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Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed the Forum Sancti Petri (St. Peter's Piazza) in the mid seventeenth century to be an open, welcoming embrace of visitors into "the maternal arms of Mother Church," an expansive entry to the great archbasilica, which stands on the site of the Roman Emperor Constantine's fourth-century basilica, built over St. Peter's tomb.
Under the Newchurch barbarians after the Vatican II Anti-council (1962-1965), who took possession of once-Catholic sacred places and have little appreciation for art, architecture, or music, the piazza is anything but open and welcoming. It has become more like a circus, or a congested sporting event, with the space chopped up into "zones." The space is now claustrophobic, much like a modernist building designed for efficiency, not grace or art, certainly not spirituality. The area is, moreover, cluttered with artless plastic chairs. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by Catholic World Report.]
Traditional Catholics, visits to St. Peter's are not what they once were, perhaps because of the now closed-off, unwelcoming, and butchered piazza. This degradation may well help to explain the noticeable fall-off of visitor numbers. Even during this Unholy Year proclaimed by the pseudo-pope Bergoglio-Francis and the vaudeville character of the recent conclave, the piazza was more sparsely filled than sixty years ago.
When the apostate Newpope Bergoglio-Francis acceded to the pseudo-Newpapacy, Poland was an active participant in the Newchurch of the New Order. Over 350,000 children were "initiated" (the Newchurch version of "baptism") into Newchurch annually, 130,000 marriages were administered, 3,900 men attended Newseminaries, and 39 per cent of Newchurchers attended Sunday New Messes regularly -- God help them!
After thirteen years of Bergogllo, those numbers plummeted to 270,000 initiates, 70,000 marriages, 1,594 Newseminarians, and 29 per cent attending the New Mess. The Marxist/Modernist Bergoglio secularized the Polish Newchurch into near oblivion. Bergoglio started out by bad-mouthing the Polish Newchurchers, calling them, as well as other Europeans, "sterile grandmothers" and "fat cats," who believed in a dead Christian culture. Bergoglio shunned Christian Europe. Moreover, he sought to adulterate Christianity in Europe by trying to force its heads of state to accept floods of Islamist "migrants." This crisis, which broke Germany and led to the exit of its chancelloress, was hated by the Poles and other Eastern Christians in particular, who had historically had the worst experience with Islamist invaders.
The Modernist/Marxist Bergoglio rejected Catholic doctrine. For example, he repulsed Polish Newchurchers, and others, by his approval of homosexuality, lesbianism, transsexualism, the blessing of "gay marriage," his weakness on the immorality of abortion, and his embrace of atheists. Moreover, Bergoglio's suborning of presbyters and Newbishops committing sex crimes was intolerable to the Polish Newchurchers. The television film "Tell No One" exposing paedophile crimes among the Newchurch clergy was said to have been viewed by most Poles and caused an open scandal. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by MSN.]
Traditional Catholics, the chairman of the Polish Episcopal Conference openly rejected Bergoglio-Francis's establishment of the Protestantized "Synodal" Newchurch in October 2024.. For years, Polish Newchurch resisted Bergoglio's attempt to impose his Marxist/Modernist theology upon this conservative country. As a result, after thirteen years, many Newchurchers had just walked out on the apostate Bergoglio.
On May 2, 2025, the London High Court ordered Newvatican to pay a scapegoat in Bergoglio-Francis's 350,000,000 USD London real-estate fraud an initial sum of 2,000,000 dollars. Raffaele Mincione was found guilty by a Bergoglio-controlled Newvatican kangaroo court, but a London court found him innocent, in that he had acted in good faith in his dealings. Mincione was cleared by the London High Court in February 2025 of Newvatican's accusations of conspiracy and fraud.
Thus, the scapegoat Mincione becomes the ultimate victor in the protracted legal battle that begin in London's High Court in 2020. Meanwhile, the perpetrator, Bergoglio, has gone on to a judgment higher than an earthly one. Mincione has called his persecution in the Newvatican court "a witch hunt" by Bergoglio's "lying prosecutor," in an effort "to deflect attention from its own [Newvatican's] incompetence." [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by Catholic World News.]
Traditional Catholics, during the trial before the London High Court, the thorough corruption of Newvatican, its high officials, and its Bergoglio-Francis was graphically exposed. Newvatican admitted that it began intimidation tactics against a number of scapegoats. Newvatican was also exposed as using "various questionable business and accounting practices."
It is already clear that Prevost-Leo XIV's for his Newpapacy is "continuity," not to the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, but to the Newchuch of the New Order, fabricated on September 21, 1964, at the Vatican II Anti-council to replace the Catholic Church, and particularly to the Newpapacy's last incarnation, the Marxist/Modernist Bergoglio-Francis, who, with his Vatican II predecessors, was MOST CERTAINLY NOT part of the true Catholic Church.
