With all of the commotion over Jorge Mario Bergoglio's serial acts of apostasy in Turkey between November 28, 2014, and Sunday, November 30, 2014, the First Sunday of Advent, it is relatively easy to lose sight of the fact that Saturday, November 29, 2014, was the forty-fifth anniversary of the debut of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service and that yesterday, November 30, 2014, was the fiftieth anniversary of the debut of the Ordo Missae of Giovanni Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul The Sick that served as the "transition" from Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII's modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition to its revolutionary successor five years later.
It is thus important, I believe, to review some of the facts associated with these two revolutionary events as it was by means of the ceaseless changes in the 1950s and 1960s that Catholics became conditioned to accept change as a normal part of Catholic life. This gradual acceptance of change led Catholics to look each successive "innovation" or "novelty" as a legitimate "development" stemming from "traditions" invented by the doctrinal, liturgical, moral and pastoral revolutionaries of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, which is why Bergoglio's serial acts of apostasy during the past twenty and one-half months are accepted by most Catholics who are attached to the conciliar structures. Indeed, many of those Catholics have been born after the dawning of the age of conciliarism and the eclipse of the Catholic Church, meaning that they associated Catholicism as synonymous with the doctrines, the liturgies and the pastoral practices of the conciliar church.
The conciliar revolutionaries of fifty years ago were very clever. They knew that the liturgy could serve as the most effective means to overwhelem the sensus Catholicus of most Catholics as they, revolutionaries deconstructed the true history of the past in order to create an "artificial memory" of a "bad" "preconciliar" era that had stifled legitimate doctrinal development and genuine liturgical growth.
Indeed, the conciliar revolutionaries were well aware of the fact that the only contact that most Catholics had with the Faith was by means of the liturgy. The revolutionaries knew that most Catholics would not read the conciliar documents or the allocutions of Giovanni Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul The Sick, making it imperative for them to break down a Catholic's supernatural defenses against novelty and to come the very traditions that they had known throughout their lives, traditions that their parents and grandparents and greatparents had known as well. As a "Father X" put it in Latin Mass magazine twenty years ago now, "They have burned what they once adored," and it is the case today, twenty years later, that most Catholics hate and view as schismatics what their grandparents once adored.
Using the liturgy to effect a revolutionary change in the believing and acting of ordinary Catholics was a perversion of how Pope Pius XI had explained the Sacred Liturgy to speak to the hearts of the faithful to maintain the integrity of the Holy Faith:
For people are instructed in the truths of faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any official pronouncement of the teaching of the Church. Such pronouncements usually reach only a few and the more learned among the faithful; feasts reach them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year -- in fact, forever. The church's teaching affects the mind primarily; her feasts affect both mind and heart, and have a salutary effect upon the whole of man's nature. Man is composed of body and soul, and he needs these external festivities so that the sacred rites, in all their beauty and variety, may stimulate him to drink more deeply of the fountain of God's teaching, that he may make it a part of himself, and use it with profit for his spiritual life. (Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas, December 11, 1925.)
Catholics, for example, got accustomed to all manner of revolutionary changes in the Sacred Liturgy in the 1950s that were designed by the likes of Fathers Annibale Bugnini, C.M., and Ferdinando Antonelli, O.F.M., to lead to the full-scale liturgy of ecumenism that the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic liturgical service that the revolutionaries who had hijacked the Liturgical Movement in the 1920s and thereafter were hoping would see the light of day under an "enlightened 'pope.'" (For a very early look at what the revolutionaries wanted, one can take a look at the text of The Mass of the Future, which was written by Father Gerald Ellard, S.J., and published in 1948, a full year after Pope Pius XII used Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947, to warn against the very sort of developments favored by Father Ellard. Father Ellard wanted "Youth Masses," "Labor Masses," Mass facing the people, a simpler liturgy, etc.)
Liturgical changes in the 1960s increased at a more rapid pace, starting with "Saint John XXIII's" suppression of feast days and his later insertion of the name of Saint Joseph into the Canon of the Mass, changes that consituted what is called today the Mass of the "extraordinary form," albeit with adapations with the "ordinary form" that were incorporated by the now-retired Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI in 2012 in the futherance of his "reform of the reform," which, of course, is a completely dead issue under a true son of the spirit of Father Ralph Ellard, S.J., the lay Jesuit revolutionary named Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
What is called the "1962 Missal" was in effect for precisely three years prior to its being supplanted in various parts of the world, including here in the United States of America, with the Giovanni Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul the Sick's Ordo Missae of 1965, which was implemented on Sunday, November 29, 1964, the First Sunday of Advent, This important bridge or stepping-stone to the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service permitted Holy Mass to be offered in the vernacular and facing people if the celebrant chose to do so. It also eliminated the Judica me (Psalm 42), meaning that every Mass began as do Masses in Passiontide and Masses offered for the dead even as late as in the 1962. This "simplification" meant that priest would go directly from Introibo ad altare Dei to Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini. The Last Gospel, whose reading had been mandated by Pope Saint Pius V when he issued the Missale Romanum in 1570 and had been a common practice throughout Christendom for the preceding four to five centuries depending upon local custom, and the Prayers after Low Mass, which had become merely optional in the 1962 Missal.
