Introduction to the new prayer apostolate dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows

by T. Stanfill Benns | Mar 15, 2022 | New Blog

+St. Louise de Marillac+

We launch today the prayer apostolate long ago suggested by a friend that has taken all of eight years to come to fruition. During that time a small group has formed, willing to pray with us and to accomplish the universal consecration of the world to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary as our Lord requested over 100 years ago, prior to the beginning of World War I. With the world seemingly on the verge of World War III, this apostolate is urgently needed in order to appease the Divine wrath and comply with the wishes of our Lord and Savior so long ignored and neglected. Only by comforting Our Lady in her Sorrows and consecrating ourselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in her and through her — joining this consecration to requests that it include the entire world — will we have any hope of saving our own souls and converting sinners. Please join us if you truly wish to help those in the Ukraine and others throughout the world threatened by powers we have no way of fighting except through prayer and sacrifice.

The manual for the apostolate can be downloaded here. The booklet suggested in the manual, Devotion to the Sorrowful Mother, is available from TAN books.

Some Lenten reflections

In the past week, the first week of Lent, we have seen two mentions of the Prophet Elias in the Liturgy. The first is found in the Epistle for ember Wednesday and the other this past Sunday, in the Gospel on the Transfiguration, where both Moses and Elias were seen by Peter, James and John on either side of our Lord.  In the ember Wednesday liturgy, mention is made that both Moses and Elias fasted for 40 days. Clearly there is some connection with fasting, false worship and these two prophets. For when Moses came to the people to bring them the two tablets on which the 10 Commandments were engraved, he found them worshiping false idols; and Father Elias fled to the desert after destroying the prophets of Baal. The Tuesday epistle for the first week in Lent was taken from Ezekiel Ch. 34, 11-16 and here God promises to visit his flock Himself, gathering and nourishing his scattered sheep. But we must understand here why God says this, and the reason can be found in the first verses of this same chapter of Ezekiel, which begins with dire warnings to the shepherds who have neglected their flocks.

God tells the prophet Ezekiel in Ch. 34: 2-5, 7-8, 10: “Woe to the shepherds of Israel that fed themselves [and] my flock you did not feed. The weak you have not strengthened and that which was sick you have not healed. That which was broken you have not bound up and that which was driven away you have not brought again, neither have you sought that which was lost but you ruled over them with full rigor and with a high hand. And my sheep were scattered because there was no shepherd and they became the prey of all the beasts of the field and were scattered… And there was none that sought them; there was none I say that sought them. My flocks have been made a spoil and my sheep are become a prey to all the beasts of the field because there was no shepherd; for my shepherds did not seek after my flock but the shepherds fed themselves and fed not my flocks. Therefore I myself shall come upon the shepherds. I will require my flock at their hand and I will cause them to cease from feeding the flock anymore… I myself… shall visit them.”

Rev. Leo Haydock says of the above verses: “Shepherds mean priests, magistrates, chief priests and scribes… Excellent instructions are here given for all in authority. Pastors often disguise the truth to flatter the rich or the more just souls are ruined by their negligence… Pastors will not be excused by ignorance if they know not the maladies and the remedies of their flock. This was blamed in the Pharisees and is contrary to the spirit of the Gospel. The people being neglected followed false prophets and idols. Their teachers were so far from striving to reclaim them that they perhaps showed them the example. Pastors who seek only their temporal advantage are no shepherds; they are hirelings, and if they teach false doctrines they are wolves. Both the leaders and the people were led into captivity. All this cannot be understood of the synagogue alone. God and those whom He sends will take care of the flock. The crimes of the pastors do not excuse the flock; in it there are people of different dispositions.”

All the above can be said of pastors who ruled their flocks long before the Vatican 2 era. The reign of the usurpers in Rome marked the culmination, not the beginning of the rot in the Church. Many priests were caught up in the social side of their ministry and allowed themselves to be flattered by the rich. Others ruled with a high hand, exercising the full rigor of their authority, and scandalizing the little ones, who could have been won over with kindness. Rather than cultivating the interior life and true spiritual growth, they engaged in the heresy of action, imbibed the liberal spirit, and ultimately released the flock into captivity after the death of Pope Pius XII. As the prophet Isaias says, as the shepherd so the flock. The example they gave caused millions to accept the Novus Ordo church simply because they followed these false shepherds. And those who refused to follow them were left without any shepherds at all.

Schism in Russia and war in the Ukraine

We watch with great sorrow the mounting loss of lives in the Ukraine, as Russia threatens to pull the entire world into war. Those who believe that it was primarily Communism that caused this conflict are only partially correct. Had schism not separated the Russians from the true Church of Christ in 1059, she would not have fallen prey to Communism as she did. But then spiritual causes of modern-day problems are never considered as important by those who are slaves to the masters of domination and their political machinations. A careful examination of Russia’s gradual degeneration into schism — and all the accompanying evils that it eventually spawned — reveals that every element related to Masonry’s subsequent  triumph (and Communism is only a tool of Freemasonry) was present in Russian history centuries before atheistic Communism reached her shores.

It must be noted that when Our Lady told the children that Russia would spread her errors, she did not specify what these errors were. Those interpreting her meaning in naming Russia as the font of these errors concentrated only on one glaring reality — Communism minus its parent organization Freemasonry. While this was the predominant heresy that singled Russia out at that time, given the year in which Our Lady appeared, it did not correspond to the plural word “errors” which she communicated to the children. And over the decades it does not appear that this omission ever caught the eyes of any of those well-known for chronicling Fatima, although authors writing in other languages, whose works were never translated into English may well have touched on this subject. A careful study of Russia’s history would have quickly shown the Blessed Mother’s true intent, but this was not forthcoming either. And so the seriousness of the Orthodox schism was lost as well as the history of the orthodox liturgy in the vernacular, temporarily granted to Russia in the ninth century shortly before the schism occurred.

And we wonder why the vernacular was (formally) introduced into the liturgy in the 1960s, resulting in nothing less than schism and the heresies that inevitably accompany it? And why splinter schismatic groups calling themselves Catholic have mushroomed ever since? They want Russia to convert? You can’t provide the solution while insisting on being part of the problem. The schismatic trend began long ago, but at least Catholics then recognized it for what it truly was.  This little-known message from Our Lady has been published here before but needs to be read again. No, it was never approved by the Church, but given the increasingly desperate situation we face today, it is a timely reminder of how we got here, why, and what we are required to do.

Romanians warned by Our Lady about schismatic priests

In 1949, Rev. Mircea Todericu, a priest in exile from Communist Romania reported that Our Lady had appeared to a saintly Romanian woman in a series of five apparitions. In the course of these apparitions, Our Lady repeated the messages of Fatima and La Salette with special emphasis on the conduct of the clergy in the face of persecution. At that time many priests were defecting to the nationalist Orthodox church set up by the Kremlin. In light of efforts to unite the Russian Orthodox Church with the Novus Ordo church in Russia, the Blessed Mother’s message is more urgent today than ever before.

“The grave hour in which the Church will suffer much has come…Struggle, struggle, with trust because I have received from the Father the power to destroy the head and the pride of Satan who wishes to destroy the Church and your souls…You who struggle and sacrifice yourselves with trust in my heart are few. But if only two souls will be found who will struggle with firm trust in these days full of sufferings, the Father will show them through my Heart the fruits of my sufferings…Pray the Rosary…Don’t think of life and food but of the protection and strength of my Son… Do not give in. Do not let other priests enter into the churches of my Son, priests who have apostatized from the true Faith and who have joined with those of the other faith… The suffering of my Heart is so great when I see the priests who have apostatized from the true faith and my Son…You priests who must confess the Faith, who must be the pillars of the Church of my Son, you to whom the souls of the faithful have been entrusted in order for you to open to them the Way of Truth and to bring them on the road of eternal life, behold how you have wounded my Heart by renouncing my Son and the Heavenly Father. You have stepped in the ways of falsehood and of death, and instead of edifying souls, you have sought and do seek to ruin the Church and to lose souls. You are those who strike continually the Mystical Body of my Son.

“Behold, my sorrow is indescribably great when I look toward you because you despise even the Vicar of my Son, the one who is the father of all the true faithful; you who will not even recognize my Son as your King and Lord of the world and who will not listen to Him and will not submit to Him. Behold, I have come to tell you clearly the word: I wish you to return, to become again the children of the true Church, pastors of the souls entrusted to your priesthood because my Son has placed you under my protection. I have come to communicate all these things so that you will know what to do and you will know what the Heavenly Father wishes from you. I communicate these things to the soul of my Heart who cries, prays, sacrifices itself who suffers day and night for your sins, the sins of you who strike so much the justice of the Heavenly Father.

“If you will not listen to my Heart; if you will not believe in my words addressed to you through this suffering soul; if you will not return, the anger of the Heavenly Father will fall upon you. I ask prayers, sacrifices; I ask that you repair the insults committed against the Heavenly Father through apostasy, pride and your unbelief in His goodness and power, which He has over you through my Immaculate Heart…” (The complete text of this message is contained in John Haffert’s Russia Will Be Converted.) And still, no one listens. And so, we pray.

Even the Orthodox refused to attend Communist church services

The history of those who have suffered for their faith and given their lives for it is carefully kept in the background to avoid meaningless “explanations,” and discourage adulation of those who have persevered to the end and won the coveted race. While the following covers the persecution and the hidden existence of both the Russian Orthodox as well as Catholics, it provides a fascinating look at how both groups went to unbelievable lengths to preserve the faith of their fathers in the face of the cruelest persecutions imaginable. Stalin alone murdered some eight million Catholics and Orthodox believers; some of the nuns were later discovered with their rosaries pounded into their foreheads. And yet seldom do we hear of this wholesale slaughter by the Communists; instead, we hear of the Catholic persecution of American natives and the Inquisition, or the Holocaust. The following is taken from accounts printed sometime in the 1950s in Orthodox and other publications. While it is not an endorsement of the schismatic Orthodox sect, it is a recognition that, believing themselves to be practicing the true faith, they defended it to the death.

“Petrograd at this time had become the very heart of the Church’s protest against Sergius, and there was scarcely an Orthodox soul in the former Capital that was not anguished over the question of whom to follow. Many refused for a time to receive Communion in any church, uncertain as to whose Sacraments were valid or where the Church of Christ was to be found. After signing the epistle of the Yaroslavl Archpastors, Metropolitan Joseph stepped boldly forward into battle for the Church and gave his blessing for the clergy and faithful of Petrograd to follow his example in separating from Sergius, offering his own spiritual guidance and care to this movement, and entrusting the governance of the Petrograd Diocese to his outspokenly anti-Sergianist Vicar, Bishop Dimitry of Gdov. Blessing the ‘good decision the zealots of Christ’s truth,’ he prayed ‘that the Lord present us all unanimity and holy firmness of spirit in the new trial which the Church is undergoing.

“According to information in my possession received from an unquestionably reliable source, the Underground or Catacomb Church in Soviet Russia underwent her hardest trials after February 4th 1945, i. e. after the enthronement of the Soviet Patriarch Alexis. Those who did not recognize him were sentenced to new terms of punishment and were sometimes shot. Those who did recognize him and gave their signature to that effect were often liberated before their terms expired and received appointments. We have information that a priest after such a registration, told his wife and two daughters who had come to visit him that they should stop going to the Soviet Patriarchal Church when they returned home. ‘It is better not to go to any church whatever or receive communion at all than to be implicated in a church of evil-doers,’ he said. The widow of the priest (he was shot after their visit), and her two daughters were persecuted by the Soviet priests who called them ‘schismatics’ and ‘sectarians.’ They were nourished in the Catacomb Church and kept the Sacrament in their house (1945).”

So even the Orthodox schismatics knew not to attend services at all than to participate in sacrilege. Nor were they strangers to keeping the faith at home.

Catholic Uniates in Ukraine

For years a section of the Uniates, in particular the urban intelligentsia, boycotted the ‘reunited’ churches and attended the few remaining Roman Catholic churches. In many parishes without priests, churches remained closed as the faithful refused to admit Orthodox clergymen,” (those who will not truck with Traditionalists). “In Ivano-Frankivsk diocese alone, there were at least 175 such ‘parishes’ between 1946 and 1956.