Newchurch's Modernist leaders are breathing a sigh of relief that the conclave, 80 per cent of whose voting members were appointed by the apostate Bergoglio, did just what they were supposed to do. They elected another unknown "secret" candidate, just like Bergoglio himself, whose apostasy from the Catholic Church did not take long to surface after his election in 2013. Prevost came out of anonymity just like Bergoglio. How did two unknowns successively become Newpopes as early as the fifth and fourth ballots respectively? Something's clearly rotten in the conclave!
In his first Regina Caeli on May 4, 2025, from the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica -- and his address was noticeably longer than the actual prayer -- he aped the first Newpope Montini-Paul VI, who was responsible for implementing every single one of the Vatican II Anti-council's sixteen documents, by founding his Newpapacy in secular politics with his "No More War" cry at the "carnival" in the piazza below. By the time of his death, John XXIII had disowned the anti-council, which had gone wild contrary to his intentions. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by Irish News US.]
Traditional Catholics, already Prevost-Leo XIV has inextricably bound his Newpapacy with his immediate predecessor, the Marxist/Modernist anti-Catholic Bergoglio-Francis. Prevost's first jaunt was to visit his tomb in St. Mary Major. Two days later, there Prevost was again, worshipping at the tomb of the apostate Bergoglio. Moreover, Prevost keeps invoking Bergoglio's heretic doctrine of "synodality," so characteristic of Protestant sects. Prevost has already turned out to be just another secular politician in religious garb, constantly invoking the Marxist/Modernist mantra of "social justice."
Just as the cover has been ripped off the Newchurch of the New Order to expose it as an organization suborning paedophile crimes by its presbyters and Newbishops, now the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether so-called "Catholic Charities" is "religious enough" to qualify as a religious organization, or whether it is operating as a political organization fronting for illegal activities. The decision could have far-reaching effects on the future of deceptive Newchurch "charities."
Oral arguments were heard on March 31, 2025, to determine whether a Newchurch organization posing as "religious" can nevertheless be found to fail the standards for being "religious." The case came to the Supreme Court by an unemployment-insurance case, but in recent months the Newchurch organization "Catholic Charities" has come under fire for using government funds for illegal -- certainly not "religious" -- purposes, viz., the support and maintenance of criminal illegals invading the country. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by the National Catholic Register.]
Traditional Catholics, not surprisingly, Newchurch has enlisted a Neocon law firm, the Lawyers for Becket law group, to defend its case. Neocons, i.e., "conservative" Newchurchers, end up supporting the Newchurch organization and ignore Newchurch'a criminal corruption. Such cases just prove that, at base, Newchurch "conservatives" are just as corrupt as Newchurch "radicals."
It is ironic that with the Newchurch population severely declining in Latin America under the last pseudo-Newpope Bergoglio-Francis, the College of Newcardinals elected as its new pseudo-Newpope a man who embraced Peruvian citizenship in 2015. Forty per cent of Newchurchers reside in Latin America. If the 2013 conclave thought that by electing Bergoglio-Francis as pseudo-Newpope in 2013, it would try to turn that figure around, it was sadly mistaken. If the 2025 conclave thought to double down on that error by electing another Latin American, it will be doubly mistaken.
The number already dropping after the Vatican II Anti-council (1962-1965), in 1995 under Wojtyla-JPII 80 per cent of Latin Americans identified as Newchurch, but by 2022, when the further disaster of the apostate pseudo-Newpopes Ratzinger-Benedict and Bergoglio-Francis hit, that number had dropped to almost 25 percentage points to barely 56 per cent. Although the figures as of 2025 have not been released, it is expected that Newchurchers have now become a minority religion in Latin America. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by the National Catholic Register.]
Traditional Catholics, there was no purported "Francis effect" for Newchurch in Latin America. In fact, Bergoglio was so unpopular there that he was frequently identified as a Communist, a conclusion that could easily be reached from his own statements in his autobiography. Bergoglio lent credence to his Marxism by barely protesting against the common characterization of him as a Communist. In 2015 Bergoglio publicly accepted from the Marxist president of Bolivia the blasphemous hammer-and-sickle crucifix. Bergoglio said that he "took no offense" to the blasphemy. In 2018 he con-anized the Marxist Newarchbishop of Nicaragua as a Newchurch Unsaint. The Latin Americans are becoming so sick of the Synodal Newchurch of the New Order and its pseudo-Newpopes that there is no sign whatsoever that another Latin American pseudo-Newpope like Prevost-Leo XIV will do anything but make the situation worse.
