respice stellam

ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCCXXXVI  (22^nd July, 2023) :  TWO KINDS of BISHOP  –  II    

“Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis,” said the Latins. In English, “The times they are a-changing, and we change with them.”  And we change with them.  And since God created this whole world of ours to populate His Heaven with angels and human beings deserving to share in His eternal bliss; and since to punish the Fall of Adam and Eve He allowed the highest of fallen angels to become “the Prince of this world” (Jn. XII, 31;  XIV, 30;  XVI, 11); and since the world, the flesh and the Devil together set up a powerful current sweeping a huge number of souls to their eternal perdition; then every one of us must make sure that with time passing we may be changing indeed, but towards God and not away from Him.  

Now Vatican II (1962-1965) was a catastrophic example of millions of Catholics being misled away from God even under the appearance of being led towards Him, and the massive deception continues. Thus amidst the great decline of the Catholic Church following on Vatican II, Archbishop Lefebvre (1905-1991) achieved the miraculous feat of creating within the Church a Priestly Congregation to oppose the decline being imposed on all the Church by its highest officials in Rome and in the dioceses. This was the Society of St Pius X, officially condemned in appearance from the Popes downwards, but in reality keeping the true Faith with God’s grace, and with the support of a remnant of true Catholics all over the world. To save His Society and protect these Catholics, in 1988 the Archbishop was driven, against Rome’s express prohibition, to consecrate four bishops of His own, who for two decades gave at least outwardly faithful service to Catholic Truth and thereby to the Church.  

Inwardly, however, the times they were a-changing, and with them were changing the Society leaders that the Archbishop had left behind him when he died in 1991. Within a few years, contacts between the Society and Rome, which the Archbishop had broken off in 1988 until, he said, “Rome would return to the Catholic Faith”, were being discreetly, not to say secretly, renewed, even though Rome was enforcing the false Conciliar “renewal” more and more. The discretion or secrecy of these contacts was necessary in order not to scare away souls on either side who – quite rightly – could not believe that Catholicism and Conciliarism can be reconciled. Time had to be given to such souls on both sides for them to change sufficiently to accept that there is no irreconcilable contradiction between the Faith and Vatican II.  

Sure enough, men changed with time, and by 2012 the Society leaders at least were ready for a denial of the contradiction. And so at their non-elective Chapter of that year they officially changed their Founder’s policy of “No practical agreement without a doctrinal agreement”, putting the Faith first, to a policy of “There can be no doctrinal agreement so we must make do with a practical agreement”, putting doctrine second and agreement first, something the Archbishop himself, after 1988, would never have done. For, as noted in these “Comments” last week, in the negotiations with Rome of May, 1988, he considered that Cardinal Ratzinger’s prevarication had shown once and for all that Rome would not protect Tradition.  

But, one might object, what is wrong with a practical agreement when a doctrinal agreement proves to be impossible, as was clear after the fruitless Rome-SSPX doctrinal discussions of 2008-2011 ?  What is wrong is what the old Archbishop well understood, that from any practical agreement onwards, the lightweight Society would have tied itself to heavyweight Rome, and the Society’s one and only real weight, its doctrine of Truth, would count for less and less until it would be virtually abandoned, and the Society would be nullified, as faithless Rome, Conciliar Rome, has wished all along.  

Surely Bishop Huonder, with all his possible good will – God knows – is being groomed in 2023 by both sides to make a significant contribution to that nullification – God knows.                                                                                                                                           Kyrie eleison   They say, the leopard cannot change its spots…

Rome is in enemy hands… connect the dots ! 

ELEISON COMMENTS DCCCXXXV  (July 15, 2023) : TWO  KINDS  of  BISHOP  –  I  

Both the Newsociety of St Pius X, and the priests who left it to join the non-structured movement known as the “Resistance”, are well aware how indispensable bishops are to the survival of the Catholic Church. However, they have rather different ideas on how to ensure that there will be such bishops in the future. Vatican II split Catholic Authority from Catholic Truth, a split which is at the heart of the Church’s on-going crisis ever since the 1960’s. Generally speaking, the Newsociety favours Authority over Truth (without completely abandoning Truth) while the “Resistance” favours Truth over Authority (without completely abandoning Authority). Hence the Newsociety is still waiting on Roman or Conciliar approval for it to have the new bishops it desperately needs, whereas the “Resistance” is making bishops for itself, without that approval, as did Archbishop Lefebvre for the original Society in 1988, with great success for the Faith.

