Feast of the Divine Maternity — or of Papa Roncalli?

Today, October 11, is a perfect illustration of the basic problem of the Catholic Church in the 20th century.

In 1931, Pope Pius XI instituted on October 11 the feast of the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to commemorate the 1500th anniversary of the Council of Ephesus, which had bestowed on her the glorious title Theotokos or God-bearing-One. This feast was placed on October 11. Thus, it’s not an ancient feastday (as neither was Christ the King, instituted by the same Pius), but fits into that slow and loving process of amplification by which the traditional liturgy has been enriched over twenty centuries with ever-new facets of devotion.

Pope John XXIII comes along and decides to open the Second Vatican Council on October 11, precisely because it was the feast of the Divine Motherhood of Our Lady.

Fast-forward to after the Council: Bugnini’s Consilium decides to abolish the feast and to conflate it with January 1st, which had been the Octave of Christmas and the Circumcision of Christ, but which would now be styled “the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God.” Lots of busy scissors and paste...

And then along comes Pope Francis, who canonizes John XXIII and declares that October 11 will be HIS feastday.

So, hey presto!, October 11 has shifted from honoring the deepest mystery of the Virgin Mary — her being the Theotokos — to honoring Vatican II’s architect as elevated by the Council’s mutant progeny, Jorge Bergoglio. As Ratzinger said in a different context, we now celebrate ourselves and our achievements rather than the mightiest works of God.

This is the kind of thing I had in mind when I maintained that the modern Church is characterized by a Nietzschean “transvaluation of all values.”

It also seems a haunting coincidence (but there are no coincidences under Divine Providence) that Pope Francis has been reported this week by Scalfari to have denied the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, making Bergoglio a sort of Nestorian (at best), with Our Lady being demoted to Christotokos, Christ-bearer, as she is for Protestants who refuse her the august title “Mother of God.” Neither the Pope nor the Vatican is willing to confront Scalfari for egregious lies or misrepresentations or amnesia; instead, the the usual non-denial denial has been issued.  Unlike his predecessor Pius XI, who cared enough about the dogmatic formulation of Ephesus to institute a feast in commemoration of its principal definition, the current Pope said two days ago, in a homily painfully reminiscent of the anti-theological mentality of the 1970s: “Do I love God or dogmatic formulations?”

The silver lining on this otherwise dark cloud is that, in spite of everything that has transpired, despite all the wickedness in high places, October 11 continues to this day to be celebrated as the feast of the Divine Maternity, in all communities and parishes that avail themselves of the traditional Missale Romanum. The feast has not perished; it has merely been eclipsed, and it will return in splendor to illuminate the Church after this night of self-celebration has passed.

No, Francis, God did not "will a plurality and diversity of religions": saying so is "altogether abandoning the divinely revealed religion."

Point:

The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.

Document co-signed by Francis and the "Grand Imam of Al-Azhar" Ahmad Al-Tayyeb

Counterpoint:

Never perhaps in the past have we seen, as we see in these our own times, the minds of men so occupied by the desire both of strengthening and of extending to the common welfare of human society that fraternal relationship which binds and unites us together, and which is a consequence of our common origin and nature. For since the nations do not yet fully enjoy the fruits of peace - indeed rather do old and new disagreements in various places break forth into sedition and civic strife - and since on the other hand many disputes which concern the tranquility and prosperity of nations cannot be settled without the active concurrence and help of those who rule the States and promote their interests, it is easily understood, and the more so because none now dispute the unity of the human race, why many desire that the various nations, inspired by this universal kinship, should daily be more closely united one to another.

A similar object is aimed at by some, in those matters which concern the New Law promulgated by Christ our Lord. For since they hold it for certain that men destitute of all religious sense are very rarely to be found, they seem to have founded on that belief a hope that the nations, although they differ among themselves in certain religious matters, will without much difficulty come to agree as brethren in professing certain doctrines, which form as it were a common basis of the spiritual life. For which reason conventions, meetings and addresses are frequently arranged by these persons, at which a large number of listeners are present, and at which all without distinction are invited to join in the discussion, both infidels of every kind, and Christians, even those who have unhappily fallen away from Christ or who with obstinacy and pertinacity deny His divine nature and mission.

Certainly such attempts can nowise be approved by Catholics, founded as they are on that false opinion which considers all religions to be more or less good and praiseworthy, since they all in different ways manifest and signify that sense which is inborn in us all, and by which we are led to God and to the obedient acknowledgment of His rule.

Not only are those who hold this opinion in error and deceived, but also in distorting the idea of true religion they reject it, and little by little turn aside to naturalism and atheism, as it is called; from which it clearly follows that one who supports those who hold these theories and attempt to realize them, is altogether abandoning the divinely revealed religion.

Pius XI

Mortalium Animos

Marriage, it's always been marriage

From the very first Martyrdom, that of the "Greatest born of women", Saint John the Baptist, whose Beheading we celebrate today, the purity/indissolubility of marriage has always been the essential moral and social dogmatic centerpiece of Christian life since the fullness of time, when Our Lord Jesus Christ, "by virtue of His supreme legislative power ...restored the primeval law in its integrity by those words which must never be forgotten, 'What God hath joined together let no man put asunder'." (Casti connubii, 34)

The Lake Garda Statement

Lake Garda from Above

This year’s Summer Symposium of The Roman Forum in Gardone Riviera, on the shores of Lake Garda (See previous reports: here and here), concluded with a strong statement on the crisis in the Church and the world, and the necessity of returning to the fulness of Catholic Social Teaching in order to meet the crisis. It calls for an end to the policy of “opening to the world,” and for an end to the “fruitless collaboration with the Church’s implacable opponents” that this opening has meant, and calls for “a recovery of the Church’s traditional teaching on the Social Reign of Christ the King.” The statement is being simultaneously published on several websites. We are pleased to publish this important document in full here on Rorate Cæli. (Printable version). 

The Lake Garda Statement

On the Ecclesial and Civilizational Crisis

Preamble

Among the Catholic faithful the conviction grows that the ongoing crisis in the Church and the drastic moral decline of our civilization have entered a critical new phase which represents a turning point in the history of the world. 

In the Church, a Synod on the Family has devolved into a battle to defend the indissolubility of marriage from an attack within, pitting cardinal against cardinal and bishop against bishop. The Synod has produced a midterm relatio, approved by the Pope himself, which calls for the admission of divorced and remarried Catholics to Holy Communion on a “case by case” basis without any renunciation of adulterous relations, contrary to the explicit teaching of Pope John Paul II in line with the perennial discipline of the Church.[1] The same document speaks of “valuing” the “homosexual orientation” while recognizing the “precious support for the life of the partners” supposedly provided by “homosexual unions.”[2] Bishop Athanasius Schneider rightly observes that “[t]his is the first time in Church History that such a heterodox text was actually published as a document of an official meeting of Catholic bishops under the guidance of a pope, even though the text only had a preliminary character.”[3]

Should the Feast of Christ the King Be Celebrated in October or November?

With the revival of the traditional Roman Mass throughout the Church, a number of rather significant calendar differences between old and new make themselves increasingly felt by the faithful and those who minister to them. We are all aware, but no one better than our dedicated clergy, that almost every Sunday of the year would demand two different homilies if the same priest, intending to preach on the readings of the day, celebrated Masses in both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms.