MAORI TO CONTROL OUR WATER: GOVERNMENT BY LIES, BULLYING, GREED

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Maori King Tuheitia meets Jorge Mario Bergoglio - why?

"In September 2012 the Maori King Tuheitia told a meeting of over 1,000 people from throughout the country that in spite of fresh water falling from the sky as rain and snow, it was owned by Maori: “We have always owned the water!”

In light of the introduction of co-governance and veto rights, one would be naive to think that Three Waters is anything other than a transfer of water assets to Maori - and another giant leap towards the implementation of Labour’s separatist He Puapua plan for Maori sovereignty by 2040.

A December Cabinet paper issued by Minister Mahuta reveals that the argument being used to justify what is the biggest local government upheaval since the reforms of the 1980s, is the discredited claim that a “partnership” exists between Maori and the Crown.

And as Jorge Mario Bergoglio's threat of cancellation of the Traditional Latin Mass hangs over the Catholic Church around the world - and in New Zealand, in small parishes like St Columba's Ashhurst which may celebrate the re-enactment of the Passion of Christ for the last time tomorrow - Dr Muriel Newman takes the floor to sound the subtleties of the complex issue of water rights.  

NZCPR WEEKLY: HE PUAPUA IN ACTION – LABOUR’S THREE WATERS REFORM By Dr Muriel Newman In September 2012 the Maori King Tuheitia told a meeting of over 1,000 people from throughout the country that in spite of fresh water falling from the sky as rain and snow, it was owned by Maori: “We have always owned the water!” He said “the ultimate goal for iwi is to retain management and control of water...” Just nine years later, the Minister of Local Government Nanaia Mahuta is planning to deliver on her cousin’s goal by passing legislation that will give iwi, including her own Tainui tribe, the right to manage and control the country’s freshwater. manage and control the country’s freshwater.   New Zealand's Minister of  Foreign Affairs ... Minister Mahuta’s plan will result in freshwater, stormwater and wastewater assets and infrastructure owned and controlled by the country’s 67 local authorities - and paid for by generations of ratepayers – being transferred to four new regional water agencies 50:50 co-governed by iwi. Although local authorities will provide all of the assets, they will be given only 50 percent of the control. The other 50 percent will be given to local iwi. Not only will councils effectively have control of their assets cut in half, Cabinet papers reveal an extraordinary requirement: all decisions undertaken by these new agencies “will require a super majority decision of 75 per cent”. That means no decisions can be made without the approval of iwi. In effect, iwi will have a veto right and be in control of all New Zealand water services decision-making. In light of the introduction of co-governance and veto rights, one would be naive to think that Three Waters is anything other than a transfer of water assets to Maori - and another giant leap towards the implementation of Labour’s separatist He Puapua plan for Maori sovereignty by 2040. A December Cabinet paper issued by Minister Mahuta reveals that the argument being used to justify what is the biggest local government upheaval since the reforms of the 1980s, is the discredited claim that a “partnership” exists between Maori and the Crown: “Cabinet agreed that a high-level principle of partnership with iwi/Maori will be followed throughout the reform programme, and reflected in the new three waters service delivery system.” Despite there being no legal basis, nor public mandate for the so-called Treaty “partnership”, it is now being extrapolated into ‘shared sovereignty’. Yet, as former Judge and Law Lecturer Anthony Willy has explained, “It was and is constitutionally impossible for the Crown to enter into a partnership with her subjects. She can as she did in 1840 make promises to them but by definition, the Crown is supreme, and the people are subject to her laws.” It is said that the former Prime Minister David Lange expressed this more mischievously when he remarked that it was absurd to suggest that Queen Victoria was in partnership with 500 signatures and thumbprints.  So, even though there is no constitutional foundation for the ‘partnership’ claim, Jacinda Ardern’s Government is now using it to advance He Puapua as they attempt to transfer control of billions of dollars-worth of the country’s community owned and operated water infrastructure to iwi. Unlike public entities, which are required to prioritise the national interest, iwi trading enterprises are profit generating corporations worth billions of dollars. They have no unique community role in governing council-owned water services for the benefit of all New Zealanders, rather, the focus of iwi is on advancing their own situation. By giving control of 50 percent of the country’s water services’ decision-making power – along with a right of veto – to those representing just 16.7 percent of the population who call themselves Maori, the Government is undermining the proportionality principle on which New Zealand democracy is based. Their proposed arrangement would leave the 83.3 percent majority of non-Maori New Zealanders under-represented and discriminated against – a breach of section 19(1) of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. As a representative democracy founded on the principle of equal rights, it is abhorrent that Labour is destroying that culture through the 50:50 co-governance requirement of the Three Waters proposal. Imposed without warning or any electoral mandate, the total upheaval of water services in New Zealand - designed to deliver control to Maori - is He Puapua in action. Looking through the Cabinet papers, it is clear that to achieve her objective of iwi control of water, Minister Mahuta has had to engage in creative accounting. Although the Government will argue local councils will still “own” the water infrastructure, they will receive no compensation for transferring their multi-million-dollar assets. The tenuous nature of their “ownership” is further exposed by the fact that councils will receive no shareholding in the new water services entities, only a collective right to occupy half of the governing seats. That discretion will itself be constrained by government oversight as well as the 75 percent majority decision-making with iwi. In other words, claims that local authorities will remain the “owners” of their water assets is pure fiction and must surely go down as one of the largest political lies ever told in New Zealand.   