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Oldest German Diocese to Close 96% of Parishes

Bishop Stephan Ackermann of the Diocese of Trier, in Germany, has announced that the diocese will be closing almost all of its parishes. From Gloria.tv:

Trier diocese, the oldest in Germany, will dissolve its 903 parishes and reduce them to 35, liberal Bishop Stephan Ackermann (54) explained on Friday during an information meeting of the diocese in Trier. He spoke of a “crisis”.

Ackermann admitted that the new parishes will have nothing in common with the traditional ones “but the name”. Trier is the birthplace of Karl Marx.

A Feature, Not a Bug

For most Catholics in the English-speaking world, there is a generalized knowledge of Germany’s difficulties with the faith. Their role in the liberalization that took place at the Second Vatican Council inspired the title of Fr. Ralph Wiltgen’s famous book, The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber. Several German prelates were involved in the so-called Sankt Gallen Mafia, a group alleged to have meddled in the last two papal elections with the aim of electing a pope who would progressively “reform” the Church. And as 1P5’s Maike Hickson reported earlier this month, two German dioceses (Osnabrück and Mainz) will not ordain any priests this year. These problems are just to name a few.

But the specifics of the situation in Trier are worth noting as we evaluate this stunning liquidation of the Catholic Church there.

First, Trier is not just the oldest Catholic diocese in Germany and the birthplace of Karl Marx, it was also, until recently, the diocesan see of Cardinal Reinhardt Marx, head of the German bishops’ conference and one of the closest advisers to Pope Francis. Marx is known, among other things, for rejecting the dubia, supporting Holy Communion for the “remarried”, for pushing the discussion forward on revisiting priestly celibacy, and for stating publicly that the Catholic Church needs to apologize to homosexuals “because we’ve done a lot to marginalize [them].”

From his time as Bishop of Trier a decade ago, Marx has been accused of negligence in the handling of a particular clerical sexual abuse case, an accusation that he has just recently admitted is true.

Since 2009, Bishop Stephan Ackerman has been at the helm of the diocese, following the translation of Reinhard Marx to become Archbishop of Munich and Freising. (It should be noted that Munich, now under the care of Marx, had only 1 new seminarian last year, with a total of 37 seminarians in various stages of formation to serve a diocese of 1.7 million Catholics.)

Ackermann made waves in 2014 when he said, following a review of the surveys sent out in advance of the Synod on the Family, that the responses

showed “quite clearly” that for the majority of the faithful the church’s teaching on moral sexuality was “repressive” and “remote from life.” Declaring a second marriage after a divorce a perpetual mortal sin, and under no circumstances allowing remarried divorced people ever to receive the Sacraments, was not helpful, he said and added, “We bishops will have to make suggestions here. We must strengthen people’s sense of responsibility and then respect their decisions of conscience.”

It was also no longer tenable to declare that every kind of cohabitation before marriage was a grievous sin, and “the difference between natural and artificial birth control is somehow artificial. No one understands it I fear,” Ackermann said.

As far as homosexual relationships were concerned, the church would have to appeal to people’s sense of responsibility, he continued. “The Christian concept of the human being emanates from the polarity of the sexes but we cannot simply say homosexuality is unnatural,” he explained. While the church must “hold fast” to the uniqueness of marriage between a man and a woman, it could not just ignore registered same-sex unions where the couples had promised to be faithful to and responsible for one another.

It was a theme he repeated in 2015 as the German bishops voted to “allow Church employees to publicly defy Catholic teaching”, as reported by Maike Hickson at the time in an article for LifeSiteNews.

Bishop Ackermann made the news again when he refused to allow a Traditional Requiem Mass for Father Adolf Mohr, an 86-year-old priest of the diocese who had died of cancer and expressly asked for his funeral to be held in the old rite in his will. Ackermann eventually relented after backlash, originating mostly on the Internet, turned public sentiment against him.

It is ironic to see a Bishop lamenting a “crisis” in his languishing diocese when he has demonstrated little to no interest in upholding the Catholic Faith.

Does he believe that in an environment where the people who come to Mass are given the same moral framework as they are in the surrounding, secular culture, that they will be drawn into the life of the Faith? For what reason would such people make sacrifices, follow moral precepts (when they are discouraged from doing so by their shepherd), or in any way live their Catholicism?

Of course, from a business standpoint, it makes sense to close these parishes, especially if the people stay “on the books” as Catholics and continue to pay Germany’s rather steep (8 or 9 percent of total income tax) Church Tax, which keeps the German Catholic Church flush with cash even as it is hollowed out from within. Why keep such liabilities on your ledger sheet if you can sell them at a profit but still keep the faithful on the hook with a feel-good substitute for Catholicism that demands nothing of them and affirms them in their sin?

For the official Catholic Church in Germany, the rush to the bottom seems as though it can’t come fast enough. And yet good, orthodox Catholics remain there, desperate for a way to truly worship God and live their faith. May God grant them consolation and hope amidst this bitter trial.

And what does Bishop Ackermann mean when he says “that the new parishes will have nothing in common with the traditional ones ‘but the name’.”? I thought that was already the case. If he has something even further from real Catholicism in mind, I shudder to think what it might be.

UPDATE – 6/16/17: Some additional information has come in since my original report, which was based on the very short story from Gloria.tv. In the emails I received, there were links to two German sources: both an FAQ at the Diocese of Trier, and a story about the parish closings in Südwestrundfunk (SWR), a public broadcasting company in Southwest Germany. Neither of these sources seem to make what is happening entirely clear, but the picture that emerges for the moment is less one of parish closings and more of parish consolidation. The SWR report indicates that “The proposed draft stipulates that instead of the 887 parishes, which are already included in 172 parishes, from the beginning of 2020, there will be only 35 large parishes. These would then comprise between about 16,000 and about 77,000 believers.” Vicar General of the Trier Diocese Ulrich Graf von Plettenberg said that the parish of the future will be a “network with many nodal points” in which the administrative tasks will be handled centrally. It remains uncertain, therefore, how many of the parish buildings will actually be closed down and/or liquidated in an effort to centralize administrative tasks. With a shortage of priests and staff, it seems unlikely that all of the physical property of the diocese can be maintained in such an effort, but time will tell what the final result will look like.

341 thoughts on “Oldest German Diocese to Close 96% of Parishes”

    • From 900 Churches to 35 ? That is a big drop. Even the Archdiocese of Hartford’s Parish Closing Plans don’t have that big of a decrease……

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      • A lot of churches in the Syracuse diocese have been closed and a catholic cathedral in Syracuse was sold to….wait for it…. THE MUSLIMS! As beautiful as that building is, I’d rather see it bulldozed than end up in their hands.

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    • Yes, sadly — apostasy complete! I guess the “counterfeit” rebellious German “Catholic” prelates are happy!! They couldn’t lead a flea to Christ! They wouldn’t want to, either! NO FAITH!!! They are a CORRUPT, IMMORAL COUNTERFEIT!! With a CORRUPT, IMMORAL COUNTERFEIT CHURCH which they, themselves, have crafted, all these years! “The Rhine flows into the Tiber”– and corrupts it !! Tragic! And look at the “counterfeit” prelate and priests of Malta, once so totally devout Catholic– look at them all rush, to imitate the “counterfeits” now insisting, and decreeing– that in imitation of the rebellious Pope, and his “Amoris Laetitia,” and CORRUPT leading German prelates — they shall now force all priests to give Communion to all divorced/remarried, LAZY, disinterested “Catholics,” who never bothered to get FREE Church annulments– and, I suppose, also– force the priests to give Communion to sinful “Catholics” who “shack up,” as well as, OF COURSE!!– give Communion to gay, “married” “Catholics” and their lovers!! — and so, they all are building– an IMMORAL, COUNTERFEIT CHURCH OF APOSTASY— with the name of “CATHOLIC” falsely on it!! It’s not “official” yet, as an APOSTATE “CHURCH” (or, a NEW CHURCH, with the false name of “CATHOLIC” on it, impersonating or rivaling the the REAL CHURCH!!)—- but these rebellious, IMMORAL, CORRUPT, un-Christian modern Churchmen— all are heading directly for— SCHISM!!!!! (INCLUDING THE POPE!!) SCHISM!!!!!!

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      • Yes, it gets better. Modernists are dying. In Germany, except traditionalists and Polish immigrants, there are no Catholics.

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        • Well….. we need to convert them back. We can’t let Europe go into the Sunset. If you allow the Church in Germany to die, then…….. You are very cold hearted. So it starts with…… fixing the Seminaries.

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          • No Mr. Vu you need to fix the papacy and the wayward Hierarchy like Ackerman and R. Marx. With those two and Pope Francis you might as well Have Karl or Groucho Marx in charge of Germany or sad to say the Vatican.

          • Besides…… You seem to put so much trust in the Vatican out of all places……. Remember what Christ told us ? To go out and Preach the Gospel to all Nations. And that means through every means possible. It’s up to us to be Missionaries. We need go back to basics……. and start praying again.

          • I am totally with you in this. And I am trying to do my best, especially much and often for the last three years. And it is difficult, very heavy job. People are often saying to me things like; “But you are talking about another things than pope!”. And often times when I try to explain them, they make me even a papafob….
            But, God knows the hearts,… and He can make even impossible things (which seems to be for us),- possible. So we must keep trying and preaching the TRUE Gospel everywhere and to everyone. Clear and loud, Shouted from the rooftops.

  1. Same thing occurring in Ct. USA. In 1999 just 18 yrs ago there were 325 Thousand weekly church going Catholics here in the state.. Rc people were 25 % of Ct. population by far the largest of any religion here. In Waterbury Naugatuck area where I live there were 25 churches-parishes ,Four in the suburb of Naugatuck. In Central Ct. Hartford and New Haven counties there were 226 Parishes………… Eighteen yrs later there are just 21 Parishes in Wtby. Naugy( Four parishes) area despite a record high increase in Population in this area. Waterbury Naugy region had the only increase in population in the entire state of Ct.. According to secular Press here there has been a SEVENTY percent decrease in weekly church going Catholics. Obviously a HUGE decline in weekly mass going RC to one hundred and 25 thousand people …….. Despite a large increase in population in the W. N. area there will soon be Fifteen parishes left only with two left in Naugatuck.. UC Naugatuck parishes St Hedwig with closed Convent school etc. and St. Mary’s will close down completely. Obviously there is a Crippling shortage of clergy and vocations here. Our Maronite Eastern Rite pastor in Waterbury’s Lady of Lebanon church has to cover for hospital duties at local hospital due to shortage of Reg. AD of Hartford RC Novus ordo pastors. Parishes in New Haven and Hartford county will shrink to 127 parishes shortly. Six or more of the parishes here are populated by new Hispanic migrants to the W. N. area. Otherwise the RC church here would have shrunk to TEN churches or Less here.

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    • You are right, Ed of Ct., both there in Conn, and across the US, across Germany, across Europe, we are watching the “management of the decline.”

      The leadership lacks a singular interest in changing the downward arc of inevitable extinction.

      However, criticize too openly, too specifically, and too pointedly, and they instantly are electrically transformed into canonical fire-breathing dragons, defending their tarnished and dissipating treasure to their last breath. Warning to the wise.

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  2. Good, the sooner the Novus Ordo closes up shop the better, meanwhile I can’t find a seat in my Sunday TLM.

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    • Novus Ordo ? You’re blaming everything on the Novus Ordo ? I mean you’re painting a very broad brush. I would think even with the Extraordinary Form, Europe would still continue to decline. I read that by the late 50s, Europe and in a way the United States was in a way turning Athiest already.

      And where is the Growth Now ? Africa. Asia. If you go to Vietnam ( I’m Vietnamese ), You see a Vibrant Faith.

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        • I’m just saying I read that starting even in the late 50s…. with all the Traditional Mass and Stuff, the Smoke had already begun to enter….. Vatican 2 and the Novus Ordo just blew the Top off.

          Let’s think about it. During the Great Vocations Boom of the 30s through 50s…. which I think you seem to Idolize…… we’ve had Karl Rahner, the then Joseph Ratzinger, and all the ” Modernist ” Bishops ordained as Priests during this time…… The Traditional Latin Mass didn’t do a pretty good job then……

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          • The seed of modernism was planted long before the 1030’s-50’s and as one astute reader points out above, actually began with the devil Luther.
            The Novus Ordo is a “banal, on the spot fabrication” and not licit, it’s directly responsible for falling away of the faithful, change the liturgy .
            Destroy the faith in five easy steps, all of this was done first in the protestant revolt long before Vatican II, it was well tested by the 1960’s.

            Make the Mass about Man.
            Distribute Communion in the Hand.
            Remove Objective Beauty from Churches.
            Innovate. Constantly Innovate.
            Never Reference the Supernatural. Ever.

          • Communion in the Hand : Okay….. Technically, Communion in the Hand is banned….. but for some unknown reason, The Vatican allowed it as an option for the US, Italy, and Europe in 1977 after protests by Bishops in those Countries. In Asia and Africa, It is still banned. It was never forced upon by the Vatican. And the whole thing started during the Early 60s. http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2014/03/truth-about-communion-in-hand-while.html#.WURjNJLyuW8.

            You can still receive Communion on the Tounge at any Catholic Church….. in fact, it is encouraged.

            Make the Mass About the Man ? Gregorian Chant was encouraged by Vatican 2. It was never banned. The Facing the People Thing was never mandated by Vatican 2 or the ” Novus Ordo ” Mass. Vatican 2 never ordered destruction of the High Altars or the Destruction of the Altars. In fact if you read the Novus Ordo Rubrics, You might notice that the Rubrics assumes that the Priest is not facing the People. The Free Standing Altar was allowed as an Option…. there’s that word again..

