Happy Summorum Pontificum Day

On this anniversary of Summorum Pontificum, I say thank you to Pope Benedict XVI, ingloriously reigning as Holy Father and Pontiff from his prison in the Vatican garden under the watchful eye of his two-faced, double-agent, Prison Warden, Ganswein, doing the bidding of the great impostor and his band of merry-minions.

I also restate advice to the SSPX. Just say, "No!"

Look, I don't accept much of the bovine excrement in the documents of Vatican II and I despise the manner in which the deficient and unjustified, abomination of a Mass of the Missal of Paul VI, no blessed or saint in my view, is celebrated, when even done well. 

So, ya gonna kick me out, George?

The SSPX is Catholic, always was and, please God, will be.

They need to sign nothing.

If you can come up with any positive developments in the Church and the spread of the faith arising out of the Second Vatican Council, feel free to post a comment on what those might be...

Pfft to a Rome quickly becoming what Jack Chick proffered.

The Whore of Babylon!

Ontario Court of Appeal to hear case of Christian father

Take a click and visit Every Day for Life Canada. An Orthodox Greek Christian father refused his rights to remove his children from indoctrination of the state's new religion.

We are in a fight in Canada. The secularist state and homosexualist lobby pushes us more and more into silence. Dr Tourloukis is fighting a battle on behalf of many.

Please visit the link below and give what you can to the fight!

http://everydayforlifecanada.blogspot.ca/2017/06/ontario-court-of-appeal-hears-case-for.html?view=classic



Yesterday, June 26th, Dr. Steve Tourloukis, the courageous Hamilton father was before the Ontario Court of Appeal to defend his parental rights against the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board. Does the state have the power to overrule parental rights and legally force "inclusive" education in taxpayer funded public schools? The just and right answer is no. True inclusion must welcome those who oppose. Every parent in Ontario and in Canada has the natural and God given right to direct the education of their children. 

Letter from Müller to Bishop Fellay and the Society of St. Pius X - Just say "No!"

To those bishops and priests of the Society of St. Pius X,

Just say no.

That is all.

Vox.

From www.medias-presse.info comes the following excerpt of a letter from Cardinal Müller to Bishop Bernard Fellay. According to www.medias-presse.info, Cardinal Müller's letter was communicated to all SSPX members by the SSPX General House.

Excerpt from Cardinal Müller's letter:

“As you know, Pope Francis has many a time manifested his benevolence towards your Priestly Society, granting, in particular, to all priest members the faculty of confessing the faithful validly and by authorizing local Ordinaries to grant licences for the celebration of the marriages of the faithful who follow the pastoral activity in your Society. Furthermore, discussions are continuing concerning questions relative to the full re-establishment of the communion of your Society with the Catholic Church.

In relation to this, with the approbation of the Sovereign Pontiff, I judged it necessary to submit to the Ordinary Session of our Congregation (which met on May 10 last) the text of the doctrinal Declaration which was transmitted to you during the meeting of June 13 2016, as the necessary condition in view of the full re-establishment of communion. Here are the unanimous decisions of all the members of our Dicastery in this regard:

1) It is necessary to require the adhesion of the members of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X to the new formula of the Professio Fidei dating from 1988 (c.f. annexe). Consequently, it is not sufficient to ask them to express the Professio Fidei of 1962.

2) The new text of the doctrinal Declaration must contain a paragraph in which the signatories declare in an explicit manner their acceptance of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and those of the post-conciliar period, by granting to said doctrinal affirmations the degree of adhesion which is due to them.

3) The members of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X must recognize not only the validity, but also the legitimacy of the Rite of the Holy Mass and of the Sacraments, according to the liturgical books promulgated after the Second Vatican Council.”

www.medias-presse.info adds that Cardinal Müller concluded the letter saying that “during the Audience granted to the Cardinal Prefect on May 20 2017, the Sovereign Pontiff approved these decisions”. The French website also adds that in his accompanying letter to SSPX priests, Father Christian Thouvenot, Secretary General of the SSPX, recalled the words of Bishop Fellay after the meeting of the major superiors in Anzère, Switzerland, on June 28 2016:

“The Society of Saint Pius X does not seek primarily a canonical recognition, to which it has a right because it is Catholic. The solution is not simply juridical. It pertains to a doctrinal position which it is imperative to manifest [...] Divine Providence will not abandon Its Church whose head is the Pope, Vicar of Jesus Christ. That is why an incontestable sign of this restoration will reside in the signified will of the Sovereign Pontiff to grant the means for re-establishing the order of the Priesthood, the Faith and Tradition – a sign which will be, furthermore, the guarantor of the necessary unity of the family of Tradition”.

Published in Fetzen Fliegen

Pope runs from bad image of his sodomite mural Cardinal in baby Charlie Gard matter. And where is the Queen in all of this?

Little Charlie Gard is suffering at the hands of the corrupt British state and his failed Monarch, Elizabeth II, who should be stepping in to save this child. 

Magna Carta my foot! 

Though the parents have raised enough money to take little Charlie to America for treatment, the corrupted system of Britain refused, even to the point of demanding the child be removed from life support and not allowed to go home to die in the presence of his parents.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/18182/pontifical-academy-life-releases-chilling-frank-camp

Into this wades the head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, butchered by Francis, -- headed by the Cardinal who commissioned a sodomite orgy mural for his Cathedral.