Cabinet papers also reveal that in spite of holding over 60 consultation meetings with Maori about the Three Waters proposals, Minister Mahuta is going to extraordinary lengths to ensure that councils do not properly consult their communities about the scheme. In a December Cabinet paper, the Minister described the 2002 Local Government Act requirements for public consultation when councils divest strategic assets and water services, as “statutory obstacles” that may prevent councils from achieving “a desirable outcome from a local government and central government perspective”. As a public safeguard to protect communities from local authorities that may attempt to dispose or transfer significant ratepayer funded assets without informing them first, the Act requires any such proposal to be included in the council’s long-term plan, with a full analysis provided for a public consultation process of “not less than 1 month from the date the statement is issued”. Minister Mahuta, however, plans to over-ride those statutory requirements and strong-arm local councils into agreeing to her proposals through a Local Government (Three Waters Reform) Amendment Bill that will no doubt be introduced under urgency to “remove or amend the detailed legislative requirements in local government legislation relating to council consultation, long-term planning, and decision making for the purposes of making a decision to participate in the government’s reforms.” By curtailing the consultation process, Jacinda Ardern’s Government, which claims to be governing in the best interests of all New Zealanders, will ride rough-shod over local government democracy – just as they did when they abolished the right of communities to hold a binding referendum over the establishment of Maori wards. Cabinet papers also provide more detail of the proposed governance arrangements for the new water services. There will be the four Regional Representative Groups, each with 10 to 12-members: half from local councils in proportion to their relative asset contribution and the remaining half representing iwi in the area. Each of these Groups will appoint and monitor an Independent Selection Panel of four members, to select the 10-member board that will run that region’s water services. According to the Minister these appointments must “ensure that the Board is adequately competent both as a Treaty partner, and with expertise in accessing matauranga Maori, tikanga Maori and Te Ao Maori knowledge to inform the water entities activities.” In other words, in line with He Puapua, a Maori World View will underpin the future running of the country’s Three Water services.   While the Minister plans to remove the need for councils to properly consult their communities over her Three Waters proposal, she intends introducing a ‘referendum’ option to protect against the future privatisation of the new water bodies. Yet couldn’t it be argued that Labour’s Three Waters proposals already represent a partial privatisation in light of the fact that iwi are private economic corporations that aim to secure financial advantage for ‘their people’, rather than public entities looking out for the common good? Cabinet papers also reveal the Minister intends to punish local authorities who refuse to join her scheme through new regulations that will dramatically force up costs: “Councils that choose not to join the new water services entities would face increased performance standards and stronger regulatory enforcement of consenting requirements...” It is difficult to interpret this as anything other than strong-arm bully-boy tactics designed to intimidate councils and force them into submission.   Councils concerned about Three Waters cannot even turn to their own association, Local Government New Zealand, for support, since - without consulting their members - LGNZ entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government to promote the scheme. In a recent email to councils, their President Stuart Crosbie explained: “The Heads of Agreement is a partnership commitment between Central Government and LGNZ.  It is consistent with the direction the sector has been asking LGNZ to lead – a closer more influential relationship with central government.” LGNZ needs to be reminded that their role should be to represent the wishes of their members to central government. Instead, they are now in ‘partnership’ with a government that is strong-arming local authorities to join a scheme that will deliver control of their water services to Maori. Questions are now being asked about the Government’s rationale for the scheme, including whether a freshwater supply failure in Havelock North in 2016 which had never happened before nor since, is sufficient justification for upending water services throughout the whole country. There are also serious concerns about the untimely haste of the reforms. Why is the Government trying to rush these changes through with such urgency that councils are to be prevented from consulting their communities using the existing Statutory process, when the new scheme is not expected to be up and running until 2024?  Isn’t it the case that the motivation for the fast-tracking is to prevent the public from finding out that assets paid for by generation of ratepayers are to be given to Maori control? This week’s Guest Commentator, the Mayor of the Westland District Council Bruce Smith, updates us on developments regarding Three Waters and outlines his plan to hold a binding referendum so his community can decide whether they want to opt in or out: “I can't speak for other councils but Westland will need at least 3 months upon the receipt of the information to engage experts and receive their advice on the merits and risks of the transfer of assets as proposed by government. This will then go to ratepayers for consultation and seeking of submissions. “My view is that because of the implications of transferring over a quarter of Council’s total assets at below valuation there is only one safe road to take. I will be advocating for a binding referendum to go out to the people of Westland seeking direction on in or out. It’s called democracy. “It's hard to imagine how any council in New Zealand will be able to make a decision without the clear direction a referendum will bring.” Given the Government is trying to rush these changes through without the public being properly aware of what’s at stake, we urge each NZCPR reader to do all you can to raise awareness about what’s going on. Firstly, if you visit this article on our website HERE, you can use the social media and email buttons on the top right to share this information with your networks. Secondly, we have compiled the email addresses of all local authority councillors into a new directory, which can be found on our website here: nzcpr.com/local-government-directory We would urge you to send a quick message to your local council representatives to suggest they follow the lead of the Westland District Council and commit to holding a public referendum so the community can properly decide whether to opt in or out of the Government’s scheme.  And thirdly, we are considering running a nation-wide public information campaign to highlight what’s going on. If you would like to support the campaign fundraiser, please click HERE. I will leave the last word to Bruce Smith: “What other councils do around New Zealand is up to them however a public referendum in every district would involve our residents and ratepayers who have along with their families over generations paid for these three water assets - on that basis the decision to opt in or out must come directly from them.” THIS WEEK’S POLL ASKS:  *Do you support the Government’s intention to force Councils to cut short community consultation over their Three Waters proposal? Note: Please feel free to use the poll comments to share your views on any of the issues raised in this week’s newsletter. *All poll comments will be posted on our NZCPR.com website during the week. *In last week’s poll 99% of NZCPR readers thought local councils should hold a binding referendum of residents and ratepayers before deciding whether to opt in or out of the Government’s Three Waters proposals. *Feedback can be viewed on the NZCPR.com website.      St Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the Jesuit Order, please pray for us.

