January 2023
Mass Attacks
If the current pontificate has set one thing in bold relief it is surely this: that the seemingly insane process of self-destruction triggered by Vatican II is not madness at all. Ultimately, the ever rising flood of suicidal novelties that has now swollen to a synodal tsunami is the demonic fruit of patient decades of infiltration of the Church by her myriad enemies. Most notably by Enemy #1: the Lodge and its communistic, modernistic, sodomitic subsets.
Detailed in masonic plans exposed and published by popes a century before Paul VI himself decried the "self-destruction" and the allusive "smoke of Satan" billowing through the Church, so much has been revealed about this infernal subversion and set forth in journals like Christian Order that "infiltration" should be the reflexive response to contemporary ecclesiastical ills of unprecedented scale and gravity. Yet this indisputable Luciferian root of all the hellish fruits, above all the mind-blowing scandal of Francis himself, is skirted or ignored outside traditional circles — a telling silence that gels with the wholesale disorientation of Catholic hearts and minds by Paul's infiltrating smoke.
A case in point is a recent 20,000 word rationalisation of the liturgical coup — aka Novus Ordo Missae — effected during Vatican II.
Titled, A Synoptic Look at the Failures and Successes of Post-Vatican II Liturgical Reforms (hereafter "the Treatise"), it was published on 1 December by Notre Dame University's Church Life Journal. The latest in a very long line of similar attempts to square the Catholic liturgical circle, it is notable for the disdain repeatedly expressed for the Traditional Mass by its three co-authors, who insist on the righteousness and necessity of Jorge Bergoglio's campaign to efface the TLM from the Church.
In flagging supposed "successes" and putative "reforms" the title of the Treatise itself signals the avalanche of familiar clichés ("active participation" and all that) which duly follow. And yet, while one would never expect a Notre Dame publication to sport a truthful title (say, "A Synoptic Look at the Failures of Post-Vatican II Liturgical Pseudo-Reforms"), the Treatise is not the sort of unhinged heretical hit piece or woke rant one would expect from that den of apostasy. It is written rather by three sincere but sorely misled mainstream-Modernist scholars (hereafter "the Authors") who can hardly be written off as papal sycophants unworthy of serious consideration. For, one of their number, Franciscan Father Thomas Weinandy once denounced Francis in an Open Letter that called out his views and shameful behaviour (see "Jesus Rebukes Jorge," CO, Dec. 2017).
How such a principled scholar could co-author a fierce defence of the liturgically indefensible outlook and actions of the same Pope he dutifully exposed and excoriated would be a mystery were it not for "diabolical disorientation"; the scourge of the post-conciliar Church pinpointed by Sister Lucy and facilitated by the infiltration of bad actors and ideas. So as not to put the cart before the horse, therefore, let us first place the Treatise in its fundamental context.
Background recap
It goes without saying that it is steeped in the 'smoky' assumptions and presuppositions of the nouvelle théologie: the theological school that first created and now sustains the pestilential neo-Modernist status quo so zealously upheld by the well-meaning but disoriented Authors.
Subjective and experiential, steeped in immanentism and self-consciousness, the nouvelle théologie blurred the sharp lines and hard edges of Catholic faith and morals previously accentuated and sustained by Thomistic objectivity. Peddled to pre-Conciliar hearts and minds by Fathers Chenu, de Lubac, et. al., when it did not completely warp and reshape the faith of the curious it at least scarred their Catholic understanding and outlook, including and especially the youthful likes of Karol Wojtyla and Joseph Ratzinger who were swept along with all the rest.
Embedded over several decades, this general malformation smouldered beneath the foundations of the Faith, fanning the devilish smoke of ambiguity and compromise long before it wended its way through Vatican II documents like Gaudium et Spes, the Constitution on the Church and the Modern World, for which the Jesuit Fr. de Lubac was generally acknowledged as the guiding spirit.
In sum, useful idiots of the nouvelle théologie (unwitting masonic Modernists) facilitated the subversive designs of the small number of influential infiltrators (modernistic Masons). Two sides of the same counterfeit coin, they rapidly sold out the Church to the new secular order established by the Lodge in the aftermath of its French bloodbath; seeking a false peace with the Revolution through "an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789," as Fr. Ratzinger happily conceded in his neo-Modernist tome, Principles of Catholic Theology.
Hitherto unthinkable, this alignment with Masonic "fraternity" or "brotherhood" found its ecclesiastical expression in the Faith-corroding false ecumenism turbo-charged under Jorge Bergoglio; himself a creature of the nouvelle théologie and a proud disciple Fr. de Lubac who blurred the distinction between the natural and the supernatural (see "By Arts Entirely New," April 2006 feature article, at www.christianorder.com).
As a further measure of this interconnected impact of bad actors and bad ideas, also consider that de Lubac was a disciple of arch-pantheist Teilhard de Chardin SJ, as was Bergoglio's mentor and foremost promoter Cardinal Martini SJ (whose masonic worldview paralleled Jorge's). This is how Teilhard's evolutionary pseudo-theology (long condemned and proscribed by Rome) came to be favourably cited by Benedict XVI on 24 July 2009 in the Cathedral of Aosta, Italy, and finally incorporated into a papal encyclical by his successor — whose Laudato Si peddled Teilhard's New Age mumbo-jumbo as worthy spirituality, and mimicked his cosmic gobbledegook.
