Alexander Kissler – the well-respected, often subtly ironic, conservative German journalist and editor of the culture section of the German journal Cicero who recently wrote a piercing critique of Pope Francis – has now written another important article on Catholic matters. This time, he reports on the fact that, last year, “in 2015, only 58 men have been ordained as priests in the whole of Germany [with 23,8 million Catholics].” Kissler makes the strong claim that this standing shortage of priests is actually wanted by the guiding progressives of the German Church. “The priests,” says the German journalist, “are in the way of the New Church of Participation.” He explains:
There has been no vote [in this matter], no order from Rome that the Catholic Church in Germany should go this path and no other. The Germans just do it, and as good Germans, they do it well.
As an example, Kissler mentions the Diocese of Limburg where its leadership is working to establish “Parishes of the New Type [“Pfarreien Neuen Typs” – PNT].” He continues:
There are, after all, already 30 of such “PNT’s” between Frankfurt, Taunus and Westerwald [places within the Diocese of Limburg]. In the relevant documents, the priests do not any more appear or, if so, then only as a stranger, as a stubborn relic by the side of the road. The full-time employees – together with the volunteers – shall participate together in partnership, under the guidance of parish counsellors and facilitators. The Spiritual Controlling rules.
Alexander Kissler convincingly demonstrates, by quoting from these current diocesan booklets, just how these new “participatory parishes” are implemented from above – and “initiated top-down” – in order to “make [the Church] step-by-step more compatible with the life realities of the people.” In this new “system,” the priest appears to be a stumbling block, according to Kissler. “The stubborn priest slows down the annexation [Anschluss] to the Wonder-world of Participation.” Thus there can be found in the diocesan documents a call to urge “more insistently and more consequently” the ordained priests “not to stand in the way of the changes.” Priests, according to the documents, “should not block whole parishes.” The aim of the reform is “to search” and even, if seen to be fitting, to find “new bosses, new forms of leadership” (in Kissler’s words). Kissler rightly then asks whether or not there is any place left for “Canon Law and Catechism.” In one of the recent documents of the Diocese of Limburg, called “Kirche der Zukunft” (“Church of the Future”), “there is not even a single mention anymore of the very word ‘priest,’” as Kissler emphatically notes. The clear goal here is to form a “common priesthood” and a “general priesthood.” Kissler trenchantly asks: “Shall Luther be re-catholicized, or shall the Church be lutherized?”
As this German author points out, Limburg is not the only diocese which goes this new path.
The shrinking Church in Germany shall become an engaged community of participation based on grassroots principles. The work of the Pastoral Institute Buka ng Tipan [in the Philippines, see here a link] – to which by now nearly every diocese sends its emissaries [even Cardinal Schönborn’s Diocese of Vienna, Austria] – serves as a model here.
According to Kissler, the intention is to create “not a priestless, but a priest-reduced humanitarian action group, ‘journeying with people towards a participatory church’ [the English language is in the original German text].”
Indeed, one strongly feels reminded here of the Gramscian methods of cultural change, once more. Important to note in this context is also the connection of this Pastoral Institute in Manila, Philippines, with the papal advisor and papabile, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle. He has asked Buka ng Tipan to help him in his own diocese. It says on the Institute’s website for 2016:
The Archdiocese of Manila thru the instructions of Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle sought the assistance of Bukal ng Tipan in creating a unified formation program for the archdiocese focusing of what is endemic and unique in their context.
To return to our German author’s own observations. Kissler concludes that these new parish reforms will not make the Church grow, but, rather, they will cause her to diminish. This problem, in his eyes, touches “the roots of the Church.” The Church “is centered around the Holy Eucharist whose kernel is the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ – which only the [sacrificing] priest can initiate.” Kissler continues: “That is what dogmatic theology says. In this function, the priest is unique and irreplaceable. Where he is missing, there is – theologically speaking – never more, but only less Church.” There is a fiction underlying this new reform, namely that “everybody can do everything.” For Kissler, this development is only a dubious sign of the desire of many dioceses “at any cost not to offend anybody” – a desire which represents “their greatest, finally ecumenical super dogma.” Thus such Churches have changed “from a sign that will be contradicted, to social agencies to which one absolutely has to be able to agree.” The German journalist concludes this poignant essay with the words: “Thus they [these “social agencies”] quickly shrink away, with mild poetic songs on their lips.”