FIRST HATE SPEECH, NOW CONVERSION THERAPY. WHAT WILL THEY BAN NEXT

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Minister Faafoi at a press conference - like a possum in the headlights

Today Ardern, Little&Co, Death Dealers to the Nation, have outdone themselves. They've introduced legislation banning conversion therapy. (TvOne reports that they're wanting to ban 'conversation therapy' and one has to wonder if that might be next on their agenda.) 

As with his preposterous plans for 'hate speech', Justice (what a joke) Minister Kris Fa-afoi has rushed into a space sacred to humanity, where even angels fear to tread. 

This is Government taking over God. Making the perversion of homosexuality normal.

“My body, my choice” doesn’t apply to homosexuals, according to this diabolical Government. Not even "My mind, my choice." Whatever will they try to ban next?

The Government is taking steps to fulfill its election promise of banning conversation therapy - today introducing a proposed law to ban the practice which tries to make a person change their sexual orientation or gender identity.

What kind of 'therapist' tries to 'make' a person change anything? A Marxist therapist, perhaps? Or a totalitarian therapist? 

It could see someone imprisoned for up to three years in jail for performing conversion therapy on someone under 18, and up to five years where it has caused serious harm, irrespective of age. 

And who will prove that 'serious harm', and how will it be proven? More grist to the legal mill. 

Justice Minister Kris Faafoi announced the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill today. 

He said it "aimed at ending conversion practices which don’t work, are widely discredited, and cause harm to rainbow communities and the wider community". 

Where are the facts, Minister, as opposed to your opinions?  

"Those who have experienced conversion practices talk about ongoing mental health distress, depression, shame and stigma, and even suicidal thoughts," Faafoi said. 

Some of those who have experienced this Labour/Green Government talk about ongoing mental health distress, depression, shame and stigma (for belonging to a nation which voted overwhelmingly for this Government) and even suicidal thoughts, and probably suicidal acts, Minister. But note, only some. Not all, as you imply for those who've experienced conversion therapy.

"Conversion practices have no place in modern New Zealand.

If you say so, Minister? 

"They are based on the false belief that any person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression is broken and in need of fixing."

You sound, Minister, like you've spent too much time in gay bars. 

The proposal makes it a criminal offence "to perform conversion practices on a child or young person aged under 18, or on someone with impaired decision-making capacity".

It's a proposal. A proposal doesn't make anything. It proposes. 

Someone performing conversation therapy on a person under 18 could receive punishment of up to three years in jail. 

Is it conversion therapy, or conversation therapy, Minister? Do make up your mind. 

A person could get up to five years in prison if they have performed conversion therapy on a person of any age and it has caused serious harm.

 Ah. You've made up your mind, Minister. Are you sure? 

It also would allow for civil redress.

To be considered conversion therapy, it must: "Be directed towards someone because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, and performed with the intention of changing or suppressing their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression".

