Why we doubt the consecration of Russia-Ukraine by Pope Francis

 The consecration of Russia (and an unasked for Ukraine) delivered by Pope Francis on 25 March 2022 is of doubtful value for peace in our times. The intention is defective; the objective is oblique; and the animus behind the current Papacy is decisively opposed to what our Lady of Fatima requested.

Even a casual perusal of the consecration prayer reveals nothing in reference to our Lady of Fatima, nor the purpose of the requested consecration she revealed to Sister Lucia in 1929 for the conversion of Russia. The Pope's prayer asks for peace. Peace is what our Lady promised the world if the consecration was carried out as she requested. What Pope Francis did was to request the fruits of the consecration without performing the requirements of the consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary: ask for the conversion of Russia, lest that nation fill the world (and sadly now, even the Church) with its errors. Failure to do the consecration properly (according to the Fatima redactor, Sister Lucia) would result in Russia spreading its errors (atheistic communism) throughout the world resulting in wars, the annihilation of entire nations, and the persecution of the Church.

The real reason that heaven cannot accept the consecration is that the men of the Church have chosen their own path to peace in utter disregard for Fatima.

This began in April of 1963 when Pope John XXIII promulgated the encyclical Pacem in terris, subtitled Establishing Universal Peace in Truth, Justice, Charity, and Liberty. The encyclical demonstrated an utterly earthbound, quasi-humanist attempt to instrumentalize the Church as a vehicle for attaining a temporal peace in the world by an appeal to what amounts to the French Revolution's slogan of liberty, equality, and fraternity. 

The encyclical was published during the Second Vatican Council which had begun in October 1962 and provided an impetus to it that would inspire many churchmen to pursue peace through merely human means as though the Mother of God had not even appeared in Fatima, or requested the consecration of Russia.

The Council, seeking rapprochement with the communist sphere of influence then engulfing the eastern hemisphere welcomed observers from the Russian Orthodox Church on the (KGB's) condition that communism - the very errors of Russia our Lady warned against - would not be condemned. Pope John XXIII agreed to this in the little known Pact of Metz, guaranteeing no condemnation of communism at Vatican II. The calculus was this: uniting the Eastern Churches with Rome would strengthen the ties between the free countries and those restricted by atheist communism. This would come not by an act of religion (the requested consecration of our Lady of Fatima) but by human efforts and the new orientation of ecumenism.

Although nearly 500 council fathers signed a formal petition during the council to condemn communism (as Pope Pius XI did in Divini redemptoris, 1937), the petition was lost, and no condemnation ever occurred. 

Following the council, Pope Paul VI gave a speech at the United Nations on 4 December, 1965 in which he appealed

...this lofty Institution, and it comes from our experience of history... is as an "expert on humanity" [and] we bring this Organization the support and approval of our recent predecessors, that of the Catholic hierarchy, and our own, convinced as we are that this Organization [the United Nations] represents the obligatory path of modern civilization and world peace.

... People turn to the United Nations as if it were their last hope for peace and harmony. We presume to bring here their tribute of honor and of hope along with our own. That is why this moment is a great one for you too.

 Fatima does not even appear to be in the consciousness of the Supreme Pontiff nor of the conciliar fathers although it seems plausible that the best opportunity the Church ever had to perform the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary would have been at the Second Vatican Council where 2,400 prelates were assembled together in the same city, and even in the same room.

No one championed the council with more vigor and zeal than Pope John Paul II, who hailed it as the event that caused us to see the Church in an "utterly new way, quite unknown previously" (Redemptor hominis, March 1979). In fact, John Paul II was so convinced that the Council contained the promise and justification for achieving peace that he convened the spectacle of the Prayer Meeting of All Religions at Assisi in 1986. The stated purpose of this event was to ask the various deities and luminaries (as well as the Triune God) for peace in the world through the orchestrated cacophony of pluralist religious activity. The event appeared to place the religion of Jesus Christ, God-made-Man on the same level as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and many other religious systems. The common denominator is man in whom the Pope finds the key to true peace and brotherhood. 

"Man ... is the primary route that the Church must travel in fulfilling her mission: he is the primary and fundamental way for the Church, the way traced out by Christ himself, the way that leads invariably through the mystery of the Incarnation and the Redemption." (Redemptor hominis #13)

About the correlation between Vatican II and Assisi Prayer the Pope said

 “The day of Assisi, showing the Catholic Church holding hands with our brothers of other religions, was a visible expression of [the] statements of the Second Vatican Council.” 

Pope John Paul II went on to celebrate the inter-religious prayer meeting at Assisi as a new direction for the future, “The event of Assisi” he said, “can thus be considered as a visible illustration, an exegesis of events, a catechesis intelligible to all, of what is presupposed and signified by the commitments to ecumenism and to the inter-religious dialogue which was recommended and promoted by the Second Vatican Council.”

Toward the end of the speech, the Pope urged his Cardinals to continue on the same new path, “Keep always alive the spirit of Assisi as a motive of hope for the future.”

- Pope’s Christmas Address to Roman Curia,” L’Osservatore Romano, January 5, 1987, pp. 6-7.

The event itself - repeated by the same Pope in 2002 - shocked the sensibilities of Catholics and protestants alike with its audacious assertion that all prayer is directed to the one God regardless of the intent of the one praying. John Paul II left no doubt about this assertion:

"It must first be kept in mind that every quest of the human spirit for truth and goodness, and in the last analysis for God, is inspired by the Holy Spirit. The various religions arose precisely from this primordial human openness to God. At their origins we often find founders who, with the help of God’s Spirit, achieved a deeper religious experience. Handed on to others, this experience took form in the doctrines, rites and precepts of the various religions.

In every authentic religious experience, the most characteristic expression is prayer. Because of the human spirit’s constitutive openness to God’s action of urging it to self-transcendence, we can hold that “every authentic prayer is called forth by the Holy Spirit, who is mysteriously present in the heart of every person.”

(Address to the Members of the Roman Curia, 22 Dec. 1986, n. 11; L’Osservatore Romano English edition, 5 Jan. 1987, p. 7).

