+VIGANO SAYS FRANCIS IS AN ANTIPOPE

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Today, on the feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano accused Francis, whom the world calls Pope, of being an Antipope.

We might ask why the accusation did not come a long time ago from cardinals who believe that to be true, and also consider themselves loyal to the Church. Maybe they thought the Mystical Bride of Christ would be torn apart by the schism that would likely follow such a declaration by princes of the Church, and thought it better to sit tight and wait for Francis' demise and a holy pope to succeed him.

But are cardinals, like all priests and bishops, not called by St Paul whose feast we celebrate today to "Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine" (2 Tim:4.2)? Christ called them to the priesthood, not to politics, and any suspicion that the cardinals might be hanging on to their red hats, fearful of meeting the fate of excommunication that awaits Archbishop Vigano, they ought surely to find intolerable.

The Church is enduring her passion, just as Christ her Head has done in order to bring her to birth. But +Vigano could take heart from the results of the persecution of Antipope Francis already evident in the resurgence of the Traditional Latin Mass, especially among young people.

In Melbourne, for example, in this story of two Latin Mass communities, we see the attraction to Truth and Beauty exerted on young Catholics and converts to Catholicism, of the "Mass of Ages".

27-year-old Catholic convert Zachary Dennis leads the procession during Latin mass at St Aloysius church in Caulfield

It's a freezing Sunday morning, and 23-year-old Catholic convert Llewellyn Beer has travelled nearly 35 kilometres across Melbourne to attend mass at St Aloysius Church in Caulfield.

He says it's worth the trip to attend the only Catholic church in Melbourne that exclusively holds services in Latin.

And he's not alone: by 10:30 am, every pew is occupied, many by young parishioners like him.

"Zoomers want authenticity more than anything, and I think you'll find it at a Latin Mass," Beer told triple j Hack.

Another young Catholic, 22-year-old Jacob Goicoa, agreed; he's also travelled for over an hour to be here.

"Definitely over half [are younger than 30]," he estimated.

 

Jacob Goicoa

"I don't think it really mattered how far it was, if it was an hour or two hours," he said.

"As long as it was Latin Mass – that's all that matters."

Pope 'out of touch'

The Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), also called the Tridentine Mass, was codified in 1570, and it's starkly different to the standard Catholic mass conducted in English.

Priests face away from their congregation,

... that is to say, priests face toward God ... 

chanting in Latin and burning incense, while during communion the congregants kneel and receive the hosts directly into their mouths.

"It's divine and so uncompromising – you're witnessing something that's beyond your own feeble existence," 21-year-old Elisha Andres said.

"You can tell this Mass is not about you, it's not about entertainment, it's really about the Lord."

Until the Vatican changed its policy in the 1960s to favour the new Mass 

...  The Novus Ordo Missae (NOM or NO), written by the Freemason Monsignor Annibale Bugnini with the assistance of Protestant clerics ....

the Latin Mass was the standard across the Catholic faith, but its celebration has been discouraged to a greater or lesser extent by successive church leaders since.

That is to say, since the Second Vatican Council. 

In 2021, Pope Francis imposed new restrictions on which churches could celebrate Latin Mass, ultimately leading Melbourne Archbishop Peter Comensoli to seek permission from the Vatican to continue the weekly Latin service at St Patrick's Cathedral, which was denied.

The cathedral celebrated its final Latin mass last week, and predictably, the news wasn't welcomed by the parishioners at St Aloysius.

"Everyone has a right to feel sad," 20-year-old Izabella Sensi said.

"It actually makes me want to continue and share this Mass more because it is being attacked, basically."

Young people's idealism and sense of fair play comes into play.  

Fr Glen Tattersall (right) leads the Parish of St John Henry Newman, the only Catholic parish in Melbourne to exclusively celebrate Mass the TLM

Father Glen Tattersall, who led the Latin Mass at St Patrick's

... Father Glen would likely say that he "celebrated" or "said" the Latin Mass, rather than  'led' it ... 

and continues to do so at St Aloysius, was more blunt in his assessment of the Pope.

"I think he's out of touch," Fr Tattersall said of the Pope.

"I think he's kind of typical of his age and background – he doesn't understand that we're not stuck in the 1960s any more."

"He's talking a lot about 'everyone is welcome in the church', but I'm sorry to say that a lot of Catholics don't feel very welcome at the moment in this pontificate."

Fr Tattersall is known as an outspoken conservative in Australia's Catholic clergy.

In 2017, he was quoted in The Australian newspaper saying "it's really the liberal-minded and their fellow travellers who have been wrecking the church over a number of years", and "there are many railing against sexual abuse – that's sexual abuse, isn't it?"

Speaking to Hack in 2024, Fr Tattersall declined to elaborate on his views about Pope Francis' other reforms to Catholic doctrine, which include allowing blessings for same-sex couples and allowing transgender people to be baptised and become godparents.

Notice how "the world" sees these moves on the part of this pontificate: as "reforms to Catholic doctrine". But hello! Catholic doctrine cannot be 'reformed' because Catholic doctrine is the truth which is unchanging and unchangeable. If it were not, it would not be the truth.

'Keep morals separate'

Speaking after the Mass at St Aloysius, Elisha Andres said her preference for Latin wasn't related to her political or moral beliefs.

