FSSR, FSSP VISITATIONS: ROME'S REVENGE

To comment please open your gmail account or use my email address, FB Messenger or X (Twitter).

 

Bishop Michael Gielen who expelled the FSSR: he's "torn" on the question of married priests

 

It's ominous tidings. Two days ago the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter (FSSP) reported "the opening of an apostolic visitation of the Fraternity " by the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (the Vatican). It could be the writing on the wall for this Catholic order, created in 1988 for traditional clergy to disassociate themselves from the Society of St Pius X (SSPX).https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/fssp-gets-apostolic-visitation-from-the-vatican/

In 2021 the FSSP were expelled from the diocese of Dijon, France, by Archbishop Roland Minnerath who ignored FSSP District Superior Fr. Benoît Paul-Joseph's request to discuss his decision. Sounds familiar? There are obvious parallels with the visitation of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer (FSSR) in Christchurch, NZ, last year and their subsequent expulsion from the diocese by Bishop Michael Gielen. 

Just why does the Vatican have the FSSP and FSSR in the crosshairs? An educated guess would postulate their traditional Catholic faith, which finds its supreme expression in the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM). 

The FSSP had refused to concelebrate the Novus Ordo Mass and the French Bishops' Conference found that to be problematic. They called for steps to “induce the faithful of the extraordinary form (the TLM) to participate more in diocesan life,” to avoid the creation of a “parallel Church.” Which is pretty rich, considering the man they call Pope Francis has been busily creating a parallel church (the Ape church prophesied by Ven Fulton Sheen - who should have been canonised by now) since his 'election' in 2013. 

Fr Michael Mary FSSR has now published an open letter to supporters of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer, giving a resume of the sorry situation created for his community and parishioners by the unexplained - and inexplicable - decision of Bishop Gielen to expel New Zealand's first home-grown religious order from Christchurch Diocese. Fr Michael Mary doesn't mention in his letter that the FSSR are taking +Gielen to court. 

The response of the FSSP in Dijon to the plight of their 300 abandoned parishioners was to launch a Facebook page and online petition in support of the Fraternity, which gathered almost 2,500 signatures in a week. Ah, but the diocese proved equal to that. It stated that the initiative “will not change anything” because a majority of the signatures were from outside the Dijon archdiocese.   https://ewtn.co.uk/article-why-is-a-french-catholic-archdiocese-expelling-the-fssp/#:~:text=Archbishop%20Roland%20Minneraththeir aas

Pre-Vatican II, the astonishing lack of charity evinced by the Vatican in its "recommendations" that +Gielen expel these holy priests would have been inconceivable. Once again, it's the Novus Ordo effect. In his letter (below) Fr Michael Mary refers to enmity as "a mortal sin". Although - as this blog is told by FB commenters who can't tell the difference between judging words and deeds (right) and judging those who do them (wrong) - one cannot discern others' motivations, one can clearly see that while Bishop Gielen is "consolidating" (i.e. closing) parishes, the Sons' support - especially with young families - was growing. That scenario of Novus Ordo failure and Latin Mass popularity worldwide, is a big burr under Rome's saddle.

Fr Michael Mary prepares with participants for the Our Lady of Christchurch procession 

Dear Reader,

 

May Christ reign in our hearts! May Mary shed abundant graces upon us all!

 

Like so many, I have also been bewildered by several months, and even by more than a year, at the controversy that has surrounded our community. It is bewildering and takes time to absorb and think about it. I am now ready to write some reflections, and although they are personal to me, I think that they are worth sharing with all who wonder what it means.

 

 

The reality of what we have been living through does not make sense to me.
Nobody has been found guilty of anything. There is no crime committed. There is no canonical crime either. Yet as criminals we
have all been sentenced to forfeit our priestly faculties, and all of us (including the sick), are under expulsion orders to be cast out
of the diocese as the worst of men.

 

 

Speaking of canonical crimes, Fr Timothy Radcliffe (Dominican) and Fr James Martin (Jesuit)Ahead of Synod, Prominent Prelates Publish on ‘LGBTQ Issues’ (complicitclergy.com) 

There are religious orders in New Zealand who have had their members sentenced to prison; or who have had members commit enormous and multiple crimes and who would have been put in prison if they were still alive. But no religious order in New Zealand - whatever the crimes of some of their members have been – have, for that reason, had all their members expelled from
one diocese to find no shelter in any diocese in the country.

 

The Congregation of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer is a
religious order without a criminal record. Yet this religious order is to be cast out from the Christchurch diocese, and out of New Zealand, sentenced to the gills with double signatures and many stamps! Humanly speaking it doesn’t make sense to anybody that I know.

However confused reality may appear - and it does - it cannot and should not be separated from the spiritual life. Spiritual life cannot be separated from reality. Therefore, what we have been living through in Christchurch has been and remains something spiritual, and therefore also containing a dimension of the mysterious.

 

Casting about for some understanding of all this, has brought me to the following facts that I am sure about:

 

1. The Congregation of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer is a Religious Institute in the Church. 

2. It is also the first and only religious order that finds its beginning with New Zealanders. 

3. As such then, it is New Zealand's own religious Order, the only clerical religious order begun by New Zealanders. 

4. The order was not only started by Kiwis, but in God's Providence the bulk of its members come from this part of the world.