"The Bill’s definition of conversion practice has been carefully designed to ensure health practitioners providing health services will not be captured; nor will people providing legitimate counselling, support and advice," Faafoi said. 

So health practitioners providing healthy conversion therapy services will not be captured, Minister? 

"General expressions of religious beliefs or principles about sexuality and gender will also not be captured."

Ah. But the general expressions of religious beliefs and so on that you don't capture under this Bill, you probably count on capturing under your hate speech Bill, Minister? 

Green Party's Elizabeth Kerekere welcomed the proposed bill. 

 

Elizabeth Kerekere - clearly suffering from electric shock therapy

"Aotearoa should be a place where no matter who you love or how you identify, you are accepted, and no one should be allowed to force people to change who they are," she said. 

Does that mean that the Critical RaceTheory in modern schools is no longer acceptable? Because going by CRT, if you're white or Christian you must change to be accepted. (Perhaps we should explain that Dr Kerekere got her PhD by arguing that pre-colonial Māori were sexually experimental people who openly accepted gender and sexual fluidity.)

Labour announced its promise to ban conversion therapy in last year's election.

Calls to ban sexual orientation and gender conversion therapy came in 2018 after TVNZ's Sunday investigated therapy offering to "cure" people.

'Offering.' An interesting word, which means just what it says. Not 'forcing' - offering. 

 

       Max Tweedie, Green Party co-convenor. The black-out is Google's idea and not a bad one.

 

It revealed that conversion therapy in New Zealand was readily available.

'Revealed'. So was this 'conversion therapy' being done in secret, then? Did the therapists anticipate Minister Faafoi's brainstorm?

Labour MP Marja Lubeck had already introduced a Member's bill in 2018, after a 20,000-strong petition led by the Green and Labour youth wings was delivered to Parliament. It was never pulled from the ballot.

Earlier this year, the Green Party, fed up with the time it was taking the Government to ban conversion therapy, launched a petition for priority to be placed on outlawing the practice.

It received more than 157,000 signatures. National also gave its support to banning conversion therapy.

More evidence of the reason why we've got this Government: endemic, galloping lunacy. Only ACT is opposing this Bill, thereby consolidating its handy position as the de facto  Parliamentary Opposition. 

Faafoi said at the time the Government was aiming to have it banned by February 2022.

Shaneel Lal, who was a youth MP and had also been through conversion therapy, told Breakfast last year they were disappointed it had not yet been banned, after calling for a ban in Parliament back in 2019. 

 

 

Shaneel wears their own tapa ('their' is not a typo)

"Conversion therapy is not about 'praying the gay away', it's about psychologically and physically torturing the most vulnerable to death," Lal told Parliament at the time. 

Ah, the 'most vulnerable' who are pschologically and physically tortured to death are surely the unborn babies murdered in their mothers' womb or maybe a bit later, after being extracted alive and torn apart while their hearts are still beating, for sale of their organs to pharmaceutical companies, maybe for manufacturing vaccines. Isn't that so, Shaneel? 

No one is even thinking about forcing homosexuals to undergo therapy. And we're told we can choose to change our gender/sex/identity as often as we like. 

Ministry of Health figures put the average cost of male-to-female surgery at $53,382, with individual surgeries costing between $25,587 at their lowest up to $81,975. The costs for female-to-male surgery are higher, averaging $218,892, with a range of $45,169 to $525,034.

The New Zealand government has lifted a cap on gender reassignment surgery to address a 30-year plus waiting list. Under the previous government the state funded three male-to-female surgeries and one female-to-male every two years. The waiting list for around 100 people stretched into the decades.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice (Rom 1:18). 

 

 

 

SODOMY LEVERED BY BLACKMAIL? THE CHURCH IN CHINA

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Confession for Catholics in China under the CCP and Bergoglio

There we all were, thinking that the Church in China was sold down the river by Bergoglio because he just naturally cosies up to Commies.

But it looks like it could really have been the sin of sodomy, levered by the sin of blackmail, that was behind Bergoglio signing that infamous Vatican-China deal in 2018. 

Because until 2020 China owned the gay hookup app Grindr - which forced the resignation of a very highly placed US prelate last week - and in 2018 Grindr signals were emitted from certain private places within the walls of the Vatican.

After all, one has to wonder why Bergoglio, who busies himself with Just About Everything - except the state of souls in his charge - hasn't called out the Chinese Communist Party for the frightful human rights abuses perpetrated on the Uighurs, or even more pertinently, for the CCP's persecution of Chinese Catholic souls.

We may thank the Pillar, a relatively new online Catholic news agency, for alerting us to what may be the real reason for Bergoglio staying shtum on what may reveal his particular vulnerability to China, and prove to be his Achilles' heel.