“But as the former Uniate clergy are dying out, some of the parishes are now being taken over by the new generation of clergy, already trained in the Orthodox seminaries, who may not necessarily identify themselves with the Uniate traditions and loyalties,” (shades of “Traditionalist” seminaries.) “With the shortage of new clergy, however, more and more churches are being left without a priest and are in danger of closing. One recent account from the Western Ukraine describes the plight of believers in such localities: ‘In my village there is no priest, but people come to church every Sunday and, together with the psalmsinger (diak) they sing Matins and the Mass . . . while a chalice and lighted candles are placed on the altar,’” (“The Catacomb Church: Ukrainian Greek Catholics in the USSR,” by Bohdan R. Bociurkiw).

(To read more on the decisions of the Church regarding having recourse to schismatics in the absence of Mass and the Sacraments, see https://www.betrayedcatholics.com/does-christ-himself-supply-jurisdiction-to-traditionalists/).

Conclusion

These people all were so very brave – braver I am afraid than many of us here in this country. What is not understood is that our Lord has been preparing us all for the time when we must stand up as they did. To do this He took away the visible means of our faith to help us realize that He alone holds the future of the Church in His hands; He alone is our source of grace and our salvation; He alone has given His Mother’s Sorrowful Heart the means of succoring us in these evil times and leading us straight to His Sacred Heart through the sorrows of her own. May all that is related here help strengthen those of us taking up this prayer apostolate that it may be pleasing to God, fruitful for ourselves and beneficial for so many others who desperately need these prayers. May of you all continue to enjoy a prayerful Lent.

Farewell Traditionalists — we will continue to pray for your conversion

by T. Stanfill Benns | Mar 6, 2022 | New Blog

+St. Thomas Aquinas+

If you haven’t already, please join us here for the Prophet Elias prayer challenge.

Lent is a time to fast and do penance, as all Catholics know. But it is also a time to reflect and take stock of the course we are on spiritually and where it is leading us. And for us it is time to knock the dust from our sandals and move on.

What is most maddening about the current state of the Church today is the compelling need to correct so many dangerous errors in order to defend the faith.  But what is sometimes lost in correcting these errors, as necessary as this is, is the simplicity of the faith itself. Heresies and broken laws take a lot of demonstration and explaining to understand, and if these laws were not being broken, and the faith was not being denied, it wouldn’t be necessary. But of course they are, and it is, and lest someone falls into the yawning chasms of disbelief they create, they must be exposed.

That being said, quite a few are understandably wearied by the constant need to deal with it all. Traditionalists and their pseudo-clergy grow more irrational and argumentative with each passing day. Witness some of the obviously nonsensical and contradictory statements in the links provided in our last blog post. The delusions they labor under are so entrenched and so strong I really do not believe it is possible to reach them. It is almost as though they function under some sort of satanic spell, and they do — the operation of error foretold by St. Paul. They have traded the true faith for a mess of Protestant pottage (thick soup or porridge) and not only do they deny it is Protestant, they think they are dining on steak and caviar, not pottage!

Generational disconnect

It would be one thing if we were dealing with the first generation of Catholics to depart following Vatican 2, but most of those who knew the Church as She once existed are no longer with us, or soon will be gone. They are the ones who initially embraced Traditionalism and refused to abandon their “priests” and now we are dealing with their children and grandchildren. They became caught up in the drama of Traditionalist life with its many scandals, dissensions and frequent hopping around from group to group, and this is now normal for these family members who went through it with them. They accept it as Catholic in these “emergency times” and with their parents’ support, continue to live the only “Catholic” life they know. Herd animals that they are, products largely of the world in which we live, they avoid at all costs anything that would separate them from their “pack” and cause them to actually think on their own. If many of them were home-schooled and this is the result, then the critical thinking homeschooling is intended to encourage certainly was lacking in their regard.

And so the initial mission to reach those who might yet understand no longer has any purpose and therefore must come to an end. Troubled Traditionalists reassessing their situation or newly-woken Novus Ordo departees are so consumed with the idea of participation and groupthink they are unable to consider any truly viable alternatives. The idea of the Latin Mass and the pageantry that always accompanied liturgical functions attracts newcomers and remains the guidepost for Traditionalists considering a different group.  In a normal world this would be understandable in departing from what one considers a destructive or non-Catholic sect. But surely no one today can pretend the world we live in is anything close to normal.

Those weighing their options must understand that the Traditionalist movement is nothing new or even traditional. It is the continuation of the Jansenist, Gallicanist, Anglican, Orthodox, Theosophist and Gnostic ”tradition,” but that is certainly not Catholic tradition! One book all should read if they wish to see a mirror image of Traditionalist practice and belief is Peter Anson’s Bishops At Large. Written in 1964, it provides an amazing preview of what would soon become the Traditionalist movements and their many offspring. It is appropriate here to quote from the Introduction to Anson’s book written by Henry St. John, O.P. which aptly sums up everything we know as Traditionalism today.

Traditionalism’s true orientation explained

“[Anson’s] story is one of the strangest and most fantastic religious movements to be found in the whole range of what may be described in general terms as the erratic ‘goings-on’ of the underworld. The use of the word underworld in this context must be taken as connoting an ecclesiastical eccentricity rather than roguery or crime, though neither of the latter is wholly absent from its records. The story is closely though not exclusively connected with movements of a Catholic type, mainly arriving from dissatisfied and unstable elements in Catholicism or Anglo-Catholicism. They stand as a rule for Catholicism without the Pope but their preoccupation amounting to obsession is the recovery of Christian unity by the widespread and in effect indiscriminate propagation of valid episcopacy and priesthood.

