions in the silence of many Holy Hours over the years, as an old reporter, I began asking these same questions of faithful and intentional priests.

As answers began to filter in, I found myself swept back into the biographies of Vianney, Pio, Neumann, Neri, Kolbe and other priestly giants. Then I witnessed first-hand accounts of sacrificial work from some faithful priests I knew. Men and women of great wisdom and holiness opened up to me, and I started recording and organizing the information they gave me. I was on a high-powered pilgrimage the likes of which I had never before experienced when suddenly the idea of writing a book took root in my mind. But who was I, as a layman, to write a book on how priests should be?

I’ll tell you who I am: a faithful Catholic who has had enough of the lurid headlines. I speak in solidarity with many millions of ashamed and disillusioned fellow Catholics reeling from the audacious sin that has been allowed to metastasize within the Church for far too long. Too many wayward churchmen have profaned, insulted, and trampled upon a sacred heritage that generations of hardworking, sincere Catholics built their lives around. We need faithful priests, not the lazy, repressed, social justice types with inauthentic vocations who have packed the seminaries, dominated the headlines, and sullied the reputation of the holy priesthood over the past several decades.

We need intentional priests’ counsel, guidance, and holy example, especially in this time of rapidly advancing militant secularism. So I wrote a book, a book about the true Catholic priesthood, a book about my Uncle Tommy, and this week Sophia Institute Press releases The Priests We Need to Save the Church. In the book I dare to tell the clergy why their flock is fleeing and beg them to reconsider their sacrificial role of shepherding their lost and bleeding sheep back to the pen.

Until the parish priest lives only to become a saint, there will be no healing in the Church. Until the parish priest embraces poverty and pours himself out without counting the cost, the Church’s sickness will worsen. Until the parish priest decides to die for his flock, the Church will remain on life support.

We need real men today, bold proclaimers of God’s Word who are unafraid to preach the Catholic faith as the blazing furnace of Truth that it is. We need priests who are willing to preach tough homilies, hear daily confessions, commit to daily Holy Hours, and remain magnanimous of heart through long, sometimes thankless 16-hour days. We need priests to offer us their lives now so that the laity will gain a restored sense of fatherhood. Such priests will become the story of our time. They will bring about massive conversions and restore our Church and our culture.

Two nights before my uncle’s murder, Tommy sat across from me and my wife Krista on the back deck of that sin-haunted Maryland rectory. It was there that he changed the course of our lives. Soon after he married us several years earlier, Krista and I had discovered that we couldn’t have children. We’d wake each morning to the wretchedness of infertility and the suffocating sadness it brought, given our desire to raise a large family.

Krista wanted to pursue having children through the tempting science of in-vitro fertilization. I wanted to adopt. We were at odds and our battles were growing in intensity. Satan was circling our small apartment like a vulture and we were in need of rescue.

In the nick of time, Tommy flipped our lives.

With a few short sentences he brought us to Golgotha, to the foot of the blood-soaked Cross, and for the first time in months, a pinhole of illuminative light shone through. Up to that point we had looked upon our cross of infertility as revolting—a blanket of thorns—but Tommy told us that it was actually a gift. The notion struck us as ridiculous, but the surge of warmth we felt as he spoke those words assured us that they were ordered and true. Our love has blossomed and our lives have never been the same since.

Tommy just had a way about him, a heavenly power. He once picked up a stranger who was an atheist on the side of the road in Kentucky and spoke with him for a few hours as they drove down the road. A few years later, after an intense period of study and prayer, the hitchhiker became president of the Canadian Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. He also became a deacon. “Your uncle led me to all of this,” Doug McManaman told me.

David Russell, a Vietnam Marine Corps frontline soldier-turned-drifter, worked at a gas station down the road from Tommy’s first parish, Sacred Heart in Bowie, MD. Tommy and the attendant began to strike up conversations at each fill-up. In the process of discovering the mental scars the war had inflicted on David, Tommy learned that he was a Catholic. Their talks intensified and, within a year, the Marine vet became a daily communicant. One day Tommy asked him if he’d like to assist with youth catechesis, aware that his charred memories and feelings of exile might be buoyed by childhood innocence. The drifter obliged. Sometime later, my uncle asked David if he’d consider the priesthood. Fr. Russell has now been an ordained priest in the Archdiocese of Washington (D.C.) for more than three decades. He preached at Tommy’s memorial Mass on the eve of his funeral.

