Posted on 07/13/2025 2:57:06 PM PDT by ebb tide
Bishop Emeritus Marian Eleganti, 70, of Switzerland, spoke with Gloria.tv about the Church and politics. Here are the main points. Full German video below.
- In the Middle Ages, a Christian cosmos centred on the cathedral developed, incorporating also schools and charitable institutions. This has largely been destroyed since the Enlightenment. All godless substitute empires, such as communism and National Socialism, have failed. Now, transhumanism is attempting to recreate the human being independently of God.
- There are destructive forces at work. If you look closely, you will see that they are always directed against Christianity, or more precisely, against the Catholic Church. This is supernatural. The Church has a divine origin, with the Son of God living within it in a mysterious way. The demonic, evil, anti-Christian spirit creates a counter-realm and targets Christ, its arch-enemy.
- Anti-Christian forces are forming unholy alliances, for example between left-wing fascism and Islam. This enemy takes on different guises, using lies and deception, and will stop at nothing. Disguised as goodness, it makes promises that will not come.
- It is an incredible way of speaking [by the German Synod] to define the sinful reality of lived sexuality - adultery, promiscuity, etc - as a source of revelation.
- In the Corona era, it could be observed that the Church was a servant of the state at the expense of her faith. The Church is always threatened by embracing the world and political forces. This can be seen with taxes in German-speaking countries and sinicisation in China.
- If the Church no longer believes and the thinking of bishops and Christians becomes secularised, then the Church becomes an NGO and a social institute, but not a sacrament of salvation. It then proclaims psychology, but not the supernatural presence of God.
- The Church should not get involved in the dialog of contradictory scientific opinions - for example on climate change - and become an advocate for agendas, for example from the UN.
- If politicians have enough power and money, they can get away with any injustice. This happens on a grand scale. Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank, has burned huge sums of tax money and is not punished because of her “special personality”. Marine Le Pen wouldn’t get away with embezzlement. I don't want to rate that, I just see the different standards.
- The principle of subsidiarity would prevent a concentration of power at the highest level, which could then tyrannize and dominate the masses. A country like Switzerland can decide what is good locally better than politicians in faraway Brussels.
- Overall, I am an opponent of globalism and global structures. You can't govern so many people in a drop-down system. To keep this under control, you have to install more and more mechanisms that manipulate the masses, keep them in line and take away their freedom.
- Attempts have been made - and this is perhaps still topical - to strive for a new world order. The elites also organize among themselves, the Bilderberg Conference or the World Economic Forum. These are exchange platforms where those who really have power and a lot of money can come together and establish a program, a strategy. Democratic control is needed here.
- There is a concentration of power in a few hands, for example in asset managers such as BlackRock, whose budgets exceed the gross national product of entire countries. These are bodies without political control. They can decide autonomously.
- The national parliaments and politicians are actually just shadowy figures of the donors in the background, who can no longer really make autonomous decisions.
- Many images of the Apocalypse - such as animals with many heads and horns or the sign to buy and sell - play out before our eyes.
- Ideologies - such as the gender ideology - are deconstructive. This not only affects the old social order, but also leads to the deconstruction of truth and reason. There is then no longer even a truth about human nature. Everything becomes the arbitrariness of feelings or interests. This can then be enforced by law.
- Ideologies begin with the redefinition of language. The core of the matter is removed and only the shell is left. People talk about democracy, but there is no longer any democracy inside. You can say it's a democracy promotion law, but it's actually censorship. The protection of the narrative propagated by the state is referred to as the protection of democracy, as protection against fake news. That is the end of freedom of speech.
- Theologians are the most refined sophists. And bishops have also mastered this art of speech, of saying something and nothing at the same time.
- I started as an altar boy in the old rite and then retrained. I normally celebrate in the Novus Ordo. I am only now beginning to reflect on these things retrospectively: Why have these beautiful texts - such as the prayers at the Foot of the Altar or at the offertory - been canceled at the desk? These prayers also help the priest who is celebrating.
