He is risen, Alleluia! A Catholic poem on the Resurrection

by T. Stanfill Benns | Apr 18, 2025 | New Blog

 A Blessed Easter to all!

HE MADE US FREE

By Maurice Francis Egan

As flame streams upward, so my longing thought

Flies up with Thee,

Thou God and Saviour who hast truly wrought

Life out of death, and to us, loving, brought

A fresh, new world; and in Thy sweet chains caught.

And made us free!

As hyacinths make way from out the dark,

My soul awakes,

At thought of Thee, like sap beneath the bark;

As little violets in field and park

Rise to the trilling thrush and meadow-lark,

New hope it takes.

As thou goest upward through the nameless space

We call the sky,

Like jonquil perfume softly falls Thy grace;

It seems to touch and brighten every place;

Fresh flowers crown our wan and weary race,

O Thou on high.

Hadst Thou not risen, there would be no more joy

Upon earth’s sod;

Life would still be with us a wound or toy,

A cloud without the sun, — O Babe, O Boy,

A Man of Mother pure, with no alloy,

O risen God!

Thou, God and King, didst “mingle in the game,”

(Cease, all fears; cease!)

For love of us, — not to give Virgil’s fame

Or Croesus’ wealth, not to make well the lame,

Or save the sinner from deserved shame,

But for sweet Peace!

For peace, for joy, — not that the slave might lie in luxury,

Not that all woe from us should always fly,

Or golden crops with Syrian roses vie

In every field; but in Thy peace to die

And rise, — be free!

+Good Friday+

We all will be keeping Jesus company at the foot of the Cross this day, and so we end our quotes from Fr. Doyle below. May this day be for us one of solemn mourning and expressions of the most profound love for a man-God whose sacrifice on the Cross we can never repay.

Fr. Doyle’s Reflections on the Passion, Part 5

Gesthemani (cont’d):

As Christ ended His third prayer in the Garden of Gethsemani, He lay prostrate on the ground horribly shaken by the whole ordeal. The one thing He prayed for was not granted Him, but Holy Scripture relates that, “there appeared to him an angel from heaven to strengthen him” (Lk 22:43). It was an angel from heaven who announced to His mother Mary that she had been chosen to fulfill a creature’s greatest service to her God. When men refused the Son of God recognition on this earth, angels filled the skies to announce Him and sing His glories. When cruel men sought His life in infancy, an angel directed the Holy Family to the safety of Egypt. When He was tempted in the desert: “Behold angels came and ministered to him” (Mt. 4:11). Little wonder that when He was in agony in the Garden of Olives an angel should succor Him.

It is well to note that Christ’s prayer was not answered in the way he desired. He had prayed the first time that the chalice might pass from Him. It did not pass but His strength was increased. He prayed the second time for relief from His burden, but while the burden was increased His strength was augmented to match it. Christ prayed the third time, saying the selfsame words He had spoken on the two previous occasions. His agony did not cease but He found the courage “to pray the more earnestly” (Lk. 22:43). Learn from this that when God seems most deaf to our pleadings in prayer, He may prefer to make heroes of us. Be assured that in times of temptation, and trial, God’s angels will ever be at our side to comfort, encourage, and succor us.

Seize this occasion to bolster your devotion to the angels, and in a special way, to St. Michael. St. Alphonsus Liguori says: “Devotion to St. Michael is a sign of predestination.” In the year 1751, St. Michael appeared to an illustrious servant of God, Antonia d’Astonae, a Carmelite in Portugal. He expressed the wish that she should publish for his honor nine salutations corresponding to the nine choirs of angels. It was to consist of a Pater and three Aves in honor of each of the angelic hierarchies and then four Paters, the first in his honor, the second for the honor of St. Gabriel, the third for St. Raphael, and the last for the Guardian Angel. As a reward the glorious prince of the celestial court promised:

“Whoever would practice this devotion in his honor would have when approaching the Holy Table, an escort of nine angels chosen from each one of the nine choirs.” In addition, for the daily recital of these nine salutations he promised his “continual assistance and that of all the holy angels during life, and after death deliverance from purgatory for themselves and their relations.” In time of temptation call upon the holy angels and archangels to defend and protect you. Never let a day go by without a special petition to the heavenly choirs – especially your guardian angel.

In the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, our Blessed Lord’s body was bathed in light and His divinity burst through the frail human bonds that were united to it. In the Garden of Gethsemani, the human body of the Son of God was bathed in bloody sweat that rushed from every pore. Once the angel had strengthened our Lord, the transformation was amazing. From that moment on to the end of the Passion, we shall never see Him falter, for even one moment. He had strength for Himself and strength for all of those who came to Him or crossed His path.

Sleep now

The moment the third prayer was ended, Holy Scripture notes that Christ went to His disciples and said: “Sleep on now, and take your rest! It is enough; the hour has come” (Mk. 14:41). The time for watching was past. Christ had passed through His agony, and on his adorable face was the radiance of peace and the fire of zeal. No longer did He need the help or the sympathy which in vain He had sought in the darkness. He looked toward the city gate, and there was the traitor coming. There was neither need or use now for the disciples’ waking and watching, and they might as well sleep on. The lesson is plain. Whatever we do for our friends, we must do when they are in need of help. If one is sick, the time to show sympathy is while the illness continues. If we allow him to pass through this illness without showing him any attention, there is little use, when he is well again, for us to offer kindness.

When one of our friends is passing through some sore struggle with temptation, then is the time for us to come close to him and put the strength of our love under his weakness. Of what use is our help when the battle has been fought through to the end and won without us? Or suppose the friend was not victorious; that he failed – failed because no one came to help him, is there any use in our hurrying up to him then to offer assistance?

It was Ruskin who once wrote these words: “Such help as we can give to each other in this world is a debt we owe to each other; and the man who perceives superiority or a capacity in a subordinate, and neither confesses nor assists it, is not merely the withholder of kindness, but the committer of evil. If we are inclined to criticize the weakness of the Apostles in sleeping rather then comforting their Lord and their God in His hour of agony, do we not do a simulate deed when we withhold help and consolation from our neighbor. “As long as you did not do it for one of these least ones, you did not do it for me.” (Mt. 25:44). Let us always see Christ in our neighbor and this very day make a real effort to be a support, comfort, and defense of someone who needs our help – spiritual or temporal. Never let the sun set any day without having done one charitable act for a neighbor. Remember always these words of Holy Scripture: “that one’s neighbor should be loved as oneself is a greater thing than all the holocausts and sacrifices.

The ordeal of Gethsemani now over, our Blessed Lord walks with sort of a triumph toward His sleeping Apostles. Three times He had counseled them to pray, three times He had asked them to watch with Him and three times the Apostles had failed Him. Just anger had surged through Christ when He took a rope and drove the money-changers from the temple, because they dishonored His Father’s house. His closest friends who, a few short hours earlier, had received their first Holy Communion, had failed Him, and failed Him badly in His hour of need – surly He would have been justified had He upbraided them. But no. The gentle Christ walked over to where they took their rest, and simply said: “Rise, let us go” (Mk. 14:42). Oh, the hope springs up from those words!

Arise from sin

The disciples had failed sadly in one great duty – they had slept when the Master wanted them to watch with Him. They slept at their post. He had just told them that they might as well sleep on, so far as that service was concerned, for the time to render it was gone forever. Yet there were other duties before them, and Jesus calls them to arise and meet these. Because they had failed in one hour’s responsibility they must not sink down in despair. They must arouse themselves to meet the responsibilities that lay ahead of them.

What a consoling lesson for all of us. Because we have failed in one duty, or many duties, we must not give up in despair. Because a young man or woman has wasted youth, he or she must not therefore lose heart and think the loss of youth is irreparable. The golden years can never be recalled – the innocence, the beauty, the power may have slipped through our fingers – but why should we squander all because we squandered some? Because the morning has been thrown away, why should all the day be lost?

The lesson Christ taught at the end of His agony in Gethsemani is for all who have failed in any way. Christ ever calls to hope. He bids us rise again from the worst defeats. With Christ there is always margin enough to start again and build a noble life. Right down to the doorway of death there is time. Paul persecuted the Church, but died for it. The door of opportunity opened to the penitent thief on the cross in his dying hour. So it is always. In this world, blessed by divine love and grace, there is never the need to despair. The call after every defeat or failure still is, and always will be, “Rise, let us go.” Strive every day to make acts of faith, hope, and charity. Today let us beg for an increase of the virtue of hope.

When our Lord was saying to His Apostles: “Rise, let us go,” He added these painful words: ”He who will betray me is at hand” (Mk. 14:43). St. John gives us a few more details for he writes: “Now Judas, who betrayed Him, also knew the place, since Jesus had often met there together with his disciples, Judas, then, taking his cohort, and the attendants from the chief priests and Pharisees, came there with lanterns, and torches, and weapons” (Jn. 18: 2-4).

Judas the betrayer

The story of Judas is perhaps the saddest in all of the Bible. The Evangelists seem fascinated with that name Judas and when they have occasion to pen it, they call him either “Judas, one of the twelve” or “the traitor” or as we have seen St. John do, in the quote above, “Judas, who betrayed Him.” The thought that one of their number could stoop to such a villainous act inflicts them with a personal shame. Any way you look at it, the story of the betrayal shows new evil each time you read it. Going out from the supper table, Judas had hastened to the priests and was quickly on his way with a band of soldiers. He probably hurried back to the upper room, where he had left Jesus: not finding Him there, he knew well with the Master had gone, and hastened to the sacred place of prayer – Gethsemani – where Jesus had often retired for prayer.

Then in the manner in which he left the officers know which of the company was Jesus shows the deepest blackness of all. Under the guise of close friendship – Judas kissed Christ – with feigned warmth and affection. It would be salutary for each of us to remember always how the treason in the heart of Judas grew. In the beginning, it was greed and money, then followed theft and falseness of life, ending at last, in the blackest crime this world has ever seen. The fact that such a fall as that of Judas began with small infidelities which grew and grew into a heinous crime should teach us the danger of committing venial sins. The Holy Ghost warns us that “he that contemneth little things, shall fall by little and little” (Eccles. 19:1).

Betrayal begins with venial sins

A picture in the royal gallery of Brussels represents Judas wandering about in the night after the betrayal. He comes by chance upon the workmen who have been making the cross upon which Christ shall be crucified the next day. A fire nearby throws its full light on the faces of the workmen, who are sleeping peacefully, while resting from their labors. Judas’ face is somewhat in the shade, but it is wonderfully expressive of awful remorse and agony as he catches sight of the cross and the tools used to make it – the cross which his treachery made possible. Judas did not fall into one great sin, he began with lesser sins, and they paved the way to his great disaster.

St. John Chrysostom said this of venial sins: ”I maintain that the small sins require to be avoided with more care then the more grievous ones, for the grievous ones of their very nature stir up our attention against them; whereas, the lesser sins from the fact of their being insignificant in comparison, are not noticed.” The devil is so cunning. He knows he could not induce a virtuous person to fall onto great sin because of the horror it inspires. What does he do? He proposes a venial offense: now one, now another until he gets the soul into an evil habit, for he knows the end result. Satan knows Scripture too, and can prove it from what he has been able to accomplish by making persons desire at first, venially sinful things. Scripture says: “He that is unjust in that which is little will be unjust in that which is great” (Eccles. 19:1).

Pray earnestly today for grace to avoid venial sins. Examine your conscience daily on your commission of venial sins and resolve to do your earnest to avoid them. The kiss of Judas will ever remain the ultimate in base treachery. The name Judas has such a special odium that no one in his right mind would give that name to an infant. It is reserved for the foulest deed one can perform against a friend, a family, a nation, or a society. The act of kissing performed by Judas on the greatest Friend mankind ever had, beggars man’s power of description. Oh, horrible perfidy!

It is related in Holy Scripture that one of the general in David’s army named Joab perpetrated a foul deed, in that upon meeting Anasa, who also commanded an army, he stooped forward to kiss him and at that very moment thrust a dagger into his side and killed him. Solomon, David’s famous son, when he succeeded to the throne, had Joab slain for his treachery. Note how much more evil was Judas’ act of treachery than was Joab’s. Joab with a treacherous kiss murdered a fellow man; Judas by his kiss paved the way for the death of the Son of God. Joab on the other hand dispatched his victim in one quick thrust; Judas by his awful deed set the stage for the torture and painful death of his Lord and God.

It is related that when the assassins of Julius Caesar fell upon him with their daggers, the great conqueror of men and nations stood motionless, displaying not the slightest sign of emotion or fear. When Brutus, whom Caesar loved with the affection of a father, also approached and drew his dagger to strike his great benefactor, that blow caused Caesar more pain then all the other wounds, and he could not refrain from uttering the now famous words: “Thou too, Brutus, my son!” If Caesar was pained by the baneful treachery of his friend Brutus, how must the Son of God felt when one of His own disciples betrayed Him to His enemies by a kiss. Might the Master not have said: “You too, Judas, My son! Is this what I have merited for My kindness to you? Did I not choose you to be My follower, disciple, and apostles? Did I not wash your feet? Did I not give you My Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity as a food? Oh thankless, heartless Judas!”

Look into your heart today and see if you have even betrayed your Master by mortal sin. Each time you prefer creatures to Christ you betray Him.. Each time you choose sin to Christ’s law, you betray Him. Spend some time today quietly thinking over the picture of Judas pressing his lips to those of the sinless Christ. If you identify yourself in Judas, throw yourself quickly into the arms of your God and beg His pardon.

We noted in our last consideration that daggers were used to murder Julius Caesar. The effect was just as tragic as if the murders had used swords. The smallness of the instrument did not lessen the effects. In like manner, it must be said of Judas that he did not lay violent hands on Christ when he met Him in the Garden of Olives. No, he did not seize or strike the Sacred Redeemer – he simply kissed Him, but that kiss was more tragic than if he had thrust a sword into the Sacred Heart of Christ.

Christ had been kissed before, but my, how different were the circumstances and results! First, there were the kisses of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph. Who can number the fond caresses that Mary must have showered on the Infant Jesus as she nurtured and fondled Him in her pure maternal arms? How often must not St. Joseph have covered the Infant Countenance with tender paternal affection? Second, may we not conjecture that the Magi embraced the tiny Infant as Mary formally presented the Infant God to the first of the Gentiles who came to pay Him homage? Certainly, the act would be normal if not imperative.

Third, it can hardly be imagined that the Holy Simeon and Anna present at the presentation in the temple, could have held the adorable Child of promise in their arms and not pressed their holy lips to the pink little hands of the long-sought Messias. Fourth, we are certain from the text of Holy Scripture itself that the public sinner Mary Magdalen imprinted the kiss of contrite sorrow on the sacred feet of Christ, and arose from the encounter holier and greater then when she stooped to embrace her God.

Fifth, we are told that the great St. John the beloved disciple rested his youthful head on the breast of the Master at the Last Supper. There is a Persian fable of a piece clay made fragrant by lying on a rose: the perfume of the rose passed into the clay. So it was with John. He crept unto the bosom of the Master and his Master’s spirit of love and gentleness passed into his life and transformed it. Last, we have the awful picture of Judas pressing his lips to those of the Son of God, feigning friendship.

