tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39464704304835748832024-02-07T04:11:31.045-08:00SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM JOHANNESBURGCatholic Orthodoxy in South Africa
Founder and Editor
Calvin James Montgomery B.A (wits)Orthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.comBlogger102125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-56762884500906997372010-07-10T08:29:00.000-07:002010-07-10T08:43:27.271-07:00South African Bishop Kevin Dowling's Talk on Vatican II "Triumphalism" - Comments by Fr. John ZuhlsdorfBelow is reproduced the text of the Talk given by + Kevin Dowling ( not one of South Africa's most illustrious supporters of Pope Benedict's Hermenuitic of Continuity) , I have taken the liberty of including the comments made on this talk by the American Fr. John Zuhlsdorf which follows directly afterward.<br /><br /><br />" The Southern Cross [South Africa's weekly Catholic newspaper] about 3 or 4 weeks ago published a picture of Bishop Slattery with his "cappa magna". For me, such a display of what amounts to triumphalism in a church torn apart by the sexual abuse scandal, is most unfortunate. What happened there bore the marks of a medieval royal court, not the humble, servant leadership modeled by Jesus. But it seems to me that this is also a symbol of what has been happening in the church especially since pope John Paul II became the Bishop of Rome and up till today -- and that is "restorationism," the carefully planned dismantling of the theology, ecclesiology, pastoral vision, indeed the "opening of the windows" of Vatican II -- in order to "restore" a previous, or more controllable model of church through an increasingly centralized power structure; a structure which now controls everything in the life of the church through a network of Vatican congregations led by cardinals who ensure strict compliance with what is deemed by them to be "orthodox." Those who do not comply face censure and punishment, e.g. theologians who are forbidden to teach in Catholic faculties.<br /><br />Lest we do not highlight sufficiently this important fact. Vatican II was an ecumenical council, i.e., a solemn exercise of the magisterium of the church, i.e. the college of bishops gathered together with the bishop of Rome and exercising a teaching function for the whole church. In other words, its vision, its principles and the direction it gave are to be followed and implemented by all, from the pope to the peasant farmer in the fields of Honduras.<br /><br />Since Vatican II there has been no such similar exercise of teaching authority by the magisterium. Instead, a series of decrees, pronouncements and decisions which have been given various "labels" stating, for example, that they must be firmly held to with "internal assent" by the Catholic faithful, but in reality are simply the theological or pastoral interpretations or opinions of those who have power at the centre of the church. They have not been solemnly defined as belonging to the "deposit of the faith" to be believed and followed, therefore, by all Catholics, as with other solemnly proclaimed dogmas. For example, the issues of celibacy for the priesthood and the ordination of women, withdrawn even from the realm of discussion. Therefore, such pronouncements are open to scrutiny -- to discern whether they are in accord, for example, with the fundamental theological vision of Vatican II, or whether there is indeed a case to be made for a different interpretation or opinion.<br /><br />When I worked internationally from my religious congregation's base in Rome from 1985 to 1990 [Dowling is a Redemptorist] before I came back here as bishop of Rustenburg, one of my responsibilities was the building up of young adult ministry with our communities in the countries of Europe where so many of the young people were alienated from the church. I developed relationships with many hundreds of sincere, searching Catholic young adults, very open to issues of injustice, poverty and misery in the world, aware of structural injustice in the political and economic systems which dominated the world, but who increasingly felt that the "official" church was not only out of touch with reality, but a counter-witness to the aspirations of thinking and aware Catholics who sought a different experience of church. In other words, an experience which enabled them to believe that the church they belonged to had something relevant to say and to witness to in the very challenging world in which they lived. Many, many of these young adults have since left the church entirely.<br /><br />On the other hand, it has to be recognized that for a significant number of young Catholics, adult Catholics, priests and religious around the world, the "restorationist" model of church which has been implemented over the past 30-40 years is sought after and valued; it meets a need in them; it gives them a feeling of belonging to something with very clear parameters and guidelines for living, thus giving them a sense of security and clarity about what is truth and what is morally right or wrong, because there is a clear and strong authority structure which decides definitively on all such questions, and which they trust absolutely as being of divine origin.<br /><br />The rise of conservative groups and organizations in the church over the past 40 years and more, which attract significant numbers of adherents, has led to a phenomenon which I find difficult to deal with, viz. an inward looking church, fearful of if not antagonistic towards a secularist world with its concomitant danger of relativism especially in terms of truth and morality -- frequently referred to by pope Benedict XVI; a church which gives an impression of "retreating behind the wagons," and relying on a strong central authority to ensure unity through uniformity in belief and praxis in the face of such dangers. The fear is that without such supervision and control, and that if any freedom in decision-making is allowed, even in less important matters, this will open the door to division and a breakdown in the unity of the church.<br /><br />This is all about a fundamentally different "vision" in the church and "vision" of the church. Where today can we find the great theological leaders and thinkers of the past, like Cardinal [Joseph] Frings of Cologne, Germany] and [Bernard Jan ] Alfrink [Utrecht, Netherlands] in Europe, and the great prophetic bishops whose voice and witness was a clarion call to justice, human rights and a global community of equitable sharing -- the witness of Archbishop [Oscar] Romero of El Salvador, the voices of Cardinals [Paulo Evaristo] Arns and [Aloísio Leo Arlindo ] Lorscheider, and Bishops [Dom] Helder Camara and [Pedro] Casadaliga of Brazil? Again, who in today's world "out there" even listens to, much less appreciates and allows themselves to be challenged by the leadership of the church at the present time? I think the moral authority of the church's leadership today has never been weaker. It is, therefore, important in my view that church leadership, instead of giving an impression of its power, privilege and prestige, should rather be experienced as a humble, searching ministry together with its people in order to discern the most appropriate or viable responses which can be made to complex ethical and moral questions -- a leadership, therefore, which does not presume to have all the answers all the time.<br /><br />But to change focus a bit. One of the truly significant contributions of the church to the building up of a world in which people and communities can live in peace and dignity, with a quality of life which befits those made in God's image, has been the body of what has been called "Catholic Social Teaching", a compendium of which has been released during the past few years. These social teaching principles are: The Common Good, Solidarity, The Option for the Poor, Subsidiarity, The Common Destiny of Goods, The Integrity of Creation, and People-Centerdness -- all based on and flowing out of the values of the Gospel. Here we have very relevant principles and guidelines to engage with complex social, economic, cultural and political realities, especially as these affect the poorest and most vulnerable members of societies everywhere. These principles should enable us, as church, to critique constructively all socio-political-economic systems and policies - and especially from that viewpoint, viz. their effect on the poorest and most vulnerable in society.<br /><br />However, if church leadership anywhere presumes to criticize or critique socio-political-economic policies and policy makers, or governments, it must also allow itself to be critiqued in the same way in terms of its policies, its internal life, and especially its modus operandi. A democratic culture and praxis, with its focus on the participation of citizens and holding accountable those who are elected to govern, is increasingly appreciated in spite of inevitable human shortcomings. When thinking people of all persuasions look at church leadership, they raise questions about, for example, real participation of the membership in its governance and how in fact church leadership is to be held accountable, and to whom. If the church, and its leadership, professes to follow the values of the Gospel and the principles of Catholic Social Teaching, then its internal life, its methods of governing and its use of authority will be scrutinized on the basis of what we profess. Let us take one social teaching principle, vitally important for ensuring participative democracy in the socio-political domain, viz. subsidiarity.<br /><br />I worked with the [South African] bishops' conference Justice and Peace Department for 17 years. After our political liberation in 1994, we discerned that political liberation in itself would have little relevance to the reality of the poor and marginalized unless it resulted in their economic emancipation. We therefore decided that a fundamental issue for post-1994 South Africa was economic justice. After a great deal of discussion at all levels we issued a Pastoral Statement in 1999, which we entitled "Economic Justice in South Africa". Its primary focus was necessarily on the economy. Among other things, it dealt with each of the Catholic Social Teaching principles, and I give a quotation now from part of its treatment of subsidiarity:<br /><br />"The principle of subsidiarity protects the rights of individuals and groups in the face of the powerful, especially the state. It holds that those things which can be done or decided at a lower level of society should not be taken over by a higher level. As such, it reaffirms our right and our capacity to decide for ourselves how to organise our relationships and how to enter into agreements with others. … We can and should take steps to encourage decision-making at lower levels of the economy, and to empower the greatest number of people to participate as fully as possible in economic life." (Economic Justice in South Africa, page 14).<br /><br />Applied to the church, the principle of subsidiarity requires of its leadership to actively promote and encourage participation, personal responsibility and effective engagement by everyone in terms of their particular calling and ministry in the church and world according to their opportunities and gifts.<br /><br />However, I think that today we have a leadership in the church which actually undermines the very notion of subsidiarity; where the minutiae of church life and praxis "at the lower level" are subject to examination and authentication being given by the "higher level," in fact the highest level, e.g., the approval of liturgical language and texts; where one of the key Vatican II principles, collegiality in decision-making, is virtually non-existent. The eminent emeritus Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Franz König, wrote the following in 1999 -- almost 35 years after Vatican II: "In fact, however, de facto and not de jure, intentionally or unintentionally, the curial authorities working in conjunction with the pope have appropriated the tasks of the episcopal college. It is they who now carry out almost all of them" ("My Vision of the church of the Future", The Tablet, March 27, 1999, p. 434).