SAINT CATHERINE SAID

 

SPAIN, LUXEMBOURG, QUEBEC: THE FRUITS OF VATICAN II

 

On the Catalan Daily website, La Vanguardia of December 24, 2022, we learned that the number of seminarian in Church in Spain has dropped by 40% over the past 20 years. At the end of the Council, in 1965, there were 8,000 seminarians, in 2000 there were still 1,737, in 2020 there were only 1,028.

The Archdiocese of Barcelona, which has 2 million Catholics, has only 26 seminarians. In the same Catalan province, the diocese of Girona has just over 100 priests, whose average age is 73, to serve 394 parishes, and in the diocese of Vic, 144 priests have died since 2003, and only 15 have been ordained.

At the European level: from 2000 to 2019, Spain went from 227 ordinations to 125; Germany from 140 ordinations to 55; France from 150 to 94; Italy from 520 to 310.

Great spiritual misery in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

An article from the Luxembourg site Wort on February 16, 2023 shows the dramatic spiritual decline in Luxembourg between 2008 and 2021. While 75% of residents believed or practiced a religion in 2008, they number only 48% in 2021.

Conducted at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, this inquiry by the European Value Survey relayed by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (STATEC), reveals that among those questioned, 59% said they never go to places of worship. While 4% go there once a week and the same proportion once a month, 15.5% only attend a religious service on great feast days or ceremonies.

While in 2008 only 39% of residents said that “God was not important in their life,” this proportion has exploded to reach 60% in 2021. It should be noted that the share of residents without religion rose from 35% to 44%, while the share of atheists rose from 10% to 18%.

However, since 2011, the Archbishop of the Grand Duchy has been the Jesuit Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, president of COMECE, the episcopal commission to the European Union, and general rapporteur for the next synod on synodality.

From 1990 to 1994, Cardinal Hollerich, well known for his ultra-progressive ideas, was the spiritual guide of Luxembourg seminarians and the person responsible for the pastoral care of vocations in Luxembourg. It is therefore with these eloquent results that the general rapporteur of the next synod will provide pastoral proposals for better evangelization.

Churches for sale in Quebec

On the Quebec site Estrie plus of January 24, it was reported that the Archdiocese of Sherbrooke is selling three more churches, because of the dechristianization which forces the closure of places of worship: “Three other churches in Estrie will close their doors. St. Ephrem Church, in  Fitch Bay, St. Malo and St. Hermenegild, in the municipalities of the same name, are starting the request for proposals process.  

“The objective will be to find a new buyer for these buildings while ensuring that they can remain at the service of the community.” Already last November, the archdiocese sold the Church of the Resurrection of Christ for 1.2 million Canadian dollars to the city of Sherbrooke, which will build a child care center and public housing there.

Faced with this acceleration of church sales in the once Christian West, many are questioning their reassignment. The Vaticanist Sandro Magister on his site Settimo Cielo on February 14, writes: “Thousands of churches in Europe suffer from abandonment. With even fewer Catholics at Mass, they find themselves empty. And so they are being closed.”

“In Germany, in Holland, in Belgium, the figures are dizzying. But in Italy as well there is a growing number of churches in disuse. Here, at least, the churches are not state but ecclesiastical property, and therefore enjoy spontaneous and lasting protection on the part of their respective diocesan and parish communities.”

“But when these communities dwindle and disappear, for their churches it is the end. They are at serious risk of going under and ending up on the market, perhaps turned into supermarkets or dance halls, or in any case into something contrary to the purpose for which they arose.”

How are churches reused?

This is why, continues the Italian journalist, “in the Vatican they have tried to study how to remedy this. At the end of November 2018, the Pontifical Council for Culture, headed by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, organized a conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University with delegates from the episcopates of Europe and North America, entitled: ‘Doesn’t God live here anymore?’”

“This produced ‘guidelines’ advising against ‘commercial reuse for speculative aims,’ and instead encouraged ‘reuse for aims of solidarity,’ with ‘cultural or social’ purposes: museums, conference halls, bookshops, libraries, archives, art studios, Caritas centers, clinics, soup kitchens, and more. Still leaving the option of ‘transformation into private homes’ in the case of ‘more modest buildings with no architectural value.’”

But it is clear that “the number of abandoned churches is growing rapidly, with an even stronger need to identify sensible reuse criteria.” Sandro Magister quotes an article by Fr. Giuliano Zanchi, entitled Diversamente chiese, la posta in gioco [From churches to other uses, what is at stake] which appeared in the latest issue of Vita e Pensiero (2022, n°6), a magazine of the Catholic University of Milan.

According to the Roman Vaticanist, “there are two criteria that Zanchi suggests be followed in the reuse of churches that have ceased to be such but want to ‘relaunch themselves in civil life with the function of cultural crossroads and spiritual threshold.’”

