"A Bishop in Hell"

What you gotta love about Michael Voris is, to borrow a description from Fr. Z., "his usual non-committal, indifferent, ambiguous, vague, tepid, ho-hum style."

Silencing homosexuals who changed

For some time now, Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH International) has been the target of those who wish to silence their successes in offering resolution and healing to sexual conflicts, including unwanted same sex attractions:

December 19, 2012 -- The Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund (FCDF) announced today that it has accepted the role of lead defense counsel for Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing(JONAH) in a precedent-setting lawsuit. FCDF is a national public interest law firm that represents people whose freedom of conscience has come under attack. JONAH is a faith-based, nonprofit organization that offers assistance to men and women seeking to resolve their sexual conflicts,including unwanted same sex attractions.

JONAH has been unjustly sued by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) who claims that homosexuality is permanently fixed and that people cannot be helped in overcoming their unwanted same-sex attractions.

SPLC 's position is inconsistent with numerous scientific and medical opinions and studies, finding that sexual attraction is influenced by many factors, both environmental and biological. Even certain gay activist groups claim that sexual attractions can be fluid and change throughout people’s lives. SPLC's allegations also ignore the thousands of people who have already benefitted from programs,such as those offered by JONAH and others, many of whom are now living their life long dreams,including traditional marriage and children.

Charles LiMandri, the President and Chief Counsel of the FCDF, stated, “The SPLC lawsuit is ill-conceived and legally untenable for multiple reasons. It seeks to violate the First Amendment freedoms of speech, religion and association not only of JONAH and the other defendants, but also untold numbers of people in need that stand to benefit from their services." (emphasis added)

Best commencement speech ever

Class of 2013

Graduation Speech Given by Mr. Christopher Check at St. Michael’s Preparatory School, May 29, 2013:

The confreres of St. Michael’s Abbey each day draw down from heaven countless graces as they unite their voices in song in the Divine Office with the voices of the heavenly host. And let me underscore here--men of the class of 2013--host means “army.”

It is the army before which your Archangel patron unsheathes his broadsword and leads these eager confreres into battle against the organized forces of evil. Now—men of the class of 2013—it is common in our age—to regard evil as some vaguely defined failure on the part of men to organize properly human society, but—once we apply the right social systems and the right technologies, we will at last eradicate all forms of human suffering. This fool’s errand in the perfectibility of human society often goes by the name of progress and its chief proponents throughout history include such figures as guillotine enthusiast Robespierre, communist Karl Marx, eugenicist Margaret Sanger, and mass murderers, Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung.

And following in the footsteps of these monsters, knowingly or not, is virtually every commencement speaker at virtually every commencement exercise. I’ll give you their speeches in one sentence: This venerable institution has made you brilliant and wonderful, now go out beyond its walls and make the world a better place.

Very well. Here’s my question: How is it then that countless graduating classes have been sent forth by countless commencement speakers to go forth and make the world a better place, and yet it is patently obvious that we are well into what Christopher Dawson seventy years ago called the “disintegration of Western Civilization.”

... Gentlemen, there is only one meaningful way to change the world and that is to restore the binding force that Christianity once exercised on the world. You can be part of this effort only if you first transform your heart in Christ. You cannot help save the world if you do not see first every day to your own salvation. Our Lord is explicit on this point: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.”

You have had the best Catholic formation available in America. I don’t need to tell you about the Sacraments, personal devotions, and norms of piety. But let me underscore something you have heard about everyday here. The interior life. You must attend every day to your interior life: spiritual reading, the reading of Scripture, especially the life of Christ, prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. It is impossible for you to do good work if you first do not put your own soul in order. Nemo dat quod no habet. You cannot share love of God if you do not have it, and it is in the interior life that you will cultivate love of God. The venerable French Abbot Dom Chautrard in the book that would become Pope Saint Pius X’s beside book, The Soul of the Apostolate, makes clear that unless apostolic work is suffused with Love of God it will bear no fruit....

