Posted on 01/25/2005 2:58:28 PM PST by csbyrnes84
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.
Among proposals advanced by "reform the reform" advocates -- proposals Trautman described as "alarming" -- are six listed by Fr. Brian Harrison in a series of articles that appeared in the Adoremus bulletin in 1995 and early 1996, all representing a partial return to pre-Vatican II styles:
•Reciting the eucharistic prayer in Latin rather than in English.
• Eliminating the optional forms of the eucharistic prayers in the official lectionary and allowing only the first choice, the preconciliar form, also known as the Roman canon.
• Restricting communion to one species (for example, the host and not the cup).
• Having the priest and people face the same direction during the eucharistic liturgy.
• Using two scripture readings instead of three.
• Barring women from liturgical ministries. (National "Catholic" Reporter)
This is worse? It seems substantially identical to the TLM. Only the Roman Canon, and only in Latin? If only...
That need not be left so much in the air, uncontested or unresolved. Clearly, we can establish certain Protestant belief against Catholicism, particularly historically when many Protestants created new denominations because they cared or believed what they said and thought it mattered. Then we can compare some of the cross-Protestant beliefs with those expressed by 'reform' bishops, authors, 'liturgical specialists', 'worship design consultants' like Fr. Voske, the subject of that particular thread, and so on. Establish certain Protestant notions. See if 'reform' Catholicism is more Protestant than not.
You might come to the conclusion that the old believing Protestant was, as he made war on the battlefield with Christendom, more Catholic than priests wearing the collar today in the institutional church; more Catholic perhaps even more clearly than many who 'religiously' attend service on Sunday, or even daily. It would depend on whether the sliver of Catholic teaching remained with a Zwingli, or Beza, a Calvin or Luther, but has eluded those with a self-professed Catholic affiliation in 2005.
Thurian doesn't say that it was incompatible. He says that the commission rejected it. That's just a matter of counting the votes. The fact that it was proposed is significant enough. Somebody there didn't think it presupposed transubstantiation. Anglicans used to not have any gay bishops or women "clergy" now look.
The SSPX are not outside. The Pope will not clarify the doctrinal issues that the SSPX brings. They will not accept a zoo compartmentalism. Until the Pope rules unambiguously on the rite of all priests to say the Novus Ordo, and he lifts the invalid excommunications no questions or compromises demanded. The SSPX will continue to do what they do. In fact, the Pope can declare the SSPX "inside" the Church whether the SSPX do anything or not. It's all up to JPII. Their status is irregular because of him, he can regularize it without recourse to anyone.
But that suggests they are somehow outside The Church. And it is precisely this fear of submission not to the papacy, to which the SSPX does, or even JP II, to whom the SSPX swear almost as a personality cult (which I believe is wrong for them to do), but to those more vehemently pushing 'reform'. They suggest that an in again, out again, strategy would only reflect worse on themselves than on those constantly pushing 'reform'. I suspect they would want all agreements signed and all sanctions understood, for all parties, before anything is finalized. That's what I would suspect. Because there must be sanctions against those in the institution who would seek to violate terms of the agreement, as well. Sanctions would, I think, include removal from office to contemplate their mischief in quiet, somewhere, to perhaps even fines. Under Christendom, of course, offending bishops might find themselves in the clutches, ultimately, of civil authority with far more brutal sanctions awaiting them. But there are not even papal states, any more, much less that. Still, a Sodano seeking to violate either or both letter or spirit of such agreement, would I think be subject to immediate dismissal from his post and reassignment to permanent retreat in order to do penance for his sins. Without such sanctions, I think the SSPX would indeed be wise to bide their time. If violation of such agreement by those in institutional power carried no penalty, then they would feel free, perhaps even compelled by their 'reform' agenda, to violate such agreements in the worst way.
That's not how it was described, if I recall correctly. If I remember, the proposed innovations went the Pauline rite one better.
You may have noticed what Luther and Marcel had in common: apostasy, excommunication, defiance of papal authority, gross disobedience and each did not merely violate but wantonly massacred his vow of obedience as a priest. You can prattle on in defense of these anti-papal and antiCatholic trash for another century but the bottom line as to both is their ringing cry of "Non serviam." It is their common, ummmm, "tradition," whatever their defenders may pretend.
Oh, and TRUTH is a complete defense to any form of alleged defamation. The truth is that dead Marcel was excommunicated and refused to do what Feeney had the sense to do. That is a shame but it is Marcel's shame.
You want to persevere in schism????? Persevere in schism. God gave you free will and the freedom to exercise it to perdition if you choose. No skin off my nose. I owe you and your sorry schism and your colleagues in schism nothing but abject contempt. Debate God on your delusions when the time comes.
Obviously #388 was directed only in the direction of the schism and not at ninenot.
Gotta love those Rainbow Flags! The complement Father Liberace so well!
Are you kidding?
MarcelMouse is an excommunicandi--a schismatic.
BlackElk's description of LeF as a "schismatic" is not an insult--it is the truth!
After Marcel went schizzie, all else falls into place.
And so long as ALL SSPX Bishops and priests (and a noticeable percentage of their lay-adherents) remain defiant of the Pope's authority, they remain schizzies.
