Unsound Doctrine and the Yoke of Blind Obedience
The reforms of Vatican II have spawned a voracious vineyard of 'bad trees' which have consequently sprouted a rotten harvest of bad fruits - 'bad fruit' destined to be cast into the fire!
We continue today on the fourth sorrowful mystery - the Carrying of the Cross and how it equates with the sufferings and iniquities, the crosses the faithful carry today.
As expected, we've had quite a reaction from our last editorial. Better than anticipated because, thankfully, we heard from quite a few conservatives who are finally beginning to see the overall picture and taking a much closer look, realizing they can't afford to gamble on the Faith. They are starting to understand that if they carefully examine the deck and dealers long enough within the post-conciliar church, study it thoroughly and compare the Truths and Traditions of Holy Mother Church with what is being passed off today as 'Catholic', you, too, will begin to see that the post-conciliar church is a house of cards that has and is dealing Masonic ideas; that they have nothing, NOTHING that can trump the True Church which has been so infiltrated by those trying to 'bust the house' - the house of God. They're trying to do it with mirrors and, sadly, to this point they have succeeded. It is our intention to crack those mirrors so that the True Light of Christ's teachings will shine through and send the disciples of half-truths and ambiguities scurrying for darkness.
While we may have moved some conservatives to truly seek to know their Faith, we upset a few with our expose of the similarities of the Novus Ordo with the Masonic Rite. One rightfully pointed out that the satanic mass was patterned on the Traditional Tridentine Mass and in that they are correct for that was the barometer to which satan's legions set in mocking the unbloody Holy Sacrifice of his chief Enemy - our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But what some fail to see is how the common ceremonies of the New Mass of Paul VI and the Masonic ritual
are so similar - Novus Ordo Seculorum. Thus, rather than mocking the Catholic Church by mimicking the old rite, they infiltrated and, with the implementation of the Novus Ordo the post-conciliar church is now copying the Masons thanks to
well-placed 5th columnists like Bugnini, Gelineau and others. Also we ask the reader to realize the
Traditional Mass never had women in the sanctuary or social inter-action. The Novus Ordo does.
One reader said that such radical things I described 'would be an abuse in the Novus Ordo
too.' Well I've got news for him, abuses abound and it is the humanistic
half-truths that have so contaminated the New Mass. If the council experts
wanted to put the Holy Mass in the vernacular because they couldn't
understand Latin (a lack of commitment to know the Mother tongue of the
Church - something that was never a problem in the unenlightened ages from the first century to midway through the twentieth century) and so used that as a wedge supposedly from their people back home
as a ruse that they could better get the full impact of attending Mass if
they understood every word - then why did they Protestantize it so and
CHANGE the Mass both in content and meaning? It's one thing to translate
word for word where it would be exactly the same, but to alter meaning and chop off so much only confirms the
Modernists/Masons' intent to destroy the true propitiatory sacrifice, and - in so doing - devastate the Mystical Body of Christ.
I repeat and acknowledge that
before Vatican II there was always the mockery of the True Mass with the Masonic
Mass, but after sacking and denuding the altars as I pointed out in my commentary Introibo ad altare..., there is no need to mock the Tridentine
Mass anymore because the hierarchs of the church were doing a thorough job
of this themselves. As Atila Guimarães, Michael Matt, John Vennari, Michael Davies, Chris Ferrara, Dr. Marian Horvat, Solange Hertz, Steve Mahowald, and Dr. Thomas Woods can attest to, as well a growing list of other excellent warriors that have recently come on the scene like Dr. Tom Droleskey, Peter Miller, Mario Derksen, Ervan Park and Edward Ciaccio among others committed to defending the Truths and Traditions of Holy Mother Church, can also affirm: we are ON THE BATTLELINE - a bitter war against the prince of darkness and his minions and we have to come out firing. We can't sit back
and think about how someone will receive this volley or that. Souls are at
stake and that's worth fighting for.
