Radicati Editorial: Why are you shocked with the current situation? They've already changed the MASS!

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, January 2017

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

[A Vatican II Moment: "African Mass," celebrated in the Archdiocese of Brasilia, Brazil*]

We begin the new year, as always filled with expectations.

Along with these expectations we are also filled with fears, considering the rough waters of confusion we are now submerged in. Confusion, seeing as there is hardly anything left stable in the world and the situation is infinitely worse for us in the Church.

Radicati Editorial: ‘Mercyism’ is moralism

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, July 2016

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

This ‘mercyism’ which is so much in fashion is nothing other than moralism.

We can all see that it’s very much the fashion today to present the Catholic Church as always forgiving, welcoming and not judging. Those wishing to stay inside the new course of the modernized Church have to be like that. There are many priests in the Church who don’t dare make even one condemnation on sin – unless this condemnation follows the dictates of the dominant secular culture.  They then reprogram themselves as the silent merciful types and so seem to be blessing the most horrendous sins that become civil liberties under this 'mercyism'.

This 'mercyism' is nothing other than gloomy moralism: That 'Catholic deviation' which makes the Church concerned only about morality, almost completely neglecting the truths of the faith.

Radicati Editorial: "Thank God We Did Not Obey Those Forcing the New Mass Upon Us"

The New Mass, Source of Pious Naturalism

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, June 2016

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

Thank God we did not obey.

We are going to shock you, but some provocations are beneficial and useful.

Thank God we did not obey those, who, in order to keep us within “ordinary pastoral care” (while allowing us reluctantly an occasional Traditional Mass) asked us not to be closed to the Council’s New Mass. Thank God we did not obey: we did not cave in to the “political” concern of altering the custody of the faith which is what everyone is doing now out of “a greater obedience.”

Radicati EDITORIAL: An Indulgence is not a Truce

An Indulgence is not a Truce

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, January 2016

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

“The post-conciliar Church? It is a Church in which life is removed considerably from the event of Calvary. A Church that diminishes its demands and doesn’t resolve problems anymore according to the will of God, but according to human possibilities. A Church which I believe has become elastic and morally relativistic. A Church in the fog and without the tables of the Law. A Church that closes its eyes to sin, that fears reproach for not being modern.” (Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski)

Why has the Church observed Holy years, why has She held Jubilees with their plenary indulgences? Basically because men must turn back to God and separate themselves from sin which brings eternal death. There is no other reason, there is absolutely no other!

We are witnessing [at present] a peculiar insistence on the mercy of God which sounds foreign, very foreign to Catholic ears. We hear talk of the Lord who is always forgiving, but this insistence is never preceded and accompanied by the memory of the gravity of sin, in [all] its deadly consequences.

Radicati EDITORIAL: Grace not Revolution

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, December 2015

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

Christmas poses the principle of Grace. God comes down to earth, He becomes man, to take on the sins of men by paying the price of our redemption on the Cross.

The redemption is the work of Jesus Christ, God made man; it is the work of His sacrifice, of His Cross, which continues in time with the propitiatory sacrifice of the Catholic Mass. 

We cannot save ourselves on our own strength; nobody can redeem himself; nobody is able to give himself eternal life through his own efforts.  All our desire for good, even if sincere and pure, will not save us without the grace of Christ, without the grace of God. The principle of grace must not only be the source of our every consideration, but must be the criteria of judgment and the operative principle of every Christian action that is true and efficacious.

News of continuous scandals in the Vatican and the Church have followed one after the other lately, scandals that involve the Pastors of God’s flock; scandals that hurt, that create perturbation and difficulties and render [us] weak in the face of the dramatic violence of terrorism. Subject to the verification of what is propagandized, we sense it our duty to say something about all of this, something that we think is Christian, and we do this by applying precisely the principle of grace.

Radicati EDITORIAL: What God wants not what the Pope would allow

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, October 2015

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

We wrote last month that the new post-Conciliar Mass, the cradle of agnosticism and continuing uncertainty about the Faith, since it entertains an extenuating dialogue between the priest and the assembly, is no longer focused solely on God. Absurdly, in the new Mass, so human and community-minded, also those who believe in hardly anything [at all] can be there and continue in their doubts.  