There's much more. This is a very substantial commencement address, far too substantial for any university -- especially a secular one. Only a solidly Catholic high school like St. Michael's Preparatory School could possibly have garnered such a meaty oration as this. Congratulations to all of them! Read more >>

[Hat tip to A. Sistrom]

NSA top secret PRISM program taps in to internet giants' systems to mine user data

• Top secret PRISM program claims direct access to servers of firms including Google, Facebook and Apple
• Companies deny any knowledge of program in operation since 2007

SOURCE: The Guardian, June 6, 2013.

Can We Ever “Understand” the Mass?

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, "Can We Ever “Understand” the Mass?" (Views from the Choir Loft, June 6, 2013), writes:

HE CLAIM that the common people, before Vatican II, did not understand the Mass—that they no longer understood what it meant, the significance of its rituals and prayers, and so, as a result, the liturgy had to be updated, modernized, simplified—can be decisively refuted.

First, as is well attested in writing and photographs, all over the world there were immense numbers of Catholics who loved the liturgy and attended it as often as possible—including ordinary peasants and manual laborers. Whatever they cognitively derived from the exact prayers or gestures is insignificant compared to the overall shape, the seriousness and focus, the opportunity to adore in fear and trembling, which the sacred liturgy provided for their spiritual lives. (Related to this fact is the extremely strong preconciliar participation in the sacrament of penance, which also went out the window after the “reform” of the liturgy—perhaps suggesting a more than incidental connection between the form of the Mass and the virtue of penance itself.) The credibility of this historical data is verified by the crowds of people, young and old, who today devoutly and devotedly attend the Tridentine Mass wherever it has been re-introduced, because of the mystical attraction it exercises over serious Catholics who recognize it as a profound immersion in the prayer of Jesus Christ and His Church.

Second, due to the Liturgical Movement in its original fervor, countless missals and prayer books were published and disseminated, containing clear translations of, and often meditations based on, the prayers and gestures of the Mass. As Joseph Ratzinger recollects in Salt of the Earth, there were even “graduated” missals for children, so that at each stage of their maturity they could take one further step in intimacy with the Church’s grand liturgy. People everywhere grew familiar with the Mass, its calendar, ritual, processions, and music, in a far deeper way than anyone now does with the Novus Ordo; the liturgy grew into their hearts, it took root there and found a permanent home. There was never a lack of opportunities for the faithful to enter into the letter and the spirit of the liturgy. A particularly fine example of the resources made available in the nineteenth century would be The Liturgical Year by Dom Gueranger, which continues to nourish readers today.

And a last point should be recalled, in our era more than ever, when preaching has reached an all-time nadir in both content and style. If there was occasionally some failure to understand or appreciate the spiritual-theological depths of divine worship, this was chiefly the fault of priests and bishops. It is their duty to preach about the liturgy no less than about Sacred Scripture and Catholic doctrine, and, in the preconciliar period, faithful priests did just that—witness Romano Guardini’s beautiful Meditations Before Mass, intended for and well appreciated by the “people in the pews.” We see here the pastoral solicitude urged by Pope Francis when he tells pastors to feed their flocks.

A concerted, widespread effort to preach the Mass in all its richness would have sufficed for stirring up a profound renewal of the participation of the faithful at the time of the Second Vatican Council and into our times. This prudent and courageous approach appears never to have been even considered; the choice was made, instead, to simplify to the point of infantilism, so that there would be nothing that needed explanation—which is to say, nothing of mystery, nothing profound, nothing transcendent, nothing rooted in ageless tradition. The reformed liturgy represents the final capitulation of the priesthood to the democratic spirit of modernity: the priest gave up, or was practically compelled to give up, his role as teacher and ruler. As the sociologists and anthropologists were saying back in the seventies, those who take away the density of ritual and the solemn beauty of the ineffable will not gain more worshipers; they will merely give them more reasons to go away and find something more interesting to do.

Let us do our part to see to it that our own efforts to worship Almighty God (and, depending on our calling, to improve the ars celebrandi of the public worship in which we play some role) are based on a sane and sound understanding of the very heart of worship—the grandeur, majesty, transcendence, and holiness of God, which we cannot comprehend and which we do well to fear and to love with all our souls.

[Hat tip to P.K.]

