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Sun, 5 Mar 2017 | Cover | Page 01

The Little Remnant:

Still Going, After Fifty Years

By Michael J. Matt

The following article was written by my father, Walter L. Matt, in the December 31, 1969 issue of The Remnant. In it, my father (RIP) offers a sample of how early traditionalists reacted immediately and vehemently against the New Mass.

I would direct our readers’ attention, however, to the tone of fealty which permeates my father’s supplications to the Holy Father at the time, begging him not to destroy the old Mass. And yet my father was certainly no fan of Pope Paul VI! These men were not renegades, obviously. They were loyal sons of the Church who were witnessing the autodemolition of the Catholic Church they’d loved and served all their lives.

I’m also publishing this 48-year-old column as a reminder of how long the fight for Catholic Tradition has been raging. The early traditionalists devoted their entire lives to trying to prevent the advent of the Church beyond-crisis in which we find ourselves today. There would never have been a Pope Francis, let us recall, were it not for Pope Paul paving the way. There never would have been an Amoris Laetitia were it not for the Second Vatican Council. There would never have been widespread liturgical abuses and abominations had it not been for the promulgation of the Novus Ordo Missae.

By the way, the little chap in the photo learning from his father how to run an A.B. Dick 360 printing press is

~ See Editor's Desk/ Page 2

My people, what have I done to you ?

How have I offended you? Answer me!

The Little Remnant:

Still Going, After Fifty Years

M. Matt/ Continued from Page 1

yours truly. Decades before the word "blogosphere" had been coined—when "tweeting" was something birds did and "google" was a typo—that old press was howling away, day and night, cranking out 10,000 issues of The Remnant at a time. I was fortunate enough to cut my teeth on my father’s work. His cause became my cause before I can remember and, in many ways, the work was the stuff of classic counterrevolution. As this year marks the 50th anniversary of The Remnant, I thought perhaps readers might get a kick out of a few memories of how it used to be.

Here's how the technical end of it worked in the years before The Remnant was produced (as it is now) on a web press: With no computer, spell check or Internet—my father (already a seasoned newspaper man for some 30 years) typeset The Remnant on an electric typewriter. He then used a pair of scissors to cut out each column of text, before using hot wax to "paste up" the pages on large copy boards. Then he’d shoot those boards on a ten-foot Robertson Process Camera (installed in the basement of my childhood home).

He’d then develop the film in large, flat pans of developer and acid in the darkroom he built (also in the basement). After the darkroom process was finished and the red light tuned off, he’d use a small brush and red opaque to meticulously clean up any imperfections on the negatives (using a light table), before burning their image onto metal plates on a carbon plate burner. I remember my father teaching me to use the little cotton pads and lacquer to rub down those plates until, like magic, the text and graphics of the next issue of The Remnant would slowly emerge.

Next, my father and older brother, Joe, would slap those now-processed plates onto the A.B. Dick offset press (also in the basement), ink it up, fill the water reservoir, and begin the 2-day process of running 10,000 11X17 sheets per spread of 4 pages (4 sheets for each 16-page issue)—through that press.

When that was done—after untold numbers of squealing paper jams and offset problems (too much ink, not enough ink, too much humidity, etc.) they’d fold all 40,000 sheets of paper on little tabletop folders, collate the 16-page issue by hand (with the help of my seven sisters) and then staple each issue closed. He’d then run each issue, by hand again, through an address-a-graph multigraph machine that used little credit cardsized tin stencils with the name of each Remnant subscriber stamped into it by my mother and sister, Cathy, throughout the year. He’d then sort all of those Remnants by state and country (again by hand), run them through a binder, and finally drive 30 mailbags full of Remnants down to the St. Paul Post Office to be mailed to the "remnant" all over the English-speaking world.

This my father did every week from 1967 through 1987 (when he switched over to a web press), after having left The Wanderer over an editorial dispute with his brother on what my father saw as a massive revolution in the Church—a little event called the Second Vatican Council. Year in and year out in those years following the Council, he would spend one week writing and editing The Remnant and then the next week printing and mailing it—with the help of his 9 children. It was the most taxing labor of love I think I’ve ever seen.

Now, remember: At that time there was no Ecclesia Dei, no Summorum Pontificum, no Indult Mass. The old Mass was ‘outlawed’. The few "renegade" priests who refused to say the New Mass would come and go, offering the old Mass in secret on the altar my father had rescued from a local church and installed in our basement chapel. But the rest of the Catholic world had gone mad with aggiornamento, guitars, felt banners and the mighty spirit of Vatican II. Incredibly!, the pioneer traditionalists never lost hope. They knew exactly what the Novus Ordo was—which is why they opposed it with everything they had.

Imagine their resolve! Imagine how they were mocked by their co-religionists, their neighbors, even their families.

I was just a kid at the time, and so it was all very exciting for me. But they gave up everything for Catholic counterrevolution and an unflappable hope in Catholic restoration that, humanly speaking, must have seemed almost delusional at the time.

May we never forget the noble stand for Catholic Tradition made by the giants on whose shoulders we now stand. I’m quite sure God never did.

MJM certain carefully prepared analyses and critical observations about the new Ordo by competent theological/liturgical experts, beginning with Cardinal Ottaviani himself.

The Cardinal’s critique of the new Ordo was in the form of a letter, dated Sept.

25, 1969, which he sent to Pope Paul together with a pertinent theological study of the new rite by a group of Roman theologians. Both the letter as well as the comprehensive study of the new Ordo have been, to our knowledge, virtually ignored or ineptly treated by the press and communications media, including most segments even of the self-styled conservative press both at home and elsewhere. TRIUMPH magazine, however, got out a 12-page Special Supplement earlier this month, carrying the full text of Cardinal Ottaviani’s letter and also the text of the Roman theologians’ study of the Ordo.

The Special Supplement, entitled "The Ottaviani Intervention," is obtainable from Triumph at 927 15th St., N. W., Washington, D.C. 20065, at .40 per single copy.

TRIUMPH magazine makes no bones of the fact that its purpose in reproducing these historic documents and disseminating them as widely as possible is to "save the Tridentine Mass." Apparently the editors feel as we do and as Cardinal Ottaviani feels about it, namely, that the new Ordo, at least until such time as an explicit ex cathedra papal judgment has been rendered concerning the matter in its entirety, is still open to question in that it seems to represent a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was so concisely formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent.

Cardinal Ottaviani calls attention in this connection to the fact that whenever a new law intended for the good of the people can be proved, instead, to be harmful, the people have a right, even a duty, to ask for the abrogation of such a law. More specifically, the Cardinal asks of the Holy Father that, "at a time of such painful divisions and ever-increasing perils for the purity of the Faith and the unity of the Church," that the faithful be not deprived of "the possibility of continuing to have recourse to the fruitful integrity of that Missale Romanum of St. Pius V (the now discarded Mass Missal) which Pope Paul himself has so highly lauded and which is "so deeply loved and venerated by the whole Catholic world."

For our part here at The Remnant, and considering the fact that the Holy Father only recently ordered a two-year delay or postponement before the new Ordo is to be officially and universally approved and definitively ratified by the Church, we strongly urge our readers not only to avail themselves of the above named Special Supplement put out by TRIUMPH magazine, but, by all means, get behind the move to "save the Tridentine Mass," i.e., the traditional Catholic Mass, before the two-year postponement mentioned above has run its course.

After all, Pope Paul himself, as we pointed out in our preceding issue of The Remnant, has stated publicly that

Continued Next Page

Walter Matt teaches Michael Matt...a long time ago

The Little Remnant...

Continued from Page 2

"we have reason indeed for regret, reason almost for bewilderment," now that we are faced with, in his words, "giving up something of priceless worth," i.e., the old Tridentine Mass.

In the circumstances, it seems to us not only our right but even our duty to try to save the old Mass from those who, for whatever reasons, are in fact desacralizing and despoiling it and thereby risking the integrity of the Catholic Faith as such!

As the Roman theologians state the case at the conclusion of their scholarly study of the new Ordo: "Today, division and schism are officially acknowledged to exist not only outside of but within the Church. Her unity is not only threatened but already tragically compromised...

To abandon (at such time) a liturgical tradition which for four centuries was both the sign and the pledge of unity of worship (and to replace it with another which cannot but be a sign of division by virtue of the countless liberties implicitly authorized, and which teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the Catholic religion) is, we feel in conscience bound to proclaim, an incalculable error."

Indeed, and if it be true, as professor at the Lateran University, Msgr. Francesco Spadafora, is alleged to have written, that this new Ordo Missae has been "perpetrated we do not know exactly by whom and why, and against even the wishes of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and against an absolute majority of the Bishops," then surely the time is at hand for questions to be asked and for specific answers to be given to these and to other charges that have been made against the new Ordo.

The fact is that there are many today— ourselves included—who are literally sick at heart, spiritually, over the new Ordo Missae, and who simply cannot understand most of the arguments that have been advanced in its behalf. Our own correspondence, especially with priests, reflects this mood of spiritual dejection and heartache.

One friend of ours, a well-known priesttheologian, writes of the "new Mass" as

"a most painful thing," which

"fills me with agony at the mere thought that I shall have to say it, worse still, that it is ‘in obedience to the Council’ that we may have to say it! The fact is, as I see it, that the Council is being openly disobeyed not only with regard to the Latin and Gregorian Chant, but also insofar as that self-same Council insisted, after all, that it was proceeding in complete consonance with the Council of Trent—presumably also with Trent’s decrees on the Holy Sacrifice! In any case, I am learning more and more that there are quite a few other priests who are just as much in agony over the new Mass as I am, and some are even contemplating getting permission from Rome to say Mass in one of the Oriental Rites if possible. As for me, this is turning out to be one of the gravest crises in my life. ‘Crisis of conscience,’ as Cardinal Ottaviani used it, is the right expression indeed!

Hence, if you dare, don’t hesitate to speak up about the agony of soul which many of us priests are going through at present. And please, do pray for us—pray for me!"

Someone has well said that in this as in all such soul-shattering questions, we must place our trust not only in the Holy Father but in the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Unerring Truth, who will remain with the Church till the end of time. Let us reflect on the words of Holy Scripture, (Luke XI, I 1): "And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? Or a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he reach him a scorpion?" If this can be said of any father, can we believe anything less about him whom we call our Holy Father, the Pope, Christ’s Vicar?

My suggestion, then, is that we ask our Holy Father, the Chief Pastor or Shepherd of souls in all Christendom, to treat with special pastoral solicitude and care the present wretchedness of spirit that afflicts so many of the flock and to give heed to their suppliant plea to save and preserve the old Tridentine Mass, which is Christ’s Most Holy Sacrifice ordained by Him to remain with us forever! ■

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Sun, 5 Mar 2017 | Cover | Page 01

Who’s Lying Now?

A Fake New World

By Hilary White

Why can’t we figure out what is really going on? We have heard, since the last American general election, the term "fake news" being thrown around, that we can’t trust what we’re reading and hearing. It has been a huge success at creating fear and distrust, division and contention, as it was intended. We start to wonder if we can even trust our own eyes. We wonder what is going on in the Vatican and the world, and are at such a point of confusion and self-doubt that we feel we can no longer know up from down.

For many, it has the result of driving us away from public engagement altogether. If nothing you read or see on TV can be trusted – if we get conflicting and contradictory messages even from the pope – isn’t it time to just retreat? To give up trying to figure it out, and build a private enclave where we don’t have to think about it anymore?

Let me tell you something that seems not to be getting said much: this business of "fake news," is a scare campaign. It is being used as a deliberate tactic of manipulation to sow self-doubt, division, suspicion and confusion among a public who have forgotten how to think clearly. We, who were raised on blind trust of media celebrities (remember Walter Cronkite’s sign-off slogan every night on the evening news? "And that’s the way it is…") have been taught no longer to trust ourselves. And this is exactly the condition of mind that was intended.

~ See Who's Lying/ Page 5

Who’s Lying Now?

A Fake New World

H. White/ Continued from Page 1

We are instructed what to think, what to believe, and most especially we are instructed all our lives never, ever to question whether those sources are reliable. "Fake news" is a classic Sovietera Marxist manipulation tactic. The only reliable news source is Pravda, all dissent from that must be denounced as "fake news". It is a means of controlling you, of keeping you docile and dependent upon the "official" news, the approved information systems, the acceptable narrative. This carefully crafted bubble of limited information – created from approved disinformation – is what these elites have taken such pains to create and enforce since the 1960s.

How do I know? Because the internet has made it possible to challenge it. The internet is being used as "samizdat," and the people who created our governing narrative are worried. If you stop and think about it for a moment, you will notice that the only thing being called "fake news" are the voices of dissent against the modernist, secularist, globalist, statist, leftist programme – a dissent that has finally started threatening the grip on political and economic control these elites have enjoyed nearly unchallenged since Yalta. Consider for a moment: if the only ones producing "fake news" are Breitbart and pro-life and pro-family websites like LifeSiteNews.com – and in the Catholic world conservative and traditionalist bloggers and publications like me and Canon 212, the Remnant and Steve Skojec – you can be sure that you are being sold on a disinformation tactic, a weapon of manipulation based on fear.

Funny irony, eh? "Fake news" is fake news.

I want to talk today about how we got to this point. I am going to propose a few awkward questions about why this tactic is being successful. Why can’t people tell for themselves what is and isn’t true? To understand that, we have to understand how media works, what is "narrative". We have to understand how a totalitarian society can be created by the careful restriction of ideas.

Thankfully this is starting to get noticed and talked about. In a piece published yesterday on the Daily Wire website, we were advised to consider a famous science fiction novel, "Fahrenheit 451," a classic examination of state control of thought, more in the vein of Huxley’s "Brave New World" in which the public are not controlled by brute force, but by distraction, pleasure and passivity of comforts as well as the suppression of any disturbing ideas. In Ray Bradbury’s dystopia, firemen don’t put out fires, they hunt down and burn books, so that the ideas in them don’t upset anyone.

"… Although published way back in 1953, the novel almost perfectly predicted what has happened to the modern Left, not just here in America – everywhere, most especially Europe. "Set in the future, Bradbury’s society has become so hostile towards any kind of adversity, most especially the concept of exposing themselves to contemplative thought or challenging ideas, that they not only burn all the books, they numb themselves with drugs and reality television, and cancel out even the possibility of self-reflection with a bombardment of relentless stimulus in the form of gadgets, pop culture, social media and overall pleasure-seeking."

