Pope Leo XIV Talks About the Traditional Latin Mass (updated with full excerpt)

 

From an excerpt of the new book-interview with Elise Ann Allen, of Crux, released today -- a direct quote from the Pope's response:

[Elise Ann Allen]: Regarding the study group on liturgy, what is being studied? How much of the reason for establishing this was related to divisions surrounding the Traditional Latin Mass, for example, or issues such as the new Amazonian rite?

 

[Leo XIV]: My understanding of what the group came out of is primarily from issues that have to do with the inculturation of the liturgy. How to continue the process of making the liturgy more meaningful within a different culture, within a specific culture, in a specific place at any given time. I think that was the primary issue.

De Mattei: Querida Amazonia: the consequences of the ‘turning point’ that never was

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

February 13, 2020

A temporary halt on “viri probati”;  the flop of the Amazon Synod; open conflict with the Amazonian-Germanic bishops.  These three points are contained in the dynamic initiated by Pope Francis’ Post-Synod Exhortation Querida Amazonua, presented on February 12^th 2020.* There has been a great deal of suspenseful buildup around this Papal Exhortation, which put the final seal on the Amazon Synod, held in Rome from October 6^th to 27^th , 2019.** Both the Instrumentum Laboris (June 17^th 2019) *** and the final document of October 26^th proposed a new pantheistic cosmology expressed in the statue of the Pachamama, venerated in the Vatican Gardens and carried in procession into St. Peter’s, before being thrown into the Tiber by Alexander Tschugguel.  

This cosmological vision is the most scandalous aspect of the Pan-Amazon Synod, which, though, proposed other ambitious objectives, such as the introduction of viri probati: namely the admittance of married men to the priesthood, after John Paul II and Benedict XVI had categorically excluded this hypothesis, but had been pushed by the most progressive sectors in the Church since the time of the Second Vatican Council.  Paragraph 111 of the Final Document approved by the Synod had taken on a strong symbolic value over the last few months. This paragraph proposed “ to ordain as priests suitable and respected men of the community with a legitimately constituted and stable family, who have had a fruitful permanent diaconate and receive an adequate formation for the priesthood.”

Analysis: "Querida Amazonia, a Blueprint for a Lay Church" - by Fr. Pio Pace, Roman Curia Insider

It has been a while, but Father Pio Pace, our pseudonymous very influential insider in the Roman Curia, was at last able to send us a special comment on the new post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis, Querida Amazonia.

***

Querida Amazonia: a document for a kind of "Lay Church"?

Father Pio Pace

Will married viri probati be ordained to the priesthood? This question was the focus of all the attention, before, during, and after the assembly of the Amazon Synod, and the bishops of the German 'Synodal Way' were mounting an ambush, getting ready to seize the issue to force the institutional transformation of the Church.

For all sorts of political and tactical reasons, the long-expected apostolic exhortation does not mention it. It does not reject the possibility (as it has been hastily claimed): it simply does not mention it. In fact, the exhortation goes much further, in the direction of a Laicized Church, in which the common priesthood of the baptized largely absorbs the priestly ministry, being mixed up with it.

Because this text, under a modest appearance, is actually very ambitious. One should read with great attention the beginning of the Exhortation: it is presented as a, "framework of reflection," which is an invitation to read the final document of the Synod (which speaks of priestly ordination of married deacons), but rises up to more fundamental, and certainly more radical, considerations. The central passage deals with the "Inculturation of ministry" (paragraphs 85-90), followed by thoughts on the communities (91-98), then on the role of women (99-103).

Apostolic Exhortation “Querida Amazonia” — full text Full Text of the papal document following the Amazon Synod

Notes: Regarding the priesthood and the Eucharist, we call your attention in particular to Paragraphs 82-98.

No opening whatsoever was made for the ordination of married men/viri probati to the Priesthood. On the contrary, in the spirit of making clear clericalism is not central, there is an emphasis on the lay ministry as "distinctively lay" (cf. paragraph 94).

The paragraphs on women (99-103) also do not have any revolutionary content.

Paragraphs 104-105 make clear that the path forward should not be an either/or, but solutions beyond conflicts of the past.

One particular good point is the one of Paragraph 18, with extensive historical references in footnote 17,  making clear the permanent solicitude of the Church, through various pontificates, and since the earliest days of Christian presence in the New World, for the welfare of the indigenous peoples. Specific reference is made even to the Laws of the Indies (Leyes de las Indias), promulgated by the Spanish Crown with specific protections for the indigenous populations. The 1909 text of one of the first bishops of Amazonas (Manaus), Brazil, Frederico Benicio, named by Saint Pius X to that extensive territory, is expressly quoted.

