Notre Dame Conflagration – Unique, Totally Gratuitous Opportunity for SSPX To Step Up

By Doug Lawrence

Probably the only thing more destructive than the recent Notre Dame Cathedral conflagration will be the proposed effort at rebuilding it and likely, re-purposing it, as a modern, multi-faith worship/welcome center, pretty much destroying any true sense of the original and authentic, Roman Catholic faith Tradition.

This is not to say that there has been much of that original Tradition in evidence there, for the last fifty years, or so. The fact that only a handful of broadcasters, politicians, Catholic Church officials, and Catholics, in general, have even mentioned Jesus Christ or the Blessed Virgin Mary, when speaking about it, provides ample evidence that what was once a revered “House of God” is now viewed as little more than another “cultural asset” of the state.

It turns out that the Notre Dame Cathedral isn’t even owned by the Catholic Church anymore and hasn’t been, for quite some time.

Perhaps now is the time for all of that to change. That’s where the SSPX (The Society of Saint Pius X) comes in – the group of conservative bishops and priests that rejected the Vatican II reformation, were excommunicated – then re-communicated – and now – are negotiating with the Vatican to be fully repatriated.

The SSPX people are originally from France, so they ought to have at least a few influential, political backers, still holding out, somewhere, in France’s “deep state” liberal government. Maybe they could even forge an alliance with the “Yellow Vest” people? Stranger things have happened, in service of God.

The plan is so simple that even a child could understand it: Purchase the ruined Cathedral from the French government, for say, one € (Euro) or whatever it takes; direct and supervise the entire rebuilding effort, according to the authentic Catholic Tradition i.e. classically beautiful architecture, artwork and statuary, faithfully reproduced in all the doctrine, worship and other activities taking place there – including the Mass of the Ages; raise all the necessary restoration funds; operate the Cathedral, going forward, without the need for any state funding, and most importantly – PROVIDE THE INITIAL “SPARK” THAT WILL REVITALIZE not only the old Notre Dame Cathedral, but also PARIS, FRANCE, EUROPE, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH and eventually, the WHOLE WORLD!

There’s more than a billion (alleged) Catholics throughout the world. Three “bucks” a piece ought to cover the entire “tab” – plus an ongoing, regular offering, to cover necessary future expenses and maintenance. Even if, as many suspect, only about ten percent of those professing to be Catholic actually are, thirty “bucks” a piece would not be too much to ask. Every Catholic in the world could contribute, according to his/her means and capacity.

What role (official and/or unofficial) should the (thoroughly corrupt) Vatican play in all this? ABSOLUTELY NONE! “Grass roots” Catholics should pay for it all and the SSPX should rise to the occasion – by the grace and power of God – and “get ‘er done”!

This, ladies and gentlemen, was the sum total of my Good Friday meditations on the Passion of Jesus Christ, our Risen Lord and Savior. What better day than Easter Sunday, for a “New Beginning”?

Please pass this around, if you think it has merit. 

The document the Modernists hoped you would never see: Archbishop Lefebvre’s “Open Letter To Confused Catholics”

Translated from the French

 

Preface

1. Why are Catholics Confused?

2. “They Are Changing Our Religion!”

3. What They are Doing to the Mass?

4. The Mass of All Times
versus the Mass of Our Time.

5 “You’re a Dinosaur!”

6. The New Forms of Baptism, Marriage,
Penance and Extreme Unction.

7. The New Priests

8. The New Catechisms

9. The New Theology

10. Ecumenism

11. Religious Liberty

12. Comrades and Fellow-Travellers

13. Religious Liberty,
Collegial Equality,
Ecumenical Fraternity

14. “Vatican II
is the French Revolution
in the Church.”

15. The Marriage of the Church
and the Revolution

16. Neo-modernism
or the Undermining of the Faith

17. What is Tradition?

18. True and False Obedience

19. The Ecône Seminary and Rome

20. The Mass of All Time

21. Neither a Heretic nor a Schismatic

22. What Families Can Do.

23. Building Up Verses Pulling Down.

Editor’s note: This fine work is the antithesis of Modernism, which is in itself, the synthesis of all the errors which have been foisted on the members of the Catholic church, to the eternal detriment of souls, for the past fifty years.