Radicati EDITORIAL: "The New Mass, The Mass of the Assembly: the Cradle of Agnosticism"

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, September 2015

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

That which is no longer present in the Mass, inevitably disappears from Catholic life. It is only a matter of time - and not much at that.

This is what has happened with the last liturgical reform: the “empty spaces” of the rite have become the “empty spaces” of a new Christianity.

We’d like to focus on one among the many: the disappearance of the submissa voce for the priest, which corresponds to lack of silence in the assembly. It appears to us that this is one of the points that most evidently indicates a radical change in the Catholic Rite. Then again, it is typically this which appears to be scandalous to the faithful who chance upon the Traditional Mass: the long parts where the priest, especially in the Canon, pronounces the words softly, and the faithful - not being able to hear anything - are obliged to be silent.

We have noticed many times that this is more of a problem than the use of Latin.

Radicati EDITORIAL: "The New Mass: a Skeletal Mass for a Skeletal Church"

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, August 2015

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

[Fr. Steve Kelly, SJ, celebrates "mass" - Los Angeles]

They were anticipating a new Church, and so they set about changing the Mass. They wanted a Church with new dogmas and new morality, so they had to tinker with the Catholic Mass and make it into a skeleton of itself. And a skeleton Mass corresponds to a skeletal Church, made up of skeletal dogma and morality.

Radicati EDITORIAL: "We are faithful Sons and Daughters of the Church - we persist out of Love!"

SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE CHURCH NOT ANTIQUARIANS

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, July 2015

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

It is for love of the Church that we remain with Tradition. It is for love of the Church that we persist - against all odds – in the celebration only of the Traditional Rite. It is for love of the Church that we even resist Her when She asks us to celebrate and attend the New Rite of the Mass.

This is absolutely not about antiquarianism – it is not about a love of the past for the sake of the past. On the other hand, the last liturgical reform, which has distorted the life of the Church for fifty years now, was created not out of love for the Church and Her history, but out of a faulty antiquarianism.

Actually, with the last liturgical reform, i.e. the New Mass, there was the will de facto to wipe the slate of the Church’s two thousand year history clean, with the idea of returning to some mythical golden-age of the Church’s beginnings – inventing a super-simplified liturgy which, mistakenly, wanted to go back to the time of the Apostles and Our Lord. If you ask some ordinary lay-folk, they will in fact tell you this, that the modern liturgy in its stripped-down simplicity, corresponds more with the simplicity of the Gospel. When all is said and done, many, including priests, think like this. They also think lovers of Tradition are weak individuals, who still need some ‘useless frills’ to live their faith.

Radicati EDITORIAL: Our dedication to Tradition must be total, we cannot settle for anything less.

Mysticism and Human Calculations

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, June 2015

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

Joan Llimona i Bruguera
Saint Philip Neri in the Consecration of the Holy Mass (1902)
Church of Saint Philip Neri, Barcelona

Will anything change in the Church? Will we see the end of the modernist crisis? Will we see the Church return to Tradition? Humanely speaking, we have to say no. This crisis has been going on far too long for a probable rebirth on the human level. Catholics with a taste for the things of the world are so widespread now and Tradition so scant that it is discouraging from a human point of view. So, we may well say that we’ll not see a return to Tradition according to human predictions.

Yet, we pray and work every day for Tradition to return as the universal patrimony of the Church. We ‘do’ Tradition for this reason, we ‘do’ it so that everyone will return to it and that the Church will be rid of the modernist poison in Her doctrine and pastoral work.

Would there be any logic in embracing Tradition and passing over to the Old Mass just out of personal taste? What sense is there in “doing” Tradition if there is no desire for its return and total reign in the universal Church? This would be a senseless game to play! And we won’t play it!

Radicati Editorial: The Martyrs were never for dialogue

Mediterranean shore in Libya following the massacre of 21 Copts in early 2015

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, May 2015

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

We are once more in times of Martyrdom. What is happening to Christians in Asia and Africa has forced us to use the word “martyr” again. Christians are being killed, en masse, and in the most horrendous ways, simply because they are Christian; all this makes us say that the age of martyrdom has returned.

To be truthful, the Church has never emerged from times of martyrdom.

The studies published on the occasion of the last Holy Year (2000) had already reminded us of the number of martyrs over twenty centuries of Christianity. The number is immense: about 80 million! And even more shocking: about half of this 80 million belong to the last century!

