TREASURY OF QUOTATIONS FOR TRADITIONAL CATHOLICS TRADITIO Traditional Roman Catholic Network E-mail: traditio@traditio.com, Web: www.traditio.com Copyright 2002-2023 CSM. Reproduction prohibited without authorization. Last Updated: 11/14/23 They preach tolerance, but practice intimidation. A saint is a sinner who kept on trying. Graves mutationes in liturgia introducunt graves mutationes in dogmata. [Serious changes in the liturgy usher in serious changes in dogmata.] --Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilio Oecumenico Vaticano II, v. I, p. 1, p. 371 The first requirement of salvation is to keep the standard of the True Faith. --Pope St. Adrian II (867-872) These liberal theologians seized on the Council as a means of de- catholicizing the Catholic Church while pretending only to de-romanize it. --Bishop William Adrian, Nashville If anyone prays with heretics, he is a heretic. --Pope St. Agatho I (678-682), SCN XXI:635 A hundred private prayers have not as much efficacy as a single petition offered in the Divine Office. --St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church (1696-1787) Sine Domenico non possumus [Without the Lord's Day (the Mass), we are powerless]. --African Martyr The devil has always attempted, by means of the heretics, to deprive the world of the Mass, making them precursors of the Anti-Christ, who, before anything else, will try to abolish and will actually abolish the Holy Sacrament of the altar, as a punishment for the sins of men, according to the prediction of Daniel "And strength was given him against the continual sacrifice" (Daniel 8:12D). --St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church (1696-1787) The Mass is the most beautiful and the best thing in the Church. At the Mass, Jesus Christ giveth Himself to us by means of the Most Holy Sacraent of the altar, which is the end and the purpose of all the other Sacraments. --St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church (1696-1787) One single Mass gives more honor to God than all the penances of the Saints, the labors of the Apostles, the sufferings of the martyrs, and even the burning love of the Blessed Mother of God. --St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787) Man cannot perform a more holy, a more grand, a more sublime action than to celebrate a Mass, in regard to which the Council of Trent says: "We must needs confess that no other work can be performed ... so holy and divine as this tremendous Mystery itself. God Himself cannot cause an action to be performed that is holier and grander than the celebration of Mass. --St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787), The Holy Mass When you are at Rome, do as the Romans do. --St. Ambrose (334?- 397) Sanctorum vita ceteris norma vivendi est [the life of the Saints is the norm of living for others]. --St. Ambrose (334?-397), On St. Joseph Quia non solum episcopos ad tuendum gregem Dominus ordinavit, sed etiam Angelos destinavit [Because the Lord has ordained not only bishops to protect His flock, but also has appointed the Angels]. --St. Ambrose (334?- 397), Book 2 on Chapter 2 of St. Luke about the middle Apart from bad Latin and a lack of precision, the Curia can be criticized for the cultural inadequacy implicit in recent papal documents, which were for centuries distinguished by an irreproachable perfection. -- Prof. Romano Amerio, Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the XXth Century (Sarto House, 1996, p. 146), on the decadence of the post- conciliar Curia Men will surrender to the spirit of the age. They will say that if they had lived in our day, faith would be simple and easy. But in their day, they will say, things are complex; the Church must be brought up to date and made meaningful to the day's problems. --St. Anthony (ca. 251-356) A Christian is part of a new and heavenly race of men, of a divine trunk: divinum genus. He is a deified man, a son of God the Father, incorporated into the Incarnate Word, animated by the Holy Ghost. His life must be that of a citizen of heaven: "If God humiliated Himself to such an extent as to make Himself man," says St. Augustine, "this was in order to exalt men to such an extent as to make of them gods [Serm. 166]". --Fr. J. Arintero, O.P., La Vie Spirituelle, December 1919. O Lord, Thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget Thee, do not Thou forget me; for Christ's sake. Amen. --Sir Jacob Astley St. Athanasius, to whom it was objected, "You have the bishops against you," answered with Faith: "that proves that they are all against the Church." --St. Athanasius (ca. 296-373) If the world goes against the truth, then Athanasius goes against the world [Athanasius contra mundum]. --St. Athanasius (ca. 296-373) [tag also attributed to the Roman Emperor Constantius in the year 355 when he chided Pope Liberius for refusing to condemn St. Athanasius ("Who are you to stand up for Athanasius against the world?")] God has promised to be like a wall of fire round those who rightly believe in Him. --St. Athanasius (ca. 296-373) Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ. (Patrologia Graeca/Coll. Selecta SS. Eccl. Patrum, Caillau and Guillou, Vol. 32, pp. 411-412) An unjust law is no law at all. --St. Augustine (354-430) And what more certain death for souls than the liberty of error. -- St. Augustine (354-430) [condemning "religious liberty"] Persecutions serve to bring forth saints. --St. Augustine (354- 430) Wrong is wrong even if everybody is doing it, and right is right even if nobody is doing it. --St. Augustine (354-430) If there are some present who do not understand what is being said or sung, they know at least that all is said and sung to the glory of God, and that is sufficient for them to join in it devoutly. --St. Augustine (354-430) Pray as though everything depended on God and act as if everything depended on you. --St. Augustine (354-430) If it happens that the authority of Sacred Scripture is set in opposition to clear and certain reasoning, this must mean that the person who interprets Scripture does not understand it correctly. It is not the meaning of Scripture that is opposed to the truth, but the meaning that he has wanted to give it. --St. Augustine (354-430) In the Old Testament the New is concealed, in the New the Old is revealed. --St. Augustine (354-430) It is better that the truth be known than that scandal be covered up. --St. Augustine (354-430) There is a beauty of form, a dignity of language, a sublimity of diction which are, so to speak, spontaneous, and are the natural outcome of great thoughts, strong convictions, and glowing feelings. The Fathers [of the Church] often attain to this eloquence without intending to do so, without self-complacency and all unconsciously. --St. Augustine (354- 430) God cannot abandon a soul that has not first abandoned Him. -- St. Augustine (354-430) apud Council of Trent Lay this body anywhere; let not the care of it in any way disturb you. This only I request of you, that you would remember me at the altar of the Lord, wherever you. --St. Augustine (354-430), Confessions IX [the last request of his dying mother, St. Monica] Let us understand that suffering is medicine for salvation, not a punishment for damnation. --St. Augustine (354-430) The crown of victory is promised only to those who engage in the struggle. --St. Augustine (354-430), De Agone Christiano, 1:1 Accordingly this seems to me to be one principal reason why the good are chastised along with the wicked, when God is pleased to visit with temporal punishments the profligate manners of a community. They are punished together, not because they have spent an equally corrupt life, but because the good as well as the wicked, though not equally with them, love this present life; while they ought to hold it cheap, that the wicked, being admonished and reformed by their example, might lay hold of life eternal. And if they will not be the companions of the good in seeking life everlasting, they should be loved as enemies, and be dealt with patiently. For so long as they live, it remains uncertain whether they may not come to a better mind. --St. Augustine (354-430), De Civitate Dei I.9 [the "problem of evil"] With regard to whatever is in the Septuagint that is not in the Hebrew manuscripts, we can say that the one Spirit wished to speak to them through the writers of the former rather than through the latter in order to show that both the one and the other were inspired. --St. Augustine (354- 430), De Civitate Dei XVIII:43 Divine providence often allows even good men to be expelled from the Christian community.... By their patient endurance of such injury and disgrace for the peace of the Church..., they will give man a lesson in true affliction, in the really genuine charity, which God's service calls for. The object of such men is to return when the gale has blown itself out; but if this is not possible because the storm continues, or is more likely to break out more furiously than ever if they go back, they cling to their determination ... and are prepared ... to defend to the death the faith which they know is preached in the Catholic Church, and to support it by their loyal testimony. The Father sees these men in secret, and rewards them in secret. --St. Augustine (354-430), De Vera Religione, sec. 6 A man cannot have salvation, except in the Catholic Church. Outside the Catholic Church he can have everything except salvation. He can have honor, he can have Sacraments, he can sing alleluia, he can answer amen, he can possess the gospel, he can have and preach faith in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; but never except in the Catholic church will he be able to find salvation. --St. Augustine (354- 430), Discourse to the People of the Church at Caesarea, ca. 418 They do not realize that while remaining in communion with the wicked, one really communicates with them only when one approves of their perversity and that those who do not approve of them but are unable to correct them, must, however, tolerate them, and not "root out the tares" before harvest time, lest they should also "root out the corn," for it is not with the acts of the wicked, but with the altar of Jesus Christ that they are in communion.... Let us read all the heavenly words of the scriptures, and we shall see that the holy servants and the faithful friends of God have always found plenty of culprits to be tolerated among their people. However, they remained with them in the communion of the sacraments of those times, and far from being sullied through that, they have earned praise, endeavoring as the Apostle says "to keep unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. 4:3). --St. Augustine (354-430), Epistulae 43 [on the Donatists] [Besides what] happens to be observed by the universal Church wherever it exists,... there are other things that vary according to locale and region.... All such things are a matter of freedom, and there is no better practice for the serious and prudent Christian to follow with regard to them than to act in the way he sees the Church acting wherever he happens to be. For whatever is not contrary to the faith or to good morals ought to be considered as indifferent and should be observed for the sake of fellowship with those among whom one is living. --St. Augustine (354- 430), Epistulae, 54:1-2 These [glossolalia] were miracles suited to the times.... Is it now expected that they upon whom hands are laid, should speak with tongues? Or when we imposed our hand upon these children, did each of you wait to see whether they would speak with tongues? and when he saw that they did not speak with tongues, were any of you so perverse of heart as to say "these have not received the Holy Ghost"? --St. Augustine (354-430), Ep. Joan., tr. vi.) The customs of God?s people and the institutions of our ancestors are to be considered as laws. And those who throw contempt on the customs of the Church ought to be punished as those who disobey the law of God. --St. Augustine (354-430), (Ep. ad Casulan. xxxvi). With each year it seems that we get closer to an "American Church" separate from Rome. For millions of Catholics it already exists in fact, though not yet officially (de facto but not de iure). Even though the entrenched bureaucracy will not admit it, the Church here is in bad shape. There has been a loss of morale and elan. But what should one expect when most Catholic children do not know the basis of the faith, when heresy is openly taught and defended in "Catholic" universities, when seminarians have declined from 48,000 to about 5,000, and when only 14,000,000 out of 55 million Catholics go to Church regularly on Sunday? It is not an exaggeration to say that the Church here is in a crisis. --Fr. Kenneth Baker, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, November 1991 For him there can be no theater. The play which dominates his life and enthralls his every morning is holy Mass. --Hugo Ball, dramatist (ob. 1927) Simon and Peter do coexist in the same person, and Simon can interfere, resist, and even reject the duties proper to Peter's Office and even go so far as to act in contradiction with his pontifical functions. This can be proved by referring to St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians (2:14): it was at Antioch that St. Paul publicly rebuked the Chief of the Apostles (St. Peter) because the first Pope was, by his behavior, actually repudiating that Doctrine of Faith which he had personally and solemnly defined regarding the end or cessation of the Mosaic Law. It is for this reason that Cajetan points out that the famous axiom "Where the Pope is, there is also the Church" holds true only when the Pope acts and behaves as the Pope, because Peter "is subject to the duties of the Office"; otherwise, "neither is the Church in him, nor is he in the Church" (Summa Theologica IIa IIae, Q. 39, Art. 1, ad 6). --Barnabas, translated from Courrier de Rome, April 1993 The Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go. --Caesare Cardinal Baronio (Caesar Baronius), Vatican Librarian (ca. 1600, quoted by Galileo) The one charge which is now sure to secure severe punishment is the careful keeping of the traditions of the Fathers. --St. Basil the Great (ca. 330-ca. 379), describing what happened to orthodox Catholics during the period of the Arian heresy Our afflictions are well known without my telling; the sound of them has gone forth over all Christendom. The dogmas of the Fathers are despised; apostolic traditions are set at naught; the discoveries of innovators hold sway in churches. Men have learned to be speculatists instead of theologians. The wisdom of the world has the place of honor, having dispossessed the glorying of the cross. The pastors are driven away. grievous wolves are brought in instead, and plunder the flock of Christ. -- St. Basil the Great (ca. 330-ca. 379), Epistulae [an orthodox Catholic bishop when the Church in the East was dominated by Arian bishops and priests; this letter is to the bishops of the West, thanking the bishops for the letter they had written to his friend St. Athanasius] (cf. Appendix V of Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman's Arians of the Fourth Century) Who has lost and who has won in the struggle -- the one who keeps the premises [buildings] or the one who keeps the Faith? The Faith obviously. That therefore the ordinances which have been preserved in the churches from old time until now may not be lost in our days,... rouse yourselves, brethren,... seeing them now seized upon by aliens. --St. Basil the Great (ca. 330-ca. 379) (in 371) The heresy long ago disseminated by that enemy of truth, Arius, grew to a shameless height and like a bitter root it is bearing its pernicious fruit and already gaining the upper hand since the standard-bearers of the true doctrine in the individual parishes have been driven from the churches by defamation and insult and the authority they were vested with has been handed over to such as captivate the hearts of the simple in mind. --St. Basil the Great (ca. 330-ca. 379) (in 371) The whole Church is in dissolution. --St. Basil the Great (ca. 330- ca. 379), Epistulae, to St. Athanasius (in 371/72) The danger is not confined to one Church.... This evil of heresy spreads itself. The doctrines of Godliness are overturned; the rules of the Church are in confusion; the ambition of the unprincipled seizes upon places of authority; and the chief seat is now openly proposed as a reward for impiety; so that he whose blasphemies are the more shocking, is more eligible for the oversight of the people. Priestly gravity has perished; there are none left to feed the Lord's flock with knowledge; ambitious men are ever spending, in purposes of self-indulgence and bribery, possessions which they hold in trust for the poor. The accurate observation of the canons are no more; there is no restraint upon sin. Unbelievers laugh at what they see, and the weak are unsettled; faith is doubtful, ignorance is poured over their souls, because the adulterators of the word in wickedness imitate the truth. Religious people keep silence, but every blaspheming tongue is let loose. Sacred things are profaned; those of the laity who are sound in faith avoid the places of worship, as schools of impiety, and raise their hands in solitude with groans and tears to the Lord in heaven. --St. Basil the Great (ca. 330-ca. 379), Epistlae 92 (in ca. 372) The present time (has) a strong tendency towards the overthrow of the Church. --St. Basil the Great (ca. 330-ca. 379), to the priests of Tarsus (in 372) Has the Lord completely abandoned His Church? Has the hour then come and is the fall beginning in this way so that now the man of sin is clearly revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and is lifted up above all that is called God or that is worshipped? --St. Basil the Great (ca. 330-ca. 379) (in 373) Matters have come to this pass: the people have left their houses of prayer and assembled in the deserts, -- a pitiable sight; women and children, old men, and men otherwise inform, wretchedly faring in the open air, amid most profuse rains and snow-storms and winds and frosts of winter; and again in summer under a scorching sun. To this they submit because they will have no part of the wicked Arian leaven. --St. Basil the Great (ca. 330-ca. 379), Epistulae 242 (in 376) Only one offense is now vigorously punished, an accurate observance of our fathers' traditions. For this cause the pious are driven from their countries and transported into the deserts. The people are in lamentation.... Joy and spiritual cheerfulness are no more; our feasts are turned into mourning; our houses of prayer are shut up; our altars are deprived of spiritual worship. No longer are there Christians assembling, teachers presiding, saving instructions, celebrations, hymns by night, or that blessed exultation of souls, which arises from communion and fellowship of spiritual gifts.... The ears of the simple are led astray, and have become accustomed to heretical profaneness. The infants of the Church are fed on the words of impiety. For what can they do? Baptisms are in Arian hands; the care of travelers, visitation of the sick, consolation of mourners, succors of the distressed.... Which all, being performed by them, become a bond to the people... so that in a little while, even though liberty be granted us, no hope will remain that they, who are encompassed by so lasting a deceit, should be brought back again to the acknowledgment of the truth. --St. Basil the Great (ca. 330-ca. 379), Epistulae, in a letter to the bishops of Italy and Gaul (in 376) Unjust laws are, properly speaking, no laws. --St. Robert Bellarmine A pope who is a manifest heretic ceases in himself to be pope and head, just as he ceases in himself to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church: whereby, he can be judged and punished by the Church.. (De Romano Pontifice, II, 30). --St. Robert Bellarmine, De Romano Pontifice II.30 And we ourselves experience this, that when we enter ornate and clean Basilicas, adorned with crosses, sacred images, altars, and burning lamps, we most easily conceive devotion. But, on the other hand, when we enter the temples of the heretics, where there is nothing except a chair for preaching and a wooden table for making a meal, we feel ourselves to be entering a profane hall and not the house of God. --St. Robert Bellarmine, Octava Controversia Generalis, liber II, Controversia Quinta, caput XXXI. As a Catholic, my faith tells me that the Church has a divine origin, but my own experience tells me that it must be divine because no human institution run with an equal mixture of ineptitude and wickedness would have lasted a fortnight. --Hilaire Belloc The Faith is that which Rome accepted in her maturity; nor was the Faith the cause of her decline, but rather the conservator of all that could be conserved. --Hilaire Belloc, Europe and the Faith, 1920 (Tan Books, c. 1920/rep. 1992, p. 13 Every manifestation of divine influence among men must have its human circumstance of place and time. The Church might have risen under Divine Providence in any spot; it did, as a fact, spring up in the high Greek tide of the Levant and carries to this day the noble Hellenic garb. It might have risen at any time; it did, as a fact, rise just at the inception of that united Imperial Roman system which we are about to examine. It might have carried for its ornaments and have had for its sacred language the accoutrements and the speech of any one of the other great civilizations, living or dead: of Assyria, of Egypt, of Persia, of China, of the Indies. As a matter of historical fact, the Church was so circumstanced in its origin and development that its external accoutrement and its language were those of the Mediterranean, that is, of Greece and Rome: of the Empire. -- Hilaire Belloc, Europe and the Faith, 1920 (Tan Books, c. 1920/rep. 1992, p. 19 More and more as time went on did things turn into a battle between two opponents -- those who would preserve intact the great structure of the old faith, its liturgy and morals and affirmation of doctrine -- and those who would build up something quite new and different to act against it, to dethrone it, to take its place: and the Mass was the test." --Hilaire Belloc, Cranmer, 1931, pp. 60-61 That truth had already been put in one sentence by St. Jerome, when he said that, if the Graeco-Roman world had accepted the Catholic Church in time, the decay of civilization would never have taken place. --Hilaire Belloc, The Crisis of Civilization: Being the Matter of a Course of Lectures Delivered at Fordham University 1937 (Tan Books, c. 1937/rep. 1992, p. 39) You will not remedy the world until you have converted the world. - - Hilaire Belloc, The Crisis of Civilization: Being the Matter of a Course of Lectures Delivered at Fordham University 1937 (Tan Books, c. 1937/rep. 1992, p. 165) Now against the great heresies, when they acquire the driving power of being the new and fashionable thing, there arises a reaction within the Christian and Catholic mind, which reaction gradually turns the current backward, gets rid of the poison and re-establishes Christian civilization. Such reactions begin, I repeat, obscurely. It is the plain man who gets uncomfortable and says to himself, "This may be the fashion of the moment, but I don't like it." It is the mass of Christian men who feel in their bones that there is something wrong, though they have difficulty in explaining it. The reaction is usually slow and muddled and for a long time not successful. But in the long run with internal heresy it has always succeeded; just as the native health of the human body succeeds in getting rid of some internal infection. --Hilaire Belloc, The Great Heresies (London: Sheed & Ward, 1938) pp. 58-58 For the first issue (the dwindling of Catholic influence, the restriction of our numbers and political value to the edge of extinction) there is to be noted the increased ignorance of the world about us, coupled with the loss of those faculties whereby men might appreciate what Catholicism means and take advantage of their salvation. The level of culture including a sense of the past, sinks visibly. With each decade the level is lower than the last. In that decline, tradition is breaking away and melting like a snow-draft at the edge of winter. Great lumps of it fall off at one moment and another, melt, and disappear. Within our generation the supremacy of the classics has gone. You find men upon every side possessed of power who have forgotten that from which we all came; men, to whom Greek and Latin, the fundamental languages of our civilization, are incomprehensible, or at best curiosities. Old men now living can remember uneasy rebellion against tradition; but young men only perceive for themselves how little there is left against which to rebel, and many fear that before they die the body of tradition will have disappeared. That the mood of faith has been largely ruined, ruined certainly for the greater part of men, all will admit. --Hilaire Belloc, The Great Heresies (London: Sheed & Ward, 1938) pp. 157 Our civilization developed as a Catholic civilization. It developed and matured as a Catholic thing. With the loss of Faith it will slip back no only into Paganism, but inter barbarism with the accompaniments of Paganism and especially the institution of slavery. --Hilaire Belloc, "The New Paganism," in Essays of a Catholic (1931) The Old Paganism was profoundly traditional; indeed it had no roots except in tradition, deep reverence for its own past, and for the wisdom of its ancestry and the pride therein were the very soul of the Old Paganism; that is why it formed so solid a foundation on which to build the Catholic Church, and that is also why it offered so long a determined resistance to the growth of the Catholic Church. But the New Paganism has for its very essence contempt for tradition and contempt for ancestry. It respects perhaps nothing, but least of all does it respect the spirit of 'our fathers have told us.' --Hilaire Belloc, "The New Paganism," in Essays of a Catholic (1931) Most people are taught by way of example and not by way of words. - - St. Benedict Prefer nothing to the work of God [the Opus Dei, the Divine Office]. -- St. Benedict We declare that the greater part of those who are damned have brought the calamity on themselves by ignorance of the mysteries of the Faith, which they should have known and believed, in order to be united with the elect. - -Pope Benedict XIV (1740-1758) [The Church] simply permits them [private revelations] to be published for the instruction and the edification of the faithful. The assent to be given to them is not therefore an act of Catholic Faith but of human faith, based upon the fact that these revelations are probable and worthy of credence. St. John of the cross asserts that the desire for revelations deprives faith of its purity, develops a dangerous curiosity that becomes a source of illusions, fills the mind with vain fancies, and often proves the want of humility, and of submission to Our Lord, Who, through His public revelation, has given all that is needed for salvation. We must suspect those apparitions that lack dignity or proper reserve, and above all, those that are ridiculous. This last characteristic is a mark of human or diabolical machination. --Pope Benedict XIV (1740- 1758) Latinis potius literis erudiantur, quam ut facultas concedatur, adhibendi in Missae celebratione vulgarem linguam [Let them rather learn Latin letters, that that the faculty be conceded of using the vulgar tongue in the celebration of Mass]. --Pope Benedict XIV (1740-1758), De Missa Sacrificio, 1.2, c. 2. n. 14 The Church must steadily and firmly heed that although the language of the people may change, the language of liturgy should not be altered. Thus, the Mass must be said in the language in which it was said from the beginning, even if such a language be already, antiquated and strange to the people, for it is wholly enough, if the learned men understand it. -- Pope Benedict XIV (1740-1758), De Missae Sacrificio, 2, II Hence arose the monstrous errors of "Modernism," which Our Predecessor [Pope St. Pius X] rightly declared to be "the synthesis of all heresies," and solemnly condemned. We hereby renew that condemnation in all its fullness, Venerable Brethren, and as the plague is not yet entirely stamped out, but lurks here and there in hidden places, We exhort all to be carefully on their guard against any contagion of the evil, to which we may apply the words Job used in other circumstances: "It is a fire that devoureth even to destruction, and rooteth up all things that spring" (Job 31:12). Nor do We merely desire that Catholics should shrink from the errors of Modernism, but also from the tendencies or what is called the spirit of Modernism. Those who are infected by that spirit develop a keen dislike for all that savors of antiquity and become eager searchers after novelties in everything: in the way in which they carry out religious functions, in the ruling of Catholic institutions, and even in private exercises of piety. Therefore it is Our will that the law of our forefathers should still be held sacred: "Let there be no innovation; keep to what has been handed down." In matters of faith that must be inviolably adhered to as the law; it may however also serve as a guide even in matters subject to change, but even in such cases the rule would hold: "Old things, but in a new way." --Pope Benedict XV (1914-1922), Encyclical Letter "Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum," November 1, 1914 It suffices for us not to wish to be better than our fathers. -- St. Bernard of Clairvaux In spiritual life, when you cease to climb, you begin to descend. - - Saint Bernard Predicting the future is an occupation for pagans, not Christians. - - Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Alfred, King of England The best perfection is to do ordinary things in a perfect manner. Constant fidelity in little things is a great and heroic virtue. -- St. Bonaventure (1221-1274) Tolle hoc sacramentum de ecclesia, et quid eris in mundo, nisi error et infidelitas? Et populus Christianus erit quasi grex porcorum dispersus et idolatriae deditus, sicut expresse patet in caeteris infidelibus. [Take this Sacrament (of the Holy Eucharist) from the Church, and what will there be in the world, except error and unfaithfulness? And the Christian people will be scattered like a herd of pigs and given over to idolatry, as is patently clear among the rest of the unfaithful.] --St. Bonaventure (1221- 1274) It is true that the official teaching of the Church (and the reality) is that the Mass is the Unbloody Sacrifice of Jesus. But if as Marshall McLuhan once claimed, "The medium is the message," we have succeeded by virtue of the liturgical reforms ... in transforming the appearance of the Mass (the medium) from a serious act of objective worship of an actual, transcendent God to a 45-minute occasion at which "we gather, we listen, we respond." We have gone psychologically, intellectually, and ritually from a Mass that externally indicated that something important may actually have been taking place, beyond the priest, beyond the people --and almost beyond their control --to an occasion whose definition is measured solely in terms of the wordy effervescence of the ever-babbling priest's personality and the snappy participation of the congregation. --Fr. Anthony Brankin, St. Thomas More Church, Chicago In the D.C. public schools today [1992], the cost per pupil is almost $5,000 per year. Yet, in many, children are reading at levels three and four years below the national average. At Blessed Sacrament [parish in D.C.] in the 1940s, tuition was free; we were taught in "overcrowded" (by today's standards) classrooms by women, some of them girls barely out of their teens, who were paid almost nothing. They had given up boyfriends, families, home, and the prospect of marriage and children to live in a convent and instruct these children in basic education and our common Catholic faith. The elements indispensable to the success of these parish schools were teachers who cared deeply, and strictly disciplined children, upon whom constant demands were made. No nonsense was tolerated. Money had nothing to do with it, dedication not being a function of dollars. --Patrick J. Buchanan, "Blessed Sacrament: How Millions of Catholic Children Grew up, in the Bad Old Days," Latin Mass Magazine, May-June 1992, p. 25 In recent years, politicians and the secular clergy of the national press, who succeeded the routed Christian clergy as our Lords Spiritual, have not hesitated to use the power of law to insist that all Americans, including us "heretics," set aside as a day of reflection and remembrance the birthday of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, a secular saint whose interests appear to have been somewhat broader than peace and civil rights. The church of yesterday never insisted that non-believers observe our feast days or Holy Days of Obligation; yet, the triumphant humanists have no reservations about imposing their household gods upon us. --Patrick J. Buchanan, "Blessed Sacrament: How Millions of Catholic Children Grew up, in the Bad Old Days," Latin Mass Magazine, May-June 1992, p. 26 The first step of this program was taken in 1951 with the reform of the solemn Easter Vigil. The second is contained in the document which we shall explain in the following pages, and which forms a bridge for passing from the old rubrical situation to the new. It is a bridge which opens the way to a promising future. --Fr. Annibale Bugnini, author of the New Mass, writing in 1955 in the preface of his pamphlet entitled The Simplification of the Rubrics, a commentary on the reforms of the rubrics made in that same year Dear Buan, we inform you of the task that the Council of Brothers has established for you in agreement with the Grand Master and the Princes to the Throne, and we charge you:... to spread de-Christianization by confusing rites and languages and to set priests, bishops, and cardinals against each other. Linguistic and ritualistic babble means victory for us, since linguistic and ritual unity has been the strength of the Church..... Everything must happen within a decade. --Letter of Mason Peerless Grand Master, July 14, 1964, concerning a secret mission assigned to Fr. Annibale Bugnini We must discard from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything that could constitute the slightest risk of obstacle or displeasure for our separated brethren, that is, for the Protestants. -- Fr. Annibale Bugnini, principal author of the Novus Ordo liturgical reforms, L'Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1965 ...In brief, I believe I have sown the seeds of maximum license with the document, according to your instructions. I had to fight bitterly and make use of every wile to have it approved by the Pope, in the face of my enemies in the Congregation for Rites. Fortunately for us, we won immediate backing from our friends and brothers in the Universa Laus, who are loyal. I thank you for the sum sent and in the hope of seeing you soon. I send my embrace. Your brother Buan (Bugnini) --Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, reply to the head of the Lodge, July 2, 1967, 30 Days (no. 6, 1992) Eastern Rites, Roman Mass More Apostolic Than. Much better than the Oriental [Eastern] Liturgies, it [the Roman Mass] has kept the purest and most ancient tradition, represented by St. Justin and St. Hippolytus, a tradition which places the words of institution at the Last Supper in the midst of the Sacrifice, and terminates the Eucharistic prayer by a solemn doxology. It think we may say that it is the Liturgy which approaches most closely to the Apostolic anaphora. --Abbot Dom Fernand Michel Cabrol, O.S.B., "The Excellence of the Roman Mass," in Angelus, February 2001 (XXIV:2), p. 16 [Religion,] the exercise of all that belongs to the worship and honor of God. --St. Joseph Cafasso, The Priest, the Man of God: His Dignity and Duties All this power is given to the Pope for no other end than the service of the Church. She is greater than he, not in authority but in worth and nobility. The papacy is for the Church, not the Church for the papacy; the end is always a nobler thing than the means. -- St. Giacomo Tommaso de Vio Gaetani (Cajetan) (1469-1534) Those who refuse to give up the Catholic Faith must be put to the sword. --John Calvin (1509-1564) Even in the Roman Catholic church, my God -- they've translated the Mass out of ritual language and into a language that has a lot of domestic associations. The Latin of the Mass was a language that threw you out of the field of domesticity. The altar was turned so that the priest's back was to you, and with him you addressed yourself outward. Now they've turned the altar around -- it looks like Julia Child giving a demonstration -- all homey and cozy. -- Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth In condemning us, you condemn all your ancestors -- all the ancient priests, bishops and kings -- all that was once the glory of England, the island of saints, and the most devoted child of the See of Peter. --St. Edmund Campion, English recusant martyr I am a Catholic man and a priest. In that Faith have I lived and in that Faith I intend to die. If you esteem my religion treason, then I am guilty. --St. Edmund Campion, who in similar times went about the country, from manor house to town house, celebrating the Canonized Mass, within a milieu that treated the upholders of such a Mass a societal criminals and ecclesial outlaws Better that only a few Catholics should be left, staunch and sincere in their religion, than that they should, remaining many, desire as it were, to be in collusion with the Church's enemies and in conformity with the open foes of our faith. --St. Peter Canisius (1521-1597), one of the greatest Jesuit theologians, speaking of the Protestants, who were then introducing changes such as vernacular liturgies, the abolition of fasting laws, the removal of statues, and other diminutions of traditional Catholicism It behooves us unanimously and inviolably to observe the ecclesiastical traditions, whether codified or simply retained by the customer practice of the Church. --St. Peter Canisius (1521-1597), Summae Doctrinae Christianae Peter has no need of our lies or flattery. Those who blindly and indiscriminately defend every decision of the supreme Pontiff are the very ones who do most to undermine the authority of the Holy See -- they destroy instead of strengthening its foundations. --Melchior Cano, Theologian of the Council of Trent Alas, Most Holy Father! At times obedience to you leads to eternal damnation. --St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) Letter to Pope Gregory IX, 1376 Cursed be you, for time and power were entrusted to you, and you did not use them! --St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) to Pope Gregory XI (1371-1378), the last pope at Avignon, who returned to Rome in January 1377 Speak the truth as if you had a thousand voices! It is silence that kills the World. --St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) We've had enough of exhortations to be silent! Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues. I see the world is rotten because of silence. --St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) It is the Mass that matters. --Catholics in Elizabethan England A good man was there of religion, He was a poor parson of a town, But rich he was in holy thought and work; He was also a learned man, a clerk, That the Christian Gospel would truly preach, And his parishioners devoutly would he teach.... And though he was holy and virtuous He was not to sinful men contemptuous Nor in his speech mean nor scornful, But in his teaching, discreet and thoughtful To draw people to heaven by fairness, And by good example; this was his business. But if any person were obstinate Whether he were of high or low estate, Him would he rebuke sharply, right there A better priest I trust there is nowhere. He wanted no pomp and reverence, Nor did he have an over-fastidious conscience. But Christ's doctrine and his apostles twelve He taught, but first he followed it himself. --Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canturbury Tales The only real solution [to the "New Mass," as to the Newchurch as a whole] is to dynamite the collapsing building and haul away the rubble. --Fr. Anthony Cekada Fools with tools are still fools. --Archbishop Charles Chaput, of Denver We need to stop over-counting our numbers, our influence, our institutions, and our resources, because they're not real. We can't talk about following St. Paul and converting our culture until we sober up and get honest about what we've allowed ourselves to become. --Archbishop Charles Chaput, of Denver, April 2, 2009 These are days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed but his own. --G.K. Chesterton Tolerance is the virtue of people who do not believe in anything. - - G.K. Chesterton The funeral of Christianity [after the 1799 death of the Pius VI, imprisoned by the French Republic] was interrupted by the least expected incident of all -- the corpse came to life. --G.K. Chesterton Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. --G. K. Chesterton Of all conceivable forms of enlightenment, the worst is what these people call the Inner Light. Of all the horrible religions, the most horrible is the worship of the god within. Anyone who knows anybody knows how it would work; any one who knows anyone from the Higher Thought Center knows how it does work. That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. --G.K. Chesterton I am very glad that our fashionable fiction seems to be full of a return to paganism, for it may possibly be the first step of a return to Christianity. Neo-pagans have sometimes forgotten, when they set out to do everything the old pagans did, that the final thing the old pagans did was to get christened. --G.K. Chesterson, March 20, 1926 Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. --G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy God wills to be worshipped with all that is beautiful, rich, reverent, and inspiring in nature as well as in humanity.... The entire book of Leviticus is devoted to the careful and minute description of the elaborate ceremonies which were to be observed by priests and people in their approach to their Heavenly Father. --Right Rev. Mons. John D. Chidwick, D.D., from The Golden Jubilee of St. Agnes' Parish, New York City, 1873- 1923. It was the most profound and grandiose poetry, enhanced by the most august gestures ever confided to human beings. I could not sufficiently satiate myself with the spectacle of the Mass. --Paul Claudel, converted by watching Solemn High Mass at Notre Dame in Paris The Church uses her chant and her ceremonies to appeal to the sense faculties, and to reach, through them, the souls of her children more fully, and to give to their wills a more effective presentation of the true goods, and raise them up more surely, more easily, and more completely to God. I can therefore enjoy all the changeless, wholesome refreshment of dogma thrown into relief by Liturgy, and let myself be moved by the majestic spectacle of a solemn High Mass, and esteem the prayers of absolution, of the touching rites of Baptism, Extreme Unction, the Burial Service, and so on. --Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard, The Soul of the Apostolate (Trappist, KY: Abbey of Gethsemani, 1946, pp. 218-219). Est quidem vera lex recta ratio naturae congruens, diffusa in omnes, constans, sempiterna, quae vocet ad officium iubendo, vetando a fraude deterreat; quae tamen neque probos frustra iubet aut vetat nec improbos iubendo aut vetando movet. Huic legi nec obrogari fas est neque derogari ex hac aliquid licet neque tota abrogari potest, nec vero aut per senatum aut per populum solvi hac lege possumus. (True law is right reason congruent with nature, spread among all persons, constant, everlasting, which calls to duty by commanding, deters from crime by forbidding; which nevertheless neither commands or forbids good persons in vain, nor moves evil persons by commanding or forbidding. the wicked by ordering or forbidding. Neither is it right to replace this law, nor is it permitted to amend it in any part, nor can it be entirely abrogated, nor in fact can we be released from this law by either the senate or the people.) [The Natural Moral Law] -- Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Re Publica III.xxii.33) The Pope's power is not absolute. It goes without saying that it is bound to Scripture, to the ecumenical councils and to the unchangeable elements of Tradition -- not to the secondary ones. It is bound, and it cannot say whatever it likes. It is impossible to think of an absolute power; such power has never existed in the Church. Nothing of the Tradition can be changed deep down. It is true that among its secondary elements there is a little of everything, including errors. But the essential cannot be touched.... There is also a danger within Catholicism. The Magisterium is not the only thing there is. There is the whole Church. There are the faithful.... There are examples from history showing that it was the faithful who conserved the true Tradition. Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman illustrated this brilliantly in his study on the Arians. At a time when almost the whole episcopate had become Arian with little resistence -- in the persons of Athanasius of Alexandria and St. Hilary of Poitier in France -- it was the faithful who defended the Faith, who made sure that Christianity survived.... And I wonder if paradoxically a new crisis were to explode such as the Arian one, would the faithful be capable of defending the Faith and Tradition? Of safeguarding Catholicism once again? --Yves Cardinal Congar, 1993, Interview with 30 Days [a central figure at Vatican II] Classical canonists discussed the question of whether a pope, in his private or personal opinions, could go into heresy, apostasy, or schism. If he were to do so in a notoriously and widely publicized manner, he would break communion, and according to an accepted opinion, lose his office ipso facto (c. 194, sec. 1, 2o). Since no one can judge the pope (c. 1404) no one could depose a pope for such crimes, and the authors are divided as to how his loss of office would be declared in such a way that a vacancy could then be filled by a new election --James Corridan et al., editors, The Code of Canon Law: A Text and Commentary 1983, commissioned by the Canon Law Society of American [New York: Paulist 1985], c. 333) [We] are awaiting the last phase which will mark a substantial withdrawal of the word "ity" from the Church because its bishops, more than all others combined, hold the responsibility for the predicament in which we find ourselves. They seem to be obsessed by secular ecumenism as they persist in following a pattern of self-preservation instead of Church preservation. It is, sorrowfully, a pattern of materialism instead of spirituality; a pattern contrary to Christ's prediction, namely, he who loses his life will find it.... Our modern bishops are in tragic need of humility and sanctity. Perhaps today is too late for their personal renewal in view of the damage that has been effected in our sanctuaries and schools and seminaries not only these past ten years but this last half century. -- Fr. Charles Coughlin, Helmet and Sword (1967), pp. 50-51 One must neither pray nor sing songs with heretics. --Council of Carthage (Patrologia Latina, vol. 56, col. 486) In the consecration of the Body of the Lord this form of words is used: "Hoc is enim corpus meum;" and in that of the blood: "Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei, novi et aeterni testament, mysterium fidei, quod pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum." -- Dogmatic Council of Florence, A.D. 1442 We have learned from a report by Sparatus, that you will not cease hauling in the huts of your compatriots certain tables upon which you celebrate the divine sacrifice of the Mass with the assistance of women whom you describe as commensals (colhospitae) and who, while you are distributing the Eucharist, administer to the people the blood of Christ. This is a novelty, an unprecedented superstition; we are profoundly saddened to witness the resuregence of an abominable sect which had never taken hold in the Gauls; the oriental fathers have dubbed it Pepundienne after Pepundius, author of this schism, who dared to associate women in the service of the altar. Licinius, Metropolitan of Tours; Estochius, Bishop of Angers; and Melaine of Rennes, on the two secular priests Lovocat and Catihern, who went from Great Britain to Brittany, France In our province it would be best to have one mode of holy ceremonies and divine office lest a variety of observances toward a single end should give rise to the belief that our devotions also express differences. -- Council of Tours (565) Whatever may be the custom elsewhere, the American tradition, of which Catholics form so loyal a part, is satisfied simply to call to public attention moral questions with their implications and leave to the conscience of the people the specific political decision which comes in the act of voting. -- Richard Cardinal Cushing, 1960 Whosoever is separated from the Church is united to an adulteress. --St. Cyprian, Bishop & Martyr (ca. 200-258) We are called gods because not only does grace elevate us to a supernatural glory, but even more because we have in us God who dwells and remains there. --St. Cyril of Alexandria After you have reverently sanctified your eyes by gazing upon the sacred Body, receive It; but be careful lest any particle be lost. For if you lose a portion, it will be as if you lost a part of yourself; for, tell me, if someone gave you grains of gold, would you not save them with the greatest care and watch so that none would be lost and you suffer damage? Should you not, therefore, be far more careful that not even a crumb go lost of that which is more valuable than gold or precious gems?... Remember these various points. Keep yourselves blameless. Do not stay away from Holy Communion; do not by defilement with sin rob yourselves of this sacred and sanctifying mystery." --St. Cyril of Alexandria, March 18, 386 Human affairs are now carried on in so many different languages, so that many people are no better understood by others when they use words than when they do not. --Dante Alighieri The prevailing attitude among so many of the [conservative] clergy is to accept a particular belief or attitude not because it has an inherent and enduring truth or value, but because it happens to be the current policy. Thus, the very clergy who would have denounced (and rightly so) any layman who had attended a Protestant service before the Council will not denounce any layman who suggests that the faith would in any way be compromised by attending such services.... Thus, a matter touching upon the very nature of the Church Christ founded is seen in itself as something neutral; all that matters is the current instruction. --Michael Davies, Pope John's Council, (Angelus Press, 1977), pp. 17-18 During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries a bureaucratic mentality had developed among Catholics, the clergy in particular. The essence of Catholicism was seen as implementing any instruction coming from higher authority whatever its merits, and this is still the attitude of most of those clergy who abhor the destruction of the traditional liturgy. They complain but they obey. --Michael Davies, The Missal of 1962: A Rock of Stability, Latin Mass (X:2, Spring 2001), pp. 11-12 The Eucharistic teaching of the Council of Trent is indeed compromised by the Novus Ordo Missae itself, and not simply by the abuses which accompany its celebrations.... --Michael Davies, Pope Paul's New Mass, Author's Introduction (Angelus Press, 1980), p. xxiv It is indeed no exaggeration to claim that we are living now in the dark night of the Church. Lack of reverence to the Blessed Sacrament or even outright sacrilege constitutes perhaps the most terrifying aspect of this dark night. --Michael Davies, "The American Scandal," Appendix VI to Pope Paul's New Mass (Angelus Press, c. 1980) In other words, you justify attendance at Tridentine Masses on the principle of what is called in moral theology, epikeia, or equity, which assumes that in cases of human --not divine --law, the lawgiver would not prohibit a certain action if he knew all the circumstances in a concrete situation which are said to make the observance of the law impossible. - - Michael Davies, The Schismatic Six Many traditional Catholics much prefer the pre-1962 Missal and would, in at least some respects, like to see certain features of that Missal restored eventually, but to campaign for this at present would be unrealistic and counterproductive. Mainstream traditionalists are rightly, prudently, and very successfully directing all their energies into the widest possible use of the 1962 Missal. --Michael Davies, "Adoremus -- A Balanced Appraisal," in The Wanderer, January 15, 1996 (29:1), pp. 1 et seq. (cf. Michael Davies, The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty, Appendix A) It is to be hoped that all the traditional priestly communities will look upon each other as allies rather than rivals, and that some of the unfortunate mutual criticism which has occurred in the past will not be repeated. --Michael Davies, "A Letter from London," Wanderer, February 15, 1996 (29:3), p. 5 Its [Vatican II's] documents do not pertain to the Church's supreme Magisterium, the Extraordinary Magisterium, but to its Ordinary Magisterium, and therefore it cannot be presumed with certainty that in formulating those documents it was guided by the Holy Spirit, or that these documents are an expression of the word of Christ for His Bride the Church in our time. The Council could have invested its teaching or even some of its teaching with the authority of the Extraordinary infallible Magisterium, but it deliberately chose not to do so. Where teaching is proposed by the Magisterium without the intention of fully engaging the prudential authority of the Church, it does so only in a fallible manner. --Michael Davies, "Adoremus -- A Balanced Appraisal," in Wanderer, January 15, 1996 (29:1), pp. 1 et seq. (cf. Michael Davies, The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty, Appendix A) In his article "Magisterium" in A Dictionary of Theology, Fr. Joseph Crehan, S.J., ... drew our attention to the fact that the Council accepted that it had "put forth its teaching without infallible definitions" by concluding the decree on the Church "with the words decernimus ac statuimus" ('We decree and establish') and not with the word definimus." The same formula was used for all sixteen promulgated documents of the Council. As was explained above, infallibility pertains only to definitions." -- Michael Davies in "The Authority of Vatican II," Latin Mass, March-April 1993, p. 28 There have been celebrations of the Indult Mass in the United States where the homilies have been used as propaganda to try to stop people going to the traditional Mass. Then you have some celebrations of the Indult Mass in which the Lectionary of the 1969 Missal is used; that is completely contrary to the regulations governing these Indult Masses. You are supposed to have the 1962 Missal used exactly.... An unadulterated 1962 Missal must be used, and Communion must be given on the tongue. --Michael Davies, "Catholic Interviews," in Catholic, June-July 1996 (No. 154), p. 8 As the quotations from Card. Newman make clear, it is an established historical fact that St. Athanasius and St. Eusebius of Samosata [?Bp. of Vercelli, ob. 371] both ordained outside their own dioceses. An interesting reference to him [St. Eusebius] occurs in a study of the Church's divine constitution by Dom Adrien Grea, OSB, [L'Eglise et sa Constituition Divine (Editions Casterman, 1965), p. 236] in his examination of the extraordinary powers of the episcopate which can only be exercised in the most drastic circumstances: "In the fourth century St. Eusebius of Samosata traveled through Eastern dioceses devastated by the Arians and ordained orthodox pastors for them, without having particular jurisdiction over them. These are evidently extraordinary actions as were the circumstances that gave rise to them." --Michael Davies, St. Athanasius: Defender of the Faith (Kansas City, MO: Angelus Press, 2nd ed./June 1995), p. 74. During a period of schism and heresy, their [bishops'] duty to defend the integrity of tradition extends beyond any single diocese. Card. Newman illustrates this by pointing out out that St. Athanasius, St. Epiphanius of Salamis, and St. Eusebius of Samosata, both fierce opponents of Arianism, had ordained outside their own dioceses. --Michael Davies, St. Athanasius: Defender of the Faith (Kansas City, MO: Angelus Press, 2nd ed./June 1995), p. 43. No one with even a cursory knowledge of the history of the Church could possibly claim either that there had ever been any previous radical reform of the liturgy in the 2000 years of its history, or that any sacramental rite had been composed artificially by a committee composed for the purpose. The principle governing authentic liturgical development has never been expressed more perfectly than by the Protestant historian, Professor Owen Chadwick: "Liturgies are not made; they grow in the devotion of centuries." --Michael Davies, Letter From London: Unhappy Anniversary," Remnant, April 30, 1994 It might be hoped that ... [Traditional Catholics] would see each other as allies, and even if they did not have identical opinions on the most effective method of restoring the traditional Mass, or of the attitude that we should take to the New Mass, they would at least refrain from polemical attacks on fellow traditionalists. As Bill Marra has expressed it so perfectly: "No enemies on the right!" --Michael Davies, "A Response: To Father Peter Scott, SSPX, in The Remnant, May 31, 1997 (XXX:10), p. 2 Cardinal Stickler mentioned that the cardinal from Sicily [at Vatican II said, "Fathers, Fathers, we have to be careful or we'll end up with the whole of the Mass in the vernacular," and all the bishops roared with laughter because they thought that such a suggestion was ridiculous. -- Michael Davies, Inside the Vatican, March 2000, "Interview: Here I Stand," pp. 16 The Ecclesia Dei Commission stated in a letter to Father Bisig [Superior of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter] it wants traditionalists to be integrated into the reality of the Church of today, but the reality of the Church of today is that it is disintegrating, and traditional Catholic have no intention of being integrated into a disintegrating Church. We are happy to remain within the very rapidly expanding traditionalist movement which we think is the most vital and orthodox and most loyal section of the Catholic Church. --Michael Davies, Inside the Vatican, March 2000, "Interview: Here I Stand," pp. 17 Everything that the Christian world possessed of doctrine and poetry and music and art was poured into the liturgy and molded into an organic whole which centered round the Divine Mysteries. --Christopher Dawson [The traditional Mass] is the most elaborate work of art ever created by man. --Christopher Dawson We are turned so much towards the assembly that we often forget to turn ourselves together, people and priest, towards God! Yet, without this essential orientation, the celebration no longer has any Christian meaning. --Albert Cardinal Decourtray, Archbishop of Lyons, Primate of France, Documentation Catholique, Paris, June 21, 1992, p. 613) What Catholics once were, we are. If we are wrong, then Catholics through the ages have been wrong. --Robert DePiante, Secretary of the Society of Traditional Roman Catholics. [Also expressed as: "We are what you once were. We believe what you once believed. We worship as you once worshipped. If we are wrong now, you were wrong then. If you were right then, we are right now.] Stylus brevis, grata facundia; celsa, clara firma sententia. [A pity style, of quite elegant grace; lofty, clear in its sound expression. -- Dominican Office, of St. Thomas Aquinas' Latin style Anti-Catholicism is the last respectable bias among those who view themselves as models of enlightenment. Utter a word remotely offensive to Jews, blacks, women, or gays? Heaven forbid. Yet some of those same people do not blink before mocking the Church or Jesus or Catholic sacraments.... Don't Catholics deserve the same consideration? --Dr. William A. Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, interviewed in the New York Times, June 1, 1998 I have faith that one day even secular historians will look upon what was wrought after Vatican II and see it for what it was: the worst spasm of iconoclasm in the Church's history -- dwarfing the Byzantine iconoclasm of the ninth century and the Protestant Reformation. --Michael Dougherty, New York Times, August 2021 It is a grave impoverishment of our culture that so many classify music as an amusement; and not as a collective voice of mankind that unites men on a higher level of spiritual sensitiveness than they could otherwise attain. --Winfred Douglas, Church Music in History and Practice: Studies in the Praise of God (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1937), p. 9 The switch from Latin to English immediately rendered obsolete the entire musical repertoire of cathedral, chapel, and parish church.... At the heart of the Edwardine reform was the necessity of destroying, of cutting, hammering, scraping, or melting into a deserved oblivion the monuments of popery, so that the doctrines they embodied might be forgotten. Iconoclasm was the central sacrament of the reform, and, as the programme of the leaders became more radical in the years between 1547 and 1553, they sought with greater urgency the celebration of that sacrament of forgetfulness in every parish in the land. --Dr. Eamon Duffy, British Historian, The Stripping of the Altars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 465, 480 No one can foresee what the situation in the church will be in 2036, any more than anyone could have predicted the present situation from the vantage point of 1956. --Prof. Robert J. Edgeworth, President of the Latin Liturgy Association The Catholic Church was the only one to raise its voice against Hitler's attack on freedom. Until that period the Church had never attracted my attention, but today I express my great admiration and my profound attachment to this Church which alone had the boundless courage to fight for moral and spiritual freedom. --Albert Einstein (himself a Jew), Essays Even if there were only one person left who held the right Catholic Faith, there would be the Catholic Church. --Ven. Anne Catherine Emmerick (1774-1824) The Church is the only one, the Roman Catholic! And if there were left upon earth but one Catholic, he would be the one, universal Church, the Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ against which the gates of Hell shall never prevail. -- Ven. Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824) It is the Mass that matters. --English Catholics at the time of the persecutions When you read, do not be content with turning the pages, but review the same passage twice, three times, or more in order to understand well all its significance. Reading too quickly is like storm rains that fall violently and flow away without giving the earth time to become moistened and are therefore useless or not very useful to it. Spiritual reading must rather imitate gentle rain, which falls slowly, penetrates to the depths of the earth and fertilizes the soil. [He who wishes always to be with God must often pray and read. When we pray, it is we who speak to God; but when we read, it is God who speaks to us.] --St. Ephrem They [deaconesses] were only women-elders, not priestesses in any sense, and their mission was not to interfere in any way with Sacerdotal functions, but simply to perform offices in the care of women. --St. Epiphanius (Haer. lxxix, cap. iii) The crosses with which our path through life is strewn associate us with Jesus in the mystery of His crucifixion. -- St. John Eudes (1601- 1680) [The traditional Mass] is the most beautiful thing this side of heaven. It came forth out of the grand mind of the Church and lifted us out of earth and out of self, and wrapped us round in a cloud of mystical sweetness and the sublimities of a more than angelic liturgy, and purified us almost without ourselves, and charmed us with celestial charming so that our very senses seemed to find vision, hearing, fragrance, taste, and touch more than ear can give. --Fr. Frederick W. Faber, 19th century, Oratorian priest at the Brompton Oratory, London, close associate of Cardinal Newman As the decay in belief in the Divinity of Jesus continues to increase, the tendency will be to model church organization according to the political theories in favor at the moment. The democratic form of society will be exalted and a "Reunion of Christendom," for example, will be aimed at, along the lines followed by the League of Nations. --Fr. Fahey We have to distinguish according to the schemata and the chapters those which have already been the subject of dogmatic definitions; as for the declarations which have a novel character, we have to make reservations. -- Cardinal Pericle Felici, describing the "theological note" of the Council Not to oppose error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to suppress it; and indeed to neglect to confound evil men, when we can do it, is no less a sin than to encourage them. --Pope St. Felix III The first remedy against spiritual temptations which the devil plants in the hearts of many persons in these unhappy times, is to have no desire to procure by prayer, meditation, or any other good work, what are called (private) revelations, or spiritual experiences, beyond what happens in the ordinary course of things; such a desire of things which surpass the common order can have no other root or foundation but pride, presumption, a vain curiosity in what regards the things of God, and in short, an exceedingly weak faith. It is to punish this evil desire that God abandons the soul, and permits it to fall into the illusions and temptations of the devil, who seduces it, and represents to it false visions and delusive revelations. Here we have the source of most of the spiritual temptations that prevail at the present time; temptations which the spirit of evil roots in the souls of those who may be called the precursors of Antichrist. --St. Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419) Hence, that meaning of the sacred dogmata is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy Mother Church, and there must never be an abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.... If anyone says that it is possible that at some given time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmata propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has always understood and understands: let him be anathema. -- First Vatican Council This Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. --First Vatican Council, Dei Verbum, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation 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. [For the Holy Ghost 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. --First Vatican Council, Constitutio Dogmatica Prima de Ecclesia Christi (Pastor Aeternus), chap. 4, De Romani Pontificis Infallibili Magisterio, July 18, 1870 He who goes about to take the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass from the Church plots no less a calamity than if he tried to snatch the sun from the universe. --St. John Fisher, 16th-century English bishop The fort is betrayed even of them that should have defended it. -- St. John Fisher, 16th-century English bishop Ordo autem missarum, quibus oblata Deo sacrificia consecrantur, primo a sancto Petro est institutus, cuius celebrationem uno eodemque modo universus peragit orbis. [Moreover, the order of Mass, by which the sacrificial offerings are consecrated to God, were first instituted by Blessed Peter, the celebration of which in one and the same manner the whole world carries out]. --St. Isidore of Seville, Patrologia Latina vol. 83, col. 752A About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man.... When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him.... --Flavius Josephus (n. 37/38), Antiquities of the Jews, 18:63. This passage is known as the Testimonium Flavium and appears to have suffered at the hands of later Christian interpolators, and the original wording of this section is now lost. If an angel should come down from heaven and show me any other thing than I have believed all my lifetime past, I would not believe him. -- Blessed John Forest, one of the martyrs of the English Reformation The Pope has no authority from Christ in temporal matters, in questions of politics.... His authority is ecclesiastical authority; it goes no further than that of the Church herself. But even in religious matters, the Pope is bound, very considerably, by the divine constitution of the Church. There are any number of things that the pope cannot do in religion. He cannot modify, nor touch in any way, one single point of the revelation Christ gave to the Church; his business is only to guard this against attack and false interpretation. We believe that God will guide him that his decisions of this nature will be nothing more than a defense or unfolding of what Christ revealed. The pope can neither make nor unmake a sacrament; he cannot affect the essence of any sacrament in any way. He cannot touch the Bible; he can neither take away a text from the inspired Scriptures nor add one to them. He has no fresh inspiration nor revelation. His business is to believe the revelation of Christ, as all Catholics believe it, and to defend it against heresy.... The Pope is not, in the absolute sense, head of the Church; the head of the Church is Jesus Christ our Lord.... The Pope is the vicar of that head, and therefore visible head of the Church on earth, having authority delegate from Christ over the Church on earth only.... If the Pope is a monarch, he is a very constitutional monarch indeed, bound on all sides by the constitution of the Church, as this has been given to her by Christ. --Fr. Adrian Fortescue (England's greatest liturgical historian, 1874- 1923), The Early Papacy to the Synod of Chalcedon in 451 (St. Austin Press, 1997), pp. 27-28 So our Mass goes back without essential change to the age when Caesar ruled the world and thought he could stamp out the faith of Christ, when our fathers met together before dawn and sang a hymn to Christ as God.... There is not in Christendom a rite so venerable as ours. --Adrian Fortescue (England's greatest liturgical historian, 1874-1923), The Mass: A Study of the Roman Liturgy (London, 1917), p. 213 [There is] a prejudice that imagines that everything Eastern must be old. This is a mistake, and there is no existing Eastern liturgy with a history of continual use stretching back as far as that of the Roman Mass. - -Adrian Fortescue (England's greatest liturgical historian, 1874-1923), The Mass: A Study of the Roman Liturgy (London, 1917), p. 213n Let us be as Roman as possible always. But in artistic matters let us look to Rome's good artistic periods. It would be absurd to defend mangled plainsong and operatic music as Roman. It is just as absurd to claim the name of the ancient city for only one period of her long artistic development. Skimped chasubles, gold braid, and lace are not Roman; they are eighteenth-century bad taste. --Adrian Fortescue (England's greatest liturgical historian, 1874-1923), The Vestments of the Roman Rite (New York: Paulist Press, 1912) Latin is relevant because it is about three quarters of our Western Civilization. All of our thoughts, and ideas and prayers have come through Latin. --Fr. Reginald Foster, Vatican Latinist, 2010 interview with WITI-TV Milwaukee, Wisconsin The everlasting God has in His wisdom foreseen from eternity the cross that He now presents to you as a gift from His inmost Heart. This cross that He now sends you He has considered with His all-knowing eyes, understood with His divine mind, tested with His wise justice, warmed with loving arms and weighted with His own hands to see that it be not one inch too large and not one ounce too heavy for you. He has blessed it with His holy Name, anointed it with His grace, perfumed it with His consolation, taken one last glance at you and your courage and then sent it to you from heaven, a special greeting from God to you, an alms of the all-merciful love of God. If the name Peter makes us recognize him as chief, the name Simon warns us that he was not unlimited chief, but obedient and subordinate chief.... Our Lord is Lord and Master in his own right: St. Peter only administers for Him. --St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) Say your Pater, Ave, and Credo in Latin ... so as to join in the universal language of the Church. --St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) Be assured that we shall obtain more grace and merit in one day by suffering patiently the afflictions that come to us from God or from our neighbor than we would acquire in ten years by mortifications and other exercises that are of our own choice. --St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) "We do not sufficiently remember our dead, our faithful departed.... Notwithstanding their advantages, the state of the souls in purgatory is still very sad and truly deserving of compassion. Moreover, the glory that they will render to God in heaven is delayed. These two motives ought to engage us, by our prayers, our fasts, our alms, and all kinds of good works, especially by offering the holy sacrifice of the Mass for them, to procure their speedy deliverance." -- St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) We may compare a soul rising from sin to holiness to the dawn which, as it rises, does not at once dispel darkness, but advances gradually. It is an old saying, that a slow cure is a certain cure. Spiritual diseases like those of the body come mounted and at full speed; they return on foot and creeping. We must be patient and courageous. It is sad to see those who, finding their attempts after the devout life hindered by various infirmities, begin to grow uneasy, to fret and be disheartened, almost ready to yield to the temptation of forsaking their aim and falling back. --St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), Philothea, Part I, Chapter v There will be an uncanonically elected Pope who will cause a great schism, there will be diverse thoughts preached which will cause many, even those in the different orders to doubt, yea, even agree with those heretics which will cause my Order to divide, then will there be such universal dissensions and persecutions that if those days were not shortened even the elect would be lost. --St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) Too many American Catholics are just Protestants who go to Mass on Sunday. --Hamish Fraser The American Church is in schism. -- Edouard Cardinal Gagnon (1990). The Roman Rite, in important parts, goes back at least to the fourth century, more exactly to the time of Pope Damasus (366-384). The Canon of the Mass had attained by the time of Gelasius I (492-496) the form it has kept until now, apart from some modifications made under Gregory I (590- 604). The only thing which the popes have unceasingly insisted upon since the fifth century is that the Roman Canon must be adopted; their argument being that it went back to the Apostle St. Peter. --Msgr. Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background (Una Voce Press, 1987/1993) In the final analysis, ... in the future the traditional rite of Mass must be retained in the Roman Catholic Church ... as the primary liturgical form for the celebration of Mass. It must become once more the norm of our faith and the symbol of Catholic unity throughout the world, a rock of stability in a period of upheaval and never-ending change. --Msgr. Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy There never was a celebration versus populum in either the Eastern or Western Church. Instead, there was a turning toward the East. -- Msgr. Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy In contrast to the liturgies of the Eastern Church, which continued their development well into the Middle Ages, but remained fixed thereafter, the Roman liturgy, in its simple, even plain forms, which originated in early Christianity, has remained almost unchanged for centuries. There is no question that the Roman liturgy is the oldest Chrsitian rite. Over time, a number of popes have undertaken revisions. In an early period, Pope Damasus I (366-384) did so; and later, so did Pope St. Gregory the Great (590- 604), among others. --Msgr. Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background (Una Voce Press, 1987/1993, p. 10) It most certainly is not the function of the Holy See to introduce Church reforms. The first duty of the pope is to act as primary bishop (episcopus = supervisor), to watch over the traditions of the Church -- her dogmatic, moral, and liturgical traditions. --Msgr. Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background (Una Voce Press, 1987/1993, p. 38) Liturgy and faith are interdependent. That is why a new rite was created, a rite that in many ways reflects the bias of the new (modernist) theology. The traditional liturgy simply could not be allowed to exist in its established form, because it was permeated with the truths of the traditional faith and its ancient forms of piety.... Instead of our religious life entering a period of new invigoration, as has happened in the past, what we now see is a form of Christianity that has turned towards the world. --Msgr. Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background (Una Voce Press, 1987/1993, pp. 100, 102) Se per malum fidem et negligentiam pontificis, universalis ecclesia in errorem induci possit,... tutela Christi ... iudicium tale impediretur. [If the entire Church should ever face the danger of being led astray through the bad faith and negligence of a pope,... Christ's vigilance ... would prevent an infallible declaration.] --Bishop Gasser of Bressanone at the time of the First Vatican Council, Mansi 52, col. 1212-1214 Let those who like myself have known and sung a Latin-Gregorian High Mass remember it if they can. Let them compare it with the Mass that we now have. Not only the words, the melodies, and some of the gestures are different. To tell the truth, it is a different liturgy of the Mass. This needs to be said without ambiguity: the Roman Rite as we knew it no longer exists [le rite romain tel que nous l'avons connu n'existe plus]. It has been destroyed [il est detruit]. Some walls of the former edifice have fallen while others have changed their appearance, to the extent that it appears today either as a ruin or the partial substructure of a different building. We must not weep over the ruins or dream of an historical reconstruction. --Fr. Joseph Gelineau, one of the most influential members of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini's Consilium, which composed the New Mass, "Demain La Liturgie," Latin Mass, November-December 1992, p. 32 Men are hard at work to put an end to the 2000-year worship history of the Roman Catholic Church. They seem determined to interrupt the continuous Sacrifice of Calvary, and the Supreme Act of reparation to the infinite God. Nearly every Catholic Church has been "remodeled and updated" --altars have been removed and destroyed, sanctuaries have been leveled to the ground, and the House of God has been turned into a meeting facility, a place nobody wants to visit at any time other than when service are being conducted. Consequently, all things reminiscent of the Old Order of Sacrifice have been "massacred," as it were, and in too many instances, the "massacre" of Sacred things has been conducted by the very ones who once enjoyed their use and were careful custodians of them. --Fr. Leonard Giardina, O.S.B., Prior of Christ the King Monastery, Cullman, Alabama, in Speculum Benedictinum (#5, Christmas 1993). Let us pray that God will give all traditional Roman Catholic priests and people the grace to understand that unless and until unity of purpose is achieved amongst all traditional Roman Catholic priests and people, the work of restoring the Sacrifice of the Mass will be paralyzed and, therefore, ineffective. May God grant to all Traditional Roman Catholic priests and people the grace to put aside every cause other than the cause of the restoration of the Mass. When the Holy Sacrifice is restored to Catholic worship, all things will be returned to their proper focus. Have no fear about that. --Fr. Leonard Giardina, O.S.B., Prior of Christ the King Monastery, Cullman, Alabama, The Catholic Voice, (XI:2, June 1995), p. 3 The Sacrifice of the Mass is and remains the center of the Christian Religion, the sum of spiritual exercises, the heart of devotion and the soul of piety. Hence that ever-new, never-failing power by which the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass attracts all Catholic hearts and gathers Catholic nations around its altars. Everywhere the Holy Mass retains this magnetic power of attraction.... The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the soul and the heart of the liturgy of the Church; it is the mystical chalice that presents to our lips the sweet fruit of the passion of the God-Man -- this is, grace. --Fr. Nicholas Gihr, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass Latin is the language of the Church, and the sad withering away of the Christian liturgy by translations into the vulgar language, which vulgarizes it without cease, makes one see the necessity of a sacred language, whose very changelessness is protected against the deprivations of taste. --Etienne Gilson [modern historian of the Middle Ages], The Philosopher and Theology (1960) The Reformation began in lust and continued in greed and hypocrisy. --Chris Gonenthal, "The Tragic Fall of Catholic England" in Adsum (March 2001) To use the words of the Fathers of the Council of Trent, it is certain that the Church "was instructed by Jesus Christ and His Apostles and that all truth was daily taught by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost." Therefore, it is obviously absurd and injurious to propose a certain "restoration and regeneration" for her as though necessary for her safety and growth, as if she could be considered subject to defect or obscuration or other misfortune. Indeed these authors of novelties consider that a "foundation may be laid of a new human institution," and what St. Cyprian detested may come to pass, that what was a divine thing "may become a human Church." --Pope Gregory XVI (1831-1846), Mirari Vos, "On Liberalism and Religious Indifferentism," August 15, 1832 We now come to another and most fruitful cause of the evils that at present afflict the Church and that we so bitterly deplore. We mean Indifferentism..., or that fateful opinion, everywhere diffused by the craft of the wicked, that men can by the profession of any faith obtain the eternal salvation of their souls, provided their life conforms to justice and good morals.... Let them tremble then who imagine that every creed leads by an easy path to the court of blessedness.... Consequently, they will perish eternally without any doubt if they do not hold to the Catholic faith and preserve it entire and without alteration. --Pope Gregory XVI (1831-1846), Mirari Vos, "On Liberalism and Religious Indifferentism," No. 14, August 15, 1832 Liturgical Reform, having as one of its basic principles the abolition of all mystical acts and formulations, insists upon the usage of modern languages for the divine service.... Hatred for the Latin language is inborn in the heart of all enemies of Rome. They recognize it as the bond that unites Catholics throughout the world, as the arsenal of orthodoxy against all the subtleties of the sectarian spirit. They consider it the most powerful arm of the Papacy.... We must admit that it is a master blow of Protestantism to have declared war on the sacred language. If it should ever succeed in ever destroying it, it would be well on the way to victory. Exposed to a profane gaze, like a virgin who has been violated, from that moment on the liturgy has lost much of its sacred character, and very soon people find that it is not worthwhile putting aside one's work or pleasure in order to go and listen to what is being said in the way one speaks in the marketplace. How long do you think the faithful will go to hear these self- styled liturgists cry "The Lord be with you" and how long will they continue to respond "and with your spirit"? --Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., Liturgical Institutions, vol. 1, chapter IV "The Antiliturgical Heresy," (1840) Priests should not always be obedient because they will assume the vices of their superiors too. --Pope St. Gregory the Great (590-604) If the scandal comes from the truth, one must endure the scandal rather than conceal the truth" -- Pope St. Gregory the Great (590- 604), In Hezechiam Sermo VII The Church, instructed by the teaching of humility, does not command as though by authority, but persuades by reason. --Pope St. Gregory the Great (590-604), Epistulae 1:30 It's a dumb dog that doesn't bark when the wolf is among the sheep! --Pope St. Gregory the Great (590-604), In Ezechiam Homilia 7 Blind that they [the Modernists] are, and leaders of the blind, inflated with a boastful science, they have reached that pitch of folly where they pervert the eternal concept of truth and the true nature of the religious sentiment. With that new system of theirs, they are seen to be under the sway of a blind and unchecked passion for novelty, thinking not at all of finding some solid foundation of truth, but despising the holy and apostolic traditions, they embrace other vain, futile, uncertain doctrines, condemned by the Church, on which, in the height of their vanity, they think they can rest and maintain truth itself. --Pope Gregory XVI (1831-1846) Surely the pastors have done foolishly; for excepting a very few, who either on account of their insignificance were passed over, or who by reason of their virtue resisted, and who were to be left as a seed and root for the springing up again and revival of Israel [the Church] by the influence of the Spirit, all temporized, differing from each other only in this, that some succumbed earlier, and others later; some were foremost champions and leaders in the impiety, and others joined the second rank of the battle being overcome by fear, or by interests or by flattery, or, what was the most excusable, by their own ignorance. --St. Gregory of Nazianzus (329-389) [an orthodox Catholic bishop when the Church in the East was dominated by Arian bishops and priests], Orationes xxi.24 One who entered the parish church at Wittemberg after Luther's victory discovered that the same vestments were used for divine service as of yore, and heard the same old Latin hymns. The Host was elevated and exhibited at the Consecration. In the eyes of the people, it was the same Mass as before, despite the fact that Luther omitted all the prayers which represented the sacred function of the Sacrifice. The people were intentionally kept in the dark on this point. "We cannot draw the common people away from the Sacrament, and it will probably be thus until the Gospel is well understood," said Luther. The rite of celebration of the Mass, he explained, is a "purely external thing," and said further that "the damnable words referring to the Sacrifice could be omitted all the more readily, since the ordinary Christian would not notice the omission and hence there was no danger of scandal." --Hartmann Grisar, S.J. The intention of Paul VI in the matter of the liturgy, in the matter of what is commonly called the Mass, was to reform the Catholic liturgy so that it should approximate as closely as possible to the Protestant liturgy ... with the Protestant Lord's Supper.... I can only repeat that Paul VI did all that he could to bring the Catholic Mass away from the tradition of the Council of Trent towards the Protestant Lord's Supper. He was assisted by Archbishop Bugnini in particular, though Bugnini did not always enjoy the full confidence of Paul VI.... The Mass of Paul VI is first and foremost a banquet, is it not? It lays heavy emphasis upon the aspect of taking part in a banquet, and much less upon the idea of sacrifice, ritual sacrifice in the presence of God, the priest only showing his back. So I do not think I am mistaken when I say that the intention of Paul VI, and the new liturgy which bears his name, was to ask the faithful to participate more in the Mass, to make more space for Scripture and less for what some call "magic," but others call consecration, consubstantiation, transubstantiation and the Catholic Faith. In other words we see in Paul VI an ecumenical intention to wipe out or at least to correct or soften everything that is too Catholic in the Mass and to bring the Catholic Mass, again I say, as close as possible to the Calvinist liturgy. --Jean Guitton, French philosopher and close friend of Pope Paul VI, in the radio program "Ici Lumiere 101," broadcasted by Radio- Courtoisie, Paris, December 19, 1993, translated by Adrian Davies in Latin Mass, Winter 1995 (IV, 1), pp. 10-11 Either the Catholic Church remains constant in her fundamental articles of faith over the centuries, or she is no longer the Church founded by Christ.... What leaders of the Church need to do [in this] veritable emergency of faith [is] to hold on literally for dear life to what Christ has revealed, to what has been defended for us by the champions of orthodoxy like Athanasius, Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great, lived out before us by saints and mystics like Benedict, Francis, and Ignatius Loyola, like ... Teresa ... and Thomas More. --Fr. John A. Hardon, "The Crisis of Faith, Christian Order, May 1997, pp. 275-76 An Indult, after all, does mean an exception to the norm -- in effect, second-class citizenship. --Fr. Brian Harrison The bishops were under the impression that the liturgy had been fully discussed [at the Second Vatican Council]. In retrospect it is clear that they were given the opportunity of discussing only general principles. Subsequent changes were more radical than those intended by Pope John and the bishops who passed the decree on the liturgy. His sermon at the end of the first session shows that Pope John did not suspect what was being planned by the liturgical experts." --Cardinal Heenan, Crown of Thorns (London, 1974), p. 223 If the Church is to remain truly the Catholic Church, it is essential to keep a universal tongue. --Cardinal Heenan, 1967 Jesus wept over Jerusalem, and Pope John would have wept over Rome if he had foreseen what would be done in the name of his Council. -- Cardinal Heenan, 1968 The Conservatives whose talent for accommodation to any environment renders them nearly invisible until it's too late. No matter what happens, they are not so much in the Church as "in," and for them the Church is the establishment. Their unquestioning obedience to authority, blinder than any Mason's, relieves them of untold struggles of conscience. Although they may express a preference for the ancient Mass, they have no problems with the new one as long as the music is good the atmosphere reverent, and the majority attend it.... Their catechisms rarely teach outright heresy, but jarring truths are prudently disregarded lest charity be wounded. --Solange Strong Hertz, "It's Only Natural," Remnant, February 28, 1994, p. 10 Because the papacy cannot be exercised apart from it [the Faith], Innocent II, St. Antoninus, Paul IV, St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Alphonsus Liguori, and other eminent theologians and canonists have contended that no heretic can be Pope, even should he preempt the Chair of Peter, for he does not possess the faith of Peter.... As Vicar of Christ and Head of the Church, the Pope is indeed ... an infallible shadow, but only by virtue of the Rock whose outline he projects. Separated from the Rock, he is not even a shadow, and no more infallible than any other pagan, heretic, or schismatic. Alas, the Pope's office does not confirm him in grace. This explains why traditionally the faithful pray in the Litany of the Saints "to preserve the Apostolic Prelate and all ecclesiastical orders in holy religion." Like anyone else, the Pope can commit the most grievous sins without prejudice to his ministry or estrangement from the body of the faithful, but again, like anyone else, he excommunicates himself if he sins against faith and falls into heresy or schism, for faith is to the Church what the root is to the tree. No longer part of the Mystical Body, how can he function as its earthly, visible head? Lest the faithful be scandalized at such an eventuality, the Book of Daniel explicitly foretells a time when the power of evil would be "magnified even to the prince of the strength" (a person commonly identified as the Pope by the Church Fathers) and would take "from him the continual sacrifice ... because of sins" (Dan. 8:11-12). The prophet Osee likewise predicted that "the children of Israel," prefiguring the Church, "shall sit many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice and without altar and without ephod and without theraphim" [liturgical vestments].... It remains that authority, even the supreme papal authority, is at the service of the faith, and not the other way round. As St. Paul told the Corinthians, speaking as their bishop, "We can do nothing against truth" (2 Cor. 13:8), inasmuch as his authority was conferred on him only for the reinforcement of truth. Belief in the Holy Catholic Church is a solemnly- defined article of the Creed, without which no one can be saved. One, holy, universal, and apostolic, the Church is indefectible because she is the Mystical Body of Christ, against whom the gates of hell have no power whatever to prevail. Her soul is the Spirit of Christ, which is the Holy Ghost. For the Church to defect, God himself would have to defect. Nowhere does the Creed enjoin faith in Peter, or even in the Papacy, for these are not indefectible, and part from the Church they have no credibility.... Never actually concluded, the First Vatican Council left the Catholic world with a somewhat one-sided view of papal authority, which must be seen in the larger context of the infallibility of the Church to remain in balance. It was not long before the obedience due the Pope was over- emphasized. There was a natural human tendency to forget that even in this regard, obedience is no transcendent theological virtue like faith, hope, or charity, but a simple moral virtue like any other, in the practice of which it is possible to sin by excess as well as by deficiency.... For not even in mediaeval times has deference to the Pope as an individual assumed the proportions it has today. As often as not, even the popular idiom instinctively refers to the Second Vatican Council as "Pope John's Council" and the subsequent reforms as "the liturgy of Paul VI" rather than the liturgy of the Church.... There is no precedent for the uncritical adulation accorded John Paul II.... It is no longer unusual for fans of the Pontiff to view him apart from his office, as an outstanding celebrity in his own right..., giving rise to a veritable cult.... At the First Vatican Council Pope Pius IX promulgated as dogma that the Pope speaks infallibly when doing so "ex cathedra, that is, when in discharge of the office of Pastor and Doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the Universal Church, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter." Although "such definitions are irreformable of themselves and not from the consent of the Church," a clear line of demarcation was laid between Peter acting in his official capacity as Pope, and Peter as a private individual. The Council had already made clear in the decree De Ecclesia Christi that the assistance of the Holy Ghost had not been promised to Peter's successors to reveal new doctrines, but only to teach and preserve intact the Deposit [of Faith] confided to the Apostles. -- Solange Strong Hertz, "De Petris: On the Rocks," Wanderer The Church was not in any special crisis when the Second Vatican Council was convened in 1962. On the contrary, it was in a particularly flourishing state, institutionally, intellectually, and religiously. As John Lukacs pointed out in 1959 (in his introduction to Alexis de Tocqueville's "The European Revolution), "for the first time since the Counter- Reformation, conversions have been flowing almost unilaterally toward Catholicism." But today, after the Council, the entire trend has been reversed: institutionally, intellectually, religiously, the Church is under attack, is falling back, is in crisis. --Will Herberg Vernacular means banalization; vernacular means profanation. -- Canon Gregory Hesse of Austria We started with twelve bishops, and one of them was a traitor. Now we have the opposite. --Canon Gregory Hesse of Austria The churches shall lament with great lamentations, because there shall neither oblation be made, nor incense, nor worship grateful to God. But the sacred houses of churches shall be like to cottages, and the precious Body and Blood of Christ shall not be exist in those days, the liturgy shall be extinguished, the psalmody shall cease, the reciting of Scriptures shall not be heard. --St. Hippolytus (ob. ca. 236) And women, whether believers or catechumens, shall stand for their prayers by themselves in a separate part of the Church.... And the presbyters -- or, if there are not enough presbyters, the deacons -- shall hold the cups, and shall stand with reverence and modesty. And even if the bishop should be absent when the faithful meet at a supper, if a presbyter or deacon is present they shall eat in a similar orderly fashion, and each shall be careful to take the blessed bread from the presbyter's or deacon's hand." --St. Hippolytus (ob. ca. 236), The Apostolic Tradition The Latin is also so close to the Church's liturgical and theological wellsprings that its abandonment has left many people badly out of touch with their traditions. Its demise has been one of the principal stimuli to the belief that liturgy ought to be a completely contemporary thing.... The association of the Latin language with the timeless, mysterious, and traditional aspects of worship is so profound that no fully adequate translation of it into the vernacular is possible. The decision to translate the liturgy into the vernacular has had momentous consequence which should not be minimized. It may lead to the disappearance of almost all sense of the sacred in liturgy.... --Prof. James Hitchcock, The Recovery of the Sacred (1974), "written less than a decade after Vatican II to call attention to certain liturgical trends which seemed unwise and even destructive" Q. If a person lived a decent, noble and moral life as judged by Catholic Faith beliefs and standards, yet was not a Christian or a Catholic and may, for the sake of discussion, be a non-believer, would this person be denied Heaven? A. To gain eternal salvation, it is not always required that a person be incorporated in fact as a member of the Church, but it is required that he belong to it at least in desire and longing [in voto]. It is not always necessary that this desire be explicit as it is with catechumens. When a man is invincibly ignorant, God also accepts an implicit desire, so called because it is contained in the good disposition of soul by which a man wants his will to be conformed to God's will. [The letter than goes on to state under what circumstances it suffices for salvation to belong to the Church by an implicit desire of longing: such a person must be invincibly ignorant of his error, possess supernatural Faith (by which he believes that God exists and is a rewarder to those that seek Him), and have an implicit desire informed with perfect charity. Referring to the encyclical Mystici Corporis, the Letter says: "... the pope censures those who exclude from eternal salvation all men who belong to the Church only with implicit desire, and he also censures those who falsely maintain that men can be saved equally as well in any religion."] --Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston, August 8, 1949 The Episcopate was now so generally corrupted by the spirit of the world that to be subject to it was often a direct menace to spiritual and temporal well being. --Fr. Philip Hughes, Popular History of the Catholic Church (Macmillan, 1946), p. 91 Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. --St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, ca. 110 [first known use of the word "Catholic" as applied to Christians] Who does not know that what has been handed down by Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, to the Roman Church is still observed unto this day and must be observed by all? --Pope Innocent I (402-417) to Decentius, Bishop of Gubbio, about St. Peter as the founder of the Roman liturgy, for the method of celebration followed and introduced by him was undoubtedly the essential and permanent foundation for its later development and form The consecratory formula of the Roman Canon has been imposed on the Apostles by Christ directly, and handed down by the Apostles to their successors. --Pope Innocent III (1198-1215) Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. --St. Jerome, Great Father and Doctor of the Western Church The judgment of God may be compared to a mirror. It is not the mirror's fault if the face it reflects is hideous. --St. Jerome, Great Father and Doctor of the Western Church I have never spared heretics, and I have done my best to make the enemies of the Church my own.... All we who hold the Catholic Faith wish and long that, while the heresy is condemned, the men may be reformed. At all events, if they will continue in error, the blame does not attach to us who have written, but to them, since they have preferred a lie to the truth. --St. Jerome, Great Father and Doctor of the Western Church The best advice that I can give you is this. Church traditions - - especially when they do not run counter to the Faith -- are to be observed in the form in which previous generations have handed them down. --St. Jerome, Epistulae, lxxi.6 They [the bishops of France] are not the Church. Jesus Christ is the Church. --St. Joan of Arc to the Church tribunal that condemned her No Catholic could subscribe to even moderate socialism. --Pope John XXIII I suppose I should quote it for you in Latin, for one could speak in Italian, or French, or German, but some might not be able to understand it. Latin is the language of the Church, and hence is universal. --Pope John XXIII, 1958, in an audience given to the press in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican Latin is the immutable language of the Western Church. --Pope John XXIII, Apostolic Constitution Veterum Sapientia, February 22, 1962 (just eight months before the opening of Vatican II) Egomet ipse praesens adfui sat proxime stans proper altare S. Petri in Basilica Vaticana cum ipse Ioannes Pp. XXIII hoc documentum Veterum Sapienia publici iuris fecit. Et res ita accidit: Tota Basilica Vaticana ingenti multitudine fidelium repleta, Summus Pontifex ingressus est et sermonem habuit praeclarum quo momentum et valorem huius documenti (Veterum Sapientia) sat fuse et abundanter audientibus explicavit et inter cetera hoc quoque dixit: "Ne postea dici possit hunc Summum Pontificem iam aetate provectum non bene intellexisse quali documento nomen suum subscribendo apposuisset, sed tantummodo subscripsisse, quia alii hoc documentum illi ad subscribendum dedereunt, Ego vobis dico me scire quid nunc subscribam et me quod in documento scriptum est re vera velle et propterea hoc documentum coram omnibus vobis in hoc altari Sancti Petri sollemniter subscribam." Et coram omnibus nobis, me -- ut dixi -- sat proxime adstante, documentum subscripsit. Hoc est historice certum, quia ante tot testes public factum est. [I myself was present, standing very closely to the altar of St. Peter in the Vatican Basilica when Pope John XXIII enacted this document, "Veterum Sapientia," as a public law. And the event occurred as follows: [The whole Vatican Basilica was full of a large crowd of the Faithful. The Supreme Pontiff entered and gave an outstanding sermon by which he explained at length and in detail to the audience the importance and weightiness of this document ("Veterum Sapientia"), and among other things said the following too: ["Lest afterwards it may be said that this Supreme Pontiff, now advanced in age, has not well understood what kind of document he has enacted by signing his name, but has signed it only because others gave this document to him for his signature, I say to you that I know what I was signing and I willed in truth what was written in the document, and consequently I solemnly signed this document before you all on this altar of St. Peter." [And before all of us, while I -- as I said -- stood very closely by, he signed the document. [This is historicaly certain, because it was done publicly before so many witnesses.] --Fr. Suitbertus a S. Ioanne a Cruce, Letter of September 15, 1998, to the Familia Sancti Hieronymi Let no innovator dare to write against the use of Latin in the sacred rites ... nor let them in their folly attempt to minimize the will of the Apostolic See in this matter. --Pope John XXIII, Apostolic Constitution Veterum Sapientia, February 22, 1962 Quoniam lingua Latina est lingua Ecclesiae viva. [For the Latin language is the living language of the Church.] --Pope John XXIII, Apostolic Constitution Veterum Sapientia, No. 6, February 22, 1962 [The Latin language] has been consecrated through constant use by the Apostolic See. --Pope John XXIII, Apostolic Constitution Veterum Sapientia, chap. 10, February 22, 1962 Let no innovator dare to write against the use of Latin in the sacred rites... nor let them in their folly attempt to minimize the will of the Apostolic See in this matter. --Pope John XXIII, Apostolic Constitution Veterum Sapientia, chap. 13, February 22, 1962 The Catholic Church has a dignity far surpassing that of every merely human society, for it was founded by Christ the Lord. It is altogether fitting, therefore, that the language it uses should be noble, majestic, and non-vernacular. --Pope John XXIII, Veterum Sapientia, February 22, 1962, chap. 13 We also, impelled by the weightiest of reasons ... are fully determined to restore this language to its position of honor and to do all We can to promote its study and use. The employment of Latin has recently been contested in some quarters, and many are asking what the mind of the Apostolic See is in this matter. We have therefore decided to issue the timely directives contained in this docuyment, so as to ensure that the ancient and uninterrupted use of Latin be maintained and, where necessary, restored. --Pope John XXIII, Veterum Sapientia, chap. 13, February 22, 1962 The greatest concern of the Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more efficaciously.... The salient point of this Council is not, therefore, a discussion of one article or another of the fundamental doctrine of the Church. --Pope John XXIII, Opening Speech to the Council, October 11, 1962 When you face Jesus Christ in eternity, He is not going to ask you how you got along with the Roman Curia, but how many souls you saved. -- Pope John XXIII When, during the rebellious first session of the Council, he [Pope John XXIII] realized that the papacy had lost control of the process, he attempted, as Cardinal John Heenan of Westminster later revealed, to organize a group of bishops to try to force it to an end. Before the second session opened he had died. --Alice Muggeridge, The Desolate City (revised & expanded ed./1990), p. 72; letter from Fr. Joseph W. Oppitz, C.S.s.R. in "America" magazine of April 15, 1972 Stop the Council; stop the Council. --Pope John XXIII, on his deathbed, quoted in Kevin Haney, "The Stormy History of General Councils," Latin Mass, Spring 1995, attributed to Jean Guitton (ob. March 21, 1999), the only Catholic layman to serve as a peritus at Vatican II [Also it was reported in Michael Davies Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre that Pope John XXIII attempted to stop the Second Vatican Council at the end of the first session. Davies further stated that this same pope, in the final days and hours of his life, repeatedly urged "Stop the council; stop the council."] The Church is not an archaeological museum, but the ancient fountain which slakes the thirst of the generation of today as she did that of the generations of the past. --Pope John XXIII I want to guard my faith carefully like a sacred treasure. Most of all I want to be true to that spirit of faith which is gradually being hittled away before the so-called requirements of criticism, in the atmosphere and light of modern times.... It will always be my principle, in all spheres of religious knowledge and in all theological or biblical questions, to find out first of all the traditional teaching of the Church, and on this basis to judge the findings of contemporary scholarship.... In general, it will be my rule to listen to everything and everyone, to think and study much.... --Pope John XXIII, Journal of a Soul, translated by Dorothy White, pp. 211-212 ...This wind of Modernism blows very strongly and more widely than seems at first sight, and ... it may very likely strike and bewilder even those who were at first moved only by the desire to adapt the ancient truth of Christianity to modern needs. Many, some of them good men, have fallen into error, perhaps unconsciously; they have let themselves be swept into the field of error. --Pope John XXIII, Journal of a Soul, translated by Dorothy White, pp. 242 Above all, one must always be ready for the Lord's surprise moves, for although he treats his loved ones well, he generally likes to test them with all sorts of trials such as bodily infirmities, bitterness of soul, and sometimes opposition so powerful as to transform and wear out the life of the servant of God.... --Pope John XXIII, Journal of a Soul, translated by Dorothy White, pp. 350 The floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of rotten bishops. -- St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople and Great Eastern Doctor of the Church A soul should be as ready to pray in the marketplace as in the oratory; when sitting among friends as when attending services in church. - - St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople and Great Eastern Doctor of the Church Our chant is nothing but an echo, an imitation of the angelic chant. Music was invented in Heaven. Around and above us the angels sing. -- St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople and Great Eastern Doctor of the Church I speak not with rashness, but what I feel and mean: among priests, I reckon that not many are saved, but many more perish, not so much on account of their own sins as for the sins of others, which they have not put a remedy to. --St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople and Great Eastern Doctor of the Church When you are before the altar where Christ reposes, you ought no longer to think that you are amongst men, but believe that there are troops of angels and archangels standing by you, and trembling with respect before the sovereign Master of Heaven and earth. Therefore, when you are in church, be there in silence, fear, and veneration. -- St. John Chrysostom I have occasion to listen to the reading of St. Paul's epistles. At the sound of this spiritual trumpet I am filled with joy; and I am greatly moved, and overcome with longing. For in the words that are read, I sense the voice of a friend, and I feel as though he were standing before me, and I heard him preaching with his own mouth. But at the same time I am grieved and troubled that not all Christians know this great saint as they ought; indeed, some are so ignorant of him that they do not even know the exact number of his epistles. This failure is not due to any natural incompetence, but to their unwillingness to have the apostle's writing constantly in their hands. We ourselves must acknowledge that whatever we know, if we know anything at all, we do not owe to the excellence or keenness of our understanding, but to this holy man. Him we love with a warm love, and never cease to read his writings. It is with us as with those in love; better than anyone else they know the actions and accomplishments of those whom they love simply because of their constant concern. The holy apostle himself makes the same observation when he says in his epistle to the Philippians: "It is just and proper to think so of you all because I have you in my heart, both in my chains and in the confirmation and defense of the gospel." If, therefore, you devoted yourselves to sympathetic reading of the apostle's writings, you would have no need of seeking anything further. But many of you gathered here must attend to the rearing of children and the care of a wife and the upkeep of a home. You are accordingly no longer able to apply yourselves adequately to this task; but you ought, at least , try hard to assimilate the thoughts that others have gathered. Certainly you could give the sermon as much attention as you do the pursuit of profane interests! It is almost a shame not to ask more of you; yet even this little is very worthwhile. --St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople & Great Eastern Doctor of the Church To put a heretic to death is an unpardonable crime. --St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople & Great Eastern Doctor of the Church [St. John Chrysostom held it acceptable to prevent public meetings and the preaching of heresy, and St. Augustine believed that it was permissible to fine or exile heretics] Is it Tradition? Then ask no more. --St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople and Great Eastern Doctor of the Church The floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of bishops. --St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople and Great Eastern Doctor of the Church Stay away from visions, apparitions, and miracles as much as you can. Be careful of visions, even when they are authentic. --St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) Private prayer is like straw scattered about: if you set it on fire, it makes a lot of little flames. But if these straws be gathered into a bundle and lit, you get a mighty fire blazing to the sky. Public prayer [Holy Mass and Divine Office] is like that. --St. John Vianney, the Cure of Ars (1786-1859) I don't want to have anything to do with the Vatican. The devil is in the Vatican. --Albino Cardinal Luciani, later Pope John Paul I, on his pilgrimage to Fatima, July 1977 We address especially the young people: in an epoch when in some areas, as you know, the Latin language and the human values are less appreciated, you must joyfully accept the patrimony of the language which the Church holds in high esteem and must, with energy, make it fruitful. The well-known words of Cicero, "Non tam praeclarum est scire Latine, quam turpe nescire (Brutus, xxxvii.140)" [It is not so much excellent to know Latin, as it is a shame not to know it] in a certain sense are directed to you. We exhort you all to lift up high the torch of Latin which is even today a bond of unity among peoples of all nations. --Pope John Paul II, 1978 The [Second Vatican] Council must be understood in the light of all of Holy Tradition and on the basis of the constant magisterium of the Church. --Pope John Paul II, November 6, 1978, at the reunion of the Sacred College of Cardinals Ecclesia quae Latina vocatur, quamvis propter utilitates pastorales in liturgia etiam sermones vulgares induxerit, a principio ex quo lingua eius propria est Latina non recedit. [The Church which is called Latin, although because of pastoral utility has even introduced vulgar tongues in the liturgy, has not retreated from the principle by which its language is properly Latin.] --Pope John Paul II, Sermon of 26 November 1979, Acta Apostolicae Sedis (LXXI, 1979), p. 507 Nevertheless, there are also those people who, having been educated on the basis of the old liturgy in Latin, experience the lack of this "one language," which in all the world was an expression of the unity of the Church and through its dignified character elicited a profound sense of the Eucharistic Mystery. It is therefore necessary to show not only understanding but also full respect towards these sentiments and desires. As far as possible these sentiments and desires are to be accommodated, as is moreover provided for in the new dispositions. The Roman Church has special obligations towards Latin, the splendid language of ancient Rome, and she must manifest them whenever the occasion presents itself. --Pope John Paul II, Dominicae Cenae, sec. 10, February 24, 1980 I would like to ask forgiveness --in my own name and in the name of all of you, venerable and dear brothers in the Episcopate --for everything which, for whatever reason, through whatever human weakness, impatience or negligence, and also through the at time partial, one-sided and erroneous application of the directives of the Second Vatican Council, may have cause scandal and disturbance concerning the interpretation of the doctrine and the veneration due to this great Sacrament [of the Holy Eucharist]. And I pray the Lord Jesus that in the future we may avoid in our manner of dealing with this sacred mystery anything which could weaken or disorient in any way the sense of reverence and love that exists in our faithful people. -- Pope John Paul II, Dominicae Cenae, sec. 12, February 24, 1980 There are of course various roles that women can perform in the liturgical assembly: these include reading the word of God and proclaiming the intentions of the Prayer of the Faithful. Women are not however permitted to act as altar servers." --Pope John Paul II, Inaestimabile Donum, sec. 18, April 3, 1980 The faithful have a right to a true Liturgy, which means the Liturgy desired and laid down by the Church.... Undue experimentation, changes and creations bewilder the faithful. The use of unauthorized texts means a loss of the necessary connection between the lex orandi and the lex credendi. The Second Vatican Council's admonition in this regard must be remembered: "No person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority." --Pope John Paul II, Inaestimabile Donum, April 3, 1980 Pope John conceived the Council as an eminently pastoral event. -- Pope John Paul II, October 27, 1985 Angelus At the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church committed herself irrevocably to following the path of the ecumenical venture." --Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Ut Unum Sint (1995) I like classical music very much, but I also enjoy rock 'n roll, as I am not a man of the past. --Pope John Paul II, Allocution to Grade- School Children, Melbourne, 1996 At the dawn of a new millennium, two world views collide: paganism and theism -- the earth goddess versus the God who made the heavens and the earth. At the heart of our culture's wars are Spirit Wars. But this clash doesn't take place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. This is happening right now in our living rooms! Within a single generation, Judeo- Christian America has become a breeding ground for the new paganism. Behind the dazzling diversity of pro-choice culture -- abortion rights, the homosexual agenda, radical feminism, New Age spirituality, goddess worship, and witchcraft -- lies a coherent pagan spirituality bent on absolute control of our culture and intolerant of any truth that stands in opposition to its teachings. Pagans in the Pews is essential reading for the Church today. - - Peter R. Jones, Pagans in the Pews: Protecting Your Family and Community from the Pervasive Influence of the New Spirituality (Regal Books, 2001, 288 pages). Peter R. Jones is Professor of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary in California. Dr. Jones also serves as associate pastor at New Life Presbyterian Church in Escondido, California. Dr. Jones is the author of three books, including The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back: An Old Heresy for the New Age (1992), Spirit Wars: Pagan Revival in Christian America (1997), and Gospel Truth/Pagan Lies: Can You Tell the Difference (1999). When I saw the definition of the Mass in the instruction that precedes the Novus Ordo, I said: "This definition of the Mass is unacceptable; I must go to Rome to see the Pope." I went and said: "Holy Father you cannot allow this definition. It is heretical. You cannot leave your signature on a document like this." The Holy Father replied to me: "Well, to speak truthfully, I did not read it. I signed it without reading it." --Charles Cardinal Journet of Geneva (1891-1975), explaining that Pope Paul VI signed texts that he had not read The claim that the altar of the early church was always designed to celebrate facing the people, a claim made often and repeatedly, turns out to be nothing but a fairy tale. --Fr. Josef A. Jungmann, author of Missarum Sollemnia, in The Pastor magazine shortly after Vatican II The decision of Vatican II, to which the Pope adheres and spreads, is absolutely clear: Today we no longer understand ecumenism in the sense of the ecumenism of a return, by which the others would "be converted" and return to being "catholics." This was expressly abandoned by Vatican II. Today ecumenism is considered as the common road: all should be converted to the following of Christ, and it is in Christ that we will find ourselves in the end.... Even the Pope, among other things, describes ecumenism in Ut unum sint as an exchange of gifts. I think this is very well said: each church has its own riches and gifts of the Spirit, and it is this exchange that unity is trying to be achieved and not the fact that we should become 'protestants' or that the others should become 'catholics' in the sense of accepting the confessional form of Catholicism. -- Walter Cardinal Kaspar, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Adista, Rome, February 26, 2001, p. 9 Respecting other religions does not mean ignoring irreconcilable differences from Catholic teaching. When evaluating Eastern techniques, it [sic] is important to remember that Eastern spirituality and Catholic spirituality are based on strongly conflicting views of reality. Eastern spirituality tells us that our sense of individuality is an illusion, that we are really "the Absolute" or "the whole Universe" or "God" or (in some secular variations) that we have "infinite potential." Our highest good is, therefore, to lose our false sense of individuality and to realize our infinite nature and potential. This theme is common to both traditional Eastern religions and to modern New Age variations. Catholic spirituality, however, tells us that our sense of individuality is both real and eternal and that we are limited beings totally dependent on God. Our highest good is, therefore, to submit our wills to that of God, and to grow thereby in the ability to receive and return God's love. If we accept the Catholic view, then it shouldn't be surprising that difficulties can arise from Eastern practices. If we are truly limited dependent beings, then the more we experience ourselves as infinite in nature or potential the more we will be living an illusion. Living this illusion, even partially, can have destructive consequences. --Joseph Kellett, Catholic Voice, April 20, 1992, p. 2) This time we are going to stay in the Church, and we are going to dismantle the Catholic Church from within. --Hans Kung, peritus of Vatican II The Catholic Church is alone in keeping the true worship. This the fount of Truth, this the