Next Article >        < Prev Article

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 | Cover | Page 01

Peter and the Sax Player

Is Vatican II too traditional for Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga? If not, why is he misquoting Lumen Gentium to fit his modernist narrative?

By Christopher A. Ferrara

As

we approach the first anniversary of the election of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio to the papacy, we are hearing almost daily the ominous vroom-vroom of an engine of novelty warming up for the final lap to the finish line of the Second Vatican Disaster. One breathless report last week sums up the world’s ecstasy over this pontificate and its blatant catering to the mass media:

Rumours of revolution are swirling through the streets of Rome and the frescoed halls of Vatican City.

Doctrinal conservatism is out — compassion is in.

Ten months into his papacy, Pope Francis is setting in motion what looks like seismic change in the Catholic Church, although the outcome of this revolution is difficult to predict….

Francis, it seems, has a three-pronged strategy: He's leveraging his public media appeal to realign the overall "message" of the church; he’s dismantling a dysfunctional Curia; and he’s rebuilding a new kind of Church.

~ Peter and the Sax/ Page 6

Powered by TECNAVIA

Copyright (C) 1996-2014 Remnant Press 01/31/2014

Next Article >        < Prev Article

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 | Cover | Page 01

Cultural Chastisement

By Michael J. Matt

Ihesitate to write on the question of pop music these days, even though it is a most significant cultural force about which I've given many lectures and even written a book. Pop music is a beast that never sleeps. It dominates the politics, fashions and consciousness of millions of people worldwide, and forms a propaganda machine such as the world has never seen. It directly impacts the decisions and policies of presidents and popes, the young, the old and entire generations in between.

When John Lennon noted that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ he may well have been making a mere statement of the obvious, since by then the Light of Christ had already become eclipsed by the cultural signs and wonders of a Christophobic beat generation, hungry for revolution and eager to usher in the post-Christian "enlightenment".

So why not write more about it?

Because I find it difficult to believe that after all these years and with so much cultural sewage coursing through the veins of modern society, that any traditional Catholic would actually need me or anyone else to give him a heads up about the myriad problems with pop music or the industry that spawned it.

It is hardly by accident that western civilization not only finds itself barreling down the highway to hell, but now just about to arrive at its destination.

And, let’s face it, culturally speaking, the modern leg of that road trip was sponsored by the pop music industry.

The Sexual Revolution was ushered in a half century ago by Marxist minstrels who used beat and sex to pulverize the

~ Editor's Desk/ Page 2

Powered by TECNAVIA

Copyright (C) 1996-2014 Remnant Press 01/31/2014

Next Article >        < Prev Article

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 | Cover | Page 01

FFI and the Mass:

It’s Not a Choice,

It’s a Conviction

By Louis Tofari

The

Theongoing saga of the unjust and tragic persecution of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate has demonstrated once again what is actually at the root of the post-conciliar liturgical crisis – namely the issue of doctrine in relation to the traditional Roman Mass versus the

Novus Ordo Missae.

Like cream rising to the top of a milk pail, recent news has affirmed initial speculations that the friars and sisters were being treated in a heavyhand fashion because some members were harboring " crypto-lefebvrian and definitely traditionalist drift

" as related

in a letter by Apostolic Commissar – err,

Commissioner

- Fr. Fidenzio Volpi.[1] So just what does this " cryptolefebvrian and definitely traditionalist drift" actually refer to? According to a few reports, a discrete but general agreement with Archbishop Lefebvre's (and thus his priestly society’s) theological stance on the Second Vatican Council as well as the problems of the

Novus Ordo Missae

– specifically, whether it conforms with the liturgical axiom of

lex credendi, lex orandi

.[2] In fact, it is safe to presume that this

must

be the case, for what other position could merit being labeled – or blackballed – as "

crypto-lefebvrian"

~

FFI and the Mass/

Page 5

St.

Maximilian

Kolbe

So

P

Koo

Powered by TECNAVIA

Copyright (C) 1996-2014 Remnant Press 01/31/2014

Next Article >        < Prev Article

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 | Cover | Page 02

The Remnant

Est. in 1967

A Catholic Fortnightly

Published 22 times per year

Editor/Publisher

Michael J. Matt

The Remnant (ISSN # 0274-9726. U.S.P.S.# 606840) is published semi-monthly (monthly in January and July) 22 times per year by The Remnant, Inc. Periodicals Postage paid at Forest Lake, MN and additional entry offices. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to The Remnant at P.O. Box 1117, Forest Lake, MN 55025. (Telephone: 651-433-5425)

___

Subscription Pricing

Standard U.S.: Print $35 Canada: Print Edition $40 U.S. FIRST CLASS: $50 Canadian FIRST CLASS: $55 Foreign (Outside US & Canada): $55 25-Copy Bulk Subscription: $150 E-Subscription Anywhere: $25 Single Copy Price: $1.50 Subscribe by phone:

(651) 204-0145

VISA, MASTERCARD& DISCOVER

Or subscribe by mail: The Remnant Press P.O. Box 1117 Forest Lake, MN 55025 Email: Editor@RemnantNewspaper.com Visit us on the Internet:

www.RemnantNewspaper.com

Powered by TECNAVIA

Copyright (C) 1996-2014 Remnant Press 01/31/2014

Next Article >        < Prev Article

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 | Cover | Page 03

The Remnant Speaks

Letters to the Editor: The Remnant Speaks P.O. Box 1117, Forest Lake, MN 55025, Editor@RemnantNewspaper.com Frank Morris, RIP

E.di.t.o.r., . The Remnant: I just came from the Rosary for Mr. Morris. Although Frank wrote for The Wanderer he was a staunch defender of the Faith and member of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel La.t.i.n. .Ma.s.s. .Co.mmun.i.t.y. .he.r.e. .i.n. .D.e.n.v.e.r.. .

We will be singing a High Requiem funeral Mass tomorrow at OLMC. I t.hi.n.k .he. .de.s.e.r.v.e.s. .r.e.c.o.gn.i.t.i.o.n. .f.r.o.m . The Remnant.

Paul Cyr

E.di.t.o.r., . The Remnant: I sent a message to Rolling Stone .ma.ga.z.i.n.e., .v.o.i.c.i.n.g .my. .

disgust at their Pope Francis article. I told them they’re using him to further t.he.i.r. .a.ge.n.da. .a.n.d .t.ha.t. .he. .i.s. .s.t.i.l.l. .p.r.o.-.l.i.f.e. .

a.n.d .p.r.o.-.Ca.t.ho.l.i.c.-.-. . .w.hi.c.h .t.he.y. .mo.s.t. .

certainly are not. I said Pope Francis di.dn.'t. .i.n.v.e.n.t. .b.e.i.n.g .go.o.d .t.o. .t.he. .p.o.o.r., .

Jesus did, and the Church was always t.he. .b.e.s.t. .f.r.i.e.n.d .t.he. .p.o.o.r. .e.v.e.r. .ha.d. . .

I also said Jesus taught a lot of other things that they hate. I wished them God’s help, too. I hate that magazine.

I .a.l.w.a.y.s. .ha.v.e., .e.v.e.n. .w.he.n. .I .l.i.s.t.e.n.e.d .t.o. .

rock music. It was always leftist. I’m c.o.n.v.i.n.c.e.d .a. .c.o.mmun.i.s.t. .s.t.a.r.t.e.d .i.t.. .Our. .

Pope does talk too much sometimes, b.ut. .I .ha.t.e. .hi.m .b.e.i.n.g .o.n. .t.he. .c.o.v.e.r. .o.f. .t.ha.t. . terrible magazine! You’re right—God help us!

Marybeth Chaney A Witticism

Cardinal Bergoglio has become Pope Imbroglio.

Alan Peter Albuquerque, NM Cancel The Remnant!

E.di.t.o.r., . The Remnant: Please cancel my subscription to The Remnant. I’m tired of the hate messages targeted at Our Holy Father Pope Frances (SIC). Please stop judging him. God the Father said to St.. .Ca.t.he.r.i.n.e. .o.f. .Si.e.n.n.a. .n.e.v.e.r. .t.o. .judge. .

s.o.me.o.n.e., .t.ha.t. .t.hi.s. .[.b.e.i.n.g .judgme.n.t.a.l.]. .

s.e.p.a.r.a.t.e.s. .o.n.e. .f.r.o.m .Go.d .a.n.d .p.r.e.v.e.n.t.s. .

perfection. This is in the book The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Sienna.

You use as an excuse to judge that you are spreading the truth, but in reality y.o.u .a.r.e. .jus.t. .c.a.us.i.n.g .di.v.i.s.i.o.n. .w.i.t.hi.n. .

the Catholic Church. The Freemasons use just this tactic to help destroy the Chur.c.h. . .I .ha.v.e. .a. .l.e.ga.l. .r.i.ght. .t.o. .c.a.n.c.e.l. .

my subscription so do not send me any more issues. If I continue to get issues I will mail them back to you at your expense.

Jean Rathke Rockford, IL Editor’s Response: Bill Buckley would say 'cancel your own dang subscription!' But in a few weeks it will be possible to do just that at our new website. Stay tuned. MJM Greeting to the Great Fr. Dougherty

E.di.t.o.r., . The Remnant: On Friday, January 10th, .I .v.i.s.i.t.e.d .t.he. .l.e.ge.n.da.r.y. .

Fa.t.he.r. .E.uge.n.e. .D.o.ughe.r.t.y., .f.o.r.me.r. .w.r.i.t.e.r. .

for the Remnant, at his retirement home for priests. We had a great time discussing his accomplishments in promoting the Traditional Latin Mass, Church Tradition and Church teaching. His mind is still as sharp as a tack. When I came into his room and introduced myself, he said: "I ha.v.e. .he.a.r.d .a.l.l. .a.b.o.ut. .y.o.u, .Fa.t.he.r. .

Cizik." Father Dougherty referred, w.i.t.h .a.p.p.r.o.v.a.l., .t.o. .my. .Fa.t.i.ma. .a.r.t.i.c.l.e. .i.n. .

The Remnant. He has fond memories o.f. .hi.s. .l.o.n.g-.a.go. .v.i.s.i.t. .t.o. .Mi.n.n.e.s.o.t.a. .f.o.r. .a. .

Traditionalist conference. He spoke of you, Michael, playing the guitar as he sang "Vatican 2 1/2." I encouraged him to submit a new article for The Remnant.

He still says the Traditional Latin Mass e.v.e.r.y. .da.y.. . .Pr.a.y. .f.o.r. .hi.m, .a.s. .he. .i.s. .s.ur.e. .t.o. .

pray for us.

Father Cizik

Editor’s Note: How fondly we all remember the regular Remnant column penned by our old and dear friend, Fr.

Dougherty. Father has done so much to inspire thousands of us to keep the old Faith in a dark and terrible new t.i.me.. .Hi.s. .p.r.i.e.s.t.l.y. .e.xa.mp.l.e. .o.f. .fide.l.i.t.y. .i.n. .

Catholic action, along with a good dose of gallows’ humor, of course, is greatly appreciated. Our prayers and best wishes for good health and happiness are with you always, Father. Please pray for us. MJM Latest from Remnant TV

E.di.t.o.r., . The Remnant: Michael Matt’s recent Remnant message from the catacombs www.youtube.com/ w.a.t.c.h?.v.=.r.gO37e.6.9.T5k concerning t.he. .i.n.flue.n.c.e. .o.f. .Ms.. .K.a.t.y. .Pe.r.r.y.'s. .

l.e.s.b.i.a.n. .v.o.c.a.l. .n.a.r.r.a.t.i.v.e. .o.n. .o.ur. .v.e.r.y. .

impressionable youth needs to be AMPLIFIE.D.. . .It. .a.l.s.o. .n.e.e.ds. .t.o. .b.e. .

recognized and realized that this is a serious call to Militant Catholic Action.

