RORATE CÆLI

Dr. Kwasniewski’s Upcoming Lectures in Jacksonville, FL and Savannah, GA — December 8–10,

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2022

“Our Lady Teaches Us the Meaning of the Mass”

Jacksonville, FL, 7:00 pm
For more information and to RSVP, write to:
tlmjaxnewsletter@gmail.com

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9

“What’s Really Required for a ‘Eucharistic Revival’: Rethinking How We Approach the Holy Eucharist”

6:30pm Talk with Q&A and booksale
Sacred Heart Catholic Church (Gymnasium)
1707 Bull St.
Savannah, GA 31401

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10

“Gregorian Chant: Perfect Music for Divine Worship”

Talk & Chant Workshop, 9:00 am
For more information and to RSVP, write to:
tlmjaxnewsletter@gmail.com

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10

“Our Response to God’s Greatest Gift: The Urgency of Eucharistic Reverence & Reparation”

6:30 pm Talk with Q&A and booksale
St. Patrick Catholic Church
601 Airport Center Dr E
Jacksonville FL 32218

The same information in poster form:

The Council and the Eclipse of God by Don Pietro Leone: CHAPTER 10 (Part 6a.) III. FEATURES OF THE TEXTS INFLUENTIAL FOR PROMOTING THE COUNCIL’S WORK: 1. Authority; 2.Appeal to Charismatic Inspiration; 3. Appeal to the Senses

https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_counci

l/index.htm

III Features of the Texts Influential for promoting the Council’s Work

Do you want your child to sing but don’t know where to start? Does your child enjoy music and need some inspiration to sing? Whether your child has been singing for years, or not at all, Children’s First Chants will help them grow in their love for sacred music!

Fontgombault Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent: "God is He who is, and for us, from the very first moment of Creation, He also is He who is to come."

First Sunday in Advent

Sermon of the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau

Father Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault

Fontgombault, November 27th, 2022

Appropinquat redemptio vestra.

Your redemption is at hand. (Lk 21:28)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My dearly beloved Sons,

The first Sunday in Advent opens a time leading us through an admirable crescendo towards the feast of Christmas, the Advent time, the time when we wait for the Emmanuel. During these days, we shall share in the hope for the coming of the Messiah promised to the Jewish people, whom they are still awaiting.

Yet, the word ‘wait’, which for many is characteristic of this time, may well obfuscate the true meaning of these days.

‘Waiting’ too often implies a negative note. One waits for some- thing, for an event because it’s not yet there, because it’s dragging on: a delayed train, the water or gas bill with a potentially worry- ing amount, the monthly wage... He who waits is never far from showing impatience. Very often, he who waits spends his time, and finally squanders it, since what he considers is himself, more than the thing or the event he’s waiting for.

What then of the wait proper to the time of Advent? Even though the feast of Christmas tends nowadays to be tempered down under the more neuter and global name of ‘festive season’. Many of our contemporaries yearn during these weeks for family gatherings and the exchange of presents.

Don’t let us mistake the true meaning of this liturgical time. In Latin, Adventus doesn’t evoke a wait, but a coming, an arrival, an accession. During these days, the Church awaits her Saviour who is to come. Here is a true mystery. God is He who is, and for us, from the very first moment of creation, He also is He who is to come.

The Book of Apocalypse reveals Him under this name:

Earlier today, Dr. Joseph Shaw posted his brief response to the five-part Church Life Journal series by Cavadini, Healy, and Weinandy (CHW). I would like to add a few thoughts on CHW's embarrassing exposé of intellectual ignorance, of which its authors should be ashamed—not to mention the Journal in which it appeared, whose reputation has been thereby tarnished.

First, and not to put too fine a point on it, they really haven’t a clue what they are talking about, either academically or experientially. The scholarship is slipshod, superficial, and highly selective. They appear to have no sustained experience with traditional liturgical rites of either East or West (as evidenced by certain remarks about, e.g., ad orientem and “repetition”). It’s like the blind talking about colors, or the deaf talking about music.