<br /><br />What compounds this, for me, is the mystique which has in increasing measure surrounded the person of the pope in the last 30 years, such that any hint of critique or questioning of his policies, his way of thinking, his exercise of authority etc. is equated with disloyalty. There is more than a perception, because of this mystique, that unquestioning obedience by the faithful to the pope is required and is a sign of the ethos and fidelity of a true Catholic. When the pope's authority is then intentionally extended to the Vatican curia, there exists a real possibility that unquestioning obedience to very human decisions about a whole range of issues by the curial departments and cardinals also becomes a mark of one's fidelity as a Catholic, and anything less is interpreted as being disloyal to the pope who is charged with steering the bark of Peter.<br /><br />It has become more and more difficult over the past years, therefore, for the College of Bishops as a whole, or in a particular territory, to exercise their theologically-based servant leadership to discern appropriate responses to their particular socio-economic, cultural, liturgical, spiritual and other pastoral realities and needs; much less to disagree with or seek alternatives to policies and decisions taken in Rome. And what appears to be more and more the policy of appointing "safe", unquestionably orthodox and even very conservative bishops to fill vacant dioceses over the past 30 years, only makes it less and less likely that the College of Bishops -- even in powerful conferences like the United States -- will question what comes out of Rome, and certainly not publicly. Instead, there will be every effort to try and find an accommodation with those in power, which means that the Roman position will prevail in the end. And, taking this further, when an individual bishop takes issue with something, especially in public, the impression or judgment will be that he is "breaking ranks" with the other bishops and will only cause confusion to the lay faithful -- so it is said - because it will appear that the bishops are not united in their teaching and leadership role. The pressure, therefore, to conform.<br /><br />What we should have, in my view, is a church where the leadership recognizes and empowers decision-making at the appropriate levels in the local church; where local leadership listens to and discerns with the people of God of that area what "the Spirit is saying to the church" and then articulates that as a consensus of the believing, praying, serving community. It needs faith in God and trust in the people of God to take what may seem to some or many as a risk. The church could be enriched as a result through a diversity which truly integrates socio-cultural values and insights into a living and developing faith, together with a discernment of how such diversity can promote unity in the church -- and not, therefore, require uniformity to be truly authentic.<br /><br />Diversity in living and praxis, as an expression of the principle of subsidiarity, has been taken away from the local churches everywhere by the centralization of decision-making at the level of the Vatican. In addition, orthodoxy is more and more identified with conservative opinions and outlook, with the corresponding judgment that what is perceived to be "liberal" is both suspect and not orthodox, and therefore to be rejected as a danger to the faith of the people.<br /><br />Is there a way forward? I have grappled with this question especially in the light of the apparent division of aspiration and vision in the church. How do you reconcile such very different visions of church, or models of church? I do not have the answer, except that somewhere we must find an attitude of respect and reverence for difference and diversity as we search for a living unity in the church; that people be allowed, indeed enabled, to find or create the type of community which is expressive of their faith and aspirations concerning their Christian and Catholic lives and engagement in church and world, and which strives to hold in legitimate and constructive tension the uncertainties and ambiguities that all this will bring, trusting in the presence of the Holy Spirit.<br /><br />At the heart of this is the question of conscience. As Catholics, we need to be trusted enough to make informed decisions about our life, our witness, our expressions of faith, spirituality, prayer, and involvement in the world -- on the basis of a developed conscience. And, as an invitation to an appreciation of conscience and conscientious decisions about life and participation in what is a very human church, I close with the formulation or understanding given by none other than the theologian, Fr. Josef Ratzinger, now pope, when he was a peritus, or expert, at Vatican II:<br /><br />"Over the pope as expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there stands one's own conscience which must be obeyed before all else, even if necessary against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. This emphasis on the individual, whose conscience confronts him with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even the official church, also establishes a principle in opposition to increasing totalitarianism".<br />(Joseph Ratzinger in: Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II ,Vol. V., pg. 134 (Ed) H. Vorgrimler, New York, Herder and Herder, 1967).<br /><br />Bishop Kevin Dowling C.Ss.R.<br />Cape Town, June 1, 2010<br /><br /><br />Fr. John Zuhlsdorf's Article and Comments<br /><br />" he National Catholic Fishwrap reproduced on its site a talk given by South African Bishop Kevin Dowling (about whom WDTPRS has written before). I think they were especially interested to support Bp. Dowling’s talk, because he attacks what he called "restorationism". <br /><br />He doesn’t like the path Pope Benedict, especially, has set us on. (He doesn’t really distinguish very well between John Paul’s and Benedict’s pontificate, by the way, and we are not surprised.)<br /><br />As for the context, Bishop Dowling gave the talk to a sympathetic group and thought he was off the record. This talk, therefore, reflects his real thinking, and the thinking of a still large group in the Church.<br /><br />There is so much in this talk that is just plain wrong it is too hard here to interject all points we would require. Let’s take just two points from His Excellency’s talk and drill at them for a bit.<br /><br />Here is a central point of His Excellency’s talk, to save you some time:<br />“The Southern Cross [South Africa’s weekly Catholic newspaper] about 3 or 4 weeks ago published a picture of Bishop Slattery with his "cappa magna". For me, such a display of what amounts to triumphalism in a church torn apart by the sexual abuse scandal, is most unfortunate.”<br />We must respond: Episcopal miters are medieval in origin, too, Excellency. So are the bishops’ rings, crosiers and coats-of-arms. <br /><br />You use all three. <br /><br />Do you feel “triumphalistic” when you think of the sexual abuse scandal during Mass? <br /><br />Perhaps while you’re at it, you’d like to tell Eastern Rite Catholics and Eastern Orthodox hierarchs to simplify their vesture as well? They use crowns! <br /><br />And don’t forget the Archbishop of Canterbury and all the women Anglican bishops!!<br /><br />A second point… and I think this is what is going to permit His Excellency to experience at first hand an examination by the CDF of his … notions: Bp. Dowling doesn’t seem to think that the Church exercises its teaching Magisterium unless through an Ecumenical Council. Perpend:<br /><br />Lest we do not highlight sufficiently this important fact. Vatican II was an ecumenical council, i.e., a solemn exercise of the magisterium of the church, i.e. the college of bishops gathered together with the bishop of Rome and exercising a teaching function for the whole church. In other words, its vision, its principles and the direction it gave are to be followed and implemented by all, from the pope to the peasant farmer in the fields of Honduras.<br /><br />Since Vatican II there has been no such similar exercise of teaching authority by the magisterium. Instead, a series of decrees, pronouncements and decisions which have been given various "labels" stating, for example, that they must be firmly held to with "internal assent" by the Catholic faithful, but in reality are simply the theological or pastoral interpretations or opinions of those who have power at the centre of the church. They have not been solemnly defined as belonging to the "deposit of the faith" to be believed and followed, therefore, by all Catholics, as with other solemnly proclaimed dogmas. For example, the issues of celibacy for the priesthood and the ordination of women, withdrawn even from the realm of discussion. Therefore, such pronouncements are open to scrutiny—to discern whether they are in accord, for example, with the fundamental theological vision of Vatican II, or whether there is indeed a case to be made for a different interpretation or opinion.<br />Let’s see. There are some doctrinal questions to be asked about His Excellency’s positions.<br /><br />Just for an example I recall Ordinatio sacerdotalis, by which John Paul II definitely clarified that the Church has no authority to ordain women. It was later clarified by the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that the teaching of Ordinatio sacerdotalis is part of the deposit of faith.<br />Then also does His Excellency really believe that the teaching of a Council overrules or places constraints on the teaching authority of the Pope? So it would seem.<br /><br />Should the Bishop need to pick up some extra miters and rings, along with his inevitable frequent flier miles, the shop Euroclero is directly across the street from the Palazzo Sant’Uffizio."Orthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-16463615799902564162010-07-10T07:47:00.000-07:002010-07-10T08:01:06.201-07:00Some Random Pictures - For those deprived of Catholic Eye Candy! -<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpRcBWdOMN2c2kZHah19623zkVx75z_jL8BrB1aB2CAyC9orLovyHlAIZxIHWsxKaRumvzwmjQE-1esJzUldlm-CT7fGtv0ECAJvuCHtDKQ2hbaWrGVG3eZVmu_nAVr8eEHM6UQnovtSw/s1600/42161177640cn.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpRcBWdOMN2c2kZHah19623zkVx75z_jL8BrB1aB2CAyC9orLovyHlAIZxIHWsxKaRumvzwmjQE-1esJzUldlm-CT7fGtv0ECAJvuCHtDKQ2hbaWrGVG3eZVmu_nAVr8eEHM6UQnovtSw/s400/42161177640cn.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5492292376212552770" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_K1_hvK1arpHk3uKr7TmreU8y-e_uhj8GC8sEDxjVsB86rjeH3K6UcslsW7_08WbNOHqqhyLTDKVwfu9qiK5jSypz8Tmk5LRhE3wHyH4timUm0rzYcsCwgjKrwvhG6OzIrYUO05UHi2E/s1600/285.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_K1_hvK1arpHk3uKr7TmreU8y-e_uhj8GC8sEDxjVsB86rjeH3K6UcslsW7_08WbNOHqqhyLTDKVwfu9qiK5jSypz8Tmk5LRhE3wHyH4timUm0rzYcsCwgjKrwvhG6OzIrYUO05UHi2E/s400/285.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5492292369157169970" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZFn6mTxqzj-SJSxDyLaYtOWEU1KRZo8wB_8LorhA_RuZvRgBeTm7lHegxgXlhEnNziuvNnnupjUUz-SwRkAjMHflwBE46zlO-5Obt99ScSIu_Tq9O3L-_X-8MF8AzvSOzm6M4H9J5PJs/s1600/Image083.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZFn6mTxqzj-SJSxDyLaYtOWEU1KRZo8wB_8LorhA_RuZvRgBeTm7lHegxgXlhEnNziuvNnnupjUUz-SwRkAjMHflwBE46zlO-5Obt99ScSIu_Tq9O3L-_X-8MF8AzvSOzm6M4H9J5PJs/s400/Image083.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5492292365553885906" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcH4E8GcmZlvvhp1u98Rm4t6dmSP-HJDAvC1JyAD_Ii1iCZqrHZjjGaeckRZodEXFLWkenNbOtBH0gmCKDIHY-DcbX7KJZc0CdY7rmLPs5UNnNEHaNN4Syi42cZo-xQNvLJTuT5U_iie0/s1600/IMG_0573.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcH4E8GcmZlvvhp1u98Rm4t6dmSP-HJDAvC1JyAD_Ii1iCZqrHZjjGaeckRZodEXFLWkenNbOtBH0gmCKDIHY-DcbX7KJZc0CdY7rmLPs5UNnNEHaNN4Syi42cZo-xQNvLJTuT5U_iie0/s400/IMG_0573.