Bishop Strickland, Bishop Gracida, Bishop Schneider & Bishop Mutsaerts “Rebuked [Francis] For Overt Heresy” & What “Bellarmine, Ballerini, St. Alphonsus & Gregory XVI [say]… bas[ing] their teaching[s] on the Doctrine of Innocent III” say on Francis’s Heresy?
Francis Rebuked For Overt Heresy
Two events happened within the past few days. While they were disjointed from each other, both served to make evident the heresy that the current occupant of Peter’s chair is promulgating. Bergoglio erroneously stated that Pelosi and others, in their present state of mind, could be admitted to Communion. Several clcrgy and some prominent lay people spelled it out, utilizing Canon law, that Bergoglio uttered heresy. The letter can be read here. From theologians, Saints and Doctors of the Church throughout the centuries, we have reasonable basis to believe that even if Bergoglio’s election to the papacy was valid (and that is somewhat doubtful) that he has, by this heresy, forfeited the papacy. We of course must pray for his immortal soul as well as those whom he led astray.
The other event revolves around Francis’ participation in this “Congress of World and Traditional Religious Leaders” gabfest a few days ago. The official purpose was the seeking of world peace. In reality, it’s all about the establishment of a one-world religion as part of the great reset. Of course this “religion” would be solely focused on the world as we see it, with nary a thought about eternity beyond the grave. They believe not in an afterlife, nor do they believe in any supreme being, let alone the One True God. The Masonic pawprints are all over this as well. – Restore-DC-Catholicism [http://restore-dc-catholicism.blogspot.com/2022/09/francis-rebuked-for-overt-heresy.html]
LifeSteNews reported that “Bishops, priests and scholars correct Pope Francis’ statement on Holy Communion… extensively quoting from the Council of Trent’s documents, the signatories also make it clear that such teachings as presented in Pope Francis’ document have already been condemned as heresy. “The claim,” they write, “that faith is the only requirement for worthy reception of the Holy Eucharist was condemned by the Council of Trent as a heresy”:
They explain:
The Catholic Church has always taught that in order to receive the Holy Eucharist worthily and without sin, Catholics must receive sacramental absolution, if possible, for any mortal sins they may have committed and obey all other laws of the Church concerning reception of the Eucharist (as, for example, the laws concerning fasting prior to reception of the Eucharist).
If a sacramental confession is not possible, but the reception of Holy Communion urgent (such as for a priest celebrating Mass), the Sacrament of Penance has to be sought as soon as possible afterwards, and the penitent must have perfect contrition for his mortal sins. By extensively quoting from the Council of Trent’s documents, the signatories also make it clear that such teachings as presented in Pope Francis’ document have already been condemned as heresy. “The claim,” they write, “that faith is the only requirement for worthy reception of the Holy Eucharist was condemned by the Council of Trent as a heresy.” [https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/bishops-priests-and-scholars-correct-pope-francis-statement-on-holy-communion/]
What do the teachings of “Pope Gregory XVI, St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Alphonsus Liguori, Pietro Ballerini, and others as well… bas[ing]on the[ir] teachings of Pope Innocent III” mean and say according to Fatima expert Fr. Paul Kramer on Francis’s heresy?:
– It cannot mean that a true and valid pope can be judged by his inferiors in the case of heresy, because then, contrary to the dogma of the Primacy, the supreme and infallible judge would be judged by an inferior and fallible judge. Even a century before the solemn definition of the Primacy, Ballerini was explicit on this point that a true and valid pope can never be judged by a council, explaining, “undoubtedly the right of the primacy always remains in reality with a true and legitimate Pontiff, who always, being superior to the whole Church and whatever council by this right of the primacy, is removed from the jurisdiction of those others.” (De Potestate Ecclesiastica Summorum Pontificum Et Conciliorum Generalium, Auctore Petro Ballerinio Presbytero Veronensi, Augustæ Vindelicorum (Augsburg), 1770, p. 132) If the pope could be judged by a council, there would either be two heads (Alfonso Maria de’ Liguori, Vindiciae pro suprema pontificis potestate adversus Iustinum Febronium, Torino, 1832, p. 164.) judging against each other; or, if the council were supreme in such a case by way of exception, then then the dogma which defines that the judgment of all disputes in matters of faith is reserved exclusively to the pope would be erroneous. Thus, in accordance with the teaching of Bellarmine, Ballerini, St. Alphonsus and Gregory XVI — all of whom based their teaching on the doctrine of Innocent III — it would not be a true pope who would be judged a heretic and deposed by his inferiors; but it would be a false pope, who for reason of his evident heresy, would be judged by the Church to be no pope, because the Church infallibly recognizes the heretic for what he is: an alien, an outsider, an impostor, who is not their shepherd but a heretic. [https://www.facebook.com/CatholicPrayersAndTheRosary1/posts/d41d8cd9/510104040765059/]
– The Church’s teaching on papal heresy, and the authority of a council when there exists positive doubt about the validity of claims on the papal munus have been elaborated by Pope Gregory XVI, St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Alphonsus Liguori, Pietro Ballerini, and others as well. Their teachings are based on the teachings of Pope, Innocent III, St. Thomas Aquinas, and on the rulings of the popes on the question of papal heresy (which I have quoted verbatim in my two volumes*). I have explained their teaching on these points with ample verbatim quotations in my volumes on papal heresy and the case against Bergoglio… In Ch. 9 no. 5 of De Potestate Ecclesiastica, etc., Ballerini sums up the canonical rulings of the Church, saying that popes, cannot be judged for any crime, except those who would deviate from the faith into heresy, because they would fall from the papacy and lose the primacy by the heresy itself ipso facto: “In sacris canonibus … numquam vero judicio cujusquam subjiciendos indicant, nisi forte sint a fide devii. Quæ hæresis exceptio ea de causa fit, quia ob hæresim ipso facto a pontificatu decidentes, primatus jurisdictionem amitterent”. Ballerini, whose doctrine on the primacy formed the basis of the dogmatic pronouncement in Chapter III of Pastor Æternus, explains that the canonical exception for judging heretic popes exists precisely because a heretic pope would by the heresy itself fall from office ipso facto. Gregory XVI comments on Ballerini, saying that the judgment would not be made against the pope, “but only against the person, who was before adorned with papal dignity”… Vol. I – To Deceive the Elect – The Catholic Doctrine on the Question of a Heretical Pope; Vol. II – On the True and the False Pope – The Case Against Bergoglio by Fr. Paul Kramer B.Ph.,S.T.B., M. Div., S.T.L (Cand.)** Gregorio XVI, Il trionfo della santa chiesa contro gli assatti dei novatori, Venezia 1832, Capo[https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2022/04/why-dont-you-mr-ferrara-in-2022-again.html]
– Indeed, the pope is the standard of unity — so much so, that St. Alphonsus, St. Robert Bellarmine, Pope Gregory XVI, Don Pietro Ballerini, all state and explain why it is impossible for a true and valid pope to become a formal heretic. All of the great theologians were in agreement on this point; Don Curzio Nitoglia lists the principal ones, Fr. Francesco Bordoni listed some in his 1648 work, and he quotes Bishop Martino Bonacina who in the 1400s named even more notable theologians of this opinion. St. Thomas, although aware of the question, did not even accord it the dignity of mentioning it. After Pastor Æternus (1870), it became the virtually unanimous opinion of theologians that a pope cannot become a formal heretic; and those theologians after the 1890s who treated upon the question of loss of office due to heresy regarded it as a “mere hypothesis” (to use the expression of Ballerini), because the wording of Pastor Æternus can be seen to imply the exclusion of such a possibility of a pope falling into formal heresy.
Heresy, St. Thomas explains (and later Pius XII in Mystici Corporis), is a sin that separates a man from membership in the body of the Church (if it is a public sin committed with pertinacity). It is not a matter of “official heresy” (as you term it) vs. personal heresy. It is the public personal sin of pertinacious heresy that severs a man from membership in the Church “suapte natura” — i.e. by its very nature. It is the same for a pope or a street sweeper: there is no double standard for what kind of heresy separates one from membership in the Church. Pertinacity does not have to be persistent, as Bordoni, a qualificator of the Holy Inquisition explained in his authoritative 1648 work, but heresy must only be committed with full knowledge and deliberation to be pertinacious. I have explained the matter fully in my volume one. If the sin (i.e. both the matter and its pertinacity) is “public” (as defined in canon law), then the heretic’s separation from the body of the Church is objecively a visible separation (even if the majority are too confused to grasp it, as I have fully explained in volume two). Since, as Bellarmine explains, the “form of the papacy” consists in the pope’s visible formally orthodox profession of faith (a pope who errs heretically only materially remains in the papacy), if he would fall into visible formal heresy, he would “straightaway fall from the papacy”. Thus the heretic’s separation from the papacy woyld not be invisible, because the deprivation of the form of the papacy would be visible. Ballerini pointed out that such a fall from office was the position adopted by Pope Innocent III, although Innocent, like Bellarmine, Ballerini, de Liguori, and many others, held that such a fall into formal heresy, whether public or private, cannot actually happen, because the promise that the faith of Peter’s successor cannot fail was made “simpliciter”. Hence, if a man is a “doubtful pope” for reason of heresy, and it is subsequently verified that he is indeed a formal heretic, it is certain that he is not a valid pope. Whether such a one ever was a valid pope who fell from office, or never validly held office would have no bearing on determining the fact that the heretic, being an “incapable subject of the papacy” (as the authors explain) is no pope. The papal canonical rulings on the “exception” for judging a heretical pope, are based on this principle, namely, that a heretic is incapable of holding the papal office, but they only declare that such a heretical pope can be judged, in the sense that he is judged to be a heretic and therefore no pope, without judgung the question of whether or not such a papal heretic would have fallen from office, or have never validly held office in the first place. Thus, that a public heretic would fall from the papacy is true and certain as a hypothesis which is upheld by the canonical tradition of the Church; but what is not a hypothesis, but is simply true and theologically certain, is that a man who is certainly a formal heretic is certainly not a valid holder of the Petrine office. Although some Catholics still hold to the archaic belief that this is a question open to legitimate theological dispute, I have amply demonstrated that it is theologically certain that a formal heretic is incapable of holding the papal office, and that the contrary opinion is proximate to heresy. [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2022/04/why-dont-you-mr-ferrara-in-2022-again.html]
Pray an Our Father now for the sins of Francis’s Amoris Laetitia.
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Stop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He wants you to do now and next. In this silence remember God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost – Three Divine Persons yet One God, has an ordered universe where you can know truth and falsehood as well as never forget that He wants you to have eternal happiness with Him as his son or daughter by grace. Make this a practice. By doing this you are doing more good than reading anything here or anywhere else on the Internet.
Francis Notes:
– Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church in such a situation:“[T]he Pope… WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See.”(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said “the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church.”[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]- “If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html– “Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html – LifeSiteNews, “Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers,” December 4, 2017:The AAS guidelines explicitly allows “sexually active adulterous couples facing ‘complex circumstances’ to ‘access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'”- On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:”The AAS statement… establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense.”- On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:”Francis’ heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents.”Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.Election Notes: – Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: “212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted…Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden” [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]- Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times “Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html– Tucker Carlson’s Conservatism Inc. Biden Steal Betrayal is explained by “One of the Greatest Columns ever Written” according to Rush: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/tucker-carlsons-conservatism-inc-biden.html?m=1 – A Hour which will Live in Infamy: 10:01pm November 3, 2020:http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1 What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs'”:http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1] Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it.Pray an Our Father now for America.Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary SHARE
The Pontifical Academy for Life has created controversy again, recently releasing a book that questioned the Church’s teaching on artificial contraception. What’s behind this attempt to undermine Church teaching?
The Pontifical Academy for Life has created controversy again, recently releasing a book that questioned the Church’s teaching on artificial contraception. What exactly is going on at the Pontifical Academy for Life? We’re going to talk about that today on Crisis Point. Hello. I’m Eric Sammons, your host, and editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine. Before we get started, just encourage people to like this video. Also, subscribe to our channel. It lets other people know about it. Also, you can follow us on social media @CrisisMag.
Okay, we have a great guest today. She’s returning, Janet Smith. She is retired from the Father McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan. She’s the author of Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later and A Right to Privacy. Her volume, entitled, Self-Gift contains her previously published essays on Humanae Vitae and the thought of John Paul II. More than two million copies of her talk, Contraception: Why Not? has been distributed. Professor Smith served three terms as the consultant to the Pontifical Council on the Family. Welcome to the program, Janet.
Janet Smith:
It’s good to be here, Eric.
Eric Sammons:
Yes, and I remember I’d first heard of you back in the ’90s, the Contraception: Why Not? talk, of course. I was actually converting to Catholicism. Contraception was a big one, because it made no sense, as a Protestant, not to use it, but then your talk helped me realize that, okay, this is actually a good thing that the Catholic Church does by opposing it. Now, unfortunately, we’re going to talk about some confusion when it comes to that.
Before we get started really talking about this book that came out. Let’s go take a step back. What exactly is the origin of the Pontifical Academy for Life? Why was it set up, and when was it set up?
Janet Smith:
Well, you think I’m an expert. It was lucky I did take a little time to review these things this morning. I believe it was set up in, what, 1974? Is that right?
Eric Sammons:
I think it was ’94, 1994.
Janet Smith:
’94, that’s right, by Lejeune from France, who was the doctor that discovered the source of Down syndrome and was just a beautiful man, probably saintly, from what people say, and very much defended the right to life of Down syndrome babies and all babies. The whole academy was set up in order to defend life. There were some really… People were appointed for life, and really beautiful people, who accepted the Church’s teaching and, as you know, it’s not just the Church’s teaching; it’s natural law, on the value of human life.