The lesson here is powerful. Those who approached Christ in love and veneration, in true penance and firm resolve, left His embrace renewed and strengthened. Those like Judas, whose hearts are turned toward evil, may be very near Christ and not be holy in character. Judas was three years with Christ, heard His words, lived in the atmosphere of His love and remained unchanged. An empty bottle, hermetically sealed, may lie long in the ocean and continue to be dry within. A heart sealed to Christ’s love may rest on His bosom for years and not be blessed. Only when pure or contrite heart is opened to receive His grace, does closeness to Him sanctify.

Jews not guilty of ritual murder charge, popes teach

by T. Stanfill Benns | Apr 10, 2025 | New Blog

+Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin Mary+

Fr. Doyle’s Reflections on the Passion, Part 5

Gesthemani (cont’d):

It is right for us to plead earnestly for what we want – earnestly, perseveringly, but never insubmissively. We should recognize that God will not give us what will do more harm than good. Many of us have lived long enough to thank God that He did not give us what we asked in prayer in every instance. The best thing possible for us is always what God wills for us. Sometimes it may be pain, worldly loss, or some bereavement; yet His will is always love, and in simple acquiescence to God’s will, we shall always find our highest good. No prayer, therefore, is pleasing to God which does not end with the refrain of Gethsemani: “Not my will but Thine be done.”

This is the way to peace, for as we yield with love and joy, and merge our will with God’s His peace will flow like a river into our souls. Resolve that each time today you hear a clock strike the hour, you will say reverently, “Not my will but Thine be done.” Christ prayed three times in the Garden of Olives. After each prayer was finished, and the words of those three prayers, by the way, were nearly identical, the Master went back to His Apostles, and in each instance He found them asleep. Between the first and second sessions of prayer our Lord uttered a powerful warning, for He said to the drowsy disciples: “Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mt. 26:41).

“Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation” is a powerful warning that no man should disregard. In wartime it is not unusual to find a soldier court-martialed and summarily executed for falling asleep at his post. Life is a constant warfare against the legions of hell, and we must be ever watchful against sudden attacks from the enemy. But to watch alone is not enough. A sentinel posted on the walls, when he perceives the enemy gathering for an attack, would be foolhardy indeed, to presume to engage the enemy singlehanded. The wise soldier would send word to his commanding officer of the enemy’s approach. Watchfulness lies in observing the imminent approach of the enemy and prayer is the telling of it to God. Watchfulness without prayer is presumption, and prayer without watchfulness is a mockery.

The great Abbot John remarked that a man who is asleep at the foot of a tree and sees a wild animal coming toward him, will most certainly climb up into the tree to save himself. “So we,” says the Abbot, “when we perceive ourselves beset with temptations, ought to climb up to heaven and by the help of prayer, retire safely into the bosom of God.”

The saints have taught that short prayers are more effective in time of temptation. St. Athanasius, for instance, taught that the opening phrase of the sixty-seventh psalm produced miraculous effects for those who used it in time of temptation. Here are the words: “Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered, and let those that hate Him fly before His face.” Note well, that our Lord did not tell His disciples to be relieved of temptation altogether, but rather that they “enter not into temptation.” God tempts no man, but He permits us to be tempted so to prove ourselves. “Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been tried, he will receive the crown of life” (James 1:12). St. Bernard, explaining these inspired words of St. James, says: “it is necessary that temptations should happen, for who shall be crowned but he that shall lawfully have fought, and how shall a man fight, if there be none to attack him?”

Be undeceived – position, piety, or experience will not spare you temptations. Adam fell when he was in the state of grace and Peter fell soon after his first Holy Communion. Resolve today to make use of the holy names of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in the very outset of temptation. Try to commit the first sentence of the Psalm 67 to heart and promise yourself to make use of it as soon as you discern the approach of any temptation. (End of Fr. Doyle quote)

Introduction

In response to the Anti-Semitism booklet posted in a previous blog, it appears that certain bloggers frequented by LibTrads have increased postings condemning the Jews this Lenten season. These postings insinuate that the Church actually accepted Jewish ritual murder charges as true, when such charges were long ago refuted and condemned by the popes. The 1944 Antisemitism booklet explains this in no uncertain terms, and it cannot be brushed off as an already existing tendency to make concessions to the Jews at the false Vatican 2 council. Rev. Riley wrote in his booklet:

“The Popes courageously and in face of general popular antagonism have defended the Jews against calumnious accusations, notably of ritual murder, of ritual profanation of consecrated hosts and of the poisoning of wells at the time of the Black Death. The two calumnies, ritual murder and ritual profanation, still reappear, occasionally under, the names of estimable men, despite their repeated designation as vicious calumnies by Popes. This protecting charity amid wise administrative procedures has been the official tradition of the Church.”

I wish to be clear on this: I do not absolve the Jews of Christ’s time and those applauding them today of guilt in Christ’s death. The Jewish leaders in Christ’s day were definitely responsible for His Crucifixion and death. They cursed their descendants by calling down Christ’s blood upon them. But who those actual descendants are today is the real question. Certainly it is not the Ashkenazi Jews who only converted to Judaism at a later date. The Jewish convert David Goldstein and secular historians conclude that Jewish blood has been so diluted over the centuries, that Jews no longer exist as a race. As will be seen below, most Jews consider themselves such only culturally, not from a religious or racial standpoint. Orthodox and Zionist Jews comprise only a small portion of that group.

That ritual murder is indeed a calumny condemned by the popes is proven by the extensive quotes from papal documents below. But first, a sampling of what is falsely being presented — without any mention of the Church’s position — on other sites.

Fisheaters site

“[Blood Passover is] a book written by Professor Ariel Toaff — son of the Chief Rabbi of Rome, and a professor of Jewish Renaissance and Medieval History at Bar-Ilan University in Israel — about the reality behind so-called “blood libel” allegations made against some Jews during the Middle Ages. This book was published in Hebrew, in Israel, but when translated into other languages, outrage ensued. Threats were made against the writer’s life, demands were made that he be fired from his teaching post, and all copies of the book disappeared from bookstores, deliveries of the book were disrupted, etc., and it’s virtually unavailable to read in print in any language but Hebrew. So here it is, in spite of the actions and threats of those who don’t want you to read it.”

The extensive book list regarding the Jews on this site includes numerous works by perennialist E. Michael Jones, four volumes by British Israel proponent Henry Ford, Saenz/Pinay’s The Plot Against the Church, Elizabeth Dilling’s The Jewish Religion, (an Aryan nation favorite), and other questionable works. Not one papal document regarding the Jews is mentioned on this list. A disclaimer to this list does state the following: “Before going further, I want it to be made very clear — radically clear, excruciatingly clear: racism has no place whatsoever in a Catholic’s heart or mind. The information here is about Jewish leadership and the Jewish religion; it is not about every single human being born of a Jewish mother, “the Jews” as an ethnic group, or “the Jews” as a “race.” Racism — any idea that one race is more beloved by God or is more deserving of respect and charity than another race — has no place in a Catholic’s heart. None whatsoever. Nazism, “white supremacy,” and other similar ideologies are evil and toxic and in no way compatible with Catholicism.” But the books listed as authoritative seem to call this disclaimer into doubt.

Tradition in Action

This site lists several articles on Judaism, including a lengthy review of Toaff’s work. In his Toaff review, Atila S. Guimarães concludes that the Jews were indeed guilty of ritual murder.

The Thinking Housewife

Numerous recent articles have been posted at this site on the topic of ritual murder (blood libel) with a quote from Toaff. There is no mention of papal teaching on this topic that I was able to discover. Some 22 pages are listed in the search function featuring articles on the Jews. From a 2015 post on this site we read from Laura Wood: “At the time, I didn’t think much of the comment by the Jewish lawyer. But my thinking on this issue has changed, especially over the last two years after a lot of hard, time-consuming study. I am grateful to the many authors, especially Dr. E. Michael Jones, Michael Hoffmann III, the Rev. Denis Fahey and Hugh Akins, who have written powerfully and persuasively on this topic.” Wood has since disassociated herself from the perennialist E. Michael Jones, as explained in a recent blog post comment. Study might ostensibly include secular sources, but it had better be rooted in theological sources. Fahey is one, but he certainly cannot rival what the popes teach.

Rev. Fahey mentions the matter of ritual murder in his The Mystical Body of Christ and the Reorganization of Society, (pgs. 191-192). He states in a footnote that, “There are official documents of the Catholic Church unfavorable to the Jews in this matter,” but fails to quote from the actual documents of the popes. He cites St. Simon of Trent’s feast as March 25, (celebrated with another child martyr attributed to ritual murder, St. Wiliam of Norwich), as entered into the Roman Martyrology. In commenting on these feasts and others, Rev. Alban Butler wrote: “It is a notorious slander of some authors who, from these singular and extraordinary instances, infer this to have been at any time the custom or maxim of that people.” Commenting on Butler’s statement, Rev. Herbert Thurston and his assistant wrote:

“Butler’s protest is certainly well founded. No scrap of serious evidence has ever been adduced which would show that the use of Christian blood formed any part of Jewish ritual. It is possible that such child murders may occasionally have been committed by Jewish maniacs or as an act of private vengeance or by necromancers who wished to use the blood for some magical rite. Moreover if we confine our attention to the two martyrs here in question, there is no conclusive evidence that — confessions under torture being worthless — the guilt was brought home to those who were really the culprits,” (The Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, March, Vol. III, Corrected, Amplified and Edited by Herbert Thurston, S.J. and Norah Leeson, Burnes, Oates and Washbourne, 1931).

Other sites; Quas Primas

Catholic Family News, in the Spirit of Chartres (ISOC), Tradition Family and Property, The Remnant, CultureWars, the Society of St. Pius X and its publications, (and in the past, the publication Veritas) — all at various times have indicated that the Jews were the primary coordinators of Vatican 2 and are responsible for the Church’s ultimate destruction. That the Jews played a role in this is a matter of history, certainly. That they also help direct Freemasonry at the top is not disputed here, but the key word is “help.” As pointed out many times, this emphasis on Jews as the cause of all the Church’s (and for that matter the world’s) woes is a classic case of projection to avoid addressing the real problem: We were betrayed by our own Modernist hierarchy, and those acting as clergy today are not validly ordained or consecrated. Antichrist has reigned and his system continues in the Novus Ordo usurpers.  We are enduring the Passion of the Church, the loss of the Mass and Sacraments, which can only end in Our Lord’s Second Coming.  This is the inconvenient and terrifying truth from which they wish to escape.

There are those who claim that in insisting on the proper attitude we as Catholics must take toward the Jews, we lose sight of the fact that we must also defend the rights of Christ as King. They cite Pope Pius XI’s 1925 encyclical Quas Primas, establishing the Feast of Christ the King for this, but forget the words of the encyclical: “When the populace thronged around Him in admiration and would have acclaimed him King, He shrank from the honor and sought safety in flight. Before the Roman magistrate He declared that his kingdom was not of this world… . “With God and Jesus Christ,” we said [in Urbi Arcano], “excluded from political life, with authority derived not from God but from man, the very basis of that authority has been taken away, because the chief reason of the distinction between ruler and subject has been eliminated. The result is that human society is tottering to its fall, because it has no longer a secure and solid foundation.”

And human society is no longer tottering; it has fallen. As St. Paul predicted, the final representation of Christ’s authority as King — the Roman Pontiff — was forcibly removed by those of His own house, the cardinals and bishops, and Christ was betrayed once again. How any of those presenting as “Catholic” can pretend that Christ’s reign as King can be accomplished now with His Church in ruins is beyond me. And yet Christ will establish His kingdom on earth, just as Holy Scripture foretells, for as Quas Primas also teaches, “He whom St. John calls the “prince of the kings of the earth” appears in the Apostle’s vision of the future as he who “hath on his garment and on his thigh written ‘King of kings and Lord of lords!’.” It is Christ whom the Father “hath appointed heir of all things”; “for he must reign until at the end of the world he hath put all his enemies under the feet of God and the Father.”  He WILL reign as the King of Zion, displacing the false Jewish messiah and vindicating those who still love and serve him.

What is totally lacking here is a correct understanding of the Church’s own teaching on this matter, which is presented below.

Ritual murder charges

From the Catholic Encyclopedia

[The death of St. William of Norwich]… has been well named “one of the most notable and disastrous lies of history”. The story is the foundation of the blood accusation or accusation of ritual murder against the Jews, which has found currency and gained popular credence from that date to the present day. In the “Jewish Encyclopedia”, III, 266, may be found a list of the cases of this ritual murder, beginning with William of Norwich. There are 5 other cases given for the twelfth century, 15 for the thirteenth, 10 for the fourteenth, 16 for the fifteenth, 13 for the sixteenth, 8 for the seventeenth, 15 for the eighteenth, and 39 for the nineteenth, going right up to the year 1900. There have been more recent cases still in Eastern Europe.

Ritual murder as a Jewish institution has been learnedly and conclusively disproved, e.g. by Strack, op. cit. below, and in the case of St. William the evidence is totally insufficient. It seems, however, quite possible that in some cases at least the deaths of these victims were due to rough usage or even deliberate murder on the part of Jews and that some may actually have been slain in odium fidei. In this connection we may notice the first case of all, and the only one before St. William, in which Jews are known to have been accused of murdering a Christian child. In 415 at Inmestar in Syria some Jews in a drunken frolic killed a Christian child in mockery of the death of Christ (Socrates, VII, xvi). Many popes have either directly or indirectly condemned the blood accusation, and NO POPE HAS EVER SANCTIONED IT (Strack, op. cit., 177 and v. Strack’s work, The Jew and Human Sacrifice, is available at www.archive.org).

Massimo Introvigne quoting Strack and various popes

What popes are referenced here? A work by Novus Ordo author and attorney Massimo Introvigne, sheds much light on the history of the blood libel accusation. The popes mentioned by this author begin with Innocent IV, who in 1247 issued a series of bulls and briefs condemning the execution of 34 Jews in Fulda Germany, who, it was said, “killed five boys and burned their blood in a magical ritual… The Pope forbade “to accuse any Jew of using human blood in their rites, since it is clear in the Old Testament that it is forbidden to them to consume any blood, let alone the blood of humans” (published in Strack 1909, 254). Twelve years after the first executions, Rome promptly declared the blood libel myth as illogical and false…

“Pope Gregory X (1210-1276, revered as Blessed Gregory X by Catholics after 1713) publish[ed] an even stronger bull on October 7, 1272. There, he threatened to excommunicate “those who very falsely (falsissime) insist that the Jews kidnap Christian children and make a ritual use of their hearts and blood, since their law in fact strictly forbids any Jew to drink blood, including from animals. We do order that any Jew jailed for this foolish accusation be freed immediately, and that in the future no Jew be incarcerated for such foolish accusation, except in the case, which we do not believe to be possible (quod non credimus), of being caught committing this very offence” (published in Strack 1909, 255-256)…

Pope Nicolas V (1397-1455) had published a bull dated November 2, 1447, where he “prohibited in the strictest way” spreading blood libel accusations and fulminated against “some who try to make Jews odious to Christians by daring to spread false rumours about the Jews, accusing them to celebrate their rites.” And Pope Martin V (1368-1431)… condemn[ed] anybody ‘claiming, with false pretexts and arguments (fictis occasionibus et coloribus) that Jews mix Christian blood to their bread for Easter…. Pope Paul III (1468-1549)… concluded that “those accusing the Jews of drinking the blood of children are blinded by avarice and only want to rob [them of] their money” (published in Strack 1909, 258).’”

Introvigne then relates that Pope Benedict XIV later commissioned a study by the Holy Office, which was conducted by the Franciscan bishop and cardinal, Lorenzo Ganganelli, (later to become Pope Clement XIV). Pope Clement XIII approved the investigation, which stated “that it is impossible, according to their history and theology, for Jews to even conceive of drinking human blood or mixing it with bread or other food.”

Rev. Denis Fahey quotes the following from Cardinal Ganganelli’s report: “Cardinal Ganganelli sets aside a number of accusations of ritual murder as not sufficiently supported by proofs but he accepts two cases. He writes in his report: “I admit as true the case of Blessed Simon, a child of three years, put to death by the Jews at Trent in 1475 out of hatred for the faith of Jesus Christ, though that murder has been denied by Basnage and Wagenseil. I admit also as true a second murder which took place in 1462 in the village of Rinn, in the Diocese of Brixen. Blessed Andrew a little child was there cruelly done to death by the Jews out of hatred for the faith of Jesus Christ.” But ritual murder is not specifically mentioned.

Merry Cardinal del Val was asked to submit documentation in a Kiev case in 1911, involving the Lithuanian priest, Iustinas Pranaitis (1861-1917),

The matter of Pope Benedict XIV beatifying Simon of Trent and Andrei of Fulda, and later popes confirming this, is constantly offered as proof that ritual murder charges were admitted to by the popes. But we find this explanation in the January 1914 edition of the Jesuit publication, The Month:

“We cannot refrain from entering a protest against the extraordinary perversity with which so many anti-Semitist journalists — not a few of them, we are sorry to say, Catholics — persist in thinking evil of their Jewish fellow-countrymen… The one argument which is appealed to by all the accusers, and which is supposed to settle the question, is the allegation that “the Church has canonized as a martyr the boy, holy Simon of Trent, murdered in that city on the occasion of the Jewish Easter in the year 1475.” Even supposing this were true, it proves nothing regarding the practices of the Jewish religion. No one denies that Jews may have killed a particular Christian boy out of hatred for the faith, and that such a  victim may lawfully be honoured as a martyr. But the unqualified statement that the Church has canonized little Simon of Trent illustrates nothing so much as the weakness of the cause it is adduced to support. It is simply untrue to say that the Church has canonized little Simon of Trent. A decree of beatification was issued by Sixtus V, which took the form simply of a confirmation of cultus and which allowed a Mass to be said locally in honour of the boy martyr. Everyone knows that beatification differs from canonization in this, that in the former case the infallibility of the Holy See is not involved, in the latter it is. Be this as it may, Pope Sixtus was careful not to say that little Simon had been put to  death with any ritual purpose, and he did not even emphasize the point that the child had been martyred by the Jews.”

Introvigne, commenting on this, explains that “In 1753 Pope Benedict XIV (1675-1758), ironically a Pope who did much to fight the blood libel, confirmed the local cult of ‘Blessed Andreas.’ For several centuries, cults practiced locally for many years were simply “confirmed” by Popes as a matter of routine. Denying confirmation would have hurt local sensitivities, and there was no beatification process complete with a historical investigation as it happens today.” So why are these things never investigated and explained?

As for the Toaff work listed at Fisheaters and elsewhere, Introvigne writes that Toaff withdrew his book after it was pointed out to him that he had based one of his major examples of blood libel on the testimony of “dozens“ of Jews who confessed under torture, proofs not considered as reliable by credible scholars. An interesting account in Toaff’s work, however, accredits ritual murder to a secret Ashkenazi cult, which certainly could not be laid at the door of Jews in general. Introvigne notes further: “…Some conservative clergymen befriended by Pius X, including Monsignor Umberto Benigni (1844-1932), did propagate the blood libel, although in a last incarnation of the myth they attributed the ritual sacrifice and blood-drinking to a secret Jewish Kabbalistic cult whose existence was unknown to the majority of common Jews.” This cult easily fits the description of radical Orthodox Jews guiding the Illuminati at the top of the Masonic pyramid, which is further suggested below. But it does not indict them of ritual murder.

Jews are such primarily by way of culture today

Research shows the majority of Jews consider themselves such in ethnicity, but not primarily in religion. Most Jews who consider themselves superior to the rest of mankind do so because they believe they are still “the Chosen People.” But this does not necessarily involve the hateful anti-Christian invective spewed by certain Orthodox Jews, who are guilty of forcefully teaching and believing the stringent application of Talmudic precepts. For as seen below, the Orthodox Jews constitute only a small but fervent and vocal minority. So it seems most unfair to lump the rest of those identifying as Jewish in with a small fanatical faction and represent them all as professing the same beliefs.

“Approximately 5.8 million adults (2.4% of all U.S. adults) [are] Jewish” according to a 2021 Pew Research report (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/the-size-of-the-u-s-jewish-population/The rest of this section is taken from a Pew report issued in 2020). “This includes 4.2 million (1.7%) who identify as Jewish by religion and 1.5 million Jews of no religion… Religion is not central to the lives of most U.S. Jews. Even Jews by religion are much less likely than Christian adults to consider religion to be very important in their lives (28% vs. 57%). And among Jews as a whole, far more report that they find meaning in spending time with their families or friends, engaging with arts and literature, being outdoors, and pursuing their education or careers than find meaning in their religious faith. Twice as many Jewish Americans say they derive a great deal of meaning and fulfillment from spending time with pets as say the same about their religion…” And only 9% of that 2.4% identify as Orthodox, those most likely to take their religion seriously and practice it.

“Compared either with U.S. Christians or with the adult public overall, U.S. Jews are far less likely to say that religion is important in their lives. However, Orthodox Jews rank among the most religiously devout subgroups in the country by this measure;… Among Jews who are neither synagogue members themselves nor live in a household where anyone else belongs to a synagogue, 47% do not identify with any institutional branch or stream of Judaism. More than half of U.S. Jews identify with the Reform (37%) or Conservative (17%) movements, while about one-in-ten (9%) identify with Orthodox Judaism. One-third of Jews (32%) do not identify with any particular Jewish denomination… Nearly half of U.S. Jews say religion is either “very” (21%) or “somewhat” (26%) important in their lives, while 53% say religion is “not too” or “not at all” important to them personally… Religion is more important to Jewish women, on average, than to Jewish men.” Most Jews are deeply worried about Anti-Semitism, the report states (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-identity-and-belief/).

Conclusion

If a secret cabal of Jews engineered the demise of the Church, they were scarcely alone in this endeavor. They had plenty of help from apostates and occult heretics within the Catholic hierarchy. Such a cabal certainly is not representative of most Jews, only a certain minority. So why stir readers up against the Jewish people as a whole when they don’t even seem particularly interested in practicing the Jewish religion? By way of comparison, 62 percent of the U.S. population identify as “Christian.” The Jews are therefore outnumbered many times over. Yet the more things change, the more they remain the same: “The extraordinary perversity with which so many anti-Semitist journalists — not a few of them, we are sorry to say, Catholics — persist in thinking evil of their Jewish fellow-countrymen…” (quoted from The Month article above).  And if they did this when there were still true popes reigning, popes sympathetic to the plight of the Jews before and during World War II, what would stop them today?

All we have left of our Church is the doctrines she taught prior to the hostile takeover by the usurpers following Pope Pius XII’s death. Even papal opinions, Pope Leo XIII teaches, must be adopted as our own: “If, in the difficult times in which our lot is cast, Catholics will give ear to Us, as it behooves them to do, they will readily see what are the duties of each one IN MATTERS OF OPINION AS WELL AS ACTION (quae sua cuiusque sint tam in opinionibus quam in factis officia). As regards opinion, whatever the Roman Pontiffs have hitherto taught, or shall hereafter teach, must be held with a firm grasp of mind, and so often as occasion requires, must be openly professed. Especially with reference to the so-called “liberties” which are so greatly coveted in these days, all must stand by the judgment of the Apostolic See and have the same mind” (oportet Apostolicae Sedis stare iudicio, et quod ipsa senserit, idem sentire singulos, Immortale Dei, DZ 1880).

We have presented papal teaching on ritual murder here because regardless of the loss of the papacy — regardless of the prejudice generated on this subject by men such as the professed Mason Saenz-Arriaga and his The Plot Against the Church, also others like him — we cannot adopt the opinion popular among Traditionalists today regarding the Jews. As Catholics, we can only adopt that opinion of the Vicar of Christ sent to rule in His stead as King, until He comes. This is the bounden duty we owe Christ as King.

Los TECOS reveal: proof Sede “clergy” were sworn Masons

by T. Stanfill Benns | Apr 3, 2025 | New Blog

+Fourth Thursday in Lent+

Prayer Society Intention for April, Month of the Holy Ghost

“O Holy Ghost, Creator, mercifully assist Thy Catholic Church, and by Thy heavenly power strengthen and establish her against the assaults of all Her enemies.” (Raccolta)

Fr. Doyle’s Reflections on the Passion, Part 4

Gesthemani (cont’d):

“…Our Lord goes back a second time to pray. This time He is even more alone than before. He prays to His heavenly Father, and His heavenly Father turns a deaf ear to His petition. His Apostles are sleeping again, and yet He prays alone. He is now in a state of supreme desolation and yet He prays. He is in a state of complete dereliction but He prays on. Learn from this lesson to pray even under the most adverse circumstances.

Consider the fact that Christ persevered in His prayer. Already He prayed to His Father saying: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from Me” (Mt. 26:30).The second prayer of our Lord was a repetition of the first, for He said: “My Father, if this cup cannot pass away unless I drink it, Thy will be done” (Mt.26:42).

The third prayer was couched in the same words – a prayer more fervent, more earnest then any uttered by any man who ever lived on this earth – yet His Father, it seemed, did not listen to His petition. Christ did not grow impatient, He calmly and resignedly adds: “Not My will but Thine be done” (Lk. 22:42).

What a great lesson in this for all of us! If the Son of God must plead three times for the fulfillment of His prayer, and does so without a trace of bitterness, why are we so depressed when our prayers are not immediately answered? St. Monica prayed for eighteen years for her son Augustine’s conversion, but how richly her perseverance was rewarded. “We wait a whole year,” says St. Francis de Sales, “before the seed we sow in the ground bears fruit; and are we more impatient in regard to the fruits of our prayers?”

There is great consolation for all of us in the refusal of the Father to hear the petition of His adorable son. God the Father refused the most perfect, the most precious prayer ever uttered on this earth – but he did so to prove His love for sinful man. For the sake of sinful man He will not answer the prayer of His own Son, because had God acted otherwise, we would have all been lost. See the reason behind God’s refusal to answer our prayers – He always has the greater good in view: From now on, never complain if your prayers are unanswered. Just keep right on praying. Say your rosary today for the grace of perseverance

Our consideration of the triple prayer of our Blessed Lord in the Garden of Olives should have convinced us of the merit and necessity of continued prayer when we are afraid, downcast, depressed, tempted, or forsaken.

There were numerous other occasions when Christ addressed His petitions to His eternal Father and the response was immediate. The raising of Lazarus is a case in point. In the Garden of Olives, however, the Master prayed three times and His prayer was unanswered. We have seen that had God the Father answered Christ’s prayer and “let the cup pass away” from Him, the world might not have been redeemed. When God does not answer prayer, it is for the greater good.

In the Old Testament we read that the prophet Elias, when he asked God to confound the pagan prophets of Baal by a miracle, hardly had spoken his prayer when a miraculous fire came down from heaven and consumed a holocaust set on the altar, and even burned water in the trench. When the same prophet Elias prayed for rain for God’s people, he had to repeat his prayer not once, twice, or three times, but seven times (Kings 18:44).When God refuses to answer prayer it is for a greater good. When He delays the answer, it is to put the endurance of the suppliant to a test.

The Jews in Bethulia prayed all night, desiring the help of the God of Israel when Holofernes besieged their city, but the more they prayed, the more desperate the situation appeared. Yet they persevered, and God sent them a deliverer in Judith. Another important lesson which we can learn from our Lord’s prayer in Gethsemani is this, that all our petitions to God should close with an acquiescence to the divine will. Hear our Lord say in the depths of His agony – “Not my will but thine be done” (Lk. 22:42)” — (end of Fr. Doyle quotes).

Introduction

“… His Apostles are sleeping again” (Fr. Doyle).  Even though it has been proven that LibTrad pseudo-clergy were never valid (see VAS article HERE) and that the entire Traditionalist movement was only the continuation of Masonic infiltration to seduce the remaining faithful, some continue to sleep and others stubbornly refuse to believe. A recent discovery below offers further proofs of the Masonic origins of ALL LIB-TRAD SECTS and explains why so many among these sects are anti-Semitic in their views, despite the condemnations of the Roman Pontiffs. Owing to the Nazi persecution, Popes Pius XI and Pius XII bound Catholics to refrain from hatred of the Jews for their part in Christ’s death, and by word and example taught us what our attitude toward them should be.

The CMRI pseudo-bishop Mark Pivarunas, (“consecrated” by the Mexican Thuc bishop Moises Carmona), received an official letter on March 1, 2024, confirming the Masonic origins of the priests serving Traditionalists in Mexico. This jaw-dropping revelation from one of Pivarunas own “priests” seems not to have been addressed by Pivarunas publicly, as a search of the CMRI site shows no mention of the organization, (Los TECOS), in question. While the letter does date the existence of Los TECOS to the early 1900s, it fails to mention that this sect was well known to Fr. Joaquin Saenz y Arriaga, the founder of sedevacantism, who served as chaplain for the group in the 1950s-60s. The translator of one of Arriaga’s works, The New Montinian Church, was quoted in the article HERE, describing Arriaga as a member of yet another secret society common to Traditionalists, this one better geared to the Caucasian population: the Sovereign Order of St. John, Knights of Jerusalem (OSJ).

Wikipedia says under sedevacantism: “The earliest example [of sedevacantism] is from a group of traditionalist Catholics in Mexico associated with the radical right secret society Los TECOS based in Guadalajara, in particular their spiritual director, Fr. Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga, a Jesuit priest, the main figure associated with presenting this. In 1965, at a private meeting in the house of Anacleto González Guerrero (son of the Cristero martyr Anacleto González Flores), Los TECOS leaders proposed the motion that Paul VI (Giovanni Montini) was a crypto-Jew and an illegitimate Pope, that this line should be officially adopted as the position of Mexican traditionalists.” Arriaga also was the author of a widely quoted collaborative work enthusiastically endorsed and sold across the Internet by all manner of Traditionalist groups — The Plot Against the Church, by “Maurice Pinay.” (Anacleto González Guerrero, who corresponded with this author in the early 1980s as Anacleto Gonzalez Flores, later claimed to have written the bulk of the book for Saenz.)