The same Supreme Pontiff who urged the Curia to “keep always alive the spirit of Assisi as a motive of hope for the future” finds a willingness to do just that in successors Pope Benedict XVI who convened a third Assisi event in 2011 and in Pope Francis who participated in a pagan ceremony at the Vatican in 2019 and signed a document with the Grand Imam of Al Azhar alleging that God wills the existence of all religions. 

Which brings us back to Fatima: why would heaven accept the truncated, humanistic prayer of Pope Francis to end the war (without Russia's conversion) in Ukraine when he is inebriated with the spirit of Assisi Prayer himself? Make no mistake; Assisi Prayer is diametrically opposed to the message of Fatima in every way. Assisi prayer is based on a false conception of both man and God; far from requiring anyone's conversion, it offers Papal sanction to the practice of every religion imaginable. Assisi prayer sought peace through the mere human instruments of interreligious dialogue and ecumenical activity. Assisi Prayer is in the final analysis a shockingly impious repudiation of the message of Fatima in preference for man's own ways of attaining peace.

"Thus saith the Lord: Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord." [Jeremias 17,5]

How could heaven set aside this monstrous effrontery?  How could our Lady of Fatima accept the prayer of Pope Francis for peace when the entire hierarchy with few exceptions has been compromising with Russia's errors for 60 years now? The root of this rejection of Fatima lies in the purpose and orientation of the Second Vatican Council; the council rejected the supernatural means of achieving peace provided by our Lady and chose the arm of flesh - humanistic ecumenism and interreligious dialogue. 

The same tragic exchange occurred in Judea when the Jews chose the way of political insurgency by crying out for the release of the terrorist Barabbas instead of the Prince of Peace, Jesus of Nazareth. Their violent insurgency ended with the death of a million Hebrews in the siege of Jerusalem 66-70 A.D. by the Roman emperor Titus. By choosing the means of mere human efforts and rejecting the sure path promised by the Queen of Heaven, we too are meeting the consequences of our decisions. 

The spirit of Vatican II - identified by Pope John Paul as being fulfilled at the Assisi Prayer events - is diametrically opposed to the spirit of Fatima. They both seek the same end but with dramatically different paths of attainment. Pope Francis asked for an end to the war in Ukraine, but he did not consecrate Russia and Russia alone to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for it's conversion. On top of all our other sins and moral failures, we have added an impious request for the Blessed Virgin Mary to bend her will to that of sinful humanity and grant us peace without conversion.

That is simply not going to happen.

A short theology of climate change

 The only human behaviors that can affect the weather - known colloquially today as 'climate change' or 'global warming' - are offenses against the Creator when He has explicitly warned against them.

This essay will not discuss the so-called scientific evidence that usually reaches the conclusion its financiers favor; there simply is no settled science on the issue of weather patterns based on the causality of human behavior. The sample size of a couple hundred years is mathematically too small to consider, especially for those who believe the earth is billions of years old.

Nor is the most basic evidence available in this controversy applied to most debates: the massive size of the sun and its blazing heat compared to the relatively tiny earth. If anyone seriously proposes that bovine flatulence or other carbon-emitting activity directly impacts the energy of the sun, we are not dealing with science but (sadly as is too often the case) science-fiction. 

Theologically, there is one caretaker of the cosmos: almighty God, creator of heaven and earth. The traditional theology - never disproven - posits the governance of the universe by the agency of angels. These angels perfectly obey the Creator's every command, and as Sacred Scripture reveals, have power over the earth:

And I heard a great voice out of the temple, saying to the seven angels: Go, and pour out the seven vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. [2] And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth, and there fell a sore and grievous wound upon men, who had the character of the beast; and upon them that adored the image thereof. [3] And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea, and there came blood as it were of a dead man; and every living soul died in the sea. [4] And the third poured out his vial upon the rivers and the fountains of waters; and there was made blood. [5] And I heard the angel of the waters saying: Thou art just, O Lord, who art, and who wast, the Holy One, because thou hast judged these things: [6] For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy. (Apocalypse 16, 1-6)

The great interventions of the Old Testament show us the punishments that afflicted men were not the result of "abusing the environment" but of committing abominable acts that offended the Creator. The great Deluge came because of the universality of human wickedness, completely changing the 'environment' forever; the multiplication of languages at the Tower of Babel was the divine response to the secular humanism of the day; the scorching obliteration of the cities on the Plain of Zeboim - to this day the lowest elevation on earth - came in response to the foul crime of sodomy. The plagues visited upon the Egyptians came not because of wanton excavations of the earth to build the pyramids, but from defying the God of Israel's direct commandments.

The Biblical record is replete with divine chastisements of floods, earthquakes, droughts, famines, and plagues which came upon men not for offenses committed against the terra firma, but against the will of God. 

Saint Thomas Aquinas treats the divine government in the Summa:

5. All things are subject to the divine government, since this is the divine goodness of God himself. The divine goodness is both the first effecting cause and the ultimate final cause (or ultimate goal) of everything. No positive being can exist without the divine goodness, and therefore everything, in particular and in singular as well as in general, is governed by the same divine goodness.

6. God alone designs the government of the universe, and this is his providence. The design is carried into execution or actual governing operation through use of secondary causes (creatures) as media or means of governing.

7. Since God is the first and universal cause, nothing in the universe can lie outside the order of his government. When something seems to evade divine government, the very cause of the seeming evasion will be found in the divine government itself. As we saw in our study of divine providence, nothing whatever is outside the divine rule.

What then do we reply to the apologists of the currently popular phrase that man has a stewardship over the earth? If this is so, it would be relatively easy to cite chapter and verse from the record of revelation that provides this explanation. But all we have is this:

And to Adam he said: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life. [18] Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth. [19] In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return. (Genesis 3, 17-19)

This work of tilling the soil was in fact, a disciplinary punishment for sin. The real justification for any stewardship of the earth comes to Adam and Eve to have dominion over the earth and subdue it:

And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth. [27] And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. [28] And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth. [29] And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat: [30] And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done. (Genesis 1, 26-30).

