The Consecration Has Been Done?

MOSCOW. May 6 (Interfax) - Executive Secretary of the Russian Conference of Catholic Bishops Igor Kovalevsky has admitted that some of the steps taken by Vatican representatives in Russia could be qualified as proselytism (conversion of the Orthodox population to Catholicism).

"Certain facts cause surprise and may be interpreted as proselytism. However, this has not been done deliberately," Kovalevsky told a briefing following the first session of a joint working group for relations between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches

"The Catholic Church has no plans of pursuing missionary activities in Russia. Russia is not New Guinea or some African country where it is necessary to preach Christianity. Russia is a country with more than one thousand years of Christian culture," he said.

"The Vatican is not pursuing any proselytism policy. It has no goal of making Russia a Catholic nation," Kovalevsky said.

The Russian Orthodox Church, however, has expressed skepticism over the Vatican representative's remarks.

Well, folks, there you have it. "The Vatican is not pursuing any proselytism policy. It has no goal of making Russia a Catholic nation." Although this is not really shocking news whatsoever, this statement is nevertheless a reminder of the state of apostasy that has seized the Church in the wake of the doctrinal and liturgical revolutions that began to be ushered in during the pontificate of Pope John XXIII and thereafter. Sure, yes, the way was being paved in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by the Modernists and their fellow travelers. However, it was not until 1958 that the Modernists began to come out into the open to take advantage of the "opening up to the world" desired by Pope John XXIII. The Second Vatican Council and the Consilium that planned the synthetic concoction known as the Novus Ordo Missae helped to propagate novelties and innovations that were alien to the whole patrimony of the Church, including the very language used in official church documents and by popes in their various pronouncements. Let's be brutally frank: to assert that the Catholic Church is not interested in the conversion of souls from Orthodoxy to Catholicism is to assert a belief that is alien to Catholic truth and representative of the sort of syncretist, pan-Christianity specifically condemned by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos in 1928.

The religion of modernity and Modernism being spouted by Pope John Paul II and his functionaries has devastated the vineyard of Christ's true Church. This religion of modernity and Modernism has accepted as an irreversible, if not actually desirable, fait accompli of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King. Pronouncements by the popes prior to 1958 mean next to nothing. There are minimal footnotes to any pre-conciliar document or pronouncement emanating from the Vatican since 1965, with that trend becoming increasingly noticeable in the twenty-five years and nearly seven months of the pontificate of Pope John Paul II. The Holy Father is constantly apologizing for the "errors" committed by the Church in the past. It causes one to wonder if everything that every pronouncement and pastoral practice of the Church prior to 1958, including a strict fidelity to the words of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to bring everyone into the true Church was misguided and in need of "correction" and/or apology in light of the "new insights" we have gained into man and the world (see Gaudium et Spes, for example, and Paragraph 15 of the 1997 version of the General Instruction to the Roman Missal).

When you think about it, however, the errors of modernity and Modernism are really the errors of Russia. How ironic that the executive secretary of the Catholic bishops' conference in Russia is quoted as saying that the Church has no desire to make Russia a Catholic nation. One of the most important fruits of the actual consecration of Russia to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart by a pope and all of the world's bishops is the conversion of Russia to the Catholic Faith, the same sort of miraculous, widespread and almost instantaneous conversion that took place in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America after Our Lady appeared to Saint Juan Diego on December 9, 1531. That a representative of Catholic bishops is denying the necessity of converting Russia is to prove that the Holy Father has had no intention to faithfully fulfill Our Lady's Fatima requests, which is why he has avoided naming Russia and has substituted the word "world" instead in his various attempts to circumvent Our Lady's specific requests.

There are several reasons for this. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has given a good deal of empirical evidence that he really does not believe in the Fatima message. How can he? How can a man understand properly the Triumph of Our Lady's Immaculate Heart when he states that all of our hearts have been made immaculate and it is that "triumph" that Our Lady was talking about at Fatima? How can any Vatican official or a representative of the Church in Fatima, Portugal, claim with a straight face that the Fatima message was about "inter-religious dialogue," no less attempting to turn Fatima into a quite active center of religious indifferentist, making room for Baal and his friends, as I noted in a column in The Remnant six months ago? The prophecies of Anne Katherine Emmerich are being proved true by the very words and actions of the Holy Father and his functionaries as a veritable new world religion, one that disparages the doctrines and traditions of the true Church, is posited as representing an unbroken link to the past.