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5492292357994483074" /></a>Orthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-19151832495931372642010-07-10T07:29:00.000-07:002010-07-10T07:46:43.755-07:00SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM JOHANNESBURG'S FIRST POST IN NEARLY TWO YEARS!!Its been quite a while since the last post was updated on this blog. In all honesty,time and life took over the author and the enthusiasm and support for it began to dwindle. This, I hope has since changed. I do not dare to say that it is the most magnificent of all blog spots on the web, yet currently within South Africa the need for an even greater defense of true catholicism has still remained and even intensified.<br /><br />Yes, the state of the Church in this wonderful country remains questionable. It would seem that the mentality of Catholics, both clergy and laity, in South Africa refuses still to leave the liberal/ heretical nonsense which has been taught, believed and upheld in diocese's throughout the country since the close of the council.<br /><br />I do not mean to give here and expose of what and why the council went wrong, this is an issue that I am still investigating myself. I do hope however, to use this blog in the time going forward to further the advance of the right mentality and understanding of the church and how it should be. On my behalf, I do hope with the help of others such as myself to advance this goal, with a much more mature and unbiased opinion as was often the case in the past.<br /><br />For now friends I ask your prayers, I ask that you continue to support this effort, and in return I pray that with Gods help we might begin anew with the task of restoring the Church within South Africa.<br /><br />In Christ and our Dear Mother <br /><br />CalvinOrthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-32585667280875959302009-03-10T14:26:00.000-07:002009-03-10T14:28:01.704-07:00Funeral Arrangements of Fr.Lionel Sham R.I.PMemorial Services: Wednesday 11 March 2009 <br /> St John Vianney Seminary<br />179 Main Street<br />Waterkloof<br />17.30 <br />Sunday 15 March 2009 Our Lady of Africa Catholic Church<br />14.00 <br />Monday 16 March 2009 Catholic Cathedral of Christ the King<br />cnr Saratoga & End street.<br />Doornfontein<br />18.00 <br />Monday 16 March 2009 Maronite Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Cedars of Lebanon.<br />Western Service Rd<br />Wendywood<br />18.30 <br /><br /> <br />Funeral Service: Tuesday 17 March 2009<br />Catholic Cathedral of Christ the King.<br />cnr. Saratoga and End Street.<br />Doornfontein.Office of the Dead 09.30<br />Requiem Mass 10.00<br />Prior to Private Cremation. <br />Clergy Instructions: <br /> The Office of the Dead will start at 9.30am.All priests are invited to concelebrate. The Requiem Vestments will be Purple. Please try to share transport as parking at the Cathedral is severely restricted due to Construction. <br />One week Mass:<br /> Our Lady of the Cedars of Lebanon<br />22 March 2009.<br />09.30Orthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-77729825979309223022009-03-08T23:39:00.000-07:002009-03-09T00:07:35.744-07:00Yet another clerical murder in South AfricaStatement given by the South African Bishops Confrence<br /><br />"Archbishop Tlhagale announces the finding of the body of missing Priest <br /><br />Latest News <br />Monday, 09 March 2009 <br />Archbishop Buti Tlhagale, Catholic Archbishop of Johannesburg, regrets to announce that the South African Police Service (SAPS) have found the Body of Fr Lionel Sham. Fr Sham, Parish Priest of Mohlakeng, had been missing since Friday night. The SAPS has recovered the missing car at an accident scene in Denysville in the Free State this morning. Suspects were apprehended and questioned."<br /> <br /><br />From IOL NEWS<br /><br />"The body of a priest who had gone missing earlier this week has been found, the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference said on Sunday.<br /><br />"Archbishop Buti Tlhagale, Catholic Archbishop of Johannesburg, regrets to announce that the SAPS have found the Body of Fr Lionel Sham.<br /><br />Sham, the parish priest of Mohlakeng had been missing since Friday afternoon.<br /><br />Police had recovered his missing car at an accident scene in Denysville in the Free State on Sunday morning.<br /><br />Captain Joseph Magoai said a man was arrested after Sham's car was recovered.<br /><br />Magoai said police had been alerted on Saturday that Sham was missing.<br /><br />"We received information that he was missing and some household items were missing," said Magoai.<br /><br />SACBC spokesperson Father Chris Townsend said when Sham went missing on Friday, "there were signs of struggle in his presbytery and household and parish items and the parish car are missing."<br /><br />Townsend said Sham had been a "friend and mentor" to many.<br /><br />"He had worked at Boys Town, in various parish assignments, as administrator of the Cathedral of Christ the King in Johannesburg, Rector of the Orientation Seminary in Welkom, Secretary of the Seminary Department of the Bishops Conference, Vocation Director and Vicar General.<br /><br />"All we can do now is pray with the family, the parish of Mohlakeng and the many people who loved and knew Lionel," said Archbishop Tlhagale. - Sapa"<br /><br /><br />From Eye Witness News<br />http://www.ewn.co.za/articleprog.aspx?id=8177<br />"Church-goers mourn loss of popular priest<br />JP du Plessis <br /><br />Staff at the Our Lady of Africa Church on the West Rand has told Eyewitness News that they cannot believe a man as well loved as Father Lionel Sham was murdered.<br /><br />The 66-year-old was abducted from his parish on Friday evening and his body was found in a Sebokeng morgue on Sunday after he was strangled. <br /><br />Staff members at a crèche, built on church grounds, fought back tears as they welcomed children who arrived for the day.<br /><br />Holding bundles of tissues and walking with slumped shoulders, most appeared shaken by the murder.<br /><br />Residents living near the church offered their condolences, recounting their memories of Father Sham.<br /><br />All of them agreed that police must catch the people responsible and that justice must prevail."Orthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-9810031413311491322009-02-05T04:06:00.000-08:002009-02-05T04:09:51.906-08:00Petition to Support and Thank the Holy Father<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicx3mWlIgAhi5VYCi-rXM4Eh_uxjzd_LbuwiM3IqE7gVtMLooYIkDTdb1UaNZJwtc-hAD5_D4CMJ5yCvMJ6yKtkh8Ln_eJC8kHXAaDLRe53Vk5E5fjs2Ma1jOZook3No738CNNoP3MaMc/s1600-h/banniere_uk.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 124px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicx3mWlIgAhi5VYCi-rXM4Eh_uxjzd_LbuwiM3IqE7gVtMLooYIkDTdb1UaNZJwtc-hAD5_D4CMJ5yCvMJ6yKtkh8Ln_eJC8kHXAaDLRe53Vk5E5fjs2Ma1jOZook3No738CNNoP3MaMc/s400/banniere_uk.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299284326190600210" /></a><br /><br />Please kindly consider signing this petition to support and thank Pope Benedict XVI for his continued work toward unity within the Church.<br /><br />The Holy Father is being unjustly persecuted by some who do not wish to see this happen and, therefore, he needs our fervant prayers and support so that he may continue to be courageous even in the face of persecution.<br /><br />Petition Link: <br /><br />http://www.soutienabenoitxvi.org/index.php?lang=ukOrthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-58936676956487689532009-02-04T13:32:00.000-08:002009-02-04T13:42:13.267-08:00Even now formally inside the Church ,Trad-Catholics still find themselves outside!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdJlshG9qdilfe3LiiN8OXUyds0XWImFxXyoxZqRJE0KeBHcsxdyj0dXA88C7Xr8e-RnSeAHMRpMue6PxmxAO7N9iwUwlUxINfZaYcLN7pEPFcd7QEDPh6FXBaJcECvVEgO-s_t1gt42U/s1600-h/1.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdJlshG9qdilfe3LiiN8OXUyds0XWImFxXyoxZqRJE0KeBHcsxdyj0dXA88C7Xr8e-RnSeAHMRpMue6PxmxAO7N9iwUwlUxINfZaYcLN7pEPFcd7QEDPh6FXBaJcECvVEgO-s_t1gt42U/s400/1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299059096890795906" /></a><br /><br /><br />Article taken from RORATE CAELI<br /><br />Fr. Vincent Robin FSSPX, who teaches at the school of St. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle at Camblain, came to offer Mass of the 4th Sunday after Epiphany for the traditional Roman Catholic community of Amiens amid the frosty (28°F) winds that blew through the street in front of the church of St. Germain. The recent opening of the door to the SSPX bishops by Pope Benedict XVI does not seem to have moved Bishop Bouilleret, the local ordinary, to open any doors to the marginalized Catholics of his diocese.<br />[...]<br /><br />For 20 years we were vilified as being "outside the Church", charged with being "disobedient" vis-à-vis the Pope, and referred to as "excommunicants and fundamentalists". Now, at the point when the Pope formally reintegrates us, the same people are saying the same things. Conciliar charity is decidedly unattractive, and is undoubtedly one of the reasons for the empty churches.<br /><br />It is always easier to preach obedience than to practice it. Now that the dignitaries of the Church must abide by the Pope on a difficult matter we will see what sort of example they set.<br /><br />“To each his own” is a well known axiom. I do not know how the bishops interpret the sentence in the pope's speech to the bishops at Lourdes: "No one is too many in the Church. Everyone, without exception, must be able to feel at home, and must never feel rejected.” Perhaps it makes them think of Protestants, Orthodox, Anglicans ... According to the statements that we have read so far, it seems they did not believe the Pope was speaking of traditionalists.<br /><br />[...]Orthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-8481323675408627882009-02-04T13:27:00.000-08:002009-02-04T13:29:57.874-08:00NEWS FROM THE VATICAN CONCERNING THE SSPXArticle taken from and translated by RORATE CAELI<br /><br />NOTE OF THE SECRETARIAT OF STATE<br /><br /><br /><br />Following the reactions caused by the recent Decree of the Congregation for Bishops, with which the excommunication of the four Prelates of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X was remitted, and regarding the Negationist or Reductionist declarations on the Shoah of Bishop Williamson, of the same Fraternity, it is considered convenient to clarify a few aspects of past events.<br /><br />1. Remission of the excommunication.<br /><br />As already made public previously, the Decree of the Congregation for Bishops, dated January 21, 2009, was an act by which the Holy Father graciously responded to the repeated requests by the Superior General of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X.<br /><br />His Holiness desired to remove an obstacle which prevented the opening of a door to dialogue. He now expects that an equal disposition will be expressed by the four Bishops in complete adherence to the doctrine and discipline of the Church.<br /><br />The extremely grave censure of latae sententiae excommunication, in which the aforementioned Bishops had incurred on June 30, 1988, then formally declared on July 1st of the same year, was a consequence of their illegitimate ordinarion by Mons. Marcel Lefebvre.<br /><br />The removal of the excommunication released the four Bishops from an extremely grave canonical censure, but has not changed the juridical position of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X, which, at the current moment, does not enjoy any canonical recognition by the Catholic Church. Not even the four Bishops, though released from the excommunication, have a canonical function in the Church and they do not exercise licitly a ministry in it.<br /><br />2. Tradition, doctrine, and the Second Vatican Council.<br /><br />For a future recognition of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X, the full acknowledgment of the Second Vatican Council and of the Magisterium of Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, and of the same Benedict XVI is an indispensable condition<br /><br />As it was already affirmed in the Decree of January 21, 2009, the Holy See will not avoid, in ways deemed appropriate, discussing with the interested [party] the questions that remain open, so as to be able to reach a full and satisfactory resolution of the problems which originated this painful division.