As a dystopian warning, it isn’t as famous as the two great (and opposed) theses of Brave New World and 1984, but it’s perhaps more descriptive of what we are seeing today.

Thanks to a perfect storm of the internet and the eradication of liberal arts education over the last few decades, most especially of history and the ability to think rationally, the exchange of the

Laws of Rational Thought for the rule of glandular impulses, reality itself is now believed by most to be completely malleable. Those things we can see with our eyes, feel with our hands, smell with our noses, are irrelevant, we are told.

We have entered the era of the ultimate triumph of the will.

We have gone from parents being "empowered" to decide for themselves whether their unborn child is or is not a person, to deciding for our children what their "gender" will and will not be. A woman can be a man and a man can be a woman; indeed he can even be a six year-old girl (having a homosexual relationship with his "adopted daddy,") if he says he is and enough people "support" him on Twitter and MSNBC.

But this total "freedom" (in reality it is license,) is an illusion. The idea of everyone deciding Reality for himself is a little too chaotic even for our new masters, the next step has been to frighten us into not trusting ourselves.

Not only may we no longer trust the evidence of our senses, there is a whole set of beliefs that has been taken off our hands and made, literally, unthinkable.

We may now indeed "choose our own reality" but only and exclusively from the limited set of proposals that have been manufactured for us by our betters and promoted for us in our media. We may decide our own "gender," (and, apparently, age) as long as we don’t insist that we really can’t, that it is categorically decided for us by biology – by external, objective reality. We may choose any religion – including one that condones murder, mass rape, child sexual abuse and genocide – as long as it isn’t classical, doctrinal Christianity.

The idea that we get to ‘make our own reality’ is actually a fraud. As though the world were being run by Our Ford, we have been told we can have our mass produced reality in any colour we want, as long as it’s black.

And increasingly, as though we are slowly sliding out of Huxley’s Epicurean vision and into Orwell’s darker more brutal world, the instructions we receive seem to revolve these days around whom we must hate. The acceptable reality is no longer being described to us in positive terms about what we can be and do, but about the evil of those who would continue to reject the New Paradigm, and cling to the evidence of their senses, continue to doggedly live by the Three Laws of Rational Thought. The Twitterverse, particularly, is being used as a kind of perpetual " two minutes hate," a venue for the whipping up of screaming rage against dissidents.

"The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any presence was always unnecessary.

A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.

And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp." [ref.: Nineteen Eighty Four, by George Orwell] Something non-journalists don’t often understand is the necessity of a "narrative framework" in journalism, and that this isn’t the same thing as "bias". Something that has been understood about literature for millennia is that to tell a story you have to put it into terms and a context that your audience is going to understand. Language – the art of being understood – is about more than mere vocabulary and grammar rules. To be understood, you have to work within a comprehensible framework of cultural concepts.

If you are an academic historian, you use a different subset of language and concepts writing a paper for a peer review journal than you would if you were writing an op-ed for the Times.

As any Homeric poet of the late bronze age could tell you, if you want your long and complicated heroic history to be understood in the Agora, you have to make sure your audience not only understands the Greek words, but knows all the histories of the Trojan Wars, is a part of that cultural framework. And this lack of a common frame of reference – this ever-widening divergence of– is what is making it nearly impossible to communicate between the sides.

The differences, the huge divergence between the New Paradigm and the old culture, has moved well beyond a mere matter of deliberate bias. We simply no longer have a common cultural narrative framework. Two totally different and – much more important – mutually exclusive, opposed, sets of cultural ideas are currently at war in our societies.

To understand what you are reading you have to understand the difference between "bias" and "narrative framework." An honest narrative framework takes into account the authentic cultural surroundings. The Athenians would all have known by heart the stories of the great culturedefining war of their ancestral heroes. A playwright who wanted to make a point about human suffering and war, a point that would be universally understood in all its nuances, would write a play like the Trojan Women, because he knew that this was the contextual ground of his entire culture. No one in that unified culture was going to miss his point.

But what if they had somehow all forgotten this history, this cultural context? What if they had been separated as children from the firesides of their elders, and taught in a state school instead? What if children never heard their grandparents talking about the past but known only what was told them by those who wrote their curriculum? What if they had never been told of the city of Priam, of the ruinous liaison of Helen and Paris, of Hector and Achilles, of the curse of Cassandra, or of Agamemnon, the villainous Clytemnestra and their tragic children Orestes and Iphegenia? What if, like the babbling, uncivilized tribes on their borders, these Greeks were Greek in vocabulary and grammar, in geography, but ignorant barbarians in their cultural memory?

And what if they had been deliberately made so by their leaders, a class of unscrupulous oligarchs who banned the telling of old tales and took children away from their parents? What if these evil, culture-destroying, men – men " sick with power" – had replaced the old true Greek heroic tales with a set of

Continued Next Page

Who’s Lying Now?

H. White/ Continued from Page 5

new stories, stories meant to convince the people that they ought to be ruled by the oligarchs forever?

What was going to happen to those people, those former-Greeks, whose true history and mythologies and stories had been stolen from them by this band of unscrupulous men? How would any of them be able to tell what was true history and what was false?

What has happened to our cultural narrative framework? If I were to write an article for some large-audience medium like the BBC and I included in passing some quotes and references to a story in the Bible, do you think the editors at the BBC online news services would leave it in? Would I be allowed to excite the curiosity of the public in this way, or worse, a desire to know things they must never know about?

So now, especially since the election of your new president, we are hearing our own oligarchs, our own cultural revisionists screaming about "fake news". A new sub stream of the same narrative-replacement, a fearful new myth concocted straight out of the minds of those who would guide and direct all the millions who look at the internet every day. All those people whose minds have been carefully emptied of the ability to tell truth from falsehood.

It is an Orwellian paranoiac’s worst nightmare in which the blank-minded masses direct their daily Two Minutes Hate at any target chosen for them by their masters.

We have now an audience utterly incapable of imagining anything other than what they are told to imagine, and confused and frightened into a screaming rage whenever they hear the old stories.

So, how do we really figure out what is and is not true? Especially on the internet? Let me help you with that: check the right box… Is this person a six-year-old girl?

Yes.

No.

See? It’s not so hard. I give you permission to trust the evidence of your senses.

So, we extend this to all the realms we are concerned about. We are as qualified as anyone to answer the questions. What do we know about these people? What kind of man is Cardinal Burke? What kind of man is Jorge Bergoglio? We know them. We’ve known them for decades.

Any man or woman in public life can be judged on their actions. And the internet never forgets. ■

This Canadian man left his family to live as a transgender/'transager' six-year-old girl, with adopted parents and a big sister (eight years old). 'I've gone back to being a child', says this husband and father of seven, 52, who left his wife and kids to live as a SIXYEAR- OLD girl named Stefonknee.

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Sun, 5 Mar 2017 | Cover | Page 01

On Amoris Laetitia:

Interview of Vatican Liturgical Consultant and Professor of Theology, Msgr. Nicola Bux

By Alberto Carosa

Rome Correspondent

"Giving Witness to the Truth Involves the Abandonment of Friends, Betrayal and Death" As the debate on the exhortation " Amoris Laetitia" is raging on, Msgr.

Nicola Bux has kindly agreed to share some comments on the present state of affairs, especially following the letter to the Pope by four cardinals seeking clarification on specific points of the above document. For those who may be not aware, theologian and Vatican liturgical consulter Msgr. Nicola Bux is also professor of sacramental theology and author of several books on the liturgy, including 2016’s Con i sacramenti non si scherza (The Sacraments Are Not a Joke).

Q. You are certainly following closely the story regarding the letter to Pope Francis by the four cardinal asking for a final clarification of certain aspects of the exhortation " Amoris Laetitia",

which in their opinion are not so clear.

What do you think?

A. I’m not competent in moral theology, more than an ordinary Catholic priest; I studied at the Gregorian, when the Jesuit Joseph Fuchs taught "morality in the situation", which I think has ‘infected’ the Amoris laetitia; but don Giussani warned us, because it was a non-Catholic thought penetrated into the

~ See Msgr. Bux/ Page 6

Msgr. Bux, Pope Benedict XVI

On Amoris Laetitia:

Interview of Msgr. Nicola Bux

A. Carosa/ Continued from Page 1

Church, as Paul VI said to Jean Guitton.

I mean. Following the Apostle (Gal 1,8), St. Cyril of Jerusalem teaches that the Catholic faith received in baptism, must be taken as "travel supply" for a lifetime without ever taking anything else, even if the very same pastors, changing their minds, were to teach the opposite of what they had taught previously. The Letter of the Cardinals to the Pope - this, like the other one sent at the beginning of the Synod - is believed to be driven by the same conviction; moreover, it is a sign of recognition of the Petrine ministry, because is asking to be confirmed by the Supreme Pontiff and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - the department specifically responsible for the preservation of the Catholic faith - on a number of truths concerning faith and morals, especially about the sacraments of marriage, penance-reconciliation and the Eucharist. The instrument of the Dubium through which a Responsum is asked, is canonically legitimate, as explained in the same letter.

How then deny that these "doubts", and others, are penetrating into a not insignificant part of the Catholic Church?

It is precisely the Catholic thought to be questioned by the post-synodal Exhortation ambiguities, rather than encourage the propensity to commit morally good acts, in order to grow one’s virtues up to the heroism necessary to achieve holiness, the true end of the moral life according to the Gospel. But such ambiguities appear to comprehend, ‘accompany’ and even legitimize the propensities to perform morally evil acts, such as divorce and remarriage, and to remain in the situations they produce, such as cohabitation and concubinage.

Yet, the Word of God calls them sins and vices.

Q. And how do you explain this situation A. The Catholic thought is in crisis: it has obscured the reason why the Word became flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary and died on the cross to save men from sin, calling them into the Church which, as the Catechism says (cf.

Compendium 1), is called to evangelize and baptize for the creatures to become children of God.

If it has been reached the point to affirm that even those not baptized are children of God, it means that baptism is unnecessary, and therefore also the catechumenate and Christian sacramental initiation. By withholding the truth about sin and grace, it conceptualized a ‘liquid’ Church... to liquidate it.

Q. What do you think of the various reactions to the letter of the cardinals, those in favor like Bishop Schneider, and those against, as Father Spadaro, for whom the Pope has already answered the questions posed by the four cardinals?

A. The interventions of Anna M. Silvas from Australia, Claudio Pierantoni from Latin America, Ross Douthat from the United States, up to the recent ones of John Finnis, Germain Grisez and Edward Peters, represent an intercontinental reaction, therefore not "Eurocentric", but Catholic, on the part of faithful laypeople and clergy, who, as stated in the CIC ( codex iuris canonici, canon law) 212, § 3, have the right and duty to express their opinion to the shepherds. Thus they ‘correct’ them, in the etymological sense of cum regere: the regal munus which also belongs to the faithful (the ‘mi corrigerete’, viz. ‘you’ll correct me’ by John Paul II comes to mind).

Did Cardinals Bacci and Ottaviani not publish in 1969 a critical examination of the new Ordo Missae, that contributed to its correction? Why then should one get scandalized by the Dubia? The Pope could summon the Cardinals around a table and talk fraternally, not emotionally, but with arguments of faith and reason.

Adversarial reactions, up to demonization and threat, instead betray emotion, moralism, and – allow me - anger. Didn’t they want the ‘church of dialogue’?

Those who now out of opportunism have become ‘papist’, whereas in the past they did not spare criticism to predecessors, certainly are not serving truth. However, let us not forget that from the prophets till John the Baptist, but especially from Jesus to John Fisher and Thomas More, giving witness to the truth involves the abandonment of friends, betrayal and death.

Q. One of the four cardinals, Walter Brandmüller, spoke instead of a fraternal correction in private, if their letter continues to remain unanswered A. It’s true that in the Gospel fraternal correction must be made before coram duobus vel tribus testibus (in the presence of two or three witnesses) and should it prove unsuccessful, dic ecclesiae (say it to the assembly) (cf. Mt 18.15 to 17). But there are those who contend that when the scandal and heresy were public, the correction cannot but be done publicly; let’s think of the confrontation between Paul and Peter in the so-called Apostolic Council of Jerusalem (cf. Gal 2:11). In essence, for the Dubia, made public, to be followed by a secret correction would not make sense. Experts in canon law may identify other modalities. Meanwhile, it is important that the debate is spreading in the universal Church.

Q. It is also being rumored that the Pope may revoke the four prelates as cardinal ...

A. A response has been competently provided by Edward Peters for whom "the four cardinals, albeit they would gladly welcome a papal response, are probably satisfied that they have raised some vital issues in anticipation of a day when it will be possible for them to be finally answered. But they could certainly exercise their own Episcopal office as teachers of the faith (can. 375) and propose answers based on their own authority. in fact, they are men, I believe, prepared to accept even the derision and suffer the incomprehension and misinterpretation of their actions and motivations".

I remember that St. Pius X urged:" Be strong! We are not to give in where we must not give in. We must fight, not hesitantly, but with courage; not in secret, but in public; not behind closed doors, but in the open". Today, like yesterday (cf. Rm 12,2), the intra-ecclesial confrontation is between Catholics and neo-modernists: those who speak of conservatives and progressives, reduce the life of the Church to politics. The Cardinals have acted in an ecclesial and non-political way. Therefore, who’s afraid of the theological dispute in the Church, conducted with meekness and humility, as Jesus wants? Raffaello painted the famous one on the Sacramento. The Magisterium would benefit from it.

Q. And what do you think the ultimate consequences of this situation could be, if it is not resolved?

A. It has been said by far more authoritative clergy that we are in the presence of a creeping schism: a non-Catholic thought has entered the Catholic Church, a thought which considers the Mass only as a banquet rather than primarily as a sacrifice, marriage as a human act and not as an indissoluble sacrament, talking of sin and grace has been outdated by a thought which preaches the morals of mercy irrespective of conversion and penance, and so on.

Isn’t it a way to liquidate the Church?

The work of the Church in the world is the victory over evil and death; We must fear not primarily those who kill the body, but those who damn the souls to eternal punishment. ■

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Sun, 5 Mar 2017 | Cover | Page 02

Holy Father, Save the Tridentine Mass!

