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Rome Against the Roman Rite: A Template for Cowardice Continued

Dear OnePeterFive donors, supporters and readers,

It has now been confirmed by Rorate that this is going to be a “template for cowardly bishops” as OnePeterFive writer Raymond Kowalski said.

The heretics who hate the Roman rite are hoping to implement their error-ridden motu proprio from the model in Rome. This egregious act of the Pontiff against Tradition attacked the marginalized sheep while screaming “Unity! Unity!” when there is no unity.

Pope Francis says, “Mercy! Mercy!” when there is no mercy.

Peace! Peace! they say. When there is no peace (Jer. vi. 14).

What kind of justification will come now? It doesn’t matter. They’re not even trying any more with the propaganda. As Dom Alcuin Reid quite rightly asked, “Does Traditionis Custodes pass liturgical history 101″? (From Benedict’s Peace to Francis’s War, 252-259).

Still, in the motu proprio they did not dare to explicitly contradict Summorum Pontificum, but invented the historical fiction that Benedict’s document was primarily about the SSPX.

In a comical twist of the Holy Spirit’s Providence, this exact idea was posed to Benedict XVI by Peter Seewald before the motu proprio. In other words, the entire justification given in Traditionis Custodes was explicitly proposed to Benedict XVI after Summorum Pontificum. Peter Seewald told Benedict in 2017 what Francis would say about Benedict’s work in 2021. How did Benedict respond?

[Peter Seewald:] The reauthorization of the Tridentine Mass is often interpreted primarily as a concession to the Society of St Pius X.

[Benedict XVI Emeritus:] That is just absolutely false! It was important for me that the Church is one with herself inwardly, with her own past; that what was previously holy to her is not somehow wrong now. The rite must develop. In that sense reform is appropriate. But the continuity must not be ruptured. The Society of St Pius X is based on the fact that people felt the Church was renouncing itself. That must not be. But as I said, my intentions were not of a tactical nature, they were about the substance of the matter itself. Of course it is also the case that, the moment one sees a Church schism looming, the Pope is obliged to do whatever is possible to prevent it happening. This also includes the attempt to lead these people back into unity with the Church, if possible.[1]

It is fallacious to claim, as Pope Francis did, that Summorum Ponitificum was “primarily” about the SSPX. Benedict says clearly “this is just absolutely false!” It is, rather, “about the substance of the matter itself.” It is quite clear to anyone who studies Ratzinger’s thought that he condemned Paul VI’s suppression of the Latin Mass in 1969, without any consideration of what the SSPX was or was not doing.[2] That’s why His Eminence Cardinal Sarah, the greatest living exponent of Ratzinger’s thought (whom Benedict appointed to implement his “reform of the reform”) condemned Traditionis Custodes on the basis of the reform itself, regardless of the SSPX. (His Eminence’s text is also found in From Benedict’s Peace to Francis’s War, pp. 295-297.)[3] Reconciling with the SSPX, as Benedict says above, was of secondary importance. In other words, Summorum Pontificum would have been necessary even if SSPX never existed.

It was about the substance of the matter itself.

But we saw that Archbishop Roche is willing to explicitly contradict Summorum Pontificum, in his letter to Cardinal Nichols, privately stating that the Roman Rite of our forefathers “in fact, was abrogated by Pope Saint Paul VI.” So we can see that what the propaganda says and what they say privately is not the same thing.

The Decline of the Revolution

Dr. Sebastian Morello observed recently that in the early days of a Communist takeover, the enemies of Christ pour loads of money into propaganda and intelligentsia campaigns to convince the people that the brave new world is just around the corner. They work very hard to re-educate and re-program.

They put “the four olds” down the memory hole and shout “New! New! New!”

Eventually, however, their voice becomes hoarse from shouting this over and over, and they simply grow tired of trying to suppress the natural use of human reason. The Marxists have never been able to make the present or future generations fail to have brains in their heads and logos in their nature.

Thus after a strong beginning, the Communists get bored and begin to use more and more violence and brute force, without any appeal to propaganda anymore.

That’s when the mask comes off.

We’re getting to that point now with the pornocratic Vatican mafia. At first, the iconoclasm of the Novus Ordo was defended with buckets of ink. Now historical research has debunked most of the false premises that undergirded the Novus Ordo. And the new rite has been an objective failure to bring about the intended renewal.

This is indeed a glorious time to be a Catholic.

As Kwasniewski pointed out months ago, this is the same situation that our fathers faced in 1969 but eventually triumphed. And they had a much worse predicament than we have now, even if His Excellency Archbishop Roche has the temerity to think his high office can rewrite history or turn stones into bread (or feed stones to sheep!).

No, we will prevail because of one thing: the truth. The two greatest empires in the world at the time of Christ – the Roman and Persian – attempted to destroy the faith then, and the Blessed Apostle only rejoiced when he was chained in his jail cell, writing to the Philippians.

Let us then, chained by the “jailers [custodes] of Tradition,” rejoice.

I’ll say it again: rejoice in the Lord! Nothing and no one can overcome the truth. Rather, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (Jn. viii. 32).

This is why we will never give up.

 

T. S. Flanders
Editor
Ember Wednesday of Advent

 

[1] Benedict XVI, Last Testament: In His Own Words, trans. Jacob Philips (Bloomsbury, 2016), 201-202.

[2] “The prohibition of the missal that was now decreed [in 1969], a missal that had known continuous growth over the centuries, starting with the sacramentaries of the ancient Church, introduced a breach into the history of the liturgy whose consequences could only be tragic.” Joseph Ratinzger, Milestones, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (Ignatius, 1998), 146-148.

[3] Cardinal Sarah: “What is at stake is therefore much more serious than a simple question of discipline. If she were to claim a reversal of her faith or of her liturgy, in what name would the Church dare address the world? Her only legitimacy is her consistency in her continuity.”

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