Judas Bergoglio
We must earnestly pray for conversions of those still either teaching Vatican II or simply following it.
Note: Not an endorsement for sedevacantism
Judas
Bergoglio believes in almost nothing of the Catholic Faith as It has
been revealed to us by Our Lord as He taught It to His Apostles and as
the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, has
protected in Its infallible transmission from Pentecost Sunday to the
present day. Bergoglio believes that Holy Mother Church has erred, which
is a heretical denial of the Holy Integrity and of her Divine
Constitution that was explained so succinctly by Pope Leo XIII in A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902:
Just
as Christianity cannot penetrate into the soul without making it
better, so it cannot enter into public life without establishing order.
With the idea of a God Who governs all, Who is infinitely Wise, Good,
and Just, the idea of duty seizes upon the consciences of men. It
assuages sorrow, it calms hatred, it engenders heroes. If it has
transformed pagan society--and that transformation was a veritable
resurrection--for barbarism disappeared in proportion as Christianity
extended its sway, so, after the terrible shocks which unbelief has
given to the world in our days, it will be able to put that world again
on the true road, and bring back to order the States and peoples of
modern times. But
the return of Christianity will not be efficacious and complete if it
does not restore the world to a sincere love of the one Holy Catholic
and Apostolic Church. In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate.
It identifies Itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own
order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and
which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the
Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the
Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption. It has preached
the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of Its blood, and strong in
the Divine assistance and of that immortality which has been promised
it, It makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the commands
which it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the
uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it
in its inviolable integrity. Legitimate dispenser of the teachings of
the Gospel it does not reveal itself only as the consoler and Redeemer
of souls, but It is still more the internal source of justice and
charity, and the propagator as well as the guardian of true liberty, and
of that equality which alone is possible here below. In applying the
doctrine of its Divine Founder, It maintains a wise equilibrium and
marks the true limits between the rights and privileges of society. The
equality which it proclaims does not destroy the distinction between the
different social classes. It keeps them intact, as nature itself
demands, in order to oppose the anarchy of reason emancipated from
Faith, and abandoned to its own devices. The liberty which it gives in
no wise conflicts with the rights of truth, because those rights are
superior to the demands of liberty. Not does it infringe upon the rights
of justice, because those rights are superior to the claims of mere
numbers or power. Nor does it assail the rights of God because they are
superior to the rights of humanity. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)
To believe as Bergoglio believes is to deny the very nature of Holy Mother Church's Divine Constitution.
Then
again, Judas Bergoglio uses every available opportunity to deny the
Holy Faith outright or to plant insidious seeds of doubt by employing
ambiguity about the supposed “impossibility” of knowing what his
supposed “holy spirit” wants of Catholics in contemporary circumstances,
a falsehood that contends God is mutable and adapts Himself to the
supposed “needs” of men at various times in salvation history.
This,
of course, is pure Modernism. It is what each of the conciliar “popes”
have taught, although they have used different slogans (“living
tradition,” “hermeneutic of continuity,” “letting the ‘holy spirit’ out
of a cage”) during their respective turns as the universal public face
of apostasy to make the heresy of “dogmatic evolutionism” the general
norm in the counterfeit church of conciliarism.
An
unpredictable “holy spirit” has led those Catholics in the counterfeit
church of conciliarism who pay attention to such things to believe that
everything concerning faith and morals is “up for grabs.” The principal
instrument of catechizing such a belief at the “retail” level in
formerly Catholic parishes, of course, has been the Protestant and
Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service, which was designed
by Fathers Annibale Bugnini, C.M., and Ferdinando Antonellli, O.F.M.,
to be the singular vessel of perdition if you will, to accustom
Catholics to a ceaseless regime of unpredictability.
The late Monsignor Klaus Gamber, who was not a traditionalist, said almost precisely this in The Reform of the Roman Liturgy,
noting that he believed the conciliar church to be the Catholic Church
recognizing a new liturgy was necessary to accustom people to a new
faith:
The
"traditionalist" priest will always stand in front of the altar, as has
been commonly done in the Eastern Church and in the Western Church
throughout history. They are priests offering a sacrifice who, together
with the faithful, face God.
The
other priests function as presiders over a Eucharistic meal, and from
their seats, or from behind the altar facing the people, which has
become a table, they direct their gaze towards the assembled faithful.
They are, apparently, not troubled in the least by the fact that their
backs on turned on the former High Altar and on the tabernacle--the
altar at which, only a few years ago, the holy sacrifice of the Mass was
offered and on which the eyes of the praying faithful had been focused.
In
the years before the reform, no Catholic could have imagined that the
Roman Church, founded on the Rock of Peter, would undergo such changes
and at the same time cause such confusion among its members.
Of
course, it is true that there have been progressives, particularly
during the Age of Enlightenment, who, in part because of erroneous
interpretations of history, in part because of "modern" theological
views, pressed for changes in the liturgy as it was then practiced. In
the past, the Church's teaching Magisterium has carefully guarded
against such developments and has always been able to control the
emergence of radical ideas.