The Modernists and Liberals have absolutely no legitimate defense against the authentic Catholic principles, practices and beliefs explained within.

Read it for yourself. Better yet – round up some of your fellow Catholics and together, praying for supernatural discernment, study and thoroughly research all that is in it!

A Catholic Canon Lawyer Explains: Are SSPX (Society of Saint Pius X) Sacraments Valid?

Q: What’s the canonical status of priests ordained by SSPX bishops, and what’s the canonical status of the sacraments they administer? –John

A: It would have been marvelous to be able to respond to John that the priests of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) were now fully united to Rome, and thus had a status comparable to the members of any other religious institute in the Church.  Sadly, however, this is not the case!  While Pope Benedict was clearly hoping to reconcile the SSPX to the Church during his papacy, the fact is that this important item on his to-do list was left unfinished when he resigned in February.

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Go to part two

Does Catholic Answers think it is more Catholic than the pope?

Apparently Staples is assuming that the priests of the SSPX, and possibly other Traditional laity, are not united with the Church as a part of Her “visible bodily structure” or bonded to Her by “ecclesiastical government.” But is this true? The SSPX was instituted with full approval from the local bishop in 1970 and its ministers are currently under no censure of excommunication, but simply lack a canonical status. Rome has readily admitted that their situation is not like the Orthodox in that they are still considered subject to the Code of Canon Law and are not schismatic. Pope Benedict even went so far as to say in 2007 that the situation of the SSPX is, “a matter of coming to an interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church.”_[5]

Of course, if Staples would look at paragraph eight of Lumen Gentium, he would learn that the “Church of Christ” merely “subsists in” the Catholic Church. Thus, even if the SSPX were not in “full Communion” with the Catholic Church, they could, according to Vatican II, still belong to the “Church of Christ” and thus contain “many elements of sanctification and truth.” Furthermore, even if the SSPX were formally schismatic, as Staples claims the sedevacantists are, paragraph fifteen of Lumen Gentium makes this seem like a pretty good state to be in:

The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who, being baptized, are honored with the name of Christian, though they do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter. For there are many who honor Sacred Scripture, taking it as a norm of belief and a pattern of life, and who show a sincere zeal. They lovingly believe in God the Father Almighty and in Christ, the Son of God and Saviour. They are consecrated by baptism, in which they are united with Christ. They also recognize and accept other sacraments within their own Churches or ecclesiastical communities. Many of them rejoice in the episcopate, celebrate the Holy Eucharist and cultivate devotion toward the Virgin Mother of God. They also share with us in prayer and other spiritual benefits. Likewise we can say that in some real way they are joined with us in the Holy Spirit, for to them too He gives His gifts and graces whereby He is operative among them with His sanctifying power…_[6]

Thus, according to Lumen Gentium, even if the SSPX is not “fully incorporated into the Society of the Church” they can still “in some real way” be joined with the Catholic Church in the Holy Spirit, receiving gifts and graces whereby God “is operative among them with His sanctifying power.” If this is the case, what is the real importance of full incorporation “into the Society of the Church?” As this exercise demonstrates, trying to pin any precise definition on the shifting, ambiguous, and contradictory language of Vatican II documents is a recipe for utter disaster; hence, the Traditionalists’ critique of the Council texts themselves.

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Editor’s note: There’s much more to this wide ranging article.

133 various comments on the Catholic Answers website pretty much describe all the problems being experienced in the present day Catholic Church

For example:

…If the the SSPX are radical traditionalists then so are the rest of us! Attack one Catholic and you attack us all. That’s the message to Catholic Answers the SSPX are in the boat stop trying to push them out.

Religious Liberty, False Ecumenism and Collegiality all coming from Vatican II are a problem for most thinking Catholics who are going to the Traditional Latin Mass. This is not limited to the SSPX or those other groups your radio show talked about. The other huge problem and this is where the southern poverty law center comes is supersessionism and Vatican II. The southern poverty law center calls faithful Catholics “anti-semites” and “radical traditionalists” due to our holding to the reality of supersessionism. This is an injustice.

The topic of the Jews must not be pushed under the rug because it makes people feel icky. Michael Voris was not allowed to speak in my diocese because he was faithful to Christ and the truth about the Jews & the reality the matter. This also is an injustice. So let’s have at it in Charity gentlemen…

Scroll down to the com box for more

Polish priest quits SSPX and also throws in the towel on the post-Vatican II Church.

