LATIN MASS SUPPRESSION PROPHESIED, PROGRESSIVE

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As we wait in fear and trembling for Jorge Bergoglio's next attack on the Traditional Latin Mass front, we might well reflect on a prescient piece published by renowned Catholic scholar and lawyer Christopher Ferrara in 2019:

"I must first recall what Summorum Pontificum (SP for short) established for liberation of the traditional Mass from its false imprisonment based on the fraudulent claim that Paul VI had forbade its celebration when he promulgated his disastrous New Mass, the creature of Annibale Bugnini’s infamous Consilium."

Ferrara's contribution comes per kind favour of Catholic Family News, whose editor notes:: 

"In light of this week’s news concerning the possibility of “imminent reform” of Summorum Pontificum by Pope Francis (see here, here, and here for details), we offer readers the following article by our longtime friend and contributor Christopher Ferrara.

At the time, Ferrara was responding to Pope Francis’ then-recent suppression of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei (PCED) by means of an Apostolic Letter (Jan. 17, 2019). 

We hope this article will be helpful for framing this week’s news in a wider context, one astutely identified by Ferrara over two years ago.

 

Christopher A Ferrara

 Bergoglio Abolishes Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei

No Big Deal or Prelude to Total Abrogation of Summorum Pontificum?

Introduction

On January 17, 2019, Pope Bergoglio issued motu proprio (“on his own initiative”) an Apostolic Letter suppressing the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei (PCED) and absorbing its functions entirely into a new section of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). The PCED will no longer have a separate juridical existence or budget.

Certain commentators have dismissed the move as an inconsequential simplification of the Vatican organizational chart. I beg to differ. For the reasons that follow, I believe that the suppression of the PCED is the prelude to an attempted reversal of the Latin Mass revival launched by Benedict XVI’s historic Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum (SP).

The aim would be a quarantine of the traditional Latin Mass within a few established societies or communities, followed by ruthless suppression of its celebration by those bishops who have never accepted SP and have sought in every way to undermine its application.

To make my case, I must first recall what SP established for liberation of the traditional Mass from its false imprisonment based on the fraudulent claim that Paul VI had forbade its celebration when he promulgated his disastrous New Mass, the creature of Annibale Bugnini’s infamous Consilium.

Pope Benedict’s Liberation of the Traditional Latin Mass

SP, ending the “indult” (special permission) regime established by John Paul II, declared that the traditional Mass, last codified in the Missal of 1962, was “never abrogated.” And in his letter to the world’s bishops accompanying SP, Benedict further declared: “this Missal was never juridically abrogated and, consequently, in principle, was always permitted.”

Always permitted! Thus ended a fraud upon the faithful that Church leaders had perpetrated for nearly forty years. The fraud was assisted by Paul VI himself, who allowed the false impression of an abrogation of the traditional Latin Mass to spread throughout the Church, even though he rejected Bugnini’s request for a declaration that the traditional Mass was “definitively abrogated” because it would be “interpreted as ‘casting odium on the liturgical tradition.’”[1]

SP further provided as follows:

• Every priest may celebrate “private” Masses using the traditional Missal without permission from his bishop or the Holy See, and such Masses “may… also be attended by faithful who, of their own free will, ask to be admitted.” (Arts. 2, 4)

• All communities or institutes of consecrated life may celebrate Mass according to the traditional Missal, assuming a proper vote of the members where required. (Art. 3)

• Every pastor of every parish is free, without need of episcopal or Vatican permission, to provide for public celebration of the traditional Mass every Sunday whenever a “stable group” of the faithful requests it. (Art. 5)

• The pastor of any parish is free — without permission from Rome or the local bishop — to “allow celebrations in this extraordinary form for special circumstances such as marriages, funerals or occasional celebrations, e.g., pilgrimages…” (Art. 5)

• Pastors of parishes are also free “to grant permission to use the earlier ritual for the administration of the Sacraments of Baptism, Marriage, Penance, and the Anointing of the Sick, if the good of souls would seem to require it.” (Art. 9)

• Clerics are also free to “use the Roman Breviary promulgated by Bl. John XXIII in 1962.” (Art. 9)

• Finally, any bishop is free to erect “a personal parish in accordance with can. 518 for celebrations following the ancient form of the Roman rite, or to appoint a chaplain” for that purpose — that is, to establish an exclusively Latin Mass parish. (Art. 10)

Thus did SP lay the groundwork for a universal revival of the Latin liturgical tradition.  But Pope Benedict did not stop there.

