Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso questioned on apparent double standard
WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) – A GOP lawmaker is challenging a Texas bishop on the apparent contradiction between the bishop’s criticism of the border wall and the existence of the Vatican wall.
During a House subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) referenced the Vatican wall when asking Bp. Mark J. Seitz if the churches in his diocese lock the doors after hours.
“Regarding the sovereignty of the Church and as it relates and compares with the sovereignty of our nation, the Church has been a light for the world for 2,000 years — a place of refuge, a place where a child of God could seek spiritual prosperity,” said Higgins, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security, Facilitation and Operations.I would ask you, Bishop, in the area that you serve, do your churches lock their doors after hours?Tweet
“But the sovereignty of the Church has been protected by the security of the Church,” he said. “One of the most famous walls in history is the wall around the Vatican. I would ask you, Bishop, in the area that you serve, do your churches lock their doors after hours?”
“Many of them do,” Bp. Seitz answered. “I would point out that that wall you refer to at the Vatican also has arms embracing and opening to the world.”
“As we do,” interrupted Higgins. “We have 328 ports of entry — legal entry — into our country, into the United States of America.”
Pope Francis caused a stir when he sent a $500,000 donation to assist migrants at the U.S.-Mexican border over the weekend in a move that “has all the appearance of an expensive publicity stunt aimed at poking the United States in the eye,” according to Michael Hichborn, president of The Lepanto Institute, who recently spoke with Church Militant.
Prior to sending the $500,000, Pope Francis had criticized President Trump’s border wall in a prerecorded interview with Spanish journalist Jordi Evole of La Sexta before leaving for Morocco on March 30.
“He who raises a wall ends up a prisoner of the wall he erected,” he said. “That’s a universal law in the social order and in the personal one. If you raise a wall between people, you end up a prisoner of that wall that you raised.”
The Pope has been criticizing Trump’s plan to build a wall at the U.S. southern border since Trump was a presidential candidate in 2016, telling journalists on a flight from Mexico to Italy that “[a] person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.”
Higgins’ mention of the Vatican wall in support of a country’s sovereign right to protect its borders is similar to what President Trump said last December: “When they say the wall’s immoral, well then you got to do something about the Vatican, because the Vatican has the biggest wall of them all.”
Bishop Seitz answered Higgins by stating that the Vatican embraces and is opened to the world.
Father James Martin, S.J., made a similar statement in 2016 when tweeting a picture of Saint Peter’s Square.View image on Twitter
John Thomas, who has been giving tours of the Vatican since 2000, spoke to Church Militant about Bp. Seitz’s response and an article — “No, Internet, the Vatican is not a walled city” — Crux published in 2016 to challenge claims of papal hypocrisy regarding walls.
“Some authors will refute the idea that the Vatican walls are defensive but will then proceed to describe the entry process visitors must endure, consisting of long lines, security checks, metal detectors and armed guards overseeing the entire process,” he said.
“A cursory glance at any map of Rome shows that almost 95% of the Vatican is indeed surrounded by very high walls,” he added.
While one is free to wander about St. Peter’s Square outside, Thomas explained that free movement into or through Vatican City is not permitted.
“Visitors to the Vatican are permitted access to certain parts of the sovereign state, albeit only at specific times. General admittance is granted for visitors to the Vatican museums, St. Peter’s Basilica, and St. Peter’s Square. Visits to other areas, such as the gardens, are only by special arrangement,” he explained.
The general admission, however, has clearly defined limits.
“All visitors must leave at a particular time and are not permitted entrance at all on certain days. Anyone found in any part of Vatican territory outside of that time will be removed with a swiftness that would put ICE agents to shame,” said Thomas.
Vatican City and its borders are protected by the Pontifical Swiss Guard and the Papal Gendarmerie Corps, both of which are armed.
The standard issue weapon of the Swiss Guard is the halberd, a two-handed pole weapon with an axe blade and spike at the end. As bodyguards, they are equipped with the SIG P220 pistol and the SIG SG 550 rifle.Anyone found in the square before it is reopened in the morning will be approached by armed guards and escorted to the border.Tweet
The standard issue weapon for the Gendarmerie Corps is a Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol in 9mm Parabellum. They also have access to more powerful weapons like the Beretta M12 and the Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun. The Gendarmerie Corps are also equipped to deal with riots with batons, tasers, pepper sprays and tear gas.
Finally, St. Peter’s Square, which Bp. Seitz said “has arms embracing and opening to the world,” also has a curfew.
“There are rules that apply to St. Peter’s Square, as well,” said Thomas. “At 11 p.m. on most evenings, all tourists are required to leave. Anyone found in the square before it is reopened in the morning will be approached by armed guards and escorted to the border.”
The Usual Suspects + Faux Life Groups Seek to Kill SB 2089, 2129, & Vulnerable Patients
It has just come to my attention that Texas Alliance for Life (“TAL”), Texans for Life Coalition, the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops (“TCCB”), the Texas Medical Association, the Texas Hospital Association, the Catholic Health Association of Texas and others have formed a coalition (read their statement here) seeking to kill SB 2089 which I wrote about here, here, here, and here. They offer no alternative language, they want it as dead as the patients subjected to this law. You should know that a much larger coalition of honest and authentic pro-life organizations and individuals have written in support of these bills. You should also recall that vastly more testified and registered in support of these bills – 9 to 1 – than against them as I reported here. This is what the people want because they see the problems with the law as it is currently. Bobby Schindler, an expert on euthanasia, not only testified in favor of this legislation, he wrote an OpEd about it. Noted bioethicist, Wesley J. Smith, has written and testified about Texas’ shameful law as well a number of times and just recently testified along with Bobby Schindler (see the same link above). It’s time that the pro-life and religious organizations that have chosen this path are called out as the fakes they are. One of the primary opponents of these bills is Texas Alliance for Life. It has gone so far as to issue a call to action asking its supporters to oppose these bills. Recall that its executive director sat next to Chris Dunn’s mother and lied about him and his case – under oath – before a Senate committee hearing. These organizations claim – publicly at least – that their support for TADA is about doctor conscience protection. That’s a boldfaced lie. There is no need to kill off sick patients to assuage a doctor’s conscience. I’ve asked these supporters about this directly in the past online and they drop out of comboxes as soon as the question is raised. Just transfer the patient’s care to another doctor or facility. But they oppose that. They oppose removing the alleged issue for a doctor’s conscience. TAL made that clear in its testimony above and in many sessions before this one. They claim that patients want every available medical intervention indefinitely. Again, that’s not true and we’ve addressed that before and did so in testimony just a few weeks ago. These organizations oppose giving patients the right to direct their own care and maintain life-sustaining treatment as their diseases overtake them. In some cases, they’d kill off a patient who can make a recovery. They SUPPORT withdrawing life-sustaining care against a patient’s will – they SUPPORT involuntary passive euthanasia. TAL’s own board members have stated so very clearly in published writings. What they support – the only thing they support – is killing off a patient prematurely and against his will. And at least two or three of these organizations claim the mantle of pro-life. What is pro and life about what they are doing here? This very letter they are a signatories to talks about ending suffering. That is euthanasia. TAL, in particular, is again supporting the very definition of euthanasia. But these patients are often not suffering or the extent of it is unknowable. Moreover, that’s a call for them to make or their families. Some of these organizations or their leaders claim Catholicism; but as you may know, Catholicism teaches about redemptive suffering. And, the ugly truth is, what these hospital ethics committees actually base these decisions on is a “quality of life” determination. That’s not for them to decide either. They don’t claim conscience issues either. Not there. Not then. And, again, even if that were valid, it could be addressed without killing the patient. Let me be clear about this as well: it does not matter that others went along with this as the lesser evil it was back in 1999 when they were forced into it. I’ve addressed this timeand again and most recently said:
You need to know that others who may have initially supported this law in the beginning have come to regret that because whatever was intended, assuming arguendo that there was ever anything benevolent intended here by the doctors’ and hospitals’ lobbies, that is not what happened and that is not what goes on behind closed doors. We have to fix whatis in this law and how it is used and be honest about those problems. Having some misguided loyalty (or worse) to a law you helped create 20 years ago that is a disaster only speaks to your issues but not to the realities of the law. Nor does that undermine or shine a negative light on the others who saw the error in the law and have worked tirelessly to fix it and help those affected by it. Those who attack Texas Right to Life on this point are wrong to do so. Their arguments are as unpersuasive as they are illogical, absurd, and, in some cases, based on outright lies (and I’m going to prove that to you soon). And, if Texas Right to Life is a little less likely to believe the medical lobby and those supporting the medical lobby, well, the old saying “Fool me once….” applies here in spades.