<br /><br />3. Declarations on the Shoah.<br /><br />The positions of Mons. Williamson on the Shoah are absolutely unacceptable and firmly rejected by the Holy Father, as he himself remarked on the past January 28, when, referring to that brutal genocide, he reaffirmed his full and unquestionable solidarity with our Brethren, receivers of the First Covenant, and affirmed that the memory of that terrible genocide must lead "mankind to reflect on the unpredictable power of evil when it conquers the heart of man", adding that the Shoah remains "for all a warning against forgetfulness, against denial or reductionism, because the violence against a single human being is violence against all".<br /><br />Bishop Williamson, for an admission to episcopal functions in the Church, will also have to distance himself, in an absolutely unequivocal and public manner, from his positions regarding the Shoah, unknown to the Holy Father in the moment of the remission of the excommunication.<br /><br />The Holy Father asks to be joined by the prayers of all the faithful, so that the Lord may enlighten the path of the Church. May the effort of the Pastors and of all the faithful increase in support of the delicate and burdensome mission of the Successor of Apostle Peter as "custodian of the unity" in the Church.<br /><br />From the Vatican, February 4, 2009.Orthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-40282316692437529222009-02-01T04:58:00.000-08:002009-02-01T05:00:16.683-08:00Interview with Bishop Fellay<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3o2Rzz2r7VVmxXXtAlylnH-SI5RUf_lt2p3TRCAgS0M93muITjmyT-4ZpaqI5uvnEZTFQgEYSIkSMDKZR_eoJuFFW3Uhiwuxdu-3Zc5nTpgeftUhBdUIqyzuPEhAnp650G-EpWqQ3jGE/s1600-h/benoitxvietmgrfellay200ls5.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 273px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3o2Rzz2r7VVmxXXtAlylnH-SI5RUf_lt2p3TRCAgS0M93muITjmyT-4ZpaqI5uvnEZTFQgEYSIkSMDKZR_eoJuFFW3Uhiwuxdu-3Zc5nTpgeftUhBdUIqyzuPEhAnp650G-EpWqQ3jGE/s400/benoitxvietmgrfellay200ls5.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297812874090235794" /></a><br />Article taken from 'Rorate Caeli'<br /><br /><br /><br />"Did you expect, Your Excellency, this removal of the excommunication concerning you?<br /><br /><br /><br />[Fellay:] I expected it since 2005, after the first letter requesting the lifting of the excommunication which I had sent at the request of Rome itself. Because it is clear that Rome did not ask for this letter in order to refuse to lift the excommunication. As for the moment when it took place, I did not expect it. These past few months, after the ultimatum affair [link], even after it had been minimized, we were mostly cool [in the mutual relations]. Then, I wrote the letter of November 15, which is mentioned in the decree and in my letter to the faithful... [sic]<br /><br /><br /><br />Is this decree a sign of the Pope's will?<br /><br /><br /><br />I ascribe it first of all to the Holy Virgin. It is a manifest sign, with an almost immediate response. I had just decided to go to Rome to deliver the result of the Rosary bouquet we had launched at Lourdes with this explicit intention when I received a call from Rome inviting me to go there.<br /><br /><br /><br />Is the satisfaction displayed by you today tempered by the remainder of the path to follow?<br /><br /><br /><br />It is too early to tell. An act of the greatest relevance, for which we are truly grateful, has just taken place, but it is very difficult to assess it at this moment. We still do not view all its ramifications. There still is a lot of work, but we truly have great hope for a restoration of the Church.<br /><br /><br /><br />From what moment dates this change in your relationship with Rome?<br /><br /><br />From the accession of the current pope. I first evoked the Holy Virgin but, at a human level, there should be no fear of ascribing to Benedict XVI what has just taken place. It is the beginning of something, which had already begun with the Motu proprio [Summorum Pontificum]. I think that the Pope appreciates the work that we do.<br /><br /><br /><br />In this development, this movement, some have held that you departed too late. Do you believe today that others, especially inside the Fraternity of Saint Pius X, may hold that you are departing too soon?<br /><br /><br /><br />I cannot rule out everything, but, in case there are separations, they will be extremely minimal.<br /><br /><br /><br />Do you believe that your situation will be first settled at a practical level?<br /><br /><br />Up to now, our roadmap has been to clarify first the doctrinal problems - even if it does not mean settling everything, but obtaining a sufficient clarification - or we risk doing things incompletely. Or it may end up badly.<br /><br /><br />And do you believe that, beyond Rome, your contacts will intensify?<br /><br /><br /><br />It is the goal, as I explained in Rome, by saying that the situation, as we propose it, is certainly temorary, but it is pacifying, and that it will allow all souls of good will to catch up. This will thus be done gradually. And this will also depend on the reaction on the other side. But there is no a priori, the only a priori is that of Truth and of Charity.Orthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-18622752035556590212009-02-01T04:27:00.000-08:002009-02-01T04:29:45.555-08:00Bishop Williamsons appologyFrom Rorate Caeli:<br /><br /><br /><br />Mgr Richard Williamson<br />To His Eminence Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos<br /><br />Your Eminence<br /><br />Amidst this tremendous media storm stirred up by imprudent remarks of mine on Swedish television, I beg of you to accept, only as is properly respectful, my sincere regrets for having caused to yourself and to the Holy Father so much unnecessary distress and problems.<br /><br />For me, all that matters is the Truth Incarnate, and the interests of His one true Church, through which alone we can save our souls and give eternal glory, in our little way, to Almighty God. So I have only one comment, from the prophet Jonas, I, 12:<br /><br />"Take me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you; for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you."<br /><br />Please also accept, and convey to the Holy Father, my sincere personal thanks for the document signed last Wednesday and made public on Saturday. Most humbly I will offer a Mass for both of you.<br /><br />Sincerely yours in Christ <br /><br />+Richard WilliamsonOrthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-21877547165360285442009-01-26T08:55:00.000-08:002009-01-26T09:00:26.955-08:00When Converts Speak<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyXtYwVqZOgcdNg2gmDvQZzn1cA-JcpPc_bcXRlJr6TWWJfm3Q_5OllEPu_QX6hlB4IGVHbSklPhKWkN7bJ5n7ZU62SvitsaZInrDQY_yD4sO9eHl4BiI_DsTrnl_SKVMft6VseNRAfKA/s1600-h/untitledLL.bmp"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyXtYwVqZOgcdNg2gmDvQZzn1cA-JcpPc_bcXRlJr6TWWJfm3Q_5OllEPu_QX6hlB4IGVHbSklPhKWkN7bJ5n7ZU62SvitsaZInrDQY_yD4sO9eHl4BiI_DsTrnl_SKVMft6VseNRAfKA/s400/untitledLL.bmp" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5295648235022305442" /></a><br />Article taken from DICI, <br /><br /><br />" Magdi Allam was a Muslim. He converted to Catholicism. He was baptized by Benedict XVI on Easter 2008, and took the Christian name of Christian. Today, he is telling the pope about his anxiety to see the Church “making herself an accomplice in the edification of a worldwide pantheon of religions,” and he asks: “After that, how can we be surprised by the fact that Christianity is placed on an equal footing with myriads of other beliefs and ideologies which give the most disparate answers to spiritual needs, and ceases to fascinate, persuade, and conquer the minds and hearts of these very Christians who increasingly leave their churches, flee from the priestly vocation, and more generally exclude any religious dimension from their lives?”<br />Before him, other converts coming from Protestantism like Fr. Montgomery Wright, parish priest of Chamblac (France), or the Academician Julian Green expressed the same anguish. The former told his bishop that he could not celebrate the Mass of Paul VI, because he knew where he came from and did not want to return there. The latter confided to Archbishop Lefebvre, when presenting him with the narration of his conversion Ce qu’il faut d’amour à l’homme (How much love man needs), that he did not think he would be able to convert now… to the conciliar Church.<br /><br />Fr. Alain Lorans "Orthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-86972383897360869672009-01-26T05:46:00.001-08:002009-01-26T05:48:32.639-08:00His Lordship Bishop Fellay's press release following the lifting of the excommunicationsThe excommunication of the bishops consecrated by His Grace Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, on June 30, 1988, which had been declared by the Congregation for Bishops in a decree dated July 1, 1988, and which we had always contested, has been withdrawn by another decree mandated by Benedict XVI and issued by the same Congregation on January 21, 2009.<br /><br />We express our filial gratitude to the Holy Father for this gesture which, beyond the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X, will benefit the whole Church. Our Society wishes to be always more able to help the pope to remedy the unprecedented crisis which presently shakes the Catholic world, and which Pope John Paul II had designated as a state of “silent apostasy.”<br /><br />Besides our gratitude towards the Holy Father and towards all those who helped him to make this courageous act, we are pleased that the decree of January 21 considers as necessary “talks” with the Holy See, talks which will enable the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X to explain the fundamental doctrinal reasons which it believes to be at the origin of the present difficulties of the Church.<br /><br />In this new atmosphere, we have the firm hope to obtain soon the recognition of the rights of Catholic Tradition<br /><br /><br />Menzingen, January 24, 2009<br /><br />+Bernard FellayOrthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-85735745280210015512009-01-26T05:40:00.000-08:002009-01-26T05:42:44.790-08:00Excommunictions liftedFrom the Rorate Caeli Blogspot<br /><br />Decree of the Congregation for Bishops <br /><br />CONGREGATIO PRO EPISCOPIS<br /><br /><br /><br />By way of a letter of December 15, 2008 addressed to His Eminence Cardinal Dario Castrillón Hoyos, President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, Mons. Bernard Fellay, also in the name of the other three Bishops consecrated on June 30, 1988, requested anew the removal of the latae sententiae excommunication formally declared with the Decree of the Prefect of this Congregation on July 1, 1988. In the aforementioned letter, Mons. Fellay affirms, among other things: "We are always firmly determined in our will to remain Catholic and to place all our efforts at the service of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which is the Roman Catholic Church. We accept its teachings with filial disposition. We believe firmly in the Primacy of Peter and in its prerogatives, and for this the current situation makes us suffer so much."<br /><br />His Holiness Benedict XVI - paternally sensitive to the spiritual unease manifested by the interested party due to the sanction of excommunication and trusting in the effort expressed by them in the aforementioned letter of not sparing any effort to deepen the necessary discussions with the Authority of the Holy See in the still open matters, so as to achieve shortly a full and satisfactory solution of the problem posed in the origin - decided to reconsider the canonical situation of Bishops Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson, and Alfonso de Galarreta, arisen with their episcopal consecration.