Bringing souls back home trumps taking
the soft approach in trying to shock neo-Catholics into reality. Some say you can catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, but when the honey is so saturated with saccharine half-truths, ambiguities and relativism, then maybe we need to break out the vinegar to get their attention. Conservatives have been lulled into a false sense of security, accepting everything that has come down the pike without putting up much resistance. After all, they rationalize, "the Pope didn't condemn it so it must be okay." The sad facts are that for over 35 years these neo-Catholics haven't been outraged with the abuses. Maybe we need to
use more stark examples like the obvious comparisons to the Masonic ritual to shake their thunder. Let's face
it nothing else has worked for they have been so anesthetized by the
Modernist rhetoric and the obedience card.
Ah, yes, the obedience card.
I've seen over the years that bishops, even cardinals are fair-game when it comes to calling them on the carpet when they abuse their office, but hands off when it comes to the Pope. It is exactly that blind obedience that has gotten Christ's Church into this mess in the first place. I say that because the Sovereign Pontiff is the keeper of the keys, the defender of the Faith and yet, the four Bishops of Rome we have had over the past 40 plus years have greatly failed to protect Holy Mother Church from the ravages of satan. How could this be?
Over the last year we've had our share of e-mails from those who don't understand that the Pope is not impeccable. They think we are sedevacantist because we dare to challenge a man who contradicts what past Sovereign Pontiffs declared as doctrine in no uncertain terms. First of all, let me be perfectly clear to all, we are not sedevacantists. Though the latter do have some excellent points that must be considered, especially in light of the morose the Church has fallen into and the seeming contradiction of defectibility that modern Rome trips over constantly, we recognize John Paul II as the lawful successor of Peter. But, for whatever reasons - and there are many - he has not curbed the abuses, not kept in check the errors allowed to be promulgated and mislead so many. Indeed, he has duped so many into thinking he was the orthodox one in a world gone loco. If that were true, would there not be fruits from his efforts? I ask where are the fruits?
We'll answer that shortly in this commentary. For now, to assure you we are not "pope-bashing," but rather adhering to what all loyal Catholics must do in regard their Faith, we repeat for the umpteenth time, the Holy Father is infallible only when speaking ex cathedra - from the Chair of Peter to the whole Church on matters of faith or morals. That was established long before it was declared dogma at the First Vatican Council. Yet, today, you would be surprised not only how many but exactly who think he is infallible whenever he speaks. You would be surprised at the ignorance of Church teaching by men who are in key positions to convey the news to you. That is not good. The longer this grave misconception continues, the more harm is done. The more Jesus is mocked by those who seek to unthrone Him and place themselves and everyone else on their own thrones through the empowerment of the Novus Ordo to become Christ, the more the tree and the vineyard will remain barren. The greater the promulgation of this, the greater the anathema. This is most evident and yet conservative after conservative cannot get past the part that the Pope is fallible, can err, can lead astray, must be held responsible for the malaise that continues unabated in the Church today.
Atila Guimarães in his column this week cites six examples of popes being wrong and correctly admonished for their errors in his column Historical Precedents for Resisting Popes in Error and Chris Ferrara has an excellent article in tomorrow's Traditional Thoughts series with "A Strange Obsession" as does Ervan Park in our Focus series Wednesday with his article first published in the Seattle Catholic as "Chaos, Common Sense and the Church Catholic" and Ed Ciaccio's two-part feature "What is Traditional Roman Catholicism" in his Feed My Sheep column. Dr. Horvat's column Thursday echoes the frustration of Vatican II error in her Echoes of True Catholicism series "Demons of the Air" and Friday Mario Derksen's insightful column "The Razzmatazz of the Post-Conciliar Church," Tom Droleskey's excellent "Merely a Matter of Preference" series in his Christ or chaos column and Mark Fellows' conclusion of "Lucy and the Pirates" in The Fatima File all confirm the uphill struggle in educating Catholics as to what is happening in our beloved Church.
The Angelic Doctor Saint Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica, Ila Ilae, Article 1, ad 6, translated from Courrier de Rome in April 1993, notes:
"Simon and Peter do coexist in the same person, and Simon can interfere, resist, even reject the duties proper to Peter's Office and even go so far as to act in contradiction with his pontifical functions. This can be proved by referring to St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians (2: 14): It was at Antioch that St. Paul publicly rebuked the Chief of the Apostles (St. Peter) because the first Pope was, by his behavior, actually repudiating that Doctrine of Faith which he had personally and solemnly defined regarding the end or cessation of the Mosaic Law. It is for this reason that Cajetan points out that the famous axiom 'Where the Pope is, there is also the Church' holds true only when the Pope acts and behaves as the Pope, because Peter 'is subject to the duties of the Office' - otherwise, 'neither is the Church in him, nor is he in the Church."