By Walter L. Matt

Reprinted from the December 31, 1969 issue of The Remnant

Regarding the new Mass Ordo, which was discussed only briefly in our last issue, Pope Paul tells us in one of his latest addresses on the subject (See Remnant, Dec. 15, p. 5-A) that the thing for "intelligent persons and conscientious faithful" to do in order to face up to the new Ordo is, in his words, "we should find out as much as we can about this innovation," which, again quoting his words, "will not be hard to do, because of the many fine efforts being made by the Church and by publishers" who have been and will continue to treat this important subject.

In line with Pope Paul’s recommendation, therefore, that "we must (thus) prepare ourselves" for the new Mass rite–which is to be finalized, first, by the various national bishops’ conferences, and then, presumably, by the Sovereign Pontiff himself sometime in March, 1971—we call attention to at least one of the very "fine efforts" currently being made by a distinguished Churchman and also by a respected Catholic publisher to inform the faithful about some of the more questionable aspects of the new Ordo, even though these particular efforts are being sadly ignored in most Catholic circles today.

By ignoring them, however, the result is that Pope Paul’s counsel to "find out as much as we can about this innovation", is actually being thwarted and supposedly mature Catholics are being kept in the dark about it, which, we are sure, is not the Pope’s intention.

The distinguished Churchman to whom we allude here is His Eminence Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, prefect emeritus of the Sacred Congregation for the Faith.

The respected Catholic publishing house to which we refer is that of Mr.

Brent Bozell, publisher of the erudite TRIUMPH magazine, with headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Both Cardinal Ottaviani and TRIUMPH magazine have, in our humble opinion, rendered an all but unique public service to "intelligent persons and conscientious faithful" by making known to them— despite the usual conspiracy of silence that has been launched against them—

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Sun, 5 Mar 2017 | Cover | Page 03

URGENT:

John Vennari Needs Prayers

By Michael J. Matt

Editor’s Note: On February 22, 2017, I wrote the following for The Remnant’s website. Since that time, I have received word from John that he may have up to two weeks to live. Devastating is not a big enough word.

MJM A few moments ago I spoke via telephone with a Catholic gentleman, a beloved husband, a father and dear friend. His name is John Vennari, and he was told earlier today by his doctors that he is now in the "active stages of dying." John asked me to do him a favor and help notify his many, many friends all around the world that he may not live to see his birthday on Friday. He wishes everyone to know that he’s not in pain. He wishes us all to know that, as he put it, "either we believe in Divine Providence or we don’t. I believe in it, and I know that God has known for all eternity that I would be here in this hospital today, ready to die."

John also believes in miracles, as do I.

And so anything is possible with God.

But John said nothing about miracles. I think he wants us all to know that he’s ready, that he loves God, and that his faith is so much stronger than his body just now. He wants our prayers.

After all this man has done for us, for the Church, for the Catholic cause, I don’t think I need to beg for prayers for John Vennari. All I need to do is tell you that this beautiful soul wants us to pray for him, and I know that tens of thousands of grateful Catholics will do it.

His last words to me just now were to plead that, no matter what happens, we not give up the fight for Catholic restoration. "Please, keep it going. You must continue the fight for the Cause."

What does it say about the caliber of this warrior for Christ that, from what his doctors are now calling his deathbed, John Vennari’s concerns are still for the Traditional Catholic cause he defended all his life.

I will share whatever updates and information I receive from John and his dear wife, Susan—who now stands faithful watch at John’s side. Also, please pray for John’s beloved young daughters, Elizabeth and Philomena, and for his loyal son, Benedict, but especially for their dad who they love and cherish and respect more deeply than I can describe.

Thank you, John, for everything.

God is with you, Mary is at your side and, all over the world, thousands of your brothers and sisters in Christ are with you right now, every step of the way, united with you in prayer. You are not alone, and your unshakable faith shines like a beacon for us all. Pray for us, John. And I know you know these are the most difficult words I’ve ever had to write.

God bless you, and Mary keep. St. Philomena and Our Lady of Fatima— please pray for our brother John. ■

John Vennari

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Sun, 5 Mar 2017 | Cover | Page 03

The Remnant Speaks

On the SSPX Regularization

Editor, The Remnant: I am a young woman who converted from atheism as a teenager and has since attended SSPX chapels. I’ve been following, with deepening concern, the blossoming relationship between the Society and Pope Francis. I’m writing to you because The Remnant has always seemed, while third-party, to defend the principles of the Society’s founder, and I feel lately that those principles are threatened.

By now we’ve all heard the various rational for "the deal", and it sounds like:

At best – "I don’t see how a truly unilateral recognition could actually be bad, and anyway, how could we possibly refuse that, if it was offered?"

If Pope Francis is dead-set on this unconditional approval, why hasn’t he simply declared it, already? Nothing in life is free.

Awkward middle-ground – "The Society will receive an influx of new parishioners who were on the fence because of the irregular status."

How can we be sure this influx will happen? BXVI’s lifting of the "excommunication" got little to no recognition. The Society has operated under a stigma for so long now that it will take years to lose the taboo.

We’ll miss the taboo once it’s gone, by the way. Also, who really cares about irregular status right now; the Church is actively being destroyed by the very man the SSPX seeks to call "friend".

Bordering on delusional – "Francis has always liked the SSPX; it’s an Argentinian thing! He’s all about saving souls unconventionally, so he connects with the SSPX on that level." "Once inside, we’ll be able to really get our fight on and eradicate modernism at its source!"

…Bergoglio’s mobster past in Argentina and current dealings with the Knights of

Continued On Page 4

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Letters to the Editor Continued...

Malta, the Friars, and gentle opponents like Cardinal Burke, makes this one of the scariest things I’ve ever heard. If Francis "likes" the SSPX because he’s "unconventional and all about saving souls," besides being the weakest argument as regards saving souls, where in this is a guarantee that he’ll never change his mind? And what massive new teeth will the tiger sprout who has been pawing meekly at the door of Rome to be let in? It stands against reason to predict that, once safe inside, there will be a supercharge of counterrevolutionary zeal. The opposition from within, if any, will be calm and understated; that’s human nature.

Meanwhile, a growing number of faithful have noticed the marked decline in the energy with which the SSPX speaks out against the errors of the modern Church, even from the outside.

This sits uncomfortably, since never, perhaps in all of history, has the Church been in such a mess as now, so it doesn’t seem the most optimal time to sit out the fight. Maybe it’s a misread, but one expects more than "too little, too late" from the largest traditional organization in the world.

The fight was entrusted to Fellay and Co. by Archbishop Lefebvre; it’s not theirs to give up. Lefebvre laid out the terms for reconciliation with Rome, and the terms were: "We cannot return until Rome converts." What could possibly be construed as conversion in Rome today?

So either Lefebvre was wrong, or the new and improved Society will have to recast him to suit the new program.

The view from Esquiline Hill must be grand, but at what price?

Isabel Greene

Something About Francis

Editor, The Remnant: What are Catholics supposed to do now when our Pope is trying to run down the Catholic faith? Our Lord gave us the 10 Commandments to follow and He would never let us change these laws of allowing same sex marriage, abortion and what next? How can the pope get away with this and the putting-down of President Trump? The Pope is a socialist and St. Thomas Aquinas said that we are not to allow every refugee and immigrant in to our country; that we do not have to take the bad people, in other words, the ones that do not love the U.S.

and want to cause us harm.

Judy Hehl

The Remnant’s Cardinal Burke Interview

Editor, The Remnant: I just finished reading my beloved Remnant, issue 12/25/16 - Volume 49, No. 21. And I would like to comment on your interview with Cardinal Burke, published in this issue, and the four Cardinal’s Dubia in general.

The Cardinal’s responses to your questions gave me little hope that he understands fully the crisis we’re in, what got us to this point and the solution to the problem at hand. Please allow me to explain my concern.

Right off the statements leading to the question ‘does he desire to reform the liturgy in the light of tradition in general throughout the whole Church’; and the Cardinal’s answer left a lot on the table. To reform the sacred liturgy, the Traditional Roman Latin Rite, has been the dream of modernists long before Vat. II. Paul VI fulfilled that dream when he introduced the Norvus Ordo, and his justification was the ambiguous statements in Vatican II documents on the liturgy. All the other evil fruits of V-II, including Amoris Laetitia (AL), were enabled by this singular folly.

The Protestant Reformers understood correctly that if you destroy the Mass you destroy the Church. And I submit, conversely, that if you Restore (not reform) the Traditional Roman Mass to its rightful place as the only Rite in the Latin Church we will start the restoration of Holy Church…and not before. What is the work of the Holy Ghost for some 1,500 years, then canonized by St. Pius V, is not subject to ambiguous statements of V-II, nor any modernist interpretations thereafter.

In general I don’t think that any number of Cardinal/Bishops signing onto the Dubia would solve the problem. The Dubia to me is inadequate. It is too little too late. Did St. Athanasius ask Pope Liberius for an explanation for his support of the Arian heresy? Did Archbishop Lefebvre write a Dubia?

Had either one reacted with ‘dubious questions’ rather than decisive actions we could still be saddled with the Arian heresy; and certainly would not have the Traditional Mass today. And to what purpose is all the Cardinal’s talk about formal heresy etc. concerning AL. When you propose heretical behavior for the whole Church and sign your name to it … how formal does it need to get. Why ask for an explanation when the Pope already explained his merciful intentions in AL. That’s probably why the Pope refuses to reply; and he knows that the Cardinals will continue to wring their hands without any meaningful action.

We don’t need an ‘explanation’; we need an act of contrition from the Pope, and if it’s not forthcoming then a formal request for his resignation. When you or I sign our names to a document, we know beforehand that we just bought a new car or maybe a house. And the Pope knows that what he is teaching in AL is contrary to what the Church teaches and what Her founder taught… period.

And finally when asked for advice for the faithful so they can cope with this situation if it continues, the Cardinal’s response was more of the same that got us into this mess…. namely Vatican II without the ‘Spirit of Vatican II’.

Where does he think the ‘Spirit of V-II’ comes from if not from the ambiguous statements of Vatican II? This reminds me of some of our secular leaders trying to pretend that ‘Muslim Terrorism’ doesn’t come from the ‘Muslim religion’. He referenced pre-VII councils in general, but his only specific recommendations were Vatican II and post V-II encyclicals.

I think the rot in Holy Mother Church, both clergy and laity, is too far gone for human remedy. We forfeited that opportunity when our glorious leaders turned their backs on Our Lady of Fatima’s requests. So now we’ll have to cope with Our Lady’s alternative, namely the Chastisement and a late consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart. I have a friend who prays daily for the Chastisement to come… Her reason is it that it will stop the hemorrhage of lost souls leaving the Church and the continued disorientation of our leaders. May God bless The Remnant in this New Year.

Robert Higdon (long time subscriber) Baton Rouge, La ■

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Sun, 5 Mar 2017 | Cover | Page 04

Just Call Me Fritz

(A Word from a Divorced Catholic)

By Kelly Michaels

Some of you are old enough to remember, and the rest of you are young enough to google (but I am not recommending it, due to a number of expletives here deleted for your convenience) the famous clip from the ‘70s cult flick, Wizards: They’ve killed Fritz! They’ve killed Fritz!

Those lousy stinking yellow fairies!

Those horrible atrocity filled vermin!

Those despicable animal warmongers!

They’ve killed Fritz!

Fortunately, however, Fritz’ distraught friend is not entirely correct. Struggling to his feet, Fritz makes an attempt at reassuring him: Max! Max! I’m okay. I’m okay, Max.

Just a scratch. Look; I’m alright.

But is Max pleased about this revelation? Not a bit! Instead of rejoicing, he merely grouses: There you go again, stepping on my lines, raining on my parade, costing me medals.

And then, discovering that he has actually shot and killed his erstwhile companion himself in the act of crossing his arms, Max gleefully takes up his own former refrain without skipping a beat: They’ve killed Fritz! They’ve killed Fritz! Those lousy stinking yellow fairies ...

In the Amoris wars, it is substance that really counts. What is on the line as a result of the insidious and brazen introduction of situation ethics into the fabric of Divine Revelation can scarcely be overstated, even by the adoption of terminology verging on the apocalyptic.

In conjunction with the submission of the Dubia by Cardinal Burke et al., many experts are tackling this challenge from a variety of perspectives, and they are to be applauded for it. In the meanwhile, however, let’s take a quick look at the mere rhetoric swirling around the controversy--rhetoric which, while comparatively insignificant, can nevertheless be instructive in its own way.

That Jorge Bergoglio needs his mouth washed out with soap is beyond dispute.

His readiness to deride those with whom he disagrees in terms that are unbefitting

Continued on Page 7

Just Call Me Fritz

(A Word from a Divorced Catholic)

Continued from Page 4

a garden variety shock jock, let alone a Roman pontiff, has been abundantly documented, and the hypocrisy entailed in championing "dialogue" at the same time duly noted. Hardly a news cycle passes by without intensifying aspersions being cast upon the "doctors of the law," up to and including a recent fingering as "diabolically inspired." (One wonders if perhaps the Pope should have kept this particular ace in the hole a little while longer. After all, what graver fault could he possibly find with his adversaries from here on out? "Not only that; they have strewn upon the pristine face of Mother Earth disposable waste from the Vatican’s new McDonald’s!") Less noted, however, is the dehumanizing way in which the Holy Father also elects to talk about those whose cause he purports to have taken up. As a divorced (but not remarried) Catholic myself, I have to say I am getting pretty tired of being singled out as "weak," "wounded," and "complicated," all the time. Yes, I am weak; but my happily married friends will readily admit to exhibiting certain notable and chronic shortcomings themselves.

Yes, I am wounded, but so are countless single and religious people in all kinds of convoluted circumstances. Is there something about having gone through the process of civil separation, and of awaiting the judgment of the Church in regards to the impugned sacramental validity of a previous union, that somehow places a person ignominiously beyond the reach of God Himself? What is being castigated for alleged "rigidity," compared to that?

For this is what Amoris is really saying, with its unspecified exceptions and its patronizing tone. We divorced Catholics are so hopeless, so messed up, so "limited" (I believe is the term) that even the Almighty can’t do a thing about it.

Good thing we have him, the Mercy Pope, to make up the difference!