Now,
all this has fundamentally changed. Today, those who out of a sense of
personal belief hold firm to what until recently had been strictly
prescribed by the Roman Church are treated with condescension by many of
their own brothers. They face problems if they continue to nurture the
very rite in which they were brought up and to which they have been
consecrated. That theirs was a decision made as a matter of conscience
and that their conscience is being sorely tested is of little
consequence to those who oppose them.
On
the other side, the progressives who see little or no value in
tradition can do almost no wrong, and are usually given the benefit of
the doubt, even they defend opinions which clearly contradict Catholic
teaching.
To
add to this spiritual confusion, we are also dealing with the satiated
state of mind of modern man who, living in our consumer society,
approaches anything that is holy with a complete lack of understanding
and has no appreciation of the concept of religion, let alone of his own
sinful state. For them God, if they believe in Him at all, exists only
as their "friend."
At
this critical juncture, the traditional Roman rite, more than one
thousand years old and until now the heart of the Church, was destroyed.
A closer examination reveals that the Roman rite was not perfect and
that some elements of value had atrophied over the centuries. Yet,
through all the periods of unrest that again and again shook the Church
to her foundations, the Roman rite always remained the rock, the secure
home of faith and piety . . . .
Liturgy
and faith are interdependent. That is why a new rite was created, a
rite that in many ways reflects the bias of the new (modernist)
theology. The traditional liturgy simply could not be allowed to exist
in its established form because it was permeated with the truths of the
traditional faith and the ancient forms of piety. For this reason alone,
much was abolished and the new rites, prayers and hymns were
introduced, as were the new readings from Scripture, which conveniently
left out those passages that did not square with the teachings of modern
theology--for example, references to a God who judges and punishes.
At
the same time, the priests and the faithful are told that the new
liturgy created after the Second Vatican Council is identifical in
essence with the liturgy that has been in use in the Catholic Church up
to this point, and that the only changes introduced involved reviving
some earlier liturgical forms and removing a few duplications, but above
all getting rid of elements of no particular interest.
Most
priests accepted these assurances about the continuity of liturgical
forms of worship and accepted the new rite with the same unquestioning
obedience with which they had accepted the minor ritual changes
introduced by Rome from time to time in the past, changes beginning with
the reform of the Divine Office and the liturgical chant introduced by
Pope Saint Pius X.
Following
this strategy, the groups pushing for reform were able to take
advantage of and at the same time abuse the sense of obedience among the
older priests, and the common good will of the majority of the
faithful, while, in many cases, they themselves refused to obey.
The pastoral benefits that so many idealists had hoped the new liturgy would bring did not materialize. Our
churches emptied in spite of the new liturgy (or because of it?), and
the faithful continue to fall away from the Church in droves.
Although
our young people have been literally seduced into supporting the new
forms of liturgical worship, they have, in fact, become more and more
alienated from the faith. They are drawn to religious sects--Christian
and non-Christian ones--because fewer and fewer priests teach them the
riches of our Catholic faith and the tenets of Christian morality. As
for older people, the radical changes made to the traditional liturgy
have taken from them the sense of security in their religious home.
Today,
many among us wonder: Is this the Spring people had hoped would emerge
from the Second Vatican Council? Instead of a genuine renewal in our
Church, we have seen only novelties. Instead of our religious life
entering a period of new invigoration, as has happened in the past, what
we see now is a form of Christianity that has turned towards the world.
We
are now involved in a liturgy in which God is no longer the center of
our attention. Today, the eyes of our faithful are no longer focused on
God's Son having become Man hanging before us on the cross, or on the
pictures of His saints, but on the human community assembled for a
commemorative meal. The assembly of people is sitting there, face to
face with the "presider," expecting from him, in according with the
"modern" spirit of the Church, not so much a transfer of God's grace,
but primarily some good ideas and advice on how to deal with daily life
and its challenges.
There
are few people left who speak of the Holy Mass as the Sacrifice of the
New Covenant which we offer to God the Father through Jesus Christ, or
of the sacramental union with Christ that we experience when we receive
Holy Communion. Today, we are dealing with the "Eucharistic feast," and
with the "holy bread"to be shared among us as a sign of our brotherhood
with Jesus.
The
real destruction of the traditional Mass, of the traditional Roman rite
with a history of more than one thousand years, is the wholesale
destruction of the faith on which it was based, a faith that had been
the source of our piety and of our courage to bear witness to Christ and
His Church, the inspiration of countless Catholics over so many
centuries. Will someone, some day, be able to say the same thing about
the new Mass? (Monsignor Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Rite.)
