Saints of the Day & Deaconate Good News

Here is the saint’s calendar for January 13, 2019 and several versions, each focusing on individual saints, all wonderful.

From Butler’s Calendar of the Saints listing all of the saints of today, (so many). https://web.archive.org/web/20061019111620/http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/day0113.htm

From Butler’s Lives of the Saints, highlighting one, http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/lots023.htm

From Franciscan Media https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-hilary/

From a most lovely site, really a daily devotional site offering much more than just saint of the day, Anastpaul https://anastpaul.wordpress.com/

And a great resource for further exploration of individual saints, The Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/index.html

Deaconate Good News

Nice to have good news about the Church, as this story from the Wanderer Newspaper certainly is.

An excerpt.

With all the problems going on in the Catholic Church today — perceived and otherwise — it is perhaps useful to take stock of the things that are going well.

For instance, the permanent diaconate is a wonderful start. The diaconate a much older institution than the priesthood, coming from a time when bishops themselves were able to conduct the Holy Mass while deacons, subdeacons, “deaconesses” (which were really equivalent to a prioress of nuns and don’t let anyone tell you different), religious brothers and sisters, and a host of laity performed the charitable and at times sacramental work of the Church. This sacramental work was limited to deacons, of course, and limited to what in modern parlance was to “hatch, match, and dispatch” — or in other words, to confer the Sacraments of Baptism, Marriage, and Last Rites.

At no point in time in salvation history have we had more deacons than today.

Right now, despite the “vocations crisis” in the Western world, in places such as Africa and Asia, the vocations crisis takes on a different form: how to build the seminaries fast enough. Right now, there are over 415,000 priests in the world — more than at any other point in time in salvation history.

The same is true for our bishops. We have more active bishops — 5,304 to be exact — in active ministry right now than at any other point in time in salvation history.

This is critically important for any number of reasons, but most importantly because these bishops can create new priests — and in that respect, we have over 116,000 new seminarians actively exploring a priestly vocation. Over a five-year average? At no other point in salvation history have we seen this many vocations being explored.

Now we come to the fun part — the Church Militant. Right now, there are over 1.3 billion professed Catholics around the world. One in six, to be clear. Both as a percentage of the human race and as a raw number of human beings, at no other point in time in salvation history has the Catholic Church enjoyed so wide a membership.

Yet that’s not all! How do you become a Catholic nominally? Of course, one has to accept baptism, which is a mark that cannot be erased and is enjoyed by Protestant, Orthodox, and other varying Christian traditions. So the grand total of souls claimed for the Catholic Faith? 2.3 billion.

At no other time in salvation history have there been so many individual souls marked indelibly with the Sacrament of Baptism.

Right now, the Catholic Church has opened more hospitals, more colleges, more clinics, more schools, more parishes, more refugee camps, more shelters, feeds more indigent populations, visits more prisoners and advocates on behalf of the unspoken more today than at any other time in salvation history.

Full stop and pause for just a moment.

Set aside all of the scandal for just a moment and imagine the Catholic Church as she is, not as how the press and the world would want her to be perceived. Consider what we would imagine her to be in holiness, and reflect on how truly amazing all of these gifts — both spiritual and temporal — truly are.

Granted, in the Catholic West, it can seem as if Christendom is falling apart. Scandals, persecutions, and even calumnies from within seem to be waging war against the Body of Christ.

Yet in perspective, there is no small wonder why the Catholic Church is under such attack — we are growing, and not only are we growing, but more souls today than at any other point in time in salvation history are enjoying the protection, prayers, and charitable works of the Catholic Church.

From http://thewandererpress.com/catholic/news/frontpage/reasons-for-hope/#more-24521

Saint of the Day & Why Join the Church?

Today, December 7, 2018, is the feast day of St. Ambrose, Bishop & Doctor of the Church (340 AD -397 AD) according to Lives of the Saints by Fr. Alban Butler (first published in 1887 under the title Lives of the Saints–With Reflections for Every Day in the Year), read here http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/lots376.htm and a more detailed article from Tradition in Action at https://traditioninaction.org/SOD/j051sdAmbrose12-7.htm

The definitive article though is at the Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01383c.htm and here is the Wikipedia link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose

Reading about these saints is a wonderful daily reflection; such marvelous lives the saints lived, such an army, the Church Triumphant, who has our back in heaven.

Why Join the Church?

A bracing reminder of the roots and truth of our faith, regardless of the sinners (clerical and laity) within it, from Father Z.

An excerpt.

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

“Why should a Protestant like me convert and join the Catholic church, given the current corruption that appears to reach all the way to the top?

“(This is not an idle question. I was ready to call a priest and learn more, just before the recent scandal broke.)”

I get it.  I really do.  I am a convert and those times when I came into the Church were also troubling.  They have been for a while.  As a matter of fact, there has been controversy swirling in and around the Church since the moment Our Lord’s feet disappeared into the heavens at his Ascension.

First, remember that the Church was founded for sinners.  Therefore, let’s not be surprised when we find that the Church is filled with sinners, at every level.

Second, remember that the Devil hates the Church.  The Enemy attacks relentlessly.  It is a good strategy to strike high, strike the shepherds so that the sheep will scatter.  It should shock us but not at all surprise us that there are corrupt clergy and lay people in the Church at every level.   The attacks on the Church are, themselves, proofs that she is who she says she is.

Third, the fact that there is corruption or incompetence in the Church, and that the Church  has always prevailed and moved forward in the Lord’s mission is a sign that this, the Catholic Church, truly is the Church that Christ founded.  Left to us, we would destroy it.  The continuance of the Church demonstrates God’s favor and grace and protection, even from us.

There is no better place to be than in the Church that Christ Himself founded.  The faults of individuals disgust and demoralize from time to time, but they  are not “the Church”.  The Church is, truly, the spotless bride of Christ.  God’s love for us is so great that He entrusts His Church to us little sinful mortals as we muddle along.