This certainly is a grim assessment, and as I am not in Germany I have no way of knowing whether there remain faithful laity there who can and will oppose this total surrender to the world. Are there any? Is anyone working to preserve the true Faith? Perhaps, Steve, in accord with your renewed outlook, you could commission someone to look into this, and perhaps identify some fighters for the truth for whom we all could pray and make sacrifices.
I’m from Germany and I would say that there are still laypeople who try to uphold the Catholic Faith although I can’t give any numbers. Protonotary Apostolic Mgr. Georg May, one of the most outspoken defenders of the Catholic Faith in Germany, once estimated that there were about 30,000 Catholics who live by God’s commandments in Germany, but I would be surprised if the number really were that high.
TLM venues are relatively numerous but not necessarily everybody who attends the Old Mass does this based on theological convictions. From my experience, many of these people are well-meaning but have a rather poor knowledge of what the Faith teaches…they go by their gut feeling on what is right and what is wrong. In addition, German Traditionalists are not very organized so that there would be a group that could make their influence felt in ecclesiastical matters. There are of course a number of Catholic German-language blogs with varying orthodoxy and quality. The biggest problem I see is that Catholics dedicated to the Old Faith in their majority are at least in their 60’s, so there is an impending biological solution in the wrong camp. The stereotype of the Trad chapel with countless young people certainly doesn’t apply here at all.
May St. Boniface intercede for his wayward children…
Sounds like what Tradition needs in Germany are some more Juventutem chapters, and perhaps workshops like what the ICRSS does in Chicago every August. And more pilgrimages.
Which is to say: How tradition reaches out to Catholic youth, rather than how LifeTeen does it. Catholicsm in Germany, as in America, will be very countercultural in the 21st century, it will not be at all.
Perhaps the answer is to introduce orthodox lay catechesis rather than a lay-priesthood. Any ideas how this could be initiated?
If we are to believe that the lack of priests is intentional, poor catechesis will be as well. As a matter of fact, an ICK priest here in Germany once told me that Pope Benedict said that poor catechesis in our country was intentional. I don’t know where he got that from, though. I imagine it will be even harder for a lay catechist to break through the bulwark of modernist catechesis than for a priest.
As for my native Bavaria, especially in the rural areas, I’d say it is almost impossible for someone with orthodox beliefs to get into modernist-run catechesis. You have to be aware that in our villages you will still find a relatively tightly-knit community, for better or for worse, so you either grow up believing what everybody else does or you are an outsider who will have a hard time getting his foot in the door.
I’m for a strong traditional priesthood formed by men who have a deep understanding of the excellence and the responsibilities of their holy vocation. I think that is the only way out of this mess, be it in Germany or elsewhere.
This is the Urgent Appeal to Pope Francis:
http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/2198-the-year-of-mercy-begins
There’s a German translation plus a dozen other languages. If you agree, then please sign it and share it with others.
Danke!
The devil is up to his old tricks again. This is just another manifestation of the devil (through pride) trying to get people to ignore the True God and make themselves be like God. The devil told Eve that if you eat the fruit, you will be like God. Now he tells the laity: you don’t need a priest (who acts “In Persona Christi”) at Mass, you all can do that. You all can be like God. This all leads to the devil’s goal of no proper sacrifice to God, no confection of the Eucharist, and no one receiving the Bread of Life.
Yes, the cardinal sin of PRIDE.
If these are realized, they will quickly be taken over by women’s councils and homosexuals. I suppose it’ll be easier to sneak in the ‘women priests’ that way.
Hi tallorder – That is exactly what is happening. This pope and his fellow apostates, especially those he has promoted into key positions, apparently have one goal which they relentlessly pursue – the systematic undermining of the sacraments which form a spiritual barrier between the followers of Jesus Christ and the demonic realm. The assault on Holy Orders is obviously next sacrament on the list. Francis is the chastisement, and his alignment with the globalists confirms the evil nature of both he and they. Francis is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, he is the servant of the evil one who was destined for these times of definitive spiritual consequence. Will Jesus find faith in Himself, when He returns? Not if you follow the man hired to undermine that Faith – Francis, the man who fears offending men more than he fears offending God..
Sad. The schism obviously won’t be announced.
It all comes down to tradition–someone handing down the faith to know what is and is not Catholic.
