$4.45 $4.45 may 2007 “Instaurare omnia in Christo” of see th p. is 44 iss ue ph ot co o n for wide is the gate te es st sa y A Journal of Roman Catholic Tradition Pentecost and Confirmation Novena to the Holy Ghost What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear “Holy Ghost”? If it’s a bird, there’s a small problem. Thus we are offering this small book as a solution. This is a Novena booklet unlike any other. Many novena books are heavy on piety and short on doctrine, yet, as St. Thomas tells us, “you cannot love what you do not know.” How can you love the Holy Ghost and communicate in prayer with Him, if you do not first know Him? This little treasure, like all novenas, covers a period of daily prayer for nine days: 1) The Holy Ghost 2) Fear 3) Piety 4) Fortitude 5) Knowledge 6) Understanding 7) Counsel 8) Wisdom 9) Fruits. Each day includes a short, scholastic definition of each gift of the Holy Ghost, then a profound meditation which is followed by a prayer appropriate to that gift, followed by the Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, the Act of Consecration to the Holy Ghost and the Prayer for the Seven Gifts. This should ESPECIALLY be in the hands of every confirmand, sponsor, parent, teacher, priest, and religious. We give gifts at Confirmation in imitation of the Holy Ghost, who gives much greater gifts. What better gift is there than helping the confirmed know and love what he has received from Him? 24pp, pocket-size, durable softcover, STK# 8152 $4.95 My Catholic Faith The classic 1954 edition of the best catechism you will ever find. Perfect for adults and children. 193 chapters covering everything you need to know about the doctrine, morals, and practices of the Catholic Church. How can a catechism be complete and yet be for both children and adults? Look at the picture to the left. As young children look at the picture, you read the simple caption and explain it further in your own words. At the same time, there are questions and answers for older readers. The answer in large type is for adults and older children. This is followed by an explanation in smaller text which gives a full explanation for adults. The perfect way to pass on the Faith. Give it to children (be they 3 or 73), teens, adults…all benefit from this catechism that “grows” with you. Abundant Scriptural quotations (excellent for proving Catholic Doctrine to “Bible-believing” Protestants). It’s also an excellent tool for dealing with liberal Catholics because two subjects of utmost importance are thoroughly treated: the true nature of the Catholic Church (today denied by false ecumenism) and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (today obscured by the New Mass). Profusely illustrated! 415pp, 8" x 11", hardcover, hundreds of illustrations, durable leatherette cover, STK# 3006 $39.95. Children’s Retreats One of the most beautiful books ever written concerning Communion, Confession and Confirmation, the clearly written explanations and stories are just the thing for children of ALL ages. Fr. Halpin’s charming, down-to-earth style of writing goes right to the hearts of children, completely captivating their attention. Helps parents and teachers explain the true essence of Communion, Confession and Confirmation—all in the form of a spiritual retreat. 205pp, hardcover, STK# 6747. $12.00 First Holy Communion St. Joseph First Communion Catechism from the Baltimore Catechism The most popular traditional preparation for children’s first confession and Holy Communion. All necessary knowledge presented in childlike Q & A format. Excellent color illustrations throughout. Perfect for grades 1-2. God, the Holy Trinity, Incarnation, Redemption, Our Lady, Sin, Ten Commandments, Sacraments, Holydays, Prayers, etc. Sections on Examination of Conscience and learning to follow Holy Mass. 64pp, softcover, STK# 4005. $4.95 Illustrated Catechism for Little Children A unique catechism, profusely illustrated in color. 11 chapters covering the Faith in 96 questions along with a “reading” broken into points which explain the answers thoroughly, an illustrative story, sidebars on the lives of childsaints, and a glossary. Includes an EXCELLENT depiction of the workings of Sanctifying Grace–a difficult concept to communicate to children. 48pp, softcover, 17 illustrations, STK# 8132Q $7.95 First Communion First published in 1954 by “Our Lady’s Catechists,” this book complements very well the standard Question & Answer format of catechetical instruction. Chapters include: What Communion Is Why We Need Jesus in Holy Communion Getting Ready for Holy Communion Manna in the Desert The Last Supper Holy Mass How to Prepare the Soul On the Day Afterwards Prayers for Before and After Holy Communion Review • • • • • • • • •29pp, softcover, full color •• illustrations, STK# 8030 $8.50 Preparation for Confirmation An excellent way to prepare for and follow the Rite of Confirmation. Divided into three sections: Quiz yourself in Part 1 with regards to the minimum knowledge necessary to receive the Sacrament; Part 2: Q&A catechism on the sacrament of Confirmation, explaining its 4 principal effects, the 7 gifts and the 12 fruits of the Holy Ghost. Part 3 contains and explains the rite of Confirmation. 26pp, softcover, STK# 3081 $3.95 “Instaurare omnia in Christo—To restore all things in Christ.” Motto of Pope St. Pius X The ngelus A Journal of Roman Catholic Tradition 2915 Forest Avenue “To publish Catholic journals and place them in the hands of honest men is not enough. It is necessary to spread them as far as possible that they may be read by all, and especially by those whom Christian charity demands we should tear away from the poisonous sources of evil literature.” —Pope St. Pius X May 2007 Volume XXX, Number 5 • Kansas City, Missouri 64109 English-language Editor and Publisher for the International Society of Saint Pius X letter from the editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Fr. Kenneth Novak PublisheR Fr. John Fullerton Editor Fr. Kenneth Novak Assistant Editor Mr. James Vogel catechism of the crisis in the church . . . . . . . . . . 3 Fr. Matthias Gaudron the conversion of muslims in the west . . . . . . . 8 Fr. Patrice LaRoche business Manager Mr. Jason Greene Editorial assistant and proofreading Miss Anne Stinnett THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT Free the Mass and the Face of the Earth Shall be Renewed . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Must We Attend a “Protestantized” Mass? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Design and Layout Mr. Simon Townshend MARKETING male and female he created them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Fr. Xavier Beauvais Mr. Christopher McCann comptroller Miss Lisa Powell customer service Mrs. Mary Anne Hall Mr. John Rydholm Shipping and Handling Mr. Jon Rydholm by what authority? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Mr. Robert F. Swenson adapting to christ’s mentality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Fr. Bernard-Marie de Chivré, O.P. Letter to friends and benefactors #70 . . . . . . . . . 38 Bishop Bernard Fellay Commentary on Pope Benedict XVI’s “Sacramentum caritatis” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Fr. Peter Scott Questions and answers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 The Angelus (ISSN 10735003) is published monthly under the patronage of St. Pius X and Mary, Queen of Angels. Publication offices are located at 2915 Forest Avenue, Kansas City, Missouri, 64109, (816) 753-3150, FAX (816) 753-3557. Periodicals Postage Rates paid at Kansas City, Missouri. Copyright © 2007 by Angelus Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Manuscripts are welcome. They must be double-spaced and deal with the Roman Catholic Church, its history, doctrine, or present crisis. Unsolicited manuscripts will be used at the discretion of the Editorial Staff. Unused manuscripts cannot be returned unless sent with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Angelus, Angelus Press, 2915 Forest Avenue, Kansas City, MO 64109-1529. Fr. Peter Scott The Angelus photo essay contest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 ON OUR COVER: The entrance to Walt Disney World, southwest of Orlando, Florida, which received 43 million visitors in 2006, roughly the population of Spain. (See “Letter from the Editor,” p.2.) “...[F]or wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadest to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat” (Mt. 7:13). The Angelus Subscription Rates 1 year 2 years 3 years US $34.95 Foreign Countries (inc. Canada & Mexico) $54.95 $64.95 $104.95 $99.95 $159.95 All payments must be in US funds only. Online subscriptions: $14.95/year (the online edition is available around the 10th of the preceding month). To subscribe visit: www.angelusonline.org. Register for free to access back issues 14 months and older plus many other site features.  Letter from the Editor “Welcome to the theme-park nation.” That’s what National Geographic (March 2007) says about the new American metropolis, Orlando, Florida. But the 20th-century Belgian traditional Catholic philosopher Marcel De Corte (1905-94) would say that, because of the Romantic Idealists, the “theme-park nation” is the whole artificial world around us and in us. In his new Preface to The Intelligence in Danger of Death (L’intelligence en péril de mort, 1987), De Corte says that Nature is being terrorized to death. Machines will more and more exclude life; abstractions will exclude the concrete; utopias will exclude the real....We are fabricating a pseudo-society without ritual, ceremony, or recourse to faith and country; we no longer communicate with the incarnate realities of family, neighborhood, region, or homeland....We think only of what makes money. We are becoming more disincarnate, separated from merchants, and centered in a few big enterprises with production and consumption dictated by the media in circles without end....It is harder and harder to distinguish the pre-fabricated fiction from any reality still existing. Call it The Disney World. Call it the dis-society of the Romantic Idealists who destroy Nature by breaking up the family, the real workplace, and the homeland and boast, “We will remake man in our own image.” The destruction of Nature is the same as to remake God, because Supernature, St. Thomas says, does not destroy Nature, but builds upon it. On the day Kennedy was shot, Walt Disney was flying over 25,000 acres of Florida swampland and “decided that he, not reality, would define what constituted the Magic Kingdom in the minds and spending habits of millions of Americans.” The lands Disney purchased were detached from the rest of Florida to form a Kingdom above and outside the law. The essence of Orlando is a place whose speciality is detaching experience from context, extracting form from substance, and selling tickets to it. In this place of exurban, postmodern pioneers, the range of choices is vast when the choices themselves are illusory.... Orlando’s developers, like producers of instant coffee, offer you a variety of flavors, including one called Tradition....[or] brandnew buildings constructed for those who want the postindustrial lifestyle in a place that never was industrial....The Darden Corporation, the city’s first Fortune 500 company, mass-markets theme foods, transforming the exotic into the familiar. It standardizes the output of Red Lobsters and Olive Gardens everywhere. All over Orlando you see forces at work that are changing America from Fairbanks to Little Rock. This, truly, is a 21st-century paradigm: It is growth built on consumption, not production; a society founded not on natural resources, but upon the dissipation of capital accumulated elsewhere; a place of infinite possibilities, somehow held together, to the extent it is held together at all, by a shared recognition of highway signs, brand names, TV shows, and personalities, rather than any shared history.... (National Geographic, pp.100-01) ...or reality, or True Faith. De Corte says this is the dream of the Romantic Idealists: “Abstractions replace reality, leaving individuals shut in on themselves where independent carnal pleasure and cerebral pleasure take over.” (Such is the anti-natural terror of cyberspace, or, as regards the network of vice within the soul, the “IntraNet.”) “Orlando” is the brand name of this independence manifesting itself in the pseudo-life of a population, the devil’s ultimate mockery of God’s creation. Yet, everybody except the authentic Muslim wants a piece of it. Nature is terrorized and Supernature threatened by Disneyesque theme-parking, franchising, exurbing, McMansioning, and megachurching. Yes, even the arrival of mighty Campus Crusade for Christ was a brokered deal by Orlando to “integrate religious practice into the freeway-driven, market-savvy, franchise form of American life.” Spirituality for the Kingdom. In any case, however, “the real gospel according to Disney is a message of self-fulfillment, of wanting something so badly that your dreams really do come true” (ibid., p.115). Disney has an enlightened cricket sing it for him in Pinocchio. It’s the theme song of the Romantic Idealists, by the way. Number 7 on the all-time world music chart: When you wish upon a star Makes no difference who you are Anything your heart desires Will come to you. “If your heart is in your dream,” Jiminy Cricket promises, “No request is too extreme.” At the Kingdom gate of the original Disneyland is Walt’s credo: “Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.” You see, the theme of the theme-park world is “Me, Me, Me,” having rejected “God, God, the only true God and His Church, and me submitting to His Realities of Supernature and Nature.” The theme of the theme-park world is the individual, not God. Democracy is your own word, and your own word is the voice of your god. Create your own reality in the polling booth. Marcel De Corte would say that if Jiminy Cricket was our president, among other things he would no longer be open to the reality around him and its Supreme Cause. Because of this, all he would have at his disposal would be the language of spin-doctors chirping Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity as the One Only Trinity and violence, real or disguised. His social security system would be a failure because no one would know how to care for themselves or anyone else, nor want to. The music, art, and literature of his theme-park nation would never reach the next man because it would be centered on the individual; it could only, therefore, shock, stun, surprise, and shut man up in himself in silent incomprehension, turning man inside himself and his own interior fabrications and leaving him incapable of communicating to the outside. Jiminy’s young people, cut off from the essential outside realities, would turn to drugs accentuating the individual shutting in on himself. In what is Supernature to take flesh except what is natural in man (in his intelligence, will, and flesh)? In what can Nature achieve its fullness of being if not in Supernature grafted onto it and giving it a solid foundation?...How do we restore the Nature of de-Natured man? How is Supernature to be solidly enfleshed? Is there such a thing as abstract Christianity? (The Intelligence in Danger of Death, p.19) More to come next issue, with a chapter of Marcel De Corte translated into English for the first time. In the meantime, if a tree bearing bad fruit should be burned, then squash the cricket singing his looney tune. Instaurare Omnia in Christo, Fr. Kenneth Novak 3 part 1 F r . M a t t h i a s G a u d r o n The fact that the Church today is in crisis is almost undisputed. We are all familiar to some extent with this reality. Fr. Matthias Gaudron originally published this Catechism in order to both solidify our understanding of the principles behind the crisis and as an aid to help those who do not see the gravity of the current situation. We will provide a brief chapter each month in traditional catechetical format: Each question is followed by a succinct response, and then by a series of more detailed questions and answers that justify and elaborate the general answer. catechism of the crisis in the church 6) 00 2 5 6 9 1 ( s n atio n i d r O y l t s e US Pri 1 ,2 0 0 1 ,0 0 0 800 600 400 200 0 2006 5 0 0 2 0 0 0 995 2 1 5 8 9 1 5 7 9 1965 1  1) Is there a crisis in the Church today? One would have to close one’s eyes not to see that the Catholic Church is suffering a grave crisis. In the 1960’s, at the time of the Second Vatican Council, there were hopes for a new springtime in the Church; exactly the opposite has come to pass. Thousands of priests have abandoned their office, and thousands of monks and religious have returned to secular life. There are very few vocations in Europe and not many in North America either; countless seminaries, convents, and religious houses have closed their doors. Many parishes lack priests, and religious congregations are obliged to abandon schools, hospitals, and homes for the aged. As Pope Paul VI lamented on June 29, 1972, “Through some crack, the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God.”1 • • we know how many priests abandoned the •� Do priesthood in the 1960’s? According to an article • • by Fabrizio de Santis in the Corriere della Sera of September 25, 1971, somewhere between 7-8,000 priests had abandoned the priesthood in Italy alone over the previous eight years. In the Church as a whole 21,320 priests were reduced to lay status between 1962 -72. Not included in this number are those who didn’t bother to seek official reduction to lay status.2 From 1967 to 1974, 30-40,000 priests abandoned their vocation. These catastrophic events can be compared with the effects of the socalled Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Has there been a comparable disaster in the congregations of nuns? Some comments by Cardinal Ratzinger illustrate what has happened by a single example. In the early 1960’s, Quebec was the region that counted, proportionally speaking, the most nuns in the world. “Between 1961 and 1981, because of departures, deaths, and the end of new vocations, the number of nuns fell from 46,933 to 26,294, a decline of 44%, and there is still no end in sight. During the same period new vocations fell by at least 98.5%. A large part of the remaining 1.5% is composed not of young women but of late vocations. As a result, sociologists agree on a grim but objective conclusion: “Very soon... women’s orders, as know them, will be nothing more than a memory in Canada.”3 Is not the situation improving today, and can we not now consider that the crisis has past? In America in 1960, there were 1,527 men ordained to the priesthood. In 1998, only 460 were ordained–a decline of over 1,000 per year. In France in the 1950’s there were about 1,000 priestly ordinations per year. In the 1990’s there were no more than 100 per year; the number of entries into seminaries continues to decrease. In Germany, 1996 represented a new record low of candidates for the priesthood: German seminaries and religious ordes THE ANGELUS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org • • had only 232 entries; as recently as 1986 there were 727 entries.4 The number of religious in the world continues to decline.5 Does this crisis also affect the faithful? In the 1950’s, Mass attendance in America was often higher than 70% among Catholics; some studies show that in 2000, this number had fallen to under 30%. In 1958, 35% of the French attended Mass every Sunday; today fewer than 5% do so, and these are often old people. In 1950 more than 90% of the French were baptized as children; today fewer than 60% are. Is there not, however, an increase of adult baptisms in some countries? Several thousand adult baptisms cannot compensate for the loss of hundreds of thousands of infant baptisms (all the more since the perseverance of the late baptized often leaves something to be desired). Infant baptisms in America averaged over 1.3 million in the 1960’s, yet has only recently come back over 1 million baptims a year, notably on account of the increase in the general population. Almost 150,000 adults converted to the Faith in America in 1960; in 2002, this number was under 80,000. Is the case of France or America really typical? Everywhere interest in the Church is declining. Now only a minority of Catholics fulfill their Sunday obligations, and thousands leave the Church every year. It is especially disquieting that it is above all young people who turn their backs on the Church. Of the 93,000 who left the Church in Germany in 1989, 70% were under 35 years old. Between 1970 and 1993, 1.9 million Germans officially left the Catholic Church. Hatred or anger are not the most frequent causes, but simply indifference. The Church no longer speaks to people, she no longer has importance in their lives and thus people go their own way, sometimes simply to avoid the German church tax. Catholicism is on course to become the religion of a small minority. Germany is in danger, as Karl Rahner put it, of becoming a “pagan land with a Christian past and some vestiges of Christianity.” The same holds true for most formerly Christian countries. Can it not be said that this terrible crisis is merely local, affecting Western Europe and North America, but sparing Latin America, Africa, and Asia, where, on the contrary, Catholicism seems especially dynamic? Some statistics may suggest that the crisis is merely local. The Pontifical Annuary, for example, stresses that the increase in seminarians and ordinations in the Third World compensates for the decline observed in Western countries. In fact, the crisis is universal, even if it does not appear everywhere in the same way. (Poor countries, where the priesthood can represent social advancement, recruit new vocations relatively easily–but of what quality?) Statistics for the Catholic Church in the US US Diocesan Priests (1965-2006) 40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000 0 1965 1975 1985 1995 2000 2005 2006 Parishes Without a Regular Priest (1965-2006) 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 0 1965 1975 1985 1995 2000 2005 2006 US Seminarians (1965-2006) 10,000 8,000 6,000 4,000 2,000 0 1965 1975 1985 1995 2000 2005 2006 US Priestly Ordinations (1965-2006) 1,200 1,000 800 600 400 200 0 1965 1975 1985 1995 2000 2005 2006 US Religious Sisters (1965-2006) 200,000 150,000 100,000 50,000 0 1965 1975 1985 1995 2000 2005 2006  Latin America, for example, passes for a bastion of Catholicism, but it is in fact becoming Protestant at a more rapid pace than Germany did in the 16th century. In 1900, 3% of the population of Brazil were Protestants; they are now 16%, and the number continues to increase. Five new Pentecostal churches are built in Rio de Janeiro every week. Fr. Franc Rodé, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Dialogue with Non-believers, estimated in 1993 that the Church was losing 600,000 Latin American faithful every year. Other sources provide even graver indications: 8,000 Catholics a day pass over to sects.6 In Chile it is believed that 20% of the population has joined Protestant sects since 1960, and 30% in Guatemala. In the latter country, the number of Protestants increased sevenfold form 1960 to 1985. 2) Is this crisis a crisis of faith? The Catholic Faith is dwindling away. Fundamental Christian truths such as belief in God, the divinity of Jesus Christ, heaven, purgatory, and hell are less and less believed in. Most disturbingly, these articles of faith are denied even by people who call themselves Catholic and regularly attend Mass. Are there any statistics to illustrate this • crisis of the faith? Without being altogether reliable, polls do represent general tendencies in society. Many statistics for the US can be found in Kenneth C. Jones’s Index of Leading Catholic Indicators. For example, 77% of American Catholics in 1999 did not believe one must attend Mass on Sunday to be a good Catholic. Only 17% of young Catholics in America believe the priesthood should be restricted to males. Only 10% of Catholic elementary school religion teachers agree with the Church’s teaching on artificial birth control. A 1992 poll in Der Spiegel showed that only 56% of Germans believe in the existence of God, 38% in his omnipotence, 30% in original sin, 29% that Jesus is the Son of God, and 24% in the existence of hell.7 Likewise catastrophic is the situation among Catholics. Only 43% of them believe in the fundamental dogma of the Resurrection of Christ. Of those who attend Mass on Sundays, only 55% believe in the Virgin Birth and only 44% recognize papal infallibility. Amongst all Catholics only 32% believe in papal infallibility. In www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • May 2007  • France a recent poll8 showed that only 57% of the French consider the existence of God certain or probable (against 61% in 1994); 65% (and 80% of those 18-24 years old) say that they have no belief in the Trinity, and 67% (compared with 48% in 1994) do not believe in the existence of hell. Only 12% of Catholics say they definitely believe in hell (16% have some belief in hell, 72% deny its existence); even among regularly practising Catholics the statistics are catastrophic: only 23% of them firmly believe in hell, while 54% deny its existence. Thirty-four percent of these same practising Catholics are firmly convinced that Mohammed was a prophet, while only 28% deny it (35% believe it “up to a point,” the others are not sure). Today, only 10% of French Catholics believe that Catholicism is the only true religion. “We can measure the depth of the change by noting that in 1952 most Catholics believed that there was but one true religion,” observes the sociologist Yves Lambert.9 In Valais, the conservative canton of Switzerland that is home to the International SSPX seminary at Ecône, 81.3% of Catholics maintain that all religions lead to eternal salvation.10 What lesson can we draw from these statistics? They show the true extent of the crisis. It is above all a crisis of faith. Not only is the number of those who consider themselves to belong to the Church diminishing, but even the majority of those who are officially members of the Church no longer hold the Catholic faith! Someone who denies a truth of the Faith has lost the Faith, for the Faith must be held as a whole. If 72% of Catholics reject belief in hell, not even one Catholic in three still has the Faith. 3) Is the crisis also a moral one? A crisis of morality goes hand in hand with the crisis of faith. Whereas St. Paul reminded Christians that they should by their way of life shine in the eyes of a corrupt generation like the stars in the firmament (Phil. 2:15), the way of life of contemporary Christians differs little from that of the children of this world, unbelievers, and others. Their weak faith, emptied of substance, no longer has the strength to influence their life, even less to shape it. What is the connection between faith and • morality? Man as weakened by original sin always has the inclination to give his passions free course and thus to lose mastery over himself. The Christian Faith shows man what God expects of him and how he ought to conduct his life in accordance with the will of God. By the Faith man knows the promises of what he can hope for if he keeps the commandments of God, and also the punishments he will suffer if he turns away THE ANGELUS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org • • from God. The Faith and the sacraments give man the power to overcome his bad inclinations and to give himself entirely to the good and the love of God. What are the moral consequences of a crisis of the Faith? When he loses the Faith man no longer believes that he is called to moral perfection and eternal life in God’s presence. He will inevitably deliver himself more and more to the unregulated pleasures of this life. Does the contemporary crisis of morality also affect Catholics? We are today experiencing this reality. Fidelity, purity, justice, the spirit of sacrifice are no longer uncontested goods, even for Christians. These days one marriage in three ends in divorce after five to ten years, and ever more Catholics seek Church recognition of separation and “remarriage” after divorce. Already in 1984 the review Herderkorrespondenz showed that, in the very Catholic region of Austria called the Tyrol, 88% of the population rejected the Catholic teaching on birth control, and that among the population aged 18-30 full adhesion to Catholic teaching in this regard was practically non-existent (1.8%). In the Valais 81.5% of Catholics believe that divorced and “remarried” Catholics should be able to receive Communion.11 In France in 2003 one quarter of practicing Catholics stated that, for them, the idea of sin had little importance. The number of annulments in America jumped from 338 in 1968 to over 50,000 in 1998. 