“In almost every case, the leaders of these multiple movements have been at pains to obtain episcopal consecration from sources often remote and seldom wholly unquestionable which they hoped would be indisputable. Having obtained an episcopal character, they proceeded to found a church based upon it and their own particular version of what true Catholic orthodoxy is. In this way, so the visionary hope takes shape in the minds of these dreamers, that their church will become the center and foundation upon which the unity of Christ’s Church could be rebuilt…

“Mr. Anson’s story shows us a reductio ad absurdum of the divinely ordained hierarchical structure of the Church constituted by Apostolic succession when divorced from almost every consideration but a mechanical conception of validity… The obsession of the bishops at large and their followers with the validity of orders has brought them to the belief that such validity is a sole hallmark of the nature of the Church and its authority. Ubi ordines validi ecclesia is the principle upon which they, all of them, consistently act with a determined conviction,” (valid orders make a strong Church).

“The result of this action is that they are in effect reduced to saying get valid orders and you can choose what you believe. They are unaware that they are saying this and consequently lay great stress on the supreme importance of an orthodoxy which turns out to be no more than their own particular and sometimes variable “doxy.” What they have forgotten in their often wild and eccentric way is that even a valid Apostolic succession is of small value unless it is possessed by a believing community that is a visible organic society divinely preserved from the loss of its structural unity. This unity preserves and is preserved by its sensus fidelium and by the teaching authority of its united episcopate. This is the essential nature of the Church as taught by the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church in common, in accordance with historic tradition from the earliest times” but in the Catholic Church, of course, the Roman Pontiff alone is the guarantee of this undivided unity as the head member of that “united episcopate.”

The disturbing truth

And so we see that Traditionalists are no different than those schismatic sects who preceded them in pretending that one can have a Church without a pope. The underworld has now become their norm, and far from striving for any sort of Catholic unity, which necessarily requires a true pope, they seem to glory in their diversity. Anson goes into great detail to describe the occult connections of these groups, also their interests in ancient heresies, which so many have now resurrected and even perfected. Catholic writer Mary Lejeune warned those joining Traditionalist sects that they were occult-based and Masonic in origin in the 1970s, but to no avail. Author Craig Heimbichner, in his Blood on the Altar (2005) notes that many of those initially singing the praises of the Latin Tridentine Mass in the late 1960s, early 1970s were practicing theosophists, who succeeded in luring traditionalists into “Latin Mass” groups.

He links the awe for the old Mass to C.W. Leadbetter, founder of the Liberal Catholic (Theosophical) church in Sydney, Australia in 1917, citing several quotes proving theosophic occultism later was introduced into Traditional circles. He quotes Wasserman as stating that “Persons of Gnostic-hermetic interests have more in common with traditionalist Catholics than with either modernist Vatican II Catholics or with Protestants…The Right-wing exploits a superstition among some Catholics who hold to a kind of unspoken “magic sacramentalism,” [condemned by Pope St. Pius X in his encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis against Modernism], i.e, the notion that being present at the Holy Mass itself, with its awe-inspiring solemnity and its bells, incense and candles — not one’s state of grace, fidelity to the Commandments of God or relationship with Jesus Christ — becomes the individual’s guarantor of sanctity.” Heimbichner calls this a “Satanic perversion” of Catholicism, mixing pagan elements with the true, much as is done in the Satanic rituals connected to Voodoo and Santeria. And if this is what those investigating Traditionalism really wish to expose themselves to, they definitely are not looking for the true faith as taught by St. Peter through Pius XII.

Traditionalists’ intense focus on perpetuating their shady lineages and defending their legitimacy occupies the time that, were they anything but pseudo-clerics, should be devoted to developing a true understanding of the entirety of Catholic existence, not just its exterior aspect. They all have developed their own ideas of orthodoxy, as St. John notes above, and this is illustrated by the recent controversies among themselves regarding una cum and the material formal hypothesis. Also as noted above, their theory regarding the episcopacy reduces the Church’s establishment of a hierarchy based on true apostolic succession headed by a canonically elected pope to an absurdity. The only difference between those sects described above and Traditionalists is that Traditionalists have succeeded in convincing their ignorant followers that they are the true Church, and the “True Restoration” crowd pretends to be able to unite all these scraggly sects to present the appearance of a unity they can never possess without a true pope.

Anson’s book is filled with photos of incredible pseudo-Catholic pageantry, clerical ostentation and simulated piety, found reproduced on nearly every Traditional “Catholic” website in existence. These sites feature full-color photos of alleged consecrations and ordinations, wide-eyed “seminarians” being ordained as “priests,” and pious congregations attending ”high masses” offered in vain. Such pretension is an insult to any true Catholic and should be recognized by all for what it truly is — the continuation of a long line of heretics and schismatics who wish to dethrone the pope forever and usurp his authority. Apostolicity of origin, doctrine and mission must all be one, and they have none of these, as has been proven by the Church herself on the pages of this site and elsewhere time and time again. But the followers of these imposters are concerned only with appearances, not reality. And here we must leave them in their fantasy world to fend for themselves as best they can.

The sad neglect of true Catholic spirituality

The primary thing that is needed today is not religious externals and a renewal of Catholic social life, possible only when the Church possesses a true pope and hierarchy. What is really needed is true Catholic spirituality, and the reason the Church was taken away was precisely because Her interior life atrophied to the point it could no longer nourish Her very soul. That life is the knowledge and contemplation of Her truths, obedience to Her laws, conformity to God’s will, performance of daily duties and the offering up of oneself as a spiritual sacrifice. Already prior to the false Vatican 2 council many Catholics were largely engaged in only a mechanical performance of their spiritual duties and had become absorbed in the rampant materialism of the day. They forgot, if they ever knew, their true role as Catholics, best explained in this paragraph below.

Catechism of the Council of Trent — (Subhead, The Internal Priesthood, under Orders):

“All the faithful are said to be priests once they have been washed in the saving waters of baptism. Especially is this name given to the just who have the spirit of God and who by the help of divine grace had been made living members of the great high priest Jesus Christ. For enlightened by faith which is inflamed by charity, they offer up spiritual sacrifices to God on the altar of their hearts. Among such sacrifices must be reckoned every good and virtuous action done for the glory of God. Hence we read in the Apocalypse 1: 5,6: ‘Christ has washed us from our sins in His own blood and has made us a kingdom and priests to God and His Father.’ In like manner was it said by the Prince of the Apostles: ‘Be you also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood offering up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ’ (I Peter 2:5); while the apostle exhorts us ‘to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy pleasing unto God, your reasonable service’ (Rom. 12:1). And long before this David had said, ‘A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit a contrite and humble heart O God thou wilt not despise’ (Ps. 1:19). All this clearly regards the internal priesthood.”