"The Church is a Love Story not an Institution"

So declared Pope Francis recently. It's a clever statement, if the objective is to appeal to the "I'm spiritual, not religious" sentiments hostile to the notion of "institutional church." There's a sense in which it is also profoundly true.

Taylor Marshall asks: "Does that make you feel uncomfortable?" And he says: "I feel a little uncomfortable when I read that, because I'm sold on the idea of the Church as a visible "institution." However, as I chewed on this quote from the Holy Father I began to seem the wisdom in it.

Bottom line, as far as I'm concerned is this: Here's a case where it's clearly both/and, not either/or. As long as one doesn't take the expression as suggesting some sort of ethereal flight into the nebulous world of mysticism, which begins in mist and ends in schism, or, as a rejection of "institutional religion" the "institutional Church" and her religious Sacred Tradition, there should be no problem; and perhaps even a net gain. But it all depends on what you do with such appealing slogans.

J. Gresham Machen and the Catholic Church

J. Gresham Machen was an amazing man. His primer in Koine Greek, New Testament Greek for Beginners, which I used to teach myself to read the Greek New Testament in 1976, was used at Westminster Theological Seminary when I took a degree there in 1979. It was used at Lenoir-Rhyne University during the 25 years I taught there by the pre-seminary ELCA students. It was used in independent Greek tutorial classes by individuals at Sacred Heart Seminary since my arrival there in 2007.

But Machen was far more than an author of a particularly excellent and successful Greek grammar. He was a Professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary way back between 1906 and 1929, and led the conservative revolt against modernist theology at Princeton that led to forming Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia as a more orthodox alternative.

One of Machen's classic works is Christianity and Liberalism, which is on my short list of ten books that have most influenced me at some point or other in my own intellectual development and religious orientation. His work was appreciated by an audience far beyond a parochial one in the backwaters of Evangelical Calvinism. Even those of very different orientation had great respect for him. Walter Lippmann read his work and remarked on it with admiration in his own Preface to Morals. H.L. Mencken wrote with great respect and admiration for Machen's intellectual gifts in an obituary in the Baltimore Evening Sun (January 18, 1937). Comparing Machen to William Jennings Bryan, another well-known Presbyterian, Mencken wrote: “Dr. Machen himself was to Bryan as the Matterhorn is to a wart.” In many ways, Machen was a great man.

Therefore it was with some interest that I learned from my East Coast correspondent I keep on retainer, that David Mills just published a piece for First Things entitled, "Gresham Machen, Friend to Catholics" (First Thoughts, May 25, 2013). Just a couple of excerpts here:

Mistakenly thinking the great Presbyterian theologian J. Gresham Machen had written a book on Catholicism and wanting to give it as an example of Protestant apologetics in yesterday’s item, I googled the subject and found that he didn’t, but he did say this in his book Christianity and Liberalism:

Far more serious still is the division between the Church of Rome and evangelical Protestantism in all its forms. Yet how great is the common heritage which unites the Roman Catholic Church, with its maintenance of the authority of Holy Scripture and with its acceptance of the great early creeds, to devout Protestants today!

We would not indeed obscure the difference which divides us from Rome. The gulf is indeed profound. But profound as it is, it seems almost trifling compared to the abyss which stands between us and many ministers of our own Church. The Church of Rome may represent a perversion of the Christian religion; but naturalistic liberalism is not Christianity at all. [My emphasis: If only our theologians had the courage to speak so simply and forthrightly about the ideas of Hans Küng, Dominic Crossan, the later Edward Schillebeeckx, etc.!]

.... What absurdities are uttered in the name of a pseudo-Americanism today! People object to the Roman Catholics, for example, because they engage in “propaganda.” But why should they not engage in propaganda? And how should we have any respect for them if, holding the view which they hold — that outside the Roman church there is no salvation — they did not engage in propaganda first, last, and all the time? Clearly they have a right to do so, and clearly we have a right to do the same....

And there’s this from a weblog dedicated to Machen, about Machen’s time working with the YMCA in the trenches in WWI:

Spiritually, he had to make do too — reading his English Bible rather than in Greek, which brought home some things with a freshness; worshipping with Roman Catholics. Of one sermon he says “It was far, far better than what we got from the Protestant liberals”. [Are we confident that he could repeat that compliment in our own day?!]

