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The Example of the Angers Martyrs

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The Example of the Angers Martyrs

On the Anniversary of Their Martyrdom

by Etienne Muret
from Le Sel de la terre 127, Winter 2023-2024

THE YEAR 2024 is the 230th anniversary of the Champ-des-martyrs shootings in Avrillé. Around two thousand people were shot in this enclosure[1], both men and women. Even if, in many cases, history has only preserved the names of these victims of the Terror[2], we can affirm without fear of error that it was in hatred of the Catholic faith that all these people were massacred. For whenever the revolutionary clerk noted the reasons for condemnation – or the sham that took the place of it – behind the qualifiers of “fanaticism” or “complicity with brigands”, what was always targeted was attachment and fidelity to traditional religion. The monsters who judged these unfortunate people sometimes tried to hide their hatred of true religion under political motives, but there’s no mistaking it. The arsenal of defamatory invectives and the outrageousness of the words used failed to disguise the real motive behind the condemnations.

This anniversary is therefore an opportunity to recall these glorious events, and to draw from them lessons of faith, strength and fidelity for our struggles today. For the story of the martyrs of Angers and Avrillé offers many analogies with the present situation, and is in some ways a model for the battles we must wage today to preserve the Christian faith and spirit in the midst of general apostasy.

What’s more, this story took place just a stone’s throw from the Haye-aux-Bonshommes site: the ground we walk on was sprinkled with the blood of these martyrs.

It’s part of our heritage. We don’t have the right to ignore it or let it be forgotten.

✵

On nine occasions[3] from January 12 to April 16, 1794, columns of victims took to the road leading to the Champ-des-martyrs, a field that was then part of the Cloux farm estate, one of the farms that depended, until the Revolution, on the Grandmontain priory of La Haye-aux-Bonshommes[4]. At the time of the sale of national property, this estate was bought by one of Angers’ revolutionaries, Sieur Desvallois, who himself offered his field for shooting: “It will make manure!” he cynically declared.

Among these victims, the Church retained eighty-four, those for whom there was enough information to be able to affirm the religious character of their condemnation and initiate a beatification process. The vast majority were common women – wives, mothers and daughters of peasants, craftsmen, workers and merchants – with a few squires and two nuns. Only four men appear in this list, although a large number of others fell under the bullets at the Champ-des-martyrs. But these men had almost all served in the Catholic army and, as former Vendée soldiers, their condemnation could appear to have been inspired by political rather than religious motives. This is why the prudent diocesan tribunal in charge of the ordinary trial (in 1905-1919) thought it was right not to consider them as genuine martyrs, even if, in this context of religious persecution, the accusation of sympathy for the “brigands” – who were fighting for God and the King – could be qualified as a religious motive. This was also the case in the trials of the Laval and Noël Pinot martyrs.

To these eighty-four martyrs by shooting, we must add fifteen or sixteen who were guillotined in Angers, Place du Ralliement, including thirteen priests (counting Blessed Noël Pinot who was beatified before the others, under Pius XI), one nun and two women.[5]

The deeds of these one hundred martyrs constitute one of the most beautiful pages in the religious history of Anjou, a page worthy of the martyrdom accounts of the Christians of the early Church.

✵

As everyone knows, the Revolutionary Terror used the most atrocious means in its war against the Catholic populations of the West. 1794 was the year of the infernal columns and the great massacres of the Vendéens. Arrests multiplied, and prisons overflowed with inmates. And yet, these prisons were very numerous. In Angers, prisoners were incarcerated not only in the National Prison (Place des Halles, now Place Louis-Imbach) and the Château, but also in convents and churches that had been converted into prisons: Le Calvaire, Le Bon-Pasteur, Les Pénitentes, Le Carmel, Saint-Aubin, Les Petits-Pères (Lazaristes) in the Cathedral, Saint-Aubin, the two seminaries, La Rossignolerie (school of the Brothers of Christian Doctrine) and many other places.

But what can be done? There are too many prisoners, and the guillotine is no longer enough[6]. The guillotine is a spectacular punishment, particularly appreciated by revolutionaries, with its theatrical staging to impress the spirits, but it’s too slow and too expensive. Each execution cost the nation fifty-nine pounds.

The lack of hygiene and food, coupled with the cold – the thermometer fell to 17° below zero that winter – did cause deadly epidemics, and in less than a year, a good thousand prisoners died on their rotting straw beds[7]. But even that couldn’t empty the prisons.

In Nantes, prisoners were drowned in the Loire; in Angers, they were shot en masse. The shootings began in December 1793, on the banks of the Maine, at Port-de-1’Ancre, then at Sainte-Gemmes and Les Ponts-de-Cé. The bodies were thrown into the river Maine, but this soon gave rise to hygiene problems. Another location had to be found.

This is why the most massive shootings finally took place at the Champ-des-martyrs, in Avrillé. To speed things up, the judges from the military commission visited the prisons. Put in the presence of the suspects, they proceeded to a semblance of interrogation, which the clerk noted down in a few words: “… Did you go to the masses of the refractory priests? – Why didn’t you go to the masses of the sworn priests? …”. The minutes take up one or two lines, almost always punctuated by the word “fanatic”, “pronounced fanatic”, “superlative fanatic”, “invincible fanatic” or “fieffé aristocrate”, which, in revolutionary parlance, means: faithful Catholic, irredeemable, attached to traditional religion and the old order. In the margin, the clerk added “F”: to be shot, or, more rarely, “G”: to be guillotined.

Terrorists surrounded executions with sinister ceremony. The military commission – the most ferocious of the two revolutionary tribunals, and a major purveyor of guillotines and shootings – was based in the former Dominican convent, next to the cathedral, while the revolutionary committee was housed in the bishop’s palace. This is where the chain of victims was formed, tied up two by two. Those unable to walk were thrown into a cart, and the column moved off, flanked by a double row of gendarmes. Crossing the main branch of the Maine at what is now the Pont de Verdun, they crossed the Doutre district, and the chain lengthened as they stoped in front of each “prison”. Then they took the path that climbs towards Avrillé, “the path of silence”, as it was known in those days. The contrast between the prisoners – mostly common men and women, with a few nobles and bourgeois, admirable Christians calmly walking to their deaths, murmuring the rosary or singing hymns to the Virgin – and the vociferous troupe of “sans-culottes”, flanked by shrews reeking of alcohol and vice, hurled insults at the condemned. The judges, girded in their tricolor scarves and swaddling in their robes, followed the procession, with the military band alternating between the revolutionary songs “Ça ira” and the “Marseillaise” (now national anthem of France!)

Arriving at the Champ-des-martyrs, the chain was undone and the condemned lined up in front of the prepared pits. The gendarmes fired a salvo, the bodies fell. The wounded and dying were “finished” off with sabers and bayonets. A little earth was thrown in, and the pit was ready for the next batch.

 

Love of Truth and Hatred of Lies

It would take hours to recount in detail the marvels contained in the deeds of all these martyrs. Let’s just pick a few pearls from this treasure trove and try to apply their lessons.

One of the first testimonies these martyrs give us is their refusal to lie or make shameful compromises. Even to save their own lives, our martyrs refused to compromise. Preserved accounts provide us with several examples. Here are three of them.

The first is that of Perrine-Renée Potier, wife Turpault, mother of five children. Arrested in Les Aubiers, she was taken to Cholet “kicked and sabered”, and three days later gave birth to a son who died immediately after his baptism. Taken to Angers on January 16, 1794, she appeared before the military commission on the 24th, and let it be known that she was still pregnant. Thanks to this, she avoided being shot. Full of remorse for what she called her “fault”, she was interrogated again on February 9 and April 2 in the Calvaire prison.

  • “But you’re pregnant, aren’t you?” One of the judges asked.
  • “No, I’m not, and you can judge me”, she replied.

Back in her cell, her companions asked her:

  • “But why didn’t you say yes? You were saved!”
  • “I know that”, she replied, “but I’d rather die than tell a lie.”

And she prepared herself for death with constant prayer. She was shot on Holy Wednesday, April 16, 1794.[8]

The other example is that of Sister Marie-Anne, one of the two Daughters of Charity (Congregation founded by saint Vincent-de-Paul) who were shot on February 1st, 1794 along with four hundred other victims, because they had refused the oath of “Liberté, Égalité” (Freedom and Equality). Entering the Champ-des-martyrs enclosure, Sister Marie-Anne intones the litanies of the Blessed Virgin; all the condemned women respond: “Ora pro nobis”. The chain was transformed into a Marian procession. One of the soldiers was distraught at the sight: “It hurts to see such women die!” The commander was also moved and wanted to save the two nuns:

  • Citizens, there is still time to escape the death that threatens you. You have rendered services to humanity. Why, for the sake of an oath asked of you, would you give up your life and discontinue the good works you have always done? Let it not be so, return to your home, continue to render the services you have always rendered. Do not take the oath, for it is repugnant and upsetting to you. I take it upon myself to say that you have taken it, and I give you my word that nothing will be done to you or your companions.

Sister Marie-Anne’s response is admirable:

  • Citizen, not only do we not want to take the oath you’re talking about, we don’t even want to be seen to have taken it. Do not believe us cowardly enough and attached enough to a miserable life to believe us capable of soiling our soul and sacrificing it for an oath we have always hated and still hate. God will not ask us to account for the services we could render to our fellow human beings only by taking an oath that he hates and condemns, and if we can only preserve our lives on this condition, we declare to you that we would rather die than do anything contrary to the love we have sworn to our God.[9]

In the same vein, we should mention the heroic attitude of Abbé Laigneau de Langellerie. He was chaplain to the Angers Carmelite convent. Interned at the major seminary in 1792, condemned to deportation, but detained in Nantes due to his state of health, he escaped from prison, disguised as a peasant, on July 27, 1793, and returned clandestinely to Angers. Arrested on October 11, 1794 as he was about to perform extreme unction on a sick woman, he was taken amidst boos to the bishop’s palace, where the revolutionary committee was sitting. During his interrogation, the judge told him that if he stopped opposing the oath and rallied to the Republic, he would be in a better position:

  • You know that there are many priests who are now in society and who live there peacefully, that the Republic gives them protection. Because they are subject to the law, they have taken the required oath. They are not hiding. So you must have conspired against the Republic?

But in the face of this tempting offer, Abbé de Langellerie remained imperturbable and faithful to his duty.

  • My conscience and my science have never allowed me to take the required oath.
  • What did you find in the oath that could hurt your conscience?
  • It was to approve by an oath your French Republic, which has destroyed the religion of Jesus Christ who is the God of my heart, Deus cordis mei. [… j
  • So you’re convinced that the Republic can’t survive and that the Catholic religion must be re-established?
  • With regard to the French Republic, I think that it is an enemy of the religion of Jesus Christ, but that a republican government must protect the Christian religion. […] I stand by my answers, which contain the truth, but I do not wish to sign, […as] I generally refuse my signature in matters of the Republic.[10]

Transferred to the Angers criminal court[11] (by this date, the military commission no longer existed), Abbé de Langellerie was condemned as a refractory priest and enemy of the Republic. He was guillotined on October 14, 1794, during the first vespers of Saint Teresa of Avila, founder of the Carmelite nuns of which he was chaplain. He was the last victim of the guillotine in Anjou.

 

Defending Faith and True Religion

Another witness given by these exemplary Christians is their faith and their spirit of faith.

This is particularly true of priests.

Abbé Ledoyen, vicar of Contigné, remained in his parish to exercise his ministry. Taking refuge with Mme Déan de Luigné, who was hiding refractory priests in her château de la Bossivière, he was discovered and arrested with his benefactress and her three daughters[12] on December 17, 1793. Taken to Chateauneuf-sur-Sarthe, he was interrogated at length on December 23. The last words of his interrogation were a resounding profession of faith. To his judges, who accused him of having “abused the weakness and simplicity of country folk to lead them into the cruellest errors”, he replied:

That he preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them, that he tried to prevent them from falling into the errors of the innovators

That he sincerely professed such maxims.

That he had always urged them to follow the apostolic and Roman Catholic religion, outside of which there is no salvation, and that they should always be firm and faithful to it.

Similarly, Guillaume Repin, parish priest of Martigné-Briand – then a venerable old man of eighty-four – was accused by the municipal officers of Martigné of having “gangrened his parish”. Arrested and imprisoned on December 24, 1793, he told the judges who questioned him on Christmas Day that he had not taken the oath because “he had his faith and religion to preserve“. Sentenced to death, he was guillotined on January 2, 1794.[13]

But faithfulness to the faith of their baptism is also a matter for the laity.

Charlotte Lucas, a schoolteacher and, as such, subject to the oath of “Liberté, Égalité”, did not want to take it. She “believes that something has changed in religion, which prevented her from doing so”, she explained to the Chalonnes Justice of the Peace on January 4, 1794. Taken to Angers and detained at Le Calvaire, she first appeared before the Revolutionary Committee. Then, on January 18, the military commission sent her to her death, without even questioning her, because she looked like a “God-eater”.[14]

Renée-Marie Feillatreau, widow of Dumont, was a good Catholic woman who defended her faith valiantly. Her convictions, which she made no secret of, attracted the attention of patriots. To those who urged her to be more cautious, she replied: “Why shouldn’t there be martyrs today as there were in the past?” Arrested in Angers, she was interned at the château. When she appeared in court on March 18, 1794, the judges of the Revolutionary Committee accused her of having shouted “Long live religion and long live the King” when the Vendéens had occupied Angers the previous June. In her defense, she simply proclaimed that she “would rather die than renounce her religion“. She admitted to having met refractory priests, attended their mass and spoken with them, “particularly about religion“. In the sentence drawn up by the military commission, she was accused of having “encouraged the fanaticism of the rebellious priests […] and taken sacred vases and ornaments from the Republic, which she had taken to hidden places where these scoundrels of priests celebrated their bloodthirsty and murderous cult”. She was guillotined on March 28, in Place du Ralliement.[15]

Antoine Fournier, father of a refractory priest and former soldier in the Vendée army, was one of the one hundred and five victims of the first shoot-out on January 12, 1794. He defended the clandestine priests and declared that he blamed the conduct of those who attacked the Catholic religion.

  • “Do you disapprove of the monstrous priests who slit our brothers’ throats?” The judge asked.
  • “I don’t think priests were capable of giving bad advice.”
  • “You are accused of having criticized the conduct of the Republicans, saying that they were profaning holy sacred vessels, destroying mission crosses,” etc., etc., etc.
  • “Yes, I have blamed and continue to blame the conduct of those who throw away mission crosses and desecrate sacred vessels.”
  • “So you would suffer death to defend your religion?”
  • “Yes.”[16]

He was condemned as “father of a refractory priest and worthy of being one, an outraged fanatic.”

 

To be continued.

 

  1. The exact number of victims is difficult to establish. Abbé Houdebine estimates the total number of victims of the Terror in Angers at around 3,000, and the number shot at the Champ-des-martyrs at around 2,000 (Dictionnaire de Maine-et-Loire [Célestin PORT], 1.1, new ed. 1965, p. 39a). See also N. DELAHAYE and P.-M. GABORIT, Les Douze colonnes infernales de Turreau, and J.-F. COUET, Dans les prisons d’Angers sous la Terreur, 1793-1794. For full bibliographical references, see the bibliography at the end of this article. ↑
  2. Sometimes names are even missing, as revolutionaries didn’t always take the trouble to note the names of victims and keep up-to-date registers. ↑
  3. Here are the dates of the nine shootings at the Champ-des-Martyrs: January 12, 1794 (105 men shot); January 15 (300 victims); January 18 (250 people); January 20 (408 victims – this was when Turreau’s infernal columns began to operate); January 21 (70 men and 80 women); January 22 (80 women); February 1 (400 people); February 10 (200 people); April 16 (99 people). The eighty-four “martyrs of Angers” shot belonged to the five shootings of January 12 and 18, February 1 and 10 and April 16. ↑
  4. “It was a deserted field, located in the enclosure of the former Haye-aux-Bonshommes.Bonshommes, west of Angers, two kilometers from the city walls.” (Positio, p. 164.) ↑
  5. They are Sister Rosalie de la Sorinière (a Calvary nun), Marie de la Dive, wife of Henri de la Sorinière and sister-in-law of the former, and Renée-Marie Feillatreau, widow of Dumont. ↑
  6. In Angers, the guillotine was erected from late October 1793 to mid-October 1794 on Place du Ralliement (then known as Place de la Guillotine), a square created in 1791 after the demolition of three churches. The death machine had been erected on the site of the high altar of the former Saint-Pierre church. The guillotine claimed 285 victims, including 31 clergymen. ↑
  7. On February 18, 1794, the doctors on duty at the Calvaire prison wrote to the Revolutionary Committee: “Pregnant women and nursing mothers are exposed to terrible misery, their children dying at birth or languishing perched between the emaciated arms of those who gave birth to them. Some mothers have seen five or six of their children perish in their arms, without being able to provide the slightest relief. There’s not a day goes by when six or eight unfortunates die on Calvary alone. If we don’t remedy the abuses a little, we’ll see diseases spread from one to the next, and into the very heart of the city.” ↑
  8. See Positio, pp. 364-371 and Yves DAOUD AL, Guillaume Repin…, p. 103-104. The eldest son of Perrine Turpault, François-Joseph-Paul, later wrote to the mayor of Cholet: “As the son of a mother who bore the greatest testimony to the truth, since she preferred death to the most innocent lie under the reign of terror, this lesson has always been engraved in my memory.” (Positio, p. 587). ↑
  9. Abbé GRUGET, Les Fusillades du Champ-des-martyrs, p. 31-32. Quoted in the Positio, p. 402-403. Abbé Gruget concludes his account as follows: “[The commander] might have wanted to save them, but that would have meant compromising himself with the revolutionary court. He preferred, like Pilate, to act and pronounce against his conscience. He gave the order to shoot…”. ↑
  10. Positio, p. 152-154. ↑
  11. In the transfer note sent by the Revolutionary Committee to the President of the Criminal Court, the signatories write: “We are sending you, brother and friend, an interrogation of Langellerie, an ex-refractory priest. We are counting on your zeal to speed up his trial. Bread is scarce. Greetings and brotherhood.” (Positio, p. 155.) ↑
  12. They were arrested on the denunciation of a certain Maillard, whom Mme de Luigné had once charitably raised. Imprisoned at Calvaire, Mme de Luigné and her daughter Louise-Aimée were shot at the Champ-des-martyrs on February 1, 1794, but Catherine and Françoise, although condemned to death, were spared and settled after the Revolution in Abbé Gruget’s parish (La Trinité d’Angers). See Positio, p. 246 ff. ↑
  13. Positio, p. 29 ff. ↑
  14. Positio, p. 177-178. ↑
  15. Positio, pp. 322-333. ↑
  16. Interrogation of A Fournier by the Cholet revolutionary committee, December 29, 1793 (Positio, p. 168-169). ↑

HOLINESS IN THE FAMILY

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HOLINESS IN THE FAMILY

Shaping Hearts That Are Sensitive and Strong1

by Brother François-Marie, O.P.

Dear parents,

The feasts of the saints throughout the liturgical year remind us of the great work God has called you to do, making you co-workers to populate Paradise with saints. Human procreation and education have no other purpose than to fill the void left in heaven by the rebellious angels.

“Education”, recalls Father Charmot2, “consists in bringing up a being who has received supernatural life, i.e., training him to overcome natural appetites by the principles of grace.”

In his encyclical on Christian education, Pope Pius XI states:

Christian education embraces human life in all its forms: sensive, spiritual, intellectual and moral, individual, domestic and social, certainly not to diminish it in any way, but to elevate it, regulate it, perfect it according to the examples and doctrine of Christ.3

Let’s turn our attention, if you will, to one aspect of our being: the heart, insofar as it signifies intimate, emotional, and moral life, love. Depending on whether it is well or poorly formed, it is capable of the best or the worst.

We refer mainly to Abbé Bethléem, Catéchisme de l‘‘Education4.

For a heart to be well-formed, it must be sensitive and strong.

The Heart Must be Sensitive

What does it mean? Quite simply, a pure, delicate heart, open to noble sentiments, generous, capable of devotion and charity.

“To be open to these noble sentiments and virtues,” says Abbé Berto, “child has to be happy.”

An unhappy child closes his heart, and then you can always try to get in. Neither blows nor caresses will open it.

A child is not happy if we spoil him, if we give in to his whims, if we prove him right when he’s wrong. A child is happy when he is absolutely sure that he is loved, quite simply; but that he is loved for himself, for his infinite worth before God, without fail, without weakness, without caprice but with equality, constancy of action, patience, and untiring firmness.

It’s easy to see that such a heart will need a special environment, just as a plant needs to grow in a garden to develop all its best qualities. This special environment for a child’s heart is the family.

But not just any family! The Christian family, where vigilance, affection, and tenderness reign.

In such a family, the child’s heart can develop sheltered from contagion, indifference, and jealousy.

However, even in “good families” there are two important dangers to avoid:

  • pampering,sentimentality.


  • Pampering


The danger is perhaps greater today than in the past, because we live in a society of comfort, where we try to banish all suffering.

Bringing up a child “in his mother’s skirts” or “in absorbent cotton”, nurturing his taste for sweets, giving in easily to his whims, cuddling him too often, protecting him from the slightest suffering, runs the risk of turning him into an effeminate child who will later find it hard to correct himself and courageously face up to the trials of life.

We have a fine example of this in the life of Saint John Baptist de la Salle. His background, the high nobility of Reims, had given him highly refined nutritional habits. When he founded the Brothers of the Christian Schools, it took him years to be able to tolerate the simple, rustic, yet very healthy food of the Brothers.

Don’t hesitate to banish cozy beds, hot-water showers in the morning, and heating as soon as the temperature drops a little in autumn. Don’t make sweets (cakes, candies) an ordinary treat, but reserve them for important events (holidays, birthdays).


  • Sentimentality


Sentimentality is an exaggeration or deviation of sensitivity. This can be seen in children’s attitudes to animals. Naturally, they tend to become emotionally attached to pets. We need to give them a Christian education in this area, explaining the Creator’s intention: either to make animals useful helpers in our daily lives (house guards, mouse catchers, vehicles), or food (milk, eggs, meat). While we mustn’t mistreat them or make them suffer, we mustn’t treat them like human beings either.

We have an example of this misguided sentimentality in the existence of dog cemeteries, or in people who take in abandoned pets and turn their homes into veritable menageries that make family life impossible.

What can we do? For one don’t tolerate a child crying over the loss of a bird, dog, or cat.

Children need to be taught to fight back tears when a toy or object breaks.

The Heart Must be Strong.

Sensitivity is strengthened if trained from an early age to maintain freedom, fidelity and serenity.

Freedom of heart. This is self-control, the subordination of affections to the principles of reason and faith. Children must be taught to control their passions.

In Savoy, at the Château de Sales where the young Francis lived, there were vestibules, galleries, and staircases lit at night by flickering oil lamps, leaving large spaces in half-light or complete darkness.

Young François was extremely reluctant to venture out alone, fearing the spirits.

When he became a bishop, he told a nun how he was cured of this fear.

“When I was young, I was touched by this fantasy, and to get rid of it, I gradually forced myself to go alone, with my heart armed with trust in God, to those places where my imagination threatened me with fear; and finally I have become so firm, that the darkness and solitude of the night are a delight to me, because of this all-presence of God which one enjoys more fully in this solitude.”

Note the saint’s Christian reaction to overcome this fear.

Faithfulness of heart. The child must be helped to maintain with constancy the legitimate and orderly affections he has accepted.

Serenity of heart. In times of hardship (illness, bereavement), we must help the child to keep the peace by living in faith and charity.