Understand that these faux life groups and the TCCB as well as the Catholic Health Association of Texas are allying themselves with at least one organization that supports abortion, for Pete’s sake. Do we really need to know anything else to judge that these organizations have – at a minimum – lost their way and cannot be trusted on matters of life? Texas Right to Life has addressed this ridiculous argument time and again as well. They see this law doesn’t work for patients – it works against them – and that the very organizations that make up this coalition who oppose these bills lied in 1999 and continue to do so. As the only real pro-life group in the state and the only one that helps patients navigate this draconian procedure, Texas Right to Life sees that the law does not facilitate communication with doctors as patients are can be and often are prohibited from speaking at ethics hearings. I’ve seen it personally. There is no due process in this law whatsoever. It fails that on every level. TAL and these same orgs could not even argue that in their amici brief in the appeal challenging the constitutionality of TADA. They ignored the due process argument entirely. Telling. These orgs, especially TAL, regurgitate the same tired lies time and again. But they don’t lift a finger to help those in the crosshairs of this monstrous law – the worst in the nation – because they don’t really support life. In the case of the Catholic Health Association, their opposition to due process and patient protection is particularly chilling. My goodness. We can see where that leads and how morally compromised they are. I sat next to their representative at the hearing on SB 2089. It was chilling. And dark. These organizations – and I specifically mean the faux life ones and the Catholic ones – are frauds and a danger to all Texans as all Texans will be or will have a loved one in a hospital at some point in time. TAL hides behind – or directs? – the Texas Catholic Bishops who are only too willing to lend a hand to this macabre practice. People wonder why as well. Despite the bastardized interpretation of Catholic teaching TAL and the Catholic orgs all promote, there is nothing in Catholic teaching that supports this. The Bishops are compromised on many things morally anyway; this is just added to the list. The scandal to the faithful that they all promote by this is another level of their destruction. God help them all. TAL in particular seems hell bent on seeing to it that people are involuntarily passively euthanized. I don’t know what happened to that organization and it doesn’t matter. It needs to be called out. Lives matter. All lives matter. All lives are valuable and worthy of protection. And even if these orgs don’t think so, they don’t get to make that decision. (TAL is run by a Catholic and the TCCB and Catholic Health Association are presumably Catholic or run by or advised by Catholics. Read up on the Principle of Subsidiarity. I’ve written about it here, here, and here.) The patients or their families get to decide if they want to continue receiving life-sustaining care or not. Not these orgs. Not a doctor. Not a hospital. We can protect a doctor’s conscience without killing the patient. Let me repeat – read it slowly – we can protect a doctor’s conscience without killing the patient. To each of these organizations: These bills would do that. And, yet, they oppose them. So that’s not really the issue, is it? Just today I asked my readers to pray for these organizations (I know, it was subtle, but that was aimed at these very organizations, politicians, advocacy groups, and all the others who support killing off the ill and disabled). I’m asking them to continue that. But I’m asking them to expose these organizations for the charlatans they are on this issue. I’m asking them to oppose these organizations and fight for the lives they’d happily see ended against their will and prematurely. I’m asking legislators to do what is right and pro-life and life-affirming. I’m asking them to relegate every organization and each individual within these organizations who signed onto this letter to irrelevance and obscurity because they are all dangerous to Texans. There is no candy-coating it, there is no justification for it: they promote death. Readers, lives are on the line and it’s time we all do what we can to save them. Don’t fall for people’s self-declared misleading titles or their positions. By their fruits you will know them. And some of them yield bitter, sour fruits of death and destruction. I ask you to contact your State Senator and Representative and ask them to support these bills. You can easily use this form for SB 2089 (its House companion is HB 3158), which will end the 10-day deadline where life-sustaining care is withdrawn from a patient against his will in order to hasten his death prematurely and allow them time to be transferred. Contact your State Senator about SB 2129 and tell them you support amending the Texas Advance Directives Act to include due process for patients. Thanks for reading!
April 30, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Prominent clergymen and scholars including Fr. Aidan Nichols, one of the best-known theologians in the English-speaking world, have issued an open letter accusing Pope Francis of committing heresy. They ask the bishops of the Catholic Church, to whom the open letter is addressed, to “take the steps necessary to deal with the grave situation” of a pope committing this crime.
The authors base their charge of heresy on the manifold manifestations of Pope Francis’ embrace of positions contrary to the faith and his dubious support of prelates who in their lives have shown themselves to have a clear disrespect for the Church’s faith and morals.
“We take this measure as a last resort to respond to the accumulating harm caused by Pope Francis’s words and actions over several years, which have given rise to one of the worst crises in the history of the Catholic Church,” the authors state. The open letter is available in Dutch, Italian, German, French, and Spanish.
Among the signatories are well-respected scholars such as Father Thomas Crean, Fr. John Hunwicke, Professor John Rist, Dr. Anna Silvas, Professor Claudio Pierantoni, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, and Dr. John Lamont. The text is dated “Easter Week” and appears on the traditional Feast Day of St. Catherine of Siena, a saint who counseled and admonished several popes in her time.
The 20-page document is a follow-up to the 2017 Filial Correction of Pope Francis that was signed originally by 62 scholars and which stated that the Pope has “effectively upheld 7 heretical positions about marriage, the moral life, and the reception of the sacraments, and has caused these heretical opinions to spread in the Catholic Church,” especially in light of his 2016 exhortation Amoris Laetitia.
The authors of the open letter state in a summary of their letter (read below) that it has now become clear that Pope Francis is aware of his own positions contrary to the faith and that the time has come to go a “stage further” by claiming that Pope Francis is “guilty of the crime of heresy.”
“We limit ourselves to accusing him of heresy on occasions where he has publicly denied truths of the faith, and then consistently acted in a way that demonstrates that he disbelieves these truths that he has publicly denied,” the authors state.
They clarify that they are not claiming Pope Francis has “denied truths of the faith in pronouncements that satisfy the conditions for an infallible papal teaching.”
“We assert that this would be impossible, since it would be incompatible with the guidance given to the Church by the Holy Spirit,” they state.