Action minus doctrine = liturgical extinction
As stated, this brief recap is by way of background explanation for the jarring liturgical disconnect we find in a major critique written by scholars who view themselves as orthodox Catholics. Like most of their peers they have unconsciously absorbed toxic variants of the dizzying array of errors spread by the nouvelle théologie in a generational plague of "non-Catholic thinking within Catholicism" that "alarmed" Paul VI, who stressed "it will never represent the Church's thinking." [Paul VI Secret, Jean Guitton, 1979]. In this regard, Roberto de Mattei might have been addressing the Authors of the Treatise when he once wrote that "Every error has its consequences. Poor liturgical sensibility is not by chance":
The maxim of the Church according to which lex orandi expresses lex credendi presupposes the existence of an integral and coherent doctrine of which the liturgy is the visible expression. But if doctrine is absorbed by the act of living, the liturgy can only be condemned to extinction.
Let me spell out for the Authors that "the act of living" referred to by de Mattei includes their "full, active participation" mantra; the warp and woof of the Novus Ordo. Endlessly touted and acted out in NO parishes worldwide for nearly 60 years, it has indeed overwhelmed ("absorbed") the doctrine so providentially protected hitherto by the Traditional Mass — which Catholic bulwark must, therefore, be reduced to rubble.
Complementary compulsions
Hence Jorge's two interlocking obsessions:
In the first place, the secularising impulse of the nouvelle théologie feeds his preoccupation with worldly "fraternity" (cf. "A Masonic 'Family House'," CO, Nov. 2019). This ecumenical mania is driving him inexorably to its satanic endpoint; a syncretic denouement that Archbishop Fulton Sheen described as:
"A religion to destroy religions... A world parliament of churches... emptied of all divine content." He added that this "mystical body of the Antichrist on earth today will have its Judas Iscariot.... Satan will recruit him from among our bishops": a forewarning that speaks directly to a sinister strand of this pontificate insufficiently highlighted: the rehabilitation of Judas
(cf. "Jorge, Judas and the Anonymous Power," CO, April 2021).
At the same time, Jorge fixates on the Faith-affirming Traditional Mass because its mere existence is an affront to the secular symbiosis between the New Mass and his globalist brotherhood: the pliable form and spirit of the former shoring up the ecumenical fudge that informs the latter. Yet while the Novus Ordo will inevitably crash and burn under the weight of its own alien origins and internal contradictions (cf. "Weapon of Mass Destruction," CO, Oct. 2010), the Dictator Pope rightly calculates that the truly extraordinary, bullet-proof Mass of Ages can only be annihilated through the scorched earth tactics he employed to devastate the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate.
Empathy as condescension
In the foregoing light, let us now briefly consider the Treatise itself, which, for all its predictable clichés and straw man arguments, is a tad more interesting owing to Fr Weinandy's commendable 2017 'Francis intervention.'
In their sincere yet muddled and condescending way, the Authors seek to empathise with TLM adherents even while depicting their preferred form of worship as "liturgically unfortunate" and "doctrinally unacceptable"! Worse still, they insist that the Ancient Rite has no business existing at all!
As if to thrust a handful of salt into that insulting wound, it is then stated that many of those who attend the TLM only ended up there thanks to the uplifting, mind-and-faith expanding liturgical spirit bequeathed to us by Annibale Bugnini and his Consilium:
There is an irony in the fact that many of those who participate in the Traditional Latin Mass today do so out of a postconciliar mindset. They are Vatican II Catholics who attend the Tridentine Mass. They want what Vatican II has taught them to want, an experience of active participation in something of surpassing beauty, namely, the Eucharistic sacrifice.
So now you know: it was not being worn down by banalisation, balkanisation and blasphemy for which the endless options of the Novus Ordo were subversively tailored, but being "nurtured on Vatican II sensibilities about full, conscious, active participation" that led you to the Mass of the saints and martyrs!
As one raised on the Novus Ordo and its hackneyed appeals to "participation," the present writer can assure the Authors that they could not have reached a more hilariously false (not to say deluded and idiotic) conclusion if they'd divined up and consulted Annibale himself. Indeed, for every genuine lament they voice about liturgical abuse the authors simultaneously channel Bugnini by disregarding its ongoing magnitude, insisting that "by the 1990s most [liturgical "deviations"] became passé, although grave problems remain in some parishes and dioceses."
"In sum," they conclude, "the implementation of the Council’s reforms had profoundly positive results as well as some inadequate and sometimes harmful effects."
"Some", "inadequate," "sometimes" ... The spurious qualifiers alone reflect the fanciful liturgical world inhabited by academics in disoriented denial about the unholy state of the Novus Ordo in the overwhelming majority of parishes.
It will shock them to learn that barring London's Brompton Oratory and other notable exceptions, liturgical standards and expectations continue to plummet year on year under the NO's unspoken imperative: 'Let A Thousand Options Blossom'; the guiding principle that invites abuses, annoyances and improvisations great and small, reducing even better celebrations of the New Mass to a teeth-gritting ordeal.
