Happy New Year! A very happy Sunday of the Octave of the Nativity!
Well, those who have been visiting this weblog know by now that I am an enthusiast of the current pontificate. But I have many reservations -- more reasons for despair than for hope, probably.
One of the most worrying signs of the current pontificate is the feeling that nothing, absolutely nothing, has changed. That as it happened in the years of Popes Paul VI and (less, but still predominantly) John Paul II, extreme-progressives get away with almost everything, especially in the field of the liturgy. The feeling that there are stern words, but no action. The feeling that anything goes -- except the Traditional Mass, which has taken more than a few honorable priests to conflicts with their superiors.
A few months ago, Catholic Church Conservation (link in the sidebar) and other outlets showed a few startling pictures of the Casa da Juventude ("Youth House"), in Goiania (Archdiocese of Goiania), Brazil, a foundation of the Jesuit Province of Mid-East Brazil, directed by Father Geraldo Marcos Labarrère Nascimento, SJ. The recent pictures of the "events" promoted by this evil place show that absolutely nothing has changed in the Ratzinger Pontificate. NOTHING. Actually, things seem to be getting markedly worse.
For instance, look at this picture of a "stealth-priestess" (not so stealth), taken from the page of the "Fourth Part of the Seminar on Liturgy", November 11-13, 2005 (others here):
Or this scene (I have no idea of what this is, probably another idea for "lay participation"), taken from the "Third Part of the Seminar on Liturgy", October, 2005 (others here -- both seminars under the direction of Father Laudimiro de Jesus Borges, CSS, a Stigmatine):
One wonders what they think of Pope Benedict. A weakling? A coward? "We do not care, he is too old"? Pope Benedict's position on the Liturgy is absolutely irrelevant to them -- they could not care less! They are probably, in human terms, entitled to feel this way, since there has been no action from Rome in forty years!
Groups like the Neocatechumenal Way probably also do not care much about the recent "edict" regarding their liturgical activities and choices. Who will make sure the rules are followed? No group fears Rome because they sense, in this pontificate as in the recent ones, that Rome has no teeth. The Mother and Teacher of Churches, the Holy Roman Church, is to them an old lady with no strength, no teeth, no willpower, nothing but irrelevant words, "sicut paleæ ante faciem venti, et sicut favilla quam turbo dispergit" (Job, 21: as chaff before the face of the wind, and as ashes which the whirlwind scattereth).
WHERE IS ROME? How can things like this still go on, eight months after the great Ratzinger became pope?
One also wonders, while this happens: WHY IS THE TRADITIONAL MASS STILL UNDER OFFICIAL RESTRICTIONS?
In this new Year of the Lord, I lift my eyes to Him (...levavi oculos meos...), and to His Vicar, and I ask, as in the Psalm, "Unde veniet auxilium meum" ? (Ps. 120. From whence help shall come to me?) Will we end this new year of 2006 with the same situation around the world? And meanwhile, what are we supposed to do about the souls being lost? What may be done about the "youth" corrupted in places like this perverted Jesuit "Youth House" (see more pictures here, including of bizarre seminars on "Sexuality"). Will this ridicule and disdain for the Lord and for His Church ever end? Will Rome ever take real action? Will the Roman Rite EVER be restored to its ancient glory, or will these pathetic scenes, direct descendants of the "experimentations" allowed and in some cases even approved by Rome in the 1960s, direct descendants of the performances of Abp. Annibale Bugnini and Abp. Piero Marini, go on forever?
They laugh and they scorn the "Lord and His Annointed"; we know that, in the end, and all the hierarchy must be reminded of that, "Qui habitat in cælis irridebit eos" (Ps. 2. He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them). In the meantime the prevention of scandal, of the loss of souls, and of scorn of the Lord is on the hands of the hierarchs.
Domine, non confundar, quoniam invocavi te. Erubescant impii, et deducantur in infernum. (Ps. 30. Let me not be confounded, O Lord, for I have called upon thee. Let the wicked be ashamed, and be brought down to hell.)
Oremus pro Pontifice nostro Benedicto.