But good old Francis couldn't take the furor caused by this Paglia and has reversed the Vatican's position.

A disgrace!

The "Vatican," I won't say the Catholic Church, - the Vatican, supporting the European Fascist Union and British Health Care over parents rights.

And now, Donald J. Trump, the President of the United States has offered to help little Charlie in America.

The Pope looks very bad.

The Queen, looks worse! 

BREAKING: Vatican officials covered up "bag" of cocaine induced homosexual orgy!

From Pudelek.pl

The cesspool of sodomy in the Vatican continues. Pudelek.pl is reporting that the news breaking last week of the Vatican Monsignor caught in a drug-laced, booze-saturated, homosexual orgy in the Vatican actually occurred two months ago!

http://www.pudelek.pl/artykul/113104/kolejna_kompromitacja_w_watykanie_bliski_wspolpracownik_papieza_urzadzal_gejowskie_orgie_pod_wplywem_kokainy/#

Someone in the Vatican has been engaged in a cover-up.

Has the removal of Mueller been engineered as a distraction?

Has Cardinal Pell (to possible spurious accusations, but if true, throw the book at him) been sacrificed to cause a diversion from the real, current actives sinful cesspool of filth, evil, corruption and sleaze that is the Vatican?

Parents, would you let your sons and daughters travel to Rome to in any way participate in the Youth Synod with these filthy monsters around? Do you think World Youth Day is any safer?

(With sincere apologies to my priest friends, but I would not advise anyone to leave any child alone with any priest, to protect them from the perverts and good priests from false accusations!)

Francis owes our Lord Jesus Christ and His suffering faithful a complete clean-out of the sodomite mafia from the Church and accountability from these thieves and perverts who have stolen from the faithful for their drugs and orgies.

Enough of this cover-up!

Vatican Gendarmerie dealings discovered two months ago, when the search was made in the building of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In the apartment of one of the secretary Very Important Monsignorów found a bag of cocaine. Arrested priest admitted that he was taking the drug during a homosexual orgy, which he organized in the premises curial. Since then they attempted to place the matter under the carpet in many ways. Initially a secretary, instead of in prison, placed in rehab in one of Rome's clinics, where with the help of prayer had to leave the addiction. Soon, however, through the intercession of Cardinal he moved to the Order of Monte Cassino - the same in which several months ago was arrested the abbot Pietro Vitorelli'egowho embezzled half a million euros from the proceeds to charity. The abbot seemed no abandon the so-called fortune. sex tourism, mainly seeking gay brothel in South America.

Because the health secretary-drug addict in the law significantly deteriorated again placed him in the hospital. Then the matter leaked to the media. The most frequently asked question is, how is it possible that until two months managed to hide everything even before the Pope.

Say hello to Boy-Toy Capozzi

Well, well, well.

Happy Sunday boys and girls.

And what do we have here?

If it isn't Msgr. Luigi Felching Capozzi, drunken, drugged up sodomite disturbing the otherwise serene and quiet Vatican owned apartment and former headquarters of the CDF.

Source:

https://gloria.tv/article/AFec2dUBFNCC1twG9TbC89pzv



This cockroach, Capozzi, infiltrated the holy priesthood of Our Lord Jesus Christ and should never have been ordained.  

https://gloria.tv/article/QJgkoWSAgYPe6J2qJoCbtgzg1

Who was his superior? Whom was he secretary to?

Why only the effervescent Cardinal Coco-Puffs - Coccopalmerio.

Souce:

http://whatisupwiththesynod.com/index.php/2017/06/30/we-have-a-winnah/

Oh, he was putting forward the Felching Priest as bishop material. (look up that word at your own risk, you have been warned)

Inquiring minds want to know.

Was Mons. Battista Mario Salvatore, Not to be Judged Ricca, caught with his own boy-toy in Uruguay and now head of the so-called Pope's No-Tell, Hoe-Tell and the Vatican Bank, there for the big party?

Take your pick:

https://www.google.ca/search?q=monsignor+ricca+uruguay&oq=msgr+ricca+uru&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0.6598j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

So where is the Bergomeister in all of this?

Who are you to judge?

The "Sweet Christ on Earth," according to St. Catherine of Sienna.

That's who!

Woe Canada

July 1.

Once known as Dominion Day after the 72nd Psalm, "And he shall have dominion from sea to sea and from the great river to the ends of the earth." It recalled the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans and the St. Lawrence River. It remains, for now at least, on Canada's Coat of Arms.

We are a nation that has lost its way.

It was founded by Catholics and its natives were protected and nurtured in the faith, there were no "Indian wars" here. Champlain, Montcalm, MacDonald, Cartier, would they recognise this land today and what it has become? 

A nation that wipes out its generation of young in the womb and now sending its old to the tomb. It sanctions so-called "marriage" of the same-sex, stands by whilst the Court recognises that oral sex with an animal is just fine, legalises marijuana and more.

A nation that has two anthems, one which speaks of the Cross and the other asking God to keep us "strong and free." It is a mockery, they disgrace our history, our culture and the faith of our Fathers, - English and French, protestant and Catholic. Canada long ago under the father of our current Prime Minister became radically secularist. So much so that Catholic Prime Ministers - Trudeau, Clark, Mulroney, Chretien, Martin, and now Trudeau again, have betrayed their faith and their land. 

