MARCH 2011

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“Instaurare omnia in Christo”

A JOURNAL OF ROMAN CATHOLIC TRADITION

Saint Joseph

2011 ANGELUS PRESS CONFERENCE

THE

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OF CHRIST

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October 7-9, 2011
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A COLLECTION OF EIGHT INDEPENDENT STUDIES
Neither Schismatic Nor Excommunicated
Tradition, the Council,
and Traditional Catholics
The Case of the Imaginary Schism
Declaration of Bishop
Antonio de Castro Mayer
Schism and Archbishop Lefebvre
The Episcopal Consecrations
The Disposition of Law in Case of
Necessity Within the Church
Letter of St. Athanasius to His Flock

Is Tradition
Excommunicated

Compiled by Angelus Press
A collection of eight independent studies explaining what
"excommunication" and "schism" mean. Covers the legal
status of the Latin Mass, traditional sacraments, and
those who frequent them. Includes the 1988 declaration
of Bishop de Castro Mayer, and a timeless letter of St.
Athanasius, who found himself in a situation that looks
very familiar to traditional Catholics!

116 pp. Softcover. Indexed.
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Tales of Foreign Lands

Catholic Stories of Adventure in the Mission Lands

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The

“Instaurare omnia in Christo — To restore all things in Christ.”

ngelus
Volume XXXIV, Number 3

MARCH 2011

English-language Editor and Publisher
for the International Society of Saint Pius X
PUBLISHER

Fr. Arnaud Rostand
EDITOR

Fr. Markus Heggenberger

Contents
Motto of Pope St. Pius X

2 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Fr. Markus Heggenberger, FSSPX

ASSISTANT EDITOR

Mr. James Vogel

OPERATIONS MANAGER

Mr. Michael Sestak

Fr. Kenneth
Novak delivers
his conference at
the 2010 SSPX
Conference.

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Miss Anne Stinnett

DESIGN AND LAYOUT

Mr. Simon Townshend

COMPTROLLER

3 THE HOLY MASS, HEART OF THE CHURCH
Fr. Kenneth Novak, FSSPX

Mr. Robert Wiemann, CPA
CUSTOMER SERVICE

Mr. John Rydholm
Miss Rebecca Heatwole

SHIPPING AND HANDLING

Mr. Jon Rydholm

“To publish Catholic journals and place
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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

9 CONSECRATION TO OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST THROUGH ST. JOSEPH
Fr. Adam Purdy, FSSPX

14 THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE PART 1
Dr. David Allen White

19

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THE CHURCH, THE POPE, AND THE BISHOPS:
The Ancient Doctrine and the New

27 THE TERMS OF THE CRISIS PART 2
Fr. Alain Lorans, FSSPX

33 ST. MAXIMILIAN KOLBE: IN HIS OWN WORDS PART 2
St. Maximilian Kolbe, O.F.M., Conv.

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2

Letter
from
the
T

Editor

he world is changing. Nowhere
is this more evident than mass
media and the means of communication. More and more,
these inventions surround us and we
are forced to ask: to what extent is it
necessary, prudent, or permissible to
use them or not? Modern means of
communication dominate the lives
of many people. It is probably easy
to discover that their multiplication
is driven by money. This does not,
however, help us to answer the questions regarding their use, much less
about the moral quality of their use.
I will try to formulate a Catholic
position in the form of three theses.

The danger of most modern technical
devices is not that they are directly
immoral, but that they involve a great
temptation to abuse.
A cell phone is certainly not
immoral in itself, but you often see
abuses like people walking down
the street chatting with their friends.
People start to talk more than is necessary or prudent. They spend money
which they do not have. They lose control and, in the worst cases, develop
an addiction. An obvious example is
seen in online games, where people
assume an artificial identity and act in
a certain role, interacting with dozens
or even hundreds of others (whom
they do not know; they are unknown
people from any place in the world). It
doesn’t sound dangerous at first; it is
just a “game,” after all. What is wrong
about assuming the role of a blacksmith in an imaginary village of the
Middle Ages? You might change your
opinion, however, if you read about
THE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

massive problems young people have
living in the real world (instead of the
artificial world of the “game”). One
university student started to play one
of these games. Since he had some
problems with his studies, he reacted
by withdrawing from his friends and
the university. He spent more and
more time in the “game” until he was
spending 20 hours a day on his computer. He could not get out of it any
more! He needed psychological help
to stop “running away from reality.”
You might say that there wasn’t a
mortal sin involved. That may or may
not be the case, but even so, there is
the question: is it not anyway a sad
waste of time, energy, and personal
vocation?
This is the crux with so many
modern inventions: cell phones, computers, credit cards: they are okay
in theory, but our human weakness
makes them very dangerous instruments in the hands of money sharks.
We tend to give away control of our
lives…
Technology is more and more sophisticated, but those who use it do not
grow in virtue and control of them at
the same time.
It’s like being in a war against an
enemy with superior weapons who is
winning, while you and your army
grow tired and run out of supplies.
The question of supply is vital. Do
we think of praying to our Guardian
Angel or to the saints in heaven, so
that they may give us strength in our
spiritual battle and wisdom for the
right decisions? We need to realize
that there is a most important spiritual

battle behind these conflicts. Senseless entertainment is always a waste of
energy, which has not been given to
us for sin and temptation. Is it possible
to waste that energy without having
to pay for it by things which we do
not want, but that will be forced on
us, like debt, immorality, infidelity,
and lukewarmness?
Knowing our human nature, the only
realistic solution seems to be a critical
attitude towards the media and to use
them as little as possible.
Are you saying that I should not
use a credit card? That is the wrong
question. The question is rather
whether there is a danger for you or
not. Are you saying that I should not
have a television? A computer? You
might need it for certain things, but
beware of a Trojan Horse. Are you
saying that I should not use a cell
phone? Of course, you never hear
that people talk too much…
Again: these things are not
(mainly and only) a question of morality. They are even more a question of
prudence. Nobody is just who is not
prudent at the same time. Without
prudence he might act occasionally
in a just way, but not systematically.
Did not Our Lord say “All that
take the sword shall perish with the
sword” (Mt. 26:52)?
Therefore we should be prudent, vigilant, and critical towards
“the world” and its impressive and
delusive means.

Instaurare Omnia in Christo,
Fr. Markus Heggenberger

3

The Defense
of TraDiTion
The Holy Mass,
Heart of the Church
Fr. Kenneth Novak, FSSPX

This is an edited transcript of a lecture given on October 16
at the SSPX’s 40th Anniversary Conference in Kansas City.

A

rchbishop Lefebvre did
what he did for the salvation of souls and for the
glory of God. It is not for
purposes of self-congratulation that
we are here: we do not need that.

Rather, we gather here to make
sure that the original flame, so fantastically ignited by Archbishop
Lefebvre in response to the Revolution in the Church, is still burning for the faithful and the world to

see. We are spending time here in
order to remember what we are all
about and to recall the unique and
all-encompassing mission given to
us by our founder, Marcel Lefebvre.
Allow me to unfold for you,
in six sections, the role the Archbishop played as the Guardian
Angel of the Catholic Sanctuary.
After considering 1) the two main
pillars of the Church (the priesthood
and the Mass), we shall bring up
the main protagonists of the recent
drama in the Church: 2) the dream
of the Archbishop, 3) the modernist attacks against the sanctuary.
Against the evils of the New Mass,
we shall have a look at 4) the instant
reaction around the Ottaviani Intervention, and then at 5) the Army of
the Reconquista, to finish with 6)
the actual reconquest of the Sanctuary by the forces of Tradition.

The Two Pillars
of the Church

When Jesus Christ came to
earth, He instituted the Church to
pursue His work of Redemption.
www.angeluspress.org

THE ANGELUS • March 2011

4

2010 ConferenCe

The Church is defined by our catechism as “the congregation of all
baptized persons who share the
same faith, the same sacraments
under the authority of the hierarchy,
particularly the pope and the bishops.” Christ established His Church
as a hierarchy to teach, govern, and
sanctify. Hierarchy means a government of sacred men, of “sacerdotes,”
i.e., of priests. Without priests, the
Catholic Church is doomed to utter
extinction. That is the way Christ set
it up to remain forever and, as long
as the priesthood retains its identity,
we know that Our Lord’s promise
will hold true, that the sacrifice will
stand, which is an action essential to
all religions whereby man renders
all honor to God his Creator.
Bishop Tissier’s biography of
our founder shows that, for him,
the Mass was the essential work of
the Church, indeed, the heart of the
Church. The Mass is the renewal of
the Sacrifice of the Cross, the source
of the graces of all the other Sacraments. This is why the Church is
organized around the Mass.
Yet these two elements, the
priest and the Mass, are not separate entities. The two elements are
so close that to speak of a “sacrificer” without a sacrifice would be to
define a lumberjack without lumber,
or a football player without a football. Bishop Fellay expressed this
graphically when he said that “the
priest without Mass, without sacrifice, is an eye without vision, an
ear without hearing, feet unable
to walk.”1 The Archbishop found
in this relationship the mystery of
priestly grandeur:

priest, and the priesthood without
sacrifice.…So, we must go back to
the idea of the Sacrifice. One can
say that our sacrifice, the sacrifice
which Our Lord has put into our
hands, the sacrifice which Our Lord
has left us, is a thing without limit,
inexpressible, so divine and mysterious is that it surpasses everything
we can imagine.2

For our founder, the priest
lives out this sacrifice to build up
the Mystical Body through preaching, baptism, and the other Sacraments. This sublime economy of salvation is described with the simple
style but sublime pathos of a man
of living faith in his jubilee sermon
of 1979:
Certainly, I knew by the studies we had done what this great
mystery of our Faith was, but I had
not yet understood its entire value,
efficacy and depth. This I learned
day by day, year by year, in Africa,
and particularly in 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 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
that they were—became cognizant
of the necessity of fulfilling their
duties, in spite of trials, in spite of
the sacrifices of maintaining their
commitments, 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.
It is necessary that we study
somewhat the profound motive of
this transformation: sacrifice. The
notion of sacrifice is a profoundly
Christian and a profoundly Catho-

To my mind there are not two
different kinds of priestly spirituality, there is only one: that of his
Mass, that of the Sacrifice of Our
Lord, because the priest is essentially the man of sacrifice….One
cannot imagine sacrifice without a
1

Letter to Friends and Benefactors, #69, June
2006.

THE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

2

Conference given at Stuttgart, Oct. 29, 1984.

lic notion, There is the entire mystery of Christian civilization. There
is that which is the root of Christian
civilization: the comprehension of
sacrifice in one’s life, in daily life,
the understanding of Christian suffering, no longer considering suffering as an evil, as an unbearable
sorrow, but sharing one’s sufferings
and one’s sickness with the sufferings of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in
looking upon His Cross, in assisting at the Holy Mass, which is the
continuation of the Passion of Our
Lord upon Calvary.

After hearing such words of
faith, need we say anything more
about the gifts of the priesthood
and the Mass? Yet, in light of the
onslaught against the Mass of all
Time, it is interesting to hear how
much we should cling to it when
we see the hatred of the enemy of
the Church towards it. Luther, who
spoke even as some saints have not
spoken, said: “Tolle missam, tolle
Ecclesiam—Take away the Mass, take
away the Church.” Here, Luther,
who had ceased to believe in the
Church, shows however his faith in
the power of the Mass.
If you minimize the effect of the
Mass, you compromise the cause. To
eliminate the Mass and the priesthood, one eliminates a society. Culture comes from the cult; without a
true cult, there is no true culture.

a Man with a Vision
and a Mission

It is now time to turn to the
people involved in the drama that
surrounded the Catholic altar in the
20th century. Providence had prepared Archbishop Lefebvre for the
role he played. Indeed, as a missionary, he was able to see firsthand the fruit of the spirit of sacrifice and of the Mass. His degrees
in philosophy and theology allowed
him to defend the Faith forcefully
and authoritatively. He was made
a teacher and later superior of the
seminary in Gabon, before direct-

2010 ConferenCe

ing another house of formation in
France. Yet, Divine Providence
wanted him invested with the fullness of the priesthood, not to be a
simple bishop in an out-of-the-way
diocese, but also the overseer of
over 60 bishops. This position as
apostolic Delegate of French-speaking Africa allowed him to open
the doors of the Roman Curia, to
become familiar with the intricacies
of Roman diplomacy and to confer
intimately with the famous names
of Rome, especially Pope Pius XII,
who said of him: “He is the most
efficacious and most qualified of all
my apostolic delegates.” The Archbishop also attended the preparatory meetings before the Council
as well as the four council sessions,
during which he organized the resistance to the modernist tide, which
gave him worldwide contacts of
friends and support. This internationalism, unlike that of his friend
Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer,
was accrued when, nominated superior of the largest missionary order,
he had to travel the world over and
learn English. Finally, having been
virtually cast out of his charge of
Superior General, he was thus available when the grace of God, under
the guise of bewildered seminarians,
knocked at his door asking him to
save their vocations and give them
a traditional formation. Few bishops were more prepared for such an
endeavor as this man in his sixties
living in retirement in Rome.

Modernist attacks
against the Mass

This man with a mission would
soon be needed to act. Already in
the late 1930’s, the future Pope Pius
XII, Eugenio Pacelli, said this:
I am worried by the Blessed
Virgin’s messages to little Lucia of
Fatima. This persistence of Mary
about the danger which menaces
the Church is a divine warning
against the suicide of altering the
Faith, in its liturgy, its theology, and

its soul. I hear around me reformers who want to dismantle the Holy
Sanctuary, destroy the universal
flame of the Church, to discard all
her adornments, and smite her with
remorse for her historic past. Well,
my dear friend, I am convinced that
the Church of Peter must assume
responsibility for her past, or she
will be digging her own grave.3

Pacelli’s fears were not in vain.
Not ten years would pass after his
grave was sealed when his fears
became reality. What had been
cursed by Pius XII was now blessed
and what he had blessed was being
cursed by the Church hierarchy.
First, the Church’s definition
had been left in the cold and the
ecumenical and democratic winds
of the modern age left their mark
on the Institution of Jesus Christ.
To a new definition of the Church
there had to correspond a revision
of the priesthood. Oddly enough,
little was said about the priesthood
at Vatican II, but by 1971, the International Theological Commission
could say:
Vatican I I has modified this
priestly image in two ways. The
Council spoke of the common
priesthood of the faithful prior to
the ministerial priesthood.…It has
put more emphasis on the position
of the bishops, center of the particular church and member of the
universal college of bishops. The
position of the priests in the Church
has become blurred.

And yet the Council’s decree Presbyterorum Ordinis defined the priest
in the terms of the Council of Trent.
But the context was utterly distinct,
and the conciliar spirit was to stress
the priest as a preacher and leader
of the masses vs. the man of the Sacrifice.

After the attack on the priest, it
came as no surprise that the Vaticanists would also undermine the
holy Mass, the principal act of the
priest. To a new priesthood should
correspond a redefinition of the
Mass. The New Mass was organized by Fr. Annibale Bugnini with
the collaboration of six Protestant
theologians. Fr. Bugnini had his own
ideas on popular involvement in the
liturgy, while the Protestant advisers had their own heretical ideas on
the essence of the Mass. That this
ambiguous rite was also promoted
positively by Pope Paul VI, its official promulgator in April 1969, is
evident from the confidences of his
friend Jean Guitton:
The intention of Pope Paul VI
was to reform the Catholic liturgy
in such a way that it should almost
coincide with the Protestant liturgy....There was with Pope Paul
VI an ecumenical intention…to get
the Catholic Mass closer to the Calvinist mass.4

Moreover, the Novus Ordo Missae
defined itself this way: “The Lord’s
Supper, or Mass, is a sacred synaxis,
or assembly of the people of God
gathered together under the presidency of the priest to celebrate the
memorial of the Lord” (Pope Paul
VI, Institutio Generalis, §7, 1969
version).5 The conclusion should be
evident to anyone. As Fr. Gelineau,
a Jesuit, put it: “The new Mass is a
different liturgy. This needs to be
said without ambiguity. The Roman
Rite, as we knew it, no longer exists.
It has been destroyed.” In his Open
4

5

3

Cardinal Pacelli to Count Enrico Gabazzi, in
Monsignor Roche, Pie XII Devant l’Histoire,
pp. 52-53, cited by LeRoux, Peter, Lovest
Thou Me? (Glasysdale, Victoria, Australia:
Instauratio Press, 1998), p. 1.

5

Jean Guitton, Dec. 19, 1993 in Apropos (17), p.
8ff. [also in Christian Order, Oct. 1994]. Jean
Guitton was an intimate friend of Pope Paul
VI. Paul VI had 116 of his books and had
made marginal study notes in 17 of these.
“When I began work on this trilogy I was
concerned at the extent to which the Catholic
liturgy was being Protestantized. The more
detailed my study of the Revolution, the more
evident it has become that it has by-passed
Protestantism and its final goal is humanism.”
(Michael Davies, Pope Paul’s New Mass, p. 137;
cf. p. 149.)
www.angeluspress.org

THE ANGELUS • March 2011

6

2010 ConferenCe

Letter to Confused Catholics (1986),
the Archbishop quotes Luther as
stating his self-acknowledged revolutionary aim:
Worship used to be address to
God as a homage. Henceforth it will
be addressed to man to console and
enlighten him. The sacrifice used to
have pride of place but the sermon
will supplant it.

What we have seen over the
past 40 years of the Revolution
in the Church is 1) the attempted
abolition of the priesthood distinct
from the faithful, 2) the change of
the Sacrifice to a plain meal, and
3) the systematic attempt to reduce
the Eucharist to an everyday act,
in commonplace surroundings,
with commonplace utensils, clothing and attitudes, etc. The three doctrines that were absent or surreptitiously denied by the New Order
of the Mass are absolutely essential
to the reality of the sacrifice of the
Mass: 1) the priest, who by his sacerdotal character is distinct from the
faithful and is alone capable of consecrating the Eucharist; 2) the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass; and
3) the real and substantial presence
of the Victim—the same Victim as
at Calvary—through transubstantiation. If these are the three doctrines that were especially under
attack after Vatican II, what was
the common principle which made
these distinct attacks intelligible? It
was that the Modernists dominating
the Church desired to modify the
relation of man to God in a blasphemous claim of equality between
man and God, bringing to its culmination the Revolution that had
sought to impose a natural equality on all human relations. Such is,
of course, the cause of the familiarity and casualness with which the
Novus Ordo treats God and the things
of God.

Traditional resistance

At the time of the promulgation of the Novus Ordo, Archbishop
Lefebvre was in Rome. He had celebrated (for a few years only) the
latest version of the traditional Mass
of 1965, truncated of some secondary elements, like the prayers at the
foot of the altar, the last Gospel, and
the Confiteor before Holy Communion. The rationale for his accepting the 1965 Missal was simply that
he would accept disciplinary legislation as long as there was nothing
clearly wrong, giving the benefit of
the doubt to legal authorities.
But in 1969, as the New Mass
was being promulgated, some active
members of the conservative movement had an immediate reaction.
They produced what is commonly
called The Ottaviani Intervention. The
text was prepared mostly by Fr. Guérard des Lauriers under the diligent
scrutiny of Archbishop Lefebvre.
Cardinal Ottaviani agreed to revise
the study and present it to Pope Paul
VI. The conclusion of the work was
appalling: Does the New Mass teach
the Catholic Faith?
It is clear that the Novus Ordo no
longer intends to present the Faith
as taught by the Council of Trent.…
It 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. The recent reforms have
amply demonstrated that new
changes in the liturgy could not be
made without leading to complete
bewilderment of the faithful, who
already show an indubitable lessening of their faith.6

The army of the
reconquista

The Ottaviani Intervention was
written in May 1969. A few months
later, the Archbishop had bought a
little house in Fribourg, Switzerland,
to host a dozen seminarians under
his direction. Soon, with the permission of the bishop of Fribourg, his
friend Bishop Charrière, he would
be writing the Statutes of the incipient religious institute, the Society of
St. Pius X. Its goal is clearly fixed
in these statutes, and that is the
defense of “the priesthood”:
The Society is placed especially
under the patronage of the priesthood of Jesus. For Our Lord’s whole
existence was and remains priestly,
and the Sacrifice of the Cross was
the reason for His Incarnation.
Thus will the Society’s members,
for whom “For me, to live is Christ”
(Phil. 1:21) is a reality, live in a way
entirely directed towards the Sacrifice of the Mass and Our Lord’s
Sacred Passion....The Society is
essentially apostolic, because such
is the Sacrifice of the Mass.8

What is at stake here is the connection between the worship and
the faith. As we pray, so we believe:
6

THE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

Lex orandi statuat legem credendi—Let
the law of prayer fix the law of the
faith.
The Ottaviani Intervention concludes with a veiled warning to the
highest Churchman: “The subjects
for whose benefit a law is made have
always had the right, nay the duty,
to ask the legislator to abrogate the
law, should it prove harmful.”7 In
other words, they are saying that
the Pope, in promulgating the Novus
Ordo, was trespassing his right, committing an abuse of authority, and
was forcing faithful Christians to
react by disobedience to man in
order to obey God. The future attitude of Archbishop Lefebvre and
the drama between Ecône and
Rome is summed up in this warning which sounds as a threat from
heaven itself.

The Ottaviani Intervention (Rockford, Ill.: Tan
Books, 1992). p. 3.

7
8

Ibid., p. 28.
Statutes, I, sec. 2 and 3.