Accustomed to liturgical novelties at the service of "full, conscious, active participation" falsely understood, the Authors' discernment has been shredded by the very "Vatican II sensibilities" they laud. Thus, although abusive and corrosive, the prevailing liturgical spontaneity is depicted as "the vibrant Catholicism of the reformed liturgy existing in many parts of the world now."
Fantasy vs reality
There is an unbridgeable chasm between this fantasy world and the liturgical realism of Traditional Mass-goers. The latter seek a genuinely vibrant Catholic rite that accentuates and honours Christ's sacrifice, not a shabbily "reformed" rite that at best downplays and at worst dishonours His sacrifice. For exercising this Godly preference — for believing the liturgical evidence of their own eyes and experience, and fleeing the mess-of-options that define balkanised Novus Ordo parishes worldwide — the authors accuse TLM-adherents of obstructing the will of the Third Person of the Trinity Himself [my emphases]:
The implementation [of the reform] was not without its weaknesses, missteps, irregularities, and even aberrations. Nevertheless, we are convinced that the Holy Spirit was present and active throughout this implementation process, even in the midst of anomalies that were not of the Spirit. From the outset of the liturgical renewal to the present, the Church was following the lead of the Holy Spirit and bearing witness to the Spirit in its teachings and actions. To deny the good fruit that the liturgical movement has brought forth during this process would be to deny the Spirit’s enduring infallible guidance.
Setting aside their interpretation of "good fruit" and the elastic application of infallibility, it is surely not the neglect of perceived positives but the airbrushing of indisputably monstrous ongoing negatives that thwarts the work of the Holy Spirit. And that is what the authors have done: promoting false faith, hope, and charity through their studious omission of the masonic roots that inexorably yielded the "weaknesses, missteps, irregularities, and even aberrations" of the postconciliar liturgy: rotten fruits which far from being incidental to that movement have come to define it.
All the while the Authors appeal to the better angels of our nature to recognise how displeasing our obstinacy is to Almighty God; insisting that the Holy Spirit would never countenance a return to a rite that is "contrary to the entire Spirit-anointed liturgical renewal that culminated in Vatican II’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy."
Amplifying the charge, they argue that the Traditional Mass is a total write-off as liturgy per se, since it offers, they contend, "a purely silent, passive participation [that] does not correspond to the reality of human nature as inseparably corporeal-spiritual, nor to the biblical and traditional understanding of worship as involving both interior acts and their outward expression in word, gesture, and song."
So much for our benighted Catholic forebears! Short-changed for centuries by the blessed mutter of the Old Rite, one wonders how they managed to build up the Body of Christ so mightily amid endless strife and persecutions without the real "biblical and traditional understanding of worship" latterly revealed by the "Spirit-anointed liturgical renewal" supposedly at work in our day?
In fact, they managed their salvific and civilising feat without the aid of the revelatory so-called renewal because it is not the work of the Holy Spirit. It is a pseudo-renewal informed by the same malign spirit of light [2 Cor. 11:14] who has fooled Fr Weinandy and his co-authors into reconciling the work of the Holy Spirit with the devastated liturgical landscape all about us.
This fantastical reconciliation of the Holy with the unholy is only entertained by those disoriented by the nouvelle théologie and its practical application by arch-infiltrators like Brother "Buan" Bugnini. For those of profound, simple, clear-eyed faith, however, living with the diabolical reality is an ongoing nightmare. "I am horrified by what is happening in the church of my parish," Bishop Schneider's mother once told him during a phone call from Germany. "You know, I'd rather be back in the Soviet Union, in the persecution of the underground Church, rather be without a priest for a year than experience what's happening here."
The same feeling of dread and despair has multiplied exponentially in faithful Catholic souls since Mrs Schneider voiced her utter dismay in that call made during the 1990s — the very decade by which the worst of the liturgical abuses had supposedly petered out, according to the Authors, who claim that by then just a smattering of "grave problems" remained. Another inversion of reality.
To use the precise heavenly language in the prayer of reparation to the Holy Trinity given to the children of Fatima by the Angel in 1916, as chronic as the situation was in the 70s and 80s the nature and scale of the "outrages, sacrileges, and indifferences whereby He [Jesus] is offended" were being ratcheted up in that final decade of the second millennium, not wound down. While today, before the Pachamama paganisation of FrancisChurch and the heightened casualness with which "outrages, sacrileges, and indifferences" are committed, even the excesses of 1990s Germany might be considered tame by comparison.
What elephant?
The Authors wave away all of this as mere "missteps, irregularities, and [occasional] aberrations." Unable to see the apocalyptic Masonic forest for the "profoundly positive" Modernist trees, they do not even allude to Bugnini's pivotal role in fabricating the liturgy they promote, never mind detail his skullduggery to that end.
In order to spin the Novus Ordo as the infallible, "Spirit-anointed" product of the Council, for instance, they even ignore Bugnini 'disappearing' its actual liturgical 'product': namely, the provisional cut-and-paste job on the 1962 Missal that was approved in 1965. Still highly contentious in traditional circles, among other things this revision removed Psalm 42 and the Last Gospel, permitted some silent prayers to be said out loud, and though maintaining the Canon in Latin allowed vernacular in many parts. It also encouraged celebrating versus populum.