5. As of today, our Congregation counts 33 men: 12 New Zealanders, 2 Australians, 2 NZ Residents; 5 of us are Samoan.

6. Over half of the Congregation of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer are from here.

7. Our Congregation is enriched by brethren from nine other countries, with 10 different mother-tongues.

8. We form a small but strong unit in the Mystical Body of the Church.

9. Is it significant to note that as an order we number 33 men.

10. When our different years of birth are noted down, the median or average age of the Congregation is also 33 years.

11. There are 33 of us with an average age of 33 - the age of Our Most Holy Redeemer when He was crucified.

12. It is the speciality of this religious order to strive to directly imitate the Most Holy Redeemer, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

May the Most Holy Redeemer grant us the graces we need that we might bear the Holy Cross with Him.

All the above is examining reality that is factual. There is nothing speculative.
It is factual that the Congregation of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer is:
1) A Clerical Religious Institute; its priests belong to the Congregation and not to any diocese.

2) An order that is legally established in the Church.

3) Its Constitutions were overseen personally by the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith;
4) The first Constitution is to imitate Jesus to the point of: I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me. (Gal 2:20).

 

In this context, I ask: How have the Christchurch events been part of the imitation of the Most Holy Redeemer?

For a long time I have mulled this question over in my prayer and in my free moments. I come to this conclusion: If it is true that I live now, not I but Christ liveth in me, then I am living, and Christ is living in me, the mystery of the: In propria venit, et sui eum non receperunt (the He came unto his own, and His own received him not) (Jn 1:11).

 

This has been the reality of a New Zealand Congregation coming to its own people in New Zealand; and its being rejected. The high point of the “non receperunt” (they received Him not) was the blanket decrees and precepts officially rejecting each and every Son of the Most Holy Redeemer,
‘receiving them not’, although they had done no crime and there was no guilt upon them.

 

It is a spiritual mystery. Christ came to His own. His own received Him not. If in Christchurch we must have Christ live in us, then it is in living the mystery of His rejection by His own people. We must live it in us, to the Glory of His Holy Name.

 

It is a fact that every religious order is violently attacked by the devil especially in its early years. The devil tries to destroy any
new order that will do him harm. The trials nearly always come from within the Church by persecutions of one kind or another.

 

We are a new order. We expect persecution; and as every novice is told by the Holy Ghost: Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation (Ecclesiasticus 2:1) and as Our Most Holy Redeemer tells us: If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. (Lk 9:23).

The devil loves to force souls into exile. The Holy Family were forced into the exile of Egypt. Many early Christians were banished into exile. St John Chrysostom was exiled twice. Scottish and Irish Catholics were sentenced to exile for trivial crimes; but unlike them, none of us have been found guilty of so much as stealing a loaf of bread.

And so, I return to the spiritual world to find an answer in direct imitation of Jesus who came to His own. And they rose up and thrust him out of the city (Lk 4:29).

 

Our rejection is extreme. Those who pressed for this expulsion may in fact bring about what they first hoped for; they would also have to live that fact. And the consequences of a successful expulsion would also be theirs. Chaos would come in the wake of the physical disappearance of this Kiwi religious order from our diocese and our country.

Someone said to me that we are on the right side of history. May Jesus in His mercy grant through the graces of reconciliation that we may, one and all, find ourselves on the right side of history; and more especially may we be found as sheep to the right side of our Most Holy Judge when he weighs our souls for eternity.

The Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer are the victims. We, for our part, bear no ill will towards anyone who has spoken or acted against us. Enmity is a mortal sin, and this is the Vale of Tears where reconciliations, and the humility that is needed to bring them about, is what Our Lord asks of us all, if we believe in heaven and hope to go there.

 

Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls (Mt 11:29). I hope for goodness to come. I await the coming of someone (perhaps you who read this), who might act efficaciously to establish fraternal unity: Blessed are the
peacemakers: for they shall be called children of God (Mt. 5:9).

 

In the Vale of Tears we surely expect our share of tears, as many as God permits us, and for as long as He permits them. What a small exchange they are to be, for the tears of joy we firmly hope to weep for all eternity.

 

May the Blessed Trinity bless all who read this letter, whether friend or not; we offer our present difficulties for all without exception. In the hope of goodness yet to come.

 

Devotedly, in the strength of the Holy Name of Jesus
and in the Sweet Name of Mary His Mother, the Mediatrix of All Graces,

 

Father Michael Mary, F.SS.R.
Rector Major
Congregation of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer
Monastery of Our Mother of Perpetual Succour
145 Rutland Street
St Albans, Christchurch, 8052
21st September 2024
Feast of St Matthew, Apostle.

 

 

St Michael, Archangel, please pray for the Church 

MILEI CONDEMNS UN FOR CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

To comment please open your gmail account or use my email address, FB Messenger or X (Twitter).

 

Jacinda Ardern with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres 

Trump. Meloni. Orban. Xavier Milei. These politicians almost persuade us that there's hope for a world that has sent God packing. At the very least they encourage us to believe that their nations have woken up to the lefty loonies - and surely the US, Italy, Hungary and Argentina don't have anything as bonkers as the Greens (aka the Shoplifters' Party, thank you Lindsay Perigo) or the Mad Hatters' Tea Party Maori.  

His hair is hilarious and what the Argentine President Xavier Milei has to say is delicious. Many New Zealanders would give anything for a leader like Milei, who two days ago told the United Nations a few home truths, condemning this corrupt organisation for its "moral posturing", calling it "woke" and "globalist" for its worldwide quarantines during 2020 which he said should be considered a crime against humanity.

And now the UN has adopted a "Pact for the Future" a Trojan horse for totalitarianism,  controlling economies, online content, silencing dissent and curbing free expression.  

What a pity Milei (raised Catholic) isn't likely to be invited to speak at the Vatican. One can imagine what he'd have to say to Antipope Francis, who shut down St Peter's Basilica and Catholic churches and denied Mass and the sacraments throughout the world to facilitate the Covid-19 quarantines and said taking the vaccine was "an act of love".  