The first criterion, he writes, is that which “harnesses the artistic dignity normally connected to historical sacred buildings, which in this particular spirit of the time, defined as ‘post-secularism,’ has universally taken on the faculties of acting as indicator of transcendence.” [sic]

“The second criterion, Zanchi continues, instead consists in ‘that typical need of the contemporary city’ to have liminal areas, thresholds, ‘capable of steering toward the profound and the transcendent, which in the absence of anything else are identified in theaters, museums, libraries, and other places of non-utilitarian ulteriority.’” [re-sic]

With the same sociologizing jargon, the author affirms that “in order to achieve this, the ‘essential precondition’ is that there be in the Church ‘a pastoral vision that is spiritually free and capable of imagination, that has a sense of perspective, the talent for creativity and a fraternal vision of its own presence in the world.’” [re-re-sic]

We propose to Fr. Zanchi reassignment criteria using much less jargon than his own: some of these churches being threatened with decommissioning, for lack of faithful and priests, could be entrusted to communities attached to Tradition who would then celebrate there the liturgy for which those churches have been built.

The misfortune is that today it is Rome which, with Traditionis custodes, persists in disaffecting not the churches, but indeed the Tridentine Mass, and in promoting a reformed liturgy which further empties the churches and the seminaries. To get out of this vicious circle, they would have to allow the “experience of Tradition” to take place, which supposes extracting oneself from a conciliar ideology, which has become de facto suicidal.

FALSE MERCY

How to recognize false mercy? It is the one that softens and sweetens the Gospel, to the point of making one think that no one will ever go to Hell, that sin does not exist, that Hell does not exist, that it is enough to "believe in Jesus" to be saved, that it is not necessary to abandon sin and seek holiness.

False mercy never speaks of conversion, nor of holiness, nor of purity, nor of repentance, nor of going to the Confessional with the pain of having sinned and the purpose of amendment. With that, it is very easy to identify that false gospel of Satan. Run away from him, don't fall for him!

IN THE FACE OF THE IDOLATRY OF MONEY, UNBRIDLED SENSUALITY AND THE SPIRIT OF INDEPENDENCE

To the idolatry of money, which hardens hearts, raises nations against one another and gives rise within them to ever more violent social conflicts, the religious (man or woman), by the vow of poverty, opposes the example of total detachment and voluntary dispossession and raises insurmountable barriers against the invasion of greed it engenders. 

In the face of unbridled sensuality, whose power is no less destructive than that of money, the religious, with the vow of chastity, proclaims that it is possible to dominate the senses, and by his example encourages households to submit to the sacred laws of marriage. 

Before the spirit of independence and emancipation that dreams of destroying all authority and does not want to recognize any obstacle, the religious, with the vow of obedience, offers the example of a submission that, far from degrading, ennobles, since it is surrendered only to God. 

Religious attract people to the practice of the Christian virtues: they do more than what is necessary, so that others are encouraged to do what ¡is indispensable, and furthermore, they atone for the sins of the nations. How the world errs in its judgments when it believes that in religious houses, particularly in contemplative convents, so many lives are buried without use for the common good!

Religious Life, Father Royo Marin

HELL CERTAINLY EXISTS

 

Hell certainly exists, as Jesus assures us multiple times throughout the Gospels. (Mat 7:13-14, Mat 8:12, Mark 9:43, Mat 13:41-42, 49-50, 48-49, Mat 22:13, Mat 25:46, Luke 12:5, John 3:18) John devotes an enormous passage in his Revelations describing it. (Rev 14:9-11; 19:3).

If everyone's going to Heaven, then that would mean Jesus was confused or ignorant and this is unacceptable especially when those who support this particular heresy (Universal Salvationism) are at a loss for explaining how it is that they come to this new "doctrine" that contradicts everything we ever knew about Christ. If we ignore this part of Christ's teaching, why should we give credence to any of it? It's a slippery slope.

A GOOD EXAMPLE

 

FREEDOM?

 

OUR COMBAT

 

"Our combat against modernism, even if it is sustained by prayer as it should be, even if it employs the appropriate weapons, remains unequal to the evil to be withstood.  This time apostasy has perfected its methods too well for it to be vanquished without a miracle.  Then let us not cease to implore this miracle from the Immaculate Heart of Our Lady.  Let us carry on the fight with all our strength as useless servants, while having recourse more than ever to the all-powerful intercession of Mary, ever Virgin Mother of God, for it is she who will once again be victorious over heresy."  

(Fr. Roger-Thomas Calmel, O.P.. [1914-1975], The Angelus, May-June 2014.)

UNTIL THE HUMAN RACE HAS RETURNED TO GOD

“Just as the disorder of the senses once hurled famous cities into a sea of fire, so in our own time the want of piety in public life and the erection of atheism into a system of so-called civilisation have hurled the world into a sea of blood… The present calamities will not come to an end until the human race has returned to God.”