In light of this situation, the authors call upon the bishops of the Church to take action since a “heretical papacy may not be tolerated or dissimulated to avoid a worse evil.”
For this reason, the authors “respectfully request the bishops of the Church to investigate the accusations contained in the letter, so that if they judge them to be well founded they may free the Church from her present distress, in accordance with the hallowed adage, Salus animarum prima lex (‘the salvation of souls is the highest law’). The bishops can do this, the writers suggest, “by admonishing Pope Francis to reject these heresies, and if he should persistently refuse, by declaring that he has freely deprived himself of the papacy.”
The authors first present in detail – and with theological references to substantiate their claims – the different positions against the faith Pope Francis has shown himself to hold, propagate, or support, including “seven propositions contradicting divinely revealed truth.”
One of the heresies the authors accuse Pope Francis of committing is expressed in the following proposition: “A Christian believer can have full knowledge of a divine law and voluntarily choose to break it in a serious matter, but not be in a state of mortal sin as a result of this action.” Many of these heretical statements touch on questions of marriage and the family and are to be found in Amoris Laetitia, but there is also a new claim made by Pope Francis in 2019 – namely, that the “diversity of religions” is “willed by God” – that is listed in the open letter.
In one section of the open letter, the authors list the many prelates as well as lay people, who, despite openly dissenting from Catholic doctrine and morals — either by word or by deed — have been by Pope Francis either publicly praised (such as Emma Bonino) or raised to influential positions (such as Cardinal Oscar Rodrigez Maradiaga). On this list are names such as Cardinal Blase Cupich, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, and Bishop Juan Barros.
The fact that Pope Francis never responded to the dubia (questions) concerning Amoris Laetitia published by Cardinals Carlo Caffarra, Joachim Meisner, Walter Brandmüller, and Raymond Burke is mentioned. Moreover, the authors point out that Pope Francis has changed the members of the Pontifical Academy for Life to such an extent that orthodox Catholic experts have been replaced by heterodox experts, such as Father Maurizio Chiodi.
Addressing the bishops of the world – among whom are to be found all the present 222 cardinals – the authors of the open letter express their gratitude toward those bishops who have defended Catholic doctrine by their own personal witnesses.
“We recognise with gratitude that some among you have reaffirmed the truths contrary to the heresies which we have listed, or else have warned of serious dangers threatening the Church in this pontificate,” they state. Here, the dubia cardinals, but also Cardinal Willem Eijk, are mentioned. The authors also thank Cardinal Gerhard Müller for his Manifesto of Faith.
The authors believe, however, that at this time in history, six years into the Francis pontificate, more is needed, namely a more direct and authoritative approach. They recognize their own limits when they tell the bishops: “Despite the evidence that we have put forward in this letter, we recognise that it does not belong to us to declare the pope guilty of the delict of heresy in a way that would have canonical consequences for Catholics.”
“We therefore appeal to you as our spiritual fathers, vicars of Christ within your own jurisdictions and not vicars of the Roman pontiff, publicly to admonish Pope Francis to abjure the heresies that he has professed. Even prescinding from the question of his personal adherence to these heretical beliefs, the Pope’s behaviour in regard to the seven propositions contradicting divinely revealed truth, mentioned at the beginning of this Letter, justifies the accusation of the delict of heresy. It is beyond a doubt that he promotes and spreads heretical views on these points. Promoting and spreading heresy provides sufficient grounds in itself for an accusation of the delict of heresy. There is, therefore, superabundant reason for the bishops to take the accusation of heresy seriously and to try to remedy the situation,” they state.
The authors make it clear that it is up to the bishops to take action and that they do not need a majority among the bishops to do so.
“Since Pope Francis has manifested heresy by his actions as well as by his words, any abjuration must involve repudiating and reversing these actions, including his nomination of bishops and cardinals who have supported these heresies by their words or actions. Such an admonition is a duty of fraternal charity to the Pope, as well as a duty to the Church,” they state.
“If – which God forbid! – Pope Francis does not bear the fruit of true repentance in response to these admonitions, we request that you carry out your duty of office to declare that he has committed the canonical delict of heresy and that he must suffer the canonical consequences of this crime,” they add.
Thus, the authors state, “these actions do not need to be taken by all the bishops of the Catholic Church, or even by a majority of them. A substantial and representative part of the faithful bishops of the Church would have the power to take these actions.”
The full 20-page document may be read here. A select bibliography to support the case made in the open letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church about Pope Francis’ heresies may be read here.
A petition launched by the organizers of the open letter to support their initiative can be found here.
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Summary of open letter to bishops as presented by the authors themselves:
The Open letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church is the third stage in a process that began in the summer of 2016. At that time, an ad hoc group of Catholic clergy and scholars wrote a private letter to all the cardinals and Eastern Catholic patriarchs, pointing out heresies and other serious errors that appeared to be contained in or favoured by Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia. The following year, after Pope Francis had continued by word, deed, and omission to propagate many of these same heresies, a ‘Filial Correction’ was addressed to the pope by many of the same people, as well as by other clergy and scholars. This second letter was made public in September 2017, and a petition in support of it was signed by some 14,000 people. The authors of that letter stated however that they did not seek to judge whether Pope Francis was aware that he was causing heresy to spread.
The present Open letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church goes a stage further in claiming that Pope Francis is guilty of the crime of heresy. This crime is committed when a Catholic knowingly and persistently denies something which he knows that the Church teaches to be revealed by God. Taken together, the words and actions of Pope Francis amount to a comprehensive rejection of Catholic teaching on marriage and sexual activity, on the moral law, and on grace and the forgiveness of sins.
The Open letter also indicates the link between this rejection of Catholic teaching and the favour shown by Pope Francis to bishops and other clergy who have either been guilty of sexual sins and crimes, such as former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, or who have protected clergy guilty of sexual sins and crimes, such as the late Cardinal Godfried Danneels. This protection and promotion of clerics who reject Catholic teaching on marriage, sexual activity, and on the moral law in general, even when these clerics personally violate the moral and civil law in horrendous ways, is consistent enough to be considered a policy on the part of Pope Francis. At the least it is evidence of disbelief in the truth of Catholic teaching on these subjects. It also indicates a strategy to impose rejection of these teachings on the Church, by naming to influential posts individuals whose personal lives are based on violation of these truths.
The authors consider that a heretical papacy may not be tolerated or dissimulated to avoid a worse evil. It strikes at the basic good of the Church and must be corrected. For this reason, the study concludes by describing the traditional theological and legal principles that apply to the present situation. The authors respectfully request the bishops of the Church to investigate the accusations contained in the letter, so that if they judge them to be well founded, they may free the Church from her present distress, in accordance with the hallowed adage, Salus animarum prima lex (‘the salvation of souls is the highest law’). They can do this by admonishing Pope Francis to reject these heresies, and if he should persistently refuse, by declaring that he has freely deprived himself of the papacy.
While this Open letter is an unusual, even historic, document, the Church’s own laws say that “Christ’s faithful have the right, and, indeed, sometimes the duty, according to their knowledge, competence, and dignity, to manifest to the sacred pastors their judgment about those things which pertain to the good of the Church” (Code of Canon Law, canon 212.3). While Catholics hold that a pope speaks infallibly in certain strictly defined conditions, the Church does not say that he cannot fall into heresy outside these conditions.