This work blamed primarily the Jews as the masterminds behind the destruction of the Church, as well as the puppet-masters behind Freemasonry. Yet the extent of the influence of certain Jews and their predominance in the Masonic sect and other secret societies has not been determined by the Church. The Plot Against the Church makes no mention of the pleas by both Popes Pius XI and Pius XII to refrain from anything that would amount to the physical persecution of the Jews or lead to their persecution. In their The Hidden Encyclical of Pope Pius XI, (1998) Georges Passelecq and Bernard Suchecky wrote about Pope Pius XI’s last encyclical that was never published, Humani Generis Unitas. This encyclical, written on the eve of WWII, is best summarized below:

1. The Church upholds and defends Her right to warn Her children against those actively hostile to the Christian religion, especially, “misguided souls, whether of the Jewish people or other origin, who ally themselves with or promote” revolutionary movements aimed at the destruction of society and the Catholic Church.
2. Alternating mildness and zeal on the part of the popes over the centuries in addressing this anti-Catholic attitude does not reflect “any interior change in the Church’s policy,” which is easily found confirmed in “the conduct of bishops…and Her ecumenical councils,” AND ESPECIALLY THE CONDUCT OF THE HOLY SEE.
3. Under the specific heading “Anti-Semitism,” Pope Pius XI states: “Such persecutory methods are totally at variance with the true spirit of the Catholic Church.” Quoting a decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office dated March 5, 1928, the pope points to the Church’s professed love for the Jews and desire for their salvation. The decree contains a resolution on the part of the papacy to continue to protect the Jews against unjust oppression and open anti-Semitism.

Pope Pius XII later demonstrated his solicitude for the Jews by his conduct during WWII, saving countless Jews from certain death at the hands of the Nazis. With this and the above in mind, we present the following, which in and of itself should be enough to convince any rational human being that the Traditional movement was only a continuation of the penetration of secret societies into the very heart of the Church. In the late 1990s, letters written and signed by various Mexican authors were sent from Mexico to Traditionalist pseudo-clergy worldwide warning that Los TECOS pseudo-clergy were Masonic and had been form the beginning.

These letters were circulated in 2000 from the office of  Fr. Paul Schoonbroodt (1933–2012, a parish priest of Steffeshausen, Belgium), with a written introduction by his secretary Amelia Schmid. They were then forwarded to a friend who forwarded them to me. Although these letters only date back to 2000, the Masonic influence propelling the Traditionalist movement goes back to its very beginning as explained in the link in paragraph 2 above. That they were suppressed should in itself be enough to rouse the followers of LibTrad pseudo-clergy from their sinful sleep. But will it?

Please note that the letters below do not limit the Masonic contamination to the CMRI, or to the group referred to in the Los TECOS letters. In fact in the last two blogs we have seen how such individuals as the Gnostic Rama Coomeraswamy and indirectly, E. Michael Jones, have spread their heresies throughout LibTrad sects. Others, such as the former Protestant minister Gerry Matatics — in a series of interviews with ISOC founder Judith Sharpe, titled The Plot Against the Church, based partly on Saenz’s work — have played their own part in promoting the views of heretics and schismatics. Both Coomeraswamy and Matatics taught students in “Traditionalist seminaries.” One cannot help but wonder if they themselves were not affiliated with the OSJ and Los TECOS or some other unknown secret society, given their activities.

Introduction to the Secret Society, Tecos

“These four “open letters” are not bound by any law of copyright. In fact Bishop Jose F. Urbino Aznar from Merida, Yucatan, exhorts all to read these letters, to broadcast them, to send them to other countries or to translate them so that all concerned would be informed and warned!  He writes, at the end of his Letter IV, that, “IF TRADITIONALISTS DO NOTHING, THEY HELP THE TECOS TO INFILTRATE AND SABOTAGE.”

“The purpose of these pages is to war against the presence of “Marrano’s” in Traditionalist Sede-vacantists groups today. These “false brothers” are continuing the work of the Spanish Marrano’s in the 15^th Century, and 40 years after the Vatican II revolution in the Church, their aim is to infiltrate, subvert, and over-throw the last remaining bastions of Catholic Traditionalism. The “Tecos” and stemming from it… the “Trento” movements in Mexico, will be studied here but their subsidiaries in other countries have different names: i.e., “Una Voce” in Munich, Germany whose leader is Dr. Eberhard Heller, the editor of the subversive, pseudo-traditionalistic journal, “Einsicht”; and “Trident”, a Czechoslovakian “traditionalist” journal, edited by Dr. Klomineky; it is also affiliated with Tecos.

“Trento is a branch of Tecos. The rank-and-file members of Tecos would appear to be Catholics militating against Freemasonic influences; quite anti-Communist! But its leaders are very wealthy Jewish Freemasons who pretendthey’re Catholics and Mexican patriots. Since Vatican II, they even pretend to be sedevacantist Traditionalists, in order to be better accepted by the latter; alas, they are “MARRANOS”!

“Who are the Mexican Tecos leaders? They stem from two related families: Leano and Alvarez del Castillo. They rule this Secret Society but delegate their power to their subordinates, yet they exert tyrannical control. For example, Bishop Martin Davila Gandara (of the Trento Priests Union) is not free to act independently. Everything he does is controlled ‘down to the last detail’. This bishop and all Trento priests and seminarians are official members of the Tecos! This is a pre-requisite to be lavishly financed by the super-rich family — Leano Alvarex del Castillo. Unfortunately, the hundreds of millions of dollars they possess come from drug-smuggling operations, investments in very luxurious hotels and easiness, illegal confiscation of property (aided and abetted by corrupt police, easily bribed). They are also the main shareholders in the Mexican TELEVlSA TV enterprise, a springboard for Satanical programs. We unconditionally agree to the above.

Signed: Sergio Ruiz Vallejo, Rafael Lira, Jose de Jesus Beecara, R. Alvaro Reyes C.

(All emphasis in this quote and what follows below is added by the author. The four Los Tecos letters detailing the above accusations are available on request.)

Excerpts from Los TECOS letter to Pivarunas

https://archive.org/details/letter-to-bishop-pivarunas-in-english

La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico, on March 1, 2024

(Prepared by “Fr.” Hernán Arturo Vergara Monroy)

1. This document is prepared at the request of Bishop Mark Antony Pivarunas, as instructed by Father Carlos Borja.
2. Due to the gravity of the matter, I request that this issue be handled with absolute discretion, asking the Lord Bishop to safeguard the document to prevent it from being stolen and disseminated, causing serious harm to the spiritual well-being of souls.
3. In this document, only a small sample of the matter is discussed…The colloquial name for the sworn organization is “Los Tecos”, but its internal title is “Legion of Anti-Communist Youths of Mexico,” for God and for the homeland,” outwardly promoting values, Catholic faith, and a life centered around God. However, in practice, their actions align with the will of a faceless supreme power, which seems to disregard God’s law.
4. The man who appears as the founder of this organization is named Carlos Cuesta Gallardo. He was born in the city of Guadalajara, Jalisco, on August 22, 1911. His parents were Francisco Luis Cuesta Gallardo and Maria Elena Gallardo Rojas. The family was extremely wealthy, with close relatives holding high positions in the government. Interestingly, there are Hebrew customs within this family, but there remains an absolute silence regarding their genealogy.
5. Around 1934, an organization was founded, with one of its ideologues and leaders being Father Manuel Figueroa Luna S.J. The organization operated under catalogued and mandatory methods, including oaths, blind obedience, loyalty, and secrecy. Members swore an oath in the name of God to maintain absolute silence about the organization’s existence, names, agreements, addresses, structure, and programs. They also pledged obedience to the “Army of God.” whose leader remained unknown to almost everyone. According to its main proponents, the organization’s purpose was to counter the Judaeo-Masonic-Communist conspiracy. To avoid detection, members used pseudonyms, ensuring that if internal documents were confiscated by the police, their identities would remain hidden.
6. Regularly, young people from the age of twelve are recruited and trained to align their thinking with the Organization. Based on their proselytism efforts, they can ascend to become group leaders. These young people are recruited by seemingly harmless external groups that appear beneficial to initiates. They are then admitted to a preliminary group and after undergoing preparation and testing, they ascend to the base group.
7. The concept of “pureza de sangre” (purity of blood) is something that they claim involves separating Jewish, Masonic, or anti-Christian elements.
8. MY PROPOSAL IS THAT THE PRIESTLY SOCIETY OF TRENTO SHOULD DISAPPEAR FOR HAVING BEEN BORN IN AN ANTI-CHRISTIAN ORGANIZATION…
9. The banner or emblem of the organization has a double-headed eagle in the center, similar to the symbol of the 33rd degree of Freemasonry. Isn’t this enough evidence of what this organization is? Just like the two Masonic columns that are found in the presbytery of the church of San Agustin, in the little hill of Guadalajara, an emblematic church of the organization.
10. They have several oaths, I write only one consigned in the traditional liturgy: *I (name of the oath-taker) swear by God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, creator of the universe and everything that exists, swearing without mental reservations of any kind, to be loyal to God and to the Legion of Anti-Communist Youth of Mexico, never to betray or fight it and to keep absolute secrecy with strangers to said movement of its existence, of the names of the components and leaders, of the matters discussed in its meetings and of everything that relates to it. Just as I will never act within said order accepting slogans, orders or simple suggestions from people or organizations strange to this organization. I also swear by God, to consider the Legion of Anti- Communist Youth of Mexico, as the primary organization in the temporal order subordinating all my political or social activities to the supreme direction of this movement, whatever the place where I carry out my activities, if I do not do so, may the Legion of Anti-Communist Youth of Mexico punish me with the death of traitors.”
11. “KEEP ABSOLUTE SECRECY WITH STRANGERS TO THIS ASSOCIATION, OF ITS EXISTENCE, OF THE IDENTITY OF ITS LEADERS AND ITS MEMBERS. OF THE MATTERS DISCUSSED IN ITS MEETINGS AND IN GENERAL OF EVERYTHING RELATED TO IT. ONLY THOSE WHO RECEIVE ORDERS TO REVEAL IT, ISSUED BY THE SUPERIORITY THROUGH THE ORGANIZER-INSPECTOR, MAY REVEAL TO STRANGERS.” (Regulations of the organization, third title, second chapter, article 34, fraction I.)
12. “In order that there may be no room for error when it is to be determined which of these pernicious sects are subject to censures, and which are only prohibited, it is certain in the first place that they are punished with excommunication latae sententiae, the Masonic and other sects of the same kind…” Instruction of the Holy Office of May 10, 1884. DZ 1860.
13. “THOSE WHO GIVE THEIR NAME TO THE MASONIC SECT OR OTHER ASSOCIATIONS OF THE SAME KIND THAT PLOT AGAINST THE CHURCH OR AGAINST LEGITIMATE CIVIL POWERS, INCUR IPSO FACTO EXCOMMUNICATION SIMPLY RESERVED TO THE APOSTOLIC SEE.” Code of Canon Law, Canon 2335.
14. Commentary on Canon 2335: “According to an instruction from the Holy Office of May 10, 1884, all associations that require their affiliates to swear an oath of absolute secrecy and to blindly obey everything to leaders are prohibited.”
15. THEY EDUCATE AND SYSTEMATICALLY FORM A STANCE OF HATRED AGAINST JEWS FOR BEING JEWS, against Masons for being Masons; In this sense, the truth about the Jewish people must be preached, INSTRUCTING THE TRUTH THAT IS NOT TO INSTILL HATRED OR RESENTMENT, but the knowledge that prevents us from the influence of a people educated in the perversity of the Synagogue of Satan: the seriousness of this system of irrational hatred, is the following: Who can or defines who is a Jew? Well, the organization, which does not present evidence, only the definition in the manner of the Holy Office, in this way, the organization can enrage its addicts with just one order. Finally, it is one more means of manipulation… The organization that operates from the Autonomous University of Guadalajara, its leaders and owners, have not explained the legality of the wealth they have, in addition to the fact that, in 1962, the Rockefeller Foundation donated a large amount of money.

(Seminary of the Sacred Hearts)

50. …The aforementioned names (Davila Gandara and Perez Gomez) were “piously” subjected to a “brainwashing” in a short time and in a sui generis or Frankenstein preparation, taken to the sacred orders with the tranquility of having the support of the organization. (On Oct. 14, 1998, a two-thirds majority of priests elected Dávila for episcopal consecration. Dávila was consecrated a bishop May 11, 1999, byPivarunasand Dolan in the Temple of the Divine Providence.)
51. The missions and churches that were established with the fathers of Manuel Lopez or the Trento priestly society, are precisely places where the organization operates, having the other places, especially the south of the country, as a second level.
52. A priest wishes to testify, about how before ordaining him, you, Bishop Pivarunas, took him before Manuel López to perform a ceremony with an oath to obey God in the person of this gentleman, an indispensable requirement for ordination.
53. All the seminarians were sent for a month to preparation for the organization, which was actually brainwashing.
54. “Strength was confused with contempt, loyalty with servility, obedience to man with disobedience to God, humility with people without the ability to think contrary to the triple authority.
55. “Let no one thinks that it is permissible for any reason to give his name to the Masonic sect, if he professes to be a Catholic and values the salvation of his soul as he should.”, (Pope Leo XIII, encyclical Humanum genus, DZ 1859).
56. “Apart from these, there are other prohibited sects that must be avoided under penalty of serious guilt, among which we must mainly count all those that require their followers by oath not to reveal the secret to anyone… (Instruction of the Holy Office of May 10, 1884; DZ 1861).

Summary

Vergaro-Monroy and Borja took a great risk in making this information available to the public and for that they should be commended. But Vergaro/Borja do not connect the dots, which go back much further than they are willing to admit — all the way back to Saenz and the founding of Traditionalism. In 1965, Fr. Gommar DePauw founded the Catholic Traditionalist Movement in Long Island, New York. In that same year, Fr. Saenz and Anacleto Gonzalez Guerrero (Flores), already both members of the Los TECOS secret society, founded the sedevacantist movement. Both Saenz and DePauw were members of the OSJ, (Sovereign Order of St. John, Knights of Jerusalem — Shickshinny branch, not Malta branch). The OSJ organization then set up its own Trad mass centers across the U.S., referred to as priories.

Lefebvre, already tagged as ordained and consecrated by a Freemason, was reportedly a member and even the head of the OSJ, both in the U.S. and France. He also is most likely connected with the scandalous “Catholic” secret society The Priory of Sion, (supposedly defunct, but this is only a smokescreen) with his seminary headquartered in Sion, France and all his branch organizations named priories. DePauw, Schuckhardt (original founder of Pivarunas’ CMRI) and other LibTrad sects also designated their various “branches” as priories. This is no coincidence; the Masonic connection is clear.