Tommy’s power came from the Eucharist. His life and his priesthood were centered on it, and everyone at the Masses he celebrated knew it. Each time he elevated the Host after the Consecration, his visage and manner would be visibly transformed by the awe he felt at being permitted to lift Jesus heavenward.

The explosively joyful quality of his homilies inspired thousands of hearts over the years, but the manner in which he reverenced the Eucharist moved souls. It wasn’t cheap opera either; it was an authentic sharing of his soul. This mystical unfolding at Consecration, in fact, triggered the desire in more than a few awestruck young men to pull up stakes and leave steady girlfriends, budding careers, and relaxed lifestyles to turn their lives over to God in the priesthood.

“He was the most joyful man I ever knew,” said Fr. Jim Stack, an old friend. “He was the best priest I ever knew. He just got it. The joy of the truth of Christ lived in him; you couldn’t miss it. People wanted what he had.”

Right now, the entire world—wittingly or not—wants, and needs, exactly that.322

By Kevin Wells

Kevin Wells is a former Major League Baseball writer, Catholic speaker and author of Burst, A Story of God’s Grace When Life Falls Apart (Servant). To learn more about the lion-hearted priesthood of Msgr. Thomas Wells as a blueprint for priestly exceptionalism, Wells’s book The Priests We Need to Save the Church is available now from Sophia Institute Press.

The Pell Case: Australia’s Dreyfus Affair?

By Phil Lawler (bio – articles – email) | Aug 28, 2019

https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otn.cfm?id=1358

The conviction of Cardinal George Pell on sex-abuse charges, despite the complete absence of evidence against him, was a shock and a black mark against the Australian justice system. The decision by an appeals court to uphold that verdict compounds the problem and the disgrace. The cardinal will appeal to Australia’s highest court. And in that appeal, Australian society will be on trial.

The prosecution of Cardinal Pell threatens to become Australia’s version of the Dreyfus Affair, the disgraceful conviction that troubled the French political world for more than a decade around the turn of the 20th century. Captain Albert Dreyfus, accused and twice convicted of espionage, was a convenient target: unpopular because he was Jewish. When evidence emerged showing that he was not guilty, powerful military officers concealed that evidence and falsified evidence against him. The French public was howling for a conviction, and the ruling class decided that it was better to betray an innocent man than to admit an injustice.

In Australia today, the government—specifically the justice system—is now also heavily invested in the conviction of Cardinal Pell. To admit an error would be to admit an unreasonable verdict, brought about by an unreasonable prosecution, and now buttressed by an unreasonable appeals-court decision. To say that Cardinal Pell is not guilty is to imply that the judicial system is guilty in its treatment of his case. Will the country’s top court have the courage to reach that verdict?

Like Captain Dreyfus, Cardinal Pell is an unpopular figure in his own country. He has been vilified by the media, hounded by accusations that he covered up sexual abuse, made to appear as the principal cause of the scandal in Australia. That characterization is unjustified. Although he was not blameless in his handling of abuse cases—and has admitted as much—his “Melbourne Response” was the best set of policies at the time; his reaction to the crisis was considerably better than that of other Australian prelates. The truth of the matter is that Cardinal Pell became the favorite target of the media because he was an unapologetically orthodox (call him “conservative” if you must) Church leader, in a country where such courageous Catholic leadership is a rarity. He was, like Dreyfus, a convenient target; ideologues wanted him to be guilty.

However, the cardinal’s unpopularity is—or rather should be—irrelevant to the case at hand. The question at issue before the courts is not whether he was likable, not whether he was sympathetic, not even whether he was effective in dealing with abusive priests. The question was whether or not he personally molested two choir boys. And there was—and is—absolutely no evidence to support that charge, except the word of one accuser.

The appeals court ruled that the jury was not unreasonable to believe the cardinal’s accuser. But as Notre Dame law professor Gerard Bradley points out, the court was obliged to weigh the accuser’s testimony against the other available evidence, and when weighed in that balance, it was indeed unreasonable to credit the accusation.