In conversation afterwards, he could not agree with the priest on the mass but responded to a complaint that the phrase “descended into hell” was missing from versions issued to American soldiers “I could assure him that I disapproved as much as he did of the mutilation of the creed”.

A Catholic antecedent to David Mills' appreciation of the Protestant Machen can be found in the great Wilfrid Ward, the great English essayist, whose widow wrote:

His mind full of the danger of the incoming flood of infidelity, Wilfrid valued greatly much of the Christian apologetic written by Anglicans. I remember his keen enthusiasm at Dean Church's exquisite study of the Psalms and the Vedas. From Dean Church's time to that of Dr. Figgis, he welcomed whatever in the Anglican Church helped the cause of truth. And this drew to him the single-hearted and earnest Anglicans with whom he was thrown.

Ward himself wrote:

For Catholics a new foe is more dangerous than Protestantism, for Protestants the same new foe is more dangerous than Catholicism. A new motive for combination exists which is likely to make the positive and true sideof the tenets of each sect more prominent, while the negative and aggressive side is likely to grow less, and even to disappear in some cases, if all parties endeavour to bring this consummation about. The ideal aim is that every group of Christians should preserve its esprit de corps, but should at the same time refrain from mutual hostility. And though, like all ideals, this is not likely to be completely realised, some approximation may be made towards its realisation. (Emphasis mine)

As our correspondent observes: "This was in Victorian England!" Indeed.

[Hat tip to J.M.]

What's a Catholic parent to do, now that 'gays' have won the coveted 'BSA' trophy?

To begin with, don't be sidetracked by Catholic leaders offering palliative answers to the wrong questions. "Scouting is still the best youth-serving program available to all youth" is such a distraction. With that pixie dust in your eyes, you'll never see what's coming. Be prepared..

Related: Eve Tushnet, "I'm Gay, but I'm Not Switching to a Church That Supports Gay Marriage" (The Atlantic, May 30, 2013).

[Hat tip to JM for Atlantic article]

Reverence for the Blessed Sacrament in the Extraordinary Form

"I will go in unto the Altar of God
To God, Who giveth joy to my youth"
Tridentine Community News (June 2, 2013):

This weekend we observe the Feast of Corpus Christi, which is traditionally marked with a Eucharistic Procession. Holy Mother Church enriches this annual Feast by granting a Plenary Indulgence under the usual conditions to those who participate in a Eucharistic Procession on this day.

How we treat the Blessed Sacrament is one of the more visible ways in which we demonstrate our commitment to our Catholic Faith. If we truly believe that the consecrated bread and wine become the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, then logically we should not treat the Sacred Species casually. In addition to the grand gestures displayed in ceremonies such as Benediction, in the Extraordinary Form of Holy Mass there are numerous smaller signs that the Blessed Sacrament is indeed something worthy of particular reverence and care.

In the center of the altar, a square cloth called a corporal is spread out. The actions of the Mass take place upon the corporal. The purpose of the corporal is to collect any particles of the Host that may break off or fall off. At various points during the Mass, the priest scrapes the corporal with the paten [see photo at right], in an effort to collect stray Particles.

The tabernacle may be covered with a veil, as a way of symbolizing the Veiling of the Sacred, much as the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem was behind a veil.

In a High Mass, altar servers with torch candles kneel before the altar from the beginning of the Canon until the tabernacle is closed at the end of distribution of Holy Communion. In a Low Mass, a Sanctus Candle is placed on the altar during this same period. Both actions draw the faithful’s attention to the Real Presence of Christ upon the altar during this portion of the liturgy.

The elaborate and detailed Offertory prayers, the signs of the cross over the sacred species before and after the consecration, and the priest’s three prayers before Communion all serve to emphasize the significance of the act of Transubstantiation taking place.

After the consecration, every time the celebrant uncovers or covers the chalice, he genuflects in adoration of the Sacred Species. The chalice is covered to protect against foreign objects such as insects from getting into it. The Extraordinary Form Missal gives explicit instructions for what to do in case a bug does get in; every effort is made to protect the Sacrament.