Statement of Belief

It may be useful here for those who are not clear on all that involves praying at home and not attending services of non-Catholics to list the following core beliefs held by true Catholics.

+ We live in the last times; the Church has entered upon a period that will end either in the Final Judgment or a brief peace that will see Her restoration.

+ Pope Pius XII was the last true pope. We are bound to obey all the teachings of the popes from St. Peter to Pius XII — the continual magisterium — even though we have no sitting pope today. This because their teachings are the authentic expression of the Deposit of Faith, revealed truth found in the Scriptures and Tradition as interpreted and taught by the Roman Catholic Church for the belief of faithful Catholics till the end of time.

+ Therefore, the authority, infallibility and indefectibility of the Church remains, expressed in the Deposit of Faith as explained by all true popes throughout the ages.

+ Pope Pius XII was the last true pope because John 23, as a public heretic, was ineligible for election in 1958 and never became pope.

+ Doubts raised about the 1958 election in many quarters prove St. Robert Bellarmine’s axiom, that “a doubtful pope is no pope” applies to his “election.”

+ Bishops consecrated under Pope Pius XII and any remaining faithful cardinals were obligated to gather and elect a true pope once it became clear that John 23/Paul 6 were heretics. St. Robert Bellarmine in his de Conciliis, Pope Pius XII in his 1945 election constitution, also Pope Paul IV in his Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, made allowances for this. It is now impossible, however, to hold a papal election, because all those bishops consecrated under Pope Pius XII have passed away.

+ Pope Paul IV ‘s infallible bull Cum ex Apostolatus Officio (Cum ex…) and Pope Pius XII’s infallible constitution Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis (VAS) are the governing documents for these times. Cum ex… is the annotated source of the Canons regarding heresy, canons which have been called into doubt for decades. Under Can. 6 §4 this old law is to be used as the prevailing law in dealing with heresy, apostasy and schism, especially in regard to papal elections and the appointment of cardinals and bishops. VAS determines what can and cannot be done during an interregnum.

+ According to VAS, not even the college of cardinals may exercise papal jurisdiction during an interregnum. This law has been observed since the early Middle Ages. All is to be left to the future pope.

+ This would include, then, the issuance of the apostolic letters and papal mandate, necessary for episcopal consecration. For VAS clearly states that if anyone attempts to exercise papal jurisdiction during an interregnum, such acts are null and void. Therefore, Traditionalist consecrations and ordinations are null and void, since ordinations may take place only by a bishop who has presented the papal mandate, been validly consecrated, been assigned a diocese and has received papal permission to erect a seminary.

+ VAS also renders null and void any attempt to dispense from or alter in any way papal laws, especially those governing elections. Traditionalists have violated numerous papal laws and canon laws, which have as their source papal law and the teachings of ecumenical councils, especially Trent. Hence their invocation of epikeia for jurisdictional acts is nullified and voided.

+ Because Catholics who now pray at home are obedient to the Roman Pontiffs, they must consider Traditionalists now calling themselves bishops as doubtful at best, for two reasons:

1) They are members of a schismatic sect by definition, since they act outside the authority of the Roman Pontiff; and

2) They are declared by Pius XII to possess no office or authority whatsoever, because their ordinations and consecrations are null and void.

+ In seeking to inform their consciences on such matters, i.e., what to do when there is no pope and no certainly valid bishops or priests, those wishing to remain Catholic follow the unanimous opinion of theologians, which states:  When it comes to the Sacraments, (or matters which involve the necessary means to eternal salvation), one cannot use a probable opinion regarding their validity (see Dominic Prummer’s Handbook of Moral Theology,1957).

+ This is solidly based on the teaching of Bd. Pope Innocent XI (Denz. 1151). Theologians teach it is a mortal sin of temerity not to follow the unanimous opinion of the theologians (Fr. Sixtus Cartechini, S.J., The Church’s Theologiocal Notes or Qualifications, 1951).

+ In order to obey the Roman Pontiffs and their decrees, since it is necessary to salvation to be obedient to the Roman Pontiff (Denz. 469); and in order to avoid mortal sin, certain Catholics resolved to pray at home rather than engage in the schismatic and sacrilegious services of Traditionalists, for “Obedience is better than sacrifices.”

+ This can be best summed up by the following, taken from Life of the Blessed Virgin, by Rev. B. Rohner, O.S.B, Benziger Bros., 1897: “If you are deprived of the presence of your lawfully appointed teachers, then pray privately in your own house or in company of other faithful laity, to your divine Redeemer and ever Blessed Mother. In patience persevere in the faithful discharge of your duties till the dawn of better days in your Church affairs.”

+ This has been the practice of Catholics down through the ages, including the English during the persecutions following the Reformation, the Japanese in the 1600s, The French during the French Revolution, Americans without priests on the American frontier and those forbidden to practice their faith behind the Iron Curtain. It is not a novelty nor can it be condemned as forbidden by Traditionalists, who have no authority to command anyone to do anything.

+ Those who pray at home believe that the Head of their Church is Christ joined to all the popes and bishops in Heaven, and that they are members of His Mystical Body, as Catholics have always believed. They do NOT believe the Church Herself has ceased to exist since Pope Pius XII taught infallibly that She IS the Mystical Body. They accept the undeniable fact that we are without the visible hierarchy, at least for now. They believe the Church is still visible in Her physical (lay) members, is one in Her belief, is universal or Catholic in nature, (since there are those  praying at home all over the world); is holy in her doctrines and Her saints, and is apostolic in origin, doctrine, and mission.

Those praying at home perform their daily duties, have a daily prayer routine, practice mental prayer and engage in spiritual reading. They recite the Mass of St. John or the Spiritual Mass daily as well as on Sundays and holydays, they are usually involved in some service to the Church and in helping others to understand the faith, and they pray together for others. It is a very simple and peaceful life, undisturbed by the inevitable and perpetual strife that plagues those in the Novus Ordo and Traditional sects. Even when in the catacombs the early Christians had to be witnesses to their faith in performing their daily duties in the world; they worshipped in the catacombs but did not live there. So it is with those of us living in the virtual catacombs.