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
There is still some confusion surrounding the scope of this recent conclave of the Newcollege of Cardinals. Traditional Catholics widely believe that this conclave because of its apostasy lacks the power and authority to elect a true pope. In that case, how will there be a future restoration of the Catholic Church?
THE TRADITIO FATHERS REPLY.
To Christ we leave the mechanism. It is His Church, and He will provide for its indefectibility. It has been less than a millennium that cardinals have used to elect the pope. For more than a millennium before that, the clergy of Rome elected the pope. There have been several other instances of problems with electing a pope in the history of the Church, particularly during the period known as the Great Western Schism (1878-1417) of almost 40 years, when there were three claimants to the papacy, and not even the Saints could agree on who was the true pope, if any of them was. Eventually, through the power implicit in the Church, these problems were resolved.
The consistent theology of the Catholic Church understands that there are hundreds of periods of sede vacante, which historically have extended from days to years. Yet the Church has continued, and Christ's promise of indefectibility has been maintained. If the period can be years, there is nothing preventing it from being even centuries. Thank God, nothing of faith or morals or the Mass or Sacraments can essentially change. Even now, traditional Catholic priests have access to the principles and wisdom of the past. How can we go wrong when God gave us the Doctors of the Church, men of the greatest faith and intellect, like St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Gregory the Great, the Common Doctor St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Robert Bellarmine, and all the rest?
In any case, the dogmatic definition of the First Vatican Council and its limitation on the power of the papacy is clear:
Neque enim Petri successoribus Spiritus sanctus promissus est, ut eo revelante novam doctrinam patefacerent, sed ut eo assistente traditam per apostolos revelationem seu fidei depositum sancte custodirent et fideliter exponerent. (Constitutio Dogmatica Prima de Ecclesia Christi [Pastor Aeternus], cap. 4, "De Romani Pontificis Infallibili Magisterio")
[For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by His revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by His assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or Deposit of Faith transmitted by the Apostles.]
It is only the Synodal Newchurch of the New Order that changes its doctrines, morality, Mass, and Sacraments on the whim of apostate Newpopes. And that Synodal Newchurch, obviously failing the Four Marks of the True Church ("unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam"), is not the true Catholic Church. It is an apostate sect created, similarly to Martin Luther's apostate sect, on September 21, 1964, by the Vatican II Anti-council.
The true Catholic Church, is now, as Pope Pius XII predicted it would be, "in the catacombs," among the faithful Traditional Catholic clergy and faithful in thousands of Traditional Catholic churches, chapels, and oratories around the world. If Christ is testing the faithful temporarily by the absence of a true pope, as has happened in the past, so be it. We simply follow, as did our Catholic predecessors, St. Paul's dictum: "Itaque state: et tenete traditiones, quas didicistis, sive per sermonem sive per epistulam nostram" [Therefore, brethren, stand fast: and hold the traditions that you have learned, whether by word or by our epistle] (2 Thessalonians 2:14/DRV).
At 18:00 Central European Summer Time in Rome on May 8, 2025, the white smoke went up from the Sistine Chapel to announce the latest pseudo-Newpope of the Newchurch of the New Order, founded to replace the true Catholic Church on September 21, 1964, at the Vatican II Anti-council, later renamed in 2024 the Synodal Newchurch of the New Age by the apostate Newpope Bergoglio-Francis. It is most certainly NOT the Catholic Church. The whole affair, the death of the last apostate pseudo-Newpope, Bergoglio-Francis, and the conclave to elect his successor was turned into an over-the-top vaudeville show by Newvatican and the secular press.
Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum, Dominum
Robertum Franciscum, Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Prevost,
cui sibi nomen imposuit Leonem Decimum Quartum.
The Newcardinals of apostate Newchurch elected not even a Neocon, but a Francis II; Francis is even in his name, Robert Francis Prevost, age 69. He is clearly the spiritual son of the apostate Newpope Bergoglio-Francis. Since 2023 he was appointed by Bergoglio to head the Newchurch Dicastery for (New)bishops, responsible for some of Bergoglio's worst Newepiscopal appointments, which have corrupted Newchurch even more than during the Newpontificates of the apostate Newpopes of Newchurch: Paul VI-Montini, JPII-Wojtyla, Benedict-Ratzinger, and Bergoglio-Francis.
Prevost has been neither ordained as a Catholic priest nor consecrated as a Catholic bishop. He has only been "installed" as a Novus Ordo presbyter (like a Protestant minister in 1982 and "installed" as a Novus Ordo overseer (like a Protestant bishop) in 2014 under the invalid (fake) Protestantized New Ordinal of 1968. Therefore, he cannot be a valid Bishop of Rome.