Editor’s note: Rev. Raphael Trytek makes some very interesting points – points which every faithful Catholic ought to prudently and prayerfully consider, during this official Year of Faith.

For nearly half a century since, Christian life remains eclipsed under the propagation of what the Church has infallibly condemned over centuries as Modernistic errors and heresies, such as: 1) Religious freedom, essentially leading to the acceptance of state atheism; 2) falsely conceived Ecumenism -whether equalization of false religious doctrines to the One True Catholic Church, or acknowledgment of other religions, including even Judaism, Islam, and Paganism, as means leading to salvation; 3) the erroneous conception of the Church of Christ as not identical with the Catholic Church, but as a wider entity that includes the Catholic Church without being limited to it; 4) the advancement of one global syncretistic religion; 5) adherence to Masonic ideas, such as the propagation of alleged “natural” rights of man, which essentially becomes an expression of anthropocentrism.

It is impossible for the True Church of Christ and for Her Hierarchy – Pope and Bishops remaining in union with him- to subscribe to that apostasy! Whoever is willing to preserve and to confess the Catholic Faith, must acknowledge that the institution that insistently peddles and publicly proclaims so shameful errors, has nothing in common with the true Catholic Church…

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Additional note: The website which posted this article continues to maintain that the post-Vatican II Catholic Church and hierarchy are not truly Catholic, and that the Chair of St. Peter, along with the sees of many bishops, are presently occupied by usurpers.

This sounds a lot like what the Obama regime is currently attempting to do to the government of the United States – and we know that Barack Obama is certainly not Catholic!

What do you make of it?

Vatican/Society of Saint Pius X controversy rages on. See the reader comments.

Link

The “mainstream” is not be followed. We need apostolic courage in these times of apostasy and betrayal.

Satan inflicting boils on Job

The “mainstream” is not to be followed.

God permitted one hundred percent of the human race to be deceived in the Garden of Eden.

God permitted all but eight members of the human race to be deceived and deluded prior to the Great Flood.

Almost all of the Chosen People who had been led out of their bondage to the slavery of the Egyptian Pharaoh by Moses built and worshiped a molten calf whilst Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments from God on Mount Sinai.

All but a handful of people stood by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as He suffered and died for us on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday.

All but one bishop, Saint John Fisher of Rochester, England, defected from the Faith at the time of the Protestant Revolt in England when King Henry VIII took this thoroughly Catholic country out of the Church.

All but thirty bishops defected from the Faith at the time Queen Elizabeth I took England out of the Church once again in the 1660s following the brief restoration that took place under the reign of her half-sister, Queen Mary, from 1553 to 1558.

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Editor’s note: This is a well ordered, wide ranging article about church politics and many other things. I don’t agree with everything stated therein, but I do think that many of the author’s various points are worth serious consideration.

Vatican: No more talks with SSPX traditionalists.

Archbishop Gerhard Mueller, who took up his post as head of the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in July, said in an interview to be broadcast on Saturday that the Church could not negotiate away the fundamentals of its faith.

His comments to North German Radio (NDR) were the first from the Vatican on deadlocked talks meant to reintegrate the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) into the Church after a 21-year schism over its implacable opposition to 1960s reforms.

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Editor’s note: This is not surprising. Despite appearances, the Catholic Church hierarchy is still dominated by liberals, many of them continuing to cling to various heterodox opinions, with virtually no opposition (or correction) from the Pope, to the great and continuing detriment of the Catholic Church. The recent appointment  of Archbishop Mueller as head of the CDF was the “kiss of death” for these negotiations.

I have no doubt the Pope is perfectly OK with this, since he appointed the new CDF head, and as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was in charge of implementing and enforcing many of the ruinous post-Vatican II “reforms”. If the Pope really wanted to do this deal, he would have made it happen, much as he did with the Anglican Ordinariate initiative.

“Change” came to the Catholic Church some 50 years before Barack Obama and his ilk came to power in the United States. The results have been very similar in both cases: DISASTER!

SSPX and the Vatican. Too many secrets?