The signatories to the Open Letter include not only specialists in theology and philosophy, but also academics and scholars from other fields. This fits well with the central claim of the Open Letter, that Pope Francis’s rejection of revealed truths is evident to any well-instructed Catholic who is willing to examine the evidence. The signatures of Fr Aidan Nichols OP and of Professor John Rist will be noted. Fr Nichols is one of the best-known theologians in the English-speaking world, and the author of many books on a wide range of theological topics, including the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger. Professor Rist, who is known for his work in classical philosophy and the history of theology, has held chairs and professorships at the University of Toronto, the Augustinianum in Rome, the Catholic University of America, the University of Aberdeen, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The Open Letter is released just after the celebration of Holy Week and Easter Week, in the hopes that the present ‘passion’ of the Church will soon give way to a full resurrection of God’s saving truth.
Clergy and academics who wish to sign the open letter may send their name and credentials to organizers at this email address: openlettertobishops@gmail.com. All requests will be thoroughly vetted.
List of signers:
Georges Buscemi, President of Campagne Québec-Vie, member of the John-Paul II Academy for Human Life and Family
Robert Cassidy, STL
Fr Thomas Crean, OP
Matteo d’Amico, Professor of History and Philosophy, Senior High School of Ancona
Deacon Nick Donnelly, MA
Maria Guarini STB, Pontificia Università Seraphicum, Rome; editor of the website Chiesa e postconcilio
Prof. Robert Hickson, PhD, Retired Professor of Literature and of Strategic-Cultural Studies
Fr John Hunwicke, former Senior Research Fellow, Pusey House, Oxford
Peter Kwasniewski, PhD
John Lamont, DPhil (Oxon.)
Brian M. McCall, Orpha and Maurice Merrill Professor in Law; Editor-in-Chief of Catholic Family News
Fr Cor Mennen, JCL, diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch (Netherlands), canon of the cathedral Chapter. lecturer at de diocesan Seminary of ‘s-Hertogenbosch
Stéphane Mercier, STB, PhD, Former Lecturer at the Catholic University of Louvain
Fr Aidan Nichols, OP
Paolo Pasqualucci, Professor of Philosophy (retired), University of Perugia
Dr. Claudio Pierantoni, Professor of Medieval Philosophy, University of Chile; former Professor of Church History and Patrology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
Professor John Rist
Dr. Anna Silvas, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education, University of New England
Prof. dr. W.J. Witteman, physicist, emeritus professor, University of Twente
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TWELVE VALID CARDINALS, i.e. CARDINALS APPOINTED BY POPES BENEDICT XVI AND SAINT JOHN PAUL II, MUST ACT SOON TO REMOVE FRANCIS THE MERCIFUL FROM THE THRONE OF SAINT PETER BEFORE HE DAMAGES THE INSTITUTIONAL CHURCH EVEN MORE THAN HE HAS ALREADY DAMAGED IT.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CARDINALS OF THE HOLY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND OTHER CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN FAITHFUL IN 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 Gregisparticularly 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. 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 that 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 Plume Un ami des Papes
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who once wrote an entire columnabout a Paris cabbie who didn’t talk to him, wants you to know that he went down to the southern border, looked around, and concluded something’s not quite right down there.
To be fair, Friedman’s recent op-ed on the border crisis represents probably one of the most intrepid reporting trips he’s ever done. Instead of just jotting down random things he saw in the airport, Friedman actually toured the port of entry at San Ysidro and had Border Patrol drive him out to where the border fencing ends, “and craggy valleys beckoning drug smugglers, asylum seekers and illegal immigrants begin.”
This place where the fence ends, Friedman tells us, is for some reason “a very troubling scene.” But a steel fence and some craggy hills is not a troubling scene. You know what’s a troubling scene? Thirteen hundred Cubans forcibly setting fire to a detention center in Chiapas, Mexico, then breaking down the gates and sprinting away, which happened two days after Friedman’s column ran. Here’s what it looked like:
A troubling scene is the three-year-old boy Border Patrol agents found alone and crying in a corn field in south Texas last week, abandoned by smugglers, his name and a phone number written on his shoes.
A troubling scene is hundreds of travelers, including women and infants, precariously clinging to the top of a freight train in southern Mexico, hoping to survive the dangerous journey north without losing a limb, or worse.
There’s really no end to troubling scenes along the border—drug tunnels, rape houses, families being held under a bridge in El Paso for days—but you won’t hear about them from Friedman. His big takeaway from driving around with Border Patrol was what you might expect from a columnist who’s built a career reducing complex problems to zingy one-liners: “The whole day left me more certain than ever that we have a real immigration crisis and that the solution is a high wall with a big gate — but a smart gate.”
A high wall and a smart gate. Thanks, Tom! Who knew?
The Border Crisis Is an Asylum Crisis
Friedman’s analysis—which isn’t all wrong, by the way, and in fact is probably the only one you’ll read in The New York Times that acknowledges we have a crisis on the border—suffers above all from a lack of clarity about what the crisis is. Put in simple, Friedman-like terms, we have an asylum crisis at the southern border. That’s it. The solution isn’t a wall or a gate—not even a smart gate. The solution is asylum reform.
Right now, Central American families and minors are traveling, by any means available, to the U.S.-Mexico border in order to turn themselves in and claim asylum. Because of our outdated and ineffectual asylum system, almost all of them are released into the United States to begin court proceedings that will take years. For families and minors, it is a de facto open borders policy. They know this, and so do smugglers and drug cartels that are now making billions off the crisis (something Friedman fails to mention).
Everything else—Trump’s wall, immigration reform, even the politics of foreign aid to Central America—can largely be separated from what’s causing all those troubling scenes described above and all the human misery that comes with them. The crucial points to understand are that federal law leaves U.S. Customs and Border Protection with vanishingly few options when families and minors turn themselves in after crossing the border, and this state of affairs has created and enormous black market for human smuggling.
Friedman seems to have missed this, despite a good-faith effort. He writes that he wants “to understand how this wall system works,” so he goes out to the newly built fence east of San Ysidro with Border Patrol. Where the wall ends, he says, “human smugglers begin.”
Not exactly. Human smuggling is happening right now all up and down the border, in fenced areas and un-fenced ones, but mostly in the Rio Grande Valley and El Paso, where Border Patrol are apprehending thousands of people every day. There’s some fencing in both of these sectors (although not as much as Border Patrol says it needs) but that’s beside the point. For people seeking asylum, fencing isn’t a problem because the fences are entirely on U.S. soil. If they show up on the south side, they can claim asylum and federal officials must take them into custody.
As things now stand, federal border facilities are overwhelmed, federal agencies are at the breaking point, and large numbers of illegal immigrants with no money, no food, and nowhere to sleep are being released into border communities that are unable to care for them. That’s the crisis.
Our Asylum System Is Producing Misery
Maybe we Americans can’t, as a people, agree on comprehensive immigration reform. But we don’t need to, at least not right away. We first need to agree that our flawed, outdated asylum system has produced this crisis, and only by reforming it can we end the crisis.
Does Friedman agree? It’s not clear. Among his concluding list of solutions is this platitudinous gem: “we need to rethink who is entitled to asylum, so people fleeing economic dislocation don’t overwhelm our borders and harden our hearts to people truly fleeing tyranny.”
Someone should pull Friedman aside and tell him that “people fleeing economic dislocation” don’t qualify for asylum under current U.S. law, yet they’re overwhelming our borders anyway. Why? Because our asylum system is not designed to handle them.