Unfortunately,
Monsignor Gamber believed that an absolute return to the integrity of
the Immemorial Mass of Tradition before it was attacked by Bugnini and
Antonelli in the 1950s was probably not desirable. He believed in what
has been called "the reform of the reform." That having been noted as a
matter of intellectual honesty, Gamber's analysis of the actual state of
the so-called liturgical "renewal" was founded on a rejection of the
claim that the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service was a continuation of Tradition. It is not. The Novus Ordo has
devastated the Catholic Faith and is responsible for giving rise to the
"restoration" of one formerly and properly abandoned practice of
antiquity after another, thus creating the very conditions in which
Catholics have come to believe in the "egalitarian" spirit of a false
liturgy that was inspired by the devil himself in the mode of the
liturgies used by the Protestant revolutionaries into whose prideful
ears he whispered nearly five hundred years ago now.
Perhaps it is good to review the following sentences quoted above from The Reform of the Roman Liturgy to
see how perfectly they describe the condescending treatment that Jorge
Mario Bergoglio accords believing Catholics who are attached to the
structures of his counterfeit church of concilairism while he himself
presides over some of the grossest liturgical sacrileges that the world
has even seen, sacrileges that would have made even the pagans of
Ancient Rome, Green and Egypt blush with shame:
Today,
those who out of a sense of personal belief hold firm to what until
recently had been strictly prescribed by the Roman Church are treated
with condescension by many of their own brothers. They face problems if
they continue to nurture the very rite in which they were brought up and
to which they have been consecrated. That theirs was a decision made as
a matter of conscience and that their conscience is being sorely tested
is of little consequence to those who oppose them.
On
the other side, the progressives who see little or no value in
tradition can do almost no wrong, and are usually given the benefit of
the doubt, even they defend opinions which clearly contradict Catholic
teaching. (Monsignor Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Rite.)
This describes the lay Judas from Argentina perfectly.
In
truth, of course, the spiritual and moral devastation that has been
wrought by the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic liturgical service could not
have been as successful as it has turned out to be had not the rites of
episcopal consecration and presbyteral ordination been replaced by
invalid concoctions that were designed of their nature to deprive
unsuspecting Catholics of true offerings of the Holy Sacrifice of the
Mass offered by priests ordained by validly consecrated bishops. The
destruction of the nature of the Holy Mass as the unbloody
re-presentation or perpetuation of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour’s bloody
Sacrifice of Himself to His Co-Equal and Co-Eternal God the Father on
the wood of the Holy Cross in atonement for human sins had to
accompanied by a destruction of any belief that a man presumed to a
Catholic priest is a sacerdos, that is, one who offers a sacrifice in the name of Holy Mother Church.
One
must remember, however, that the whole art and architecture of many of
the newer conciliar church buildings, including the Taj Mahony on the
Hollywood Freeway in Los Angeles, California, is designed to convey the
false belief that the common priesthood that each of us in the laity has
by means of our baptism is equal, if not superior, to the ministerial
priesthood of the ordained priest. Leaving aside the inconvenient little
truth that the counterfeit church of conciliarism has a paucity of true
priests, the egalitarian view of what many conciliar revolutionaries
call "priesthood" without the use of the definitive article "the" is
pretty standard fare in chancery offices and parishes throughout the
counterfeit church of concilairism.
To
be sure, there have been some conciliar bishops who recognized that
at least some of their confreres did not believe in the sacerdotal
priesthood of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
I
was visiting the late Bishop James S. Sullivan of Fargo, North
Dakota, in May of 1990 about nine months after having left his formal
employ as his director of communications to return to college teaching.
Another man at the dinner table at Passages restaurant at the Radisson
restaurant in Fargo (which had, believe it or not, the best French onion
soup of any restaurant in the country) was attempting to interest
conciliar bishops in the work of the Serra Club to foster vocations to
the conciliar priesthood. This fellow, who died in 2010 at the age of
ninety, could not figure out why Bishop Kenneth Untener of Saginaw,
Michigan, who died on March 27, 2004, was not interested in recruiting
seminarians. "Bishop" Sullivan had a rare moment of public candor when
the man from the Serra Club asked this question in all earnestness.
"Dan," Bishop Sullivan said to the man, "what you have to understand is that
'Bishop' Untener does not believe in the priesthood." Bishop Sullivan
then resumed eating his French onion soup.
"Bishop
Untener, who was a product of the late John Cardinal Dearden's factory
of apostasy in Detroit, Michigan (where "Call to Action" was born to
present an organized force opposed to the binding truths contained in
the Deposit Faith), was not alone in life and he is not alone in death.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio is giving active voice to what Untener believed,
although he is doing so mostly by omission as he uses various rhetorical
tricks to disparage priests and presbyters who are “locked into” their
sanctuaries.
As
has been noted so frequently this site over the years, the counterfeit
church of conciliarism is founded in a warfare against the immutable
nature of dogmatic truth, which is nothing other than warfare against
the very immutable nature of the Most Blessed Trinity. The destruction
of belief in the Real Presence of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ and of the sacrificial nature of the Holy Mass and the Holy
Priesthood constitutes the logical result of this incessant warfare
against the nature of dogmatic truth, which has, quite logically, become
an open revolt against the nature of moral truths and even of the very
existence of the Natural Law itself.
