The Twenty Mysteries of the Rosary?

The Apostolic Letter opens the door for a "pastoral approach" to the Rosary that is "positive, impassioned and creative - as shown by World Youth Days". In other words, a nod is given to a jazzed-up Rosary for the "youth".

"When one lives by novelty, there will always have to be a new novelty." - Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

On October 16, 2002, Pope John Paul II marked the 24th Anniversary of his papacy with the release of the Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, in which he proclaimed a "Year of the Rosary" from October 2002 to October 2003. The document also contained a major innovation from a Pope whose Pontificate has been marked by a steady stream of novelties. He announced that he would add five new mysteries to the Rosary.

Word of the new mysteries was reported first on October 14 by various news agencies claiming that information was leaked from Vatican sources.

Father Richard John Neuhaus from First Things magazine found these early reports hard to believe, and told The Chicago Tribune that the Pope was not likely to alter the Rosary. "That he would suggest," said Neuhaus "or even declare some kind of official change to the Rosary is totally atypical, totally out of character." Neuhaus then said that the Pope does not have the authority to mandate changes in such a prayer.1

Father Neuhaus is correct that a Pope cannot mandate such changes, but he is mistaken to claim that the Pope's change of the Rosary would be "out of character" for this Pontiff of post-Conciliar aggiornamento. Even the secular press recognizes John Paul II as a man with a passion for setting papal precedents.

The New York Times' Frank Bruni wrote on October 15: "Time and again, Pope John Paul II has boldly gone where other Popes have not: a synagogue, a ski slope, distant countries with tiny populations. Tomorrow, he will apparently cross another frontier, making a significant change in the Rosary, a signature method of Catholic prayer for many centuries." 2

Bruni failed to mention that John Paul is also the first Pope to kiss the Koran,3 participate in rock'n'roll liturgies,4 allow Altar Girls, permit "lay ministers" to distribute Communion at his Papal Mass,5 suggest a "common martyrology" that contains Catholics and non- Catholics, praise documents that call the need for non- Catholics to convert to the Catholic Church an "outdated ecclesiology," 6 take part in "inculturated" ceremonies that includes pagan ritual,7 and convoke pan-religious prayer meetings that include Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Snake-worshipers.8

On the same theme, Rueters said, "Changing one of Christianity's most fundamental prayers after nearly a millennium will be a typical way for the 82- year-old Pope to crown 24 years of a pontificate marked by bold initiatives sometimes taken against the advice of aides." 9

The "new mysteries" of the Rosary took everyone by surprise. Thus I have postponed publication of Part III of my World Youth Day series10 in order to comment on this latest "bold initiative".

Two weeks previously, the pontiff announced he was preparing a document to stress the value of the Rosary. He urged the faithful to recite the Rosary, including together as families. John Paul said then that he wanted people to "rediscover the beauty and depth of this prayer".

The Pope, for a good part of the Apostolic Letter was true to his word. Much of Rosarium Virginis Mariae is praiseworthy, even edifying. How can one argue with the promulgation of a "Year of the Rosary" in order to revitalize practice of this Holy devotion? How can one find fault with the Pope's call to pray the Rosary for peace? How can one complain when the Pope laments that families are fragmented, that they often get together only to watch television, and that they should set some time aside to pray the Rosary together instead?

Also of interest was the Pope's frequent references to Blessed Bartholomew Longo (1841-1926) who was baptized Catholic, left the faith to become a satanic priest, and then repented, converted back to Catholicism and became an apostle of the Rosary. This is a beautiful lesson that conversion is possible even in apparently hopeless cases.

It is probable that the Letter will do much good in revitalizing Rosary devotion. Tens-of-thousands of Catholics who do not follow the details of Vatican events, will simply learn through the press, or from parish priests, that the Pope wants a renewed devotion to the Rosary and they will comply. I have little doubt that this Letter will produce its desired goal to inspire more Catholics in this holy exercise.