 

Argentine President Javier Milei used his debut speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday to deliver an enthusiastic condemnation of “globalism and the moral posturing of the woke agenda” and warn that the U.N. flagship Agenda 2030 is a threat to global freedom.

Milei introduced himself as a “libertarian economist … honored with the mandate of the presidency of the Argentine Republic” thanks to the “precipitous failure of over a century of collectivist policies,” marking a notable rift from many General Assembly speeches that amplify U.N. leadership messages on climate change, wealth redistribution, and silencing “misinformation.” Milei became president in December 2023, so Tuesday’s event was his first opportunity to address the forum.

Before delivered a list of damning facts about the current state of the United Nations, Milei applauded the institution for successfully preventing a third world war, the original purpose of its existence.

 

“We went from having two world wars in less than 40 years, which together took over 120 million lives, to having 70 consecutive years of relative peace and global stability,” he noted, “under an order that allowed the whole world integrate itself commercially, compete, and prosper.”

This “outstanding success in the history of nations,” Milei stated, brought about a prophecy in the Book of Isaiah, which the president, an avid student of Judaism, read to the forum:

It's more likely that Milei said this “outstanding success in the history of nations” was a fulfilment of the prophecy. To say it "brought about" a biblical prophecy is a tad previous.

 

And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

But the U.N. “started to mutate,” he continued, and became “a leviathan of multiple tentacles that wants to decide not just what every state or nation should do, but how all the citizens of the world should live.” The current U.N. is “a supranational government model of international bureaucrats who want to impose on the citizens of the world a determined way of life,” he warned.

 

Milei then launched into a searing condemnation of the recent United Nations record, condemning its support of Wuhan coronavirus lockdowns and its support of totalitarian regimes:

This is how we have seen how an organization that was born to defend the rights of man has become one of the principal advocates for the systematic violation of liberty – for example, with the worldwide quarantines during 2020 which should be considered a crime against humanity.

In this very house, which claims to defend human rights, bloody dictatorships such as those of Cuba and Venezuela have been allowed onto the Human Rights Council with not even the least reproach. In this very house, which claims to defend the rights of women, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women allows entry to countries that punish women for showing skin.

 

In this very house, systematically, they have voted against the state of Israel – which is the only country in the Middle East that defends liberal democracy, while showing simultaneously a total incapacity to respond to the scourge of terrorism.

 

“Crimes against humanity” is a catch-all term in international law for actions that, on a global scale, are prosecutable by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Milei did not single out anyone to charge with the crime, but the context of accusing the United Nations of playing a role in supporting repressive quarantines points to the head of the U.N.’s World Health Organization (W.H.O.), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who was reelected to lead the agency uncontested despite his egregious failure in contain the novel coronavirus or holding China accountable for its destruction of relevant biological evidence and silence as the virus began spreading in Wuhan in December 2019.

 

Tedros’ current main project is the development of a “pandemic treaty” that would greatly empower the W.H.O. to act above sovereign states in the face of public health emergencies.

 

Xavier Milei, who's part Jewish, at the Western Wall in February 

 

Milei also used his speech to condemn the World Economic Forum (WEF), a venue he has visited to share similar condemnations of globalism.

 

“What also hasn’t helped is the tutelage of the World Economic Forum, where they promote ridiculous policies with Malthusian veneers, like the policies of Mission Zero, which harm above all poor countries,” Milei told the United Nations, “to policies tied to sexual and reproductive rights — when the birth rates of Western countries are collapsing, announcing a bleak future for all.”

 

Milei predicted that the world is “at the end of a cycle.”

 

“Globalism and the moral posturing of the woke agenda have crashed into reality and no longer have credible solutions to offer to real-world problems — in fact, they never had them,” he declared. “If Agenda 2030 failed, as its own promoters recognize, the response should be to ask ourselves if it was not a poorly conceived plan from the beginning, accept that reality, and change course.”

The Argentine president concluded by summarizing the creed of his anti-collectivist, libertarian movement in Argentina.

 

Milei speaking at the UN

 

“We believe in the defense of life — for all. We believe in the defense of the right to property — for all,” he listed. “We believe in the freedom of expression — for all. “We believe in freedom of religion — for all. We believe in freedom of commerce — for all. And we believe in limiting governments — all of them.”

 

Ss Cosmas and Damian, Patrons of Pharmacy and Medicine, Martyrs



Ss Cosmas and Damian, please pray for us

ZOMBIE CATHOLICS BUT LEGIONS OF YOUNG PRIESTS

To comment please open your gmail account or use my email address, FB Messenger or X (Twitter).    

He acts like a clown  - which just proves he's not the pope

 

 

Catholics who continue to prop up the conciliar synodal Francis church, who turn up on Sunday and put money in the plate to get Father's assurance of their eternal reward, are zombie Catholics. The Novus Ordo has obliterated their knowledge of the Faith; all they retain is the notion that there has to be a pope and what he says goes.

Not that they know what Francis says, and it's far better they don't. In New Zealand all they have to go by is the papolatrous Cathnews and papolatrous diocesan rags, so they just read the parish newsletter. During the homily. Because Father says nothing about the Gospel and anyway they've heard his nothing before. It's all quite soothing and it's nice to catch up with the other zombies. At the Sign of Peace maybe, or when they're handed the Most Precious Body and Blood of their Lord Jesus Christ. With a mini-elevation and a special smile.

