Abbé Jean-Marie Perrot
February 1, 2022
Showing posts with label John Paul II. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Paul II. Show all posts
Francis Equates the Traditional Liturgy with “Abuse” While Continuing to Tolerate an Abusive Rite— Crucial article by French priest
Modernism, Not Ultramontanism, Is the “Synthesis of All Heresies” — A Response to Stuart Chessman
Modernism, Not Ultramontanism, Is the “Synthesis of All Heresies”
José A. Ureta
Ultramontanism: Its Life and Death
We cannot understand the crisis in the Catholic Church today or how to escape from it unless we understand how the ecclesiological distortion popularly known as ultramontanism originated, how it functions as a kind of hyperclericalism, and finally how it has consumed itself like the ouroboros. Stuart Chessman published the following very insightful historical analysis in four installments (December 20, 23, 27, and 31) at the Society of St. Hugh of Cluny’s blog. With his permission they are published here as a single essay.—PAK
Ultramontanism: Its Life and Death
Stuart Chessman
The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny
The actions of present Pope have put incredible stress on the Church’s constitution—the papal absolute monarchy. I’d like to offer some reflections on this system of government: ultramontanism. To understand it, though, we have to go back in history, starting with the reign of Pius IX when the ultramontanist regime received its “classic” form. I will focus on history—what actually happened—as opposed to theological considerations.
MAJOR EXPOSÉ: Rooms broken into, dossiers stolen, death threats, armed guards, assassinations... Fr. Charles Murr on Vatican intrigues surrounding Cardinals Baggio, Benelli, Villot, and Gagnon
Rorate readers will be aware of the groundbreaking interview Kevin J.
Symonds conducted with Fr. Murr for the October 2020 issue of Inside the Vatican, which was also
published at Rorate
on October 10. Interested readers may want to read that interview first in
order to gain more understanding of context for the present one, which was done once again for Inside the Vatican.
In the previous interview, Fr. Murr told us about his friendship with
Mother Pascalina Lehnert, the “right hand” of Pope Pius XII for several
decades. In addition to this discussion, Fr. Murr made some notable
revelations about what was going on at the Vatican in the 1960s, and 1970s.
The interview below follows up on these revelations with the theme of “where
do we go from here?”
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| Cardinal Baggi (L) and Cardinal Benelli (R) |
“BY THEIR FRUITS YOU SHALL KNOW THEM”:
KEVIN SYMONDS’ SECOND INTERVIEW WITH FR. CHARLES MURR
ITV: Thank you, Fr. Murr, for sitting down again with Inside the Vatican. In our previous interview, you spoke of your association with Cardinal
Edouard Gagnon and Msgr. Mario Marini. These two men worked closely with the Sostituto
of the Secretariat of State, Cardinal Benelli. You yourself, however, did
not enjoy the same association with Cardinal Benelli...
I was twenty-four years-old when I met and became friends with the newly
appointed minutante in the Vatican Secretariat of State, Monsignor
Mario Marini. Soon after, Marini introduced me to another extraordinary man
who would play a major role in my life, his good friend, Archbishop Edouard
Gagnon (1918–2007). Gagnon and Marini were respected friends and confidants of
Archbishop Giovanni Benelli (Sostituto of the Secretary of State); I
was not part of that inner circle. I knew Benelli, of course, and spoke with
him many times, but I knew my place. Once, on Lago di Bracciano I was at table
with him and Monsignors [Guillermo] Zanoni and Marini. I remember talking as
little as possible. With Benelli, I knew my place and kept it.
Why did you think of your relationship with Benelli in this way?
To begin with, Giovanni Benelli was Giovanni Benelli! He was one of the most
powerful men on earth; brilliant, a strategizer and deal-maker
par excellence, the #1 Vatican diplomat, a man on familiar terms with
popes and princes, patriarchs and presidents, world leaders of all sorts. I,
on the other hand, was a greenhorn American student of philosophy; absolutely
no one of consequence. Those special times that I was privileged to be in
Benelli’s company were times I knew I was in the presence of greatness.
