The time has come to rescue our brethren, and by brethren I mean those American Catholics who have remained in the Church, and who worship God devoutly and in the only manner most of them have ever known. They may attend Mass every week and on every holy day of obligation or they may attend Mass infrequently. They may believe that Jesus Christ is truly present in the Holy Eucharist, or they may think the Holy Eucharist is a communal meal. They probably have no inkling that they are in any need of rescuing, and they will likely resist our efforts, but we must attempt to rescue them nonetheless.
Unless they belong to a parish where the truth of the gospel is preached (and not just read during Mass), their souls are in peril. We — and by we I mean those of us who believe in the Incarnation, the passion and death of Jesus Christ, the Resurrection, and the life everlasting — were once as our brethren are now. We can see what they cannot yet see.
The flock, the entire flock, which in the United States numbers some 51 million and worldwide some 1.2 billion, has been betrayed by the shepherds. Those of us with eyes to see and ears to hear must save ourselves and do our best to save our brethren.
Our brethren have grown up in the Catholic Church. To them, the “Novus Ordo,” or “New Order,” ushered in 50 years ago by the Second Vatican Council, and manifested particularly in the liturgy, is just a modern way of being Catholic.
But in the pontificate of Pope Francis, the Novus Ordo has become something more than just a “liturgical preference.” Pope Francis has said and done many startling things that have been chronicled here at OnePeterFive. The upshot is that the fifty-year acclimation period is over. It is time to complete the work of the Second Vatican Council. Pope Francis is now wielding the immense power of his office, both spiritual and temporal, to remake the Catholic faith, while attempting to continue to bind its adherents and bend them to his will.
The velvet gloves came off in 2019. In February, the pope traveled to Abu Dhabi, where he joined a Muslim imam in signing a “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together.” The document drew much attention because it proclaimed that God wills the pluralism and diversity of religions. On the return flight, the pope defended the contents of the document: “This I emphasize clearly. From the Catholic point of view, the document does not pull away one millimeter from Vatican II, which is even cited a few times. The document was made in the spirit of Vatican II.”
The document said other things as well, the significance of which were overshadowed by the outrageous repudiation of Christ’s great commission to the apostles to baptize all nations. The document called upon the leaders of the world and the architects of international policy to intervene to stop wars, conflicts, and environmental decay.
On September 10, while returning from his journey to Southern Africa, the pope asserted that the duty of humanity is to obey the United Nations, certainly a genuflection to “the architects of international policy.”
Immediately after the conclusion of the Synod on the Amazon in Rome, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, on October 28, at the academy’s Vatican headquarters, signed a declaration to support “sustainable development” in Amazonia and to find ways of achieving the 17 formal “Sustainable Development Goals” of the United Nations. The declaration stated that the world’s “climate and humanitarian crisis” demands “rapid, integrated and urgent action.”
Every organization needs a mission, a reason for its existence. With no mission to baptize all nations, what is the new mission of the Catholic Church? The pope has already told us: combat environmental decay, practice sustainable development, and promote obedience to the United Nations.
In this papacy, doctrine is used as a distraction, a smokescreen. It has never been about the existence of Hell, the divinity of Christ, or the resurrection of Christ’s physical body. In this papacy, nouvelle théologie is in full flower — which is to say that this papacy teaches that, because everyone at the moment of conception is oriented to God, there is no need of a Redeemer, no need for His immaculately conceived Mother, and no need for belonging to, or converting to, the Catholic Church. All worship by humans gives glory to God, regardless of the form or object of that worship. No human act, no matter how vile or immoral, can defeat this orientation to God.
And so the New Order has become the New World Order. The institutional Catholic Church has become the Catholic Party. Illogically, the purpose of the Catholic Party is to save the planet from God’s misguided creation — that is, from humanity.
The faithful have been sold into slavery. Catholics in China were first. Now the rest of us have been handed over. The doctrines and strictures of the Church will be used to keep us in line, but not for the purpose of saving our souls — rather, for the purpose of obedience to our human masters. Some of us see and understand what has happened, but many, perhaps most, of our brethren do not.
Some percentage of them attended Mass on Sunday. Nothing seemed different from any other Sunday Mass. Soon, however, they will hear phrases like “everything is connected” and “our common home.” They may even hear about Pachamama. The new mission of the Catholic Church will not seem discordant to them. Eventually, however, their liturgy will cease to be valid. Their priests will no longer have valid orders. The Novus Ordo will be sterile and no longer efficacious for their salvation.
To rescue someone is to save him from a dangerous situation and to bring him to some place that is safe. Where, exactly, might that be? Where are we feeling safe, safe enough to bring our brethren? The answer is the liturgy of the ages, the usus antiquior, the traditional Latin Mass, which has returned from obscurity during this papacy.
How, too, do we remain in the one true Church, founded by Jesus Christ and protected by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, but not of the institutional Church, that has been taken over by apostates? We have been given what we need in the form of a Declaration of Truths, dated May 31, 2019, and signed by two cardinals, two archbishops, and a bishop. The Declaration of Truths contains 40 numbered paragraphs as a brief restatement of the true Catholic Faith and a repudiation of the errors of Pope Francis. It is the antidote for the Nouvelle théologie.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider, one of the signers of the Declaration of Truths, has published a new book, Christus Vincit, which is both inspirational in its message and chilling in its vision of the predictable course of world events. He concludes the book with an appendix, a handy copy of the Declaration of Truths in print form. A digital copy is available here.
The traditional Latin Mass and the immutable truths of the Catholic faith are the tools we must use to save our own souls and those of our brethren. The true faith is not lost. The true Church is not undone beyond repair. When the Israelites were fleeing Pharaoh, they came up against the Red Sea, and all seemed lost. Yet a path opened for them. We must have confidence that a path will open for faithful Catholics as well, and we must bring to safety as many of our brethren as possible.