Clearly a first step towards the option-laden, eviscerated, protestantised liturgical rupture Bugnini was cooking up in his Consilium, the Authors do not ignore the 1965 product simply because it was a recognisable modification of the 1962 Missal they despise (with much left intact including Offertory prayers and Canon). Rather, bypassing it allows them to whitewash the manifest traditional sensibilities of the bishops (mostly Council Fathers) who approved it; a fact that undermines their "Spirit-anointed"-narrative based on the supposed desire for radical liturgical reform among Spirit-inspired Council Fathers.
At the same time, by skirting the approved 1965 'reform' they can avoid all the problematic events that ensued: namely, its abrupt replacement just two years later by a revolutionary liturgy that was rejected by a majority vote of bishops, only to be finally signed off by Paul VI and foisted on the Church — all of which involved deceitful shenanigans they desperately wish to avoid.
Although this whopping lacuna in the Treatise smacks of a disingenuous and ideological spirit, it is perfectly understandable. After all, to acknowledge Annibale would be to recognise the masonic elephant in the Conciliar room. A realisation guaranteed to give the Authors palpitations, it would, in turn, depict their cherished Council as a 'shadow' of Antichrist, with all the implications of that unholy union for our holy Faith. Especially its expression in a Novus Ordo Missae manifestly designed to assimilate and radiate the nouvelle théologie woven into the weasel-worded Council documents that fostered the "apostasy at the top" — forewarned in the Third Secret of Fatima but also alluded to by Paul VI, on 13 October 1977, as "the darkness of Satan [that] has entered and spread throughout the Catholic Church even to its summit."
Therefore, to avoid this unavoidable broader discussion that would bring their liturgical house of cards tumbling down as the elephant rampaged through their narrative, the Authors cannot spare one solitary mention of this Great Liturgical Architect of the Postconciliar Universe.
Not even when they momentarily mention the distress of those who worked alongside him, such as Fr. Louis Bouyer whom they duly note was: "a theological consultant for the committee that implemented the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy [who] was not entirely happy, during and especially after the Council, for he anticipated and later observed the subsequent liturgical aberrations, both theological and pastoral." At that point they abruptly change liturgical tack and head off in another direction, omitting Fr. Bouyer's dramatic 1974 audience with Paul VI at which Bugnini's lies and treachery were laid bare(as related in our June-July 2021 issue, pp. 54-55).
While the Authors are perfectly free to airbrush the poisonous root of their liturgical tree from their Treatise, the sinister reality remains, as set forth in this extract from "Annibale Bugnini: Masonic Mastermind of the New Mass" (CO, June-July, 2021):
In July 1975, Pope Paul was forced against his will to learn of Bugnini’s affiliation with the Freemasons. Bugnini had attended a meeting with the Secretariat of State where he accidentally forgot his briefcase. A dossier obtained from Bugnini’s briefcase was personally brought to the Holy Father by a reputable high cardinal who had obtained it from a priest who had opened the briefcase to see who it belonged to. The dossier contained private instructions from the Italian Masonic Grand Master to Bugnini, which convinced the pope beyond any doubt that he was a Freemason. The following is part of what Pope Paul VI read in the dossier and is dated June 14, 1964.
Dear Buan [Masonic code-name of Bugnini]:
We communicate the task appointed to you by the Council of Brothers, in accordance with the Grand Master and the Assistant Princes to the Throne. We oblige you to spread de-Christianisation by confusing rites and languages and to set priests, bishops and cardinals against each other. Linguistic and ritualistic babel means victory for us, since linguistic and ritual unity has been the strength of the Church…. Everything must happen within a decade.”
Note the satanic strategy proposed for defeating Christians: To divide is to conquer. The following now is a letter from Bugnini to the Grand Master of the P2 Lodge updating him on the progress of his mission. This is dated July 2, 1967.
Peerless Grand Master:
The de-sacralisation is rapidly taking place. Another Instruction has been issued, which took effect on June 29. We can already sing victory, because the vernacular is now sovereign in the whole liturgy, even in the essential parts…. The greatest liberty was given to choose between the various formulas, to individual creativity, and to chaos! ... In short, with this document I believe to have spread the principle of maximum licentiousness, in accordance with your wishes.I fought hard against my enemies from the Congregation for the Rites, and I had to use all my astuteness so that the Pope would approve it. By luck, we found the support of friends and brothers in Universa Laus [International Association for the Study of Liturgical Music], who are faithful. I thank you for the funds sent and am waiting to see you soon. I embrace you,
Your Brother Buan
This correspondence is taken from Andrea Tornielli’s Dossier: Freemasonry and the application of the Liturgical Reform, which appeared in the June 1992 issue of 30 Days magazine. In commenting on the two missives, the author [a renowned "Vaticanista" and defender of FrancisChurch] admits that “the outcome of Bugnini's reforms fully matches the intention expressed in them."(1)
"Linguistic and ritualistic babel"
In light of the above exchange, it is noteworthy that the Authors consider the emergence of the vernacular, and its gradual dominance with ecclesiastical approval, a positive "fruit"; a giant liturgical step forward notwithstanding poor translations and banal vernacular hymns, which they lament.