He is a Newaugustinian, who spent most of his ministry in Paraguay and Peru, becoming a Peruvian citizen in 2015, where he was not a traditional missionary for conversions to the Catholic Faith, but an evangelical after the heretical oecumenical stipe of Bergoglio, who condemned missionary work as "proselytizing." He was Bergoglio's henchman in insinuating laywomen into the Newroman dicasteries against the bimillennial tradition of the true Catholic Church. The best that can be said for Prevost is that he speaks Latin beautifully!
Prevost's first address, from the loggia after his presentation, was longer than any previous such address. In fact, true popes never gave an address on this occasion. Clearly, it was a propaganda move, delivered in Italian, and Spanish. Moreover, the address was obviously prepared in advance and read off a printed sheet (no other pseudo-Newpope has done so).
His address began by profusely praising his apostate Newpope predecessor Bergoglio. His address praised "diversity" over "unity" -- you know, the butchered "God loves everybody" mantra, Newchurch's code phrase for accepting heretics, schismatics, pagans, transsexuals, lesbians, homosexuals, atheists, and the like. He even used the Leftist political motto of "building bridges (not walls)," a code phrase often used by Bergoglio to destroy European civilization by pushing the illegal immigration of Islamists. Finally, he confirmed, in his own words, that he leads not the Catholic Church, but, as Bergoglio and now he both call their sect, the "Synodal" Newchurch of the New Age. He has been described as a "woke, globalist, Marxist, Modernist with a fetish for 'social justice.'"
None of this twisted smoke-and-mirrors propaganda has anything to do with the true Catholic Church. The fake Newchurch/Synodal Church has not ordained priests since adopting the Protestantized New Ordinal of 1968. It merely "installs" what it officially calls presbyters, who are like Protestant ministers. The Newchurch/Synodal Church has not consecrated bishops since adopting the Protestantized New Ordinal of 1968. It merely "installs" administrative "Overseers."
The Newchurch/Synodal Church uses a fake (invalid) Protestant-Jewish Mess, which is most certainly NOT a valid Catholic Mass. Even Newchurch's pseudo-traditionalists use the corrupted Vatican II New Latin Mess of 1962, which depreciates or cuts out entirely the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, many Martyrs and Saints, and guts the holiest week of the year, Holy Week. The Newchurch/Synodal Church has invalided the Sacraments, turning the Sacrament of Baptism into non-sacramental "Initiation," as if to the local Masonic Lodge, turning the Sacrament of Penance into some kind of non-sacramental pseudo-psychiatric couch, turning the Sacrament of Extreme Unction into some mere non-sacramental "Blessing of the Sick."
Traditional Catholics, you are just where you need to be, at a Traditional Catholic church, chapel, or oratory with its traditional Catholic priests independent of the Synodal Newchurch of the New Order. That is where you can really find Jesus Christ, His true Sacraments, his true doctrine, and his true morality. Many in Newchurch envy you, but they don't have the guts to get out of the fake Protestant-Masonic-Pagan Newchurch sect and find the true, traditional Catholic Church.
The irreligious secular and Newchurch media have gone berserk making an elaborate vaudeville show out of an old chimney that will announce the pretender Newpope for the Newchurch of the New Order, which is most certainly NOT the Catholic Church. The Newcardinal electors are all apostates from the Roman Catholic Faith, embracing instead the apostate Synodal Newchurch of the New Order, founded in 1964 at the Vatican II Anti-council. Evidence is mounting that Newvatican has manipulated the voting rolls of the conclave, which began on May 7, 2025.
Traditional Catholics, these cases provide further evidence that the conclave to elect a successor to the apostate Newpope Bergoglio-Francis is just so much stage management. The apostate Newcardinals and the Newchurch of the New Order of the Vatican II Anti-council, or the Synodal Newchurch of the New Age, as Bergoglio renamed it in 2024, is an apostate sect no more Catholic than the Lutherans or Presbyterians. The conclave has no more power to elect a true pope. It may as well be electing the chief clown for a New Order circus!
The Roman Catholic Church used to be the envy of the world for the outstanding administrative skills of its Roman Curia, based on the principles of the first and greatest Roman emperor, Augustus, who administered the entire Roman Empire, predecessor to the Roman Catholic Church, with the assistance of just three skilled freedmen. Now, Newvatican is incompetent to do even the daily work of running the Newchurch of the New Order. The Newvatican museums are being vandalized and pillaged. St. Peter's Archbasilica is filthy. Newvatican's employees are suing Newchurch for robbing them of their pensions.
