Posted on 10/17/2025 3:16:06 PM PDT by ebb tide
One of the most astounding situations in the world today is the reality that the Vatican accepts and encourages essentially every widespread set of “religious” beliefs in the world other than Traditional Catholicism, which is nothing other than the beliefs of all good Catholics prior to Vatican II. Consider, for example, the recent “Message of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue to Hindus on the occasion of the Feast of Deepavali”:
“The Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue is pleased to offer its warmest greetings and best wishes to you, as you celebrate Deepavali on 20 October this year. May this festival of lights brighten your lives and bring happiness, unity and peace to your families and communities!
The eighth day after Deepavali this year will mark the sixtieth anniversary of Nostra Aetate (28 October 1965), the Catholic Church’s landmark document that encouraged Catholics around the world to engage in dialogue and collaboration with people of other religious traditions. It urged all to ‘recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values’ found among them (NA 2) in the service of promoting peace. Over the past six decades, this historic initiative of interreligious dialogue has evolved into a global project, generously supported and championed by people of diverse religious beliefs and non-beliefs alike, thereby making a significant contribution to world peace.”
The Vatican encourages “Catholics around the world to engage in dialogue and collaboration with people of other religious traditions.” And because the Vatican takes this seriously, we can easily imagine Leo XIV heaping praise upon Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, and every type of Protestant for the way in which these groups believe and practice their false religions. However, it would send shockwaves throughout the Church and world if Leo XIV were to similarly praise and encourage Traditional Catholics.
At least superficially, this astounding reality could be a source of desolation for Traditional Catholics. But if we look beyond superficial appearances, it should be clear that God has given Traditional Catholics abundant consolations and confirmations that we are indeed right to want to follow the religion as Catholics knew it prior to Vatican II.
After God inspired the popes to deliver their warnings, He allowed the events of the post-Conciliar period to teach us far greater truths about the Faith (and the need to defend them) than we could have understood in absence of the crisis.
We Accept the Warnings of the Popes
In hindsight, it is evident that the warnings of the pre-Vatican II popes oppose so many of the evils that have plagued the Church since Vatican II. The following are among the most important of these warnings:
Traditional Catholics still believe essentially all of these writings in the same sense in which the popes clearly intended them. They warned not only the Catholics of their own times, but also all Catholics who will strive to save their souls until the end of the world, that the errors they condemned were poison to the Catholic Faith. “If you accept these errors,” they told us, “incalculable harm will result for Catholics, the Church, and the world.”
Because Traditional Catholics still believe what the pre-Vatican II popes wanted all Catholics to always believe, we can easily understand why the Church is facing the crisis we see today: John XXIII and his successors set aside the papal warnings, and so Catholics, the Church, and the world have suffered the harms the pre-Vatican II popes foresaw. Thus, Traditional Catholics have this consolation of understanding how and why the Church is suffering the current crisis.
Moreover, there is a deeper consolation when we consider that these papal warnings have naturally become more credible and essential now that we have seen how prescient they were. After God inspired the popes to deliver their warnings, He did not merely stand back to watch whether men would follow them. Rather, God’s Providence has allowed the events of the post-Conciliar period to teach us far greater truths about the Faith (and the need to defend them) than we could have understood in absence of the crisis. The process of learning these lessons has permitted Traditional Catholics to fortify and purify their faith and draw closer to God. In this way, God can bring great good from the crisis in the form of strengthening the faith of those Catholics who adhere to what the Church always teaches.
If we must look beyond the plain meaning of what has been communicated for the past sixty years to formulate some version in our minds that comports with what the Church has always taught, we might as well admit that we have become Protestants in union with a “bishop of Rome.” And this is precisely the aim of the Synodal Church.
Our Lord and the Saints Prepared Us for These Times
Still, some Catholics argue that the Traditional Catholic view of the current state of the crisis cannot be accurate because it would mean that the Church had defected. Many conservative defenders of Vatican II in particular believe that the following words of Jesus preclude a situation in which the Church appears to be teaching error:
“And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18)
Theologians throughout the centuries have naturally sought to explain what this promise means in terms of what it would look like for the the gates of hell to prevail against the Church. While such explanations are perhaps useful to an extent, there is a danger in treating Our Lord’s words as a litmus test by which to identify the Church rather than a consoling promise that He will always protect the Church from being completely overcome. It is for Him to determine what that protection looks like, and for us to trust.