EXPOSÉ: New Interview with Fr. Charles Murr on Mother Pascalina, Bugnini, Paul VI, and Other Major Figures
Preliminary Note: For decades, traditionalists have suspected or accused Annibale Bugnini of
being a Freemason, based essentially on hearsay and circumstantial evidence.
The matter remained doubtful to such an extent that the eminent French
historian Yves Chiron, himself a traditionalist, was unable to credit the
rumor, judging the evidence inadequate and inconclusive. The situation began
to change last May when Kevin Symonds presented
credible details, courtesy of Fr. Brian Harrison, naming Cardinal Dino Staffa as the one who brought Paul VI the "smoking
gun" information on Bugnini, which precipitated the latter's sudden fall from
grace.
It is therefore of major significance that more and better evidence — in the form of an interview conducted by Kevin Symonds with Fr. Charles Theodore Murr, author of The Godmother: Mother Pascalina: A Feminine Tour de Force (2017) — has
now appeared that independently confirms the same sequence of events. With such confirmatory proofs, it is fair to say that there is no longer any reasonable doubt that the moving force in the Consilium was, indeed, a Freemason.
“What Good is a Changing Catechism? Revisiting the Purpose and Limits of a Book” — Dr. Kwasniewski’s Chicago Lecture
Note: Below is the lecture I gave at the Union League Club in Chicago on Friday, June 14, 2019, as part of the lecture series of the Catholic Citizens of Illinois. My lecture could have been given the alternative title: “The Death Penalty for the Catechism? A How-To Guide for Excluding a Text from the Catholic Tradition.” Fortuitously, the lecture came at the end of an eventful week in Illinois and in Baltimore. On Wednesday, June 12, the state of Illinois disgraced itself by the passage of the most extreme pro-abortion legislation yet seen in the United States. Ironically, those who celebrate the indiscriminate murder of innocent children are usually opposed to capital punishment for guilty criminals, and the reasoning is consistent: the unborn, not having consciousness of their own personal dignity, cannot defend themselves, so the strong may do away with them at pleasure; but adults, no matter how wicked, are recognized as autonomous individuals with inviolable dignity who must be given free room and board by the state for the remainder of their lives. Then, on Thursday, June 13, the United States bishops voted, by a huge majority (194 in favor, 8 against, 3 abstentions), to alter the text of the U.S. Catholic Catechism for Adults to bring it in line with Pope Francis’s novel teaching on the death penalty. The revolution in moral teaching thus continues unabated.
What Good is a Changing Catechism? Revisiting the Purpose and Limits of a Book[1]
Peter Kwasniewski
What is a catechism? How would you answer that question?
A standard dictionary definition runs like this: “a summary of the principles of Christian religion in the form of questions and answers, used for the instruction of Christians.” Wikipedia, which as we all know is hit or miss, does a decent job: “A catechism (from Ancient Greek κατηχέω, to teach orally) is a summary or exposition of doctrine and serves as an introduction to the Sacraments” and for the “Christian religious teaching of children and of adult converts. Catechisms are doctrinal manuals—often in the form of questions followed by answers to be memorized.”[2]
It seems to me that this is the answer of history, of Church practice, and of what we might call “supernatural common sense.” A catechism is a convenient guide to what the Church teaches; more than that, a guide to what she has always taught and will always teach. A good catechism is like a clean, smooth, untainted mirror that reflects the content of the Catholic Faith and nothing else.
A poor catechism—like the infamous 1966 Dutch Catechism that caused so much trouble after the Council—is, on the contrary, a cloudy, scratched, bent, or chipped mirror that does not lucidly reflect the Faith. Good catechisms preserve and pass on the teaching of Christ and His Church, while bad catechisms distort it, or one-sidedly exaggerate it, or muffle or silence it.
“Of What Use Is a Changing Catechism?”: Dr Kwasniewski in Chicago, June 14
I have been invited to give a talk by the Catholic Citizens of Illinois at their monthly Forum Luncheon on June 14, 2019. The event is held at the Union League Club of Chicago, 65 W. Jackson Blvd., Chicago, and begins at 11:45 am. Tickets are $40; the Club requires business attire. To register, call Maureen at 708-352-5834 or use this link.