If you believe in Christ’s promises and in the Church true claims – as they really are, and not at the fools, libs, modernists, liars and confused distort them for their worldly objectives – then there is no where else that we can be.  We must be Catholics in the Catholic Church.  And if we, knowing the claims of the Church and Christ’s promises, knowing that this is Christ’s Church, fail to enter her embrace or determine to leave it, we put our salvation in peril, because, in rejecting the truth, we reject our Lord Himself.

Great spiritual gain (membership in the Church) comes at a cost.   There is always a cost.   For some it is giving up a known community.  For others it is giving up comfort.  For others it is giving up customs or other matters.   There is always a cost.

The benefits, however, are abundant, if not always immediately comfortable.

Crises come and go.  The Catholic Church was founded by Christ.  And, given that truth, there is no place else we can be.

Retrieved December 3, 2018 from http://wdtprs.com/blog/2018/12/ask-father-why-should-a-protestant-convert-and-join-the-catholic-church/

Saint of the Day & Are Protestants Christians?

Following yesterday’s feast day of St. Martin of Tours, today, November 12, 2018, is the feast day of anther St Martin, St. Martin, Pope, Martyr, (590-655) according to the Lives of the Saints by Fr. Alban Butler (first published in 1887 under the title Lives of the Saints–With Reflections for Every Day in the Year), and you can read about this saint at http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/lots350.htm and a more detailed article at Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Martin_I

Reading about these saints is a wonderful daily reflection; such marvelous lives the saints lived, such an army, the Church Triumphant, who has our back in heaven.

 Are Protestants Christians?

Not according to traditional Catholic teaching as this bracing 2007 article from Tradition in Action notes.

An excerpt.

It is very common today to hear Catholics call a Protestant “a Christian,” or even, “a good Christian.” In the United States, it was already a practice before Vatican II because of the tendency of American Catholics to accommodate Protestantism, whose tonus dominated the social and business spheres. Then, there was the question of adaptation as prominent Protestants joined the Catholic faith, or Catholics entered into marriages with Protestants. It was just easier to call everyone “Christian.” Supposedly it underplayed differences. It was meant to create the impression that Catholics and Protestants were cousins in one big, happy family. Pope Leo XIII condemned this tolerance toward Protestantism under the name of Americanism, the heresy of Americanism, to be more precise.

After Vatican II, needless to say, the practice of calling Protestants Christians has snowballed, with the official conciliar documents assuming this same impropriety. Hence, the Holy See, Prelates and priests have made its use as widespread as possible. Accommodation to Protestantism in our days has reached such a point that some Catholics, to distinguish between Catholics and their Protestant “separated brethren,” call themselves Catholic Christians. A redundancy if I’ve ever heard one. Only Catholics can be true Christians. No one who dissents from the Roman Catholic Church can be a Christian. The terms are synonymous.

Every time I hear the term Christian used for Protestants, I cringe. Its usage clearly nourishes a trend toward a dangerous religious indifferentism, which denies the duty of man to worship God by believing and practicing the one true Catholic Religion. It is an implicit admission that those who deny the one Faith can nonetheless be Christians, that is, be in the Church of Christ. Inherently it leads to the progressivist notion that men can be saved in any religion that accepts Christ as Savior. A “good Lutheran,” a “good Anglican,” a “good Presbyterian – what does it matter so long as they are good people and sincerely love Christ?

Regardless of who is applying this usage today, I want to stress that it is at variance with the entire tradition of the Catholic Church until the Council. To consider heretics as Christians is not the teaching of the Church.

Before Vatican II, the Magisterium was always very clear: It is not a matter of an individual’s character or traits. No one can be in the Church of Christ without professing the ensemble of the truths of Catholic Faith, being in unity with the Chair of Peter and receiving the same Seven Sacraments. The only Christian is one who accepts Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Church he established. Who can have God for Father and not accept the Church for Mother? (Pope Pius IX, Singulari quidem of March 17, 1856) Who can accept the spouse Christ, and not his mystical bride the Church? Who can separate the Head, the only begotten Son of God, from the body, which is His Church? (Pope Leo XIII, Satis cognitum of June 29, 1896). It is not possible.

In short, only those who profess the one Catholic Faith and are united with the Mystical Body of Christ are members of the Church of Christ. And only those members can legitimately bear the title of honor of Christian.

The Protestant sect started as a revolt, protesting the Church of Christ and, pretending to accept Christ without Peter, the authority He established on earth. With this split, they left the Church and became heretics. This used to be clearly said and understood, without sentimental fear of offending one’s neighbors or relatives: A Protestant is a heretic because he severed himself from the Body of the Church. He is not a Christian, and certainly not a “good Christian.”

Scriptures confirm this truth

My friend Jan thought I was being too severe on this topic. “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill,” she said. “Don’t Scriptures teach us to love our neighbor and not be judgmental?”

It is the same old post Vatican II story, claiming that it is “judgmental” to correct bad practices and false teachings and arguing with disputable interpretations of Scriptures.

Well, despite these subjective interpretations, the inspired words of Scriptures provide an unambiguous defense that the custody of the vineyard has been committed by Christ to the Catholic Church alone. Let me quote just a few verses:

• “He who hears you (Peter) hears me, and he who rejects you, rejects me, and he who rejects me, rejects him who sent me (Lk 10:16).” It could not be clearer: the Protestant who rejects the head, rejects Christ himself, and should not be granted the name Christian.
• Christ establishes one Church with a single head: “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt 16:19).
• St. Paul is severe in his condemnation of false teachers, e.g. Protestants: “If any man preaches any other Gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” (Gal 1: 9).
• In another passage he instructs Catholics to remove themselves from the bad society of non-Catholics: “And we charge you, brethren, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ that you withdraw yourselves from every brother walking disorderly and not according to the Tradition which they have received of us” (2 Thess 3:6).
• The Apostle St. John forbade any intercourse with heretics: “If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house or welcome him” (2 Jo 1:10)”

Holy Scriptures are clear on the point that only those who belong to the one Church founded by Christ, the Catholic Church, can rightfully be considered Christians.

Popes reiterate this teaching

The traditional Papal Magisterium was also clear on this topic. Let me offer a few texts by way of exemplification.