It need not be this way. If Central American families fleeing economic dislocation, and thus not eligible for asylum, were quickly turned back at the border, they would stop paying smugglers and cartels thousands of dollars per person to make the journey north. Word would get back to communities in their home country that it isn’t worth it, don’t come, you can’t get in by claiming asylum.
Right now, growing numbers of people in Guatemala and Honduras and El Salvador are selling everything they have, breaking up their families, going into debt to dangerous men, putting their children in great peril, all to afford a trip to the border. As long as we refuse to reform our asylum laws, and allow the broken system that perpetuates this massive black market to endure, we’ll be complicit in this tragedy.John is a senior correspondent for The Federalist. Follow him on Twitter.Photo John Davidson
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The National Catholic Register reported that “Pope Francis’ new apostolic constitution for the Roman Curia” appears to give “evangelization” priority “over doctrine”:
“Capuchin Father Thomas Weinandy, a former executive director of the U.S. bishops’ committee on doctrine, expressed misgivings over the document’s ambiguity, as reported so far.”
“If evangelization is being emphasized over doctrine in order to give evangelization priority, Father Weinandy said he would have ‘no problem’ with that as it would be in keeping with Christ’s command and the Church’s tradition.”
“But if, within such a stress on evangelization, it meant Church doctrine would not be emphasized at the same time, then that would not be a ‘true evangelization’ as the Church’s doctrines ‘are at the heart of evangelization.'”
The new apostolic constitution, like Francis’s document Gaudete et Exsultate which are supposed to be a calls to evangelization and holiness, unfortunately, appears not to be a calls to either evangelization or holiness. Below is the reason why:
This is why Dan Hitchens in First Things says of the document “there is an orthodox interpretation,” but then writes:
“But there is a different interpretation: that when someone says ‘The Church teaches that X is intrinsically wrong,’ he is probably a bit of a Pharisee. The history of Amoris Laetitia suggests that more expansive interpretation often gains the upper hand.” (First Things, “An Ambiguous Exhortation,” 4-12-18)
Hitchens suggests that this papal document is mocking those Catholics who believe and teach the infallible moral doctrines of Divine Revelation.
Obviously if one knowingly rejects Divine Revelation, one rejects God and loses his salvation.
But there is another reason why Gaudete et Exsultate will not make you holy and could help you lose your salvation.
St. Augustine said that no one can save his soul if he doesn’t pray.
Augustine is talking about true prayer.
Prayer simply means to communicate or have dialogue with God. St. Teresa of Avila says prayer is conversation with God.
An excellent book on prayer by Tim Gray titled “Praying Scriptures for a Change: An Introduction to Lectio Divina” explains what is needed to have true prayer:
“With the effects of original sin distorting both the book of nature and the book of the human person, how can we hear God’s communication?… When the Word became flesh, God’s voice at last could be heard… Only through Jesus can we come to discern and hear clearly God’s Word to us.”
“This Word of divine revelation is handed down to us through Scripture and Tradition [infallible Church doctrines], which provide us with the Rosetta Stone for deciphering all that God wants to communicate to humanity. God desires enter into dialogue with us.” (Pages 13-14)
St. Ignatius of Loyola couldn’t have put it better on how to pray and make discernment.
Unfortunately, Francis’s Gaudete et Exsultate says ” the Holy Spirit… discernment… develop[s]… [by] prayer, reflection, reading and good counsel” (First Things, “An Ambiguous Exhortation, 4-12-18),” but not through Divine Revelation.
In fact, the document apparently condemns or as Hitchens says “criticizes… ‘dogmatism'” and thus those who discern or pray using “dogmatism” or Divine Revelation as the only foundation to true prayer.
As all saints in history have taught, the only way to become holy is by prayer using Divine Revelation as it’s only foundation.
So, Gaudete et Exsultate’s method of prayer and discernment apparently will not make you holy and could help you lose your salvation if all the saints and St. Augustine are correct.
Pray an Our Father now for more Catholics to come to true prayer and discernment.
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on “If evangelization is being emphasized over doctrine in order to give evangelization priority, Father Weinandy said he would have ‘no problem’ with that as it would be in keeping with Christ’s command and the Church’s tradition. But if, within such a stress on evangelization, it meant Church doctrine would not be emphasized at the same time, then that would not be a ‘true evangelization’ as the Church’s doctrines ‘are at the heart of evangelization.'”
LifeSiteNews in the article “Corruption of Pope Francis’ reform chief portrayed in groundbreaking new book” reported that Martha Alegría Reichmann, the widow of former Vatican ambassador Alejandro Valladares Lanza in her new book “Sacred Betrayals” (“Traiciones Sagradas”) revealed:
“Pope Francis’ reform chief Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga has maintained an abusive and mafia-like regime in Honduras for decades, promoting false investment schemes, diverting money from the local university and from the government to shadowy and immoral purposes, and ruthlessly protecting his corrupt auxiliary bishop, who was forced to resign in 2018 following accusations of sexual abuse of seminarians.”
Moreover, the Cardinal who “symbolizes” the “Pope Francis era” “symbolizes” it’s systematic sex abuse cover-up:
Italian journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi is one of the two Italian journalists charged in the Vatileaks 2 trial. The Vatican put him in court because of his last book on Vatican financial corruption. In his new book “Lust: Sins, Scandals, and Betrayal of a Church Made of Men,” he reports that Francis and his top advisors, specifically Maradiaga, are covering-up or undermining investigations on sex abuse on a global scale.
In an interview with ComunidadeCulturaeArte.com, Fittipaldi said Maradiaga protected a pedophile priest, claimed that “Cardinal Law was a saint” and said that he “would never denounce” pedophile priests to the FBI:
“Maradiaga [Honduran Cardinal], from whom we have not yet spoken, but who is the coordinator of C9 and is a great friend of Francisco. The pope gave no importance to the fact that Maradiaga had protected a priest from the Costa Rica pedophile, fugitive from Interpol, who was found in bed with an eight-year-old child by his mother. This pedophile priest went around North America to Central America until he arrived in Honduras. In Tegucigalpa, which is the diocese of Maradiaga, he found hospitality for six months.”
“Maradiaga is someone who in Rome, in 2004, when there was the ‘ Spotlight ‘ scandal, due to the investigation of our colleagues from the Boston Globe, said that the Boston Globe and CNN were beasts, Friends of the Jews of Israel, that the denunciations were not true and that Cardinal Law was a saint. He also said that he would never denounce a priest to the FBI, even if he was a pedophile, because priests are not cops. A man who says that kind of thing, ten years later, thanks to Francisco, has become one of the most powerful men in the Vatican.” (ComunidadeCulturaeArte.com, “Emiliano Fittipaldi: ‘Para Francisco, a pedofilia é uma questão secundária,'” October 20, 2017, Google translation) [https://www.comunidadeculturaearte.com/emiliano-fittipaldi-para-francisco-a-pedofilia-e-uma-questao-secundaria/]
In the interview Fittipaldi, also, said “Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI]… was very traditionalist and conservative, and so the journalists did not like him, but he did important things. The things he did in relation to pedophilia, which was not much, but double the time for prescribing crimes in the Vatican, sent away almost 600 priests in a few years. The incredible thing is that Francis did a lot less.”
