Guest Op-Ed: 500th anniversary of the excommunication of arch-heretic, Martin Luther

By Mark Thomas

This Sunday, January 3, 2021, is the 500^th anniversary of the excommunication of Martin Luther as a heretic and schismatic – the greatest damage ever done to the Holy Catholic Church. He died unrepentant, without the sacraments and outside the One True Church.

Yes, Pope Leo X, who issued the excommunication decree and the previous Exsurge Domine warning (6/15/1520) to Luther, had a mixed record of papal righteousness – but in this event he is nearly unsurpassed and fairly vindicated. 

In this writer's view, these documents are two of the most formidable, necessary and courageous decrees emanating from the Chair of Peter, defending the Holy Roman Catholic Church from doctrinal attack. They were subsequently, fully upheld by the Council of Trent – also one of the greatest Councils in Church history – to which we owe very much, especially on the Eucharist!

We still face great danger. With Luther, there was no warning, just 95 absurd theses appearing out of thin air. 

Here today, we had a warning in 1917 at Fatima. “Russia will spread her errors throughout the world,” did Our Lady alert the three children and us Catholics. 

We feel these effects today – a far more serious warning than Luther. In full deference to Our Lady and the Most Holy Trinity – it is extremely doubtful (despite assertions to the contrary) that the full, correct Consecration to Russia was done; or that the decisive 3^rd Secret text was totally revealed. 

THOMAS BECKET - "This is the sign of the Church always: The Sign of Blood."

KNIGHTS. Where is Becket, the traitor to the King?
Where is Becket, the meddling priest?
Come down Daniel to the lions' den,
Come down Daniel for the mark of the beast.

headers 2018 grande trappe giotto nativity scrovegni chartreuse

"When the Child was Born" (Quanno nascette ninno) -- A Christmas Poem by St. Alphosus Liguori -- Exclusive English translation for Rorate

A Very Happy Christmas and a Blessed Christmastide to all of you and all of your families!

As a gift to our readers, Rorate is fortunate enough to present what we believe to be a first in English: a translation, from the original Neapolitan, of St. Alphonsus Liguori musical poem for Christmas, Quanno nascette ninno (When the Child was Born)

When the Child was born (Quanno nascette ninno)

When the Child was born in Bethlehem

It was night and it seemed noon.

Never the stars shining and beautiful were seen like this:

And the brightest one went and called the Magi in the East.

Suddenly birds awoke

Singing in a whole new form:

Even the crickets with shrieks,

Jumping from side to side;

He’s born, He is born,

They said, the God who created us.

"My Lord and my God!" The Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle in late Advent

The feast of St. Thomas the Apostle has been kept on this day, December 21 from at least the ninth century.  It was moved to July 3, the day mentioned by St. Jerome as the date of his martyrdom in India, by those who revised the calendar after the Second Vatican Council.  They did this so that his feast would not interrupt the major ferial days of Advent leading to Christmas.  They wanted to tidy things up, calendar wise.  They considered the feast of St. Thomas in later Advent out of place.  Their liturgical rationalism made them blind to the wonderful interruption of late Advent made possible by the feast of this apostle.

 

Today’s Gospel is the famous Gospel of "doubting Thomas".  This Gospel is heard also on the Sunday after Easter, Low Sunday.  Heard on Low Sunday it makes sense as the continuing narrative of Jesus’ resurrection and appearances to the disciples. But it also makes sense in a discontinuous way today, four days before the celebration of the birth of Christ.  The celebration of Christmas makes sense only if one believes that the baby in the manger is the Incarnate Lord, the God-man, who came to save the world from sin and eternal death.  In an increasingly secularized world, this is either deliberately erased by a celebration of general good feeling and bonhomie. Or it is forgotten by Christians whose faith has been watered down lest they be uncomfortable in thinking about the real link between the wood of the manger and the wood of the Cross. 

The case against masks, presented by a religious Sister in the form of an article from the Summa

Rorate is grateful for the following contribution, offered to us by a religious Sister who wishes to remain anonymous (or rather, who must remain anonymous for the sake of her community).