After all, there wasn't any need for to pray for the conversion of Russia or for the freedom of the Church in Russia in the "enlightened" 1960s, was there? And the last thing that the conciliar revolutionaries believed that what they thought was the Catholic Church needed was any kind of intercessory prayer made to Saint Michael the Archangel. (For a review of the text of the Ordo Missae of 1965, please see 1965 Missal, Part 1 and 1965 Missal, Part 2.)
Moreover, the Ordo Missae of 1965, which permited local adaptations to be made by the new entities called episcopal converences, instituted what is called the "Prayer of the Faithful" after the recitation of the Credo on Sundays and as an option after the Gospel (or the "homily") on weekdays. As a battle-scarred veteran of the "let's fight from within to stop liturgical abuses" in the counterfeit church of concilarism, I can attest as how to this supposed "restoration" of an ancient practice opened the doors wide to Pentecostalism as members of the laity, particularly at weekday liturgies where they were asked by the presider, who introduced the prayers before sitting down until their completion, to state their petitions, some of which went on interminably and were nothing other than excercises in maudlin self-pity.
A review of the following excerpt from Inter Oecumenici, which was issued by the then named Sacred Congregation for the Rites, will reveal that many of the revolutionary elements of the Novus Ordo were in place at least five years before the implentation of this liturgical abomination on Sunday, November 30, 1969, the First Sunday of Advent:
48. Until reform of the entire Ordo Missae, the points that follow are to be observed:
a. The celebrant is not to say privately those parts of the Proper sung or recited by the choir or the congregation.
b. The celebrant may sing or recite the parts of the Ordinary together with the congregation or choir.
c. In the prayers at the foot of the altar at the beginning of Mass Psalm 42 is omitted. All the prayers at the foot of the altar are omitted whenever there is another liturgical rite immediately preceding.
d. In solemn Mass the subdeacon does not hold the paten but leaves it on the altar.
e. In sung Masses the secret prayer or prayer over the gifts is sung and in other Masses recited aloud.
f. The doxology at the end of the canon, from Per ipsum through Per omnia saecula saeculorum. R. Amen, is to be sung or recited aloud. Throughout the whole doxology the celebrant slightly elevates the chalice with the host, omitting the signs of the cross, and genuflects at the end after the Amen response by the people.
g. In recited Masses the congregation may recite the Lord's Prayer in the vernacular along with the celebrant; in sung Masses the people may sing it in Latin along with the celebrant and, should the territorial ecclesiastical authority have so decreed, also in the vernacular, using melodies approved by the same authority.
h. The embolism after the Lord's Prayer shall be sung or recited aloud.
i. The formulary for distributing holy communion is to be, Corpus Christi. As he says these words, the celebrant holds the host slightly above the ciborium and shows it to the communicant, who responds: Amen, then receives communion from the celebrant, the sign of the cross with the host being omitted.
j. The last gospel is omitted; the Leonine Prayers are suppressed.
k. It is lawful to celebrate a sung Mass with only a deacon assisting.
l. It is lawful, when necessary, for bishops to celebrate a sung Mass following the form used by priests.
II. READINGS AND CHANTS BETWEEN READINGS (SC art. 51)
49. In Masses celebrated with a congregation, the lessons, epistle, and gospel are to be read or sung facing the people:
a. at the lectern or at the edge of the sanctuary in solemn Masses;
b. at the altar, lectern, or the edge of the sanctuary—whichever is more convenient—in sung or recited Masses if sung or read by the celebrant; at the lectern or at the edge of the sanctuary if sung or read by someone else.
50. In nonsolemn Masses celebrated with the faithful participating a qualified reader or the server reads the lessons and epistles with the intervening chants; the celebrant sits and listens. A deacon or a second priest may read the gospel and he says the Munda cor meum, asks for the blessing, and, at the end, presents the Book of the Gospels for the celebrant to kiss.
