Footnote Footsies - In Unitate Fidei's Pinch Of Poison

The body of Unitate Fidei reads as an apologetics exercise for religious indifferentism.  In it, Leo opines, "we must therefore leave behind theological controversies that have lost their raison d'etre in order to develop a common understanding and even more, a common prayer to the Holy Spirit, that He may gather us all together in one faith and one love".  It truly is wondrous how so much error can be crammed into one sentence.  Time does not permit me to unpack this mess completely.

Now go to UT's footnote 10.   It states that the phrase "and proceeds from the Father and Son (filioque) is not found in the text of Constantinople; it was inserted into the Latin Creed by Pope Benedict VIII in 1014 and is the subject of Orthodox-Catholic dialogue."  Italics mine.

Now why, oh why, is it the subject of all this "dialogue"?  The Council of Trent, held in the late 1500s and presided by Pope St Pius V, set the filioque in stone.  Recall please, that unlike Vatican II, Trent was a dogmatic council, convened with the express purpose of correcting various Protestant heresies.  A decree from the third session of that council was issued February 4, 1546.  It set forth, word for word, the creed recited at all Catholic Masses today, both Traditional Latin and Novus Ordo.  "Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son" is very plainly stated.

After the Council of Trent, St Pius V was quite solicitous to put the proceedings of the council into a format that could be taught to the Catholics in the pews at the time.  He, assisted by St. Charles Borromeo and perhaps others, developed a set of instructions to his priests on how to communicate these truths of the Faith.  It is known as the Catechism of the Council of Trent, and is readily available from TAN books.

Part 1 of this Catechism focuses on the Creed, that is, the Nicene Creed as amended by Pope Benedict VIII.  We proceed to Article VIII that deals with the Holy Ghost, and what the true doctrine states about Him.  There is a paragraph entitled "Who Proceedeth from the Father and the Son."  It says, and I quote, "with regard to the words immediately succeeding: who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, the faithful are to be taught that the Holy Ghost proceeds by an eternal procession from the Father and the Son, as from one principle."

So, despite his best efforts to the contrary, Pope Leo did get one thing right.  There is no need for controversy.  The Council of Trent settled the matter once and for all.  The Holy Ghost proceeds from both the Father and the Son.  Period.  No need for a bunch of dialogue.  And please - oh, please! - let there not be a whole slew of endless "synods" on the matter!  

It does behoove us to reiterate a few facts about "unity".  Unity is only good if it is founded on common assent to truth and Godliness.  Sometimes unity can serve evil and as such, is not at all to be desired.  Can any serious student of history gainsay that Nazi Germany, in the late 1930s, was unified?  They most certainly were, but that unity was based on evil.  Someone pointed this out to me: "It is better to be divided over the truth than united in a lie."  That latter kind of unity for which the pope is calling, unity brought about by allowing false notions of the nature of the Blessed Trinity, is false and dangerous, for it allows for the promulgation of error that could lead to the damnation of souls.

I understand that Pope Leo was not the first to eliminate the "filioque" while reciting a creed with Orthodox clergy.  Even Pope Benedict XVI scuttled truth for momentary convenience; for shame!  Before there is any more talk of "unity" and "ecumenism", Catholics must be absolutely committed to the Truths that Our Lord has revealed, understanding that these truths are not bargaining chips to be sacrificed to the false idol of "unity".

Communist Campaign For Hellish Destruction

Before you toss one penny into the CCHD collection this November, please watch this.

Feast Of All Saints And The State Of Holy Mother Church

Today, Saturday, is the Feast of All Saints  I just attended a Traditional Latin Mass in its commemoration.  I consider it a blessing to do so.  Usually, this Feast is on a weekday, and I can never get to a Traditional Latin Mass from my office in time.  Thus I will attend at my Novus Ordo parish because that feast is a Holy Day of Obligation.