We constantly hear from neo-Catholics that they agree there are a lot of problems, that the Mass isn't carried out as it should, that abuses abound and there are so many bishops and priests who are in error, but the Holy Father is not at fault, he can't do anything about it. Please! Again: He is the Pope. He is the guardian of the Sacred Deposit of the Faith. If he doesn't safeguard it, who will? The traditional remnant, that's who because John Paul II has done little if anything to stop the avalanche of abuses. He could, despite his unpopularity with the world's body of Bishops by such a move, stop the bleeding by restoring Tradition beginning with a return from the experimental novelty that has been a total failure for 30 plus years back to the Tried and True Tridentine Mass. He is after all the Pope, he has that power, that responsibility. Has he? No, in fact he, through the Masonic Curia in place within the Vatican, are working even harder to cajole, intimidate and coerce Traditionalists to accept the Masonic Mass of Paul VI and agree that the Second Vatican Council was good, despite the fact that it was the antithesis of previous councils, despite the fact that it promoted heresies previously condemned by prior councils and Sovereign Pontiffs. Particularly ecumenism, religious liberty and the brotherhood of man - all spawned from the French Revolution and the Masonic creed. Solange Strong Hertz wrote in The Wanderer in De Petris the following astute facts:
"Alas, the Pope's office does not confirm him in grace. This explains why traditionally the faithful pray in the Litany of the Saints 'to preserve the Apostolic Prelate and all ecclesiastical orders in holy religion.' Like anyone else, the Pope can commit the most grievous sins without prejudice to his ministry or estrangement from the body of the faithful, but again, like anyone else, he excommunicates himself if he sins against faith and falls into heresy or schism, for faith is to the Church what the root is to the tree. No longer part of the Mystical Body, how can he function as its earthly, visible head? Lest the faithful be scandalized at such an eventuality, the Book of Daniel explicitly foretells a time when the power of evil would be 'magnified even to the price of the strength' (a person commonly identified as the Pope by the Church Fathers) and would take 'from him the continual sacrifice...because of sins' (Dan 8: 11-12) The prophet Osee likewise predicted that 'the children of Israel,' prefiguring the Church, 'shall sit many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice and without altar and without ephod and without theraphim' (liturgical vestments).
"It remains that authority, even the supreme papal authority, is at the service of the faith, and not the other way round. As St. Paul told the Corinthians, speaking as their bishop. 'We can do nothing against truth' (2 Cor. 13: 8), inasmuch as his authority was conferred on him only for the reinforcement of truth. Belief in the Holy Catholic Church is a solemnly defined article of the Creed, without which no one can be saved. One, holy, universal, and apostolic, the Church is indefectible because she is the Mystical Body of Christ, against Whom the gates of hell have no power whatever to prevail. Her soul is the Spirit of Christ, which is the Holy Ghost. For the Church to defect, God Himself would have to defect. Nowhere does the Creed enjoin faith in Peter, or even in the Papacy, for these are not indefectible, and apart from the Church they have no credibility...
"Never actually concluded, the First Vatican Council left the Catholic world with a somewhat one-sided view of papal authority, which must be seen in the larger context of the infallibility of the Church to remain in balance. It was not long before the obedience due the Pope was over-emphasized. There was a natural human tendency to forget that even in this regard, obedience is no transcendent theological virtue like faith, hope, or charity, but a simple moral virtue like any other, in the practice of which it is possible to sin by excess as well as by deficiency. " [We repeat that for emphasis: "...it is possible to sin by excess as well as by deficiency."]
"For not even in medieval times has deference to the Pope as an individual assumed the proportions it has today. As often as not, even the popular idiom instinctively refers to the Second Vatican Council as 'Pope John's Council' and the subsequent reforms as the 'liturgy of Paul VI' rather than the liturgy of the Church...
"There is no precedent for the uncritical adulation accorded John Paul II....It is no longer unusual for fans of the Pontiff to view him apart from his office, as an outstanding celebrity in his own right...giving rise to a veritable cult..."