To prove that the Newsociety is still waiting on Rome’s approval for it to have new bishops, a quote from Bishop Fellay early in  2022 to a Spanish journalist in Madrid should be enough. Asked what he is going to do for new bishops, his reply was, in substance: We are going to do exactly the same as Archbishop Lefebvre did in his time. When the urgency and need arise, we will do as he did, by turning to Romeand then, depending on the response, we will do as the Good Lord tells us. I see a new opening, which may have become more visible over the last few years, namely, I do not rule out that in the near future bishops of the Catholic Church will support us even in public, and if that happens, it may make it unnecessary for the Society to consecrate its own bishops.

Two points call here for comment.  Firstly, it is true that the Archbishop did negotiate with Rome in May of 1988, in order to obtain a green light from Roman Authority for the planned Consecration of four bishops for Tradition, i.e. for Truth. However, at a given point in those negotiations he realized that Cardinal Ratzinger was so stalling to fix a date for the consecrations as to be refusing in practice to grant Rome’s theoretical permission for one bishop. At that point it became once and for all clear to the Archbishop that Roman Authority was refusing to look after Truth, and until his death in 1991 he stopped all contact with the Romans, unless they would return to the Catholic Faith, he said. Now by 2023 have they so returned ?  Obviously not – Pachamama and Traditionis Custodes are just two examples of their war on Catholic Truth being more bitter than ever. Then how can Bishop Fellay claim that he is doing “exactly the same” as the Archbishop ? 

And secondly, in the quote above, not only does Bishop Fellay have a quite different idea from the Archbishop of what faithless Authority will do to serve the Faith, but also he clearly envisages the possibility for the Newsociety to resort for valid episcopal consecrations to bishops of the Newchurch, who will themselves normally have been consecrated as bishops only in the post-conciliar rite of consecration, fabricated by Freemasons like Archbishop Bugnini to introduce a shadow of doubt as to its validity. Does Bishop Fellay think that the Archbishop would have resorted to any such insecure rite ?

On the contrary, the “Resistance” has followed the Archbishop’s pioneering example in 1988 by taking its own bishops for Truth and Tradition. Between 2015 and 2017 there were Bishops Faure, Tomas and Zendejas, who have surely laboured successfully for Tradition since then, and more recently, but privately, Bishop Ballini for Ireland (2021) and Bishop Stobnicki in Poland (2022). But why the privacy ?  Indeed privacy is not natural for ceremonies of consecration of Catholic bishops, but the 2020’s are no longer the 2010’s, let alone the 1980’s. The reasons were, firstly, to enable more and more Catholics to catch up with the Church’s crying need to follow Archbishop Lefebvre’s example by giving more priority to Truth and less importance to that Conciliar Authority which is without the Truth; and secondly, to delay waving a red rag under the nose of the New World Order, which is more powerful and more malicious with each day that passes. Here below is Bishop Stobnicki’s brief autobiography:–

I was born in 1987 into a Polish Catholic family,  I graduated from school in 2006 and joined the SSPX on the advice of old Polish priests.  In 2008, I was abruptly removed from the SSPX seminary in Zaitzkofen, because I was in too close contact with Bishop Williamson, but I continued my priestly formation under the direction of the senior Polish priests, and two Traditional bishops. Meanwhile, in 2014 I graduated from law school and I did some work as a lawyer for a while. In 2013 I had again contacted Bishop Williamson when he was expelled from the FSSPX.  In 2016 he began coming to Poland regularly, and he saw fit to ordain me priest on July 1, 2017. For the next five years, such were the fruits of my priestly ministry in Poland (and – surely a good sign – the violent opposition to it) that I was consecrated by him as a bishop, in private but with witnesses, on August 15, 2022. With one fellow priest also ordained by Bishop Williamson, we serve now 17 Mass centres in Poland, which includes so far nine Confirmation ceremonies, and the conditional re-ordination of six priests. The violent opposition has continued also, up to and including the possibly murderous slashing of a tire of my car. Establishing the “Resistance” in Poland has been hard work, but my colleague and I are now helping to look after many good souls.  Thanks be to God, and to Our Lady, Queen of Poland.                                                                                                                                                            Kyrie eleison.

When bishops come from enemies of the Truth                                                               How can they ever defend the Faith, forsooth ?                                                                           

ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCCXXXIV  (July 8, 2023) :  “GLOBALISTS” AT  WORK    

Most of the “Comments” following below come from the long interview given by Archbishop Vigano on May 13, accessible at             The Remnant Newspaper – Archbishop Vigano interviewed on Russian TV       

The Ukrainian crisis was planned for years, well before the Euromaidan or “colour revolution” of 2014. The corrupt regime of Ukraine submitted itself to the globalist elite long ago, so that now the Ukrainian people are being slaughtered in a war that could have been avoided simply by enforcing the Minsk accords of 2015. The truth is that NATO had undertaken not to expand eastwards; that the Euromaidan revolution was conducted with the support of the American deep state; that the Minsk Protocol was not respected, and we have heard Angela Merkel herself admit that the purpose of that agreement was to give Ukraine time to arm itself. If in 2022 President Putin decided to defend Russian-speakers inside Ukraine from the continuous aggressions of the Kiev government, this did not happen suddenly. On the contrary, this was exactly what NATO wanted to achieve, by more than a decade of provoking Russia.