Weep for her. 

NCReporter - New CDF Prefect will be a Jesuit - WhoHoo! - - It's all A-Ok!

ROME Pope Francis has decided not to renew the expiring term of Vatican doctrinal chief Cardinal Gerhard Muller, choosing instead to replace the German prelate with his deputy, a Spanish Jesuit theologian known for keeping a relatively low public profile.

The pontiff has appointed Archbishop Luis Ladaria, 73, as the new prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He had previously served as the office's secretary.

A Vatican statement announcing the appointment Saturday did not say whether Muller would be receiving a new role. At 69 years old he is six years away from the traditional retirement age for bishops. It is unusual for a cardinal of that age not to have an official posting.

The Vatican statement simply said the pope thanked Muller for his service at the conclusion of his five-year term as prefect, with began with his appointment by former Pope Benedict XVI on July 2, 2012.  

Saturday's announcement had been highly anticipated over the past day, as rumors began to circulate that Muller would be leaving his position following a meeting the cardinal had Friday with Francis.

The pope's choice of Ladaria, who has served at the doctrinal congregation since his own appointment by Benedict in 2008, seems to signify that Francis did not want a radical shake-up at the Vatican office, but simply a change in personnel.

Prior to his appointment at the Vatican, Ladaria had taught at the Pontifical Gregorian University and served as its vice-rector. From 2004-2009 he was the secretary general of the International Theological Commission.

The archbishop is also the president of the new papal commission studying the possibility of women deacons in the church, being appointed to that role by Francis last August.

Before becoming the head of the doctrinal congregation, Muller had served for ten years as the bishop of the southeastern German diocese of Regensburg. He is known to be close to Benedict, who studied and taught at the University of Regensburg prior to becoming a bishop.

But Muller and Francis never appeared to develop an especially warm relationship. Most recently, the cardinal has been inconsistent about his position regarding the teaching authority of Francis' exhortation on family life, Amoris Laetitia ("The Joy of the Family.")

After four cardinals publicly challenged Francis last November to answer questions about what they see as inconsistencies in the document, Muller said in January that the exhortation was "very clear" and that cardinals should not challenge the pope publicly.

But the cardinal appeared to contradict Francis' teaching in the document in a May interview with EWTN. Asked about the possibility of the church giving Communion to those who have remarried without first receiving annulments, the cardinal stated: "We don't accept polygamy."

In Amoris Laetitia Francis asked pastors to use pastoral discernment in such cases and said that in some instances such discernment "can include the help of the sacraments." The pope has also praised a set of guidelines issued by Argentine bishops that said divorced and civilly remarried couples might eventually be allowed to receive Communion.

Muller was also publicly questioned in recent months over his willingness to implement recommendations of the new papal commission on clergy sexual abuse, even in instances when Francis had approved them.

When Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins resigned March 1 from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, she noted in a statement to NCR that Francis' order for the creation of a new Vatican tribunal to judge bishops who mishandled abuse cases was found by Muller's congregation to have "legal" difficulties and was never created.

Collins also noted that an order approved by Francis requiring all Vatican offices to respond to letters from abuse victims was not implemented by at least one congregation.

In a March 5 interview, Muller appeared to admit that his congregation was among those that ignored that papal order, saying that if the Vatican to responded to victims' letters it would not respect the role of diocesan bishops in such matters.

Muller also appears not to agree with Francis' decision to create the commission studying the possibility of women deacons. He said in the May EWTN interview that it is "not possible" for women to be ordained to the diaconate and that female deacons "will not come."

This breaking news story is being updated.

[Joshua J. McElwee is NCR Vatican correspondent. His email address is jmcelwee@ncronline.org. Follow him on Twitter: @joshjmac.]

Cardinal Gerhard Mueller removed from curia! Oh, and that drunken, drug-laden sodomite cleric?

Just stopped at home for a quick lunch break and what do we find?

From Rorate

Methinks he was a bit too honest to Raymond Arroyo.

And Hilary.

No, not that Hillary.

Keep it comin' George.

 .

Irish Catholics who hate Our Lord Jesus Christ

The snakes have come back to Ireland.

O Jesus, my Saviour and Redeemer, Son of the Living God, behold, we kneel before thee and offer thee our reparation: we would like to make amends for all the blasphemies uttered against thy holy Name, for all the injuries done to thee in the Blessed Sacrament, for all the irreverence shown toward thine Immaculate Virgin Mother, for all the calumnies and slanders spoken against thy Spouse, the holy Catholic and Roman Church. Jesus, who hast said:”If you ask the Father anything in My Name, I will give it to you”, we pray and beseech thee for all our brethren who are in danger of sin; shield them from every temptation to fall away from the true faith; save those who are even now standing on the brink of the abyss; to all of them give light and knowledge of the truth, courage and strength for the conflict with evil, perseverance in faith and active charity. For this do we pray, most merciful Jesus, in thy Name, unto God the Father, with whom thou livest and reignest in the unity of the Holy Spirit, world without end. Amen.

What kind of pervert parties have been going on in the Vatican?