Indeed,
Jorge Mario Bergoglio used his “Chrism Mass” homily on the morning of
Maundy Thursday, April 13, 2017, to discuss the priest as servant, not
as the sacredos who offers sacrifice in the Name of Holy Mother Church.
The lay Judas from Argentina used the occasion to exhort his priests and
presbyters not to be “rigid” about truth:
The integrity of the truth cannot be rigid. (hBergoglio Deconstructs the Priesthood During "Chrism Mass.)
This
is why he wants to shape young conciliar presbyters in his old
revolutionary mold as “street priests” who go out of their sanctuaries
to work with those he believes are at the “existential peripheries” of
life. Bergoglio believes that the Catholic priesthood has been focused
on the administration of the Sacraments rather than on the “service to
the poor,” heedless of the fact that the poorest of the poor are the
unbaptized and those who souls are held captive to the devil by means of
Original Sin. Priests are called to sanctify and to save souls, and
those among them who are called to perform the Corporal Works of Mercy
must place First Things first as the mere performance of charitable
works divorced from personal sanctification and the fulfillment of one’s
duties at altars of sacrifices is not profitable to one who presumes
himself to be a sharer in the royal priesthood of the Our Lord Jesus
Christ.
Alas,
Jorge Mario Bergoglio does not really believe in the sacerdotal nature
of the Catholic priesthood. After all, why should he believe in it as he
has been schooled in a revolutionary school of heretical thought that
has animated him through his career as a lay Jesuit, perhaps never more
so than in the past few years as he masquerades around the globe as
“Pope Francis”?
Quite
contrary to Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s contention that “the integrity of
truth cannot be rigid,” every dogmatic truth, including that about the
Holy Priesthood, is very rigid. It is immutable, and it was expressed by
the Council Fathers of the Council of Trent in terms that the lay
Argentine Judas finds personally repulsive precisely because they do not
permit room for his “spirit” to breathe as he will:
CHAPTER IX.
Preliminary Remark on the following Canons.
Preliminary Remark on the following Canons.
And
because that many errors are at this time disseminated and many things
are taught and maintained by divers persons, in opposition to this
ancient faith, which is based on the sacred Gospel, the traditions of
the Apostles, and the doctrine of the holy Fathers; the sacred and holy
Synod, after many and grave deliberations maturely had touching these
matters, has resolved, with the unanimous consent of all the Fathers, to
condemn, and to eliminate from holy Church, by means of the canons
subjoined, whatsoever is opposed to this most pure faith and sacred
doctrine.
ON THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS.
CANON
I.--If any one saith, that in the mass a true and proper sacriflce is
not offered to God; or, that to be offered is nothing else but that
Christ is given us to eat; let him be anathema.
CANON II.--If
any one saith, that by those words, Do this for the commemoration of me
(Luke xxii. 19), Christ did not institute the apostles priests; or, did
not ordain that they, and other priests should offer His own body and
blood; let him be anathema.
CANON
III.--If any one saith, that the sacrifice of the mass is only a
sacrifice of praise and of thanksgiving; or, that it is a bare
commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross, but not a
propitiatory sacrifice; or, that it profits him only who receives; and
that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for sins,
pains, satisfactions, and other necessities; let him be anathema. (The Twenty-Second Session)
The
Council of Trent was a dogmatic council of the Catholic Church. Its
Fathers were guided in their work by the infallible protection and
guidance of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost.
The pronouncements in Chapter IX of the Twenty-second Session of the
Council of Trent on September 17, 1562, with the approval of Pope Pius
IV are dogmatic. They are statements of the truths that Our Blessed Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ entrusted exclusively to His Catholic Church
for their eternal safekeeping and infallible explication.
Our
Lord instituted the Holy Priesthood and the Holy Eucharist on Maundy
Thursday at the Last Supper as He entered into the events of His Passion
and Death to redeem us by the shedding of His Most Precious Blood on
the wood of the Holy Cross. The first Mass was the bloody Sacrifice
offered by the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man in His
Most Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of God
the Holy Ghost to His Co-Equal and Co-Eternal Father in Spirit and in
Truth.
Our
Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was both Priest and Victim as He
hung atop the dung heap known as Calvary or Golgotha on the gibbet of
the Holy Cross as He made atonement for our sins. He has been since that
the time Chief Priest and Victim and each and every valid offering of
the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is the unbloody re-presentation of
His Sacrifice of the Cross, as an alter Christus acting in persona Christi makes
Him present, Body and Blood and Soul and Divinity, under the
appearances of bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist. Each Mass is a
propiatory offering for our sins those of the whole world.
The Council of Trent further decreed the following on July 15, 1563 in its Twenty-third Session:
CHAPTER I.