4) Is there also a crisis of the clergy today? The lack of vocations to the priesthood and the religious life together with the large numbers of priests and religious who abandon their duties show the profound crisis that is ravaging the clergy as well. Many of her members have lost the Faith, and the clergy in general is no longer capable of communicating and inflaming people with the Faith. What is the connection between the crisis of the • Faith and the crisis of the clergy? The crisis of the clergy is the cause of the crisis of faith amongst the faithful. If the faith of Catholics who attend Sunday Mass regularly is so weak, the cause must have its origins in defective preaching. If priests were regularly teaching the Catholic Faith the situation would be very different. Men have not lost the Faith on their own; it has been taken from them through catechism and from the pulpit. When over the course of years sermons put the truths of faith in question, relativize them, or even openly deny them, it is no wonder that simple believers lose the Faith. Often the young have never even known it.  Have there not been very grave crises in the • Church in the past? There have always been Can you give an example of this bad teaching • dispensed by the clergy? These days it is not • • • unusual for a child making his First Holy Communion to be unaware that Jesus Christ is truly, really, and substantially present in the Eucharist. He doesn’t know this because the parish priest himself no longer believes in this mystery. In How We Live, a book of religious instruction used in Germany, one reads that: “When Christians share their meal with Jesus, they go to the altar. The priest gives them a little piece of bread. They eat the bread.”12 This book of religious instruction received an imprimatur and has been authorized by the German bishops! Is the situation better in France? If 34% of regularly practicing Catholics believe “completely” that Mohammed is a prophet, and another 35% believe it to some degree (giving a total of 69%), we note that the statistic is much lower among non-practicing Catholics (21% and 22%, giving a total of 43%). On this question nonpracticing Catholics are thus more Catholic than those who practice. This is evidence of the kind of teaching being dispensed at church. In fact, many French bishops have given churches to the Muslims, and Pope John Paul II kissed the Koran on May 14, 1999.14 Is the crisis of the clergy also a moral crisis? The crisis is above all a crisis of faith, but a clergy of such weak faith cannot have the strength to observe celibacy, for this is possible only for someone animated by living faith and great love for our Lord. It surprises no one that many priests today maintain sinful relationships with a woman, and do so more and more publicly. It is common to hear that a priest has abandoned his post, admitting that he had not been celibate for years prior. And, in this regard, the situation of the clergy in the Third World (whose numbers are increasing) is unfortunately no better. Are not these departures of priests deliberately brought to public attention in order to win the suppression of priestly celibacy? It is clear that celibacy keeps many young people away from the priesthood. But rather than entering into polemics on this question, it would be better to ask why there used to be so many men who gladly made this sacrifice, and why this is is no longer the case today. 5) How does the current crisis differ from Church crises in the past? The current crisis in the Church is distinct from those of the past above all in the fact that it is the highest authorities in the Church themselves who have unleashed this crisis, who maintain it, and who prevent the implementation of effective measures for its resolution. � • crises in the Church. Priests, bishops, and even popes have not always lived their lives in accordance with the Gospel. Immorality and indiscipline among the clergy have often led to decline in the Church. From time to time priests and bishops have departed from the true Faith. But never, as in our times, have errors and the public negation of truths of the Faith been spread abroad thanks to the tolerance, approbation, and even the active efforts of the Roman authorities and the episcopate throughout the world. This is the peculiar characteristic of the current crisis: the fact that it is favored by the highest authorities in the Church, including the pope. Has this singular character of the current crisis been recognized by the authorities in the Church? Pope Paul VI himself in 1968 made his famous declaration that the Church finds herself in a state of “self-destruction”: The Church today finds herself in a state of disquiet, selfcriticism, one might even say of self-destruction. It is like an interior upheaval, acute and complex, which no one expected after the Council....as though the Church were striking herself.15 Angelus Press procured this translation from Katholischer Katechismus zur kirchlichen Kriese by Fr. Matthias Gaudron, professor at the Herz Jesu seminary of the Society of St. Pius X in Zaitzkofen, Germany. The original was published in 1997 by Rex Regum Press, with a preface by the District Superior of Germany, Fr. Franz Schmidberger. This translation is based on the second edition published in 1999 by Rex Regum Verlag, SchloßJaidhof, Austria. It also incorporates figures and modifications published in a French version of the Katechismus serialized in the Dominican journal Le Sel de la Terre from 2004-06 under the title “Catéchisme Catholique de la Crise dans l’Église.” All statistics relevant to the situation of the Church in the US were taken from Index of Leading Catholic Indicators: The Church since Vatican II by Kenneth C. Jones [available from Angelus Press. Price: $16.95]. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Der Fels, No.10, 1972, p.313; La Documentation Catholique, No. 1613, 1972, p.658. May, Georg, Die Krise der nachkonziliaren Kirche und wir (Vienna: Mediatrix Verlag), pp.50ff. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Zur Lage des Glaubens (Munich, Zurich, Vienna: Neue Stadt, 1985), p.102. Cardinal Ratzinger and Vittorio Messori, Entretien sur la foi (Paris: Fayard, 1985), pp.117-18. Osterhofener Zeitung, April 19, 1996. Deutsche Tagespost, August 13, 1998. Présent, May 22, 1993. Der Spiegel, 25/1992. pp.36ff. CSA poll, La Vie–Le Monde, taken in March, 2003. Report of INSEE, Données sociales: La société française (2002-2003 ed.), study by Yves Lambert (CNRS) on “La religion en France des années soixantes à nos jours (Religion in France from the 1960’s to Our Day). The author notes that the great rupture goes back to the mid-1960’s, marked by a decline in religious practice and belief. Formal adherence to religious confessions persisted somewhat longer, showing its first notable decline in 1975-76. Poll taken by the Link Institute, September 1990. Link Institute, 1990. Wie Wir Menschen Leben: Ein Religionsbuch (Herder, 1972), p.78. The imprimatur was given on January 17, 1972, by the General Vicar of the Diocese of Freiburg, Dr. Schlund. Ernst Kirchgässner, Jesus: Diener der Menschen, Volume 51 in the series Reihe für Dich (Ulm: Süddeutsche Verlaggesellschaft), pp.27ff. See Le Sel de la Terre, No.31, p.186. Speech on December 7, 1968; La Documentation Catholique, No. 1531, 1969, p.12. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • May 2007 F r .  P a t r i c e Christendom NEWS Angelus Press Edition T he taking of Granada in 1492–the fall of its last bastion–marked the end of Muslim domination in Spain. Nearly eight centuries had passed since the invasion of Spain by the Moors in 711: the Reconquista had been accomplished. Today, five centuries later, we are witnessing a reversed movement: while the number of Christians in the Middle East has diminished continually for nearly a century because of the conditions to which they are subject in predominantly Islamic countries, Europe is facing a grave problem of Muslim immigration. In the year 2000 the number of Muslims in the world exceeded that of Catholics and will probably, around the year 2050, exceed that of all Christians. Let us therefore look at how, in the course of history, this question has been discussed, and how the Church has tried to respond to it. We will also consider how we should try to respond to the providential challenge which is the evangelization of these Muslims who have arrived in our countries and who, in most countries, are free to become Christians– a freedom unknown in Islamic countries. In those countries, missionaries are limited to baptizing the dying, caring for the sick, teaching children in a strict spirit of religious neutrality, inculcating moral principles superior to those they have, and working for the development of material civilization, while they wait for the moment chosen by God for more exalted work.1 Certainly, there have always been conversions of Muslims. They are generally conversions of individuals, and they remain more or less secret, but the phenomenon is known. In fact, direct ministry with Muslims has proved to be possible only in a political régime which grants the freedom to embrace the Catholic Faith. That has been the case only in Palestine and in Syria during the two centuries of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099-1291), in Africa during the French presence in the colonial period (1830-1960), and again in the Levant during the French Mandate (1918-43). In practice, it was first necessary for French education and culture, generally provided by religious orders and missionaries in these regions, to calm the apprehensions of the Muslim populations, and for the example of charitable activities to predispose them to the message of the Faith. This was well under way, as first thousands and then millions chose, for various political, economic, or family reasons, to live in France after decolonization–proof that they appreciated French culture and would have been able to appreciate its Catholic dimension. It was at precisely this moment that a major event occurred in the Church: the Second Vatican THE ANGELUS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org St. Francis of Assisi offers to enter a fire together with the Sultan’s priests from Babylon. The Conv Of Musl The W Council (October 11, 1962-December 8, 1965), which sought to be pastoral and to recognize the “signs of the times.” Under its influence, the Church might have found a new missionary inspiration. To judge by the results, however, this was not at all the case. A new theological “appreciation” of religions, inspired by Karl Rahner, profoundly influenced the missionary action of the Church, which from then on emphasized dialogue and the positive appreciation of other religions–an attitude adopted by most Catholic specialists of Islam. Thus we moved from an attitude hostile to Islam, prevalent until the 19th century, to an exaggerated c e L a R o c h e  order, no doubt, not to cast a shadow on the interreligious dialogue churchmen were trying to establish. As we will see, a change took place in the last years of the 20th century. The Fate of Christians under Moorish Occupation Blessed Raymond Lulle, 82 years of age, arrives in Tunis to preach to the Muslims. nversion slims in West appreciation that has ended up paralyzing the mission of the Church. Although it is impossible to engage in the direct evangelization of Muslims in Islamic territory, and all missionary work is more or less unthinkable when relations between Christians and Muslims only breathe hostility and wars, the Western Church had an unhopedfor chance to evangelize those populations coming from Muslim countries. But instead of attempting anything whatsoever, Catholic clergy offered them places to worship. Similarly, while a certain publicity was given when Christians went over to Islam, the conversion of Muslims to Christianity met with a deafening silence–in What became of the Church and of Christianity in the regions conquered by Islam? Once the country was conquered, Christians, as long as they were submissive and paid their taxes, were not molested. But the difficult situation of these second-class citizens led a number of them to renounce Christianity in order to obtain certain advantages–though in some cases they returned to the Christian Faith when circumstances changed. In Africa, for example, according to Ibn Khaldoun, the Berbers committed apostasy 12 times in 70 years. In order to evaluate correctly this tolerance, so often broadcasted high and low, it must not be forgotten that each Christian was a tributary, and that only conversion could change this. So there is nothing surprising if, under duress and in order to avoid taxes, sometimes involving marriage or social ambition–to say nothing of great moral degeneration and other elements–there were numerous apostasies. In Spain, this gave rise to a new social class called mudalies (Arabianized Christians) facing the class called “Mozarabs” (musta’rib), i.e. those who remained faithful to the Catholic religion. The former took up the Muslim style of life and social structures, while the latter retained their own social, administrative, and religious organization. Emigration of Christians to free territory or lands reconquered by Christian arms is a recurring phenomenon. In the first decades after the conquest of their country by the Arabs, Rome received a number of Syrians. Their influence and their numbers must have been considerable, since several of them, such as Sergius I (687-701) and Constantine I (708-15), became popes. For a long time in Spain, Mozarabs made up the majority of the population, but their numbers diminished constantly. It was the same in North Africa. As the Arabs advanced farther and farther to the North, many families fled across the Mediterranean into Italy, Gaul, and as far as the depths of Germany. The victors at first permitted those who remained to continue to practice their religion, on condition that www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • May 2007 10 they pay a tax for this favor. Such a regime did not last long. Around 717, Khalif Omar II withdrew this privilege from the Christians, who were required to embrace Islam or leave the country. From that time on, apostasies, already frequent in the preceding period, were multiplied, while Christian sanctuaries were transformed into mosques. The African Church, once flourishing, was soon reduced to nothing. Here and there, however, in the towns and the tribes, a few Christian communities kept on, humble vestiges of the past. Tolerated by the Muslims, but always living precariously, they extended the death throes of this glorious Church. The Reconquest The Reconquest came about in the South of France and in Spain where, preoccupied by the struggles with the Franks and internal discord, the Arabs neglected the Christian kingdom of Asturias. This made it possible to extend the frontier to the South, re-peopling the liberated regions with the help of the Mozarabs who had fled the Muslim zone, as well as that of the monks who established monasteries throughout the newlyconquered regions. The religious nature of the struggle was powerfully reinforced by devotion to the Apostle St. James. From the 9th century on, the news of the discovery of his tomb at Santiago deeply impressed people’s minds and made this location an international center of pilgrimage. The cult of St. James was one of the most important elements of the spirituality of the Reconquest: the apostle quickly became the patron saint of Spain and the heavenly soldier against the Moors. The first step of the Reconquest ended with the liberation of Toledo (1085) by the troops of Alfonso VI. In the ensuing period, with the help of the Cluny Benedictine monks, many of whom became bishops, the popes continued the reform of the Church and the unification of the liturgy. Their action was also decisive in the reinforcement of the political power of Castile for the sake of the Reconquest. The Holy See exhorted French lords (in particular those of Provence and Languedoc) to come to the aid of the Spanish Christians. The apex of this papal policy was the victory of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), a new departure point for the rapid completion of the Reconquest of the country (with the exception of the Kingdom of Granada). Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny It is here that a word should be said about Peter the Venerable (1092-1156), who, setting out in 1141 to inspect the Spanish Benedictine monasteries subject to his Abbey, saw that the military successes of the Christian Reconquest, already well under way, were not contributing to the conversion of the conquered Muslim population. For that, spiritual means were THE ANGELUS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org necessary. But in order to convince the followers of Mohammed it was necessary to know what they believed, to know their mentality in order to discuss religious subjects with them. This brought about the first Latin translation of the Koran. In spite of a few inaccuracies, the translation, finished in 1143, gave a relatively exact version of the essence of the text and was used for a great many subsequent works and for all the translations of the Koran into the vulgar languages until the 17th century. In the preface it is said that the Latin world is unaware of Islam: no one is interested, no one thinks of refuting the error of it, and even less of converting those who suffer from it. They are driven back by force of arms, but they are not sufficiently subjected to the force of truth. It was therefore necessary to start a new kind of crusade. Peter the Venerable had sent to St. Bernard a notice on Islam, with the translation of the Koran he had had done, hoping that the latter would produce a refutation. Since his repeated requests met with no answer and the Abbot of Clairvaux was not doing anything, he undertook the task himself. Adversus Nefandam Sectam Saracenorum (Against the Nefarious Sect of the Saracens) was supposed to contain five books, according to its plan, but only the first two are extant. Having stated the purpose of his book and expressed the desire to see it translated into Arabic in order to help lead toward God, immediately or in the future, all those who were to be touched by grace, Peter the Venerable addressed the Muslims directly. He understood their surprise at seeing him write to them, and warned that he was undertaking a peaceful crusade against them. He wrote out of love and wanted to do them good: he loved the Saracens because he is a Christian, and although they are not, he loved them because he is a man and so are they. He did not take up arms against them but rather desired their salvation and invited them to it: “Ad salutem vos invito.” This work, which sought to win the hearts of Arabs, is an admirable example of the delicacy to which Christian charity leads, as well as of the zeal and the prudence which must accompany all missionary work. St. Raymond of Peñafort The work of the well-known canonist St. Raymond de Peñafort (1177-1275) is also situated in the context of the Reconquest. Becoming a Dominican at the age of 45, in 1238 he was elected Master General, a responsibility from which he resigned two years later in order to devote himself completely to missionary work among the Jews and Muslims of Spain and North Africa. Encouraged by the new Master General, Humbert de Romans, he set five objectives for the Dominicans in Spain: the spiritual care of Christians, the reconciliation of the apostates, the defense of Christianity against calumny, caring for Christian captives (in Muslim hands), and setting a good example for the edification of the Muslims. 11 After encouraging St. Peter Nolascus and King James I of Aragon to found the Order of Our Lady of Mercy for the ransom of captives, he set up, in Spain and in North Africa, studia arabica–Arab study centers for the training of missionaries. The centers taught the language, mentality, and religion of the Muslims, in order to make it possible to go out among them and preach our Lord Jesus Christ. In the course of the 18th century, such centers were founded in Tunis, Barcelona, and Valencia. The Time of the Crusades and the Latin States in the Middle East The Franks Settle in the East Coming from a country where a single religion was practiced by all of the population, Jews excepted, the Franks found themselves in the midst of a multiconfessional Middle East, with different sects of Christianity and people who were not Christian. They adapted to the situation and allowed these infidels “who worship Mahomet” to practice their religion. There was, however, a condition, which was also the sign of the Franks’ sovereignty: the public call to prayer had to be discreet. But there is no trace of religious persecution of the Muslims by the Christians. No doubt out of necessity, there was mutual toleration. The Muslims could not rebel against the Christians, who themselves had need of the Muslims. The Frankish lords transferred to the Kingdom of Jerusalem the French custom according to which the lord owed protection to local inhabitants, and they treated their subjects more humanely than did the Middle Eastern lords. The condition of Muslim farmers scandalized, as it were, a Muslim traveler, who wrote: They have to give up half of their crop at harvest-time, and pay a tax. The Christians ask no more than this, except for a small tax on fruit-trees, but the Muslims are masters of their houses and manage things as they see fit. These are the conditions, in all of Syria, in every small town and village inhabited by Muslims. Most of them are tempted by the devil, and compare their circumstances with those of their fellow Muslims in the cantons governed by Muslims, which are the very opposite of security and well-being. One of the misfortunes that afflict the Muslims is that, under their own government, they always have reason to complain of the injustice of their leaders, while they can only praise the conduct of their enemies on whose justice they can rely. In fact, this is still true today. Recently a German newspaper published a study of the most corrupt countries in the world. It showed that a great many of the most corrupt countries were governed by Muslims. The question is whether the Muslims living among us are tempted to become Christians–“tempted by the devil,” as the Muslim traveler said. The first conversions to Christianity in the Kingdom of Jerusalem were accidental. There exist two well-known accounts concerning this. The first is a response from Innocent III to the Archbishop of Tyre in 1198: You questioned us about infidels who have converted to the Faith: those among them who were married before their conversion in degrees of consanguinity permitted by the Old Law or by their traditions but forbidden by canon law–must these people separate? The answer to your questions is that a marriage contracted before conversion must not be broken after baptism. Indeed, questioned by the Jews, who asked him whether it was permitted to send away one’s wife for any reason, our Lord responded “What God has brought together, let man not put asunder,” signifying by these words that there was a true marriage between them. The second account is the same Pope’s answer to the Bishop of Tiberiad in 1202: “We rejoice in the Lord…that He has filled the hearts of numerous pagans with a desire to come to the Christian Faith.” The question concerns polygamous persons who have converted. The Pope’s answer is that polygamy is forbidden, and that a polygamous Muslim who converts must keep his first wife. If he has repudiated her, he does not, as long as she is living, have the right to take another, unless the first refuses to live in peace with him or, although agreeing to live with him, she entices him to mortal sin. In this latter case, the person who has converted can resort to the choice given by the Apostle Paul, and known as the Pauline privilege (I Col. 7:15). It is only in the 13th century that we see institutions (very discreet, for it seems that the Frankish lords did not tolerate them very well) for the evangelization of Muslim subjects. It should be noted here that the Roman breviary for August 5 says that St. Louis ransomed a great many Christians enslaved by the Middle-Eastern barbarians, converted numerous infidels to faith in Christ, and rebuilt, at his own expense, several Christian cities during his five-year stay in Palestine and Lebanon. Missionaries Among the Muslims Who are the missionaries who went into Muslim countries, into the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, and whose names we know? It should be said that St. Thomas Aquinas wrote the Summa Contra Gentiles around 1264 in order to make a manual of Catholic doctrine available to missionaries working among nonChristians who did not recognize the authority of Holy Scripture. You do not, indeed, deal with Muslims as you deal with heretics: the latter recognize the value of the holy Gospel, which can therefore be used to point out the falsity of their doctrine; the former do not admit the Gospel, and therefore must be convinced of their errors by natural reason alone. If it is a question of truths about God which are available to reason, such as His existence and certain attributes of His, we proceed by demonstrative reason capable of convincing the adversary. But for the mysteries of the Faith which cannot be proven it is necessary to defeat the objections of the infidels, since natural reason cannot go against www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • May 2007 12 the truths of the Faith. It is then possible to attempt a clarification of these truths by means of arguments of probability or likelihood, which manifest the beauty of the Christian Faith but which cannot suffice to convince the adversary. Consequently, it is necessary not to give the impression that we adhere to the truths of the Faith because of these practical arguments, since that would only confirm the adversaries in their error.2 The difficulty of refuting Muslim errors resided in the fact that their doctrine was very little known–a state of affairs which has not changed much. The Dominican Master General was not perhaps exaggerating a great deal when he wrote: There are few people who know more about Mohammed and the Saracens than this: they are infidels, they do not believe in Christ, and they adore Mohammed as their God–which is, by the way, not true. St. Thomas himself had only a fairly rudimentary understanding of the Muslim religion, whose followers he called “Gentiles,” like the pagans. But he was aware of the limits of his knowledge: it was much easier for the first Doctors of the Church, he said,3 to refute the errors of the pagans whom they could know with precision because the pagans were their fellow-citizens, and they were themselves sometimes converted pagans. St. Thomas, when he wrote the Contra Gentiles, knew Islam only through the Arab philosophers and a translation of the Koran, which he had, no doubt, occasion to consult. A few years later the Doctor communis wrote De Rationibus Fidei Contra Saracenos, Graecos et Armenos. Of all his works, this is the one with the strongest missionary intention. Also titled Ad Cantorem Antiochenum, it is a response to certain Muslim objections to the Christian Faith as those objections were described by a Dominican cantor in the convent of Antioch. A reading of this work shows that the Muslim objections to the Faith were the same as they are now: The Saracens, according to what you told me, make fun of the fact that we call Christ the Son of God, when God has no wife. They think we are crazy because we believe that there are three persons in God, and they think in fact that we believe in three gods. They also deride the fact that we affirm that Christ, the Son of God, was crucified for the salvation of the human race [they think someone else was put on the cross in place of Jesus].