Consider:

• The accuser said that he was one of two choir boys molested by then-Archbishop Pell. But the other boy, who is now deceased, denied that he had ever been molested.
• The accuser said that he was molested in the cathedral on two separate occasions. But on one of those occasions the cathedral was closed for renovations.
• The accuser said that he and his alleged comrade had left the procession of choristers, but no one noticed that they were missing and choir directors said that it was highly unlikely anyone could slip away unnoticed.
• The accuser said that he was in the sacristy sipping sacramental wine, but the wine was locked away. He said the wine was red. It was not.
• The accuser said that the archbishop came upon him alone in the sacristy. But multiple witnesses said that the archbishop was never alone in the cathedral sacristy: a room in which the door was always open, a room buzzing with priests and acolytes and other archdiocesan functionaries.
• The accuser said that the archbishop parted his vestments to expose himself. But an archbishop’s vestments do not allow that action.

Unless there had been a video camera running constantly in the cathedral sacristy, what more could the Pell defense team have done to defend the cardinal against this charge?

Consider, too, that the accuser said nothing about this alleged crime for years. He came forward in June 2015—two years after police began hunting for evidence of wrongdoing by Cardinal Pell. And his story of the alleged incident in the sacristy was suspiciously similar to a story that had been published in Rolling Stone nearly four years earlier. Keith Windschuttle of Australia’s Quadrantmagazine remarked that “the two accounts are so close to being identical that the likelihood of the Australian version being original is most implausible.”

Justice Mark Weinberg, the appeals court jurist who voted in favor of the cardinal’s appeal (in a 2-1 decision), made the obvious point that the accuser’s credibility was questionable at best. He remarked that “the complainant’s account of the second incident seems to me to take brazenness to new heights, the like of which I have not seen.”

Against this single shaky witness, the court heard more than twenty witnesses who testified not simply that the archbishop did not molest the boy, but that it was literally impossible for him to have committed the crime as described.

The appeals court seems to have fastened on that concept—the notion that the crime was impossible—and found it wanting. It’s true; it is possible that Cardinal Pell committed this crime—in the same sense that it is possible I’ll be hit by lightning this morning, although at the moment I don’t see a cloud in the sky. Nearly anything is possible. But is it plausible? Does it satisfy the standard—in Australia as in the US—that a defendant must be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? Not even close.

So how is it that the Australian courts found the accuser’s evidence compelling? The only possible explanation, I think—apart from the evident eagerness to convict an unpopular figure—is the growing tendency to believe that anyone who brings an accusation of sexual abuse must be believed, regardless of the specific circumstances. And haven’t we seen that tendency at work in our own American courts—especially in the court of public opinion?

In the vast majority of sex-abuse cases—especially those involving incidents from the distant past—there is no hard physical evidence, and the only witnesses are the accuser and the accused. A “credible accusation” is not a legal conviction. How many innocent priests have been suspended from ministry on the basis of a single “credible accusation,” which they cannot disprove? After years of winking away reports of abuse, have we swung so far in the opposite direction that we now demand convictions without evidence? Angry Americans want to see abusers punished, and rightly so. But beware of empty accusations and convenient victims.

Phil Lawler has been a Catholic journalist for more than 30 years. He has edited several Catholic magazines and written eight books. Founder of Catholic World News, he is the news director and lead analyst at CatholicCulture.org. See full bio.

Doug MainwaringFollow Doug

NEWSGENDERTue Aug 27, 2019 – 5:36 pm EST

‘Biology is not bigotry’: teacher blasts bill that would force teachers to receive LGBT ‘training’

  California Family Institute, California Senate Education Committee, Connie Leyva, Lgbt, Lgbtq, Queerly Elementary, Teachers

SACRAMENTO, California, August 27, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – An elementary school teacher packed a powerful punch in a two-minute testimony last month against a proposed law that would require teachers to affirm homosexual, lesbian, and transgender students.

Her testimony occurred during a July 10 California Senate Education Committeehearing regarding AB 493, a measure known as “Teachers: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning pupil resources and training.”

Speaking before the panel of liberal California politicians, Rachel Olsen – a 20-year veteran of the school system – referred to training she had recently received from a program run by a contractor, Queerly Elementary.  

“I was told to use preferred pronouns to address students, to stop referring to students by their biological genders as boys and girls, and to teach sexual orientation and various gender identities,” said Olsen.  

The purpose of the training being given is to “seek to coerce teachers and students to accept and express ideas about gender and gender identity that may violate their individual beliefs and consciences,” said Olsen, “especially those who subscribe to the gender binary, which is rooted in objective biology as opposed to subjective thoughts or feelings.”