Then, in 1917 [2017], Pope Francis basically fired everybody. Well, I don’t know what you say, removed everybody from the… that was on the list of those in the academy, and put a lot of new people on, redefined the mission. Instead of being an academy that basically defended the Church’s teaching in the light of modern assaults on the truth about human life and sexuality, put people of widely diverse views on it, in order to encourage dialog and discussion about these issues, which seems now to be being employed in order to actually question and even overturn the Church’s teaching on life issues, so the history is a very sad one, I would say.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, so it was founded in ’94, Pope John Paul II, but what is the status of… Okay, so you were a consultant on the Pontifical Council on the Family. This is the Pontifical Academy for Life. A lot of these different groups are associated with the Vatican. There’s a lot of confusion among Catholics as to what their purpose is, and where do they stand? Are they part of the magisterium? Are they the Pope’s mouthpiece? When you say the Pontifical Academy for Life, what would you say is its place in the Church, as far as the magisterium or the Vatican and things like that?
Janet Smith:
We’d say it’s a consultative group, one that’s meant to advise the Holy Father, that when a new issue comes up, something’s been challenged, that you put all these experts to work, who are able to examine the new challenge and provide the formulations that people will understand, that suit the modern world, that will be a response faithful to the magisterium for an issue. It has no magisterial authority. In no way does it teach for the Church, but people will get confused by that. They are confused.
They think if something comes out by the Pontifical Academy, some 517-page volume, however many it is, that this, in fact, speaks for the Church. There’s some way in which it does, not in an authoritative way, but evidently, they say the Holy Father approved of the volume. I wonder if he possibly read all of it, but surely he knew the main conclusions that were being advanced by the document.
Those who are inclined to challenge the Church teaching on any of these issues now have a powerful weapon. Even if it has no magisterial authority, they’re going to point to, well, this is where the Church is moving, and who are you to be a retrograde and not realize this legitimate development of Church teaching.
Eric Sammons:
Right, so while we can say very definitively that something that comes out of the Pontifical Academy for Life is not an infallible teaching, it’s not even a magisterial teaching, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not dangerous and doesn’t cause a lot of confusion and problems. I think that’s exactly what we’re talking about here. The volume we’re talking about, it’s called Theological Ethics of Life: Scripture, Tradition, Practical Challenges. Like you said, it’s over 500 pages. I think it was published in Italian, correct? Or was it multiple languages?
Janet Smith:
Some of the essays are in English, but almost all of it is in Italian.
Eric Sammons:
Okay, and so, basically, what is this volume? Was it written by one person? What exactly is this volume?
Janet Smith:
Well, it’s a compilation of contributions to a conference that was held last year, in I think November in 2021. They were provided, the attendees were provided… I don’t even know if there was a physical meeting, but the participants were provided with what’s called a basic text, which was really a fairly radical challenge to magisterial teaching on life issues. Then they were asked to respond.
Almost all of the responses are favorable to that basic text. There’s a few voices that challenge the new reading, but it’s almost altogether a challenge of Church teaching. They don’t say they are challenging it, of course. They are bringing it up to date to the modern world. They’re offering a new paradigm.
What is particularly sad, I think, is that many members of the commission say they didn’t even know that this conference was happening or this publication was going to be put forward, so it’s, in no way, a representative of the views of all the members of the commission. One doesn’t expect ever to get a consensus on something like that, but to include more voices that would not accept what the document is saying, I think, is very important. It was just a heavy-handed effort to shut out voices that might object to the principles articulated in the document.
Eric Sammons:
It sounds like how they run the Senate these days.
Janet Smith:
Yeah, exactly.
Eric Sammons:
You basically invite the people you know that agree with you.
Janet Smith:
We all agree because we all agree.
Eric Sammons:
Right, exactly. That’s right, because I think there’s over 100 members of this Pontifical Academy on some level, and there’s lay people, clerics, researchers, all this stuff, and so, basically, just because this document, this huge volume, was released, it doesn’t mean all the people who are members of Pontifical Academy for Life are actually supporting this. It sounds like it was prepared ahead of time to be something that would go in one direction. Now, the question is, is the whole volume talking about the teaching on artificial contraception, or is it more just… have more generic talking about morality, and the morality of acts and things like that?
Janet Smith:
Well, that’s an interesting question. The two documents it most frequently references are Humanae Vitae, which is, of course, on contraception, and Donum Vitae, which is on artificial means of reproduction, but my reading of the document is that it’s a bizarre document, in many ways. It claims to accept the teachings of those documents, all right? It accepts the teachings of them, but really what it does is it advances a new understanding, new understanding of conscience, that calls into question all moral teaching, not just those two. Those two are obviously ones that they most want to overturn, but honestly, their understanding of conscience would, basically, totally gut the Church’s teaching on morality.
Eric Sammons:
It does kind of make you wonder why… Saying that, it’s like why would you bring up the contraception issue now, when the fact of the matter is that most people who claim to be Catholic, who say they’re Catholic, already just use artificial contraception, and… But there are natural means, in which a couple could delay conception, moral means, and things like that.
It’s like the fact that they bring this up when there’s really been no push within the Church one way or the other about it makes you think that this is just a way to enter into a discussion to undermine other moral teachings of the Church. Does that seem to be a fair way to look at it?
Janet Smith:
Well, it didn’t include homosexuality, but let’s put it this way, that these are the teachings that most people reject. I think they think they can sell the Church better to people if they say, “Oh, no, no, no, no. Yes, contraception’s not good, but you can use it, that Donum Vitae, the Church is right about their teaching, but if your conscience tells you it’s permissible to do this, then go ahead and do it.” Of course, they’d say the same thing about homosexual relations.
I think that they’re just going to the neuralgic points. I mean, it is true that most Catholics dissent from these things and seem perfectly comfortable acting against the Church’s teaching on these matters, but I think it’s if once you say, “Okay, the Church doesn’t really… You can do what you want, on these things,” they think it makes Catholicism much more palatable to many people, and they might stop the bleed of people leaving the Church. They might make the Church more attractive to people.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, so you wrote an article for Crisis. Earlier this week, I think it was, we published it. It’s great, and I’ll link to it in the show notes, so people can read it. What is the core problem with their argumentation here? Because you mention it’s not that they’re even saying they reject Humanae Vitae. It’s something a little… I would honestly argue it’s something a little more diabolical.
Janet Smith:
Mm-hmm.
Eric Sammons:
But it’s something a little bit different than just simply saying, “Oh, yeah, Humanae Vitae was wrong.” What exactly is their argument, and what’s wrong with how they go about it?
Janet Smith:
They know this. I mean, they are advancing a radical understanding change of conscience. In Vatican II, in Gaudium et Spes, it said that the conscience is the place where we hear the voice of God within, and we recognize that there’s a law that we need to obey, that we did not invent, that God has provided laws that we must obey. Of course, these aren’t…
They may be burdensome because we have a sinful nature, but at the same time, they are fulfilling of human nature, and they’re truly liberating, not confining, because they liberate us from our sinful tendencies and direct us towards what is best for us; whereas, this group thinks of conscience really as not something that God… the interior voice of God within. It’s a repository of my own values. I’ve made choices in my life, and those choices have committed me to certain values, so over the course of my life, I have committed myself to certain values in the way that I behave, and that now should be and must be my moral guide, not anything external, not the Church’s teaching, not even the natural law, all right? It must be the values that I’ve chosen.
It doesn’t use the word authenticity, so far as I’m concerned, but it has a bit of that sense of some of the modern understanding of authenticity, a need to be true to myself and my own values. Even though you could say, and it does say that contraception is… It doesn’t use these words, which was interesting. It doesn’t talk about the difference between objective values or objective culpability and subjective culpability, all right, which the Church has always made, that contraception is always wrong.
The Church does say that if your conscience tells you that you must contracept, well then you should contracept, but you have still done wrong, all right, and you have badly formed your conscience. You could be culpable for that. It depends on what your education, opportunities, et cetera, of concern, but you definitely have done something wrong if you’ve chosen to contracept, even if you’re subjectively not culpable.
Let’s say you’re a 14-year-old girl, and your parents and your guidance counselor and even your pastor tells you, you should use contraception, and you’ve turned to the right authorities in your life to understand what you should do. They tell you there’s really nothing wrong with fornicating either, that you’re young and in love, and you need to explore your sexuality, blah-blah-blah. That kid is hardly culpable subjectively for what they’ve done, but what they’ve done is wrong, both the fornication, obviously, and the contraception.
What this document would say… I don’t know how you can talk about a 14-year-old having a repository of values, but let’s take, now, the 24-year-old, who thinks it’s perfectly all right to have sex outside of marriage and perfectly all right to contracept. They don’t even say that you’ve done something objectively wrong. They say that your action, if you are acting in accord with your own values, that you have done… That is the right moral choice for you to make. They judge the moral action not in a kind of division of subjectivity and objectivity, but the whole action, in their mind, is a good action, because you acted in accord with your own values, and we need to accompany people on this.
Now, it says very little, so far… I haven’t read the whole 500-and-some pages, just some key portions, and there may be elsewhere it makes these distinctions, but in the portions I’ve read, where they should be making these distinctions, they’re not making them.
It doesn’t say that even though the Church is right on this, that we need to lead people, even those… We need to accompany them on their journey, as it says in other more recent documents, or at least articles have said. We need to accompany people. You think, well, at least we could accompany them towards the truth. It’s not even talking that way, so far as I can tell, but the Church would say, “But yes, you have to follow your conscience,” but, of course, your conscience isn’t what I think is right or wrong. My conscience always asks not what do I think is right. My conscience asks, what does God hold as right or wrong. If I’m asking any other question than that, and then, once I ask the right question, what does God think I should do? Where do I go to find that out, all right?
If I’m a Catholic, I certainly look at Church documents, and I ask that question, what does the Church teach? Because the Church teaches for God, and if the Church teaches that contraception is wrong, it doesn’t matter that I think it’s okay, all right? Now, if I’m a Catholic, there’s no way I can sit and say, “Well, I think it’s okay.” You’ve got to say no, I’m in conflict. I’m in terrible conflict. There’s some part of my being that thinks it’s okay, but I’m committed to the Catholic faith, and I know that the Church teaches from God, so why would I follow my own views, which aren’t God’s views, they’re my views, instead of following the Church. They don’t present any of that in this document.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, it seems… First of all, this sounds like the exact same argumentation used in the Amoris Laetitia, that there this idea of just that you can determine… I mean, frankly, you can determine truth, and there’s no discussion of the effect of sin in this whole process of, what was it, the phrase they use, like getting your own values or whatever like that, like there’s sin involved in that, so like for example, the 24-year-old, who’s been sleeping around for the past couple years, their sin is going to impact his view of what is sinful.
Janet Smith:
Right.
Eric Sammons:
Because he’s going to want to justify himself. He’s going to want to say that, yes, it’s okay to do this, and he’s going to… I didn’t see it in Amoris Laetitia. It doesn’t seem to be in here either. Isn’t there something to be said for the fact that conscience is obviously impacted by original sin, impacted by our own personal sins, right?
Janet Smith:
Oh, yes. You’re exactly right, and most people… I have nieces and nephews, you know? Some of them went to Catholic schools, et cetera, and they still think… They’re torn more by the culture than they were by their education at home or their education at school. They think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with cohabitation, and they think that it’s irresponsible not to live together before marriage. Since you’re fornicating, and they don’t even know what that word means, I’m sure, but since you’re having sex outside of marriage, which they think is a responsible thing to do. They think it’s also responsible to contracept, because you’re not married yet, and you’re not committed, and it’s not the right time to have a child. That’s their formation, all right?
When they’re thinking about should I have sex outside of marriage, and should I use contraception? They’re just looking at the culture and their peers and, unfortunately, some of the adults in their life, as well. They may even go to mass on Sunday, but they don’t hear it from the pulpit, and they’ve been led to believe, as long as they’re acting in accord with their highest values, and these terms don’t even mean anything to them. They’re just doing what they think is sensible. They really haven’t examined their values.
I challenged some of them on, “Well, what do you really think marriage is? What do you really think God’s plan for sexuality is?” You get this blank stare, like what are you talking about? God’s plan for sexuality. I’m trying to be a good person. I found this person. I love this person. I think I want to marry this person. It makes perfect sense for us to live together.
As you said, there’s so much sin involved in all of that, not knowing that those are our appetites, and then our intellects have fallen because of original sin, and we’re very easily confused by our culture.
If you take an honest step back and strip away cultural influence, it’s not that hard to see that these things are immoral. It’s not that hard, but we are so steeped in our culture that it is hard for young people, because they don’t even know how to ask the question.
Eric Sammons:
It seems like this is a different way of attacking what the Church has always believed and always taught, in the sense that, in previous generations, you just simply denied the doctrine. The Aryans just denied the doctrine that Jesus is the eternal Son of God and He is also divine.
Janet Smith:
Yeah.
Eric Sammons:
Martin Luther would just deny the doctrine of the papacy, for example, something like that. But in this case, what they’re actually doing is they’re making it sound like, when you read them, that they’re supporting Humanae Vitae. They’re supporting the teaching of the Church.
I’m going to read this. If anybody follows this, can follow this, they get a prize or something, but this is actually from the document, quoting from it. It says, “Therefore, as happens with these methods, which already make use of specific techniques and scientific knowledge, there are situations in which two spouses, who have decided or will decide to welcome children, can make a wise discernment in the concrete case, which, without contradicting their openness to life, at that moment does not foresee it.” It goes on. There’s another sentence I want to read, too, but just that alone, it’s the typical, okay, yes, the concrete case is different than this ideal.
Janet Smith:
Way different.
Eric Sammons:
It seems like they always want to make the morality in Church an ideal, but the concrete is completely separate from that, it seems.
Janet Smith:
Yeah, it’s interesting that they don’t use the word ideal, because you’re exactly right. That’s the way they treat it, but again, that position was refuted again in the ’70s and the ’80s, that this was some sort of ideal that we held out there.
Unfortunately, people sometimes, some cultures, maybe the Italian culture, treats fidelity in marriage as an ideal, and, “Yeah, okay. Okay, yeah. Yeah, it’s better to be faithful to your life, but you know, I have a mistress, and everybody else does, so what’s the big deal? I’m committed to that, but I’m just a flawed human being.”
