Posted on 11/22/2004 4:51:06 PM PST by Land of the Irish
My Brothers in Christ and My Friends, With great sorrow I read today that you are now "considered perfectly inserted in the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church." I never knew you left. During those memorable days when I visited you in 1991 while doing research for my book on your great and honored Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer, I had the privilege of witnessing the Catholic life of your diocese, the most perfect embodiment of the Catholic life in a contemporary setting which I have ever witnessed and so much more than I could ever imagine. What a blessing you have been granted! What extraordinary graces you have received, undoubtedly through the prayers and sacrifices and work of the unique Bishop who tended the flock of Campos as shepherd for so many decades. In what way were you not then Catholic? In what way were you separated from the Church?
Your announcement that the Holy Father has signed a "letter of entrance," welcoming you "in full ecclesial communion" along with "the Catholic faithful (you) assist" suggests that there had been some separation with Rome, that you were in fact in some sort of schism. Had not the Catholic Faith been handed down intact and in perfect fullness from Our Lord Jesus Christ through His Apostles and through the Bishops of His Church until it came to be passed throughout the Diocese of Campos in our time by the fully Catholic Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer? What did he teach you which was not Catholic? Where did he lead you that left you separated from Rome and thus needing to "return"?
The sad fact is clear, even though the details are not yet fully revealed. You have signed an agreement with Modernist Rome and thereby turned your back on the great legacy of your great and beloved Bishop who left you in April of 1991, left you because God called him home, left you secure and Catholic and well provided for. His legacy has now been compromised through the compromise which must have been made with the current power players in Modernist and Progressive Rome, distinct and separate itself from Eternal Rome. To affect a compromise, one must assume leaving one’s position and moving toward a middle ground. The position you must leave is the fullness of the Tradition of the Catholic Faith; the new position you must reach is closer to the outskirts of the New Rome, the Rome of bureaucrats and ambiguous talk and ecumenism and collegiality and religious liberty, all the temptations and errors against which your good pastor so courageously and so comprehensively warned and instructed you.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his memorable and insightful address at the Harvard commencement ceremonies in 1978 stated that "a decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outsider observer notices in the West in our days." For many years the name of the Diocese of Campos has brought to Catholic souls battling error and decay in their own parishes, the clear and resounding call to Catholic courage. In our apostate times, perseverance becomes an act of courage. The colossal moral and spiritual stature of the small human man who was your Bishop stood as a model for Catholic courage. Do you now cut his memory and legacy down to merely human size? Will the name of Campos no longer loudly ring with courage but echo distantly with compromise?
Who can doubt your discomfort or not sympathize with the loneliness you must have felt over the years? A small group of priests, organized together as the Priestly Society of Saint Jean Marie Vianney, carrying on the work of Mother Church in isolation, unnoticed, ignored, except when vilified by the voices of those who long ago made their compromises. But what could be more indicative of your true role as alter Christi if not your work in loneliness and sorrow, with those mocking and derisive voices assailing you? To imagine yourselves now "inserted in the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church" is no solution. You may have a few moments in bonhomie with red and scarlet and purple in the cool marble palaces of the Eternal City, but will Tradition continue in the Diocese of Campos after the compromising and celebrating? How have all other traditional groups fared once they have put themselves under the sway of Modernist Rome? I will not give you the litany of loss and change for you are already aware of it; I will just ask you where is the Traditional Bishop promised to the Fraternity of Saint Peter fourteen years ago? Are the prelates in Modernist Rome to be trusted? Will they deliver to you on the promises they have made? I quote the wise Solzhenitsyn again, "Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?"
You have announced that in a solemn ceremony to be held in the Cathedral of the Most Holy Savior by His Eminence, Cardinal Msgr. Dario Castrillon, Prefect of the Holy Congregation for the Clergy, in the name of the Holy Father, the Pope, on the 18th January, there will be a reading of documents and the singing of the "Te Deum." The 18th of January also begins the "Week of Prayer for Christian Unity" decreed by Rome which will culminate in the Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi on January 24th, the second such ecumenical outrage in recent years, a kind of gathering condemned, as you well know, by earlier popes. Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer in a joint statement with Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre spoke with the voice of Roman Catholic Tradition in condemning the gathering of religions at Assisi in October of 1987 [sic; the event actually occurred in 1986], the first such outrageous ecumenical prayer venture. Have you forgotten his wise and proscriptive words? Will you now join your hands in prayer with Modernist Rome as it openly violates the First Commandment of God and prays with Lutherans and Anglicans and Muslims and Deists and animists in defiance of Catholic Tradition and then will you pretend still to be Traditionalists? Have you forgotten your own words when in your public Profession of Faith in 1982 you rejected "the ecumenism that makes the Faith grow cold and makes us forget our Catholic identity, seeking to negate the antagonism between light and darkness, between Christ and Belial..." ?