The bereavement of loved ones, whether parents or friends, is an opportunity to put into practice what children have learned about the end of life: death is simply the separation of soul and body. We shouldn’t be afraid to show the dead, especially if they “died a good death”, that is, if they died in faith, hope, and charity, equipped with the sacraments of the Church. Such people often have a peaceful countenance. Don’t hesitate to have him touch the dead body, so that he realizes that it is cold because the soul, the principle of life, has left and no longer animates it.

Of course, it’s a good idea to have the child practice the communion of saints, praying for the deceased, who is probably in purgatory to be purified of the remains of sin. This is an opportunity to explain to children that they can, through their small sacrifices and prayers, help to shorten the suffering of those souls in purgatory who can no longer do anything for themselves.

Le Sel de la terre

No 124, Spring 2023

1Le Sel de la terre 120, p. 118-124; 121, p. 60; 123, p. 102.

2P. François CHARMOT S.J., Esquisse d’une pédagogie familiale, Etampes, Clovis, 368 p.

3Pius XI, Divini illius Magistri, On the Christian Education of Youth, December 31, 1929.

4Abbé René BETHLEEM, Catechisme de l’Education (1919), Ed. Saint-Rémi, 2009, 512pp.

The Synod On Synodality

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The Synod on Synodality

The Synod of Bishops: a change in the government of the Church

1. A New Feature of Vatican II

1.Establishment of a council of bishops by Pope Paul VI

The Synod of Bishops is a new institution, established during the Council by Pope Paul VI in the Motu Proprio Apostolica Sollicitudo of September 15, 1965.

What is it? It is a “permanent council of bishops for the universal Church, subject directly and immediately to the authority of the Supreme Pontiffâ€.

Its members are the patriarchs, the major archbishops and metropolitan bishops, the presidents of the episcopal conferences and a specific number of bishops elected by their peers within these conferences.

On the following October 28th, the conciliar decree Christus Dominus on the pastoral office of bishops in the Church confirmed the existence of this assembly of “bishops chosen from the various regions of the world to provide the Supreme Shepherd of the Church with more effective assistance within a council which has received the name of Synod of Bishops†(no. 5).

Its function is only consultative. It has no decision-making power unless, in specific cases, it has received this power from the Roman Pontiff, who must then ratify the Synod’s decisions.

The 1983 Code of Canon Law (C. 342-348) places this new structure just after the Pope and before the Cardinals.

2.Increasing openness to non-bishops

As early as 1965, Paul VI made provision in his Motu Proprio for the possible participation of non-bishops, limited to 15% of the membership. Those concerned were only clerics, or representatives of religious institutes, or experts appointed by the Pope.

In 2006, Benedict XVI opened the synod to lay people, but without the right to vote (Ordo Synodi episcoporum).

However, on April 26, 2023, Cardinal Grech, Secretary General of the Synod, and Cardinal Hollerich, General Reporter, announced that the percentage of lay people had risen to 21% and that they would have the right to vote. The following should be noted:

– the novelty of having provisions contrary to the law currently in force announced by members of the Synod and not by the Pope – even if he obviously consents. But Pope Francis is not very scrupulous when it comes to laws, even those of the conciliar Church; clearly, it was necessary to ‘act fast’.

– We should also note the oddity of having lay people vote in an assembly of bishops: is this still a “Synod of Bishopsâ€?

– Finally, it should be noted that the proportion of new voters (21%) is not insignificant in an assembly that can adopt its final document by a two-thirds majority.

In addition, the Synod is mixed: 50% of the laity will be women. Many young people have also been invited 1.

All these people, no doubt hand-picked, are supposed to represent the Christian people. There is room for doubt.

3.A consultative body transformed into a governing body

It should be borne in mind that the Apostolic Constitution Episcopalis communio of September 15, 2018, restructured the Synod of Bishops.

It considerably increases the role and competences of the Secretary General of the Synod, who becomes the real driving force behind synodal activity by mandate and under the direct guidance of the Supreme Pontiff, who is no longer content to receive synodal work passively, as has been the case until now, but actively promotes, coordinates and directs it.

This raises the question of whether the Synod of Bishops remains a merely consultative body for the Pope, or whether it has become an organ of government, independent of the Curia 2.

2. The Revolution in Progress

On June 20, 2023, the Vatican presented the Instrumentum laboris – working instrument – a preparatory document for a “Synod on Synodalityâ€, which is due to bring together 364 participants in Rome from October 4 to 29, 2023.

The document was drawn up on the basis of diocesan synods organized around the world over the last two years to consult the “people of God†on their wishes regarding the life of the Church. Summaries have been drawn up for each country and then for each continent.

So much time, energy and money wasted on talking, and this will continue for almost a month at the Vatican (think of the money it costs: travel from abroad, meals, accommodation). Meanwhile, souls are falling into Hell through ignorance of the truths that need to be believed in order to be saved.

  1. Destruction of authority

The central question posed by the Instrumentum laboris, which is present in numerous technical sheets, is: “Who decides in the Church, and how?â€

The document raises the following question:

Is authority a form of power derived from models offered by the world, or is it a genuine service? […] The continental assemblies have denounced the phenomena of appropriation of power and decision-making processes that have led to the various forms of abuse – sexual, financial, spiritual and of power – that have come to light in the Church in recent decades. Is responsibility for dealing with abuse individual or systemic?

The document suggests that responsibility for “abuse†may lie with the system itself, i.e. the way in which the exercise of authority has been organised in the Church up to the present day. We can see the direction in which the Instrumentum laboris intends to steer the debate.

We will therefore have to discuss:

the manner in which the ministry of the bishop is exercised; […] on the degree of authority to be attributed to episcopal conferences. […] Changes may need to be made to Canon Law.

The following should be considered:

cases where the authority feels unable to confirm the conclusions of a community discernment process, and takes a decision in a different direction; […] in which cases a bishop might feel obliged to take a decision that differs from the considered opinion offered by the consultative bodies.

Note the qualifier “considered†given to the opinion of the consultative bodies, which discredits the bishop’s opposition in advance.

But the Synod will not only question the authority of the bishops. It must examine:

the understanding of authority in the Church at different levels, including that of the Bishop of Rome.

The Instrumentum laboris raises the (foreseeable) case of “local Churches taking different directionsâ€. What is to be done? The Pope is asked to examine “the possible scope for a diversity of orientations in different regionsâ€. One wonders what will remain of the unity of the Church.

* A look back at the Sauvé Report

It will be recalled that in November 2018, the French Bishops’ Conference entrusted an “independent†commission chaired by former senior civil servant Jean-Marc Sauvé with the task of resolving the “questions raised by the sexual abuse committed by French ecclesiasticsâ€.

It is interesting to note that Jean-Marc Sauvé, a progressive Christian by family tradition, had been vice-president of the Conseil d’Etat, a member of the Socialist Party and an adviser to Badinter. Among the members of the commission he had chosen: Nathalie Bajos, director of INSERM where she is in charge of the “Gender, sexual and reproductive health†team; Sadek Belouci, chairman of the advisory board of the Fondation de l’Islam de France; Antoine Garapon, a progressive Christian judge who called for a vote for Macron in 2017; Christine Lazerges, a Protestant with a law degree and a former Socialist MP, and so on.

The commission found only 35 files on clerics convicted between 1950 and 2020 – still too many, but still not many. As the abused children or their parents did not always denounce the facts, the commission tried to survey the faithful: posters on parish doors, surveys, etc. The result was a sample of 171 victims from which, by statistical extrapolation, the commission arrived at a figure of 330,000 people abused.

However, INSEE immediately reacted, saying that the sample was not representative, while the Catholic Academy of France protested, pointing out “the implausibility of the figures and the ideological spirit that governed this workâ€, resulting in a “profoundly inaccurate, even erroneous†result. Jean-Marc Sauvé, a member of the said Académie, immediately resigned, as did Mgr de Moulins-Beaufort, President of the French Bishops’ Conference (also a member).

The bishops of France nevertheless took note of the “Sauvé Report†as if they were eager to humiliate themselves publicly, but they humiliated the Church: Bishop de Moulins-Beaufort asked for forgiveness on his knees in front of journalists at the annual episcopal assembly in Lourdes.

What is interesting to note here is that, in its conclusion, the Report refers to abuse as a “systemic phenomenonâ€, thereby accusing the system, i.e. the institution of the Church itself, of being responsible for failing to curb the crimes of its clergy 3.

However, in the Instrumentum laboris of the Synod of 2023, we note the following question, mentioned above:

Are responsibilities for dealing with abuse individual or systemic?

Everything fits together.

2.The Synodal Church’s way of proceeding:
a conversation in the Spirit

Note that the conciliar Church has changed its title. It is now called the “Synodal Churchâ€. Archbishop Benelli had invited Archbishop Lefebvre’s seminarians to be faithful to the “Conciliar Church†4. Are we now going to be asked, in order to be Catholics, to be faithful to the “synodal Churchâ€? In fact, even the Pope and the bishops will be required to do so, if we refer to the guidelines set out in the Instrumentum laboris (see above).

But let’s continue reading the document:

The term “conversation in the Spirit†does not indicate a simple exchange of ideas, but that dynamic in which the word spoken and listened to generates a familiarity that enables the participants to become intimate with one another.

The precision “in the Spirit†identifies the authentic protagonist. […] Conversation between brothers and sisters in the faith opens up the space for listening to the Spirit together. […] In the final documents of the continental assemblies, this practice is described as a Pentecostal moment.

The “conversation in the Spirit†will take place in three stages:

  • First stage:

The first stage is devoted to each person speaking from his or her own personal experience. The others listen in silence.

This is the height of modernist subjectivism.

  • Second stage:

Each member of the group then takes the floor, not to react or counter what has been heard by reaffirming his or her own position, but to express what, in the course of listening, has touched him or her most deeply, and what he or she feels most challenged by.

The fact that there may be a truth, and therefore an error if we deviate from it, is of no interest here. What counts is the “feelingâ€.

  • Third stage:

The third stage consists of identifying the key points that have emerged, and reaching a consensus on the fruits of the joint work. […] We need to be discerning, paying attention to the marginal voices, and not overlooking the importance of the points on which we disagree.

To ensure that this process runs as smoothly as possible, it is important to have well-trained facilitators:

Given the importance of conversation in the Spirit in animating the life of the synodal Church, training in this method, and in particular the challenge of having people capable of accompanying communities in this practice, is seen as a priority at all levels of church life.

Suitable premises will also be needed:

On June 20, 2023, in the Vatican Press Room, Father Giacomo Costa S.J., consultant to the General Secretariat of the Synod, announced that the assembly would be held in the Paul VI Audience Hall:

the room can be set up with round tables around which working groups of ten or so people can be seated.

3.The icing on the cake: a discussion on the ordination of married men to the priesthood and the diaconate for women.

The Instrumentum laboris invites Synod participants to:

reflect on the ordination of married men to the priesthood and the ordination of women to the diaconate.

  • We recall that the ordination of married men is a project that Pope Francis wanted to implement on the occasion of the Amazon Synod. It seems that the work on priestly celibacy 5 published at the same time by Cardinal Sarah and co-signed by Benedict XVI temporarily halted the process.

In a book entitled “Rien d’autre que la vérité. Ma vie aux côtés de Benoît XVI†6, published by Arthège in 2023 after the death of Benedict XVI, Archbishop Gänswein, who was Benedict XVI’s private secretary, explains that Benedict XVI had sent Cardinal Sarah seven pages on the priesthood, which he had written without considering publishing them, but allowing him to “use them as he wishedâ€. Cardinal Sarah quoted them, but it is inaccurate to say that the work was as if co-authored by Cardinal Sarah and Benedict XVI, as the publisher has taken the liberty of presenting it.

Now that Benedict XVI is dead, it is not surprising to see Pope Francis bringing out the dossier again.

In any case, the candidates are ready-made: the married deacons who have been officiating every Saturday evening in parishes without priests for many years are the perfect candidates for the conciliar Church… except that they will not have done any priestly studies worthy of the name.

  • As for the “ordination of women to the diaconateâ€, the term is inappropriate and misleading. The diaconate is a sacrament that is a participation in the sacrament of Holy Orders, which women cannot validly receive. They cannot therefore be validly ordained deacons. At most, they can only receive a kind of blessing to distribute communion, bring it to the sick, celebrate funerals and preach, which they have been doing for a long time. But this will give them an official status that will put it in people’s minds that one day perhaps they will be able to accede to the priesthood.

We cannot object to the deaconesses of the primitive Church. Their functions were to care for the poor and sick of their own sex; to act as intermediaries between women and the leaders of the Christian community; to visit pagan families where the entry of a deacon or priest would have been difficult or inappropriate; to be present at women’s meetings with the bishop, priests or deacons; to assist the bishop in administering baptism to women, and so on. But they were expressly forbidden to perform any liturgical function such as serving at the altar or preaching 7.

In short, for this Synod, faith is now just a question of experience – which means respecting the experience of other religions – and it is the “people of God†that now takes the place of the teaching Church.

Permanent democracy, a new Protestant Pentecost, these are the characteristics of this “sSynodal Churchâ€, which has little to do with the Catholic Church instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ, opposing its divine constitution, which gives authority to the Pope and, through him, to the bishops, successors of the Apostles, and not to the people.

The consequence can only be, in the long run, the dissolution of this conciliar Church, and its fragmentation into so many diocesan synods opposed to each other.

3. Everything Started
With the Second Vatican Council

It should be noted, however, that this outcome is not an innovation of Pope Francis. It all started with the Second Vatican Council.

The Constitution Lumen Gentium of November 21, 1964 introduced a new definition of the Church, now called the “People of Godâ€.

The expression came from the new theology condemned by Pope Pius XII in the encyclical Humani Generis, represented in particular by the Dominican fathers Chenu and Congar, whom Pope John XXIII had appointed as experts at the Council.

Archbishop Lefebvre considered this new conception to be extremely serious:

There is a new ecclesiology, that’s clear. […] In my opinion, it is exceptionally serious: just to be able to say that there could be a new ecclesiology. We are not the ones who make the Church, we did not make her, not the Pope, not the bishops, not history, not the councils. It was made by Our Lord. […] It does not depend on us. So how can we suddenly say: “Now, since Vatican II, there is a new ecclesiologyâ€, and this is said by the Pope himself. It’s unbelievable 8.

The Constitution Lumen Gentium also insisted on the common priesthood of priests and faithful, a notion emphasised in the New Mass; while the rites of ordination of priests and consecration of bishops were modified to make it clearer that these ceremonies transmit a particular power 9.

The 1983 Code of Canon Law promulgated by John Paul II put all this into law, inverting the pyramid of the Church by placing lay people before clerics, and even allowing them – men and women – to enter the sanctuary during liturgical ceremonies:

The new Code of Canon Law, continued Archbishop Lefebvre, is an enterprise aimed at destroying the distinction between the priest and the layman. […] This is extremely serious. It is the ruin of the Church 10.

4. Reductive Groups and Governing Cores

Is the Holy Ghost really at work in this kind of synod? We may well doubt it. Not only because He cannot be present in an undertaking that seeks to overturn the divine structure of the Church, but also because his modus operandi bears a striking resemblance to the techniques of manipulation perfected by the Revolution and analysed in the 19th century by Augustin Cochin.

Adrien Loubier wrote a book about them in 1975, with a preface by Marcel de Corte, entitled Groupes réducteurs et noyaux dirigeants (Reductive groups and governing cores) 11. The book is useful for studying methods of revolutionary action in any environment (political, trade union, religious, etc.).

For example, get twelve people around a table to understand the need for change in the structure to which they belong.

Two basic principles will guide the discussions:

  • firstly, absolute freedom for the participants to say and think what they want. To each his own truth, his own convictions, his own opinion.

  • secondly is the equality of the deliberators. If one of them could impose his idea, his point of view or his experience, there would be no more freedom. It follows that there is no objective truth, only opinions.

The meeting naturally becomes a series of divergent presentations, of contradictory statements. This is generally referred to as a “round table†discussion.

How are we going to get through this jumble? It will be the role of the (experienced) facilitator to convince the group, in the name of fraternity, of the need to unite to form an average opinion, the result of opinions that are all equal. To achieve this, everyone must be prepared to give up something of their personal opinion. But if everyone has the common will to unite around this common opinion, the group will be that much stronger.

Around the table, the deliberators are now united by the (fictitious) need to draft their joint motion. The result is a mishmash of ideas and differing opinions, leading to a great deal of confusion. But unity is the order of the day. It is therefore necessary to agree on a basis that is likely to attract votes. Given the differences of opinion, the joint motion can only be a common minimum. This is what Augustin Cochin calls “the law of reductionâ€.

The participants are then led to abandon convictions that they now relegate to the rank of opinions.

And the process continues.

At the next meeting, some of the participants pointed out that certain points needed to be reconsidered, posing difficulties of application that complicate the problem. The confusion continued to grow. While further cuts were being made, a selection process was beginning to take place among the men:

  • the weakest personalities – the most numerous – will be completely disorientated, and ready for any reform or questioning, as long as a leader makes them believe that they are the expression of the general will; or else, disgusted, they will take refuge in absolute relativism. They are recycled.

  • a strong personality may refuse to get involved, defending the truth. If they don’t leave by slamming the door – a departure that the moderator will then comment on with scorn or mockery – they will be asked more or less politely to leave the group if they persist in staying and defending their position.

Rid of those who might block the system, the presenter will leave the floor to the servile talkers, devoid of convictions and doctrine, who will inevitably come forward. The system has its hacks. Together with the moderator, they will form the core group, the governing core, that will drive the group forward in the direction decided by the organisers from the outset. The final motion will be unproblematic and met with enthusiasm.

The system will have performed a veritable sociological brainwashing.

Is this how the Synodal discussions went?

In any case, we will see that the conclusions of the Synod were exactly what the Instrumentum laboris wanted them to be. The moderators worked well.

The democratic aspect seems to be nothing more than an appearance to make it easier to accept the revolutionary reforms decided in advance by Pope Francis.

5. Review of the October 2023 Synod

At the end of the Synod, a “Summary Report†was published. The various proposals that make up this Report were voted on by the members.

The ordination of married men and the diaconate of women did not attract enough votes for the moment.

But it is important to understand that the current text is not final. It will serve as a working instrument (Instrumentum laboris) for the Synod of October 2024, which itself will still need papal approval to have authority.

The text of the Report allows us to see where we are in the transformation of the Church.

  1. Changing structures

During the Synod, there was constant talk of “changing†structures.

This can be seen, for example, in proposal I, 1, e, which states that we must “tackle the structural conditions that have allowed abuses to occurâ€. This is mainly an allusion to pedophilia, which is used as a pretext to attack the hierarchical constitution of the Church as if it had something to do with it.

Let us quote II, 9, g:

The synodal process shows that it is necessary to renew relationships and make structural changes to welcome the participation and contribution of all.

It is the dissolution of the hierarchy in the “people of Godâ€. The rest makes this clear.

2.Distribute the powers of the hierarchy
among all the members of the Church
3. Necessary reminder of Catholic doctrine

We quote from the 1917 Code of Canon Law, an expression of the centuries-old wisdom of the Church assisted by the Holy Spirit 12.

4.Divine origin of a clergy distinct from the laity (C. 107)

Of divine institution, there are clerics in the Church who are distinct from the laity, even if not all the ranks of the clergy are of divine institution.

5.Definition of clerkship (C. 108)

Those vowed to the sacred functions, at least by the first tonsure, are called clerics.

The word cleric comes from the Greek “clerosâ€, which means first “lot†and then “share obtained by lot, inheritanceâ€. Clerics are so called because they are “the Lord’s portionâ€, or because “the Lord is their portionâ€. At the tonsure ceremony, the psalm “Dominus pars hereditatis meae†is sung.

6.Notion of the sacred hierarchy (C. 108 § 3)

Of divine institution, the sacred hierarchy:

– as founded on the power of order, is composed of bishops, priests and ministers;

– as founded on the power of jurisdiction, is made up of all those who have received the power to govern the faithful. It comprises the supreme pontificate and the subordinate episcopate. Other levels have been added to the ecclesiastical institution.

The hierarchy of order is made up of all the clerics who are vested with the power to celebrate the holy mysteries of religion.

The hierarchy of jurisdiction is made up of all those who have been given the power to govern the faithful, either by teaching them or by enacting or applying laws or precepts.

Magisterium is a part of jurisdiction because it is founded not only on knowledge of doctrine, but also on the authority to teach, which is not possessed by all indiscriminately, but was given by Our Lord to the Apostles and their successors: “Go and teach all nations†(Mt 28:19); “O Timothy, guard the deposit†(I Tim 6:20).

7.Differences between the power to order and the power of jurisdiction
8.Purpose

– The power of order is primarily a sacramental power.

Its object is above all the sacrament of the Eucharist, then the other sacraments by way of consequence; secondarily it refers to the acts of worship themselves and to the sacramentals (Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas, II-II q. 39, a. 3).

– The power of jurisdiction is concerned with government and teaching.

9.Origin

– The power of order comes from God.

– The power of jurisdiction comes from the ecclesiastical superior (except the power of the Supreme Pontiff).

10.Method of conferral

– Order is conferred by ordination.

– Except for the jurisdiction of the Supreme Pontiff, which comes from Our Lord, jurisdiction comes from the ecclesiastical superior. This is known as the ‘canonical mission’. By canonical mission we mean the deputation given to govern the faithful, in the name of the authority, with the assignment of specific flocks and territory. This is known as ordinary jurisdiction.

In the current crisis, because of the state of necessity in which souls find themselves, there is a jurisdiction without an assigned territory, which is given by the Code on a case-by-case basis according to the needs of the souls of the faithful. This is known as “supplied jurisdictionâ€. It is based on the General Norms of Canon Law, which state that the first law in the Church, to which all other laws are ordered, is the salvation of souls.

In order to acquire ecclesiastical jurisdiction, it is necessary 1) by divine law to be baptised; 2) by ecclesiastical law, to be of the male sex, enrolled in the clergy, at least as a general rule, and not to be subject to any censure by the Church.

It is not impossible for the Supreme Pontiff to entrust some ecclesiastical jurisdiction to a lay person. However, it is certain that today women cannot validly acquire ecclesiastical jurisdiction, as the Pope never grants such a dispensation. This incapacity is at least of ecclesiastical law; several authors maintain that it is of divine law.

11.Extension

The power of order cannot, in substance, be taken away or limited (a priest always remains a priest, even in Hell, because his soul has received an indelible character); but in its exercise it can be suspended or limited by the ecclesiastical authorities.

12.Communicability

– The power of order can never be communicated to another person in its substance (C. 210): one must have been ordained to be a priest!

– Jurisdiction can be communicated to another, either in its exercise, or sometimes even in its initial grant.

13.Admission to the hierarchy (C. 109)

Those who are admitted to the ecclesiastical hierarchy are not admitted by the people or by civil authority, but by sacred ordination for the power of order, and by canonical mission for the power of jurisdiction.

14.The Bergoglian revolution, the culmination of Vatican II

Let us now look at the conclusions of the Synod 13:

  1. Magisterial power

The consensus of the faithful constitutes a sure criterion for determining whether a particular doctrine or practice belongs to the apostolic faith (I, 3, c).

This is the “people of God†that becomes the teaching Church.

In his address to the Synod on October 26th, during the 18th General Congregation, Pope Francis made a point of expressing his full support for this proposal:

I like to think of the Church as that simple and humble people who walk in the presence of the Lord, the faithful people of God. […] One of the characteristics of this faithful people is its infallibility; yes, it is infallible in credendo, (“In credendo falli nequitâ€, says Lumen Gentium nr. 12) infaillibilitas in credendo. […]

An image comes to mind: the faithful people gathered at the entrance to Ephesus Cathedral. History, or legend, tells us that the people on either side of the street towards the cathedral, as the bishops entered in procession, repeated in chorus ‘Mother of God’, asking the hierarchy to declare dogma this truth that they already possessed as the people of God. Some say that they had sticks in their hands and showed them to the bishops. I don’t know if this is a story or a legend, but the image is good. […] We, members of the hierarchy, come from this people and have received the faith of this people, generally from their mothers and grandmothers, “your mother and your grandmotherâ€, says Paul to Timothy, a faith transmitted in the female dialect 14.