This disbelief in the Fatima message was more or less expressed by Pope John XXIII himself when he read the Third Secret of Fatima in 1960. According to the late Silvio Cardinal Oddi, Pope John said, "This is not for our time." Over twenty years later, however, Luigi Cardinal Ciappi, O.P., who was for many years the theologian of the papal household, said that the Third Secret of Fatima dealt with apostasy within the Church, starting at the very top. Please tell me how not seeking the conversion of Russia to the Catholic Faith is not apostasy.

Another reason for the failure to consecrate Russia to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart is Pope John Paul II's desire to visit Russia before he dies. Laboring under the delusion that Bolshevism ended when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was dissolved on December 25, 1991, the Holy Father believes that he will help to foster a rapprochement between the Russian Orthodox Church, which has fiercely persecuted Roman Catholics over the centuries, and the Catholic Church that will serve as a sort of model for similar arrangements with other Orthodox churches in the East. Thus, Our Lady's specific requests must be ignored and de-constructed of their actual meaning. After all, modern man has a "better way" than to believe so simplistically that all it is going to take to solve the problems of modernity is to actually consecrate a country to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

Indeed, Pope John Paul II admitted in Crossing the Threshold of Hope in 1993 that he had given little thought to Our Lady's Fatima message prior to his being shot and nearly killed in 1981 on the sixty-fourth anniversary of Our Lady's first apparition to Sister Lucy and her two cousins, Blessed Jacinta and Francisco Marto, on May 13, 1917. How can a priest in Europe, of all places, which had been so convulsed by events that could have been prevented if Our Lady's words had been heeded, live thirty-five years of his priesthood (1946-1981) without giving much thought to Our Lady's apparitions in Fatima? Little children in Catholic schools in the United States were taught to foster devotion to Our Lady's Fatima requests. What sort of intellectual pride is it that prevents a priest and a bishop and an archbishop and a pope from paying careful attention to an actual appearance of the Mother of God to warn about the dangers posed by the spreading of the errors of Russia? Indeed, for all of Pope John Paul II's opposition to crimes against the inviolability of innocent human life, he does not seem to realize that it was in Russia under Vladimir Lenin that abortion on demand first reared its ugly head under state sponsorship in the year of 1918. Abortion is thus very much one of the errors of Russia that crystallize the problems of modernity.

Indeed, the errors of Russia are really the errors of modernity and Modernism. That is, the errors enshrined in Bolshevism are the crystallization of false philosophies and currents that began to issue during some aspects of the Renaissance before taking full bloom in the aftermath of the Protestant Revolt and the subsequent rise of Freemasonry. These errors include the deification of man, the denigration of the necessity of belief in the Incarnation of the God-Man and His Redemptive Act on the wood of the Holy Cross as absolutely essential for the right ordering of men and their societies, the promotion of international organizations as the secular substitutes for the true Church, and the ultimate arrogation unto the State of all matters pertaining to life and death without regard for the Deposit of Faith the God-Man had entrusted to the Catholic Church. These errors have influenced every nation in the world, including the United States of America (as I noted in an article in the printed pages of Christ or Chaos in June of 2000, an article that I will endeavor to put in the "Golden Oldies" section of this website once I complete a lot of important work for Christ the King College), bar none. These errors have influenced the true Church in countless numbers of ways, including the prayers contained in the Novus Ordo Missae.

The devil knows all of this. As is pointed out in The Devil's Final Battle, which was edited by Father Paul Kramer (who has done outstanding work concerning the absolute right of all priests to offer the Traditional Latin Mass without any permission from the Vatican or a local bishop), the devil's minions in Freemasonry do not need a Freemason on the Throne of Saint Peter. No, all they need is someone who will speak in a religious indifferentist sense about a "civilization of love" rather than about the Social Reign of Christ the King. They need popes and bishops and priests and nuns to exalt the international organizations and ideologies that are meant to undermine and replace the Faith rather than to speak in the clearly unambiguous language of Catholic tradition. Even absent a consideration of actual infiltration of the ranks of hierarchy, there is ample proof that the errors have metastasized at a rapid pace within the Church, thus making her an accomplice, either witting unwitting, in the spread of the errors of Russia in all aspects of popular culture.

That is why, you see, that the problems plaguing the Church and the world are intertwined and why they will not be ameliorated until and unless some pope actually does consecrate Russia with all of the world's bishops to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Father Nicholas Gruner has been right all along. Despite all of the protestations of others that the consecration has been accepted by Heaven, the statement of the executive secretary of the Catholic bishops' conference in Russia proves that the Vatican has no interest--and I mean no interest--in the conversion of Russia whatsoever.