Those who wanted this war had two parallel objectives. The first was to prevent an alliance between the European nations and the Russian Federation, so as to isolate Russia for its destruction. The second was the destruction also of the economic fabric of Europe, because of course somebody knew that the sanctions against Russia would backfire against the countries of the EU, and force them to accept the so-called green transition, based on climate change fraud. To achieve this, for the dress rehearsal with the Covid farce of 2020 to 2022, there had to be a deep state puppet in the White House, and it was therefore necessary to oust President Trump in 2020 by means of an electoral fraud.

But to bend Ukrainians to the will of the globalists for a proxy war with Russia, their religion also had to be destabilised. How ?  In the Orthodox Church there are two main Patriarchates, in Moscow and Constantinople. Most Orthodox Ukrainians used to come under Moscow.  In 2018, to separate them from Moscow and make them independent of the Russian Church, the US State Department allocated 25 million dollars to the Patriarch of Constantinople so that he would recognise the breakaway of the Ukrainian Church from the Orthodox Patriarchate in Moscow.

But why did the globalists go through the Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople ?  Because it has long been in the hands of Freemasonry, and Freemasonry is a major instrument of the “globalists” in their bi-millennial pursuit of global domination. For instance, both Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople and his predecessor were 33rd degree Freemasons, and Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople has long been subservient to the plan of the globalists. Small wonder if he is on such good terms with Pope Bergoglio, who, judged by his fruits, is a major player in the Masonic destruction of the Catholic Church.

Thus the “globalist” Revolution labours to break down the faith and religion of Christians, as it breaks down their secular nations by the two-pincered crab of Masonic liberalism and atheistic Communism. In a sane society, the interests of the individual and of society are naturally balanced. Liberalism and Communism both upset that balance, liberalism by deifying the individual, Communism by deifying the society. Today we are witnessing the crushing of both individual and society by the theological, philosophical and political error of globalism, deifying instead the elite of the New World Order, who combine defiance of God with the rotting of people’s minds and with the hollowing out of all established institutions. Need it be said how this infernal combination is bound to destroy the social and religious fabric of nations, by denying the Kingship of Christ over societies and individuals alike ?                                                                                                                                             Kyrie eleison True Catholics must the New World Order grasp,                                                                                          To see how the Devil has everything in his clasp.          

ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCCXXXIII  (July 1, 2023) :  A  WOMAN  TESTIFIES

Here is another testimonial, of a woman being clearly enlightened, and well on her way to being saved, by the prayer of the Rosary. Praise and thanks be to God, and to Our Lady !

I am an American woman in my 50’s, baptized Catholic as an infant in the 1970’s. My parents were not devout or practising Catholics, but with my parents I attended the New Mass, which was the only Mass I knew.  I did go to a Catholic grade school, where at first there were Sisters to teach me, but all of a sudden they disappeared from the classrooms, to be replaced by secular teachers. I was too young to understand what was going on, but I can remember my grandmother one day crying out to my mother, “They’ve changed the Mass, why ?” My grandmother prayed the Rosary daily. I pray the Rosary that she showed me when I was five years old. It is now my inspiration. I believe it is the Grace of God and her prayers that have brought me to where I am now. Currently I attend an SSPX Chapel, because a friend of mine showed me what the True Mass of all time is. Its beauty for Our Lord came as a shock to me. She also taught me what had happened to the Mass. It took me a number of years to get caught up and digest the disaster. I am still learning.

I now realise I was born into an industrialised society, like everyone else in the USA. I am currently working for an environmental company, a godless corporation, actually run and operated by Frenchmen with its head office in Paris. Every year the company praises and celebrates the French Revolution, but the more I learn about Catholic History and that Revolution, the more difficult it is becoming to stay with this company. There will come the point when I have to leave, because an agenda of sin, e.g. the gay movement, is being pushed harder and harder on the employees. I stay in touch with a priest to judge when that point of departure will have come.

To counter-act the nightmare surrounding me at work and in society, I keep reading the Psalms, which give me great hope, for instance Psalm VII, 15 : The enemy “has dug a ditch and made it deep, but he has fallen into the pit he has made”. The Psalms teach me how God turns evil into good, so that I begin to see how even His bitterest enemies, such as the “Red Sea Pedestrians”, are actually doing God’s bidding, only they do not know it. Likewise with Covid, and now the transgender movement. 