This past weekend, my wife was invited to an ACTS retreat and was told it was “very Catholic.” I went to one many years ago so I knew better. Anyway, the organizer that invited her practices “holy yoga”–an attempt to Christianize the pagan practice of yoga. Catholic, indeed.
Hi tallorder – Teach as many people as you can the Truth of our Faith, because the price of not knowing the actual teachings of the Church and their foundation in Scriptures and Sacred Tradition is opening oneself up to the possibility of falling into the trap of apostasy. And that, as satan knows full well, is the pathway into his kingdom, not the Kingdom of God. The choices are clear, and that reflects the clarity with which Jesus will judge us. The Word or the World – chose one.
“Sad. The schism obviously won’t be announced.”
Check out the new article on LifeSiteNews posted yesterday on an interview with Cardinal Burke.
One of the excerpts:
“But when asked directly, Burke is equally firm that whatever happens, he has no intention of leading a breakaway, schismatic movement, an option some on the Catholic right have contemplated.”
Ah, excuse me Cardinal Burke, but the “Schism” happened fifty years ago. And, my dear Cardinal, no one on the “Right” is advocating for schism. On the contrary, many on the “Right” think that due to the heretical views espoused and written by this pope amount to outright apostasy. No one is asking you to start a “breakaway” group- only to standup to Francis and challenge him in sincere fraternal correction. The real issue is whether or not he will ever clarify anything. If not, what will you do then? Are you ready to shed your blood if need be for the Church in going against the pope, or lose your posh lifestyle as a senior prelate?
Cardinal Burke, many faithful Catholics look to you and your fellow cardinals to “step-up” to the plate and put your money where your mouth is. Will you answer the call? Or will you abandon the sheep entrusted to you by Our Lord at your ordination like the vast majority of your brother bishops?
I did not mean to change the subject, but this interview with Cardinal Burke made me furious.
He continues to disappoint.
Cardinal Burke has the role of a licenced opposition, a safe and reliably weak voice of criticism. Cardinal Burke and others like him, are like East German Christian Democrats. Weak but tolerated opposition is something the System likes to have.
This past weekend, my wife was invited to an ACTS retreat and was told it was “very Catholic.”
Obviously, an extraordinarily elastic definition at work.
I think they realize that the barriers to women’s ordination are too high for the time being, so they get it in through the back door, with ministries for laywomen.
That’s basically what Bishop Matthew Clark did in Rochester for many years. He found as many lay women and liberal women religious to serve as parish administrators. He could not ordain women, so he did the next best thing.
In Rochester, of course, this has produced the same results it has in Germany: A rapidly shrinking and aging Church.
Yes, the Diocese of Rochester under Bishop Clark was something to behold. I came into the Church in that diocese. After attending a Chrism Mass in which a male dancer, attired in a skin tight red leotard to match his dyed-red hair, grabbed the Gospels and danced around the altar and throughout the cathedral, I realized there was something terribly wrong. After the ‘performance’ Bishop Clark applauded the poor devil and said, “That was beautiful!” And yes, most of those in attendance were older.
God sustain Bishop Matano, who has inherited a herculean task in trying to salvage that diocese from the collapse of the Clark Era.
Yeah, the Diocese of Erie, PA, is not much better.
Ate you in Erie?
No. The Diocese of Raleigh-Durham, NC.
A male dancer??? Excuse me while I go barf.
Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us. Since we have no defense, we sinners offer this supplication to You, our Master: Have mercy on us!
Troparion, Tone 6
I love this prayer!
Thank you, but I can’t take credit for it. ?
Here’s the rest:
+ Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit
Lord, have mercy on us, for in You we place our hope. Be not exceedingly angry with us nor mindful of out transgressions, but look upon us even now with mercy and deliver us from our enemies. For You are our God and we are Your people; we are all the work of Your hands and we call upon Your Name.
Now and ever and forever. Amen.
Open unto us the doors of mercy, O blessed Mother of God, that we who place our trust in You may not perish but that we may be delivered from all misfortune, for you are the salvation of all Christians.
Kontakion and Theotokion, Tone 6
All three together (Troparion, Kontakion and Theotokion) are called either the troparia of penitence or the troparia of general intercession.
Btw, take a good look at the Theotokion and see if you notice anything familiar. ?
