[Maximilian]

Thanks for this article. Drolesky is inspired. His vision of history is encompassing, and it is so intimately united with the Catholic faith.

Desdemona and Siobahn and American Colleen and others who were interested in the church-closing threads will want to read this article, if for nothing else then to see what real outrage feels like. To sell the spiritual and material treasures of the Church in order to fund the settlements of the legal cases against the sodomites they've ordained, this is a crime that calls out to God for vengeance.

Also, for Sneakers, on the other thread I didn't do a very good job explaining why the picture of that altar got me so worked up, and I think for those who are used to those sorts of church buildings they can't understand what the big deal is, but this article does a much better job than I did explaining what a church is supposed to be, what it is supposed to represent, and why it is such a crime when that beauty and purpose are destroyed by ruthless fanatics determined to stamp out authentic Catholic faith.

[cyborg]

Whenever I see a church closed, I get a very sad feeling.

[Aestus Veritatis]

"To sell the spiritual and material treasures of the Church in order to fund the settlements of the legal cases against the sodomites they've ordained,"

Brilliantly demonic. Wolves in shepherd's vestments, tearing down the fences and inviting in the packs, to which they commend the sheep, confused by their commands. Once the flock is wounded unto death, the hobbled survivors are fleeced to the bone, in contempt for their suffering the carnage of the Beast.

[ultima ratio]

"When the authority is that of the Pope, the highest on earth, sovereign and universal, its limits are fixed not only by its goals (the continuation of the saving mission of our Lord), by the commandments of God and of our Lord its founder (for example, 'Going, teach all nations,' etc.), but also by the divine Constitution of the Church.

"If this authority, meant to be the exact reflection of our Lord himself ('Who hears you, hears me'), undertook to overstep those limits, there would be an abuse of authority and we should have to respond as Saint Peter did to the Sanhedrin, 'We must obey God rather than men.'

"Now what we blame the Council and post-Conciliar reforms for is precisely that they undertake to change firstly the nature of the Church, one and only bride of Christ our Savior, one and only source of the means of salvation which are supernatural and entrusted to her by her divine spouse; secondly the Church's structure (to be replaced by a crippling and anonymous collegiality); thirdly the Church's means of grace, Mass and sacraments (to be reduced to merely human activities). Nor are all these changes merely imaginary on our part, but they are recognized and admitted by the Church authorities in place.

"That is the reason why we cannot obey. We are refusing the demolition order because it is an abuse of power.

"It is not we who have changed. In all centuries starting with Saint Paul, the whole Church has warned against this kind of change. In the name of the infallible Church's of all time, we refuse to co-operate in the Church's self-destruction.

"As long as Rome refuses to deal with this gravest of problems, we shall go round and round in a vicious circle, an on-going dialogue of the deaf.

"Rome may scare us with all the threats of excommunication it likes but we shall continue to cry out at the top of our lungs to our Mother for the milk of pure doctrine, for the Faith not hacked to pieces, for the right to praise and adore God without resorting to folklore or show business, but worthily of Him, as did our forefathers; for the right to receive the substantial food of grace through sacraments not doubtfully valid, the right to be led and directed towards eternal pastures instead of through the desert of innovation constantly evolving in accordance with Paul VI’s saying: 'We have been given the word "novelty" like an order, like a programme'

"The Church is dying, torn apart by divisions hidden under the deceitful slogan of 'We are in communion with the Pope'; the Church is being poisoned with the deadly teachings of heresy being scattered abroad 'by the handful' in the words of John-Paul II in 1981! Rome itself is lost in the maze of a 'theology of worldly values' instead of reminding us of the luminous demands and interests of our Creator and Savior.

"It is time for the sorcerers' apprentices to give up their ruinous experiments and to come back to the age-old wisdom from which the Church has never defected, to give us back the Faith, grace, holiness, priesthood, Mass, papacy, all those Catholic treasures in which our Roman Catholic hearts take rest. They belong to us, we have a strict right to them, and no human authority can ever deprive us of that right, not even post-Conciliar Rome."

--Bishop Bernard Fellay, SSPX, Letter September 29, 1997

[arkady_renko]

Well, the decision to close Saint Ann’s has been made. It is being sold to the United States Postal Service for a reported sum of several million dollars.

One Postcard -- 25 cents
One Priority Mail Letter -- $3.85
One Roll of Stamps -- $37.00
Transporting Just One Soul to Heaven -- PRICELESS!

Perhaps Mel Gibson can help with some of these closings?

A_R