Rubrics erased in the Reform

It would try the patience of readers, and more than exhaust the time I have available, to comment on the whole series of five articles published in Church Life Journal by John Cavadini, Mary Healy, and Thomas Weinandy (hereafter, CHW). Instead I will focus on just two points in the concluding article of the series: ‘The Way Forward from the Theological Concerns with the TLM Movement’.

Traditional Mass at a side Rosary Altar, St. Vincent Ferrer* (New York City)

"Words of thanks to someone I knew well as a child:

"I had an old great-aunt. She was my grandfather’s sister. Her name was Mary Jane Byrne but we called her Jane Jane. When I first encountered her, in the 1950s, I was a little child and she was ancient—about 60.

"She lived in New York and went to a local parish, St. Vincent Ferrer. When I was little she told me it was the pennies of immigrants that made that great church. I asked why they did that. She said, 'To show love for God. And to show the Protestants we’re here, and we have real estate too.'

...

"If we were together on a Sunday, she [great-aunt Jane Jane] took me to Mass. I loved it. They had bells and candles and smoke and shadows and they sang. The church changed that a bit over the years, but we lost a lot when we lost the showbiz. Because, of course, it wasn’t only showbiz. To a child’s eyes, my eyes, it looked as if either you go to church because you’re nice or you go and it makes you nice but either way it’s good.

Papal High Mass with Pope John XXIII in St. Peter's Basilica for the opening of the Council

(Published in German on November 19, 2022: source.)

Funny question — of course there is. It is the Mass celebrated by 10,000 participating priests and bishops on all days of the Council, and by the Roman clergy as well: the Mass whose Ordo had been purged of some of the errors of the then-modern age after the Council of Trent on its behalf, and so promulgated by Pope Pius V in 1570. Not as a "new" Missal — in many respects rather restored to the state of the 13th century — and a fortiori not as a new and exclusive form of the lex orandi of the Roman rite, but as the Holy Mass as it had been since time immemorial (Pope Damasus in the 4th century, Pope Gregory in the 6th century) and always should be in the future.

You can buy this here from the Latin Mass Society's online shop, which dispatches all over the world. Just in time for Christmas: for the bishop in your life?

The Bishops at the Second Vatican Council

Old Latin Mass Finds New American Audience, Despite Pope’s Disapproval
An ancient form of Catholic worship is drawing in young traditionalists and conservatives. But it signals a divide within the church.
By Ruth Graham
The New York Times

Nov. 15, 2022

DETROIT — Eric Agustin’s eight children used to call the first day of the week “Party Sunday.” The family would wake up, attend a short morning Mass at a Catholic parish near their house, then head home for lunch and an afternoon of relaxing and watching football.
But this summer, the family made a “big switch,” one of his teenage sons said on a recent Sunday afternoon outside St. Joseph Shrine, the family’s new parish. At St. Joseph, the liturgy is ornate, precisely choreographed and conducted entirely in Latin. The family drives an hour round trip to attend a service that starts at 11 a.m. and can last almost two hours.
The traditional Latin Mass, an ancient form of Catholic worship that Pope Francis has tried to discourage, is instead experiencing a revival in the United States. It appeals to an overlapping mix of aesthetic traditionalists, young families, new converts and critics of Francis. And its resurgence, boosted by the pandemic years, is part of a rising right-wing strain within American Christianity as a whole.
...

When you’ve lost Enzo Bianchi…

Bianchi is well known as the founder of the “ecumenical” monastic community of Bose. He was removed as lay prior a few years ago not due to personal scandal, but to unclear issues of "the exercise of authority". Regardless, he has always been a consistent voice for radical liberalism in Catholic Italy, and a staunch defender of all things Francis.

Up until now.