To.o. .ma.n.y. .o.f. .us. .f.o.r. .f.a.r. .t.o.o. .l.o.n.g .ha.v.e. .

been looking away rather than looking di.r.e.c.t.l.y. .a.t. .t.he. .gr.o.w.i.n.g .c.hi.l.d-.ki.l.l.i.n.g .

monster that our entertainment industry has been building. Looking around at today’s society and its hideous landscapes littered with decadent l.i.t.e.r.a.t.ur.e., .a.r.t. .a.n.d .w.ha.t.e.v.e.r. .p.a.s.s.e.s. .f.o.r. .

music, one has to ask the question: "Ha.v.e. .We. .Be.e.n. .Be.a.t.e.n.?." . .Tur.n. .o.n. .t.he. .

radio and listen to what the children listen to. Go to the social websites and spend a little time looking, listening and it won’t be long before your mind i.s. .s.c.r.a.mb.l.i.n.g .t.o. .fin.d .a.n. .e.s.c.a.p.e. .r.o.ut.e. .t.o. .

s.a.n.i.t.y.. . .The.r.e. .i.s. .n.o. .a.v.e.n.ue. .o.f. .e.s.c.a.p.e. .f.o.r. . them, not from the pounding, screaming ga.r.b.a.ge. .t.ha.t. .t.he. .J.ude.o.-.Ma.s.o.n.i.c. .c.a.b.a.l. .

media producers are feeding to our children. Once the child becomes of age the peer pressure and other social lures that permeate the genre are hy.p.n.o.t.i.c., .c.a.p.t.i.v.a.t.i.n.g .a.n.d .de.a.dl.y.. . .The. .

ubiquitous tentacles of this monster are indefatigable and no amount of human reasoning seems to be able to unwind their penetrating grip or to silence the ha.mme.r.s. .o.f. .He.l.l. .t.ha.t. .dr.i.v.e. .i.t.s. .mo.r.da.n.t. .

machinations. It must also be recognized that the sports industry is equally guilty.

Today’s sports heroes that our boys and girls are worshiping are in reality a gang o.f. .mut.i.l.a.t.e.d .i.n.ke.d-.up. .b.r.ut.a.l. .b.a.r.b.a.r.i.a.n.s.. . .

Take a good look and don’t tell me that n.o.t. .a.l.l. .a.r.e. .l.i.ke. .t.ha.t.. . .E.n.o.ugh .o.f. .t.he.m .

a.r.e. .a.n.d .t.ha.t. .s.ho.ul.d .s.e.n.d .up. .a. .r.e.d .fla.g .t.o. .

let you know that more not less of the s.a.me. .i.s. .o.n. .t.he. .w.a.y.. . .Ho.w. .o.f.t.e.n. .ha.v.e. .w.e. .

read about an athlete doing something i.l.l.e.ga.l. .o.r. .di.s.gr.a.c.e.f.ul.;. .e.v.e.r.y.t.hi.n.g .f.r.o.m .

adultery to murder. Please, no more excuses and no more apathy. Am I right i.n. .a.s.ki.n.g .w.he.t.he.r. .o.r. .n.o.t. .w.e. .ha.v.e. .b.e.e.n. .

beaten? It certainly looks that way to me and I am old enough to remember how things were before Woodstock. The c.o.n.s.e.r.v.a.t.i.v.e.s. .p.o.o.l.e.d .t.he.i.r. .r.e.s.o.ur.c.e.s. .t.he.n. . as they do now and tried the power of t.he. .v.o.t.e. .a.n.d .ke.p.t. .i.t. .up. .y.e.a.r. .a.f.t.e.r. .y.e.a.r. .

only to witness society continue on its downward moral journey. This should ha.v.e. .a.w.a.ke.n.e.d .t.he.m .t.o. .t.he. .r.e.a.l.i.z.a.t.i.o.n. .

that democracy was not on the right side where morality is concerned. In fact r.e.p.e.a.t.i.n.g .t.he. .s.a.me. .p.r.o.c.e.s.s. .o.v.e.r. .a.n.d .o.v.e.r. . expecting a different or better result is t.he. .de.fin.i.t.i.o.n. .o.f. .i.n.s.a.n.i.t.y.. . .

Mr. Matt is right in sounding the alarm and I would recommend that we all join in and do our utmost to combat the social rot that is destroying our Catholic Faith, family and country.

Where are the other leaders? The world I am looking at is beyond anything I c.o.ul.d .ha.v.e. .i.ma.gi.n.e.d .fif.t.y. .y.e.a.r.s. .a.go. .

and it certainly looks to me that we ha.v.e. .b.e.e.n. .b.e.a.t.e.n. .a.n.d .b.e.a.t.e.n. .b.a.dl.y.. . .

Remembering still, that in the end Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart will triumph.

Y.e.s., .i.n. .t.he. .e.n.d .b.ut., .w.e. .ha.v.e. .a. .jo.b. .t.o. .do. .

r.i.ght. .n.o.w.. . . .V.i.v.a. .Cr.i.s.t.o. .R.e.y.!

James Cunningham Cullman, AL John Poulin Remembered by a Chartres Pilgrim E.di.t.o.r., . The Remnant: As a young lady who was sponsored to walk the Chartres Pilgrimage by the late Mr. John Poulin in 2011, I would like to now publically thank him for his great generosity to me. Without his contribution and prayers, in all l.i.ke.l.i.ho.o.d, .I .w.o.ul.d .n.o.t. .ha.v.e. .b.e.e.n. .a.b.l.e. .t.o. . w.a.l.k .t.ha.t. .gr.a.c.e.-.fil.l.e.d .Pi.l.gr.i.ma.ge., .w.hi.c.h .

C N P

Pope on Rolling Stone Magazine

Letters to the Editor

C P

had such a very profound effect on my spiritual life. I am eternally indebted to Mr. Poulin and others like him who so generously funded my trip to France and Our Lady’s Playhouse.

After my return from France, I wrote a letter to Mr. Poulin, thanking him for his financial and spiritual assistance. He answered my letter and we corresponded occasionally until his death last September. Through his letters, I came to know him for the devout Catholic that he was. He was very concerned over the degradation of society, particularly among the youth.

He truly believed in the Pilgrimage as an occasion for Catholic young people to be strengthened by grace, and to learn what a fight is ahead of them as they venture out into the world. In one of his letters, he wrote, "I will again, God willing, send my little donation to the cause (of Chartres). I can think of few more worthy causes than to help our young Catholics learn to love the treasure we have in the Church." Another time he wrote, "Our poor countries need much prayer. If neither of us is on the physical pilgrimage to Chartres, we are both there with our brothers and sisters in spirit. It is always such a joy to read from the pilgrims afterwards, how Chartres is so much more than a three-day march. It is hopefully the first step (or early days) in the journey to everlasting life." This wonderful, kindly man has gone, we pray, to everlasting happiness. May he rest in peace!

I would ask of you, dear readers, to consider giving your assistance to the young people who now (or will in the years to come) seek help to enable them to walk the Chartres Pilgrimage. Mr.

Poulin has left the battlefield for eternity, but let us hope that many others rise up to take his place.

Mr. Poulin knew that the Pilgrimage to Chartres is a life-changing experience for everyone who walks it. In these evil times, it is crucially important that we young people make every effort to strengthen ourselves for the battles ahead. Our Blessed Lady gives so many graces to those who walk her Pilgrimage, and she watches over them in a special way. Today’s youth need the great graces of her motherly care.

Even if you do not have much, please consider giving what you can to the worthy young applicants seeking sponsorship. Having walked this pilgrimage myself in the past, and witnessed its power for spiritual good and graces, I am convinced that sponsors of the Remnant Youth Fund will be richly rewarded. May God bless you always, and may my friend and previous pilgrimage partner, John Poulin, rest in peace now that his pilgrimage has finally drawn to a close.

Ad Jesum per Mariam, Kristina A. Latz Seeking Pilgrimage Partners

Dear Remnant Readers. Our names are Catherine (19) and Maria (16) McFadden. We are the second and third oldest of ten children. Catherine is a sophomore at Christendom College and Maria is planning on entering as a freshman this fall. Our older brother, John, went on this pilgrimage about four years ago and it had a tremendous impact on his life. It gave him a deeper insight into the traditional Catholic liturgy practiced by those on the pilgrimage, as well as a deeper appreciation and understanding of the Faith. Our brother is now a monk at Clear Creek Abbey in Oklahoma (our Dad published an article about it in The Remnant some months back.) After learning about our brother’s amazing experience on this pilgrimage, we would love so very much if we could experience it as well. So we ask you to please help support us, so we can go and see where Catholicism once reigned as the one and only religion. We would pray for you on our pilgrimage as a token of our unending gratitude. Thank you and God bless you always! Sincerely ~ Maria & Catherine McFadden Front Royal, Virginia Dear Remnant Readers,

My name is Nicholas Rao. I'm 18, a home-schooled high - school graduate taking a gap year before college. I’m writing to ask for financial help in making the 2014 Chartres pilgrimage.

I am blessed to have grown up in a very strong Traditionalist Catholic community, centered at St. Agnes Parish in New York City. My Catholicism defines what I am and what I aspire to be, and provides me with a concrete identity essential to my weathering the evils – as well as benefitting from the advantages – of modern city life. There are few things I am as grateful for as having been born to good Catholic parents. For many years I have wanted to make the pilgrimage to Chartres, but have been unable until now to do so. My parents participated in it the year before I was born, and my father, Remnant columnist, John Rao, has participated in it every year since 2003 as a guide and chaperone. Each time, he describes it with an enthusiasm suggestive of a wholly new and transforming experience, and I believe that he finds it consistently the most spiritually invigorating event of his year.

It appeals to me for a variety of reasons. I see it as a truly unique opportunity for serious Catholics to unite on a spiritual level, outside of an academic or recreational environment, and to encourage each other in the Good Fight through a devotional exercise that engages all of the senses, yet is beautifully simple. Such an experience would be of particular significance to me in this year of decisions, as I apply to college. Any help in making this experience possible for me would be deeply appreciated, and I would be honored to take any sponsors as spiritual companions on the pilgrimage, bringing their intentions to our Blessed Mother at Chartres. God bless!

Nicholas Rao

Remnant Tours’ Youth Fund

PO Box 1117 Forest Lake, MN 55025

Young pilgrims will walk the pilgrimage in the name of their sponsors. As in years past, the names of sponsors and their special intentions will also be carried to Chartres and read aloud each day on the Pilgrimage. MJM

Waiting for Sponsors:

McFadden Sisters, Front Royal VA Alexander Kunkel, Ohio Olivia Rao, New York William Bischel, Ohio Michael Rubin, Catholic University Alyssa Brandon, Indiana Nicholas Rao, New York

Powered by TECNAVIA

Copyright (C) 1996-2014 Remnant Press 01/31/2014

Next Article >        < Prev Article

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 | Cover | Page 03

Inside this issue

January 31, 2013

R.e.p.r.i.n.t.s. .o.f. .e.v.e.r.y. .a.r.t.i.c.l.e. .a.r.e. .a.v.a.i.l.a.b.l.e. .

for $3.00 for 2 copies. Please check the author’s name and send payment to:

The Remnant Reprint Service,

P.O. Box 1117, Forest Lake, MN 55025

_ Michael Matt Pop Music Culture ( P. 1)

_ L Tofari FFI and the Mass ( P. 1)

_ C. Ferrara The Sax Player ( P. 1)

_ Letters to the Editor (P. 3)

_ Film Review Gimme Shelter (P. 5)

_ N. Metzger .E.c.ume.n.i.s.m'.s. .V.e.n.n. . (P. 7)

_ Fr. Cizik .Fa.t.i.ma. .& . .t.he. .Ma.s.s. .( P. 8)

_ Kate Larson E.a.t. .f.o.r. .Y.o.ur.s.e.l.f. .( P. 11)

_ John Rao J.e.s.ui.t.s. .& . .Phi.l.i.p. .II (P. 12)

_ V. Ciarello Bo.o.k .R.e.v.i.e.w. (P. 14)

_ Forgotten Saints (P. 15)

_ Father Celatus Last Word (P. 15) Send Reprints To:

Name................................................... Address............................................... City/State............................................

