Cardinal Sarah scheduled to celebrate the traditional Latin Mass for anticipated 15,000 at the Chartre Pilgrimage in 2018

Notre-Dame de Chretiente (NDC)—the organization responsible for the Chartres Pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres, France—has announced that Robert Cardinal Sarah will offer the Pontifical High Mass in the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Chartres at the next pilgrimage to Chartres, May 21, 2018.

Below is a resume of the same pilgrimage last summer (2017) at which Cardinal Burke was celebrant:

Something encouraging I missed

CWR Staff, "Diocese of San Francisco: When the thugs get beaten up" (Catholic World Report, April 20, 2015). Quoting from Sandro Magister:

In the United States an appeal requesting of Pope Francis that he remove the city’s archbishop, Salvatore Cordileone, published as a full page paid ad in the San Francisco Chronicle Thursday, April 16th, has become a national issue.

The accusation leveled at the archbishop by the signatories is that he contradicts the pope’s “Who am I to judge” by recalling to Catholic school teachers in the archdiocese—with an instruction of last February 4th—the fundamental obligation to abide by the Church’s teaching with respect to life, the family, and sexuality in their words an in their behavior.

The appeal to remove the “intolerant” archbishop contained the signatures of a hundred Catholics of the archdiocese who define themselves modesty as “committed Catholics inspired by Vatican II”.

Among the signatories is Brian Cahill, former director of the local Catholic Charities, and many wealthy benefactors. Charles Geschke is among them, president of Adobe Systems and ex-president of the Board of Trustees of the University of San Francisco. Also among them is Tom Brady, Sr., the father of an American football superstar, Tom Brady, quarterback of the New England Patriots.

The San Francisco Chronicle, the newspaper that published the appeal, is the largest circulation daily in northern California, owned by the Hearst group. Its online twin is SFGate, with 22 million visitors monthly.

To reinforce the impact of the appeal’s publication, SFGate also launched a questionnaire with four pre-determined answers—two pro and two con—to this question: Should Pope Francis remove Archbishop Cordileone from the San Francisco archdiocese?

And what came of it? The overwhelming majority lined up not to fire the archbishop, but to defend him.

For the sake of accuracy, at noon on Sunday, April 19th, here are the results of the questionnaire:

77% answered: “No, the archbishop is upholding the values of the Catholic Church.”

11%: “Yes, the archbishop is fostering a climate of intolerance.”

10%: “No, the archbishop is right to oppose same-sex marriage.”

2%: “Yes, his morality clauses for teachers in parochial schools defies the law.”

Evidently, the signatories of the appeal are “prominent Catholics”, but they have neither the pulse nor the following of bulk of the faithful, not even in the U.S. city depicted by the media as the most “liberal”.

[Hat tip to JM]

Cardinal Siri, John Senior, and the Rock

Cardinal Siri, Renovatio II (1967), fasc. 2, pp. 183-184 (via FideCogitActio, January 7, 2016), writes:

This “roccia” (rock) will never crumble, nor flake, given that its solidity is guaranteed in the text of Matthew until the end of time. The “rock” remains and no one will scratch it, implicated as she is in a divine undertaking. But on occasion some men may take from others the vision of the rock. Other things may be made to seem like the rock, other things that may appear to all as such. The distinction is a profound one, even if the errors of these men are capable of veiling the reality (truth), they cannot destroy it. The question, easy for all, that presents itself is one of the visibility of the rock. If then situations should occur, that took from certain men the visibility of the “roccia” (rock) in the Church, the consequences would be grave. Those that convert to the Church, convert because they are convinced that they have found the “roccia” (rock), not doubt, hesitation, contradiction or doctrinal anarchy. One converts when one knows that ones hope is not futile. Taking away the visibility of the “roccia” (rock): what happens? (emphasis added)

What happens? Indeed. As a weary Guy Noir writes, "Discouragement, fatigue, and finally doubt as to whether the Church or any religious ideas matter much at all in our Era of Grand Syncretism."

Well, I have no doubt that the Church, in the final analysis, matters very much, because the deposit of the Faith received via Sacred Tradition remains very much intact no matter what the vicissitudes of our current storm. But do not be deceived, the theological shenanigans we have seen over the last decades do take their toll and cannot be justified or papered over by means of facile smoke-and-mirror 'explanations.' The damage is real.

Noir goes on to point out what he calls "a sobering if not anesthetizing remedy" from John Senior's book, The Remnants - the "Final Essays" of John Senior, a Columbia University grad who co-founded the Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas, and was Professor of English, Comparative Literature, and Classics at Cornell, among other institutions. Here I quote him just as I received his words from Noir:

We are under the authority of theologians who deny the laws of contradiction, sufficient reason, and cause/effect. They really believe that the dialectical philosophy of Marx and Engels can be reconciled with Christian revelation. In practical management this means a zig to the right and a zag to the left while steering for the Norvus Ordo Saeculrum. Chop off Lefebvre, and throw a sop to trade... They have refused the face the issue -- which is not nostalgia... but the shipwreck of the Catholic Church. I mean a new Mass, a new catechism, a new morality, a flagrantly mistranslated Bible, an architecture and music which constitute a thoroughly orchestrated and rehearsed attack on Catholic doctrine and practice. Read the papal statement ten times if you can. You don't need arguments. It constitutes itself proof of its own radical insincerity. It cannot be explained away as a misunderstanding of the issue; it is quite simply a misrepresentation... This pseudo-Church, imposed upon the real subsistent one since the Vatican Council, is like [a] glass confessional. Anyone can see -- and everybody does -- that whatever it is, it is not the Church of our Fathers.

[Disclaimer: See Rules 7-9]. Oremus erga Sanctam Matrem Ecclesiam.