<br /><br />With this act, it is desired to consolidate the reciprocal relations of confidence and to intensify and grant stability to the relationship of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X with this Apostolic See. This gift of peace, at the end of the Christmas celebrations, is also intended to be a sign to promote unity in the charity of the universal Church and to try to vanquish the scandal of division.<br /><br />It is hoped that this step be followed by the prompt accomplishment of full communion with the Church of the entire Fraternity of Saint Pius X, thus testifying true fidelity and true recognition of the Magisterium and of the authority of the Pope with the proof of visible unity.<br /><br />Based on the faculties expressly granted to me by the Holy Father Benedict XVI, in virtue of the present Decree, I remit from Bishops Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson, and Alfonso de Galarreta the censure of latae sententiae excommunication declared by this Congregation on July 1, 1988, while I declare deprived of any juridical effect, from the present date, the Decree emanated at that time.<br /><br /><br />Rome, from the Congregation for Bishops, January 21, 2009.<br /><br /><br /><br />Card. Giovanni Battista Re<br />Prefect of the Congregation for BishopsOrthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-61180812055592598172009-01-26T05:27:00.000-08:002009-01-26T05:29:59.768-08:00Fr. Eldred Lesley Murdered in South Africa<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc7nwMfpbIiHRJCqN9nte4cO_ggtUI3H5wUhbdl_M2PV_4PRi8OBb4mAYdmkmwWYnbgc6k5-s9WyJ9TXKXlUVbZOy-aGl9LzEg1OxAfaUHOESj2z06aYjtTyvv3Mo1FZJ7rgXx281g2Sk/s1600-h/fr+eldred.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 275px; height: 388px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc7nwMfpbIiHRJCqN9nte4cO_ggtUI3H5wUhbdl_M2PV_4PRi8OBb4mAYdmkmwWYnbgc6k5-s9WyJ9TXKXlUVbZOy-aGl9LzEg1OxAfaUHOESj2z06aYjtTyvv3Mo1FZJ7rgXx281g2Sk/s400/fr+eldred.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5295594080839718114" /></a><br /><br />From The Witness:<br /><br />“Priest Murdered<br />21 Jan 2009<br /><br />BHEKI MBANJWA<br />AN 83-YEAR-OLD Traditional Catholic priest of the Chapel of our Lady and St Michael in Bulwer Street was found murdered in his home which is part of the chapel premises.<br /><br />Police discovered the body of Father Eldred Leslie just before 7.00pm last night after being alerted by Leslie’s nephew, Kenny, who lives nearby.<br /><br />Kenny Leslie told The Witness yesterday he had gone to his uncle’s house to check on him as a parishioner had been unsuccessfully trying to get hold of him .<br /><br />“This parishioner told me that they had been trying to phone Father Leslie but could not get hold of him. As I have the keys [to the house] I went in. All seemed fine from the outside as the gates were locked, as is normally the case. However I became suspicious when I saw that his backdoor was not locked,” Kenny told The Witness outside the house where police were still busy combing the murder scene for evidence.<br /><br />According to Kenny, his uncle always kept the doors and gates locked. “When I got inside I noticed that the doorknob on his bedroom door, which was closed, had blood all over it,” he said.<br /><br />Realising something was wrong Kenny phoned the police without entering the bedroom.<br /><br />“The police responded and as they entered they found the body of Father Leslie slumped on the floor of his bedroom. He had sustained severe head wounds believed to have been caused by a sharp instrument,” said police spokesman Senior Superintendent Henry Budhram.<br /><br />A source close to the investigation said Leslie had been stabbed in the neck behind the ear and in the head. The motive for the murder was still unknown yesterday and police said that no property had been taken from the house.<br /><br />Father Leslie lived alone in the house, police added.<br /><br />According to Kenny, this was not the first time that his uncle had fallen victim to crime since arriving in the area about ten years ago. “Since arriving here he has been robbed and had his house broken into about 15 times and that’s a conservative figure” he said.<br /><br />Despite all this Father Leslie continued to do good in the area. He was well known in the area especially for his work with street children and the poor. “He gave street children and destitute people food and even paid school fees for some of the children,” Kenny said.<br /><br />Residents of Bulwer and adjacent streets, who gathered outside Father Leslie’s house, expressed anger and shock at the brutal murder of the man they described as caring. “We, the residents of this area, are living in fear. There have been a spate of crimes in this area. We can only hope the police arrest whoever is responsible for this deed,” said one resident who did not want to be named.<br /><br />One of the parishioners, Terence Talbot, described the priest as kind and caring. “He was very committed to the Traditional Catholic Church, what has happened here is a tragedy,” said Talbot.<br /><br />bmbanjwa@witness.co.z”<br /><br />http://crownofmartyrs.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/fr-eldred-lesley-murdered-in-south-africa/<br />----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />Murderer knew Fr. Lesley<br />Source:<br /><br />“Priest’s ‘killer’ knew him<br />22 Jan 2009<br /><br />SANDILE WAKA-ZAMISA<br />A 25-year-old man was arrested for the murder of 83-year-old priest Father Eldred Leslie, who was found slain in his home in Pietermaritzburg on Wednesday night. The suspect was caught near Leslie’s house on Bulwer Street yesterday morning.<br /><br />The area alongside the house was abuzz with police vehicles, paramedics, a television news crew and onlookers as the police combed the the house and its surroundings for clues and evidence.<br /><br />The police started interviewing people around the area and were tipped off about the 25-year-old.<br /><br />During that period, the suspect was seen walking up the road and he was caught.<br /><br />A source close to Leslie said the priest used to give the suspect food.<br /><br />“Father Leslie gave street children food everyday and he [the suspect] was one of the people who came to beg for food and would ask the priest for money sometimes.”<br /><br />According to the source, the suspect had previously broken into Leslie’s home and “stole some stuff”. “He confessed to the priest and asked for forgiveness.”<br /><br />He was forgiven, but a few days earlier he apparently made threats against the priest. He allegedly told the source that he would attack the priest.<br /><br />Police spokesman Senior Superintendent Henry Budhram said the suspect has been charged and will appear in court shortly.<br /><br />Tributes poured in for Father Lelsie yesterday.<br /><br />“He cared for the needy and gave them food everyday,” said a neighbour.”<br /><br />http://crownofmartyrs.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/murderer-knew-fr-lesley/<br /><br />Father Lesley. SSPX Priest and defender of Traditional Catholicism.<br /><br />Requisant in Pacem!Orthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-37876141862651624502009-01-17T10:04:00.000-08:002009-01-17T10:29:48.504-08:00A little knowledge is ALWAYS dangerous2009 so far has indeed proved to be, at least so far, better than last year. And so without any further hesitation, I dare to write yet another blog entry for Summourum Pontificum. I could of entitled it something vastly different and very, very base..something to the tune of " what they know about such and such my backside(using a better term) knows about snipe shooting".<br /><br />In the space of the past few months I've felt it extremely necessary - at least for myself- to do as much research as possible concerning the various topics that concern the current 'status quo'of things in the church both post-conciliar and pre-conciliar. I personally feel this to be necessary, in terms that at least, for my own conscience sake, I will be better equipped to write or at least attempt to, about the Church in our modern era.<br /><br />It has interested me to see many lay people take interest in the cause of the reestablishment of the faith. It has also been quite disheartening to see the amount of infighting that takes place among these same people all working, or at least supposedly for the same purpose. Some pride themselves to be the ultimate authority when it comes to certain things, for one particular example of having a group of laymen teach a priest how to say the traditional Tridentine Mass!<br /><br />All such things in account, I still firmly belive that all that takes place happens in accordance to divine providence. There is a reason why, for the first time in nearly fourty years, that the Tridentine Mass has made its 'official' reappearance in the Archdiocese of Johannesburg. Perhaps it would stand to prove that the Priests of the Society of St.Pius X weren't so wrong after all? Understandably, the society is a human institution which like all of us has failed at certain times. However, everything in account, I stand firm in the essential stance taken by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in his defence of our Holy Faith against the many errors which have brought our once glorious and triumphant faith to her knees.<br /><br />I hope to post again soon, I am dearly thankful for the encouragement given to me by one of SPJ'S readers.<br /><br />I remain your unworthy brother in Christ and our Good Mother<br /><br />CalvinOrthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-35026963980245709532009-01-04T07:41:00.000-08:002009-01-04T07:43:06.127-08:00The first new post of 2009Wishing you all , a happy and blessed new year. Filled with Gods divine grace and Love<br /><br />CalvinOrthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-12148918731236183832008-12-21T09:12:00.000-08:002008-12-21T09:34:19.598-08:00The Catholic counter reformation continues! With Gods help, so does this blog.I am a worthless sinner, yet if by God's grace he can use this sinner for the good of the Church then so be it. To say that my personal fight for the truth, and my personal effort of making it known has been an easy one would be a lie. To a large extent, it has been disheartening and difficult to say the least.<br /><br />In all truth, my return to Catholic tradition has been met from hostility on all sides, both outside myself and within. Having been raised in the Novous Ordo dispensation with a firm Catholic foundation in terms of family life ( which I have my Grandparents to thank) has shown me how different the two are, one contradicts the other, the firm and solidly based Catholic home life and ultimately chatechesis of it was that which lead me to leave anything which embodied the " spirit of Vatican II", and lead me to a place where the faith handed to me by my convert grandparents was fully expressed and in conflict with nothing.<br /><br />I do not presume myself to be a theologian or great philosopher, but I know what I believe and have been taught to be true, in the sense that it has been true for 2000 years. Thus with this background, it is my firm hope that our Dear Lord might use me if he so wishes, for the furtherance and greater exposition of this one truth. Unfortunately, it seems as if my little effort in creating this blog has to a large extent proved ineffectual. Nevertheless, it has never been my intention to use it as a means to convey my own beliefs , but rather to convey and teach the true and only faith.<br /><br />I pray for Gods guidance in this effort, even if it only reaches one person and assists them in bringing their lives closer to God and his truth, I am only his tool in bringing this about.In achieving this, the ultimate intention of this blog has been fulfilled.Orthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-60874371286705933362008-12-21T08:58:00.000-08:002008-12-21T08:59:20.841-08:00ROMAN PROTESTANTSBy Fr. Basil Wrighton <br /><br />Originally written in August 1982 issue of The Angelus magazine, Fr. Wrighton expertly shows how "the spirit of Vatican II" is protestantizing Catholics.