The Pennsylvania Truth: John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II were no saints
Another week and another massive scandal in the American Church. The following is an appropriate summary of the final Report of the Grand Jury investigation of the "widespread sexual abuse of children in six dioceses of the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania":
The investigation captured widespread sexual abuse and institutional cover up across the entire state. Building on investigations of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese and the Philadelphia Archdiocese by previous grand juries, the 40th Statewide Grand Jury’s investigation covered the other Dioceses of Allentown, Erie, Harrisburg, Greensburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton, giving a complete picture of pervasive abuse in dioceses across Pennsylvania. The grand jury found: [RORATE update: the rest of the Summary is so shocking and graphic we have decided to remove it -- it s available here.]
The office of the Attorney General of Pennsylvania has provided a full website dedicated to the report and its details by diocese here.
***
The greatest part of the horrid episodes documented by the Grand Jury report happened in the pontificates of John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II. Some happened before. But as the Church "opened itself to the world", according to the desire of John XXIII, worldly behaviors infiltrated the Church more and more. The horrid episodes represent only what could be found in just six dioceses of one state of one country: the putrefaction runs wide and deep.
How could John XXIII and John Paul II have been canonized? Their systematic failures in the naming of bishops were monstrous. How can Francis dare beatify and now canonize Paul VI, one of the worst popes in history, whose nominations throughout the world, and in the United States, managed to make what was bad truly awful?
Let us be honest: as administrators, John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II were no saints. They may have been validly included in the list of saints, but their express-rite canonizations are shown, with each passing week, to have been horrible mistakes. A considerable period of time and long investigations of their grave omissions and of their disgraceful cover-up of perverted or irresponsible bishops should have taken place before any beatification procedure had ever been opened up.
The centralization of the administration of the Church went much deeper in their pontificates. They assumed the responsibility for each of these small faithful. They diluted the responsibility of bishops by encouraging and engorging the useless bureaucracies of the bishops' conferences. These little faithful, the children who were abused, were also THEIR failures, the failures of each one of them (and also of preceding and succeeding popes in a lesser degree, but these are either living or have not been beatified or canonized).
The time will surely come in the future to reassess these failed pontificates and to do all that is possible to reevaluate these hasty procedures, in which so much pain and so much failure and so much corruption were overlooked.
Lefebvre & 1988 Consecrations 30 years on: Part III (May-June 1988)
Part I: July 1987 - February 1988
Part II: March 1988 - May 5, 1988
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (FSSPX / SSPX), received in the Fraternity House at Albano Laziale (near Castel Gandolfo) the final text of the Protocol which was sent to him by Cardinal Ratzinger. It was 4:30 PM as the old bishop signed the text. His most extensive biographer, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais (one of the chief negotiators in that afternoon and who would be consecrated on June 30), described the scene:
Part II: March 1988 - May 5, 1988
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (FSSPX / SSPX), received in the Fraternity House at Albano Laziale (near Castel Gandolfo) the final text of the Protocol which was sent to him by Cardinal Ratzinger. It was 4:30 PM as the old bishop signed the text. His most extensive biographer, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais (one of the chief negotiators in that afternoon and who would be consecrated on June 30), described the scene:
His face perfectly expresse[d] the mixed feelings which gripped him: "real satisfaction," as he would write to Ratzinger, and silent mistrust which he spoke of to the sisters in the Cenacolo convent [of the Discepole del Cenacolo, in Velletri, near Albano] at 3 PM: "If Don Putti [Fr. Francesco-Maria Putti, a Traditional Roman priest and spiritual son of Padre Pio, who guided and formed the sisters until his death in 1984] were here, what would he say? 'Your Grace, where are you going? What are you doing?' "
The Archbishop did not sleep during what must have felt like one of the longest nights of his life. The following morning, after Mass and Prime, he sent a letter to Cardinal with an ultimatum of his own: the deadline of June 30, 1988, mentioned in one of his previous letters exchanged in the negotiations was still valid. The text of that letter was:
Yesterday it was with real satisfaction that I put my signature on the Protocol drafted during the preceding days. However, you yourself have witnessed my deep disappointment upon the reading of the letter, which you gave me, bringing the Holy Father's answer concerning the episcopal consecrations.