Bergoglio-Francis's funeral turned out to be the expected New Order fiasco -- and worse. After vulgar-tongued rites held in the open, not in a sacred space, the corpse, which by Bergoglio's own directive, was not to be buried in St. Peter's Archbasilica, was carted off, in the Modernist practice, like a piece of garbage, in the bed of a pickup truck from St. Peters' to St. Mary Major. Well, at least the corpse wasn't sacrilegiously burned to a crisp in a crematorium!
Obviously, Newvatican didn't think that Bergoglio was a real pope. For the three-kilometer carting, there was no procession, no crucifer, no ceroferarii, no clerics chanting the Litanies. In short, there was nothing Catholic about any of it. Finally, he was buried in a plain white plaster niche bearing only Bergoglio's Modernistic pectoral cross, on which The Crucified can hardly be perceived. In order to make this "tomb," Renaissance artifacts in the archbasilica had to be destroyed.
But what seems to be "going viral" on the internet, is Bergoglio's tombstone. The Church, before the New Order takeover in 1964, was renowned for its calligraphic work on buildings, documents, and tombstones. Bergoglio's tombstone, perhaps reflecting the chaos of his own life, is being denounced as looking "awful," like a child's grammar-school project, with the majuscule letters chaotically spaced. The kerning, or spacing between the letters, was way off, even to an unschooled eye, making it look like F R A NCIS VS. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by the National Catholic Register.]
Traditional Catholics, ironically, Bergoglio had visited the calligraphers' shop in Newvatican and demeaned their beautiful work inscribing official documents for the archives. Maybe the tombstone fiasco was the calligraphers' revenge on the apostate Newpope, who was known for his foul mouth in denouncing his Newchurch workers!
Dear TRADITIO Fathers:
I'd like to begin praying from the traditional Divine Office, but I notice that there are a number of versions out there. Which is the most appropriate traditional version of the Divine Office to pray? Also, is the Pius XII Psalter acceptable to use?
THE TRADITIO FATHERS REPLY.
The general principle in all liturgical matters for traditional Catholics is to use the Divine Office, Mass, etc., as of 1950. After 1948, when Pius XII appointed Hannibal Bugnini to head up the Liturgical Reformation Commission, all Hell broke loose. Changes tainted with the Modernist heresy, or worse, started appearing in profusion.
There are traditional versions of the Divine Office issued in the 1940s that are safe. You certainly don't want the corrupted version that was put into place in 1956, much less the even worse version that was put into place in 1960. In those years, lists of traditional Saints were dumped, and traditional feasts were mixed up. For sources, see the TRADITIO Network's Traditional Latin Mass, Divine Office & Sacraments department in the section "The Divine Office," available from the TRADITIO Network's main menu (www.traditio.com).
As to the Pius XII Psalter, avoid it like the plague! Somehow Pius XII got it into his head that he could improve upon St. Jerome's immemorial Latin Vulgate Psalter, which had been used in the Church since around the year 400. Pius XII tried to get the Benedictines to write it, but they resisted, so he eventually gave the task to Augustin Bea, a Jesuit, known to be of a Modernist disposition.
The resulting version, known as the Pius XII Psalter, was widely criticized by those who knew best. Its Latin is defective, being neither classical nor ecclesiastical, but a kind of Jesuital schoolbookish version that certainly lacked the grace, elegance, and sonority of St. Jerome's great work. It is so bad that even a beginning Latin student can discern its defects. John XXIII, a decided lover of Latinity, detested it and and gave the order to resume use of the traditional Latin Vulgate Psalter of St. Jerome exclusively.
The capital Newdiocese of New York State, in Albany, is collapsing. Newbishop Edward Scharfenberger announced on April 7, 2025. 126 of its Newparish churches, about one-third of the total are set to be shuttered in a "financial and maintenance crisis." Scharfenberger announced the causes of the collapse, which pertain to practically all of the Newdioceses in the United States and around the world, including Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and 34 other Newdioceses in the United States.
Scharfenberger admitted that he and his Newchurch predecessor Howard Hubbard had allowed the Newdiocese to give up the ghost. On March 16, 2023, Scharfenberger, an appointee of the apostate Newpope Bergoglio-Francis in 2014, threw in the towel and declared bankruptcy. He said that he will close or sell off "churches, rectories, and schools" and lay off personnel, the detailed list to be published ironically on Pentecost Sunday, June 8, 2025.
Albany had already been "reorganized" in 2011 in the awkwardly-named "Called to Be Church" process, since it had experienced a serious shortage of presbyters. Because of the implementation of the Protestant-Masonic-Pagan New Order sect arising from the Vatican II Anti-council (1962-1965), many presbyters have left Newchurch and very few young men want to enter its Newseminaries, partly out of fear of being raped by Newchurch clergy in the continuing Great Sex & Embezzlement Holocaust. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by the National Catholic Register.]