"But Father!" (You know how Francis likes to put softball questions to himself in this style, implying that he has heard such things as a priest countless times?

I think I’ll give it a try myself.) "But Father, isn’t grace sufficient for us? Yes, divorce is very difficult, but there are countless kinds of trials here in this vale of tears. Many, many people have been through experiences unspeakably worse; experiences neither you nor I can so much as imagine. And yet, we know in faith that whatever suffering we do encounter, we are called to nail to the Cross of Christ, hoping always to be united with Him in the next life, in which alone every tear will be wiped away. And in the meanwhile, it is precisely when we are weak that He is strong. So thanks, but no thanks for Amoris Laetitia; we divorced people (like the rest of the human race— to which we actually belong, by the way, no matter how radically you and your ilk try to ostracize us) can still place our trust entirely in God and be content to leave it there, and we don’t need Synods or documents that only impede us on the ‘journey,’ either."

It is not, in other words, the negative precepts of the natural law, nor the sacramental discipline spelled out in Familiaris, nor the temporary and salutary pain of entering the Confessional (which is, for any of us, infinitely better than entering the ‘eternal torture chamber’ of Hell, after all) that are doing the real damage these days. It is not Cardinal Burke and his allies, but Pope Francis himself "casting stones at people’s lives"—stones that could become true stumbling blocks not only for those whose marriages (sacramental or otherwise) have broken down, but for the whole world, if the Dubia are not answered, and answered soon.

But this is not a message that the Kasperites welcome. They have stopped their ears; they have firmly closed their eyes. One cannot avoid the sad (for them) impression that they take a certain measured delight in the fact that the scourge of divorce is spreading like wildfire throughout the West, in this one and only sense: evidently they, like Saul Alinsky, don’t believe in letting a good crisis go to waste. Better that children be devastated and people left to feel abandoned even by God in their losses, if only an advantage for the Modernist agenda can be turned (and perceived ecclesial rivals profitably pinned with all the blame in the process).

Which is why, when it comes to those for whom the breaking Bergoglian Revolution (or at least, its opening Amoris skirmish) is supposedly being waged, I always say: just call us Fritz. ■

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Sun, 5 Mar 2017 | Cover | Page 06

Conversion Stories...

Thanks to Pope Francis

By Petra Perkov

Three months is not such a long period of time, but it was more than enough for me to turn my life around. All I knew and all I was came tumbling down like a house of cards one late evening in the fall of 2016. And it started with Pope Francis.

I was born in the 80s, raised a Catholic in a ‘modern, ecumenical’ Catholic faith. However, it would be unfair for me to blame the post-Vatican II period for my sinful ways. I hold myself accountable, more than anyone or anything else, for not taking the Faith seriously.

I was a Catholic on the fence, Catholic in name only. In other words, I was a disgrace. Sure, I prayed to God (when I needed something), went to Confession (once a year), refrained from sin (when it wasn’t too inconvenient) and believed (in a false version of God).

Clearly, I was living a lie.

Picking and choosing those bits of the Church’s teaching that suited me, while completely ignoring the others, I was quickly becoming a disciple of Satan without even realizing it.

And so, as an ardent follower of Satan, I found myself watching some Protestant videos on YouTube. Then it happened.

By the Grace of God, I stumbled upon a pretty interesting Protestant video on Pope Francis.

As a modern, semi-liberal Catholic (thank God, I have always been very much pro-life), I had thought that Pope Francis was pretty amazing. I never knew much about him, but I quickly bought into the whole ‘mercy mission’ of our Pope. Watching this Protestant video bashing Pope Francis, I felt my heart sink. For although I liked some Protestants, there was something deep inside me, buried beneath the layers of modernism, that was truly Catholic.

I had always known that the Caholic Church was the only true church.

Still, these Protestants were right about everything regarding Pope Francis. The video in question analyzed the obviously outrageous prayer exchange between our Pope and the prosperity gospel fraud Kenneth Copeland.

My heart was racing like crazy. What is Pope Francis doing? What’s going on?

And then, a question crossed my mind:

Is the Catholic Church really the One True Church?

I needed to find out what was happening. Is it possible that Catholics support the actions of our Pope?

This was the beginning of the end.

The end of the old me and the first step on my journey home. For, while I was searching for facts regarding Pope Francis and Catholicism, a whole new world opened up to me: the world of traditional Catholics (aka faithful Catholics).

I learned abouth the Church history, the errors of modernism, the rotten fruits of the Vatican II, the few remaining faithful bishops and cardinals, Amoris Laetitia, the Latin Mass and the false mercy. But, most importantly, I learned about hell.

I had never known about hell. Sure, there was a vague concept somewhere at the back of my mind of what hell might look like. You know, a place where some really nasty paedophiles and serial killers go. Mortal sin – what’s that?

Metaphorically speaking, it was Pope Francis who led me to hell. His actions and words became so outrageously liberal and erraneous, that I could no longer ignore the whole ‘let’s-tolerateeveryone- and-everything-in-the-nameof- mercy" attitude, let alone mistake it for the real Church teaching. I needed to know what the Church really is all about. I needed to know what hell is. Thanks to Pope Francis, I learned all this and so much more.

Had Pope Francis never been elected, would I have changed my ways? Only God knows.

The whole point of this story is, that even in the midst of the unprecedented crisis in the hurch history, the Holy Spirit still governs the Catholic Church.

Sinners are being converted every day, some in spite of the crisis in the Church, others because of it.

Thank you, Holy Spirit, for always guiding us.

Forgive us, Our Lord Jesus, for we have sinned.

Have mercy on our poor souls, God the Father.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us. ■

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Sun, 5 Mar 2017 | Cover | Page 08

They Died for Him:

Let Us Never Forget

By Tess Mullins

Christians throughout the Islamic world are under attack. In churches throughout the Middle East, Christians are trying to be Christian, peacefully worshiping God and seeking to live their lives in peace.

Yet modern Muslim governments try to prevent that; Muslim mobs attack them, and Muslim jihads massacre them, while the rest of world practically ignores them.

This is an all-out persecution, but media coverage is a confusion of social factors, downplayed agendas, and piecey footage.

What should have been the biggest story of 2015 was effectively buried by the Western media: February 12, 2017, was the second anniversary of the stirring martyrdoms of twenty-one Coptic Christians at the hand of the Islamic State for their refusal to deny Jesus Christ as their Lord and God. ISIS gunmen chose these men from among other workers in Libya because they were Copts (Egyptians). They were not chosen at random. ISIS harbors deep hostility toward Middle Eastern Christians, and the Coptic set are the oldest, most persecuted denomination in the world. The goal of the Islamic State is, quite simply, the eradication of their existence.

The martyrs’ faces were grave, resigned, even peaceful, as they were pressured first to kneel, then to lie on the sand to be butchered while cameras rolled; a "message signed in blood to the people of the cross."

Each one was systematically beheaded, and the video clearly shows many of the men praying "Lord Jesus Christ" in their final moments. According to reports, only 20 Christians were to be slaughtered that day. However, moments before the final scene played out, the Muslim extremists pulled aside a prisoner from Chad and demanded that he follow Islam. This Chadian, Matthew Ayairga, turned them down. He had observed the "immense faith" of the Coptic believers who expressed unflinching willingness to die for Christ, and converted on the spot.

On camera, one of the terrorists asked Matthew, "Do you reject Christ?"

"Their God is my God," he responded, and he became the twenty-first of the men who sacrificed their lives that day to witness their faith.

I’m not sure it’s necessary, given these circumstances, for me to know if these men are exactly martyrs in the full, Roman Catholic sense of the word.

It would seem they were more than murdered, however, since they were given an ultimatum: apostatize or die, and they chose to give up their lives rather than betray the only creed they knew to be true and salvific. But I am a lay person, and while it is not my job to place those souls in heaven or hell, I can certainly acknowledge their sacrifice and hope for their salvation; hope even to emulate their conviction, if one day faced with that same ultimatum.

The line between Catholic and Christian Copts can be difficult for Westerners to distinguish. "Coptic" means "Egyptian," and Coptic Catholics are in full communion with the Roman Church, much like Byzantine Catholics, but use the Coptic Rite rather than the Latin Rite. Christians living in Egypt identify as Coptic Christians, and are by far the larger sect. As a denomination, they originated in the city of Alexandria, one of the oldest, most faithful, respected, and fruitful cities during the Apostolic Period. Coptic Christians proudly acknowledge Mark the Evangelist as their founder and first bishop circa A.D. 42-62. The Coptic Church was involved in the very first major split in the Church, long before there was such a thing as "Roman" Catholicism, and it was also well before the East/West schism.

Coptic Christians were separated from the "Great Church" by the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451. The council met to discuss the Incarnation of Christ and declared that Christ was "one hypostasis in two natures" (one Person who shares two distinct Natures). This became dogma for Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics. The Coptic understanding is that Christ is one nature from two natures: "the Logos Incarnate." In this understanding, Christ is from, not in, two natures: full humanity and full divinity creating a Composite Word.

Despite being turned out over this discrepancy, Christianity in Egypt is fortified by deeply religious traditions. It was Egypt where the Holy Family sought refuge. Copts hold that they spent three and a half years there. Across the country there are places, on which churches are now built, that the Holy Family passed by and blessed. No other land apart from Israel can claim such a physical link.

It is also in Egypt that Christianity first thrived. It was Egyptians such as St.

Athanasius and St. Cyril who bolstered the early Church as they fought heretics.

It was in Egypt that monasticism was born at the hands of St. Anthony the Great; Coptic ascetic monasticism paved the way for such legendary figures as St. Simeon Stylites, who stood on top of a pillar for the final 37 years of his life, permitting men (never women) to approach with a ladder and climb up to ask his advice. The Copts preserve such stories as living memories and testimonials that are passed from one generation to the next. Their faith is central to their identity.

Copts observe the seven canonical sacraments, as do Catholics. The Copts’ seasons of fasting are matched by no other Christian community, and adopted with vigor by the Coptic Orthodox (which in many ways is indistinguishable from Coptic Christianity). Out of the 365 days of the year, Copts fast for over 210 days.

During fasting, no animal products (meat, poultry, fish, milk, eggs, butter, etc.) are allowed.

There are three main Liturgies in the Coptic Church: The Liturgy according to Saint Basil, Bishop of Caesarea; The Liturgy according to Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, Bishop of Constantinople; and The Liturgy according to Saint Cyril I, the 24th Pope of the Coptic Church.

The bulk of Saint Cyril’s Liturgy is from the one that Saint Mark used (in Greek) in the first century. It was memorized by the Bishops and priests of the church until it was translated into the Coptic Language by Saint Cyril. Today, these three Liturgies, with some added sections (e.g. the intercessions), are still in use; the Liturgy of Saint Basil is most commonly used in the Coptic Orthodox Church.

Today, there is a small population of Coptic Christians remaining in Alexandria, but most are located elsewhere. Estimates of the current population of the Coptic Church range from 10 million to 60 million members worldwide. Theologically, Coptic Christianity is very similar to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

They profess to be genuine followers of Jesus Christ and a part of His worldwide Church. These Christians side with Catholicism in emphasizing meritorious works of salvation and principle, along with liturgical ritual, rather than identifying with those Christian denominations which stress salvation through a "personal relationship with Jesus".

The last words from the mouths of the 21 Copts that day were "Jesus Christ." We often read stories about early martyrs of the Church. Our imaginations fall short of the real-life scene of men dying for their faith in Our Lord and His mercy.

They were men who lived normal lives, poor men who traveled to Libya for work to feed their families. Yet at the critical moment, they did not deny their Savior.

Though forced to their knees, they were raised far above their murderers. Their attitude in the face of death was one of peace and resignation. They sent their own message to the "people of the cross" that day; that God the Son is worth dying for. This message speaks louder and resonates far deeper than the shrieks of deranged ISIS assassins.

Catholic Copts endure similar persecutions every day, as the Islamic State draws little distinction between Christian sects. Catholics, Christians, and Orthodox in the Middle East are united in suffering at the hands of one enemy; and the West blunders on, dismissing as irrational haters those who would prevent that enemy from establishing a new reign of terror within its borders.

Let’s pray for the souls of the steadfast "people of the cross", and for the strength to die, if called upon, for the God and the Church we love. ■

Sources:

gotquestions.org/Coptic-Christianity.html coptic.net/EncyclopediaCoptica/ nationalreview.com/article/414252/martyredcopts- witnessed-their-faith-and-courageinterview newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/ files/2015/03/25/mideast-christians-map.png wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_Catholic_Church independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/ egypts-coptic-christians-who-are-isiss-latestvictims- and-why-are-they-persecuted-10048328. html bombayorthodoxdiocese.org/what-made-a-nonbeliever- chadian-citizen-die-for-christ-alongwith- his-20-coptic-christian-friends/

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Lives of the Saints…

St. Simeon Stylites

(He did Lent well)

St. Simeon was the first and probably the most famous of the long succession of

stylitoe (pillar-hermits), who, for more than six centuries throughout eastern Christendom, acquired by their strange form of asceticism a great reputation for holiness. The information regarding this strange and deeply religious phenomenon has been preserved till modern day by very reliable sources from first-hand accounts. Were it not for that, we should be disposed to attribute much of what history records about these men to legend; but no modern critic ventures to dispute the reality of the feats of endurance practiced by these ascetics.

Simeon the Elder was born about 388 at Sisan, near the northern border of Syria.

After beginning life as a shepherd boy, he entered a monastery before the age of sixteen, and from then on imposed upon himself the practice of an austerity so extreme, and to all appearance so extravagant, that his brethren judged him – perhaps not unwisely – to be unsuited to community life.

Being forced to quit the monastery, he shut himself up for three years in a hut at Tell-Neschin, where for the first time he passed the whole of Lent without eating or drinking. Every succeeding Lent this became his regular practice, and he combined it with the mortification of standing continually upright so long as his limbs would sustain him. His body adapted to his penances so much so that in his later days he was able to stand thus on his column, without support, for the whole period of the Lenten fast.