Probably the most important part of Vergano’s letter is the admission that Los TECOS (and all those infected with its perverse philosophy) “…EDUCATE AND SYSTEMATICALLY FORM A STANCE OF HATRED AGAINST JEWS FOR BEING JEWS, against Masons for being Masons; In this sense, the truth about the Jewish people must be preached, instructing the truth that is not to instill hatred or resentment…”  This certainly explains the attitude of LibTrads towards the Jews today, but there is more. According to the Wikipedia article on Los TECOS: “…they built up connections with members of the Arab League, such as the Saudis, with whom they shared a mutual opposition to Zionism and an obsession with “Jewish conspiracies”… While condemning the United Nations in their own private works as part of the “Masonic conspiracy”, they, at the same time, used UNESCO’s World University Organization to build up relations with radical right, anti-communist, anti-masonic and antisemitic forces across the world throughout the 1950s…

“[They then] funneled some of these funds into their own political activities. The biggest windfall was secured in 1962, according to Stefan Thomas Possony, who said that “… Guadalajara UAC received money from the Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie Foundations as well as from the Agency for International Development (AID)… Between 1964 and 1974, nearly $20,000,000 worth of grants were passed through these American institutions to the UAG, controlled by Los TECOS. According to a report in the Albuquerque Journal, “they believe they are using Jewish gold to combat the Jews” (end of Wiki quote). And we wonder why our campuses are filled with pro-Palestinian sympathizers and anti-Semitism is rife; why the FBI (rightly) suspects certain Traditionalists of neo-Nazi activities and of promoting anti-Semitism.

As explained in earlier blogs, all these LibTrad groups have common roots: “The Orthodox Roman Catholic Movement or ORCM is a group of priests founded by Fr. Francis E. Fenton acting on the suggestions of Fr. Joaquin Sáenz y Arriaga, S.J., and was the U.S. organization parallel to the Mexican organization Unión Catolica Trento, founded by Fr. Saenz along with Frs. Moises Carmona and Adolfo Zamora. Fr. Fenton was a founding member of the “conservative” John Birch Society, and was on its American Opinion Speakers Bureau” (https://www.liquisearch.com/orthodox_roman_catholic_movement). The John Birch Society itself has been linked to Freemasonry HERE and HERE.

It is important to note that publication of the above documents make such matters notorious according to the 1917 Code.  In a Bull issued on Dec. 25, 1925, Pope Pius XI declared: “Those who have notoriously belonged to Masonic sects or other forbidden societies of the like should not be absolved unless they shall have made an abjuration before the confessor, done all the law requires, withdrawn from the sect and repaired the scandal as far as they can” (AAS 17-611). There can now be no absolution but certainly all the other conditions must be fulfilled. Only public withdrawal from the entire Traditional movement itself and the renunciation of any claim to orders whatsoever could satisfy Pope Pius XI’s conditions.

For 26 years the Los TECOS situation has been known to at least some Traditionalist pseudo-clergy and shamefully hidden from view. Not only are the followers of these men aiding and abetting them by allowing them to simulate the sacraments, but they are also cooperating with Freemasons — apostates. It is way past time to do penance and make amends for such egregious crimes and Lent is the ideal time to make these amends to Our Lord, whose sufferings are already so greatly intensified by our sins. If LibTrad followers really want to know who they are dealing with and what the game of their pseudo-clergy is really all about, please watch this short YouTube video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMg1Hk2DWHs

See if it doesn’t set off some alarms. What would happen if Traditionalist “priests” and “bishops” now deceiving so many were stripped of their collars and mitres, their churches, their power, their control, which in reality has never existed? Only YOU have the power to shatter the illusion.

Free Anti-Semitism book and charity toward our enemies

by T. Stanfill Benns | Mar 24, 2025 | New Blog

+The Annunciation+ (With a commemoration of St. Dismas)

Fr. Doyle’s Reflections on the Passion, Pt. 3

Gesthemani

OUR BLESSED LORD had designedly planned that Peter, James, and John should be afforded but a glimpse of His divinity when it burst forth on the occasion of His Transfiguration. Now in the Garden of Olives these same Apostles would see their Lord and their God bent and crushed under the weight of sin. The thought of the Transfiguration would have to strengthen them in this hour of disillusionment.

The apostles had always known our Lord to be composed in the face of attack or crisis. For instance, when the elements of nature tossed their fishing boats until they, hardened fishermen though they were, quaked with fear, Jesus was calm and unafraid; but in the Garden of Gethsemani they were to see this same Christ prostrate on the ground bathed in a sweat of blood. That which made up the very anguish of Gethsemani was the fact that Christ, at that moment, took upon Himself the sins of the world — past, present, and future. But why had Christ invited the Apostles to accompany Him in the Garden of Olives? Well, as He entered the darkness, He may have craved human companionship. It was not that the Apostles could do anything for Him, but that their very presence would support Him. Too, He wanted to teach them some important lessons.

The first lesson was this, that when one is oppressed, discouraged, heartbroken, and forsaken, he should pray. That is what our Lord did. He was afraid. He was overwhelmed by the sins of mankind, His Apostles, His closest friends, fell asleep – yet He prayed. Always remember what our Lord told His weak apostles when he awakened them the first time: “Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mt. 26:41).

The second lesson was equally apparent. While Christ’s closest friends were asleep as He went through the initial phases of the Passion, His enemies were very much awake. At that very moment Judas was briefing the soldiers on where to find Christ and how to apprehend Him. The soldiers were getting themselves ready to arrest the Son of God.

So it has always been and always will be — the enemies of your soul and mine, the enemies of Christ and His Church never sleep. They are always more vigilant, more energetic, more active then we are. Resolve today to make [a Holy Hour] and let the picture of Christ in the Garden of Olives come to your mind. Approach your prostrate King — promise Him to do some positive penance for the sins you have committed. Ask Him to teach you this important lesson — that when doubts, trials, sorrows, and temptations assail you, you, following His example, you will pray, pray, pray.

Our Lord had suffered a terrible ordeal in His initial phase of trial in the Garden of Olives. He had, some thirty-three years earlier, taken on the burden of human nature, Now in this fateful garden, Christ took on the awful burden of man’s sins, and He rightly looked to His closest friends to share His burden in return, if only by compassion. They failed Him. They slept. Oh how the words of the prophet were fulfilled: “I looked for one that would grieve together with me, and there was none; for one that would comfort me, and I found none” (Ps. 68:21).” (End of of Fr. Doyle quotes).

Introduction

Several readers have requested that I make available an excellent booklet written on anti-Semitism, which is now posted for all to read HERE. (Please wait for a moment to view it as it takes a while to load). This booklet was published by Radio Replies Press in 1944 and exposes the false information now circulating on the Internet about the Church’s true position on the Jews. Radio Replies was an approved publication praised by Church officials and Catholics worldwide for its comprehensive treatment of moral and dogmatic theology questions. This booklet presents the correct theological outlook on the problem of anti-Semitism and what the popes have taught throughout the ages on how we should regard the Jews. Yes, they are the enemies of Christ and henceforth our enemies as well. And during Lent this is most painfully apparent. But we must keep this in perspective and turn our own eyes inward during this time, for certainly the hierarchy we believed to be true Catholics are more guilty than they are, in many respects, for what has happened to the Church. And we must not be seduced by those who pretend to take their place.

Our Catholic faith teaches that, “…The worst [sinners] are those Christians who have died in mortal sin, without repentance and without regret; for these have despised the death of Christ and His sacraments, or else they have received them unworthily and in vain. And they have not practised the works of mercy, showing charity toward their neighbours, as God has commanded. And for this they are doomed to the depths of hell. The second kind are the unbelievers, Pagans and Jews. These must all appear before Christ, though they were damned already during their lives; for, in their time, they possessed neither Divine grace nor Divine love, and for this reason they have always dwelt in the eternal death of damnation. But these shall have less pain than the evil Christians; for, since they received fewer gifts of God, THEY OWED HIM LESS LOYALTY” (Bd. John of Ruysbroeck, The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, 14^th century.)

The faithless cardinals, the traitorous bishops, the false shepherds and wolves in sheep’s clothing, and their cooperators — all of those leading the people astray — they, not the Jews, are the ones who bear the brunt of the blame. And they are the ones who would be most severely punished, deposed and degraded if a canonically elected pope could be elected, which sadly is now an impossibility. The baptized Catholic who has abandoned his faith, and most especially those commissioned to care for the flock, are the ones who should tremble.

The charity we owe our enemies

In meditating on the Passion, as all are bound to do during Lent, the true enormity of sins committed and yet being committed by ourselves and others should become more truly heinous than ever they seemed before. We know that the Church has always prayed for the conversion of the Jews, pagans, infidels and the return of non-Catholics to the fold. In making our First Friday reparations, we ought to be praying for this as well. Yes, the Jews are our enemies, along with those of our own household and there has been much misunderstanding on what type of charity we owe our enemies and the limits of such charity. There should also be an order in our fight against the enemies of faith and how to best direct our energies to defend Christ and His Church. All this will be made clearer below. “He who can never love Christ enough, will never give up fighting against those who hate Him” — St. John Chrysostom.

From Rev. Felix Sarda y Salvany’s Liberalism is a Sin

LibTrad apologists continually “disagree” with those who point out their errors, accusing their critics of a lack of charity or unjust condemnation of their position. This when they themselves are the ones practicing liberal charity. Since they have no authority to teach, and Rev. Sarda was a theologian commended by Pope Leo XIII’s Holy Office, it is quite clear that their objections are specious and uncharitable in themselves. Rev Sarda explains below why this is true.

“It is often necessary to displease or offend one person, not for his own good but to deliver another from the evil he is inflicting. It is then an obligation of charity to repel the unjust violence of the aggressor; one may inflict as much injury on the aggressor as is necessary for the defense…The love due to a man inasmuch as he is our neighbor ought always to be subordinated to that which is due to our common Lord. For His love and in His service, we must not hesitate to offend men. The degree of our offense toward men can only be measured by the degree of our obligation to Him. Charity is primarily the love of God, secondarily the love of our neighbor for God’s sake. Therefore to offend our neighbor for the love of God is a true act of charity. Not to offend our neighbor for the love of God is a sin.

“Modern Liberalism reverses this order. It imposes a false notion of charity; our neighbor first and, if at all, God afterwards. By its reiterated and trite accusations of intolerance, it has succeeded in disconcerting even some staunch Catholics. But our rule is too plain and too concrete to admit of misconception. It is: sovereign Catholic inflexibility is sovereign Catholic charity. This charity is practiced in relation to our neighbor when in his own interests he is crossed, humiliated, and chastised. It is practiced in relation to a third party, when he is defended from the unjust aggression of another, as when he is protected from the contagion of error by unmasking its authors and abettors and showing them in their true light as iniquitous and pervert, BY HOLDING THEM UP TO THE CONTEMPT, HORROR AND EXECRATION OF ALL. It is practiced in relation to God when, FOR HIS GLORY AND IN HIS SERVICE, it becomes necessary to silence all human considerations, to trample underfoot all human respect, to sacrifice all human interests and even life itself to attain this highest of all ends…The saints are the type of this unswerving and sovereign fidelity to God, the heroes of charity and religion…”

Rev. Sarda tells us further: “The bond of union should never be neutrality or the conciliation of interests essentially opposed…This neutrality or conciliation has been condemned by the Syllabus and… is a false basis. Such union would be a betrayal, an abandonment of the Catholic [ideal]. Such union with any group, for any enterprise whatsoever, would [not only] be unfavorable to Catholics, but actually [would be] detrimental. Instead of augmenting our forces, it would paralyze and nullify the vigor of those who would be able, if alone, to do something for the defense of the truth…The kind of soldiers we need go into the deadly breach and never flinch. No compromising, no minimizing with them. They plant their banner on the topmost height and form a solid invincible phalanx around it. That not all the legions of earth and hell combined can budge a single inch. They make no alliance, no compromise with a foe whose single aim, disguised or open, is the destruction of the truth. They know the enemy by nature is implacable, and his flag of truce but a cunning device of treachery.” And this applies especially to organizations that try to unite all those with disparate “Catholic” beliefs.

On the “incurable,” and those in heresy or schism

St. Alphonsus Liguori writes, under the heading The Duty of Accusing or Denouncing Another: “Here it is asked whether fraternal correction must precede accusation. Several distinctions must be made…(1) If the crime is public, since for this reason infamy or notoriety is already present, (e.g., before a number of people in the street), then no correction ought to precede. Thus St. Thomas, Sanchez, Sotus, Paludanus and Salmant with the common opinion. In such a case, to quote St. Thomas, ‘The remedy must not be applied only to him who has sinned that he may improve, but also to those who notice the crime has come.’ And for this reason, a public crime ought to be punished. The truth is you do not sin either against charity or against justice if you accuse without warning (1) When the crime gives injury to the common weal as in…heresy…For with these crimes, scarcely, if ever, is it to be hoped that correction will be fruitful, and delay can be exceedingly harmful,” (Theologia Moralis).

“St. Paul commands Titus: “A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition avoid, knowing that he, that is such a one, is subverted and sinneth, being condemned by his own judgment,” (3:10,11) Cornelius a Lapide and St. Robert Bellarmine understand(s) this passage as meaning that the warnings are required when it is doubtful whether or not someone is truly pertinacious in heresy. In the case of manifest heresy, no warning would be necessary.

“Cardinal de Lugo, considered by St. Alphonsus to be the greatest theologian since St. Thomas, devoted the most detailed study we are aware of to the subject of the pertinacity required to make someone a heretic. He discusses whether a warning is needed in order to establish that someone is a heretic, and concludes, after considering the opinions of all the noted theologians and canonists, that such warnings are not always necessary – nor are they always required in practice by the Holy Office. The reason for this is that the warning serves only to establish that the individual is aware of the opposition existing between his opinion and the Church’s teaching. If that were already evident, the warning would be superfluous,” (Disputationes Scholasticae et Morales, Disp. XX, De Virtute Fidei Divinae, Sectio vi, n. 174 et seq.). It should be noted here that the very law used as the old law for the canons on heresy, Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, which we are bound to consult should any questions arise concerning the law, states that where heresy is concerned no warning or declaratory sentence is required for the censure to take effect. This also was reiterated in a decision from the Holy Office in the 1930s.

To dismiss the claim that Church teaching and practice did not always clearly specify the matter of a man’s ordination and consecration without the proper qualifications, we quote the following: Pope Hadrian I condemns in DZ 301 “…those priests who without examination… are ordained that they may preside.” And in DZ 363 we find (Pope Callistus II, Laetaran Council I): “Let no one, unless canonically elected, extend his hand for consecration to the episcopacy. But if he should presume to do so let both the one consecrated and the one consecrating be deposed without hope of restoration.”  This is only a reiteration of what is found in Cum ex Apostolatus Officio and Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis. And it must be emphasized here that in teaching this, the popes were not NOT considering the fact that the ones seeking consecration were already public heretics and schismatics!

And from St. Thomas Aquinas: “As the Philosopher observes (Ethic. ix. 3), when our friends fall into sin, we ought not to deny them the amenities of friendship, so long as there is hope of their mending their ways, and we ought to help them more readily to regain virtue than to recover money, had they lost it, for as much as virtue is more akin than money to friend­ ship. When, however, they fall into very great wickedness, AND BECOME INCURABLE, we ought no longer to show them friendliness. It is for this reason that both Divine and human laws command such like sinners to be put to death, because there is greater likelihood of their harming others than of their mending their ways. Nevertheless the judge puts this into effect, not out of hatred for the sinners, but out of the love of charity, by reason of which he prefers the public good to the life of the individual. Moreover the death inflicted by the judge profits the sinner, if he be converted, unto the expiation of his crime; and, if he be not converted, it profits so as to put an end to the sin, because the sinner is thus deprived of the power to sin anymore. (Q. 25, Art. 7, Pt. II-II: Reply Obj. 2).