Powered by TECNAVIA

Copyright (C) 1996-2014 Remnant Press 01/31/2014

Next Article >        < Prev Article

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 | Cover | Page 03

Is It Time to Renew Your Remnant Subscription?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.ALL .FOR. .AD.C .6.4.24.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .030711 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .MAR. .14. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .S9.8. . . . . . .P3 John Doe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19.4.5 .Ma.i.n. .St.r.e.e.t.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .An.y.w.he.r.e., .U.SA .554.4.3

Please check your renewal date on the front page mailing label (see sample label a.b.o.v.e.).. .If. .t.he. .s.e.c.o.n.d .l.i.n.e. .r.e.a.ds. . MAR 14 then your renewal date is March of 2014. If y.o.u .s.e.n.d .y.o.ur. .r.e.n.e.w.a.l. .p.a.y.me.n.t. .r.i.ght. .a.w.a.y. .y.o.u'l.l. .s.a.v.e. .us. .t.he. .c.o.s.t.s. .o.f. .b.i.l.l.i.n.g .y.o.u. . .If. .a.l.l. . o.f. . . .o.ur. .s.ub.s.c.r.i.b.e.r.s. .w.e.r.e. .t.o. .do. .t.hi.s. .w.e.'d .s.a.v.e. .t.ho.us.a.n.ds. .o.f. .do.l.l.a.r.s. .p.e.r. .y.e.a.r.. .

Please Renew Right Now!

www.RemnantNewspaper.com 6.51-.204.-.014.5 The Remnant, PO Box 1117, Forest Lake, MN 55025

Powered by TECNAVIA

Copyright (C) 1996-2014 Remnant Press 01/31/2014

Next Article >        < Prev Article

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 | Cover | Page 05

A Remnant Film Review…

"Gimme

Shelter"

by Raphael Winters www.raphaelwinters.com

Ron Krauss's film "Gimme Shelter" made me feel elation, sympathy, and then finally empathy. It is a composite story about a teenager facing a crisis pregnancy, and of the failure of her parents and social services to protect her. Vanessa Hudgens stars in a powerful dramatic role as Agnes "Apple" Bailey whose search for a home takes her through the highs and lows of American society.

The issue that Apple confronts is that she has no safe place to live. Her mother June Bailey (Rosario Dawson) is abusive and living out of a fleabag motel. Her father Tom Fitzpatrick (Brendan Fraser) abandoned her at birth and now has his own wife and children.

Social Services have thoughtlessly passed Apple through foster care where she was sexually assaulted. Kathy (Ann Dowd) who runs a woman’s shelter is initially neutral to Apple’s plea for refuge.

Ron Kraus has made a straight forward dramatic film about a woman dealing with real life issues during a season when it is snowing flurries of man-boy wish fulfillment fantasy flicks.

This is Ron Krauss's first feature film but it not his first production to deal with themes of human dignity at the intersection of issues of families and poverty. He has paid his dues with short films such as "Puppies for Sale," "Saving Angelo," and "Amerixica." This film was based on a story that Ron Krauss formed while at the woman's shelter Several Sources and is inspired by several women's experiences while dramatizing, inventing, and fictionalizing the sources. Kathy DiFiore is the founder of the women’s shelter Several Sources and she has recently published her first book "Gimme Love, Gimme Hope, Gimme Shelter." Kathy has been performing this heroic work for several decades.

Vanessa Hudgens plays Apple who is indefatigably stoic. She reacts to the petty mediocre betrayals of her parents and authorities with a realistically limited emotional range. This role is a bold move for Vanessa Hudgens who thus far has limited herself to saccharine family-friendly fare such as the High School Musical trilogy or upscale grindhouse films such as Sucker Punch and Machete Kills.

The most standout performance is the supporting actress Ann Dowd. Her performance as the neutral, orderly, and calm Kathy feels less like acting and more like a manifestation of an actual person. The small role of Cassandra (Emily Meade) is a riveting wild spirit of a character with a loose cannon role that receives a few scenes before vanishing from the story. The character of Nicky ‘Pink Friday’ may be more memorable in this film for her hairstyle then for dialogue however the performance shows that the actress Rachel Mattila Amberson has the prospect of a long career ahead of her. The supporting cast is excellent.

Rosario Dawson has given her character of June Bailey a power that only increases as she turns the emotions of the character up to eleven. James Earl Jones plays the affable faith friendly Fr.

Frank McCarthy who gives Apple the gift of a pinwheel. Joanna Fitzpatrick (Stephanie Szostak) feels authentically passive aggressive as she deals with the unwanted presence of Apple in her home. Brendan Fraser endows the requirements of his role with the perfect blend of chub, schlep, self-justification, and awkwardness.

This drama has both expected dramatic conclusions and unexpected moments of humor. We may start hoping that the story of Apple has a happy ending but how this unfolds is

the strength of the film. Chaos comes into her life but finally she is able to find her own life and dignity like a pinwheel turning in the wind.

Powered by TECNAVIA

Copyright (C) 1996-2014 Remnant Press 01/31/2014

Next Article >        < Prev Article

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 | Cover | Page 07

Ecumenism’s Venn Diagram

Ecumenism, in its 'conservative' guise, has rendered the Church an irrational, narrow-minded, and backwards institution in the public eye. It has transformed a truly rational enterprise into a reactionary and petty religious sect that secularists should rightly treat with derision.

By Nate Metzger

Consider

three students in a logic class. Sally concludes that Socrates is mortal from 1) All men are mortal, and 2) Socrates is a man. Bill concludes that Socrates is mortal, but he presumes that 1) All Martians are mortal, and 2) Socrates is a Martian. Perhaps this student was led to believe in the alien nature of Socrates because of a show on ancient philosophy he caught on the History Channel. A third student, Beth, concludes that Socrates is mortal, but she believes that Socrates is a dog. Unlike Bill and Sally, Beth has never heard of Plato or any of the ancient philosophers. She does, however, have a dog named Socrates, so named by his friend, who gave her the dog when he left for Europe.

We should notice that all three students are working, prima facie, with a singular belief. It might only come out in conversation that they are reaching their seemingly ‘common’ conclusion from different starting points. "Wait, you think that Socrates is a dog? And you think he’s an alien?" We can imagine Sally’s exasperation.

As it turns out, while all three students are working with perfectly valid arguments, only Sally’s argument properly represents the historical reality of Plato’s Socrates. Bill's argument is valid but not sound, since the conclusion is reached from a faulty premise (thank you, History Channel, for making my job as a professor that much more difficult). Beth's argument is both valid and sound; however, she's talking about an entirely different thing altogether. You might say that Sally and Beth are talking past each other without initially realizing it. As for Bill, well, hopefully Sally and Beth can convince him to stop watching cable television.

It’s a silly thought experiment, to be sure, but it is my contention that these sorts of troubling alliances happen all too often. People seem quite willing to align for flimsiest of reasons. Many times, people think they are in accord when really they are committed to entirely different things altogether. But more scandalously, many alliances are reached knowing full well that the only thing in common is the conclusion, and that to keep the peace, premises must become taboo. If they actually attended to the differing, respective premises for the adopted, common conclusion, it would cause rifts and discomforts.

We might helpfully characterize the traditionalist position as one that eschews such easy alliances, knowing full well their superficiality. This is one reason that the traditionalist is wary of ecumenism. But it’s good to see why, in more detail.

The traditionalist sees ecumenical alliances both among liberal Catholics and among the neo-conservative variety. It's good to point out that both liberals and neo-conservatives are guilty of ecumenical tactics, since criticism of ecumenism has been usually focused on the liberal varieties exclusively. But this is unfair to liberals, for they are guilty merely of a certain sort of ecumenism. Moreover, the most egregious and dangerous form of ecumenism is committed by neoconservatives.

Let me explain. To begin, consider the prayers of the Mass of Paul VI. A major complaint of traditionalists is that these prayers are terribly generic in scope and scale. Not only do canonical prayers seem somewhat lightweight, but all of the changing prayers of the day in the New Mass seem more or less sanitized. It’s not that any of them are heretical; it’s that they offer praise and petitions that are suitable for most any denominational allegiance and worship. Moreover, as traditionalists are wont to insist, the generic nature of the prayers is not merely a result of the thoroughly sabotaging 1973 ICEL.

Things don’t seem too much better with the new, more faithful translations. "Oh God, you are nice, help us to be nice too," has been better rendered from the Latin as, "Oh God, who in Thy infinite being has given showings of Thy niceness, grant us the grace to also become nice." It’s prettier and meatier, to be sure. And I appreciate the more formal language. But we aren’t exactly reintroducing propitiatory sacrifice merely by offering a better translation of the original Latin. What does the prayer really say? Well, not much, as it turns out.

Thus, says the traditionalist, the problem of the prayers is that they don’t cut deep enough. A Methodist, a Baptist, and a Presbyterian, or any other permutation suitable for a joke setup, can make use of these prayers. Moreover, as many of the more easy-going Protestant denominations are wary of the supernatural, the demonic, and the angelic, references to these things are simply nowhere to be found in the New Mass. There is also scant reference to the wickedness of sin and the evil of this world. The prayers seem perfectly suited for the libertine—that is, liberals—that is, for folks who eschew dogma and difference, for those who are happy to reduce the Christian religion to the most basic and generic of concepts, for universalists, for mere 'seekers', and for the spiritual-butnot-religious. Und so weiter.

Thus, says the traditionalist, the prayers are faulty not because they are in error per se, but because they can be affirmed by people with entirely different doctrinal starting points, and they can be used by people who quite possibly believe things in total contrast to the Roman Catholic. Ecumenism in worship comes at the expense of depth of doctrine. We can share the same prayers only if we not only keep them generic, but if we affirm propositions that have been thoroughly stripped of any underlying premises.

Yet it would be unfair to stop here, whereby we create the impression that it is only ‘liberals’ that draw the ire of the trads. As it turns out, it's the neo-Catholics that are the primary promulgators of ecumenical shallowness. This can be seen if we first consider how unhappy neo-Catholics are, by and large, with traditionalist critiques of the new prayers. Traditionalists are called disobedient, mean, heretical, and even 'protestant', for rejecting the idea that there is some magical hermeneutic of continuity. While the neo-Catholic disagrees with the Libertine, he nevertheless sees it as mandatory that we not question what has been given to us by the extraordinary magisterium.

The traditionalist simply responds that, given how different the content of the new prayers is from the content of the old prayers, we must reject notions of ‘continuity’, since we can make sense of the required hermeneutic only if ‘continuity’ is understood in the most basic and uninteresting of ways. The hermeneutic of continuity, argues the traditionalist, is either screamingly false or trivially true. We can’t line up what simply can’t be lined up. It is as if the Church has given us a picture of a pipe and declared, ceci n’est pas une pipe. Traditionalists simply say ‘nope’ to this manifest contradiction. The neo-Catholic is hard pressed to square the circle, so the most usual response to the traditionalist is one reminiscent of Miracle Max from The Princess Bride: he sticks his fingers in his ears and screams, "I can't hear you I can’t hear you!"