<br /><br />----------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Whatever the new "ecumenism" may say or mean, the plain fact remains that there is fundamental antithesis between "Catholic" and "Protestant." One has only to reflect on the history of these two religions to see how they contradict and exclude one another. While the one claims to expound a divine revelation with divinely conferred authority, and to administer supernatural sacraments as a means of divine grace, the other professes only to comment on the Scriptures by the light of human reason, and fights shy of anything supernatural or miraculous. While the one upholds the great Christian mysteries of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the Redemption and the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, the other has become very doubtful about these mysteries and included to reject some or all of them as outdated superstitions. The same holds good concerning angels and devils, hell, purgatory and heaven: these are very real for Catholics, very unreal for Protestants, at any rate for the contemporary type.<br /><br /><br />For the Protestant mentality is essentially skeptical and fissiparous. Once it had broken away from the parent Christian stock and committed itself to the vagaries of private judgment, it went on changing, evolving and splitting up into ever new sects. For a time it held on the main tenets of Christian faith, but as the sects became more and more liberal, they tended to drop them overboard or explain them away. Low-church grows into broad-church, and broad-church evolves toward no-church.<br /><br /><br />There have, of course, been reactions against this devolution. "Fundamentalist" minorities in various times and places have dug in their heels and refused to move with the times, hanging on to some semblance of the original faith. A more intellectual and more influential reaction was that of Newman and his Tractarian followers, who reasoned their way back to a substantially Catholic theology, emerging as a "high-church" party within the Anglican establishment. But they could never be really at home in that flock —how could they? Newman himself was quick to perceive that they had no future there; he thereupon made his submission to Rome, and many of his disciples followed him, to the great advantage of both the neophytes and their hosts. We never thought to see this historic decision reversed.<br /><br /><br />Now, however, since Vatican the Second we have been faced with the hitherto incredible spectacle of a mass movement in reverse —a movement of Catholics towards Protestantism. It began with the caucus of modernist prelates and their "experts" who brought off a successful coup d’etat at the first session of the Council, by tearing up the authorized agenda and substituting their own program [cf. the article, Archbishop Lefebvre Preparing the Council, and Fr. Wrighton's article, Collegiality]. This gave them a certain control of the proceedings and enabled them to devise loopholes and ambiguities in the acta for subsequent exploitation. The "pastoral" rather than dogmatic character of this Council made its texts all the more susceptible of tendentious interpretation.<br /><br /><br />It was of course the same progressive party which got the job of implementing the conciliar decrees, and that is where the trouble became most serious. The Party’s first concern was with the liturgy, which of all the Church’s institutions stood in least need of reform, and which no responsible Catholic wanted to change. The Council had made a few cautious, limited and reasonable concessions for the vernacular languages to be used in scriptural readings and prayers in which the people took a vocal part. These apart, it insisted on the retention of Latin. But that was not what the Party wanted. The existing lex orandi was an obstacle to their new religion, so it had to be destroyed. The Church text was defied, and the Holy Mass of all the Catholic ages, the Church’s most sacred treasure and the most beautiful thing this side of heaven, was cunningly demolished by installments and replaced by a completely different rite, entirely vernacular and frequently vulgar, celebrated back to front, and shorn of the traditional gestures of reverence and the verbal safeguards of Catholic Eucharistic doctrine —just the things that Cranmer himself had suppressed. The sacrificial element was consigned to oblivion, and all the emphasis transferred to the "memorial" and "meal" elements, just as in the Protestant "Lord’s Supper." The obvious purpose was to make the Eucharist so "ecumenical" that it could be shared by those who had no belief in either the Sacrifice or the Real Presence. Can one imagine anything more dastardly than this betrayal of the Holy of Holies for the beaux yeux of believers? Yet the Modernists were allowed —and are still allowed —to get away with it and to impose it on the whole Church of the West. No such subversion has ever before been known in the Catholic Church.<br /><br /><br />And what a vernacular! —the shabby, ephemeral speech of the streets and the pubs brought into the sanctuary! The whole concept of a vernacular liturgy is indeed a monstrosity, only to be excused by total illiteracy of the worshippers. Are the Catholics of the West so illiterate that they cannot read even the simplest prayer book? Liturgy is an essentially sacred thing, eternal truths clad in an unchanging form: in a word, it must be hieratic, not demotic. The Church has been telling us this for centuries, and had repeated it emphatically as recently as 1962 (the Apostolic Constitution of John XXIII, Veterum Sapientia); but the Church was now made to eat her own words and swing over to the Protestant slogan of "a language understanded of the people" —as if Latin had been a mere mumbo-jumbo to our people for all these centuries!<br /><br /><br />Since the Novus Ordo Missae was designed as an "ecumenical" liturgy, ambivalence was essential to it. Hence the many alternative formulas (Confiteors, Canons, etc.) left to the option of the celebrant, together with the studied ambiguity of the wording where any definite Catholic doctrine (such as transubstantiation or sacrifice) is involved. Hence the abolition of the Offertory prayers, and the reduction of the Consecration to what can be taken as a mere narrative. The result of it all has been to stir up controversy among the faithful as to whether the new liturgy can be regarded as sacramentally valid. To take the negative view would amount to questioning the God-given authority of the Church which has sanctioned the changes. But a careful study of such works as Michael Davies’ masterly trilogy on the Liturgical Revolution will show that the bare essentials of validity have been preserved, but in so thoroughly Protestantized a setting and mentality that lapses from validity are much more likely to occur, and the Catholic faith cannot be expected to survive or flourish in such an environment. All that used to protect and nourish this faith has been ruthlessly cut away in the interests of "ecumenism", and the effect of the revolution can be plainly seen in the vast exodus from the Church which has followed it.<br /><br /><br />The Novus Ordo was only a first step. The Party had many more changes up its sleeve. The revolution was to be "on-going," the faithful were to have no respite from shocks and scandals. Soon we had Communion in the hand, a gratuitous profanation borrowed from the Dutch dissenters and railroaded into the Church elsewhere by admiring episcopal conferences in face of papal protest and popular disgust. Then came the Lay Ministers, male and female, handing out Holy Communion, while the priest looks on from his chair —unemployed, redundant. It is a galloping process of "desacralization." Nothing is now to be held sacred or inviolable. All that was sacred in our religion from time immemorial is being dragged down to a common and profane level, to adapt it to the abject spirit of this age.<br /><br /><br />So much for what is going on with official approval, within the widening limits of the law. I have said nothing about the spate of outrages and sacrileges which have sprung up in the wake of the Novus Ordo, for these should be abhorrent even to progressives. They simply did not happen under the old order; therefore the new order is responsible for them. But authority does nothing to correct them. There seems to be no limit to what the bishops will now tolerate —so long as the abuses are committed on the liberal, revolutionary side. But if any poor deprived Catholic on the other side attempts to revive the Holy Mass, then the fulminations begin! The only capital offence that remains, it seems, is fidelity to Catholic tradition.<br /><br /><br />When the President of Una Voce at an interview with Archbishop (now Cardinal) Benelli in Rome in October 1976, pointed out the existing liturgical chaos and asked how, in view of this state of things, the suppression of the old Mass could be justified, he was told that "those who wish to retain the old Mass have a different ecclesiology." This from one of the closest advisors of the then Pope; it meant that those who were faithful to Catholic tradition were now to be treated as dissidents. The phrase quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus ("What has been believed always, everywhere, and by all") as a criterion of orthodoxy bad now been rejected in favor of a new Party Line which contradicted the Church’s entire previous tradition. What was forbidden and condemned yesterday becomes lawful today, and mandatory tomorrow. What had always been seen as black, is now white, and vice versa —because the Party says so. This comes close to the Bolshevik criterion of morality: what is right or wrong is simply what helps or hinders the Party.<br /><br />Pope Paul VI himself used to speak of a "new orientation" of the Church’s life and liturgy following Vatican II, and the whole charge against Archbishop Lefebvre in that pontificate was that His Grace would not accept this fatal orientation. He could not accept it —we cannot accept it —because it is an entirely new thing in the Church, a new ethos incompatible with Catholic dogmatic tradition. If we accept this reorientation, we must hold that the Church’s teaching has been utterly mistaken all through the past twenty centuries of its history, from the Apostles onward, until light dawned at last in the nineteen-sixties, thanks to Bugnini and his men. It was an about-turn, away from the supernatural and transcendent towards the natural and worldly, from the divine to the merely human. Those who have eyes to see can see more clearly every day that such a periagoge, if persisted in, can only lead to the destruction of the Catholic and Christian religion.<br /><br /><br />The Party, modernist and progressive, which seized power in the Church from the Council onwards and is constantly building it up by selective appointments, is moving in the same direction as the Protestant reformers whom it copied so closely in the new liturgy. But it is going much faster and further than they went. It is Liberal-Protestant, which means in the long run non-Christian and anti-Christian. It has allied itself with the secular humanism which now rules the Western world, and is even making overtures to the communist powers, after having rendered the Council virtually ineffectual by refusing to condemn the world’s greatest menace.<br /><br /><br />It should be noted that the ideology of Liberal-Protestantism is practically the same as that of the Modernism which appeared somewhat later in the Catholic Church. It disintegrates traditional beliefs in much the same way, and both can be seen as concurrent stages in the destruction of Christianity itself. St. Pius X remarked this in his encyclical Pascendi in 1907: historical Protestantism and Modernism, he says, are successive stages in the progress to Atheism.<br /><br /><br />Contemporary liberals (e.g., those who write in the ex-Catholic Tablet) are apt to crow with delight over the notion that the Catholic religion has undergone a "mutation" in consequence of Vatican II —or rather, "the spirit of Vatican II," a spook which as often as not is made to contradict the letter of the Council. They fail to understand, it seems, that the Catholic religion is of such a nature that a "mutation" —i.e., a radical and permanent change —can only destroy it.