While some may suggest the phrases 'have dominion' and 'subdue it' imply a moral responsibility towards the terrain of the planet itself, this idea is never developed in Catholic theology until the 1970s under the rubric of the Malthusian theory of overpopulation which has yet to materialize.

The idea that the LORD God created a fragile earth that his creatures could destroy by 'abusing the environment' is unheard of in salvation history. The earth is astonishingly resilient without any interference from man as every volcanic eruption testifies. The same pagan conception of the earth's alleged impotence in providing for all the resources of a multiplying human population fuels the madness that men must galvanize geopolitical action in order to halt the rise of a mythical global warming trend. 'The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof" (Psalm 24, 1). 

No, the traditional theology of ecology is that the entire enterprise belongs to God from beginning to end, and that He reserves the right to marshal the forces of nature to influence human activity. What we are being sold with unbridled hysteria is a purely pagan idea: that an exaggerated regard for the physical environment is the exclusive province of man, and that only man can save himself from being cooked alive by his rapacious treatment of the environment. The solutions proposed for this alleged crisis appear to threaten the environment far more extensively than the production and consumption of fossil fuels: to build a single 1,000 pound battery for a hybrid vehicle 250 tons of earth must be excavated to obtain the precious metals required. Then the problem of environmentally responsible disposal of tens of thousands of these batteries at the end of their shelf-life imposes another threat upon the ground we all depend upon for growing food and water.

Proof of this new paganism is in the complete and utter disregard for real moral outrages that have historically brought cataclysmic chastisements upon the human race, and yes, the topography: infanticide, promotion of unnatural sexual acts, defilement of temples, perversions of [human] nature, wanton violence, promotion of atheism, etc... These crimes escape the indignation of our climate prophets who see in them the progress of human evolution - another pagan conception - and focus rather on 'carbon credits' and other theoretical threats that our God has never mentioned, nor His prophets. 

What is truly astonishing is how easily Catholics get carried away with this entire pagan superstructure of ecological fragility in the name of a biblical 'stewardship over the earth.' While it is true that the current Pope has promulgated an encyclical on the environment the theological underpinnings of its thesis are embarrassingly shallow. There is simply no centuries-long tradition of any moral imperative to take God's place as master over the cosmos. Even if one concedes that the biblical record may lend credibility to a stewardship over the natural resources of the earth, that interpretation could not possibly extend to the weather patterns, which is what the priests of the climate change hysteria are worried about most. 

The real crisis we are facing is a crisis of antichristian gullibility. Without the universal acceptance of the natural law that the Creator wrote upon our hearts, men fall for the flimsiest substitutes and theories. Climate change theory is simply the latest in a long line of panhumanist causes that animates the minds of men that have either rejected the natural law (and by extension, the God of nature) or have been inoculated against it by malicious indoctrination. The menu of draconian solutions being proposed by the prophets of the environment comprise a list of self-inflicted disasters waiting to engulf us because we rejected the fear of the Lord. 

Weather patterns which may certainly include natural disasters cannot be credibly attributed to human behaviors; they can with some supernatural interventions be recognized as supranatural applications of the divine prudence. God may punish men for their collective crimes by ecological signs; but He is off the record as ever having assigned the control of weather patterns to the sons of Adam. 

Full and active participation: capitulation to Modernism

Why did the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum concilium) promulgated by Pope Paul VI at the Second Vatican Council emphasize "full and active participation" by "all the people" as the number one priority for reforming the liturgy?

In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else; for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit; and therefore pastors of souls must zealously strive to achieve it, by means of the necessary instruction, in all their pastoral work. (SC #14)

This reference is not without precedent; in fact, St. Pius X promulgated a similar clause in his 1903 motu proprio on sacred music Tra le sollecitudini:

It being our ardent desire to see the true Christian spirit restored in every respect and preserved by all the faithful, we deem it necessary to provide before everything else for the sanctity and dignity of the temple, in which the faithful assemble for the object of acquiring this spirit from its indispensable fount, which is the active participation in the holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church.

The differences in emphasis are striking; in 1903 it was for the sanctity of the temple. In 1963, it was for "full and active participation of all the people." These differences lay chiefly in the attitude towards the synthesis of all heresies, Modernism, and the reforms inspired by them.

The purpose of the liturgical reform was to focus on subjective experience after some Churchmen conceded to the rationalist-atheists that God could never be the direct object of science or history. This was especially urgent in lands conquered by the communists. Therefore, stripped of the witness of external signs and even nature itself, they were dependent on subjective experience to justify religion. This Pope John Paul II made the crusade and purpose of his entire life, attempting to synthesize St. Thomas and modern philosophy, primarily under the broad heading of personalism. The particular school of personalism Father Karol Wojtyla subscribed to was the phenomenology of Scheler, Heidegger, and Husserl. He believed that by locating the experience of the divine in man, he could justify the Gospel in a new way not dependent on history, Tradition, or objective authority. Hence, the top priority identified in Sacrosanctum Concilium, “full and active participation” was intended to discretely replace the definition of faith as intellectual assent to that which God has revealed to a subjective experience of the divine. All of this is condemned by St. Pius X in his encyclical On the Doctrines of the Modernists, Pascendi Dominici gregis. A few quotes are provided below:

Modernists place the foundation of religious philosophy in that doctrine which is usually called Agnosticism. According to this teaching human reason is confined entirely within the field of phenomena, that is to say, to things that are perceptible to the senses, and in the manner in which they are perceptible; it has no right and no power to transgress these limits. Hence it is incapable of lifting itself up to God, and of recognising His existence, even by means of visible things. From this it is inferred that God can never be the direct object of science, and that, as regards history, He must not be considered as an historical subject. (#6)

But when Natural theology has been destroyed, the road to revelation closed through the rejection of the arguments of credibility, and all external revelation absolutely denied, it is clear that this explanation will be sought in vain outside man himself. It must, therefore, be looked for in man; and since religion is a form of life, the explanation must certainly be found in the life of man. (#7)

But let us see how the Modernist conducts his apologetics. The aim he sets before himself is to make the non-believer attain that experience of the Catholic religion which, according to the system, is the basis of faith. (#35)

How far off we are here from Catholic teaching we have already seen in the decree of the [first] Vatican Council. We shall see later how, with such theories, added to the other errors already mentioned, the way is opened wide for atheism. Here it is well to note at once that, given this doctrine of experience united with the other doctrine of symbolism, every religion, even that of paganism, must be held to be true. What is to prevent such experiences from being met within every religion? In fact that they are to be found is asserted by not a few. And with what right will Modernists deny the truth of an experience affirmed by a follower of Islam? With what right can they claim true experiences for Catholics alone? Indeed Modernists do not deny but actually admit, some confusedly, others in the most open manner, that all religions are true. (#14) 

If Pope John Paul II did not adopt this very error as the basis for his phenomenology and did not apply these errors in his official doctrinal corpus, how else can we explain quotes like this?