As for Covid, I am a woman myself, of course, but having been born in our industrialised society, I had no idea that God does not want women in the office, that ideally women should be either consecrated to God as a Sister or taking care of a home, looking after children and husband, as a good wife and mother. It was the Covid lock-down that taught me this truth, because being a finance manager that supervises a number of women under me, most of them with children in the government school system, I observed directly how through lock-down God was showing them what a mother should do. Obliged to stay indoors at home, they clocked out of work and spent much more time with their children, supervising their studies and bonding with them that much more closely. It was good to see.

 As for the transgender movement, by which men want to be women, in the USA we now see men participating in women’s sports. Since men are naturally stronger than women, the men often win, which means that there is a pressure on women, in the USA at least, to drive women out of sports, and back to our proper role in life, for which God designed us by the human nature that He gave us, which is different between men and women. With God’s grace, at least some women will wake up to the craziness of transgenderism and realize what they were made for. In most of this I can see the hand of God, and if I meditate on His ways, it gives me so much joy, that I can get through the difficulties of our times. Thanks be to the Internet for certain sermons and talks which I hear nowhere else !

                                                                                                                                   Kyrie eleison.

When woman turns to God and to the Psalms,

No more the Devil’s worst of teaching harms !

ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCCXXXII (June 24, 2023) : SOLZHENITSYN  APPLIED

Last week in these “Comments” Solzhenitsyn argued that the arts show what is going on in men’s souls; that modern arts betray a spiritual emptiness in modern souls; that such a spiritual emptiness does not bode well for man at any time. Solzhenitsyn himself was not a Catholic, in fact in his youth he was without God. But eight years’ suffering in Communist prison camps taught him that there is a God, which gave him a spiritual life and insights into reality sorely lacking to many souls, dried out under Communism in the East, but also desiccated in the West by centuries of rationalism and materialism (that includes far too many “Catholics” – think of Vatican II). Let us apply a few of Solzhenitsyn’s lessons to our own lives.

Firstly, our scorn of the arts, an example of which is how every newspaper will print poetry today as though it is prose (materialists do not like poetry always suggesting that there is more to life than just prose). But by our God-given nature, men have, beside their material bodies, a non-material soul which responds to, and needs, stories, music, pictures and/or sculptures. These “arts” are the highest and most spiritual products of men gifted to write stories or play music, create paintings or sculptures. Here is why they and their public are apt to say that “artists” are at their best “inspired”; why atheists can hardly produce true “arts”; and why the greatest of “artists” and “arts” in recent times can invariably be traced back to Christendom, as Sir Kenneth Clark (1903-1983) realised. Now in the exercise of his art any artist is normally striving to share something important to him. That is why the arts are a good indication of the contents of men’s souls, and why popular stories, music or paintings manifest a people’s spiritual life.

Hence Catholics should never underestimate, as they are liable to do under the pressure of modern scorn of the arts, the value and importance of stories, music and visuals. Solzhenitsyn is right to say that today’s senseless stories, jarring music and ugly visual arts reflect very badly on what is going on in modern souls. He reads in them the fiery glow, or doom of Western so-called “civilisation”. Compare Wagner’s grand opera Twilight of the Gods (1876), in which a whole world order, the gods’ Valhalla,  comes crashing down in flames, on stage. Yet modern parents will often not care what music their children listen to. Nor will they pay much attention to what music they themselves like. Hence Rock “musicians” are free in effect to steal their children’s affections from their parents as the Pied Piper of Hamlin stole away by his music the children of Hamlin. Too late,  parents can realise what a bad example they set for their children by listening themselves to trash by way of “music”. But how dare anyone speak of trash in music ?  Because that is what modern music is, broadly empty of  melodic, harmonic or rhythmic worth or interest. Because if music does not edify, it is bound to corrupt. By its very power, it must do one or the other.

Now there is a limit to what music one can force oneself to like. If I have a trash soul, I cannot like decent music overnight. On the other hand, I can love nothing of which I have no knowledge. So the least I can do to raise my soul is get to know a better music. The best music is Gregorian chant. Next down is polyphony, then is classical music. Lowest of all is modern music, jazz, pop, rock and rap in that order downwards. Why ?  Because  “Melody” said Mozart, “is the soul of music.” Gregorian chant is pure melody. Rap is none. At a major pivotal point on this downwards ladder is the classical musician Beethoven (1770-1827), uniquely combining much order still of the 18^th century with much passion of the 19^th century. On the one hand he is by moments too angry and violent to please tranquil souls. On the other hand he is not so calm as to say little or nothing to modern youngsters, who are too shaken up to be able to stand too much order.