We wish only for others what we have experienced ourselves, that blessed peace which surpasseth all understanding. And we pray for the conversion of all sinners, Traditionalists and Novus Ordo members included.

What in the world…

This is a new feature where we will try to comment briefly on the latest developments in Traddie land and the world in general. This time around we will address the sudden clamor for the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

But didn’t we already do that in the 1950s, you might ask? Well some say yes, some say no. It was never done by Pope Pius XII as Sr. Lucia requested per Our Lady, or by the bishops of the whole world. On June 6, 1930, Sr. Lucia wrote to Rev. Jose Bernardo Gonzalves: “If I am not mistaken, the good Lord promises to end the persecution in Russia if the Holy Father will himself make a solemn act of reparation and consecration of Russia to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary as well as ordering all the bishops of the Catholic world to do the same. The Holy Father must then promise that upon the ending of this persecution he will approve and recommend the practice of the reparatory devotion already described” (the Five First Saturdays).  Pope Pius XII himself did consecrate Russia specifically to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1952, but even before it was done, Lucia had said to Fr. Gonzalves “He will do it, but it will be too late.” Yet some of the renditions of her letter read only: “It will be late.” So which is it?

Obviously it is the former, as we are seeing today. Our Lord also told Sr. Lucia that if the consecration was not done as requested, His ministers would suffer the same fate as the Kings of France — the last of those kings, Louis XVI was tortured and met his fate on the guillotine. Some believe Pope Pius XI died from poisoning by one of Mussolini’s agents, shortly before issuing a most important encyclical. It is our firm belief that Pope Pius XII also was tortured in various ways and was poisoned, not once, but twice. And after his death, just as in France, the papal monarchy fell. Sr. Lucy warned in a 1940 draft of a letter to Pope Pius XII that if the consecration was not performed, Our Lady announced that Russia “…would spread her errors throughout the world, and there would be wars, persecutions, of the holy Church, martyrdom of many Christians, several persecutions and sufferings reserved for your Holiness, and the annihilation of several nations,” all duly fulfilled. Now we see Russia threatening the world, and we wonder why.

Was the consecration done as required? The real Sr. Lucy reportedly died in 1949 (https://diesilli.com/some-questions/), so we will never know. Was prayer and penance, also sacrifices for sinners accomplished? Sr. Lucy replies in the negative. In an August 18, 1940 letter to Rev. Jose Bernardo Gonzalves Sr. Lucia wrote: “More than ever He needs souls that will give themselves to Him without reserve; and how small this number is!” In another letter she notes that “The number of souls He meets through sacrifice and intimate life of love is extremely small and limited.” As Joseph A. Pelletier writes in his The Sun Danced at Fatima, “We have known since 1917 the part of the Fatima message that needs to be known by everyone, namely that we should amend our lives and stop offending God, Who is already greatly offended. This is what we need to do to hasten the conversion of Russia and …eliminate the threat of atomic war.” And we know where the world has headed since then.

One thing no one seems to have considered here is a little-known message given to a holy woman by Our Lord at the same time the Fatima apparitions were taking place. This woman, a victim soul named Berthe Petit, was known to Pope St. Pius X. She had forwarded to him in 1914 the warning that Archduke Ferdinand would be assassinated, and that his assassination would ignite World War I. In a series of revelations once the war had begun, the Sacred Heart of Jesus guides Berthe, a Franciscan Tertiary, to petition Cardinal Bourne of England to consecrate his country to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary to end the war. Cardinal Bourne cooperated with Berthe’s request, with astonishing results. The same prayer was recited during World War II, and it halted the air attacks on Britain by the Germans, also marking the turn of the war in favor of the Allies. Our Lord told Berthe: “

“The calamities which I foretold are come to pass (World Wars I and II). Therefore it is time and it is my wish that the nations should turn to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of my mother… Recourse to my mother under the title I wish for her UNIVERSALLY is the last help I shall give before the end of time… It is as a Son that I have conceived this devotion for my mother; it is as God that I impose it.” During the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, Our Lady appeared as the Sorrowful Virgin. This was confirmed in a conversation the author John Haffert had with Sr. Lucy in 1946 (Russia Will Be Converted, p. 182). And yet there was never any discussion among the hierarchy — to the best of our knowledge — to add Our Lady’s title of Sorrowful to the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart. (Pope Pius XII, however, did issue a consecration prayer to the Immaculate Heart of Mary making three specific mentions of Our Lady’s Sorrowful Heart.)

And now, at the last hour, with Our Lady’s requests for prayer and sacrifices unfulfilled — in the absence of universal devotion to her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart — everyone wonders why Russia never converted?! Our Lady came to La Salette weeping to warn us that Rome would become the seat of Antichrist, and that prophecy was ridiculed and suppressed. Today even  Traditionalists are appealing to Rome and expect Antichrist to consecrate Russia to Our Lady and save us? More insanity! But then what else can we expect? As the prophet Isaias foretold:

“Behold the Lord shall lay waste the earth, and shall strip it, and shall afflict the face thereof, and scatter abroad the inhabitants thereof. And it shall be as with the people, so with the priest; and as with the servant, so with the master… With desolation shall the earth be laid waste and it shall be utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word. The earth mourned, and faded away, and is weakened: the world faded away, the height of the people of the earth is weakened. And the earth is infected by the inhabitants thereof: because they have transgressed the laws, they have changed the ordinance, they have broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore shall a curse devour the earth, and the inhabitants thereof shall sin; and therefore they that dwell therein shall be mad, and few men shall be left,” (Isa. 24: 1-6).