The thing is, the zombies' days are numbered. The dinosaurs who roamed the pastures of the Second Vatican Council are mostly dead and the priests and prelates infected by the virus they call "The Spirit of Vatican II" are so - well, passé. No wonder the young mostly want to forget the Faith they were born into. But the rest are reclaiming the Church from their elders and worsers. Young priests and people's loyalty is now to the Social Kingship of Christ, in the Traditional Latin Mass.

Or one who claims to be Pope and who openly destroys the Church

Writing for Crisis magazine, Father John Perricone expounds on the death of the dinosaurs:   

Recreational Catholicism? Let me explain.

It is an attribution identifying the current stage of collapse in the Roman Church. Its coinage is meant to convey the tangled knot of the therapeutic, political, theatrical, and ego-massaging trend besetting the Church, all of which produces a kind a zombie Catholic, who is daily fed on what Huxley called in Brave New World the “feelies”: engineered pleasures that maintain their victims in a state of floating euphoria.

It's been described on this blog before now as a weekly dose of anaesthetic.

 

Its principal vehicle is the liturgy, where Sunday “celebrations” are carefully planned by Liturgy Committees for maximum effusions of non-threatening messages of “welcoming.” While normal men gag on its oozing sentimentality, certain kinds of Catholics crave it. Sunday after Sunday. It is like a narcotic, you see.

 

Music is meticulously chosen to leave participants in swoons of gratified self-absorption. Toxic language, such as defined doctrine or the moral law, is proscribed. In fact, not a few bishops insist that the communion line (deliberate lower case for accuracy) be absolutely non-discriminatory. One and all come forward, the shepherds intone, because the sacrament is not a place of judgment but a place of warm fellowship.

 

The place of judgment is of course, the confessional, eschewed by the vast majority as unnecessary, since there's no such place as hell.

 

All of this is topped by celebrant priests who see their roles as talk show hosts. Each is vested shabbily enough (a requirement) to telegraph a casualness consistent with sipping margaritas. Added to this are churches resembling airport lounges. Of course, the Recreational bureaucracy is always intent upon improvement. So now churches are equipped with jumbo screens guaranteeing the mood of a sports bar.

 

 

Other vehicles exist to proffer Recreational Catholicism. The entire educational apparatus of the Catholic Church, for instance. What was once an unprecedented tool for the inculcation of Catholic truth and devotion has become a factory of counter-Catholicism.

 

Every facet—from grammar schools, high schools, universities, and colleges, to seminaries and houses of formation—have become appendages of a sprawling Recreational Catholicism. Even the once named “convert classes” (now labeled RCIA) are immersions in an inverted Catholicism with familiarity of the Nicene Creed as foreign as Sanskrit.

At the highest levels of church governance, defense of the Faith is now replaced by another tentacle of Recreational Catholicism—the Synodal Listening sessions. These are sandbox (sandpit, for Kiwis)  exercises where participants babble about redesigning a Catholic Faith more suited to a modern, woke sensibility.

Breezy conversation stands in place of granite doctrine, producing a Catholic Church stretched into forms barely resembling historic Christianity. Various dicasteries of the Holy See concoct a no-fault Catholicism where the repeal of the moral law proceeds apace by a thousand cuts, and traditional Catholic dogma suffers the blows of intentional ambiguity.

 

This Recreational Catholicism is merely the next iteration of historic Modernism. The 1907 heresy was a more subtle version of Renan’s 1893 Vie de Jesus, a shocking reinterpretation of the New Testament, blanched of any trace of the supernatural. Or, in the charged words of his disciple C.A. Sainte-Beuve, “we have forced Jesus to hand in His resignation from the Godhead.”

This was nothing less than a take-no-prisoners assault on doctrinal Catholicism. By the closing years of the nineteenth century, the Catholic Modernists appeared. Fathers Loisy, Tyrrell, et al. insisted upon a more “spiritual” Catholicism, where the object of Faith was not the crude intrusions of Divine Revelation and its doctrines, but a gentler “spiritual faith.” Doctrinal Catholicism was to be surrendered to a religion of personal élan.  

 

A dark pope is no pope and Fr Heimerl's readers know it 

 

 

G.K. Chesterton remarked; “Beware those who clamor for the spirit of Christianity, for what they really want is the ghost of Christianity.”

 

Modernism is Christianity’s “ghost.”

 

Recreational Catholicism is Catholicism’s “ghost.”

 

Just as the same Chesterton spoke of the five resurrections of the Church, in his memorable The Everlasting Man, we are on the cusp of a sixth. Or, to borrow from the First Letter of the first-century Pope Clement, the Church is like the phoenix rising from the ashes. Look carefully, and you will see it.

 

And it’s happening today. Before our very eyes.

 

With the headwinds of crisis still whipping against our faces, many might miss it. Moreover, its beginnings are small, like all great things. But it possesses remarkable strength. It is showing itself on every continent—but, surprisingly, strongest in America.  

 

Gerald Vann, Fathers Basil Maturin and Edward Leen. To say nothing of Lewis, Chesterton, Pieper, Daniel-Rops, Gilson, and Maritain. Add to these Msgr. Robert Benson, Fr. C.C. Martindale, and Hilaire Belloc.

 

Other Catholics are founding publishing houses (such as Sophia Institute Press, Ignatius Press, Os Justi Press, Emmaus Press, Cluny Press, and Angelico Press, to name a few), online magazines (like Crisis, LifeSiteNews and OnePeterFive), creating routine podcasts and daily radio shows (like The Catholic Current with the imitable Fr. Robert McTeigue)—all of whom can be likened to the pre-Soviet era Radio Free Europe.