For the past ten months or so, we have been urged, commanded, and threatened to wear masks. The majority of the populace seems to be complying. It is the exception, rather than the norm, to see unmasked faces at a grocery store, a gas station, or the gym. Christians seem to be like their neighbors in this regard; walking into most Masses on a Sunday morning, one is likely to be “greeted” with masked parishioners, social distancing, and lots of sanitizer.

15 Years of Rorate Caeli: Thank you!

A very happy RORATE SUNDAY! 

 And deep gratitude to God Almighty for all our readers on this 15th Anniversary of our work for Christ and Church, Rorate Caeli. 

 Thank you!

De Mattei: "The Year of Saint Joseph: A Great Opportunity for the Church"

Roberto de Mattei

The scenario at the end of 2020 appears very different from that with which 2019 concluded. A year ago, the unrelenting decline of the pontificate of Pope Francis was confirmed by the outcome of the Pan-Amazonian Synod which was unable to bring about any of the expectations of the progressivists, from the abolition of ecclesiastical celibacy to women priests. On the level of international politics, the victory of Donald Trump in the following year’s election seemed sure, without any electoral fraud able to threaten it. The resistance against the revolutionary forces which dominate the world was shown in many ways: by great pro-life events to anticommunist demonstrations in Hong Kong, to the formations of Catholics in Acies Ordinata. The groups most tied to Tradition were on the attack, with a substantial unity of purpose.

MAJOR EXPOSÉ: Rooms broken into, dossiers stolen, death threats, armed guards, assassinations... Fr. Charles Murr on Vatican intrigues surrounding Cardinals Baggio, Benelli, Villot, and Gagnon

Rorate readers will be aware of the groundbreaking interview Kevin J. Symonds conducted with Fr. Murr for the October 2020 issue of Inside the Vatican, which was also published at Rorate on October 10. Interested readers may want to read that interview first in order to gain more understanding of context for the present one, which was done once again for Inside the Vatican. In the previous interview, Fr. Murr told us about his friendship with Mother Pascalina Lehnert, the “right hand” of Pope Pius XII for several decades. In addition to this discussion, Fr. Murr made some notable revelations about what was going on at the Vatican in the 1960s, and 1970s. The interview below follows up on these revelations with the theme of “where do we go from here?”

Cardinal Baggi (L) and Cardinal Benelli (R)

“BY THEIR FRUITS YOU SHALL KNOW THEM”:

KEVIN SYMONDS’ SECOND INTERVIEW WITH FR. CHARLES MURR

ITV: Thank you, Fr. Murr, for sitting down again with Inside the Vatican. In our previous interview, you spoke of your association with Cardinal Edouard Gagnon and Msgr. Mario Marini. These two men worked closely with the Sostituto of the Secretariat of State, Cardinal Benelli. You yourself, however, did not enjoy the same association with Cardinal Benelli...

I was twenty-four years-old when I met and became friends with the newly appointed minutante in the Vatican Secretariat of State, Monsignor Mario Marini. Soon after, Marini introduced me to another extraordinary man who would play a major role in my life, his good friend, Archbishop Edouard Gagnon (1918–2007). Gagnon and Marini were respected friends and confidants of Archbishop Giovanni Benelli (Sostituto of the Secretary of State); I was not part of that inner circle. I knew Benelli, of course, and spoke with him many times, but I knew my place. Once, on Lago di Bracciano I was at table with him and Monsignors [Guillermo] Zanoni and Marini. I remember talking as little as possible. With Benelli, I knew my place and kept it.

Why did you think of your relationship with Benelli in this way?

To begin with, Giovanni Benelli was Giovanni Benelli! He was one of the most powerful men on earth; brilliant, a strategizer and deal-maker par excellence, the #1 Vatican diplomat, a man on familiar terms with popes and princes, patriarchs and presidents, world leaders of all sorts. I, on the other hand, was a greenhorn American student of philosophy; absolutely no one of consequence. Those special times that I was privileged to be in Benelli’s company were times I knew I was in the presence of greatness.