Pope Francis is rewriting history to suit him. It was not before the proclamation of the dogma of the divine motherhood that the people of Ephesus went to the cathedral to persuade the bishops (with sticks?) to define this article of faith; but after they had learned the definition, and to acclaim them. This can be found in any history of the Church. There is no shortage of books in the Vatican 15.

As for the sense of faith, sensus fidei, it does exist in the faithful, caused both by the light of faith itself (II-II q. 1, a. 4, ad. 3) and by the Holy Ghost, by the gift of knowledge, when the faithful are in a state of grace (II-II q. 9, a. 1, ad. 1). This sense of faith enables him to recognise whether or not a doctrine conforms to the teaching of the magisterium. But it is not he who dictates to the magisterium what it should teach!

2.Power of jurisdiction

During the Synod, clericalism was repeatedly presented as the cause of all the evil that is happening in the Church. Pope Francis condemned it in his address on 26 October 26th:

When ministers exaggerate in their service and mistreat the people of God, they disfigure the face of the Church with macho and dictatorial behaviour. […] Clericalism is a scourge, it is a plague, it is a form of worldliness that soils and damages the face of the Lord’s spouse.

The Synod makes it responsible for “abuses†(II, 9, f and II, 11, c). The remedy, for him, is therefore co-responsibility:

Co-responsibility is an essential element for synodality at all levels of the Church. […]

Structures and processes must be put in place, in forms to be legally defined, for the regular verification of the work of the bishop, with regard to the style of his authority, the financial administration of the goods of the diocese, the functioning of participative bodies and protection against all types of abuse (II, 12, j).

Usually, a bishop reports only to the Pope, or to the Superior General of a priestly institute that includes bishops (such as the Congregation of the Fathers of the Holy Spirit: Archbishop Lefebvre had 60 bishops under his authority).

But even the Pope must be controlled:

An in-depth study is needed of how a renewed understanding of episcopacy within a synodal Church affects the ministry of the Bishop of Rome and the role of the Roman Curia. This question has significant implications for the way in which co-responsibility is lived in the Church (II, 12, j).

As the Synod included women, the following claim is made in the final document:

There is an urgent need to ensure that women are able to participate in the decision-making process, and to take on roles of responsibility in pastoral work and ministry (II, 9, m).

We propose that properly trained women should be able to serve as judges in all canonical processes’ (II, 9, r) 16.

3.Order Power: new encroachments

+ The new Code of Canon Law had already limited the exercise of the power of Order 17:

– tonsure, minor orders and the subdiaconate have been abolished, the minor orders having been replaced by ‘ministries’ that lay people can exercise;

– lay men and women may preach in churches and distribute Holy Communion, and women may serve Mass.

+ But the Synod still limits the power of Order, within the jurisdiction hitherto attributed to it by the Church. It was normal for the power of government and teaching to be entrusted to those who, through the clerical state and above all the priesthood, are placed above the faithful. From then on, everything changed:

“Baptism is the principle of synodality†(1, 7, b), which means that “all the baptised are co-responsible for the mission, each according to his or her vocation, experience and competence: all therefore contribute to imagining and deciding the stages of reform of Christian communities and of the Church as a whole†(III, 18, a), “even non-Catholics†[i.e. Protestants!] (1, 7, b).

This is the consequence of the confusion between clerics and laity, the promotion of the laity, and indifferentist ecumenism, introduced by the Council and enacted by the 1983 Code.

Conclusion

It is no more and no less than a “reformation†of the Catholic Church in the Protestant way which is a destruction of the divine constitution of the Church.

1 — ORLF, 27 April 2023, p. 1.

2 — Father Réginald-Marie Rivoire, Le motu proprio Traditionis custodes, Poitiers, DMM, 2022, p. 93.

3 — A very well-documented study of this affair, with all the sources and references, appeared in Rivarol, n° 3499 to 3503, article by T-A Lechevalier.

4 — “If the seminarians at Ecône are of good will and seriously prepared for a priestly ministry in true fidelity to the conciliar Church, we will then find the best solution for them†(Letter to Archbishop Lefebvre, 25 June 1976).

5 — ‘Des profondeurs de nos cœurs ’, published by Fayard in January 2020.

6 — Nothing but the truth. My life with Benedict XVI.

7 — See the article “Deaconesses†in the Dictionary of Catholic Theology.

8 — Archbishop Lefebvre, Spiritual Conference of 17 March 1986 at Ecône (in CD no. 2 “La sainte Egliseâ€, published by Ecône. See the article ‘ Vatican II mis en code de lois: le nouveau Code de 1983 ’ published in Le Sel de la terre 120, Spring 2022, in particular pages 39 to 49.

9 — See the article “La validité des sacrements réformés par Paul VIâ€, in Sel de la terre 124, Spring 2023, especially pages 133 to 136.

10 — Archbishop Lefebvre, Spiritual Conference at Ecône, 4 March 1984. You can read the article “Vatican II mis en code de lois : le nouveau Code de 1983†published in two parts in Le Sel de la terre 120, spring 2022, and 123, winter 2022-2023.

11 — The book is published by Editions Sainte-Jeanne d’Arc, and has been reprinted several times.

12 — See Raoul Naz’s Traité de Droit canonique, Paris, Letouzey et Ané, 1946, vol. 1, pp. 260 ff.

13 — We have consulted the references given by fsspx.news on 14 November 2023.

14 — ORLF 44, of Tuesday 31 October 2023, p. 4.

15 — An account of the popular enthusiasm can be found in Dom Guéranger’s L’Année liturgique, on 9 February 9th, the feast of Saint Cyril of Alexandria.

16 — Compare this with the traditional canonical discipline referred to above.

17 — For further details, see the article “Vatican II put into a code of laws, The new Code of Canon Law (1983)â€, Le Sel de la terre 124, Spring 2023, p. 66 ff.

Sermon of Bishop Gerardo Zendejas for the Priestly Ordination of Fr. Eymeric Blanchet SAJM

admin FEATURED POSTS - Our Convent section ,

Dear Superior General of the Society of the Apostles of Jesus and Mary, Your Excellency Bishop Faure,

Your Excellency Bishop Williamson,

My dear confreres in the priesthood, dear religious,

My dear friends…

All of us have come here, to Avrillé, to witness today this Catholic ceremony for the continuation of the true, royal and propitiatory priesthood that Our Lord Jesus Christ commanded His Apostles to transmit to their apostolic successors, under the Primacy of Saint Peter, Vicar of Christ, throughout the centuries until the consummation of the world. “And the eleven disciples – says Saint Matthew â€“ went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And seeing him they adored: but SOME DOUBTED. And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and on earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.†(St. Mathew,  28, 16- 20)

Indeed, we are here to honor Archbishop Lefebvre, our venerable Founder, for the great example he left us in preserving the Catholic priesthood expressed in the Roman Rite, in spite of the sinister darkness spread by the churchmen of the Second Vatican Council. These leaders are still waging a bitter war against Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, and against anybody who wants to be a soldier of Christ and fight for the Kingdom of God to come on earth as it is in heaven.

In fact, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, as successor of the Apostles did not fail to do what he was commanded to do – Archbishop Lefebvre is, PAR EXCELLENCE, THE PRELATE who preserved the essential magnitude of the Catholic priesthood at the end of the twentieth century, not only by transmitting the authentic mark of  Apostolicity in the Catholic Church by the Episcopal Consecrations of June 30th 1988, but also for keeping the complete integrity in the Deposit of the Faith, expressed in the doctrine of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass by the propitiatory element of atonement for the remission of sins, which Our Lord Jesus Christ offered to His eternal Father by His crown of thorns from the Cross as conquering throne. 

So, my simple words today mean to sound like an echo of reverberations through a valley, so that they might bring back to our mind the heroic testimony left by Archbishop Lefebvre. I would like to recall in particular the words of three of his sermons:

The first, on that occasion the 1976 Ordinations in which Archbishop Lefebvre spoke about how a priest participates in the grace of Union in Our Lord Jesus Christ and why the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass must be monarchical and not democratic. 

The second, on the celebration of his golden priestly jubilee in 1979, when he launched a Crusade for clergy and laity for the purpose to continue the Holy the Mass of always.

The third, on the occasion of the Mass in Lille on August 29, 1976, when Archbishop Lefebvre declared, not only that the devil is the Father of Lies – the Father of Error – but also that Error and truth are not compatible. He also mentioned three errors of the conciliar church, namely: the fact that it engaged in a dialogue with Protestants to produce the bastard new mass and bastards sacraments; the fact that it promoted an abominable dialogue with Freemasons and Communists, to build a bastard union of confusion; the fact that it rejected the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ under the pretext that it is no longer possible.

In addition, we are here today to congratulate His Excellency Bishop Richard Williamson on the 35th anniversary of his episcopal consecration, and wish him more years to come – Ad Multos Annos! Thank you for sharing that marvelous gift of knowledge composed in master strokes of the pen that, when read, sound like a harmonious melody running in a natural waterfall. Thank you for transmitting your tremendous conviction in eternal Truth, for your love to the only Savior of the world – Our Lord Jesus Christ, when speaking with eloquence throughout your conferences, speeches, and sermons… Perhaps for certain people your words might sound as “a scandal,†for others they might seem “foolishâ€, but for many, very many others your words are a voice crying out in the wilderness of the modern ungodly world… May the Mother of God, the Madonna who watched over you from above the gate of Winchester School in England, keep you always under her maternal mantle to preserve you from any attack of evil-doers. So, we are glad to be here with Your Excellency for this celebration – Deo Gratias! As Saint Paul said: “Let a man so look upon us as the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God. Here now it is required among the dispensers that a man be found faithful.†(1Cor. 4, 1- 2)

And last but not the least, we are here – my dear abbé Blanchet, to rejoice with all your family, and to congratulate your dearly beloved Father and Mother for their perseverance in saying the evening prayers every night together at home. In truth, “a family that prays together, stays together.†Doubtless to say that the presence of many relatives and friends, who have come to attend your priestly ordination, is a demonstration of trust and a charitable support they have shown you throughout your way to the Catholic priesthood: all those teachers that Divine Providence has placed on your life, like your music teacher who will enhance this ceremony, and all the members of the Dominican Community here… all want to thank God for the merciful gift of your priestly vocation. May you be found faithful to it until the last breath of your life…

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So, my dear friends, just as before the Ascension of Our Lord into heaven “some [bishops] doubted,†and since then, many other bishops have also doubted in their duties throughout the centuries. Even more, today’s bishops have lost their grip on reality and objective Faith, so that they live an electronic-subjective way of life  in the atheist modern world, with all materialistic comforts and with a gnostic understanding of life and death.

 That’s why there are many Christians torn apart in their families, in their homes, among their children. Many of us are torn in our heart by the divisions in the Church, provoked by this new religion being taught and practiced since Vatican II… Indeed, charity has grown cold, and people have lost the love of Truth. The whole world believes more in the Internet than in the Bible, which is why Saint Paul said: “…and in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish: because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying.†(2 Thessal,  2, 10)

Living in a convulsive world of war, famine and pests, it is unbelievable to hear that the Synodal Church is preaching a “new evangelization†about everything, but not about the Holocaust of Christ on Calvary. One might ask to oneself, when will the day that the Vicar of Christ will turn back to lead all nations to Tradition as it has always been believed everywhere, and by all?

When Archbishop Lefebvre was asked this question, he responded: “[…] when Rome crowns Our Lord Jesus Christ as King, once again. We cannot have an agreement with those who have uncrowned Our Lord. The day when they will once again recognize and acknowledge Our Lord to be King of all peoples and nations, then it will not be we whom they have joined, but rather the Catholic Church, in which we have been dwelling and remaining.†(AL, Flavigny, December 1988, Fideliter #68, p 16)

While waiting for the conversion of the modern pagan Rome and the abolition of human slavery which is the fruit of the Globalist Agenda, in today’s world, what can a Catholic priest do?

In this perspective, let us listen to the preaching of the Eminence of Poitiers, the venerable Cardinal Pie, who is well-known for having taught the perennial doctrine of Jesus Christ’s rights to govern individuals, families and nations, and for having proclaimed His royal rights over the international laws of nations. We should read and re-read the abundant wisdom contained in the writings of Cardinal Pie, who is the Master and Doctor in the doctrine of the Kingship of Christ:

“The main benefit to draw from error, heresy and from all oppositions which Truth will meet among men, is that the very same point that is particularly being denied and fought against, soon after there will be a light shed upon it and then it will be glorified.[…] Upon which topics religious writers – and most especially spiritual counselors and spiritual doctors of the nations – must concentrate their discussions, demonstrations and teachings? […] Well, observe from which side error is directing their attacks, its negations, its blasphemies. So, whatever is being attacked, denied, and blasphemed in each century or age, it is precisely in which it must be defended, affirmed, and repaired. Where sin abounds, grace most necessarily super-abound. So, against the darkening of spirits, against the increase of coldness in hearts, we must oppose an overflow of light, a fresh outbreak of love.†(Cardinal Pie, Third synodal instruction on the principal errors of the present age, July 1862 – August 1863, Complete Works, V, pages 36-37)

It is evident that, in attacking Our Lord Jesus Christ and Christendom, the enemies of God have concentrated their strategies to fight against Truth, against Authority, and against the Priesthood. Hence, let us summarize what a priest can do to defend Truth against Error, to uphold Authority in the face of anarchy and chaos, and to preserve the sacred priesthood against the profane ministry promoted by the Second Vatican Council.

Needless to say that a Catholic Priest is a principle of Order. A good Priest recapitulates everything in Christ the King. In so doing, he fosters the spiritual and temporal common good of families and of countries, because he is the salt of the earth, and the light of the world. But when a Priest fails in his duties, then he compromises with the three enemies of the soul: the world, the lust and the devil. As a matter of fact,  Corruptio optimi, pessima! (The corruption of the best, is the worst!) That’s why Don Bosco used to say that when a priest dies, he never goes alone, but with many people, either to heaven or to hell.

Therefore, on the day of his Ordination the Catholic Priest receives the power to become a principle of order in Spiritus Veritatis (in the Spirit of Truth), as Our Lord Jesus Christ commanded the Apostles to do. So, here are some words concerning this triple power.

The first is the power of teaching – potestas docendi. This power commands an unity in doctrine to learn and to practice the same Catholic religion among the clergy and laity. It is an unity in that Faith which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all: “quod ubique, semper, et ab omnibus†(Communitorium, St. Vincent Lerin).

The second is the power of governing – potestas regendi. This power requires unity in hierarchy: Jesus Christ is Head of the Church, the Pope is the Vicar of Christ,  Bishops are the apostolic successors, Priests are other Christs, and faithfuls are the witnesses of eternal salvation. In this hierarchy, all power comes from God, as Saint Paul says, “Omnis potestas a Deo.† (Rom. 13, 1)

The third is the power of sanctifying – potestas sanctificandi. This power is linked to an unity in Liturgy as the official way of Church worship by clergy and faithful. The law of prayer is indeed the law of Faith: lex credendi, lex orandi.

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1. The Power of Teaching: the Faith that has always been believed everywhere and by all

“The lips of the priest – says the prophet Malachias – shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth, because he is the messenger of the Lord.†(Malach. 2, 7)

“Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will reject thee that thou shalt not do the office of priesthood to Me,†said the prophet Osee. ( 4, 6)

Almighty God wants men to help Him save souls. He could have done this by other means. However Jesus Christ became man Himself , and He willed that some men become priests through the grace of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, like His Apostles who were ready to convert the whole world, or like anyone of the priests here present, who are willing to convert the modern world for the greater glory of God and the eternal salvation of souls.

The Sacrament of Holy Orders constitutes the imposition of the bishop’s hands upon the head of the deacon as the Matter of the sacrament. For the sacramental Form are required the words of the Preface in the Rite of Ordination, which clearly express the bishop’s intention to do what has always been done in the Catholic Church, to  believe everywhere and by all.

Among his functions, a priest must faithfully teach the very Word of God to those who wish to be the children of God, instructing them through the Church Magisterium. Hence, he must believe in the two sources of divine Revelation, namely, the Holy Scripture and the Oral Tradition transmitted by the Apostles to their apostolic successors.

As the meaning of the word “apostle†requires, the priest must be sent to preach under the authority of a bishop. Archbishop Lefebvre said that “In consecrating his life to the apostolic ministry and since he continues the mission which Our Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled on earth, he is essentially sent as missionary.†(AL, June 29 1978). So, the priest is sent by God, under the authority of the Catholic Church in order to preach the Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Seven Sacraments, the Our Father and other prayers, in order to lead his flock for their  eternal salvation.

During this ceremony, the Catholic Church says through the mouth of the bishop: “Agnosce quod agis, imita quod tractas,†that is, “Realize what you are doing. Imitate what you operateâ€. The priest must therefore believe that he dispenses God’s graces through the Sacraments which are the ordinary channels, instituted for that purpose by Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. It is the priest’s duty to provide the proper MATTER, the correct FORM, and the right INTENTION of the sacraments, in order to validly administer them to his flock, and when needed to receive them himself alike. It would be a serious negligence, if a priest would not provide all that is needed for such a purpose, as it would be a negligence for a bishop who would not provide to his priests all what is needed for them to properly administer the sacraments to the faithful.

The most important duty is to re-actualize by his priestly ministry the same Sacrifice that Our Lord Jesus Christ made on the Cross at Calvary, in an un-bloody manner, under the species of bread and wine, so that he is bringing God from heaven down onto the altar for the eternal salvation of souls.

It is imperative to meditate on the grace in which this young priest is going to participate in the Catholic priesthood. It is not by the sanctifying grace which Our Lord Jesus Christ gives us through Baptism. It is by the grace of union â€“ that grace of union unique to Our Lord Jesus Christ. For it is by His grace of union with the divinity of God, with the divinity of the Word, that Our Lord Jesus Christ became Priest, that Our Lord Jesus Christ is King, and by that Our Lord Jesus Christ is Judge. Truly, Our Lord Jesus Christ ought to be adored by all men because of this grace of union, which is a sublime grace! This grace from the divinity Itself, in a unique manner descended into His humanity in the fullness of time, anointing Our Lord Jesus Christ in a special manner, as the holy Oil descending on the head of the recipient, anoints the one who receives its unction. Our Lord Jesus Christ’s humanity was penetrated by the divinity of the Word of God, and thus He was made Priest and became Mediator between God and men.

Participating in that grace, the priest is a real mediator between God and men. In receiving the priestly ordination, a priest is not any longer like any other man; he is consecrated for God and separated from men. At Mass, for example, before turning to say “Dominus vobiscumâ€, the priest must kiss the altar in order to express his function of mediator between God and men, as a bridge between heaven and earth, uniting the prayers of the faithful to the sacrifice of the altar.

Also, it is important to note some of the accessory ceremonies of the priestly ordination in the Roman Rite:

Firstly, the bishop clothes the priest with a stole, crossing it over his chest to remind him of the Cross of Our Lord, and with a chasuble which symbolizes the submission a priest must have to the binding yoke of God’s Law through a life of sanctity and purity. 

Secondly, the bishop anoints the priest’s hands with the holy Oil of catechumens, binds them together, and in presenting him the chalice and paten, he says these words: â€œreceive the power to offer to God the Sacrifice, and to celebrate Mass for both the living and the dead.â€

Thirdly, at the end of the ceremony, the bishop confers on the new priest the divine power to forgive sins when saying: “Receive the Holy Ghost, the sins you forgive they will be forgiven, and the sins you retain, they will be retained.â€

The above said priestly ceremonies are not contained in the new Rite of Ordination implemented after the Second Vatican Council. Perhaps these blessings are not by themselves necessary for the validity of the new Rite of Ordination, but their omission and the absence of any other liturgical expression do not clearly manifest the intention by which the bishop is ordaining the priest. Otherwise, the functions assigned to the priest in the new Rite could signify the bishop’s intentions, namely, to preside at the assembly of the people of God; to face the people when saying the New Mass; to remove the tabernacle from the center of the altar; to give Communion on the hand… These expressions are absolutely consistent with the fundamental mentality of modern man. The New Mass is not a hierarchical Mass instituted from above; on the contrary, it is a democratic Mass instituted from below, by the people, for the people and with the people. It is the expression of a man-centered cult, created by man who wants to make himself god.

Archbishop Lefebvre said concerning the New Mass: “The ideology of modern man has been brought into our most sacred Rites. This is why we think that we cannot accept the new Rite, which is the work of another ideology, or a new ideology.†(AL, June 29, 1976).

And again: “May seminarians, priests and bishops find the understanding of their priesthood in these few fundamental truths about the grace of union in Our Lord, and appreciate the sublimity of the heritage bequeathed to them, which must be the source of their sanctification and the source of their apostolate: the act of sacrifice.

Our Lord’s act of Sacrifice being the act which constitutes the Sacrament of the Eucharist – the life of Christ, Priest and Victim – must be the foundation of our interior life as well as of our ministry in giving Jesus to souls. This indissoluble union of the Sacrifice and the Sacrament which the Word Incarnate in His wisdom willed, is precisely what the Protestants reject and the innovators of Vatican II have in practice made it disappear by Ecumenism!†(AL, Spiritual Journey, p. 35)

“It must be understood immediately that we do not hold to the absurd idea that if the New Mass is valid, we are then free to assist at it. The Church has always forbidden the faithful to assist at the Masses of heretics and schismatics, even when they are valid. It is clear that no one can assist at sacrilegious Masses or at Masses which endanger our faith.†(AL, November 8, 1979)

God never abandons His Church; and so the number of priests will be always sufficient for the needs of the faithful, provided that the worthy priests remain faithful to the deposit of the Faith, and that those who profess heresy and who un-repentantly transgress the moral laws are removed from the ministry. As the fourth Ecumenical Lateran Council said, should it ever become impossible to maintain the present number of priests “it is better to have a few good priests than a multitude of bad ones.†(decree 27, De instructione ordinarum).

Therefore, dear abbé Blanchet:

Always, celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, knowing what Mass is and how to say it, following Archbishop Lefebvre’s example.

Never say Mass in a hurry, in less than 20 minutes, because it would scandalize the faithful, as Father Prümer says, then it would be a matter to go to confession.

Never say the New Mass.

Be faithful to the recitation of the Breviary everyday.

Preach the evangelical counsels of chastity, obedience, and poverty.

Be faithful to your total consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary, pray your daily rosary and beware of private revelations.

Because the priest is a principle of order, when preaching the Truth always, he should be supported by his Bishop and he will be faithful to his priesthood. Saint John says, “And this is eternal life that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ that Thou has sent.†(St John 17, 3)

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2. The power of governing: all power comes from God.

There cannot be priests without bishops, and no bishops without apostolic succession, and no Vicar of Christ without a successor of Saint Peter, and no Catholic Church without Jesus Christ, true God and true Man. “Let every soul be subject to higher powers: for there is no power but from God: and those that are, are ordained of God.†(Rom. 13,1) The superiors must provide for the doctrinal formation of their subjects, and not otherwise. How can priest pretend to hold authority in himself, if he would break the chain of command? At his ordination, the priest becomes “the lieutenant of Christ the King†for the purpose to establish the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

Is the traditional movement a rebellion to Authority? Was Archbishop Lefebvre against Church Authority? 

Resisting in the spirit of Truth, Archbishop Lefebvre preserved the Deposit of the Faith including the Papacy itself from the destructive danger formulated by the innovations of the Second Vatican Council. Archbishop Lefebvre himself explained the reasons for which one should resist a higher authority. â€œ […] What is the first principle to know what we must do in this circumstance, in this crisis in the Church? What is the principle?

