Fr. Kramer: EXTRACT FROM A LETTER TO A FRIEND
From Facebook, May 31st
Q. Are you saying that God punished the king of France by sending a revolution 100 years after he failed to consecrate France to the Sacred Heart? If he was dead how was it a punishment?
1) Louis XVI wasn't dead until his head was chopped off. He was the king of France 100 years after the request was made. The request was first made during the reign of Louis XIV -- not requested of him personally, but of him in his official capacity as the sovereign head of state. So with the death of Louis XIV, it was then incumbent upon Louis XV and Louis XVI to carry out the request. They ignored the request, and Louis XVI paid for his non compliance with his life. He attempted to perform the requested consecration while in prison, but was unable to perform it in the public and solemn manner requested by Christ. The throne is at present vacant, since the blessings of heaven were withdrawn from the monarchy that refused the Lord's request. It will not be fulfilled until after the monarchy will have been restored.
Q. This web page on EWTN says Russia WAS consecrated. By Pius XII, Paul VI and John Paul II (at least THREE times). And it also says that “Sr Lucia affirms….that the consecration 'has been accomplished’.” Of course you may also have doubts about EWTN. But they are usually reliable about things like this.
2) Our Lady requested the pope to solemnly consecrate Russia together with all the bishops of the world. No pope has done that. The Vatican and Fr. B. have the onus to explain their position; but instead, they only make the simple, gratuitous assertion that flies in the face of the patent fact that the requested public and solemn collegial act of consecration of Russia has never been done. If it had been done, at least one newspaper in the world would have reported it. It was not even reported in the Osservatore Romano that any pope had consecrated Russia together with all the bishops of the world.
If indeed Sr. Lucia really said it was done, then she contradicted herself, thus totally discrediting herself. The assertions attributed to her on this point are of doubtful authenticity, since she neither used a typewriter or computer; and her sister, Carolina, emphatically declared to me that Lucia never typed, but always wrote everything in longhand.
3) EWTN is not an authority.
Q. As for the Bible translations, to say Douay-Rheims is “not tampered by anyone” doesn’t settle the issue. And how do you know it wasn’t “tampered”? My research says it was revised in 1749 and 1941.Which version are you using? The Catholic Comparative New Testament is enlightening on this subject. We don’t use words like “suborned” anymore so it makes sense to re-translate the text either from the Latin Vulgate or, preferably, from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Remember the Church considers the original text the inspired Word of God. Translations are simply that - translations.
Several popes including Pius XII have called for more contemporary translations based on current biblical scholarship. Remember, the Bible is meant to be accessible. That’s why Pope Damasus asked St Jerome to translate it into Latin in the first place. In our country the New American Bible (Revised Edition) is the only approved translation for use at Mass. If it is good enough for our bishops and the Vatican, then it is good enough for me.
You say the Holy Spirit guides you to understand the Bible. True, but the Church is the interpreter of the Word, not the individual. People with different interpretations claim the Spirit is guiding them; how is this possible?. Case in point: your claim about the passage in Revelation. I’d still like to see what passage you are referring to, if you can find it.
I don’t know what “Bible specialists” you encountered but the Catholic Biblical Association here in the USA is partly responsible for our translation. They dedicate their lives to the Word and I think we should respect their work.
I don’t want to get into a long-term dialogue about what you believe and what you doubt. I just want to point out that as Catholics we are called to trust the judgment of the pope and the bishops.
4) Although I am not a biblical scholar, I have done sufficient study during my university years in Rome, and I have enough of a working knowledge of New Testament Greek to judge that the New American Bible is a rubbish heap of mistranslation. I am not familiar with the revised edition, but if it is anything like goofy original New American Bible, then I feel sorry for the American bishops.