During those three years, Simeon’s reputation for superhuman penances and mysticism spread quickly throughout the early Church and brought pilgrims swarming to his crude doorway. Simeon felt that this was counterintuitive to a hermetic vocation, and sought a more secluded residence. He came across a rocky ledge in the desert and compelled himself to remain a prisoner within a narrow space less than twenty yards in diameter. But crowds of pilgrims invaded the desert to seek him out, desiring his counsel or his prayers, and still leaving him insufficient time for his own devotions. In desperation he dreamt up a home which would literally be out of the pilgrims’ reach: Simeon erected a pillar with a small platform at the top, and upon this he determined to take up his abode until death released him. At first the pillar was little more than nine feet high, but when the well-intentioned crowds didn’t get the hint, the first pillar was replaced by another, then another; each subsequently higher until the last in the series stood over fifty feet from the ground.

However extravagantly austere this way of life may seem, it produced a deep impression on contemporaries, and the fame of this ascetic spread through Europe. Rome in particular seemed fascinated by him, and local artists began churning out a large number of representations of the saint.

Meanwhile, even on the highest of his columns, Simeon was not withdrawn from interaction with his fellow men. By means of a ladder which could always be erected against the side, visitors were able to ascend and converse with him.

He endured the interruptions, and only made one demand in return: that, for the sake of his vow of chastity, women refrain from approaching. This request was understood and honored.

We know that Simeon wrote letters, some of the text of which we still possess, through which he instructed his disciples. He was also known to correspond with St. Genevieve in Paris. He delivered sermons to those assembled beneath his pillar. Around the tiny platform which surmounted the summit of the pillar, there was probably something in the nature of a balustrade, but the whole of the structure was exposed to the open air, and Simeon seems never to have permitted himself any sort of roof or shelter. During his earlier years upon the column, there was a stake to which he bound himself in order to maintain the upright position throughout Lent, but even this was an alleviation with which he soon afterwards dispensed.

Great personages, such as the Emperor Theodosius and the Empress Eudocia manifested the utmost reverence for the saint and listened to his counsels, while the Emperor Leo the Thracian paid respectful attention to a letter Simeon wrote to him in favor of the ruling of the controversial Council of Chalcedon.

This Council had great ramifications for the unity of the early Church. It was called in AD 451 in Chalcedon, a city in Asia Minor. The council’s ruling was an important step in further clarifying the nature of Christ and the traditional doctrine of the Trinity. The council also laid the groundwork for one of the most significant events in ecclesiastical history—the Great Schism.

In order to appreciate the significance of the Council of Chalcedon, we need a little background. Debate about the person of Christ arose prior to the first Council of Nicaea in AD 325. A man named Arius had taught the false doctrine that the Son of God was a created being and that He was of a different substance (heteroousios) than the Father. The Council of Nicaea sought to unambiguously define the relationship between the Father and the Son. The council said Jesus was truly God. Yet opponents of the divinity of Christ did not simply give up after the Nicene promulgation. But faithful Christians like Athanasius continued to defend Christ’s deity, and, in the end, truth triumphed over error.

After Nicaea came the Council of Constantinople in AD 381, which called heresy on the teachings of Apollinaris, who said that Jesus’ divine nature had displaced His human mind and will.

According to Apollinaris, Jesus was not fully human. Later, Nestorius said Jesus had two separate natures and two wills, essentially making Him two persons sharing one body. This teaching was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in AD 431. And ten years later Eutyches also denied that Jesus was truly human, saying Jesus’ human nature was "absorbed" or swallowed up by His divine nature. This led to the Council of Chalcedon, which only lasted from October 8 to November 1, 451.

The Council of Chalcedon anathematized those who taught that Christ had only a single, divine nature and those who taught a "mixture" of His two natures (The Coptic Christians held the latter view, and split from the Great Church over this disagreement, effectively becoming the first protestant sect).

The Council produced the "Chalcedonian Definition," which affirms that Christ is "the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man."

He is "consubstantial [homoousios] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood." Jesus Christ is "to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably." The divine and human natures of Christ are distinct yet united in one Person. This co-existence of Christ’s two natures is called the Hypostatic Union.

By codifying this dogma, the Council of Chalcedon made it easier to identify error. The Council was also significant because it ratified the creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople, and it condemned the false doctrines of Nestorius and Eutyches. The council reaffirmed the single Personhood of Christ and the authenticity and perfection of both His natures: human and divine.

St. Simeon received word from his perch of the Council’s rulings, and approved of them whole-heartedly. Not surprising that one in such constant conversation with God would be able to recognize the truth at once.

He lived on top of that pillar until the end of his life. Once when he was ill, Emperor Theodosius sent three bishops to beg him to descend and allow himself to be attended to by physicians, but the sick man preferred to leave his cure in the hands of God, and before long he recovered. A double wall was finally raised around him to keep the crowd of people from coming too close and disturbing his prayerful concentration.

Simeon spent 37 years upon the pillar.

He died on September 2, 459. A disciple found his body stooped over in prayer.

The Patriarch of Antioch performed the hermit’s funeral before a huge throng of clergy and devotees. They buried him not far from the pillar.

A contest arose between Antioch and Constantinople for the possession of his remains. The preference was given to Antioch, and the greater part of his relics were left there as a protection to the unwalled city. The ruins of the vast edifice erected in his honor and known as "the Mansion of Simeon" remain to the present day. It consists of four basilicas built out from an octagonal court towards the four points of the compass.

In the center of the court stands the base of St. Simeon’s column. ■

Sources:

catholicsaints.info/catholic-encyclopedia-saintsimeon- stylites-the-elder/ gotquestions.org/council-of-Chalcedon.html newadvent.org/cathen/13795a.htm wikipedia.org/wiki/Levant

"And yet I know not well, for that the evil ones come here, and say, ‘Fall down, O Simeon; thou hast suffered long For ages and for ages!’"

- Alfred Tennyson’s St. Simeon Stylites

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Imploding Papacy Signals Triumph of Immaculate Heart

By Christopher A. Ferrara

Pope Bergoglio is a man in a hurry. It is almost as if he working on some sort of deadline to impose his designs upon the Church—a deadline of four years to be exact, as LifeSiteNews reminded us regarding an anonymous comment by one of the cardinals who voted for this disaster of a Pope: "Four years of Bergoglio would be enough to change things."

The co-conspirators themselves have openly admitted the existence of a plot to elect Bergoglio to "change things" in the Church rapidly and "irreversibly" in ways exceeding even the catastrophic innovations of the past fifty years— or so they thought. Pope Benedict’s secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, spoke of "a dramatic struggle" during the 2005 Conclave "between the "socalled ‘Salt of the Earth Party’ (named after the book interview with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) comprising ‘Cardinals Lopez Trujillo, Ruini, Herranz, Ruoco Varela or Medina’ and their adversaries: ‘the so-called St. Gallen group’ that included Cardinals Danneels, Martini, Silvestrini or Murphy O’Connor’ — a group Cardinal Danneels referred jokingly to as "a kind of mafia-club…" Another member of the "mafia-club" is Walter Kasper, the German arch-heretic who had fallen into obscurity until Bergoglio’s arrival on the scene.

With Bergoglio’s election at the 2013 Conclave the conspirators finally succeeded in achieving the proximate object of the conspiracy, but only after the hated Benedict XVI had been driven from the Chair of Peter, having semiabdicated while clinging to his papal name, papal title, papal garb, papal insignia, and even the papal office in its supposedly "passive" versus "active" dimension. He thus became the first "Pope Emeritus" in Church history—a total novelty that in and of itself suggests Benedict is somehow still a Pope.

The conspirators have also succeeded in achieving a further object of the conspiracy: the admission of public adulterers to Holy Communion without an amendment of life, following a sham "Synod on the Family" in which were intimately involved none other than co-conspirator Kasper, whose heretical notion of "mercy" Francis began promoting immediately upon his election, and co-conspirator Danneels, the Modernist protector of a priest-rapist and a supporter of "gay marriage."

And now the bimillenial Eucharistic discipline of the Church, integrally linked to her infallible teaching on the Eucharist and the indissolubility of marriage, stands divided along the fault lines Bergoglio has created. No less than the President of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio—whose name has a disturbing assonance with the name of certain bird—has just given an interview with Edward Pentin wherein he announces the new Bergoglian Rule: one who is living in an adulterous "second marriage" can be absolved and admitted to Holy Communion while continuing to engage in adulterous sexual relations, so long as he declares to his confessor something like "I want to change, but I know that I am not capable of changing, but I want to change."

So much for the constant teaching of the Church that absolution requires a "firm purpose of amendment," which even the Catechism the very Pope that Francis declared a saint describes as "sorrow for and abhorrence of sins committed, and the firm purpose of sinning no more in the future." Bergoglio will have none of that sort of merciless rigorism. As Coccopalmerio explains: "If you wait until someone changes their style of life, you wouldn’t absolve anymore anyone at all."

But one might ask: How would a confessor know that the penitent who invokes the Bergoglian Rule and claims "I want to change but cannot" is sincere and thus should be absolved even though it is understood that he will continue to commit same sin? Not to worry, says Coccopalmerio: "You have to pay attention to what the penitent says. If you know — you can tell if he is misleading you." You can tell! Really, you can!

Need I mention that the Bergoglian Rule flirts with the Council of Trent’s anathematization of Luther’s heresy that it is impossible to keep the Commandments even if one is in the state of grace? Then again, the difference between Bergoglian and Lutheran theology appears to be vanishingly small, which perhaps explains Bergoglio’s journey to Sweden to pay tribute to the arch-heretic’s "legacy."

On February 24, during another rambling homily at Casa Santa Marta, Bergoglio told us yet again that a staunch defense of the moral law concerning matrimony is mere casuistry worthy of the Pharisees. In the Gospel According to Bergoglio, Jesus did not tell the Pharisees that divorce is unlawful: "Jesus does not answer whether it is lawful or not lawful; He doesn’t enter into their casuistic logic…. Casuistry is hypocritical. It is a hypocritical thought.

‘Yes, you can; no, you can’t.’" Pope Bergoglio appears to have overlooked the same verses he has been ignoring for the past four years: "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."

Thus it would appear that even Jesus succumbed to the "casuistic logic" of the Pharisees, according to the Bergoglian Hermeneutic. So did God the Father when He declared: "Thou shalt not commit adultery" as well as "thou shalt not" do various other things enumerated in what were once known as the Ten Commandments, but have since been redefined—by Bergoglio in Amoris Laetitia— as the Ten Objective Ideals or the Ten General Rules (cf. AL nn. 300305).

This papacy has become such a mockery that it is now arousing open opposition from deep within the Catholic mainstream, which is finally awakening to the alarm "radical traditionalists" have been sounding for decades. In a piece entitled simply "This Disastrous Papacy," Phil Lawler recounts how "something snapped" when he read Bergoglio’s claim that Jesus did not say "you can’t" to the Pharisees regarding divorce. He declares: "I could no longer pretend that Pope Francis is merely offering a novel interpretation of Catholic doctrine. No; it is more than that. He is engaged in a deliberate effort to change what the Church teaches." The Bergoglian pontificate, he concludes, "has become a danger to the faith."

But Bergoglio has much more danger in mind as he rushes to fulfill his megalomaniacal "dream" of " transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation."

Nothing as trivial as the Church’s selfpreservation— or God, for that matter— can be allowed to interfere with the apotheosis of Bergoglianism. Thus there are rumors (based on leaks from Casa Santa Marta, which tend to be accurate) of a new payload of blockbusters Bergoglio is planning to drop before he drops:

• some sort of non-ordained "female deacon";

• a Novus-Novus Ordo, under construction by a secret commission, that would permit a form of intercommunion with Protestants;

• the transformation of Catholic parishes into "ecumenical communities" administered not only by priests but also Protestant ministers on the theory that their ministries possess "partial" validity, as Coccopalmerio suggests at the end of his interview with Pentin. Like a runaway train on a sharp curve, the Bergoglio Express has left the tracks. Now, even a significant number of the cardinals who made the mistake of voting for him at the 2013 Conclave can see the wheels coming off the train. With opposition and even outright mockery of Bergoglio rising everywhere, the Times of London, quoting Antonio Socci in

Il Libero, reports in a headline story that "A large part of the cardinals who voted for him is very worried and the curia . . . that organised his election and has accompanied him thus far, without ever disassociating itself from him, is cultivating the idea of a moral suasion to convince him to retire…" Socci observes that "Four years after Benedict XVI’s renunciation and Bergoglio’s arrival on the scene, the situation of the Catholic church has become explosive, perhaps really on the edge of a schism, which could be even more disastrous than Luther’s, who is today being rehabilitated by the Bergoglio church… The cardinals are worried that the church could be shattered as an institution. There are many indirect ways in which the pressure [to resign] might be exerted."

It isn’t going to happen. Bergoglio will cling to power until his dying breath.

As one Vatican insider (who prefers to remain anonymous) confided to the Times: "A good number of the majority that voted for Bergoglio in 2013 have come to regret their decision, but I don’t think it’s plausible that members of the hierarchy will pressure the Pope to resign. Those who know him know it would be useless. [He] has a very authoritarian streak. He won’t resign until he has completed his revolutionary reforms, which are causing enormous harm."

But there is an auspicious development in all of this: The recognition that

Continued Next Page

Pope Francis Honored as Revolutionary

The Carnival of Viareggio's ‘il Che GuePapa’ float featured Francis wearing the beret of the anti-Catholic communist, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara , and surrounded by Mao Tse-tung, Karl Marx, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin), and Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz.

Imploding Papacy

Continued from Page 10

" I could no longer pretend that Pope Francis is merely offering a novel interpretation of Catholic doctrine. No; it is more than that.

He is engaged in a deliberate effort to change what the Church teaches." - Phil Lawler

Bergoglio is running amok and that, to recall Lawler’s words, his pontificate "has become a danger to the faith," is now well established in the Catholic mainstream. The neo-Catholic knee-jerk defense of every papal word and deed (lest the traditionalist critique of the post-Vatican II innovation of the Church be in any way vindicated) is no longer operative, a few shameless diehards excepted. Intellectual honesty is blooming everywhere as Pope Bergoglio rubs the Church’s face in the ugly reality of what the post-conciliar revolution has been all about from the beginning: Quite simply, the end of Catholicism, if that were possible.

For the past four years, Bergoglio has been laboring to bridge the gap between concept and reality in these final stages of the revolution. But his cunning faux magisterium of the wink and the nod, the either and the both, the employment of subalterns to put forth what he is thinking while he maintains the thinnest pretense of plausible deniability, has been exposed for what it is: a fraudulent abuse of papal authority. Everyone knows this now. The question is: What are we to do about it?

When historical trends reach such a climax—what the historians call a "climacteric"—great reactions set in. But the Church is no mere human institution, guided solely by human movements. The reaction is this case will indeed occur on the human level in the form of growing resistance to Bergoglio’s madness. The infinitely greater element of the reaction, however, will come from on high, as Heaven itself intervenes when all seems lost. So Our Lady of Good Success assures us: "To test this faith and confidence of the just, there will be occasions when everything will seem to be lost and paralyzed. This, then, will be the happy beginning of the complete restoration."

In this year of the centenary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima, we have good reason to hope that our heavenly rescue is near at hand, even if the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart may occur amidst the ruins of the visible Church and the body politic.

But after all, what are such travails in view of the eternal felicity to which we are all destined if only we persevere to the end? ■

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Sun, 5 Mar 2017 | Cover | Page 11

Debating the Relevant Issues…

The Slippery Sede Slope:

Father Brian Harrison vs. Hilary White

First, Father Harrison

Editor, The Remnant: Hilary White’s recent article, "Sawing Off the Branch", accompanied by a smart cartoon, seemed to gain massive reader approval - five stars, no less! That worries me, because I think she is treading on dangerous, incipiently schismatic, ground, and therefore leading many more Catholics along that perilous road. Hilary’s theology strikes me as deficient, and she seems to be on the verge of sedevacantism. She’s clearly straining at the leash, longing for the freedom to raise two clenched fists up to heaven and proclaim to the four winds that Bergoglio is Not Her Pope!

Well, I agree that that feeling of liberation would be deliciously cathartic and euphoric. But sedevacantists don’t have the answer here. Being sheep without a shepherd, they divide endlessly among themselves over various doctrinal and canonical issues, and quickly come to anathematize each other as much as they do the rest of us. Each sede becomes his own little "pope", and the visible unity of the Church is pulverized.

If Miss White’s hypothetical small group of orthodox ("ultraconservative") Catholic leaders were to declare that Pope Francis was in schism from the real Church, by what right would they claim our allegiance? To coin a phrase, "Who are they to judge?" Indeed, schism is by definition "refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff" (CCC, #2089), and it’s clearly nonsense to talk of the Roman Pontiff refusing submission to himself.

That goes against the same basic first principles of logic that Hilary tries to base her case upon.

The great doctors and theologians who have studied these difficult issues have concluded that a Pope might lose office through falling into formal heresy, but not by becoming schismatic. And they have taught that we would need a virtual ecumenical council – an assembly of the world’s bishops minus the pope – to declare that the reigning pope was formally heretical and had therefore lapsed from office. If a mere small group (like the six cardinals who have submitted the dubia) were to declare that Francis had lapsed from office through heresy, and go on to start their own little parallel organization, they would be the ones in schism even if they preserved the True Faith. (By the way, I’m sure those cardinals never will in fact take it upon themselves to declare that Bergoglio is no longer pope, and then convoke a little conclave to elect a new one. Cardinal Burke knows well that that would constitute schism, and he assured me personally, at the Norcia conference that both I and Miss White attended in 2015, that he will never go into schism. He has repeatedly said the same thing publicly.) Miss White seems to be under the impression that as long as a Catholic holds fast to the true (orthodox) faith, he can’t possibly be in schism. But that’s not true. As Aquinas and all the great doctors explain, heresy is a sin against the virtue of faith, whereas schism is a sin against charity. Most schismatics also tend to be heretics as well, but the two offences are essentially distinct, and a schismatic can be perfectly orthodox in doctrine. Miss White also says it doesn’t matter much to her whether those church leaders teaching heresy are malevolent destroyers or just ignorant, because in either case they are erring against the orthodox Faith which she feels sure she is keeping intact. But in fact, it matters hugely whether the Pope’s heterodoxy is culpable or inculpable, because only if it’s culpable will he be a formal heretic and so lapse from office. And I think it would be an act of dangerously rash judgment, at this stage, to declare Pope Francis formally heretical.

In regard to Communion for the divorced-and-remarried, for instance, he has repeatedly stated that he believes his position is in line with the traditional Catholic teaching about diminished imputability, which is, as we know, that for a Catholic to lose sanctifying grace and lapse into mortal sin, his sin has to be not only one of ‘grave matter’ (which adultery of course is), but there also has to be full knowledge that the act is gravely sinful and full consent of the will in doing it.

The Pope’s main argument in Amoris Laetitia is that if either of those last two is lacking – and he believes one or both of them will be lacking "in certain cases" (note 351) – then the sin of those concerned will be less than mortal, in which case (so he thinks) there’s no reason in traditional Catholic moral theology to deny them Holy Communion. Francis, relying on theologians like Cardinal Kasper, probably thinks their exclusion from Communion up till now has been a matter of changeable ecclesiastical law only, not divine law. Alternatively, if he follows the line of Cardinal

Schönborn, whom he has praised as a reliable spokesman, Francis may well think that the only significant change he has effected in Amoris is to finally ‘go public’ with certain exceptions to the "no-Communion" rule which Rome, since way before Vatican II, had already quietly allowed priests to grant in the strict secrecy of the confessional.

Now, I think such arguments are specious and fatally flawed; however, this is not the place to go into details.

I’m just making the point that the theological issues here are more complicated than Hilary White seems to realize, and that nobody, as far as I can see, is at present in a position to affirm with confidence that Francis is stubbornly denying something he knows to be proposed by the Magisterium as a divinely revealed truth (i.e., a dogma of faith). And as long as the competent authority (the remaining bishops) can’t prove beyond reasonable doubt that he’s doing that, then he remains Pope.

And if he remains Pope, it is those who repudiate his authority and organize their religious activities independently who will be in schism, even if they happen to be more doctrinally orthodox than the Pope himself.

Fr. Brian W. Harrison, O.S.

St. Louis, MO

Hilary White’s Response:

I shrug. I’m not a sede. Bergoglio’s the pope. Fr. Harrison is a good man, and I like him. He has my email address if he wants to talk to me about any concerns he has with regards to my spiritual life. But he’s not a traditionalist, and it has been showing. I’m sure the confusion of our time is enough to send good men into spirals, or lead them to wrong conclusions. I’m as prone to it as anyone, but sedevacantism isn’t one

Continued Next Page

The Slippery Sede Slope:

Father Brian Harrison vs. Hilary White

Continued from Page 11

I’m heading for. It is the direction taken by Jorge Bergoglio that is creating a schism. He may or may not be called on it during his lifetime, but as Athanasius Schneider said, schism is what it is. And no theologian, no scholar or saint or doctor of the past has ever ruled out the possibility that the pope is as prone to these things as anyone else.

I will not follow Jorge over the edge of the abyss into his heresy. Maybe we could ask Fr. Harrison if he will.

This is the full citation from the CCC: Schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."

11

The note is a citation of the Code of Canon Law which uses the same wording.

I don’t now remember the details of the article that accompanied that cartoon, but my position is taken from other works published by the Remnant, particularly Robert Siscoe’s article about the deposition of a pope. A pope cannot be "deposed". But he can, by heresy, cease to be pope, de facto; by his own action of denial of the Faith. This has to be declared by the competent authority, not just some random collection of a "hypothetical small group of orthodox ("ultraconservative") Catholic leaders."

Modern sedevacantists hold that they can make such a determination privately. This is nonsense. I don’t have the authority to issue any kind of declaration that the pope is a formal heretic. And neither do they. (Nor do I or anyone else have the personal authority to declare that Pope Benedict Ratzinger’s resignation was invalid, which is another blind alley many are going down.) As Robert Siscoe made clear, no one has the authority to depose a pope.

Not even an ecumenical council. But a lawfully convened "imperfect council" of cardinals can issue a "declarative sentence" that, after being presented with his heretical opinions, the pope has fallen into formal heresy. The necessary, logical result of this would be that he is not a Christian, and since no Christian can be pope, that by his own action he had lost the charism of the papacy.

Do I think this has already happened?

Obviously not.

Do I think it likely that it will happen?

No, not really, given that the pope’s clearly manifest heresies are shared by a large majority of the faithful, due to 50 years of diabolical disorientation, including the great majority of bishops.

Do I think that Bergoglio and his crew are manifest heretics who are leading the faithful over the cliff of the mortal sin of apostasy, effectively theologically sawing themselves right off the great oak of the Church?

Most emphatically.

Do I have the slightest qualm about calling this spade a spade, about identifying the evidence of our senses, saying that the pope can be a heretic?

Not at all.

(In case Fr. Harrison or any of our readers are wondering, there is plenty of theological precedent that a pope may fall into heresy. I cite only what Robert Siscoe provided: Pope Adrian VI († 1523) went further by saying "it is beyond question" that a Pope can err in matters of faith, and even "teach heresy": "If by the Roman Church you mean its head or pontiff, it is beyond question that he can err even in matters touching the faith. He does this when he teaches heresy by his own judgment or decretal. In truth, many Roman pontiffs were heretics.

The last of them was Pope John XXII († 1334).") Is this a problem I think I can solve, either privately or by some kind of public declaration of my own, however "cathartic" I might, in his imagination, find it?

Nope.

Is this a problem that Fr. Harrison can solve by calling me unjust names in public?

Nope again.

If Fr. Harrison has a problem with the conclusions in Robert Siscoe’s article, he can take it up with him. Or if he has a problem with Bellarmine, Suarez or Cajetan or any of the other great names cited there, I’m sure he can work it out without calling me unjust names in public.

I know Fr. Harrison does not mean to be unjust and I know I’m being a bit facetious, and I wouldn’t dim his star by accusing him so. But I also know that a great many very good and very doctrinally sound people have not yet been able to bring themselves to accept certain admittedly terrifying facts that we all see before us every day.

I don’t think, however, that anything is to be gained by making unjustified accusations, or by deliberately taking the worst possible interpretations. Nor by pointing the firing squad inwards.

Hilary White Santa Marinella, Italia ■ For further study, please see The Remnant’s: Can the Church Depose an Heretical Pope?

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Traditional Latin Mass 101

The Conclusion of the Canon

"The Glorious Crown of the Ancient Sacrificial Prayer"

By Father Ladis J. Cizik

In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

Awesome realities are expressed most eloquently in the prayer which closes the Sacred Canon of the Mass. Contrary to today’s heretical Modernist age of religious indifferentism, the closing prayer of the Canon is an acclamation that the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Faith was founded by God and is the One True Faith with the fullness of the Truth. This ancient prayer treats of our Catholic belief in the Dogma of Transubstantiation, which distinguishes us from Protestants and other heretics.

It also deals with our belief in a Triune God and the Divinity of Christ, which distinguishes us from Muslims, Jews and other non-Christians.

The conclusion of the Roman Canon is effected by the following ancient prayer amid multiple Signs of the Cross ("+"): Per quem haec omnia, Domine, semper bona creas, sancti+ficas, vivi+ficas, bene+dicis, et praestas nobis. Per ip+sum, et cum ip+so, et in ip+so

est tibi Deo Patri + omnipotenti, in unitate Spiritus + Sancti, omnis honor, et gloria. Per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Saint Thomas Aquinas had much to say about the plenitude of Crosses made by the Priest at the end of the Canon (see ST III. Q83 a5 ad3-4). He said that "After the Consecration, the Priest makes the Sign of the Cross, not for the purpose of blessing and consecrating, but only for calling to mind the virtue of the Cross, and the manner of Christ’s suffering." In particular, he noted that the triple Signing of the Cross beginning at the sanctificas represents the Lamb of God’s threefold prayer upon the Cross: 1) "Father, forgive them …" 2) "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" and 3) "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit." Saint Thomas also said that the triple Signing of the Cross at the Per ipsum signifies "the three hours during which Jesus hung upon the Cross, that is, from the sixth to the ninth hour." The Angelic Doctor also wrote that the last two Crosses made over the Chalice at the est tibi Deo Patri call to mind the "separation of His Soul from the Body."

Because there is no "Amen" at the conclusion of the Canon’s penultimate prayer, the Nobis quoque peccatoribus, the Per quem haec omnia may be regarded as its continuation. As such, we enter into this final prayer of the Canon after begging Almighty God to grant us some share and fellowship with the Holy Apostles, Martyrs and all God’s Saints. The Communion of Saints and the unity of the Mystical Body of Christ, is the thought leading into the concluding prayer of the Canon Missae.

Following the Nobis quoque peccatoribus, the Priest joins his hands and then makes the Sign of the Cross three times over the Sacred Host and the Chalice containing the Precious Blood of Christ, as he prays: Per quem haec omnia, Domine, semper bona creas, sancti+ficas, vivi+ficas, bene+dicis, et praestas nobis (By Whom, O Lord, Thou dost always create, sanctify

+,

vivify

+, bless

+, and bestow upon us all these good things).

Since the bread and wine had previously been changed by the Priest into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ through the miracle of Transubstantiation, these three ‘Signs of the Cross,’ and any others after the Consecration, CANNOT be considered to be ‘blessings’ by the Priest upon the Sacred Host or the Chalice. These three rubrics rather symbolize the accomplished sanctification, vivification and blessing of the oblation that took place at the Consecration.

"All these good things" (haec omnia … bona) now refers to the Eucharistic Lord, although in some places during antiquity, other gifts were sometimes blessed at this point, such as milk, water, honey, fruit and vegetables. This blessing of various fruits of the earth was never universal but prescribed locally by individual bishops. The only semblance of this today is when the Bishop blesses Holy Oils at this place in the Canon on Holy Thursday.

You "bestow upon us" (Praestas nobis) is a reference to Holy Communion, received later in the Mass, whereby one’s worthy reception of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ will fill that person with sanctity, life, and blessings. The bread and wine, created (creas) by God, and Transubstantiated at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass by the Priest, will now soon be given to those in a state-of-grace as the Holy Bread of eternal life and the Chalice of everlasting salvation.

