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The Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes

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The Motu Proprio

  Traditionis Custodes

From Pope Francis

July 16, 2021


Dogs, Wolves and Sheep Skin

Editorial from Le Sel de la terre 117

(Summer 2021)

Domini canes: was the pun likening the sons of St. Dominic (Domini-cani) to the dogs of the Lord (Domini canes) approved – even prompted – by Heaven itself?

The way in which the founder of the Preachers was announced to his mother in a dream, under the figure of a little dog, might suggest this.

In any case, this underlines the originality of a religious order that owed its birth to a heresy, that of the Albigensians, and was specifically founded to respond to it.

“Like a shepherd’s dog, Dominic preached: Bringing back to the path the lost sheep. And knowing how to bark when the wolf roamed.†(hymn to St. Dominic).

* Domini canes or Traditionis Custodes?

But if the eighth centenary of his entry into Heaven (August 6, 1221) provided a beautiful opportunity to evoke St. Dominic, a burning current event has caught up with this anniversary. This summer, in the Church, much more than Domini canes, there was talk of Traditionis Custodes: the sarcastic title of a Motu Proprio signed by Pope Francis on July 16, when the Latin text was still unknown – it still is – and was probably not even written. A minor detail, compared to the substance of the matter, but indicative of the ever-increasing cynicism of conciliar Rome.

There was a time when it tried to keep up appearances. Now it is displaying its Machiavellianism more and more openly.

When Francis sticks this fine Latin title on a text that despises Latin as much as it despises Tradition, when he invokes collegiality to impose his personal ideas, when he trumpets that he wants to restore the liturgical authority of the bishops, but in fact grants them only the right to forbid the traditional liturgy and denies them the right to authorize it more broadly, no one can be deceived. Such obvious lies do not even try to be believed. The situation at least gains clarity.

* The Wolf and the Sheep Skin

Since 2007, like a sheep’s skin, the distinction posed by Benedict XVI between the ordinary and extraordinary forms of the one Roman rite 1 masked the reality. Francis is tearing apart this pretense. An indissoluble link unites Vatican II, the new Mass of Paul VI, and the new morality of Francis (which only logically applies the principles of the Council). It is the new religion. The conciliar wolf is naked.

Archbishop Lefebvre had perceived its voice as early as 1965:

“This pastoral Constitution is neither pastoral nor emanates from the Catholic Church […] never has the Church spoken like this. […]. We know the voice of Christ, our Shepherd. This one we do not know. The garment is that of the sheep; the voice is not that of the Shepherd, but perhaps that of the wolf 2. “

* The Ecclesia Dei Institutes facing reality

When the shepherd turns into a wolf, resistance is a duty:

“When the shepherd turns into a wolf, it is up to the whole flock to defend itself. According to the rule, no doubt, doctrine descends from the bishops to the faithful; and the subjects must not judge their leaders in matters of faith. But in the treasure of Revelation there are essential points, of which every Christian, by the very fact of being a Christian, has the necessary knowledge and obligatory custody 3.â€

For fifty years, Archbishop Lefebvre, Bishop de Castro Mayer, Father Calmel O.P. and many others, have set an example of this resistance, clearly denouncing the errors of Vatican II (without, however, allowing themselves to judge and then recuse the leaders of the Church, as the sedevacantists want to do).

For thirty years, the Ecclesia Dei Institutes have tried to find a middle way, keeping the traditional liturgy without rejecting Vatican II. But the pope himself is dispelling their illusions, peeling off the sheep’s skin. Francis himself is destroying the famous hermeneutic of continuity, laboriously built up by Benedict XVI.

The Ecclesia Dei Institutes are up against the wall. Will they make the choice of consistency? Will they recuse Vatican II, like Archbishop Vigano or Bishop Schneider?

We need to pray for the future.

We must pray for this intention.

1 ‑ Benedict XVI, Motu proprio Summorum pontificum (July 7, 2007).

2 ‑ Excerpt from a text delivered by Archbishop Lefebvre to the Council Secretariat on September 9, 1965, concerning the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes.

3 ‑ Dom Guéranger, Liturgical Year, Time of the Septuagesima, Feast of St. Cyril of Alexandria.

800th ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF SAINT DOMINIC

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800th ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF SAINT DOMINIC

  (August 6, 1221 – August 6, 2021)

“Veritasâ€

A sermon for the Feast of Saint Dominic

(August 4)

given in Avrillé (France)

IN THE WORDS that Jesus spoke on earth, three resonated in the soul of St. Dominic that must resonate in ours. These words are: “Misereor super turbam­â€, I have mercy on the crowd (Mk. 8:2). St. Dominic transposed them, saying: “Quid fient peccatores?†“What will become of sinners?†This pity for souls and the salvation of souls—is the secret of St. Dominic’s vocation, the fundamental impulse that moved him. That is why he is called: “Apostolicus Pater Dominicusâ€, the Apostolic Father, the father concerned about souls, who saw how far men are from the divine Truth, how much they ignore or despise this Truth; who therefore wore himself out in the service of the Truth, in order to contemplate it, and then to communicate it to souls and to organize an Order whose purpose would be to preach it.

These three things, in fact, summarize the life of Saint Dominic. This life, at first sight, is complex, but in reality it is simple. It is one because it rests entirely on a single principle: the Truth. ­The principle of unity in the life of St. Dominic and his Order is Truth. Therefore, we must grasp the life and work of St. Dominic in truth, starting from this fundamental inspiration of his apostolic soul, in the light of the principle which has become the motto of the Order which appears on his halo: Veritas.

The life of St. Dominic has three phases:

‑ The first is that of maturation in Osma, Spain;

‑ The second is that of the external apostolate, in Languedoc, in the middle of Cathar country;

‑ The third, which is the most fruitful — of a more hidden fruitfulness than the previous one, but more lasting — is the foundation of the Order. Each of these phases lasted about a decade. Each one, above all, was placed under the patronage of the Truth.

**

The first phase is that of maturation in Osma, in silence, strict observance of the religious rule, prayer, and study; it is the stage of knowledge and contemplation of the Truth.

Saint Dominic, in fact, began by drinking from the source of divine Truth for many years, by filling himself with its light, before communicating it to others. For, in order to be able to preach the Truth, to become “champions of the faith and true lights of the worldâ€, as Pope Honorius III would say of the first Dominicans, one must first be deeply imbued with the faith and the first Truth, which is God

Faith makes contact with the divine Truth. Saint Thomas says with his usual precision:

“There is for us, even in this life, a certain participation and assimilation to such a cognition of divine truth, inasmuch as through the faith which is infused into our souls we adhere to the very First Truth on account of Itself. – fit nobis in statu viæ quaedam illius cognitionis participatio et assimilatio ad cognitionem divinam, in quantum per fidem nobis infusant inhæremus ipsi primæ veritati propter se ipsamâ€1

St. Dominic, therefore, began by living by faith, by knowing the first Truth in and for itself, without any utilitarian aim. Dante, in his ­Divine Comedy, says of St. Dominic that since his birth he married the Faith, just as St. Francis married Poverty (Paradise XII, 61).