Pius XII stated unequivocally: “To be Christian one must be Roman. One must recognize the oneness of Christ’s Church that is governed by one successor of the Prince of the Apostles who is the Bishop of Rome, Christ’s Vicar on earth” (Allocution to the Irish pilgrims of October 8, 1957). How is it possible to be clearer than this about those who can be called Christian?

Leo XIII makes it plain that separated members cannot belong to the same body: “So long as the member was on the body, it lived; separated, it lost its life. Thus the man, so long as he lives on the body of the [Catholic] Church, he is a Christian; separated from her, he becomes a heretic” (Encyclical Satis cognitum of June 29, 1896).

Emphasizing the fate of those who break away from the one Faith, he says: “Whoever leaves her [the Catholic Church] departs from the will and command of Our Lord Jesus Christ; leaving the path of salvation, he enters that of perdition. Whoever is separated from the Church is united to an adulteress” (ibid.). Certainly, they do not share with us the same title of Christian.

Pope Pius IX stated: “He who abandons the Chair of Peter on which the Church is founded, is falsely persuaded that he is in the Church of Christ” (Quartus supra of January 6 1873, n. 8).

Retrieved November 12, 2018 from https://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/m013rpProtestantsChristians.html

 

Saint of the Day & The Catholic Birth of Tyrannical Authority

Today, October 31, 2018, is the Feast Day of St. Quintin, Martyr, according to the Lives of the Saints by Fr. Alban Butler (first published in 1887 under the title Lives of the Saints–With Reflections for Every Day in the Year), read about them at http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/lots337.htm

Reading about these saints is a wonderful daily reflection; such marvelous lives they lived, such an army who has our back in heaven.

The Catholic Birth of Tyrannical Authority

This is a wonderful article from Rorate Caeli examining the development of the type of clerical authority—contrary to the teaching of the Angelic Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas—that is ruining the Church.

Excerpts.

In the light of new revelations about sexual abuse in the Church, many Catholics are asking how the situation that these revelations have disclosed can possibly have come about. The first question that occurs, a question of long standing, is; why did bishops deal with sexual abusers by concealing their offences and moving them to new assignments, rather than by removing them from ministry? No sufficient answer has yet been given to this question. It has now been made more pointed by a further question; how did Theodore McCarrick get appointed as Archbishop of Washington and Cardinal, and even become a principal drafter of the American bishops’ policy on sexual abuse in 2002, when his own involvement in sexual abuse was widely known in clerical circles and had been made known to the Holy See?

These things did not happen because of the law of the Church. Until November 27, 1983, the law in force in the Latin Church was the 1917 Code of Canon Law. Canon 2359 §2 of this code decreed that if clerics commit an offense against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue with minors under sixteen years of age, they are to be suspended, declared infamous, deprived of every office, benefice, dignity, or position that they may hold, and in the most grievous cases deposed.

This canon was replaced by Canon 1395, §2 in the 1983 Code, which states that ‘a cleric who in any other way has committed an offence against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, … with a minor below the age of sixteen years, is to be punished with just penalties, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state if the case so warrants.’ The 1983 Code addressed offences of the kind committed by Cardinal McCarrick with Canon 1395 §2, which states that  ‘A cleric who in another way has committed an offense against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, if the delict was committed by force or threats or publicly or with a minor below the age of sixteen years, is to be punished with just penalties, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state if the case so warrants.’ These canons do not present these punishments as options; they require that such offences be punished by ecclesiastical authority. So our question now becomes; why did ecclesiastical authorities break the law by not enforcing these canons?

No doubt a number of factors combined to produce this disastrous situation. There is one factor however that has not been widely discussed or understood, but that has had an effect that is second to none in giving rise to the scandalous situation that now engrosses our attention. This is the influence within the Church of a conception of authority as a form of tyranny, rather than as being based on and constituted by law. This essay will present the nature of this conception, describe how it came to be influential, and explore some of its more significant results.

The intellectual origins of this conception of authority and obedience are largely to be found in nominalist theology and philosophy. William of Ockham notoriously came down on one side of the Euthyphro dilemma by asserting that good actions are good simply because they are commanded by God, and that God could make idolatry, murder, and sodomy good, and abstention from these actions evil, if he commanded that they be performed. This conception of divine authority lends support to a tyrannical understanding of authority in general as based on the arbitrary will of the possessor of power, rather than on law.

A law-based understanding of authority, in contrast, holds that law derived from the nature of the good provides the source of the authority of a ruler, and delimits the sphere in which a ruler can give commands. Scholars have long known that the dominance of nominalist thought in the fourteenth century left its mark on Catholic thought for centuries, with key nominalist theses remaining entrenched even in scholars who believed themselves to be upholding anti-nominalist traditions. The nature of authority was one of these theses. Catholic theologians and philosophers during the Counter-Reformation all held that law and moral obligation are to be understood as resulting from the command of a superior; Suarez gave a characteristic description of law as ‘the act whereby a superior wills to bind an inferior to the performance of a particular deed.’

Restoration of discipline among clergy and religious was one of the main goals of the Counter-Reformation. The theories of law and authority that guided this restoration differed from a pure nominalist position, but these differences were lost when the practical principles for training in obedience were devised. These principles embodied a tyrannical understanding of authority, and a servile understanding of rightful obedience as consisting in total submission to the will of the superior. The most influential formulation of these principles was given in the writings of St. Ignatius Loyola on obedience. The key elements of the Ignatian notion of authority are the following:

“— The mere execution of the order of a superior is the lowest degree of obedience, and does not merit the name of obedience or constitute an exercise of the virtue of obedience.

“— In order to merit the name of virtue, an exercise of obedience should attain the second level of obedience, which consists in not only doing what the superior orders, but conforming one’s will to that of the superior, so that one not only will to obey an order, but wills that that particular order should have been given – simply because the superior willed it.