So rather than show that the traditionalist is wrong in offering the ‘rupture’ thesis—which, of course, is impossible to do without extraordinary interpretive gymnastics-the neo-Catholic circumvents the issue entirely, and instead says that to challenge the extraordinary magisterium’s insistence on continuity is to declare oneself in rebellion with the Church Immemorial. As far as the neo-Catholic is concerned, the traditionalist is just like a Protestant, defying church authority willy-nilly.

Yet we should notice how utterly strange this accusation is. One of the main features of Protestantism, both historically and presently, is its commitment to nominalism and its avoidance, if not wholesale rejection, of scholastic metaphysics. Certainly, not all protestants are created equal, so I do not mean to accuse all protestant strands of this charge; but at the very least, we can point to certain popular evangelical or anticreedal strands of Protestantism en vogue, that are happy to consider their doctrinal and moral positions through appeals to scripture only. For many protestants, ‘sola scriptura' is not a polemical cry, but a metatheological foundation. Insofar as many evangelicals defy creeds and philosophy, they must see the bible as their sole guide. Thus, we can see neo-Catholics treating the extraordinary magisterium in the same way that a Baptist treats his bible: as the exclusive arbiter of truth.

But the Catholic has never thought of doctrine and dogma this way. For the Catholic, doctrine is rationally defensible. Catholic theology is parasitic on the nature of reality, and the Catholic believes in a God that is neither tyrannical nor wholly mysterious. God’s attributes can be known by analogy, and His creation is intelligible. To say that philosophy is the handmaiden of theology is not to say that philosophy must somehow 'fit' inside an arbitrary bubble of doctrine and dogma, but that the whole of the Catholic faith is amenable to rational investigation. The whole of it: not just its ‘philosophical’ aspect, but the whole of it.

When it comes to any teaching, or any dogma, a Catholic has the right to say to

C N P

Theneo-Catholicshavemadeoftheextraordinary magisterium what the Baptist has made of his good book: an arbitrary, exclusive, autocratic authority, answerable to nothing.

Powered by TECNAVIA

Copyright (C) 1996-2014 Remnant Press 01/31/2014

Next Article >        < Prev Article

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 | Cover | Page 08

Ecumenism’s Venn Diagram

N M C P

the magisterium, "Show me." And show you it can. The dogmas of Holy Mother Church are anything but random. They are systematic, coherent, and justifiable. We have the truth on our side, and we aren’t afraid to get our hands dirty in the realm of philosophical and empirical investigation. Bring it on.

Indeed, one of the main reasons that Catholicism has appealed to intellectuals since its inception, is that it offers a view of existence that is philosophical, systematic, and all-encompassing. The Church abhors the esoteric and capricious. The Catholic is never required to believe anything 'just because', and at no time is an arbitrary appeal to authority made, neither in the realm of dogma nor in morals. We might say that the Catholic Church never just answers the question: it always shows its work.

So it is terribly ironic that the neo-Catholics would accuse the traditionalist of 'Protestantism', given that it is precisely a contingent of Protestants who divorce themselves from needed theological and philosophical premises in the forging of their own (false) Christian dogma, content as they are to simply appeal to the bible alone. The neo-Catholics, that is, have made of the extraordinary magisterium what the Baptist has made of his good book: an arbitrary, exclusive, autocratic authority, answerable to nothing.

If we were only concerned with these inter-varsity battles, the traditionalists could simply note the irony of their struggle with neo-Catholics and trudge on. Unfortunately, the larger world has come to think of the neo-Catholic position, one which eschews reasons for mere arbitrary and therefore tyrannical decrees, as the conservative Catholic position. For the protestant nature of neo-Catholic 'religious thinking' is seen by secularists all of the time; after all, secularists don't notice when neo-Catholics call traditionalists ‘protestants’. But they do notice when many of the same neo-Catholics join up with actual Protestants in the ‘ecumenical trenches’, to fight larger social evils in tandem. But this 'ecumenical' move, unfortunately, makes perfect sense: for the same reason that their charges against the traditionalist are unfounded, their alliance with the Protestants is completely logical.

And it is here, in the ‘ecumenical trenches’, that the most pernicious effects of the neo-Catholic appeal to authority is seen. That is, wherever there are ecumenical appeals, Catholics are simply prevented from playing their game. And it is the Catholic game that is the only one that is any good. For as soon as the Catholic joins up with evangelicals and other 'conservative' protestants in order to fight social ills, he must appeal to common conclusions, and eschew premises. He must, that is, present positions that are as arbitrary as his complaints against the traditionalist regarding the new prayers. Ecumenical alliances effectively render the 'religious conservative' position as generic, blank, and barren as any Novus Ordo prayer. But if the 'religious conservative' position is void of premises-if, more specifically, it is divorced from a philosophy of nature that renders the Catholic position not just systematic but coherent—the resulting 'religious conservative' position is mere irrational nonsense at best, and capricious bigotry at worst.

This last point is important to repeat. Sadly, accusations of the irrational and 'close-minded' nature of the 'religious conservative position' is, tragically enough, entirely warranted. For any appeals to a moral code that is couched in the language of a religion now entirely divorced from philosophical justification is bigoted! It is an appeal that no secularist should take seriously. After all, the now suitably generic and premisefree 'religious conservative position', the very one that emerges through the unholy alliance of supposedly like-minded religious individuals, is a position that has been sanitized of anything but a ‘common’ conclusion, a conclusion that is now completely and totally arbitrary. In a word, the ecumenical position is voluntarist.

The Catholic is wary of nominalism, but more importantly, he abhors voluntarism. The voluntarist holds that we must obey God, and that’s fair enough. But he also holds that God is such that He could command whatever He damn well pleases. As creatures created by and beholden to God, we must obey whatever God commands. The voluntarist argues that even if we can appeal to an intelligible creation (and let’s remember that many protestants, in their rejection of scholasticism, are quite happy to say that we can’t), it simply doesn’t matter, since God might will something that completely bypasses whatever natural law might be there. The voluntarist says that we must be content to listen to the will of God. Why should we follow moral position x? Just because. We should notice that this position is actually a form of theological

nihilism, and it is assuming a God that is nothing more than an irrational and volatile tyrant.

Surely, one might protest, no one in the ecumenical trenches believes such a thing about God. They are anything but nihilists, one might argue. I can’t speak for the Baptist or the sundry varieties of evangelical, but I know that the Catholic isn't a nihilist, even the neo-Catholic. But it simply doesn’t matter at this point. What emerges from the ecumenical trench is a de facto voluntarism, since appeals to respective premises are prohibited, and therefore appeals to Catholic premises, the only ones that are any good, are prohibited. After all, such an appeal would hardly be ecumenical. No, the generic and empty ‘religious conservative' position that arises from the ecumenical trench is nothing more than an arbitrary appeal to a capricious authority.

Why should anyone listen to such an appeal? Not because it is a coherent position, since it obviously isn't. Neo-Catholics in the ecumenical trenches ironically seem aware of this. This is why they appeal not to the position’s coherency (which it has none of), but to the positive law of the secular state. So: why should someone listen to this appeal? Because the Constitution apparently safeguards such irrational appeals. It’s called ‘religious freedom’.

These conclusions might sound overly harsh. But I think they are true to life. For this is precisely what we see. We see Evangelicals and Catholics together, making appeals to a ‘Christian mission’ which is curiously bereft of philosophical content. We see ‘Manhattan’ declarations entirely void of appeals to natural law, and therefore conveniently missing any mention of vices that protestants, who eschew natural law, simply don’t see as vices.

Lastly, we find the bishops appeal not to natural law and the Kingship of Christ the Logos, but to the confused and problematic nature of ‘religious freedom.’ That is, we don't have fortnights for natural law, human flourishing, and right reason, but fortnights for 'freedom'… meaning, well, apparently just the right to abide by our incoherent and arbitrary set of beliefs.

How odd that a Church that thrives on the disputatio and relishes philosophical debate, a Church that is not afraid of any opposing theory, a Church that has reasoned truth on its side, a Church quite happy to get its hands dirty in its investigation of reality…has been so sanitized of its own rasion d’etre by ecumenical projects, that it must now be forced to say, "Look, we should have the right to abide by our quirky beliefs! It’s right there in the Constitution!"

This last example is especially ironic, since it is over an issue that is, as the Manhattan declaration’s curious absences attest, exclusive to Catholics. But since neo-Catholics have been running the show for so long, the current struggle over what insurance should fund or not fund, is ironically couched in talking points that are thoroughly in line with the empty, arbitrary, and therefore ultimately bigoted ecumenical project.

Ecumenical goals have ruined the prayers of the Novus Ordo Mass, but that's not the half of it. Ecumenism reduces the mighty scholastic to the bigoted, fundamentalist bible-thumper, for it reduces the greatest to the weakest links in the chain. It is a true-to-life tale reminiscent of Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron. Ultimately, ecumenism, in its 'conservative' guise, has rendered the Church an irrational, narrow-minded, and backwards institution in the public eye. It has transformed a truly rational and systematic enterprise, and one committed not just to the goal of saving souls from hell but one interested in the perfection of our natural telos and the common good, into a reactionary and petty religious sect that secularists should rightly treat with derision.

Traditionalists need to remind their fellow Catholics that ecumenism is a dangerous enterprise, for more reasons than one.

How odd that a Church that thrives on the

disputatio

has been so sanitized of its own

raison d’etre

by ecumenical projects, that it must now be forced to say, "Look, we should have the right to abide by our quirky beliefs! It’s right there in the Constitution!"

Powered by TECNAVIA

Copyright (C) 1996-2014 Remnant Press 01/31/2014

Next Article >        < Prev Article

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 | Cover | Page 09

FATIMA:

Reaffirming the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Real Presence of Christ, and the Loss of the Dogma of the Faith

By Father Ladis J. Cizik

GUEST COLUMNIST

Conclusion

Kneeling

is still an option in the Liturgy – we do not HAVE to stand, but it has become the fashion.

Pope Benedict XVI would direct that at his Papal Masses, the people receiving Holy Communion from him would have to kneel and receive Our Lord on the tongue. Immediate Remedy: Restore the Communion Rail! Or, at least, leave the first row of pews vacant so that people can kneel. Encourage those who are physically able to get on their knees before God. No Kneelers

Many churches are being built now without kneelers, or the kneelers are removed from older churches to discourage you from kneeling at all. This is an outrage. Lex orandi, lex credendi (how a person worships leads to what thatpersonbelieves): Standingimplies equality with God, while we are, in reality, sinful human beings. We simply are not God’s equals to be standing during the Canon of the Mass. Immediate Remedy : Kneel on the floor during those parts of the Mass where kneeling is required. In the United States, we are required to kneel "beginning after the … Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy) until after the Amen of the Eucharistic Prayer."

1

Kneel even if there are not any kneelers! Mother Angelica on EWTN used to distribute kneeling pads to help fight this particular Eucharistic outrage.

Eucharistic Ministers

It used to be that only the priest distributed Holy Communion. Now, we have legions of what are typically called "Eucharistic Ministers" distributing Holy Communion at Mass whether they are needed or not. Sometimes, some priests at the Mass will not even participate in the distribution. Lex orandi, lex credendi (The Church believes as she prays): The role of the priest is diminished and the role of the laity is increased to the point of blurring the distinction. The priest is just a "Presider" among equals. His role as a sacrificing priest is diminished.