This phase of our holy father’s life is essential, and we too must reproduce it with extreme fidelity, embracing faith in our turn through contemplation and silent and assiduous study of the First Truth. How, in fact, can we serve this divine Truth and preach the faith, if we are not intimately filled with it? We would fall into that inconsistency which, under the pretext of life and action, sinks into activism and sacrifices the absolute for the contingent that passes away; the divine for the human. Those who give in to this tendency, if they do not deny God or the reality of Revelation, are logically led to believe that God is conditioned by His creation and to erase from the Gospel the very idea of the divine attributes. They subordinate the primary Truth to passing truths or even to the opinions of the world, and become incapable of giving God to souls.

**

The second phase of St. Dominic’s life is that of the apostolate, of the preaching of the contemplated faith, of the expansion of the Truth. For about ten years, the saint traveled throughout Languedoc and preached to the heretics.

For truth is communicable. “Credidi propter quod locutus sum†– I believe, and that is why I have spoken, says St. Paul (2 Cor. 4:13): the evidence of faith irresistibly inclines us to communicate its content; hence these apostolic accents of St. Dominic, accents of tenderness for sinners, which recall those of Jesus: “What will become of poor sinners?†Not that these men are simply miserable or starving, but they do not know the Truth. This is the real misery, the most serious.

Jesus said of himself: “I am the Truth†(Jn. 14:6). He was moved by the desire to communicate the Truth that he had to proclaim, because he himself was the Truth in action ­in the bosom of the Father. In the same way, St. Dominic preached the Truth because he was filled with it, because he had espoused it, because he had made it his own. He had not forgotten the first phase during the second: the preacher must remain a contemplative, on pain of no longer preaching the word of God, but of preaching himself: “Contemplari et contemplata aliis tradere – to contemplate and transmit to others the truths contemplated.†Preaching must be nothing but the overflow of contemplation; what is preached must be nothing but the fruit of contemplation. And so, in the very structure of St. Dominic’s life, we find the economy of the life of Jesus: thirty years of silence and preparation, three years of preaching, and finally the sending of the Apostles on a mission throughout the world. This shows with what supernatural spirit the preaching of the Truth must be considered. It is grafted onto the faith; it is itself an act of faith, and this is what ensures its victory.

This second phase had all the hazards of a battle, with alternating failures, tribulations, and successes. For preaching is an adventure, so to speak: there is the Holy Spirit who instructs souls from within, there is the one who speaks externally, and there are those who listen – the agreement is not always easy. St. Dominic himself experienced the failure and hardness of souls who rebel against the Truth. But this, too, is part of the divine plan. And precisely in the hour of failure he saw souls close up to his word, he made a pact with the Virgin Mary, a pact that lasts for eternity. The Mother of Preachers, “the one who believedâ€, as the Gospel calls her, then gave St. Dominic an invincible weapon to touch souls and effectively communicate the Truth to them. This weapon is the Rosary – the Rosary, which transmits the substance of the faith and is both a prayer and a sublime means of preaching the great divine truths.

**

The third phase of St. Dominic’s life was the foundation of the Order of Preachers and the sending of the friars to the whole world.

After having hoarded the Truth and after having proclaimed it, the Saint organized its preservation, fruitfulness, and diffusion in time. For this he founded an Order. If the grain remains piled up, it dies; but if it is sown, it produces fruit.

An Order is the fruit of an act of wisdom (sapientis est ordinare); it is an organic whole of which one element is the principle of the others. One is part of the Order only if one is connected to the principle. The principle of our Order is St. Dominic; but more primitively, it is the Truth. To the extent that we guard and carry the Truth, we are part of the Order of Preachers, rightly called “the Order of Truthâ€; this is its trademark, its essential note, so to speak.

This third phase, like the second, was marked by success and trials. And this has continued in the history of the Order. There have been, there are, especially in our days, betrayals and defections within our Order. This is the crucial proof given by Our Lord himself: “You will know them by their fruits.†(Mt. 7:16,20). The fruits are the works of the Truth; where they are lacking, it is a sign that the Truth is no longer served; or, as St. John says: “They went out from us but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us.†(1 John 2:19). They were not of us because they did not serve – or did not fully serve – the Truth.

**

These three phases of St. Dominic’s life are certainly successive, but one does not replace the other; they are linked and remain one in the other; there is penetration of the first into the second, and of the first two into the third.

And it must be so. For it is the depth of contemplation that preserves from activism in the apostolate; so it is necessary that the first phase penetrate the second. And it is also necessary that the first two phases unceasingly inspire the third. For only the contemplation of the Truth and zeal in the service of the Truth can preserve one from the sclerosis and decadence that threaten any work on this earth, even if it is holy and inspired by God, as a religious Order is. In short, we must carefully keep the principle: Veritas!

*

**

Saint Dominic left us his testament. This testament can be summed up in three words: “This, my brothers, is what I leave you as an inheritance: have charity, keep humility, possess ­voluntary poverty.â€

But we can say that these three words are summarized and merged in this small word of seven letters which constitutes the motto of the Order: Veritas, Truth. For Dominican charity is above all the charity of truth; and the preaching of truth can only bear fruit if it is founded on humility and poverty.

This is what God revealed to the most illustrious daughter of St. Dominic, St. Catherine of Siena:

“St. Dominic wished to make the light of Truth the principal object of his Order. […] This why he appeared in the world as an apostle and sowed the seed of my word, full of light and truth, dispelling the darkness and distributing the light. […] Dominic is thus in harmony with my Truth, not wanting the sinner to die, but to be converted and live.â€

“Veritas de terra orta est.†Truth springs forth out of the earth. Our earth, our roots, our father is St. Dominic. He bequeaths to us the Truth, thirst for the Truth, love of the Truth, and asks us to be faithful to the Truth. Let us strive, by our three vows, by our contemplative life, by our prayers and studies, by our doctrinal preaching, by our whole life, to be TRUE.

Holy Mary, Mother of Preachers, pray for us!

1 ‑ Expositio in libro Boetii de Trinitate, Proemium, q. 2, a. 2

Small Catechism on the Spiritual Life

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Small Catechism on the Spiritual Life

  by Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen O.C.D.