Are you surprised?

http://whatisupwiththesynod.com/index.php/2017/06/28/lets-play-a-game-i-call-it-connect-the-vatican-perv-dots/

This won't keep under raps long and nor will the Bishop of Rome's attempt to soften the Church's stand on the removal of perverts from the priesthood.

And now Pell? Or was it a set-up? If so, shame on him for being caught in the vortex.

http://www.barnhardt.biz/2017/06/29/toldya-left-right-and-trad-right-cardinal-pell-charged-with-sexually-assaulting-boys/

Sts. Peter and Paul, on this day when the Church honours your martyrdoms, intercede before Our Lord to send a remedy to these filthy, perverted, satanic sodomites who like termites have driven into the Church and like cockroaches, they hide.

Shine your light, O LORD!

James Martin, S.J. "homosexual-sex obsessed" and the "ravings of a lunatic."

It's about time.

It's about time someone other than the poor suffering laity and Joseph Sciambra have called out James Martin, S.J., for his homosexual obsession.

Sometimes it takes hard, seemingly coarse language, such as the "ravings of a lunatic," to wake up the man at the core of the problem and his superiors.

James Martin is a priest in desperate need of correction. His Superiors have betrayed him just as he continues to betray Christ and His people, particularly those suffering from same-sex attraction.

James Martin, S.J., hates "gay" men. if he did not, he would not tweet his praise of "pride," as he did yesterday. James Martin is filled with rage, it is time for him to either get the deep spiritual and psychological help that is needed, preferable through a life of prayer and penance in a Cistercian traditionalist monastery far away from a computer or any other Jesuit!

James Martin hates himself. His actions, particularly of late, are the ravings of someone obsessed. Not with Jesus, not with truth, but with sex between men.

Enough of this rage James, enough!

Enough of your lies, your distortions, your embrace of homosexualism and the work of Satan, whom you have embraced as your god. 

Enough of your projection upon unsuspecting people who are lead astray by your distortions.

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2017/06/homosexual-sex-obsessed-jesuit-v-bp-paprocki-of-springfield-il-action-item/

Homosexual sex obsessed Jesuit v. Bp. Paprocki of Springfield, IL – ACTION ITEM!

Posted on 26 June 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

ACTION ITEM at the end!

A little while ago, His Excellency Most Reverend Thomas John Paprocki, Bishop of Springfield in Illinois, issued a Decree “Regarding Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ and Related Pastoral Issues.”

This Decree reaffirmed Catholic teaching that a marriage is only possible “between one man and one woman.”

...

You saw how Ed Peters handled one critic HERE.

Immediately, homosexual sex obsessed Jesuit James Martin blasted Bp. Paprocki HERE:

If bishops ban members of same-sex marriages from receiving a Catholic funeral, they also have to be consistent. They must also ban divorced and remarried Catholics who have not received annulments, women who has or man who fathers a child out of wedlock, members of straight couples who are living together before marriage, and anyone using birth control. For those are all against church teaching as well. Moreover, they must ban anyone who does not care for the poor, or care for the environment, and anyone who supports torture, for those are church teachings too. More basically, they must ban people who are not loving, not forgiving and not merciful, for these represent the teachings of Jesus, the most fundamental of all church teachings. To focus only on LGBT people, without a similar focus on the moral and sexual behavior of straight people is, in the words of the Catechism, a “sign of unjust discrimination” (2358).

This, friends, is the raving of a lunatic.

For a complete review of homosexual sex obsessed Jesuit James Martin v. Bp. Paprocki, try HERE, a blog by a Catholic man who suffered with same-sex affliction and is now striving to live a holy life.

URGENT: In his post he makes a great suggestion: drop Bp. Paprocki a supportive note! The diocese’s contact form and addresses:

Pope Bergoglio refuses "dialogue" and "encounter"

Pope Bergoglio's silence convicts him

The former Director of the Vatican Bank gives his opinion on the state of the Church under Pope Bergoglio.

What we and others have been saying for four years now is becoming clearer to more and more, nearly daily.

Pope Francis’ silence is a bold denial of objective truth: former Vatican Bank chief

Why doesn’t the Pope respond to the Dubia? The former director of the Vatican Bank thinks he knows why. In a biting essay in Italy’s La Verità, translated below, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi suggests that Francis is sending two messages through his silence: that he can contradict himself if he likes and that he wishes to impose a “New Catholic Morality” on the Church. This new morality would be based not on doctrine but on the subjective opinions of the individual conscience. Meanwhile, Amoris Laetitia’s denial of eternal damnation contradicts Jesus’ assertions in the Gospel that sinners are indeed in danger of this fate. Ultimately, Francis’ silence — which allows doubts to continue to flourish — is a denial of objective truth.  

June 23, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — I see two implicit messages in the Pope’s failure to answer the dubia. The first implicit message is “I can contradict myself if I want to.” At the start of the Synod on the Family (October 2014), the Pope invited the cardinals to speak openly and frankly, without fear of embarrassing the Pope (the famous parresia). And yet for months the Pope has refused to respond privately or publicly to the dubia expressed by four cardinals who represent a large part of the faithful.

Read the rest at: https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/pope-francis-silence-is-a-bold-denial-of-objective-truth-former-vatican-ban

Oh, how these heretics in the Church hate Cardinal Sarah

The liberals and heretics in the Church are speechless. They are between a rock and a very hard place. They hate Cardinal Sarah, but they can't hate him too much because he is an African.  

