Oct. 24, 2006 — Feast of St. Raphael

Lying visions and vain sacrifices

The following paragraphs first appeared earlier this year in the work: Cessation of the Continual Sacrifice and the Abomination of Desolation. They are repeated here because recent reports indicate that B16 will soon allow the celebration of the Latin Tridentine Mass by NO priests.

"The abomination of desolation, Daniel tells us, stands in the holy place where it ought not to be. In its literal sense, the abomination of desolation is "an idol set up in the sanctuary of the Jewish Temple," (footnote to Douay-Rheims Bible). Scriptural scholars unanimously apply all the prophecies of Daniel to the Church at the time of Antichrist; therefore the abomination of desolation in Christian times must be an idol set up in the sanctuary of Catholic Churches. The Catholic Encyclopedia (Vol. 1) reports that this term can be taken in a concrete form as well, "referring to a person, a 'ravager', or even as a participial noun, (he) 'that maketh desolate.'" The Latin root of desolation means to forsake, and Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines desolate as "deprived of inhabitants, laid waste, left alone, forsaken." Both the Old and New Testament treat of this great dishonor to God, and apply the word abomination to several different types of serious sin. Proud, deceitful men; wicked shepherds, liars, detractors, idolaters; and those engaging in forbidden sexual relations are referred to as abominations. Especially intended as abominable in the Scripture texts is any unclean or unworthy sacrifice, or an acceptable sacrifice offered before idols. Also in Vol. I, The Catholic Encyclopedia defines Antichrist as (a) one directly opposed to Christ (b) "one resembling Christ in appearance and power" and finally (c) "a king who reigns during an interregnum" (!) Montini never ascended the papacy, as Pope Paul IV's Cum ex Apostolatus Officio demonstrates, yet he reigned supreme over Rome and the world. This is clearly a revival of pagan Rome and the powers of the ancient Caesars.

"Priests become abominations in God's eyes whenever they defile the sanctuary by celebrating Mass in a state of mortal sin, too hastily, without reverence; and when they exercise their faculties to celebrate Mass while under excommunication, suspension, interdict or irregularity, (St. Thomas, Summa Theologica 1, Q. 82, A9). In his sermon on Sts. Peter and Paul, St. Anthony of Padua wrote: "[The priest neglectful of his flock] is an idol, because he has hands for heaping up riches, but not for soothing the scars which remain from Christ's wounds…The praise of God is not heard from his lips. What is there in common between the Church of Christ and such a rotten image?" Wicked priests can, of course, connive their way into the episcopacy. As bishops they are then even greater abominations because they can mislead priests and the flocks entrusted to them. The higher their office, the greater is the abomination; this we learned in the commentary on Cum ex.

"The greatly esteemed priest Rev. Kenelm Vaughan, in his The Divine Armory lists both Christ's and Daniel's prophecies under the heading: "False Christs in the Temple of Christ." Further down, under the heading "Names and Types of the False Christs" he lists alongside the appropriate Scripture passage: "Bread idols, bread of lying, bread of wickedness, wheat bringing forth thorns, profitless wheat, vine without grapes, wine of iniquity, bitter wine, the wine of the condemned, the two iniquities [bread and wine], Maozim who our fathers knew not (Dan. 11:38), a strange god, idols without life, an idol moving the God of the Eucharist to jealousy, altars unto sin, a sin graven on the horns of the altar, sin of the sanctuary, unacceptable holocaust, a conspiracy, vain sacrifices, throne of iniquity, sin of the desolation (Dan. 8:13), falsehood personified, a lying vision, the abomination of desolation, (Dan. 11:31)." These are only some of the types listed by Rev. Vaughan. It is obvious that what he here refers to is the abomination of the NOM and "Traditional" masses, where true hosts are never consecrated owing to invalid orders, invalid matter, invalid consecration form, and/or masses offered in communion with any one of the antipopes. But also included in this category is the abomination of fruitless and offensive sacrifices offered by excommunicated and suspended Traditionalist priests. In both Traditionalist and NO services another problem is widespread: the adulteration of flour used for hosts and the wine used in the Sacrifice, which the Church has subjected to strict regulations for validity. As Holy Scripture proclaims, Obedience is better than sacrifices."