 

Crucial Role of PCED in Securing the Right to Liturgical Tradition

SP also provides — and this is critical to understanding the significance of Bergoglio’s move — that the PCED, first established solely to address “regularization” of priests in the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), would now have a new appellate function for communities or members of the faithful who might be denied their right to the traditional Mass and other rites as guaranteed by the norms of SP summarized above: “The same Commission, in addition to the faculties which it presently enjoys, will exercise the authority of the Holy See in ensuring the observance and application of these norms” (Art. 12).

Confronted by the murmuring of numerous bishops against SP and the rights of the faithful it secures, Benedict approved PCED’s promulgation, on April 30, 2011, of an Instruction (Universae Ecclesiae) for the implementation of SP. The Instruction reaffirmed that the Pope’s intention in SP was that of “offering to all the faithful the Roman Liturgy in the Usus Antiquior, considered as a precious treasure to be preserved” and “effectively guaranteeing and ensuring the use of the forma extraordinaria for all who ask for it…” (Art. 8).

Note well: Under SP and the Instruction, the Latin Mass is to be made available to all the faithful who ask for it. In keeping with that mandate, the 2011 Instruction slammed shut various loopholes certain bishops were attempting to create to evade enforcement of SP, while reaffirming that the PCED has authority to overrule them upon petitions from the faithful individually or in community. To summarize some key provisions:

• SP is “a universal law for the Church,” not a mere series of suggestions for bishops to consider. (Art. 2)

• SP enforces “the traditional principle, recognised from time immemorial and necessary to be maintained into the future, that ‘each particular Church must be in accord with the universal Church not only regarding the doctrine of the faith and sacramental signs, but also as to the usages universally handed down by apostolic and unbroken tradition. These are to be maintained not only so that errors may be avoided, but also so that the faith may be passed on in its integrity, since the Church’s rule of prayer (lex orandi) corresponds to her rule of belief (lex credendi).’”  (Art. 3, emphasis in original)

• No less than St. Gregory the Great and St. Pius V are cited for the proposition that the traditional Missale Romanum “has enjoyed a particular prominence in history, and was kept up to date throughout the centuries….” (Art. 4)

• “On account of its venerable and ancient use, the forma extraordinaria [tradtional Mass] is to be maintained with appropriate honor.” (Art. 6)

• “…. What was sacred for prior generations, remains sacred and great for us as well, and cannot be suddenly prohibited altogether or even judged harmful [citing Benedict’s letter to the bishops accompanying SP].” (Art. 7)

• Every bishop must “undertake all necessary measures to ensure respect for the forma extraordinaria of the Roman Rite, according to the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.” (Art. 14)

• The “stable group of faithful” who have the right to a traditional Mass in a parish means not only “some people of an individual parish who… come together by reason of their veneration for the Liturgy in the Usus Antiquior” but also “persons coming from different parishes or dioceses, who gather together in a specific parish church or in an oratory or chapel for this purpose.” (Art. 15)

• A priest visiting a parish must be permitted to celebrate his Mass according to the traditional Missal. (Art. 16)

• Not only secular but religious priests have the right to celebrate their “private” Masses according to the traditional Missal without any “special permission from…superiors.” (Art. 23)

PCED’s Decisive Role Highlighted in 2011 Instruction

The 2011 Instruction also affirmed the PCED’s decisive role as enforcer of the rights of the faithful to the whole of liturgical tradition:

•  “The Sovereign Pontiff has conferred upon the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei ordinary vicarious power for the matters within its competence, in a particular way for monitoring the observance and application of the provisions” of SP. (Art. 9)

• Accordingly, the PCED has the power “to decide upon recourses [appeals] legitimately sent to it, as hierarchical Superior, against any possible singular administrative provision of an Ordinary which appears to be contrary to the Motu Proprio” — meaning that the PCED, as hierarchical superior, can overrule any local bishop who defies the provisions of SP. (Cf. Arts. 11-13)

• “In cases of controversy or well-founded doubt about the celebration in the forma extraordinaria, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei will adjudicate.” (Art. 13)

In sum, with SP and the 2011 Instruction, Benedict XVI established, at least on paper, a strong canonical framework freely allowing for a widespread and unhindered revival of liturgical tradition in parishes as well as in societies, institutes and orders to be enforced by the PCED as the hierarchical superior of the bishops with the power to overrule them on petitions from the faithful.