It must first be kept in mind that every quest of the human spirit for truth and goodness, and in the last analysis for God, is inspired by the Holy Spirit. The various religions arose precisely from this primordial human openness to God. At their origins we often find founders who, with the help of God’s Spirit, achieved a deeper religious experience. Handed on to others, this experience took form in the doctrines, rites and precepts of the various religions.

In every authentic religious experience, the most characteristic expression is prayer. Because of the human spirit’s constitutive openness to God’s action of urging it to self-transcendence, we can hold that “every authentic prayer is called forth by the Holy Spirit, who is mysteriously present in the heart of every person.

(Address to the Members of the Roman Curia, 22 Dec. 1986, n. 11; L’Osservatore Romano English edition, 5 Jan. 1987, p. 7).

Let's summarize. According to the philosophical agnosticism of the Modernists, God could not be the direct object of science, nor of history. This left churchmen with the only option to locate the divine in human experiences. The error here should be obvious: God is the object of the queen and mistress of all sciences, the science of divinity; He is the object of all history as He is its author and chief actor. To capitulate to the Modern error of agnosticism is to surrender to a false paradigm which the Second Vatican Council refers to as "modern man." This modern man rejects the entire supernatural order; places all the miracles of revelation in the category of myths; and sees in the God-man, Jesus Christ our Lord a mere human figure totally beholden to the requirements of his own epoch as a first century Jewish itinerant preacher. Any capitulation to such paradigmatic nonsense is to open the doors wide for atheism, as St. Pius X solemnly condemns in Pascendi gregis. 

The old liturgy with its reliance on the objectivity of human and divine knowledge, the transcendence of its heavenward gaze and communion with the Triune God and His Saints was totally unsuited for modern man who rejected what he could not experience subjectively in himself. While these efforts to accommodate so-called modern man with a liturgy better suited to the false paradigm of philosophical agnosticism seemed imbued with a certain human empathy, they were and always will be doomed to fail. God is the primary object of science - all science, the supreme science being theology. God is no less the Lord of all profane sciences as the Creator of the material world; He is no less the object of true history as its originator, consummator and Lord.

This explains the contemporary preoccupation with 'getting everyone involved' in the Novus Ordo liturgy. The incessant noise, activity, and overutilization of laymen in liturgical functions is all required to foster authentic subjective religious experiences - not only as a way to concretize Catholic faith but the only way, seeing all external revelation and natural theology is excluded, or at least made optional.

Hence, we have the current campaign of Pope Francis and his Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments to stamp out the old Mass. The old Mass isn't promoting this anthropocentric religion; it isn't focused on man and subjective experiences, but on the transcendent Divinity. The Mass of All Ages gives absolute credibility to the God Who is the direct object of science and history; it mediates supernatural graces through the offering of the Son to the Father in propitiation for the sins of the living and the dead. It is not difficult to surmise why the partisans of the New Theology wanted to obliterate every vestige of Catholic Tradition, especially in liturgy. 

Where does this anthropocentric religion with its focus on human experiences lead us? According to St. Pius X, straight to atheism. And the precipitous and tragic decline in the Western Catholic Church would appear to corroborate this. 

Finally, a clarification of the legitimate role of experience in Catholic religious praxis. As we noted from St. Pius X's motu proprio on sacred music above, the words active participation (Latin: participatio actuosa) should be considered without any negative connotation when we use the philosophy of St. Thomas and not the modern agnostic philosophies. This Scholastic philosophy of St. Thomas was in fact recommended by St. Pius X in Pascendi as a sure bulwark against the collection of heresies converging in Modernism. It fully acknowledges that God is the primary object of both science and history and as such places no exaggerated or strained emphasis on human religious experience. But stripped of Scholastic philosophy's sure foundation and left naked with only subjective experience as a guide, the role of active participation takes on a dangerous urgency which leads eventually to a loss of faith, apostasy, and atheism. 

These key philosophical differences emerge from different attitudes towards the theories purported by profane science. For St. Thomas, theology is the Queen of sciences; for the modern philosophers, theology is only speculation about subject matter that cannot be finally and certainly known. The first major cleavage between profane science and the Church's magisterium occurred during the novel proposition by Galileo of Copernicus' heliocentric theory. This controversy fatally separated the profane sciences from the science of divinity as the former rejected the latter's conclusions; moreover, this opened wide an entire theater of polemical war against the Church's philosophical moorings which culminated in the super-heresy of Modernism, inasmuch as Modernism is utterly dependent on the theory of evolution. The collection of grotesque errors one may find in the literature of Teilhard de Chardin amply illustrates the bizarre lengths one may extend in order to synthesize Catholic religion with the theories of modern science unmoored from traditional Catholic philosophy.

For liturgy, the object must ever be the Transcendent Divinity; this object must be regarded as absolute, real, concrete, tangible, and accessible through the mediation of the Catholic Church. No amount of condescension to so-called modern man in new theories of liturgy can ever hope to replace the system of worship which came not from men, but from God. The focus on men and their experiences may have been inspired by a well-intended pathos, but in the end, it redirects men away from the Transcendent Good and toward their own weaknesses. 