Yet at the same time, countless Catholics are baffled at the unnecessary addition of five new mysteries. What is this strange post-conciliar belief among today's Church leaders that Catholics will not find a traditional devotion interesting unless John Paul updates it? Why is it thought necessary to disfigure our devotions in order to capture a Catholic's attention? Why was it requisite for the Pope to put his personal stamp on the Rosary, rather than simply promote it as is: as did all the Popes before him, as did countless saints, and as did the Mother of God at Fatima?

The addition proposed by the Pope, called the Five Luminous Mysteries, also called the "Mysteries of Light," center on the public life of Christ. They are:

the Baptism of Christ in Jordan, the Wedding Feast at Cana, the Announcement of the Kingdom, the Transfiguration, the Institution of the Eucharist as the sacramental expression of the Paschal Mystery. These new mysteries, according to John Paul, are to be placed between the Joyful and Sorrowful Mysteries.

The Pope says that these additions are not mandatory, and explains his reason for the change. "I believe" he writes, "that to bring out fully the Christological depth of the Rosary, it would be suitable to make an addition to the traditional pattern which, while left to the freedom of individuals and communities, could broaden it to include the mysteries of Christ's public ministry between His Baptism and His Passion." 11

Do you know of any Catholic, any saint, any Pope who ever considered the Rosary "lacking" in Christological depth? Did not the saints and the Popes constantly speak of the excellence of the Rosary? Did they ever suggest a radical addition to alter the structure of the Rosary in order to "improve" what was already excellent?

Reaction to the new mysteries has been predictable: everything from traditional Catholics who call it an "outrage," to Medjugorje followers who claim it "bears all the hallmarks of Divine inspiration". Once again, the much-vaunted "Pope of unity" has launched a novelty that divides Catholics.

A constant characteristic of the pre-Vatican II Popes was to abhor novelty and to safeguard tradition, including traditional devotions.

Thus, if one could go back in time and ask any of the pre-Vatican II Popes why they never added "new mysteries" to the Rosary, the answer is easy to presume. "Because," the pre-conciliar Pope would say, "if I add 5 new mysteries, I will have to add 5 new decades. If I add five new decades, then the Rosary can no longer be called 'Our Lady's Psalter'. Now Catholic tradition, my holy predecessors and Our Blessed Mother referred to the Rosary as Her 'Psalter', because the 150 Hail Mary's of the 15-decade Rosary correspond to the 150 Psalms of David. It would be audacious of me to add 5 decades. This would be the decimation of the entire concept of Mary's 'Psalter', a term hallowed by centuries of usage, a term that explains the origin and essence of the Rosary, a term used by the Queen of Heaven Herself. Further, if I make this radical change to the Rosary, then what is to prevent more radical changes in the future?"

The entire history of the Rosary is bound up with the 150 Psalms of the Old Testament, otherwise known as the Psalter of David. From the dawn of Catholic history, monks and hermits prayed these Psalms as part of their daily liturgical life.

Saint Benedict, in his Holy Rule, explains that the monks of the desert recited the 150 Psalms every day. Saint Benedict arranged the Psalms for his monks so that all 150 would be recited in one week.12 This became the Divine Office (Breviary) that priests and religious recited every day until the post-conciliar aggiornamento revolutionized both Breviary and Mass.

The story of "Mary's Psalter" reportedly begins with the Irish monks in the 7th Century. These monks divided the 150 Psalms of David into a Na tri coicat format of three groups of fifty. Arranged in such a way, the "fifties" served both as reflective and corporal/penitential prayer.13

The people of the Middle Ages in their great love of Our Lady set to fashioning "Rosariums" in Her honor. They composed Psalms in praise of Mary to match the 150 Psalms of David. St. Anselm of Canterbury (1109) made such a Rosary. In the 13th Century, St. Bonaventure divided his 150 Marian Psalms into three groups. The first group commenced with the word Ave, the next with Salve, and the final fifty Psalms each commented with the word Gaude. Such Rosaries of praise took the name of Our Lady's Psalter.14

It was not long before the custom of reciting Hail Mary's became the substitute of reciting the Psalms in praise of Our Lady. "By the 13th Century" writes the Redemptorist Father James Galvin, "the number of Aves was set at one hundred and fifty to equal the number of the Psalms of David." 15