Liturgical colors - header

Resistance is never futile: An interview with Christian Marquant, founder of Paix Liturgique

We are pleased to present the text of an interview we recently conducted with Monsieur Christian Marquant of Paix Liturgique (“Liturgical Peace”). He belongs to the generation of extraordinary people who, as young men, acted decisively when their elders shrank from doing so: they resisted the imposition of liturgical novelty upon the people of God. Here, for the first time online, Christian recounts his adventures and misadventures from the mid-1960s to the present—above all, the establishment and work of Paix Liturgique, a multilingual, data-driven enterprise for the restoration of the usus antiquior all around the world. We are grateful for the many historic photos Mr. Marquant shared with us, most of which appear here for the first time. Dr. John Pepino kindly translated the interview from French into English.

 

Christian Marquant, Summorum Pontificum Conference, October 2020, Rome

The “Long March” of Paix Liturgique

Rorate Caeli: Dear Christian, you are the man who orchestrates Oremus-Paix Liturgique. Could you tell us about this movements and its activities?

 

Christian Marquant: It would hard to tell you what we are today without telling you at least some of our history as Catholic activists. It all began in the mid-1960s.

Op-Ed: "No More Bishop Nice Guy": The Future of the Catholic Church in the United States

 The Wall Street Journal recently published an editorial by one of their deputy editors entitled “No More Bishop Nice Guy”.  The author, Matthew Hennessey, makes a plea to the bishops: “Show some backbone. Open the churches”.  He points out what should be obvious to the bishops:  the terrible spiritual damage done to so many families whose loved ones died alone without the Sacraments, the arbitrary limiting of worshippers in churches to numbers that have no scientific justification, and, probably the worst, the breaking of the fundamental and godly habit of regular Mass attendance for millions of families.

 

The Traditional Mass in Latin America: survey from the FIUV

Recently, the FoederatioInternationalis Una Voce (FIUV), of which I am Secretary, conducted a survey of its member associations and other contacts to supply information for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: to supplement the survey of bishops the Congregation had itself initiated. We received a large number of responses, including from almost every Spanish-speaking country.

The graph illustrates the availability of the EF in the dioceses for which we had responses, and the contrast between the USA and Canada, on the one hand, and Mexico and 16 countries in Central and South America on the other. In the former, nearly 60% have at least one centre where the EF is celebrted on a more than just Sunday and Holy Day basis, labelled for convenience as ‘Full’ provision. In Latin America, only 4 of the 97 dioceses for which we received reports is there a centre offering a ‘more than Sunday and Holyday’ provision, while in 51 of them no public celebrations are taking place at all.

There are many dioceses for which we had no reports, in Latin America, where there are almost certainly no EF Masses taking place; in Canada and the USA, on the other hand, we are more likely to have missed out on places where there are celebrations. This means the graph probably understates the contrast.

Of greater value than figures, I believe, are the personal testimonies of the people filling in the survey. I offer a selection here, anonymised to protect the individuals and groups concerned. I will let them speak for themselves, from a full range of experiences, both good and bad, in seeking the Church’s ancient liturgy.

These quotations are translations from the Spanish. The original Spanish can be seen in a Spanish-language version of this blogpost at the Adelante la fe blog here

If anyone would like to join the FIUV’s list of local contacts, please email me at secretary@fiuv.org

From Argentina

We were treated with contempt on the part of the bishop.

(another diocese)

We are segregated and labelled, by the clergy and laity with positions in the diocese, as execrable traditionalist recalcitrants, when we only wish to offer our Lord the honour he deserves…

The Ordinary is totally hostile. He has forbidden kneeling for Holy Communion. He has persecuted all who want to celebrate Mass in the Extraordinary Form.

(another diocese)

RORATE EXCLUSIVE—New biography describes great influence of Fr. Joseph Ratzinger in Vatican II

Rorate is pleased to publish the following article by Dr. Maike Hickson, in which she summarizes the information on (then Father and peritus) Joseph Ratzinger’s involvement in the Council as detailed in Seewald’s magisterial biography, the first volume of which will be released in English on December 15. While some of these facts are already well-known, they have never been presented with as much detail and coherence as Seewald offers. Hickson worked from both the original German edition and the forthcoming English translation. In publishing this critique, we acknowledge at the same time how indebted we are to Ratzinger/Benedict XVI for taking crucial and countercultural steps on behalf of the restoration of the authentic Roman liturgy.