You may protest that you will maintain Traditionalism in your diocese, that you will still celebrate the Mass of All Time and teach the old catechisms and carry on in the Traditional ways. But do you not understand that in compromising you accept an absurd contradiction, an illogical proposition that any sane mind must condemn —that Mother Church in Her Divine Authority can teach contradictory ideas at different times and pretend they are both true. How can your Traditionalism co-exist with Modernism? How can the Mass of All Time be equivalent with the newfangled human contrivance? How can Catholics be forbidden from ecumenical prayer at one time and then encouraged in such actions at a later time? As Hamlet says, when staring at the skull of Yorick, the "gorge rises at it." Such a stark and deadly affront to reason is horrifying. Are you now willing to play this absurd Modernist game with Modernist Rome? Many weary and troubled Catholics will feel the weight of your decision. Already the remarks are circulating that you have "sold out" and "caved in" and "given up". The truth is you have abandoned reason. May I remind you of the words of a prayer you have often prayed? "...Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et in saecula saeculorum..." As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end.
In his courageous statement of June 30, 1988, in Econe, on the occasion of the consecration of Traditional Bishops by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, your courageous Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer in his message of support and unity spoke the following words:
"It is sorrowful to see the lamentable blindness of so many confreres in the Episcopacy and the priesthood, who do not see, or who do not wish to see, the present crisis in order to be faithful to the mission which God has confided to us, to resist the modernism at present ruling."
You no longer "wish to see the present crisis"; you no longer wish "to resist the modernism at present ruling." By your action of compromise with the "modernism at present ruling," you have increased the sorrow of your great Bishop; you have increased the sorrow of your devoted friends. Our Lord in His agony in the garden certainly suffered from the hatred of His enemies, but such suffering was nothing compared to the certain knowledge that He would be betrayed and denied by His friends and disciples.
Be assured of my prayers.
In Christ,
David Allen White
Would that be Catholic historians, or historians in general? Also, I don't think any Pope in the 20th century can top St. Pius X.
How is he the greatest pope of the 20th century?
Seeing as St. Pius X was a saint and all.
I have no idea to what you refer.
I agree. Attend the most holy and true mass and then go in peace. It's funny. We never had to discuss religion and mass every single day of the week or constantly talk about it when we were growing up. We did what we did and that was that. As Rush Limbauh says: "It is what it is." We attend a traditional Latin mass. We love every single minute of it. It is what we grew up with and we go a couple times a week and even go to the high masses. We love it. But...we don't talk about it 24 hours a day. I say go to the mass you want (we chose a long time ago not to attend mass after Vatican II that's our decision and at 65 years of age growing up Catholic in Catholic schools till high school graduation, raising our family Catholic and all the rest...I don't need the Pope or any Bishop telling me what is right. What we do in our heart is right and staying with what we believe is what we do. I like you am sick of all this talk. There is too much talk in this world with everyone minding the business of someone else.
Amen! :)
"Getting a little cranky are we.
Someone needs a nap."
I think you are correct. I do need a nap. I apologize for my crankiness. I just sent plugged my ping list into the "To" line. I was not acusing anyone in particular of anything.
Re: the discussion of tactics, I think that Blessed Charlemagne has a point. There seems to be a lot of "drive by posting" going on. What exactly is the function of the various posts like "JP2 sux!!!", "JP2 rulz!!!", or their rough equivalents?
I think that every Catholic who is posting to a discussion such as this one needs to first always make a serious examination of his own soul, to discern what is motivating him. Does he just want to "put his two cents in"? Or is he trying to edify his neighbor, or admonish a sinner, or confirm his brethren?
It seems to me the mere desire to express one's opinion proceeds from vanity, and should be avoided in any matter as serious as the present crisis, where failure to make careful distinctions can scandalize those of our brethren who are weaker in the faith. All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but all things do not edify...Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God.
Before everything a Christian says, or writes, or does, he ought to think of those who will hear him, or read him, or see him, and ask himself, "Will the True Faith be thought better of by my witness than before, or worse?" It is impossible that scandals should not come: but woe to him through whom they come.