Likewise, every time the tabernacle is opened or closed, the priest genuflects. Every time the priest crosses the center of the altar, such as during the incensations of the altar, he genuflects before the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle.

The purificator, a rectangular, folded cloth, is held by the chalice to wipe off any of the Precious Blood that may be in danger of dripping off the rim. It is also used to wipe off the priest’s fingers after the ablutions, the pouring of the wine and water over the celebrant’s fingers after Holy Communion.

From the consecration until the ablutions, the priest holds his thumbs and first fingers together. This ensures that any particles of the Host that may have adhered to his fingers do not flake off onto the floor, the missal, or any place other than the corporal or the ciborium. The main reason why a deacon or altar server stands next to the priest during the Mass is to turn the pages of the book, avoiding the risk that the priest will drop particles of the Host onto the missal.

Holy Communion is distributed at the Communion Rail, kneeling and on the tongue. Only the consecrated hands of a priest or deacon may touch the Blessed Sacrament.

A server accompanies the priest distributing Holy Communion with a paten, held under each communicant’s mouth to catch a dropped Host or Particle. If there is no server, the faithful may pass a paten among themselves during the distribution to accomplish the same purpose. The Communion Rail may be covered with a Communion Cloth, as a further aid in making dropped Hosts visible, reducing the likelihood that they will drop to the floor. If a Host does drop to the floor, the priest covers it with a purificator, and after Mass removes the Host and either consumes It or drops It into the little vial of water on the altar so that It eventually dissolves. He then cleans the place where It fell on the floor with Holy Water.

There are three ablutions in the Extraordinary Form. First, wine is poured into the chalice, which the celebrant may in turn pour into the ciborium. The priest drinks the wine and wipes down the sacred vessels with the purificator, to ensure no consecrated species remains. Then wine and water are poured over the priest’s fingers to purify them as he holds them over the chalice.

If Communion is ever distributed outside of Mass, or within a liturgical service that is not a Mass, such as on Good Friday, the faithful who are to receive it pray the Pater Noster, the Confíteor, and the Dómine, non sum dignus before receiving. There is never a hurry to consume the Blessed Sacrament. Catholics have a treasure of inestimable value in the Blessed Sacrament. It is an act of common sense as well as devotion for us to treat our Lord Really Present with the utmost reverence and adoration.

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

• Mon. 06/03 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (Feria [Celebrant may choose a Votive Mass])
• Tue. 06/04 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Assumption-Windsor (St. Francis Caracciolo, Confessor)
• Fri. 06/07 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (Sacred Heart of Jesus [First Friday])

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Josaphat (Detroit) and Assumption (Windsor) bulletin inserts for June 2, 2013. Hat tip to A.B., author of the column.]

Cardinal Danneels open to sodomitical "marriage"

Thus reads the title of a post over at Rorate Caeli (June 1, 2013):

"Next Tuesday Cardinal Godfried Danneels will turn 80. In the interview he granted us, he expressed himself notably about homosexual marriage which has been making headlines across France in recent days.

"He says to obey the law and not oppose gay marriage. 'We need to understand: The Church has never objected to the fact that there is a sort of 'marriage' between homosexuals – however we're talking about a sort of marriage. This is not the same as the true marriage between a man and a woman, so we need to find another word for the dictionary. However, insofar as it is legal - that it has been rendered legitimate by law - the Church has nothing to say about it. (...) If a state opens civil marriage to homosexuals, then it is the problem of that state.'

"This is the first cardinal to express himself so candidly about gay marriage."

So, happy are those who embrace "separation of church and state"? It's the state's problem. Send Him to Pilate. He's not our concern.

Media fudging the numbers of French pro-trad family rallies

James Noel Ward, "Undercounting the Opposition: The Untold Story" (Taki's Magazine, June 4, 2013):

I estimate that a crowd of 1,400,000 gathered in Paris on May 26 for a rally in favor of traditional families and against France’s newly enacted legal extension of civil marriage to same-sex couples. The number attending the rally has been a controversial sticking point in both the French and English mainstream media.

One “official” police estimate put the crowd at 125,000, and some organizers pegged it at 400,000.