(Pt. II-II, Q.31, Art. 2, Reply Obj. 3): “The excommunicated and the enemies of the common weal are deprived of all beneficence, in so far as this prevents them from doing evil deeds. Yet if their nature be in urgent need of succor lest it fail, we are bound to help them. For instance, if they be in danger of death through hunger or thirst, or suffer some like distress, unless this be according to the order of justice.” And following St. Thomas, as they do, Revs. McHugh and Callan wrote: “An act is NOT contumely when given to those deserving of reproof, or when directed toward the IRRETRIEVABLY WICKED.”

Are LibTrad pseudo-clergy irretrievably wicked? For some 40 years, they have been warned that they are operating outside Canon Law, that their validity is in grave question, and finally that their “orders” are undeniably invalid according to the laws of the Church and the teachings of the Popes. Not one of them have reversed course, admitted their guilt, publicly abjured their errors, made reparation and restitution (all of this required by Canon Law) or asked for forgiveness. It is difficult to believe that they are anything but unrepentant and pertinacious. In any event they are notorious heretics, and we are bound to avoid them and condemn their attempts to pervert those who are searching for the truth. While what follows applies to those who are still Catholic, and those suffering from personal offenses only, it provides guidelines regarding our treatment of those who are our professed enemies.

From The Casuist,  Vol. 1, (p. 193-95)

“We must not wish our enemy evil; that is we must not repay evil with evil or cherish a spirit of revenge toward him. We must pardon the personal offense when requested, not always immediately. Sometimes there may be just cause for deferring pardon in order to manifest the pain we suffer by reason of the offense. Sometimes, even, we may be obliged to make the first advance towards a reconciliation to prevent scandal or to save our enemy from sin when we can do so without much trouble to ourselves. We must wish our enemy well; that is, we must include him in our prayers. We must succor him in his needs as we would anyone else. And if we exercise charity indiscriminately toward a large number, we must not exclude our enemy, for this would be a mark of revenge; and if special ties of blood etc. unite us, we are bound to give evidence of goodwill toward our enemy as we give to others who are bound to us by the same ties. But special marks of friendship that we owe to no one in particular, either by reason of their personal condition or the customs of the country, we are not obliged to show to our enemy.

“It is one thing to harbor a spirit of revenge and quite another thing to desire the reparation of outraged rights. It is perfectly legitimate to desire the restoration of our good name or the restitution of our stolen property and to take action at law to obtain them; yes, even to take criminal proceedings against the offender to have him punished. If this is done out of love for justice it is quite in keeping with the law of charity. If it is done from a spirit of revenge, it is of course sinful. ONCE SATISFACTION HAS BEEN MADE, WE MUST FORGIVE THE PERSONAL OFFENSE. UNTIL SATISFACTION HAS BEEN MADE, THIS IS NOT REQUIRED OF US. We are not obliged to salute those who have wrongly offended us unless they make the first advances, unless it be a question of the superior or unless, to refrain from soliciting our enemy for a long time could be interpreted as a mark of hatred. But if our enemy greets us first, we are bound to greet him in return except once or again we might be justified in refusing to recognize a greeting in order to show our feelings have been hurt. If therefore on account of circumstances the denial for a time of the ordinary salutations and greetings must be interpreted as a manifestation of wounded feelings and if in fact the denial proceeds from no spirit of hatred or ill will such denial is not sinful” (end of Casuist quotes).

It should be noted here that the above deals with personal offenses, but what we are dealing with today are public, notorious crimes regarding LibTrad pseudo-clergy and their defenders. These are a different species and require adjudication by the local Ordinary or the Roman Pontiff. Because we have no access to them today, the law still applies as far as it can be observed and these laws are detailed below.

Canon Law on reparation and amendment

Can. 672 §1: “[If] a dismissed religious… has for three years given signs of complete amendment, the religious organization is bound to receive him: however if either on the part of the organization or on the part of the religious there are serious objections against the return, the matter shall be submitted to the judgment of the Holy See.”

Canon 1933: “Offenses which are subject to criminal procedure are public offences… Penances, penal remedies, excommunication, suspension and interdict can be inflicted also by way of precept without judicial procedure providing the offense is certain.”

Canon 1935: “Any of the faithful may at all times denounce the offense of another for the purpose of demanding satisfaction… or to get damages for losses sustained through the criminal act of another or out of zeal for justice to repair some scandal or evil. Even an obligation to denounce an offender exists whenever one is obliged to do so,either by law or by special legitimate precept or by the natural law in view of the danger to faith or religion or other imminent public evil.”

Canon 2242: “A person is considered to have desisted from his obstinacy when he has truly repented of his offence and has at the same time made proper satisfaction for the damages and scandal caused or has at least earnestly promised to do so.” And, “Absolution cannot be denied whenever the offender ceases to be obstinate as declared in Canon 2242”(Can. 2248).

Canon 2313: “Penances are imposed when a person who has incurred a canonical penalty truly repents and asks for absolution from a censure or dispensation from a vindictive penalty. The principal penalties are: (1) the recital of specific prayers; (2) pious pilgrimages or other works of piety; (3) special fasts; (4) almsgiving for pious purposes; (5) retreats or spiritual exercises for some days in a pious religious house.”

From the canons above we can deduce the following.

If one has been excommunicated for some reason (and this could even include excommunication for material heresy or schism on the part of LibTrad followers in the present circumstances it seems), then they must be on their good behavior for three years after having satisfied the canons requiring amendment. This is true because of the element of fraud involved, even though their offences have been public and notorious. Under Canon 1325 we are bound to renounce anything that is said or done contrary to the faith. So such persons, if they have publicly sinned in writing or in actions, must make amendment and do reparation by publicly denouncing the actions or the writing. They also must  satisfy the financial obligations regarding the damages done insofar as possible and perform the penances described in Canon 2313. This in order to demonstrate their sincerity and their desire to be absolved from any sin or excommunication. Any amendment must be complete; there can be no recidivism or return to heresy, schism or previous errors.

Needless to say, very few exiting the LibTrad sects have obeyed these canons. Certainly none of their pseudo-clergy have renounced their errors, publicly abjured them, made their amends and done penance. And how could they possibly recompense their followers financially? Yet this is what the laws of the Church command them to do.

Conclusion

It is contrary to the teachings of the Roman Pontiffs to continue to castigate the Jews for their sins even though they are enemies of the Church. This because such castigation has the appearance of desiring revenge and is against the virtue of prudence. LibTrads cannot blame others for errors they are not willing to correct themselves. The Orthodox Jews call us idolaters because we worship Christ and they don’t believe that he was the Son of God. Well, all members of the LibTrad sects are idolaters because their clergy are invalid and they’re worshipping a piece of bread! How can they point fingers at others when they are guilty of these grave sins? Christ prohibited this behavior in condemning the Pharisees and pointing out the humility of the publican in the parable. He forgave His enemies from the Cross, and in inviting St. Dismas to heaven, He demonstrated that repentance is worthy of forgiveness and reward. He also forgave those Jews who, following the Crucifixion, renounced their sect and converted to Christianity.

Prudence dictates that those among the LibTrad sects blaming the Jews for destroying the Church should not be further encouraged, lest they possibly take revenge and commit a sinful act against them. Christ died for His own people as well as for us. We need not be friendly to the Jews because they have not asked our forgiveness or made amends by converting, but neither should we be actively persecuting them. They are not the ones pretending to be Catholic and misleading those who should be true Catholics — individuals who profess to love Our Lord and wish to be saved. The popes didn’t spend their time and energy continually berating the Jews, but they most certainly routinely condemned those wolves in sheep’s clothing misleading the faithful, along with their false doctrines.

In the end, the Church will triumph, and the Jews will be converted. “Behold, I will bring of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie. Behold, I will make them to come and adore before thy feet. And they shall know that I have loved thee.  Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I will also keep thee from the hour of the temptation, which shall come upon the whole world to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Apoc. 3: 9-10). This may not happen until the very end, the time given for penance and reparation prior to the Final Judgment. But Christ has promised it, and He is ever true to His promises. The faith and the patience of the saints alone, excluding all thoughts of revenge, will save us.  If we drink the cup of His adorable Passion to the very dregs, there is redemption and victory over eternal death awaiting us at the end.

LibTrad pseudo-clergy and the perennialist heresy

by T. Stanfill Benns | Mar 17, 2025 | New Blog

+St. Patrick, Bishop Confessor+

Fr. Doyle’s Reflections on the Passion, Pt. 2

“We should,” writes Father Degnam, S.J., “go through the different circumstances of the Passion, and compare them with the occasions of sufferings we meet with in life. They are the drops of the chalice which our Lord asks us to drink with Him. His sufferings of the scourging, our physical pain; He is treated as a fool by Herod; He was rejected for Barabbas; are we not sometimes rejected for another – set aside for someone who is certainly more worthy than ourselves? Is not the gall they gave Him to drink like the bitterness we receive when we are longing for consolation? As we look at the dead body of our Lord hanging on the Cross, we see that His Passion was one long act of submission.”

Gratitude should fill our hearts at the thought of God’s goodness in giving us His own adorable Son as a model to imitate, so that we have only to look at Him to know what we have to do. Hear Christ Himself say: “I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you also should do” (Jn. 13:15). Christ is the only way we must follow, especially in the practice of virtue, and it was during the Passion that His practice of the virtues was strikingly sublime and heroic. In the most trying circumstances our Lord gave us during the Passion examples of those virtues we somehow seem to lack – meekness, mercy, charity, silence, patience, abandonment, and obedience to His Father’s will – even to death.

Well did St. Bonaventure say: “He who desires to go on advancing from virtue to virtue, from grace to grace should constantly meditate on the Passion of Jesus Christ.” …

Try to see the virtue practiced by the Master and resolve to imitate that virtue. Strive to find some lesson in each of these daily considerations and resolve to put it in practice during the day. In your examination of conscience at night, examine yourself on how you kept the resolution taken that morning. Little good will result from the study of the Passion unless such a study results in our imitation of Christ. “O foolish Galatians!” cried out St. Paul, “who has bewitched you [that you should not obey the truth], before whose eyes Jesus has been depicted crucified?” (Ga. 3:1)

At the Last Supper, Christ gathered the Apostles around Him and they set out together for Gethesemani, the Garden of the Agony. The name “Gethsemani” is interesting in that it means “oilpress”; in other words, it was a place where the fresh olives were pressed and the oil extracted. What a symbolic spot chosen by the Sacred Redeemer of Mankind for the initial and awful beginning of the Passion! Here He was to take upon Himself the sins of the world and be so crushed under their terrible weight that his precious blood flowed from every pore of His body.

With reverence, then, and with contrite hearts let us begin our contemplation of the passion of our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemani and pray that your heart and soul will be inflamed with love and aroused to imitate all the virtues practiced by the Savior in His Passion. Decide now on one positive act of mortification to be practiced this very day, recalling these words of the Imitation of Christ: “The more thou dost violence to thyself, the greater thy progress will be.” Tomorrow we shall see our Lord separating Peter, James, and John from the other apostles and taking them with Him into the midst of the garden. Thus shall we begin our study of the Passion” (end of Fr. Doyle quotes).

Introduction

We often feel we are crushed under the weight of the betrayal we must witness among those who should be Christ’s greatest supporters, and if we further continue to expose this betrayal here it is only to fulfill our obligation to defend the faith. In a past blog, I had mentioned how certain recognize and resist sects and other entities — some who claim to pray at home — were somehow connected with the In the Spirit of Chartres Committee (ISOC), a non-profit organization promoting “traditional” Catholicism. Featured on the ISOC interviews list is one Dr. E. Michael Jones, who will be discussed below. Jones is listed on this site along with Siri pope fantasizer Gary Giuffre, also Jim Condit, Robert Sungenesis, Cornelia Ferreira (all major contributors) as well as Gerry Matatics, (one known DVD; some are not tagged). To discover what they are saying, one must purchase and listen to numerous DVD’s.  As  pointed out in the past, this is not only expensive but a waste of time. A six  or seven-page  article requires a little over 20 minutes for the average person to read, while some of these DVDs can last for hours.

The 2020 link provided here on Dr. E. Michael Jones from the Fitzpatrick Informer does not need to be read in its entirety; a quick scan will confirm what is said there. Mr. Fitzpatrick has bought into the Fatima/aliens hoax, presenting “proofs” of a so-called connection from a “Catholic” author, but no good Catholic could state categorically, with any degree of certitude, that Fatima was indeed a hoax. This I also have addressed in previous blogs at length. So this is definitely NOT a recommended site.

Fitzpatrick’s site also focuses primarily on the Jews (and Russia) as the enemies of the Church and all humanity, something I have described as both dangerous and unCatholic in the past where the Jews are concerned. This because the popes condemn any persecution of the Jews and such emphasis only excites ideas of such persecution in certain individuals. Nor does the Church officially name the Jews as the head and common denominator of Freemasonry. It was Pope Pius IX who actually called Freemasonry the Synagogue of Satan, although certainly this does not exclude the Jews from inclusion as contributing members, even leading members.

This brings us to Andy Sloan’s and Timothy Fitzpatrick’s ’s expose on E. Michael Jones as a KGB agent HERE and HERE. According to Jones own comments in this article, Jones also is a Communist collaborator and denier of Catholic dogma, something far more serious than being a secret agent. The reasons we are addressing the E. Michael Jones issue is because most of those surfing the net out there, like the reader who wisely alerted us to this long blog on Jones, may well run across Fitzpatrick. If those who frequent ISOC and see Jones’ articles there, then read what Sloan and Fitzpatrick have revealed about him, they might rightly wonder why anyone would recommend his works to those believing themselves to be Catholic. Sloan’s article explains it well, and other articles on Fitzpatrick’s site are critical of some traditionalists.

Why would ISOC sell Jones’ DVD’s? There is a good explanation for this, one that most have not fully put together but which needs to be comprehended if one is to prepare for what may well materialize in the future. Fitzpatrick’s and Sloan’s vision is not too far removed from what I posted HERE a few years ago. In this essay I noted: “In her review of Craig Heimbichner’s work, Blood on the Altar, often quoted by this author, Cornelia Ferreira writes: ‘Freemasonic leaders hope to finally fulfill their THIRD-DEGREE RITUAL by rebuilding Solomon’s Temple so that blood may again flow upon Jerusalem’s altar, defiantly reversing and nullifying, in the Talmudic and occult mind, the blood of Christ.’” My question here is, seeing that Ferreira is a registered member of ISOC, why would anyone cooperate with someone like Jones, who himself collaborates with communists (Dugin and associates) who praise Satan?