  (text in French published by Le Sel de la terre)

Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen O.C.D (1890-1953) was a consultant for the Congregation of Rites and professor of Spiritual Theology at the at the Discalced Carmelites School of Theology in Rome

He is also the author of the book Divine Intimacy: Meditations on the Interior Life for Every Day of the Year that appeared in editions of “The Carmel†in 1955.

Preface

This small catechism, first published in the magazine Vitae Carmelitana, was welcomed with joy by pious people who found in it peace and comfort. It could not be otherwise because it contains the substance of teachings with which for four centuries the Order of the reformed Carmel directs souls in the spiritual life.

The author, a specialist in this domain, has wanted to bring the faithful to the schools of St. Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. He exposes in clear pages their method of mental prayer with developments received by their spiritual sons, being careful to keep themselves in line with Tradition. The readers of the Vitae Carmelitana, had many times expressed the desire to see gathered in one volume the lessons from which they drew the greatest advantages. So, in 1943 Fr. Gabriel prepared this catechism. He believed it good to change the original text a little, to render it more adapted to the conditions of those living in the world without changing the essential.

May the Seraphic Mother St. Theresa, the great mistress of the spiritual life, obtain the abundance of benedictions from on high for all those who will use this work where one of her children proposed to nourish the hearts of bread of the celestial doctrine. (Collect of the Saint)

Fr. Eugene of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus

Chapter 1: Mental Prayer in the Contemplative Life

1. What is the Catholic Life?

The Catholic life is the life lived in conformity with the teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ, according to which we must direct all our actions to the glory of God in loving Him and in observing His holy laws. The Catholic soul lives for God.

2. What is the Contemplative Life?

The Contemplative Life is a form of Catholic life in which one tries to live not only for God but also with God. It is not only for Religious but can be lived perfectly in the world. It is concentrated completely in the research of the Divine Intimacy, and in this goal during the day practices that which we call Spiritual Exercises. These are special exercises of prayer which must be accompanied by exercises of mortification because, as St. Theresa the great mistress of the contemplative life said, mental prayer and comforts do not go together.

3. What is the place of mental prayer in the Contemplative Life?

In the Contemplative Life, mental prayer takes the first place. Practically, the Contemplative Life is a life of mental prayer. For this reason the Contemplative Orders dedicate much time to prayer. In the Carmelite order, which is eminently contemplative, the central precept is one of continual mental prayer: that each one stays firm in his cell meditating day and night on the law of God and watching in prayer. The Carmelites perform many exercises of piety. They do mental prayer twice a day [one hour each time], assist at Mass, recite the Divine Office, put themselves in the presence of God during the day; without speaking of personal exercises of devotion.

4. What is prayer?

Prayer is a conversation with God in which we manifest to Him the desires of our heart. Prayer can be either vocal or mental.

5. What is vocal prayer?

Vocal prayer consists in the recitation of a formula which expresses our desires. For example, the Our Father, taught to man by Our Lord Himself, and in which we ask God seven things. We recite this formula with the intention to honor God. Often we do not think of, in a distinct way, the sense of the words that we pronounce. But that does not stop our prayer from being a true prayer provided that our soul remains turned to God with the desire to honor Him. This prayer can be recited to the Saints with the same desire to honor them.

6. What is mental prayer?

This consists in speaking to God with the heart, not with prepared formulas of learned by heart, but in a spontaneous manner.

7. What do we say to God in mental prayer?

In this form of prayer, we are able to show God all desires that we have in our heart. But following the teachings of St. Theresa, a contemplative soul will prefer to say that we love Him or want to love Him.

8. Why is the love of God often spoken about?

Because this love is the substance of the contemplative life. The contemplative souls must become intimate friends of God and love precisely makes flower the friendship and introduces intimacy. St. Theresa wants us, in going to prayer, that we be convinced that God invites us to love Him in doing it and that we do it to answer His call.

9. Is it necessary to think in prayer?

It is not possible to love without having some thought on the loved object. To move God, one must think about Him. This thought can vary much according to who it is. It could consist of a prolonged reflection on the love of God for us, or could be a simple souvenir of God: His Goodness and love of us. In Consequence, in prayer we think only to love and nourish love. St. Theresa said in effect that prayer consists not in thinking much but in loving much.

10. What is love?

There is sensible love, and there is love of the will. Sensible love consists in a sentiment which carries us with affection towards a person; makes us feel pleasure in his presence or a souvenir of it. Love of the will consists in wanting the good for a person by free choice and determination of the will. Then when this love takes all our soul, one wants to be with the person loved, and consecrate to him one’s proper life.

11. Which of the two is better?

The love of the will is better because the will is, in us, that which is most personal. In the will resides our liberty, and it is precisely with it that we give ourselves to God. For this reason, God asks from man the gift of his will. The full consecration of man to God consists in this gift.

The sensible love is something complementary, of secondary importance. It does not depend on us to feel it while it depends on us to love with the will.

12. Why do we naturally desire the sensible love?

We desire it for its sweetness, and because it gives us comfort and consolation. But because of that, in the sensible love we often seek ourselves, while with the love of the will we seek God. God often suppress in us the sensible love, so that we will love more firmly with only the will.

13. With which love must we love God in prayer?

Certainly the love of the will is the most important. If the sensible love is there too, instead of seeking our own pleasure, we profit by its help to strengthen our will in its act to give itself to God. The sensible love lacking, we will follow the path with the will alone.

14. How can I occupy myself during an hour in this conversation of love with God?

In the beginning of the life of prayer many souls encounter great difficulties. They are bored and feel dissipated. One must remember that to pray is something that needs to be learnt. To teach it, the Carmel Theologians given to the study of prayer life have constructed a method of mental prayer.

Chapter II: The Method of Mental Prayer

1. What is meant by the method of mental prayer?

The method of mental prayer is the teaching which explains to us the way to pray with ease. We will indicate here the diverse acts to do one after another, in order to better do this holy exercise.

2. Is there a method of mental prayer in the Carmelite Order?

Yes, in the Carmelite Order we find a method of prayer from the beginning of the reform of St. Theresa. It was exposed in our two oldest “Instructions of novices†in Spanish (1591) and Italian (1605).

3. What is the origin of this method?

This method has its origin in the teachings of St. Theresa and St. John of the Cross. The definitive and concrete form was elaborated on by their disciples. We will give firstly a general explanation of this method, and then explain the various parts after.

4. Into how many parts is this method of mental prayer divided?

Normally we distinguish 6 or 7 parts or acts in this exercise of mental prayer: preparation, reading, meditation, (with the affectionate colloquia) thanksgiving, offering, and petition.