 

 

Remember this. But he's not the pope

With skill and ingenuity, they are broadcasting the message of Doctrinal Catholicism over the heads of the cadaverous ecclesial bureaucracy that sits like a massive beached whale on the Mystical Body of Christ. These dynamic New Catholics have become the lean and diminutive David, slinging the tiny polished stones of the Victorious Christ against the massive and dollar-bloated Goliath of the conventional leadership.  

This high-powered group of young Catholics is impassioned with an electrifying love of the Old Faith, and they are aborning a renaissance before our very eyes. Coming from their numbers are priests. Scores and scores of them.

 

Many are entering the Traditional orders of the Fraternity of St. Peter or Institute of Christ the King. Both seminaries are at their maximum capacity, training young men in the fashion of the seminaries from the Council of Trent to 1965.  

 

Catholics owe it to themselves to visit these impressive battlegrounds of sanctity and learning. Their superiors appreciate that they are sending newly anointed priests as sheep in the midst of wolves. To that end, their training has the feel of Parris Island, with order and discipline sitting upon the crown of their ascetical/theological/philosophical formation like jewels set in a golden diadem. After eight years of this blessed rigor, they are launched, in the words of Henri Daniel-Rops, to bring to the world and the Church “a revolution of the Cross.”  

 

Even some dioceses have begun to imitate the seminary classical program, and they are reaping astonishing results. Discretion prohibits naming them due to the present climate in which the Church finds herself. But Catholics can rest their heads more securely upon their pillows at night knowing that legions of young men are being summoned by the Holy Spirit to lead this New Renaissance.

 

It should not surprise us that these newly ordained priests are becoming pastors in record time. A proper supernatural attitude can see how the vocation dearth acts as a blessing. It permits priests who normally would wait decades to be pastors to take on that role in seeming minutes. 

 

Unafraid of the spiritual, doctrinal, and liturgical ruins that face them, they meet the challenge with creative, careful, and heroic swiftness, sometimes verging on the dramatic. A very young pastor in southern New Jersey recently read that a local church was shuttering its doors.

 

He wasted no time in hiring engineers to devise a plan to transport all of its marble sanctuary altars and altar rails and reset them in his church. After several months of meticulous moving and repositioning, a church conceived in the seventies to appear like a dentist’s waiting room underwent a miraculous transformation in marble. In fact, the extraordinary pastor named his renaissance “Faith moves Marble.”

 

But he is not finished. He is now in the planning stages of constructing a medieval tower to adjoin his church. This new phalanx of wondrous priests does not act in half measures. They recognize that the faithful have hungered without bread long enough.

 

Amid this astonishing good news, there is still more. The Traditional Mass grows in leaps and bounds, all the more striking given the circumstance of its three-year suppression. Again, only a supernatural attitude will do.

 

Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano sees clearly that Francis is just 'Bergoglio'

In many ways, this explosive growth depended upon scores of young Catholics exploring the internet toinvestigate what they were told was a malignancy growing in the womb of the Church. Investigate they did. What they found did not fit the cautions of malignancy about which they were cautioned.

 

And they rushed to the Traditional Mass. In fact, very soon in the Washington, D.C., area a group of young Catholics will march for the preservation of the Traditional Mass.

 

All this to the consternation of these young people’s betters. To quote Graham Greene in Brighton Rock: “I cannot understand, nor can you, the appalling strangeness of God’s Mercy.”

Sorrow and wrath over the wreckage of the past sixty years will not do.

A New Springtime is about, albeit so very small; but a Springtime, nonetheless.  

 

Fr. John A. Perricone

Fr. John A. Perricone, Ph.D., is an adjunct professor of philosophy at Iona University in New Rochelle, New York. His articles have appeared in St. John’s Law Review, The Latin Mass, New Oxford Review and The Journal of Catholic Legal Studies. He can be reached at www.fatherperricone.com. 

Further reading: https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2024/09/christ-is-no-longer-to-be-spoken.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawFgjeJleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHcISFqRcefi1h9tG6mHq2onB5wR53CAi2nw8ZtfDnwrOdjqWlhs8cFuxxQ_aem_7VmqOTdvEXaQALWxtcKPug

‘Is the Pope a Catholic?’ The Rhetorical Question That’s Losing Axiomatic Power (complicitclergy.com) - from Dr Gavin Ashenden, convert to Catholicism, former chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II.

"My Lord and my God"

FERNANDEZ FUDGES ON FAUX MEDJUGORGE

To comment please open your gmail account or use my email address, FB Messenger or X (Twitter).

Whatever an antipope says, it counts for exactly nothing

 In 2001 a reader of this blog tried hard to persuade her son - who was cooling his heels in Dubrovnik while a friend slowly recovered from a near-fatal fall from one of its spectacular cliffs - to take the bus to Medjugorge, half an hour away. She's glad now that he didn't.

Because his Eminence Cardinal Tucho Fernandez, Prefect (incredibly) of the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, has ruled (sort of) that the alleged apparitions of Our Lady at Medjugorge are (sort of) okay. +Fernandez being the heretic he is, that's enough to put anyone right off. 

And now, verifying her intuition that +Fernandez is leading many good Catholics up the rosy garden path to hell via Medjugorge, our reader finds that Michael Davies, that giant among lay Catholics, pre-eminent defender of Tradition and critic of the Novus Ordo, exposed it as a fraud back in 2005.