Despite all problems (the downsides are numerous), we can rightly say that this is the best possible document we could have hoped for in the current pontificate and in the current age. It is not the best document (that would be impossible in the current moment in time), but it is, in a Leibnizian way, the best possible text...

Full text below:

'Exclusive: Francis “is not opening up” to viri probati and the priesthood for married men'

Bruno Volpe

La Fede Quotidiana

February 2, 2020

La Fede Quotidiana has learned of an important fact relating to the coming papal document on the subject of the Amazon. And this fact, unless modified at the last moment, contradicts what has been recently reported concerning a text in which ‘a yes’ is given to viri probati and the married priesthood. Those who saw this text two days ago (it will almost certainly be presented on February 12) said that the two hotly debated categories are not mentioned in the document and thus there is no official opening up [to them].

“La Verità” Newspaper interviews Professor Roberto de Mattei

“La Verita”

January 27, 2020

Last January 18, in Munich, Bavaria, a unique event took place: more than a hundred people lined-up in a square, where, for an hour, they remained standing,, reciting the Rosary in silence, in defense of orthodoxy in the Catholic Church. The promoters call it Acies ordinate. Among them was professor Roberto de Mattei, historian and President of the Fondazione Lepanto. 

How did this Bavarian initiative come about? 

It is the third Acies ordinata demonstration, the first outside Italy. The previous ones took place in Rome last year: on February 19^th ,before the conference on  sexual abuse organized by Pope Francis in the Vatican and then on September 28^th , the day before the opening of the Amazon Synod.     

Why the trip to Germany?

Munich is the Archiepiscopal See of Cardinal Reinhard Marx, President of the German Episcopal Conference, which last December 4^th officially launched the Synodalerweg, an “ongoing” synod, de facto permanent, that aims at transforming the Church in Germany and thus the universal Church.      

Isn’t the influence of the German Bishops overrated?

There is a strong theological culture in Germany. The main theologian of Vatican II and the Post-Council, was a German, Karl Rahner. Some days after his election, the first theologian quoted by Pope Francis, actually displaying his book, was another German, Cardinal Walter Kasper, a disciple of Rahner. The German Episcopal Conference financed the Pan-Amazonian Synod and directed it theologically.  A Brazilian Cardinal of German origins, Claudio Hummes, was the general rapporteur of the last Synod and the author of a “secret letter” sent to the Bishops of the entire world to prepare them for the soon to be released Post-Synod Exhortation from Pope Francis, to whom he is very attached.

Vatican - Bishops, Get Ready: The Amazon Fake-Synod Bomb is Coming Up! (Confidential Letter)

"...with the guidance of the Holy Spirit..."

Vatican City, 13 January 2020

Your Eminence, Your Grace, Your Excellency:

The Holy Father is preparing a new Apostolic Exhortation to present the New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology as developed with the guidance of the Holy Spirit during the Synod on the Amazon in October last year.

The draft is currently being reviewed and corrected and then needs to be translated. Pope Francis hopes to promulgate it by the end of this month or in early February.

Anno Domini MMXX - Notes for the Year: Benedict XVI Speaks Up in Defense of Priestly Celibacy - Could this be why Amazon Synod document is late?

Wasn't the final papal document (post-synodal exhortation) of the Amazon Synod supposed to be released before Christmas 2019? And yet, nothing came out. Could it be a last-minute intervention regarding one of the pet projects of the Francis pontificate, the ordinary ordination of married men in the Amazon region?

One can suspect this with the upcoming publication of a Book jointly written by Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sarah. A scoop revealed by Jean-Marie Guenois, of conservative French daily Le Figaro, as we note below in excerpts from the Associated Press report (book excerpts in bold):

Pope Benedict XVI breaks silence to reaffirm priest celibacy

By NICOLE WINFIELD

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Retired Pope Benedict XVI has broken his silence to reaffirm the value of priestly celibacy, co-authoring a bombshell book at the precise moment that Pope Francis is weighing whether to allow married men to be ordained to address the Catholic priest shortage.

Benedict wrote the book, “From the Depths of Our Hearts: Priesthood, Celibacy and the Crisis of the Catholic Church,” along with his fellow conservative, Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, who heads the Vatican’s liturgy office and has been a quiet critic of Francis.

Contra Recentia Sacrilegia: Protest against Pope Francis's sacrilegious acts

Protest against Pope Francis’s sacrilegious acts

We the undersigned Catholic clergy and lay scholars protest against and condemn the sacrilegious and superstitious acts committed by Pope Francis, the Successor of Peter, in connection with the recent Amazon Synod held in Rome.
These sacrilegious acts are the following:

 - On October 4, Pope Francis attended an act of idolatrous worship of the pagan goddess Pachamama.