About this, Fr. Johannes Dormann, S.T.D. writes

A comparison of the principles of knowledge in Cardinal Wojtyla's [Pope John Paul II] New Theology with those of classical theology makes the fundamental differences clearly come to light. In classical theology, God is the material and formal object of theology. In the New Theology of Cardinal Wojtyla, the object is man. The diametrical opposition is manifest. Through the confusion of nature and grace in the axiom of universal salvation, the traditional "dualism" is entirely eliminated. The traditional distinctions of the natural and supernatural knowledge of God, of natural and supernatural revelation, of natural reason and supernatural faith, of natural and supernatural theology, no longer apply. The virtue of faith, which is constitutive for the process of justification, is no longer required for salvation...

 Quote taken from Pope John Paul II's Theological Journey to the Prayer Meeting of Religions in Assisi, Part 1, pages 121-123, (c) 1994 by Angelus Press

The urgency and necessity in preserving the Traditional Roman Rite is not a matter of personal taste, preference, or attachment; it is the divinely provided bulwark against Modernism, as discussed in the Ottaviani Intervention of 25 September 1969:

...the Novus Ordo represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent. The canons of the rite definitively fixed at that time provided an insurmountable barrier to any heresy directed against the integrity of the Mystery.

The experiment of philosophical personalism applied to liturgy has had a 50 year run; there is ample data to make a judgment on the suitability of such reforms and to weigh their impact on the Church. God is and always will be the highest object of any true science, and sound philosophy will always validate this. Every effort to appeal to men who reject the God of history by directing their attention to their own subjective experiences will end up failing in the Church's divinely appointed mission of saving souls through the preaching of the Gospel, of which the most profound proclamation is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

 

Pope Francis, the motu proprio, and the showdown at Mt. Carmel

 There is a prophetic irony in Pope Francis promulgating his motu proprio Traditionis custodes [on the use of the Roman Liturgy prior to the reform of 1970] on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The standoff between the two 'forms' of the Roman Rite was prefigured in the confrontation between the Prophet Saint Elias and the priests of Ba'al on this very mountain about 2800 years ago.

Mount Carmel was the scene of the biblical duel between the prophets of the pagan deity Ba'al and the Prophet of the LORD God, Elias (cf. 3rd Kings 18, DRV). The duel took place on Mount Carmel, which is located in the Jezreel Valley in what was then the Northern Kingdom of Israel, comprised of the ten tribes that had renounced their loyalty to the Davidic dynasty and the priesthood of Aaron after the disastrous rule of King Solomon's son, Reheboam. The northern tribes substituted the Davidic line with a series of violent coup de etats, and the Aaronic priests with men unqualified for covenant priesthood. The northern tribes capitulated easily to idolatry, and it was Ba'al, the god of nature they substituted as their object of worship. This period is the backdrop for the Books of the Prophets Osee (Hosea) and Amoz (Amos). 

Elias was sent to call the northern kingdom back to the LORD, then under the rule of the emasculated Achab, who bent his will to his pagan queen, Jezebel. Elias challenged the priests of Ba'al to a duel: both would offer a sacrifice to their deity, and the God which answered by fire would be recognized as the true. Elias was convinced that he was alone in this cause, but the LORD consoled him with the knowledge that a faithful remnant remained in the northern kingdom. What occurred on Mount Carmel is one of the most dramatic and thrilling episodes of biblical history, as the true worship, while in the minority was vindicated with the power of God displayed from heaven and the priests of Ba'al routed.

In a stunning irony, it is Pope Francis who is pursuing the constriction of the tiny orthodox remnant, and proposing an audacious challenge to them: reservations about the Second Vatican Council are tantamount to a rejection of the Holy Ghost. Accept the reforms and return to the Pauline liturgy or be guilty of resisting the Spirit of God! (this conclusion is detailed in the letter that accompanies the motu proprio, 6th paragraph).

Like the naturalist priests of Ba'al, the Vatican is arrogantly asserting a claim that is either the vox Deus or a display of astonishing hubris: was the Second Vatican Council and the reformed liturgy of Pope Paul VI inspired from heaven, or men? For the Pope, the question is settled.

For the Church, the confrontation, like that on Carmel of old, is clearly couched between the ancient forms (the sacrifice offered by Elias according to immemorial tradition going back to Abel) and the new, anthropocentric (man-centered) forms which break with tradition (the Ba'alist natural religion). Could the Pope not have foreseen the prophetic irony of promulgating his motu proprio on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel?

And so we have it: as Elias prophesied, "...if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him" (3rd Kings 18, 21). And the Pope throws down the gauntlet: if Vatican II is the work of the Holy Spirit, you sin mortally by resisting its reforms. 

I will not take up the arguments at this time against the sources of inspiration of Vatican II which I have detailed elsewhere. Suffice to say, we know the liturgy handed down from antiquity and canonized by Pope St. Pius V is from heaven.

Carmelite Sisters are executed by French revolutionaries in 1794 for the crime of maintaining their "silly religious traditions" that were against the "unity of the republic."

Martyrs, Mystics, and Missionaries: Casualties of the Second Vatican Council

 Among the reforms inspired by the Second Vatican Council were sweeping changes to the sacred liturgy, a new orientation towards the unbelieving world, and a new and novel effort to promote a unity with those who confessed Christ but rejected His Church and its divinely appointed government.

As a consequence of the new liturgy approved by Pope Paul VI in 1969, the Roman Breviary was also reformed. The new Liturgy of the Hours excised the office of Prime, and with it, the recitation of the Roman Martyrology. For centuries the Martyrology placed the heroic witness of the martyrs of the Church before the eyes of those bound by holy orders; daily their combats and tumults were rehearsed in the hearing of the clergy, and their glorious victories over their tormentors informed many sermons and counsels. Yet but for the few who have happily discovered this suppressed treasury of inspiration, the Martyrology is not only ignored, it is simply unknown. The impact of this glaring and tragic omission is incalculable (think of the type of sermons we have grown accustomed to since the Novus Ordo was promulgated).

But the Council - whether by intent or reckless naivete - not only removed the Martyrology from the sacred liturgy of the Church; it disparaged the traditional contemplative spirituality of the Church as well. 