…They insult Christians because “they eat their God on the altar” every day, and so the body of Christ, even if it was as big as a mountain, would be consumed by now. threats coming from Islamic law, which considered them apostates, their conversion was made easier. In a treaty finished in 1273, entitled Tractatus de Statu Saracenorum et de Mahomete Pseudopropheta et Eorum Lege et Fide, William presented his method: the preaching of the Word of God in all its simplicity, without philosophical argument and without recourse to arms. He attributed the extraordinary success he had with Islamic populations during the Arab conquest to this method. St. Francis of Assisi (1181 or 1182-1226) St. Francis of Assisi himself was concerned with Islam; in Chapter 16 of his Rule he spoke of Brothers who would go into Muslim countries, and gave them this advice: All those Brothers who, through divine inspiration, wish to go to the countries of the Saracens and other infidels can do so with the permission of their minister and servant. And let the minister grant this permission, and not refuse it, if he deems them apt for this mission, because he will owe an explanation to the Lord if he acts imprudently–for that as for other things. The Brothers who leave have two ways of behaving among the infidels. The first is not to enter into discussion, but to “submit to every human creature, because of God” (St. Paul) and to affirm oneself as a Christian. The second is, when they sense that God wills it, to announce His Word, so that the pagans believe in the omnipotent God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, receive baptism and become Christians, for “he who is not reborn of the water and the Holy Ghost cannot enter into the Kingdom of God” ( Jn. 3:4). They can preach these thoughts, and all others that are agreeable to God because, as the Lord says in the Gospel, “Whoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father who is in heaven, and whoever shall be ashamed of me and of my word, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he comes in his glory, with his Father and the holy angels” (Mt. 10:32; Lk. 9:26). Let all our Brothers everywhere remember that they have given themselves utterly to our Lord Jesus Christ. For the sake of His love they must expose themselves to all visible and invisible enemies, for, as the Lord says, “He who loses his soul for my sake shall gain it for all eternity.” Among the missionaries of this period I will mention: For St. Francis, the spreading of the Gospel does not come first, because it is first necessary to be accepted as Christians by the infidels, but it is not secondary: it is the final cause. The moderns interpret St. Francis’s attitude as the “dialogue” we speak of today. But dialogue–that is to say, knowing the Muslims, and living with them–is not an end for St. Francis; it is a means. And this is one of the handicaps of today’s Church: it no longer wishes to convert, and it preaches only dialogue. William of Tripoli (1220-1297) Born in Lebanon, this missionary, whose ancestors were crusaders, entered the Dominican convent of Acre. He said he baptized more than a thousand Saracens. Since they lived under Christian domination and were liberated from the social pressure and the Blessed Raymond Lulle (1235-1316) As for the Franciscans, we should mention Blessed Raymond Lulle, the Franciscan tertiary, who was called the greatest of the medieval missionaries among the Muslims, not because of his numerical success, but because of his ideas, which went beyond those of THE ANGELUS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org 13 all his contemporaries. His works reveal a profound knowledge of Islam, such that certain persons would like to see in him a precursor of ecumenical dialogue. At his instigation, the Council of Vienna created, in 1312, university chairs for Arabic, and the Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldean languages in Paris, Bologna, Oxford, and Salamanca. But this decision, although renewed by the Council of Basel in 1434, had no great success. The definitive failure of the Crusades, as well as the partition of the world into two enemy blocks, the Christian kingdoms and the Turkish empire, made the apostolate among the Muslims very difficult. The existing contacts were necessarily those of war, and this was for centuries an obstacle to any attempt at conversion. The division of Christianity and the wars which resulted from the Protestant Reformation put off missionary zeal. When zeal was revived with the foundation of the Jesuit order, it was oriented toward the new countries of the Americas and the Far East, where missionary conquests proved to be easier and more fruitful. Scanning through history: after the Crusades, the conversion of the Muslims was no longer possible. There were, certainly, the Christian trading posts which the sultans authorized in North Africa and on the coast of Turkey. These were districts reserved for Christians, where they had their shops and a church. But these quarters were closed in the evening, and during the Friday prayer no Christian had the right to leave them. The Muslims could not be converted. In a Muslim country, even if Christians are sometimes tolerated, conversions are impossible. What was possible was to ransom captives. The Situation of Christians in the Turkish Empire Ransoming Captives The failure of Charles V of Spain before Algiers in 1541 was to a considerable extent the origin of the Barbary corsairs’ reputation for invincibility. The Christian powers abandoned control of the Mediterranean to them4 and they continued their brigandage, overtaking Christian ships, enriching the cities of Barbary (the name for North Africa) with the spoils and filling their prison camps with slaves. Some of these corsairs were apostates who had bought their liberty by denying the Christian Faith and becoming Muslims. From ancient times, those who were captured in war were sold as slaves; the Roman Empire itself abandoned those of its soldiers who were taken prisoner. Religious orders were soon founded to ransom those who had been captured by Muslims. Captive Christians were prevented from practicing their religion and constantly harassed so that they would renounce their faith; they were in great danger of apostasy, since this generally resulted in a better life. That is why this work of ransoming began alongside the Crusades. Attempts to escape were very cruelly punished and were relatively rare. St. Vincent de Paul’s account is particularly interesting. In July 1605, as he was returning by sea from Marseilles to Narbonne, his ship was attacked by corsairs from Tunis. He and his companions in misfortune were taken prisoner and sold as slaves in Tunis: Merchants came to inspect us as if we were horses or cattle for sale, making us open our mouths in order to see our teeth, feeling our ribs, probing our injuries and making us walk, trot and run, carry burdens, and then fight to determine each individual’s strength, and a thousand other brutalities. I was sold to a fisherman, who soon had to get rid of me. [He was prone to seasickness. The fisherman sold him to an old man, a very humane physician; he had to look after the fires of ten or twelve ovens. The physician left him to his nephew, who sold him soon after the death of his uncle. An apostate from Nice, in the Savoy, bought him.] One of his three wives was a Greek Christian, but schismatic; another was Turkish, and served as the instrument of God’s mercy in withdrawing her husband from apostasy, returning him to the Church and delivering me from slavery. Since she was curious to know how we lived, she came to see me every day in the fields where I was digging, and one day she ordered me to sing the praises of my God. Remembering the Quomodo Cantabimus in Terra Aliena of the children of Israel in the Babylonian captivity, I began, with tears in my eyes, to sing the psalm Super Flumina Babylonis, and then the Salve Regina, and several other things, in all of which she took astonishing delight. That evening, she told her husband that he had been wrong to quit his religion, which seemed to her a very good religion because of the description I had given her of our God. And the praises I had sung in her presence, she said, had given her such divine pleasure that she no longer believed that the paradise of her forefathers, which she hoped one day for herself, was as glorious, and full of joy, as the delight she had experienced when I was singing the praises of my God. Her husband told me, the very next day, that some practical problem was all that kept us from going off to France, and that in a short time he would resolve that problem so well, that God would be praised. The “short time” was ten months, during which he held me in vain but ultimately fulfilled hope, and then we were able to escape in a little boat, and went, on June 28, to Aigues-Mortes. This picturesque letter helps us understand better why St. Vincent de Paul never forgot the country in which he suffered as a slave for two years. In the midst of everything that he did to relieve suffering humanity, he thought also of using all his strength to aid the unfortunate Christian captives, sending some of his priests to Algiers to console them, share their fate, and intervene in their favor. But they were not to try to reach out to the Muslims and the apostates, since that would have made it impossible for them to remain with the Christian slaves: You have another obstacle to avoid among the Turks and the apostates: in the name of our Lord, have no contact with those people; do not expose yourselves to the danger which could result from this because, as I have said, you would thereby risk everything, and do great wrong to the poor Christian slaves, who would no longer be assisted, and you www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • May 2007 14 would in the future close the door to the freedom we now have to serve God a little in Algiers and elsewhere. Consider the harm you would do for a small apparent good. It is easier and more important to keep several slaves from embracing evil than to convert a single apostate. A physician who prevents illness has more merit than one who cures it. You are not responsible for the souls of the Turks and the apostates. Your mission does not extend to them. It is limited to the poor Christian captives. The Conquest of North Africa In 1827, the sovereigns of Europe, gathered at Aixla-Chapelle, asked the King of France, Charles X, to put an end to the attacks on ships, the massacres, and the unceasing kidnappings carried out by Muslim pirates. “Cleaning up the Mediterranean” was the real reason for the French intervention and the conquest of Algeria. One of the consequences envisaged in the report presented by the Duke of Clermont-Tonnerre before the Algiers expedition was also “to civilize the Arabs and make Christians of them.” But the Revolution of July 1830 overthrew Charles X and put in his place a king less well disposed to the Church. The First Bishops of North Africa On August 10, 1838, Pope Gregory XVI restored the ancient episcopal seat of Algiers. The first bishop, Antoine-Louis-Adolphe Dupuch (1800-56), consecrated Algeria to our Lady and undertook charitable work for the Muslims, as well as certain indispensable constructions. His cathedral was a former mosque. In the choir he had preserved, in Arabic, an elegy to Mary taken from the Koran: “God has chosen thee, He has exempted thee from all filth, He has elected thee from among all women” (III, 39), in order to show that we too venerate the Holy Virgin. With a rather small number of clergy, Bishop Dupuch took care of a population of 60,000 soldiers and 25,000 settlers, but when he turned to the native population he ran into difficulty with the French Administration. On July 5, 1830, General de Bourmont had said, in the name of King Charles X and of France, “the practice of the Muslim religion shall remain free.” Subsequent governments had interpreted this article very strictly, forcing Arabs to remain Muslim by means of legal or paralegal barriers. The first bishops of Algiers who rose up against these measures were told by imperturbable civil servants, “Avoid all proselytizing for fear of stimulating fanaticism and provoking reprisals”–thus, although France conquered the body, it prevented the Gospel from conquering souls and the fatherland from conquering the hearts. Bishop Pavy, Bishop Dupuch’s successor, erected a sanctuary on the heights of Algiers, dedicated to Our Lady of Africa. In the back of the apse, above the altar, he had the following inscription engraved: “Our Lady of Africa, pray for us and for the Muslims.” On May 31, 1858, he founded an archconfraternity of prayer which soon spread into France and, within a few years, had 80,000 members. He composed and caused to be recited THE ANGELUS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org a prayer to Our Lady of Africa for the conversion of the Muslims: O Holy and Immaculate Heart of Mary, so full of mercy, may you be moved by the blindness of the Muslims. Mother of God made man, obtain for them knowledge of our holy religion, and the grace to embrace and practice it faithfully, that through your powerful intercession we all may be united in the same faith, the same hope, and the same love of your divine Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who was crucified and died for the salvation of all men and who, gloriously risen, reigns in the Unity of the Father and the Holy Ghost world without end. Amen. Our Lady of Africa, pray for us and for the Muslims. In 1868, as soon as he obtained from the Emperor Napoleon III the principle of freedom of action for the missionaries, the new archbishop, Charles-MartialAllemand Lavigerie (1825-92), founded the Society of African Missionaries (the White Fathers) and the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa. His goal was to begin a policy of cooperation with the native population through orphanages, schools, medical assistance, and hospitals–through charity in all its forms, in order to predispose souls by “discreet preaching, prepared for by a wide distribution of the benefits of Christian charity.” Archbishop Lavigerie had maintained the Prayer Society founded by Bishop Pavy. His successor, Archbishop Leynaud, fourth Bishop of Algiers, tried in these terms to reactivate it: We no longer pray, or we pray too vaguely, for the conversion of the infidels….The Prayer Society itself–what has become of it, here in our dear Basilica of Our Lady of Africa? Where are its 80,000 members? Alas! This Prayer Society is no longer active. Blessed Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916) His most ardent wish was that the entire country would be covered with priests, Brothers, Sisters, and good Christians remaining in the world, in order to come into contact with all these poor Muslims, to approach them gently, educate them, civilize them, and in the end make Christians of them. And so he deplored the indifference of the French Christians with regard to the Muslims of North Africa: Pray also for all the Muslims of our North-West African Empire, now grown so vast. This is a solemn moment for their souls, as it is for France. In the eighty years that Algiers has belonged to us, we have done so little for the salvation of the souls of the Muslims that one could say that we have done nothing. If the Christians of France do not understand that it is their duty to evangelize their colonies, it is a fault for which they will have to answer, and it will be the loss of a multitude of souls that could have been saved. And he gave out this prophetic warning: If France does not govern the native people of its colony better than it has, it will lose its colony, and these people will fall back into barbarism, with the end of all hope of Christianization for a long time. 15 Charles de Foucauld knew that the work he had undertaken would require a great deal of time. He wrote to a friend: It seems that with Muslims, the right way is to civilize them first, to educate them first, to make them like us. Once this is done, their conversion will almost be a fait accompli, because Islam cannot withstand education: history and philosophy vanquish without a struggle. Islam yields as night does to day. The work to be done here, and with all Muslims, is one of moral elevation: raising them morally and intellectually by all means available to us; getting near them, being in contact with them, being friends with them; removing their prejudices against us through daily contact and conversation with them, and the example of our own lives; modifying their ideas; making proper education available to them; providing at last for the education of these souls: teaching them, in elementary and secondary schools, what is taught in such schools; teaching them, through daily, intimate contact what one learns in a family; becoming their family….When this is achieved, their ideas will be infinitely changed; their morals improved by the same process, and passage to the Gospel will occur without difficulty. Catechumens Coming from Islam There are, indeed, people who convert to Islam, and for various reasons: a first discovery of faith in God after an atheistic childhood, the influence of Muslim friends, the attraction of the Muslim mystique, a need for firm and strict law in a permissive society, the reconversion of leftist militants who consider Islam the religion of the Third World, idealization of a more family- and community-oriented Islam in an excessively individualistic world, forced conversion in the case of certain mixed marriages, or someone who feels frustrated because he or she imagines Islam to be more permissive than her or his original religion. This phenomenon of conversion can also be explained by the fact that Catholics no longer dare speak of God, and that the Church has become silent. According to certain analysts, converts to Islam come principally from families that have not practiced their religion for several generations and have for a long time been critical of the local priest. If some people make a lot of noise about these conversions, it would be a great mistake to think that there is some sort of landslide: all considered, the contemporary movement toward Islam is hardly stronger than the movement in the opposite direction, Islam toward Christianity. According to the official figures of the Mosque of Paris, it may even be diminishing. There are a rather large number of adult baptisms of persons of Muslim origin, and it is in constant progression (currently 350 to 400 per year recorded by diocesan catechumenates). And nearly ten percent of catechumens are of Muslim origin.6 A priest told me that, for several years, certain people have been saying, “I’m quitting Islam. What should I do to become Christian?” The occasion for this may have been the assassination of the Atlas monks, or shame at what is happening in Afghanistan, for example. In Munich, in the subway, I met an Iranian who told me, “I became a Christian several years ago.” According to some people, you must never speak of these conversions, lest you be accused of proselytizing. But today, even in the modern Church, many are convinced that we should no longer be silent about this phenomenon; on the contrary, we should speak about it and inform our diocesan catechumenates. What must at all costs be avoided is to give the name of the persons who have converted…because the neophytes, as well as their families in France or abroad, could pay the price. Persons from the Maghreb are often among the candidates for baptism in France today; baptism is also requested by people from black Africa, Turkey, the Middle East, the Indian Ocean, and Asia: The religious itinerary of these catechumens, and their view of Islam, are necessarily influenced by the relationships they have had with their original community. For some of them, adopting the Christian faith is the ultimate result of a religious journey which began in Islam. For others there is a radical rejection of Islam, often linked to unhappy family or community experiences.7 In order to avoid intense family tensions, many Christians coming from Islam do not reveal, even to members of their own families, that they have adhered to the Christian faith. Although conversions to Christianity are more readily accepted by sub-Saharan Africans than by Maghreb or Turkish families, the family generally feels ashamed and disoriented if one of its members turns publicly from Islam in order to embrace another faith. From the very beginning, it is important to assure the catechumen of utter discretion. The infinite variety of persons and situations makes it difficult to classify different kinds of conversion. Fr. Jean-Marie Gaudeul, the new Secretary of the SRI (Secrétariat pour les Relations avec l’Islam [Secretariat for Relations with Islam–Ed.]), composed a few years ago a work on catechumens of Muslim origin: Called by Christ: They Come from Islam. The roads which lead from Islam to Christianity are numerous, he says, but they can be classified in five categories in which God calls these Muslims who wish to become Christians. Without wishing to give too much importance to classifications, we can mention: l Those who are fascinated by the personality of Jesus, to whom they begin to pray, experimenting with His power and goodness, and who finish by recognizing Him as the Son of God; l Those who seek a community according to God: a community they find in the Church; l Those who, after realizing that they are sinners, seek the experience of gratuitous forgiveness–which is interpreted in various ways by Muslims; l Those who seek first of all a message coherent in itself and with regard to life, and who need intellectual certainty: trained in polemics, they have discovered the Bible, and the coherence of the Gospel attracts them; www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • May 2007 16 Those who, most of all, want to encounter God, to pray to Him heart to heart–which is not the case in Islam, where prayer is an ensemble of rites. In addition to these motivations, two other causes deserve to be mentioned. The first is that of meeting Christians who live the Gospel: l More and more frequent relations between Christians and Muslims can lead certain Muslims to put the question of God differently, and to seek out what inspires Christians. The desire to live a life of faith in the context of French society can lead these Muslims to follow the path of their Christian friends. They appreciate their “spirit of welcome, their open minds, their sharing, their freedom and their seriousness.” On other occasions, the road is that of a dream–which can seem disorienting to the Western mentality. This is most often the case for Muslims who seek a personal relationship with God and a life of prayer not found in Islam: dreams and visions very often punctuate the itinerary of those who seek God. This road is often the only one that makes it possible for profound hopes to emerge in spite of the psychological conditioning which is violently hostile to any kind of “apostasy.” God can in this way take the itinerary of conversion in hand and supply by these means extra spiritual force in order to continue to the very end. Whatever the explanation we may give to these phenomena, it is important to take into account the words of the candidate for baptism, without contesting this kind of experience. It is indeed by the seriousness and the generosity of the catechumen that we can judge his action. Appropriately, prudence is recommended: Certain Muslims may be curious as to how the Church acts with regard to catechumens coming from Islam. Malevolence cannot be excluded. It is advisable to be cautious, and to be sure that testimony given cannot be suspected of proselytizing or lack of respect for Islam; never engage in dialogue on the telephone or by mail with persons whose true intentions you do not know. The Church Must Be Missionary True Missionary Ecclesiology and Theology Weary of fighting its enemies, the prelates of the Catholic Church, in a kind of euphoria, opened up to the world during the Second Vatican Council. One might have thought that the Church had no more enemies. With the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes and its declarations on religious liberty and nonChristian religions, the Council tried to put the Church in tune with the modern world, with which it was entering into dialogue; it adopted the strategy, if not the principles, of the liberal Catholicism it had up to then condemned, for example in the Syllabus. THE ANGELUS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org Islamic-Christian dialogue as it is practiced in Europe has grave deficiencies. It brings out the weakness of contemporary Catholic theology, which seeks to approach the mystery of salvation through modern individualistic philosophy much more than through Revelation. Only what Pope John Paul II called the “dialogue of life” is truly useful, because it can be an effective means of integration. These contacts break down barriers, help Muslims have conversations with Christians, and thus integrate the country they have come to. But a Christian cannot stop there. A converted Muslim said so himself: There is no dialogue, and there will be none. It’s an illusion, because Muslims, when they are together, begin with the principle that they possess the truth. Christianity doesn’t interest them, and so they’re not ready to discuss religion. In doing so, they would have the impression of doubting themselves. In addition, their arguments are puerile, feeble, unconvincing. But even if they don’t know it, many Muslims are waiting for the truth, and it is at that level of personal relationships that the priests have a role to play. If they love the truth, they must share it, at any price; that should be the natural act of any Christian. And this is possible when, as in France, Muslims are not subject to the influence of their community. Believe me, more than one Muslim living here is thinking about Christianity. Teaching them to love the true God, that is what the dialogue should be. Alas! Out of lassitude, out of cowardice, the Church has given up.10 Raymond Lulle said: Let the Church cease to be missionary and it will immediately be threatened with internal weakness. The loss of the initial fervor explains the thrust of Islam, which has already cut off half of Christianity’s territory and faithful. History shows that very little has been done for the evangelization of Muslims, even when the apostolate among Muslims would theoretically have been possible. There was too much to do elsewhere: we did