This doctrine is expounded by Saint Thomas Aquinas. So what does Saint Thomas Aquinas say about the authority in the Church? When can we refuse something from the authority of the Church? PRINCIPLE: ‘Only when the Faith is in question.’ Only in this case. Not in other cases… Only when the Faith is in question… and that is found in the Summa Theologica (II II Q.33, a.4, ad 2m) […].†(AL, St. Them Aquinas Seminary, Ridgefield, 1983)

“We resist and shall continue to resist, not in a spirit of contradiction or rebellion, but in a spirit of fidelity to the Church, of fidelity to God, to our Lord Jesus Christ, to all those who taught us our holy religion; by a spirit of fidelity to all the Popes who maintained Tradition. That is why we are determined quite simply to continue, to persevere in the Tradition which sanctified the saints who are rendering an immense service to all the faithful who wish to keep the faith and truly to receive the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.†(AL, Écône November 1, 1980)

Certainly, most traditional Priests and Bishops might agree on many doctrinal points. Perhaps we might have the same doctrine about the Catholic Church, about moral theology; and we might be ready to follow Saint Thomas Aquinas in his objective philosophy and in dogmatic theology… But when it comes to interpreting the present crisis in the Church today, and the future collapsing of the world… we might not have the same interpretation, the same thinking and understanding… Indeed, it is a big problem in which Divine Providence wants us to survive, as it was in that time when three Popes at the same time claimed to be THE REGNANT POPE, and whom Kings, Bishops, Priests and Faithful did defended and believed… and Christendom was divided. The history of Tradition today is a history of divisions! And today we Catholics are in the risk to fall into error, either by heresy or by schism. But as Archbishop Lefebvre said, we do not want to be heretic nor schismatic!

On the other hand, the Father of Lies is at work, coming again and again to divide in order to conquer. That’s why Pope Pius IX, wanting to warn us, allowed the publication of a book entitled The Roman Church and the Revolution, written by Crétineau-Joly (on February 25, 1861). Here is an interesting excerpt recording a conversation between two Freemason leaders: “…You want to establish the kingdom of the elects on the throne of the prostitute Babylon, in which the clergy follows under your standards, believing always that they walk under the standard of the apostolic keys… If you do not precipitate, we promise a catch more miraculous than his.’ The fisher man who catches fish becomes a fisher man to catch men. You will be surrounded by friends of the Apostolic Chair. You will preach a revolution by [Papal] Tiara and Cope walking under the banner and the standard of the cross, a revolution that needs nothing else but a spark to kindle a fire throughout the four corners of the world.â€

Under the same circumstances, let us remember the words of Our Lord to Saint Peter: “Simon, Simon, behold Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren.†(St Luke, 22, 31-32)

On this subject, Archbishop Lefebvre enlightened us with some wisdom: “In reality it is an extraordinary gift that God has made us in giving us the Pope, in giving us the successors of Peter, giving us precisely this perpetuity in truth communicated to us through the successors of Peter, that just be communicated to us through them. And it seems inconceivable that a successor of Peter could fail in any way to transmit the truth that he is obliged to transmit. Indeed, without virtually disappearing from the line of succession he cannot fail to communicate that which the Popes have always transmitted – the Deposit of the Faith which does not belong to him alone.

[…] And we cannot follow error nor change truth, just because the one, who is in charge of transmitting it, is weak and allows error to spread around him. We don’t want the darkness to encroach on us. We want to live in the light of truth. We remain faithful to that which has been taught for two thousand years. The same things that have been taught for two thousand years, and which is inconceivable, that what is part of eternity could be changed!

Because it is eternity which has been taught to us. It is eternal God, Jesus Christ eternal God, and everything which is centered on God is centered on eternity. The Blessed Trinity can NEVER be changed. The Redemptive work of Christ through the Cross can NEVER be changed, and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass can NEVER be changed. These things are eternal. They belong to God. How can someone her below change those things? Who is the priest who feels he has the right to change those things, to modify them? It is impossible!†(AL, Écône, September 1977)

Dear Abbé Blanchet, when you say the Mass of Always, some people might ask you: “Do you take care of all rubrics of 1962 Roman Missal with which you are being Ordained priest?† You should respond: YES.

Some people might ask you: “Do you name Pope Francis in the Roman Canon of Mass?† You should respond: YES.

As a Catholic Priest is a principle of monarchical order, he is the Lieutenant of our Lord Jesus Christ’s Royal Kingdom on earth, and according to his rank of authority, a Priest is sent by his bishop to proclaim the Kingship of Christ to his flock. Otherwise, it would be like a democratic priest, who chooses to say or not, to preach or not, his own personal kingdom.

So, the reason of these and other questions is because in following the 1955 Liturgical books, there are some priests who omit the rubric “una-cum-Francisco†at the Roman Canon of the Mass, or at the celebration of the Holy Week ceremonies. What one might think about purposely omitting the Pope’s name, as the schismatic and Protestant ministries do?

Indeed, all we Catholics must pray more than ever to the Good Shepherd, Our Lord Jesus Christ, asking Him to have mercy on His flock, on those sheep who want to believe with integrity in His evangelical message of eternal salvation, in the Mystery of Redemption through Jesus Christ, the only Savior of the world, in the ark of salvation outside of which there is no salvation, the Catholic Church, which is the Ark of Saint Peter.

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3. The power of sanctifying: the law of prayer is the law of belief.

“We know the axiom, the law of belief is fundamental to the law of prayer. In order to comprehend the dogma, it is important to keep the words and deeds performed by the Liturgy throughout all times. It is through the Liturgy that the Spirit who inspired the Holy Scripture, still works. The Liturgy is Tradition to its highest degree in power and solemnity in the Church.†(Dom Guéranger, Institution Liturgiques, part I, chapter 1, p.18)

It is very important to follow a principle of public and official prayer approved by the Tradition of the Catholic Church. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the recitation of the Divine Office (Breviary) are not private personal prayers for a priest because they are codified. The deliberate omission to pray the Breviary incurs the penalty of mortal sin(Canon 135). When a Catholic Priest prays the Breviary, as Dom Marmion says, by his lips he continues the praising of Our Lord Jesus Christ to His heavenly Father. We know that Our Lord constantly recited the 150 psalms attributed to King David, because it was the official prayer, under the Law of Moses, before the coming of the Messiah. Following that Tradition in the Catholic Church, we continue to recite the 150 Psalms as well as other prayers which commemorate the dogmas and mysteries of our Faith: These prayers were put together in particular by Saint Gregory the Great.

Nevertheless, There are some discrepancies among Traditional priests and faithful in regards to the law of praying and the law of believing, since the 1960s. From the very beginning, Archbishop Lefebvre took his decision in installing the 1962 Liturgy at Écône. The rejection of the 1962 Liturgical books has been the occasion of separations within the Society of Saint Pius X: three times these separations occurred in Écône (1975, 1979, 1981), twice in the USA (1983, 1984), once in Germany (1984), and once in Argentina (1989). And there are stil several separations due to lack of unity on the official public prayer of the Traditional Church.

Here are some words from Archbishop Lefebvre on this subject:

“The liturgy of Écône is the liturgy that I myself have been using now for 20 years. It is a liturgy we use, more or less, everywhere in the Society. […]

So, these priests condemned it… and they condemned me… and they condemned Écône… How is this possible? […] That they condemned the bishop who gave them their ordination? When these priests were at Écône they accepted this liturgy; when they were ordained, they accepted during the years they were at Écône. When they left, they changed, and took another orientation. […]

Now, not only they dispute the liturgy but also about the Pope. They are in their hearts, against the fact that there is a Pope in Rome. […]

Certainly, we agree on many doctrinal points, these priests and I. We have the same doctrine about the Church, about theology, we follow Saint Thomas Aquinas in philosophy, in theology… But to interpret the situation of the Church now, we have not the same meaning, not the same thinking… This is very dangerous. […]

We must now do an application of the principle. For me I think that the liturgical reform of Pope John XXIII has nothing against the Faith. You can take the Pontifical, the Rituale, the Breviary, the Roman Missale, and what is in these books of Pope John XXIII against the Faith? Nothing! […]

In reality, this reform was done by Pope Pius XII, not Pope John XXIII. When I was Apostolic Delegate in Rome, they asked me to have Episcopal Conferences in Madagascar, in Cameroon, and in French speaking Africa, to ask the bishops about the reform of the breviary. […]

But these seven young priests said that seven men did this reform, and they were the same who did the reform of Paul VI. That is not true! Perhaps in the commission, it is possible that some of these men were there… Perhaps Bugnini was a member of this commission of Pius XII.

But you know that during the Pontificate of John XXIII, this Pope removed Msgr. Bugnini from his teaching post in the University of the Lateran. Pope John XXIII was against Bugnini. I knew the president of the Commission who did this reform, it was Msgr. De Matto, who was the Abbot of St. Paul outside the Walls… I know him very well and I spoke with him many times. He was the president of the Commission of reforming the liturgy under the Pontificate of John XXIII. It was under Paul VI that he was removed because he was traditionalist, and they replaced him by Msgr. Bugnini… that is true. But it is not true to say that this reform of Pope John XXIII is the beginning of the reform of Pope Paul VI. […]

So, I have said concerning this reform [1962] we must obey the Pope, especially since we have no reason to refuse it!†

(AL, April 24, 1983, at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, in Ridgefield, CT)

After many discrepancies and departures of several priests from the Society of Saint Pius X, Archbishop Lefebvre required that all the candidates to Holy Orders should sign The Declaration of Fidelity, from April 11, 1981 until his death. In addition to the Declaration, there were required to say the Anti-modernist Oath and the Profession of Faith declared by Pius IX. Certainly, I myself signed and complied with these requirements throughout the reception of the major orders of subdiaconate, diaconate, and priesthood. 

The Declaration of Fidelity contains the UNITY OF THE THREE POWERS  which a Priest receives on the day of his Ordination: it affirms one Faith, one Head, one Liturgy – it confirms the Truth, the Authority and Public priestly Liturgical Prayer under which the candidate is ordained priest in the Catholic Church.

Here is the Declaration of Fidelity in its entirety:

“[For unity of government]

I, the undersigned, __N.N._______ recognize _Pope’s name_ as Pope of the Holy Catholic Church. That is why I am ready to pray publicly for him as Sovereign Pontiff. 

[For unity of faith ]

I refuse to follow him when he departs from the Catholic Tradition, especially in the questions of religious liberty and ecumenism, as also in the reforms which are harmful to the Church.

I grant that Masses celebrated according to the New Rite are not all invalid. However, considering the bad translations of the Novus Ordo Missae, its ambiguity favoring its being interpreted in a Protestant sense, and the plurality of ways in which it can be celebrated, I recognize that the danger of invalidity is very great. I affirm that the New Rite of Mass does not, it is true, formulate any heresy in an explicit manner, but that it departs “in a striking manner overall as well as in detail, from the Catholic theology of the Holy Massâ€, and for this reason the New Rite is in itself bad. That is why I shall never celebrate the Holy Mass according to this New Rite, even if I am threatened with ecclesiastical sanctions; and I shall never advise anyone in a positive manner to take an active part in such a Mass.

[For unity of Liturgy]

Finally, I admit as being legitimate the liturgical reform of John XXIII. Hence, I take all the (1962) liturgical books from it to be Catholic: the Roman Missale, the Breviary, the Pontificale and the Rituale; and I bind myself to make exclusive use of them according to their calendar and rubrics, in particular for the celebration of Mass and for the recitation in common of the Breviary. In doing this I desire to show the obedience binding me to my superiors, as also the obedience binding me to the Roman Pontiff in all his legitimate acts.â€

CONCLUSION

Dear Abbé Blanchet, if you celebrated Mass and prayed your Breviary, according to the rubrics of 1955, it would certainly be a valid Mass and you would conform to the recitation of the Breviary, but you would most certainly be moving away from the spirit and attitude of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre concerning his understanding of the crisis within the Catholic Church, as well as for his purpose to Ordain Priests for the perpetuation of the Latin Mass along with the calling for his Crusade. May the Blessed Lord give you the grace of the interior life, and to be a principle of order in the public prayer of the Catholic Church.

Indeed, we are not schismatics. We are not heretics. We are not rebels. We are resisting that wave of modernism, of secularism, of progressivism, which has invaded the Church since the Vatican II Council, formulating a conciliar church to destroy everything sacred, supernatural, divine, and reduce it to human dimensions.

May Our Lady intercede for us so that we may keep up the Crusade launched by Archbishop Lefebvre for the continuation of Tradition, for the glory of the Holy Trinity and the exaltation of the Catholic Church by recapitulating all things in Christ so that all Christendom should again proclaim, “He must reignâ€. 

AMEN.

Vatican II Put Into a Code of Laws – The New Cod of Canon Law (1983)

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Vatican II Put Into a Code of Laws

The New Code of Canon Law (1983)

by a Dominican Father of Avrillé

(published in Le Sel de la terre 120, Spring 2022)

When error is once embodied in legal formulas and administrative practices, it penetrates the minds to depths from which it becomes as if impossible to extricate it.

Cardinal Pie, Pastoral Works, VI.

Preamble: Is Canon Law Amiable?

When a priest makes this cheerful comment to one of his confreres: “So you study Canon Law?†one can easily guess some ulterior motive which could be translated as follows: “What a turn of mind you have!†or again: “What courage!â€

Is Canon Law really so boring? Is it so abstract, so cold, so unpleasant? We would like to prove here how lovable it is in itself, lovable especially because it introduces us, like theology, to the heart of the Church and to the Heart of Christ1.

It was of the traditional Code of Canon Law, that of 1917, that Father Coache spoke in these terms in the 1980s. But first of all, what is Law?

In French, Canon Law is translated “Droit canonâ€, and the French word Droit (in Latin Jus) comes from the Latin words dirigere and regere. In this case, it means a set of laws intended to direct us, to govern us. As for the word “canon“, it comes from a Greek word which means: rule.

We can now define Canon Law:

Canon Law is the body of laws proposed, established or approved by the supreme ecclesiastical authority, to direct Christians towards the end of religious society2.

A classic commentary adds the following clarification:

The subjects of ecclesiastical law are Christians, that is, all those who have received baptism, even if they are heretics, schismatics, excommunicated or even apostates.

As for the end of religious society, it is none other than the salvation of men, and, more immediately, the preservation of divine worship, of the purity of the faith and of honesty of morals among the Christian people in general3.

It is important to note the link between Canon Law and theology:

– it can be said to protect dogmatic theology, laying down rules to preserve the purity of the faith, in particular laws on teaching, prescriptions on professions of faith, censures against heresy and schism4;

– It supports moral theology as from the outside, for if moral theology orders human acts (interior and exterior) to personal eternal salvation, Canon Law has as its object the exterior acts of the baptized in their relation to the social good of the Church on this earth, to enable her to work for the salvation of souls and the reign of Our Lord over societies. Canon Law does not judge the internal forum of consciences, which is reserved for the confessional. Hence the adage: de internis Ecclesia non judicat.

The Code of Canon Law is therefore as important in the Church as dogma, morals, or the science of the Holy Scriptures. It shows the face of the Church and of Christ in their magnificent justice and their sweet mercy. It is the legislation of Christ and of His Bride, an expression of the Love of Our Lord and of His Church for their children. It is the Code of Canon Law that makes known to us the spirit of the Church. It is therefore lovable, and we must respect and love it5 .

Two Codes, Two Stories

The 1917 Code

– The Sources of Traditional Canon Law

The Supreme Pontiff and the General Councils are the two immediate sources of Canon Law; and since the decrees of the General Councils have authority only through papal approval, it can be said that papal authority is the primary generative source of General Canon Law6 .

– From the Apostles to the 12 th century: the birth of ecclesiastical legislation

In the early days, the discipline of the Church was not regulated by written laws, but by an oral tradition which came from the Apostles and the first successors of Peter. Gradually, especially after the era of persecution, synods began to be held in which decrees or canons were issued, forming the first texts of ecclesiastical law. They were gathered in collections bearing the name of the Apostles (Didascalia7 of the Apostles, Constitutions of the Apostles, Canons of the Apostles, etc.) or of some great ecclesiastical figure (Octateuch of Clement, Canons of Hippolytus, etc.). These are compilations of local customs or conciliar decisions, but they do not go back further than the third century8 .

From the 4 th century onwards, there are collections of different conciliar decisions classified by region and chronological order (Councils of Africa, Councils of Spain, etc.) and Decretals of popes.

The most famous canonical collection is the Decree of Gratian, published around 1145 in Bologna, which groups in a logical order and comments all the texts available at the time. John Gratian was an Italian Camaldolese monk and professor of Canon Law at the University of Bologna. His collection had the same notoriety and influence as the Sentences of Peter Lombard for theology.

– From the 12 th to 16th century: stabilization of the Law

After the Decree of Gratian, several ecumenical councils were held, and the great popes of the time, Alexander III (pope from 1159 to 1181) and Innocent III (pope from 1198 to 1216) in particular, had made a number of important decisions for the whole Church. The decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council (1216) provided the main basis for the Church’s legislation until the Council of Trent.

Gregory IX (pope from 1227 to 1241) commissioned his chaplain, the Dominican St. Raymond de Pennafort (1175-1275), to compile a collection of them. These were the Decretals of Gregory IX, published in 1234, the most important official canonical collection until the Code of 1917.

At the beginning of the 16 th century, a Corpus Juris canonici was published, including the Decree of Gratian, the Decretals of Gregory IX and the documents of the following popes.

– From the 16 th to the 20 th century: the crowning of the Law

The decrees of the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and the promulgation of new laws soon made the Corpus Juris canonici insufficient. Several popes tried to complete it, while new collections, due to private initiative, were created.

At the time when St. Pius X (pope from 1903 to 1914) ascended to the See of Peter, it was difficult to find one’s way through the ecclesiastical legislation.

[It was] an enormous mass of documents scattered in so many volumes and without any order, many of which were not real laws, but answers to particular cases, or had been abrogated by later laws or by custom9 .

[Moreover, many of these laws], because of the changes that had taken place, were of difficult application or of lesser use for the salvation of souls10 .

Already at the first Vatican Council, many bishops had made urgent requests for an updating of the ecclesiastical laws. Leo XIII had begun by codifying the legislation of the Index and of religious congregations with simple vows.

In 1904, St. Pius X judged that the codification of all Canon Law could be undertaken. By his Motu Proprio Arduum Sane Munus of 19 March, he set up a commission of cardinals, presided over by Cardinal Gasparri, working in conjunction with several consultors and bishops. Bishops and religious superiors were then invited to give their opinion. It was under Pope Benedict XV that the work was completed. The Code was promulgated on May 27, 1917, the day of Pentecost, by the Bull Providentissima Mater, declaring that it would have the force of law from May 19, 1918.

On September 15, 1917, by the letter Cum Juris canonici, Benedict XV had instituted a cardinal commission charged with the interpretation of the Code and with the drafting of additional canons that might become necessary in the future. Since then, there have been many new texts and provisions, for example, the change of discipline for the Eucharistic fast, or the permission for evening Masses. Pius XII alone, through his speeches and decrees, has greatly advanced the Law. The changes were published in the Acta Apostolicæ Sedis (Acts of the Holy See)11 .

The 1983 Code

An update of the Canon Law was therefore necessary.

In 1953, the Jesuit Father Regatillo published a 720-page work interpreting, completing or correcting – with official responses from Rome – a large number of canons.

It was John XXIII, on January 25, 1959, in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, who simultaneously announced the holding of a Roman Synod, the celebration of an Ecumenical Council, and the reform of the Code of Canon Law.

But it was only on March 28, 1963, after the first session of Vatican II, that John XXIII established a “Commission for the Revision of the Code of Canon Law” composed of forty cardinals. At its first meeting, on 12 November 1963, the Commission decided to wait until the end of the Council before setting to work.

On April 17, 1964, Paul VI added to the Cardinal’s Commission a body of seventy consultors, among whom were almost all the secretaries of the Conciliar Commissions.

The work began a few days before the solemn closing of the Council, under the presidency of Cardinal Felici12 . In 1966, forty-eight bishops and one hundred and twenty-one consultors, priests, religious and laity, were added in order to involve the universal Church in this elaboration13 .

After ten years of work, the project was sent to all the bishops, to the superiors general of the religious orders, to the Catholic universities and pontifical ecclesiastical faculties for consultation. Thirty thousand suggestions were examined, and new cardinals, archbishops and bishops, priests and laity from the five parts of the world were added to the Commission. Everything was then presented to Pope John Paul II on 21 April 1982. The latter revised the whole with a group of ten experts (cardinals, bishops and priests).

The new Code was promulgated by Pope John Paul II on January 25, 1983, in the Apostolic Constitution Sacrae Disciplinae Leges, twenty-four years to the day after John XXIII had announced the reform. In it, the Pope noted the “collegial” character of the work that led to this new Code, as shown by the large number of people who had worked on it:

If we look at the kind of work that preceded the promulgation of the Code, and the way in which it was carried out, especially during the pontificates of Paul VI and John Paul Ist, and from then until today, it must be made absolutely clear that this work was carried out to the end in a marvellously collegial spirit14 . And this is true not only for the material drafting of this work, but also, and in depth, for the very substance of the laws that were drawn up.

Now this note of collegiality which characterizes and distinguishes the whole process of giving birth to this new Code corresponds perfectly to the magisterium and the character of the Second Vatican Council15.

Two Codes, Two Minds

It is interesting to see in what spirit Pope St. Pius X on the one hand, and Pope John Paul II on the other, have endeavored to bring together the ecclesiastical laws in a single Code.

The Intention of St. Pius X

Let us quote here a few lines from the Motu Proprio Arduum Sane Munus of St. Pius X, written only eight months after his election16 , which shows how much the pope considers this task a priority:

As soon as, by a secret council of divine Providence, We assumed the painful task of governing the universal Church, the main goal and the rule which We imposed on Ourselves, as it were, was, as far as Our strength would allow, to restore everything in Christ. […]

But knowing full well that ecclesiastical discipline, above all, must contribute to the restoration of everything in Christ – for if it is well regulated and flourishing, it cannot but be very fruitful in the fruits of salvation – We have directed Our attention and Our paternal solicitude to this area. […]

Many illustrious prelates of the Holy Church, even cardinals, have urged that the laws of the universal Church which have been promulgated up to this time be distributed in a clear and precise order, excluding those which have been abrogated or which have fallen into disuse. The others would, when necessary, be adapted to the needs of our time17 .

The pope is clearly following in the footsteps of his predecessors, updating the laws of the Church in order to effectively implement his program of restoration of all things in Christ.

The Intention of John Paul II

In the Apostolic Constitution Sacrae Disciplinae Leges of January 25, 1983, Pope John Paul II explains the spirit in which he requested the publication of a new Code of Canon Law:

The reform of the Code of Canon Law was clearly desired and requested by the Council itself, for it had devoted the greatest attention to the Church. […]

This is why the Code, not only in its content but already from its inception, has put into action the spirit of the Council, whose documents present the Church, the “universal sacrament of salvation18“, as the People of God, and where its hierarchical constitution appears to be based on the College of Bishops united to its head. […]

This instrument, the Code, corresponds fully to the nature of the Church, especially as described by the magisterium of the Second Vatican Council in general, and in particular in its ecclesiological teaching. In a certain sense, one could even see in this Code a great effort to translate into canonical language this very doctrine of conciliar ecclesiology. If, however, it is not possible to translate perfectly into canonical language the conciliar image of the Church, the Code must nevertheless always be referred to this same image as its primordial exemplar, whose features, by its very nature, it must express as much as possible. […]

As a result, what constitutes the essential novelty of the Second Vatican Council, in continuity with the Church’s legislative tradition, especially with regard to ecclesiology, also constitutes the novelty of the new Code.