Have we not seen this wherever he goes? "John Paul II, we love you!" I chanted the same along with hundreds of thousands at World Youth Day in Denver in 1993. I touted him unabashedly without truly realizing it was all being done, as it were, with smoke and mirrors! In truth, he has become a superstar, a man beloved by the whole world and to criticize him, even though it is our right and duty as members of the Church Militant when he is not being the loyal commander, is akin to schism according to so many misinformed neo-Catholics who truly don't know their Faith. Hertz wrote eight years ago in an article "It's Only Natural" for the February 28th edition of The Remnant, that conservative Catholics have displayed a "...talent for accommodation to any environment which renders them nearly invisible until it's too late. No matter what happens, they are not so much in the Church as 'in,' and for them the Church is the establishment. Their unquestioning obedience to authority, blinder than any Mason's, relieves them of untold struggles of conscience. Although they may express a preference for the ancient Mass, they have no problems with the new one as long as the music is good, the atmosphere reverent, and the majority attend it...Their catechisms rarely teach outright heresy, but jarring truths are prudently disregarded lest charity be wounded."
Therein is the rub. Truth is sacrificed at the altar of political correctness. There was an editorial in the LA Times a week before the California Primaries held last week. It was by Gary Lawrence in which he illustrated clearly why Richard Riordan had lost his edge in the polls and, ultimately, turned a 40% lead in the polls only three months ago to a 25% loss to pro-life fellow Catholic Bill Simon in the Republican Primary for the Golden State. Lawrence, a lay bishop in the Mormon Church, pointed out that had Riordan adhered to principle like the Mormons and not waffled, he would have garnered enough votes to win the Republican candidacy. He did not. While that is a good thing for pro-life proponents, it is a sad thing that a schismatic church like the Latter Day Saints is telling three Catholics who are the three major candidates for governor of the fifth largest nation in the world economy-wise how to adhere to principle. Riordan and Simon are fellow parishioners at the same church in Santa Monica and Governor Gray Davis is supposedly Catholic , though his blatant pro-abort, pro-sodomite stance is anything but Roman Catholic. Yet, just as Catholics elected Bill Clinton because they did not stand on principle and truth, so also Catholics, especially Hispanic Catholics put Davis in office over another Catholic, staunch pro-life Republican Dan Lundgren four years ago.
So how does this correlate to what we've been discussing here with the Pope and obedience you ask? All of the principles Lawrence pointed out are true. He summarized it in one sentence: "Mormons stick with their principles." Can Catholics say the same? Sadly, no. Lawrence cited Riordan for trying to be all things to all people, waffling on issues, and compromising principles. He also pointed out that "In many churches, it is rare to hear a heartfelt exposition of the basic tenets of Christianity: the divinity of Christ, his literal resurrection, his atoning sacrifice, his imminent return, life after death. Ministers have substituted a feel-good theology, focusing on the outward expressions of Christianity, such as compassion, but failing to defend its causes. And what has been the result? Falling membership." Does that describe the post-conciliar church or what? Lawrence emphasized that "Mormons have discovered that you gain adherents by standing for something, not by watering down your beliefs. An organization never gains support by compromising its values. What might appear appealing in the short run has disastrous consequences. Just ask mainline Protestant religions. Since the social upheavals of the 1960, they have focused less on their doctrines and more on being popular." He forgot to include the Catholic Church, but then the post-conciliar church is considered to be more in line with mainline Protestantism than that 'old-style religion' of our ancestors and saints.
Lawrence stated quite clearly that "Growth in religion and in political parties comes from clarifying principles, not from diluting them...that is clarification without compromise. That explanation, rooted in the principle of defending life, will attract adherents. Wimping out and playing 'me too' among a chattering pro-choice movement that avoids responsibility for its actions will not. Inclusiveness does not mean trying to be all things to all people. Successful inclusiveness means inviting like-minded people to find a home for their beliefs with us." Sad, isn't it, that in times past it would be a Roman Pontiff or a holy bishop who would be stating these obvious truths that now we have to hear from a lay bishop in the Mormon Church? Has the Catholic Church been replaced as the moral and spiritual voice of mankind? From the 'wimping out' and compromising that has gone on for the past 40 years it would definitely seem so; from the lack of firm direction and failure to adhere to the Truths and Traditions of Holy Mother Church in liturgy and doctrine it would definitely seem so. The barren vineyard which has produced the entire pedophilia 'mess' that visits the Church today is a result of this. Our Lord said it so clearly in Matthew 8: 18-20, "A good tree cannot yield bad fruit, neither can a bad tree yield good fruit. Every tree that yieldeth not good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. Wherefore, by their fruits you shall know them."
Is the pedophilia scandal now rocking the Church a good fruit? Can pedophilia, sodomy, and cover-ups be considered good fruits? Is covering up for these scandals a good fruit? Is paying to victims of abuse the 'hush money' collected from unsuspecting and duped parishioners a good fruit? Can the bishops' cover-ups and insincere blanket apologies in trying to smooth things over without eradicating the problems be considered good fruits? Are the sacking and denuding of churches by stripping the sanctuaries and placing ultra-modern, at times suggestive and even obscene art in massive mausoleum-like auditoriums good fruits? Are spending millions and millions on erecting monuments to the ordinaries' sorry legacies like in Milwaukee and especially in Los Angeles good fruits? Is compromising the eternal propitiatory sacrifice by allowing a known high-Mason, a Marxist priest and six Protestant advisors to alter the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass a good fruit? Are the 'wimping out' incidences by the Pope and bishops in allowing the Modernists, whom Pope Saint Pius X soundly condemned as anathema, to take over the government and liturgical policies of the Church in any way good fruits? Are placing known homosexuals in key positions at seminaries and chanceries good fruits? Can caving on exceptions/ loopholes opened by the reforms of Vatican II - such as the plethora of eucharistic ministers, altar girls, ecumenism, receiving communion in the hand and under both species - be considered good fruits? Is the move to allow nuns to be more in touch with the world by shedding their habits for secular clothing a good fruit? Are the facts that exorcisms have been removed from the Sacraments of Baptism, Penance and Extreme Unction good fruits? Are the elimination of regular fasting and abstinence since Vatican II good fruits? Are the staging of profane, obscene pornography plays on Catholic campuses good fruits? Can the Pontius Pilate-like washing of their hands of responsibility by university presidents and the bishops, whose jurisdiction governs these colleges, be good fruits? Are acknowledging false religions good fruits? Are the Vatican's focusing unwarranted attacks on particular priests and bishops who resist Modernists and strive to adhere to all the Church taught for two millennia good fruits? Is releasing a fabrication of the Third Secret of Fatima (which glaringly contradicts the obvious in the world, Russia and the Church today) a good fruit? Is entertaining the idea of making the Church more democratic a good fruit? Is the charismatic renewal, where in actuality it is pentecostal in the Protestant sense in every way, a good fruit? Are the closing of churches, convents and schools, not to mention seminaries good fruits? Is promoting a liberal Modernist like Walter Kasper to the head of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity - one who is a known progressive who is anti-traditional but makes no bones about courting Protestants in quest of forging an already scarred ecumenical agenda - a good fruit? Have endless "dialogues" with seemingly every false religion and pseudo-organizations striving for importance produced good fruits?
I could go on and on, but the answer to all of the above is a resounding "NO!" They are not and have not produced "good fruits," no matter what spin modern Rome might want to put on it. Therefore, if they are not good fruits, they have to be bad fruits. If they are bad fruits, they could not have come from a good tree. Ergo, Vatican II could not have been a good tree or everything produced from it would have borne good fruit. The fact it has not says it better than any Doctor of the Church, any past holy Pontiff, or any saint could say it. To quote numerous dogmatic councils and Sovereign Pontiffs, "Anathema sit!" - "let them be anathema!"
And so as the trek up the Via Dolorosa continues for the Mystical Body of Christ, the wood grows heavier for the branches are laden with bad fruit; a product of error that needs to be "cast into the fire." Until these bad fruits are cast out and the bad trees uprooted, the 'good tree' that gains its source from the Cross of Christ will remain isolated and His Bride will remain shackled by unsound doctrine and the yoke of blind obedience.
Michael Cain, editor
www.DailyCatholic.org
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