Radicati Editorial: Protestantism halfway is Protestantism all the way

Protestantism halfway is Protestantism all the way

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, April 2015

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

The 19 Holy Martyrs of Gorkum,
hanged and mutilated by Protestants on July 9, 1572, in Brielle, Holland

Presently we are watching, resigned, at the vertiginous decline of priestly vocations and the related diminution of the priests’ presence among us. Day after day, parishes without the stable presence of a priest are increasing; undeniably, priests are becoming scarcer. More and more churches are now opened sporadically for the celebration of Holy Mass and closed for most of the year. Moreover, even when the priest is still resident in some big parish, his effective presence is progressively diminished, overloaded as he is, by having to guarantee services to innumerable small communities in the area. In many mountain valleys there isn’t even one priest left.

What is there to say? It is a sadly disheartening picture.

What it the greatest danger though? In our view, it is that the solution to all this is being dictated by those who have caused and accelerated the problem! “Protestantized” Christianity started this disaster decades ago and is now offering us the remedies!

Radicati Editorial: Modernized Catholicism offers Modernity to Muslims - and they understandably reject it

It won't be a Liberal religion that will save us from Islam

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, March 2015

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

We must pray a lot to St. Joseph during this month dedicated to him: for us, for Holy Church and for the work that God asks of Her in the world.

Protector Sanctae Ecclesiae, is the last title of invocation in St. Joseph’s litany - Protector of Holy Church.

The Holy Church must be protected from all Her enemies, who are the same enemies of Our Lord - enemies inside and outside the Church. Perhaps, during these really difficult times, we have to pray to St. Joseph, in particular, to protect the Church from the enemies inside who are certainly the most dangerous.

Editorial: Dogmatic but not on dogma

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, February 2015

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

Dogmatic but not on dogma appears to be the exact state of affairs in the Church these past decades.

While theologians and the various pastoralists are allowed to dabble with Christian doctrine in complete freedom – dangerously reformulating the truths of the faith by transforming it into something else; while preaching is allowed to run free like a river – placing in danger the entire Catholic Creed, there is this [tendency] to become dogmatic, fixed and authoritarian on what is not essential in the Church, for example: diocesan and parochial pastoral organization.

Editorial: Doctrine can never be bartered (and the indelible influence of Michael Davies)

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, January 2015

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

It has finally arrived. It came like a kind of unexpected Christmas gift - it was so long in coming. It comes as a beneficial gift for those who want to profit from it. What, you might ask, has arrived? The Italian version of “The Liturgical Revolution - Cranmer’s Godly Order”* by Michael Davies – that’s what’s arrived!

Over the past years we have given ample extracts from it on this bulletin and on our blog, but we needed the complete publication in Italian. Now, thanks be to God, we have it!

This first editorial of the year, is simply a heartfelt invitation for many to take this fine work into their hands and delve into it. Since our encounter with Davies’ writings was fundamental, we urge this in a warm way. We cannot say that they were the only motive for our passing to the Old Rite, but undoubtedly they contributed in clarifying the reasons for it definitively.

Editorial: Reinventing God

FROM A LAX CHURCH TO AN AGNOSTIC CHURCH

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, December 2014

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

A God that no longer asks anything of men is one that doesn’t exist. Yet this has been the tragic consequence of the Post-Conciliar Church, which by espousing a secular vision of mercy has arrived at practical agnosticism. If it is true that practical atheism exists i.e. those who live as if God doesn’t exist, even if they don’t deny His existence explicitly, so then real agnosticism exists i.e. those who talk of an unknown God Who doesn’t speak clearly to men, from whom man gets what he wants according to the circumstances; a God Who is essentially there to validate without asking much in return.

This appears typically to be the situation in a great part of today’s Catholicism and lived concretely by the majority of the baptized.

Editorial - The False Prophetism of Worldly Clergy

THE FALSE PROPHETISM OF WORLDLY CLERGY

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, November 2014

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

A war breaks out somewhere in the world and the clergy of all levels, voice their solidarity with the victims and the population hit by it.  There is a flood or an earthquake, and nearness in prayer is communicated coupled with a lecture to the civil authorities who were incapable of warding off the disaster or scarce in their aid after the fact. 