what was easiest, and what we thought was most urgent. If dialogue cannot replace the Word, evangelization does not consist only of spreading the Gospel. There is, for example, preaching; there is also the effectiveness of prayer, more or less ignored today. Official texts are most often silent on this subject and, consequently, there are few people today who pray for the conversion of Muslims, think of converting them, or study in order to do so. For that matter, we often hear that the followers of Mahomet are impossible to convert–this is a lack of faith in the power and grace of God. Certainly it is a very difficult thing, especially in a country with Muslim law, since he who converts risks a death sentence.11 But the facts prove that it is not impossible, especially when Muslims live among Christians. Since Vatican II, the new principles of evangelization have come down to a dialogue which seeks to discover in non-Christian religions those riches which the Holy Ghost may have placed in them. More than a missionary method emphasizing the importance of preparing souls for the preaching of the Gospel through education and charitable acts, this dialogue 17 consists in discovering part of the Word of God in what the other believes, and in marveling at this. Not only is this method based upon a false conception of religions, which is neither founded upon Holy Scripture nor confirmed by history, but in particular it is helpless before Islam. This theological dialogue practiced with Muslims can only increase their contempt for Christians and confirm them in their errors because they see in it either a trap or a sign of weakness. Lowering the barrier that separates Muslim from Christian, eliminating prejudices through education and charitable acts–this is what true dialogue should be. It is a long-term undertaking to seek, by all possible means and with clear respect for Muslim individuals, to open them to Christian civilization. In a word, it is a question of showing them true values, rather than turning them into atheists or rootless persons who are disgusted with a European civilization that rejects its own roots and embodies the “culture of death.” Genuine Studies of the Koran Since it is necessary, in order to speak with a Muslim, to be familiar with those objections that prevent him from approaching Christ, a missionary among Muslims must study their doctrine. But if there are today numerous Christians well versed in Islamic studies, there are very few whose thinking is not preconditioned by the indifference to religion inculcated by the last Council.12 This new teaching has killed the missionary spirit and led many Catholic specialists in Islam to approach the study of the Koran as if it were a book revealed by God. And if they do not go quite so far, they take as their starting point the Muslim tradition–an unscientific approach that explains the Koran with oral traditions invented as the need for clarification arose during the first two or three centuries after it was written: the hadith. This is done in such a way that the Koran becomes incomprehensible, and we find ourselves in a vicious circle: we explain the Koran with the hadith, which are clarifications meant to explain the Koran. It is then impossible to discover the true sense of this book and the real conditions in which it was written. It is urgent to apply to the study of the Koran the critical method that would make it possible to formulate intellectually rational hypotheses about the creation of the sacred book of Muslims and therefore of Islam. And independently of any missionary view, it can only be advantageous for scientific research to do away with the Islamic tradition of the Koran, which came to Mohammed during the night of the revelation and is said to have been withdrawn from him subsequently, and then restored according to need. For a Muslim, the Koran must not become the object of historical or psychological research, since the a priori of revelation is opposed to any desire for research. If the Muslim has the faith, he ignores its real content, as well as the origin of his religion, and the historical scope of the Koran and its relationship with the Bible, the Old Testament and the Gospel. Helping Muslims free themselves from their arbitrary or unfounded convictions could indeed be the result of Koran studies, but only if they themselves are free of Islamic prejudices. A Policy That Seeks the Common Good If the “dialogue of life” is not enough, if modern theological dialogue is impossible, indeed harmful, if our secular world is repulsive to the Muslims and Islamization fanaticizes them, what solution can be found for the conversion of Muslims? Cardinal Lavigerie gave the response and others have repeated it after him: a policy which moves from the secular world to Islamization is doomed to failure, and this has been amply proven by history. The solution, which would have been the means of assimilating North African populations, and which will be the key to the integration of Muslims present in France and Europe, is to restore a society that renounces neither its roots nor its Christian culture. We are obviously a long way from that,13 mainly because the men of the Church are no longer principally inspired by the data of Revelation and of the Faith, and because politicians are no longer guided by the search for the common good. They are all guided by an ideology: that of the rights of man, supposedly theologically justified by a new concept of the Faith and of the relationship of man to God. Thus, while present conditions are ripe for a fruitful apostolate (the possibility of missionary dialogue exists, as does that of acquiring preliminary knowledge to facilitate it), religious indifference on the part of the government and of the Church hierarchy is such that what could have been a marvelous missionary opportunity has already become a serious danger. It was a grave error to export secularity to Muslim countries. The Muslim is an essentially religious being, sensitive to all forms of piety. What disgusts him profoundly is the absence of faith. In the eyes of a Muslim, a man who does not pray is a kelb, a dog. Even a secular state should be able to realize that its lax immigration policy serves neither the common good nor the immigrants, who are dissatisfied and rootless. If ideology did not blind it, it would not maintain, in parallel, a suicidal family and social policy that ruins all chances of control over immigration. Like a sick organism suffering from anemia and paralysis, having lost its immune defense system, modern Western society, not satisfied with its physical decline through abortion, the drop in the birth rate, drugs, and general delinquency, is no longer capable of maintaining its identity, and no longer even wishes to. Finally, Islam à la française, as some people desire it, is a dangerous gamble: is it not a desire to “de-Islamize” Islam? Like it or not, there is still an official, vigorous, and contemporary interpretation of Islam and of Sharia which turns Islam into fertile ground for fundamentalist Muslim and terrorist movements. If the government, in order to please or placate them, plays the game of www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • May 2007 18 Islamization by constructing mosques and cultural centers, it is playing a game it may well lose, as was the case in North Africa. A counterbalance to Islam requires something very different from abandoning all reference to religion. The Faith must be preached and, most of all, lived–showing, by example, that the authentic religious values of Islam are kept by Christianity in a more sublime form. Most Muslims who convert do so because of the example of their Christian friends, not because of an interreligious dialogue which, although it is supposed to be part of the Church’s mission, is not meant to favor conversion. Does it contribute to conversion? No doubt it does, insofar as it removes barriers and animosities between Christians and Muslims. But any “dialogue” can do that–and it is certainly not necessary for Christians to give the impression that they revere the Koran or Islam. In any case, in the current state of things–unless we imagine a new Pentecost converting to Christ all those Muslim immigrants who have taken refuge here from the inhumanity of Islamic fundamentalists, before they in their turn convert their fellow Muslims in their adopted country–in the current state of things an enormous danger is appearing as we go down our blind alleys. It is therefore necessary to hope for the best and fear the worst, because the situation is extremely grave. Let us hope that the following prophetic words will also become reality: Learn by heart that it is only by Christianizing the Muslims that you will civilize them, that it is by civilizing them that you will integrate them, and that by integrating them that you will help produce more Cyprians and Augustines, more people like Vincent de Paul and the Curé d’Ars.14 Let us conclude with Cardinal Biffi: “the culture of nothingness”–of liberty without limits and without content, which seems to be the dominant attitude among European peoples; it will not be able to withstand the ideological assault from Islam which is sure to occur: only the rediscovery of the “Christian event” as man’s only means of salvation–that is to say, only the determination to resuscitate the ancient heart of Europe–will be able to offer an alternative result in this inevitable confrontation.15 In conclusion, I will summarize: Muslim doctrine, confirmed by experience in Muslim countries, makes conversion of a Muslim almost impossible under Sharia: he who preaches the doctrine of Christ, like the one who converts, is subject to severe penalties, including death. Even when the Church benefits from some liberty in a few Muslim countries (Morocco, Tunisia), Christian doctrine can be preached only to Christians. On the other hand, where Christianity dominated, Muslims were free to convert if they wished. This was the case in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It is the case today in Europe, but neither the secular government, nor the Church with its interreligious dialogue and its New Theology, seeks this. And so we understand better why St. Paul invited Timothy to pray for governments, that a calm and peaceful social life might take place amidst piety. Indeed, God wants all men to be saved and to know the truth–which is very difficult to achieve when the government is opposed to the Catholic religion. In a word: missionary action must make the social doctrine of the Church known without cutting it off from its foundation, which is the doctrine of Christ the King. This is an abridged version of a conference given in Paris on March 8, 2006, by Fr. Patrice Laroche (SSPX), Professor at the Seminary of Zaitzkofen in Germany, and author of a doctoral dissertation on “The Evangelization of Muslims in France” (Strasbourg, 2001). The complete conference was published in DICI’s bimonthly Christendom, No.7, September-October 2006, available online at www.dici.org. Edited by Angelus Press. I think that Europe will again become Christian, or will be Muslim. What seems to me to have no future is 1 Apostolic Vicar, and later Archbishop of Dakar from 1947 to 1962, Archbishop Lefebvre was familiar with the difficulties of converting a Muslim. See L’Eglise infiltrée par le modernisme (Eguelshardt: Fideliter, 1993), pp.119-120. 2 Contra Gentiles, I, c.2 et 9. 3 Contra Gentiles, I, c.2 in fine. 4 On the seas of the Levant, only the flags of the Most Serene Republic of Venice and of France had the right to be flown. 5 Service National du Catéchuménat, Catéchumènes venant de l’Islam (1999), 55pp. 6 Indeed, for the second consecutive year, the National Office of the Catechumenate has provided statistics and published a national study. The main figures are the following: in 1999, there were, officially, in France, 8,290 catechumens and 2,329 baptisms (the proportion of former Muslims is not given). On Easter, 2000, there were 9,474 catechumens and 2,503 baptisms, of whom 9%–about 225–came from Islam. Easter 2001: 8,945 catechumens and 2,363 baptisms, of whom 7%–about 165–came from Islam. The regions of Ile de France, Provence-Méditerranée, Center-East (Lyons), the East and the North recorded the largest numbers of Muslim conversions. This corresponds to the regions where the density of the Muslim population is greatest. 7 Ibid., p.15 (fiche 3: Their relation to the Muslim community and the family [French]). 8 According to the Minister of Social Solidarity, Mrs. Livia Turco, there were, in the year 2000, 1,280,000 Muslims in Italy. Seventy thousand of them may THE ANGELUS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org be Italians who have converted to Islam (cf. La Repubblica, September 14, 2000). Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, Pastoral Letter, September 12, 2000, entitled Note pastorale: la Citta de San Petronio nel terzio Milenio. Excerpts in French taken from Action Familiale et Scolaire, 153, February 2001, pp.61-65. 10 S.-P. Kerboua, l. c., p.272. 11 Questioned on this subject during the audience granted to President Chatami by John Paul II on March 11, 1999, the Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran declared that this was an “internal Iranian question” (DT, March 13, 1999). 12 Nostra Aetate, §3. 13 At the European Summit in Nice (December 2000), under a French presidency, a charter of fundamental rights was adopted. The project included a preamble, the second paragraph of which began, “Drawing upon its cultural, humanist and religious heritage, the Union is founded…”. The French Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, considered it necessary to telephone Roman Herzog, President of the commission in charge of drafting the charter, to demand the correction of this preamble, on the grounds that for France, “a secular republic,” the reference to a religious heritage was “unacceptable.” “Religious” was replaced by “spiritual.” But spirituality evokes an attitude or a disposition; it indicates no content whatsoever. 14 La XIIe Croisade, p.177. 15 Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, Note pastorale (September 12, 2000). 9 THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT Let your speech be, “yes, yes,” “no, no”; whatever is beyond these comes from the evil one. (Mt. 5:37) At a time when many rumors are abuzz over a possible liberalization of the traditional Mass, there is no lack of discussion about the opportuneness or need for such a move. Everyone remembers the words of Cardinal Franjo Seper when John Paul II was considering the possibility of such a liberalization during the audience he granted Archbishop Lefebvre on November 18, 1978. The then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith opposed such a decree with the words: “They [the traditionalists] make a banner of the Mass.” Cardinal Seper’s comment could be the theme of countless commentaries illustrating different aspects of the issue, but it seems to us more useful to focus on another kind of objection. A certain number of priests who habitually celebrate according to Pope Paul VI’s rite have a hard time envisioning the farreaching effects a liberalization of the celebration of the traditional Mass could have. Long accustomed to the new liturgy, which they have celebrated since their priestly ordination, these priests do not grasp the l May 2007 Reprint #75 positive changes that could result for the Church from such a liberating measure. To understand the ways in which this return of the traditional rite could change many things for the better in the Church and in the world, one must first briefly consider the difference between the two liturgies, the traditional and the new. The Traditional Liturgy We begin with the traditional liturgy, which has for 15 centuries enjoyed the right of possession1 and the right of prescription.2 A sacrifice. When speaking about the Mass, the first aspect that Catholic doctrine sets forth is its sacrificial character. In the Old Testament, the prophet Malachias had announced the institution of a sacrifice that would be offered to God everywhere, and which would be a pure offering.3 Thus it is not surprising that the Council of Trent in its 22nd session defined the Mass as the unbloody renewal of the sacrifice of Calvary: Free the Mass and The Face of the Earth Shall Be Renewed 19 THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT ...on the night that He was betrayed, so that He might leave to His beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands), whereby that bloody sacrifice once to be completed on the Cross might be represented, and the memory of it remain even to the end of the world [I Cor. 11:23ff.] and its saving grace be applied to the remission of those sins which we daily commit, declaring Himself constituted “a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech,” [Ps. 109:4] offered to God the Father His own body and blood under the species of bread and wine and under the symbols of those same things gave to the apostles (whom He then constituted priests of the New Testament), so that they might partake, and He commanded them and their successors in the priesthood in these words to make offering: “Do this in commemoration of me, etc.” [Lk. 22:19], as the Catholic Church has always understood and taught.4 The Mass is thus the renewal of the sacrifice of Calvary under the species of bread and wine. The sacrament of the Eucharist is consequently a sacrifice, and a visible sacrifice (as human nature requires). During the Last Supper, Christ, though in an anticipated manner, made present the sacrifice that He would not accomplish in His body until the following day. The mode of the realization of the sacramental sacrifice was defined by Pope Pius XII when he spoke explicitly of the double consecration of bread and wine as an efficacious sign of Christ’s death: For by the “transubstantiation” of bread into the body of Christ and of wine into His blood, His body and blood are both really present: now the Eucharistic species under which He is present symbolize the actual separation of His body and blood. Thus the commemorative representation of His death, which actually took place on Calvary, is repeated in every sacrifice of the altar, seeing that Jesus Christ is symbolically shown by separate symbols to be in a state of victimhood.5 A propitiatory sacrifice. Catholic doctrine assigns to all prayer and sacrifice a quadruple finality: latria, thanksgiving, propitiation, and impetration. These four attributes specify the nature of sacrifice. The propitiatory end (or reparation) is proper to our fallen world, the result of original sin. Before original sin, our first parents had to adore God, thank Him, and petition Him for His graces, but they were under no obligation to make reparation. Not having sinned, they did not need to make reparation in order to be reconciled with their God. This is no longer the case for sinful mankind, which, even for their prayers merely to be heard by God, must make reparation. Failure to mention the propitiatory character of the Mass would be to live in the illusion of a sinless mankind. In Paradise, before original sin, a sacrifice offered uniquely for adoration, thanksgiving, and impetration would have been possible. After original sin, such a sacrifice henceforth would be illusory unless propitiation were joined to the other three ends 20 mentioned. The essentially propitiatory character of the Mass was mentioned in the Council of Trent’s declaration quoted above. It is also affirmed in the very words of the consecration of the wine: “...which shall be shed for you and for many unto the remission of sins.” The New Liturgy When attempting to define the new Mass, a number of interrelated terms crop up: A meal. The new liturgy is presented first of all as a fraternal meal, a “synaxis,” according to the definition given in Article 7 of the Institutio Generalis of the Mass of Pope Paul VI. This first definition of the Mass comes from the meal of the Last Supper during which Christ instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist as well as from the fraternal meal that would often accompany the celebration of the holy mysteries in the primitive Church (cf. I Cor. 11:17-22, 33-34). A narrative. A second approach of Pope Paul VI’s Mass emphasizes the account of the institution. During the celebration of the Mass, the institution of the Eucharist is narrated. Moreover, it is indeed thus that the GIRM defines the moment of the Consecration. It is then a question of explicitly referencing the narrative of the Last Supper to provide a context for Christian celebrations. A memorial. Lastly, a third definition of Pope Paul VI’s Mass would consist in emphasizing the commemorative aspect of such a liturgy. Just as the Hebrews celebrated the Passover in memory of the crossing of the Red Sea and commemorated the deeds of God on behalf of the chosen people, so it would be in the New Testament, in which the Church commemorates during Mass the death of Christ on Calvary and the benefits He pours forth upon mankind. Besides, is this not what Christ Himself commanded the Apostles the night of Holy Thursday when he told them: “Do this in memory of me” (Lk. 22:19; I Cor. 11:24-25)? Before considering the concrete consequences of these divergences on the definition of the Mass, allow us briefly to bring a Catholic light to bear upon these recent definitions of the Mass. 1) Is the Mass essentially a meal? No, for the Council of Trent has defined: “Can. 1: If anyone says that...the act of offering is nothing else than Christ being given to us to eat: let him be anathema.”6 2) Is the Mass essentially a narration? No, for according to the teaching of the same Council, For, after He had celebrated the ancient feast of the Passover, which the multitude of the children of Israel sacrificed [Exod. 12:1ff.] in memory of their exodus from Egypt, He instituted a new Passover, Himself to be immolated under visible signs by the Church through the priests, in memory of His own passage from this world to the Father, when by the shedding of His blood He redeemed us and “delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into His kingdom” [Col. 1:13].7 3) Is the Mass essentially a memorial? No, for Jesus Christ enjoined the Apostles to perform an action and THE ANGELUS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org not simply to commemorate an event: “Do this...in memory of me,” which the Council of Trent defines in these terms: If anyone says that the sacrifice of the Mass...is a mere commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the Cross, but not one of propitiation...: let him be anathema.8 In conclusion, if Catholic theology can easily incorporate what is true in the partial definitions of the Mass that have emerged during the last 40 years, it is because it gives the adequate definition of the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice. The Mass being thus defined by its essence, it is then possible to show that it is also, but secondarily, a meal, a narration, and a memorial.9 Having briefly recalled the differences between the traditional Mass and the new Mass, let us try to see what a return to the traditional Mass would signify for the life of the Church. We shall consider successively the sacerdotal life, religious life, family life, and the apostolate. Sacerdotal Life Archbishop Lefebvre used to say “No Mass, no priest; no priest, no Mass.” This was the adage he repeated incessantly in his conferences. There is nothing new in this, since St. Paul wrote to the Hebrews that “every high priest taken from among men, is ordained for men in the things that appertain to God, that he may offer up gifts and sacrifices for sins” (Heb. 5:1). A vast difference, thus, exists between the minister of Jesus Christ, priest and victim, who sacramentally renews the sacrifice of Calvary (as the traditional liturgy presents it to us) and the president of the assembly, charged with telling us of the deeds and gestures of the Master (as the new liturgy presents it to us). At the head of his flock, but turned towards God like all the faithful for he also needs to make reparation for his sins, the priest of the traditional liturgy centers everything on Christ, who by His divine nature transcends the created order. President of the assembly, which he considers in an all too human encounter, the priest of the new liturgy tries to make the divine emerge from the animation of the assembly. Disappearing completely behind an immutable rite, the priest of the traditional liturgy tries to efface himself as an individual in order to lead souls to God. Obliged to innovate continually in order to hold the attention of the faithful on what is happening, the priest of the new liturgy runs the risk of putting himself forward instead of and in the place of Jesus Christ. Whether the priesthood is considered in terms of the divine call it presupposes, the preparation it requires, the ministry to which it leads, or its perseverance in the midst of an evil world, the traditional Mass will always remind the priest of this truth: he is priest and victim, following our Lord. Complaints are made that vocations are becoming rare. Why not return to the priestly ideal left us by our Lord? This ideal is to be found in the words of St. Paul: “For I judged not myself to know any thing among you, but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (I Cor. 2:2), an ideal faithfully reproduced in the traditional Mass. Questions are raised about priestly formation in the seminaries. If the ideal of the priesthood lies in a special conformity of the priest with the cross of Christ, would it not be necessary to place at the center of the seminary and seminarian training the mystery of the faith which is the unbloody renewal of the sacrifice of Calvary? The causes for the departure from the priesthood of more than 60,000 priests during the decades of the 1960’s and 70’s are sought. Instead of limiting the investigation to sociological analyses and blaming the modern world, would it not be better to restore to priests their essential finality: the Mass that is a sacrifice? There is no doubt that the scandals that have stained the priesthood during the last few decades, especially in the US, are regrettable and require reparation. But is it not cruel to require heroism of priests immersed in a hypersexualized world without giving them an effective armament for their perseverance? What dose of renunciation is contained in a Mass-meal? What measure of mortification is to be found in a narrative of the Institution? What resolutions flow from a memorial of the Passion? Only grace will save us: the grace of Jesus Christ, the grace of Calvary, the grace of the holy Mass. Religious Life What we have said of the priestly life is also true of the religious life. The sanctification of the individual by the practice of the evangelical counsels–by means of the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience–is only possible and realizable through the sacrifice of the Cross. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Mt. 16:24). “Let him deny himself,” let him “take up his cross”–where, when, how? The monks and nuns find the answer in daily assistance at the holy Mass. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,” advises St. Paul. Where is the most perfect expression of the Lord’s sentiments to be found if not in the holy sacrifice of the Mass and in the venerable prayers the Church has fashioned over the centuries to serve as a jewel-box for the gem which is the Real Presence? The Canon of the traditional Mass has nothing sentimental or strained about it. In keeping with the vision of faith, it draws us into sentiments of propitiation, renunciation, and of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. An attentive rereading of the Roman Canon brings out its sober objectivity: the objectivity of sin, the objectivity of our condition as sinners, the objectivity of reparation, the objectivity of sacrifice. What monks and nuns need is not a sentimental, subjective piety, even if it is liturgical; but rather, strong, clear principles that illuminate the way of renunciation to which they have been called THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • May 2007 21 THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT The Apostolate by Christ. Here again, a rite centered on man, on the participation of the community, on the fraternal meal, will be of no use to those who must elevate the world by their daily life of renunciation and sacrifice. Family Life If consecrated souls are not able live up to their sublime vocation of perfection without the sacrifice of the Mass, what can be said of Christian people in constant contact with the world and its spirit? For, if monks and nuns are, as it were, the professionals of holiness by their special vocation received from God, the faithful, and in particular those called to the married state, must not lag behind in this regard. When our Lord speaks about sanctification, He speaks of only one way, the narrow way, and of one gate, a narrow gate (Mt. 7:14). There are not, then, two ways to get to heaven: on the one hand, one that would be incumbent on consecrated souls in the priesthood or the religious life; and on the other, another that would be for Christian couples. No, there is only one Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, and only one way to get to heaven, the cross. What well-educated layman, priest, or bishop could fail to lament over the weakening of the ideals of married and family life nowadays. We need only mention widespread concubinage, the increase in the number of remarried divorcés, and the multiplication of causes for annulments, etc. Certainly, these scandals are not exclusive to our time, and the Church has always had much ado to remedy the situation. But has it really been a good idea to impose on the Church over the last four decades a Mass that is no longer defined as a sacrifice? Isn’t the model St. Paul holds up that of Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:23)? But where was this union sealed, if not on the cross? If we want to give married couples a chance at persevering in fidelity to their promises, then we must give back to them the Mass that is a sacrifice. It is only in the Mass that the spouses will begin to understand the fidelity of Christ to His Spouse, the Church, and of the Church to her Spouse, Christ. Only the Mass that is a sacrifice will enable the spouses to pay the price demanded for the unity, indissolubility, and fecundity of their union. If the Mass comes back in its sacrificial form and the modern form fades away, then the spouses will know what they must do as regards having children and their Christian upbringing, and the life of family piety in the home. Even in the cases of irremediable human tragedy in which one of the spouses is infected by a fatal communicable disease, the two spouses will know the will of God for them. They will also find the strength in the sacrifice of Christ, renewed on our altars, to live in perfect chastity. 22 The priestly ministry of the 21st century often unfolds against a backdrop of dechristianization, secularization, paganism, or indifference–so many worries for the Catholic priest who is attentive to the desires of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to reign over souls. What must this priest do? Where should he begin? Let us defer to a missionary bishop who, on the day of the golden jubilee of his ordination to the priesthood, described the power of the Mass over the souls who had been confided to him during the 50 years of his ministry: Certainly I knew, by the studies which we had done, what this great mystery of our faith was, but I had not yet understood its entire value, efficacy and depth. Thus I lived day by day, year by year, in Africa and particularly at Gabon, where I spent 13 years of my missionary life, first at the seminary and then in the bush among the Africans, with the natives. There I saw–yes, I saw–what the grace of the Holy Mass could do. I saw it in the holy souls of some of our catechists. I saw it in those pagan souls transformed by assistance at Holy Mass, and by the Holy Eucharist. These souls understood the mystery of the Sacrifice of the Cross and united themselves to Our Lord Jesus Christ in the sufferings of His Cross, offering their sacrifices and their sufferings with Our Lord Jesus Christ and living as Christians. ...These [were] men produced by the grace of the Mass. They assisted at the Mass daily, communicating with great fervor and they have become models and the light to those about them. This is just to list a few without counting the many Christians transformed by this grace. I was able to see these pagan villages become Christian– being transformed not only, I would say, spiritually and supernaturally, but also being transformed physically, socially, economically and politically; because these people, pagans which they were, became cognizant of the necessity of fulfilling their duties, in spite of the trials, in spite of the sacrifices; of maintaining their commitments, and particularly their commitment in marriage. Then the village began to be transformed, little by little, under the influence of grace, under the influence of the grace of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and soon all the villages were wanting to have one of the fathers visit them. Oh, the visit of a missionary! They waited impatiently to assist at the Holy Mass, in order to be able to confess their sins and then to receive Holy Communion. Some of these souls also consecrated themselves to God: nuns, priests, brothers giving themselves to God, consecrating themselves to God. There you have the fruit of the Holy Mass. How did the Mass direct all these souls towards holiness? The Pontiff explicitly says: “It is necessary that we study somewhat the profound motive of this transformation: sacrifice.”10 Are we naive enough to believe that the return of the traditional Mass will restore everything to order in the twinkling of an eye? Certainly not. But what we do believe, is that the body of the Church will not have its wounds healed until the blood of Christ begins to THE ANGELUS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org flow freely again through its veins, bringing grace, strength, perseverance, energy, and supernatural life in all its members. Was this not already St. Paul’s conviction when he wrote to the Hebrews: “Without shedding of [Christ’s] blood there is no remission [of sins]” (Heb. 9:22). Arbogastus Translated from Courrier de Rome, December 2006, pp.5-8. 1 2 According to the canonical principle “Melior est conditio possidentis.” According to the argumentation developed by Tertullian in his De Præscriptione Hæreticorum. 3 “For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation” (Mal. 1:11). 4 Council of Trent, Session XXII, Decree on the Sacrifice of the Mass, Ch. 1 (Dz.939). 5 Pius XII, Encyclical Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947, §70. 6 Dz. 948. 7 Dz. 938. 8 Dz. 950. 9 Likewise, by defining man as a rational animal (essential definition) one can also show that man is characteristically able to laugh and walk on two feet, and is a social animal (secondary characteristics he has in common with other creatures but which do not adequately and essentially define him). 10 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Sermon on the Occasion of His Sacerdotal Jubilee [English version: Michael Davies, Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre (Kansas City: Angelus Press, 1983), II, 334-35]. Must We Attend A “Protestantized” Mass? Reverend Editor: I have been reading your review...for years. In it, the Novus Ordo Missae is often criticized...but, to my mind, not clearly: your criticisms are too vague, or so it seems. A few years ago...advice was given in your columns to substitute a half hour (or hour) of meditation, Bible reading, or other pious exercises for attendance at a Sunday Mass celebrated according to the N.O.M., because it is an abnormal Mass. I wrote asking you to prove it, to come out and openly say that all the New Masses are invalid, and then your position would be consistent...nothing can match a valid Mass (which, moreover, is obligatory). I also said that a protestantized or protestantizing Mass (at the most, if you will, in style, manner, omissions, intentions) is one thing; a protestant Mass is another. There is an abyss between them.... In last year’s September issue of the Courrier de Rome I found an article called “The Good Shepherd, the Wolves, and the Mercenaries,” [The Angelus, Jan. 2007, pp.19-26–Ed.] (containing) an accusation of heresy against the New Mass. I reread this article seven or eight times and more, hoping to find between the lines a proof of doctrinal error (in the words or in the acts), for such is heresy. If it exists, it should be specified as clearly as possible, for it involves a very important matter....The editor, on the contrary, in his commentary, speaks of something else (and he speaks well), but fails to demonstrate objectively the error of heresy. Everything is captured in the anecdote recounted by Archbishop Marini. The thesis is: “the new rite is a heresy”; the proof is: “in the old rite, the celebrant genuflected, he adored the host, he rose, he showed it to the people, then he genuflected again to adore it.” My commentary: Is the whole rite a heresy because of an omitted genuflection? I ask: where is the heresy, the doctrinal error in the words or acts? ...My expectation of a clear statement from the SISINONO on the [heretical status] of the N.O.M. ...changed into disappointment. I add that I appreciated the rest of the article....I have written to you impelled by a lively sentiment of Christian and priestly charity. Very truly yours in the Blessed Trinity. —A Priest THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT www.angeluspress.org ThE ANgEluS • May 2007 23 THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT Dear Fellow Priest, First of all, we must remark that in the article in question, the word heresy in regard to the New Mass did not fall from our pen, but rather from Archbishop Marini’s mouth; or rather, Archbishop Marini placed it in the mouth of his Lefebvrist interlocutor with the delirious discourse that you quite rightly singled out but which, again wrongly, you attribute to us. What comes from our pen, on the contrary, is a commentary in which we disavow the “Lefebvrist” thesis, and we put in doubt whether it was ever actually expressed, at least in the terms employed by Marini: he [Marini] evidently desires to portray all these “Lefebvrists”–as he calls them–as a mass of imbeciles who must be affected by mental problems since they reduce the liturgical reform to a simple question of genuflection.... And we must say that with you, he reached his objective, at least judging by your letter. In reality, if the “Lefebvrist” did say something on the subject, he did not say it in the “delirious” manner used by Archbishop Marini. The “Lefebvrists,” who until the last Council rested peacefully in the lap of their holy Mother, the Church, put in the position of having to safeguard their faith, have been compelled to acquire solid erudition on the differences between the Catholic doctrine on the holy Mass and the Lutheran doctrine. One of the principal points is the following: whereas the Catholic Church teaches that, in the Mass, our Lord Jesus Christ is made truly present on the altar by the words pronounced by the priest at the moment of the Consecration, for the Lutherans, on the contrary, it is not the words of the Consecration but the faith of the faithful present that produces a certain spiritual presence of Christ during the Supper. Hence the change introduced by the ecumenists in the new “Catholic” rite. In the traditional Roman rite (improperly called the Mass of St. Pius V), the priest, after the first consecration, conscious of holding in his hands no longer bread, but the real Body of Christ, immediately genuflects and adores his God; then, rising, he elevates the consecrated host and presents it for the adoration of the faithful; finally, after having set it on the corporal, which recalls the shroud and the reality of the divine Body, he adores it again (and he repeats this, mutatis mutandis, for the chalice of Christ’s Blood). In the Mass according to the new rite, everything has changed: as if nothing were produced by virtue of the words of consecration, the priest, without any sign of adoration, immediately elevates the host and shows it to the faithful present; then he places it, not on the corporal, but on the paten, and only then does he genuflect (he does the same, mutatis mutandis, for the chalice of Christ’s Blood). What have the Protestants deduced from such a change? That the Catholic Church has agreed with Luther against the Council of Trent: it is by the faith of 24 the assembly, and not by the words of consecration, that Christ is made spiritually present during the Supper; that is why the priest, in the new rite, first presents the host to the faithful, and only then does he genuflect and adore. Such is the deduction of the Protestants, who, because of this change and others, have no difficulty in employing the rite of Pope Paul VI in their “Supper,” whereas before they held in abomination the “papist Mass,” that is to say, the traditional Roman rite. The deceived Catholics of good faith, on the contrary, have not understood the gravity of this “ecumenical” change (nor of the others), or else they have overcome their astonishment by telling themselves that ultimately, transubstantiation depends on the words of consecration and not on the signs of adoration, whether their number is increased or decreased. But that does not change the fact that in the new rite there is an objective slide towards the Lutheran doctrine, and an equally objective retreat from the Catholic doctrine of the holy Mass, as Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci observed to Pope Paul VI, and that that runs the risk of “protestantizing” new generations of Catholics. Dear confrere, now compare what we just explained to the words Marini put in the mouth of the “Lefebvrist,” and you cannot but discern the purpose of his tale–told as journalistic anecdote–to mock and denigrate. It will appear to you as clearly that the ones who were making things up or overturning them were Marini, voluntarily, or even the “Lefebvrist,” who perhaps expressed himself awkwardly (but Marini should have been able to understand), or–why not?–the journalist who let himself be carried away by journalistic license; but in no case can it be us. Discussion of the new rite of Mass must not turn round its validity or invalidity. The Masses of Orthodox schismatics are also valid, but even so a Catholic is not allowed to attend them. The Masses celebrated during the French Revolution by the “juring” priests were also valid, but Catholics were right to avoid them, contenting themselves to hearing the Mass of a “refractory” priest from time to time.1 In reality, as the Catechism of St. Pius X teaches (No. 217), anyone who “without a real impediment” fails to hear Mass on days of obligation commits a mortal sin; otherwise, “[a]ny moderately grave reason suffices to excuse one from assistance at Holy Mass, such as considerable hardship or corporal or spiritual harm either to oneself or another”(Fr. Heribert Jone, Moral Theology, No. 198). Hence the real problem is not to know whether the Mass celebrated according to the new rite is valid or invalid, but rather to know whether it causes or even can cause spiritual harm to the person hearing it. It seems to us that the answer to this question is already to be found in your letter, where you speak of the “protestantized or protestantizing” Mass. And even if you would not be convinced of it, this danger was promptly denounced to Pope Paul VI by Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci, with competence in the matter and due knowledge of the thing: THE ANGELUS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org ...the Novus Ordo Missae–considering the new elements susceptible to widely different interpretations which are implied or taken for granted–represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session 22 of the Council of Trent. The “canons” of the rite definitively fixed at that time erected an insurmountable barrier against any heresy which might attack the integrity of the Mystery.2 Now, a “protestantized” (in itself) and a “protestantizing” (for the mentality of those attending) Mass cancels the obligation to hear Mass on Sundays and holy days. The Church imposes the obligation to hear Mass “in the Catholic rite,”3 but a protestantized rite cannot at the same time be characterized as Catholic. Moreover, a “protestantizing” rite exposes the faithful to “considerable spiritual harm,” which is one of the strongest reasons exempting from the Sunday obligation of assistance at Mass. And as it involves danger for our own faith and for that of our dependents, for whom we are responsible before God, we must say that whoever is conscious of this danger, insofar as he is conscious of it, far from satisfying the Church’s precept, rather commits a sin against faith [by attending the N.O.M.]. You well know that the believer has above all the obligation to cultivate and protect his faith, for it is the root and the foundation of his eternal salvation, and that is why the natural divine law forbids him to endanger it.4 You also know that it is precisely for this reason that the Church has always forbidden Catholics to participate in non-Catholic Masses, even if they are valid. That is why if a Catholic finds himself in an Orthodox schismatic country and he is unable to find a place of Catholic worship, not only is he dispensed from the obligation to hear Mass, but if he participates in the Mass of the schismatics (valid, once again) he is not excused from committing a sin against the faith. And this is so in virtue of divine natural law, that is to say, even if the ecclesiastical laws have changed for “ecumenical” reasons. ...We do not consider the new rite to be heretical, but rather gravely equivocal, and favoring heresy. This rite was in fact elaborated with the discreet (but not too discreet) cooperation of certain “Protestant experts” so that it would be acceptable to both the Catholics and the Protestants. In 1965, Msgr. Bugnini, who directed the work of the “liturgical reform,” then enjoying the full confidence of Pope Paul VI, announced the “desire” to “strip [from the new rite] everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block or [even] of some displeasure for our separated brethren; that is, for the Protestants ” (Osservatore Romano, March 11, 1965). And what were these stumbling blocks and these causes of displeasure for the “separated brethren” if not the rites and gestures that expressed too clearly the Catholic truths refuted by the Protestants and reaffirmed by the Council of Trent (the Real Presence, ministerial priesthood, the sacrificial and propitiatory character of the Holy Mass, etc.)? This was the origin of an equivocal rite susceptible of a double interpretation; a rite that, by obscuring the Catholic truths, allows the Catholic to interpret it in a Catholic manner, and the Protestant to interpret it in a Lutheran manner. We gave the example above of the priest’s genuflection immediately after the consecration. We could give others. What is of interest to us here is to underscore that everyone is in agreement about the protestantization of the Mass, both modernists and nonmodernists. We have already quoted Bugnini (1965). In 1967, the Osservatore Romano of October 13 affirmed: The liturgical reform has made a giant step forward and we have drawn quite close to the liturgical forms of the Lutheran Church. In 1969, in their letter introducing the Short Critical Study of the New Order of Mass, Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci denounced to Pope Paul VI the price of the ecumenical operation on the Mass: the “striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass,” and, the lowering of the “insurmountable barrier” that had been erected by the Council of Trent “against any heresy which might attack the integrity of the Mystery” (as it so happens, against the Lutheran heresy). In 1978 (on February 26), Archbishop Lefebvre wrote to the Holy Office that the rite is “a catholicoprotestant synthesis” and protested: We want to keep the Catholic Faith with the help of the Catholic Mass, and not by means of an ecumenical Mass, albeit valid, not heretical, but favens haeresim” [favoring heresy].5 The convert Julien Green defined the new rite as “a very clumsy imitation of the Anglican office, which was familiar to us in our childhood,” and he spoke of the Mass as “recut, reduced to protestant dimensions.”6 Msgr. Klaus Gamber, who is not a “traditionalist” but merely a liturgical expert (Director of Liturgical Sciences at Ratisbonne and honorary member of the Pontifical Liturgical Academy of Rome), in 1979 denounced the “destruction” of the old Roman rite, which had been preserved substantially intact over the centuries and recommended to the universal Church by all the Roman Pontiffs, for “it goes back to the Apostle Peter.”7 Finally, leaving aside many other judgments, we reach the testimony of Jean Guitton (the author of Paul VI Secret). On December 19, 1993, during a debate on Lumière 101 (Radio Courtoisie), he affirmed that Paul VI’s intention concerning the liturgy, concerning putting the liturgy into modern languages, was to reform the Catholic liturgy so that it would closely coincide with the Protestant liturgy...with the Protestant Supper. Later on he said: THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • May 2007 25 THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT ...I repeat that Paul VI did everything in his power to bring the Mass–beyond the Council of Trent–into agreement with the Protestant Supper. At a priest’s protestation, Guitton replied: The Mass of Paul VI is presented first of all as a meal, isn’t it? And a lot of emphasis is given to the aspect of participation in a meal, and much less to the notion of sacrifice, of ritual sacrifice....In other words, there was in Paul VI the ecumenical intention to efface–or at least to correct–what was too “catholic,” in the traditional sense, in the Mass, and to bring the Catholic Mass–I repeat–into agreement with the Calvinist Mass.8 For Jean Guitton also, the new rite of Mass is “protestantized.” The only difference is that for the neo-modernists, this protestantization is a victory because, as the Osservatore Romano of October 13, 1967, put it, it is “ a giant step forward” in the ecumenical domain, while for faithful Catholics (the “traditionalists”), it is a liturgical revolution that poses very grave problems of conscience not only because the rite is protestantized, but even more because it is “protestantizing.” With a Mass that has been “recut, reduced to protestant dimensions,” wrote Julian Green, the reality of the propitiatory sacrifice is on the brink of being discreetly eclipsed in the minds of Catholics, whether priests or laymen....The old priests who have it, so to speak, in their blood, are not going to forget it, and consequently they celebrate Masses in conformity with the Church’s intentions. But what can be said of young priests? What do they believe in?9 My dear confrere, reflect and consider honestly whether the “duty of reparation” is incumbent on us or on those who continue to impose and to defend an “ecumenical” rite apt in time to demolish Catholic faith in the holy Mass. Hirpinus Translated from Courrier de Rome, October 2006, pp.1-4. 1 The “juring” priests had sworn to be governed by the revolutionary Civil Constitution of the Clergy of July 1790, whereas the “refractory” priests had refused.–Ed. 2 Letter of presentation of the Ottaviani Intervention: A Short Critical Study of the New Order of Mass [English version: Translated by Fr. Anthony Cekada (Rockford, IL: TAN Books & Publishers, 1992)]). 3 Roberti, Dictionary of Moral Theology [Italian], s.v. “Sanctification of feasts.” 4 Cf. Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. “Faith.” 5 “Mgr. Lefebvre et le Saint Office,” Itinéraires, No.233, May 1979. 6 Ce qu’il faut d’amour à l’homme (Paris: Plon, 1978). 7 The Reform of the Roman Liturgy [German]. 8 Una Voce, May-June 1994. 9 Op. cit., p.143. $1.95 per SiSiNoNo reprint. Please specify. Shipping & Handling US Foreign $.01 to $10.00 $6.95 $10.01 to $25.00 $8.95 $25.01 to $50.00 $10.95 $50.01 to $100.00 $12.95 Over $100.00 13% of order $11.95 $13.95 $15.95 $17.95 18% of order Airmail surcharge (in addition to above) Foreign 21% of subtotal. Available from: ANGELUS PRESS 2915 Forest Avenue Kansas City, MO 64109 USA Phone: 1-800-966-7337 www.angeluspress.org Society of Saint Pius X District of the United States of America Regina Coeli House 11485 N. Farley Road Platte City, Missouri 64079 ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID KANSAS CITY, MO PERMIT NO. 6706 F r . X a v i e r 27 B e a u v a i s Christendom NEWS Angelus Press Edition Male and Female He Created Them As we know, our souls were created by God in order to attain their ultimate end, which is God Himself. God created both men and women, but He also gave to each a specific mission. Woman was created and united to man, by God, through the sacrament of marriage, so that he might attach himself to her and they be two in one flesh. She was created to be his companion in the procreation and education of children, and also to keep house for him and to reign as queen in their home. Such is the specific mission of the wife to her husband. Consequently, the psychology of each of them will be different. Man’s psychology predisposes him to be in authority, the head of the family: the husband and father. Woman’s psychology leads her directly to be the queen of the family: the wife and mother. This is not a human invention, for the basic relationship between these two psychologies is to be found in Genesis. Woman is drawn from man, but not from just any part of man–she is drawn from man’s heart. Eve comes from Adam, as her principle, just as the Church comes from Christ. And where precisely is the place whence the spring wells up? It is the open side, from the heart itself. So, woman is not drawn from man’s head, and this is the reason why she does not dominate, as the head dominates the body. Neither is she drawn from man’s feet, because she is not his slave. Woman is drawn from the heart of man, so she is his love. The husband is the head; the wife is the heart. So man is the woman’s head. He is the prince of the family, and she comes from him as from her principle. But she comes from his heart. So her relation to him is that of the heart to the head. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • May 2007 28 When this is understood, we can escape from the atmosphere of egalitarianism so fashionable today. Woman is not equal to man any more than she is unequal to him. Are the lungs equal to the hands? Are the eyes equal or unequal to the ears? Such questions do not make sense. Woman is to man what the heart is to the head. Heart and head must live in unity. Pope Pius XI said as much in his encyclical on marriage, Casti Connubii (December 31, 1930): “If indeed, the husband is the head, woman is the heart, and just as the former possesses the primacy of government, the latter can and must claim as hers the primacy of love.” Thus in marriage, it is essential that both spouses strive to better know the place assigned to them in the plan of creation. It is important that the husband succeed–with God’s help–in being the head, concerned for and devoted to the common good. For authority is always meant for the common good of the whole body. It is also fitting that the wife–with God’s help–aspire to be, in very truth, the heart, the source of love for the whole body, but entirely united to the will of the head, and totally obedient to the head of the family out of affection. Any upset in the order of the household may well shake it from top to bottom, for it is just as bad “not to have a head” as to “lack a heart.” Thus, there must be complementarity in marriage. In the first place, man does not trust his own impressions, but has much more confidence in his wife’s impressions. The husband knows that he is capable of making more precise and certain judgments than his wife, but these means work much more slowly. Literature, history, and Scripture are full of women’s dreams, sentiments, and impressions. Sometimes they are wrong, but sometimes their intuition is right. In his Gospel, St. Matthew speaks of the intuitive warning given to Pilate: “And as he was sitting in the place of judgment, his wife sent to him, saying: Have thou nothing to do with that just man; for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him” (Mt. 27:19). If feminine intuition is not necessarily always right, we can neither be justified in saying that all those who use their reason make a safe and sound judgment. What we are saying here is that woman’s means of knowing is not man’s. There is between them a fundamental difference which makes each what it is. If man is reasonable and woman is intuitive, it is fitting that the head be reasonable and the heart be intuitive. Woman is, as a rule, less reasonable than man; and man is, as a rule, less intuitive than woman. But man may make bad use of his reason: his own interest, his pride, or his passion may compromise his judgment and even at times cloud his intelligence. Woman, on the other hand, can be the victim of her intuition because of a THE ANGELUS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org wild imagination, or too much complacency in her sensitivity, or because of her vanity. In fact, all this may compromise the stability of her sentiments and even make her foolish. Man does not rely upon his impressions; he studies, investigates, and truly tries not to allow himself to be dominated by any preconceived idea or sentiment. Woman, on the other hand, is constantly assailed by her impressions. She is a wonderfully faithful echo of all that goes on around her. She will notice a thousand little things of no importance. Nothing leaves her unmoved, and this makes her in turn less rational than man in her judgments. As far as charity between spouses is concerned, everything is designed so that husband and wife either mutually enrich each other or quarrel ceaselessly. For if the husband starts condemning his wife for her irrational, snap judgments, his troubles are far from over. And if the wife starts thinking that her husband is slow-witted and mistrustful, she will likewise suffer. On the contrary, if the husband accepts his wife’s impressions as the warnings of her heart, which sometimes has pangs for no reason and at other times, for many reasons; and if the wife knows how to trust the judgment made by her husband as a last resort, and submits to it without trying to understand the motives upon which it is based because she respects him as the head, then mutual charity will come much more easily between the spouses. He will become enriched by his wife’s heart, she will be enriched by her husband’s reason, and with time, she will be more and more imbued with his judgment. They will end up having one heart and one soul. Thus, the fact that woman knows intuitively and man, rationally, will result in two different kinds of fecundity. So we must not be surprised if the great creative works of the mind appear to belong to man throughout all of history. For God has reserved for woman a fecundity, not a paternity in the field of intelligence, but with an eye to the maternities of the heart, of the soul, of life. This role she can fulfill only by accepting it in its fullness, by remaining humbly in her place–an immense place–which He has assigned to her. For humility alone links us to great works. In 1949, in a review of Ottawa University, someone unknown to us by the name of Marie-Paule Vinay wrote an article entitled Woman’s Role. In this article, a passage struck me: This role is a hidden role par excellence, and it needs to be buried deep, as it were, in order to be efficient. Indeed, the more pure and silent her feminine renouncement, the further man is able to go in the conquests of the mind and the heart without any danger for the balance of the whole social body. In the family, the more withdrawn she is, the more helpful she will be. This law seems 29 to be inescapable. The woman who is not withdrawn withdraws others. A woman who is not the backdrop becomes a screen. This is borne out everywhere. Different areas of family life are disrupted depending on the personal importance she assumes. The unknown woman, the soul of silence in her home, gives the world a lesson in orderliness and harmony. Like the anonymous stone in a building, she supports what is above by resting upon what is below. She legitimizes and unites both with all her being. For the entire edifice, she is an absolute blessing. Is not the woman unknown par excellence, the woman who hides within the Light, the Blessed Virgin, of whose intimate character we only know that “she kept all theses things in her heart”? Such is the plan of God. Of course, this does not preclude any activities outside the home for the wife, be they private or even public activities, in which her maternal vocation can blossom in a spiritual, but no less real way. However, by her very nature, and in the bosom of the family, the wife is called upon to live not for herself, not even with regard to herself. She is called to live not only for those she loves–man is called to this also–but to live with regard to those she loves. I say all this only in order to show quite simply that in Christian marriage, husband and wife are called upon to complement one another. There is an order to be observed in love, as in all things. But what do we see today? Some husbands become authoritarian, others think they are good because they always give in about everything. Wives lead their husbands by the nose, others assert their independence. There are even spouses who think they love each other better because they have decided to have each their own tastes, their own friends, their own outings, and then one day they are surprised when the marriage breaks up. There comes a day when all these disorders have to be paid for. We did not realize soon enough that for years we had despised the natural order, which holds the true meaning of authority and submission. Some words have lost their true meaning. Consequently some ideas can no longer circulate because the words through which they should be expressed have lost their meaning. Such is the case with the words authority and submission. We no longer know what they mean. For many today, authority means “despotism,” “tyranny,” or “fascism.” For many the idea of obedience is unpleasant, obsolete, and incites repulsion. We replace it by spontaneity and selfdetermination. The end result is that there are no longer any leaders. There are people who claim they command; however, most of them are not leaders, but men who desired power to satisfy their own pride and thirst for personal glory. Consequently, they are capable of any amount of cowardice, of giving up anything rather than renouncing demagogy and the desire to please. Someone once said: “He who is not capable of putting on a crown of thorns to remain faithful to his authority is not a leader, but a demagogue.” How great is the happiness of a young man and a young lady who have just exchanged the sweetest of all promises before the altar of God with the convictions we have just talked about. The young man is resolved never to decide anything for his own sake, out of selfishness, sensuality, or pride. He is also resolved to always make his decisions out of love for his wife, for the good of the children she will bear him, and for the Church. He is resolved to this sacrifice of self, to this life of genuine love, because he knows that he has received his wife from God, in order to lead her to God together with their children. He is determined never to abdicate his role as head, no matter what difficulty or seduction from the outside he has to meet. He is resolved to live for the flock entrusted to him, no matter what renunciation this will demand of him. And the bride has the certitude that she can lean upon her husband, rely upon him, entrust herself to him so that he may lead her to Jesus Christ. She knows that God has given her a spouse who will know how to listen to her advice, how to become enriched by his wife’s inspirations; a spouse who will take into account all her observations, which are so perceptive that they will often astound him. She knows exactly what our Lord is asking of her when He tells her through St. Paul to be subject to her husband. This does not mean she must submit to his whims, to a selfishness which would jeopardize the life of the home, or to a clearly evil or unreasonable attitude. No, the order which submits man to God and the wife to her husband can shine forth in all its perfection only if the husband remains Catholic and worthy of the name of man. If he is truly a man and a Catholic, already healed by grace, then with what happiness his wife will rely upon him. She will take care to advise him wisely. He will share with her his considerations and deliberations. She will emphasize the things only a woman can see. And he will use them reasonably in order to enrich the motivations that will prompt his decision. But she will know that in normal married life, it is up to him to make the decision, which is the fundamental act of judgment. For his part, he will know that even if he has followed his wife’s advice or idea, but experience betrays his expectation, he does not have the right to turn against her and reproach her. He shoulders the responsibility. From Christendom, No.9. Christendom is a publication of DICI, the press bureau of the Society of Saint Pius X (www.dici.org). Fr. Xavier Beauvais, a Society priest ordained in 1983, is currently the pastor of St. Nicolas du Chardonnet parish in Paris, France. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • May 2007 30 The Story Of My Conversion To the Catholic Faith By What Authority? R o b e r t F . THE ANGELUS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org S w e n s o n Some time ago I visited the Protestant radio network headquarters where I had worked for 18 years. As I spoke with former co-workers I was reminded of how utterly impossible it is, humanly speaking, for someone born and raised Protestant and trained for Protestant ministry to become a traditional Catholic. What follows are my thoughts on how and why I became a traditional Roman Catholic. There is much involved in my conversion... a staunch Protestant does not just wake up one day and convert. It took a series of events over a long period of time to convince me that I was in great error, and then much agonizing over what I had learned before I could make this great Faith my own. Caravaggio. The Conversion of St. Paul on the Way to Damascus (1600-01). Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, Italy. As I consider my childhood, church attendance and church activities were the center of my family’s life in Salt Lake City, Utah. Every time the church doors were opened, my older brother and sister and I were brought there, so it seemed. We attended a Baptist church at first. Later, we began attending the Evangelical Free Church, one of many conservative Protestant denominations. The church was small, but it was an established church with a good-sized youth group and numerous activities to keep us all interested. From my church exposure I learned about the great men and women of faith in the Bible, and about a God who loves and cares for us so much that He sent His Son to die for our sins. I learned that I was a sinner having offended a holy God, and unless I made a decision to receive Jesus as my personal Savior, I would suffer an eternity in hell for my sins. I was taught that after I had made such a decision, I was “eternally secure,” and even though I fell into very serious sin, I could never be rejected by God and sent to hell. I also heard that Christians are to live an exemplary life before the world and spend time reading and studying the Bible and in prayer. All this I recognized as good, but I often thought that there must be something missing in all this since so many of my church friends didn’t really care about living a Christian life. As long as there were activities to keep them interested, they stayed in the church. But when they had the opportunity, they bolted and were gone. I now remember coming close, at least in my thoughts, to something very “Catholic” in a “communion service” when I was a teenager. The pastor was reading the Bible account of the last supper from I Corinthians 11 where St. Paul was reflecting on our Lord’s words, “This is my Body.... This is my Blood.” Those simple words, “this is,” stuck in my mind. For just a moment, I was thinking, as a true Catholic would, in terms of what the Eucharist is: this is literally the body and blood of Christ. Just as quickly as that thought entered my mind, it departed as the pastor explained that it was the Lord’s body and blood only in a symbolic sense. The thought came to me, Who am I to think something contrary to what an ordained pastor had been taught concerning this passage of Scripture? So I gave it no more thought. At that time I knew nothing of actual Catholic teaching. However, I had all the typical Protestant notions of what the Catholic Church believed: worship of Mary and the saints, a Pope who cannot sin, idolatry (the use of statues), but most of all the idea that Catholics believe their salvation rested entirely on doing good works. Since I knew enough 31 Bible to challenge this kind of belief, I never looked at the Catholic Faith as something to take very seriously at all. Little plastic statues on dashboards, dreamy-eyed paintings of Jesus, worshipping idols, no assurance of my salvation? Come on, be serious! It wasn’t until I was in my early 20’s, and a soldier, that I met my first real Catholic. Paul Boudreau was an Intelligence Clerk, and I was an Illustrator/Draftsman assigned to the US Army’s 62nd Engineer Battalion in the central coastal area of Vietnam. We shared lots of time together offhours. He told me of his family (mom, dad, and four sisters–such a large family in my estimation!) in Queens, New York, and about his friend Bob with whom he liked to go drinking (scotch, I think). He spoke of all this while smoking one cigarette after another. In fact, he wouldn’t roll off the bunk in the morning without lighting up first! To a Biblebelieving Fundamental Protestant, drinking and smoking were anathema. However, Paul led a very moral life 10,000 miles from home, and he attended Mass in the battalion chapel every Sunday. One day Paul did the impossible: he gave up smoking. In its place he took up chewing gum, lots of gum. When I asked him why he was doing this, he said he wanted to give up something for Lent. I thought, Well there he goes, trying to work his way to heaven. Isn’t that just like a Catholic! Somehow Paul made it through Lent without a smoke, and regardless of my ideas on what I thought was Catholic teaching, I have to say that I was impressed by what he did, though I never told him so. So, that was my first exposure to anything “Catholic.” Following my discharge from the Army, I met Julie Monroe at the singles’ Sunday school class at Cherrydale Baptist Church in Arlington, Virginia. I was the president of the group, and she was a student at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond, Virginia, and home for the summer. Two years later in August of 1971 she became my wife, and we took up residence near the VCU campus; she continued her studies, and I took up work as a draftsman at Westinghouse Infilco. Life went along pretty well for us as we settled into married life with our cat and gerbils. We enjoyed new friends, searching for country antiques, riding our new 10-speed bikes (quite the thing at that time), and visiting all the historic sites in and around Richmond. We also joined another Baptist church in a nice part of town. Our interests in the things of God were only casual, nothing of real commitment. After a few months, Julie reminded me of my promise to go to college, so I decided to pacify her by taking a couple of night classes at VCU. I enjoyed the studies, but had no real goal in mind. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • May 2007 32 In the summer of 1972 life began to change in a way that had never happened before. On a whim, Julie and I decided to visit a large church in Lynchburg, Virginia (Thomas Road Baptist Church, pastor Jerry Falwell). The sermon spoke to both of us in a very unusual way, and as a result, we both made a commitment to God to forsake the way of the world, and follow Christ, whatever that meant. Driving home that night, all I could think of was that I knew God had some work for me to do, and I was determined to find out what it was and do it, regardless of what family and friends might say. But what did God want me to do? While looking through a list of the courses of study at Lynchburg Baptist College (a school Falwell had begun), I spotted something that “clicked,” a major in Television, Radio & Film. LBC also emphasized Bible and theology classes along with all courses of study. That’s it! But I had never been to college full-time, and I had not done well at all in high school. What chance did I have in college? In my King James Bible I found a verse, “Without faith it is impossible to please him (God): for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Heb. 11:6). Attending college would be my first real test of faith. As it turned out, I did very well that first year, and went on to complete a BS degree in three years. And when I finished there, I continued on at the University of Maryland for a Master of Arts degree in broadcasting. All of this trusting God for a future work that I believed He had in store for me. During those years in Maryland, Julie and I became avid listeners of radio station WFSI, Annapolis, Maryland, one of the stations owned by Family Stations, Inc., an evangelical radio network with its headquarters in Oakland, California. Our studies in theology by that time had lead us to the reformed Calvinistic way of thinking, and Harold Camping, general manager and Bible teacher at Family Radio, was a strong teacher of reformed theology. I began to see that perhaps being a part of such a broadcast organization was what God had in mind for me when we began to be serious about our faith years ago. Through a most unusual set of circumstances, Family Radio offered me a position at their Oakland headquarters. We jumped at the opportunity, packing up a truck and the baby, and headed West. Our move to California was the second major act of faith we would encounter. At the time of the job offer from Family Radio, having gone to school for six years and having worked for not-for-profit organizations for some time, we simply did not have enough money to make the move. We had no debts THE ANGELUS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org at all, but we also had no money. However, we were so confident that God was in this move, that we simply “trusted Him” to bring the money our way, and He did. Life in Oakland went well for several years. I loved my job. There was nothing I loved more than producing radio programs. I was in my element! Then one day it happened: I had a question that bothered me so much that I had to ask the general manager, Harold Camping, for an answer. The question that came to mind was this: by what authority dare I switch on the microphone, read the Bible, and say “Thus saith the Lord”? Or, saying it another way, how do I know if my interpretation of the Bible is the correct one? Given the fact that others have the same Bible and claim the same Holy Spirit guiding them, how can they come up with quite different interpretations of the same Scriptures? Who is right, and how can anyone know for sure? Most importantly, how can I be sure of my own eternal destiny when others have a different interpretation of fundamental doctrines? Well, Mr. Camping’s answer wasn’t any help. “You’re saved, aren’t you, Bob? You have the Holy Spirit and the Bible,” implying, what else do you need? What I was hearing was not a good enough answer. If there is a loving God in heaven, there had to be a better answer. What I was looking for was a real authority, a foundation on which to build my faith, and I found none in any of the many churches and Protestant organizations I had been associated with. After a short period of time, I came to the conclusion that there was no such authority to be found; we have to trust God as individuals to lead us to the truth, and then do the best we can on our own to make our way in this sea of Christian confusion. But why would God, in His wisdom, leave us floundering like this? There was something wrong with this picture, but I had no idea where to turn for the answer. My conversion account would not be complete without including mention of my wife’s brother, Doug Monroe. Doug has always been a theologian of sorts, spending much time in Bible study, coming up with some rather impressive insights in his work. As a Protestant he always wanted to live a “life of faith,” not working a job, but trusting God to meet his needs, a kind of a monk or hermit. One day he spoke with Julie about his desire to live the life of a monk. She told him, “Then be one–that’s what you are.” At that, Doug picked up the phone book, looked up “Churches, Catholic,” called a number, identified himself as a Protestant, and asked how he could become a monk! That was the first step of the greatest act of faith any of us had ever taken. The 33 operator told him that he would have to become Catholic, but since he was Protestant, he might check out the Anglicans. That search led him to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Oakland, a High Anglican church, and an ongoing conversation with the priest who knew Catholic doctrine and Church history very well. Doug had a kind of crash course in Church history from the perspective of the Catholic Church, and intensive catechetical teaching. In the evenings, after our kids were in bed, he would report on what he had learned that day. We would get into shouting matches over many of the issues that separate Protestants and Catholics. I thought on many occasions, “What on earth is he getting into now? He’s been into scuba diving, sea kayaking, sailboarding, organic food, and now Catholicism?” And so much of what he is hearing flies in the face of all we have ever believed. Night after night I would challenge him on this doctrine or that teaching; night after night he would defend the Church’s teaching with very good logical and biblical answers! I was frustrated since I could not defend the Protestant position on some very basic issues such as salvation by faith alone and Bible-only theology. Doug finally said that we would have to attend Mass the next Sunday and see for ourselves. And we did. Doug warned us about all the things we would see in the church that would offend us: the statues, the crucifix, the altar, the priest, etc. All this looks awfully Catholic; this is surely the enemy’s territory! These were my thoughts as I sat there in the pew. Not too far into the Mass I lost the place in the prayer book, so I just observed and listened. I have to admit that I loved the reverence displayed in the reading of the Epistle and the Gospel. And I identified immediately with the symbolism I had read of in the Old Testament: the incense, vestments, and special vessels. But all the while I was defending myself from all that Satan was throwing at me, so I thought. I was doing very well, thank you, until the consecration. The priest had his back to us, but I could make out his words very clearly: “This is My Body....This is My Blood.” He was speaking very quietly, but my heart could not have heard those familiar words more loudly. My thoughts flashed back to the communion service years ago when I considered those same words, but this time I let my mind dwell on them. It was as though an arrow had pierced right through me. “This is”: How much clearer could our Lord make it for us? To me, suddenly it just made perfect sense. But, wait a minute, this must be “the enemy” once again attempting to advance on my soul. However, in retrospect, that moment became another turning point of my spiritual journey. The next few days brought much in the way of questions, soul-searching questions, not just of a spiritual nature, but also of a practical nature. What would our pastor and our friends say? What would my family think? And then, what about my job? We continued to attend St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, where the priest taught us the Catholic view of Church history, a Catholic view of theology, and about the teachings of the Church Fathers and saints. (Also, he was wise in warning us about the effect of the Second Vatican Council, and how it had wreaked havoc on the Catholic Church.) In a nut shell, it all made such sense! Protestants base their “faith” on teachings of men from the time of the Protestant Reformation; Catholics base their faith on the teachings of the Apostles who sat under Jesus Christ Himself! I had wondered for years why God would have allowed Christians to flounder from the time of the Apostles until the Reformation (some 1500 years!) before He would rejoin His Church and bring the gospel to the world through the reformers and their Protestant sects. It would appear that the gates of hell had indeed prevailed against the Church for most of Church history if the Protestants were right! And the final surprise was that I had finally found an authority that claimed to be THE authority to teach truth: the Catholic Church! How blind we were up to this time. Sure, we had all manner of questions about Catholic doctrine and practice. But as we worked our way along through all this, one issue or doctrine at a time, it all fit together perfectly. But, again, what if all this is Satan’s wily way to trick us? Are we being deceived? Occasionally God would send us an indication that we were heading in the right direction. One such example came in the form of a cassette tape recording of the conversion of Scott Hahn, a former Presbyterian pastor who had become Catholic. One night Doug, Julie, and I sat at the kitchen table listening to Scott’s story in total amazement. His path was in many ways the same as ours. He too had been a conservative Presbyterian, reformed in theology, and a pastor afraid of what it might cost him personally if he were to become a Catholic. This man had walked the same path as we had, asking all the same questions, and had found all the answers in the Catholic Faith. That tape came at precisely the right moment for the three of us. It was just the help we needed in our pursuit of truth. We alternately laughed and cried there at the kitchen table. While we continued to read and study, we also attended daily Mass in neighborhood Catholic churches in the area. We were troubled by the www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • May 2007 34 various things we witnessed. We saw