2010 ConferenCe

Why did our founder focus the
spirituality of the Society on the
priesthood and the Mass? Because,
to use of the words of his spiritual
son and successor Bishop Fellay:
We can sum up the diagnostic of
the sickness affecting the postconciliar Church thus: The Church is
in crisis since the Second Vatican
Council because the priesthood is
in crisis. This is one of the fundamental elements of the crisis. To
a defined malady corresponds the
adequate remedy: no Church restoration will take place without restoring the priesthood.9

We are priests, formed at the
source of the traditional priesthood and the traditional Mass, and
our mission as priests is the Mass.
But what does this mean? Most fundamentally, it means that when a
man receives the priestly character
from a bishop at his ordination, he
receives the power to renew in persona Christi the sacrifice of obedience
and charity which Christ accomplished upon the Cross. He offers
it in an unbloody way on the altar at
each Mass that he offers. When the
Archbishop said this over and over
again, he was not saying anything
new. This doctrine belongs to Tradition and is found in St. Thomas,
the Council of Trent, and Pius XII.
The priest essentially is made for
the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, for
the sacrifice, for sacrum facere—to do
sacred things.
And inasmuch as his love for
the Mass of all Time became more
persistent, the Archbishop grew in
the rejection—perhaps we can speak
of hatred—of the Novus Ordo. This
was to be very prudent, too prudent
for some, and very gradual, but the
direction of his mind was unmistakable: we cannot compromise on the
question of the Mass. Let us look at
his decisions in the ten years following the New Mass:
9

Letter to Friends and Benefactors, #69, June
2006.

1) Archbishop Lefebvre gave a
conference at Ecône on June 9, 1971.
A historic decision had been made
by him. Up to this point in time he
had continued to say the Traditional
Mass because it was still permitted
to do so. Now he was rejecting the
Novus Ordo Mass of Paul VI. He was
not exercising an option, rather he
was rejecting the liturgical revolution because of the doctrine of the
Catholic Church as it was upheld
and promulgated by the Council of
Trent.
The First Step, then, was an
open refusal of the New Mass.
2) In his 1974 Declaration, he
does not mince his words: “It is
impossible to modify profoundly
the lex orandi without modifying
the lex credendi. To the Novus Ordo
Missae correspond a new catechism,
a new priesthood, new seminaries,
a charismatic Pentecostal Church—
all things opposed to orthodoxy
and the perennial teaching of the
Church. The only attitude of fidelity to the Church and Catholic doctrine, in view of our salvation, is a
categorical refusal to accept this
Reformation.”
The Second Step was thus that
all post-Vatican II reforms are bad
in the whole and in their details.
3) The Archbishop was also
connecting the priestly and sacramental crisis to the teachings of Vatican II. In the historical milestone
speech of Lille (August 29, 1976),
he said:
The Revolution made martyrs, but
this is nothing compared to what
Vatican II has done: priests have
apostatized from the priesthood!
This marriage between the Church
and Revolution…is adulterous.
And this adulterous union can only
produce illegitimate children. The
new rite of Mass is an illegitimate
rite, the sacraments are illegitimate
sacraments, the priests who come

7

from the seminaries are illegitimate
priests….

So the Third Step was to
announce that the conciliar spirit
is born of the Revolution and produces a monstrous priesthood and a
hybrid Mass.
4) The Pope then suspended
the Archbishop in July 1976 and felt
personally attacked by him. In the
tug of war which followed between
Pope Paul VI and the Archbishop,
the Pope made it very clear what
it was all about, as Jean Guitton
relayed: “If we allow the Mass of
St. Pius V to the SSPX, everything
we have gained by the Second Vatican Council will be ruined.”10
Pope Paul VI himself gave us
the Fourth Step: the return to the
old Mass would signify the ruin of
Vatican II.
5) The Archbishop stated that it
was “obvious” that there were fewer
and fewer valid Masses as the faith
of priests became corrupted and
they no longer had the intention
to do what the Church does. In
1977 the Archbishop became more
demanding, “To avoid conforming to the evolution slowly taking
place in the minds of priests, we
must avoid–I could almost say completely–assisting at the New Mass.”
The Fifth Step was that seminarians, during the holidays when
there was no availability of the old
Mass, were discouraged from attending the Novus Ordo on a regular
basis because it is Protestantizing.
6) In 1981, there was a dispute
between two seminary professors at
Ecône: Fr. Williamson and Fr. Cantoni. The latter argued that the New
Mass was bad because of incidental and circumstantial things. The
Archbishop solved the dispute by
10

Jean Guitton, Paul VI secret (Ed. Declée de
Brower, 1979), pp. 158-159; in The Mass of
All Time, p. 263.
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THE ANGELUS • March 2011

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2010 ConferenCe

stating: “This Mass is not bad in a
merely accidental or external way.
There is something in it that is truly
bad. It was based on a model of the
Mass according to Cranmer and
Taizé. As I said in Rome to those
who interviewed me: ‘This Mass is
poisoned!’”
The Sixth Step was to decide
that the New Mass was essentially
evil in and of itself.

The Mass of all Time
reconquers Ground
in the Church

Time has demonstrated the
fruits of the firm position of Archbishop Lefebvre. First and foremost,
witness the blossoming of deeply
Christian families. Look at our
Catholic schools and colleges, the
many vocations of priests, nuns, and
Brothers in the ever growing tree of
Tradition, which includes Franciscans and Dominicans, Benedictines
and Carmelites, and other numerous friendly confraternities and congregations who wish to put themselves under the broad protection
of the more organized SSPX.
In 1984, Rome produced the
first Indult, which allowed the use
of the Traditional Mass with incredible restrictions. Still, this brought
about a change in the mind of the
faithful, who realized that they
still could be called Catholic and
have the traditional sacraments. It
allowed priests to say and faithful
to attend the Mass contained in the
Roman Missal edited in 1962; the
same missal used by the Society of
St. Pius X. Here is the reaction of
Archbishop Lefebvre:
Is it a boon, or not? It would be
difficult to say that it is not a good
thing…I myself also during these
years have not ceased asking of
Rome: leave us this liberty! And so,
faced with the insistence of many
people, and mine also, they finally
decided to do something. Unfortunately, however, they have added
to it incredible conditions. It’s absoTHE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

lutely unimaginable to have to ask
the people’s opinion: Do you reject
the New Mass? If you reject the New
Mass, then you don’t have the right
to say the old one. That surpasses
the imagination.11

This is to say that the sky had
not really cleared above the Dome
of St. Peter. At the same time,
Pope John Paul II was promoting
ecumenism at a rapid pace, escalating with the Assisi meeting in 1986.
In 1988, the Archbishop laid out the
reasons which had finally decided
him to perform the consecration of
four bishops, this act of such grave
importance in the face of the whole
Church and he invokes, once again,
the priesthood and the Mass as the
reason for his apparent disobedience.
The corruption of the Holy Mass
has brought with it the corruption
of the priesthood and the universal
decadence of faith in the divinity of
Our Lord Jesus Christ, accompanied
by the resolute intention, clearly
shown by the Roman authorities, to
continue with their work of destroying the reign of Our Lord, as proved
by Assisi and by Rome’s confirmation of the liberal theses of Vatican
II on religious liberty.12

Yet other fruits are evident as
well. We can see that Providence has
tolerated the break-away from the
SSPX and other sister congregations
to spread to wider circles of souls
afraid of the label of excommunication but still wanting the benefits of
the traditional sacraments. We have
only to look at the multiple societies which have been founded since
1988: the Benedictine monasteries,
the Fraternity of St. Peter, the Institute of Christ the King, the parallel
diocese of Campos, the Institute of
the Good Shepherd, and so many
unknown individual priests who
take refuge under the Ecclesia Dei
Commission to keep the Mass of
11
12

Conference, Stuttgart, Oct 29, 1984.
Letter written to the future SSPX bishops,
1988.

all Time. Even if few among them
will acknowledge their benefactor,
they all owe their survival and existence to only one man: Archbishop
Marcel Lefebvre, the ultimate spiritual father of most of these new
foundations. Let credit be given
where credit is due!
Then, at the request of the
Society’s Superior General, Pope
Benedict XVI took away the
decree of excommunication which
was weighing, albeit unduly, upon
the reputation of our bishops. At
his request again, and Our Lady’s
intercession, the Pope also liberated the Mass of all Time with the
decree Summorum Pontificum. Here
are some excerpts from his letter
to the bishops where he states that
the old Mass was never abrogated
and where he quotes explicitly
our founder, who pushed Rome to
restore the Traditional Mass.
As for the use of the 1962 Missal
as a Forma extraordinaria of the liturgy of the Mass, I would like to
draw attention to the fact that this
Missal was never juridically abrogated and, consequently, in principle, was always permitted.…We
all know that, in the movement led
by Archbishop Lefebvre, fidelity to
the old Missal became an external
mark of identity; the reasons for the
break which arose over this, however, were at a deeper level.…

This marks a great advance in
our relations with Rome as the Mass
is finally liberated and vindicated.
There remains for Rome to return
to the Faith of all time. In the words
of our Superior General:
Lex orandi, lex credendi–the law of
the liturgy is that of the faith. In the
fidelity to the spirit of our founder,
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the
attachment of the Society of St. Pius
X to the traditional liturgy is inseparably united to the faith which has
been professed “always, everywhere
and by all.”13
13

Press release after the Decree Summorum
Pontificum of 2007.

9

Consecration
to our Lord
Jesus Christ
Through
st. Joseph
Fr. Adam Purdy, FSSPX

T

he piety of Catholics has always been a fountainhead
for various devotions and practices. These
devotions, in order to gain the stamp of approval
from the Church, undergo thorough scrutiny and
criticism. Practices of piety and devotion, in order to be
truthful, must always conform to doctrine. No matter how
beautiful a devotion may seem, if it is at odds with doctrine,
doctrine stands and the devotion falls. There are numerous
“devotions” in the history of the Church that have fallen
before the discerning eye of doctrine.
The Dogma of the Immaculate
Conception was defined by Pius IX
in 1854. This definition was possible
because of its root in Scripture and
Tradition. The Church rejoiced in
this definition, for it was the belief of
Catholics for centuries. In a similar
manner, and likewise believed for
centuries (although not defined as a
dogma of the Faith), the Universal
Patronage of St. Joseph over the
Catholic Church has been decreed.
In order for this to be taught, it must
have its roots in the constant belief
of the Church. Could something

more be said about St. Joseph? Is
there matter sufficient in Revelation
for the definition of a dogma of our
Faith?
Concerning balanced piety and
devotion to St. Joseph, Catholics
often have only a vague and undetermined understanding. Surely
he is invoked particularly for the
spiritual and temporal needs of
individuals and families. As for a
specific development of his dignity
and grandeur, few of us ever follow
these lines. Thus, in most cases,

St. Joseph is in fact unknown and
underrated.
This article is meant to provide
a more specific development of
his dignity. Pages have been written by more apt pens, and greater
insights provided by higher minds;
however, the task at hand is to list
with a brief explanation the main
doctrinal points so as to establish a
firm foundation for devotion to St.
Joseph. Admittedly, this article will
be more a compilation of different
texts rather than any original work.
The main point is not to prove
something; others have done so and
at very great length. It is rather to
impress upon ourselves the necessity of devotion to St. Joseph and to
urge action on the part of Catholics
in this direction. For those who are
seeking the more in-depth explanation and the further proofs and
arguments of the points outlined
herein, I simply refer you to the
bibliography.
In lieu of the explanations, a
consecration to St. Joseph is also
desired. Is it possible to speak of
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THE ANGELUS • March 2011

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sT. JosePh

a total consecration through St.
Joseph? Would this in any way subtract from or conflict with the total
consecration through the Blessed
Virgin Mary? Perhaps in the minds
of some warning flags go up and a
kind of indignation comes with this
thought. Hopefully by the end of
the article, the same zeal remains in
favor of St. Joseph.

st. Joseph Belongs
to the hypostatic order

All would agree that St. Joseph
is intimately connected with Jesus
Christ and the Virgin Mary. What
is the extent of this connection, that
is, what is the degree of his involvement, and how necessary is he to the
Divine Plan?
Theologians are quite clear
about the involvement/relationship of St. Joseph to Jesus and Mary.
In fact, it is termed theologically
certain that he belongs to the order
of the Hypostatic Union. To paraphrase what this means: St. Joseph
was necessary for the Holy Trinity to
execute the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.
Divine Providence eternally
proclaims the Incarnation of Jesus,
the Divine Maternity, and the paternity of St. Joseph through the virginal marriage all in the same Decree
of our Salvation.
These are the conclusions of
theologians. How do they reach
these conclusions? First, what is the
hypostatic order? Second, what are
the various relationships that put
one into this order? Third, what are
those relations that put St. Joseph in
the hypostatic order which also are
his singular prerogatives?

The hypostatic order

The Hypostatic Union is the
union of the divine nature and the
human nature in the single person
of Jesus Christ. The hypostatic
order comprises immediately this
individual human nature in its
union with the eternal Son of God,
together with all other gifts, privi-

THE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

leges, and relations which naturally
and immediately result from this
union. Belonging also to this order
is all that directly and effectively
served the accomplishment of this
union. In conclusion, the Virgin
Mary belongs of necessity to this
order as Mother, the indispensable
condition for birth into this world.
St. Joseph, likewise, belongs to the
hypostatic order for having effectively served as spouse of Mary and
father of Jesus.
The hypostatic union is the
summit of all divine benefits; it is the
highest grace that can be conferred
on human nature. Created nature is
elevated to an intimate association
with the Son’s divine being.“The
mystery of the Incarnation,” exclaims
St. Thomas, “holds supremacy over all
divine works. The mind cannot conceive
anything more remarkable than the
immense reality contained in the expression: the Son of God, true God, became
true man.” Those related immediately and indispensably with this
Union belong to the highest order.
The Virgin Mary and St. Joseph are
therefore the most elevated in the
kingdom of heaven, for even the
lowest in the higher order is higher
than the highest in the lower order.
As there is no higher order, we can
have a firmer understanding of the
singular dignity and grandeur of
those belonging to it.
St. Thomas states: “Once we
have established that St. Joseph is
truly and remarkably included in
this order, there is no necessity of
further proof of his exalted dignity”
(III, q. 7. a. 13).

Testimonies of Theologians

The relations of St. Joseph to
the hypostatic union place him in
the hypostatic order. These relations are: true spouse of the virginal
Mother of God, true though not
natural father of Jesus, and head of
the holy family. These show him in
closest immediate connection with
the other members of the Holy

Family, the last one, as head of the
family, giving him even a kind of
precedence before Mary, and even
before Jesus.
Cornelius a Lapide states:
“The ministry and office of St.
Joseph was most noble because it
belonged to the order of the hypostatic union of the Word with our
flesh, as did the maternity of the
most Blessed Virgin. All of his works
and actions were immediately and
directly ordained to the person of
Christ, whom he fed, protected and
instructed in the occupation which
he himself exercised, according to
the common teaching of the Doctors.”
Cardinal Billot states: “St.
Joseph was more intimately connected with Christ than all the
others since he exercised the office
of father toward Him in everything
except generation, being the head
of that conjugal society expressly
ordained to receive and educate
Christ.”

source of st. Joseph’s
Dignity: his Marriage
with the Virgin Mary

St. Thomas asks why it was fitting that Christ should be born of
an espoused virgin; in other words,
why should Mary be in the married
state? The significance of this question has its importance also for St.
Joseph, for these are the conditions
in which the Incarnation took place.
Were they necessary conditions? In
other words, are these the necessary
conditions without which the Incarnation and birth of Jesus would not
take place?
The arguments of St. Thomas
are simply listed here as they do not
require much explanation. Mary
needed to be espoused so Christ
would not be rejected as an illegitimate child; secondly, so that His
genealogy could be traced in the
customary way, namely, through
his father; thirdly, so the Christ
child would be safeguarded lest the

sT. JosePh

11

As St. Joseph was necessary for the
accomplishment of the Incarnation, it seems
he is likewise an indispensable asset to our
salvation. It is in this sense that a consecration
to Our Lord Jesus Christ through St. Joseph is
desired, not only on an individual level as all
may be encouraged to do, but on the level of
families, associations, and societies, including
our very own Society of St. Pius X.

devil should fiercely try to harm or
hamper Him; lastly, that Jesus (who
would share with us all His infirmities and needs of our human nature)
would be nourished by Joseph, who
is therefore called His father. (IIIa,
Q. 29, Art. 1.)
The mother also benefits in this
marriage, for she would be saved
from the punishment of adultery,
also saved from infamy, her holiness would be maintained, and she
would likewise have the service of
her husband (Ibid.).
While these reasons are more
moral considerations or fittingness
rather than solid proof, they certainly indicate that a marriage and
a man/husband are required for the
accomplishment of the Incarnation.
One can assert that as the Mother of
God was chosen and prepared for
her mission, likewise and simultaneously, St. Joseph was chosen and

prepared for his. To understand the
weight and meaning behind this
statement, one could paraphrase
by saying: the Holy Trinity from all
eternity decreed the Incarnation of
the Word. Simultaneously Mary and
Joseph were decreed, the preparation of these two, as well as their
marriage. In fact, one could even
assert, that as the most perfect in
anything is the first in mind and the
exemplar for the others, so in God
the marriage of Joseph and Mary is
first and most perfect and acts as the
exemplar for the entire institution
of marriage. The same argument
holds true for their paternity and
maternity respectively.
St. Bernard states: “There is
no doubt that this Joseph to whom
the Mother of our Savior was married was a good and faithful man–a
faithful and prudent servant, chosen
by the Lord for the consolation of
His Mother, the guardian of His
flesh and Mary’s only earthly assistant in carrying out the plans of
the Great Council” (Homil. 2 super
Missus).
Miecowiense states: “From
eternity the Lord chose them both
in preference to all the other saints
for this supreme dignity; Mary, to
be the natural Mother of Christ, and
Joseph, to be His legal father; that
she should give to the Son of God
the substance of flesh, and that he
should nourish and care for, and
defend it….He chose Mary that she

should nurse Him at her breast and
Joseph that he should by the sweat
of his brow and the labor of his
hands provide for Him the necessities of this life.”
St. Joseph had an effective part
in bringing about the Incarnation
of the Son of God, planned and
decreed by God from all eternity.
According to God’s eternal plan,
the Incarnation had to come to pass
within a virginal marriage. This was
so first because, after the creation of
the first man and woman, human
life should be propagated only in
and through marriage; secondly,
because the most suitable, if not the
only way, to carry out the plan of
the Incarnation in a manner appropriate and worthy of it was in a
virginal marriage. (Having a human
father would make him a human
person.) By responding to God’s
inspiration and contracting that
virginal marriage, Mary and Joseph
cooperated freely and effectively to
bring about the Incarnation of the
Son of God that had been planned
from all eternity. Their virginal
marriage paved the way for His
entrance into this world.

st. Joseph’s
singular Prerogatives

The marriage between the
Virgin Mary and St. Joseph is the
source of his singular prerogatives.
The roles which St. Joseph fills,
namely spouse and father, are these
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THE ANGELUS • March 2011

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sT. JosePh

singular prerogatives and establish
him (according to the theologians)
in the hypostatic order. These prerogatives coincide with the goods of
marriage. The Council of Florence
states: “The first good of marriage
is offspring, to be begotten and
educated for the service of God; the
second, fidelity which each party
has to observe toward the other;
the third, the indissolubility of marriage.”

indissolubility: spouse
of the Mother of God

When we refer to St. Joseph,
Leo XIII states: “The dignity of
the Mother of God is certainly so
sublime that nothing can surpass
it; nevertheless, since the bond of
marriage existed between Joseph
and the Blessed Virgin, there can
be no doubt that more than any
other person he approached that
super-eminent dignity by which the
Mother of God is raised far above
all created natures.” And again the
same holy pontiff writes: “For marriage is the closest possible union
and relationship whereby each
spouse mutually participates in the
goods of the other. Consequently, if
God gave Joseph as a spouse to the
Virgin, He assuredly gave him not
only as a companion in life, a witness of her virginity and the guardian of her honor, but also a sharer
in her exalted dignity by reason of
the conjugal tie itself.”
This property of indissolubility
is the unbreakable bond between
spouses. It is the first result of the
marriage contract and belongs necessarily to it while the other goods
of marriage refer to necessary conditions and purpose in marriage.
The indissolubility is likewise the
channel of communication of the
goods of each other. St. Francis of
Sales states: “By means of the marriage between Our Lady and the
glorious St. Joseph, the Good of
eternal goods, our Lord Himself,
belonged to St. Joseph as well to

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our Lady. This is not true as regards
the nature of our Lord that was
formed in the womb by the Holy
Ghost; it is true, however, as regards
grace, which made him participate
in all the possessions of his beloved
spouse and which increased so marvelously his growth in perfection;
and this through his continual communication with our Lady.”
The honor which comes to St.
Joseph through being the spouse
of the Mother of God is the most
exalted that can be attributed to
him. As with the divine maternity
of Mary, it is the root of all his prerogatives.

offspring: father of Jesus

Suarez develops Augustine’s
“fatherhood by right of marriage,”
showing more fully its juridical
source; first, Joseph’s possession
of Mary and, therefore, his possession of her Son; and second, the
mutual ownership that the marriage
affected. He states: “I add, finally,
that husband and wife are in a certain way made one by the bond of
marriage. Now, although they are
made one flesh by bodily union,
they become one in heart and one
in will by reason of their marriage
contract. That is why they own all
their goods in common. What is
under the dominion and authority of one consequently belongs
to the other in some degree. The
Blessed Virgin was the mother of
Christ; therefore, it was impossible
for Joseph as her true husband not
to share in the quality of parenthood, always excepting physical
generation.”
Leo XIII states: “Because the
Saint was truly the husband of
Mary, he became in a certain sense
the lord of her body. As a consequence, the fruit of that virginal
body belonged to St. Joseph. A
fountain miraculously springing up
in a garden would belong to the
owner of the garden. So, too, in the
case of Jesus and Mary and Joseph!

As was prefigured in the Old Testament, the virginal earth ‘Mary’
conceived of the blessing of the
Lord and the fruit of that blessing
belonged to St. Joseph, who possessed the land.”
Concerning this good of marriage, there is no need for deep
explanation of what is known to
all, namely St. Joseph is not the
natural father of Jesus. The Virgin
Mary, as is the way with normal
conception, provided the female
germ cell, while the supernatural
act of the Holy Ghost saw to its fertilization, the infusing of the human
soul, and the grace of union of that
human nature with the person of the
Word of God. This happened at the
moment of the fiat of the Blessed
Virgin.
While St. Joseph does not contribute in what we may call the
normal procedure for human generation, his role is nevertheless necessary. St. Thomas states: “Offspring
is called a good of marriage not
only so far as it is begotten through
marriage, but also as it is conceived
and reared in the marriage. And
in this manner was that offspring
(the Lord Jesus) a fruit of this marriage, not in the first manner. However, one born of adultery, or an
adopted child, who is reared during
the marriage, is not a good of marriage because marriage is not by its
nature ordained toward the rearing
of such children; whereas the marriage of Mary and Joseph was specifically ordained to the end that in
it this offspring should be received”
(In IV, d. 30, q. 2, a. 2,ad 4). St.
Joseph was in truth the father of the
Child who was God and man, not
indeed natural father by physical
procreation, but as virginal father
according to principles of marriage
law and through what we may call
a kind of spiritual generation. In
consequence, he had all the rights,
duties, and characteristic attributes
of a true father, the natural procreation excepted. Therefore he stood

sT. JosePh

in the closest and most immediate
relations with Jesus and Mary.
In conclusion, there is a ministry that St. Joseph is to fulfill,
namely the rearing and education
of the child Jesus. This is a result of
the marriage with the Virgin Mary
and so the child Jesus is a fruit of
the marriage. There would be no
fruit if this marriage did not take
place. St. Augustine states: “What
the Holy Ghost has wrought, He
wrought for both of them…being
well pleased with the sanctity of
both, He gave the Son to both of
them. But in that sex in which he
had to give birth to the Son, He
brought it about so that the Son was
also born to the father. Therefore,
the angel tells both of them to give
the name to the Child.” Cordovani
states: “The prerogative of this Saint
( Joseph) is singular from the fact
of his being the true spouse of the
Virgin Mary and from the mission
which Providence confided to him
relative to the mystery of Jesus and
His humanity. Where nature was
lacking, grace superabounded; and
his peculiar fatherhood is the most
intimate as it springs from the most
loftiest origin.”

Conclusion

It is well established that St.
Joseph belongs to the hypostatic
order. He is in closest relationship
with Jesus and Mary because of his
virginal marriage. This marriage,
as has been said, was arranged by
God entirely and only in view of
the Incarnation; in fact, it finds in
this its only reason for existence.
This is the root of all his graces and
privileges and at the same time of
his cooperation in our salvation
and spiritual fatherhood over the
Church of Christ. This cooperation
in the redemption of the human
race is the crowning of all his glory.
By his labors he nourished that
body which Christ offered to His
Father on the Cross and the blood
which He shed so copiously for us.

We may draw our attention to
the expressions just used: “cooperation in our salvation” and “spiritual
fatherhood over the Church.” St.
Joseph has a ministry that is fulfilled
during his life; he also has a ministry that is fulfilled as the centuries
pass. We can read the following
quotations understanding that the
ministry of St. Joseph continues as
the mission of the Incarnation continues to the end of the world.
St. John Chrysostom states: “Do
not think that, because what is born
of the Holy Spirit, you therefore are
excluded from the ministry of that
dispensation (hypostatic order).”
Gerson states: “Jesus was born
in the land or property of Joseph.…
Why, therefore, does there not
belong to him a certain juridical
right beyond that of other men in
the blessed formation of the Child
Jesus, for He was born in the flesh
and out of the flesh, whose dominion was truly given to Joseph by
the right of marriage? All that we
have said about the corporal birth
of Jesus Christ, in which Joseph contributed in a certain manner, and of
the sublimity which that imposes,
appears to be evident” (Sermo in
Conc. Constans).
As St. Joseph was necessary for
the accomplishment of the Incarnation, it seems he is likewise an
indispensable asset to our salvation.
It is in this sense that a consecration
to Our Lord Jesus Christ through
St. Joseph is desired, not only on
an individual level as all may be
encouraged to do, but on the level
of families, associations, and societies, including our very own Society
of St. Pius X.
Does such a consecration take
away from the prerogatives of the
Virgin Mary? Does such a consecration somehow limit the totality of
the consecration to Mary described
by St. Louis de Montfort? Does such
a consecration take away the spotlight on the Virgin Mary as being
the remedy to the current crisis of

13

Faith as seems obvious from her
various apparitions?
One could develop at great
length the glory of both the Mother
of God and her spouse, St. Joseph,
as many authors have done. The
Wisdom and Providence of God
shine when discovering how one
mystery and privilege can be so
linked and united with another to
provide one grand vision of God’s
redemptive work. This is the case
with the persons belonging to the
Hypostatic Order. Each in a way
needs the other. To propose some
kind of obstacle or limit would
indeed attempt to frustrate the
very ordered plan which God has
decreed and enacted.
When reading this article, our
devotion to the Blessed Virgin has
not been decreased; on the contrary,
we have learned something more,
something great about her! This
adds to the glory of Mary rather than
takes away from her. The totality of
consecration to the Virgin Mary is
not diminished seeing as all that is
given to St. Joseph is likewise given
to her through that unbreakable tie
of marriage by which each shares
the goods of the other. Aside from
the singular prerogatives that both
possess in their own right, and aside
from the fact that the Virgin Mother
is certainly more favored and dignified than her Spouse, all other goods
are held in common–what is one’s
is the other’s. The Blessed Virgin
Mary is all the more glorified when
St. Joseph is glorified. Acknowledging that the best of men was given
to her somehow adds to her glory,
just as that the best of women was
given to him adds to his.
Fr. Adam Purdy was ordained in 2001. After
being assigned to England and Syracuse, he
spent three years as Prior and Novice Master at
St. Bernard Noviciate in Iloilo in the Philippines
and two years as Prior in Manila. Currently he is
the Prior of Our Lady of the Assumption Priory
in Walton, KY.

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THE ANGELUS • March 2011

14

THE IMPORTANCE OF

LANGUAGE
Dr. David Allen White

Introducing Evelyn Waugh’s
Brideshead Revisited to the
seminarians at St. Thomas
Aquinas Seminary (March 9-11,
2001), Dr. White discusses
in this conference all the
implications of the image (TV,
cinema, computers) replacing
the word (books).

THE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

Part 1

I arrived late last night in Minneapolis and stayed with my
brother and sister-in-law and their two children, my nephew
and my niece. My little niece, who is three-and-a-half, brought
some books to me this morning which she wanted me to read
to her. I have wonderful memories from my own childhood
of A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh, memories of reading it to my
brother, who is some years younger than I am. I thought now
would be a chance to read the Pooh stories to his daughter.
They had them on the shelf and I went and pulled them off
and opened one of my favorites which is “Piglet Meets the
Hefalump.” I began reading to her and realized that, though
she’s a bright little girl, she could not concentrate. The book,
you see, is mainly text with some very small black-and-white
line art. It wasn’t that she was three-and-a-half. The problem
was that the very simple but artfully-rendered pen-and-ink
illustrations of Ernest Shepard were not engaging enough for
her eyes, so that it wasn’t possible for her to listen to what was
being said. I finally realized it was pointless to continue and
I stopped. Then she asked her Mother if she could put in a
Disney video. It was a little sing-a-long thing and I thought,
“This is standard; this is what happens.” The first song on
the Disney video was a Winnie the Pooh song. Now, there is

LiTeraTUre
a world of difference between the
Disney Winnie the Pooh and the A.
A. Milne Winnie the Pooh. I view it
as a tragedy that Disney bought the
rights to all the Milne books. The
original Walt Disney is long gone;
the vultures who now own Disney
Enterprises got the rights to the
Milne books to use their characters.
They re-drew them. If you want a
sense of what’s happened to children’s literature, look at the beautiful Shepard drawings and then look
at what Disney has now done to the
Pooh characters: sappy, sentimentalized, over-drawn. It is awful, as
are the stories. Sure enough, the
video was something about caring
and sharing and that sort of thing.
It had absolutely nothing to do
with any of the original stories,
and nothing that rose to the artistic excellence of “Piglet Meets the
Hefalump,” which is a perfectly
ordered, structured, and charming
story for little children.

Word and image

This example illustrates the
ongoing disaster happening in language and in narrative and their
replacement by image and visceral
incident. I am going to cover two
areas: The difference between word
and image; and the other between
narrative and thrill. It is important
that you understand that I will be
grounding this lecture in how I view
the language I am going to be using.
I am a teacher of English. This
means that words matter to me, that
I love words, that for these reasons I
entered my profession. In teaching
Shakespeare, I’ve been fortunate
to deal with the greatest writer the
English language has every known,
a master of language who used it
with precision, beauty, depth, and
genuine spiritual insight. Once I
became a Catholic and became
more aware of what language is and
how it can be used, I was attracted
to the opening of the Gospel of
John. I think the first chapter of his
Gospel may be my very favorite
passage in all of Scripture. One of

the joys of assisting at the Tridentine
Mass is that I get to have it there as
part of the liturgy every Sunday:
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. The same was in the
beginning with God. All things were
made by Him: and without Him
was made nothing that was made.
In Him was life, and the life was the
light of men. ( Jn. 1:1-4)

I’m just going to turn that around
a bit and reverse the definition and
say: What Scripture teaches us is
that the light of men is the life of the
Word. It’s an upper-case “W” obviously; it’s a reference to our Lord,
the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. But there is a sense that language
is an extraordinary gift of God.
When we talk about words—with a
small-case “w”—we should always in
some sense have in our minds that
eternal perfect Word, the Son of
God made Incarnate, who brought
salvation to us.
Now, I want to contrast this with
an Old Testament passage. I’m in
Exodus, Chapter 20. I’m setting this
in opposition to John:
Thou shall not make to thyself
a graven thing, nor the likeness of
anything that is in heaven above, or
in the earth beneath, nor of those
things that are in the waters of the
earth. Thou shalt not adore them,
nor serve them.... (Ex. 20:4-5a)

If the Word came to us and brought
salvation, we have a strict warning
to avoid graven images and to especially avoid the propensity to worship those graven images. We know
how the Israelites began worshipping the graven image of the golden
calf. Here we have an example of
how easy it is to fall into all that.
Now, we say and think: “We’re not
capable of doing that: we would
not do anything like that.” On the
contrary, we are aware that we live
in a world that does worship wealth,
that places the material above the
spiritual, and we must acknowledge
that. But I claim there is something
even more insidious going on—that
the moving image, the image cap-

15

tured on the screen, can also in one
sense be viewed as a graven image,
and we live in a world that is coming
to worship it. This graven image is
finally demonic and destructive,
and we have been ordered not to
worship it.
In saying this I have to make
a public confession. I must retract
what I said some years ago. I made
the statement that the television
set itself is an instrument, simply a
technological creation, and is not in
itself morally wrong. It is the uses
to which it is put, and that it can
on occasion have a good use. Well,
I’m taking 99.99 percent of that
back! I suspect that it is increased
age and experience, but I’m here
to say, “Throw it out!” Better yet,
take it out and shoot it! That way,
no one else can pick it up and carry
it off. The reason I am saying this is
because I am beginning to understand the insidious nature of it. I am
a man who was raised on movies
and TV; they shaped much of who
I am. I am now seeing the new
uses to which they are being put.
There are major changes occurring
and the images that are flashed on
the screen are doing work that is
positively destructive in a profound
way, touching the spiritual nature
of man in a way that I can only call
demonic. I am increasingly troubled
by it.

The Gift of Language

I’m making a claim that language is an extraordinary gift of
God. It is part of what makes us
fully human. In fact, Aristotle says
that man is a rational animal and
that what sets him apart, what raises
him above the animals, is that he
has the ability to reason, and it is
very clear that he cannot
reason without language.
Language is necessary
in order for man to
be a rational creature, and only to
man has it been
given.
Some
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THE ANGELUS • March 2011

16

LiTeraTUre

claim that porpoises and gorillas
talk. It is only a sign of how far this
has gone when I have to defend the
proposition that language is unique
to man. For years propaganda has
come down that the porpoises are
squeaking to each other, that the
gorillas are talking to each other,
and the chimpanzees can push the
right button and get their banana.
What we know is that language is
special, and it is one of the things
that defines man. Beyond being
a manifestation of his power to
reason, language is there so that
we can pray, so that we can communicate. We can write beautiful
things which appeal to reason, such
as poetry, etc. But, perhaps first and
most importantly, I defer to St. Paul,
who tells us that faith itself comes
by hearing.
If faith comes by hearing then
we need language to tell each other
the great truths of that Faith. There is
no other way in which the Faith can
be communicated or understood,
and even in the case of infused
knowledge we still are in need of
language in order to comprehend it.
As Catholics, we especially understand its power, its importance, the
glorious use to which language is
put, every time we benefit from
the sacraments of the Church. The
form of every sacrament depends
upon language. Most obviously,
those words said by the priest in the
person of Christ at the altar, “This
Is My Body,” do something stupendous, and we know the words are
necessary to effect that sacrament.
As a sinner I am very grateful for
the words that my confessor can say
to me at the end of my confession.
They free me from my sins. Words
are necessary to do that.
It is not by accident that with
the shift in sacraments in the Novus
Ordo Church has come a messing with the language. The fact is
that these things matter, words are
hugely important, and as Catholics
we know that. Those words are part
of those sacraments, those sacraments come to us from Christ, the
Word Incarnate. These things are
connected.
THE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

What happens to a world that
begins to lose language? That is
what is happening out there! Language is deteriorating, vocabularies
are shrinking, people are less and
less able to express themselves linguistically or have a pool of words to
draw on to describe what they think
and feel. As a result, in its place,
they are often compelled instead
to wordless action because they
are blocked in their very nature. I
suspect it has something to do with
why there is an increased level of
violence in the world. With words
no longer available to us, we act
physically because that’s what we
know and what we’ve seen.
In any case, what language
remains is collapsing into obscenity.
It is everywhere in public now. The
sense that certain words are inappropriate has been lost. One reason
for that is that the young—sadly,
pathetically—are becoming repositories for filthy language without even
knowing that the limited vocabulary
they are carrying around with them
is inappropriate. I do not think that
this is accidental. I think that this is
part of the reductive nature of this
sick world in which we’re living
where words are being taken away.

Language is Mysterious

Many of you know of the Catholic novelist Walker Percy. He wrote
some very interesting novels. Percy
had another side; he was very interested in linguistic theory as well.
He promoted an American philosopher named Charles Peirce (as in
“purse”), who developed a theory
of language and launched a study
called semiotics, a theory of signs
and symbols and the way they are
used connecting to language.
Peirce claimed that if you look
at the way in which we know things
in the world and respond to them,
almost everything is what he called
diadic. By that he simply meant
“two-ness,” that is, one thing leads
to a second thing. For example,
you can see how A leads to B,
cause leads to effect, action leads
to response. What we know of the
world of nature is learned that way.

For instance, why were the Dutch
elm trees dying in the Midwest
back in the 1960’s? Scientists found
it was a little beetle that had gotten
inside the tree and was killing it.
The reason the tree was dying?—The
beetle was killing the tree. You can
see it with children. You say to the
child, “Don’t touch the hot stove. If
you do, you will burn yourself.” Of
course, the child immediately walks
over to the stove and puts his hand
on the stove. (That’s fallen human
nature, even in the little ones.) The
hand is withdrawn, an instantaneous response. Action—Response,
Cause—Effect; that’s how things
work in the world of nature.
Peirce believed there was something very mysterious that happened with human beings when
they talked to each other. It doesn’t
happen anywhere else in nature.
He claimed that language is triadic,
that it doesn’t work A to B. In fact,
it can’t work A to B: it works A to B
by means of C. Let me explain.
I have decided that I want you
to go to the store and buy one of
those little round yellow citrus fruits
that make your lips pucker when
you bite into it. I could do anything
on earth to try to convey that to you:
I could hold my hands a certain
way, I could pucker my lips, I could
try to look yellow. But ultimately I
am going to fail. There is no earthly
way I can make you understand that
I want you to go to the store and
buy a little round yellow citrus fruit.
That is, there is no earthly way I can
make you understand I want you to
go from A to B. I cannot get there
without this particular jump when I
take these strange sounds “l”–“e”–
“m”–“o”-“n”, put them together,
and say “lemon.” At that point,
having put those squiggles in that
order and assigned those sounds
to it, you can reply, “Oh, you want
me to buy a lemon. Sure!” Suddenly
we have understanding, back and
forth. But it’s only possible via that
third element, that is, the sign, the
symbol.
Remember the round little
yellow citrus fruit? Let’s do this to
it: I have taken the same series of

LiTeraTUre
five squiggles and arranged them in
backward fashion; tell me what that
is. Absolutely nothing!—a “nomel.”
Tell me why those five squiggles
in backward order mean nothing,
and the five squiggles in this order
are perfectly comprehensible to
you. It is due to an agreed-upon
understanding that is dependent on
mutual knowledge, so that when
I say “lemon” you know what I
mean. You’re able to understand
this. If I apply a new supposition
and say “used car,” it takes on an
entirely new meaning. If I did, suddenly “lemon” is no longer this
little round yellow citrus fruit but
a junky machine I used to drive!
How did we get from one meaning
to the other meaning? It’s absolutely
mysterious. Peirce says this needs to
be studied because this is unique to
man. The porpoises cannot do it!
They cannot say, “Hey Joe, I think
there’s a tuna net over there. You
probably don’t want to swim over
there. You’re going to get hauled
in the boat and end up in a Starkist
can!” They are incapable of doing
that. But we can. And we can do
it on a number of different levels,
whether it be, “If you’re going to
the store, may you please pick up a
lemon?” or, “Shall I compare thee
to a summer’s day, thou art more
lovely and more temperate,” or,
“This is My Body.” Suddenly, language becomes that which defines
us in all sorts of mysterious ways. It
is not accidental in this age which
is losing its humanness that we are
losing our ability to use words.
In one of his essays, Walker
Percy examines this by speaking
of the young American, Helen
Keller, who was born blind, deaf,
and dumb, and whose story all
of you know. He says that until
the moment the language breakthrough came, she was an animal,
and we know this of children who
are raised either outside of human
influence, or in that unfortunate
circumstance where they cannot
hear language and get to know it.
They cannot take in that world of
symbols and signs, that extraordinary moment when the child says

its first word sitting on daddy’s lap
and suddenly Bowser walks by and
the child says “Dog.” Daddy is so
pleased, “Jimmy said his first word!”
At that moment something mysterious has happened. The child has
made the connection that those
sounds connect with that animal,
and if I say that to Daddy he’s going
to know what I mean. It has to do
with the mystery of language and
its three-ness.
Young Helen Keller couldn’t
make that connection. She was an
animal; the family couldn’t control
her. They brought in a teacher,
Annie Sullivan, to try to do something with her. Annie Sullivan began
trying to teach the little girl through
language, that is, the printing of letters in her hand, so that whatever
they did, she would press Helen
Keller to make the connection.
Pick up a book, and Annie Sullivan
would spell “b-o-o-k” in the little
girl’s hand. If they were going down
the stairs she would put her hand on
the wood and say “s-t-a-i-r”—Nothing. We are at the table, pick up a
fork, put it in her hand, “f-o-r-k”—
Nothing. This went on for months,
but she never stopped. One day
they went out to pump water. They
picked up the pail—“p-a-i-l.” They
reached down; they felt the pump—
“p-u-m-p.” It is a routine now, but
still nothing. Annie pumped and put
Helen’s hands under the water and
spelled “w-a-t-e-r.” Suddenly the
little girl felt the water, grabbed her
teacher’s hand, and repeated, “w-at-e-r.” The connection had been
made. Suddenly the whole world
opened up to her. She became
human because suddenly she was
able to know, identify, and use the
signs in order to gain knowledge of
what was around her. We might say
she became human by acquiring
language.