Yep, that’s the one! I have a Catholic Byzantine prayer book give to me by a very close friend (and he is a Catholic priest with bi-ritual faculties to celebrate not only the Latin rite Mass but the Byzantine Divine Liturgy). This prayer is in there. I so love the Eastern rites of the Catholic Church. I wish the Latin rite would learn from our Eastern brothers in the Faith.
They’re among my favorites too because they’re sincere.
Btw, did you take a good look at the Theotokion? You will find something very familiar…?
…
It was quite the show. Seared on the brain, but time and distance has deadened the impact. 😉
It sounds diabolical.
Sounds like implementation of the URI – united religions initiative. Global paganism here we come.
This sort of thing has always been intentional. Get rid of the Priest, and you get rid of the Father of the Parish (like fathers of families are vilified now). The only person in your Parish who can absolve your sins so you don’t go to Hell (Cf. John 20: 22-23), the only person who can confect the Holy Eucharist so that you may eat the Precious Body and Blood of Christ and receive eternal life (Cf. John 6), the only person who can give you Last Rites (Cf. James 5:14) and many other things essential for obtaining salvation. Get rid of him, and you’re basically doomed. Satan has got you where he wants you: stuck at the Gates of Hell. Considering that the German Bishops proclaimed the great heretic Martin Luther as a “teacher of the faith”, you can obviously see where all this is going. The Catholic Church in Germany will not exist in the next few years if this trend carries on.
A law of civilization (rising or falling): Demographics do have consequences. Though, what is new (or newly recognized) is the question: Are the demographics programmed, cooked, pushed this way and that?
Linked article below pertains, what the author calls the ‘mass apostasy of Roman Catholics’ since (due to) V2. The author has written succinctly on the disappearance of Christendom in North Africa and old Mesopotamia; he’s observing the decline of the global Church (especially Europe) from that reading. The point being the Church was already much weakened before the Muhammadans whirlwind from Arabia (with much assist from Persia). The second point being it didn’t have to be such.
The third point being, the demographics of civilization is not bound to a law of inevitability which decrees that the steel-tipped boot law of decline *must* regulate the households, the institutions, and the traditions, of Christian peoples. Acknowledging that the Moral Law and Nature will always have their way, still, there is no demographic law which can bind Christian populations to an inevitability: that such must (inevitably) be managed, manhandled, and reconstructed by “them”, by the “other”, by that gaggle of little dark lords lording about.
[The worst of the dark lords being “credentialed, ecclesial-community experts”. At present – until the real ones take over – they are ouur new Muhammadans jihading for progressive, Frankfurtian sharia.]
http://www.newenglishreview.org/Emmet_Scott/The_Decline_and_Fall_of_the_Roman_Catholic_West/
A law of civilization (rising or falling), demographics do have consequences.
And the demographics of this new church are, pretty much uniformly throughout the West, becoming quite elderly. Young people simply have no interest in it.
The only thing that saved the West and stopped Islam the first time was Christendom. The East was all but entirely consumed. As Benedict XV said, World War I really was the suicide of Europe. In addition to the entire generation of young men lost (with countless descendants), it destroyed the foundation of Europe and paved the way for the spread of atheistic Communism.
Those bishops have messed up priorities. Someday there will be no priests and then there will be no bishops. And if there are no bishops, who will spend all that delicious church tax revenue? Maybe spend it instead on a bailout for Deutsche Bank?
You’d think that they would encourage vocations instead of demeaning the priesthood.
But that is what they want. They want to clericalize the laity and laicize the clerics. It is all quite Protestant.
That they don’t is telling.
Dear Margaret, I have been reading your posts and am grateful for everything that you post.
Thank you for your kind words. ?
Dear Margaret, we are in France, we have two small children in a parish with a very good Priest, (Mass every day, Confession every week, If you need confession he will come, If you are dying he will come, if you need reassurance he will explain) However, sadly there is an element here that pretend to support but prefer to distort and have desires of influence, I know that it is not easy for him, the traps are everywhere and yet he keeps on going. Our Priest is alone and yet there are some very good Roman Catholics such as yourself and others that are posting and I think many people are reading these posts and learning what the truth of the faith is.
If each one grows a voice the good Priests will be supported, the courage to speak truthfully in love will prevail and those that wish us harm and our good Priests harm will thankfully fail.
Revolution from the PEWS!
Thanks Be to God.