On the institution of the Priesthood of the New Law.
On the institution of the Priesthood of the New Law.
Sacrifice
and priesthood are, by the ordinance of God, in such wise conjoined, as
that both have existed in every law. Whereas, therefore, in the New
Testament, the Catholic Church has received, from the institution of
Christ, the holy visible sacrifice of the Eucharist; it must
needs also be confessed, that there is, in that Church, a new, visible,
and external priesthood, into which the old has been translated. And the
sacred Scriptures show, and the tradition of the Catholic Church has
always taught, that this priesthood was instituted by the same Lord our
Saviour, and that to the apostles, and their successors in the
priesthood, was the power delivered of consecrating, offering, and
administering His Body and Blood, as also of forgiving and of retaining
sins.
CHAPTER II.
On the Seven Orders.
On the Seven Orders.
And
whereas the ministry of so holy a priesthood is a divine thing; to the
end that it might be exercised in a more worthy manner, and with greater
veneration, it was suitable that, in the most well-ordered settlement
of the church, there should be several and diverse orders of ministers,
to minister to the priesthood, by virtue of their office; orders so
distributed as that those already marked with the clerical tonsure
should ascend through the lesser to the greater orders. For the sacred
Scriptures make open mention not only of priests, but also of deacons;
and teach, in words the most weighty, what things are especially to be
attended to in the Ordination thereof; and, from the very beginning of
the church, the names of the following orders, and the ministrations
proper to each one of them, are known to have been in use; to wit those
of subdeacon, acolyth, exorcist, lector, and door-keeper; though these
were not of equal rank: for the subdeavonship is classed amongst the
greater orders by the Fathers and sacred Councils, wherein also we very
often read of the other inferior orders.
CHAPTER III.
That Order is truly and properly a Sacrament.
That Order is truly and properly a Sacrament.
Whereas,
by the testimony of Scripture, by Apostolic tradition, and the
unanimous consent of the Fathers, it is clear that grace is conferred by
sacred ordination, which is performed by words and outward signs, no
one ought to doubt that Order is truly and properly one of the seven
sacraments of holy Church. For the apostle says; I admonish thee that
thou stir up the grace of God, which is in thee by the imposition of my
hands. For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of
love of sobriety.
CHAPTER IV
On the Ecclesiastical hierarchy, and on Ordination.
On the Ecclesiastical hierarchy, and on Ordination.
But,
forasmuch as in the sacrament of Order, as also in Baptism and
Confirmation, a character is imprinted, which can neither be effaced nor
taken away; the holy Synod with reason condemns the opinion of those,
who assert that the priests of the New Testament have only a temporary
power; and that those who have once been rightly ordained, can again
become laymen, if they do not exercise the ministry of the word of God. And
if any one affirm, that all Christians indiscrimately are priests of
the New Testament, or that they are all mutually endowed with an equal
spiritual power, he clearly does nothing but confound the ecclesiastical
hierarchy, which is as an army set in array; as if, contrary to the
doctrine of blessed Paul, all were apostles, all prophets, all
evangelists, all pastors, all doctors. Wherefore, the holy Synod
declares that, besides the other ecclesiastical degrees, bishops, who
have succeeded to the place of the apostles, principally belong to this
hierarchical order; that they are placed, as the same apostle says, by
the Holy Ghost, to rule the Church of God; that they are superior to
priests; administer the sacrament of Confirmation; ordain the ministers
of the Church; and that they can perform very many other things; over
which functions others of an inferior order have no power. Furthermore,
the sacred and holy Synod teaches, that, in the ordination of bishops,
priests, and of the other orders, neither the consent, nor vocation, nor
authority, whether of the people, or of any civil power or magistrate
whatsoever, is required in such wise as that, without this, the
ordination is invalid: yea rather doth It decree, that all those who,
being only called and instituted by the people, or by the civil power
and magistrate, ascend to the exercise of these ministrations, and those
who of their own rashness assume them to themselves, are not ministers
of the church, but are to be looked upon as thieves and robbers, who
have not entered by the door. These are the things which it
hath seemed good to the sacred Synod to teach the faithful in Christ, in
general terms, touching the sacrament of Order. But It hath resolved to
condemn whatsoever things are contrary thereunto, in express and
specific canons, in the manner following; in order that all men, with
the help of Christ, using the rule of faith, may, in the midst of the
darkness of so many errors, more easily be able to recognise and to hold
Catholic truth.
ON THE SACRAMENT OF ORDER.
CANON I.--If
any one saith, that there is not in the New Testament a visible and
external priesthood; or that there is not any power of consecrating and
offering the true body and blood of the Lord, and of forgiving and
retaining sins; but only an office and bare ministry of preaching the
Gospel, or, that those who do not preach are not priests at all; let him
be anathema.
CANON
II.--If any one saith, that, besides the priesthood, there are not in
the Catholic Church other orders, both greater and minor, by which, as
by certain steps, advance is made unto the priesthood; let him be
anathema.