   -  He allowed this worship to take place in the Vatican Gardens, thus desecrating the vicinity of the graves of the martyrs and of the church of the Apostle Peter.

    -   He participated in this act of idolatrous worship by blessing a wooden image of Pachamama.

   -  On October 7, the idol of Pachamama was placed in front of the main altar at St. Peter’s and then carried in procession to the Synod Hall. Pope Francis said prayers in a ceremony involving this image and then joined in this procession.

  - When wooden images of this pagan deity were removed from the church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, where they had been sacrilegiously placed, and thrown into the Tiber by Catholics outraged by this profanation of the church, Pope Francis, on October 25, apologized for their removal and another wooden image of Pachamama was returned to the church.  Thus, a new profanation was initiated.

  - On October 27, in the closing Mass for the synod, he accepted a bowl used in the idolatrous worship of Pachamama and placed it on the altar.

Upcoming Events with Dom Alcuin Reid and Peter Kwasniewski in Houston, TX

Prince of Peace Catholic Community in Houston, Texas, is hosting Dom Alcuin Reid, OSB, and Dr. Peter Kwasniewski for a Liturgical Conference on Saturday, November 23. Dr. Kwasniewski will also be speaking on Sunday, November 24, at the FSSP parish Regina Caeli.

The schedule for Saturday’s event, “An Encounter with the Latin Mass: Exploring Tradition,” is as follows:

9 am – Dom Alcuin Reid, “Praying the Sacred Liturgy”            

10:30 – Dom Alcuin Reid, “Treasures Old and New: Enriching Parish Liturgy Today” (with Q&A)

12 pm – Sung High Mass: Pope St. Clement I

1 pm – Lunch for participants

2 pm – Peter Kwasniewski, “Why the Return of the Latin Mass is Good News”

3 pm – Peter Kwasniewski, “What We Can Learn from Tradition about Active Participation” (with Q&A)

(4:45 – Break for dinner or parish Mass)

6 pm – Panel discussion with Dom Alcuin Reid and Peter Kwasniewski

7 pm – Blessing and Conclusion

The conference will take place at:

Prince of Peace Catholic Community

St Andrew Discipleship Center

19222 Tomball Pkwy

Houston, TX 77070

BREAKING: I threw the pagan idols into the Tiber. It was a great success.

Exclusive for Corrispondenza Romana

November 4, 2019

 
Alexander Tschugguel tells in English why he threw the Pachamama statues into the Tiber.

De Mattei: The Synod on the Amazon, the spirit of Pachamama and the spirit of Elijah

Roberto de Mattei 

Corrispondenza Romana

October 30, 2019

What was the Amazon Synod and where will it lead us? The response to this question cannot certainly be limited to an analysis of the final document, voted on October 26, 2019. The Pan-Amazonian Synod is part of a process that should be considered in its progressive phases and context, even in the media, so as to understand its ultimate objective: the redefinition of the sacraments and hierarchical priesthood; the possibility of ordaining married men to the priesthood and women to the diaconate; but most of all the promotion of a new eco-indigenous cosmology and idolatrous cults inside the Catholic Church.

On the level of the documents produced over the last few months, the phases linked to each other in this process, in which each stage explains the preceding one and announces a new one, are: the preparatory document of June 8^th 20181.; the Instrumentum laboris of  June 17^th 20192.; the Synodal document of October 26^th 20193. and lastly, the Post-Synod Exhortation, which Pope Francis announced the publication of before the end of the year, much earlier than expected.

But equally important, is the context in which the Synod took place. The Final Document itself, in its first point, emphasized the importance of this aspect, pointing out that: “outside the Synod Hall there was a notable presence of people coming from the Amazonian world, who organized supportive acts in different activities and processions like the one at the opening, which accompanied the Holy Father with dancing and singing, from the tomb of Peter to the Synod Hall. The Via Crucis for the Amazonian martyrs had an impact, along with the significant presence of the international mass-media.”

De Mattei: A comment chronology of the pagan Pacha Mama events which the Angels and Saints are far more outraged about than we are

Roberto de Mattei.

RadioRomaLibera

October 27, 2019

When it ends, the Amazon Synod will go down in history as the Pacha Mama Synod.

Who is Pacha Mama? She is the Earth Goddess, a pagan divinity venerated by the Synod Fathers gathered in Rome over these past weeks. The image of  Pacha Mama [first]made its appearance in the Vatican Gardens, on October 4, on the eve of the Amazon Synod.