Let's look at one verse:
Revised New American Bible, Luke 1:28 -
《 28 And coming to her, he said, “Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.”》
Even the Protestant 1611 King James Version is an improvement:
《 28 And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.》
Now, let's look at the original Greek:
《 28 και εισελθων ο αγγελος προς αυτην ειπεν χαιρε κεχαριτωμενη ο κυριος μετα σου ευλογημενη συ εν γυναιξιν》
Notice, (as an erudite Italian biblical scholar observed in the multi-volume annotated Italian Bible published in the late 70s), that the participle, "κεχαριτωμενη", is in the peefect tense, expressing the fully completed perfection of the work of grace that God had accomplished in Her -- the consummate perfection of the grace of the Immaculate Conception.
The vastly learned St. Jerome fully understood the nuanced Greek usage of St. Luke, and translated the passage: 《ave gratia plena》-- which is correctly rendered in English in the Douay Version: 《Hail, full of grace》.
Modern biblical scholars often try so hard to precisely render the literal meaning in their translations, that they resort to a minimalist and almost mechanical literalism in their translations -- mechanical as in machine like. The application of the intellect is required to render correctly a nuanced usage. The machinery of the brain suffices to produce a merely mechanical literal translation.
Actually, Google Translate did a better job of the key passage than the revised New American Bible! Here it is straight out of Google Translate: 《and enter the angel said unto her Hail full of grace》-- That is a literal machine translation. I rest my case.
5) I think the quotation I cited of Cardinal Manning suffices to show that the temporary apparent defeat and seeming destruction of the Church represented in the eschatological texts of scripture and in the unpublished portion of the Third Secret of Fatima are in full conformity with the doctrinal tradition and magisterium of the Church.
Unlike Pius XII, who foretold the eclipse of the Church based on the revelation in the 3rd Secret of Fatima while he was still a cardinal in 1931, the conciliar popes from 1960 to the present refuse to accept the unpublished part of the Secret as being of supernatural origin, so they privately judged it and suppressed it. This is what I wrote yesterday on Facebook:
"Antonio Socci hits the nail on the head, unravelling the Ratzinger Doublespeak on the Secret of Fatima. The cowardly conciliar popes judged the Secret privately, behind closed doors; and then decided to bury it without an official judgment. Cardinal Ottaviani was in agreement with John XXIII at first -- until the secret's prophecy about the "evil council" and the "bad Mass" came to be fulfilled during the reign of Paul VI. Then Ottaviani reversed his position on the Secret, and circumvented the oath of silence by publishing his paraphrase of the Secret, which has come to be known as the "diplomatic version" of the 3rd Secret of Fatima." I have dealt with the problems of the New Mass and the heresies of the Second Vatican Council sufficiently in my book, The Suicide of Altering the Faith in the Liturgy. (www.alteringliturgy.com)
The passage in the secret (paraphrased by Malachi Martin, as "almost the verbatim text of the secret"), about the "pope who will be completely under the power of the devil" has been the major stumbling block for the conciliar popes. They interpret it wrongly to mean that the pope will be defeated by the devil -- the defection of the Church and papacy, which would be heresy.
John Paul II read the translation of the Secret by Archbishop Tavares after reading it in the original Portuguese; but the problematic aspect of the passage remained unresolved in his and in Cardinal Ratzinger's mind. He then asked Bishop Carreira, a native of the same district in Portugal as Sr. Lucia, to translate it, but even with the new translation the difficulty was not resolved in his or Ratzinger's mind. Therefore, without making an official judgment, they privately judged that portion of the Third Secret to be a figment of Sr. Lucia's imagination, and buried it in a black hole in the Vatican. Here's the link to Socci's article: http://www.antoniosocci.com/la-verita-fatima-bene-ne-tratt…/
It appears likely that the "pope" in question, "who will be completely under the power of the devil", is Francis. Francis is most certainly not a valid pope, but is an antipope, beyond all shadow of doubt for two reasons: 1) Because he is patently an infidel -- a public heretic; and 2) the renunciation of Benedict XVI was canonically invalid due to 'defect of intention' and fatal ambiguity; and therefore Jorge Bergoglio's election was canonically irregular, since Canon Law requires that the Chair of Peter must be vacant when a conclave is convened to elect a new pope. Whenever a conclave elects a pope while there is still a living pontiff occupying the chair, that "pope" is no pope, but is an antipope.
In my continuation of this letter, I will elaborate on this topic more fully.