It is not the intention of this blog to titillate. Rather it's to inform - and to warn of the horrible propensity of the vice of sodomy for inviting the vice of greed to feed off the former by blackmail. How vulnerable the Church has become, through the weakness of homosexuality, to the bullying of blackmailers! 

Father 'Jimmy' Martin S J and his German peers who made a show of defying the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's ban on blessing  same-sex couples would doubtless say this just goes to show that the innocent fun of sodomy should not be considered sinful.  But rather, it just goes to show how vice breeds vice. That's Satan's game and he shows the enemies of the Church - some within her - how to play it, to bring about her downfall.

“You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. . . . If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them” (Lev. 18:22, 20:13). And don't come the old thing about that being Old Testament and there's lots of things in the Old Testament we don't worry about now. Only the ceremonial things. Not the moral things. What was immoral in the days of Leviticus is immoral now.

Happy 'gays' in Germany

The Grindr app was “acquired by the Chinese gaming firm Beijing Kunlun Tech in 2016 for $93 million,” the Pillar report states, and was only sold to a U.S.-based company in 2020, under pressure from the U.S. government that had flagged Grindr’s Chinese ownership “a national security risk.”

The report suggests a high degree of probability that Grindr data from its 27 million users would have been shared with the Chinese government during the four years under Chinese ownership, information that could include “user details, private messages exchanged between users, and evidence of sexual liaisons arranged between users.”

As Breitbart News reported in July 2020, cyber hackers tied to the Chinese government were able to successfully infiltrate the Vatican’s computer networks in the months leading up to a renegotiation of the 2018 accord on the appointment of bishops in China.

The U.S.-based cybersecurity firm Recorded Future found that hackers had targeted the Vatican and the Holy See’s Study Mission to China, a group of Hong Kong-based Vatican diplomats who have been negotiating the Church’s status in China.

In June 2019, the Holy See also changed its longstanding policy of forbidding Catholic priests from joining the state-run Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA), which was set up under the rule of Chairman Mao Zedong as a parallel church to the church in Rome.

Cardinal Joseph Zen, a vocal critic of the Vatican’s 2018 deal with the CCP over the appointment of bishops, said that deal was not nearly as destructive as the “Pastoral Guidance” issued by the Vatican allowing Catholic clerics to enlist in the CCPA.

In comparison, the pastoral guidance “is more blatantly evil, immoral, because it legitimizes a schismatic Church!” Zen wrote in March 2020.

Since the signing of the original Vatican-China deal in 2018, Catholics in China — especially those belonging to the unofficial “underground Church faithful to Rome — have suffered intensified persecution, according to numerous reports.

“While the Vatican has reached a provisional agreement with China on the issue of episcopal appointments, reports of persecution by the Chinese government persist as underground churches are closed and their priests detained, crosses destroyed, bibles confiscated, and children under 18 forbidden from attending Mass and receiving religious instruction,” the U.S. bishops said in June 2020.

Beijing has come under growing international criticism for the mass imprisonment in “reeducation camps” of more than one million Uighurs in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, where reports of compulsory sterilization, forced abortions, torture, and ethnic cleansing have become frequent.

 

Uighur Muslims shackled and blindfolded then railroaded - to where?

“The CCP has also been credibly accused of forcibly aborting and sterilizing Uyghur women in the hundreds of thousands, as well as committing infanticide of full-term babies born outside of the family planning limits,” declared human rights champion Reggie Littlejohn in March 2021. https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2021/07/28/report-extensive-gay-hookup-app-usage-compromises-vatican-security/

 

"For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed: nor hidden, that shall not be known. For whatsoever things you have spoken in darkness, shall be published in the light: and that which you have spoken in the ear in the chambers, shall be preached on the housetops.  And I say to you, my friends: Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will shew you whom you shall fear: fear ye him, who after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell. Yea, I say to you, fear him" (Lk 12: 2-5).

COSTA RICA BANS LATIN MASS: CATACOMB MASSES COMING WORLDWIDE

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Costa Rica in Latin America has distinguished itself by becoming the first country in the world to ban the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM). We may pray it's also the last.

Because no pope has the right to ban the Latin Mass. And in fact, with typical Jesuitical casuistry, Jorge Mario Bergoglio has done no such thing. 

Because he knows he can't. So he says that 'bishops should not admit new TLM Mass groups their patch. 'Should not', note, as opposed to 'must not'.

And please note that Traditionis Custodes (aka Treading Custard) is merely disciplinary, not dogmatic. Any future pope may do with it what he likes.

A protege of Bergoglio, Bishop Rios Matos of Puerto Rico - rushing to join what he hopes will be a chorus line - has cancelled the TLM in his diocese, along with all altar linens, Roman-style vestments, birettas and chalice coverings (a la Costa Rica).

They say there is 'radio silence' in Latin America on the subject of Traditonis Custodes (aka Treading Custard). in Latin America, an anonymous priest says, "We remain frightened by Francis".