<br /><br /><br />From these observations, and from many others which could be mentioned, there emerges the picture of a Church which is unrecognizable as the Church we were brought up in —rather like an ugly stepmother, all spots and wrinkles, in place of the Holy Mother Church we knew and loved in pre-conciliar days. It is not only the ecclesiology that is different; everything is different. The bogus "ecumenism" aims at ironing out the distinctions of true and false in religion, so that Catholic doctrine goes into the melting pot with everything else. The Council of Trent and the Counter-Reformation are dismissed as no longer "relevant" to the "adult man" of the twentieth century. Christ’s hierarchical Kingdom of God, transcending space and time, must now give place to the "People of God," this-worldly, democratic, liberal and egalitarian. The ministerial priesthood must no longer be distinguished from the common priesthood of the faithful, and the Pope must forego his supreme and paternal authority and resign himself to being a mere primus inter pares, the spokesman of the bishops, whose claim to "collegiality" implies that it is for them to decide all questions in committee, by a majority of votes.<br /><br /><br />With doctrine thus being whittled away for the sake of specious agreement with heterodox bodies, and with the supreme authority being put into commission, the prospect before the Conciliar Church becomes bleakly Protestant, and ultimately non-Christian. A further catastrophic development is that the Neo-Modernists, unlike the earlier breed, have now scrapped the Ten Commandments, done away with moral absolutes and the notion of sin as an offence against God, and reduced morality to the "situation ethics" of secular humanism, where literally everything is permitted as long as one thinks it meets one’s needs of the moment or develops one’s "personality."<br /><br /><br />Now that sin has been swept under the carpet, those two bastions of Catholic spirituality, confession and penance, are of course found to be superfluous. The deserted confessionals are being removed from the churches, and the sacrament, when it is used, tends to become a sort of psychiatric session. As for the laws of fasting and abstinence, they are virtually abolished. Before the Council about a hundred days of the year were affected by fasting or abstinence or both. Since then a series of wholesale swipes has reduced them to a derisory two days in the year! Another concession to Protestantism, which from its earliest days has despised these weapons of the spirit. This progressive ideology has of course taken over the Catholic schools, seminaries and universities, and bought up the Catholic press: all these institutions are failing, or have already fallen, into the "ex-Catholic" category. Even the expensive schools run by the religious orders themselves have joined the Modernist bandwagon. Many faithful Catholics have found themselves obliged to take their children away from "Catholic", schools in order to save their faith. As for the others, the present hapless generation of children will, for the most part apparently, become a write-off. The only hope of a genuinely Catholic education lies now in new foundations, at the cost of much sacrifice and struggle for the faithful remnant. A grace-selected remnant there will certainly be, for the continuance of the Church, but the majority of our once-Catholic population, those who will not bestir themselves to resist and protest against what has been done to them, finding it easier to swim with the post-conciliar stream, are becoming daily and visibly more and more assimilated in manners, morals and beliefs to their Protestant neighbors, and will soon be indistinguishable from them. "Ecumenism" will then have attained its goal, not by a return of the separated brethren to the one true fold, but by a massive apostasy from that fold, led by its own shepherds —a massive sell-out of Catholic truth.<br /><br /><br />A fearful example of this sell-out may be seen in the "pastoral" councils and congresses of recent years —an updated kind of "robber councils" of lay persons and clerics, approved and attended by the national hierarchies for the furtherance of "renewal" or revolution. Among the most notorious have been those of Holland and America (the Detroit "Call to Action"), and (in 1980) Liverpool. At this latest festival of loquacity and pop-theology the participants (hand-picked Modernists, of course) called for the scrapping among other things, of considerable portions of the moral law (God’s eternal law). At the end of it all, the bishops got up and effusively thanked and congratulated the pastoral freebooters. If anyone cares to remember this conciliabulum, it may well go down in history as the Latrocinium Liverpolitanum ("The Robber Council of Liverpool").<br /><br />What shall we call the multitudes of ex-Catholic shepherds and their sheep who have <br />either defected or drifted into a new religion? Perhaps we might call them "Roman Protestants." We older Catholics did not like being called Roman Catholics, for we did not admit that there was any other kind of Catholics. But there are various kinds of Romans, and many kinds of Protestants; and Rome is now the headquarters, not only of the Catholic Church, but of the Modernist Mafia which has invaded and subjected it. At the English CoIlege in Rome, that venerable nursery of episcopabiles, we got occasional pep-talks on the cardinal virtue of romanita (Romishness). That was in the nineteen-twenties, when Rome was the citadel of orthodoxy, and we saw nothing incongruous in such a virtue. Things are very different in the Deutero-Vatican era, and I often wonder whether my contemporaries and epigoni, mitred or otherwise, might not have done well to dilute their romanita with a much stiffer dose of cattolicita. It might have saved some of them from ending up as Roman Protestants.<br /><br /><br />When obedience to the constant tradition of the Church is so clearly in conflict with obedience to certain office-holders who have departed from that tradition, we rank-and-file Catholics must use our common sense and opt for the superior obedience. The simple faithful have always done this in times of epidemic heresy. Such crisis are happily very rare. The gravest in the Church’s past history was the Arian crisis of the fourth century, when, as St. Jerome expressed it, "the whole world groaned in astonishment to find themselves Arian;" or, as Newman puts it, "there was a temporary suspense of the functions of the ‘ecclesia docens’." We are living in such a crisis now, that of the Modernist Reformation. The Church was drugged for a major "mutation" in the nineteen-sixties, and is now gradually coming round to find itself Liberal-Protestant. It is in this situation that faithful Catholics are finding themselves faced with the stark alternative of becoming either recusants or renegades.<br /><br /><br />Sixteen hundred years ago, when the bulk of the hierarchy had strayed from the faith of Nicaea and even the Pope faltered for a time, St. Athanasius headed the faithful few who stood out for Catholic truth against a world in the grip of heresy. He had much to suffer, and was even excommunicated, but eventually his cause prevailed and the faith was saved. In our day likewise, amid the ceaseless babble of post-conciliar Newspeak, one episcopal voice has been heard to observe, in plain French, that one religion is not as good as another, that faith and morals are not variable with times and circumstances, and (with regard to "renewal") that the emperor has no clothes! For the audacity of these views, and for his fidelity to Catholic tradition, he is denounced and persecuted by the liberal establishment, but will not recant. His witness and his work continues, and the day will come when a restored Church will bless his name. Once again, magna est veritas et praevalebit.Orthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-38904190165928712412008-12-20T04:17:00.001-08:002008-12-20T04:19:02.654-08:00Is this blog obsolete?Kindly, if anyone wishes to pass comment on this question, feel free to do so.Orthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-54560834023908907712008-12-15T03:25:00.001-08:002008-12-15T03:29:07.504-08:00Canonistic Notes on Summorum PontificumFrom the New Liturgical Movement,<br /><br />"The article (Liturgisches Jahrbuch 1/2008, p. 3 ff.) is written by Prof. Norbert Lüdecke who teaches Canon Law at the University of Bonn. A summary of the article is given in the current issue of Una Voce Korrespondenz, the quarterly of the German Una Voce association (4/2008, p. 371 ff.), of which a summary appeared, on December 1st, 2008, on the website kath-info.de, which we present to you here in an NLM translation:<br /><br /><br /><br />1. The bishops may issue "annotations and instructions for the implementation" of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, but they may not add "new mandatory content" (cf. the analysis of the "guidelines" of the German Bishops' Conference by Prof. Georg Muschalek). <br /><br />2. The "guidelines" of the German Bishops' Conference of 27 September 2007 are not binding upon the individual diocesan bishop. <br /><br />3. The celebration of the Missa sine populo is, except in the case of insurmountable obstacles, to be allowed "at any legitimate place". "Restrictions of the usus antiquior to certain places or times by particular law are (...) inadmissible." <br /><br />4. In a Missa sine populo (literally translated: "Mass without people") the faithful may participate sua sponte (i.e. without compulsion). They may also advert other faithful to this Holy Mass. <br /><br />5. For a group, which according to the Motu proprio is a prerequisite for the celebration of a Holy Mass with the people, the number of three persons is sufficient. The diocesan bishop cannot establish a higher minimum number. <br /><br />6. The parish priest must not discriminate against Masses according to the old use "by keeping them secret or scheduling them at times difficultly accessible". <br /><br />7. "The Pope has not ordered that the parish priest could meet the request of interested faithful. He has mandated that the parish priest must do so"(Lüdecke). <br /><br />8. Faithful whose right to Holy Mass in the older use is being denied by the parish priest do not only have the possibility, but the duty to inform the diocesan bishop about this. <br /><br />9. "Applications" for the traditional liturgy are "not petitions of grace or favour." "Parish priests as well as diocesan bishops are legally held to meet this request" (Lüdecke). <br /><br />10. The consent of the bishop to a Holy Mass according to the old use instituted by a parish priest according to the desire of faithful is not required. <br /><br />11. Laypeople as extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion and women as altar servers are not allowed in the traditional liturgy."Orthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-91785573575904848292008-12-13T02:24:00.001-08:002008-12-13T06:17:42.435-08:00A PROPOSED UNITED FRONT OF CATHOLIC TRADITION NATION WIDEJ.M.J<br /><br /><br />Ever since the advent of the Sovereign Pontiff's moto proprio, 'Summorum Pontificum', traditionally minded Catholics have been literally "crawling out of the woodwork" and for the first time , voicing their opinions on the state of the Church as well as, (and most importantly) making their voices heard concerning their desire for Traditional Catholicism to be re-established here in Southern Africa.