It’s almost like, you know, you want your kids to keep their room nice and neat and everything. If they make their bed, you’re happy. They’ve at least made one move towards it. You say, “Well, I’d like everything cleaned up, but at least you made your bed, or you picked up your clothes off the floor. That’s a good step.”
But so that’s how they treat morality, as though it’s, yes, this is a good thing, but, and then you hear these words in our culture all the time, and in our Church, “You have to meet people where they’re at, and people are doing the best that they can,” and so we have to approve what they’re doing, because we have to meet them where they’re at, and they’re doing the best that they can, as opposed to saying, “Maybe where you’re at is a really bad place to be, and your best is not very good, when you get right down to it, and we need to really challenge you.”
I mean, take something like homosexuality. It’s amazing that when you find a person who has homosexual tendencies, who is ready to really ask the question whether these are good actions and this is a good choice of a way to use their sexuality. They will start using words like, “It’s degrading,” and, “I’m ashamed that I’ve made these choices.” When you get down to the deepest part of their being, they start… That’s where you have to… I mean, you don’t come right out and say that, when you’re having a conversation. You ask people, “Are you happy? What are you looking for in life? What kind of relationships do you want to have?”
I kind of like to ask people, “What do you think your grandmother would think of this, and why do you think she would disapprove of what you’re doing?” Then, when they start going in that direction, because they know their grandmother loves them, and so we don’t have… We’re going to lose out on that argument before long, because the grandmothers have gone the way of the rest of the culture.
Eric Sammons:
Right.
Janet Smith:
But for a long time, that was a very good approach to people was to say, “Would you like your grandmother to know what you’re doing?” They’d go, “No.” “Why not? Is she wrong?”
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, it’s interesting because-
Janet Smith:
That’s the part where it moves them toward where they need to be.
Eric Sammons:
Right. It’s interesting because, back when I was in college, and I was still Protestant, I knew a Catholic who lived a lifestyle that was not in keeping with Catholic teaching. We’ll just put it that way. They partied and did all the things that college kids sometimes do, and then he’d go to mass. This is when I was thinking about becoming Catholic, though. He would go to mass on Sundays, but he would not receive communion. I or my friend, who was Catholic, asked him, “Well, why don’t you take communion?” He was like, “Well, I can’t receive communion, considering the stuff I did yesterday.”
I remember thinking, as a Protestant, there’s actually something beautiful about that, in that this guy at least recognized that he’s not living up to what he’s supposed to be doing. In that, there is a place for evangelization, a place… and so, he didn’t receive communion; whereas, this ideology that we’re seeing from Pontifical Academy for Life, from Amoris Laetitia, stuff like that, is kind of saying, well, saying to that guy, “Nah, just go ahead and receive communion, because your values or whatever have made it okay for you to do this.”
Janet Smith:
You’re doing the best you can.
Eric Sammons:
Right.
Janet Smith:
Yeah.
Eric Sammons:
That just seems… Yeah, and so the next, in this document, this volume, it also says, “The wise choice will be realized by appropriately evaluating all possible techniques with reference to their specific situation and obviously excluding abortifacient ones.” First, I want to say I read that to my wife, and she said, “There’s nothing obvious anymore coming from you people.” She doesn’t get it. That’s a good point. It’s true.
Janet Smith:
Yeah.
Eric Sammons:
If it’s obviously excluding abortifacient ones, what they’re also saying is it’s not excluding contraceptive, strictly contraceptive techniques. But again, it talks about this idea of reference to their specific situation, as if there are situations in which the ideal or whatever, or the teaching at church, doesn’t apply. Doesn’t this get into a problem that I remember talking about on a priest podcast about Amoris Laetitia? It’s this idea of the difference between the positive and the negative moral laws, that there are laws, moral laws, that you can break in specific situations.
Actually, the article, by Muller I think it was, made the example of your driving along the road, and you swerve. You swerve maybe into another lane, which is against the law, and against morality, really, to do something like that, except you find out there’s a car coming at you, so you’re doing it to protect life, so it’s okay to do what you just did. They’re using that kind of logic. Can you explain the kind of difference between positive moral law and negative moral law, and why the logic they’re using here does not apply to contraception?
Janet Smith:
Yeah, well certainly the positive moral law, it directs you to what you should do, but it has to be very particular when it says I must be generous. All right, well, what’s generous for a poor person and what’s generous for a wealthy person are very, very different. You can’t… It’s a bit amorphous, a positive law.
Drive safely. Well, for most time, it’s observe the speeding limit, but if you’re getting someone to the hospital that is going to die if you don’t get there in a certain time, safely is the best you can do going as fast as you can.
Eric Sammons:
Right.
Janet Smith:
To get them to the hospital, and you haven’t broken any laws. I mean, you’ve broken human law, but not any divine law to protect human life. Speeding, at this point, is the thing I can do that’s most protective of human life, obviously without unduly endangering other cars on the road.
A negative precept is one you should never do. It’s like, don’t touch electric fences. You will die. Don’t jump off of 10-story buildings, and you say, because you will die, and you say that, so there are certain rules, laws, natural laws, or laws of physics, that if you break, the results are disastrous.
Laws like, “Don’t commit adultery,” means never. Never have sex with anyone other than your spouse, if you’re a married person, obviously. Now you might say, “Don’t be unfaithful to your wife,” or, “Always be faithful to your wife.” That’s a positive rule, but does it mean you can never bring flowers to your secretary, let’s say, on her birthday. Probably not. That’s probably a nice thing to do, but if you’re bringing her flowers a couple days a week because you like her smile, and you like to make her happy, well, now you’re moving towards adultery, honestly, but you can’t make a law that says, “Don’t ever give flowers to your secretary.”
Eric Sammons:
Right.
Janet Smith:
You have, instead, the law, “Don’t commit adultery.” The Church has the law. Again, it’s a natural law. It’s not a manmade law, that, again, never violate God’s plan for sexuality. That’s it, and that contraception does violate God’s plan for sexuality; therefore, don’t contracept.
It’s interesting, as you said, that they say, except for the abortifacient ones. Well, there aren’t very many that aren’t abortifacient. You’re basically talking the male and female condom, almost everything else. Maybe if you call withdrawal a contraceptive act, that’s not an abortifacient, but it’s immoral. It is contraceptive and also non-unitive. It’s interesting that they have that little disclaimer, but they don’t have an asterisk that says, “This means just about everything,” you know?
They’re very narrowly circumscribing it, and acting, as you say, as though it were a positive law, rather than a… a positive precept as opposed to a negative precept. What’s interesting in all of this is way back in the late 1950s/early 1960s when there was the challenges to the Church’s teaching on contraception, those who were trying to push contraception always talked about women in third world countries, who had 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 children, and couldn’t feed them, and it was just horrible, and she needed to have some recourse to contraception. They don’t even say anything like that anymore, because obviously almost everybody’s contracepting, and they don’t have too many children. It’s not that they can’t. They only may be, most likely, limiting themselves to two.
You’re saying that you can’t bring in that heartbreaking scenario, and the fact is that women in third world countries basically have no problem using natural family planning. They understand that very, very well and incorporate it into their lifestyle fairly easily. We don’t in the modern world, because we think that sex is for recreation. We think that there’s nothing else to hold a relationship together except sex, and so if you’re not having as much sex as you can, which people aren’t, but that’s what they think is their goal, they couldn’t possibly use natural family planning.
Many studies show that people using natural family planning have sex even more often, in spite of the requirement for abstinence for a certain period of time, than those who are contracepting, because contracepting kind of takes the fun out of it, one of the huge fun items out of having sex, which is the possibility of a baby with this person.
When you have your act open to that possibility, you are saying something with your body to that person, which is just extraordinary, which is, “I’m willing to have a baby with you,” which means, “I’m willing to have a lifetime relationship with you.” That’s exciting. That’s fun. A momentary act of sexual intercourse is physically exhilarating, but it doesn’t have a human element, the human element of commitment to someone you love.
Eric Sammons:
Right. Now, I think most people, who are watching this, listening to this, understand that the Church is teaching against contraception, but I would like you to explain, though, why it is that artificial contraception does violate God’s plan for human sexuality and why it is always wrong. Basically, lay out just… I know you gave a whole talk on this, so I’d encourage people to listen to that, but just lay out briefly exactly why it is that it is always wrong, and there can’t be exceptions like they’re trying to carve for them.
Janet Smith:
Yeah, I would like to remove the word artificial from artificial contraception. All contraception is artificial, but that’s not why it’s wrong. It’s wrong because it is violating God’s purpose for sexuality, both purposes. The purposes are to procreate and to form a unitive bond, a powerful unitive bond, with the individual with whom you’re having sex, who should be your spouse.
God told us from the start. It’s interesting, the first commandment is it’s not good that man should be alone. He didn’t make him a buddy. He made him a female, who was to be his wife. They’re meant to leave their parents and form a union for the rest of their lives. Two shall become one. That’s really, pretty much the first commandment, two shall become one. Why? To be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. I mean, this was all given before the fall.
God is a lover, and God overflows with love. He wants human beings to love, and He wants us to make acts of complete self-giving to other people, particularly to your spouse. The way you make a complete gift of yourself is to allow this fertility. There’s a part of the sexual act, actually to reverence it, and to say, “This is an incredible thing, that I might become a parent with another person, and that I’m willing to engage in this with you means I’m making a lifetime commitment to you.” That’s the bonding. The bonding isn’t the pleasure. The bonding is the lifetime commitment that you make to the other person in this act.
As long as you do not negate the procreative meaning of the act, you are bonding in a lifetime way, because you’re saying, “I am willing to be a parent with you,” which is… That’s the most profound, deeply profound, commitment you can make to anyone. As anyone knows, once you’re a parent, you are a parent for the rest of your life with that other person of this child.
That’s the Church’s teaching, that sexuality is a great gift from God. He does want us to experience great pleasure. He does want us to have a powerful attraction, physical attraction, emotional attraction, psychological attraction, even philosophical attraction to this other person, because it’s a push on our back to get into this relationship and bring forth children, and it is hard, as you say, in a fallen world.
We’re fallen people, and parenthood is incredibly demanding from day one, and even before day one. The amount of accommodations that people have to make to each other and to this child… We have a friend now, whose daughter just had a baby, and we just keep kidding how the baby is now the boss of the household. A baby dictates everything, when we go to bed, when we sleep, when we eat, everything, with no idea that the baby is a boss. The baby doesn’t know it’s a boss, but the baby is the boss, and so we’ve got a new boss in our household.
Our will is not the will that prevails in this household, and so the father and the mother have to relate in a whole new way because of this child, and for the rest of their life. God made all this a way of populating heaven. That’s what He wants. He wants souls for heaven, but also for the sanctification of the spouses. The generosity that is necessary to be even a mediocre parent is tremendous. That’s the purpose of sexuality, I would say: babies, bonding, sanctification.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, and I would just say that, on that last point, that as a parent… I have seven kids and been a parent for over 25 years now, that I have a long ways to go in sanctification, but I’d have a lot further way to go if I didn’t have kids.
Janet Smith:
Mm-hmm.
Eric Sammons:
I mean, they just really do help you. I mean, just like you said about you have to put them before your own needs. It’s funny. When we had our first kid, so this was like 25 years ago, just the simple of like, you can’t just run out, the two of you somewhere, and get… Like, “Oh, let’s just run out.” No, you can’t do that, because now you have a kid.
At first, there is this resistance. You’re like, you don’t like that, because you like doing whatever you want to do. But then, over time, of course, that gets moved. You realize, okay, there’s far more important things, because all of a sudden, this baby is the most important thing to you, so it doesn’t… You’re like, I can give up not going, getting whatever I want every second, for this person.
That’s what I think is most frustrating about the attempt to demean the teaching of the Church on this is that it assumes what the world says about these rules, that they’re just things to keep us from having fun. They’re just things to keep us from being happy, and yet, as you explained very well, following teaching is what’s going to make you the most happy, not necessarily every moment, but it’s going to make you the most fulfilled, the most joyful, the most happy, and obviously eternally happy. That’s what they seem to just act like that’s not even true, that following these things are just a big burden for people, and so that’s why we have to soften it. We’re lifting burdens from people’s shoulders, and it’s not really a burden, ultimately, because ask anybody who has kids. It’s not a burden to have. I mean, I have seven kids. That’s not a burden. It’s a joy. Yeah, so anyway, it frustrates me when I… the mentality they have.
Janet Smith:
People… I mean, one time I was at a talk, and all the tables and chairs needed to be put aside, put away, and there was this group of young people that seemed to have so much fun doing it. Afterwards, they came and stood around me.
I had said in my talk something about having a lot of kids. I mean, it can be a great burden in certain respects. I mean, carrying in all those gallons of milk all the time, and picking up all the shoes, and lecturing one more teenager about whatever. God bless you, one more teenager about whatever.
This woman in front of me, who turned out to be the mother of all these kids who had done all this cleaning up just said, “I never found it to be a burden.” Now, I knew she was lying, okay? Because it can’t be true. On the other hand, what she meant to say is what you’re saying is that the reward is so great, it erases the burden, all right?
I’m looking at it, and I’m thinking, oh my gosh, but then I see these teenagers, and I say, “Oh my goodness, what you’ve done, what you have done is raise these beautiful kids, who just have a good time cleaning up after a big event, rather than resisting it.” All right? So, that’s the sanctification, and that’s what… We think we’ve lost something, when we’ve really gained something of immeasurable value, immeasurable value.
Eric Sammons:
One more question about this, just the morality of contraception and whatnot is natural family planning. I’ve seen among… There is a certain segment of Catholics, who believe that natural family planning itself is also immoral. On the other extreme, I have seen sometimes that some people in the Church present natural family planning almost the same as you would sell artificial contraception, for example. Why is natural family planning not immoral, but what are some of the maybe potential dangers of it?