The Vatican-SSPX talks were held behind closed doors. Catholics till today are not informed about what were the precise doctrinal differences. Everything is still a secret.

The Society of St.Pius X (SSPX) has been asked to accept the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) position since the magisterium is always correct.

We are called to be the light of the world, the salt of the earth and not to hide our faith in a bushel basket. Yet everything was so secret and it still is.

The people just know that by next week there could be an ‘ecclesial rupture’ because the SSPX rejects the Jewish Left liberal version of Vatican Council II.

Why should we have to accept new doctrines in the name of Vatican Council II and with no supportive text in the Council?

Read more from Lionel Andrades

Looks like EWTN’s favorite “whipping boys” are back in the fold. SSPX said to have accepted Vatican’s doctrinal preamble.

The response of the Society of Saint Pius X has arrived in the Vatican and it is positive: according to the informal information gathered by Vatican Insider, Bishop Bernard Fellay would have signed the doctrinal preamble that the Holy See had proposed last September as a condition to reach full communion and canonical regularization.

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Editor’s note: Like it or not, this is a very good thing for the Catholic Church. Until now, the radical leftist wing of the church was allowed to run rough-shod over the traditionalists. Now, things will likely be more balanced in favor of orthodoxy.

Watch for some brutal church politics to come. This reunion is not likely to be pretty … unless you mean pretty ugly! But it is long overdue. Praise God, it’s about time!

Monsignor Nicola Bux: The SSPX in reality, accepts Vatican Council II.

Monsignor Nicola Bux, consultant to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Pope, addressed an open letter to Bishop Fellay and the priests of the Society of St. Pius X, inviting them to accept an agreement.

He wrote “Perplexities certainly remain, points to be deepened or detailed, such as those regarding ecumenism and inter religious dialogue (which has been, for that matter, already the object of an important clarification given by the declaration Dominus Iesus…’)

We know otherwise. We know the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) is in agreement with Vatican Council II which states all need Catholic Faith and the baptism of water for salvation. (Ad Gentes 7, Vatican Council II). So in reality the SSPX agrees with Vatican Council II on ecumenism and inter religious dialogue. All non Catholics need to enter the Church with Catholic Faith and the baptism of water for salvation (to avoid Hell).

Read more from Lionel Andrades

 

Freedom of conscience OK for everybody except traditional SSPX group?

VATICAN CITY  – The Vatican has rejected the fundamentalist Society of Saint Pius X brotherhood’s response to a proposed deal for its reintegration as “insufficient”, a Holy See spokesman said Friday.

It has given the society a month “to clarify its position”, as both sides strive to end a rift caused by the brotherhood’s split from the Church in 1988.

Link

Seen on the web: Regarding stalled talks between SSPX and the Vatican

Bernonensis said…

“We’ve destroyed your liturgy, given you politicians as bishops, perverts as pastors and heretics as teachers. Now, if you want to complain, feel free, but do it like that nice Monsignor Gherardini because if you start making demands we’ll say the e-word.” (Excommunication.)Read the article

Why today’s Catholics believe what they believe (most of the time)

A leading figure involved in the Vatican’s negotiations with the breakaway traditionalist group the Society of St. Pius X says that the Society’s objections to some of the Second Vatican Council’s teachings are tied to persistent “misunderstandings” about how doctrine develops.

“The Catholic attitude,” explained Monsignor Fernando Ocariz on Dec. 2 in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, “is to seek a unitive interpretation in which the texts of the Second Vatican Council and the preceding Magisterial documents illuminate each other.”

Therefore, “not only should the Second Vatican Council be interpreted in the light of previous Magisterial documents,” but also “earlier magisterial documents can be understood better in the light of the Second Vatican Council.”

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Editor’s note: If only things actually worked this way! The radical liberals and modernists in the church used Vatican II as an excuse to “gut” the church of virtually everything that was truly sacred. Only now, some 50 years later, are we discovering how much damage they were allowed to do, in the name of “reform”.

Jews don’t like message of Traditional Catholic group. And it’s NOT about the Holocaust.

by Doug Lawrence

The recent events surrounding the proposed reconciliation between the traditional Catholic SSPX group and the Vatican have brought out an unusually large number critical Jews, who take Pope Benedict to task for even considering any sort of rapprochement with the SSPX, unless and until the SSPX people repudiate any and all claims that might reflect badly upon Jews, for any reason … even if those claims are based on actual history and God’s absolute truth.