Even Bianchi is shocked and embarrassed with the mistreatment and shunning of Traditional Catholics in the current pontificate. In the current issue of "Vita Pastorale", the also very "progressive" monthly of "progressive" Italian Catholics, Bianchi had some choice words regarding a Church that listens and wants dialogue with everyone -- everyone, except Traditionalists:

***

Ecclesial communion

Mass cannot be a place of contestation and fraternal division.
And the liturgy if it is not celebration of the Gospel cannot attract anyone. Vita Pastorale - 10 November 2022
By Enzo Bianchi

Pope Francis writes in his apostolic letter Desiderio desideravi that the tensions, unfortunately present around the celebration, cannot be judged as a simple divergence of sensibility towards a ritual form, but that they should be understood as ecclesiological divergences. This is why he felt it his duty to affirm that "the liturgical books promulgated by the Holy Pontiffs Paul VI and John Paul II in comparison with the decrees of the Second Vatican Council are the only expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite" (TC, art. 1).

The expression is strong and peremptory, but it certainly does not deny that the Vetus Ordo in force until the Liturgical Reform was in those centuries an expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.

‘The Council and the Eclipse of God’ by Don Pietro Leone: Chapter 10 (part 5 b – the Devil’s Agency continued: vi) Anti-Realist Subjectivism: more on the universal and systematic scope of the Council’s anti-realist subjectivism.

Christ the King Statue in Świebodzin (POLAND)

‘The Council's anti-realist subjectivism is directed uniquely towards the dethronement of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the enthronement of man in His place.’

Cross-posted from the FIUV blog.

Since the PCED and its successor, in the form of the 4th Section of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, lost its responsibility for the Traditional Mass, the Ordo it used to publish for the 1962 Missal has also ceased to appear.

In recent times, we have witnessed, here and there, the use of cathedrals and other sacred buildings for conferences and other events for politicians, social leaders and members of other groups of different orientations. In this way, for example, recognition is sought for the ten years since the pontifical election. And the Pope himself endorses them with words such as: "It comforts my soul that my person has made possible this moment of communion, of encounter beyond differences." In these meetings, the Holy Father's teachings in the encyclicals Laudato Si and Fratelli Tutti are invited to be taken up.

James Bogle: was Queen Elizabeth to blame for the Abortion Act?

In the Octave of the Feast of Christ the King…

To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the one only God, be honour and glory forever…

By James Bogle Esq

2008 photo by 'brokenkey' via
Wikipedia commons.

The article on the web-site of the British-based lay initiative, Voice of the Family, formed to defend Catholic teaching on the family, headed “To God alone be the honour and glory” by my good friend, Dr Alan Fimister, has all the good intentions that I have learned to associate with him. However, it misrepresents the true position of the British monarch, not least our late Queen Elizabeth II, and that on a very serious and important issue.

I respond now to Alan’s piece in fraternal charity with the sole aim of arriving at the truth which, of course, should be the first concern of all Catholic journalists and writers. I am grateful to Rorate Caeli for publishing this article and saddened that Voice of the Family was unwilling to do so or to correct the highly misleading and damaging impression left by Alan’s article.

Gregorius Magnus: new edition of the FIUV magazine published

Cross-posted from the FIUV blog.

A new edition of our biannual magazine Gregorius Magnus is published! The magazine is free and available to all; you can read it online, we handed out 150 copies to participants of the Summorum Pontificum Ad Petri Sedem pilgrimage in Rome, and a small number will receive it in the post.

The following speech was given at the Pax Liturgica conference on Friday, October 28, 2022, at the start of the Populus Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage weekend. Mr. Valli graciously sent me the text for translation and publication at Rorate Caeli.

“The Traditional Mass—The Rediscovered Treasure”

Aldo Maria Valli

Rome, October 28, 2022

I wish to speak to you about the ancient Mass -- but perhaps it would be better to call it the Mass of Ages -- as a rediscovered treasure. A precious pearl, a priceless treasure long hidden from generations of Catholics, including myself, but finally rediscovered, by divine grace and the commitment of so many courageous believers.