You can thank Archbiship Marcel Lefebvre for these faithful Africans. May they come to rescue us from our modern paganism.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/june-23rd-2017/why-cardinal-sarah-terrifies-his-critics/

Why Cardinal Sarah terrifies his critics

Cardinal Sarah's opponents have attacked his views and called for his sacking. His response has been a gracious silence

A growing crowd wants Cardinal Robert Sarah’s head on a platter. Open a liberal Catholic periodical and you are likely to find a call for the dismissal of the Guinean cardinal who heads the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship: “It’s past time for [Pope Francis] to replace Cardinal Sarah” (Maureen Fiedler, National Catholic Reporter); “New wine might be needed at the Congregation for Divine Worship” (Christopher Lamb, the Tablet); “Curia officials who refuse to get with Francis’s programme should leave. Or the Pope should send them somewhere else” (Robert Mickens, Commonweal); “Francis must put his foot down. Cardinals like Robert Sarah … may feel that with a papacy heading in the wrong direction, foot-dragging is a duty. But that does not mean Francis has to put up with them” (The Editors, the Tablet).

Sarah was not always treated as the most dangerous man in Christendom. When he was appointed to his post by Pope Francis in 2014, he enjoyed the goodwill even of those who criticise him today. Mickens described him as “unambitious, a good listener and, despite showing a clear conservative side since coming to Rome … a ‘Vatican II man’ ”. Lamb was told by his sources that Sarah was someone liberals could like, the kind of bishop who was sympathetic to “inculturation”. John Allen summed up the consensus around the Vatican: Sarah was a low-profile bishop, “warm, funny and modest”.

All that changed on October 6, 2015, the third day of the contentious synod on the family. The synod fathers were riven by the seemingly competing demands of reaching out to people who felt stigmatised by the Church’s sexual teaching and boldly proclaiming truth to a hostile world. In what has come to be known as the “apocalyptic beasts” speech, Sarah insisted that both were possible. “We are not contending against creatures of flesh and blood,” he told his brother bishops. “We need to be inclusive and welcoming to all that is human.” But the Church must still proclaim the truth in the face of two great challenges. “On the one hand, the idolatry of Western freedom; on the other, Islamic fundamentalism: atheistic secularism versus religious fanaticism.”

As a young priest, Sarah studied at the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem and planned a dissertation on “Isaiah, Chapters 9-11, in Light of Northwestern Semitic Linguistics: Ugaritic, Phoenician and Punic”. So it is no surprise that he employed biblical language to make his point. Western freedom and Islamic fundamentalism, he told the assembly, were like two “apocalyptic beasts”. The image comes from the Book of Revelation, which describes how two beasts will attack the Church. The first comes out of the sea with seven heads, 10 horns, and blasphemy on its lips. The second rises out of the land performing great wonders, and persuades the world to worship the first.

This strange dynamic – one monstrous threat leading men to embrace the other – is what Sarah sees at work in our own time. Fear of religious repression induces some to worship an idolatrous freedom. (I recall the time I found myself the only man left sitting when Ayaan Hirsi Ali ended a speech by asking her audience to give an ovation “To blasphemy!”) On the other hand, attacks on human nature tempt some to embrace the false reassurance of religious fundamentalism, which has its most horrible expression under the black flag of ISIS. Each evil tempts those who fear it to succumb to its opposite. As with communism and Nazism in the 20th century, both must be resisted.

Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, head of the Polish bishops’ conference, wrote that Sarah’s intervention was made at a “very high theological and intellectual level”, but others seemed to miss its meaning altogether. Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane decried the use of “apocalyptic language”. (One wonders what he makes of the rest of John’s Revelation.) “The boys don’t like to be reminded of judgment,” quipped one cardinal after Sarah spoke.

A prominent Vatican watcher wrote to me from Rome: “He stepped in it today by talking about the two beasts of the Apocalypse. His popable stock took a hit.” Fr James Martin SJ claimed that Sarah had violated the Catechism, “which asks us to treat LGBT people with ‘respect, compassion and sensitivity’ ”.

One sometimes wants to ask whether, for Catholics like Fr Martin, there are any words in which the Church’s sexual teaching can be defended – since they seem never to employ them. Still, the reaction to Sarah’s speech probably had more to do with simple illiteracy than any difference in principle. Cardinal Wilfred Napier of Durban said in the run-up to the synod that Europeans suffer from a “widespread ignorance and rejection not only of Church teaching but also Scripture”. He was right. Those who do not live in Scripture and know its figures first-hand are more likely to view biblical language as irrelevant or inflammatory.

On October 14, a week after Sarah’s speech, Cardinal Walter Kasper complained about African interventions at the synod. “I can only speak of Germany where the great majority wants an opening about divorce and remarriage. It’s the same in Great Britain, it’s everywhere.” Well, not quite everywhere: “With Africa it’s impossible. But they should not tell us too much what to do.”

Kasper’s dismissal of Sarah and the other Africans prompted an immediate outcry. Obianuju Ekeocha, a Nigerian Catholic who campaigns against abortion, wrote: “Imagine my shock today as I read the words of one of the most prominent synod fathers … As an African woman now living in Europe, I am used to having my moral views and values ignored or put down as an ‘African issue’.”