That is patently unfair.

The fact that our Jewish brothers and sisters know they have absolutely no right to interfere in internal Catholic Church matters, but continue to do so, also demonstrates that the roots of the problem go much, much deeper:

Beneath the high sounding, liberal Jewish rhetoric, often based on unfounded assumptions and flawed, self-serving misinterpretations of church documents, is the fact that the Jews have traditionally, never accepted the Catholic Church or any of its beliefs and teachings … about Jesus Christ, the Mass, the Priesthood, the Sacraments, the Bible, and virtually all things Christian … and Jews tend to view any type of authentic, genuine Catholicity as a threat … a direct affront to Judaism, itself.

Perhaps that perception is true. But the real problem is this: Traditional Jewry will only be happy if and when the Catholic Church agrees to repudiate Jesus Christ, and everything else the Church has preached, taught, and accomplished, in God’s holy name, over the last two thousand years.

That … and only that … would give the Jews a truly “level” playing field against Christianity. That’s what they would like, and that is what’s behind all the various op-ed pieces and position statements by various, Jewish pressure groups. It is also a classic, liberal argument, based almost purely on emotion, and nourished by guilt.

Like all good, post Vatican II Catholics, Pope Benedict and many of his fellow bishops are more than happy to go along with the charade, in the false hope of some sort of Christian-Jewish ecumenical breakthrough, the actual purpose of which, remains a great mystery.

Perhaps if we get the Jews to like us, they will want to become Catholic … but only if we compromise every essential principle of our faith … something which has already been tried by many Evangelical Protestant groups … with few positive results.

What we ought to do is respectfully and charitably agree to disagree, since there can be no real compromise between people who firmly believe that Jesus Christ is God, and those who continue to maintain instead, that Jesus Christ was nothing more than a liar, a pretender, and a blasphemer, worthy of death.

Regarding the tired old charge of Jewish blood libel: Certainly, people of good will … on both sides … can finally put that matter behind us, since Christians understand that it was essentially God’s idea to permit the Jews and the Romans of the first century era to crucify Jesus Christ, in order to destroy Satan’s power and save the world from its sins.

Much more about that, here.

But most Jews won’t accept that, either … so, let’s quit wasting time with all the lies, posturing and disingenuous rhetoric, and get busy with the holy work that God put all of us Christians here, to accomplish … teaching and preaching the entire, authentic, unadulterated Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And let’s do it in love, since over the last two thousand years, nothing about the human condition has really changed:

And seeing him they adored: but some doubted. And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.
(Matthew 28:17-20)

SSPX Bishop publicly identifies “unknown assailants” the Bible says were primarily responsible for the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ.

Link

So, for now, we wait to see if Bishop Fellay will indeed sign the doctrinal preamble presented to him by Cardinal Levada.

In 1988, long before his election as pope, Cardinal Ratzinger visited Santiago Chile to address the Chilean Bishop’s conference. In a speech that focused on the “Lefebvre case”, Cardinal Ratzinger said this about the Second Vatican Council:

“One of the basic discoveries of the theology of ecumenism is that schisms can take place only when certain truths and certain values of the Christian faith are no longer lived and loved within the Church. The truth which is marginalized becomes autonomous, remains detached from the whole of the ecclesiastical structure, and a new movement then forms itself around it.”

It cannot be denied that after Vatican II many truths and values of the faith stopped being lived and loved in the Church. Fasting before Communion, frequent Confession, religious attire for priests and nuns, the importance of avoiding mortal sin, abstaining from meat on Fridays and many other disciplines, teachings and traditions were suddenly tossed aside, de-emphasized or became the objects of mockery and jokes.  This atmosphere of disdain for all that Catholics once practiced certainly invited a response, and that is just what Archbishop Lefebvre and his followers gave us.

