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[Catholic Caucus] The unintended consequences of Desiderio desideraviThe non-acceptance of the liturgical reform, as also a superficial understanding of it, distracts us from the obligation of finding responses to the question that I come back to repeating: how can we grow in our capacity to live in full the liturgical action? How do we continue to let ourselves be amazed at what happens in the celebration under our very eyes? We are in need of a serious and dynamic liturgical formation.— Desiderio Desideravi, 29 June 2022Having been fairly uninterested in liturgy until relatively recently, in the last twelve months...

What does it mean to reject Vatican II?The Second Vatican Council (1962-65) was a unique ecumenical council. The previous twenty were assembled to address particular doctrinal or ecclesial crises, while John XXIII called Vatican II to layout a new pastoral program for engaging the modern world. It was not a particular crisis but a general one, focused on finding a new way of conveying the Christian life in the modern world.In the aftermath of the Council, both progressive and traditional wings viewed it as revolutionary, a sharp break from the previous practice of the Church. It did not help that...

VIGANÒ’S DECLARATION regarding the apostolic letter “Desiderio Desideravi”In an editorial titled “Cancel Culture: The Eternal Gnostic Dream of Starting Over from Zero,” that appeared on June 30, 2022, in the Bulletin of Social Doctrine of the Church of the Cardinal Van Thuân International Observatory (here), Archbishop Giampaolo Crepaldi stigmatized, with great clarity of analysis, the “attitude that favors the new over the old, which makes virtue coincide with adhesion to historical novelties and sin coincide with the preservation of the past,” and which consists in a systematic and ruthless damnatio memoriae of all that is opposed to modernity. The Archbishop...

Guest article: “The Old Liturgy and the New Despisers of the Council” The following article was written by an anonymous diocesan priest in Germany and published under the title "Die alte Liturgie und die neuen Konzilsverächter: Als Kardinal Frings fassungslos war" at Katholisches.info. It partly draws its content from my article at OnePeterFive, "Daringly Balanced on One Point: The New Papal Letter on Liturgy" of June 29, with much additional valuable content. It has been translated for Rorate.--PAKA few days ago, in a blistering article, Mr. Felix Neumann, editor of a radical modernist website, attacked those who remain faithful...

[Catholic Caucus] Francis Fights a “Preconciliar Mentality” in the Church In an interview given to the Corriere della Sera on May 3, 2022, in addition to the war in Ukraine and his health problems, Pope Francis returned to the ecclesial questions that regularly concern him.The sovereign pontiff has let it be understood that the implementation of the guidelines given by the Second Vatican Council was “perhaps more difficult” in Italy than in Latin America or Africa: “I often found a pre-conciliar mentality that disguised itself as conciliar.”He nevertheless points out the qualities of many Italian priests, parish priests, nuns...

[Catholic Caucus] Apostolic Letter Desiderio desideravi: An Admission of Failure Contemporary results of liturgical formation in the Novus Ordo, February 2022 (Holy Family, Inverness, Archdiocese of Chicago, USA) I do not see how it is possible to say that one recognizes the validity of the Council — though it amazes me that a Catholic might presume not to do so — and at the same time not accept the liturgical reform born out of Sacrosanctum Concilium... (Desiderio desideravi, 31)So writes Pope Francis in his Apostolic Letter Desiderio desideravi, released today, on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, which...

[Catholic Caucus] Altar boys who testified at a priest’s trial say bishop (Hubbard) also abused themTwo brothers allege that Gary Mercure, a former priest convicted of raping boys in Massachusetts, had sexually abused them with former Albany bishopQUEENSBURY — Two brothers who grew up in Warren County in a devout Catholic family allege that Gary Mercure, a former priest in their childhood parish who was later convicted of raping young boys in Massachusetts, had sexually abused them on multiple occasions over a period of years and that ex-Albany Bishop Howard J. Hubbard took part in some of the assaults.In a...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal says renewing Vatican II’s spirit can carry the church forwardLINTHICUM HEIGHTS, Maryland — The spirit of the Second Vatican Council that called for renewal of church life and wider church engagement with the world continues today, inviting the faithful to serve the common good, Cardinal Peter Turkson, a Vatican official, told a national priests’ assembly.Such ongoing renewal requires accepting a “mandate to change” rather than to be rooted in practices that restrict the full development of each person, Turkson, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Science, said June 22 during...

[Catholic Caucus] Francis Confirms the Root of the Problem: Vatican IIFrancis’s May 19, 2022 interview with the editors of European Jesuit Journals provided yet another indication that Vatican II is still one of the most vital matters in the Church, and by extension, the world:“Restorationism has come to gag the Council. The number of groups of ‘restorers’ – for example, in the United States there are many – is significant. . . . There are ideas, behaviors that arise from a restorationism that basically did not accept the Council. The problem is precisely this: in some contexts the Council has...

[Catholic Caucus] Worship Prefect interviewed.At Vatican News we find an interview with the Prefect of Worship, whom Francis designated as a Cardinal, Archbp. Arthur Roche, once of Leeds and less-than-successful head of ICEL.Roche is an inveterate enemy of the Roman Rite, the Vetus Ordo, and has peculiar notions about what the Second Vatican Council mandated for liturgical reform. He reads into documents curious things. However, Roche is exemplary, in that he is one of those who wants to make Vatican II the only lens through which the whole of the Church’s history, doctrine and practice, including worship, must be reinterpreted.The...