The Great Influence of Joseph Ratzinger in the Revolutionary Upheaval of the Second Vatican Council

Dr. Maike Hickson

Peter Seewald’s authoritative biography, Benedict XVI: A Life—already published in German in its entirety, and due to be published in English in two volumes, with the first volume released on December 15 from Bloomsbury—describes in detail the important role then-Professor Joseph Ratzinger played before and during the Second Vatican Council. His influence helped to bring about a revolutionary change of the Council’s direction, tone, and topics. For example, he was able to change the Church’s presentation of the concept of the sources of Revelation, he helped suppress an independent schema on Our Lady, he opposed an “anti-Modernist spirit,” and he was in favor of using the vernacular languages during Holy Mass. As Seewald himself stated in a recent interview: Ratzinger helped the “advance of Modernism in the Church,” and “was always a progressive theologian.”

TLM strength yet again recognized by New York Times

It is always encouraging to see mainstream media observe the beauty and vibrancy of the traditional Latin Mass and its communities.  The New York Times, which has previously cited the strength of the traditional Latin Mass in France, has done so again, this time within an observation that churches there are the only places to hear live music during coronavirus shutdowns:

Every Sunday, St.-Roch, known as the “church of artists,” celebrates a Tridentine Mass, the traditional Latin Mass that was standard until the introduction of services in vernacular languages in the late 1960s. The Tridentine Mass isn’t exactly audience friendly: For starters, the priests perform most of it while turned toward the altar, with their backs to the congregation.

Still, it has its aficionados. The crowd on the first Sunday of December was among the largest I’ve seen indoors since the start of the pandemic. At least 400 people filled St.-Roch, with limited social distancing and no enforcement of mask rules.

Many Plenary Indulgences available throughout the Year of Saint Joseph, starting today: Conditions (in English)

The Pope introduced the Year of Saint Joseph, to celebrate the 150 years of his Patronage over the Universal Church.

Along with the papal apostolic letter, the Major Penitentiary introduced a set of new plenary indulgences, available until December 8, 2021. The Apostolic Penitentiary letter is here (in Latin and Italian).

The details are the following:

Conditions for the plenary indulgence

The plenary indulgence is granted to the faithful under the usual conditions (sacramental confession, Eucharistic Communion, and prayer for the Pope’s intentions) to Christians who, with a spirit detached from any sin, participate in the Year of St. Joseph on these occasions and manners indicated by the Apostolic Penitentiary:

Apostolic Letter PATRIS CORDE of the Holy Father, on the 150th Anniversary of the Proclamation of Saint Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church

APOSTOLIC LETTER

PATRIS CORDE

OF THE HOLY FATHER
FRANCIS

ON THE 150^th ANNIVERSARY
OF THE PROCLAMATION OF SAINT JOSEPH
AS PATRON OF THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH

 

WITH A FATHER’S HEART: that is how Joseph loved Jesus, whom all four Gospels refer to as “the son of Joseph”.[1]

Matthew and Luke, the two Evangelists who speak most of Joseph, tell us very little, yet enough for us to appreciate what sort of father he was, and the mission entrusted to him by God’s providence.

We know that Joseph was a lowly carpenter (cf. Mt 13:55), betrothed to Mary (cf. Mt 1:18; Lk 1:27). He was a “just man” (Mt 1:19), ever ready to carry out God’s will as revealed to him in the Law (cf. Lk 2:22.27.39) and through four dreams (cf. Mt 1:20; 2:13.19.22). After a long and tiring journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, he beheld the birth of the Messiah in a stable, since “there was no place for them” elsewhere (cf. Lk 2:7). He witnessed the adoration of the shepherds (cf. Lk 2:8-20) and the Magi (cf. Mt 2:1-12), who represented respectively the people of Israel and the pagan peoples.

Joseph had the courage to become the legal father of Jesus, to whom he gave the name revealed by the angel: “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Mt 1:21). As we know, for ancient peoples, to give a name to a person or to a thing, as Adam did in the account in the Book of Genesis (cf. 2:19-20), was to establish a relationship.

The Deafening Silence of Pope Francis on China's Persecution of Catholics

 We are praying to Immaculate Mary for the health and safety of Jimmy Lai and his family, and for all Catholic and non-Catholic victims of persecution in the most formidable tyranny of our age, Communist China.