51. In sung Masses, the lessons, epistle, and gospel, if in the vernacular, may simply be read.
52. For the reading or singing of the lessons, epistle, intervening chants, and gospel, the following is the procedure.
a. In solemn Masses the celebrant sits and listens to the lessons, the epistle, and chants. After singing or reading the epistle, the subdeacon goes to the celebrant for the blessing. At this point the celebrant, remaining seated, puts incense into the thurible and blesses it. During the singing of the Alleluia and verse or toward the end of other chants after the epistle, the celebrant rises to bless the deacon. From his place he listens to the gospel, kisses the Book of the Gospels, and, after the homily, intones the Credo, when prescribed. At the end of the Credo he returns to the altar with the ministers, unless he is to lead the prayer of the faithful.
b. The celebrant follows the same procedures in sung or recited Masses in which the lessons, epistle, intervening chants, and the gospel are sung or recited by the minister mentioned in no. 50.
c. In sung or recited Masses in which the celebrant sings or recites the gospel, during the singing or saying of the Alleluia and verse or toward the end of other chants after the epistle, he goes to the foot of the altar and there, bowing profoundly, says the Munda cor meum. He then goes to the lectern or to the edge of the sanctuary to sing or recite the gospel.
d. But in a sung or recited Mass if the celebrant sings or reads all the lessons at the lectern or at the edge of the sanctuary, he also, if necessary, recites the chants after the lessons and the epistle standing in the same place; then he says the Munda cor meum, facing the altar.
III. HOMILY (SC art. 52)
53. There shall be a homily on Sundays and holydays of obligation at all Masses celebrated with a congregation, including conventual, sung, or pontifical Masses.
On days other than Sundays and holydays a homily is recommended, especially on some of the weekdays of Advent and Lent or on other occasions when the faithful come to church in large numbers.
54. A homily on the sacred text means an explanation, pertinent to the mystery celebrated and the special needs of the listeners, of some point in either the readings from sacred Scripture or in another text from the Ordinary or Proper of the day's Mass.
55. Because the homily is part of the liturgy for the day, any syllabus proposed for preaching within the Mass during certain periods must keep intact the intimate connection with at least the principal seasons and feasts of the liturgical year (see SC art. 102-104), that is, with the mystery of redemption.
IV. UNIVERSAL PRAYER OR PRAYER OF THE FAITHFUL (SC art. 53)
56. In places where the universal prayer or prayer of the faithful is already the custom, it shall take place before the offertory, after the Oremus, and, for the time being, with formularies in use in individual regions. The celebrant is to lead the prayer at either his chair, the altar, the lectern, or the edge of the sanctuary.
A deacon, cantor, or other suitable minister may sing the intentions or intercessions. The celebrant takes the introductions and concluding prayer, this being ordinarily the Deus, refugium nostrum et virtus (MR, Orationes diversae no. 20) or another prayer more suited to particular needs.
In places where the universal prayer or prayer of the faithful is not the custom, the competent territorial authority may decree its use in the manner indicated above and with formularies approved by that authority for the time being.
V. PART ALLOWED THE VERNACULAR IN MASS (SC art. 54)
57. For Masses, whether sung or recited, celebrated with a congregation, the competent, territorial ecclesiastical authority on approval, that is, confirmation, of its decisions by the Holy See, may introduce the vernacular into:
a. the proclaiming of the lessons, epistle, and gospel; the universal prayer or prayer of the faithful;
b. as befits the circumstances of the place, the chants of the Ordinary of the Mass, namely, the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus-Benedictus, Agnus Dei, as well as the introit, offertory, and communion antiphons and the chants between the readings;
c. acclamations, greeting, and dialogue formularies, the Ecce Agnus Dei, Domine, non sum dignus, Corpus Christi at the communion of the faithful, and the Lord's Prayer with its introduction and embolism.
Missals to be used in the liturgy, however, shall contain besides the vernacular version the Latin text as well.
58. The Holy See alone can grant permission for use of the vernacular in those parts of the Mass that the celebrant sings or recites alone.
59. Pastors shall carefully see to it that the Christian faithful, especially members of lay religious institutes, also know how to recite or sing together in Latin, mainly with simple melodies, the parts of the Ordinary of the Mass proper to them.
VI. FACULTY OF REPEATING COMMUNION ON THE SAME DAY (SC art. 55)
60. The faithful who receive communion at the Mass of the Easter Vigil or the Midnight Mass of Christmas may receive again at the second Mass of Easter and at one of the Day Masses of Christmas.
Chapter III. The Other Sacraments and Sacramentals
1. PART ALLOWED THE VERNACULAR (SC ART. 63)
61. The competent territorial authority, on approval, that is, confirmation, of its decisions by the Holy See, may introduce the vernacular for:
a. the rites, including the essential sacramental forms, of baptism, confirmation, penance, anointing of the sick, marriage, and the distribution of holy communion;
b. the conferral of orders: the address preliminary to ordination or consecration, the examination of the bishop-elect at an episcopal consecration, and the admonitions;
c. sacramentals;
d. rite of funerals.
