Has George Weigel read Quanta Cura?

Does George Weigel thoroughly hold as reprobated, proscribed and condemned the proposition that “that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognised, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require”? Because, if he doesn’t, it would seem he is either seriously ignorant of his obligations as a Catholic or he is not a child of the Catholic Church.

 

 

 

Communion in the Hand

Communion on the tongue is the universal norm in the Roman Rite. Paul VI permitted communion in the hand by way of exception. Now, as a result of COVID-19, some bishops are insinuating and others stating openly that the faithful must receive in the hand. This is false.  The right of the faithful to receive on the tongue is upheld by Redemptionis sacramentum 92. A diocesan bishop does not have the right to set aside this law on his own authority. Besides, given the moral certainty of desecration when communion is distributed in the hand a command to distribute or receive on the hand would be invalid even if it came from Rome. This virus has exposed a number of errors endemic in the contemporary episcopate not least an acceptance of the inferiority of the spiritual to the temporal power and an estimation of the sacraments as ‘non essential’ and inferior in importance to groceries. We must not permit these half-believing prelates to impose further outrages upon the Body of Christ.

 

The smell of the shepherd

The Arian faction, after depriving the flock of their right excellent shepherd, set up another bishop in his place; but not an inhabitant of the city, were he herding in indigence or blazing in wealth, not a servant, not a handicraftsman, not a hind, not a gardener, nor man nor woman, whether young or old, came, as had been their wont, to gatherings in church. The new bishop lived all alone; not a soul looked at him, or exchanged a word with him. Yet the report is that he behaved with courteous moderation, of which the following instance is a proof. On one occasion he had expressed a wish to bathe, so his servants shut the doors of the bath, and kept out all who wished to come in. When he saw the crowd before the doors he ordered them to be thrown open, and directed that every one should freely use the bath. He exhibited the same conduct in the halls within; for on observing certain men standing by him while he bathed he begged them to share the hot water with him. They stood silent. Thinking their hesitation was due to a respect for him, he quickly arose and made his way out, but these persons had really been of opinion that even the water was affected with the pollution of his heresy, and so sent it all down the sinks, while they ordered a fresh supply to be provided for themselves. On being informed of this the intruder departed from the city, for he judged that it was insensate and absurd on his part to continue to reside in a city which detested him, and treated him as a common foe.

On the departure of Eunomius (for this was his name) from Samosata, Lucius, an unmistakable wolf, and enemy of the sheep, was appointed in his place. But the sheep, all shepherdless as they were, shepherded themselves, and persistently preserved the apostolic doctrine in all its purity. How the new intruder was detested the following relation will set forth. Some lads were playing ball in the market place and enjoying the game, when Lucius was passing by. It chanced that the ball was dropped and passed between the feet of the ass. The boys raised an outcry because they thought that their ball was polluted. On perceiving this Lucius told one of his suite to stop and learn what was going on. The boys lit a fire and tossed the ball through the flames with the idea that by so doing they purified it  (Theodoret, ‘Church History’, IV.13).

 

Fatima groaned to find herself modernist

From an interview in Spanish with Cardinal Antonio dos Santos Marto, Bishop of Leiria-Fatima

¿Cómo es posible que algunos clérigos (incluyendo algunos altos cardenales) continúen creyendo que el coronavirus es un “castigo de Dios”?

Afortunadamente no hemos escuchado esta expresión aquí entre nosotros, en Portugal, al menos públicamente. Esto no es cristiano. Sólo lo dice quien no tiene en su mente o en su corazón la verdadera imagen de Dios Amor y Misericordia revelada en Cristo, por ignorancia, fanatismo sectario o locura*.

{How is it possible that some clerics (including some high cardinals) continue to believe that the coronavirus is a ‘punishment from God’?

Fortunately we have not heard this expression here among us, in Portugal, at least publicly. This is not Christian. Only they say it who do not have in their minds or hearts the true image of the God of Love and Mercy revealed in Christ, through ignorance, sectarian fanaticism or insanity.}

Last time I was in Fatima I was struck by how the old and the new basilicas confront each other across the esplanade, as representatives of two different religions.  I went into the new one during Sunday Mass and there was a bishop preaching, who I presume was this man.  It is one of those churches where the seating slopes down toward the stage sanctuary.  Lacking the gift of tongues I was blessedly unaware of what the sermon was about.

It is clear that the Catholics of Leiria-Fatima should keep this modernist prelate out of the old basilica where the bodies of Francisco and Jacinta repose, since he has no part in the message of Fatima.  Normally it is the cathedral itself from which the faithful should exclude a clearly heretical bishop, but in this case it would probably receive more publicity if they made it the basilica.

 

Balthasar v Vatican II

“That Jesus did not have many of the details of the Passion before his eyes in advance, despite knowledge of them being attributed to him by the evangelists, need not be disputed.” – Hans Urs von Balthasar, Credo: Meditations on the Apostles’ Creed

“Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels just named, whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day He was taken up into heaven” – Dei Verbum 19

 

Why have public Masses been cancelled?