 

21-year-old journalism student Elisha Andres attends the Latin Mass in Caulfield

Elisha is young, and a presumably a refugee from the Novus Ordo, which is to say she is poorly catechised.  

"I do tend to keep morals, not divorced, but I guess separate," she explained.

"I think morals are shaped by my culture, you know, being Filipino as well, that's a different set of morals in itself."

Perhaps not so different in morals as different from religious practice; Filipinos, at least in New Zealand, tend to be more devout. 

Other young Catholics at St Aloysius expressed similar sentiments, saying they preferred the 'sincerity' and 'authenticity' of the Latin language and the ancient ceremony.

"Growing up, I didn't really feel it as much going to the English (i.e. NO) Mass," Jacob Goicoa said.

"And then once [I attended] the Latin Mass, it just blows you away. Once you get there, you just can't get back."

Nonetheless, the irony of rejecting Pope Francis' modernising reforms, which are intended to broaden the appeal of the church, wasn't lost on these young Catholics.

"I suppose from the outside looking in, it wouldn't make much sense," 27-year-old Catholic convert Zachary Dennis said of his preference for Latin.

"But once I had resolved to become Catholic, this to me was the only logical choice and I'm assuming those around me would also agree."

 

The choir at St John Henry Newman sings Latin hymns and Gregorian chant

Harmless trend or brewing schism?

The number of Catholics attending Latin Mass still remains small, especially compared to the hundreds of thousands of Australians who attend a vernacular Catholic Mass every week.

Given time, they'll wake up to the NO and its consequences. Just as the secular world is waking up to the Jab and its concomitant injuries and deaths - inflicted, of course, according to Antipope Francis, as 'an act of love'. 

Data from the National Centre for Pastoral Research, an agency of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, suggests around 3,400 Australian Catholics attended Latin Mass each week in May 2021, a number that was likely affected by COVID-19 lockdowns.

Associate professor Joel Hodge leads the School of Theology at the Australian Catholic University. He said there are a handful of parishes in each major Australian city that celebrate it weekly, but it remains a fringe group within the broader church.

'A fringe group'  is, sadly, the sort of description of Latin Mass communities one has come to expect from theologians at Catholic universities.  

"In Melbourne or Brisbane, where there are a couple of parishes that are more more focused on the Tridentine, we're talking about maybe a thousand people on a weekend," he said.

Father Shawn Murphy, the priest who leads St Aloysius' Young Adults group, said the parish regularly attracted "about 750" parishioners on a Sunday.

"Certainly, this has been recognised as one of the fastest-growing [parishes] by the Archbishop of Melbourne," he said.

 

Father Shawn Murphy was ordained just one year ago. Now, at 34, he is the youngest priest at the Parish of St John Henry Newman in Caulfield.

That growth sets the Latin Mass community apart from most Catholic churches in Australia.

Census data shows that while Catholicism is still Australia's largest single Christian denomination, the proportion of Catholics in the population has been falling steadily for decades, and the median age of an Australian Catholic rose from 33 in 1996, to 43 in the 2021 census.

Dr Hodge said there are a handful of theories for why young people might be attracted to the Latin Mass.

 "Young people are forming forms of belief in the modern context which has become very individualised, very fragmented, very difficult to know right from wrong," he explained.

 

Clouds of incense catch the light during Latin Mass at St Aloysius church in Caulfield.

"I think that's the key context: that secular, postmodern fragmenting, and young people are looking for ways to orientate their lives in the midst of that."

"You see it in these forms of traditional Catholic practice which have increased and you'll also see it in forms of Pentecostalism, evangelicalism, and, in its most extreme form, within certain forms of religious extremism or fundamentalism and jihadism."

Note how the theologian brackets traditional Catholic practice with 'fundamentalism and jihadism'. The theologian has his career to think about, under a modernist pontificate which punishes and persecutes traditionalism and ignores or promotes heretics and sex abusers. 

 

Dr Hodge said this trend was causing friction within the Church, particularly as Pope Francis advanced efforts to unify Catholics around the new mass.

Perhaps it's more correct to say that Francis has caused friction within the Church, a friction which if it existed went pretty well unnoticed until he advanced efforts not so much 'to unify Catholics around the new mass (sic)' but to ban Catholics from the "Mass of Ages" (the TLM). 

 

"I think that the real challenge is: how does the Church engage with these communities in a meaningful way that's going to satisfy what they're looking for and without alienating them?" he asked.Young Catholics defy Pope, choose Latin as rift grows in Australia's biggest church - ABC News

 These Latin Mass communities are looking for the Lord, and they will find Him in the Traditional Latin Mass; but Francis and his Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship, Cardinal Arthur Roche (sounds like 'roach) are determined to alienate them from the God they pretend to serve. 

“To the Catholic faithful, who today are scandalized and disoriented by the winds of novelty and the false doctrines that are promoted and imposed by a Hierarchy rebellious against the Divine Master, I ask you to pray and offer your sacrifices and fasts pro libertate et exaltatione Sanctæ Matris Ecclesiæ, so that Holy Mother Church may find Her freedom and triumph with Christ, after this time of passion. May those who have had the Grace of being incorporated into Her in Baptism not abandon their Mother who is today lying prostrate and suffering: tempora bona veniant, pax Christi veniat, regnum Christi veniat”: His Excellency Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano.

Ss Peter and Paul (El Greco)


Saints Peter and Paul, please pray for the Church