Epikeia use in papal mandate, necessity, a Gallicanist ruse

by T. Stanfill Benns | Feb 17, 2022 | New Blog

+St. Flavian, Bishop and Martyr+

Here is yet another example of how duplicitous Traditionalist pseudo-clergy truly are and how they continue to deceive what should have been the elect. We are talking here today about the quasi-legal rule of equity or epikeia they erroneously cite to justify their lack of papal mandate in consecrating bishops, as well as their operations over the decades in general. What is presented below doesn’t need much further explanation, since the dangers and inapplicability of epikeia as employed by Traditionalists has long been condemned in various articles on this site. Not only do these documents below forbid its “emergency” use, they show that the entire concept of applying epikeia in this way originated from heresies later condemned by the Church, and that the Church has identified it as harmful and destructive of her own teachings. Many thanks to the Spanish reader who located and translated these works!  Such contributions are invaluable and are much appreciated.

It may be useful here to further note that the case against these Traditionalists was long ago proven on this site using the laws and teachings of the Church. That so few have risen up against those who continue to profit from operating Traditional mass centers and other enterprises should be no surprise, seeing that only a tiny portion of the elect would be saved in these times. This we know from Christ’s remark that He would scarcely find faith on the earth when He returned. And if we examine Bible history, we see that it is not ordinarily those who believe they will be saved (by Mass and Sacraments they do not possess) but those who refuse to participate in false worship who are careful to obey all God’s laws and the laws of His Church. Thus the majority of the Jews were not saved, owing to idolatry and their rejection of Christ, and the majority of “Catholics” living during the 1960s who docilely accepted the Novus Ordo Missae abandoned Christ as well.

This is not to say that a certain number, Protestant, Novus Ordo and Traditionalist alike, may not be saved owing to invincible ignorance or baptism of desire. That is something only God can determine, as Pope Pius IX explains. But it is to say that those who have even the slightest doubt that what is said here could indeed be true have a strict obligation to investigate and inform their conscience. And there can be no childish whining and carrying on about the isolation involved in praying at home or the sacrifice of the social aspect of their present beliefs and practices! True lovers of Christ do not count the cost, when their Divine Redeemer was rejected by His own race, wounded in the house of those who were supposed to love Him, and died an agonizing death on the Cross to open the gates of Heaven for us. And this is not to mention all the many glorious saints and martyrs who gave their lives rather than violate one article of Faith. Listen to Bishop George Hay on this subject:

“For one to be in invincible ignorance it is required that he be sincerely resolved to embrace the truth wherever he may find it and whatever it may cost him.  For if he be not fully resolved to follow the will of God, wherever it shall appear to him, in all things necessary to salvation; if on the contrary, he be so disposed that he would rather neglect his duty and hazard his soul than correct an ill custom, or disoblige his friends, or expose himself to some temporal loss or disadvantage… such a disposition must be highly displeasing to God and an ignorance arising from it can never excuse him before his Creator… He must sincerely use his best endeavors to know his duty, and particularly that he recommend that matter earnestly to Almighty God, and pray for light and direction” (The Sincere Christian, 1787).

This is only what we have said all along. No amount of pleading or reasoning will win these folks over, but grace alone, something not within our power to grant. This does not, however, relieve us of the obligation to present all evidence we find that applies to our circumstances today. Now to the subject matter at hand.

A theologian condemns the use of Epikeia in papal mandate cases

Información sobre que los electos para obispos no pueden consagrarse ni tomar la possession de sus obispados sin que primero reciban las letras apostolicas de su Santidad

(Printed with the approval of many ecclesiastics of the times, listed in the introduction pages.)

35[…]Then the Bishop elected by His Majesty, finding his Church in need of a Bishop’s government, must regard the law of the Pope as harmful, which commands, under severe penalties, that bishops neither consecrate themselves nor take possession of their Bishoprics without Apostolic Letters presented, but who does not see that this proposition condemns the use and observance of all the Bishops of the Kingdom, who, presented by His Majesty, always await the Apostolic bulls, an end never to doubt, nor pass them by the thought, that the bulls and canons of His Holiness ceased to be contrary, and it was a harmful thing to keep them, since it has been seen in this Kingdom that the Bishops-elect wait for a longer time than the one that your lordship waited for, and even have died before consecrating him.

In addition, the King our Lord, as Patron of the Churches, asks and orders the bishop-elect, who wants to take charge of the government of the Church, so that he presents it, in the meantime that the Apostolic bulls are dispatched, for which he dispatches a cedula to the Chapter of the said Church, by way of request, and order, that they give the said bishop the government of the Church. Then your Majesty, and your most wise Council never recognize another way to enter possession of the Bishopric and consecrate yourself, as your Lordship says, which is expressly against the Patron of the churches of Peru, that by the mere presentation of yours, without Apostolic letters first seen and presented in his Council, cease the contrary Pontifical laws and the use of said Apostolic letters first, in said Council, and that if harmful, and pernicious, the provisions of the Supreme Pontiff, and by the Patron of the churches.

36. The second proposition that emerges as an evident consequence of the doctrine, which the Lord Bishop encourages in his favor, is that it would be harmful in some case the recognition that is due to the First Head, waiting after the presentation of his majesty, the fiat and confirmation of His Holiness.

If this proposition were true, as your honor thinks, from which it would follow there would be in the Church of God some Bishop, with full episcopal jurisdiction, who for reasons of little foundation, AND EPIKEIA (who say such recognition is harmful) exercised pontifical office in the particular Churches, an end that emanates from the first universal head, to whom it is incumbent to give particular Prelates, to the particular Dioceses.’

I am not going to lengthen in saying how bad this proposition sounds, nor in qualifying it. I only propose it simply, so that the learned, if they see some exaggerations of the Bishop and qualifications that he gives to the authors of the appearance that opposes him, understand, that those who gave their opinion, as sons of the Roman Church, and so forced to look for their Supreme Dignity, said the doctrine that supports it, without conferring the opposite. As the propositions are more than inferences or deductions, see the learned Vázquez … where with the vividness that usually treats a case, which by epikeia some Doctors, and well classics, wanted to exempt from a law established by the Pontiff, you put this argument in simili form, and it is called moral demonstration, as it truly is. [In other words, the proposition used by those promoting epikeia is not properly grounded in the proper scholastic form — Ed.]