5. Do so many distinctions lead to a complication?

This distinction of parts does not complicate the practice of mental prayer. In effect, the two first are not mental prayer, but they make the beginning. The three last parts are purely complimentary and optional; we will omit them when we will no longer need them. It is reduced to the essential, the meditation accompanied with an intimate conversation with God (affectionate colloquia)

6. What must one consider to do the mental prayer well?

To understand the Carmelite method of prayer well, the conception of mental prayer exposed by St. Theresa must be present. In the eyes of the seraphic Virgin, mental prayer is an intimate conversation with God, in which we speak to Him especially of love, in answering His call to Love. The different parts of prayer have the aim of leading us easily to this loving conversation with Him.

7. How does the preparation serve this aim?

The preparation helps to put us in the Presence of God. It is not possible to speak intimately with someone if one is not close to Him. We must put ourselves in the Presence of God with a living Faith and in the humble attitude of a soul which recognizes itself as a soul of God.

8. What does reading do?

Reading supplies us with a subject for the loving conversation with God; conversation which can nourish itself in the consideration of the mysteries of Faith, and the gifts and graces received from God for us. In that, the love of God is manifested for us. But since it is not possible to speak of each of these things together, we can choose by the book the subject of which we want to occupy ourselves for the moment, and make it easier for our consideration in following the explanations and reflections of the book.

9. Why meditate?

The meditation or personal reflection that we do on the divine gifts or on the mystery that we have chosen in the lecture serves a double aim, one intellectual, and the other affective. The intellectual aim is to better understand the Love of God for us, love which accomplishes itself in the mystery of the divine gifts that we consider and so convince us more of the call to love made by God to our soul. The affective aim consists to move the will to the exercise of love and to its manifestation in responding to the Divine Invitation. The meditation so appears as an immediate preparation to the affective conversation with God.

10. In what way does one go from the meditation to the affectionate colloquia?

This passage must not be done at a precise moment mathematically determined, but in a spontaneous manner. In making personal reflections in the presence of God, and in seeing more closely by them how God loves us, the soul feels itself easily pushed to say the words of love. It happens often that the reflections that the soul made in itself continues them for some time in addressing words to God, and it serves to understand better His Love for us. Finally, the soul leaves all consideration to abandon itself fully to the exercise of love and its manifestation. In other terms, it passes to an affectionate colloquia. In this colloquia the soul says and repeats in a thousand ways to God that it loves Him, and that it wants to love Him, that it desires to prove Him its love.

11. Is there importance in the colloquia?

The colloquia has a very great importance, and it is the essential part of mental prayer. In it is realized directly the concept that St. Theresa had of mental prayer which consists in an intimate conversation with God to respond to His love for us. Also, the soul will be better able to occupy itself during so much time in prayer and even during an hour.

12. What is the aim of the three last parts of the mental prayer?

The three last parts or acts of mental prayer are: thanksgiving, offering and petition which aim at prolonging more easily our loving conversation with God. They are nothing else than affectionate acts more determined, of various manners, to manifest our love.

13. What is our attitude in these parts?

In the Thanksgiving we manifest to God our humble gratitude for His extreme love for us and for the lessons received from him.

In the offering, drawn by loving recognition, we want to give something to God.

In the petition, humbly convinced of our lowliness and weakness and desire to truly love God, we implore His help to succeed and be faithful to the resolutions formed in the offering.

These acts are, in the strict sense, a prolongation of the affectionate colloquia issued spontaneously from the meditation.

14. Must a determined order be used in the order of the parts of mental prayer?

The order indicated above is the most logical, but great liberty is allowed. We are free to change around these parts as we please. We can even repeat the same parts many times. It goes also for the meditation and the affectionate colloquia that we are able to alternate as we please in the same mental prayer.

15. Are the last parts necessary?

No. These acts are optional. One who can sufficiently occupy himself in the loving colloquia without recourse to these acts can skip them. But in the beginning of the life of prayer the attention of the soul is often helped by a variety of these actions. In this case the soul should have recourse to them.

(To be continued)

Letter from the Dominicans of Avrillé No. 35: March 2021

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Letter from the Dominicans of Avrillé

  Pius IX at the First Vatican Council


No. 35: March 2021

Who remembers Vatican I?

The 150th anniversary of Vatican I didn’t get much attention in our de-Christianized world, nor even within the Church. Yet Vatican I was fundamental, for many reasons:

1- The history of the first Vatican Council — as agitated as it is fascinating — represents one of the summits of the combat opposing Revelation and Revolution, for over two centuries. In the presence of Pope Pius IX, mighty bishops, including figures as different as Bishops Manning, Darboy, Dupanloup and Pie, come face to face in battle.

2- The first document of Vatican I, the constitution Dei Filius, on the notion of Faith, exposes the relations between Faith and reason in a particularly balanced fashion. It condemns not only the excess of refusing any Faith (rationalism), but also the error of belittling reason (fideism). In defining the foundations of Faith, it defines at the same time the true methods of Catholic apologetics. Before our simplistic world, which only admits mathematical science on one hand, and subjective, unverifiable opinions (left to the free choice of each person) on the other, the Council affirms the authority of Christian Revelation, which falls under neither category.

3- The second document, the constitution Pastor aeternus, on the primacy and infallibility of the Roman Pontiff, clearly and definitively indicates the goal of the Church’s magisterium, which is not to reveal any new doctrine, but simply to maintain and faithfully proclaim the Revelation handed down by the Apostles (the “deposit of the Faithâ€). In defining precisely the conditions of an infallible declaration ex cathedra, the document allows us to safely resist the neo-modernist “magisterium†of recent Popes, without relativizing the traditional magisterium of the Church.

4- The unfinished Council, having the time to promulgate only two constitutions, left a certain amount of preparatory work that is still useful today. (For more developments, see the summer 2020 issue of our review Le Sel de la Terre.)

Contrast with Vatican II

Since 1965, the striking contrast with Vatican II provides even more reasons to study Vatican I.

Vatican I was the theatre of a mortal struggle between two types of Catholicism: one that attacks error, and one that dreams of reconciliation with the world, avoiding what Bishop Dupanloup called the “irritating questions.†Whereas Vatican I was, according to Bishop Manning, the Council of Authority in opposition to triumphal Revolution, Vatican II was the Council of the Surrender of authority, drowned in collegiality, manipulated by the politically correct, and humbly submissive to all the orders of the international press.

By its constitution Dei Filius, Vatican I was the council of the clear distinction between the natural and supernatural orders. To the contrary, Vatican II, which obstinately refused to use the word “supernatural,†was the council of the blurring of the two orders. Vatican I was the council of apologetics, clearly exposing and defining the reasons to believe in Catholic doctrine. Vatican II, however, handed over the Catholic Faith to all the sophisms of the modern world.