Saint Thomas Aquinas explains that the Psalter of David, composed as it is of one hundred and fifty Psalms, is divided into three equal parts of fifty Psalms each. These three equal parts represent figuratively the three stages in which the faithful find themselves: the state of penance, the state of justice, the state of glory. Likewise, explains Father Anthony Fuerst, "the Rosary of Mary is divided into three parts of fifty Hail Mary's each in order to express fully the phrases of the life of the faithful: penance, justice and glory." 16

Heaven itself declared the immeasurable value of this Psalter. In 1214, Our Blessed Mother told Saint Dominic to "preach My Psalter" in order to rekindle faith, to convert sinners and to crush stubborn heresy. Saint Louis de Montfort tells the story in his magnificent work, The Secret of the Rosary.

"Saint Dominic," writes Saint Louis, "seeing that the gravity of the peoples' sin was hindering the conversion of the Albigensians, withdrew to a forest near Toulouse where he prayed unceasingly for three days and three nights. During this time he did nothing but weep and do harsh penances in order to appease the anger of Almighty God. He used his discipline so much that his body was lacerated, and finally he fell into a coma."

Our Lady then appeared to him, accompanied by three angels. She said, "Dear Dominic, do you know which weapon the Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world?"

"I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the battering ram has always been the Angelic Psalter which is the foundation stone of the New Testament. Therefore if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach My Psalter." 17

She uses the language of the Church militant. She does not speak of the Rosary in a sentimental manner in order to achieve good feelings or pan-religious unity. No, She refers to it as battering ram against heresy.

She twice uses the term "Psalter", which is the Rosary designated as 150 Aves that link it to the Psalms of David. Regarding the Rosary's traditional structure, Msgr. George Shea writes, "Because its 150 Hail Mary's correspond to the 150 Psalms of the Psalter, the complete Rosary is sometimes called Our Lady's Psalter. In fact, the latter was its common designation down to the end of the 15th Century, while 'Rosary' was reserved for a part, i.e., a third, of Our Lady's Psalter." 18

As late as the last quarter of the 15th Century, Blessed Alaus de Rupe protested vigorously against the use of the terms "Rosario," "Chapelet" or "Corono," and insisted that the title of Our Lady's Psalter be retained.19 Msgr. Shea points out that the first indication from a Pope that the Psalter of Mary is commonly called "Rosary" is found in the Apostolic Constitution of Pope Leo X, Pastor Aeterni dated October 6, 1520, over three hundred years after Our Lady spoke to Saint Dominic.

The term "Psalter" of Mary, as a link to the 150 Psalms of David, is what we find consistently from the Popes throughout the centuries.

The Apostolic Constitution of Pope Leo X, Pastor Aeterni October 6, 1520, uses the term "Psalter of Mary" in connection to the Rosary.20

Pope Saint Pius V wrote in Consueverunt Romani of September 17, 1569, "And so Dominic looked to that simple way of praying and beseeching God, accessible to all and wholly pious, which is called the Rosary, or Psalter of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in which the same most Blessed Virgin is venerated by the angelic greeting repeated one hundred and fifty times, that is, according to the number of the Davidic Psalter, and by the Lord's Prayer with each decade." 21

Pope Leo XIII wrote "Just as by the recitation of the Divine Office, priests offer a public, constant, and most efficacious supplication; so the supplication offered by the members of this Sodality in the recitation of the Rosary, or 'Psalter of Our Lady' ..." 22

Pope Leo XIII later said, "The formula of the Rosary, too, is excellently adapted to prayer in common, so that it has been styled, not without reason, the 'Psalter of Mary'." 23

Pope Pius XI wrote in his Encyclical Ingravescentibus Malis. "Among the various supplications with which we successfully appeal to the Virgin Mother of God, the Holy Rosary without doubt occupies a special and distinct place. This prayer, which some call the Psalter of the Virgin or Breviary of the Gospel and of Christian life, was described and recommended by Our Predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII ..." 24

Sadly, Pope John Paul II has made the term "Psalter of Mary" with its rightful connection to the Psalter of David, as obsolete as fund drives for Pagan Babies. Anyone who accepts the twenty-decade Rosary, and still refers to the Rosary as Mary's Psalter, will use the term divested of meaning. Why introduce this destabilization? Would not Pope John Paul show more respect to the pious sentiments of Catholics worldwide, to his predecessors and to the Mother of God by leaving Her Psalter at peace?