The Consequences
of Becoming Dumb

Since everything we do is
dependent on this, there is a serious problem when language breaks
down, whether it is the ability to say
“Please go to the store and buy me a

17

lemon,” compose beautiful poems,
speak to someone, preach to someone, or discuss ideas with someone
else. How do you spread the Faith
when language has been destroyed
or emptied of meaning? When
things began to be written down,
Plato puts in the mouth of Socrates
a sense of uneasiness that this was
not necessarily a good thing. There
would be less oral discussion and,
no longer needing to remember,
memory would begin to fail. I see it
in my students. We have gone from
the time when the bards would walk
around Greece reciting the entire
Iliad—look at the Iliad sometime
and imagine trying to memorize
it!—to the point now where memory
is so short almost nothing can be
retained. There’s a wonderful line
near the end of Brideshead Revisited
where Lord Marchmain is talking
about the time when the house was
taken apart and moved up the hill,
the time when the old farmers had
long memories. It is a deliberate
moment in the book. It is an earlier time when things were remembered. And what was remembered
first and foremost were important
events. For example, Shakespeare
has Henry V’s saying before the
Battle of Agincourt, “Old men
forget, yet all shall be forgot, but
he’ll remember with advantage the
deeds he did this day.” The Battle
of Agincourt would not be forgotten. That our Lord walked in the
world and taught will not be forgotten. These things will be passed on;
these things will be remembered.
It is language, however, that is the
vehicle of that remembering.
Guttenberg ushered in the age
of the printing press and suddenly
books became more easily available. But did the common good of
the population improve? I heard
when I was growing up that old
Protestant diatribe that “Catholics
were not allowed to read the Bible.”
It’s utter nonsense, of course, but we
all share a false sense that the easy
availability of books is a guarantee
of an educated public. During the
Middle Ages—the time of Aquinas
and of Dante, that time many judge
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THE ANGELUS • March 2011

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LiTeraTUre

to be the peak of civilization—books
weren’t readily available. Only few
people had books. There wasn’t a
Bible in every home, yet we commonly believe this era to be the
Age of Faith. What was needed to
be known was known. It was communicated. It was received. The
Catholic Church in her wisdom was
able to provide what was necessary.
Printing comes, books are distributed, and look what happens!
Within 500 years nobody cares to
read or, if they do, they read junk.
When the barriers of the old Soviet
Union fell, great works that were
long forbidden to be read there
became readily available again.
But nobody would read them. The
sheer availability of books does not
guarantee an increase in knowledge
in any way.
Electricity makes its advent into
the world. Now words can travel in
the air. We are told to think of the
great wonders radio will accomplish, bringing words to everyone
who can hear. Words are available
to every home coast to coast, but
this only means a further devolution of language. Curiously, the
more available words become, the
less attention we pay to them. The
more we take them for granted,
the greater is the risk that we will
lose them or have them taken away
from us.
Soon enough, in comes photography and moving pictures. This
is the image asserting itself over
the word. Up to that point there
was painting, sculpture, and stained
glass. These in fact are images, too,
but they were illustrative of the preexisting traditions of story-telling to
aid hearers with the additional sense
of sight. There is a big difference
between contemplating a medieval
painting of a Madonna and Child
and what the image has become
today.
Now we’re in a world in which
communication is less and less conducted via language. Over the past
few decades, a growing share of our
knowledge comes via the image, not
the word. We now know by movies,
TV, and computers. Screens with
THE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

flashing images invite us to point
and click, leading us to travel to
more images. Where is the logic of
consistently substituting an image
for the word?
I live close enough to work so
that I can walk between by office
and my home. One year, I noticed
the “walk” and “don’t walk” signs
were gone. When I wasn’t supposed
to walk there was this flashing palm
in my face. When I was supposed to
walk there was this flashing, bizarre
figure frozen in mid-stride. A literate populace can read a sign! There
used to be words but now there
are pictures on all the traffic signs.
It reinforces the fact that language
doesn’t matter: what matters is the
picture, the image, and this is damaging us in a profound way.
I confess I grew up on movies
and still am attached to some, but
the movie genre is weird! I also
love the theater. Anyone who has
done theater knows that its excitement is the interaction between
live actors and a live audience.
No two performances are ever the
same because there is this energy
between the performers and those
who are watching the performance.
Not in the movies. You could take
The Wizard of Oz and have it played
to a theater full of five-year-olds
who are loving it and squealing,
cheering, and laughing, or an empty
theater with nobody in it other than
the people picking up the empty
popcorn and washing the floor, and
it doesn’t matter. There is no change
in the performance because there
is no real life. Beyond that, it is the
freakish fact that we’re looking at
images captured in 1939, arranged

and clipped together to amuse us.
There is something weird going
on. The weirdness is to be looking
at images on a screen that are not
really alive but appear to be so.
More weird still is that I’m viewing
an image of dead people who appear
to be living before me. We know
about the raising of images. Read
I Kings (ch. 28) where King Saul
visits the witch of Endor to have
the image of dead Samuel raised
before him. In the Book of Acts (ch.
8), Simon Magus, the magician who
thought the miracles of the Apostles
to be magic and sought to buy this
power, in later years is legendary
in Rome for raising up images.
Scripture declares the divining of
images to be evil. Where we find
people raising images, or seeming
to raise the dead, they are judged to
be acting against God’s law. Yet, for
decades we have amused ourselves
by the images raised in movies.
There is a similar phenomenon
in still photography. We have captured the images of people and
display them in our home. Many
of them are now long dead, yet we
hear ourselves say, “Oh, that’s Aunt
Sophie. Gee, she was wonderful! We
had such fun that day, and look at
that hat she was wearing. Wasn’t it
great?” But nobody’s remembering
to pray for her, because it’s as if she
is still with us for having been captured on film when she was alive.
It’s quite strange.
Dr. David Allen White taught World Literature at
the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, for
the better part of three decades. He gave many
seminars at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in
Winona, Minnesota, including one on which this
article is based. He is the author of The Mouth of
the Lion and The Horn of the Unicorn.

Television: The Soul at Risk

What should we think?
Isabelle Doré
Sooner or later, we all have to make choices: Television in the home
or not? Moderate use or not? Grudging toleration or opposition with
all one’s might? The best thing to do in making a choice is to consider
all the aspects of television and audiovisual media in general. Movies,
videos, and DVDs are in various ways both alike and different from TV.
How does television affect the intellect’s capacity to apprehend what
is true? How does television affect the will’s capacity to love what is
good? These questions and more are answered inside.
80 pp. Softcover. STK# 8470✱ $8.95

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)

●

March 2011
Reprint #96

THE CHURCH,
THE POPE,
AND THE
BISHOPS:
the Ancient
Doctrine
and the New

Faced with attacks on the Pope and the Church, the time has
perhaps come to revisit certain theses, and to have the humility
and intellectual honesty to admit that it is the new doctrines in
ecclesiology introduced by Vatican II that have opened the gates to
the enemies of the Church, who seek to destroy the Rock intended
by Christ to sustain it, and the Authority established to govern it.
19

THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT

pope the power to govern a diocese independently
of the fact of his episcopal consecration.
In this study, we shall address the problems
raised by the new theories on the Church as they
appear in recent official documents, in particular the
Letter to the Chinese and the ecclesiology of Dominus
Jesus, which corresponds to that of Lumen Gentium.
This doctrine, as we shall see, is not in perfect
continuity with the doctrine heretofore taught by the
Roman Church.

A Few Classical
Notions of Ecclesiology
It will be helpful to begin with a restatement of
a few points of the Church’s teaching that will be
continually referred to in this article.
There are two powers in the Church given by our
Lord Jesus Christ, from which flow two hierarchies
which intertwine and overlap in part, but which
remain quite distinct in their attributes and their
sources. These two powers are:
1) The potestas sanctificandi, which is received
and exercised by the intermediary of the sacrament
of Orders in its different degrees (lesser ministries,
priesthood, episcopate; in this context, by bishop is
meant one who has received episcopal consecration).
It consists essentially in the power to confect the
Eucharist and, by means of this and the other
sacraments, to give grace to souls. Since the source
of this power is a sacrament, its direct author is
our Lord Jesus Christ Himself ex opere operato: the
ministers are merely its instruments. The highest act
of this power is the consecration of the Body and
Blood of Christ. In this, bishop and priest are equal.
2) The potestas regendi, or power of jurisdiction,
which of itself includes the spiritual power to govern
and to teach (in effect, one can only teach licitly
and authoritatively one’s own subjects). The Church
being a society, it must possess an authority endowed
with the power to legislate and guide, and to punish
and correct. This power, which our Lord possesses
in the highest degree, is transmitted by Him directly
to the pope alone at the moment when the latter
accepts his election, and it is transmitted by the pope
in different ways to the rest of the Church. It has no
inherent link with the power of Orders, although
generally the two powers reside in the same persons,
and the pope and diocesan bishops have a moral
obligation to unite in their person the two powers.
But a moral obligation does not signify metaphysical
necessity: one can exist without the other, the two
powers having different origins and finalities. In this
sense, the bishop is one who has received from the

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This doctrine on the distinction of the origin
of the two powers is unambiguously taught in an
impressive array of magisterial documents, the first of
which is Pius XII’s encyclical Mystici Corporis (1943),
taken up subsequently in Ad Sinarum Gentes (1954)
and Ad Apostolorum Principis (1958): the bishops
govern their dioceses in the name of Christ; “yet
while they do this, they are not entirely independent,
but are placed under the due authority of the Roman
Pontiff, although they enjoy the ordinary power
of jurisdiction obtained directly from the same
Highest Pontiff.”1 The only person in the world
who receives the power of jurisdiction directly from
God is the Roman Pontiff, as the Code of Canon
Law affirmed (Can. 109): “Those who are taken into
the ecclesiastical hierarchy…are constituted in the
grades of the power of orders by sacred ordination;
into the supreme pontificate, by divine law itself
upon the completion of the conditions of legitimate
election and acceptance; in the remaining grades of
jurisdiction, by canonical mission.”2 Thus the pope
himself does not receive this power from episcopal
consecration, but independently of it.
To give other authoritative sources, we shall cite
Pius II in the Bull of Retractations (1463)3; Pius VI,
who in the Apostolic Constitution Super Soliditate
(1786) states apropos of the Pope that “the bishops
receive from him their authority, as he receives
the supreme power from God, etc.”4; Pius VI in the
encyclical Charitas (1791) against the bishops named
by the revolutionary government in France: “The
power to confer jurisdiction resides uniquely in the
Apostolic See”5; and still more clearly in the Letter
Deessemus (1788): “The episcopal dignity…as regards
orders comes immediately from God, and as regards
jurisdiction, from the Apostolic See”6; Leo XIII in
the fundamental encyclical Satis Cognitum (1896); to
the pages of Pius XII and the consistorial allocution
of John XXIII (Dec. 15, 1958), which states: “from
an episcopal consecration without apostolic mandate,
absolutely no jurisdiction can come.”7 During the
Council, the future Cardinal Staffa published an
opuscule for the benefit of the Council Fathers (who
were debating these questions in the schema on the
Church), reporting in light of this truth not only
the authoritative teachings of the Church, but also
numerous quotations from the Fathers and Doctors,
as well as the unanimous teaching of more than 130
important theologians from different eras.

The New Doctrine
in Lumen Gentium
Keeping in mind these truths taught by the
Church and therefore revealed by God, we can now

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examine what is taught by Lumen Gentium and the
recent documents mentioned above. Our remarks
on Lumen Gentium, covered in a recent article, will
be limited to a short overview, the text having been
previously examined more thoroughly.8
In Chapter III (nn. 18-23) and in the Nota
Praevia, or Prefatory Note of Explanation, episcopal
consecration is considered to be the source of the
power of governing and not only of the power
of orders, based upon the sacramentality of the
episcopacy. The topic is debated and in fact of
little use in proving the thesis of the innovators.
For the Council of Trent, the priesthood conferred
by Christ on the Apostles and their successors is
called “the power of consecrating, of offering and
administering His body and blood, and also of
forgiving and retaining sins” (Dz. 957); in particular,
the bishops “who have succeeded the Apostles…are
superior to priests, and administer the sacrament of
confirmation, ordain ministers of the Church, and
can perform many other offices over which those of
an inferior order have no power” (Dz. 960). Such are
the effects of ordination as described by the Council
of Trent: it is a power linked to the physical body of
Christ and to the administration of the sacraments,
and absolutely not to the external government
of the Church. Contrariwise, Lumen Gentium (22)
affirms that “episcopal consecration, together with
the office of sanctifying, also confers the offices of
teaching and of governing. (These, however, of their
very nature, can be exercised only in hierarchical
communion with the head and the members of the
College.)” Every validly consecrated bishop would
then, according to Lumen Gentium, possess the two
powers; the pope would act just to determine the
exercise of the power of governing, not to confer
it (in the absence of this intervention by the pope,
we do not know whether the exercise of jurisdiction
would be invalid or only illicit, as for the power of
orders). Moreover, according to No. 22, episcopal
consecration would also have as an effect entrance
into the episcopal College, a body which, according
to Lumen Gentium, would possess the supreme power
alongside the pope’s primacy: the Prefatory Note
specifies that the subject of universal power always
exists, but it is not operative except when the pope
calls upon it. Section 22 also affirms that hierarchical
communion with the head and members of the body
is necessary in order to be a member of the College;
however it is not clear whether this constitutes an
actual cause of membership in the College or a
simple condition. The power of governing, which
is extraneous to the sacramental order, would be
the effect of the sacrament ex opere operato, hence of
Christ directly, just as membership in the College,
which while being the subject of the supreme power
cum Petro and sub Petro, would remain a subject
distinct from Peter and would receive the power it
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exercises not ex Petro, but ex Christo, a teaching that
comes across clearly in the Prefatory Note.
This teaching of Lumen Gentium has grave
consequences. The first is the new doctrine on the
episcopal College, which would comprise all the
consecrated bishops of the world, as we saw above,
of which the pope is the internal primary mover (and
not outside mover); but, the Nota Praevia says, the

According to the traditional
doctrine, the pope can indeed
join with the body of bishops
to accomplish an act with
them (in a General Council
or in the ordinary and
universal teaching activity),
but it is from him that the
others receive the power
to accomplish an act of
governance of the universal
Church, and thus there is not
a permanent second subject
of supreme authority.
College always exists and is always the subject also of
supreme and full power over the whole Church. The
power of the pope alone would not be diminished
nor infringed, but it would no longer be unique, and
therein lies the problem. This contradicts what was
defined by Vatican I:
And upon Simon Peter alone Jesus after His resurrection
conferred the jurisdiction of the highest pastor and rector
over his entire fold, saying: “Feed my lambs,” “Feed
my sheep” [ Jn. 21:15 ff.]. To this teaching of the Sacred
Scriptures, so manifest as it has been always understood
by the Catholic Church, are opposed openly the vicious
opinions of those who perversely deny that the form of
government in His Church was established by Christ the
Lord; that to Peter alone, before the other apostles, whether
individually or all together, was confided the true and proper
primacy of jurisdiction by Christ; or, of those who affirm
that the same primacy was not immediately and directly
bestowed upon the blessed Peter himself, but upon the

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Church, and through this Church upon him as the minister
of the Church herself. (Pastor Aeternus, Dz. 1822)

According to the traditional doctrine, the
pope can indeed join with the body of bishops to
accomplish an act with them (in a General Council
or in the ordinary and universal teaching activity),
but it is from him that the others receive the power
to accomplish an act of governance of the universal
Church, and thus there is not a permanent second
subject of supreme authority.
Lately it is being said that collegiality is no longer
in style, that John Paul II governed personally and
that Benedict XVI does not hesitate to act against
the opinion of the episcopate. But let us note that the
subject does not concern the concrete exercise of this
alleged power of the College over the last decades,
but the general doctrinal vision, in particular because
today it constitutes the basis for ecumenical relations,
especially with the Orthodox world.

The Evolution of Theology
during the Conciliar Years
In 1961 a book signed by Karl Rahner and
Joseph Ratzinger was published, entitled Episkopat
und Primat. In the chapter Über das Jus Divinum
des Episkopats, the authors maintained that the
unique subject of supreme power is the College of
bishops, and that the pope who acts alone does so
as representative of the College. The College would
then logically and chronologically precede the
Primacy. Let us note that, for Rahner, the proof of
this thesis (substantially shared by Congar) is that a
supreme power subject to Peter would necessarily be
delegated by him, since Peter received it from Christ;
but in this case the Apostles would no longer be the
Apostles of Christ, but the Apostles of Peter; one
must therefore grant that Christ gives the College the
supreme role, and that Peter is its delegate. All this
because, Rahner says, a society can have only one
supreme authority or else it would be two societies,
which would be equivalent to denying the unity of
the Church. The pope is thus bound by moral but
not legal rules to conduct himself as representative of
the College and not to act according to his own will.
It is manifestly difficult to reconcile this thesis
with the statement of Vatican I, which condemns
“…those who affirm that the same primacy was
not immediately and directly bestowed upon the
blessed Peter himself, but upon the Church, and
through this Church upon him as the minister of the
Church herself” (Pastor Aeternus, cited above). Let us
note moreover that the Rahner-Ratzinger thesis is
somewhat different from the one that subsequently
prevailed in Lumen Gentium: here the subject of

22

supreme authority is one, the College, even though it
is not excluded that the pope can act alone, and even
that he is in fact the only interpreter and spokesman
of the College. He must fulfill his role well by
acting as representative, otherwise the College may
complain. Legal considerations on this point are out
of place: for them the Church is “communion,” and
not an ordered, perfect society.
Nevertheless, the echo of this thesis also appears
in Article 22 of Lumen Gentium, when it affirms that
the pope exercises the power under two heads: in
virtue of his office and as head of the College. It is
thus admitted that at least in certain cases, the pope
is only the representative of the College.
Is this doctrine still current today? What traces
can be found in recent documents on the subject?

The Declaration Dominus Jesus
and Other CDF Texts
On August 6, 2000, the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith published the famous
declaration Dominus Jesus, on the Church as the only
way of salvation. It gave an official interpretation of
the notorious passage of Lumen Gentium according to
which “the unique Church of Christ…subsists in the
Catholic Church.” This teaching is found in Articles
16 and 17:
16. …The Catholic faithful are required to profess that
there is an historical continuity–rooted in the apostolic
succession–between the Church founded by Christ and
the Catholic Church: “This is the single Church of Christ...
which our Saviour, after his resurrection, entrusted to
Peter’s pastoral care (cf. Jn. 21:17), commissioning him and
the other Apostles to extend and rule her (cf. Mt. 28:18ff.),
erected for all ages as ‘the pillar and mainstay of the truth’
(I Tim. 3:15). This Church, constituted and organized as
a society in the present world, subsists in [subsistit in] the
Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by
the Bishops in communion with him.” With the expression
subsistit in, the Second Vatican Council sought to harmonize
two doctrinal statements: on the one hand, that the Church
of Christ, despite the divisions which exist among Christians,
continues to exist fully only in the Catholic Church, and on
the other hand, that “outside of her structure, many elements
can be found of sanctification and truth,” that is, in those
Churches and ecclesial communities which are not yet in
full communion with the Catholic Church. But with respect
to these, it needs to be stated that “they derive their efficacy
from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the
Catholic Church.”
17. Therefore, there exists a single Church of Christ, which
subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor
of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him. The
Churches which, while not existing in perfect communion
with the Catholic Church, remain united to her by means
of the closest bonds, that is, by apostolic succession and a
valid Eucharist, are true particular Churches. Therefore,
the Church of Christ is present and operative also in these
Churches, even though they lack full communion with the
Catholic Church, since they do not accept the Catholic
doctrine of the Primacy, which, according to the will of God,

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the Bishop of Rome objectively has and exercises over the
entire Church.
On the other hand, the ecclesial communities which
have not preserved the valid Episcopate and the genuine
and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery, are not
Churches in the proper sense...

The thesis, also upheld in the Note of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the
expression “Sister Churches” which appeared shortly
before,9 is very clear. The Church is one, it is the
Catholic Church, but at the same time the Church
also exists beyond the reach of papal authority.
A local “Church” with a bishop, in the East, for
example, would be a true Church with power of
internal governance originating in valid episcopal
consecration, which among other things, would make
its recipient a member of the College that governs
the universal Church. The “Churches” which are
not in communion with the Pope do not cease to be
Churches: One Church, several churches in which
is active the Church of Christ above, “supersubject.”
It seems to us that it is no good to insistently repeat
that the one Church of Christ is the Catholic Church
only to contradict this statement a few lines down
by speaking of non-Catholic communities as true
“Churches” simply because they have a bishop: this
presupposes the above-described doctrine according
to which Christ does not need the pope in order to
confer the power that constitutes the Church. If this
invisible unity of government is suppressed, every
bishop capable of conferring ordination becomes a
source of the power of governing–with potential for
its unending multiplication.
This thesis recurs in the document issued by
the CDF on June 29, 2007, in response to certain
questions on the term “subsistit in” and on Chapter
VIII of Lumen Gentium: numerous elements of the
Catholic Church are to be found outside it and lead
to it. The separated Eastern “Churches” are true local
Churches, even though they suffer from a “lack,”
the role of the Successor of Peter being one of the
“internal constitutive principles” of a local Church.
It remains to be understood how something missing
an internal constitutive principle can be merely
suffering a “lack” and not a substantial change of
nature: but the contradiction in these documents
accompanies the ambiguity of their terms; just as
they do not explain why the Successor of Peter
is so necessary within these communities when
they already have the power of governing and of
episcopal consecration. Indeed, it is hard to know
what else the pope confers on the Catholic bishops
or the “local Churches,” since a valid Eucharist and
episcopate suffice to constitute “Churches” according
to the same document, which would justify denial
of the appellation of “Church” to the “Christian
communities born out of the Reformation of the
16th century.”10

If in this document they also proclaim loud and
clear that the Church is one, they also inform us
that “because of the division between Christians, the
fullness of universality, which is proper to the Church
[plenitudo catholicatis Ecclesiae propria] governed by the
Successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion
with him, is not fully realised in history.”11 So if in
fact nothing is lacking to the schismatic “Churches,”

We are thus in the presence of
an explicit and unavoidable
doctrinal contradiction: on the
one hand we are told that the
bishops possess jurisdiction by
virtue of their consecration,
and on the other, that they by
no means have it without the
intermediary of the pope. On
the one hand, we are told that
the pope grants the legitimate
exercise of a jurisdiction that
is already possessed; on the
other, we are told the pope
confers its possession.
then it is the schismatic “Churches” that are lacking
to the one Church for it to achieve “the fullness of
universality.” This is normal, since in the College that
constitutes and governs this unique Church, some
members by divine right do not want to sit–bishops
duly consecrated and hence endowed with the power
of governing the universal Church by virtue of
their episcopal consecration, as we have seen: The
sacrament of orders at the level of the episcopate
is an essential constitutive and sufficient element,
because it is held that it also gives what in fact it
does not give, apostolic succession, according to the
doctrine of Lumen Gentium.
In practice, two essential elements required for
belonging to the Church are ignored: jurisdiction,

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originating uniquely in the pope, and faith. Allusion
is never made to the fact that because the schismatic
bishops do not profess the true faith, they can in no
way belong to the Church. Nor is the fact that the
pope is not an indefinite element in the constitution
of the Church, but the source of all authority and the
bond of membership in this unity, which is reduced
to a purely sacramental mechanism (baptism and
valid orders: personal adherence by the profession
of the true faith and the desire to consider oneself
part of the whole of which the pope is head no longer
count).