            I would argue that the removal of Objective Beauty actually began after the Reformation. Why ? The Jesuits at that time were very focused on Reasoning that they forgot the Emotional Artistic Part…….

            Innovate. Innovate What ? Exactly ?

            The Supernatural ? Hey My Pastor mentioned Purgatory, Fatima, Trinity, and the Rosary……

          • Here I thought the apologists for Vatican II had all faded away, evidently not:

            Priests: 1945 = 38,451 1950 = 42,970 1955 = 46,970 1960 = 53,796 1965 = 58,000

            Priests: 2013 = 38,800 Diocesan Priests = 26,500 and Religious = 12,300

            Ordinations to the Priesthood: 1965 = 994

            Ordinations: 2013 = 511

            Seminarians: 1965 = 49,000 Graduate level: = 8325

            Graduate level Seminarians: 2013 = 3694

            Religious Sisters in the whole world 1973 = 1 million. In 2013 = 721,935.

            Parishes: 1965 = 17,637

            Parishes: 2013 = 17,413

            Mass Attendance in 1965: 65 % of Catholics attended Sunday Mass

            2013, Only 24 % of Catholics attend Sunday Mass.

            And, in 2017 it’s much, much worse, like a earthquake Richter scale it gets exponentially worse.

          • First off, Instead of rebutting my Arguments, you instead use Ad Hominem Attacks calling me an Apologist for Vatican 2, and you offered up a red herring and just throw out facts without any explanation and links.

            Number 2…….. Let’s dig a bit deeper into the Facts you just provided. I believe you are providing a false cause. Comparing the Novus Ordo Mass to a decline in Catholic Church Participation is only a Correalation. You haven’t been able to explain a direct link. Though there is massive declines in the Priesthood, Parishes, Mass Attendence, and Religious Life, I would not blame it on the ” Novus Ordo ” Mass alone. Let’s take a look at an African Country….. Cameroon. In the Archdiocese of Bamenda, The Number of Priests, Male and Female Religious, and Catholics went up. http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dbame.html And yes, They celebrate the Novus Ordo Mass. I would think that Mass Attendence would be high as well.

            Let’s head on over to my Ancestral Homeland. Vietnam, which is currently under Communist Rule. The Archdiocese of Ho Chi Minh City. The Number of Catholics went up, and the Number of Priests went up by a Hundred in 4 years. That’s 25 Priests ordained a Year, despite all the Communist Blocks. Male Religious, Female Religious, and Parishes also went up. http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dthan.html They also celebrate the Novus Ordo Mass. What do these Countries have in Common ? They’re either Poor or limited by a Corrupt Dictatoral Government. A Study by the Center for European Governance and Economic Developement Research shows that Economic Growth and probably a Democracy drives Secularism. http://wwwuser.gwdg.de/~cege/Diskussionspapiere/DP234.pdf

            So this problem isn’t just happening in the Catholic Church…. One could take a look at the Church of Sweden….. 2 Percent of Their Members attend Church even lower than your Statistics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Sweden

            Now there are some Gems. The Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska. They ordained 5 Priests. Have 47 Seminarians…….. for like what 97,000 People ? And the FSSP have their Seminary in Lincoln. Lincoln understands that you can celebrate the Novus Ordo Mass, and the Extraordinary Form, and remain Devout, and have 47 Seminarians. I said that already. And Their Mass Attendence ? They were freaking out because it dipped below 65 Percent….. Yeah…..

            3. Assuming that you are correct, Then Christ lied. If you go read Matthew 16:18 in the Bible, Christ promises to Peter that the Church will never fall. And therefore gives the Keys. That is the foundation of our Faith. And to help us, Christ sent us the Holy Spirit in John 16:13. The Guidance of the Holy Spirit, Apostolic Succesion. This is the Rock of Our Church. If The Catholic Church pulled itself into Heresy……. then Christ lied and the Holy Spirit is a non existent being. If the Prime Minister isn’t there, then the whole government collaspes.

            4. Who gave you the Authority to declare a person a heretic ? The Catholic Church ? Oh wait….. you claim that the Catholic Church has gone into the Sunset.

            Only the Catholic Church with the Pope, and the Bishops can declare a person a heretic. Going back to Number 3….. where is your Church ? Who is the Pope ? I mean if you say that I believe that you are a heretic then it sounds so much like the Protestants.

          • Remember, it’s quality not quantity we should out of our priesthood. And many of those priests back then were gays hiding in the one place no one would ever ask if they liked girls or not. Many were also Communists. Not all of course, but many.

          • That’s a good point, but nobody is asking today for sure, would probably get you sued if you asked such a question. Mother Angelica used to say she wouldn’t let any man near her (Franciscan order for men) unless they like women and were heterosexual.

          • I make the priest in the NO church I currently attend put the wafer in my mouth. I just stand there and wait like a baby chick. LOL.

          • The Catholic Church is not capable of producing the abominations you mention above, which lead souls out of the Church into apostasy and damnation. This is the work of a diabolical fraud, posing as the Church.

          • I agree, it’s the thing masquerading as the Church, the potemkin village as the late Fr. Malachi Martin called it, the “false church of darkness” or “newchurch”. Whatever you want to call it, it’s one and the same thing.
            But I do like to post those statistics to Novus Ordoites to state the obvious.

          • It has a lot to do with the change in western society too though, which the church (and the protestant churches as well) embraced later on. i.e Sexual revolution, drugs, divorce, contraception, influence of eastern religious philosophy.

      • Hmm, yes..good point. Do you attend the Novus Ordo or the TLM Joseph? And what form of Mass are Catholics in Asia and Africa using by and large where this faith is growing?

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          • Joseph, you’re killing it here with your amazing argument and factual evidence. I think the PTSD of the liberal American Catholicism and the Novus Ordo run deep here in the United States. I converted from atheism into Catholicism (Novus Ordo) and now I attend the TLM every other week when we don’t attend our Novus Ordo parish. But your observation has also been mine as I’ve tried to get older traditionalists, and some younger to realize the cultural influences that are partly to blame and not just Vatican II. Because as you said..NONE of that stuff is in Vatican II. It’s almost a scandal that American Catholics even let their parishes be trashed the way they were.

      • Joseph, there is growth in the traditional parishes in the united states. I found a traditional catholic parish in Tucson and they are thriving. Lots of young families, kids, college kids and older people. And the monasteries that the order administering that church (Institute of Christ, Sovereign Priest) run have waiting lists for young men. In the mean time, a Benedictine convent shut down about a year ago and that beautiful Spanish colonial property is for sale to the highest bidder.

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  3. For some strange reason this passage of Sacred Scripture leapt to my mind while reading this article:

    Matthew 7:13-14: “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

    When I was in Germany, over a decade ago, I stopped by a Catholic clerical shop (because I wanted to by some Linen clerical collars, because plastic collars are pure horse crap) and they were selling them for around 50 Euro a piece! A shamefully high price for that amount of fabric and sewing, even in Rome at Gammarelli (not known for their low prices) they are less than half that. I protested to the proprietor of the shop and he said “What’s the problem, you are a priest!” And I said “Yes, why does that matter on the price?” And he said “You are RICH!” Then I told him I was from the U.S. and made less than 20k American per year. And he looked horrified and said that the average priest in Germany made 90k Euro’s per year…

    I wonder why the German Church attracts men to the priesthood (as few as they may be) who do not believe in the Catholic Faith? I can’t figure it out, could someone smarter than I am explain it to me?

    Most of their priests go around in business suits, necktie and all. When I went to confession, at the Cathedral in Munich, I had to chastise my confessor (who was reading a novel in the confessional when I so rudely interrupted him for the Sacrament) for telling me my sins were not sins…

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    • The Reason why German Priests get paid that much compared to US Priests is because guess who pays them ? The State ! The German Government taxes Churches alot….. and with that They pay back Churches. Because back in the 1700s, Germany wasn’t a single unified State. It was hodgepodge group of many small countries. And many of these small countries were ruled by Catholic Bishops because of the Whole Holy Roman Empire Stuff which was dissolved in 1800. Some of these Princes/Bishops lost their Lands to Napoleon’s France. In exchange, France would pay the Priests….. and somehow this practice continued to today. So in effect German Priests are workers of the State.

      I heard that the Socialist Left Party in Germany is trying to ban it…… when you have Orthodox Catholics and Athiestic Socialists agreeing on something, That means that the situation in Germany is bad.

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      • I am aware of why they make what they do, it’s the only reason why their Historic Churches have the revenue to operate, because it is owned by the State!

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        • So… both Orthodox Catholics in Germany, and Communists both think that this practice should stop……. Shocking….. to see.

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          • It makes sense to me. Why should church and state be so connected? It makes a mockery of Christ’s injunction to separate faith from mammon.

        • Father RP, I just found your site and I read this article with horror. I converted from a lifelong of Anglicanism to the traditional Latin rite about three years ago. I was attending a Latin rite church out in the SW that had an Austrian priest who was sadly, a year and a half later, transferred from our parish to a monastery in the Rhine Valley. He is a good and faithful traditional priest and I miss him terribly. I was taking RCIA classes from him at the time of Pope Benedict’s resigning and the double lightning strike on St. Peters. He kept me from running away from the catholic church during that time. He speaks and understands Latin and four or five other languages as well and is a Canon, not just a father. About nine months ago I lost my job (and everything else) and had to return to upstate NY where I live now in a traditional catholic wasteland. Where I am there are only novus ordo churches and they are all really liberal. While i had been a part of the choir out west and sang Latin Gregorian chant and polyphony, which almost no one performs anymore except for in music departments at universities,the church I am attending now has every protestant hymn I ever sang as a young person in my protestant choir, including “Ein Feste Burg” by Luther in its hymn book. I wonder in what universe the catholic church would be prompted to the add that hymn into the Catholic high mass rotation. Anyway, suffice it to say that the music is awful. I really wish I could visit my old priest again but I’m not in a financial position to visit Germany right now and with the current muslim invasion, I am hesitant to ever visit Europe again.

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    • Father, if you are indeed a Catholic priest— PLEASE ALWAYS BE A GOOD ROLE MODEL– ESPECIALLY FOR KIDS!! ALWAYS USE VERY GOOD ENGLISH!! PLEASE– NO COARSE LANGUAGE, NO PROFANITY!! NO ONE CARES TO HEAR YOUR COARSE LANGUAGE REGARDING CLERICAL COLLARS!! A YOUNGSTER NEEDS TO GROW UP RESPECTING CATHOLIC PRIESTS, NO MATTER WHAT KIND OF ROMAN COLLAR THEY WEAR!! YOU ARE OUR “ALTER CHRISTUS!!!” PLEASE BE VERY POLITE, AND REMAIN IN CHRIST’S HOLY PRESENCE, ALL THE TIME, PUBLICLY, IN WHAT YOU SAY, DO, OR WRITE!!! WE POOR CATHOLICS– AND OUR CHILDREN!!!– ARE COUNTING ON YOU!!!

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      • You guys and your political correctness. Pussyfooting and slinking all over the place scared even of your own shadows. I am amazed at the level of restriction a people who pride themselves on freedom and liberties have willingly and joyfully imposed on themselves.

        And by the way, what is the deal with the upper case post? Your keyboard broke just after you started your post?

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      • Oh, gee whiz, Linda Maria, cut him a break, you missed his whole, entirely illuminating, point. ‘Screaming’ at Fr RP (capitalized text) is really about as discourteous as your bugaboo about his one comment. I’ve read your other comments and usually you are much more proportionate.

        Please cut Fr. a break for his illuminating honesty about the free-fall in Germany, which I too have seen first-hand and found dismaying.

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          • They keep showing up and we keep banning them. Not sure how they keep getting past our filters. Anyways, thanks for flagging them. That makes it infinitely easier to see them!

          • I think it’s some sort of bot that creates accounts or hijacks them, and propagates through disqus.

    • Thank you, very—sadly— illuminating, Fr RP:

      I was in Aachen with my daughter a couple years ago. Once you get away from the tourist center, you see so many, so many, clearly once-great and once-thriving, majestic Catholic churches that are permanently shuttered and closed, their steps and exterior alcoves only refuges for the many, many young drug addicts wapped out on the ground: it was a nightmarish scene (one increasingly coming here, as powerful forces find ways to increase the absolute legalization of even the most lethal prohibited substances). It —the apparently decades-old collapse of the Church—was precipitated by something monstrous and diabolical, perhaps best described by Malachy Bernard below, in my opinion. Why so-called ‘bishops’ and ‘prelates’ acquiesce to this “managing (poorly, at that ) the decline” is a statement in itself of their own lost faith.

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    • I’ve been following the crisis of the church within the West and it seems to me people fall away from God in affluent countries perhaps they feel they have no need for God who is the giver of life. That’s our fallen nature.

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      • That’s a very good point – the fallen who reject God’s Grace consider themselves as gods – answerable to no one. However, their affluence is going to be short lived. The European economy is soon to crash and their cheap natural gas from Russia may well be put in jeopardy if they maintain their sanctions. They will freeze in the winter and fry in the summer.

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      • But the world has always been offering an enticement to abandon the Faith. Before Vatican II and the new mass, the Church stood against the world in her laws, doctrine, liturgy etc.

        That’s all gone now. There is very little to hold back the flood of the world.

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    • when JPII announced the new spring time that was to come, I said “doesn’t anyone know that means we are in winter?”

      Reply
          • Like those Teeth Deep Cleanings that we get at the Dentist…….