To this framework Benedict added, by his Apostolic Letter Ecclesiae Unitatem (July 2, 2009) the proviso that the PCED would be organically linked to the CDF such that its President would henceforth be Prefect of the CDF. Nevertheless, the PCED would continue with “its own allocation of staff,” including a Secretary and officials, and thus would continue to exercise its enforcement function with respect to the rights secured by SP. This reorganization, Benedict declared, was in order to facilitate discussions with the SSPX following his previous remission of the purported excommunication of its four bishops on January 21, 2009. These discussions were to be had under the CDF’s auspices because, according to Benedict, “the problems that must now be addressed with the Society are essentially doctrinal in nature” and the CDF is the Vatican dicastery whose competence is doctrine.

What Bergoglio Has Really Done

With this background in view, it should be apparent that Bergoglio’s Apostolic Letter entirely suppressing the PCED substantially negates Benedict XVI’s canonical framework for the protection and spread of the traditional Latin Mass and the other traditional rites and liturgical books throughout the Church. A prudently close reading of the Letter reveals a sinister intention: to quarantine use of the Latin liturgy and traditional sacramental rites and books within a few approved orders and societies while ending universal access to liturgical tradition by all priests and laity as enforced by the PCED.

If this claim seems extravagant, consider the following language from the Apostolic Letter itself:

• “For over thirty years the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei…has carried out…the task of collaborating…in facilitating the full ecclesial communion of priests, seminarians, communities or individual men and women religious connected with the Fraternity founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre…”

• “… [B]y virtue of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum of 7 July 2007, the Pontifical Commission extended the authority of the Holy See to those Institutes and Religious Communities which had adhered to the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite and had assumed the precedent traditions of religious life…”

• “Two years later, my Venerable Predecessor Benedict XVI, with the Motu Proprio Ecclesiae Unitatem of 2 July 2009 reorganized the structure of the Pontifical Commission…. [C]onsidering that…the questions addressed [regarding SSPX]…were of a primarily doctrinal nature, he connected it more systematically to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith…”

• “Considering that today the conditions which led the holy Pontiff John Paul II to institute the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei have changed; noting that the Institutes and Religious Communities which customarily celebrate in the extraordinary form have today found proper stability of number and of life; recognizing that the aims and questions addressed by the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei are of a predominantly doctrinal order…”

• “I decree that… The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, instituted on 2 July 1988 with the Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei adflicta, is decommissioned [soppressa, “suppressed”, in the original Italian].”

• “Furthermore, I establish that this Motu Proprio – to be observed notwithstanding anything to the contrary, even if worthy of specific mention – be promulgated by publication in the 19 January 2019 issue of L’Osservatore Romano, entering immediately into force, and that it be inserted thereafter into the official register of the Holy See, the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.”

It doesn’t take a lawyer to discern in the quoted language an implied negation of everything the now-abolished PCED was empowered to do in order to ensure that under SP the Church’s Latin liturgical patrimony be made available “to all the faithful,” “all who ask for it” and every priest. Consider the following points:

First, notice how the Letter clearly implies that only a few “Institutes and Religious Communities” — not all the faithful — were ever the beneficiaries of SP and the PCED’s powers to enforce SP’s norms and that today these institutes and communities have “stability of number.”

Second, the crucial phrase “stability of number” is a dead giveaway of an intention to limit use the traditional Mass and sacramental rites to the few institutes and communities that already use them — no additions to this “stabile” list permitted! — while obrogating (impliedly repealing a prior law by enacting a new law) the Benedictine mandate that the traditional Mass and sacraments be made available to all individual members of the faithful and all individual priests who request them.

Third, Bergoglio’s intention to obrogate Benedict’s universally operative pro-Latin liturgy regime is confirmed by the Letter’s provision that “this Motu Proprio – to be observed notwithstanding anything to the contrary, even if worthy of specific mention….” This is classic canonical language for a blanket obrogation (again, implied repeal) of all prior Church law deemed inconsistent with new legislation.

Fourth, accordingly, the Letter clearly implies that the new section of the CDF replacing the PCED as a separate entity will exist solely to conduct discussions with the SSPX on its supposed “doctrinal” differences with Rome, not to ensure access to the traditional Mass and sacraments throughout the Church.

 

St Thomas Aquinas Seminary, SSPX, Minnesota

In sum, the right of any aggrieved member of the faithful to have access to the Church’s liturgical patrimony, guaranteed under both SP and the 2011 Instruction, now quietly disappears without a trace, along with the former PCED’s crucial function as hierarchical superior for enforcement of SP’s norms against local interference.