I was saddened to see an email a few days ago from that parish.  The pastor stated the Mass times for today, and encouraged people to attend even though this year, the feast day was NOT a Holy Day of Obligation.  Why isn't it so?  Because the feast day happened on a Saturday or Monday.  Heaven forbid that Catholics should be so inconvenienced as to attend Mass two days in a row!  The horror!

No one with two brain synapses firing in synchopation can't help but notice how faith and piety have degraded since the "spirit of Vatican II" was thrust upon the Catholics in the pew.   We see carelessness and sloppiness in the congregation during Mass, both in dress and demeanor.   We often see the same in the sanctuary and the altar.  The various fasts and disciplines of Lent have become, to coin a phrase, wimpified.  Holy Days of Obligation have become Holy Days of Option (as has happened today).  If ever a change is announced, it's always to lower the bar regarding the disciplines of prayer, penance, and piety.  Never is it raised.  The effect has been to corrode the faith and morals of the Catholics.  That is by design, and it is succeeding.

That degradation is being thwarted at the Traditional Latin Mass.  That is why the progressives in the Church, from Leo on down, are doing their damndest to combat and kill the Traditional Latin Mass, in blatant disobedience to Quo Primum by Pope St. Piux V.

Today is also First Saturday.  In obedience to Our Lady of Fatima, please be praying your Rosaries is reparation for sins of indifference.  Ask the Saints, too, for their intercession.

Two Examples Of The Superiority Of The Traditional Latin Mass

Today in the Traditional Latin Mass calendar, we celebrated the Feast of Christ the King.  In his sermon today, the priest stated that Our Lord is King of all creation, and that all people and nations have the duty to acknowledge Him as such.  Furthermore, Father stated that the world will never know peace until Christ is acknowledged as King.  This was first stated by Pope Pius XI when he established the Feast of Christ the King.

Father made the point of denouncing not only the errors of the pachamama debacle and the travesty of giving to the leader of a heretical sect a chair in the Vatican Basilica, along with allowing Muslims to worship their demon-idol in the Vatican library.  He also reminded us that similar travesties had been committed by John Paul II when he held a "prayer service" with heretics and pagans within the Fatima shrine and at Assisi.  Father didn't mention it, but what also came to my mind is when John Paul II degraded his papacy by kissing a koran.  

On a happier note, Cardinal Burke celebrated a Traditional Latin Mass in St. Peter's Basilica yesterday.  During that Mass, Cardinal Troshani recited the Prayer to St Michael.  It was the long form, reserved to priests for the purposes of exorcism.  Given all the demonic things that have happened there in the past several years, an exorcism was sorely needed.  The video appears below.

More Filth In The Vatican This Week

It's been a very busy week when it comes to papal insults to the Faith and Our Lord within the Vatican.

On Oct 11th, in St Peter's Square, Pope Leo XIV had this to say about a priest who is long-deceased: "Don Lorenzo Milani, prophet of the Tuscan and Italian Church.."  He lionized a pervert and no one can deny his knowledge of the priest's self-documented fantasies of raping boys.

It has also been announced that when King Charles III of England visits, the pope will grant him a permanent chair in the Vatican Basilica.  What's the big deal?  As king of England, Charles is head of the Anglican Church - a heretical sect that has sent thousands of Catholics to the gallows and worse during its early days, seizing their churches and properties.  All the medieval churches that pepper England were built by Catholics and stolen by Anglicans.  The pope, by this so-called "ecumenical" gesture, has just spit on the graves of St Thomas More, St John Fisher, the 40 Martyrs and countless other Catholics whose blood was shed by Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and so on.

Similarly, all the Christians who were slaughtered for their fidelity to Jesus were mocked when the pope granted Muslim scholars a dedicated prayer room inside the Vatican library.  Does the pope really think that the muslims are grateful?  They are snickering at the obvious victory they just won.  I hope the pope is simply grossly naive about this, but I think he knows very well what he's doing.  