In the English-language news outlets we had estimates from FRANCE 24 of “Tens of thousands,” but oddly the same source later estimated 340,000. New York magazine put in an understated 150,000 and UPI played it safe by attributing to sources estimates of “150,000 to 1 million people….” Reuters left it at “Several hundred thousand.” The New York Times merely quoted the police estimate of 150,000.

French sources are cattier on the numbers, with Le Point putting the estimate at 100,000 but covering their nether-brains by referring to everyone’s low estimations (the police, opposition spokesheads, etc.) and then making the 1.4-million figure appear ridiculous in contrast....

Is the God of the Qur'an the God of the Bible?

Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God, but in different ways? There has been a lot of discussion of such questions, especially since 9/11.

Many have answered yes. In his book, Ecumenical Jihad, I think Peter Kreeft argues essentially that. In other words, both Christians and Muslims are theists and agree on a number of attributes God (or Allah) must have, being both infinite and in some sense personal, even if transcendent. Their understandings of God may not overlap entirely, but it's the same God, nonetheless, Whom they worship.

Other voices have been answering no. The Jewish radio talk show host, Michael Medved recently responded to the claim that Christian violence is comparable to Muslim terrorism by stating: "... no nations or prominent church groups promote or applaud violence in the name of Jesus, but several nations and many leading voices in Islam endorse violence in the name of Allah. Radical Islam stands alone among contemporary religious sects in suggesting that the slaughter of innocent women and children in suicide attacks will bring you closer to God."

This might suggest that the Christian understanding of God is different from that of radical Islam, and invites more explicitly a discipleship of love than Islam; but this still doesn't answer the question whether the God of Islam and Christianity is the same God.

Just today, however, Gerald R. McDermott published a piece, which the leftist pundits will likely tar and feather with accusations of hate speech: "No, the God of the Qur’an is Not the God of the Bible" (On the Square, June 4, 2013). Excerpts:

Yale theologian Miroslav Volf answers the question in a recent book (Allah: A Christian Response) with a nuanced but insistent Yes: Christians and Muslims do indeed worship the same God. In a review of Volf’s book, Baylor historian Thomas Kidd faults Volf for sidestepping the question of salvation—and therefore the question of true worship—and for not being critical enough in his evaluation of the identity of the God or gods of these two religions.

Kidd is quite right; indeed, there are deeper problems with Volf’s thesis. His argument for the identity of the Muslim and Christian Gods collapses under its own weight. Volf’s own logic underscores what the Qur’an itself suggests—that the God of the Qur’an is radically different from the God Christians worship.

... Even Muslim scholars recognize that none of [the] five verses [in the Qur'an referencing "love" in connection with God] constitutes a command to love God. In his 1960 study, The God of Justice: A Study in the Ethical Doctrine of the Qur’an, Muslim scholar Daud Rahbar insisted that “the Qur’an never enjoins love for God.”

... Another difficulty is that there simply is no command to love one’s neighbor in the Qur’an. One can talk about love for neighbor in the Islamic tradition, but not as something commanded by the God of the Qur’an....

... All this is not to say that no Muslims can be saved by the person and work of Jesus Christ. Nor is it to suggest that Muslims never make contact with the true God. For Scripture attests that God graciously reaches out to those who have faulty notions of him. But we have to conclude nonetheless that the God of the Qur’an is a very different God from the God of the Bible.

[Hat tip to E. Echeverria]

Shock admission: Cardinal Kasper in L'Osservatore Romano: Vatican II deliberately unclear!

For decades now, supporters of the great, sweeping changes in the life of the Church have pointed to the Vatican II documents and said: There are no ambiguities. They are clear as crystal. Only the interpretation of them has been muddied. And that has been the party line stretching back to the days immediately following the Council in the mid-1960s.

What is shocking is that when a high-ranking very-famous Cardinal who has been a big supporter of the more liberal adaptations and interpretations of the Council documents comes out and admits the opposite, that this isn't earth-shattering news all over the Catholic world ... [This] is beyond belief. But this is exactly what has happened. The mainstream Catholic media, which is largely at the service of the "New Church," the "Church of Nice," has kept their collective mouth shut about one of the perhaps most blatant, glaring admissions to come forth about Vatican II since, well, Vatican II itself.