This is not the first time that there has been a failure on the part of the Church to heed a warning from Heaven. Sister Magaret Mary Alacoque pleaded with King Louis XIV and the bishops of France to do as Our Lord had told her He wanted done: to consecrate the entire country of France to His Most Sacred Heart. The year was 1689, one hundred years before the French Revolution, which can be seen as a punishment upon France for the failure to do exactly what Our Lord wanted done. King Louis XIV permitted the bishops of France to consecrate Paris to the Sacred Heart, but not the entire country. This is eerily similar to the repeated efforts of Pope John Paul II, who has gone to Fatima several times since his 1981 assassination attempt and who beatified Francisco and Jacinta (while permitting the Third Secret of Fatima to be misrepresented and deconstructed of its actual contents), to consecrate the "world" to the Immaculate Heart of Mary without publicly stating the word "Russia." Indeed, even the word "consecrate" has been replaced by the word "entrust," thereby further disobeying the Mother of God. Just as France has not yet recovered from the effects of the disobedience of a worldly king and the bishops eager to cater to him in the latter part of the seventeenth century, so will it be the case that the Church herself--and thus the world--will continue to suffer as long as this pope and his successors to refuse to do exactly what Our Lady said must be done to effect the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart.

We never despair in the face of the problems that face us. We are Catholics, people who know that our own sins are responsible (to one extent or another) for the sad state of the Church and the world. We know that the jaws of Hell will never prevail against the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Our Lord upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope. That does not mean, however, that the Devil will not win a few battles in the larger life of the Church, just as he wins more than a few battles in our own lives. The final victory though belongs to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Our Lady is with us during these unprecedented times in the history of her Divine Son's Church. It is thus important to rededicate ourselves to her patronage, especially during the month of May, which belongs to her. As her consecrated slaves, we must give her everything we experience on a daily basis, trusting that she will use what we give her in ways that may only become manifest to us clearly in eternity, please God we persevere until the point of our dying breaths in states of sanctifying grace.

We must pray to Our Lady of Fatima so that some pope--and we pray it is Pope John Paul II--will actually do what she said must be done to stop the errors of Russia. We may never live to see this done, sad to say. However, we must believe that Our Lady wants to use us as instruments to help bring this about, especially as we pray her Most Holy Rosary and keep the five First Saturdays.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us, pray for the Pope, pray for the bishops, for a re-conversion of the hierarchy so that Russia may converted once and for all to the one, true Church that is the Catholic Church. % 0D

Also not to worry, we still consider you heretics

That's as what Photius was syaing at the incomplete 8th Ecumenical Council. Because the Latin West added a word (filioque) to the Nicene Creed, which was not there when the Creed was formulated and which addition was not approved by an Ecumenical Council (or any of the popes up to and shortly after the Great Schism), the West was guilty of heresy then as it is now, and if Eastern Orthodox are schismatics who separated from the heretics, then there is no doubt who is who when it comes to catholicity of the original Church.

So, if heresy is all that is keeping us apart, then heresy is on the West and not the East. The fix is easy, easier than you think. And for a brief moment in 1995 the two Churches were closer than in over 1,000 years.

Following Vatican II, and bilateral pronouncements of good will on both sides, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople visited Rome and celebrated Liturgy with Pope John Paul II in 1995.

One might ask: If the Vatican is in heresy with the filioque, how could the Ecumenical Patriarch (Batholomew I) pray and participate in the Eucharist with heretics (i.e. Roman Catholics)? We all know that it is strictly forbidden for Eastern Orthodox to pray with or paritcipate in religious services with heretics, non-Christians and pagans.

For this particular Liturgy, the Nicene Creed was recited in Greek without the filioque, simply stating that the Holy Ghost proceeds form the Father and not from the father and the Son. This may seem like a trivial change, but it is not. When the Greek bible was traslated inot the latin Vulgate, the Latin word for proceed is not equivalent in meaning to the one used in the Greek original which actually implies procession from a source and not through a source. The correct theological construct is that the Spirit proceeds (like water from a spring) from the Wisdom and is expressed through the Word although as it is expressed it also proceeds but not in the original sense. By implying that the Widsom of God proceeds (i.e. originates in the Greek meaning of the word) from the Father and the Son, it is also implied that the Son's Divine Economy is the same as that of the Father, which is not what the Church teaches. There is no doubt that the Church to this day maintains the "monarchy" of the Father in the Holy Trinity.