Journalist Hilary White confirmed the Fittipaldi understatement reporting that Francis “has all but completely dismantled” the “effective” reforms instituted against clerical sex abuse by Benedict:
“Pope Benedict installed effective procedural reforms on clerical sex abuse; Francis… has all but completely dismantled or reversed those changes… Benedict ‘had defrocked or suspended more than 800 priests for past sexual abuse between 2009 and 2012’… His reforms specifically included bishops who refused to act against priest-abusers… ‘This Pope has removed two to three bishops per month’… These reforms – and – removals – have ceased entirely under Francis.” (Remnant, “Pope Francis Accused of Inaction in Notorious Sex Abuse Cases, January 25, 2017)
It appears that Francis is solely responsible for almost completely dismantling Pope Benedict’s effective sex abuse reforms.
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church.
2. The migrant caravan came from Francis’s top papal advisor Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga’s home country Honduras.
3. Maradiaga is known for his connections to the United States and Honduras gay lobbies.
4. A news report says Honduran gays, “trans women [men],” involved in the caravan were accused by Guatamala officials of human trafficking.
5. President Donald Trump said the caravan included criminals. The criminal organization from Honduras M-13 is known to be involved in human trafficking.
Here is the evidence that Maradiaga is connected to the McCarrick United States and the Honduran gay lobbies:
-“In his statement released Saturday, Archbishop Viganò refers to Cardinal Cupich as a man “blinded by his pro-gay ideology” who was appointed as archbishop outside of normal Church protocols because of the powerful backing of three influential cardinals… “The appointments of Blase Cupich to Chicago and Joseph W. Tobin to Newark were orchestrated by McCarrick, Maradiaga and Wuerl, united by a wicked pact of abuses by the first, and at least of coverup of abuses by the other two,” Viganò stated in his communiqué.” [https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/08/27/chicago-cardinal-astonished-by-allegations-his-career-aided-by-mccarrick/]
-“’Cardinal Maradiaga had not responded to questions submitted by the Register regarding the allegations of widespread homosexual misconduct at the Tegucigalpa archdiocesan seminary by the time this article was published. But an informed source said he views them as inventions. ‘He looks out for the guilty but doesn’t realize that over half the seminarians are homosexuals,’ the source said, adding that some formators recently refused to participate in priestly ordinations because of the candidates’ alleged homosexuality. ‘The cardinal ordained them himself’, the source said.’”
“And yet Rodriguez Maradiaga’s mandatory resignation at age 75 has not been accepted by Francis, even though he is, as Pentin notes, under pressure to explain what he knew and when he knew it concerning Pineda’s “‘sexual misconduct with seminarians and lavish spending on his lovers that was so obvious to Honduras’ poverty-wracked faithful…’” [https://fatima.org/news-views/why-is-rodriguez-maradiaga-still-a-cardinal-the-face-of-vatican-corruption/]
Are any of Maradiaga’s gay Honduran associates connected with the Honduran gays in the caravan?
The radical gay Washington Blade reported Honduran gays are involved in the Honduran migrants caravan:
“Activists in San Pedro Sula and in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa with whom the Washington Blade spoke last week said upwards of 4,000 migrants are part of the caravan. The activists also said some of the migrants are LGBTI.”
Guatamala officials who accused caravan gays with human trafficking are very knowledgeable about trafficking because the large criminal organization MS-13 in their country is known for this type of criminal activity.
MS-13 which is centered in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala is getting known for their human trafficking:
“More recently there has been a rise in MS-13 engaging in human trafficking. MS-13 is found throughout the Americas but they traffick differently in the United States and in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.”
“In the United States, victims of MS-13 tend to be Latino immigrant girls or girls from the Northern Triangle countries who came into the country as unaccompanied minors. Once the unaccompanied minors are smuggled into the United States, they become prime targets for human trafficking.”
“HHS places minors either in foster care, with family or a sponsor. The majority of unaccompanied minors end up in California, New York, Texas, and the Washington DC area that includes Maryland and Virginia—states that have large Central American populations and thus large MS-13 populations.[1] MS-13 preys on the vulnerability of the unaccompanied minors; some have previously suffered sexual abuse either in their home country or during the trip north; others lack a community and do not speak English. Members of MS-13 seek out the vulnerable young girls using violence and other coercive tactics to intimidate the girl into having sex for money to help financially support the gang.”
“Runaways are also appealing to the MS-13. Family problems, transitions from foster care and economic problems are some of the reasons that unaccompanied minors run away from their homes. Many of the unaccompanied minors may have experienced sexual abuse, exploitation or physical abuse in their home countries or during their migration to the United States and even more suffer from poverty and lack of a stable social network. These are all factors that make young girls more susceptible to human trafficking.”
Pray an Our Father now for the United States and the victims of human traffickingFred Martinez at 3:59 PM
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on “The Mara Salvatrucha, better known by their acronym MS-13, is one of the largest and most violent transnational criminal organizations in the world. Their motto is “Kill, Rape, Control.” Since the 1980s, MS-13 members have typically engaged in a wide range of violent and criminal activity including, drug distribution, murder, rape, prostitution, robbery, home invasions, immigration offenses, kidnapping, carjacking/auto thefts, and vandalism.”
Thomas knew what to look for. Sure, he shouldn’t have doubted. He should have believed the other Apostles. But for all his skepticism, he knew what to look for. He knew that the risen Lord of Easter Sunday must have the wounds of Good Friday. Anything less than that would be a counterfeit mercy.
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”(Jn 20:25) This near obsession with our Lord’s wounds indicates their importance for today’s Feast of Divine Mercy. Those wounds guard and express the truth about mercy. Especially in a culture so inclined to counterfeit mercies and false compassion, we need to focus with Thomas on the wounds of Christ.
The wounds defend the integrity of mercy by proclaiming the reality of sin. For mercy to be authentic, for it to have any power or meaning whatsoever, it must take sin seriously. “[H]e was pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquity. . .the Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all.”(Is 53:5-6) Our Lord’s wounds show that He knows our sins full well, even better than we do. He has suffered their full effect.
It is no mercy to shrug off guilt or trivialize sin. Man has always tended to do so (e.g., “The woman gave me fruit from the tree, so I ate it. . . .Am I my brother’s keeper?”). But today we have an entire philosophical system that seeks to justify that tendency. Moral relativism attracts people precisely because it promises to remove the sting of guilt by banishing all judgment. While it presents itself as mercy, moral relativism is, in fact, the greatest cruelty: it robs man of the ability to repent.
Mercy depends on the truth about man and his moral choosing. Only when we know that there is evil to reject and good to choose can we turn from one to the other – which is the very meaning of repentance. And only by turning from evil to good can we receive the mercy constantly extended to us. Moral relativism forbids any objective norm by which we can know that we have failed and need to repent. Where there is no standard of morality, neither can there be repentance or mercy.
*
Of course, the moral sense is not so easily eradicated from society. Man will give expression to that sense so deep within him. Without any objective reference, however, morality is determined by the powerful. So we become enslaved to the tyrannical mood swings of the majority, which command us to repent of this one day and of that the next. We will still be made to feel guilty, but with no way out except to please a fickle crowd.
The wounds of Christ rebuke moral relativism and confirm man’s dignity as a moral agent. They reveal in the extreme that there is a good – indeed, an ultimate good – that man has the power to choose or reject by his own free will. Thankfully, by that same will man can find mercy by turning from evil to good.