By its constitution Pastor aeternus, Vatican I was the council of the Magisterium. Vatican II, in refusing to define and condemn, is the council of “dialogue†with the world.

By its unfinished documents, Vatican I clearly traced the path that the following council should have taken. The preparatory texts of Vatican II actually did follow traditional lines, but were quickly discarded. Vatican I, in continuity with the Council of Trent from its very outset, was a council of fidelity; Vatican II was a council of rupture.

Assumption Procession

The Grave Problem of Invalid Baptisms

The liturgical anarchy that has been raging for over 60 years can have some very grave consequences. Two recent examples:

1) On June 24th, 2020, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith officially issued a reminder of the traditional doctrine, according to which the Baptism formula, “We baptize you, in the name of the Father, etc.†is invalid. (This formula, using the plural rather than the singular, is in vogue in modernist circles, as it allows the “People of God†to usurp the role of the priest.)

Hearing of this decision in August, a priest in the archdiocese of Detroit, Fr. Matthew Hood, decided to watch the video of his Baptism… There he saw the deacon using the invalid formula! Invalid Baptism, invalid priesthood… as well as the invalidity of all the sacraments he had himself administered since his “ordination†in 2017.

2) In Brittany, last September, a young girl was preparing for her First Communion. In questioning the parents, the priest realized that the girl had not validly received the sacrament of Baptism: indeed, the God-mother had poured the water while the priest pronounced the words!

Community Chronicle

August 11th: Requiem Mass for the repose of the soul of Mr. Okuniewski, the father of Fr. Hyacinthe-Marie. Providentially, Father was in Poland just a few days earlier, and was able to administer Extreme Unction and Holy Communion to his father before his departure for eternity.

August 14th: Reception of the habit for a new lay brother, Br. Mannes (after the name of Saint Dominic’s brother, who was one of his first companions in the Order).

August 15th: Feast of the Assumption: solemn High Mass celebrated by newly-ordained Fr. Alain, followed by first benedictions, conference on Maximilian Kolbe, and procession.

August 26th: Fr. Marie-Laurent leaves for the Czech Republic to lead a pilgrimage and preach a recollection for a group of faithful.

August 29th and 30th: Fr. Hyacinthe-Marie and Br. Agostinho participate in the pilgrimage at Puy-en-Velay, presided by Bishop Faure.

September: A momentary lifting of the lockdown permits the Fathers to organize a few meetings for our tertiaries at Lyons, Paris, Chartres… in Alsace, Auvergne…

Adoration of the Cross


September 14th: Feast of the Holy Cross: solemn High Mass, followed by the benediction of a new Calvary at the entrance of the property. The next day: benediction of a new outdoor statue of Our Lady, sculpted by our Br. Bernard-Marie.

October 20th: First vows of Br. Antonin, who now starts his studies of philosophy and theology in view of the priesthood.

November 12th: Fr. Prior is at Nimes for the funeral services of Fr. Raffali, a fighter for the Faith since the beginnings of Tradition, and founder of the Stella Maris community for the education of boys.

On the same day: Br. Louis-de-Gonzague (Anthony Scmidt, from Wisconsin) makes his perpetual profession in the Third Order, as an oblate brother living in the Friary.

(see picture below)

Late November: It’s the season for plantations! Thanks to a friend of the Friary, we now have a professional orchard next to our vegetable garden (which has more than doubled in size since last year): pears, plums, cherries, apricots, walnuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts, will now (God-willing) be available to the community, even if the economy takes a turn for the worse.

December 8th: Feast of the Immaculate Conception: in lieu of the traditional procession in the streets of Angers (prohibited because of the Corona madness), Fr. Marie-Laurent leads the faithful in a public Rosary in front of the Cathedral.

December 18th-20th: Fathers Marie-Laurent and Hyacinthe-Marie are in Riddes Switzerland preaching an Advent recollection.

December 31st: The Church is full for the Solemn Te Deum sung after the office of Compline.


News From Our Worksites

The Construction permit for the new Parish Hall has finally been granted! The work is planned to start after Easter.

Parish Hall Project

A new gate has been installed at the South entrance of the property, in order to limit access to “passers-byâ€, who have become more and more numerous these past years.

The work on the East wing façade is finished. After the parish hall is built, the restoration of the West wing (crumbling stone and leaky roof) will be undertaken.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support, without which none of this would be possible!

For timely articles and spiritual reading, please go to our website:

www.dominicansavrille.us

To send a donation:

YOU MAY USE PAYPAL (ON OUR WEBSITE), OR SEND TO:

— In the U.S.:

Dominicans of Avrillé, Inc.
P.O. Box 23, Newman Lake, WA. 99025

— In Canada:

Association of St. Dominic

CIBC, 201-21 Street East

Saskatoon (SK) S7K OB8 Canada

Please include a note, and specify:

acc. #40-91531

— In the U.K.:

Association of St. Dominic

R B S Edinburgh, 17 Comiston Road

Edinburgh EH10 6AA

Please specify: acc. # 00105564

For more information :

Couvent de la Haye-aux-Bonshommes

49240 Avrillé, France

Dialogue About Perfection

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Dialogue About Perfection

  by Saint Catherine of Siena

   (published in French by Éditions du Sel. English version by A. A.)

The Honor of God; The Misery and Fragility of Man;

The Need to Strive for Perfection

The Author of the light communicated to a soul1. He made her understand her fragility and misery, ignorance and natural inclination to evil; at the same time, He gave her some glimpses of the greatness of God, His wisdom, power, goodness, and the other attributes of His majesty.

Thus enlightened, this soul saw how just and necessary it is to render perfect and holy worship to God. It is just, because He is the universal Lord Who created all things to praise His name and obtain His glory. Do not propriety and justice require that, respectful of his master, the servant give him service and loyalty? It is necessary, because man, composed of body and soul, was created in such a condition that he will only attain eternal life by voluntarily rendering faithful service to God up to the point of death; otherwise, he will never obtain the felicity that accumulates all honors.

However, there are few who render this service and, consequently, few who are saved, because almost all have their own interests in mind and not those of God.

This soul also saw that the days of man are short, that the day is uncertain when the fleeting time to merit will end, that no redemption is possible in hell, and that in the future life, He will justly pronounce an immutable and inevitable sentence on each, the reward or punishment that his way of living deserved.

This soul again considered that, on the one hand, we often talk too much and preach abundantly and variously on the virtues which render this worship and faithful service to God; and that, on the other hand, because of his lack of aptitude, obtuse intelligence, and feeble memory, man cannot understand many things nor faithfully retain what he learned. Also, while many are in a perpetual quest to learn something new, very few apply themselves to attaining perfection and serving God as is right and necessary for Him; but nearly all, preoccupied and given over to the agitations and fluctuations of the mind, habitually live in extreme peril.