Benedict XV, Consistorial Allocution, December 24th, 1917

ROME: A BILLBOARD CAMPAIGN FOR THE TRADITIONAL MASS

From Monday March 27, 2023 to Easter Sunday April 9, a billboard campaign in favor of the Tridentine Mass appears in Rome.

In a press release, those responsible for this campaign declare that they want to publicly demonstrate their “deep attachment to the traditional Mass at the very moment when it seems that its extinction is being programmed: out of love for the Pope, so that he may be paternally open to the understanding of these liturgical “peripheries” which for some months have no longer felt welcome in the Church, because they find in the traditional liturgy the full and complete expression of the Catholic faith in its entirety.”

The period chosen for this poster campaign is not by chance. Indeed, according to the German-language site Summorum Pontificum of January 13, 2023, and reposted by the German site katholisch.de and the Swiss agency cath.ch on January 26, a new Apostolic constitution would further limit the possibility of celebrating the Tridentine Mass.

This constitution might be published during Holy Week, on the occasion of the anniversary of the promulgation of the constitution Missale romanum of Paul VI (April 3, 1969) establishing the Novus Ordo Missæ. 

The organizers of this campaign belong to the Italian blogs Messainlatino and Campari & de Maistre, and to the associations National Coordination of Summorum Pontificum and San Michele Arcangelo.

In their statement, they quote Benedict XVI: “What was sacred for previous generations remains sacred and great for us too, and cannot suddenly be completely forbidden or even deemed harmful.”

And to add: “The growing hostility towards the traditional liturgy finds no justification either on the theological level or on the pastoral level. The communities that celebrate according to the Missal of 1962 are not rebels against the Church.

“On the contrary, blessed by a constant growth of the faithful and of priestly vocations, they constitute an example of unshakable perseverance in Catholic faith and unity, in a world increasingly insensitive to the Gospel, and in an ecclesial fabric increasingly subject to disintegrating thrusts.”

They insist, underlining the contradictory attitude of the Roman authorities: “In the Church today, where listening, welcoming, and inclusion inspire all pastoral action, and where ecclesial communion is to be built ‘with the synodal method,’ these people of ordinary faithful, of young families, of fervent priests, nourish the confident hope that their voices will not be stifled, but welcomed, listened to, and seriously considered.”

“Anyone who goes to the ‘Latin Mass’ is not a second-class believer, nor a deviant to be re-educated, nor a weight to be shed.”

This initiative has the merit of bringing the dispute to Rome, before the Pope and the Curia. But we must remember that the current Roman attitude has its source in the Council and its texts. Thus, on March 19, Cardinal Arthur Roche, Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, affirmed: “The theology of the Church has changed.… Previously, the priest represented all the people from a distance, but today it is not only the priest who celebrates the liturgy, but all the people.”

For the cardinal, the followers of the Traditional Mass are opponents of the Second Vatican Council, which is why it must be restricted, even abolished. And it is true that the Traditional Mass is opposed, by nature, to current deviations. This is why the defense of the Mass goes hand in hand with criticism of the Council.

(Source: Comité directeur de la campagne d’affichage – FSSPX.Actualités)

THE AUGUST SACRIFICE

 The august sacrifice of the altar, then, is no mere empty commemoration of the passion and death of Jesus Christ, but a true and proper act of sacrifice, whereby the High Priest by an unbloody immolation offers Himself a most acceptable victim to the Eternal Father, as He did upon the cross. ‘It is one and the same victim; the same person now offers it by the ministry of His priests, who then offered Himself on the cross, the manner of offering alone being different (Council of Trent, 22:2).’ (no. 68)

ARE YOU THE CHRIST THE SON OF GOD?

And the high priest rising up, said to him: Answerest thou nothing to the things which these witness against thee? But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest said to him: I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us if thou be the Christ the Son of God. Jesus saith to him: Thou hast said it. Nevertheless I say to you, hereafter you shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the power of God and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Mt. 26, 62-64

("Jesus Before the High Priest" by Gerard van Honthorst)

 

SHEEP AND WOLVES

"It is not possible for wolves and sheep to walk together, without the sheep being harmed, unless a first-order miracle takes place. And I believe that one of the most active and effective poisons of hell, is the mixture of truth and error, of good and bad. And this poison is taken by many, and given to others, and those who take it are dying, with unspeakable damage to Catholicism.

I have shouted against that evil, and I have even suffered for shouting against it. I don't regret it. If I have anything to regret, it will be not having shouted more."

Bishop Ezequiel Moreno

Bishop of Pasto, Colombia, 1905.

NOTE: Today we are a thousand times worse than at that time.

HOSANNA TO THE SON OF DAVID!