Through a large part of the world all public Masses have been cancelled. Why? Supermarkets are open. If absolutely necessary the civil authorities could have said that food could be delivered only. Instead it has been judged by the temporal power that the risks of people using supermarkets can be diminished and controlled. Man does not live by bread alone. Groceries are necessary. Surely the Bread of Life is more necessary than the bread which perishes. The ventilation of Churches could be investigated along with their safe maximum capacity while maintaining the necessary distance between individuals and households and parishioners could sign up for a fixed number of places. Priests can say three Masses a day in cases (such as this) of pastoral necessity. Why are bishops not doing this? Where is their zeal for souls?

For most clerics today the sign of peace, communion under both kinds, universal reception of  communion, concelebration and extraordinary ministers are not questionable novelties that ought to be phased out but are non-negotiable essential elements of the liturgy. If these practices were missing from the Mass it were better (for this generation) if Mass were not said at all. If particles of the Eucharist are not being scattered over the fitted carpets and cloths soaked in the Precious Blood are not being discarded in a bag in the sacristy, if men and women in habitual grave sin are not eating and drinking condemnation upon themselves then why are we here?

If these practices were eliminated and the liturgy still celebrated the laity might start getting funny ideas. They might question whether they really need to be be reintroduced. God might start pouring down graces upon the Church. Vocations, conversions, orthodoxy, sanctity might at any moment rise from their unquiet graves and trouble the clerical bureaucracy and start questioning its conduct or even its sincerity. If receiving the Eucharist were really that important then the faith might be certain and true and a proper basis for civil and social life and worth dying for (shudder). The joy and the hope, the fear and the anguish of the followers of Christ might not, after all, entirely overlap with the joy and the hope, the fear and the anguish of the men of our time after all.

So the churches must close, especially those which offer the actual Roman Rite instead of the manufactured fabrication, the banal on-the-spot product currently traded under that name. Once again holy obedience is demanded by the wolves and the hired men in order to destroy the faith of the little ones and extinguish the perpetual sacrifice. If possible confession should be banned.

“Take heed to yourselves and to the whole flock, wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops, to rule the Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departure ravening wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock.” (Acts 20:28-29)

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep. But the hireling and he that is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming and leaveth the sheep and flieth: and the wolf casteth and scattereth the sheep, And the hireling flieth, because he is a hireling: and he hath no care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd: and I know mine, and mine know me. As the Father knoweth me, and I know the Father: and I lay down my life for my sheep. ” (John 10:11-15)

 

How can he be so bad?

Aelianus remarked to me the other day that Pope Francis is not just extraordinarily bad in comparison to other popes, but extraordinarily bad in comparison to other erring popes.  The ohters had some famous error which they favoured under pressure (Liberius, Honorius I), or from an affectation of scholarship (John XXII), or bamboozled by some great name.

With Francis it is different.  Everything is thrown into the Bergoglian liquidizer and comes out unrecognizable: Christology, Mariology, the theology of grace, the ten commandments, marriage, the nature of faith, the nature of tradition.  He seems, we might say, to have no supernatural protection at all.  Is this a sign that his election was invalid?

I don’t think we need conclude this.  It is simply that he is not attempting to use his magisterium.  He is not trying, that is, to declare the truth that has been delivered to the saints once for all from the time of the apostles.  But the power to do this is what the magisterium is.

He does not believe that there is such an unchanging revealed truth, and therefore naturally he does not seek to declare it.  And since the divine protection is given to a pope in the exercise of his magisterium, he does not receive it.

 

Feser dissects dim hypermontanist

The most screamingly obvious instance of heretical teaching from the Pontiff now gloriously reigning is, of course, his various statements to the effect that the death penalty is ‘per se contrary to the gospel’ (which the canonical delict mob bizarrely omitted to mention). One of the Pontiff’s great gifts to the Church has been his exposure the yawning but hitherto concealed gulf separating those who worship Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church from those who worship the Hegelian Kirkengeist. It is accordingly grim but fascinating sport to watch one of the latter being skewered by the former. 

 

“There is no way to maintain that the Missal of Paul VI is a form of the Roman Rite.”

 

The Skies Darken

“We live in exciting times, when the vision of Vatican II is beginning to be realised in the Church”

It is essentially obvious to anyone with eyes to see that Pope Francis intends as much harm to the Catholic Faith and to the Church as he can get away with in the time left to him and to embed his henchmen as deeply as he can for the benefit of posterity. Pope Francis has told us that he often doubts the truth of the Gospel. St Thomas Aquinas warns us that “faith should be certain, because one who doubts in the faith is an unbeliever“. Paul VI had no right to promulgate the Novus Ordo Missae. Pope Francis and his abetters have no right to forbid any priest to celebrate the authentic Roman Rite. So long as the faithful carry on attending the Novus Ordo and so long as orthodox priests carry on celebrating it they enable the Modernist abuse of the Church. There is no real hope for recovery until the faithful priests and laity utterly refuse to have anything to do with the pseudo-liturgy. Bl. John Henry Newman said the Church would look rather silly with no laity. We need urgently to introduce the Modernist hierarchy to that experience.