Whenever a more extensive use of the vernacular seems desirable, the prescription of the Constitution art. 40 is to be observed.
II. Elements to be Dropped in the Rite of Supplying Ceremonies for a Person Already Baptized (SC ART. 69)
62. In the rite of supplying ceremonies in the case of a baptized infant, Rituale Romanum tit. 11, cap. 6, the exorcisms in no. 6 (Exi ab eo), no. 10 (Exorcizo te, immunde spiritus - Ergo, maledicte diabole), and no. 15 (Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus) are to be dropped.
63. In the rite for supplying ceremonies in the case of a baptized adult, Rituale Romanum tit. 11, cap. 6, the exorcisms in no. 5 (Exi ab eo), no. 15 (Ergo, maledicte diabole), no. 17 (Audi, maledicte satana), no. 19 (Exorcizo te - Ergo, maledicte diabole), no. 21 (Ergo, maledicte diabole), no. 23 (Ergo, maledicte diabole), no. 25 (Exorcizo te - Ergo, maledicte diabole), no. 31 (Nec te latet), and no. 35 (Exi, immunde spiritus) are to be dropped. (INTER OECUMENICI, Sepember 26, 1964.)
One can see that all of this "innovation," which was more or less being conducted ad experimentum in various parts of the world, especially here in the United States of America, was incorporated directly into the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service itself, and it was accepted with barely a peep of protest by most Catholics. The only ones who did have the prophetic insight to recognize apostasy for what it was and remain were castigated by family members and shunned by friends as being "outside of the Church."
The nature and the extent of the changes were bound to--and did in fact--bewilder at least a few ordinary Catholics. This is why the following announcement was inserted into the parish bulletin of Saint Matthew's Church in Norwood, Ohio, a facility that is now Immaculate Conception Church, which operates under the auspices of the Society of Saint Pius V, on November 29, 1964, to tell the sheep just to do what they were told as a revolution unfolded before their very eyes and with their own "full, active and conscious participation:"
Today is the First Sunday of Advent and the beginning of the Church's new liturgical year. Today we begin our "New Liturgy". Beginning today many parts of Holy Mass will be said in English. We ask each of you to do your very best to join the priest in the prayers of the Mass. Leaflets with the official text of these prayers were given most of your last Sunday. (For those of you who were unable to obtain your copies last Sunday, you may obtain one at the bulletin stands today.) For the Masses with singing (including the 9:45 a.m. High Mass), you are asked to use the cards found in the pews. Kindly stand, sit and kneel, according to the directions on your leaflet or the card. At the Masses today, seminarians will be on hand to help and guide you in this new participation. We wish to thank Msgr. Schneider, Rector of Mt. St. Mary's Seminary, for his kindness in sending us his students; and also the young men themselves for their generosity in helping us. We know that it will take a while (perhaps even months) before we have this new method of participating in Holy Mass perfected; we earnestly ask each one to cooperate loyally and faithfully to the best of his or her ability to make the public worship of God in St. Matthew Parish a true and worthy "sacrifice of praise." [Historical note: the Mount Saint Mary's Seminary referred to in the bulletin was known as Mount Saint Mary's Seminary of the West, located in Norwood, Ohio.]
Such unceasing changes in the liturgy in the 1950s and 1960s conditioned Catholics to accept "changes" in Catholic doctrine, including rationalist "explanations" to eradicate belief in the miracles of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, including His very Bodily Resurrection on Easter Sunday, moral teaching and pastoral praxis. Most of the "changes" in these areas were accepted as the sheep went "baa, baa," coming to view the "changes" themselves as what constitutes authentic Catholic doctrine while viewing all that happened before the "Second" Vatican Council as "outdated" (see A New Sense for a New Faith, part one and A New Sense for a New Faith, part two.) As noted a little over five years ago now, most Catholics in the conciliar structures like the "changes." Yes, They Like It!.
To wit, apostasy of teaching had become so rife in the Department of Theology at Saint John's University, Jamaica, Queens, New York, in the 1970s that the university's president at the time, Father Joseph Cahill, S.J., asked the founder of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, Monsignor George A. Kelly, to found and to run the Institute for Advance Studies in Catholic Doctrine to do an end-run around the theology department whose direction Father Cahill has lost control of as a result of a faculty strike that lasted from January 4, 1966, to June of 1967. The Vincentian who succeeded Father Cahill in 1989, Father Donald Harrington, C.M., had no use for the Institute of Advance Studies in Catholic Doctrine, which was being run at the time by a protege of Kelly's, Monsigor Eugene V. Clark, Ph.D.