From The Wall Street Journal's opinion page (Dec. 7, 2020), main excerpt:

Jimmy Lai has embraced his destiny. Last Wednesday the founder of one of Hong Kong’s most popular newspapers, Apple Daily, was arrested on ginned-up fraud charges. On Thursday he was clapped into jail as a national security risk. Thus did a man who started the week a Hong Kong billionaire end it a Chinese dissident.

Mr. Lai’s jailing has provoked condemnation from figures as diverse as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky and New York Rep. Eliot Engel. They have been joined by journalists, activists and politicians such as the Labour Party’s Sarah Champion and other members of Parliament who on Monday raised Mr. Lai’s plight in Britain’s House of Commons.

But there is one place where China’s bullying elicits only silence: the Vatican.

The Immaculate Conception: Whoever finds the Immaculata, finds Jesus (Kolbe)

Mikołaj Zieleński 
Magnificat (1611)
________________________

We cannot take rest as long as there is in the world one soul in danger, who does not yet know the Immaculata. Our human frailty, limited resources or any other worldly difficulty must not restrain us; let us confide in the Immaculata, let us place ourselves truly in Her hands and She will continue to win the battles of God, as at Lepanto, as at Vienna. We must place our Lady in every soul so that from every soul sin be expelled and Jesus introduced. Whoever finds the Immaculata, finds Jesus.

1-Day Online Marian Conference on December 8th: Commemoration of the 70th Anniversary of the Assumption

1-Day Conference on 8th December 10:00 – 18:30 GMT to commemorate this year the 70th Anniversary of the Dogma of Our Lady's Assumption into Heaven. 

The Conference will feature three talks:

1) Fr Pio M. Idowu, Liturgical and Patristic development of the Dogma of the Assumption
2) Fr Serafino M. Lanzetta, Biblical and Theological foundation of Our Lady’s Assumption
3) Fr Philomeno M. James, Did Our Lady die before her Assumption into heaven? 

The day will conclude with Holy Rosary and Solemn High Mass at 5pm in St Mary's Church.

Registration is required to view the livestreamed event. A link to the livestream will be sent to registered participants online. 

Informations how to register here: https://www.stmarysgosport.org.uk/events/symposium-immaculate-assumed-into-heaven.

Long Out-of-print Benedictine Martyrology Now Available

For obvious reasons—it has been around for much longer, and its contemplative and liturgical way of life is entirely structured for prioritizing the pursuit of sanctity—the Benedictine Order numbers more saints, blesseds, venerables, and reputed holy men and women than any other order in the Church, especially if we include the many later branches and reform movements that, called by various names, nevertheless take Benedict’s Holy Rule as their guide.

Those who admire or follow St. Benedict will rejoice, therefore, in the republication by Os Justi Press of A Benedictine Martyrology. Published in 1922 and long out-of-print, this book is Alexius Hoffman’s English translation and adaptation of the Rev. Peter Lechner’s Ausführliches Martyrologium des Benedictiner-Ordens und Seiner Verzweigungen [Detailed Martyrology of the Benedictine Order and its Branches], published in Munich in 1855. The original was published in cloth; this reprint is paperback, but with the simple and formal cover design displayed above.

Lefebvre: I have passed on what I received

 A new monument to the late Marcel Lefebvre.

Francis Makes Official Use of Joe "Abortion" Biden Campaign Slogan

To help our society to “build back better”, inclusion of the vulnerable must also entail efforts to promote their active participation. #IDPD https://t.co/JIIJgNx76E

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) December 3, 2020

Just... unbelievable. No comment. (Only that it doesn't matter if it's used for something else, it's closely linked with the Biden campaign and should not be used by a Pope.)

Reminder: Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society

This is our monthly reminder to please enroll Souls of the Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society. The Society now stands at 109 priests saying weekly or monthly traditional Latin Masses for the Souls. 

** Click here to download a "fillable" PDF Mass Card in English to give to the loved ones of the Souls you enroll (you send these to the family and/or friends of the dead, not to us). It's free for anyone to use. CLICK HERE to download in Latin and CLICK HERE to download in Spanish. 