            Can I offer up a Theory as to why this mess happened ? I would actually place the blame on the Seminaries during the 40s and 50s……… Were they that desperate as to admit possible future Heretical Priests ? I would also blame the Passiveness of the Church….. during this same time…. I know I know. But let’s think about it. Karl Rahner, and all the so called Modernists at the Second Vatican Council were all ordained priests around this time.There was so much emphasis on Thinking that we forgot about Believing…. Thomas Aquinas for all the good he has done, had one major problem. He was too cereberal. During the 20th Century, There was Faith and Reason. We focused too much on Reason. The Supernatural and the Rosaries…. that comes from Faith. We were so in tune with Aquinas that we allowed People to exploit Aquinas’s Teachings and turn it into a Reason Only Club….. That’s why you see all the….70s Churches. There was no beauty. There was…. Stale Reasoning.

            I’m more of a St. Augustine guy……

          • No. The result of Rahner and Co is completely out of the Modernist Camp of Scripture which was was fuelled by protestants such as Karl Barth and they stem from the atheistic enlightenment camp out of France. They are the heralds of the Post Enlightenment movement of Scripture Studies known as the Historical Critical Method. St. Thomas Aquinas has nothing to do with this and he was certainly not too much in his head! Faith and Reason are not antithetical, they are compatriots heralding the Glory of God.

          • Karl Rahner however… was part of the Transcendental Thomism School which was developed during late 1800s. This School tried to reconcile Thomism with Kant, and the Modern Philsophy. It failed horribly by the way in my opinion……

            My point is I think no…one in this century has been able to explain Thomas Aquinas to a modern whole……..

          • YEs, but Kant is not Thomistic in the least! He is the bastard Father of Enlightenment Epistemology, for he accepted the error of Descartes which posits reason prior to being, something which St. Thomas never alluded too. In fact, Kant accepts the Cartesian categorical error that one cannot perceive reality (as it is) only it’s perception. For Kant man was locked in his mind and he could never actually perceive the actual world. This is completely alien to St. Thomas. Rahner is, for all of his intelligence, an idiot for accepting the Cartesian error via Kant.

          • Father– PLEASE STOP YOUR USE OF PROFANITY!!!! PLEASE USE GOOD ENGLISH!!! Nobody cares about excessive, waste-of-time, intellectual education in the field of religion– to the point of human stupidity– our poor, stupid human brains, as well as all our being, needs to be HUMBLE, and STOP to KNEEL humbly, before Almighty God– and let Him be worshiped!! Who cares about Kant, Descartes (both SECULAR)– or the anti-Catholic Enlightenment, and nauseam?? Who cares?? Karl Rahner, of Vatican II– and all his friends– are of no spiritual value for me, and millions of others– mostly just the Church intellectuals like him a lot! Vatican II– waste of time!! The era of Modernism– is Godless!! Many spiritually-untalented modernist people, want short-cuts, and they short-change the work of God, among other things– in seeking waste-of-time “short-cuts!” They are lazy and untalented, about understanding things properly, and about doing things right! They lack DISCIPLINE and GOOD, CAREFUL TEACHING AND GUIDANCE, from those who are masters of their subject!! Modernism, which has its roots in the late 19th century– is the WORST thing (except for some good scientific inventions!) and it has RUINED Western Civilization!!
            As for St. Thomas– traditionally, TRUE, DEVOUT CATHOLICS got way past his intellectual thinking– after reading his works in Catholic school, and learning them well. His works provide a sound theological foundation for our Church, and for the Mass, too!! But most of us simply use training in Aquinas– for PRACTICAL RELIGIOUS AND MORAL PURPOSES, as a good Catholic daily guide to life!! EXCELLENT!! Aquinas himself stated, that all his writings were “as a heap of straw,” upon suddenly experiencing a transcendent experience of God, at life’s end!!! St. Thomas and his friends believed that Reason, Intellect– could serve as part of a pathway to God. Reason and Faith must go together. But those who are intellectually talented, need to understand— FAITH IS A GIFT OF GOD!!! Many intellectuals NEVER DEVELOP A STRONG FAITH!! MANY ARE VERY IMMATURE IN BEING GOOD, PRACTICING CATHOLICS! MANY ARE NOT CATHOLIC ROLE MODELS AT ALL– MANY ARE JUST TERRIBLE!!! MANY HAVE NO LIFE OF DEEP RELIGIOUS FAITH, PRAYER, AND DEVOTION TO CHRIST, AT ALL!! NO TRUE FAITH, NO INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL DISCIPLINE, NO NOTHING!!! THEY JUST WASTE THEIR LIVES, IN EXCESSIVE INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION– THIS RESULTS IN USELESS NONSENSE– AND USELESS PRIDE, IN ALL THEIR FANCY USELESS UNIVERSITY DEGREES!!!! INCLUDING THE POPE AND ALL HIS FRIENDS!! (SORRY!!) THEY COULDN’T GUIDE A FLEA, TO CHRIST, IF THEY TRIED!! AND THEY DON’T WANT TO, EITHER!!! THEY ARE ALL USELESS FAILURES– AND THEY ARE ALL DESTROYING THEIR CHURCH!!
            A true man of God knows, that one must humbly ignore the ways of the world, as the world is “fallen,” ignorant, sinful — and does not know Christ at all– and it suffers greatly, without Christ! A true man of God knows, that they must GIVE UP, intellectually, after a certain point– and quietly, humbly, give up, SURRENDER!!!– and stop the “book-reading,” turn the brain off– and daily pray, and contemplate God– and let God lead them into His territory, unknown to us mortals—- or THEY WILL BE LOST!!!!!! And regardless of Thinking, Reason, and Intellectual life– the Moral Life is an ABSOLUTE — or the SOUL will be lost!!!

          • So, you can just not post until you figure out how to be courteous to priests attempting to help educate the faithful. Intellectual discussions are indeed Catholic. This kind of commenting you’re doing is not what we’re about here. You get to go in a timeout.

          • Your post has many good lessons in it, for all of us.

            And I believe, Father RP, would be the first one to agree.
            He is not like the intellectuals I believe you are referring about, who tire me as well. So many of them, some good and so many not so good! whew

            Father RP, is truly a humble and holy priest who greatly loves Christ as a simple man, yet with an awesome responsibility of bringing souls to Christ as His priest.

            Hopefully, come on back to this blog. I believe you have much to contribute, in my opinion.
            God bless you.

          • Karl Barth actually tried to equate Hegel with St. Thomas, and Rahner followed that line of thought. Hence the ‘anonymous Christian’ and the ‘transcendental method.”

          • When I first heard that term, “anonymous Christian,” in college– I WAS SO SHOCKED!! A true Christian is one who has tremendous Faith in Christ, and good daily discipline– to give their life to Jesus, study all He taught, devoutly– and daily seek to be a good, practicing Catholic!!!! No such thing– as DEGRADING all that daily, loving DEVOTION TO CHRIST and HARD WORK TO FOLLOW HIM– EVEN TO DIE FOR HIM, IF MARTYRED!!!!– degrading all of that, into a worldly, cheap cheap, CHEAP!!!! modern concept, of so-called– secularist “anonymous Christian!!”” MADE ME SICK!! There is a HUGE difference, between a true, practicing Catholic– and a non-sectarian, maybe-agnostic “DO-GOODER” humanitarian, who also might lead an IMMORAL LIFE!!–or a nominal Catholic, who grumbles, but goes to Sunday Mass, but has little interest in it!! There is NO SUCH THING– as the “anonymous Christian!!” Tell that concept to the poor, suffering, martyred Christians, in the Middle East! NO SUCH THING– as “anonymous Christian!!? “DO YOU LOVE JESUS?? YES OR NO????”

          • P.S. I think the Jesuit theologian, Karl Rahner, may have been sincere, in his original idea– that a person who never heard of Christ, but led a good life– could still be granted Salvation. Well— no one knows the ways of God!! Salvation is a mystery!! We must leave things up to God! However– years ago, in college, our professors MADE ME SICK– as they simply watered down Rahner’s concept, reducing it to mean that any old
            “do-gooder” who didn’t even believe in God, and may have even led a corrupt life– could be called a “Christian,” and it did not matter, to be a baptized, practicing Catholic— or also, a devout member of any Protestant church, either, who loved and followed Jesus, even to DIE FOR HIM (like martyrs of Hitler, both Catholic and Protestant. These professors CHEAPENED our Faith, to the point of reducing it to mere tragic nonsense!!

          • Aquinas and Augustine are not at odds, there erstwhile advocates and interpreters are. That Plato and Aristotle differ is true, though not entirely and the work of St. Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius proves that, Thomas revers Augustine and often quotes him. The two were on the same page, one via Christ in the Platonic world view and the other via Christ in the Aristotelian world view, which St. Boethius shows is not at odds but is reconciled in the end.

          • I find it strange that you think this modernist asylum has been caused by focusing too much on reason. There is no reason or rationality in modernism any more than there is faith in it. You only have to listen to Frankenpope for 10 minutes to realize that he either does not understand or does not accept the law of non-contradiction.

            All of them seem to start from the false premise that it is not possible to know anything with certainty and when you throw in their lack of faith and their inability to reason, you end up with this present bunch of dysfunctional morons who are only priests/bishops/cardinals/popes because they are not capable of functioning in the real world – nobody would employ them. They are mere mirrors reflecting the world back on itself while they tickle its ears with their meaningless platitudes

            If you jettison reason and go down the sola fide route then you will end up with Martin Luther redivivus.

          • That’s my point. They’ve forgotten Faith so their Reason is just….. Reason. So they can’t reason effectively. If you ask like a Priest Guy from 1977 about Praying the Rosary, He’ll probably laugh at you. It’s not his fault however….. He’s been stuck in a mentality that tries to Rationalize everything….. Jesus, The Saints, Mary…….

          • We I think, have forgotten Beauty. If we don’t have Beauty, then we can’t reason. Beauty is Faith. I mean, the Christians in the Medieval age couldn’t read….. they had glass paintings in their Churches……… Faith and Reason are like Yin and Yang.

          • My own little theory. We know that Bella Dodd and others have admitted systematic infiltration of the Church in the early 20th century. Let us assume that there already were Masons in key positions beforehand who could facilitate this invasion. (Remember that Marxism is the fruit of the Masonic spirit). We know that the destruction of Christian morals is a chief goal of the Marxists. What better way to do this than to allow in candidates to the priesthood of questionable moral standard? Destroy the institution of Catholic priesthood and discredit the Catholic Church in the eyes of wider society. Bishops are ultimately the gatekeeper of the diocese and have the power to ordain or not. They are responsible either through active comission or negligence.

          • Assuming that you are correct, then means that Christ’s Promise to St. Peter that the Church will never fall is a lie.

          • Our Lady of La Salette warned that the Church would go into eclipse. This seems to be the only way to understand the crisis we are in. The Church has not failed, and can never fail. She has been eclipsed by a counterfeit religion.

            The only reason such an apostasy can be possible is by a deception. Catholics don’t listen to Seventh Day Adventists, Christadelphians, Jehova’s Witnesses or Anglicans.

            Catholics listen to the Church. For such a mass apostasy to be pulled off, the deception must therefore come from something that appears to be the Church. It will have many of the same things the visible Church has, but the substance must be something not Catholic.

            The Church teaches us the Catechism so we are armed by knowledge and Faith to recognise a fraud. If we were not able or permitted to make reasonable judgements when applying what the Church teaches, then why would she teach us in the first place?

            Don’t give up! The Church can’t fail, but evil men can set up a counterfeit church, and they have.

            There’s no other consistently Catholic way to understand things in our time.

          • Counterfeit Religion ? Who gave us the Authority to say so ? I mean if the See of Peter is vacant……. so there’s no pope, no validly ordained Bishops, and therefore Sacred Scripture and Tradition can’t be passed down and therefore whatever we do….. is virtually Impossible. If what you are saying is true, There can only be One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

            One : We have the SSPX, and multiple other groups…… It’s not one.

            Holy : Are you saying that John Paul II was a worse Pope than Alexander VI whose scandalous Personal Life and corruption started the Whole Protestant Reformation in the First Place ?

            Catholic : Universal. I don’t know……..

            ” The Church teaches us the Catechism so we are armed by knowledge and Faith to recognise a fraud. If we were not able or permitted to make reasonable judgements when applying what the Church teaches, then why would she teach us in the first place ? ”

            The Church doesn’t teach us the Cathechism. We are taught the Faith through Sacred Scripture and Tradition as passed down to us By the Apostles and the Early Church Fathers through Our Bishops. That’s why we have Bishops. If we have no validly ordained Bishops, than that Faith cannot be taught. You know, the Protestants had the same argument. That we the people should be able to interpret the Bible. That is the problem here. We read a document from Vatican 2 and can have two totally different opinions. Which is one is the Truth ? If we both say that our View is the Truth…. than that leads to…. Relatvism. We make reasonable judgements applying what the Church Teaches….. Well you might think It’s right, But I disagree …… Who’s right ?

          • I’m not saying that the Church is perfectly fine….. It will/and has problems….. but every large orginzation has problems. It’s just that a few people are asserting that somehow Vatican 2 created another Church……

          • No, that’s not correct. That’s only one small step away from protestantism.

            Scripture and Tradition are called the remote rules of Faith. The Magisterium is called the proximate rule of Faith. Our Lord invested the Church with Divine authority to “teach all nations”. The word “Magisterium” means “teaching office”, and this office is of Divine origin and authority. It can’t fail.

            The Church is the teacher of the Faith. Her essential unity is that of Faith, Worship and Government.