But for anyone who might wish to get into the world of classical music,  a marvellous introduction might be the BBC’s 2003 film, Beethoven’s Eroica. The film is a reconstruction of the very first performance of the “Eroica” Symphony in a Viennese aristocrat’s private palace in 1804. We see the variety of human reactions to this epoch-making music, brand-new in its day: the lady of the house thrilled by hearing the cavalry charging; her domestic staff, alternately listening and flirting; a Czech General put off by the length and originality of the symphony but deeply moved despite himself; the famous composer Joseph Haydn who is fully grasping that a new era has come in music; and so on. The film presents very well both this human context and the historical setting of the Third Symphony, with Revolution all around. The film is easily accessible at     youtube.com/watch?v=UtA7m3viB70       Highly recommended.

                                                                                                                                               Kyrie eleison

Good art builds natural values in the soul,

A serious help to its supernatural goal.

ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCCXXXI (June 17, 2023) :   SOLZHENITSYN  SEES

Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) was a Russian writer made famous by his strong and clear denunciation of Soviet Communism in his best-known work, “The Archipelago Gulag” (1973). This book in three volumes played a major part in showing to the world the horrors of Communism, and it was the fruit of his own conversion to older values of God and country, which he underwent during the eight years of his own imprisonment in Soviet gulags, or prison-camps (1945-1953). The text below is an extract, slightly adapted, from an address he gave to the National Arts Club of New York in 1993. It shows his clear grasp of modern arts as reflecting a grave lack of spiritual life in souls, in the West as in the East – 

Our whole world is living through a century of spiritual illness, which is necessarily reflected in the arts.  A sense of confusion about the world has arisen not only in former Communist countries but also in the West, where an unprecedented rise in the material benefits of civilization and ever-improving standards of living, have been accompanied by an erosion and obscuring of high moral and ethical ideals. The spiritual axis of life has grown dim, and there are artists to whom the world now seems to make no sense, like an absurd pile of rubbish. Yes, world culture today is in a very severe crisis.

One way out has been to resort to resourceful new methods, as though there never was a crisis, as though varying the medium can make up for the lack of message. Vain hopes. Nothing worthy can be built on a neglect of higher meanings or on a relativistic view of concepts and culture as a whole. Indeed, something greater than a phenomenon confined to art can be discerned shimmering here beneath the surface—shimmering not with light, but with an ominous crimson glow, like that of a burning city…

For beneath these ubiquitous and seemingly innocent experiments of rejecting “antiquated” tradition, there lies a deep-seated hostility towards any spirituality. This relentless cult of novelty, with its assertion that art need not be good or pure, just so long as it is new, newer, and newer still, conceals an unyielding and long-sustained attempt to undermine, ridicule and uproot all moral precepts. As though there is no God, no truth, as though the universe is chaotic, there are no absolutes, everything is merely relative.

For in these closing decades of the 20^th century, world literature, music, painting, and sculpture have exhibited a stubborn tendency to grow not higher, but sideways, not upwards towards the highest achievements of craftsmanship and of the human spirit, but downwards towards their disintegration into a frantic and insidious “novelty”. To decorate public spaces we put up sculptures which pretend that pure ugliness deserves our attention—and we are no longer even surprised. Yet if visitors from outer space were to pick up our music over the airwaves, how could they ever guess that earthlings once had a Bach, a Beethoven, or a Schubert, who are currently abandoned as though they are out of date and obsolete?

If we, the creators of art, will obediently submit to this downward slide, if we cease to hold dear the great cultural tradition of the foregoing centuries together with the spiritual foundations from which that noble tradition grew—we will be contributing to a highly dangerous fall of the human spirit on earth, to a degeneration of mankind into some kind of lower state, closer to the animal world. And yet, it is hard to believe that we will allow this to occur. Even in Russia, so terribly ill right now (1993) — we wait and hope that after the coma and a period of silence, we shall feel the breath of Russian literature reawakening, and observe in our younger brethren the arrival of new and fresh forces coming to our aid.

                                                                                                                                    Kyrie eleison                                                                                                                                           

The artist sees the glow of our “burning city” –                                                                                               But will men turn to God ?  No ?   More’s the pity !

ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCCXXX  (June 10, 2023) :  FAMILY  TESTIMONIAL 

The author of the long quote following is a grown man with a little business of his own in London, whose family received great graces from God, once he responded himself to a special grace from Heaven and began acting himself as a Catholic family father by leading Catholic family prayer. There are multiple lessons to learn from what he writes: God exists. He is still at work, especially through His Mother. The human family is still as He designed it, and the family father is still meant to be its leader to Heaven. It is natural, and not unnatural, for wife and children to follow him. A prime instrument for restoring this God-given order in the home is Our Lady’s Holy Rosary. If modern souls suffer from disorder in the home, it depends firstly upon the father to aim for Heaven and to restore order, by his prayer, faith and example.