"And the Word became ideology": At the Synod, a falsified Church

Luisella Scrosati

La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana

November 7, 2022

(source)

On Oct. 27, Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the General Secretariat of the Synod, spoke first during the press conference presenting the Working Document for the Continental Stage of the Synod, a document summarizing what emerged from all the diocesan consultations. "Enlarge the Space of Your Tent" (this is the title of the document) is the "synthesis of syntheses."

Review of New Edition of Dom Gaspar Lefebvre's "Catholic Liturgy: Its Fundamental Principles"

Review of the new and expanded edition of Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, OSB's "Catholic Liturgy: Its Fundamental Principles" (Romanitas Press, 2022).

Dutch Bishop: “God is out of the picture in this damned synodal process. The Holy Spirit has absolutely nothing to do with it.”

Once again, Bishop Robert Mutsaerts, auxiliary of Den Bosch, the Netherlands, has the right words for the right time.

In a better age, like Cardinal Pie, he would have long been created a Cardinal. Alas…

***

Synodal process as an instrument to change the Church?

Bishop Robert Mutsaerts

November 4, 2022

On Thursday, Oct. 27, the Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops in Rome presented the working document for the Continental Phase of the Synod "For a synodal Church: communio, participatio, missio.” This took place at a press conference chaired by Cardinal Grech held at the Holy See press center in Rome. The document was entitled "Increase the space in your tent" (Isaiah 54:2). Based on all the final documents of the meetings in the various Continents, the Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops then compiles the Instrumentum Laboris, the working document for the 2023 and 2024 Synod meetings.

'The Devil Entering Through A Window In The Church'(Detail from St. Anthony the Hermit in the Isenheim Altarpiece)by Matthias Grünewald (late 15th early 16th century)

II The Principal Agents of the Council

“Church” without sacraments and priests? On the desacerdotalization of the German Church

The following article by Michael Charlier appeared in German at his website on November 3, 2022. It is translated for Rorate Caeli.

The diocese of Mainz has published by circular letter the liturgical form for a "death blessing," which would be able to be given by lay people. It is apparently intended to replace the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick/Last Rites, which has been completely abandoned in many places and the administration of which is reserved to the ordained priest. After kath.net published a theological critique of this procedure by Msgr. Schroedel, several readers wrote in to say that this practice is by no means new but has gone on in several dioceses for ten years or more. The "Handreichung zum Sterbesegen" (Handout on the Blessing of the Dying) of the diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart dating from 2012 proves this (link).

Vatican Sec. of State Parolin to French Bishops: Help Trads "disoriented" with Traditionis Custodes

Message sent by the Vatican Secretary of State, Card. Parolin, to the French Episcopal Conference meeting this week in Lourdes:

The Holy Father Pope Francis wishes to assure you and all the members present [at the 2022 Fall Plenary Assembly] of his prayer and his fraternal and spiritual support.

At a time when the Church of France is once again shaken by the drama of abuse on the part of some of its pastors, he invites you, with your eyes fixed on the cross of Christ, not to be discouraged but to persevere in the assurance that the Holy Spirit will accompany your efforts, which will once again be the object of your work. He knows your determination to give the Church of France its true missionary face, and he encourages you to go forward with audacity and discernment.

Cardinal Zuppi, Abp. of Bologna, President of the Italian Episcopal Conference, led Traditional Vespers at the oldest standing religious building in Rome, the Pantheon (Sancta Maria ad Martyres), on this first day of the 2022 Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage to Rome:

The Church, which, as a main publicly owned tourist website, remains open for visitation during ceremonies had its seats filled with lay faithful, mostly young, and young priests. Fr. Claude Barthe, chaplain of the pilgrimage, made a brief pronouncement, and so did Cardinal Zuppi, joyfully welcoming the traditional pilgrims to the Eternal City.

More images below:

2023 Traditional Catholic Calendars! - Transalpine Redemptorist Calendars Now Available

The 2023 Papa Stronsay Calendar is now available!

