Maybe They Didn’t Take Away The Old Mass Because They Like Us

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By their fruits...

By their fruits…

The terrific Pat Archbold has the latest in a series of interviews with old-school Catholic and freedom fighter, Ann Barnhardt.  In it she makes two ‘transformational’ (as the Left likes to say) points about the Mass.  One regarding Vatican motivations, so alive once again in this seemingly sinister Francis Era; and the other about grace.

Before there can be any discussion of the Novus Ordo the concepts of  “validity” and “licitness” must be understood.  If a Mass is INVALID, Our Lord does NOT come down on the altar, the Eucharist is NOT confected and the Holy Sacrifice is NOT offered.  If a Mass is ILLICIT, the Eucharist is confected and Our Lord does come, but He is, depending on the severity of the infraction and motivation of the malefactor, in a range from displeased to very, very angry.  But with whom is He angry?  According to St. Thomas Aquinas, Our Lord is angry not only with the priest, but also with the PEOPLE who tolerate and embrace the liturgical faults and crimes of the clergy.  In fact, St. Thomas said that people who consent to liturgical abuse do not “obtain the reality of the sacrament”.

“Sometimes the one celebrating the sacraments differently [than prescribed] does not vary those things that are essential to the sacrament [i.e., the form and matter], and in that case, the sacrament is indeed conferred; but one does not obtain the reality of the sacrament unless the sacrament’s recipient is immune from the fault of the one celebrating it differently.”  (In IV Sent., d. 4, q. 3, a. 2, qa. 2, ad 4)

Now, when Thomas says they are not obtaining the “res,” or reality of the Sacrament, he doesn’t mean they are not receiving Jesus really, physically, substantially present in the Eucharist. Oh they absolutely receive our Lord, but not the benefit of receiving Him, not the grace. Rather, as St. Paul says, they eat and drink their own damnation. If one pauses and thinks about the gravity of what the Angelic Doctor said, one quickly realizes how the following statistics are not only possible, but entirely predictable given the Novus Ordo paradigm:

  • As of 2001, only 17% of Catholics in the U.S. attended Mass every week, which is, of course, obligatory under pain of mortal sin.
  • Of those who attend Mass “regularly”, less than 30% believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.  For a non-trivial percentage of the 70% who do not believe in the Real Presence, it is because they have never been told or taught of the Real Presence in any way.
  • Among white Catholic Americans, 54% voted for Barack Obama in 2008.  That number dropped to a MERE 50% in 2012.
  • Among Hispanic Catholic Americans, 72% voted for Obama in 2008, and 75% in 2012.
  • In excess of 60% of American Catholics support sodomite “marriage”, and Catholics have consistently “led the way” in polls on this question.
  • All over the world, support for and active use of contraception among Catholics is in excess of 90%.
  • 55% of American Catholics support abortion in all or most cases.

I agree with Ann and many others that the Church, and the world along with it in our time, is suffering from a lack of Christian grace brought on by the suppression of the Mass.  The act of supreme faith and worship is much missed.  Although blindingly obvious, without eyes of faith it is impossible to see how much the Mass had elevated civilization, or how much it’s absence has debased it.

The Novus Ordo Masses are mostly valid, but the amount of grace flowing into the people, if what St. Thomas teaches is true, is little to none, not only because so many of them are receiving Holy Communion in unconfessed mortal sin, but also because the only way for an adult to receive the graces flowing from the Novus Ordo is to spend the entirety of the Mass begging God’s mercy and making reparation for the illicit liturgical actions freely chosen by the priest and consented to by the people, and further begging God’s mercy and making reparation for the massively compromised nature of the Novus Ordo itself, created as it was with full malice aforethought by Freemasonic-Communist-sodomite infiltrators of the Church, and again, consented to by the people, who have historically been the last and most strident line of defense against liturgical abuse.

What? Communists infiltrating the Church?  That would never happen, right?

Can we at least agree that the only Pope who ever, ever had the hubris to force his own version of the Mass may perhaps have been motivated by something other than a loving faith?

Or are you one of those weak-Jesus Christians who blames the world for the Church?

 

 

 

When the EPA Creates Catholic Doctrine, All Must Obey

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FrancisChurch 'catholics' will obey the new morality for you.

FrancisChurch ‘catholics’ obey the new morality for you.

It’s important to remember that when we talk about the new FrancisGospel – so beloved by anti-Catholic technocrats and communists, and it’s dream of FrancisTopia, it would be a gross mistake to think its new moral code will be in any way voluntary.  I know, right and wrong, as they have been revealed to us by God and his saints, should be something we can generally choose, but that doesn’t have anything to do with it.

World leaders have a “moral obligation” to fight climate change, and top Obama aides are making good on that obligation with its climate rule for power plants, two administration officials write in a new blog post.

Environmental Protection Agency head Gina McCarthy and Ambassador to the Vatican Ken Hackett wrote Monday that the EPA’s carbon rule fits with Pope Francis’s moral call to action on climate change released last month.

“He makes clear our moral obligation to prevent climate impacts that threaten God’s creation, especially for those most vulnerable,” McCarthy and Hackett wrote in the post on the EPA’s blog and The Huffington Post.

The officials lay out various harms of climate change, such as the effects of higher sea levels on the island nation of Tuvalu and increased extreme weather throughout the world.

“For all these reasons, the U.S. government, through the EPA, is taking steps to make good on our moral obligation,” they wrote. “Later this summer, the agency will finalize a rule to curb the carbon pollution fueling climate change from our nation’s largest source — power plants.”