During a ceremony led by an Indian woman of the Amazon, in the presence of Pope Francis and some cardinals, two wooden statues of Pacha Mama, represented by two naked, pregnant women facing each other, were adored, while another statue portrayed a naked male subject, ready for the sexual act.  

On October 8, the Pacha Mama statue reappeared in the Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, first of all in a basket, then in a canoe  carried into the Church during another pagan ceremony organized by the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network (REPAM). In a side chapel of Santa Maria Traspontina a poster was hung to show that “everything is connected”, in line with the teachings of Pope Francis’s Laudato si. In this you can see the photo of an animal, a  small mammal, sucking the breast of an indigenous woman carrying a baby on the other arm. 

Op-Ed: "Why the Amazon Synod is an attack on Our Lord’s institution of the Apostolic Ministry"

by the Rev Deacon Nick Donnelly

The Synod’s proposal that women be admitted to the ministries of lector and acolyte at first sight appears unexceptional but in reality it signifies an assault on Our Lord’s reservation of the apostolic ministry to men. This reservation is set out in Pope St John Paul II’s Ordinatio sacerdotalis which states:

“Priestly ordination, which hands on the office entrusted by Christ to his Apostles of teaching, sanctifying and governing the faithful, has in the Catholic Church from the beginning always been reserved to men alone. This tradition has also been faithfully maintained by the Oriental Churches.” (Ordinatio sacerdotalis).

The Amazon synod’s recommendation is about beginning to formally unravel and discard this sacred Tradition by incremental steps to the long term goal of the ‘ordination’ of women. Paragraph 102 of the synod recommends that women are formally instituted into the ministries of lector and acolyte. Paragraph 102 concludes:

Immorality, Heresy, Paganism: "What divine punishments will fall upon us after this Synod?"

by Prof. Luc Perrin

Le Forum Catholique

Here we are before a situation that is so horrendous that it makes us tremble.

The ancient cardinals, since the 16th century, had always refused to elect a Jesuit to the throne of Peter. The 2013 conclave broke this taboo: the Pachamama-worshippers must be aware that in non-Christian traditional religions breaking a taboo always leads to calamities.

The organizers of this Pachamama-Synod had forewarned us: nothing will be like before after this event. Indeed, after the destruction of the biblical ethics by the Sodom-defenders, a profession of semi-Arianism, and the worship of idols, all in a context filled with financial scandals of all sorts and the promotion of the sexual predation of minors and adults, there is nothing left to demolish.

When compared to the current Second Pornocracy, 1968 looks like a Thomist conference...

Let us redouble our prayers to the fiery Archangel Saint Michael so that the justice of God may speak through him. Let us beg the mercy of God for the millions of souls drowing in the mud of this "Amazon".

From Sandro Magister: Those images really break your heart

Sandro Magister received the following letter which he published on his site on October 22, 2019.

Dear Magister,

The fascination of Amazonian rites (more or less) and statues representing pregnant women may be enchanting for the Synod Fathers and those around them, but they are creating trouble for Catholics in the Southern hemisphere of the world. Given that, even in the shanties of the global peripheries, people watch YOUTUBE and spend hours on FACEBOOK, those statues, take on a significance that is complicating the lives of [Catholic] catechists and missionaries, grappling with a constant loss of the faithful.

It is the experience of anyone on a missionary journey outside Europe to find themselves faced with a great number of aggressive Evangelical Churches or millenarian sects who spend a great deal of time attacking the Catholic Church and luring the faithful away. One of their main arguments is: “Catholics adore statues” or “Catholics adore demons”. Ergo: “Catholics are not Christians, come to us.”

Well, let me tell you my experience as a simple lay Catholic, who for personal reasons frequently travels to Mindanao in the extreme south of the Philippines. This is a region in which a great number of Muslims settled centuries ago and now added to this, there is an explosion of Protestants, giving a glimpse of a Brazilian-flavored future i.e. Pentecostal, even in what is still today considered one of the most Catholic countries in the world – namely -  the Philippines.   

Fontgombault Sermon on Dedication of the Abbey Church: Before building a "common home", we need to acknowledge the God Who designed it

Anniversary of the Dedication of the Abbatial Church

Sermon of the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau

Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault

Fontgombault, October 12, 2019

Hodie in domo tua.

Today in thy house.

(Lk 19:5)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My dearly beloved Sons,

Today’s Mass exhibits a great scriptural richness. The readings and the sung pieces run through the Bible from its very first book, Genesis, to the last one, the Apocalypse, centred around a same theme, God’s dwelling with men. Such is indeed the place in which we are, and the consecration of which we celebrate, a dwelling of God with men.