Two of the theology professors I had during my time as an undergaduate at Saint John's University were complete revolutionaries. The first was a lay woman, who taught in the Spring of 1970 that which had become very conventional conciliar doctrine by that time, namely, that the account of Special Creation in the Book of Genesis was merely allegorical. The second revolutionary was a priest of the Congregation of the Passion who really believed that Our Lord Himself was an allegorical figure, a belief that just might have cost him a wee little bit when he met Christ the King in the very face at the moment of his Particular Judgment. The priest was a complete supporter of the work of the late Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., and was enamored as well with the work of the likes of Fathers Hans Urs von Balthasar, Yves Congar, O.P., Karl Rahner, S.J., Edward Schilebeeckx, O.P., and a certain Joseph Ratzinger, who said as "Pope Benedict XVI" that the devil himself was nothing other than an allegorical figure (see Preparing To Spend All Eternity With His Allegorical Figure). In other words, everything was open for "reexamination" in order to be given a "new meaning" for "modern man" in light of supposedly "changed circumstances.
As has been noted in many articles on this site, including my long two-part series on the sensus fidei five months ago now, false ecumenism has been one of those areas that has the most ready appeal to Catholics and non-Catholics alike as it makes quick work of the Divine Constitution of Holy Mother Church by eschewing "conversion," which is categorized as coercive proselytizing, and reaffirming "believers" in the essential goodness of their false religions and how they can contribute as "belivers" to the building of the "better world" and the realization of the "civilization of love." This is a point that has been made repeatedly on this site and is emphasized in volume one of Conversion in Reverse and will be discussed in volumes two and three as well.
In Jorge Mario Bergoglio's economy of salvation, you see, everyone is "saved" except for those Catholics he disparages as "Pelagians" and "Pharisees" who desire to "cage the Holy Spirit." According to Jorge, who believes in complete conformity with conciliar "doctrine," such as it is:
Protestants are in the "Church of Christ," which is larger than the Catholic Church. There is no need to seek the conversion of any of them as they are "in."
Talmudists are saved as the Old Covenant was never revoked, something that is completely heretical and is ignored by Catholics as being such only upon the peril of the loss of their own souls.
Mohammedans are saved as theirs is a "noble" religion, a veritable religion of "peace," of course.
The Orthdox have "sister churches" even though they defect from the Catholic Faith on numerous points of Faith and Morals.
The way for Jorge Mario Bergoglio's serial acts of apostasy in the past twenty and one-half months that were in such bountiful supply over the course of the past three days, had been paved by a steady dose of the sights and sounds of conciliarism. Indeed, images such as those below show that they has been a "hermeneutic of continuity" in how the conciliar "popes" have given "joint blessings" with the "Ecumenical Patriarch" of the heretical and schismatic Greek Orthodox church, treating each (Athenagoras, Dimitrios and Barthlomew) with fawning respect as a "brother" in the Faith:
"Saint John Paul II" with Dimitrios, November 30, 1979, Istanbul, Turkey
Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI with Bartholomew, November 30, 2006
(These photographs were found at: Meetings of "Popes and Ecumenical Patriarchs.")
Although "ecumenical prayer" has been condemned by the authority of the Catholic Church, including by her true popes and by the Holy Office with their approval and authorization, it is now accepted as "normal" and as a "sign" that Catholics are on a "path" to "unity" with non-Catholic Christians. Never understimate the role of the liturgical revolution in helping to bring about such acceptance over the course of the last six decades now, especially in the last forty-five to fifty years. Most Catholics today applaud the images of a putative "pope" "praying" with non-Catholic Christians and Talmudists and Mohammedans, something that Jorge Mario Bergoglio has done, both privately and publicly, since becoming "Pope Francis" on March 13, 2013.
There is, however, very little "new" in anything that Bergoglio has said and done as he is simply the "end product" of the false religion whose beginnings were festering underground in the Catholic Church prior to the "election" of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII (also known as "Saint John XXIII") on October 28, 1958, the Feast of Saints Simon and Jude.
To wit, the remarks that the made who wears the Shoes of The Antichrist made yesterday after the Greek Orthodox Divine Liturgy, conducted as it was without the Filioque, are almost identical to those that have been made by his predecessors who have worn the shoes that he has been wearing for one year, eight months, eighteen days. The full text of those remarks are included in Appendix A below as it is my purpose in the body of this commentary to focus only two passages from them.