            How that applies today has been obscured. How things will be restored is not clear. One thing is certain: Because the Church is Divinely constituted, she can never fail in her mission to teach the Deposit of Faith to all nations . Hence, she cannot lead souls into apostasy or heresy in her official capacity.

          • “she cannot lead souls into apostasy or heresy in her official capacity.”

            …but isn’t that your exact argument for the ‘counterfeit religion’? If Pope Paul VI was pope then didn’t he (according to you) institute a “counterfeit religion”? …or do you not believe he was really pope?

            And has the Blessed Mother never spoken explicitly of the Novus Ordo if it was to be evil? Forget Russia, isn’t the Mass for her Son more important?

          • What can I do about it? Against the facts there is no argument. Vatican II teaches things that are opposed to the constant teaching of the Church.

            If these teachings were made in an official capacity, then this organisastion could not have been (nor is) the Catholic Church. They must therefore be rejected, along with the counterfeit church who promulgated them.

            If they were not official but merely “pastoral”, then again they are not the teachings of the Church and must be rejected.

          • I’m trying real hard not to Steve. The Faith is unchangeable, and that’s also logical. Where’s the switch?

          • You’re backing yourself into a corner. You’ve grossly oversimplified what the Church is and can do (such as saying that she can never make a mistake; she can) and then, once you’ve declared your premises falsifiable, you falsify them.

            Listen, I’m not taking a swing at you. It has to be incredibly wearying. There’s an old saying, maybe from H.L. Mencken, maybe from someone else, I can’t find it right now. “The faith isn’t a syllogism, but a poem.” You could probably argue with that theologically, but there’s a wisdom in it that’d save you a lot of grief.

            Reducing the faith to nothing but reasonable propositions and explainable circumstances strikes me as a shortcut to apostasy. Leave room for mystery, for sin, for the things you think you grasp but don’t really understand, and go from there. I used to have a bad translation of a passage in Mark 5 that I loved for its forthrightness, “Fear is useless. What is needed is trust.”

          • I agree with you about there being mystery. That’s something that a character like Gerry Matatics doesn’t get. He has that hardline, purely logical approach, and now he sits at home with his family on Sundays. He’s missed something, but I can’t quite say what

            Yes, there’s mystery, but there is no contradiction.

          • The Church can make Mistakes like that Guy said above. We’re not perfect…. we’re Sinners. Imperfect Men and Women.

          • Cardinal Burke ? The Dubia ? People can correct the Pope right ? I mean, It’s never been done in like 400 years.

          • Good luck to you Joseph. You seem like a good soul. Keep learning and studying. Pre-Vatican II encyclicals are a great place to start. Read Mortalium Animos (15 minutes) or Apostolicae Curae (20 minutes) and go from there.

          • Actually I don’t really read the Pre Vatican 2 or the Vatican 2 Documents…..

            My Catholic Faith comes from the Bible and Sacred Tradition through the Early Church Fathers.

          • Well then, you determine doctrine by private judgement, which is Luther all over again. That’s not the Catholic way. There’s nothing wrong with reading them, unless you read them exclusively and disregard the Magisterium. The current crisis has caused Catholics to not trust anything the Church teaches. What a tragedy. Read the pre-Vatican II popes. It will change your life!

          • The Early Church Fathers are not the Magisterium ? St Augustine…. St Ignatius ? This is Sacred Tradition ! These were the Guys who received Instruction from the Apostles themselves. This is the Magisterium amplified.

            I believe in the Body and Blood of Christ….. Because…….

            John 6 : 54 : ” Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. ” Jesus said it himself. And if you think that this is not the Magisterium…….. You’re kidding me. This is the Big Boss himself.

          • Protestants read that figuratively. The Church gives us the correct interpretation, and that’s infallibly certain. See the difference?

          • And I’m a Vatican 2 guy……. yeah………. And do you believe that the Early Church Fathers are the Magisterium ?

          • Mike believes that the Bible is so corrupted with Protestant Fluff that one has to read it with Vatican 1 and Trent Documents.

            Even though in the Bible, Peter was made the First Pope, Jesus promised his Body and Blood, and the First Priests were ordained….

            And Mike thinks the Early Church Fathers are not the Magisterium…..

          • Joseph, your comments prove a serious lack of knowledge and understanding of the Catholic faith. You are rejecting the Magisterium of the Church of anything that comes after the church fathers. You are rejecting the teaching of Christ through His church if you refuse to read the pre-conciliar popes. The Church Fathers are great, absolutely… but the Church has come much further in her understanding since then… and as far as authority goes, the popes trump St. Augustine. Vatican 1 and Trent were wonderful gifts to the Church. You are rejecting that. That’s exactly what the protestants do – take what they like, reject what they don’t. We’re Catholics, universal. We take everything the church gives us graciously.

          • ” We take everything the church gives us graciously. ” What makes Vatican 2 not a gracious document ? It seems Ironic since you say that the Church has deepened it’s understanding of Our Faith…….. that you reject Vatican 2. You take what you like and you reject what you don’t like.

          • I take what is good and reject those things laced with poison. We’re in a very strange time. When I read, say Nostra Aetate from Vatican II and it directly contradicts Mortalium Animos from Pius XI, or I read Lumen Gentium, and it contradicts Pascendi Dominici Gregis by Pius X, or I read Gaudium et Spes and it contradicts Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors what am I to do? When I read JP2’s theological work with phenomenology and it rejects Pius X’s Lamentibili Sane (issued through the Holy Office) what am I to do? When I read Amoris Laetitia and it contradicts John Paul II, Pius XI, Paul VI, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, St. Alphonsus, St. Paul, et al and even Our Lord Himself, what am I to do? You see the dilemma?

          • You REALLY need to get out and study Church teaching and history from somewhere other than Catholic Answers and EWTN….

          • Read earlier popes and saints, as has been recommended. You’ve got to look it up and study. It takes some work. You’re arguing with people who have done and are doing that work. Read Mortalium Animosity to start. That should take 15 minutes. Also, you might want to look into St. Thomas. Your opinion of him makes me think you haven’t delved too far…

          • Not that….. I don’t have the time to go read through all of their doucments….. Maybe you do but….

          • The *Church* doesn’t err, but *Churchmen* can. The charism of papal infallibility doesn’t come into play unless ALL the conditions laid down by Vatican I (1869-70) are met.

          • If the Church can make a mistake in her official capacity, then it falls to you and I to determine if and when that happens. Do you think that’s a corner anyone wants to be backed into? Where’s the Magisterium?

          • Other Bishops. Are we talking about the Church in a single Bishop ? If a Bishop says something stupid, then it’s up to the Other Bishops to correct the Guy.

            And what is the Official Capacity ? Ex Cathedra ? The Last Time Ex Cathedra was used, It was under Pius XII for the Assumption of Our Lady.

          • Both theExtraordinary and the Ordinary Universal Magisterium.

            If ex-cathedra statements alone are infallible, then we only need a pope once every hundred years or so to make one. The rest of the time, they can busy themselves with leading souls to perdition of they please. They don’t have to, but they can.

          • Lol.. you literally addressed none of my points above.

            Let’s try again shall we?

            “she cannot lead souls into apostasy or heresy in her official capacity.”

            …but isn’t that your exact argument for the ‘counterfeit religion’? If Pope Paul VI was pope then didn’t he (according to you) institute a
            “counterfeit religion”? …or do you not believe he was really pope?

            And why has the Blessed Mother never spoken explicitly of the Novus Ordo if it was to be evil? Forget Russia, isn’t the Mass for her Son more important?

          • That was based on what Venerable Archbishop Sheen said about the anti-Christ. Which may or may not true. And which may or may not have happened yet.

            If it does happen as suggested by Sheen, or if it has ALREADY happened it’ll be one of two things PERHAPS:

            1.) Pope Benedict is still Pope…Francis is the anti-Christ sewing discord and confusion and the Lord should be on His way at any moment.

            2.) The Church will always remain the Church without doubt along with Peter, but a schism church will break off and be wildly popular with the world and a great many Catholics and the anti-Christ will characteristically lead it whilst keeping a great secret..he will not believe in God.

          • We agree that an enormous deception and time of confusion resulting in an unprecedented apsotasy does not lie outside of God’s permissive will.

            I wish there was some way to clear all this up for everyone of good will to be certain.

          • Yes.

            But we win in the end regardless.

            I trust in the apparitions of Our Lady and the words of Bishop Sheen.

            But most of all I trust in Jesus.

            I’m only accountable for my own salvation first and foremost, then my children and wife and anyone I may have either intentionally or UN-intentionally misled.

            This debacle will be upon the souls of the ordained.

          • OK, let’s try.

            “she cannot lead souls into apostasy or heresy in her official capacity.”

            Is this true or false?

          • can we define “official capacity”? because that seems REALLY vague these days, lol..

          • Of course it’s vague these days, thanks to Vatican II and the novus ordo. Everything’s vague.

            What do you think it means?

          • Official capacity technically = Magisterium

            Official capacity according to the populum = pope and cardinals and bishops (Vatican)

            Perception is reality now.. if the pope is the Catholic leader, the Vicar of Christ on Earth, chosen by the Holy Spirit, then surely he dictates Catholic truth according to most people.

            Most Catholics don’t realize that what the Pope should really do is stay quiet about pretty much everything until a problem arises concerning the faith. Not dictate or signal Vatican public policy.

            But at this point we’ll need a Pope Trump to come in and fix it himself because the bishops and cardinals won’t help.

          • Father– do you believe it is correct, to do as the priests and prelates of Malta are now doing– giving Communion to unfaithful divorced/re-married Catholics, who never bothered to get easy-to-get Church annulments– or giving Communion to “shack-up” couples, or giving Communion to UNCHASTE homosexuals, with gay lovers that they “married??” Exactly which “Church” are we talking about?? The “Church” of Pope Francis is certainly NOT my “Church,” nor the Church” of millions of other Catholics!! I think the term “counterfeit Church” of today, is a term lightly used– not a hard-and-fast definition– of those leaders who have “gone astray,” and put forth heretical and immoral COUNTERFEIT teachings, in place of Christ’s TRUE TEACHINGS!! They are the “Devil in the Church!!” They have tried to create a “Counterfeit Church!!” I believe in the Church as taught by GOOD Church leaders, such as Cardinal Sarah and Cardinal Burke!! They have the AUTHENTIC Catholic Church, with her TRUE TEACHINGS, OF JESUS CHRIST!! The Pope and his like-minded friends– are sadly– “CATHOLICS” IN NAME ONLY!!! NOT TRUE BELIEVERS!! Their “Church” is — COUNTERFEIT!!!

          • I understand that our friend is not actually a Priest. It’s just a Disquss handle thingy. I thought he was at first, but somewhere he said that he is married with children.

            I know it doesn’t really apply here, as it’s just an online thing, but the usual penalty for impersonating a Priest is excommunication.

          • Can you please use less capital letters? It makes it difficult to read, and also makes it hard to understand the actual point of what you’re saying…

          • Haha, I’d have said that whether or not I was a moderator. I can’t stand it when people write that way.

            And in case anyone is wondering, she won’t be commenting here again. The com-boxes are safe from raving for now.

          • We don’t have to wait for our Blessed Mother to explicitly say something. That’s not the Catholic way. The Council of Trent clearly and infallibly taught us what the Mass is. Our Lady believes everything the Church teaches, just like all Catholics.

          • You believe that the Mass can not be changed right ? Vatican 2 didn’t change the Mass….. In fact, It called for the preservation of Gregorian Chant, Ad Orientem, and all the Good Stuff. The Novus Ordo Mass created 4 years after the Council ended in 1969.

            The Core of the Mass hasn’t changed.

            https://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/tridentine_mass_and_disobedience.htm
            ” The Reformation changed that, and the Holy See reserved authority to herself. The question is not whether the Church was or is bound to the liturgical form promulgated for universal usage in the Roman Rite by Pope St. Pius V through Quo Primum, she is not, but who has authority to make changes. This is why Pope Pius XII, Vatican II and the 1983 Code of Canon Law all state that any changes in the Liturgy must come from the Holy See. The Popes, like Pius V in Quo Primum and Pius XII in Mediator Dei, decry and forbid innovations, changes by those without authority. This safeguards the essential forms, and thus the validity, of the sacraments. The Supreme authority in the Church, a Pope or a Council in union with the Pope, always has the authority to make changes to ecclesiastical discipline, such as the liturgical forms that cloak the essential matter and form of a sacrament. Pius XII made changes, John XXIII made changes, Vatican II proposed changes, and Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II have made changes. All have understood that Popes do not bind other Popes or Councils in such matters, otherwise the Supreme authority would not be Supreme. ”

            Any Changes in the Liturgy can and should come from the Pope. And the Council of Trent and Pope Pius V can not bound other Popes to one idea or else as it says up above, the Supreme Pontiff is not Supreme.

          • “The Novus Ordo Mass [was] created 4 years after the Council ended in 1969.”

            …MIND BLOWN!

          • April 4, 1969, formal announcement of Novus Ordo liturgy.

            On p.203 of “Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church”, Rembert Weakland describes the highly secret “experimental Masses” (there were 3 of them conducted for Paul VI on 3 evenings in Jan. and Feb. 1969) that were the result of his and Abp. Annibale Bugnini ‘s contrivances (Weakland was a foremost musiclogical expert; supposedly, Bugnini was the liturgy expert, although he had no actual scholarly achievement in the field). Louis Bouyer describes in his Memoirs how Bugnini (whom he called a “mealy-mouthed scoundrel” and a liar) in late 1968 and early 1969 successfully kept Paul VI duped about “the Consilium’s supposed desire” for a new liturgy—Bouyer was an actual member of the Consilium, and he and most of the others (excepting Weakland) knew nothing of what was going on. Bouyer, a close friend of Paul VI, later broke this story to the pontiff, and often discussed this matter—the complicated deception scheme of Bugnini—with students and fellow professors in his later years.