The Letter of May 27, 2007,
to the Chinese
The Holy Father addressed a letter dated May 27,
2007, to the bishops, priests, consecrated persons and
lay faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s
Republic of China to offer “guidelines concerning
the life of the Church and the task of evangelization
in China.” We will not take up the political questions
or current events discussed in this document, but
simply the doctrinal principles that are frequently
propounded on the subject under discussion. These
we will compare to the principles taught by Pius
XII in the two letters he published at the time of the
Chinese schism.
In Article 5 of the letter, we read:
Catholic doctrine teaches that the Bishop is the visible
source and foundation of unity in the particular Church
entrusted to his pastoral ministry [LG 23]. But in every
particular Church, in order that she may be fully Church,
there must be present the supreme authority of the Church,
that is to say, the episcopal College together with its Head,
the Roman Pontiff, and never apart from him. Therefore the
ministry of the Successor of Peter belongs to the essence of
every particular Church “from within.”12

Here a surprising affirmation is made: in every
particular Church the supreme authority, which is
constitutive of the particular Church ab intrinseco, is
duly to be found…. This supreme authority is not
the pope, but the College of bishops (which has the
pope as its head) and it alone: here there is only one
subject of the supreme authority, which differs from
the double subject of supreme authority expounded
in Lumen Gentium.
This is just the beginning of the explanation.
In Article 8 the situation in China is recognized,
where bishops are continually being consecrated
without papal mandate; a speech of Benedict XVI
to the newly ordained bishops of September 21,
2006, is referenced. The letter asserts unhesitatingly:
“To be able to carry out this mission, you received
with episcopal consecration three special offices:
the munus docendi, the munus sanctificandi and the

24

munus regendi, which all together constitute the munus
pascendi.” Further on, this notion is repeated for the
Chinese bishops:
As in the rest of the world, in China too the Church is
governed by Bishops who, through episcopal ordination
conferred upon them by other validly ordained Bishops,
have received, together with the sanctifying office, the offices
of teaching and governing the people entrusted to them in
their respective particular Churches, with a power that is
conferred by God through the grace of the sacrament of
Holy Orders. (8)

The letter here states quite clearly that every
validly ordained bishop has not only the power of
governing directly from God, but also over a specific
diocese (“particular Church”)! Of what use, then, is
the pope–or rather the “College”?
Let us continue reading the letter, where we find
the explanation with a reference to Lumen Gentium
21: “The offices of teaching and governing ‘however,
by their very nature can be exercised only in
hierarchical communion with the head and members
of the College,’” as we have seen. It remains to ask
what the pope (as representative of the College)
concedes: the licit exercise or the valid exercise of
acts of jurisdiction? Let us recall that if the Prefatory
Note refused to answer this question, we find the
solution farther in the text: speaking of the bishops
illegitimately consecrated who subsequently asked
Rome to receive them into communion with the rest
of the episcopate, the letter states: “The Pope, …by
virtue of his proper responsibility as universal Pastor
of the Church, has granted them the full and legitimate
exercise of episcopal jurisdiction” (8).
This doctrine is diametrically opposed to what
Pius XII wrote to the Chinese in his encyclical letter
Ad Apostolorum Principis in 1958: “…Bishops who
have been neither named nor confirmed by the
Apostolic See, but who, on the contrary, have been
elected and consecrated in defiance of its express
orders, enjoy no powers of teaching or of jurisdiction
since jurisdiction passes to bishops only through the
Roman Pontiff” (39). A distinction is clearly made
between possession and exercise: the exercise of
the power of orders is in fact valid but gravely illicit
and sacrilegious; as for the power of jurisdiction, its
simple possession is flatly denied.
We are thus in the presence of an explicit and
unavoidable doctrinal contradiction: on the one hand
we are told that the bishops possess jurisdiction by
virtue of their consecration, and on the other, that
they by no means have it without the intermediary of
the pope. On the one hand, we are told that the pope
grants the legitimate exercise of a jurisdiction that is
already possessed; on the other, we are told the pope
confers its possession. The Prefatory Note of Lumen
Gentium had already raised the problem of the texts
of Pius XII, then still recent, which said the contrary
of what is affirmed by the conciliar document, but

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it expeditiously resolved the issue by affirming
against the evidence that they were speaking of the
concession of the exercise and not of the possession
of jurisdiction–which is not really supported by the
texts.

A Conclusion
Reading over these texts, the Church appears as
both “one” and “multiple,” but also as “not yet” at
least in its fullness.
The texts repeat over and over that one is the
Church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic
Church. They reassure us that subsist has the same
meaning as is. But this one Church, which the
documents of the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith assure us is identical to the Catholic
Church, is at the same time multiple, because outside
the Church, wherever there is a validly ordained
bishop, the Church is there. But this Church is not
“complete” so long as all the bishops, who by divine
right have the power of governing as members of the
College, are not in communion among themselves
and with the Pope.
In this regard, we must equally recall how
Cardinal Ratzinger (in the presentation of Dominus
Jesus to the public) criticized the liberation theologian
Boff, who believed that the different Christian
communities could simply be juxtaposed without
any common foundation: “This division [the one
described by Dominus Jesus] is something totally
different from the relativistic dialectics [Boff’s]
described above, in which the division of Christians
loses its painful aspect, and which in reality is
not a fracture, but merely the manifestation of
multiple variations of a single theme in which all the
variations are somehow right and wrong. In these
conditions, an intrinsic obligation to seek unity does
not exist because in truth the Church is everywhere
and nowhere…and all would be fragments of
the Christian reality. Ecumenism would then be
resignation to a relativistic dialectics.”13 Here it is not
question of the ecumenism of “to each his own truth”
or of “love one another.” It is not a simple pragmatic
attitude, it is not even a form of relativism and it
should not be confused with this. Ecumenism would
be urgent and metaphysically necessary not for the
baptized who are outside the Church and who must
return in order to be saved; it is not they who have
need of the Church; it is the Church that needs them,
and in particular the bishops, in order to complete its
fullness.
Here we see emerge a thesis that seems to be
self-contradictory: how can a subject be both one
and multiple? How can the Church be one and at
the same time lack intrinsic and essential constitutive
elements? Have we perhaps misunderstood these

documents, which may in fact have a coherence that
escapes us?
In reality, it is not we who assert that this thesis is
contradictory, but Cardinal Ratzinger himself, in the
continuation of the passage quoted above: “Since
sin is a contradiction, this contradiction, this
difference between subsistit and est cannot be
resolved logically. In the paradox of the difference

If to a sole visible supreme
authority, source of every
other power of governing,
corresponds a single visible
Church without exterior
“pieces,” clearly definable and
identifiable even legally, then
to a multiple authority (for in
fact every validly ordained
bishop becomes a source
of authority) corresponds a
multiple Church.
between singularity and the concrete character of
the Church on the one hand, and the existence of
an ecclesial reality outside the unique subject of
the other, is reflected the contradictory character
of human sin, the contradictory character of the
division.”14
On what can this theory be based? How can one
defy the fundamental principle of human thought,
for which a thing cannot both be and not be at the
same time and in the same respect? It is clear that
the whole system rests, not only on a fallacious
philosophy, but also on a deformation of the papacy.
If to a sole visible supreme authority, source of
every other power of governing, corresponds a
single visible Church without exterior “pieces,”
clearly definable and identifiable even legally, then
to a multiple authority (for in fact every validly
ordained bishop becomes a source of authority)
corresponds a multiple Church. Lumen Gentium
justifies the continued affirmation that the Church

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“…id tamen dum faciunt, non plane sui juris sunt, sed sub debita Romani
Pontificis auctoritate positi, quamvis ordinaria jurisdictionis potestate fruantur,
immediate sibi ad eodem Pontifice impertita.” Pope Pius XII, Encyclical
Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943, Dz. 2287.
2
“Qui in ecclesiastica hierarchica cooptantur…in gradibus potestatis ordinis
constituuntur sacra ordinatione; in supremo pontificatu, ipsomet jure divino,
adimpleta conditione legitimae electionis ejusdemque acceptationis; in reliquis
gradibus jurisdictionis, canonica missione.”
3
“A Jesu Christi Vicario, tamquam Capite omnis in subjecta membra potestas
et auctoritas derivatur” (Bullarium Romanorum, V, 174; cf. ibid., 180).
4
Fontes CIC, II, 664, 668-9.
5
Ibid., II, 678.
6
Vatican Archives, Epistolae ad principes, CLXXXIV, 130-35.
7
A.A.S. 50 (1958), 610-611.
8
“Episcopacy and Collegiality,” La Tradizione Cattolica, Vol. 17, No. 1,
2006.
9
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Note on the Expression
“Sister Churches,” June 30, 2000.
10
CDF, Fifth Question, Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain
Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church, June 29, 2007.
11
Ibid., response to the fourth question.
12
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter to the Bishops of
the Catholic Church on some aspects of the Church understood as
Communion, Communionis Notio (28 May 1992), 13: A.A.S. 85 (1993),
846.
13
L’Osservatore Romano, March 4, 2000, p. 8.
14
Ibid. Cf. also Fr. Michel Simoulin and Don Davide Pagliarani, “Dominus
Jesus: tanto rumore per nulla,” La Tradizione Cattolica, IX, No. 4.
15
“Qui igitur Romanae…Ecclesiae praeest, successor est Petri et ipsius
propterea fungitur potestate, alias Deus et homo Christus Jesus,
ad dexteram Patris sedens, suam universalem, unam et militantem
Ecclesiam acephalam, id est sine aliquo qui super omnes vices ejus in
terris gereret, vel habentem, quasi monstruum, plura capita, reliquisset:
quod non tam rationi contrarium etiam in natura, qual haereticum
censeretur. Et hoc Romana Sedes Mater est fi dei, sola auctoritatem
ab ipsis exceptam praestat Conciliis, jura statuit et leges ponit. (Acta
Bonifatii VIII, 11 Oct. 1298, C.I.C.O. Fontes, pp. 203-204.)
1

is one because the pope is the supreme authority,
but also that it is multiple, because there is a second
subject of the supreme authority, a College of
which some members are outside the one Church
and the pope; and to the constitutive members not
yet in communion corresponds the incomplete
character which makes of the Church an institution
tending to be itself but which somehow is not
yet, or is no longer, and which is in urgent and
continual ecumenical tension. In light of all this,
one understands among other things the new
relationship with the Orthodox.
It is good to close with the very famous and
prophetic statement of Boniface VIII, which of itself
demolishes the entire edifice built by the innovators:
He who leads the Roman Church is the Successor of
Peter, and consequently enjoys the [supreme] power,
otherwise the God-Man Jesus Christ, who is seated at
the right hand of the Father, would have left His Church
either headless, that is, without anyone representing Him
on earth, or else a multi-headed monster, which it should
be necessary to consider as not only contrary to natural
reason, but also as heretical. That is why the Roman See is
Mother of the Faith; the only authority granted to Councils
is received from it; and it establishes rights and legislates.15

Don Mauro Tranquillo
(Tradizione Cattolica, No. 2, 2010)
Translated from Courrier de Rome, No. 3, November 2010, pp. 1-4.

Pope John’s Council

Liturgical Revolution: Volume II
Michael Davies
For those who have read it, it is already a classic. Few books can rival
its clarity and objectivity. An incredible pattern emerges: a pastoral
Council hijacked by a clique of theological liberals who consign to the
trash the documents of the Council Preparatory Committee (of which
Archbishop Lefebvre was a member), shut off the microphones of
those who attempt to defend the Faith (suffering this indignity was no
less than the illustrious Cardinal Ottaviani), and co-opting the media
so that their spin became “reality.” Michael Davies spent the last
year of his life updating this book. Indispensable to understanding
Vatican Council II.
521 pp. Color hardcover. STK# 8283✱ $26.95

Time Bombs of Vatican II
Fr. Franz Schmidberger
Explains how Vatican II wrought destruction by not clearly defining
Catholic Truth, failing to definitively reject error, adopting ambiguous,
contradictory language, and establishing teachings very close to heresy.
Ideal for non-trads and those who don't understand that the crisis is
deeper than the liturgy.
32 pp. Pocket-sized, area for stamping.
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26

I Accuse the Council!

Collegiality, priesthood, marriage, religious liberty, ecumenism
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
A major player at Vatican II, Archbishop
Lefebvre made these 12 official statements
at the Council exposing the danger of its
documents. He warned that the faithful would
become confused, doubting the necessity of
the Church, the sacraments, the conversion of
non-Catholics, and the necessity of authority.
Covers collegiality, the priesthood, marriage,
religious liberty, and ecumenism.
89 pp. Softcover. STK# 3072✱ $10.00

THE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

27

THE TERMS OF THE CRISIS,
The
Crisis
of the
Terms
Part 2
Text of the conference
given during the theological
congress of the Courrier de
Rome held in Paris on
January 8-10, 2010, on the
topic of “Vatican II: A Debate
That Should Be Started?”

I

t is appropriate to pose the
question candidly: what is this
modern civilization which the
Church says, at the Council,
is its primary concern? Let us
not look at this modern civilization
ethereally, let us not imagine it as
a virtual world: modern civilization has its own aspirations, which
it claims loudly and forcefully.
Having emerged from the revolutions, it aspires to independence
with respect to a creator; it claims
autonomy and—to use a metaphysical term—aseity, in other words, selfsufficiency, without dependence
on any transcendent reality whatsoever.
If you do not agree with Romano
Amerio, if you find that his analysis
is not pertinent, I will quote for you
another author who is not suspected
of excessive traditionalism, Luc
Ferry, the former French Minister of
Education. In his book L’homme dieu
he answers the question “What is
modernity?” by saying: Modernity
is the rejection of all subjection, of
all submission to any transcendence
whatsoever. It refuses the argument
from authority; it simply wants the

Fr. Alain Lorans, FSSPX
values of autonomous man to be
affirmed. Everything else is intolerable. That is the spirit of modernity,
of post-modernity or of late modernity, whatever name you give to it.
You have to understand those
who cite this modernity. The title
of Luc Ferry’s book, Man as God,
is honest at least: this is man who
makes himself god and who wants
nothing to do with the God who
became man. Now this “modern
civilization” is imbued with the
spirit of autonomy in every fiber of
the institutions it has produced; this
is the civilization to which the conciliar Church intends to offer its not
insignificant cooperation. Amerio
writes, “The world rejects dependence on anything other than itself.
Faced with this fact, the Church
seems to be afraid of being further
rejected, as it already has been by a
large part of the human race” (503).
She is afraid to see herself rejected
because indeed she affirms, with
every fiber of her divine institution,
her dependence on divine transcendence, on the Revelation that she
has received. Therefore she is in
opposition: she is in the world but
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THE ANGELUS • March 2011

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VaTiCan ii

she is not of the world; she does
not have the spirit of the world and
she cannot have it. And so she sees
very well that she is misunderstood,
but that is what allows her also to
be leaven in the dough, that is what
allows her also to be the salt of the
earth, that is what allows her to be
the light of the world, unless she no
longer has any meaning at all. “The
Church seems to be afraid of being
further rejected, as it already has
been by a large part of the human
race. Therefore it sets about watering down its own characteristic set
of values and playing up the things
it has in common with the world....”
In other words, she will emphasize
that secondary, civilizing mission,
but she will conceal the essential,
salvific one. “All the world’s causes
are thus taken up by the Church.
The Church offers its assistance
to the world and is attempting to
put itself at the head of human
progress.”
Let us read another excerpt
which is very enlightening too
(Iota Unum, par. 221, p. 505). In
it Amerio denounces “the specific
flaw in secondary Christianity” as
a leveling of Revelation, revealed
truth brought down to the human,
worldly level. “The specific flaw
in secondary Christianity which it
shares in common with the city of
man, is its setting aside of the transcendent.” To put it in the simplest terms,
the transcendent is the affirmation of God’s existence and of our
dependence on God, our Creator;
we are creatures and He is the Creator on whom we depend. “Setting
aside” means that they get rid of
the transcendent. Amerio says very
boldly, “This is the sin which St.
Augustine calls inadvertence and
St. Thomas calls inattention, and
which they both say was the sin of
the angels who fell.” Pascal spoke
about “diversion,” in other words,
the opposite of conversion. In this
context, to turn away means to turn
THE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

from what is essential. St. Thomas
calls this “inconsideration,” not a
momentary lack of consideration,
as when one says that a bevy of
beautiful airheads are inconsiderate, but rather a fundamental lack
of consideration; in other words,
missing the goal, the essential thing.
This ignoring of our heavenly goal
turns religion upside down by
reversing its perspectives: “Here we
have an abiding city, nor do we look
for any future one” (the opposite of
Heb. 13:14). Conversatio nostra non
est in coelis [cf. Phil. 3:20]. Therefore: ultimate vision merely earthly,
reduction of Christianity to a mere
means to an end, apotheosis of civilization. This is to deny the “either
or” the Gospel presents, and to
replace it with a sort of “both and”
that combines heaven and earth in
a compound, in which the world is
the predominant element that gives
the character to the whole.

This trenchant analysis by
Amerio provides us with the explanation that we were looking for, the
root of the problem that we have
been trying to dig around from
the start. The cause of the present malaise is this setting aside of
the transcendent, this “inconsideration,” this inadvertence, this tragic
forgetfulness, this terrible amnesia
that Amerio explains in another
passage that I am anxious to read
to you also, in which he shows us a
Church that is becoming an amnesiac paralyzed on one side, because
she can do nothing else in the situation in which she finds herself. Let
us listen to him once again (Iota
Unum, par. 330, p. 751):
All the changes, and their consequences, considered throughout
this book investigating what has
occurred in Catholicism in the
twentieth century, are a kind of
forgetfulness, a sort of Augustinian
inadvertentia. The new emphases
at Vatican II are a highlighting of
parts of Catholic doctrine, with a

corresponding obscuring of other
complementary parts.

Instead of keeping everything,
one will be obliged to eliminate, to
throw overboard part of the patrimony, demonstrating thereby that
there is a real rupture and a lack of
continuity.
This forgetfulness veils the doctrine
of predestination with the truth of
a universal offer of grace; it veils
hell with the truth of divine mercy;
the Real Presence with the truth of
Christ’s spiritual presence in the
congregation; absolute obedience
to the divine law with the truth that
personal perfection is its result; it
veils man’s eschatological destiny
with the truth of his duties in this
life....

It is true that the salvific will of
Our Lord is universal, but it is also
true that there is predestination.
It is true that divine mercy exists,
but it is also true that hell exists.
And we must not affirm the one
and deny the other. Unless, from
the perspective of a post-modern
Christianity in which the emphasis
is on the temporal, civilizing purpose, you are actually trying to get
rid of the primary purpose. The
long list presented here by Amerio
is all too true; all you have to do
is read the current projects: “the
infallibility of Peter” little by little
will be edged out by “the truth
of the collegial teaching authority
of the bishops.” “The moral law”
will be replaced quietly by “the
truth of the historical changes in
its applications”; the “ministerial
priesthood” by the “priesthood of
all the baptizedl”; “the dogmatic
character of the Church’s teaching”
by “investigative discussion.”
Having pointed out these specific features of the conciliar spirit
and offered an initial explanatory
principle, we must look for the
metaphysical root that will allow
us to grasp the connection between
the principle of non-contradiction

VaTiCan ii

and the question of continuity or
rupture. Romano Amerio notes a
reality that no one can overlook:
what characterizes modern society
and the present state of the Church,
they tell us, is complexity, and the
facile accusation is leveled against
the traditional position of the Society of St. Pius X that it is prone
to oversimplify, not to mention
being simplistic, naïve, and unsophisticated precisely because it is
incapable of arriving at a clear idea
of that complexity. For Romano
Amerio this complexity is not a fact,
it is the product of an attitude, the
result of intellectual conduct, of a
modern mentality (Iota Unum, par.
332, pp. 754-757). He denounced
this inadvertence which, as I said
to you, consists of throwing the
essential thing overboard. Now
the essential thing is the unifying
principle that allows complexity
to become comprehensible, intelligible. If you take away that unifying principle, everything becomes
absurd, incoherent, senseless in the
etymological sense:
It is also universally admitted that
the crisis takes the form of an imbalance between what may be briefly
described as the material development of the human race on one
hand, and its spiritual development
on the other. The truth is that this
imbalance is the result of an inability to keep technical developments
within the ambit of moral developments, and thus to put things in any
coherent order.

Indeed, we see inflationary technological progress and at the same
time a form of regression on the
moral level. We can no longer keep
things in order. Just look at all the
problems caused by what today
is called bioethics, the sorcerer’s
apprentice confronted with the
unchained elements.
Amerio continues: “The root
cause of the confusion that has
characterized the centuries of the

modern era is a lack of unity, that is,
the absence of a principle to coordinate and unify the various goods
with which man is confronted.” We
are at the heart of the problem: the
lack of unity, in other words, the
incoherence, the oxymoron, the
contradiction, the suspension of
the principle of non-contradiction.
This is the big difference between
St. Thomas Aquinas and the Rationalist Encyclopedia of the French
Enlightenment. With St. Thomas
Aquinas you have a Summa in
which there is a capstone, as at
Notre-Dame in Paris. In the 18th
century you have L’Encyclopédie, in
other words, the classification of
knowledge in the stupidest order
possible: alphabetical order. The
Summa does not classify by the
initials of words, “a, b, c, d”; no, it
classifies according to principles,
according to the formal cause.
That is what is missing today. The
Church, in espousing secondary
Christianity, departs from the fundamental unifying principle. This
is the tragedy of that inadvertence,
inconsideration or distraction!
“What then is the reason the
modern world has lost this unity?”
You will answer, “But it is a fact;
we can’t do anything about it; that’s
how it is; you just have to put up
with it.” No, says Amerio. “I ought
here to point out that the unifying
principle can never be one of the
elements that has to be unified.”
We never consider the unifying
principle one of the elements that
must be unified. In other words,
one should never deify or make
absolute one of the elements of
human civilization—money, pleasure, material progress—so as to
try to make it a unifying principle.
The unifying principle is necessarily superior, external, transcendent.
“The modern world” cannot supply
a unifying principle, since it always
“attempts to unify its goods on the
basis of one of the goods internal to

29

it.” And this is what it wants–listen
to the language used in L’homme dieu
[Man as God]. Since our society no
longer constitutes a society, since
we have become a dis-society, as
Marcel De Corte said, since individualism is king, we need to find
a new unifying principle. Formerly
the principle was external, superior; it was transcendent. But this
principle was God, the Creator who
reminded us that we were creatures
dependent upon Him. That is no
longer possible after the French
Revolution, since the modern spirit
is autonomy, self-sufficiency, the
refusal of all transcendence. Then
Man-as-god forges an oxymoron
and declares: we must find a principle that has enough authority to
form a federation of men but not
too much, so as not to hang over
their heads. We need therefore a
principle that is immanent and transcendent, transcendentally immanent or immano-transcendent, if
you prefer. And when we ask where
a principle like that can be found,
they say without laughing: in sports,
which are giving rise to new Sunday
liturgies. There you have an elite
that sets itself apart, but everyone
has the same chance at the starting
line, before the revolver fires, in
the starting blocks. Behold modern
transcendence in spiked running
shoes!
Let us return to Romano
Amerio:
I ought here to point out that the
unifying principle can never be one
of the elements that has to be unified, but must instead be something
external and superior to them all;
thus mankind’s problems cannot be
resolved from a standpoint within
man himself. The modern world,
by contrast, attempts to unify its
goods on the basis of one of the
goods internal to it. But none of
them in fact has this unifying capacity, because all of them are partial
and they are often at odds with
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VaTiCan ii

each other: economics, pleasure,
personal development, freedom.