Priests: The Souls still need more of you saying Mass for them! Please email me to offer your services. There's nothing special involved -- all you need to do is offer a weekly or monthly TLM with the intention: "For the repose of the Souls enrolled in the Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society." And we will always keep you completely anonymous unless you request otherwise. 

How to enroll souls: please email me at athanasiuscatholic@yahoo.com and submit as follows: "Name, State, Country." If you want to enroll entire families, simply write in the email: "The Jones family, Ohio, USA". Individual names are preferred. Be greedy -- send in as many as you wish and forward this posting to friends as well.

Help a hermit! Enroll loved ones in a Christmas novena

Deadline for enrollment is Dec. 17 -- CLICK HERE TO ENROLL

A Christmas Novena of Traditional Latin Masses according to the 1962 Roman Missal (extraordinary form) will be offered for the salvation and sanctification of all families (or persons) enrolled in the Novena. The nine Masses will begin with the Christmas Midnight Mass and will conclude on Jan. 1st, Solemnity of Our Lord’s Circumcision.

The suggested donation is $15 for each enrollment which includes an enrollment card. The cards will be sent to each family (or person) enrolled. The Masses for this year’s Christmas Novena will be offered by Fr. Maximilian Mary of Jesus Crucified in his hermitage and/or on the high altar of the Carmelite Monastery of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in Fairfield, PA.

Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent: Advent is not a time for killing time

From the Epistle:  “Besides this you know what hour it is, how it is full time now for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed; the night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” (Romans 13:11-14)

“You know what hour it is”, says St. Paul.  You know the time in which you are living.  That is quite a statement.  What is the time in which we are living?  2020 Anno Domini, or the Common Era?  How is this time in which we are living defined? Well, that definition depends on your perspective, and the perspective on this First Sunday in Advent is a liturgical perspective.  The time is Advent.  This is the time of waiting.  We all know what waiting is like.  We wait for so many things in our lives, and most of this waiting time is killing time, killing time to get onto the next thing.  We wait in line at the bank. We wait in line at the infamous Motor Vehicles Office.  We wait in line at the doctor’s office, and we kill that time by looking at empty headed magazines that fill the time, that kill the time.  We wait in line for a ticket to the latest must go to concert, grasping the ticket when we get it, something to look forward to.  Killing time in order to get to the next thing in our lives.  

Building Tasmania’s First Benedictine Monastery

Our friends, the traditional Benedictines of Notre Dame Priory on the island of Tasmania, asked us to share this information with Rorate readers.

It's been four years since Tasmania’s first Benedictine Monastery was founded. In that space of time, much has been done, but there remains much to do. After living in two rented houses, the community, which counts six members, has found a permanent home on a vast sheep-grazing farm called Jerusalem Estate near Colebrook, in the Southern Midlands Region of the island of Tasmania, one of Australian's seven states. The farm was purchased thanks to loans received from the Catholic Development Fund of Tasmania and a number of private lenders. At this stage the monks are working hard towards paying off the mortgage which will then allow them to start work on a beautiful monastery for the glory of God and the honor of Our Lady, a project which they hope will become an architectural project of international interest. 

De Mattei: The Safest Vaccine Against The Coronavirus

 Roberto de Mattei

RadioRomaLibera

November 24, 2020

Over the last few weeks several of the world’s most important pharmaceutical companies have announced the imminent production of vaccines against Covid 19.  Commenting on this news, an esteemed Italian virologist, Professor Andrea Crisanti, issued a statement of supreme common sense. In response to the question whether he would take the vaccine or not, he replied: “Normally it takes about five to eight years to produce a vaccine. For this, without available data, I wouldn’t take the first vaccine that should be arriving in January. I’d like to be sure that this vaccine has been tested properly and that it satisfies the safety and efficacy criterion. As a citizen I have this right and I’m not willing to accept shortcuts.”

 

It is an answer of complete common sense, sound, for that matter, with the principle of precaution, invoked so much today for the protection of the environment and it is not clear why this shouldn’t be applied in the field of health as well.  Prof. Crisanti is not against vaccines, but retains correctly, that the press releases by the pharmaceutical companies are not enough to guarantee safety and so he is waiting for the scientific data, which the regulatory agencies will verify. As a result of these prudent words he’s been demonized by the mass-media and some of  his colleagues. 