Millions of Catholics are or have been devotees of Medjugorge. Everyone's either been there or knows someone who's been there. What they badly need is clarity but in the absence of a pope and an effective magisterium that's too much to ask. Traditional Catholic websites such as OnePeterFve and the Moynihan Letters are humming and harring and havering on +Fernandez' Note About the Spiritual Experience Connected with Medjugorje (here). So of course does Antipope Francis, whose approval "is based on the pastoral reality and not evaluations about its supernatural nature". In typical Francis fashion +Fernandez waffles on to the tune of over 10,000 words of ambiguity and obfuscation.

The thing is, good Catholic websites depend, like Medjugorge itself and like the world in general, on the money that makes it go round. On advertising. Cui bono? They can't afford to upset their thousands of good traditionally-minded Catholic readers. This humble blog labours under no such disadvantage. We earn zilch so have nothing to lose by telling the truth as we see it (and apologise when we get it wrong). 

self-explanatory

So before handing the floor over to T S Flanders of OnePeterFive, here's the nub of Michael Davies' revelations on Medjugorge:   

The "seers" and their Franciscan manipulators have consistently maintained that during their "ecstasies" they are immobile and without communication with the outside world. A French journalist wished to test this claim, and while Vicka purported to be in ecstasy he made a stabbing movement towards her eyes with his fingers. Vicka gave a start and threw her head backwards. The girl left the room and returned a few minutes later with one of her charismatic mentors, an expelled Franciscan. She claimed that at the moment the journalist made the movement she was witnessing an apparition of the Virgin Mary with the Child Jesus in her arms, and the Child slipped. "I made a movement to stop Him from falling. That's all."

There could hardly be a more evident case of outright lying. It is inconceivable that during an apparition of Our Lady with the Child Jesus, the Child could possibly slip. If, per impossible, this did happen, it is stretching coincidence beyond the bounds of credibility to be asked to believe that it happened at the precise moment the journalist made the movement towards Vicka' s eyes, and, finally, if she had been speaking the truth she would have moved forwards towards the apparition and not backwards!

A Franciscan priest, Father Ivica Vego, was dispensed from his vows and expelled from the Franciscan Order by John Paul II as a result of the seduction of a nun, Sister Leopolda. 

 

They both left the religious life and lived together near Medjugorje where their child was born. They now have two children. But he refused to accept his expulsion and continued to celebrate Mass, administer the Sacraments, and pass the time with his mistress.

 

The "seers" claimed Our Lady appeared to them on thirteen occasions stating that Father Vego was innocent, that he was as entitled to celebrate Mass as any other priest, and that the bishop was harsh! Any reader with a true sense of being a Catholic, a sensus catholicus, will need to read no further to realize the full extent of the mendacity of the self-styled "seers".

 

What credibility can be given to those who claim that the Mother of God told them repeatedly that an immoral priest, expelled from his order on the instructions of the Holy Father himself, is innocent, and that the Bishop who had taken the only course open to him, was the guilty party!

 

How did a so-called reputable theologian, Father Rene Laurentin, who has made a fortune from books on Medjugorje, react when confronted with such facts? He begged the Bishop not to publish details of the incident. This has been Laurentin's consistent position, to hide the truth and defend falsehood. Despite the fact that the truth about Ivica Vego can no longer be denied, his prayer book is still sold in Medjugorje and beyond in hundreds of thousands of copies!

And if Our Lady had truly appeared at Medjugorje on about 26,000 occasions by the end of 1993, a claim which in itself defies credibility, why did she not bother to warn the Croatian people of the coming onslaught, which they would have to undergo from fanatically anti-Catholic Serbia? (Redacted.) https://archive.org/details/Medugorje-AWarning/page/n3/mode/2up

Cardinal Fernandez and Msgr Armando Matteo, DDF Prefect and Secretary: who could take them seriously? 

And now, over to T S Flanders of OnePeterFive: 

I don’t know much about Medjugorje.

What I do know is that Dr. E. Michael Jones and Mr. Michael Davies never agreed on much during the latter’s lifetime. Davies and Jones had a famous debate over the SSPX “back in the day” as we say in the States: https://youtu.be/wE_URMCvXHs?list=PLc1nFsC-jDoDCXLAud2vY_4ua8DAjzJ09

 

Davies was a longtime leader in the traditionalist movement, whereas Dr. Jones has been (and still is) a stalwart critic of the same movement.

But they agree on one thing: Medjugorje looks like a false apparition. What is worse, they both claim that the apparition and the visionaries manifested serious “red flags” in the spiritual and preternatural world. Take a look at their research for yourself here:

In any case, I have never delved deep into Medjugorje, but the research of these two opposing Catholics gave me pause. I know that some Catholics whom I respect believe in Medjugorje, like Mr. Robert Nugent, whose comments on the recent ruling can be found here:https://youtu.be/VRlfpivfkEA

 

I’m sure that promoters of Medjugorje have some answers and explanations to the critiques of Davies, Jones, and others. I have not studied this alleged apparition deep enough to have a strong opinion either way about it.

Michael Davies certainly had a strong opinion.  

But the least that I can say for sure is that I had unanswered questions after I saw what Davies and Jones had to say. I suspended any judgement further and simply disregarded the apparition since I was not particularly drawn to it anyhow.

 

The New Vatican Apparition Guidelines

Before we look at what the Vatican just did, let’s remember the context: the new Cardinal prefect of the “Office Formerly Known as Holy,” His Eminence Tucho Fernández, just published new guidelines for how the Vatican judges apparitions back in May.