Jones has stated (see Sloan/Fitzpatrick article) that: “Russia is not a problem in the world, the US is the main problem in the world. Russia is officially Christian, in the way the United States is not… There is no Soviet Union anymore, communism has gone.” And yet research polls show that very few Russians report Russian Orthodox church attendance and many profess to be atheists. Jones even endorses Nostra Aetate, the false Vatican 2 document that denied any collective blame for the Jews in Christ’s death and called for an end to the evangelization of the Jews. The consequences of what Jones’ and others endorse are discussed below.

ISOC and its imaginary church

Canon Law considers those professing Communism, collaborating with Communism or sympathizing with Communists as apostates. True “Catholics” who associate with those who (a) are Novus Ordo recognize and resist types (b) run of the mill LibTrads and (c) types such as Jones who veer far from anything Catholic yet present are denying infallible Church teaching by their manner of acting (Can. 1325). For the Church infallibly teaches: “We deplore and condemn the pernicious error of those who dream of an imaginary Church, a kind of society that finds its origin and growth in charity, to which, somewhat contemptuously, they oppose another, which they call juridical” (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi).  In this same encyclical, we read that Pius XII defines Church membership as “…the cooperation of all its members… [made] externally manifest through their profession of the same faith and their sharing the same sacred rites, through participation in the same Sacrifice, and the practical observance of the same laws.”

So we have this imaginary church, where both a Latin Mass in a Novus Ordo church and a Latin Mass in a LibTrad church are adjudged equally “Catholic,” (along with Uniate masses either Novus Ordo in character or those celebrated by Uniate clergy who operate independently); or one can refrain from “mass” altogether and pray at home, as long as one accepts LibTrad clergy as valid. It is a church where one can accept all Vatican 2 popes (but Francis, perhaps), reject all but John  23, or accept none after the death of Pope Pius XII. How wonderfully democratic! We are frequently criticized for measuring the Church by juridical means, (Canon Law), particularly when it involves the matter of heresy. And LibTrad pseudo-clergy and their minions generally are quite contemptuous when any proofs from canon law are produced showing they are operating invalidly and deceiving their followers. We are constantly chastised for failing to practice charity by those insisting that, contrary to Catholic teaching, all are in “good faith,” or invincibly ignorant, and must be given the benefit of the doubt.

But the “charity” extended by ISOC and others to those who yet regard the current Roman usurpers as true (if evil) popes and participate in services clearly shown to be idolatrous — worshipping mere bread as Christ’s true Body and Blood — is liberal, not Catholic charity, as demonstrated here countless times. The stated aims of ISOC, as pointed out before, is to “unite the clans” and organize a papal election to regulate everything. This in violation of infallible papal teaching, and we have written enough on this for readers to know such an election is now impossible given the invalidity of LibTrad clergy per Pope Pius XII’s Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis.

It is the insistence on this validity, and the absurd propagation of the material-formal heresy, that ties all the groups under the ISOC umbrella together. Because the key to uniting seems to be the endorsement of a “compromise” candidate for the papacy, someone from the conservative Novus Ordo sector who would “renounce” any previous heresy and return the Church to is pre-1958-status. That is the gist of the material-formal insanity, which contradicts both Pope Paul IV’s Cum ex Apostolatus Officio and Pope St. Pius V’s motu proprio, Inter Multiplices, where, in the first year of his pontificate, Pope St. Pius V confirmed everything in Pope Paul IV’s bull.

The heresy of Traditionalism — again

The teachings of both popes forbid the admittance of public heretics, apostates or schismatics to any future office in the Church. After the death of Pope Pius XII any attempting ordination or consecration were automatically invalidated and incapacitated for obtaining any offices under Canon Law and Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis. Only by their continuing contempt for Canon Law and papal teaching throughout the centuries — TRUE tradition as defined by the Church Herself — can these pseudo-clergy and their followers continue to pursue this “papal election” course and realize the establishment of their condemned imaginary church, which is really only the creation of a “traditional” version of the Novus Ordo church! It is interesting to note that in the Jones article, tradition is defined differently than it is understood by most LibTrads. It is ”perennialism” that actually reduces to the condemned heresy of Traditionalism, as mentioned in footnotes 13 and 14 to the Jones article.

In other Jones article footnotes we also find:

(170) Dugin – satanist Aleister Crowley is a traditionalist (2nd paragraph: https://arcto.ru/article/384

(171) Jones propaganda – “Western civilisation will not survive and we need to return to tradition.”

The Catholic Encyclopedia explains the heresy of traditionalism (DZ 1649-1652) as follows: “According to traditionalism, human reason is of itself radically unable to know with certainty any truth or, at least, the fundamental truths of the metaphysical, moral, and religious order. Hence our first act of knowledge must be an act of faith, based on the authority of revelation. This revelation is transmitted to us through society, and its truth is guaranteed by tradition or the general consent of mankind.” Perennialism is the belief that this “general consent of mankind” can be found in “Catholicism, Hinduism, Judaism (including the Kabbalah), Orthodox Christianity and Islam,”  which the Novus Ordo also teaches by its concessions to these rother religions. Perennialism is best explained by the link below, but beware: this is a site associated with the very individuals found at ISOC — a decidedly LibTrad sedevacantist site quoting Cekada and Sanborn — and is definitely NOT recommended by this author (https://truerestoration.org/what-is-perennialism-and-why-should-we-know-about-it/).

Three things should be noted here. One, traditionalism is the type pf perennialism peculiar to  “Latin Mass Catholics” because Perennialists consider only the orthodox” or more ancient expression of the Catholic faith as true; they reject modernism, scientism, secularism and syncretism so their beliefs appear to be Catholic when in reality they are in line with Novus Ordo teaching and practice. Secondly, the same can be said of the truerestoration site that is said about ISOC. Peel back the layers of the onion and you will find the very things they are allegedly advocating for and promoting are secretly contaminated with what they also profess to condemn! And these are contaminated in such a way that only those who know or uncover the true background of LibTrad pseudo-clergy can pick up on this fact. The truerestoration link explains the perennialism of Rama Coomeraswamy, but it fails to track this heresy back to those who imbibed it in the very seminary training they received under Marcel Lefebvre.

A tainted pool

LibTrad pseudo-cleric Rama Coomeraswamy, was the “converted” son of Hindu philosopher Ananda Coomeraswamy, who also professed perennialism. Ananda was a personal friend of Aleister Crowley’s, and the two men even “shared” Ananda’s wife. This is a known fact published in certain books as well as online. Rama’s father also mixed with many other leading occultists of the 20th century. Why a person with this familial background would be found among “catholic traditionalists” can only be explained by the meaning of tradition and traditionalism itself as stated above — it is not the Latin Mass tradition, or tradition as taught and understood by the Church. No, it is that tradition explained by John 23^rd’s biographer, Meriol Trevor, as follows: “[Roncalli] thought of himself as representing a different tradition” (Pope John, p. 206). In his Blood on the Altar, Craig Heimbichner warned that Crowley and his OTO had infiltrated the Church in ways Catholics could not comprehend. The two Coomeraswamys can be linked to that Satanic pathway into the remnant Church via LibTrad pseudo-clergy. The following on Cekada, Dolan, Sanborn and McKenna from Wikibin and Wikipedia explains why truerestoration is actually a part of the very problem this link addresses.

“Prior to his declaration as a Sedevacantist, Coomaraswamy had become close to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. The former was appointed a Professor of Church History at the New England seminary of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX). It was in that capacity that he successfully influenced a significant number of students to subscribe to Sedevacantism, resulting in the separation of nine SSPX priests, among them Clarence Kelly, Daniel Dolan, Donald Sanborn, [William] Jenkins, Anthony Cekada. The group then formed the Society of St. Pius V (SSPV). When Dolan, Sanborn, Cekada and most of the other priests of the SSPV began to dissent from the rigorist leadership of Kelly, Coomaraswamy again joined them in departing from the SSPV. They then united in a loose manner as the Instauratio Catholica. Over time, even this loose confederation frayed and ceased to exist” (https://www.wikibin.org/articles/rama-p.-coomaraswamy.html). “[“Bishop”] Robert F. McKenna participated in a number of exorcisms and worked for many years with demonologist Dave Considine and Rama Coomaraswamy, M.D.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McKenna). Need we say more?

Masonic origin of the term ‘traditionalist’

The term traditionalist came into use in 1965 when Rev. Gommar DePauw founded the Catholic Traditionalist Movement (CTM) in New York. This was done under the auspices of a Masonic organization, The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, (OSJ), also known as the Shickshinny Knights. (This group is not to be confused with the “Catholic “ order, the Knights of Malta, (SMOM), investigated under Pope Pius XII for Masonic infiltration and its status as a Catholic knighthood indefinitely suppressed. Pius XII died before the investigation was concluded, but Roncalli reinstated the order.) On its official letterhead, the OSJ itself claims regarding CTM: “During the Second Vatican Council, our members attending the council as Cardinals, Bishops, with their ‘periti’ priests realized there was going to be a great deal of confusion and disturbance afterwards. So under the brilliant and cogent leadership of our Grand Prelate Bishop Blaise S. Kurz and with the support of Francis Cardinal Spellman of New York, WE started the Catholic Traditionalist Movement” (document available on request).

As always maintained here, this proves that an alternative organization to sweep up those exiting Vatican 2 was deliberately created beforehand to deceive the elect. The ambiguous use of the word traditionalist or tradition, misapplied to the liturgy only and not used as the Church Herself defines it, was unquestionably accepted and adopted by Catholics who did not even know, far less understand, its origins and connection to an actual heresy condemned by the Church. In a 1981 article for The Roman Catholic publication, entitled “Light on the OSJ,” sedecvacantist Anthony Cekada wrote:

“In the mid-1960’s, the head of the Catholic Traditionalist Movement (CTM) in Westbury, New York, Father Gommar De Pauw, became involved with the OSJ. In a telegram to Mr. Pichel [OSJ co-founder] dated June 23, 1968, Father De Pauw (a Doctor of Canon Law and former seminary professor) said that: “I have today informed His Holiness Pope Paul VI that, in virtue of the perpetual privileges granted by his predecessors to the Sovereign Order, we have today offered the first public traditional Latin Mass in the Ave Maria Chapel of the Greater New York Priory located in the Catholic Traditionalist Center in Westbury… The red and white flag of our Order once again waves in American skies. Father De Pauw signed himself as “Knight-Commander of Justice, Prior, Chaplain.”

“OSJ literature published in 1968 noted that Father De Pauw was “Coordinator and Dean of the Roman Catholic Section” of the OSJ’s “Ecclesiastical Tribunal” and that the Westbury Chapel was the “Roman Catholic Church of the Order for the Official Investiture of Knights in the Greater New York Priory.” (The Coordinator of the “Old Roman Catholic Section of the Ecclesiastical Tribunal” was listed as “The Rev. Dr. Gerard G. Shelley.”) Other OSJ literature published that same year notes that: “From the very beginning, all the speeches and writings of the Rev. Dr. Gommar A. De Pauw established his eagerness and true feeling of the spirit of sane Ecumenism [???-Ed.] as opposed to insane ecumania in the following words: “The time is overdue when Traditionalist Roman Catholics and conservative Protestants join hands and forces to save whatever is left of Christianity.” Father De Pauw later left the OSJ and continued to celebrate the traditional Mass for the CTM.” (End of Cekada quotes). Cekada ends his article by advising Traditionalists not to join the OSJ.

In the article HERE, it is explained how Marcel Lefebvre was later identified with the OSJ and even acted as its Grand Master. Since Coomeraswamy was an avid Lefebvrist at one point and Cekada, Sanborn and others mentioned above were his admiring students, it is not a far leap to conclude Coomeraswamy was at least a sympathizer if not an actual OSJ member. Certainly the type of ecumenism professed by the OSJ tallies with his accursed perennialism. And what is practiced by associations such as ISOC and other LibTrad organizations is simply a “catholic” variety of ecumenism — uniting the fractured LibTrad clans claiming the name Catholic with no common doctrinal basis whatsoever for their beliefs. The Church is ONE in belief; apostolicity of DOCTRINE is superior to that of mission, for without teaching the true doctrines Christ taught His apostles, there could be no mission. True belief must precede practice, or nothing can be Catholic.

Yet further proofs Trad pseudo-clergy are invalid

Although there should be no need for additional proofs that LibTrad pseudo-clergy are indeed invalid, the above information should be added to the list. And here we also wish to add the following statement by the then Archbishop of Nicaea, Raphael Merry del Val, later to become Pope St. Pius X’s Secretary of State. In his 1902 refutation of the Protestant Dr. Oxenham, The Truth of Papal Claims, Abp. del Val proves that the idea that the juridic Church cannot exist without the Pope is not novel at all but was well understood in the early part of the 20th century, having already been taught by Pope Pius IX. Abp. del Val wrote:

“The Church is built upon the Apostles but upon the Apostles as Christ ranked them with their Prince at their head, who was endowed by Him with special prerogatives… Accordingly, St. Paul speaks of the Apostles collectively and he couples them with the Prophets as authorized teachers of divine truth. In doing so, Paul does not exclude but includes Peter with whatever powers Christ gave him. That special office must last as long as the Church herself remains, namely to the end of time… The Apostolic Office, therefore, remains in the Church in the person of St. Peter’s successor and in the Catholic episcopate when united to its divinely constituted head, the rock of the whole edifice. FOR WITHOUT HIM THERE CAN BE NO CATHOLIC EPISCOPATE AND NO SUCCESSION FROM THE APOSTLES ACCORDING TO THE MIND OF CHRIST. And thus it is not correct to say, as Dr. Oxenham says, that ‘All bishops alike are successors of St. Peter as an apostle.’

“Bishops have power and jurisdiction in their own right, for the Holy Ghost hath placed them to rule or feed the Church of God and accordingly the Pope, the chief Bishop, addresses them as his ‘venerable brethren’. But the actual exercise of that power and jurisdiction which the bishops hold from God is BY THE WILL OF GOD united with and DEPENDENT UPON the Apostolic Office centered and living in the Rock, the chief Ruler, the Chief Shepherd of the whole flock. Unlike the individual apostles, the individual Bishop has not received from God a universal mission in the world.”  And Abp. del Val is not alone. Rev. J. Tixeront, in his Holy Orders and Ordination: A Study in the History of Dogma,(1928), quotes medieval canonists as far back as 1125 to the effect that for orders to be considered valid, they must be conveyed with the accompanying (papal) approval necessary to jurisdiction (i.e., papal mandate for episcopal consecration).

As Pope Pius IX, Abp. del Val and Pope Pius XII, (in his Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis) — all teach such presumed jurisdiction cannot exist without the pope. Rev. Tixeront insists that if there is any doubt regarding ordination or consecration, it must be conditionally repeated. And as the most recent practice of the Church shows: “(Nov. 18, 1931 Holy Office decision): “A Catholic who lapses from the Church and receives orders from a schismatic bishop can be received back into the Church only on the understanding that such ordinations, even if valid, will be completely disregarded,” (Dr. Leslie Rumble, Homiletic and Pastoral Review: “Are Liberal Catholic Orders Valid?” 1958).