Traditional Catholics, under Newbishops Edward Scharfenberger and Howard Hubbard, a flood of more than 400 lawsuits from children who were raped, sodomized, and otherwise sexually assaulted by Newchurch clergy brought the Newdiocese of Albany to its knees. God's justice cannot be denied. The apostate Newchurch is justly suffering the penalties for the sins that from the Newpopes on down to the Newbishops and presbyters thought that they could get away with.
The largest country in Europe, Germany (not counting Russia, which is half Asian), continues to bleed Newchurchers at an ever-increasing rate. The German Bishops’ Conference on March 27, 2024, reported that 321,611 individuals formally "de-registered" in 2024 at city halls around the country as Newchurchers. The Newchurch population has now fallen for the first time to below 20,000,000 and below one-quarter in the Federal Republic of Germany, whose population is some 85,000,000.
In the entire country only 1,839 people joined Newchurch in 2024. The number of Newchurchers attending the New Order service has fallen into single digits, a mere 6.6 per cent. Only 29 presbyters were installed (Newchurch has not ordained priests since 1968 when it went to an invalid Protestant New Ordinal instead of the traditional Sacrament of Holy Orders.) [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by Katolische.]
Traditional Catholics, the reality of the Synodal Newchurch of the New Age has become too clear around the world to deny. Newchurchers are leaving in droves, very few men are entering Newchurch seminaries (where they risk being sodomized and educated in heresies), and the vulgarized and invalid "New Mess" of 1969 has lost any appeal it once had. Yet the number of do-nothing, apostate Newbishops and Newcardinals has more than doubled since the Vatican II Anti-council (1962-1965)!
If you ask most traditional Catholics who the founder of the Traditional Catholic Movement was, most of them wouldn't have an clue. Some of them might say Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who founded the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) in 1970. But they would be dead wrong. Such ignorance is a scandal to the Traditional Catholic Movement, as every important movement commemorates and lauds its founder, and certainly knows his name! In fact, May 6, 2025, marks the twentieth anniversary of the death of the founder of the Catholic Traditionalist Movement, Fr. Gommar DePauw. Fr. DePauw was a noted Catholic priest, having received a Triple Major Licentiate, in Canon Law, Moral Theology, and Church History, from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium (when it was Catholic), thereby outdoing Fulton Sheen, and having served as Academic Dean at the Primatial Seminary of the United States in Baltimore, Maryland.
Already in 1963 Fr. DePauw, who viewed the debacle of the Vatican II Anti-council sessions first hand as a peritus (theological expert assisting a bishop), was scandalized by the promulgation of Vatican II's "Sacrosanctum Concilium" (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy) and saw, before practically anyone else, clergy or lay, the devastation that this document would impose upon the Church. In 1964 Fr. DePauw left his Deanship at the Primatial Seminary and founded the Catholic Traditionalist Movement, courageously going independent of the Newchurch of the New Order. 1964 was the year in which the Vatican II Anti-council and Paul VI-Montini apostatized from the Catholic Faith and founded the Newchurch of the New Order to replace the Catholic Church, with the heretical Constitution for the [New]church, "Lumen gentium." This was six years before Archbishop Lefebvre founded the Society of St. Pius X.
One of the most remarkable aspects of Fr. DePauw's anti-Modernist movement was that this remarkable priest founded the Catholic Traditionalist Movement before the Vatican II Anti-council had even ended! Long before Archbishop Lefebvre, SSPX, SSPV, CMRI, the Unsaint JPII-Wojtyla's "Indult" of 1988, and Benedict-Ratzinger's "Extraordinary" New Latin Mess of 2007, it was Fr. DePauw who first saw that the flowery talk of a "new springtime" for the Church was a ruse being deceptively used to befuddle the faithful while the revolutionaries enacted their heretical Modernist anti-Catholic agenda, which began with the destruction of the Traditional Latin Mass in their Newchurch of the New Order.
In the aftermath of the Vatican II Anti-council, there was virtually nothing left for traditional Catholics in the early 1960s except Fr. DePauw's Traditional Latin Masses on radio in major metropolitan areas and his Catholic Traditionalist Movement periodicals and recordings, broadcasted all over North America from his Ave Maria Chapel on Westbury, Long Island, New York, to put the lie to Newchurch's claim that the two-thousand-year Traditional Latin Mass no longer existed. For those who lived through the early Novus Ordo period, it was a bleak time, yet, because of Fr. DePauw's courageous apostolic work, countless souls were inspired to resist the New Order, and thus he laid the groundwork for the current traditional Catholic movement. He continued to be an outspoken critic of Newchurch and its fake (invalid) Protestant-Masonic-Pagan "New Mess" until his death in 2005.