If anyone doubts that this is precisely the outcome contemplated by Bergoglio and his collaborators, consider a prominent article published in the January 19, 2019 issue of L’Osservatore Romano, to which LifeSiteNews has alerted its readers. In the article, distributed to journalists by the Vatican Press Office, one Nicola Gori tellingly observes:

“It is therefore not a question of a wholesale suppression [of the PCED], but of a transfer of competencies, given that the main axis on which the activity will be based has been restricted to the doctrinal sphere…. This means that progress has been made in communion and therefore the current motu proprio offers implicit recognition to the Pontifical Commission which, with its efforts and activity, has fulfilled its duties.”

Note well: According to Gori and the Vatican Press Office, the PCED’s work is done, and now all that remains is for the CDF to continue its endless palaver with the SSPX’s representatives about vague “doctrinal differences.”

None of these “doctrinal differences,” by the way, have ever been reduced to actual propositions stating in so many words the new doctrines arising from Vatican II and its aftermath that SSPX adherents would be required to accept in order to be considered Catholics in good standing. That is because no such propositions exist, the Church having no power to announce new doctrines at Vatican II or otherwise.

So, everything else the PCED did (or was supposed to do) for the benefit of the faithful in general has been extinguished by the stroke of a pen. As Gori confirms: “Over the years, the institutes and religious communities that celebrate in the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite have also reached a certain stability of both people and life. And this evolution has also gradually led to a reduction in the work of the Pontifical Commission.”  

This “stability” obviously means no further growth in the number of people outside “institutes and religious communities” that “celebrate in the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite.” In short, a Bergoglian quarantine of the Latin liturgical tradition.

Adding to the trail of breadcrumbs, the newly appointed editorial director of Vatican communications, the prominent Vaticanist and relentless Bergoglian apologist Andrea Tornielli, has published an editorial in which he states tellingly as follows:

“The emergency no longer exists, thanks also to the decision of Benedict XVI to permit the use of the 1962 Roman Missal (promulgated by Pope St. John XXIII before the beginning of the Second Vatican Council).

For this reason, Pope Francis said in the motu proprio that ‘the Institutes and Religious communities which habitually celebrate in the extraordinary form have today found their own stability of number and life’. Their existence is therefore consolidated, and all the functions are transferred to the new section which, among other things, will consist of the same staff previously employed by the Commission….

This most recent change is motivated by the fact that the aims and questions dealt with by the Commission ‘are of a primarily doctrinal order’. This is a reference to the dialogue between the Holy See and the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, or FSSPX, founded by Archbishop Lefebvre.”

Like the Apostolic Letter itself and the article by Gori, Tornielli’s editorial conspicuously fails to mention the former PCED’s role in ensuring that the traditional Mass and sacraments would be available to all priests and all faithful who ask for them, not just those attached to “the Institutes and Religious communities which habitually celebrate in the extraordinary form [and] have today found their own stability of number and life.” As to the latter, Tornielli says “their existence is therefore consolidated….” Meaning juridically frozen as the only vehicles for access to the traditional Mass and sacraments.

I hasten to add that this does not mean that bishops here and there will not continue to be favorable to a wider access to liturgical tradition in various dioceses, where Latin Mass parishes and chapels have exploded in number since SP was promulgated. But it does mean that bishops hostile to liturgical tradition will no longer have to contend with the PCED as a “hierarchical superior” with the power to overrule them should they refuse to comply with the norms of SP and the 2011 Instruction. They can now simply point to Bergoglio’s suppression of the PCED and say to those requesting access to liturgical tradition: As the Pope has declared, you have your religious institutes and communities, which are stable in number. Go look for one of them if you want a Latin Mass.

All that remains is a formal abrogation of SP — i.e., its complete and explicit repeal, as distinct from obrogation — on the same ground on which the PCED was suppressed: that there is no longer any need for SP as “the Institutes and Religious communities which habitually celebrate in the extraordinary form have today found their own stability of number and life.”

I would venture that Bergoglio is quite disposed and is even planning to abrogate SP upon the death of Pope Benedict, should Bergoglio survive him.

Then the way would be open to a papal or local episcopal diktat, once again reducing access to the Latin Mass to a mere indult that can be granted or withdrawn at will. The principle (to quote Benedict) that “what was sacred for prior generations, remains sacred and great for us as well, and cannot be suddenly prohibited” would once again be buried by a brutal exercise of raw power.