Here is the first such passage:
When I was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, I often took part in the celebration of the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox communities there. Today, the Lord has given me the singular grace to be present in this Patriarchal Church of Saint George for the celebration of the Feast of the holy Apostle Andrew, the first-called, the brother of Saint Peter, and the Patron Saint of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
Meeting each other, seeing each other face to face, exchanging the embrace of peace, and praying for each other, are all essential aspects of our journey towards the restoration of full communion. All of this precedes and always accompanies that other essential aspect of this journey, namely, theological dialogue. An authentic dialogue is, in every case, an encounter between persons with a name, a face, a past, and not merely a meeting of ideas. (Divine Liturgy in the Patriarchal Church of St. George.)
As a true son of the conciliar revolution, the lay Jesuit from Argentina, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, has participated in the Divine Litrugy of various Orthodox communities when he was the conciliar "archbishop" of Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 1998 to 2013. This is simply normal for the man. It is part of what he believes, erroneously, of course, that the Catholic Church professes as the God the Holy Ghost has been "uncaged" to blow as He will to help Catholics and non-Catholics find a "path to unity," to "full communion."
An excellent article that appeared in The Latin Mass: A Journal of Catholic Culture, twelve years ago now explained the many different condemnations of "ecumenical prayer" that been issued by the Holy Office from 1622 to 1939. The article concluded as follows:
To summarize, we may recall that the Holy Office said that it is not so much a matter of whether schismatic worship contains anything objectionable to the Faith; rather, the problem is the very participation in worship with schismatics. By participating in schismatic and heretical worship, one is giving exterior signs of segregation and disapproval. Any participation in liturgical actions would constitute a sign of unity with those who are not in union with the Church. By coming together with them in unity of prayer, in unity of cult, in unity of veneration and worship, Catholics would offer worship with perverse schismatic and heretical ministers. In effect, the Holy Office said that it is by the very coming together with them and joining one's prayer and worship to theirs that one is participating in worship of those who reject the Catholic Church. To participate with those who reject the Faith was therefore forbidden, since there is a danger of perversion and loss of the Catholic faith. There is the very danger of participating in a heretical or schismatic rite, since the participation manifests a sign of disunity from the Church. Participation in heretical or schismatic worship is an occasion of scandal and by participating in their worship, one confirms schismatics and heretics in their errors. The Holy Office therefore observed that the Council of Carthage forbade praying and singing with heretics and that participation in schismatic and heretic worship is "universally prohibited by natural and divine law...[about which] no one has the power to dispense...[and with respect to this participation] nothing excuses." (The Holy Office on Worship with Non-Catholics from 1622 to 1939 by Craig Allan.)
Guess what?
The conciliar "popes" have been doing precisely what our true popes and the Holy Office have condemned, a condemnation that dates back to apostolical times, something that Bishop George Hay had noted at the beginning of the Eighteenth Century, and has its roots in Sacred Scripture itself. Although there may be "hermeneutic of continuity" at work between Bergoglio and his predecessors, those who have worn the Shoes of the Antichrist are in abject discontinuity from the truths of the Catholic Faith.
The second passage from yesterday's address to the Orthodox in the Patriarchal Cathedral of Saint George that is being brought to the attention of the readers of this site involves Bergoglio's having repeated the distortions of the history of the Catholic Church that have been made in the past twenty years by the likes of Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Walter Kasper:
It is not by chance that the path of reconciliation and peace between Catholics and Orthodox was, in some way, ushered in by an encounter, by an embrace between our venerable predecessors, Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul VI, which took place fifty years ago in Jerusalem. Your Holiness and I wished to commemorate that moment when we met recently in the same city where our Lord Jesus Christ died and rose.
By happy coincidence, my visit falls a few days after the fiftieth anniversary of the promulgation of Unitatis Redintegratio, the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Christian Unity. This is a fundamental document which opened new avenues for encounter between Catholics and their brothers and sisters of other Churches and ecclesial communities.
In particular, in that Decree the Catholic Church acknowledges that the Orthodox Churches “possess true sacraments, above all – by apostolic succession – the priesthood and the Eucharist, whereby they are still joined to us in closest intimacy” (15). The Decree goes on to state that in order to guard faithfully the fullness of the Christian tradition and to bring to fulfilment the reconciliation of Eastern and Western Christians, it is of the greatest importance to preserve and support the rich patrimony of the Eastern Churches. This regards not only their liturgical and spiritual traditions, but also their canonical disciplines, sanctioned as they are by the Fathers and by Councils, which regulate the lives of these Churches (cf. 15-16).