Among the elements that characterize the real and authentic image of the Church, we must highlight the following in particular:

– the doctrine according to which the Church presents herself as the People of God (cf. Constitution Lumen Gentium, 2) and hierarchical authority as service (cf. ibid, 3);

– the doctrine which shows the Church as a communion19 and which, therefore, indicates what kind of relationship should exist between the particular Churches and the universal Church, and between collegiality and primacy;

– the doctrine that all members of the People of God, each according to his or her own modality, participate in the threefold function of Christ: the priestly, prophetic and royal functions. Linked to this doctrine is that concerning the duties and rights of the faithful, and in particular the laity; and finally the Church’s commitment to ecumenism. […]

After all these reflections, it remains to hope that the new canonical legislation will become an effective means for the Church to progress in the spirit of Vatican II, and to make herself better adapted each day to fulfill her function of salvation in this world20.

The quote is a bit long, but it was difficult to shorten it.

Pope John Paul II makes it clear that the 1983 Code is a new Code in its conception of the Church as “People of God” and “communion”, and that it was promulgated to advance the Church in the spirit of Vatican II.

The Main Divisions of the Code

The different spirit of the two Codes is first evident in their design.

The 1917 Code

The 1917 Code is divided into five books, which in turn are divided into 107 titles (Tituli):

– Book I: General Norms: of ecclesiastical laws, customs, time calculation, rescripts, privileges, dispensations.

– Book II: Persons: clerics, religious, laity.

– Book III: Things: sacraments, sacred places and times, divine worship, ecclesiastical magisterium, ecclesiastical benefits, temporal goods of the Church.

– Book IV: Trials in justice, causes of beatifications and canonizations, the manner of proceeding in some cases and penal sanctions.

– Book V: Sanctions and Punishments.

The 1983 Code

The 1983 Code does not repeat this division:

It should be noted that the general organization of the new Code is symptomatic of the spirit in which it was composed. The division of legal matters has abandoned the general division of the 1917 Code, which was dependent on the ancient principles of Roman law. […]

Henceforth, the division of the titles of the new Code follows a distribution more in conformity with the directives of the Council and, in the titles themselves which have been adopted, reveals the spirit which animated this reform21 .

– Book I: General Norms: ecclesiastical laws, custom, general decrees and instructions, particular administrative acts, statutes and regulations, natural and juridical persons, the power of government, ecclesiastical offices, prescription, calculation of time.

– Book II: The People of God: the faithful of Christ, the hierarchical constitution of the Church, institutes of consecrated life and societies of apostolic life.

– Book III: The Teaching Function of the Church: the ministry of the Word of God, the missionary activity of the Church, Catholic education, the means of social communication and in particular books, the profession of faith.

– Book IV: The Office of Sanctifying in the Church: the Sacraments, Other Acts of Divine Worship, Sacred Places and Times.

– Book V: The Temporal Goods of the Church.

– Book VI: Sanctions in the Church.

– Book VII: The Trials.

Outline of the 1983 Code

Since this article is not a treatise on Canon Law for specialists, we will not make an exhaustive study. The reader will, however, find sufficient elements to make a judgment on the new legislation.

Book I: General Norms (C. 1-203)

Like the 1917 Code, the 1983 Code begins by establishing “General Norms”. This is Book I, which establishes the main principles governing the constitution and interpretation of ecclesiastical laws.

Although the number of canons has increased from 86 to 203, and there have been some changes in titles and subject matter, there is no significant difference here, between the 1917 and 1983 legislation.

It should be noted, however, from this introduction, that the chapter on ecclesiastical offices, which was in the part dealing with clerics, has been transferred to the General Norms. Canon Paralieu gives the explanation:

Lay people, and even women, can now receive an ecclesiastical office (unless the office involves a full charge of the soul): a lay person can be a diocesan bursar, a woman can be a defender of the [marital] bond in an ecclesiastical Tribunal [Paralieu, p. 75]22 .

With respect to these offices, the 1983 Code states:

To be appointed to an ecclesiastical office, one must be in the communion of the Church [can. 149 § 1].

In itself, this is obvious, but we will see what this notion of “communion” implies today, in connection with the new profession of faith.

Let us now go further into the new legislation.

Book II: The People of God (C. 204-746)

Book II of the new Code, with its 543 canons, is the most important by its length. It constitutes almost a third of the work. But it is especially important for its new conception of the Church.

– Part I: Christ’s faithful (C. 204-329)

1. Preamble (C. 204-207)

– The 1983 Code is based first of all on a new conception of the Church defined as “People of God”, which even gives its title to Book II:

C. 204, § 1: The faithful of Christ are those who, being incorporated into Christ by baptism, are constituted as the people of God and who, for this reason, having been made participants in their own way in the priestly, prophetic and kingly office of Christ, are called to exercise, each according to his own condition, the mission which God has entrusted to the Church for the accomplishment of this mission in the world.

It should be noted here that the 1983 Code ‑, again for the first time, ‑ uses the name “Christ’s faithful” to designate both the laity and the hierarchical clergy; an egalitarianism which is reinforced by the fact that the Code begins by enumerating the obligations and rights common to all, without distinction (Title I).

On the other hand, while the 1917 Code deals with persons according to a descending hierarchy (clerics, religious, laity), the 1983 Code reverses things by dealing first with the laity (Title II), before examining the legislation concerning clerics (Title III). As for religious, they are relegated to a place after the associations of the faithful (Title V23 ) and the part concerning the hierarchy of the Church.

Let us note paragraph 2 of the same canon with the famous “subsistit in”:

C. 204, § 2: This Church, constituted and organized in this world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church governed by the Successor of Peter and the bishops in communion with him.

The expression is taken from the Vatican II Constitution Lumen Gentium on the Church (I, 8). Traditional teaching expressly states that the Church of Christ is the Catholic Church, which means very clearly that there is absolute identity between the Church founded by Our Lord and the Catholic Church. The other ecclesial communities, falsely qualified as Christian, do not belong to the Church of Christ, but have left it. The expression subsistit in introduces an ambiguity which allows us to maintain that outside the Catholic Church, there are true ecclesial realities24 .

Ecumenism has come.

– In his introduction to Canon Paralieu’s work presenting the new Code, Father de Lanversin explains the reason for the changes:

Book II of the new Code (De Populo Dei) is the one that puts in place the most new elements resulting from the conciliar decisions; and first of all a reversal of the ecclesiological perspectives following the Constitution Lumen Gentium on the Church. In fact, the binomial of the old Law: “hierarchy/people of God” gives way to this one: “people of God/hierarchy”; that is to say, the Church is presented as an evangelical community in which the hierarchy, willed by Christ, is not so much envisaged as a power (potestas) as an office (munus) and a service (diakonia) within the people of God. In the perspective of “ecclesial communion”, this part of the Code sets up the various instances of the “communio hierarchica” within the people of God. In the same way, an entire section of Book II is devoted to the establishment of “organs of participation” in the Church. […] This part of the Code also includes an entire treatise on the laity, without forgetting the right of association of the faithful [p. 24-25].

In his book Church, Ecumenism and Politics, Cardinal Ratzinger explains why this has happened. After recalling that German theologians began criticizing the concept of the Mystical Body in the 1930s25, he adds:

We wondered whether the image of the Mystical Body was not too narrow a starting point for defining the multiple forms of belonging to the Church that are now present in the complicated meanderings of human history. The image of the Body offers only one form of representation of membership, that of member. Either one is a member or one is not, there is no middle ground. But, one might ask, would not the starting point of this image be precisely a little too narrow, since there are obviously intermediate degrees in reality? The concept of the people of God was found, which from this point of view is much broader and more flexible. The Constitution Lumen Gentium makes it its own, in specifying this sense, when it describes the relationship of Catholic Christians with the Catholic Church by the concept of connection (conjunctio)26, and that of non-Christians by the concept of ordination (ordinatio)27. In both cases, the idea of the people of God is used.

It can be said that the concept of the People of God was introduced by the Council primarily as an ecumenical bridge28.

– What do we think of these changes?

This ecumenical notion of the “People of God”, which we shall see has no basis in either Sacred Scripture or the Magisterium, has no basis in history either.

In the Old Testament, God certainly began by forming a people from the twelve sons of Jacob exiled in Egypt, and it was later that he constituted a hierarchy around Moses to guide them. It is worth noting that this people had very precise boundaries, because of the circumcision that distinguished it from all the neighboring peoples. There was no room for “imperfect communion”. One belonged to the people or one did not.

But in the New Covenant, Our Lord began by forming for three years, not a people, but twelve Apostles, to whom he gave a leader, St. Peter; and from Pentecost onwards, it was these same Apostles, with St. Peter at their head, who constituted a people, through baptism, which distinguishes it from other peoples. Very quickly an intermediate hierarchy was established through the ordination of deacons, sub-deacons, etc.

The Magisterium has moreover clearly pronounced itself on this question. Thus, on June 29, 1943 – not so long ago – Pope Pius XII wrote the encyclical Mystici Corporis, on the Church Mystical Body of Jesus Christ.

This doctrine, which Cardinal Ratzinger considers to be “a starting point that is too limited, […] and a little too narrow”, Pius XII recalled that the Church nevertheless “received it from the lips of the Redeemer himself; and it puts in its true light this never sufficiently exalted benefit of our close union with this sublime Head”.

And the Pope continued with St. Paul:

“Christ,†says the Apostle, “is the head of the Body which is the Church” (Col 1:18). If the Church is a Body, it is therefore necessary that it be a single and indivisible organism, according to the words of St. Paul: “Though we are many, we are one Body in Christ” (Rom 12:5). […]

It is therefore a departure from divine truth to imagine a Church that cannot be touched, that is only spiritual, in which the many Christian communities, though divided from one another in faith, are nevertheless united by an invisible bond.

It is the notion of the body that allows us to better understand the need for a hierarchy:

The body, in nature, is not formed of any assemblage of members, but must be provided with organs, that is to say, with members which are not equally active and which are arranged in a suitable order.

It is again the notion of the body that gives the Church its missionary impetus:

Those who do not belong to the visible organism of the Church […] we invite to come out of a state in which no one can be sure of his eternal salvation. […] Let them, therefore, enter into Catholic unity and, united with us in the one organism of the Body of Jesus Christ, let them all run to the one Head in a most glorious society of love.

In fact, with the new conception of the Church as the people of God and a communion, not only has a democratic spirit undermined the authority of the Catholic hierarchy instituted by Our Lord, but the “ecumenical bridge” permitted by the new definition of the Church has opened the door to the end of the mission, the essential task which Christ had entrusted to his Apostles:

Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned (Mk 16:15-16).

Archbishop Lefebvre considered this change in conception to be exceptionally serious:

There is a new ecclesiology, that’s clear. In my opinion, it is exceptionally serious to be able to say that there can be a new ecclesiology. We are not the ones who make the Church, we are not the ones who made her, not the Pope, not the bishops, not history, not the Councils. It was made by Our Lord. [It does not depend on us. So, how can we suddenly say: “Now, since Vatican II, there is a new ecclesiology”, and this is said by the Pope himself. It is unbelievable29.

(To be continued)

Translation by A. A.

1 – Abbé Louis Coache (1920-1994), Doctor of Canon Law, introduction to his book: Is Canon Law Kind? Beaumont-Pied-de-BÅ“uf (Moulin du Pin), 1986. The work is an introduction to Canon Law, augmented by a critical study of the new Code. It is a very easy read.

2 – Adrien Cance, Le Code de Droit Canonique, Paris, Gabalda, 1938, p. 8.

3 – Adrien Cance, ibid. , p. 9-10.

4 – Censure is a punishment that the Church inflicts on one of its subjects for his amendment, and of course for the common good. We will discuss this in connection with Book VI of the new Code.

5 – This preamble is inspired by the introduction to the work of Father Coache.

6 РA brief history of Canon Law can be found in the volume by Adrien Cance, Le Code de Droit canonique, Paris, Gabalda, 1938, vol. 1, pp. 6-21, which we have used. A more detailed study has been made by Raoul Naz in his Trait̩ de Droit Canonique, Paris, Letouzey et An̩, 1946, vol. 1, pp. 9-63.

7 – This word comes from the Greek didaskalia which means: teaching.

8 – For a more in-depth study, one can consult here the articles of F. Nau in the DTC: “Canons of the Apostles, Apostolic Constitutions, Didascalia of the Apostles”.

9 – Cardinal Gasparri, in the preface to the 1917 Code.

10 – St. Pius X, Bull Arduum Sane munus, March 19, 1904.

11 – A very valuable work, Canon Law Digest, by the American Father Bouscaren S.J., gathers together all the pontifical documents relating to Canon Law, from 1917 to 1983 (published in Milwaukee, USA, by The Bruce publishing company.

12 – He died of a sudden heart attack just before presenting the final work to Pope John Paul II.

13 – By comparison, the drafting of the 1917 Code had required only ten cardinals under the chairmanship of Cardinal Gasparri, assisted by a small number of consultors. The work lasted thirteen years.

14 – Italics in the original text.

15 – John Paul II, Apostolic Constitution Sacræ Disciplinæ Leges, Latin-French Code of Canon Law, Paris, Centurion/Cerf/Tardy, 1984, p. x.

16 – St. Pius X was indeed elected pope on August 4, 1903.

17 – St. Pius X, Motu Proprio Arduum Sane Munus, March 19, 1904, Documents Pontificaux de S.S. Saint Pius X, Publications du Courrier de Rome, 1993, volume 1, p. 152-153.

18 – Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 1, 9, 48.

19 – Italics in the original text.

20 – John Paul II, Apostolic Constitution Sacræ Disciplinæ Leges, 25 January 1983, reproduced in the work Code of Canon Law, Official Text and French Translation, Paris, Centurion/Cerf/Tardy, 1984, pp. IX ff.

21 – Roger Paralieu, Guide Pratique du Code de Droit canonique, Bourges, Tardy, 1985, p. 23. Preface by Cardinal Etchegaray.

22 – We will speak a little later about the influence of feminism in the Church today, in the section on institutes of consecrated life.

23 – Title IV is like a parenthesis which deals with personal prelatures, a novelty of Vatican II.

24 – On this expression Subsistit in, we can see, among others, the explanations of the Catholic Catechism of the Crisis in the Church, question 45 (in Le Sel de la terre 51, p. 19-20).

25 – So it was under Pope Pius XI. Modernism was acting in a subterranean way, waiting to show itself in the open during the Council.

26 – “The word “connection” means that there is some imperfect fellowship in Christ” (book note).

27 – “The word ordination means that there is some still more imperfect communion in the same God or about the same” (book note).

28 – Joseph Ratzinger, Église, Å’cuménisme et Politique, Paris, Fayard, 1987, p. 27. To deepen this new conception of the Church, one can refer to the article by Brother Pierre-Marie o.p. “Comparative Ecclesiology”, published in Le Sel de la terre 97, Summer 2016.

29 РArchbishop Lefebvre, spiritual conference of March 17, 1986 in Ec̫ne (in CD #2, The Holy Church).

News From Rome

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News From Rome

Published in “Le Sel de la terre†120

1. The March 25, 2022, Consecration

* What Did Our Lady of Fatima Ask?

“God wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If you do what I am going to tell you, many souls will be saved and we will have peace. […] I will ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart and the reparative Communion on first Saturdays.

“If my demands are heeded, Russia will convert and there will be peace.

“Otherwise, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions against the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, several nations will be annihilated.

“In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, it will convert, and a certain time of peace will be granted to the world1.

“The moment has come when God asks the Holy Father to make, in union with all the bishops of the world, the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart. He promises to save her by this means2.â€

Sister Lucia’s commentary:

God wills the consecration of Russia, and of Russia alone, without any addition, because Russia is a vast, well-circumscribed territory, and her conversion will be noticed, thus bringing the proof of what can be obtained by consecration to the Heart Immaculate of Mary3.

* What Did Pope Francis Do On March 25, 2022?

Pope Francis consecrated: 1) his person, 2) all of humanity, 3) Russia, 4) and Ukraine, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

It is, of course, not a bad thing in itself, even if one can deplore the long globalist and ecological text which preceded the formula of consecration. However, according to Sister Lucy’s indications, this does not entirely respond to Our Lady’s requests, since the consecration focused more on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict than on Russia itself. The letter addressed by Pope Francis to all the bishops of the world asking them to join in the consecration does not mention the requests of Our Lady—nor the consecration of Russia, nor the devotion of the first Saturdays—but says:

[…] Also welcoming many requests from the People of God, I wish to entrust, in a special way, the nations in conflict to Our Lady. As I said Sunday at the end of the Angelus prayer, March 25, Solemnity of the Annunciation, I intend to perform a solemn Act of consecration of humanity, and particularly of Russia and Ukraine, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary4.

Let us recall that the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary carried out by Pius XII in 1942 (with a text of another elevation, but which was not what Our Lady had requested) was immediately followed by a significant turn in the course of the hostilities – which prepared the end of the war – but did not stop the terrible progression of Communism: the Yalta agreements delivering Eastern Europe to the communists, Communists invading China and Southeast Asia, the purging in France, wars in Algeria and Vietnam, infiltration of the Church and its consequences, etc., and now the neo-Communism of globalism.

The consecration carried out on March 25, 2022, certainly goes further, but it does not yet fully meet the demands of Heaven.

Whatever the results—for there will certainly be some ‑ let us continue, for our part, to console Our Lady and to respond to her requests at our level: daily rosary, reparative Communion on the first Saturdays, offering of the sacrifices of our daily duties to her Immaculate Heart for the conversion of sinners.

2. The “Demos†Report: Assessment of a Pontificate

March 13, 2022, was the ninth anniversary of the election of Pope Francis ‑ who thus entered the tenth year of his pontificate.

His health difficulties having increased over the past year5 ‑ he has been 85 since December 17, 2021 ‑ Roman circles are starting to talk about his succession.

To this end, an anonymous memorandum, signed “Demos6â€, very severe on the current pontificate and which has the merit of lucidity, was addressed to the cardinals at the beginning of Lent. The text was published on the blog of the famous vaticanist Sandro Magister, who does not exclude that the very serious document emanates from a cardinal.

It is divided into two parts: “The Vatican todayâ€, and “The next conclaveâ€.

The commentators, from all schools – with the exception of Father Spadaro S.J., director of the Jesuit journal Civiltà Cattolica and very close to Francis – agree that this pontificate is disastrous from many points of view, a real catastrophe for the Church.

Here are the main excerpts from this memorandum, with some comments.

A. The Vatican Today

+. Previously, it was said: Roma locuta est, causa finita, Rome has spoken, the cause is finished.

Today we say: Roma loquitur, confusio augetur, Rome speaks, confusion increases.

[At the same time, some guilty silences:] the German synod speaks of homosexuality, of women priests, of Communion for the divorced; the papacy is silent. Cardinal Hollerich rejects Catholic teaching on sexuality; the papacy is silent. It is silent regarding the scandals and at the same time persecutes the traditional Mass.

+. The Christocentric dimension of the teaching is weakened, Christ is removed from the center. Rome itself seems confused about the importance of strict monotheism; she thus refers to a broader concept of divinity which is not quite pantheism, but which resembles a variant of Hindu pantheism. Demos denounces the cult rendered to the Pachamama, goddess of the earth [placed on the papal altar in Saint Peter, during the Amazon synod in 2019].

This judgment may seem excessive. It is not so. The Osservatore Romano, an unofficial organ of the Holy See, flattered itself with quoting the following reflection by Mrs. Vandana Shiva, Indian militant feminist, alternative Nobel Prize winner in 1993: “When I read the encyclical Laudato si’ by Pope Francis on ecology and sustainable development, I felt like reading our ancient Vedic texts, especially Atharvaveda, on our duty to respect the Earth and all its creatures.â€7

+. The change in personnel at the Academy for Life has had unheard-of consequences: some members justify assisted suicide, others support abortion.

+. The pope often rules by papal decrees which deprive those affected of any possibility of appeal.

+. The pope enjoys weak support among seminarians and young priests, and widespread division exists within the Vatican Curia.

+. The Vatican’s financial situation is serious. The last ten years have been in deficit. Before Covid, it was 20 million euros per year; since Covid, from 30 to 35 million per year, not counting the ongoing trials of ten people for financial malfeasance.

+. The political prestige of the Vatican is at an all-time low. The political influence of Pope Francis and the Vatican is negligible. Decisions and political orientations are limited to “political correctnessâ€.

B. The Next Conclave, and Guidelines for the Future Pope

+. The College of Cardinals has been weakened by eccentric appointments, and has not met since 2014 (eight years!) when they met to discuss Communion for remarried divorcees. Many cardinals do not know each other, which adds an extra dimension of unpredictability to the upcoming conclave.

+. Since Vatican II, Catholic authorities have often underestimated the hostile power of secularization, of the world, of the flesh, of the devil, especially in the West8; and overestimated the influence and power of the Catholic Church.

The Church is weaker than 50 years ago: the number of believers has declined, as has Mass attendance. Many religious orders are in decline or have disappeared.

+. The new pope’s first task will be to restore doctrinal clarity in matters of faith and morals and to ensure that the first criterion for the appointment of bishops is the acceptance of Apostolic Tradition.

To give doctrinal authority to national or continental synods would constitute a new danger for the unity of the Church, given, for example, that the German Church adopts doctrinal points of view which are not shared by the other Churches, and which are not compatible with Apostolic Tradition. If no correction of these heresies comes from Rome, the Church will be reduced to a vague federation of local Churches, with different visions, probably closer to an Anglican or Protestant model than an Orthodox one.

+. The possibility of an apostolic visitation within the Jesuit Order should be taken seriously. They face catastrophic numerical decline and moral decline.

+. We must look at the decline of Catholics and the expansion of Protestantism in South America. It was hardly mentioned at the Amazon synod.

+. Continuing financial difficulties will be a significant problem, though far less serious than the doctrinal and spiritual threats facing the Church, especially in Europe.

3. Deaf to Criticism, Francis Accelerates Reforms

Jean-Marie Guénois, a religious columnist at Le Figaro, cannot be called a traditionalist, but he is a realist, and generally very informed about what is happening in the Vatican. Here are the main excerpts from an article he published on Pope Francis’s reform plans9. We summarize his comments by quoting, most of the time, the journalist’s own words.

* Reform of the Curia

Since 2013, the pope has in view a vast reform of the curia. It will come into force on June 5, the day of Pentecost, already arousing a lot of internal resistance:

1. All ministries (congregations) are placed on the same plane, which means the abolition of hierarchies within Vatican congregations.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which was first, is even mentioned after the Dicastery for Evangelization and before a new Dicastery for Charity and Humanitarian Works.

Comment: Regarding the Dicastery for Evangelization, which replaced the illustrious missionary congregation of the Propaganda, it must be understood that the word “evangelization†is not here synonymous with mission. Modernists have hijacked the meaning of all words. The Pope’s appointment of Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle as head of this Dicastery since 2019 clearly indicates the radical change in direction.

In Corrispondenza Romana of December 11, 2019, historian Cristina Siccardi would write:

With the arrival of Cardinal Tagle, the original spirit of the missionary nature of the Church, so masterfully structured by the Propaganda Fide, will disappear; because the new prefect has a clearly conciliar physiognomy, and at the same time he is a follower of ecological and integral conversion, where the spirit of Assisi and the spirit of Abu Dhabi converge in the new humanism, in the new way of feeling universal brotherhood, where everyone can think about religion as they see fit. Tagle also shares with the pope a visceral attention to Mother Earth, and an unrealistic and haphazard reception of the migrating masses.

In this context, we understand that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is relegated to the background.

Let’s continue to summarize Jean-Marie Guénois:

2. Another key point imposed by the pope, but bitterly debated by important cardinals: a layman, man or woman, will henceforth be able to direct a Vatican Congregation. This office was previously reserved for bishops and cardinals for fundamental theological reasons relating to the very constitution of the Catholic Church10.