CANON III.--If
any one saith, that order, or sacred ordination, is not truly and
properly a sacrament instituted by Christ the Lord; or, that it is a
kind of human figment devised by men unskilled in ecclesiastical
matters; or, that it is only a kind of rite for choosing ministers of
the word of God and of the sacraments; let him be anathema.
CANON
IV.--If any one saith, that, by sacred ordination, the Holy Ghost is
not given; and that vainly therefore do the bishops say, Receive ye the
Holy Ghost; or, that a character is not imprinted by that ordination;
or, that he who has once been a priest, can again become a layman; let
him be anathema.
CANON
V.--If any one saith, that the sacred unction which the Church uses in
holy ordination, is not only not required, but is to be despised and is
pernicious, as likewise are the other ceremonies of Order; let him be
anathema.
CANON
VI.--If any one saith, that, in the Catholic Church there is not a
hierarchy by divine ordination instituted, consisting of bishops,
priests, and ministers; let him be anathema.
CANON
VII.--If any one saith, that bishops are not superior to priests; or,
that they have not the power of confirming and ordaining; or, that the
power which they possess is common to them and to priests; or, that
orders, conferred by them, without the consent, or vocation of the
people, or of the secular power, are invalid; or, that those who have
neither been rightly ordained, nor sent, by ecclesiastical and canonical
power, but come from elsewhere, are lawful ministers of the word and of
the sacraments; let him be anathema.
CANON
VIII.--If any one saith, that the bishops, who are assumed by authority
of the Roman Pontiff, are not legitimate and true bishops, but are a
human figment; let him be anathema. (Council of Trent, Twenty-third
Session.)
Conciliar
presbyters are merely “presiders” over what passes for Catholic
liturgical celebrations who share the “sanctuary” with a veritable
potpourri of members of the laity (lectors, “Eucharistic ministers,”
“leaders of song,” etc.). The ambiance of the Protestant and
Judeo-Masonic liturgical service conveys, all protestations to the
contrary in conciliar documents to the contrary notwithstanding, that
the conciliar presbyter is but a mere functionary in a community
celebration, not an alter Christus at whose hands God Himself
is made incarnate under the appearances of bread and wine by the working
of God the Holy Ghost, Who has sealed his immortal soul with the
indelible seal of sacerdotal priesthood of the Chief Priest and Victim
of every Mass, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Indeed,
it is pretty standard fare in the many of the quarters of the
counterfeit church of conciliarism to believe that the Holy Priesthood
has nothing to do with sacrifice and is simply an exercise of an office
that takes its call from the "community". I heard variations of
anathematized themes about the nature of the Holy Priesthood when I was
exploring the possibility of a vocation to the conciliar presbyterate in
the 1970s as I was pursuing my doctorate at the then named Graduate
School of Public Affairs of the State University of New York at Albany
and after I had begun my full-time teaching career in the Fall of 1976
at Mohawk Valley Community College in Utica, New York. One vocations
director told me that the "applause of the community" was what ratified
and signified a man's ordination to the priesthood. This man really did
not believe that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ personally
had instituted a sacerdotal, hierarchical priesthood or that the Holy
Mass was the unbloody re-presentation of Our Lord's Sacrifice of Himself
to the Father in Spirit and in Truth on the wood of the Holy Cross.
Pope Pius XII categorically condemned such a view of the priesthood:
The Church is a society, and as such requires an authority and hierarchy of her own.
Though it is true that all the members of the Mystical Body partake of
the same blessings and pursue the same objective, they do not all enjoy
the same powers, nor are they all qualified to perform the same acts.
The divine Redeemer has willed, as a matter of fact, that His Kingdom
should be built and solidly supported, as it were, on a holy order, which resembles in some sort the heavenly hierarchy.
Only
to the apostles, and thenceforth to those on whom their successors have
imposed hands, is granted the power of the priesthood, in virtue of
which they represent the person of Jesus Christ before their people,
acting at the same time as representatives of their people before God.
This priesthood is not transmitted by heredity or human descent. It does
not emanate from the Christian community. It is not a delegation from
the people. Prior to acting as representative of the community before
the throne of God, the priest is the ambassador of the divine Redeemer.
He is God's vice-gerent in the midst of his flock precisely because
Jesus Christ is Head of that body of which Christians are the members.
The power entrusted to him, therefore, bears no natural resemblance to
anything human. It is entirely supernatural. It comes from God. "As the
Father hath sent me, I also send you. . . he that heareth you heareth
me. . . go ye into the whole world and preach the gospel to every
creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved."
That
is why the visible, external priesthood of Jesus Christ is not handed
down indiscriminately to all members of the Church in general, but is
conferred on designated men, through what may be called the spiritual
generation of holy orders.