Janet Smith:
Well, again, natural family planning, it requires several things that are extremely beneficial to a relationship. One is an honest discussion about why you’re limiting your family size. You need to talk about that, because people don’t like to abstain, rightly so. They say, “Why are we abstaining?” When you have to express your reasons that are coming out, it becomes clear whether they’re selfish or unselfish, and you have to kind of figure out where you are, so it helps people be very intentional about their sexuality and what are their priorities.
“We don’t want any more children because I don’t want to buy a van,” whatever, and it turns out sometimes that is the reason. You sort of put that out there, and you say, well, really, can I put that before God as a legitimate reason for not wanting more children?
It requires a lot of communication, and it does require self-control, which always benefits any one of us, when there’s any one of our appetites that we have to learn to control. The sexual appetite is, in a bed with your beloved spouse, is one of the hardest ones, though people, of course, abstain for all sorts of reasons. Because they want to watch a sporting event on TV, for instance, is a regular reason for not having sex this evening. “Tomorrow night, Honey. Somebody’s on the TV.”
It might not happen often, but people do that, or the walls are thin, or you’re visiting people, et cetera, et cetera. You don’t have sex for all sorts of reasons. Not having sex because it’s not a good idea to have a baby is one of the better reasons. But people can use it selfishly. They can gain such self-control that it’s just not that hard, and they’ve decided they don’t want to be generous about having children. They’ve had their four maybe; four’s enough, and we’ve got enough money now to join the country club or to go on these expensive vacations, and a baby would just make that all difficult. Well, that’s selfish, but usually using NFP chips away at those reasons.
Again, I said, you have to say it out loud, and it sounds pretty shallow. Then, secondly, there’s going to come a time where you really want to have sex, and it’s the fertile time. You really have to say, “Are we going to go ahead or not?” It kind of helps you overcome your selfishness.
It can be used for selfish reasons, but if someone said to me, “How do you overcome that?” I said, “Well, just keep using NFP. Keep talking about why you’re using it, and keep being conscious about when it would be really nice to have sex and it’s fertile, and do we really want to say no to ourselves?”
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, I think in practice, it’s very difficult to use NFP long-term in a marriage in a selfish way. Yes, potentially one month or something like that, you could potentially, but over the course of a long marriage, I don’t see how really it can happen.
Janet Smith:
Oh, I agree with you. I think people who are selfish will eventually get a vasectomy or tubal ligation because they’re done.
Eric Sammons:
Right.
Janet Smith:
That phrase, to say, “We’re done,” is very defiant. There may be times when, in fact, you should be done. Then use NFP, but so many people I know have had a late in life baby, and it was not… The first thought of it is, oh no, diapers all over again, and all this. And the baby comes and, oh my gosh, the whole household changes. The kids you already have are delirious that there’s a baby in the household, and you discover all over again baby love, which is just so powerful.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, let me tell you from experience, it’s much harder to get up in the middle of the night and change a diaper at 46 than it is at 26, but it’s still worth it. I mean, that’s the thing is you still have this beautiful kid, and it’s very much worth it.
Janet Smith:
Then have the older ones respond.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, that’s right. One last question is, do you think that this document that the Pontifical Academy for Life released, do you think it is going to potentially lead to Francis writing an encyclical, like he did Amoris Laetitia, that will undercut the Church’s teaching on contraception?
Janet Smith:
I don’t know. Possibly. Again, I think just like Amoris Laetitia, it’s ambiguous enough that you can say that it hasn’t really changed the Church’s teaching. It’s just opened a door for those who are… I mean, I think that’s what it intended to do, but I think the Holy Spirit is still in charge, always will be in charge, and will never let the Holy Father teach in a magisterial way something that is opposed to infallible constant, infallible and authoritative constant Church teaching. I don’t believe it’s going to happen, though there might be all sorts of documents that suggest that it has happened, but I can’t foresee that for sure.
Eric Sammons:
Right, right. Okay, well, let’s pray that they don’t even open the door for people to interpret it in that way.
Janet Smith:
I think they have. They’ve done that.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, I know. Okay, so is there… How can people find out about the stuff that you’re involved in and things that you’re doing right now?
Janet Smith:
Well, I’m retired now, you know, but I have a website.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, but you’re still active.
Janet Smith:
Yeah. I just say read Crisis Magazine if you want to know what I’m doing now.
Eric Sammons:
Well, don’t you have a website?
Janet Smith:
What’d you say?
Eric Sammons:
Don’t you have a website?
Janet Smith:
I do. It’s not as comprehensive as it should be, and one of these days I’ll maybe… I’ve tried many times over my life to get something up and going, but it just sort of sputters. It’s janetsmith.org. My talk, Contraception: Why Not? is there for a free download, and I really wish people would promote that, because I recently gave a talk to maybe 50 very good Catholic kids from Focus, and I think two of them have ever listened to my tape, not that they were pro-contraception, but they hadn’t listened to my talk, I guess I should call it now. It’s an mp3, maybe mp4, mp5 download. What are we on now?
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, I don’t even know. I still call them tapes. I talk about Scott Hunt’s conversion tape, I mean, because it’s… You know?
Janet Smith:
Yeah, so anyway, I still think it’s very valuable for people to listen to it. I mean, the studies, to some extent, are out of date, but you can take two seconds to google the right words, and you’ll find the latest studies, which honestly completely confirm the older studies. It’s not as if things have changed. They’ve only gotten worse, not better, except that there’s fewer abortions, we think. Maybe not, but there’s fewer surgical abortions than there used to be. There may be more abortions because of the abortion pill, et cetera.
Eric Sammons:
Okay, well, I’ll link to your site, and I’ll link also to where they can download the Contraception: Why Not? Because I do encourage and recommend anybody to listen to it. It really does present the arguments very well. Okay, well great. Thank you very much, Janet. I appreciate you being on the program.
Janet Smith:
It’s good to be here, Eric. I love what you’re doing.
Eric Sammons:
Oh, thank you very much, appreciate it. Okay, everybody, until next time, God love you.
Crisis Magazine has been America’s leading source for Catholic perspectives on religion, politics, and culture since 1982.
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on The Pontifical Academy for Life has created controversy again, recently releasing a book that questioned the Church’s teaching on artificial contraception. What’s behind this attempt to undermine Church teaching?
(LifeSiteNews) — Four bishops, several priests, and numerous Catholic scholars have signed a statement rebuking Pope Francis for a recent statement about the reception of Holy Communion, according to which “everyone is invited to the supper of the wedding of the Lamb (Re 19:9). To be admitted to the feast all that is required is the wedding garment of faith which comes from the hearing of his Word.” The Pope wrote these words in his June 29 Apostolic Letter on the liturgy, Desiderio desideravi, but for the signatories of this new statement (see full text below), he omitted the “essential topic of repentance for sin for the worthy reception of the Eucharist.”
Therefore, the papal words about the “garment of faith” as the only requirement for the reception of Holy Communion, “contradict[] the faith of the Catholic Church,” as the authors wrote. They explain:
The Catholic Church has always taught that in order to receive the Holy Eucharist worthily and without sin, Catholics must receive sacramental absolution, if possible, for any mortal sins they may have committed and obey all other laws of the Church concerning reception of the Eucharist (as, for example, the laws concerning fasting prior to reception of the Eucharist).
If a sacramental confession is not possible, but the reception of Holy Communion urgent (such as for a priest celebrating Mass), the Sacrament of Penance has to be sought as soon as possible afterwards, and the penitent must have perfect contrition for his mortal sins. By extensively quoting from the Council of Trent’s documents, the signatories also make it clear that such teachings as presented in Pope Francis’ document have already been condemned as heresy. “The claim,” they write, “that faith is the only requirement for worthy reception of the Holy Eucharist was condemned by the Council of Trent as a heresy.”
[Expressed Manly Love for the 1902-1912 Sussex, England:] “The Southern Hills and the South Sea / They blow such gladness into me, / That when I get to Burton Sands / And smell the smell of the Home Lands, / My heart is all renewed and fills / With the Southern Sea and the South Hills.” (Hilaire Belloc, Complete Verses, page 89.)
***
“So that no one may be shocked, my song [said the Sailor] shall be of a religious sort, dealing with the great truths. And perhaps that will soften the heart of the torturers….For this song that I [the Sailor] am proposing to sing [at the Inn] is of a good loud roaring, but none the less it deals with the ultimate things….Now it cannot be properly sung unless the semi-chorus (which I will indicate by raising my hands) is sung loudly by all of you together…for dear life’s sake….Such is the nature of the song.” (The Four Men (1912), pages 89-90.)
***
“Oh, he didn’t believe / In Adam and Eve, / He put no faith therein! / His doubts began / With the fall of man, / And he laughed at original sin!” (The Four Men, page 93—an emphatic “semi-chorus” character mark of the Pelagian Man, as it was first sung aloud and then led more fully by the Sailor himself.)
***
In the concise doctrinal essay—along with its salty and robust songs—as they are presented immediately below this compact introduction, we may also fittingly read some four pages of Hilaire Belloc’s own 1912 book, entitled The Four Men1 about the dominant aspects of the four symbolized named characters (Myself, the Poet, the Sailor, and the elderly—and often wise—Grizzlebeard).
In the preparatory surrounding 1902-1912 context, “the Sailor” himself takes the initiative to compose and deliver the “Song of the Pelagian Heresy” to their three companions and to the growing onlookers at their inviting Inn.
Moreover, the Sailor stipulates that the growing audience’s response to each of three semi-chorus’ must be heartfelt, robust, and loud! We shall further discuss the context and aftermath—and the Sailor’s ongoing reflections—after closely we also now read the vivid “Song of the Pelagian Heresy.”2We may now also consider the various 1902 and 1912 Modernisms already sabotaging the Catholic Faith. Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius X were clear about what is, sub gratia, at stake. Both, for example, were attentive lest a “rally to Democracy” could and would subtly become a “rally to the Revolution”!
SONG OF THE PELAGIAN HERESY FOR THE STRENGTHING OF MEN’S BACKS AND THE VERY ROBUST OUT-THRUSTING OF DOUBTFUL DOCTRINE AND THE UNCERTAIN INTELLECTUAL
Pelagius lived in Kardanoel,
And taught his doctrine there:
How whether you went to Heaven or Hell,
It was your own affair.
How whether you found eternal joy,
Or sank forever to burn,
It had nothing to do with the Church, my boy,
But was your own concern.
Semi-Chorus
Oh, he didn’t believe
In Adam and Eve,
He put no faith therein!
His doubts began
With the fall of man,
And he laughed at original sin!
Chorus
With my row-ti-tow, ti-oodly-ow,
He laughed at original sin!
Whereat the Bishop of old Auxerre —
(Germanus was his name),
He tore great handfuls out of his hair,
And called Pelagius Shame:
And then with his stout Episcopal staff
So thoroughly thwacked and banged
The heretics all, both short and tall,
That they rather had been hanged.
Semi-Chorus
Oh, he thwacked them hard and he banged them long,
1Hilaire Belloc, The Four Men (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1912)—310 pages. The setting is in 1902 A.D.
2See Complete Verse: Hilaire Belloc (London: PIMLICO, 1970 and 1991), pages 90-92 for the complete and compact “Song of the the Pelagian Heresy.” We shall later add some reflections on the context and incentive for the big “Song.”
Robert Hickson graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York, in June 1964, and was assigned to Southeast Asia. After one year, he became a U.S. Army Special Forces Officer and earned his “3-prefix” as a “Green Beret,” after having already completed Parachute School and Ranger School and certain forms of Naval Commando Training. After tours in Viet Nam and elsewhere in Asia, he taught at the J.F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center as the Head of the East Asian Seminar and Instructor in Military History and Irregular Warfare. He acquired his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Classics (Greco-Roman) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with an emphasis on Ancient Philosophy and Medieval Literature (to include Theological Literature). For seven years, he was Professor and Chairman of the Literature and Latin Department at Christendom College, leaving shortly thereafter to return to Military and Strategic-Cultural Studies. He was a Professor at the Joint Military Intelligence College (former Defense Intelligence College), a graduate school in the U.S. Intelligence Community at the Defense Intelligence Agency (D.I.A.) in Washington, D.C. Among other things, he taught Foreign Area and National Security Studies, Military History and Strategy, as well as Moral Philosophy. He was then invited to the Air Force Academy for four years as a Professor in the William Simon Chair of Strategy and Culture, teaching in several academic departments. He concluded his Federal Service as a Professor of Strategic and Cultural Studies, as well as Military History and National Security Studies, at the Joint Special Operations University in Florida, a part of the U.S. Special Operations Command. Comparative cultural and strategic-historical studies constituted a unifying theme in these various forms of teaching over the years. Dr. Maike Hickson was born and raised in Germany. She holds a PhD from the University of Hannover, Germany, after having written in Switzerland her doctoral dissertation on the history of Swiss intellectuals before and during World War II. She now lives in the U.S. and is married to Dr. Robert Hickson, and they have been blessed with two beautiful children. She is a happy housewife who likes to write articles when time permits. Dr. Hickson published in 2014 a Festschrift, a collection of some thirty essays written by thoughtful authors in honor of her husband upon his 70th birthday, which is entitled A Catholic Witness in Our Time. Hickson has closely followed the papacy of Pope Francis and the developments in the Catholic Church in Germany, and she has been writing articles on religion and politics for U.S. and European publications and websites such as LifeSiteNews, OnePeterFive, The Wanderer, Rorate Caeli, Catholicism.org, Catholic Family News, Christian Order, Notizie Pro-Vita, Corrispondenza Romana, Katholisches.info, Der Dreizehnte, Zeit-Fragen, and Westfalen-Blatt. View all posts by hicksonfamily
We went mad because we easily could. And we could,
not because we were poor and oppressed,
but because we were rich and bored.
By: Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
September 11, 2022
Travel abroad and or talk to pro-American foreigners here, and you will be surprised at what they say. It is not boilerplate anti-Americanism of the usual cheap Euro style. And their keen criticism is not just that we are $30 trillion in debt, dependent on China, with a corrupt elite, or have gone insane inventing the most lurid crimes to put away the supposedly predetermined guilty Donald Trump.