Please at all times remember the sins of the tongue, and guard against them.
If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man...For if we put bits into the mouths of horses, that they may obey us, and we turn about their whole body...Even so the tongue is indeed a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold how small a fire kindleth a great wood. And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is placed among our members, which defileth the whole body, and inflameth the wheel of our nativity, being set on fire by hell.
LOL The Living Magisterium provides some liturgical history and you reject it and I am supposed to listen to your uninformed and irrational judgements about the Living Magisterium?
The language of any Church or rite, as distinct from the vulgar tongue, is that used in the official services and may or may not be the common language. For instance the Rumanian Church uses liturgically the ordinary language of the country, while Latin is used by the Latin Church for her Liturgy without regard to the mother tongue of the clergy or congregation. There are many cases of an intermediate state between these extremes, in which the liturgical language is an older form of the vulgar tongue, sometimes easily, sometimes hardly at all, understood by people who have not studied it specially. Language is not rite. Theoretically any rite may exist in any language. Thus the Armenian, Coptic, and East Syrian Rites are celebrated always in one language, the Byzantine Rite is used in a great number of tongues, and in other rites one language sometimes enormously preponderates but is not used exclusively. This is determined by church discipline.... Each liturgical language was first chosen because it was the natural language of the people. ...
History
In the West the whole situation is different. Greek was first used at Rome, too. About the third century the services were translated into the vulgar tongue, Latin (see MASS, LITURGY OF THE), which has remained ever since...
Use of Latin The principle of using Latin in church is in no way fundamental. It is a question of discipline that evolved differently in East and West, and may not be defended as either primitive or universal. The authority of the Church could change the liturgical language at any time without sacrificing any important principle. The idea of a universal tongue may seem attractive, but is contradicted by the fact that the Catholic Church uses eight or nine different liturgical languages...
Uniformity of rite or liturgical language has never been a Catholic ideal, nor was Latin chosen deliberately as a sacred language. Had there been any such idea the language would have been Hebrew or Greek...
VI. LITURGICAL SCIENCE
A. Rubrics
The most obvious and necessary study for ecclesiastical persons is that of the laws that regulate the performance of liturgical functions. From this point of view liturgical study is a branch of canon law. The rules for the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, administration of sacraments, etc., are part of the positive law of the Church, just as much as the laws about benefices, church property, or fasting, and oblige those whom they concern under pain of sin.
History
The development of the various rites, their spread and mutual influence, the origin of each ceremony, etc., form a part of church history whose importance is becoming more and more realized. For practical purposes all a priest need know are the present rules that affect the services he has to perform, as in general the present laws of the Church are all we have to obey. Dogmatic Value
The dogmatic and apologetic value of liturgical science is a very important consideration to the theologian. It must, of course, be used reasonably. No Church intends to commit herself officially to every statement and implication contained in her official books, any more than she is committed to everything said by her Fathers.
... There are then these three aspects under which liturgiology should be considered by a Catholic theologian, as an element of canon law, church history, and dogmatic theology...
Liturgiologists in the Ante-Nicene period, such as Justin Martyr, composed or wrote down descriptions of ceremonies performed, but made no examination of the sources of rites.
ADRIAN FORTESCUE
*Written by a trad-peep authority, these quotes lifted from "Rites" in the Catholic Encyclopedia (newadvent.com) illustrate those opposing the Living Magisterium have no rational basis for their opposition. It is the Living Magisterium, not you, not The Remnant, not the Catholic Family News, not the excomunicated schismatic Lefevbre, who has authority.
As far as Bugnini, pffffft; who cares. Every individual ever involved in these issues are sinners. That goes in spades for schismatics :)
A. Name and Definition
The Mass is the complex of prayers and ceremonies that make up the service of the Eucharist in the Latin rites....In the first period, while Greek was still the Christian language at Rome, we find the usual Greek names used there, as in the East. The commonest was Eucharistia, used both for the consecrated bread and wine and for the whole service. Clement of Rome (d. about 101) uses the verbal form still in its general sense of "giving thanks", but also in connection with the Liturgy (I Clem., Ad Cor., xxxviii, 4: kata panta eucharistein auto). The other chief witness for the earliest Roman Liturgy, Justin Martyr (d. c. 167), speaks of eucharist in both senses repeatedly (Apol., I, lxv, 3, 5; lxvi, 1; lxvii, 5)....It should be noted that the name Mass (missa) applies to the Eucharistic service in the Latin rites only. Neither in Latin nor in Greek has it ever been applied to any Eastern rite. For them the corresponding word is Liturgy (liturgia). It is a mistake that leads to confusion, and a scientific inexactitude, to speak of any Eastern Liturgy as a Mass. ...