This
latter, one of the seven sacraments, not only imparts the grace
appropriate to the clerical function and state of life, but imparts an
indelible "character" besides, indicating the sacred ministers'
conformity to Jesus Christ the Priest and qualifying them to perform
those official acts of religion by which men are sanctified and God is
duly glorified in keeping with the divine laws and regulations. (Pope
Pius XII, Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947.)
It could not be clearer that the de facto
beliefs of many within the counterfeit church of conciliarism,
including Bergoglio himself, about the Holy Priesthood and the nature of
Holy Mass have been condemned and anathematized by the authority of the
Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII specifically condemned these conciliar
pretensions as follows:
The
fact, however, that the faithful participate in the eucharistic
sacrifice does not mean that they also are endowed with priestly power.
It is very necessary that you make this quite clear to your flocks.
For there are today, Venerable Brethren, those who, approximating
to errors long since condemned teach that in the New Testament by the
word "priesthood" is meant only that priesthood which applies to all who
have been baptized; and hold that the command by which Christ gave
power to His apostles at the Last Supper to do what He Himself had done,
applies directly to the entire Christian Church, and that thence, and
thence only, arises the hierarchical priesthood. Hence they assert that
the people are possessed of a true priestly power, while the priest only
acts in virtue of an office committed to him by the community.
Wherefore, they look on the eucharistic sacrifice as a "concelebration,"
in the literal meaning of that term, and consider it more fitting that
priests should "concelebrate" with the people present than that they
should offer the sacrifice privately when the people are absent.
It
is superfluous to explain how captious errors of this sort completely
contradict the truths which we have just stated above, when treating of
the place of the priest in the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. (Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947.)
Over and above the apostasies that have the "official," de jure approval
of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, you see, there are these
"unofficial" apostasies that have grown out of the conciliar spirit and
have been given great breathing room as a result of the Protestant and
Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo service and all of its many mutations.
The Novus Ordo was
evil from its inception, and it has produced blasphemy and sacrilege
and profanity and apostasy in its demonic wake. Catholics who believed
such apostasies as those propagated by Bergoglio and his kith and kin in
the conciliar church were very rare sixty years ago. They are to be
found in large numbers today the Vatican and chancery offices and in
pulpits of parishes in conciliar captivity and in conciliar elementary
and secondary schools and colleges and universities and convents and
seminaries and theological and liturgical "update" programs. That the
proliferation of such apostasies has occurred in the wake of the
"Second" Vatican Council and the promulgation of the Novus Ordo service is no accident whatsoever.
Bergoglio
and his pals in the counterfeit church of conciliarism could, of
course, seek to justify their outright rejection of the solemn decrees
of the Council of Trent that were used as the doctrinal foundation of
Pope Pius XII's Mediator Dei by claiming that "there are
decisions of the magisterium that cannot be the last word on the matter
as such, but are, in a substantial fixation of the problem, above all an
expression of pastoral prudence, a kind of provisional disposition. The
nucleus remains valid, but the particulars, which the circumstances of
the times influenced, may need further correction." Why not use the
words of a Judas priest, Joseph Ratzinger, that that certain teachings are obsolete in
the "particulars" that they contain to claim that the very nature of
the priesthood itself can be deconstructed according to the s
"hermeneutic of continuity"? Who is to say that the decrees of the
Council of Trent cannot be subjected to the same Hegelian treatment as
that given to the Catholic Church's teaching against religious liberty
and separation of Church and State and Pope Pius IX's The Syllabus of Errors and Pope Saint Pius X's Pascendi Dominci Gregis?
Certainly
not Jorge Mario Bergoglio, whose “homily” in the Basilica of Saint
Peter for the conciliar “Chrism Mass” contained nothing about the royal
dignity of the Priesthood of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
There was not one reference to Holy Mass or to the Sacraments anywhere
in the text of the apostate’s “homily.” Similarly, there was not one
reference to personal sanctification or to Sanctifying Grace.
Bergoglio’s concept of “priesthood,” such at it is, is purely
naturalistic, and it cannot be anything other than this as it is based
upon a rejection of the immutability of what the Holy Priesthood is and
why Our Lord instituted It for the greater honor and glory of God and
for our own sanctification and salvation.
Remember these words of Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907:
Hence it is quite impossible [the Modernists assert] to maintain that they [dogmatic statements] absolutely
contain the truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the
images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sense in its
relation to man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and
must therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the
religious sense. But the object of the religious sense, as
something contained in the absolute, possesses an infinite variety of
aspects, of which now one, now another, may present itself. In like
manner he who believes can avail himself of varying conditions. Consequently,
the formulas which we call dogma must be subject to these vicissitudes,
and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the
intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of
sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion.