irreverence in the Mass, lack of regard for the Blessed Sacrament, liturgical dancers, and other disturbing things. In addition, we read of the abuses coming out of Rome itself. From priests to Pope, Church leaders were both straying away from the teaching of the Church, and living lives that one would expect to find only in the lowest parts of society! What was going on? Once again, God’s timing was at work. One day we were visiting with the proprietor of a small Catholic gift shop in downtown Oakland who spoke of her church where the traditional Latin Mass was said. Fr. Vladimir Kozina, an elderly Slovenian priest at St. Margaret Mary Church had received “permission” to say the Indult Mass once per week. When we attended the first time, as we read along in the missal, we knew we had found what we were looking for, the Mass that we had read about in our studies, the Mass for which countless saints had given their lives down through the centuries, the Mass that had been all but killed by Vatican II. One Sunday morning as we were getting ready to go to Mass, Julie popped the question: “Are we going to become Catholic or not?” In the context of what we had observed and heard concerning the present-day Church, I responded, “Regardless of what we have seen in the present-day Church, this is the Church that Christ established long ago on the Rock, Peter. This is it. We have to become Catholics!” That Sunday, immediately following Mass, we sought counsel from Fr. Kozina about how we could finally become Roman Catholics. On All Saints’ Day, 1991, having received conditional baptism, my wife, our four children, and I were brought into the Catholic Church. The news of our conversions began to spread around at Family Radio. Harold Camping, General Manager, upon hearing it ordered me into his office where he made it very clear that if he heard anything in my programs that could be considered specifically “Catholic,” I’d be out of a job. (The truth is that there was much that went out over the air to the entire country that was very “Catholic.”) Camping also said that our conversion was the worst thing that had ever happened to any employee in the 35-year history of the organization. That was quite a statement since Family Radio employees had committed their share of serious sin: suicide, theft, divorce, etc. So this, in his eyes, was the worst thing yet! Little did he know there would be more converts in the future. About that time, our priest, Fr. Kozina, retired, and the traditional influence he put forth at St. Margaret Mary Church began to wane. Some parishioners decided to stay at St. Margaret Mary Church and hope for the best, some began attending THE ANGELUS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org independent chapels, and some traveled an hour or more to a St. Pius X chapel in Los Gatos, near San Jose, California. At first I was apprehensive of the Society of St. Pius X. I had heard that they were schismatic, and that was enough to keep me away from them. What changed my mind was a visit to the SSPX church in Oak Park, Illinois, Our Lady Immaculate, where I witnessed the piety of its members. Frankly, I was impressed by what I witnessed. When I returned home, I purchased the three-volume set of books by Michael Davies, Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre [available as a set from Angelus Press. Price: $44.95–Ed.] which outlines the charges and actions against the founder of the Society of St. Pius X, and I concluded with Davies that Rome was out of order in the excommunication of Archbishop Lefebvre. Further inquiry lead me to realize that the Society has never been declared to be schismatic by Rome at all; in fact, what they are is simply Catholic. That was what I was searching for–a church that was “Catholic.” We became actively involved in the Society chapel in Los Gatos, California, immediately. One of the amazing aspects of our Faith is God’s timing. Julie had been diagnosed with cancer several years previously, and as she became unable to attend Mass at all, a Society priest would bring her the Blessed Sacrament. At that time I was working nights at Family Radio so I could take Julie to her doctor visits and therapy during the day. In December 1998, though, my days at Family Radio came to a sudden end. One night I checked my mail box and found a new “Statement of Faith” for me to sign and return. The previous Statement was very general and a bit ambiguous, something a Catholic could live with. But the new Statement was written in a totally different manner, and very specific in its anti-Catholic tone, so I could not sign it. The next morning, Harold Camping telephoned to inform me that my work at Family Radio was ended, but he wanted to see me in his office in the afternoon to talk. Although I had no idea how I could take care of the needs of my wife and family, I cannot put into words how relieved I was to finally be free from that old connection with my Protestant past. In my hour-long visit with Camping this relieved attitude must have been obvious as I dominated the conversation with this man who normally is very controlling. I had the floor, for once. I challenged him on his primary theological premise, one of the two pillars of Protestantism: the Bible alone and in its entirety is the basis of our faith and practice (the other pillar being salvation by faith alone). I asked for Scripture references to support his position, and he had none. Isn’t it strange that the fundamental 35 beliefs of the so-called Protestant Reformation have no biblical basis at all? If one believes that the Bible is the only source for faith and practice, should we not expect to find clear references to that point of theology in the Bible? I also pointed out that he and all Protestants are under the curse of God (Apoc. 22:19) for removing entire books from the Bible. (Protestants have long accused Catholics of adding the deuterocanonical books to the Old Testament though these books had been canonized by the early Church Fathers. In reality it is the Protestants who are in error, as they are guilty of removing the deuterocanical books from the Old Testament!) I was taken aback by his next comment, “Well, Bob, at least we have the 66 books of the Bible.” What that means, coming from him, is that he recognizes the error of the Protestant world in removing parts of the Bible. However, he would never admit (in public) that he then disagrees with his own basic premise that the Bible alone and in its entirety is the Word of God! As I said, God’s timing was just right. Since I was free from the responsibility of working, I was then available to be with Julie 24 hours a day for the next three months, to take care of hospice care and other business at home. In the last month of her life, she was blessed with receiving the sacraments of Confession, Communion, and Extreme Unction, and with them all the graces that can come from the Church. On February 13, 1999, she was taken from us to go to God. About a month later, after my family had settled into a new regimen, once again Doug sensed it was time for him to move on. He still wanted to live a life of prayer and meditation as a hermit. But where? He would need the basics of life: food, shelter, clothing, and access to a traditional Mass. He searched maps of the US, and came up with only one possible area that would neither be too hot in the summer nor too cold in the winter. The area he settled on was in the Gila National Forest near Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery not far from Silver City, New Mexico. He lived there for over one year, after which, through very unusual circumstances, he was able to relocate to private property surrounded by an even more remote part of the Gila National Forest. After eight years of hermit life, he still has no source of income. His every need is met much by non-Catholics. In a recent letter he reported that he is finally doing what God had called him to do decades ago. In addition to Doug, Holly, my oldest daughter, has chosen a similar path. Following a silent retreat at St. Aloysius Retreat Center in Los Gatos, California, she knew that the religious life was for her. Her spiritual director encouraged her to consider the religious life. For Holly, at the age of 20, it was a giant act of faith to leave her family and go to a strange place not knowing the language and not knowing what it would be like. Three years later she made her first vows, and in July of 2006 I was blessed to be present as she made her final vows. As for the rest of my family, Joel is working in apartment maintenance, and Heather and Hannah finished high school at home, and have their own work and lives. I have been working in property management and apartment inspections (when it comes down to it, one does what his hands find to do). We all are active at Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel in Los Gatos, California, part of the Society of St. Pius X. Looking back on the events that led up to our becoming traditional Catholics, it is rather amazing. There is no way, humanly speaking, that we could have arranged the pieces of the puzzle to bring us here. For me it began with the question of authority; the real question was how can I be sure my understanding of truth is true? From there, years later, it lead to my brother-in-law’s inquiry about living as a monk, our exposure to what was at least outwardly “Catholic” in a High Anglican church, and to a copy of the conversion story of a former Presbyterian pastor. From there our path led to the owner of a Catholic gift shop who directed us to the traditional Latin Mass and the Slovenian priest who was instrumental in directing our steps into the Catholic Church. And finally side-stepping the novelties and errors of the Novus Ordo Church, we found our way to a traditional Catholic society that is totally Roman Catholic. Once we were introduced to the Catholic faith of history, the Church of the Fathers of our Faith who sat at the feet of the Apostles, we were on our way to truth. With that as a foundation, the teachings of the Protestant sects had to go, and with them the novelties of the modern Catholic Church. Why did I become Roman Catholic? I became Roman Catholic because this is the Church Jesus Christ built on Peter, the rock (Mt. 16:18), and I want to be obedient to the authority that Christ established. Why did I become a traditional Roman Catholic? I became a traditional Roman Catholic because only in the time-tested traditions of the Church can the Roman Catholic Church be found. As St. Paul said long ago, “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which you have received, let him be anathema” (Gal. 1:8). Robert F. Swenson is a Catholic who hopes that his conversion story may help someone to become a Catholic or encourage others in their Catholic Faith. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • May 2007 Ten Minutes 36 with Fr. de Chivré: Adapting To Christ’s Mentality There is a vital necessity to adapt to Christ in a world radically at odds with His spirit. Every one of us, whatever his situation, is a cause, a fountainhead, an origin, a principle. When a principle is tainted, it calls down disaster: On the contrary, when a person espouses what is superior, he too becomes superior in his way of considering things below him. So what does it mean to adapt? It means taking the measurements of a map in order to “conform” oneself to it. At the starting point, there always has to be knowledge of a measure. You should know the measurements of the gift of yourself, of intimacy with God, of adoration, in function with your past, with THE ANGELUS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org your graces, with your invitations, etc. Adaptation presupposes a model that does not depend on us and the reproduction of that model, which does depend on us. We have to assume the measure of Christ. We have to be willing to measure ourselves against the infinite. It will stretch us apart. What is the measure of Christ? “I am come that they may have life. Thy will be done.” The measure of Christ is the will of God and the salvation of others. It is only on Calvary that the full measure is accomplished. We become a question for s : s 37 those around us to the extent that we are secretly an answer for God. When we continually say yes to God, we become a question for those around us. “I have come to trouble the earth,” to pose a question. We do not know what it means to trouble the world. The good and even the best of us are only timid. The measure of Christ is the Cross. He adapted Himself to the dimensions of the Cross; and they were dimensions that stretch apart. We need to love and to consent to that stretching apart which alone can raise us to the dimensions of Christ. He adapted Himself to the form of the Cross: rigid, pitiless, brutal. A cruel rigidity, indispensable for supporting the body of Christ in order to guarantee the Redemption. The rigidity of spiritual commitments, guaranteeing their solidity, as opposed to feelings and religious emotion, which are still a kind of self-seeking: if it feels good—you’re ready for anything; if it doesn’t feel good—you’re not so ready. Whereas with the solidity of the Faith, whatever the cost, you’re always ready. Christ adapted Himself to the weight of the Cross—and it was a weight out of all measure with the strength of the One who sought nonetheless to measure up to it, and who only managed to do so by an excess of love. When you have the acute realization that for one reason or another–physical, moral, spiritual–you cannot shoulder the weight of your day, God becomes for you someone very real and very near, and you can only carry that weight by an excess of love for Him, that is to say, by surpassing your duty in superabundance. What did Christ possess that let Him take on the dimensions of the Cross? He possessed His acceptance of the will of the Father. He possessed His repulsion for evil and for falsehood, to which He preferred labor and pain. He possessed His intense love, in the constant service of the Redemption. As soon as we start dreaming of dispensations and of adapting to ease, we can no longer adapt ourselves to Christ. God does us the honor of adapting us to things nobler than us. All of our own value, in the deepest sense, comes from letting the Cross take the measure of our spiritual dimensions. The role of the Christian is to adapt himself to the cross: the cross of an unforeseen suffering; the cross of a chosen rule of life; the cross of a voluntary penance. To the degree we adapt ourselves to it, the Cross hides for us a sweetness, meaning a solution: one we would turn to look for in the pleasures and satisfactions that un-adapt us to God. Sin draws us through pleasure to bitterness. The Cross draws us through bitterness to the sweetness of God. That is precisely the paradox which nobody wants to experience any longer. God asks us to give our full measure—and He has measured and weighed us from all eternity. He makes us pass through the purgatory of love which is called the Cross, or else through purgatory pure and simple. The solution is to adapt ourselves to the divine dimensions, which are redemptive, not intellectual or emotional. After all, where is real productivity? In divine, redemptive solutions: “Unless the grain of wheat fall to the ground and die...” We do not want to be redeemed. We do God the “honor” of drawing His attention to our lives, but we eliminate the Redemption. We do not know what it means to let ourselves be redeemed. Calvary alone can bring about the resurrection and the ascension of masses and individuals. Calvary alone. Nothing is more realistic, nothing more “flesh and blood,” more positive, more true, more concrete than Christ, precisely because He is spiritual. Religion does not boil down to intellectual conceptions that dispense us from living redemptive methods. The first of those methods is prayer, that gaze of the poor man begging for light: “I am hungry...give me to eat!” Prayer is the most fundamental act of the redeemed, a cry from the depths of one who knows he is lost and who begs for the Redeemer. We see our Lord constantly talking about prayer. He forces man to realize that prayer is like breathing if he wants to be saved. In order to live, therefore, it is necessary to step beyond purely intellectual notions. When we want to participate in the life of Christ, we have to put ourselves on the line: a confession that hurts, an effort that weighs on us, a disproportion that puts us in proportion. This is the method that separates us from the world. But we want to be of the world, we want to be like everyone else, we do not want to take on wholeheartedly the position that redeems. The Faith is essentially heroic. I said that we are each called to be a fountainhead, a spring. Springs are always in the heights, on the summits. A summit is far from the world: summits of professional conscience, giving the impression that, even on the human level, you are already on the summits; summits in the moral life, breathtaking with supernatural tact. People will say: “Where did that come from?” It came from contemplation, penance, intimacy with the life of God. “Pure”: Agios, without mixture. Personal purity: an absence of mixture with flesh and blood. Crucified in his flesh, liberated in his soul. Crucified in his time, liberated in his activities. When God takes hold of a being, He takes hold of it by its substance, by its points of reference, by its intentions, and He changes everything around. He shakes everything up. But nothing is shaken up, and nothing changes, because Christians no longer have a thirst to adapt themselves to God, but an obsession with adapting themselves to the world. Originally published as “L’adaptation à la mentalité du Christ,” Carnets Spirituels, No. 10, October 2006, pp.14-18. Translated exclusively for Angelus Press. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • May 2007 3 Letter #70 h . e . B i s h o p B e r n a r d f e l l a y Letter #70 to Friends and Benefactors from Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X Dear Friends and Benefactors, For a long time we have desired to send you this letter to give you some news of our dear Society. We have postponed sending it because we wanted to explain to you our position after the publication announced months ago of the motu proprio on permission to celebrate the Tridentine Mass. For, last October while we were gathering our spiritual bouquet for obtaining the liberation of the holy Mass, everything seemed to indicate an imminent publication of a motu proprio by Pope Benedict XVI concerning the question. But it seems that the staunch opposition of certain episcopates has constrained the Sovereign Pontiff to delay it “a little while.” This “little while” is turning into a lengthy duration, so that we shall not wait any longer to share with you our take on the situation. First, let me thank you warmly for your generous prayer. Our [General] Chapter had set the goal of offering a million rosaries by the end of October. The harvest was abundant indeed, as we were finally able to send the pope a spiritual bouquet of two and a half million rosaries. In our letter [to the pope] accompanying the bouquet, we indicated that we had wanted to show by this concrete act our will to collaborate in the rebuilding of the Church and Christendom. It is obvious to us that this terrible crisis, which has afflicted the Church since the Second Vatican Council, will not come to an end ThE ANgEluS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org without a vast effort and a very great determination on the hierarchy’s part, beginning with the Vicar of Christ. For, in the circumstances, it will take overcoming the lethargy created by a bad habit; it will mean refuting errors and even heresies and other positions totally incompatible with the doctrine of the Church, the Bride of Christ, which have become embedded in the Mystical Body. A happy result cannot be hoped for without the powerful help of Heaven. That is why we turned, and are still turned, towards Our Lady and Our Lord to obtain an improvement in the Church. Even if till now the desired result has not come about, nevertheless, in the month of October we were witness to a scene concerning the Mass of All Time that had not been seen in the last decade. For, contrary to the usual slogans, which attribute attachment to the Latin liturgy to nostalgia or a particular sensibility, this time serious arguments were being made: freedom for priests to celebrate the Tridentine Mass would create doctrinal problems, they tell us; this Mass endangers the achievements of Vatican II. How can we not rejoice over this sudden discovery? If we closely consider the arguments advanced this time, especially by the French episcopate, but also at Rome and in Germany, one notices that the bishops in fact are afraid of this Mass. Even Rome is being extremely careful not to disavow Paul VI’s reform while outlining the possibility of a return to the old Mass. The progressivists’ fear is such that it 39 is necessary [for Rome] to go to great lengths and to argue forcefully for broadening the permission for priests’ to celebrate the Tridentine Mass. Certainly, that also explains why we have not yet received either thanks or a response to our letter from the Sovereign Pontiff or even the Vatican. In the present situation, we can and we must draw some conclusions for the future, even if we do not yet know the exact terms of this much talkedabout motu proprio. 1) If we consider how Roman documents have been received during the last decade by the episcopate and the faithful, we are obliged to say that what prevails is a very great indifference that has frustrated the measures recommended in them by Rome. Whether it be the place of laymen in the liturgy or, more recently, liturgical prescriptions; whether it concern the Declaration Dominus Jesus or the condemnation of abortion and euthanasia, one cannot fail to notice that the documents have had no real effect. One can well wonder even now whether the motu proprio will not have the same fate. 2) Nonetheless, since the document extends a favor rather than imposes a restriction, and since, moreover, it is addressed to persons who are very interested in the matter, it could well be that the expectations of the faithful and priests will awaken the hierarchies in some countries from their lethargy and disturb their resistance. This is what certain bishops are thinking of when they warn of a risk of liturgical anarchy in their dioceses. Considering the multiplicity of forms the New Mass has taken in reality, one might wonder where this new-found fear of “division” can be coming from. On the contrary, the traditional liturgy has always proven to be a factor of unity, especially because of its sacred language, Latin. 3) It is quite unlikely that this motu proprio will be followed by a mass movement. The priests and faithful who desire the old liturgy are proportionally few in number, and the others have lost the taste for it or the interest. It will take many serious efforts to restore to its place of honor in the whole Church the venerable and sacred rite that sanctified centuries and centuries of Christendom. 4) It will be, rather, a movement that will take off slowly, but which will slowly gain strength as the riches and beauty of the lost liturgy are rediscovered. Indeed, simply by granting the Tridentine Mass the right to exist (this Mass was never suppressed!), it will gradually impose itself since the New Mass cannot rival it. 5) At any rate, a broader permission to celebrate the old Mass is a blessing for the Church. Certainly, the publication of this document might engender a certain confusion “among us,” in the sense that it will create the impression of a rapprochement between the official Church and Tradition. When it happens, an appeal by Rome for renewed unity should be expected. For the SSPX, a greater liberalization of the holy Mass is a cause for rejoicing, a step towards the restoration of Tradition; however, the distrust born of years of self-defense and combat against “those who should be our pastors” will not be easily allayed. Indeed, the New Mass should be considered an effect much more than a cause of the crisis that has afflicted the Church for nearly 40 years. In other words, our situation will be practically unchanged by the return of the old Mass so long as it is not accompanied by other absolutely essential rectifications. 6) Ecumenism, liberalism, and this spirit of the world that defiles the Bride of Christ are still the principles animating the Conciliar Church. These principles kill the spirit of God, the Christian spirit. We must understand more than ever the roots of the crisis in order to keep ourselves from rushing blindly into the new situation that would be created by the motu proprio. Before thinking of the measures that will need to be taken for our canonical regularization, an in-depth discussion of these questions is indispensable. We hope that Rome at last understands our demand to see any discussions preceded by what we call our preliminaries or preconditions, one of which would be met by the motu proprio. For 30 years we have refused to take the poison; it is for this reason that we have been rejected, and it is still the condition (more or less hidden) that Rome imposes for accepting us. Ecumenism, religious liberty, and collegiality remain the points of contention over which we will not budge. 