We are in an economic crisis and this worldly clergy attempts to teach the economist what they need  to do by foisting their own “recipe” onto the State and the industrialists, reminding them of the rights of the workers.

By now we are used to these inevitable, humdrum ecclesiastical bulletins begotten by the likewise inevitable meetings of the ecclesiastical conferences.

Yet is all of this actually the task of the Catholic priesthood?  And if it is in some measure, is that all there is to his mission?

Editorial - 7 Years of Summorum: Catholic Tradition must be Embraced in its Entirety, without Ambiguity

SUFFERING SAVES US FROM AMBIGUITY

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, September 2014

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Domodossola and Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

Difficulties are not always bad for us; they are certainly not in essence evil. This is true for the spiritual life and is particularly true for the life of the Church. There is only one evil: losing Christ and His grace. Evil is eternal damnation, not suffering.

We are so immersed in the pagan mentality of this world, that we are no longer aware that we think the same way as it does. Too often we think that suffering is evil and what is worse, we judge the goodness of things, the rightness of our decisions and the work we begin, on whether they give us peace and serenity. If they don’t cause us suffering, then these things are good for us.

This way of thinking and weighing things is as far away from Christianity as you can imagine. It is in practice, a rejection of the Cross of Christ. This is true about everything, even for the return to Tradition and the Old Mass.

In the years after the promulgation of the Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum, in which His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI stated openly that the Traditional Mass had never been abolished and gave faculty to priests to once again celebrate it, after it came into effect in September seven years ago, many were so intimidated by the resistance put up by the diocesan curias against the return of Tradition in the Church, that they surrendered right from the beginning - in that which should have been a “glorious battle.”

O Crux, Ave, Spes Unica: The Mass of Tradition

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, July 2014

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Domodossola and Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

________________________________

Last month, when we talked about the solemnity of Corpus Christi, we mentioned the great danger of forgetting the sacrificial nature of the Catholic Mass. A forgetfulness which leads slowly but inexorably to heresy. On this point we should never forget Michael Davies’ great work on the Anglican Reform, which underlines the danger of “what’s left unsaid” in liturgy: Cranmer’s Anglican Reform, in removing all of the explicit references to the propitiatory Sacrifice, successfully introduced Protestantism into England in the space of a generation and brought the country definitively into heresy.

Last month, however we pushed it further saying, that by forgetting the Mass is the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, the awareness of the Substantial Presence of Christ in the Most Holy Eucharist is inexorably lost: if we don’t have the Victim, we don’t have the Presence of Jesus Christ, since Christ is present in the Eucharist as Victim. A Mass increasingly identified as a commemoration of the Last Supper truly risks not being a Catholic Mass. It is undeniable that the last reform to the Mass, the one in 1969, made it more and more like the Protestant Holy Supper, Anglican or Lutheran - whichever it is.

There is still something else though: A Mass that is more and more “protestantized” has “protestantized” the Catholic faithful in its mission, so much so, that each day they resemble more and more Protestant congregations, “involved in the world. “

If we don’t have the Victim, we don’t have the Presence of Christ either. This is true for the Mass and the Blessed Sacrament but it is also true for the entire work of the Church. If Christ Crucified is no longer at the heart of the doctrinal preaching and pastoral work of the Church, the entire mission of the Church risks being frighteningly empty. Never before as in the last few decades have we seen so many pastoral efforts with techniques that have been refined for effective communication; never as in the past fifty years have there been so much talk of mission with hardly any good results. The Church has moved towards the world continuously announcing and announcing, and its relentless de-Christianization has taken place.

Who, among the Fathers of the Council could have imagined, that the Catholic Faith would have almost disappeared in the space of fifty years? Who among the Bishops of Vatican II, could have imagined the advent of the anti-Catholic and immoral society that we have today, where every law seems to be made purposely against the plan of God for man?

Yet, it is undeniable. This disaster is before our very eyes.

If we no longer have Jesus-Victim, we don’t have Jesus-Present either.