37. Let us suppose that an elected Bishop, presented by His Majesty, having received the certificates of presentation, went to the Church, so that he would be presented as distant, as all those of Peru are, and in great need of a Bishop to govern it, owner, and that said Bishop who is distant, and with the need to consecrate it, and take possession of his Bishopric and that His Holiness in the interim, having made the consistories that are made for the confirmation of the Bishop, finds that he does not had to confirm, [have what is necessary for confirmation] and not confirm him; I wonder what it would be then? Would epikeia prevail? or the express will of the Pontiff? Because if epikeia prevailed, we should say that there may be episcopal jurisdiction in the Church of God, which does not emanate from the Supreme Head, against his express will. If the express will of His Holiness prevailed (as is certain to prevail), it would be evident that the express will of His Holiness had been kept, by fiat, and his confirmation, and that the reason of epikeia could not be used in said case.

38. Confirm the second, because if this reason of epikeia were established, in matters of Bishoprics, and episcopal jurisdiction, and in how due it is to insult the certain, and sure, and not doubtful, and debatable jurisdiction, that it could be used of epikeia, by necessity of the Churches, and distance from the Roman Curia; It could also be used, in that the presentation of His Majesty would not be necessary, and that without it a Bishop neighboring the Bishopric in need could consecrate for said Church, a simple priest, with the full power of Bishop, since whoever can in the most, as he does not keep confirmation of His Holiness, which is essential for the Bishops, they may at least, as is the presentation of His Majesty. And so if he can cease contrary to the Pontifical law, that an bishop is not, nor is the fiat of the Pope consecrated without him, and without Pontifical letters, which testify to it, the law of Pratonazgo may also cease contrary, that Bishop is not admitted, but it is with the presentation of his Majesty, with which it would reduce serious matter, and of the Supreme ones, which can be offered in the Church, to only epikeia.

https://books.google.es/books?id=KrG6ZwCy7HEC&printsec=frontcover&hl=es#v=onepage&q=37&f=false

The heretical origins of epikeia

 And this from Oresme’s Livre de Politiques and the France of Charles V

The above reads:

“Monarchies of the politics but attributed to papal monarchy power beyond that granted by Aristotle, combining in him the civil and military power separated by Aristotle. Furthermore the doctrine of equity of which Aristotle was a principal source could be applied to the Church as well as to the state to justify extraordinary action in times of emergency. William of Ockham used his threefold doctrine of equity and necessity and the commonweal to support the imposition of extraordinary taxes upon the clergy in times of war and the assembling of a general counsel without the consent with the Pope. Equity has been described as a magic word for conciliarists.

“These writers were not attempting to justify the existence of ecclesiastical government. Those supporters of this state might find in Aristotle a vindication of secular autonomy; his work offers little support for an ecclesiastical polity. But once the necessity of the church was accepted as it was by virtually all medieval writers, it could be treated like a state. Then Aristotle could be used not as a warrant for the existence of the church but to justify…

“Conrad of Gelnhausen said it is impossible for the general council to be held or celebrated without the authority of the Pope. But to convene such a council in the present case the authority of the Pope cannot step in because no single person is universally recognized as Pope nor is any individual generally obeyed as Pope. And if the council were to be convoked by the authority of the one or the other person now in question, he would in virtue of this be recognized as Pope and from this it is to be inferred that they cannot both authorize it because there cannot be more than one Supreme Pontiff.

“In other words, papal authority is necessary for the submitting of the council and such undisputed authority exists. It was in reply to this that both Langenstein and Gelnhausen urged the necessity of interpreting the Canon law, or as they said, of using epikeia. At first this took the form of discussing the passages of the Canon Law that seemed particularly intractable, so as to find out the intention of the legislator, and Gelnhausen takes certain texts or the “sollers et acutus epikeias” — the clever and shrewd interpreter displays his method and brings out the fact that necessity and reasonable and urgent cause demands the council. It was this argument that deeply impressed Gerson who has never tired of dwelling on the virtues of epikeia.

“(Gerson wrote): “The unity of the church does not demand in those that practice such equity or interpret positive law that they should have mathematical or demonstrated warrant for their action: It is enough if they can count upon moral or civil or political authority: the good exponent of equity considers all that particular circumstances which the legislator has not been able to foresee or express. Beholding them he looks to the end which might follow were he to observe the express letter of the law rigorously. If from his observation he finds at the end his liable to be noxious according to divine or eternal law and against the right intention of the legislators, he lays down that the law is to be interpreted in such and such a way or that for the present it must not be applied.”

(Conrad of Gelnhuasen and Henry of Langenstein were noted German theologians who followed Urban VI. Jean Gerson was a French theologian and later a follower of Benedict XIII. He was a good friend of the French Bishop Pierre d’Ailly.)

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia (1911): “Ockham’s attitude towards the established order in the Church and towards the recognized system of philosophy in the academic world of his day was one of protest. He has, indeed, been called ‘the first Protestant.’” The encyclopedia article goes on to relate that Ockham aligned himself with John of Jandun and Marsilius of Padua, both condemned heretics (DZ 495-500). Jean Gerson was a noted conciliarist, and the Gallicanist position professed by Gerson, d’Ailly, Ockham and others was later condemned by Popes Innocent XII and Pius VI, also the Vatican Council. This is the very heresy Traditionalists practice today, a heresy that makes bishops equal in power and supremacy to the pope and denies that the pope is at all necessary to constitute the Church. By claiming they perpetuate the Church as Christ constituted it without him, they deny the necessity of the papacy and the pope’s supreme authority, heresies condemned at the Vatican Council.

 Historian condemns the use of epikeia during the Western Schism

What follows below has been quoted elsewhere on this site, but only supports what is said above — that epikeia has been used before as a ruse to sidestep papal authority and put bishops alone in charge of the Church. Traditionalists go even further than the Gallicanists, however, who at least conceded a primacy of honor to the pope and did not go so far as to exclude him from the Apostolic College. And Traditionalists cannot claim, as the conciliarists could, that their ordinations and consecrations are certainly valid. To eliminate the pope entirely from the picture as Traditionalists have done would later be the professed goal of the Protestants and the Freemasons, two conspicuously interrelated groups. So Traditionalists actually have far more in common with those two entities than they do with anything even remotely Catholic.

The following is taken from the work of a medieval history lecturer, Walter Ullmannn who wrote in The Origins of the Great Schism, (1948):