"Without the vernacular," they write, "the active, vocal, intelligible participation of the faithful would have been impossible—at least for the vast majority." Though hardly a reliable liturgical source, they support their position by citing John Paul II's great satisfaction with "the use of the vernacular [which] has certainly opened up the treasures of the liturgy to all who take part,...." Oblivious to the warped understanding of liturgy so often manifested in his scandalous papal Masses, the Authors do not realise that a liturgical thumbs up from a disoriented Modernistic pope is tantamount to a Catholic thumbs down.
They even insist that without the vernacular we would all be left floundering in pre-conciliar pig ignorance of the liturgy and the Trinity: "Only after Vatican II, with the revision of the rite and the use of the vernacular, did the faithful become more cognisant of the trinitarian nature of the liturgy and of their own ability to pray in a trinitarian manner."
Really? Were you conscious of this elevated cognisance and your great debt to Vatican II? Didn't think so.
How telling that the Grand Master and Bugnini share the enthusiasm of the Authors in this regard (albeit for opposite reasons). "Linguistic and ritualistic babel means victory for us, since linguistic and ritual unity has been the strength of the Church," writes the Grand Master, displaying an appreciation of the traditional rite altogether lacking in the Treatise. Like Luther and Cranmer before him, he is acutely aware that the Old Rite, the Catholic bastion par excellence, must be destroyed for the Lodge to vanquish the Church. It ain't rocket science! Bugnini rejoices in the same vein: "We can already sing victory, because the vernacular is now sovereign in the whole liturgy, even in the essential parts…."
A "different Church"? You bet!
Living under the diabolic delusion that the impact of the Novus Ordo has been overwhelmingly positive, neither the Authors nor the popes they cite have paused to consider their own contribution to this well-documented masonic agenda to divide and conquer the Church.
Thus, they fail to see that their advocacy for more of the liturgical same is a suicidal pursuit rooted in "non-Catholic thinking" and false optimism: as if Bugnini's congregationalist sows ear will one day miraculously morph into that sacrificial silkpurse which, to their disoriented minds, it was always destined to become despite 50 years of "spiritual and liturgical ruin" — as Bishop Schneider bluntly described the Novus Ordo landscape during a recent appearance in Warsaw.
Held on 8 January, his no-nonsense address was attended by several hundred Poles, plus the present writer. Had the Authors happened by they would've learned a lot. His Lordship's calm, authoritative, crystal-clear presentation demolished all the familiar arguments for the NO and against the TLM. Effectively, he made mincemeat of their Treatise. Alas, they were nowhere to be seen. Traditional balloon-bursters are not their cup of tea.
And so they dream on, happily ensconced in the NO ruins, rationalising the rubble to complain instead about those whose disciplined, muscular rite of choice shows up Bugnini's fabrication as the messy, skeletal liturgical instrument that it is: a subversive instrument created to protestantise Catholic worship, as Bugnini himself proudly admitted in his memoirs.
This subversive intent and its realisation on sanctuaries the world over speaks directly to the "Counterfeit Church" famously forewarned by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich. Yet the very notion of a secular-New Church/sacred-True Church dichotomy baffles and appalls the Authors!
"The [recent] documentary Mass of the Ages shows [that] some who attend the Tridentine Mass regard themselves as separate from other Catholics, sometimes even to the point of thinking that they belong to a “different Church”," they tut-tut, ignoring the satanic simulacrum of the Faith peddled by Brother Jorge, to whom Brother "Buan" passed the baton of masonic secularism. "Thus," they huff, "“Church” is now defined by which Eucharistic rite one attends."
Au contraire! For nearly a decade "Church" has been defined by whatever worldly spin Brother Jorge chooses to give it: at any time in any arena, even and especially off-the-cuff at 30,000 feet.
"I’m constantly making statements, giving homilies. That’s magisterium. That’s what I think... Check it out; it’s very clear." [- La Nacion, 7/12/14]
No Catholic with a smidgen of faith would buy into such heterodox and heretical Bergoglian depictions.
Gaslighting the faithful
Far from viewing the traditional rite as the organic bastion of the Faith that it is — the Immovable Object divinely tailored to stop Francis dead in his tracks and foil the masonic takedown of the Church — the Authors laud its evisceration by Jorge; gaslighting their readers by depicting its rank destruction as a merciful work of papal unification demanded by bishops:
The normalisation of the extraordinary form came to an abrupt halt on July 16, 2021, when Pope Francis promulgated Traditionis Custodes and its accompanying letter to bishops....[I]n the light of a consultation with bishops carried out by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Francis feels obliged, for the sake of ecclesial unity, to establish new norms for the Tridentine Mass. [My emphasis]
Quite apart from the fact that "the Church has never abolished liturgies" and that "Francis breaks completely with this tradition" in Traditionis Custodes, as Bishop Mutsaerts states (CO, Aug-Sept 2021), a few clicks of a mouse is all it would have taken for the Authors to discover that the CDF's episcopal "consultation" was exposed as a total sham; a contrivance to elicit a predetermined outcome like other loaded questionnaires and cynical stitch-ups by FrancisChurch (e.g, the Synod on the Family).