Pozzo Removed

While the staff of the suppressed PCED is supposed to be carried over into the superseding section of the CDF, whose work will now apparently be limited to “doctrinal” discussions with the SSPX, in another of the cunning maneuvers that have characterized this pontificate Bergoglio has removed one, and only one person, from the former PCED’s staff: its Secretary, Monsignor Guido Pozzo. By a separate decree, Pozzo was humiliatingly demoted to finance chief for the Pontifical Musical Choir.

 

Archbishop Guido Pozzo, humiliatingly demoted

It was Pozzo who, while serving as PCED’s Secretary, famously described a “para-conciliar ideology” according to which, in the name of Vatican II, a “foreign way of thinking has entered into the Catholic world, stirring up confusion, seducing many souls, and disorienting the faithful.” There is in the Church today, said he, “a ‘spirit of self-demolition’ that pervades modernism….”

And it was Pozzo who expressed strong sympathy for the position of the SSPX regarding the notoriously problematic texts of the Council (including Nostra Aetate, Unitatis Redintegratio, and Dignitatis Humanae) whose compatibility with Tradition is far from evident.

Regarding the “doctrinal” discussions with the SSPX, Pozzo uttered the forbidden thought that the conciliar documents at issue are not strictly doctrinal but in many places pastoral or prudential in character and therefore may be subjected to legitimate criticism as such. Pozzo even dared to speak the truth that “the Church’s tradition is developing, but never in the sense of a novelty – which stands in contrast to the previous teaching – but [rather] a deeper understanding of the Depositum fidei, the authentic deposit of the Faith.”

So, obviously, Pozzo had to go. Which means there is no one left among the former staff of the PCED who will admit that the “doctrinal discussions” are not really about strict doctrine but rather ambiguous and novel pronouncements which, being novelties, cannot possibly pertain to the perennial Faith and thus cannot be forced upon Catholics as objects of belief.

“Dialogue” and “ecumenism,” for example, are not articulable doctrines but novel ecclesial activities in which Church leaders have vainly engaged for half a century with no results except grave damage to the integrity of the Faith through the now-prevalent attitude “which considers all religions to be more or less good and praiseworthy”—precisely the grave error condemned by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos as leading to “naturalism and atheism” and ultimately to “altogether abandoning the divinely revealed religion” (n. 2).

Conclusion

Perhaps I will be proven wrong in my prediction that the suppression of the PCED is but the opening salvo in Bergoglio’s attack on the Latin liturgical revival launched by his predecessor. We shall soon see.

"But there is one prediction in which we can all be completely confident: the Church’s eventual full recovery from the madness of the post-conciliar “updating” of the Church.

 

"When that happens, coincident with the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, this pontificate and the preceding ecclesial chaos of which it represents the apex will fade from memory to reside only in the annals of the most embarrassing failures of the Church’s fallible human element.'

BERGOGLIO DRAFTING SHAFTING OF LATIN MASS

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The Traditional Latin Mass 

"Latin Mass to be suppressed: confirmed" was the alarming but perhaps alarmist news item which shot across my bows today. 

Jorge Bergoglio, according to a website dedicated to promoting the Traditional Latin Mass, is about to "reform" Summorum Pontificum "for the worse". 

What that means, in common parlance, is that he intends to remove the right granted by Pope Benedict XVI to any priest, anywhere in the world, to celebrate the Latin Mass and instead allow individual bishops or - worst case scenario - the Vatican, to cancel that right. 

A blog post of War and Peace proportions seems justified in order to clarify this issue, than which there is none more important in the Catholic Church today; none more vital to the salvation of souls for which Our Lord Jesus Christ thirsted on the Cross and still thirsts today. 

As the Catholic historian H J A Sire writes in Phoenix from the Ashes - the Making, Unmaking and Restoration of Catholic Tradition:

"Of the many evils that have been visited on the Church since the Second Vatican Council, the most grievous by far is the destruction of the traditional liturgy (the Latin Mass) and the devotional life that used to accompany it. 

"If the liturgy had not been touched, the doctrinal anarchy and the subservience to modern mores that entered the Church with Pope Paul VI (canonised by 'Pope Francis') would have had slight effect on the ordinary faithful.

 

St Pope Paul VI - the Society of St Pius X had "serious reservations"

It is more than anything the loss of the Mass on which centuries of devotion were nurtured that has turned the modern Church into a wasteland and crippled it as a spiritual force."  