“Biology is not bigotry,” declared the first-grade teacher. 

The six members of the committee senate remained stone-faced as Olsen spoke. 

“This bill may violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which requires government neutrality on religion,” continued Olsen.

“LGBTQ training often cast aspersions upon sincerely held religious beliefs of many public school educators,” she added.

Olsen pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court has recently ruled that the government cannot force an individual to express ideas or thoughts with which they disagree, and that parents bear “primary responsibility to raise their children, not the state.”    

Olsen concluded with one last zinger: “This bill will likely lead to more families and students leaving our public schools to join growing ranks of private and home schools.” 

The legislation states in part:

Commencing with the 2021–22 school year, each school operated by a school district or county office of education and each charter school shall provide online training at least once every two years to all teachers of pupils in grades 7 to 12, inclusive, and to all other certificated employees at that school, on schoolsite and community resources for the support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) pupils, and strategies to increase support for LGBTQ pupils and thereby improve overall school climate.

Another California school teacher who underwent Queerly Elementary training shared with the California Family Institute in June printed materials distributed during an indoctrination session. The flyer, titled “Creating a Gender Supportive School,” advises:  

• Use the Preferred Pronoun/Name  The intentional or persistent refusal to respect a student’s gender identity may violate discrimination & harassment policies. 
• Reduce or Eliminate the Practice of Segregating into boy/girl groups or referencing students by gender. Example: Change Good morning boys and girls! to Good morning students! 
• Avoid Comments that reaffirm stereotypical gender roles. For examples: Instead of addressing letters ‘Dear Mom & Dad’ try ‘Dear Families and Guardians.’
• Take the Student’s Lead (and family when possible) to create a transition plan, ensure privacy (if the child wants to change genders).
• Restroom and Locker Accessibility All students should have access to a safe and accessible restrooms and locker room that corresponds to their gender identity. 
• Dress Code Reduce or eliminate gender-specific dress codes and practices. 

Despite Oslen’s testimony, the panel voted 6-0 to pass the legislation out of committee for consideration by the Democrat-led California Senate. 

As Olsen and another expert witness against the bill stepped away from their microphones, Senator Connie Leyva, chair of the Education Committee, sought to counteract their testimony.  

“As the proud mother of a gay daughter, I find a lot of what the opposition said to be quite offensive,” chided Leyva.  

“I will put my daughter up against anyone’s straight daughter,” added the Democrat chair.

Madeleine JacobFollow 

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NEWSFAMILY, FREEDOM, POLITICS – U.S.Fri Aug 23, 2019 – 11:53 am EST

Court won’t let 4-year-old homeschooler return to family after state seizure over medical dispute

  Child Protective Services, Drake Pardo, Medical Tyranny, Texas, Texas Homeschool Coalition

August 23, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Last night, the Texas 5th Court of Appeals denied the Pardo family’s request for their medically fragile son Drake to be returned to them after state officials seized him over two months ago. The saga began when Daniel and Ashley Pardo filed a complaint against a doctor who was treating Drake and asked for a second opinion. 

The Texas 5th Court of Appeals denied the family’s request for emergency relief forcing them to bring the case to the Texas Supreme Court. A gag order continues to prevent the Pardos from speaking publicly about the seizure of their son. 

The court’s decision stated, “After reviewing the petition and mandamus record, we conclude relators have not shown they are entitled to the relief requested…Accordingly, we deny relators’ petition for writ of mandamus.” 

“They basically gave no explanation at all. They gave a one paragraph explanation, saying, eh, you know, we disagree,” said Jeremy Newman, Policy Director at the Texas Homeschool Coalition, in a Facebook video. 

Based on past actions by the court, Newman is not surprised by the ruling. 

“It is kind of a recurring theme in this case now – where at every step of the way you have these people who are actually refusing to cite the facts that justify what they are doing,” said Newman. 

The Pardo family now needs to bring their case to the Texas Supreme Court in order for Drake to be returned home.

The courts have continually denied the family’s requests Drake be released despite Child Protective Services (CPS) admitting in court to wrongdoing. Both the CPS caseworker and supervisor for the case have admitted under oath that they did not follow all of the proper rules for removing Drake from his parents’ home and that they had broken the law.