It
is thus, Venerable Brethren, that for the Modernists, whether as
authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing
immutable in the Church. Nor, indeed, are they without forerunners in
their doctrines, for it was of these that Our predecessor Pius IX wrote:
'These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies,
and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the
Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of
man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection
by human efforts.' On the subject of revelation and dogma in particular,
the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new. We find it condemned
in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms:
''Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and
indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human reason';
and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council: ''The
doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been proposed to
human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it were a
philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to the Spouse of
Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence also
that sense of the sacred dogmas is to be perpetually retained which our
Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this sense ever to be
abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the
truth.' Nor is the development of our knowledge, even concerning
the faith, barred by this pronouncement; on the contrary, it is
supported and maintained. For the same Council continues: 'Let
intelligence and science and wisdom, therefore, increase and progress
abundantly and vigorously in individuals, and in the mass, in the
believer and in the whole Church, throughout the ages and the centuries
-- but only in its own kind, that is, according to the same dogma, the same sense, the same acceptation.' (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
This now Easter Thursday.
Our
Lord spent the time between His Resurrection from the dead on Easter
Sunday and His Ascension into Heaven forty days thereafter (Ascension
Thursday this year falls on May 25, 2017) preparing His Apostles to
discharge their duties as other Christs who had been given the fullness
of His Holy Priesthood, the episcopacy, at the Last Supper. God the Holy
Ghost gave them the infallible enlightenment on all things pertaining
to the Holy Faith when He descended in tongues of flame in the same
Upper Room in Jerusalem where they had received the unmerited gift of
the fullness of the Holy Priesthood, and they understood that there was
no shadow of change in God. Hence it is that there can never be any kind
of change in what Holy Mother Church teaches about the Holy Priesthood
and the nature of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Appendix
The Catholic Church's Condemnation of the Evolution of Dogma
-
For the doctrine of the faith which God has revealed is put forward
- not as some philosophical discovery capable of being perfected by human intelligence,
- but as a divine deposit committed to the spouse of Christ to be faithfully protected and infallibly promulgated.
-
Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by holy mother church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.
God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever be in opposition to truth.
The appearance of this kind of specious contradiction is chiefly due to the fact that either: the
dogmas of faith are not understood and explained in accordance with the
mind of the church, or unsound views are mistaken for the conclusions
of reason.
Therefore we define that every assertion contrary to the truth of enlightened faith is totally false. . . .
3. If
anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the
advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas
propounded by the church which is different from that which the church
has understood and understands: let him be anathema.
And
so in the performance of our supreme pastoral office, we beseech for
the love of Jesus Christ and we command, by the authority of him who is
also our God and saviour, all faithful Christians, especially those in
authority or who have the duty of teaching, that they contribute their
zeal and labour to the warding off and elimination of these errors from
the church and to the spreading of the light of the pure faith.
But
since it is not enough to avoid the contamination of heresy unless
those errors are carefully shunned which approach it in greater or less
degree, we warn all of their duty to observe the constitutions and
decrees in which such wrong opinions, though not expressly mentioned in
this document, have been banned and forbidden by this holy see. (Pope
Pius IX, Vatican Council, Session III, Dogmatic Constitution on the
Catholic Faith, Chapter 4, On Faith and Reason, April 24, 1870. SESSION 3 : 24 April 1.)
Hence it is quite impossible [the Modernists assert] to maintain that they [dogmatic statements] absolutely
contain the truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the
images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sense in its
relation to man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and
must therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the
religious sense. But the object of the religious sense, as
something contained in the absolute, possesses an infinite variety of
aspects, of which now one, now another, may present itself. In like
manner he who believes can avail himself of varying conditions. Consequently,
the formulas which we call dogma must be subject to these vicissitudes,
and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the
intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of
sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion.
It
is thus, Venerable Brethren, that for the Modernists, whether as
authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing
immutable in the Church. Nor, indeed, are they without forerunners in
their doctrines, for it was of these that Our predecessor Pius IX wrote:
'These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies,
and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the
Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of
man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection
by human efforts.' On the subject of revelation and dogma in particular,
the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new. We find it condemned
in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms:
''Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and
indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human reason';
and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council: ''The
doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been proposed to
human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it were a
philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to the Spouse of
Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence also
that sense of the sacred dogmas is to be perpetually retained which our
Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this sense ever to be
abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the
truth.' Nor is the development of our knowledge, even concerning
the faith, barred by this pronouncement; on the contrary, it is
supported and maintained. For the same Council continues: 'Let
intelligence and science and wisdom, therefore, increase and progress
abundantly and vigorously in individuals, and in the mass, in the
believer and in the whole Church, throughout the ages and the centuries
-- but only in its own kind, that is, according to the same dogma, the same sense, the same acceptation.' (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
Fourthly, I
sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from
the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning
and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the
heretical' misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one
meaning to another different from the one which the Church held
previously. . . .
Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or what is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with the result that there would remain nothing but this plain simple fact-one to be put on a par with the ordinary facts of history-the fact, namely, that a group of men by their own labor, skill, and talent have continued through subsequent ages a school begun by Christ and his apostles. I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the apostles. The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way.