          • You might have to dare to go a little further to the “right” than EWTN to get a better picture. EWTN are fully on board with the revoluton.

            The new mass suppresses the essential nature of the Mass as the renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary. It replaces the Catholic theology of the Mass as defined by Trent and makes it a parallel of a Protestant “Lord’s Supper” rite. The chant, Latin and vestments, etc are not the main issue. It is a protestantised rite. It has a different theology.

          • ” Take this, all of you, and drink from it,
            for this is the chalice of my Blood,
            the Blood of the new and eternal covenant,
            which will be poured out for you and for many
            for the forgiveness of sins.
            Do this in memory of me. ”

            The Lord’s Supper Rite ? Can you give me more Hints ?

          • Where’s the Offertory in the new mass? Where’s the offering of the Divine Victim as a propitiatory sacrifice?

          • For the….. Bread :
            ” Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread we offer you: fruit of the earth and work of hymn hands, it will become for us the bread of life. ”

            Now…. I am asking you….. what is wrong with this ?

          • It’s not offering the Divine Victim to God as a propitiatory sacrifice (a sacrifice that makes satisfaction for sins). It’s merely a Jewish grace before meals prayer. At best, it offers God bread and wine, and the offering is not made by the Ministerial Priesthood, but by the gathered assemlby of the people of God. It’s not Catholic. There’s not a single explicit mention of a propitiatory Sacrifice being offered to God in the new mass.

          • You know why they did that ? You seem to have forgotten that Christ along with everyone else was…… Jewish. So the Mass is our Passover Meal where Christ our Paschal lamb was sacrificed, offering himself. Christ would have used similar words at the Last Supper…..

            And I would say this….. On a more strictly theological note: some have suggested that while the Canon/Eucharistic Prayer is the proper locus for the re-presentation of the sacrifice of Christ, the Eucharistic sacrifice also involves a distinct “sacrifice of the Church” — i.e. the offering of our life and labors to God — that is embodied in the offertory. …..

          • Look up an Anglican “Holy Communion” service on google and see the text. Come on man, go and do a bit of work! We are the Church Militant. We need to know stuff.

          • It’s actually the Anglican Use within the Latin Rite… you should actually assist at an Ordinariate Mass sometime. It’s really quite beautiful. I know a fabulous Ordinariate priest as well!

          • A parallel of it to be sure. The same things deleted and suppressed by the Anglicans were done in the novus ordo. The novus ordo actually went further, by telling a lie, right in the form of the consecration of the Chalice, by saying “for you and for all men” rather than “for you and for many”.

            In all of the 76 rites of Mass that the Church recognises as valid, not one says “for you and for all”, nor have these words ever been used in the history of the Church.

          • I’m talking about the approved vernacular translations. All of them as far as I know, with the exception of French (pour la multitude) had for “you and for all”.

          • ” Father , we now celebrate this memorial of our redemption. We recall Christ’s death, his descent among the dead, his resurrection, and his ascension to your right hand; and looking foward to his coming in glory, We offer you his body and blood, THE ACCEPTABLE SACRIFICE which brings salvation to the whole world. ”

            Eucharistic Prayer 4.

          • EP 4 is optional and also ambiguous. It can be understood in any nnumber of ways.

            Have a look at these links to an Anglican service and see how the same ambiguity and striking similarity is there as it is in the novus ordo.

            The main rite:

            https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/texts/principal-services/holy-communion/orderone.aspx

            The various optional communion rites within.

            It won’t take you long to skim over them, even though it looks like a lot.

            https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/texts/principal-services/holy-communion/epsforonefront/prayerh.aspx
            https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/texts/principal-services/holy-communion/epsforonefront/prayerg.aspx
            https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/texts/principal-services/holy-communion/epsforonefront/prayerf.aspx
            https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/texts/principal-services/holy-communion/epsforonefront/prayere.aspxhttps://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/texts/principal-services/holy-communion/epsforonefront/prayerd.aspx
            https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/texts/principal-services/holy-communion/epsforonefront/prayerc.aspx
            https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/texts/principal-services/holy-communion/epsforonefront/prayerb.aspx
            https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/texts/principal-services/holy-communion/epsforonefront/prayera.aspx

            These services are all completely invalid, even if a Catholic priest were to use them, as they manifest a defect of intention to do what the Church does, even though they use the words of consecration.

          • Than why haven’t the Anglicans or…. the Extreme Southern Baptist gone to our Masses ? Even with the Novus Ordo, they still think that we are cannibals.

          • I don’t know. They like their community better.

            The purported intention of the novus ordo malefactors – saying that they wanted to use the dumbed-down liturgy to attract the “separated brethren” – was almost certainly just another excuse to destroy the Church, and they didn’t actually give a fig what the protestants did.

          • Latin Mass parishes and Eastern rite Catholic Church like my lady of Lebanon church in CT. Are thriving like north Cal. We have Faithfully pro life and family Maronite Catholic bishop in Brooklyn. He runs parishes 46 of them from Me. .to FLA……. .. Over one half of parishioners are like me non Lebanese.

          • The statement “which brings salvation to the whole world is heretical. The Vatican II consecration used the term” for all men”. Pope Benedict XVI immediately corrected the VII version to the Latin “pro multis” for many. Benedict wanted to clarify that the efficacious action of the mass is valid to those who have accepted the grace of salvation and did not mean to everyone who happens to be living on earth. This is similar to the much mistranslated Christmas story from the gospels where we are told that the angels sang “peace on earth ,good will to men” when the actual koine Greek and vulgate Latin read “peace on earth to men of good will”. It is quite a difference, men who reject God’s grace or gift are not entitled to peace or salvation. There really is a quid pro quod in the story of salvation; God offers us the gift of salvation and we are free to accept or reject.

          • “Pro vobis et pro multis” (for you and for many) signifies the “res sacrementi” – the effect of the sacrament. The effect of the Blessed Sacrament is the union of the members of the Mystical Body of Christ with their Head, and also with one another.

            A rudimentary study of sacramental theology will show that a sacrament must “signify what it effects and effect what it signifies”.

            The statement “for you and for ALL” means for the whole world. Not all the world are members of the Mystical Body of Christ. This mutilated lie (which also puts words into the mouth of Our Lord that He never said or meant) fails to signify the effect of the Sacrament, and thus, is no sacrament at all.

            This went on from 1967 to 2011. 45 years.

          • Actually If you read the Original 1970 Missal, The Latin in the Novus Ordo says…… Pro Multis.

          • ” If these teachings were made in an official capacity, then this organisastion could not have been (nor is) the Catholic Church. They must therefore be rejected, along with the counterfeit church who promulgated them. ”

            So there must be two Popes…….

          • My personal opinion is this, and I don’t “declare” it, I just hold it. I don’t see how Paul VI could have been the Pope, but I don’t say that you cannot say he was. I hope this does not get me banned. I’m testing my opinion against other Catholics who hold a different one.

          • Ok…go on…why couldn’t he have been pope? (it’s ok Steve, I mentally read the warning label before tearing off the tag, lol.)

          • If Vatian II was officially promulgated, and it directly contradicts previous Church teaching, then it is highly doubtful he was. Again, I’m not declaraing anything. I have to reconcile two mutual contradicitons. I can’t hold both at the same time, lest I go insane. The Church doesn’t want me to go insane.

          • Wait Pope Paul VI wasn’t the guy who started the Council. It was John XXIII. Paul VI restarted the Council after John XXIII’s death.

          • So you are saying that by doing so, Paul VI basically created a Church of his Own…… and the Real Catholic Church is somewhere…. out there….. without a Pope, without Valid Bishops……

          • Like Steve Skojec said, “It’s a mystery”.

            My simple understanding is that something very bad that has never happened before, happend in the 1960’s.

            So I go to an SSPX chapel where I can practice the Faith completely intact as it was before the “bad thing” happened, and wait for things to be restored. I can’t fix this. I don’t know who or how anyone can. St Paul commands us to “hold fast to tradition”, and that’s what I intend to do for safety’s sake.

          • …but Pope Paul VI also gave us Humanae Vitae. So no Paul VI, no HV…hey wait..Mike..are you really Pope Francis trolling us ‘rigid’ Catholics sewing more confusion? lol..

          • However, if the Church did not intend to teach infallibly, which the Council Fathers and Paul VI explicitly said it did not, then it is fallible, meaning there can be error. If there can be error, then where is the contradiction?

            Vatican II’s documents were officially promulgated, but not as infallible teaching documents, but, more or less, a series of reflections on the current state of the world and what approach seemed best (pastoral approaches) to the fathers going into the future. And clearly, the Fathers made some big mistakes. Also, holding a Council with that mindset was a huge mistake… in fact, I’d argue that it was probably intentional because that allows errors to get in while not transgressing the teaching authority of the Church.

          • Hi Jafin. I enjoy your posts very much. I don’t know anything much about you, but I’m going to take a wild guess and say that you went to a conservative Novus Ordo college.

            You often give a kind of EWTN / Catholic Answers answer at first – until we get into the meat of a subject. I am not saying that as a perjorative manner. We are all affected by our experiences.

            I will come back with some pre versus post Vatican II material on ecumenism.

          • Heh… no actually. I went to a secular college and converted shortly after college. As regards ecumenism, all I need to know of pre- versus post-V2 is the JP2 Assisi fiasco with its concurrent sacrilege and Pope Pius XI Mortalium Animos. Ecumenism as it is understood and practiced today borders on apostasy. I have the exact same issues with Vatican 2 as Archbishop Lefebvre. I reject Vatican 2 in every place where it doesn’t reaffirm the Church’s perennial teaching. There are serious errors in there… most especially but not limited to religious liberty and ecumenism. That doesn’t make those popes since then antipopes. And it doesn’t do an iota of damage to the church’s teaching authority. Session 8 of the Council of Florence contains error as regards the form and matter of the ordination of priests. Look it up. That doesn’t make all the popes and bishops since then heretics. Granted the issue is much more grievous here, but fundamentally it’s the same issue. An ecumenical council can err when it is not intending to teach infallibly. Just like not every utterance of a pope is infallible. I suspect our perception of the papacy would be quite different if we had access to as much of all pope’s utterances and acts as we do to the postconciliar popes.

            As an aside, as much as I admire the hearts of men like Jimmy Akin and Tim Staples… actually, saying any more would probably be uncharitable, 😉

          • Whoah! Careful about saying Councils can contain error. Councils are infallible, meaning they are protected by the Holy Ghost from teaching error or heresy. The Holy Ghost doesn’t make mistakes. That’s why I said to Steve Skojec the other day that the Church doesn’t make mistakes in her official capacity, because our Lord sent the Holy Ghost to lead the Church “into all truth”.

            Bernard Leeming, S.J., Principles of Sacramental Theology has this commentary on Sacramentum Ordinis vs the Council of Florence.

            461. Orders. The Apostolic Constitution of 1947 [Sacramentum Ordinis – Pius XII] on this sacrament points out that an imposition of hands has always been regarded as being in itself a sufficient matter for the sacrament, since the Roman Church always admitted the validity of the Orders of the Greeks which were administered without any presentation of the sacred vessels, the porrectio instrumentorum; and concludes from this that, even according to the mind of the Council of Florence, the presentation of the sacred vessels was not required, by the will of Christ himself, as something pertaining to the substance and validity of this sacrament. ‘But if by the will and prescription of the Church this was ever necessary for validity, everyone knows that what the Church instituted the Church can change and abrogate.

          • You reject parts of Vatican II which contradict the Church’s teaching. That’s good, because the Truth can’t contradict itself, and God protects the Church from error and heresy.

            If the guy in the pew next to you believes the Vatican II errors/heresies will all his heart and goes around promoting them, what do you make of him? Is he a fellow member of the Church, united in the bond of Faith with you?

          • Considering the conversation, I’ll let it slide.

            Saying you’re a sedevacantist doesn’t get you banned. Advocating for it does. I know it’s a fine line to walk, and you’re doing a pretty good job of it actually. It’s appreciated.

          • Seat is vacant ism doesn’t never made much sense to me, good pope, bad pope, they’re popss well, except right up until the present time and the Avignon popes. The sedes actually have an argument since 3-13-13. These two time periods can/will only be understood fully through the lens of history after the smoke clears and the dust settles.

          • So what exactly is the Church in your interpretation? Does it include the erring Popes, the errant Bishops and Archbishops and the irenic blahblahblah of priests like James Martin S.J. ?

          • The Church is the congregation of the faithful. That is, the group of people who outwardly profess the Catholic Faith. This means that those who outwardly profess heresy are not included as members.

            The Church is visible, so the or external/visible profession of the Faith (or the profession of heresy) determines whether or not one is to be considered a member.

            Within this group is an hierarchical structure of authority. One part of the grouch teaches and binds, and the other part learns and obeys.

            This is the teaching of the Church. It’s not my opinion. How you use your intellect to apply the universal teaching to your every day life, the Church leaves up to you.

          • Well, Joseph, stop for minute: in Henry VIII’s and Cranmer’s England, there were “valid bishops”, a long-established, nearly 1000-year tradition of Catholicism, great saints and their teachings known to the Faithful—and a substitute church and worship were installed within a generation, to suit the governing powers.

          • In Henry’s Case…. we had a Pope declaring the Anglicans to be Heretics….. we’ve had Catholic Bishops during that time doing the same thing.