A Church that has been enthusiastically “encountering” the world since the ‘60s and has put the Cross of Christ in second place, has lost Christ Himself and has brought nothing or almost nothing to society. It needs to be said clearly: without the centrality of the Cross, without the centrality of Christ crucified, you lose Christ Himself. The ones who speak about Jesus without His Cross and its centrality, are suffering a terrible delusion. The ones who put the Cross of Christ “among the many other things” in the life of Jesus, but don’t’ envisage the center - in truth - they are not even talking about Christ. They are talking about a “confectioned” Jesus specially for the modern world, which like the Jews and gentiles of Saint Paul, judged Christ Crucified as a scandal and foolishness.

The decision was made to go into world and have friendly dialogue with it, avoiding the condemnations of the Church in the past; in order to have friendly dialogue, they had to “veil” or “hide” the Cross and the Sacrifice of Christ, so that the dialogue with modern society, with its religions, would be serene and amicable, resulting in the twofold tragedy of not having brought anything to the people of these times and, worse, in devastating the Sanctuary of the Presence of God, which is the Church.

We cannot avoid it: we must be the first to accept and embrace the scandal of the Cross, recognize it as the central content of the Church’s doctrine, life and mission, and so, not calculating the results, but confident in the infinite power of God’s grace, go into the world so that it will be converted and healed by the Cross of Christ.

Woe to those Catholics, woe to that Church, that wants to convey another Jesus without the Cross! It will lose its essence, strength, soul and its exclusive power of grace. In addition. it will become more and more useless and unbearable to the world that it wanted to reach. A Church without the Sacrifice and the Cross is detestable and unbearable to the world.

What is more, the world is now ready to savage such an empty Church.

In hoc signo vinces, is not only a memory from past history, it is the truth of every single moment: the victory is in the Cross and of those who bring it and show it to the world, without human calculations.

O Crux, ave, spes unica, Hail O Cross, our only hope; if there isn’t a return to this clarity in all things – truly in the entire Church - the disaster will be inevitable.

This return begins though with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

If faced with this devastating picture of confusion we feel powerless; if powerless we are wondering what to do and above all where to begin, let’s remember that the rebuilding of the Church will always start from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Let’s not make human calculations, let’s not make the same mistakes of the 60s, let’s not go into the world, with our techniques, not even to rebuild Tradition, but let’s start again from the Mass.

We say this first to priests and then to the faithful: let’s return immediately to the Mass of Tradition. Let’s return to the correct Rite of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and from there we can begin again the painstaking work of rebuilding the faith. Let’s not make the mistake of doing the opposite, first pastoral work, then a return to the Mass of Ages, it would be basically hiding the Cross of Christ again, in the expectation of better times, as the deluded missionaries did in the post-conciliar years.

The truth instead is Christ.

The truth instead is in the reality of His Redeeming Sacrifice, perpetuated in the Catholic Mass. The first duty of priests is to celebrate it. The first duty of everyone is to live by it, so that life, true life, will continue.

______________________

[Translation: Contributor Francesca Romana. Main image, and in details: Diego Velázquez, Cristo Crucificado (1632), Museo Nacional del Prado.]

A Return to Sacrifice, in order to Save the Sacrament

Tintoretto, The Crucifixion (Scuola Grande di San Rocco)

_________________________

Editorial: Radicati nella fede, June 2014

Newsletter of the Catholic community of

Domodossola and Vocogno, Diocese of Novara, Italy

June is the month of Corpus Christi. It is the month of the great feast dedicated entirely to Our Eucharistic Jesus. As in all parishes, we too are preparing to celebrate it on Sunday 22nd of June, seeing that the Thursday of the Solemnity is no longer a feast day in Italy. We will celebrate it mainly, with a solemn procession after the sung Mass, by carrying the Most Sacred Host through the streets of the town.

This should be the most important procession of the year, since here we are not carrying a venerated statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary nor a saint or relic, but Jesus Himself, living and real in the Most Blessed Sacrament; living and real with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. This procession should be the most solemn, filled with adoration and holy respect for Our Lord Who is passing by.

Certainly many will sense distinct melancholic thoughts arising: “it is no longer like this in our towns now, Corpus Christi can’t be celebrated as it once was; the streets used to be adorned and the sides along the way used to be covered with the most beautiful drapes; and do you remember the altar- stops? There was a competition to see who could make the most beautiful altar! And the people – how they used to kneel…! Yes, it’s no longer like that. Today, if all goes well, Corpus Christi is the procession of a small remnant of believers who still adore the Most Holy Eucharist. For Our Lady’s procession we can hope for one or two more Catholics – but for Corpus Christi…!”