Immediate Remedy: Know that all lay people who distribute Holy Communion are to properly be called " Extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist" and are to be used only as needed, and not routinely. Extraordinary ministers of the Eucharistic should refuse that role if an able-bodied priest at Mass refuses to distribute Holy Communion.

Living Saints

Before the 1960's, the lines for

Confession were long and not everyone went to receive Holy Communion on Sunday. Today, there is hardly anyone going to Confession and everyone gets up to go to Holy Communion. There is a loss of the sense of sin. Lex orandi, lex credendi (The law of prayer is the law of faith): People do not recognize their sinfulness anymore and many sacrilegious Holy Communions are being made. There is no longer a perceived need for redemption; hence, the Sacrificial nature of the Mass is meaningless to them. If Jesus would have said to the people of today: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," the adulteress would have been pummeled. Immediate Remedy: Priests must emphasize in their homilies and writings that Jesus died for our sins; and to speak often about the ten commandments, and the necessity of going to confession for mortal sins, prior to receiving Holy Communion in a state of grace.

Eucharistic "Fast" Today, the faithful are required to "fast" for only one hour prior to the reception of Holy Communion!

From the beginning of Mass to Holy Communion is about forty minutes; if the drive to church is twenty minutes, that basically means that you can finish eating a full meal just before getting into the car and still go to Communion! I guess the Church does not want to inconvenience the community, but what about honoring God? Prior to the 1960's, Pope Pius XII reduced the fast to three hours with no food or drink, but granted that water no longer broke the fast. Lex orandi, lex credendi (how a person worships leads to what that person believes): The community feels that their man-centered needs are more important than any type of honor due to God. Immediate Remedy: Since there is no indication that the Church would ever extend the "fast" in the foreseeable future, the faithful, at the urging of their priest, can extend the fast on their own – for the Glory of God and the salvation of souls.

Liturgical Dance

In some churches, there takes place the outrage of so-called "Liturgical Dance," in which, usually women, often wearing skin tight leotards, prance around and about the altar/table. This mancentered exhibition totally takes the focus off of the Sacrificial nature of the Mass.

Lex orandi, lex credendi (The Church believes as she prays): We go to Mass to be entertained. For those who know better, it is open defiance of Liturgical rules and regulations. Immediate Remedy : Follow Church directives, which state that Liturgical Dance is "one of the most desacralized and desacralizing elements" leading to "an atmosphere of profanity, which would easily suggest to those present worldly places and profane situations. Nor is it acceptable to introduce into the liturgy the so-called artistic ballet because it would reduce the liturgy to mere entertainment."

2

In 1987, the Archbishop of Miami graciously invited all the newly ordained priests that year to come to Tamiami Park for the Papal Mass with Pope John Paul II. Just before Mass, as the priests were seated up near the altar, a large number of men and women in skin-tight leotards came into the altar area carrying pagan banners (no hint of Christianity on them). As they pranced and danced with their banners, I remarked out loud that this was a disgusting exhibition! An anglo priest, seated in front of me, turned around and said that I should have more respect for the Hispanic culture. Immediately, a Hispanic priest stood up and responded "Like (heck) that (dancing) represents myculture!" Atthatmoment,asevere thunder and lightning storm broke out and there was a deluge of rain! The liturgical dancers were soaking wet. They scampered to safety with their drenched leotards, clinging to their bodies, leaving nothing to the imagination. A bolt of lightning knocked a television cameraman off of a tall scaffold. Pope John Paul II, who had now arrived at his "Presidential Chair"(at the highest part of the sanctuary, with a huge steel cross stretching from the back of his chair up high into the sky), was told to seek shelter. This would be the first Papal Mass in history that was "rained out." I suppose that God may not have been pleased with this display of man-centered worship.

Everyone is going to Heaven

In Catholic funeral Masses, the priest used to wear black prior to 1960 and we would pray for the soul of the deceased. Today, the priest wears white and seems to conduct, in many cases, a mini-canonization ceremony, declaring that the deceased is now in a better place. This is the "do not judge" mentality in action: I’m ok, you’re ok, and we’re allgoingtoHeaven. Today,withthe existence of Purgatory, and even Hell,

C N P

Liturgical Dance is "one of the most desacralized and desacralizing elements" leading to "an atmosphere of profanity, which would easily suggest to those present worldly places and profane situations.

Reaffirming the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Real Presence of Christ, and the Loss of the Dogma of the Faith

Father Cizik/ Continued from Page 9

being denied, as well as the denial of sin, that is perhaps why we had the mistranslation in English of Christ's Words of Consecration in the new Mass, for over four decades, that said that Christ’s Blood was poured out "for ALL," versus the now recently corrected translation of "for MANY."

This non-judgmental attitude, and the idea that EVERYONE goes to Heaven is perhaps the reason why the Church and its Catholic Missions after 1960 seem to focus on social service work, rather than the conversion of non-Catholics to the one true Church founded by Christ. The heretical idea that "one faith is as good as another," seems taken as truth by many in the Catholic Church since the 1960's. Lex orandi, lex credendi (The law of prayer is the law of faith): There is no need to become Catholic; there is no need to attend a somber Sacrificial Mass; since everyone goes to Heaven. Immediate Remedy: The priest can wear black vestments for funerals and All Souls Day and talk about Purgatory, eternal judgment, Hell and the fact that the Catholic Church IS the One True Church founded by Christ.

THE ULTIMATE REMEDY

The Ultimate Remedy is returning to the Tridentine Mass, now referred to as the "Extraordinary Form;" the Mass of the Saints that was said for centuries prior to the 1960's. In Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Letter, Summa Pontificum, issued on July 7, 2007, the Holy Father stated that every priest has the right to say the immemorial Tridentine Mass. Pope Benedict declared that "…the priest has no need for permission from the Apostolic See or from his ordinary (bishop)" to offer Mass in the Extraordinary Form.

Since I began saying the Traditional Latin Mass, the Extraordinary Form, its Sacrificial nature has deeply edified me as a priest. Praying the Traditional Latin Mass can save souls from losing their belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and will affirm the Sacrificial nature of the Mass. I encourage all priests to make the Tridentine Mass available to their faithful and for the faithful to attend with their families and friends.

I encourage all priests who have never said the Traditional Latin Mass to learn how to say it as soon as possible – you will never regret it! It was reported that Pope Benedict XVI said the Tridentine Mass each morning in his private chapel.

3

Most of our greatest saints, including Saint Padre Pio, said the Traditional Latin Mass. Many of the people who go to the Latin Mass today are young families. Many of the younger Traditional Latin Mass parents grew up after the 1960's and never attended the Tridentine Mass. The influx of new people, young and old, is a certain fashion that is being introduced in recent times, which must please Our Divine Lord very much. It is, therefore, more than just an appeal to nostalgia, but a response to the urgent first and last messages of Fatima to restore our belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament; and to reinforce our understanding of the Sacrificial nature of the Holy Mass. In this way, may the dogma of the Faith be preserved around the world – through the Message of Fatima.

Dominus Vobiscum!

Endnotes

1 GIRM, 43

2 The Ten Most Common Liturgical Abuses and Why They’re Wrong . Kevin Orlin Johnson: Notitiae 11 [1975] 202–205 3 CWNews.com July 17, 2007

Father Cizik was the National Executive Director of the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima, USA, from 2000 to mid-2003 and the Editor of SOUL magazine. He now serves as Chaplain to numerous nursing homes and as the Spiritual Director of the Divine Child Jesus Saint Padre Pio Prayer Group and the Beaver Valley Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima, all in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Powered by TECNAVIA

Copyright (C) 1996-2014 Remnant Press 01/31/2014

Next Article >        < Prev Article

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 | Cover | Page 11

Healthy Diet, Healthy Soul…

Eat for Yourself

Eating wholesome food can do much to enable us to fulfill our duty of state and avoid falling into the temptations of depression, crabbiness, anger, and inattention among others.

By Kate Larson

Irecently watched a documentary on vegetarianism (a diet I would under no conditions promote, by the way).

It sought to win viewers over to a vegetarian diet by portraying several individuals who initially consumed diets heavy in processed foods and animal products but, after switching to a plant-based diet, experienced dramatic improvements in their health. One of the documentary’s strongest arguments in favor of vegetarianism came in the form of a seventy-year-old woman whose cancer had gone into remission after she switched to a plant-based diet. She was, in fact, so healthy now that she was training for a marathon. Unfortunately, the story had almost the opposite of its intended effect on me. I found this woman’s attempt to cling to the physical strength of youth almost sickening in its denial of human mortality. Like it or not, we die – no matter how healthily we eat. Nevertheless, longevity – almost implying the possibility of immortality – seems to be our neo-pagan society's favorite argument in favor of health food. But ultimately, it doesn't fly. We just can't live forever. Still, the Catholic Church has never had a problem with promoting human health in its proper place, and in fact, was once one of the greatest proponents of medicine. She has a long tradition of setting up hospitals run by religious and free to the public.

Never has the Church held the health of the body as something unimportant or trivial; indeed, many of the miracles performed by the saints, and even Our Lord Himself, center on the restoration of bodily health. After all, it is clear that to be healthy is in better alignment with God’s design for the human body than to be unhealthy.

There must, then, be a legitimate application for nutrition in the Catholic life; there must be better reasons for eating well than those offered by secular culture. Food, after all, plays a pretty significant part in everyday human life.

Could what we eat perhaps affect us not only on a physical but also on a spiritual level? Could it not, like any created thing, be a tool in the spiritual life?

Let's first look at man's end. As the most basic of catechisms tells us, our end is God Himself and eternal life with Him. If this is the purpose of life, then one’s physical state must be ordered towards this end – sometimes in the form of mortification, but also in the form of proper care of one’s body for the sake of better pursuing our goal. Yes, being well, making sure one’s body is in a healthy state, may help one to attain eternal life if for no other reason than that most of us have to have a certain level of physical health in order even to function.

For instance, I know that, if I don’t eat a substantial, healthy breakfast, I've a fair chance of being an emotional wreck by lunch time. Since I know this about myself, since I’m aware that a lack of proper nutrition makes me more irritable, it’s an act of charity towards the rest of my family to eat a decent breakfast. I’m simply better able to fulfill my duty of state that way. Silly as such an example may seem, I’m not the only person whose emotional state is tied to her stomach.

But the idea that our bodily health affects our ability to fulfill our duty of state applies on more than a day-to-day level. Over the long term, perpetual poor nutrition can have a devastating effect both on one’s physical and emotional health. "But what of the many saints who fasted perpetually?"

one might object, "They did not seem to care about their physical health!"

These saints, however, were depriving themselves of food intentionally, for a specific, spiritual purpose, and with the aid of special graces. Additionally, what food they ate was generally whole and substantial if small in quantity, thus providing them with sufficient nutrition.

Most modern Americans, on the other hand, merely neglect to give themselves sufficiently wholesome food, rather opting to eat processed, poor-quality foods, often in large quantities, out of laziness or ignorance. Thus, they end up simultaneously overeating and under nourishing themselves. This can in no way be equated to the fasting of the saints; it tends more towards gluttony than temperance or a proper ordering of physical and spiritual.

It is these modern convenience foods (no matter in what quantity) that are most likely to cause physical degeneration over time. While we are to accept whatever physical ailments God sends us, we are equally bound to not knowingly inflict them upon ourselves – especially when the physical ailment is likely to weaken us in dealing with temptations and other trials, as poor nutrition can. For example, the effect of large quantities of sugar on young children is undeniable: they become almost incapable of controlling their already high levels of energy and distractibility. While we are inclined first to scold them and then to put them on drugs for A.D.D., we might first think about what we’re feeding our children and how this may be affecting their ability to control themselves and develop virtuous habits. Eating wholesome food can do much to enable us to fulfill our duty of state and avoid falling into the temptations of depression, crabbiness, anger, and inattention among others.