The main difference with the new guidelines was that the Vatican was going to 1.) remove the right of local bishops to judge these matters and 2.) remove the procedure to judge an apparition to be “of supernatural origin.” At that time some commentators, including myself, wondered if these new norms were about Medjugorje because 1.) the local bishops, it is said, have judged Medjugorje negatively and 2.) the supernatural origin of the alleged apparition can be seriously questioned:

I thought this [new norms[ document was going to allow Medjugorje so that the Vatican Bank would get bailed out by all the Medjugorje money. Maybe the Chinese Communists already did this.

 

 

But it seems to be much worse than that. At least Medjugorje seems to have real conversions. Now the document seems to silence God Himself, so that no bishop or Pope can approve the supernatural origin of Our Lord or Our Lady or some saint coming to encourage us through this chastisement.

(Again, I’m not trying to make a judgement myself on the matter, merely stating one reasonable opinion among several pious and reasonable views here.)

 But why should TS Flanders not make a judgment himself? Why shouldn't any Catholic? After all, logic tells us this Note is written by an antipope and his henchman so to judge his Note is not to judge the Magisterium. TS Flanders would seem to hint at this by avoiding any reference to Francis as pope.  

So Catholic Sat, one reliable commentator who is critical of Medjugorje, said this back in May:

But it seems to be much worse than that. At least Medjugorje seems to have real conversions. Now the document seems to silence God Himself, so that no bishop or Pope can approve the supernatural origin of Our Lord or Our Lady or some saint coming to encourage us through this chastisement.

atholic Sat

@CatholicSat

The Medjugorje Fudge (or compromise whatever this will be called): "Church to act confidently and promptly to stand among the People of God in welcoming the Holy Spirit’s gifts that may emerge “in the midst of” these events. The phrase “in the midst of”—used in the new Norms—clarifies that even if the event itself is not declared to be of supernatural origin, there is still a recognition of the signs of the Holy Spirit’s supernatural action in the midst of what is occurring."

The issue is that God can always bring good out of evil. So a false apparition may have an evil intent, but God can certainly bring good out of it nonetheless. So even if we assume that Medjugorje is false, it can still be true that there are authentic conversions and graces which are occasioned but not caused by the alleged apparition. For that, we should thank the mercy of God.

We do need to judge a tree by its fruit, as the Lord said (as this writer just said - ed), there is also a more stringent requirement given in the Law of Moses:

 

But the prophet, who being corrupted with pride, shall speak in my name things that I did not command him to say, or in the name of strange gods, shall be slain. And if in silent thought thou answer: How shall I know the word that the Lord hath not spoken? Thou shalt have this sign: Whatsoever that same prophet foretelleth in the name of the Lord, and it cometh not to pass: that thing the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath forged it by the pride of his mind: and therefore thou shalt not fear him (Dt. xviii. 20-22).

 

So the law of Moses also gives a very reasonable criteria for judgment: there are certain things that can indeed be judged “of supernatural origin.” This is one of the reasons why people followed Christ – He worked miracles! This is one of the reasons Muhammad is a false prophet – he worked no miracles!

 

Obviously Fatima checks out on this – the Miracle of the Sun is the big one, and also the prediction of World War II (with the 1938 geomagnetic storm). Certainly not every apparition need have such astounding miracles, but it does not seem unreasonable (or contrary to revelation, quite the opposite) to demand some miraculous evidence.

Moreover, the spiritual writers warn us to be critical of visions and apparitions for the danger they pose:

CONCERNING THE VARIOUS ILLUSIONS EMPLOYED BY THE DEVIL AT THE HOUR OF OUR DEATH

IF OUR PERSISTENT FOE, who never ceases to persecute us, should assail us disguised as an angel of light, stand firm and steadfast even though cognizant of your own nothingness, and say to him boldly: “Return, miserable one into your realms of darkness; for I am unworthy of visions, nor do I need anything but the mercy of my Saviour, and the prayers of Mary, Joseph and all the Saints.”

 And though these visions seem to bear many evidences of having been born in Heaven, still reject them as far as it is within your power to do so. And have no fear that this resistance, founded as it is on your own worthiness, will be displeasing to God. For if the vision be from Him, He has the power to make the same known to you, and you will suffer no detriment; for He Who gives grace to the humble does not withdraw it because of acts which spring from humility.

These, then, are the weapons which the enemy most commonly employs against us at the hour of our death. Each individual is tempted according to the particular inclination to which he is most subject. Therefore, before the zero hour of the great conflict, we should arm ourselves securely, and struggle manfully against our most violent passions, that the victory may be easier in that hour which leaves no futuretime for preparation or resistance.[1]

These are some of the concerns which arise for me with an alleged apparition like Medjugorje.

What do you mean by “Sort Of”?

So now let’s take a brief look at the main point of the new Medjugorje ruling from the Vatican. We’re not going to go in depth into the document, which goes to great lengths to come to this basic conclusion:

Diane Montagna

 

@dianemontagna

 

·

Follow

#Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith today grants approval (Nihil obstat) for devotion linked to Medjugorje, specifying this “does not imply that the alleged supernatural events are declared authentic” nor that its messages “have a direct supernatural origin.” (1/2)

 Quoting now from the document:

Through the Nihil obstat about a spiritual event, the faithful “are authorized to give it their adherence in a prudent manner” (Norms, art. 22, §1; cf. Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, par. 14). While this does not imply a declaration of the supernatural character of the phenomenon in question (cf. Norms, art. 22, §2)—and recalling that the faithful are not obliged to believe in it—the Nihil obstat indicates that the faithful can receive a positive encouragement for their Christian life through this spiritual proposal, and it authorizes public acts of devotion. Such a determination is possible insofar as many positive fruits have been noted in the midst of a spiritual experience, while negative and dangerous effects have not spread among the People of God.