At age 49, married with six children, I was Catholic in theory, but my brand of Catholicism was that Hell is not for real – just don’t be Hitler and you’ll be fine. Then I was given a very gentle but firm prompt by, I feel sure, Our Lady, to show me that the Catholic life I was living was not sufficient, because Hell is for real, and I was on my way there… Very soon afterwards I attended my first Traditional Latin Mass. Shortly after that I was at a weekend of talks by a Traditional Priest among 40 or so men. The talks were all worthwhile, but the gift there was to sit at lunch with the other men nearly all of whom were, like me, middled-aged refugees being called up late to the Traditional Faith. Most said a similar thing – why had it taken so long to find the true Faith? I thought, if I had been given this 20 years ago my children would probably still be Catholic, at Mass and so forth. It was a bittersweet gathering.

On my return home, I said to my wife, tomorrow I am going to say a few morning prayers. She joined me. Without any planning I found a short novena to Saint Joseph and asked for a few blessings from my patron. I read a page from the Gospel, and we sat for ten minutes or so quietly in front of a statue of Our Lady. That evening I knelt in the living room at about 7pm and I said the Rosary. My wife passing by the room, stepped in and joined me.

The next morning, I said the same morning prayers with my wife, and two of the children (they would have been 14 and 15) joined in. Likewise, in the evening, all of the children gathered around in the living room for the Rosary. I don’t recall making any announcements or requests for them to join in. If my memory is correct, I think I merely said to those sitting in the kitchen, that I was going to say the Rosary in the other room. I went off to do so, and they all just filed in. The next morning all five of the six children living at home (the eldest was at boarding school) appeared, to join in the morning prayers. And so things have broadly remained ever since. The Rosary has never been interrupted. The before and after of family life is so different that I concluded, Our Lady had released Grace into the house.

How had this order come into the home ?  It had begun with me wanting to save my soul, and therefore giving a public lead for family prayer, and then the Rosary. My wife had followed her husband quite naturally, and then the children had followed our example, without any commands from their parents. I had been able to observe them being drawn into my slipstream, and sharing my relief to know that Heaven, Hell, death and Judgment are all true, for us to act accordingly. My oldest son (age 19) is now thinking seriously of the priesthood, and my oldest daughter wants to give up Cambridge University where she says she is merely “throwing punches in a setting made for men”. Instead she wants “to learn at last skills useful for marriage and motherhood”.  The second daughter (18) is planning a ‘nun run’ of convents in France as she feels the cloistered life is calling her. Three years ago, none of these children would have been thinking along these lines, I guarantee. It is all a miracle of Grace.

Why my family ? As Augustine said, I have no idea. But, as Augustine said, I had better do something about it !

                                                                                                                                                 Kyrie eleison

Where a man lets God lead, families follow,                                                                                                                         And family life turns much less hollow.                                                                                                                      Dad is filling the needs of children and wife                                                                                                                For God to take all to eternal life.

 

ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCCXXIX  (June 3, 2030) :  DEADLY  MODERNISM

It may not seem so, but there is a thread running through the last five issues of these “Comments”: 

624 (April 29) Modernist Rome’s “excommunicating” of all six bishops who took part in the ceremony of    Consecration of four priests of the SSPX in Econe, Switzerland, in 1988, was intrinsically invalid.

625 (May 6)    Archbishop Lefebvre saw this clearly. His successors do not see it so clearly.

626 (May 13)  Rome pretends that a modernist accepted inside the SSPX can solve the problem,

627 (May 20)  or that an ex-SSPX priest who is a close friend of the Pope can do so, but no compromises,

628 (May 27)  however clever, can reconcile such irreconcilables as Tradition and Modernism.

Clearly, the whole sequence depends upon those “excommunications” of June 30,1988, being, by the nature of things, or by the nature of the Catholic religion, “intrinsically invalid”. This was the position taken by the Archbishop on the grounds that for the Church to survive it must have bishops capable of defending the Traditional Faith (which he in no way invented) against the deadly error of Modernism, invented by churchmen whose excessive admiration for the modern world had corrupted their Catholic faith, and who imposed their corruption on almost the entire Church by means of their corruption being supported by the mass of the Universal Church’s bishops at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).

So, immediately after Vatican II the official Church had made itself virtually incapable of providing in the long term bishops capable of defending Catholic Tradition, which is why the Archbishop consecrated four such bishops against all the appearances of disapproval by Rome. Time has shown, after his death in 1991, that he was right. Without his action, where would Tradition and the true Church be today ?  But, for us to save our souls, we must grasp why Modernism is so deadly for Catholic Tradition. If the reason is not clear in our heads, we may tomorrow be tempted, like today’s successors of the Archbishop, to seek some false reconciliation with the modernists in Rome, or we may the day after tomorrow refuse an offer from God of the supreme gift of martyrdom at the hands of the ever more criminal New World Order.