Apart even from these practical concerns, I think there is a basic respect for God’s Creation which plays into our duty to eat as well as we are able.

After all, our bodies are not merely vessels for our souls in this life, as Plato thought. Rather, we are a true composite of body and soul. We are eternally and inextricably bound to the very bodies we inhabit now, for we will be reunited for eternity to our perfected bodies after the Last Judgment. If our bodies as well as our souls have been created by God for the purpose of Heaven, can we deny that they demand a certain amount of care?

As something created by God, and more importantly a Temple of the Holy Ghost, our bodies deserve respect. Thus, we ought neither to misuse them by making them the vehicle of evil deeds nor abuse them by giving them food, drugs, and injuries that are outside of God’s intentions for the human body.

Of course, though food can be misused, it need not be. As G.K.

Chesterton so famously put it in Orthodoxy, "we should thank God for beer and Burgundy by not drinking too much of them." It is in viewing nutrition as a tool in the quest for eternal life (rather than a means of prolonging temporal life) that it can be ordered in the Catholic worldview. Like all things of this world, food can be a help in attaining the Beatific Vision and a means of showing our love for God through the proper use of the gifts He has bestowed upon us.

Eat for Your Kids

"Your idealistic talk is all very well, but we have a large family and we can't afford to eat expensive health food." This might be the response of a Catholic parent to my previous statements – and not without reason. Yes, it’s true that one must find the balance between quality and economy in running a large household. However, it is part of our duty as parents to care not only for our children’s souls but also their bodies to the best of our ability.

We are what we eat, and this certainly goes for our children. Thus, we ought to feed them foods that will nourish them and give them the matter they need to grow into strong, healthy, stable adults. The plight of the young traditionalist in the modern world is difficult enough without adding to his setbacks poor eating habits and poor health in consequence of these habits. If, on the other hand, he learns at a young age to value both his body and his food as the gifts of God that they are, he will be more likely to avoid abusing either later in life. He will find in the things of daily life a constant reminder of their Creator.

"Alright. But that doesn’t mean I have to eat well, just that my children do," might be the reply. This, however, is not quite true either. In fact, not only are we what we eat, but our children are what we eat, too. It’s absolutely essential that parents, especially women of childbearing age, eat well because their babies will literally be formed from their parents' matter. If, however, you do not provide your own body with proper nutrition, the matter from which your child draws his substance will be lacking. This is simply common sense -- though such wisdom seems to have become uncommon in our age.

We now insist that women drink not a drop of wine for the whole nine months of pregnancy, but don’t bat an eyelash when she consumes corn-syrup- and dye- filled soda or processed, sugar-filled cereals.

"Fine," one might concede, "but after we've stopped having children, we needn’t worry so much, right?" Perhaps not, but children observe their parents

- G.K. Chesterton -

very closely and are apt to follow their example. If parents do not set the example of eating well for their children, the children will more than likely not see the importance of doing so themselves.

Would we not want -- nay, are we not bound -- to equip our children with the tools to live a good and healthy life?

"But we just can't afford expensive foods!" my readers may still insist. Yes, this is a serious objection since we have an obligation to provide for our families in more ways than simply nutritionally.

Our children must be housed, clothed, educated, and driven about in expensive automobiles. Thus, one has to make sacrifices somewhere, and occasionally this may be on the grocery front. You might not always be able to afford organic produce or even fresh produce.

However, these sacrifices can sometimes be in the types of food one eats rather than in its quality. You might have to forgo yogurt for breakfast this week, but that doesn't mean you have resort to highly-processed, sugary cereal in its place; rather, you could try oldfashioned rolled oats, one of the most inexpensive yet nutritionally-sound breakfast foods out there.

Another option for the budgetconscious is to grow your own food.

Even if you have very limited space, you can grow pots of herbs, lettuce, and tomatoes, or build a backyard chicken co-op, or make your own bread from ingredients you've bought in bulk at reduced prices. Yes, this requires more work than picking up a bag of prepackaged lettuce or mass-produced bread from the grocery store, but it is much, much fresher and healthier and generally costs much, much less. In fact, you may even save yourself a doctor's bill or two simply by eating to prevent health problems.

Of course, when all’s said and done, you can only afford what your bank account allows, but if you can manage to eat mostly whole, fresh foods and perhaps make or grow some of your own food, you will be benefiting not only yourself, but your children – perhaps for generations to come. God has given us a world of resources, but we, too, must do our part to cultivate them. We must be sure to use His gifts according to the order He established and for the purpose He intended.

W G B

Powered by TECNAVIA

Copyright (C) 1996-2014 Remnant Press 01/31/2014

Next Article >        < Prev Article

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 | Cover | Page 12

A View From Rocco’s…

What

Goes Around

Comes Around

or

Plus

Ça

Change…

"A small group of rebellious Jesuits brought the Institute to the edge of destruction."

(William V. Bangert, S.J., A History of the Society of Jesus, Italian edition, 1990, p. 114) The problem with the whole Anglo-American system, from its birth at the time of the Glorious Revolution down to its current, evangelical, worldwide Blitzkrieg, is that it wants to abolish disturbances and it ends by replacing all meaningful and effective intellectual and spiritual life with life among the intellectually and spiritually dead.

By John Rao, Ph.D.

Rocco and his sisters renovated my local hangout from Monday to Friday last week, forcing me to frequent a small bakery across Bleecker Street for my morning caffeine. Since the space in this shop was much too cramped for studies, it provided only the barest and most uncomfortable refuge until 10:00, when I had to do what I most loathe doing: work in the local public library. Thankfully, I am now back in my normal home, but with the whole disruption having helped me to shape certain thoughts regarding the present theme to which I will return at the end of this article. The theme in question concerns the Society of Jesus, whose dramatic history from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries I promised to recount and directly relate to present day woes.

Recounting the Jesuit saga involves reiterating the central Christian challenge discussed at length in my Black Legends and the Light of the World book: the need to accept the realities of God’s creation in all of its complexity, but also to work to correct the sinful flaws marring its true beauty and to transform it fully through the grace of Christ.

Embrace of this challenge pressed the Jesuits to work for a life-giving Christian change in every aspect of human behavior: individual, social, and political. Their call for a universal correction and transformation in Christ and Christ’s Church, backed by a Faith and a Reason that ultimately taught the same truths everywhere, inevitably evoked irritated reactions on the part of local, national forces. Such forces claimed to understand these universal teachings better than anyone else, even as they altered and emasculated them to fit what amounted to parochial half-truths and the "business as usual" attitude of long-standing custom. All this spelled trouble, and the Society’s troubled Catholic Reformation struggle underlines the unchanging character of the "boat rocking" Christian battle for the practical implementation of the fullness of the Faith against those who want to freeze individuals and society in patterns of thought and behavior hermetically sealed off from transforming truth and grace.

Little if any of that trouble came from the very divided Catholic parts of the Holy Roman Empire. They were much too much in need of immediate help for basic survival against the Protestant assault to look the gift horse of the Society and its universal transformative message in the mouth. The Republic of Venice and the Kingdoms of France and Spain were another story.

The Venetian and the long-lived French reaction to the Jesuits is intellectually more important than anything that came out of Spain and will be dealt with at full length in future articles. But Spain indeed did provide the first really serious parochial national opposition to the work of the Society, and in a way that ultimately fits together nicely with my meditation upon my week long exile from Rocco’s.

Despite his tremendous merits, it cannot be denied that Philip II (15561598) often placed parochial and emasculating obstacles in the path of the corrective and transforming work of the Catholic Reformation as a whole. He accepted the decrees of the Council of Trent, but only up to the point that they did not infringe upon royal prerogatives.

He sought to block papal interference in the missionary territories under Spanish control. And both he and his successor, Philip III (1598-1621), conspired together with rebellious elements in the Society to put pressure upon the Papacy to create some sort of autonomous Jesuit authority in the Iberian Peninsula that would take the "exceptional" Catholic character of its religious experience to heart. That exceptional experience required a bending of the interpretation of the universal Christian message in Spain to the local demands of the Hapsburg Monarchy and its statecontrolled Inquisition. Who could think that this would not work for the benefit of the Church? After all, was not Spain the "last, best hope" of the Faith?

Claudio Acquaviva (1543-1615), son of the Duke of Atri from the Abruzzi in central Italy, and Father General of the Society from 1581 until his death in 1615, was the man who had to face these parochial Spanish assaults. A number of the specific tactics that he had to confront reveal an uncanny resemblance to current events regarding the woes of the Franciscans of the Immaculate. And his courageous and astute response to the threats that he faced, however much they might shock neo-Catholics, with their fascist conviction that every whim of The Leader must joyfully be obeyed, illustrate what a truly heroic defender of the Faith must do when he possesses something really substantive to protect.

His travail first began after the happy years of the pro-Jesuit Gregory XIII, during the reign of the hostile Sixtus V (1585-1590). It was at this time that a small group of Spanish Jesuits, led by Antonio de Araoz (1516-1573), worked clandestinely with Philip II and the royal diplomatic service to win the pope over to the cause of limiting the authority of the Father General in Spain, where the Society was said to suffer from serious deficiencies. In response to their machinations, Sixtus named Jeronimo Manrique (1538-1595), Bishop of Cartagena, as visitor to study Spanish Jesuit flaws. One of the conspirators recommended that the visitation be conducted according to the secret procedures of the Inquisition. Another insisted that the visitor himself be given the power to change the constitutions of the Society within Spain on his own.

Philip II backed both suggestions.

Rather than taking the neo-Catholic route and enthusiastically inventing reasons why pope and king were absolutely correct in their desire to alter the Society, Acquaviva ordered every provincial in Spain and Portugal to prepare petitions against the visit.

This was done in order to demonstrate that the calls for change were coming from a tiny minority of troublemakers alone. Seeing that Sixtus, obviously shaken in his resolve by the General's argument that the Spanish were tricking him into weakening his own power in Spain, Acquaviva then went in for the kill. He revealed that the Bishop Visitor designated to reform the Society had himself had three illegitimate children in his youth.

Sixtus, a sincere refomer himself, relented, but only to the degree of transferring consideration of the Society’s failings to the Roman Inquisition. Aquaviva responded not only by himself addressing each and every one of the complaints of the rebel minority, but also by enlisting bishops and princes from all over to Europe to testify to the need to keep the Jesuit structure untouched, as it was. Won over by this display of support, the pope still wished to rid the Society of its "arrogant" usurpation of the name of Jesus. The order to do so was made ready and sat in the pontiff’s desk. But the most powerful friend of every victim of a hostile pope—death—then came to Aquaviva's aid. With an enemy pontiff out of the way, a friendly one mounted the throne and all was once again temporarily well.

Several more attempts to effect the same changes were made in the reign of Clement VIII (1592-1605), who was not backward in his public criticisms of the Society of Jesus. One involved the use of a very fine Jesuit, José de Acosta (1539-1600), who, irritated at not being named a provincial in Spain, convinced the pope that the Spanish flaws of the Society required the convening of a special General Congregation. When the lack of support for his complaints was illustrated by the failure to elect a single one of the rebel minority to send to the meeting in Rome, Acosta had Philip II pressure Clement to name Francisco de Toledo (1532-1596), a personal Jesuit enemy of Aquaviva, as the first Jesuit cardinal, and then have him preside over the General Congregation. While unable to prevent his nomination as a Prince of the Church, the Father General did succeed in blocking his presidency of the Jesuit gathering. More than that, despite open papal blasting of the Society’s current state, the Fifth General Congregation of 1593 totally backed Acquaviva against all accusations, moving on to expel fifty-four "false sons" of St. Ignatius from the order.