In other words, the modern idols,
like consumption, which is the pollsters’ barometer for the morality
of the French. “The good that can
unify these multiple goods is that
ultimate Good by which all things
are made and towards which they
all converge.”
But to return to the question: why
is it that the modern world cannot
make these connections, and set
things in a definite order? Obviously as has been often, perhaps too
often, said in this book, because it
has lost the concept of an ultimate
goal by shutting itself within an
absolute Diesseitigkeit [citeriority].

That is, by staying always in this
world and closing itself off from
the next.
But although the mind of man can
contain the whole range of goods
[when perceived indistinctly in a
unitary whole], it cannot do so when
they become clearly distinguished
and fully developed, each within
its own sphere....Individual goods
thus tend to take an unlimited hold
upon men, and since their relation
to the supreme good is not grasped,
their autonomous existence, and the
muddying of vision that they cause
when not harmonized in a religious view of life, tend to produce
an anti-religious or at best a nonreligious attitude in men. Religion
then becomes an element in this
world; which is what produces secondary Christianity, [i.e. faith which
has moved to second place].

Once again the contemporary
world is not a virtual world; it is
very concretely this world which
has resulted from the modern revolutions.
“The dissolving of Christianity into this world [is considered]
as the distinctive achievement of
Vatican II.” In this regard Amerio
quotes the Archbishop of Avignon,
reported in L’Osservatore Romano
THE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

on September 3, 1976: At Vatican
II, “the Church,” said the French
prelate, “has sought a new definition of itself and has begun to love
the world, to open itself to it, to
turn itself into a dialogue.” Amerio
completes the thought:
This constitutes an attempt to get
away from a plurality of goods, too
diverse for the mind to contain,
and to return to a unified view of
the good. But the return is not to
be effected, as it should be, by a
restoration of the supremacy of a
unifying, transcendent good lying
beyond the world, but by setting
up a pseudo-principle immanent
within the world, that refuses to
look yonder for an ultimate explanation or to seek an end for man
beyond his life in time.

Now man’s destiny does not contain within itself its own explanation. “The reef upon which this
attempt founders is the impossibility of an independent dependency,
which is the key idea in the whole
of our analysis.”
Here the principle of noncontradiction really has been suspended. What is the dependent
independent? It is the uncreated
creature, it is the effect without a
cause, it is Man-as-god, the man
who has made himself god so as to
reject the God who was made man.
Here we are touching on the root of
the problem.

iii. is Tradition audible?

It remains for us now to pose
the question: is what we are saying
audible? Or are we saying it to each
other among ourselves for our own
enjoyment? It is a question today of
a debate proposed by Rome; do we
have a chance of making ourselves
heard? But it is not about us! No
more than it was a moment ago
about Fr. de La Roque confronting
Fr. Frost; instead this is about the
teaching of Tradition confronting
the Second Vatican Council.

I do not want to address things
abstractly. I will not say to you,
“Generally speaking, can the
Roman authorities understand us?”
No! Some theologians have been
appointed personally; we must
therefore ask ourselves whether
any of them can understand what
we are saying here, or whether it
is not worth the trouble. I must
tell you right away that I am not
acquainted with Msgr. Ladaria, nor
Msgr. Pozzo, nor do I know Msgr.
Ocariz or Fr. Becker, S.J. On the
other hand I have read the works of
Father Morerod, O.P. I wondered
whether or not what I just read from
Amerio’s book could be accepted
by that Dominican friar. A specialist in ecumenical questions, in
particular with the Anglicans, he is
the author of several books, among
them Ecumenism and Philosophy and
Tradition and Christian Unity, both
published in French by Parole et
Silence.
In the first book the reader
finds an attention to philosophy
that is uncommon today. Indeed,
often people think that in a dialogue you have to get right away
to the theological problem and
treat philosophy sparingly. Now
everything that I have just told you
is philosophy. And it is indispensable groundwork, because we have
to know on both sides whether we
agree on the fact that the principle
of non-contradiction is still valid. I
would say, to explain things even
more precisely along the lines of
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, that the
principle of non-contradiction has
a value that is not only logical but
also ontological. In other words,
not only is this principle a law for
our thinking, for our reason, for
our discourse—we cannot use incoherent language, we cannot speak
about “differentiated consensus”
any more than we can speak of a
“squared circle”—but this principle
of non-contradiction is also a law of

VaTiCan ii

31

being, of reality; what is real is not
incoherent; a thing is itself; it is not
itself and its contrary—otherwise the
door is open to absurdity and reality dissolves completely.
Plainly this is the indispensable foundation for all discussion.
No doubt about it, in the work of
Fr. Morerod there is attention to
philosophy as a preliminary condition for a dialogue. Indeed, on page
145 of Ecumenism and Philosophy we
read:
We propose that the ecumenical
dialogue take into consideration
the philosophical dimension of the
Reformation at its roots. Such a step
is not customary, because Luther
excluded philosophy in his movement to reject Scholasticism, and
this dimension has not been considered in the dialogue between
Catholics and Protestants. We think
that this silence is one of the reasons
why it is difficult to grasp theologically certain differences that
remain, such as those mentioned
in the 1998 Joint Declaration on Justification.

I am simply observing, and I am
not going farther than what the text
says; I note an attention to philosophy, and to me it seems indispensable. You cannot envisage a
dialogue if this understanding at the
philosophical level does not exist.
In the other book just mentioned, too, Tradition and Christian
Unity, I find in Fr. Morerod an
interest in a theological debate that
was conducted in France in the
17th century: the dialogue between
Catholics and Protestants during
the Counter-Reformation period.
Bossuet was confronted with a formidable challenger, Pastor Jurieu,
and he composed The History of the
Variations. Unlike certain contemporary theologians who suppose
that the Church was born in 1965
and that we don’t have to take an
interest in what was said in the

The Palazzo of the Holy Office in Rome, where the doctrinal
discussions between Rome and the Fraternity of St. Pius X take place.

17th century, Fr. Morerod writes
on page 62:
This century, which is missing from
too many histories of theology, was
at a pivotal point….Certain current
topics were already discussed in the
seventeenth century by eminent
theologians….Their arguments,
often profound, can still teach us
much.

Thus at the invitation of this Dominican let us look more closely at the
work of Bossuet.
What is the method of argumentation in The History of the Variations, of which Iota Unum could
be seen as a 20th-century update?
Bossuet seeks specifically to apply
the principle of non-contradiction.
You can be sure: it is not a question
of applying it so as to introduce foreign elements into Catholic Tradition, but on the contrary, in order to
show an uninterrupted continuity
and to contrast that with the variations, i.e. to the successive ruptures
typical of the different Protestant
denominations. In paragraph 54
of his preface, the Eagle of Meaux
[Bossuet] refers to a work by Tertul-

lian, De Praescriptione, and declares
in the elegant, forceful language of
his own style:
The heretics vary [i.e. make changes]
in their rules, i.e. in their confession
of faith; each one of them thinks
that he has the right to change and
modify by his own way of thinking
what he has received, just as the
author [founder] of the sect composed it according to his own way
of thinking: heresy is always true
to its own nature in unceasingly
innovating, and the progress of the
heresy is similar to its origin.

He means to prove by this
that the history of the Protestant
“variations” is nothing but a series
of reforms of the Reformation, of
schisms from Luther’s schism. To
this historical fact he intends to
contrast Catholicism, whose “rule
of faith is unshakable and is not
reformed at all.” Basically Bossuet
is proposing a development of the
argument of “prescription.” By this
argument Tertullian brought theological prescription to bear against
the innovators, by showing that
truth is prior in time to error (De
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VaTiCan ii

Praescriptione, 21); Bossuet had used
this argument already in his Universal History (II, 31), and after The
History of the Variations he would
make use of it again in the first of
his Pastoral Instructions on the Church’s
Promises (Chapter 26), where he
concludes: “This argument applies
equally against all the heresies; they
are all equally confounded by it.”
Here he intends to prove that starting from a first novelty one gets
a fatal series of novelties which
little by little depart from the initial
positions; that Protestant thought,
through a form of internal logic,
supports a series of successive contradictions.
Bossuet is convinced that error
is parasitical, that it obscures the
truth while trying to resemble it,
and since it cannot fully succeed,
it manifests itself under various
aspects; and precisely because it
shows itself under various aspects
it is obliged to vary, to change. By
doing this, error betrays its origin.
Bossuet writes:
Every change that has been made
among the Protestants signals a
drawback in their doctrine and is
the necessary effect thereof: their
variations, like those of the Arians,
uncover what they intended to
excuse, what they wanted to supplement, what they tried to disguise in
their beliefs. (Preface of the Variations, Section 27)

On the contrary, Catholic truth by
its logical unity alone has merely
to be affirmed—in its integrity and
integrally—in order to manifest its
power and superiority. The truth in
and of itself is its own justification.
At the theological level Bossuet
makes an act of reasoned faith in
the intrinsic authority of the truth.
And on the philosophical level we
can say that his arguments amount
to an application of the principle of
non-contradiction–that first principle which proceeds immediately
from the notion of being: the intelTHE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

lect has being for its appropriate
object. Therefore we must seek the
adaequatio rei et intellectus [correspondence between the thing and
the intellect], recognize the value
of this principle both from the side
of the object (res) and also from the
side of the subject (intellectus). For
the principle of non-contradiction
does not have a merely mental or
logical value, but an ontological
value as well.
It is impossible for a being to
appear true and false at the same
time and under the same aspect.
This is precisely the philosophical
argument undergirding Bossuet’s
proof in Book XV of the Variations
in which he studies the question
of the visibility of the Church: it is
impossible that she should be visible and invisible at the same time
and under the same aspect. One of
the two propositions is necessarily
false. And one cannot say that one
of them expresses differently the
same reality that the other is supposed to express.
Concerning the visibility of the
Church, allow me to compare a
short excerpt from the History of the
Variations and a contemporary statement. Bossuet wrote:
In our times people have recognized more clearly that the Church
reduced to an invisible state was
a phantasm inconsistent with the
plan of Scripture and the common
notion of Christians, and this untenable position has been abandoned.
The Protestants have been forced to
look for their succession even in the
Roman Church.

Cardinal Casper, during a conference on the Ecumenical Commitment of the Catholic Church,
declared on March 23, 2002: “The
true nature of the Church—the
Church as the Body of Christ—is
hidden and can be grasped only
by faith.” He added, “This nature
which can be grasped only by faith
is actualized in visible forms: in

the proclamation of the Word, the
administration of the sacraments,
in ministries and in Christian service.” Translated, this means that
the Church is not visible but makes
herself visible by simple acts! Who
would have thought that the controversy between an author like
Bossuet and the 17th-century Protestants would have so much to teach
someone like Kasper in the 21st
century?
If I could make a small contribution to the debate that has to
begin in Rome about the Second
Vatican Council, it would be this:
let us return to an affirmation of the
principle of non-contradiction so
as to rediscover the true constancy
of Tradition, and to that end the
study of the great controversies
that preceded our current debate
would not be unhelpful; quite the
contrary. We are not the first to go
through a crisis in the Church; certainly this one is unprecedented in
its extent, particularly through the
invention of a “secondary Christianity” as Romano Amerio has shown,
but in the centuries before us there
are elements of reflection that can
and must be utilized. To the extent
that the Roman experts share this
same conviction, it seems to me
that we can have hope that we are
not involved in a dialogue of the
deaf.
Fr. Alain Lorans, FSSPX, is the editor of DICI,
the international news journal of the Society
of Saint Pius X. Translated from Nouvelles de
Chrétienté, No. 122. [Editor’s note: To preserve
the distinctive character of this conference, the
oral style was not changed.]

33

Part 2

inTroDUCTion

M

any good
books have
been written
about the life and the
doctrine of Fr. Kolbe
but unfortunately
access to his very
own words is not
easy for Anglophones
who do not know Italian or Polish. This is
a great shame because these words have
a profound simplicity and power about
them that only the Holy Ghost can give.
What is more, we have a large volume
of his personal writings and conferences
from very sure sources which provide
texts that are furnished with all the
guarantees of authenticity that even
the most severe critic could require,
especially in what concerns his writings.
The monumental Scritti Kolbiani of Fr.
Cristoforo Zambelli provide an excellent
Italian translation of the entire corpus
of Fr. Kolbe’s writings, including all his
articles and letters and even the journals
he kept and personal notes of his
retreats and other matters.1 There exists
also in Polish a collection of notes taken
by his Brothers of spiritual conferences
that he gave to them in Poland and also
in Japan.2 It is in order to enable English
speakers to have immediate access to
some of this immense treasure that this
little selection of his words has been
compiled.
–A Dominican Friar
Scritti di Massimiliano Kolbe, Editrice Nazionale M.I., Rome, 1997. References to this work
will be made by the initials SK followed by a
number corresponding to the number used in
this edition to identify all the various writings
of Fr. Kolbe.
2
Konferencje Swietego Maksymiliana Marii
Kolbego, Wydwnictwo OO. Franciszkanów,
Niepokalanów, 1990. References will be made
to this work by the simple initial K followed by
the number of the conference. Critics generally
question the absolute reliability of these notes,
but even though it is certain that they are not
always complete and perhaps sometimes
not precisely accurate, they were obviously
prepared with great effort and a scrupulous
care not to attribute to him things he did not
say. They remain an invaluable source of his
doctrine that must not be neglected, for they
are a precious witness of his personal teaching
to his closest disciples.
1

fr. Maximilian
Kolbe o.f.M. Conv.
In His Very
Own Words
insTrUMenT
Let us imagine ourselves to be a little brush in the hand of an
infinitely perfect painter. What must the little brush do so that the
painting will be as beautiful as possible? It must let itself be directed
most perfectly. A little brush could still advance pretexts to improve
the painting done by an earthly, limited, fallible painter, but when
God, the eternal Wisdom, uses us as instruments, then we will do the
most, in the most perfect way, when we will let ourselves be guided
most perfectly and totally.
By the act of consecration we have offered ourselves to the
Immaculate as Her absolute property. Without doubt She is the most
perfect instrument in the hands of God, while we, for our part, must
be instruments in Her immaculate hands.
When, therefore, will we destroy most rapidly and most perfectly
the evil that exists in the whole world? When we will let ourselves be
guided by Her in the most perfect way. This is the most important
thing, the unique thing.
I said unique. In fact, each one of us must occupy himself solely
in harmonizing, conforming, fusing, as it were, completely his own
will with the Will of the Immaculate, just as Her Will is completely
united to the Will of God, Her heart with the Heart of Her Son Jesus.
That is the unique thing we have to do. Whatever we do, even
if it were the most heroic act, capable of overthrowing the foundations of all existing evil on earth, it has a certain value uniquely if,
in performing this act, our will puts itself in harmony with the Will
of the Immaculate and, through Her, with the Will of God. One
thing alone, therefore, that is, the fusion of our will with Hers, has a
certain value, or rather a total value. This is the essence of the love
(not sentiment, although that be beautiful too) that must transform
us, through the Immaculate, in God, that must burn us and, through
us, set the world on fire and destroy and consume in it all evil. It
is the fire of which the Savior spoke: “I have come to bring fire on
the earth: and how I would wish that it be already lit!” (Lk. 12:49).
After having been inflamed ourselves by this divine love (I repeat
that it is not a question here of sweet tears or sentiments, but of the
will, even amidst aversion and repugnance), we will set on fire the
whole world.
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THE ANGELUS • March 2011

34

fr. MaxiMiLian KoLBe

Nonetheless, it is we who must
inflame ourselves, we who must
not let ourselves grow cold, but
burn ever more intensely; we must
fuse ourselves with, become one
sole thing with God, through the
Immaculate.
We must, therefore, concentrate
all our attention on this, uniquely
on this: to unite ourselves most
closely with the hand of our Mistress, our Leader, to melt ourselves
into it, so that She might do with
us what She wills. This is the essential condition for belonging to the
M.I. : “Consecrate oneself totally to
the Immaculate as an instrument in
Her immaculate hands.”
Then and only then will we
subject to the Immaculate, and
through Her, unite, fuse the whole
world and every single soul with the
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through
the fire of love. (SK 1160, Rycerz
Niepokalanej, May 1932)

We are an instrument in
the most loving hands of the

THE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

Immaculate and only in this
way can we attain our ultimate end: the glory of God,
not just a greater glory but
the greatest glory possible.
All our solicitude, therefore,
must be: let ourselves be
led, so that we do nothing
according to our own ideas,
but everything that She
desires and as She pleases.
(SK 1248, Conference to
clerics, O.F.M. Conv., at
Cracow, Nov. 15, 1919)
It is necessary for us, as quickly
as possible, to renounce ourselves.
It is necessary that we have nothing, but nothing of our own, that
She act, that we be Her instrument.
How easy it is for each of us to let
ourselves fall into wanting to work
with great zeal, but often according to our own opinions. But here
it is necessary that the Immaculate

act through us, and it is a matter of
being an instrument in Her hands
and not of doing the greatest things
possible according to our own ideas.
She is the most perfectly capable of
making everything turn to the glory
of God. Often we just ruin things for
Her. Everything depends on this,
on how much we are Her instruments. Nothing else is left for us
other than just to conform our will
to Hers. There is no higher summit
of perfection than this—the most
perfect union of our will with Her
will. (K 131, Feb. 17, 1938)

I will say something
more and I will say it boldly:
if we are given up entirely to
the Immaculate, if we constantly strive to be so, then
our bad works—although
perhaps not done with bad
will, but still bad—She will
repair them and even more:
She will turn them into a

fr. MaxiMiLian KoLBe
greater good. And She will
even work miracles, if it be
necessary, because for the
Immaculate to work a miracle is not something great.
And then our works and
efforts will not be ours but
Hers, and they will have a
value that is not our own
but of the Immaculate. We
will just be her instruments,
like a shovel in the hands
of a gardener. The shovel
digs, but it isn’t its work,
but the gardener’s alone.
What a great consolation
this is for us, then, already in
this world but all that much
more in the next. (K 62, Jan.
20, 1937)
oBeDienCe
How can we know that the
Holy Mother is asking something
from us ?…How must we know,
where is revealed to us the divine
will, the will of the Immaculate?
In holy obedience.
Our Lord Himself, although
He was infinite Wisdom, did not
choose for Himself any other way
but obedience. He, being God,
knew much better than the Holy
Mother how to do this or that thing,
but nevertheless He was obedient,
because He saw in this the will of
the Father.…
Obedience, then—this is the
consecration to the Immaculate—
accomplish it as She Herself desires
of us.…Let us deepen in ourselves
every day (the knowledge) of this
truth by spiritual reading, by mediation, by conversations during recreation and especially in practice in
our lives, in order to unite our will
to the will of the Immaculate and by
Her will sanctify our will.…
We must execute our obedience
willingly and with joy, in order to
prove that we have truly consecrated ourselves to the Immaculate,
and not be like “one who has to

be pushed”: [who says,] “There
where they put me, there will I
stay.” Rather we must add energy
and effort on our part in order to
execute in the best way the task
confided to us. (K 31, Aug. 28, 1933)

But from what source
will we know the Will of
our Queen, of our Leader?
On this earth there is only
one sure way: holy obedience to the representatives
of God, whose will is everything that the Immaculate
desires, with this difference,
however (if humanly we
can express ourselves in
this way); namely, that God
directs everything according to justice, while the
Most Holy Virgin, precisely
because of the fact that She
has been given to us as a
Mother, can shelter us, nullifying the blows of justice
under Her maternal mantle
of mercy. This is why St. Bernard also affirms that God
has reserved for Himself the
economy of justice, while
He has confided mercy to
the Most Holy Virgin Mary.
(SK 1248, Nov. 15, 1919)
I underline repeatedly the “Will
of the Immaculate” because we are
consecrated to her without limits,
therefore She directs us. But, if one
can put it thus, the Will of God and
the Will of the Immaculate are not
exactly the same thing, because the
Will of the Immaculate is the will,
not of the justice, but of the mercy
of God, of which the Immaculate
is the personification. We, then, in
so far as we are instruments in her
hand, are at the service not of the
justice that punishes, but of conversion and sanctification, which are
the effect of grace—and therefore
of the mercy of God—and they pass
through the hands of the Mediatrix

35

of all graces. Consequently, as She
is a most perfect instrument in the
hand of God, in the hand of divine
mercy, of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,
thus we are an instrument in Her
hand. And thus, through Her, we
are an instrument of the Sacred
Heart of Jesus, that is of the mercy
of God. Therefore our motto is:
“through the Immaculate to the
Heart of Jesus.” (SK 339, Apr. 29,
1931)

The fulfillment of the
will of God is love, and love
is the essence of sanctity.
Merit and the essence of
sanctity, then, is not in mortification, nor in prayer, nor
in work, nor in rest but only
in obedience. (K 35, Apr.
23, 1936)
One of the brothers wrote me
and asked me to write back to him
and tell him how I love the Immaculate because he wants to love Her
in the same way.… I (recently) said
that the perfection of obedience
is the essence of love. What does
that depend on? On sentiment perhaps ? Sentiment isn’t the essential
thing. Sentiment is a passing thing.
It can even be or not be. Love
does not depend on sentiment. We
mustn’t be worried if it is absent.…
Often sentiment is taken for love. If
it is a matter of love for the Immaculate one can permit oneself a lot
(of sentiment). Sentiment, then, also
is good. However, above all is the
perfection of obedience, the fusion
of our will with Her will.
It is necessary to deepen always
this supernatural obedience. We
easily confound supernatural obedience and natural obedience.
Often a soul is persuaded that she
is supernaturally obedient when in
fact it is shown that she is naturally
obedient.
How can we know when obedience is supernatural? Let us consider some examples: a Jew will
obey when what is said is wise
and to his profit; an infidel, when
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THE ANGELUS • March 2011

36

fr. MaxiMiLian KoLBe

what is said is in accord with his
convictions; another, again, will
obey because he will be praised for
doing so. To obey in this way, even
a pagan can do.
In order that obedience be
supernatural it must not proceed
from reason but from faith. Holy
Scripture says: “My just one shall
live by faith” (Rm. 1:17). The distance between faith and reason is
infinite. The supernatural order is
founded on faith. The soul, then,
that bases itself on faith does infinitely more than a soul based on
reason. It follows then that if we
want our work for the conquest of
souls to bear fruit, we must conform
ourselves more to the Will of God,
or, in our language, to the Will of
the Immaculate.
When can we be sure that our
obedience is supernatural? When
in our obedience there are fewer
natural motives. When our superior isn’t perfect and perhaps is
even disagreeable, and if then we
accomplish the order with the same
contentment as if it proceeded from
a virtuous and wise man, then
our obedience is supernatural. If,
instead, the opposite is true, then
there is room for much improvement.…
The perfection of obedience,
then, is the perfection of love for
the Immaculate. If in spite of disagreeable feelings or a lack of sentiment we receive the order with
the same contentment, then our
obedience is perfect and one can
say that it is supernatural obedience. If one thinks otherwise, if one
is of another opinion, but one goes
against this, then there is supernatural obedience. This doesn’t mean
that one must not give one’s reasons
when there is a need. If someone
neglected to give his reasons that
would not be a perfection. On the
contrary, then, one can and must
give one’s reasons. It is simply a
matter of the fact that both on the
side of the inferior and on the side
of the superior there be the liberty
to speak. The fact of giving one’s
reason from one’s side is not an
imperfection of obedience. NeverTHE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

theless, if the superior considers the
reasons and nonetheless commands
that the order be accomplished, one
must leave aside one’s reasons and
do what obedience commands.
The more we follow this road of
supernatural obedience, the more
the Immaculate will be able to
direct us. Let us deepen, then, the
perfection of supernatural obedience. (K 169, May 7, 1938)

In your letter you write
that the Japanese were displeased to know that “Fr.
Korube” didn’t come back.
Reassure them, dear Father,
that it was the Immaculate
Herself who disposed things
in this way because I had
no desire at all to leave
Mugenzai no Sono; on the
contrary, I desired to leave
my bones there at the foundation of the mission, but…
my will was not done but
that of the Immaculate.…
From the beginning, in fact,
even before the Chapter,
I had manifested to Most
Reverend Father Provincial
my availability to return to
Mugenzai no Sono; nonetheless, the Immaculate
had other plans. I still don’t
understand them completely, but little by little,
according as it is necessary
for me to act. (SK 687, Nov.
11, 1936)
When in 1939 the Conventual
Franciscans of Poland divided into
two provinces and our authority
took up residence in Warsaw, Fr.
Maximilian rejoiced saying that
now it would be easier to know the
Will of God because Father Provincial would reside so near Niepokalanów. I heard from the Brothers in
Niepokalanów that in 1940 it was
already practically certain that Fr.