I believe that it is important to reaffirm respect for this principle as an essential condition, accepted by both, for the restoration of full communion, which does not signify the submission of one to the other, or assimilation. Rather, it means welcoming all the gifts that God has given to each, thus demonstrating to the entire world the great mystery of salvation accomplished by Christ the Lord through the Holy Spirit. I want to assure each one of you here that, to reach the desired goal of full unity, the Catholic Church does not intend to impose any conditions except that of the shared profession of faith. Further, I would add that we are ready to seek together, in light of Scriptural teaching and the experience of the first millennium, the ways in which we can guarantee the needed unity of the Church in the present circumstances. The one thing that the Catholic Church desires, and that I seek as Bishop of Rome, “the Church which presides in charity”, is communion with the Orthodox Churches. Such communion will always be the fruit of that love which “has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (cf. Rom 5:5), a fraternal love which expresses the spiritual and transcendent bond which unites us as disciples of the Lord. (Divine Liturgy in the Patriarchal Church of St. George.)
This old canard owes its proximate origins to none other than that "restorer of tradition," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who helped to convince his superior at the time, "Saint John Paul II," to write about such a "restoration" of how popes "presided" in" charity in communion with the Eastern churches, which means that, according to the conciliar reveolutionaries, those popes did not excercise Papal Primacy over the Eastern churches in the First Millennium.
Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger wrote the following in his very misnamed Principles of Catholic Theology thirty-two years ago now:
After all, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, in the same bull in which he excommunicated the Patriarch Michael Cerularius and thus inaugurated the schism between East and West, designated the Emperor and the people of Constantinople as "very Christian and orthodox", although their concept of the Roman primacy was certainly far less different from that of Cerularius than from that, let us say, of the First Vatican Council. In other words, Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 198-199.)
Perhaps influenced by his chief ideologist, "Cardinal" Ratzinger, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, this distortion of Catholic history found its way into the text of Ut Unum Sint, May 25, 1995, which was the complete and total contradiction of Pope Pius XI's Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928:
Whatever relates to the unity of all Christian communities clearly forms part of the concerns of the primacy. As Bishop of Rome I am fully aware, as I have reaffirmed in the present Encyclical Letter, that Christ ardently desires the full and visible communion of all those Communities in which, by virtue of God’s faithfulness, his Spirit dwells. I am convinced that I have a particular responsibility in this regard, above all in acknowledging the ecumenical aspirations of the majority of the Christian Communities and in heeding the request made of me to find a way of exercising the primacy which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new situation. For a whole millennium Christians were united in “a brotherly fraternal communion of faith and sacramental life … If disagreements in belief and discipline arose among them, the Roman See acted by common consent as moderator“.
In this way the primacy exercised its office of unity. When addressing the Ecumenical Patriarch His Holiness Dimitrios I, I acknowledged my awareness that “for a great variety of reasons, and against the will of all concerned, what should have been a service sometimes manifested itself in a very different light. But … it is out of a desire to obey the will of Christ truly that I recognize that as Bishop of Rome I am called to exercise that ministry … I insistently pray the Holy Spirit to shine his light upon us, enlightening all the Pastors and theologians of our Churches, that we may seek—together, of course—the forms in which this ministry may accomplish a service of love recognized by all concerned“.
This is an immense task, which we cannot refuse and which I cannot carry out by myself. Could not the real but imperfect communion existing between us persuade Church leaders and their theologians to engage with me in a patient and fraternal dialogue on this subject, a dialogue in which, leaving useless controversies behind, we could listen to one another, keeping before us only the will of Christ for his Church and allowing ourselves to be deeply moved by his plea “that they may all be one … so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (Jn 17:21)? (Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, May 25, 1995.)
It was twelve years later, October 13, 2007, the ninetieth anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun, that an "unofficial" official document, the Ravenna Document, was issued by William "Cardinal" Levada on behalf of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church that formalized the musings of Ratzinger in Principles of Catholic Theology and of Wojtyla/John Paul II in Ut Unum Sint:
It remains for the question of the role of the bishop of Rome in the communion of all the Churches to be studied in greater depth. What is the specific function of the bishop of the “first see” in an ecclesiology of koinonia and in view of what we have said on conciliarity and authority in the present text? How should the teaching of the first and second Vatican councils on the universal primacy be understood and lived in the light of the ecclesial practice of the first millennium? These are crucial questions for our dialogue and for our hopes of restoring full communion between us.