The Desire for Perfection

This soul, therefore, seeing all this, rose up before the Lord, moved by a burning desire and violent love, and asked the Divine Majesty to be good enough to give her some short and clear precepts to regulate our life now and to lead it to its perfection; precepts whose formulas would embrace the teaching of the Church and Holy Scripture, and whose observance would render the necessary honor to God and lead us from this brief and miserable life to the beatitude that He intends for us.

God inspires holy desires and never arouses them in a heart without satisfying them 2. So he immediately manifested Himself to this soul ravished in ecstasy and replied:

In What Does Complete Perfection Consist?

• The Lord

My beloved, your desires delight Me; I like them so much that I am much more eager to satisfy them than you can, and eager to see them satisfied. My desire is immense to give you, when you want it, the useful and necessary benefits for your salvation. So I am ready to do whatever you want.

Listen carefully to what I am going to tell you, I, the ineffable and infallible truth. To answer your request, I am going to explain to you in a few words the practice which contains complete perfection, along with all the virtues, the summary of Scriptures and many discourses. If you conform your life to it and observe it, you will accomplish all that is clear and mysterious in the divine teachings, and you will enjoy perpetual joy and peace.

Doing God’s Will Alone, Following Christ’s Example

• The Lord

Thus, know that the salvation and the perfection of My servants consist in one thing: to do only My will, to strive with a sovereign diligence always to accomplish it; to work at all hours to serve only Me, to honor only Me, to seek only Me. The more diligence My servants bring to it, the more they approach perfection, because they more closely adhere and are united to Me, Who am sovereign perfection.

To better understand the truth contained in these few words, look at my Christ in whom I am very pleased 3. He annihilated himself in the form of a slave; He took on the likeness of sin because, plunged into thick darkness and straying from the path of truth, He wanted to enlighten you with the splendors of His light and bring you back to the straight way by His word and example4. He was obedient unto death to teach you through His persevering obedience that your salvation depends on a firm resolution to do My will alone. Anyone who wishes to meditate diligently on His life and His doctrine realizes, without a doubt, that the justice and perfection of men rests solely on generous, perpetual, and faithful obedience to My will.

Your leader, Christ, has taught it many times: “Not everyone that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father†(Mt. 7:21).

And notice that it is not without reason that He repeats twice: “Lord, Lordâ€; the states of this world being reduced to two principal ones, the religious state and the secular state. He means that no one, in any state whatsoever, can attain eternal glory, even by giving Him all external honors, if he does not do God’s will.

My Son said again: “I came down from heaven, not to do My own will but the will of Him that sent Me5. (…) My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me6. (…) Father … not My will, but Thine be done7. (…) as the Father hath given Me commandments, so do I8.â€

So if you want, like your Savior, to do My will, which contains your happiness, it is necessary that in all things you despise your own will, that you renounce it, that you destroy it9. The more you purify yourself of what is yours, the more I will give you what is mine.

To be continued

1It is the soul of Saint Catherine.

2On another occasion, the Eternal Father said to St. Catherine: “I do not despise the desire of my servants, yet I give to him who asks and invite you to ask. (…) sometimes, to test your desires and perseverance, I pretend not to hear you, but I hear you and give you what you need, because I give you hunger and the voice with which you cry out to me, and seeing your constancy, I fulfill your desires when they are ordered and directed toward me.†(Dialogue ch. 107)

3St. Catherine wrote: “Christ is on the cross as our rule, like a written book which anyone, even the ignorant and blind, can read. The first line of this book is hatred and love: love of the honor of the Father, hatred of sin.†(Letter to Br. Lazzani)

4The Eternal Father had already said to Catherine: “What caused the great obedience of the Word? The love which He had for My honor and your salvation. Whence proceeded this love? From the clear vision with which His soul saw the divine essence and the eternal Trinity, thus always looking on Me, the eternal God. His fidelity obtained this vision most perfectly for Him, which vision you imperfectly enjoy by the light of holy faith. He was faithful to Me, His eternal Father, and therefore hastened as one enamored along the road of obedience†(Dialogue 154 ; THOROLD Ed., Treatise of Obedience, §1).

5 John 6:38

6 John 4:34

7 Luke 22:42

8John 22:42

9Self-will is that which, being inspired neither by the glory of God nor the salvation of souls, proposes only its personal satisfaction. It is directly contrary to charity. Nothing is more essential than its destruction.

In the Heart of the Message of Fatima

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In the Heart of the Message of Fatima

  The Offering of the Sacrifices of Our Daily Duties to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the Conversion of Sinners

“Jesus wants to establish in the world the devotion to my Immaculate Heart. For those who accept it, I promise salvation, and these souls will be the beloved of God, like flowers placed by me to adorn His throne.â€

(Our Lady of Fatima, June 13, 2017)

“The Blessed Virgin told me that God has given the last two remedies to the world: the Holy Rosary and the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Because these are the last two, there will be no others.â€

(Sister Lucy’s interview with Father Fuentes, in 1957)

What should we do?

There is of course the Communion of Reparation on the first Saturday of every month for at least five consecutive months.

But the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary doesn’t consist only in some prayers once a month. It must be a devotion of all life.

Let us read Sister Lucy:

“The most important thing is to perform our daily work, and to offer up the necessary sacrifices for the accomplishment of our work, for the poor sinners.

The secondary requests are the Rosary and the scapular, and perhaps especially what each of these two devotion requests respectively: attentive meditation on the mysteries of the Rosary, and consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.â€

(Sister Lucy, in the book of John Haffert, The brother and I, chapter 27)

“The sins (of the world) are numerous, but [the most painful] is the neglect of the souls for which Our Lord had such a ardent hope for his service. Only a very limited number of souls [serve Him as he wants]. The worst thing is that I [sister Lucy] am among the lukewarm, even after all the efforts He made to draw me into the circle of the fervent. I make easily promises, but I fall short more easily. Dust accumulates around our actions like it does on our clothing, and we don’t know how it came.â€

(Letter to Father Gonçalvès, April 24, 1940.)

“Our Lord bitterly and painfully laments the very limited number of souls in the state of grace, who are ready to renounce themselves according to what His Law requires. This is the penance that the Good Lord requires today: The sacrifice that each one must make on himself in order to lead a life of justice in the observation of His law.

He wants that we make this clearly known to the souls, for many think that the word “penance†means great mortifications. Since they feel neither the inner power, nor the generosity for that, they become discouraged and adopt a lukewarm and sinful life.