- I learned the old rite because a priest from the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter asked me to do a confirmation. He has a very lively congregation with families and young people.
- It is a time-honored liturgy that has been celebrated for almost 2000 years. We have around 24 rites in the Church. Why the marginalization or polemic of the faithful who love this rite?
- I have wondered why the Second Vatican Council did not bring about a flowering of Faith. Paul VI already lamented this: Why was there not a renewal, but such a loss of Faith?
- If you look at France, there were over 19,000 pilgrims on the pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres at Pentecost 2025 and the average age was 20. That's a generation that doesn't even know the texts of the Council. And I don't want to ask who among them has ever read an entire council text, for example Dei Verbum.
- The old liturgy is very theocentric, Christocentric and the priest therefore has the central role. In the new liturgy, the danger is that the priest, who looks at the people, becomes almost like a moderator.
- In the Novus Ordo, Christ's death on the cross, is overwritten by different themes. At First Communion, the rainbow is suddenly the theme. Or there is a crawling liturgy for toddlers, or a women's liturgy. The result is a workshop liturgy in which the essence is no longer recognizable. In the old Mass, the liturgical meaning is embodied in the form.
The Christian Latin mass was adapted from the older pagan Roman worship ceremonies. It’s quite ancient.
You’re wrong.
The Catholic Mass is no more more ancient than Jesus Christ’s Last Supper.
I have no further intention of engaging with a liar who can’t even spell “altar”.
Now that really is tendentious. Part one read scripture and preach. Part 2, reenact the Last Supper. Other parts are nearly as ancient. The Gloria, for example, dates to the 4th century
The Byzantine Rite liturgy also involves a priest facing “liturgical east” and chanting prayers with his arms raised, so I’m not really sure what you’re trying to establish.
Thanks for spurring me to search for the definition of
tendentious.
adj. 1. expressing or intending to promote a particular cause or point of view, especially a controversial one
Example: a tendentious reading of history
Animal sacrifice was part of Jewish temple practice. It is a central tenet of Christianity that Jesus’ sacrifice makes animal sacrifice obsolete. Roman practice has nothing to do with it.
The Jews I know who have been to Mass were struck by how Jewish it is, such as in the call and response form of singing the Psalms. They did not connect anything in the Mass to paganism at all.
(Btw, Remember folks we must pray for each other, especially when we are having contentious discussions.)
If the Gospel account accurately describes a Seder, then it’s the former. The consecration is intended to reenact the Last Supper:
On the day before he was to suffer,
he took bread in his holy and venerable hands,
and with eyes raised to heaven
to you, O God, his almighty Father,
giving you thanks, he said the blessing,
broke the bread
and gave it to his disciples, saying:
Take this, all of you, and eat of it,
for this is my Body,
which will be given up for you.
In a similar way, when supper was ended,
he took this precious chalice
in his holy and venerable hands,
and once more giving you thanks, he said the blessing
and gave the chalice to his disciples, saying:
Take this, all of you, and drink from it,
for this is the chalice of my Blood,
the Blood of the new and eternal covenant,
which will be poured out for you and for many
for the forgiveness of sins.
Do this in memory of me.
Jesus and the Apostles at the Last Supper were probably using the customary Greco-Roman posture for eating a banquet, which was to recline around a low table. Not sure how that could possibly work in a cathedral with 3000 people in attendance.
The early Christians compared Christ and his coming to the rising of the sun. There's plenty of Biblical warrant for this, see Malachi 4:2, Matthew 24:27, etc. That's where "liturgical east" comes from, not from any kind of pagan syncretism.
Roman “animal sacrifice” wasn’t much like the Jewish model. They typically killed an animal and spread its entrails out as a fortune-telling method. Not sure why you think the Mass resembles that at all.
Well you certainly don't seem to be doing that, are you?
Do you know what a "hypocrite" is?
Intelligent people know the difference between “alter” and “altar”.
Are you kidding? You think a church, headquartered in Rome and spread across Europe, the middle east, parts of Africa and Britain gave 2 licks what some German barbarians thought?
You really need to do more research.
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