B. The Origin of the Mass
The Western Mass, like all Liturgies, begins, of course, with the Last Supper. What Christ then did, repeated as he commanded in memory of Him, is the nucleus of the Mass. As soon as the Faith was brought to the West the Holy Eucharist was celebrated here, as in the East. At first the language used was Greek. Out of that earliest Liturgy, the language being changed to Latin, developed the two great parent rites of the West, the Roman and the Gallican (see LITURGY). Of these two the Gallican Mass may be traced without difficulty. It is so plainly Antiochene in its structure, in the very text of many of ifs prayers, that we are safe in accounting for it as a translated form of the Liturgy of Jerusalem-Antioch, brought to the West at about the time when the more or less fluid universal Liturgy of the first three centuries gave place to different fixed rites (see LITURGY; GALLICAN RITE). The origin of the Roman Mass, on the other hand, is a most difficult question, We have here two fixed and certain data: the Liturgy in Greek described by St. Justin Martyr (d. c. 165), which is that of the Church of Rome in the second century, and, at the other end of the development, the Liturgy of the first Roman Sacramentaries in Latin, in about the sixth century. The two are very different. Justin's account represents a rite of what we should now call an Eastern type, corresponding with remarkable exactness to that of the Apostolic Constitutions (see LITURGY). The Leonine and Gelasian Sacramentaries show us what is practically our present Roman Mass. How did the service change from the one to the other?... Justin Martyr.. Justin gives us the fullest Liturgical description of any Father of the first three centuries ..He describes how the Holy Eucharist was celebrated at Rome in the middle of the second century; his account is the necessary point of departure, one end of a chain whose intermediate links are hidden. We have hardly any knowledge at all of what developments the Roman Rite went through during the third and fourth centuries. This is the mysterious time where conjecture may, and does, run riot.... By the fifth century we come back to comparatively firm ground, after a radical change. ... But between this original Roman Rite (which we can study only in the Apost. Const.) and the Mass as it emerges in the first sacramentaries (sixth to seventh century) there is a great change. Much of this change is accounted for by the Roman tendency to shorten. ... We notice that these important changes have already been made: the kiss of peace has been moved from the beginning of the Mass of the Faithful to after the Consecration, the Commemoration of the Living and Dead is made in the Canon, and there are no longer prayers of the faithful before the Offertory...the Invocation of the Holy Ghost has already disappeared from the Mass...
The "Liber Pontificalis" (ed. Duchesne, Paris, 1886-92) contains a number of statements about changes in and additions to the Mass made by various popes,.. as for instance that Leo I (440-61) added the words "sanctum sacrificium, immaculatam hostiam" to the prayer "Supra quæ", that Sergius I (687-701) introduced the Agnus Dei, and so on...
We come now to the end of a period at the reign of St. Gregory I (590-604). Gregory knew the Mass practically as we still have it. There have been additions and changes since his time, but none to compare with the complete recasting of the Canon that took place before him.
*Another Catholic Encyclopedia entry by trad-peep authority Adrian Fortescue illustrating that, contrary to the nonsense promoted by the know-it-alls that nothing is ever removed from the Liturgy or no novelties are ever introduced ..blah, blah, blah all you object to is done out of your own personal opinions which are, while perhaps interesting, no basis for rejecting the authority of the Living Magisterium established by Jesus which decided what will be or will not be included in the Liturgy.
Holy Mother Church decides what is best for her children in every epoch. Not the Remnant, not Catholic Family News, not excomunicated prelates, not the poor historian Michael Davies, not you, not me, not sinkspur..the Living Magisterium decides and we comply - if we are real Christian men.
...all the faithful of Christ must believe "that the Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff hold primacy over the whole world, and that the Pontiff of Rome himself is the successor of the blessed Peter, the chief of the apostles, and is the true vicar of Christ and head of the whole Church and faith, and teacher of all Christians; and that to him was handed down in blessed Peter, by our Lord Jesus Christ, full power to feed, rule, and guide the universal Church, just as is also contained in the records of the ecumenical Councils and in the sacred canons.