This was defined by Pope Leo XIII. But so many other teachings of Pope Leo were overturned by Vatican II, why not this one also?
<> Name a single one "over-turned" by Vatican Two. Document. <>

Here is one example from Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Immortale Dei "On the Christian Constitution of States"

6. As a consequence, the State, constituted as it is, is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties linking it to God, by the public profession of religion. Nature and reason, which command every individual devoutly to worship God in holiness, because we belong to Him and must return to Him, since from Him we came, bind also the civil community by a like law. For, men living together in society are under the power of God no less than individuals are, and society, no less than individuals, owes gratitude to God who gave it being and maintains it and whose everbounteous goodness enriches it with countless blessings. Since, then, no one is allowed to be remiss in the service due to God, and since the chief duty of all men is to cling to religion in both its teaching and practice-not such religion as they may have a preference for, but the religion which God enjoins, and which certain and most clear marks show to be the only one true religion -- it is a public crime to act as though there were no God. So, too, is it a sin for the State not to have care for religion as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical benefit; or out of many forms of religion to adopt that one which chimes in with the fancy; for we are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will.

Look, nobody denies gradual change is inevitable. But revolution is out of the question. The Catholic Church emerged from the collapse of the Roman Empire virtually unchanged. Ditto from the French Revolution. Radical change in the world at large should be no pretext for radical change in the life of the Church.

The Protestant Reformation was different. It began as an attempt at revolution from within, but ended up as heresy. The Church rejected the assault from within and reaffirmed its Catholic identity. Now we face a similar assault--a complete seismic shift away from the deposit of faith to a new heretical religion more attuned to the Protestant theological perspective. This is what is totally unacceptable and must once more be rejected.

Notice how the modernists go about it. Not by an open denial of the faith, but by a subtle undermining of basic Catholic doctrines and rituals. No new doctrine has ever been expressly declared, though many outrageous trial balloons have been floated, but the Catholic perspective is still being systematically erased. This is because essential dogmas go untaught to the younger generation. They are being deliberately suppressed and ignored.

Here is one example. The Real Presence is not a dogma that is much mentioned. If modernists truly believed that Christ were present on the altar, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, after the words of Consecration--would they have removed all acknowledgment of the immensity of this fact? Would they have insisted, under one pretext or another, on removing references to this enormous truth in the text or in the rubrics of the New Mass, erasing all but one genuflection by the priest and even now prohibiting kneeling before communion? They do this in violation of Catholic yearnings to express devotion and adoration, and in violation of all Catholic tradition.

This can only be explained by modernist disbelief in the Catholic theological perspective. Loss of faith explains why the focus is on the assemblage and on Christ's virtual presence only in their midst, rather than on Christ's Real Presence offered as a sacrifice to the Father. Disbelief in the Catholic perspective also explains the casualness of communion in the hands and the shunting aside of the tabernacle and so much else. Christ is not actually present to these men, so they show this by what they do and decree.

This change in the way Catholics pray together at the Mass, together with hundreds of other changes, from a newly liberalized moral theology to the ripping-out of communion rails, has created a crisis in the Church and in the Catholic community. Very little now separates Catholics from Protestants. A whole generation of young people no longer believes in many of the doctrines once thought to be what essentially defined a Catholic--which seems not at all to bother the Vatican. It continues to push the envelope and to institute its many radical changes. So this is where we stand today. The new religion, more in keeping with mainline Protestantism, is being gradually imposed and the old faith is being gradually rejected.

Thank you ultima for your response. I thought your response made a pretty well-reasoned argument for the most part until I reached the following statements:
Very little now separates Catholics from Protestants. A whole generation of young people no longer believes in many of the doctrines once thought to be what essentially defined a Catholic--which seems not at all to bother the Vatican.