Cardinal Napier agreed: “It’s a real worry to read an expression like ‘the Pope’s Theologian’ applied to Cardinal Kasper … Kasper isn’t very respectful towards the African Church and its leaders.”

Kasper’s statement was like the breaking of a dam. Since then, a great wave of abuse has poured over Sarah. His critics have described him as uppity, uneducated and possibly criminal – or at least in need of a good beating.

Michael Sean Winters of the National Catholic Reporter reminded Sarah of his role (“Curial cardinals are, after all, staff, exalted staff, but staff”). La Croix’s Fr William Grim called his work “asinine … patently stupid … red-capped idiocy”. Andrea Grillo, a liberal Italian liturgist, wrote: “Sarah has shown, for years, a significant inadequacy and incompetence in the field of liturgy.”

In the Tablet, Fr Anthony Ruff corrected Sarah. “It would be good if he could study the reforms more deeply and understand, for example, what ‘mystery’ means in Catholic theology.” Massimo Faggioli, a vaticanist who haunts Rome’s gelaterias, innocently observed that Sarah’s apocalyptic beasts speech “would be subject to criminal charges in some countries”. (Having ministered for years under the brutal Marxist dictatorship of Sékou Touré, Sarah hardly needs reminding that open profession of Christian belief can be a crime.)

After Pope Francis rejected Sarah’s call last year for priests to celebrate mass ad orientem, contempt for Sarah broke out in a shower of blows: “It is highly unusual for the Vatican to publicly slap down a Prince of the Church, yet not entirely surprising given how Cardinal Sarah has operated…” (Christopher Lamb, Tablet); “the Pope slapped down Cardinal Sarah quite strongly, with only a bit of face-saving spared him,” (Anthony Ruff, Pray Tell); “Pope slaps down Sarah” (Robert Mickens, on Twitter); “Pope Francis … slapped him down” (Mickens again, in Commonweal); “a further slap-down” (Mickens once more, a few months later in La Croix). Added up, it makes for quite a beating.

Exchanging charges of insensitivity is probably not the best way to settle doctrinal disputes, but the rhetoric of Sarah’s critics reveals something important about Catholic life today: in disputes doctrinal, moral and liturgical, liberal Catholics have become ecclesial nationalists.

Traditional Catholics tend to support consistent doctrinal standards and pastoral approaches regardless of national boundaries. If they do not actually prefer the Latin Mass, they want vernacular translations to track the Latin as closely as possible. They are not scandalised by the way Africans speak of homosexuality or Middle Eastern Christians of Islamism.

Liberal Catholics, meanwhile, campaign for vernacular translation written in idiomatic style and approved by national bishops’ conferences, not by Rome. Local realities require truth to be trimmed whenever it crosses a border. Catholic doctrinal statements should be couched in pastorally sensitive language – sensitive, that is, to the sensibilities of the educated, wealthy West.

One of the advantages of ecclesial nationalism is that it allows liberals to avoid arguing on direct doctrinal grounds, where traditional “rigorists” tend to have the upper hand. If truth must be mediated by local realities, no man in Rome or Abuja will have much say over the faith of Brussels and Stuttgart (this was the point behind Kasper’s dismissal of Africans).

One sees this in writers like Commonweal’s Rita Ferrone, who says that rather than heeding Sarah, English speakers should be “trusting our own people and our own wisdom concerning prayer in our native tongue”. The “we” behind that “our” is not global and Catholic, but bourgeois and American.

What if instead of being put back in his place, slapped down and locked up for violating Western speech codes, Sarah becomes pope? This is what his critics fear most. Mickens writes of the dark possibility of a “Pius XIII (also known as Robert Sarah)”. Lamb says that Sarah may turn out to be “the first black Pope”. (That would be a beautiful thing – Sarah’s parents, converts in the remote Guinean village of Ourous, assumed that only white men could become priests and laughed when their son said he wanted to go to seminary.) The same well-connected Vatican watcher who told me that Sarah’s stock fell during the synod now says his fortunes are improving. “People have noticed all the attacks, and his gracious refusal to respond in kind.”

It is indeed remarkable that Sarah has suffered this hail of abuse with such grace. In his newly published book The Power of Silence, we hear his stifled cry of anguish:

I painfully experienced assassination by gossip, slander and public humiliation, and I learned that when a person has decided to destroy you, he has no lack of words, spite and hypocrisy; falsehood has an immense capacity for constructing arguments, proofs and truths out of sand. When this is the behaviour of men of the Church, and in particular of bishops, the pain is still deeper. But … we must remain calm and silent, asking for the grace never to give in to rancour, hatred and feelings of worthlessness. Let us stand firm in our love for God and for his Church, in humility.

Despite it all, Sarah is a man unbowed. His book reiterates his call for Mass ad orientem and the rest of the “reform of the reform”: “God willing, when he wills and as he wills, the reform of the reform will take place in the liturgy. Despite the gnashing of teeth, it will happen, for the future of the Church is at stake.”