3. The curia is decapitated: the “Secretary of Stateâ€, who until then was like the pope’s prime minister, and patron of the Roman curia, loses this primacy and is no more than a secretary general with the sole function of coordinating the various Congregations, which clearly reinforces the power of the pope. He decides almost everything.

* Synodal Effervescence

The “synod†is indeed the great reform of Francis. It wants to instill a collective, democratic spirit, associating the faithful, men and women, at all levels of governance of the Catholic Church: parish, diocese, episcopal conference, Holy See.

For that purpose, he launched in 2021 a special synod on synodality, which is taking place in all the dioceses during the year 2022. A final and decisive session will take place in Rome in October 2023. It will vote on proposals that Francis intends to implement at the beginning of 2024.

Inspired by the governance of the Orthodox Churches but also that of Protestant Churches, this revolution is deeply worrying in Rome, in view of the ongoing experience of a local synod in the German Church, which competes with reformist audacity: marriage of priests, reception homosexual people, women’s place. The Vatican seems to have lost control over this initiative. This does not prevent Francis from having appointed as rapporteur for the next Roman synod a prelate supporting the German synod: Msgr. Jean-Claude Hollerich, archbishop of Luxembourg, a Jesuit he created cardinal in 2019. This arouses strong opposition within of the curia: in mid-March, Cardinal George Pell summoned the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to intervene officially against the words of Bishop Hollerich and the German Synod.

Comment: The name of Cardinal Hollerich is to be remembered, alongside that of Cardinal Tagle (supra), because he is a rising personality and is particularly revolutionary. During interviews granted to La Croix on January 20, and to Katolische Nachrichten Agentur on January 27, he declared to be particularly favorable to the priestly ordination of married men; to changing our way of seeing sexuality (“we had a rather repressed visionâ€) and of judging homosexuality (“the Church’s positions on the sinfulness of homosexuality are wrong; the time has come to change doctrineâ€); to Eucharistic Communion given to Protestants; the need to change the discourse on abortion because it is no longer followed, etc. He will be the reporter of the next Roman synod concluding all the national synods.

* Against Going Back

Last September, to Slovak Jesuits he met in Bratislava, the pope spoke of his “suffering†at seeing an “ideology of going backwards†take hold in the Church, because “freedom is frighteningâ€.

It was to put a stop to this “ideology of going backwards†that he promulgated his Motu Proprio on July 16, 2021, Traditionis Custodes against the traditional Mass, in order to stop the development of parishes according to the Tridentine rite. “I will continue on this pathâ€, he confided to the same Jesuits, rebelling against the young priests who, “barely ordainedâ€, ask the bishop for authorization “to celebrate in Latinâ€. They must be “landed on the earthâ€, he insisted.

And on April 21, 2022, receiving Bishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort and several French bishops, he confirmed that the priests of the Fraternity of Saint Peter could only celebrate the Tridentine rite in their homes [not in diocesan churches as has most often been the case until now], and should all agree to concelebrate in the new rite, at least once a year for the Chrism Mass. The noose is tightening11.

To top it off, on May 28, 2022, the pro-LGBT Bishop Bertram Maler, Bishop of Augsburg, conferred the diaconate on 10 seminarians from the Wigratzbad Seminary of the Society of St. Peter. The German branch Pro Missa Tridentina of the Una Voce Federation expressed its “surprise†by recalling that in June 2021 Bishop Maler declared on German state television that he was ready to bless homosexual unions. On the official website of the seminary, on May 28, we read the following press release from the authorities of the Fraternity of Saint Peter: “We are very grateful to Bishop Maler for his benevolence and his concern12â€.

Once again, Archbishop Lefebvre was clairvoyant:

This transfer of authority, that is what is serious, that is what is extremely serious. It is not enough to say: “We have not changed anything in practice13â€. This transfer is very serious, because the intention of these authorities is to destroy Tradition14.

The subjects do not make make the superiors, but the superiors make the subjects15.

We feel the absolute necessity of having ecclesiastical authorities who embrace our concerns and help us to guard against the spirit of Vatican II and the spirit of Assisi16.

4. Pope to Visit Kazakhstan for Congress of World Religions

The news is given by the Vatican News website17:

Pope Francis has expressed his intention to visit Kazakhstan on the occasion of the 7th Congress of Leaders [!] of World and Traditional Religions which will be held on September 14 and 15 in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan [formerly Astana].

The information, first given by the Kazakh presidency, was confirmed by the director of the Press Room of the Holy See, Matteo Bruni. Francis broached the subject during a video-conference interview with the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

The first Congress of World and Traditional Religions was held in Astana in 2003, inspired by the “Day of Prayer for Peace†convened in Assisi by John Paul II in January 2002, in order to reaffirm the positive contribution of the different religious traditions to dialogue and harmony between peoples and nations after the tensions following the attacks of September 11, 2001.

At this first congress, the Holy See was represented by the Slovak Cardinal Joseph Tomko, then president of the Pontifical Council for the Evangelization of Peoples. At successive congresses, the French cardinals Roger Etchegaray and Jean-Louis Tauran took the Vatican delegations.

The upcoming Seventh Interfaith Congress will be themed “The Role of World Leaders and Traditional Religions in the Socio-Spiritual Development of Humanity in the Post-Pandemic Period.â€

The SSPX News website comments18:

These Congresses are a copy of Assisi, a reinforced version, both in terms of the multifaceted participation of “religions†and the effacement of the Catholic Church, which finds itself drowned among the guests, rubbing shoulders with the false gods, and being lowered to their level. It is difficult to carry the insult further to the Incarnate Word, the only true God with the Father and the Holy Ghost.

May the trivialization of these meetings which lower the Catholic religion and its Founder never find us indifferent, but may we always protest vigorously to defend the honor of Christ and of our Mother the Church, his Spouse.

Quo vadis? Peter, Peter, where are you going?

It will be interesting to know the reaction of Bishop Schneider. The latter is not only the auxiliary bishop of Astana but also the secretary of the Kazakh Episcopal Conference19.

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Bishop Schneider concelebrating new Mass at the episcopal conference in Kazakhstan

November 20, 2019, Bishop Schneider signed a document, together with the other bishops, in which he declared:

The Bishops and Ordinaries of Kazakhstan hail the establishment of the Council of Traditional Christian Confessions of Kazakhstan, which was held on May 13, 2019, in the synod hall of the spiritual, cultural, and administrative center of the Kazakhstan metropolitan district of the Russian Orthodox Church of the city of Nur-Sultan20.

On January 13, 2020, he personally participated in the ecumenical meeting of this council. The official website of the Catholic Church of Kazakhstan issued a statement:

image

On May 13, an important step was taken towards a real dialogue between the Christian denominations in Kazakhstan: the Council of Traditional Christian Denominations was created, which includes the Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran churches. And today, January 13, 2020, the first official meeting of the Council was held in the spiritual and cultural center of the metropolitan district of Nur-Sultan, which was attended by a large delegation from the Catholic Church, which included the Nuncio Apostolic to the Republic of Kazakhstan, Archbishop Francis Assisi Chullikatt, president of the Catholic Episcopal Conference of Kazakhstan and bishop of the Holy Trinity diocese in Almaty, […] the Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Santa Maria in Astana, Athanasius Schneider; […]

The importance of “awakening religious feelings in the hearts of new generations†was also highlighted as one of the ways to deal with “individualistic, selfish and conflicting tendencies, as well as blind radicalism and extremismâ€. In addition to the above, the Council has set itself many other objectives arising from these intentions. To achieve these goals, the Council “in cooperation with other traditional religions of the world, within the framework of the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, established by First President Nursultan Nazarbayev, intends to promote fraternal dialogue and solidarity between religions and cultures as a concrete and effective contribution to support the creation of a universal family based on human, moral, spiritual values, as well as on fundamental and inviolable principlesâ€21.

5. The Pyramid of Peace in Astana

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We read on the site the official tourism site of Astana the following text that speaks for itself22:

The Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, also translated as Pyramid of Peace and Accord, is a 253 ft tall building in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. The structure was built by Sembol Construction at a cost of 8.74 billion Kazakh tenge (about $58 million) and was opened in late 2006.

The pyramid part of the building is 203 ft. high and rests on a block of earth 40 ft. high. […] The structure is made up of five “levels†of triangles, each triangle measuring 39 ft. on a side. […] Engineers had to design the building to resist expansion and contraction due to temperature variations of over 144 F, from -40 F to over 104 F—causing the building to expand up to 1 ft.

The Pyramid was specifically built to house the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions. It contains accommodations for different religions: Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism, and other beliefs. It also houses a 1,500-seat opera house, a national museum of culture, a new “university of civilizationâ€, a library and a research center on ethnic and geographical groups of Kazakhstan. […] The building is intended as a global center for religious understanding, the renunciation of violence, and the promotion of faith and human equality.

The Pyramid of Peace expresses the spirit of Kazakhstan, where cultures, traditions and representatives of various nationalities coexist in peace, harmony and agreement. Bathed in the glow of gold and pale blue glass (colors taken from the flag of Kazakhstan), 200 delegates from the world’s major religions and faiths will meet every three years in a circular chamber—inspired by the meeting room of the Security Council United Nations in New York.

Translation by A.A.

1 — July 13, 1917; confirmed by Our Lord in May and June 1930.

2 — June 29, 1929.

3 — Sister Lucia to Bishop Hnilica, May 14, 1982; remarks reported by Msgr. Hnilica to Brother François de Marie des Anges (of the CRC), during an interview on November 10, 1982, and reported by the said brother in two works: in Jean-Paul 1er le pape du secret, CRC, 2007, p. 423 and in Fatima, salvation of the world, CRC, 2007, p. 345.

4 — Letter from Pope Francis to bishops around the world, March 23, 2022.

5 — Very heavy surgery on the intestines on July 16, 2021 (acute diverticulitis) forcing him to a very strict diet; acute inflammation of the ligaments of the right knee (gonalgia), a direct consequence of a structural problem of sciatica in the hip which he must correct with every step. He sometimes has to get help to walk, and even uses a wheelchair. Surgery would be too risky (source: Jean-Marie Guénois, article reported below).

6 — A name meaning “people†in Greek.

7 — Osservatore Romano of 1 December 2020, n° 48, p. 8.

8 — This was John XXIII’s great illusion at the opening of the Council: there are no more enemies, no more combat (Editor’s note).

9 — http://ilsismografo.blogspot.com/2022/05/vaticano-conteste-sourd-aux-critiques.html

10 ‑ It must even be said that it is an attack on the divine constitution of the Church (Editor’s note).

11 — https://laportelatine.org/actualite/traditionis-custodes-enieme-precision-et-confusion.

12 — References: Medias-Presse-Info as of May 8, 2022 (announcing the ordination), and the “Official Page†of Wigratzbad Seminary as of May 28, confirming that the ordination took place.

13 — That is what all those who joined at the start say to justify themselves.

14 — Archbishop Lefebvre, Conference at Écône on October 8, 1988.

15 — Archbishop Lefebvre, in Fideliter n° 70, p. 6.

16 — Archbishop Lefebvre, Letter to Pope John Paul II, June 2, 1988.

17—https://www.vaticannews.va/fr/pape/news/2022-04/francois-kazakhstan-pour-le-congres-religions-mondiales.html

18—https://fsspx.news/fr/news-events/news/le-pape-se-rendra-au-kazakhstan-pour-le-congres-des-religions-mondiales-74065.

19— He was elected for four years at the meeting of the episcopal conference in November 2019, so he will still be secretary when the pope comes.

20— November 20, 2019. https://catholic-kazakhstan.org/en/communique-of-the-38th-plenary-of-the-conference-of-catholic-bishops-of-kazakhstan/

21—https://catholic-kazakhstan.org/en/the-first-meeting-of-the-council-of-traditional-christian-confessions-this-year-held-in-nur-sultan/

22—https://www.astana-kazakhstan.net/attractions-2/culture-and-entertainment/palace-of-peace-and-reconciliation/

The Ladder of Paradise – Simple Method to Reach the Heights of Mystical Life

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The Ladder of Paradise

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Simple Method to Reach the Heights of Mystical Life

by Guigues the Carthusian

(XI Century)

We present here extracts of a text from the Middle Ages, published by “Les Éditions du Sel†in Avrillé, to raise your souls above the turmoils of this world, who rejected the Kingship of Our Lord. Spirituality is the strength of the Catholics in times of crisis.


I  The Four Degrees of the Spiritual Exercises

One day, while I was thinking about the exercises of the spiritual man, I suddenly saw four degrees: 1) reading, 2) meditation, 3) prayer, 4) contemplation.

This is the ladder of the contemplative souls, which takes them up from earth to Heaven.

It has few rungs: it is very high, however, and incredibly long. The base rests on the earth; the top surpasses the clouds and penetrates the depths of the Heavens. From these rungs the name, number, order and use are distinct. If one carefully studies their properties, functions and hierarchy, soon this careful study will seem short and easy, so useful and gentle will it be.

— Reading is the attentive study of Sacred Scripture, made by an applied mind.

— Meditation is the careful investigation, with the help of reason, of a hidden truth.

— Prayer is the elevation of the heart to God to ward off evil and obtain good.

— Contemplation is the elevation to God of the soul delighted in the savor of eternal joys.

**

Having defined the four rungs, let us look at the function of each of them.

The ineffable sweetness of the blessed life – reading seeks it, meditation finds it, prayer asks for it, contemplation savors it. This is the very word of the Lord: “Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to youâ€. Seek while reading, you will find while meditating. Knock while praying, you will enter while contemplating.

I would like to say that reading brings substantial food to the mouth, meditation grinds and chews it, prayer tastes it, and contemplation is the very sweetness that rejoices and makes you happy. Reading stops at the bark, meditation goes into the marrow, prayer expresses the desire, but contemplation revels in the savor of the sweetness obtained.

For a better understanding, here is an example among many others. I read the Gospel: “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see Godâ€; short maxim, but full of meaning, infinitely sweet. To the thirsty soul it offers itself like a bunch of grapes. The soul looks at it and says: this word will be good for me. Gather yourself my heart, try to understand and above all to find this purity. Oh how precious and desirable it must be, since it purifies those it inhabits, and has the promise of the divine vision – eternal life, since the Holy Scriptures never cease to praise it!

Then, the desire to understand better invades the soul: and it seizes the mystical bunch, it gathers it up, it crushes it, it puts it in the press, and it says to reason: look and seek what it is, tell me how one acquires this so precious and desirable purity of heart.

II  Meditation

The soul then approaches to meditate on the text. What then does attentive meditation do? It is not enough for it to approach: it penetrates the text, it goes to the bottom, it scrutinizes the hidden corners. And first of all, it notices that the Lord did not say: “Blessed are those who have a body, but a pure heartâ€, for it would be little to have hands free from evil works if the mind were stained with perverse thoughts. The Prophet had already said, “Who will climb the mountain of the Lord? Who will stand in his sanctuary? He who has innocent hands and a pure heart.†(Ps 23:3).

The meditation notes again what powerful desire the Prophet called this purity of heart, since he said in his prayer, “Lord, create in me a pure heart, for if iniquity is in my heart, the Lord will not be able to hear meâ€. With what care Job watched over this intimate purity, he who said: “With my eyes I made a pact not to think even of a virgin†(Job 31:1). This holy man had to close his eyes to useless things so that he could not see what he would unconsciously desire afterwards.

Having thus scrutinized purity of heart, one continues one’s meditation by examining the reward promised to him. O glorious and delectable reward! Contemplate the longed-for Face of the Lord, beautiful beyond all the beauty of the children of men! The Lord, no longer abject and vile in that appearance with which his mother in the Synagogue clothed him, but adorned with immortality, crowned with the diadem which his Father imposed on him on the day of his resurrection and glory, “the day which the Lord made“. And in his meditation, the soul thinks of how full that vision will be, how overflowing his joy will be… “I shall be filled with joy as I contemplate your glory, says the Prophet†(Ps 16:15).

Ah! What generous and abundant wine flows from the little grape! What a fire has been kindled by the spark! As she lays down on the anvil of meditation, the small mass of metal, that short text: “Blessed are those who are pure of heart, for they shall see Godâ€. And how much more would it lengthen if it were worked by an experienced servant of God! Yes, the well is deep, but, poor novice, I was only able to draw from it a few droplets.

**

What will she do, the poor soul, burning with the desire of this purity that she cannot attain? The more it seeks it, the more it thirsts for it; the more it thinks about it, the more it suffers from not possessing it, for meditation excites the desire for this innocence without giving it water. No, it is neither reading nor meditation that makes one savor its sweetness: it must be given from above.

The wicked as well as the good read and meditate; pagan philosophers, guided by reason, have glimpsed the sovereign Good, but because “knowing God, they did not glorify him as God†(Rom 1:21), and proud of their strength, they said: “We will exalt our tongue, our goods are ours, who is our master?†(Ps 11:5) They did not deserve to find what they had glimpsed. “Their thoughts vanished†(Rom 1:21) and “all their wisdom was devoured†(Ps 106:27), for it came from a human source, not from that Spirit who alone gives true wisdom, which is that savory knowledge which, uniting itself to the soul, pours out priceless sweetness, joy and comfort, and of which it is written: Wisdom does not enter the soul that wants evil. It proceeds from God alone. The Lord has entrusted to many the office of baptism, to few the power to forgive sins, he has reserved this power for himself. As St. John says of him, “This is He who baptizes,” so we can say: this is He who alone gives the savory wisdom that enables the soul to taste it. The text is offered to many, but few receive wisdom. The Lord infuses it to whom He will and how He will.

III  Prayer

The soul understood: this knowledge so longed for, this sweet experience, it will never reach them by its own strength alone; the more its heart rushes forward, the more God appears to it. Then it humbles itself and takes refuge in prayer.

O my Lord, whom only pure hearts can see, I have sought, through reading and meditation, true purity so that I may become able to know you a little. “I have sought your face, O my Lord, I have desired to see Thy adorable Face†(Ps 26:8). “For a long time I meditated in my heart and in my meditation a fire was kindled, the desire to know Thou more and more†(Ps 38:4). When you break the bread of Scripture, I already know you, but the more I know you, O my Lord, the more I want to know you, not only in the crust of the letter, but in the reality of union. And this gift, O my Lord, I implore, not by my merits, but by your mercy. It is true, I am an unworthy sinner, but don’t the little dogs themselves eat the crumbs that have fallen from the master’s table? To my distressed soul, O God, give a deposit on the promised inheritance, at least a drop of heavenly dew to quench my thirst, for I burn with love, O my Lord.

IV  Contemplation

With such ardent words, the soul inflames its desire and calls the Bridegroom by incantation of tenderness. And the Bridegroom, Whose gaze rests on the just and whose ears are so attentive to their prayers that He does not even wait for them to be fully expressed, the Bridegroom suddenly interrupts this prayer: He comes to the greedy soul, He flows into it, moistened with the heavenly dew, anointed with precious perfumes; He restores the tired soul; He feeds it, fainting; He waters it, parched; He makes it forget the earth, and from His presence He detaches it from everything, marvelously He strengthens it, invigorates it and intoxicates it.

In certain coarse acts, the soul is so strongly chained by lust that it loses its reason and the whole man becomes carnal. In this sublime contemplation, on the contrary, the instincts of the body are so consumed and absorbed by the soul that the flesh no longer fights the spirit in any way, and man becomes all spiritual.


V  What Are the Signs That We Recognize the Coming of the Holy Ghost

O my Lord, how will I know the time of this visit? At what sign will I recognize Your coming? Are sighs and tears the messengers and witnesses of this consoling joy? What indeed is the relationship between consolation and sighs, joy and tears? But can we say that they are tears? Is it not rather the intimate dew poured from above, overflowing, to purify the inner man and overflowing? In baptism the external ablution signifies and operates the internal purification of the child: here, on the contrary, the intimate purification precedes the external ablution and is manifested through it. O happy tears, new baptism of the soul through which the fire of sins is extinguished! “Blessed are thou who weep, thus you will laugh†(Mt 5:5).

In these tears, O my soul, acknowledge your Bridegroom, unite yourself to your desire. To His torrent of delights intoxicate yourself, suckle with the milk and honey of His consolation. These sighs and tears are the marvelous gifts of the Bridegroom, the drink that He measures out for the day and night, the bread that strengthens thy heart, sweeter in its bitterness than the honeycomb.

O Lord Jesus, if they are so sweet, the tears that flow from a heart that desires you, what will be the joy of a soul to whom You show Yourself in the clear eternal vision! If it is so sweet to weep while desiring you, what a delight it is to enjoy you!

But why desecrate before all, these intimate secrets? Why in banal words try to translate inexpressible tenderness? One who has not experienced them, will not understand. One reads these mysterious colloquies only from the book of experience, or is instructed in them only by divine action. The page is closed, insipid the book to the one whose heart does not know how to illuminate the external letter with the sense of intimate experience.

VI  The Spouse Retires for a While Shut Up, My Soul, You’re Talking Too Much

It was good up there, with Peter and John, contemplating the glory of the Bridegroom. Oh, stay with Him for a long time, and if He had wanted to, raise not two or three tents, but only one to dwell in together in His joy.

But already the Bridegroom cried out, “Let me go, behold, the dawn is coming upâ€: you have received the bright grace and the visit so longed for. And He blesses you, and like the angel to Jacob in the past, He mortifies the sinew of your thigh (Gn. 32:25,31), He changes your name from Jacob to Israel, and behold, He seems to withdraw. The long-awaited Bridegroom quickly hides Himself, the vision of contemplation fades away, His sweetness vanishes.

But He, the Bridegroom, remains present in your heart and governs it, always.

*

Fear not, O wife, do not despair and do not think yourself despised if sometimes your Bridegroom veils His face. All this is for your own good; both His departure and His coming are a gain. It is for your sake that He comes and for your sake that He withdraws. He comes to comfort you, He withdraws to guard you, lest, intoxicated with His sweet presence, you should be proud. If the Bridegroom were always substantially present, would you not be tempted to despise your companions and to believe that this presence is due to you, when it is a pure gift granted by the Bridegroom, to whom He wills and when He wills, over which you have no right? The proverb says: “Familiarity breeds contempt“. To avoid this disrespectful familiarity He shuns you. Absent, you desire Him more strongly; your desire makes you seek Him more ardently, and your expectation more tenderly finds it.

And then, if consolation were here on earth all the time – though beside eternal glory it is enigma and shadow – we would perhaps believe that we have here the permanent city and we would look less for the future City. Oh, no, let us not take exile for the fatherland, and the deposit for the inheritance.

The Bridegroom comes, He goes, consoling, desolating; He lets us taste a little of His ineffable sweetness; but before it enters you, He shuns, He is gone. Now this is to teach us to fly to the Lord. Like the eagle, He spreads his wings widely over us, and provokes us to soar. And He said, “You have tasted a little of the sweetness of my gentleness. Would you like to eat some? Run, fly, to my perfumes, lift up your hearts to the top, where I am at the right hand of the Father, where you will see Me, no longer as a figure or enigma, but face to face, in the full, total joy that no one will ever be able to take from youâ€.

**

Spouse of Christ, understand this well: when the Bridegroom retires, He is not far from you. You no longer see Him, but He keeps looking at you. You can never escape His sight, ever. His messengers, the angels, were spying on your life when He hid, and they would soon have accused you if they saw you light and unclean. He is jealous, the Bridegroom, and if your soul would admit another love and seek to please someone, He would immediately forsake you to unite with the more faithful virgins. He is delicate, noble, rich, the most beautiful of the children of men: therefore he wants in His wife [your soul] all beauty, and if He sees in you a stain or a wrinkle, He will turn away His eyes, for He cannot suffer any impurity. Therefore be chaste, reverent, and humble before Him, and you shall receive His visit often.

***

I got carried away with my speech, I was too long. But how can I resist the training of such a fertile and gentle subject? These beautiful things have captivated me. But let’s summarize for clarity:

All the degrees on our scale stand together and depend on each other:

Reading is the foundation; it provides the material and commits you to meditation.