house of Faith, this the temple of God. -- Lactantius (ca. 240 -ca. 320) The fall and ruin of the world will soon take place. But it seems that nothing of the kind is to be feared as long as the city of Rome stands intact. But when the capital of the world has fallen, who can doubt that the end will have come for the affairs of men and for the whole world. It is that city which sustains all things. --Lactantius (ca. 240 -ca. 320) He is also the moralist who, through his advocacy of virginity and vows of chastity, did the most to free the individual from family ties and women from male domination, placing them on the same plane as men." -- Valery Larbaud, An Homage to Jerome, Patron Saint of Translators (Marlboro, Vermont: Marlboro Press, 1984) There [in De Optimo Genere Interpretandi] he [St. Jerome] sets forth his great principle: to render the meaning rather than the words of a text. Then, as is his wont, he introduces his references and looks for backers: Terence, Plautus, Cicero. The last two-thirds of the work consist in a demonstration of the fact that the Evangelists, like the Apostles, very freely translated passages of the Old Testament that they cite, sometimes erring in their attributions, while the Seventy were often unfaithful to the 'Hebraic Truth.' Finally, he takes up his theme of the simplicity that is indispensable to the ecclesiastical style.... This Letter LVII contains the essential: the listing, complete with examples, of the greatest difficulties of the art of translation, and an ingenious illustration of the basic rule: Non verbum e verbo, sed sensum exprimere de sensu, a trick of the trade and a sort of reductio ad absurdum, "translate" a work in verse into prose, but within the same language. A few more passages from his works, such as the conclusion of Letter XX on "non-translatable" foreign words, which therefore must be borrowed, the rest of the preface to the Chronicon not cited in the De Optimo Genere Interpretandi, a few sentences from the Prefaces and which are given in most Latin editions of the Vulgate, etc..., complete this "Art of Translation." --Valery Larbaud, An Homage to Jerome, Patron Saint of Translators (Marlboro, Vermont: Marlboro Press, 1984) For even the Authorized Version, despite all the reworking and all the approximations of the Hebrew text, rejoins --through Wycliffe --the Vulgate; and it is as if its deliberate archaism were a finery adopted in order to outdo, in minds dazzled by its beauty, the deliberate modernism of Jerome. --Valery Larbaud, An Homage to Jerome, Patron Saint of Translators (Marlboro, Vermont: Marlboro Press, 1984) The "new Mass" is the Mass of Luther. --Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991) Our future lies in our past. --Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905- 1991) No authority, not even the highest in the hierarchy, can compel us to abandon or diminish our Catholic faith, so clearly expressed and professed by the Church's Magisterium for nineteen centuries. -- Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991) [The New Order service] is a spiritual poison that destroys the Catholic Faith, a danger to souls. --Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905- 1991) We are living in an age completely exceptional. We must realize this. The situation is no longer normal, quite particularly in Rome. -- Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991) Satan's masterstroke is to have succeeded in sowing disobedience to all Tradition through obedience. --Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905- 1991) How can I agree to abandon the Mass of all ages or to admit to place it at the same level as the Novus Ordo, created by Annibale Bugnini, with the participation of Protestants to make of it an equivocal supper that eliminates totally the Offertory, and touches on the very words of the Consecration? --Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991) I am going to put a fishbone in the gullet of the Roman bureaucrats -- they can't swallow it and they can't cough it up. -- Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991) It is certain that the evil in the [New] Mass is something internal to the Mass, inside the Mass, and not something merely external or extrinsic to it. --Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991), "June Conferences" The New Mass is] a poisoned Mass, because, once Catholic truths are no longer affirmed in the Mass, as is the case in the Protestant version, then little by little, faith in these truths disappears too. -- Archbishop Marcel LeFebvre (1905-1991), "June Conferences" I have the Mass of St. Pius V only once a month. What am I to do on the other Sundays? Should I go to the New Mass if there is not a Mass of St. Pius V?" I cannot counsel you to assist at something which is bad. I cannot! I would not go myself, because I do not want to breathe in that atmosphere; it is stronger than I am; I could not go. So I advise you not to go.... I am giving you the advice which I, in conscience, believe, and which I feel obliged to give you -- but I am not saying that, if you go, you are committing a mortal sin; I am saying that if you go, you will, in the long run, endanger your Faith, and that is very serious. You must be careful. It would be better to stay at home, to pray at home with your children, until you can get to a Mass of St. Pius V, the true Mass, the Catholic Mass, the Mass of the ages.... In the missions we visited the Faithful three times a year, in some places only once a year.... In spite of this, these people did not lose the Faith; they prayed; they prayed to the Blessed Virgin.... They kept the Faith. We do not have the right to endanger our Faith! Even if it is a slow poison, it is still a poison. -- Archbishop Marcel LeFebvre (1905-1991), "June Conferences" We cleave, with all our heart and with all our soul, to Catholic Rome, the guardian of the Catholic Faith and of the traditions necessary for the maintenance of that Faith and to eternal Rome, mistress of wisdom and truth. On the other hand, we refuse and have always refused to follow the Rome of the neo-Protestant trend clearly manifested throughout Vatican Council II and, later, in all the reforms born of it. --Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991), "Declaration of November 21, 1974" I have said many times in my conferences that the three most disputed matters at the Council were collegiality, ecumenism, and religious liberty.... But, of course, these three subjects of so much violent discussion at the council correspond precisely to the three Liberal principles of liberty, equality, fraternity. --Abp. Marcel Lefebvre (1905- 1991), December 1975 We are suspended a divinis by the Conciliar Church and for the Conciliar Church and for the Conciliar Church, to which we have no wish to belong. That Conciliar Church is a schismatic Church, because it breaks with the Catholic Church that has always been. It has its new dogmata, its new priesthood, its new institutions, its new worship, all already condemned by the Church in many a document, official and definitive.... The Church that affirms such errors is at once schismatic and heretical. THIS CONCILIAR CHURCH IS, THEREFORE, NOT CATHOLIC. To whatever extent pope, bishops, priests, or faithful adhere to this new Church, they separate themselves from the Catholic Church. --Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905- 1991), "Reflections on Suspension a Divinis," June 29, 1976 I do not say that the pope is not the pope, but I do not say either that you cannot say that the pope is not the pope." --Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991), Letter to his American priests, 1979 I prefer to walk in the truth without the pope than to walk a false path with him. The New Mass is intrinsically evil. The New Mass is the Mass of Luther. --Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991), 1979 As for myself, I do not want people to make me say that the New Mass is good, but that it is simply less good than the Traditional Mass. I cannot say that. I cannot say that these modern sacraments are good. They were made by Protestants. They were made by Bugnini. And Bugnini himself said on March 19, 1956, as can still be read in L'Osservatore Romano and in Documentation Catholique, which published a translation of Bugnini's discourse: "We must strip from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren, that is for the Protestants." This was on March 19, 1965, just before the reforms.... Keep the Faith. Be a martyr rather than abandon your Faith.... For it is clear that those who habitually attend the New Mass and the new sacraments undergo a gradual change of mentality. After a few years it will become apparent in questioning somebody who goes regularly to this new ecumenical Mass that he has adopted its ecumenical spirit. This means that he ends up by placing all religions on the same footing.... He has become liberal and protestant and is no longer Catholic. --Abp. Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991), Speech in Montreal, Canada, 1982, "There Is Only One Religion," apud The Angelus, July 1995 (XVIII:7), p. 4 All these [pre-John XXIII] Popes have resisted the union of the Church with the [Modernist] revolution; it is an adulterous union and from such a union only bastards can come. The rite of the new mass is a bastard rite, the sacraments are bastard sacraments. We no longer know if they are sacraments which give grace or do not give it. The priests coming out of the seminaries are bastard priests, who do not know what they are. They are unaware that they are made to go up to the altar, to offer the sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ and to give Jesus Christ to souls. --Abp. Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991), "An Open Letter to Confused Catholics," 1986 I have summed it up to Cardinal Ratzinger in certain words, of course, because it is difficult to sum up this whole situation, but I said to him: "Eminence, see, even if you grant us a bishop, even if you grant us a certain self-government in relation to the bishops, even if you grant us all the liturgy of 1962, if you grant us to continue the seminaries and Society, as we do it now, we cannot collaborate. It is impossible, impossible, because we work in two diametrically opposed directions. You, you work for the de-Christianization of society, of the human person, and of the Church, and we, we work for its Christianization. They cannot be in agreement." -- Abp. Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991), 1987 The Novus Ordo Missae, even when said with piety and respect for the liturgical rules... is impregnated with the spirit of Protestantism. It bears within it a poison harmful to the faith. --Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991), "An Open Letter to Confused Catholics," 1988 Now I don't know if the time has come to say that the pope is a heretic. I don't know if it is the time to say that. You know, for some time many people, the sede-vacantists, have been saying "there is no more pope," but I think that for me it was not yet the time to say that, because it was not sure, it was not evident, it was very difficult to say that the Pope is a heretic, the Pope is apostate. But I recognize that slowly, very slowly, by the deeds and acts of the pope himself we begin to be very anxious. I am not inventing the situation; I do not want it. I would gladly give my life to bring it to an end, but this is the situation we face, unfolding before our eyes like a film in the cinema. I don't think it has ever happened in the history of the Church, the man seated in the chair of Peter partaking in the worship of false gods. What conclusion must we draw in a few months if we are confronted by these repeated acts of partaking in false worship? I don't know. I wonder. But I think the Pope can do nothing worse than call together a meeting of all religions, when we know there is only one true religion and all other religions belong to the devil. So perhaps after this famous meeting of Assisi, perhaps we must say that the Pope is a heretic, is apostate. Now I don't wish yet to say it formally and solemnly, but it seems at first sight that it is impossible for a pope to be publicly and formally heretical. Our Lord has promised to be with him, to keep his faith, to keep him in the Faith -- how can he at the same time be a public heretic and virtually apostatize? So it is possible we may be obliged to believe this pope is not the pope. --Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991), "The Archbishop Speaks: Talks given by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on March 30 and April 18, 1986," The Angelus, July 1, 1986 (IX:7, pp. 3-4) My dear friends, the See of Peter and the post of authority in Rome [is] being occupied by anti-Christs; the destruction of the Kingdom of Our Lord is being rapidly carried out even within His Mystical Body here below..., since this Rome, Modernist and Liberal, is carrying on its work of destruction of the Kingdom of Our Lord. --Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905- 1991) Letter to Future SSPX Bishops, August 1987 Rome has lost the Faith, my dear friends. Rome is in apostasy. These are not just words in the air that I say to you. It is the truth. Rome is in apostasy. He [the pope] has left the Church. They [the Newchurchers] have left the Church. This is sure, sure, sure!" -- Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991), Retreat Conference, September 4, 1987) Witnesses to the Faith, martyrs, always had to choose between Faith and authority. We are re-living the trial of Joan of Arc, only with us it is not a disagreeable few months, it has been going on for 20 years! --Abp. Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991), June 13, 1988 You must change, come back to Tradition. It is not just a question of the Liturgy, it is a question of the Faith. --Abp. Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991) to Cardinal Oddi, from his address to his priests, "Two Years after the Consecration - We Must Not Waver, We May Not Compromise," September 6, 1990 At this stage it is relevant to remind Catholics all over the world that obedience to the pope is not a primary virtue. The hierarchy of virtues starts with the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, followed by the four cardinal virtues of justice, temperance, prudence, and fortitude. Obedience is a derivative of the cardinal virtue of justice. Therefore, it is far from ranking first in the hierarchy of virtues. --Abp. Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991), "Interview with Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre," The Angelus, August 1992, pp. 2 et seqq. This is another fruit of Vatican II: it preaches so-called tolerance toward all ideas, but as soon as one opposes one of its aims, it is intolerance personified. Denying justice does not faze them. --Abp. Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991), "Interview with Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre," The Angelus, May 1994, p. 6 The heresy which is now being born will become the most dangerous of all: the exaggeration of the respect due to the Pope and the illegitimate extension of his infallibility. --Fr. LeFloch, Rector of the French Seminary in Rome (1926) The sweet concord of voices, the blaze of lights, the fragrance of perfume, the rich vestments, the sacred vessels, adored with precious stones, the statues and pictures, which awaken holy thoughts, the glorious creation of architectural genius, working their effects of height and distance, the music of the bells. --Gottfreid Wilhelm von Leibnitz, German philosopher and mathematician There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole series of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, taint the real and simple Faith taught by Our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition. --Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), "Satis cognitum", June 20, 1896 Above all things, avoid marriage with those outside the Faith. It is foolish to expect that those who differ from us regarding religion can cooperate mentally in other things. --Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) To the priest it belongs to impose himself as a barrier to the encroachments of error and disguised heresy;... to unmask their deceits and point out their ambushes; to caution the simple, to give courage to the timid, to open the eyes of the blind. --Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), Encyclical letter to the Archbishops, Bishops, and Clergy of France This work is remarkable at once for the richness and exactness of its doctrine, and for the elegance of its style; it is a precious summary of all theology, both dogmatic and moral. --Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), on the Catechism of the Council of Trent [Divorce] is the fruitful cause of mutable marriage contracts; it diminishes mutual affection; it supplies a pernicious stimulus to unfaithfulness; it is injurious to the care and education of children; it gives occasion to thee breaking up of domestic society; it scatters the seeds of discord among families; it lessens and degrades the dignity of women, who incur the danger of being abandoned when they shall have subserved the lust of their husbands. And since nothing tends so effectually as the corruption of morals to ruin families and undermine the strength of kingdoms, it may easily be perceived that divorce is especially hostile to the propserity of families and states. --Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), Encyclical Letter Arcanum (February 10, 1880) on Christian Marriage Let us unite in mind and heart, launching a counterattack on evil, that truth may at length triumph over error and virtue over vice, and this, through confident recourse to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and continual use of her heavenly weapons, the Holy Rosary and Brown Scapular. Victorious over Satan in the very first instant of Her Immaculate Conception, may she show forth her power over wicked movements which We clearly see to be animated with the spirit of revolt, and with the incorrigible perfidy and hypocrisy of Satan and his fellow demons. Let us implore the help of St. Michael, Prince of the Heavenly Host, who hurled those rebels down to hell, and of St. Joseph the Spouse of the Most Holy Virgin and Patron of the Catholic Chruch. Under their protection and the persevering prayer of the faithful, may God mercifully come to the help of the human race, exposed to so many dangers. --Pope Leo XIII (1884) Justice forbids and reason itself forbids that the State should be godless, or that it should adopt a line of action which would end in godlessness -- namely, to treat the various religions (as they call them) alike, and to bestlow upon the promiscuously equal rights and privileges.... Yet, with the discernment of a true mother, the Church weighs the great burden of human weakness, and well knows the course down which the minds and actions of men in this are are being borne. For this reason, while not conceding any right to anything save what is true and honest, she does not forbid public authority to tolerate what is at variance with truth and justice, for the sake of avoiding greater ills.... But to judge aright, we must acknowledge that the more a State is driven to tolerate evil, the further it is from perfection. --Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), Encyclical Libertas Praestantissimum, June 1888 All the world knows that this Divine promise ought to be understood to apply to the Universal Church and not to any part of the church taken in isolation, for individual segments may, and in fact, indeed have, been overcome by the forces of evil. --Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896 They knew only too well the intimate bond that unites faith with worship, "the law of belief with the law of prayer," and so, under the pretext of restoring it to its primitive form, they corrupted the order of the liturgy in many respects to adapt it to the errors of the Innovators." - -Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), Apostolicae Curae, September 13, 1896 Now, if a person has seriously and duly used the proper matter and form for performing or administering a sacrament, he is by that very fact presumed to have intended to do what the Church does. This principle is the basis of the doctrine that a sacrament is truly a sacrament even if it is conferred through the ministry of a heretic or unbaptized person, provided the Catholic rite is used. --Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), Apostolicae Curae, September 13, 1896 Precisely at the epoch when the American colonies, having, with Catholic aid, achieved liberty and independence, coalesced into a constitutional republic, the ecclesiastical hierarchy was happily established amongst you; and at the very time when the popular suffrage placed the great Washington at the helm of the Republic, the first bishop [John Carroll] was set by apostolic authority over the American Church. The well-known friendship and familiar intercourse which subsisted between these two men seems to be an evidence that the United States ought to be conjoined in concord and amity with the Catholic Church. And not without cause; for without morality the State cannot endure -- a truth which that illustrious citizen of yours, whom We have just mentioned, with a keenness of insight worthy of his genius and statesmanship perceived and proclaimed. --Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), Encyclical Letter Longinque oceani (January 6, 1895) to the bishops of America, para. 4 [Pope Leo also donated an inscribed stone "A Roma Americae" to the Washington Monument, which the Know-Nothings stole] But, moreover (a fact which it gives pleasure to acknowledge), thanks are due to the equity of the laws which obtain in America and to the customs of the well-ordered Republic. For the Church amongst you, unopposed by the Constitution and government of your nation, fettered by no hostile legislation, protected against violence by the common laws and the impartiality of the tribunals, is free to live and act without hindrance. - - Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), Encyclical Letter Longinque oceani (January 6, 1895) to the bishops of America, sec. 6 There can never ... be any real discrepancy between the theologian and the physicist, as long as each confines himself within his own lines, and both are careful, as St. Augustine warns us, "not to make rash assertions, or to assert what is not known as known." --Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), Encyclical Letter Providentissimus Deus, November 18, 1893 Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good. --Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae From the foregoing it is manifest, beloved son, that we are not able to give approval to those views which, in their collective sense, are called by some "Americanism." But if by this name are to be understood certain endowments of mind which belong to the American people, just as other characteristics belong to various other nations; and if, moreover, by it are designated your political conditions and the laws and customs by which you are governed, there is no reason to take exception to the name. But if this is to be so understood that the doctrines which have been adverted to above are not only indicated, but exalted, there can be no manner of doubt that our venerable brethren, the bishops of America, would be the first to repudiate and condemn them as being most injurious to themselves and to their country. For it would give rise to the suspicion that there are among you some who conceive and would have the Church in America different from what she is in the rest of the world. --Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), Testem Benevolentiae (Encyclical on True and False Americanism), to U.S. Cardinal James Gibbons, January 22, 1899 (although warning of the dangers of Americanism [he never called it a heresy], the pope praised America for granting the Catholic Church such liberty of action) If you practice religion looking for comfort, you will end up with soft soap, but if you practice religion looking for truth, you will end up with truth, with comfort thrown in besides. --C.S. Lewis Prayer doesn't change God; it changes me. --C.S. Lewis Disputationes magis aggravant schismata quam sanant: communis operatio, oratio, fortitudo, communes (si Deus voluerit) mortes pro Christo adbunabunt. [Debates more aggravate schism than cure them: common action, prayer, courage, and (if God should will) deaths for Christ enrich]. -- C.S. Lewis, Letter of November 25, 1947, to Blessed Fr. Giovanni Calabria Nunc enim curiosi scrutatores omnia nostra effodiunt et veneno publicitatis (ut rem barbaram verbo barbaro nominem) aspergunt [For now curious scrutinizers dig out everything of ours and sprinkle with them with the poison of publicity (that I may name a barbarous thing with a barbarous word]. --C.S. Lewis, Letter of January 3, 1961, to Fr. Luigi Pedrollo It is clear that the Church is facing a grave crisis. Under the name of "the new Church," "the post-conciliar Church," a different Church from that of Jesus Christ is now trying to establish itself; an anthropocentric society threatened with immanentist apostasy which is allowing itself to be swept along in a movement of general abdication under the pretext of renewal, ecumenicism [sic], or adaptation. -- Henri Cardinal de Lubac, S.J., speaking at the Institute on Renewal in the Church, University of Toronto, August, 1967 Si hoc instrumentum, tam aptum moderandi et firmandi, a sacra Liturgia eripitur, stabilitas dogmatum periclitatur. Sectae protestanticae linguae vulgari se converterunt et in factiones innumeras se dissolverunt.... Saeculis recentibus, etiam in America Septentrionali tam materialistica, incrementum Sanctae Matris Ecclesiae vere mirabile fuit, retenta sacra Liturgia in lingua latina. Conatus protestantismi deficiunt, et protestantismus lingua vulgari utitur. Iterum rogamus: quare mutatio, praesertim quando mutatio in hac re difficultates multas et pericula magna secumfert? Omnes in hoc Sacro Concilio possumus in mentem revocare mutationes fundamentales in significatione verborum vulgarium usus hodierni. Deinde sequitur quod si sacra Liturgia in lingua vulgari sit, immutabilitas doctrinae periclitetur.... Si linguae vulgares introducuntur, praevidemus interpretationes innumeras sacrorum dogmatum. Ut aeterna veritas doctrinae exprimatur, sacra dogmata significationem et formam pristinam immutabiliter retineantur!... Introductio linguae vulgaris debet separari ab actione sacrae Missae. Sancta Missa debet remanere ut est. Graves mutationes in liturgia introducunt graves mutationes in dogmata. If this instrument [the Latin language], so appropriate for regulating and confirming, is ripped out of the Sacred Liturgy, the stability of dogmata is endangered. Protestant sects have converted to the vernacular and have dissolved into innumerable sects.... In recent times, even in materialistic North America, the growth of Holy Mother Church has been true remarkable, with the Sacred Liturgy being kept in the Latin language. The attempts of Protestantism are failing, and Protestantism uses the vernacular. We ask again: Why the change, especially since changes in this matter involves many difficulties and great dangers? All in this Sacred Council can recall the fundamental changes in the meaning of vernacular words in use today? Thus it follows that if the Sacred Liturgy were in the vernacular, the immutability of doctrine would be endangered.... If the vernacular is introduced, we foresee innumerable interpretations of sacred dogmata. In order that the eternal truth of doctrine be expounded, let sacred dogmata retain their pristine form and significance.... The introduction of the vernacular must be separated from the action of Holy Mass. Holy Mass must remain as it is. Serious changes in liturgy introduce serious changes in dogmata. --James Cardinal McIntyre, Archbishop of Los Angeles (1948-1970) Tolle Missam, tolle Ecclesiam [destroy the Mass [and] destroy the Church]. --Martin Luther Love the [Biblical] languages as you do the Gospel. --Martin Luther The languages [Hebrew, Greek, and Latin] are the sheath in which the sword of the Spirit is lodged. -- Martin Luther In proportion then as we value the Gospel, let us zealously hold to the [Biblical] languages..., and let us be sure of this: we shall not long preserve the Gospel without the languages. --Martin Luther The Roman Church has always maintained the true faith ... and that it is necessary for all Christians be in unity of faith with her. --Martin Luther, 1518 Sin, and sin boldly, but believe more boldly still. --Martin Luther A pure heart enlightened by God must not dirty, soil itself with the Law. Thus let the Christian understand that it matters not whether he keeps it or not; yea, he may do what is forbidden and leave undone what is commanded, for neither is a sin.... We must put away thoughts and disputes about the Law, whenever the conscience becomes terrified and feels God's anger against sin. Instead of that, it will be better to sing, to eat, to drink, to sleep, to be merry in spite of the devil. --Martin Luther When the Mass has been overthrown, I think we will have overthrown the Papacy. I think it is in the Mass, as on a rock, that the papacy wholly rests.... Everything will of necessity collapse when their sacrilegious and abominable Mass collapses. --Martin Luther Come, my princes, strike! To arms! Thrust! The times have come, blessed times where with blood a prince can win heaven more easily than we can with our prayers; I, Martin Luther, I myself ordered their tortures, impalement, beheading, bludgeoning. --Martin Luther, against the Peasant's War of 1524 Jews are young devils damned to hell.... Burn down Jewish schools and synagogues, and throw pitch and sulphur into the flames; destroy their houses; confiscate their ready money in gold and silver; take from them their sacred books, even the whole Bible; forbid their holding any religious services under penalty of death; and, if that does not help matters, hunt them out of the country like mad dogs. --Martin Luther, Luther's Works, vol. xx, pp. 2230-2632 Be a sinner, and sin boldly, but believe more boldly still.... We must sin as long as we are what we are.... Sin shall not drag us away from Him [Christ] even should we commit fornication or murder, thousands and thousands of times a day [provided only that the sinner believes].... Be a sinner, sin boldly and fearlessly. --Martin Luther, Letter to Melanchthon, August 1, 1521 Let all the vestments, the altar, the candles be, until they get used up, or we decide to change them. And if somebody wants to do things differently, let him do it. But for the real Mass among true Christians, the altar should not remain its current form, and the priest should always face the people.... It will be necessary to preserve for a time some of the ceremonies of the ancient Mass for the weak-minded who might be scandalized by too sudden a change. --Martin Luther There is a threefold distinction in worship and the Mass. First a Latin Order which we have before published and which is called the Formula Missae. This I do not herewith wish to have abrogated or changed; but as we have observed it among us, so shall it be free to use the same where and when we please or occasion requires, for I in no way wish to banish the Latin language from Divine Service....If I could bring it to pass, and Greek and Hebrew were as familiar to us as the Latin and had as many fine melodies and songs, we would hold Mass, sing, and read on successive Sundays in all four languages, German, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. I do not at all agree with those who give themselves to only one language and despise all others. - - Martin Luther, Works of Martin Luther, Phil Ed., Vol. VI, p. 172 Christian in name, in fact pagans. --St. Malachy (of the Gaels), 1148 The 21st century will be spiritual, or it will not be. --French writer Andre Malraux (1901-1976) A change which held both on earth and in heaven had been accomplished.... There was no Holy Sacrifice offered morning by morning. The Scriptures were read, but there was no Divine Teacher to interpret them. The Magnificat was chanted still, but it rolled along the empty roofs, for Jesus was no longer on the altar. So it is to this day. There is no light, no tabernacle, no altar, nor can be, till Jesus shall return thither. They stand like the open sepulcher, and we may believe that angels are there, ever saying, "He is not here. Come and see the place where the Lord was laid." -- Henry Edward Cardinal Manning (1808-1892), The Blessed Sacrament, Center of Immutable Truth, speaking of the heretical Anglican Church The Holy Fathers who have written upon the subject of Antichrist, and the prophecies of Daniel, without a single exception, as far as I know -- and they are the Fathers both of the East and of the West, the Greek and the Latin Church --, all of them unanimously say that in the latter end of the world, during the reign of the Antichrist, the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar will cease.... Then the Church shall be scattered, driven into the wilderness, and shall be for a time, as it were in the beginning, invisible, hidden in catacombs, in dens, in mountains, in lurking places; for a time it shall be swept, as it were, from the face of the earth. Such is the unanimous testimony of the Fathers of the early centuries. --Henry Edward Cardinal Manning (1808-1892), The Present Crisis of the Holy See (1861) Didn't our Lord guarantee the indefectibility of the Church (Matthew 16:18)? Yes, but we must distinguish between the organization and the mystical Body of Christ which is composed of believers, people of faith. -- Fr. Malachi B. Martin Prior to Constantine there was no Church structure as we know it today. The Popes before that, many of whom were martyred, lived secretly in the poorest sections of Rome. It was the victorious Constantine who sought out Pope Miltiades, and installed him in a palace. The Church was changed in its external lineaments. It grew, and it evolved as an institution.... We must realize that in spite of the confusion, disarray, and decline in today's institutional Church, the essence of our faith remains. We are members of the Mystical Body of Christ.... Thus, despite heretical bishops and priests and nuns, when a Catholic dies in grace after receiving the Body and Blood of Christ he has achieved victory -- he has won eternal life with God and His saints. --Fr. Malachi B. Martin, in a talk "A Retrospective Glance at Vatican II", March 15, 1993, New York, making what he termed an all- important distinction between the institutional or structural Church, and the Mystical Body of Christ It's very hard for people to realize that the real Church is now underground and that what we have is a facade, which Christ has deserted.... Anybody in the Catholic Church today can see in the facade, in the appearance, all the elements that were there in 1950: pope, bishops, cardinals, priests, nuns, newspapers, seminaries, institutes, publishing houses, missions, religious orders of nuns and priests. The facade is there. The terrible thing is: what most people cannot allow themselves to admit is that it is an illusion. The organization as it was then does not exist now.... Is an underground Church justified under these circumstances? Absolutely. If the only way that you can have your children go to Confession and Holy Communion, and you can hear Mass at least once a month, and receive the Body and Blood of Christ, truly, once a month, there is no question in my mind, because without that you're not going to save your soul. You won't get Sanctifying Grace.... --Fr. Malachi B. Martin, "The Kingdom of Darkness" (audiotaped interview, 1995) So we're in a situation there where the institutional Church does not necessarily line up with the body of Christ. No, it does not. And remember that at the time of the Arians, as [Cardinal] Newman pointed out in his examination of the Arian heresy. What restored the Church -- remember, first of all, the Arian heresy had attracted 81% of the bishops -- Newman points out that the people who saved the Church, who finally got rid of the Arians, were not the clergy, not the pope, but the people, in their faith, finally shed them as alien material. It took three or four hundred years.... It was as pernicious as that. Similarly here, too, it will be the people themselves, God in the people, who will reject them, but then they have to turn to the lawful authority of the Church, when there is a lawful authority that consents to exercising its responsibilities and tells the people the truth of revelation. --Fr. Malachi B. Martin, "The Kingdom of Darkness" (audiotaped interview, 1995) The Novus Ordo is normally invalid. You've got to make an effort to make the Novus Ordo valid. You can make it valid, but you've got to make an effort. Of itself, it seems to be invalid.... I've been to hundreds of Masses -- I make it my business -- Novus Ordos, just to notice the ritual, and the vast majority are invalid. And as to the intention of the priest, no wonder! He doesn't believe in the Sacrifice of Calvary, he doesn't believe in grace, he doesn't believe in Heaven, he doesn't believe in a Savior. He believes in having a communal celebration where everybody loves each other and kisses each other. He doesn't believe in the Mass as the salvific act of Christ on the altar with the people in veneration and adoration. He doesn't believe in that any longer. --Fr. Malachi B. Martin, "The Kingdom of Darkness" (audiotaped interview, 1995) The people who composed the [Novus Ordo] Mass originally were six Protestants and two Catholics, under the direction of a Freemason called Annibale Bugnini, who is ... an archbishop, and he lost his faith. And he was the originator of it. And the first version of the Mass, which he drew up for Pope Paul VI -- you know what happened to it. He gave it to Paul VI, and two cardinals, Ottaviani and Bacci, went to Pope Paul VI and said, "Your Holiness, if you publish this Mass, we're going to declare you a heretic." They said that. So Paul VI withdrew it. He made some small changes in it, and hence we got the Novus Ordo. --Fr. Malachi B. Martin, "The Kingdom of Darkness" (audiotaped interview, 1995) The traditional Roman Mass was never forbidden, never abrogated, and never declared illegal, by any competent Roman official. But, all over the Church, there was an active and sometimes a violent policy of suppressing any trace of the traditional Roman Mass.... Without some special care, not indicated in the official text and instructions of the Novus Ordo, the ceremony of the Novus Ordo does not ensure its validity, i.e., that it achieves that presentation of Christ's Sacrifice on Calvary. As a general fact, nowadays throughout the Church such special care is rare. Consequently, the celebration of the Novus Ordo does not always result in a valid Mass. Indirectly, this result can be seen mirrored in the overall lack of sacramental reverence for the Eucharist among the clergy and the laity. - -Fr. Malachi B. Martin, Catholic Family News, April 1995, p. 4 [The National Bishops' Councils have as their ultimate objective] the liquidation of absolute papal control over the dogma and moral discipline of the Church, no longer called Roman, [which] would consist of a gaggle of "national churches" bound together by sentiment and association,... free to arrange the "national" affairs of their Church merely according to the "local culture." --Fr. Malachi B. Martin, Roman Catholic Observer, April 1995, p. 25 Let me make quite clear ... for you and for everybody listening. This man [John Paul II] is my pope. He does represent Christ. He is the Vicar of Christ for me. And if he were to speak under conditions of infallibility, I will accept what he says. But I am allowed, nay, I am obliged by my Tradition and my Faith and by previous popes to critique anybody -- priest, bishop, cardinal, or pope -- when I think they are in error.... So John Paul II has ventured out along the edges of orthodoxy in his statements and in his preaching, but whenever he taught, he has never yet taught error infallibly. He's never adopted the infallible mode. The infallible mode is something where the pope says, "I am now doing this as the head of all Catholics, I am doing it as the Successor of Peter, and it is to be held by all the faithful under pain of mortal sin." He has never done that yet. --Fr. Malachi B. Martin, Interview with Art Bell, Chancellor Networks, May 4, 1998 The prophecy of Fatima is not a pleasant document to read. There is not pleasant news. It implies -- it doesn't make any sense -- unless we accept that there will be, or that there is in progress, a wholesale apostasy amongst clerics and laity in the Catholic Church and that the institutional organization of the Roman Catholic Church, that is, the organization of parishes, dioceses, archbishops and bishops and cardinals and the Roman bureaucracies and the chanceries throughout the world -- unless that is totally disrupted and rendered null and void, the Third Secret makes no sense. And number two, the other salient characteristic about it is that it means intense