If your priest needs some encouragement to preach the truth, think of St. John the Baptist, whose beheading is commemorated today:
http://lit.royaldoors.net/2016/07/26/august-29-2016-beheading-of-the-honourable-and-glorious-prophet-forerunner-and-baptist-john/
Most of all, priests and people should be informed about the full Message of Fatima. The best source is http://www.fatima.org.
Pray the Rosary, wear the Brown Scapular and encourage others to do so as well.
Keep the Faith!
Dear Margaret, He speaks the truth, the problem is that he is attacked for not trying to portray Jesus as a vanilla flavoured, all accepting liberal type of person. Got my scapular on and praying the rosary, although sometimes recently it is very difficult to pray the rosary. It is almost as if there is a huge barrier trying to block prayer. i remember reading that you posted that one day it took you 4 hours as soon as i saw that post i thought yep it’s becoming tougher for everyone. Thank you for your posts, praying for you.
Thank God you have a good priest who has the courage to preach the truth “in season and out of season” (cf. St. Paul).
Also, I agree with you 100% about “a huge barrier trying to block prayer”. The Enemy hates prayer, especially the Liturgy and the Rosary.
Most of all, thank you for your prayers – they are much appreciated! ☺ It seems like when I pray other devotions I have no problem. However, when I start to pray the Rosary, I can’t concentrate, it becomes noisy, someone calls etc. Then if I stop, everything becomes calm again. Does that make sense to you?
“Thus there can be found in the diocesan documents a call to urge “more insistently and more consequently” the ordained priests “not to stand in the way of the changes.” Priests, according to the documents, “should not block whole parishes.” ”
DAS
BOOT
Nowhere to kneel
No Tabernacle
No candle red
Just Cardinal cackle.
A pitiful Pope
Dressed in white
Causes souls to despair
Souls take flight.
That’s WHAT they want
That IS their plan
Then mock, “You dis –
Obedient man!”
But in the depths
Of doctrine deep
Sails the Ship
That will not sleep
Full of faithful “schismed”
Sheep
Obeying Christ
In priests that keep
The Barque of Peter
On its course
Though her bowels be bricked
By a sinister source…
So damn the torpedoes
Tridentine-led
Blast through the block
Full speed ahead
All men on deck
To restore, make repairs ~
With a mutiny of Masses
By the Amiral’s Peres!
Make me want to repeat to the Church’s progressive wrecking crew what the Kapitänleutnant says to rouse his u-boat crew: “Not yet, my friends. Not yet!”
Long skirts, You speak well in beautiful language!
Thank you but pray the Rosary for our True Catholic Priests to lead us and keep preserving the One True Faith! Support them!! Pray for the conversion of sinners and the flawed men in Rome that they convert more deeply or leave.
I do and I will!
I didn’t understand the last line of your lovely poem:
By the Amiral’s Peres!
Who is he?
“Amiral” is French for Admiral and “Peres” is French for Priests.
Thank you for the translation. Are you be referring to + Archbishop Lefebvre?
Yes, I’m sorry, I forgot to say that but I’m also talking about all the Truly good Catholic Priests teaching and preserving the WHOLE Faith.
So then the Admiral would be Our Lord, since they’re His Priests.
Wow! You are blessed with such a wonderful talent!
Step by step it is on the way, my own diocese has plans for reorganisation which lays further groundwork – Salford Diocese UK.
+Maurice Taylor then bishop of Galloway Diocese Scotland preached such at the 25th. ordination anniversary of a priest friend – some twenty years ago!
If any of you are still confused, well, you shouldn’t be.
The Church has pursued Lutheranization for 50 years.
As an ex-Lutheran, it is all so boringly obvious. It has been clear to me for quite some time that the Pope is a Lutheran. What else to call his doctrine and practice? But not just “any” Lutheran. No, he hasn’t for example selected the Missouri Synod folks to sidle up to. They actually for the most part affirm traditional moral virtue. No, this Pope has chosen to celebrate the Great Divorce of the Church with the most base, amoral/immoral, doctrineless apostates of all; the Swedish Lutherans who are led by a lesbian as if we needed any more confirmation of this Pope’s inclinations.
Beware, but don’t be surprised.
I suspect this must occur if there is going to be anything like a general purification of the Church in the future. The money-changers were left in the Temple for a long time before Jesus drove them out…
No, you’re right: It’s strictly a liberal Lutheranism that’s the main attraction here. And it’s far from confined to Catholics in Germany.