If Sarah has refused to make himself pleasing to those who run Rome, he is not about to serve any other party either. In this wonderfully individual book, he tells old Islamic folktales, dotes on the suffering and weak, and decries military intervention: “How can we not be scandalised and horrified by the action of American and Western governments in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria?” Sarah views these as idolatrous outpourings of blood “in the name of the goddess Democracy” and “in the name of Liberty, another Western goddess”. He opposes the effort to build “a religion without borders and a new global ethics”.

If that seems hyperbolic, recall that six days after missiles hit Baghdad, Tony Blair sent George W Bush a memo saying, “Our ambition is big: to construct a global agenda around which we can unite the world … to spread our values of freedom, democracy, tolerance.” Sarah views this programme as something close to blasphemy.

He has equally pungent views on the modern economy: “The Church would commit a fatal mistake if she exhausted herself in giving a sort of social face to the modern world that has been unleashed by free-market capitalism.”

War, persecution, exploitation: all these forces are part of a “dictatorship of noise”, whose incessant slogans distract men and discredit the Church. In order to resist it, Sarah turns to the example of Brother Vincent, a recently deceased young man whom Sarah dearly loved. Only if we love and pray like Vincent can we hear la musica callada, the silent music the angels played for John of the Cross. Yes, this book shows that Sarah has a great deal to say: on the mystical life, the Church and world affairs. But for the most part he keeps silence – while the world talks about him.

Matthew Schmitz is literary editor of First Things and a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow

This article first appeared in the June 23 2017 issue of the Catholic Herald. To read the magazine in full, from anywhere in the world, go here

For God So Loved the World

Act of Consecration of the Human Race

to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

    Most sweet Jesus, Redeemer of the human race, look down upon us humbly prostrate before Thy altar. We are Thine, and Thine we wish to be; but, to be more surely united with Thee, behold each one of us freely consecrates himself today to Thy Most Sacred Heart. Many indeed have never known Thee; many too, despising Thy precepts, have rejected Thee. Have mercy on them all, most merciful Jesus, and draw them to Thy Sacred Heart.

   Be Thou King, O Lord, not only of the faithful who have never forsaken Thee, but also of the prodigal children who have abandoned Thee; grant that they may quickly return to their Father's house lest they die of wretchedness and hunger.

   Be Thou King of those who are deceived by erroneous opinions, or whom discord keeps aloof; call them back to the harbor of truth and unity of faith, so that soon there may be but one flock and one Shepherd.

   Be Thou King of all those who are still involved in the darkness of idolatry or of Islamism; refuse not to draw them all into the light and kingdom of God. Turn Thine eyes of mercy toward the children of that race, once Thy chosen people: of old they called down upon themselves the Blood of the Savior; may it now descend upon them a laver of redemption and of life.

   Grant, O Lord, to Thy Church assurance of freedom and immunity from harm; give peace and order to all nations, and make the earth resound from pole to pole with one cry: Praise to the Divine Heart that wrought our salvation; to It be glory and Honor forever. Amen.

Guest post: Patronising youth, even if by the Pope is still patronising

A guest post by Irenaeus, a 23 year old reader of Vox and more than slightly put off by the patronising of young Catholics as the new Synod soon comes upon us.

Birds, Bees, Youth, Youth Masses and Yutes

by Irenaeus

When I was in elementary school about ten years ago, sex ed was taught throughout Grades 6 to 8 in the Catholic Ontario school system, during puberty, at precisely the time we needed it. When we weren’t watching informative videos on the reproductive systems or labeling diagrams of said reproductive systems, we were given relative freedom to ask our burning questions about fertilization and the like. Never once did I ask – or hear anyone else do the same – when women and men should have their first child.

Until now.

In preparation for the much-hyped 2018 Synod on the Youth, Faith and Vocational Discernment, Il Vaticano has aggressively pushed for youth aged 16 to 29 to complete a survey which promises to “provide [them] with the opportunity to communicate, express and recount who you are and what you want to say about yourself.” It’s being lauded on social media as the best thing to happen to Catholic youth since sliced bread.

Newsflash: it’s not. And it’s time to stop treating youth like they need special treatment.

In addition to the odd question I mentioned above, the survey asks youth to rank characteristics they feel they consider themselves to possess on a 1-5 rating. Or rank their satisfaction with certain institutions. Indicate their sentiments about the working world. Explain why they live with their parents. Why they are unable to have children. If they involve themselves in society through “movements of some type.” If they are Catholic, and how often they participate in “religious services.” Use certain words to describe God. Describe their view of Jesus. Rank only three things (out of nine!) which they consider to be “of particular urgency for the Catholic Church today.” Describe their habits on “the social network” and view of its importance. You get the picture.

I have a couple questions of my own for the people who put this together, and make it look like it came out of Angus Reid. Who cares? Why is there such a willing desire to dumb things down and appeal to more than Catholic youth? Why do the youth deserve an entire synod devoted just to them?

I’ll tell you why: it’s because the youth have been indoctrinated to think they are special in the Catholic Church and will somehow become its saviours.

Hear me, fellow youth: You’re not. And we already have a Savior. His name is Jesus Christ, Supreme Creator and King of the Universe.

Take it from me. I’m in my early twenties – fitting the demographic range targeted for the survey – and I spend regular time with people who are at least ten years my senior who aren’t my parents. On a weekly basis. We talk about serious matters affecting the Church, and discussions are passionate. I’m spoken to as though I am older than I actually am. Things aren’t watered down for me because I’m younger. I’m given the straight up truth and I regularly peruse other materials to bolster my knowledge. In short, I am taken seriously.