Meditation carefully searches for what to desire, it digs and uncovers the desired treasure; but unable to grasp it, it excites us to pray.

Prayer, rising with all its strength to the Lord, asks for the desirable treasure of contemplation.

Finally, contemplation comes to reward the work of her three sisters and intoxicates the altered soul of God with the sweet heavenly dew.

Reading is therefore an external exercise. It is the level of the beginners.

Meditation, an inner act of the intelligence. It is the rung of those who progress.

Prayer, the action of a soul full of desire. It is the rung of those who are God’s.

Contemplation surpasses all feeling and knowledge. It is the rung of the blessed.

VII  Reading, Meditation, Prayer and Contemplation Support Each Other

Reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation are so strongly linked to each other, and help each other so much that the first are of no use without the last, and that one never, or by great exception, reaches the latter only by passing through the latter. What is the use of spending our time reading the lives and writings of the saints if, in meditating and ruminating on them, we do not draw the juice from them, and make it our own and go down to the depths of our hearts? Vain will be our readings, if we do not take care to compare our lives with those of the saints and if we allow ourselves to be carried away by the curiosity of reading rather than by the desire to imitate their examples.

On the other hand, how can we keep on the right path and avoid errors or childishness, how can we remain within the just limits set by our fathers without serious reading or learned teaching? For in the term of reading we understand teaching; is it not commonly said: the book I read, although sometimes it was received through the teaching of a master?

In the same way, it will be vain to meditate on one of our duties, if it is not completed and strengthened by the prayer that obtains the grace to fulfill that duty, for “every exquisite gift, every perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights†(Jac. 1:17), without whom we can do nothing. He works in us, but not entirely without us, for, says the Apostle (I Cor. 3:9): “we are cooperators with Godâ€. He deigns to take us as helpers of His works and, when He knocks at the door, He asks us to open to Him the secret of our will and consent.

To the Samaritan woman the Savior asked for this will, when He said to her: “Call your husbandâ€; that is to say, here is my grace; you, apply your free will. He excited her to prayer by saying: “If you knew the gift of God and the one who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would certainly ask Him for the living waterâ€. For this woman, as though instructed by meditation, said in her heart, “This water would be good for meâ€; and inflamed with longing, she began to pray: “O Lord, give me this water that I may never thirst again and come to this wellâ€. The divine word heard, invited her heart to meditate, and then to pray. How would she have been inclined to pray if the meditation had not ignited her desire? And, on the other hand, what use would it have been to her to see spiritual goods in meditation if she had not obtained them through prayer?

What, then, is fruitful meditation? That which blossoms in fervent prayer, which almost ordinarily obtains the most suave contemplation.

*

Thus, without meditation, reading will be arid.

Without reading, meditation will be full of errors.

Without meditation, prayer will be lukewarm.

Without prayer, meditation will be unfruitful and vain.

When prayer and devotion are united, they obtain contemplation. On the contrary, it would be a rare exception and even a miracle to obtain contemplation without prayer.

The Lord, whose power is infinite and whose mercy marks all His works, can well turn stones into children of Abraham, by forcing hard and rebellious hearts to want good. A prodigy of His grace: He pulls the bull by the horns, as one says vulgarly, when, unexpectedly, He melts with a quick blow in the soul. He is the sovereign Master; and so He did in Saint Paul and in a few other chosen ones. But we must not wait for such prodigies and tempt God. Let us do what is asked of us: let us read and meditate on the divine Law, let us pray to the Lord to help so much weakness, to look at so much misery. “Ask and you will receive, He Himself told us, seek and you will find knock and you will be opened. The kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and it is the violent who prevail†(Mt 7:7; 11:12).

**

Blessed is he who, detached from creatures, is constantly practicing to climb these four degrees! Blessed is he who winds all he possesses to acquire the field where the treasure so desirable of contemplation lies, and to taste how sweet the Lord is! Applied to the first degree, prudent to the second, fervent to the third, delighted to the last, of virtue in virtue he ascends in his heart the steps that lead him to the vision of the Lord in Sion. Blessed at last is he who can stop at the top, if only for a moment, and say: I taste the grace of the Lord; behold, with Peter and John on the mountain I contemplate His glory; I have gone with Jacob to Rachel’s caresses.

But let him take heed, this happy one, not to choose sadly from the heavenly contemplation in the darkness of the abyss, from the divine vision in the worldly vanities and impure fancies of the flesh.

The poor human soul is weak, it cannot sustain for long the radiant splendor of the Truth: it will therefore be necessary for it to descend one or two degrees and rest quietly in one or the other, according to her will or to the graces she receives, absolutely remaining as near from God as possible.

O sad condition of human weakness! Reason and Holy Scripture agree that these four degrees lead to perfection, and that spiritual men must work to practice them: but who does this? A lot begin. A few goes to the end. May God permit us to belong to this few number of souls!

VIII  Of the Soul That Loses the Grace of Contemplation

Four obstacles can prevent us from climbing these degrees: 1) inevitable necessity, 2) the usefulness of a good work, 3) human weakness, 4) worldly vanity.

The first is excusable; the second, acceptable; the third, pitiful; the fourth, guilty.

Yes, for him who departs from his holy resolution out of worldly vanity, it would be better to have always ignored the glory of God than to refuse it after having known it. How can one excuse such a fault? To this unfaithful person the Lord reproves justly: “What could I have done that I did not do for you?†(Is 5:4). You were nothing, I gave you being; a sinner and slave of the devil, I redeemed you; with the ungodly you wandered through the world, I took you back by choice of love, I gave you My grace and established you in My presence; in your heart I chose My dwelling place: and you despised Me; My invitations, My love, I in the end. You threw everything away to run after your lusts.

O God, infinitely good, sweet, gentle; tender friend and cautious adviser: how foolish and foolhardy is he who repels You and drives from his heart such a humble and compassionate guest! Wretched and damnable exchange: drive out his Creator to hospitalize impure and perverse thoughts; deliver the dear, closed retreat of the Holy Ghost, still embalmed with the recent heavenly joys, to low thoughts and sin; profane with adulterous desires the still warm remains of the Bridegroom. O shocking ungodliness! Those ears which a short while ago listened to the colloquies that man cannot repeat, are now filled with lies and calumnies; those eyes, purified by holy tears, are pleasing to vanities; those lips barely cease to sing the divine epithalam and the burning canticles of love which united the husband and the wife introduced into the mystical cellar, and there they say vanities, trickery and slander. O Lord, preserve us from such falls!

If, however, human weakness in this misfortune causes you to fall, do not despair, frail soul; no, never despair, but run to the gentle Physician who “raises from the ground the needy and the poor from their dunghill†(Ps 112:7). He does not want the sinner to die. He will help you and heal you.

Conclusion

I have to close my letter. I pray the Lord to weaken today, to remove tomorrow from our soul every obstacle to contemplation. May He lead us from virtue to virtue to the top of the mysterious ladder to the vision of the Divinity in Sion. There, it is no longer drip by drip and intermittently that His chosen ones will taste the sweetness of this divine contemplation; but always flooded by this torrent of joy, they will possess forever the joy that no one can take away, the immutable peace, the peace in Him! O Gervais, my brother, when by the grace of the Lord you have reached the top of the mysterious ladder, remember me, and in your happiness, pray for me. Let the curtain be drawn to you, and let Him who hears say: Come!

The end

Two Sermons of His Excellency Bp Gerardo Zendejas

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1. Sermon of His Excellency Bp Gerardo Zendejas

at Ordination of three Subdeacons

for the Society of the Apostles of Jesus and Mary

in the church of the Dominicans in Avrillé (France)

April 2, 2022

 

M;. l’abbé Paul ROUSSEAU

M. l’abbé Etienne PEREZ

M. l’abbé Emeric BLANCHET

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Your Excellency [Bp Faure], Rev. Fathers, Sisters, Seminarians, Brethren,

It is a great honor to be here among all of you, on this singular occasion for giving the first major order within the frame of the Sacrament of the Holy Orders, for the purpose of continuing the priestly Crusade launched to preserve the Traditional Roman Rite of Ordinations by our venerable Founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

As a matter of fact, in the midst of today’s darkness which is confusing minds and hearts, we are witnessing how the Operation Survival worked out in 1988 by the Archbishop still continues to be a spring source, inspiring young men to come over into the ranks of the Traditional Catholic priesthood. Here and now we have three candidates willing to receive the subdiaconate and not long from today to pursue their priestly Ordination.

To become a priest needs much courage and determination in your part, but it essentially needs the grace of God from above – gratia supponit naturam. Hence, there is a need to cooperate with the grace of God in the mystery between what is Divine and what is human. Certainly, clergy and laity today look at the human part with all its struggles and implore the Divine Grace to recapitulate all things in Christ. In that sense, Pius XII said that “if at times there appears in the Church something that indicates the weakness of our human nature, it should not be attributed to her essential foundation, but rather to that regrettable inclination to evil found in each individual which its Divine Founder allows even at times in the most exalted members of His Mystical Body, FOR THE PURPOSE OF TESTING THE VIRTUE OF THE SHEPHERDS no less than of the flocks…. That is not a reason why we should lessen our love for the Church but rather a reason why we should increase our devotion to Her members†(Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943).

We certainly have to acknowledge, and to be aware of the tragic situation in which our Catholic Faith is going through, leading by heresies into a general apostasy. One cannot close his eyes in witnessing today’s crisis in the world and within the Church. The realities are right there in front of us; we witness to all of the horrible things that are happening in the Holy place, in the Holy of the Holies, as well as in public lives of the sacred ministers who celebrate the holy sacrifice of the Mass, the veritable holocaust of Calvary. The more time goes by, the more the errors with their blasphemies are spreading, and the more not only the faithful but also priests are losing the practicing of Catholic Faith by exercising the coldness of Charity. “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?†(Luke, 18)

Here moreover are some words said by Archbishop Lefebvre: “Right now we do not have the happiness of living in peace and in total confidence in the hierarchy. We are caught up in a great disorder but it is our duty to maintain the most appropriate attitude, so we don’t go astray and don’t hold in our hearts certain sentiments and orientations that would lead us straight out of the Church†(Ecône, September 7, 1981).

Indeed, the Church is divine; She will always possess the eternal Truth. She does objectively communicate to us divine realities, in particular the Holy Eucharist. Yes, the Church is divine, but She is also human. On the contrary, the Church is made up of sinful men. It is true for instance that the Pope has a share in the divinity of the Church to a certain degree by the charism of the Infallibility, yet he remains ‑ outside of that infallible quality ‑ a man entangled with the consequences of the original sin which could prompt him to sin. Then, it is the same tragic scenario for any other churchman who has received the Sacrament of the Holy Orders.

Are we supposed to separate then ourselves from the Roman Catholic Church?

Are we supposed to attach ourselves one by one directly to our Lord Jesus Christ in order to belong to any Christian church but without Christ Himself?

In spite of all difficulties and adversities inflicted against the Church, and in the midst of all persecutions that religious and laity are suffering, even from those who have authority in the Church, let us not abandon the Roman Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ.

We want to continue the Tradition in the Church by transmitting the Royal Priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ, by celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass of Saint Pius V, by administering and receiving the true Sacraments, by believing the Latin Bible, by teaching the true and perennial Catechism of Trent, by learning the teachings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and by practicing the Canon Law without any doctrinal contamination fostered since the Second Vatican Council.

Absolutely, for that end Archbishop said, “one thing only is necessary for the continuation of the Catholic Church: bishops who are fully Catholic, without the least compromise with error, who found seminaries where young aspirants may be nourished on the milk of true doctrine, placing our Lord Jesus Christ in the center of their minds, of their wills, of their hearts; a lively faith, a profound charity, a boundless devotion will unite them to our Lord; like Saint Paul they will ask us to pray for them, so that they might advance in the knowledge and the wisdom of the MYSTERIUM CHRISTI, where all the divine treasure is to be found†(Spiritual Journey, p 9).

*

Now let me say some words for you who are receiving the first of the three great Orders: the subdiaconate.

The Council of Trent registered it among the major Orders; it confers the right to arrange everything in the sanctuary, and to assist the priest at the altar. As subdeacons you are going to come into the Holy of the Holies, to the Sanctuary where the Blessed Sacrament is adored. That’s why in this ceremony, coming forward with a step, you are going to pledge yourself to the celibacy which will give you a perpetual honor; and to the recitation of the Breviary, which will make you an official churchman of public prayer.

1.‑  CELIBACY

In ecclesiastical law, from the beginning of the ordination to the subdiaconate, the bishop warns the candidates that perpetual chastity is imposed upon them and that no one may be admitted to this holy order without the sincere will to accept celibacy (Canon 132).

The ceremonial of the Subdiaconate remarks the holiness of the priesthood, which is an inward holiness. It finds concrete expression in the decision to give oneself completely to Jesus-Christ and to leave the world, to abandon all the cares of the world.

My dear subdeacons, celibacy is like a shining beam of light coming from the sublimity of Our Lord reflecting on you. With holding nothing back, you are desiring to belong entirely to almighty God. Nothing manifests the holiness of the Church like this commitment. Indeed, the more the virtue of purity is present in your soul, the stronger it will be the crystal integrity of the doctrine in your thoughts, words, and deeds, because you are going to participate in the great mystery of God in a manner even more effective and profound.

In true, the essential element for consecrating priestly celibacy is the same reason for which the most Blessed Virgin herself remained a virgin. It was fitting that she remained a virgin because she had carried our Lord in her womb. The priest also brings God to earth by the words which he pronounces at the consecration when saying Mass. He has such closeness to God, who is spiritual Being, a Spirit above all, that it is good and just and eminently fitting that the Priest should be a virgin and to remain celibate. This is the essential element for his chastity.

More than ever, the public presence of the religious habits in today’s filthy chaos, is in much need, in particular from those who have received major Orders or have pronounced religious vows. That’s why it is a divine honor to belong to the Holy Trinity in this particular manner through the incredulity of today’s world imbued in its satanic hedonism. Doubtless to say that the grace of God is always ready to protect us, as Saint Augustine explained that God does not ask us anything impossible, in response to Him he said, “ask me whatever You want but give that grace to do so.â€

2.‑ BREVIARY

In order to allow the subdeacons to raise their mind regularly to God, the Church commands them to recite the breviary, under the penalty of Mortal sin (Canon 135). Their new state demands of them a profound spirit of faith and the practice not only of purity of body but also of soul.

Saint Joseph of Cupertino, a Franciscan friar, was once asked by a bishop the best means to sanctify his clergy,  “Get your priests ‑ he said ‑ to recite the Divine Office with attention and to celebrate Mass with devotion. These two exercises are enough to make them perfect.â€

What is the Breviary? It is an admirable compendium of all Christian truths; it is a magnificent picture in which, one by one, the mysteries of our Faith come into view and how the great Christians have been produced; it is THE CATHOLIC PRAYER; it is the praising united with both the Triumphant Church and the Militant Church, with the Suffering Church; it is the ETERNAL PRAYER ‑ Jesus Christ Yesterday, Today, and the same Forever.

Indeed, in reciting the Breviary what do you do? You present yourself as one chosen by the whole Church to adore God, to praise Him, to give Him thanks and to entreat with Him of the Eternal interests of souls in interceding for all, as an ambassador from Heaven.

And how should you recite the Breviary? Digne, Attente, et Devote. Saint Augustine said, “What do you profit with clashing words if your heart is silently careless? It should be with Dignity, with Attention and with Devotionâ€.

So, from today onward, you are going to carry the prayer of the whole Church through your Breviary, and you are going to pray every day, until the end of your life, to ask God to spread His graces over the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. This is a necessity of the Church ‑ the prayer of the validly ordained priest. In manifesting your spirit of prayer, you will be rejoicing the Church; you will be rejoicing the hearts of the faithful, and you will inhabit the shrine of the Holy Trinity.

**

Lastly, let us remember that some of those who have received Majors Orders have abandoned our Lord and His true Church; some others have faithfully remained to their religious duties for the greater Glory of God and the eternal salvation of many souls. What group you would like to be accounted in?

Therefore, let’s take care of our duties because to the extent that we move away from our Lord Jesus Christ, then dissensions certainly would arise, and hatred, and divisions, and wars among the faithful and priests, among the individuals and countries, within and without the Church. So, we must not give into discouragement ‑ Oportet Illum regnare, He Must Reign, said Saint Paul; Viva Cristo Rey, said the Cristeros in offering their lives to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us not faint in the combat we are waging for Christ the King, in order to contribute for the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in Heaven, for the preservation of the priesthood of Our Lord Jesus-Christ according to the Roman Latin Rite, against the Communist and Globalist Agenda with their satanic idols and pluralist Green Religion of mother earth and Pachamama.

On the contrary, We should contribute in our level but with all our strength, to the restoring of the kingdom of Our Lord Jesus-Christ over hearts, over souls, families, nations… May Christian civilization be restored, and for that purpose we ask the intercession of Saint Pius X in order to re-enkindle the fire and zeal of the tribe of Judah of the New Testament, as he named after this beloved country of France.

And above all, let’s have a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, who in several times has manifested her maternal protection, as She did at “Rue du Bacâ€, in the Apparition of the Miraculous Medal: Oh Mary conceived without Original Sin, Pray for us who have recourse to Thee. Amen.

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2. Sermon of His Excellency Bp Gerardo Zendejas

for the ordination of a Deacon at the Seminary of

the Society of the Apostles of Jesus and Mary

in Morannes (France)

April 9, 2022

 

 

M. l’abbé Paul ROUSSEAU

 

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Dear confreres in the priesthood, seminarians and sisters, dear faithful.

We are gathered in the chapel of the Seminary of Saint Louis-Marie to celebrate this ceremony of ordination to the diaconate. In today’s particular circumstances, we find ourselves in the Alma Mater of the Congregation of the Apostles of Jesus and Mary — in fact, we find ourselves in the heart of the Resistance, so to speak, where the vital principles for the fight of our Faith are forged against the pluralistic modernism, impregnated with political humanism, and by which the churchmen are leading to the apostasy of the faith, resulting in the abandonment of Catholic civilization.

We absolutely oppose to the masonic principles of the Second Vatican Council, as Archbishop Lefebvre has given us not only the means but also the example to continue the royalty of the sacred priesthood instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ.

We must continue to defend our Faith in spite of the reigning chaos in which we live. Yes, we must continue to be faithful even alongside and in the battle line where many priests are truly remarkable, either for their fidelity in practicing the priesthood, or for their tepidity in practicing their consecrated priestly life which is at last going to be the driving force in abandoning the doctrine of the Deposit of the Faith.

No doubt these principles of action were also experienced in the ministry of the Apostles after the ordination of the seven deacons — Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, Nicholas (Acts 6:5-6). The history of the Church teaches us about those events that followed the ordination of the first deacons. Hence, we should at least remember two things: the first is the greatness of St. Stephen due to his faithfulness to the Holy Ghost, and the second is the downfall of Nicholas, who inoculated the virus of the plague of the Nicolaitan heresy, characterized by committing sins against the flesh (and all impurities) in spite of their consecrated life to God, as it is said in the book of the Apocalypses (Rev. 2).

Certainly, the living testimony of the Faith according to the revealed Truth is maintained by the practice of the Christian virtues. This is why it is always good to meditate on the example of the saints so that we might always admire them, as sometimes might imitate them as well. Catholic deacons should be inspired by the example of St. Stephen, protomartyr, well-known in the Greek rite — the Catholic rite — for his zeal to preach until his death, which at that time his death led to the conversion of Saul into Saint Paul.

Deacons must also contemplate the fidelity of St. Lawrence, who is a glory of the Roman Rite. It is a very important fact in order to understand the word romanitas which Archbishop Lefebvre has talked about in his book Spiritual Journey (Itinéraire spirituel à la suite de Saint Thomas d’Aquin).

As a matter of fact, deacons receive the Holy Ghost by the ceremony of the Ordination, alike to St. Stephen and St. Lawrence who were filled with the Holy Ghost, and through their fidelity they preached the Truth supernaturally revealed in the Holy Scriptures. So, their fidelity to the Deposit of Faith is the example that we must keep alive.

In addition to the power of preaching, the deacon receives the grace to baptize begetting children of God in order to lead them to the heavenly glory, and to administer the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist ‑ Let us not forget this principle when receiving Holy Orders: the closer a sacred minister comes to the altar, the more power he receives over the Mystical Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This is why the deacon has a place of honor in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar — to the right of the priest.

On the other hand, let us not forget the infidelity of Nicholas, deacon. Most certainly, Our Lady of La Salette referred to the loss of faith in some sacred ministers by leading a double life — one on the outside by keeping the appearances of the consecrated life, but another on the inside by indulging in sins of the flesh and impurity against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments of the Law of God. One can see with his own eyes the deep crisis in which some ministers consecrated to God are living, transmitting the horrible consequences of doctrinal errors, full of heresies that certainly are leading to the General Apostasy. Let us remember that corruptio optimi pessima — from the corruption of the best comes the worst.

So, let us consecrate ourselves to the Blessed Virgin Mary in order to remain faithful to our religious vocation in the midst of the darkness of today’s world. God will surely give us the grace to continue carrying the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us also ask for the grace of divine joy, because the fight in defending the Faith we perhaps may encounter the temptation to get some envy and bitter zeal, for example when priests criticize priests, when bishops criticize bishops.…

Envy is sadness for the good of others, says St. Thomas; and bitter zeal DESTROYS the charity of God in the soul, says Dom Marmion. Let us not be envious or bitter like the Pharisees.

Finally, may Our Lord give us the graces of martyrdom, like all the saints who were martyred in the region of La Vendée (France), whose general said in the heat of action, “If I advance, follow me; if I retreat, kill me; if I die, avenge me.â€

Or like José Sanchez del Rio, that 12-year-old boy who joyfully offered his life for the love of Jesus Christ in the Holy Sacrament, whose last words were “Long live Christ the King!â€

Amen.

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Devotion to the Holy Face and the Golden Arrow

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Devotion to the Holy Face and the Golden Arrow

​  Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre (1816-1848)

  from Le Sel de la terre 110, Autumn 2019

1. A Life Hidden in God

Perrine ELUERE, who was to become Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre in the Carmelite Order, was born on October 4, 1816 in Rennes (French Britanny). Born into a family of twelve children, she lost her mother at the age of twelve and asked the Blessed Virgin to be her mother.

Deciding to become a nun, she had to wait several years before realizing her vocation and invoked Saint Martin of Tours for this intention. On November 11, 1839, her feast day, she left Rennes for the Carmel of Tours.

There she was favored with revelations from Christ, on the gravity of blasphemy and desecration of Sundays and the need to make reparation for so many crimes that directly offend God. Jesus taught her a prayer of reparation – The Golden Arrow – and also asked for the establishment of a brotherhood of reparation. He entrusted France to her prayers.

Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre lived in great devotion to the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. Very humble, helpful, and patient, she accepted the most modest tasks with obedience, following the example of the Child Jesus.

Put to the test by her superiors, to whom she had opened up about the revelations she had received, she always showed obedience and humility. Stricken with pulmonary tuberculosis, she died in the odor of sanctity on July 8, 1848, in her thirty-third year, after a painful agony.

Six months after her death, in January 1849, a miracle in Rome popularized devotion to the Holy Face throughout Christendom and encouraged the saintly man from Tours, Mr. Dupont, to exhibit the image in his salon, which quickly became a very popular oratory because of the miracles that multiplied there.

But even before that, Mr. Dupont, who knew Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre personally, advised everyone to pray at her tomb to ask for graces. Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, in turn, had a special devotion to the Carmelite nun of Tours, from whom she drew inspiration for her childlike way.