Now Modernism is the error of wanting to adapt the one and only true religion of the one true God to the world around us, which is essentially godless. What most deeply underlies Modernism is Protestantism, which, with Luther, threw off the one true religion.  By throwing off the Catholic Church and a large part of its essential doctrine, the Protestants opened the door to Liberalism, because wherever they prevailed against Catholic resistance in the ensuing wars of religion, they broke the monopoly of Truth in people’s hearts and minds. As a result, untruth in religion was now established and set up in significant parts of Christendom, formerly united in religion, in such a way as to be able to compete with the Catholic truth.

Thus arose the next major false religion, best known as Liberalism. The message of Liberalism to Catholics and Protestants alike was, “Stop the religious wars, stop fighting one another, stop taking religion so seriously. Peace on earth is better than peace in Heaven. Live and let live. Tolerance !”  This message was popular. Embodied in Freemasonry, a secret society launched in London in 1717, it spread rapidly to the English colonies in America and to France, where it had a huge influence in the American and French Revolutions of 1776 and 1789 respectively. Both of these Revolutions played in turn a key part in removing the old Catholic order to make way for the New World Order of today. This principle, of “religious liberty”, turns minds to mush, for if religious ideas are not serious, what ideas are serious ?

Taken together, Protestantism and Liberalism had made a “brave new world”, against which the true Catholic Church fought a brave rearguard action, especially Pope St Pius X in the early 20^th century, but in the end even Catholic churchmen blessed religious liberty at Vatican II with their Council document “On Human Dignity”.  Protestantism and Liberalism had generated Modernism. Modernism had conquered. But it is absolutely opposed to the Catholic Faith. The two are absolutely irreconcilable.

                                                                                                                                       Kyrie eleison

If there is truth, I can’t always be tender.

I must make war. The Devil won’t surrender.

ELEISON COMMENTS DCCCXXVIII (May 27, 2023) : CONSECRATIONS STRUGGLE – II.

More than once these “Comments” have highlighted the importance of bishops for the whole Catholic Church. If the bishops are Catholic the Church will be Catholic. If the bishops are not Catholic the Church will not be Catholic. Ever since Vatican II (1962–1965) the bishops and the churchmen have been, broadly, modernist instead of Catholic. Archbishop Lefebvre (1905-1991) founded the Society of St Pius X to defend the true Catholic Faith, and all that goes with it, against the unprecedented corruption of that Faith by the unprecedented heresy of Modernism, which attacks no one dogma in particular but which, by totally undermining all sense of truth, finishes by undermining every single dogma.

In other words, the modernism of today’s highest officials of the Church, and true Catholicism, are as necessarily and intrinsically opposed to one another as ice and sunshine. As soon as the sunshine becomes hot enough, it cannot not melt ice exposed to it. As soon as modern people’s loss of objective truth becomes strong enough, it cannot not undermine their Faith. If there is no reality outside my mind, nor truth inside my mind corresponding to that reality outside, then for me there is no reality or truth. If there is no reality or truth, how can there be a real or true God ? And if there is no true God, then all Catholicism and all Faith are obviously fairy tales. That is how radically opposed to one another are today’s all-engulfing godlessness and that true Faith without which I cannot save my soul.

Now, a battlefield can change while the same war continues. Between the Catholic Faith shielded by Archbishop Lefebvre and modernist Rome arose, necessarily and intrinsically, war. Now, that same war can continue on different battlefields. Thus in the 1970s and 1980s the battlefield was the Mass. By the grace of God when the Archbishop died in 1991, the war had been essentially won on that battlefield of the Mass. Remarkably, in the circumstances of the almost unanimous opposition to the true liturgy of the Mass on the part of the Church’s Shepherds (Popes, Cardinals and Bishops), the true Mass had recovered sufficiently in Catholics’ minds and hearts, that it was not done away with as the modernists had so fought to achieve. Instead it has regained a footing in the Church which it will only lose again under the Antichrist. But the implacable war between Catholicism and Modernism was not over. It merely shifted to a new battlefield which was the appointment of bishops. Hence the fight in 1988 over the Consecrations.

This is the fight in the Church of 2023, as clearly shown by the latest rumours or news (we cannot yet be sure which). The rumour is that Rome is offering to the SSPX three bishops of Rome’s own choosing, but very cleverly chosen for purposes of undermining the remains of the Catholic Faith of the SSPX. These three men were all once priests of the SSPX. All three left the SSPX at some point in the last, let us guess, 20 years, for different reasons, in which the true Faith played more or less of a part. Now Rome is mocking the SSPX by refusing any candidates of the Society itself and offering to Consecrate candidates who left the Society. But also Rome is without any possible doubt retaining control of these “Bishops for the SSPX”. Thus the Romans can reassure the modernists that they are not Consecrating Bishops “of the SSPX”, but Bishops capable of deceiving Traditionalists that Rome and Tradition can be reconciled.