suffering of the peoples. --Fr. Malachi B. Martin, Interview with Art Bell, Chancellor Networks, May 4, 1998 The fact is, I think, that once the churchmen of the Roman Catholic Church drifted into grave error after the Vatican Council, Christ said, "Okay, you want to go that way; all right, I'm not with you." And he withdrew His grace, and therefore we have this devastation of Catholic marriages, this devastation of Catholic religious orders, the major ones above all -- Jesuits, Dominicans, Carmelites, Holy Ghost Fathers -- all devastated, and the lack of cohesive theological thinking and philosophical thinking in the Church is glaring and discouraging. Christ withdrew his grace, and that was His decision in view of our infidelity because our churchmen were unfaithful, and are unfaithful to Him. I think that's where we are, but we still can have His grace, we can receive his body and blood, and we can be protected by the Angels and the Saints. But now we're in a battle; there's bloody battle going on. --Fr. Malachi B. Martin, Interview with Art Bell, Chancellor Networks, May 4, 1998 With its selections from St. Paul of such phrases as "Try everything; retain what is good," Mediator Dei was, in fact, taken by the neo- liturgists as a go-ahead for experimentation. Meanwhile the Vatican approved a liturgical updating in the way of a new Latin translation of the Psalms for the Canonical Hours. Fr. [Dieter] Bonneterre remarks [Le Mouvement Liturgique], "This version, very faithful to the Hebrew, lacks all poetic feeling. It is full of words difficult to pronounce and impossible to sing to Gregorian melodies. It remains a witness to the lack of liturgical sensitivity on the part of Augustin Bea and his fellow Jesuits at the Biblicum. --Mary Ball Martinez, The Undermining of the Catholic Church (1991) It is good to recall that our of the original twelve Apostles, only one had the courage to stand with Christ at Calvary. Traditionalists, St. John must then must be our patron, for that is what we are called upon to do now, as Christ's Church is being crucified as He was. --Michael J. Matt, "The Democratization of the Catholic Church," Remnant, October 31, 1994, p. 7. As Catholics, we must recall that the Theology of the Papacy is highly complex and must be understood in its totality. It would be nice if it were all as simple as merely being able to say of any and all bad Popes: "He's the Pope, and he can never harm the Church. We, therefore, have nothing to worry about." But we must recall the words of St. Robert Bellarmine, for example, which obviously indicate that a Pope is capable of harming the Church and so can indeed harm the Faith of believers. In his De Romano Pontifice, II:29, St. Robert Bellarmine says: "It is lawful to resist him [the Pope] when he attacks souls or troubles the state, and, above all, when he appears to be causing harm to the Church. It is lawful, I say, to resist him by not doing what he commands and by hindering the execution of his will".... Practically speaking, the majority of practicing Catholics know nothing of the Theology of the Papacy, and generally speaking most of them have a wholly inaccurate understanding of the doctrine of Papal Infallability. Somewhere between Sede-vacantism [belief that the Apostolic See is currently vacant] and Papolatry [belief that everything the Pope does is of divine authority] lies the truth. --Michael J. Matt, "The Remnant Speaks," Remnant, August 15, 1996, p. 11. The Church went to bed Catholic and woke up Modernized. -- Michael J. Matt, "On Unjust Compromise and Indults," Remnant, October 15, 1996, p. 4. One year later, I feel tranquil and consider the punishment [excommunication for co-consecrating bishops with Abp. Lefebvre] unjust and invalid.... Whoever breaks with those who broke with tradition stands with the Truth.... Is it a crime to defend the tradition of the Church?... The safekeeping and transmission of the Catholic faith is today seriously and gravely threatened by various factors, among them the new seminaries that do not provide an authentic Catholic training.... The future? That belongs to God; we trust in Providence. --Bishop de Castro Mayer, of Campos, Brazil The difference between John Paul and Davies, of course, is that the latter wishes to replace the rite of Paul VI. (But even Davies, and other stalwart Tridentine Mass devotees like the late Fr. Vincent Miceli, point out that prudence requires the new rite be left in place for those who sincerely prefer it, lest they be harmed by any sudden change.) --Roger McCaffrey, "From the Publisher," Latin Mass, July-August 1992. Tradition is more important than a pope. He himself is representative of it, and is a key element, sine qua non, of Christ's Church. --Roger McCaffrey, Latin Mass, July-August 1994 (3:4), p. 32 Latin ... was mediaeval Europe's lingua franca and its culturally preeminent instrument of thought and expression. It offered the incomparable advantage, denied to us in the modern world, of a living and learned language common to the whole of western Christendom and transcending the localism of many different languages and dialects. When its writers used the term tota latinitas (rather than the geographical designation Europa) and spoke of the orbis latinus, everyone knew they were referring to their shared Latin culture. More locally the adjective latinus could identify, for example, the Latin quarter in Paris, where the language was commonly used for both oral and written communication. --F.A.C. Mantello, The Catholic University of America Proceeding in logical order, he examined first whether the Council documents come under the Church's extraordinary or ordinary infallibility -- not under extraordinary infallibility because both Pope John XXIII and Paul VI explicitly said the Council was making no definitive declarations; nor under ordinary infallibility because ... the bishops of Vatican II presented none of their doctrines as requiring definitively to be believed. Nor are these doctrines even part of the Church's authentic (i.e., ordinary, non- universal) teaching, because the bishops expressed no intention to hand down the Deposit of the Faith; on the contrary, their spokesmen (e.g., Paul VI) expressed their intention to come to terms with the modern world and its values, long condemned by true Catholic churchmen as being intrinsically unCatholic. Therefore, the documents of Vatican II have only a Conciliar authority, the authority of that Council, but no Catholic authority at all, and no Catholic need take seriously anything Vatican II said, unless it was already Church doctrine beforehand. --Fr. Pierre Marie, editor of the French Traditional Dominicans' quarterly, Le Sel de la Terre We cannot live without Sunday. --49 Martyrs of Abitinae (A.D. 304) to the Roman magistrate who sentenced them; Christians met on Sunday even though it was a normal working day The sermons of these ancient preachers come down to us under the name of The Targuns and Midrashes. But they made no change in the ancient Hebrew of Moses and Temple, and synagogue services to our day (circa 1906) remains in the pure Hebrew, which only the learned Jews now understand. People who find fault because Mass is said in Latin, Greek , and tongues the people do not understand, do not realize that Christ worshipped in the synagogues where the services were in a dead language. --Fr. James L. Meager, D.D., How Christ Said the First Mass The Latin Church, which I constantly find myself admiring, despite its frequent astounding imbecilities, has always kept clearly before it the fact that religion is not a syllogism, but a poem.... Rome, indeed, has not only preserved the original poetry of Christianity; it has also made capital additions to that poetry -- for example, [to] the poetry ... of the liturgy itself.... A Solemn High Mass must be a thousand times as impressive, to a man with any genuine religious sense in him, as the most powerful sermon ever roared under the big top.... Let the reverend fathers go back to Bach. If they keep on spoiling poetry and spouting ideas, the day will come when some extra-bombastic deacon will astound humanity and insult God by proposing to translate the liturgy into American, that all the faithful may be convinced by it. --H.L. Mencken, Essay (1923) It is often asserted that the pressures of modern life make a daily recitation of the Rosary impractical. Nothing can be further from the truth. In fact, it is the pressures of modern life that make its daily recitation essential. Never has an active life been incompatible with prayer. We need only look at the lives of the saints to give the lie to this theory. A perfect example of this is St. Francis Borgia, who managed to combine a very busy life with an active prayer life. It was, in fact, the pressures of his world that led him to God, for he knew that one "can find true happiness nowhere but in the Cross of Christ. All the pleasures of the world seem ... heavy and wearisome when once [one has] experienced the sweetness of the Savior's yoke." -- Missionaries of the Sacred Heart 61. Jesus, our Savior, true God and true man must be the ultimate end of all our other devotions; otherwise they would be false and misleading. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and end of everything. "We labor," says St. Paul, "only to make all men perfect in Jesus Christ." For in him alone dwells the entire fullness of the divinity and the complete fullness of grace, virtue and perfection. In him alone we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing; he is the only teacher from whom we must learn; the only Lord on whom we should depend; the only Head to whom we should be united and the only model that we should imitate. He is the only Physician that can heal us; the only Shepherd that can feed us; the only Way that can lead us; the only Truth that we can believe; the only Life that can animate us. He alone is everything to us and he alone can satisfy all our desires. We are given no other name under heaven by which we can be saved. God has laid no other foundation for our salvation, perfection and glory than Jesus. Every edifice which is not built on that firm rock, is founded upon shifting sands and will certainly fall sooner or later. Every one of the faithful who is not united to him is like a branch broken from the stem of the vine. It falls and withers and is fit only to be burnt. If we live in Jesus and Jesus lives in us, we need not fear damnation. Neither angels in heaven nor men on earth, nor devils in hell, no creature whatever can harm us, for no creature can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Through him, with him, and in him, we can do all things and render all honor and glory to the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost; we can make ourselves perfect and be for our neighbor a fragrance of eternal life. 62. If then we are establishing sound devotion to our Blessed Lady, it is only in order to establish devotion to our Lord more perfectly, by providing a smooth but certain way of reaching Jesus Christ. If devotion to our Lady distracted us from our Lord, we would have to reject it as an illusion of the devil. But this is far from being the case. As I have already shown and will show again later on, this devotion is necessary, simply and solely because it is a way of reaching Jesus perfectly, loving him tenderly, and serving him faithfully. --St. Louis de Montfort, "Trait? de la vraie d?votion ? la Sainte Vierge" [Treatise on on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin] In reading the schema [on the Sacred Liturgy], I could not help thinking that, if the Church of Rome went on improving the Missal and Breviary long enough, they would one day invent the Book of Common Prayer. - -Bishop Moorman of Ripon, Anglican Observer at the Second Vatican Council, apud Michael Davies, Pope Paul's New Mass (Kansas City, MO: Angelus Press, 1980), p. 257 I do not care if I have against me all the Bishops; I have with me the Saints and all the doctors of the Church. --St. Thomas More The things I pray for, dear Lord, give me the grace to work for. -- St. Thomas More For one Bishop of your opinion, I have a hundred Saints of mine, for one parliament of yours -- and God alone knows what kind -- I have all the General Councils for a thousand years. -- St. Thomas More This man [Martin Luther] vomits ... by the mouthful. --St. Thomas More These are terrors for children, not me. --St. Thomas More to Henry VIII's Secretary Cromwell, when threatening More for not coming over to the king's schism Does not this contrast between the traitor [Judas, "so wide awake and intent on betraying the Lord that the very idea of sleep never entered his head"] and the apostles [sleeping in the Garden of Gethsemane] present to us a clear and sharp mirror image (as it were), a sad and terrible view of what has happened through the ages from those times even to our own? Why do not bishops contemplate in this scene their own somnolence? Since they have succeeded in the place of the apostles, would that they would reproduce their virtues just as eagerly as they embrace their authority and as faithfully as they display their sloth and sleepiness! For very many are sleepy and apathetic in sowing virtues among the people and maintaining the truth, while the enemies of Christ, in order to sow vices and uproot the faith..., are wide awake.... --St. Thomas More, De Tristitia Christi, 46 Even to Judas God gave many opportunities of coming to his senses. He did not deny him His companionship. He did not take away from him the dignity of his apostleship. He did not even take the purse-strings from him, even though he was a thief. He admitted the traitor to the fellowship of His beloved disciples at the Last Supper. He deigned to stoop down at the feet of the betrayer and to wash with His most innocent and sacred hands Judas' dirty feet, a fit symbol of his filthy mind.... Finally, when Judas, coming with his crew to seize him, offered him a kiss, a kiss that was in fact the terrible token of his treachery, Christ received him calmly and gently. ... Therefore, since God showed His great mercy, in so many ways even toward Judas, an apostle turned traitor, since he invited him to forgiveness so often and did not allow him to perish except through despair alone, certainly there is no reason why, in this life, anyone should despair of any imitator of Judas. Rather, according to that holy advice of the apostle, "Pray for one another, that you may be healed," if we see anyone wandering wildly from the right road, let us hope that he will one day return to the path, and meanwhile let us pray humbly and incessantly that God will hold out to him chances to come to his senses, and likewise that with God's help he will eagerly seize them, and having seized them will hold fast and not throw them way. --St. Thomas More, De Tristitia Christi The total experience -- the dim lights, the glint of the vestments, the glow of the stained-glass windows, the mantralike murmur of the Latin -- was mind-washing. It calmed the soul, opened the spirit to large, barely grasped Presences and Purposes. For a trembling moment every week, or ever day if they chose, ordinary people reached out and touched the Divine. --Charles R. Morris, American Catholic: The Saints and Sinners Who Build America's Most Powerful Church (New York: Times Books, 1997, pp. 174-175 I cannot enter into the idea of any sort of religion as mere sentiment. This to me is a dream and a mockery. --John Henry Cardinal Newman The Mass must not be said ... in any language but that in which it has come down to us from the early hierarchs of the Western Church. - -John Henry Cardinal Newman I have all that time thought that a time of widespread infidelity was coming, and through all those [50] years the waters have in fact been rising as a deluge. I look for the time, after my life, when only the tops of the mountains will be seen like islands in the waste of waters. --John Henry Cardinal Newman The Church is ever militant; sometimes she gains, sometimes she loses; and more often she is at once gaining and losing in different parts of her territory. What is ecclesiastical history but a record of the ever-doubtful fortune of the battle, though its issue is not doubtful? Scarcely are we singing the Te Deum when we have to turn to our Miserere; scarcely are we in peace, when we are in persecution; scarecely have we gained a triumph when we are visited by a scandal. Nay, we make progress by means of reverses; our griefs are our consolations; we lose Stephen to gain Paul, and Matthias replaced the traitor Judas. --John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) To the devotional mind what is new and strange is as repulsive, often as dangerous, as falsehood is to the scientific. --John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) I am suspicious of any religion that is a people's religion, or an age's religion. --John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) You want proof of the devil's existence. Show me a man who denies his existence. There's your proof! --John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) [I foresee the] day when the enemy will be both outside and inside the Church. --John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant. --John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) Therefore, when profane persons scoff at our forms, let us argue with ourselves thus -- and it is an argument which all men, learned and unlearned, can enter into: These forms, even were they of mere human origin (which learned men say is not the case, but even if they were), are at least of a spiritual and edifying character as the rites of Judaism. And yet Christ and His Apostles did not even suffer these latter to be irreverently treated or suddenly discarded. Much less may we suffer it in the case of our own; lest stripping off from us the badges of our profession, we forget that there is a faith to maintain and a world of sinners to be eschewed. --John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) There is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the Church of Christ as in a net, Apostasy and all its tokens and instruments are of the evil one and savior of death. He offers baits to tempt men: he promises liberty, equality (sounds like VII?), trade and wealth, remission of taxes, reforms. He promises illumination, knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by, at sacred traditions, at every institution, which reveres them. He bids man mount aloft, to become a god. He laughs and jokes with men, gets intimate with them, takes their hands, gets his fingers between theirs, grasps them and then they are his. --John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) I thank God that I live in a day when the enemy is outside the Church, and I know where he is, and what he is up to. But, I foresee a day when the enemy will be both outside and inside the Church ... and, I pray for the poor faithful who will be caught in the crossfire. --John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) To one great mischief I have from the first opposed myself. For thirty, forty, fifty years, I have resisted to the best of my power the spirit of liberalism in religion. Never did Holy Church need champions against it more sorely than now, when, alas, it is an error overspreading as a snare the whole earth. Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another, and this is the teaching which is gaining substance and force daily. It is inconsistent with any recognition of religion as true. It teaches that all are to be tolerated, for all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not miraculous; and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy. Devotion is not necessarily founded on faith. Men may go to Protestant Churches and to Catholic, may get good from both and belong to neither. They may fraternise together in spiritual thoughts and feelings, without having any views at all of doctrines in common, or seeing the need of them. Since, then religion is so personal a peculiarity and so private a possession, we must of necessity ignore it in the intercourse of man with man. If a man puts on a new religion every morning, what is that to you? It is as impertinent to think about a man's religion as about his sources of income or his management of his family. Religion is in no sense the bond of society. --John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), 1879, in his "bigletto" speech, upon receiving the cardinal's hat I know that all times are perilous, and that in every time serious and anxious minds, alive to the honor of God and the needs of man, are apt to consider no times as perilous as their own. At all times the enemy of souls assaults with fury the Church which is their true Mother.... Doubtless, but still admitting this, still I think that the trails which lie before us are such as would appall and make dizzy even such courageous hearts as St. Athanasius, St. Gregory I, or St. Gregory VII. And they would confess that dark as the prospect of their own day, ours has a darkness different in kind from any that has been before it. The special peril of the time before us is the spread of that plague of infidelity, that the Apostles and our Lord Himself have predicted as the worst calamity of the last times of the Church.... I do not mean to presume to say that this is the last time, but that it has had the evil prerogative of being like that more terrible season, when it is said that the elect themselves will be in danger of falling away. Christianity has never yet had the experience of a world simply irreligious. The Roman and Greek world when Christianity appeared was full of superstition, not of infidelity.... Even among the skeptics of Athens, St. Paul could appeal to the Unknown God. But we are now coming to a time when the world does not acknowledge our first principles. As in the revolted kingdom of Israel, there will be a remnant. The history of Elias is here a great consolation for us, for he was told from heaven that even in that time of idolatrous apostasy, there were seven thousand men who had not bowed their knees to Baal. --John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), Address on the Opening of a Seminary, 1873 Here I draw the reader's attention to the words "material" and "formal". "Thou shalt not kill": murder is the formal transgression of this commandment, but accidental homicide is the material transgression. The matter of the act is the same in both cases, but in the homicide there is nothing more than the act, whereas in murder there must be the intention, etc., which constitutes the formal sin. So, again, an executioner commits the material act, but not that formal killing which is a breach of the commandment. So a man, who, simply to save himself from starving, takes a loaf which is not his own, commits only the material, not the formal act of stealing, this is, he does not commit a sin. And so a baptized Christian, external to the Church, who is in invincible ignorance, is a material heretic, and not a formal. --John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801- 1890), Apologia pro Vita Sua, 1864 It is not a little remarkable that, though historically speaking the fourth century is the age of the doctors, illustrated as it is, by the Saints Athanasius, Hilary, the two Gregories, Basil, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine (and all those saints bishops also, except one, nevertheless in that very day the divine tradition committed to the infallible Church was proclaimed and maintained far more by the faithful than by the episcopate.... I mean still, that in that time of immense confusion the divine dogma of Our Lord's divinity was proclaimed, enforced, maintained, and (humanly speaking) preserved, far more by the Ecclesia docta ("the taught Church" -- the faithful) than by the Ecclesia docens ("the teaching Church" -- the Magisterium); that the body of the Episcopate was unfaithful to its commission, while the body of the laity was faithful to its baptism.... On the one hand, then, I say that there was a temporary suspension of the functions of the Ecclesia docens. The body of bishops failed in their confession of the faith. There was weakness, fear of consequences, misguidance, delusion ... extending itself into nearly every corner of the Catholic Church. --John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), The Arians of the Fourth Century, 1833 The episcopate, whose action was so prompt and concordant at Nicaea on the rise of Arianism, did not, as a class or order of men, play a good part in the troubles consequent upon the Council; and the laity did. The Catholic people, in the length and breadth of Christendom, were the obstinate champions of Catholic truth, and the bishops were not. Of course, there were great and illustrious exceptions; first, Athanasius, Hilary, the Latin Eusebius, and Phoebadius; and after them, Basil, the two Gregories, and Ambrose;... And again, in speaking of the laity, I speak inclusively of their parish-priests (so to call them), at least in many places; but on the whole, taking a wide view of the history, we are obliged to say that the governing body of the Church came short, and the governed were pre- eminent in faith, zeal, courage, and constancy. This is a very remarkable fact; but there is a moral in it. Perhaps it was permitted in order to impress upon the Church at that very time passing out of her state of persecution to her long temporal ascendancy, the greatest evangelical lesson, that, not the wise and powerful, but the obscure, the unlearned, and the weak constitute her real strength. It was mainly by the faithful people that Paganism was overthrown; it was by the faithful people, under the lead of Athanasius and the Egyptian bishops, and in some places supported by their Bishops or priests, that the worst of heresies was withstood and stamped out of the sacred territory. --John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), The Arians of the Fourth Century, 1833 It [the Traditional Latin Mass] is virtually unchanged since the third century. --John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), Callistus ...Neither Pope nor Council are on a level with the Apostles. To the Apostles the whole revelation was given, by the Church it is transmitted; no simply new truth has been given to us since St. John's death; the one office of the Church is to guard "that noble deposit" of truth, as St. Paul speaks to Timothy, which the Apostles bequeathed to her, in its fulness and integrity. Hence the infallibility of the Apostles was of a far more positive and wide character than that needed by and granted to the Church. We call it, in the case of the Apostles, inspiration; in the case of the Church, assistentia. --John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), Infallibility and Conscience To me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses forever and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words, it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope, and the interpretation, of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends; they are not mere addresses to the throne of grace, they are instruments of what is higher, of consecration, of sacrifice.... Each in his own place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intentions, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation; not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but like a concert of musical instruments, each different but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest supporting him yet guided by him.... And the great Action is the measure and the scope of it. --John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801- 1890), Loss and Gain (1848) Those therefore who after the manner of wicked heretics dare to set aside ecclesiastical traditions, and to invent any kind of novelty, or to reject any written or unwritten Tradition of the Church, or who wrongfully and outrageously devise the destruction of any of those Traditions enshrined in the Catholic Church, are to be punished thus: if they are bishops, we order them to be deposed, but if they are monks or laypersons, we command them to be excluded from the community. --Second Council of Nicaea (787) I think that for a lot of people, the Latin Mass, accompanied by the music, incense, icons, and art, inspired people in the sense of being involved in something special and something out of the ordinary.... It's like Robert Stone said: "The Church I left no longer exists." In an effort to make the Mass more "relevant" -- that horrible catchword from the 60's, the Church made it irrelevant in many Catholics' spiritual lives. --Peter Occhiogrosso, Once a Catholic: Prominent Catholics and Ex-Catholics Reveal the Influence of the Church on Their Lives Let the King do as his mother and all preceding kings of Scotland did: ... why does he seek for more than the inheritance of rights they left him? They never had any faith other than the faith that is Roman and Catholic. --Blessed John Ogilvie, one of the martyrs of the English Reformation Of a truth, God willed to prepare the nations for His teaching, and provided that they should submit to one Roman Emperor. Nor should there be a plurality of kings and nations alienated from one another, to make it more difficult for the Apostles to follow what was commanded of them by the words of Christ, "Go ye forth and teach all nations." And so, it was constituted for Jesus to be born under Augustus who, in one great kingdom, had congregated the multitudes scattered over the world." --Origen, Contra Celsum, 2:412:30 (cf. Dante Alighieri, De Monarchia) In the first three centuries, ascetics and virgins did not live in common; they stayed in the world. Without any public ceremonies, such as were later introduced, they committed themselves to keep chaste "for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" and lived among the other members of the Christian community, in their own homes, owning property, and earning their living by work. --Jose Orlandis, A Short History of the Catholic Church, p. 51 Many famous bishops, such as St. Ambrose of Milan and Eusebius of Vercelli, fostered monastic life among the clergy of their churches. An outstanding example of this was St. Augustine who, after becoming bishop of Hippo, brought his clergy together in his home and established a system of life in common. --Jose Orlandis, A Short History of the Catholic Church, p. 53 You know, a time will come when a man will no longer be able to say, "I speak Latin and am a Christian" and go his way in peace. There will come frontiers, frontiers of all kinds -- between men -- and there will be no end to them. --John Osborne, Luther, 2:4, spoken by St. Giacomo Tommaso de Vio Gaetani (Cajetan) (1469-1534) to Martin Luther I must tell you that, when on an official visit to Rome last September [1992], other Irish bishops and I visited the Commission, Ecclesia Dei. The President, [Antonio] Cardinal Innocenti, opened the discussion by telling us that this was a temporary Commission which is to work itself out of existence. The cardinal explained very clearly to us that the use of the "Novus Ordo" (the present form of Mass) was an order by the Pope, whereas "Ecclesia Dei" was a pastoral desire of the Pope that bishop would give consideration, in a pastoral way, to request for the Tridentine Rite Mass. It is not then a matter of the bishop obeying or disobeying the Pope; it is a matter of pastoral responsibility, of what is good for the Church as a whole in the diocese. I have given very serious consideration to the matter and, before God, I do not consider that the celebration of the Tridentine Mass would be pastorally beneficial for the Church in the diocese. --Bishop Diarmaid O'Sullieabhean, Irish bishops' representative on the International Committee for English in the Liturgy (ICEL) So far from being a cool (which, I suppose, implies cold-blooded and inhumane) diplomatist, Pius XII was the most warmly humane, kind, generous, sympathetic (and incidentally saintly) character that it has been my privilege to meet in the course of a long life. --Francis Osborne, Britain's wartime Ambassador to the Vatican It is rather strong to claim that the New Mass is contrary to the Council of Trent but, displeasing as it is, it is true. --Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, Cardinal Prefect of the Supreme Holy Office I pray to God that I may die before the end of the council -- in that way I can die a Catholic. --Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, June 1962, Cardinal Prefect of the Supreme Holy Office, following a speech by Cardinal Montini (the future Paul VI) on the need for changes in the Church Are we seeking to stir up wonder, or perhaps scandal, among the Christian people, by introducing changes in so venerable a rite that has been approved for so many centuries and is now so familiar? The rite of Holy Mass should not be treated as if it were a piece of cloth to be refashioned according to the whim of each generation. --Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, Cardinal Prefect of the Holy Office, 1962, apud Ralph M. Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows into the Tiber (Tan Books, 1967), p. 28 It is obvious that the New Order of Mass has no intention of presenting the Faith taught by the Council of Trent. But it is to this Faith that the Catholic conscience is bound forever. Thus, with the promulgation of the New Order of Mass, the true Catholic is faced with a tragic need to choose. --Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, The Ottaviani Intervention, Sec. VI The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against other bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres [other priests]. The churches and altars will be devastated and sacked, and the Sacred Hosts will be underfoot. Satan stalks among the bishops, the prelates, lay people, and cardinals. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises, and the demon will press many priests and consecrated [religious] souls to leave the service of the Lord. The demon will be especially implacable against the souls consecrated to God. -- Our Lady of Akita, Japan, Message of October 13, 1973; approved April 1984 by the Most Rev. John Shojiro Ito, Bishop of Niigata, Japan, and June 1988 by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith The Church will be in eclipse.... Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the Antichrist. --Our Lady of La Salette (September 19, 1846) Christian is my name, and Catholic my surname. The one designates me, while the other makes me specific. Thus, I am attested and set apart.... When we are called Catholics, it is by this appellation that our people are kept apart from any heretical name. --St. Pacian, Bishop of Barcelona, Spain, letter to the Novationist Sympronian, 1:4 , ca. 385 I found that there is not fact or hypothesis of modern physics or astronomy which cannot be comfortably accommodated inside the ample arms of the Church. I discovered that, historical speaking, people seem to leave the Church because they want forbidden things, never because they want a deeper truth. I found that people enter the Church because they want the fulfillment of either heart of brain or soul. Many men have abandoned Rome because they wished to worship at the altar of man's self-sufficient intellect; nobody ever left the Church because the best in him could not find fulfillment there. --Gretta Palmer, prominent freelance journalist, 1974 There seems nothing unreasonable in thinking that the Roman Liturgy, as used in the time of Gregory the great, may have existed from a period of the most remote antiquity. --Sir William Palmer, historian The two essentials for good government are power and gentleness. By the first Christ achieves His ends, by the second He uses such means as harmonize with the nature of secondary agents.... Fortiter et suaviter. -- Pius Parrsch, The Church's Year of Grace, (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, c. 1962), vol I, p. 178 We declare that if ever it should appear that any bishop, even one acting as an Archbishop, Patriarch, or Primate, or a Cardinal of the Roman Church, or a legate, or even the Roman Pontiff, whether prior to his promotion to cardinal, or prior to his election as Roman Pontiff, has beforehand deviated from the Catholic faith or fallen into any heresy, We enact, we decree, we determine, we define: Such promotion or election in and of itself, even with the agreement and unanimous consent of all the Cardinals, shall be null, legally invalid, and void. It shall not be possible for such a promotion or election to be deemed valid or to be valid, neither through reception of office, consecration, subsequent administration, or possession, not even through the putative enthronement of a Roman Pontiff himself, together with the veneration and obedience accorded him by all. Such promotion or election shall not through any lapse of time in the foregoing situation be considered even partially legitimate in any way.... Each and all of the words, as acts, laws, appointments of those so promoted or elected -- and indeed, whatsoever flows therefrom -- shall be lacking in force, and shall grant no stability and legal power to anyone whatsoever. Those so promoted or elected, by that very fact and without the need to make any further declaration, shall be deprived of any dignity, position, honor, title, authority, office, and power.... Therefore, it is permitted to no one to impair this page of Our approval, renewal, sanction, statute, wills of repeal, of degrees, or to go contrary to it by a rash daring deed. If anyone, moreover, will have presumed to attempt this, he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. --Pope Paul IV (1559-1566), Bull "Cum ex Apostolatus Officio," February 16, 1559, sec. 9 The Church truly is according to Christ's spirit preserved in Holy Scripture and Apostolic Tradition, interpreted and developed by the authentic tradition of the Church. --Pope Paul VI There is in the Church a type of thinking that is non-Catholic, and although it is possible that it may become prevalent, it will never be the Catholic Church. --Pope Paul VI to Jean Guitton, French philosopher and close friend, toward the end of the pope's life, apud "Paul VI's Secret" When it is a matter of the language used in public worship, think seriously before you decide that those parts of the liturgy which belong to the priest should be in any other language than that handed down to us by our forebears; for only thus will the unity of the Mystical Body at prayer and the accuracy of the sacred formularies be maintained. --Pope Paul VI, The Tablet, January 11, 1964 The magisterium of the Church did not wish to pronounce itself under the form of extraordinary dogmatic pronouncements.... --Pope Paul VI, discourse closing Vatican II, December 7, 1965 [Vatican II] had avoided proclaiming in an extraordinary manner of dogmata having the mark of infallibility. --Pope Paul VI, Audience of January 12, 1966 Some persons speak of reforming the Church and giving up the Church's laws, traditions, and aspirations.... They feel that the whole structure of the Church should be revised, and that the laws of the Church are outmoded and out-of-step with the present times. Those persons are not on the right road. They bring sorrow to the Church and undermine her spiritual and social structure. --Pope Paul VI, February 21, 1966 Latin is still the official language of the Catholic Church despite the new vernacular liturgy. Latin will live again with greater impetus, despite fears for its survival. --Pope Paul VI, April 10, 1966 Out of our good will and high esteem for you we cannot permit something that could be the cause of your own downfall, that could be the source of serious loss to you, and that surely would afflict the Church of God with sickness and sadness. Even if you are reluctant, allow us to defend your real interests.... The same Church gives you the mandate to safeguard the traditional dignity, beauty, and gravity of the choral office in both its language [Latin] and its chant.... Obey the commands that a great love for your own ancient observances itself suggests.... [The failure to use Latin] attacks not only this bountiful spring of civilization, this rich treasure of piety, but attacks too the decorum, the beauty, and the original vigor of the prayer and song of the liturgy. The Latin language is assuredly worthy of being defended with great care instead of being scorned; for the Latin Church it is the most abundant source of Christian civilization and the richest treasury of piety.... We must not hold in low esteem these traditions of your fathers, which were your glory for centuries. --Pope Paul VI, Sacrificium Laudis, August 15, 1966, Epistle to Superiors General of Clerical Religious Institutes Bound to Choir, on the Celebration of the Divine Office in Latin The tail of the devil is functioning in the disintegration of the Catholic world. --Pope Paul VI, October 5, 1967 The Church finds herself in an hour of anxiety, a disturbed period of self-criticism, or what would even better be called self-demolition [auto- destruction]. It is an interior upheaval, acute and complicated, which nobody expected after the Council. It is almost as if the Church were attacking itself. We looked forward to a flowering, a serene expansion of conceptions which matured in the great sessions of the council. But ... one must notice above all the sorrowful aspect. It is as if the Church were destroying herself. --Pope Paul VI, December 7, 1968, Address to the Lombard Seminary at Rome This method, "on the tongue," must be retained. --Pope Paul VI, Apostolic Letter Memoriale Domini, May 29, 1969 A new rite of Mass: a change in the venerable tradition that has gone on for centuries. This is something that affects our hereditary religious patrimony, which seemed to enjoy the privilege of being untouchable and settled. --Pope Paul VI, General Audience Address of November 26, 1969 The Latin language will not thereby disappear. It will continue to be the noble language of the Holy See's official acts; it will remain as the means of teaching in ecclesiastical studies and as the key to the patrimony of our religious, historical and human culture. If possible, it will reflourish in splendor. --Pope Paul VI, General Audience Address, November 26, 1969 We are parting with the speech of the Christian centuries; we are becoming like profane intruders in the literary preserve of sacred utterance.... We have reason for regret, reason almost for bewilderment. What can we put in the place of that language of the angels? We are giving up something of priceless worth. Why? What is more preciouis than these loftiest of our Church's values? --Pope Paul VI, General Audience Address, November 26, 1969 An offense to Rome, and a self-inflicted mutilation of Roman culture. --Pope Paul VI, January 1970, reproaching the Italian state for abolishing Latin the middle schools, when receiving the Mayor of Rome We have the impression that through some cracks in the wall the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God: it is doubt, uncertainty, questioning, dissatisfaction, confrontation.... We thought that after the Council a day of sunshine would have dawned for the history of the Church. What dawned, instead, was a day of clouds and storms, of darkness, of searching and uncertainties. --Pope Paul VI, June 29, 1972, Homily during the Mass for Sts. Peter & Paul, on the occasion of the ninth anniversary of his coronation What strikes me when I look at the Church is that within Catholicism, within the Catholic Church, there is a non-Catholic thinking. It is very possible that this non-Catholic thinking in the Catholic church will prevail, but it will never represent the Catholic Church. Something must remain. A little flock must remain, however small it may be. --Pope Paul VI to Jean Guitton (Paul VI Secret), French philosopher and close friend of Pope Paul VI September 7, 1977 The tail of the devil is functioning in the disintegration of the Catholic world. The darkness of Satan has entered and spread throughout the Catholic Church even to its summit. Apostasy, the loss of the faith, is spreading throughout the world and into the highest levels within the Church. --Pope Paul VI, October 13, 1977, Address on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Fatima Apparitions The New Mass is not an official Mass of the Catholic Church.... [It] is in itself a danger to the faith and is intrinsically evil. --Fr. James Peek's SSPX Holy Cross Seminary Letter to Friends and Benefactors, July 3, 1996, p. 2 1) The second Diocesan Commission, which worked from 1984 to 1986, voted explicitly on 2 May 1986, by an overwhilming majority for the Non constate de supernaturalitate (11 negative votes, 2 positive, 1 in nucleo, 1 in abstention). 