Along those lines, what's next?  Will we see satanists being granted their own room in the Vatican?  Why not?  Precedent was set when Francis allowed the pachamama to be worshipped in the Vatican gardens and when he placed a pachamama plant on the altar in St. Peter's Basilica. 

And the pope and his cronies think the Latin Mass is the problem?  Well, yes.  Look at what they are trying to do.  The Latin Mass is hindering their evil purposes.

By the way - Archbishop Vigano had some choice - and true - words regarding the hob-nobbing of the pope with Charles.  Our Lord Himself is being cast out of the Vatican in favor of the pagans and heretics.

Pope Leo XIV Breaks The Record For How Many Errors Can Be Crammed Into One Statement

Several weeks ago, Cardinal Blaise Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, announced his intentions to bestow upon pro-abortion and pro-gay U.S. Senator Dick Durbin a "lifetime achievement award" for his support of - you guessed it! - illegal immigrants crashing through our southern borders.  This award was supposed to have been bestowed in November  

Immediately Bishop Paprocki and Archbishop Cordileone urged Cupich to cancel that award.  Other bishops soon followed in their condemnation of that award.  In the words of Complicit Clergy, Cupich told them to "pound sand".  Of course Cupich holds the slaughter of babies to be of little importance.  Recall that as Bishop of Spokane, Cupich forbade his priests from participating in the local 40 Days for Life efforts in his diocese.

Pope Leo was asked about this Cupich-Durbin scandal.  He responded by adding his own verbal manure to the pile.  Not only does he trot out the "seamless garmet" tripe, but also slanders faithful Catholics and good pro-life people in the process.  Please watch below the jump-break.

I've Heard Of Soul On Ice - But This Is Ridiculous!

Remember when Earth First put this farce before us almost twenty years ago?

At that point, I thought nothing could get more silly with these envirowhackos.  Once again, I am reminded how they can plunge to greater depths of inanity and mental vacuity.  In the name of "climate change, Pope Leo XIV blessed an oversized ice block!  This was done at some "raising hope for climate justice" gabfest at Castel Gandolfo.  Apparently the water is supposed to bless and heal us as it melts, dribbles all over the place and makes a soggy mess.  After all, creation awaits our conversion, you know.  Well, how about converting to the One True Faith and to make it our mission to get to heaven?  A quick review of the Baltimore Catechism should clear up any questions on that point.

After the pope was finished, a long blue cloth was passed through the audience and participants flapped and waved it as a hymn was sung, honoring...(wait for it!) Laudato Si!  What else?  I read several posts about this embarrassment to the Catholic faith, and one sage individual said that this blessed-ice-block business was quite reminiscent  of the pachamama debacle in the Vatican gardens.  Truly it was a gross display of idolatrous virtue-signaling, but I'm at a loss to determine what virtue was signaled.  

During that same gabfest, Leo went on to criticize common-sense people as those who have "chosen to deride the increasingly evident signs of global warming..."  Well, count me as one of them.  When ice cubes are "blessed" and people sing about "climate change", that makes evident that for too many in the Church, apparently including this pope, that environmentalism is becoming a de facto religion.  This is idolatry, sin against the First Commandment, just as was the pachamama in the Vatican gardens and even in St Peter's Basilica.

By the way, how did the participants travel to this "raising hope" farce?  How many private jets flew in for this thing?  I'm sure they didn't come by horses or sail boats!

By the bye - remember Cool Hand Luke?  How about..Cold Hand Leo?

Cardinal McElroy Abets The Sin Of Border-Crashing During Holy Mass

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."  This quote is attributed to Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propaganda chief under Adolf Hitler.

The US progressive bishops have been most diligent in the application of that nefarious principle espoused by Nazis, as we have seen in their shilling and kvelling for unbridled illegal immigration.  Border-crashing would be the more accurate term for it, for they are in fact acting in blatant disregard for our nation's immigration laws, and the bishops are cooperating with that sin by encouraging and excusing it.  They are even, with our tax dollars granted to various Catholic Charities offices, particularly the ones in Texas, facilitating these sins, participating in the guilt of that sin themselves.