Monasteries and cloisters emptied in the wake of Vatican II which zealously advocated a new partnership with 'modern man' who sought not the purification of prayer, but the social change only attainable by activism. The New Theology which emphasized subjective experience and the dynamics of societal change goaded churchmen to embrace the spirit of democracy, technological progress, and social justice. In this hubris for activism the appreciation for mysticism and contemplation waned; what good was praying and meditating? How could it move the mountains required by revolution in South America and equality for racial minorities and women in the United States? Who had time for spiritual reading or the Rosary when our cities were on fire and the Vietnam war raged on? No, the old Saints such as John of the Cross or Theresa of Lisieux had to give way to the new activist saints who rather than wasting time with angels, apparitions, and visions were toppling oppressive social structures in the name of a revolutionary Christ who came to bring a new ethical order to this present world. 

The Council also introduced a new form of ecumenism which reached its peak during the grotesque display of theological discord which occurred at Assisi in 1986 under the leadership of the Pope himself. Preaching to convert the unbeliever was out; a new sense of brotherhood that could find common ground between men of all religions - or none at all - in the quest for a temporal peace was in. Pope John Paul II was absolutely persuaded that this "utterly new way" of seeing the Church was in fact, the fulfillment of all Vatican II promised:

Two months after the event, in a Christmas speech to his Cardinals published in the Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano, John Paul said, “The day of Assisi, showing the Catholic Church holding hands with our brothers of other religions, was a visible expression of [the] statements of the Second Vatican Council.” The interfaith event at Assisi was thus described by John Paul II not as a tragic misrepresentation of Vatican II, but as the glorious realization of its teaching.

Pope John Paul II went on to celebrate the inter-religious prayer meeting at Assisi as a new direction for the future, “The event of Assisi” he said, “can thus be considered as a visible illustration, an exegesis of events, a catechesis intelligible to all, of what is presupposed and signified by the commitments to ecumenism and to the inter-religious dialogue which was recommended and promoted by the Second Vatican Council.”

Toward the end of the speech, the Pope urged his Cardinals to continue on the same new path, “Keep always alive the spirit of Assisi as a motive of hope for the future.” 

- Pope’s Christmas Address to Roman Curia,” L’Osservatore Romano, January 5, 1987, pp. 6-7.

Why the need then for missionaries? The greatest missionary of the 20th century who was elected Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers - the Church's largest missionary congregation - resigned in 1968 under siege from radical reformers within his own order who clamored for the new reforms, ecumenical activity, and interreligious dialogue advocated by Vatican II. This missionary Bishop was Marcel Lefebvre. Missionary activity in the Catholic Church still lives on in pockets and small communities, but the devastating blow dealt by conciliar ecumenism all but quenched the missionary impulse inspired by Him Who commanded the apostles

Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned. (St. Mark 16, 15-16)

We will conclude with the words provided by the man many modern Catholics esteem to be a great Saint of the Church, at the beginning of his pontificate:

 However, as the Council is not limited to the documents alone, neither is it completed by the ways applying it which were devised in these post-conciliar years. Therefore we rightly consider that we are bound by the primary duty of most diligently furthering the implementation of the decrees and directive norms of that same Universal Synod. This indeed we shall do in a way that is at once prudent and stimulating. We shall strive, in particular, that first of all an appropriate mentality may flourish. Namely, it is necessary that, above all, outlooks must be at one with the Council so that in practice those things may be done that were ordered by it, and that those things which lie hidden in it or—as is usually said—are "implicit" may become explicit in the light of the experiments made since then and the demands of changing circumstances. Briefly, it is necessary that the fertile seeds which the Fathers of the Ecumenical Synod, nourished by the word of God, sowed in good ground (cf. Mt 13: 8, 23)—that is, the important teachings and pastoral deliberations should be brought to maturity in that way which is characteristic of movement and life.

Fifty years later, it is plain what devastation the Council has wreaked upon the Church and even the world it aspired to serve. Martyrdom gave way to temporal happiness and rapprochement with the world; mysticism to activism, and missionary labor to the soft appeasement of ecumenism. Only in the full and absolute commitment to the Church's treasury of Tradition can we recover. 

Our Lady of Fatima, Destroyer of All Heresies

Our Lady is the Destroyer of all heresies. St. Pius X called Modernism 'the compendium of all heresies'. The roots of Modernism are in agnostic philosophy - an agnosticism supported by the Copernican assertion that the Church was wrong about her geocentric cosmology. If the Church was wrong about so fundamental and foundational a matter, she cannot be trusted with the far weightier matters of faith and morals. This was the conclusion of the Church's enemies (and too many of her own sons) when Galileo Galilee advanced the idea of a mobile earth spinning diurnally and orbiting the sun. Yet our Lady of Fatima gave us a miraculous sign to demonstrate once and for all that the Church was not wrong to condemn heliocentrism, but that she had faithfully handed down what she received from the Holy Fathers. 

For those unfamiliar with the controversy, it concerns the Church's biblical cosmology. Theologian Paula Haigh (+2015) explains 

The medieval world possessed such a sound foundation in its Geocentric Cosmology. Cosmology, which defines the Structure of the Universe and the fixed centrality of earth, is the necessary essential of the entire body of knowledge we know as the Natural Order. It is this natural order upon which Grace builds the entire edifice of the Supernatural Order of Divine Grace - producing the Elect and those beacons of light for us, the Saints.  Any historian who omits in-depth consideration of the relations between the natural sciences and theology, will not give us true or reliable history.  It was first Copernicus - and then his popularizer, Galileo, who first cut the umbilical cord binding the natural sciences to Theology -  by way of Holy Scripture. Without the guidance of the theologians of the Church, the natural sciences were bound to go astray, and so they did.  The end result is precisely what the encyclical Pascendi describes as the subjugation of faith to science - a science falsely so called, (1 Tim. 6:20).  This is a crime of the greatest magnitude -  the synthesis of all heresies -  overturning in men's minds the very hierarchy of reality. 