 

Cristanti defended himself with a letter published in the Corriere della Sera of November 23, wherein among other things, he states: “The custodians of scientific orthodoxy do not admit hesitations or vacillations;  they demand a leap of faith from those who don’t have access to privileged information. ‘The vaccine will work’, they thunder indignantly. I’m the first to hope this is true; nonetheless, allow me to object: the vaccine is not a sacred object. Let’s leave faith to religion and doubt and discussion to science which are its stimulus and guarantee.”

 

I give space to these declarations because it seems to me they are the voice of common sense at a time when the good use of reason is often lacking. Those like us, who are neither immunologists nor microbiologists and thus incapable of making scientific predictions, can only make an effort not to renounce the good use of logic and can do nothing other than agree with Professor Crisanti. But, seeing that, in addition to reason, it is necessary to live through this pandemic in the light of faith, we can indicate the existence of a remedy against the Coronavirus which is by far the most effective since it prevents not only bodily ills - which everyone fears - but also the  much more dangerous ones, those of the soul - which nobody addresses.

Can the Catholic Church be the Champion against the forces of militant secular liberalism?

 I write as a Catholic priest who both loves this country of the United States of America and who is also alarmed and angry at the forces that proclaim their roots in “liberalism” and which  persistently  push  an agenda that is anti-religious and contrary to what most people in this country still believe:  that there is a basic moral law that can be known by all men and women and that the only real basis for civil rights of the individual is belief in a transcendent God. 

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. 

 

 

These famous words that are part of the introduction to the Declaration of Independence lie at the very heart of the foundations on which the American experiment is based.  The assertion that “these truths are self-evident” has its basis in belief in the Natural Law. The Natural Law has its roots in Western philosophy and in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.  Natural Law declares that every thinking human being understands that there is a rational moral structure underlying human interaction at all levels and that to transgress this moral law is a crime against humanity itself.  When the founders of this country proclaimed the “self-evident” nature of these truths that make up the Natural Law, they were not invoking any religion to back up this fundamental claim of a shared understanding of the truths of the Natural Law. Nor did they believe that these truths depended on one’s education or place in the social structure of society.  They were based on a firm philosophical conviction of the existence of a Moral Law that must be the basis of a truly civilized and free nation.

Sermon for the Last Sunday After Pentecost: Learning the Four Last Things with Dante Alighieri

Father Richard Cipolla

From today’s Gospel: For as the lightning comes forth from the east and shines even to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man… And he will send forth his angels with a trumpet and a great sound, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. (Matthew 24:27 ff.)

Literary critics are a prickly and opinionated group, but they have always agreed that one of the greatest works of Western Literature is Dante’s Divine Comedy, both as poetry and as human epic. A few years ago a human rights organization called Gherush 92, which acts as a consultant to the United Nations body on racism and discrimination called for the banning of Dante’s Divine Comedy, specifically the first part called the Inferno, from the classroom.  Dante’s epic is “offensive and discriminatory” and has no place in a modern classroom, said Valentina Sereni, the group’s president.  She went on to say: “We do not advocate censorship or the burning of books, but we would like it acknowledged , clearly and unambiguously, that in the Divine Comedy there  is racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic content. Art cannot be above criticism”. She goes on to say that school children who studied the work lack the “filters” to appreciate its historical context and were being fed a poisonous diet of anti-Semitism and racism.

Trump’s List: The Perfect Parable of Abortion Today. A Spiritual Re-viewing of Schindler’s List (1993)

These reflections were put in writing by a young man in Italy, worried about the 2020 US Presidential Elections. They were sent for the first time to a priest, and are here extended to the rest of the world, to every man of good will who has the patience and willpower to realize what the situation in today’s world is. They are published anonymously to prevent the young man, his family, and his loved ones from repercussions, from the hatred and even physical attack from the ruthless Children of Darkness. This young man asks all those who are enriched or elevated by this reading to pray for him, his family, his friends; for the priest to whom he first sent these thoughts; for Carlo Maria Viganò and Donald Trump; for Joe Biden; for all the members of the American Supreme Court, especially the six Catholics who sit there; for this wretched world, for this unrecognizable but Holy Church. In short, that the Immaculate Heart of Mary may triumph, and soon too, against the now prevailing satanic barbarity—the daughter of that error of Russia’s that is abortion, legalized for the first time in Lenin’s Russia in November 1920, and then quickly spread throughout the world.