Instead, they express disbelief, worry, and lamentation even, that the one solid referent in the world has gone, well, completely rabid. They are terrified after the Afghanistan debacle that their old ally or new homeland, the once constant America, is delirious, incompetent, and self-loathing, and now there is no plausible alternative to the old American deterrence.
So, they wonder who will resist China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea—and are silently petrified to go it alone without the United States.
They seem staggered by the very ideas that now emanate from the United States: that nonexistent borders are desirable; that once rarified institutions like the FBI or CIA now function like the Stasi of old; that the very idea of meritocracy is considered racist; that one incorrect word can destroy a life-long career; that there are three or more sexes, not two; that biological men with male genitalia and physiology can compete, and destroy decades of advances, in women’s sports; that race is the sole mode of self-identification; and that half of America dislikes American customs, history—and the other 50 percent of the population—as much as do its enemies.
Onlookers no longer see American universities as free-wheeling bastions of unfettered research and expression. Rather they watch dreary (and sometimes scary) places where conformity to the old Soviet style is enforced—or else.
There is an apprehension that Russian hypersonic missiles are superior to America’s, that China could easily sink the Pacific fleet if it got too close to a blockade of Taiwan, that America is now reconciled to a nuclear Iranian theocracy, that North Korea will try something stupid soon—and that the American military is now somehow different, somehow less lethal.
Dogma and Stalinist-like orthodoxy now plague our films, our fiction, our research, and even our scientific inquiry. Public policy discussion of real problems like long COVID can be as much about what race is affected the worst by it—and thus which diabolical actor or demographic is to blame—rather than a Marshall Plan rush to find a cure for everyone.
A discussion of Homer’s Odyssey in college is likely to be a Sovietized melodrama of rooting out the sexists and racists in the preliterate bard’s cosmos, rather than why and how such an epic has enthralled audiences for over 2,700 years. The subtext is that we are growing poorer, weaker, and more ridiculous—an acceptable price if we can at least prove we are woke.
So, what made America unhinged?
The Woke Plague
Wokeness is a large part of it. Properly understood, wokeness is simply the doctrine that all perceived inequality must be the result of culpability, not personal behavior or conduct. There is no role for chance, individual health, inheritance, or character that make us different. There are no cosmic forces like globalization that transcend race.
What’s left instead is a nefariousness that divides the world into a collective binary of the noble victimized and their demonic oppressors. Thus, government and righteous egalitarian culture must divide the country, in post-Marxist style, to identify the victims/ oppressed, and redistribute power, money, and influence to them. That allows the anointed to condemn the victimizers/oppressors collectively and to stigmatize, ostracize, and enfeeble them.
Every agency available—government, popular culture, science, history, literature, the arts, the university, the media, big tech, the corporate boardroom, and Wall Street—must be subordinated and recalibrated to spot supposed inequality so that they can fix it through reparatory discrimination. All being equal and poorer is preferable to all being richer, but with some richer than others.
Sometimes the effort manifests in reparatory commercials where 40 to 50 percent of the actors are black. Is that corporate America’s way of helping stop the carnage in Chicago—from a safe distance? Sometimes the effort is media-based and designed to ignore self-confessed racial motives in violent crime when the black perpetrators deliberately target white or Asian victims. And sometimes, there is a general exclusionary rule that media grandees can openly generalize and stereotype all whites as toxic—in language that would earn their firings if applied to any other groups. Is the theory that a white assembly-line worker without a college degree born in 1990 properly owes society for the purported sins of the long dead?
Wokeness is also, at its most basic, a selfish creed. We still gladly use the very institutions and infrastructure we inherited from our ancestors—from Stanford University to the Hoover Dam—and then damn them as inferior to our standards. Left unsaid is that our generation can neither create a new major research university nor build a monumental dam.
The wealthiest and most deductively biased among us are the most likely to project their hatreds onto the middle classes that lack their prejudices. Generally, the immigrant poor and dispossessed who enter America know why they came and thus see it as their salvation. In contrast, the more elite and blessed the immigrants who thrive in America, the more likely they are to chomp the hand that fed them.
Woke must destroy its critics. And who are they? The age-old individualist. The traditional outspoken. The familiar maverick. The unbeliever. The apostate. Anyone who believes woke is really a familiar and ancient evil with a mere 21st-century face, our version of the Inquisition but supposedly redirected to noble justice, cruel Jacobinism now masked in enlightened racial clothes or toxic Bolshevism with an iPhone.
Can you have wokeism without Twitter and Facebook, a cancel culture, censors, and an array of punishments?
No more than you could have the witch trials without Reverend Samuel Parris’ mass hysteria, or the Reign of Terror without Robespierre and the guillotine of his “Committee of the Public Safety,” or the purges without Stalin and Beria, or the loyalty oaths without Joe McCarthy.
So, cancel culture itself is always dangerous and led by rank opportunists and careerists disguised as social justice warriors—as we know from ancient scapegoating, ostracism, exile, and modern Trotskization.
The Cowards and Bullies of Cyberspace
But the rise of the internet and social media empowered Orwellian cancellation in two dangerous ways.
One was instantaneous accusation, verdict, and punishment accomplished online in a nanosecond. Up popped the Covington High School kids standing face-to-face with the pathological liar and phony activist Nathan Phillips.
A millisecond later, the Twitter lynch mob judged the teenagers—white, male, with MAGA hats, and unafraid—as victimizers and the provocateur Phillips—the noble Native American—a victim. And that was that. The lives of the former were nearly ruined, the latter sanctified—all without any desire for facts, context, or the truth.
The faker Jussie Smollett spun a preposterous lie about being attacked by the usual white cyclopses and hydras (again, with the de rigueur MAGA hats). Smollett spun “facts” that only proved he was a racist and an inveterate liar. And then we were off to the races.
Everyone from Kamala Harris to Nancy Pelosi rushed to post first their condolences and outrage, to deify the faker Smollett and to demonize “them”—that is, the nonexistent “MAGA” assaulters. Lunatic condemnations arrived at electronic speed. Apologies for being a patsy, fool, a bully, and a racist never materialized.
We had learned nothing from the Duke Lacrosse hoax and so that is why we trump it now with the Duke volleyball ruse. The point in America now is not the truth, much less justice—but career and agenda-driven revenge for not quite getting the attention, the influence, and the bounty that others are perceived to enjoy.
One second a news flash blared that the FBI was at Mar-a-Lago. The next moment, “presidential historian” Michael Beschloss was out of his Twitter cave, comparing Trump to the guilty Rosenbergs who were executed in the 1950s for espionage. And a breath later, former CIA director Michael Hayden, chained to his keyboard, had tweeted his approval of an envisioned judge, jury, and executioner sentence for the now guilty traitor Trump. Then a day or two storing or selling “nuclear secrets” went the way of “I have here in my hand a list of 205 . . . names.”
The anonymity of the cyber world, of course, adds to the dramatic lynchings. The cowardly posters dream up silly pictures and fake names as their IDs. And then post hourly, assured that if they lie, they smear, they fabricate there are never consequences. The Twitter or Facebook bully is not like someone known, in person or print, defaming openly. A Samuel Johnson definition of social media might be “instant character assassination of the innocent by the anonymous without consequences.”
Masked And Isolated
There was a second accelerant to our collective cannibalism. Wokeism and the Internet predated COVID. But the decision to shut down the schools and selective businesses, to sequester hundreds of millions in their homes, to suspend human-to-human contact in everything from a child learning to read to a cancer victim getting a chemo dose—all that will finally be judged as the most deleterious public health decision in the nation’s history.
Instantaneously, and for nearly two years, we destroyed human interaction. Our elite turned an entire population into recluses—dependent on electronic screens, whether televisions or computers, for their entire contact with the outside world. The nation became utterly dependent on a helot class, who were felt to be expendable, at least in the sense they would risk infection that others would not, and thus deliver food and necessities to the housebound.
In January 2020, a man with a mask entering a bank signaled alarms; for the next two years, who could fathom him when all the entrants were wearing masks? Under the same cloak of COVID shutdowns, we went from 70 percent of the country voting on Election Day to a mere 30 percent—even as the early and mail-in ballot rejection rate dived. Worries over voter integrity under such abnormal conditions rendered one a “racist,” “election denier,” or“insurrectionist.”
George Floyd’s death, and the 120 days of destruction, arson, riot, and death that followed, along with the radical recalibration of our institutions encapsulated the entire madness. A CNN hack, without evidence, could scream on the screen to the sequestrated locked in their homes that the police habitually murder the young, black, and innocent. Who cared to check Department of Justice data showing that of the 11 million people arrested a year on average, unarmed blacks were not disproportionally killed by police compared to unarmed whites?
For the housebound, soon George Floyd appeared with angelic wings and a halo on murals and posters from Washington to Kabul. All agreed that his death was preventable and due to police misconduct.
But it was deemed racist even to suggest that Floyd contributed mightily to his own predicament through ingesting fentanyl and, earlier, methamphetamines, through resisting arrest, through trying to pass counterfeit money, through a prior eight convictions, among which he had been imprisoned for a home invasion in which he put a gun to the stomach of a pregnant woman.
Do the haloed and winged stick firearms next to wombs?
In sum, the spontaneity and anonymity of hundreds of millions using social media proved frightening. So did the return of an ancient deadly totalitarian creed of forced egalitarianism, now masked with smiley-faced euphemisms and platitudes.
Add to the ample kindling the igniter of two-year quarantines in which stir-crazy millions depended upon the rumors of a corrupt media, a mob-like social media, and a weaponized government for information about the outside world that became as distant as the moon.
And presto, you have all the requisites needed for our collective madness.
The Spoiled Affluent
But how did these pathologies take root in America so easily?
It was not because of endemic poverty and the 14-hour drudgery of hard work to live one more day on a farm. But just the opposite.
An affluent, bored, and leisured society had long decided that poverty was not an absolute but relative—to be gauged not by mass access to air conditioning, plentiful food, a car, and electronic entertainment—but to the degree all of that was not divided up proportionally. And thus, someone or something must be found culpable for the asymmetry in satisfying the appetites. Presto! The government, the media, the university, and the popular culture went after the culprits.
We went mad then because we easily could. And we could not because we were poor and oppressed, but because we were rich and bored.
What will end wokeness? The reversal of the leisure and affluence that were the bounties of 233 years of what birthed it—free-market capitalism, constitutional government, meritocracy, human rights, tolerance, and free expression.
We are already destroying meritocracy. We are reverting to tribal racial branding. We are strangling energy and food production because of green superstition.
We are unleashing the criminal upon the weak and innocent.
Destroy the bounty that produced and empowered the woke decadence, and we won’t have anything—the woke included. Wokeism is, for now, an affordable irrelevancy that rests on the wealth and lessons produced by those long dead and now much rebuked. But it won’t remain affordable.
Instead, we will learn what woke itself produces—barbarism, chaos, poverty, and civilization in reverse.
That is precisely what we are now witnessing on a Saturday night in Chicago, a day on the southern border, a sidewalk of urine and feces in Los Angeles, with strapping athletes in the pool with male genitalia breaking women’s swim records, parking your unlocked car in San Francisco, a trip to the gas pump, blackouts, and brownouts in California, jogging in Memphis—all with a dash of monkeypox, FBI hooliganism, and Twitter lynching.
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on Travel abroad and you will encounter a lot of people who have identified in the past as friends of the United States and who now see a weakened America and wonder who will resist China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea—and are silently petrified to go it alone without the United States.