See?  It’s just morality.  The EPA chief even helped Pope Francis write an encyclical to make it actual Church teaching.  No big deal.  Now an EPA rule is a Catholic Church rule for all time, yes?

Don’t like the sound of all this?  Don’t worry.  McCarthy and Ambassador Hackett are both ‘Catholic’ so it’s all internal and within the fold, so to speak.

McCarthy, a Catholic, has highlighted Francis’s encyclical in recent weeks to promote the carbon rules, which will seek a 30-percent cut in the power sector’s carbon by 2030.

She also traveled to Vatican City in January to meet with top church officials and discuss Francis’s encyclical and administration officials’ work on climate, including the power plant rules.

Get used to this.  Before it’s all over the only people left who don’t hate our new FrancisChurch will be mid-level government bureaucrats scrambling for position, Hollywood stars, Jesuits, and a few gay people.

 

 

 

 

 

Francis Leaves Communist Crucifix at the Feet of Our Lady of Dialogue

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Praying to 'purify the impure' for FrancisChurch?

Praying to ‘purify the impure’ for FrancisChurch?

The Eponymous Flower has a recap of the Pope’s flight home from Paraguay where he was asked about the revealing gift he received from Communist dictator and admirer, Evo Morales.

On the return flight to Rome Pope Francis answered a few questions for the accompanying journalists on the plane. The Catholic Church leader was asked also to explain the provocative gift made the Pope of the hammer and sickle with Christ from the Bolivian President Evo Morales. Vatican Radio published the questions and complete answers in the original language.

Aura Vistas Miguel (Portugal Vaticanist): “Holiness, how did you feel when you saw the gift of President Morales with sickle and hammer with Christ? What became of this subject?”

Pope Francis: “I – it is strange – did not know that and did not know that Father Espinal was a sculptor and a poet. I have learned that during  these days. I’ve seen it and it was a surprise for me. Secondly: It can qualify as a genre of protest art. For example, there was an exhibition by a brave, creative Argentine sculptor  in Buenos Aires a few years ago. There was protest art, and I remember a work that showed a crucified Christ on a bomber coming down. This was a critique of Christianity, which is allied with imperialism, represented as a bomber.

The trip through Latin America has been enlightening for the whole world.  Many people have not been able to relate to the way Francis thinks, it’s so entirely radical.  But that is the world from which he’s emerged.  Being a Latin American Jesuit must be something like spending your entire life at sea.

When questioned about that evil Crucifix, his resentment is right at the surface. His mind goes right to an ‘imperialist’ (American?) bomber.  In FrancisUniverse, nothing Catholic can be taken for what it is.  It has to be seen in light of some campaign, some ugly battle.  Is it possible for Francis to see Christ’s death for what it is?  No.  It must be attached to the cause.

But Pope Francis must now walk back and reassure.  There are ‘many currents’ to liberation theology, see.  The sliver condemned by the Church was just one.

First point: So I knew nothing about it; Second point: I qualify it as protest art that can be offensive in some cases. In some cases. Third, for this particular case: Father Espinal was killed in 1980. That was a time when the liberation theology had many different currents, one of them was the Marxist analysis of reality, and Fr. Espinal belonged to this. I knew because I was at that time Rector of the Faculty of Theology and they talked a lot about it, and who their representatives were in the different currents. In the same year  the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Father Arrupe, wrote a letter to the whole society about the Marxist analysis of reality in the theology that he stopped a little, saying, No, you can not. These are different things, you can not do that, that’s not right. And four years later, in 1984, the CDF published the first small volume, the first statement of the Liberation Theology, which criticized it.

They didn’t like hammer and sickle crucifixes in those other currents – too much like communism, right?  You didn’t like it either.

If Fr. Espinal was part of the ‘bad liberation theology,’ then why did you lay flowers at his grave, praise his ‘martyrdom’ and his fight, accept his twisted cross, lay it at the foot of Our Lady?  Is the Pope losing track of all the currents out there?  No.  It’s just ‘inter-liberation theological’ dialogue.

Dialogue is so important.  Without it, you’d never get away with anything rotten.

Then came the second, which was more open to the Christian outlook. I simplify, of course. Let’s take a hermeneutics of that era.   Espinal is an enthusiast of this Marxist analysis, as well as theology, for which he used Marxism. Hence comes this.  The poems of Espinal belong to this genre of protest, but it was his life, it was his way of thinking, he was a special man with a lot of human genius, and who fought in good faith. As I have done such a hermeneutics, I understand this. For me it was not an insult. But I had to make this hermeneutics, and I say this to you, so that no false opinions arise. This object is with me now, it’s coming with me. You may have heard that President Morales wanted to give me two honors, the highest award of Bolivia and then the Order of Fr. Espinal, a new order. Well, I have never accepted a ceremony that does not suit me. But he did it with a lot of good will and the desire to do me favor. And I thought that that comes from the people of Bolivia – I’ve been praying for it and I thought: If I bring it to the Vatican, where it goes to  a museum and no one sees it. So I thought to offer it to the Virgin of Copacabana, the Bolivian Mother, so that it goes to the Sanctuary: The work will be in the Sanctuary of Copacabana, together with the two awards that I received. Christ, however, I take with. Thanks. “

I have never accepted a ceremony that does not suit me?  I left the communist crucifix in the Ecuadoran church where it wouldn’t be hidden away?

This pope is all fight.  He twists and bends but he doesn’t really give.