Practically, to postpone the episcopal consecrations to a later undetermined date would be the fourth time that it would have been postponed. The date of June 30 was clearly indicated in my previous letters as the latest possible.
I have already given you a file concerning the candidates. There are still two months to make the mandate.
Given the particular circumstances of this proposal, the Holy Father can very well shorten the procedure so that the mandate be communicated to us around mid-June.
In case the answer will be negative, I would find myself in conscience obliged to proceed with the consecrations, relying upon the agreement given by the Holy See in the Protocol for the consecration of one bishop, member of the Society.
The reticence expressed on the subject of the episcopal consecration of a member of the Society, either by writing or by word of mouth, gives me reason to fear delays. Everything is now prepared for the ceremony of June 30: hotel reservations, transportation, rental of a huge tent to house the ceremony.
The disappointment of our priests and faithful would be extreme. All of them hope that this consecration will be realized with the agreement of the Holy See; but being already disappointed by previous delays they will not understand that I would accept a further delay. They are aware and desirous above all of having truly Catholic bishops transmitting the true Faith to them, and communicating to them in a way that is certain the graces of salvation to which they aspire for themselves and for their children.
In the hope that this request shall not be an insurmountable obstacle to the reconciliation in process, please, Eminence, accept my respectful and fraternal sentiments in Christo et Maria.
+Marcel Lefebvre
Upon receiving the letter, Cardinal Ratzinger immediately canceled the publication of the communiqué which had been prepared - which explains the scarce report by the secular media of what was taking place. Ratzinger first wrote a note to Lefebvre, asking him to "reconsider his position".
Lefebvre & 1988 Consecrations 30 years on: Part II (March-May 1988)
By the end of March 1988, the rumors regarding a possible reconciliation of the movement led by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and Pope John Paul II reached feverish levels in Rome and around the world.
In early April, after nine months of talks, the Pope publicly charged the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, to negotiate the terms of reconciliation. As The New York Times reported on April 9:
Pope John Paul II today personally stepped into a dispute with one of his severest critics, urging Vatican officials to heal a rift with the ultraconservative Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre of France.
Six months after the Vatican began negotiations aimed at reinstating the rebel Archbishop, John Paul issued an unusual public statement voicing ''my desire that these efforts should continue.'' The statement was in the form of a letter to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who is in charge of the talks.
The letter displayed the public will of the Pope to reach an agreement with Archbishop Lefebvre:
The necessity to distinguish that which authentically "edifies" the Church from what destroys it becomes, in this period [after the Council] a particular need of our service regarding the whole community of the faithful.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has, in the field of this ministry, a key role, as the documents on matters of faith and morals which your Dicastery has published in the last few years have been showing. Among the themes of which the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has had to deal in recent times are included the problems related to the "Fraternité of Pius X", founded and guided by Archbishop M. Lefebvre.
Lefebvre and the 1988 Consecrations 30 years on: Reliving the Events of 1988
Part I
The agitation in the Vatican halls had begun in early July, 1987, as reports arrived of the clear words of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in his sermon in the Mass of priestly ordinations celebrated in Ecône on July 29, 1987. The first reference was to the Assisi meeting of religious leaders a few months earlier - a historical event which to this day still mesmerizes Traditional Catholics. Lefebvre declared:
Never has history seen the Pope turning himself into some kind of guardian of the pantheon of all religions, as I have brought it to mind, making himself the pontiff of liberalism.
Let anyone tell me whether such a situation has ever existed in the Church. What should we do in the face of such a reality? Weep, without a doubt. Oh, we mourn and our heart is broken and sorrowful. We would give our life, our blood, for the situation to change. But the situation is such, the work which the Good Lord has put into our hands is such, that in face of this darkness of Rome, this stubbornness of the Roman authorities in their error, this refusal to return to the Truth and to Tradition, it seems to me that the Good Lord is asking that the Church continue. This is why it is likely that I should, before rendering an account of my life to the Good Lord, perform some episcopal consecrations.