The opening chant is taken from the book of Genesis: “How awesome is this place. This is no other but the house of God, and the gate of heaven.” (Gn 28:17) Jacob uttered these words after he saw in a dream a ladder set up between earth and heaven, on which angels were ascending and descending. God then gave him as his inheritance this place, which Jacob called Bethel, House of God; there he set up a stone for a pillar, a memorial for this encounter. In the lesson, the vision of the Apocalypse brings us into the heavenly Jerusalem, this place which we yearn for. This is at the end of time the new abode of God with men. God is dwelling in their midst. The Gospel takes us into the house of Zacchaeus, the place of a conversion. This tax-collector in the pay of the Romans had taken a certain advantage of his position to get rich. Jesus comes and visits him, thus bringing salvation to his house. Last, the offertory describes the episode of the building of the first Temple of Jerusalem. David had collected all its elements, but the construction was Solomon’s responsibility. At the end of the work, God took possession of the house. This text fits nicely in the liturgy at this moment, and it evokes the qualities of heart expected from those who wish to offer something to God, joy and simplicity.

All these texts depict various houses, either built by God or by man, offered to God so that He may dwell in them. For that matter, may each true abode, each house of truth, joy, and peace, be anything else than a place in which God is dwelling?

The feast of the Dedication makes us look beyond the houses of the world in which we are living. The words “a common European house” are sometimes used, without much success for that matter, to stir up interest for an administrative and economical Leviathan in the pay of global finance. There are also the nations, inheritors of their history and geography, the regions, cities and villages. Last, there is the house, the abode, the place where a family is gathered. The earth and the universe, created by God, are also abodes.

De Mattei: Cardinal Hummes, the head of the “Church of an Amazonian Face”

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

October 9,2019

Ideas do not travel on their own through history: they are incarnated by men. And among the apostles of the “Church of the Amazonian face” we have Claudio Hummes, Emeritus Archbishop of San Paolo, President of the Ecclesial Pan Amazonian Network (Repam) and appointed rapporteur-general  by Pope Francis for the Synod which opened last Sunday October 6^th in the Vatican.

“The mission of the Church today in the Amazon, is the core issue of the Synod,”  explained Cardinal Claudio Hummes, at the opening of the Synod’s first General Congregation. “The Pope made it clear that the  relationship of the Church with the indigenous people and the Amazonian forest, is one of its central themes,” continued the President of Repam, whereby “the right to be protagonists of their history must be restored and guaranteed and that they be, subjects not objects in any colonial spirit and action. Their culture, languages, histories, identities and spiritualities constitute riches for humanity and must be respected and preserved in world culture.”. 

Amazonic Notes #2: It's all decided on married priests

Krautler

Obviously. And this is why this whole expensive charade was assembled.

Today, one of the main architects of the German-Austrian Synod on the Amazon region, Erwin Krautler, who was a bishop in the area for many years (years during which the majority of the population, tired of a political church, became Evangelical), said in the press conference following the session that there is “no other option” but to ordain married men as priests in the Amazon, because being unmarried is a "foreign concept" to the indigenous communities. As liberal journalist Christopher Lamb reports, Krautler affirmed that "there were many times when he travelled to indigenous communities and they asked me: 'where is your wife?' "

Priestly celibacy was a concept that confounded and still confounds most people in the Jewish world , and in the Greco-Roman world as well. 

Krautler also made clear that there is a majority of well over the two thirds of votes necessary to recommend the change. Which is obvious, since the Synod members were handpicked to reach the result desired by Francis and his friends.

Naturally, Krautler's liberal Austrian logic means that there should be married bishops and popes as well.

Guest Op-Ed: When bishops knew how to respond to a pope suspected of heresy

by the Rev. Deacon Nick Donnelly

In his recent letter to the College of Cardinals Cardinal Brandmüller wrote that all cardinals must consider how they will react to ‘any heretical statements or decisions of the [Amazonian] synod.’ In the past, it wouldn’t have been necessary to ask this question because the bishops of the Western Church had a reputation for robustly reacting against heresy. 

A case in point is how the bishops reacted to the mere suspicion that Pope Vigilius (537-555 AD) was sympathetic towards the Monophysite heresy that sought to undermine the Council of Chalcedon. 

Pope Vigilius was already unpopular with many in Rome and the Western Church for conniving with the Monophysite Empress Theodora in the deposition and death of his predecessor, Pope Silverius (536-537 AD). Pope Silverius had earned the hostility of the heretics for refusing to restore the deposed and excommunicated Monophysite Patriarch of Constantinople. Vigilius secured the papacy by expressing sympathy for the Monophysite cause.