As far as I know, this "crisis" has largely been "limited" the "Roman rite" church, and not the "Eastern" rites of the Catholic church (I could be wrong). So you cannot say that conclusively. Also, it seems from my observations of your posts that you seem to be an enthusiast of the "pre-Vatican II" Church. But even this Church hasn't been everlasting. The Tridentine Mass was set in its "current" form at the Council of Trent (hence the name). The liturgies of the Eastern rites (the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom et al) are much older in their current forms than the Tridentine Mass. Do you doubt the validity and tradition of these rites?

I think one major problem here is that a blanket statement is being applied to all Catholics, and in particular, young Catholics (of which I am one). I think the miracle of this situation is that even with all that you have described, there are scores of young people who seek the Truth out, of our faith and our tradition. As much as the "crisis" has "liberalized moral theology" and "ripped-out communion rails," there are young people who are being divinely inspired to seek the Truth out. Many teachings have been left out of the religious education of these young people, yet the seek the Truth out. Why is that?

I think it is because of the individual nature of our Catholic faith. As much as Catholicism is a communal experience (the Mass, our religious upbringing, etc.), we still hear God "calling each one of us by name." While our parents, our extended family, and our Church teach us the tenets of our faith, it is nothing until we hear the call of God ourselves and respond by making the faith our own. This requires a conversion of the heart.

Yes, there might possibly be a revolution going on the Church at this moment. But it is probably MORE due to the inaction of many, than the actions of very few. If these things are supposedly happening because of Vatican II and the actions of the Holy See, there probably wouldn't be in as much of a problem. No, we are at this point, in my opinion, because we let the secular rule too much of our civilization, and as a result, opportunists ("liberation" theory theologians, leftists, peverts, et al) saw their chance to corrupt the Church when the Council met and in its wake, and make up their own rules as they saw fit. In response, too many of us have been complacent, and not have done our best to teach our offspring what Catholics believe. As Burke also said, "They only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." The Church has survived through far worse times. What we can do without is the corrupt intentions of the opportunists and the rantings from all sides, and trust in God. My "mottos" are the following:
Ex fide et ratione, Dominus(in other words, you will find the Lord through faith and reason, which is the "legacy" of St. Thomas Aquinas) and Vive Jesus (Live Jesus, a command)

Thank you for answering me so quickly. I'm going to double check on your answer about the Tridentine name, but it seems that you're right, if I remember correctly.

I am a witness to both the Truth, and the Truth's effect on young people. When I mentioned young people seeking out the Truth, I was speaking out of personal experience. I've seen the curiousity within my peers sparked on many different occasions, even within the "modernist" environment we worship in. I think a lot of this can be credited to one of both of two things: a strong faith background and/or upbringing; and/or a conversion experience in their life (whether it was a literal conversion from another faith to Catholicism or divine intervention in their life). One thing to remember is that the development of a individual's faith is a constant experience.

I'm one whose had both of the experiences mentioned above. My mother is a devout Catholic, whose mother studied at one time to be a nun, and was originally from Poland. My father is a naturalized American citizen originally from the Phillipines. So on both sides of my family, I have a strong culturally Catholic heritage. I grew up being taught the traditional prayers by my parents, and going to Mass every Sunday. I received twelve years of Catholic education, most of which was on a pretty traditionalist line. As I mentioned in pst #118, it was in grade school where I was immersed in the Lenten and other yearly traditions of my parish. I was also an altar boy from fourth grade until twelfth grade. I was also occasionally a lector.

Within this soil, my faith was planted. But it was sunlight and the cleansing waters of a conversion experience that sprouted my faith. I had a pretty rough junior year in high school. I was doing poorly academically and my relationship with my father was strained. My experiences that year made me feel like I had a really low self-worth. Even though I could never think or attempt of suicide, it felt like my life was pretty meaningless and worthless. But during Advent of that year, I went on an annual religious retreat that took place at a Norbertine abbey and retreat center. It was a definitely healing experience. I "rediscovered" God's Love for me. The whole experience helped me let go, and let God take things into His hands. However, it was only the first step of my journey.