On Wednesday September 28th at St Matthew's Cathedral in Washington DC, Cardinal McElroy at Mass dutifully recited the progressive script when it comes to the aiding and abetting of border-crashing.  The event was the World Day of Migrants and Refugees.  When McElroy wasn't slandering the border control agents who are simply defending our borders and removing the border-crashers by yammering about "the government's campaign of fear and terror", he blasphemed Our Lord by stating that He doesn't regard the border-crashing.  Here is the exact quote:

"In the Gospel today, Jesus demands that the central perspective we must bring to understanding the moral legitimacy of the campaign of fear and deportation being waged in our country today springs from the bonds of community that have come to tie us together as neighbors with the undocumented, not the question of whether sometime in the past individuals broke a law by entering or remaining in the United States,"

How dare His Eminence use the Holy Name of Jesus to condone the breaking of legitimate laws?  These "undocumented" are criminals because they snuck through the border.  Notice how he talks of those who "lived beside us for decades"?  Did he bother to ask whether or not these "undocumented" attempted to rectify their situations in all the decades that they've been here?  Yes, that question was merely rhetorical for we know the answer to that.

I am suggesting, at the very least, that any and all donations to the Archdiocese of Washington cease immediately.

Our Blaspheming Bishops Versus Charlie Kirk

Once I lamented the fact that so many Catholics in the Archdiocese of Washington seem to think that the Catholic Standard is the only publication that they need to understand the Church's teachings on various topics.  The Standard, like other publications of the nation's dioceses, is the official mouthpiece of the DC chancery.  I had noticed that the Standard was always presenting a rosy portrait of the bishops, never divulging any of the bishops' deviance from Church teaching or just plain decency.  Lately, though, the bishops and the Standard no longer bother to put lipstick on that pig, as they parade their warped priorities in their newsprint and website.  The same goes for the USCCB website - well, almost!

On the USCCB site,  Auxiliary Bishop Roy Campbell had published therein a few days ago a piece that he dubbed "DEI Means God".  Of course the "dei" refers to the leftwing mantra of "diversity, equality, inclusion".  "Dei" is also the Latin word for God.  Campbell committed sacrilege by equating the Holy Name of God with a leftist screed.  I suppose it didn't take the USCCB long to realize that they stepped in the proverbial doo-doo by publishing Campbell's piece so they yanked it down.  But once something is on the internet, it never quite disappears - thanks to Complicit Clergy.  I humbly suggest to Bishop Campbell that he reacquaint himself with the Second Commandment: thou shalt not take the name of the Lord they God in vain.

So that's the Second Commandment being violated.  On page 9 of the Sept 11th issue of the Standard, Bishop Evelio Menjivar commits sins against the Eighth Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor.  His screed article is entitled "Siempre Adelante - Ten Years Since Pope Francis' Visit To Washington".  I couldn't find it on the Standard's web page, but I was not too surprised to see it at the Not-At-All Catholic Reporter's site.

The targets of his angst are the enforcement of our nation's border laws and the arrests and deportation of those in the country illegally.  The key word is "illegally", a word that Menjivar and others of his ilk insist on disregarding.  Hence his sin against the Eighth Commandment.  His deliberate obfuscation of that qualifier renders laughable any pretense that he makes in trying to assume a moral high ground in this discussion.

His second gripe is against the clearing out of the tent enclaves set up by various homeless people, enclaves rife with drugs and violent behavior.  Menjivar doesn't appreciate the troops in the city.  I suppose they appear to be too mean to him.  Does it register with him that we have had several days now of not one murder in what used to be known as the Murder Capital of the World?  Oh, I hope to see those troops in Baltimore soon.