Letter #111, 2022, Wednesday, September 14: Viganò Archbishop Carlo Mara Viganò, 81, recently granted an interview to Paix Liturgique, a French website which focuses on liturgical questions, and, with the archbishop’s permission, we have translated the text into English. The archbishop here tales a very strong position in favor of the old liturgy, arguing that the old rite of the Mass was an organic and faithful reflection of the teaching of the Apostles and Church Fathers — he says “the healthy blood of the Gospel flows in the veins of the Tridentine Mass” — while the new, revised rite, the “Novus Ordo” (“new order”) Mass, introduced after the Second Vatican Council, is marked by its greater emphasis on seeing the Church as the “people of God” rather than “the mystical body of Christ.” He goes so far as to say that, for this reason, the new Mass “flows with… the spirit of the world.” This negative evaluation of the new Mass does raise serious questions about the wisdom of the post-conciliar Popes in approving it and celebrating it for more than 50 years now. Were all those Popes unwise to support the introduction and general use of the new Mass on the Church? That is one question that may require an answer. *** In this regard, the continued — and un-reformed — existence of the Byzantine liturgy, in the eastern-rite Catholic Churches and in the Orthodox Churches — a liturgy which dates back to St. John Chrysostom and (of course) beyond Chrysostom to the earliest generations of the Church, is a type of testimony to the validity of the reasoning of Archbishop Viganò. And Pope Francis himself, in 2013, when he had been Pope just four months, on the airplane flight back to Rome from World Youth Day in Brazil, had this to say about the eastern liturgy, which breathes the same sense of reverence and solemnity that distinguishes the old Latin liturgy: ”In the Orthodox Churches,” Francis said, “they have retained that pristine liturgy, which is so beautiful. We have lost some of the sense of adoration. The Orthodox preserved it; they praise God, they adore God, they sing, time does not matter. God is at the centre, and I would like to say, as you ask me this question, that this is a richness. Once, speaking of the Western Church, of Western Europe, especially the older Church, they said this phrase to me: Lux ex oriente, ex occidente luxus. Consumerism, comfort, they have done such harm. Instead, you retain this beauty of God in the centre, the reference point. When reading Dostoevsky – I believe that for all of us he is an author that we must read and reread due to his wisdom – one senses what the Russian soul is, what the eastern soul is. It is something that does us much good. We need this renewal, this fresh air from the East, this light from the East. John Paul II wrote about this in his Letter. But many times the luxus of the West makes us lose this horizon. I don’t know, but these are the thoughts that come to me. Thank you.” These words of Francis could have been spoken by… Archbishop Viganò himself. *** Yet today, in 2022, the views of the two men on the liturgy could (seemingly) hardly be further apart. *** This suggests that something has happened during the years 2013-2022 to change the views of Francis about the great value in the profound beauty of the eastern liturgy (paralleled in the old western liturgy, which also had its roots in the early centuries of the faith, as Pope Benedict XVIalso taught throughout his pontificate). Matter for further reflection. Stay tuned…—RM
INTERVIEWby Paix LiturgiqueWith Archbishop Carlo Maria ViganòTuesday, September 13, 2022 1. Your Excellency, why, after Vatican II, is the question of the liturgy such a burning question? Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò: The liturgical question is of great importance because, the sacred action of the Mass contains the doctrine, morality, spirituality and discipline of the ecclesial body that celebrates the Liturgy. Thus, just as the Catholic Mass is a perfect and coherent expression of the Catholic Magisterium, the reformed liturgy [the Novus Ordo] is an expression of conciliar deviations; indeed it reveals and confirms its heterodox essence without the ambiguities and verbiage of the Vatican II texts. We could say, to use a simile, that the healthy blood of the Gospel flows in the veins of the Tridentine Mass, while the new rite flows with the infected blood of heresy and the spirit of the world. 2. Does Pope Francis, who is not deeply interested in the liturgy, not at least have the merit of raising the real problem when he says that the two liturgical forms, the old and the new, reflect two different ecclesiologies? Archbishop Viganò: This is exactly what I have just said, and it is exactly what (in 1968) Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci denounced in their “Breve esame critico” (Brief Critical Examination), and also Archbishop Lefebvre in his many interventions, and has also been denounced by other bishops and liturgists. What you called the “two liturgical forms” of a single rite are actually two different rites, one fully Catholic and one that is silent about Catholic truths and insinuates errors of a Protestant and modernist matrix. In this Bergoglio is perfectly right: whoever embraces Vatican II and its heretical developments cannot find those errors expressed in the traditional liturgy, which, due to its clarity in the profession of the Faith, represents a condemnation and a negation of the mens [the mindset or outlook] of those who conceived the Novus Ordo. 3. Several documents of the offensive against the Traditional Rite have followed one after another in the past year, beginning with Traditionis Custodes (July 16, 2021), then the “Response to Dubia” (issued December 4, 2021, by Arthur Roche, Prefect of the CCD), and then the Apostolic Letter DesiderioDesideravi (June 29, 2022). Can we still have hope that the attempted offensive has failed and that the ancient liturgy will not die? Archbishop Viganò: The first deception we must not fall into is being deceived by the subversive use of acts of government and the Magisterium. In this case, we have documents that have not been promulgated in order to confirm our brothers in the faith, but rather in order to distance them from it, in clear contradiction to Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, which instead recognized full rights to the Tridentine Liturgy. Secondly, the intemperance of an authoritarian tyrant, consumed by hatred for the Church of Christ, is opening the eyes of even the most moderate, showing them that the whole conciliar fraud is based on aversion to the truths expressed by the Tridentine Mass, while the official narration claims that the liturgical reform was only meant to make these truths more accessible to the faithful by translating them. 4. The way in which Traditionis Custodes is applied varies considerably from country to country and from bishop to bishop. Some have approved the Pope’s document, but in reality they have not changed anything in their dioceses. Is there no feeling, especially in Italy, that whoever will succeed Francis will not be able to maintain this repressive line? Archbishop Viganò: The Church is not a society governed by an absolute monarch, free from any higher authority, who can impose his whim on his subjects. The Head of the Church is Christ, and Christ is its only true King and Lord, of whom the Roman Pontiff is the Vicar, just as he is the Successor of the Prince of the Apostles. Abusing the vicarious power of Christ and placing oneself outside the succession by proposing heterodox doctrines, or by imposing norms that refer to them, makes this intrinsic link with Christ the Head and with His Mystical Body, the Church, disappear. In fact, the Pope’s vicarious power enjoys all the prerogatives of absolute, immediate and direct authority over the Church only to the extent that it conforms to its main purpose, which is the salus animarum, always following in the wake of Tradition and fidelity to Our Lord. Furthermore, in the exercise of this authority, the Pope enjoys the special graces of state always within the very specific boundaries of this purpose; these graces have no effect where he acts against Christ and the Church. This is why Bergoglio’s furious attempts, however violent and destructive, are inexorably destined to break and one day will certainly be declared null and void. 5. What do you recommend to lay people who are upset by this situation? Archbishop Viganò: The laity are living members of the Mystical Body, and as such they have the native right to demand that its visible authority act and legislate in conformity with the mandate it has received from Christ. When this earthly authority, by the permission of Providence, acts and legislates against the will of Christ, the faithful must first understand that this test is a means permitted by Providence in order to open their eyes after decades of deviations and hypocrisy by which they have been overwhelmed, and to which many have adhered in good faith – precisely because they are obedient to the Hierarchy and unaware of the fraud perpetrated against them. When they understand this, they will notice the treasure they have been robbed of by those who should have kept it and handed it over to future generations, instead of hiding it after devaluing it in order to replace it with a bad counterfeit. At that point, they will implore the Majesty of God to shorten the time of the trial and grant the Church a Supreme Shepherd who obeys Christ, who belongs to Him, who loves Him and who renders Him perfect worship. 6. Diocesan priests seem to be the targets and main victims of Roman measures against the traditional liturgy: what advice would you give them? Archbishop Viganò: In the decades preceding the Council, the leaders of the Church were well aware of the growing threat represented by the sedition of the modernist infiltrators. Because of this, Pius XII had to centralize power, but his decision – however understandable – had the consequence of instilling in the clergy the idea that the authority in the Church is indisputable regardless of what it may order, while doctrine teaches us that the uncritical acceptance of any order is servility, not true obedience. Strengthened by this approach which the Bishops and priests felt at the time of Vatican II, whoever carried out the coup made use of this obedience to impose what would never have been conceivable until then. At the same time, the post-conciliar work of indoctrination and the merciless purge of the few dissenters did the rest. Today’s situation allows us to look at the post-conciliar events with greater objectivity, also because the results of the “conciliar spring” are now there for all to see, from the crisis of both diocesan and religious vocations to the collapse of attendance at the Sacraments by the faithful. The liberalization of the availability of the ancient Mass by Benedict XVI has made many priests discover the priceless treasures of the true liturgy who were previously completely unaware of them, and who in that Mass have rediscovered the sacrificial dimension of their priesthood, which makes the celebrant alter Christus and transforms him intimately. Those who have experienced this “miracle” of grace are no longer willing to give it up. This is why I invite all my brother priests to celebrate the Mass of Saint Pius V and to let Christ, Priest and Victim, act in their priestly souls and give a solid, supernatural meaning to their ministry. My advice to these priests is to resist and show firmness in the face of a series of abuses that have been going on for too long now. It would help them understand that it is not possible to put the Apostolic Mass on the same level as the one invented by Bugnini, because in the first the Truth is affirmed unequivocally in order to give glory to God and save souls, while in the second the Truth is fraudulently silenced and often denied in order to please the spirit of the world and leave souls in error and sin. Having understood this, the choice between the two rites does not even arise, since reason and faith animated by charity show us which of them conforms to God’s will and which is not in accord with it. A soul in love with the Lord does not tolerate compromises, and is willing to give her life to remain faithful to the divine Spouse. 7. Some think we should take advantage of this crisis to ask a future Pope not to return to Summorum Pontificum but instead to give full freedom to the traditional liturgy? Is this possible? Archbishop Viganò: The traditional liturgy already enjoys de iure full freedom and full rights by virtue of its venerable antiquity, the Bull Quo Primum of Saint Pius V, and its ratification by the ecclesial body for two thousand years. The fact that this freedom is not exercised is due to the “prudence” of the Ministers of God, who have shown themselves uncritically obedient to any decision of the authority of the Church by the sin of servility, rather than obedience to God who is the origin and ultimate end of that authority. Full freedom for the traditional liturgy will certainly be restored de facto as well, but together with this restoration it will be necessary to abolish the new rite, which has amply proved itself as the origin of the doctrinal, moral and liturgical dissolution of the People of God. The time will come when the misunderstandings and errors of the Council will be condemned, and with them, their cultic expression. 8. What do you think is the main flaw of the new Mass? Archbishop Viganò: I believe that there are three critical issues that must be mentioned, attributable to the single problem of understanding the Catholic liturgy. The first defect of the new rite is that it was drawn up with the cynical coldness of a bureaucrat, while the authentic Liturgy is a harmonious corpus that has developed organically over the centuries, adapting its immune system — so to speak — in order to fight the viruses of every age. Believing that one is able to “restore the original simplicity” to an adult body, forcing it to return to childhood, is an unnatural operation, which reveals the willful intention of those who traveled this path with the sole intent of making the Church more vulnerable to the assaults of the Enemy. And whoever plotted this fraud knew very well that he could only convey his errors by eliminating that Mass which alone condemns them and disavows them at every gesture, every ceremony, and every word. There is no good intention in whoever gave birth to this liturgical monstrum,designed to act as a sort of tent or canvas under which to give free rein to the most aberrant and sacrilegious deviations. The second flaw is represented by the deception with which the Novus Ordo was presented and imposed on the Church, alleging that it was a simple translation of the ancient Rite. In Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Council Fathers authorized the translation into the vernacular of the readings and didactic parts of the Mass, prescribing that the Canon be left intact, said in Latin and spoken in a whisper (here). What has been prepared for us by the Consilium ad exsequendam is something else, a rite that seems to have been slavishly copied from Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer of 1549 and which corresponds perfectly to the ideological approach of its writers. The third flaw is the deliberate substitution of the main object of worship – the Holy Trinity – who has been replaced by the assembly gathered together with the celebrant, which is now the fulcrum around which the whole liturgy revolves, the point of reference for the sacred action. The vision of the priest as “president of the assembly,” the loss of sacredness in order to encourage improvisation, the replacement of the sacrificial altar with a convivial table – these are all consequences of a doctrinal error that denies the essence of the Mass, in which Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross is offered in a bloodless form to the Father. A rite born of lies and fraud, conceived by a modernist Freemason, imposed by force through the abolition of a two-thousand-year-old rite, does not even deserve to be analyzed in all its specific points: it must simply be canceled. 9. Why is the Pope so hostile to the American episcopate? Archbishop Viganò: More than just to the American Episcopate, Bergoglio is particularly hostile to the faithful of the United States. This finds its reason in the mentality of this nation, which is essentially liberal but in which – precisely because of the coexistence of different and heterogeneous religions and cultures -– a voice is also given to conservatives and traditionalists, who in fact constitute a numerically important component that is fervent and committed. Parishes, movements, and traditional American groups show how much the Tridentine liturgy and integral Catholic doctrine are the object of a rediscovery and great appreciation by the faithful, while the churches in which the Montinian rite is celebrated are inexorably losing congregants, vocations and – something not to be underestimated – they are also losing financial support. The simple possibility that one can “with impunity” go to the Tridentine Mass without any social stigma is for Bergoglio unheard of and unacceptable, because the evidence of the success of the so-called “traditional option” undermines decades of proclamations and self-incensing on the part of progressives. To see thousands of faithful, young people, families with children, gathered at the ancient Mass and living their Baptism coherently – while on the other hand the financial and sexual scandals of the clergy and self-styled Catholic politicians empty the churches and lose credibility in civil society – constitutes that annoying “control group” which in the medical field demonstrates the ineffectiveness of a treatment precisely because those who have not been subjected to it enjoy health. Just as the vaccination of an experimental gene serum must be imposed on everyone so that people will not see that the adverse effects and deaths affect only the vaccinated, so also, in the liturgical context, there must be no group or community that shows the failure of that mass inoculation with modernism that was Vatican II. The welcome and warm openness of some American Bishops towards the traditional communities and their interventions seeking the moral consistency of Catholics engaged in politics sends Bergoglio into a rage, leading him to impulsive behavior and intemperate reactions that reveal his bad faith and the total deceptiveness of his appeals to parrhesia (“bold truth-telling”), to mercy, to inclusivity. On the other hand, after decades of ecumenical appeals to “seek what unites rather than what divides” and to “build bridges, not walls,” it seems to me that the accusations of the newly-created Cardinal Roche – who was just awarded the red hat [in the recent consistory on August 27, 2022] due to his loyalty to the satrap – accusations in which Roche defined traditional Catholics as “Protestants,” reveal a fundamental hypocrisy, because while Catholic churches are now open to Protestants – they are granted communicatio in sacris [Holy Communion] even in the presence of prelates and cardinals, traditional Catholics are now treated by modernists as excommunicated vitandi – people to be avoided. It seems obvious to me that the assessment of the intellectual dishonesty of the proponents of the recent restrictions on liturgical matters – all of whom are emissaries of Bergoglio – is inexorably negative, even if only starting from the human aspect, so to speak: they are not sincere people, nor willing to understand the reasoning of their interlocutors. They demonstrate a ruthless authoritarianism, a pharisaic formalism, and an inclination to dissimulation and lies that cannot be the premise for any equitable solution. 10. Washington, Chicago, Arlington, Savannah: why have the bishops of these four [American] dioceses declared war on the traditional Mass? Archbishop Viganò: These dioceses – certainly Washington and Chicago, without omitting San Diego and Newark – are run by bishops who are part of Bergoglio’s magic circle and McCarrick’s lavender mafia. Their relations of mutual complicity, their action to cover up scandals, their relations with the deep state and with the Democratic Party, find their significant encapsulation in the esteem they enjoy on the part of Bergoglio, who promotes them and ratifies their declarations and their disastrous government actions. 11. Behind all these apparently disjointed decisions (the Pachamama, the war against lace and traditional liturgy, the retreat on moral issues, etc.) do you see the implementation of a precise and coherent strategy or plan? Archbishop Viganó: It is evident that this relentless action of war against traditional Catholics includes a strategy and a tactic, and that it corresponds to a plan devised for decades to destroy the Church of Christ and replace it with its ecumenical, globalist and apostate counterfeit. It would be foolish to think that they act without a purpose and without organizing themselves. Bergoglio’s election in the Conclave of 2013 was also planned: let’s not forget the emails between John Podesta and Hillary Clinton about the need to promote a “springtime of the Church” in which a progressive Pope modifies its doctrine and morals by enslaving them to New World Order ideology. Action against Benedict XVI was planned to push him to resign. The subversive work of the innovators at the Council was planned. The action of progressives loyal to Bergoglio was planned in the Synods, in the meetings of the Curia Dicasteries, in the Consistories. On the other hand, behind the enemies of Christ and the Church Satan always hides, with his plots, his deceptions, his lies. 12. How do you see the future of the Church? Archbishop Viganó: I believe that, in the short term, the Church will have to deal with the disasters caused by Bergoglio and his little circle of corrupt associates. The damages of this “pontificate” are incalculable, and are now understood even by simple people, to whom the sensus fideimakes evident the absolute incompatibility of the current Hierarchy with the ecclesial body. The tension and opposition that we see in the civil sphere between the political class and citizens is a mirror image of the increasingly profound one between ecclesiastical authorities and the faithful. In the long term, however, I believe that the Church will find precisely from this profound crisis of Faith a spur to renew itself and purify itself, definitively abandoning that intrinsically liberal attitude that has so far brought together God and Mammon, Christ and Belial, St. Pius V and Bergoglio. We saw the deformed and gruesome face of the Enemy, who could infiltrate as far as the sancta sanctorum relying on the willingness to compromise, on the mediocrity of the clerics, on human respect and on the timidity of the Hierarchy. We have before our eyes the holiness and humility of so many good priests, religious and faithful who are awakening from their slumber and understand the epochal battle in progress. At the same time we see the corruption, dishonesty, immorality and rebellion against God of those who present themselves as the true custodians of Christ’s authority, who instead usurp that authority with cunning and exercise it with violence. Even a child understands which side to stand on, who to listen to and who to distance himself from. This is why the words of Our Lord are as valid today as ever: Unless you be converted and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven(Mt 18: 3).