Even as they reveal the reality of sin, Christ’s wounds also proclaim the eternal good available to man. “Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.”(Jn 20:19-20) He extends peace here not just as a greeting but as shorthand for all the good that reconciliation with God brings to the soul. His wounds are the sacrament, the outward sign, of “the peace of God that surpasses human understanding.”(Php 4:7)
Finally, His wounds remind us that our being merciful requires the willingness to be wounded. To forgive means to cancel a debt. The relevant petition from the Lord’s prayer is sometimes translated, Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Just as canceling a debt in finances means suffering a monetary loss, so in the moral order the forgiveness of sins means some degree of suffering. Again, our culture’s counterfeit mercy is so enticing. It costs us nothing. But if we would truly forgive we must be willing to suffer a degree of sadness and pain.
“Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”(Jn 20:22-23) These words refer particularly to the priest’s sacred power to absolve in Confession. But the principle they express applies to all: we need the grace of the Holy Spirit to forgive.
It is precisely to bestow that Spirit of forgiveness that Jesus Christ has suffered the wounds of the Cross and rose with them, triumphant.
*Image:Icon of Divine Mercy by Oleh Skoropadsky, 2008 [Divine Mercy Catholic Parish of Paulding County, Ohio]. Mr. Skoropadsky, a Ukrainian painter, has depicted St. Faustina’s vision of Christ with Ohio scenes in the background, including the parish’s three churches and the Maumee River.
The following is adapted from a speech delivered at Hillsdale College on September 11, 2018, during a conference on “American Political Scandals” sponsored by the College’s Center for Constructive Alternatives.
POLITICS BY OTHER MEANS: THE USE AND ABUSE OF SCANDAL
by John Marini
The great difficulty of interpreting political scandals was summarized by a newspaper editor in the western film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Deciding not to publish the truth of an explosive political story, the editor justifies it by saying, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” We have certainly had many legends regarding political scandals foisted on us, especially since Watergate.
Nearly every political administration has potential scandal lying just below the surface. There are always those in government who seek to profit privately from public service, and there are always those who will abuse their power. All governments provide the occasion for scoundrels of both kinds. But the scandals they precipitate rarely erupt into full-blown crises of the political order. What differentiates the scandals that do?
To understand a political scandal fully, one must take into account all of the interests of those involved. The problem is that these interests are rarely revealed—which is precisely why it is so tempting for partisans, particularly if they are at a political disadvantage, to resort to scandal to attack their opponents. Many great scandals arise not as a means of exposing corruption, but as a means of attacking political foes while obscuring the political differences that are at issue. This is especially likely to occur in the aftermath of elections that threaten the authority of an established order. In such circumstances, scandal provides a way for defenders of the status quo to undermine the legitimacy of those who have been elected on a platform of challenging the status quo—diluting, as a consequence, the authority of the electorate.
The key to understanding how this works is to see that most political scandals, sooner or later, are transformed into legal dramas. As legal dramas, scandals become understood in non-partisan terms. The way in which they are resolved can have decisive political impacts, but those in charge of resolving them are the “neutral” prosecutors, judges, and bureaucrats who make up the permanent (and unelected) government, not the people’s elected representatives. To resort to scandal in this way is thus a tacit admission that the scandalmongers no longer believe they are able to win politically. To paraphrase Clausewitz, scandal provides the occasion for politics by other means.***
Richard Nixon won a landslide electoral victory in 1972 and was removed from office less than two years later. The Watergate scandal then became the model for subsequent political scandals, down to the current day. How and why did Watergate come about and what did it mean?
After the election of 1964, our two elected branches of government, each controlled by Democrats, worked together to expand power in Washington by centralizing administrative authority in the executive bureaucracy. This dramatic centralization of power created a political reaction in the electorate that began pushing back against the Great Society policies of the time. The Republican Party under Richard Nixon established itself as the partisan opponent of this centralized and powerful bureaucracy. Following his victory in 1968, Nixon’s first term required political concessions that often expandedfederal power—concessions aimed primarily at garnering support for the Vietnam War in a Democrat-controlled Congress. But Nixon’s second term was not going to be a continuation of the first. Even The New York Times noted that the transformation of government demanded by Nixon after his 1972 re-election—his stated intention was to rein in the executive bureaucracy—was as extreme as if an opposition party had won.
As we all know, Nixon’s intentions for his second term came to naught. American politics after Watergate were shaped by those who had engineered his downfall. As Henry Kissinger subsequently noted:
Nixon in the final analysis had provoked a revolution. He had been re-elected by a landslide in 1972 in a contest as close to being fought on ideological issues as is possible in America. . . . The American people for once had chosen on philosophical grounds, not on personality. . . . For reasons unrelated to the issues and unforeseeable by the people who voted for what Nixon represented, this choice was now being annulled—with as-yet unpredictable consequences.
I recall being struck at the time of Watergate by the fact that there was a tremendous mobilization of partisan opinion against Nixon, but very little partisan mobilization in Nixon’s defense. The reason for this, in retrospect, is that it is difficult—if not impossible—to mobilize partisan support once the contest is removed from the political arena and placed in the hands of prosecutors, grand juries, and judges. Nixon believed, correctly, that his partisan enemies were trying to destroy him. But even Republicans in Congress came to accept Watergate primarily in legal terms. The most remembered line from a Nixon defender was that of Senator Howard Baker: “What did the President know, and when did he know it?” Nixon quickly became boxed in; he was limited to making a legal, rather than political, defense of his office.
Also surprising at the time was how little disagreement there was about how to interpret Watergate. The political and intellectual elites of both parties came quickly to agree that executive abuse of power under Nixon posed a threat to democracy, and that Nixon’s removal was required to meet that threat. Few noted the adverse effect on democratic or popular accountability: removing the elected chief executive further empowered the unelected executive bureaucracy, and further relegated Congress—which had created that bureaucracy—to serving as an executive oversight body rather than a legislative body.
Here is how the editors of the Congressional Quarterly summarized the situation at the time:
When the 93rd [Congress] first convened in January 1973, President Nixon’s sweeping assertions of executive authority posed a threat to the viability of the legislative branch. Even as Congress braced for confrontations with Nixon over spending, war powers, and other issues, its defiance was tempered by doubts as to whether it was indeed any match for the newly re-elected President. But by the time Congress adjourned [on] December 20, 1974, the balance of power had shifted dramatically. Both Nixon and . . . [Vice President] Agnew had been driven from office in disgrace—replaced by men whom Congress had a hand in selecting. Meanwhile, moving into a vacuum created by the disintegration of executive leadership, Congress had staked out a commanding role for itself.
The popular understanding of the Watergate scandal—that it was somehow rooted in Nixon’s flawed personal character, and that it was essentially a legal matter—remains unshaken after more than 40 years. But I was not convinced then, nor am I convinced today, that Watergate can be properly understood in either personal or legal terms. By promising to use his executive power to bring the executive bureaucracy under his control, Nixon posed a danger to the political establishment after his landslide re-election. In response, the establishment struck back.
It wasn’t until many years after Watergate that we learned the identity of the source of the leaks that led to Nixon’s removal. Deep Throat, the source for the reporting of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein at The Washington Post, turned out to be Mark Felt, a high-level FBI official who had access to all of the classified information pertaining to the investigation. Felt leaked that information selectively over the course of a year or more, helping to shape public opinion in ways the prosecution could not. Although Woodward and Bernstein were lauded as investigative reporters, they merely served as a conduit by which the bureaucracy undermined the authority of the elected chief executive. Geoff Shepard, a young member of Nixon’s defense team who has continued investigating Watergate using the Freedom of Information Act, has recently established as well that the prosecutors and judges involved in Watergate violated the procedural requirements that ensure impartiality, acting instead as partisans opposed to Nixon.