The unsigned article in “Messa in Latina” (MIL or messainlatina.il) alleges that the pontiff told the Italian Bishops at the opening of their General Assembly yesterday that he had finished the third draft of a document that will restrict the use of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, also called the Traditional Latin Mass or (inaccurately) the Tridentine Mass.

“After once again warning against accepting ‘rigid’ (that is, faithful to doctrine) young men into the seminary, Francis told the bishops that he had reached the third draft of a text that contains measures restricting the celebration by Catholic priest of Mass in the Extraordinary Form made accessible by Benedict XVI, who according to [Pope Francis] wished with Summorum Pontificum to encounter only the followers of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (the Society of St. Pius X priests)” Messa in Latina reported.

Pope Francis then suggested, the website alleged, that there are many young priests who want to celebrate the “Tridentine Mass” even if they don’t know Latin. The sources also apparently told Messa in Latina that the pontiff told a characteristic story about a supposedly rigid young priest and his wise, in the eyes of Francis, bishop.

“To illustrate he told the story of a bishop to whom a young priest had turned to express his intention to celebrate in the Extraordinary Form,” MIL reported.

“When asked if he know Latin, the young priest told the bishop that he was learning it. At that the bishop told him that it would be better to learn Spanish or Vietnamese because there were many Hispanics and Vietnamese people in the diocese.”

The MIL blogger fears that there will be a return to the days of the “indult” — when priests could say the Traditional Latin Mass only with the permission of their bishop, or an even stricter situation, in which they can celebrate it only with the Vatican’s approval, “ghettoizing” priests and laypeople dedicated to the ancient rite. He contrasted the Pope Emeritus and Pope Francis in dramatic terms.

“After Moses the liberator, the Pharaoh would return,” he wrote.

The unknown author also underscored, correctly, that Benedict XVI did not address only “Lefebvrians” with his 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, but the whole Church. As evidence, MIL pointed to an interview the Pope Emeritus gave to Peter Seewald, in which he explicitly said that he had not written Summorum Pontificum as a concession to the SSPX.

Although the English-language blog Rorate Caeli swiftly posted MIL’s story, it was greeted with scepticism by liturgical expert Gregory Di Pippo. Upon hearing the allegations that Pope Francis wants to water down Pontificum Summorum, Di Pippo, editor of New Liturgical Movement, said, “Again? How many times have we heard this in the last 8 years?"

According to the Sala Stampa, the Vatican Press Office, the pontiff gave an “off-the-cuff" address to the assembled Italian bishops, followed by an interview with those present. It did not publish Pope Francis’s remarks.https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/fears-traditional-latin-mass-will-be-suppressed-renewed-in-wake-of-popes-alleged-comments-to-italian-bishops

Today Dr Peter Kwasniewski points out some historical connections of Vatican II which he says deserve to be better known:

 

Pope Pius XII 

 "Is it possible that Pope Pius XII, in a sincere attempt to defend the Church against Communism, accidentally gave the Freemasons the leverage that they would need to (in effect) blackmail the Church and to make long-desired changes during Vatican II and beyond—especially by means of the liturgical reform run by Bugnini, a likely Freemason himself?

"... It seems at least plausible that the Holy See’s twentieth-century misjudgment of international relations, with the dangerous bed-partners to which it led, has more than a little to do with the ambiguities and silences in Vatican II and with the shape of the liturgical reform before and after that council."

Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, architect of the Novus Ordo 

 

" In 1948, Pope Pius XII established the Commission for Liturgical Reform with Annibale Bugnini as its Secretary. This commission would research and propose liturgical reforms that culminated in an experimental Easter Vigil in 1951 and a thoroughly revamped Holy Week in 1955, and paved the way for the Novus Ordo Mass of 1969.

"Historically speaking, both 1947 and 1954 stick out as significant dates, which may be worth taking into account as we try to unravel how the liturgical debacle took place. The information that follows was relayed to me by a writer who has made twentieth-century political conspiracy one of his main topics of research.

"1947 was the year that Operation Gladio was started by the CIA to stop the spread of Communism in western Europe. Those who wish to read more about the operation will find a good introductory article here, but the summary is that the CIA generated funding for Gladio through conspiring with mafia groups operating in the international drug trade and, in order to launder the drug money, employed the Vatican Bank due to Article 2 of the Lateran Treaty of 1929, which permitted the privacy they needed.

 

The Vatican Bank

"These anti-Communist actions resulted in the funding of various terrorist cells to prevent Communist and anti-American parties from gaining electoral office in Post-War Europe, as well as some high-level assassinations. Gladio, in essence, is the European version of Operation Condor of South America and reminds one of how the CIA trained the Taliban in the 1980s during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 1948 saw the first election in which Gladio would interfere, when the Italian electorate were close to electing a Communist party to office.

"Already in 1945, Pope Pius XII had met with William Donovan (former head of the OSS, precursor to the CIA, and chairman at the time of the American Committee on United Europe) about preventing the spread of Communism in Europe. Donovan was reportedly rewarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Sylvester due to his role as an anti-Communist crusader.

"Further, Pius XII is alleged to have worked with Alan Dulles, the first CIA Director (as well as a 33rd-degree Freemason and Council of Foreign Relations member) around the same time as part of Operation Paperclip, where over 1,600 German scientists were smuggled out of Post-War Germany to help in the development of US scientific endeavors, including defense and space capabilities related to rocket propulsion technology.

"I mention Dulles too because he was influential in reviving the Italian Masonic Lodge Propaganda Due (P2), which Mussolini banned during the 1920s and which would play an important role in Operation Gladio and seems likely to have played a role in shaping Vatican II as well. (It must never be forgotten that much of Vatican II’s agenda and strategy was determined by behind-the-scenes geopolitical negotiations; we know, for example, about the lengths to which the pursuit of Ostpolitik drove the Vatican.)

'With regards to the ramming-through of major liturgical change in 1955, it is vital to note that Pius XII suffered from a lengthy and debilitating illness starting in 1954, which prevented him from being as effective in office as he was prior to this illness (indeed, he even considered abdicating). The illness divides his pontificate: after it, His Holiness became more reclusive and reportedly went under a personality change.

"It is indeed difficult to believe that the pope who promulgated Mediator Dei in 1947 would have agreed to the drastic changes to the liturgy of 1955 had he not been compromised in his mental faculties or moral strength.

"Considering all of this, as well as what would later follow, is it possible that Pope Pius XII, in a sincere attempt to defend the Church against Communism, accidentally gave the Freemasons the leverage that they would need to (in effect) blackmail the Church and to make long-desired changes during Vatican II and beyond—especially by means of the liturgical reform run by Bugnini, a likely Freemason himself?

"This would not be the first time that a good Pope made a bad political decision that deeply affected the Church. For example, Pope Leo XIII’s support of the French Republic bitterly divided French Catholics (historian Roberto de Mattei calls it “a grave error in pastoral strategy”), while Pope Pius XI brokered a deal with the Mexican government that led to the defeat of La Cristiada or the Cristeros rebellion and occasioned the killing of Catholics.

"Pius XI’s condemnation of Action Française was also a watershed moment in the rehabilitation of liberal Catholicism and the estrangement between the political right and the Church. Further, as Paul L. Williams argues in his book Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance between the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia, the death of Pope John Paul I and the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II may well be connected to Gladio.

"Certainly, if Gladio shaped the Catholic Church, it would explain why David Rockefeller would think he could ask Pope Paul VI to write an encyclical to promote Catholic contraception (which thankfully Humanae Vitae refuted), why Pope Paul VI would give the Papal Tiara to the United States, why Pope John Paul II changed his outlook on US foreign policy, and why there are still so many questions surrounding the Vatican Bank scandal and the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI.

 

"Moreover, the financial and moral corruption of the court of Bergoglio has reached a new high comparable to that of the worst Renaissance popes, except without the cultural compensation of their artistic taste and patronage. In regard to the current papacy, we can safely say there is far more we do not (yet) know than anything that has come to light so far.

"It seems at least plausible that the Holy See’s twentieth-century misjudgment of international relations, with the dangerous bed-partners to which it led, has more than a little to do with the ambiguities and silences in Vatican II and with the shape of the liturgical reform before and after that council.

 

 St Augustine of Canterbury (May 27)

St Augustine of Canterbury, pray for the Church

OUR LADY AN OBSTACLE TO THE NEW WORLD CHURCH

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Basilica of Our Lady, Help of Christians, Turin 

"Yes, Our Lady is an obstacle to the globalist vision of a new World Church/religion. 

"What has occurred is a diminishment of the sense of the cruciality and regality of Our Lady's position in the Christian life. 

"A sense of 'ordinariness' has developed and intensified, even in the Catholic Church. How many Bishops, priests and lecturers have given talks on how 'ordinary' Our Lady was."