Right on. This disease permeates the bloodstream of Catholicism all over the world. Since most Catholics are not really in tune with Lutheranism {or the other mainline…and dying…Protestant brand names} they really do not “get” that what they THINK is “cultural adaptation” or “creative development” is actually simply slurping up the barf of past and languishing heretical sects.
The dangerous position for orthodox Catholics to affirm, tho, is that of noting the diminishing membership of liberal Protestant groups and then seeking the solution in copying the sometimes growing so-called “conservative” Protestant groups.
Truth be told, who cares WHAT the Protestants are doing? WE have the Truth in the Catholic faith. And that TRUTH needs to be presented CLEARLY both when it feels good and when it doesn’t {CCC 1697}…especially when it doesn’t!
I don’t attend a FSSP parish because I have some thing for Latin. I attend because I didn’t give up friends and family and the respect of others in converting to the Catholic faith in order to become some sort of embarrassed half-baked, pseudo-Luthero-Methodist protestant.. I attend the FSSP parish simply because there I take part in reverent worship of my Lord and Savior and I hear the clear and unadulterated faith of Jesus and His Church preached and taught and modeled. And get this………there are MANY converts at my parish who are there for the exact same reason!!! A heck of a lot more converts than I ever ran into at the parishes that chased after the “Flying Jesus” that replaced the Crucifix.
For those of you who are REALLY despairing, well, don’t. Pope Francis and his entire effeminate, rotten generation of cowards who are embarrassed to be Catholic are going to die in the desert of their own fabricated pseudo-faith just like the cowardly Hebrews of old.
Along with their spiritually dead cousins among the Lutherans and the rest of that ilk.
Quite interesting just how many families in FSSP or ICRSS parishes did not grow up as Catholics, let alone as traditional Catholics.
What happens I think is this. at least this is how it happened for me and others I know, or something very close to this:
A person starts questioning some significant aspect of their Protestant faith, maybe its the selective use of Scripture, or the lack of continuity of the “denomination” historically, or the lack of the Eucharist, etc. So they begin to inquire into the Catholic faith. Once they do, they begin to see the truth clearly, and this prompts them to begin to study the teachings of the Church.
Assuming that at this point they begin to attend an Ordinary form parish, they begin to see striking differences between what they read and what they experience, what was taught by the Church over the centuries and what is taught and believed by many in the parishes, what was affirmed with power and strength by past Bishops and what is pathetically and effeminately promoted or overlooked by the Bishops today, what was proclaimed with prophetic power by past Popes and by what is timidly danced around by some recent Popes.
And they wonder…is this the CATHOLIC FAITH?
And that questioning sends them to studying even more deeply. And the stark discontinuity w/ modern, secularized Catholic “culture” brings, dare I say it, the temptation to despair. And then they find a traditional parish and what they have seen in black and white in a book or in the Bible is ACTUALLY being taught with boldness and presented with vitality and life and strength and dedication and with total lack of embarrassment.
And then they take a deep breath and realize that the Catholic faith isn’t dead yet!! 🙂
This doesn’t only happen with coverts but with cradle Catholics as well. I was born in 1977 and even as a little kid I could see that there was a huge disparity between what I saw going on at Mass and what I knew the faith to be from old missals and stuff that we had at home from before VII. By God’s grace and Our Lady’s intercession I never fell away from going to Mass but there was always something lacking. My Father taught me that the bread and wine were truly changed into the Body and Blood of Our Lord when I was small and I always believed that but quite often I sort of “pretended” that other people at Mass believed that too because they sure didn’t act like they did. To make a long story short the more I learned about the Faith as I got older, the bigger the disparity got but once I started learning more about and actually experienced the Traditional Mass, the more everything made sense and fit together. Thank God for the internet. I pray that someday we get the FSSP or some other Holy Priests to say the Traditional Mass in my city.
We need missionaries in Europe and throughout the West to teach the authentic faith again.
Yes, we do.
And let’s be straight up about it; We need an expansion, a VAST expansion of the FSSP and ICKSP in order to support that missionary outreach, both in Europe and here. And dare I say it, add a regularized SSPX as well.
And a huge component in that evangelization must be a return of the Church to the teaching against contraception and the encouragement to have large families. That’s a fact.
No problem there. We have to make sure however that the entryism of the past will not be repeated with these organisations, of course.
Gosh, “ultra-prog-heretics torpedoed German Church… ” details at eight.