Our country was divided at the time of Watergate, as it remains divided today, over how we should be governed, and thus over what constitutes a good and just regime. Is the modern administrative state—the progressive innovation that took shape in the New Deal and was greatly expanded in the Great Society—the just and proper way to govern? Or is it just and proper to govern through the political structures established by the Constitution? Does the regulation of Americans’ economic and social lives by a centralized bureaucracy establish the moral justification for government? Or does the underlying principle of American constitutionalism—the principle that the power of government must be limited and directed to the protection of its citizens’ natural rights—remain valid?
Between these alternatives there can be no compromise. This division was not solely of Nixon’s making, and it was the inability of the political parties and of the two elected branches of government to forge a consensus one way or the other that made the Watergate scandal possible, if not inevitable. ***
The Ethics in Government Act, passed by Congress in 1978, established the Independent Counsel statute. This legislation was justified on the ground that executive discretion must be subordinate to law. But that masked its political purpose, which was to insulate the permanent, unelected government from political control. The Independent Counsel statute was devised to stand as a bulwark against any president or senior executive branch official who dared threaten the centralized executive bureaucracy put in place by the Democratic Party majorities of the 1960s and ’70s. It weakened the president’s political control of that sprawling bureaucracy and strengthened Congress’s hand in managing it. Ultimately, it had the effect of transforming political and policy disputes—adjudicated by the elected branches of government, and thus by the people—into legal disputes in which the people have no part. As former prosecutor Cliff Nichols has written:
The [Department of Justice] is an institution vested with formidable resources, including its authority over the FBI. It is also often the beneficiary of a thinly veiled, yet presumed, allegiance with most of the federal courts in which its attorneys operate. As a result, and given enough time, in most cases, the DOJ is empowered—via favorable rulings and otherwise—to access, manipulate, and maneuver the federal laws, rules, regulations, and procedures—not to mention witness testimony—in whatever ways it may deem necessary to ultimately bring most of those it targets to heel, perhaps even including a President.
For nearly two centuries of our nation’s history, prior to passage of the Ethics in Government Act, there existed no legal mechanism of government outside the political and legal authority granted by the Constitution to the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The Constitution established the separation of powers as the ground of adjudicating all political disputes. Members of the elected branches would defend their institutional interests, motivated by self-interest and by differing opinions regarding the public good. In the most serious political disputes, the legislature had the constitutional power to impeach the president—in which case both sides could make their case to the public and the people could decide.
Today, by contrast, the political branches, rather than defending their institutional interests, tend to accommodate the administrative state. The centralized executive bureaucracy has become the central feature of government, administrative rulemaking has replaced general lawmaking, and rule by bureaucrats has replaced rule by elected officials. Not only both political branches of government, but in some ways both parties, have accommodated themselves to this new way of governing. But given that this transformation of how we are governed was accomplished administratively, through the bureaucracy and the courts, rather than politically—with Congress passing legislation supported by a majority of the American people—it is not clear that the American people are on board. Certainly there is no public consensus on the question.
Nationally organized interests were well equipped to adjust to this new way of governing, and they continue to have access to, and be well served by, the Washington establishment. Citizens who exist outside those organized interests, on the other hand, seem to sense that they have been disenfranchised and that government no longer operates on behalf of a public or a common good. This explains the deep social and cultural division underlying the 2016 election results that shocked and awed the Washington establishment.
We see today, in the two-year Mueller investigation and its aftermath, yet another attempt to destroy an anti-establishment president using a legal rather than political process of adjudication. The most notable difference between this scandal and Watergate is that President Trump has so far succeeded—largely through his relentless characterization of most of those in the media as dishonest partisans rather than objective reporters—in preventing the scandals surrounding him from being defined, by his enemies, in legal rather than political terms.
The guardians of the status quo in the permanent government and the media have defined past political scandals so successfully that a full and proper understanding of Watergate, for instance, is likely impossible now. It remains to be seen whether, in the end, they will succeed again today—whether the legend will again become fact, and they will print the legend.
John Marini is a professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Reno. He earned his B.A. at San Jose State University and his Ph.D. in government at the Claremont Graduate School. He has taught at Agnes Scott College, Ohio University, and the University of Dallas. He is on the board of directors of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy and a member of the Nevada Advisory Committee of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. He is the author or co-author of several books, including The Politics of Budget Control: Congress, the Presidency, and the Growth of the Administrative State; The Founders on Citizenship and Immigration; and Unmasking the Administrative State: The Crisis of American Politics in the Twenty-First Century.
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on SINCE WATERGATE THE POLITICAL LIFE OF OUR REPUBLIC SEEMS TO HAVE EXPERIENCED UNENDING TURMOIL FROM UNENDING SCANDAL AS ENEMIES OF A PRESIDENCY SEEK TO DEFINE THE SCANDALS IN LEGAL RATHER THAN POLITICAL TERMS
In the radiance of the Resurrection, the Church relates to the emotions of the first witnesses: grief, fear, bewilderment, and then exultation. In each generation, believers experience all of these in various ways. On Good Friday our local custom is to meditate on the Seven Last Words, using meditations written by Blessed John Henry Newman. Because the reflections he wrote in the nineteenth century are so apposite to the history of the Church’s trials and triumphs, listeners often think they were written just yesterday. The same is true of the Paschal Sequence: “Death and Life have contended / In that combat stupendous.” On Good Friday a faithful young priest I knew when he was a boy, died after a long illness, and at the same time, a girl was born to one of our families. Early on Easter morning one of our Sri Lankan worshipers told me of the massacre in Colombo. It is estimated that around our world a Christian is martyred every five minutes “in odium fidei” by those who hate Christ. During the cathedral fire in Paris, the rescue of the Blessed Sacrament (which the frail ecclesiology of The New York Times called “a statue of Jesus”) was a triumph of life over death. Over many years I have had recourse to an epitaph in an English church inscribed during the dark Puritan days of Cromwell’s Protectorate: “In the year 1653 when all thinges Sacred were throughout ye nation Either demolisht or profaned, Sir Robert Shirley, Baronet, Founded this church; Whose singular praise it is to have done the best things in ye worst times, and hoped them in the most callamitous.” On Easter Day in that spirit, and at a time of no little tribulation in the Church and culture in general, we dedicated a new baldacchino to enhance our central altar. This was part of an ongoing project to furnish our church with art and craftsmanship representative of the unsurpassed aesthetic patrimony of Catholicism. Our funds are limited, so this was a work of devotion by the carpenters who attended the dedication, and our own parishioners, including the architect and sculptor. If friends of the parish continue to be generous, we can put our local talent to further use. The High Priests and Pharisees told the Roman governor Pontius Pilate that Jesus had said that He would rise from the dead. They certainly did not believe that, but it made them edgy enough that they asked permission to seal the Tomb. The Living Word, however, always has the last word. Recall the admonition of one of Hannibal’s soldiers after his victory at the battle of Cannae, when he hesitated to march on to Rome: “Vincere scis, victoria uti nescis.” —”You know how to win but you do not know what to do with the victory.” May the Victorious Christ never have to say that about us. Faithfully yours in Christ,Father George W. Rutler
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ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT / DEEP CALLS TO DEEP 
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