Conclusion

Much more could be said on this topic and may be explored later, but the themes above only reinforce what I have tried to expose for over three decades. The neo-Modernist LibTrads are working in plain sight, if one only points out their covert affiliations, to bring about a LibTrad ecumenical version of the Novus Ordo church headed by yet another false pope. Their proponents may present as valid clergy, or even as laypeople praying at home. But their aim is the same — hide their true affiliations and beliefs in order to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning warned us in his work The Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance (p. 111, 115-116) that the Old Catholics were planning a coup to topple the Church; one of the reasons that the Vatican Council was convened. And as Cekada quotes from an OSJ circular: “In a long program designed for the unity of all the Christian Churches, the Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem recognizes and accepts both the Old Roman Catholic Church and the papal Roman Catholic Church as one and the same Universal Church.”

The more things change, the more they remain the same. In his encyclical Quartus Supra, Pope Pius IX wrote:

“Long ago Christ warned that many would come in His name, stating that they were the Christ, and as a result, seduce many; this has proved true. For by means of the new schism which arose three years ago among the Armenians in Constantinople, the common enemy of the human race is wholly engaged in undermining faith, destroying truth and disrupting unity by worldly wisdom, heretical discussion, subtle, clever deceit, and even, where possible, by the use of force. While exposing the pretenses and plots of this enemy, St. Cyprian lamented that ‘he snatches human beings out of the very church and while they think they have already drawn near to the light and escaped from the night of the world, he brings darkness over them once more in ways of which they are unaware. Thus, although they do not observe Christ’s gospel and His law, they call themselves Christians and judge that they possess the light while they walk in darkness, attracted and deceived by the adversary. For he transfigures himself like an angel of light, as the Apostle says (2 Cor 11.14) and disguises his ministers as ministers of justice who present night as day, ruin as salvation, hopelessness in the guise of hope, faithlessness under the pretext of faith, the antichrist with the title of “Christ.” Thus while telling lies which resemble truths, they make vain the truth by their subtlety… (para. 5)

“The chief deceit used to conceal the new schism is the name of “Catholic.” The originators and adherents of the schism presumptuously lay claim to this name despite their condemnation by Our authority and judgment. It has always been the custom of heretics and schismatics to call themselves Catholics and to proclaim their many excellences in order to lead peoples and princes into error… For the Catholic Church has always regarded as schismatic those who obstinately oppose the lawful prelates of the Church and in particular, the chief shepherd of all. Schismatics avoid carrying out their orders and even deny their very rank… They are schismatics even if they had not yet been condemned as such by Apostolic authority” (paras. 6 and 12).

We have quoted this many times before; it never grows old. And as many times as we discover that it is necessary, we will no doubt quote it again. This blog is written for the further education of those who already believe and understand, as well as for those laboring to understand. But FIRST AND FOREMOST, it is written to defend the truths of Faith and promote God’s honor and glory. So even if no one reads it at all, it will be printed here as God wills and for as long as He wills.

Lenten penance: Overcoming is a bounden duty

by T. Stanfill Benns | Mar 5, 2025 | New Blog

+Ash Wednesday+

Prayer Society Intention for March, Month of St. Joseph

“O glorious St. Joseph, defender of the Church founded by Jesus, most confidently do I implore thy powerful aid for for all the Church militant on earth.” (Raccolta)

Introduction

We begin with a treatise on Ash Wednesday by the much-respected author Rev. Hugo Doyle,  who also wrote Cana is Forever, Sins of the Parents and other works. A review of some of the material presented in our last blog post will follow. Wishing all a blessed and profitable Lent.

Reflections on the Passion, (Censor Librorum, 1956)

“Love moves and governs all things. Tell me what you love, and I shall tell you what you are. If your love is for the world, you are its slave. If your love is for Jesus Christ, you are free; you are becoming conformed to His image; your conversation, that is your life and conduct even here below, are continually in heaven.

Jesus Christ is alone worthy of your whole heart. But you cannot love Him if you do not know that “God so lived the world as to give His only-begotten Son,” that He emptied Himself out,” and that He laid down His life for His flock.” We must know the details of His sufferings, if we would know the excess of His love.

This little volume — Reflections on the Passion — was written for just this purpose. It should provide the laity with short, pointed considerations for quiet prayer, the religious, with ready material for personal and profitable meditation, and the clergy, with suitable matter before-Mass reading to the faithful or for sermon seeds for Lenten courses.

It is related that King Louis XIV of France, shortly after his ascent to the throne, stood at an open window in his palace and silently admired the simple beauty of the church of St. Denis, standing some distance away. A servant ventured to remark that all of the king’s ancestors laid buried in that church and that, doubtless, it would also be His Majesty’s last resting place. The very next day the king ordered another palace built so that the Church of St. Denis would be hidden from his view.

Holy Mother the Church is much more realistic. She has her priests bless ashes and then place some of these ashes on the foreheads of her children, saying at the same time, “Remember, man, thou art but dust, and into dust thou shalt return.”

Sin and death go together. Because Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, they had to submit to this dreadful penalty, and in like manner, all their descendants. To remind us of this grim fact, the Church places ashes on the foreheads of her children on each Ash Wednesday, saying, “Remember, man, thou art dust, and into dust thou shalt return.”

There is still another death which the Church would remind us of today – the death of our vices and concupiscences through mortification and penance. The word mortification comes from two Latin words meaning “To make death”; and so in asking us to mortify ourselves during Lent, the church begs us to deaden our appetites and passions by discipline so that we might live supernatural lives.

The imposition of ashes, then, is not only symbolic of death, but of penance and mortification too. Since there would be no death if there had not been sin, so there can be no supernatural life without mortification and penance. The ashes should remind us, since holy men like Job and David associated ashes with penance, and the Church has been doing the same for almost 2000 years.

So you see, life, death, mortification, penance, are all brought to our minds by the simple but deeply meaningful ceremony of the imposition of the blessed ashes. Could a more effective way be found to signify the beginning of the penitential season of Lent? The external application of ashes to our foreheads will be useless and meaningless unless and until we resolve in our hearts to use the forty days ahead to do penance in reparation for our past failures and practice mortification to condition our souls and bodies for the struggle ahead.

Spend some time today in considering the fact that you will sooner or later die and that everyone and everything you hold near and dear to you must be left behind. “To fear death before it comes,” says St. Gregory, “is to conquer it when it comes.”

Say often this prayer of David: “O Lord, make me know my end, and what is the number of my days that I may know what is wanting in me” (Ps. 38:5).

Thursday after Quinquagesima Sunday: TRUE devotion in its highest meaning includes love for, and imitation of, the person to whom we are devoted, and Holy Mother the Church presents our prayerful devotion during Lent, the Sacred Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, with fervent hope that we shall be aroused to imitate Him.” (End of Rev. Doyle quotes – to be continued next week.)

Prayer and Penance

In our last blog, the need for prayer and penance was emphasized which is indeed the overriding theme of Lent. What so many fail to realize is that God has punished us for our sins by taking away the papacy and with it the Mass and Sacraments. Most, however, are not accepting this punishment as a penance in the spirit it in which it was intended. Below we see how Daniel prophesied concerning the cessation of the Mass and Sacraments and who will cause them to cease.

“And it was magnified even unto the strength of heaven: and it threw down of the strength, and of the stars, and trod upon them… And it was magnified even to the prince of the strength: and it took away from him the continual sacrifice and cast down the place of his sanctuary.  And strength was given him against the continual sacrifice, because of sins: and truth shall be cast down on the ground, and he shall do and shall prosper.” (Dan. 8: 11-12). In the prayer of Daniel, (Ch. 9) we read how he prayed, fasted and did penance because of what he saw in his visions — the magnifying of the powers of the prince of strength and the cessation of the continual sacrifice. Commentators unanimously agree that the cessation applies to the time of Antichrist as well as Daniel’s time, and this has been verified by the unanimous agreement of the Fathers on this event.

Reading Daniel’s words above, first we see how the papacy was usurped (it took the sacrifice away from him and cast down his sanctuary). The “prince of strength” is described by Rev. Haydock as referring to contentions over who possessed the high priesthood, mentioning that the priests had neglected the sacrifices and were being punished for this. This could be applied to Roncalli, who was made strong by the sins of the faithful and clergy alike, lobbying for liturgical renewal even before his “election.” For certainly he and Montini cast truth to the ground; did evil and prospered. All this because of sins, sins so many do not repent from or do penance for because they still believe themselves to possess the true Mass. Daniel, on seeing the destruction of Jerusalem in his vision, fell to his knees and begged God’s forgiveness.

“I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, concerning which the word of the Lord came to Jeremias the prophet, that seventy years should be accomplished of the desolation of Jerusalem.  And I set my face to the Lord my God, to pray and make supplication with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes.  And I prayed to the Lord my God, and I made my confession, and said: I beseech thee, O Lord God, great and terrible, who keepest the covenant, and mercy to them that love thee, and keep thy commandments.  We have sinned, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly, and have revolted: and we have gone aside from thy commandments, and thy judgments… And we have not hearkened to the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in his law, which he set before us by his servants the prophets…

“All this evil is come upon us: and we entreated not thy face, O Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and think on thy truth… O Lord, against all thy justice: let thy wrath and thy indignation be turned away, I beseech thee, from thy city Jerusalem, and from thy holy mountain. For by reason of our sins, and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem, and thy people are a reproach to all that are round about us.  Now therefore, O our God, hear the supplication of thy servant, and his prayers: and shew thy face upon thy sanctuary which is desolate, for thy own sake.” Ch. 9, vs, 1-17).

Repeating themes in Apocalypse

We then return to the chastisement by Our Lord addressed to the Laodicea church, identified by Pope Pius XI as applying to these times.  Various themes emerge in this chastisement that are addressed also to the other churches and reiterated in Holy Scripture. It may be my imagination, but it seems that Christ, in the words below, is inviting those rejecting the Laodicea church, the seventh and the last — those whom He has rebuked and chastised by taking away the Latin Mass — to commune with Him spiritually.

“Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise. Be zealous therefore and do penance. Behold, I stand at the gate, and knock. If any man shall hear my voice, and open to me the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that shall overcome, I will give to sit with me in my throne: as I also have overcome and am set down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches” (Apoc. 3: 20). We also see how Christ’s coming as a thief is repeated throughout Apocalypse and elsewhere. In Apoc. 16:15, St. John writes: “Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he shall gather them together into a place, which in Hebrew is called Armageddon.” Apoc. 3:17-18 is identical to the warning in Apoc. 16:15.

These words warning of Christ coming suddenly are also repeated in Apoc. 3: 1-5: “And to the angel of the church of Sardis, write: These things saith he, that hath the seven spirits of God, and the seven stars: I know thy works, that thou hast the name of being alive: and thou art dead.  Be watchful and strengthen the things that remain, which are ready to die. For I find not thy works full before my God.  Have in mind therefore in what manner thou hast received and heard: and observe and do penance. If then thou shalt not watch, I will come to thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know at what hour I will come to thee.  But thou hast a few names in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments: and they shall walk with me in white, because they are worthy.  He that shall overcome, shall thus be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, and I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.”

Other mentions include: “But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away with great violence, and the elements shall be melted with heat, and the earth and the works which are in it, shall be burnt up” (2 Peter 3:10). And: “For yourselves know perfectly, that the day of the Lord shall so come, as a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2). “For I testify to every one that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book: If any man shall add to these things, God shall add unto him the plagues written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from these things that are written in this book. He that giveth testimony of these things, saith, Surely I come quickly: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus” (Apoc. 22: 18-20).

Rev. H.M. Feret on overcomers

The overcoming theme also is repeated numerous times. Of this Rev. H.M. Feret, O.P. says in the conclusion to his Apocalypse commentary: “The whole history of modern times is essentially that of Christ’s truth confided to the faithful and spread by them throughout the world till the day of triumph when the consummation will take place. That is why the Christian has been given the title of ‘overcomer.’ It applies to him and his supernatural state but it also expresses a duty on his part. He has earned the hope of attaining it through the very fact of being baptized in the victorious resurrection of Christ and he is as assured of victory as truth itself insofar as he remains faithful to it. But it also carries with it the sense of duty, in fact men’s primary duty. In the eyes of the world the Christian, by the testimony of his whole life, should cut the figure of an overcomer or conquer. Too many believers passively lament the evils of our day. They make wickedness responsible for all of our ills without apparently suspecting that wickedness momentarily has the upper hand only because of their weakness.

Surely their conscience should be pricked by the generosity and bravery which are at times lavished on the most baleful causes. They have failed to understand the sublime paradox of St. John who insistently saluted the persecuted Christians with the title of overcomers while in the sight of man they were only poor nondescripts born in obscurity in Asia minor. If Christians today would bring the mentality of overcomers to bear upon contemporary realities in the service of truth and above all that of the gospel, the world would once more be compelled to bow to their testimony. It is when witnesses apparently dead come back to life that men give glory to God. May our witness be thus revived; may it become strong again so that the new spirit of the life of the gospel may enter into our spirits and into our lives. Then we shall again stand upright on our feet and the enemies of Christ will once more be reduced to silence. False messianisms will lose their attraction and the power of seduction and that will mark a new stage in the progress of truth through history. All that is needed is that we shall become spiritually strong, behaving like overcomers so that nothing we do may deserve the terrible denunciation of the judge towards the end of the Apocalypse against the cowardly and the timid” (The Apocalypse Explained, 1958).

Conclusion

It is our bounden DUTY, in these times, to be overcomers. Rev. E. Sylvester Berry says of Apoc. 2: 27: “The faithful are warned of the necessity of good works for salvation. Those who persevere in them unto the end shall have part with Christ in the judgment of the wicked. They shall participate in the power He has received from the Father to rule the nations with a rod of iron.” Regarding Ch. 11: 1, where St. John is ordered to measure the temple, “the altar and them that adore therein” with “a reed, like unto a rod.” Berry writes: “The temple is a figure of the Church and those who worship there are the faithful who remain steadfast during the great persecution of Antichrist.” Commenting on Ch. 11:2  he says: “The outer court cast off and given over to the Gentiles signifies that a great number of Christians will fall away from the faith in those days” (The Apocalypse of St. John, 1921).

Rev. H. Bernard Kramer wrote: “The rod of iron is a scriptural symbol of divine chastisement or LAW ENFORCEMENT by which the good are separated from the wicked” (The Book of Destiny, 1956). The iron-clad rod or club has to do with protection, discipline and punishment, as in excommunication and exclusion from Church membership. Normally the shepherd uses his crook to guide or direct the sheep — the crook Christ is carrying in the many depictions of Him as the Good Shepherd. But the iron rod is reserved for predators and the sheep who stubbornly refuse the direction of the shepherd. Catholics who refuse to accept correction and chastisement by observing the laws of the Shepherd will not be counted among those wearing white garments at the Final Judgment.

If we truly wish to reign in Heaven with Christ as our King, which so many profess to be their most fervent desire, we will use our Lent to practice penance by studying the truths of Faith, the encyclicals and other papal documents. As the angel told Daniel, “Many shall be chosen, and made white, and shall be tried as fire: and the wicked shall deal wickedly, and none of the wicked will understand, but the learned shall understand” (Ch. 12:10). Pray, then, that Our Lord appears soon to end this nightmare on earth occasioned by the absence of a true pope and the cessation of the Continual Sacrifice. “Amen. Come Lord Jesus!”