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (which is a nice way of saying Bergoglio gave him the sack) writes that "instead of appreciating the smell of the sheep, the shepherd here hits them hard with his crook." 

Bergoglio might be regretting his oh-so evocative statement about wanting his shepherds to 'smell of the sheep'. 

Because Bishop Athanasius Schneider has a spin on it too: "a shepherd who instead of having the smell of his sheep, is angrily beating them with a stick." +Schneider continues:

"In his programmatic Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis advocates “certain attitudes which foster openness to the message: approachability, readiness for dialogue, patience, a warmth and welcome which is non-judgmental” (n. 165). Yet in reading the new Motu Proprio and accompanying Letter, one has the opposite impression, namely, that the document, as a whole, exhibits a pastoral intolerance and even spiritual rigidity. The Motu Proprio and accompanying Letter communicate a judgmental and unwelcoming spirit.

In the document on Human Fraternity (signed in Abu Dhabi on February 4, 2019), Pope Francis embraces the “diversity of religions,” whereas in his new Motu Proprio he resolutely rejects the diversity of liturgical forms in the Roman Rite. 

What a glaring contrast in attitude this Motu Proprio presents, compared to the guiding principle of Pope Francis’ pontificate, i.e., inclusiveness and a preferential love for minorities and those on the peripheries in the life of the Church. And what an astonishingly narrow-minded stance one discovers in the Motu Proprio, in contrast to Pope Francis’s own words: “We know that we are tempted in various ways to adopt the logic of privilege that separates, excludes and closes us off, while separating, excluding and closing off the dreams and lives of so many of our brothers and sisters” (Homily at the Vespers, December 31, 2016). The new norms of the Motu Proprio demean the millennial form of the lex orandi of the Roman Church and, at the same time, close off “the dreams and lives of so many” Catholic families, and especially of young people and young priests, whose spiritual lives and love for Christ and the Church have grown and greatly benefited from the traditional form of the Holy Mass. 

The Motu Proprio establishes a principle of a rare liturgical exclusivity, by stating that the new promulgated liturgical books are the only [unica] expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite (Art. 1). What a contrast this position, too, is with these words of Pope Francis: “It is true that the Holy Spirit brings forth different charisms in the Church, which at first glance, may seem to create disorder. Under his guidance, however, they constitute an immense richness, because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of unity, which is not the same thing as uniformity” (Homily of Pope Francis at the Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, Istanbul, Saturday, November 29, 2014).

        

Instead of fostering a greater unity by the coexistence of diverse authentic liturgical forms, the Motu Proprio creates a two-class society in the Church, i.e. first-class Catholics and second-class Catholics. The privileged first-class are those who adhere to the reformed liturgy, i.e. the Novus Ordo, and the second-class Catholics, who will now barely be tolerated, include a large number of Catholic families, children, young people and priests who, in the last decades, have grown up in the traditional liturgy and experienced, with great spiritual benefit, the reality and mystery of the Church thanks to this liturgical form, which earlier generations held as sacred and which formed so many saints and outstanding Catholics throughout history.  

 

Our ancestors willingly went to the gallows rather than lose the Immemorial Mass 

The Motu Proprio and accompanying letter commit an injustice against all Catholics who adhere to the traditional liturgical form, by accusing them of being divisive and of rejecting the Second Vatican Council. In fact, a considerable portion of these Catholics keep far away from doctrinal discussions regarding Vatican II, the new Order of Mass (Novus Ordo Missae), and other problems involving ecclesiastical politics. They just want to worship God in the liturgical form through which God has touched and transformed their hearts and lives. The argument invoked in the Motu Proprio and accompanying letter, i.e., that the traditional liturgical form creates division and threatens the unity of the Church, is disproven by the facts.

Furthermore, the disparaging tone taken in these documents against the traditional liturgical form would lead any impartial observer to conclude that such arguments are merely a pretext and a ruse, and that something else is at play here.

The time of Second Vatican Council and the so-called “conciliar” Church has been characterized by an openness to a diversity and inclusivity of spiritualities and local liturgical expressions, along with a rejection of the principle of a uniformity in the liturgical praxis of the Church. Throughout history, the true pastoral attitude has been one of tolerance and respect towards a diversity of liturgical forms, provided they express the integrity of the Catholic Faith, the dignity and sacredness of the ritual forms, and that they bear true spiritual fruit in the lives of the faithful.

In the past, the Roman Church acknowledged the diversity of expressions in its lex orandi. In the apostolic constitution promulgating the Tridentine Liturgy, Quo Primum (1570), Pope Pius V, in approving all those liturgical expressions of the Roman Church that were more than two hundred years old, recognized them as an equally worthy and legitimate expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Church. In this bull, Pope Pius V stated that he in no wise rescinds other legitimate liturgical expressions within the Roman Church.