Maximilian would be arrested by
the Gestapo. In the beginning, Fr.
Maximilian wanted to hide somewhere in order to let the danger
pass, but he didn’t want to decide
alone. He addressed himself to
Warsaw to the Father Provincial,
asking him his opinion. Father Provincial responded that it would be
better if he stayed at Niepokalanów.
This sufficed so that Fr. Maximilian abandoned any idea of leaving,
although shortly afterward he was,
indeed, arrested. (Positio Super Virtutibus II, p. 152)

If it is permitted to add
some words, I would propose two things:
1) obedience, which is the
easiest, shortest and surest
way to sanctity; moreover,
supernatural obedience, the
union of our will with the
divine will, constitutes the
very essence of sanctity, that
is to say, perfect love; and
2) filial love, devotion
for the Blessed Virgin Mary.
She will teach you perfect
supernatural obedience; She
Herself will obtain and give
you the strength to advance
on this road; moreover, as
the best of mothers, She will
carry you most securely in
her arms, pressing you lovingly to Her Immaculate
Heart in the most difficult
passages of the way.
These are just some
words, imperfect, but you
will succeed in understanding much more by personal
experience.
Always your brother in
the Heart of the Immaculate,
Maximilian Maria Kolbe
(SK 428, May 30, 1932)

Church and World
Lawyer Claims
abuse Claims
exaggerated
Donald H. Steier, a veteran
attorney who has been involved
in over 100 cases involving Catholic clergy in California, recently
penned a ten-page declaration stating that he believes as many as onehalf of all allegations are either false
or exaggerated: “In several cases my
investigation has provided objective information that could not be
reconciled with the truthfulness of
the subjective allegations. In other
words, in many cases objective facts
showed that accusations were false.”
The declaration was signed in
November and was officially filed

in the Los Angeles County Superior Court on December 15, 2010.
Without denying the real problem,
it seems clear that many find these
circumstances convenient for winning money. Let us hope Steier’s
declaration helps the media take a
more honest look at the situation!
(Source: Newsbusters.org)

Pakistan:
anti-Christian
Persecutions
Imprisoned for a year now in a
Pakistani jail for “blasphemy against
the prophet Mohammed,” Asia Bibi,
a 45-year-old Christian, was con-

37

demned to death last November 11
by the tribunal of Sheikhupura of
the province of Penjab, situated in
the east of the country. Although the
governor had declared her innocent,
the magistrates judged her guilty
and even threatened to go on strike
if the decision was not applied. But
under international pressure, especially that of the Pope, the Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari,
announced last November 21 his
intention to pardon and release this
mother of four children if the justice
of the country would allow it. This
justice refused to approve the decision, maintaining that the trial was
still underway.
The affair dates back to June
2009. While working in the fields

society acquires new Priory in Montreal
Dear Faithful,
It is truly a joy to announce that the Society of Saint Pius X
has acquired the convent of the Sisters of the Presentation of
Mary at Saint Césaire, Quebec. As a sign of Divine Providence,
all obstacles disappeared on the very day of the Immaculate
Conception and the Society’s financial offer was accepted. On
December 23, we signed the contract and are now the rightful
owners of this most beautiful site.
In honor of local tradition, we chose to name it “St.�Joseph
Center.” From 1857 onwards, the Sisters of the Presentation
were using that place to introduce the devotion to St. Joseph:
both the convent and the magnificent chapel were dedicated
to the paternal care of this Guardian of the Universal Church,
the foster�father of our Redeemer.
Seven years ago the building complex was sold to the
“Coopérative académique du Québec” that kept and maintained
the buildings in an admirable manner. Now in our hands, it will
again play an important, active role in the spiritual life of many
Canadians.
This gem of Quebecois Catholic culture offers innumerable
possibilities for the apostolate of the Society in the region of
Montreal. Its spiritual influence will undoubtedly spread far
beyond the limits of the Quebec province.
The upcoming weeks will reveal the destiny–other than
that of being the priory for the region of Montreal–the Society
wants to give to the “St. Joseph Center.”
(Source: SSPX.CA)
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THE ANGELUS • March 2011

38

with other women, Asia Bibi was
asked to get water to refresh the
group. But the other workers, Muslims, refused to drink “impure”
water brought by a Christian. The
different versions of events all say
that Asia Bibi was threatened if she
didn’t renounce her faith. Doubtless
because she refused, the mullah of
the district went to see the police,
who immediately made a search and
arrested this mother of a family on
the strength of Article 295C of the
Pakistani penal code. In effect, this
“anti-blasphemy” law prescribes
prison for life or the death penalty
for any “insult” against “the prophet
Mohammed.”
Last November 17, in St. Peter’s
Plaza, Benedict XVI asked for the
release of the accused. “These
days, the international community
is following with much concern
the difficult situation of Christians
in Pakistan, who are often victims
of violence and discrimination,”
recalled the Pope. He also claimed
to be there in his thoughts with Asia
Bibi and her loved ones threatened
with death. Lastly, he asked that
“her full liberty be restored as soon
as possible.” This call was partially
heard, since the president tried to
pardon Asia Bibi and she is going
to have the right to a new trial to
prove her innocence. But even if the
accused obtains her liberty, she will
probably have to flee Pakistan with
her whole family.
As the November 29 online edition of Le Figaro said, even if “most
condemnations are rejected when
appealed, the guilty are sometimes
lynched by the crowd.” An alliance
of Sunni Muslims of Pakistan (the
Sunni Ittehad Council) has already
warned that a pardon granted would
lead to an unleashing of anarchy in
the country. “Our position is very
clear: she cannot escape this punishment,” insisted Sahibzada Fazal
Kareem, the leader of the Sunni
THE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

Church an
Ittehad Council on November 26 to
the French Press Agency. These past
months, the anti-Christian violence
committed in the name of the “antiblasphemy” law has multiplied, particularly in the province of Penjab,
the most highly populated province
in a country about 3 percent Christian.

The Murderer of
Young shazia
Bashir acquitted
Along the same lines as the
Asia Bibi affair, another trial has
just taken place in Pakistan. Naeem
Chaudhry, a rich Muslim lawyer
who raped and killed a 12-yearold Christian girl, Shazia Bashir
(see DICI, No. 210), was acquitted
on November 30 by the tribunal of
Lahore in the province of Punjab.
He, his wife and his son, however,
were strongly suspected of having
compelled the girl to work as a
domestic, confining her in their
house and raping her before she
succumbed to the daily beatings to
which they subjected her.
Whereas this affair had caused
quite a stir and agitated a good
number of organizations and persons within Pakistani civil society,
the court nevertheless declared
that Shazia “died a natural death
because of a skin disease.” According to the news agency Fides, the
trial and the evidence were cleverly manipulated so as to exonerate
those prominent upper-middle-class
Muslims. “For the family of Shazia,
justice will not be done,” Nasir
Saeed remarked to Fides on November 27. “This is not the first time,
in cases of this sort, that the trials
leave influential Muslim citizens
unpunished, despite the atrocities
committed against poor, defenseless
Christians,” said Saeed, head of the
Center for Legal Aid Assistance and

Settlement, which offers free legal
aid to Christians in Pakistan and
has headquarters in London and
Lahore. For Peter Jacob, the executive secretary of the Justice and
Peace Committee of the Pakistani
Bishops, the verdict is “vile” and
“demonstrates that certain persons
are above the law.”
This ruling seems all the more
unjust, given that human trafficking in minors is behind the case of
Shazia Bashir (see DICI, No. 212).
The children are snatched from
poor, often Christian families, who
are led to believe that this will give
them access to a life with dignity
in bourgeois households. They are
then sold, becoming “little slaves,”
at the mercy of their owners,
deprived of all freedom.
(Source: DICI)

france: The
Bishops of france
refuse to “shut
Themselves Up in a
Work of nostalgic
Maintenance”
The plenary assembly of the
Bishops of France, which took
place in Lourdes from November
4-9, renewed the three-year term
of the president of the Episcopal
Conference of France (CEF), Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, archbishop
of Paris. His two vice-presidents,
Bishop Hippolyte Simon, archbishop of Clermont, and Bishop
Laurent Ulrich, archbishop of Lille,
were also re-elected for three years.
“We have pursued our refl ections on the future of our Christian
communities,” declared Cardinal
Vingt-Trois in his closing speech.
“The initiatives that we have collected in all the ecclesiastical provinces have brought our attention to
what is the proper mission of our

and World
Church: to announce Jesus Christ
who died and rose again for the life
of the world. We are often pressed
with the maintenance of structures
inherited from the past, but we avoid
allowing ourselves to be caught up
in a work of nostalgic maintenance,
and we turn resolutely to our present and future mission,” continued
the Cardinal. Just as the places of
social life have moved to the towns
and villages that have schools and
colleges, shopping centers, and
health services, he explained, the
faithful learn to come to these cities
on Sundays to “participate in a veritable eucharistic assembly which
is the occasion to live a parochial
communion that surpasses the strict
limits of the village or hamlet and
to become an authentic feast.” This
new parish assembled “can become
the center of sacramental life and of
catechesis.”
“This future of our Christian
communities will be brought about
by the practicing minority,” added
Bishop Bernard Charrier, bishop of
Tulle. Fifty-five “innovative propositions” were produced by this work in
Lourdes. Reflection upon the diminishing number of priests made them
aware of “an urgent need to return
to the roots in the Word of God,
that it may become a personal and
community experience”; and also
that priests, “too, are concerned,”
with a “redeployment of their tasks
and responsibilities,” and that they
are called to a “greater humility in
the exercise of authority,” following
the example of the first Christian
communities described by St. Paul.
Bishop Hippolyte Simon followed
this same evangelical theme when
he invited practicing Catholics to
be the “yeast in the dough” for the
others. “Upon whom else can I
depend besides the four or five percent of practicing Catholics in our
country?” he remarked, in a press
conference, Bishop Charrier at his

in asia, Diocesan
Bishops
Collaborate
with…the ssPx
The Asian District of the SSPX has
organized a major pro-life Rosary
crusade in the Philippines. Since this
end goes beyond intra-ecclesiastical
quarrels, they invited the support of
the diocesan bishops. Some of them
accepted the invitation to participate,
and have even appeared on camera
with Society priests: in the photos, His
Excellency Bishop Paciano Aniceto,
president of the Episcopal Commission on the Family, appears publicly
with the Society’s Fr. Thomas Anoda;
similarly, Cardinal Ricardo Vidal,
Archbishop of Cebu, promoted this
crusade with Fr. Albert Ghela of the
SSPX.
(Source: SPO)

side, on November 5, 2010. For
the Church’s mission, we must not
withdraw. “Re-centered on Christ,”
the Church must make herself “dialogue and service.”
Commentary: “Not to let ourselves be caught up in a work of nostalgic maintenance,” “to live a parochial community that surpasses the
strict limits of the village or hamlet
and to become an authentic feast,”
one would think that the bishops
of France are discovering, in 2010,
the rural exodus begun in the 19th
century. These expressions are in
reality a cover-up. “A redeployment
of [sacerdotal] tasks and responsibilities” clearly signifies: “how do
we handle our indigence?” for “on
whom else [can they] count if not on
the four or five percent of practicing
Catholics in our country?”
(Source: DICI)

39

We Will not Pray
Together in assisi
During his visit to Paris in
2008, Benedict XVI repeated the
expression used by his predecessor
at the very beginning of his pontificate: “Be not afraid.” Today, as
he announces the celebration of
the 25th anniversary of the interreligious meeting in Assisi, some Italian Catholic intellectuals are telling
him:
Holy Father, we are afraid that
relativism—which you combat elsewhere—will be encouraged by your
presence amid representatives of all
the religions of the world. We are
afraid that the Catholics who today
are suffering persecution for their
faith in Jesus Christ in Pakistan,
Iraq, North Korea, China…might
find that their tormentors are comforted by the public recognition and
the media spotlight that Catholicism
will provide for them by organizing
this new interreligious encounter.

During the fi rst interreligious
meeting in Assisi in 1986, in an
attempt to reassure those who rightly
objected that such an assembly of all
religions could only increase confusion and encourage syncretism, the
organizers resorted to this ridiculous quibble: they were not praying together, they were together to
pray. In other words, it was out of
the question for believers in Jesus
Christ, Allah, Buddha, Shiva…
to pray together; but if they were
together, it was to pray separately!
Next October we will not pray
together in Assisi. We will be with
the victims in Iraq, in Pakistan,
praying with them and for them.
–Fr. Alain Lorans
(Source: DICI)

www.angeluspress.org

THE ANGELUS • March 2011

40

Church and World
a Papal nuncio speaks out on Summorum Pontificum
Even in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI’s motu
proprio allowing the traditional Roman liturgy to be
celebrated without the previous restrictions, many
bishops remain reluctant, if not hostile, to priests
who wish to take advantage of this permission.
Archbishop Thomas Gullickson, an American who
is Apostolic Nuncio to the Antilles Island, recently
spoke out about this situation:
Jesus condemns hypocrisy and commands those
among His listeners for whom the shoe fits to first
pull the plank from their own eye before attempting to pull the splinter from their neighbor’s eye. In
that regard, I have to say (at the risk of condemning
myself by my own judgment) that I have been particularly troubled of late by encounters (both through
the media and directly) with the intolerance of any
number of prelates within the Church: intolerance
not directed toward wicked people, but intolerance
toward those who are attempting as best they can to
be faithful, especially in matters concerning Divine
Worship and the education of children and youth.
Why, even three years after the issuance of Summorum Pontificum (just to name one example), are well-

Communiqué of the
District of Germany
on the Beatification
of John Paul ii
It is official now: Pope Benedict
XVI has signed the decree of beatification of John Paul II. His predecessor will be raised to the honor of
the altars on May 1, 2011, in Rome.
What are we to think of this
rapid beatification? You often hear
remarks such as, “He was a great
devotee of the Blessed Virgin Mary,”
or even “He was very clear on questions concerning the protection of
human life”; but are these sufficient
to set up his work in its entirety as
an example for the Church today?
His pontificate was marred by a
pronounced ecumenism. John Paul
will thus enter history as the pope of
THE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

meaning lay folk still treated with such great disdain
by no less than bishops, bishops in communion (of
heart, soul, mind and strength?) with the Successor
of St. Peter when they ask for Mass in Latin? Is this
anything other than blind hypocrisy (the plank!)? You
tolerate no small amount of bad taste, bad music and
caprice, while begrudging some few a port in the
storm of liturgical abuse which seems not to want
to subside? Can we be after His own Heart and not
just claim to be members of Christ’s Body while still
acting so at odds with the example set by the Holy
One of God, meek and humble of heart? Such prelates are at counter or cross purposes to the sense in
which the Church wants to go; they are ignoring what
the Spirit is saying to the Churches and doing so with
a backhand to some who are branded common and
contemptible, but certainly not in the eyes of Christ...
Let me say it more clearly! My issue is with the contempt shown for an outstretched hand, contempt such
as would not be shown toward someone asking for
some other benefit....

(Source: Homily, January 30, 2011, http://
islandenvoy.blogspot.com/)

humanism and of fraternity among
religions.
He preached a special path of
salvation for the people of the Old
Testament, kissed the Koran in
public, and used expressions that
scandalized committed Catholics
to the depths of their souls, such as
the wish, “May St. John the Baptist
protect Islam.”
His gathering in Assisi has
become the symbol of the meeting
of all religions and introduced in the
minds of Christians the “values” of
freethinkers, where they are now
deeply rooted. One could call that
“heresy by image”: All religions
lead to God. This is diametrically
opposed to the words of Sacred
Scripture: “He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved: but he that
believeth not shall be condemned”
(Mark 16:16).

We must not forget the gigantic concelebrations; nor should we
deny the liturgical abuses during
pontifical Masses which, to a certain extent, have caused a liturgical
collapse hitherto unknown and have
propagated in all the local Churches
abuses that cry out to Heaven!
Is that a pontificate that deserves
a beatification?
To defend the Faith in all circumstances against error and thereby to
unify and guide Christ’s flock—that
is the Lord’s command to St. Peter,
which is still valid today.
Other major figures deserve to
be raised to the honor of the altars,
for example Pope Pius XII.
Society of Saint Pius X,
District of Germany
Stuttgart, January 15, 2011
(Source: DICI)

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

41

Fr. Peter R. Scott, FSSPX

Can a Roman Catholic
satisfy his Sunday
obligation by attending an
Eastern rite Mass?

The Church’s discipline on this
question has changed over time.
There was a time when every Catholic was bound to assist at Mass in
his parish church. This law was already abrogated in the 16th century, when the Popes permitted the
assistance at Mass in Franciscan
and Dominican convents. Benedict
XIV taught in the 18th century that
bishops could no longer bind their
faithful to assist at Mass in the parish churches, for the contrary custom was already established. The
growth of Eastern rite Catholic
churches throughout the 19th century brought to a head the question of whether Latin rite Catholics
could assist at Mass in Eastern rite
churches and vice versa, which was
resolved in the 1917 Code of Canon
Law.
Canon 1249 has this to say:
“The precept of hearing Mass is
fulfilled by being present at Mass
celebrated in any Catholic rite, either in the open, or in any church
or public or semipublic oratory.…”
There is no difficulty in interpreting these very clear words. Bouscaren & Ellis (Canon Law) has this
commentary to make: “The Mass
may be celebrated in any Catholic
rite; therefore an Oriental may satisfy the precept by hearing Mass according to the Latin rite, and a Latin
by hearing it according to any of
the Catholic Oriental rites” (p. 635).
Canon 1248 of the 1983 Code reiterates the same law: “The precept
of participating in Mass is satisfied
wherever it is celebrated in a Catholic rite.…”
Consequently, it is quite clear
that those who attend the Liturgies
in the schismatic Orthodox churches who are not united with Rome,

do not satisfy their Sunday obligation, whereas those who attend
the same liturgies celebrated by
Uniate Eastern rite Catholics certainly do. This includes such rites as
the Ukrainian, Greek Catholic and
Maronite rites. However, it does
not mean that it is prudent to attend such rites. For the rites of these
Uniate Eastern rite Catholics have,
alas, also been modified in the spirit
of Vatican II, and the priests have
been taught the revolutionary, humanistic theology of the post-conciliar Church. Consequently, it would
be very imprudent to assist at such
rites unless one had the guarantee
that they were being celebrated in
the traditional way, in the traditional liturgical language (such as Old
Slavonic) by traditional priests who
are in communion with Rome, such
as the priests of the Society of Saint
Josaphat in the Ukraine.

Can the use of artificial
birth control ever be
without culpability?