In addition to Our Lord’s promise of always protecting the Church, we must also weigh His words that suggest how much damage the assaults from hell might cause:
“For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect.” (Matthew 24:24)
“But yet the Son of Man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, faith on earth?” (Luke 8:18)
If the crisis were to reach this point at which even the elect would be deceived if God did not intervene, then it would surely appear to many that the gates of hell had prevailed. It would be in those times that Our Lord’s promise would be of greatest value and consolation. In this sense, we can see that God has prepared us for times such as those in which we now live.
We adhere to a religion that is truly One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, whereas those who persecute us now adhere to the Synodal religion which is the complete inversion of the Church.
We also have the warnings of Our Lady of Fatima, and particularly the so-called Third Secret of Fatima. While there is much disagreement about the actual contents of that message, several clerics who had knowledge of the secret have indicated that it relates to apostasy at the highest level of the Catholic Church:
Strictly speaking, Catholics do not have to accept the validity of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima, let alone the interpretations of the Third Secret. Nonetheless, as discussed in a previous article, these interpretations of the Third Secret explain not only the grave crisis the Church has experienced since John XXIII refused to reveal the secret prior to the Council, but also why the Vatican offered a self-evidently deficient interpretation of the Third Secret in 2000. Heaven was preparing us for what we endure now, and only those who are persecuted by Rome for trying to adhere to what the Church has always taught truly appreciate Our Lady of Fatima’s warnings.
Only Traditional Catholics could sincerely take the Oath Against Modernism in the same sense in which St. Pius X obviously intended it.
We Are Faithful to What the Church Has Always Taught
Still, some Catholics attempt to argue that Traditional Catholic resistance to the Vatican II revolution amounts to a schismatic rejection of the living Magisterium. True fidelity, they argue, demands that we interpret the apparent novelties of Vatican II and the post-Conciliar popes in light of what the Church has always taught. It has not been pointed out often enough that this way of living the “hermeneutic of continuity” necessarily requires such a nuanced personal interpretation of heterodox and ambiguous teaching that it effectively reduces the concept of fidelity to the Magisterium to a blasphemous superstition. If, in other words, we must look beyond the plain meaning of what has been communicated for the past sixty years to formulate some version in our minds that comports with what the Church has always taught, we might as well admit that we have become Protestants in union with a “bishop of Rome.” Incidentally, this is precisely the aim of the Synodal Church.
Traditional Catholics take a different approach, consistent with the words that St. Pius X included in his Oath Against Modernism to protect the Church against the evils that reign in Rome today:
“I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously.”
Only Traditional Catholics could sincerely take the Oath Against Modernism in the same sense in which St. Pius X obviously intended it. Those Catholics who promote some form of the hermeneutic of continuity contradict these words of the Oath Against Modernism because they believe that we can accept the mutations of Catholic dogma promoted by Vatican II and the post-Conciliar hierarchy.
We Are Persecuted for Our Faith
In January 1907, St. Pius X spoke of persecution as a mark of the Church:
“The Church is called one, holy, Catholic, apostolic, Roman, and I would add, persecuted. Did Jesus Christ not say so? It is one of the Church’s characteristics to be always persecuted. Persecution is the sign that we are truly the children of the Church of Jesus Christ.”
If we look at all of those who call themselves Catholic, it is clear that Traditional Catholics are the only ones persecuted by Rome for trying to seriously practice the Catholic religion. This is all the more significant because we adhere to a religion that is truly One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, whereas those who persecute us now adhere to the Synodal religion which is the complete inversion of the Church.
We are persecuted not only by the Modernists and Liberals in Rome but also by a multitude of Catholics who smugly denounce us for resisting attempts to destroy the Church.
We are persecuted not only by the Modernists and Liberals in Rome but also by a multitude of Catholics who smugly denounce us for resisting attempts to destroy the Church. If Gnosticism is characterized by a belief that its adherents possess a “secret knowledge” that makes them true believers, it seems that some Catholics who defend the Vatican II revolution essentially promote an “inverted Gnosticism.” In this inverted Gnosticism of the pro-Vatican II Catholics — who insist that false ecumenism, blessings for same-sex unions, and the Synodal Church are consistent with Tradition — true believers are saved not by the possession of secret knowledge but a profound rejection of common knowledge. And they naturally persecute us in proportion to our insistence that Catholic truth cannot be rejected, even if the pope wants us to do so.