One Thursday, while I was in the chapel at midnight with the permission of my superiors, Our Lord told me:

The sacrifice of everybody to fulfil his own duty, and to observe my law: this is the penance that I want and that I require right now.

(Letter to the Bishop of Gurza, February 28, 1943.)

“It is so good to live totally dependent on the Will of God! It is this dependence that guides our each and every step. This is why peace and joy overflow our souls, even when we are making sacrifices, since our only inspiration is to please God by sacrificing ourselves for Him and for the souls that He wants to save. This sacrifice consists in the perfect accomplishment of our work each day and at every moment. You know, don’t you know, that he understands what it is we owe God, our neighbor, and ourselves. The true spirit of penance consists of the following: knowing how to sacrifice oneself so as not to sin; knowing how to sacrifice oneself rather than being imperfect; knowing how to sacrifice oneself in order to go further and further to the point of love’s generosity. This must be the ideal of each soul who aspires to arrive at the day on which he beholds God and exalts in His presence in Heaven.â€

(Letter to a friend, November 17, 1954.)

This is what Our Lady wants : the penance of the duty of state, fulfilled as perfectly as possible. There are some souls who think about great and extraordinary mortifications, going so far as to macerate themselves. They know they are not able of doing this, and so they lose courage. When Our Lady requires penance, she speaks about the perfect fulfilment of our duty of state: this is holiness!

(L’appel du Cœur Douloureux et Immaculé de Marie, n°78.)

In the Heart of the Message of Fatima :

admin FEATURED POSTS - Articles and Texts section


In the Heart of the Message of Fatima :

The Offering of the Sacrifices of Our Daily Duties to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the Conversion of Sinners

“Jesus wants to establish in the world the devotion to my Immaculate Heart. For those who accept it, I promise salvation, and these souls will be the beloved of God, like flowers placed by me to adorn His throne.â€

(Our Lady of Fatima, June 13, 2017)

“The Blessed Virgin told me that God has given the last two remedies to the world: the Holy Rosary and the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Because these are the last two, there will be no others.â€

(Sister Lucy’s interview with Father Fuentes, in 1957)

What should we do?

There is of course the Communion of Reparation on the first Saturday of every month for at least five consecutive months.

But the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary doesn’t consist only in some prayers once a month. It must be a devotion of all life.

Let us read Sister Lucy:

“The most important thing is to perform our daily work, and to offer up the necessary sacrifices for the accomplishment of our work, for the poor sinners.

The secondary requests are the Rosary and the scapular, and perhaps especially what each of these two devotion requests respectively: attentive meditation on the mysteries of the Rosary, and consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.â€

(Sister Lucy, in the book of John Haffert, The brother and I, chapter 27)

“The sins (of the world) are numerous, but [the most painful] is the neglect of the souls for which Our Lord had such a ardent hope for his service. Only a very limited number of souls [serve Him as he wants]. The worst thing is that I [sister Lucy] am among the lukewarm, even after all the efforts He made to draw me into the circle of the fervent. I make easily promises, but I fall short more easily. Dust accumulates around our actions like it does on our clothing, and we don’t know how it came.â€

(Letter to Father Gonçalvès, April 24, 1940.)

“Our Lord bitterly and painfully laments the very limited number of souls in the state of grace, who are ready to renounce themselves according to what His Law requires. This is the penance that the Good Lord requires today: The sacrifice that each one must make on himself in order to lead a life of justice in the observation of His law.

He wants that we make this clearly known to the souls, for many think that the word “penance†means great mortifications. Since they feel neither the inner power, nor the generosity for that, they become discouraged and adopt a lukewarm and sinful life.

One Thursday, while I was in the chapel at midnight with the permission of my superiors, Our Lord told me:

The sacrifice of everybody to fulfil his own duty, and to observe my law: this is the penance that I want and that I require right now.

(Letter to the Bishop of Gurza, February 28, 1943.)

“It is so good to live totally dependent on the Will of God! It is this dependence that guides our each and every step. This is why peace and joy overflow our souls, even when we are making sacrifices, since our only inspiration is to please God by sacrificing ourselves for Him and for the souls that He wants to save. This sacrifice consists in the perfect accomplishment of our work each day and at every moment. You know, don’t you know, that he understands what it is we owe God, our neighbor, and ourselves. The true spirit of penance consists of the following: knowing how to sacrifice oneself so as not to sin; knowing how to sacrifice oneself rather than being imperfect; knowing how to sacrifice oneself in order to go further and further to the point of love’s generosity. This must be the ideal of each soul who aspires to arrive at the day on which he beholds God and exalts in His presence in Heaven.â€

(Letter to a friend, November 17, 1954.)

This is what Our Lady wants : the penance of the duty of state, fulfilled as perfectly as possible. There are some souls who think about great and extraordinary mortifications, going so far as to macerate themselves. They know they are not able of doing this, and so they lose courage. When Our Lady requires penance, she speaks about the perfect fulfilment of our duty of state: this is holiness!

(L’appel du Cœur Douloureux et Immaculé de Marie, n°78.)

In the Heart of the Message of Fatima:

admin FEATURED POSTS - Articles and Texts section


In the Heart of the Message of Fatima:

The Offering of the Sacrifices of Our Daily Duties to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the Conversion of Sinners

“Jesus wants to establish in the world the devotion to my Immaculate Heart. For those who accept it, I promise salvation, and these souls will be the beloved of God, like flowers placed by me to adorn His throne.â€

(Our Lady of Fatima, June 13, 2017)

“The Blessed Virgin told me that God has given the last two remedies to the world: the Holy Rosary and the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Because these are the last two, there will be no others.â€

(Sister Lucy’s interview with Father Fuentes, in 1957)

What should we do?

There is of course the Communion of Reparation on the first Saturday of every month for at least five consecutive months.

But the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary doesn’t consist only in some prayers once a month. It must be a devotion of all life.

Let us read Sister Lucy:

“The most important thing is to perform our daily work, and to offer up the necessary sacrifices for the accomplishment of our work, for the poor sinners.

The secondary requests are the Rosary and the scapular, and perhaps especially what each of these two devotion requests respectively: attentive meditation on the mysteries of the Rosary, and consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.â€

(Sister Lucy, in the book of John Haffert, The brother and I, chapter 27)

“The sins (of the world) are numerous, but [the most painful] is the neglect of the souls for which Our Lord had such a ardent hope for his service. Only a very limited number of souls [serve Him as he wants]. The worst thing is that I [sister Lucy] am among the lukewarm, even after all the efforts He made to draw me into the circle of the fervent. I make easily promises, but I fall short more easily. Dust accumulates around our actions like it does on our clothing, and we don’t know how it came.â€

(Letter to Father Gonçalvès, April 24, 1940.)