This response, as noted by Cardinal Ratzinger, fed a hunger that too many of our shepherds ignored:

“We must reflect on this fact: that a large number of Catholics, far beyond the narrow circle of the Fraternity of Lefebvre, see this man as a guide, in some sense, or at least as a useful ally. It will not do to attribute everything to political motives, to nostalgia, or to cultural factors of minor importance. These causes are not capable of explaining the attraction which is felt even by the young, and especially by the young, who come from many quite different nations, and who are surrounded by completely distinct political and cultural realities.  Indeed they show what is from any point of view a restricted and one-sided outlook; but there is no doubt whatever that a phenomenon of this sort would be inconceivable unless there were good elements at work here, which in general do not find sufficient opportunity to live within the Church of today.”

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Submitted by Nancy W.

Dr. William Oddie: The (present) Novus Ordo is a valid Catholic Mass, written in unambiguous language.

The issues involved, however, will be with us for some time, and still have to be faced, since the casual acceptance of some supposedly “traditionalist” views has done considerable damage. One of these was summed up by one participant in the ongoing Herald debate: his view is essentially that the Novus Ordo is an invalid rite:

“The Novus Ordo does not signify the Catholic theology of the holy sacrifice of the Mass. It is ambiguous – deliberately so – and tends toward giving a Protestant understanding of the Lord’s Supper, which gradually will replace the Catholic Mass in the eyes and psyche of whatever remaining “Catholic” attend it. It is simple: no sacrifice = no need for a sacrificing priest = no need for an altar but merely a table for a commemorative meal over which the presbyter presides and in which the people of God exercise their universal priesthood and so they, not any priest, worship God in their way instead of in His.”

This is a grotesque distortion – no, worse, an actual direct untruth – simply asserted as though it were self-evident. The Novus Ordo is very clearly a valid Catholic liturgy, in which the doctrine of the Mass as sacrifice is both assumed and unambiguously stated. Consider the following, from the current English translation of Eucharistic prayer III:

Father, calling to mind the death your Son endured for our salvation, his glorious Resurrection and ascension into heaven, and ready to greet him when he comes again, we offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice.

Look with favour on your Church’s offering, and see the victim whose death has reconciled us to yourself. Grant that we, who are nourished by his body and blood, may be filled with his Holy Spirit, and become one body, one spirit in Christ.

May he make us an everlasting gift to you and enable us to share in the inheritance of your saints, with Mary, the virgin Mother of God, with the apostles, the martyrs, and all your saints, on whose constant intercession we rely for help.

Lord, may this sacrifice, which has made our peace with you, advance the peace and salvation of all the world…

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Editor’s note: Assuming the complete absence of many, popular, wide-spread abuses, the writer is probably correct. Otherwise … not!

Remnant Catholic Newspaper Takes Executive Producer of Real Catholic TV To Task

One of the advantages of being a columnist for The Remnant is the great therapeutic value of a forum in which to vent a Catholic’s frustration over the prevailing confusion in what Italians call il dopoconcilio—the period following the Second Vatican Council.  Who knows how many serious health consequences I have averted by discharging on these pages the burden of angst over so much of what is dopey in the dopoconcilio? It is time to vent again.

Speaking of dopey, the executive producer of RealCatholicTV.com has just issued this “official position” concerning the Society of Saint Pius X:  “The SSPX are not in full communion with the Church and are invited by the Church to rediscover this path.”

Ah yes, that mysterious  “path” to the ever-elusive spiritual goal of “full communion.”  It seems to suggest a neo-Catholic analogue to the eightfold path of Buddhism which, if only SSPX could “rediscover” it, would lead all its adherents to that exalted platform of enlightenment attainable only through a joyful abandonment to the ineffable teachings of the Second Vatican Council: a council the same, yet different, from all the other councils; novel yet traditional; new, yet old; pastoral, yet doctrinal; an opening of ecclesiastical chakras to certain energies of the modern world; an “event” whose meaning can only be intuited, but never made explicit, according to a “true interpretation” that is lurking somewhere, surely, but has yet to be found.  Listen carefully, Grasshopper, and you will hear the Council in soft breezes flowing through poplars on Roman hills. It is the sound of one hand clapping.

Quite simply, have we not had far more than enough of this gnostic twaddle? Let us reason together.  Let us do what traditionalists have always done: confront obscurantism and intellectual dishonesty with a few statements of the obvious.  Right reason, the Jesuits called it, back when they were still in the right reason business. Back when the Church was still in the right reason business. A few statements of the obvious, then.  A dozen, to be exact:

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