Francis did not "feel obliged" to cancel the TLM due to episcopal complaints about its fostering disunity and disorder. In fact, there were few negative objections but many more positive ones, with the bishops of the world asking the Pope to keep Summorum Pontificum in full force and continue on with due care and prudence!
In other words, what the Authors left out is that Francis did what he does best: he lied. And since this revelation would hardly surprise Fr. Weinandy, only he can explain why he covered it over. One might surmise, however, that, like the Bugnini elephant, he ignored this egregious abuse of papal power because it shatters the facile foundation of the Treatise: New Mass Good: Old Mass Bad. Here is the truth of the matter:
In May 2020 Francis launched his survey on the Roman Rite addressed to the bishops. It was completed in January 2021. Afterwards, Francis repeatedly claims that its negative results convinced him to take action against the Roman Mass.
But [journalist Diane] Montagna convicts Francis of lying. Despite the Pope keeping the results secret, she received a report on the questionnaire The results of the survey were not what Francis claims. Only some bishops reported negatively about the Old Mass. From the countries where the Old Mass is very widespread (France, USA), there was a lot of feedback. Over 50 percent were positive ("good fruits").
Over 35 percent of the bishops said that Summorum Pontificum should remain unchanged, another third wanted only minor changes. But liar Francis abolished Summorum Pontificum, citing a "wish of the bishops."
Since accusing a pope of flat out lying is as serious as covering it up, we need to elaborate on the above summary.
Actual episcopal responses to the questionnaire categorised and summarised in a report given to Francis were obtained by Diane Montagna and disclosed at the Catholic Identity Conference on 3 October 2021. They underline the magnitude of this pontiff's mendacity and his willingness to invert reality for his own purposes. Consider this small selection of replies "On the value of the EF [Extraordinary Form] for the peace and unity of the Church":
- The EF, under the prudent leadership of the Ordinary, has allowed more Catholics to be able to pray according to their desire, and has dispelled the conflicts of before. Its quiet presence should not be disturbed (A Bishop of England, response to question 9).
- The most positive aspect of the use of the EF is that there is now no longer any “clan” claiming the “true Mass.” The Eucharistic mystery has been freed of a very damaging ideological split. This has been to the great advantage of the perception of the unity of the Church realised around the Eucharist (A Bishop of France, response to question 3).
- I would see it as a benefit to the whole Church if the Holy See continued to support faithful Catholics who are attached to the EF of the Roman Rite. Even in general terms, fostering genuine differences in thought and expression is a benefit to the universal Church. Having a section devoted to it in the CDF is helpful, when liturgical developments or clarifications are needed. In keeping with universal norms, our Archdiocese has also undertaken to establish a dialogue with local and national leaders of the FSSPX. I believe this positive step was facilitated by the existence of Summorum Pontificum and the communities it fostered (A Bishop of the United States, response to question 9).
- I believe that many of those who had felt separated from the Church and had gone to extra-ecclesial communities felt welcomed back into the structure of the Church because of Summorum Pontificum (A Bishop of the United States, response to question 3).
Catechetical confusion
Similar positive replies were received on other aspects of the Traditional Mass, its adherents, and its broader impact on both dioceses and the Novus Ordo itself. As well as exposing Bergoglio's lie about his motivation for launching his nuclear assault on Tradition (swallowed hook, line and sinker by the Authors), the episcopal responses contradict many other confident claims in the Treatise.
For instance, the Authors stress that "in the context of catechesis and the teaching of Vatican II" there is a need "to call the faithful to a deeper conversion." This is necessary, they write, because "the revitalisation of the liturgy is not merely a matter of “doing it right,” but is predicated on the spiritual renewal of the hearts and minds of all involved—clergy and laity alike. Thus, a mystagogical catechesis on the doctrines of the faith is necessary in conjunction with a mystagogical catechesis on the Eucharistic liturgy itself."
Despite this praiseworthy appeal, like all who hold Bugnini's liturgical patchwork quilt in awe it does not occur to the Authors that whatever success may be attained by such catechetical initiatives will be undone by the freewheeling New Mass; which was specifically and ecumenically designed to dilute Catholic "doctrines of the faith" and protestantise the form and nature of "Eucharistic liturgy." (Where it fails to do so in the relatively very few parishes blessed with uncompromising priests, it is despite the NO not because of it.)
Since the Authors deem it "doctrinally unacceptable," they simply cannot conceive that the Traditional Mass is perfectly suited to Catholic catechesis because it intrinsically radiates Catholic doctrine, especially Eucharistic doctrine — as any heretic, mason or satanist will attest!
The Authors also fear that "In the absence of catechesis, many [of the postconciliar generation] are being led astray by those who denigrate the Council or even deny its legitimacy." They
further adjudge that "This ignorance is especially found among those of the younger generation who are tempted to join the Tridentine movement."
Once again they get it all backwards and upside-down.
Young and old alike are not "led astray" by (righteous) denigrators of the (infiltrated) Council but, rather,by the alien form and content of much of the Novus Ordo and the elasticity of many Council documents themselves. Instruments deftly crafted under the influence of malign forces and ideas, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy itself was littered with liturgical 'time bombs,' set to explode over time to subvert faith and worship and scatter the sheep.