AUGUST 26, 2019

Rumblings before the eruption

ANTHONY ESOLEN

CRISIS MAGAZINE

“There is little need to underline the fact that the Church in our day is facing many and difficult problems of every sort,” writes Fr. George L. Kane. “Persecution has never been more intense or diabolical. Secularism is taking its toll of the attitudes and the ways of living of many of her members. Neo-paganism is ever devising new methods of breaking God’s commandments. Ignorance of religion is so widespread that it has been estimated that more than 90 percent of our people are insufficiently instructed in the Faith. The decline in Christian family life is almost everywhere evident.”

Fr. Kane is no doomsayer. The problems he lists are not insoluble. But they require that a different problem be addressed first—namely, “the acute shortage of priests, Brothers and Sisters.” You can’t run schools and hospitals without laborers, he says, and the soil in that field is growing thin. Hence he collects some of the best articles he can find on this topic in one volume: Meeting the Vocation Crisis. His hope is that “vocation directors and others charged with the responsibility of fostering vocations will find this compilation of some value.”

The book was published in 1956.

❧

 I’ll have a few things to say about Fr. Kane and the book I’m holding. First, I’d like to talk about one of the articles, “The Altar Boy Program” by the layman Paul Zimmerman. It will wring your heart. It comes from a world destroyed.

Zimmerman begins with an anecdote from 1775. That was a jubilee year, and the traffic of pilgrims to Rome was heavy. On the way, people stopped at churches for special prayers and solemn processions. There was one such procession in the village of Osimo, near Loretto. Two altar boys, Della Genga and Castiglione, were carrying brass candlesticks and walking on either side of the crucifix. Suddenly, they “got into an argument and before anyone knew it, Castiglione wielded his candlestick. A dull thud was heard and little Della Genga had a lump on his skull.”

Not an edifying anecdote—except that, on Christmas Eve in 1824, Habemus papam rang through the square of Saint Peter’s. The Cardinal Grand Penitentiary presented to the new Pope, Leo XII, the silver mallet with which to strike the Holy Door, “and with a twinkle in his eye the Pope whispered to him: ‘I wonder if you remember the day you presented me with a brass candlestick and a lump on the head?’” Nor does the story end there. When Della Genga died two years later, his successor was that same Cardinal Castiglione, Pius VIII.

“You never know,” says Zimmerman.  “Those so-called ‘animated pieces of humanity’ known as altar boys may one day become priests, cardinals and even popes.”

❧

Where does a scout look for baseball players? Where else but “on the sand-lots, the neighborhood, or school, or in small town leagues.”  Where then should you look for priests?  To the altar, where the boy “responds each day to ‘I will go unto the altar of God, to God who gives joy to my youth.’” Note that that psalm once so beautifully used as preparation for Mass has been relegated to a forgotten closet, with old missals that somebody was supposed to throw out a long time ago.

“From the natural standpoint,” says Zimmerman, “altar boys and the priest become the closest and best of friends.” It’s a male friendship built around getting important things done. This passage I must quote in full:

They see him at their recreation, at parties and picnics, and as the organizer and coach of their games. They see him at work when they watch him perform his duties as they help around the rectory. They see him as teacher as he takes them through their prayers and ceremonies. They know him in all his priestly work—they are closest to him while he offers the Sacrifice, while he gives Communion to the sick and well, or witnesses a marriage, teaches religion, rushes to the sickbed or buries the dead. They see him when they behold him kneeling in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament no matter how early they arrive, and again when they leave after Mass.

Priests are now too old or too few to be coaches, even if you could find enough boys in a parish to make up a team. No one would trust a child alone in an adult’s house to help clean up. There isn’t much to learn anymore by way of “prayers and ceremonies”—and, in many parishes, even that little is gobbled up by the grownups, leaving the altar girls and boys sitting, bored, in their jammies. I don’t think you’ll see an altar boy accompanying a priest on a visit to the sick or the dying. Neither before nor after Mass will the server see the priest kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament.

❧

What kinds of men appeal to boys? Heroes: the star pitcher, the quarterback, the ship captain, the explorer, the man who blasts a tunnel through a mountain. That’s who. “Theirs is a time of dreams,” says Zimmerman, “dreams in which the boy pictures himself performing great deeds, for himself, for his country and for his God.” Not comfortable deeds, complaisantly social deeds, mildly friendly deeds, safe and ordinary deeds, but great deeds, admitting of great risk and sacrifice and greater accomplishment and reward.