Fr. DePauw, with the eye of a prophet seeing far ahead of his time, did not grovel to the Novus Ordo to seek "permission" of apostate Newchurch bishops or send petitions to apostate Newpopes to grant an "indult" for what he and every Catholic priest has the Apostolic right and duty to do: to offer the Traditional Latin Mass and Traditional Latin Sacraments for the salvation of souls, and to offer the Sacrifice of the immemorial True Mass for the living and the dead and for the ultimate glory of Almighty God.
Traditional Catholics, get down on your knees today and pray a Requiem aeternam for this courageous traditional Catholic priest who showed us all the right way, the traditional Catholic way, and refused to back down to the apostate Newchurch of the New Order, with its Novus Ordo Protestant-Masonic-Pagan "New Mess" or its "New Latin Mess" of 1962. If you have the fullyTraditional Latin Mass and Sacraments today in your independent Traditional Catholic church, chapel, or oratory, you would not have them unless Fr. Gommar DePauw had courageously paved the way to give them to you. All the other "traditionalist" organizations, including the Society of St. Pius X, were johnny-come-latelys to the work that the courageous and foresightful Fr. DePauw undertook to save the true (traditional) Catholic Church.
On Tuesday, April 29, 2025, Donald Trump threw his hit into the ring to become the next Newpope. "I'd like to be (New)pope," he said. "That'd be my number one choice." Although the U.S. President's statement was taken by most as a joke, Trump is not the first to suggest it.
Newchurch is in dire need of a stellar financial manager and Chief Administrative Officer to clean up its impending bankruptcy, already confirmed by two European Union auditors. The Newvatican administration fell apart under Bergoglio-Francis. Newvatican employees are suing because he raided their pension fund for his extravagant junkets around the world. The Vatican Bank is still under the control of the Mafia. Newcardinals, Newbishops, and presbyters are committing the most vile crimes and are not held to account by the Newvatican court system.
Some might argue that Trump is not qualified to be Newpope because he is a Protestant. But so is every single one of 135 apostate Newcardinals voting in the upcoming Newconclave, as well as the pretender Newpopes after the Vatican II Anti-council, in spite of the fact that they posed as "Catholic." They all adhere to at least one heresy held by the Protestants, and it takes only one heresy to become an excommunicate under the Church's canonic maxim: Hereticus in uno, hereticus in omnibus, a heretic in one thing (is) a heretic in all things. In fact, they all partake of the Modernist Heresy, defined by Pope St. Pius X as "conlectum omnium hereson," the collection of all heresies. [Some information for this Commentary was contributed by MSN News.]
Traditional Catholics, one thing is certain: Donald Trump could not do a worse job than the pretender Newpopes since the Vatican II Anti-council: the socialist Paul VI-Montini, the paganizer JPII-Wojtyla, the Nazi confederate Benedict-Ratzinger, and the Marxist Bergoglio-Francis. All of them presided over the most vile, perverted crimes under color of false authority: crimes of sodomy, particularly against children, which constitute one of the Four Biblical Sins that Cry out to Heaven for Retribution. For such criminal Newpopes Christ has provided the most severe penalty: "a millstone should be hanged about (their) neck, and (they) should be drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matthew 18:6/DRV).
The Newdiocese of Buffalo, New York, which, like so many other Newchurch entities, thought that it could get off scot free after raping, sodomizing, and otherwise sexually assaulting children, will now have to pay the piper, in this case the child victims of its sex crimes. The U.S. Federal Bankruptcy Court is ordering the perpetrator Newdiocese, along with its Newparishes and affiliates, to pay out a whopping penalty of 150,000,000 USD for the sex crimes of its presbyters, religious, lay employees, and volunteers. The court has also ordered the Newchurch headquarters to be auctioned off.
A chastened Michael Fisher, Newbishop of Buffalo, issued on April 22, 2025, the usual prattle, trying to paper over with a mendacious apology the unforgivable crimes that were perpetrated against the child victims for years and were covered up by Newchurch officials. The penalty was "the second-largest contribution by a bankrupt Roman Catholic institution and its affiliates in any Roman Catholic [sic] bankruptcy case to date." Several months previous, the Newdiocese of Rockville Center, New York, had paid out to its child victims the largest bankruptcy penalty in U.S. history, 323,000,000 USD.