The Church put the full weight of her magisterial authority behind the condemnation of heliocentrism as formal heresy. The Church was right. There isn't and there never was any proof for heliocentrism. The miracle of the sun at Fatima was our Lady's way of demonstrating that the defeat of Modernism will only be achieved by recovering the Church's full and plenary power for proclaiming the complete record of revelation to a world that had been plunged into philosophical futility and meaninglessness. For, if the earth were some insignificant planet cast into a random corner of the universe drifting aimlessly towards oblivion as the modern philosophers postulate, what good was religion?  On October 13th, 1917 the sun danced; not the earth, not the cosmos. 70,000 people saw it, to include many atheists. Our Lady is the Destroyer of All Heresies, and the miracle of the sun is a great sign for us to believe as the Church had always taught - that we occupy a privileged place in the very center of the cosmos in which God became man in her virginal womb.

In Psalm 18, the sun is depicted as an athlete running the way "from the end of heaven, and his circuit even to the end thereof" to illustrate the movement of the sun around the earth. This Psalm clearly tells the reader that the 'language' spoken by the heavens is (a) universal; and (b) understood by all. The plain evidence of the phenomena is that the sun circles the earth daily. No one has ever observed the earth circling the sun or spinning on an axis. As if to emphasize how irrefutable and infallible this phenomena is, the Psalmist then discourses about the perfection of the Law of the Lord. The entire Psalm moves in perfect motion through four themes:

(1) The heavens declare the glory of God.

(2) The sun circles the earth.

(3) The Law of the Lord is perfect.

(4) Whoever keeps the just judgments of the Lord will be kept from sin.

Lest we think this is a simplistic and primitive way of exegeting the divine Word, let us take a Doctor of the Church, St. Robert Bellarmine for our guide:

"Second. I say that, as you know, the Council [of Trent] prohibits expounding the Scriptures contrary to the common agreement of the holy Fathers. And if Your Reverence would read not only the Fathers but also the commentaries of modern writers on Genesis, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Josue, you would find that all agree in explaining literally (ad litteram) that the sun is in the heavens and moves swiftly around the earth, and that the earth is far from the heavens and stands immobile in the center of the universe. Now consider whether in all prudence the Church could encourage giving to Scripture a sense contrary to the holy Fathers and all the Latin and Greek commentators." (Letter to Foscarini, 1615)

Vatican I (1869-1870) infallibly confirmed the teaching of Trent:

Now since the decree on the interpretation of holy scripture, profitably made by the council of Trent, with the intention of constraining rash speculation, has been wrongly interpreted by some, we renew that decree and declare its meaning to be as follows: that in matters of faith and morals, belonging as they do to the establishing of christian doctrine, that meaning of holy scripture must be held to be the true one, which holy mother church held and holds, since it is her right to judge of the true meaning and interpretation of holy scripture. In consequence, it is not permissible for anyone to interpret holy scripture in a sense contrary to this, or indeed against the unanimous consent of the fathers. (emphasis mine) 

The philosophy condemned by Pope St. Pius X in the 1907 encyclical Pascendi gregis (On the Doctrines of the Modernists) is agnosticism, the belief that man could not know for certain whether there is a God, and that His will is likewise unknowable (this is condemned at Vatican I, ch. i, 3). St. Pius X counted among the chief of the doctrines of the Modernists the vile and antibiblical idea of evolution. The evolution championed by Teilhard de Chardin which has wounded the faith of the Church so deeply to this very day presumes upon the Church's loss of authority in supposedly interpreting the first chapters of Genesis incorrectly. If the earth was not created on the first day and the sun, moon and stars on the fourth as lights and signs for the times and seasons to benefit man, which the Church had always taught, then the Church was wrong about the foundational passages of Sacred Scripture. If she was wrong about this, then surely she could be in error about the cosmos being created in six days. Thus the way for Modernism is paved, not by true science, nor by sound philosophy, but by a demonically animated skepticism: "...hath God said...?" (Genesis 3,1)

 This wound was inflicted upon the Church not by Darwin, but by Nicholas Copernicus, who, like Teilhard was a priest who rejected the testimony of the Holy Fathers infallibly confirmed by the Council of Trent. In summary, there is no Darwin and no Teilhard without the monstrous error of heliocentrism, which three Popes rightly condemned as a formal heresy for its opposition to the Patristic consensus. 

Our Lady of Guadalupe

The Mother of God performed another miracle in 1531 by imprinting her image on the tilma of St. Juan Deigo, a miracle that resulted in an astonishing conversion of no less than six million Aztecs who were at the time in the thrall of the most barbaric forms of idolatry imaginable. In this image, our Lady is clearly depicted as being clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet as Sacred Scripture reveals (Apoc. 12, 1). In both Scripture and the miraculous icon of Guadalupe, the Mother of Christ is being encompassed by the sun, a symbolic rendering of the sun orbiting the earth, represented by our Lady, the pinnacle of the earth's created order.

No wonder then that of all the signs at her queenly disposal she, the Seat of Wisdom, chooses the dance of the sun at Fatima. This sign unambiguously indicates the movement of the sun, just as the miracle requested by Josue in the Old Testament (cf. Josue 10,13). Perhaps through this sign our Heavenly Queen is showing mankind that all the errors of Russia which were then as now flooding the world could be staunched by her Immaculate Heart; that she who is Mediatrix of all graces could obtain for the Church that glorious defeat of the compendium of all heresies, Modernism. As St. Pius X recognized her in his encyclical on Modernism as the Destroyer of All Heresies, the Blessed Virgin Mary restores that wisdom which had been so long abandoned and rejected by men under the delusion of the heliocentric cosmos which rendered the Church's interpretation of the Word of God to be wrong. If this sign is received in good faith from our Lady of Fatima, the shame of 'persecuting science' with 'faulty biblical exegesis' would be remedied and the Church vindicated in her treatment of the entire Galileo affair, which at present time serves as an embarrassment and a humiliation. 

There is no heresy of Modernism without the doctrine of evolution infecting the human element of the Catholic Church. There are no evolutionary toxins wounding sacred doctrine without the stigma of wrongly interpreting Genesis. And that stigma was first applied not by the adepts of Darwin, but of Copernicus.