Secret negotiations ensued. The October 18, 1987 edition of the New York Times included the great piece of Vatican news of the previous day:
Interview with Polish Franciscan Theologian Maksym Adam Kopiec on Veritatis Splendor
Rorate is pleased to republish this interview, conducted by Aurelio Porfiri, which appeared today at O Clarim.
Interview with Polish Franciscan Theologian Maksym Adam Kopiec on Veritatis Splendor
by Aurelio Porfiri
We live in times of great relativism, times in which there seems to be no objective, firm, immutable truth. But it is not so and it is important that there are voices that try to confirm more and more this important truth: the truth exists, and for us it is called Jesus Christ. This is not simply an option in the landscape of thought, but it should be the alpha and the omega of our way of being in the world. If the truth is not solid and objective, then everything is really allowed, everything is possible, everything is justifiable. It does not matter that we are limited, sinful, fallible. What matters is knowing that there is a firm house on the rock to return to.
St. Catherine of Alexandria — broken on the Consilium's wheel
As one who has spent many years of my life studying and teaching philosophy, I have always felt a special devotion to St. Catherine of Alexandria -- or at least, ever since I first learned of her existence and patronage.
The Church and Asmodeus - Part 5, conclusion
By Don Pietro Leone
A spiritu fornicationis
libera nos, Domine
(invocation from the Litany of the Saints)
V
CONCLUSION
The intention in
writing this essay was to investigate how the concupiscence of the flesh, or,
more particularly, the spirit of fornication, or impurity, has been able to
penetrate the mind of the contemporary Church. We have been at pains to trace
it back, through various canons of the New Church Law and various doctrines of
recent Magisterium, to the Second Vatican Council, where the spirit of Fallen
Nature made its official entry into the Catholic Church.
This spirit of impurity corresponds to the
World’s vision of sexuality. Quoting our earlier analysis of this vision, and
alluding briefly to the period extending from the last Vatican Council to the
present pontificate, we shall proceed to examine how and to what extent this
spirit informs the encyclical Amoris
Laetitia.
A. ‘Sexuality does not have a particular finality.
Its use is pleasurable and a means for expressing love between two persons, not
necessarily married to each other’
The Church and Asmodeus - Part 3 (and the fallacy of Theology of the Body)
By Don Pietro Leone
A spiritu fornicationis
libera nos, Domine
(invocation from the Litany of the Saints)
III
RECENT CHURCH MARITAL
DOCTRINE UNTIL POPE FRANCIS
2.
MORTAL SIN AND HOLY COMMUNION
The Traditional Doctrine
The Church has always warned faithful
against receiving Holy Communion in the state of mortal sin. In the Maundy
Thursday liturgy and in the Feast of Corpus
Christi, the Church in Her Old Rite liturgy presents for our meditation the
passage from chapter 11 of the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians 11
warning against the reception of Holy Communion to one’s damnation. On the
latter feast, St. Thomas Aquinas himself, its author, pointedly repeats the
phrase in the Communio prayer; and in
the sequence Lauda Sion he
unambiguously declares:
Sumunt boni sumunt mali, sorte tamen
İnaequalis, vitae vel interitus.
Mors est malis, vita bonis: vide paris
Sumptionis quam sit dispar exitus.
The good receive, the evil receive, but their destiny is different: life or death. Death is for the evil, life is for the good: see how unequal is the end of an equal reception.
The Splendor of Truth Against the Darkness of Error
Is it not sobering, not to say hypocritical, that so many can pay lip service to a pope’s life while conveniently forgetting his unequivocal teaching on the absolutes of the moral law and the demanding requirements of the Gospel? Quite possibly the greatest doctrinal legacy of his pontificate is the sweeping Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor of 1993, the first comprehensive treatment of the foundations of moral theology in the papal magisterium.
Curiously, it seems to have escaped the notice of some members of the hierarchy that the authoritative teaching of this encyclical condemns ahead of time Cardinal Kasper’s outrageous “pastoral” proposals that violate Catholic doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage—proposals shamefully echoed once again in the Instrumentum Laboris of the upcoming Synod on the Family in October 2015.