Speaking of Menjivar and his shilling for all kinds of border-crashers, he took part in a roundtable hosted by Georgetown University (who else?).  The gabfest was called "Deportations and Assault on Human Dignity".  As you look at that page, notice that with Menjivar is Sister Norma Pimentel, the executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley.  How about that?  Do we all recall how we discovered that various Texas offices of Catholic Charities were receiving Federal grants totaling in the billions for "refugee resettlement" and maybe a little human trafficking thrown in there?  It also appears that Catholic Charities counsels border-crashers how to evade ICE; see for yourselves.  So maybe that roundtable is more aptly entitled "Deportations and Emptying of Catholic Charities Bank Accounts".

Getting back to the bishops, we see on the Lepanto Institute where the USCCB is partnering with the AUSCP (Association of US Catholic Priests) to consult on the USCCB's Laity document.  If anything, the bishops should be quashing the AUSCP, owing to its various heresies.  Last June the AUSCP had their annual meeting.  During that meeting, priests unabashedly proclaimed that their ongoing habits of self-abuse were gifts from God.  So besides glorying in their mortal sins of perverse sexual conduct, they blasphemed God outright.  In that last link is a recording of that conversation.  The AUSCP has yet to issue any kind of moral clarification.

Speaking of lack of statements, the USCCB and majority of the US bishops, with the happy exception of Bishop Michael Burbidge of the Diocese of Arlington (VA) have not uttered one peep in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's murder.  They haven't even tried to exploit the situation to try to disarm law-abiding citizens!  Now why is that?  Is it because the violent tendencies of the left-wing were on stark display?  Is it because we see how sexual perversion often leads to murderous violence on the part of the perverts?  All of these are true, by the way.  Or is it because Kirk spoke against the border-crashing that Trump is finally taking under control?  After all, the bishops' celebration of Catholic Migration Week is soon upon us, and nothing can be allowed to sully that - right?

Now that this blog and others have called the bishops out on their disregard for Kirk's death, expect them to issue mealy-mouth statements that are only meant to cover their derrieres.  Take them with copious grains of salt.

Catholics! Will We Fill Charlie's Shoes?

Regarding the murder of Charlie Kirk and the ramifications on our nation, I came across this excellent article entitled "The End Of Illusion: On The Assassination of Charlie Kirk And The Way Forward".  It was written by Richard Y. Rodgers and David F.X. Army and published by the Harvard Salient.   It appears here, but for the sake of discussion, I will copy and paste the article now.  Below the article will appear some thoughts on what this portends for faithful Catholics.  Now the article.

Charlie Kirk’s murder is first and last a private calamity: a wife now without her husband, children without their father, a circle of friends and kin bereft of a steady presence. That grief is immediate, awful, and beyond any contestation. We owe the dead our sorrow and the bereaved our silence and our service. But grief has its civic logic too. The taking of a life for some desperate, ill-conceived political conviction—in the courtyard of a university, in front of young witnesses—forces a public diagnosis: we are at war, and too many of us still pretend otherwise.

Those who knew Charlie will tell you what the cameras too often obscured. He could be theatrical, florid, and exasperating in the delightfully modern register of political showmanship. He could also be unexpectedly, almost annoyingly, moderate: a man who prized argument over obliteration, outreach over insularity, whose modus operandi was to cross campus thresholds and address anyone curious enough to ask a question. He exhorted a generation, plainly and insistently, to love God, love their family, and love their country. That was enough to get him killed.

Let us be unsentimental about the nature of the enemy. Leftism is not merely a rival policy set or an alternate party program. Leftism is a mental illness. There is no risk in naming the condition plainly when the symptoms are so evident: systematic hatred for inherited institutions, a taste for moral monstrosity, and a bloodlust that sanctifies obliteration—of traditions, of customs, of human life—as signs of progress. If you are on the Right and have been told this language is excessive, look instead at the evidence of behavior: celebration when opponents are deplatformed, undone—or worse—killed. They hate you. They want you dead. To say it this way is necessary, for it is in the flowery meadows of euphemism that rot truly spreads.