An action which is in itself intrinsically evil can never be objectively moral or permissible, no matter how good the intentions of the
person who performs the act. However, it does not necessarily follow
that a person is subjectively culpable for the act. This is really a question of ignorance, and whether this
ignorance is culpable or not. It is
certainly true that there are many
persons, both Catholic and not,
who are ignorant of the gravity of
this mortal sin. Does this exempt
them from the subjective imputability of formal sin or not?
There can be no doubt that ignorance can and frequently does reduce the culpability of an act, for
it is opposed to the advertence or
knowledge required for an act to be
truly human and a mortal sin. The
typical case is when a man shoots
at what he thinks to be a deer, and

it turns out to be his friend that he
kills. Ignorance excuses from the
culpability, provided that it was
not from negligence of hunting
rules that the error occurred. However, it is also clear that ignorance is
not just a wound of original sin that
darkens the intellect from seeking
and perceiving supernatural truth,
but it is frequently willful, at least in
its source, and consequently deliberate and culpable. It is the case of a
person who simply does not want to
know what the Church teaches on
moral issues, such as artificial birth
control.
Consequently, some distinctions have to be made to elucidate
the gravity of the ignorance.
The first distinction is between
vincible and invincible ignorance.
Invincible ignorance is not culpable, and it is the ignorance of the
person who is in good faith. It is
without any fault of his own that he
is in error.
There are three different degrees of vincible ignorance, of increasing gravity: simply vincible
ignorance (where there is slight
negligence), and then crass or supine ignorance (due to grave negligence), which is a mortal sin, and
finally affected or deliberate ignorance, when a person deliberately
chooses to be ignorant. This is the
most frightening state of all, for it
closes a person’s soul to the influence of the truth and grace.
The fundamental question is
whether or not there can be invincible ignorance over the immorality
of artificial birth control. This is resolved by the distinction St. Thomas Aquinas makes between the primary and the secondary precepts
of the natural law. No man is invincibly ignorant of the primary precepts, which are the Ten Commandments as they stand. No man can be
invincibly ignorant of the immorality of adultery, abortion or murder,
or be excused by ignorance. Howwww.angeluspress.org

THE ANGELUS • March 2011

42

ever, men may be ignorant of the
secondary precepts of the natural
law, which flow logically from the
commandments, but are not necessarily evident to everyone. This
is the case with polygamy and divorce, for example, for which Almighty God gave dispensations in
the Old Law on account of the Israelites’ hardness of heart.
The immorality of artificial
birth control is likewise a secondary precept of the natural law, flowing from the first purpose of marriage: children. This is not a moral
law that is immediately obvious to
everyone. In fact, a vast number
of those who believe in God, such
as Protestants, cannot see a problem with it, although it is manifestly against the natural law. This is,
alas, also not infrequently the case
with Catholics in our present time,
since they are being told that nowadays the priests unofficially tolerate
these practices. With Pope Benedict
XVI stating that now condoms “can
be the first step in the direction of
a moralization,” implicitly allowing
them, it can hardly be doubted that
it is possible for even Catholics to
be in invincible ignorance on this
particular question. If they are in

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invincible ignorance, they are not
culpable for the material sin they
commit by using them, although the
grave offense to Almighty God still
exists.
However, this does not mean
that those who use artificial contraceptives are always or even frequently exempt from fault. Sometimes, especially in the case of
practicing Novus Ordo Catholics,
the ignorance will be simply vincible. They do not hear from their
priests that artificial contraception is wrong, and do not see why
they should research it themselves.
Their ignorance is due to the lack
of application to the correct living
of the Catholic Faith, but not from
any contempt of the Church`s moral
teachings. There is at least venial
culpability. Sometimes, it will be
crass or supine ignorance, in which
a person makes no effort to know
the Church’s teaching on such subjects, by such false reasoning as to
say that the priests have no right
to control my life. This is clearly
a mortal sin of ignorance, as is not
infrequently the case of those who
do not practice the Faith. Finally,
there is the possibility of affected
to deliberate ignorance, in which a

person has only contempt for the
Church’s teachings, and no desire
to know what they are.
As a consequence of these distinctions, we need to be careful
on how we judge and how we respond when we hear that couples
are using artifi cial birth control.
If they are not Catholic, they will
not infrequently be invincibly ignorant. Consequently we should
avoid personal judgments of culpability, and rather focus on more fundamental issues of the natural law
and of Faith. Novus Ordo Catholics
might admit also to using such artificial birth control, and also be in
invincible or simply invincible ignorance. In such a case, a clear explanation of the reasons why it is
immoral should suffice to set them
on the right path. Those whose ignorance is supine or deliberate are
going to require prayer and penance, for they are unlikely to accept correction.
Fr. Peter Scott was ordained by Archbishop
Lefebvre in 1988. After assignments as seminary
professor, U.S. District Superior, and Rector of
Holy Cross Seminary in Goulburn, Australia, he
is presently Headmaster of Our Lady of Mount
Carmel Academy in Wilmot, Ontario, Canada.

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A Catholic pharmacist tells
how most contraceptives
do not prevent pregnancy,
but actually abort children
shortly after conception.
For Protestants who are
“pro-life” but practice
contraception, and for
“cafeteria Catholics.”

TheLasTWord

43
Fr. Pierre Champroux, FSSPX

ecumenism and assisi iii

O

n January 1, 2011, while
celebrating World Peace
Day, Pope Benedict
XVI announced that he
would travel to Assisi in October to
commemorate the 25th anniversary
of the first interfaith meeting held
by Pope John Paul II in October
1986 and “to solemnly renew the
commitment of believers of every
religion to live their own religious
faith as a service to the cause of
peace.” He invited other Christian
denominations and leaders of the
world’s religions, and all men and
women of good will to join him.
In his sermon for the Solemnity
of the Epiphany on January 9, 2011,
given at St. Nicholas du Chardonnet,
Paris, Bishop Fellay indirectly commented on the forthcoming gathering at Assisi after explaining that
the Three Kings obtained all the
information they needed about the
Messias from King Herod, the high
priests, and the scribes. They well
knew that the Messias was to be
born, but their knowledge was only
theoretical in nature:

Assisi, while they were welcoming
the delegations from the other religions in the halls of the Franciscan
convent, for the sake of courtesy and
so as not to disturb their guests, they
took down all the crucifixes. To unite
men in peace they take away Christ!
They remove the crucifix! But whom
do they wish to please–God or men?
This is what Pope Pius XI said
in 1928 in his Encyclical Mortalium
Animos on the subject of interreligious assemblies, in which he firmly
forbade Catholics to take part:

They knew; they knew and they
didn’t know. In theory, they knew
everything. In practice, they were
superbly ignorant of the reality.
One really feels like making comparisons. When one hears about this
Assisi business, one really feels like
making comparisons.
In theory, they know; in theory,
they believe; but in reality, do they
really believe? Do they really believe
that our Lord is God? Do they really
believe that from His hand hangs the
peace of men and nations? Do they
really believe in all the immediate and
direct consequences of His divinity?
Are they going, like the Three Kings,
to adore the true God and to look
to Him, to ask Him, for peace? Are
they going to the King of Peace, Rex
Pacificus?

We are forced, my dear brethren, to notice a rupture between
the teaching and the action of these
popes. We are confronted with a
dilemma, a contradiction!
My dear brethren, we are told
that we ought not to criticize the
Pope. But it is not a question of judging or criticizing; it is a question of
keeping the Faith! The Pope, I am
sure, has the best intentions in the
world; he surely believes he is doing
the best thing for the Church; that is
quite possible. But we have to look
at the reality squarely!
Pius XI tells us that ”to favor this
opinion, therefore, and to encourage
such undertakings is tantamount to
abandoning the religion revealed
by God”(§2). So we cannot be silent.
We will not be like mute dogs, pas-

It is said that in 2002, during
the second ecumenical meeting at

Now, such efforts can meet with
no kind of approval among Catholics.
They presuppose the erroneous view
that all religions are more or less good
and praiseworthy, inasmuch as all
give expression, under various forms,
to that innate sense which leads men
to God and to the obedient acknowledgment of His rule. Those who hold
such a view are not only in error; they
distort the true idea of religion, and
thus reject it, falling gradually into
naturalism and atheism. To favor this
opinion, therefore, and to encourage
such undertakings is tantamount to
abandoning the religion revealed by
God.”(§2)1

tors who let their faithful lose the
Faith without saying anything. We
must repeat these words of Pius XI,
in conformity with 20 centuries of
Church practice, 20 centuries of
missionary activity, 20 centuries and
20 million martyrs who shed their
blood for rejecting false religions
and for trying with all their might to
convert souls to Christ!
The problem is not the death
of the Christians, martyrs of Islam;
their death is a victory. The problem
is that the Christian world has lost its
working faith; it no longer believes
in the truth of its religion. Against
Islam, we have no other religion
than religious freedom, universal toleration, and doing your own thing.
It is not Assisi III, IV, or V that will
prevent the Muslims from imposing
Sharia law on us; but it is because of
a lack of truth, of principles, and of
conviction that we have presently
reached such a point.
Let us pray the Holy Name of
Mary, Our Lady of the Rosary and
Lepanto, that she give us back our
faith, watch over our Church and
our common Father, the Sovereign
Pontiff Benedict XVI, for whom we
have so much affection and whom
we wish to surround with our prayers
so that he may profess more clearly
the Faith of the Church!
Excerpted from Fr. Champroux’s sermon of January 16, 2011. Fr. Champroux, ordained in 2004, is
assigned to Christ the King Priory, Brussels, Belgium.

1

Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, “On Fostering
True Religious Unity,” January 6, 1928. English
version: Kansas City, Angelus Press, n.d.

www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • March 2011

Six

Our Lady
of the Altar Boys
you
really proud of you because
I’ll bet your mother is
sees you
her very happy when she
are an altar boy. You make
spot
Mass. You have won a warmer
assisting the priest at Holy
boy. Deep
because you are an altar
in your mother’s heart
are
you
because
also
you are happy
down in your heart I’ll bet
and so proud of you.
making your mother so happy
altar
you because you are an
If your earthly mother loves
Lady
loves you even more. Our
heaven
in
Mother
boy, your
altar boys.
has a very special liking for
Mother loves you so much?
Do you know why our Blessed
And
who loves her divine Son.
First of all, she loves anyone
Lord. Of
every altar boy loves our
you need not tell me that
in the
he is willing to get up early
course he does. That is why
responses,
Latin
the
learns
he
why
morning to serve Mass, and
makes
to servers’ meetings, and
and why he comes so faithfully
make.
which an altar boy must
the many other sacrifices

Fourte

en

An Apost
le

Didn’t you
say the othe
r day that
been an apos
you wish you
tle? Well, you
had
really are one;
can be one.
An altar boy
or, at least
, you
can do mor
than any othe
e good by his
r boy of his
example
age. That is
does is so imp
why everythi
ortant.
ng he
Many altar
boys have
formed the
Holy Com
munion ever
habit of rece
y day they
iving
adopted the
serve Mass.
motto: “No
They have
Mass without
That is a mar
Holy Com
velous and
munion.”
beautiful prac
makes you
tice—a prac
an apostle
tice that
of good exam
Of course
ple.
you know
why you
Communion
should go
very often,
to Holy
and if poss
learned all
ible each day.
these reasons
You have
in your cate
Lord to live
chism. You
in your soul
want our
. You need
duty each
His help to
day. When
do
our
your
Lord is pres
you can over
ent in you
come temptat
r heart,
ion more
easily. By
receiving

FIVE

Don’t Say It
my
ience which did
I had a little exper
of that as an altar boy you are
Do back
you know
the
The other day
one of the
going aroundmost important
good. As I was
the closingpeople in the whole parish? At Mass you
heart a lot of
garage, I heard
are higher than the congregation and the ushers.
my way to the
Indeed,
the church on
you are more important than the choir.
ht
argument.
he thoug
what
“Why
s
sentences of an
is
my
role
so
important?”
anion
you
ask.
Let
us go way
two of his comp
a boy—
back in history
to the time of St. Joseph and the Blessed
Joe was telling
using. Joe is quite
age they were
Virginamon
Mary gto the
find the answer. Our Lord wanted to come
have
about the langu
we
gest
into the world. God sent the Angel Gabriel to ask
st and the stron
Mary if
one of the bigge
she would become the Mother of Jesus. That was
the way
be
Altar.
Knights of the
an altar boy to
it’s not right for Jesus wished to come into the world.
“It isn’t cool, and
his friends. Mary paused, and all heaven waited eagerly. Then,
Joe was telling
humbly,
or not
saidhe
erMary
“Yes” in the most beautiful way anyone
wheth
talking like that,”
see
to
Joe
s looked at
could have
,
saidthem
it: “Behold
the handmaid of the Lord; be
nced
His two friend
face soonitconvi
done to me according
the look on his
all the boys to thy word.” Because Mary gave
was serious. But
in reply,
her for
consent, our Lord was able to come into the world
and
have much to say
and they didn’t
do so much for us.
much.
in his
a perio
ourdLord
wants to come to live with us. Each day
respect Joe very
intoToday,
runs
boy
t every
He wants to comeusing
It seems that almos
his manhood by into our hearts in Holy Communion so
that He may help us to be good; so that He may
s he is showing
help us to
life when he think

Letters Altar Bo
Boy
oy
live and work as we should. Now, the way our Lord
comes
into the world today is through the Holy Sacrifice
of the
Mass. At each Mass our Lord is born again just as
truly as
He was born at Bethlehem. Therefore, the Mass is
the most
important action which can take place in the whole
world.
The Mass is much more important than the baseball
game which will decide the world series. It is
far more
important than the touchdown which may determine
who
will win a championship.

T

two

You Matter

You are so important because you are helping
the
priest to say Mass, to bring our Lord into the world
each
morning. You are the priest’s first assistant. In
fact, the
Church considers you so important that the law
of the
Church requires a priest to have an altar boy before
he may
say Mass. A priest must have special reason or permission
to say Mass without a server. That’s how important
the
Church considers you.
Whether you realize it or not, you are more important
at Mass than your own dear mother, or the Sisters
at school,
or a princess in a royal castle, or the mother of a bishop,
or
even the sister of the Holy Father.
Why? Well, you see, these good and holy women
may
answer the prayers of the priest at Mass, but they
are never
permitted to leave their pews and come into the
sanctuary
while Mass is being offered. They may not walk
up the

to an

his is a book of letters for all altar boys who, from the smallest one up, are the most important people in their
parishes. God’s Minutemen is what the author affectionately calls them, for he knows that they are always
ready for duty as altar boys, no matter what the personal cost. The author writes this book with the hope
that in these letters all acolytes may find encouragement to continue being loyal and faithful in their service of our
Lord. Father Rosage shows them that while serving Mass is the greatest honor and the biggest job in the parish, it
does demand sacrifice. He knows that being on call for duty isn’t always easy, and he aims at convincing the boys
who have to get up on cold winter mornings to serve early Mass of the great privilege that is theirs.

Written in an easy flowing style intelligible to even the very young boys, the book is
full of helpful pointers about the correct manner of serving, the necessity of being on
time, and many other details on which a boy may slip. It offers inspiration and high
motivation for living up to the ideals that a Mass server is committed to follow. An
extremely practical book, it leaves not one phase of the altar boy’s life untouched. . .
120 pp. Softcover. Color photographs. STK# 8497 ✱ $15.95

“There is no devotion more richly endowed with
indulgences than the Way of the Cross, and none which
enables us more literally to obey Christ’s injunction to
take up our cross and follow Him.” —The Catholic Encyclopedia

THE WAY
of the

CROSS
T

Thirteen methods:
●

St. Alphonsus Liguori

●

St. Francis of Assisi

●

St. Leonard of Port Maurice

●

Sacred Scripture and the Liturgy

●

The Eucharistic Way

●

Fraternal Charity

●

In Preparation for the Last Judgment

●

Holy Week

●

The Marian Way

●

With Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ

●

Patience and Resignation

●

Reparation for Sin

●

he thirteen methods of the Way of the Cross found in these pages
will enable the follower of Christ to weep and atone for his sins,
understand Our Lady’s sorrow, pray with the Church, contemplate
Our Lord as Eucharistic Victim, accept the Will of God, prepare for
judgment, and love his neighbor. Combining stirring meditations and
four-color illustrations, this all-new “Treasury of Stations” contains
everything necessary to enhance one’s contemplation on the Passion
of Christ. Featuring gorgeous pictures and inspiring readings for every
walk of life, this quintessential book of Stations is sure to become your
family’s final stop for Lenten meditations on the Passion, Death, and
Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Contains musical notation for the most popular Lenten hymns,
including the Stabat Mater, At the Cross Her Station Keeping, Attende
Domine, Parce Domine, O Sacred Head Surrounded, and Adoramus
Te, Christe.
FIRST STATION

Jesus Is Condemned to Death
¤. Adorámus Te, Christe,
et benedícimus Tibi.
¥. Quia per sanctam crucem
Tuam redemísti mundum.

¤. We adore Thee, O Christ,
and we praise Thee.
¥. Because by Thy holy Cross
Thou hast redeemed the world.

MEDITATION: Jesus, most innocent, who neither did nor
could commit a sin, was condemned to death, and, moreover,
to the most ignominious death of the cross. To remain a friend
of Caesar, Pilate delivered Him into the hands of His enemies.
A fearful crime—to condemn Innocence to death, and to offend
God in order not to displease men!

Repentance and Confession

I

PRAYER: O innocent Jesus, * having sinned, I am guilty
of eternal death, * but Thou willingly dost accept the unjust
sentence of death, * that I might live. * For whom, then, shall I
henceforth live, * if not for Thee, my Lord? * Should I desire to
please men, * I could not be Thy servant. * Let me, therefore,
rather displease men * and all the world, * than not please Thee,
O Jesus.

The Way of the Cross

Our Father  Hail Mary  Glory Be

According to the method of

¤. Lord Jesus crucified!
Stabat Mater dolorósa
Juxta crucem lacrimósa,
Dum pendébat Fílius.

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI

At the cross her station keeping,
¤. Lord Jesus crucified,
Stood the mournful Mother weeping,
Close to Jesus to the last.

¥. Have mercy on us.

¥. Have mercy on us.

38

39

NINTH STATION

VII

Jesus Falls the Third Time

ifully
Beaut ted
n
i
r
p
ound
and b USA.
e
th

¤. Adorámus Te, Christe,
et benedícimus Tibi.
¥. Quia per sanctam crucem
Tuam redemísti mundum.

The Way of the Cross

¤. We adore Thee, O Christ,
and we praise Thee.
¥. Because by Thy holy Cross
Thou hast redeemed the world.

MEDITATION: Consider the third fall of Jesus Christ. His
weakness was extreme, and the cruelty of His executioners
excessive, who tried to hasten His steps when He had scarcely
strength to move.

For Retreats or Missions
PREPARATION FOR
THE LAST JUDGMENT

PRAYER: Ah, my outraged Jesus, * by the merits of the
weakness that Thou didst suffer in going to Calvary, * give
me strength sufficient to conquer all human respect * and
all my wicked passions, * which have led me to despise Thy
friendship. * I love Thee, Jesus, my love, with my whole heart; *
I repent of having offended Thee. * Never permit me to offend
Thee again. * Grant that I may love Thee always, * and then do
with me what Thou wilt.
Our Father  Hail Mary  Glory Be
¤. Lord Jesus crucified!
Eia Mater, fons amóris,
Me sentíre vim dolóris,
Fac, ut tecum lúgeam.

¥. Have mercy on us.
190

O thou Mother! font of love,
Touch my spirit from above,
Make my heart with thine accord.
20

EIGHTH STATION

Jesus Consoles the Women of Jerusalem

21

¤. Adorámus Te, Christe,
et benedícimus Tibi.
¥. Quia per sanctam crucem
Tuam redemísti mundum.

360 pp. 5" x 6.5". Sewn, foil-embossed dark violet
Lexotone cover. Cream paper. STK# 8496✱ $21.95
FAMILY PACK (3 COPIES). STK# 8496P $52.95 ✱

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¤. We adore Thee, O Christ,
and we praise Thee.
¥. Because by Thy holy Cross
Thou hast redeemed the world.

MEDITATION: Now there was following Him a great crowd of
the people and of women who were bewailing and lamenting Him.
But Jesus, turning to them, said: “Daughters of Jerusalem, do
not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.”
(Lk. 23:27-28)

¤. “They that sow in tears,
¥. Shall reap in joy.” (Ps. 125:5)
Let us pray.
PRAYER: O God, who dost choose rather to have mercy *
than to be angry with those who hope in Thee, * grant that we
may truly grieve for the evil we have done * and thus deserve to
obtain the grace of Thy consolation. * Through Christ our Lord.
Amen. (4th Saturday in Lent)
Our Father  Hail Mary  Glory Be
¤. Lord Jesus crucified!
Vidit suum dulcem Natum
Moriéndo desolátum
Dum emísit spíritum.

¥. Have mercy on us.

For the sins of His own nation
Saw Him hang in desolation
Till His spirit forth He sent.
120

121

www.angeluspress.org ● 1-8 00-9 6 6-73 37
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Catechism of the
Crisis in the Church

Is there a crisis in the Church today?
Fr. Matthias Gaudron
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.”

248 pp. Softcover. STK# 8471✱ $16.95

A Life of Christ
for Children
As told by a grandmother

Mme. La Comtesse de Ségur
The life of Christ is fundamental to the Catholic Faith.
This book, written with children in mind, lays the groundwork for a lifetime of learning about the Gospels. In
this famous edition, a grandmother relays the stories of
Jesus and His time on earth in a simple but profound
manner. “The sunlight streams in on expectant faces,
on golden curls, brown hair, and Grandma's white
head. The canary sings his loudest while the children
scramble for the places at Grandma's right and left.
Finally all are seated, and Grandma, seated in her big
armchair, begins The Story of Christ....”

352 pp. Softcover. STK# 8472✱ $14.95

A Modern Martyr

The inspiring and little-known life of St. Theophane is
recounted through his own letter-writing from deep
within the savagery of Vietnam where the young priest
was cruelly butchered. The favorite priest of St. Therese.

196 pp. Softcover. STK# 8341✱ $16.95
“I like Théophane Vénard even more than
Saint Louis de Gonzaga, because the life of
Saint Louis de Gonzaga was extraordinary and
Théophane Vénard's was quite ordinary...my
soul is like his. He is the one who has best
lived my way of spiritual childhood.”
–ST. THÉRÈSE OF THE CHILD JESUS

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www.angeluspress.org ● 1-8 00-9 6 6-73 37
Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music.