The Roman Catholic Church knows that this is so, but it cannot go back on its teaching. The Roman Catholic Church knows why this heresy was snuck into the Nicene Creed and allowed, under the table so to say, to perpetuate itself despite public pronouncements of the popes against it. The heresy was introduced to combat the Arian heresy among Spanish Visigoths (German tribes) converted to Christianity by "elevating" the Son to a more "godly" status. Arianism maintained that Jesus was a "lesser" god.

As Greek ceased to be used in the West as the Church language by the 4th century, and transaltions of even very prominent Western Christian theologians (i.e. Augustine) resulted in trnaslational errors that were passed down the ages to become "truth," so did the filoque heresy outlive its original reason (albeit it was wrong to combat heresy with heresy!), in time it became so ingrained in the Western practice that one of the last popes in the still united Church had to officially prohibit its use and remind that Nicene Creed may not be altered, but the practice continued among Franks and other Germanic converts regardless -- so much so that they accused the Greeks of removing the filoque from "their" Creed.

So, heresy, born to combat heresy, became "truth" and truth was turned into "heresy" by the West, and so it goes to this day, so much so that the hereticson this Forum call Greek Christians heretics for refusing to be with the Church that started the heresy.

What was great in 1995 in the Vatican was a demonstration of what it would take for us to at least become closer and to celebrate Christ together as One. That Orthodox Chrisitnaity is fully Cahtolic is obvious form the fact that, except for removing the filoque from the Creed, the successor of Peter could celebrate Liturgy with the Ecumenical Patriarch as if the Church never parted.

How fully Catholic is Orthodoxy is best demonstrated by the fact that Byzantine Catholics (Greek-Catholics) do not have to change their Nicene Creed or anything in their worship to be considered fully in communion wiht Rome, so long as they accept the pope as their lord.

Besides the filoque, the major stumbling blocks are papacy as defined in the Vatican I and the Immaculate Conception. The issue of papcy is another lengthy one so it is bets left undistrubed here, and the issue of the Immaculate Conception is that it was unkown to Christianity until about 200years ago and run completely contrary to the pre-Augustinian Christian understanding of Man's Fall to which Rome subscribed for centuries. In fact, even Thomas Aquinas, could not reconcile the Immaculate Conception which did not become a dogma until the 18th century.

Oh boy! Here's where we go off the deep end.

Because the Latin West added a word (filioque) to the Nicene Creed, which was not there when the Creed was formulated and which addition was not approved by an Ecumenical Council (or any of the popes up to and shortly after the Great Schism), the West was guilty of heresy then as it is now

This could only be the case if the word was certainly an "illegitimate addition" in the words of the Council of 879-880. That of course depends on the purpose of the west in adding it, and the meaning attached to it. I would maintain that there is a perfectly Orthodox sense in which the filioque can be understood, as many of yout saintly theologians have said, such as St. Maximus the Confessor, Patriarch Gregory VII, St. Gregory Palamas, Fr. John Meyendorf, Fr. John Romanides, and others, and that it was in this Orthodox sense that the addition was intended.

When the Greek bible was traslated inot the latin Vulgate, the Latin word for proceed is not equivalent in meaning to the one used in the Greek original which actually implies procession from a source and not through a source. The correct theological construct is that the Spirit proceeds (like water from a spring) from the Wisdom and is expressed through the Word although as it is expressed it also proceeds but not in the original sense. By implying that the Widsom of God proceeds (i.e. originates in the Greek meaning of the word) from the Father and the Son, it is also implied that the Son's Divine Economy is the same as that of the Father, which is not what the Church teaches.

It is only implied that when misconstrued back again into Greek. The origin (the derivation or source) of the Holy Spirit we say is from the Father alone by spiration, and not generation, but his cause (the thing that brings about an effect) is from the Father and the Son. I believe this is the same as what you say at Balchernae in that the Spirit "proceeds" from the Father, and is "manifested" by the Son. I think there are a number among the Orthodox who are coming to the same conclusion. I recognize that the way we speak is not the same as the way you speak, but I would hope you recognize that our theological language is just as old as the Cappodocian work. It is certainly used at the same period by Sts. Ambrose and Hilary.

There is no doubt that the Church to this day maintains the "monarchy" of the Father in the Holy Trinity.

No there is not. That is the position of the Catholic Church when it says with St. Augustine that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as principle (fundemental source). "The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as Principle (principaliter) and, through the latter's timeless gift to the Son, from the Father and the Son in communion (communiter)." (De Trinitate XV , 25, 47, PL 42, 1095).

The heresy was introduced to combat the Arian heresy among Spanish Visigoths (German tribes) converted to Christianity by "elevating" the Son to a more "godly" status.

Its easy to find it quite a bit earlier than the time of the Visigothic invasion.