2) The declaration of the Episcopal Conference of 1991 stated: "On the basis of studies conducted so far, it cannot be affirmed that supernatural apparitions and revelations are occurring." ...My conviction and my position is not only Non constat de supernaturalitate, but also Constat de non supernaturalitate as regards the apparitions or revelations of Medjugorje. --Msgr. Ratko Peric, Bishop of Mostar, Letter of October 2, 1997, to M. Thierry Boutet, Editor of the journal Edifa. If the church is singing the same tune as everybody else, who needs the church? That's why I am persuaded that celibacy is much more important than it has ever been before.... The church and celibacy represent a "countercultural force" ["a contradiction to world values"] showing that there is more to life than the pursuit of personal satisfaction. -- Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, Chairman of the U.S. Bishops' Conference, at the Vatican Synod on the Clergy, October 5, 1990 The Latin Tridentine Mass is not a schismatic Mass. --Fr. Manuel Pinon, O.P., Latin Mass, November-December 1992, p. 2 The harm that comes to souls from the lack of reading holy books makes me shudder.... What power spiritual reading has to lead to a change, of course, and to make even worldly people enter into the way of perfection. --Padre Pio of Petrelcina (1887-1968), Letter to his spiritual director, Fr. Agostino Blasphemies cross my mind incessantly, and even more so false ideas, ideas of infidelity and unbelief. I feel my soul transfixed at every instant of my life, it kills me.... My faith is upheld only by a constant effort of my will against every kind of human persuasion. My faith is only the fruit of the continual efforts that I exact of myself. And all of this, Father, is not something that happens a few times a day, but it is continuous.... Father, how difficult it is to believe! --Padre Pio of Petrelcina (1887-1968), Letter to his spiritual director, Fr. Agostino By this our decree, to be valid in perpetuity, we determine and order that never shall anything be added to, omitted from, or changed in this [Traditional Roman Catholic] missal. --Pope St. Pius V, Quo Primum All the evils of the world are due to lukewarm Catholics. --Pope St. Pius V They knew the capacity of innovators in the art of deception. In order not to shock the ears of Catholics, the innovators sought to hide the subtleties of their tortuous maneuvers by the use of seemingly innocuous words7 such as would allow them to insinuate error into souls in the most gentle manner. Once the truth had been compromised, they could, by means of slight changes or additions in phraseology, distort the confession of the faith that is necessary for our salvation, and lead the faithful by subtle errors to their eternal damnation. This manner of dissimulating and lying is vicious, regardless of the circumstances under which it is used. For very good reasons it can never be tolerated in a synod of which the principal glory consists above all in teaching the truth with clarity and excluding all danger of error. --Pope Pius VI, "Auctorem fidei," August 28, 1794 [describing the deceptive tactics of the Modernists by manipulating language, "Vatican II-speak"] I am left with my back to the wall. God Himself will see to the saving of His Church." --Pope Pius VII (1800-1823), while captive in Savona in 1809 and the Church all but lost to Napoleon Obversari enim tibi debuisset ante oculos, quod constanter et praedecessores Nostri monuerunt, nimirum, si sacra Biblia vulgari lingua passim sine discrimine permittantur, plus inde detrimenti quam utilitatis oriri.... Sane cum in vernaculo sermone creberrimas animadvertamus vicissitudines, varietates, commutationesque, profecto ex immoderata biblicarum versionum licentia immutabilitas illa convelleretur, quae divina decet testimonia, et fides ipsa nutaret, cum praesertim ex unius syllabae ratione quandoque de dogmatis veritate dignoscatur. [For you should have kept before your eyes the warnings which Our predecessors have constantly given, namely, that, if the sacred books are permitted everywhere without discrimination in the vulgar tongue, more damage will arise from this than advantage.... Since in vernacular speech we notice very frequent interchanges, varieties, and changes, surely by an unrestrained license of Biblical versions that changelessness which is proper to the divine testimony would be utterly destroyed, and faith itself would waver, when, especially, from the meaning of one syllable sometimes an understanding about the truth of a dogma is formed. --Pope Pius VII (1800- 1823), Epistle "Magno et acerbo" to the Archbishop of Mohileff, September 3, 1816, Denz. 1603-1604) What! In my lifetime! I admire your imprudence. The Church to canonize her Saints waits till they are dead, and long dead. Humanity should be in no greater haste to canonize her heroes, for so long as a man breathes, no one can aver that his heroism will not belie itself. --Pope Pius IX, answering a number of his contemporaries, who wanted to call him "Great" similar to his most inimitable predecessors Leo and Gregory; despite being touched by their sincerity and admiration, he, nevertheless, refused the honor with this mild rebuke Liberal Catholics are the worst enemies of the Church. --Pope Pius IX The essential beauty [of the Mass] remains, whether the holy rite be performed under the golden vault of St. Peter's or in a wretched wigwam, erected in haste by some poor savages for their missionary. --Pope Pius IX Not content like our Predecessors, Pius X and Benedict XV, simply to approve this pronunciation [more Romano, in the Roman style], We ourselves express the keenest desire that ... every nation shall endeavor to adopt it when carrying out the liturgical functions. --Pope Pius IX, Letter to Cardinal Dubois of Paris It must indeed be held as being of Faith that nobody can be saved outside the Apostolic Roman Church, the only ark of salvation, into which if anybody does not enter he will perish by the flood; but it must nevertheless be likewise held for certain that those who suffer from ignorance of the true religion, provided that it is invincible, will not be held accountable for this. --Pope Pius IX, Singulari quadam (Allocution against the Errors of Rationalism and Indifferentism), December 9, 1854 (Denziger-Bannwart 1647). And here, beloved Sons and Venerable Brethren, it is necessary once more to mention and censure the serious error into which some Catholics have unfortunately fallen. For they are of the opinion that men who live in errors, estranged from the true faith and from Catholic unity, can attain eternal life. This is in direct opposition to Catholic teaching. We all know that those who are afflicted with invincible ignorance with regard to our holy religion, if they carefully keep the precepts of the natural law that have been written by God in the hearts of all men, if they are prepared to obey God, and if they lead a virtuous and dutiful life, can attain eternal life by the power of divine light and grace. For God, Who reads comprehensively in every detail the minds and souls, the thoughts and habits of all men, will not permit, in accordance with His infinite goodness and mercy, anyone who is not guilty of a voluntary fault to suffer eternal torments (suppliciis). However, also well-known is the Catholic dogma that no one can be saved outside the Catholic Church, and that those who obstinately oppose the authority and definitions of the church, and who stubbornly remain separated form the unity of the Church and from the successor of Peter, the Roman Pontiff (to whom the Saviour has entrusted the care of His vineyard), cannot attain salvation. --Pope Pius IX, Quanto conficiamur moerore, August 10, 1863 (Denziger 1677; Denziger-Schonmetzer 2866, 2867) The Church has no right whatsoever to touch the institution and form of the Sacraments. --Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914) I want my people to be moved to prayer by beauty. --Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914) Every piece of music Bach wrote is appropriate to be played during a Catholic Mass. --Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914) St. Thomas Aquinas is the antidote to Modernism. --Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914) These miserable wretches {Modernists], whom by the command of the Apostle St. John we should refuse even to greet, for the Apostle St. John says that we should not greet those who are heretics. --Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914), Letter to Cardinal Ferrari of Milan I am astonished that you should find excessive the measures taken to confine the flood that threatens to swamp us, when the [Modernist] error they are striving to spread is much more deadly than that of Luther, because it aims directly at the destruction not only of the Church but of Christianity. --Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914), Letter to Archbishop Geremia Bonomelli of Cremona Kindness is for fools. They want them [Modernists} to be treated with oil, soap, and caresses, but they should be beaten with fists! In a duel, you don't count or measure the blows, you strike as you can! War is not made with charity; it is a struggle, a duel. If Our Lord were not terrifying, he would not have given an example in this too. See how he treated the Philistines, the sowers of error, the wolves in sheep's clothing, the traitors in the temple. He scourged them with whips! -- Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914), Letter to Archbishop Geremia Bonomelli of Cremona There are too many who have turned aside from the truth and in demanding a reform of discipline, there also to aspire to a reform of dogma and to harass the Church with the sophisms used by its most violent opponents [Modernists]. --Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914), Letter to Archbishop Geremia Bonomelli of Cremona The true friends of the people are neither the revolutionaries nor the innovators. They are the traditionalists. --Pope St. Pius X (1903- 1914), Letter on the Sillon, August 25, 1910 Let us not set foot in the opposing camp, because we would thus be giving the enemy a proof of our weakness, which the enemy would try to interpret as a sign of weakness and complicity. --Pope St. Pius X (1903- 1914) The greatest obstacle in the apostolate of the Church is the timidity, or rather the cowardice, of the faithful. --Pope St. Pius X (1903- 1914) The Holy Mass is a prayer itself, even the highest prayer that exists. It is the Sacrifice, dedicated by Our Redeemer at the Cross, and repeated every day at the Altar. If you wish to hear Mass as it should be heard, you must follow with eye, heart, and mouth all that happens at the Altar. Further, you must pray with the Priest the holy words said by him in the Name of Christ and which Christ says by him. You have to assoicate your heart with the holy feelings which are contained in these words, and in this manner you ought to follow all that happens on the Altar. When acting in this way you have prayed Holy Mass. --Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914) Attempting to reconcile our Faith with the modern mentality leads not only to weakening of that Faith, but to its total destruction. -- Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914) [Gregorian chant,] the chant proper to the Roman Church, ... which she directly proposes to the faithful as her own. --Pope St. Pius X (1903- 1914) We are unable to favor this [Zionist] movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem, but we could never sanction it. The ground of Jerusalem, if it were not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church, I cannot answer you otherwise. The Jews have not recognized Our Lord; therefore, we cannot recognize the Jewish people.... If you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we will be ready with priests and churches to baptize all of you. --Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914) to Theodore Herzl In our time more than ever before, the greatest asset of the liars is the cowardice and weakness of good men, and all the vigor of Satan's reign is due to the easy-going weakness of Catholics.... And this reproach can be leveled at the weak and timid Catholics of all countries. --Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914), Beatification of Joan of Arc, December 13, 1898 Henceforth the enemy of the Church is no longer outside the Church; he is now within. --Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914), Encyclical E supremi apostolatus, October 4, 1903 For it is vain for us to hope to bring down upon ourselves, to this end, the abundance of the blessings of heaven if our homage to the Most High, instead of rising in an odor of sweetness, on the contrary places in the hand of the Lord the scourge with which our Divine Redeemer once chased the vile profaners from the Temple. --Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914), Inter Pastoris Officii Sollicitudines (Tra le Solecitudine), November 22, 1903 Kingdoms and empires have faded; time after time nations have toppled under the weight of years. Yet the Church, indefectible by her essence and united by an indissoluble tie with her Heavenly spouse, remains today radiant with eternal youth and strong with the same primitive force she possessed as she issued forth from the Heart of Christ dying on the Cross. Powerful men of the world have attacked her. They have vanished, yet she remains. Countless philosophical systems, of every possible form, have taken sides against her, claiming to be her masters, boasting to have destroyed her teaching and demolished her dogmas of faith by proving their absurdity. One after the other, however they have passed into oblivion. But all the while the light of truth shines forth...." --Pope St. Pius X (1903- 1914), Iucunda Sane, December 3, 1904 One of the primary obligations assigned by Christ to the office committed to Us of feeding the Lord's flock is that of guarding with the greatest vigilance the Deposit of Faith delivered to the Saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words, and the gainsaying of knowledge falsely so- called.... We may no longer keep silent [against the Modernists], lest we should seem to fail in our essential duty." --Pope St. Pius X (1903- 1914), Encyclical Letter Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, Sec. 1 We admonish professors to bear well in mind that they cannot set aside St. Thomas, especially in metaphysical questions, without grave disadvantage. --Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914), Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907 The partisans of errors are to be sought not only among the Church's open enemies; but, what is to be most dreaded and deplored, in her very bosom, and are the more mischievous the less they keep in the open. We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many who belong to the catholic laity, and what is much more sad, to the ranks of the priesthood itself .. thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church. -- Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914), Encyclical Letter Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907 Modernists vent all their bitterness and hatred on Catholics who zealously fight the battles of the church. There is no species of insult which they do not heap upon them, but their usual course is to charge them with ignorance or obstinacy. When an adversary rises up against them with an erudition and force that renders them redoubtable, they seek to make a conspiracy of silence around him to nullify the effects of his attack. - - Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914), Encyclical Letter Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907 For Catholics, nothing will remove the authority of the Second Council of Nicaea, where it condemns those who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics to deride ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind or to endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church. --Pope St. Pius X (1903- 1914), Encyclical Letter Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907 In their [the Modernists'] books, one finds some things that might well be approved by a Catholic, but on turning over the page, one is confronted by other things that might well have dictated by a Rationalist. - -Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914), Encyclical Letter Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907 They lay the ax not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibers. And once having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to diffuse poison through the whole tree so that there is no part of the Catholic truth which they leave untouched, none that they do not strive to corrupt. Further, none is more skillful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious devices, for they play the double part of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and as audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance. --Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914), Encyclical Letter Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907 Revelation, constituting the object of the Catholic faith, was not completed with the Apostles. --Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914), Lamentabili sane, March 7, 1907, Proposition 21, condemned The fact that many Catholic writers also go beyond the limits determined by the Fathers and the Church herself is extremely regrettable. In the name of higher knowledge and historical research (they say), they are looking for that progress of dogmata which is, in reality, nothing but the corruption of dogmata. --Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914), Lamentabili sane, March 7, 1907 We do by Our Apostolic authority repeat and confirm both that decree of the Supreme Sacred Congregation and those Encyclical Letters of ours, adding the penalty of excommunication against their contradictors, and this we declare and decree that should anybody, which, may God forbid, be so rash as to defend any one of the propositions, opinions, or teachings condemned in these documents, he falls, ipso facto, under the censure contained under the chapter "Docentes" of the Constitution "Apostolicae Sedis," which is the first among the excommunications latae sententiae, simply reserved to the Roman Pontiff. This excommunication is to be understood as salvis poenis, which may be incurred by those who have violated in any way the said documents, as propagators and defenders of heresies, when their propositions, opinions, and teachings are heretical, as has happened more than once in the case of the adversaries of both these documents, especially when they advocate the errors of the Modernists that is, the synthesis of all heresies. Pope St. Pius X (1903- 1914), Motu Proprio "Praestantia Scripturae," November 18, 1907 The gravity of the evil [of Modernism] is daily growing and must be checked at any cost. We are no longer dealing, as at the beginning, with opponents 'in sheep's clothing,' but with open and bare-faced enemies in our very household, who, having made a pact with the chief foes of the Church are bent on overthrowing the Faith. These are men whose haughtiness in the face of heavenly wisdom is daily renewed, claiming the right to correct it as if it were corrupted. They want to renovate it as if it were consumed by old age, increase it and adapt it to worldly tastes, progress and comforts, as if it were opposed not just to the frivolity of a few, but to the good of society. There will never be enough vigilance and firmness on the part of those entrusted with the faithful safe-keeping of the sacred deposit of evangelical doctrine and ecclesiastical tradition, in order to oppose these onslaughts against it." --Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914), Motu Proprio "Sacrorum Antistitum," 1910 Let not the priesthood be misled by the miracles of a false democracy into the maze of modern ideas; let it not borrow from the rhetoric of the worst enemies of the Church, the high-flown phrases, full of promises, which are as high-sounding as unrealizable. --Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914), Letter Notre Charge Apostolique, August 25, 1910 In order that the faithful may more actively participate in divine worship, let them be made once more to sing the Gregorian chant. --Pope Pius XI Lingua Latina, quam dicere Catholicam vere possumus [the Latin language, which we can truly say is Catholic]. --Pope Pius XI [The Mass] is the most important organ of the ordinary magisterium of the Church. --Pope Pius XI From the nature of His work the Redeemer ought to have associated His Mother with His work. For this reason We invoke her under the title of Co-redemptrix. She gave us the Savior, she accompanied Him in the work of Redemption as far as the Cross itself, sharing with Him the sorrows of the agony and of the death in which Jesus consummated the Redemption of mankind. --Pope Pius XI, Allocution to Pilgrims from Vicenza assembled in Rome for the Jubilee of the Redemption, Nov. 30, 1933 The family is more sacred than the state. --Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii (December 31, 1930), para. 69 To the end that the faithful may take a more active part in divine worship, Gregorian chant ought to be restored among the people, at least in all that applies to them.... Moved by the beauty of the liturgy, they ought to take part in the sacred ceremonies,... raising their voices according to the rules laid down, to alternate with the voice of the priest and that of the choir. --Pope Pius XI, Divini Cultus And it is wonderful how, from the earliest times, those simple chants which adorn the sacred prayers and the liturgical action contributed to the fostering of popular piety. For especially in the ancient basilicas, where bishops, clergy, and people joined alternately in singing the divine praises, liturgical changes were of no small avail in winning many barbarians to Christian worship and civilization. It was in the churches that the opponents of Catholicism learned to enter into the dogma of the communion of saints; wherefore the Arian Emperor Valens actually fainted away, overcome by a strange stupor before the majesty of the divine mystery celebrated by St. Basil, and at Milan St. Ambrose was charged by heretics with bewitching the multitude by his liturgical chants, the very same which attracted St. Augustine and convinced him to embrace the faith of Christ. Henceforth into the churches where the citizens formed, as it were one great choir, there poured artisans, painters, sculptors, and students of letters, all imbued through the liturgy with that knowledge of theology to which so many remarkable monuments of the Middle Ages even to this day bear splendid testimony. --Pope Pius XI, Apostolic Constitution Divini cultus sanctitatem, December 20, 1928 We are all sons of Abraham spiritually; we are all spiritual semites." --Pope Pius XI, Mit Brennender Sorge (March 14, 1937) [an over-reaction to extremist Nazism at the time] Certainly such ["oecumenical"] movements as these cannot gain the approval of Catholics. They are founded upon the false opinions of those who say that since all religions equally unfold and signify, though not in the same way, the native inborn feeling in us all through which we are borne toward God and humbly recognize His rule, therefore, all religions are more or less good and praiseworthy.... This Apostolic See cannot on any terms take part in their [ecumenical] meetings, nor is it in any way lawful for Catholics either to support or to work for such enterprises; for if they do so, they will be giving countenance to a false Christianity, quite alien to the one Church of Christ.... It might appear that the Pan-Christians ["ecumenists"], engaged in trying to confederate the churches, are pursuing the noble idea of increasing charity among all Christians. Yet how could charity harm faith? All remember how John, the very Apostle of Charity, who in his Gospel seems to have opened the secrets of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and who always inculcated in the minds of his disciples the new commandment, "Love one another," had wholly forbidden them to have relations with those who did not profess entire and uncorrupted the teachings of Christ. "If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into the house, or say to him, Welcome" (2 John 10/C). Since charity is founded in whole and sincere faith, the disciples of Christ must be united by the bond of unity in faith and by it as the chief bond. How could a Christian covenant be imagined in which they who entered it could in matters of faith each retain, although contrary to those of others, their own opinions and judgments? Through what agreement could men of opposed opinions become one and the same society of the faithful?... In such great differences of opinions we do not know how a road may be paved to the unity of the Church save alone through one teaching authority, one sole law of belief, and one sole faith among Christians. Moreover, we know how easy is the path from denial of this to the neglect of religion, or indifferentism, and to modernism, which holds the very same error, to wit: dogmatic truth is not absolute, but relative; it is proportionate to the needs of times and places and to the various tendencies of the mind, since dogmatic truth is not contained in an unchanging revelation, but is such that it accommodates itself to the life of men.... Therefore, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why the Apostolic See has never permitted its children to take part in these ["ecumenical"] meetings. The union of Christians cannot be otherwise obtained than by securing the return of the separated to the one true Church of Christ, from which they once unhappily withdrew. To the one true Church of Christ, We say, that stands forth before all and that by the will of its Founder will remain forever the same as when He Himself established it for the salvation of all mankind.... Let them hear Lactantius crying out: "The Catholic Church is alone in keeping the true worship. This the fountain of truth, it is the household of the faith, it is the temple of God; if anyone does not enter it or if anyone departs from it, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation...." --Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928 We see some men, convinced that it is very rare to meet men deprived of all religious sense, nourish the hope that it might be possible to lead peoples without difficulty, in spite of their religious differences, to a fraternal agreement on the profession of certain doctrines considered as a common foundation of spiritual life. That is why they begin to hold congresses, reunions, conferences, frequented by an appreciably large audience, and, to their discussions, they invite all men indistinctly, infidels of all kinds along with the faithful of Christ and even those who, unfortunately, have separated themselves from Christ or who, with bitterness and obstinacy, deny the divinity of His nature and of His mission. Such undertakings cannot, in any way, be approved by Catholics, since they are based on the erroneous opinion that all religions are more or less good and praiseworthy, in the sense that all equally, although in different ways, manifest and signify the natural and innate sentiment that carries us towards God and pushes us to recognize with respect His power. In truth, the partisans of this theory fall into a complete error, but what is more, in perverting the notion of the true religion, they repudiate it, and they fall step by step into naturalism and atheism. --Pope Pius XI, Mortalium animos, January 6, 1928 There is but one way in which the unity of Christians may be fostered, and that is by furthering the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it. --Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928 This being so, it is clear that the Apostolic See can by no means take part in these [ecumenical] assemblies, nor is it in any way lawful for Catholics to give such enterprises their encouragement or support.... For it is indeed a question of defending revealed truth. Jesus Christ sent His Apostles into the whole world to declare the faith of the Gospel to every nation and to save them from error.... Moreover, He enforced His command with this sanction: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mark 16:16/DRV). -- Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928 [Vatican II's Declaration Nostra aetate contradicts this doctrine of the Church, when it says: "The Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions. She has a high regard for the manner of life and conduct, the precepts and doctrines that, although differing in many ways from her own teaching, nevertheless often reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men."] Etenim Ecclesia, ut quae et nationes omnes complexu suo contineat, et usque ad consummationem saeculorum sit permansura, et prorsus a sua gubernatione sua vulgus arceat, sermonem suapte natura requirit universalem, immutabilem, non vulgarem. [For the Church, precisely because it embraces all nations and is destined to endure until the end of time, and consequently keeps the common away from its governance, of its very nature requires a language that is universal, immutable, and non-vernacular. --Pope Pius XI, Officiorum Omnium, 1922 [Lingua Latina est] vinculum unitatis [the Latin language is the bond of unity]. --Pope Pius XI, Apostolic Letter Unigenitus Dei Filius, March 19, 1924 The persistence of the Good Lady in face of the danger that threatens the Church is a divine warning against the suicide that the modification of the Faith, liturgy, theology, and soul of the Church would represent. I hear around me partisans of novelties who want to demolish the Holy Sanctuary, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject her adornments, and make her remorseful for her historical past. Well, my dear friend, I am convinced that the Church of Peter must affirm her past, or else she will dig her own tomb. --Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), to Count Enrico Pietro Galeazzi A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God, that His Son is merely a symbol, a philosophy held by so many others, and in the churches Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them, like Magdalen weeping before the empty tomb, "Where have they taken Him?" --Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII (1939- 1958), apud Msgr. Roche and P. Saint Germain, Pie XII devant l'histoire, pp. 52-53 True science discovers God behind every door. --Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) The grace of Matrimony will remain for the most part an unused talent hidden in the field unless the parties exercise these supernatural powers and cultivate and develop the seeds of grace they have received. --Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) When I listen to music, I feel as if I'm praying; after it's all over, it seems as if I've come out of a meditation. --Pope Pius XII (1939- 1958) I am obsessed by the Virgin's words, that she entrusted to the little Lucia of Fatima. Our Heavenly Mother's standing up against the danger that threatens the Church is a divine warning against the suicide that an alteration of the Faith would mean to its liturgy, its theology, and its soul. I hear around me those fascinated with novelties who would like to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the Church's universal flame, reject its vestments, and make it regret its historical past. Well, my dear friend, it is my conviction that the Church of Peter must assume its past, or it will dig its tomb. The day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. It will be tempted to believe that man has become God, that His Son is only a symbol, a philosophy as so many others. In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red sanctuary lamp where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene, weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask: "Where have they taken Him?" --Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), (Mgr. Roche and P. Saint Germain; Pie XII devant l'histoire, pp. 52-53), while he was Secretary of State under Pope Pius IX. Pius XII, evidentally fearing the worst, scrapped his own plans for an ecumenical council. The Third Secret of Fatima was transferred to the Vatican in a sealed envelope in 1957. Pope John XXIII suppressed publication of the message in 1960, the year in which it was to have been disclosed to the faithful. Paul VI read the Third Secret almost immediately after his election to the papacy. He too relegated it to oblivion, dispatching Cardinal Ottaviani to offer excuses for its non-disclosure at a Mariological conference in Rome in 1967, two years before he gave permission for the New Mass. We observe elsewhere, with anxiety and some apprehension, an undue fondness for innovation and a tendency to stray from the path of truth and prudence. Certain plans and suggestions for the liturgical revival are mingled with principles with, either in fact or by implication, jeopardize the sacred cause they are intended to promote and sometimes introduce errors. --Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) The day the Church abandons her universal tongue [Latin] is the day before she returns to the catacombs. --Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) The Holy Ghost, Who spoke by them [the sacred writers of the Bible], did not intend to teach men these things -- that is the essential nature of the things of the universe..., [which principle] will apply to cognate sciences. --Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Letter Divino Afflatu Spiritu, September 30, 1943 The teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussion on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place in regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter - - for the Catholic Faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God. However, this must be done in such a way that the reasons for both opinions -- that is, those favorable and those unfavorable to evolution - - be weighed and judged with the necessary seriousness, moderation and measure, and provided that all are prepared to submit to the judgment of the Church, to whom Christ has given the mission of interpreting authentically the Sacred Scriptures and of defending the dogmata of faith. --Pope Pius XII (1939- 1958), Encyclical Letter Humani Generis God at times lets trials befall individuals and peoples, trials of which the malice of men is the instrument in a design of justice directed toward the punishment of sin, towards purifying persons and peoples through the expiations of this present life and bringing them back by this way to himself. --Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), June 29, 1941 If a times there appears in the Church something that indicates the weakness of our human nature, it should not be attributed to her juridical constitution, but rather to that regrettable inclination to evil found in each individual, which its Divine Founder permits even at times in the most exalted members of His Mystical Body, for the purpose of testing the virtue of the Shepherds no less than of the flocks, and that all may increase the merit of their Christian faith. --Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), Encyclical Letter Mystici Corporis (The Mystical Body), June 29, 1943, From a heart overflowing with love, we ask each and every one of them to correspond to the interior movements of grace, and to seek to withdraw from that state in which they cannot be sure of their salvation. For even though by an unconscious desire and longing they have a certain relationship with the Mystical Body of the Redeemer, they still remain deprived of those many heavenly gifts and helps which can be enjoyed only in the Catholic Church. --Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), Encyclical Letter Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943, Sec. 103 (cf. Council of Trent, Sess. VI, Ch. xiv) Latin! A language ancient, but not dead, whose superb echo, even if not heard for centuries in the ruined amphitheaters, the famous forum and the temples of the Caesars, is not silent in Christ's basilicas, where the priest of the Gospel and the heroes of the martyrs repeat and sing again the psalms and hymns of the first centuries in the reconsecrated language of the Quirites. Now, the language of Rome is principally a sacred language, which is heard in the divine rites, in the theological halls and in the Acts of the Apostolic See, and to which you yourselves often address a sweet greeting to the Queen of Heaven, your Mother, and to our Father Who reighns above. - - Pope Pius XII (r. 1939-1958), Allocation on Education, January 30, 1949 The temerity and daring of those who introduce novel liturgical practices, or call for the revival of obsolete rites out of harmony with prevailing laws and rubrics [antiquarianism, archaeologism], deserve severe reproof. It has pained Us grievously to note, Venerable Brethren, that such innovations are actually being introduced, not merely in minor details but in matters of major importance as well. We instance, in point of fact, those who make use of the vernacular in the celebration of the august Eucharistic Sacrifice; those who transfer certain feast-days -- which have been appointed and established after mature deliberation -- to other dates; those finally who delete from the prayer-books approved for public use the sacred texts of the Old Testament, deeming them little suited and inopportune for modern times. --Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), Encyclical Letter Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947, Sec. 59 The use of the Latin language, customary in a considerable section of the Church, is a manifest and beautiful sign of unity, as well as an effective antidote for any corruption of doctrinal truth. In spite of this, the use of the mother tongue in connection with several of the rites may be of much advantage to the people. But the Apostolic See alone is empowered to grant this permission. It is forbidden, therefore, to take any action whatever of this nature without having requested and obtained such consent, since the sacred liturgy, as We have said, is entirely subject to the discretion and approval of the Holy See. --Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), Encyclical Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947, Sec. 60 [thus, Pius XII violated Tradition with respect to the Sacraments, and Mediator Dei was, in fact, taken by the neo-liturgists as a go-ahead for experimentation and opened the door to liturgical experimentation by the Modernists] Ancient usage must not be esteemed more suitable and proper, either in its own right or in its significance for later times and new situations, on the simple ground that it carries the savor and aroma of antiquity [antiquarianism, archaeologism].... It is neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every possible device. Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its ancient table-form; were he to want black excluded as a color for the liturgical vestments, were he to forfeit the use of sacred images and statues in churches; were he to order the crucifix so designed that the Divine Redeemer's Body shows no trace of His cruel sufferings; and lastly were he to disdain and reject polyphonic music or singing in parts.... --Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), Encyclical Letter Mediator Dei (On the Sacred Liturgy), November 20, 1947, Secs. 61-62 Just as obviously unwise and mistaken is the zeal of one who in matters liturgical would go back to the rites and usage of antiquity.... This way of acting bids fair to revive the exaggerated and senseless antiquarianism [archaeologism] to which the illegal Council of Pistoia [1794] gave rise.... For perverse designs and ventures of this sort tend to paralyze and weaken that process of sanctification by which the Sacred Liturgy directs the sons of adoption to their Heavenly Father for their souls' salvation. --Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), Encyclical Letter Mediator Dei (On the Sacred Liturgy), Secs. 63-64, November 20, 1947 Many of the faithful are unable to use the "Roman Missal" even though it is written in the vernacular; nor are all capable of understanding correctly the liturgical rites and formulas.... On the contrary, they can adopt some other method which proves easier for certain people; for instance, they can lovingly meditate on the mysteries of Jesus Christ or perform other exercises of piety [e.g., the Rosary or the Breviary] or recite prayers which, though they differ from the sacred rites, are still essentially in harmony with them. --Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), Encyclical Letter Mediator Dei (On the Sacred Liturgy), Sec. 108, November 20, 1947 Above all, do not allow -- as some do, who are deceived under the pretext of restoring the Liturgy or who idly claim that only liturgical rites are of any real value and dignity -- that Churches be closed during the hours not appointed for public functions, as has already happened in some places; where the adoration of the august Sacrament and visits to Our Lord in the tabernacles are neglected; where confession of devotion is discouraged; and devotion to the Virgin Mother of God, a sign of "predestination" according to the opinion of holy men, is so neglected, especially among the young, as to fade away and gradually vanish. Such conduct most harmful to Christian piety is like poisonous fruit, growing on the infected branches of a healthy tree, which must be cut off so that the life-giving sap of the tree may bring forth only the best fruit. --Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), Encyclical Letter Mediator Dei (On the Sacred Liturgy), Sec. 176, November 20, 1947 Gregorian chant, which the Roman Church considers her own as handed down from antiquity and kept under her close tutelage, is proposed to the faithful as belonging to them also. In certain parts of the Liturgy the Church definitely prescribes it; it makes the celebration of the Sacred Mysteries not only more dignified and solemn but helps very much to increase the faith and devotion of the congregation. --Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), Encyclical Letter Mediator Dei (On the Sacred Liturgy), Sec. 191, November 20, 1947 There are priests for whom we must express Our anxiety; those who, to meet the peculiar circumstances of our time, have all to often become absorbed in the world of external activity to the neglect of their primary duty, namely their own sanctification. As we have already publicly declared, it is necessary to correct the error of those who dare to suppose that the salvation of men can be procured by what has been truly called "the heresy of action"; action, that is, which does not rely on grace and disregards the means of sanctification appointed by Jesus Christ. --Pope Pius XII (1939- 1958), Apostolic Exhortation Menti nostrae (On the Spiritual Perfection of Priests), September 23, 1950 Proh dolor, Latina lingua, gloria sacerdotum, nunc languidiores usque et pauciores habet cultores.... Enimvero Latin lingua, itemque et Graeca, cui tot ecclesiastica scripta, iam a prisco christiano aevo, commissa sunt, thesaurus est incomparandae praestantiae; quare sacrorum administer qui eam ignorat, reputandus est lamentabili mentis laborare squalore.... [Latina lingua,] ... quae in Latina Ecclesia liturgico fruitur usu, quae denique Catholicae Ecclesiae est magni pretii vinculum. Nullus sit sacerdos, qui eam nesciat facile et expedite legere et loqui! [Alas, the Latin language, the glory of priests, now has laxer and even fewer cultivators.... For the Latin language, and likewise the Greek, to which so many ecclesiastical writings, even from the early Christian era, have been committed, is a treasurehouse of incomparable precedence; wherefore the minister of the sacred rites who is ignorant of it, is to be reputed to work with a lamentable squalor of mind.... [The Latin language], which enjoys liturgical use in the Latin Church, which, in the end, is for the Catholic Church the bond of great worth. Let there be no priest who does not know how to read and speak it easily and conveniently.] --Pope Pius XII, Sermon Magis quam to the Teachers of the Order of Discalced Carmelite Brothers, September 23, 1951 (A.A.s., 1951, p. 737) The objective against which the adversary today launches his assaults, openly or under cover, is not, as was usual in the past, one or another particular point of doctrine or of discipline, but rather the whole range of Christian doctrine and morals until the final consequences. In other words, we are dealing with an all-out attack with an absolute "yes" or "no." Under these conditions, the true Catholic must remain all the more firm and unshakeable in his Catholic faith. --Pope Pius XII, Discourse of February 10, 1952 The sacred pastors are not the inventors and composers of the Gospel, but merely the authorized guardians and preachers divinely established. Wherefore, we ourselves, and all bishops with us, can and must repeat the words of Jesus Christ: "My teaching is not my own, but his who sent me" (John 7:16).... Therefore, we are not teachers of a doctrine born of the human mind, but we are in conscience bound to embrace and follow the doctrine which Christ Our Lord taught and which He solemnly commanded His Apostles and their successors to teach (Matthew 28:19-20)." --Pope Pius X, Encyclical Letter Ad Sinarum Gentem," October 7, 1954 To separate the tabernacle from altar is to separate two things which by their origin and their nature should remain united. --Pope Pius XII, Praesentia Christi (Address to the International Congress on Pastoral Liturgy on the Liturgical Movement), September 22, 1956 The Church relates a past event, but means to convey a present reality. What she says, in effect, is this: what occurred 1900 years ago happens to us now in a mystical or sacramental manner, especially though the Sacrifice of the Mass. --Dr. Pius Parsch, The Church's Year of Grace (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press), vo. I, pp. 312-313 [The Latin Language] -- to congregate the scattered empires, to mollify their rituals, to draw together into converse the discordant populations and the rude tongues, and to hold out a common discourse to all mankind. --Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 3:5:17 Before the tribunal of God's mercy we, the shepherds, should make ourselves repsonsible for all the evils now burdening the flock of Christ ... not in generosity, but in justice ... [for] the almost ruined Church. -- Reginald Cardinal Pole (1500-1558), papal legate at the Council of Trent, who wrote the opening address to the Council This matter of language is not trivial. I have been told by Japanese Catholics that it is virtually impossible to discuss the Trinity and certain other theological concepts in the language of their islands. Japanese quite simply lacks the vocabulary and grammatical structure. --Gary Potter, "The Catholic Language," Wanderer, January 15, 1993, p. 5 The victory of the vernacular in the Church's liturgy signals unmistakably the becoming of a World Church, whose individual churches exist independently in their respective cultural phrases, inculturated, and no longer a European import. --Fr. Karl Rahner, "The Priest-Mover of the Catholic Church," New York Times Magazine, September 23, 1979 I know supernatural Faith is infinitely higher than natural culture, but so long as a soul is blasted and withered by today's anti-culture, the leap to faith is too great. There must be a ramp to Rome on the natural level. In school, that should be the glories of Western civilization so- called, meaning, in fact, the natural fruits of Catholic culture. The ground must be prepared; otherwise, the seed simply bounces off. Especially with children. --Quoted in Bp. Richard N. Williamson, of the Society of St. Pius X, September 1, 1994 The words and deeds of Pope Francis since his election earlier last year have been so little Catholic and so outrageous, that the idea that recent popes have not really been Popes ("sedevacantism") has been given a new lease of life. Notice that Pope Francis merely expresses more blatantly than his five predecessors the madness of Vatican II. The question remains whether any of the six Conciliar Popes (with the possible exception of John- Paul I) can really have been Vicars of Christ. The question is not of prime importance. If they have not been Popes, still the Catholic Faith and morals by which I must "work out my salvation in fear and trembling" (Phil. II, 12) have not changed one iota. And if they have been Popes, still I cannot obey them whenever they have departed from that Faith and those morals, because "we ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts, V, 29). However, I believe in offering answers to some of the sedevacantists' arguments, because there are sedevacantists who seem to wish to make the vacant See of Rome into a dogma which Catholics must believe. In my opinion it is no such thing. "In things doubtful, liberty" (Augustine). The Faith is a seamless garment, the Mass its fabric.... And the traditional liturgy trains the heart; its message cannot be mistaken, no matter the priest offering it. The reverence and piety --or lack of same -- inculcated by the liturgy are the underpinnings of formal instruction in the Faith. Long before textbooks, sanctifying grace was at work in the souls of believers, who learned the Faith from the liturgy and through others' example. Thus did the Church grow, before catechetical textbooks. -- Editor Jeffrey Rubin, The Latin Mass, July-August 1992, p. 2 The right to say the old Mass exists both by virtue of "immemorial custom" and by decree of Pope St. Pius V, whose 1570 bull normalizing the Tridentine rite, "Quo Primum," explicitly granted the right to use it to all priests "in perpetuity." --Jeffrey Rubin and Roger McCaffrey, "The Church's Underground Order," Latin Mass, November-December 1992, p. 12 With regard to the regulations issued by this Sacred Congregation in favor of priests who, on account of advanced years or inform health, find it difficult to use the new Order of the Roman Missal or the Mass Lectionary: it is clear that the Ordinary may grant permission to use, in whole or in part, the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal in masses celebrated without a congregation, with the changes introduced by the Decrees of 1965 ["Inter Oecumenici"] and 1967 ["Tres abhinc annos"]. But this permission can be granted only for Masses celebrated without a congregation. Ordinaries may not grant it for Masses celebrated with a congregation. --Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship, Decree Conferentiarum Episcopalium, October 28, 1974; Notitiae, November 1974, page 353 I do not think it either wise or necessary to cramp the ordinary pupil upon the Procrustean bed of the Augustan Age, with its highly elaborate and artificial verse forms and oratory. Post-classical and medieval Latin, which was a living language down to the end of the Renaissance, is easier and in some ways livelier; and a study of it helps to dispel to widespread notion that learning the literature came to a full stop when Christ was born and only woke up again at the dissolution of the Monasteries. --Dorothy Sayers apud Fr. Randall Paine, "The Language that Rose from the Dead," Latin Mass, September-October 1992, p. 33 Was the [Second Vatican] Council a wrong road that we must now retrace if we are to save the Church? The voices of those [traditional Catholics] who say that it was are becoming louder, and the followers more numerous. Among the more obvious phenomena of the last years must be counted the increasing number of integralist [traditional] groups in which the desire for piety, for a sense of mystery, is finding satisfaction. We must be on guard against minimizing these movements. Without a doubt, they represent a sectarian zealotry that is the antithesis of catholicity. We cannot resist them too firmly. --Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 389- 390 Even Leo XIII recommended that the rosary be recited during Mass in the month of October. --Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Theological Highlights of Vatican II (1966), p. 87 Today, more than ever, we must be conscious that only the Lord can save the Church. She is Christ's; it is up to him to provide for her. To us He is asking that we work with all our might, without reserve, and with the serenity of one who is conscious of being a useless servant, unable to cope with or solve alone the situation which has been created. --Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1984 [The Third Secret of Fatima foretells] "the dangers that weigh on the faith and the 'last times'" [but also it is] "salutary and radiant." -- Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, 1984, after having read the Third Secret of Fatima, cf. Fatima joie intime, p. 412 Certainly the results of Vatican II seem cruelly opposed to the expectations of everyone, beginning with those of Pope John XXIII and then of Pope Paul VI. Expected was a new Catholic unity, and instead we have been exposed to dissension which, to use the words of Pope Paul VI, seems to have gone from self-criticism to self-destruction. Expected was a new enthusiasm, and many wound up discouraged and bored. Expected was a great step forward, and instead we find ourselves faced with a progressive process of decadence that has developed for the most part precisely under the sign of a calling back to the Council, and has therefore contributed to discrediting it for many. The net result, therefore, seems negative. I am repeating here what I said ten years after the conclusion of the work: it is incontrovertible that this period has definitely been unfavorable for the Church. --Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, December 24, 1984, L'Osservatore Romano The most blatant example of this [anti-pastoral and intellectualist approach] is the reform of the Calendar: those responsible simply did not realize how much the various annual feasts had influenced Christian people's relation to time. In redistributing these established feasts throughout the year according to some historical arithmetic -- inconsistently applied at that -- they ignored a fundamental law of religious life.... The new Missal was published as if it were a book put together by professors, not a phase in a continual growth. Such a thing has never happened before. It is absolutely contrary to the laws of liturgical growth. --Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Feast of Faith (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), pp. 81, 86 [The Novus Ordo is] the real destruction of the Roman Rite. -- Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, apud Msgr. Klaus Gamber, Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background (Una Voce Press, 1987/1993), Introduction We ought to get back the dimension of the sacred in the liturgy. The liturgy is not a festivity; it is not a meeting for the purpose of having a good time. It is of no importance that the parish priest has cudgeled his brains to come up with suggestive ideas or imaginative novelties. The liturgy is what makes the Thrice-Holy God present amongst us; it is the burning bush; it is the Alliance of God with man in Jesus Christ, Who has died and risen again. The grandeur of the liturgy does not rest upon the fact that it offers us interesting entertainment, but in rendering tangible the Totally Other, Whom we are not capable of summoning. He comes because He wills. In other words, the essential in the liturgy is the mystery, which is realized in the common ritual of the Church; all the rest diminishes it. Men experiment with it in lively fashion, and find themselves deceived, when the mystery is tranformed into distraction, when the chief actor in the liturgy is not the Living God but the priest or the liturgical director.... -- Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in a speech "Lessons from the Lefebvre Schism," in Chile, July 1988 Certainly there is a mentality of narrow views that isolates Vatican II and which has provoked this opposition. There are many accounts of it which give the impression that from Vatican II onward everything has been changed, and what preceded it has no value or, at best, has value only in the light of Vatican II. The Second Vatican Council has not been treated as a part of the entire living Tradition of the Church, but as an end of Tradition, a new start from zero. The truth is that this particular council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet so many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of super-dogma which takes away the importance of all the rest. - - Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, El Mercurio, July 17, 1988 Today we might ask: Is there a Latin Rite any more? Certainly there is no awareness of it. To most people the liturgy appears to be rather something for the individual congregation to change. --Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Latin Mass, November-December 1992, p. 34 The reform of the liturgy in the spirit of the liturgical movement was not a priority for the majority of the fathers, and for many not even a consideration. Thus, for example, in his outline of themes after the beginning of the Council, Cardinal Montini -- who as Paul VI would be the real pope of the Council -- said quite clearly that he did not see the reform of the liturgy as a substantial task in the Council. The liturgy and its reform had, since the end of World War I, become a pressing question only in France and Germany, and indeed above all from the perspective of the purest possible restoration of the ancient Roman liturgy, to which belonged the active involvement of the people in the liturgical event. These two countries, which at that time enjoyed theological leadership in the Church (and we must of course add Belgium and the Netherlands) had during the preparation phase succeeded in putting through a schema on the Sacred Liturgy, which quite naturally found its place in the general theme of the church. The fact that this text became the first subject of the Council's discussions really had nothing to do with the majority of the Fathers having an intense interest in the liturgical question. Quite simply, no great disagreements were expected in this area, and the undertaking was viewed as a kind of practical exercise to learn and test the method of conciliar work. It would not have occurred to any of the Fathers to see in this text a "revolution" signifying the "end of the Middle Ages," as some theologians felt they should interpret it subsequently. The work was seen as a continuation of the reforms introduced by Pius X and carried on carefully but resolutely by Pius XII. General expressions such as "the liturgical books should be revised as soon as possible" (no. 25) were understood in this sense: as the uninterrupted continuation of that development which had always been there and which, since Pope Pius X and Pius XII, had received a definite profile from the rediscovery of the classical Roman liturgical traditions, which was, of course, to overcome certain tendences of Baroque liturgy and nineteenth-century devotional piety and to promote a new humble and sober centering of the authentic mystery of Christ's presence in His Church. In this context it is not surprising that the "model Mass" now proposed, which was supposed to (and in fact did) take the place of the traditional Ordo Missae, was in 1967 rejected by the majority of the Fathers who had been called together to a special synod on the matter. Some publications now tell us that some liturgist (or perhaps many?) who were working as advisers had had more far-reaching intentions from the outset. Their wishes would surely not have received the approval of the Fathers. Nor were such wishes expressed in any way in the text of the council, although one can subsequently read them into some general statements. --Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Milestones, Memoirs 1927-1977 (1997), chapters 10-11 I am convinced that the ecclesial crisis in which we find ourselves today results in large part from the collapse of the liturgy.... The liturgical reform has produced extremely grave damage for the Faith". -- Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, La mia vita (San Paolo Editor, 1997) The drastic manner in which Pope Paul VI reformed the Mass in 1969 provoked extremely serious damage to the Church.... The suppression of the old Mass marked a break in the history of the liturgy, the consequences of which could only be tragic.... I am convinced that the ecclesial crisis in which we find ourselves today depends in great part upon the collapse of the liturgy, which at times is actually being conceived of etsi Deus non daretur: as though in the liturgy it did not matter any more whether God exists and whether He speaks to us and listens to us. But if in the liturgy the communion of faith no longer appears, nor the universal unity of the Church and of her history, nor the mystery of the living Christ, where is it that the Church still appears in her spiritual substance?... I was dismayed by the banning of the old Missal, seeing that a similar thing had never happened in the entire history of the liturgy.... The promulgation of the banning of the Missal that had been developed in the course of centuries, starting from the time of the sacramentaries of the ancient Church, has brought with it a break in the history of the liturgy whose consequences could be tragic.... But the fact that [the liturgy] was presented as a new structure, set up against what had been formed in the course of history and was now prohibited, and that the liturgy was made to appear in some ways no longer as a living process but as a product of specialized knowledge and judicial competence, has brought with it some extremely serious damages for us. In this way, in fact, the impression has arisen that the liturgy is "made," that it is not something that exists before us, something "given," but that it depends on our decisions. It follows as a consequence that this decision- making capacity is not recognized only in specialists or in a central authority, but that, in the final analysis, each "community" wants to give itself its own liturgy. But when the liturgy is something each one makes by himself, then it no longer gives us what is its true quality: encounter with the mystery which is not our product, but our origin and the wellspring of our life.... The impression was given that this was completely normal.... The old structure was broken to pieces, and its pieces were used to construct another structure, to the detriment of liturgical tradition. The crux of the problem was that the reformed liturgy was presented as a new structure, in opposition to the one which had been formed through history.... --Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, My Life: Recollections 1927-1977 (1997), a book that appears to be an exercise in "kite-flying," a test of reaction (Australian Catholic) After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the Pope really could no anything in liturgical matters, especially if he were acting on the mandate of an ecumenical council. Eventually the idea of the given- ness of the liturgy, the fact that one cannot do with it what one will, faded from the public consciousness of the West.... In fact, the First Vatican Council had in no way defined the Pope as an absolute monarch.... The authority of the pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition. --Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "Spirit of the Liturgy" (Ignatius, 2000), pp. 165-166. God's providence for the human race, extending into every generation, is part of the divine plan to help people accomplish the purpose for which man exists, that is, through trial on earth, to gain eternal salvation. Christ, by His supreme sacrifice on the cross, redeemed mankind from consequences due to Original Sin. According to the teachings of the Catholic Faith, Christ died for all, but not everyone avails himself of God's graces concerning the forgiveness of sins. In the words of St. Paul: "Christ was offered in sacrifice once to take away the sins of many" (Hebrews 9:28).... At the Last Supper, Our Lord uttered those memorable words: "This is the Blood of the New Covenant which is being shed for many unto the forgiveness of sins" (Matthew 26:28). These same words also appear in Mark 14:24. - - P.J. Romano, SFO, "The 'Pro Multis' Controversy -- Did Christ Say 'For Many' or 'For All'?," The New England Catholic News, Fall 2000 (XIV:3), p. 4. Many theologians have spoken of the possibility of heretical popes, and what resistance should be given them. What is even more significant is the Cum ex apostolatus of Paul IV [1559-1566], in which he perceives the possibility of a Protestant being elected to the throne of Peter. He says that in such a case, his acts would be automatically null, and he would not be the pope, even if he had been accepted and obeyed as true Pope by the whole Church.... This document ... shows the mind of the Church on this matter. In such a case, Paul IV is calling upon Catholics to resist such a "pope" with all their might. --Fr. Donald J. Sanborn, Catholic Restoration, March-April 1994 (IV:2), p. 18 It is by the gates that the house is entered, and it is the prelates who should lead the faithful into the Church of Christ. Therefore, the devil hath aimed his heaviest blows at them and hath broken down these gates. Thus it is that no more good prelates are to be found in the Church. Seest thou not that they do all things amiss? They have no judgment; they cannot distinguish inter bonum et malum, inter verum et falsum, inter dulce et amarum; good things they deem evil, true things false, sweet things bitter, and vice versa.... See how in these days prelates and preachers are chained to the earth by love of earthly things; the cure of souls is no longer their concern.... They have not only destroyed the Church of God, but built up another after their own fashion. This is the new Church. Go to Rome and see.... These prelates have introduced devilish games among us; they have no belief in God and jeer at the mysteries of our faith! What dost Thou, O Lord? Why dost Thou slumber? Arise, and come to deliver Thy Church from the hands of the devils, from the hands of tyrants, the hands of iniquitous prelates. Hast Thou forsaken Thy Church? Dost Thou not love her? Hasten then the chastisement and the scourge, that it may be quickly granted us to return to thee. --Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498), attacking corruption in the Church, Pope Alexander VI, and the corrupt papal court; the cause for his canonization has been advanced at Rome Come hither, degenerate Church. Your vessels you turned to pride, and your Sacraments to simony. In lasciviousness you have become a shameless whore. You are worse than a beast. You are a monster and an abomination. --Fra Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498), attacking corruption in the Church, Pope Alexander VI, and the corrupt papal court; the cause for his canonization has been advanced at Rome I will say at once, quite firmly, that the best grounding for education is the Latin grammar. --Dorothy Sayers, novelist, in the National Review The classic example is the Roman Catholic Church down through the ages. The Roman Catholic Church has had a great external unity -- probably the greatest outward organizational unity that has ever been seen in these struggles between the different orders within the one church. Today there is a still greater difference between the classical Roman Catholicism and progressive Roman Catholicism. The Roman Catholic Church still tries to stand in organizational oneness, but there is only organizational unity, for here are two completely different religions, two different concepts of God, two different concepts of truth. --Francis A. Schaeffer, Protestant philosopher/theologian with a conservative bent, The Church at the End of the 20th Century (Inter-Varsity Press), pp. 140-141 We have used ambiguous terms during the [Second Vatican] Council, and we know how we shall interpret them afterwards. --Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx, liberal Dutch theologian and peritus at the Council [Anti-Catholicism] is the deepest bias in the history of the American people. --Arthur Schlesinger We are not liberals nor schismatic; we are Catholic, Roman Catholic. We want to be the heirs of St. Thomas Aquinas, of Saint Pius V, of the Society of Saint Pius V, of the Society of St. Pius X. We are the children of Archbishop Lefebvre. We do not want any particular spirituality, we make ours the one of the Holy Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, priest and victim, prophet and king. The holiness of the church is not to be found in the new liturgy, in the relativist ecumenism, not in the naturalist laicization of the nations. The sanctity of the Church is to be found in holy tradition. --Fr. Franz Schmidberger, Superior of the Society of St. Pius X, 1993 They [the faithful] understood well that this institution Ecclesia Dei was only a concession from Rome, a political maneuver which in no way had in mind restoring the true Catholic Mass as, moreover, Cardinal Innocenti bears witness in a letter of February 12, 1992: "The Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei asks the bishops to take count of the sensibility proper to certain groups but in no manner must it be a means of re-establishing the pre-Conciliar rite and being an obstacle to the liturgical reform willed by Vatican II." And these same faithful, desirous of seeing the restoration of the Church do not conceive it oustide of the restoration of the Mass and of the Catholic priesthood. They understand that the material celebration of the Old Mass with more or less unacceptable conditions is not a solution. --Fr. Franz Schmidberger, Superior General of the Society of St Pius X, Interview, in Si, Si, No, No God has made Himself known to man through the medium of matter; [therefore, art should be] man's means of reaching God.... Art can fail [in that purpose....] Evil lies in the perverse will of man, [not in matter itself....] What then must we do [to restore a sense of the sacred to liturgy?...] First, we need beauty of place ... a feeling of the presence of God.... [Second, we must regain] beauty of movement -- dignity and reverence. [Finally, we need] beauty in sound: [singing and instruments; bells; the voices of priests and lectors. --Msgr. Richard J. Schuler in the keynote address of the 22nd National Wanderer Forum, October 7, 1989 Dead bodies float downstream -- it takes a live body to resist the current. And that's why these are great days. They are struggle, and I love them. --Abp. Fulton J. Sheen, apud Dieterich, ed., "Through the Year with Fulton Sheen," p. 18) If you don't behave as you believe, you will end by believing as you behave. --Abp. Fulton Sheen Satan will set up a counterchurch, which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the Mystical Body of Christ.... But the twentieth century will join the counterchurch because it claims to be infallible when its visible head speaks ex cathedra. --Abp. Fulton Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West, 1948 People today are tired of having their sins explained away. They want their sins forgiven. They don't want to be told, any more, that it was all the fault of their parents or of their environment or that their glands made them behave that way. What they long to find is Mercy. -- Abp. Fulton J. Sheen Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons. Tolerance applies to the erring; intolerance to the error. Abp. Fulton Sheen Win an argument, and you lose a soul. --Abp. Fulton Sheen What the world is suffering from today is not intolerance, but tolerance: tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. --Abp. Fulton J. Sheen, 1931 [Satan] will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the [Catholic] Church.... It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. --Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, 1948 We tear asunder Christ and His Cross. We have in the world, therefore, the crossless Christ and the Christless cross. First we have Christ without his cross. And that is too often the Christ we preach -- emasculated, weak, a defender for the most part of political or economic or social doctrines..... An effeminate Christ never deals with guilt or sin, but just supports our positions. We use him, instead of him using us. - - Abp. Fulton Sheen to the Word of God Institute at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C., 1972 Dr. [Karl] Jung said that after 25 years of experience dealing with mental patients, at least one-third had no observable clinical neurosis, but all of them were suffering from a want of the meaning and purposes of life, and not until they discover that will they ever be happy. In other words, the vast majority of people today are suffering from what might be called an existential [after the Existentialists] neurosis, the anxiety of the problem of living, the answering of the question: what is it all about, where do I go from here? --Abp. Fulton J. Sheen, to the Knights of Columbus, June 1972 Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops like bishops and your religious act like religious. --Abp. Fulton J. Sheen before the Knights of Columbus in June 1972 During the past thirty years, people from all the civilized countries of the earth have consulted me.... Among all my patients in the second half of life -- that is to say, over thirty-five -- there has not been one whose problem in the last report was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religions of every age have given to their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook. --Abp. Fulton J. Sheen, "Peace of Soul" (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1949), p. 37 You are better off going to a state school where you will have the chance to fight for your faith, than going to a modern Catholic university where you will have the new watered-down, modernist version of the faith spoon-fed to your unsuspecting minds." --Abp. Fulton J. Sheen, ca. 1967, apud Martin Patrick Hughes, Ph.D., "The Traditional Catholic in a Modern University," The Reign of Mary, (XXVIII:91), Fall 1977), p. 5 The course of life is determined not by the trivial incidents of day to day, but by a few decisive moments. There may not be over three, four, or five such moments in a human life. For many people, it would be the decision of marriage, the taking of a job, or changing residence. --Abp. Fulton J. Sheen, "Treasure in Clay: the Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen," p. 31. As one looks over the history of Christendom, it seems that there is a crisis about every five hundred years. The first cycle of five hundred years was the fall of Rome, when God raised up the great Pontiff Gregory the Great, who had been a senator in Rome. He became a Benedictine monk and then set about conversion of the barbarians and prepared the way for a Christian Europe. The second cycle of five hundred years brings us roughly to the year 1000, when there was the Eastern schism, but also the decline of holiness in the Church. Three dominant evils prevailed -- clerical concubinage, simony or the buying and selling of ecclesiastical offices, and the naming of bishops by princes and kings. Gregory VII, who was a Benedictine, was raised by God to heal that crisis against much opposition from within and prepared the way for the great mediaeval civilization. In the third cycle of five hundred years, there was a breakup of Christian unity. Clergy again became corrupt, nuns became secular, and everyone recognized the need of reform. Some undertook to reform the Faith. there was nothing wrong with the Faith. What needed reformation was behavior. The great Dominican Pontiff, Pius V, saved the Church by applying the reforms of the Council of Trent and by establishing missionary activity throughout the world. Now we are in the fourth cycle of five hundred years, with two world wars in twenty-one years, and the universal dread of nuclear incineration. This time God has given us John Paul II, who has drawn the attention of the world to himself as no human being has done in history. -- Abp. Fulton J. Sheen, "Treasure in Clay: the Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen," pp. 244-45. There is a lesson in this for traditional Catholic priests. Some priests are very intolerant of all who disagree with their opinion on the question of the status of John Paul II in the Church. Some of these priests say that you cannot doubt that John Paul II is the pope and still be a true Catholic. Others say that if you do not declare John Paul II to be a non- pope, you cannot be a true Catholic. Neither of these groups, of course, has any authority to bind the consciences of Catholic people. Neither has the power to demand that Catholics assent to their opinions and convictions. If saints can disagree in their assessment of the question of who is and who is not the pope, it is not surprising that Catholic people disagree. Saints could disagree because their were objective doubts. There were strong arguments on both sides of the question. As St. Antonie of Florence said: "Although it is necessary to believe that there is but one supreme head of the Church, nevertheless, if it happens that two Popes are created at the same time, it is not necessary for the people to believe that this one or that one is the legitimate Pontiff; they must believe that he alone is true Pope who has been regularly elected and they are not bound to discern who that one is; as to that point, they may be guided by the conduct and opinion of their particular pastor" (Parsons, Studies in Church History, Vol. II, p. 530). --Fr. Martin Skierka, "History of Our Faith, in The Roman Catholic, Vol. XV, No. 4, 1993, p. 28 [St. Catherine of Siena and St. Bridget of Sweden supported Urban VI; St. Vincent Ferrer supported Clement VII] I would rather belong to a Church that is 5000 years behind the times and sublimely indifferent to change than to a church that is five minutes behind the times, huffing and puffing to catch up. --Joseph Sobran Do not innovate. Rest content with tradition. --Pope St. Stephen I (254-257) Hence, not every priest is obliged to be a pastor of souls in the strict sense of the word, although there can be no doubt that this form of sacerdotal activity corresponds most perfectly to the essence and purpose of the priesthood. Today, as in the past, many priests are engaged in labors that are only loosely connected with the specific tasks of the ministry. Nevertheless, they are genuine priests in the full meaning of the words, and they often accomplish more for the honor of God and the salvation of mankind than those actually engaged in the cure of souls. The field in which a priest can be active outside the specifically sacerdotal sphere is practically