Trump’s List: The Perfect Parable of Abortion Today.

A Spiritual Re-viewing of Schindler’s List (1993)

A couple of weeks ago I was reminded of the film Schindler’s List, because during lunch the classical music radio playing on the TV aired the film’s main theme: so beautiful. I remembered it was a great movie, and how moved I was when I first saw it. And so I casually threw out the proposal. In the evening, after dinner, I swiftly downloaded it, said the Rosary with my family, and then asked them to try this mental exercise, perhaps difficult, probably unpleasant: imagine that every Jew they see in the film is instead a small human being in the mother’s womb.

De Mattei: The Secret Forces That Operate In History

 Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

November 18, 2020

Secret forces exist and operate in history. The simple dynamism of human passions and errors is not sufficient in fact to explain the revolutionary process that has been attacking for centuries the Church and the Christian civilization She created. This process is driven by agents – often hidden – but real.  Catholic thought of the 19^th and 20^th centuries has always investigated and documented rigorously the existence of this actuality, which can be defined as a “plot” or a “conspiracy”, if with these terms we mean the existence of forces that achieve their ends in secret and often by illicit and immoral methods.

 

Monsignor Henri Delassus (1836-1921), dedicated an important book to La conjuration antichrétienne: le temple maçonnique voulant s’élever sur les ruines de l’Eglise catholique (Paris 1910, 3 volume, with a preface written by Rafael Merry del Val). The secret societies that led the Revolution, explains Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, have as their aim, the establishing of a utopian “Universal Republic”, in which all legitimate differences among populations, families and social classes would be dissolved in an egalitarian, confused and bubbling amalgamation. (Rivoluzione e Contro-Rivoluzione, Sugarco, Milano 2009, p. 117).

 

The existence of this “plot” is confirmed in papal documents and especially in Leo XIII’s encyclical Humanum genus of April 20^th 1884, wherein the Pope denounces the diabolical plot of Freemasonry, which has as “[its] ultimate purpose the utter overthrow of that whole religious and political order of the world which the Christian teaching has produced, and the substitution of a new state of things in accordance with their ideas, of which the foundations and laws shall be drawn from mere naturalism.” (Enc. Humanum genus del 20 aprile 1884, ASS, vol. 16 (1883-1884), pp. 417-48).

EVENTS: Upcoming Lectures in Arizona by Dr. Kwasniewski - Phoenix 12/5 and Tucson 12/6

On Saturday, December 5, I will be speaking on the topic “The King’s Advent: Why the Epistle is Read to the East and the Gospel to the North” at Mater Misericordiae Catholic Church (Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter), in Phoenix, AZ. 

The lecture will explain the cosmic and anthropological symbolism of why the subdeacon faces east and the deacon north when chanting their readings at Solemn Mass, how the same symbolism is present in the Missa cantata when only the priest sings the readings, and why this detail is important, like every other detail in the traditional Mass. 

We will sing Vespers at 5:00 pm for the Second Sunday of Advent. The talk will begin at 5:30pm, with socializing and book signing afterwards. I will have copies of several books, including my new book from Sophia Institute Press: The Holy Bread of Eternal Life: Restoring Eucharistic Reverence in an Age of Impiety.

Then, on Sunday, December 6, I will speak on the topic “Why Should I Consistently Attend the Traditional Latin Mass?” at St. Gianna Oratory (Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest), in Tucson, AZ.

The lecture will go into the importance of stability, consistency, and good habits in the spiritual life; how the classical Roman rite is a superior home or environment in which to settle down; and how it can be harmful to bounce back and forth between the Latin Mass and the Novus Ordo. 

The lecture will be held at 4:00 pm, followed by socializing and book signing; the evening will conclude with sung Vespers at 6:00 pm.

More details may be found in the posters below. I look forward to meeting traditional Catholics in the Phoenix and Tucson areas!