Giving you the liturgical feast and colour of each day of the year, the calendar also includes other information such as particular feasts, traditional days of abstinence, saints’ anniversaries, the liturgical zodiac, the phases of the moon, public holidays of eight English-speaking countries and more. Each month features a picture from the Holy Island of Papa Stronsay, or of Transalpine Redemptorist activity elsewhere around the world.

The calendar is available for purchase here. Images from inside the calendar below:

Event: Christ the King Mass, Procession (Bridgeport, Connecticut)

Some "Highlights" from the Working Document for the Continental Stage of the Synod on Synodality

You may have heard that the "Working Document for the Continental Stage" of the "Synod on Synodality" was released today. (You may not have heard, in which case, I apologise for this article!) Numerous Catholic news outlets (of varying quality) have already commented on this document, but I thought I would provide a few of my own "highlights" for readers.

1. The document claims that "Globally, participation exceeded all expectations" (n. 5). Given that the participation of even those Catholics who attend Mass has been exceptionally low - something even cardinals have recognised! - this is either a lie, or the expectations were very, very low to begin with!

2. One of the few positives is that the document explicitly says that "it is not a document of the Church’s Magisterium" (n. 8). Thus, when the time inevitably comes, we can just chuck it in the bin and concentrate on more important things in the life of the Church. Deo gratias!

“The Hermeneutics of Benedict XVI” — Talk by Fr Alfredo Morselli

Transcript of a talk given on October 13, 2022, as part of the online conference "The Second Vatican Council. By its fruits we shall know it." (Translated for Rorate from the Italian original, here.)

Ave Maria! Dear Brothers, I have been asked to speak about the Hermeneutics of Benedict XVI, with reference to his address to the Roman Curia, December 22, 2005 (almost 17 years ago)[1]: Benedict XVI, 40 years after the closing of the Council, wondered about the reasons for a certain post-conciliar crisis.

Quoting St. Basil, the Pontiff, now emeritus but then reigning, said, "the confused noise of uninterrupted clamors has now filled almost the whole Church, distorting, by excess or by defect, the correct doctrine of the faith...." The Pontiff, wanting to reflect on all this, asked, "Why has the reception of the Council, in large parts of the Church, so far been so difficult?"

Let us keep in mind that that situation, compared to today, was rosy; compared to the post-conciliar crisis, described by Benedict XVI, today we have far more serious uninterrupted clamors that distort "by excess or by defect, the correct doctrine of the faith." I draw a summary list of them:

The main hall in Pennsylvania Station, 1910-1963

Few other occurrences in history have their achievements celebrated as often as does the Second Vatican Council. So, although rather tiresome, the laudatory commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of the opening of the Council is de rigueur for today’s rather tiresome ecclesial establishment. Worthy of note, however, is the defensive tone adopted for the birthday party in which the Council’s partisans have made a point to defend the Council ab initio—insisting that it was necessary to hold the Council and that it was, in conception, a great and a good moment in history—one that remains untarnished by, and even divorced from, its aftermath.

Those who see the Council in this manner are, for the most part, Baby Boomers (e.g., George Weigel) and members of the generation that preceded the Boomers (what name shall we give the generation that produced Bergolio, Biden, and Pelosi?). For this cohort, the Council was the New Frontier for Religion. Just as the political torch was passed to a new generation in the wake of the disasters of the first half of the twentieth century, so too the Council would usher in a new age of Catholicism that would surpass Church’s reliance upon morality manuals and the stale memorization of Scholastic conceptions and rules. It was the moonshot for the Church.

The 60th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council (11th October 1962) has recently passed, accompanied with the usual panegyrics and plaudits, this time round with the addition of so-called "synodality". Indeed, we should, so the Pope says, "return to the Council's pure sources of love... rediscover the Council's passion and renew our own passion for the Council."

“Cursed Cultus or Worthy Worship: The Choice that Faces Us” — Dr. Kwasniewski's Presentation in Arlington, VA

Sophia Institute Press held a booklaunch for Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s The Catholic Mass, in Arlington, VA on Tuesday, October 18, 2022. Diane Montagna was the moderator. Bishop Schneider delivered a talk on the centrality of Christ in the Mass. (When this talk becomes available, I will share it.)