limitless; after all, there is no reputable labor or activity which could not be taken over by the priest. As examples of this in our own time, we point to the former director of the papal observatory in the Roman College, Father Angelo Secchi (ob. 1878), and to the late Austrian Chancellor and eminent statesman, Monsignor Ignaz Seipel (ob. 1932). Both were men whose fields of labor lay far outside the specific duties of priestly vocation, but they remained priestly to the depths of their souls: their entire extra-sacerdotal activity was animated by the priestly spirit. Such outstanding priestly figures are most useful and beneficial to science and Christianity, to Church and state alike. --Most Rev. Wilhelm Stockums, The Priesthood, Tan Books, 1938/1974), pp. 162-3 Part of the inheritance each of us receives from our first parents is a proclivity to sin. I think it was G.K. Chesterton who commented that the one dogma of Catholicism that is totally provable from human experience is that of original sin. In other words, even the nicest baby, raised by the nicest parents, in the nicest environment is prone to sin, resulting from the sin of Adam. And even after that sin is "washed away" in baptism, the after- effects remain, as witnessed by a disordered desire for autonomy and concupiscence. --Fr. Peter M.J. Stravinskas in "The Catholic Answer," The Catholic Answer, September/October 1992, p. 25) Et hoc secundo modo posset Papa esse schismaticus, si nollet tenere cum toto Ecclesiae corpore unionem et coniunctionem quam debet, ut si tenat et totem Ecclesiam excommunicare, aut si vellet omnes Ecclesiasticas caeremonias apostolica traditione firmatas evertere. [If he (the pope), as is his duty, would not be in full communion with the body of the Church as, for example, if he were to excommunicate the entire Church, or if he were to change all the liturgical rites of the Church that have been upheld by apostolic tradition.] --Suarez (1548-1617, called by Pope Paul V "Doctor Eximius et Pius" [Excellent and Pius Doctor], usually considered the greatest theologian of the Society of Jesus), Tract. de Charitate, Disput. No. 12, p. 1 There's a temptation to wallow in a smorgasbord of small values - - material goods, entertainment, body worship. People want to be laid back -- they want a spiritual message instead of development of character. Christian faith is based on Good Friday, when Christ was crucified, and Easter. Many Californians don't want the hard part, just Easter. --Rt. Rev. William E. Swing, Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of California ...Unica Christi Ecclesia ... subsistit in Ecclesia catholic.... [The sole Church of Christ ... subsists in the Catholic Church....] (Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, November 21, 1964, para. 8) [The Church] here purposes, for the benefit of the faithful and of the whole world, to set forth, as clearly as possible, and in the tradition laid down by earlier Councils, her own nature and universal mission. -- Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church," para. 1 [justification for interpreting all of Vatican II only in a traditional light] To the latter [the pastors], the laity should disclose their needs and desires with that liberty and confidence which befits children of God and brothers of Christ. By reason of the knowledge, competence or pre- eminence which they have, the laity are empowered --indeed sometimes obliged -- to manifest their opinion on those things which pertain to the good of the Church. --Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium ("Dogmatic Constitution on the Church," para. 37 (cf. Codex Iuris Canonici 1983, sec. 212) Finally, in faithful obedience to tradition, Holy Mother Church holds all lawfully-recognized rites to be of equal right and dignity; that she wishes to preserve them in the future and foster them in every way. -- Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), para. 4 Therefore, no other person, not even a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority. --Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), para. 22.3. Cf. Inter Oecumenici para. 20 (September 26, 1964): It belongs to the Church's authority to regulate the sacred liturgy. Nobody, therefore, is allowed to proceed on his own initiative in this domain, for this would be to the detriment of the liturgy itself. There must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them, and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing. -- Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), para. 23 Linguae Latinae usus in ritibus Latinis servetur. The use of the Latin language ... is to be retained in the Latin rites. --Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), para. 36.1 Care must be taken to ensure that the faithful may be able to say or sing together in Latin those parts of the Mass that pertain to them. -- Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), para. 54 The dogmatic principles which were laid down by the Council of Trent remain intact. --Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), para. 55 [In the light of these texts, its evident that to be "conciliar," that is, to be "in keeping with the mind of Vatican II," is to be profoundly reverent toward the Eucharist as truly Christ present with his people, to be concerned about preserving the Latin language, and to be mindful of the continuity in Church teaching from all previous councils, including Trent.] In accordance with the age-old tradition of the Latin rite, the Latin language is to be retained by clerics in the Divine Office. --Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), para. 101.1 The treasury of sacred music is to be preserved and cultivated with great care. --Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), para. 114 The Church recognizes Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy. Therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. --Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), para. 116 Of all the propositions that have been advanced, the most difficult seems to be the one stated at the outset: Those things that we shudder and tremble even to consider are actually for the good of the person to whom they come.... Ills can be for the good of those who whom they come.... To triumph over calamities and the terrors of life -- this is assigned to the great man only. For anyone to have passed through the length of life without mental anguish is to have avoided half of nature. He is unfortunate who has never been unfortunate. Great men rejoice in adversity, as brave soldiers rejoice in warfare.... I say that God shows favor to those whom He desires to reach the highest virtue. He gives to them them means of doing a deed of high resolve, when great dfficulties are involved.... Hardship is virtue's opportunity. --Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.-?A.D. 65), De Providentia If you would have to spend your time responding to all accusations, there wouldn't be any time left to work for Christ and His Church, but only to respond to calumnies. --Giuseppe Cardinal Siri (1906-1989), Archbishop of Genoa If the Church were not divine, this [Second Vatican] council would have buried it. --Giuseppe Cardinal Siri (1906-1989), Archbishop of Genoa It will take a hundred years to heal the wounds left by the Second Vatican Council. --Giuseppe Cardinal Siri (1906-1989), Archbishop of Genoa The Latin language, which is truly the Catholic language, is unchangeable, is not vulgar, and has for many centuries been the guardian of the unity of the Western Church.... To provide a wider place to the vernacular languages in the liturgy as an ordinary and universal thing would fuel confusion and surprise between the faithful and would open the way for bitter controversies. There is no lack of academicians of the new disciplines who write and speak against the use of Latin in the sacred Rites. These types of persons should not find confirmation and encouragement in this Sacred Council.... No change will get past the Statue of Liberty. -- Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York (1889-1967) Let nothing be innovated beyond what is traditional. --Pope St. Stephen (253-257), Eph. 74:8 I still remember very well how after several radical proposals a Sicilian Bishop rose and implored the fathers to allow caution and reason to reign on this point [of the language of worship], because otherwise there would be the danger that the entire Mass might be held in the language of the poeple -- whereupon the entire hall burst into uproarious laughter. -- Alphons Cardinal Sticker, "Recollections of a Vatican II Peritus" in Die heilege Liturgie, Franz Breid, ed., Steyr, Austria, Ennsthaler Verlage, 1997. English translation in Latin Mass, 8:1 (Winter) 1999, p. 30. It has been known that in the worship of all the religions, a sacred language is used.... For centuries, Latin remained in the Roman Catholic Church as the only language for worship.... A similar process also can be seen not only in the history of other Christian rites but also in other religions. For example, for the Moslems, old (classical) Arabic remains the language of the liturgy. For the Hindus, it is the Sanskrit Language. This is a natural and general proof that worship, because of its necessary connection with the supernatural, inherently requires its own particular relgious language, which should not be the vulgar one. --Alfons Cardinal Stickler, "The Theological Attractiveness of the Tridentine Mass," a speech given on May 20, 1995, in Fort Lee, New Jersey apud Catholic Family News, (II:7, July 1995), p. 8 The vulgar tongue has often vulgarized the Mass itself, and the translation of the original Latin has resulted in serious doctrinal misunderstanding and error.... This Babel of common worship results in a loss of external unity in the worldwide Catholic Church, which was once unified in a common voice.... We must admit that only a few decades after the reform of the liturgical language, we have lost that former possiblity of praying and singing together even in the great international gatherings such as Eucharistic Congresses, or even during meetings with the Pope as the external center of unity of the church. We can no longer sing and pray together. --Alfons Cardinal Stickler, "The Theological Attractiveness of the Tridentine Mass," a speech given on May 20, 1995 in Fort Lee, New Jersey apud Catholic Family News, (II:7, July 1995), p. 10 The vernacular has often vulgarized the Mass itself, and the translation of the original Latin has resulted in serious doctrinal misunderstanding and errors.... The theological correctness of the Tridentine Mass corresponds with the theological incorrectness of the Vatican II Mass. --Alfons Cardinal Stickler in an address given May 11, 1996, in New York If the Pope lays down an order contrary to right customs, one does not have to obey him. --Suarez (1548-1617) [Vatican II], the French Revolution in the Catholic Church. -- Cardinal Suenens It has come to our knowledge that some priests deliver the Lord's Body to a layman or to a women to carry it to the sick. This synod therefore forbids such presumption to continue. -- Synod (De Consecr., dist. 12) The founder of that sect, a certain Chrest, had suffered execution in the reign of Tiberius, during the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate. Held in check only for a time, the wicked superstition broke out once again, not only in Judea, the birthplace of the malady, but even here in the city itself. - - Tacitus, Annales, 15:44 My dear, dear child, set your heart at rest. Whether you have deserved it or not, take your suffering as coming from God, thank Him for it and be at peace and at rest. Every myrrh sent by God has been specially arranged to lift us up through suffering to higher things. That is why He has placed so many obstacles in our path. God could have made loaves of bread grow out of the ground instead of corn if He had wanted to. If would have been just as easy for Him. But He wanted men to be tried in all sorts of ways. In the eternal order which He has established, He has arranged and provided for each one of us, with more care than the best painter in the world would bestow on a masterpiece. --Johann Tauler, O.P. (1300-1361), Sermon III for Epiphany See the Christians, how they love one another! --Tertullian Sanguis martyrum, semen Christianorum. [The blood of the martyrs [is] the seed of the Christians.] --Tertullian [St. Alphonsus Liguoriin his book, The Victories of the Martyrs, tells us that eleven million men, women, and children were martyred for the Faith before the Edict of Milan in 313] You Gnostics join the Jews in denying that their Christ has come. And in the interval from Tiberius to Vespasian, they did not learn repentance. Therefore, their land has become desolate, their cities burned with fire. --Tertullian, 207 It seems to me that to other saints Our Lady has given power to help us in only one kind of necessity. But this glorious St. Joseph, I know by my own experience, assists us in all kinds of necessities. And Our Lady, it appears, wishes us to understand that as He was obedient to St. Joseph on earth, so now in heaven He now grants St. Joseph "whatever" he asks. This truth many others have also experienced, who have recommended themselves to him. Many now are devoted to him, and I myself have fresh experiecne of his power. --St. Theresa of Avila It is suffering that makes us like to Him. -- St. Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897) Yet temptations are often very profitable to a man although they be troublesome and grievous: for in them a man is humbled, purified, and instructed." --Thomas a Kempis To love is to will the good of another. --St. Thomas Aquinas The first fruit of untruth is injustice. --St. Thomas Aquinas Charity is a greater virtue than obedience. --St. Thomas Aquinas The worst wolves in sheep's clothing are the heretics and then, bad prelates. --St. Thomas Aquinas Hold firmly that you faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church. --St. Thomas Aquinas Their inculpable [invincible] ignorance will not save them; but if they fear God and live up to their conscience, God, in His infinite mercy, will furnish them with the necessary means of salvation, even so as to send, if needed, an angel to instruct them in the Catholic Faith, rather than let them perish through inculpable ignorance. --St. Thomas Aquinas Fraternal correction is a work of mercy. Therefore even prelates ought to be corrected.... It must be observed, however, that if the faith were endangered, a subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly. Hence Paul, who was Peter's subject, rebuked him in public, on account of the imminent danger of scandal concerning the faith, and as the gloss of Augustine says in Gal. 2:11, Peter gave an example to superiors, that if at any time they should happen to stray away from the straight path, they should not disdain to be reproved by their subjects.... [This] is within the competence of everyone in respect of any person. --St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II IIae, Q. 33, A. 4, R. ad Obj. 2) It is written ([Johannes Gratianus, Decretum Gratiani, P. III] De Consecr., dist. 12): "It has come to our knowledge that some priests deliver the Lord's body to a layman or to a woman to carry it to the sick: The synod therefore forbids such presumption to continue; and let the priest himself communicate the sick." --St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, P. III, Q. 82, Art. 3 Out of reverence towards this sacrament [the Holy Eucharist], nothing touches it but what is consecrated; hence the corporal and the chalice are consecrated, and likewise the priest's hands, for touching this sacrament. - -St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, P. III, Q. 82, Art. 3 It is absurd and a detestable shame, that we should suffer those traditions to be changed, which we have received from the fathers of old. - - St. Thomas Aquinas Paul, who was Peter's subject, rebuked him in public on account of the imminent danger of scandal concerning the faith, and, as the gloss of St. Augustine says on Galatians 2:11, "Peter gave an example to superiors, that if at any time they should happen to stray from the straight path, they should not disdain to be rebuked by their subjects." --St. Thomas Aquinas In discussing questions of this kind two rules are to be observed, as Augustine teaches (Gen. ad lit. i.18). The first is, to hold the truth of Scripture without wavering. The second is that since Holy Scripture can be explained in a multiplicity of senses, one should adhere to a particular explanation, only in such measure as to be ready to abandon it, if it be proved with certainty to be false; lest Holy Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of unbelievers, and obstacles be placed to their believing. -- St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Ia, Q. 68, Art. 1 But fraternal correction is a work of mercy. Therefore, prelates [bishops] also ought to be corrected by their subjects even in public. - - St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II IIae, Q. 33, Art. 4, with quotations from St. Augustine's Epistles 211 and Galatians 2:11) Absolutely speaking, the sacrament of the Eucharist is the greatest of all the sacraments.... First of all because it contains Christ Himself substantially: whereas the other sacraments contain a certain instrumental power which is a share of Christ's power.... For all the sacraments seem to be ordained to this one as their end. --St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Ia, Q. 68, Art. 3 Disobedience is not a schism, no matter how obstinate it is, for as long as it does not contain a rebellion against the authority of the Pope or of the Church. --St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IIa IIae, Q. 39, Art. 1 ad 8) Although it clearly follows from the circumstances that the Pope can err at times, and command things which must not be done, that we are not to be simply obedient to him in all things, that does not show that he must not be obeyed by all when his commands are good. To know in what cases he is to be obeyed and in what not,... it is said in the Acts of the Apostles: "One ought to obey God rather than man"; therefore, were the Pope to command anything against Holy Scripture, or the articles of faith, or the truth of the Sacraments, or the commands of the natural or divine law, he ought not to be obeyed, but in such commands, to be passed over (despiciendus).... -- Cardinal Juan de Torquemada (Turrencremata), Summa de Ecclesia (1489) In this way, the Pope could, without doubt, fall into Schism.... Especially is this true with regard to the liturgy, as for example, if he did not wish personally to follow the universal customs and rites of the Church.... The same holds true for other aspects of the liturgy in a very general fashion.... By separating himself from the observance of the Universal customs of the church, and by so doing with obstinacy, the Pope is able to fall into schism. Such a conclusion is only just because the premises on which it is based are beyond doubt. For, just as the Pope can become a heretic, so he is also able to do so with the sin of obstinacy. Thus it is that Innocent states (De Consuetudine) that it is necessary to obey a Pope in all things as long as he does not himself go against the universal customs of the Church, but should he go against the universal customs of the Church, he need not be followed...." --Cardinal Juan de Torquemada (Turrencremata), Summa de Ecclesia (1489) and Commentarii in Decretum Gratiani (1519) [Well founded is] the right and duty of legitimate public authority to punish malefactors by means of penalities commensurate with the gravity of the crime, not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty. - - Council of Trent (1545-1563) If anyone shall say that the baptism, which is also given by heretics in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, with the intention of doing what the Church does, is not true baptism: let him be anathema. --Council of Trent (1545-1563), Denziger 860 The holy, ecumenical Council of Trent, lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost, presided over by the same apostolic legates, has as its purpose to preserve in its purity the ancient, absolute, and completely perfect faith and teaching in the holy Catholic Church about the great mystery of the Eucharist and to avert heresies and errors. --Council of Trent (1545- 1563), Denziger 937a) No one, moreover, so long as he lives in this mortal state, ought so far to presume concerning the secret mystery of divine predestination, as to decide for certain that he is assuredly in the number of the predestined (Canon 15), as if it were true that he who is justified either cannot sin any more (Canon 23), or if he shall have sinned, that he ought to promise himself an assured reformation. For except by special revelation, it cannot be known whom God has chosen for Himself (Canon 16). --Council of Trent (1545- 1563), Session VI Si quis dixerit, receptos et approbatos ecclesiae catholicae ritus in solemni sacramentorum administratione adhiberi consuetos aut contemni, aut sine peccato a ministris pro libito omitti, aut in novus alio per quemcumque ecclesiarum pastorem mutari posse: anathema sit. [If anyone says that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, accustomed to be used in the administration of the Sacraments, may be despised or omitted by the ministers without sin and at their pleasure, or may be changed by any pastor whosoever of the churches to other new ones, let him be anathema.] --Council of Trent (1545-1563), Session VII, Can. 13 [applying to Eastern as well as western rites, to the pope as well as other pastors] If anyone denies that the Body and Blood, together with the Soul and Divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained in the sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist, but says that Christ is present in the sacrament only as a symbol or figure, or by His power: let him be condemned. --Council of Trent (1545- 1563), Session XIII, Canon (Denziger, 883) If anyone says that the Holy Catholic Church has not been influenced by just cause and reasons to give Communion under the form of bread only to laymen and even to clerics when not consecrating, or that she has erred in this, let him be anathema. --Council of Trent (1545-1563), Session XXI, Canon 2 (Denziger 935) Although the Mass contains a great teaching for the faithful, nevertheless, it has not seemed good to the Fathers that it should be celebrated here and there in the vulgar tongue. --Council of Trent (1545- 1563), Session XXII, Chapter VIII If anyone says that in the Mass a true and real sacrifice is not offered to God, or that the act of offering is nothing else than Christ being given to us to eat, let him be anathema. --Council of Trent (1545-1563), Session XXII, Canon 1 If anyone says that the ceremonies, vestments, and outward signs that the Catholic Church makes use of in the celebration of Masses are incentives to impiety, rather than offices of piety, let him be anathema. --Council of Trent (1545-1563), Session XXII, Canon 7 Si quis dixerit ... lingua tantum vulgari Missam celebrari debere, anathema sit. [If anyone says that the Mass ought to be celebrated in the vernacular only, ... let him be anathema.] --Council of Trent (1545- 1563), Session XXII, Canon 9 (Denziger 956) Idque eo magis, quod ovium Christi sanguinem, quae ex malo negligentium et sui officii immemorum pastorum regimine peribunt, Dominus noster Iesus Christus de manibus eius sit requisiturus. [And this all the more because our Lord, Jesus Christ, will require at his hands the blood those sheep of Christ who have perished through the wicked misgovernment of neglectful bishops unmindful of their duty.] -- Council of Trent (1545-1563), Session XXIV, Chap. 1, De Reformatione (November 11, 1563) [The false prophet] will not base his orthodoxy on the Magisterium, the ancient teachings of the Church, or even the Ten Commandments, but he will try to update them on purely humanistic grounds. He will emphasize the dignity of man, the sacredness of human life, the inviolability of the individual human being.... He will speak of Jesus, but not of Jesus Christ. --Fr. Paul Trinchard Reform and Conservative are not Judaism at all. Their adherents are Jews, according to Jewish law, but their religion is not Judaism. They sanction homosexuality, divorce, intermarriage, and conversion. Such views are repugnant not only to Torah Judaism, but also to common morality. Reform and Conservative Judaism can be classed only in the category of heretical movements that have plagued our people at one time or another. --Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, March 1997 If there is anything divine among the possessions of men, which the citizens of Heaven might covet (were covetousness possible for them), it would certainly be the most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, whose blessing is such that in it man possesses a certain anticipation of Heaven while still on earth. --Pope Urban VIII [To contend that] ways must be prepared for people to unite their voices with that of the whole Church -- if this be understood to signify the introduction of the use of the vernacular language into the liturgical prayers -- is condemned as false, rash, disturbing to the order prescribed for the celebration of the sacred mysteries, easily productive of many evils. -- Auctorem Fidei, Pope Urban VIII, 1624 The complaint that the use of the Latin language by the Church is an obstacle to the devotion of "everyman"... -- let us make no mistake about the origin of this centuries old [Protestant] complaint; let us recognize it for what it is: a very subtle and dangerous weapon skillfully wielded by the enemy of Christian civilization [Satan]. For the unity of the Church is so bound up with the unity of liturgical language that any attack against the latter is directly aimed at the former. One cannot insist too strongly on this truth. Today it is possible to see more clearly whither such tendencies lead. We are witnessing a vast revolt against Christian traditions, morals and culture, and unless we Catholics of the West strengthen all bonds that bind us together we shall not be able to prevent the whole ... [world] from reverting to worse than paganism. It is therefore a duty, both religious and patriotic, steadfastly to oppose all such insidious anti-Latin propaganda and to cultivate by all possible means this bond of a common tongue to express the worship of a common Faith. --V.G.L., Legendo (Liverpool: Rushworth & Dreaper, 1943), pp. vi-vii Anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of the intellectual. -- Peter Viereck, "American Religious Identification Survey 2008" The Divine Office is the school of all virtues. The master who teaches us in it is the Holy Ghost, the source of all truth; it is also the Prophets, Apostles, and Saints of God. --St. Vincent de Paul When the Arian poison had contaminated not only a limited area, but the whole world, almost all the bishops of the Latin Church fell into heresy, forced by violence or deceived by guile. It was like a fog fallen upon the spirits and hiding which road to take. In order to be safe from this contagious plague, the true disciples of Christ had to prefer the ancient beliefs rather than all the false novelties. --St. Vincent of Lerins (ca. 400-ca. 450), Commonitorium When a foulness invades the whole Church..., we must return to the Church of the past. --St. Vincent of Lerins (ca. 400-ca. 450), Commonitorium I have often inquired earnestly and attentively of very many men eminent for sanctity and learning, how and by what rule I may be able to distinguish the truth of the Catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical depravity; and I have always and in almost every instance received an answer to this effect: That whether I or anyone else should wish to detect the frauds and avoid the snares of heretics as they arise, and to continue sound and complete in the Catholic faith, we must the Lord helping, fortify our own belief in two ways: first by the authority of the Divine Law, and then, by the tradition of the Catholic Church. -- St. Vincent of Lerins (ca. 400-ca. 450), Commonitorium So what shall the Catholic Christian do if some part of the Church should come to detach itself from the communion, from the Universal Faith? What other side could he take than to prefer to the gangrenous and corrupted member, the body which is whole and healthy? And if some new contagion should seek to poison, not only a little part of the Church, but the whole Church at once, then his greatest care should once again be to adhere to antiquity, which obviously cannot be seduced by any deceitful novelty. --St. Vincent of Lerins (ca. 400-ca. 450), Commonitorium Understanding, knowledge, and wisdom must increase and powerfully grow in one and in all, both in each individual man and in the Church, during the passage of time and of the ages, but grow solely within its own species, that is to say, within the same dogma, in the same sense, and in the same meaning [in eodem dogmate, eodem sensu, eademque sententia]. --St. Vincent of Lerins (ca. 400-ca. 450), Commonitorium [this expression was lifted textually by the First Vatican Council and for the Anti-Modernist Oath] Magnopere curandum est ut id teneamus, quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est; hoc est etenim vere proprieque catholicum. [Care must especially be had that we hold that which was believed everywhere, always, and by all; for this is truly and properly catholic.] --St. Vincent of Lerins (5th century), Commonitorium, IX (Rouet de Journel, #2168) This indult ["Ecclesia Dei"] is an insult. It is not for us [Society of St. Pius X].... We do not accept the new mass as lawful.... [It is] an adulterous union with bastard fruits.... We want the concubine gone Wee hope and pray ... for the condemnation and total disappearance of the new mass.... The traditional mass ... is the only form of worship acceptable to God. The new mass is not. --Fr. Jean Violette, SSPX District Superior of Australia and New Zealand, Letter to the Faithful, August 27, 1994 In Spain, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there were none of those bloody revolutions, those conspiracies and cruel visitations which were seen in the other countries of Europe.... Only by means of the Inquisition, Spain escaped those horrors which dishonor all others. -- Voltaire Be careful. These are dangerous times. The devil would like you to believe that the battle for the ancient Mass has been all but won. But have no doubt. He hates the ancient Mass and anyone who has devotion to it, and in particular those who offer the Holy Sacrifice. Now is the time for watchfulness, for he will try to trick us. The time when success can be measured is the most dangerous time of all. --Alice von Hildebrand, Latin Mass, (VIII:4, Fall 1999), p. 15 In the case of practical authority, which refers to the ordinances of the pope, the protection of the Holy Spirit is not promised in the same way. Ordinances can be unfortunate, ill-conceived, even disastrous. Here Roma locuta, causa finita does not hold. The faithful are not obliged to regard all ordinances as good and desirable. They can regret them and pray that they be taken back; indeed, they can work, with all due respect for the pope, for their elimination. [There is now a strong tendency in the Church] to prefer communion to faith; thus, peace implicitly becomes the highest value. --Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand (St. Catherine of Siena wrote that peace can be worse than strife or war.) The fact that many orthodox Catholics fight these heresies is not deplorable; on the contrary, we should rejoice that there are still faithful Catholics, and that they raise their voices against heresies, for God expects that of them. St. Paul says there always will be heresies, and he adds that God permits them to test the faithful. The disunity which is based on the incompatibility of truth and faslehood cannot and should not be avoided. -- Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand The emphasis of Vatican II is not really on ecumenism, as that word is properly understood; what the Council urges is actually a new attitude toward non-Catholic religions. The Council invites Catholics, while clearly recognizing the dogmatic errors of the sects, to recognize also what is true in them. By this recognition it is hoped that Catholics will feel not only our dolorous separation from our Christian brethren, but also the imperfect unity resulting from those truths which we share with them. This is certainly a noble and praiseworthy thing; but it is also, I repeat, a dangerous thing. For compared to the Church's universality, and the mission of conversion we must all feel as a consequence of it, the recognition of what we have in common with non-Catholics is a quite secondary consideration. --Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand The Church has survived because she has always condemned errors. In the words of Cardinal Newman: "the fear of error is simply necessary to the genuine love of truth." A spirit very different from Newman's reigns in the Church today. In the face of a fearful crisis menacing the Church --a crisis of Faith, a crisis from within --we hear the argument, even from some bishops, that the most regrettable thing today is disunity among Catholics. --Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand First, there is the mafia in the Church, the prelates who have not only lost their faith but who remain in the Church in order to destroy the Church; otherwise, they would leave the Church. If I would lose my faith, I would leave the Church. But to lose the faith and remain in the Church, there must be some reason for that. They use the slogan "progress" as a means to camouflage their diabolical work of destruction and to fool the faithful, in order to draw them away from Christ and His holy Church. They are real servants of the anti-Christ. --Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand To be sure, there exists a harmless type of mediocrity which is content to remain in its modest place. But what we have been faced with in the Church in recent years is the revolution of the mediocre. Before the Second Vatican Council there were many theologians and priests who had no great culture, no profound intelligence, and even a mediocre approach to life; but they remained silent, or repeated by rote the glorious teaching of the Church. Perhaps they did so in an inadequate way, mechanically and superficially; but still they were poor mouthpieces of something incomparably greater than their own limited minds: they transmitted to some extent Divine truth. They accepted a modest role. Their mediocrity was regrettable, but not disastrous.... In the intense mediocrity that is known as "Catholic progressivism" the most mediocre layman, priest, or professor of theology (being a professor is not the least insurance against the dullest mediocrity) now aspires to "reform" the Church, to create a "new theology," to be "revolutionary." --Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand What really matters, surely, is not whether the faithful feel at home at Mass, but whether they are drawn out of their ordinary lives into the world of Christ. --Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand, "The Case for the Latin Mass" Those who idolize our epoch, who thrill at what is modern simply because it is modern, who believe that in our day man has finally "come of age," lack pietas. --Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand, "The Case for the Latin Mass" The basic error of most of the innovations is to imagine that the new liturgy brings the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass nearer to the faithful, that shorn of its old rituals the Mass now enters into the substance of our lives. For the question is whether we better meet Christ in the Mass by soaring up to Him, or by dragging Him down into our own pedestrian, workaday world. The innovators would replace holy intimacy with Christ by an unbecoming familiarity. The new liturgy actually threatens to frustrate the confrontation with Christ, for it discourages reverence in the face of mystery, precludes awe, and all but extinguishes a sense of sacredness. What really matters, surely, is not whether the faithful feel at home at Mass, but whether they are drawn out of their ordinary lives into the world of Christ - - whether their attitude is the response of ultimate reverence: whether they are imbued with the reality of Christ.... A Catholic should regard his liturgy with pietas. He should revere, and therefore fear to abandon the prayers and postures and music that have been approved by so many saints throughout the Christian era and delivered to us as a precious heritage. To go no further, the illusion that we can replace the Gregorian chant, with its inspired hymns and rhythms, by equally fine, if not better, music betrays a ridiculous self-assurance and lack of knowledge. --Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand, "The Case for the Latin Mass" It is sad enough when people lose their faith and leave the Church; but it is much worse when those who in reality have lost their faith remain within the Church and try -- like termites -- to undermine Christian faith with their claim that they are giving to Christian revelation the interpretation that suits "modern man." --Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand, Trojan Horse in the City of God, p. 265 There is no reform to carry out. We have to admire the maturation and development of these [traditional Roman] rites as the fruit of the Faith of the Church, inherited since the first centuries of the Church. -- Msgr. Gilles Wach, "An Interview with Msgr. Gilles Wach," in Wanderer, (XIX:1, January 15, 1996), p. 6. "Participation" in the Mass does not mean hearing our own voice. I "participate" in a work of art when I study it and love it silently. -- Evelyn Waugh Sloth is not just laziness. It is an inability to act for your own spiritual good. That is, knowing what is necessary for the good of your own soul, and not being able, or not being willing, to take the necessary actions. --Evelyn Waugh He [Cardinal Lawrence Joseph Cardinal Shehan, of Baltimore] had the personal kindliness, moderation, and liberality of spirit that distinguishes the true conservative from the mere reactionary. --George Weigel, The National Catholic Register, June 24, 1990 The Lord God does not at present seem to be wanting large numbers for his remnant in any part of the world. What matters ... is that there is a hard core of souls holding onto the Faith in quality and numbers sufficient to make it difficult to imagine the pilot light being extinguished. -- Bp. Richard N. Williamson, of the Society of St. Pius X By divine Providence, pagan Rome provided the central launching pad of the Catholic Church. Pagan Romans were the raw material of the first Roman Catholics. So the study of Latin gives access, as no other study can do, to the natural life-blood of our supernatural Faith. --Bp. Richard N. Williamson, of the Society of St. Pius X I love independent minds -- as long as they agree with me. --Bp. Richard N. Williamson, of the Society of St. Pius X, in "Back to the Land, Back to God?," St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary Bulletin, January 3, 2001 It is a misrepresentation often repeated, that Catholics imagine the supreme pontiff to be free of all liability to moral transgression, as through they believed that no action performed by him could be sinful. It can hardly be necessary for me to deny so gross and so absurd an imputation. --Cardinal Wiseman My Lord, I understand that there is a Reformation in Religion intended by the Parliament; and I wish that several things were reformed; but let me tell you that when you have reformed, that others will come, and refine upon you, and others again upon them; et sic deinceps, that at last there will be no Religion left, but Atheism will spring up. The Myseteries of Religion are to be let alone; they will not bear an examination. -- Cardinal Wolsey "Independent" priests are an essential cog in the traditional movement. They have given up the "security" of a diocesan payroll, pension, and other comforts. They do not have to play politics with a liberal bishop or possibly a heretical bishop. Fraternity of St. Peter priests and diocesan priest who say the "indult " Mass must hew to the party line, or face even more persecution. --Edward K. Wunder, Ringwood, NJ I ask and I order two things: Let the modern 'masses' cease at once and let them return to the Canon ordained by the Tridentine Council of Pius V. Let them, who have apostatized and have been traitors, return to the primitive sources of the Church. Repent and return to the good path at once and immediately. Let the Holy Mass be in Latin and in the manner that the Council of Trent defined it forever. --Revelation to Sister Maria Concepcion Zuniga Lopez of Mexico (ob. 1979), Founder of the Franciscan Minim nuns in 1942, in a revelation on October 29, 1974 (she has received revelations since the age of 12). This revelation is advanced in answer to those that claim all revelations reported have supported the Novus Ordo and the pope.