There follows the Final Doxology preceded by the Priest removing the Pall from the Chalice and genuflecting. He then takes the Sacred Host between the thumb and index finger (the ‘canonical digits’) of his right hand and makes the Sign of the Cross with the Host three times directly over the Chalice, steadied by the left hand, upon the Altar, saying: Per ip+sum, et cum ip+so, et in ip+so

(Through Him

+ and with Him

+ and in Him +). God the Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, is referred to here as "Him," as

Continued Next Page

Continued from Page 12

per ipsum

cum ipso

In ipso

(is unto Thee, God the Father

+

Almighty, in the unity of the Holy

+

to

God the Father …

through, with, and in

God the Son …

in the unity of

omnis honor, et gloria

living

God. Dom Prosper Gueranger O.S.B., in his book,

Explanation of the Holy Mass,

omnis honor, et gloria

is known as the "

Minor Elevation"

(elevatio minor),

not

Minor Elevation

was not only more pronounced, but the

only

The Latin Mass Explained,

Missale Romanum

Per omnia saecula saeculorum

Amen.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass:

Amen,

Sanctus,

the Priest,

in persona Christi,

Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus

Lex orandi, lex credendi:

Per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

■

The Traditional Latin Mass--

the Mass the saints heard every day!

it is His Precious Blood alone in the Chalice. The

prayer teaches that Christ is the Mediator between God and man, as well as between man and God. The

can refer to those in a state-of-grace being united with Christ now and for eternity.

may refer to the prayer of Our Lord: "That they may all be one, as Thou, Father in Me, and I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me" (Jn 17: 21).

Then, making the Sign of the Cross twice with the Host over the Corporal between his breast and the outside of the Chalice, the Priest continues: est tibi Deo Patri + omnipotenti, in unitate Spiritus + Sancti…

Ghost …). As neither the Father nor Holy Ghost were immolated on Calvary, the Sacred Host here does not pass over the Chalice; the Precious Blood belongs to the Son alone. The last two Signs of the Cross, along with the previous three, are sometimes said to represent the five wounds of Christ in His Hands, Feet and Side.

The Trinitarian formula of this doxology confirms the Catholic belief in the Divinity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. In this closing prayer of the Canon, the Church affirms that we pray

God the Holy Ghost.

Divine Revelation, which is contained in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, is embodied in the Traditional Latin Mass. Hence, the Mass of the Ages professes that the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church believes in the Dogma of three Divine Persons in One God. Hence, Catholics also believe in the Dogma of the Divinity of Christ.

Muslims, Jews and other non-Christians, deny these essential Divinely revealed truths.

The Priest then raises the Chalice about three to four inches above the Altar with his left hand, while holding the Sacred Host slightly over the center of the Chalice, as he prays four short words:

(all glory and honor). The Body and Blood of Christ are elevated simultaneously to show that in the Risen Lord there is no longer any separation of His Body and Blood, His Soul from His Body: He is the

writes: "The Sacrifice thus truly offered, indeed, is the greatest act which can be done for God. On Calvary, the immolation of the Lord was a hideous and abominable crime; but here, this immolation is all that is most glorious for God, and it is because He Who is offered is living. It is the living God we offer; it is the living Son offered to the living God" (pp 170-171). Protestants deny this truth.

The raising of the Chalice at the

sometimes referred to as the ‘Little Elevation,’ as opposed to the ‘greater elevation’ which took place at the Consecration. The purpose of the Minor Elevation is

in showing the Sacred Gifts to the people, but only in lifting up God the Son/Our Lord Jesus Christ, to God the Father as an oblation.

In ancient times, the

elevation. Msgr. George J.

Moorman in his 1920’s book, reprinted in 2007 as

writes: "Up to the eleventh century, the Body and Blood of Christ were held up at this point in the Mass to receive the adoration of the faithful. But … around 1047, a more solemn elevation was adopted by the Church to furnish a public profession of Her ancient Faith concerning the Real Presence, in contradiction to the heretical teachings of Berengarius" (p. 153). This "more solemn elevation" at the Consecration was codified in the Great Pope Saint Pius V’s

which would well serve the Council of Trent’s response to the Protestant ‘De’-Formation of the Church.

As the Sacred Host and Chalice are placed back on the Corporal, the Priest purifies his fingers over the Chalice before covering it with the Pall. He then genuflects in adoration, rises, and chants or proclaims in a loud voice, ending the grand silence of the Canon:

(For all ages of ages/World without end); to which the server responds,

This marks the CONCLUSION of the Canon of the Mass.

As Father Nicholas Gihr so eloquently summarizes in his book,

"By this majestic conclusion, recited aloud or sung, the solemn silence of the Canon is broken in order that the people, by answering

may make known their assent to all that the Priest alone has performed.

Thus, the Canon terminates in an enthusiastic doxology, which is the glorious crown of the ancient sacrificial prayer" (p. 726).

There is a timeless symbolism of the Canon being introduced and concluded with Trinitarian doxologies. After the

goes up the Altar steps to ‘enter the cloud’ to converse with God in silence, as did Moses on Mount Sinai. As Moses emerged from the cloud with the Ten Commandments, so too does the Priest, in the Person of Christ, break his silence to present the Divine Instruction contained in the ‘Our Father.’ The two doxologies make it clear that Jesus Christ is both Lord and God.

In regards to the Divinity of Christ, Saint Paul the Apostle was not ‘religiously indifferent.’ In his Letter to the Romans (Rm 11: 30-36) he speaks of his concern for those who do not believe in Christ.

He concludes in a doxology similar to that in the concluding prayer of the Canon: "For of Him, and by Him and in Him, are all things: to Him be glory forever. Amen." Writing again in another place of the need to believe in Jesus, Saint Paul delivers another precursor to the conclusion of the Roman Canon: "Now to the King of Ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.

Amen." (1 Tim 1 :17).

Like Saint Paul, for ‘the Glory of God and the salvation of souls,’ the highest law of the Church, we should pray for and proselytize those who are outside of the One True Church founded by Christ.

(No salvation outside the Church) is taught to us by the twin fonts of Catholic Truth: Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

Catholic Truth is reinforced by the prayers of the Traditional Latin Mass.

The law of prayer is the law of belief; how you worship is how you will believe. That is why we pour our hearts and our souls into the Traditional Latin Mass:

In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

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Sun, 5 Mar 2017 | Cover | Page 14

Lost in the Fifties, Too

"Out of the Mouths of Babes": A Brief Word on the Joy of Lent

By Walter L. Matt, RIP

(Written by the founding editor of The Remnant on March 2, 1950) Lent took me rather by surprise this year, what with all the work and troubles I’ve been telling you about lately.

One night, just a few days prior to Ash Wednesday, my seven-year-old nephew paid us his regular week-end visit at Matt Manor. He’s a bright-eyed, good little youngster, always full of surprises, and every-one of us thinks it’s a lost week-end when he doesn’t show up. But, not unlike most boys his age, he also has his moments for being obstreperous, and that particular evening seemed to be one of them. So, it wasn’t long and he had to be taken in hand. I reminded him then about the approaching season of Lent and how necessary it is to curb one’s thoughtless whims and desires, so as to be happy and carefree in our relations with our fellowmen, ourselves, and our God.

As a matter of fact, I was beginning to feel rather puffed up and proud over what seemed to me a decided change for the better that had taken possession of the youngster.

Then, suddenly, with his nose still buried in his milk glass and his innocent blue eyes dancing at me over the rim of it, he ventured this between swallows: "Uncle Walter?"

"Mm-hm."

"Sister told us at school the same things you said about Lent. She said it would be nice if we kids went to Mass every morning during Lent and she wants us to pray more."

I breathed contentedly over this and said to myself it was a chance I shouldn’t miss, to tell him a little bit more about how people should observe Lent. So I relaxed into my favorite easy-chair, lit my favorite cigarette and, between luxurious puffs, told him all about it.

I was beginning to feel the thrill of a sculptor intent upon putting the finishing touches to a soft and pliable piece of clay.

Then all of the sudden he said: "Uncle Walter?"

"Mm-hm,’ I said, through a smoke-ring.

"Uncle Walter," he exclaimed with enthusiasm, "Yesterday in church the priest said that one thing grown-ups might give up for Lent is smoking. Are you going to stop smoking during Lent, Uncle Walter?"

…Well, now, let’s see—What was it St.

Paul said about chastising one’s body and bringing it into subjection? Oh, yes: "Lest perhaps when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway"!

May I say, in my admittedly weak defense, that however deficient I may have been in preparing myself purposefully and prayerfully for Lent, I have thoroughly learned by now that the involuntary penance of bursitis—an affliction which came upon me and has remained my awful tormentor since Ash Wednesday—should do much to persuade me next year to accept a minor penitential role voluntarily and with joy and gratitude!

One thing I did while bursitis’ demons dug their poisoned spurs into me was to re-read the great Bishop Keppler’s Mehr Freude (More Joy). In it he tells us, among other things, how mistaken we are if we look upon Lent as a grim and splenetic taskmaster or as a kind of inescapable and dolorous evil that must somehow be stoically borne. Joy and penance go hand in hand, the one cannot do long without the other.

The penitential season of Lent is not an end in itself, but a means to an end, a means to attain closer to that sublime Happiness and Joy which the modern world is lacking and which, in last analysis, is God. The Church, therefore, with its insistence on fasting and selfdenial, is anything but a vengeful kill-joy. On the contrary, it is today’s religionless, godless world that has killed all music and song, all blessed harmonies that once kept the world, if not completely at peace, then certainly on an evener keel than today when it is skidding from one world war into another.

What the modern world craves is security. What the modern world gets is "mercy killings" and atom bombs. What the modern world wants is happiness and peace. What it gets is unrest, tension, neurosis. The modern world scoffs at penance and self-sacrifice, not realizing that these are the only means to true joy and real peace. If we, by joyfully carrying our cross, are blessed with the peace and tranquility of the Prince of Peace, the modern world sees only the ugliness of our transitory cross and is blind to its final triumph.

What the modern world needs to find out is what we Christians have still vast and almost limitless inheritances of joy which we ourselves have only begun to tap and which, for worldlings and incorrigible sinners, must forever remain a closed and impenetrable garden of darkly mysterious delights.

True, the joy of Christians has also its more somber shades. Our life’s path is no mere joyride. There is a seriousness and disciplined purposefulness which is part of the lot of all cross-bearers. And yet, as Bishop Keppler points out, even in the Old Testament with all its rigorous laws, there also was known to God’s chosen ones the nourishing sweetness of manna. Life in and with the Church, or spent within the varying seasons of the Church Year, is infinitely rich in wholesome sweetness and joy.

The sacraments are inherently related to joy. The sacrament of penance is a divine oasis for the wearied and miseryladen. The sacrament of the altar is unfathomably deep in mystical joys.

Our churches and ceremonies are rich in sublimest poetry and magnificent, soul-stirring songs. Here Christians find a heavenly home, a holy spa to rest and revitalize their souls.

And all our feast-days and holy seasons, what immeasurable joys do they instill!

What a rhapsody of joy resounds ever anew within us at Christmastide and reechoes in our souls with the Alleluia Easter chorus!

And why not? Prayer has a way of unburdening the heart of the humdrum cares of this world and drawing into our souls the clean, sweet air of another world, a purer world. Conversing with angels and saints is certainly not a depressing chore, nor will a person getting older or sourer by praying and playing at our Heavenly Mother’s feet. No, every Christian virtue has its full measure of genuine joy. And we Christians all have a garden where a wonderful variety of beautiful flowers bloom. Indeed, there is no soil so rich in joy as this soul-cleansing and mystical garden.

And yet, you may say, what has this to do with the season of Lent, with penance? In the words of Bishop Keppler I will tell you: "Even though we preach penance, as our ministry requires, and even if we insist of mortification, acts of selfsacrifice and self-denial, even then, and in fact precisely then, we are striving to bring true joy to the world and are counteracting the enemies of joy. In times such as ours it is not out of place to warn against the danger of black pessimism entering our souls and destroying that sense of wholesome and realistic optimism which never forsook the great saints….True, there is sometimes need of hail and storm and thunder showers, but we must also remember that for a young crop to grow and thrive there also is need of fresh air and sunshine….Hence we must preach and catechize joyously, and must speak to children especially about Christian joy. The Church wishes our Sundays and feast-days to be happy days, joyous days. She wishes us to bear our cross and yet sing to the Lord in our hearts, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and canticles, being filled with the Holy Spirit. With St. James she says to us: ‘Is any of you sad? Let him pray; Is he cheerful in mind? Let him sing.’ "To present the doctrines of Christian truth is of course important and necessary; but it is also important to preach the joyful tidings of the Faith, of the sacraments, of the Church Year, of virtue and of grace; in this way we win souls to Christ and make them flee the allurements of worldliness and sin…" For those, however, who would onesidedly interpret or misinterpret these words, Bishop Keppler underscores a final word of warning: "One thing, however, that must never be forgotten is that joy is not to be looked upon as the root or stem of our being, but as an offshoot or blossom; ill-nourished roots and decayed stems leave no hope for verdant or healthy buds. In other words, we must never forget that true joy must be earned and is a blessed reward given only to those who live well-ordered Christian lives.

Hence the absolute prerequisite for joyous Christian living is the fulfillment of our Christian duties, conscientious work and effort, fidelity to our temporal and eternal vocation, and the sincere disposition to do the will of God on earth as in heaven.

"Indeed, it is impossible for the flower of true joy to take root in our souls if the weeds of sloth, intemperance, greed, envy, irresponsibility, levity and banality, mediocrity and un-charitableness and uncleanness grow there in wild profusion. On such soil only short-lived and evil-smelling flowers with poisonous berries will thrive. But for the flower of unalloyed Christian joy there is need of sunny soil and alpen air, and the great symbol is God’s grace in which alone true holiness and piety can thrive."..

So, here’s to a Lenten struggle of "more joy"! ■

Walter L. Matt, shortly after returning home from 3 years' service in World War II

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Sun, 5 Mar 2017 | Cover | Page 15

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Pope

By Timothy J Cullen

The figure of Francis I (or just plain Francis, as he prefers to style himself) as papal is often jarring to older, pre-VII- Catholics, not to mention difficult to reconcile with their concept of the papal office. How does one explain him to the young folks as a legitimate pope? This writer, who lives in the home country of Jorge Bergoglio, is to a great extent at a loss.

Ann Barnhardt claims that Francis is an Antipope. Granted, Miss Barnhardt is unapologetically extreme in her opinions, but this writer believes that her opinions cannot be dismissed without significant consideration.