As Greek ceased to be used in the West as the Church language by the 4th century

Greek had never been commonly used in the West except among the Greek inhabited coastal colonies and in Rome. The Latin Bible was produced by the second century (St. Jerome revised the existing Latin Bible, he didn't create a new one), and most of the peculiar Latin theological terminology by the middle of the third by Tertullian, St. Cyprian, and Pope St. Cornelius among others.

That's a rather anachronistic way of phrasing the concept in English. The Eastern Catholics accept that communion with the Pope ensures communion among all Catholics, and that part of this communion is adherence to his teachings to settle disputes, and acceptance of the right of final appeal in canonical and theological questions. The Pope does not "rule" the eastern Churches though, unlike the Latin Rite, which he does rule as Patriarch.

and the issue of the Immaculate Conception is that it was unkown to Christianity until about 200years ago and run completely contrary to the pre-Augustinian Christian understanding of Man's Fall to which Rome subscribed for centuries. In fact, even Thomas Aquinas, could not reconcile the Immaculate Conception which did not become a dogma until the 18th century.

The concept of the Immaculate Conception is clearly present in first millenium eastern thought. Stripped of western theological language anfd baggage to help your understanding, it is the assertion that Blessed Mary was conceived, and her soul infused into her body, filled with the divine grace of the Holy Ghost which united her from her origin to the life of God - the moment of her redemption from the common fate of the children of Adam was at her Conception, instead of her Baptism. It says nothing more and nothing less than this.

St. Thomas actually did hold this doctrine (as did St. Augustine and St. Ambrose before him). The doctrine has nothing to do with the bugabear of "pre- and post-Augustinian doctrines of original sin". "Purity is constituted by a recession from impurity, and therefore it is possible to find some creature purer than all the rest, namely one not contaminated by any taint of sin; such was the purity of the Blessed Virgin, who was immune from original and actual sin, yet under God, inasmuch as there was in her the potentiality of sin." (Commentary on the Book of Sentences, c. 44, q. I ad 3). Where he eventually ran into a difficulty was with his Aristotelean belief that the rational human soul was not infused until some time after conception, when the human body was finally formed (around 40 days). Even so, the famous article in the Summa is concerned with refuting the arguement that Blessed Mary was sanctified prior to animation. Of course, the Catholic Church does not teach that, for the very simple reason he points out - a person without a rational soul cannot be sanctified since they have no soul yet in need of sanctity.

Thank you for your comments and explanations. Just a couple of comments real quick.

Just for the record. St. Maximums the Confessor went to Latin North Africa, renounced Greek Church, the Patriarch and the Roman Emperor in Constantinople, and called himself Latin who speaks Greek. He approved everything that came from the Old Rome, and followed Western theology. In perspective, it is not surprising that he though the filoque was legitimate.

No one is disputing the elegance and the complexity of Latin. The fact is, however, that Latin became a liturgical lengauge from Greek and that it did not have necessarily the concepts and words equiavlent to those in Greek and that many Latin-speaking clergy didn't speak Greek that well (even St. Augustine is known to have chosen words that do not correspond to the Greek original). And, yes Greek was the language of the Church for quite some time. Latin did not have the necessary complexity of a liturgical language from the start.

Maybe the hints of filioque can be found before the 6th century, but it was specifically introduced into the Creed in Spain in response to the Arian heresy. Even if it was theologically acceptable, the fact is -- and the popes knoew that the additions to the Creed could only be done by Ecumenical Councils. The fact is also that the Greeks were later being accused for "removing" it from the Creed.

The role of the pope as the final arbiter of disputes is something that developed over time and through the efforts of people like Irenaeus and is not something that is found in the early church organization, before the monarchical episcopates emerged in the 2nd century. There is no Bible-based office of the pope, but thanks for clarifying how the Byzantine Catholic churches relate to him.

I am not sure when the east and the west started to differ in their teaching of the Blessed Mother of God, but I believe that the current teaching of the Roman Catholic Church dates to the 13th century at the onset. The orthodox belief was always that she was cleansed of all sin at the moment of conception (and her death) but that she was not conceived free of sin. In other words, the only One conceived free of sin was Jesus. Placing Theotokos on the same plane with Jesus would make her more than human.

However, reading your interesting answers one must wonder why the Churches are still apart. Why is it not possible to go to the status post Seventh Ecumenical Council and throw all these doctrinal issues on the table and explain them in a brotherly manner as two versions of the same orthodox faith expressed in two different manners and let the Synod vote on them? If we are just two faces of the same coin, what is amiss?

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