Anyone who plans to engage these issues in a public way had better set aside a weekend for reading (or re-reading) Veritatis Splendor, because it exposes the deep roots of the entire discussion and shows clearly what is at stake: the mission of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the credibility of the New Covenant, the reality of God’s grace, and the infallibility of the Church.
While one might usefully quote nearly the entire encyclical, what follows are some passages particularly relevant to our times.
Excerpts from Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor (1993)
26.
In the moral catechesis of the Apostles, besides exhortations and
directions connected to specific historical and cultural situations, we find an ethical teaching with precise rules of
behaviour. . . . From the Church’s beginnings, the Apostles, by virtue of
their pastoral responsibility to preach the Gospel, were vigilant over the
right conduct of Christians, just as they were vigilant for the purity of
the faith and the handing down of the divine gifts in the sacraments. … No damage must be done to the harmony
between faith and life: the unity of the
Church is damaged not only by
Christians who reject or distort the truths of faith but also by those who
disregard the moral obligations to which they are called by the Gospel (cf.
1 Cor 5:9-13). The Apostles decisively rejected any separation between
the commitment of the heart and the actions which express or prove it (cf. 1 Jn
2:3-6). And ever since Apostolic times the Church’s Pastors have unambiguously
condemned the behaviour of those who fostered division by their teaching or by
their actions.
49. A doctrine which dissociates the moral act from the bodily dimensions of its exercise is contrary to the teaching of Scripture and Tradition. Such a doctrine revives, in new forms, certain ancient errors which have always been opposed by the Church, inasmuch as they reduce the human person to a “spiritual” and purely formal freedom. This reduction misunderstands the moral meaning of the body and of kinds of behaviour involving it (cf. 1 Cor 6:19). Saint Paul declares that “the immoral, idolaters, adulterers, sexual perverts, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers” are excluded from the Kingdom of God (cf. 1 Cor 6:9). This condemnation — repeated by the Council of Trent — lists as “mortal sins” or “immoral practices” certain specific kinds of behaviour the wilful acceptance of which prevents believers from sharing in the inheritance promised to them. In fact, body and soul are inseparable: in the person, in the willing agent and in the deliberate act, they stand or fall together.
49. A doctrine which dissociates the moral act from the bodily dimensions of its exercise is contrary to the teaching of Scripture and Tradition. Such a doctrine revives, in new forms, certain ancient errors which have always been opposed by the Church, inasmuch as they reduce the human person to a “spiritual” and purely formal freedom. This reduction misunderstands the moral meaning of the body and of kinds of behaviour involving it (cf. 1 Cor 6:19). Saint Paul declares that “the immoral, idolaters, adulterers, sexual perverts, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers” are excluded from the Kingdom of God (cf. 1 Cor 6:9). This condemnation — repeated by the Council of Trent — lists as “mortal sins” or “immoral practices” certain specific kinds of behaviour the wilful acceptance of which prevents believers from sharing in the inheritance promised to them. In fact, body and soul are inseparable: in the person, in the willing agent and in the deliberate act, they stand or fall together.
John Paul II’s “Letter to Families”—Remember That One?
One such nearly-forgotten but extremely rich and rewarding document is the “Letter to Families” of 1994, also known by its official Latin title Gratissimam Sane.
"The Law of the Land is the Law of the Land" -- Except When It Actually Isn't and Couldn't Possibly Be
| The Hireling |
“The law of the land is the law of the land,” says Archbishop of Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl. “We certainly follow what the law says. That doesn’t mean we change the word of God. That doesn’t mean we change the scriptures, or the church’s millennia-long tradition of what marriage is.” [link]
In one sense, this is hardly surprising; we have seen the same Cardinal take a soft line towards pro-abortion politicians who abuse the Most Blessed Sacrament by receiving It despite their notorious, persistent public dissent from immutable teaching on faith and morals. At the same time, however, it should shock us profoundly, as one more instance of a shepherd abandoning the crystal-clear teaching of the Church. The greatest witness to this teaching is, of course, the Angelic Doctor, who writes:
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