The liturgical form of the Roman Church that was valid until the reform of Paul VI did not arise with Pius V, but was substantially unchanged even centuries before the Council of Trent. The first printed edition of the Missale Romanum dates back to 1470, thus one hundred years before the missal published by Pius V. The order of Mass of both missals is almost identical; the difference lies more in secondary elements, such as the calendar, number of prefaces, and more precise rubrical norms.

Pope Francis’ new Motu Proprio is also deeply concerning in that it manifests an attitude of discrimination against an almost one thousand-year-old liturgical form of the Catholic Church. The Church has never rejected that which, over the span of many centuries, has expressed sacredness, doctrinal precision and spiritual richness, and been exalted by many popes, great theologians (e.g. St Thomas Aquinas) and numerous saints.

The peoples of Western and, in part, of Eastern Europe, of Northern and Southern Europe, of the Americas, Africa, and Asia were evangelized and doctrinally and spiritually formed by the traditional Roman Rite, and these peoples found in that rite their spiritual and liturgical home. Pope John Paul II gave an example of a sincere appreciation of the traditional form of the Mass, when he said: “In the Roman Missal, called ‘of St. Pius V,’ as in various Eastern Liturgies, there are beautiful prayers with which the priest expresses the deepest sense of humility and reverence before the holy mysteries: they reveal the very substance of any liturgy” (Message to Participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, September 21, 2001).

It would go against the true spirit of the Church of all ages to now express contempt for this liturgical form, to label it as “divisive” and as something dangerous for the unity of the Church, and to issue norms aimed at making this form disappear in time.

The norms enshrined in Pope Francis’ Motu Proprio seek to unmercifully rip out of the souls and lives of so many Catholics the traditional liturgy, which in itself is holy and represents the spiritual homeland of these Catholics.

With this Motu Proprio, Catholics who today have been spiritually nourished and formed by the traditional liturgy of Holy Mother Church, will no longer experience the Church as a mother but rather as a “stepmother,” consistent with Pope Francis’ own description: “A mother who criticizes, who speaks ill of her children is not a mother! I believe you say “stepmother” in Italian…. She isn’t a mother” (Address to Consecrated Men and Women of the diocese of Rome, May 16, 2015)

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger spoke about the limitation of the powers of the pope regarding the liturgy, with this illuminating explanation: “The pope is not an absolute monarch whose will is law; rather, he is the guardian of the authentic Tradition and, thereby, the premier guarantor of obedience. He cannot do as he likes, and he is thereby able to oppose those people who, for their part, want to do whatever comes into their head. His rule is not that of arbitrary power, but that of obedience in faith. That is why, with respect to the Liturgy, he has the task of a gardener, not that of a technician who builds new machines and throws the old ones on the junk-pile.

 

If they're standing, it must be for the Gospel

The “rite”, that form of celebration and prayer which has ripened in the faith and the life of the Church, is a condensed form of living Tradition in which the sphere using that rite expresses the whole of its faith and its prayer, and thus at the same time the fellowship of generations one with another becomes something we can experience, fellowship with the people who pray before us and after us. Thus the rite is something of benefit that is given to the Church, a living form of paradosis, the handing-on of Tradition.” (Preface to “The Organic Development of the Liturgy.  The Principles of Liturgical Reform and Their Relation to the Twentieth-century Liturgical Movement Prior to the Second Vatican Council” by Dom Alcuin Reid, San Francisco 2004). 

The traditional Mass is a treasure that belongs to the entire Church, since it has been celebrated and deeply regarded and loved by priests and saints for at least a thousand years. In fact, the traditional form of the Mass was almost identical for centuries before the publication of the Missal of Pope Pius V in 1570. An almost one thousand-year-old valid and highly esteemed liturgical treasure is not the private property of a pope, which he can freely dispose of.

Therefore, seminarians and young priests must ask for the right to use this common treasure of the Church, and should they be denied this right, they can use it nevertheless, perhaps in a clandestine manner.

This would not be an act of disobedience, but rather of obedience to Holy Mother Church, who has given us this liturgical treasure. The firm rejection of an almost one thousand-year-old liturgical form by Pope Francis represents, in fact, a short-lived phenomenon compared to the constant spirit and praxis of the Church.

Within a few short days, diocesan bishops and even an entire bishops’ conference have already begun a systematic suppression of any celebration of the traditional form of the Holy Mass. These new “liturgy-inquisitors” have displayed an astonishingly rigid clericalism, similar to that described and lamented by Pope Francis, when he said: “There is that spirit of clericalism in the Church, which one feels: the clerics feel themselves superior, the clerics turn away from the people, the clerics always say: ‘this is done like this, like this, like this, and you go away!’” (Daily meditation in the Holy Mass from December 13, 2016).