Not only does Bugnini's masonic correspondence confirm this stark satanic reality, Cardinal Kasper for one freely admits the fact: that the Council documents were deliberately suffused with "compromise formulas" that were framed and placed in Vatican II docs to foster "conflict" and ambiguity. His late comrade Helder Camara, a hard-core socialist prelate now up for beatification, was equally frank, stating: "We must go beyond the conciliar texts whose interpretation is left to us." Precisely.
That the Authors employ these notorious weapons of ambiguity and confusion in their support of Francis and Traditionis Custodes is particularly ironic where Fr. Weinandy is concerned, since he has criticised Francis for those very traits. In his letter to the Pope of 31 July 2017, reprinted in our December 2017 number, he strongly rebuked him on several fronts while stating that:
The main source of concern is the manner of your teaching. In Amoris Laetitia, your guidance at times seems intentionally ambiguous, thus inviting both a traditional interpretation of Catholic teaching on marriage and divorce as well as one that might imply a change in that teaching. [...] To teach with such a seemingly intentional lack of clarity inevitably risks sinning against the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth. The Holy Spirit is given to the Church, and particularly to yourself, to dispel error, not to foster it.
That Fr Weinandy fails to connect the crystal-clear error-fostering dots — between a liturgy professedly designed for "creativity" and "chaos," Vatican II documents deliberately suffused with "compromise formulas" to foster "conflict," and a TLM-obliterating Pope whose teaching he himself decries as "intentionally ambiguous" — is breathtaking. Diabolical disorientation on steroids!
Likewise his insistence, with his co-authors, that "the liturgical revival ought to be set within the broader context of Vatican II, for the Council sought the renewal of the entire Church." Since the current great apostasy flowed out of "the Council" on the back of "the liturgical revival," their recommendation only serves to foster the revolutionary aims of Bugnini and his Grand Master — to "de-sacralise" and "de-Christianise" under the banner of "renewal"!
Mass attacks: revenge of the neocons
Blind to their own theological and liturgical roots, the Authors are unable to discern cause and effect. In consequence, all that is left is to rationalise and normalise the cesspool of heterodoxy and heresy in which they swim. In the person of Francis, Fr Weinandy perceives the stench. Yet, clearly, neither he nor his co-authors appreciate how far the doctrinal and liturgical goal posts have been moved by the Modernist lineage of the status quo they unconsciously embody. Their commitment to defending the postconciliar hegemony is reflected in the severity of their Treatise which, ominously, is not an isolated attack.
In some neo-conservative quarters the rank injustice of Traditionis Custodes has surely elicited sympathy for the Traditional Mass and the plight of its adherents. At the same time, it has unleashed the pent up frustration of many other neocons who, like the Authors, are suddenly consumed by the need to protect the disoriented status quo from the TLM and its defenders. No-holds-barred castigations have ramped up.
The most recent attack, a 5,000-word onslaught by a neo-con blogger, begins with an implacable declaration that: "Pope Francis is right: it is necessary to return to a single, unified Roman Rite and leave the “Traditional Latin Mass” in the past." (Is it Time for the TLM to Go Away?" David Gordon, 5 January 2023.) Echoing the Treatise, the sub-heads give the hackneyed drift: Reform of the Liturgy was Mandated by an Ecumenical Council; The Will of God; Papal Accompaniment; Catholic Factionalism; and the final predictable bleat: Something Had To Be Done.
The mentality at play recalls renowned writer and author George Weigel. A super-neocon, he once scoffed at the idea that traditional Catholicism could have anything to offer the modern world, stating that "The challenge also won’t be met by Catholic traditionalists retreating into auto-constructed catacombs" (—with their "liturgically unfortunate and doctrinally unacceptable" Mass in tow, he may well have added). He, too, turns reality on its head to defend the indefensible. As George Neumayr, a senior editor of The American Spectator recently said of Weigel: "These days I see him pontificating about the glories of the failed council of Vatican II, which is yet another gaslighting and nonsensical claim."
As if further summing up our assessment of the Authors of the Treatise and their burgeoning ilk, Neumayr adds that Weigel has absorbed "so many progressive beliefs through his rampant Americanism that his [neocon] middle way would have been considered incredibly radical and dangerous only a few decades ago." He goes on:
This via media was supposed to be the path of mainstream Catholicism, though in reality it was a via media the popes and saints of yesteryear would have considered highly questionable. Thus, the whole ground was shifted under the feet of the faithful, and those who simply retained an integral approach to the faith became extremists while the progressives [viz., conduits of the nouvelle théologie] became mainstream."
In that clear light, the demented demonising of the TLM and "traditionalists" (faithful Catholics) is revealed as nothing but the crude power politics of a self-justifying, illegitimate (Modernist) regime. For, as Roberto de Mattei simply explains:
Love for the traditional liturgy presupposes necessarily a love for the truths of the Tradition. The much maligned “traditionalism” is nothing other than a love for the truth of the Church in all of its expressions, from liturgical to political and social. The so-called “traditionalists”, who are only Catholics without compromise, appeal to the unchangeable teaching of the Church. They do not idolise power, but they believe in the social Kingship of Christ, that is, in His right to reign over every man and the whole of society. The “religious experience” they follow is that of those who witness to their Christian vision of society with their blood, like the martyrs of Vendée in France and the Cristeros in Mexico.
Alone, that truthful profile shows up A Synoptic Look at the Failures and Successes of Post-Vatican II Liturgical Reforms as the Catholic-bashing exercise it really is. Yet having staked everything on the righteousness of the post-conciliar paradigm they peddle, only a signal grace could convince its Authors to confront their own contributions to the "non-Catholic thinking within Catholicism" that first effected and now sustains that neo-Modernist paradigm shift, and which continues to fan the "smoke of Satan" through the Church. They should pray for that grace. And when the Holy Spirit grants them the courage to face the liturgical elephant in the room, they can trash their spurious Treatise and pen a new, full and frank one. Possible working titles might include: The Great "De-sacralisation": Annibale and the Grand Master;or (my personal choice): Let's Talk About "Buan".
Until then, the following insights of a recent convert might accelerate their awakening to the Modernist Matrix that binds and blinds them: distorting their view and understanding of Catholic Reality, especially the beauty and divine purpose of the Traditional Mass — the guardian and catchetical instrument par excellence of that heavenly Reality — which they have so fiercely disavowed.
Powerful testimony
Drug and alcohol-addicted, Hollywood star Shia LaBeouf was contemplating suicide when, providentially, he was offered the role of Padre Pio in a movie. Through his intense learning and preparation for the role he converted to the Faith. Last August he was interviewed on YouTube by celebrity-Bishop Robert Barron. When the conversation turned to the influence of the liturgy on his conversion, the neo-Modernist Barron responded on cue, leaning across the table to enthuse: "We have full active conscious participation..." Bad mistake. He did not expect what followed:
La Beouf: Which is where the singing and the back and forth comes from, whereas the Old Latin Mass put all the agency on the priest to be fully activated. And that activation of the priest was supposed to activate... the laity. That all the agency was put on the priest, and so, I don't want to get too far into this because then you get into controversy, but Latin Mass affects me, deeply. Deeply."
Bishop Baron: "How come?"
LeBeouf: Because it feels like, they're not selling me a car. And, when I go to some Mass with the guitars and stuff [...] there's a lot of like, what feels like, um, like they're trying to sell me on an idea. Whereas what I feel when I went to [...] Christ the King in Oakland [that] does a Latin Mass every day of the week, it feels like it's, it's not being done to sell me on anything. And it feels almost like, like I'm being let in on something very special. And the quiet, um, it activates something in me where it feels like I found something.
If the Authors of the Treatise were among the million viewers of Shia LeBeouf's interview they were surely as perplexed as Bishop Barron to hear the Old Mass they denigrate and write off being lauded to the skies by this unlikely figure: a charismatic Hollywood convert who depicted their noisy Novus Ordo as little more than a sales pitch. Ouch!
Conversion/TLM combo: Jorge's worst nightmare!
To rub some cleansing Catholic salt into their neo-Modernist wounds, let us conclude with this reflection by commentator Liz Yore, who truly described the LeBeouf interview as "Francis' worst nightmare." (My abridged transcript of her video discussion):
I listened to his interview with a number of young men and they responded so positively to what he had to say. His message really resonated with them, and frankly he stole the show from Bishop Barron. And when he talks about the Latin Mass ... I mean here he is, out of the blue, the Latin Mass is being shut down left and right by the Pope, and this young man, who is hanging on to his life by his fingertips, and all of a sudden is given a lifeline by this great saint, Padre Pio, and he converts to Catholicism, and he talks about the beauty of the Latin Mass. He said it affects me deeply.
I think Bishop Barron didn't know what to do with him. He said, what do you mean, Shia, what do you mean it affects you deeply? ... 'I don't feel like you're trying to sell me a used car.'
The beauty, the reverence, all those things that so many of us feel, and young people especially, men, men like Shia who respond to the beauty of the Latin Mass. I think, personally, this is going to reverberate throughout the United States, thanks to Mel Gibson who apparently took Shia under his spiritual wing and introduced him to the Latin Mass and to the Capuchins, and obviously Padre Pio had a profound impact on this young man.
I think we're going to see great things in the future, from this growing cadre of Hollywood elites who through the intercession of the Holy Spirit and the Catholic Church, convert, and who are bringing the beauty of the Faith — whether it's stories of the saints, whether it's Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, or Jim Caviezel and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, those stories are going to continue to be told. And when you have somebody like Shia LaBeouf, you know, a young man, a Hollywood star, talking so profoundly about the impact of the Latin Mass. I mean, I don't think any of us expected something like this, coming from left field, but it was a real grace, and a great story of redemption. It is going to be the doorway for many people to come back to the Faith.
Hopefully, Traditionis Custodes will end up in the ash heap, because the young people, the young Catholics will demand this beautiful Mass of the ages.
Amen!
FOOTNOTES:
(1) Let us note in passing that although Paul VI is said to have been fooled by Bugnini, like Francis he was venerated by the Lodge. Among the outpouring of condolences upon his death in August 1978 were these telling words of the former Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy, Giordano Gamberini: "It is the first time in the history of modern Freemasonry, that the Head of the greatest religion in the West dies without being in a state of hostility towards Freemasons. And for the first time in history, Freemasons can render homage at the tomb of a Pope, without ambiguity or contradictions."