We, the members of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, are convinced that the above statement on ecclesial communion, conciliarity and authority represents positive and significant progress in our dialogue, and that it provides a firm basis for future discussion of the question of primacy at the universal level in the Church. We are conscious that many difficult questions remain to be clarified, but we hope that, sustained by the prayer of Jesus “That they may all be one … so that the world may believe” (Jn 17, 21), and in obedience to the Holy Spirit, we can build upon the agreement already reached. Reaffirming and confessing “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4, 5), we give glory to God the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who has gathered us together. (The Ravenna Document)
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI put his “papal” seal of approval on The Ravenna Document just forty-one days after its issuance on the ninetieth anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal:
This year we thank God in particular for the meeting of the Joint Commission which took place in Ravenna, a city whose monuments speak eloquently of the ancient Byzantine heritage handed down to us from the undivided Church of the first millennium. May the splendour of those mosaics inspire all the members of the Joint Commission to pursue their important task with renewed determination, in fidelity to the Gospel and to Tradition, ever alert to the promptings of the Holy Spirit in the Church today.
While the meeting in Ravenna was not without its difficulties, I pray earnestly that these may soon be clarified and resolved, so that there may be full participation in the Eleventh Plenary Session and in subsequent initiatives aimed at continuing the theological dialogue in mutual charity and understanding. Indeed, our work towards unity is according to the will of Christ our Lord. In these early years of the third millennium, our efforts are all the more urgent because of the many challenges facing all Christians, to which we need to respond with a united voice and with conviction. (Letter to His Holiness Bartholomaios I, Archbishop of Constantinople, Ecumenical Patriarch, on the occasion of the feast of St. Andrew, November 23, 2007.)
So much for the “unofficial” nature of The Ravenna Document.
Everything that Jorge Mario Bergoglio has done in the past four hundred ninety-nine days has pointed to a very well thought-out plan to change the entire nature of how the conciliar Petrine ministry" is exercised while contending, perhaps with tongue in cheek, that the doctrine of Papal Primacy and Papal Infallibility will remain untouched. Only those willing to suspend all rationality can accept this gratuitius denial of what is part of the Divine Constitution of Holy Mother Church and was defined solemnly at the [First] Vatican Council on July 18, 1870:
1. And so, supported by the clear witness of Holy Scripture, and adhering to the manifest and explicit decrees both of our predecessors the Roman Pontiffs and of general councils, we promulgate anew the definition of the ecumenical Council of Florence [49], which must be believed by all faithful Christians, namely that the Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff hold a world-wide primacy, and that the Roman Pontiff is the successor of blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, true vicar of Christ, head of the whole Church and father and teacher of all Christian people.
To him, in blessed Peter, full power has been given by our lord Jesus Christ to tend, rule and govern the universal Church.
All this is to be found in the acts of the ecumenical councils and the sacred canons.
2. Wherefore we teach and declare that, by divine ordinance, the Roman Church possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other Church, and that this jurisdictional power of the Roman Pontiff is both episcopal and immediate. Both clergy and faithful, of whatever rite and dignity, both singly and collectively, are bound to submit to this power by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, and this not only in matters concerning faith and morals, but also in those which regard the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world.
3. In this way, by unity with the Roman Pontiff in communion and in profession of the same faith , the Church of Christ becomes one flock under one Supreme Shepherd [50].
4. This is the teaching of the Catholic truth, and no one can depart from it without endangering his faith and salvation.
5. This power of the Supreme Pontiff by no means detracts from that ordinary and immediate power of episcopal jurisdiction, by which bishops, who have succeeded to the place of the apostles by appointment of the Holy Spirit, tend and govern individually the particular flocks which have been assigned to them. On the contrary, this power of theirs is asserted, supported and defended by the Supreme and Universal Pastor; for St. Gregory the Great says: “My honor is the honor of the whole Church. My honor is the steadfast strength of my brethren. Then do I receive true honor, when it is denied to none of those to whom honor is due.” [51]
6. Furthermore, it follows from that supreme power which the Roman Pontiff has in governing the whole Church, that he has the right, in the performance of this office of his, to communicate freely with the pastors and flocks of the entire Church, so that they may be taught and guided by him in the way of salvation.
7. And therefore we condemn and reject the opinions of those who hold that this communication of the Supreme Head with pastors and flocks may be lawfully obstructed; or that it should be dependent on the civil power, which leads them to maintain that what is determined by the Apostolic See or by its authority concerning the government of the Church, has no force or effect unless it is confirmed by the agreement of the civil authority.
8. Since the Roman Pontiff, by the divine right of the apostolic primacy, governs the whole Church, we likewise teach and declare that he is the supreme judge of the faithful [52], and that in all cases which fall under ecclesiastical jurisdiction recourse may be had to his judgment [53]. The sentence of the Apostolic See (than which there is no higher authority) is not subject to revision by anyone, nor may anyone lawfully pass judgment thereupon [54]. And so they stray from the genuine path of truth who maintain that it is lawful to appeal from the judgments of the Roman pontiffs to an ecumenical council as if this were an authority superior to the Roman Pontiff.
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