Matthew Walton of Palmerston North with his wife Teresa hold sway on this blog today as they comment further on the Memorial of Our Lady Help of Christians, which we'd naively expected to celebrate as usual, as New Zealand's patronal feast, on May 24.

"All Our Lady's titles and privileges are dependent on her having become the Mother of God, which Mary became when she accepted the angel's message at the Annunciation. We could indeed look upon her titles and consider that the greatest of these is "Mother". As we know however, Mary is the pre-eminent Mother, a mother with Divine Maternity. No other mother has Divine Maternity.

 

Madonna with the Child and Two Angels
Fra Filippo Lippi

     Titles are like truths which we can look to, which enlighten, guide and direct. A quote from the Divine Will writings may shed some light: " In these truths, I have placed all possible and imaginable goods, love that conquers, enraptures and moves the heart" - When The Divine Will Reigns in Souls, Luisa Piccaretta, Sept. 27, 1938.

      Regrettably, what has occurred in our own era has been a diminishment of the sense of the cruciality and regality of Our Lady's position in the Christian life. One could say a sense of 'ordinariness' has developed and intensified even in the Catholic Church.

How many Bishops, priests and lecturers have given talks on how 'ordinary' Our Lady was; invariably an 'ordinary' Jewish or Palestinian girl, surprised at what she was being asked at the Annunciation - which is reduced to her saying "Yes" to God. This has assisted at levelling out the core beliefs that differentiate us first from other Christians and then from other religions.

         Our Lady Help of Christians, May 24, was once N.Z.'s Patronal Feast Day. Admirable though the Feast of the Assumption is, which our Bishops made our new national Feast Day, it is particular to those who believe all the dogmas and Creeds that Catholics profess.

I believe it was a mistake to change it. For "Our Lady Help of Christians" carries a greater connotation of her being able to help all Christians. At the foot of the Cross, Jesus gave Mary to John - who is a figure of all Christians. In a future, united Christian Church Mary will be seen as a source of grace for the whole Christian Body.

          The Pope's move to take this day, "Our Lady Help of Christians" and rename it  "Mother of the Church" is really the peak of a long process of reducing Mary to being Mother, Catholic and 'ordinary'. What the Pope and many Catholic theologians really mean is 'Mother' in the ordinary human sense - no mention of Advocate, Mediatrix or Co-Redemptrix, for example.

          How many bishops, priests or teachers are able to teach the Marian dogmas, teachings and traditions? Why have the people lost the sense of Marian devotion ? It is as St Paul says: "They will not believe in Him unless they have heard of Him and they will not hear of Him unless they get a preacher" (Rom 10:14). This applies, in accordance with Catholic Mariology, to Our Lady as well as to Our Lord.

          Yes, Our Lady is an obstacle to the globalist vision of a new World Church/religion. So her impact has had to be diminished. Satan wants her played down, for Mary is the one who will crush his head. "I will put enmity between you and the Woman, between your seed and her seed; She will crush your head and you will strike her heel"(Gen. 3:15).

 

       The title, "Our Lady Help of Christians" was inserted into the Litany of Our Lady by Pope St Pius V, after the Christian victory over the Turkish (Muslim) fleet at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. On May 24, 1814, Pius VII instituted the liturgical feast of "Our Lady Help of Christians".

 

         Our Lady, "Help of Christians", is the help of nations, communities and individuals. The nations of Europe had further reason to call for Our Lady's help in 1683 when the Turks (Muslims) were besieging Vienna. On September 12 they were defeated by an army led by Jan Sobieski, King of Poland. In perpetual memory of the event, Pope Innocent XI instituted the Confraternity of Our Lady Help of Christians. ('Mary, Mother and Model' - Fr James Alberione SSP, 1962.)

           So, at least twice in history, Our Lady has been called to the aid of Christian nations besieged by Turkish forces (which were both Islamic and secular in nature).  Is this why Pope Francis is trying to erase the memory of "Our Lady help of Christians"? In deference to dialogue with Islam ?

I have a friend from an Islamic nation and I know from conversations with him that they prefer robust dialogue. They don't have much respect for people who abandon their beliefs. Nor, as we know, do the best of people. 

              From the Mass of Our Lady, Help of Christians:

"O Mother of our Redeemer and Lord, O beautiful Virgin, we proclaim you the honour of Christians and their help in tribulations ... The Virgin, rendered powerful by God's right hand, is rich in heavenly gifts and wards off from her pious servants the diabolical attacks of the enemies."