Still influenced by the complaints against the Society and its General, Clement pursued a plan for weakening the Order by naming Acquaviva as Archbishop of Naples. This threat was removed when a Portuguese Jesuit convinced Cardinal Toledo that such a position would inevitably lead to Aquaviva's becoming a second Society Prince of the Church, thereby diminishing his own prestige. Terrified

C N P

C

For the Whole Christ,

by this possible loss of status, Toledo prevailed upon the pope to change his mind. God drew good from venal pride.

Finally, another member of the Jesuit minority, Fernando de Mendoza (d.1616), a man who had the ear of Philip II, urged the court to "invite" Acquaviva to visit Spain. Irritated by the Father General’s unwillingness to agree to what would surely lead to his imprisonment by the Spanish Inquisition, the king pressured Clement to order Aquaviva to respond favorably to his request. The General then took to his bed, either because he was truly ill, or because he possessed sufficient theatrical skills to satisfy the doctors sent to examine him by the Holy Father that he was actually indisposed.

By the time he "recovered", that best of friends of papal victims had visited Clement as he had Sixtus before him. And the demand for changes in the Society to satisfy Spanish exceptionalism died along with him.

Would that all such exceptionalism fighting the universal corrective and transforming message of Christ had died along with this one! It did not. We, today, fight that very same battle that the Jesuits fought yesterday against the much greater threat posed by American Pluralism: the most dangerous of the parochial forces that have repeatedly through the ages tried to trap and emasculate the Faith, reducing the life-giving Tradition to the demands of stultifying local half-truths and customs, and brazenly claiming that they represent the Church’s "last and best hope" in doing so.

One recent expression of this mentality can be found in an article by John Zmirak, who makes it sound as though that pitifully small number of us who do express criticisms of the American pluralist ideology somehow represent a terrifying threat, under whose blows this beneficent and pro-Catholic idol runs the risk of crumbling into ruin.

He propounds this tale of traditionalist terror with a sense of outrage that anyone would even joke about the pluralist dogma of "religious tolerance" and the history of American "freedom", much less actually call it seriously into question.

Although I myself am one of the blasphemers taken to task in the Zmirak piece for having dared to make fun of the Puritans and their Thanksgiving celebration, I have no intention of answering him here. I have spent half my life doing just that sort of answering, over and over again, only to find that my substantive arguments are dealt with by means of mockery, while the same tired depiction of an idealized Anglo-American system is presented as the only possible alternative to the inevitable flaws of everything that came before its redemptive birth. Anyone who wants to see the many, many words that I have written on this subject can find all that he wants on my website (

jcrao.freeshell.org). There is really only one central aspect of the problem, related to the theme discussed above, that I do wish briefly to confront here, and to do so, let me return to my relationship with my favorite café.

Despite the noises and inconveniences surrounding my

Stammtisch

at Rocco’s, I prefer laboring

here because I feel like a human being when I am present. Opportunities come up to have regular interaction with my living neighbors, who actually talk to me about my ideas and their practical implementation. Sometimes these opportunities are more like disturbances because the neighbors irritate me, arguing with me bitterly and making me depressed at the seeming futility of the whole Catholic venture. Sometimes they give me cause for hope, with people listening intently to what I have to say.

Sometimes both the irritants and the friendly interlocutors point out mistakes in my argumentation or hypocrisies in my own behavior that I am forced to admit and correct. They offer a "mixed bag" of interruptions at best, with the irritants generally having the edge. But, after all, that’s what life is like.

When I am forced to go to the library, where I must of necessity keep quiet, I admittedly have no depressing irritants to handle, but I never have a serious and hopeful discussion with anyone either. My life and the lives of all of those around me are hermetically sealed; interrupted only with the occasional "excuse me", "thank you", and the requisite, accompanying, and highly unthreatening smiles. I have no impact on anyone and no one else has an impact on me. Everything that I do in that kind of environment takes on a rather sterile character in consequence. I have the feeling that I am slaving among the living dead, and I look upon a return to the city streets, with all of their own "mixed bag" of uplifting and revolting experiences, as liberation from a mausoleum. In a mausoleum, nothing happens. On the living streets, anything can take place- for the good as well as for the bad.

The problem with the whole Anglo-American system, from its birth at the time of the Glorious Revolution down to its current, evangelical, worldwide Blitzkrieg, is a related one. It wants to abolish disturbances and it ends by replacing all meaningful and effective intellectual and spiritual life with life among the intellectually and spiritually dead. In other words, it wants to move people into the mausoleum and away from life in a society where things—like Faith, Reason, and all of the manifold stuff of existence—are allowed to disturb the daily routine, permitting men and institutions to confront their ideas, argue, and possibly change their behavior.

It was precisely because the men of past Christian centuries really "lived" and expected that all of the intellectual and spiritual aspects of life were going to have an influence over events that states took an interest in religious questions and the church in political ones. It was precisely because of this that—along with their successful interventions in each other’s primary sphere –State and Church inevitably also marred the work of transforming all of nature for the greater glory of God with their mistakes and their sins.

The Anglo-American system does, indeed, end such interferences and the tragic mistakes and sins accompanying them. But, once again, it creates its Peaceable Kingdom at the price of making the intellect and the spirit socially meaningless. It provides men with a tranquil life in an intellectual and spiritual tomb, leaving the public square open to manipulation by materialist-chiefly property-focused or libidinous-concerns alone. The State does not interfere with the Church because for all intents and purposes it has reduced her to the status of a Bowling Society. Who cares about a bishop who will slavishly praise your system to the skies for reducing him to a cipher? He can shout all the "hosannas" he wants as long he keeps his eyes on the bowling pins and leaves the global community free to make big time bucks.

This intellectual and spiritual reductionism the Society of Jesus, at least at its origins, could never allow.

Hence, its early battles with a European world that often sought to flee from its Catholic boat rocking influence.

True

Traditionalists can never allow such reductionism either. The only people who find hope and joy in this emasculation are those who see the Church’s sole political and social responsibility as that of admitting publically that her "last and best hope" lies in telling Christ to put His sword back into his sheath and butting out of what really matters in life: worshipping America first and Catholicism only insofar as it fits sacred and unquestionable American needs. What goes around comes around.

Powered by TECNAVIA

Copyright (C) 1996-2014 Remnant Press 01/31/2014

Next Article >        < Prev Article

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 | Cover | Page 14

A Remnant Book Review…

God’s Secret Agents

by Alice Hogge (2005)

During Elizabeth's reign alone, 124 Catholic priests were executed, most of them in Tyburn's open fields, then a part of London. Amongst the most defiant of "the new religion" were many who were either students or teachers at Oxford University, for which they paid the supreme price: fifty would be executed.

Reviewed by Vincent Chiarello

Remnant Columnist

Aseach year winds down, it is commonplace for newspaper editors and websites to ask their contributors to select the best books they've read over the past twelve months. The lists are usually sprinkled with new publications, as well as the re-reading of old classics, but it would be unusual for an author's first published non-fiction book to make the cut. One should: God’s Secret Agents, by Alice Hogge, the "cat and mouse" story of the Jesuits during the reigns of both Queen Elizabeth I, and, to a lesser extent, King James I, is a rare example of daunting scholarship and literary style that impress a reader in ways not often found in other writings about the period.

For those with a knowledge of, or an interest in, the past history and current state of the Society of Jesus, aka the Jesuits, the election of Pope Francis I, the first Jesuit pope, has focused further attention on the Order. Known earlier as "the Black Robes," or the "Pope’s Army" because of their additional vow of obedience to the pope, the Jesuits were instrumental as missionaries in spreading Catholicism in areas far removed from Rome, or Paris, where the Order was founded by the Basque, St. Ignatius de Loyola, in 1540. To that end, a visitor even today to the Jesuit Gregorian Pontifical College in Rome is greeted upon entry with a sculpture with the saying: Ite incendite mundus: (Go and set the world on fire), St. Ignatius Loyola's words to St. Francis Xavier before his departure to the East.

The history of the Jesuits is replete with heroic tales of priests facing adversity and even death to spread Christ’s Gospel in places like China and Japan, as well as countries of North and South America. In the U.S., the Jesuit influence was notable in the West: Lake De Smet, the largest in Wyoming, is named after the Jesuit Provincial, the Belgian Fr. Pierre de Smet. In Montana, the Italian Jesuit, Fr. Antonio Ravalli, was the first doctor/pharmacist amongst the Indian tribes of the state, and is buried in an Indian cemetery. Today, there is both a city and county in Montana named in his honor. In the East, Georgetown University, founded in 1789 as a Jesuit institution, is the oldest Catholic university in the nation, and includes amongst its graduates, Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia, and the author William Peter Blatty, who dedicated his popular novel, The Exorcist, to the Jesuits, "who taught me how to think." (I exclude the name of ex President Clinton for obvious reasons.) The Jesuit experience in England during the reigns of "Queen Bess" and King James warrants attention, for the history of that period has been largely written by those who saw the Jesuits as treasonous agents sent by the pope to undermine and destroy the Tudor monarchy. In the end, however, this chapter of Jesuit history may be described, paraphrasing the words of an English Protestant, "as their finest hour."

Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) ascended the throne under the shadow of being an illegitimate heir: the Protestant Bishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, had nullified the marriage between Elizabeth's parents, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, a few days before Queen Ann’s execution. Lurking in the wings were the supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots, who claimed a clearer line of ascent than her cousin, Elizabeth. Among Elizabeth's first acts was to maintain a modest enforcement of the strict anti-Catholic laws, but not to criminalize "recusants," those who were fined for not attending the now official Anglican, or Church of England, services. In time, however, convinced that the Catholic Church posed both the greatest threat to her survival and that of England, far harsher laws were passed and enacted, which now included that any Catholic priest, Jesuit or otherwise, found entering the realm would be treated as a traitor.

The major thrust of Hogge’s book is to detail the fate of several of these English Jesuit priests, many of whom had returned from the Continent to which they had fled to escape the expanding anti-Catholic dictates of Elizabeth's government which included a spy network led by Sir Francis Walsingham, the most accomplished, efficient, and successful in all of Europe at that time. During Elizabeth's reign alone, 124 Catholic priests were executed, most of them in Tyburn’s open fields, then a part of London. Amongst the most defiant of "the new religion" were many who were either students or teachers at Oxford University, for which they paid the supreme price: fifty would be executed.

To Elizabeth and her Privy Council, a Jesuit in England in particular was, ipso facto, a traitor. Hogge writes: "In showing that a strict adherence to the Catholic faith was now mutually incompatible with loyalty to Elizabeth," the future course of her reign was set in motion. One former Oxford Fellow, now a Jesuit priest, Cuthbert Mayne, was the first to feel the fury of Elizabethan rage: in 1576, he was betrayed, and an Agnus Dei case, comprised of wax discs made from Easter candles, impressed with an image of the paschal lamb and blessed by the pope, was found on his body. Such objects had been banned since 1571, and the penalty for carrying it was death, but a death fit for a traitor: to be drawn and quartered. The ordeal of St. Edmund Campion is described at length. Labeled, "the Seditious Jesuit," Campion, who had been a favorite of Queen Elizabeth, had fled England to join the Jesuits. After his ordination, he was sent to Prague, but then asked by his religious superiors if he would undertake a dangerous mission and return to his native land. Knowing what his future would likely be, he still agreed. Hogge writes: "Campion had always believed he was coming home to England to die." Before his death, he penned his famous, "Brag," which sought to explain his decision to return in these words: The expense is reckoned, the enterprise is begun; it is of God, it cannot be withstood. He would not be the last, but his martyrdom would raise the question of whether the Jesuit mission in England would continue. It did, for under the leadership of Fr. Robert Persons, the Jesuits continued their work; so did the killing machine of the English: the last Jesuit to be executed was Fr. David Lewis, a Welshman, in 1679.

