
ELEISON COMMENTS DCCCXLVI (Sept. 30, 2023) : BAD SHEPHERDS ?
As certain questions come back, so there are certain answers which need to be repeated. From the very beginning of the “Traditional movement” soon after Vatican II there arose the question of attending or not the New Mass of Pope Paul VI: If it is not necessarily invalid, if it can be valid, why can I not attend it ?” In accordance with Catholic theology of the Mass, the Tradionalists’ answer from the beginning was that even if the celebration of a New Mass with correct Matter, Form and Intention is valid, nevertheless it cannot normally be attended because it is so poisoned by the new humanistic religion of Vatican II that many a Catholic who attends it regularly, risks losing his faith by exposure to a false version of God, of man, of sin and Redemption, no less. The Traditional Mass is centred on God, the New Mass is centred on man.
However, the acceptability of attending the New Mass has been supported in recent years by the allegation that there have been a number of Eucharistic miracles with hosts consecrated at a New Mass celebrated by a priest ordained with the New Ordination Rite by a bishop consecrated with the New Consecration Rite, for instance in Sokulka, Poland, in 2008. Now Traditionalists not only claim, but can argue, that all three New Rites (of Mass, Ordination and Consecration) are not necessarily valid, but in the case of many of these alleged Eucharistic miracles they are up against the (truly) scientific evidence of transubstantiation having really taken place. See for instance the 279-page book recently published by the Sophia Institute Press, A Cardiologist Examines Jesus, in which a professional heart doctor lays out “the stunning science behind Eucharistic miracles.” A sane mind, having examined such “science”, starts out from it. Sokulka features in the book from pages 81 to 95. Two of the book’s 27 photographic plates come from Sokulka.
With such evidence we must assume that at least a number of alleged eucharistic miracles are authentic. The argument for the New Mass then takes the following form: If the New Mass is as offensive to God and as harmful to Catholics as Traditionalists claim, then how could God (who alone can produce the evidence behind such miracles) possibly have worked them at the New Mass ? And how can it possibly be wrong for me to attend it ? The answer has not changed from above. All that the scientific evidence has done is to prove beyond all possible doubt that transubstantiation really did happen at the Mass where the miracle took place. Then the question becomes, how can a loving God possibly want to poison the faith of His own sheep ?
The answer is classic. God does not want evil, but He wants to allow evil in order to bring a greater good from it. The evil is the exposure of Catholic souls to humanistic poison threatening their faith. This evil was wanted by the unfaithful churchmen who changed the Rite of Mass, but it was not wanted by God. What He wanted was to remind His shepherds (bishops) and His sheep (layfolk) that the Mass is the true Sacrifice of His Son, and both of them must stop behaving as though Mass is just like some glorified picnic. In Sokulka for instance, the parish priest at the time of the miracle and for a number of years afterwards, declares that devotion to the Holy Eucharist has notably increased in the whole region of Sokulka itself ever since the miracle. And the miraculous corporal is now exposed for adoration in a side chapel of the parish church.
Thus Almighty God does not like what a mass of churchmen and layfolk have done to His church down the ages, starting with Judas Iscariot, but He does want to put His infinitely precious Church in the hands of churchmen with free-will to merit for their own Heaven by how well they serve it, at the risk of their choosing to demerit by their dis-serving it, and he does want to allow His sheep to have bad church shepherds if that is what they deserve, so that they will suffer and return to wanting good shepherds. But He will never leave His sheep completely leaderless, if they want to get to Heaven. See how He gave us Archbishop Lefebvre to pioneer the return to Tradition, and now Archbishop Vigano to set an example of courage, in telling Catholic Truth to an apparently overwhelming anti-Catholic power.
Kyrie eleison
We always want calm seas, easy to sail,
But God wants storms, to test how we avail.