“— The third and highest degree of obedience consists in conforming not only one’s will but one’s intellect to the order of the superior, so that one not only wills that an order should have been given, but actually believes that the order was the right order to give, simply because the superior gave it. ‘He who aims at making an entire and perfect oblation of himself, in addition to his will, must offer his understanding, which is a further and the highest degree of obedience. He must not only will, but he must think the same as the superior, submitting his own judgment to that of the superior, so far as a devout will can bend the understanding.’

“— In the highest and most meritorious degree of obedience, the follower has no more will of his own in obeying than an inanimate object. ‘Everyone of those who live under obedience ought to allow himself to be carried and directed by Divine Providence through the agency of the superior as if he were a lifeless body which allows itself to be carried to any place and to be treated in any manner desired, or as if he were an old man’s staff which serves in any place and in any manner whatsoever in which the holder wishes to use it.’

“— The sacrifice of will and intellect involved in this form of obedience is the highest form of sacrifice possible, because it offers to God the highest human faculties, viz. the intellect and the will.”

It should be said that St. Ignatius’s practical exercise of authority did not agree with his own writings. He was accustomed to send Jesuits on independent missions where they had to use their initiative. Literally construed, his writings on obedience could have no application in these situations, because the superior was not there to give the commands to which this kind of obedience is due. …

The novelty of this understanding of obedience can be seen by contrasting it with the position of St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Thomas considers the proper object of obedience to be the precept of the superior (Summa theologiae, 2a2ae q. 104 a. 2 co., a. 2 ad 3). St. Ignatius’s lowest degree of obedience, which he does not consider to be virtuous, is considered by St. Thomas to be the only form of obedience. He holds that St. Ignatius’s alleged higher forms of obedience do not fall under the virtue of obedience at all:

“Seneca says (De Beneficiis iii): ‘It is wrong to suppose that slavery falls upon the whole man: for the better part of him is excepted.’ His body is subjected and assigned to his master but his soul is his own. Consequently in matters touching the internal movement of the will man is not bound to obey his fellow-man, but God alone.” (2a2ae q. 104 a. 5 co.)

Retrieved October 28, 2018 from https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2018/10/tyranny-and-sexual-abuse-in-catholic.html#more

Saint of the Day & Communism’s Power Over the Church

Long post today, important subject.

Today is the feast day of St. Thomas of Villanova, according to the traditional Lives of the Saints by Fr. Alban Butler, read about this day at http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/lots294.htm

Reading about these saints is a wonderful daily reflection.

Communism’s Power Over the Church

Its power began during the failure to hear the message of Fatima and increased during Vatican II when KGB assets were allowed to sit in on the proceedings, as I noted in my book:

“The Church and its doctrine of each life being precious to God, has always been attacked by the world from the day its founder was crucified, and far too often, it has become corrupted in its worldly institutional form, but the corruption by Communism, which the 19^th and early 20^th century popes had warned about so clearly, seems to have begun in earnest by the failure of the Holy Father to fulfill the command of the Holy Virgin at Fatima in 1917, to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart.

“Much of the horrors she foretold which would happen if Russia was not consecrated, have happened.

“It is within the diplomacy-influenced reasons partially responsible for that failure—the Russian Orthodox Metropolitan who lobbied to ensure the consecration would not happen, was a KGB directed operative—that we see the Vatican corruption that infected the clear support of Catholic teaching about Communism, rendering it virtually mute.

“Amerio (1996) writes about the pact between the Vatican and Moscow regarding Vatican II:

“When one is talking about the liberty of the council, the salient and half secret point that should be noted is the restriction on the council’s liberty to which John XXIII had agreed a few months earlier, in making an accord with the Orthodox Church by which the patriarchate of Moscow accepted the papal invitation to send observers to the council, while the Pope for his part guaranteed the Council would refrain from condemning communism. The negotiations took place at Metz in August 1962, and all the details of time and place were given at a press conference by Mgr. Paul Joseph Schmitt, the Bishop of that Diocese [newspaper Le Lorrain, 2/9/63]. The negotiations ended in an agreement signed by metropolitan Nikodim for the Orthodox Church and Cardinal Tisserant, the Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, for the Holy See. News of the agreement was given in the France Nouvelle, the central bulletin of the French communist party in the edition of January 16-22, 1963 in these terms: ‘Because the world socialist system is showing its superiority in an uncontestable fashion, and is strong through the support of hundreds and hundreds of millions of men, the Church can no longer be content with a crude anti-communism. As part of its dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church, it has even promised there will be no direct attack on the Communist system at the Council.’ On the Catholic side, the daily La Croix of February 15, 1963 gave notice of the agreement, concluding: “Following on this conversation, Msgr. Nikodim agreed that someone should go to Moscow carrying an invitation, on condition that guarantees were given concerning the apolitical attitude of the Council.”

“Moscow’s condition, namely that the council should say nothing about communism, was not, therefore, a secret, but the isolated publication of it made no impression on general opinion, as it was not taken up by the press at large and circulated, either because of the apathetic and anaesthetized attitude to communism common in clerical circles or because the Pope took action to impose silence in the matter. Nonetheless, the agreement had a powerful, albeit silent, effect on the course of the Council when requests for a renewal of the condemnation of Communism were rejected in order to observe this agreement to say nothing about it.” (Italics in original. pp. 75-76). Amerio, R. (1996). Iota unum: A study of changes in the Catholic church in the XXth century. Kansas City, Missouri: Sarto House. (

(pp.79-81) David H. Lukenbill (2013). Catholicism, Communism & Criminal Reformation. Lampstand Foundation: Sacramento, California.

George Weigel wrote about metropolitan Nikodim:

“On September 5, 1978, the new pope [John Paul I] received [Russian Orthodox] Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad, one of the six presidents of the World Council of Churches and a man who struck many Westerners as deeply pious. The KGB knew Nikodim as ADAMANT, as it knew his secretary, Nikolai Lvovich Tserpitsky (code name VLADIMIR). At the end of his private audience with John Paul, ADAMANT suffered a massive heart attack and died in the Pope’s arms. John Paul I later remarked that Nikodim had spoken “the most beautiful words about the Church I have ever heard” during their meeting; his last words, as the Pope held the fallen bishop, were said to have been “I am not a KGB agent.” But he was.” (p. 99) Weigel, G. (2010). The end and the beginning: Pope John Paul II—The victory of freedom, the last years, the legacy. New York: Doubleday.