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on Archbishop Vigano here takes a very strong position in favor of the old liturgy, arguing that the old rite of the Mass was an organic and faithful reflection of the teaching of the Apostles and Church Fathers — he says “the healthy blood of the Gospel flows in the veins of the Tridentine Mass” — while the new, revised rite, the “Novus Ordo” (“new order”) Mass, introduced after the Second Vatican Council, is marked by its greater emphasis on seeing the Church as the “people of God” rather than “the mystical body of Christ.” He goes so far as to say that, for this reason, the new Mass “flows with… the spirit of the world.”
Did Pope Benedict’s Resignation foreshadow the Jan. 6 Incident which is apparently like the Hitler Reichstag Fire where Constitutional Rights were Lost?
Did Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation in a mysterious way foreshadow that January 6 incident would be like Adolf Hitler’s Reichstag Fire incident where free speech and constitutional rights would be lost in America as happened in Germany by resigning on February 28?
Historian Dr. Ed Mazza says that Pope Benedict resigned on February 28 which is the date that Hitler ended free speech and constitutional rights in Germany which brought “lawlessness” to that country.
In a Dr. Taylor Marshall YouTube video, historian Dr. Mazza says that Pope Benedict places great importance of the meaning of historic dates especially the date “that Hitler effectively seized control of the German state by subverting its constitution.”
A Reddit – TraditionalCatholics post on this video says Mazza discussed “the way Pope Benedict XVI played with dates. His thesis that Pope Benedict chose the date of 28 February [of the Reichstag Fire Decree] the date of the to end his pontificate is fascinating: it seems to me that the significant of a German Pope choosing the date that Hitler effectively seized control of the German state by subverting its constitution is extremely unlikely to be a coincidence.” [https://www.reddit.com/r/TraditionalCatholics/comments/h79358/dr_taylor_marshall_and_dr_ed_mazza_is_pope/]
Mazza speaking of Benedict’s February 28 resignation said on the YouTube video that February 28 is the date of the Reichstag Fire Decree and of “lawlessness”:
“Guess what happened on February 28, not 2013, but 1933 [lawlessness], eighty years earlier… the Vicar of Christ is the Kathecon… if the pope is the restrainer or the papacy is the restraining force, what can we expect to happen once he stepped aside or the restraining force steps aside.”
“We expect lawlessness.”
“The false prophet… prepares the way for the Antichrist. If I’m right guess what happens exactly 80 years ago on that day… the decree of the Reich president for the protection of the [German] people and the state which is known to history as the Reichstag Fire Decree. Here is what happen on February 27, 1933 somebody set fire to the parliament building in Germany… the Nazis took advantage of this and in a few weeks, two weeks, Hitler had full authority in Germany.”
The On This Day website gives a summary of the Reichstag Fire and Reichstag Fire Decree of February 28,1933:
Four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as the new Chancellor of Germany, the seat of the German Parliament in Berlin, the Reichstag, was burned down. This is one of the most contested and controversial events of Hitler’s early years in power, as a mere one day later, Hitler signed the Reichstag Fire Decree which gave his government the legal authority to imprison opponents of the Nazis and suspend many civil liberties in Germany.
The Nazis arrested Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch Communist, with setting the fire. He was tried, and executed on January 10, 1934, for the arson act. There has been much debate on whether Lubbe acted alone or whether the Nazis set the fire as a false-flag attack in order to pass the Reichstag Decree and increase their power.
Foremost Nazi historian Ian Kershaw wrote in 1998 that the consensus was that Lubbe had acted alone and that the fire was merely a stroke of luck that the event occurred so the Nazis could use it to their advantage. However, new evidence since then has pointed to the possibility of a Nazi conspiracy. In June 2019 an affidavit in the archives of former investigator Fritz Tobias was discovered. In it Hans-Martin Lennings, an SA operative, claimed in 1955 that he and his SA group drove Lubbe to the scene of the fire – and that the Reichstag was already on fire when they arrived.
Lennings claimed that his team were made to sign a paper denying knowledge of the event, and that they had protested Lubbe’s arrest. He later claimed that many involved had been executed but that he had been warned and fled to Czechoslovakia.
Whatever the case, in 2008 a German court posthumously pardoned Lubbe under a law designed to reverse unjust convictions during Nazi persecutions. [https://www.onthisday.com/photos/reichstag-fire]
Many people believe the false narrative that the media and the Joe Biden Democrats are not taking away free speech when they are monstrously censoring because they have already been sold a bill of goods about the Nazis not being like leftist Democrats and media.
It’s not true, but the left and liberals spent a lot of time for this narrative to be built up. Dinesh D’Souza, in his book The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left explains in great detail how and why the media and Democrats are exactly like the Nazis who destroy free speech and constitutional rights in Germany. [https://www.amazon.com/Big-Lie-Exposing-Roots-American/dp/1621573486]
This strategy is now paying off, if people on the left can get away with censoring the President of the United States they can do the same thing to each one of us (and to you reading this) as happened when civil liberties were lost in Germany which is exactly currently happening in America, right now. [“Democrats Are Drafting Legislation to Criminalize Trump Rallies [Civil Liberties] — Classify Them as ‘Domestic Terrorism’”: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/01/democrats-drafting-legislation-criminalize-trump-rallies-classify-domestic-terrorism/]
What can we do to defeat this monstrous strategy of the Democrats and media elites to “criminalize” free speech and civil liberties?
What is needed right now, before it is to late, to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to go to outdoor to prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country and President Donald trump to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our constitution and civil liberties.
In His Name and by the power of His Cross and Blood, I ask Jesus to bind any evil spirits, forces and powers of the earth, air, fire, or water, of the netherworld and the satanic forces of nature. By the power of the Holy Spirit and by His authority, I ask Jesus Christ to break any curses, hexes, or spells and send them back to where they came from, if it be His Holy Will. I beseech Thee Lord Jesus to protect us by pouring Thy Precious Blood on us (intention), which Thou hast shed for us and I ask Thee to command that any departing spirits leave quietly, without disturbance, and go straight to Thy Cross to dispose of as Thou sees fit. I ask Thee to bind any demonic interaction, interplay, or communications. I place N. (intention) under the protection of the Blood of Jesus Christ which He shed for us. Amen
“THE HOLY ROSARY, MOST POWERFUL WEAPON AGAINST THE ENEMY OF GOD AND MAN… Saint Pius V ordered the faithful to recite the Rosary to impetrate victory from God in the epic battle of the Christian Armada against the Turk in the waters of Lepanto: still today, at noon each day, the bells ring in our cities to recall [the victory of] October 7, 1571… Let us pray for the United States of America; let us pray for our President; let us pray for his victory, that the Lord God of Hosts – Dominus Deus Sabaoth –will grant that he may know how to place himself under God’s protection.” – Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
Pray an Our Father now for the sins of Francis’s Amoris Laetitia.
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Stop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He wants you to do now and next. In this silence remember God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost – Three Divine Persons yet One God, has an ordered universe where you can know truth and falsehood as well as never forget that He wants you to have eternal happiness with Him as his son or daughter by grace. Make this a practice. By doing this you are doing more good than reading anything here or anywhere else on the Internet.
Francis Notes:
– Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church in such a situation:
“[T]he Pope… WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See.”
(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)
Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said “the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church.”
– LifeSiteNews, “Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers,” December 4, 2017:
The AAS guidelines explicitly allows “sexually active adulterous couples facing ‘complex circumstances’ to ‘access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'”
– On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:
“The AAS statement… establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense.”
– On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:
“Francis’ heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents.”
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.
What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs‘”:
Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it.
Pray an Our Father now for America.
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of MarySHARE
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on Did Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation in a mysterious way foreshadow that January 6 incident would be like Adolf Hitler’s Reichstag Fire incident where free speech and constitutional rights would be lost in America as happened in Germany by resigning on February 28?
‘It seems obvious to me that the assessment of the intellectual dishonesty of the proponents of the recent restrictions on liturgical matters – all of whom are emissaries of Bergoglio – is inexorably negative.’
(LifeSiteNews) – Editor’s note: Below follows the transcript of an interview between Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò and Paix Liturgique during a conference held by the Civitas movement on August 13. The interview has been translated from Italian.
Paix Liturgique (PL): Your Excellency, why, after Vatican II, is the question of the liturgy such a burning question?
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò: The liturgical question is of great importance because the sacred action of the Mass contains the doctrine, morality, spirituality, and discipline of the ecclesial body that celebrates the liturgy. Thus, just as the Catholic Mass is a perfect and coherent expression of the Catholic Magisterium, the reformed liturgy [the Novus Ordo] is an expression of conciliar deviations; indeed, it reveals and confirms its heterodox essence without the ambiguities and verbiage of the Second Vatican Council texts.
We could say, to use a simile, that the healthy blood of the Gospel flows in the veins of the Tridentine Mass, while the new rite flows with the infected blood of heresy and the spirit of the world.
PL: Does Pope Francis, who is not deeply interested in the liturgy, not at least have the merit of raising the real problem when he says that the two liturgical forms, the old and the new, reflect two different ecclesiologies?
Abp. Viganò: This is exactly what I have just said, and it is exactly what (in 1968) Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci denounced in their “breve esame critico” (brief critical examination), and also Archbishop Lefebvre in his many interventions, and has also been denounced by other bishops and liturgists. What you called the “two liturgical forms” of a single rite are actually two different rites, one fully Catholic and one that is silent about Catholic truths and insinuates errors of a Protestant and modernist foundation. In this Bergoglio is perfectly right: whoever embraces Vatican II and its heretical developments cannot find those errors expressed in the traditional liturgy, which, due to its clarity in the profession of the Faith, represents a condemnation and a negation of the mens [the mindset or outlook] of those who conceived the Novus Ordo.
PL: Several documents of the offensive against the Traditional rite have followed one after another in the past year, beginning with Traditionis custodes (July 16, 2021), then the “Responsa ad Dubia” (issued December 4, 2021, by then-Archbishop Arthur Roche, prefect of the CDW), and then the Apostolic Letter Desideriodesideravi (June 29, 2022). Can we still have hope that the attempted offensive has failed and that the ancient liturgy will not die?
Abp. Viganò: The first deception we must not fall into is being deceived by the subversive use of acts of government and the Magisterium. In this case, we have documents that have not been promulgated in order to confirm our brothers in the faith, but rather in order to distance them from it, in clear contradiction to Pope Benedict XVI ‘s Motu Proprio Summorum pontificum, which instead recognized full rights to the Tridentine liturgy.
Secondly, the intemperance of an authoritarian tyrant, consumed by hatred for the Church of Christ, is opening the eyes of even the most moderate, showing them that the whole conciliar fraud is based on aversion to the truths expressed by the Tridentine Mass, while the official narrative claims that the liturgical reform was only meant to make these truths more accessible to the faithful by translating them.
PL: The way in which Traditionis custodes is applied varies considerably from country to country and from bishop to bishop. Some have approved the Pope’s document, but in reality they have not changed anything in their dioceses. Is there no feeling, especially in Italy, that whoever will succeed Francis will not be able to maintain this repressive line?
Abp. Viganò: The Church is not a society governed by an absolute monarch, free from any higher authority, who can impose his whim on his subjects. The head of the Church is Christ, and Christ is its only true King and Lord, of whom the Roman Pontiff is the vicar, just as he is the successor of the Prince of the Apostles.
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Abusing the vicarious power of Christ and placing oneself outside the succession by proposing heterodox doctrines, or by imposing norms that refer to them, makes this intrinsic link with Christ the Head and with His Mystical Body, the Church, disappear. In fact, the Pope’s vicarious power enjoys all the prerogatives of absolute, immediate, and direct authority over the Church only to the extent that it conforms to its main purpose, which is the salus animarum, always following in the wake of Tradition and fidelity to Our Lord.
Furthermore, in the exercise of this authority, the Pope enjoys the special graces of state always within the very specific boundaries of this purpose; these graces have no effect where he acts against Christ and the Church. This is why Bergoglio’s furious attempts, however violent and destructive, are inexorably destined to break, and one day will certainly be declared null and void.