This is not a rhetorical flourish. It is a warning. To those who treat conservative life on campus or in civic society as an agreeable pastime—“a club,” “a journal,” “a debating society”—recognize that there is no safe neutral. The adjective “just” in front of any conservative endeavor is an attempt to be dismissed as harmless, but it is precisely the seemingly harmless that activists of the other persuasion seek to erase first. If you wear your conviction visibly, if you sign your name to a cause, if you instruct others in the habits that sustain a free and ordered society, you place yourself on the line, and, if the Left wins, they will place you on the gallows. That is not martyr rhetoric; that is realism.

For those of conservative disposition who wish only to lead a private life, cloistered away from the political fray, I am sorry. That is not possible. They won’t allow it. The logic of our hour is simple: if our institutions and formative practices fall, the private life you cherish will be the first to go. To wish for quiet while our enemies reconfigure the moral architecture of the nation is to wish for exile in place.

And yet, despair is not an option. Charlie’s death must not be allowed to calcify into a paralyzing fatalism. It must harden into a militant diligence. Reverence must be translated into work.

First, we must outlast personalities. Charisma withers; institutions endure. Do not treat conservative talent as an end in itself but as the seedbed of durable structures: parish schools that catechize the young, neighborhood reading groups that form habits of mind, free associations that forge the brave and the learned, scholarship funds that free talent from petit politics. Endowments, curricula, and local cells of study should be built now, not as ephemeral projects but as a conservative infrastructure: slow, networked, and resilient against the fashions and fury of the moment. Make the long game irreversible.

Second, cultivate an education of courage. The modern university offers an education in the art of dissent. We must answer with an alternative catechesis: rhetoric, logic, history, theology, liturgy, and philosophy of civic friendship, whatever remains of it. Courage is an acquired disposition: to speak the truth as you see it, to stand when others flee, to accept cost without cynicism. We should produce men and women who can withstand slander, who can retain composure under siege, and who can outlast the moral fashions of an age.

Third, refuse the counterfeit civility that is merely cowardice. There was a civic civility that governed honest bargaining and, insofar as it still exists, that ethic is worth preserving. Too often, the best case scenario is that “civility” is deployed as a plea to disappear, to shrink one’s claims until the public square is emptied of all meaningful assertion. The worst case scenario is that any attempt at discourse, even of the most reasonable, accommodating kind, will be met, Left on Right, with violence. If it can happen to a lion of free speech and civil discourse like Charlie, it can happen to anyone. Regardless of whether or not the age of reasons debate ended two days ago, the counterfeit civility imposed upon the Right must be exposed. Practice a measured politeness toward persons while being implacable in defense of public truth and the institutions that sustain it.

Finally, be precise and uncompromising in your politics: the stakes are metaphysical as well as administrative. Elections are only punctuation marks in the politics of man. Family, church, law, education, and public memory are the true battlegrounds. If we cede the formative structures, policy wins will be temporary because the habits that sustain a free people will have been hollowed out. Organize, staff, fund, and harden those institutions now so that when the hour grows harder we answer with political intelligence and moral readiness, not surprise.

Charlie Kirk’s life was a mixture of exuberance and seriousness; his death should compel us to the latter without surrendering the former. To grieve is human; to pick up the mantle and persevere is a fitting tribute. We have been offered a summons by the worst of circumstances. Let us answer with the best of ourselves: with learning sharpened into resolve, with institutions of habit and formation, and with a courage that understands the cost of action—and inaction. The hour is harsh. The work is hard. The loss is great. The choice, however, is ours.

END OF ARTICLE

This article, for many faithful Catholics and pro-lifers, particularly those who consider themselves "retired from the fray", provides a much-needed kick in the pants, as it were.  Too many think that if they just concentrate on their families and churches - to the exclusion of society at large - that God will protect them and theirs.  That pipe dream needs to end yesterday!   That is why I high-lighted that paragraph in red.

This blog, as do the others on the right side bar, give information as to how to become aware of the threats to the Church and all our families, and what we can - and must - do about it.