Hogge also relates in some detail the impact of Campion’s execution on one who witnessed it: Henry Walpole. On December 1, 1581, at Tyburn, Walpole, then a young man of twenty-three and a student of law at Gray’s Inn, watched as, "...the hangman hurled Campion’s entrails into the cauldron of boiling water, it was said that a gob of blood spattered Walpole’s white doublet: his fate was sealed." The following year despite a likely successful law career - his parents were wealthy - he fled England, and six years later was ordained a Jesuit priest. He returned to England, and shortly after his arrival was betrayed by someone he considered a friend, and arrested. Walpole was tortured for information, and although he provided names, would not recant. Fourteen years after Henry Walpole had watched the execution of Edmund Campion, he, too, was executed in a similar manner at Tyburn.

The role played by Tudor and Stuart women in "harboring a priest," a capital crime during these years, does not go unmentioned. The actions of the women of, amongst many others, the Vaux, Lenman and Fortescue families in hiding itinerant priests at great personal peril showed that opposition to "the new religion" was strongly felt amongst both men and women. Elizabeth's Privy Council took notice, and in 1593, Parliament enacted a law in which "...the courts were able to sue a husband jointly with his wife for her recusancy..."

For her open defiance, Margaret Clitherow, however, paid the ultimate price, and her grisly execution disgusted even Queen Elizabeth. Clitherow, a convert at 18, arrested several times for "recusancy," did not flinch from hiding priests, sometimes two at a time. When brought before the judges in York to answer for this charge, she declined to declare her guilt or innocence: "Having made no offense, I need no trial." For that act of resistance in not entering a plea, she was sentenced to death by the 14th century penalty of peine forte et dure. This "strong and hard pain" consisted of being pressed to death by stones of considerable weight. Throughout, she could have entered a plea and probably would have faced only a fine or jail, but she chose not to. Writes Hogge: Her stubbornness served to remind both priest and government that the female sex was a force to be reckoned with. Over the years many missionaries would have course to be grateful for this fact."

After Elizabeth's death, James I continued the persecution: a bill in 1610 was introduced into the House of Commons, "to force Catholics to wear a red hat, or multicolored stockings, so that they may be better recognized and ‘hooted at’ in the street," but shortly discarded thereafter. In time, but slowly, the English government's attitude and treatment of English Catholics softened, and by 1829 Catholics were permitted freedom of worship. In 1896, the Jesuits were allowed back into Oxford, and Campion Hall became a recognized part of the university. It still is. In 1970, forty martyrs, including Edmund Campion, Henry Walpole and Cuthbert Mayne were canonized.

This is an extraordinary book, made even more so by it being the first published work of the author. It is both thorough and dedicated to tell the accurate story of large numbers of English men and women who would not accept "the new religion," and the consequences of that decision on their lives and that of their families. My only criticism is that, in the book's Epilogue, Hogge attempts to compare, albeit tenuously, the British government's current efforts at dealing with British Muslims with their former treatment of English Catholics. I will leave to the reader if her judgment in this matter is misplaced.

But Alice Hogge’s book is about the Jesuit past, not its present. In its current form, the Society of Jesus has many detractors, including the author William Blatty, who has been critical of Georgetown University, from which he graduated in 1950. At his own personal expense, Blatty has brought the administrators of the university into canonical court with one purpose: that the word "Catholic" be removed from any description of his Jesuit alma mater. The case has been forwarded to Rome for further deliberation and decision. I believe that Blatty has done a service to the Church, and if I may be allowed some latitude for saying so, so would St. Edmund Campion.

Powered by TECNAVIA

Copyright (C) 1996-2014 Remnant Press 01/31/2014

Next Article >        < Prev Article

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 | Cover | Page 15

Goodbye Scouts, Goodbye Vatican

The Vatican has announced that it had hired EV as a consulting firm to look at the Governatorato, which runs the day-to-day activities of Vatican City. But this is just one among several recent Vatican hires of advisory firms which promote prohomosexual activism.

By Father Celatus E ach New Year ushers in changes, for better or worse: new resolutions, new laws, new politicians and new policies.

Some of these changes are for the good, such as personal resolutions to eat less and exercise more. I am resolved to avoid use of the word "pope" when referring to Francis, in accord with his own preference for the title "Bishop of Rome." In times past it was fundamentalists and modernists who shunned the title "pope" but certainly not the pope himself. Sigh. A sign of the – end – times, perhaps.

But while some 2014 changes are for the good, others are despicable. Take, for instance, the new policy of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) that took effect on the first day of the New Year: "No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone."

This resolution, by the way, was deemed as acceptable by the National Catholic Committee on Scouting.

How did it come about that after a century of existence and more than a decade after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the previous policy of the BSA, which excluded open homosexuals from membership, that the Boy Scouts did an about face and compromised on this moral matter? The impetus for change appears to have had a small start from a bigwig in the BSA organization, who was also CEO for EV.

But enough of acronyms! EV is now the name of a corporate giant, a consulting firm formerly known as Ernst & Young. EV is arguably one of the most aggressive pro-homosexual corporations in the world. A sampling of citations from its own webpage will suffice to establish the commitment of EV to this cause: We are committed to providing an inclusive work environment, where individuals are respected for the skills and talents they contribute and the impact they make. As such, we have initiatives geared toward our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) people and their allies. We support our LGBT people through both policy and practice, by working together to:

• Offer top-tier benefits (such as spousal equivalent domestic partner recognition, gender transition coverage, and tax gross up on domestic partner benefits imputed income in the US)

• Take leadership in the community by supporting top LGBT organizations through sponsorship, volunteering and board involvement

• Raise awareness of inequities that our LGBT professionals face in the workplace and in the community Our "Leading through inclusion" lunch-and-learn program builds widespread awareness about the importance of LGBT inclusion in the workplace. Additionally, the US firm is a corporate sponsor offering our support and talent to LGBTfocused non-profits, including the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC). In 2012, for example, we sponsored the NGLCC gala and conference, with EY's Global Chairman and CEO Jim Turley speaking about the importance of supporting LGBT-owned businesses as part of our supplier diversity initiative and commitment to entrepreneurs.

It is this same Jim Turley who is credited as the impetus to change the longstanding policy of the Scouts. As Global Chairman and CEO of Ernst & Young and as Board Member of BSA he issued this statement:

Ernst & Young is proud to have such a strong record in LGBT inclusiveness. As CEO, I know that having an inclusive culture produces the best results, is the right thing for our people and makes us a better organization. My experience has led me to believe that an inclusive environment is important throughout our society and I am proud to be a leader on this issue. I support the meaningful work of the Boy Scouts in preparing young people for adventure, leadership, learning and service, however the membership policy is not one I would personally endorse. As I have done in leading Ernst & Young to being a most inclusive organization, I intend to continue to work from within the BSA Board to actively encourage dialogue and sustainable progress.

As swings Ernst & Young, so now swings the Boy Scouts of America! And might it also be the case someday soon – if not already – that as swings Ernst & Young, so swings the Vatican. After all, late last year the Vatican announced that it had hired EV as a consulting firm to look at the Governatorato, which runs the day-to-day activities of Vatican City. But wait, it gets even worse. Among other recent hires by the Vatican are other advisory firms which promote prohomosexual positions similar to Ernst & Young. The McKinsey & Company was hired by the Vatican to improve communications, which includes Vatican Radio and Vatican Television as well as the official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano. Once again the website of this company speaks for itself regarding advocacy and support for sexual deviancy:

GLAM (Gay, lesbian, bi, and trans at McKinsey) is a vibrant, connected, worldwide network of LGBT colleagues who are committed to each other’s success and to attracting more talented LGBT women and men into the McKinsey community… McKinsey has sought LGBT talent for years. We are the founding sponsor of all three major U.S. LGBT recruiting conferences – Reaching Out MBA (ROMBA), Out for Undergraduates in Business (OUBC), and IvyQ.

Yet another example of a Vatican hire with homosexual advocacy is the Swiss accounting firm KPMG:

Established in 2003, pride@kpmg is KPMG LLP’s network for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) employees and partners and their straight allies. With more than 750 members and 12 chapters, our network provides opportunities to participate in career development programs, broaden professional experiences, and build careerenriching relationships, both within and beyond the firm. June, 2013 marks the 10 year anniversary of the network and there is so much to be proud of.

LGBT, GLAM, PRIDE. No matter how you spell it, it signifies sexual perversion. At least Lot had the good sense to shut the door against the sodomites of his city. Vatican City, on the other hand, appears to have opened wide the doors and invited the enemies of holy purity into the inner workings of the Church. Allegations of a Gay Lobby within the Curia abound and now the Vatican hires pro-homosexual activists.

Transparency has been a theme of this papacy but God only knows what true transparency might uncover.

Powered by TECNAVIA

Copyright (C) 1996-2014 Remnant Press 01/31/2014

Next Article >        < Prev Article

Fri, 31 Jan 2014 | Cover | Page 15

The Forgotten Saints

On April 13, 1948, the constitution of the Romanian People’s Republic was published. With this date, for the Roman Catholic as well as for the Greek Catholic Church in Romania a wave of suffering and suppression began which only ended on December 22, 1989, when the last dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, was overthrown. At the beginning of this dark period the Romanian episcopate of the Latin Rite included Bishop Marton, Archbishop Alexandru Cisar, Bishop Anton Durcovici, Bishop Maru Glaser, Bishop Janos Scheffler and Bishop Augustin Pacha. While Archbishop Cisar was made to live in the Franciscan monastery at Orastie and forbidden to administer his diocese from 1949 on, the other bishops were imprisoned. Bishop Pacha was arrested on July 19, 1949 and imprisoned as a ‘Vatican spy’ for the next eighteen years. Bishop Glaser was imprisoned in May 1950 and died the same month. Bishop János Scheffler died on December 6, 1952 at Bucarest. His martyrdom was officially recognized by the Holy See on July 1, 2010, and he was beatified on July 3, 2011.

in 1910. After Romania entered World War I on the Allied side, he was sent to an internment camp — being an Austrian citizen — until freed on the orders of King Ferdinand I.

Durcovici became rector of the Bucharest seminary in 1924, and held the office until April 1948, when he was consecrated Bishop of Iasi by the Apostolic Nuncio to Romania, Bishop Gerald Patrick Aloysius O’Hara. He had become an adversary of the post-World War II Communist Party authorities, who initially attempted to have him accept a decrease in Papal authority over Romanian Catholics. Placed under surveillance in 1947, he was arrested by the Securitate on June 26, 1949.

He was held in Jilava, then transferred to Sighet prison together with Bishops Áron Márton and Alexandru Cisar, being the target of torture and deprivations. Stripped naked and exposed to the winter weather, and denied food and water, Durcovici died as a result of the treatment. He was buried in an unmarked grave. Communist authorities subsequently attempted to erase all evidence of his stay in prison.

The process of his beatification was begun in 1997.

Bishop Durcovici was born in Austria but left for the Romanian Kingdom together with his mother, a widow, and his brother Franz, and settled in Iasi (1895). He was ordained a priest

Powered by TECNAVIA

Copyright (C) 1996-2014 Remnant Press 01/31/2014