This was also included in my book on page 119.

Communism’s influence appears to be alive and well, at least in China, as this story from OnePeterFive reports; though it is just a report of what might happen, not about what has happened, so take with a grain of salt; an informed grain of salt, however, considering the history.

An excerpt.

The Vatican is set to sign an agreement with China by the end of the month, one that cedes control over the appointment of bishops to Beijing. In return, we are told, Beijing has agreed to recognize the pope as the head of China’s Catholics.

From my position as a long-time observer of the machinations of the Chinese Party-State, this seems like a bad deal. The pope is ceding his very real authority to name bishops to China’s Communist authorities in return for the promise of symbolic recognition as the titular head of all Catholics in China. Might he not be giving up something for nothing?

The Vatican originally proposed that China follow the terms of an agreement it had reached with the Vietnamese government over the appointment of bishops. Under its terms, the Vatican and the Vietnamese authorities, working together, draw up a list of potential candidates. The Vatican then chooses someone from the list who, once Hanoi ratifies the choice, is consecrated as a bishop by the pope. Such a model clearly preserves papal authority.

This “Vietnam model” was rejected by China, however. As the official Global Times later reported, “Such a model was not accepted by China when it was tested in the country in 2005, as the Chinese authorities want total control over choosing candidates.” [italics added]

Beijing went on to insist upon a “Chinese model”, under the terms of which the Communist authorities alone will nominate a potential candidate for bishop. The pope must then approve or reject that candidate. If he vetoes the first candidate, Beijing will nominate another.

The pope’s “veto power,” however, is not unlimited.

As a Chinese official familiar with the negotiations was quoted as saying, “We cannot submit endless candidate lists to the Vatican if the pontiff keeps saying no. We may have to appoint bishops unapproved by the pontiff after a set number of rounds of negotiations. Such bishops may not be legitimate under the Church doctrine, but they can still give Church services to Chinese Catholics.”

In other words, the pope may veto an obviously unsuitable candidate or two, but Beijing has made it clear that there is a limit to the number of times a papal veto can be used. It has also limited the amount of time that the Vatican has to respond once a candidate’s name is submitted.

This means that at the end of the day it is the Communist authorities, and not Pope Francis, who will have the final say over who becomes a bishop in the Chinese Catholic Church.

The Vatican is reportedly prepared to make other concessions as well.

Perhaps the most important is that Pope Francis will formally consecrate as bishops seven men who were made “bishops” by the Communist authorities over the past decade. All of these men have been previously rejected by the Vatican as bishop candidates for various reasons having to do with personal morality, public actions, or both.

In a further concession, the Vatican has promised that the Pope will lift the excommunication of the seven illicit “bishops” of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association even before the new agreement is signed.

Second, the Pope will order two bishops of the underground Church, who have faithfully served for decades under intense persecution, to hand over their dioceses to bishops appointed by the Communist authorities. Shantou Bishop Zhuang Jianjian has been ordered to retire, a decision that has caused enormous pain to the local Church, while Mindong Bishop Guo Xijin has been told that he will be made an “auxiliary” of the Shantou diocese he has long headed.

Retrieved September 15, 2018 from https://onepeterfive.com/vatican-to-allow-beijing-to-name-bishops/

Saint of the Day & The Church is Holy, Leaders Often Not

Today is the feast day of St. Lambert, Bishop, Martyr, according to the traditional Lives of the Saints by Fr. Alban Butler, read about this day at http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/lots293.htm

Reading about these saints is a wonderful daily reflection.

The Church is Holy, Leaders Often Not

An important point to remember, as this story from Life Site News reports.

An excerpt.

September 12, 2018 (Rorate Caeli) – The courageous denunciation of ecclesiastical scandals made by  Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has generated  the consensus of many, but also the displeasure of others, convinced that everything discrediting the representatives of the Church should be covered up by silence. This desire to safeguard the Church is understandable when the scandal is an exception. There is the risk in that case of generalizing, by saddling the behavior of a few onto everyone . Quite different is the case when immorality is the rule, or at least is a widespread way of living accepted as the norm. In this case public denunciation is the first step towards the necessary reform of “morals”. Breaking the silence is part of the duties of a pastor, as St. Gregory the Great admonishes: “What in fact is the fear of a pastor to state the truth, if not the turning of his back on the enemy with his silence? If, instead, he fights in defense of his flock, he builds a bastion for the House of Israel against its enemies. For this the Lord through the mouth of Isaiah admonishes: “Cry, cease not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet” (Isaiah, 58,1).

At the origins of a guilty silence there is often the lack of distinction between the Church and the men of the Church, be they the simple laity, bishops, cardinals or Popes. One of the reasons for this confusion is precisely the prominence of the authorities involved in the scandals. The higher their dignity, the more the tendency to identify them with the Church, attributing good and evil indifferently to the one and the other. In reality the Good is the sole business of the Church, whereas all the Evil is due to the men who represent Her. For this the Church cannot be defined as sinful: “She – writes Father Roger T. Calmel O.P. (1920-1998) – asks forgiveness to the Lord not for the sins She has committed, but for the sins committed by Her children, insofar as they do not listen to Her as Mother.” (Breve apologia della Chiesa di sempre, Editrice Ichtys, Albano Laziale 2007, p. 91). All the members of the Church whether of the teaching or student parts, are men, with their own nature, wounded by original sin.  Neither Baptism renders the faithful faultless, nor Holy Orders render the members of the Hierarchy such. The Pope himself can sin and fall into error, except for that which concerns the charism of infallibility.