These are all realistic considerations, but we would be wrong if we only complained without thinking about it all more deeply.

Why has the spirit of adoration been lost? Why do so many baptized souls not recognize the Lord passing by in the Sacred Host anymore?

Among the “conservatives” many will say that it was all caused by certain factors: a) the moving of the tabernacles in churches – from the altars they were relegated into some corner; b) genuflections are no longer made; c) receiving Communion standing and in the hand; d) the reduction if not the disappearance of Eucharistic fasting, etc...

All of which are true, but these are not the main causes – the real one is deeper.

It all began with the disastrous reform to the Rite of the Mass which followed the Second Vatican Council.

With the pretext of translating the Mass into the vernacular in 1969 - it was changed radically, practically re-made and purged of all the explicit references to the Propitiatory Sacrifice – in order to please the Protestants.

In fact, the Mass was increasingly transformed into a Holy Supper and this was done basically, so that the priests and the faithful [could] be nurtured at the “two tables” of the Word and the Body of Christ; in short, the Mass was done so as to have Communion.

So the central and determining factor of the Sacrifice of Christ disappeared from the everyday life of Catholics. It was for this Jesus instituted the Eucharist so that His sacrifice on the Cross be perpetuated - the sacrifice, which alone cancels sins and placates Divine Justice.

It is essential that each day in all the churches of the world, the Sacrifice of Christ be offered, so that the world may be saved from the abyss. What has this all got to do with the presence of Jesus in the Host, Adoration and Corpus Domini? It is simple. If the Mass is no longer intended as the oblation of Christ on the altar of the Cross, but is intended merely as a holy meal, the presence of Christ Himself is put at risk.

A great writer wrote:

“There are two great realities in the Mass, the sacrifice and the sacrament. These two great realities are fulfilled at the same instant, at the moment when the priest pronounces the words of consecration over the bread and wine. When he finishes the words of consecration of the Precious Blood, the Sacrifice of Our Lord is fulfilled and Our Lord is also present at the that moment, as is the Sacrament of Our Lord as well. […] This mystical separation of the species in the bread and wine fulfills the sacrifice of the Mass. Thus, these two realities are achieved at the consecration. They cannot be separated. And this is what the Protestants did; they simply wanted the sacrament without the sacrifice. This is the danger of the new Masses. Sacrifice is no longer spoken of; it seems that sacrifice has been set aside. You only hear talk about the Eucharist, and having a “Eucharist” as if it were merely a meal. The risk is present that we have neither one nor the other. It is very dangerous. In the measure that the sacrifice disappears, the Sacrament also disappears, since it is the Victim Who has been presented in the Sacrament. If there is no sacrifice there is no Victim.”

“If there is no sacrifice there is no Victim.” These are strong but very logical words which conform to the faith. Without entering into extremely delicate sacramentary reflections we can easily say, that what has happened in the lives of Catholics is this: the obscuring of the sacrificial character of the Mass has caused the loss of awareness of Christ’s substantial presence in the Sacrament.

The Old Mass meets the emphasis of the propitiatory Sacrifice of Christ’s substantial presence in the Sacred Host.

The New Mass meets the emphasis of the Eucharistic banquet, Holy Communion, and – strangely enough – the almost complete disappearance of the spirit of adoration.

It is not a coincidence: if there is no Sacrifice, there is not even a Victim – and Jesus is not present.

This is why it is a mistake to curtail the liturgical disaster with some simple work of “maquillage”, by perhaps bringing the exterior signs of adoration back – incense, candles, altar rails and kneelers, nocturnal adoration, but with no concern [however] of a return to the correct rite of the Mass i.e. the Mass of Tradition.

Those who stop at exterior signs are making a mistake, when they occupy themselves with a vague sentiment of tradition and play merely with aesthetics which deceive.

The answer is a return to the complete Catholic clarity of the Propitiatory Sacrifice expressed in the right Mass.

A return to the right Mass will rectify the procession of Corpus Christi as well and [even] before that, it will rectify the lives of Christians who are called to participate in the Sacrifice of Christ with every fiber of their being.

[Translation: Contributor Francesca Romana]