Last month, Cardinal Walter Kasper just flatly stated that there were ambiguities deliberately inserted into Vatican II documents, leaving them subject to a multitude of interpretations, and as we all know, those interpretations which were collected under the misleading title, "Spirit of Vatican II," have been used to dismantle much of the Church, and build up in its place a Church overrun by modernism.


In L'Osservatore Romano (April 12, 2013), Cardinal Walter Kasper made the absolutely stunning admission that ambiguities were deliberately inserted into Vatican II documents -- an admission that would pretty well vindicate all the alarms sounded by the likes of Michael Davies about "liturgical time bombs," and the like. Specifically, Kasper is reported as admitting the following (emphasis mine):

“In many places, [the Council Fathers] had to find compromise formulas, in which, often, the positions of the majority are located immediately next to those of the minority, designed to delimit them. Thus, the conciliar texts themselves have a huge potential for conflict, open the door to a selective reception in either direction.”

“For most Catholics, the developments put in motion by the council are part of the church’s daily life. But what they are experiencing is not the great new beginning nor the springtime of the church, which were expected at that time, but rather a church that has a wintry look, and shows clear signs of crisis.”

“For those who know the story of the twenty councils recognized as ecumenical, this [the state of confusion] will not be a surprise. The post-conciliar times were almost always turbulent. The [Second] Vatican, however, is a special case.”

Why is this not front and center in the discussion of the Catholic media?! This is a STAGGERING admission! The only other place I could find anything immediately about this was a brief post by Robert Sungenis, "Cardinal Kasper Admits to Intentional Ambituities in Vatican II," in The Bellarmine Report (April 17, 2013), and a Catholic Answers Forum HERE (Dated April 15, 2013), which led me to the original Italian version of the L'Osservatore Romano article translated by Google into English HERE (with the relevant quotes from Kasper); as well as the post, "Cardinal Kasper: Pope Francis has launched 'new phase' on Vatican II" by John Thavis (April 11, 2013).

So why isn't this NEWS? Why has this happened a couple of weeks ago, and we've heard nothing about it until now?

I only became aware of Kasper's statements for the first time tonight in Michael Voris's Vortex episode: Deliberately Unclear ("It may be THE MOST SHOCKING admission ever about Vatican II .. and no one is talking about it .. yet!").


[N.B. - Acknowledgement: Italicized opening paragraphs are transcriptions from The Vortex, 6/3/13]

Priest's illuminating impressions on attending a Novus Ordo Mass in the congregation after 8 yrs

A priest recently sent in the following observations to Fr. Z., who posted them on his blog HERE. Fr. Z. introduces the priest's remarks as follows:

Some people argue that the Traditional Latin Mass is too hard to follow because of A, B, or C.

Let’s turn that sock inside out.

It is actually, often, too hard to follow what is going on most celebrations of the Novus Ordo because there is just too much going on.

The following is from a priest who reads this blog. He sent it by email:

For the first time in my eight years as a priest, I recently attended the holy Mass not as the presider, con-celebrant or while being vested in choir. The experience was quite illuminating, for it gave me insight to the regular obstacles many lay faithful face when attending Mass. The experience, while insightful, was also painful. The occasion was the baccalaureate Mass for my youngest brother’s graduation from high school. I purposely did not vest because I did not know what was in store, and I have a poor poker face when it comes to silly liturgy.

In all honesty, my attention was not to find any and all liturgical error or abuse, for I knew silliness was in store. That being said however, I quickly became aware of how difficult it was to enter into this busy, disoriented, error filled liturgy. Although this was a special Mass, I cannot say it was all that different from a typical Sunday Mass in my diocese. To be brief, it was near impossible to wade through the obstacles in order to pray, and the reason lay in three pieces: the music, the posture, and the manners of the ministers.

Thomas Aquinas in 50 Pages

No kidding. Click HERE access a FREE PDF of this very-interesting synopsis of the Angelic Doctor by Prof. Taylor R. Marshall.

[Hat tip to IANS]