There are likely 3 gigs of posts on FR alone describing, in excruciating detail, the cause for the decree of schism and excommunication. Read them.
Only one counts: the deliberate disobedience exercised by MarcelMouse in his "ordination" of 4 Bishops against the express written orders of the Pope.
All the rest of your arguments w/BE are the usual strawmen, dross, and typical Luther/Zwingli/Marcellian "I AM the Interpreter of Scripture/I AM the interpreter of Tradition/I AM the repository of Authority."
At some point in time, it will occur to you and other MarcelMouse adherents that the above arguments are joined at the hip with "Non Serviam," the "argument" made by Lucifer on his way out.
And 'out' is the operative word here...
Your facts are inexcusably erroneous---this is RECENT history...
Fessio was "deposed" from the Ignatius Institute (which he founded) by the Jesuits at U of SanFran. He spent some time as a chaplain in an old folks' home (?) in obedience to his Jebby Superior, but recently was allowed to found Ave Maria University of Florida.
As of the June 2004 masthead of Adoremus Bulletin, Fr. Fessio is listed as a Member of the Executive Committee, along with Fr. J. Pokorsky (now in Lincoln, on loan from Arlington) and Helen Hitchcock.
Any other mythology you'd like debunked?
For what?
It lost.
In whose opinion are the excommunications "invalid?"
Yours?
MarcelMouse's?
Ultima Ratio's?
Someday you may undertake a study of the term 'authority.' Hint: begin with the word "author."
Well, your recollection of the work of Fr. Harrison is flawed, at best.
Like the rest of the schismatics who adhere to the Marcellian schism, you obviously operate under the delusion that teh Church and actual Cathlics owe you explanations, endless attention to your creed of "Non serviam" and/or the time of day.
Nonsense. I'm just pointing out that your worthless screeds are the lunatic babblings of a madman divorced from any reason whatsoever. LeFebvre and traditionalists rain on your conciliar parade and you don't like it. That's the beginning and the end of your little dance.
You want to persevere in schism????? Persevere in schism.
You want to persevere in error???? Persevere in error.
God gave you free will and the freedom to exercise it to perdition if you choose.
God gave you free will and you tossed it away in the pursuit of non-Catholic error. And you've been lead by the nose right out of the Church you think you are in.
No skin off my nose.
So says the typical lazy conciliar Catholic.
I owe you and your sorry schism and your colleagues in schism nothing but abject contempt.
This shows just how non Catholic and utterly ignorant you are. If you do believe that trads are in error you are obligated in Charity and Justice to intercede for us. I've just done that for you.
Debate God on your delusions when the time comes.
Nope. I'll beg for mercy, while you make pathetic excuses and point to the Pope in the way that Protestants think they can point to Jesus and you think that'll be your free pass. God will know how vincibly ignorant you are and how you failed the test and then, the trap door opens and it'll be quite a lot of skin off your nose.
In whose opinion are the excommunications "invalid?"
In whose opinion is 2+2=4? Opinion doesn't come into it. JPII's own Code of Canon Law exculpates LeFebvre (the irony being that the 1917 code does not)
Someday you may undertake a study of the term 'authority.' Hint: begin with the word "author."
So? First we know JPII didn't "personally pen" the code of Law. Second, the Pope is granted no freedom from error or corruption in his judgements on matters of law. He is however the final authority and cannot be overruled. That still doesn't make him correct. And he is blatantly objectively incorrect. Neos can't go any further than "JPII said so." and that is not where the truth goes. It goes further. Unless the neos want to promote papal impeccability officially. They don't have a leg to stand on.
For what? The fact that some Protestants in that commission along with Thurian thought it was theologically possible to have the Novus Ordo be a Protestant service.
It lost.
No it didn't. I'll dig up the information on the various Protestant denominations that have adopted the Novus Ordo. I'll have to do that later though.
Are you kidding?
Nope. Neos don't have a grasp of any reality. They sound like Protestants trying to argue from Scripture about the truth.
MarcelMouse is an excommunicandi--a schismatic.
No he isn't.
BlackElk's description of LeF as a "schismatic" is not an insult--it is the truth!
No it isn't. It's a series of insults, half truths and full lies that have no doctrinal support in Catholic morality and justice.
After Marcel went schizzie, all else falls into place.
LeFebvre never went "schizzie" if anything the Vatican when "schizzo" and "yes" it is possible for that to happen.
And so long as ALL SSPX Bishops and priests (and a noticeable percentage of their lay-adherents) remain defiant of the Pope's authority, they remain schizzies.
No. So long as JPII acts as the engine that is dismantling the Catholic Church and persecutes traditionalists. He is not going to get any help in his evil acts. The SSPX are the best friends the papacy ever had. As I stated before and the neos are scared to death to face. The SSPX didn't appoint heretics, they didn't write Ut Unum Sint with it "new situation " in regard to exercising Petrine Primacy.
There are likely 3 gigs of posts on FR alone describing, in excruciating detail, the cause for the decree of schism and excommunication. Read them.
Already done. You might want to read the rebuttles. They blow the conciliarists out of the water. They are far more based in reality and don't rely on misconceptions about the extent of Christ's promises to the Church.
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