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The Costs of Catholic Silence as the World Looks for AnswersAs Michael Matt highlighted in a recent Remnant Underground, some of the most persuasive thinkers in the secular world (most notably, Tucker Carlson) have started to describe today’s mounting worldwide crisis in terms of a spiritual battle. Such realizations of themselves do not necessarily lead souls to the truth, but they provide opportunities for Catholics to help more people see that the only path out of this crisis is to embrace the immutable Catholic Faith.Any such efforts to lead souls to the Catholic Church must overcome the fact that most...

Rehashed Protestantism: Francis' Eucharist Represents "Last Supper”José Antonio Ureta, a member of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) published on OnePeterFive.com (August 12) a 16-pages study on “theological deviations” in Desiderio Desideravi, Francis' attack against the Mass (below).In DD, Francis refers the Eucharist to the Last Supper, rather than to Christ's sacrifice on Calvary. DD 4 even claims that the “same Supper will be made present in the celebration of the Eucharist until he returns again.” Ureta notices that this is warmed-over Protestantism.Francis then alleges that "every man and woman" should eat the Eucharist suggesting a theological indifference which fits with...

“The Mass Is Not Ended” — A Review-Essay by Cleto Moroni A new book by Cristina Siccardi, That Mass So Battered and Persecuted, Yet So Alive! has been released [so far in Italian only], dedicated to the Mass that some call Vetus Ordo, others “the Mass of Ages.” The issue is as thorny as ever. The essay asks some inescapable and radical questions. What were the real goals of the conciliar liturgical reform? What were the results? Why is fidelity to the Mass so important to Catholics, now nearly one and a half billion worldwide?In the most unjust trial...

Liturgical Devastation: Is it due to Vatican II?The result [of the post-conciliar liturgical reform] has not been a reanimation, but devastation. In place of the liturgy, fruit of a continual development, they have placed a fabricated liturgy … a banal product of the moment.The above quote from Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (Revue Theologisches, Vol. 20, Feb. 1990, pgs. 103-104) is familiar to all. But how did this happen? Was it due to the revolutionary force of Vatican II, or did it come about despite the Council’s best efforts? It is my opinion that even if the reformers had slavishly adhered to...

[Catholic Caucus] What Does “Full Communion” Mean? — Of Ecclesial Insults and Injuries This article appeared in French as Letter 878 of Paix Liturgique. It has been translated for Rorate Caeli.The ecumenism of Vatican II is based on the affirmation that our separated brothers and sisters are "in imperfect communion" with the Church and with Christ (Unitatis redintegratio, n. 3). This is a colossal novelty, for one is or is not in communion with Christ through faith, just as one is or is not in a state of grace through charity. By this subterfuge the separated become semi-Catholics, which...

[Catholic Caucus] The Terribly Simple Need to Go All-In For Christ“And Peter going down out of the boat, walked upon the water to come to Jesus. But seeing the wind strong, he was afraid: and when he began to sink, he cried out saying: Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretching forth His hand took hold of him, and said to him: O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt?” (Matthew 14:29-31)When Fr. Marie-Dominique Molinié, O.P. preached the 1953 retreat (to Dominican nuns) that forms the basis for his recently translated The Courage to Be Afraid, he did not...

'THE COUNCIL AND THE ECLIPSE OF GOD' by Don Pietro Leone - Chapter 9 - THEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS - part 1 - 40 HERESIES THEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS: 40 HERESIESTheological Analysis Let what we have written in Parts I and II of the book stand as a theological analysis of the individual conciliar texts. We shall content ourselves here with: 1. A Brief Summary of the Council’s Heterodoxy; 2. A Presentation of the Formal Principle of its Heterodoxy. 1. A Brief Summary of the Council’s Heterodoxy Here we present the Catholic doctrines that we have seen the Council explicitly or implicitly deny, or...

[Catholic Caucus] When Will Some Courageous Shepherds Just Say NO? The other night I watched, once again, the 1973 film, The Catholics, with Martin Sheen and Trevor Howard. The title was later changed to Conflict. If you want to understand where we're going, watch the movie. Brief synopsis: The Latin Mass has almost disappeared after Vatican IV. A group of Irish monks, however, continue to pray the Latin Mass and, to accommodate the crowds, they say it on a mountain that was once the scene of Masses during Cromwell's persecution. After a news broadcast about the Mass, pilgrims head...

[Catholic Caucus] The Liturgy Wars Have Become Doctrinal WarsMany Catholics over the past few decades have studiously avoided the “liturgy wars” within the Church and, frankly, I don’t blame them. Too often these battles involve a lot of heat and not a lot of light. Catholic against Catholic can become quite vicious and personal at times. Better to simply keep one’s head down, bear silently with any liturgical issues at your parish, and soldier on.Because of this prevailing attitude, many Catholics have also only been somewhat if at all interested in Pope Francis’s efforts to restrict and ultimately eliminate the...

[Catholic Caucus] How Goodwill Was Squandered This week our eyes were graced with the scandalous spectacle of Father Mattia Bernasconi, vicar of the pastoral care for young people of the parish of San Luigi Gonzaga in Milan, celebrating Mass on an air mattress in the water at the beach at Alfieri in Italy's Crotone region—for no reason save that "it was hot." The source for the story can be found here.I do not draw attention to this for the purposes of making another tired old "Look how bad the Novus Ordo is" post. We all know how bad the...

[Catholic Caucus] “To go back is to go forward, to be propelled by the river of the great Tradition”: Archbishop Aguer against Papal Progressivism Progressivism, which established itself a decade ago in Rome, decries a kind of reverse populism.The populist handbook indicates that one must win the trust and adhesion of young people. But it happens that young people nowadays are suspicious of deviations and progressive adventures; they prefer and love Tradition. Rome, then, scourges them by scornfully branding them as ones who would "go back to the past"; they look "back" and long to get "behind" [what came...

[Catholic Caucus] “Ecclesial Communion Is Not Something Decreed: The Vain Attempt of the Apostolic Letter Desiderio Desideravi” The following article was published by Paix Liturgique, Lettre 874, on July 13th (source).“Let us abandon our polemics to listen together to what the Spirit is saying to the Church, let us safeguard our communion”: these words from the conclusion of Desiderio desideravi (n. 61) are in fact the main — and vain — preoccupation of this Letter, as well as of the pontificate: to remake, one could say to replaster, a broken communion in the Christian people, a break to which...

[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...