<br /><br /><br />Out of ignorance one might make a bold statement and say that tradition is making a comeback to South Africa. Such a belief would be unfounded , as in all truth Catholic Tradition has been in place since the close of the Council with a handful of the clergy who refused to accept the conciliar reforms and remained faithful to the Church of all time. With such a situation, it was a need also to provide for those lay catholics who refused to participate in the destructive consequences of the 'renewal' of Vatican II. <br /><br />The Society of St. Pius X, has been operating in South Africa since this time and dutifully attending to the spiritual needs of these same Catholics and the generations that were to follow them. Thus in all fairness, it would be wrong to assume that Catholic Tradition is only now making a comeback in South Africa, understandably with the 'official' return of the Latin Tridentine Mass at the Cathedral of Christ the King, one step has been made in the right direction so to speak, however , the fundamentals of Catholic life and faith in its traditional sense as upheld by the Society, have been lost and will take quite a few more generations to eventually restore. <br /><br />Its is our supreme hope to see such a goal realised in our lifetime, however, in all reality the widespread errors which have entrenched themselves in the post Conciliar Church, both locally and abroad still hold sway over a vast majority of Catholics. Only a minority is seen to uphold the traditional faith in its true and exact sense. Thus , in the face of such widespread destruction of our beloved faith, we need to take courage and not loose hope in our efforts of restoration, no matter how small, in this great trial to which the whole of Christendom has been subjected. <br /><br /><br />With all this in mind, we can take courage in the fact that we are not the first to fight for the rights of true Catholicism. Others, much braver than ourselves have passed before us, some have fallen, some have lost the faith completely, yet those who remained to continue the fight armed with nothing but charity and obedience to God and his truth, were faced as some of us are now, with hostility and scorn by those very same people who are charged with this exact purpose, namely the defense of the Truth.<br /><br /><br />It would therefore be a suggestion, that all these newcomers to the fight for tradition, unite themselves under one banner, one which would exact more force in the great effort of restoration than that which is currently in place, (small groups even individuals who are giving their all in this same effort). <br /><br /><br />Is there any possibility of such a thing here and now? <br /><br /><br />In Christ and our Good Mother<br /><br /><br />CalvinOrthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-57130729836188699872008-12-12T05:39:00.000-08:002008-12-12T05:42:57.534-08:00Updates on the Pretoria Latin Mass GroupFrom a recent email, <br /><br />"As matters stand at present, I am interacting with Fr Craigh Laubscher here at Christ the King, Queenswood, on us taking up the matter of the Tridentine Mass with Msgr Hill. If the latter is willing and able to help us, we will have taken a step forward for the Pretoria group.<br /><br />So my proposal would be that we indeed meet in the New Year once we have something to report, and then discuss how to move forward in tandem." <br /><br />All prayers are needed for this important initiative<br /><br />God is with us!Orthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-49545464297877460732008-12-12T01:21:00.000-08:002008-12-12T01:32:41.119-08:00More on 'Ad Oreintem' worship in the Ordinary Form of the Roman RiteFrom the New liturgical Movement, <br /><br />Ad Orientem – Fr. Peter Stravinskas <br />12/05/08 <br />Homily at 7am Mass<br /><br /><br />The Season of Advent has a two-fold emphasis which many, many people do not seem to either remember or ever have known. And it’s on two comings of Christ: the first on His coming into time as the Judge of the world; His second, which most people associate with Advent exclusively, is His coming in history as the Babe of Bethlehem. But actually, until December 17, it is His final or second coming that the Church would have us focus all our attention on. And, the themes that the Church brings to our attention during this time period are those to do with light - the Light that is coming into the world. You see that in all of today’s readings as a matter of fact. <br /><br />The early Christians believed that Jesus would come again during the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy, and that He would come to them out of the east. And so, whenever possible churches were constructed so that they faced east. <br /><br />When you came into the Chapel this morning, if you were somewhat awake, you may have noticed that there is a slightly different arrangement of the sanctuary. The different arrangement is to suggest a different focus. <br /><br />In theological or liturgical language, we call this liturgical orientation, the liturgy celebrated facing east; which cannot always be a geographical east. But it does mean that priest and people face Christ, the coming Dawn, together, who’s coming to them out of the east. <br /><br />And there are some very practical implications to all of this: there is much less attention on the priest and much more attention on Christ. John the Baptist, the particular voice and figure par excellence for the Advent Season, said, “He [Christ] must increase, I must decrease.” And so, there is less of a personality cult centered on the priest, there is less distraction for the priest who ought to be looking at God not the congregation and less distraction for people - who are not diverted by some of the idiosyncrasies of priests. <br /><br />And let me then offer a few clarifications. <br /><br />First, there is nothing in the Second Vatican Council that ever once called for the turning around of altars, just as nothing in Vatican II called for getting rid of Latin in the Liturgy, nor did they ever envision things like communion in the hand, or extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion or female servers. All of that is something that happened many, many years after the Council, and that the Council Fathers themselves would have been quite shocked to discover ever happened. <br /><br />Secondly, the current or reformed Roman Missal, even in English as a matter of fact, presumes that the priest is not facing the congregation, and, therefore, the rubrics (the directives for the celebration of the Liturgy) consistently say things to the priest like, “The priest now turns faces the people and says, ‘The Lord be with you.’”<br /><br />Thirdly, for the parts of the Mass that are directed to the people, the priest continues to face the people, and so, the Liturgy of the Word. It makes no sense for me to read the Gospel facing the wall or to preach in that direction. (Although, sometimes you get the impression you might get as much of a reaction.) <br /><br />Fourth, for years, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, wrote repeatedly about the importance of returning the former practice of facing east. Why? To restore a healthy sense of the sacred, the transcendent. So that this is not perceived as a social hour or “Entertainment Tonight”, but the Church’s worship of the triune God.<br /><br />Fifthly, many priests (especially younger ones interestingly enough) are taking the former Cardinal’s, now present Pope’s, admonition to heart. Last week, I was in Greenville, South Carolina, and all the Masses in that parish have been celebrated ad orientem, as we say, facing east for a full year now. Just Wednesday, I visited Holy Family Church in Columbus, where since the beginning of Advent, three of the four Sunday Masses are now celebrated facing east. <br /><br />As I indicated the other day, Advent is a time of new beginnings. And so, this is a good time for us to make this act of restoration here at the Monastery and, appropriately, also during the nuns’ annual retreat. Now, this may take a bit of readjustment for some of you, but I think you’ll find great spiritual benefit in reasonably short order. <br /><br />You may not realize it, but all religions have used geography as a theological reference point. You know, I’m sure, that Muslims turn to face Mecca, no matter where they are. When they go to pray, they turn to face Mecca. Orthodox Jews, to this very day, turn to face Jerusalem. Each day in the celebration of Lauds (or Morning Prayer) the Church prays the Benedictus, the Canticle of Zechariah, which he recited as he reacted to the birth of his newborn son, John the Baptist. In that canticle Zechariah prophesies, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that the Dawn from on high shall break upon us. We know that the dawn breaks in the east; that Dawn, that rising Sun shall appear on this altar in but a few minutes. And so, let us, you and I, priest and people, face east together, prepared to meet the One who is coming into the world as the Light of the world.Orthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-83022060327372786122008-12-11T05:25:00.000-08:002008-12-11T05:50:23.078-08:00Pretoria Latin Mass UpdateGreetings once again in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary<br /><br />Since the September meeting in Lynwood at St.John Fisher Parish, not much has been said in terms of the Pretoria Group of Faithful who are requesting the Traditional Latin Mass.<br /><br />It would seem profitable to call another meeting so as to regroup and merge this group with those here in Johannesburg who have already been supplied with the Mass.<br /><br />I hope to be in contact with the Pretoria Group and put forward my suggestions. Any further developments will be posted immediately.<br /><br />In Christ and our Good Mother<br /><br />CalvinOrthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946470430483574883.post-90591093055988696202008-12-10T06:51:00.000-08:002008-12-10T06:58:24.458-08:00Some more Beautiful Pictures of the First Latin Tridentine Mass at the Cathedral of Christ the King in nearly fourty years<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-1rPDny-8nNtOqKcJ-uiAxYuUZgMlMVMI5mMSVHkPJal4VR0Im0kD8yhj90Y3rO89RE0n3dN1y7aOD7YsttY8dZTmhLEgOtM2FH4Iy047YVFR8EOXwmqJ7oeFfJK5MkqODqLZFhrRJpQ/s1600-h/PC020954.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-1rPDny-8nNtOqKcJ-uiAxYuUZgMlMVMI5mMSVHkPJal4VR0Im0kD8yhj90Y3rO89RE0n3dN1y7aOD7YsttY8dZTmhLEgOtM2FH4Iy047YVFR8EOXwmqJ7oeFfJK5MkqODqLZFhrRJpQ/s400/PC020954.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278175256370257442" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBsEP4hyphenhyphenh-iYoVwpy6ynMOlrzgEkcdRoDS6MR6GxdXtp5jj5T-ipIlDYOyQFpu6uog0ydAIbP1nqyeipWtu9Bzy8dXUSY4yfWgT8tkpMcaQiSlIIpSEnEvVtD6Kg1Mf6oWdHzMe1gCPKE/s1600-h/PC020944.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBsEP4hyphenhyphenh-iYoVwpy6ynMOlrzgEkcdRoDS6MR6GxdXtp5jj5T-ipIlDYOyQFpu6uog0ydAIbP1nqyeipWtu9Bzy8dXUSY4yfWgT8tkpMcaQiSlIIpSEnEvVtD6Kg1Mf6oWdHzMe1gCPKE/s400/PC020944.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278175254621175746" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZdAKAz6YyfVZiyxNVzZIlR7fGB4tPv_oJatXNoIDtdMfxg7GXX8NxkbXrqEv41bDMu-mTDAD_pmj_3dDV0nWz2kH3RDLjiyXX0f-cbrOqUV0pWe3uZfoqBUs_uR4r_zDKmYs1bXh7xX0/s1600-h/PC020941.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZdAKAz6YyfVZiyxNVzZIlR7fGB4tPv_oJatXNoIDtdMfxg7GXX8NxkbXrqEv41bDMu-mTDAD_pmj_3dDV0nWz2kH3RDLjiyXX0f-cbrOqUV0pWe3uZfoqBUs_uR4r_zDKmYs1bXh7xX0/s400/PC020941.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278175252653987026" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHEPx16t-iGeY67LZJ1Zgsi58zy5sV1y_jgSNK65mZa2WtIANzhCpyUWV2ghz-FzK2lHdjYeH6F7IZu7ZJE9TgPKBRELbifPM1NCN0usYFwvZ2jzXSHf9KTNnNDxejTvYWz1BldpRfKgs/s1600-h/PC020939.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHEPx16t-iGeY67LZJ1Zgsi58zy5sV1y_jgSNK65mZa2WtIANzhCpyUWV2ghz-FzK2lHdjYeH6F7IZu7ZJE9TgPKBRELbifPM1NCN0usYFwvZ2jzXSHf9KTNnNDxejTvYWz1BldpRfKgs/s400/PC020939.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278175246704462386" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY4oTZyxLGpneERWzQoUDtlHzXbF5BC0j4IpAb3EH1pJaXKYf5FRRBbQq3HBVKVJladTC3m8eszT-KJXOWoFiF686wBEQ3Vk11Ek-yOSd-BiHukYXsFV4JIET5RwigZuB4uvA3Ad7S-o4/s1600-h/PC020918.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY4oTZyxLGpneERWzQoUDtlHzXbF5BC0j4IpAb3EH1pJaXKYf5FRRBbQq3HBVKVJladTC3m8eszT-KJXOWoFiF686wBEQ3Vk11Ek-yOSd-BiHukYXsFV4JIET5RwigZuB4uvA3Ad7S-o4/s400/PC020918.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278175245497711730" /></a><br /><br />Celebrant: Fr. Shaun Mary von Lillienfeld<br />Server: Andrew Martin<br />Pictures: Michael PoverelloOrthodoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074136614852860373noreply@blogger.com0