            However in the Second Vatican Council Case, If it’s true, then we must have validly ordained Bishops who can declare People heretics since the Deposit of Faith is passed down to us by the Apostles through the Bishops.

          • Even supposing Francis is not Francis, but Bergoglio, he is still a validly ordained bishop. Any bishop can validly ordain another bishop, although this is illicit (see SSPX on this one).

            Thus all the bishops he ordains are real bishops, and all the priests they ordain are real priests. And the Eucharists these priests confect are real Eucharists.

            At least that’s one thing we do not have to worry about.

          • Personally, I would rather have Alexander VI than JP2. If all the bishops – Popes included – were devils incarnate, that would not affect the Holiness of the Church in the slightest. The Holiness of the Church is the Holiness of Christ, which is infinite, and neither lessened nor increased. The sins of Catholics cab

          • You probably have read the text of one of Bp. Fulton Sheen’s famous sermons warning exactly of what you have described, the danger of a “counterfeit-church’, that will one day ‘ape the true Church’, but be a substitute ‘faith’, promising temporal social benefit and advancement, but with no sincere. transcendent orientation to God and Jesus Christ.

          • With a little correction: Catholics should listen to and learn much from these communities you listed, i.e. various Seventh Day Adventists, Christadelphians, Jehova’s Witnesses or Anglicans…and many others. These may well show Catholics certain virtues (e.g. steadfastness, commitment, displaying their faith without embarrassment…) which the Catholics threw overboard. There is so much to learn even from them. God bless you Mike.

          • I get the point, but I would not agree with that. From reason that we never ever need to teach anything from them. And that is because we have the best teachers trough the many, thousands and more examples who are now saints. What we just need to do (in that matter) is to read their works, homilies, biographies and do our best to try imitate them, as they have imitate other ones before them, and they all together (what we as first and most important should do too) were imitating Christ the Lord Himself.

          • Don’t worry about Our Lady of La Salette /s.
            The Church buried that apparition by having an anonymous notary put one of the seers statements on the index. Seems the prophecies such as this one were getting too close to calling out the vermin for what they were doing.

          • Rubbish. Having a Judas in the ranks in no way invalidates Christ’s promise to His Church. He said that scandals would come but His Church will remain. Our lot is to endure such treason until He cleans them out.

          • You’re going to want a less credulous source than Joe Heschmeyer to make that point. Particularly since he seems to struggle with even understanding what I actually think, and since he’s personally told me he thinks our coverage of the ongoing papal scandals is morally problematic (he may have even called it sinful, IIRC). As though the people at fault are the ones saying the emperor has no clothes, rather than the emperor.

            When Joe wrote this, I think he was looking to discredit me. He failed. Haven’t heard from him since.

          • With all respect to you and all your good intentions, then you don’t know what the Church of Christ really means.
            Did not you know that Christ’s Church include also those in Purgatory and Heaven, the suffering and holy souls?
            Besides, when here on earth is just one faithful soul, that means Church of Christ is still alive. Let alone when they are more than one. Let say just ‘a few’, but they should be still enough. For God Almighty is everything possible. If He wants to beware a good seed in just one faithful man, or two, a man and a woman, somewhere on the farthest point on earth, as long as needed until he wants that his Church re-blossom again with fragrant flowers of the true faith…
            Also we should never forget to keep in mind the concept of time, which is for us ordinary people poorly conceivable,- 2 Peter 3,8 (Douay-Rheims Bible edition)

          • The Church as a Mystical Body will never fail, but realistically it humanly falls often, e.g. even Peter denying Our Lord; 10 disciples abandon Him, only one stays with Him; and the 12th, well, he was the traitor that fingered Him.

            It is a very, very tough time now for the Church, and the light at the end of the tunnel looks like an oncoming train’s lamp, instead.

          • Not at all. Church is the community of Believers. You may count in or discount the Pope if you wish. Church as the community guided by the Holy Spirit cannot and won’t fail, the various prelates and even Popes notwithstanding. Remember the many schisms in the Church in the past? Yet, the (perhaps mostly invisible) Church stays…

          • Well… Vatican I DID say that Peter would have a continuous and unbroken line of successors, so you can’t really discount the pope… the pope is also a sign of the unity of the church and, under normal circumstances, is the safeguard against error… You can’t just discount the Pope.

          • Could I take your answer to be a question? These successive Peters you talk about have been visibly representing…whom? The Western Christianity. How do you account for the succession of (also) Peters in the Eastern Christianity? The other issue you have only touched upon is your “under normal circumstances, is the safeguard against error… ” Do you think we have now what you call “normal circumstances”? Further, consider also the process of “succession”. It is just a voting inside a group of ecclesiastic dignitaries who select ( you call it succession) the First between the Same. How the trend is going, I think we may already half discount the current Pope and may completely discount what may come afterwards. Criterion is simple: adherence to the teaching of Christ. For the sake of sanity we may be given (Holy Ghost moves where He will) a “secret” Pope who will be the real one when the current falls off.

          • No, they’ve been visibly representing Christ on earth. Peter was the first chosen by Christ, and his successors hold the same position. There are no Peters in the Eastern Church. Peter is not first among equals. Peter is first. This is papal primacy. These are not normal circumstances, but that doesn’t discount the Office, which still is indeed a safeguard. Election is how it has been done since the beginning and the church has acknowledged since the beginning that the successive bishops of Rome are successors of Peter and this has been the case from the beginning. Are you Eastern Orthodox?

          • Dear Jafin, You obviously run between Scylla and Charybdis. You would like to have Peter as the representative of Christ on Earth (I have no problem with this wishful desire and poetic longing) while you need to accept realities: not many Popes were representing Christ well. In human affairs, a misbehaving Consul, Proconsul or even Ambassador, will be recalled, perhaps demoted or even sometimes executed. So how do you want to “save the phenomena” of having in the past totally shameful types of Peter? Not talking about the past only: now we have something similar. I do not know your background, but after many years in industry and in academia, I can tell you that: “…but that doesn’t discount the Office, which still is indeed a safeguard.” this is totally wishful thinking. The “Office” won’t on the whole confront the corrupt or mad boss. Office will follow. Until the bitter end. The Politburo in Soviet Union also did not fire the “Great Stalin”, eventhough many PB members hated him but all, or almost all, feared him. Same with Adolf, also there there was virtually no position, except the very end and even that misfired. What to do with the current PF? Do you think the “dubia” is doing him and harm? he laughs it away, and goes ahead with his nefarious agenda, as if nothing has happened. May I predict here something: the next Pope after PF will be even more of the same trend. How would you then defend the impossible? And no, I’m not Eastern Orthodox, but a Catholic who was living many years in the East.

          • All of this discounts the Divine nature of the Church. If you look at it through human eyes, yes, the whole thing seems entirely incredible. But instead of looking at it with sullied, human, hopeless eyes, I trust in Our Lord’s promise “the gates of hell shall not prevail” and “I will be with you until the end.” We need to look at Christ and less at earth.

          • ” Church is the Community of Believers ” is actually straight out of Martin Luther. Martin Luther used this exact same argument . The First Council of Constanibole defined the Church as one, holy, catholic, and Apostolic……… What you are saying is that the Popes, and the Prelates are not needed…… however…. The Holy Spirit guides the Church through the Bishops. The Deposit of Faith is passed down by the Apostles to us through the Bishops.

          • This is rubbish. Judas was a traitor and this this did not destroy the Church. Take a look at “Book of Destiny” among others for an explaination of the “last things” before Antichrist and Christ’s 2nd coming. It is clear that the Church will be infiltrated and apostasy spread among those who call themselves Catholic to the point that these people will follow Antichrist when he appears. The man that will betray these people is the one known as the False Prophet. As Bishop Fulton Sheen said, Satan will recruit him from the ranks of bishops. Is he the one we see in Rome today or is he to be looked for in the near future? Either way we will soon find out. We know from Sister Lucy that the 3rd secret includes Chapter 13 of Apocalypse. Whatever happens it is going to break loose very soon.

          • ” As Bishop Fulton Sheen said, Satan will recruit him from the ranks of bishops. Is he the one we see in Rome today or is he to be looked for in the near future? ”
            However, Fulton Sheen as Bishop of Rochester participated in the Vatican 2 Sessions…. without from my knowledge any regret….. so unless he’s playing two sides here…… And many people think Fulton Sheen was a Freemason. http://www.ourladyisgod.com/i-RomanRiteLiturgyExposed.php

            So where do we draw the line ?

            ” Book of Destiny ” is that Person’s Interpretation of the Book of Revelation….. the Catholic Church allows for that interpretation. However.. Assuming that guy might have celebrated the Novus Ordo Rite…….. I mean……

          • No, there are other possibilities. He never promised that the Papacy would not go under – it is perfectly conceivable that the Papacy will go under, but that the Church will survive.

            Or, those words may mean that the Church may be overcome in many battles, but will win the war, however damaged she may be in the process.

            There is no compelling reason to think the whole Church will survive unscathed, or that she will win every battle. Church history shows that the Church has been greatly damaged, and that countless millions have been lost to her; but if the last Catholics on earth before Judgement Day are three old women in a garret saying their rosaries, the Words of Christ will have been fulfilled.

          • Well-put. This accelerating state of decline and collapse was not a “misstep”, a simple accident. Powerful forces have been at work for some time, both inside and outside the hierarchical leadership. And our greatest weakness, as Antonio Gramschi noted, is our unwavering obedience to authority, even when the authority is clearly, fatally wrong.

          • I think you’ve got it backwards. The “70s churches” and all that, stemmed from the abandonment of Reason. You know, Insanity.

            Your comments about St Thomas Aquinas are quite shallow and uninformed. He wrote some of the deepest and most beautiful liturgical poetry that exists.

            As well, in true Catholicism there never has been polarization between Faith and Reason. They’ve always been closely intertwined and have not needed to be clinically dissected. That is a modernistic approach, quite Hegelian in its general trend. And there is nothing more cerebral (in the bad sense) than Hegelianism.

          • Joseh Vu, the rot can be traced back at least to the 1890s, if we are talking about the internal enemies of the Church rising up; and much further back than that if we are talking about the external ones.

          • The Catholic Church I would say has always had Rot…… the Arianism Controversy, The Multiple Breakaways…..

          • Let’s look at another theory espoused by Malachi Martin. He relates of an enthronement of the devil early in the pontificate of Paul VI. This was a black Mass which supposedly took place under the Vatican in link with a similar event at the same time in South Carolina. —— I was stationed on board a ship at the Charleston Naval Base for four years. I went over to the Citadel military college and talked with the chaplain. It turns out that Charleston is the known center for devil worship on the east coast. San Francisco is the center on the west coast. ———

          • Watch the skies as the late Fr. Malachi Martin said, he was right too and he was talking about right now, 2017

          • Jupiter exits the constellation (woman gives birth) October 11. Two days before Fatima 100. Remember the message about the “kings of France not consecrating France and 100 years to the day in 1789 Louis XVI’s was murdered. The hundred year anniversary of Fatima is October 13th, not the anniversary that just past in May. People were expecting something to happen in May but not me, it’s October that’s the 100th anniversary of the miracle of the sun. And, what a coincidence that it is the Sun today which

          • Malachi Martin read the Third Secret of Fatima while advising Cardinal Bea in the Vatican. When he talked about “look to the skies”, it was not about fire. There are rumors of a meteor or Planet X hitting the Earth. That is one reason that the Vatican has set up an observatory out West. The idea is to watch for an intruder in our solar system.

          • What he was talking about and what he specifically mentioned for us to watch for and..even giving us the time frame (2016) is the system that will bring “fire from heaven” as it’s mentioned in the 3rd secret. We know from the bible that there will never again be a flood covering the entire earth but this purification is by fire (and also a lot of flooding but not another great flood).
            3rd secret:
            “A great war will break out within the second half of the Twentieth Century, fire and smoke will fall from Heaven, the water of the oceans will become vapors and the foam will rise up flooding and sinking everything, millions and millions of people will die by the hour and the survivors will envy the dead.”
            Akita 3rd secret:
            “As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never have seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day, recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and the priests.”
            Sr. Lucia’s diary released in 2014:
            “I felt my spirit flooded by a light-filled mystery which is God and in Him I saw and heard: the point of the flame-like lance which detaches, touches the axis of the earth and it [the earth] shakes: mountains, cities, towns and villages with their inhabitants are buried. The sea, rivers and clouds leave their bounds, they overflow, flood and drag with them into a whirlpool, houses and people in a number unable to be counted; it is the purification of the world from the sin it is immersed in.”
            St. Hildegard:
            “Before the Comet comes, many nations, the good excepted, will be scoured with want and famine. The great nation in the ocean that is inhabited by people of different tribes and descent by an earthquake, storm and tidal waves will be devastated.� It will be divided, and in great part submerged. That nation will also have many misfortunes at sea, and lose its colonies in the east through a Tiger and a Lion.
            �The Comet by its tremendous pressure, will force much out of the ocean and flood many countries, causing much want and many plagues. [After the] great Comet, the great nation will be devastated by earthquakes, storms, and great waves of water, causing much want and plagues. The ocean will also flood many other countries, so that all coastal cities will live in fear, with many destroyed. All sea coast cities will be fearful and many of them will be destroyed by tidal waves, and most living creatures will be killed and even those who escape will die from a horrible disease.”

            You now know everything you need to know.
            Pray the rosary.

          • Thank you for your wider clarification. It does appear that there is something extraterrestrial involved.

          • wrote even wider clarification but it disappeared into the ehter, some folks 100 years after Fatima still won’t face facts.