... the faithful of whatever rite and dignity, both as separate individuals and all together, are bound by a duty of hierarchical submission and true obedience, not only in things pertaining to faith and morals, but also in those which pertain to the discipline and government of the Church spread over the whole world, so that the Church of Christ, protected not only by the Roman Pontiff, but by the unity of communion as well as of the profession of the same faith is one flock under the one highest shepherd. This is the doctrine of Catholic truth from which no one can deviate and keep his faith and salvation..."
*or, one can obey The Remnant, Catholic Family News, an excomunicated prelate, or your own inclinations.
Thank you. That is what I was trying to say.
Before you get too sanctimonious, read my post. It was about Opus Dei. Another poster claimed that if I couldn't prove my assertions, then I shouldn't be posting them.
I have had several negative, personal experiences with Opus Dei. If you don't like my opinions then fine. But to admonish me for not posting "evidence" is childish.
Please at all times remember the sins of the tongue, and guard against them.
Read your own words. In your effort to be holier than thou, you are coming across as as Pharisee.
Present crisis? Is that phrase a careful distinction?
My comments were general on purpose, because I did not intend my post as an attack on anyone in particular. I cc'd you on my post because you were the person who was currently arguing with Blessed at that time. In retrospect I should not have done so. I am sorry if my post came across as a specific indictment of you.
...to admonish me for not posting "evidence" is childish
If by evidence you mean a doctoral dissertation with footnotes, then I certainly agree. However, let us consider your original post:
Opus Dei is a cult. Opus Dei hates tradition. Opus dei loves the Novus Ordo. Opus Dei defends EVERYTHING JPII does. Those things aren't good in my book.
Again, I ask you: what is the function of that post (or, for that matter, any post)? I can think of two ends that a poster might have in mind.
1. To offend the reader: I do not believe that this was your intent. I include it only for completeness. But I think that you would agree that any post made for the specific purpose of inciting anger in another person is a sin, no?
2. To convince the reader of your position.
St. Thomas, when he is speaking of the attributes of God, says that the divine Wisdom consists in that God always chooses the means that are appropriate to the end. It would then be fair to define Foolishness, which Scripture frequently constrasts with Wisdom, as the choice of means that are not appropriate to the end.
I am assuming that your end in your above post was to warn your fellow Catholics against the danger that you believe Opus Dei represents (please correct me if I am wrong). So let us consider two readers: Reader #1 knows nothing about Opus Dei, Reader #2 is involved with them but has not yet, "drunk the Kool-Aid."
So judge in your own case: is your post Wise or Foolish? That is, is it fit to attain your end or not? How do you think that these two readers would respond to your post?
Skipping back a bit: I have had several negative, personal experiences with Opus Dei. If you don't like my opinions then fine.
Actually, I am very interested in your opinions. I know nothing about Opus Dei except that it was bashed in the Da Vinci Code (which doesn't exactly incline me against it) and that you think it is a cult. If your experience is not too personal, would you consider letting me know what it is that Opus Dei has done that disturbs you?
Read your own words. In your effort to be holier than thou, you are coming across as as Pharisee.
I am deeply sorry for whatever I said that offended you. Please believe that it was not my intent.
I'm sorry. It never occurred to me that anyone did not think that we are in a crisis. I will provide an example:
1. News polls show that 90% of Catholics do not believe in the Church's teaching on contraception.
2. I have a hard time imagining that this dissent proceeds from invincible ignorance in any but a handful of cases. Again, I may be wrong, but I would be surprised to hear anyone, whether Catholic or not, say, "Really? The Church condemns artifical contraception? No way!"
3. St. Thomas teaches that the denial of a single article of faith means that a person does not have divine faith even in the articles to which he assents.
4. Sacred Scripture says, Without faith it is impossible to please God and Whoever does not believe is already condemned.
Therefore, I have no choice to conclude that some 80-90% of the Catholic population of the United States has no hope of salvation. I would call that a crisis. Do you not agree?
If anyone can see any error in my logic, please tell me.
1. ...But I think that you would agree that any post made for the specific purpose of inciting anger in another person is a sin, no?
True, and somebody better draw that heavy Confession curtain pretty doggone quick, 'cause there's gonna be a mad rush.
Don't know if you'd know or not, but is it a sin to hope for the excommunication of a person or people? And as a Catholic, is it a sin to tell somebody to drop dead? Also, profanity is a venial sin, right?
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