Thanks be to God that we are persecuted today for keeping the Faith! If the Modernists and Liberals trying to destroy the Church considered us their allies, we would surely be on the path to hell. It is far better to have the consolation of being able to sympathize with these words from Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s 1986 classic, Open Letter to Confused Catholics:
“What the clergy and the laity have achieved in spite of persecution by the liberal clergy (for, as Louis Veuillot says, ‘There is nobody more sectarian than a liberal’) is almost miraculous. Do not let yourself be taken in, dear reader, by the term ‘traditionalist’ which they would have people understand in a bad sense. In a way, it is a pleonasm because I cannot see who can be a Catholic without being a traditionalist. I think I have amply demonstrated in this book that the Church is a tradition. We are a tradition. They also speak of ‘integrism.' If by that we mean respect for the integrality of dogma, of the catechism, of Christian morality, of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, then yes, we are integrists. And I do not see how one can be a Catholic without being an integrist in that sense of the word. It has also been said that after me, my work will disappear because there will be no bishop to replace me. I am certain of the contrary; I have no worries on that account. I may die tomorrow, but the good Lord answers all problems. Enough bishops will be found in the world to ordain our seminarians: this I know. Even if at the moment He is keeping quiet, one or another of these bishops will receive from the Holy Ghost the courage needed to arise in his turn. If my work is of God, He will guard it and use it for the good of the Church. Our Lord has promised us, the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. This is why I persist, and if you wish to know the real reason for my persistence, it is this. At the hour of my death, when Our Lord asks me: ‘What have you done with your episcopate, what have you done with your episcopal and priestly grace?’ I do not want to hear from His lips the terrible words ‘You have helped to destroy the Church along with the rest of them.’”
There is likely more timely Catholic truth in each chapter of Archbishop Lefebvre’s book than there is in the combined works of all who have condemned him for the past several decades. May God give us the grace to stand with him in resisting the destruction of the Church, and with Our Lady at the Foot of the Cross as Jesus’s enemies continue to persecute us for trying to preserve what He left us. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
“The Church is called one, holy, Catholic, apostolic, Roman, and I would add, persecuted. Did Jesus Christ not say so? It is one of the Church’s characteristics to be always persecuted. Persecution is the sign that we are truly the children of the Church of Jesus Christ.”
If we look at all of those who call themselves Catholic, it is clear that Traditional Catholics are the only ones persecuted by Rome for trying to seriously practice the Catholic religion. This is all the more significant because we adhere to a religion that is truly One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, whereas those who persecute us now adhere to the Synodal religion which is the complete inversion of the Church.
Ping
For the first time since the Protestant Reformation, a reigning British monarch and a pope will pray together publicly during a royal state visit to the Vatican.
And what will they be praying for?
King Charles III will join in ecumenical prayer presided over by Pope Leo XIV for the care of creation inside the Sistine Chapel on Oct. 23, beneath Michelangelo’s frescoed ceiling, during the king’s first state visit to the Vatican with Queen Camila.
Perhaps one of Rome's top false teachings. Rome cannot point to the "unanimous consent" of the ECFs on too many of their key dogmas....and Roman Catholic apologists know this.
And there we go. There’s always someone that has to butt into a Catholic article to say something nasty.
Should we point out the various beliefs of the sons of Luther?
The whole article is saying nasty things about the Roman Catholic church...and was posted by one of the most anti-pope RCs on the entire forum. LOL!!!!
Ask the Mod to put it in your private “caucus”
Or,
Expect criticism.
There it is.
So, Shut up.
Can’t be caucus as it mentions other groups.
But that's what he does. Lie.
And you persist in your mortal sins....but you've got a whole lot of other stuff you need to get squared away.
Should be a simple yes or no on the second question.
This?
“ And because the Vatican takes this seriously, we can easily imagine Leo XIV heaping praise upon Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, and every type of Protestant for the way in which these groups believe and practice their false religions.”
Is this what you mean?
But considering the false claims by the Romans they probably wish they could have made it a caucus thread.
They simply aren't capable of public debate.
Comical coming from the guy who says God can sin.
He can't help himself. It's in his DNA,
It's like they (he) needs a weekly dose of ridicule.
>> Comical coming from the guy who says God can sin.<<
ebb....did you not say that all things were possible with God?
And did I not post that God cannot sin?
And you tried to double down on your error by posting a verse completely out of context in a pitiful, and I mean pitiful attempt to try and make a point
Are you going to add to your errors by trying to deny that??
You keep digging that hole you're in deeper and deeper.
*****
Tell us, ebb....who was the last legit pope? Is the current guy legit??
Should be a simple yes or no on the second question.
Taking you that long to think up another falsehood??
Slow to catch on, I see.
Speaking of slow......awaiting your answers.
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