        • Yes, indeed some scam artists taking advantage of the dimwitted for profit is quite apropos of our currant situation, though the current situation is admittedly far more sinister. And Yet, it’s springtime for Marx and Crew in Germany!

          Reply
          • Not quite the dustbin, Father, albeit a long night of sleep’s delay here. :). It’s a brilliant post. I am convinced that ironic humor is the 8th Gift of the Holy Ghost these days. It lets us register bitter truths of decline that would otherwise kill us, while helping us see up over them to God’s eye-view, so encouragIng us to maintain Hope. Thank you for all your posts, your real-world language, your humor and heart coupled with fine theological and philosophical balance and insight. An old theology professor of mine, during the heady post VII days of early mayhem (and who was wholly against the dissembling) said it thus: “To be in the world and the Church these days, and to be of real use to either as we survive this confusion, means having one foot in the Tower, and one in the trench. It’s a miserably uncomfortable position. But without these souls only the chasm remains.”

        • and on further review, one scammer duping another who is actually a greater scammer than the other fits on multiple levels: St. Galen’s mafia and Francis and Francis and the Bishops and all of them and Satan.

          Reply
          • I have a Question for you. Do you think that Pope Francis is as bad a Pope as Alexander VI, whose scandalous Life might have triggered the Protestant Reformation ?

          • I know you didn’t ask this of me specifically, but I suspect my answer would be similar. As bad a man morally? Certainly not. But as far as his danger to the faith of millions and the church as a whole? Francis is the worst we’ve ever had. Ever. Worse than even Pope Honorius who was anathematized as a heretic by his successors and an ecumenical council after his death.

          • Historians credit Alexander VI with feeding the Growing Flame that was the Protestant Reformation.

          • Honorius was vindicated by St Robert Bellarmine, the Church Doctor whose specialty was the nature of the Church and the papacy.

            1000 years after the events took place, there was more documentation available in St Robert’ day to clear Honorius of the charges laid against him.

          • The Church approved all of St Robert’s teaching. St Robert was a Bishop, a Saint, and a Doctor of the Church. The Church does not bestow such honours lightly. The Church knows the whole truth of the matter regarding Honorius, including St Robert’s vindication of him. Interestingly his feast day is May 13.

            During the council of Trent, upon the cathedral altar, they placed the Scriptures, the decrees of the popes and the Summa of St Thomas, as the primary resources for the members of the council to go to for inspiration in the proceedings.

            During Vatican I, it was the scriptures, the popes, St Thomas and St Robert Bellarmine.

          • St. Robert Bellarmine defends Honorius in that Honorius did not himself believe in the monothelite heresy, but it wasn’t for this that he was condemned. It was for failing the quell the heresy and not guard the deposit of faith. That’s important.

          • Yes, that’s correct. Honorius was not a heretic. He failed to suppress heresy as hard as he could have when he had the opportunity.

          • No, there is a comparison, in that Honorius, though he did not hold the heresy himself, was condemned with the heretics for not doing his duty and actually suppressing the discussion against Monothelytism causing the heresy to grow. The post Vatican II popes, depending on who it is, may or may not be heretics themselves (I won’t get into it atm or even voice my own opinions for now and leave it to others), but they certainly have allowed the heresy to grow and spread and have not suppressed it as they should.

            You’re using your preconceived notions derived from your sedevacantist position to read things into Vatican I that simply aren’t there. A pope can be a material heretic… perhaps even a formal heretic, and he remains pope until some sort of juridical act of the church. Exactly what that looks like no one really knows yet because we’ve never had to deal with this before… just like we’ve never had a period of 60+ years without a pope either…

          • Yes, the whole situation is completely novel. Who can say with absolute certainty they have it all figured out, with the exception of John Salza and Robert Siscoe?

          • If a layman becomes a formal heretic, does he leave the Church by his own doing, or does it need to be declared?

            Whether hierarchy or laity, the principles of divine law regarding heresy severing one from the Church are universal, are they not?

          • There is no teaching from the Church on this situation. It is completely unprecedented. Nothing in history can be compared to this. There are weighty opinions from learned and holy men that we can go to, but It is an open question, and therefore one can hold this or that opinion, provided they are consistent with established theology. That’s why I don’t condemn those with whom I disagree.

            In practice, I only attemd Mass and receive Sacraments from those who have not participated in any novelties regarding Faith or Sacraments.

            In adhering rigidly to the rite handed down to us we can always feel secure; whereas, if we omit or change anything, we may perhaps be abandoning just that element which is essential.” Vindication of the Bull, Apostolicae Curae, by the Catholic Bishops of England

          • “Regarding “some sort of judicial act of the Church”, remember that “The First See is judged by no one”. For any declaration and sentence to be passed, the man in question must have already lost his office. The Pope, as long as he is pope, has jurisdiction over the whole Church, but no one has jurisdiction over him. These facts simply won’t go away.”
            This is why this situation is so difficult. You’re right, the First See is judged by no one… no lay person, no bishop, no cardinal, no council can judge the Successor of Peter. And that exactly is the problem with sedevacantism. In order to make the assertion and hold to it that the man who claims to be the Pope is not the pope, a person has had to look at the person, look at the evidence, and made a judgement, however private or public, a competency that they do not have. You do not have the right or the competency to do so.

            It IS within your purview, as well as mine, to look at the teachings presented to us and judge that they are in line with the Magisterium of the Church, but not the person of the Successor of Peter. We can see that many of the teachings presented to us after Vatican II are not in line with the perennial magisterium and thus must reject them. So for you to go to the SSPX for the sacraments is 100% ok, no matter what the Novus Ordo adherents may say.

            As regards to the juridical act, which I mentioned in my other response, there is one way I know of, provided by scholars based on the writings of previous theologians and saints, that a pope could be, for lack of a better word, deposed. This is outlined by Robert Siscoe and John Salza in this article: https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/1284-can-the-church-depose-an-heretical-pope
            You may have run across it, I’m not sure. It’s a good read, and, if you haven’t read it, I recommend it. It IS a bit long and dry. I had to take it in chunks. And it is, of course, theoretical because this has simply never been done.

            Anyways, the salient point here is regarding the pope’s pertinacity in heresy (necessary to prove formal heresy which is what concerns us here.) The bishops gather together in what the authors call an “Imperfect Council.” Imperfect because it lacks the authority to define doctrine, but held even at the protestation of the pope, because the church must deal with a particular problem. The bishops make a first and second admonition, informing the pope that a particular doctrine he holds is in opposition to the deposit of faith. If, after the second admonition, he refuses to recant his position, by virtue of his heresy, the pope deposes himself (by pertinaciously holding heresy.) The Church through the bishops performs only a ministerial action in providing the conditions necessary for the pope to judge himself. It is the pope who makes the juridical act of deposition, through his defiant proclamation of heresy. Then of course the cardinals elect a new pope. The linked article provides greater detail as regards the distinction between the juridical and ministerial actions of the various agents, as well as how this avoids the heresy of conciliarism among others.

            Again, I’d like to highlight that this particular hypothesis is just that, a hypothesis, and has yet to be tested and proven in the real world. Theoretically it seems sound. It’s also far safer than making a private judgement. I could say “Well, the pope isn’t the pope obviously because he’s teaching heresy!” That would be me, a lay man, issuing a judgement against the pope. I can make a guess that perhaps he is not the pope because of his heresy, but that’s simply a guess. I can even make the prudential decision to avoid his teachings and assist at a Mass untouched by his novelties so as to guard myself and my family from heresy. But I cannot make the judgement that the Pope isn’t the pope… for the present pontiff or any previous ones, without the church, through the person of the pope, making such a judgement. It is even more so not within my purview to go and tell others that the pope is not the pope. That’s the basis of the Comment Policy here.

            Absolutely, hold rigidly to the rite handed down to us. It’s what we must do. I refuse to attend any Novus Ordo Masses. The last one I was at I felt physically ill (and this was a Mass at a seminary with an archbishop present.) But what I do not have the competency to do is judge whether the apparent Successor of Peter is the Successor of Peter or not. Because I’m not him.

          • Thank you very much for this post. I don’t buy into Siscoe and Salza. I have seen their poor scholarship and general tactics exposed elsewhere. They are not entirely honest, and have even called for the SSPX to refuse the sacraments to an Australian man called John Lane, who disagrees with them publicly.

            Among other things, they quote books from the Index; they quote material written by an anti-Catholic ex-pirate !! and they attribute things to popes (Adrian IV) which popes never said, just to gain some ground. They personally attack their opponents to score points. It’s not good, but thanks for the link.

            Regarding making judgements, we do it all the time, whether deciding what car to buy or which Mass to attend. You weighed up all the facts, and have decided to avoid the Novus Ordo. You’ve based this upon what the Church teaches, and even in spite of five successive popes using it exclusively. There was no declaration from the Church; you just applied the universal Faith to your situation. You don’t bind anyone else to your opinion. You just get on with things the best you can.

          • I didn’t know all of that about Siscoe and Salza, that’s good to know. I have read their work and, from what I’ve seen, it seems to hold. I don’t know that I entirely hold to it either, but it’s the only theoretical proposition that makes any sense that I’ve seen.

            There’s a difference between judging an action, behavior, or organization, and judging a person. If there wasn’t, how could Jesus say “Do not judge, lest you be judged likewise.” Clearly there’s a distinction that needs to be made. But making the judgement that the pope isn’t the pope doesn’t fall into these permissible sorts of judgement. Nor would it be my place to judge that the Novus Ordo isn’t a valid liturgy. I still hold that it’s valid, but I also hold that it can be damaging to faith and, for me and my family, we need the graces to be gained from the liturgy as it’s meant to be.

            I pondered a few different analogies, a few ways of putting this to try to convince you that this is beyond our competence, but I realized that I’m not going to convince you, and you’re clearly smart enough to make the same analogies yourself. So I’ll only say this:
            In the past, you’ve made the case that the Novus Ordo Mass as well as Episcopal Consecrations are “doubtful.” Wouldn’t it be safer and more prudent to say that the papacies of the post-conciliar popes is “doubtful?” If you hold that, you at least are admitting that you don’t have the competency to make a full judgement but are making a prudential decision based on the incomplete though substantial evidence you have? This necessitates actually having some doubt and not simply just using the word “doubtful.”

            I say this all as another Catholic just trying to get to heaven. You don’t want to find yourself in schism because of faulty judgement, as you’re culpable for that. As a moderator, I have to say that the sede flag is waving pretty high right now, so we should drop this conversation for now.

          • Heretics are not Catholics. They sever themselves from the Mystical Body of Christ. They are not members of the Church. Do you agree?

          • True, a heretic is not a Catholic… that is a formal heretic is not a Catholic. One who is a material heretic is likely an actual Catholic because the heresy they believe is from a faulty understanding of the truths of the faith. A formal heretic pertinaciously holds opinions and doctrines opposed to the deposit of faith in spite of knowing that they are in opposition to the truth. Obviously there is a little bit of nuance here, but that would simply be nitpicking and I trust you aren’t going to do that.

            The problem here is that, in order to be able to say someone is a formal heretic, it has to be proven that they are pertinacious in their heresy. This is necessary for a lay person, theologian, priest, or anyone. This is infinitely more important with the Successor of Peter. I’ll address further of these issues in my response to your other message.

            As for the final question, though, no, I don’t agree. It is not completely different. It is similar, but there orders of magnitude difference in the weight of them.

          • No. Honorius was not a heretic, and we agree. There haven’t been any popes who were public heretics. The Church is the congregation of the Faithful. One has to outwardly profess the Faith to me a member of the Church. Heretics are non-Catholics, and not members. Non members cannot hold any office in the Church.

          • Question: What are your thoughts on Pope John XXII? Obviously he recanted, but he believed and preached heresy. This is a documented fact. Do you hold that he lost his papacy?

          • No, I don’t hold that. He put forward his opinion on a matter that had not yet been defined. It was an open question, which his immediate successor defined once and for all. He was wrong, but it was not heresy, because he did not deny a defined dogma, and he humbly retracted his error before he died.

          • Alexander VI was in fact a very able administrator of the Church, better than this lot. he also never once attacked the Catholic Faith. His was a scandalous moral life, but he was a million times less damaging than the foul scum currently in charge of Christ’s flock.

          • ” but he was a million times less damaging than the foul scum currently in charge of Christ’s flock. ”

            Historians have pointed out that his actions along with the Popes of the Era was fodder for the Protestant Reformation. Because of the Personal Scandals that led Martin Luther to post the 95 Thesises.

          • Dear Joseph, scandals there were, and scandals there will always be, but no-one has any excuse for heresy or schism.

            There were many other reasons for Luther’s revolt, not least among them his own state of mental illness brought about by morbid musings on his own fitness for Salvation. Don’t go blaming everyone else for Luther. Blame Luther for Luther.

      • Father,
        the video has people dressed very immodestly in some parts (i wouldnt reccommend looking at it), I think you should remove it. But I understand you uploaded it in good Faith and it obviously wasnt your intention after all you are a Priest, I would tell you privately bur I dont think there is anyway to.

        God Bless

        Reply
      • Hello Father,
        In the video there are at some parts people dressed very immodestly(wouldnt reccomend looking). I understand that you didnt know and this obviously wasnt your intention after all you are a Priest. But I think you should remove it. I would tell try to message you privately but I dont think I can.

        God Bless

        Reply
  4. And as we weep for the continuing fall of the Church in Germany, far beneath us, that heretic Luther laughs with glee that the destruction he set in motion five centuries ago is beginning to come to fruition…

    Reply
    • What’s that song that I’ve heard……… Oh yeah….. You don’t know what Love is…….