As if Tucho Fernandez were qualified to judge any effects as "negative and dangerous". He himself is a negative and dangerous effect - of the conciliar, synodal church. 

 

Evaluating the abundant and widespread fruits, which are so beautiful and positive, does not imply that the alleged supernatural events are declared authentic. Instead, it only highlights that the Holy Spirit is acting fruitfully for the good of the faithful “in the midst” of this spiritual phenomenon of Medjugorje. For this reason, all are invited to appreciate and share the pastoral value of this spiritual proposal (cf. Norms, par. 17).

Moreover, the positive assessment that most of the messages of Medjugorje are edifying (doesn't that imply that the others are unedifying? - ed) does not imply a declaration that they have a direct supernatural origin. Consequently, when referring to “messages” from Our Lady, one should always bear in mind that they are “alleged messages.” (38).

 

It is interesting to note how the document takes a very nuanced approach to the message and the fruits, calling the latter “beautiful and positive,” but for the former, there is a more critical attitude":

Beyond the frequent exhortations to the faithful of the parish, in general, Our Lady seems to promote listening to her messages so insistently that sometimes this call stands out more than the content of the messages themselves: “Dear children, you are not aware of the messages that God is sending you through me. He is giving you graces, but you do not understand” (8 November 1984). “You are not aware of all the messages I am giving you” (15 November 1984). This risks creating a dependence and an excessive expectation on the part of the faithful, which could ultimately obscure the central importance of the Revealed Word.

 

The insistence appears constantly. For example, “Live my messages” (18 June 2010). “Spread my messages” (25 June 2010). “Live the messages I am giving you so that I can give you new messages” (27 May 2011). “Follow my messages […] renew my messages” (17 June 2011). “Embrace my messages and live my messages” (24 June 2011).ke the Blessed Virgin Mary, perfectly humble and so self-effacing.  

 … This often-repeated appeal probably comes from the love and generous fervor of the alleged visionaries who, with goodwill, feared that the Blessed Mother’s calls for conversion and peace would be ignored. This insistence becomes even more problematic when the messages refer to requests that are unlikely to be of supernatural origin, such as when Our Lady gives orders about specific dates, places, and practicalities and when she makes decisions about ordinary matters. Although messages of this type are infrequent in Medjugorje, we can find some of them that are explained solely from the personal desires of the alleged visionaries. The following is a clear example of these misleading messages:

“This August 5th will mark the celebration of the second millennium of my birth […]. I ask you to prepare yourselves intensively over three days […]. Do not work on these days” (1 August 1984).

Really? The Blessed Virgin Mary, issuing a blanket ban on work for three days to all the faithful in order to celebrate her birthday? How can anyone with the sensus fidelium believe this is Our Lady speaking? 

It is reasonable for the faithful, using prudence and common sense, not to take these details seriously nor heed them.

It is precisely the task of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to use prudence and common sense in judging Medjugorge, and to instruct the faithful accordingly. But in the absence of a pope we must manage for ourselves. Thank God we have the likes of Michael Davies to inform us. 

One must always recall that in this spiritual experience (as in other spiritual experiences and alleged supernatural phenomena), positive and edifying elements are mixed with other elements that are to be ignored.

In Church-approved apparitions, like Fatima and Lourdes, what elements are to be ignored, please?  

But this fact should not lead one to spurn the richness and the good of the Medjugorje proposal as a whole (30).

Seems Medjugorge is like the curate's egg. Good in parts.

 

These criticisms seem to cast doubt on the supernatural origin of the apparition, even while there is an official Nihil Obstat. We’ve got “positive and edifying elements …mixed with other elements that are to be ignored.” This seems like a strange judgement, since it does not seem like a judgement at all.

 

As I discussed briefly last week, the Qur’an also includes “positive and edifying elements” (for example, the natural beauty of the chanted Qur’an) but it also has “elements that are to be ignored” – obvious heretical poison and blasphemy against Christ. Obviously the message of Medjugorje is Christian, not Arian (like the Qur’an), but I’m concerned there might be more subtle things going on, which are more difficult to judge, like what Msgr. Ronald Knox called Enthusiasm.

Given all the other strange things going in the Vatican, the fact that the new norms and this new ruling came out in the same year suggests that the two things were indeed connected. If that is the case, is there more to the story of this new ruling than merely pious sentiments? Is Vatican corruption involved? What about the money? Cui bono?

I simply don’t know, and we don’t want to judge anything without evidence, but I have to ask the question.

In any event, the net result of this “sort of approval” seems to create the impression that, whatever the technical details, the Vatican has indeed “approved” the apparition, and the faithful will think the apparition is to be followed as if it has been confirmed to be supernatural.

Having said that, even though I’m generally critical of this alleged apparition based on my limited research, of course I could be wrong. And I’m not trying to harshly judge any faithful Catholic who has experienced some positive spiritual fruit through Medjugorje.

No indeed. This writer judges no one, harshly or otherwise, on anything let alone on private revelations which in the past led her into True Life in God and Luisa Piccarreta and the Divine Will - and, thank God, out the other side and back into the light. 

Private revelation is a perfect example of applying the adage: In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas [“in essentials, unity; in doubtful matters, liberty; in all things, charity”].[2]

So here I’d like to yield the floor to submissions from authors with a traditionalist perspective who would have greater expertise on Medjugorje. I would welcome any scholarly submissions on this matter for or against the new ruling. Are there any Trad voices out there which defend the apparition in writing?

T. S. Flanders
Editor
St. Januarius 

 

Parable of the Royal Wedding Feast by Frans Francken.

 

 For many are called, but few are chosen. 

  - Gospel, Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost