Another Diocesan Priest Rejects Novus Ordo

Father Paul Sretenovic, a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, who was ordained to the priesthood in 2002, has abandoned the Novus Ordo in order to embrace Catholic Tradition without compromise. Father Sretenovic (pronounced Stre-ten-o-vich) informed his ordinary, the Most Reverend John Myers, the Archbishop of Newark, of his decision in a letter mailed to his Excellency’s home address on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, Wednesday, December 28, 2004:

“Your Excellency: I am writing to inform you of my decision to leave the Archdiocese of Newark. It is a decision that is eighteen months in the making, and it has finally come to a head. This archdiocese, while retaining some very good priests, is, like every other diocese in the Catholic Church today, plagued by the heresy of modernism in many different forms. I recently attended a Monday afternoon of Reflection at Southmont with the Opus Dei priests and listened as one of them said that we are not looking to return to Christendom. To me, that said it all. It is not just about the Latin Mass. It is something much, much deeper, and it is the basis of my decision. Pope Pius XI in his encyclical, Quas Primas, said that Jesus Christ is not only the Lord of every individual, but also of every human society. The Syllabus of Errors of Blessed Pius IX, #77, in particular, exposes the error of separation of Church and State, a doctrine now upheld by the Vatican as the ideal, using both the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Liberty, which could very easily have been called the Declaration of Religious Liberty (reference to our Declaration of Independence intended), as well as individual decisions from the Vatican to accelerate such a separation in what were otherwise thoroughly Catholic countries, such as, among others, Colombia, 98% Catholic. The orientation of the Church is now very much in line with the principles of the French Revolution, namely liberty, fraternity, and equality. Hence, the mainstay catchwords from the Council—religious liberty, ecumenism, and collegiality. That is not a coincidence, and it is evil. The Liturgy is just one of the many lambs to be slaughtered along the way towards a Christian Democracy, which, to the dismay and shock of many in the Church, will lead directly to the worldwide takeover of Atheistic Communism, warned of indirectly by Our Lady of Fatima in 1917, and communicated by Sr. Lucia to the Catholic historian William Thomas Walsh in 1946. Russia has still not been consecrated, and she continues to spread her errors until one day, it will be too late. In the meantime, I choose to exercise my priesthood in the way intended by Almighty God, teaching sound doctrine and leading the flock by holiness of life, as St. Paul exhorted St. Timothy in his pastoral epistle.

“In the situation in which I am now, and basically in any Novus Ordo parish anywhere in the world, let alone this particular Archdiocese, I always have to watch my back and I always, at each and every Mass that I offer, have to compromise. Whether it is in the bad wording or bland prayers of the Sacramentary, or in the distribution of Communion in the hand, or in the virtually mandatory use of Extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, there is always something there to remind me, as the song goes, and it stops now. I pray to God and to Our Blessed Mother that you obtain the grace necessary to perceive the gravity of the present situation and to act accordingly. I include my email address below for further correspondence. I know this is a shock, but for me, even the FSSP would be a compromise. Haven’t we all done enough of that?! As people were looking East this Advent season, Our Lady was leading me to, go West. In Christ the King, Fr. Paul Branko Sretenovic.”

In an e-mail to this writer sent on January 9, 2005, Father Sretenovic explained the sequence of events after this point:

“To give you the backdrop of my correspondence with the Archbishop, he said that parts of what I wrote, without specifying, were ‘inaccurate’ and ‘unfair.’ I responded through the Vicar General for the time-being that what I wrote was not ‘inaccurate’ and ‘unfair.’ I then asked the question as to whether the Archbishop would say that Cardinal Ratzinger was either of the two, specifying the terms, when he wrote that through the Council, the Church had ‘come to terms with the principles of 1789.’ I left it at that and will write the Archbishop directly within the week.”

Father Sretenovic had determined quite clearly that he could no longer make any further compromises with a Mass that did not give God the full honor and glory that are His due and a pastoral approach to the problems of the world that was premised upon a rejection of a defined teaching of the Catholic Church, the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ, and an actual embrace of the errors of Modernity and Modernism.

Father Sretenovic did indeed head west, leaving Our Lady, Queen of Peace Church in Maywood, New Jersey, on Thursday, December 29, 2004, the Feast of Saint Thomas a Becket, to drive out to Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Garden Grove, California, joining Father Patrick J. Perez and Father Lawrence C. Smith in the offering of the Traditional Latin Mass and the totality of the Catholic Faith in all of its integrity to Catholics in one of the most liturgically revolutionary places in the whole Church, the Metropolitan Province of Los Angeles, California. Father Sretenovic distributed Holy Communion to the faithful at Our Lady Help of Christians on the Feast of the Holy Family on Sunday, January 9, 2005, saying, “I have never before felt like I did in my first Traditional giving of the Eucharist, or however you want to put it. It was awesome and I felt like a priest in a way that I haven't before. The formula is much better, not to mention the signing of the Cross, and the use of the paten for the Sacred Particles, AND the posture of the people with open mouths, heads tilted upwards like chicks eagerly welcoming their mother with the food that she is providing for them.” [He offered his first Traditional Latin Mass there on Sunday, January 16, 2005.]

Father Sretenovic, who was born on January 8, 1974, found his way to Our Lady Help of Christians within three months of meeting Father Perez at Father Nicholas Gruner’s Fatima conference in Glendale, California, at the end of September, 2004. Father Perez’s mother, Mrs. Margaret Perez, saw Father Sretenovic and told him that he had to meet her son, making sure that the two of them sat down for dinner after Father Perez’s talk at the conference. Father Sretenovic was impressed with Father Perez’s knowledge of the Faith and of the development of the Mass. Mr. John Vennari, the editor of Catholic Family News, also spoke to Father Sretenovic about the crisis in the Church and of the necessity of fleeing from the Novus Ordo structures. Seeds were being planted.

Father Sretenovic contacted this writer in early December of 2004, and a luncheon meeting was arranged in Wayne, New Jersey, following a First Friday Mass at Our Lady of Fatima Chapel in Pequannock, New Jersey, on December 3, 2004. This writer and his wife, to put it charitably, pummeled Father Sretenovic, asking him bluntly as to how long he could continue to give out Communion in the hand and continue to offer a Mass that less fully communicates the truths of the Catholic Faith and does not render God the full honor and glory that are His due. Father Sretenovic listened, particularly to Mrs. Droleskey’s heartfelt plea to give Our Lord and His flock unfettered access to the fullness of the Catholic Faith. Father Sretenovic promised to contact Fathers Perez and Smith. He also wrote fairly immediately to Father Stephen P. Zigrang, whose association with the Society of Saint Pius X prompted the soon-to-be promoted Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, the Most Reverend Joseph Fiorenza, a protégé of the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, to suspend him for an association with a “schismatic” group that, among other things, denied the “enduring validity of the Old Covenant God made with the people of Israel.”

Father Sretenovic carefully weighed his options, keeping in close contact with Father Lawrence C. Smith, who left the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, on September 8, 2003. Father Sretenovic also had contact with priests in the Society of Saint Pius X, determining ultimately that it would be best for him to be with Fathers Perez and Smith in California. Father was most intent on placing himself in a situation where the gaps in his preparation for priestly ordination could be closed and he could concentrate on his own personal sanctification while offering Catholics the Immemorial Mass of Tradition. He arrived at his decision after a great deal of reflection and a bit of indecision, coming to the conclusion in the final analysis that he needed to make a clean break from the diocesan structure sooner rather than later, understanding that the faithful have a right in perpetuity to the Traditional Latin Mass, which can never be subject justly to any limitations or conditions by any bishop, including the Pope himself. Father Smith was most instrumental in helping Father Sretenovic to come to this decision, saying that “it was his call that put me over the edge. Within 20 minutes after my conversation with him, I was writing my letter” to Archbishop Myers.

Father Sretenovic was not heedless of the fact that his own ordinary, Archbishop Myers, though not a traditionalist himself, has been sympathetic to priests desirous of offering the Traditional Latin Mass. Father Sretenovic also understood, however, that the embrace of Tradition, while it starts with the Mass, involves quite fundamentally an embrace of the totality of the Catholic Faith without any taint of corruption by the novelties and errors of the past forty to forty-seven years. Father Sretenovic also knows that ordinaries come and go, a point demonstrated quite graphically when Bishop John Myers of Peoria, Illinois, was elevated to the archbishopric of Newark. Although Bishop Myers had granted permission to Father Michael Driscoll, the pastor of Saint Mary’s Church in Rock Island, Illinois, to offer the Traditional Latin Mass on a daily basis, that permission was revoked by Myers’s successor, Bishop Michael Jenky, who demoted Father Driscoll to the post of an assistant hospital chaplain at Saint Francis Hospital in Peoria. Father Sretenovic, understanding, as eight cardinals noted in a finding sent to Pope John Paul II in 1986, the binding nature of the Traditional Latin Mass can never be abrogated, did not want to subject himself to the vagaries of episcopal arbitrariness. He realized that he needed the stability offered by the Traditional Latin Mass for his own sanctification–and that the people have the absolute right to safe harbor found therein.

The story of Father Paul Sretenovic continues, therefore, a remarkable display of courage on the part of diocesan priests who have been willing to forsake all of their canonical safety and human respect in order to embrace Tradition without compromise. Men such as Fathers Sretenovic and Zigrang and Smith were ordained after the implementation of the liturgical revolution had begun. Father Zigrang was ordained in 1977. Father Smith was ordained in 1997. Father Sretenovic was ordained in 2002. Although there have been priests (such as Father Stephen Somerville) who were ordained in the Traditional rite and have returned thereto, the embrace of Tradition by priests who are relatively young (in the case of Father Zigrang) or very young (in the case of Fathers Smith and Sretenovic) is particularly galling to the liturgical revolutionaries, men and women who brook no opposition and who protest with great vehemence the glories of the “liturgical renewal.” How can it be, they ask themselves, that men who have been immersed in their handiwork all of their lives can become counter-revolutionaries and reject all of their “enlightened” schemes and programs?

The revolutionaries can protest all they want. The plain fact of the matter is that there are a number of priests across the nation who may be following the examples of Fathers Zigrang, Smith and Sretenovic. More than a handful of priests are on the fence as this is being written. Some are waiting for Rome to come to their “rescue” by means of an Apostolic Administration. Some are afraid of what will happen to their sheep should they simply leave their diocesan assignments. Others are simply afraid to pray for the graces to muster up the courage to stop participating in sacrileges such as the distribution of Communion in the hand. From the vantage point of one who travels great distances across the nation to get his family to the daily offering of the Traditional Latin Mass, it is time for our shepherds to give us our due, the Immemorial Mass of Tradition, understanding that Our Lady will take care of their temporal needs and that the rectitude of their actions will be understood fully only on the Last Day at the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead.

Indeed, the witness given by Fathers Zigrang, Smith and Sretenovic, as well as the witness given by the bishops and the priests of the Society of Saint Pius X, to the necessity of proclaiming the fullness of the Catholic Faith without compromise and without any dilution serves as an inspiration to the sheep who are seeking safety and security in the midst of doctrinal and liturgical instability and turmoil within the diocesan structures. They are willing to be calumniated, even by fellow traditionalists who have anointed themselves to be in the august and pristine "mainstream," in order to bear a witness to the authentic Tradition of the Church without any compromise at all. No loss of human respect and no amount of name-calling or sloganeering will ever deter them from giving their sheep the fullness of the Catholic Faith.

At least some of the sheep will respond when their shepherds put themselves on the line to give them what is their due, namely, the Traditional Latin Mass. Hundreds upon hundreds of people, for example, have found their way to Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Garden Grove, California. Most of these people have never heard of The Remnant, Catholic Family News, or Christ or Chaos. They've never heard of Christ the King College and most of them probably think that GIRM Warfare has something to do with bacteriology. They're just Catholics who understand that the first law of the Church is the salvation of souls and that they do not have to sit idly by and be subjected to the rot of conciliar novelties in the context of what pretends to pass for the Church's liturgy and catechesis. These good souls are fed up with what is going on in their local dioceses and parishes and they simply want the fullness of the Catholic Faith to be made manifest to them during Holy Mass and in the life of their parish. The same is true of the fifteen families who have found their way from Saint Andrew's Church in Channelview, Texas, to Queen of Angels Church in Dickinson, Texas (and Saint Michael the Archangel Chapel in Spring, Texas), following after their inimitable pastor, Father Zigrang. The sheep want Christ and His truth to be made manifest to them without novelty or dilution. This is nothing other than one of their baptismal birthrights as Catholics.

Father Paul Sretenovic finds himself some 3,000 miles away from his parents, who are residents of New Jersey. He has gone this distance to serve sheep without compromise. He is in need of our prayers. More of his brother priests need to follow his example of humility and fidelity, to say nothing of his courage. As a son of Our Lady, Father Sretenovic has entrusted himself entirely to her Immaculate Heart. He knows that she will take good care of him as he acts in the person of her Divine Son as a sacerdos. Father Sretenovic delivered his first sermon at Our Lady Help of Christians on Sunday, January 16, 2004, stating that he had come to realize that the devil has essentially used the hierarchy of the Church to communicate the belief that one can eat from all of the trees in the "garden" today (Judaism, Islam, the New Age Movement, Wicca, Modernism) except the tree of Tradition, from which it is forbidden to eat. He said that the Novus Ordo Missae breeds lukewarmness, crediting Father Paul Kramer’s The Devil’s Final Battle and this writer’s G.I.R.M. Warfare with helping him to see how he was stuck in this lukewarmness himself. His sermon resonated with the 700 parishioners in attendance at the three Masses offered at Our Lady Help of Christians.

Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for Father Sretenovic. Pray for all traditionally-minded priests to follow his example of pure love for Tradition without fear of the canonical and/or temporal consequences. Pray for us sheep, that we might make the sacrifices necessary to help our shepherds feed us with the pure milk of Tradition.

I'm afraid I have to agree with the posters that have said the Church does not demand monarchy as the only acceptable form of government. Republics are permissible, the Church was even, for a time, willing to work with Fascists. Until the inherent viscousness of that system became obvious. I choose monarchy as the best form of government and I am free to do so - more than slightly encouraged by the ranks of Catholics before me that have come to the same conclusion.I never argue that monarchism is required by the Church, I don't believe that true.

The issue is more what is the source of law and authority, regardless of the form of government. Democratic republics tend towards the understanding of law articulated by b-chan "vox populi, vox dei". The "will of the people" is supreme. This is theologically unsound as it denys the effects of original sin which darkens the intellects of men not to mention the power of modern propoganda which reduces all issues to sound bytes for consumption by the lowest common denominator. Law must be understood as antecedent to government - this idea is even expressed in the US constitution, tho I am not a fan of that document or it's theory. In the Catholic monarchy and even in the Protestant and "absolutist" variants of the 17th thru the 19th century the King was beneath the law. As de Jouvenal wrote in On Power...

the rights of all men hung together, so that if the King denied the rights of the commoner he in turn would face challenges to his right to the throne

This is a very rough paraphrase granted, I don't have the text in front of me. The point being that Kings had no more and no less rights than everyone else, they were held under the law the same as every man because law was eternal and immutable. The Kings of the ancien regime acted as judges, applying the law case by case not creating it out of thin air as legislatures in modern democratic republics do.

I interpet the writings of Leo XIII in Diturnum and Immortale Dei to mean that any society which recognized the immutability of law and conformed its actions to the natural law would be legitmite in the eyes of the Church. Which virtually every Pope upto and including Pius XII weren't strongly pro-monarchist. It is undeniable they certainly were.

I object to the modern (and largely American) idea of linking democracy with freedom as if the two were inseparable. I would argue precisely the opposite, never in the history of man has the state had so much power over the lives of it's citizens than now in this age of "freedom and democracy". The illusion that "we are the government" causes us to overlook the most egegrious violations. No monarch in history would have dared confiscate 40% of someone's earnings, presume to have the authority to print fiat money, indoctrinate the children of their subjects in "state approved circulumn" or reach into private homes and remove the children "for their own good". We live in a totalitarian society and most don't even know it because they labor under the illusion that "we are the government".

Finally we have the ridicoulous notion that somehow a democracy that elects a monster can suddenly and retroactively be considered not a democracy. So the Weimar republic that elected Hitler was a democracy one day and not the next??

There are a thousand other arguments for monarchy and interestingly virtually none for democracy

saradippity wrote:
"Martin in an Art Bell interview,(I believe his last) told a "white witch" who called in to ask it she would go to heaven that she would. He proceeded with the same unCatholic gobbledy gook that the new-agers do. "Good person,loves god blah-blah,yada,yada." But I guess Fr. S's purpose was to impugn Opus Dei,not Malachi Martin."

I know the interview very well. You're confusing several callers as one. Martin made a distinction between what is called "White wicca" as being "Nature worship" contrasting it with out and out Satanism. He stated prudently that "white wicca" has other liabilities attached to it. But many people come out of it through seeing God's creation and concluding that there must be what for all intents and purposes is the "uncaused cause" as Aquinas describes it.

Martin acted with traditional Catholic prudence in those interviews. He only had a limited amount of time to deal with them and mostly he was dealing with people in positions of atheism and "anti-religious" sentiment. He even explains to one of the callers that he would need hours to accurately explain the proper theological position.

Fr. Martin, you'll notice if you study him thoroughly was always capable of speaking to people on their terms. (many people are speculating from listening to his interviews and the testimony of those that knew him that he had the gift of discernment) He could speak "modernist lingo" as he did in 3 Popes and the Cardinal and Jesus Now. He could explain things to the everyday person (There is still love) and he could explain the world in terms of geopolitics. But in each of these circumstances he, like a prophet of old would lead the conversation back to solid Catholic ground.

you don't approve of tyrants being displaced by republics

Not at the cost of so many lives, especially when it is far from clear that the republic envisioned by Bush will actually take shape. An Islamic theocracy is more likely.

George W. Bush's inaugural address

...was nauseating. As the refreshingly honest neoconservative Robert Kagan admitted, "The goal of American foreign policy is now to spread democracy, for its own sake, for reasons that transcend specific threats. In short, Bush has unmoored his foreign policy from the war on terrorism. This is where Bush may lose the support of most old-fashioned conservatives. His goals are now the antithesis of conservatism. They are revolutionary." [my emphasis]

We fight them there, or we fight them here.

Huh? Please explain how it is that we would be fighting "them" [presumably the Iraqi insurgents] here if it were not for the invasion. Why not just control our own borders and reform immigration policy to exclude Muslims so that we don't have to fight them at all?

Not at all. Saddam Hussein was a criminal who overthrew the legitimate government of his country for his own personal benefit and that of his ethnic gang. He deserves no more consideration than any other gangster.

Iraq deserves a proper, Catholic monarch. Were I in charge, I would restore Iraq's Hashemite dynasty and place the country under the mandate of a Catholic power. (The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg fits the bill, and is a NATO member state as well.) Putting Iraq under mandate to Luxembourg would allow it self-government under the auspices of a non-representative Catholic monarchy; it would also bring Iraq under the NATO defense umbrella, allowing it to be garrisoned by troops from the several NATO nations. The King of Iraq could then manage his country from Baghdad, with oversight from Luxembourg, and with a permanent contingent of rotating NATO troops stationed in-country to keep the towelheads from going on a jihad (or another Tikriti gangster from seizing the works.)

The mistake democrats make is in assuming people want to rule themselves. On a personal, everyday level of course they do - but politically most people prefer a ruler, someone who rules, not just a ceremonial rubberstamp for a parliament of fools. It comes from having parents: people naturally want order, structure, and tradition; they want a prince, a "father to his country", a man sanctioned by the Church who will wield the sword in defense of culture, borders, and law. What they don't want are corrupt politicians, endless plebiscites, and leaders whose hands are cound by bureaucracy and constitutional red tape.

In short, at the deepest level people want a father-figure -- i.e. a King. It's only natural. Barring that, I suppose a representative democracy is the least evil alternative.

Me, a Saddam supporter? Honestly, Sinky, I don't know where you get this stuff. I look forward to watching the bastard hang by the neck until he is dead, dead, dead.

War is the topic where some of the sharpest contrasts between monarchy and republic can be demonstrated.

Under democratic republican idealogy "we" are the government therefor it is "we" that declare war on "them". The effect is the a massive increase in barbarity and scale of warfare. It is under this theory that conscription is justified - since "we" enjoy the benefits of a "free" society "we" have a responsibility to defend it. Wars by democratic powers tend to become idealogical crusades, such as Iraq now is and in fact nearly all the wars of the 20th century have been. This results in total wars of annhiliation - for you cannot be sure if you have "converted" the enemy to your idealogy unless he is dead, and the enemy is not the rival government but the rival nation.

A midieval monarch or citizen would find these idea ridiculous. A monarch was responsible for his own wars if he chose to engage in them - he risked for them, he funded them. No monarch in history had anything like "war bonds", conscription or the vicious propoganda machines of democratic powers. Wars were terroritorial disputes or disputes of inheritence, with a definite goal. Soldiers were professional, expensive and virtually irreplaceable so the last thing you actually wanted to do was fight a battle. By the end of the 17th century war had become such an art form that whole campaigns were conducted without firing a shot. In fact this was considered the epitome of strategy, to force your enemy to capitulate without actually killing anyone. This is the essence of the idea of "privately owned government".

Contrast this with the two great conflagarations of the 20th century - driven by nationalism and complete with conscription, mass murder and unmentionable atrocities committed by both sides .

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