That’s to consider the matter “from the natural standpoint,” but “much more important are the supernatural opportunities which serving at Mass offers the altar boy.” I wonder how the sense of the supernatural can penetrate the fog of bonhomie and banality that has settled in the walls and pews and missals and hymnals of our churches. We have to try hard to imagine what Zimmerman sees as the drama of the Mass: “It is certainly possible that one who is so close to Christ truly present on the altar—there is none closer save the priest himself—should be enkindled by a spark from the infinite warmth of Divine Love.” It’s not only the proximity that moves the boy: “The altar boy plays a higher part in the Mass than the choir, the nuns, the laity—anyone other than the ministering priest himself.”

He grows used to “rising in all kinds of weather and enduring the tedium of long ceremonies,” building the virtue of self-sacrifice; his piety is enhanced by “close contact with the Blessed Sacrament, the altar and other sacred things,” and he learns “the manly traits of punctuality, neatness, reliability and responsibility, natural habits which can easily be converted by God into supernatural virtues.”

A different world.

❧

If it was destroyed, it wasn’t because of Reverend Kane. He was an English professor at Saint Francis Xavier College, in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, when that school was the premier Catholic college in Canada—all male, flush with vocations, and the center of an international credit union movement based on Catholic social teaching. Fr. Kane established a college radio station, CJFX, to broadcast programs on religion, arts and letters, economics, and agriculture; it was a “college over the air.”

He got things done. Such a man was well chosen as the director of vocations for what was then a diocese with a worldwide reputation.

Nor would I blame the man who owned my book—a dear friend who died last year, Fr. John J. MacDonald. He was tall and strong: a farmer-boy in youth and, ever afterward by hobby, orthodox in theology, the founder of our community television station and our local hospital, and also an alumnus of Saint Francis Xavier.

Father J. J. was for many years the pastor on our island, with a large team of altar boys. They loved him. When he first arrived, he didn’t know a bit of French, but he studied the language right away for the sake of the Acadian parish, and became fluent in it. One day, he was in the car taking four or five altar boys up to the highlands for some fishing, when they were stopped by tourists asking for directions. Father J. J., with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, responded in French as if it were the only language he spoke… much to the hardly-suppressed hilarity of the boys.

❧

I’ve also found a couple of memorial cards in the book. The front of the cards features Saint Joseph and the child Jesus. The back reads:

AVE MARIS STELLA!

Souvenir
de mon
Ordination Sacerdotale
et de ma
Premiere Messe Solennelle
16-17 Juin 1962

That is followed by the priest’s name. I won’t give it here. He, too, came to this island, and in the early 1970s he established, in the rectory, a boxing club for the boys. I think that a boxing club is a terrific thing, but this man was interested in more than boxing. He was tempted, and he fell badly, and did wicked things with some of those teenage boys. I don’t know the specifics. A reliable witness tells me that some—not all!—but some of the men who accused him lied, for the money. They were never anywhere near him.

But he was guilty, and he left Canada in disgrace, repenting of his sins, and living the rest of his years in seclusion—in a monastery, I believe—where, according to several other reliable witnesses, he died a holy death.

❧

Then the volcano erupted. If only we had the vocation crisis that Fr. Kane and the others wrote about! Volcanoes are indiscriminate in their destruction. Humanly speaking, every facet of Catholic existence has been scorched or charred or burnt to cinders: the liturgy, parish life, parochial schools, Catholic colleges, wholesome boyhood and girlhood, manhood, womanhood, marriage, the family, the priesthood, religious orders—the very confidence that Catholics should have regarding the truth of the faith.

I’m not reminiscing about a golden age. There aren’t any of those. Man is a sinner, destined to die. But does he have to be crippled and addled, too? The old Catholic colleges were not always seedbeds of sanctity. But do they have to be garbage heaps? The priesthood sometimes attracted bad or dubious men. But can we not at least have a priesthood, and a lot of religious orders?

If we can’t even imagine ordinary human things—a priest taking a group of energetic boys fishing in the mountains—that says a lot about how dreary and narrow our lives have become, because of sin, our own sins and the sins of others. Time to repent and rebuild.