It must be said, moreover, that the faithful do not constitute the Church, as happens in human societies, created by the members that form them and dissolved as soon as they separate. To say “We are Church” is false, since the belonging of the baptized to the Church, does not derive from their will: it is Christ Himself who invites us to belong to His flock, by repeating to everyone: “You have not chosen me but I have chosen you” (John 15, 16).  The Church founded by Jesus Christ has a Human-Divine constitution: human as it has a material and passive component, made up of all the faithful, part of both the clergy and the laity; supernatural and divine for Her soul. Jesus Christ, Her Head, is Her foundation and the Holy Spirit is Her supernatural propeller.

The Church therefore is not holy because of the holiness of Her members, but it is Her members that are holy thanks to Jesus Christ Who directs Her and the Holy Spirit Who gives life to Her. From them comes all Good, that is, all that is “true, noble, just, pure, lovable, honorable and worthy of praise” (Phil. 4,8). And from the men of the Church comes all the Evil: disorders, scandals, abuse of power, violence, turpitudes and sacrileges.

“So – writes the Passionist theologian Enrico Zoffoli (1915-1996) who dedicated many fine pages to this theme –  we have no interest in covering up the faults of bad Christians, of unworthy, cowardly, inept, dishonest and arrogant priests. The intent to defend the cause and mitigate their responsibilities would be ingenuous and useless along with minimizing the consequences of their errors, having recourse to historical contexts and singular situations in order then to explain  away and absolve everything” (Chiesa e uomini di Chiesa, Edizioni Segno, Udine 1994, p. 41).

Today there is great filth in the Church, as the then Cardinal Ratzinger said during the Via Crucis of Good Friday 2005, which preceded his rise to the papacy.  “How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to Him! (Jesus)”.

Monsignor Carlo Maria Viganò’s testimony is praiseworthy, since, by bringing to light this filth, he renders the work of purification of the Church more urgent. It must be [made]clear that the conduct of unworthy bishops or priests is not inspired by the dogmas or morals of the Church, but constitutes their betrayal, as it represents a negation of the law of the Gospel.  The world that accuses the Church for Her faults accuses Her of transgressing a moral order: but in the name of what law and doctrine does the world claim to indict the Church? The philosophy of life professed by the modern world is relativism to the degree that there are no absolute truths and the only law of man is to be devoid of [all] laws; the practical consequence is hedonism according to which the only form of possible happiness is the gratification of one’s desires and the satisfaction of one’s instincts.

How can the world, devoid of principles as it is, judge and condemn the Church?  The Church has the right and duty to judge the world because She has an absolute and immutable doctrine. The modern world, child of the principles of the French Revolution, develops with coherence the ideas of the libertine Marquis de Sade (1740-1814): free love, free blasphemy, total freedom to deny and destroy every bastion of Faith and Morals, as in the days of the French Revolution when the Bastille, where Sade was a prisoner, was destroyed. The outcome of all this is the dissolution of morality, which has destroyed the foundations of civil society and over the last two centuries has created the darkest age in history.

The life of the Church is also the history of betrayals, defections, apostasies and insufficient  correspondence  with Divine Grace.  But this tragic weakness always goes along with extraordinary faithfulness: the falls, even the most terrifying, of many members of the Church, are interlaced with the heroism of the virtue seen in many other of Her children.

A river of sanctity gushes out of the side of Christ and runs flowing through the course of the centuries: the martyrs who face the wild animals in the Coliseum; the hermits who abandon the world to live a life of penitence; the missionaries who go to the ends of the earth; the intrepid confessors of the faith who combat schisms and heresies; the contemplative religious who sustain the defenders of the Church and Christian civilization with their prayers; all those, who, in different ways, have conformed their lives to the Divine one.  St. Theresa of the Child Jesus wanted to gather up all these vocations in one supreme act of love to God.

The saints are different from one another, but what they all share is union with God: and this union, which never flags, makes it so that the Church, prior to being One, Catholic and Apostolic, is first of all perfectly Holy. The holiness of the Church doesn’t depend on the holiness of Her children; it is ontological, given that it is connected to Her very nature.

Retrieved September 14, 2018 from https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/the-church-must-not-be-confused-with-the-men-who-run-the-church

Saint of the Day & Are Catholics Waking Up?

Today is the Exaltation of the Holy Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, according to the traditional Lives of the Saints by Fr. Alban Butler, read about this day at http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/lots290.htm

And here is a link to what Tradition in Action writes about this day, https://traditioninaction.org/SOD/j194sd_ExaltationCross_9-14.html

Reading about these days is a wonderful daily reflection.

Are Catholics Waking Up?

If articles like this from LifeSite News keep appearing, they well might; and as an aside, the great book of awakening mentioned in the first paragraph, The Soul of the Apostolate, is one I bought years ago, early in our Catholic journey, and it is still a must read; especially for those of us engaged in an apostolate.

An excerpt.

September 13, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – They say that Pope Pius X’s favorite bedside reading was The Soul of the Apostolate by Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard. I am beginning to wonder if Pope Francis’s favorite bedside reading is Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince.

Authors like Ross Douthat, Phil Lawler, and Henry Sire have provided copious documentation of the Pope’s Machiavellian modus operandi. It may help to recall, in the midst of Viganògate, a few egregious examples from the past that demonstrate how it works.

We remember when the pope deliberately washed the feet of women, against the universal liturgical law that limited the washing of feet to men. Then he changed the law to allow for the inclusion of any baptized member of the faithful—and proceeded to violate his new law by washing a Muslim’s feet. Even if one argues that the pope, as the highest legislator, is not bound by these laws in the same way as his subjects are, he should (as popes in the past have done) set the first and best example of observing Church discipline, since others will, in fact, take their cue or their justification from him. Thus, his public actions contrary to discipline are meant to transmit a spirit of contempt for law, with the message that subjective motives of “charity” or “mercy” can and should lead to the practical neutralization of Church discipline.

We have seen the same contempt, message of neutralization, and stirring up of confusion in regard to the German bishops’ disputes over whether communion should be given to Protestant spouses of Catholics. The pope first feinted to the left, favoring the liberal bishops, then feinted to the right, seeming to support backpedaling from the CDF, and finally let it be understood that the bishops could do whatever they pleased, even if the result will be a cuius regio eius religio checkerboard of dioceses with contradictory policies.