And very possibly, these three bishops will succeed in deceiving many Catholics who still dream of ice which will not melt in the sunshine; of Modernists who really want to serve the Church; of bishops able to serve two opposed masters at once. But Catholics who understand what Modernism really is will not be deceived. They will say that by abandoning the Archbishop’s famous principle of “No practical agreement without a doctrinal agreement”, and by consequently begging from faithless Romans for their protection of the true Faith, the SSPX has been essentially betraying that Faith. Catholics wanting to preserve the true Faith have no business to be begging for favours from faithless Romans. Followers of the Faith wanting to save their souls must put their trust not in men but in God. Not even Modernists are capable of outsmarting Almighty God. He will save His Church, when He will, and how He will.

Kyrie eleison.

Most souls today have let reality slip.

Their faithless la-la-land has lost all grip !

ELEISON COMMENTS DCCCXXVII (May 20, 2023) : CONSECRATIONS STRUGGLE – I

When it comes to the Catholic Church, nothing is more normal, in a manner of speaking, than fights over
the choice of future bishops, because on the Church hangs the future of mankind, and on the bishops
hangs the future of the Church, for two main reasons. Firstly, the bishops are the Church’s administrative
pivot, through their dioceses, between the Pope and his worldwide flock. The Pope is Viceroy Of Christ
the King, but each diocesan bishop is – or should be – Prince in his own right over his own part of that
flock. And secondly, the Cardinals will normally be appointed from among the bishops, and the Pope will
be elected from among the Cardinals, so that the large majority of Church leaders will have come from
among the bishops. Humanly speaking, which way the bishops go, normally the Church will go.
So it is perfectly normal that in 1988, under the official rule of churchmen wholly in the grip of the deadly
heresy of modernism, Archbishop Lefebvre saw that he had to consecrate bishops of his own even
without Rome’s approval, because his Society of St Pius X would not be able to survive with only the
bishops that the modernist Newchurch would provide. In the SSPX’s General Chapter of 2012, it was
equally normal that the death of their faithful Founder and another 24 years of coexistence with the ever
more deadly modernists in Rome should have blunted the SSPX’s awareness of the danger of Rome. In
2023 it is equally normal that the Newsociety is struggling to find, with the sly Romans, candidates for
the bishopric that they can both agree on. Given original sin, the Romans will normally win the struggle.
On the surface, such a struggle rages back and forth in the details, reported here, reported there, with more
or less reliability. For instance, it seems now that there never was any question of the Society “seeing
more clearly” in the way suggested by these “Comments” two weeks ago, it was merely twisting and
turning on the hook of its own making – if I insist on respecting villains, I am going to be a victim of
villainy. I cannot sup with the Devil without a long spoon. On the other hand it does seem that Rome is
offering the bishopric to a former Bursar General of the SSPX, but who fell out with the Superior General
some years ago, and then took refuge with his friend in Rome, Pope Bergoglio himself. After all, how
could the SSPX complain about such a personal friend of the Pope being placed at their disposal ? In
truth, the SSPX has got itself into a boxing match with these modernists where it does not belong.
Between 1988 and 1991 when he died, was not the Archbishop’s last great lesson for the priests of his
beloved Society to have nothing more to do with the modernists until these return to the Faith ?
However, it is not the surface details that make the struggle underneath. That struggle is what matters,
and there is nothing merely rumoured or uncertain about it. The Good Lord created our universe for
human souls as a trampoline on which to bounce for the brief duration of our earthly lives until we
bounce to Heaven, with or without a spell in Purgatory according to how we have freely chosen to spend
these lives. But He wanted to give us only a truly first-class Heaven, and that meant necessarily allowing
for us some first-class adversaries on the way to Heaven, notably the world, the flesh and the Devil. Their
moral evil, whenever it would be a question of evil, He could never Himself cause directly, but He would
need to allow it. Therefore He created multitudes of angels, even knowing that Satan and his followers
would fall away from Him, even knowing that they would tempt, to fall with them, the majority of the
men He would create afterwards. And His Justice created the Hell needed to punish angels and men thus
falling.
Hence the real struggle over the choice of Catholic bishops is fought between God wishing to populate
Heaven, and the Devil seeking to populate Hell. And the real fighters on the side of God in this cosmic
struggle are less those who resort to tanks or rockets or submarines, than those who resort to supernatural
prayer and sacrifice, for instance with a 50-bullet pocket machine-gun which truly stops the Devil dead.
May God bless every one of you, specially those using it three times a day. You will have a handsome
reward.

Kyrie eleison

If only souls could see the real fight !
Then they would turn to God, and not take fright.