Unlike the survey, which slathers on a veneer of respect in order to coerce youth to agree with its modernist, progressive, Novus Ordo-based ideology.

What deceit. What duplicity. Like those youth Masses which are all the rage. With its guitars. Pop-based music. Priests who step out of the sanctuary in order to connect more with the youth, with horrible, simpering sermons to boot. Along with a host of other abuses I’m not going to mention. The youth may come out, but how many actually stick with Catholicism past high school? Regularly attend Mass once they move away from home? Not become apostates? Or otherwise succumb to destructive ideologies currently running rampant on post-secondary campuses? Though there are some, it’s not as many as the droves of youth who come to your Saturday youth Masses, pastors and youth ministers.

As a youth, I stopped attending those Masses long ago. They are disrespectful to our Lord. They are also disrespectful to the youth, who come there looking for something solid and immutable when their lives are in a swirl of change. They don’t get that in Masses that blatantly ignore the reason we have a Mass in the first place. They don’t get that by being taught watered-down, Protestantized Catholic tenets, which ill-equips them for the real world, which is so anti-Catholic. They don’t get that in youth groups, where they are basically forced to agree with what everyone else is saying, even if they personally don’t. Quite simply, they don’t carry on the faith as they should when they receive “primacy of place” in a place where they shouldn’t. Back when I was a Novus Ordo Catholic, I was involved in these things, and it sickens me I used to think youth were the saviours of the Church.

Pastors and youth ministers, are you willing to take me up on a challenge?

Abolish youth ministry. Get rid of Lifeteen. EDGE. The horrible Alpha program. Pluck the youth Masses out of the Mass schedules. Disband the youth bands. Trash all the terrible, modernist music. Like a particular Jesuit who appears on this blog, you’re losing more souls than you’re saving. In the vacuum that results, have the Mass of the Ages – the Tridentine Latin Mass – and nothing else. Restore Gregorian Chant. Polyphony. Institute a rigid catechesis program. Teach yourself the many abuses of the Mass – anything that diminishes the sacred – and eradicate them.

It won’t be immediate. Or easy. But the return will be more than you’re getting now. Believe me. I’ve seen more return after almost a year of attending the TLM than almost four years of attending the Novus Ordo.

If we simply stopped putting youth on a pedestal, we wouldn’t need to deal with simpering surveys like the one put out by the Vatican. Or deal with priests that give lip service while ill-equipping their charges to face an anti-Catholic world. We need youth to become true Catholics who will carry on the faith after they stop being children. We need adults firm in their faith.

In the meantime, let’s stop using the word youth and replace it with the word ‘yutes.’ It’s what the survey wants us to do, anyway.

Saint Jude speaks to us today

Epistle of Saint Jude the Apostle

 [1] Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James: to them that are beloved in God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called. [2] Mercy unto you, and peace, and charity be fulfilled. [3] Dearly beloved, taking all care to write unto you concerning your common salvation, I was under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. [4] For certain men are secretly entered in, (who were written of long ago unto this judgment,) ungodly men, turning the grace of our Lord God into riotousness, and denying the only sovereign Ruler, and our Lord Jesus Christ. [5] I will therefore admonish you, though ye once knew all things, that Jesus, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, did afterwards destroy them that believed not:

[6] And the angels who kept not their principality, but forsook their own habitation, he hath reserved under darkness in everlasting chains, unto the judgment of the great day. [7] As Sodom and Gomorrha, and the neighbouring cities, in like manner, having given themselves to fornication, and going after other flesh, were made an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. [8] In like manner these men also defile the flesh, and despise dominion, and blaspheme majesty. [9] When Michael the archangel, disputing with the devil, contended about the body of Moses, he durst not bring against him the judgment of railing speech, but said: The Lord command thee. [10] But these men blaspheme whatever things they know not: and what things soever they naturally know, like dumb beasts, in these they are corrupted.

[11] Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain: and after the error of Balaam they have for reward poured out themselves, and have perished in the contradiction of Core. [12] These are spots in their banquets, feasting together without fear, feeding themselves, clouds without water, which are carried about by winds, trees of the autumn, unfruitful, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, [13] Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own confusion; wandering stars, to whom the storm of darkness is reserved for ever. [14] Now of these Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying: Behold, the Lord cometh with thousands of his saints, [15] To execute judgment upon all, and to reprove all the ungodly for all the works of their ungodliness, whereby they have done ungodly, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against God.

[16] These are murmurers, full of complaints, walking according to their own desires, and their mouth speaketh proud things, admiring persons for gain's sake. [17] But you, my dearly beloved, be mindful of the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, [18] Who told you, that in the last time there should come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodlinesses. [19] These are they, who separate themselves, sensual men, having not the Spirit. [20] But you, my beloved, building yourselves upon your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,

[21] Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto life everlasting. [22] And some indeed reprove, being judged: [23] But others save, pulling them out of the fire. And on others have mercy, in fear, hating also the spotted garment which is carnal. [24] Now to him who is able to preserve you without sin, and to present you spotless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, [25] To the only God our Saviour through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory and magnificence, empire and power, before all ages, and now, and for all ages of ages. Amen.