[Catholic Caucus] Navigating by Catholic Certainties Through a Sea of Diabolical DisorientationSeldom, if ever, has there been a more distressing and dangerous time in human history. Those who control the world’s wealth, governments, militaries, media, and education systems have embraced rampant immorality, attacks on family life, medical tyranny, and an unprecedented attack on truth that is fittingly embodied by the rise of transgenderism throughout the world’s “most advanced” societies. Tragically, all of this pales in comparison with the ongoing corruption within the Catholic Church.Even if we had reason to doubt the legitimacy of Sister Lucia’s description of the wave of...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal-designate calls liturgical tensions a ‘tragedy’VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Cardinal-designate Arthur Roche, prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, described as a “tragedy” the tensions within the Latin rite of the Catholic Church over the way the Mass is celebrated.In a wide-ranging interview broadcast June 16 by Vatican News, the cardinal-designate said the tensions are “partly” due to having had two versions of the Roman Missal — those from before and after the Second Vatican Council — in use in the church at the same time.“There’s never been a controversy about the liturgy in the...

[Catholic Caucus] Proudly a “Restorer”In a recent interview Pope Francis lamented the existence of “restorers,” a label he appears to tag on those who do not “accept the Council.” He said,Restorationism has come to gag the Council. The number of groups of ‘restorers’ — for example, in the United States there are many — is significant.I was struck by the pope’s use of the term, “restorers.” Whether the pope meant it as an insult or just a descriptive label, I take it as an accurate description of my views and the views of many other Catholics (a “significant” number, according...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Francis: There Are Many ‘Restorers’ in the US Who Do Not Accept Vatican IIPope Francis cited opposition to Vatican II when he issued the motu proprio Traditionis custodes in July 2021, limiting celebrations of the Traditional Latin Mass.VATICAN CITY — There are many “restorers” in the United States who do not accept the Second Vatican Council, Pope Francis said in an interview published on Tuesday. pSpeaking to the editors of Jesuit Magazine journals, he criticized what he called “restorationism” in the Church, which he defined as the failure to accept Vatican II, the ecumenical council held from...

[Catholic Caucus] The Key to Restoring Catholic OrthodoxyIt is well known that the “Spirit of Vatican II” changed the Catholic landscape, undermining the orthodoxy that resulted in the pre-Vatican II golden age of Catholicism. What is not well known among Catholics is this: For the past five decades instruction in most if not all of our Catholic seminaries and universities has been undermining the faith, in particular that of our seminarians. It casts doubt on the evangelists — including eyewitness-apostles Matthew and John — as writers of the Gospels, attributing them instead to unknown individuals writing a generation later. Superior...

Pope Francis Urges Sicily’s Catholic Priests to be Moral Guides — But to Drop the LaceVATICAN CITY — Pope Francis told priests and bishops from the Italian island of Sicily on Thursday to be strong moral guides, and to update their art and vestments in conformity with Church reforms.“In Sicily, people still look to priests as spiritual and moral guides, people who can also help to improve the civil and social life of the island, to support the family, and to be a reference for growing young people. High and demanding is the Sicilian people’s expectation of priests,” the...

“The Pneumonia of the Church”: Archbishop Aguer on the Sickness and Its Remedy Archbishop Emeritus Hector AguerThe title of this note comes from an eloquent image used by the African Cardinal Robert Sarah, who was Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments—and who was “mercifully” retired from the Roman Curia, as soon as was possible without causing too much of a scandal. His Eminence, author of books of rare theological depth and spiritual dimension, compared the current disastrous situation of the Catholic Church with that which Pius X had to face: modernism, which...

[Catholic Caucus] Jesuit in Rome admits Francis is correcting JPII moral theology'It is fundamental to untie the knots of Veritatis Splendor'Julio Martinez, S.J.: Pope Francis “has introduced discernment in the concrete circumstances of marriage and family life."Amoris Laetitia, the apostolic exhortation published by Pope Francis in March 2016 after the two synods of bishops on the family, not only radically altered the church’s concrete pastoral approach to marriage and the family, it also opened new ways of doing moral theology in the 21st century, Julio Martinez, S.J., a Spanish priest and moral theologian, told America magazine in an exclusive interview....

[Catholic Caucus] The Path from St. Pius X’s Pascendi to Satan’s Synodality is Paved with Compromises As Christopher Ferrara described in his 2009 article in The Remnant, Fatima and Akita: A Fateful Concurrence, we have good reason to believe that the (still hidden) Third Secret of Fatima includes “essentially the same” message that Our Lady delivered in 1973 to Sister Agnes Sasagawa, in Akita, Japan:“In [The Secret Still Hidden] I show that the former Cardinal Ratzinger, who conferred face-to-face with Bishop Ito in Rome concerning the Akita apparitions, told Howard Dee, the former Philippines Ambassador to the Vatican, that...

[Catholic Caucus] The Council and the Eclipse of God by Don Pietro Leone: CHAPTER VIII: THE COUNCIL’S VIEW OF MAN IN HIMSELF (part 1) We have divided Chapter VIII into three parts, the text being exceedingly rich in content: part 1 – The Nature of Man and The Anguish of Man; part 2 – The Dignity of Man; part 3 – The Deification of Man. With the reading of this Chapter it seems we have arrived at a watershed moment. In this analysis of the Council’s documents it becomes clearer that there was deliberate intent (whether malicious or philosophically...