Our Lady is showing us at Fatima that the way back to orthodoxy (and true militancy) is to recover the correct philosophical moorings that the Fathers of the Church handed down to us, which is to say, the earth is stable at the center of the cosmos, and is the theater of redemption in which God became man in the Virgin's womb.  

The Utterly New Way of the Second Vatican Council

The Vatican II document styled Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen gentium presents us with a novel vision of the Church as "a sacrament of salvation" and "sign of the unity of mankind."  Factor in LG's teaching that "elements of sanctification exist in [non-Catholic] assemblies" and that the "Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church", you have an ecclesiology so far from traditional doctrine as to represent an entirely new conception of what it means to be 'Church.' but don't take my word for it, here is Pope John Paul II: 

"Entrusting myself fully to the Spirit of truth, therefore, I am entering into the rich inheritance of the recent pontificates. This inheritance has struck deep roots in the awareness of the Church in an utterly new way, quite unknown previously, thanks to the Second Vatican Council..." Pope John Paul II, Redemptor hominis 

So, LG is establishing ways the Catholic Church is related by degree to non-Catholic religious bodies first with the 'separated brethren' (another conciliar novelty) but then astonishingly to Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Therefore we have lost the dogma of Extra ecclesia nula salus completely which has given way to an amorphous, invisible 'church' that includes all humanity - and this too, John Paul II teaches with shocking audacity: 

...The opening made by the Second Vatican Council has enabled the Church and all Christians to reach a more complete awareness of the mystery of Christ, "the mystery hidden for ages" in God, to be revealed in time in the Man Jesus Christ, and to be revealed continually in every time. 

...Accordingly, what is in question here is man in all his truth, in his full magnitude. We are not dealing with the "abstract" man, but the real, "concrete", "historical" man. We are dealing with "each" man, for each one is included in the mystery of the Redemption and with each one Christ has united himself for ever through this mystery. 

...this is "each" man, "the most concrete" man, "the most real"; this is man in all the fullness of the mystery in which he has become a sharer in Jesus Christ, the mystery in which each one of the four thousand million human beings living on our planet has become a sharer from the moment he is conceived beneath the heart of his mother." 

- Pope John Paul II, Redemptor hominis, 1979

"...utterly new way, quite unknown previously..." 

"...to reach a more complete awareness of the mystery of Christ..." 

"...with each one Christ has united himself for ever through this mystery." 

"...this is 'each' man ...in all the fullness of the mystery in which he has become a sharer in Jesus Christ..." 

Astonishing what you see when you isolate the novel phrases. 

And the result? 

"Two months after the event, in a Christmas speech to his Cardinals published in the Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano, John Paul said, “The day of Assisi, showing the Catholic Church holding hands with our brothers of other religions, was a visible expression of [the] statements of the Second Vatican Council.” The interfaith event at Assisi was thus described by John Paul II not as a tragic misrepresentation of Vatican II, but as the glorious realization of its teaching. Pope John Paul II went on to celebrate the inter-religious prayer meeting at Assisi as a new direction for the future, “The event of Assisi” he said, “can thus be considered as a visible illustration, an exegesis of events, a catechesis intelligible to all, of what is presupposed and signified by the commitments to ecumenism and to the inter-religious dialogue which was recommended and promoted by the Second Vatican Council.” Toward the end of the speech, the Pope urged his Cardinals to continue on the same new path, “Keep always alive the spirit of Assisi as a motive of hope for the future.”

- Pope’s Christmas Address to Roman Curia,” L’Osservatore Romano, January 5, 1987, pp. 6-7. 

John Paul II and various religious leaders, Prayer Meeting of Religions, Assisi, Italy 1986

And (get ready for it) for Pope John Paul II, the Holy Spirit is the inspiration behind these false religions! 

"It must first be kept in mind that every quest of the human spirit for truth and goodness, and in the last analysis for God, is inspired by the Holy Spirit. The various religions arose precisely from this primordial human openness to God. At their origins we often find founders who, with the help of God’s Spirit, achieved a deeper religious experience. Handed on to others, this experience took form in the doctrines, rites and precepts of the various religions. In every authentic religious experience, the most characteristic expression is prayer. Because of the human spirit’s constitutive openness to God’s action of urging it to self-transcendence, we can hold that “every authentic prayer is called forth by the Holy Spirit, who is mysteriously present in the heart of every person.”

(Address to the Members of the Roman Curia, 22 Dec. 1986, n. 11; L’Osservatore Romano English edition, 5 Jan. 1987, p. 7). 

All this is condemned by St. Pius X in his encyclical against Modernism: 

"How far off we are here from Catholic teaching we have already seen in the decree of the Vatican Council. We shall see later how, with such theories, added to the other errors already mentioned, the way is opened wide for atheism. Here it is well to note at once that, given this doctrine of experience united with the other doctrine of symbolism, every religion, even that of paganism, must be held to be true. What is to prevent such experiences from being met within every religion? In fact that they are to be found is asserted by not a few. And with what right will Modernists deny the truth of an experience affirmed by a follower of Islam? With what right can they claim true experiences for Catholics alone? Indeed Modernists do not deny but actually admit, some confusedly, others in the most open manner, that all religions are true."

Pascendi gregis #14

Lumen gentium provides the basis for an "...utterly new way" of seeing the Church, "quite unknown previously..." thanks to the Second Vatican Council. John Paul II's vision of a Christ united with each man forever in which each man is already a "sharer in Jesus Christ" easily portends to a Church which is comprised of the entire human race. 

In this universal church in which each man is united to Christ forever and in which "the Holy Spirit ... is mysteriously present in the heart of every person” there is no need for evangelical preaching, missionary work, or personal conversion. No, what is needed is dialogue between men of all religions in order to discover that consciousness which is being aroused in the Teilhardian march towards Omega Point - the consciousness that we are all already united to the God-Man and only lack the realization of it. This is the inescapable conclusion of the New Theology. This is why the Churches are emptying and the average Catholic is utterly confused as to what his Church teaches and what it means to be saved at all.

Kyrie Eleison!