The contrived priest shortage has happened in the US as well. I know of a diocese where the priest refused to offer Sunday Mass so the people ‘would get used to not having a priest’. That, of course, was a mortal sin. And then unworthy men were accepted into seminaries with the disastrous results and holy men sent away. The ‘new mass’ with its ‘active participation’ made the role of the priest (which is imperative as without the priest there is NO Eucharist and there is NO Mass) almost like a bystander, call him the ‘sacramental minister’: you know, on par with all the other so-called ‘ministers’. And the appointment of bad bishops made men flee the vocation in that diocese which is why some dioceses have no or few new priests and the faithful dioceses with faithful bishops have plenty. Only faithfulness will bring growth, not ‘welcoming’ or complacency or compromise with the immoral secular agendas.
I know of a diocese where the priest refused to offer Sunday Mass so the people ‘would get used to not having a priest’.
And you can’t get away with that as pastor unless your bishop has your back.
As a former seminarian from twenty-five years ago (booted out just six months prior to ordination), I can see not much has really changed. The vocations “shortage” is FABRICATED in the West. Modernist prelates and the priests they put into place as vocations directors and on the faculties of major seminaries continue to spew their heretical venom and push out truly holy, orthodox, traditional candidates for the priesthood. If not for this fact, we would have four or five resident priests in EVERY single parish throughout the West. These prelates and their evil acolyte clerics have much to answer for in the afterlife. I hope they repent for all their evil. Otherwise, Satan will much enjoy the many priests and bishops reigning with him in Hell.
Men may reign (or seem to) on earth– but not in hell.
Maybe there’s a bright side. As these social agencies shrink away and modernist Catholics breed themselves out of existence, what will remain? The Fraternity of St. Peter, Society of St. Pius X, and the Institute of Christ the King. A few faithful Catholics longing for the true Faith will invite a traditional priest and will procreate happily, necessitating a larger church and a couple more priests. Some of the teenagers will have a vocation and will need a seminary that will form them properly… Shades of Archbishop Lefebvre!! And girls will think again of the convent…
It’s easier to move into an empty house than one still packed with the junk of the former tenant.
I love your analogy!
We see this already with the shrinkage of the New Order Church. Turning the people into protestants is ultimately hazardous, for after a generation or two they cease to be protestant, cease attending services, cease contributing money. Look at Germany and many dioceses in the USA. Evil always carries the seeds of its own destruction. God is good.
Aye. Sounds good. We’ll have to protect those communities from the other contemporaneous problem of violently anti-Catholic mohamedans, of course, as well as what remains of the neo-pagan hordes.
Of course it is intentional, as was the abandonment of comprehensive catechesis after “the” council. The entire deconstruction of Roman Catholicism we have witnessed in
the last fifty-five years has been intentional. Now with ninety percent of the baptized entirely ignorant of the faith things will begin to move exponentially quicker. Reading “Notre Charge Apostolique” [“Our Apostolic Mandate”] by Pope Pius X (published on August 15, 1910) today at Rorate Caeli, one is overwhelmed by the prophetic insight of the Holy Father, and one is forced to contrast his blistering clear vision to the muddled confusion, fatal optimism, cowardliness and straight down mendacity of the various pontificates in the recent era.
We have some real hard truths to wrestle with, and they don’t involve any of the fraudulent nonsense occupying pride of place before the whited sepulcher.
Are we faithful to Holy Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the authentic Magisterium of the Church? Are we attempting to be so? Do we even want to be? Or are we merely allowing the establishment of a duplicitous construct with the name and the real estate, but a completely different entity from the Church gifted to us by our Lord, Jesus Christ, True God and True Man, Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity.
The answer is plainly before our eyes.
Yes! It is already de facto mooted in one UK Diocese [Salford].
As I have posted in the past….Martin Luther was more a Catholic then the crop of heretics currently “shepherding” the Church in Germany now.
The German Church is wealthy from the proceeds of the Church Tax, and not enough nominal Catholics are bothered to formally defect. This is a false perishable wealth of fine palaces, large six figure salaries and Seven Series BMWs, not a spiritual, supernatural wealth, not ‘treasures in heaven.’ This false wealth gives the German bishops confidence to attack the Faith. The German Church is the bulwark which frustrate the rebuilding of the Church. The idea of having good, Catholic as priests would fill the Germans of Fort Heresy with horror.