In the meantime since then, like every almost every human being, I've done some very stupid and sinful things. Another thing that persisted even after the retreat was my mediocre prayer life. I didn't really talk to God, formally or informally, that much. Earlier this year, I discovered the Divine Mercy devotion. Now, I don't know what your opinion may be of the devotion itself, but the message itself is simple and completely consistant with our Catholic faith: our God is a merciful God, and that He desires that we ask for His mercy, that we be merciful towards others, and that we put our complete trust in Jesus. While I have gotten the part about asking God for mercy down pretty well, the other two I am still working on, and I will probably be working on them for the rest of my life. But my discovery of the Divine Mercy message and devotion has caused a slow but steady change in not only my prayer life, but in my heart. Now, I pray the Rosary and Divine Mercy chaplet almost every day and have tried to go to Daily Mass (when I get to bed early and haul my lazy bones out of bed in the morning).

I am trying harder to establish a better prayer life, and at the same time, trying to turn from my more sinful ways. It's been hard, butt as a saying that I heard goes, "They never said it would be easy, but it's going to be worth it." My spirituality has picked up many things along the way in my relatively short life (it's Salesian character in particular), but I am certain that God has a plan for me. All I have to do is to put my complete trust in Him. I can't do this alone. The prayers of my brother and sisters in Christ help me to stay the course on my journey. I ask all of you to pray for me, and to pray for each other, that God's mercy and healing/saving power be upon us and on the whole world.

(PS - As you may have picked up here and on another thread, I have a fascination with the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church, in particular the Byzantine rites. This interest was sparked again recently by programs I viewed on EWTN -they actually aired a Ruthenian Divine Liturgy on the 8th I believe. I think I'm going to take a look into this tradition to see if it's for me.)
(PPS - For those who didn't read the thread, read the posts on the entire thread for the progression of the discussion, in particular the last several posts.)

I know there are communities in other parts of the US. St. Mary's Oratory is canonically established, as an oratory, as of this year by Bishop Doran. I do not understand the technicalities but I believe this amounts to a permanent guarantee for the Tridentine community here. Our pastor is of the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest. That order is Tridentine only. It has at least one church in Wisconsin. There is a Benedictine Tridentine Abbey, I believe in Eastern Oklahoma at Clear Creek, or possibly the Southern Ozaek region of Missouri. There are other orders and locations as well. Having lived through the original liturgical revolution and having the Tridentine Mass ripped away abruptly by the red armband brigade led by Archbishop Bugnini, having almost joined the Russian Orthodox Church in disgust over the the festival of outrages that were perpetrated from 1958 to 1978, I've paid my dues. Fortunately I can thank one very elderly, hard-core Connecticut priest for verbally slapping me around and keeping me in the Roiman Catholic Church otherwise I might spend my life carping and complaining in the wilderness too.

We have raised our children Catholic by homeschooling them for years and then working with other Catholic homeschoolers in the development of our own schools. This is also not unique. They don't watch network TV or sitcoms. They don't hang out at malls. They don't have unaccounted for free time to do what they please or what others please. We take a very serious interest in their friends and associates. They have plenty of "socialization," plenty of classical education, languages ancient and modern, good literature, Saxon Math. It costs us luxuries that others may take for granted but our kids are more important than material goods. We moved from the Northeast to the Rockford area specifically because of the then St. Mary's Shrine and because of Bishop Doran. Our bishop grew up in Rockford, attended the cathedral church of that time at which he served Mass, was ordained for Rockford, succeeded a quite liberal bishop Arthur O'Neill who is still alive and active but seems supportive of Bishop Doran. If we rearrange our lives for the appropriate exercise of our responsibilities as parents, we have much less to fear.

Why would we not move? Under a relative liberal archbishop John Whealon, we were treated quite well in the Hartford Archdiocese. He did not drag his feet on the Tridentine Mass. We had to locate our Mass at a very old and not well-maintained large church in a shooting gallery neighborhood. Murders occurred in the adjacent street during Mass, once when Archbishop Whealon was in attendance at a Tridentine Mass. No one of the Tridentine Mass community was assaulted or injured in that neighborhood. The non-Catholic neighbors were, if anything, protective of the largely white, middle class attendees at that Sunday afternoon Mass. We were married in a Tridentine wedding, partly because we asked politely and expressed our understanding that it might not be possible or politic for him to allow it and that we would understand if the answer was no. Sometimes our folks forget the little things like common courtesy and not just toward the pope.