As part of the event, I gave a 30-minute presentation entitled “Cursed Cultus or Worthy Worship: The Choice that Faces Us.” This is now available on YouTube:

Francis names pro-abortion atheist as member of Pontifical Academy for Life

A nightmare that has no end: that is the sick pontificate through which we are suffering.

The Pontifical Academy for Life was one of the very few positive post-conciliar creations. Unsurprisingly, it was born of the mind of Dr. Jerôme Lejeune, one of the greatest pro-life heroes, who suggested it to John Paul II and was named its first president.

Since the advent of Francis, the new Pontifical Academy for Life has become a hotbed of dissent from Catholic moral teaching: from contraception to homosexuality to abortion, and other doctrinal issues, there is no matter on which it has not caused scandal under the leadership of Abp. Vincenzo Paglia.

Its newest members were named by Francis yesterday, among them a radical leftist economist, an Italian living in the U.S. named Mariana Mazzucato. Mazzucato is an avowed atheist:

60 Years of Vatican II – ‘THE COUNCIL AND THE ECLIPSE OF GOD’ by Don Pietro Leone – CHAPTER 10: ‘The Causes of Council Teaching’ Part 3 – C. Religion

The section on Gnosis is particularly damning - it's a long read but highly recommended. F.R.

We here (as we have done above) understand ‘religion’ broadly as a system of belief and ethics. The religion (in this sense) which proposes the self-deification of man [1] in its original and paradigmatic form, is Gnosis.

Here we consider:

1. The Origin of Gnosis,

2. The Development of Gnosis;

3. Gnosis in the Council.

“The Church’s Newman Problem” — Article by John Byron Kuhner

Rorate Caeli is grateful to Inside the Vatican Magazine for permission to republish the following article from their September-October issue. Inside the Vatican is celebrating 30 years of covering events in the Vatican and around the universal Church, with balance, insight, and faithfulness. It is keeping free thought alive by remaining in print (in addition to the digital version and website) so that it can’t be “cancelled” or de-platformed. A special 30th anniversary subscription rate of $20 per year (half off the regular subscription rate) is available for a limited time. Either go to this link OR send an email to this address.

The Church’s Newman Problem

John Byron Kuhner

“Traditionalism: Fidelity, Resistance, Work of the Church”: Jean-Pierre Maugendre

On Saturday, September 24, 2022, a symposium on the future of the traditional Mass was held in Paris, bringing together nearly 500 participants. The great success of this event, co-organized in particular by the associations Oremus-Paix Liturgique and Renaissance Catholique, was due to the quality of the interventions and in particular that of Jean-Pierre Maugendre, President of Renaissance Catholique, a translation of which appears below.

Everything began well:

Padre Pio and the Seminarian’s Guardian Angel

Don Marcello Stanzione

Il Nuovo Arengario

October 9, 2022

Padre Pio with Father Jean Derobert

On the 60th Anniversary of the Opening of Vatican II... let's talk about more pleasant things (with beautiful pictures)

The "prophets of doom" mocked by John XXIII in his opening speech were right. Of course they were. Those who warn of the disastrous results of revolutionary projects are always right. They were right when they warned Louis XVI against calling the Estates-General. They were right when they warned Franz Joseph not to declare war on Serbia after the ultimatum had been basically all accepted or when they warned Nicholas II not to decree "partial mobilization" in 1914.

Anyway, many good things are still going on despite the noxious fumes coming from the Vatican still now with the nonsensical Satan Synod ("Synod on Synodality") as this completely bankrupt pontificate unravels.

This past Saturday, for instance, hundreds of faithful, mostly young people, attended the Pontifical Mass celebrated at the Church of Saint Roch, Paris, for the 40th Anniversary of the association that promotes the yearly Paris-Chartres Pilgrimage (Notre-Dame de Chrétienté). The Mass was celebrated by the Abbot of St. Madeleine of Le Barroux.