7) What we have been saying up to this point is just speculation. The concrete circumstances, that is, the actual terms of the motu proprio, may require other distinctions and clarifications. Entering Lent, let us remember that the gifts of Heaven are obtained by purifying prayer and penance, that God listens more willingly to the prayer of a pure and humble heart. Let us continue, then, our crusade of prayer, and join to it some voluntary penances to wrest from Heaven what the Churchmen find so hard to give to our souls. Even if God does not seem to listen to our supplications, let us not be discouraged. He is putting us to the test, and wants to make us earn even more merits. + Bernard Fellay www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • May 2007 0 F r . P e t e r R . S c o t t Commentary on SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS We were recently encouraged to hear of an Apostolic Exhortation of the Holy Father that appeared last February 22, promoting the usage of Latin. Called Sacramentum Caritatis, it is an exhortation on the Eucharist, with the purpose of implementing the October 2005 Synod of Bishops held at the Vatican “and to offer some basic directions aimed at a renewed commitment to eucharistic enthusiasm and fervor in the Church” (§5). It is certainly true that this 35-page document does have a small paragraph on the use of Latin, proposing that large scale concelebrations “could be celebrated in Latin” (§62). The Pope goes on to give a more precise direction: Speaking more generally, I ask that future priests, from their time in the seminary, receive the preparation needed ThE ANgEluS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org to understand and to celebrate Mass in Latin, and also to use Latin texts and execute Gregorian chant; nor should we forget that the faithful can be taught to recite the more common prayers in Latin, and also to sing parts of the liturgy to Gregorian Chant. (Ibid.) We can only applaud such a measure, which would mean, if ever it were implemented, a radical change in almost every modern Seminary. Also are appreciated the recommendations for individual absolution (i.e., not collective), for the gaining of indulgences for oneself and the dead, to obtain the remission of the temporal punishment due for sins already forgiven (§21), and for Eucharistic adoration, either perpetual (§67) or special forms such as Corpus Christi processions, for “if suitably updated 41 and adapted to local circumstances, these forms of devotion are still worthy of being practiced today” (§68). For if this could hardly be called a strong encouragement, it is at least a mention. Spirit of Vatican II in the Exhortation However, these isolated recommendations will make no real impact, firstly because they are but recommendations, and secondly because the spirit of the exhortation is entirely that of the Second Vatican Council. It is explicitly denied that the terrible abuses, the loss of vocations, the destruction of the sacred, the emptying of prayer life is any way a consequence of the spirit of Vatican II. To the contrary, it acknowledged and reaffirmed the beneficial influence on the Church’s life of the liturgical renewal which began with the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council….The difficulties and even the occasional abuses…cannot overshadow the benefits and the validity of the liturgical renewal, whose riches are yet to be fully explored. (§3) Furthermore, in Note 6 Benedict XVI insists on the need for continuity with Vatican II, which he considers in no way in rupture with the past or the present: I am referring here to the need of a hermeneutic of continuity also with regard to the correct interpretation of the liturgical development which followed the Second Vatican Council. Allow me to list some examples of how the spirit of Vatican II has produced what could barely be deemed even half measures: • Whilst acknowledging the abuses in the kiss of peace (§49) and the distribution of Communion (§50), it does not do away with the former, nor abolish Communion in the hand, nor lay ministers of the Eucharist. • Whilst limiting somewhat the practice of administering Holy Communion to non-Catholics and expressing “the intrinsic link between the Eucharist and the Church’s unity,” it proceeds to make this preposterously contradictory statement: “Yet it remains true that, for the sake of their eternal salvation, individual non-Catholic Christians can be admitted to the Eucharist, the sacrament of Reconciliation and the Anointing of the Sick” (§56, my emphasis), as if conversion and membership in the true Church were no long necessary for salvation. • Whilst admitting abuses in inculturation, it continues to promote the injection of pagan culture even into the Mass itself: “A more effective participation of the faithful in the holy mysteries will thus benefit from the continued inculturation of the eucharistic celebration” (§54). • Whilst admitting that “it is appropriate” to still locate the tabernacle on the main altar where it still exists (§69), it makes no effort to undo the • • destruction of the altars, and still maintains the general desacralizing rule of the separation of tabernacle and altar, preferring that it be located in a separate chapel, and only “where this is not possible, it is preferable to locate the tabernacle in the sanctuary.” Whilst admitting the importance of “concrete outward signs of reverence…such as kneeling during the central moments of the Eucharistic Prayer” (§65), it prescribes absolutely nothing to promote reverence, except that “everyone should be able to experience…the legitimate diversity of signs used in the context of different cultures” (ibid). Whilst admitting the danger of the denial of Catholic doctrine on the priesthood, it still accepts that there be Sunday assemblies in the absence of a priest (§75). “True Humanism” However, most revealing is Pope Benedict XVI’s personal statement of purpose: I wish to set the present Exhortation along side my first Encyclical Letter, Deus Caritas Est, in which I frequently mentioned the sacrament of the Eucharist and stressed its relationship to Christian love.… (§5) For the Pope’s first encyclical, on love, deliberately attempted a fusion of self-love and self-sacrificing love, of human love and divine love, of eros and agape, of nature and grace, proclaiming the New Law to be a “true humanism” (Deus, §9) “in the service of man” (Deus, §30). The effect of this conception is seen in the Holy Father’s concluding recommendation for development of “a profound eucharistic spirituality” (Sacramentum Caritatis, §92), culminating as it does in “the justified concern about threats to the environment” (ibid.), i.e., the cosmos! [D]uring the presentation of the gifts, the priest raises to God a prayer of blessing and petition over the bread and wine, “fruit of the earth,” “fruit of the vine” and “work of human hands.” With these words the rite not only includes in our offering to God all human efforts and activity, but also leads us to see the world as God’s creation, which brings forth everything we need for our sustenance. (§92) The Pope’s conclusion demonstrates perfectly this parallelism, falsely uniting the supernatural to the natural order as to reduce the former to the latter: The relationship between the Eucharist and the cosmos helps us to see the unity of God’s plan and to grasp the profound relationship between creation and the “new creation” inaugurated in the resurrection of Christ, the new Adam. (Ibid.) If we would like to understand how radically the traditional Mass contrasts with this naturalistic concept, expressing the unchanging Faith, we have only to re-read the corresponding prayers from the traditional Mass, so sacred, divine, and filled with supernatural hope: www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • May 2007 42 Receive, O Holy Father, Almighty and Eternal God, this spotless host, which I thine unworthy servant, offer unto Thee, my living and true God, for mine own countless sins, transgressions and failings; for all here present and for all faithful Christians, living and dead, that it may avail both me and them unto salvation in everlasting life. We offer Thee the chalice of salvation, O Lord, beseeching Thy mercy that it may be as a sweet fragrance before Thy divine Majesty for the salvation of us and of the whole world. Amen. Divine Worship It is in the context of his humanism that Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks concerning worship can be understood, in utter opposition to the traditional concept. For the primary purpose of the Church’s public worship, as taught by St. Pius X (Tra le Sollecitudini) is the greater glory of Almighty God, and not the instruction of, or sharing, or communication among the people. For in a truly theocentric manner, it continues Christ’s act of glorification of His Father (cf. Jn. 8:49, 17:1,4), by adoration surrendering us completely to the Almighty, by thanksgiving recognizing our entire dependence upon Him and His grace (as we say in the Gloria: “We give thanks to Thee for Thy great glory”), by expiation making up for the innumerable sins by which we have offended Him, and by petition obtaining the supernatural graces without which we could not glorify Him. This worship of the Most Holy Trinity is summed up at the end of the Canon of the Mass by these words: “By Him and with Him and in Him are ever given to Thee, God the Father Almighty, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honor and glory, world without end. Amen.” Entirely different is the worship of the true humanism promoted by Benedict XVI. For worship itself, which we regard as entirely God-centered, is for him centered so much on the community, the people, the assembly as to be incomprehensible without it, in a truly man-centered manner. Here is his definition of worship: “In a word, ‘worship’ itself, eucharistic communion, includes the reality both of being loved and loving others in turn” (§82). Worship is consequently entirely reduced to the level of moral and human virtue, and consequently is neither truly divine, nor separable from any other human activity, nor does it essentially refer to the divine Majesty. Since Benedict XVI identifies the Eucharist with worship, he ends up by identifying the Eucharist, as well as worship, with every human activity: Here we can see the full human import of the radical newness brought by Christ in the Eucharist: the worship of God in our lives cannot be relegated to something private and individual, but tends by its nature to permeate every aspect of our existence. (§71) The element of truth is that he who truly worships God is transformed by grace in every aspect of his existence, but to say that worship is THE ANGELUS • May 2007 www.angeluspress.org that transformation, or, even worse, to say that the Eucharist is ultimately that transformation, is to deny the transcendent object of our worship, the all holy and undivided Trinity. Another expression fully demonstrates this deliberate confusion of the Pope’s “true humanism”: The Eucharist, since it embraces the concrete, everyday existence of the believer.…There is nothing authentically human–our thoughts and affections, our words and deeds– that does not find in the sacrament of the Eucharist the form it needs to be lived to the full. (Ibid.) If this does not reduce God to the level of man, what does? If I have isolated certain quotes from their context, it is on purpose, to highlight the true principles behind the Pope’s theology of the New Mass that would otherwise remain hidden to the casual reader amongst the verbiage of many other and sometimes attractive expressions. The gravity of this humanism can best be seen by comparison with a traditional encyclical. It is now more than a century since Pope Leo XIII published his powerful encyclical on the same subject, the role of the Blessed Eucharist in the modern world, writing in 1902 “in an age that is bitterly hostile to justice and truth” (Mirae Caritatis): Now a remedy must be found for this wickedness on the one hand, and this sloth on the other, in a general increase amongst the faithful of fervent devotion towards the Eucharistic Sacrifice, than which nothing can give greater honor, nothing be more pleasing to God. For it is a divine Victim which is here immolated; and accordingly through this Victim we offer to the Most Blessed Trinity all that honor which the infinite dignity of the Godhead demands; infinite in value and infinitely acceptable is the gift which we present to the Father in His only-begotten Son; so that for His benefits to us we not only signify our gratitude, but actually make an adequate return. ...The heart is saddened when it considers what a flood of wickedness, the result–as We have said–of forgetfulness and contempt of the divine Majesty, has inundated the world….Here then is a motive whereby the faithful may be stirred to a devout and earnest endeavor to appease God, the avenger of sin, and to win from Him the help which is so needful in these calamitous times….For it is only in virtue of the death which Christ suffered that man can satisfy, and that most abundantly, the demands of God’s justice, and can obtain the plenteous gifts of His clemency. And Christ has willed that the whole virtue of His death, alike for expiation and for impetration, should abide in the Eucharist, which is no mere empty commemoration thereof, but a true and wonderful, though bloodless and mystical, renewal of it. (§17-18) Let these words be our inspiration as we focus all the efforts of our worship on the Divine Person of Our Lord, really present in the Most Blessed Sacrament, on our altars, “always living to make intercession for us” (Heb. 7:25). Fr. Peter Scott was ordained by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988. After assignments as seminary professor and the US District Superior, he is currently the rector of Holy Cross Seminary in Goulburn, Australia. F R . p e t e r Is it permissible for a Catholic to speculate on the stock market or on the international currency exchange market? R . s c o t t 43 Is it good for laymen, untrained in theology and philosophy, to read papal encyclicals? Q The natural law right to private property brings with it the right to buy and sell, to own, and consequently to trade in property such as shares in public or private companies. Such private investment is, indeed, absolutely essential to the common good, for without capital there can be no production. The fact that the outcome of such investments is highly chancy does not change the morality, provided that a man does not thereby invest the funds necessary for the support of his family. Nor does the fact that one man’s gain is another man’s loss, provided that there is no deception, fraud or taking advantage of another’s ignorance. Speculation, though, is not the same thing as investment, but is rather a short term placing of money in stocks or currency to make a quick profit by a rapid sale at a time when the market is strong. Such speculation is not against justice, since the terms of the contract are kept, nor can it be considered in itself a sin, given that all the terms of the various contracts of buying and selling and the requirements of civil law are observed. Nevertheless “they are not morally commendable unless they are required by some commercial necessity” (Merkelbach, Summa Theologiae Moralis, II, §604). The principle is given by Pope Pius XII in a radio message to the entire world on September 1, 1944, in which he condemns not only Communism, for its denial of the right to private property, but also “the Capitalism” “founded on an erroneous conception that arrogates to itself an unlimited right over property outside of all subordination to the common good” as always having been condemned by the Church “as contrary to the natural law” (in PIN, §831). The Catholic with an upright conscience ought to make his capital and his investments not only for his own profit, but also for the common good of society. It is to be highly doubted whether transient speculations on stock and money markets make any real contribution to the common good, but rather to be wondered that they are selfish and harmful to the common good. Fr. Merkelbach explains why he does not find such speculation morally commendable, for such speculators It is certainly true that the encyclicals of the Popes are addressed to the Bishops throughout the world, indicating what they must teach their flocks. The reason for this is that the bishops make up the official teaching Church. However, this does not mean that they are so complex that they cannot be readily understood by the well-educated Catholic layman. For a Catholic who has studied his catechism in depth has a sufficient summary of theology to be able to understand papal encyclicals. Although they do contain theological concepts that only a theologian can fully understand, their teachings are generally expressed in a way that any educated man can understand. Consequently, they are not exclusively for the bishops, but with the intention that their teachings be passed on, which is most accurately done by the simple publication of the encyclical letter. In fact, the fundamental reason why the papal encyclicals ought to be studied by all Catholics, in this age when the text is readily available, is that they are the usual expression of the Popes’ Ordinary Magisterium or teaching authority. Without being infallible statements (in general), they hand down the deposit of Faith contained in Scripture and Tradition, adapting it to the times in which we are living, resolving conflicts and disputes, and condemning modern errors. They must, therefore, be accepted and consented to. This is clearly stated by Pope Pius XII: A immoderately retain their capital in intermediary operations that have no real utility; and strive to obtain riches without proportionate labor and without subordination to the common good, indeed with loss for others who do not freely expose themselves to chance, but are bound to do so for business reasons. Moreover, the custom of becoming preoccupied with monetary speculations encourages an overwhelming desire for gain, to which they subordinate all things, and every activity. It entrains constant anxiety, and exposes to a great danger of wastefulness, idleness and the financial ruin of businesses and families. (Ibid.) It is unfortunate that some traditional Catholics consider that such a way of life is compatible with the Social Reign of Christ, indulging as they do in such trading on the Internet, without consideration of how such speculative trading could serve Christ the King, or possibly following the false principle that the ends justify the means. The mind of the Church is contained in the traditional (1917) Canon Law’s interdiction of all such speculation for all clerics and religious, even for the benefit of the Church, or other persons (Canon 142). Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: “He who heareth you, heareth Me” (Lk. 10:16). (Humani Generis, §20) If at all times the instructed Catholic could not afford to be ignorant of the content of papal encyclicals, this is more the case since the time of the French Revolution, in which liberal errors infiltrating the Church have been constantly and repeatedly condemned in papal encyclicals. This is the reason Archbishop Lefebvre instituted for his seminarians entering into the first year of their Seminary studies, before beginning the study of Philosophy and Theology, a course called Acts of the Magisterium, a brief study of the most important liberal errors condemned by the Popes over the 150 years up until Vatican II. This course of study has been published as the book Against the Heresies, in the introduction to which Archbishop Lefebvre has this to say: Why study the Acts of the Church’s Magisterium? Quite simply, in order to grasp the situation of the Church today. One notices, in fact, that for nearly three centuries the popes have always condemned the same errors, those which they themselves called “the modern errors.” (p.xviii) A Catholic who wants to save his soul, avoid modern errors, and combat the perversion of liberals, must read the papal encyclicals. Otherwise, he will never understand the errors of Vatican II, the evil of the New Mass, the infiltration of liberalism into the Church and that modernism is truly “the synthesis of all heresies” (Pascendi §39). It is for this reason that the statutes of the Third Order of the Society of St. Pius X make it an obligation even for lay people to study the Acts of St. Pius X, which means principally his 14 encyclicals. The Angelus monthly photo essay contest Any member of a household aged 10-18 whose family address has a current subscription to The Angelus (either in print or online) is eligible. There may be more than one entry per address if more than one child is eligible. (Please include your family’s address and phone number, especially if you are a contestant writing from a boarding school.) Pricing for The Angelus is found at the bottom of the “Table of Contents” page. The Angelus is offering $150 for a 250-word creative writing composition on the above picture. If none is deserving of the prize, none will be awarded. The winning essay may be published if there is a winner. An extra $50 is available if one is a member of the SSPX Eucharistic Crusade (and can be verified as such: include a letter from your chaplain). Entrants must submit a creative-writing composition in their own words about the featured monthly picture. Submissions must be hand-written and will be judged on content, legibility, and creativity. The essays will be judged by parties outside of Angelus Press. Essays must be postmarked by may 31 and be addressed to: Angelus Press Attention: The Angelus Photo Essay Contest 2915 Forest Avenue, Kansas City, MO 64109 “Male and female He created them” [pp.27-29] Further Reading Fatherhood and Family Vol.3, The Integrity Series Fathers are essential for a healthy family and society. The question is, “What do fathers do?” Forwardthinking Integrity Magazine gives answers: Men, Mary, and Manliness, The Family Has Lost Its Head, Economics of the Catholic Family, Afraid to Marry?, Glorifying the Daily Grind, The Heroism of the Big Family, Bringing the Church into Work, and MUCH more, all in short easy to read article-chapters. 200pp, softcover, STK# 6721 $12.95 Dear Newlyweds Pope Pius XII Pius XII addressed scores of newlyweds who came seeking his blessing on their marriages. These addresses were not off-the-cuff remarks, but taken together, form a complete course of instruction on married life, which is why it is NOT just for newlyweds, but all married couples and anyone contemplating marriage. Newlywed, engaged and married couples will be inspired and uplifted by Pius XII’s explanation of Matrimony and his insight into the practical problems of everyday marriage. 269pp, softcover, STK# 6730 $14.95 Raising Your Children Vol.2, The Integrity Series Confusion prevails about the job of bringing up children. Integrity Magazine, a post-WWII journal by lay Catholics for living an integral Catholic life, has been sifted for insightful articles on every aspect of raising children: Teaching Children to Pray, Purity and the Young Child, Creative Activity, The Dating System, Crisis of Faith in Youth, The Vocation of Parents, Marriage for Keeps and MUCH more all in short easy-to-read article-chapters. 256pp, softcover, STK# 6598 $14.95 Parents, Children and the Facts of Life Fr. Henry V. Sattler To parents, sex education means primarily the training of boys and girls to be pure and innocent, and eventually to enter marriage with a noble and holy purpose. This book helps parents fulfill this duty. Applying traditional Catholic principles to practical questions, he explains what parents should tell their children, when and how they should tell it, what pitfalls they must avoid, and what questions they should expect. 271pp, softcover, index, STK 8138Q $12.50 The Art of Catholic Mothering Christ in the Home How does a mother instill the Faith in her children? Discipline? Maintain her faith in the face of life’s challenges? Here are the stories of 12 Catholic mothers, who, with honesty and humor, tell of their struggles: family rosary, persevering when money and support are scarce, Catholic education, surviving tragedies, & living a fully Catholic life in the post-Vatican II era. For husbands, too, not just mothers! Ideal for the engaged, marriage instruction classes, and for the already married. A guidebook to finding a happy marriage, keeping a happy marriage, and raising happy children is full of practical and spiritual advice in a series of 4 meditations: Courtship, Marriage, the Home, and the Training of Children. His section on imparting sex knowledge to children will be helpful to parents faced with this complex problem and duty. Edited by Maura Koulik 112pp, softcover, STK# 8173. $12.95 How to Raise Good Catholic Children Mary Reed Newland A 50-year-old classic (formerly: We and Our Children). Shows how classic Christian principles of sanctity can be practiced by every family. Even the littlest ones can be introduced to the practice of virtue: The habit of regular prayer, genuine love of the Rosary, a sense of the dignity of work, an understanding and love of purity, and dozens of other skills, habits, and virtues that every good Catholic child needs. 224pp, softcover, STK# 8041 $16.95 Fr. Raoul Plus, SJ 343pp, larger type, softcover, STK 8128 $18.95 The Valiant Woman Msgr. Landriot In Proverbs 31, the Holy Ghost Himself describes the “valiant [strong] woman.” This book is a collection of talks for women. Each address begins with a theme drawn from Proverbs 31. Landriot then explains the moral of the passage with a practical brilliance that could only come from a confessor who was well seasoned in discerning the particular characteristics of the feminine soul. What emerges is an achievable ideal for every Catholic woman. 213pp, softcover, STK 8141Q $18.95 True Devotion to Mary The most complete and thorough preparation to make St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion Consecration, with all the readings he recommended. It has passages from the Bible, The Imitation of Christ, True Devotion to Mary, The Love of Eternal Wisdom, The Secret of the Rosary, The Secret of Mary and Friends of the Cross. Truly ten books in one! Compiled by the chaplain of the Legion of Mary in the US. His best known work. Develops the True Devotion introduced in The Love of Eternal Wisdom. Has some of the greatest passages ever written on the Mother of God. It inspired a series of saints from the Little Flower to the reformed alcoholic St. Matthew Talbot. Provided the spiritual foundations for the Legion of Mary. Fr. Faber’s famous translation. Fr. Helmuts Libietis, SSPX 330pp, color softcover, STK# 6713Q $15.9­5 St. Louis De Montfort 215pp, softcover, STK# 6989. $9.00 Mary, Mother of Divine Grace Rev. Joseph Le Rohellec, Translated by Fr. Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp. In the Litany of Loreto, the Holy Virgin is invoked under the title of “Mother of Divine Grace.” What is the theological meaning of this expression which the Church puts into her liturgy? Find out in three separate sections entitled: “Mary in the Acquisition of Grace,” “Mary in the Distribution of Grace,” and “Mary and the Grace of the Priesthood.” 158pp, softcover, STK# 8167Q $9.95 #1004 Consecration to Mary May–The Month of Mary The Immaculata, Our Ideal Fr. Karl Stehlin, SSPX Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Conquest of Darkness Warren H. Carroll The extraordinary story of the conversion of Mexico and its deliverance from Aztec tyranny is told in an engrossing narrative. The history of Cortes’s conquest, the appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the subsequent conversion of Mexico are well told. Might not true devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe begin here? 123pp, softcover, STK# 6401. $15.00 Loreto and the Holy House Miraculous Medal The most decisive work in English defending the authenticity of this hallowed shrine. Our Lady’s holy house at Nazareth was transported by angels to the Roman province of present-day Croatia in 1291 to prevent its desecration by the Moslems. Three years later it took flight coming to rest in Loreto, Italy, where it has stood until this day. Approximately 100 saints and blessed have made pilgrimages to this sanctuary where countless miracles have occurred. This holy place has been encompassed now for six centuries by a magnificent basilica. In this little cottage “the Word was Made Flesh and Dwelt Among Us.” On July 18, 1830, the Blessed Mother appeared to St. Catherine Labouré in Paris. This book gives an authentic account of this apparition of Our Lady. The author explains how the Miraculous Medal burst upon the world and how, through its mediation, Our Lady wrought the conversions of hardened sinners and countless bodily cures. The symbolism and profound doctrinal message of the medal are fully explained. Fr. G. E. Phillips Fr. M. Aladel, CM 227pp, softcover, STK# 6738 $16.95 St. Maximilian Kolbe heroically died in a Nazi concentration camp. Unfortunately, that’s about all most of us know of this incredible saint. This new book by Fr. Karl Stehlin of the Eastern European District of the Society of Saint Pius X is partly biographical but primarily focuses on St. Maximilian Kolbe’s life-long apostolate of spreading devotion to Our Immaculate Lady following the method of St. Louis de Montfort. Father debunks the typical myths of this so-called “Saint of Ecumenism” and shows his concern with combatting heresy, liberalism, modernism, Freemasonry and the need to convert heretics and Jews. One of the best features of this book is that Fr. Stehlin continually relates Kolbe’s message with the Crisis in the Church...going so far, for example, as to point out how Lumen Gentium makes it nearly impossible for modern Catholics to truly understand the doctrine of this friarknight of Our Lady. 192pp, 24 illustrations, softcover, STK# 8133 $16.95 ver, 151pp, softcover, STK 8129 $14.95 www.angeluspress.org l 1-8 00-9 6 6-73 37 Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music.