“Our Lord bitterly and painfully laments the very limited number of souls in the state of grace, who are ready to renounce themselves according to what His Law requires. This is the penance that the Good Lord requires today: The sacrifice that each one must make on himself in order to lead a life of justice in the observation of His law.

He wants that we make this clearly known to the souls, for many think that the word “penance†means great mortifications. Since they feel neither the inner power, nor the generosity for that, they become discouraged and adopt a lukewarm and sinful life.

One Thursday, while I was in the chapel at midnight with the permission of my superiors, Our Lord told me:

The sacrifice of everybody to fulfil his own duty, and to observe my law: this is the penance that I want and that I require right now.

(Letter to the Bishop of Gurza, February 28, 1943.)

“It is so good to live totally dependent on the Will of God! It is this dependence that guides our each and every step. This is why peace and joy overflow our souls, even when we are making sacrifices, since our only inspiration is to please God by sacrificing ourselves for Him and for the souls that He wants to save. This sacrifice consists in the perfect accomplishment of our work each day and at every moment. You know, don’t you know, that he understands what it is we owe God, our neighbor, and ourselves. The true spirit of penance consists of the following: knowing how to sacrifice oneself so as not to sin; knowing how to sacrifice oneself rather than being imperfect; knowing how to sacrifice oneself in order to go further and further to the point of love’s generosity. This must be the ideal of each soul who aspires to arrive at the day on which he beholds God and exalts in His presence in Heaven.â€

(Letter to a friend, November 17, 1954.)

This is what Our Lady wants : the penance of the duty of state, fulfilled as perfectly as possible. There are some souls who think about great and extraordinary mortifications, going so far as to macerate themselves. They know they are not able of doing this, and so they lose courage. When Our Lady requires penance, she speaks about the perfect fulfilment of our duty of state: this is holiness!

(L’appel du Cœur Douloureux et Immaculé de Marie, n°78.)

Bishop Carlo-Maria Vigano

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Bishop Carlo-Maria Vigano

  A Bishop Who Tells the Truth on the Church of Vatican II

Msgr. Carlo Vigano, former apostolic nuncio to the USA from 2011 to 2016, has for a few weeks been publishing increasingly clearer texts showing his awareness of the errors of the Second Vatican Council and the reforms that followed.

He denounces the desire of Freemasonry to institute a “universal religion that is humanitarian and ecumenicalâ€, as well as “the responsibility of the highest levels of the Church in supporting these anti-Christian ideologiesâ€.

He also shows the failure of the Hermeneutic of Continuity.

What supporters of the current pope “affirm with impunity, scandalizing moderates, is what Catholics also believe, namely: that despite all the efforts of the Hermeneutic of Continuity which shipwrecked miserably at the first confrontation with the reality of the present crisis, it is undeniable that from Vatican II on wards a parallel church was built, superimposed over and diametrically opposed to the true Church of Christ. This parallel church progressively obscured the divine institution founded by Our Lord in order to replace it with a spurious entity, corresponding to the desired universal religion that was first theorized by Masonry.â€

Look at his declarations on:

— Chiesa et Postconcilio

— Trinity Communications, 2020

In a World Falling Apart

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In a World Falling Apart

  Editorial of Le Sel de la Terre 4

  (Spring 1993)

  Published again on our French Website in April 2020

We hear from various places that the world is going to experience a serious crisis soon. For those who have read and meditated a bit on the Apocalypse, there is no reason to be surprised. The world has abandoned God; God will leave the world to fend for itself…

Pope Pius XII said that our world had to be remade right down to its foundations 1. If the world collapses in front of us, we must be able to offer it a solid foundations for recovery. In other words, it is essential to reflect seriously on the principles of the temporal and supernatural orders. One does not hold up a building about to fall by restoring its facade.

Only the Catholic Church has the remedy for this great crisis that threatens us. This remedy is Our Lord Jesus Christ and His divine grace, “gratia sanans et elevans 1â€. Only He can heal human nature broken by original sin. He is the only salvation for individuals and institutions, as Pope Pius X said:

“No! It must be energetically recalled in these times of social and intellectual anarchy where everyone poses as a doctor and a legislator; we will not build the city otherwise than how God built it; society will not be rebuilt if the Church does not lay the foundations and direct its work. No! Civilization is no longer to be invented, nor is the new city to be built in the clouds. It was, it is: it is Christian civilization; it is the Catholic city. It is only a question of unceasingly establishing and restoring it on its natural and divine foundations against the ever-reappearing attacks of an unhealthy utopia, revolt, and impiety: omnia instaurare in Christo1.â€

But who today is going to give us these principles of the natural and Christian orders, these natural and divine foundations as Saint Pius X says? Unfortunately, we should not expect them from the current Roman authorities. Let us quote cardinal Ratzinger:

“It would be absurd to want to go backwards, to return to a system of political Christianity. But it is true that we have a responsibility in this world and wish to bring our contribution as Catholics to it. We do not want to impose Catholicism on the West, but we want the fundamental values of Christianity and the dominant liberal values in the world today to be able to meet and enrich each other 1.â€

It couldn’t be clearer: the Conciliar Church made the principles of liberalism its own, and we would vainly ask for the principles of a Christian social order.

We have to look for these principles in the Common Doctor, Saint Thomas Aquinas, as Pope Pius XI taught:

“Since he is the perfect theologian, as we said, he gives certain rules and precepts of life not only for individuals, but also for the family and civil society, which is the object of domestic and political morals. Hence, these magnificent chapters found in the second part of the Summa Theologica on the paternal or domestic regime and legitimate power in the city or the nation; the natural law and international law; peace and war; justice and property; laws and obedience; the duty to watch over the good of individuals and public prosperity, both in the supernatural and natural orders. If, in particular and public affairs and in international relations, these precepts were religiously and inviolably observed, they would suffice to establish among men that “peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ†that the entire world so ardently desires. We must therefore hope that one studies more and more the teachings of Aquinas on the law of nations and the laws which govern the mutual relations of nations, because these teachings contain the foundations of a true League of Nations, as we say today 1.â€

While the Freemason takes in hand his square and compass to build a New World Order, a modern Tower of Babel, we must study, in the infallible doctrine of the Popes before Vatican II, and in the works of saint Thomas Aquinas, the immutable principles capable of guiding those who want to rebuild a Christian world.

Thus, there is no question of being discouraged by the heap of ruins and the seemingly insurmountable difficulties that stand before us! This is not a time for discouragement, but for work. Humble and obscure work perhaps, but deep, tenacious work, offered in homage to the Holy Trinity, from Whom we know that success will come on the day that He, in His eternal Wisdom, has set.