Pope Francis’ anti-traditional Motu Proprio shares some similarities with the fateful and extremely rigid liturgical decisions made by the Russian-Orthodox Church under Patriarch Nikon of Moscow between 1652 and 1666. This eventually led to a lasting schism known as the “Old Ritualists” (in Russian: staroobryadtsy), who maintained the liturgical and ritual practices of the Russian Church as they were before the reforms of Patriarch Nikon. Resisting the accommodation of Russian piety to the contemporary forms of Greek Orthodox worship, these Old Ritualists were anathematized, together with their ritual, in a Synod of 1666–67, producing a division between the Old Ritualists and those who followed the state church in its condemnation of the Old Rite. Today the Russian-Orthodox Church regrets the drastic decisions of Patriarch Nikon, for if the norms he implemented had been truly pastoral and allowed the use of the old rite, there would not have been a centuries-long schism, with many unnecessary and cruel sufferings.

In our own day we are witnessing ever more celebrations of the Holy Mass, which have become a platform for promoting the sinful lifestyle of homosexuality—the so called “LGBT-Masses,” an expression which in itself is already a blasphemy. Such Masses are tolerated by the Holy See and many bishops. What is urgently needed is a Motu Proprio with strict norms suppressing the practice of such “LGBT-Masses,” since they are an outrage to the divine majesty, a scandal to the faithful (the little ones), and an injustice towards sexually active homosexual persons, who by such celebrations are confirmed in their sins, and whose eternal salvation is thereby being put in danger. 

Pope Francis’s new Motu Proprio is ultimately a pyrrhic victory and will have a boomerang effect. The many Catholic families and ever-growing number of young people and priests—particularly young priests—who attend the traditional Mass, will not be able to allow their conscience to be violated by such a drastic administrative act. Telling these faithful and priests that they must simply be obedient to these norms will ultimately not work with them, because they understand that a call to obedience loses its power when the aim is to suppress the traditional form of the liturgy, the great liturgical treasure of the Roman Church. 

In time, a worldwide chain of catacomb-Masses will surely arise, as happens in times of emergency and persecution. We may in fact witness an era of clandestine traditional Masses, similar to that so impressively depicted by Aloysius O’Kelly in his painting, “Mass in Connemara (Ireland) during Penal Times.”

 

Or perhaps we shall live through a time similar to that described by St Basil the Great, when traditional Catholics were persecuted by a liberal Arian episcopate in the fourth century. St. Basil wrote: “The mouths of true believers are dumb, while every blasphemous tongue wags free; holy things are trodden under foot; the better laity shun the churches as schools of impiety; and lift their hands in the deserts with sighs and tears to their Lord in heaven. Even you must have heard what is going on in most of our cities, how our people with wives and children and even our old men stream out before the walls, and offer their prayers in the open air, putting up with all the inconvenience of the weather with great patience, and waiting for help from the Lord” (Letter 92).

The admirable, harmonious and quite spontaneous spread and continuous growth of the traditional form of the Mass, in almost every country of the world, even in the most remote lands, is undoubtedly the work of the Holy Spirit, and a true sign of our time. This form of the liturgical celebration bears true spiritual fruits, especially in the life of the youth and converts to the Catholic Church, since many of the latter were attracted to the Catholic faith precisely by the irradiating power of this treasure of the Church.

Pope Francis and the other bishops who will execute his Motu Proprio should earnestly consider the wise counsel of Gamaliel, and ask themselves if they actually are fighting against a work of God: “In the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this undertaking is of men, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” (Acts 5:38-39).

May Pope Francis reconsider, with a view to eternity, his drastic and tragic act, and courageously and humbly retract this new Motu Proprio, recalling his own words: “In truth, the Church shows her fidelity to the Holy Spirit in as much as she does not try to control or tame him.” (Homily at the Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, Istanbul, Saturday, November 29, 2014)

For the time being, many Catholic families, young people and priests on every continent are now weeping, for the Pope—their spiritual father—has deprived them of the spiritual nourishment of the traditional Mass, which has so greatly strengthened their faith and their love for God, for Holy Mother Church and for the Apostolic See. They may, for a time, “[go] out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, but they shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with them” (Psalm 126:6). 

These families, young people and priests could address to Pope Francis these or similar words: “Most Holy Father, give us back that great liturgical treasure of the Church. Do not treat us as your second-class children. Do not violate our consciences by forcing us into a single and exclusive liturgical form, you who always proclaimed to the entire world the necessity of diversity, pastoral accompaniment, and of respect for conscience. Do not listen to those representatives of a rigid clericalism who counseled you to carry out such an unmerciful action. Be a true family father, who “brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Mt 13:52). If you will hear our voice, on the day of your judgment before God, we will be your best intercessors.”

There are many problems in the world and the Church today. The Tridentine Mass is not one of them - Sir Edward Leigh MP on Twitter.

 

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