People can move to Rockford. The housing is quite reasonably priced. People do not have to move to Rockford. This Church of ours was surviving barely in the catacombs not long after it was founded and for most of 300 years, with an astonishing amount of martyrdom. We are in a lot of trouble if our future rests on people who throw up their hands and wonder how can ANYONE bring their kids up Catholic in our day and age. Government offers us divorce on demand. For the most part, we say no thanks. Government offers us "schools" to pervert our children. Again we say no. Corrupt people within the Church offer us bad Catholic schools that ape the worst of the government indoctrination centers. We tried that for a year and a half in a parish with a wonderfully orthodox pastor who was handling a parish with minor assistance from an aged and half-crippled priest in an affluent parish (we are not affluent) which used to have five priests. We then joined the ranks of those who say no when we had to deal with our eldest daughter being taught five times in one year that Jesus Christ did not really know He was God, even on the Cross. We turned to homeschooling. In addition to our own respective salvations, what have we as a more important priority than our kids and their salvations?

Bellyaching is no substitute for acting on what we believe. Catholics in Red China have it worse than we do. Catholic students at Notre Dame have it worse than we do. Catholics living in grinding poverty in Latin America and Africa, inter alia, have it worse than we do. Before we go around telling the pope how we demand that he run the Church, it would behoove us to "light one little candle" in our own homes and then in our neighborhoods and among our friends and then in organizations like the Knights of Columbus and rebuiold our lost and beloved 1950s Catholic culture step by step, institution by institution, create schools of OUR OWN, credit unions of our own, tutoring activity of our own, etc. The much derided Vatican II told us that we, not the priests, had the responsibility to bring Catholic Witness to the secular world of politics and government. We can do that. We should, as someone claimed Mother Teresa said, smile at our wives and children and we ought to be able to do so free of claims that, unless we grab lapels, we are nothing more than hapless grinning idiots.

To those who do not want to be actively involved with the Church because they think they are just too, too pure to sully themselves by contact with all those "Modernists" who attend Novus Ordo churches, fine, do it your way. Do not tell us. Show us the results of your concrete work (not the postings on the internet but the actual hard work) and how superior those results are and you'll get a real hearing. Meanwhile, as the old saying goes, talk is cheap action speaks louder than words.

Pope-bashing is verbal. Building orthodox Catholic schools is not verbal. Restoring an old Church to be suitable for Tridentine Masses once again (we have had to restore all of the stained-glass windows in our 1885 Church and the roof, ceiling and water damaged walls are next. We already did the furnace.)

Latin Mass magazine used to have a sister magazine called Sursum Corda, devoted not to moaning and groaning but to all of the wonderful things that are still being done by Catholics whether Tridentine or Novus Ordo. Facilities in New York for serving the terminally ill cancer patients, prison ministries such as that of a lifer who converts fellow prisoners to the Faith, the stories of converts to our faith who used to be Protestant clergy, and many, many other wonderful things leading the Missouri Synod Lutheran photographer of the New York cancer facility (founded by Nathaniel Hawthorne's daughter) story to say that he hoped eventually to die of cancer and to be so fortunate as to die there.

To those who are not Catholic on this non-sectarian site, we must often look like a pack of whining, squabbling infant malcontents, especially with the craven river of criticisms aimed at Pope John Paul II. If the woman who works for Latin Mass magazine is no closer than three hours from the nearest Tridentine Mass, she ought to consider moving. There are pages of Latin Mass listings from Una Voce listed in her magazine. That list was our starting point.

Sitetest claims that ultima ratio was going to a Tridentine Mass recognized by the Church but found something to justify not attending any more in favor, apparently, of a Mass not recognized. A lot of this stuff is offended taste. The Faith is intact. Many hate it and its pope from all sides. Were that not true, we should have to recheck our premises.

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