Then, in his manner of modifying the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well as in the new content that was ordered to be inserted, Pope Francis pushed through another victory for progressivism by effecting a change in doctrine, or initiating a motion towards that end, without having used a form of language that is unequivocally heretical. We saw that he did precisely the same thing in Amoris Laetitia (taken together with the Buenos Aires guidelines), in his revisions to the annulment process, and in many other cases, using techniques such as equivocation, studied ambiguity, internal contradiction, false quotation, and stalling tactics between phases to accomplish his purposes.

Again and again he displays this duplicity, playing off one side against the other, keeping people guessing—and keeping employed an army of anxious conservative Catholics who rabbinically reshape each act or statement. But a situation in which it is thought necessary to bend over backwards to defend the pope against undeniable appearances of doctrinal rupture and moral corruption is already a crisis of unprecedented scope. It means, at very least, that this pope has permanently lost the trust of many, and has therefore introduced a strong note of instability into the very office of the papacy, since future popes will be governing from a weak foundation. All of this coming from a Pope who told youths at a Mass in 2015 to “make a mess.”

There are still some Catholics who are digging in their heels. They refuse to believe that any pope can be as bad as this pope would have to be, if the most natural “reading” of things turns out to be true—so it must not be true! “Perhaps all of these doctrinal contradictions and moral meanderings and policy flip-flops are being misreported or misunderstood. Let’s circle around and defend the Pope at all costs from these naysayers, scandalmongers, and calumniators!” By doing this, they are effectively consigning their heads to a permanent vacation in the sand. This is one kind of coping mechanism: it effectively denies that there is a problem. It is like a child who puts his hands over his ears and says some loud nonsense in order to avoid having to hear what an adult is saying to him.

Retrieved September 13, 2018 from https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/when-will-catholics-wake-up-and-see-the-mess-pope-francis-has-made

Saint of the Day & Fish or Cut Bait

Today is the Feast Day of St. Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria, according to the traditional Lives of the Saints by Fr. Alban Butler, read about this Saint at http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/lots289.htm

Reading about these saints is a wonderful daily reflection.

Fish or Cut Bait

That moment in the horror of the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church may be upon us, as this article from Catholic Culture reports.

An excerpt.

As Pope Francis meets on Thursday with leaders of the US bishops’ conference, one question looms more important than all others:

Will the Pope authorize an apostolic visitation of the American hierarchy?

An apostolic visitation—a full investigation, under papal authority—could, if it was conducted rigorously and honestly (and that’s a crucial “if”):

• unearth the documents that will prove conclusively whether or not Archbishop Vigano’s testimony is accurate, whether or not his criticism of the Pontiff is justified;
• identify the bishops, in this country and in Rome, who helped advance the ecclesiastical career of ex-cardinal McCarrick—and those whose careers McCarrick has advanced;
• expose the influence of the “lavender mafia” and the corruption of the Roman Curia; and
• give American Catholics at least some reason to believe that the Vatican is finally taking action, and the cover-up is ending.

Cardinal DiNardo, in his role as president of the US bishops’ conference, has urgently requested an apostolic visitation, and indicated that he will go to Rome to pursuit of that request. That is a remarkable development: the head of the USCCB is, in effect, calling for an investigation of the USCCB! This is a bold move; one might even call it a desperate move. It’s almost the clerical equivalent of an infantry officer calling down artillery strikes on his own unit’s position. Casualties would be inevitable.

Retrieved September 13, 2018 from https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/the-city-gates.cfm?id=1645

Saint of the Day & Please, More Meetings?

Today is the Feast Day of St. Guy of Anderlecht, according to the traditional Lives of the Saints by Fr. Alban Butler, read about this Saint at http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/lots288.htm

Reading about these saints is a wonderful daily reflection.

Please, More Meetings?

The Vatican strategy is well-addressed at Catholic Culture.

An excerpt.

Pope Francis has called the leaders of the world’s episcopal conferences to Rome, to “speak about the prevention of abuse of minors and vulnerable adults.” Great.

The meeting will take place next February—more than five years after the Pope announced his plan to set up a special commission to recommend plans and policies for “the prevention of abuse of minors and vulnerable adults.” So you might ask yourself, what has that commission been doing these five years?

For one thing, the commission has been butting heads with various Vatican officials, trying—and often failing—to gain approval for its recommendations. Commission members have resigned in frustration, complaining about the lack of cooperation from Vatican agencies and episcopal conferences. If he saw the problem as urgent, the Pope, as the Church’s supreme legislator, could require all the world’s episcopal conferences to adopt norms suggested by his commission. Instead, he’s convened a meeting—in five months—to talk about the issue some more.

Or rather, to talk about a part of the issue. The revelations of recent weeks—the Chilean debacle and the McCarrick scandal in particular—have made it impossible to ignore two aspects of the scandal that have not been addressed: the influence of a homosexual network among the clergy, and the complicity of bishops who have failed to address abuse charges. These issues are not even mentioned in the Vatican’s announcement of the February meeting.

To be fair, the papal commission did recommend the creation of a special tribunal that would hold bishops accountable for their negligence in handling abuse charges. In 2015, the Pontiff approved that recommendation and created the tribunal. On paper. But in reality nothing changed—it was all talk, again—and after a year the Pope announced a new policy, rescinding the plan for a tribunal, claiming that existing procedures were adequate for disciplinary action against negligent bishops.

But if those procedures worked, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. The Pope is inviting the world’s bishops to discuss the problem, ignoring the fact that to a large extent the world’s bishops ARE the problem.

Retrieved September 12, 2018 from https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/the-city-gates.cfm?id=1644

Saint of the Day & Church as Sign of Contradiction

Today is the Feast Day of St. Laurence Justinian, according to the traditional Lives of the Saints by Fr. Alban Butler, read about this Saint at http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/lots279.htm

Reading about these saints daily is a wonderful reflection.

The Church as a Sign of Contradiction

Standing as such against the world has always been the mark of the Church, but over the past several decades, that has changed as this article from One Peter Five explains.