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PL: What do you recommend to laypeople who are upset by this situation?
Abp. Viganò: The laity are living members of the Mystical Body, and as such they have the native right to demand that its visible authority act and legislate in conformity with the mandate it has received from Christ. When this earthly authority, by the permission of providence, acts and legislates against the will of Christ, the faithful must first understand that this test is a means permitted by providence in order to open their eyes after decades of deviations and hypocrisy by which they have been overwhelmed, and to which many have adhered in good faith – precisely because they are obedient to the hierarchy and unaware of the fraud perpetrated against them.
When they understand this, they will notice the treasure they have been robbed of by those who should have kept it and handed it over to future generations, instead of hiding it after devaluing it in order to replace it with a bad counterfeit. At that point, they will implore the majesty of God to shorten the time of the trial and grant the Church a supreme shepherd who obeys Christ, who belongs to Him, who loves Him, and who renders Him perfect worship.
PL: Diocesan priests seem to be the targets and main victims of the Pope’s measures against the traditional liturgy: what advice would you give them?
Abp. Viganò: In the decades preceding the Second Vatican Council, the leaders of the Church were well aware of the growing threat represented by the sedition of the modernist infiltrators. Because of this, Pius XII had to centralize power, but his decision – however understandable – had the consequence of instilling in the clergy the idea that the authority in the Church is indisputable regardless of what it may order, while doctrine teaches us that the uncritical acceptance of any order is servility, not true obedience.
Strengthened by this approach which the bishops and priests felt at the time of Vatican II, whoever carried out the coup made use of this obedience to impose what would never have been conceivable until then. At the same time, the post-conciliar work of indoctrination and the merciless purge of the few dissenters aided this end.
Today’s situation allows us to look at the post-conciliar events with greater objectivity, also because the results of the “conciliar spring” are now there for all to see, from the crisis of both diocesan and religious vocations to the collapse of attendance at the Sacraments by the faithful. The liberalization of the availability of the ancient Mass by Benedict XVI has made many priests discover the priceless treasures of the true liturgy who were previously completely unaware of them, and who in that Mass have rediscovered the sacrificial dimension of their priesthood, which makes the celebrant alter Christus, transforming him intimately. Those who have experienced this “miracle” of grace are no longer willing to give it up. This is why I invite all my brother priests to celebrate the Mass of St. Pius V and to let Christ – Priest and Victim – act in their priestly souls and give a solid, supernatural meaning to their ministry.
My advice to these priests is to resist and show firmness in the face of a series of abuses that have been going on for too long now. It would help them understand that it is not possible to put the Apostolic Mass [Tridentine Mass] on the same level as the one invented by Archbishop Annibale Bugnini [Novus Ordo Missae], because in the first the truth is affirmed unequivocally in order to give glory to God and save souls, while in the second the truth is fraudulently silenced and often denied in order to please the spirit of the world and leave souls in error and sin.
Having understood this, the choice between the two rites does not even arise, since reason and faith animated by charity show us which of them conforms to God’s will and which is not in accord with it. A soul in love with the Lord does not tolerate compromises, and is willing to give his life to remain faithful to the Church.
PL: Some think we should take advantage of this crisis to ask a future pope not to return to Summorum pontificum, but instead to give full freedom to the traditional liturgy? Is this possible?
Abp. Viganò: The traditional liturgy already enjoys de iure full freedom and full rights by virtue of its venerable antiquity, the bull Quo Primum of St. Pius V, and its ratification by the ecclesial body for two thousand years. The fact that this freedom is not exercised is due to the “prudence” of the ministers of God, who have shown themselves uncritically obedient to any decision of the authority of the Church by the sin of servility, rather than obedience to God who is the origin and ultimate end of that authority.
Full freedom for the traditional liturgy will certainly be restored de facto as well, but together with this restoration it will be necessary to abolish the new rite, which has amply proved itself as the origin of the doctrinal, moral, and liturgical dissolution of the people of God. The time will come when the misunderstandings and errors of the Second Vatican Council will be condemned, and with them, their cultic expression.
PL: What do you think is the main flaw of the new Mass?
Abp. Viganò: I believe that there are three critical issues that must be mentioned, attributable to the single problem of understanding the Catholic liturgy.
The first defect of the new rite is that it was drawn up with the cynical coldness of a bureaucrat, while the authentic liturgy is a harmonious corpus that has developed organically over the centuries, adapting its immune system – so to speak – in order to fight the viruses of every age. Believing that one is able to “restore original simplicity” to an adult body, forcing it to return to childhood, is an unnatural operation, revealing the willful intention of those who traveled this path with the sole intent of making the Church more vulnerable to the assaults of the enemy. And whoever plotted this fraud knew very well that he could only convey his errors by eliminating that Mass which alone condemns them and disavows them at every gesture, every ceremony, and every word. There is no good intention in whoever gave birth to this liturgical monstrum, designed to act as a sort of tent or canvas under which to give free rein to the most aberrant and sacrilegious deviations.
The second flaw is represented by the deception with which the Novus Ordo was presented and imposed on the Church, alleging that it was a simple translation of the ancient rite. In Sacrosanctum Concilium, the council fathers authorized the translation into the vernacular of the readings and didactic parts of the Mass, prescribing that the Roman Canon be left intact, said in Latin, and spoken in a whisper. What has been prepared for us by the Consilium ad exsequendam is something else, a rite that seems to have been slavishly copied from Cranmer’s “Book of Common Prayer” of 1549 and which corresponds perfectly to the ideological approach of its writers.
The third flaw is the deliberate substitution of the main object of worship – the Holy Trinity – who has been replaced by the assembly gathered together with the celebrant, which is now the fulcrum around which the whole liturgy revolves, the point of reference for the sacred action. The vision of the priest as “president of the assembly,” the loss of sacredness in order to encourage improvisation, the replacement of the sacrificial altar with a convivial table – these are all consequences of a doctrinal error that denies the essence of the Mass, in which Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is offered in a bloodless form to the Father.
A rite born of lies and fraud, conceived by a modernist freemason, imposed by force through the abolition of a two-thousand-year-old rite, does not even deserve to be analyzed in all its specific points: it must simply be canceled.
PL: Why is the Pope so hostile to the American episcopate?
Abp. Viganò: More than just to the American episcopate, Bergoglio is particularly hostile to the faithful of the United States. This finds its reason in the mentality of this nation, which is essentially liberal but in which – precisely because of the coexistence of different and heterogeneous religions and cultures – a voice is also given to conservatives and traditionalists, who in fact constitute a numerically important component that is fervent and committed. Parishes, movements, and traditional American groups show how much the Tridentine liturgy and integral Catholic doctrine are the object of a rediscovery and great appreciation by the faithful, while the churches in which the Montinian rite is celebrated are inexorably losing congregants, vocations and – something not to be underestimated – they are also losing financial support.
The simple possibility that one can “with impunity” go to the Tridentine Mass without any social stigma is for Bergoglio unheard of and unacceptable, because the evidence of the success of the so-called “traditional option” undermines decades of proclamations and self-incensing on the part of progressives.
To see thousands of faithful, young people, families with children, gathered at the ancient Mass and living their Baptism coherently – while on the other hand the financial and sexual scandals of the clergy and self-styled Catholic politicians empty the churches and lose credibility in civil society – constitutes that annoying “control group” which in the medical field demonstrates the ineffectiveness of a treatment precisely because those who have not been subjected to it enjoy health. Just as the vaccination of an experimental gene serum must be imposed on everyone so that people will not see that the adverse effects and deaths affect only the vaccinated, so also, in the liturgical context, there must be no group or community that shows the failure of that mass inoculation with modernism that was Vatican II.
The welcome and warm openness of some American bishops towards the traditional communities and their interventions seeking the moral consistency of Catholics engaged in politics sends Bergoglio into a rage, leading him to impulsive behavior and intemperate reactions that reveal his bad faith and the total deceptiveness of his appeals to parresia (“bold truth-telling”), to mercy, to inclusivity.
On the other hand, after decades of ecumenical appeals to “seek what unites rather than what divides” and to “build bridges, not walls,” it seems to me that the accusations of the newly-created Cardinal Roche – who was just awarded the red hat due to his loyalty to the Pope – accusations in which Roche defined traditional Catholics as “Protestants,” reveal a fundamental hypocrisy, because while Catholic churches are now open to Protestants – they are granted communicatio in sacris [Holy Communion] even in the presence of prelates and cardinals, while traditional Catholics are now treated by modernists as excommunicated vitandi – people to be avoided.
It seems obvious to me that the assessment of the intellectual dishonesty of the proponents of the recent restrictions on liturgical matters – all of whom are emissaries of Bergoglio – is inexorably negative, even if only starting from the human aspect, so to speak: they are not sincere people, nor willing to understand the reasoning of their interlocutors. They demonstrate a ruthless authoritarianism, a pharisaic formalism, and an inclination to dissimulation and lies that cannot be the premise for any equitable solution.
PL: Washington, Chicago, Arlington, Savannah: why have the bishops of these four American dioceses declared war on the traditional Mass?
Abp. Viganò: These dioceses – certainly Washington and Chicago, without omitting San Diego and Newark – are run by bishops who are part of Bergoglio’s magic circle and McCarrick ‘s “lavender mafia.” Their relations of mutual complicity, their action to cover up scandals, their relations with the deep state and with the Democratic Party, find their significant encapsulation in the esteem they enjoy on the part of Bergoglio, who promotes them and ratifies their declarations and their disastrous government actions.
PL: Behind all these apparently disjointed decisions (the Pachamama, the war against lace and traditional liturgy, the retreat on moral issues, etc.) do you see the implementation of a precise and coherent strategy or plan?
Abp. Viganò: It is evident that this relentless action of war against traditional Catholics includes a strategy and a tactic, and that it corresponds to a plan devised for decades to destroy the Church of Christ and replace it with its ecumenical, globalist, and apostate counterfeit. It would be foolish to think that they act without a purpose and without organizing themselves.
Bergoglio’s election in the conclave of 2013 was also planned: let’s not forget the emails between John Podesta and Hillary Clinton about the need to promote a “springtime of the Church” in which a progressive pope modifies its doctrine and morals by enslaving them to New World Order ideology.
Action against Benedict XVI was planned to push him to resign. The subversive work of the innovators at the Council was planned. The action of progressives loyal to Bergoglio was planned in the synods, in the meetings of the curial dicasteries, in the consistories. On the other hand, behind the enemies of Christ and the Church, Satan always hides with his plots, his deceptions, his lies.
PL: How do you see the future of the Church?
Abp. Viganò: I believe that, in the short term, the Church will have to deal with the disasters caused by Bergoglio and his little circle of corrupt associates. The damages of this “pontificate” are incalculable, and are now understood even by simple people, to whom the sensus fidei makes evident the absolute incompatibility of the current hierarchy with the ecclesial body. The tension and opposition that we see in the civil sphere between the political class and citizens is a mirror image of the increasingly profound one between ecclesiastical authorities and the faithful.
In the long term, however, I believe that the Church will find precisely from this profound crisis of Faith a spur to renew itself and purify itself, definitively abandoning that intrinsically liberal attitude that has so far brought together God and Mammon, Christ and Belial, St. Pius V and Bergoglio. We saw the deformed and gruesome face of the enemy, who could infiltrate as far as the sancta sanctorum relying on the willingness to compromise, on the mediocrity of the clerics, on human respect and on the timidity of the hierarchy. We have before our eyes the holiness and humility of so many good priests, religious and faithful, who are awakening from their slumber and understand the epochal battle in progress.
At the same time we see the corruption, dishonesty, immorality, and rebellion against God of those who present themselves as the true custodians of Christ’s authority, who instead usurp that authority with cunning and exercise it with violence.
Even a child understands which side to stand on, who to listen to, and who to distance himself from. This is why the words of Our Lord are as valid today as ever: “Unless you be converted and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Mt 18: 3).”
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The Gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes……….Romans 1:16.
In the twilight of life, we will be judged on our love………. St. John of the Cross, Sayings of Light and Love #60“… rustic simplicity is a better soil for the good life than is sophisticated rottenness.” L. Strauss, What is Political Philosophy?
Pro-life Heroes Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) have just introduced in Congress thProtecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions Act, legislation that would protect children in the womb from abortion after 15-weeks gestation. I was honored to be at the press conference today along with many from the SBA Pro-Life America Team and other movement leaders to welcome this announcement. I am especially grateful for your support which allowed us to lead this effort.
As we celebrate the introduction of this legislation we are at the same time working to build consensus for a much earlier defense of life at the federal level. We believe we do this by having debates about life that force into the open the truths the other side and the media want to keep hidden. For instance, that the science is clear that unborn babies can feel pain by 15-weeks gestation and likely earlier. You can learn about this and more here.
Today’s introduction of the Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions Act is a crucial step forward in drawing the necessary life and death contrast between our movement and the pro-abortion radicals’ agenda. The introduction of the Act: Forces the other side to defend their extreme position of “any abortion, any time, for any reason.” They literally cannot name one abortion they would oppose at any point in pregnancy until the moment of birth. Not one. This distinction must be made loud and clear as we head into November’s mid-term elections.Sets a humane national abortion standard which polls show a majority of Americans endorse,and which puts us squarely within limits other civilized societies back. For instance, 47 out of 50 European countries have limits on abortion at 15-weeks gestation or earlier.Makes clear we want a federal ceiling on when abortions can be performed in any state, meaning we are not going to abandon the unborn or their mothers because they live in an “abortion sanctuary” state. If adopted this legislation would save 55,000 unborn lives a year mostly in pro-abortion states like California, Illinois, and New York.
You can read the press release SBA Pro-Life America issued on this important legislation here.
Thank you for making today possible, and for all you do to protect America’s most vulnerable.
Pope FrancisPhoto by Michael Campanella/Getty Images
Trump’s Virtues – Tom Klingenstein
ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT / DEEP CALLS TO DEEP 
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