      In this case…..

      Reply
  5. This is the natural outcome of sixty years of relativism and heresy. Get ready to see this in a North American diocese near you.

    Reply
  6. Bishop Ackermann…just another heretical German “bishop.” As I have stated in the past heretic Martin Luther was more Catholic than the current pack of liars and thieves running the show in Germany.

    Reply
    • I wouldn’t say Heretical…. however because that assumes that there is an actual real, true Bishop of……..Trier. It also means that Apostolic Succession in the Diocese is broken and therefore we have a problem

      Also….. Who gave you the Authority to call a person a Heretic……..

      Reply
      • So what would you call him: “Faithful” and “Obedient” to the Magisterium of Christ’s Church and thus to Our Lord Himself?

        The man and many of fellow traveling bishops are heretics and it is long past time they were called what they truly are and what they are truly doing….leading not only their own souls astray but the souls they were entrusted to lead and care for away from the Truth of Christ.

        Reply
        • I would call that Guy an A Plus Student. Or I probably just give that guy a bunch of Andy Williams CDs as a Gift…..

          Heretics…. You know. We seem to be talking about Heretics so much…. that we’ve forgotten about the Guys that seem to be doing a good job…… Like the Bishop of My Diocese….

          Reply
          • Sadly they seem to be few and far between. My dioceses just lost a good bishop and the other dioceses in my state also has a good solid, no nonsense bishop. My comment may have been a generalization and I should have been more pointed in my scope. That said though most, let’s say 75% to 80% of the bishops in the US, Canada, Western Europe, Australia and NZ are weak willed, go along to get along types who are more than willing to compromise the faith of Christ or they are out and out heretics.

            Remember when King Henry VIII attacked & destroyed the Church in England and Wales all the Kingdom’s bishops save St John Fisher went along with it by either remaining cowardly silent or openly supporting him. We see the same today.

  7. One of the Greatest Singers in My Opinion is the Legendary Andy Williams. You know him. Moon River. Days of Wine and Roses. Why am I mentioning Him ? He also recorded a Few Songs of Our Catholic Faith. Our Lady of Fatima, The Village of St Bernadette, and Holy Night. Williams was a Presbyeterian. Our Faith is so beautiful that It attracts People from all over the World……

    Reply
  8. Trier diocese is symptomatic of the total failure of the post-Vatican II liberal experiment and the future of the ‘German church’ as a whole and all liberal churches – liberalism leads to heresy which leads to apostasy which leads to death. And these are the ‘experts’ who want to export their failure to the universal Church, all with the blessing, approval and support of Pope Francis the Destroyer. Fortunately, the Church universal ultimately belongs to Christ and will outlast this nightmare crisis of auto-demolition. Pope Francis the Destroyer himself will ultimately fail and fall. I pray for this day to come soon.

    Reply
    • Of course what we see as failure is what liberals see as success; they want to totally remake the Church into an organisation concerned with peace on earth through their own efforts. It’s a futile goal – has to be said! Of course they themselves are dupes of that evil grand planner from that other world whom they could be destined to meet unless God brings them to their knees and repentance meantime.

      Reply
      • I have a simple way of putting this: The ‘new’ Church is a ‘Pagan’ Church. Or…….as some would say, the ‘ape’ of Christ in His true Church. In reality, this ‘new’ Church is not in the least Catholic.

        Reply
    • Nothing will change – of any importance – until the Popes man up and take the blame. None of this spiritual slurry would have been possible, without the say-so of Paul VI. But that is going to be even harder, since he has been beatified. Especially as JP2, who did so much damage, has been canonised.

      The Papacy has boxed itself into a corner: it has done untold damage to the Church and to the West, and has honoured very highly those who have done the most damage. To say nothing of doing all this damage in the name of an Ecumenical Council. While claiming to be infallible. There is, humanly speaking, no reason at all to expect things to improve. So it is a safe guess that the Church will continue to rot and collapse for at least a century, while priests become ever fewer and Muslims multiply like flies and Islamise Europe (and capture Rome, and in all likelihood show the Pope and the Cardinals what Muslim peace really looks like).

      Reply
  9. No surprise—unfortunately. This is a result of starvation from orthodox Catholic faith courtesy of Vatican II.

    Reply
  10. Given the collapse of the Church in Germany both theologically and demographically, it is beyond time to collapse its episcopate as well. They have enough money. Retire them. Shut them up. Be done with it. The slate clean, in a generation or two start over. The fruits of the German Roman Catholic Church have been rather few, except for the martyrs they themselves murdered. It appears a futile enterprise. No fruit, cut it down.

    Reply
    • I don’t think the German prelates want to go quietly into that good night: too much fame, recognition, money, power.

      Might be said also for the CEO of the org, also, who loves the attention he gets on the world stage..far..too…much.

      Reply
      • Indeed. That’s the reason why they keep trying to feel the churches with sodomites, murderers, etc… It totally doesn’t matter who they are, just if they bring the money with them…

        Reply
      • Narcissism on steroids. This “curtain call” will go on as long as it suits them. They hold in their hands the cause of the collapse, they fuel it. The Germans, with their guilt ridden mission outreach to the Church in South America are in no small part accountable for its evisceration as well. The Teutonic cancer holds reign in Rome.

        Reply
    • Essentially it does already. We’re not underground at my Sunday TLM, we’re just there at 12:30 in the side chapel away from the Cathedral. The novus ordoites come streaming out, many immodestly dressed women, guys wearing shorts and blue jeans and they hustle right back to their cars past the Trads streaming in in their suits and hats and modest dresses with chapel veils. We might as well be underground, once in a while a novus ordoite will straggle in, they’re welcome but rarely do you see one twice.

      Reply
  11. What does one expect after:

    Luther
    Myriad mad philosophies culminating in neo-Darwinian paganism
    Protestant Prussia
    Catholicism joining in the drunken revel with Vatican II

    Add to the mix that peculiar German facility to take everything that is obviously full of error far, far too seriously and you have got the liberal meltdown reported here.

    Don’t think this news will cause any New Churchers, clerical or lay, to connect the dots at last. It won’t. It will simply make them continue their vandalism with even greater anarchical violence.

    Reply
  12. Trier is the place where the robe of Christ is kept. They take out for the public to see every 20 or 25 years. (or so)

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  13. Germany is reaping what it has sewn, and the good people will have to continue to suffer. Only through divine intervention can the atrocities be undone. In the meantime, perhaps it is time for the Germans to strike the Church Tax and starve their circus clowns in mitres of their precious funds. If the cathedrals must collapse because of this, so be it; may their revered, stony loads bury the likes of Marx and Ackerman in the dust.

    Amen.

    Reply
      • Alright, let’s see you get it passed in the German Parliament right now. No excuses. I agree. You want to get snarky with me over the delivery of a shared opinion, then get it done instead of mouthing off.

        Reply
        • I don’t think that was intended to be snarky but more a vehement agreement to the point of making your statement stronger.

          Reply
          • I guess the sardonic nuance of the ‘perhaps’ is lost on some of the readers of this forum. It rendered neither a weak nor inchoate statement.

            The elimination of the Church Tax may have a catastrophic effect on the Church’s built patrimony. While it is long past due anyway for the reasons discussed above, as a Catholic architect, I will lament the loss of much built Glory. So, hence, the dual sardonic and regretful tones of my use of ‘perhaps’.

            I am a Tridentine Mass proponent, but as

          • My “there is no perhaps” was not snark. It was and is a straightforward statement of my opinion that the German church has been corrupted by the church tax. Also, the deleterious effects of German money on the universal Church are beyond debate.
            Catholic architects such as yourself aren’t the only ones who lament the “loss of much built Glory.” But as you wrote, Germany is reaping what it has sown and good people will suffer.
            If you choose to respond to this comment, you’ll have the last word. I’m not interested in further exchange after the rudeness you demonstrated above. Have a better day.

          • My last word is this: I thought your original reply to my post was exceedingly rude in the way it was worded, so I called you on it. It would be best for you and me to conclude that we agree in content. Have a better day, as well.

          • When buildings get in the way, the Church must learn to let them go, however painful it might be. Some of us have been denied churches and had to rent rat-infested ballrooms in order to have the Mass of All Times. For us the situation in Germany is simply scandalous. The Faith and Tradition, ultimately, are not tied to buildings. The tribulation is already here.

  14. The German mentality hasn’t changed very much in spite of past “lessons” – Apparently once they choose a scapegoat because according to them, that group is apparently responsible for all their current woes, they set about destroying it. Seemingly this time the TRUE Church [ not the new schismatic Francis version ] – the TRUE Church – founded by Jesus Christ has unwittingly assumed the role of scapegoat. God and His Blessed Mother guide, guard and defend us all because this evil will spread rapidly.

    Reply
  15. ….For most Catholics in the English-speaking world, there is a generalized knowledge of Germany’s difficulties with the faith….

    Gee.

    Do you think that if the high and holy Catholic Church and the high and holy Popes had NOT decided that is was just fine if their high and holy Catholic Priests bugger little boys, the people in Germany and the rest of the western world would have less “difficulties” with their faith”?

    I don’t know.

    It is a puzzle!

    Reply
    • The teaching authority of the Catholic Church is irrevocable. It cannot be taken away by even the most violent enemies of the Church, the worst of whom in our time are using Her good name as a cloak for their horrible perversions, and pretending to be members of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church.

      Reply
    • Gee.

      So you’re saying if the homos and the pedos didn’t touch the little boys this wouldn’t have happened.

      I don’t know.

      It is a puzzle.

      Reply
    • Gee, let’s examine your logic. Do you think that if Hollywood pedophiles had NOT buggered little actors that even MORE people would have patronized their movies? Do you think if public school teachers had NOT been guilty of sexual assaults on children and teens that FEWER people would have sent their children to be indoctrinated by leftist propaganda in public schools? I mean, both Hollywood and Public Schools are each the equivalent of secular religions.

      Hmmm. . . . .logical people want to know.

      Reply
  16. How long can the infamous Church Tax survive if the Lutheran and Catholic churches in Germany continue to visibly collapse? There is only so much that doctrinal compromise can achieve. Eventually existing worshippers will abandon churches with watered down doctrine for real Christian worship (Confraternity of St Peter/whatever) and non-worshippers will not be attracted anyway. So the social justification for the Church Tax must evaporate in the next 10 to 20 years. Then not only the remnants of the German Catholic” church, but the Vatican and the Polish churches will be in deep doo-doo as they receive hefty German contributions.

    Reply
  17. Hmmm…..you don’t suppose they will close the church where it is kept. ..do you ?
    Interesting comment…the Modernists have a talent for ruining everything.

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  18. I see that the little fag, Ackerman, is at it again with more soul-destroying actions. No doubt the ugliest churches will remain standing; the ancient and beautiful will be closed down. How can anyone not see that the end of the Faith is only minutes away Yes, a shred will remain. But all the rest: gone.

    Reply
  19. the “ordinary” German Catholics have fully embraced Vatican II… if “extram ecclesiam nulla salus” is no longer valid, then why bother coming?
    What surprises me (as a German) more is that so many don’t come any more but still pay…

    Reply
  20. John Borroughs (below) very neatly sums up the irreconcilable difference between Catholicism and the Novus Ordo “nu-Church” religion, with its amalgam of protestantism, humanism, ecumanism and speculative theology run wild.

    “We might as well be underground, once in a while a novus ordoite will straggle in, they’re welcome but rarely do you see one twice.”

    I knew it, said it, and was shot down for it: when Benedict XVI started his “reform of the reform”, I knew it was a hopeless venture. How can you mix oil and water, chalk and cheese? These two religions are not only incompatible, they are mutually antagonistic. Only one can survive.

    The other will die, to be villified for eternity. And it isn’t going to be Catholicism suffering that fate, whatever efforts made by the one-lunged lover of leftism and his fawning sodomitical sybarites.

    Reply
    • “Only one can survive.”
      Certainly. Only one can survive, which is to say, only one, the true Church will ultimately surely win, – Christ’s Catholic Church!
      Deformation can not be reformed. It’s an illusion. Also, we cannot reform a illusion which is a deformation of liturgy in a very basic, but also broader sense. I see this so; you can’t change something what is good and correct ‘a little bit’, (or more than just a little bit) and expect to keep it good and correct. There is no 90% of truth and 10% of lies, which can stay as truth. The truth can only stay truth if it is for a whole 100%.
      Everything that is deformed, in this case intentionally and deliberately with the aim of deforming, must be discarded, cut off. It must be returned to its original state, which is the only right way it should be.

      Reply
  21. The last time Germany had a solid Catholic identity was during the years when Franz Josef Strauss was Governor of Bavaria. He died of a heart attack in 1988, at age 73. Strauss was a Bavarian Nationalist and die in the wool Catholic. For a period of time, he was a political competitor of Helmut Kohl. In those years, older German Catholics were still in sufficient number to be a pain in the rear to politicians. Bavarian Catholics as a group were still much more orthodox than their younger priests and bishops. With their passing into death in the years after the Wall came down, the Church demographically began its rapid collapse.

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  22. There is a similar re-organisation going on in the next door diocese (and country) of Luxembourg. To be honest, the re-organisation in itself is not the problem and it is partly caused by the separation of Church and state that took place this year (not as bad as it sounds when we consider what the dead hand of a secular state has been doing). However, it also seems to be being used to get rid of traditionally minded priests from Africa and replacing them with paid full time “catechists”. This is the hidden story.

    Reply
  23. i am continuing to go public, and reveal as much of this eveil when I see it, hear it…Facebook and all other places.

    Reply

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