An excerpt.

In 1986, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre wrote the following infamous words:

“For the fact is that a grave problem confronted the conscience and the faith of all Catholics during the pontificate of Paul VI. How could a Pope, true successor of Peter, assured of the assistance of the Holy Ghost, preside over the most vast and extensive destruction of the Church in her history within so short a space of time, something that no heresiarch has ever succeeded in doing? One day this question will have to be answered.” (Open Letter to Confused Catholics, 1986)

About ten years before, in his book of the same name, Pope John Paul II, in a rather more optimistic vein, referred to the Church as being, like Christ, a “sign of contradiction” against the sin and error of the world. Several decades later, Lefebvre’s question has not yet been answered, and John Paul II’s characterization of the Church’s enmity with the world has become progressively more risible, as numerous bishops and cardinals appointed during his own pontificate openly make peace with the world and its sins. Nevertheless, many conservative Catholic commentators continue to insist that because of the doctrinal orthodoxy of the “New Evangelization,” the Church has maintained her aspect of contradiction with the world’s sins.

Whether all aspects of the New Evangelization are indeed orthodox is a separate question. What is more important is to note that mere orthodoxy in doctrine is insufficient for the Church to be the sign of contradiction against the world. Just as it is possible for an individual Catholic to be fully doctrinally correct and in a state of grace while maintaining a timid demeanor, so it is also possible for the Church as a whole to falter in boldly opposing the world without actually falling into doctrinal error. Indeed, it is precisely this that has happened since the Second Vatican Council. Lefebvre’s question and the former pope’s description of the Church are in fact intimately linked: the destruction of the Church’s inner stability devastated her ability to be a sign of contradiction against the world. If the Church is to have hope of recovering her former strength, lay Catholics must first understand what was lost at the Council: not doctrinal orthodoxy, not infallibility, but a spirit, a character, of both strength and opposition, that the world once knew well.

One of the aspects of the Catholic Church that was most strongly emphasized up until very recently, by her enemies and by her children, by converts and by opponents, was the sternness and consistency with which the Church insisted on absolute adherence to precise doctrinal formulas, in contrast with the freedom of thought enjoyed by Protestants. On the Protestant and freethinking side, it was condemned as obscurantism and dogmatism; on the Catholic side, it was hailed as the only guarantee of certainty of faith – of knowing what a Christian ought to believe.

The unanimity with which the Church’s character was described is striking. When David Hume wished to attack “Christian superstition,” he directed his fire at Roman Catholics, knowing that his largely Protestant audience would sympathize with his denunciation of Rome and his assertion in his Treatise of Human Nature that “[t]he Roman Catholics are certainly the most zealous of any sect in the Christian world.” Charles Hodge, a 19th-century Presbyterian theologian of great influence, referred in his Systematic Theology to the Church’s claim to magisterial infallibility as “a tyranny for which there is no parallel in the history of the world,” a judgment with which the evangelical Anglican theologian of the same period, J.C. Ryle, concurred, calling the Catholic submission to the Magisterium “laziness, idleness, and sloth.” Ryle went on to say in reference to the Oxford Movement and the growing sympathy among High Anglicans for Catholicism:

“We dreamed, in our folly, that the Reformation had ended the Popish controversy, and that if Romanism did survive, Romanism was altogether changed. If we did think so, we have lived to learn that we made a most grievous mistake. Rome never changes.” (“On Private Judgment,” emphasis in original)

The early 20th-century liberal theologian Charles Gore, who was influential in the post-Oxford Movement stage of High Anglicanism, spoke of Leo XIII’s encyclical on the authority of Scripture, Providentissimus Deus, as “disastrous.” He contrasted Leo’s alleged obscurantism with the freedom of inquiry Protestants enjoyed in the Anglican Church, criticizing the encyclical as being:

“… designed to suppress the school of real and free criticism which seemed to be forming itself in the Roman Church, and taking such firm root[.] … Nothing else is to be allowed – till truth revenges itself as it revenged itself on the same Church when she dealt in similar fashion with the science of Galileo.” (Gore, Roman Catholic Claims, 1920)

Catholic authors who noted the same difference between the Protestant layman’s plight of having to choose between competing authorities and his Catholic counterpart’s being able to rest in the living voice of the Church reads like a who’s-who of eminent figures in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Henry Edward Manning, John Henry Newman, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Hugh Benson, Hilaire Belloc, Adrian Fortescue, Dom John Chapman, G.K. Chesterton, and Ronald Knox, to name a few. To sample merely a few, Newman noted in his Apologia that the crucial turning point at which he realized that the Anglican theory of the Church was untenable was his recognition of the exact resemblance of the outward aspect of Rome in the fourth-century Monophysite controversies and again twelve centuries later during the Reformation, noting:

“The drama of religion, and the combat of truth and error, were ever one and the same. The principles and proceedings of the Church now, were those of the Church then[.] … The Church then, as now, might be called peremptory and stern, resolute, overbearing, and relentless[.]” (Apologia Pro Vita Sua, 1864)

What is key to notice here in Newman’s statement, which he stressed elsewhere, is that the critical issue was not simply a matter of doctrinal continuity between Rome in the fourth and sixteenth centuries, but a continuity of spirit, of character, in how Rome related to heresies and the outside world. Indeed, the question of doctrinal continuity was precisely the difficulty that kept Newman out of the Church for years after he had lost faith in Anglicanism; as he relates in the Apologia, he found himself unable to go over to Rome because of a long abiding conviction that the Tridentine developments, particularly the veneration of the saints, were unscriptural and foreign to the early centuries of the Church. It was not a persuasion that Rome’s doctrine had not changed that led Newman to conclude that the Catholic Church of his day was the same as that of the fourth century – indeed, that is nearly the reverse of the truth. It was a general sense that the persona of Rome in the two periods was the same that led him, in spite of his difficulties, to ultimately conclude that the alleged contradictions and novelties in doctrine were only apparent.

Retrieved September 4, 2018 from https://onepeterfive.com/sign-contradiction-again/