At present the Tridentine Mass is not the official public worship of the Church. The indult mass is taken from 1962 forms and cannot be considered the "Latin Mass" as it existed for 1,500 years, since it was formulated by Antipope Roncalli. Should the Tridentine be resurrected in the near future by B16, then the abomination will be perfected; for men who are not even priests, "ordained" by men who never became bishops will offer it. This perfection is demanded by Satan himself, who is ever the ape of God. He demands not partial but total degradation of the renewal of Christ's passion and death by reducing it to nothing at all. Had the true issue at stake — the validity of the priesthood — been as aggressively pursed by Traditionalists in the 1970s and 1980s as the invalidity of the Novus Ordo Missae was pursued; had Traditionalists refused to receive the Sacraments from those who were not their lawful pastors and insisted on restoring the papacy, we would not be witnessing this travesty today.

While many revere the great Patrick Henry Omlor as a staunch Traditionalist and defender of the faith, Omlor failed to carry his excellent observations to their logical conclusions when he wrote his condemnation of the Novus Ordo Missae. He could have remedied this omission at any time in his writing career, but failed to do so. His cogent arguments could just as easily have demonstrated the invalidity of the 1967 rite of ordination/consecration as it proved the invalidity of the NOM Eucharistic consecration formula. Omlor and many others easily saw the invalidity of the NOM. But what they could not bring themselves to do was to see the error of any priest celebrating without proper jurisdiction. And while the perpetual defense of such celebration has always been that God promised the Church, as She was constituted would last until the consummation, (meaning there would always be priests and bishops), this promise, hypocritically, was never extended to that very Head that must exist if the Church is to exist at all.

Satan is not mollified by half measures. Now that nearly every truly ordained priest in the antiChurch has died, retired or left the priesthood, the field is clear. We must now endure the appearance of Sacrifice, the appearance of appeasement, the appearance of concession without the reality thereof. The final indignity soon will be unveiled: The "pope" who is no pope at all will appear to reintroduce the Sacrifice that cannot be offered because the ones who pretend to offer it were never made priests. This can only be the worship of Maozim foretold in Scripture. Daniel the prophet wrote; "He shall worship the god Maozim, a god his fathers knew not," (Dan. 11:38). A footnote to the Douay-Rheims shows this deity to be the god "of forces or strongholds." This must first be taken in a literal sense as the absolutist "might makes right" thinking favored by western democracies, which pretend that the "sheer numbers" or majority vote alone determines what is moral. Pope Pius IX condemned this modern idea of democracy, more correctly identified as democratism, in his Syllabus, (DZ l760). It is this same "force" that has prompted the acceptance of the Novus Ordo and Vatican II by an apparent majority of the faithful.

Traditionalists clamoring for the return of the Latin Mass and the dissatisfaction of conservative Novus Ordites with their liturgy are more outspoken than those wishing to further modernize the NOM. They now constitute the majority, just as those once lobbying for the vernacular and a new liturgy comprised that same majority pre-Vatican II. The "return of the Tridentine" is the worship of ritual for ritual's sake solely to satisfy the desires of man; a worship devoid of any propitiatory value, the prostitution of all that is holy and hence an abomination in God's sight. And those posing as priests represent the complete laicization and paganization of the Church, a specter even more insidious than the pagan priesthood because it masquerades as Catholic. What better fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy concerning the lying illusions of Antichrist could one imagine? What better example of "falsehood personified"? Many will "follow the beast in wonder" and believe that a return to the vomit of the Man of Sin is actually a necessary and holy thing. Belonging to what the world recognizes as the Church is more important to many than being persecuted and reviled for clinging to the truth. But all this too shall pass away, while Christ's words will remain.

Even should all save a few Traditionalists flock back to the ranks of the Novus Ordo, this can never change the complexion of that faithless church. What B16 does at this point is inconsequential; we know the ultimate fate of all his works. All eyes must be focused heavenward to He alone who is Truth. Let the seas surge and the storm rage, the ship take on water and the crew desert ship. Those remaining on board will eventually reach their destination, and nothing issuing today from Rome will impede them.

(A further commentary on the impossibility of B16's return of the "Mass" will be posted next week.)