Granted, Miss Barnhardt is an extremist, but she is no fool; thus in this writer’s opinion, her claims merit examination.

Chief among them is her insistence that the true and legitimate pope is Benedict XVI, his "abdication/resignation" notwithstanding. This writer for one is not inclined to dismiss this assertion without due consideration.

Papal elections since that of John XXIII are questioned by some devout Catholics as perhaps illegitimate if not entirely manipulated by political forces inimical to Catholicism, forces that have as their "final solution" the destruction of the Catholic Church as a force that has as among its purposes the defense of Western culture and civilization as the secular means of achieving Her God-given goal of the redemption of immortal souls not merely in the West that is a product of Her labors, but in the world at large. If the Church, the repository and transmitter of the teachings of Christ, is subverted, then it is not only the West that shall suffer, but humankind as a whole, an immortal condemnation that simply cannot be permitted.

Pope Francis appears to have forgotten this in favor of the age-old delusion of the secular utopia, a heresy that is in no way "new", but rather has deep roots dating from the very beginnings of the articulations of the Faith within the dogma of the Church.

This writer lacks the theological selfassurance of Miss Barnhardt, but nevertheless is inclined to view Pope Francis as at best a papal anomaly, at worst an Antipope in fact devoid of papal authority. This essay is written under the assumption that Francis is in fact a legitimate pope, albeit one whose words and actions belie such an assumption. Pope Francis appears to this writer as a figure whose papacy represents a challenge and a test to the Faithful with respect to the future of the Church and the Faith.

Those of you who are parents or grandparents will eventually be required to state truthfully to your progeny and descendants just what are your thoughts and feelings with respect to the reigning pope, particularly if you find yourselves at odds with his present teachings as opposed to the millennial teachings of our Church. This writer, who lives in the home country of Francis, the first South American pope, has not found this an easy task to say the least, even with a daughter-in-law born here 28 years ago taught to believe in a Catholic Faith very different from that learned by her father-in-law in a time that now seems nearly antediluvian by folks her age. This young woman, a devout and previously unconditional supporter of her papal countryman, has begun to have doubts and finds herself quite confused in this soon-to-be fourth year (13 March) of the papacy of Francis, a situation not all that surprising for anyone who thinks critically.

It has been very instructive for this writer to have observed this process in a young woman (mother of two) who was raised to accept the teachings of the pope as tantamount to the teachings of Peter and to accept them without debate. It is not an exaggeration to state that her present confusion is a matter that has disconcerted her and troubles her greatly, given that she was until recently the catechism teacher for young children in our parish.

This young woman is a Traditional Catholic without fully understanding that she is and this writer struggles to explain to her that this is indeed the case. The task is doubly difficult owing to the fact that Pope Francis is a countryman of hers, a fact that is a great source of pride for her and her birth family and many, many others like her, persons of humble origin who were raised and indoctrinated by priests sympathetic to the heresy of what is known as "Liberation Theology".

The recent papal pronouncements with respect to the acceptance of adultery in the name of a dubious "mercy" that also extends to homosexuals and other perversions has been beyond her capacity of understanding, just as has been the case for her husband and her father-in-law and to an evergreater extent her largely unlettered birth family. Her instinctive acceptance of Natural Law makes recent papal teaching not merely confusing but at bottom repugnant. In short, this sincere young woman has begun to question the legitimacy of the pope and particularly his teachings.

Thus, this writer finds himself patiently explaining as if to a child, "Yes, Jesi, there is a pope, but who he is, well, that’s kind of an open question". This is this writer’s belief, erroneous though it may be. Francis calls to mind a somewhat snide short story by a wellknown (here) South American writer, Alfredo Bryce Echinique: "Papa Guido, s/n" (Pope Guido, without number).

Pope Francis is farcical and this sad fact is becoming increasingly more obvious even in his native land. Ah, the shame he has brought upon the Church and the Faith he betrays!

This pretentious "pope" represents the quintessence of the subversion of the Church by Her mortal enemies, a Quisling who has sold out the Faith for a mess of narcissistic pottage. Does anyone within the community of those who hold fast to the millennial Faith not find himself occasionally questioning whether or not this man is the Vicar of Christ, dogma notwithstanding?

While not a sedevacantist for reasons of dogma, this writer in his heretofore hidden heart has felt and feels a revulsion toward the V-II papacies that is tantamount to an emotional acceptance of sedevacantism while rejecting it intellectually and spiritually.

The papacy of Francis, quite frankly, threatens to push this writer over the edge. Yet in his reasoning mind and heart of hearts he knows that he cannot permit himself to fall into such error.

Reflecting upon the present papacy somehow led this writer to recall with pleasure that as a boy some sixty years ago, he was delighted by a series (19501955) of movie comedies featuring actor Donald O’Connor and Francis the Talking Mule. The first seen was the last in the series: Francis in the Navy (1955), but with time and television, he came to see them all save the 1956 Francis in the Haunted House, featuring a different cast.

O’Connor typically played the part of Peter Sterling, good-hearted and naïve (typically depicted as a soldier) who received wise advice from Francis the Talking Mule. The mule character in the movies was represented as a gruffvoiced male, although in fact the actual mule was female.

1

The notion of a talking mule that can only be heard by the bumbling protagonist made for great childhood fun, but had Francis been a snide, sanctimonious ass doing the talking, spouting off to all and sundry, frequently making no sense at all, the results would have been less amusing and perhaps positively disconcerting. No, a talking mule with only one listener was just the ticket.

Strange how a mere coincidence of names can call up seldom recollected memories, but some subconscious association must have been made.

Perhaps it had to do with the "haunted house"? It should be noted that there is no scandalous comparison to be made here between the pope and a fictional talking jackass, particularly when taking into consideration that the talking mule was filled with wise advice.

No previous pope of the past century, not even those post-V-II popes, even remotely calls to mind the present pope. As a friend recently pointed out, younger Catholics without sound formation now employ St. John Paul

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_the_ Talking_Mule

Continued Next Page

There is, after all, precedent.

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Pope

T. Cullen/ Continued from Page 15

II as a benchmark by which to measure popes! The task, however, is to explain how in his words "even bad popes are still popes", while one finds oneself unable to dismiss out of hand the "antipope" thesis as put forth by Miss Barnhardt, tenuous though it may be.

Again, this writer’s friend was of great assistance: "From what you have said in the past and what you say here, I get the impression that your DIL [daughterin- law] reacts far more from emotion than from reason." This writer, at 70, is ashamed to admit that at times the same is probably true of him.

Francis is a vexing but legitimate pope as nearly as can be determined after considerable research. Benedict XVI is now "Pope Emeritus", a heretofore non-existent papal office. Was he forced out of the papacy as some claim? This writer finds himself persuaded by this statement made by a British priest and doctor of theology: "There are persistent rumours that Benedict’s resignation was not entirely free, and these are potentially damaging to the unity of the Church, because if this were the case then both his resignation and the election of his successor would be canonically invalid.

In a rare, direct interview with a German journalist with whom he has close contacts, Benedict categorically denied that he was forced to step down."

2

Readers of the Remnant are familiar with Italian journalist Antonio Socci’s original argument against the validity of Benedict’s resignation3 and subsequent withdrawal of his questioning of the validity of the papal election.

4 This writer

2 http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/february-27th-2015/ the-pope-emeritus-experiment-is-working/ (emphasis added). 3 http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/ item/274-latest-updates-from-socci-the-papal-games .

4 http://www.remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.

defers to those more knowledgeable than he on the matter and thus attempts to explain that while the present pope’s words and deeds seem to fly in the face of the teachings of two millennia of Catholic Teaching, he is in fact the pope, a fact that does not, however, exclude the questioning and criticism of words and deeds that may in the fullness of time be relegated to footnotes in a history of a Church that for reasons known only to God was permitted to go astray for a spell.

The Faith does not go astray and what this writer deems to matter most when dealing with the perplexed is emphasizing this point again and again while pointing to clearly stated timehonored doctrine and teachings as the means of clearing away the confusion created by papal pronouncements that appear to contradict or change them. The Faith is immutable, unlike, for example, "settled science", which is "settled" only until some new discovery or other unsettles it.

When treating of matters of Faith, look to the past for what has been "settled" once and for all; nothing, not even nondogmatic assertions by what one might consider a renegade pope can change that!

So, yes, Virginia, for better or worse, there is a pope, but far, far more importantly, there is the Faith and by holding fast to the Faith as taught and practiced by your forefathers, you will receive the greatest gift given by God to man, receive it again and again, every day of your life. What more can you ask?

php/a-cnn/item/2377-socci-media-delighted-withpope- who-seems-to-have-set-about-attacking-thechurch- rather-than-defending-her-against-attackers ; http://eponymousflower.blogspot.com.ar/2016/02/thelast- prophesy-antonio-socci.html

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Sun, 5 Mar 2017 | Cover | Page 16

The Last Word…

Rules for Radicals:

A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Modernists

By Father Celatus

Prior to eight years ago few of us had ever heard of the name Saul Alinsky or of his book, Rules for Radicals. But with the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama and the failed presidential bid of Hillary Rodham Clinton—both extreme radicals who embraced the Rules for Radicals as their personal playbook for collapsing and changing our Country—many credible non-mainstream media sources have exposed the dependency of these two political revolutionaries upon Alinsky and his radical principles. By the way it is reported that Obama has now trained tens of thousands of radicals at Alinsky camps to sabotage President Trump. Out of office less than two months, Obama and Company have already trained more than 30,000 Alinsky radicals and plan to add 20,000 more within weeks. And you thought that the 60’s were radical!

Many of the rules for social radicals are similar and even identical to those for modernists. This should not surprise us; after all, modernists are ecclesiastical radicals with the same general goal of collapsing and changing the status quo.

The social radicals have their playbook and so too do the modernists. Let’s title it, Methods for Modernists, published by V2 Press. Here is a sampling of the modernist methods:

• Modernists must remain within the visible structure of the Church lest they be labeled as formal heretics or schismatics, in which case they are less effective attacking the Church from without. Heresies and schisms outside the Church typically occasion a strengthening of the true Church.

• Modernists must convince the average Catholic that evolutionary change is an indisputable fact that permeates all aspects of reality. Begin with biological evolution, allying yourself with the scientific community. Next apply evolution to truth itself, whether divine or natural revelation.

• Divine Inspiration and the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture are abhorrent to modernists and must be abandoned to be replaced by principles of radical historical critical methodology and rationalism. No references can be made to Church Fathers or any Catholic biblical interpretation prior to 1960.

• Infiltrate the Catholic Church with homosexuals among the clergy and religious. Homosexuals must be in positions of power and influence within the Church to include seminaries, universities, chanceries, congregations and the Vatican itself.

Remember, homosexuals promote homosexuals.

• Clerical and religious sexual predator behavior toward children and adolescents must not be associated with homosexuality. Tactics to protect predators include intimidation of victims, empty promises, changes of predator assignments and public assurances of "child protection."

• The intentional use of ambiguity and ambivalence is highly encouraged and to be employed whenever possible to include the written word in Church councils, synods, encyclicals and exhortations as well as the spoken word in homilies, public addresses and private conversations.

• Villainize your principal opponents, namely, traditional Catholics. Isolate them from mainstream Catholics and from pseudo-conservatives by portraying them as radical and unreasonable. Divide them as a group by selectively applied canonical penalties, concessions and arbitrary restrictions.

• Those assuming higher offices within the hierarchy must present themselves as particularly holy and humble, so as to preclude any criticism of their words and deeds. This can be accomplished easily through empty gestures and measures that are lacking in substance but visible to the public.

• When intending to advance a controversial cause use an indirect approach, such as releasing it within the context of a private conversation that will soon after be repeated and widely reported. Never admit to the controversial content of your private conversations but never deny it either.

• Every so often the modernist must change tactics and make a statement which is regarded as pious, thereby providing evidence that he cannot be a modernist. In particular, it is quite effective to invoke or praise the Blessed Mother or to condemn and rant against the devil-but not too often.

• Modernists in high places should occasionally show themselves to be above the law, whether this regards liturgical rubrics, canon law or ecclesiastical discipline. Do not allow this to be perceived as disobedience but rather as something noble and generous, so that others will follow your lead.

• It is imperative to eliminate belief in the Real Presence and piety towards the Blessed Sacrament. Shun sacrificial language related to the Mass, move tabernacles out of sight, demand Communion in the hand while standing and always refer to the Sacred Species as ordinary bread and wine.

• Make frequent use of indults so as to grant exceptions to otherwise universally binding laws and practices. Over time exceptions will become more widespread and the exceptions will become the norm. This is particularly effective for liturgical rubrics and norms regarding the Sacraments.

• While affirming privately the fundamental goodness of Christ and the Church in purely Catholic settings be sure to likewise affirm publically the fundamental goodness and salvific potency of false denominations and religions. Insist that the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus is untenable.

• Discredit the cult of saints among traditional Catholics by canonizing revolutionaries from the modernist era via a streamlined process with little or no heavenly confirmation. This will have the effect of affirming modernist figures and ideologies in the pious minds of mainstream Catholics.

• The Mass and the Sacraments must be changed radically such that they are severed from their traditional forms and accommodate the preferences of heretics, apostates and the secular world. Thereafter revisions and alterations must be implemented repeatedly to destabilize the faithful.

• Catholic institutions to include schools, charities and hospitals must be thoroughly compromised and closed or at least secularized. This can be accomplished by putting Catholic institutions under the authority and direction of heterodox boards and by staffing them heavily with anti Catholics.

• A massive exodus of priests and religious should be encouraged and orchestrated by some pseudo crisis in the Church over a doctrinal dispute.

Once convents and seminaries are emptied insure that only modernist mainstream communities and candidates are allowed ecclesiastical approval.

• Emphasize the subjective over the objective whenever possible.

Convince Catholics that their true happiness lies in fulfilling their own personal desires, not in conforming themselves to impersonal objective standards of behavior and belief.

Create a homocentric view rather than Theocentric.

• Catholicism must be stripped of its supernatural content and ideals, to be replaced by Humanism. This can be accomplished by allying the Church with purely humanistic movements and causes.

There are many more methods for modernists, multiplying daily under the reign of Pope Francis Alinsky. ■

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