Traditional Catholics, it was the Newarchdiocese of Los Angeles, California, however, that broke the bank by paying out the largest non-bankruptcy settlement in U.S. history, 1,000,000,000 USD, to the multitudinous child victims of sex crimes by its Newclergy. Most of these crimes were committed under the aegis of the discredited and demoted Newcardinal-Newarchbishop there from 1985 to 2011, the infamous Roger Mahoney. And yet Newchurch still continues to pander to and cover up for its paedophile Newclergy, while issuing meaningless press statements of mendacious "apology." No apology can make up for the destruction of the child victims' lives. Many of them have committed suicide. Newchurch is incorrigible.
St. Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, who ended the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire in the year 313, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to find the actual Cross on which Our Lord was crucified. When she had cleared away the site, she discovered three crosses. Near one lay the title with the inscription recorded by St. John in his Gospel (19:19): "Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum." Thereupon, the empress of the world fell upon her knees to worship, says St. Ambrose, "not the wood, but the King who had hung upon the wood."
On April 28, 2025, Newvatican announced May 7, 2025, as the start date of its spurious conclave, to elect a leader for its Newchurch of the New Order, founded on November 21, 1964, at the Vatican II Anti-council (1962-1965) and in 2024 transmogrified by Bergoglio-Francis into the Synodal Newchurch of the New Age. It should be clear to all by now, except the most clueless, that the Newchurch after the Vatican II Anti-council is most certainly NOT the Catholic Church, as it does not believe, practice, or teach the Catholic Faith, any more than Martin Luther's sect does. In effect, Newchurch is just another Protestant sect -- and worse. (Remember, Luther called his sect the "Catholic Church" too.)
Fortunately, Our Lord's promise of the indefectibility of the true Catholic Church is continues as thousands of Traditional Catholic churches, chapels, and oratories around the world maintain the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Faith of two millennia. For further information, click on the TRADITIO Network's Official Traditional Catholic Directory department, provided to the TRADITIO Network by the National Registry of Traditional Latin Masses, available from the TRADITIO Network's main menu (www.traditio.com).
Thus, the leaders of this Newchurch are not true popes, nor will their successors be. The announced conclave is merely a charade, as every one of the 135 voting Newcardinals is a member of the non-Catholic Newchurch and professes all the heresies against the Catholic Church that the Protestants profess -- and more, foremost among them the Cardinal Heresy of Modernism, which Pope St. Pius X in his hard-hitting Encyclical Letter, "Pascendi Dominici Gregis" of 1907 called "collectum omnium hereseon," the collection of all heresies.
Thus, the pseudo-traditionalists and Neocon Newchurchers are bound to be disappointed in any hope that they have for even a "conservative" Newpope to lead their Newchurch, as 80 per cent of the 135 voting Newcardinals (108) are appointees of Bergoglio to carry on radical Newchurch, whereas a candidate needs only two-thirds plus one (91) to elect a Newpope. Truly, Newchurch will simply be putting on yet another vaudeville show and once again rearranging the deck chairs on its foundered Titanic.
So, it would be a good time to turn off the television on this "conclave" for the next month. What point is there in listening to ignorant blabbing from the secular press, lay Newchurchers, and heretic Newchurch clergy, standing before the television cameras in their fancy duds that they never wear in their own churches? Instead, spend time learning the history of the Church. Even Traditional Catholics are unaware of what has actually happened in the past. Whoever the new leader of Newchurch will be, our obligation as Traditional Catholics remains the same: to shun completely the apostate Newchurch of the New Order, or Synodal Newchurch of the New Age, or whatever they will call it tomorrow, as the fake pretender it is.
The new May 1 Feast of St. Joseph the Workman ("Worker" in genderless "modernized" English) was widely reviled in the Church at the time by the highest authorities, and was derisively called the Feast of "Joe the Worker" or the "Pseudo-feast of San Giuseppe Comunista" by the Romans and others, as it fell on Communist May Day. The traditional Sacred Congregation of Rites rejected Bugnini's new feast, and there was open opposition in the Church to it. Opposition to the new feast was so strong that the Sacred Congregation of Rites refused for four years to formulate the Gregorian-chant Mass and Divine Office for the new feast.
From the early Church the Holy Apostles Philip and James the Less (brother of St. Jude Thaddeus) have shared the same feast day, May 1, because the relics of the martyrs were solemnly translated from New Rome, i.e., Constantinople, by Pope Pelagius I to the Church of the Holy Apostles at Rome, where they still rest. St. Philip brought the Catholic Faith to Scythia. St. James the Less was Bishop of Jerusalem and wrote the Epistle in the New Testament. He was martyred by the Jews by being thrown from the pinnacle of the Temple.
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