2. Making Reparation for the Blasphemies and Offenses Against God

The Golden Arrow

On August 26, 1843, during the evening prayer, Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre received the inspiration to spread a devotion named The Golden Arrow. The holy man from Tours, Mr. Dupont, who learned about it later, saw it as a response from Heaven, for he had prepared the feast of St. Louis (August 25) with a novena asking the holy king for his intercession and help in the fight against blasphemy in France. Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre reported to her Mother Superior in these words:

“Our Lord opened His Heart to me, gathered the powers of my soul in it, and addressed these words to me: ‘My Name is blasphemed everywhere; even children blaspheme!’ “And He made me hear how this awful sin hurt His divine Heart more painfully than all the others; by blasphemy, the sinner curses Him to his face, attacks Him openly, annihilates the Redemption, and pronounces himself his condemnation and his judgment. Blasphemy is a poisoned arrow, which continually wounds His Heart: He told me that He wanted to give me a golden arrow to wound Him delightfully, and to heal the wounds of malice that sinners make Him.â€

“Here is the formula of praise that Our Lord, in spite of my great unworthiness, dictated to me for the reparation of blasphemies against his holy Name. He gave it to me like a golden arrow, assuring me that every time I say it, I will wound his Heart with a wound of love:

Golden Arrow:

May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible, and ineffable Name of God be forever praised, blessed, loved, adored, and glorified forever in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth, by all the creatures of God, and by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Most holy Sacrament of the Altar. So be it.

“Our Lord, having given me this golden arrow, added: ‘Pay attention to this favor, for I will ask you to give an account.’â€

“At that moment it seemed to me that streams of grace for the conversion of sinners were coming out of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, wounded by this golden arrow.â€

Jesus’ Great Desire: to Glorify the Name of the Father

A month later (September 29, feast of St. Michael), the sister communicated to her Mother Superior:

“Our Lord inspired me to join to the praise of the Golden Arrow some prayers to make reparation, by twenty-four adorations, the blasphemies professed at each hour of the day, and He was kind enough to let me know that He accepted this exercise. This divine Savior made me share in the desire He feels to see the Name of His Father glorified; He told me to apply myself to praising and blessing this adorable Name, in imitation of the angels who sing in heaven perpetually: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus; and thus I will fulfill the order He gave me to honor His Heart and that of His holy Mother, for they are both wounded by blasphemy. He also made me understand that this would not prevent me from honoring Him in His mysteries, as I am accustomed to do, because in all the mysteries of His life His Heart has suffered for the sin of blasphemy.â€

Gravity of the Desecration of Sundays

On November 24, the sister relayed these words of Our Lord:

“The earth is covered with crimes! The breaking of the first three commandments of God has angered My Father; the blasphemy of the Holy Name of God and the profanation of the Holy Day of Sunday have added to the measure of iniquity; these sins have reached the throne of God and provoked His wrath, which will be poured out if His Justice is not appeased. I desire, but with a strong desire, that a well-approved and well-organized association be formed to honor my Father’s name.â€

[…]

3. The Holy Face of Our Lord

Offering Jesus to His Father

On December 25, 1843, Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre made an act of perfect donation to the Most Holy Child Jesus according to the extent of His will for the accomplishment of His designs to the glory of the Holy Name of God. From this date on, Jesus asked her to join devotion to His holy Face to acts of reparation against blasphemies:

“He said to me, ‘Just as in a kingdom you can get everything you want with a silver coin marked with the effigy of the prince, so with the precious coin of My holy Humanity, which is my adorable Face, you will get everything you want in the kingdom of heaven’â€.

“It seems to me that we should only pray and present ourselves before the eternal Father with some merit of His Son in our hands, in order to offer it to Him and thus oblige Him to fulfill the admirable promise of our Lord: ‘Amen, amen, I say to you: if you ask the Father anything in my name, He will give it you.’ (Jn. 16:23). If we have no virtues to offer to God, let us offer Him all those of Jesus our Savior, who sanctified Himself for us. Let us offer His gentleness, humility, patience, obedience, poverty, fasts, vigils, and zeal for the glory of His Father and the salvation of souls! Let us also offer His divine and effective prayers; He prayed during his mortal life; the Gospel says that He withdrew at night to pray; He prays in Heaven; He shows His wounds to His Father for us; finally He prays in the most holy Sacrament of the altar.â€

“O what an ineffable mystery! A Savior God praying for His creatures, and prayed to by these same creatures!â€

“Let us unite our prayers with those of the incarnate Word, and they will be answered; let us offer to the eternal Father the sacred Heart of Jesus, His adorable Face, and His divine wounds; let us offer His tears, His blood and His sweat; let us offer His travels, works, words, and silence, all that He suffered in each of His mysteries; finally, let us always have our eyes fixed on the Gift of God; let us search in this treasure unknown to the world; let us, if we can, enumerate all the goods we possess in Him, and we will soon be rich and enrich poor sinners: For we can offer the humility of Jesus for the conversion of the proud, His poverty for the avaricious, His mortification for the sensual, His zeal to glorify His Father for the blasphemers, finally all the accusations He suffered from the Jews saying He was violating the Sabbath law, for the conversion of the true violators of the holy day of Sunday.â€

“O gift of God that I have ignored for too long, You will be my only treasure from now on; I discover new riches in Thou every day.â€

Importance of Reparation

On February 2, 1844, Jesus expressed again the great concerns of His Heart, the honor of His divine Father and that of His holy spouse:

“O you who are My friends and My faithful children, see if there is a pain similar to Mine; My divine Father and My Spouse, the holy Church, the object of the delights of My Heart, are despised, outraged by My enemies. Will no one arise to console Me, by defending them against those who attack them? I can no longer remain in the midst of this ungrateful people; see the torrents of tears that flow from My eyes. Will I find no one to wipe them away, making reparation to the glory of My Father and asking for the conversion of the guilty?â€

To Intercede for Sinners

“Another day, He showed me the multitude of those who continually fall into hell, inviting me in the most touching way to help these poor sinners, and making me understand the strict obligation of the Christian soul towards these blind wretches who are precipitating themselves into the eternal abyss and to whom His mercy would open their eyes, if charitable hearts interceded for them. He told me that if He would ask the rich for an account of the temporal good He had entrusted to them to help the needy, how much more would He ask a Carmelite, a religious soul, rich with all the goods of the heavenly Spouse, for a rigorous account of the use she had made of them to help unfortunate sinners? Then this amiable Savior, opening to me His immense treasures composed of the infinite merits of His life and passion, added: –‘My daughter, I give you my Face and My Heart, I give you My Blood, I give you My wounds: draw and pour! Draw and pour! Buy without money, My Blood is the price of souls. Oh, what a sorrow for My Heart to see that remedies that cost Me so much are despised! Ask My Father for as many souls as I shed drops of blood in My Passion.’â€

Gravity of Blasphemy

“He made me understand that men are incapable of understanding the insult done to God by this sin of blasphemy; blasphemies pierce His heart and make Him a second Lazarus covered with wounds. He invited me to imitate the dogs who comforted poor Lazarus by coming to lick his wounds; I would do Him a great service by employing my tongue to glorify every day the most holy Name of God despised and blasphemed by sinners, without considering whether this exercise gave me interior consolations; it would be enough for me to think that I was healing His divine wounds and causing Him great satisfaction.â€

The Holy Face of Christ Offended by Blasphemies

“I understood that, as the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the sensitive object offered to our adoration to represent His immense love in the most holy Sacrament of the altar, so, in the work of reparation, the Face of Our Lord is the sensitive object offered to the adoration of the associates to repair the outrages of the blasphemers who attack the Divinity of which it is the figure, mirror, and expression. By the virtue of this adorable Face, presented to the eternal Father, we can appease His anger and obtain the conversion of the impious and blasphemers.â€

“Our Lord made me see that the Church, His Spouse, is His mystical body, and that religion was the face of this body; then He showed me this face in the face of the enemies of His Name, and I saw that the blasphemers and the sectarians were renewing on the holy Face of Our Lord all the opprobrium of His Passion. I saw, thanks to this divine light, that the impious, by uttering evil words and blaspheming the holy Name of God, were spitting on the Face of the Savior and covering it with mud; that all the blows given by the sectarians to the holy Church, to religion, were the renewal of the many blows that the Face of Our Lord received, and that these unfortunate people were making this august Face sweat by striving to annihilate its works.â€

“Our Lord showed me, with the help of a simple and just comparison, that the impious by their blasphemies attacked His adorable Face, and that the faithful glorified it by the homage of praise rendered to His Name and to His person.â€

“Merit is in persons, but the glory that accompanies them is in their name; it bursts forth when it is pronounced; the merit or demerit of a person passes into his name. The most holy Name of God expresses the divinity, and contains in it all the perfections of the Creator; it follows from this that the blasphemers of this sacred Name attack God himself. Now let us remember these words of Jesus: “the Father is in me and I in the Father.†(Jn. 10:38). Jesus made Himself passible by the Incarnation; and He suffered, in His adorable Face, the outrages done by the blasphemers to the Name of God, His Father.â€

“Our Lord has shown me that there is something mysterious about the face of a despised man of honor; yes, I see that his name and his face have a special connection. Behold a man distinguished by his name and merits, in the presence of his enemies; they do not lay hands on him, but they overwhelm him with insults, they add bitter derision to his name, instead of the titles which are due to him. Notice then what happens to the face of this insulted man; would you not say that all the outrageous words that come out of the mouths of his enemies come to rest on his face and cause him to suffer a real torment? We see this face covered with redness, shame, and confusion; the opprobrium and ignominy it suffers are more cruel to bear than real torments in the other parts of its body. Well, here is a weak portrait of the Face of Our Lord outraged by the blasphemies of the impious! Let us represent this same man in the presence of his friends, who, having learned of the insults he has received, hasten to console him, to treat him according to his dignity, pay homage to the greatness of his name by calling him by all his titles of honor; do you not then see the face of this man feel the sweetness of these praises Glory rests on his forehead and, shining on his face, makes it all shiny: joy shines in his eyes, a smile is on his lips; in a word, his faithful friends have healed the bitter pain of this face outraged by his enemies, glory has passed the reproach. This is what the friends of Jesus do through the work of reparation; the glory they give to His Name rests on this august forehead, and rejoices His most holy Face, in a very special way, in the most holy Sacrament of the altar.â€

Healing the Blasphemers

• 3 November 1845:

“According to the care you will take to repair My portrait, which was disfigured by blasphemers, I will take care to repair yours, which was disfigured by sin. I will reprint My image on it, and I will make it as beautiful as it was when it came out of the font of baptism. Abandon yourself therefore into My hands and be willing to suffer all the operations necessary for the restoration of this image. Do not be troubled if you experience sadness and darkness, for you know that in an image, the dark colors serve to bring out those that are more vivid. Men have the art of restoring bodies; but only I can be called the restorer of souls, and who restores them to the image of God. I have made known to you this work of reparation, I have shown you its excellence, and now I promise you the reward.â€

“Oh! If you could see the beauty of my Face! Your eyes are still too weak!â€

• 5 January 1846:

“Our Lord made me aware that Lucifer willingly left to other demons the care of leading other flocks of sinners, such as for example: the impure, the drunkards, the greedy; but the blasphemers form his favorite flock. He made it known to me that this work of reparation embraces not only the reparation of blasphemy proper, but also that of all other blasphemies uttered against religion and the Church; however, it applies especially to blasphemies of the holy name of God.

To Draw Tirelessly From the Gold Mine

“Our Lord […] again gave me the order to pray for France, telling me […] that I should draw on His divine wounds for His sheep; finally, that He was giving Himself to me like a gold mine, to pay to His divine Father the debts which our country owes to His justice, allowing me to take for this the great treasures of His Heart. Then Our Lord made me understand that I must be careful not to act like the lazy servant of the Gospel who did not use his talent: He will ask me for an account one day, and it is very easy for me to take from this gold mine that He himself dug by his works and sufferings. I believe that He very much desires to find someone who will oblige Him, through prayer, to show mercy to France.â€

Intercede for France

  • 23 January, 1846:

‘The face of France has become hideous in the eyes of My Father, provoking His justice; offer Him therefore the Face of His Son, in whom He is pleased, in order to draw mercy on this France; otherwise, it will be punished.’

  • November 22:

This is what the divine Master told me: ‘My daughter, I take you today as My bursar, and I place My holy Face in your hands again, so that you may offer it unceasingly to My Father for the salvation of France. Make use of this divine talent; you have in it enough to do all the business of My house; you will obtain, through this holy Face, the salvation of many sinners; with this offering, nothing will be refused you. If you only knew how pleasing the sight of my Face is to My Father!’

Changing the Wine of Justice Into the Wine of Mercy

[…] I saw other punishments prepared to satisfy this justice. When I saw this, I said to Our Lord, “Sweet Jesus, if only I could drink the rest of this cup, so that my brothers might be spared!â€

“He answered me that He accepted my good will, but that I was not capable of emptying this cup, and that only He could drink it. The Savior, seeing my pain, beckoned me to enter His divine Heart; in His excessive mercy, He gave it to me as a vessel worthy of being presented to the eternal Father to receive this wine of His wrath, making me understand that, passing through this channel, it would be changed for us into the wine of mercy. But He does not want to entirely infringe the rights of justice; if I may express myself in this way, He wants to make a covenant between His justice and His mercy, and for this purpose He asks for the establishment of the work of Reparation to the glory of His Name. Yes, He will disarm the anger of God, His Father, if He offers Him a work of reparation for us! Is it not the least we can do, O sweet Jesus, to make reparation by our prayers, by our groans and by our adoration, for the enormous sins of which we are guilty towards the majesty of God? This, Mother, is the prayer that Our Lord put into my mouth, and which I want to repeat unceasingly: ‘Eternal Father, look upon the divine Heart of Jesus which I offer to you to receive the wine of your justice, so that it may be changed for us into the wine of mercy’. He made me understand that, each time I made this offering, I would obtain a drop of this wine of divine anger, which, falling, as I said above, into the vessel of the sacred Heart of Jesus, would change into the liquor of mercy.

Waging War on the Communists

In 1847, the League of Communists was founded in London. Two of its members, Marx and Engels, received the mission to write the doctrinal manifesto that appeared in February 1848 under the title Manifesto of the Communist Party. On March 14, 1847, Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre wrote to her superior:

“Our Lord today, after Holy Communion, made me understand that the plagues we have been struck with were only the forerunners of those which His justice is preparing for us if His anger is not appeased, and He showed me the sins of blasphemy and the profanations of Sunday under the emblem of two pumps, with which the men who are guilty of these crimes draw the waters of His wrath over France and expose themselves to being submerged by them, if this work of reparation which He gives her in his mercy as a means of salvation is not established. Then He told me that the sectarians called Communists had only made one excursion: ‘Oh’! He added, –‘if you knew their secret and diabolical machinations, and their anti-Christian principles! They are only waiting for a favorable day to set fire to France. Ask, therefore, for the work of Reparation to whom it belongs, in order to obtain mercy.’â€

• 29 March 1847:

Our Lord has entrusted me with a new mission which I would be afraid of if I were anything; but as I am nothing but a weak instrument in His powerful hand, I am perfectly at peace.

He commanded me to make war on the communists, whom He told me were the enemies of the Church and of His Christ, making me understand that these lion cubs were, for the most part, born in the Church whose cruel enemies they now declared themselves to be. Then He added: –‘I have made it known to you that I hold you in My hands like an arrow. Now I want to shoot this arrow at My enemies. I give you the weapons of My Passion to fight them: My cross, whose enemies they are, and the other instruments of My torture. Go to them with the simplicity of a child and the courage of a valiant soldier. Receive, for this mission, the blessing of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’. Then I prayed to the Blessed Virgin to be the custodian of these divine weapons, given to me by her dearest Son, who is compared to the Tower of David, from which hang a thousand shields. Our Lord gave me, on this subject, several other lights which it would not be easy for me to relate. “Lord,†I said, “train my hands for battle, and teach me to use your instruments.â€

He said to me: ‘The weapons of My enemies give death, but Mine give life.’

How to Fight the Enemies of God

This is the prayer I often recite for this purpose: –Eternal Father, I offer you, against the camp of your enemies, the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ and all the instruments of His holy Passion, that You may put division between them; for, as Your beloved Son has said, every kingdom divided against itself will be destroyed [Mt. 12:25].

[…] Jesus gives me grace to draw my weapons; today, after Holy Communion, He encouraged me to fight, and He promised to give me a cross of honor, which, He told me, would open heaven for me, if I were faithful […]. But, Reverend Mother, after having fought the enemies of God with all my strength during these three days of feasting, I now feel almost contrition. I explain myself: it is because I fear having made imprecations against them.

I know that the holy King David does the same in his psalms (108, for example); but I do not know if I am allowed to do so. Finally, I have said everything that Our Lord, it seems to me, inspired me to say; if it is wrong, and I am mistaken, I will not do it again.

I will tell you that I begin by placing my soul in the hands of Our Lord; then I beg him to bend His bow and shoot His arrows at His enemies; then I fight them first by His cross and by the instruments of His Passion, as He taught me; then by the virtue of the most holy Name of God. And this is my concern for the imprecations, for if it is wrong, I have repeated these words a hundred times; but I had no intention of wishing harm to these criminal people; I am only angry at their malice and their passions; I only want to kill the old man in them. So this is what I say:

Let God arise, let His enemies be dispelled, and let all those who hate Him flee from His face.

May the name of the thrice holy God overturn all their plans.

May the sacred name of the living God divide all their feelings.

May the terrible name of the God of eternity destroy their impiety.

I say some more, and when I have thus beaten them well, I add:

I do not want the sinner to die, but to be converted and live. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.†[Lk. 23:34]

I do these exercises without restraint of spirit and with great ease, because I let myself be led by the grace that guides me.

Ten Punishments for the Violation of the Ten Commandments

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Ten Punishments for the Violation of the Ten Commandments

Editorial of Salt of the Earth 118, Fall 2021


MORE THAN 3,000 YEARS AGO, God struck Egypt with ten terrible plagues called the Ten Plagues of Egypt.

God wanted to force Pharaoh to let the Jewish people out of Egypt, as Moses had asked. But Pharaoh was hard-hearted and it was only at the tenth plague, the most terrible, that he let the Hebrews go.

St. Augustine showed in a sermon how the ten plagues of Egypt can represent the punishments God inflicts on men when they break the ten commandments. Now more than ever the world is transgressing the Ten Commandments. This explains the painful events we are undergoing and perhaps the more serious ones that still await us.

The transgression of each commandment is punished by the corresponding wound, not in the historical sense, but in its symbolic sense.

1. You shall have no other God but Me.

First plague of Egypt: water turned to blood. Pharaoh refused to listen to Moses, so Aaron, his brother, struck the waters of the river with his staff, and all the waters of the land were turned to blood. The fish died and the Egyptians could no longer drink.

Water means life, blood symbolizes death. The world that does not want to worship God, the author of life, is punished by death.

More than ever, the world rejects God, and especially rejects Our Lord Jesus Christ, the only true God. So it is punished with death. Death is found even before birth with abortion, it is found at the end with euthanasia, death is even now omnipresent: continuously the radio, the television, the media speak about death and dying.

2. You shall not take the name of God in vain.

Second plague: the plague of frogs that covered the land of Egypt. When they died in the houses, in the courtyards and in the fields, they were piled up in heaps, and the land was infected with them.

Men who no longer wish to pronounce the name of God with respect, and who blaspheme him, are given over by God to vain chatter, represented by the croaking of frogs. The heaps of dead and fetid frogs represent the bitterness that these conversations leave in the souls.

Today, we proclaim the right to blasphemy, while banishing the sacred name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, excluded in the name of “secularism”, as if God had not come to teach and save us.

The punishment is the hollow chatter of the media, of television, of the internet, of all these means of social communication, which croak like frogs, which never speak of the essential, and leave behind them emptiness and sadness in the soul.

3. Remember to keep the feasts holy.

Third plague: the invasion of flies.

Men who do not want to respect the Sunday rest live in unrest, the opposite of rest which the Latin quies signifies. Permanent agitation, continuous torment symbolized by the flies.

Go to a big city, look in the street: everyone is running, there is no more peace and quiet.

4. Honor your father and your mother.

Fourth plague: the sending of a gnat called the dog flea, which tormented the Egyptians by its bites.

Little dogs are born blind, they do not recognize their parents. This plague means that men who do not honor their parents, will themselves have to suffer from their children who will treat them cruelly.

The modern world crams old people into real warehouses, where they die of boredom when they are not victims of euthanasia.

No doubt good Christians do what they can to take care of their elderly parents, and some even make great sacrifices, but the fact remains that our society is hard on the elderly, it makes them suffer, and this is a punishment for the transgression of the fourth commandment.

5. Thou shalt not kill.

Fifth plague: the cattle plague which kills the Egyptians’ herds.

Murderers are often punished by dying like animals.

Our world is murderous: it not only kills children and old people, but it promotes terrorism, drugs, suicide, it multiplies useless and ever more deadly wars. As a punishment, men die like beasts. How many immortal souls have arrived in recent months at the threshold of death without any preparation? The priest is no longer called, and they even want to prevent him from approaching the dying.

6. You shall not commit impure acts.

Sixth plague: ulcers and tumors bulging into blisters.

Impurity is often punished with shameful diseases.

The modern world is afflicted by all kinds of diseases, including AIDS, which is one of the most deadly.

7. Thou shalt not steal.

Seventh plague: the hail that destroyed the crops of the Egyptians.

Those who steal often end up in misery. Spiritual misery, deprived of the only true wealth which is God, but also often material misery.

Our modern societies live by an organized theft called usury. We did not want to listen to the Church, we let the usurers take control of the financial world. The punishment for this will be the general ruin that will inevitably come. Communism in Russia and China led to general misery and terrible famines. The Neo-Communism that is being set up all over the world is also likely to result in misery and famine.

8. You shall not give false testimony.

Eighth plague: the locusts with their terrible teeth.

Those who live a lie end up devouring each other.

The modern world is one of institutionalized lying:

  • lie of secularism, which excludes God in the name of a false neutrality;

  • lie of Darwinism, which praises a world that would be self-constructing;

  • lie of Machiavellian democratization which openly replaces authority by the manipulation of the supposedly sovereign people.

The result: the modern world is a jungle where man is a wolf to man.

9. You shall not desire another’s wife.

Ninth plague: the darkness preventing one from seeing even in daylight.

Figure of the darkness of the heart ravaged by bad desires.

Alas, so many young people, so many adults even, are watching bad things on the screens. Here they are in thick darkness, which is only the prelude to the outer darkness where they will be thrown if they do not come to their senses.

10. You shall not desire the good of others

.

Tenth plague: the death of the firstborn.

The firstborn represents the soul, which should be dearer to us than anything else.

The sin of envy is punished by the death of the soul.

Through commercial advertising and revolutionary ideology, the modern world advocates envy as the engine of economic and social progress.

The result is the death of the soul, through sin and progressive dehumanization. We even come to advocate transhumanism.

✯

After having listed the ten plagues, punishments for the violation of the ten commandments, it is necessary to recall that the punishments of this world often have, in the designs of God, a medicinal value.

They are intended to correct, not to crush.

To show that they cannot really harm faithful men, these plagues were cruel only to the Egyptians, and did not reach the Hebrews.

The situation is not exactly the same today, since good Christians can suffer the consequences of crimes they did not commit. But in reality, nothing can harm them, because “all things work together for good to souls who love God” (St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 8, verse 28).

In the New Covenant, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Innocent One par excellence, came to suffer for the guilty.

The sufferings of Christians serve not only to atone for their own sins, but to save many sinners.

If we have to suffer the punishments that God in his goodness sends to our guilty world, let us see it as an opportunity to sanctify ourselves.

Let us ask for the grace to accept them.

If we ourselves have transgressed the Ten Commandments, let us accept these sufferings as an expiation for our sins. And if we suffer for the sins of others, let us thank God for associating us with his Cross.

Translation by A.A.